 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1092, 14 October 2024 |
Welcome to this year's 42nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
These days many of us have multiple computing devices - phones, laptops, workstations, and tablets. It's useful to be able to share files between these varied platforms, though there are debates as to the best approaches to sharing data. This week's Questions and Answers column dives into one unconventional approach to sharing files between devices and how it can work. How do you synchronize files between your computers? Let us known in this week's Opinion Poll. To start off this week we look at the young FunOS distribution. FunOS takes an unusual approach in that it is intended to be used on modern hardware, but strives to be minimal - offering up to date hardware support and pairing it with a bare bones window manager as the primary interface. Read on to learn more about this Ubuntu-based distribution. Then, in our News section, we talk about work starting on the next version of openSUSE Leap. We also share bootloader changes coming to openSUSE's other branches, MicroOS and Tumbleweed. Then we talk about improvements coming to Haiku and the KDE distribution upgrading its base. This past week we saw a flurry of new releases from the Ubuntu community and we share details on those below, along with the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: FunOS 24.04.1
- News: Work starts on next openSUSE Leap version, openSUSE Tumbleweed and MicroOS get updated bootloader, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base
- Questions and answers: A home directory inside a file
- Released last week: Ubuntu 24.10, antiX 23.2, OpenBSD 7.6, Tails 6.8
- Torrent corner: Edubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Tails, TUXEDO OS, Ubuntu
- Opinion poll: How do you synchronize home directories across multiple computers?
- New distributions: LastOSLinux
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
FunOS 24.04.1
This week I decided to try out the joyfully named FunOS. What is FunOS? The project's website describes the distribution as follows:
FunOS is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Ubuntu LTS. It uses the JWM window manager, comes without Snap, and includes the latest Ubuntu HWE kernel. Perfect for users who want a fast and minimal Linux experience without sacrificing stability.
In short, FunOS offers the modern hardware and software compatibility of Ubuntu while providing a lighter user interface for people who like minimalism or who want to reserve hardware resources for their applications.
The latest version of FunOS, 24.04.1, ships with Linux 6.8. There are a few additional features offered:
To improve accessibility and productivity, FunOS 24.04.1 includes new application shortcuts in the system tray. These shortcuts allow you to quickly launch frequently used applications directly from the tray.
The distribution also ships with a new settings application for customizing the appearance of the login screen:
LightDM GTK Greeter Settings application, allowing you to easily customize the appearance and behavior of your login screen.
FunOS is available in a single edition for x86_64 computers. The ISO file for FunOS is 1.8GB in size. Booting from this media brings up a graphical environment which automatically launches the Ubiquity system installer. We're given the chance to then try the live JWM environment or start the install process.
FunOS 24.04.1 -- Exploring the application menu
(full image size: 2.6MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The live JWM interface provides a mostly open, empty desktop with no desktop icons. A thin panel is placed across the bottom of the screen. This panel is home to an application menu, some quick-launch buttons, a task switcher, a virtual desktop switcher, and a system tray. The application uses a classic, tree-style layout with no search options. Luckily, the menu isn't crowded so it doesn't take long to browse the software categories.
Installing
The installer can be opened from the application menu, its launcher is under the System category. The Ubiquity system installer handles selecting our preferred language, choosing whether to download updates during the install process, and optionally installing third-party software such as media codecs. The installer provides friendly manual disk partitioning and it also offers automated partitioning which will set up a single ext4 filesystem with a swap file. Ubiquity then asks us to make up a username and password for ourselves and copies its packages to our hard drive.
Early impressions
FunOS boots very quickly, almost instantly. The system brings up a graphical login screen where JWM is the only session option. Signing into my account I was presented with the same, open user interface. FunOS does not display any welcome screen or launch any first-run wizard. We're simply shown the JWM interface and left to explore.
The interface is pleasantly quick to respond. The JWM style is minimal. Application windows have blocky controls and JWM-specific dialog boxes tend to use flat, grey buttons with text rather than images.
Hardware
I ran FunOS on my laptop and in a VirtualBox environment. The distribution was able to boot and run quickly in both test environments. I was able to boot in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes with no issues. In both environments I found networking, wi-fi, and audio worked. Audio output is muted by default and can be enabled using the mixer control in the system tray.
My laptop's touchpad worked and provided two-finger scrolling. Taps-as-clicks were not recognized and there did not appear to be any GUI utility to enable taps-as-clicks. There was a Keyboard and Mouse settings module, but taps and multi-finger features were not accessible through this module. I also found my keyboard's media keys and screen brightness controls did not work.
FunOS 24.04.1 -- Opening an audio file from PCManFM
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
As advertised, FunOS is a lightweight distribution. Signing into JWM required just 340MB of memory, which is about half of what the lighter flavours of Ubuntu (such as Lubuntu and Xubuntu) require. A fresh install took up about 4GB of my hard drive, plus a few gigabytes for the swap file. The interface is light and responsive. There are no visual effects or animations in evidence, just raw performance.
Included software
The distribution ships with a fairly small collection of applications. The Firefox browser is included along with a document viewer and a simple image viewer. LXMusic, SMPlayer, and mpv are available for playing media files and FunOS provides a full range of multimedia codecs. The PCManFM file manager is installed for us along with a text editor, system monitor, and archive manager. There are a few configuration modules to help us adjust the look of the desktop. These tools can adjust the theme, mouse pointer appearance, wallpaper, desktop dimensions, and keyboard settings.
FunOS 24.04.1 -- Choosing new wallpaper
(full image size: 2.5MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The standard GNU command line utilities are installed along with manual pages. The systemd init software manages background services and FunOS ships with version 6.8 of the Linux kernel. It's not a big collection of software, but everything included seems to work properly.
If we try to run a command from a shell that is not installed, the shell will display instructions for fetching the missing package. Sometimes multiple options are shown. For example, trying to run a compiler (with the cc command) will suggest we can download either Clang (clang) or the GNU Compiler Collection (gcc).
There is one unusual launcher, called Documentation, in the application menu. This launcher opens Firefox and takes us to a website that lists tutorials and tips for using FunOS. Clicking these links doesn't open documentation directly. Instead these links open a page where we are given the chance to download a package and then a voice can be heard (if our volume is turned up) which tells us to install the offered package to get the information we want. This seems awkward and an unusually indirect way to get help. Most projects simply provide a handbook or text tutorials and FunOS's approach is less efficient without, as far as I can tell, any benefit.
FunOS 24.04.1 -- Accessing on-line documentation
(full image size: 239kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Package management
FunOS is minimal to the point of not having a graphical package manager. Installing, removing, and upgrading software is handled by the APT suite of tools. They are fast and dependable, and worked well for me. Software is mostly pulled from Ubuntu's repositories, with one separate personal package archive (PPA) enabled for updating Firefox. This avoids Ubuntu's approach of using a Snap package for Firefox in place of a classic Deb file.
Speaking of Snap, FunOS does not include support for Snap or Flatpak by default. These can be installed later through APT if we wish to use portable packages.
FunOS 24.04.1 -- Running the APT package manager
(full image size: 2.3MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Conclusions
The FunOS distribution feels a lot like official community editions of Ubuntu, in this case with a lightweight window manager in place of a full desktop environment and Snap support eliminated. The experience is clean, efficient, and predictable. One might say that it is pleasantly boring. Virtually everything worked - hardware, software, package management, and the system installer. Apart from some keyboard shortcuts and touchpad taps-as-clicks not being enabled, everything functioned beautifully.
FunOS 24.04.1 -- Adjusting the theme
(full image size: 1.6MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
I can definitely see FunOS being beneficial for people who want the strong hardware support and large collection of software offered by Ubuntu, but who want something lighter. This distribution isn't for beginners, it's quite minimal (with no welcome screen or easily accessible documentation). It seems to be intended for people who are comfortable with a little command line work and do not require many desktop features. I think it will appeal to more experienced users who appreciate the power of Ubuntu, but who don't want all the handholding features and add-ons like Snap.
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
FunOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: N/A from 0 review(s).
Have you used FunOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Work starts on next openSUSE Leap version, openSUSE Tumbleweed and MicroOS get updated bootloader, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base
Work has begun on the next version of openSUSE Leap. The upcoming version, Leap 16.0, is currently in the pre-alpha phase and is not yet considered stable, or even feature complete. "I'd like to announce the start of development and the public availability of what we currently refer to as Leap 16.0 pre-Alpha. Since this is a pre-Alpha version, significant changes may occur, and the final product may look very different in the Alpha, Beta, Release Candidate, or General Availability stages. The installer will currently offer you Base, GNOME, and KDE. Users can get our new Agama install images from get.opensuse.org/leap/16.0. The installer will currently offer you Base, GNOME, and KDE installation." openSUSE's Leap 16.0 is expected to be available in the second half of 2025. Additional information is offered in the project's announcement.
The openSUSE project is introducing a change to the GRUB bootloader package on Tumbleweed and MicroOS: "Recently the openSUSE project released for MicroOS and Tumbleweed a new version of the GRUB2 package, with a new subpackage grub2-$ARCH-efi-bls. This subpackage deliver a new EFI file, grubbls.efi, that can be used as replacement of the traditional grub.efi. The new PE binary is a version of GRUB2 that includes a set of patches from Fedora, which makes the bootloader follow the Boot Loader Specification (BLS). This will make GRUB2 understand the boot entries from /boot/efi/entries, and dynamically generate the boot menu showed during boot time. This is really important for full disk encryption (FDE) because this means that now we can re-use all the architecture and tools designed for systemd-boot." Additional details regarding this change can be found in the project's news update.
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The Haiku team have published a newsletter detailing work which went into their lightweight operating system during the month of September. While much of the work was behind the scenes, there were also visual improvements which will help desktop users. "jscipione cleaned up some code in Tracker, and fixed both Deskbar and Tracker to use the 'Menu' font in more menus. OscarL fixed a Tracker crash on screen resolution changes. humdinger made the text input column in Tracker's Find panel wider, and jscipione removed an extra prompt to the user when dragging items out of query windows. apl fixed the text colors in the 'Usage conditions' window in HaikuDepot. jscipione fixed a crash when clicking on the conditions window before it's finished loading...." The September newsletter offers a complete list of changes.
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The KDE neon distribution combines an Ubuntu core featuring long-term support (LTS) with cutting-edge KDE software. The project has decided to upgrade its foundation, migrating from Ubuntu 22.04 to 24.04. The project's blog post reads: "We have just switched on the upgrade for KDE neon to rebase on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. We do this every two years and the 22.04 LTS base was getting increasingly crusty with old PipeWire causing problems and packages like Krita not compiling at all. Follow the Noble Upgrade instructions or just click the notification that should appear soon."
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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) |
A home directory inside a file
One-piece-of-luggage asks: Is there a way to keep all of my home directory in a single file and transfer it around between computers, like a portable vault?
DistroWatch answers: Linux has a great feature which allows us to treat files, partitions, and disks all in the same way. This means we can create an empty file, format it with a filesystem, and then mount the contents of the file the same way we would access a partition. Since Linux also allows us to mount a new filesystem over top of the contents in an existing directory, this means we could create a large file, create a filesystem inside it, and then replace our home directory with the contents of the file.
The process would look something like this...
First we would need to create the file that will hold our portable home directory. This can be achieved with a number of tools. In this case, I'm choosing to use the truncate command which will make a file that is 10GB in size. I'm calling the file portable-home.
$ truncate -s 10G portable-home
Next we need to format the inside of the file with a filesystem. In this case, I'm using mkfs.ext4 to set up an ext4 filesystem inside our portable file.
$ mkfs.ext4 portable-home
Next we can mount the filesystem contained inside our portable-file file. This allows us to access the contents of the vault in our home directory. Later, this command could be automated by adding it to a login script.
$ sudo mount portable-home ~/
By default, the contents of the filesystem inside portable-home will be owned by the root user. We can change the ownership, granting us write access to the vault, using the chown command.
$ sudo chown $(whoami) ~/
At this point any files we create or modify in our home directory are actually being stored inside the 10GB vault file. When we are finished with the portable-home vault, we can detach it using the umount command.
$ sudo umount ~/
Now that we've talked about how to create a portable home directory in a single file, I'm going to share a few reasons why you probably don't want to do this.
The idea of having a portable home directory is appealing, especially if you have projects and settings you want to move between computers. However, there are some serious drawbacks to this approach. Probably the most obvious one is the awkwardness of moving around one large file. If you were porting around a relatively small collection of files inside the storage vault, I can see the appeal. That's basically what a tarball or Zip file does. However, your portable home is likely to be fairly large, possibly several gigabytes in size and containing hundreds of files. This means if you end up transferring the file between devices (perhaps from one computer to another or from the hard drive to a thumb drive) it's going to take a relatively long time. Instead of moving one large file around everywhere you go, it'll be much faster to use a synchronization tool, such as rsync, to move just files you have changed between devices.
Maybe you're considering keeping the vault on a thumb drive always carrying that drive with you, cutting out the need to transfer the large vault between computer hard drives. In that case, it would be more convenient to simply format the thumb drive with a fresh filesystem and store the contents of your home directory on the thumb drive rather than in a vault on the thumb drive.
Using a vault is more fragile too. If your storage drive (hard drive or thumb drive) is damaged or corrupted, you might lose most or even all of the contents of your portable vault, rather than just one or two files.
In short, in almost all scenarios, using a single, large, portable file vault is going to require more steps to set up and more time to maintain than just transferring files using a sync tool between normal disk partitions. The exception might be if you were trying to hide the contents of the portable file. For example, disguising the vault as something else. A thumb drive that is entirely encrypted might look suspicious. However, a thumb drive containing a bunch of files, one which is called log-data-archive.gz, probably won't draw as much interest, even if its contents are encrypted, because it'll look like just a random, compressed file.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
antiX 23.2
antiX is a fast, lightweight and easy-to-install Linux live CD distribution based on Debian's Stable branch for x86 compatible systems. The distribution's latest release is antiX 23.2, which primarily focuses on bug fixes and minor updates. There are, however, also some new goodies in the distribution: "Many in-house scripts and applications have been tweaked and further improved. Some new apps include: antiX TV - antiX streaming tv receiver; antiX Radio - antiX streaming radio receiver GUI for MPV; Finder - Simple yad script to search for everything (Files, Installed apps, web); antiX SAMBA manager - Script for managing SAMBA shares in antiX control centre; antiX equaliser toggle - tool for activating or deactivating pipewire-equaliser Easyeffects; antiX acoustic colours - script allowing to change the acoustic colour of audio output; meld - graphical tool to diff and merge files" Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement. The distribution is available in SysV init and runit editions, the former are linked below.
OpenBSD 7.6
The OpenBSD team have announced the release of a new version of the project's security-focused operating system. OpenBSD 7.6 introduces several security fixes, clearer dmesg output, introduced support for the Milk-V Pioneer board, and importants the scandirat utility from FreeBSD. "Added scandirat(3) from FreeBSD. Added elf_aux_info(3), designed to let userland peek at AT_HWCAP and AT_HWCAP2, using an interface from FreeBSD. Added missing function wcsnlen(3) to find length of a wide string (i.e. wcslen(3) with a max len argument). Imported libva 2.22.0, an implementation for VA-API (video acceleration API). VA-API provides access to graphics hardware acceleration capabilities for video processing. Added the option '-u name' to env(1) to remove a variable from th environment. Various bugfixes and tweaks in userland: Throughout the source tree, add missing error checks to calls of gmtime(3) and localtime(3). Added missing error checks to all calls under libexec and sbin in case of ctime(3) and ctime_r(3) failures when timestamps are far off." A complete list of changes can be found in the project's release announcement.
Tails 6.8
The Amnesic Incognito Live System (Tails) is a Debian-based live DVD/USB with the goal of providing complete Internet anonymity for the user. The project's latest release, Tails 6.8, improves handling of persistent storage, updates Tor Browser, and provides a better explanation when MAC randomization fails. "When the file system of the Persistent Storage has errors, Tails now offers you to repair the file system when unlocking from the Welcome Screen. Because not all file system errors can be safely recovered this way, we wrote comprehensive documentation on how to recover data from the Persistent Storage using complementary techniques. Update Tor Browser to 13.5.6. Improve the notification when a network interface is disabled because MAC address anonymization failed. Increase the maximum waiting time to 8 minutes when unlocking the Persistent Storage before returning an error. Hide shown password while unlocking Persistent Storage." A full list of changes can be found in the project's release announcement.
Kubuntu 24.10
The Kubuntu team have announced the release of Kubuntu 24.10, a short-term release version which offers nine months of support. The new release features KDE Plasma 6.1 and defaults to using a Wayland desktop session. "The Kubuntu Team is happy to announce that Kubuntu 24.10 has been released, featuring the new and beautiful KDE Plasma 6.1 simple by default, powerful when needed. Codenamed 'Oracular Oriole', Kubuntu 24.10 continues our tradition of giving you Friendly Computing by integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. Under the hood, there have been updates to many core packages, including a new 6.11 based kernel, KDE Frameworks 5.116 and 6.6.0, KDE Plasma 6.1 and many updated KDE gear applications." The release announcement offers additional details.
Kubuntu 24.10 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 872kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Ubuntu MATE 24.10
The Ubuntu MATE team have announced the release of buntu MATE 24.10. This version includes the MATE 1.26.2 desktop, reverts to the Slick Greeter applications, and reduces the ISO size by almost an entire gigabyte. "Ships stable MATE Desktop 1.26.2 with a handful of bug fixes. Switched back to Slick Greeter (replacing Arctica Greeter) due to race-condition in the boot process which results the display manager failing to initialise. Returning to Slick Greeter reintroduces the ability to easily configure the login screen via a graphical application, something users have been requesting be re-instated. Ubuntu MATE 24.10 ISO is now 3.3GB. Down from 4.1GB in the 24.04 LTS release. This is thanks to some fixes in the installer that no longer require as many packages in the live-seed." The project's release announcement and release notes offer additional information.
Ubuntu 24.10
Canonical has announced the launch of Ubuntu 24.10 which carries the codename "Oracular Oriole". The new release will receive nine months of support and features the GNOME 47 desktop. "Ubuntu 24.10 features the latest Linux 6.11 kernel for improved performance and hardware support, marking a shift to a more aggressive kernel version selection policy going forward. Building on our previous LTS efforts around performance engineering, Ubuntu 24.10 now includes kdump-tools on relevant platforms for automatic kernel crashdumps. The default desktop installation also includes sysprof for application and workload profiling. Ubuntu Desktop delivers GNOME 47 with improvements to performance, user experience and enhanced touchscreen support. The power-profiles-daemon improves power management for AMD CPUs and GPUs while libfprint adds support for many new fingerprint reader devices. Ubuntu Desktop now defaults to Wayland on devices with NVIDIA graphics cards and defaults to the NVIDIA 560 open driver version. Snap management has also been improved on desktop with better update management and messaging in both the dock and the App Center, alongside an experimental new permissions prompting feature which can be enabled in the new Security Center application." Additional details can be found in the company's release announcement and in the release notes.
Ubuntu 24.10 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 690kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
Lubuntu 24.10
The Lubuntu team has published a release announcement for Lubuntu 24.10, an interm release whcih will receive nine months of support. "Lubuntu 24.10 is the first release of Lubuntu to ship with a primarily Qt 6-based environment. Previous LXQt releases used Qt 5. Due to this upgrade, modern Qt 6-based apps such as the latest versions of VirtualBox, qBitTorrent, and more will now be themed similar to the rest of the desktop. Qt 5 app theming also still works, allowing you to continue to use apps that haven't caught up with Qt 6 yet. Lubuntu-specific applications (namely Lubuntu Update and the Lubuntu Installer Prompt) have also been updated to use Qt 6. The Calamares installer continues to use Qt 5 however. We expect to switch Calamares to using Qt 6 for Lubuntu 25.04. For a while now, Lubuntu has been using the Breeze theme from KDE Plasma. While this has worked well enough for a while, it has had some incompatibilities with LXQt crop up before, and this cycle it happened again. Rather than continuing to make a KDE component work where it wasn't really designed to, Lubuntu 24.10 now ships with Kvantum theming. Kvantum's lead developer is also one of the primary developers of LXQt, so we expect no major incompatibilities going forward." Though there were plans to enable Wayland by default in this release, the project experienced too many issues with the Wayland session and have decided to used X11 by default until Lubuntu 25.04.
Xubuntu 24.10
The Xubuntu team have released version 24.10 of their distribution which will be supported through to July 2025. The new version ships with the 4.19 development branch of the Xfce desktop. "Xfce 4.19 is included as a development preview of the upcoming Xfce 4.20. Among several new features, it features early Wayland support and improved scaling. GNOME 47 apps, including Disk Usage Analyzer (baobab) and Sudoku (gnome-sudoku), include a refreshed appearance and usability improvements. Known issues: The shutdown prompt may not be displayed at the end of the installation. Instead you might just see a Xubuntu logo, a black screen with an underscore in the upper left hand corner, or just a black screen. Press Enter and the system will reboot into the installed environment. X.Org crashes and the user is logged out after logging in or switching users on some virtual machines, including GNOME Boxes." The project's release announcement and release notes offer additional information.
Xubuntu 24.10 -- Using the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 155kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Ubuntu Budgie 24.10
The Ubuntu Budgie project has announced the launch of Ubuntu Budgie 24.10 which will be supported for nine months. The new version focuses on polishing the Budgie desktop and preparing for the transition to Wayland. "Our default layout has been revised to ensure a smooth transition later to our wayland offering. The X11 plank dock has been dropped. We have now the budgie-desktop dock styled with our Pocillo theme. The top-bar defaults to a dark bar theme. We now support the Apple image format .heif - such images can be seen through gThumb, Nemo and can be set as a wallpaper via budgie-control-center We now support the Jpeg-xl format .jxl - again such images can be seen through gThumb, Nemo and can be set as a wallpaper via budgie-control-center In 24.04 external deb packages were installed via gdebi. gdebi has now been dropped in favour of the updated snap-store that handles side-loading of Deb packages. Due to Tilix receiving very little maintenence bugs are creeping in without any resolution upstream. The project desperately needs an active maintainer. As such, we have decided to change our default terminal. We have changed from Tilix to xfce4-terminal. This is actively looked after by our Xfce friends. We have slightly switched the appearance of xfce4-terminal for our distro." Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement.
Ubuntu Cinnamon 24.10
Joshua Peisach has announced the release of version 24.10 of Ubuntu Cinnamon, a Linux distribution that integrates a popular Cinnamon desktop with the Ubuntu base system. Ubuntu Cinnamon 24.10 continues to provide the tried-and-tested 6.0.4 version of Cinnamon, rather than the newer and more cutting-edge 6.2.x release. "I'm proud to announce our latest release, Ubuntu Cinnamon 24.10 'Oracular Oriole'. It comes with Cinnamon 6.0.4 and with the same software as in Ubuntu Cinnamon 24.04 LTS. The version of Cinnamon used is the same as in 24.04 'Noble Numbat', with a few background pieces of Cinnamon 6.2.0: Cinnamon 6.0.4 - same as Noble; Cinnamon Desktop 6.0.0 - same as Noble; Cinnamon Control Center 6.2.0. Crash fixes: Cinnamon Screensaver 6.2.0 - no changes in the screensaver itself; Cinnamon Settings Daemon 6.2.0 - no major changes; CJS 6.2.0 now uses mozjs115; Nemo 6.0.2 - same as Noble. General: the tradition of the Yaru-Cinnamon theme continues; continuing to use Ubuntu Desktop Installer for the live image." The release announcement and release notes offer additional details.
Edubuntu 24.10
Erich Eickmeyer has announced the release of Edubuntu 24.10, an Ubuntu variant designed for use in schools and available for standard 64-bit computers as well as Raspberry Pi 5 boards: "Hello fellow educators and students! We've updated Edubuntu with a new wallpaper and added some security features in-line with Ubuntu desktop. We are excited for these small, but mighty changes to help you get the most out of Edubuntu. New Features: we have changed our default wallpaper for this and the next two releases, this will distinguish these releases for this LTS cycle until the next LTS; this release includes GNOME 47; like Ubuntu Desktop, Edubuntu now includes the Permissions Prompting and the Security Center. This release is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. We didn't have much time this cycle to work through our applications and determine which applications are out there to add new ones, so there's not much new in terms of new applications this cycle." Read the full release announcement for further information and a list of known issues.
Ubuntu Studio 24.10
The Ubuntu Studio project has announced the launch of Ubuntu Studio 24.10. The new release includes a Minimal install mode, a change in kernel configurations, and offers nine months of support. "We have now implemented minimal installations in the system installer. This will let you install a minimal desktop to get going and then install what you need via Ubuntu Studio Installer. This will make a faster installation process and lets you customize what you need for your personal Studio. Unfortunately, at least for the time being, we also had to get rid of the default shortcuts in the panel since it would cause an error when loading without the applications being installed. A solution for this is coming in 25.04. The Generic Ubuntu Kernel is now fully capable of low-latency workloads. As such, with this release, we have switched from the LowLatency Kernel to the Generic Kernel with the boot options to enable the low-latency configuration enabled by default." The new release updates the Plasma desktop to version 6 and includes PipeWire 1.2.4. Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
Ubuntu Studio -- Exploring the Plasma desktop
(full image size: 1012kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Ubuntu Kylin 24.10
Ubuntu Kylin is an official community edition of Ubuntu which is localized for Chinese users and features the UKUI desktop environment. The project's 24.10 releae will be supported for nine months and features version 4.0 of the UKUI interface. "Ubuntu Kylin 24.10 is integrated with the 6.11 kernel. It also has upgraded some desktop environment components to UKUI4.0 with many new features. The basic library, subsystem, and core software have also been upgraded to improve overall system stability and compatibility, It will bringing a better experience to user! New features: Kernel 6.11 - Ubuntu Kylin 24.10 includes the new 6.11 Linux kernel that brings many new features. AMD performance enhancements and optimizations. Intel performance optimizations and Lunar Lake device support. Enhanced support for AI accelerators. Improvements in RISC-V related functionalities. Virtualization and filesystem upgrade improvements. Support for developing drivers using Rust language. Enhanced support for new hardware such as Chromebook, Snapdragon, etc. Enhancements to the io_uring subsystem. Reduction in real-time kernel latency. Enhanced KVM virtualization support. Enhancements to system calls and APIs." Further information is provided in the project's release announcement.
Ubuntu Unity 24.10
Ubuntu Unity is an Ubuntu community edition which ships with the Unity desktop, an interface which was developed by Canonical and then continued by the community. The project's new 24.10 release features Ubuntu 7.7 and version 6.11 of the Linux kernel. "Ubuntu Unity 24.10 continues to use Unity 7.7, and has seen a move away from unity-greeter as a result of some bugs discovered only a short while before the release (after the archive freezes) to lightdm-gtk-greeter; we continue to use LightDM, of course (this bug also affected other flavours of Ubuntu that used unity-greeter atop lightdm). As with Ubuntu Unity 24.04, the 24.10 installation images use Calamares. We would like to thank Simon Quigley and Aaron Rainbolt for integrating Calamares with our existing Ubuntu Unity live session, and last-minute fixes for bugs reported prior to the final release." The project also supplies experimental build ISOs featuring the Lomiri desktop, though they are not yet recommended for daily use.
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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: 3,091
- Total data uploaded: 45.5TB
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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) |
How do you synchronize home directories across multiple computers?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about ways to transfer files between computers, allowing a user to share their files or home directory between multiple devices. We'd like to hear how you keep your files and settings synchronized between computers. Let us know your preferred tools for this job in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on trying Redox OS in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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To share files between computers I use....
| BitTorrent: | 8 (0%) |
| Bluetooth: | 9 (0%) |
| Direct file copy (scp/sftp/FileZilla): | 176 (7%) |
| Direct sync (rsync/Syncthing): | 315 (13%) |
| Indirect sync (Nextcloud/ownCloud): | 119 (5%) |
| Portable file/vault: | 86 (4%) |
| Other: | 209 (9%) |
| I do not sync files between computers: | 1441 (61%) |
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| Website News |
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* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- LastOSLinux. LastOSLinux is based on Linux Mint with a theme and layout designed to be familiar to users of Microsoft Windows.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 21 October 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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| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 0, value: US$0.00) |
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TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • 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 |
| • 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 | 
blendOS
blendOS is an Arch Linux-based, rolling-release distribution which automates installing software from supported distributions (Arch, Fedora, and Ubuntu) into containers. blendOS tries to make software management in across containers feel native and provides access to the user's home directory for each container.
Status: Active
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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.
|
| 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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