 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 849, 20 January 2020 |
Welcome to this year's 3rd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
There has been a lot of talk in the Linux community recently about how best to welcome former Windows 7 users as the legacy version of Microsoft's operating system has reached the end of its supported life. There are several beginner-oriented desktop distributions in the Linux community and perhaps the one most geared towards Windows refugees is Zorin OS, a distribution that is designed to resemble Microsoft's operating system. Robert Rijkhoff took Zorin OS 15.1 for a spin and reports on the distribution's strengths and problems in our Feature Story. Then, in our Questions and Answers section, we discuss distributions that are still running SysV init and why, along with some thoughts on OpenBSD's recent security patches. Whether init software is an important factor in picking a distribution is the subject of this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section we report on the PinePhone, an open platform mobile device, shipping and link to a guide with a list of operating systems which will run on the new phone. We also report on new features coming to elementary OS in 2020 and say a sad good-bye to Mark Greaves, a core member of the Peppermint OS team who passed away this month. Mark was a positive and talented open source contributor and will be missed. We also share the releases of the past week and share the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful and fulfilling week.
Content:
- Review: Zorin 15.1 "Lite"
- News: elementary team plans future features, open platform PinePhone now shipping, Peppermint marks the passing of Mark Greaves
- Questions and answers: PCLinuxOS, antiX, and OpenBSD patches
- Released last week: CentOS 8.1.1911, Linux Lite 4.8, Raspberry Slideshow 13.0
- Torrent corner: Alpine, AUSTRUMI, CentOS, Linux Lite, KDE neon, Nitrux, PCLinuxOS, Raspberry Slideshow, SmartOS, Tails, Volumio
- Opinion poll: Does it matter which init software your distribution uses?
- Website news: Server upgrade
- New distributions: Kaisen Linux
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (16MB) and MP3 (12MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Robert Rijkhoff) |
Zorin 15.1 "Lite"
Zorin OS is an Ubuntu-based operating system that aims to make Linux easy for Windows and macOS users. In the words of Zorin, it is "the alternative to Windows and macOS designed to make your computer faster, more powerful, secure and privacy respecting". Zorin's main product is the paid-for "Ultimate" edition, which will set you back €39 and comes with macOS, Windows, Linux and "Touch" layouts (i.e. themes) as well as a relatively large collection of software and "installation support". Other editions of Zorin are free but come with less pre-installed software and fewer desktop layouts.
For this review I dusted off a MacBook that dates from late 2009 and installed the "Lite" edition which, as the name suggests, is designed to breathe new life into older hardware. The laptop is one of the plastic, white MacBooks. It has an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and 4GB of RAM - I doubled the amount of RAM a few months ago. The laptop has mostly been running Fedora with the MATE desktop and the i3 window manager as an alternative environment, both of which ran fine. Zorin's Lite edition uses Xfce as the desktop environment.
First impressions and installation
Zorin's website is either modern and clean or yet another bootstrap site, depending on your view. There are just three links in the navigation menu: Download, Computers and Help (the Computers section links to vendors that sell laptops with Zorin pre-installed). The Download section lists Zorin's Ultimate edition first, followed by the Core, Lite and Education editions.
Clicking any of the Download links for the free versions triggers a "Sign up to our newsletter & Download" pop-up window featuring a huge "Sign up & Download" button and a very small "Skip to download" link. I am not a fan of this type of marketing. I don't mind that they ask if I maybe want to sign up to their mailing list, but I take issue with the fact that the dialogue window has been designed to make the "No thanks" option easy to miss. Such marketing techniques assume that users need to be tricked into signing up to receiving marketing materials, which reflects poorly on the project as a whole.
Zorin OS 15.1 -- The newsletter subscription form that pops-up when trying to download Zorin
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Speaking of dubious marketing practices, Zorin's home page claims that installing the operating system will make your computer "virus resistant". The word "resistant" is open to interpretation, but I reckon it is fair to say that most people use "resistant" and "immune" interchangeably. Zorin's claim is obviously false, and I really wish Zorin would reign in its marketing department. So much for my rant about marketing – let's get back to the review...
The Lite edition is available for 32- and 64-bit architectures and the download page helpfully explains that PCs with less than 2GB of RAM should use the 32-bit version. When you select the version you want to download the website provides a link to the installation instructions in the Help section. The articles in the Help section are quite minimal but well written. One thing I found interesting is that Zorin recommends creating a bootable USB drive using an application called balenaEtcher. The application is available for Windows, macOS and, as an AppImage, for Linux. I couldn't get balenaEtcher to work on Fedora 31, so I did what I usually do: dd the ISO image to a USB stick like a greybeard.
Zorin boots to a live environment and I was pleased that almost everything worked out of the box, including the Fn keys. The only issue I noticed early-on was that right-clicking on the laptop's trackpad often registered a left-click.
Zorin OS 15.1 -- The live environment
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Zorin uses Ubiquity for the installer. Ubiquity is very user-friendly but I did manage to get myself into a bit of muddle at the partitioning stage. The issue appeared to be related to the fact that the existing partitions on the laptop were encrypted. I decided to cancel the installation and do the partitioning using fdisk before running the installer again, which did the trick.
Zorin OS 15.1 -- Testing the keyboard layout in the Ubiquity installer
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Zorin 15 and 15.1 features
Zorin 15 Lite was released in November and only a few weeks later all Zorin editions were updated to version 15.1. Both versions are based on Ubuntu 18.04 and users of Zorin 15 are automatically upgraded to version 15.1 when they update their system.
The release notes for Zorin 15 highlighted a few changes: the desktop theme has been "refreshed and refined"; the theme can be now configured to automatically switch from the default light theme to a dark theme in the evening; Flatpak support has been added and there is a new "Do not disturb" mode for notifications. The blog post about Zorin 15.1 mentions improvements to Zorin Connect (a clone of GSConnect); a new "GameMode" which makes games run faster by allocating more system resources to games being played and improvements to the above-mentioned theme switcher.
The main change in Zorin 15.1 isn't mentioned in the release notes: in the installer you can now opt-out of the "Zorin census". By default, Zorin contacts a server every hour and once a day via cron jobs in the /etc/cron.hourly and /etc/cron.daily directories. Until recently nobody seemed to be aware of Zorin's telemetry, and when it was discovered there was a bit of an outcry.
The zorin-os-census Bash script was first introduced in November 2016, when Zorin 12 was released. In Zorin 15.1 the script posts various bits of data to census.zorinos.com/submit:
- The number of user accounts on the system (by counting the number of users on the system with an ID equal to or greater than 1000).
- The Zorin OS version number (i.e. 15 or 15.1).
- The OEM ID, if present (that is, an ID assigned to a laptop that came pre-installed with Zorin).
- A unique identifier stored in /var/lib/zorin-os-census/uuid.
Of course, to send this data your IP is collected by the mothership as well. Zorin's CEO insisted in an interview with It's FOSS that the user's IP address isn't logged by Zorin and he promised that version 15.1 would have an opt-out box in the installer. The opt-out box has indeed been added: on the page where you can choose to download updates during the install and include third-party software you can now tick a box if you don't want to participate in the census. The checkbox is accompanied by a link for more information.
Personally, I am fine with operating systems collecting basic, anonymised information. It is quite obvious that having data is useful for projects and that it will help with the development of the software. However, I think Zorin showed poor judgment by introducing the telemetry without informing users (it should have been mentioned in the release notes for Zorin 12) and with given users an option to opt-out. When the telemetry was discovered it didn't take long for people with objections to creep out of the woodwork and the fact that Zorin was collecting data in secret will hurt the project's reputation for a long time.
One other thing to note is that the description of the zorin-os-census package changed from version 1.2 (installed on version 15) and 1.2.1 (installed on 15.1). The description for version 1.2 states that the package transmits "the operating system version, the number of user accounts and the city & country the user is in". As the diff for version 1.2.1 shows, the mention of geolocation data was removed in version 1.2.1. That raises several questions. The It's FOSS interview was published in November, and at that time the package description stated that the user's city and country were being collected (presumably by linking a user's IP address to the data submitted via census script). Does that mean that the package description was factually incorrect, or have they stopped collecting geolocation data?
Zorin OS 15.1 -- The zorin-os-census script and the diff for version 1.2.1
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Again, I don't mind distros collecting a small amount of anonymised data, but it seems to me that Zorin has done this wrong. In any case, you can opt-out by removing the zorin-os-census package by running "sudo apt purge zorin-os-census".
Applications and software management
Zorin Lite includes a fairly large collection of pre-installed software. Leaving aside Firefox, Thunderbird and the LibreOffice suite the applications are mostly a mix of well-known Xfce and GNOME apps. The file manager, terminal emulator, media player and image viewer are all Xfce applications, and the GNOME applications include Gedit, Software, Evince, Simple Scan and various smaller applications, such as games and a calculator.
Zorin uses the Ubuntu repos and its own PPAs. The PPAs includes various packages that are also in the Ubuntu repos, including LibreOffice, the Thunar file manager and WINE. I think these packages are mainly included in the PPAs to give users more up to date software. As a result I got version 6.3 of LibreOffice, which features a "tabbed" menu toolbar and full-page background fills.
Zorin OS 15.1 -- LibreOffice and GNOME Mines. The unusual approach to playing mines is because right-clicks are often registered as left-clicks
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Interestingly, the Zorin themes are shipped as Flatpak packages. However, contrary to what the release notes for Zorin 15 suggest, it is not possible to add Flatpak repositories via GNOME Software (which, like the other GNOME applications, is at version 3.28). To add the Flathub repository I needed to add a PPA via the command line. I encountered a few issues with Flatpaks I installed. There is currently a bug that prevents the openh264 Flatpak from being installed and GNOME Music threw the error "Your system Tracker version seems to be outdated". The Tracker package was not installed, and the only version available in the repos was too old.
I didn't run into any issues with software I installed from the Ubuntu repos and Zorin's PPAs. That is to be expected for a distro is based on Ubuntu's long-term support releases but it is worth noting that the system was stable.
Theming and usability
One of Zorin's main selling points are the desktop themes, and that is precisely the point where Zorin fell down for me. Roughly half of the pre-installed applications are GNOME applications, and they have a very different look and feel than the other applications. Worse, in Zorin 15 various GNOME applications were missing options. Most GNOME applications in Zorin don't have the hamburger menu and instead display one or two items from the menu as large buttons. To illustrate the point, the below image shows the Baobab disk usage analyser in Zorin 15 and 15.1. In Zorin 15 Boabab had just one option: Scan Folder. In Zorin 15.1 an application icon was added, which also acts as a menu.
Zorin OS 15.1 -- GNOME menus in Zorin Lite 15 (top) and 15.1 (below).
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What remains is the issue that GNOME and Xfce applications look and behave differently. GNOME applications don't show the application name in the title bar and instead use a combination of a drop-down menu and large buttons in the toolbar. Towards the end of my trial I turned Zorin Lite into a GNOME Lite desktop by changing the theme to Adwaita and replacing most Xfce applications with their GNOME equivalents. The experiment was fairly successful, although there is no way to get round the fact the GNOME applications don't integrate well in a non-GNOME environment.
Zorin OS 15.1 -- Zorin Lite with the Adwaita them and two GNOME apps (Podcasts and Web)
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There are two applications that can tweak the theme: Zorin Appearance and Xfce's Appearance utility. The Zorin Appearance application in the Lite edition doesn't let you drastically change the desktop layout. There are only two layouts to choose from, and the only difference between them is the size of the application launchers in the taskbar.
Zorin Appearance's Theme tab lets you define the accent colour (by default elements such as buttons are blue); select the light or dark theme (and set up auto-switching the themes) and define the theme used by applications, the icon set and the window manager. The latter three items use drop-down menus and by default no option is selected. That is a usability bug, as there is nothing to indicate the default desktop theme, icon set and window manager. In other words, there is no easy way to revert any changes. If you select, say, an icon set that you don't like there is no quick way to go back to the default icons.
Zorin OS 15.1 -- Zorin Appearance and Xfce's Appearance application
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Xfce's Appearance application is much more functional when it comes to changing the desktop theme and icons. I suspect that Zorin Appearance was simply ported from the GNOME-based Zorin editions to Zorin Lite, without much thought about whether or not it makes sense to duplicate various theming options.
Performance, bugs and oddities
I rarely mention CPU and memory usage in distro reviews, as just about any distro I install runs fine. Zorin Lite was an exception. I regularly found myself looking into why the laptop's fan was going crazy. It was mostly the xfwm4 process that was responsible for the high CPU usage, though on a few occasions xiccd was the culprit. I wasn't able to find out what triggered the issue but I suspect it may be Zorin-specific, as the xfwm4 package is provided by one of the Zorin PPAs. Whatever caused the issue, it was annoying. No matter what I tried, at times the laptop's fan just kept spinning like mad and the only solution was to reboot the laptop.
There were a few other issues I encountered. At one point I rebooted the laptop after applying some updates. During the boot process the GRUB screen was suddenly displayed and had a time-out of 30 seconds. After I had logged in the screen saver kicked in after two minutes, which is not the default time-out setting. And after twenty minutes or so I got a notification telling me that new updates were available, even though GNOME Software told me that the system was fully up to date. For the most part the system was stable and pleasant to use, but there were a few occasions when it seemed to have a life of its own.
Something I found curious is that Zorin displays asterisk characters when you enter your sudo password in a terminal window. I was taught that doing so is bad practice, as it reveals the length of your password to anyone who might be looking over your shoulders while you enter your password. I didn't know this behaviour could be changed but it turns out to be quite easy – you can add (or remove) the pwfeedback option in either the sudoers file or by adding a file to /etc/sudoers.d/.
Another unusual default setting is that the application menu includes command line utilities. For instance, when you search for "desktop" you will see an option named "run top". That option is supposed to open a terminal window and run the top command, but that didn't work for me. I also don't quite see the benefit of including options such as "run dd" and "run rsync" in the menu.
There are a few other minor issues with the applications menu. For instance, a search for the string "terminal" returns both "Terminal Emulator" and "Xfce Terminal". The first launches the Xfce Terminal while the latter launched the preferences for the application.
Zorin OS 15.1 -- Searching for a terminal and unusual sudo behaviour
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Another minor annoyance are Zorin's default keyboard shortcuts. You can open the menu by hitting the super key, which is a bit awkward as the key is also used for a dozen or so other shortcuts. If, for instance, you launch the default web browser using Super+W the application menu opens first and after a few seconds Firefox will launch. The menu is still sitting in the foreground, and the search field in the menu still has focus.
Zorin OS 15.1 -- Opening Firefox using the Super-F keyboard shortcut.
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After a bit of digging I found that the menu is launched by xfce4-popup-zorinmenulite and that the default keyboard shortcut is "Super L" (which is just the Super key on its own and different from Super+L). To change the shortcut you have to remove it and then add it again. I mapped it to Super+Spacebar.
Finally, I should note that I haven't really touched on the new features mentioned in the release notes. The dark theme looks good and the auto-theme switcher works as advertised. The "Do Not Disturb" feature, which can be enabled via the Notifications icon in the system tray, is also quite nice. I did find it odd that enabling the option also suppresses the visual cues you normally get when you change the screen brightness or volume. To my mind, those are not really notifications as the visual feedback is only triggered when you interact with the desktop environment.
My gaming activities are limited to classics such as Mines and Solitaire, so I can't really say anything meaningful about the new "GameMode". As for Zorin Connect, the package is not compatible with Zorin Lite as it depends on GNOME. I did try installing the zorin-connect package, just to see what would happen. It installed GNOME, and on the login screen I got two new desktop environment options: Ubuntu and Ubuntu on Wayland. As expected, Zorin Connect refused to launch on the Lite desktop.
Zorin OS 15.1 -- The Ubuntu GNOME session
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Conclusions
Zorin Lite is a relatively young project and quite different from Zorin's other versions - if only because it uses Xfce rather than GNOME as the desktop environment. The distro aims to provide a lightweight operating system that looks modern, and in many respects Zorin Lite achieves that goal. Things like the login screen, task bar and application menu have plenty of polish and work well. It is nice that applications such as LibreOffice are more up to date than they are in Ubuntu, and Zorin's dark theme is quite well done.
Zorin OS 15.1 -- Zorin's dark theme
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That said, Zorin Lite didn't strike me as a finished product. Compared with other distros I have tried on my MacBook the performance wasn't great. And although I noticed some improvement when I moved from version 15 to 15.1, there are some basic usability issues that I don't expect to see in a project that is over two years old. In particular, I don't see the benefit of including command line utilities in the menu's search results and the pre-defined keyboard shortcuts don't make much sense. Also, having two separate - but overlapping - applications to tweak the appearance of the desktop is confusing.
Another thing I disliked was the mix of Xfce and GNOME applications. My experiment to turn Zorin Lite into a GNOME Lite desktop worked fairly well, though I personally feel it would make more sense for Zorin Lite to stay much closer to Xfce. Zorin Lite is aimed at Windows refugees and Xfce applications behave much more like Windows applications than their GNOME counterparts. As things stand I am not sure why I would recommend Zorin Lite over distros like Xubuntu or Ubuntu MATE.
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Visitor supplied rating
Zorin OS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.4/10 from 235 review(s).
Have you used Zorin OS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
elementary team plans future features, open platform PinePhone now shipping, Peppermint marks the passing of Mark Greaves
The elementary OS team has written a blog post in which they look back at milestones in the project's progress in 2019 and plan ahead for new features in 2020. Some of the upcoming new features include making more applications work with Wayland and improving touch gesture support: "Flatpak, sandboxing, and Portals. Along with our big Flatpak efforts comes updating several components to use newer sandboxed APIs and implementing the many Portals available to apps. Some of that work intersects with becoming Wayland ready, and we've already made progress towards Screenshot being ready for Wayland - with other issues being tracked on GitHub. Even if we don"t ship Wayland by default in 2020, these fixes and updated APIs will still make the experience more robust and secure. Improved gesture support in elementary OS: One area in elementary OS that we aim to significantly improve in 2020 is support for one-to-one touch gestures, like we recently added to Onboarding."
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People interested in getting their hands on an open platform smartphone that can run GNU/Linux operating systems will soon have a new option available. The PinePhone began shipping on January 17th. By default it does not include an end-user operating system as the company plans for the phone to be more of an open platform on which users can install their preferred software. However, the UBports team has been working on early development kits of the PinePhone and have install images ready for the device. The option to use the UBports graphical installer to automate the install process is expected to arrive in the future. "At this point I assume that everyone getting a Braveheart PinePhone understand that it"s up to them to find the operating system build they are interested in, flash it and take part in the community discussion and ongoing development. Most builds are available on the PinePhone Wiki"
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The Peppermint team published sad news this week, reporting one of the distribution's lead developers, Mark Greaves, passed away earlier this month. "With a heavy heart I unfortunately have to inform you that Mark is no longer with us. Shane and I received word from one of Mark's sons that he passed away this morning after a 10 day hospital stay. Mark was among the best of us. His contributions to both Peppermint and to the desktop Linux world as a whole are incalculable and he will be sorely missed. There are many unanswered questions at the moment and I'll try to be diligent in relaying relevant information." Greaves will be missed - by his family, the Peppermint community, and the DistroWatch team who got to correspond with him.
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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) |
PCLinuxOS, antiX, and OpenBSD patches
Curious-on-a-range-of-topics asks: I wonder if readers would enjoy a side-by-side deep-dive comparison between antiX and PCLinuxOS, ranked 11th & 13th respectively as of today. I'd be curious to learn how they approach things differently. They appear to be the two strongest non-systemd distros. Not only are they both on the rise, recently, but coupled with antiX's big brother MX Linux's top spot, there seems some substance to indications of a growing grass-roots "rebellion". Yes, perhaps a bit of drama, but it does add interest!
I'd also like to hear OpenBSD discuss how 12 security patches suddenly crushed their past bragging rights so severely (OK, they can still be proud, but you get what I mean). So far they've been silent running (besides issuing patches). Were the causes external? Will similar discoveries be the new normal? Inquiring minds want to know!
DistroWatch answers: There are several mini-topics to explore here so let's quickly run through them. Both antiX and PCLinuxOS are fine distributions and ones I have enjoyed using. The MX Linux project, which is closely connected to antiX, is also a project I enjoy a lot. So, in general, I'm happy to discuss them and have posted the occasional reviews of these projects.
While I like exploring these three distributions separately, I think doing any kind of side-by-side comparison between them would yield unwieldy results. PCLinuxOS and antiX have different development models (rolling versus static, usually), different bases (independent versus Debian), different approaches to package management (RPM versus Deb), different default desktop environments (KDE and MATE versus lightweight window managers). One of the few things these two projects do have in common is their init software (SysV init), and even then they don't use the same version of the package.
All of that is to say, we can find a lot of things these projects do differently, but I don't feel an article comparing them would have a firm common base from which to draw attention to those differences. For now I'd suggest trying each project on its own as each one does some things really well. But I personally would have trouble comparing them side-by-side.
The question made reference to the idea of a "rebellion", I suspect against the move many distributions have made toward using systemd. Maybe there is some truth to that, some people do feel strongly about which init software they use. However, I also think it is equally true these project may be continuing to use SysV init, less as an act of defiance, and more because the developers feel it works well enough. A case of "If it's not broke, don't fix it." The systemd init software may offer enticing features, but some developers are conservative when it comes to adopting newer technologies if they can get by with what they already have.
Let's move on now to talking about the second question: OpenBSD's patches and security record. The question didn't mention which specific security patches the author meant, but I suspect (based on when this query landed in my inbox) these OpenBSD patches from December were the ones being referenced.
While I am not an OpenBSD developer, I can get a pretty good idea of what is happening in these patches and I do not think there is anything here that would "crush their past bragging rights". The OpenBSD project famously claims a good record with remote security: "Only two remote holes in the default install, in a heck of a long time!" A long time, in this case, meaning around two decades, which is impressive.
Some of the patches issued by OpenBSD are serious, in my opinion, but none of them appear to affect the remote security of a default install. In fact, while there are several patches published, I don't think any of these issues appear particularly out of the ordinary for OpenBSD. Which is probably why not much has been said about them.
I don't know enough about the OpenBSD code to say who introduced the issues or why they got fixed now. But I don't think there is any sign that these issues came about from external factors or that this shifts what is normal for the OpenBSD project.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Linux Lite 4.8
Jerry Bezencon has announced the release of Linux Lite 4.8, a new stable version of the project's beginner-friendly distribution based on Ubuntu 18.04 and featuring the Xfce desktop: "Linux Lite 4.8 final is now available for download and installation. We would like to take this opportunity to welcome all Windows 7 people who have come here to find a simple, fast and free alternative to Windows 7 which has reached its end of life and no longer provides security updates. Linux Lite makes the transition to a Linux-based operating system by offering a full, Microsoft-compatible office suite, familiar software like Firefox, Chrome, Teamviewer, VLC as well as full system back-up tools, a comprehensive and easy-to-follow help manual to guide you on your journey, Steam so you can keep playing your Windows games and so much more familiar software. Our desktop is laid out just like it is in Windows with a Start Menu to the left and a tray to the right with volume, network and calendar options, with familiar desktop icons that take you exactly where you want to go on your system." Read the rest of the release announcement for further information and screenshots.
Linux Lite 4.8 -- Running the Xfce desktop
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Raspberry Slideshow 13.0
Raspberry Slideshow is focused on being a quick-to-set-up platform for displaying image and video files. The distribution is built for the Raspberry Pi exclusively. The distribution's latest release is Raspberry Slideshow 13.0 introduces some significant configuration changes, more logging options and the default media folder has been moved. The project's release announcement lists the latest changes: "New features for the v13 release: media.conf now replaces all the .txt files for configuring the system behaviour. It’s a breaking change; upon timeout reached, only remote changed sources’ media are fetched again (previously, all media of all remote sources were downloaded); Web/P images added to whitelisted images’ file formats; better logging and printer debugging output; refetching hashes improved and better handling of connection issues (Dropbox improved); USB device is unmounted as soon as media have been copied to the internal SD card for a safer USB key removal, idea thanks to Francois Audirac; default MEDIA_FOLDER moved to /var/lib/rs; the underlying operating system has been updated."
CentOS 8.1.1911
CentOS, which builds its distribution's packages from upstream sources provided by Red Hat Enterprise Linux, has published a new release, CentOS 8.1.1911. The new version is derived from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 source code. "Release for CentOS Linux 8 (1911): We are pleased to announce the general availability of CentOS Linux 8. Effectively immediately, this is the current release for CentOS Linux 8 and is tagged as 1911, derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 Source Code. As always, read through the Release Notes - these notes contain important information about the release and details about some of the content inside the release from the CentOS QA team. These notes are updated constantly to include issues and incorporate feedback from the users. This release supersedes all previously released content for CentOS Linux 8, and therefore we highly encourage all users to upgrade their machines." Further information was provided by Brian Stinson in the 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: 1,778
- Total data uploaded: 29.8TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Does it matter which init software your distribution uses?
In our Questions and Answers column we touched on the idea of some distributions not using systemd and some possible reasons why. Some people feel quite strongly about which init software their distribution uses while others are indifferent as long as the operating system boots properly. We would like to hear whether init software is a factor in which distribution you choose to run.
You can see the results of our previous poll on direct storage access in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Does init software choice matter?
| I do choose which distro I use based on init software: | 401 (19%) |
| The init software is one factor I consider: | 696 (32%) |
| I do not care which init software my distro uses: | 1025 (47%) |
| Other: | 39 (2%) |
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|
| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
Server upgrade
Last weekend we migrated from our old web server to a new machine. The old box was having some hardware trouble and we felt it was time to switch over to newer (and hopefully more reliable) equipment for the long-term health of this website.
The migration went smoothly for the most part and we were happy to complete the transition from the old server to the new one without experiencing any downtime.
Since we were getting a fresh start with the equipment and were not in a terrible rush to get it set up, it opened the opportunity to talk about which technologies we wanted to run on the new server. We are, after all, not immune to the siren song of distro-hopping and like to try out different approaches from time to time.
In the end, we decided to run FreeBSD on the new server, which offers some nice features such as filesystem snapshots, boot environments, the PF firewall, and long-term support. Previously we had been running Debian for the past twelve years and had a very good experience with the distribution. You can see more of the history of the operating systems running on the DistroWatch web server on our FAQ page.
* * * * *
Distributions added to waiting list
- Kaisen Linux. Kaisen Linux is a Debian-based distribution that aims to provide the maximum of tools necessary for troubleshooting, maintenance, as well as certain tools to diagnose and help in the administration of IT infrastructure.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 27 January 2020. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • 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 | 
Dizinha Linux
Dizinha Linux was a Brazilian Linux live CD based on Debian GNU/Linux and Kurumin Linux.
Status: Discontinued
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| Tips, Tricks, Q&As | | Questions and answers: File systems for solid state drives (SSDs) |
| Myths and misunderstandings: Wayland, Xorg and Mir |
| Tips and tricks: Basename, for loop, dirname, aliases, bash history, xsel clipboard |
| Tips and tricks: GRUB Customizer |
| Questions and answers: Kernel panics and filesystem changes |
| Questions and answers: Sending commands to multiple servers |
| Questions and answers: How slowly can can a rolling release upgrade? |
| Questions and answers: Running out of disk space and software back doors |
| Tips and tricks: Play nicely, drop secure shell sessions cleanly, check init's name |
| Tips and tricks: Using the Secure Shell |
| 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.
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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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