 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 851, 3 February 2020 |
Welcome to this year's 5th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
There are a lot of ways to approach getting more performance out of an operating system. Sometimes speed improvements can come from code optimizations, from streamlining features, or improving the way resources are handled. This week we begin with a look at KaOS, a distribution which takes a specific focus, aiming to work on one CPU with one specific set of software in an effort to offer a polished desktop experience and better performance. In our Opinion Poll we ask whether you like this focused approach in distributions or if you prefer a more general purpose operating system. Then, in our Tips and Tricks column, we talk about dealing with Linux slowing down when using swap space and a method for recovering the operating system when it is running out of memory. In our News section we report on work going into FreeBSD and, in particular, the project's Linux compatibility layer which allows FreeBSD to run some Linux software. We also cover Linux Mint's roadmap for new features and talk about WireGuard, a young VPN technology, being merged into the Linux kernel. Plus we are pleased to bring you the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: KaOS 2020.01
- News: Development updates from the FreeBSD team, Linux Mint plans new features and LMDE4, Linux kernel to include WireGuard
- Tips and tricks: Dealing with low-memory performance
- Released last week: Kali Linux 2020.1, FreeNAS 11.3, OLPC OS 13.2.11
- Torrent corner: Arch, DuZeru, ExTiX, FreeNAS, Kali Linux, Nitrux, OLPC OS, OpenMandriva, OPNsense
- Upcoming releases: Ubuntu 18.04.4
- Opinion poll: Single focus versus general purpose distributions
- New distributions: TAZ
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (17MB) and MP3 (13MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
KaOS 2020.01
KaOS is a rolling release distribution whose team chooses to focus on one CPU architecture (x86_64), one desktop environment (KDE Plasma) and one application toolkit (Qt). The project publishes regular, monthly snapshots of the distribution. The January snapshot featured a few interesting changes. In particular, the distribution now features signed kernel modules for added security and supports installing non-free NVIDIA video drivers during the install process if an NVIDIA card is detected. KaOS has also replaced the Calligra productivity suite with LibreOffice.
The latest snapshot is a 2.1GB download. Booting from the project's media brings up a menu offering to start a live desktop environment, start the desktop with non-free NVIDIA drivers, or run a hardware detection tool. When the system boots, the KDE Plasma desktop loads and displays a welcome screen. This window provides quick access to the system installer, a list of available packages, and links to the distribution's forum and install guide. The provided documentation seemed clear to me and includes screenshots to guide new users in setting up the distribution. The welcome screen also features a second tab which provides the default usernames and passwords for the live media.
KaOS may be unique in the way it sets up Plasma. The desktop places the panel vertically down the right-hand side of the screen. The application menu is located in the upper-right corner and the system tray at the bottom-right. In the middle are a few quick-launch icons and the task switcher. It makes for a fairly busy panel by default, especially when notifications, the update indicator, and network connection icon are all trying to grab the user's attention.
KaOS 2020.01 -- Running the Falkon web browser and the Dolphin file manager
(full image size: 501kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Installing
KaOS uses the Calamares graphical installer to get the distribution up and running. Calamares does a nice job of walking us through picking our time zone from a map, picking our keyboard layout, and creating a new user account. Calamares will also show us the distribution's release notes and can walk us through guided or manual partitioning. I went with the manual option which is quite flexible and supports a great range of filesystems, including ext2/3/4, JFS, and Btrfs. The installer suggests XFS as the default. I switched this to Btrfs and it worked well for me.
Once the installer finishes setting up the distribution on the hard drive it offers to reboot the computer. In my test runs, Calamares crashed as it was closing, producing an error report. This did not impact my ability to boot the installed system, but it was an unfortunate part of my first impression of the distribution.
Early impressions
Booting into my fresh copy of KaOS brought up a graphical login screen. We have the option of choosing between a "Plasma" session (running on X.Org) and a "Plasma Wayland" session. The X.Org session is the default. The login screen features a mostly white and grey background and white text. This caused some problems. For example, it was impossible for me to read the time and almost impossible to see the session options because the text and the background are the same colour in places. This seems like an obvious oversight, or the result of the KaOS team all having monitors of a resolution where the wallpaper and elements line up differently than they do on my screens.
KaOS 2020.01 -- The login screen
(full image size: 244kB, resolution: 1232x945 pixels)
I tried both the X.Org session and the Plasma on Wayland session. The Wayland session was, for all practical purposes, unusable. The desktop would load, but the screen resolution was unusually low, making it hard to see most desktop components and the mouse pointer did not work. The X.Org session worked as expected and, with the exception of some settings issues I will mention later, the desktop ran smoothly.
Once we get signed into the desktop a welcome screen appears. This is a different welcome screen than we saw during the live session. This one includes several tabs full of buttons that launch settings modules and other tools. The first tab mostly includes general desktop settings such as themes, widget styles, colours, and mouse behaviour. The second tab deals with wallpaper. One tab includes links to documentation, user forums, and alternative (ie newer) kernels. The documentation includes tips on posting support questions with system reports that will help developers assist users who are having trouble.
One tab in the welcome window is called Advanced and it handles user accounts, systemd settings and network management. Then there are two tabs providing a general overview of the distribution's philosophy and news updates such as new releases.
KaOS 2020.01 -- The welcome window
(full image size: 287kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Hardware
I started out trying KaOS in a VirtualBox environment. The distribution mostly ran well and integrated into the virtual machine automatically. Desktop performance was slow at first, however I was able to improve the experience by disabling compositing, file search and some visual effects. After that Plasma provided average performance in the virtual machine. When I switched over to running KaOS on physical hardware the experience was better. Plasma was much more responsive and applications opened quickly. The distribution correctly handled my screen resolution, wireless card, and audio worked out of the box. KaOS supported running in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes.
The distribution is heavier than most. A fresh install of KaOS took up 7.3GB of disk space and signing into Plasma consumed at least 715MB of RAM. This is more than most desktop distributions I have run lately and over 40% heavier than the last distribution (SolydXK) I ran with KDE Plasma.
Software management
When new software updates are available we can click on a red icon in the system tray which opens a simple, graphical update manager. This utility will list new packages it knows about and we can update all available packages in a batch. The update manager seems to only support an all-or-nothing approach to installing updates. Though only one small update was listed the first day I was using KaOS, 179 new packages were downloaded (total size unknown). I think this gap between what was reported and what was downloaded came from the package manager not refreshing its repository data before I clicked the update icon. The updates all installed without any problems.
KaOS 2020.01 -- Installing software with Octopi
(full image size: 284kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
KaOS ships with a graphical package manager called Octopi. The Octopi window lists packages on the left and categories of software on the right. There is a search bar at the top of the window. Near the bottom of the Octopi window is an information area which can display details of selected packages and status information during operations.
Octopi can handle installing, removing, and upgrading software. I only used it for installing and deleting software and it worked well in both situations. I'm not a big fan of Octopi as I find its approach to searching and filtering packages a bit cumbersome. However, it is functional and, thanks to the underlying pacman package manager, it is fast too.
One handy tool Octopi includes is the ability to collect information about the operating system and dump it into one big text file in our home directory. This information gathered includes package data, some logs, and statistics that may help other users or developers identify and fix problems. The project's documentation mentions we can attach this text file to requests for assistance to provide a better picture of the operating system for others to see. The information seems to be pretty general and, when I went through it, none of it seemed specifically identifying so it should be safe to post on user forums when asking for help.
KaOS 2020.01 -- Getting system information through Octopi
(full image size: 229kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Applications
The distribution ships with a relatively small collection of desktop software, with applications coming from the KDE/Qt family of software. The Falkon web browser is included along with the Quassel IRC client, and LibreOffice. The Okular document viewer is available along with the KDE Connect software for interacting with Android phones. I found the Dolphin file manager and Krita drawing program included. To manage the look and feel of the desktop the KDE System Settings panel is available and it contains more features, switches, and options than I'd care to try to count.
KaOS ships with the K3b disc burning software, the Kamoso web cam utility, and a few multimedia applications. The mpv, SMPlayer, and SMTube applications are installed for us along with a full range of media codecs for playing audio and video files. We are also treated to the Marble virtual globe and KDE's useful Help documentation.
KaOS 2020.01 -- The KDE System Settings panel
(full image size: 233kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
There is a short-cut for Skype which simply opens a web browser to display the Skype website. Digging a little deeper we find the GNU Compiler Collection, the systemd init software, and version 5.4 of the Linux kernel.
While the included applications are mostly in the KDE/Qt family, there are alternatives available through the distribution's repositories. I was able to easily install the Firefox web browser, for example, and there are often alternatives to the default programs.
Other observations
While I was playing with KaOS I made a handful of observations about using the distribution, mostly with regards to little quirks or features that kept catching my attention. The most obvious one was the way in which the update notification icon in the system tray turns red and pulses when new software packages become available. I found this unusually distracting and a feature I wanted to remove right away. It is probably helpful for people who always want to install every update immediately, but I don't want to interrupt my work every time a new package enters the queue and having a throbbing red icon on the screen is something I find hard to ignore.
While I was using the live desktop session, opening the Falkon web browser would cause repeated prompts for a wallet password. (Four prompts appeared in succession if they were dismissed.) These prompts did not appear when I was running KaOS from my hard drive.
Once I tried to change the Plasma desktop's screen orientation, just to see if it would work upside down. Not only did Plasma immediately stop responding once its picture was flipped, but the next day I signed in to find my desktop had rotated again (this time 90 degrees) and the environment was non-responsive. The cure for this ailment was to sign into a text console, delete my .kde directory and then sign back into the desktop session.
The Wayland session did not work in any practical way in VirtualBox. While Wayland can function on physical hardware, it always felt a little stiff, as though the desktop was responding a little after I provided input. While in VirtualBox, screen resolution was severely limited and the mouse pointed did not work. The keyboard did response, but using the Wayland session was not practical.
KaOS ships with a number of shell aliases built in. Personally I don't like these and tend to remove them as the flags added to the aliased commands can cause errors or unexpected behaviour when mixed with the flags I typically use. I suspect these aliases are intended to be time saving devices, but for someone like me who is accustomed to using few or no aliases, they trip me up.
There is a neat feature built into Plasma that I quite like which allows the user to individually configure how specific applications display notifications. This on its own is helpful. What makes it even better is individual programs can be told to override the desktop's Do Not Disturb feature. In effect this means we can silence most applications' notices (like e-mail, updates, and network connectivity) while keeping notifications from the media keys and screen brightness enabled. This is a feature Robert Rijkhoff mentioned wanting to experience during his review of Zorin OS earlier this year.
Conclusions
I tend to have mixed feelings when I dive into a new snapshot of KaOS. On the one hand I appreciate it when developers have a vision for their distribution. I like it when a small team like the one behind Linux Mint or Void seems to have a clear idea of what they want to accomplish and focus on that without getting bogged down trying to make something that tries to appeal to everyone and ends up getting spread too thin. A focused project tends to have a sense of polish about it and a clear approach to doing things.
On the other hand, I tend to find distributions which aim for software or toolkit purity (for example, only shipping Qt-based or GTK-based software) impractical. There are lots of programs in the GTK camp that work very well and lots in the Qt camp that work beautifully. Ignoring some of the best tools the open source community has to offer, on either side, simply means I'm going to spend more of my time hunting down the utilities I feel are the best ones for the job.
All of that is to say that I appreciate what the developers are doing, but it's not necessarily an approach I want to use. Which means, for the sake of this trial, I was trying to focus more on whether KaOS did a good job at what it was trying to do (focus on one desktop, toolkit and architecture) rather than whether I liked it.
For the most part I think KaOS does a good job. It took me a while to get used to having the login options, panel, application menu, and window buttons on the right side. But once I shifted to this way of doing things, I had to admit it was more efficient than the defaults most distributions use. I'm used to having everything on the left, but it's probably equally helpful to group everything on the right.
The Plasma desktop did a good job for the most part, especially when running on physical hardware. At least it did in the X.Org session, the Wayland session still is not practical in my test environments.
I really like the welcome window, most of the default applications, and the Calamares installer. My only consistent issue tended to be with visuals. Specifically the pulsing red update notification icon and the way the login screen hid the date and the session options. White text on a white background is not a good combination, visually.
Otherwise, I think KaOS did a pretty good job at delivering a solid experience. Some of the default applications were not to my taste and the distribution is surprisingly heavy in memory, but the performance was still solid. There were a handful of bugs or little issues that annoyed me, but it was possible to work around them all. KaOS may not be my cup of tea, exactly, but I can see it would have strong appeal if you are a fan of the Plasma desktop and rolling release distributions.
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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, Ralink RT5390R PCIe Wireless card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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Visitor supplied rating
KaOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 5.5/10 from 24 review(s).
Have you used KaOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Development updates from the FreeBSD team, Linux Mint plans new features and LMDE4, Linux kernel to include WireGuard
The FreeBSD project has published a new Quarterly Status Update detailing the project's progress over the past three months. The FreeBSD team has done a lot of work to improve driver support, particularly for newer Intel wireless cards, and refreshed ports. One key feature that received attention was the Linux compatibility layer, which allows FreeBSD to run some Linux programs: "There was a fair number of all kinds of improvements to the layer, ranging from updated linux(4) man page, to a new linux rc script, which now takes care of eg mounting Linux-specific filesystems or setting ELF fallback brand, to new syscalls, to tiny improvements such as making ^T work for Linux binaries. From the user point of view, when running 13-CURRENT, Linux jails are now in a mostly working state: you can SSH into a jail with CentOS 8 binaries, run screen(1), Emacs, Postgres, OpenJDK 11, use 'yum upgrade'... Of course there's still a bunch of things that need work." The report has many more details on the work going into FreeBSD.
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The Linux Mint team is currently looking forward to releasing new versions of the project's Debian- and Ubuntu-based editions. The fourth version of the Debian branch will be released first and contains many improvements and bug fixes. Some of the key points deal with Btrfs support and NVIDIA video drivers. "LMDE 4 will be released first. It will feature all the improvements we shipped with Linux Mint 19.3 (HDT, boot-repair, system reports, language settings, HiDPI and artwork improvements, new boot menus, Celluloid, Gnote, Drawing, Cinnamon 4.4, XApp status icons etc) on top of an improved Debian 10 package base. Some of the features which were missing in LMDE 3 were also ported from Linux Mint. The installer was given a better look and the same slideshow as in ubiquity: It also now supports Btrfs submodules and home directory encryption. Like every new release, LMDE 4 is an opportunity to try new things. We've had issues with Nouveau (the open-source driver) compatibility on some NVIDIA cards for a while now. In most cases people had to use nomodeset, but when Nouveau didn't recognize the chipset at all, they were left with no graphical display. In LMDE 4 we're adding a new entry in the boot menu which installs the NVIDIA drivers on the fly, so both the live session and the installed OS work out of the box." More information on the upcoming releases can be found in the distribution's newsletter.
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A recent change to the Linux kernel that will likely affect most distributions in the near future is the inclusion of WireGuard. WireGuard is a VPN technology which aims to be smaller, faster, easy to set up, and more secure than competing VPN technologies like OpenVPN. Arstechnica reports that WireGuard has been merged into the kernel by Linus Torvalds and should be present when Linux 5.6 is released. The site also has an overview of what it is like to use WireGuard on Linux: "These are still early days for WireGuard, but right now, it looks like it's probably the most secure and reliable option out there. WireGuard might also be the fastest - it operates entirely in kernel space, unlike OpenVPN, which has to context-switch in and out from kernel to userspace rapidly. But I haven't really been able to confirm that; I saw much better speedtests from WireGuard on a very starved LTE connection from my local public library, but I saw OpenVPN holding its own or even outrunning it on a much faster wi-fi connection at the house later."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
Dealing with low-memory performance
When an operating system runs out of room in its memory for applications, it will try to shove inactive programs and their data out to the disk. In the GNU/Linux and BSD families of operating systems this disk-based storage is called swap space. Using swap space effectively gives the computer a lot more memory, in theory, because it means once RAM is full we can continue to run more programs. However, there is a sharp performance penalty. Moving data back and forth from the disk is slow and this means juggling programs in and out of swap space will greatly reduce the performance of the computer.
What is worse is when swap space begins to fill up too. Generally operating systems do not want to kill off running programs and so they will allow software to consume more and more resources, consuming RAM and swap space until there is virtually no room left. When this happens the computer effectively becomes unresponsive and usually needs to be rebooted in order to restore normal functionality.
Linux is notorious for letting memory consumption get out of control and will attempt to continue to move information in and out of swap space until the system is effectively frozen. In short, individual programs are kept alive, but at the expense of bringing the whole operating system to its knees.
In early January we reported on a plan Fedora developers have for dealing with this situation. The Fedora proposal uses a tool called Early OOM which will monitor how much memory and swap space have been consumed and attempt to kill off overly heavy processes before the system becomes entirely unresponsive. This means if a big application, like a web browser, gobbles up too much RAM, it can be terminated before the desktop is no longer usable. The system will still slow down, but should recover.
Early OOM is not a new piece of technology, it has been around for a while, helping users and administrators keep their systems from slowing to a crawl. However, most distributions do not install Early OOM by default, leaving the user to experience the kernel's default behaviour. The reason I'm talking about Early OOM today is I feel many people could benefit from this program, not just Fedora users who will likely have it running by default in the near future.
Apart from monitoring the system's memory consumption and killing off greedy processes, Early OOM has a few handy features. One is that we can set the percentage of RAM and swap that can be consumed before Early OOM begins reaping processes. Maybe we want swap to be nearly full before we kill off processes, hoping they will sort themselves out on their own. Or maybe we want to terminate programs if only 10% of swap is consumed, in order to enjoy maximum performance. Early OOM will let us make these adjustments.
One of the bigger concerns when using a program to kill off applications is the worry that something we really want to keep running will be terminated when we would prefer another, perhaps less heavy, program to be closed instead. Early OOM will help us with this. We can specify programs we would prefer to have killed off and programs we would prefer to have remain in memory. This gives us a layer of protection against having a useful program suddenly disappear.
A final interesting option is the ability to tell us, through a desktop notification, when a process is being terminated to free up memory. This can be useful if we are running background processes and want to know when one of them is being killed. Or if we just want to have a visible notification that Early OOM is working.
These and other features of Early OOM are covered in detail in the project's manual page. I definitely recommend exploring it if you are running a system that occasionally runs low on memory and becomes unresponsive as a result.
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Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Kali Linux 2020.1
Kali Linux is a Debian-based distribution with a collection of security and forensics tools. The project has started off the 2020 year with a new release and a series of significant changes. The new version, 2020.1, of Kali Linux merges the various desktop editions into single download options and does away with running as the root user by default. "Throughout the history of Kali (and its predecessors BackTrack, WHAX, and Whoppix), the default credentials have been root/toor. This is no more. We are no longer using the superuser account, root, as default in Kali 2020.1. The default user account is now a standard, unprivileged, user. For more of the reasons behind this switch, please see our previous blog post. As you can imagine, this is a very large change, with years of history behind it. As a result, if you notice any issues with this, please do let us know on the bug tracker. So with this, should you use Kali as your daily driver, as the primary OS? It's up to you. There wasn't anything really stopping you before, we just don't encourage it. We still don't. But its a helping hand for the people who are familiar with Kali enough."
FreeNAS 11.3
Joon Lee has announced the release of FreeNAS 11.3, an updated build of the project's FreeBSD-based operating system for computers used as Network-Attached Storage (NAS) devices: "We are pleased to announce the general availability of FreeNAS 11.3-RELEASE. The 11.3 series represents a year-long development effort and brings with it a wide variety of improvements and fixes. FreeNAS 11.3 includes many new features and improvements, with the following highlights: re-implemented Replication Engine, allows up to 10GB replication speeds (a 10x improvement), resume support on failed transfers, as well as ability to replicate locally; ACL Manager - allows setup and management of SMB ACL's directly via the FreeNAS web interface; SMB Shadow Copies are now enabled by default for new shares - note that Snapshots will only show up in Windows 'Previous Versions Tab' if the snapshot USED size shows changes to the file; a repository of Community plugins has been created, users can now create and distribute 3rd party plugins which are not officially iXsystems supported." Read the press release and the release notes for more information and screenshots.
OLPC OS 13.2.11
James Cameron has announced the release of OLPC OS 13.2.11, the latest stable version of the project's specialist distribution developed for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project which aims to provide children in developing countries with low-cost Linux laptops. The new version continues to be based on Fedora 18: "We're pleased to announce the release of OLPC OS 13.2.11 for XO-1, XO-1.5, XO-1.75 and XO-4. Fixes: Browse 157.5 - hide browser tabs in fullscreen mode, reset title after a download starts, ignore leading spaces in a URL, add dark mode for PDFs, new translations, fixed collaboration; Calculate 45.1 - reduce lower limit of number of digits shown, add non-Arabic numerals depending on locale, fix unsupported operand type(s) error, adjust font sizes depending on org.sugarlabs.font, change to TelepathyGLib API for collaboration, new translations; Chat 85.1 - advise of connection in progress, search chat text feature, fix emoji menu horizontal overflow, dismiss emoji menu on escape key, decrease startup time by delaying emoji menu construction, fix log warning on entry focus, change to TelepathyGLib API for collaboration...." See the release announcement and release notes for more details.
OPNsense 20.1
Jos Schellevis has announced the release of OPNsense 20.1, which carries the code name "Keen Kingfisher". OPNsense is a HardenedBSD-based specialist operating system (and a fork of pfSense) designed for firewalls and routers. The project's latest introduces a number of security improvements and updates the default Python version to 3.7. "20.1, nicknamed "Keen Kingfisher", is a subtle improvement on sustainable firewall experience. This release adds VXLAN and additional loopback device support, IPsec public key authentication and elliptic curve TLS certificate creation amongst others. Third party software has been updated to their latest versions. The logging front-end was rewritten for MVC with seamless API support. On the far side the documentation increased in quality as well as quantity and now presents itself in a familiar menu layout." Additional details, along with a list of changes and known issues, can be found in the project's release announcement.
OPNsense 20.1
(full image size: 2.1MB, resolution: 1919x1298 pixels)
OpenMandriva Lx 4.1
The final build of OpenMandriva Lx 4.1, a cutting-edge, desktop-oriented Linux distribution featuring KDE Plasma, is now available. The new release brings Linux kernel 5.5, Plasma 5.17.5 and LibreOffice 6.4.0, among many other updates and improvements: "OpenMandriva Lx 4.0 turned out to be a great one but... we made it better. A few days after the release candidate, we are very proud to introduce the OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 final release. The release includes: Linux kernel 5.5, Qt Framework 5.14.1, KDE Plasma Desktop 5.17.5, KDE Frameworks 5.66.0, KDE Applications 19.12.1, LLVM/clang 9.0.1, systemd 244, Java 13, Calamares 3.2.17, LibreOffice 6.4.0.... OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 now supports package compression in zstd instead of xz. FFmpeg supports av1 decoding via dav1d and nvdec/nvenc for NVIDIA GPU. And Chromium now includes VAAPI (hardware decoding video h264/vp9) support." Read the release announcement for more details and screenshots. OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 images are available in four variants, including "znver1" (optimised for the current range AMD processors) and "clang" (the Linux kernel is compiled with Clang instead of GCC).
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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: 1,801
- Total data uploaded: 30.0TB
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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) |
Single focus versus general purpose distributions
In our review of KaOS this week we talked about how KaOS takes a narrow focus, choosing to work on one CPU architecture (x86_64), with one toolkit (Qt), and one desktop (KDE Plasma). Other distributions, particularly Debian, take a general purpose approach, working on multiple CPUs, with multiple toolkits, and supporting multiple desktops. We would like to hear if you have a preference for one approach over the other? Do you want a distribution that runs anywhere with a wide range of configurations, or a distribution that focuses on doing one thing?
You can see the results of our previous poll on purchasing computers with official ties to a distribution in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Single focus versus general purpose distributions
| I prefer a general purpose distro: | 1028 (60%) |
| I prefer a single focus distro: | 191 (11%) |
| I prefer a middle ground between these two: | 297 (17%) |
| I have no preference: | 196 (11%) |
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
Distributions added to waiting list
- TAZ. TAZ is a Gentoo-based live DVD/USB distribution which can run on 32-bit and 64-bit computers. TAZ can be loaded into and run from RAM at boot time.
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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, 10 February 2020. 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 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 |
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Armbian
Armbian is a Linux distribution designed for ARM development boards. It is usually based on one of the stable or development versions of Debian or Ubuntu and it supports a wide variety of popular ARM-based devices, including Banana Pi, Cubieboard, Olimex, Orange Pi, Odroid, Pine64 and others. Armbian includes a menu-driven configuration tool along with stock Debian utilities, the Bash shell, and a choice of Cinnamon or Xfce desktop.
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View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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