 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1100, 9 December 2024 |
|
Welcome to this year's 50th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Over the past few years several new clones of Red Hat Enterprise Linux have been launched, growing out of the ruins of the CentOS Linux project. Almost all of these clones focus on providing enterprise-level server distributions, operating systems intended to run silently in the background of the world's businesses. One project, Oreon, is going in a different direction. Oreon is a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but it is intended for desktop use. Our Feature Story this week talks about Oreon, its strengths, and its limitations. Do you run RHEL or one of its clones on your desktop machine? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll.
Another member of the Red Hat family is also expanding its desktop appeal. Fedora Ashai Remix gained new video drivers as the project continues to improve the experience of running Linux on Apple hardware. In our News section we also talk about a new firewall appliance from IPFire, suitable for home and small business environments along with an update to openSUSE Leap Micro. Plus we share a report that Redox OS can now run builds of itself for alternative architectures inside a virtual machine. With all of the Linux distributions in the world, it's natural to wonder what sets them apart and what makes one distribution faster than another. In our Questions and Answers column we discuss which project is faster, Ubuntu or Arch and why. Plus we are pleased to share the new releases of the past week. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
|
| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Oreon 9.3 / Lime R2
In the wake of Red Hat shutting down the CentOS Linux project (replacing it with CentOS Stream), there were a lot of community-maintained clones created of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Most of these clones focused on doing what CentOS Linux had done best: being a stable operating system for servers. Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux OS, EuroLinux, and openEuler being some of the examples which spring to mind.
One project has decided to go in another direction and put effort into creating a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) which focuses on improving that distribution's weaknesses rather than repackaging its strengths. The distribution is called Oreon and it is focused on desktop computing, gaming, and bringing more packages into the sparse RHEL ecosystem.
The Oreon website claims the Oreon distribution will offer ten years of support with responses to forum questions coming within 24 hours. The project also reports it will provide more software packages than RHEL and provide WINE out of the box for people who want to run Windows applications and games.
One of our biggest accomplishments for Oreon Lime (R2) was the ability for us to port a fully functional WINE package to Oreon, along with some other fixes to allow a seamless gaming experience under WINE/Proton. In Oreon 10, we plan to re-innovate the entire packaging system. To be a little more specific, Oreon 10 will be shipping with an all new package manager promising faster speeds than DNF.
Oreon 10 is expected to be released in mid-2025. For now we have Oreon 9.3. I'd like to note that sometimes the Oreon project refers to its current offering as Oreon 9.3. This label shows up in the system installer and in the os-release file, along with in the package manager. However, the website usually refers to the latest version of the distribution of Oreon "Lime (R2)". I have tended toward using the 9.3 version number as it more clearly connects Oreon with its parent, RHEL 9.3.
The Oreon distribution is available in two editions: Standard and Business+, though I didn't find much in the way of information indicating what set them apart. Business+ apparently ships with Docker installed, but otherwise the two editions seem to be the same. I downloaded the Standard edition which was available as a 2.6GB ISO for x86_64 machines.
Booting from the ISO brings up a menu asking if we'd like to launch the live environment or perform a self-test on the media. Starting the live environment brings up the GNOME desktop where a few windows are automatically opened. One asks if we would like to take a tour of the GNOME desktop and its features. The second window offers to let us try the live desktop or immediately launch the system installer. If we choose to explore the live desktop we're told we can find the system installer later using the Activities menu. There is no Activities button or label visible, either on the desktop or in the application menu. However, if we move the mouse pointer into the upper-left corner of the desktop, GNOME's Activities overview will appear. The system installer can also be launched from an icon on the desktop panel.
Speaking of the desktop panel, this GNOME desktop has an unusual layout. Instead of a thin top panel and unified menu bar, Oreon places a thick panel across the bottom of the screen. This layout, using a thick panel with an application menu, quick-launch buttons, task switcher, and system tray, more closely resembles KDE Plasma 6 or Windows 10.
Oreon uses the GNOME 40.4 desktop environment which is getting a bit old at this point. GNOME 40 is over 3 years old at the time of writing and it was immediately obvious how much GNOME has improved in recent releases. The Wayland session (which is the default) was especially flakey, with the mouse pointer getting out of sync and the desktop lagging periodically. Modern GNOME, currently at version 47, has improved quite a bit, especially with its Wayland session.
Oreon 9.3 -- Exploring the GNOME desktop and its documentation
(full image size: 910kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Installing
The distribution uses its parent's Anaconda system installer. Anaconda presents us with a graphical interface from which it displays a hub screen with a series of configuration modules. We're walked through enabling a network connection, creating a user account, setting a password on the root account, and picking our preferred language. There is a disk partitioning module too. It's a bit awkward to navigate, especially when compared next to the graphical partition managers in Ubiquity and Calamares. However, I was able to set up a root partition and install the distribution successfully.
Early impressions
My brand new copy of Oreon booted to a graphical login screen. There were five desktop sessions available: GNOME on Wayland, GNOME on X11, GNOME Classic on Wayland, GNOME Classic on X11, and Custom. The Custom option brings up a menu asking us to pick another desktop session from a list. The list is empty. Proceeding without selecting anything launches the GNOME Shell desktop.
I mostly used the GNOME Shell on Wayland session, though I did try out the GNOME on X11 and the GNOME Classic on Wayland session to confirm they worked. The first time I signed into my account I was offered a tour of GNOME's features, but otherwise the desktop generally remained quiet and out of the way. There were no notifications about available software updates or available wireless networks, for example.
The visual components of GNOME 40 feel mismatched. Some elements are relatively dark, others are bright. Some applications use a dark theme, but most use a bright, light theme. Different GNOME applications use different styles of menus, making the whole desktop feel disjointed. We also see this mismatched approach with text and icons. Icons tend to be huge, by default, while the text was smaller than normal. This makes it feel like half the interface was designed for people with poor vision while the other half was designed to cause poor vision.
Oreon 9.3 -- Default font and icon sizes
(full image size: 1236kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The GNOME desktop locks itself after five minutes of inactivity. This can be changed from the settings panel.
As is becoming more popular these days, GNOME uses a unified system tray, with icons grouped together. This does a nice job of limiting the amount of space the system tray takes up on the desktop panel, but it means accessing any icons from the system tray is an extra click.
Hardware
I began my trial running Oreon in a VirtualBox environment. Oreon didn't perform well in the virtual machine as there were no integration features. Unlike most distributions, Oreon captures the mouse pointer, does not resize the desktop properly in response to the VirtualBox window resizing, and GNOME is sluggish in the virtual machine.
When I tried running Oreon on my laptop the experience was much better. All of my hardware was properly detected and desktop performance was improved. Audio and networking functioned automatically. Tapping my touchpad didn't register clicks by default, but we can address this in the GNOME Settings panel.
Oreon 9.3 -- Adjusting desktop settings
(full image size: 951kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Since one of Oreon's objectives is to offer more software than its parent, it should be no surprise the distribution is slightly on the heavy side. A fresh install of Oreon took up 8.7GB of disk space. When signed into the GNOME desktop the system consumed 1,160MB of RAM. This held fairly steady, whether I was running the Wayland or X11 session.
Included software
Speaking of items which take up disk space, the distribution ships with a fairly typical collection of software, much of it part of the GNOME/GTK family of applications. We find the Evolution e-mail client, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, and Inkscape installed for us. The now-discontinued HexChat IRC client is featured along with Firefox. There is a disc burning application, the Cheese webcam utility, and the Totem video player. Oreon ships with codecs for popular audio and video formats. We can also find a document viewer, the GNOME Settings application for customizing the desktop, and a system monitor.
Oreon 9.3 -- Running the Firefox web browser
(full image size: 202kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The distribution also provides the GNU command line utilities, the GNU Compiler Collection, and manual pages. Java is installed and systemd is present to manage services. In the background I found an older version of the kernel - Linux 5.14.
One application I had not encountered before was ArcMenu. This program helps us customize the application menu in a number of ways. We can adjust the location of the menu, its layout, and the menu's theme. I particularly like that ArcMenu will help us switch the layout and style of the menu to match the application menus of other desktop environments. We can, for example, make our menu resemble Cinnamon's, Xfce's, or Budgie's, along with a few others.
Oreon 9.3 -- Changing the layout of the application menu
(full image size: 643kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Software management
The distribution makes use of GNOME Software, a modern software centre with three tabs. One tab assists us in browsing and searching for new applications. The second tab shows us installed applications which may be removed. The third tab shows available updates.
The first day I was using the distribution I opened the software centre, went to the Updates tab and found three items waiting for me: Firefox, Lutris, and base OS packages. Attempting to update these items resulted in an error message: "Unable to download updates: could not do untrusted question as no klass support." For our readers who don't speak gibberish, this basically means one of the repositories is not trusted for some reason, but there isn't any mechanism in place to ask the user if we want to trust packages from that repository.
Oreon 9.3 -- Trying to fetch software updates
(full image size: 760kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
As it turned out, the issue was there was a missing GPG key for the EPEL repository. (EPEL stands for Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux.) I was able to run the DNF command line package manager and, when it ran into the issue with the missing key, it asked me if I'd like to trust the repository. I accepted and DNF completed the update successfully. After that GNOME Software was able to fetch and install applications.
Speaking of extra repositories, Oreon enables a few not typically turned on by default in Fedora or RHEL. The additional repositories include EPEL, RPMFusion, and Docker. There are also available (though disabled) repositories for firmware and RT (I'm guessing RT in this context means "real-time") packages. These repositories can be enabled through GNOME Software.
People who like to work with portable packages will be pleased to know Flatpak is installed out of the box. However, Flatpak does not have any repositories enabled. If we'd like to access popular repositories, such as Flathub, we'll need to add this ourselves. To help us, there is a Flatpak repository information file provided on the project's download page.
Testing WINE and gaming
As advertised, WINE is included with Oreon. This not only allows us to run many Windows applications, but WINE is integrated with the rest of the system. This means if we download a Windows application or installer package in Firefox, we can click the file's icon in Firefox's downloaded items list to launch WINE and install the application. This isn't great from a security standpoint, but it will be convenient for people who need to run Windows programs.
The Oreon website specifically mentions gaming and I confirmed Lutris is installed and Steam is available in the default repositories. This gives us access to thousands of games. Oreon is running an older Linux kernel and people who are counting on the latest drivers and video card support may be disappointed.
Conclusions
A lot of the characteristics which make up a good server operating system are also welcome features for a desktop system. Long-term support is nice to have and Oreon offers feature updates through to 2025 and then security-only updates through to 2032. Stability and predictability can be nice and Oreon will remain largely unchanged for the remainder of its near-eight year lifespan.
On top of this, Oreon seeks to add easy access to more software, both Linux and Windows applications along with gaming options. This rounds out the typical RHEL desktop experience a bit.
On the other hand, whenever a project tries to turn a primarily server operating system into a desktop experience it tends to feel... well, like a server system with a desktop bolted on top of it. This tends to be true whether we're looking at Alpine Linux running a desktop, GhostBSD, or (in this case) Oreon. It's the little things like GNOME Software not being able to work on day one because of an add-on repository was missing a GPG file, the mismatched theme, and the giant icons next to tiny text. To be fair to the project, virtually everything works, the system is functional and stable. It's just that aspects of the experience feel a little "off", a little unfinished. A lot of this impression is probably the age of the distribution and its software.
Oreon seems to be falling behind. RHEL is at version 9.5 at the time of writing, Oreon is still on 9.3, about a year behind its parent. The GNOME desktop is three years out of date now and it shows. This is a distribution would be benefit a great deal from having backported packages of its desktop software. The project has some good ideas about expanding packaging and desktop capabilities. However, the current desktop still has those little awkward quirks. The expanded repositories are nice, but mostly just pull from existing RPMFusion and EPEL repositories RHEL users can already access.
This is still early days for Oreon. The project's promised new package manager hasn't arrived yet. Hopefully it will be in version 10 next year, along with newer software and a smoother desktop experience. This isn't a bad start for the project, the major pieces are all in place, but next it needs to demonstrate what makes Oreon stand out from the multitude of other RHEL clones.
* * * * *
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
|
| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
IPFire unveils new appliance, Fedora Asahi shows off new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS for RISC-V running on Redox OS
People running home or small office networks who want a little extra security may be interested in the IPFire Firewall Mini Appliance. The compact router/firewall is intended to be small, fast, and secure - built around the IPFire distribution. "Our IPFire Firewall Appliance is designed for small businesses and home users who need blazing-fast performance and top-notch security. With four 2.5 GBit/s network interfaces, it's built to launch your network into the future. Despite its compact size, this appliance delivers unmatched capabilities. Whether it's building ultra-fast VPN tunnels between branch offices or securing your home office connection to a datacenter, the IPFire Mini Appliance does it all. With support for advanced features like the IPFire Intrusion Prevention System and the ability to handle tens of thousands of firewall rules, it's engineered for any challenge." Details on this Linux appliance can be found in the IPFire announcement.
* * * * *
The Asahi Linux project partners with Fedora to bring the Fedora distribution to Apple ARM-powered computers. This spin, called Fedora Asahi Remix, is making good progress, particularly with video drivers. The Asahi team reports: "Today, the Khronos Group released the 1.4 specification of Vulkan, the standard graphics API. The Asahi Linux project is proud to announce the first Vulkan 1.4 driver for Apple hardware. Our Honeykrisp driver is Khronos-recognized as conformant to the new version since day one. That driver is already available in our official repositories. After installing Fedora Asahi Remix, run 'dnf upgrade --refresh' to get the latest drivers." This is good news for anyone who wants to run a Linux distribution on their Apple M-series hardware.
* * * * *
The openSUSE project has updated its virtual machine and container host, openSUSE Leap Micro. The new version, 6.1, includes soft-reboot support and two factor authentication. With the launch of version 6.1 the 5.5 series is no longer supported and users are advised to update to version 6.x. "Leap Micro continues its alignment with SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro, ensuring robust container and virtual machine hosting capabilities. The release has a new opensuse-migration-tool, which simplifies upgrades for smoother transitions between releases. Some enhanced features include soft-reboot support. Two-factor authentication (TOTP) for PAM logins improves security. There are additional tools like vhostmd for SAP Virtualization and improvements to the jeos-firstboot wizard and more. The release of Leap Micro 6.1 signals the End of Life (EOL) for Leap Micro 5.5. Users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to either Leap Micro 6.0 or 6.1 to continue receiving updates and support."
* * * * *
The Redox OS project has published its monthly newsletter for November. Two of the key developments mentioned in the newsletter include running the latest version of COSMIC applications and running a build of Redox OS for RISC-V processors on Redox OS for x86_64 processors. "COSMIC Desktop has just released Alpha 4! Redox includes COSMIC Editor, Files, Terminal and Store, and the Redox nightly build has all the latest improvements. Redox On Redox - Andrey Turkin executed the RISC-V version of Redox Server from the RVVM RISC-V emulator running on the x86_64 version of Redox Desktop! And thanks again to LekKit for the awesome emulator!"
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
|
| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Differences in speeds
Seeking-better-performance asks: I've been using Ubuntu on the desktop and don't have any complaints. Some people suggested I try Arch for a better experience, and it seems mostly to have the same programs, especially over SSH. Is Arch really faster than Ubuntu?
DistroWatch answers: I don't think there is anything about Arch Linux which naturally makes it faster than Ubuntu. By which I mean, there isn't anything about Arch which should make it run faster when running the same software and the same drivers on the same equipment.
With that said, when you install different distributions you typically start off with different drivers, different version of the kernel, different background services running, and possibly a different desktop environment. This means, even when running tests on the same computer, you will often see differences in performance. Not necessarily because one distribution is innately faster than another, but because they're running different components.
Modern distributions are made up of hundreds (often thousands) of separate components. Any one of these components, or one of their settings, can have an impact on your distribution's performance, making it faster or slower than another in the same test environment. For instance, you might notice slight lag when manipulating files when using one filesystem, or different boot times when using different init software. To make matters more interesting, combinations of components can result in different performance. As an example, LXQt is quite a bit lighter and, with common open source drivers, will usually offer visibly better performance than GNOME. However, when paired with a good video card and full-featured drivers, GNOME might offer an edge over LXQt. With so many variables, it's never a simple apples-to-apples comparison.
What makes this specific situation, comparing Ubuntu to Arch, more complex is Arch insists on the user customizing their install and selecting components manually. Ubuntu gives the user a decent, default set of applications, regardless of which install options we select. Arch pretty much just gives us some command line tools and a package manager and expects us to hand-pick the rest. Five different people could install Arch Linux and end up with different desktops, services, and filesystems that all offered different performance. In other words, one person's Arch install can be faster or slower than another person's copy of Arch on the same hardware.
Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about the performance of one distribution next to another. If you're finding your system is running slowly, you can try switching out the desktop environment or disabling some background services. Addressing these two things are likely to offer better gains (and less hassle) than switching distributions. We offered some tips on making these changes in an earlier Q&A article.
* * * * *
A few people have reached out to ask about where they can find copies of distribution releases on physical media. Sometimes they're looking for older releases and sometimes recent ones, but they are limited by their Internet connection. We don't archive or directly distribute any operating systems, we simply share their download links. With that said, there are stores which sell DVDs and USB thumb drives with Linux distributions pre-installed. One of these stores is The Linux Shop which provides most popular distributions on thumb drives.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
|
| Released Last Week |
FreeBSD 14.2
The FreeBSD team have announced the release of FreeBSD 14.2. The new release includes several minor changes, mostly in the realm of updated hardware drivers, an update to OpenZFS 2.2.6, and a reduction in size to the boot loader. "The BIOS boot loader added back support for gzip and bzip2, but removed support for graphics mode (by default) to address size problems. (The EFI boot loader is unchanged with support for all of those. Sponsored by Netflix.) Lots of improvements to the network stack, including performance improvements and bug fixes for the sctp(4) stack. Descriptors returned by sctp_peeloff(2) now inherit capabilities from the parent socket. (Sponsored by The FreeBSD Foundation.) AIM(Adaptive Interrupt Moderation) support has been added to the igc(4) driver. 472a0ccf847a (Sponsored by Rubicon Communications, LLC 'Netgate' and BBOX.io.) This feature has also been added to the lem(4), em(4) and igb(4) drivers. A major regression in UDP performance introduced in FreeBSD 12.0, including NFS over UDP, is believed to be fixed with this change. 49f12d5b38f6 (Sponsored by Rubicon Communications, LLC 'Netgate"' and BBOX.io.) The LinuxKPI, particularly for 802.11, has been enhanced to improve the stability of wireless drivers such as iwlwifi(4). (Sponsored by The FreeBSD Foundation.)" Additional information can be found in the release announcement and in the release notes.
Nitrux e3ba3c69
The Nitrux project has published a new release. The new release is referred to as version 3.8.0 in the release announcement, is given the codename "db", and is tagged with version identifier "e3ba3c69" in the ISO filename. The new release offers updated applications, some system installer fixes, and OpenRC reorganization: "The list below highlights the components we've updated in the distribution. Firefox to version 133.0. Nitrux Update Tool System to version 2.1.9. MESA 3D Graphics Library to version 24.2.8. We've updated our Calamares configuration with the following changes: Remove a non-functional kernel parameter. Add kernel parameters to prevent clock drift in some laptops. We've updated our OpenRC services configuration with the following changes: Sort various services into runlevels that make more sense given their purpose. Remove some services from the async, default, and sysinit runlevels to improve boot time. We've updated our OpenRC package for Rsyslog to improve the service script. We've updated our desktop configuration with the following changes: Update check-docs-directory to update the Documentation directory on the desktop. Update Flatpaks install scripts for Steam, Bottles, and HGL. Update scripts to install LibreOffice and Bauh Appimages. Update desktop-config to display a notification when the distribution is running in a VM or the minimum requirements are unmet."
Nitrux e3ba3c69 -- The default live desktop
(full image size: 1.2MB, resolution: 1920x1200 pixels)
EasyOS 6.5
Barry Kauler has announced the release of EasyOS 6.5. The EasyOS distribution features custom container technology called Easy Containers which can run applications or the entire desktop environment in a container. The project also includes tools for installing AppImage and Flatpak packages. Users can also set up containers to run other distributions: "The Scarthgap-series is built with packages compiled in a fork of OpenEmbedded, and optimised for EasyOS, but a small package repository; only about 1800 packages. However, more packages can be installed via Appi, the AppImage manager, and Flapi, the Flatpak manager. There is yet another avenue for adding packages to Scarthgap; another Linux distribution can be run in a container and within that container there is access to the entire package repository of that distribution. Easy Scarthgap can run Easy Daedalus in a container, which means that you don't really need to run Easy Daedalus as a separate distribution." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
Alpine Linux 3.21.0
Alpine Linux is a community developed operating system designed for routers, firewalls, VPNs, VoIP boxes, containers, and servers. The project's latest release is Alpine Linux 3.21.0. Along with several key package upgrades, the new version also introduces loongarch64 CPU support. "We are pleased to announce the release of Alpine Linux 3.21.0, the first in the v3.21 stable series. Highlights: Linux kernel 6.12; GCC 14; LLVM 19; Node.js (LTS) 22.11; Rust 1.83; Crystal 1.14; GNOME 47; Go 1.23; KDE Plasma 6.2; LXQt 2.1; PHP 8.4; Qt 6.8; Sway 1.10; .NET 9.0. Significant changes: Initial support for loongarch64 was added." The distribution's release announcement offers additional details and upgrade instructions.
Manjaro Linux 24.2.0
Philip Müller has announced the release of Manjaro Linux 24.2.0, the latest stable version of the project's rolling-release distribution with separate GNOME, KDE Plasma and Xfce editions. The new release updates the default Linux kernel to version 6.12: "Manjaro Linux 24.2 'Yonada' released. Since we released Xahea in October 2024, we worked hard to get the next release of Manjaro out there. We call it 'Yonada'. The GNOME edition has received several updates to GNOME 47 series. This includes a lot of fixes and polish when GNOME 47.2 was originally was in September 2024. The Plasma edition comes with the latest Plasma 6.2 series, Frameworks 6.8 and KDE Gear 24.08. Plasma 6 has come into its own over the last two releases. The wrinkles that always come with a major migration have been ironed out, and it's time to start delivering on the promises of the new Qt 6 and Wayland technology platforms that Plasma is built on top of. Kernel 6.12 is used for this release, such as the latest drivers available to date. With 6.6 LTS and 6.1 LTS we offer additional support for older hardware as needed." See the release announcement for further information.
Manjaro Linux 24.2.0 -- Exploring the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 667kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
|
| 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: 3,125
- Total data uploaded: 46.0TB
|
| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
|
Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Red Hat Enterprise Linux and its clones on the desktop
This week we presented an overview of Oreon, a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux which is intended to be run as a desktop operating system. While Red Hat's distribution (and its clones) are usually found on servers, there are workstation editions and packages for running desktop software in the conservative distribution. This week we'd like to hear if any of our readers use RHEL (or its clones) as a desktop distribution.
You can see the results of our previous poll on RAM requirements over the years in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
|
Do you use RHEL or a clone on desktop machines?
| Yes - I use RHEL on my laptop/desktop: | 39 (2%) |
| Yes - I use a RHEL clone on my laptop/desktop: | 112 (4%) |
| No - I use RHEL on servers only: | 53 (2%) |
| No - I use a RHEL clone on servers only: | 109 (4%) |
| No - I do not use RHEL or its clones anywhere: | 2210 (88%) |
|
|
| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Huayra GNU/Linux. Huayra is an educational distribution made by the government of Argentina. The project is based on Debian and is intended to be used by students and teachers.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 16 December 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)
|
|
| 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) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
|
| 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.
|
| Archives |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • 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.
|
| Random Distribution | 
Zorin OS
Zorin OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution designed especially for newcomers to Linux. It has a Windows-like graphical user interface and many programs similar to those found in Windows. Zorin OS also comes with an application that lets users run many Windows programs. The distribution's ultimate goal is to provide a Linux alternative to Windows and let Windows users enjoy all the features of Linux without complications.
Status: Active
|
| 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.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
