DistroWatch Weekly |
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 807, 25 March 2019 |
Welcome to this year's 12th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
A big part of what makes open source software attractive to developers is the ability to take an existing solution which is nearly what is required and making small additions or modifications to suit the current need. We tend to see this a lot with popular parent distributions, such as Debian and Arch, which provide a lot of useful tools and packages that can be customized into convenient desktop, embedded, or appliance distributions. This week we begin with a review of one of Debian's many children, called Pardus. Pardus 17.5 was released earlier this year and Joshua Allen Holm takes this distribution for a spin in our Feature Story. In our News section we talk about a new version of the pleasantly polished Budgie desktop which is available now in Solus 4.0 and cover a tool for FreeBSD users who wish to fine-tune their operating system. We also talk about Debian migrating their older releases to the archives. Our Questions and Answers column this week explores methods of tracking down which user modified a file using common tools and logs. Then, in our Opinion Poll, we ask whether our readers typically use the log files their systems generate. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and provide a list of the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Pardus 17.5
- News: New features in the Budgie desktop, a GUI for browsing sysctl values on FreeBSD, Debian archives older releases
- Questions and answers: Tracking down the user who changed a file
- Released last week: Solus 4.0, Tails 3.13
- Torrent corner: BSD Router Project, Clonezilla, GParted, HardenedBSD, LinHES, Parabola, PBXware, Septor, Solus, Tails
- Upcoming releases: Ubuntu 19.04 Beta
- Opinion poll: Looking through log files
- New distributions: Venom Linux, OS108
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (12MB) and MP3 (9MB) formats.
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Feature Story (by Joshua Allen Holm) |
Pardus 17.5
Pardus is a Debian-based distribution developed in Turkey. Pardus 17.x releases are based on Debian 9, but they also include software from Debian Backports and Pardus-specific packages. The latest release, Pardus 17.5, will be the final release in the Pardus 17 series, but it will be supported through early 2021.
For this review I will be looking at Pardus 17.5's Xfce desktop version, but there is an alternate download that features the Deepin desktop environment. There is also a server image that installs Pardus without a desktop environment. The Xfce image is 1.3GB, the Deepin image is 1.4GB, and the server image is 530MB.
Pardus live image
I copied the Xfce image to a flash drive and booted my computer from the drive. I was presented with options to use the live desktop in Turkish or English, or to install using a graphical or text-mode installer. I selected the English live desktop and waited just a short time before I had a functional desktop.
Pardus 17.5 -- Xfce desktop environment
(full image size: 52kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
At first glance everything seemed okay. Despite the slightly older version of the Linux kernel (4.9), everything worked okay, including my wireless networking. I explored the customized Xfce desktop environment and found it worked well and was well organized, but as soon as I tried typing anything I found that the keyboard layout was still set to Turkish. I had to adjust this before I could start doing anything in the terminal. This was a minor annoyance, and easy enough to fix, but it might confuse some users if they do not realize what is going on.
Installing Pardus
Once I was sure Pardus worked with my hardware I rebooted and selected the installation option. In my case I opted for the text-mode option because, for some reason, my trackpad does not work in Debian's graphical installer (it works perfectly fine in the live desktop and once Debian, or a Debian-based distribution is installed).
The installation process was also identical to the standard Debian experience, except for the lack of options to select a desktop environment. Debian provides multiple options on its DVD images, but Pardus will just install its pre-selected software packages.
One thing to note is that while Pardus does support disk encryption as part of the installation process, the default boot splash does not provide a password prompt to unlock the encrypted disk. If the user decides to encrypt their disk, they will end up at an animated splash screen with the Pardus logo with a running cat animation, but no visible prompt that they need to enter their pass phrase to decrypt their drive to continue the boot process.
Pardus's default desktop and software
Pardus's default Xfce desktop environment is customized and themed. It features a single bottom panel layout out in a similar manner to the Windows taskbar. The application menu is the left corner and the clock and various functions like wi-fi settings and volume control are on the right. In the centre of panel are the running applications. On the desktop there are shortcuts for the user's home folder and the trash. Overall the experience is very Windows-esque, which is good for a distribution that can be used in corporate environments in place of Windows.
Pardus 17.5 -- Xfce desktop with application menu
(full image size: 87kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The default selection of software is very typical. Firefox ESR is the browser and Thunderbird is the e-mail client. VLC serves as the default media player. LibreOffice 6.1, one of the packages that comes from Backports, is the office suite. GIMP is pre-installed. The rest of the applications are various system utilities and tools, most of which are from Xfce, but GNOME Disks and Evince are also part of the pre-installed software selection.
Pardus 17.5 -- LibreOffice Writer
(full image size: 52kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
I found Pardus's desktop and software selection to be very usable. I could do most basic tasks on my computer without having to install additional software. However, I noticed that the LibreOffice help files are not installed, not in English or Turkish. When I tried to install the US English help files, there was an error message about the libreoffice-help-common package not being available. The LibreOffice help packages depend on this package, but it does not seem to exist in the Pardus repositories.
Installing additional software
Pardus uses its own repositories that combine packages from Debian Stable, Debian Backports, Pardus, and some non-free software, which makes it closer to Ubuntu's style of being based on Debian than other distributions that still use Debian's repositories and add their own repositories on top of that. This method works, except for the issue noted above with the missing LibreOffice package (and possibly similar issues that I did not come across), but there appears to only be one source for packages, instead of a global network of mirrors, so sometimes installing packages and updates can take a while.
Pardus 17.5 -- Synaptic package manager
(full image size: 92kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Pardus comes with three graphical tools to install additional packages plus a Package Updater application for installing updates. There is the Pardus Store which is a custom graphical interface for installing a curated collection of software, including non-free packages like Steam and Skype; Synaptic Package Manager for power-users; and GNOME Packages, which honestly feels redundant given the inclusion of Synaptic package manger.
Pardus 17.5 -- Pardus Store
(full image size: 235kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The Pardus Store looks very nice, but only has a limited selection of software. Like I noted above, the selection is curated, and there is a poll for voting on which package should be added next. However, the text for this poll is the one bit of text I ran across in my English language install of Pardus that was still in Turkish.
Pardus 17.5 -- Skype in Pardus Store
(full image size: 516kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Another nice feature of the Pardus store is how clearly it indicates that software is non-free (free in the Free Software Foundation sense of the term, not software that costs money). There are huge brightly colored indicators that state the software is non-free. The software is still available, so the distribution might not be good enough for purists, but for a desktop designed to possibly replace Windows in an office setting, having Skype, Slack, and other non-free tools is very helpful.
Aside from the oddly missing libreoffice-help-common package, I found everything I needed in the repositories. Granted, it was older versions because most of them come from Debian 9, but that is to be expected. I found Pardus's selective use of Backports to be quite good in bringing in slightly more up-to-date version of certain packages.
Final thoughts
Pardus is a nice distribution. It has a few issues, which I noted above, but the default desktop and software selection are solid, which makes it a good choice for adoption in offices and by users who want a conservative desktop experience. The only drawback is that it is very difficult to report issues with the distribution, unless you can communicate in Turkish. Granted the shoe is often on the other foot in the open source world when we often expect everyone to communicate in English, but there are issues in Pardus that I could not just report, but actually fix, if I had the ability to interact with the project's infrastructure and community.
Even though I cannot get truly involved with the project, I think I going to keep using Pardus because it does have some very nice design decisions. Sure, with a little work I could turn Xfce on Debian 9 into something very close to what Pardus offers, but Pardus does that without me having to do the work. I just hope Pardus fixes the boot splash not providing a prompt to decrypt drives issue and the missing libreoffice-help-common package. Those two issues are not major problems, I can still decrypt my hard drive without a visible prompt and I can access LibreOffice help online, but they are annoying.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo Ideapad 100-15IBD laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: 2.2GHz Intel Core i3-5020U CPU
- Storage: Seagate 500GB 5400 RPM hard drive
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8723BE 802.11n Wireless Network Adapter
- Display: Intel HD Graphics 5500
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Visitor supplied rating
Pardus has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9.3/10 from 32 review(s).
Have you used Pardus? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
New features in the Budgie desktop, a GUI for browsing sysctl values on FreeBSD, Debian archives older releases
One of the big releases of the past week was the anticipated launch of Solus 4.0. While Solus itself was a big release with a lot of upgrades, some of the improvements to the project's Budgie desktop deserve special attention. Budgie 10.5 has received improvements to the way programs are grouped, the notification centre received more fine-grained responses and the volume control now makes it easier to adjust input and output volumes separately. The Budgie settings panel includes many well-explained features to make life easier, "The Windows section of Budgie Desktop Settings introduces options for: Centre new windows on screen (when possible). Disabling Night Light mode when a window becomes full-screen. This option will automatically re-enable Night Light mode when leaving full-screen. This is great for late night gaming or movie watching. Enabling window focus change on mouse enter and leave instead of based on clicking on a window." A full list of improvements can be found in the project's release announcement. Hopefully these improvements will soon be packaged and included in other distributions.
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As many FreeBSD users know, the operating system includes special controls which allow the operating system to be fine-tuned while it is running. These special controls are called system controls (sysctl). While these controls are very useful, it can be difficult to remember the many options available or what specific functions they perform. To help with this, a new, third-party tool called sysctlview has been launched to provide a way to browse and get descriptions of available sysctl options from the comfort of a desktop environment. The tool has been added to FreeBSD's collection of ports.
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Joerg Jaspert has sent out a notice to let people know older versions of Debian which are no longer receiving security updates are being moved to the archives. This means the older versions can still be downloaded, but will not be available on Debian's large mirror network. "As Wheezy and Jessie have been integrated into the archive.debian.org structure recently, we are now removing all of Wheezy and all non-LTS architectures of Jessie from the mirror network starting today. That is, only Jessie i386, amd64, armel and armhf will continue to be
hosted on the normal mirrors. The data is, of course, not lost - the whole of it is synced to archive.debian.org, so if you still need it you will be able to get
it from there."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Tracking down the user who changed a file
Trying-to-locate-the-editor asks: Someone with access to my system edited a configuration file and I would like to know who did it. Is there a way to identify who changed the file?
DistroWatch answers: I am assuming the file is on your system and not in a version control system like git that would track who changed the file. And I'm going to assume there is no special auditing software or logging in place. With this in mind, there are a few things you can do to try to figure out who edited your file.
The first, and easiest, check you can perform is running the ls command on the file to find out when it was last changed. If the user copied a new, altered file into place instead of editing the original, the ls -l command may also tell you who overwrote the original. Here is an example of running ls -l on a file called example.conf to find out when it was modified:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 46252 Feb 10 12:31 example.conf
In this case the file is owned by the root user and was altered on February 10th. This tells us when the file changed, but since the file was probably owned by root all along, we still do not know who changed it.
Assuming the file was owned by root, then chances are the person who made the edit had to use a tool like sudo or doas to change the file. Your distribution should record sudo use in a log file such as /var/log/auth.log or /var/log/security. On my system, I can see when someone edits a configuration file by running the grep command on the log, the result is shown below in bold:
grep example.conf /var/log/auth.log
Feb 10 12:31:54 gwen sudo: jesse : TTY=pts/1 ; PWD=/var/log ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/vi example.conf
Here we can see that user "jesse" ran the sudo program in order to perform the command "/usr/bin/vi example.conf" as the root user. This happened on February 10th, the same day the file was last edited.
If checking the security log does not work, or the file is not owned by root and does not require special permissions to access, another approach we can take is looking through the users' history. Most command line shells record commands we run to a history file (the name of the file varies depending on the shell). We can run a command like the one shown below to see if we can spot who edited example.conf:
sudo grep -l example.conf /home/*/.bash_history /home/*/.history
The above command may not give you the time when a file was changed, but it should give you a list of people who changed the file from the command line.
Finally, if none of the above options work, it might be worthwhile trying a social approach instead of a technical one. Assuming not a lot of people have access to your configuration file (and not many people should), then you can sit your team down and ask (or send a query to them over e-mail): "Who changed the example.conf file?" This tactic might require less effort than combing through log files.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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Released Last Week |
Solus 4.0
Joshua Strobl has announced the release of Solus 4.0, an independently-developed desktop Linux distribution featuring the simple but efficient Budgie desktop (separate editions with GNOME and MATE desktop environments are also available) and a custom package management called eopkg. From the release announcement: "We are proud to announce the immediate availability of Solus 4 'Fortitude', a new major release of the Solus operating system. This release delivers a brand new Budgie experience, updated sets of default applications and theming, and hardware enablement. All our editions feature: Firefox 65.0.1, LibreOffice 6.2.1, Rhythmbox 3.4.3 with the latest release of the Alternate Toolbar extension, Thunderbird 60.5.2. Our Budgie and GNOME editions ship with GNOME MPV 0.16 and our MATE Edition ships with VLC 3.0.6. This release of Solus ships with Linux kernel 4.20.16, enabling us to provide support for AMD Picasso and Raven2 APUs, AMD Vega20 and broader Vega10 enablement, as well as improved support for Intel Coffee Lake and Ice Lake CPUs. Furthermore, Linux kernel 4.20 expands our support for other hardware devices, such as touchpad support for the Lenovo IdeaPad 130-15IKB and 330-15ARR."
Solus 4.0 -- Running the Budgie desktop
(full image size 1.3MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Tails 3.13
The Amnesic Incognito Live System (Tails) is a Debian-based live DVD/USB with the goal of providing complete Internet anonymity for the user. The product ships with several Internet applications, including web browser, IRC client, mail client and instant messenger, all pre-configured with security in mind and with all traffic anonymised. The project's latest release is Tails 3.13 which includes localization fixes, prevents the software centre from downloading packages which are already available on persistent storage, and upgrades several packages. "Fixed problems: Prevent Additional Software from downloading packages that are already saved in the persistent storage. Fix the localization of Tor Launcher, the application to configure a Tor bridge or a local proxy. Fix accessibility when opening Tor Browser from a desktop notification. Fix WhisperBack crashing when additional APT repositories is configured." Further details and a list of known issues can be found in the project's release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not 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 in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 1,317
- Total data uploaded: 24.5TB
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Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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Opinion Poll |
Looking through log files
In our Questions and Answers column we talked about finding out who performed a specific action on a system, a task which is greatly aided by log files. While logs are incredibly useful on servers for improving performance and auditing security, they are rarely used on desktop machines. This week we would like to hear whether you routinely check the log files on your laptop or desktop computer. If you do, please let us know what you look for in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on Kubuntu versus KDE neon in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Looking through log files
I do routinely exmaine logs: | 106 (8%) |
I look through logs to fix specific problems: | 712 (54%) |
I do not exmaine logs: | 503 (38%) |
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DistroWatch.com News |
Distributions added to waiting list
- Venom Linux. Venom Linux is source based Linux distribution based on Linux From Scratch (LFS) with a BSD-style init system.
- OS108. OS108 is a desktop-oriented operating system that is based on NetBSD and features the MATE desktop.
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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, 1 April 2019. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. 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)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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Archives |
• 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 |
• Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
• Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
• Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
• Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
• 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 |
Ehad
Ehad was an Israeli project offering a repackaging of standard Mandriva Linux binary packages, in order to provide a single installation CD for Mandriva users in Israel. Ehad intends to provide a useful assortment of applications in a single CD and offers full compatibility with this popular distribution. Ehad users can enjoy all the graphical installation and configuration tools provided by Mandriva, as well as the huge software repositories (including automatic installation capabilities). Ehad has built-in support for Hebrew and English out of the box.
Status: Discontinued
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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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