 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 964, 18 April 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 16th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
How long software and hardware should be supported is a matter of considerable debate. Consumers obviously want their purchases to have a long life, supported with security fixes for years while business would prefer to cut support short to reduce costs and drive new sales. One open source project is working to try to extend the life of mobile hardware by providing a lightweight operating system that runs on multiple phones and tablets. This project is postmarketOS and we report on it and how this Alpine-based distribution works in this week's Feature Story. In our News section we talk about the Fedora project considering phasing out the DNF package manager for the lighter Microdnf alternative while EndeavourOS tests out a new window manager called Worm. Plus we talk about running a Raspberry Pi computer with free software components only. Then we discuss running macOS software on Linux and how to reduce bandwidth consumption in this week's Questions and Answers column. Last week we talked about Fedora phasing out Legacy BIOS support in favour of UEFI. We'd like to hear how many of our readers still use the classic BIOS approach to boot their operating system. Let us know why you still use the Legacy BIOS mechanism in the comments. Plus this week we are thrilled to welcome Zephix, a Debian-based live distribution, to our database. We're 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:
|
| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
postmarketOS on the PinePhone
In recent months I have talked about what it is like to run a mobile version of Manjaro with Plasma Mobile and UBports on a PinePhone. There are benefits and drawbacks to both operating systems, but one thing which stood out for me (during both trials) was both operating systems struggled with performance on the minimal device. Both operating systems ran and, in their own styles, made the PinePhone a useful, portable, low-spec computer. I was curious to see how the PinePhone would work with a mobile operating system specifically geared to lower-end (and older) hardware. It seems our readers were too.
After taking a break for a while, I turned my attention to other, mature, and open source operating systems which work with the PinePhone. One which stood out was postmarketOS. This project describes itself as "A real Linux distribution for phones and other mobile devices." The project goes on to talk about its focus in terms of privacy, sustainability, and security for older devices:
We are sick of not receiving updates shortly after buying new phones. Sick of the walled gardens deeply integrated into Android and iOS. That's why we are developing a sustainable, privacy and security focused free software mobile OS that is modeled after traditional Linux distributions. With privilege separation in mind. Let's keep our devices useful and safe until they physically break!
Background
The postmarketOS project is based on Alpine Linux and currently supports two main devices, the PinePhone and the Librem 5, along with a just over 20 other devices being worked on. Since virtually all features, including SMS and calls, are supposed to work on the PinePhone, this seemed like a good match.
There are three editions of postmarketOS for the PinePhone: Phosh, Plasma Mobile, and Simple X Mobile Interface (Sxmo). These seem to be updated about once every week or two. I decided to try out Phosh since I haven't experimented with this interface before. There are two builds offered: a live edition (434MB) and one with an installer (640MB). The former is recommended for casual testing while the latter is recommended for people who plan to use postmarketOS on a regular basis and want to set a custom password on their account. I decided to download the image with an installer.
Installing
The compressed installer image expands to 5.1GB and I then wrote this image file to my microSD card. Once this card was inserted into the appropriate port on the PinePhone the phone booted to a screen which informed me it was running postmarketOS with the Phosh interface on the aarch64 CPU architecture. I was then informed I was about to install a new operating system.
The postmarketOS installer offers to place the operating system on the PinePhone's internal storage or on the microSD from which we booted. The former is probably a good idea for long-term use. I chose to use the SD card as it meant I could unplug it later to revert back to running the device's default Manjaro operating system.
We are next asked to create a password which will be used for authentication and unlocking the device. We cannot skip creating a password and the password we make needs to be at least eight characters long. This is unusual for a mobile operating system and proved to be inconvenient later.
We are next given the chance to enable disk encryption, which will require a boot password if we enable it. I decided to skip the disk encryption. We are then shown a progress bar while the installer sets itself up. This final stage took almost exactly 30 minutes on my device.
The phone stops installing and displays a text login screen followed by the symbols "^@" which are written to the screen several times. After waiting a minute the PinePhone rebooted and told me it was resizing its filesystem. A few minutes later I was shown a lock screen which displayed the current time (for the UTC time zone) and the date (which was off by about six weeks). We can slide a finger up the display to bring up the unlock prompt and enter our eight-character password.
postmarketOS 21.12 -- The welcome window
(full image size: 180kB, resolution: 720x1440 pixels)
Early impressions
The first time I signed in postmarketOS showed me a welcome message. This provided some tips regarding connecting to wireless networks, opening the settings menu by tapping the top panel, and where to find software updates. The welcome window also explains how to power off the device.
The user interface places a thin panel at the top of the display. Tapping this panel (not dragging it) brings up a small settings widget where we can toggle networking, the flashlight, Bluetooth, screen rotation, volume levels, and screen brightness.
In the middle of the home screen we find launchers for several applications which I'll talk about later. When we have an app open, pulling up from the bottom of the display shows us a split view. At the top of the screen we are shown a list of open apps we can select or close (by swiping up). At the bottom of the split display we see app icons we can tap to open a new program.
postmarketOS 21.12 -- The home screen showing one open application
(full image size: 124kB, resolution: 720x1440 pixels)
The interface is fairly responsive. Phosh running on postmarketOS feels a lot faster and more responsive to touch than Plasma Mobile running on Manjaro. It's probably about the same speed, or maybe a little faster, than what I experienced when running UBports on this same device.
One of the first things I tried to do was adjust the screen brightness. The slider in the settings widget is slow to respond and I discovered that it's possible to accidentally turn the display off entirely by moving the slider too far to the left. Once the screen is off we can't see the slider to move it back. In fact, once the screen is dimmed that far the only way to do anything with the device is hold the power button until it reboots, which resets the brightness level.
The icons on the home screen offer us access to programs for making phone calls, sending and receiving text messages, Firefox, a clock, calculator, and an image viewer. There is a media player (called Lollypop), a software centre, camera, and text editor. We also have a Settings app, a Tweaks app (which is sort of an extension for Settings which focuses on the visual aspects of the operating system), and the Portfolio file manager. There is also a terminal app which I ended up using frequently.
These applications tended to work well for me. The Portfolio file manager was a highlight and quite responsive. The camera app appears to be the same one used by Plasma Mobile running on Manjaro and it worked, though it's a bit slow. The image viewer works, but doesn't have a default location where it will browse and show us thumbnails of pictures. The image viewer works more like a desktop application where we need to browse to the location we want and select an image file.
The one application which did not work was Firefox. The browser would load, but it is too large to run on the PinePhone. Even with all other applications closed, Firefox is so large and slow it took over 30 seconds to type a short search or URL. The browser was unable to load any web pages. This was similar to my experience with Manjaro on the PinePhone, though the Morph browser paired with UBports worked smoothly on the same hardware.
Quirks and problems
I could not find a way to take a screenshot using the Phosh interface or the buttons on the PinePhone. I found documentation which explains there is no screenshot function built-in. We have the option of using the command line to install a package called grim and then run it (usually with a delay) to take screenshots which are then saved to our home directory. This approach (running "sleep 10 ; grim" from the command line) is an awkward way to handle capturing images and I hope a more convenient method is introduced.
postmarketOS 21.12 -- The Settings application
(full image size: 91kB, resolution: 720x1440 pixels)
Something I noticed early on was postmarketOS was not detecting my wireless networks. A little poking around in the Settings app revealed airplane mode was on by default, blocking all connections. I then found wireless connections were also turned off in a separate section of the interface. Once the wi-fi toggle was pressed the device found my local networks. This is an unusual set of defaults, but in line with the project's goal of improving mobile privacy.
The postmarketOS platform, at least with Phosh as the interface, enables physical feedback (vibrations) when the user types. I find this quite irritating and soon went looking for a way to disabling it. This led me down a series of modules in the Settings panel and in the Tweaks tool, looking at notifications, sound, keyboard, and language options. None of them presented me with a clear way to disable keyboard vibration feedback. Eventually I found a forum post which explains how to disable the vibrations using the command line. This works (which is great), but the setting is lost whenever the phone restarts (which is bad).
I was hoping to disable the feedback by disabling or removing the feedbackd process which runs in the background. Unfortunately the feedbackd service is not registered (cannot be managed using the service manager) and killing the process causes it to automatically respawn. I tried removing its package using the apk package manager, but feedbackd is a dependency of the Phosh interface, the calling app, and the messaging app, making it effectively impossible to remove. All of which to say is it is possible to turn off feedback vibrations, but it requires command line experience and issuing the command on each start-up.
Earlier I mentioned the installer enforces an eight-character password which is used for everything (logins, sudo, remote shell sessions, and authentication in the Tweaks panel). It's very inconvenient to enter eight characters every time one picks up the phone and I went looking for a way around this. At first I tried removing the password in the Settings app, but the account manager refuses to allow empty passwords. I then enabled auto-login, but it has no effect.
I turned to the command line and did what I did with Manjaro's mobile platform: I ran "sudo passwd -d user" which deletes the account password. This had mixed results. The lock screen would still prompt for a password, but I could enter anything (as long as I typed at least one character) to unlock the phone. This was better, though still a speed bump in using the device.
Deleting the password raised new problems though. Up to this point I'd been able to remotely login to the phone using OpenSSH (more on that later). Deleting my password blocked remote logins. It also made it impossible to change some system settings as the phone will occasionally prompt for the admin password and, with my password deleted, all prompts would fail. This locked me out of various parts of the Tweaks panel, for example.
postmarketOS 21.12 -- The Tweaks interface adjustment tool
(full image size: 150kB, resolution: 720x1440 pixels)
In the end, I compromised with a single-character password which slowed me down a minimal amount while allowing OpenSSH and the Tweaks panel to work. This requirement of needing a user password and forcing an unlock prompt, even when no password exists, feels like a poorly thought out design and one which was a constant irritant during my trial.
I ran into some other problems while trying out various options. For instance, when I went into the Keyboard module in the Settings panel selecting most of the available options did nothing. At another point I went into the Accessibility module and selected the blinking cursor toggle. This brought up a dialog window with a slider. The dialog doesn't fit onto the screen and there is no direct way to close it or switch back to the main Settings app. This effectively locks the app until we either reboot or bring up the window list and close the offending dialog window.
Sometimes trying to open new applications would cause a new window to appear, then close as if the program was crashing. There was no corresponding error, but I suspect the system was running low on memory. Usually trying to launch the app again would cause it to work properly.
Alpine under the hood
The postmarketOS operating system is, at its heart, Alpine Linux. The distribution ships with some command line programs such as ps, scp, and the bash shell. The Busybox software is used to provide a good deal of this functionality, including the operating system's init service. There are no manual pages installed by default.
We can use the sudo command to run administrative tasks and Alpine's apk package manager to install and update programs. For instance, I followed a guide in the wiki which shows us how to enable remote command line access using OpenSSH. This, combined with the phone's built-in ifconfig command to find my IP address, made it possible for me to remotely manage the phone.
The ability to use Alpine's package manager and service manager makes the underlying operating system more flexible and provides access to a wider range of packages. I especially like that the root filesystem is writable, meaning we do not need to remount or do any fancy work arounds to make changes to the operating system the way one does with UBports.
Managing software and updates
Apart from Alpine's apk package manager, postmarketOS also ships with the GNOME Software application. This tool offers three tabs: Explore, Installed, and Updates. Even after pressing the Refresh button in GNOME Software the first two tabs did not show any entries. The Updates tab did though and a dozen new packages were offered. I selected and installed all available updates and they applied cleanly without problems.
postmarketOS 21.12 -- The GNOME Software centre
(full image size: 149kB, resolution: 720x1440 pixels)
I checked to see which repositories were enabled and found there were three listed in GNOME Software, though their names were truncated. The repositories were named "Remote repository c", "Remote repository m", and "Remote repository v". All three are enabled, but no entries could be found in the Explore tab or in search results for common application names.
Other observations
I made a few more observations during my brief trial with postmarketOS. One was the PinePhone's battery drained at around 10% per hour with medium-level use while running postmarketOS.
A challenge arose when I tried to use the device as a phone. When I placed a SIM card in the phone postmarketOS was unable to detect an available mobile network. I faced similar problems with the PinePhone when I tested Manjaro and UBports on this same device - UBports couldn't detect any networks while Manjaro could detect networks without successfully connecting. This surprised me since, during my previous trials, I've used UBports with my current mobile provider in past years.
I found some information on the PINE64 forum which talks about issues getting the PinePhone to talk with mobile networks. This led me to a page on the PINE64 wiki which talks about common mobile network settings which may need to be entered by the user in order for the phone to connect. I looked into this, but the Access Point Names (APN) section wasn't an option which appeared in my mobile settings under Phosh.
At this point I confirmed all hardware switches were toggled on and that the same SIM card would work in another phone. This ongoing problem seems to suggest there is an issue with my PinePhone talking with my mobile carrier's SIM card - possibly due to a hardware issue or carrier compatibility since mine isn't on the list of networks known to work with the PinePhone - rather than any shortcoming in the three operating systems I've tested.
Conclusions
In some ways I feel as though postmarketOS is the best of the three mobile operating systems I've tried so far on the PinePhone. It has a friendly and slick installer, it offers three user interfaces, and it has a nice welcome screen with helpful tips. The Phosh interface running on postmarketOS is probably the closest of the three to more mainstream mobile experiences, such as Android. The icons, top panel, and Settings app all seem fairly close to their Android counterparts. The names of pre-installed programs are some of the most clear as far as determining their utility - a problem I regularly faced when navigating the Plasma Mobile interface.
The performance of postmarketOS was the best of the three and the interface is fairly responsive. Considering the limited hardware of the PinePhone this is probably as good as one can hope for. It's not snappy compared to a medium-level phone running Android, but it's better than most other alternatives.
I also like that while Phosh provides a fairly familiar mobile interface, postmarketOS stays close to its roots behind the scenes. It's entirely possible to run postmarketOS on the PinePhone similar to how we would run Raspberry Pi OS on the Raspberry Pi. We have all the tools we need from the Alpine base to install packages and enable services should we wish to do so.
There were a number of problems I ran into while exploring postmarketOS. Putting aside the mobile network connection issues which seem to be consistent with my PinePhone, there were a number of issues which vexed me. It's unusually difficult to perform some common actions, such as disabling vibration feedback and taking a screenshot. There weren't any applications listed in the software centre, and some settings haven't been implemented yet.
My biggest issue though was dealing with passwords. There is no reason for a mobile device to force its user to have a password and, even if one wishes to debate that, I find it hard to imagine someone appreciating being forced to type an eight-character password every time they wish to use their phone. For someone who often picks up and puts down their phone (maybe a few dozen times a day) this is prohibitively annoying. To make matters worse, doing away with the password locks the user out of adjusting some settings.
The postmarketOS platform looks like it has a solid base and some good polish in places thanks to the Phosh interface. There are still issues - unfinished pieces and some bugs, but of the three mobile distributions I've tried on the PinePhone so far, I think postmarketOS will provide the best experience for someone coming from an Android background or someone wanting to run a small home server on a low-power device.
* * * * *
Visitor supplied rating
postmarketOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9.5/10 from 2 review(s).
Have you used postmarketOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
|
| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Fedora considers move to Microdnf, EndeavourOS tests new window manager, running a Raspberry Pi without non-free firmware
Microdnf is a lightweight package manager which offers the functionality most people experience with DNF with less overhead. The Fedora team is considering replacing the existing DNF tool with Microdnf in a future version of Fedora. "The new major Microdnf will provide huge improvements and in some cases better behavior then DNF. In the future, the new Microdnf will replace DNF. The new Microdnf will be accompanied by a new library (libdnf5) and a new DNF Daemon." Details on the benefits Microdnf plans to bring are covered in a Fedora change proposal.
* * * * *
Along with the latest snapshot of EndeavourOS, the project shared some interesting news. The EndeavourOS project now offers a custom window manager called Worm. "This release is also shipping with a brand-new Window Manager developed by our community editions team member Codic12 and we are more than proud to present you this WM that was developed a little bit under our wing. Codic12 decided to develop this WM to satisfy his need for a lightweight window manager that worked well with both floating and tiling modes and had window decorations with minimise, maximise and close buttons in any layout desired and that could run on a semi-embedded system like the PIZero. Worm is written in Nim and is based on X11, a Wayland version isn't in the pipeline in the near future, according to him."
* * * * *
The Raspberry Pi single board computer has been a favourite hobbyist tool in the open source community for the past ten years and its popularity has sparked the creation of a lot of similar low-end computers, ideal for small projects and educational environments. One thorn in the side of the Raspberry Pi community has long been the requirement of non-free firmware to boot the device. Gunnar Wolf checks in on the progress being made to replace this key piece of non-free firmware. "Raspberry Pi computers require a piece of non-free software to boot - the infamous raspi-firmware package. But for almost as long as there has been a Raspberry Pi to talk of (this year it turns 10 years old!), there have been efforts to get it to boot using only free software. How is it progressing? Michael Bishop (IRC user "clever") explained today in the #debian-raspberrypi channel in OFTC that it advances far better than what I expected." The blog post goes on to talk about running a Raspberry Pi machine exclusively with free components.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
|
| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Running macOS software and reducing bandwidth
An-apple-a-day asks: Is there a compatibility layer for macOS software like WINE does for Windows? Seems it would be easier given Linux and macOS are both UNIX-like.
DistroWatch answers: There is compatibility software for Linux which assists in running programs built for macOS. The project is called Darling. It's not as advanced at this time as WINE, but it has made progress in getting some macOS software to run.
It may be a little easier to translate some concepts between macOS and Linux, but even though both are members of the UNIX family a lot of the technology involved isn't intended to be compatible. There is also a problem of scale.
The macOS community is around a tenth the size of the Windows community and the platform has many fewer exclusive applications. This makes demand for a compatibility layer for macOS lower than the demand and attention for a Windows layer. For these reasons, Darling has made less progress and attracts fewer developers than its WINE counterpart.
* * * * *
Running-out-of-bandwidth asks: Been running Arch for a while and my slower Internet speeds mean it takes ages to update the system. Would a non-rolling distro be better?
DistroWatch answers: A fixed release distribution does tend to require fewer updates. A rolling release distribution will typically upgrade every package as new upstream versions of software become available. This puts the user on a rapid treadmill of new packages.
A fixed release distribution will usually only release package updates to handle security issues or minor changes, like timezone and certificate information. This means, if there are no security issues found, a package might not be updated at all during the lifetime of the distribution, even if the upstream project is pumping out new versions with new features.
With a rolling release of a desktop distribution you might end up replacing hundreds of packages each month, consuming hundreds of megabytes of data. With a fixed release, you're likely to end up with less than a dozen security updates per week that require a fraction of the bandwidth.
This isn't to say every month you'll always see less bandwidth consumption from a fixed release platform versus a rolling release. However, on average, you're likely to save yourself a lot of bandwidth over the course of a year if you stick with a fixed release distribution.
The trade off though is that with a fixed release you will need to download a new ISO (or massive set of package upgrades) about once every two to five years to install the new version of the distribution. The total bandwidth is still probably a lot lower with the fixed release, but keep in mind how long a distribution is supported and how large it is when you're considering which one to install. You probably don't want to download an entire new distribution every six months if you're worried about bandwidth consumption, but a new distribution version every five years will probably put a minimal strain on your Internet connection.
Another approach to take would be to run updates while you're asleep. Since you're running Arch Linux, I'd assume you're somewhat comfortable with the command line. You could run a scheduled job which installs new packages while you're not using the computer and then puts the machine to sleep. Then you could keep using your existing distribution without the amount of time to run updates being much of a factor.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
|
| Released Last Week |
EndeavourOS 22.1
Bryan Poerwo has announced the release of a brand-new version of EndeavourOS, an Arch-based Linux distribution featuring a customised Xfce desktop. Code-named "Apollo", the distribution's 22.1 version comes with various enhancements and bug fixes: "We changed the internet check not to rely on GitHub or GitLab and preventing a failed internet connection error in countries where either GitHub or GitLab is blocked; a fix when Xfce and i3 are both selected for installation; community editions now install with their dedicated display manager; different order for desktop environment option and package chooser; fix to Firefox getting installed when not chosen; Qogir icons and cursor are used in live environment and offline Xfce install; new info button for customised installation; rewritten custom EOS modules for better Calamares integration; when using a custom user_pkglist file, those packages are now displayed on the 'netinstall' page so you can confirm what will be installed...." Continue to the release announcement for a detailed list of changes.
EndeavourOS 22.1 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 3.5MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Turnkey Linux 17.0
Jeremy Davis has announced the release of TurnKey Linux 17.0, a new stable version of the project's highly-specialised, single-purpose set of server appliances. The project's version 17.0 is based on Debian 11 and includes an experimental build for Raspberry Pi 4 computers: "I'm excited to finally announce the stable release of Turnkey 17.0. It has been a bit of a slog, taking way longer than I had hoped and there are only two this time. Regardless, we've finally made it to the stable release milestone, at least for Core and TKLDev. Hopefully we can keep the momentum up and have more v17.0 appliances ready really soon! In the meantime, these two new version 17.0 appliances are published to our mirror network and are also available for download direct from their relevant appliance pages or launched directly from the Hub. Finally, whilst I can't take any credit at all, I'm super excited that community member Yannick has produced 'preliminary' Raspberry Pi 4 builds." See the release announcement for further details.
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
|
| 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: 2,709
- Total data uploaded: 41.8TB
|
| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
|
Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Legacy BIOS or UEFI
Last week in our News section we talked about the Fedora team planning to phase out support for booting on Legacy BIOS machines. The idea being to support UEFI exclusively going forward.
While most modern computers support both methods, or UEFI exclusively now, many older machines use BIOS to boot or run into compatibility issues with some distributions when trying to boot in UEFI mode. We would like to hear which approach you use: do you boot in UEFI or Legacy BIOS mode?
You can see the results of our previous poll on spinning disks versus SSDs in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
|
Do you boot in UEFI or Legacy BIOS mode?
| Legacy BIOS: | 850 (33%) |
| UEFI: | 824 (32%) |
| I use both across multiple machines: | 887 (34%) |
| Unsure: | 47 (2%) |
|
|
| Website News |
New distributions added to database
Zephix is a live Linux operating system based on Debian's stable branch. It runs totally from removable media without touching any files stored on the user's system disk. The aim of Zephix is to provide a free modular operating system that users can carry with them and use wherever there is laptop or a desktop system available. The default ISO image comes without any graphical desktop, but a "desktop" module (with LXQt) is available separately, together with a "firmware" module and various popular application modules.
Zephix 4 -- Running the LXQt desktop
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 25 April 2022. 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)
|
|
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 3, value: US$75.60) |
|
|
|
 bc1qtede6f7adcce4kjpgx0e5j68wwgtdxrek2qvc4  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Linux Foundation Training |
|
|
| 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.
|
| Archives |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • 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 |
| • 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.
|
| Shells.com |
Your own personal Linux computer in the cloud, available on any device. Supported operating systems include Android, Debian, Fedora, KDE neon, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro and Ubuntu, ready in minutes.
Starting at US$4.95 per month, 7-day money-back guarantee
|
| Random Distribution | 
Qubes OS
Qubes OS is a security-oriented, Fedora-based desktop Linux distribution whose main concept is "security by isolation" by using domains implemented as lightweight Xen virtual machines. It attempts to combine two contradictory goals: how to make the isolation between domains as strong as possible, mainly due to clever architecture that minimises the amount of trusted code, and how to make this isolation as seamless and easy as possible.
Status: Active
|
| 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.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
