 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 527, 30 September 2013 |
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Welcome to this year's 39th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! The free and open-source community is often regarded as a virtual commune where people share ideas and software, freely exchanging what they have created with anyone who wants it. While there is a great deal of sharing in the community, open source isn't just for the altruistic, many companies invest in open source in order to gain a return. This week we talk about some companies who are investing positively in open source in the hope of reaping the rewards. These companies include Valve, a company working on a Linux-based gaming console; NVIDIA, a popular video card manufacturer and Red Hat, a leading developer of enterprise software and sponsor of the Fedora Project. The Fedora Project is especially interesting as it is an open test bed for many developers and has just reached the distinguished age of ten years old! Not to be outdone, the GNU project celebrated thirty years of free software this past week with a new release of GNU Hurd. This week Jesse Smith takes Tiny Core Linux for a spin and reports on his findings and we will talk about methods for transitioning one's operating system from one computer to another. Also in this week's edition of DistroWatch Weekly we cover new releases which have appeared over the past week and look forward to new releases to come. We wish you all a great week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (11MB) and MP3 (25MB) formats
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
First look at Tiny Core Linux 5.0
 Tiny Core Linux is, as the name implies, a distribution with a focus of being as small as possible. There are several Linux distributions which strive to maintain a small memory and installation footprint, but few come close to matching Tiny Core when it comes to being minuscule. Tiny Core, which can boot from a variety of media, including optical discs, thumb drives and frugal hard drive installations, is designed to provide a very small base upon which software modules can be added. We might think of Tiny Core as being a little foundation and the project's package repository as being bricks which can be used to shape the distribution to whatever task we require. The Tiny Core distribution is available in three flavours. There is a Core edition with provides us with a command line only and this ISO weighs in at 9MB in size. The standard Tiny Core edition is 15MB in size and features a minimal graphical interface. There is also a Core Plus edition which is an installation image with more firmware and multiple window managers. The installation media is 72MB in size. The latest version of Tiny Core, version 5.0, is a fairly conservative upgrade from the 4.x series. The new release features a number of small updates, including upgrades to the X graphics stack and the Linux kernel.
Tiny Core Linux 5.0 - running the Firefox module
(full image size: 129kB, screen resolution 1024x768 pixels)
Booting from the distribution's live media brings up a menu which allows us to choose between running the distribution with a command line interface or with a graphical environment. Tiny Core boots in mere seconds, on my hardware the distribution takes approximately four seconds to transition from the boot menu to the graphical interface. Booting to the command line interface took just over two seconds. Once the system finishes booting I found the command line environment required approximately 20MB of memory while the graphical interface took 50MB of RAM. I tried running the distribution in a VirtualBox virtual machine and on my desktop (dual-core 2.8GHz CPU, 6GB of RAM, Radeon video card, Realtek network card). In both environments Tiny Core performed very well, booting quickly, responding almost instantly to commands and running with a very small memory footprint. All of my hardware worked well with networking and sound functioning out of the box. My display was set to a high (though not maximum) resolution and, during my trial, I didn't experience any instability with the operating system.
In order to maintain its extremely small size, Tiny Core Linux does not come with many applications. We are given a text editor, a virtual terminal and a mounting tool for accessing removable media. There are a few daemons, including cron, and a handful of small graphical apps for configuring the network connection, setting the system's clock and there is a package manager I'll cover in a moment. The distribution does not ship with a compiler, Java, manual pages, web browser or multimedia support. It is about as close to a bare system as we can get while still maintaining a graphical interface. In the background we find the Linux kernel, version 3.8, powering the distribution.
Tiny Core Linux 5.0 - applications and control panel
(full image size: 39kB, screen resolution 1024x768 pixels)
The graphical package manager which comes with Tiny Core Linux is called Apps. This application gives us a fairly straight forward approach to installing new software. The program's window is divided into two parts. On the left side we are shown a list of all available software in the Tiny Core repositories. Over on the right side of the window we are shown detailed information about the package currently highlighted. The available software is not organized into categories, rather all packages are simply shown in alphabetical order. If we desire we can search for packages using their names. When we have located a package we want we can download it with a click of the mouse. The package manager then downloads the requested module with any dependencies and installs them. In cases where we download a desktop application the program's icon is added to the quick-launch bar at the bottom of the screen. While the Tiny Core repositories do not have as much software as mainstream distributions, Tiny Core does provide enough modules to perform most common tasks.
Tiny Core Linux 5.0 - applications and control panel
(full image size: 51kB, screen resolution 1024x768 pixels)
I find that I do not have a whole lot to say about Tiny Core Linux as the distribution is quite focused on one goal: being very small. I must say the developers do an amazing job at packing a great deal of functionality into such a tiny space. With a mere 15MB download we have access to graphical tools, a package manager (which can provide us with a wide range of software) and a simple control panel. On modern hardware the distribution boots and shuts down almost instantly and it is amazingly responsive. The only problem with Tiny Core, at least from my point of view, is that in being so small it has limited use in most situations. We might look at Tiny Core and think that its low resource requirements would make it a good live distribution to take on trips, but the lack of applications means we will probably end up downloading software at each terminal we visit. The distribution might seem appealing at first for old hardware, but there are other, more user-friendly, distributions such as Puppy Linux or Lubuntu which will work well with older machines.
Tiny Core Linux 5.0 - applications and control panel
(full image size: 59kB, screen resolution 1024x768 pixels)
What it really came down to this week was I used Tiny Core Linux and was very impressed with the achievements of the developers. Tiny Core is about as tiny as we can get and still have a point-n-click interface. The tools all seem to work well and we have easy access to software modules. But, apart from being impressively tiny, there wasn't much to the distribution. It is a great base, an excellent foundation, I'm sure, for building other things. Tiny Core appears to be less of an appliance and more of a workbench. It seems to be a good workbench -- small, fast, flexible and stable -- but, as the project's website points out, this is not a "turnkey" distribution for general purpose use. It's a small, powerful tool and an interesting experiment in just how small a Linux-based operating system can be while maintaining a friendly interface.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Valve announces Linux-based console, NVIDIA supports Nouveau, Fedora turns ten and GNU turns thirty
 The Linux kernel is virtually everywhere, from laptops to servers to mobile devices. Valve announced last week that they soon intend to bring Linux to gaming consoles. SteamOS is a new Linux-based platform from Valve which is at the centre of Valve's goal of "bringing Steam to the living room." Valve has been working to improve video performance and make their catalog of games available to users of GNU/Linux distributions. Now Valve is taking things a step further by releasing their own Linux distribution. According to Valve's announcement, SteamOS is "a collaborative many-to-many entertainment platform, in which each participant is a multiplier of the experience for everyone else. With SteamOS, "openness" means that the hardware industry can iterate in the living room at a much faster pace than they've been able to. Content creators can connect directly to their customers. Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want." One area where Linux users have been missing out in past years is availability of mainstream game releases. This move by Valve may pave the way to a richer gaming experience on Linux platforms.
While Valve was announcing its plans to put a Linux-based gaming platform in every living room, NVIDIA was extending a hand to Linux video driver developers. For years NVIDIA's high-performance drivers have been proprietary and this has led an independent group of kernel developers to create the Nouveau project in an effort to produce an open-source driver for NVIDIA graphic cards. Last Monday Andy Ritger posted to the Nouveau developer list and announced, "NVIDIA is releasing public documentation on certain aspects of our GPUs, with the intent to address areas that impact the out-of-the-box usability of NVIDIA GPUs with Nouveau. We intend to provide more documentation over time, and guidance in additional areas as we are able." While the documentation provided mostly contains information already known to the Nouveau developers, this is a positive step and any further documentation NVIDIA is to provide will result in better performance and stability for users of NVIDIA video cards.
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 In the Linux ecosystem distributions frequently have a short life span. Small projects come and go quickly and so it's nice to see when distributions reach key milestones. The Fedora project had the distinction of turning ten years old last week. Fedora is a cutting-edge distribution that is sponsored by Red Hat and is well known for its experimental nature. Technology developed and tested in Fedora often makes its way into Red Hat's Enterprise Linux distribution and this makes Fedora an important testing ground, both for developers and system administrators. In a recent interview Fedora's Project Leader, Robyn Bergeron, took some time to talk about the project's past, current developments and where Fedora may be heading in the future. One key focus Bergeron mentions is automation: "I think we can try and abstract and automate the things we have to do a lot, so our really awesome people's brains can be applied to solving problems that aren't yet automate-able."
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 A new series of beta images were released this past week for Ubuntu and the many official Ubuntu community projects. The Ubuntu family is typically an experimental group of distributions and it's always interesting to see what changes are presented during the projects' testing cycle. With this latest beta one of the more interesting announcements was the inclusion of installation images for phones: "Together with existing builds of Ubuntu for PCs and servers, with this milestone, Ubuntu images for phones are also included in a beta for the first time. It is not recommended that casual users install Ubuntu on their phone," People interested in testing Ubuntu for phones can find a list of supported devices and installation instructions from the Ubuntu wiki.
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 The GNU project develops the software present at the heart of all GNU/Linux distributions. The GNU team also produces the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), free compiler software which is used across multiple platforms. This past week GNU turned 30, celebrating the milestone with coding and cake at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One of GNU's more famous projects is Hurd, the free software kernel. While Hurd has never reached production status it remains an interesting academic exercise, allowing kernel developers to play with new concepts and clean designs in a low-pressure environment. In celebration of GNU's birthday the project released GNU Hurd 0.5. People wishing to experiment with Hurd can try the Debian port of the project which runs GNU userland software combined with the experimental Hurd kernel.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
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Moving operating system to new computer
Changing-spaces asks: I want to transfer my current Linux installation from one computer to another. The old computer is going to a friend so I want to leave the original hard drive in the computer for them. Can I get my operating system on the new computer without doing a completely new install?
DistroWatch answers: There are a couple of ways of making the transfer from one machine to another and the best solution will depend on the resources you have on hand. Personally, I would be inclined to perform a fresh installation on the new machine. Once the installation is complete you could install OpenSSH on either of the machines and Filezilla on the other. Using Filezilla to connect the two machines over the network you could then copy all of your personal files (the data stored in the /home directory) from the old hard drive to the new one. As for the packages you had installed on the original machine, most package managers will provide a way for you to dump a list of all installed packages. That list could then be saved and passed to the package manager on the new computer, insuring you end up with the same software installed. This approach requires very few resources, aside from the ability to connect the two computers over the local area network, and will give you a nearly identical experience on both machines. It also means the fresh install is set up to work with your hardware. This means you don't need to consider variables such as which third-party drivers are installed or how large the hard drive is.
Another way to go would be to grab a cloning utility such as Clonezilla. A tool like Clonezilla will help you create a file, a snapshot, of the first computer's hard drive. This file can be saved on one computer and then copied to the new computer. The snapshot overwrites all data on the new hard drive and (assuming everything goes well) the new computer will have all of the same files and settings as the original computer. This is a really fast way to set up the new computer to be an exact replica of the first computer. There are some issues to consider though. For example, when cloning an operating system we need to make sure the hard drive in the new computer is as large (or larger) than the drive in the original machine. If the new drive is smaller then the snapshot will not fit and it will likely result in the operating system not being able to boot on the new computer. Another issue is that we need a place to temporarily store the snapshot of the original hard drive. These snapshots tend to be large and we need a big external hard drive or a network file server to store the image so that it may be transferred to the new computer. This approach may also backfire if your new computer requires hardware drivers not available on the original machine.
Another approach which may seem crude, but efficient, is to simply swap the hard drives in the two computers. Taking the old drive and putting it into the new computer will give you all of your data, programs and settings in the new machine. The old machine can get the hard drive from the new computer. You may end up reconfiguring some hardware settings if the two machines have different parts, just as if you had used my previous suggestion and cloned the hard drive. This may be the easiest solution as it doesn't require any fancy networking or making sure the drives are of an appropriate size. You will require a screwdriver and the knowledge of how to identify and remove the hard drive, but this may end up being the fastest solution as there is no need to copy files between machines.
Do you routinely transfer your settings and files from one computer to another? Let us know your preferred method in the comments section.
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| Released Last Week |
GParted Live 0.16.2-1b
Curtis Gedak has announced the availability of a new stable version of GParted Live, a Debian-based live CD with specialist tools designed for disk management and data rescue tasks: "The GParted team is proud to announce a new stable release of GParted Live. This release includes a number of bug fixes and language translation updates. Items of note include: LVM partitions are not activated on boot to enable move or resize; based on the Debian 'Sid' repository as of 2013-09-19. Includes GParted 0.16.2 which includes: fix crash if apply clicked before pending operations completed; fix regression which broke Linux swap resize; fix to not hide the progress of the tools used, such as ntfsresize. Special thanks go to Steven Shiau and Mike Fleetwood for their efforts to ensure the stability of this release." Here is the brief release announcement.
Parted Magic 2013_09_26
Patrick Verner has announced the release of Parted Magic 2013_09_26, a specialist live CD that comes with a collection of utilities for disk management and data rescue tasks: "Parted Magic 2013_09_26. This version of Parted Magic includes a new GUI for Secure Erase, a GUI for ddrescue, it now boots normally on Windows 8 machines with Secure Boot enabled, a completely new layout for the panel menu, and many updated programs. The new Parted Magic Secure Erase GUI has been the main focus over the past few months and it very well may be the easiest-to-use and most powerful ATA Secure Erase program on the planet. There is also a very nice GUI for ddrescue written by Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty. You no longer need to disable Secure Boot on Windows 8 machines to use Parted Magic. New programs: ddrutility and mprime. Updated programs: X.Org Server 1.14.3, Linux kernel 3.10.12, Mozilla Firefox 24.0, GParted 0.16.2...." Visit the project's home page to read the release announcement.
Raspbian 2013-09-25
Eben Christopher Upton has announced the release of Raspbian 2013-09-25, a Debian-based distribution designed for the Raspberry Pi single-board mini-computer. It can be downloaded either as a standalone product or as part of NOOBS 1.3, a beginner-friendly compilation of several popular operating systems for the "Pi". From the release announcement: "Alex has produced a new Raspbian release, which integrates a number of recent improvements. Along with kernel and firmware updates, highlights include: Sonic Pi is pre-installed so you can jump right in to learning to program while creating your own music; significant performance improvements to Scratch; a build of PyPy 2.1 is now included to allow you to try out this high performance Python JIT compiler; Python libraries required for interfacing with Pi-Face are pre-installed. Due to the addition of Java, the standalone SD card image now requires at least a 4 GB SD card, as with 2 GB there’s not enough free space left to be useful."
Raspbian 2013-09-25 - now includes Sonic Pi and PyPy compiler
(full image size: 110kB, screen resolution 1024x768 pixels)
Skolelinux 7.1
Petter Reinholdtsen has announced the release of Skolelinux 7.1, a Debian-based distribution (also known as "Debian-Edu") for schools: "The Debian Edu developer team is happy to announce Debian Edu 7.1+edu0 'Wheezy', the sixth Debian Edu / Skolelinux release, based on Debian 7, which has been updated and carefully improved compared to the previous release while keeping its unique feature set and ease of maintainability. Installation changes: new version of installer; the DVD image was dropped, instead we added a USB Flash drive / Blu-ray disc image, which behaves like the DVD image, but is too big to fit on a DVD. Software updates: Linux kernel 3.2.x; KDE Plasma 4.8.4, GNOME 3.4, Xfce 4.8.6 and LXDE 0.5.5; Iceweasel 17 ESR web browser; LibreOffice 3.5.4; LTSP 5.4.2; GOsa 2.7.4; CUPS printing system 1.5.3; GCompris 12.01 educational toolbox; Rosegarden 12.04 music creator; GIMP 2.8.2 image editor...." Read the rest of the release announcement for additional information.
Grml 2013.09
Michael Prokop has announced the release of Grml 2013.09, a Debian-based live CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software and custom scripts specially designed for system administrators: "We just released Grml 2013.09 'Hefeknuddler'. This Grml release provides fresh software packages after the Debian stable release ('Wheezy') was released. As usual it also incorporates up2date hardware support and fixes known bugs from the previous Grml release. New features: new boot option encpasswd which takes a hashed password as argument, setting password of users root and grml to the specified value; grml-hwinfo supports iproute's IP tool, sg_inq from sg3-utils and lscpu, lsblk, dmsetup ls --tree; grml-lang includes French keymap support. Important changes: UTC is used as default time zone, to use a different setting you can use the tz boot option (usage example: tz=Europe/Vienna)...." See the release announcement and release notes for more detailed information.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
- Fedora 20-alpha, the release announcement
- Simplicity 13.10-beta, release announcement
- Ubuntu, Edubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, UbuntuKylin, Ubuntu Studio and Xubuntu 13.10-beta2, the release announcement
- Matriux 3-rc1, the release announcement
- FreeBSD 10.0-APHA4, the release announcement
- SolydXK 201309
- Wifislax 4.7-22092013
- Pardus Linux 2.0 "KDE"
- Vine Linux 6.2-rc1
- NetBSD 5.1.3 and 5.2.1
- OpenELEC 3.2.1
- Hanthana Linux 19.0
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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 waiting list
- SteamOS. SteamOS is a Linux-based operating system produced by Valve to be used as a gaming platform.
- Distro Astro. Distro Astro is a project to create a Linux distribution for astronomers and astronomy enthusiasts.
- Dax OS. Dax OS is an Ubuntu-based distribution which aims to provide users with innovative software concepts and be intuitive and easy to use.
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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, 30 September 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 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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| Random Distribution | 
Tsurugi Linux
Tsurugi Linux is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution designed to support Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) investigations, malware analysis, and Open Source INTelligence (OSINT) activities. It comes with many popular software tools to conduct an in-depth forensic or incident response investigation, as well as several special features, like device write blocking at kernel level, a dedicated Computer Vision analysis functionality, and an OSINT profile switcher. Tsurugi Linux can be used in live mode but its main goal is to be installed and to serve as the default forensics lab.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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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