 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1041, 16 October 2023 |
Welcome to this year's 42nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
This past week Canonical released Ubuntu 23.10, code name "Mantic Minotaur", and it was accompanied by ten official community editions. This week we cover the highlights of these releases (along with others) and ask which of these flavours of Ubuntu is your favourite in our Opinion Poll. We also report on the Ubuntu Budgie and Ubuntu Desktop install media being revoked to address malicious translations inserted in the ISO files. First though we talk about two young projects from our waiting list. The first is FydeOS, a Gentoo-based project which seeks to find a balance between traditional computing and browser-focused functionality. The second project is a live utility distribution which focuses on providing a range of disk manipulation, cloning, and data recovery tools. Read on to hear Jesse Smith's first impressions of both projects. Then, in our News section, we discuss why Debian, a massive project that has been running for over 30 years, works the way it does. We also talk about Fedora partnering with Slimbook to offer the Linux distribution pre-installed on laptops and talk about GNOME phasing out support for X11 sessions in favour of Wayland. Plus, in our Questions and Answers column, we discuss user identification numbers (UIDs) - why they can be different across distributions and how to change them. We're also pleased to share the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: FydeOS 17.0 and Dr.Parted 23.09
- News: Why Debian is the way it is, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu removes new ISO images
- Questions and answers: Changing user identification numbers
- Released last week: Raspberry Pi OS 2023-10-10, Ubuntu 23.10, Window Maker Live 0.96.0-0, Slackel 7.7 "Openbox"
- Torrent corner: IPFire, KDE neon, Raspberry Pi OS, SparkyLinux
- Opinion poll: Which is your favourite flavour of Ubuntu?
- New distributions: Orchid Studio, SpoinkOS
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
FydeOS 17.0
FydeOS is an interesting project which was recently added to DistroWatch's waiting list. The distribution appears to be based on Gentoo with an aim to bridge the functionality between a traditional desktop distribution and a ChromeOS-style operating system where most tasks are performed through a web browser.
The project's website shares a few highlights of the distribution:
FydeOS boots up in seconds from cold, even with entry-grade hardware. It's ready whenever you are.
FydeOS is bundled with built-in virus protection and encryption by default, keeping your data safe.
FydeOS is available in four main branches: VMware, PC, an Enterprise edition, and something called "FydeOS for You". The VMware and PC editions are for virtual machines and physical hardware, respectively, while the Enterprise edition is for people who wish to purchase support. The FydeOS for You edition appears to offer a series of customized builds for specific x86_64 and ARM hardware. For instance there are builds for the Pinebook and several for versions of the Microsoft Surface devices.
The PC edition is also broken into more specific builds. There are various builds for different ages of hardware and style of video card. Presumably these editions are intended to offer more efficient support for modern CPUs. However, it means the potential user needs to go through multiple pages and a bit of reading to find the proper edition of the proper branch.
I downloaded the PC branch of FydeOS 17.0, specifically the edition for the oldest hardware as I figured it would offer the best compatibility for a range of CPUs. The download was a compressed file, 1.5GB in size. When it was unpacked, the IMG file was 6.9GB. I wrote this file to a thumb drive and dived into the experience.
Nothing happened for the first minute after I tried to boot from the USB thumb drive. I was beginning to wonder if the operating system had crashed when the project's logo appeared on the screen. Then nothing more happened for another six minutes while I watched the logo. At the seven minute mark a text console appeared with a brief welcome message and a URL for the project's documentation. There was also a banner saying I could use Ctrl+Alt+F1 to see a web browser. A login prompt followed.
Pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 didn't do anything, my system remained on the login screen. I found I could sign in as the root user and then the system locked up. It no longer responded to keyboard input, I couldn't switch between virtual terminals, and typing resulted in nothing appearing on the screen.
I started over and ran into the same scenario again. After about eight minutes the system just freezes and there is no more disk activity. There is no error message either, leaving us no breadcrumbs to follow.
* * * * *
Dr.Parted Live 23.09
Since my trial with FydeOS came to an early halt, I decided to look at another distribution I'd encountered recently. This project offers a live distribution with a series of disk and file utilities. The distribution is called Dr.Parted Live and its website describes it as follows:
Dr.Parted Live is a bootable GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian testing. Live CD/USB featuring a lightweight Openbox window manager and useful applications for data backup, restore and recovery."
This sums up the project nicely and the website goes on to list some of the powerful disk and file tools it includes:
It also contains a suite of powerful command line tools: clonezilla, testdisk, partimage, photorec, ddrescue, nwipe, scalpel, safecopy, fsarchiver, memtester, curl, wget, cryptsetup, chntpw, wipe and hdparm.
Dr.Parted 23.09 -- Exploring the available applications and functions
(full image size: 132kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
A complete overview of the included utilities is provided in the project's wiki.
Dr.Parted is available in a single edition for x86_64 machines which is provided as a 724MB ISO file.
Early impressions
The Dr.Parted medium boots to a minimal Openbox environment. The wallpaper shows Dr.Parted branding. A panel is placed across the bottom of the desktop. Right-clicking anywhere on the desktop opens an application and settings menu where we can launch tools.
When I ran Dr.Parted on my laptop a Conky status panel appeared to the left of the interface. This panel did not launch when I ran Dr.Parted in a VirtualBox environment. Also, while using the virtual machine, Openbox would not resize to fit the VirtualBox window. I could use the xrandr command line program to resize the desktop interface as desired.
Also on the topic of things working differently on my laptop, I found Dr.Parted would allow me to use my touchpad to move the mouse and left-click, but not right-click. This poses a serious problem as the application menu is accessed through right-clicking and there doesn't appear to be any keyboard shortcut to open the menu. The closest I could find was using Alt+F2 to open a run dialog box, but it only helps if we know the exact name of the program we wish to launch. I plugged a mouse into the laptop and it was not recognized at first. I rebooted and Dr.Parted then recognized the USB mouse which allowed me to right-click and access the menus.
Another problem I ran into while using Dr.Parted on my laptop is the distribution will automatically connect to local wired networks, but there doesn't appear to be any utility to facilitate connecting to wireless networks. Tools like Network Manager and Wicd are not installed for us. There isn't any documentation on the Dr.Parted website about connecting to wi-fi at the time of writing. Since my laptop doesn't have an Ethernet port, this greatly reduces the functionality of the distribution. There may be tools included for connected to wi-fi, but there isn't any explicit way for the user to know this. It makes it difficult to download a disk image, transfer rescued files to a server, or perform backups - which is most of what this distribution is designed to do.
Included software
Speaking of what Dr.Parted is designed to do, let's look at the software included with the distribution. The live environment ships with the PCManFM file manager, a virtual terminal, the GParted partition manager, and the Mousepad text editor. There are also launchers for launching the terminal as the root user. The Netsurf web browser is included too.
There is a graphical configuration manager for handling Openbox settings along with launchers which will open Openbox configuration files in a text editor. The Catfish file search utility is included along with Grsync for copying files between locations. I also found an archive manager and the Htop system monitor.
Dr.Parted 23.09 -- Exploring the settings panel
(full image size: 107kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Most of the above utilities are fairly standard on lightweight distributions, but where Dr.Parted stands out is its collection of command line file handling tools. These include Testdisk, Photorec, Clonezilla, ddrescue, fsarchiver, and hdparm. Basically all the tools you'd want to have when either wiping a hard drive or rescuing lost files. These all seem to work as expected and I had no problems with the included utilities.
Dr.Parted doesn't include manual pages for its utilities which I find disappointing, especially in light of the lack of connectivity utilities for wireless networks. The distribution includes the standard collection of GNU command line tools and runs the systemd init software. In the background we find version 6.4 of the Linux kernel.
Along with the included software there are launchers for installing additional packages. These launchers will open a terminal window and run APT to fetch new applications from the Debian Testing repositories. There are shortcuts for fetching popular items such as Firefox, Chromium, FileZilla, Samba, Vim, and OpenSSH. I tested these and found they worked. If we want other packages we can run APT from a terminal.
Conclusions
The included tools, and the items I downloaded, all worked well and it's nice to have such a strong collection of file rescue, transfer, and cloning utilities. I also appreciated how fast Dr.Parted works. Virtually every window and every application opens and responds instantly. The Openbox interface is snappy and clean. This feels like a good alternative, with a slightly wider set of utilities, to GParted Live.
On the other side of things, there are some weak points in Dr.Parted. The distribution lacks an easy way to connect to wireless networks and doesn't include local manual pages. This can leave laptop users and people working in home or wireless offices in a difficult position. I also encountered problems using my laptop's touchpad, though plugging in an external USB mouse worked around the limitations.
Dr.Parted is off to a decent start, but is still young and might need another release or two to work out the rough parts.
* * * * *
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) |
Why Debian is the way it is, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu removes new ISO images
Debian is one of the world's oldest surviving Linux distributions, having produced new versions for 30 years and counting. Debian is also one of the largest distributions in terms of the number of members, the number of maintained packages, and CPU architectures supported. Why is Debian so large, flexible, and widely used (both in its vanilla form and as a base for child distributions)? In an overview of the project Lars Wirzenius covers some of Debian's highlights and talks about what sets the distribution apart. "Debian is a large, complex operating system, and a huge open source project. It's thirty years old now. To many people, some of its aspects are weird. Most such things have a good reason, but it can be hard to find out what it is. This is an attempt to answer some such questions, without being a detailed history of the project."
* * * * *
The Fedora project has partnered with Slimbook to produce a new laptop computer which ships with the Fedora distribution pre-installed. Fedora Magazine reports: "The Fedora Slimbook is optimized for Fedora's specific hardware configurations, thereby providing users with a smoother out-of-the-box experience. This hardware compatibility leads to an improved user experience, especially for those unfamiliar with how to install a Linux distribution themselves. The Fedora Slimbook is the first Slimbook laptop that offers pre-installed Fedora software, combining Slimbook's signature functional and stylish aesthetics with Fedora's commitment to open source principles and focus on cutting-edge Linux distributions." Hardware specifications and ordering options can be found on the Slimbook Fedora page.
* * * * *
The GNOME desktop team is considering a change which would phase out support for running the popular desktop environment on X11 sessions, making GNOME effectively a Wayland-only desktop. The proposed change doesn't remove GNOME's ability to run X11 sessions, but does remove the shortcut to start GNOME sessions on X11, effectively hiding the X11 option from the user. "This is the first step towards deprecating the X11 session, the gnome-xorg.desktop file is removed, but the X11 functionality is still there in so you can restore the X11 session by installing the file in the appropriate place on your own. X11 has been receiving less and less testing. We have been defaulting to the Wayland session since 2016 and it's about time we drop the X11 session completely."
* * * * *
Shortly after the release of Ubuntu 23.10 the ISO files for Ubuntu and Ubuntu Budgie were taken down. The reason was a series of translations which introduced hate speech into the install media. "Shortly after release we identified hate speech from a malicious contributor in a specific set of translations of the Ubuntu Desktop installer UI and have taken immediate action. These translations are being removed and an updated ISO will be available to download once we have replaced the offending material. It is important to note that these translations are not part of the Ubuntu Archive and we believe the incident is contained only to translations provided via a third party translation tool we use for a subset of applications. The affected images that have been removed are Ubuntu Desktop 23.10, Ubuntu Budgie 23.10 and the Ubuntu Desktop daily images." According to the announcement, new install media will be provided in the coming days.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Changing user identification numbers
A little while ago I reviewed the PCLinuxOS distribution, an unusually conservative, stable rolling release operating system. Following that review, someone messaged me and asked if I'd noticed whether PCLinuxOS still starts assigning user identification numbers (UIDs) at 500, or if the distribution starts numbering users starting at 1000. Most distributions these days start counting user accounts at 1000 and increment upwards (1001 then 1002 and so on). But in the past some distributions started at 500, then went to 501, and 502...
I hadn't noticed while playing with PCLinuxOS where it started assigning UIDs, it's not something that affects my testing. However, I went back and checked and found PCLinuxOS (like most Linux distributions) identifies the first user as number 1000.
Why is it significant if the user identification numbers a distribution uses behind the scenes start at 500, 1000, or 1001? Most of the time it isn't a problem, but if a person has a computer that boots multiple distributions and shares files between them, then we can run into a file ownership issue.
File permissions are assigned based on UID rather than username. Let's say I use the same home directory across multiple distributions. My user "jesse" with UID 500 on one distribution will not have ownership of files owned by "jesse" with UID 1000 on another distribution, the filesystem will see these two accounts (both called "jesse") as being two different users because the UIDs do not match. However, user "jesse" with UID 1000 on one distribution will be viewed as the same person as "jsmith" with UID 1000 from another distribution.
Put another way, when we run multiple distributions, it is convenient if our UIDs match across every operating system we boot. When a distribution doesn't use the common approach of making the first user number 1000, the account numbers are less likely to match.
Luckily, when UIDs across different distributions do not match, we can change the UID for our account. This is accomplished with the usermod program. We can tell usermod the UID we want an account to have, followed by the username for the account. For example, to change my UID from 500 to 1000 I could run the following command as the administrator:
# usermod --uid 1000 jesse
To confirm the command worked, we can check my user's entry in the /etc/passwd file. Here we examine the third field (the UID field) for the user "jesse" in the /etc/passwd file:
$ grep jesse /etc/passwd | cut -f 3 -d ':'
1000
In the above example we see the UID has been successfully changed to 1000.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Raspberry Pi OS 2023-10-10
Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspbian) is a free operating system based on Debian GNU/Linux and optimised for the Raspberry Pi hardware. The project's latest release is based on Debian 12 "Bookworm" and makes a move to switch the graphical interface from X11 to a Wayland session. "For Bookworm, we are using a compositor called Wayfire. This uses a standard Wayland library called wlroots, which is used by several modern Wayland compositors. And because Wayfire works a lot better as a Wayland compositor on Raspberry Pi than Mutter did, Wayland is now the default mode of operation for the desktop. (With one caveat - for now, Wayland is only the default on Raspberry Pi 4 and 5. The performance of Wayfire on earlier platforms is still being optimised, so for now they will continue to run the old X11 display server and the Openbox window manager, but at some point these platforms will also be switched to Wayfire.) If you boot Raspberry Pi OS on a Pi 4 or 5, you will now get a Wayfire desktop." Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement.
Ubuntu 23.10
Canonical has released a new version of Ubuntu. The new version, 23.10 (code name Mantic Minotaur) introduces updated hardware support using Linux 6.5, better ZFS support in the installer, and the default install configuration is set to "Minimal". "The default Ubuntu Desktop installation is now minimal. There is still an 'Expanded installation' option for those who prefer to have applications like LibreOffice and Thunderbird installed for the first boot. (The 'Full' option is still the default with the legacy Desktop installer.) We are reintroducing support for ZFS guided installations, enhancing the flexibility and choices available for your storage management needs. This is a new implementation in the Subiquity-based installers, and is without encryption by default. The encrypted ZFS guided option will be developed in a future release. Starting with Ubuntu 23.10, TPM-backed full-disk encryption (FDE) is introduced as an experimental feature, building on years of experience with Ubuntu Core. On supported platforms, you no longer need to enter passphrases at boot manually." Additional information is provided in the release notes.
Ubuntu 23.10 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 1.3MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Ubuntu Studio 23.10
Ubuntu Studio is a multimedia-focused community edition of Ubuntu. The project's 23.10 release places a focus on improving PipeWire support and audio configuration. "PipeWire has gained numerous improvements, including fixes for prosumer and professional audio. The JACK compatibility now performs in real-time, and some FireWire features have now been implemented. We also include a new utility, called the Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration utility, found in the Ubuntu Studio Information menu. This can be used to configure the default PipeWire Quantum value, Enable or Disable the PipeWire-JACK compatibility layer (handy for using JACK by itself), or switch to the classic PulseAudio-JACK setup that was the default prior to 23.04. QPrompt is a Qt-based teleprompter application now available in the repositories. While a snap version does exist and is installable from Discover, the version in the repositories is more up-to-date. Since Discover does not see the version in the repositories, it needs to be installed from the command line by issuing the following command: 'sudo apt install qprompt'" Additional information is offered in the release announcement and in the release notes.
Xubuntu 23.10
The Xubuntu team have released Xubuntu 23.10 which ships with the Xfce 4.18 desktop. The release announcement shares highlights of the new version: "Highlights: Improved hardware support for Bluetooth headphones and touchpads. Color emoji is now included and supported in Firefox, Thunderbird, and newer Gtk-based apps. Significantly improved screensaver integration and stability. Known issues: The shutdown prompt may not be displayed at the end of the installation. Instead you might just see a Xubuntu logo, a black screen with an underscore in the upper left hand corner, or just a black screen. Press Enter and the system will reboot into the installed environment. Xorg crashes and the user is logged out after logging in or switching users on some virtual machines, including GNOME Boxes. You may experience choppy audio or poor system performance while playing audio, but only in some virtual machines (observed in VMware and VirtualBox)." The release notes offer additional details.
Xubuntu 23.10 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 248kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Lubuntu 23.10
Lubuntu is a community edition of Ubuntu which features the LXQt desktop environment. The project's latest release, Lubuntu 23.10, uses the Calamares system installer while other branches of the Ubuntu family typically use Ubiquity. "We are once again utilizing Calamares 3.3 Alpha 2 in Lubuntu 23.10, as it has proven to be highly reliable since its initial use in Lubuntu 22.10. During testing, we did note that if you attempt to create an encrypted installation without a passphrase, Lubuntu will be installed unencrypted. This is unlikely to be a problem for most users as disk encryption requires a passphrase for it to be effective. More information can be found here. We have a new wallpaper (which is also used as at the login screen), created one of our Lubuntu Members; Walter Lapchynski, with a bit of assistance from Ubuntu Studio's Erich Eickmeyer. Thanks to both Walter and Erich. Please also check the Ubuntu Release Notes for more common issues and bugs affecting all Ubuntu flavors." The release announcement offers additional details.
Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.10
Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.10 has been released. Ubuntu Cinnamon is a project that integrates the Cinnamon desktop with the Ubuntu distribution. This version, supported for nine months, upgrades Cinnamon to version 5.8.4: "I am happy to announce our 2nd release as an official flavor, Ubuntu Cinnamon 23.10 'Mantic Minotaur'. This update includes the Cinnamon 5.8 desktop environment, along with newer versions of most software. Cinnamon 5.8.4: the themes module in the Cinnamon Settings has an optional view for making simplified themes (this includes being able to configure an easier way to switch between light and dark themes); supports gestures with Touchegg. Cinnamon Screensaver 5.8.1: a user interface issue with the backup screensaver screen has been fixed; no longer uses libaccountsservice (can block startup). Nemo 5.8.4: performance - memory leaks fixed; thumbnails generation now uses multiple threads...." See the release announcement and the release notes for further details.
Ubuntu Kylin 23.10
Version 23.10 of Ubuntu Kylin, an official variant of Ubuntu created primarily for the needs of Chinese-speaking users, has been released: "The Ubuntu Kylin team has announced the release of Ubuntu Kylin open-source operating system, version 23.10. As a short term support release, Ubuntu Kylin 23.10 comes with the Linux 6.5 kernel by default, and has comprehensively upgraded a series of system libraries, subsystems and core software. This version is mainly used to provide developers with a development and testing platform. Features: Intel's 'Topology Aware Register and PM Capsule Interface' (interface that provides better power-management features); arm64 permission-indirection extension (technology to set special memory permissions); RISC-V now supports ACPI; the Loongarch architecture now supports simultaneous multi-threading (SMT); support for unaccepted memory (protocol by which secure guest systems accept memory allocated by the host)...." The release announcement, available in Chinese, English, provides further details and screenshots.
Ubuntu Unity 23.10
Rudra Saraswat has announced the release of Ubuntu Unity 23.10, un updated version of the project's Ubuntu flavour featuring the Unity7 desktop environment: "Ubuntu Unity 23.10 'Mantic Minotaur' has now been released. Ubuntu Unity 23.10 continues to use Unity 7.7, which has undergone maintenance. Our primary focus for this release has been to gradually migrate away from Nux in UnityX, which is progressing well. Nux is holding us back from offering Wayland support without Xwayland. We were also pre-occupied with adding support for CUPS 2.0 in Unity (printing), which has now been pushed back by Ubuntu to 24.04. A Lomiri variant of Ubuntu Unity is also in progress, and was supposed to be released today. Unfortunately, some app launcher-related bugs held us back, and we're unable to make it available for download with the release announcement, but we hope to be able to do so within the next few days." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details and screenshots.
Ubuntu Unity 23.10 -- Running the Unity desktop
(full image size: 590kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Edubuntu 23.10
Edubuntu is an education-focused community edition of Ubuntu. Version 23.10 of the distribution introduces a handful of new default applications to the user experience. "This release is meant to be evolutionary, not revolutionary. We are still working out which applications and features work best in the overall educational ecosystem. As always, feedback is appreciated. New apps: Startup Disk Creator: This will help users and administrators make an easy USB drive from a .iso image of any Ubuntu flavor. GNOME Videos: Video player. GNOME Music: Music player. Backup: Backup utility. Basic256: Teaches students the BASIC programming language (@eeickmeyer, our technical lead, first learned to program in this language when he was 10 years old on a Commodore VIC-20!) Extension Manager: An easy way to add and administer GNOME Shell extensions. OpenBoard: A whiteboard application for teachers. Mnemosyne: A flashcard application. Convertall: A powerful standalone unit converter (Bonus: GNOME Shell can also convert units, just ask it!)" Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Ubuntu MATE 23.10
The Ubuntu MATE team has published a new version, Ubuntu MATE 23.10, which offers nine months of support. The new release includes pdates to MATE, newer hardware support, and AppArmor improvements. "MATE Desktop has been updated to 1.26.2 with a selection of bugs fixes and minor improvements to associated components. caja-rename 23.10.1-1 has been ported from Python to C. libmatemixer 1.26.0-2+deb12u1 resolves heap corruption and application crashes when removing USB audio devices. mate-desktop 1.26.2-1 improves portals support. mate-notification-daemon 1.26.1-1 fixes several memory leaks. mate-system-monitor 1.26.0-5 now picks up libexec files from /usr/libexec. mate-session-manager 1.26.1-2 set LIBEXECDIR to /usr/libexec/ for correct interaction with mate-system-monitor. mate-user-guide 1.26.2-1 is a new upstream release. mate-utils 1.26.1-1 fixes several memory leaks." The release notes offer additional details.
Ubuntu Budgie 23.10
The Ubuntu Budgie team have published version 23.10 of their distribution which offers nine months of support and security updates. The new version includes updated hardware support via Linux 6.5 and imports technologies from GNOME 45. "This is a standard release supported for 9 months packed full of all sorts of new capabilities. If you want a well-tested version with longer-term support then our 22.04 LTS version is supported for 3 years. The new release has many new core updates as well as v10.8 version of budgie itself: The kernel is v6.5. GNOME 45 stack with Budgie's new magpie window manager. v1.7 of our very own budgie-extras giving you a whole host of optional ways to customise your experience. A brand new ISO utilising our very own budgie-desktop-installer. We are really pleased with this fantastic new way of installing budgie, working very closely with brilliant Canonical developers. We also inherit hundreds of stability, bug-fixes and optimizations made to the underlying Ubuntu repositories." Additional information is provided in the release announcement and in the release notes.
Ubuntu Budgie 23.10 -- Running the Budgie desktop
(full image size: 819kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Window Maker Live 0.96.0-0
Paul Seelig has announced the release of Window Maker Live 0.96.0-0, an updated build of the project's Debian-based distribution featuring the Window Maker window manager as the default graphical user interface: "This release is based on stable Debian 12.2 'Bookworm' and contains Linux kernel version 6.4.4 as provided via Debian's backports. Window Maker has been updated to current release version 0.96.0 and includes an additional bug fix. It is Window Maker Live's primary window manager and exclusive desktop session option. Almost the complete range of GNUstep components and programs currently available in Debian 'Bookworm' have been added. The Window Maker root menu has been augmented with a comprehensively arranged listing of related programs in its own top level 'GNUstep Apps' submenu. The primary aim is to raise awareness of the advanced maturity of GNUstep in order to attract more developers for this wonderful project. Current Emacs release 29.1 has been compiled for both GTK+ 2 and GNUstep. The emacs-gnustep variant is provided as a self-contained component and does not rely nor conflict with any other Debian Emacs packages." See the what's new file and the changelog for further details.
Slackel 7.7 "Openbox"
Slackel is a Linux distribution and live CD based on Slackware Linux and Salix OS. The project has published Slackel 7.7 "Openbox" includes a graphical kernel update tool and a utility for creating USB thumb drive installs. "It includes the flatpak so the user has access to dozens of apps to install. Mozilla-firefox-118.0.2 mozilla-thunderbird-115.3.2, exaile-4.1.1, smtube-21.10.0, smplayer-23.6.0, MPlayer-20221009, libreoffice-7.6.2, filezilla-3.65.0, pidgin-2.14.12, transmission-2.94, gimp-2.10.34, openjre-19.0.2.u7, slackel-control-center-3.0, install-upgrade-kernel-gtk-3.0 GUI application to upgrade the kernel for internal disk installs, install-upgrade-kernel-ext-usb- gtk-3.0 GUI application to upgrade the kernel for installations on external ssd disk or USB stick. Instonusb-2.0 for creating live usb stick (frugal install) useful for installing slackel on laptops without DVD device and more and the latest updates from Slackware's 'Current' tree. Slackel can be installed (real installation) using the Slackel Live Installer (SLI) on an external 16GB or 32GB usb stick or ssd disk so you can have a portable, fast system always with you." Additional details are offered in the project's release announcement.
Voyager Live 23.10
Voyager Live is an Ubuntu-based distribution with GNOME and Xfce desktop environments. The project's latest release is Voyager Live 23.10. The distribution's release announcement highlights some of the key features: "With the promise finally fulfilled, to have two unified systems GNOME and Xfce, light, fast, modern, fluid, secure and efficient in a hybrid environment for PC and tablets. The two desktops are very distinct and their respective applications are mostly invisible, for one or the other environment. This version is based on the Linux 6.5 kernel and the Ubuntu 'Mantic Minotaur' distribution with its new features. 23.10 is an intermediate version with a 9-month support cycle which prepares the future 5-year LTS (long-term support) version which will arrive shortly for GNOME and Xfce. With integrated options available out of the box Voyager offers features like the new One Click Backup, Conky Control, GNOME Shell Effects, Repair, Switch Ubuntu, WINE development and Steam gaming and selected GNOME extensions according to PC needs."
Voyager Live 23.10 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 290kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
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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: 2,915
- 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) |
Which is your favourite flavour of Ubuntu?
This week we saw the release of Ubuntu 23.10 along with nine community editions. The community flavours provide alternative desktops and areas of focus while the flagship edition of Ubuntu offers a more general purpose approach to desktop computing. We'd like to hear from you which flavour of Ubuntu is your favourite. Is there an edition of Ubuntu that has been discontinued that you especially liked? Let us know about it in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on phone with privacy switches in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Favourite flavour of Ubuntu?
| Ubuntu: | 256 (17%) |
| Edubuntu: | 6 (0%) |
| Kubuntu: | 328 (21%) |
| Lubuntu: | 80 (5%) |
| Ubuntu Budgie: | 42 (3%) |
| Ubuntu Cinnamon: | 110 (7%) |
| Ubuntu Kylin: | 4 (0%) |
| Ubuntu MATE: | 196 (13%) |
| Ubuntu Studio: | 46 (3%) |
| Ubuntu Unity: | 35 (2%) |
| Xubuntu: | 334 (22%) |
| I liked a past flavour: | 112 (7%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Orchid Studio. Orchid Studio is a distribution intended for editing audio, video, and image files. It is based on MX Linux.
- SpoinkOS. SpoinkOS is an Ubuntu-based distribution which features the KDE Plasma desktop and Liquorix branch of the Linux kernel.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 23 October 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 |
| 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 | 
heads
heads was a privacy-focused Linux distribution designed to make it easy for users to access the Internet anonymously using the Tor network. heads was based on Devuan and features only free (libre) software. The Linux kernel has had non-free blobs removed.
Status: Discontinued
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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.
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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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