 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1010, 13 March 2023 |
Welcome to this year's 11th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
One of the great challenges of the Linux ecosystem is that there is such diversity between distributions packages built for one distribution often do not work on another. This has resulted in all sorts of interesting solutions, including portable package formats (like AppImage and Flatpak), declarative packages (provided by Nix), and port frameworks such as pkgsrc. Some distributions are taking another approach and making it possible to run traditional packages, built for different distributions, in local containers, making package management across multiple distributions virtually seamless. This week we begin with a look at blendOS, one young project which uses containers to blend together traditional packages from three separate distributions. What do you think of distributions, like blendOS and Vanilla OS, which mix traditional packages from multiple sources? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll.
This week's Questions and Answers column continues to talk about packages, specifically how to determine what files a package deposits on a hard drive. Then, in our News section, we explore another challenge of the Linux ecosystem: legacy dependencies. Distributions with long lifespans, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Slackware Linux, often end up supporting upstream packages long after the developers stop maintaining the software. We talk about a specific example of this, highlighting Slackware working with legacy OpenSSL packages. We also talk about improvements coming to elementary OS, in particular its file manager and networking widget. Plus we report on the Vanilla OS team changing their base distribution from Ubuntu to Debian.
This past week we added two new projects to our database, Slint and blendOS (the subject of this week's Feature Story). We also did some clean-up work in our package database and we share details on all of these changes below. Plus we are pleased to share the new releases from last week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
blendOS 2023.01.26
blendOS (sometimes written BlendOS on the project's website) is an Arch-based distribution which offers to install and run software from Fedora's development branch (called Rawhide), from Ubuntu, and from Arch Linux repositories. It reportedly runs on an immutable filesystem and uses GNOME as the default desktop, though the project's website reports we can choose the Xfce or Plasma desktops as alternatives at install time.
The blendOS website also mentions the project uses its own package manager, called Blend. We're also told we can use other package managers from supported distributions, including APT, DNF, and pacman. The website goes on to mention Flatpak packages can be installed too.
If all of this sounds familiar, it should. The blendOS feature list is almost identical to that of Vanilla OS. However, blendOS is based on Arch Linux while Vanilla OS is based on Ubuntu.
There is one edition of blendOS, built for 64-bit (x86_64) computers, and its ISO is 1.4GB in size. This ISO can be booted in UEFI mode only, Legacy BIOS mode is not supported.
Installing
The live media boots quickly to the GNOME desktop. Once the session starts a graphical utility automatically launches and offers to begin the installation. This tool appears to be a customized version of the Jade GUI installer. The installer starts by asking us to select our keyboard layout. Trying to change the default option brings up a search window of country codes, but the pop-up window is labelled "Search Timezones". Despite the mislabelled window, we can pick our preferred keyboard code and proceed. We're then asked to pick our timezone and blendOS will try to identify our timezone automatically. The next screen asks us to make up a username and password. We are also asked to choose our preferred desktop environment with the options being listed as: GNOME, KDE Plasma, Xfce, Sway, and i3. I chose Plasma.
The installer next asks if we'd like to enable IPv6 loopback networking (I don't think I've ever before encountered this question during the setup process of Linux distribution) and whether we'd like to enable compressed swap in memory (zram).
When it comes to disk partitioning we can take a guided option which just asks us to select a disk. We can also choose to partition the local disk using GParted or using a command line terminal. The automated option takes over the entire disk and sets up a Btrfs volume. The last step shows us a summary of the choices we made and pauses before the installer proceeds.
I found it interesting blendOS pauses to prompt us for elevated system access three times during the install process. Once on the partitioning screen, once on the summary screen, and once while installing packages. We are not asked for a password, we're just shown a GNOME prompt asking if it is okay for the user to perform admin actions.
It looks as though all packages installed to our hard drive come from remote servers, at least that was the impression I got from the installer's progress reports. This requirement of being on-line doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere on the blendOS website or in the installer. When the installer finishes its work, it offers to reboot the computer.
Early impressions
My fresh copy of blendOS booted very quickly to a graphical login screen. The distribution identifies itself as Arch in the boot loader, sticking to its parent's labelling. I selected Plasma as my desktop environment during the install process and found both Plasma on Wayland and Plasma on X11 sessions were available. The Wayland session is selected by default and worked well for me. The only annoyance I encountered early on was how quickly Plasma locks itself when there is no input; the desktop locks out the user after five minutes.
blendOS 2023.01.26 -- The Plasma desktop and application menu
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The KDE Plasma session is fairly vanilla. The theme, wallpaper, and layout all seem to be unchanged from upstream. Not a lot of desktop software is included. We're treated to the Firefox web browser, Discover software manager, Dolphin file manager, and the Qt design tools. The KDE System Settings panel is present along with the systemd init software and version 6.1 of the Linux kernel. The distribution runs the zsh shell by default when we open a terminal.
The Blend package manager
A core feature of blendOS is the Blend package manager. Though "package manager" may be a misnomer as Blend primarily handles containers and guides package management, both on the distribution and inside the containers. When we first open a virtual terminal the system displays a message indicating how Blend can be used. We can later run "blend help" to get a summary of available commands. There is no manual page for Blend and there doesn't appear to be any on-line documentation for Blend with examples either. A lot of my experience with Blend happened through experimenting.
Before getting into the details of using Blend, I'd first like to share an overview in how blendOS works. The idea seems to be that blendOS provides us with the core distribution (based on Arch) and a desktop environment. A few applications, like those mentioned above, are included. Virtually everything else on the system, any additional software we install, comes from one of two sources: Flatpak bundles and containers. I want to focus on the containers, mostly.
When we want to install a regular package from one of the supported distributions (Fedora, Arch, or Ubuntu), Blend creates a container on our system. A minimal core for the target distribution is installed in the container. We can then install libraries and applications inside the container using the Blend package manager. These containers (which hold the Arch, Fedora, and Ubuntu distributions along with our software) all share the same home directory our user has on the host system. In other words, if I create a document in blendOS and save it in my home directory, the document is available to any software running in any of the guest containers.
By default, Blend sets up and installs software into an Arch Linux container, but we can specify other containers to be used. Once software has been installed in a container it should add its launcher to our application menu (if it is a desktop program), or we can use Blend to open a shell which runs inside the container. When all of these pieces work together it means I can install Falkon in the Fedora container and the GNU Image Manipulation Program in an Ubuntu container and both applications can access all of my user's files through a shared home directory.
blendOS 2023.01.26 -- Running shells on blendOS system and in a Fedora container
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Something users may find confusing at first is that software inside a container is not automatically accessible by our user. In other words, if I install the Nano text editor in an Ubuntu container, I cannot simply run "nano" from my blendOS command line. I need to first open a shell inside the Ubuntu container and then run Nano. If that seems too abstract, here is an example:
blend install nano -d ubuntu-22.04
(Nano is installed in the Ubuntu container.)
which nano
(This returns no results.)
blend enter -d ubuntu-22.04
(This opens a shell inside the Ubuntu container.)
which nano
(This returns /usr/bin/nano)
blendOS 2023.01.26 -- Another example, this time finding the VLC application
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One curious feature of blendOS is it has shortcuts for each package manager (pacman, DNF, and APT) built into the base system. This means running "pacman -Syu" doesn't update our host system, it opens the Arch container and updates software inside the container. If we want to update our host, blendOS, then we need to use the Blend package manager. The command to update blendOS is "blend system-update".
blendOS 2023.01.26 -- Installing updates from multiple sources
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Let's look at some other examples of using Blend. Running "blend install pkg" installs a package and "blend remove pkg" deletes a package. Should we wish to handle software from a specific distribution we can specify which distribution container we want to use. For instance, "blend install firefox -d fedora-rawhide" sets up a container with Fedora's base packages and then attempts to install Firefox inside it. Likewise, "blend install falkon -d ubuntu-22.04" will make sure a container with the Ubuntu distribution is running and then install the Falkon software inside it.
We have the option of running a shell inside a container using "blend enter" followed by the name and version of a distribution specified after the "-d" flag. For instance, "blend enter fedora-rawhide" doesn't work, it will instead enter into the Arch-based container without warning. If we want to enter the Fedora-based container we need to run "blend enter -d fedora-rawhide".
blendOS 2023.01.26 -- Running Falkon in a container from the application menu
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I feel this behaviour I've just described is important to keep in mind because the Blend utility will often fail silently or perform unexpected options without warning us if the syntax is incorrect. This can have some strange results because we might end up running a command or shell in the wrong container without warning, or a command might run and return with no output, making it hard to tell if it performed any action. The "export" command provided another example of this habit of silent failure.
When we use Blend to install desktop software inside a container, the launcher and icon for the new application should show up in the blendOS application menu. We can then simply click on the application's launcher to open it. This saves us the steps of opening a terminal, entering into the desired container, and manually running the program. I found Blend usually did a good job and successfully added the launcher for new applications in my desktop's menu. So far, so good. However, a few times once I'd installed an application the launchers didn't show up in the menu. The Blend documentation tells us we can fix this by running "blend export app-name". Running this command, and variations of this command, such as "blend export app-name -d ubuntu-22.04" all resulted in Blend simply exiting with no information. There was no success message, no error, and no indication of a problem or syntax issue. However, the command didn't work and no new launcher was added to my application menu.
In short, it often seems as though Blend will try to figure out what the user wants and silently give it to us (or not), but it doesn't catch syntax errors, it doesn't tell us when an error occurs, and it will sometimes give unexpected results based on the parameters we pass it. Another instance of this unexpected behaviour I found interesting come when searching for packages. Running "blend search pkg-name" will attempt to find matching packages we can install. When software in one of the official repositories (of Arch, Ubuntu, or Fedora) is found, the search results are simply displayed in the terminal. Blend will also check the Arch User Repository (AUR) and, if it finds a match, the install process will be started automatically, asking us which package version we want to fetch from the AUR. This caught me off guard a few times as I had intended to compare the availability of packages across distributions and, instead, I sometimes found my system offering to install a third-party package it had found.
blendOS 2023.01.26 -- Using Blend to find packages in different containers
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Flatpak packages and Discover
While a good deal of software management takes place inside containers, blendOS also offers support for Flatpak packages. The Discover software centre is available and, out of the box, it connects with the Flathub repository. Discover works well, providing quick and easy access to Flatpaks, divided into categories. Discover will also handle updates to Flatpak packages. Any new programs we install through Discover are automatically added to the application menu.
blendOS 2023.01.26 -- Fetching Flatpak packages using Discover
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Immutable filesystem and resource usage
The blendOS website claims the project offers an immutable filesystem: "blendOS is an immutable operating system. This means your filesystem is read-only, thus resulting in stable [sic] experience." The distribution runs on the Btr filesystem and it immediately becomes clear Btrfs is not set up to be read-only. The entries for Btrfs in the /etc/fstab file show the entire system is set up to use a normal read-and-write filesystem. Users can create files in any part of the filesystem, including the root directory, and we can edit configuration files stored under the /etc directory. These changes survive a reboot too, they are not sandboxed or otherwise separated from the underlying operating system. In other words, no part of blendOS is immutable, even when set up using the installer's guided partitioning method. I'm not sure why this clearly incorrect claim is listed as the first feature on the blendOS website, but it isn't accurate.
On the subject of the filesystem, disk space gets consumed quickly. Since most software is installed through Flatpak bundles or containers, disk usage balloons, particularly early on. When I first started using blendOS, disk usage was under 10GB, but by the time I'd installed just four applications my disk usage had grown to over 13GB. On other distributions all of my applications, including Flatpaks, usually use about 16GG to 20GB of space, but on blendOS all the isolation means I could quickly consume over 20GB of space installing my commonly used programs.
Memory usage tended to jump around a lot too. Signing into the Plasma desktop only used about 640MB of RAM, but each new bundle and container increased memory usage. Running one container raised memory usage by about 100MB and with software from three containers accessed I easily used over 1,000MB of RAM.
Conclusions
When I'm reviewing a distribution there are two questions floating in the back of my mind. First, do I find this project useful or interesting? Second, does the project accomplish what it sets out to do, does it meet its own goals? I want to discuss these two queries and my responses to them after running blendOS.
Is blendOS doing something interesting? It's starting to. This is a young project and it seems to be trying to match features with Vanilla OS, which got a lot of hype in the second half of 2022. This project feels like an attempt to basically: "Be Vanilla OS, but with an Arch base." And, if that is the case, it's a worthwhile goal. The idea of being able to pull in software from multiple sources, multiple distributions, and run them all together on one, relatively minimal host operating system has a lot of merit.
I really like these types of projects, ones which stitch together elements from multiple distributions. I think of them as a defragmentation of the Linux ecosystem. Now users don't need to choose whether they enjoy the development tools of Fedora, the utilities of Ubuntu, or the massive third-party repository of Arch - we can have access to all three without the overhead of dual booting or virtual machines. Projects like blendOS and Bedrock Linux merge multiple projects together to do away with the need to make those "A or B" style choices when selecting a distribution. Instead we can enjoy "A and B" on one platform.
With that said, blendOS is not yet nearly as seamless as some alternatives, like Bedrock. The Blend container and package manager is still in its early stages, prone to some problems, and requires the user to be able to enter into containers to run most commands rather than having each container's contents available in our user's executable path. In other words, I like the concept. The implementation mostly works, but needs some polish before I'd recommend most people (even more experienced Linux users) try it.
Moving on from what I think about the project's mission and approach, I'd like to talk about what the blendOS project claims it is doing and how well it meets those goals. I will list out the features the blendOS website's promotes and share how well I think the distribution is delivering those features.
- The blendOS website claims the distribution offers an immutable operating system and the filesystem is read-only. Neither of these claims are true. The blendOS distribution is not in any way immutable and it uses a read-write filesystem.
- The blendOS website says the distribution defaults to running the GNOME desktop, with support for Plasma and Xfce available at install time. This is true. The website does not mention that a few other graphical user interfaces are also available at install time.
- The project's website says we can install software from any supported distribution (Fedora, Ubuntu, and Arch). This is true. The software is installed in containers which we can then enter to launch programs. Some desktop software is also added to the blendOS application menu, in which case running programs from multiple distributions becomes seamless. This feature is a little awkward when used from the command line, but works fairly well.
- The blendOS website says we can set up sessions using other distributions and, using those projects as a base, run software in those sessions. This is entirely accurate. We can set up multiple containers and run both command line tools and desktop applications from them. Running software shares a home directory, making it easy to pass information between tools in different containers.
- The distribution's website says we can use package managers such as APT, DNF, and pacman directly on the host system. This is mostly accurate. Running one of these command line package managers from blendOS sets up a container of the corresponding distribution and runs the package manager inside the container. The package manager does not operate on the host distribution (blendOS).
blendOS 2023.01.26 -- Installing Nano into an Ubuntu container
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- The blendOS website claims the distribution ships with Flatpak access enabled. This is entirely true and well implemented. We can use Flatpak, and the Discover software centre, with no manual configuration. Flatpak bundles are pulled in from Flathub and it all works quite smoothly.
- The project's website says it uses a customized version of Jade GUI as its installer. This is accurate and I found the installer worked pretty well. There were a few minor interface glitches, but no serious problems.
- Finally, the blendOS website says application launchers from software installed in containers should show up in our application menu. This sometimes works, I'd even say it usually works. It doesn't always work. Even when I tried to use Blend to export a program's launcher it didn't always work. For example, VLC didn't export its launcher, but other tools such as Falkon and GIMP did.
On the whole, most of the advertised functionality is there. Most of the goals are achieved. Some of the functionality is still a little rough, but most of the features advertised are working as expected. The one glaring issue is with the claim of offering a read-only, immutable platform, which is not at all accurate. This feels even more odd since, when performing a package update, Blend will say it is switching the filesystem from immutable mode to read-write mode, and then back. But the filesystem is never in read-only/immutable mode. Meaning not only is the website inaccurate in this claim, the Blend package manager is pretending to toggle the feature on/off without doing anything. This is strange, but maybe an immutable filesystem is something which will be implemented later.
In the mean time, the container management and multi-distro package management mostly work and are off to a good start. I just hope Blend is made more resistant to error and becomes more verbose when something goes wrong.
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Visitor supplied rating
blendOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 4.8/10 from 9 review(s).
Have you used blendOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Improved network widget comes to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base, Slackware phases out legacy dependencies
The elementary OS team published version 7.0 of their distribution just over a month ago and have been working on improvements to the user interface. Some of the key changes over the past month have focused on the file manager and the network indicator widget: "The network indicator has been getting some major design attention and now offers a much better experience for using VPNs. You'll notice that most options now appear as circular toggle buttons with icons instead of a list of switches. This new design both saves space on devices with complex network configurations and shows the status of your various connections much clearer, including intermediate and error states. In the case of VPNs, you can now also activate multiple connections at once. We've also added quick access to toggling Airplane Mode, including a middle-click action on the indicator icon. Plus, we're now using a feature of Network Manager to automatically get better device names so you'll rarely see long and cryptic device names any longer." Additional details can be found in the project's blog post.
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The Vanilla OS project ships an Ubuntu-based operating system with an immutable filesystem. Or at least it did, for the first version of Vanilla OS. The second version of Vanilla will be based on Debian's rolling development branch which is called Sid. "After discussions and considerations, we decided to move away from Ubuntu and base our distribution on Debian Sid. For this reason, we changed the version name and codename, starting with 2.0 Orchid. We have decided to use Orchid as the codename, as Vanilla derives from Orchids. There are a few reasons we switched to Debian Sid: It is closer to a vanilla experience than in Ubuntu. There were efforts to revert Canonical's opinionated workflow, but it was time-consuming. It forced us to focus on reverting these changes. Ubuntu provides a modified version of the GNOME desktop, which does not match how GNOME envisions its desktop. One of the high-level goals of Vanilla OS is to be as vanilla as possible, so we reverted many of these changes to reach that goal.
There is no strong opinion on application distribution. Snap is the primary method to get apps on Ubuntu. Based on our testing and many sources online, there are a lot of issues that Snap hasn't addressed currently, like slow startups, centralization, etc. We prefer to push open and cross-organization efforts, like Flatpak. Our switch to Debian Sid will also address a core issue brought to us by many in our community, that most native applications installed in apx's Ubuntu container are a Snap transitional package, which doesn't work inside the container...." The project's announcement offers additional details.
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Slackware Linux is not only the world's oldest surviving Linux distribution, it is also one of the most conservative when it comes to adopting new releases and publishing new versions. This puts Slackware in a challenging position as its stable branch is sometimes running software considered obsolete (and unsupported) by the upstream developers, which is then tangled with other older dependencies. The Slackware change log shares an example of this issue, with an older version of OpenSSL at the heart of the concern: "At this point nothing remains linked with openssl-1.1.1 except for python2 and modules, and vsftpd. I think nobody cares about trying to force python2 to use openssl3... it's EOL but still a zombie, unfortunately. I have seen some patches for vsftpd and intend to take a look at them. We've bumped PHP to 8.2 and just gone ahead and killed 8.0 and 8.1. Like 7.4, 8.0 is not compatible with openssl3 and it doesn't seem worthwhile to try to patch it. And with 8.2 already out for several revisions, 8.1 does not seem particularly valuable. If you make use of PHP you should be used to it being a moving target by now."
Do you run a distribution which is carrying legacy versions of software and its dependencies? Let us know how you manage these situations where you're running unsupported software in the comments.
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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 track of which files a package installs
Unpacking-everything asks: Is it possible to track filesystem changes when installing a package so I know which files are being installed or altered?
DistroWatch answers: Most package managers will provide a list of files a new package has installed on the system. This lets you know which files are being installed or updated. The package manager also needs a list of files it installed so it can later clean up everything when a package is removed from the system.
The syntax for listing the files a package will install on your system will vary between package managers. On systems which use Deb package files you can run the following command to see which files package-name installs:
dpkg -L package-name
On distributions which use RPM packages you can get the same information by running:
rpm -ql package-name
The command for getting a list of files a package installs on distributions which use the pacman package manager is:
pacman -Ql package-name
People running FreeBSD can get the same information by running this command:
pkg query %Fp package-name
All of this is well and good, assuming your package manager provides an option to display which files it will upgrade or install, and assuming you trust the package manager to be accurate. However, if your package manager doesn't list the manifest of a package or if you're concerned the package may trigger a script that edits or creates a file the package manager doesn't know about, then you need another tool to detect changes to your filesystem.
Last year we shared tips on using a tool called inotifywait which monitors the filesystem for changes. This tool can be run prior to installing new software to see which files and directories are modified by the new package. Running inotifywait to watch the entire filesystem for changes will look like this:
inotifywait -m -r /
The above may slow down your package manager as the system will be both monitoring and printing updates anytime a file is changed. The above command will also notify you of any file being changed while the package manager is running, whether the change is caused by the package manager or not. It's a good idea to be running as few other programs and services as possible to avoid seeing a mixture of results from multiple processes while the package manager is working.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Rescuezilla 2.4.2
Shasheen Ediriweera has announced the release of Rescuezilla 2.4.2, the latest version of the project's "Swiss army knife of system recovery" based on Ubuntu. The new release adds a variant based on Ubuntu 22.10 (besides the ones derived from Ubuntu's most recent long-term supported releases). From the changelog: "Removes the Intel screen tearing fix introduced in 2.3 which should fix black screens on Intel graphics; introduces Ubuntu 22.10 'Kinetic' for best support of recent hardware, but leaves default build as Ubuntu 22.04 'Jammy'; reintroduces a 32-bit (Intel i386) build, currently based on Ubuntu 18.04 'Bionic' after it was temporarily dropped in Rescuezilla 2.0; note - Partclone backwards compatibility is imperfect and 32-bit release uses an old Ubuntu repository Partclone version, not the latest compiled version; fixes Backup mode's broken SSH port field introduced in 2.4; installs lxappearance, hexdump (bsdmainutils), flashrom; installed packages which improve ability to mount encrypted drives with pcmanfm file manager; replaces out-of-service Travis-CI build bot integration with GitHub Actions for improved quality-control and to assist Rescuezilla contributors...."
LibreELEC 11.0.0
LibreELEC 11.0.0, a major new version from the project that develops a multi-platform Linux distribution centred around the Kodi media centre, has been released. The new version updates Kodi to version 20.0 and re-introduces support for older Amlogic devices: "The final stable version of LibreELEC 11, bringing Kodi 'Nexus' 20.0, has been released. With the new release cycle, we add a Generic-Legacy image supporting NVIDIA cards, Chrome Browser add-ons and older hardware. We also re-introduce support for older Amlogic devices (S905, S905X/D, S912). LibreELEC 10.0 installs will not automatically update, but you can update manually. Older LibreELEC installs must make a clean install due to the Python 3 changes since Kodi 19. The Generic image now runs the same GBM/V4L2 graphics stack we have long used with ARM platforms. It now supports HDR with recent AMD and Intel GPUs. We have added a Generic-Legacy image that runs the older X11 graphics stack used in LE v7-v10. You can update between the GBM and X11 images without issues." See the release announcement and the changelog for further information. LibreELEC provides IMG images for Raspberry Pi, Allwinner, Rockchip, Amlogic, NXP and generic x86_64 devices, as well as OVA images for VirtualBox.
siduction 22.1.1
Ferdinand Thommes has announced the release of siduction 22.1.1, un updated build of the project's distribution based on Debian's "unstable" branch and offering official variants with KDE Plasma, LXQt and Xfce desktops: "We are pleased to offer siduction 2022.1.1 as a bug-fix release. It is based on an excerpt of Debian 'Sid' from March 8, 2023. siduction 2022.1 had some problems with the newly introduced snapshot feature when using Btrfs as filesystem, which were difficult to solve, but are now fixed. In addition, siduction 2022.1.1 reflects the changed sources list due to Debian's new policy on handling non-free firmware. Furthermore, besides many package updates, Linux 6.2.2 and KDE Plasma 5.27.2 are shipped. With that out of the way, let's cut to the chase. 'Masters of War' has quite a few new features to offer that we hope you will find exiting enough to try out. But before that, let's get to the basics first. 'Masters of War' uses Linux 6.2.2 as kernel and offers images with KDE Plasma as our main offering, along with LXQt, Xfce, X.Org and noX." Continue to the release notes for a full list of new features and screenshots.
siduction 22.1.1 -- Running the Xfce desktop
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helloSystem 0.8.1
helloSystem is a FreeBSD-based, desktop-oriented operating system. The project seeks to provide a macOS-style desktop interface and layout while using open source software. The project has published an update to its 0.8.x series which includes a number of bug fixes and improvements. "USB sound devices are now shown with their vendor and model in the Volume menu. Handle already-running installations more gracefully when trying to install applications. Improved 'About This Computer' dialog. 'About This Computer' now also shows information about the X.Org GPU driver being used. The 'Install FreeBSD' utility is now called 'Install helloSystem'. The 'Processes' utility now shows the total CPU and memory usage, uses application bundle names and icons. On the Live system, there is now a link to the Install helloSystem utility on the desktop. On the Live system, advise the user to install the system before downloading applications. Menu now autocompletes paths beginning with ~ and /. The Users preferences application can now also create users without administrative rights, delete users, and enable and disable automatic login. Improved usability of Create Live Media utility." A full list of changes can be found in the project's release announcement.
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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: 2,839
- Total data uploaded: 43.0TB
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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) |
Distributions providing multiple sources for "traditional" packages
Recently we've discussed a few young distributions which are promising to provide access to packages from the software repositories of multiple distributions (typically Arch Linux, Fedora, and Ubuntu). These projects, in particular Vanilla OS and blendOS, seem to be gaining popularity for the wide range of "traditional" software packages they provide, side-stepping the need for bundled applications such as Flatpaks. What do you think of these distributions which offer multiple traditional package sources?
You can see the results of our previous poll on the importance of speedy performance in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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What do you think of distros which mix traditional package sources?
| I like them and currently run one: | 86 (7%) |
| I like the concept but do not currently run one: | 519 (43%) |
| I do not like the concept but am running one: | 51 (4%) |
| I do not like the concept and am not running one: | 542 (45%) |
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| Website News |
Updating upstream open source project links
The DistroWatch website keeps track of open source software packages and publishes news of stable updates from the upstream projects as well as tracking which versions of open source software are available in Linux distributions.
When we first started tracking open source releases back in 2001, the Internet was a different place. Many packages were served up over older protocols, such as FTP and HTTP, and virtually none used the secure HTTPS protocol on their websites.
Times have changed and, these days, most of the 226 packages we track have updated their websites to use the more secure HTTPS protocol and dropped their HTTP and FTP portals.
This is a good move forward for Internet security. Further, most open source projects set up their old HTTP portals to forward to HTTPS so that old links would still work. This was nice for us as it meant we didn't need to update our big database of 226 projects and their website addresses.
But.... Not all projects forward their old HTTP connections AND not all modern web browsers will handle HTTP links gracefully and accept the redirection or automatically check for an HTTPS option. In fact, some browsers (and some extensions) will block access to HTTP links, whether an HTTPS version of the website is available or not.
This has resulted in several people messaging us at DistroWatch to report the links to some package websites are broken. To be fair, they're not entirely wrong - the link doesn't work for them. The website does work and it'll be reachable through most web browsers that will handle the transition gracefully. However, for people not using such a browser, the HTTP link acts as a firewall and is blocked by their browser.
We've decided to address this issue by going through our package database and, wherever possible, updated the old website links to use the secure HTTPS protocol. This should avoid issues with web browsers blocking the sites and then incorrectly reporting the sites cannot be reached.
While we were at it, we also updated some open source project URLs in our database which were being redirected to newer domains or which had been dropped in favour of a new website host. Hopefully this will make things easier and smoother for everyone involved.
A word of warning: We found 11 of the 226 projects which insist on still using the old HTTP protocol or which have broken certificates, either on their websites or download server. If your browser tries to visit one of those 11 projects it will probably block access to the site or display a warning. Sadly, there isn't anything we can do about this limitation. So long as modern web browsers block HTTP access and developers stick to the old HTTP protocol (or outdated certificates), we're unable to offer a remedy for those 11 sites. For people curious about which projects are in the "old school 11", as I've started to think of them, here is the list:
avidemux, gnumeric, less, libselinux, links, lyx, mutt, openbox, sane-backends, squid, and vim
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New projects added to database
blendOS
blendOS is an Arch Linux-based, rolling release distribution which automates installing software from supported distributions (Arch, Fedora, and Ubuntu) into containers. blendOS tries to make software management in across containers feel native and provides access to the user's home directory for each container.
blendOS 2023.01.26 -- Exploring the application menu
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
Slint
Slint is a Slackware Linux-based distribution for 64-bit (x86_64) machines. The distribution is intended to be used by people who are visually impaired. The distribution ships with a screen reader package built-in which can even be used during the installation process.
Slint 14.2.1.4 -- Running the MATE desktop
(full image size: 127kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 20 March 2023. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. 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)
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| 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 |
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Solus
Solus is a Linux distribution built from scratch. It uses a forked version of the PiSi package manager, maintained as "eopkg" within Solus, and a custom desktop environment called "Budgie", developed in-house. The Budgie desktop, which can be set to emulate the look and feel of the GNOME 2 desktop, is tightly integrated with the GNOME stack. The distribution is available for 64-bit computers only.
Status: Active
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| Star Labs |
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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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