 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1036, 11 September 2023 |
Welcome to this year's 37th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Arch Linux has become one of the most popular bases for new distributions. The combination of Arch's simple design, detailed documentation, and cutting edge software attracts a lot of developers who want to put their own spin on the distribution. One of the most recent distributions to join the Arch family is SDesk, a project which ships with the GNOME desktop running in a Wayland session. This week Jesse Smith takes SDesk for a spin and reports on his experience. SDesk, like other members of the Arch family, uses the pacman package manager, one of several popular package managers available in the Linux community. Does the package manager used by a distribution affect your decision of which distribution to run? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section we report on the results of a survey conducted by the openSUSE project about the future direction of the distribution. We also share news about how GNOME 45 will break forward and backward compatibility with extensions while Ubuntu works to make full disk encryption more convenient. Then we talk about how to hide passwords when performing authentication from the command line. Plus we share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. Finally, we are pleased to welcome the Relianoid distribution, an operating system focused on load balancing, to our database along with the CROWZ Devuan-based desktop distribution. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
SDesk 2023.08.12
One of the more recent distributions to show up on the DistroWatch waiting list is SDesk, a distribution based on Arch Linux. The project's website describes the distribution as follows:
SDesk is a free and open source Linux operating system that ships with all of the latest technology, including GNOME 44, the Wayland compositor, and other terrific apps, like Mozilla's Firefox and Thunderbird, a complete LibreOffice suite, and more!
The SDesk website also mentions the distribution ships with the GNOME Software application for managing software packages, that we can encrypt documents from the Nautilus file manager, and the distribution can be set up using the Calamares system installer.
SDesk is available in a single edition for x86_64 machines which is 1.7GB in size. Booting from the supplied media loads the GNOME desktop running a Wayland session. Once the desktop loads, two windows open. One window offers to give us a tour of the GNOME desktop. This short tour basically just shows us how to launch applications from the Activities screen and how to see an overview of open windows. The second window contains the Calamares installer. Since the desktop seemed to be working and I was able to establish an active Internet connection, I dived quickly into the installer.
Installing
I soon found that SDesk locks the screen quickly (after five minutes) of inactivity. When this happens we can access the GNOME desktop again by using the password "live".
The Calamares installer asks us for our keyboard layout and timezone. When it comes to disk partitioning the installer offers a guided option that will take over our disk (or free space on the disk). We can also take a manual approach that is fairly easy to navigate. The guided partitioning approach will set up a single ext4 partition for the operating system and an optional swap partition or swap file.
Calamares asks us to make up a username and password. This password must be complex and cannot start with a known dictionary word. This is a bit annoying, but not necessarily a bad idea. Then the installer goes to work copying its files to our local hard drive.
While the installer was working, the GNOME session crashed and kicked me out to a login page. I signed back into the desktop, checked to make sure no install processes were still running, then tried the installer again. GNOME crashed again before I got through half of the screens of the installer.
This sort of session crash is something I've observed before with GNOME and Plasma running on Wayland sessions. I decided to switch over to GNOME's X11 session. There seems to be a few things wrong with the X11 session when running on the SDesk live media. Calamares launched automatically again, but the GNOME on X11 session had no top panel, no Activities button, and no borders around the installer window. There also wasn't any way to move the installer window. It seems like the X11 session is missing a window manager. The installer worked for a while in the X11 session, then failed and kicked me back out to the login screen.
I tried install again, this time from Wayland session, keeping a closer eye on the installer's progress. I toggled the installer's error reporting screen on and watched it to see if I could identify any issues, something that might indicate if the issue was with the install process rather than the desktop. This time though the installer finished its work successfully and I was able to restart the computer and try out my local copy of SDesk.
Early impressions
SDesk boots to a graphical login screen. Actually, by default, the operating system will automatically sign us into the GNOME desktop, but I disabled auto-login during the install process. There are several session options: GNOME on Wayland (the default), GNOME on X11, and there are options for signing into GNOME Classic which keeps the old GNOME 2/MATE layout.
Once again, signing into GNOME brings up a window offering to give us a quick tour of the desktop and a tutorial on launching applications.
SDesk 2023.08.12 -- An overview of the GNOME Shell desktop
(full image size: 251kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
My experiences with SDesk at this point diverged a bit, depending on whether I was running the distribution in VirtualBox or on my laptop. When running in VirtualBox, each of the desktop session options was unstable. I tried each option (GNOME and GNOME Classic, both on X11 and on Wayland) and never managed to have a session last longer than ten minutes. I tried switching video drivers and enabling/disabling 3-D support in VirtualBox and every time GNOME would either fail to load at all (depending on the driver selected) or crash within ten minutes. This made it virtually impossible to accomplish or test anything in the VirtualBox environment.
SDesk 2023.08.12 -- GNOME Classic crashing
(full image size: 22kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
To add insult to injury, the GNOME Shell session was sluggish, adding delays into the experience. GNOME Classic, on the other hand, performed fairly well and offered performance roughly on par with KDE Plasma or Xfce.
When I was running SDesk on my laptop, the experience was similar, but more stable. GNOME Shell was still a little slow compared to other desktops, but GNOME Classic performed well. The sessions were more stable (both on Wayland and with X11), though I still ran into some lock-ups or crashes. The system tended to stay running long enough for me to test things, but didn't run smoothly enough for me to trust it with anything important. I wouldn't walk away and leave my work unsaved, for example.
Something I noticed early on when running the distribution on my laptop was GNOME would use traditional scrolling movement when I was using a mouse, but offered inverse or "natural" scrolling when I was using the touchpad. In other words, window scrolling reversed its behaviour depending on which device I was using and I found this jarring. The behaviour can be adjusted in GNOME's settings panel.
SDesk 2023.08.12 -- The GNOME Settings panel
(full image size: 342kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
SDesk uses a light theme by default. Though some applications, such as the video player and virtual terminal, ignore this and use a dark theme instead. We can switch to a dark theme in the settings panel.
Hardware
Signing into GNOME Shell requires 1.2GB of RAM on SDesk. This is the largest memory footprint I have seen on a Linux distribution when an advanced filesystem wasn't in use. This is about double the average memory consumption for a mainstream Linux distro. GNOME Classic is lighter and uses just under 1.0GB of memory. A fresh install of the distribution takes up 6.1GB of disk space for fresh install, which is about average for a full featured desktop distribution.
I mentioned some issues I ran into above when testing the distribution. These issues with GNOME aside, SDesk worked with my laptop's hardware. My wireless card, sound, and touchpad all worked. When running GNOME Classic the system was responsive. The distribution was able to boot in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes without any issues.
I had quite a bit of trouble with stability with this distribution. Nothing entirely failed to work, but there was buggy behaviour. I tried to find checksum values for the install media, but was unable to locate them on the SDesk website at the time of writing.
Included software
SDesk ships with a fairly standard collection of open source software. The distribution offers us Firefox, Thunderbird, and LibreOffice. GNOME's family of applications, including a calendar, file manager, map application, and document viewer are included. We're also given the Cheese webcam utility, a music player, and the GNOME Videos (Totem) application.
SDesk 2023.08.12 -- Running the Firefox browser
(full image size: 840kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The distribution includes the GNU command line utilities and their associated manual pages. The GNU Compiler Collection is included too. When running from the live media SDesk uses the zsh shell, but the installed version of the distribution defaults to using bash as the user's shell. In the background we find the systemd init software and version 6.4 of the Linux kernel.
Software management
SDesk includes GNOME Software, a modern software centre. Early on I noticed there weren't many packages available and whenever I'd check for updates none would be found. This puzzled me as, when using the command line pacman package manager, dozens of updates totalling over 500MB in size were found.
SDesk 2023.08.12 -- Checking for software updates
(full image size: 228kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
I discovered the reason for this is GNOME Software is configured to connect to the Flathub repository only, it doesn't connect to the Arch repositories the way pacman does. I'm not thrilled with this approach as it means the main software centre doesn't see the bulk of available software and gives the misleading impression the system is up to date when there are dozens of security fixes waiting in the wings.
Unfortunately, one of the crashes I experienced happened while pacman was processing a large batch of updates and it left the system in an unbootable state; the boot loader could no longer find the system's kernel. This required a re-install to fix. Well, to be fair, some careful fixing with the live media might have corrected the problem too, but it seemed easier and faster to re-install from scratch.
Conclusions
When I'm evaluating projects I tend to keep two questions in mind. One is whether the distribution accomplishes its goal. This is tricky to decide in SDesk's case because the distribution doesn't appear to have a specific goal or niche. The distribution seems to be aiming to be an ultra-modern, desktop-oriented, Arch-based project. However, it doesn't seem to set itself apart from the other approximately twenty Arch-based desktop distributions which do the same thing. Most of them run cutting-edge packages, use the Calamares installer, and a fairly small set of default applications. SDesk mostly does the same thing, but has more rough edges when it comes to the live media and default settings.
In other words I believe SDesk accomplishes its goal, but has a ways to go before it will feel polished and on par with other distributions in the same category.
The other main criteria I look at is how well the operating suits my needs. Can I fire it up and just start working? Is it easy to get the software I want? Do I pause and disable annoying notifications and animations? The more the experience becomes seamless for me, making me forget about the operating system while I work, the happier I am. SDesk was the opposite of seamless in my trial.
Some of the issues, I suspect, were hardware related. The regular crashing in the virtual machine and the lock-ups on my laptop, for example, were probably just unfortunate driver/compatibility issues. Other users likely won't encounter the same problems when it comes to maintaining a stable GNOME session.
However, there were other problems which kept showing up during my trial. GNOME Classic offered decent performance, but GNOME Shell did not and both were unusually heavy desktop environments. Apart from Ubuntu running GNOME and ZFS, I haven't seen memory stats this high before on a Linux distribution. Having the software centre not work with the underlying, native package manager was annoying and possibly a security concern.
There were lesser issues, like the installer demanding a complex password when most installers are content to let the user determine their own level of password security. Having the GNOME X11 session on the live media not work was another concern, especially when some users still have trouble running Wayland sessions, depending on their hardware.
SDesk is young, it hasn't had time to mature yet. Hopefully it does and sorts out some of the issues, adds more documentation, provides checksums for its media, and polishes the live media. For now, I'd say it's not yet ready to compete with other Arch-based desktop distributions, but perhaps a future release will catch up with the rest of the pack.
* * * * *
Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an HP DY2048CA laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 512GB solid state drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Wireless network device: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + BT Wireless network card
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
openSUSE shares contributor opinions on the future of the distribution, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility, Ubuntu to offer TPM-backed disk encryption
The openSUSE project has been collecting feedback on how contributors to the distribution want to see the project progress. The results of a survey filled out by contributors have been tallied and summarised in a blog post. "The openSUSE contributor community recently completed a comprehensive survey last week aimed at determining the project's future direction. The results were obtained from 327 respondents, and it sheds some light on various aspects of openSUSE's development, deployment and upgrade plans. A PDF of the survey can be found on the openSUSE Wiki. The questions and results are as follows..."
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In a move which is likely to add more work for developers and frustrate desktop users on rolling release distributions, the GNOME project is changing the way extensions work. This change will break both forward and backward compatibility. "Extensions that target older GNOME versions will not work in GNOME 45. Likewise, extensions that are adapted to work with GNOME 45 will not work in older versions. You can still support more than one GNOME version, but you will have to upload different versions to extensions.gnome.org for pre- and post-45 support." Details on this change can be found in the project's blog post.
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Canonical is working to bring more convenient full disk encryption (FDE) to Ubuntu's desktop edition. The new approach will no longer require the user to type in a password during the boot sequence. "For 15 years, Ubuntu's approach to full disk encryption relied on passphrases for authenticating users. On Ubuntu Core, however, FDE has been designed and implemented using trusted platform modules (TPMs) for more than 2 years now, starting with Core 20.
Based on Ubuntu Core's FDE design, we have been working on bringing TPM-backed full disk encryption to classic Ubuntu Desktop systems as well, starting with Ubuntu 23.10 (Mantic Minotaur) - where it will be available as an experimental feature. This means that passphrases will no longer be needed on supported platforms, and that the secret used to decrypt the encrypted data will be protected by a TPM and recovered automatically only by early boot software that is authorised to access the data.". Additional details are provided in Canonical's blog post.
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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) |
Hiding passwords when authenticating on the command line
Protecting-private-passwords asks: Here I'm proposing a possible Q&A topic: Commands with a password as an argument, and how to avoid such explicit passwords. For example, lftp is an FTP client and one can use the "-u username,password" option to connect an FTP server. This may expose the password if user operations are sent to a central server (typically via syslog). Even if the shell history is not sent to a log server, anyone with access to /proc can still read the password easily (e.g. using the ps command to monitor others' activities) when the command is still running.
DistroWatch answers: There are several command line programs which will allow the user to provide their credentials (typically a username and password) on the command line. These tools often login to a remote service to fetch files or access a database in order to perform a backup. Often times command line programs, particularly older ones, will accept credentials directly on the command line. This might take the following form:
backup-database -u jesse -p MySecretPassword
There are a few problems with this approach. One is that anyone looking over my shoulder can see my secret login password. Another problem is information passed on the command line is often logged or accessible in multiple places. Most shells store command line history (accessible through the history command). Some servers log commands to a system log file. As the person writing in pointed out, information shared on the command line is also viewable to other users on the system using commands such as "ps aux". The ps command will list currently running programs and any parameters we pass to them, including passwords.
How do we work around these concerns? There are a few things we can do to make using credentials on the command line safer. Not "safe", but better. We can make sure command logging is disabled. We can also enable user process hiding. Most Linux distributions do not hide the processes of other users by default, but it's a handy tool for keeping information private from anyone other than the root user. We can also change the permissions on our home directory to prevent people from peeking at our command line history.
These are all approaches which will make it harder for other users to spy on us and gather our passwords, but it's still not ideal. These are workarounds rather than proper fixes. Fortunately, most command line programs these days offer alternatives to typing a password in the shell.
To provide a few examples, the MySQL family of tools, including the database backup program, allows the administrator to provide login credentials in an option file. As long as the file containing the user's password has its permissions set to only be readable by the user running the MySQL utilities, the credentials are safe. People using the lftp and cURL commands can store their login credentials in the ~/.netrc file.
Typically, the manual pages of modern programs will include an option for providing automated login credentials without specifying a password on the command line. Sometimes this will be done with a configuration file or, other times, with an environment variable. In any case, it's almost never necessary to type a password on the command line in plain text.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Linux Lite 6.6
Linux Lite is a beginner-friendly Linux distribution based on Ubuntu's long-term support (LTS) release and featuring the Xfce desktop. The project's latest release, version 6.6, focuses on providing a wider range of language translations. "Linux Lite 6.6 Final is now available for download and installation. This is one our largest releases on record since we began in 2012. We've added 1000's of lines of new code in the form of supporting a large range of languages. We've massively increased the number of language translations across the entire Menu and Sub-Menu system, by adding support for 22 Languages. We had the time to take on a task of this magnitude so we used it completely. If you speak a language other than English, we hope you enjoy a vastly improved and a more complete Linux Lite. Changes: Support for 22 new Languages added: Afrikaans, Arabic, Chinese - Simplified, Croatian, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese - Brazilian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Sweden, Ukranian." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Manjaro Linux 23.0
Philip Müller has announced the release of Manjaro Linux 23.0, a significant update of the project's rolling-release distribution featuring GNOME, KDE Plasma and Xfce editions. The new version brings GNOME 44, KDE Plasma 5.27 LTS and Xfce 4.18, together with a cutting-edge Linux kernel, version 6.5: "Manjaro 23.0 'Uranos' released. The GNOME edition has received several updates to GNOME 44 series. This includes a lot of fixes and polish when GNOME 44 originally was released in March 2023. GNOME's file chooser dialogs have only ever had a list view, which is great when you want to pick a file based on its name, but isn't so good when picking files based on their thumbnails. Over the years, GNOME users have therefore repeatedly requested that a grid view be added to the file chooser. This has been one of the most positively received changes in our history, so we are confident that people will like it added in this release cycle. The Plasma edition comes with the latest Plasma 5.27 LTS series and KDE Gear 23.08. It brings exciting new improvements to your desktop." Continue to the release announcement for further information.
Manjaro Linux 23.0 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 2.485MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Zenwalk GNU Linux
Zenwalk GNU Linux is a Slackware-based distribution that strives to be fast and streamlined with a focus on desktop usage. The project maintains a rolling release branch which has been updated to provide fresh desktop software and libraries. The release announcement reads: "Zenwalk Current is the rolling release of Zenwalk GNU Linux. Current status seems stable enough for an ISO to be published, so here we go. As usual this edition provides a complete package rebuild from upstream Slackware and Zenwalk specific packages. The desktop has been updated to use latest Adwaita themes featuring a unified look for GTK4, GTK3, GTK2 and Qt applications. On application side, this release introduces Syncthing for realtime folder synchronization with any device from Linux, Android to IOS and Windows (think about it as an open source private OneDrive). The desktop is built upon the latest stable XFCE environment with the one of a kind original 'dock centric' Zenwalk layout. Flatpak package management is installed by default and ready to use. Zenwalk aims to be a best of breed media OS. Several new applications and media frameworks have been added : Navidrome Music Server, Jellyfin Media Center (just type 'netpkg jellyfin'), Lollypop Music Player, Rygel DLNA Server, ... PipeWire is the default sound system, completely replacing PulseAudio."
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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: 2,904
- Total data uploaded: 43.6TB
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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) |
Does a distribution's traditional package manager matter to you?
In the earlier years of Linux developer there were often debates, sometimes heated, about whether RPM or Deb packages and package management tools were superior. Over time, as more traditional package managers have been developed and existing ones have matured, fewer people seem to worry about whether they are using APT, DNF, Zypper, pacman, or another package manager to handle their distribution's packages.
This week we would like to know if you select which distribution you run based on its package manager? Do you have a preferred package manager? Let us known in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running operating systems based on Hurd in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you select your distro based on its package manager?
| Yes - the package manager is a key factor: | 592 (36%) |
| Sometimes - the package manager is one consideration/tie-breaker: | 581 (36%) |
| No - the package manager is not a consideration: | 450 (28%) |
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| Website News |
New projects added to database
Relianoid
Relianoid is a Debian-based Linux distribution for load balancing. The distribution offers a load balancing oriented operating system for testing, development, and quality assurance environments. Relianoid is available in Community (free of cost) and Enterprise editions.
CROWZ
CROWZ is a lightweight, Devuan-based Linux distribution. The project offers three graphical window managers: Openbox, Fluxbox, and JWM. CROWZ can be run from live media or installed to a hard drive using the Calamares system installer.
CROWZ 5.0 -- Running the Openbox window manager
(full image size: 45kB, resolution: 1368x768 pixels)
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Mauna Linux. Mauna Linux is a Linux distribution based on Debian's Testing branch. The project is available in three desktop flavours: Cinnamon, MATE, and LXQt.
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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, 18 September 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 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 |
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| Random Distribution | 
Metamorphose Linux
Metamorphose Linux was a Brazilian Debian-based distribution whose biggest goal was being simple and complete with a pleasant graphical interface for beginners or advanced users. The distribution ships with KDE Plasma as the default desktop environment and WINE was present to help users run Windows applications. UEFI support was available.
Status: Discontinued
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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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0x969CD4E778C7b6549A2B00e34114e0168c86A542 
