 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 935, 20 September 2021 |
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Welcome to this year's 37th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
One of the interesting aspects of the open source community is that people are always trying different approaches to solve the same problem. One of the reasons we have so many toolkits, word processors, and distributions is the creativity people have for trying out various ways to make our computing experiences better. This week we begin with a look at Obarun, an Arch-based Linux distribution which features a rarely-used init and service manager combination. Obarun is intended for more experienced users and we explore its unique features in this week's Feature Story. In our News section we talk about the Solus team branching out and working on their own versions of desktop applications in an attempt to distance the project from GNOME. We also report on the Linux cgroup filesystem being ported to the BSD family to help efforts to port software to the BSD projects. Plus we share news that Ubuntu will start packaging Firefox as a Snap. Then, in our Questions and Answers column, we explore ways to keep one application always in front of other application windows. We are also pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Obarun 2021.07.26
Obarun is a derivative of Arch Linux with systemd replaced by the s6 init software. The project's website describes the distribution's design and focus quite clearly as follows:
The goal of Obarun is to provide an alternative for people looking for more simplicity and transparency in maintaining their systems. Obarun is not designed with beginners to Linux in mind, but Obarun's community is dedicated in helping anyone with the will to try it.
Obarun is based on Arch Linux, but incorporates several changes, modifications, additions, in its effort to run reliably, without systemd and its intrusive by-products. Obarun separates the init and service management from the rest of the system that should be chosen freely by the user/sysadmin.
At the moment Obarun is only available for x86-64 architectures, as is Arch, but its own software has no such limitations on architecture.
systemd replacement is made by Skarnet's s6 supervision suite as init and by Obarun's own 66 service management. s6 and 66 is the heart of Obarun, it is what makes it unique and special from all other Linux systems.
The distribution is available in two flavours, Minimal and with JWM as the default window manager. The Minimal edition is an 837MB download while the JWM edition is 1.3GB in size. I chose to download the JWM edition for x86_64 computers.
Booting from the provided ISO brings up a menu offering to start the distribution in Live, Persistent, or Run From RAM modes. This gives us some flexibility in how we wish to use the live media. I chose to take the default, plain live mode. The live session boots to a text console where we are shown login credentials for both the root user and a regular user account. Signing in as the regular user, oblive, automatically launches a graphical environment.
The JWM-powered desktop places a panel along the bottom of the screen. The panel holds an application menu, task switcher, and system tray. On the desktop we find icons for opening a README file and for launching the system installer. The README file is a short text file with login credentials, links to on-line resources, and tips for launching programs from within JWM.
Shortly after signing into the live desktop a network management window opens. This provides us with a utility for getting us on-line with minimal effort. The network manager window makes it straight forward to connect to wired and wireless networks.
Installing
While it is possible to navigate Obarun's system installer by following its menus, the installer does some things differently from other Linux installers and I recommend reading the provided guide before proceeding. Launching the system installer opens a console window and then kicks off a long series of text-based menu screens. I don't want to go into a lot of detail here as the installer has over a dozen screens, even without going into the advanced options and customizations.
In general the installer works well enough. We are generally shown yes/no prompts or asked to pick options from lists - some lists contain keyboard layouts in two-character country codes, some lists offer time zones, others filesystems we can use. The installer worked fairly well for me, though I found the screens with yes/no options had very faint contrast in the selected text so it sometimes took me a while to discern which response was highlighted.
The installer typically shows us a list of hub modules we can access and then walks us through making selections in each one. Some choices we are asked to make include whether to update the installer, whether the system will be run in UEFI or Legacy BIOS mode, our time zone, keyboard layout, and which desktop to install. Desktop options include KDE Plasma, Xfce, JWM, Openbox, and something simply called Minimal. We are asked whether we prefer syslinux or GRUB for our boot loader, whether to check for local fast mirrors, which console partition manager to launch to divide up the disk, and which filesystem to use (Btrfs, ext2/3/4, and XFS are supported).
Once the installer collects all its information it downloads packages over the network. These packages started to install smoothly while showing some basic progress information. However, towards the end, the install started printing errors. Thousands of GPG errors were shown, telling me "no user ID for key". However, the installer completed this step and then asked me to make up a root password, create a new user account, and (when I ran the distribution in VirtualBox) the installer offered to install VirtualBox guest add-ons.
When all of these steps were completed I could return to the live JWM environment and reboot when it was convenient. Launching my new copy of Obarun presented me with a graphical login screen.
At this point I'd like to acknowledge two years ago I tried out Obarun using the same hardware I was using this week. At the time the experience got off to a poor start and I never successfully got Obarun to install and boot properly. In contrast, getting Obarun installed and running this time was a smooth experience and the distribution played well with both my test environments.
Early impressions
When I first signed into my account the Xfce desktop loaded. Immediately a pop-up appeared and asked if I wanted to save my clipboard history. I was warned that saving clipboard history would keep a copy of any passwords or other sensitive information I copied to the clipboard. Once I had selected not to save my history, the Xfce desktop finished loading. A thin panel is placed at the top of the screen and a dock for launching commonly used programs is placed along the bottom. Icons are displayed on the desktop for launching the Thunar file manager.
The desktop mostly uses a dark theme for menus and panels while application windows use a bright theme for their menus, borders, and backgrounds.
Obarun 2021.07.26 -- Changing the default desktop theme
(full image size: 175kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Early on I noticed there is no volume control icon in the system tray. There are audio mixers installed, including one that is run in the system tray, but none of them are enabled by default. We can launch one from the application menu.
Hardware
I began my trial with Obarun running in a VirtualBox virtual machine. The distribution performed well in VirtualBox. The system was stable and the Xfce desktop was responsive. The desktop did not dynamically resize to match the size of the VirtualBox window, but I could adjust the desktop's dimensions through the Xfce settings panel.
When I switched over to running Obarun on my physical workstation the distribution ran well. The distribution can boot in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes. The desktop performance was above average and all my hardware was properly detected.
The amount of memory the distribution requires will depend on which desktop we install. I found Obarun's services and implementation of Xfce consumed a relatively small amount of memory, just 275MB. A fresh install of the distribution took up about 4.3GB of disk space, plus a swap partition.
Applications
Obarun does not ship with a lot of desktop software by default. Along with the Xfce 4.16 desktop I found a small collection of applications in the distribution's tree-style menu. The Midori web browser is included, though it had some issues. Midori was unusually slow when running on Obarun and trying to type the "/" character in the address bar always opened a search box and stole focus from the address bar. This meant it was impossible to type any URLs which included a "/" character, which is most of them. Since Midori was effectively slow and crippled I ended up installing an alternative browser.
Obarun 2021.07.26 -- Exploring the application menu
(full image size: 158kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Also in the menu we find the Pidgin messaging software, the Geany text editor, the Parole media player with several audio mixers. The distribution does include media codecs, and I could play audio files. Parole was unable to play any video files and attempting to play one would cause the player's interface to lock up and necessitate terminating the Parole process. I installed the VLC player and it was able to handle both video and audio files.
The ePDF viewer is installed along with the Thunar file manager, a bulk file renaming tool, and the Xfce settings panel. The distribution includes the GNU Compiler Collection and manual pages. The default command line shell is zsh which, personally, I've never warmed to using, but it's functional and alternatives are available.
There is a shortcut for an e-mail client, but none is installed. I also noticed pressing the Print Screen button brings up an error reporting the screenshot utility isn't available. We can install the Xfce screenshot utility from the project's repositories.
Obarun uses the s6 init software, which I will talk about later, and the current kernel is Linux, version 5.13. Since Obarun is a rolling release distribution new versions of packages will become available over time.
Once, when signing into Xfce, the session crashed with an error saying it could not contact the settings server. I was returned to the login screen. After that I was able to immediately sign in again without an error and the issue never occurred again.
Package management
I don't have much to say about Obarun's package management. The distribution does not provide any graphical front-end for software management. We can install, remove, and upgrade software using the pacman command line utility. The pacman tool is fast and efficient. I encountered no problems while using it.
Obarun 2021.07.26 -- Installing a screenshot utility with pacman
(full image size: 190kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Since Obarun performs a network install, all software is up to date on the first day we are running the distribution. Over time new versions of packages will become available as the distribution provides a rolling release approach.
s6 and 66
The main selling points of Obarun are the init software and service manager, named s6 and 66, respectively. From a practical point of view the init software seems to work just fine. The system started and shutdown without any problems and in about the average amount of time.
Obarun 2021.07.26 -- Reading about 66 in the Midori browser
(full image size: 201kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
At first, when I started reading about the 66 service manager the software seemed complicated. The documentation is more geared toward explaining the design of s6 and 66 rather than how the user is expected to interface with it. The developers appear to be aware of this perception as one page of the wiki has the following to say about Obarun's service manager:
As both s6 and 66 documentation may be overwhelming at first and users may think they should consume the entirety of the documentation before they begin using the software, or the system incorporating it and in this case Obarun, this guide is an introduction to how simple and easy it is to use these tools right away. When comparing s6/66 to runit for example, an exercise in minimalism and simplicity, the abilities of s6 and 66 appear enormous, but not everyone and right away needs all those abilities. It is like obtaining a complete set of professional aircraft mechanic's tools, but for your use of servicing a washing machine only a few basic tools would suffice.
The wiki goes on to provide some examples. Some of these are still a bit more complex than most people will need, but we can pick through and find the key elements. One thing I soon found is that 66 commands need to be run as the root user, otherwise they either do not work or show incomplete information. This means checking the status of services might fail as a regular user and work as the root user, which is in contrast to how most other service managers work.
Once I learned this key point, I found there are really just a few 66 commands we need to know to interact with the service manager. The command 66-intree shows which services are available. The 66-inservice command shows the status and details of one specified service. We can see which services are installed by exploring the /usr/lib/66/ directory. Services are declared using simple text files which appear to have a similar layout as systemd unit files.
The commands 66-enable, 66-disable, 66-start, and 66-stop commands manage a specified service. For instance, "66-enable cupsd" enables the CUPS printing service. Running "66-start cupsd" and "66-stop cupsd" start and stop the service.
Obarun 2021.07.26 -- Managing services with 66
(full image size: 117kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
In short, while 66 can be fairly complicated and it can take a while to adjust to some aspects of how services are organized and declared, the day-to-day tools for handling background services are much the same as with systemd or SysV init. The big difference, from the end user's perspective, is that 66 offers a different command for each task (such as enabling or disabling a service) while other service managers usually provide one command which accepts "enable" or "disable" as a parameter. For example, on Obarun I would use "66-start ntpd" while with systemd I'd run "systemctl start ntpd" and with most SysV init implementations I'd run "service ntpd start".
One nice aspect of Obarun's init software is it is quite small. The PID 1 process is just a hair smaller than SysV init's PID 1 process in memory and less than a tenth of the size of systemd's init. This usually isn't an important metric, but in situations where memory is quite limited, every little bit helps.
Conclusions
When I first tried Obarun, a few years ago, the process got off to a rocky start. I suspect, at the time, the project was still relatively young and there were rough edges to sort out. The documentation wasn't as fleshed out yet and it led to a poor experience.
These days Obarun seems quite capable. While the distribution is aimed at more experienced users, those who are comfortable working with Arch Linux and who are interested in working with alternative init software, once the distribution is up and running it performed quite smoothly.
The install process is long and geared to more technically experienced users, the distribution (once installed) still needs a little setting up and customization to really work like a proper workstation. Once the initial set up is completed though, Obarun performs well. It is quick to boot, runs smoothly, worked with my hardware, and desktop performance was great. There were a few minor rough edges - stray error messages, a missing audio control - but for the most part Obarun does a good job and shows off its custom service manager nicely.
I will admit I'd like to see the project adopt another system installer, such as Calamares, for desktop installations. It would certainly speed up and simplify the initial process. Otherwise Obarun is pretty solid. I'd only recommend it to more advanced users, specifically those who are looking for an alternative to mainstream init software like systemd. For people who do fit that description, Obarun (and s6) are certainly interesting and worth a look.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card, Ralink RT5390R PCIe Wireless card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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Visitor supplied rating
Obarun has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.7/10 from 15 review(s).
Have you used Obarun? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
The cgroup filesystem ported to the BSDs, Solus works to replace GNOME components, Ubuntu to ship Firefox as a Snap
People who are interested in porting software between open source platforms such as Linux and the members of the BSD family just gained a new tool: a cgroup filesystem for the BSDs. "CGrpFS is a tiny implementation of the GNU/Linux CGroup filesystem for BSD platforms. It takes the form of a FUSE filesystem and implements robust tracking of processes. Resource control, however, is not present; the different BSD platforms each provide different mechanisms for this, none of which are easily adapted to CGroups semantics. The process tracking alone is sufficient for the main user of CGrpFS, InitWare, a service manager derived from systemd." This effort should make it easier to port software from Linux to the members of the BSD family, especially packages which usually rely on systemd.
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The Solus team, which also develops the Budgie desktop environment, is facing a crossroads with regards to the libraries which are used to make the Budgie desktop. Up to this point Budgie has used GTK, the same toolkit used to build GNOME. However, as both technical and political issues have grown over the past few years, the Solus team no longer views GTK as being a viable platform. Joshua Strobl has published a detailed blog post covering the issues the Solus team has with GTK and the GNOME development process. Alternatives and a plan to replace GNOME software in Solus are also outlined. "It would not be in the best interest for Solus to invest in a future version of Budgie that leverages relevant software (GTK as an example) developed by GNOME. In fact, it would not be in the best interest for Solus to invest at all in developing any software leveraging GTK4 and beyond. It would put us in an undesired position of being progressively negatively impacted by conscious decisions by GNOME, not to mention implying to others that we support the direction GNOME is taking their software stack, when that reality couldn't be further from the truth."
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The Ubuntu team is looking at changing the way Firefox is packaged on their distribution. An issue report indicates the minimal desktop flavour of the distribution will include a Firefox Snap package. "Per Canonical's distribution agreement with Mozilla, we're making the Snap the default installation of Firefox on desktop ISOs starting with Ubuntu 21.10. The snap is built and published for amd64, armhf and arm64. It is jointly maintained by Mozilla and the Ubuntu desktop team, and published by Mozilla."
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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) |
Keeping a specific application window on top
Put-it-on-top asks: Is there something I can install that would allow me to make it so certain program windows are always shown over top of others?
DistroWatch answers: I am not aware of one particular tool which is dedicated to keeping a specific application on top of others which works across all desktops. Most window managers and desktops allow you to right-click on a window's title bar and mark it as being on top or "always on top". However, if you're looking for a way to automate this so that windows for a selected application always get set to being shown above others, then there are a few ways to do this that will work. One approach works on the KDE Plasma desktop specifically while the second option I will talk about works on just about any desktop. At least the latter can be used with most window managers running on an X.Org display server (as opposed to Wayland).
Looking first at the approach, which works on KDE Plasma, we need to explore the Window Management module in the System Settings panel. Under Window Management, select Window Rules. This module makes it possible to select a type of window we want to adjust. Then we can add rules or properties to the new window. Here I set any window that mentions Firefox in its title to be placed above all other windows:
Creating a rule which always places Firefox above other windows
(full image size: 85kB, resolution: 1052x811 pixels)
For people not using KDE Plasma, the generic process that should work on most window managers to make sure an application is automatically set to always be shown in front of (or on top of) other application windows requires you make a small script. A launcher for this script might be placed in your application menu or on your desktop. The script will do three things: launch your application, wait a few seconds for the application to open, and then send the window manager a signal to let it know the new window should always be placed on top of all others.
The tool to send this special signal to the window manager is called xdotool. The xdotool is used to look up information about windows on the desktop or send commands to them. The xdotool utility can resize windows, move them, minimize, and maximize them. It can also send mouse and keyboard signals to windows.
This last feature is especially useful once you know the keyboard shortcut which tells your window manager to set the current window to be on top of the window stack. The keyboard shortcut may vary from desktop to desktop (and distribution to distribution). In Xfce the Window Manager configuration module has a section called Keyboard which lists supported shortcuts. On my system running Xfce the shortcut to force a window to always be on top (visible) is Alt+F12.
Finding the shortcut to place windows on top
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This means we can create a small script which launches an application, waits a few seconds for the program to finish loading, and then locks it on top of the window stack using the shortcut. In my case, since the shortcut is Alt+F12, my script would look like this for locking the kwrite application on top:
#!/bin/sh
kwrite &
sleep 3
xdotool key alt+F12
Once the above script is made executable by your user you can run it to launch kwrite or any other program you like to make sure the application window remains above all others.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
ExTiX 21.9
ExTiX is a deepin-based distribution with alternative installer and utilities. The project's latest release, ExTiX 21.9, features the Deepin desktop and a number of changes. "I've released a new version of ExTiX Deepin today (21-09-14). This ExTiX build is based on Deepin 20.2.3 released by Deepin Technology 210816. New functions: 1. You can run ExTiX from RAM. Use boot alternative 2 (load to RAM) or Advanced. A wonderful way to run Linux if you have enough RAM. Everything will be super fast. When ExTiX has booted up you can remove the DVD or USB stick. 2. You will have the opportunity to choose language before you enter the Deepin 20.2.3 Desktop. All main languages are supported. 3. I have replaced Deepin Installer with the Reborn version of Deepin Installer. Works better in every way. 4. I have replaced kernel 5.12.4-exton with kernel 5.14.2-exton. Corresponding the second latest available stable kernel from Kernel.org. 5. Spotify and Skype are pre-installed. 6. You can watch Netflix while running Firefox..." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
ExTiX 21.9 -- Running the Deepin desktop
(full image size: 2.4MB, resolution: 3440x1440 pixels)
Kali Linux 2021.3
Kali Linux is a Debian-based distribution with a collection of security and forensics tools. The project has published a new release, Kali Linux 2021.3, which introduces changes to the OpenSSL software. "OpenSSL - Wide compatibility by default - Keep reading for what that means. New Kali-Tools site - Following the footsteps of Kali-Docs, Kali-Tools has had a complete refresh. Better VM support in the Live image session - Copy & paste and drag & drop from your machine into a Kali VM by default. New tools - From adversary emulation, to subdomain takeover to Wi-Fi attacks. Kali NetHunter smartwatch - first of its kind, for TicHunter Pro. KDE 5.21 - Plasma desktop received a version bump. OpenSSL: wide compatibility by default. Going forwards from Kali Linux 2021.3, OpenSSL has now been configured for wider compatibility to allow Kali to talk to as many services as possible. This means that legacy protocols (such as TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1) and older ciphers are enabled by default." Further information is available in the project's release announcement.
Ubuntu 18.04.6
The Ubuntu team has announced an updated version of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS is now available. The new media includes security fixes, including a fix for the BootHole security issues. "The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS (Long-Term Support) for its Desktop and Server products. Unlike previous point releases, 18.04.6 is a refresh of the amd64 and arm64 installer media after the key revocation related to the BootHole vulnerability, re-enabling their usage on Secure Boot enabled systems. More detailed information can be found here. Many other security updates for additional high-impact bug fixes are also included, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS." Further information can be found in the release announcement and in the distribution's release notes.
SparkyLinux 2021.09
The SparkyLinux project develops a lightweight distribution based on Debian. The Sparky team has published a new update to the distribution's semi-rolling branch which presents users with software from Debian's development "Bookworm" branch. The project's release announcement lists the following changes: "Sparky 2021.09 of the (semi-)rolling line is out; it is based on Debian Testing 'Bookworm'. Changes: repositories set to Debian 'Bookworm' and Sparky 'Orion Belt; all packages updated as of September 17, 2021; new backgrounds: desktop, login manager, Plymouth & boot screen, etc.; Linux kernel 5.10.46 (5.14.6 & 5.15-rc1 in Sparky unstable repos); GCC 10 still as default, but GCC 11 is also installed; no more Sparky Advanced Installed GUI, the Advanced installer works in text mode only now, the first window lets you choose the standard version of the installer or DEV version with disk encryption and LVM support; 'sparky-upgrade' text based tool is also preinstalled in CLI ISO; packages removed from ISO: mc, gparted; new package installed: lfm; Calamares 3.2.43." People already running the semi-rolling branch of SparkyLinux do not need to re-install.
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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: 2,598
- Total data uploaded: 40.1TB
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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) |
USB disk images or ISO files?
For approximately the past 20 years DistroWatch has been providing direct download links to new open source operating system releases. In the early days Linux distributions almost always provided download images in the form of ISO files (images of optical media) which could be burned to CDs or DVDs. In more recent years projects have been publishing ISO files which can still be transferred to optical media and also written to USB thumb drives.
While most projects provide a single ISO file which can be written to multiple types of media, some projects publish separate media for USB thumb drives and for optical media. Files intended to be written to thumb drives or SD cards are called IMG files. An IMG file is often published if a project either wishes to not provide a single hybrid image (for both thumb drives and optical media) or when persistence is going to be used, allowing people to write files back to the thumb drive containing their distribution.
Up to this point, when there is a choice between IMG and ISO files we have continued to provide direct download links to the ISO file for new releases. Since many people no longer use optical media, do you think it is time we switched to linking to IMG files as the default when there is a choice?
You can see the results of our previous poll on the Calamares system installer in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Link to ISO or IMG files for new releases?
| Stay with ISO files: | 1228 (60%) |
| Switch to IMG files when available: | 459 (23%) |
| No opinion: | 343 (17%) |
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| Website News |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 27 September 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 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 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Ultimate Edition, first released in December 2006, was a fork of Ubuntu and Linux Mint though recent versions (starting in 2024) have been based on Arch Linux. The goal of the project is to create a complete, seamlessly integrated, visually stimulating, and easy-to-install operating system. Single-button upgrade is one of several special characteristics of this distribution. Other main features include custom desktop and theme with 3D effects, support for a wide range of networking options, including WiFi and Bluetooth, and integration of many extra applications and package repositories.
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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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