 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1088, 16 September 2024 |
Welcome to this year's 38th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Several Linux distributions, particularly commercially-backed projects, are adopting immutable filesystems, providing a read-only root filesystem. Other operating systems often have options for enabling read-only or append-only flags to their filesystems. This week, in our News section, we share tips on how to turn the highly portable NetBSD operating system into an immutable platform. We also share news about Slackware changing its approach to upgrading GRUB scripts and talk about the AlmaLinux project offering hardware certification. We also discuss the Mint team addressing out of date package management tools. The other week a few readers posted questions about which Linux distributions should be recommended to former Windows 10 users as Microsoft's operating system nears the end of its supported life. We share some suggestions in this week's Questions and Answers section. Which beginner-friendly Linux distribution do you recommend to newcomers? Let us know in the Opinion Poll. This week we also discuss PorteuX, a portable distribution which is designed to run from a USB thumb drive and we share details on what it's like using PorteuX in our Feature Story. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. Finally, we are pleased to welcome the Redox OS project to our database. Redox OS is not a Linux distribution, it is an entirely new, Unix-like operating system which runs a microkernel. Redox is written in Rust and can run applications from the COSMIC desktop project and we share more details below. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: PorteuX 1.6
- News: Making NetBSD immutable, Slackware changes how it updates GRUB scripts, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint addresses out of date APT tools
- Questions and answers: Migrating from Windows 10 to Linux
- Released last week: Ubuntu 22.04.5, Kali Linux 2024.3, Redox OS 0.9.0
- Torrent corner: Haiku, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Tails, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE, Xubuntu
- Upcoming releases: Ubuntu 24.10 Beta, Fedora 41 Beta
- Opinion poll: Which beginner friendly distro would you recommend for former Windows users?
- New additions: Redox OS
- New distributions: DebLight OS, PlaytronOS
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
PorteuX 1.6
The most recent new-to-me distribution I have tried is PorteuX, a member of the Slackware Linux family. The PorteuX GitHub page describes the distribution as follows:
PorteuX is a Linux distro based on Slackware, inspired by Slax and Porteus and available to the public for free. Its main goal is to be super fast, small, portable, modular and immutable (if the user wants so).
It's already pre-configured for basic usage, including lightweight applications for each one of the seven desktop environments available. No browser is included, but an app store is provided so you can download the most popular browsers, as well as Steam, VirtualBox, NVIDIA drivers, office suite, multilib, messengers, emulators, etc.
Out of the box PorteuX can open basically any multimedia file. Hardware acceleration is enabled by default for machines with Intel, AMD or NVIDIA cards (for NVIDIA cards it's required to download NVIDIA driver from the app store).
In a curious move, the install instructions for PorteuX are not featured on-line in any obvious way. Instead we are simply told that the usual method of writing one of the project's ISO files to a DVD or thumb drive will not work and instead we should follow the instructions included inside the ISO file. Which means we should download the ISO, then mount it, then learn how to use it.
There are several flavours of PorteuX we can download. There are two branches of the distribution: Stable and Current. Each of these branches offers seven editions: Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE Plasma, LXDE, LXQt, MATE, and Xfce. The ISO files range in size from 440MB (for the MATE and Xfce editions) to about 550MB (for the Plasma edition). The project appears to refresh these ISO snapshots about once per month, on average. I decided to try the Current branch and downloaded the LXQt edition which, I had read, could boot to its desktop environment in three seconds.
Installing
The install documentation is included in the ISO file in a text file called boot/docs/install.txt. (I later found a copy of these instructions on-line.) The instructions are written out in clear English, but the organization is a bit flat. By this I mean the instructions are not linear. We're told how to do one thing on UEFI systems, then on Legacy BIOS systems, then on Windows, then on Linux. It doesn't seem clear to me though whether we should perform the instructions for the UEFI/Legacy section and then perform the steps in the OS section, or if we just need to perform one set of instructions. The install document implies both sets need to be followed, but I tried the setup process using just the initial steps without performing the steps in the OS-specific scripting section and the install completed perfectly and the distribution ran as expected. In short, the documentation could use some reorganization and clarity as to what the (undocumented) setup scripts do.
The key steps which need to be followed are, first, setting up a thumb drive (or similar media) with two partitions. One partition will be a small FAT32 partition where we will copy the boot and EFI directories from the ISO. Then we need a second partition (ideally ext4 or XFS) where we will copy the porteux directory from the ISO. The instructions then say to run a script from the ISO, but as the script doesn't say what it does and the instructions don't make it clear if this step is necessary, I skipped it. Then I booted from the thumb drive.
My new copy of PorteuX did indeed boot quickly from its thumb drive. After the initial boot menu, which offers to launch a live desktop, a text mode, or to load the distribution into RAM before booting, PorteuX brought up a desktop in about five seconds. I'd also like to mention PorteuX's boot menu offers a "fresh" boot option which is intended to ignore past changes to the operating system during start-up. With the exceptions of Alpine Linux and Void, I have rarely seen a Linux distribution go from cold boot to a desktop so quickly.
Early impressions
PorteuX booted to the LXQt desktop which is decorated with a blue background and which features a dark theme by default. The title bars and buttons are all quite small and the fonts are on the small side. A panel is placed at the top of the desktop where we can find the application menu and a system tray. There were no icons on the desktop when I started my trial.
The LXQt desktop is pleasantly distraction free and highly responsive. I like how quickly the desktop reacts to input. I found PorteuX handled my laptop's hardware well. Networking, audio, and my touchpad all worked as expected. My touchpad recognized taps as clicks and two-finger scrolling.
PorteuX 1.6 -- LibreOffice and the LXQt settings panel
(full image size: 117kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
While PorteuX required almost no CPU resources, idling my processor most of the time, the distribution is a little heavier on RAM that I would have expected. Even with the lightweight LXQt interface, signing into the desktop required about 690MB of memory. This puts PorteuX about on par with Linux distributions running KDE Plasma and a bit heavier than most distributions running Xfce. On the other hand, it's lighter and more responsive than most distributions running GNOME or Cinnamon.
Included software
PorteuX, by default, ships with a small collection of software, which is fitting since the ISO I downloaded was under 500MB in size. Looking through the classic, tree-style application menu we find a number of common desktop utilities such as a text editor and the PCManFM-Qt file manager. The LXQt control panel is included with configuration modules for changing the look and behaviour of the desktop. There are a handful of custom PorteuX utilities I'll cover later too. The Transmission bittorrent software is included. There are no graphical web browsers or office suites, but we can install those later.
PorteuX 1.6 -- Exploring the application menu
(full image size: 226kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The distribution ships with GNU command line utilities and manual pages for included commands. The SysV init software runs in the background and we find version 6.10.2 of the Linux kernel behind the scenes.
Something I soon found, when exploring the administrative tools that are included in the distribution, is the default root password is "toor". This becomes important if we want to change our credentials or made administrative adjustments to the operating system.
Some of the admin tools featured in the distribution include a few specialized applications. There is a small firewall tool, called PorteuX Firewall. This utility enables/disables the firewall and can select specific modes, such as Normal, Information, Block All, and Strict. These options are not explained anywhere, as far as I can tell, though Block All seems straight forward.
Another utility is called the Module Manager. While most distributions install "packages" on a distribution, PorteuX has an equivalent called "modules". The idea is basically that the core operating system is kept separate from modules. A module containing an application can be downloaded and then, as a separate action, activated. This mounts the module and makes its contents available to us. In theory, this makes installing and sharing packages a cleaner experience since everything is contained in one file and its contents only becomes available to users after the administrator "activates" the module. I will talk about fetching new modules later.
PorteuX 1.6 -- The module manager and firewall utility
(full image size: 372kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The Module Manager displays a list of modules currently on the system. We can then double-click a module to either activate or disable it. When a module is disabled its launcher is removed from the application menu and we can no longer run the associated application. Activating a module makes the software available and adds its launcher back to the menu.
Another helpful utility is called the PorteuX Session Saver. If we're working from read-only media, or we've set our root filesystem to be read-only, then we can still save our user's files and settings. This can be done through the Session Saver. This utility offers us the chance of saving our account and changes in a module or folder for future access. We should then be able to import and activate the saved module to regain our data and changes.
PorteuX 1.6 -- Saving a session
(full image size: 367kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Software management
PorteuX ships with a highly simplified software centre. All available applications are shown on one page in a grid layout, grouped into categories. A sample of the categories, and some of their featured applications, are as follows:
- Web Browsers - Brave, Chromium, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Palemoon, and Vivaldi.
- Virtual Machines - VirtualBox and VirtualBox guest additions.
- Drivers - Two bundles of NVIDIA drivers.
- Development - Development Kit, Notepad++, VSCode, and Neovim.
- Office - OnlyOffice and LibreOffice.
- Graphics - Lunacy
- Games - Steam along with Wii U and PS2 emulators.
- Messengers - Teams, Telegram, and WhatsApp.
- Utils - Etcher, WINE, yt-dlp (the YouTube video downloader), KeePassXC and a few others.
PorteuX 1.6 -- Browsing the PorteuX software centre
(full image size: 327kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Hovering the mouse over any of the icons in the software centre's grid will cause a tool tip to appear which gives a very brief description of the package. Clicking on an icon causes the selected module to be downloaded. We can optionally click a box at the bottom of the window to have the new module automatically activated. Once a module has been fetched, it is activated and an icon for the new software is added to our application menu.
While the software centre's selection is small, it is unusually simple to use. It's certainly beginner oriented, in my opinion.
I looked around for other methods for installing software on PorteuX. There are some hints of other packaging tools on the distribution. There are low-level Slackware package utilities and I found configuration files for slackpkg, but these appear to be leftovers - bits of old packages which were stripped from the distribution and not intended to be used. None of the bits of software managers I found appeared to be functional. I think we could install a development module and use that to compile software from SlackBuilds, but that's quite a bit of manual work. My impression is the small collection of modules in PorteuX's software centre are meant to be the sole approach to installing new applications on PorteuX and I could find nothing in the documentation to counter this impression.
Conclusions
As the description of PorteuX suggests, the distribution is fairly light, fast, and portable. I feel the "portable" part is the key focus. PorteuX does not appear to be intended to be used as a daily driver distribution. Its small software selection, super quick boot times, limited software centre, and unusual install process all point to a project which is meant to be run from a thumb drive as needed. We can set up PorteuX on a USB stick and plug it into most computers and have a working operating system in under ten seconds. Since our changes are (normally) maintained across reboots, this gives us a chance to have a persistent, portable operating system.
This feat, while PorteuX manages well, is not as impressive now as it was 15 to 20 years ago. These days most mainstream Linux distributions offer a live desktop mode and most of them offer a more complete desktop experience with more applications. Also, laptops are lighter these days and most people carry a smartphone or tablet around with them, making thumb drives we can plug into third-party computers less essential. So while PorteuX works well, I feel it has a smaller niche now than it would have had a decade and a half ago. These days other options have made the idea of a dedicated portable distribution almost obsolete.
With that said, there are some elements of PorteuX that I quite like and I'd like to highlight them.
PorteuX 1.6 -- Using QTerminal and the file manager
(full image size: 228kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
PorteuX is quite small and every edition is under 600MB. This makes downloading PorteuX a faster experience and means the distribution will fit on CDs as well as DVDs and thumb drives. Its lean nature makes PorteuX very quick to boot which is always a nice perk, especially when running from a thumb drive.
I like the range of desktop options available to us, allowing us to pick between full featured desktops like Plasma and Cinnamon on one hand and lighter desktops such as LXQt and Xfce on the other.
PorteuX ships with several useful utilities, but not so many that the application menu feels crowded. We can cover the basics with a settings panel, terminal, text editor, firewall utility, and a few others. But there aren't a lot of extra applications, there's no bloat, no duplication of effort, and no visual effects (in the LXQt edition) to get in the way.
The module approach to software management is interesting. It basically gives us plug-and-play software applications. I think this fits well with the project's portable nature. On a writable thumb drive this might not be as important to have, but in situations where we are booting from read-only media having a module contained in a single file we can mount has clear advantages over traditional package management.
On the other hand, there were some limitations and issues I ran into. The big one is the lack of clear documentation and infrastructure. The PorteuX project doesn't appear to have much in the way of instructions for setting up and using the distribution. The install instructions are not, in my opinion, clear and some steps are not necessary. There is no forum or mailing list so it's difficult for users to find help. I also found that PorteuX has an unusually awkward setup process - it's a short series of steps, but ones which are different from virtually every other Linux distribution. This combination (an unusual approach with virtually no documentation or support) makes for a rocky introduction to the project.
The other feature I missed with PorteuX was a way to install additional software that wasn't from the collection of modules. I could install a web browser and office software and a few other items, but there was no e-mail client, no other media players, and limited messaging clients. If I wanted other items it seemed I was out of luck.
PorteuX seems like a project that is aimed at people who are technical and can follow command line instructions, who also need a portable system on the go, need the distribution to be lightweight, want a small collection of utilities, and are not well served by mainstream live distributions such as Linux Mint or Lubuntu. It's a small niche, but one where PorteuX offers good performance and a neat, modular approach.
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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
PorteuX has a visitor supplied average rating of: N/A from 0 review(s).
Have you used PorteuX? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Making NetBSD immutable, Slackware changes how it updates GRUB scripts, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint addresses out of date APT tools
The NetBSD operating system is lightweight and incredibly portable, able to run on a long list of CPUs with minimal resources. This sort of operating system is ideal for read-only, embedded devices, but how does one go about making NetBSD immutable? Stefano Marinelli has the answer: "Although NetBSD doesn't provide native read-only support, it's flexible enough to allow for this configuration. Many years ago, I followed a how-to to set up a read-only system, and the idea remains simple and effective: NetBSD writes primarily to specific locations, unlike some Linux distributions that attempt to write to various parts of the file system. On NetBSD, the main write targets are the /tmp directory and /var. With this in mind, we can configure these directories to reside in memory file systems (mfs) and ensure that /var contains everything necessary for the system to function correctly." Marinelli goes on to share a tutorial for setting up NetBSD to be read-only, ideal for situations where we need a reliable, embedded operating system.
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The Slackware Linux distribution rarely makes any large or revolutionary changes and has a well-earned reputation for being consistent. As a result, even small adjustments can draw attention. This past week Slackware introduced a new approach to upgrading the GRUB package, specifically overwriting existing GRUB scripts. The project's changelog discusses the change to Slackware's -Current branch: "Long ago, we began giving all the scripts in /etc/grub.d/ the .new treatment to prevent local customizations from being overwritten with a package upgrade. But, this no longer appears to be a good idea, especially if we're ever going to offer the possibility to automate grub-install and grub-update. So, we are no longer going to preserve the contents of these files when the grub package is upgraded. We will however preserve the existing permissions, so you'll be able to turn off scripts that you don't want running, and you'll be able to make new scripts, or make edited and renamed copies of the scripts shipped in this package, so there's no real loss of functionality here. It looks like 40_custom is intended to be locally edited, so we make an exception and do not overwrite that one."
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The AlmaLinux OS team have announced a new special interest group (SIG) which will handle hardware certification for the distribution. AlmaLinux is the first Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone to offer hardware certification and it adds a layer of assurance for businesses which want to make sure they are matching the right operating system with the right hardware. Jonathan Wright posted: "This SIG was born out of a desire to prove that AlmaLinux works in all places that our community needs it to. The members already helping are from all over the world, and have gotten engagement from some of the most respected hardware providers in the world. Our most active engagement has been with SuperMicro, and we are so grateful to them for helping us improve and expand the Hardware Certification Program." Further information on AlmaLinux's hardware certification program can be found in Wright's announcement.
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The Linux Mint distribution is based on Ubuntu which is itself based on Debian. this family of distributions uses package management utilities collectively called APT. APT isn't just one program, it's a collection of tools which work (sometimes together, sometimes separately) to managing low-level packages. A problem the Mint team is facing is several of these tools are old and unmaintained. "Some of these APT tools and libraries were written more than a decade ago and are no longer maintained upstream. Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian have been patching them throughout the years so they still work, but their design, their translations, the features they provide are stuck in the past. Every Mint release is a reminder of this and a list of long-lasting paper cuts which we're unable to address. Because these utilities and libraries are very important to us we decided to simplify how we use them and to maintain them. Going forward we want perfect translations, no more paper cuts and if something we need is missing we'll just implement it. Gdebi and apturl were merged into a single utility application called Captain. Aptdaemon and mintcommon-aptdaemon were merged into a library called Aptkit." Additional information about this task and other projects the Linux Mint team are working on can be found in the distribution's August newsletter.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Migrating from Windows 10 to Linux
Making-the-transition asks: Recommendations on the best distro for former Windows users would be great.
DistroWatch answers: A few people posted recently, pointing out users of Windows 10 may soon wish to migrate to Linux. This is especially true if they are working with hardware that is not officially supported by Windows 11.
I think, when dealing with newcomers to the Linux community (people who are unfamiliar with all of the various distributions and choices), one of the best things we can do is to streamline the experience. I always cringe a little when I see forum posts from novice users asking, "Where should I start?" and there are inevitably a dozen responses with twenty different distro and desktop recommendations - many of which are not geared towards beginners. I think we should strive to provide people with simple answers rather than more questions, options, and homework.
With this in mind, I typically recommend just one distribution: Linux Mint. This project has easily made it onto my list of top picks for Linux distributions every year they've put out a new version for the past 15 years. The project is consistently polished, offers long-term support, and provides desktop interfaces which benefit from Linux approaches while having a layout similar to Windows. Mint ships with a small, useful collection of top of the line open source software, provides the hardware and application support of Ubuntu (without the problems of Snap packages or the Frankenstein's Monster of a patched together GNOME which plague Ubuntu). Mint also has a nice greeter, its update manager integrates with Timeshift for bulletproof updates, and I've introduced several non-techie users to Mint over the years who have been happy with the distribution and have never had to think about the command line. It's as close to "just works" as you can get on Linux, in my opinion.
As a bonus, while most computers that run Windows 10 can use Mint's default Cinnamon desktop, lower-end machines can make use of Mint's Xfce desktop if performance or memory restrictions are concerns.
In a situation where someone tries Mint and it isn't to their liking, DistroWatch's Search page offers a "Beginner" option under the Distribution category field which can be used to find other, novice-friendly distributions. Just about any of the top five or six options which are returned by a search for beginner-friendly Linux distributions will likely be suitable for people migrating from recent versions of Windows.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Redox OS 0.9.0
Redox OS is a Unix-like, general-purpose, microkernel-based operating system written in Rust. The project's latest release, version 0.9.0, introduces COSMIC desktop applications, a custom web server, improved performance and stability, and the Nano text editor has been ported. "Key improvements for release 0.9.0: Faster system calls and context switching. Improved virtual and physical memory management, including the significantly faster p2buddy memory allocator. Improved filesystem performance. Self-hosting improvements. Userspace ABI improvements, towards the long-term goal of a stable ABI. VirtIO drivers for better performance in virtual machines. Virtualized TSC gives a massive boost to context switching speed in virtual machines. The Unix path format replaced the previous URI format used in our system interfaces, improving compatibility with POSIX/Linux libraries and programs. Relibc (our C library implementation) is almost 100% Rust (excluding libm) and much more complete. Improvements to the bootloader for more hardware compatibility. Significant progress on the ARM64 (Aarch64) support, including partial support for Raspberry Pi 3B+. Contain (Redox's sandbox driver) has been expanded and is available as a demo (desktop-contain.toml). The first HTTP web server was ported (Simple HTTP Server)." Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement.
Kali Linux 2024.3
Kali Linux is a Debian-based distribution with a collection of security and forensics tools. Version 2024.3 of the distribution offers support for Qualcomm Snapdragon SDM845 SoC and includes eleven new tools. This distribution also begins the work on migrating to a new, significant Python update. "The summary of the changelog since the 2024.2 release from June is: Qualcomm NetHunter Pro Devices - Qualcomm Snapdragon SDM845 SoC now supported; new Tools - 11x new tools in your arsenal. Our focus has been on a lot of behind the scenes updates and optimizations since the last release. There have been some messy migrations, with multiple stacks, all interrelating. After the t64 transition finished up, it was straight into multiple other transitions - GCC 14, glibc 2.40 and Python 3.12. This last one is the most significant. This new Python release removed some long-deprecated APIs, breaking a fair number of packages. We have been busy fixing it all, we are almost there, Python 3.12 will be the default in the next version of Kali, 2024.4." Additional information is provided in the release announcement.
Ubuntu 22.04.5
Paride Legovini has announced the release of Ubuntu 22.04.5 which is a minor update tothe 22.04 LTS branch. "The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS (Long-Term Support) for its Desktop, Server, and Cloud products, as well as other flavours of Ubuntu with long-term support. As usual, this point release includes many updates and updated installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation. These include security updates and corrections for other high-severity bugs, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS." The release notes offer further information.
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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: 3,077
- Total data uploaded: 45.3TB
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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 beginner friendly distro would you recommend for former Windows users?
In this week's Questions and Answers section we talked about options for people who want to migrate from Windows to Linux. Selecting a first Linux distribution can be daunting and, usually, a good place to start is one of the more commonly used, beginner-oriented projects. To which Linux distribution would you steer newcomers?
You can see the results of our previous poll on the new COSMIC desktop environment in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Which beginner distro do you recommend?
| Linux Mint: | 1242 (48%) |
| Ubuntu: | 176 (7%) |
| Zorin OS: | 146 (6%) |
| elementary OS: | 23 (1%) |
| TUXEDO OS: | 22 (1%) |
| Linux Lite: | 35 (1%) |
| Solus: | 22 (1%) |
| PCLinuxOS: | 551 (21%) |
| Ubuntu MATE: | 49 (2%) |
| Emmabuntus: | 6 (0%) |
| Other: | 304 (12%) |
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| Website News |
New projects added to database
Redox OS
Redox is a Unix-like, general-purpose, microkernel-based operating system written in Rust. Redox aims to bring the innovations of Rust to a modern microkernel. The project also provides a full set of custom programs and tries to be a complete alternative to Linux and BSD. Redox OS attempts to be source-compatible with Linux and the BSD family, making porting between operating systems easier. Redox is available in Server and Desktop editions, featuring components of the COSMIC desktop in the latter edition.
Redox OS 0.9 -- The custom Redox desktop
(full image size: 3.0MB, resolution: 1600x1200 pixels)
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New distributions added to waiting list
- DebLight OS. DebLight OS is based on Linux Mint Debian Edition and features the LXDE desktop in an effort to provide a lighter operating system.
- PlaytronOS. PlaytronOS is a Linux distribution, based on Fedora's Silverblue edition, which is focused on supporting out of the box gaming. It supports installing games from multiple sources.
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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, 23 September 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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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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Ubuntu Studio
An official variant of Ubuntu, Ubuntu Studio is a Linux-based operating system for creative individuals in the areas of audio production, video production, graphics design, photography and desktop publishing. It makes professional audio accessible on Linux; it uses the JACK sound server and a kernel built with a low-latency patch. Up until version 20.10 Ubuntu Studio shipped with the Xfce desktop environment, but this was replaced by KDE Plasma in October 2020.
Status: Active
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TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
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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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