 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 904, 15 February 2021 |
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Welcome to this year's 7th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
There is a saying in some techie circles that people don't want to run operating systems, they want to run applications. While this bit of wisdom may not apply to people who are particularly interested in operating systems and the way they work, it is certainly true that most people focus on what features and applications their computers can run rather than how they function behind the scenes. This week we place focus on features and desktop applications. For instance, after touching briefly on the Laxer OS project we shift gears to talk about three desktop features now available on Linux Mint. The Mint team has introduced three new features to their distribution to make accessing on-line content and navigating the filesystem easier and we talk about these changes in our Feature Story. In our Questions and Answers column we talk about the KDE Connect program which helps tie two devices together, allowing them to share files, messages, and a clipboard. This is a handy tool for linking a mobile phone and a workstation together and we talk about setting up the same functionality on two desktop computers. Do you run KDE Connect? Let us know in the Opinion Poll if you make use of this tool or one of its related projects such as GSConnect. In our News section we discuss new improvements coming to the Tails project along with new efforts from openSUSE to build SUSE Linux Enterprise packages for more CPU architectures. As usual, we are pleased to share the release of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Laxer OS 1.2 and new Linux Mint features
- News: Tails project improves onion-grater, openSUSE announces Step, Ubuntu publishes hot fix and new media
- Questions and answers: Implementing KDE Connect functionality for PCs
- Released last week: Finnix 122, OpenMandriva 4.2
- Torrent corner: Finnix, Kubuntu, Septor, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu Studio, Ultimate Edition, Xubuntu
- Opinion poll: KDE Connect for mobile devices and personal computers
- New distributions: Peux OS, LoopLinux, helloSystem
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (10MB) and MP3 (14MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Laxer OS 1.2
My search for new and interesting features in the Linux community took me to the DistroWatch waiting list this week where the Laxer OS project caught my attention. The project's website describes itself as follows: "A beautifully crafted GNU/Linux operating system based on Arch Linux."
Judging from the project's download archive, the distribution is updated every month or two. There is just one edition available which runs the GNOME desktop environment. Laxer OS runs on 64-bit (x86_64) machines exclusively and its ISO is 2GB in size. The project's website suggests the operating system will not only look good, but offer performance improvements: "You will notice the significant performance boost on the first boot of your system."
The website's description was a little vague on how performance and visual improvements were delivered so I decided to find out for myself. I downloaded the media for the project's 1.2 release and booted from it. This brings up a menu where we are given the chance to boot to a live desktop normally or with "speech". I believe the "speech" option runs a screen reader for people who are visually impaired. The live media boots to a graphical login screen where we are invited to sign in using an account called "liveuser" with no password.
Signing into the live session loads the GNOME desktop and automatically launches the Calamares installer. At the top of the screen we find a panel with an application menu and the GNOME Activities menu in the upper-left corner. To the right of the panel is the system tray. I noticed early on there was a lot of network activity happening when I first logged in. This appears to be an automated check for software updates as a minute later a notification appeared letting me know 132 packages were available to be upgraded.
Laxer OS 1.2 -- The GNOME desktop and Calamares installer
(full image size: 326kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
What happened next surprised me as I think it is a unique experience in my 20-odd years of running Linux distributions. I opened the Applications menu and selected the web browser launcher. Nothing happened for about a minute, then the desktop crashed, returning me to the login screen. Curious, I signed back in and, after the Calamares installer appeared again, I tried opening a virtual terminal. GNOME immediately crashed again, returning me to the login screen.
This continued to happen each time I signed into the desktop and tried to open any application which was not the Calamares system installer. Attempting to run the settings panel, the terminal, web browser, and file manager all failed with GNOME crashing and returning me to the login page. LibreOffice made the most progress, briefly showing me its splash screen for a few seconds before also bringing down the desktop session.
This was a curious development as GNOME has been run a few times on my test systems in the past few months without any significant issues. The install media passed its checksum, confirming it had not been corrupted during the download. I also confirmed the system had lots of free memory, much more than the gigabyte of space even a large process like a web browser would want. Having no clear cause for the instability and no immediate solution, this brought my trial with Laxer OS to a close.
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Linux Mint 20.1 -- new features
Since my trial with Laxer OS was a lot shorter than expected, I turned my attention to three features of the latest Linux Mint release. Linux Mint 20.1 included a few changes to the desktop which I found intriguing. Specifically, I was curious about the Favourites, Web Apps, and Hypnotix additions to the distribution.
Favourites
Let's start with Favourites. When running the Cinnamon edition of Mint, we can right-click on a file in the Nemo file manager and mark it as a Favourite file. After that, the marked file will show up in a special Favourites folder of the file manager. It will also appear in the application menu, alongside applications marked as Favourites. Further, there is a panel menu we can click to see files marked as favourites. Right-clicking the file again in Nemo allows us to remove it from the Favourites list.
Linux Mint 20.1 -- Toggling a file in the Favourites list
(full image size: 680kB, resolution: 1920x1200 pixels)
While this feature is not present in the MATE and Xfce editions of Mint, we can gain the file manager aspects of the Favourites feature by installing the Nemo file manager on either of these editions. This allows us to have the Favourites folder in the file manager and we can mark items as being a favourite, but the application menu and panel integration are not available.
This is a minor feature, similar to setting bookmarks in a web browser. It may only be a small convenience, but it works well and I could see it being beneficial for people who spend a lot of time using graphical file managers, especially if some project files are buried multiple directories deep.
Web Apps
The Web Apps feature will be familiar to anyone who has used the ICE utility on Peppermint OS. The Web Apps utility allows us to add launchers to the application menu that will open up a minimal web browser to access a website or web app. This gives select web pages their own dedicated launcher and the minimal web browser window gives the website or web app the appearance of being a native application.
Linux Mint 20.1 -- Creating a new web app launcher
(full image size: 60kB, resolution: 872x681 pixels)
The Web Apps tool gets us to provide a name and URL for each new launcher, it optionally downloads the website's icon, and we can select which web browser will open the specified link. We can also choose which category of the application menu will hold our new launcher.
Linux Mint 20.1 -- The Web Apps launcher and a DistroWatch instance
(full image size: 740kB, resolution: 1920x1200 pixels)
This is basically a tool for creating website bookmarks in the application menu. For people who like to have dedicated browser windows open for specific websites, this will probably appeal. To me it feels like we are simply moving bookmarks outside of the web browser into the application menu, but I can see the advantage for people who like to have a separate browser window for, perhaps, their e-mail or a web app for work.
Hypnotix
While the first two features essentially provided new ways to create shortcuts to commonly used files and web pages, the Hypnotix application is entirely different. Hypnotix is an IPTV application. It provides us with streaming channels we can access to watch TV shows and movies.
Hypnotix begins by asking us to select whether we want to access TV Channels, Movies, or Series. By default TV Channels are available, but there is nothing in the other two categories. From the TV Channels screen we can pick a region or set of channels. These channels are mostly grouped by country. Once we have picked a country we can see a list of channels available in that area. For example, Canada has a CBC channel, the United Kingdom has access to BBC channels, the United States has a channel called American Classics and another called Comedy.
Linux Mint 20.1 -- Browsing channels in Hypnotix
(full image size: 701kB, resolution: 1920x1200 pixels)
Clicking on a channel opens a video player window, which appears to be powered by the mpv player. The channel then streams until we pause the stream or click the player's close button. I found that clicking the application's close button did not actually close the window, just made the stream stop. However, if I then selected another channel the new stream would play in the channel browser window instead of in the separate mpv player window. This appears to be a bug, but the alternative was to close the browser window and re-launch Hypnotix to get a fresh start and a new mpv window.
We can add new IPTV streaming providers to Hypnotix from the application's first screen. It looks like we should be able to edit or remove existing providers, however clicking the Edit button did not do anything. For now it looks like we can only add new providers.
The Hypnotix application, while it has some rough edges, worked pretty well and was easy to navigate. I don't watch a lot of TV shows these days so I'm not the target audience, but I could see it being useful if I wanted to catch up with local news or take my chances watching whatever movie or sporting event a channel was streaming at the time.
All in all the three new features seem to be well implemented. I ran into a few minor issues with Hypnotix, but on the whole the Mint team appears to have done a good job smoothly setting up all three components.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Tails project improves onion-grater, openSUSE announces Step, Ubuntu publishes hot fix and new media
The Tails project has published their monthly newsletter which outlines work being done to the Tails distribution. One of the key features being worked on is the onion-grater: "We started implementing changes to make the onion-grater more robust. Onion-grater is a Tor controller filter that makes it possible for us to write fine-grained rules about what a particular application can do with Tor. The controller allows changing almost everything about how Tor runs, so we need to be careful about letting applications access it. For the curious: the solution involves network namespaces. This work is also leading to fix other issues, because until now onion-grater was unable to handle lost connections to the Tor controller, as in #11535 where tor bridge mode fails when using Unsafe Browser to get bridges, or #16993 where the circuit view is broken on the Tor Browser after reconnecting to the Tor network."
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The openSUSE team have announced a new project called openSUSE Step. The Step project seeks to build the SUSE Linux Enterprise source code on a wider range of CPU architectures. "openSUSE Leap 15.3 inherits its base from SLE 15 SP3. On aarch64, powerpc64, and x86_64, openSUSE directly uses binary packages from the enterprise side. In addition, openSUSE also supports architectures that SLE does not provide, such as armv7hl and 32-bit x86, which is relatively popular with openSUSE users, according to results from a recent community survey. For those, we now build fully compatible binary packages from the published SLE sources in OBS. openSUSE Step is not intended to be an end user distribution. It does not replace, or provide an alternative to openSUSE Leap. Step is an intermediate building block (step) to enable derived community distributions like openSUSE Leap or other community derivatives." Further details on openSUSE Step can be found on the project's news page.
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The Ubuntu team have issued a hot fix for the recently released Ubuntu 20.04.2 media. The new fix, called 20.04.2.0, corrects an issue where the Ubiquity system installer could fail to properly install the Linux kernel on a new system. "Shortly after the release of Ubuntu 20.04.2, on Thursday February 4 2021, a regression was discovered which means that on certain systems and under certain specific conditions the Ubuntu installer can fail to install a Linux kernel. This renders the system unable to boot. After carefully analyzing the impact of this regression, the release team took the decision to reissue images of 20.04.2 with a corrected version of the installer. These images are now available, versioned as 20.04.2.0." Details on the bug and affected Ubuntu community flavours can be found in this mailing list post.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Implementing KDE Connect functionality for PCs
Looking-to-connect-more asks: I've got a phone set up to talk to my laptop using KDE Connect. It's an amazing app, even giving me a seamless way to transfer files between devices. Since I have two laptops, do you know of any single application I could run to get similar functionality between the laptops the way KDE Connect works for my phone?
DistroWatch answers: KDE Connect is a great utility for people who want to transfer files between their mobile device and their desktop computer. It is also useful for remotely controlling your media player, sharing a clipboard between devices, and having notifications from one device show up on the other. Despite the name, KDE Connect works across all desktop environments and runs on both Linux distributions and the BSDs.
The good news, in this situation, is KDE Connect can be used to link two laptop computers the same way you would connect your phone to your laptop. If you have the KDE Connect software on both your laptops, and there is no firewall blocking the KDE Connect ports, then the two laptops can communicate over KDE Connect the same way your phone and laptop do.
When both of your laptops are on the same local network, open the KDE Connect Settings application on one of them. The second laptop will appear in the list of available devices on the left side of the KDE Connect window. Click the name of the second laptop in the list and then click the Request Pair button. The prompt to accept the connection will appear on your second laptop. Once the connection request has been accepted the two devices will communicate the same way your phone and laptop already do and can share most of the same functionality.
Pairing the laptop named drew in KDE Connect Settings
(full image size: 89kB, resolution: 916x686 pixels)
People who are running the GNOME desktop and do not wish to install the KDE libraries that support KDE Connect can get similar functionality by installing the GSConnect GNOME Shell extension.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Finnix 122
Finnix is a self-contained, bootable Linux CD distribution for system administrators, based on Debian. The project tries to remain lightweight and provides a command line interface only. The distribution's latest release is Finnix 122 which reduces ISO image size, improves boot times, and adds a number of new packages. "Today marks the release of Finnix 122, the LiveCD for system administrators. Expanding on Finnix 121 from six months ago, this release includes a number of fixes, new packages and new features. From the Finnix 122 release notes: improved USB flash drive boot compatibility on older BIOSes; improved boot speed; lowered ISO image size; added Finnix getting started command; added WiFi-connect helper script; manpage cache is now being generated, allowing for man -k/apropos; redesigned boot splash screen; increased boot splash timeout from 15 seconds to 30 seconds; added packages - iozone3 (finnix/finnix#8), rover, iw, crda, wireless-regdb, mscompress, apg, ftp, ftp-ssl, keyutils." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement.
OpenMandriva Lx 4.2
Cristina Sgubbi has announced the release of OpenMandriva Lx 4.2, an updated build of the project's desktop-oriented Linux distribution originally forked from the defunct Mandriva Linux. This is the project's first release supporting the Aarch64 architecture: "The OpenMandriva team is pleased to announce the general availability of the latest stable version. Say hello to OpenMandriva Lx 4.2. OpenMandriva Lx is a unique and independent distribution, direct descendant of Mandriva Linux and the first Linux distribution using the LLVM toolchain by default since 2015. OpenMandriva Lx 4.2 is now even easier to use with improved OM Welcome, the brand-name tool which makes possible to install a range of well known applications with just one click. This release comes with the latest and brightest KDE products. This version also includes: LibreOffice suite 7.1.0, Krita 4.4.2, Digikam 7.2, SMPlayer 21.1.0, VLC 3.0.12.1, Falkon browser 3.1, SimpleScreenRecorder 0.4.3. The port to aarch64 (64-bit ARM processors) is completed; installable images are available for the PinebookPro, Raspberry Pi 4B and 3B+, Rock Pi 4A, 4B and 4C, Synquacer, Cubox Pulse and generic UEFI-compatible devices." See the release announcement for further information and screenshots.
OpenMandriva Lx 4.2 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 903kB, resolution: 25601600 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: 2,335
- Total data uploaded: 36.2TB
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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) |
KDE Connect for mobile devices and personal computers
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about sharing files and remotely controlling devices using a program called KDE Connect. While KDE Connect is typically associated with pairing Android phones with the KDE Plasma desktop, it works across open-source desktop environments and can be used to link multiple personal computers as well as mobile devices. Do you make use of KDE Connect? Let us know what your favourite KDE Connect feature is in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on caching files to RAM in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Running KDE Connect
| I use it to pair a PC and phone: | 245 (21%) |
| I use it to pair multiple PCs: | 7 (1%) |
| I use it to pair multiple mobile devices: | 15 (1%) |
| All of the above: | 81 (7%) |
| I do not use KDE Connect: | 846 (71%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Peux OS. Peux OS is an Arch Linux-based distribution featuring the Xfce desktop. It defaults to using the Fish command line shell and the Btr filesystem.
- LoopLinux. LoopLinux is an Arch Linux-based distribution featuring the Calamares system installer and the Bspwm tiling window manager.
- helloSystem. helloSystem is a FreeBSD-based operating system featuring a custom desktop environment written in Qtand designed to look like the macOS interface.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 22 February 2021. 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 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 |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
Build Your Own (BYO) Linux
Can you answer yes to any of these questions? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a Linux distribution where you knew what every file or directory was for? Do you dislike downloading applications for your particular distribution? When you want to remove an rpm, do you find that you can't because it will break a dependency? Do you think Linux distributions, in general, have too much junk you won't ever use but you can't remove things because your distribution won't function without them? Do you want to learn to configure Linux without using vendor tools? Are you just plain curious how things work? If this sounds like you, you've came to the right place. Together, we'll create your own personal Linux distribution. You decide what goes in and what doesn't. We'll compile applications from the authors' original source code, not code tinkered with by a commercial distribution. Not only will you gain a much better understanding of how linux works and a little bit of programming knowledge on the side, you'll take pride in the fact that you did it yourself.
Status: Discontinued
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| 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.
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