 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1015, 17 April 2023 |
Welcome to this year's 16th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Some distributions try to be all things for all people while others take a narrow focus and attempt to do one thing well. We often see distributions strive to support every desktop and scenario on every CPU architecture in an effort to appeal to everybody. At the same time, other projects will try to excel at one function in one environment, offering a speciality. Distributions such as Debian and Fedora fit into the general purpose category while distributions such as KaOS attempt to shine in one key area. This week we begin with a look at two projects: Manjaro Linux, which is a general purpose operating system that runs in a wide range of environments; and Trisquel GNU/Linux, which finds its specific niche in offering a desktop platform for people who want to run free and open source software exclusively. Our Feature Story provides a quick look at both of these projects. Then, in our News section, we talk about the flexible Arch Linux distribution running on PINE64's new line of ARM tablets. We also share notes from the KDE Connect project as it attempts to improve its multi-device connecting software. In our Questions and Answers column we talk about trying to achieve filesystem compression on Linux and how to gain compression when running the ext4 filesystem. Does your filesystem support compression? Let us know in our Opinion Poll below. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Manjaro Linux 22.0
Manjaro Linux is a desktop-oriented operating system based on Arch Linux. It is designed to be general purpose - offering multiple architectures, with focuses on gaming, development, and productivity software.
I have generally had good experiences with Manjaro and feel it tends to be one of the more polished, Arch-based distributions. I usually find Manjaro offers a practical, lightweight experience with all the features I want (and sometimes a few I don't want). The reason I decided to venture into the Manjaro experience this week is I'd had a few poor experiences in recent weeks with lesser known or younger Linux distributions and I was looking for something that would just work as expected.
Manjaro offers a lot of different download options. For 64-bit (x86_64) computers there are three official editions (KDE, Xfce, and GNOME), plus five community edition editions, and a Docker edition. To make matters more interesting, almost all of the desktop spins have both a Full and a Minimal edition. There are over a dozen options in total, just for x86_64 systems. There are other editions for ARM-based computers and mobile editions of Manjaro for phones. I'm going to focus exclusively on builds for desktop machines for the purposes of this review.
I decided to start with the Full Cinnamon edition which is 3.6GB in size. Technically this is a community spin and I selected it because I rarely get to use Cinnamon outside of reviews of Linux Mint.
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The Cinnamon media brought up a boot menu which offered to start a live session with either open source or proprietary drivers. I opted for open source drivers. During the first boot attempt I was simply shown a console with the systemd version and a message which read: "Welcome to Manjaro Linux!" The system then locked up and failed to boot.
I forced a restart and this time the live session managed to load the Cinnamon desktop and display a welcome window. The welcome window features many buttons, most of them intended to display information about the distribution. Clicking most of the buttons will open a web browser to show us the project's wiki, community support resources, release notes, and mailing lists. There is also a button for launching the installer.
One of the buttons offers to open a software centre. Clicking it launches the Vivaldi web browser and displays an alphabetical grid of open source applications. We can click a button on each application's entry to add it to a queue. We can then click an install button on the page to attempt to fetch the selected programs.
I ran into a few problems right away. One is that whenever Vivaldi is opened it gets stuck in a loop for a while prompting us for our keyring password. After dismissing this prompt several times the browser will launch. The next issue was, when I tried to install software from the web portal, Vivaldi would prompt me for permission to open the link and then nothing would happen. I thought perhaps this was a limitation of the live disc and moved on.
A third issue I ran into was the minimize button in Vivaldi didn't work. Other applications could be minimized and restored, but the minimize button in Vivaldi did nothing.
One final issue I ran into when exploring the on-line software centre was searches always failed. Performing any search would cause the page to refresh and the entire catalogue to be displayed in alphabetical order again.
After I closed Vivaldi I noticed the Cinnamon desktop panel had crashed and was no longer displaying properly. Instead of a bar with icons it was just a grey blur across the bottom of the screen. I tried launching the system installer and nothing happened.
At this point I reconsidered my decision to run a community spin and switched to the KDE Plasma edition which was the first one listed on Manjaro's download page. The Plasma edition is 3.3GB in size. Booting from this media worked the first time, presenting me with the Plasma desktop and the same welcome window.
Manjaro Linux 22.0 -- Exploring the KDE Plasma desktop and welcome window
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I tried opening a few links using the welcome window. The Plasma edition uses Firefox instead of Vivaldi, but Firefox failed to load the first few times I asked it to open links and crashed. It worked the third time though. Unlike Vivaldi, Firefox did not ask for a keyring password.
I tried the software store again in Firefox and the experience was almost identical. However, when I tried to download programs this time, a pop-up appeared letting me know the package database was being synchronized. Then nothing happened. The process always stayed at 0% complete.
I tried launching the system installer from the welcome window and nothing happened. I then tried closing everything on the desktop and tried launching the installer from the desktop and it opened, then immediately crashed. I rebooted the KDE Plasma edition and was able to launch the installer from the welcome window.
Installing
Manjaro uses the Calamares graphical installer. It's a streamlined, friendly installer which walks us through selecting our time zone and keyboard layout. We're asked to select guided or manual partitioning. The manual approach is fairly straight forward and is done through a nice, built-in graphical utility. The guided option will let us take over the whole disk or a partition of it. We have the option of picking a filesystem (ext4 is the default with Btrfs, fsfs, and XFS offered). We can also pick whether we want a swap partition, swap file, or no swap space. We're asked to make up a username and password for ourselves and then a confirmation screen is displayed. When we accept the options we've selected we're shown some progress information while files are copied to the hard drive. An animate spaceship flies through the window while some feature highlights are listed.
About halfway through the install process Calamares crashed and left my hard drive in an unbootable state. At this point I'd booted Manjaro media four times and had no success in fetching packages or getting the operating system installed. I decided to try once more, downloading the Xfce Minimal edition which is 3.0GB in size.
The Xfce edition of Manjaro booted quickly and presented me with the now-familiar welcome window. The desktop was quite a bit more responsive than its KDE Plasma and Cinnamon counterparts. I hadn't noticed the other two being sluggish to respond until I had run Xfce and could compare the three.
Manjaro Linux 22.0 -- Exploring the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 712kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
I dived right into the installer, skipping other exploration. I quickly ran through the same steps, took automated disk partitioning, and confirmed my setting choices. Calamares crashed immediately after the confirmation screen, before even copying any files to my hard drive.
This made for a total of five attempts across three editions of the distribution which had all failed. While each edition failed in fairly dramatic fashion, I found it interesting that the three editions didn't fail in the same way. There wasn't one failing, like the distribution not recognizing my network card or sound not working. The editions each had their own bugs, their own issues. The Cinnamon edition had problems with Vivaldi, window management, and the desktop panel crashing. The Plasma edition had the on-line package store lock-up and crashed toward the end of the install process. The Xfce edition ran faster and more smoothly, but crashed at the beginning in the install process.
This was unusual for me. Most of my past experiments with Manjaro have gone well and offered mostly positive experiences. This time around it was one disappointment after another and so I decided to move on.
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Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0
The Trisquel GNU/Linux distribution is based on Ubuntu and its main focus is being a purely free (libre) operating system. Trisquel ships with open source and free software only with no non-free firmware, applications, or drivers. The distribution is available in four editions. The main edition offers users the MATE desktop environment. There is a Mini edition which provides the lighter LXDE desktop, and there is a Triskel edition which ships with KDE Plasma. There is also an edition called Trisquel Sugar TOAST which offers the Sugar learning environment.
I decided to use Trisquel's main edition which is 2.9GB in size. Booting from the media brings up a menu asking us to select our preferred language from a list. We're then given the option of launching the distribution in live mode, running a graphical installer, or launching a text installer.
Taking the live option launches the MATE 1.26.0 desktop. The MATE environment is set up with a panel across the bottom of the screen and a few icons on the desktop for opening the file manager and system installer. The application menu does a nice job of seamlessly merging the traditional three MATE menus: Applications, Places, and System. Even when running from the live media, the MATE desktop was responsive and smooth.
The system installer
Trisquel uses the Ubiquity system installer, which it inherits from Ubuntu. The installer is quite easy to navigate. We're walked through picking our preferred language and offered a link to view the Trisquel release notes on-line. When it comes to partitioning we can take an automated or manual approach. The manual option offers a very friendly, graphical partition manager where we can create partitions and assign them to mount points. The guided approach, by default, creates one encrypted LVM volume. We can disable encryption and, if we wish, swap out LVM for a simple ext4 partition. A swap partition is also set up for us.
The next screen of the installer asks us to select our time zone from a map of the world. I did this and, the first time through, was shown a cryptic error and asked to try again. Selecting the same time zone a second time worked and allowed me to proceed. We then make up a username and password for ourselves and Ubiquity goes to work copying files to the hard drive. When it finished it offered to restart the computer.
Early impressions
Trisquel boots to a graphical login screen. A screen reader is available and enabled on both the login screen and after we sign in. If we do not need it, the screen reader can be disabled in MATE's Assistive Technologies settings module. However, even with the reader disabled in MATE's settings panel, it would still turn on and loudly start reading the screen every time the computer was started. I could not find a solution for this (short of uninstalling the Orca screen reader) as the screen reader was turned off under Assistive Technologies and not present in the list of programs to start at login.
Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0 -- Disabling the screen reader
(full image size: 1.5MB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
As it happened, the first time I booted Trisquel I ran into another accessibility issue: my keyboard didn't work. I could not type anything or switch between virtual terminals from the login screen. I was able to enable an on-screen keyboard from the top panel of the login page and used it to sign in. This was the only time my keyboard did not work. When I installed Trisquel in another environment, and during future boots on the same test environment, my keyboard worked as expected.
When we sign into our account we're greeted once more by the MATE desktop which looks much the same as on the live media, but without the system installer icon on the desktop. The icons for opening the Caja file manager remain in the upper-left corner. Shortly after signing in, a notification pop-up appeared to let me know new package updates were available. We can click an icon in the system tray to launch the update manager and install available patches. There were 117MB of updates waiting for me on the first day of my trial and these were fetched without any issues.
Hardware
At least packages were fetched without any problems when I ran Trisquel in a VirtualBox virtual machine. As I mentioned earlier, Trisquel does not ship with any non-free components and this means hardware support is somewhat limited. In particular, wireless cards and 3-D (or gaming) features of video cards will often not be supported. I was not able to use wireless networking, which effectively turned Trisquel into a typewriter on my workstation. Everything else functioned on my workstation, including audio, and the operating system was very responsive.
Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0 -- Exploring the application menu
(full image size: 2.1MB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
When running in VirtualBox, Trisquel was quick and ran smoothly. I could also access the Internet and had no trouble navigating websites, downloading files, and playing media.
A fresh install of the distribution took just over 6GB of disk space and, when newly logged into the MATE desktop, Trisquel consumed about 470MB of RAM. This puts the distribution toward the low-to-medium end of the scale when compared to mainstream Linux projects.
Included software
Trisquel ships with a fairly standard collection of open source software, though with a few minor changes to avoid licensing concerns or trademark issues. For instance, instead of the Firefox web browser, we're given Abrowser which removes non-free items and trademarks from Firefox. Similarly we're given Icedove instead of Thunderbird.
Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0 -- Running the Abrowser application
(full image size: 1.2MB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
We're also treated to the Transmission bittorrent software, the Pidgin messaging client, the Caja file manager, and the Brasero disc burning software. The Cheese webcam manager is included along with the VLC media player, and the Rhythmbox audio player. The GNU Image Manipulation Program is available along with the Atril document viewer, and LibreOffice. The Jami distributed communication network client is available along with the Back In Time backup manager.
Trisquel ships with manual pages and the usual collection of GNU command line tools. The init software is supplied by systemd and the kernel is a libre version of Linux 5.15.
Most of the software which shipped with Trisquel worked well for me. As I mentioned before, my wireless card didn't work, but most other components functioned smoothly. I did find that systemd would sometimes hang when shutting down or rebooting the computer with its infamous message about waiting for a job displayed on the screen.
Software management
Trisquel uses the APT command line package manager along with two graphical utilities. The first is Synaptic, which is a classic, low-level package manager. It is quite powerful and flexible, able to manage repositories, install updates, and perform batches of install/remove operations.
The other graphical software manager is labelled Add/Remove Applications. It deals with desktop software. Down the left side of the window are categories which match those found in the application menu. On the right side we find a list of programs and a brief description. We can check a box next to each program to queue it for installation or removal. Actions are again handled in batches, locking the software manager, rather than processed in the background.
Both tools work well and I didn't have any direct issues with either software manager front-end. I did find it annoying that I could not remove software which shipped with Trisquel when using the Add/Remove Applications utility. For instance, I couldn't remove any of the games from the application menu, or the disc burner. These packages are set up as a dependency for a low-level package (actually a meta package) and cannot be removed unless we switch to the command line APT utility or Synaptic.
Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0 -- Attempting to remove a default application
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Trisquel does not ship with support for Snap or Flatpak packages. The Flatpak framework can be found in the repositories if we wish to install portable package support later, but Snap is not available.
Conclusions
While using Trisquel, two reoccurring ideas kept coming to mind. The first was that Trisquel is not only one of the most user-friendly, polished libre distributions available, it feels like one of the more friendly and polished Linux distributions in general. Even with the main edition (as opposed to the Mini edition), the system is unusually light and fast. Trisquel finds a pretty good balance between providing useful applications for a wide range of tasks and not making the application menu crowded. The system looks fairly nice, in a classic way, and I find it easy to navigate.
Trisquel often manages to present pop-ups and update indicators in a way that draws attention without being annoying. Its installer is easy to set up and the settings panel is a breeze to navigate. One of my few issues was having the screen reader enabled by default. This is, of course, a good option for people who are visually impaired, but for someone who doesn't need the screen reader (and who hasn't used MATE before) it required digging down about four levels in the settings panel to find the toggle to turn off the reader. Even then, the reader re-enabled itself every time I logged in, despite it being clearly turned off in the settings panel and this is likely to frustrate anyone who has their speakers turned on.
So that was my main train of thought with regards to Trisquel - it's nice, fast, polished, and easy to use. However, the second thought was that it's a shame I'll probably never be able to use Trisquel as my daily operating system. It's unfortunate, but most devices these days need non-free firmware to access the Internet and are not much use without this key feature. I suppose the alternative would be to buy a USB wireless card which works with free firmware, but I've found those to be rare and they take up one of a limited number of USB ports available.
In brief, I think Trisquel is doing a great job presenting the world with what can be achieved by using free software only. However, using it also reminds me of the (sometimes harsh) limitations a free software only system imposes. People wanting wireless networking, video drivers for gaming, a 3-D desktop, or possibly access to other non-free items like some printer drivers, are out of luck with Trisquel. Likewise, anyone wanting to use a non-free browser or service like Steam will also need to venture outside their default repositories.
This is, of course, the point of Trisquel, being a beacon of free-only software. People who download Trisquel probably are not interested in non-free components (software or hardware). This distribution offers a narrower path to walk, but it is a very smooth, pretty path.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo desktop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Hex-core Intel i5-10400 CPU @ 2.90GHz
- Storage: Western Digital 1TB hard drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 wired network card, Realtek RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCIe wireless adapter
- Display: Intel CometLake-S GT2
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Visitor supplied rating
Trisquel GNU/Linux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.3/10 from 24 review(s).
Have you used Trisquel GNU/Linux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Arch Linux powering new PINE64 tablets, KDE Connect getting an overhaul, Ubuntu introduces live patching for HWE kernels
PINE64 is a company which develops open hardware platforms which can run a variety of open source operating systems, typically flavours of Linux. The company has published plans to soon ship two tablets, the PineTab2 and the PineTab-V. The former is powered by an ARM CPU and runs a custom flavour of Arch Linux while the latter is a rare RISC-V powered device. "On the outside the only thing that differentiates the two devices is the colour of the chassis: the PineTab-V is deep matte black while PineTab2 is silver-gray. But the real difference between the two resides on the inside. The PineTab2 features the well supported RK3566 64-bit Arm SoC, which has been a part of our line-up for over a year, and the tablet ships with a build of DanctNix Arch Linux for ARM. The software can be best described as early but very serviceable, and there is little doubt that before long improvements will be made and additional functionality enabled. Like the PinePhone and PinePhone Pro before it, the PineTab2 will reach a high degree of functionality in time and make for a great work or entertainment travel companion." Both devices sell for $159 USD and additional details can be found in the company's announcement.
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Albert Vaca has published a blog post about new improvements coming to the KDE Connect application. KDE Connect links together multiple devices (often Android phones and Linux desktops) on a network, allowing them to share files, remotely control media players, share clipboards, and send text messages from the desktop. Despite the name, KDE Connect runs on all Linux desktops (and several other operating systems), and the improvements should make the application more reliable and more secure. "The strength of KDE Connect (compared to some of the non-free alternatives that popped up in these last 10 years) is that KDE Connect only uses your local network for communication and doesn't need intermediary servers in 'the cloud'. This adds a challenge: devices running KDE Connect have to discover each other in the network before they can talk to each other.
Discovery is possible in the current protocol using UDP broadcasts, but the state of the art nowadays is to use multicast DNS (mDNS) instead, which is more reliable and less often blocked by the network configuration. We wanted (and tried) to adopt mDNS for a while, but it was a bigger endeavour than what we could tackle."
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Canonical has announced it will be expanding its support for live kernel patching (an option which allows systems to patch a running kernel without rebooting). Up to this point, Ubuntu users have been able to use live patching on LTS kernels. With this new change, hardware enablement (HWE) kernels, which offer support for newer devices, will also receive live patching. "We've listened to your feedback and are pleased to announce that Livepatch will now be available on HWE kernels. This will debut with the release of kernel version 6.2, which will initially accompany Ubuntu's interim release of 23.04 Lunar Lobster, in April 2023. Thereafter, it will be made accessible as an HWE kernel for the 22.04 LTS release, Jammy Jellyfish, starting July 2023." The announcement offers additional details.
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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) |
Gaining filesystem compression with ext4
Packing-data-in-tight asks: I've been running ext4 and am wondering if I can squeeze more capacity out of the drive by using compression. Are there any solutions for enabling compression on ext4?
DistroWatch answers: I am not aware of any built-in method for compressing data on an ext4 filesystem. It's not a feature I have heard advertised. The ext4 and tune2fs manual pages do not mention compression. The kernel.org ext4 page is also mute on the subjection of compression.
While ext4 might not have a solution for compressing data, Btrfs does. Btrfs is an advanced filesystem which provides features such as filesystem snapshots, compression, and multi-device volumes. How does this help us? You can either perform a fresh install on a Btrfs volume or you can make use of the fact an existing ext4 partition can be converted to a Btrfs volume.
To convert an existing ext4 volume to Btrfs, we should first perform a few tasks:
- Backup any important data on the ext4 filesystem.
- Verify the backup of the data worked.
- Fetch a live distribution and copy it to a DVD or USB thumb drive.
We need the live distribution because the ext4 volume cannot be converted to Btrfs while it is in use. Assuming we want to convert our root partition this means we need to perform the conversation from another operating system. In this case, we'll run the necessary steps from a live distribution running on the same computer.
From the live media we can open a terminal and check to see which device we want to convert by running:
lsblk
The lsblk command will provide a list of hard drives and partitions attached to our computer. The partition we want to change will likely be the largest and will typically have a name like /dev/sda1 or /dev/sda2. Let's assume the partition I want to convert on my machine is /dev/sda2. We can then convert the partition from ext4 to Btrfs by running:
btrfs-convert /dev/sda2
When the command finishes, assuming it did successfully, we will want to change our fstab file to make sure our installed operating system knows the volume is now a Btrfs volume and no longer ext4. We can do this by opening fstab on the altered partition and changing the third column for our root (/) partition from "ext4" to "btrfs". We should also make sure the last column in the line for our root partition is zero (0).
To mount the new Btrfs volume and change the fstab file we can run the following commands:
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
nano /mnt/etc/fstab
Please note that if your system uses UUID tags to identify the filesystem you may need to update yours in the first column of the /mnt/etc/fstab file. You can find the new UUID for your filesystem by running the following command from the live distribution:
lsblk -f
The above command lists all connected storage devices and prints their UUID labels.
There are some other considerations to take into account. For instance, you may need to update your boot loader (typically GRUB) before you try to boot from the converted filesystem. The Arch Linux wiki has a helpful page which explains the many items we should check when performing an ext4 to Btrfs conversion.
After the above steps have been completed we can reboot and start enjoying the additional features. If there is a problem and the system fails to boot, we can try to recover our original ext4 partition by booting from the live media again and running the command to revert the process:
btrfs-convert -r /dev/sda2
Later, assuming it seems the conversion worked properly, and we've been able to boot and access our files from our normal distribution, we can clean up the old restore data off the drive by running the following from own main (not live) distribution:
btrfs subvolume delete /ext2_saved
At this point we've converted the filesystem, but it may not be compressing data for us. Once more we need to edit the /etc/fstab file on our system and change the fourth column. It probably says "defaults" and we want to change it to say "compress". Then save the /etc/fstab file. The next time we boot, compression will be enabled.
Details on compression levels can be found in the Btrfs wiki.
Keep in mind, there are a lot of steps and it's quite easy for something to go wrong during the conversion process. Always make sure you have working backups in place before you attempt to change your filesystem from ext4 to Btrfs.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
OpenBSD 7.3
Theo de Raadt has announced the release of OpenBSD 7.3, the 54th release of the security-oriented operating system. Some of the key features include providing ksh acccess from the system installer, the use of LibreSSL 3.7.2, and OpenSSH 9.3. "We are pleased to announce the official release of OpenBSD 7.3. This is our 54th release. We remain proud of OpenBSD's record of more than twenty years with only two remote holes in the default install. As in our previous releases, 7.3 provides significant improvements, including new features, in nearly all areas of the system." The release announcement goes on to provide a long list of technical changes, including: "Installer, upgrade and bootloader improvements: Made installer answers ! and (S)hell drop into a ksh(1) environment rather than the more limited sh(1). Added support for configuring interfaces by lladdr (MAC). Made the installer skip interface configuration questions when no interfaces are available. Fixed resizing partitions on an auto-allocated disk that had a boot partition. Stopped the installer from asking to initialize disks that have softraid(4) chunks. Made efiboot fdt support device trees with NOPs in them (like the kernel version). Improved the default choice for the installer's install media disk question to show the first disk that (a) is not the root disk and (b) is not a disk with softraid chunks (hosting the root disk, for example). Stopped offering WEP in the installer if not supported. Fixed lock file error on installer exit/abort." Additional information is provided in the changelog.
4MLinux 42.0
4MLinux is a miniature Linux distribution focusing on four capabilities: maintenance, games, multimedia, and servers. The independent project's latest release is version 42.0 which introduces a few new applications and a series of updates. "4MLinux 42.0 stable released. The status of the 4MLinux 42.0 series has been changed to stable. As always, the new major release has some new features. Krita (raster graphics editor) and Hex-a-Hop (video game) have been added as downloadable extensions. 4MLinux 42.0 comes with improved support for many image, audio and video formats. AlsaPlayer, Baka MPlayer, GNOME MPlayer, GNOME MPV, mp3blaster are now available out of the box. Big work has been done to adopt famous (but quite old) XMMS as the default media player in 4MLinux; it is able to open modern audio and video files (support for MOD and MIDI music is also included). One can also download a rich set of XMMS skins with one click." The new release comes with LibreOffice 7.5.2, AbiWord 3.0.5, GIMP 2.10.34, Gnumeric 1.12.55, Firefox 111.0, Chromium 106.0.5249.91, Thunderbird 102.8.0, Audacious 4.3, VLC 3.0.18, SMPlayer 22.7.0, Mesa 22.2.3, Wine 8.3, Linux kernel 6.1.10, Apache 2.4.56, MariaDB 10.6.12, PHP 8.1.17, Perl 5.36.0, Python 3.10.8, Ruby 3.1.3. The release announcement has more details.
4MLinux 42.0 -- Exploring the application menu
(full image size: 3.8MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
FreeBSD 13.2
Colin Percival has announced the release of FreeBSD 13.2, the latest stable version of the popular BSD-derived operating system that focuses on features, speed and stability: "The FreeBSD Release Engineering team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 13.2-RELEASE. This is the third release of the stable/13 branch. Some of the highlights: OpenSSH has been updated to version 9.2p1; OpenSSL has been updated to version 1.1.1t; the bhyve hypervisor now supports more than 16 vCPUs in a guest; Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) is now enabled for 64-bit executables by default; ZFS has been upgraded to OpenZFS release 2.1.9; it is now possible to take snapshots on UFS filesystems when running with journaled soft updates; the kernel wg(4) WireGuard driver is now available; the kernel netlink(4) network configuration protocol is now available. FreeBSD 13.2-RELEASE is now available for the amd64, i386, powerpc, powerpc64, powerpc64le, powerpcspe, armv6, armv7, aarch64 and riscv64 architectures. FreeBSD 13.2-RELEASE can be installed from bootable ISO images or over the network. Some architectures also support installing from a USB memory stick." Please read the release announcement and the release notes for more information.
TrueNAS 22.12.2 "SCALE"
TrueNAS SCALE is a Debian-based operating system developed by iXsystems for providing network attached storage solutions. The company's latest update to TrueNAS SCALE is version 22.12.2 which includes some enhancements to administration and authentication. The release notes state: "22.12.2 includes many new features and improved functionality that span SCALE Enterprise High Availability (HA), applications, rootless login administrative user, enclosure management, and replication: Adding sudo options to user and replication configuration screens. SSH service option for the administration user. Application advanced settings changes that add a force flag option. Replication task improvements that add reasons why tasks are waiting to run. (Enterprise only) Applications new Kubernetes passthrough functionality. (Enterprise only) New enclosure management for the R30 and Mini R platforms. It also implements fixes to pool status reporting, application options, reporting functions, cloud sync and replication tasks, iSCSI shares, SMB service in HA systems, various UI issues, UI behavior related to isolated GPU and USB passthrough in VMs, and changes to setting options and failover on HA systems."
Tiny Core Linux 14.0
Tiny Core Linux is a minimal Linux distribution which runs from memory. The Tiny Core Linux project has released a new version, 14.0, which is available in three editions: Core (for a command line only experience), TinyCore (which provides a minimal graphical environment), and CorePlus (which provides a wider range of desktop software). The release announcement reads: "Changelog for 14.0: kernel updated to 6.1.2; glibc updated to 2.36; gcc updated to 12.2.0; binutils updated to 2.39; e2fsprogs base libs/apps updated to 1.46.5; util-linux base libs/apps updated to 2.38.1; busybox updated to 1.36.0; tce: allow script to exit normally without stdout from bdantas; autologin: Remove unneeded lines from nick65go; filetool.sh: having colors from alphons; rebuildfstab: remove relatime, it has been the default since 2.6.30; rebuildfstab: small speed optimization; rebuildfstab: reorder for findutils find warning; tce-load: add to install if extension is downloaded from aswjh; provides.sh: backup path patch from CNK; depends-on.sh: various from rarost, bdantas; select: dynamic sizing: from nick65go; rebuildfstab: rewrite: from Rich; rebuildfstab: remove the tmp file just in case; rebuildfstab: replaced "/mnt/$DEVNAME" with "$MOUNTPOINT": from Rich; tc-functions: alias in useBusybox: from bdantas; rm etc/init.d/busybox-aliases; tce-update: add option to skip dependency check: from GNUser; add update-everything: from bdantas; update-everything: better names for variables and functions: from bdantas."
* * * * *
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: 2,852
- Total data uploaded: 43.1TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Do you use filesystem compression?
This week we talked about filesystem compression on Linux, which is often achieved using the Btr filesystem. This week we'd like to hear whether you use filesystem compression. If you do, please let us know which filesystem you are using in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using the Kodi media centre in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you use filesystem compression?
| Yes: | 148 (12%) |
| No - but my filesystem supports it: | 340 (27%) |
| No - and my filesystem does not support it: | 554 (44%) |
| Unknown/Unsure: | 225 (18%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- RefreshOS. RefreshOS is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the KDE Plasma desktop and popular open source applications.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 24 April 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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| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
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TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
Freeduc-Sup
Freeduc-Sup was a French distribution based on Morphix. It was specially designed for use in schools and educational institutions. It also includes a book in French derived from an Linux administration training course.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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