 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1017, 1 May 2023 |
Welcome to this year's 18th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
About a week ago, Canonical launched Ubuntu 23.04 which is a short-term support release featuring the GNOME 44 desktop environment. Alongside Ubuntu were its ten community editions which mostly function to show off alternative desktop environments. This week Jeff Siegel takes Xubuntu, a community edition of Ubuntu that runs the Xfce desktop, for a spin and reports on his experiences with the distribution. Then, in our News section, we cover the results of the Debian Project Leader election and wish the winner, Jonathan Cartner, the best of luck in his role. We also talk about work the Guix System project is doing to build their operating system entirely from source code from the ground up while systemd works to speed up restarts. Most Linux distributions offer multiple approaches to installing software and, in some cases, install packages to a variety of locations. In our Questions and Answers column we talk about where packages are installed and where manually installed files should be placed. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We're also grateful to be able to thank many generous sponsors this week, we appreciate your help in keeping DistroWatch running. Finally, we're pleased to welcome the Crunchbangplusplus distribution, a lightweight, Debian-based project to our database. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jeff Siegel) |
Xubuntu 23.04
Microsoft's decision to make millions of computers obsolete with Windows 11 left those with Windows 10 boxes in a quandary: what to do with a machine that otherwise worked?
Install Xubuntu, of course.
In this case, the latest release, Xubuntu 23.04 - code named Lunar Lobster. And it did all I hoped it would do - revive an ancient computer, a Dell Optiplex desktop (with an Intel Core 2 processor, no less) that I bought used a decade ago to play Windows games on.
Lunar Lobster runs more quickly and with less lag than the machine did under Windows 10. Booting is still slow (about 70 seconds), but the Snap version of the Firefox browser works more or less efficiently. And, and even at its worst, Firefox is much better on Lunar Lobster than it was under Windows 10. That was so tedious that I sometimes went to the kitchen to get coffee while it was loading.
Most of the annoyances, in fact, had little to do with Xubuntu. The machine doesn't have wireless, so I had to scrounge a drawer to find a wi-fi dongle that was old enough to be compatible. Plus, the numlock key doesn't turn off after booting, which is apparently a common problem with hardware this old.
Otherwise, it's perfectly fine, and I would have no problems running it as my daily driver.
Xubuntu 23.04 -- Exploring the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 304kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
In one respect, this was surprising, but it shouldn't have been. This is Xubuntu we're talking about, after all. Because, regardless of anything that might make hardcore Linux users sigh and offer rude comments about the distro, it usually just works. Which is all I ask it to do.
Getting started
Xubuntu 23.04 is not a long-term release; it will only be supported for nine months, until January 2024. The minimum system requirements are a 64-bit processor, 1GB of memory, and at least 8.6GB of free hard drive space. The recommended specs aren't much more onerous -- a 1.5Ghz dual core processor, 2GB of memory, and 20GB of free space on the hard drive. The ISO download is 3.0GB -- by comparison, it's 4.6GB for Ubuntu and 3.3GB for Ubuntu MATE.
All went well under VirtualBox, which isn't always the case with Xubuntu. The window resized correctly, filling the desktop area and not leaving a border. Tweaking the setup and installing software also went without incident, as did using Firefox and playing music and videos.
Xubuntu 23.04 -- Running the Firefox web browser
(full image size: 429kB, resolution: 1282x951 pixels)
There have been some significant additions under the hood to Xubuntu with this release - the 6.2 Linux kernel; limited Wayland support; PipeWire beginning to take over for PulseAudio; and the Xfce desktop has been upgraded to 4.18 from 4.16. PipeWire runs without any noticeable difference, as does the new kernel (not that we would notice most of the kernel upgrades).
The Xfce update is especially welcome news, since updating this desktop has traditionally been a long, slow process without too many obvious improvements along the way.
In other words, the changes in the desktop are almost revolutionary:
- Searching in the Thunar file manager by folder, which means it's no longer necessary to launch the Catfish search tool and to perform a folder or file search.
- A new bookmark menu, making it easier to bookmark folders to display in the Thunar side panel, as well as a 'recent' shortcut in the side pane to show which folders and files have been used recently.
- A Thunar split view (hit F3 to enable it) as well as new options to change the file manager preferences, including a comprehensive list of keyboard shortcuts.
- Tweaks to the Xfce panel, such as setting its length in percentages instead pixels, making the Clipman panel plugin much easier to configure, and offering more options for the panel clock look and feel.
Xubuntu 23.04 -- The Thunar file manager
(full image size: 316kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Again, none of these would be worth writing about in a review of a more cutting edge desktop (and the weather applet still hasn't been updated to reflect actual conditions instead of a forecast). But the 'recent' shortcut, the Clipman changes, and the clock configuration are all welcome. And, frankly, the Thunar split view is mind blowing - we've finally made it to Midnight Commander status.
Parsing the software
Which brings us to Firefox. The controversy about the browser's Snap-only installation and its many failings obscures the other changes Mozilla is making to it, which strike me as more serious obstacles to the browser's survival than it being packaged as a Snap (though not necessarily relevant to the discussion here). Suffice it to say, version 112.0 does what it's supposed to do, but it's awkward looking and not especially user friendly for anyone who has used Firefox for more than a couple of years. But that's not anything the Xubuntu developers can fix.
More impressive is the Thunderbird e-mail client (version 102 here). I gave up on Thunderbird about a year ago after running it since those long ago days of Windows XP. I was worn out by its design failings, its frequent crashes and lockups (let's run two instances for no apparent reason), the missing system tray icon, and all the rest. Having said that, this version seems much improved; the contacts manager no longer looks like it was designed to run under DOS and I was glad to see the updated tasks list, which my new e-mail client doesn't offer.
Xubuntu 23.04 -- Running the Thunderbird e-mail client
(full image size: 134kB, resolution: 1295x745pixels)
Rhythmbox (version 3.4.6), the default music player, reminds me once again that it deserves more respect that it gets, though there doesn't seem to be a way to use it for Spotify (for those who need that sort of thing). Likewise for the Parole media player (version 4.18), which played back a home video -- with soundtrack -- without any trouble. Cheese (version 44), the de facto webcam app, is its usual finicky self; no problem with taking photos, but the videos didn't have any sound.
LibreOffce, the default office suite (version 7.5.2), is a touch slow when loading, thanks to how complicated it has become and how ancient the OptiPlex is. I had some difficulty connecting my Canon MX920 printer and scanner, thanks to the wi-fi dongle issues, but they eventually sorted themselves out. Nextcloud, on the other hand, installed and worked seamlessly, as did Zoom. That, given the Optiplex's age, was a pleasant surprise.
GNOME Disks (version 44) and its Disk Usage Analyzer (version 44), which were first part of the default installation in 22.10, return. Which means a couple of things - I'll (thankfully) no longer have to navigate GParted to format a USB key, and, with the usage analyzer, Xubuntu users can finally look at colorful pictures of their disk drives, just like Windows users can. And this isn't sarcasm; this is a big deal for Xubuntu.
Xubuntu 23.04 -- Analyzing disk storage
(full image size: 361kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
More surprises
Originally, I was going to use the new Xubuntu Minimal install to test this release. It's a stripped down version of 23.04, just 1.7GB in size on the disk, with little more than a terminal and the necessary system tools; there isn't even a browser. But as I worked with it, I realized that I'd have to use more effort to install what I needed for the minimal system than I would have to do to tweak a full install. Which was kind of disappointing.
It's also worth noting that Flatpak support was dropped in 23.04, part of an overall change for the Ubuntu family. But it's only a check box away in Synaptic or a couple of commands in a terminal. The other disappointment? Lunar Lobster doesn't use Canonical's new Subiquity installer. The installer was the same version I've been using for years, and while we appreciate familiarity with Xubuntu, I had been looking forward to trying the new one.
More enjoyable was the way my Trendnet 4-port KVM hub responded under 23.04. It connects my home server and daily driver (both running Xubuntu) and the OptiPlex, and the latter was always slow to come on-line with Windows 10. I'd press the button, but the switch would seem to hold back. I'd get a Windows screen, but no keyboard connection. Eventually, the keyboard would connect - sometimes more quickly, sometimes more slowly. This never happened with Xubuntu 23.04. I'd press the button, and it would switch almost immediately.
Finally, I had tremendous difficulty getting the ISO to load successfully onto a USB key. I used both Balena Etcher and the GNOME Startup Disk tool and got kernel panics five or six times. This has never happened to me, but an Internet search revealed that it was a common problem, particularly for the distro's daily and beta builds. I'm not sure if this was because I was using borked USBs or if it was the ISO (though the checksums matched). This happened in both VirtualBox and with the OptiPlex, which leads me to believe it was probably an ISO problem.
Eventually, I downloaded enough different ISOs and tried enough different thumb drives to get 23.04 installed. And I'm glad I did - it shows, once again, that anyone who wants a simple, efficient, and easy to use operating system that just works can still depend on Xubuntu.
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Hardware used for this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a Dell OptiPlex 780 desktop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16 MHz
- Storage: 320 GB HD
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Networking: Ethernet only
- Display: Intel GMA x4500
When he is not testing out new versions of Linux distributions, Jeff Siegel can be found writing about all things related to wine at Wine Curmudgeon.
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Visitor supplied rating
Xubuntu has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.1/10 from 51 review(s).
Have you used Xubuntu? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Debian team elects its Project Leader, Guix System building almost entirely from source code, systemd to allow userland-only restarts
The Debian developers hold annual elections in order to choose who will represent the project as the Debian Project Leader. This year the election was won by Jonathan Carter, who ran unopposed. Details on the voting process and the results are presented on the Debian website. Congratulations, Jonathan, on taking the seat.
Later in the week, Debian released refreshed install media for Debian 11 "Bullseye". The new media provided do not represent a new version of Debian, but updated packages with fixes and security updates to lower the burden of updating new installs.
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Having full access to source code, and being able to build an operating system entirely from its source code, are important parts of system security and auditing. These features also offer opportunities for optimizations. The Guix System team are moving closer to the goal of having a system which can be built, from scratch, using just source code. The progress and reasons behind the work are outlined in a blog post: "We are delighted and somewhat relieved to announce that the third reduction of the Guix bootstrap binaries has now been merged in the main branch of Guix! If you run 'guix pull' today, you get a package graph of more than 22,000 nodes rooted in a 357-byte program - something that had never been achieved, to our knowledge, since the birth of Unix. We refer to this as the Full-Source Bootstrap. In this post, we explain what this means concretely. This is a major milestone - if not the major milestone - in our quest for building everything from source, all the way down."
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Linux users who run distributions featuring the systemd init software will soon have access to a new feature which will restart the userland software without rebooting the kernel. This should greatly speed up reboots and even allow services to maintain information across the soft restart. The author of systemd, Lennart Poettering, shared highlights of the new feature: "Here's a fun new feature we are working on in systemd: userspace-only reboot. In order to reduce grey-out times on image-based OS updates to next to nothing we are making a reboot happen where kernel stays as it is, but userspace shuts down as usual, then possibly transitions into a new rootfs, and starts up again with an initial transaction as it would on a classic system boot. During the transition selected services can pass along their [file descriptors] and listening sockets, to pass 'live' resources from the old system to the new system. This means: super-fast switching from one OS version to the next, with all service code restarted cleanly and comprehensively, but with selected resources passed through untouched, so that they can continue to operate."
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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) |
Where package managers install files
Locating-the-files asks: Where do APT, Flatpak, Snap, and AppImage install applications? If I install something manually, where should I put it?
DistroWatch answers: Let's start with the easiest one first. AppImage is a completely portable, self-contained package format. What this means is the entire application and its dependencies are stored in one file, which can be run on virtually any Linux distribution. The application is not installed; no files get placed on our system. We simply run the single AppImage file and everything stays in that one file.
Snap packages are somewhat similar. When we download a Snap package it is stored in a directory under /var, typically /var/lib/snapd/snaps. The package file is a squashfs archive which is mounted temporarily when we run the application. In other words, nothing is really installed on our system, Linux just makes it look like Snap packages are installed through a mount point that is looking inside a squashfs archive. Typically, while Snap packages are being run, we can see the contents of the package under the /snap directory.
Flatpak packages are an oddity in the portable package world in that they are not single archives which get mounted or unpacked when run. Flatpak packages are installed under the /var directory, typically under /var/lib/flatpak/app. User-specific files Flatpak packages need to store, such as logs and saved configuration changes, can usually be found under your home directory in ~/.var/app.
Traditional package managers such as APT, DNF, and pacman are a bit different. While most portable formats, such as AppImage and Snap, keep their files inside one package archive and Flatpak mostly stores package files in one directory tree under /var, traditional package managers are meant to manage files across the entire operating system. Most Linux distributions are, in effect, a large collection of packages. Which means their package managers need to be able to save files in every system directory.
Traditional package managers store most executable files and libraries under the /usr directory, configuration files in /etc, and database files in /var. You can learn more about how most Linux distributions are organized (which files go where) by reading the hier manual page.
When you install something manually, its ideal location will vary depending on what it is. Usually software specific to you or your organization is placed under the /usr/local directory. Executable files would go into /usr/local/bin, library files would be saved in /usr/local/lib, and manual pages can be saved under /usr/local/man. The hier documentation goes into details on how files should be organized.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Peropesis 2.1
Peropesis (personal operating system) is a small-scale, minimalist, command-line-based Linux operating system. The project's latest release, Peropesis 2.1, introduces a number of new software development tools (including automake and autoconf), the Perl interpreted scripting language, and two new compression utilities. "Peropesis 2.1 Linux OS is released. In the new edition part of the old software was updated and several new packages was installed. Most newly installed packages consist of tools assigned to the GNU Autotools category and additional equipment needed to keep these tools running smoothly. The perl language interpreter and compressors lzip and zstd was also installed in the new edition. New software installed: 1. automake 1.16.5. GNU Automake is a tool for automatically generating 'Makefile.in' files from 'Makefile.am' files. The generated 'Makefile.in' may be used by configure scripts to generate a working 'Makefile'. Automake is written in perl and must be used with GNU Autoconf. 2. autoconf 2.71. GNU Autoconf is a tool for generating a configuration script from a TEMPLATE-FILE if given, or 'configure.ac' if present, or else 'configure.in'. The instructions in these files are written in the M4 language, so producing configuration scripts using Autoconf requires GNU M4...." Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement.
Photon OS 5.0
Photon OS, a security-hardened and enterprise-grade appliance operating system that is purpose-built for cloud and edge applications, has reached version 5.0. The new release brings a large number of improvements and new features: "Photon OS 5.0 provides enhancements in Network Configuration Manager, PMD-nextgen, container runtime security, Linux real-time kernel and TDNF features. The release introduces the Photon OS Container Builder tool. This release of Photon OS also supports XFS and Btrfs filesystems, Control Group V2, ARM64 on Linux-esx kernel, PostgreSQL. It contains installer improvements and critical updates to the OSS packages, including Linux kernel version updates. You can now use Network Configuration Manager to perform the following tasks: configure multiple routes and addresses section; configure WireGuard; configure SR-IOV; create NetDev, VLAN, VXLAN, Bridge, Bond, VETH (Virtual Ethernet), MacVLAN/MacVTap, IPvlan/IPvtap, tunnels (IPIP, SIT, GRE, VTI); create, configure, and remove virtual network devices; generate more flexible netplan like network configuration from a YAML file...." Continue to the release notes for a detailed list of new features, package updates and known issues.
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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: 2,861
- Total data uploaded: 43.2TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Do you ever install software manually or from source?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about where package files get installed and where manually installed software is typically placed. We'd like to hear if you ever manually select the location where software is installed, possibly while building a package from its source code or placing a portable package. Let us know where you prefer to place third-party software in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on monitoring bandwidth consumption in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you manually select where software is installed?
| Yes - for portable packages: | 139 (9%) |
| Yes - for my own projects: | 75 (5%) |
| Yes - for software built from source: | 153 (10%) |
| Yes - for a combination of the above: | 338 (22%) |
| Yes - for other situations: | 116 (8%) |
| No - I never select where software is installed: | 691 (46%) |
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| Website News |
Donations and Sponsors
Each month we receive support and kindness from our readers in the forms of donations. These donations help us keep the web server running, pay contributors, and keep infrastructure like our torrent seed box running. We'd like to thank our generous readers and acknowledge how much their contributions mean to us.
This month we're grateful for the $3,877 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| Anonymous | $3750 |
| John T | $25 |
| Clifford C | $25 |
| Patrick U | $20 |
| Frits M | $10 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| Jonathon B | $7 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| Darkeugene7896 | $5 |
| DuCakedHare | $5 |
| Joe H | $3 |
| Urs N | $3 |
| JD L | $2 |
| PB C | $2 |
| Peter M | $2 |
| c6WWldo9 | $1 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
| William E | $1 |
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New projects added to database
Crunchbangplusplus
Crunchbangplusplus, a continuation of CrunchBang Linux which was discontinued in 2015, is a minimalist distribution based on the latest stable Debian release while featuring the lightweight Openbox window manager. It is available for both i686 and x86_64 processor architectures.
Crunchbangplusplus 11.1 -- Running the Openbox window manager
(full image size: 111kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
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New distributions added to waiting list
- PersiaOS. PersiaOS is an Arch Linux-based distribution which claims to be able to run software from a variety of platforms, including Windows and Android.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 8 May 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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| 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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