 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.
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| 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.
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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.
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| 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.
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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.
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| 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.
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| 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)
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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: 1,999
- Total data uploaded: 32.0TB
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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) |
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.
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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%) |
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
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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.
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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)
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TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Issue 1032 (2023-08-14): MX Linux 23, positioning new windows on the desktop, Linux Containers adopts LXD fork, Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ form OpenELA |
| • Issue 1031 (2023-08-07): Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, preventing a file from being changed, Asahi Linux partners with Fedora, Linux Mint plans new releases |
| • Issue 1030 (2023-07-31): Solus 4.4, Linux Mint 21.2, Debian introduces RISC-V support, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 |
| • Issue 1029 (2023-07-24): Running Murena on the Fairphone 4, Flatpak vs Snap sandboxing technologies, Redox OS plans to borrow Linux drivers to expand hardware support, Debian updates Bookworm media |
| • Issue 1028 (2023-07-17): KDE Connect; Oracle, SUSE, and AlmaLinux repsond to Red Hat's source code policy change, KaOS issues media fix, Slackware turns 30; security and immutable distributions |
| • Issue 1027 (2023-07-10): Crystal Linux 2023-03-16, StartOS (embassyOS 0.3.4.2), changing options on a mounted filesystem, Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Fedora debates telemetry for desktop team |
| • Issue 1026 (2023-07-03): Kumander Linux 1.0, Red Hat changing its approach to sharing source code, TrueNAS offers SMB Multichannel, Zorin OS introduces upgrade utility |
| • Issue 1025 (2023-06-26): KaOS with Plasma 6, information which can leak from desktop environments, Red Hat closes door on sharing RHEL source code, SUSE introduces new security features |
| • Issue 1024 (2023-06-19): Debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Debian releases GNU/Hurd 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 nears its end of life, FreeBSD turns 30 |
| • Issue 1023 (2023-06-12): openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the differences between independent distributions, openSUSE lengthens Leap life, Murena offers new phone for North America |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Issue 993 (2022-11-07): Static Linux, working with just a kernel, Mint streamlines Flatpak management, updates coming to elementary OS |
| • Issue 992 (2022-10-31): Lubuntu 22.10, setting permissions on home directories, Linux may drop i486, Fedora delays next version for OpenSSL bug |
| • Issue 991 (2022-10-24): XeroLinux 2022.09, learning who ran sudo, exploring firewall tools, Rolling Rhino Remix gets a fresh start, Fedora plans to revamp live media |
| • Issue 990 (2022-10-17): ravynOS 0.4.0, Lion Linux 3.0, accessing low numbered network ports, Pop!_OS makes progress on COSMIC, Murena launches new phone |
| • Issue 989 (2022-10-10): Ubuntu Unity, kernel bug causes issues with Intel cards, Canonical offers free Ubuntu Pro subscriptions, customizing the command line prompt |
| • Issue 988 (2022-10-03): SpiralLinux 11.220628, finding distros for older equipment and other purposes, SUSE begins releasing ALP prototypes, Debian votes on non-free firmware in installer |
| • Issue 987 (2022-09-26): openSUSE's MicroOS, converting people to using Linux, pfSense updates base system and PHP, Python 2 dropped from Arch |
| • Full list of all issues |
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