 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 887, 12 October 2020 |
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Welcome to this year's 41st issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Software developers are always looking for new ways to help us get the most of our computers. Though there are many schools of thought when it comes to determining what "most" means in this case. Do we want efficiency or user friendliness? Should the operating system focus on looks or performance? We begin this week with a look at Nitrux, a distribution from the Ubuntu family which ships with a customized version of the KDE Plasma desktop and some home-grown utilities. Read on to find out how this combination works in our Feature Story and let us know what you think of the Nitrux approach to making the most out of these customisations in the comments. In our News section we discuss new features coming to the elementary OS distribution along with evolutionary improvements to the Haiku operating system. We also talk about a tool for managing FreeBSD containers. Then, in our Tips and Tricks column, we explore the idea of compressed memory (called zRAM) and provide examples of how to use it to our advantage. Do you run computers with compressed memory enabled? Let us know what you use it for in our Opinion Poll. Plus we are pleased to share the new releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (12MB) and MP3 (10MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Nitrux 2020.09.05
Nitrux is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution suitable for laptops and desktop computers. Its main desktop environment is NX Desktop, a KDE Plasma desktop enhanced with "plasmoids" to create a special blend of aesthetics and functionality.
The distribution's website mentions a handful of key features including NX Firewall, a tool for simplifying firewall management. There is also a backup utility for automating and scheduling backups called Kup which is built into the distribution's settings panel. The Nitrux website also promotes using AppImage portable applications and suggests using AppImageHub, a central repository of portable packages, similar to how Flathub provides a repository of distribution-neutral Flatpaks.
I downloaded the ISO for Nitrux which is about 3GB in size. The distribution is available for 64-bit (x86_64) machines exclusively. Booting from the provided media brought up a menu offering to start the distribution in either live desktop or failsafe modes. Taking the live desktop entry loads the Plasma desktop - or a login screen, it varied during my trial. When the system brought up a login prompt I could sign in using "nitrux" as both the account username and password.
Once the Plasma desktop loads we find a panel placed across the top of the screen. The application menu is located to the left of this panel and the system tray to the right. There is a dock with some application launchers at the bottom of the desktop. One icon that launches the project's system installer is placed in the upper-left corner of the desktop. The Plasma environment uses a fairly dark, minimal theme. Once I had explored the live environment a little I turned my attention to the installer.
Installing
Nitrux's system installer is a graphical application which takes a pretty standard approach to configuring the operating system. We are walked through picking our time zone, confirming our keyboard's layout, and setting up a username and password for a new account. When it comes to disk partitioning our choices are limited. I could find no option to manually partition the disk. Instead we have a single guided partitioning option which offers to take over the entire disk with a Btrfs volume. The installer does not set up a swap partition or swap file. Once we have made our choices we are shown a confirmation screen which curiously displays a summary of our settings in white text on a white background. Then the installer sets up Nitrux on the local drive and restarts the computer when it is finished.
Early impressions
Nitrux boots to a graphical login screen. We are offered two session options. The default is to sign into KDE Plasma running on X.Org while the alternative is to run Plasma on a Wayland session. Upon signing into my account a notification immediately popped up to report new software updates were available. Clicking on the corresponding icon in the system tray launches the Discover software centre. Discover lists available updates which we can choose to install all at once or individually.
Nitrux 2020.09.05 -- Running the Firefox browser
(full image size: 358kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The first day I was using Nitrux Discover failed to apply the available updates, reporting it could not connect to Devuan's package servers. (Nitrux connects to its own package repositories along with Ubuntu and Devuan servers.) Attempting to refresh the package database likewise reported connections to Devuan servers had timed out.
The second day I was using Nitrux the connection to all repository servers worked and I was able to download the waiting 50 updates which totalled 173MB in size.
Application menu
The Nitrux application menu at first looks to be blank. This is because, by default, the first pane of the menu shows favourite launchers and no favourites have been set for us. This means we need to switch over to the second page of the menu to location applications. Programs are grouped strangely on Nitrux with the category names being: Bundled Apps, KDE apps, Maui Apps, Qt Apps, and Utilities. None of these tell us what the included applications do and causes some confusion. I showed the groupings to a non-techie and asked which category might hold an image viewer and their response was, "No idea, they're all called some form of 'Apps'." What about the settings panel? They replied: "On my phone and tablet settings are with low-level stuff under Utilities so I'd guess there." Unfortunately for them, the System Settings panel is kept under KDE apps.
Nitrux 2020.09.05 -- The application menu and program groupings
(full image size: 129kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
They would probably also be surprised to learn the software manager, calculator, and partition manager are kept under the KDE Apps category. The Qt group includes a document viewer and process manager. The Maui group holds a note taking tool, picture viewer, file manager, and terminal. The Bundled group includes just one entry for the Itch.io gaming portal. The Utilities group does not include any low-level tools, but rather the Firefox browser, GNU Image Manipulation Program, LMMS, MPV media player, and Inkscape.
When exploring the command line I found Nitrux ships with the zsh shell and the GNU Compiler Collection. No manual pages are included and trying to run man tells us we need to run the unminimize command and install the man-db package in order to see manual pages. Nitrux does not appear to be trying to be particularly lightweight so I was surprised the manual pages have been excluded from the distribution. Digging further I found Nitrux ships with the OpenRC init software and service manager. In the background I found version 5.6 of the Linux kernel.
Something I occasionally ran into while running Nitrux was some application windows were very small when opened. Their dimensions made it difficult to see anything in the window and I typically had to resize new windows before I could use the applications. This happened in both test environments and did not change when adjusting screen resolution or the number of open windows on the desktop.
Nitrux 2020.09.05 -- Some windows open with small dimensions
(full image size: 159kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Hardware
I began my trial by running Nitrux in a VirtualBox environment, later switching to running the distribution on my laptop. When running in VirtualBox the Plasma desktop has limited resolution (800x600 pixels) and did not dynamically resize with the VirtualBox window. I could adjust Plasma's resolution through the System Settings panel. The distribution ran smoothly, if a bit slowly in VirtualBox. The Plasma menus and effects were slow to draw with the default settings.
Nitrux 2020.09.05 -- The Systems Settings panel
(full image size: 80kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
When running on the laptop, the distribution detected all of my hardware. Again, Plasma was a little slow to respond. However, performance picked up once I disabled many of the visual effects in the settings panel. Some of the effects were intriguing. For example, when switching between windows the applications would be shuffled like papers and there were some nice animations for minimizing and restoring windows. However, ultimately, I opted for speed over eye candy.
Nitrux is a mid-weight distribution, consuming about 540MB of RAM and taking up 6.2GB of disk space. Though this accounting does not include any swap file we may wish to add later.
Software management
Earlier I mentioned Nitrux uses the Discover software centre to handle package updates. Discover also allows us to install packages and we can browse through available software using categories or by searching for items by name. When browsing categories of packages Discover sorts items by rating, though this can be changed to arranging programs by other criteria such as name or release date.
Nitrux 2020.09.05 -- The Discover software centre
(full image size: 124kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
I feel like Discover was a software centre that got off to a rough beginning as I typically ran into severe performance problems and stability issues when using it in previous years. Now though Discover appears to be improving and offering a solid experience. I like that it is pretty easy to search for new applications and we can queue items for installation with the click of a button. In fact we can mark entries for installation and continue to browse for additional software while packages are fetched in the background.
The one issue I ran into with Discover was I often could not find programs I wanted to remove. Searching for software that was already installed, including desktop applications, returned no results. For example, trying to find programs like Pix and qps returned no search results in Discover, but did show up when using the APT command line tools.
NX desktop, NX Firewall, and Kup
Apart from the Itch.io gaming portal and the promotion of AppImage packages, which are effectively distribution-neutral, Nitrux lists three key features on its website that I feel are worth mentioning. The first is NX Desktop, which is basically KDE Plasma with some alternative components. Nitrux swaps out some elements, adds some of its own applications, throws in the Latte dock, and enables several effects. It does provide a slightly different look and feel for Plasma, so I suppose the goal has been accomplished. However, the changes are not ones I like. The menu feels empty and mostly a waste of space, I'm not a fan of the dock, and the enabled effects slow Plasma down noticeably. Desktop environments are always a matter of taste and, personally, I wasn't a fan of the alternations done to Plasma.
The Kup tool is promoted as a backup utility with a friendly interface. Kup can be accessed through the application menu or through the System Settings panel. Kup works by setting up backup jobs. When we create a new job, Kup guides us through picking which directories we want to save, how often backups should be created, and where to store the resulting archives. We can also filter out files from being included in our backups. The interface is quite nice and easy to navigate.
Nitrux 2020.09.05 -- The Kup backup tool
(full image size: 74kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
Kup reportedly can create backups at a set interval or we are told jobs can be triggered manually through the utility's system tray icon. I tried clicking on the system tray icon and it did indeed share information on when the last backup ran, if it has ever run. However, I could find no option to trigger a new backup job. Even when backups were set to be entirely manual I could not find a way to initiate them. I also found that scheduled backups did not work. I once created some files and set the backup on the parent folder to run at an interval of one minute. No new archives were created, even after several minutes had gone by. This makes me wonder if Kup can be considered a reliable archiving solution as it created no backups and produced no error messages.
Finally, the Nitrux website promotes NX Firewall, a tool for configuring the firewall. NX Firewall appears to offer very few options. We can turn the firewall on/off and we can allow or deny both incoming and outgoing traffic. As far as I can tell, allowing or denying traffic, in either direction, is an all or nothing scenario. There doesn't appear to be any option to open specific ports while blocking all others. The firewall is disabled by default, but can be turned on with a click.
Something I found odd was that once I had accessed the NX Firewall tool, made a change, and closed it then I could not launch NX Firewall again. I also found that after opening the firewall utility I could not launch the System Settings panel. Rebooting the computer allowed me to open the settings panel again and the firewall tool. As a test, I opened NX Firewall and immediately closed it without making any changes. Then tried to open it again. This action failed, as did trying to open System Settings. This seems to be a consistent problem with just opening NX Firewall disabling the settings panel until a reboot occurs. This was a unique and unpleasant experience for me in the realm of firewall configuration tools.
Conclusions
Nitrux is an unusual project in a number of ways. In some ways it feels like the developers are regularly trying to find or create an identity for their distribution. They've promoted AppImages, talked about alternative update methods, temporarily turned the distribution into an exclusively commercial offering, then shifted back to free downloads. Their current offering feels like a strange mixture of Ubuntu, a modified Plasma desktop, and OpenRC init software in place of systemd. Oddly enough I'm not sure what to make of Nitrux in part because I have trouble figuring out who it is targeting. There seems to be a slight focus on gaming and AppImages, but without many features geared towards either. I wouldn't say Nitrux feels like a general purpose operating system either as it has a strange menu structure, a limited range of default applications, and a curious mixture of repositories and default programs.
I always appreciate it when projects try to add value or custom software or new ideas to their distribution. Stuff like NX Desktop and NX Firewall, for example, are at least doing something different. These, along with Kup and the customized installer give Nitrux a distinct feel. Unfortunately the items which Nitrux uses as substitutes for more popular applications do not work as well as the tools offered by other distributions. NX Firewall has very limited options, even next to relatively simple tools like Gufw, and it causes the System Settings panel to stop working. The note taking and terminal applications open in tiny windows and always need to be resized. The note taking tool doesn't even seem to recognize documents it has saved before. The backup tool's interval backup option did not work for me, leaving me without archives of my files.
All this is to say that while Nitrux is trying something different from the mainstream, there is a reason some applications and environments become mainstream: they typically work better. Being different is interesting, but I don't think (in this case) there is value added by the alternative tools Nitrux is promoting.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a de-branded HP laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: Intel i3 2.5GHz CPU
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 700GB hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Wired network device: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast
- Wireless network device: Realtek RTL8188EE Wireless network card
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Visitor supplied rating
Nitrux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 4.1/10 from 22 review(s).
Have you used Nitrux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
New features coming to elementary OS, Haiku improves performance and efficiency, A tool for managing FreeBSD containers
The elementary OS team has shifted its focus from working on elementary OS 5 to version 6. "Since elementary makes regular updates to elementary OS throughout its life cycle, you may be asking yourself why development focus has shifted to elementary OS 6 and why these updates can't be shipped to elementary OS 5. In short, the answer is big, breaking changes in technology. While our updates to elementary OS 5 have been largely incremental improvements, elementary OS 6 rips up old plumbing and reconsiders how things work under the hood in order to enable new features, make your experience more stable and reliable, improve compatibility with third-party apps, and make our desktop more portable to other open source operating systems." The team is making improvements to desktop settings, the lock screen, and accessibility features. An overview of the upcoming features can be found in the project's blog post.
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The Haiku project is making gradual progress on multiple fronts. The Haiku team outlined some of their work in the project's newsletter which reports on progress concerning Btr filesystem support, additional CPU power mode support to allow Haiku to operate more efficiently, and performance improvements to the package manager. "brjhaiku implemented the initial methods required for Btrfs write support. This was originally introduced during GSOC 2019 program, and still being merged gradually. Jerome Duval implemented support for more CPU power modes and functions that allows the system to use the CPU power more efficiently. This fixed an issue where on some hardware the system clock speed was stuck at 1.5GHz, and improved performance on other systems. Andrew Lindesay fixed a crash in HaikuDepot whilst synchronizing package metadata, also greatly improved icon caching, therefore speeding up the sync process during application start and memory consumption."
* * * * *
The FreeBSD operating system has long had a type of container technology called jails. These jails allow the administrator to run programs and services in isolation from the rest of the operating system. While there are several tools for managing jails, few approach the task in the same style as Docker does on Linux. A relatively young project that has recently matured is BastilleBSD. BastilleBSD facilitates setting up new containers, managing them, copying their contents, and keeping them up to date. People who would like an easy and powerful approach to managing FreeBSD containers should begin with a look at the project's Getting Started guide.
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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) |
Compressing memory with zRAM
zRAM (alternatively written "zram") is a Linux feature which allows us to treat a portion of the computer's physical memory as though it were compressed storage space. This allows us to write information to storage space that looks and acts like a physical disk, but has the speed benefit of RAM and the added bonus of being compressed to use less space.
There are a few instances where this could be useful. One is to set up a temporary directory that will typically only hold small files which can be discarded when the computer restarts. This avoids writing a bunch of small, probably rarely-used files to our hard drive while maintaining higher performance. Another common scenario is to set aside a portion of RAM to be used as swap space. When memory begins to fill up, lesser-used data stored in memory will get swapped out. In this case the data is moved from regular memory into the compressed memory, where it will take up less space, yet still be instantly accessible if needed. In practise this approach uses relatively small amounts of physical memory while making it seem as though we have very fast, compressed swap space
Using zRAM is an attractive option when running low-resource computers, such as the Raspberry Pi, or systems where we might want to store temporary files in RAM rather than have them written to a disk, particularly an older SSD.
There are a number of utilities for working with zRAM storage and each distribution packages these tools a bit differently. One way to avoid confusion is to follow the Linux kernel's zRAM documentation which explains how to work with zRAM in a distro-neutral fashion. However, while these steps work across distributions, they are not the most straight forward. With this in mind, I will be going through an example of how to use zRAM using the zramctl utility which is usually supplied by a distribution's util-linux package.
The first thing we need to do in order to work with zRAM is to enable the zram kernel module. Most Linux distributions do not enable this module by default. We can load the zram module and, at the same time, specify how many zRAM devices we want to work with. Sometimes it can be useful to have more than one, for instance if we want to set up multiple temporary directories. In this case I will create just one zRAM device. The modprobe command loads the zram module and, in this instance, creates one virtual device for compressed RAM.
modprobe zram num_devices=1
We can verify the above command worked by running the zramctl program and asking it to find any available zRAM devices. In this example, it found one, called zram0:
# zramctl --find
/dev/zram0
Now we have a zRAM device, an interface which will reside in memory while acting like a storage device. If we want to use this compressed storage as swap space, effectively compressing data in memory and making it seem like we have more RAM/swap, we can treat zram0 as a swap partition. Next we set aside 1GB of memory to be compressed and mount it as swap space. The first step is to specify a size for the available zRAM device:
# zramctl --find --size 1G
/dev/zram0
The above command locates the first available zRAM device and assigns it a size of 1GB. The command responds with the name of the device we are now using. The next two commands format the compressed RAM to be used as swap space and activate it:
mkswap /dev/zram0
swapon /dev/zram0
We can confirm the above commands worked by running swapon again with no arguments:
# swapon
| NAME |
TYPE |
SIZE |
USED |
PRIO |
| /dev/zram0 |
partition |
1024M |
0B |
-2 |
The above command shows we have one swap device, called zram0, and that it is 1024MB (1GB) in size. At the moment, none of the available space is being used. We can remove the zRAM swap space by using the swapoff command:
swapoff /dev/zram0
We can deactivate the zRAM device we were using, freeing it up for future use elsewhere by running:
zramctl --reset /dev/zram0
What if we want to set up a zRAM device to act as temporary fast storage space that will be discarded when the computer shuts down? The steps are approximately the same. Once again we begin by assigning a size to the zRAM device. Here I set aside 500MB of space to use as temporary storage.
# zramctl --find --size 500M
/dev/zram0
Next we need to format the memory. In my case I set it up to use the ext2 filesystem:
mkfs.ext2 /dev/zram0
Finally, we can assign the zRAM space to a directory, mounting it in place. Usually we would want to put temporary storage under /tmp or /var/tmp, but we can place it just about anywhere:
mount /dev/zram0 /tmp
Now any files we write to the /tmp directory will be compressed and stored in RAM instead of on the local disk. We can remove the temporary storage and clean-up by running the following commands:
umount /tmp
zramctl --reset /dev/zram0
A word of caution. It is probably a good idea to keep the size of your zRAM devices at 50% or less of your total physical RAM space. Trying to compress all your RAM to use as swap or temporary storage is likely to squeeze the system's resources and possibly cause more trouble than it is worth. I also recommend mounting any temporary storage early in the boot process rather than after you login to the desktop, especially if you mount temporary storage under /tmp. Some programs still save files in /tmp and mounting compressed storage in this location will make existing files vanish and that can cause unwanted behaviour in running programs.
* * * * *
Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
SparkyLinux 4.13
SparkyLinux provides a Debian-based, lightweight distribution. The project has published refreshed and updated installation media for its "oldstable" 4.x branch. The latest release is SparkyLinux 4.13. The release announcement offers the following list of changes: "There is an update of Sparky oldstable 4.13 code name 'Tyche' out there. It is based on the Debian oldstable 'Stretch'. Changes: system upgrade from Debian oldstable 'Stretch' repos as of October 2, 2020. Calamares doesn't refresh package list to avoid breaking installation if Debian or Sparky repo is off. Sparky repos changed from 'oldstable' to named 'tyche'; make sure you use right Sparky repositories. Linux kernel upgraded up to 4.9.228-1. Firefox 78.3.0esr. Thunderbird 68.12.0. LibreOffice 4.3.3." The distribution is available LXDE, minimal desktop, and command line only editions.
Oracle Linux 7.9
Simon Coter has announced the release of Oracle Linux 7 Update 9, a new build of the company's enterprise-class Linux distribution's legacy branch, compiled from the source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.9: "Oracle is pleased to announce the general availability of Oracle Linux 7 Update 9, which includes Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) Release 6 as the default kernel. UEK Release 6 is based on the mainline Linux kernel 5.4, supplying more innovation than other commercial Linux kernels: arm - enhanced support for the Arm (aarch64) platform, including improvements in the areas of security and virtualization; Cgroup v2 - UEK R6 includes all Cgroup v2 features, along with several enhancements; ktask - ktask is a framework for parallelizing CPU-intensive work in the kernel, it can be used to speed up large tasks on systems with available CPU power, where a task is single-threaded in user space; parallelized kswapd - page replacement is handled in the kernel asynchronously by kswapd, and synchronously by direct reclaim." Please see the release announcement and the release notes for further information.
Garuda Linux 201007
Garuda Linux is an Arch-based desktop Linux distribution available in a range of desktop environments and window managers, including KDE Plasma, GNOME, Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce, LXQt, Wayfire, bspwm, i3, Deepin, UKUI and Recbox (some of them in both "Ultimate" and "Lite" variants). An updated build, version 201007, is now available for download: "We are happy to announce the release of a brand new Garuda Linux version, called 'Golden Eagle'. With this release, most of the reported bugs have been fixed - along with some other QoL changes to the existing presets. As you might have noticed, we added five new versions to our repertoire: MATE, Cinnamon, Recbox, UKUI and bspwm. From now on, the editions containing window managers (i3, bspwm, Recbox, Wayfire), Deepin and UKUI will be available in 'Lite' editions only. Also we have changed the Deepin settings to be rather untouched since altered settings proved to be too buggy." Here is the complete release announcement.
Garuda Linux 201007 -- Running the Cinnamon desktop
(full image size: 509kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
* * * * *
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: 2,167
- Total data uploaded: 34.1TB
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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) |
Using zRAM
In this week's comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running the Deepin Desktop Environment in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
|
Using zRAM
| I use zRAM to compress memory/swap: | 98 (8%) |
| I use zRAM to hold temporary files: | 20 (2%) |
| I use zRAM for both the above purposes: | 24 (2%) |
| I use zRAM for another purpose: | 10 (1%) |
| I do not use zRAM: | 1086 (88%) |
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|
| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- AllegianceOS. AllegianceOS is a lightweight distribution based on Slackware's development (-current) branch. The distribution ships with the Xfce desktop and runs on 64-bit machines only, though it includes multilib support for 32-bit programs.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 19 October 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 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 |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Full list of all issues |
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College Linux
College Linux was a Debian-based live CD - a fully capable PHP5, Perl and Ruby web server, preloaded with gedit and Vim for editing scripts with syntax highlighting. College Linux includes tools to back up and restore your web site from a USB pen drive or from your collegelinux.org account.
Status: Discontinued
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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