 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 904, 15 February 2021 |
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.
* * * * *
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."
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
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)
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
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 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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| Random Distribution | 
SLAMPP Live
SLAMPP was a Linux distribution which can boot and run directly from a DVD, with possibility to be installed onto hard disk. It was designed to be used as an instant home server. Just like other Linux live DVDs, SLAMPP makes it possible to test Linux without messing up the user's existing system. What makes SLAMPP different was the fact that it comes with pre-configured tools and applications that turn a personal computer into a home server. SLAMPP was built using Zenwalk Linux as its base and Slackware Linux for packages.
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.
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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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