 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1082, 5 August 2024 |
Welcome to this year's 32nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
One of the characteristics of open source that makes it so powerful is the ability of the community using the software to modify it and contribute those modifications back to the original project. This enables everyone involved, from the developers to the users, to benefit from small contributions from many people. In an effort to make these sorts of small contributions easier the Debian project announced a new initiative which involves the creation of a sub-project called Tiny QA Tasks. This new project will hopefully attract new developers to tackle small tasks and assist them with mentorship. While Debian is trying to open its doors to new contributors, Funtoo is closing its doors. The Funtoo project started as an evolution of the Gentoo, source-based meta-distribution and has reached the end of its life. We share more information about both of these developments in our News section. Plus we talk about openSUSE publishing two significant snapshots, one of the distribution's Tumbleweed branch and another from the project's Aeon Desktop branch. Speaking of snapshots, one of the more popular features of advanced filesystems is atomic snapshots, the ability to make an instant copy of files and directories. While snapshots are usually restricted to the realm of advanced filesystems, such as Btrfs and ZFS, this is not always the case. This week, in our Tips and Tricks section, we talk about creating and working with snapshots on FreeBSD's classic UFS filesystem. First though we dive into Linux Mint 22, the latest version of Mint's Ubuntu-based branch. Mint has introduced a number of new features, including experimental Wayland support, in this release and we talk about how the distribution performs in our Feature Story. Do you like Mint's main, Ubuntu-based edition or do you prefer the Debian-based flavour of Mint (LMDE)? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Linux Mint 22
The Linux Mint distribution is often regarded as one of the more beginner friendly Linux distributions and has occasionally be labelled "Ubuntu done right." This public image tends to come about as a result of Mint removing Canonical's Snap support, providing a more traditional desktop layout, and focusing on adding features and polish that the community requests.
The project is available in two main branches, an Ubuntu-based branch which features three x86_64 editions: Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce; and a Debian-based edition which runs on x86 and x86_64 machines and is offered in a single Cinnamon desktop edition.
The Mint team launched Linux Mint 22 last week which is based on Ubuntu 24.04. This is a long-term support edition which will receive security updates through to the year 2029. The new release also includes several new features and improvements:
- If you're connected to the Internet during the installation, language packs for your selected language are downloaded. In addition, the following languages do not require an Internet connection since their language packs are present on the ISO image: English, German, Spanish, French, Russian, Portuguese, Dutch and Italian."
- Linux Mint 22 ships with modern components and the new Ubuntu 24.04 package base.
- To guarantee better compatibility with modern hardware, the kernel is version 6.8 and Linux Mint 22.x point releases will follow the HWE series.
- The default sound server switched to PipeWire.
- The Software Sources received support for the new Debian DEB822 format.
- Themes were updated to support GTK4.
- JXL support was added to Pix and a new thumbnailer was implemented for it.
- All software using libsoup2 was migrated to libsoup3.
- HiDPI support improvements were made in the boot sequence, in Plymouth and Slick-Greeter.
- In Ubuntu 24.04, a number of GNOME applications moved to libAdwaita and stopped supporting the system theme. Since selecting a theme is a core part of the desktops shipped by Linux Mint (Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce), apps are required to support it. As a result, the GNOME Font Viewer was removed and the following applications were downgraded back to GTK3 versions: Celluloid, GNOME Calculator, Simple Scan, Baobab, System Monitor, GNOME Calendar, File Roller, Zenity.
- Verified Flatpaks now show their maintainer name. Unverified Flatpaks are disabled by default. A warning reminds you of the security risks associated with them.
- Unverified Flatpaks are disabled by default. When enabled, these Flatpaks are clearly marked as unverified.
- Following the discontinuation of Hexchat, Linux Mint moved to the Matrix chat network.
The What's New document also mentions the GNOME "Online Accounts" utility has been replaced by the XApp "GNOME Oneline Accounts GTK" as the former no longer supported desktop themes in any interfaces apart from GNOME Shell.
The three editions of Mint 22 are all in the range of 2.7GB to 2.8GB in size. I downloaded the ISO for the Cinnamon desktop, Mint's homegrown environment.
The live desktop
Booting from the live media brings up a boot menu where we are given the chance to start the live desktop, launch the desktop in safe graphics mode, or start an OEM install. The OEM install does a quick setup without a user account.
Taking the live desktop option boots to the Cinnamon interface. A panel is placed across the bottom of the screen. On the desktop we find a single icon for launching the project's system installer.
Installing
Mint uses the Ubiquity system installer, inherited from its parent distribution. The graphical installer is very straight forward and walks us through selecting our language from a list and, optionally, showing us an on-line copy of the project's release notes. We are then asked to confirm our computer's keyboard layout and asked whether we wish to install media codecs, including ones which may be patent encumbered. Disk partitioning comes next. Mint offers guided and manual partitioning. The guided approach will set up one root partition or set up a flexible storage volume using LVM. The manual partitioning screen is quite user friendly and it has a nice point-and-click interface. The partitioning screen will also perform checks on our layout and warn if it thinks we are missing a partition, such as space for /boot/efi on UEFI-enabled systems.
The final two screens of the installer ask us to select our timezone from a map and then create a username and password combination. Mint also allows us to enable home directory encryption, something for which most other distributions have dropped support. The installer then copies its packages to our drive and offers to restart the computer.
Early impressions
My new copy of Mint 22 booted to a graphical login screen. There are three session options available. The default is to login to Cinnamon running an X11 session and using hardware acceleration. There is also a Cinnamon session running on X11 with software rendering, for when hardware acceleration may not be available and we need to make more use of the CPU. The third option is to run Cinnamon with a Wayland session and this last option is marked as being experimental.
Linux Mint 22 -- The welcome window
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Upon signing into any of these sessions a welcome window appears. This welcome window consists of five tabs. The first tab shows a short welcome message. The other four tabs are labelled First Steps, Documentation, Help, and Contribute. The Documentation tab shows us links to the project's release notes, What's New document, and support documentation. The Help page links us to the project's user forum and chat room. The chat room and the forum are both opened in the Firefox browser. The Contribute tab links us to a web page where we're shown details on how to contribute or donate to Linux Mint.
The First Steps tab is interesting as it provides us with quick access to several configuration tools and system utilities. On this page we can find a button which opens a desktop appearance configuration tool to help us adjust the theme of Cinnamon. There are also buttons for opening the Timeshift utility to help us take snapshots of our filesystem, launching the update manager, opening the Cinnamon settings panel, launching the software centre, and opening the Gufw firewall utility.
Linux Mint 22 -- The settings panel
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I quite like Timeshift, especially when it is paired with Btrfs volumes as it can automate snapshots and make recoveries from updates or mistakes much easier. I also appreciate the Cinnamon settings panel. It's organized in a classic grid layout which makes it easy to quickly find and open configuration modules. From the settings panel we can adjust the theme, resolution, and extensions of the desktop. There are also modules for launching the firewall tool and managing privacy settings such as remembering recently opened files.
The firewall utility presented to us is Gufw and the firewall is disabled by default. Gufw makes it simple to turn on the firewall and open specific ports to allow access to network services.
Software management
Linux Mint ships with a few software management tools. The Update Manager is available through the welcome window, the application menu, and there is an update icon in the system tray which will open the update manager when clicked. The update manager shows us a list of available updates and we can select which ones we wish to install. The update manager worked well for me, downloading and applying the handful of available security updates.
The update manager has some useful options. For instance, it can launch Timeshift for us to take a snapshot pre-update. The update manager's Preferences panel allows us to adjust the frequency of checks for new packages and we can decide whether the update manager should search for updates to just Deb packages or also monitor for Flatpak and extension bundles too. I quite like the update manager. It's both streamlined in its primary function and also, with a little digging through the menus, it can be flexible.
Linux Mint 22 -- The update manager and Timeshift
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The software centre is a custom software manager with a fairly modern look. The top half of the default screen shows recommended or featured applications. The bottom half of the window shows us categories of software we can browse. A search bar in the top-left corner will assist us in finding applications based on their name.
Clicking on an application, either in the search results or in a category, brings up a full page description and screenshot of the selected item. In the top-right corner of the window we will find a button to install the item. Immediately under this Install button is a drop-down menu which gives us the option to switch between installing the software from a "system" Deb package or a Flatpak package. As far as I can tell, there isn't a universal default for which package type is selected. Sometimes the Flatpak was picked for me, other times the Deb, even when both were available. Once a new package has been installed the Install button is replaced by two buttons - one to remove the application and another which can launch the applications from within the software centre.
Linux Mint 22 -- The software centre
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From the software centre's menu we can switch to a screen which shows low-level packages and applications which have been installed manually (in other words, any packages which didn't come pre-installed with the operating system). From this screen we can remove any software we have installed.
For people who prefer a classic package manager, Synaptic is also included. This gives us access to low-level packages. We can also use the APT and Flatpak command line utilities if we wish. Unlike its parent, Mint does not ship with Snap support, but it can be installed from the distribution's repositories.
Hardware
I started my trial with Mint in a VirtualBox environment where the distribution performed well. The system was stable and the desktop was responsive, even with visual effects enabled. The desktop dynamically resized with the VirtualBox window and I encountered no issues. When I tried running Mint on my laptop the experience was similarly polished. The live media took an unusually long time (about five minutes) to boot, but otherwise the experience was great. Audio worked out of the box, media keys were recognized, wireless networking functioned well, and Cinnamon was responsive. I found the distribution booted equally well in UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes and the experience was entirely smooth.
The Mint distribution is slightly on the heavier end of the spectrum. A fresh install took up 9.1GB of disk space, not including my swap partition. When signed into the Cinnamon desktop the environment consumed 870MB of RAM. This puts Mint slightly above the resource usage of most distributions I've used lately running Xfce and Plasma, but a bit below distributions running GNOME.
Included software
Mint ships with many popular open source applications. Digging through the application menu we find the Firefox browser, Thunderbird for e-mail, and Transmission for working with bittorrent. LibreOffice is supplied along with a calendar application, and the Nemo file manager. The Celluoid media player is available to play video files and Rhythmbox will play music files for us. There is an IPTV application installed for us called Hypnotix (which we have reviewed), and (assuming we checked the codec box at install time) Mint supplies us with codecs for playing virtually any media file.
Linux Mint 22 -- Setting up launchers for web apps
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Mint ships a utility for managing passwords and security keys along with a backup utility. The backup tool is a nice companion to Timeshift in that it is focused on making archives of our personal files while Timeshift focuses on making snapshots of the operating system. There is also a printer manager and the GNU Compiler Collection.
Behind the scenes we find the GNU core utilities and manual pages are installed for us. The systemd init software is featured along with version 6.8 of the Linux kernel.
The included software worked well for me. I don't think I saw any glitches or problems during my trial with the default software.
Wayland session
Mint's release documentation mentions the Cinnamon desktop now offers a Wayland session. It's marked as being experimental, meaning people should expect some rough edges and problems. While most of my time with Mint 22 was spent in the X11 session, I did try the Wayland session a few times. I was pleasantly surprised.
While not all of my experiences with Wayland over the past decade have been truly bad, with one exception, my Wayland experiences have always been very notably sub-par compared to running the same desktop/distro combination with X11. Wayland tends to mess up my mouse pointer's appearance, often crashes, and is usually visibly slower to respond when compared to X11. To make matters worse, when a Wayland window manager crashes it usually takes down the entire desktop session, rather than just restarting the window manager and leaving the individual applications running. I've run Wayland in virtual machines, on Intel hardware, and on AMD hardware (never on NVIDIA which often gets blamed for Wayland's problems) and I've regularly tried Wayland sessions when running Plasma and GNOME. I usually return to X11 by the end of the day.
Linux Mint 22 -- The Wayland session
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Despite being new and experimental, Cinnamon's Wayland session is already performing better for me than the GNOME and Plasma equivalents ever have. The desktop does lag a little bit in VirtualBox, but otherwise offered me a stable and responsive session. Media applications, often the Achilles heel of Wayland, worked properly as did screenshot tools, my web browser, and the Cinnamon configuration utilities. Cinnamon's Wayland session always showed an extra mystery icon on the panel which didn't go away, but otherwise appeared to be on par with the X11 session. When we consider that Cinnamon is several years "behind" Plasma and GNOME in terms of development time, I'm impressed their Wayland implementation is already better.
Conclusions
I'm usually impressed by new releases of Linux Mint and version 22 has been no exception. The distribution delivers on virtually every front for desktop users. It's easy to set up, it offers a solid collection of popular applications without overly crowding the application menu, and it ships with three desktop flavours - ranging from full featured (Cinnamon), to classic (MATE), to lighter (Xfce). The welcome window makes it easy to access help, change the look of the system, and perform essential tasks such as making backups and installing updates. The software centre is fast and flexible, uniting Flatpak and Deb packages fluidly in one space.
Cinnamon uses nice, sane defaults, and it should be familiar for people migrating from Windows, while being flexible for people who want a distinctly different look and feel. Media support works out of the box, the update manager integrates with Timeshift for bullet-proof updates, and the system is stable. Even the new Wayland session works surprisingly well.
I played with Mint for five days and didn't manage to find any errors, any crashes, or any common task that it tripped over. The closest I can come to a complaint is it would have been nice if the system installer offered more guided partitioning options, perhaps offering a drop-down menu for root filesystems such as ext4 and Btrfs alongside the existing LVM option. And that's it, that's the nearest thing to a limitation or fault I could find after nearly a week with Mint 22.
There is a reason, several reasons, I usually recommend Linux Mint to less experienced users and Linux newcomers. It is easy to install, offers five years of support, it's stable, and it is possible to perform virtually any task from the desktop without opening a command line. The system is unusually friendly, integrated across components, and it's pleasantly straight forward to install software across multiple formats. It's also consistent. While some mainstream distributions publish a mixture of good and bad releases, Mint has steadily published good, polished releases for over a decade that have delivered a friendly, stable experience. I'd recommend it for both beginners and more experienced users who want to spend more time using their computer than setting it up.
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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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Visitor supplied rating
Linux Mint has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.7/10 from 742 review(s).
Have you used Linux Mint? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
openSUSE publishes new Tumbleweed and Aeon Desktop updates, Debian introduces Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro experimenting with immutable images, Funtoo discontinued
The openSUSE project published a few news announcements this week. The first discussed several updates to the project's Tumbleweed branch. Tumbleweed received a new kernel with updated wireless networking drivers, the KWin Wayland session received several fixes and enhancements, and Discover's handling of Flatpak packages has been improved.
The second announcement talked about openSUSE's Aeon Desktop edition which has just published its third (and probably final) release candidate. The new snapshot offers full disk encryption and updates the system installer (called tik) to use systemd-repart instead of dd for deploying the Aeon image. "Depending on your hardware, Aeon will automatically configure Full Disk Encryption in one of two modes: Default Mode with strong verification of bootloader via the Trusted Platform Module version 2.0 (TPM2 for short), initrd and kernel before automatically decrypting your system. Fallback Mode with no verification of boot components and requiring a Passphrase on boot to decrypt your system."
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The Debian project is trialing an initiative which aims to lower the bar for contributing to Debian while also dealing with small bugs and usability issues. The Tiny QA Tasks sub-project is described as follows: "This project contains some short, self-contained, relatively simple tasks to enhance the quality of Debian with the intention to integrate newcomers into the project by doing valuable contributions in a short time frame. The effort should be guided/led by experienced Debian Developers who show their workflow to others." A Matrix channel has been set up where experienced Debian Developers and people wishing to contribute can communicate.
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The Manjaro Linux community is experimenting with a new, immutable operating system image. A call for testing was posted on the Manjaro forums: "Manjaro Immutable Out Now for Community Testing: Powered by Arkdep 70 from the Arkane Linux 60 project this exciting new Manjaro variant is available for public testing right now! The goal of this release is to gather community feedback on the technology powering Manjaro Immutable. Note that this is only an experimental release and not representative of the final version, there is also no support guarantee, so hold off on installing it as your primary operating system, at least for now." The testing images require at least 32GB of storage space and UEFI mode.
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The Funtoo project was created by Daniel Robbins (the founder and former project leader of Gentoo). Funtoo was described as an evolution of Gentoo, but in this case the new generation did not outlive its parent. The Funtoo project is shutting down. Robbins posted on the project's forum: "All good things must come to an end. I've decided to end the Funtoo Linux project. Funtoo started as a philosophy to create a fun community of contributors building something great together. For me, it's no longer that so I need to move on to other things. There is not a successor BDFL for Funtoo nor am I interested in trying to find one, or hand the project off to someone else. You can expect the project to wind down through August. If you have a Funtoo container, it will continue to be online through the end of August so you have time to find another hosting solution if you need one."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
Making snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD
When people talk about filesystems, particularly when comparing traditional Unix & Linux filesystems against modern filesystems, there are a few keys points which tend to be mentioned. One of the main features offered by advanced filesystems (such as Btrfs, ZFS, and HAMMER2) is snapshots - lightweight copies of the filesystem which can be kept on the disk or transmitted to another computer. These snapshots capture moments in time on the system which allows us to compare different versions of files, rollback changes, and recover deleted files.
Advanced filesystems offer other powerful features, such as multi-device storage, transparent compression, and deduplication, but I feel as though snapshots are one of the key selling points of advanced filesystems. Traditional filesystems (such as ext4, UFS, and XFS) simply don't have the equivalent capability, at least not without having an added storage management layer like LVM, but those need to be set up in advance and are relatively awkward to manage compared to Btrfs and ZFS.
This divide between the capabilities of traditional filesystems and advanced filesystems can cause system administrators to make some tough choices, especially in limited hardware environments. Snapshots and related features are great to have, but using them often means using a heaver filesystem that will eat more memory and perform I/O more slowly when using low-specification hardware.
Though it is not talked about often, there is a filesystem which bridges the gap between the classic filesystems like ext4 and the advanced filesystems like ZFS. UFS, which is the traditional filesystem of FreeBSD, has the ability to create snapshots, browse them, and restore files from the snapshots. This week I want to explore how snapshots on this classic filesystem work and what we can do with them. This will be especially helpful on lower-end machines, such as Raspberry Pi computers and virtual private server (VPS) environments.
The following steps are performed on a FreeBSD 13.3 system using UFS as the root filesystem. Though the same commands should work in any version of FreeBSD from 5.1 and up. In the upcoming examples, when I am running commands as my regular user I will prefix the command with a "%" sign, the common prompt in FreeBSD's default shell (csh). When running commands as the administrator (root user) commands will be preceded by a "#" symbol.
Snapshots of UFS can be accomplished using the mksnap_ffs command line utility. The mksnap_ffs utility accepts one parameter only - the filename we want to assign the snapshot. Based on where the snapshot is created, mksnap_ffs will determine which filesystem we want to snapshot. For example, if we create a snapshot called /snap1, the utility will determine we are making a snapshot of the root (/) filesystem. However, if we make a snapshot called /home/snap1 then the utility will understand we are making a snapshot of the /home filesystem.
I feel it is worth mentioning any snapshot we create shows up as a file and this file will appear to be the same size as the filesystem we just snapshotted. The snapshot doesn't actually take up this much space, as long as it continues to sit on the filesystem from which it was created. The snapshot itself takes up virtually no space if we leave it in its original location. Though it will be the size indicated if we transfer it to another computer.
Let's look at UFS snapshots in action. Here we create a snapshot of the root filesystem and call the snapshot "mysnap":
# mksnap_ffs /mysnap
To confirm the snapshot was created, we can use the ls command. Here we confirm a snapshot was made on June 9th and the filesystem is about 68GB in size. The new snapshot is owned by the root user and only accessible to people in the operator group, for security purposes:
% ls -l /mysnap
-r--r----- 1 root operator 68719509504 Jun 9 15:33 /mysnap
To access the contents of the snapshot we can create a device called a "memory disk" and mount it. Here we prepare the snapshot for access:
# mdconfig -f /mysnap
md0
In the above example we create a memory disk associated with mysnap. The mdconfig program returns the name of the newly created memory disk, in this case md0. We can then mount it and explore the snapshot using the mount command. When running the mount command, we need to specify the option "ro", indicating this is a read-only snapshot and we cannot change it. If this "ro" parameter is omitted the snapshot will fail to mount properly.
# mount -o ro /dev/md0 /mnt
At this point we can explore the snapshot located under the /mnt directory, copy files from it, and use tools to compare the versions of files in the snapshot against current versions of the files on our system. When we are finished with the snapshot we should unmount it and remove the memory disk:
# umount /mnt
# mdconfig -d -u md0
In the future, if we wish to remove the old snapshot, we can simply delete its file by running the rm command:
# rm /mysnap
Let's look at one more example where we create a snapshot of our /home filesystem and transfer it to another computer as a backup so we can restore files in the future. This isn't particularly efficient, but can be handy if we want an exact copy of all filesystem data on a remote machine, for example when backing up a VPS.
Let's say I have a modest home directory and it looks like this, with one important text file called hello:
% ls
COPYRIGHT abc hello
% cat hello
World!
Now I make a snapshot:
# mksnap_ffs /home/.snap/homesnap
At this point I can transfer the snapshot of my home partition to another computer (called backup-server), perhaps with the scp command:
# scp /home/.snap/homesnap jesse@backup-server:
Then, oops, my precious file called hello accidentally gets deleted:
% rm hello
On the backup server, assuming it is running FreeBSD, I can perform the following commands to restore my missing hello file to my original computer by running:
# mdconfig -f homesnap
md0
# mount -o ro /dev/md0 /mnt
# scp /mnt/jesse/hello jesse@original-computer:
Cleaning up on the backup server is then the same as before:
# umount /mnt
# mdconfig -d -u md0
While this snapshot technology on UFS is very handy, especially in low-resource environments where we might not want to run a filesystem such as ZFS or Btrfs, it does have limitations. For example, UFS only supports up to 20 snapshots at a time. It also doesn't appear to be integrated with other utilities, such as the system upgrade tool (freebsd-update), meaning we need to manage UFS snapshots manually.
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Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Emmabuntüs DE5-1.02
Emmabuntüs is a desktop Linux distribution with editions based on Debian's Stable branch with the Xfce and LXQt desktop environments. The project's latest release, DE5-1.02, introduces a number of accessibility improvements. "The accessibility functions added in this upgrade are: Orca screen reader combined with the Svox-Pico speech synthesis to help the blind persons. The Compiz window manager with its accessibility module (full-screen zoom, change of screen brightness, etc.) for the visually impaired. MouseTweaks and mouse emulation with numeric keypad for people with physical disabilities. eBook-speaker for audio playback of digital books in ePub format. Daisy-player for reading audio books in Daisy format. Kiwix in accessibility mode to read Wikipedia offline. Ocrizer for scanning a document in OCR mode and opening the result in LibreOffice. Elograf for voice dictation. Tux Typing voice version for learning the keyboard of Zendalona. NatBraille software for generating Braille books. GNOME-calculator in accessibility mode." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Super Grub2 Disk 2.06s4
Super Grub2 Disk is a live platform that helps the user to boot into almost any operating system even if the system cannot boot into it by normal means. The project's latest release is Super Grub2 Disk 2.06s4 which introduces support for Btrfs volumes. "This new version is packed with many new features. Added BTRFS support all over Super Grub2 Disk. Operating System specific options: EFI, FreeBSD, FreeDOS, Linux, Mac OS X, MS-DOS, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows Vista (and newer). New Operating Systems: GNU/Hurd, ReactOS and Linux from /boot partition. Debian and Ubuntu secureboot binaries have been updated so that they properly work on updated or recent UEFIs. (Fix) Force to update devices after enabling native disk drivers. Fixed the use of unicode.pf2. grub.cfg files are now searched at EFI partitions. diskpartchainboot.cfg: Fix quoted label. Partition labels. Overall redesign. Refactor unicode font file generation. New Hungarian, Traditional Chinese, Polish and Japanese translations." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 3,044
- Total data uploaded: 45.0TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
The Linux Mint main edition or Linux Mint Debian Edition?
This week we opened with a look at Linux Mint. We reviewed Mint's main edition, which is based on Ubuntu. The Mint team also supplies a Debian-based edition which uses most of the same technologies and supports 32-bit processors. Which flavour of Mint do you prefer?
You can see the results of our previous poll on automatically applying software updates in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you prefer Linux Mint or LMDE?
| Linux Mint (main edition): | 801 (23%) |
| LMDE: | 1041 (30%) |
| Both: | 340 (10%) |
| Neither: | 1291 (37%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Sleeper OS. Sleeper OS is an antiX-based distribution which seeks to balance being lightweight with a friendly user environment.
- Bazzite. Bazzite is a gaming-focused distribution based on Fedora. It offers two flavours, KDE Plasma and GNOME.
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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, 12 August 2024. 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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TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • 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 |
| • 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 | 
DoudouLinux
DoudouLinux was a Debian-based distribution targeting young children. Its goals are to make computer use as simple and pleasant as possible while also making information technology more accessible to all children on earth, without discrimination. DoudouLinux uses a heavily customised LXDE desktop with a simple navigation system that offers links to about fifty applications for education, fun, work and multimedia tasks.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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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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