 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 868, 1 June 2020 |
|
Welcome to this year's 22nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The longer a computer is used the more data it accumulates. Downloads, e-mails, photos, and documents gradually fill up each user's home directory and, eventually, additional storage space is required to hold it all. This week we explore how to migrate users' home directories to a new device or partition in our Questions and Answers column. Do you keep your home directories on their own partition or merge it with the operating system's partitions? Let us know in our Opinion Poll. First though we kick off the week with a look at two projects: AutoTux and Kaisen Linux. The AutoTux project creates a Debian-based distribution which automated as much of the install process as possible. Kaisen is also based on Debian, but offers a different approach and focuses on providing system administration tools for detecting and fixing problems. Read on to learn more about these two distributions in our Feature Story. In our News section we talk about progressive updates coming to Snap packages and UBports now shipping pre-installed on the PinePhone. Plus we report on Fedora 30 reaching the end of its supported life cycle. We are also pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: AutoTux 2.0 and Kaisen Linux 20200307
- News: Snap gets progressive releases, UBports now shipping on the PinePhone, Fedora 30 reaches its EOL date
- Questions and answers: Moving the /home directory to another partition
- Released last week: Kodachi Linux 7.0, BlackArch Linux 2020.06.01, Alpine Linux 3.12.0
- Torrent corner: Alpine, AUSTRUMI, Bee free, BlackArch, Container, EasyOS, Kodachi, KDE neon, Lite, Linuxfx, Nitrux, Ultimate Edition, Volumio
- Upcoming releases: Tails 4.7
- Opinion poll: Keeping root and /home together or separate
- Website news: Major Distributions page updated with German translation
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (19MB) and MP3 (14MB) formats.
|
| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
AutoTux 2.0
One of the most difficult barriers to overcome when migrating to a new operating system is getting it installed. There are time zones to select, disks to partition, and user accounts to set up. It can be a daunting task for inexperienced users and even computer veterans can face challenges getting a distribution installed.
AutoTux is a Debian-based distribution which attempts to address these challenges. AutoTux claims to automate almost the entire install process. We simply download the project's ISO file, transfer it to an optical disc or USB thumb drive, and boot from it. The distribution is supposed to then take over, installing itself on the computer without further intervention. Afterwards we should have a copy of Debian 10 running the Xfce desktop.
I downloaded AutoTux 2.0 which is available as a 2.5GB ISO file. We are told on the project's front page that our default login credentials will be the username "tux" with password "tux". I downloaded the ISO file, transferred it to a USB stick and plugged it in to see what would happen.
What happens is we are presented with a text screen. At the top of the page is a banner which indicates the Fully Automatic Installation (FAI) is running. Below we are shown status information as the disk is partitioned, packages are checked, and the system is configured. The process is, as the name suggests, entirely automatic. We are not prompted at all, there is no confirmation before the installer goes to work. This is what the distribution is designed to do, but I want to underline the point once more: do not put the AutoTux media in a computer that has information on it you want to keep; the hard drive will be wiped and the partitions replaced.
When it is finished we are asked to press Enter to reboot the computer without removing the media.
When the computer reboots the status messages scroll by very quickly. It's hard to tell at first if additional configuration steps are taking place or if the install is happening over again. There is no indication of which step we are on or progress indicator, apart from the steady march of package management messages on the screen. After a while it became clear the install was happening over again from scratch as familiar messages started to scroll by. I'm not sure why we are told to not remove the install media before rebooting when leaving it in just causes OS to be re-installed each time the computer restarts.
The second time through, I ignored the request to keep the disc in my computer and ejected it before restarting the machine. This time the distribution booted to a graphical login screen. We can then sign into a default account using the username and password "tux".
AutoTux 2.0 -- Exploring the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The default desktop environment is Xfce and it is presented with a thin panel placed across the top of the display. There is an application menu in the upper-left corner of the screen and a system tray in the upper-right corner. There is a dock at the bottom of the display with launchers for commonly used applications. Icons on the desktop can be used to access the file manager. The default theme and icon style result in desktop that somewhat resembles macOS.
A fresh login uses about 250MB of RAM and AutoTux consumes about 8GB of disk space, installed on an ext4 filesystem. The system also sets up swap space, about 3GB worth in my case.
For all practical purposes the operating system is Debian 10. The boot menu and software builds all identify the system as being Debian. The packages mostly appear to be pulled from Debian's Stable repositories. There is quite a large collection of software included for us to try. We are treated to the Firefox web browser and the Chrome browser. TeamViewer, FileZilla, and qBittorrent are all included. There are some other popular applications such as LibreOffice, the Atril document viewer, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, FreeCAD, and Inkscape.
There were a few surprises too, including DOSBox for playing old DOS games, the Parole and Quod Libet media players, and a series of development tools, including BlueJ and Brackets. Rounding out the selection we find VirtualBox, the Thunar file manager, the Synaptic package manager, and the GNU Compiler Collection. I also found Java is installed for us. In the background we find systemd's init software and version 4.19 of the Linux kernel. It is quite a varied group of software and I suspect the development team has tried to provide a little bit of something for everyone.
The included software generally worked as expected, though I found Synaptic couldn't be launched from the application menu. Synaptic prompts for the root password, which is not set by default. We need to either open a terminal and launch Synaptic with administrator access or set a password on the root account in order to operate the venerable package manager.
Conclusions
Once AutoTux is up and running it is very close to running Debian 10 with Xfce installed and a macOS-style theme in place. The key feature of the distribution is less about what we end up with and more about how we get there. In other words, the focus of the project is the install process and I feel that is what we should look at when evaluating its merit.
To its credit, AutoTux does what it claims to do. It almost entirely automates the install process. We transfer the ISO file to removable media, boot from it and the installer is entirely automated. All we need to do is remove the disc at the end and press Enter to restart the computer. It really does not get much more streamlined than that. In the end, we end up with a solid, Debian-based install with a wide array of default applications that should allow most people to get straight to work. This is a fast way to get up and running with a general purpose operating system.
I have just two concerns when it comes to AutoTux. The first is the message we are shown when the install is over which asks the user to leave the install media in the machine when pressing Enter to reboot. Following this direction results in an endless loop of the system being installed over and over. It may seem like a small detail, but when a project's install process is just two manual steps, having one of them include a misleading prompt is an unfortunate oversight.
The other concern I have is AutoTux is very streamlined. It does exactly what it sets out to do: provide a fully automated install. We just put in the disc and it goes to work. Which is efficient and technically well executed. My concern is that it means if someone boots from the install media not knowing what is on it (say when revisiting a collection of distributions on old USB thumb drives), AutoTux will immediately wipe their hard drive without warning. In my opinion it is really not a good idea to have unprompted destructive behaviour built into software.
In other words, AutoTux does what it claims to do, but I question whether doing it so well is really a good thing? I personally don't want to have DVDs and thumb drives laying around my home or office that, if booted from, will immediately wipe the computer without a prompt asking "Are you sure?" Yes, it is a powerful, useful tool in some situations, but it is also one which should probably be placed in a box with a big warning label on the cover.
* * * * *
Kaisen Linux 20200307
Kaisen Linux is a rescue system based on the Debian GNU/Linux distribution. It is a complete operating system whose originality is to provide a set of tools dedicated to system administration and covering all the needs for diagnosing and dealing with faults or failures of an installed system and its components.
Kaisen Linux is available for 64-bit (x86_64) computers exclusively. The sole ISO available for download is 3.3GB in size. Booting from the distribution's media offers us three main options: booting with French language support, booting with English support, and installing the operating system. The install option lets us launch either the text-based or graphical versions of the Debian installer. Kaisen is a rescue distribution and probably not something people are going to install, but the option is there if we want to use it.
Taking the live desktop option loads the MATE 1.20 desktop. The desktop features two panels. One panel is placed along the top edge of the screen and provides access to the Applications, Places, and System menus. There is also a system tray located in the upper-right corner of the display. The second panel rests at the bottom of the screen and provides us with a task switcher. There is a Conky status panel on the desktop along with icons for launching the file manager, a terminal, and the Firefox browser.
Like AutoTux, Kaisen is based on Debian 10 "Buster", but with some more up to date packages. For instance, Kaisen's kernel (Linux 5.4) appears to be pulled from Debian's Testing branch.
Applications
Kaisen's application menu is split into two parts. One is called "User applications" and contains the typical MATE menu with its own sub-categories of software and launchers. Here we can find the Firefox web browser, LibreOffice, an image viewer, terminal, and file manager.
Kaisen Linux 20200307 -- Exploring the Kaisen application menu
(full image size: 361kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The second section of the Applications menu is called "Kaisen Linux" and it is further divided into three sub-sections: "Services", "Tools for administrators", and "Tools for technicians". The Services sub-menu contains categories all named after services, such as NTP, SSH, CUPS, and so on. Inside each service name sub-menu are launchers to enable or disable the given service. This means we can start the Clam anti-virus software by clicking on the Applications menu, going to Kaisen Linux, then Services, then Clam, then selecting the Enable launcher. Some of these launchers work and some did not. For instance, the secure shell (SSH) service could not be enabled through this menu, the service failed to start when the launcher was clicked. The CUPS printing service could be enabled, but there was no graphical printer configuration tool to use it, making the service somewhat moot. On the other hand other services, including ClamAV, did run and function.
The tools in the other two sub-menus, the ones for technicians and administrators, are mostly launchers for command line utilities which will run in a new virtual terminal window. This typically means when we click a tool, like du, a terminal opens, runs the command without parameters and this results in an error message being printed in the window, followed by a command prompt.
There are some graphical tools and a few text-menu-driven tools. Graphical tools include the ClamAV front-end, along with FileZilla and gFTP for transferring files. There are some text-menu-based tools like Clonezilla too, but most launchers are for command line programs. One tool which was conspicuous by its absence was GParted, the partition manager. It is a useful and commonly used tool, yet it was not included among the links to tcpdump, dd, and gpart.
Conclusions
Kaisen has a few good things going for it. The distribution includes a lot of useful tools which would certainly be helpful when repairing, restoring or recovering a damaged operating system. There are lots of utilities which an experienced administrator could use to check for viruses, repair the boot loader, or image the system. Having the multi-level application menu, while it takes a while to drill down through, is well organized and makes it easy to find the specific tool we need.
There are, as I see it, two problems with Kaisen which make me reluctant to use it as my day-to-day recovery tool. One is that, while it includes a lot of useful tools, it doesn't include many more than any other mainstream live distribution does these days. I can typically get by using something like Linux Mint to recover files, re-install the boot loader or image a drive. I'm not sure that I need a whole other, larger distribution just for the few extra tools it includes. In some cases there may be extra items I want, but it is rare a live disc doesn't include enough basics to get the job done.
My other issue is Kaisen was oddly slow to respond. MATE is typically a snappy desktop in my test environments and Debian has a well-deserved reputation for performance, but the combination of services and configuration Kaisen ships with slow it down noticeably.
In the end, I think if you know you need a specific tool Kaisen ships, or if you do a lot of on-site recovery and repair, then this distribution is a good option. However, if you only need to do minor repair work, restore a few files, or image a drive, then most mainstream Linux distributions will provide the same tools in a smaller package.
|
| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Snap gets progressive releases, UBports now shipping on the PinePhone, Fedora 30 reaches its EOL date
Canonical is rolling out a new feature to Snap package developers that should soon land in Ubuntu and other distributions supporting Snap. The new feature is called progressive releases and it allows creators of Snap packages to publish updates to their packages which will be deployed to a limited number of users. This allows developers to try out new changes with a percentage of their user base. "The idea behind progressive releases is to allow an incremental portion of the total pool of users of a particular snap to receive the update over time. The developer can increase the percentage as they gain confidence that the particular version is working as expected. In particular, this can be quite effective when testing prospective releases for snaps with large install bases." This approach will be in contrast to the traditional package management approach where all users would get instant access to changes as soon as their package repositories were updated by the developer.
* * * * *
The UBports team has announced that PinePhone mobile devices will begin shipping with UBports optionally pre-installed on Monday, June 1st. "The PinePhone UBports 'Community Edition' starts shipping on Monday. We are very pleased to announce that between 4,000 to 4,500 will be shipped! CE labelling has been fixed now so hopefully Customs services in Germany will be fine with it. There will likely be a big OS update for you as soon as you get it. Some prominent YouTubers and commentators will be getting theirs, so we await their opinions with interest."
* * * * *
The Fedora team has announced that Fedora 30 has reached the end of its supported life and will receive no more security updates. Users are advised to upgrade to version 31 or 32 if they have not already done so. "As of the 26th of May 2020, Fedora 30 has reached its end of life for updates and support. No further updates, including security updates, will be available for Fedora 30. Fedora 31 will continue to receive updates until approximately one month after the release of Fedora 33. The maintenance schedule of Fedora releases is documented on the Fedora
Project wiki."
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
|
| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Moving the /home directory to another partition
Moving to a new home asks: I got a second drive for my computer and want to move my home directory over to a partition on the new drive. Is there a way to move an entire partition? Can I just copy everything over or do I need to do something special to move my /home? Any pointers would be welcome.
DistroWatch answers: Migrating your existing /home filesystem to a new drive is basically a four-step process:
- Create a partition on the new drive and format the new partition with a suitable filesystem.
- Mount the new partition.
- Copy all of the data from your existing /home to the new location.
- Update your operating system's /etc/fstab file to make sure your /home directory is associated with the new partition.
I will walk through the steps to perform the above four tasks. Each person's computer may use different partition names and you may wish to use a different filesystem for your new disk. For the purposes of this example I am going to assume your new disk has been assigned the name /dev/sdb and you want to use the popular ext4 filesystem for your new /home partition.
In the following example commands virtually every command used will need to be run with administrator (root) access. You can accomplish this on most Linux distributions by either running commands as the root user directly or by prefixing each command with "sudo", for example running the mount command as "sudo mount".
Step one, we need to create a partition on the new drive. You can most easily accomplish this using a friendly partition manager such as GParted. In GParted, select your new disk, /dev/sdb for the purposes of our example, in the drop-down list on the right. Then go to the Device menu and select "Create partition table". This will wipe existing partition data from the disk so double-check you are working with the right disk.
Once the disk has been set up with a fresh partition table, click on the Partition menu and select New. A menu will pop up giving you a chance to select the size of the partition in megabytes and the type of the partition. First we will concern ourselves with the size field. When in doubt, for now, we can use the default which should be to use all the available space. In the filesystem field we will select ext4.
Once GParted has finished setting up the partition it should appear in the graphical representation of the disk at the top of the GParted window. The new partition will likely be assigned a name such as /dev/sdb1, indicating it is the first partition (1) on the second (b) drive.
The next thing we need to do is access (mount) the new partition in a temporary location and copy our existing files from the original /home directory over to the new location. For the sake of this example I will mount the new partition (/dev/sdb1) under the /mnt directory, use the rsync command to copy everything over, and then unmount the partition.
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
rsync -av /home/ /mnt/
umount /mnt
Note the trailing slash (/) characters in the rsync line of the above sequence is important. It makes the difference between rsync copying a directory or the contents of a directory to its new location.
Now all the files have been copied to their new location. The only thing left to do is to tell the operating system to use the new partition as its /home directory in place of whatever was being used before. To do this we can open the /etc/fstab file in our preferred text editor. The text editor must be run as the root user, so we might want to launch the editor from the command line. Here we launch the nano editor.
nano /etc/fstab
What we will do next will depend on how the original /home directory was set up. If it was set up on its own partition on the computer's original disk then we should see an entry in /etc/fstab which looks like this, noting the "/home" entry in the second column:
UUID=b369d563-bc6b-4ed6-91b8-1ad5fd2df7a3 /home ext4 defaults 1 2
We can change this line so that the "UUID=" field is altered to match the partition name we used above - /dev/sdb1 in our case. This will change the line to read as follows:
/dev/sdb1 /home ext4 defaults 1 2
However, if the original /home was part of one big root partition then it will not have its own entry. There will be no line with "/home" in the second column. We can then add a new line to the end of the /etc/fstab file which looks like this:
/dev/sdb1 /home ext4 defaults 1 2
We then save the text file. At this point if we reboot the computer, the /home directory should be mounted in its new location. We can verify this by running the following command:
mount | grep /home
The above command should produce one line which shows the name of the new partition we just created, /dev/sdb1 in this example. In my case the above command shows:
/dev/sdb1 on /home type ext4
If no entry is shown at all or the partition name in the first column is incorrect then something went wrong and we should re-check the entry for /home in the /etc/fstab file.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
|
| Released Last Week |
Linux Kodachi 7.0
Warith Al Maawali has announced the release of Linux Kodachi 7.0, an updated version of the project's privacy-focused Linux distribution that also includes a number of forensic tools. Despite a major change in version number, this release is still based on Xubuntu 18.04. From the changelog: "Linux kernel upgrade from 5.0 to 5.4; added FDN DNS; added Next DNS; added Cloudflare Family malware and adult content filtering; added Neustar Family malware and adult content filtering; added exfat file system support; added Enigmail plugin for Thunderbird; added Tilix; added USBGuard; added USBKill; added proxychains; Conky improved new display items like Torrify IP country and font size; added MPV player; added new options to IP source control and system log scripts; Jaxx wallet remove; Exoduse wallet removed; Xelcore wallet removed; Bisq exchange removed; Tox chat removed; Ring chat removed; VLC removed; full system update; removed Tenta and Fourth estate DNS - slow and dead. Kodachi browser changes: DuckDuckGo plugin removed; disable JavaScript plugin removed; BP Privacy Block All Font and Glyph Detection replaced with trace; Canvas Defender replaced WITH trace; Canvas Blocker replaced WITH trace...."
Linux Kodachi 7.0 -- The default Xfce desktop
(full image size: 341kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
BlackArch Linux 2020.06.01
BlackArch Linux is an Arch Linux-based distribution designed for penetration testers and security researchers. The project's latest release, BlackArch Linux 2020.06.01, features many additional tools, disables the iptables and VirtualBox services, and introduces several package upgrades. The distribution's release announcement states: "Here's the ChangeLog: added more than 150 new tools; disabled iptables/ip6tables service; remove unneeded VirtualPC services (drag'n'drop, vmsvga-x11); replace wicd with wifi-radar (GUI) and wifi-menu (curses -> netctl); updated blackarch-installer to v1.1.45; included linux kernel 5.6.14; QA'ed and fixed a lot of packages (runtime exec, missing dependencies); updated all vim plugins and improved vim config options; updated all blackarch tools and packages including config files; updated all system packages; updated all window manager menus (Awesome, Fluxbox, Openbox)."
Alpine Linux 3.12.0
Alpine Linux is a community developed operating system designed for routers, firewalls, VPNs, VoIP boxes and servers. The project has published a new version of their lightweight distribution, launching Alpine Linux 3.12.0. The new version introduces initial support for the mips64 architecture and the D programming language. A number of package upgrades have also been provided: "We are pleased to announce the release of Alpine Linux 3.12.0, the first in the v3.12 stable series. New features and noteworthy new packages: Initial support for mips64 (big endian). Initial support for D programming language. Significant updates: Linux 5.4.43, GCC 9.3.0, LLVM 10.0.0, Git 2.24.3, Node.js 12.16.3, Nextcloud 18.0.3, PostgreSQL 12.3, QEMU 5.0.0, Zabbix 5.0.0." Further details and upgrade tips can be found in the project's release announcement.
EasyOS 2.3
Barry Kauler has announced the release of EasyOS 2.3, the latest stable version of the project's experimental Linux distribution derived from Puppy Linux. The new release continues to draw packages from the Debian 10 "Buster" repositories, although it uses a newer kernel (version 5.4.40): "Version 2.3 is built with 10.4 DEBs, and there are significant infrastructure and utility/application improvements: built with Debian 'Buster' 10.4 DEB packages; Linux kernel version 5.4.40; Gpptp VPN network connection tool fixed; improvements and fixes for EasyDD; major overhaul of Ethernet connection logic; SeaMonkey version 2.53.2, with ChatZilla, profile workaround; ffplay-gtk media player improved; mtPaint version 3.49.27 and bug fixes; MoManager updated, translation separation from EasyPup; Rxvt-unicode instability fixed; extra b43 firmware. EasyOS uses NetworkManager by default and one user of 2.2.16 reported Ethernet not being detected and no IP lease obtained at first boot-up. This has resulted in considerable redesign of Ethernet detection, with, hopefully, fallbacks to catch situations where NetworkManager seems to be failing." Read the release announcement and the release notes for further information.
Linux Lite 5.0
Jerry Bezencon has announced the release of Linux Lite 5.0, a lightweight desktop distribution based on Ubuntu. The project's latest release features the Xfce desktop and is based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. The new version improves UEFI support and swaps out the old firewall utility for FireWallD. The project's release announcement offers further information: "UEFI is now supported out of the box. It is recommended that you disable Secure Boot even though it will work, it's just a huge hassle to have it enabled. See the new inbuilt Help Manual for ways to do this on the Start page. No hidden telemetry: Integrity Check during live boot (an Ubuntu implementation) Crtl+C cancels check. GUFW has been replaced by the highly configurable FireWallD (disabled by default). Please read the full guide in the Help Manual under Tutorials. New Updater notifier: Enabled by default to check for updates twice per day, and only notify when there are updates. To disable, Menu Settings, Session and Startup, Application Autostart tab, untick Package Update Indicator."
Linux Lite 5.0 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 184kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
|
| 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: 1,999
- Total data uploaded: 32.0TB
|
| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
|
Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Keeping root and /home together or separate
Linux offers the ability to seamlessly maintain directories on separate devices and partitions. This means the entire filesystem can be kept on one giant partition or divided between multiple devices. It is fairly common for people to keep their /home directory on a separate partition or disk drive in order to allow it to be accessed and managed independently of the rest of the operating system. We would like to know if you keep your /home directory on the same partition as the rest of your filesystem or if /home is on a separate partition or device.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using command line aliases in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
|
Keeping root and /home together or separate
| My /home shares a partition with the root filesystem: | 848 (45%) |
| My /home is on a separate partition: | 784 (42%) |
| My /home is on a separate disk: | 180 (10%) |
| My /home is on a separate computer/NAS: | 13 (1%) |
| Other: | 45 (2%) |
|
|
| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
|
Major Distributions page updated with German translation
Karsten Pfelffer kindly offered to update the German translation of our Major Distributions page this week. He not only updated the translation on the page, but corrected some outdated information. Thank you, Karsten. The translated page is now entirely up to date with our English page.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 8 June 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)
|
|
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 1, value: US$7.30) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
|
| 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.
|
| Archives |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • 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.
|
| Random Distribution | 
Ubuntu Pack
Ubuntu*Pack (aka Ubuntu Pack, and formerly known as Ubuntu DesktopPack) is an Ubuntu remix built by Ukraine's UALinux, an official partner of Canonical. The project includes several editions (including Desktop, Education, Game, Server, and Rescue) and comes with extra applications, drivers and media codecs. Ubuntu*Pack includes full support for English, Russian and Ukrainian languages. Besides the default Ubuntu build, the project also releases variants based on Kubuntu and Xubuntu, as well as a free extension CD for schools and commercial CD/DVD packs with extra software for desktops, servers and gaming stations.
Status: Active
|
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
