 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 491, 21 January 2013 |
Welcome to this year's third issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Fuduntu is an unusual distribution in that it uses a fairly outdated base system and desktop (GNOME 2), but keeps many of the more visible applications continuously updated. It's still a young project, but it continues to evolve and it will be interesting to see how it copes with the package update process in the future. Jesse Smith installed version 2013.1 to take a look at the latest release from a project that seems to have found a good compromise between the much-loved old and the intriguingly new desktop and software. In the news section, Fedora 18 was finally released and it comes with a most extensive choice of desktop user interfaces to date, SolusOS announces a fork of GNOME 3 Fallback mode that will ship with its upcoming release, and OS4 attempts to build a distribution that focuses on satisfying a general desktop user in terms of features and desktop layout. Also in this issue, a quick Questions and Answers section on accessing encrypted disk drives from a live CD, an introduction to a Debian-based distribution with Trinity (a KDE 3 fork) as its default desktop, and the usual regular sections. Happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (19MB) and MP3 (30MB) formats
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
First look at Fuduntu 2013.1
 The Fuduntu distribution was originally based on Fedora and took steps to make the popular Red Hat-sponsored distro friendlier to desktop users. Recently the Fuduntu project has branched away from Fedora and now maintains its own package repositories and introduces its own independent changes. Fuduntu is now a rolling release project and posts new ISO snapshots about four times a year. The first snapshot of 2013 was announced earlier this month and it carried a number of new features I found interesting.
One of the new features in Fuduntu is the Jockey utility, a program which probes the system for hardware which can make use of third-party or non-free drivers. The Jockey application then offers to download these proprietary bits and install them. The Jockey tool has been popular in the Ubuntu community and I am happy to see it spread to other desktop oriented projects. Fuduntu is also the only Linux distribution of which I am aware which has included both the Netflix desktop software and Valve's Steam client. The Steam client is native Linux software designed to assist users in purchasing and downloading games. The Netflix desktop package is, in fact, Windows software that has been bundled with WINE to allow users to watch videos from the Netflix catalog.
The Fuduntu distribution can be downloaded as a DVD ISO in both 32-bit and 64-bit builds. The downloaded ISO is approximately 960MB in size. Booting from the image brings up the GNOME 2 desktop. A welcome screen appears on the desktop providing us with links to the project's documentation, forum, blog, social network websites and IRC channel. Should we run into problems there are certainly many avenues by which we can seek assistance. Dismissing this helpful window we find a classic desktop environment with the application menu at the top of the screen and a launcher at the bottom of the display. A single icon for launching the system installer sits on the desktop. The desktop's wallpaper shows a tiger. My first impression of the graphical environment, with its dynamic launcher and big cat image, is that Fuduntu is trying to make users of OS X feel at home.
Fuduntu 2013.1 - the default GNOME 2 desktop
(full image size: 1,574kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Fuduntu, following its Fedora origins, uses the Anaconda system installer. The graphical installer walks us through confirming our keyboard layout, setting a hostname, providing our time zone and creating a root password. The partitioning section is fairly powerful, letting us set up LVM volumes, RAID or regular partitions. Encryption of partitions is supported. The version of Anaconda that comes with Fuduntu has a few issues. For example, the root partition we set up must use the ext4 file system and the installer demands an additional partition be created for GPT. The last screen of the installer allows us to configure and install the boot loader, GRUB2 in this case.
The first time we boot into Fuduntu a graphical wizard appears and walks us through some final configuration steps. We are shown the project's licensing information and then we are asked to create a regular user account. The following screen lets us either set the system's clock with the current time or enable clock synchronization using time servers. With these tasks completed we are brought to a graphical login screen.
When I first logged into Fuduntu one of the first things I noticed was an icon for Jockey which appeared in the upper-right corner of the screen. Clicking this icon allowed me to install non-free drivers for my video card if I so desired. Shortly following the appearance of the Jockey icon I also noticed another icon in the system tray which indicated software updates were available in the repositories. This is where I ran into my one serious issue while using Fuduntu. This distribution uses PackageKit, as do many other distributions. PackageKit has a bad habit of locking the package database and not letting go, occasionally for a long time. The first day I was using Fuduntu any time I tried to install third-party drivers, run the software updater or make use of the package manager whichever program I was using would sit idle, waiting for the package database to become available. PackageKit would never release its lock and so I was left waiting. Eventually I solved this problem by disabling the PackageKit service and, from then on, managing software was smooth sailing.
On the subject of package management Fuduntu provides a regular graphical application for package management referred to as Add/Remove Software. This program provides a simplified interface which allows people to search for packages and add or remove software. Other than being a touch slow at times, this graphical front-end to YUM worked quite well. There is a second program in the application menu called Ailurus which can also be used for basic package management. Ailurus is part package manager, part system settings tool and part repository manager. Despite the fact Ailurus takes on several tasks, it has a nice interface with clearly labelled buttons and I found it a useful program to have, especially when it came to customizing the desktop environment.
Fuduntu 2013.1 - managing desktop packages and settings with Ailurus
(full image size: 285kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Fuduntu comes with a nice collection of desktop software. The developers appear to have stuck to a one-app-per-task philosophy, trying to select the best (or perhaps the most popular) application for each category. We are treated to the Chromium web browser, the Thunderbird e-mail client and the LibreOffice suite. The Dropbox client software is available to us as is the Pidgin instant messaging client. The GNU Image Manipulation Program is installed by default alongside the Shotwell photo manager. We find the VLC multimedia player installed, the cheese webcam app, the Brasero disc burner and Deja Dup for performing backups. Fuduntu comes with a system monitor, the GParted disk manager and Network Manager to help us get on-line. Like its parent, Fuduntu has a great collection of programs for performing system administration tasks and this makes working with the firewall, user accounts, printers and system services a breeze. We also have a full range of GNOME configuration tools to help us adjust the look & feel of the desktop. In the background we find a full range of codecs for playing multimedia, the Adobe Flash plugin, Java and the GNU Compiler Collection. As it uses a rolling release model Fuduntu regularly updates its software, but at the time of writing the distribution supplies the 3.6 version of the Linux kernel.
I have mentioned Fuduntu uses the GNOME 2 desktop environment by default and this raised some questions in my mind. I know a lot of people are fond of GNOME 2, but it is no longer maintained upstream and most distributions producing new releases have moved on to using GNOME Shell, Cinnamon or the MATE desktop. I e-mailed Fuduntu's lead developer, Andrew Wyatt, to ask about this unusual choice. He indicated the Fuduntu team is maintaining the GNOME 2 packages and keeping up to date with security fixes. GNOME 2 still has a large following in the Debian and Red Hat communities and so the legacy desktop is still being widely maintained by various downstream developers. This allows Fuduntu to continue using GNOME 2 while the developers examine various migration options.
Fuduntu 2013.1 - system administration tools
(full image size: 410kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
The two features of Fuduntu I was most interested in trying were the Netflix and Steam packages. I found the native Linux Steam client in the Fuduntu repositories and installed it without any problems. I was able to get it up and running, sign in and browse games available through the Steam store. Netflix, a program which allows for the renting and streaming of videos, wasn't quite as straight forward. Installing the Netflix package installs WINE, the Microsoft .NET framework and other packages required by the software. Trying to run Netflix from its application menu entry didn't produce any results. Running it from the command line revealed that the Firefox web browser dependency was missing. It isn't the Linux Firefox package which is required, but rather the Windows build of Firefox which is needed. I manually installed Firefox using WINE and, from that point on, Netflix worked. I'm pleased to see development in this area as games and entertainment are generally the few remaining reasons many people continue to dual-boot. Having software, like Netflix, even if it requires a compatibility layer, will be a welcome addition for many users.
I ran Fuduntu on a physical machine (dual-core 2.8 GHz CPU, 6 GB of RAM, Radeon video card and Realtek network card) and in a VirtualBox virtual machine. In both environments Fuduntu performed well and I encountered no serious problems. Sound and networking worked out of the box and my screen was set to its maximum resolution. I found that when running on physical hardware with the default video drivers parts of my desktop wouldn't always refresh in a timely manner, leaving behind little artefacts (bits of windows or blank areas), but performance remained good. Fuduntu combined with GNOME 2 makes for a fairly light operating system and I found the system would only use approximately 140 MB of RAM when logged into the desktop.
After playing with Fuduntu for a week I have some mixed feelings about the distribution which I will try to break down into a handful of pros and cons. In the negative column we find the Anaconda installer. While it works, Anaconda is showing its age and some of the issues in Fuduntu's version have been corrected in more recent versions of Fedora. Fuduntu, in forking away from its base has managed to maintain a more stable and (in my opinion, appealing) desktop environment, but it comes at the price of missing the improvements Fedora has introduced elsewhere. This shows up in a few places, but mostly in the installer. Having PackageKit running on the default install made any software management impossible until PackageKit was disabled. The YUM package manager is a great tool and the graphical front-ends are good and it's a shame they are attached to the ball and chain which is PackageKit. I'm not sure if sticking with GNOME 2 should fall into the "pro" or "con" column. It's familiar and lighter than most of the environments which have sprung up to replace it. I suppose this is very much a personal preference issue. Is using GNOME 2 a sign of stability and maturity as options are evaluated? It certainly appeals more than having Fuduntu jump ship to whatever unstable alternative comes along. On the other hand, some may see using software which is no longer supported upstream as a losing battle against time.
On the positive side of things I have to say I'm pleased with the direction the Fuduntu team has taken with regards to the end user experience. Once the system is up and running we get a pleasant desktop experience with an uncluttered menu. I like that the distribution takes the approach of one-app-per-task and chooses the best program for each job rather than programs which match the desktop environment. It means users are getting good, powerful programs and it is obviously more important that these programs work rather than having them conform to some idea of toolkit purity. As I mentioned before Fuduntu provides Valve's Steam client and a Netflix package and it is the first distribution I know of which includes both in its repositories. I think this will appeal to a lot of users. Fuduntu is unusual in that it appears to be a conservative distribution and yet it maintains a rolling release model, constantly (if slowly) updating. At this point I haven't used Fuduntu long enough to determine how well this approach works. Balancing stability with upgrades is a hard line to walk and I wish I had more time to discover how well Fuduntu's repositories hold up to long term use. Overall, my impression of Fuduntu has been that it is a little rough during the initial setup phase. After that initial hump, it is pretty smooth sailing. The distribution is clean, quick and seems well suited to home desktop and laptop computers.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
Fedora 18 with "mobile" and "classic" desktops, SolusOS forks GNOME 3 Fallback, OS4 in spotlight
 So Fedora 18 was finally release last week, exactly ten weeks later than originally planned. The brand-new system installer is the main new feature and the principal reason for the extended delay in the development process. But there is more, as PCWorld's Katherine Noyes notes in "Five notable new features in Fedora Linux 18", including the presence of the GNOME 3-like MATE desktop in Fedora's official repositories: "The introduction of a mobile-style paradigm in the world of Linux desktops has been just as controversial as it has in Windows 8, causing no end of debate over the merits of modern contenders such as Ubuntu's Unity and GNOME 3. The enduring popularity of GNOME 2 has been striking in contrast, and we've already seen numerous examples of efforts to preserve the classic desktop. Now, Fedora is offering a like-minded option in the form of MATE. 'This desktop is perfect for users who have been running GNOME Classic or other window managers like Xfce as an alternative to GNOME 3,' the Fedora team notes in the software's release announcement."
For those who enjoy "mobile" interfaces on their desktop and laptop computers, GNOME 3.6, as shipped with Fedora 18, offers many interesting improvements. David Rice investigates them in this Linux Library article entitled "GNOME 3.6 User Interface Improvements for Fedora 18": "With this release the GNOME team has decided to focus on aesthetics and accessibility for the maximum number of users. The user interface has been upgraded with several small but significant changes. Fedora 18 is the first distribution to feature the GNOME 3.6 desktop. The active workspace inside the activities overview will now appear with clearer highlighting. One of the most notable changes to the GNOME Shell is how applications are launched. The applications tab was removed and incorporated into the activities overview. The grid button located inside the GNOME 3 dash can now be used to locate additional application launchers. The dash will appear when the activities overview being displayed. This change is meant to draw more attention to the activities overview search bar which is actually quite powerful."
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 But let's get back to the classic desktop. Last week, the developers of SolusOS, a well-received new distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux, announced a fork of GNOME 3's fallback mode. Its name is Consort desktop environment and it will be part of the upcoming SolusOS 2 when it's launched. The project's lead developer, Ikey Doherty, explains the reasons behind creating Consort: "We've forked GNOME Classic (fallback) and the fork will be called Consort. The reasoning for the name is very simple, the desktop always accompanies you. Why did we fork it? Mainly to protect the users of our desktop components. Pinning patched packages higher than underlying packages proves far too tricky. The amount of patches in each mentioned component qualifies fork-status anyway, so it was time to admit it. Some projects are well under way, such as Athena and Consort Panel, and some are brand new, such as the Consortium window manager. With our forks, we can maintain an experience virtually identical to GNOME 2, but vastly improve it with no need for hardware acceleration such as with GNOME Shell or Cinnamon." Visit the above link for screenshots.
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 Another up-and-coming Linux distro project with an aggressive release schedule is OS4, a Xubuntu-based distribution with a highly customised Xfce desktop. ComputerWorld's Rohan Pearce takes a detailed look at the project in Linux distro spotlight: OS4 OpenDesktop: "Desktop Linux has come a long way from the good old days when getting a window manager working required opening an XFree86 configuration file in vim and figuring out why the fsck X wouldn't load. However, while modern Linux distributions may outshine their predecessors they still frequently leave much to be desired when it comes to usability, especially for non-technical people, says Roberto Dohnert. Since its creation in 2006, he has been working on OS4, a Linux distro squarely targeted at users who just want to know three things about an OS, according to Dohnert: 'One: Does it work well? Two: Does it run the apps I need it to run? Three: Can I watch YouTube and listen to music?' OS4 is derived from Ubuntu. 'We strip out everything and then start to recompile it adding multimedia codecs, device drivers and applications,' explains Dohnert. 'We also add support for devices not supported by vanilla Ubuntu, such as support for WebOS-based devices.'"
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| Questions And Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Accessing encrypted drive from a live CD
Protected-during-travel asks: Is it possible to access my data on an encrypted drive from a live CD/USB, in the event the host system will no longer boot? I've been in the habit recently of encrypting the entire drive of my travel laptop during the install process if the option is available.
DistroWatch answers: Assuming the reason behind the system no longer booting is a problem with the operating system (a software issue) and not a matter of hardware failure then it is possible to access data from an encrypted partition. Typically there are two important steps involved. First we need to let the operating system (running from our live CD) know where our encrypted volume is and then we need to mount it. Let's look at an example where we have an encrypted file system on partition /dev/sda2. We can perform the following steps from a live CD assuming that the cryptsetup software package is available to us.
First we inform the system that /dev/sda2 is our encrypted partition and we assign a name to this partition. For the purposes of this example I have decided to name the partition "encrypteddrive". Once we run the following command we will be asked to enter our encryption password:
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda2 encrypteddrive
Next we create a mount point where we will access the data:
mkdir MyDrive
Finally we tell the operating system to take the encryption partition (identified by the name we assigned it earlier) and attach the partition to our MyDrive directory:
mount /dev/mapper/encrypteddrive MyDrive
Our data will now be available, unencrypted, in the MyDrive directory. We can access, copy or edit the files as required. When we are done recovering our data it is important we clean up after ourselves. To do this we first unmount the encrypted partition and then remove its record from the system:
umount MyDrive
cryptsetup luksClose /dev/mapper/encrypteddrive
People using recent releases of Ubuntu and derived distributions will have an easier time accessing their encrypted home folders. Once the user has booted from the Ubuntu live CD they can mount the disk partition containing their home folder. The data in the home folder can be accessed by running the command:
sudo ecryptfs-recover-private
This command will search for encrypted folders on the drive and, assuming it finds one, will prompt for the user's password. The unencrypted data is temporarily made available in the operating system's /tmp directory.
The above solutions make certain assumptions: you have a live CD or USB device, you can recall your password, the hard drive is not physically damaged and you can install cryptsetup over a network connection if necessary. To handle cases where those assumptions do not hold, I recommend having backups. I try to remember to make copies of my data prior to traveling and I leave the copy at home. In the event my laptop is damaged or goes missing it is good to know a recent copy of my files is available somewhere.
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| Released Last Week |
Manjaro Linux 0.8.3 "Openbox"
Carl Duff has announced the release of a new Manjaro Linux edition featuring the lightweight Openbox user interface and the Synapse semantic launcher: "Manjaro welcomes another addition to the family in the form of our brand-new Openbox flavour. Designed and built exclusively by the Manjaro team, this lightweight, sleek, and super-fast flavour comes with a unique twist - traditional menus are not used to find and launch applications. Instead, the heart of the desktop is Synapse. At first glance comparable to a typical menu search bar, Synapse is in fact a very powerful and versatile tool that boasts a wide range of useful features, particularly due to the optional plugins available. Some of these features include: locating and launching applications faster than menus; accessing specific file types such as documents, pictures and movies...." Read the full release announcement for further information and a screenshot.
Fedora 18
Fedora 18, the latest stable version of the Red Hat-sponsored community distribution of Linux, has finally arrived: "The Fedora project is incredibly delighted to announce the release of Fedora 18. What's new? The user interface for Fedora's installation software, Anaconda, has been completely re-written from the ground up. Making its debut in Fedora 18, the new UI introduces major improvements to the installation experience. It uses a hub-and-spoke model that makes installation easier for new users, offering them concise explanations about their choices. Advanced users and system administrators are of course still able to take advantage of more complex options. The general look and feel of the installation experience has been vastly upgraded, providing modern, clean, and comprehensible visuals during the process." See the release announcement and release notes for a detailed description of new features.
Slax 7.0.4
Tomáš Matějíček has announced the release of Slax 7.0.4, the latest update of the project's Slackware-based live CD with KDE: "A new version of the Slax pocket operating system has been released. Improvements and fixes include: added 'load=' and 'noload=' boot parameter support to filter loaded modules; better bootinst.sh compatibility with Ubuntu and its clones; PXE now tries to get Slax data over TFTP (from the same server) if HTTP connection to port 7529 fails; fixed a bug which appeared when using from=... to load Slax from a path which included a directory with two letters; fixed URL open in KDE, so clicking a link in Pidgin for example opens it in Firefox instead of downloading the URL by KDE kioslave; support for special files in Slax bundles; the autobuild system now adds a file /run/requires to all modules which require other modules...." Read the rest of the release announcement for a complete list of bug fixes.
CentOS 5.9
Karanbir Singh has announced the release of CentOS 5.9, a Linux distribution built from the source code of the recently-released Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.9: "We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of CentOS 5.9 for i386 and x86_64 architectures. New features: the UOP added native MySQL support to Postfix, you might consider moving from the postfix-mysql package from the centosplus repo to this package if you are using the centosplus package only for MySQL support; java-1.7.0-openjdk (Java 7) support has been added in CentOS-5.9, java-1.6.0-openjdk (Java 6) is also still available and most things java in the distribution still use Java 6; ant17 (Ant 1.7.0) has been added to CentOS-5.9, the older ant (Ant 1.6.5) is also still available; Microsoft Hyper-V drivers have been added to allow CentOS to be more efficient as a virtual machine when installed on Microsoft Hyper-V server...." For more information please consult the release announcement and the detailed release notes.
CRUX 3.0
Juergen Daubert has announced the release of CRUX 3.0, a lightweight, x86-64 optimized Linux distribution targeted at experienced Linux users: "More than 11 years after the release of CRUX 0.5 for i686, CRUX 3.0 is the first release for the x86-64 architecture. At the time Per Liden had created CRUX, the i686 processor on base of the 32-bit Intel IA-32 architecture was state-of-the-art and therefore chosen by him as the default optimization for CRUX. But nowadays the i686 architecture is more or less obsolete, at least for desktop machines, and superseded by the x86-64 architecture. Toolchain updates: CRUX 3.0 comes with a multilib toolchain which includes glibc 2.16.0, GCC 4.7.2 and Binutils 2.23.1. Kernel: Linux 3.6.11. CRUX 3.0 ships with X.Org 7.7 and X.Org Server 1.13.0." Read the release notes for additional important notes.
UberStudent 2.0 "Lightweight"
Stephen Ewen has announced the release of UberStudent 2.0 "Lightweight" edition, an Ubuntu-based educational distribution designed for learning and teaching academic computing at the higher education and advanced secondary levels: "I'm very pleased to announce the release of UberStudent 2.0 Lightweight edition. It is designed to reinvigorate older or slower computers, and for netbooks, as well as for anyone who simply prefers a lightweight Linux distribution. Great care and testing has gone into aiming this release as the most feature-filled, polished, and stable lightweight Linux distribution available for education. It features a synergy of smartly chosen installed applications and web apps. The result is a remarkably full-featured desktop that enables you to be productive even if you lack Internet access." Read the rest of the release announcement which includes known issues and a screenshot.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to database
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New distributions added to waiting list
- ArchPup. ArchPup is minimalistic Puppy Linux variant built using Arch Linux packages, with Pacman installed and configured as the default package manager. Combining speed and low-resource requirements from Puppy Linux with this powerful and efficient package manager, ArchPup provides a light-weight, portable operating system and gives full control to the end user.
- Colorwheel OS. Colorwheel OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution with a goal of making it painless to switch from Windows to Linux.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 28 January 2013. To contact the authors please send email to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, suggestions and corrections: news, donations, distribution submissions, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (feedback and suggestions: podcast edition)
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Full list of all issues |
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KateOS
KateOS was an independently developed light-weight Linux distribution. Some of its concepts were derived from Slackware Linux.
Status: Discontinued
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View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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