 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 648, 15 February 2016 |
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Welcome to this year's 7th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
In the open source community Linux tends to be the dominant player, attracting a lot of developers and attention. This week we begin with a look at an alternative open source project, XStreamOS. The XStreamOS project has its roots in Solaris and features both server and desktop editions. In our Feature Story we talk about XStream Desktop, its strengths and weaknesses. In our Questions and Answers column we discuss free hardware (the physical counterpart to free software) and explore where to find hardware that respects user freedoms. In our News section we discuss new features available to Raspberry Pi owners through Raspbian, reasons why WebKit-based browsers may be vulnerability to security exploits on Linux and Ikey Doherty's vision for future versions of Solus. In our Torrent Corner we share the torrents we are seeding and then we cover the distributions released last week. In our Opinion Poll we ask our readers if you like to customize your desktop environment or stick with the default settings. Plus, we have added two new projects to our database, the BSD Router Project and the Guix System Distribution. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
XStream Desktop 153
I have mentioned before that I have a special place in my heart for open source forks of the Solaris operating system. Solaris was my first exposure to UNIX and represented the first step in my journey into the Linux and BSD communities. Getting to know Solaris was a challenging and educational experience for me and, as a result, I look upon derivatives of Solaris fondly.
For this reason, I was happy to learn Sonicle is still working on their open source branch of Solaris, called XStreamOS. Specifically, I was interested in their desktop edition, which is called XStream Desktop. XStream Desktop is based on Illumos, which is itself a fork of the discontinued OpenSolaris project. The Sonicle website describes XStream Desktop in the following way:
XStream Desktop unites a free, light and modern desktop, with the unique characteristics of the Illumos kernel, including a number of pre-installed applications, as LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, GIMP, VLC and more.
Sonicle will continue the effort to add support for more software, publishing them on the public repository, directly accessible from the desktop.
XStream Desktop appears to be compatible with 64-bit x86 computers only. The project provides two installation images: a 1.8GB ISO file and a 2.2GB image file for USB devices. I decided to download both to cover all my bases. Booting from the project's media brings up a text console. We are shown a list of supported keyboard layouts and asked to select one. The system then shows us a list of 22 supported languages and asks us to pick our preferred language from the list. The next menu gives us the option of launching the XStream system installer, installing additional drivers, dropping to a command line shell or rebooting the computer. I decided to jump straight into the installer.
Launching XStream's system installer brings up a series of text screens. Each screen displays a group of fields or menus we a can navigate with the page up/down keys and the function keys. The installer begins by asking us on which hard disk we want to install XStream. We are then given the option of using the entire disk or installing XStream on a specific partition. Once we have selected a free partition, we are asked to provide a hostname for our computer. We are then given the option of automatically setting up networking using DHCP or we can set up our network card by manually providing network settings. We then select our time zone from a list and confirm the system clock has the correct time. The following screen gets us to create a password for the root account and set up a new user account for ourselves. The installer copies its files to our hard drive and then gives us the option to either view the installation log or quit. Taking the latter option returns us to the menu where we can run the installer, access a command line shell or reboot.
When we reboot the computer the system brings up the GRUB Legacy boot loader. From the GRUB menu we can launch XStream which brings us to a graphical login screen. I think it is worth noting that XStream uses boot environments, file system snapshots that get created when the operating system is updated. Each boot environment is listed in the GRUB menu. When we upgrade packages on the system, a new boot environment is added to the list. Selecting an older boot environment allows us to restore the operating system to a previous point in time. In short, if a software update breaks the operating system, we can reboot and select the previous boot environment to restore the system to its working state.
Signing into our user account brings up the LXDE desktop running on the Openbox window manager. The desktop's application menu and task switcher panel are placed at the top of the screen. An OS X style launch bar is placed at the bottom of the display. The wallpaper offers a plain, soft blue background.
XStreamOS 153 -- Adjusting the look of LXDE
(full image size: 322kB, resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
Before going any further, I would like to acknowledge that the biggest problem I usually face with members of the Solaris family of operating systems is hardware support. I tried running XStream Desktop in three test environments: a desktop computer, a laptop and a VirtualBox virtual machine. I was unable to get the operating system to boot on either the laptop or desktop computer. This left me to experiment with XStream Desktop in a virtual environment. The project's website provides a special ISO file that is supposed to provide us with VirtualBox guest modules as Sonicle reports the default VirtualBox guest modules will not work with XStream Desktop. I downloaded this small ISO file and mounted it. I installed the guest modules from the mounted disc and rebooted, but found the VirtualBox modules did not produce the desired effect. As a result, I was stuck with a low-resolution desktop in a virtual machine for the duration of my trial. Still, despite the hardware issues I encountered, I felt it was worthwhile exploring the features XStream Desktop offers.
While running the operating system, I found XStream Desktop used a little over 10GB of disk space with the default set of applications. Measuring memory usage on XStream is a little different than doing the same on Linux distributions. XStream presents memory statistics differently, but I found the operating system tended to consume about 750MB to 1,100MB of memory, including application data and cache when sitting idle at the LXDE desktop. This may seem high compared to most Linux distributions, but when I measure memory usage on Linux (and the BSDs) I do not include statistics on cached data, which places XStream at a disadvantage.
The operating system ships with a graphical software manager called Package Manager. This application looks and acts a good deal like Debian's Synaptic package manager. Down the left side of the window we find filters and software categories. Over on the right side of the window we see a list of software available to us. By adjusting the filters we can narrow down the list of packages displayed in the list. We can also search for items by name. Clicking a box next to a package's entry gives us the option of adding or removing the software. Package Manager also has a button which triggers an upgrade process that will install all available software updates.
It has been a while since the last stable version of XStream Desktop was released and this meant I had 384 updated packages waiting to be installed in the project's repositories. These updates totalled 495MB in size. After the initial update, I did not receive any further updates during the week. One aspect of Package Manager I like is that when a package upgrade is performed, the software manager will create a new boot environment. We can name the boot environment, making it easy to roll back to older versions of the operating system if something goes wrong. I am happy to report that in my trial, nothing did go wrong with packages or upgrades.
XStreamOS 153 -- Managing software packages
(full image size: 297kB, resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
XStream also ships with a command line package manager, called "pkg". This program works a lot like dnf on Fedora or the pkg command on FreeBSD. It allows us to search for software, perform installations and removals, upgrade selected items and gather information on software in the project's repositories. I did not use pkg much, preferring to stick with the graphical software manager, but pkg worked well enough for me.
One aspect of XStream I found unusual was that the package manager sometimes provides a full category and path name for packages rather than just a name. For instance, a package might have the name "system/data/terminfo" instead of just "terminfo", or "terminal/screen" rather than just "screen". This did not happen all the time, but the longer names did come up sometimes in searches and I found it a little jarring to switch back and forth between the partial name and the full names. I suspect this is done because some Solaris utilities have the same names as GNU utilities. Having a longer path name allows both versions to coexist in the repositories.
On the topic of software, the XStream application menu contained a fairly common collection of open source software. We are given copies of the Firefox web browser, the Thunderbird e-mail client, the Filezilla file transfer program and the Ekiga software phone. LibreOffice 4.4 ships with the operating system and LibreOffice 5 is available in the repositories. The VLC media player is included along with the GNU Image Manipulation Program. The Wireshark network monitoring tool is installed by default. XStream also treats us to an archive manager, a calculator, an image viewer and a text editor. There are a few configuration tools for changing the look of the LXDE desktop. Both Java and the GNU Compiler Collection are installed. I also found a background services manager, a tool for working with user accounts and an application for changing the system time.
XStreamOS 153 -- Running LibreOffice
(full image size: 120kB, resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
While using XStream, I made a number of observations which I will present here in no particular order. One is that XStream provides the "sudo" command and the first user account we create automatically has sudo access. In a similar manner, the first user account we set up can add, remove and update software without being prompted for credentials. Any additional user accounts we create do not automatically have this privilege.
Another thing regular users could not do, aside from the first user account created, was shut down the computer. Regular users need to sign out of their accounts and shut down the computer using a button on the operating system's login screen.
One aspect of XStream I found very unusual was that I could not use its secure shell utilities to connect to any of the Linux computers on my network. The secure shell utilities would display an error essentially saying the protocols used by the two secure shell programs were not compatible. However, I was able to form connections between XStream and FreeBSD servers. This meant if I wanted to access a console on a Linux computer from XStream, I had to first connect to a FreeBSD server and use that operating system's secure shell utilities to connect to my Linux computer. In a fun twist, XStream's copy of Filezilla was able to connect to my Linux computers via OpenSSH and transfer files, though XStream's version of "sftp" could not.
Early on I had trouble getting Firefox and Thunderbird to open. This turned out to be a permission problem with the directories these two programs were using to store their configuration files. Once the directories were assigned proper permissions both applications worked well. By default, Firefox would try to open a local file containing documentation for the OpenIndiana operating system, a close sibling to XStream. However, the documentation did not exist and so Firefox would simply open an error page. I found Firefox generally worked well for web browsing and was up to date with Mozilla's recent releases. My only gripe with Firefox was when it would play HTML5 video files it would not produce any sound.
The user account manager utility and the services control panel worked well for me. I had no complaints with either of these programs. While using the service manager, I noticed the CUPS printing software was installed. XStream does not ship with a printer manager utility though. I installed a printer manager from the software repositories, but the printer manager did not appear in my application menu. This left me to try to set up printers from the command line.
XStreamOS 153 -- Managing system services
(full image size: 186kB, resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
There are two process managers listed in the application menu. One would launch and the other did not. The task manager which did work did its job, but incorrectly displayed the amount of memory on the system, reporting memory sizes as being in megabytes instead of kilobytes. This makes it seem like the computer has a thousand times more memory than it really has.
XStream uses ZFS as its default file system. I like ZFS and the features it offers. File system snapshots and boot environment are especially nice to have. The ability to easily add more disks to the system is another benefit I enjoy when using ZFS.
Conclusions
I think XStream Desktop does a lot of things well. Admittedly, my trial got off to a rocky start when the operating system would not boot on my hardware and I could not get the desktop to use my display's full screen resolution when running in VirtualBox. However, after that, XStream performed fairly well. The installer works well, the operating system automatically sets up and uses boot environments, insuring we can recover the system if something goes wrong. The package management tools work well and XStream ships with a useful collection of software.
I did run into a few problems playing media, specifically getting audio to work. I am not sure if that is another hardware compatibility issue or a problem with the media software that ships with the operating system. On the other hand, tools such as the web browser, e-mail, productivity suite and configuration tools all worked well.
What I appreciate about XStream the most is that the operating system is a branch of the OpenSolaris family that is being kept up to date. Other derivatives of OpenSolaris tend to lag behind, at least with desktop software, but XStream is still shipping recent versions of Firefox and LibreOffice.
For me personally, XStream is missing a few components, like a printer manager, multimedia support and drivers for my specific hardware. Other aspects of the operating system are quite attractive. I like the way the developers have set up LXDE, I like the default collection of software and I especially like the way file system snapshots and boot environments are enabled out of the box. Most Linux distributions, openSUSE aside, have not caught on to the usefulness of boot environments yet and I hope it is a technology that is picked up by more projects.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Raspbian unveils new OpenGL feature, a review of WebKit package security and Ikey Doherty shares thoughts on design and the Solus distribution
The Raspbian project announced a new release of its Debian-based distribution for Raspberry Pi computers last week. The update includes a number of bug fixes and tweaks to the user interface to make the distribution's desktop more consistent. A bigger change though is the introduction of an OpenGL driver for the desktop which makes use of the Pi's hardware and offers much better performance. "In this release we are shipping an experimental OpenGL driver for the desktop which uses the GPU to provide hardware acceleration. This is turned off by default - if you want to enable it, you can find it in the command line version of raspi-config, under Advanced Options->GL Driver. Due to memory requirements, this will not work on Pi 1 or Pi Zero boards - it is solely for Pi 2. (raspi-config will only allow it to be enabled on a Pi 2; be warned that if you enable it on a Pi 2 and then move that SD card into a Pi 1 or Pi Zero, the Pi will not boot.) If you don't use this option, the desktop does have OpenGL support, but it uses a very slow software renderer, which makes all but the most basic OpenGL applications pretty much unusable. The hardware-accelerated version is much faster, and makes some quite decent OpenGL games playable on the Pi." A full list of changes and more details on the new OpenGL driver can be found in the project's announcement.
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WebKit is an open source web browser engine which is used in many applications, including the Chromium web browser and the Evolution e-mail client. Earlier this month, GNOME developer Michael Catanzaro posted a detailed report on the WebKit packages available in most Linux distributions and why he believes they are not properly patched against security vulnerabilities. "Historically, WebKitGTK+ has not had security updates. Of course, we released updates with security fixes, but not with CVE identifiers, which is how software developers track security issues; as far as distributors are concerned, without a CVE identifier, there is no security issue, and so, with a few exceptions, distributions did not release our updates to users. For many applications, this is not so bad, but for high-risk applications like web browsers and e-mail clients, it's a huge problem." Catanzaro also points out Debian is unique in that the project has a public policy regarding WebKit-based web browsers which states, "Browsers built upon the WebKit, QtWebKit and KHTML engines are included in Jessie, but not covered by security support. These browsers should not be used against untrusted websites." (Debian's Chromium package, while based on WebKit, is an exception and receives security updates.) Catanzaro goes on to explore how distributions such as Fedora, Arch Linux, Debian and Ubuntu handle WebKit updates and the benefits and drawbacks to each approach.
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The LinuxUser website has an interview with Solus project founder Ikey Doherty. The interview talks about Doherty's past projects, his goals with regards to the Solus project and the powerful features planned for Solus 2. Of the design of his distribution's Budgie desktop environment, Doherty said: "I want something that's pretty, but functional so I can just get on with my job while the operating system gets out of my way. At the end of the day, the only purpose of an operating system is enabling me to safely and easily use my software. The problem with too many distros and too many desktops is that they try and get up in your face: having welcome screens, first-run tours, `Look at our massive software centre that takes eight minutes to load'. Not interested in all that. I just want something that gets out of the way."
Doherty said the next major version of Solus will make some interesting changes which will set it apart from other Linux distributions: "With Solus 2, package management will only be a build tool - the end operating system that you get will not have a package manager. We will be completely separating the operating system itself from the apps, so your operating system itself will be updated in one atomic operation. The advantages you're going to have there are that if you're using a particular GTK version - say, for the Budgie desktop - you're going to be having your own version if necessary for your apps. An update to the apps will not affect the operating system, and an update to the operating system should definitely not break the applications, which is the problem that we see in every single Linux distribution out there today." The rest of the interview can be found on the LinuxUser website.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
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Hardware that respects user freedom
Seeking-free-hardware asks: There are lots of free software solutions available to us Linux users, but so much hardware requires proprietary blobs. Where can I find hardware that supports user freedom the same way free software does?
DistroWatch answers:
There are a few resources for people who want to find hardware that respects user freedom the same way free software does. The Free Software Foundation, a champion of software freedom, also certifies hardware that respects user freedom. Their website explains why certifying hardware that respects user freedom is important: "The `Respects Your Freedom' computer hardware product certification program encourages the creation and sale of hardware that will do as much as possible to respect your freedom and your privacy, and will ensure that you have control over your device." In 2015, the Free Software foundation (FSF) certified just six new devices which they found respected the rights and privacy of users.
The full list of FSF certified hardware can be found on the Foundation's website. Several of the items are sold by Think Penguin which tests and sells computer equipment, including laptops and desktop computers, that respect user freedom.
Another valuable resource for finding hardware that respects user freedom is h-node. The h-node website maintains a database of hardware devices which respect user freedom. The h-node database tends to focus on individual pieces of hardware rather than end-user products such as laptops and workstation computers.
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Past Questions and Answers columns can be found in our Q&A Archive
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
Bittorrent is a great way to transfer large files, particularly open source operating system images, from one place to another. Most bittorrent clients recover from dropped connections automatically, check the integrity of files and can re-download corrupted bits of data without starting a download over from scratch. These characteristics make bittorrent well suited for distributing open source operating systems, particularly to regions where Internet connections are slow or unstable.
Many Linux and BSD projects offer bittorrent as a download option, partly for the reasons listed above and partly because bittorrent's peer-to-peer nature takes some of the strain off the project's servers. However, some projects do not offer bittorrent as a download option. There can be several reasons for excluding bittorrent as an option. Some projects do not have enough time or volunteers, some may be restricted by their web host provider's terms of service. Whatever the reason, the lack of a bittorrent option puts more strain on a distribution's bandwidth and may prevent some people from downloading their preferred open source operating system.
With this in mind, DistroWatch plans to give back to the open source community by hosting and seeding bittorrent files. For now, we are hosting a small number of distribution torrents, listed below. The list of torrents offered will be updated each week and we invite readers to e-mail us with suggestions as to which distributions we should be hosting. When you message us, please place the word "Torrent" in the subject line, make sure to include a link to the ISO file you want us to seed. To help us maintain and grow this free service, please consider making a donation.
The table below provides a list of torrents we currently host. If you do not currently have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found here. All torrents we make available here are also listed on the very useful Linux Tracker website. Thanks to Linux Tracker we are able to share the following torrent statistics.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 163
- Total data uploaded: 28.9TB
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| Released Last Week |
Raspbian 2016-02-03
Simon Long has announced the release of Raspbian 2016-02-03, the latest version of the project's Debian-based distribution for the ever so popular Raspberry Pi computer: "Some of you may have spotted that there is a new Raspbian release available for download. For most people, this is primarily about updates and bug fixes - but there's one exciting new feature that might be of interest to some people. ... In this release we are shipping an experimental OpenGL driver for the desktop which uses the GPU to provide hardware acceleration. This is turned off by default - if you want to enable it, you can find it in the command-line version of raspi-config, under Advanced Options, GL Driver. Due to memory requirements, this will not work on Pi 1 or Pi Zero boards - it is solely for Pi 2. If you don't use this option, the desktop does have OpenGL support, but it uses a very slow software renderer, which makes all but the most basic OpenGL applications pretty much unusable. The hardware-accelerated version is much faster, and makes some quite decent OpenGL games playable on the Pi. " Continue to the release announcement for more details.
RebeccaBlackOS 2016-02-03
RebeccaBlackOS is a distribution which provides live media that showcases Wayland running various desktop environments. The latest release of RebeccaBlackOS, version 2016-02-08, includes a number of changes. The Ubiquity system installer has been replaced by Calamares. The KDE Plasma desktop is now a session option and runs on top of Wayland. The Linux kernel has been updated to version 4.3. "ISOs are now EFI bootable, (both the 32-bit and 64-bit ISOs). For booting on Macs, you may need rEFInd. This has not been tested on Macs. EFI booting has only been tested on QEMU and TianoCore, and also VirtualBox. To comply with Canonical's new licensing requirements for Ubuntu, Ubuntu is no longer the base tier 1 distribution providing core packages. Debian Testing is now used for tier 1 packages. Casper and Lupin from Ubuntu are pulled in from BZR, which allow Debian Testing ISOs to be bootable, when generated with Remastersys." A full list of changes can be found in the project's release notes.
RebeccaBlackOS 2016-02-08 -- Running a Wayland-powered desktop environment
(full image size: 942kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Parsix GNU/Linux 8.5r0
Alan Baghumian has announced the launch of a new stable version of the Parsix GNU/Linux distribution. Parsix GNU/Linux is based on Debian Stable and features a number of extra desktop features and optimizations. The new release, version 8.5r0, ships with GNOME Shell 3.18, version 4.1.17 of the Linux kernel and the BFS kernel scheduler which offers improved responsiveness on the desktop. "Parsix GNU/Linux 8.5 (code name Atticus) ships with the stable GNOME 3.18 desktop environment and an updated kernel. This version has been synchronized with Debian Jessie repositories as of February 13, 2016. Parsix Atticus ships with GNOME 3.18 and LibreOffice 4.3.3 productivity suit by default. Highlights: GNOME Shell 3.18.3, GRUB 2, GNU Iceweasel (Firefox) 44.0, GParted 0.19.0, Empathy 3.12.11, LibreOffice 4.3.3, VirtualBox 4.3.36 and a kernel based on Linux 4.1.17 with TuxOnIce 3.3, BFS and other extra patches. Live DVD has been compressed using SquashFS and XZ." Further information can be found in the project's release notes.
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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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| Opinion Poll |
Customizing the desktop
Some computer users never customize their desktops. The icons, wallpaper and theme are just part of the tool they are using and they do not spend time trying to alter them. Others like to have their desktops arranged in a specific way, arranging the panels, theme and short-cuts to suit their preferences.
This week we would like to know if you prefer to customize your desktop or keep the defaults. Let us know what customization steps you like to perform in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using swap space here. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Customizing the desktop
| I keep the desktop defaults: | 154 (8%) |
| I perform a little customization on each machine: | 941 (47%) |
| I perform a lot of customization on each machine: | 652 (33%) |
| I transfer the same custom settings to each new system: | 249 (12%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Distributions added to the database
BSD Router Project
BSD Router Project (BSDRP) is an embedded free and open source router distribution based on FreeBSD with Quagga and Bird. Unlike other embedded networking tools, BSDRP focuses exclusively on routing packets and not on advanced firewall techniques. Additional functionality can be added to the operating system via FreeBSD's ports collection.
Guix System Distribution
Guix System Distribution (GuixSD) is a Linux-based, stateless operating system that is built around the GNU Guix package manager. The operating system provides advanced package management features such as transactional upgrades and roll-backs, reproducible build environments, unprivileged package management, and per-user profiles. It uses low-level mechanisms from the Nix package manager, but packages are defined as native Guile modules, using extensions to the Scheme language.
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Distributions added to waiting list
- Pragmatic Linux. Pragmatic Linux is an Arch-based, lightweight distribution.
- AscendOS. AscendOS is a user-friendly desktop distribution based on Linux Mint. It features desktop elements from the Me-OS project.
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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, 22 February 2016. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
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| Archives |
| • Ussye 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 |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
| 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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| Random Distribution | 
KNOPPIX
KNOPPIX is a bootable disc with a collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. KNOPPIX can be used as a Linux demo, educational disc, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos. It is not necessary to install anything on a hard disk. Due to on-the-fly decompression, the disc can have up to 10 GB of executable software installed on it.
Status: Dormant
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| Tips, Tricks, Q&As | | Tips and tricks: Running openSUSE "Factory" |
| Tips and tricks: OpenSSH, pipes and file transfers |
| Tips and tricks: Waking up your computer remotely |
| Myths and misunderstandings: The massive memory myth |
| Tips and tricks: Choosing good passwords |
| Questions and answers: Adjusting system swappiness |
| Tips and tricks: Creating, removing, modifying, and ignoring aliases |
| Tips and tricks: GRUB Customizer |
| Tips and tricks: Command line weather, ionice, rename files, video preview snapshot, calednar, ls colour settings |
| More Tips & Tricks and Questions & Answers |
| 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.
|
| 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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