 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1095, 4 November 2024 |
Welcome to this year's 45th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
This past week the Fedora team published a new release, Fedora 41, which is available in many editions and community spins. The Fedora project's many flavours include multiple desktop editions, a server edition, and specialized editions for IoT and container servers. This week we take the Kinoite edition for a spin which provides atomic package management combined with the latest version of the Plasma desktop. In our News section we talk about new official accessories for Raspberry Pi computers along with openSUSE's many major package upgrades for the distribution's Tumbleweed branch. We also share plans for Ubuntu where the developers are trying out new compiler optimizations in an effort to boost application performance. Then, in our Questions and Answers column, we discuss creating a list of installed packages which can then be transferred to another computer to automate installing our favourite programs. How do you make sure your preferred applications get installed on a new system? Let us know in the Opinion Poll below. Plus we are pleased to share the many releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: Fedora 41 Kinoite
- News: Raspberry Pi computers gain official SSD storage options, openSUSE Tumbleweed introduces several major upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partnering with Framework
- Questions and answers: Get a list of installed applications
- Released last week: Fedora 41, Raspberry Pi OS 2024-10-22, BackBox Linux 9, Linux Lite 7.2, TrueNAS 24.10.0, Br OS 24.10
- Torrent corner: ArcoLinux, Fedora, Linux Lite, Raspberry Pi OS, Tails, TUXEDO OS
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 14.2 BETA2
- Opinion poll: Installing applications on a new system
- New distributions: Besgnulinux
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Fedora 41 Kinoite
About a month ago we posted a poll which asked in which version of Fedora people were most interested. The answers were strongly focused on desktop flavours of the distribution. The Server, IoT, CoreOS, and Cloud editions combined only attracted about 3% of the vote. Fedora's Silverblue edition was slightly more popular, bringing in 10% of the votes. The Workstation flavour was the single most popular edition at 38%, but even it lost out to the more general "Another spin" opinion which took nearly half (48%) of the votes. So, with this in mind, I decided when Fedora 41 came out I would review an edition I'd never before tried. This led me to download Fedora's Kinoite edition on release day.
What is Kinoite? It's an atomic flavour of Fedora which uses the KDE Plasma desktop environment. The edition is described as follows: "The KDE Plasma desktop, in an atomic fashion. Surf the web, keep in touch with friends, manage files, enjoy music and video, and get productive at work without having to worry about breaking your system.
Each version is updated for approximately 13 months, and each update takes effect on your next reboot, keeping your system consistent. You can even keep working while the updates are being applied!
The whole system is updated in one go, and an update will not apply if anything goes wrong, meaning you will always have a working computer."
The Kinoite list of features goes on to mention there are no advertisements and rolling back to a previous update is supported. We are also informed that applications are installed through Flatpak packages which are kept separate from the main operating system and we have the option of applying fine-grained permissions to control what resources applications can access.
Installing
I downloaded Fedora 41 Kinoite which was available through a 3.5GB ISO file. The distribution is available in builds for x86_64, aarch64, and ppc64le CPUs. I was testing the x86_64 build.
The media's boot menu offers to perform a self test and then launch the system installer or jump straight into the system installer. Once I completed the verification test, the live system started a graphical environment and launched the Anaconda system installer. There is no live desktop mode available for Kinoite users, though most other Fedora spins, such as Workstation, do provide a live desktop for testing and recovery purposes.
The Anaconda installer begins by asking us for our preferred language which we can select from a list. We are then shown a hub screen with configuration modules we can open. These modules walk us through picking our keyboard layout, time and timezone, enabling a network connection, and user creation. There is a module for enabling the root account, though it is disabled by default and the first regular user is granted admin rights. The disk partitioning module is a little awkward to navigate when compared next to other graphical partition managers, but it does work and offers a guided option. The guided approach will set up a Btrfs filesystem with no swap space.
Once Anaconda has collected its information it begins copying Fedora to the hard drive. Anaconda feels more responsive now than it did a few years ago. Visually it looks and behaves the same, but I think it's a little quicker to move between modules now compared to how it behaved a few years ago. Once Anaconda finishes its work it waits for our confirmation before rebooting the computer.
Early impressions
My new copy of Fedora Kinoite booted quickly, unusually quickly in fact, to a graphical login screen. Here I had one session option: KDE Plasma running on a Wayland session. There are no other desktops or an X11 session.
The Plasma 6 desktop is presented with a thick, dark panel across the bottom of the screen. The wallpaper is mostly soft blue and there were no icons on the desktop. The panel holds an application menu, task switcher, and the system tray. The panel hovers a bit above the bottom of the screen, and its placement and orientation can be adjusted.
Fedora 41 Kinoite -- Adjusting the desktop panel
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The first time we sign in a welcome window appears. This welcome application tells us about Plasma's desktop elements, such as the various widgets on the panel, and gives us a feature tour which mentions the KRunner launcher, KDE Connect, and other key components of the desktop. It's a nice way to get a sense for the layout of the environment.
The welcome window's following screens offer to open the Discover software centre and ask us if we'd like to share usage data with the developers. Sending telemetry is disabled by default. At the end of the welcome tour we are asked if we'd like to enable third-party software repositories. Doing so gives us access to software packages offered under a restrictive license, or which may be patent protected in some countries.
The Plasma desktop was fairly responsive during my trial and offered a clean, quiet experience. The application menu was split into two panes (for software categories and launchers), there weren't many visual effects, and the environment was stable.
Fedora 41 Kinoite -- Browsing the application menu
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When opening a terminal we are shown a message which tells us the terminal is running directly on the host system. If we want an environment where we can install RPM packages and use their programs we're advised to use the Toolbx utility to set up a regular (mutable) environment.
The message tells us we can "see the documentation" for more information, but not where to find it.
I'd like to note that sometimes the documentation refers to the container utility as "Toolbx" and sometimes as "Toolbox", the terms seem to be used interchangeably. Fedora's release notes use "Toolbx" and even have a comment about it: "Toolbx is not a typo, see the project page." On the other hand, the program's command line name is toolbox, the Toolbox website shows examples where the name is "toolbox", and the manual page refers to it as "toolbox".
Software management
Fedora's Kinoite edition ships with the Discover software centre. Discover handles both installing Flatpak bundles and system level updates. Discover reported it had found a new update for the base system my first day with the distribution. This new update was shown as being of unknown size. Fetching it resulted in Discover installing the update and then advising that I should reboot the computer. The update process happens instantly in the background when we next boot the computer.
Discover is a pretty capable software centre which makes it possible to browse software categories, perform searches, and it offers single-click installation of new Flatpak bundles. With that said, there were some issues and confusing moments for me while navigating Discover. For instance, when I first started using Discover no applications had a corresponding icon or logo, each application was listed with a generic box where its icon should be displayed. Later, I found that Flatpaks from Flathub would be shown with their icon, but anything from Fedora's own Flatpak repositories was shown without an icon. Likewise, the information screens of some applications showed a screenshot and others did not. This missing feature didn't appear to be strictly divided by which repository the application was in.
Fedora 41 Kinoite -- Exploring the Discover software centre
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On the subject of Flatpak repositories, Discover shows a drop-down menu in the upper-right corner of each application's information page. This drop-down lists repositories where the displayed software can be found. What I found confusing was the names of the repositories. One was called Flathub, which was straightforward, but many applications were listed as also being in one repository called "Fedora" and in another repository called "Fedora Project". The distinction doesn't appear to be explained anywhere in Discover or its repository settings. Sometimes these entries would be shown multiple times in the same drop-down menu, giving me the option of downloading a package from "Fedora, Fedora Project, Fedora, or Flathub."
Despite these quirks, Discover itself worked well enough, it just seemed to be lacking information from Fedora's repositories. Discover properly downloaded new packages and applied updates without any issues. I noticed that sometimes Discover's progress bars would not update while performing downloads. The downloads finished successfully, I just couldn't see how long the operation would take.
Toolbx/Toolbox
While most Fedora editions use the DNF command line package manager to install and upgrade RPM packages on the system, Kinoite is different. It ships with an atomic base and much of the filesystem is immutable. Apart from a few places like /etc, /tmp, and /var the filesystem is read-only. This means if we want to install RPM packages and use them we need to set up a container. A container environment allows us to run a minimal copy of a distribution and install any low-level (non-Flatpak) packages we need.
On Kinoite setting up and working with containers is handled by a tool called Toolbx (or Toolbox). Running "toolbox create" sets up a new container. By default the new container uses Fedora as its base operating system, but we can install other distributions inside a container. Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, and Arch Linux are also supported options. A list of options is provided in the Toolbox manual page.
Once a container has been created we can run a command line shell inside it by running "toolbox enter". From there we can use the guest operating system's package manager (DNF in the case of the default Fedora container) to install new packages. DNF is a bit on the slow side compared to other package managers, but it worked for me.
Fedora 41 Kinoite -- Working inside a Toolbx container
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Using DNF I was able to install both command line programs and some desktop applications. These programs were accessible from within the container only, once I terminated the container's shell, the software I had installed in the Toolbox container was no longer available.
I'd like to mention that, when we are working inside the container, we have access to our user's home directory. This isn't a copy of our home, it's the real deal. This means if we run a command inside the container which edits or deletes a file in our home directory, the file is really gone, it isn't just a copy in the container that is removed.
Using the Toolbox command line we can list containers we have created using "toolbox list" and we can delete old containers we no longer need by running "toolbox rm" followed by the name of the container.
Hardware
Fedora worked well in my test environments. The distribution booted and ran smoothly in VirtualBox and all of my laptop's hardware was recognised. The Plasma desktop offered average performance, running well and without any crashes or other issues. I found Fedora Kinoite was able to boot in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes.
Fedora 41 Kinoite -- Playing music in Elisa
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Fedora Kinoite is a bit on the heavy side. A fresh install takes up 8.3GB of space, even without any area set aside for swap space. When signed into the Plasma desktop the system consumed 1.3GB of RAM, almost double what most other mainstream distributions typically require in the same test environments. A lot of this is due to Plasma 6 which, as I mentioned in my recent review of Kubuntu is nearly twice the size of Plasma 5 in RAM.
Included software
The distribution ships with a relatively small collection of applications. Firefox is installed for us along with a remote desktop client, the Okular document viewer, and KolourPaint drawing program. KDE Connect and KDE's System Settings panel are provided. There is no video player on the system, but the Elisa music player is included. There is a firewall utility and the Dolphin file manager. A tool called Filelight for removing unused files is available along with the KDE Help documentation viewer.
Fedora 41 Kinoite -- The System Settings panel
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Digging deeper we find the GNU command line utilities, manual pages, and the systemd init software. Fedora Kinoite ships with version 6.11 of the Linux kernel.
Rollback
One nice feature Fedora Kinoite offers is the ability to rollback recent updates to the system. If an update to the core system breaks something we can rollback the change by rebooting and selecting the previous version from the boot menu. This offers us an immediate fix against a broken driver or damaging change to an application. It's not quite as flexible as openSUSE filesystem snapshots, but it should work well enough for most cases.
Other observations
Speaking of snapshots, Fedora does not appear to include any filesystem snapshot utility such as Snapper or Timeshift. I think this is a missed opportunity since Btrfs is the default filesystem. Other projects, such as openSUSE and Linux Mint, have embraced the features Btrfs offers (like snapshots) to make recovering user data and configurations easy, but Fedora is still lagging behind in this area.
I think it's worth noting Kinoite keeps home directories under /var/home instead of /home. To avoid breaking software which expects /home to exist, this location is now a symbolic link to /var/home.
When using automated partitioning at install time, Fedora sets up compressed swap (zRAM) inside memory. This is done in place of a swap partition or swap file.
Conclusions
I've run Fedora's Silverblue in the past, when it was a young branch of the distribution. At the time Silverblue still had some growing pains and I was expecting there to be some rough edges when I tried Kinoite this week. However, for the most part, I was pleased with how well Kinoite performed. There were a few visual glitches in Discover and the duplicate names of repositories was confusing in the software centre, but otherwise Fedora Kinoite performed well.
The Anaconda system installer is still awkward compared to other mainstream distribution installers, but it worked. Likewise, Plasma 6 is overly heavy and several of its configuration options are buried under piles of customization screens, but it also worked. The Wayland session was pleasantly responsive and stable.
I think Kinoite has found a good balance in shipping enough applications to be useful right away without cluttering the application menu. Thanks to the Flathub repository we have access to plenty of desktop applications and games.
One of my complaints about running atomic distributions tends to be how awkward it is to install new containers and run software inside them when I want a compiler or additional command line utilities. Kinoite still has this problem, but the Toolbx/Toolbox utility does a lot to simplify the process and make it more comfortable to fetch and run additional programs in the classic way.
Generally speaking, I liked the setup of Kinoite. It's a bit heavy, a bit awkward at times, but the main concept (atomic updates combined with Flatpak packages and containers) worked well. This is one of the better experiences I've had with a branch of Fedora in recent years.
One of my few complaints while running Fedora Kinoite this week wasn't about what was included in the distribution (virtually all of the included tools worked well), but what wasn't offered. Something I enjoy about Mint and openSUSE are the ways in which those distributions meld their components together. They aren't just collections of separate packages, but a mesh of components which work together. Fedora, in my opinion lacks in this area. There are a lot of great technologies showcased in Fedora (Btrfs, Discover, Flatpak, Toolbx, and atomic system images), but they don't work together.
Fedora uses Btrfs by default, but there are no tools for automating home directory snapshots to help us recover deleted files. Toolbx makes it easy to install RPM packages, but there is no way to launch those installed applications from the host desktop without opening a terminal, entering a Toolbx container, and launching it manually. There doesn't appear to be any way to enable and manage multiple system images in case we want to rollback further than the penultimate version. The first time we open the terminal we're told to read the Toolbx documentation to learn more about containers, with no indication of where that documentation is. Adding a link to the message would have taken just a few seconds while making the system feel one step more cohesive.
Another example of this disconnect comes from the Kinoite website where it mentions one of the key features is the ability to set fine-grained permissions. This is technically true, we can use Flatpak controls to limit application access. But the tool which usually does this, Flatseal, is not included in the distribution and isn't a featured/recommended application in Discover. This felt like a missed opportunity to provide the sort of experience on the distribution the website was advertising.
Don't get me wrong. Fedora Kinoite offered a good experience and it is one of the better atomic distributions I've used to date. It feels pretty solid, shows off its features well, and I like how streamlined Toolbx containers are. I'd definitely recommend checking out Fedora if you're interested in atomic distributions. My main complaint is it feels like each developer is working separately rather than taking one extra step to tie the whole experience together for the end user.
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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
Fedora has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.3/10 from 352 review(s).
Have you used Fedora? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Raspberry Pi computers gain official SSD storage options, openSUSE Tumbleweed introduces several major upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partnering with Framework
The latest member of the Raspberry Pi family is the Raspberry Pi 5 which introduced several performance and hardware specification improvements. Despite these significant upgrades, the main draw of the new version 5 hardware is the range of hardware add-ons which can work with the Pi. Eben Upton of the Raspberry Pi team writes: "We've seen everything from Ethernet adapters, to AI accelerators, to regular PC graphics cards attached to the PCI Express port. We offer our own low-cost M.2 HAT+, which converts from our FPC standard to the standard M.2 M-key format, and there are a wide variety of third-party adapters which do basically the same thing. We've also released an AI Kit, which bundles the M.2 HAT+ with an AI inference accelerator from our friends at Hailo. But the most popular use case for the PCI Express port on Raspberry Pi 5 is to attach an NVMe solid-state disk (SSD). SSDs are fast; faster even than our branded A2-class SD cards. If no-compromises performance is your goal, you'll want to run Raspberry Pi OS from an SSD, and Raspberry Pi SSDs are the perfect choice." Upton then goes on to talk about the new Raspberry Pi official solid state drives (SSDs) which are available in 256GB and 512GB flavours, granting the tiny Pi computers storage capacity on par with a low-end laptop.
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People running the rolling release Tumbleweed edition of openSUSE had an exciting month with major updates arriving for LibreSSL, the Qt development libraries, and Network Manager. Smaller updates also arrived for the GNOME and Plasma desktop environments along with new systemd, PHP, and the CUPS printing packages. The openSUSE news post shared highlights: "October 2024 brought significant updates to Tumbleweed users and gave them a secure and performant system. Updating critical packages like systemd, PGP, PHP, GTK4 and more keeps your system up-to-date with the latest snapshots. Stay updated with the latest snapshots by subscribing to the openSUSE Factory mailing list."
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Canonical is experimenting with package builds to try to make applications run faster. One possible change coming to Ubuntu 25.04 is level 3 compiler optimizations. "O3 is a GCC optimization level that applies more aggressive code transformations compared to the default O2 level. These include advanced function and the use of sophisticated algorithms aimed at enhancing execution speed. While O3 can increase binary size and compilation time, it has the potential to improve runtime performance." Some tests indicate this improves program performance by about 5% in some cases. More on the optimizations and tests can be found in this Discourse thread.
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The Linux Mint team have published their monthly newsletter for October. In it, the team unveils a new colour warmth control for the Cinnamon desktop called Night Light: "The team is working on adding Night Light support in Cinnamon. Night Light consists in reducing the amount of blue light emitted by the screen. It makes the color of your monitor warmer as you get closer to bed time to help reduce eyestrain and improve sleep quality. In the past Linux Mint shipped with Redshift to provide this functionality. Redshift wasn't integrated in the settings though, it only worked in Xorg and it was auto-configured by something called geoclue which is no longer functional. The team is hoping to have this feature fully integrated into the Cinnamon desktop and working out of the box, both in Wayland and Xorg."
The newsletter also mentions Mint is partnering with Framework to make Framework laptops run Linux Mint smoothly. Framework laptops currently support running some major distribution such as Fedora and Ubuntu, but still ship with Windows pre-installed. Hopefully this cooperation with Mint will lead to Linux Mint being offered as a pre-installed operating system on future Framework laptops.
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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) |
Get a list of installed applications
Saving-and-upgrading asks: Is there a way to get a list of running programs? I'm planning to do a fresh install soon and want to make sure all the stuff I run gets saved so I can install it on my new system.
DistroWatch answers: There is a way to get a list of all running programs on your system. You can run the following ps command to see every process that is running right now:
ps aux
The ps command will display a list of all running process, which user is running them, the identifying number of each process (called a PID) and some other information. You can clean up the data a bit and just show the names of processes without the rest of the data by doing this:
ps aux | awk '{print $11}' | sort -fu
The awk and sort commands will filter down the information to just the names of the running programs and then arrange them into alphabetical order, while removing duplicate entries.
With that said, while knowing what programs are currently running on the system can be helpful, I don't think it is the best approach for the job in this instance. Since you are performing a fresh install, the best thing to do is to find a list of packages you have on your system. Then we'll save this list and we can even automate installing these same programs on the new system later.
The specific steps involved will vary, depending on your distribution, since different distributions use different package managers. Also, keep in mind some packages are named differently by different distributions. If you're migrating from, for example, Fedora to Arch Linux, the names of some packages will change and this process may not work. However, performing a fresh install of the same distribution (either the same version or a newer version) should work.
First, let's look at saving a list of installed packages, using some popular families of distributions as examples. In each of the following examples we will get a list of installed software from the package manager and save the information in a file called package-list.txt. On the Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint family, backing up a list of installed programs looks like this:
dpkg --get-selections > package-list.txt
When using the Red Hat/Fedora family, the same step looks like this:
rpm -qa --qf "%{NAME}\n" > package-list.txt
People running a distribution in the Arch Linux family can use the following command:
pacman -Q | cut -f 1 -d ' ' > package-list.txt
We should make a backup of the package-list.txt file and place it on a thumb drive or another computer before performing the fresh install of the distribution. Later, we can restore the package list and have the package manager install all of our old software for us.
On the Debian family, the commands will use the dselect program and look like this:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dselect
sudo dselect update
sudo dpkg --set-selections < package-list.txt
sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade
When running a member of the Red Hat family we have an easier time of things:
sudo dnf install $(cat package-list.txt | tr '\n' ' ')
When running a member of the Arch Linux family we can run this command:
sudo pacman -S --needed - < package-list.txt
Though I haven't seen this done in real life, we can also backup and restore the names of portable package formats on the system. For example, here we create a list of all Flatpak bundles on the distribution:
flatpak list | awk -F '\t' '{print $2}' > package-list.txt
Later, when we want to install these Flatpak bundles on another computer we can run the following:
flatpak install $(cat package-list.txt | tr '\n' ' ')
When the package manager is finished, we should have all of the same applications on the system as we did before the fresh install was performed.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Raspberry Pi OS 2024-10-22
The Raspberry Pi organization has launched a new version of the project's Linux distribution, Raspberry Pi OS. The new version introduces a number of changes, with the most visible being the shift to using a Wayland desktop session by default. "After much optimisation for our hardware, we have reached the point where labwc desktops run just as fast as X on older Raspberry Pi models. Today, we make the switch with our latest desktop image: Raspberry Pi Desktop now runs Wayland by default across all models. When you update an existing installation of Bookworm, you will see a prompt asking to switch to labwc the next time you reboot. We recommend that most people switch to labwc. Existing Pi 4 or 5 Bookworm installations running Wayfire shouldn't change in any noticeable way, besides the loss of a couple of animations which we haven't yet implemented in labwc. Because we will no longer support Wayfire with updates on Raspberry Pi OS, it's best to adopt labwc as soon as possible. Older Pis that currently use X should also switch to labwc." The release announcement offers additional details.
Fedora 41
The Fedora team have announced the availability of Fedora 41. The project's latest release ships with version 6.11 of the Linux kernel, RPM 4.20 and GNOME 47 for the distribution's Workstation edition. This release also removes GNOME's X11 support in the Workstation edition. "Fedora Workstation 41 is based on GNOME 47. Read What's New in Fedora Workstation 41? for details. Notably for command-line users, we've changed the default terminal to GNOME Console. It's more lightweight, but has some nice new features as well. (GNOME Terminal is still there if you need some of the flexibility it offers.) Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop ships with the latest KDE 6.2 release. See What's New in Fedora KDE 41? for more. We also have a new Spin featuring KDE Plasma Mobile. If you're interested in trying something new, take a look at Fedora Miracle! Miracle is a new desktop environment built on Mir and Wayland. " Additional information can be found in the release announcement and in the release notes.
Fedora 41 -- The GNOME desktop
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TrueNAS 24.10.0
The TrueNAS project has released a new version of its SCALE branch for network-attached storage devices. The latest version of TrueNAS introduces support for Docker containers, new monitoring widgets, and expanded SMART support. "The TrueNAS Apps feature backend moves from Kubernetes to Docker to streamline App deployment and management (announcement). Custom App deployment of Docker images is available via a guided wizard or a Compose YAML file. Extend a RAIDZ vdev with individual disks (OpenZFS feature sponsored by iXsystems). New TrueCloud Backup Tasks with streamlined functionality for Storj iX cloud backups and restoration. New global search for finding pages and settings in the TrueNAS UI. Dashboard reworked with more widgets, data reporting, and customization. UI support for NVMe S.M.A.R.T. tests." Additional information on the new release, which carries the codename Electric Eel, can be found in the project's release notes.
Br OS 24.10
Br OS is a Brazilian Linux distribution based on Ubuntu and featuring the KDE Plasma desktop. The project's latest release, Br OS 24.10, ships with the Plasma 6 desktop environment and enabled Wayland by default. "This is a regular version that aims to introduce new technologies to the system and the latest news is the introduction of KDE 6 which was responsible for this version coming with some features and design elements missing, since such features are still under development or have not yet been ported to Qt 6. With KDE Plasma 6 comes Qt 6, which opens up a huge range of possibilities for new features that will come gradually in the new versions of the system, now Br OS comes with Wayland by default, which is fully functional in KDE 6 a great news for KDE haters who complained about its instability (which made Br OS adopt Latte Dock to get around the problem), is that KDE 6 is incredibly stable, surpassing GNOME and other very solid environments, unfortunately the look of KDE 6 is very strange if you try to start the section via X.Org, however this should be fixed in future versions of KDE. This version comes with KDE Plasma 6.1.5, KDE Framework 6.6.0, Qt 6.6.2, Linux kernel 6.11, Wayland standard graphic server (X.Org as an alternative)." Additional details can be found in the release announcement.
Br OS 24.10 -- Running the Plasma desktop
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BackBox Linux 9
Raffaele Forte has announced the release of BackBox Linux 9 un updated build of the project's Ubuntu-based distribution featuring a collection of ethical hacking tools. This release continues updates the base system to the the long-term supported Ubuntu 24.04 and uses the 6.8 Linux kernel: "BackBox Linux 9 released. The BackBox team is happy to announce the updated release of BackBox Linux, version 9, code name 'Noble Numbat'. As usual, this major release includes many updates. These include new kernel, updated tools and some structural changes with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. What's new: updated Linux kernel 6.8; updated desktop environment; updated hacking tools; updated anonymous mode. System requirements: 64-bit processor; 1,024 MB of system memory (RAM); 30 GB of disk space for installation; graphics card capable of 800x600 resolution; DVD-ROM drive or USB port. The ISO image for 64bit architecture can be downloaded from the official web site download section." Here is the brief release announcement.
Linux Lite 7.2
Jerry Bezencon has announced the release of Linux Lite 7.2, an update to the project's Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the Xfce desktop. The new release includes a new update manager, a new theme manager, and the website now offers a chatbot intended to offer techniical support for Linux Lite's community. "Linux Lite is leading the way in which AI is complementing the support portion of our operating system. We're extremely happy with the way that it's turned out and a huge thank you again to Huzaifa Qureshi for his efforts on this. Click here to take a look. Lite Updates - Re-written in Yad. Lite Updates has been re-written in Yad as Yad provides more flexibility than Zenity and will help us to expand and add more options to it in the future. Lite Theme Manager: Brand new to the Linux Lite family of Applications is Lite Theme Manager. Lite Theme Manager takes the guess work out of adding themes to your desktop, icons and mouse cursors with an easy point-and-click solution. Thank you and credit goes to Huzaifa Qureshi for writing this application." Additional information and screenshots can be found in the project's release announcement.
Pisi 2.4
Erkan Işik has announced the release of Pisi Linux 2.4, code name "Karagül", the latest stable version from the project that builds an independently-developed Linux distribution for the desktop. It uses the Pisi package management tool, also developed in-house. The new version updates the KDE Plasma desktop to version 6.2 and the Linux kernel to version 6.6.56. "Inspired by the rare flowers of Anatolia, Pisi GNU/Linux delivers the 2.4 version 'Karagül' to its users. This version is designed to offer users a modern, fast and flexible experience. Pisi GNU/Linux 2.4 'Karagül' is updated with the latest version of the KDE desktop environment, KDE Plasma 6. This version promises its users a more contemporary, rich and efficient desktop experience by bringing together the Wayland graphics platform and the Qt6 application framework. With its features that emphasize performance and stability, a more efficient working environment awaits on your computer." Read the complete release announcement (in Turkish) for more information. Besides Turkish, the distribution supports English and several European languages.
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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: 3,106
- Total data uploaded: 45.7TB
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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) |
Installing applications on a new system
In our Questions and Answers column this week we talked about backing up a list of software install on the system and then using this list to install the same software on another system. We'd like to hear how you approach this task. Do you have a script that backs up and restores lists of applications, do you clone your system to a new computer, do you manually keep a list of all the important applications you installed? Let us know your preferred method in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on scheduling background jobs in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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How do you set up applications on a new computer?
| I clone the filesystem/disk: | 35 (2%) |
| I use the package manager(s) to backup/restore software: | 103 (6%) |
| I have a custom script that installs everything: | 100 (6%) |
| I sync files/programs from one computer to another: | 30 (2%) |
| I use a third-party backup/restore application: | 12 (1%) |
| I install everything manually all at once: | 276 (16%) |
| I install everything manually as I need it: | 1169 (66%) |
| Other: | 36 (2%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Besgnulinux. Besgnulinux is a Debian-based distribution for older computers. It features the JWM window manager and runs packages from the Debian Stable repositories.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 11 November 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: 1, value: US$13.00) |
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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 | 
OEone HomeBase
HomeBase was not a Linux distribution in the traditional sense but, rather, a custom environment tailored for a user's needs. It combines the best of both worlds: an easy-to-use, intuitive operating environment for those who want to keep it simple; a quick, one-click access to a more sophisticated environment for experienced Linux users. While HomeBase DESKTOP comes with a full package of applications, it's simple to pull apps that you're already working with into the HomeBase environment.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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