 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1123, 26 May 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 21st issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Sometimes it seems like technology moves too quickly for us to keep up with it. Sometimes it feels as though quantum-this and AI-that are outpacing our ability to keep up. And, for that matter, do we really want to keep up with some of the changes and gadgets which are being offered? When the world of software seems to be spinning too fast there are still Linux distributions which take a slower, simpler approach. This week we begin with a look at one such "keep it simple" distribution: CRUX. The CRUX project is minimal, designed to be functional instead of flashy, and works much the same way now as it did twenty years ago. Read on to learn more about CRUX and what it is like using the distribution. In our News section we talk about FreeBSD improving laptop support while also sharing a tool to transition FreeBSD systems from the traditional unified base to a base managed by packages. We also share confirmation Fedora will be dropping GNOME's X11 support in the next version of the distribution. Meanwhile HardenedBSD is introducing Rust support to the base userland system and KDE is creating a virtual machine manager as an alternative to GNOME Boxes. We also share work Linux Mint is doing to make GTK applications look more natural on other desktop environments.
In our Questions and Answers column this week we talk about preventing a system from going to sleep and different approaches we can take to keep systems running. Do you usually put your computer to sleep or leave it running? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. Then we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We've also been busy adding new projects to our database with AxOS, Drauger OS, and Securonis now featured. Read on to learn more about these three projects. Finally, we are grateful to everyone who sent us donations this month. We appreciate you and all of our readers. Have a wonderful week and we wish you happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: CRUX 3.8
- News: FreeBSD improves laptop support and introduces a tool to transition to pkgbase, Fedora confirms X11 sessions will be dropped from GNOME, HardenedBSD introduces Rust support in userland build, KDE works on virtual machine manager, Linux Mint forks libAdwaita
- Questions and answers: Preventing a laptop from going to sleep
- Released last week: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.0, AlmaLinux OS 9.6, NixOS 25.05
- Torrent corner: AlmaLinux OS, BigLinux, KDE neon, Tails
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 14.3-RC1
- Opinion poll: Sleep, hibernate, power off, or keep running?
- Site news: Donations and Sponsors
- New additions: Aurora, AxOS, Bluefin, Drauger OS, LastOSLinux, Securonis
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
CRUX 3.8
The CRUX project develops a lightweight Linux distribution for experienced users. The project aims to "keep it simple" from a technological point of view, ignoring such modern conveniences as system installers and desktop environments.
The latest version of CRUX is 3.8 which introduces Wayland support, to a point.
CRUX 3.8 includes Wayland 1.23.1. Ports continue to default to X.Org, but Wayland can easily be installed along and run in either pure Wayland or Xwayland mode. If you decide to run a Wayland session, you will need to enable the 'contrib' collection and rebuild a few ports (for example xorg/mesa) to make it fully available.
The latest release features version 6.12 of the Linux kernel while doing away with Python 2 ports:
Python 2 has been EOL since January 1st, 2020. We have dropped it from the ports tree entirely.
The x86_64-only distribution also warns users that there have been some ABI changes and upgrading from an earlier version of CRUX might not go smoothly:
Important libraries have been updated to new major versions which are not ABI compatible with the old versions. We strongly advise against manually updating to CRUX 3.8 via ports, since these changes will temporarily break the system.
The sole edition of CRUX 3.8 is provided as a 1.6GB ISO file. Booting from this medium brings up a menu which gives us the chance to boot into the live/install session, perform hardware detection, or test the computer's RAM. When booting in Legacy BIOS mode we're also given the option of setting the screen resolution/framebuffer size. Whether booting in Legacy BIOS or UEFI mode, taking the default option will quickly boot CRUX into text mode and sign us into a console as the root user.
Since CRUX is a minimal, command-line focused project which does not ship with manual pages on its install media, I recommend visiting the project's on-line handbook before experimenting with the distribution. CRUX targets more experienced users and the handbook reflects this. At the beginning of the install section, the handbook states: "If performing a clean installation, create (if necessary) and format the partition(s) you want CRUX to be installed on. You can skip this step when performing an upgrade. Remember the choice you make for the filesystems (especially root)! The driver for your chosen filesystem must be compiled into your Linux kernel, or included on an initramfs." If any of that sounds scary or like gibberish, then CRUX is not the distribution for you. If it seems normal and reasonable, then CRUX might be just what you want.
The handbook tells us to create partitions, format them, and mount them from the command line. We are then told to run a setup script which will offer to install just the minimal base packages for the operating system, or include extras such as X.Org. We are also asked which bootloader we want to install, with options including GRUB, GRUB for EFI, and syslinux. The handbook mentions LILO, but this bootloader is no longer an option in the setup script. All the script does is copy the selected packages to the hard drive, which happens quite quickly.
Next, we need to set up a chroot environment, move into it, and then perform some configuration steps. These steps include setting a password for the root account, selecting our timezone, and picking a font. We also need to run commands to generate a locale for our system. All of this is accomplished with text files and some commands which are listed, though not really explained, in the documentation. Next up, we're told by the handbook to configure and build our kernel. There are very few details or recommendations on how to do this in the handbook, but CRUX does ship a default configuration. (Note: the commands in the handbook which explain how to install a new kernel also wipe out the default configuration.) It's been years since I had to compile my own kernel and this takes me back to the Linux 2.2 days of picking filesystems and drivers.
The handbook advises us to then install and configure the bootloader. Earlier we picked which bootloader package to use, but it wasn't configured for us. This requires just a few commands, provided by the handbook, and then we can reboot our system to try out our freshly installed operating system.
The install process is fairly long. What would normally take about five minutes for a mainstream distribution takes over half an hour with CRUX. Partly because of the manual work and typing, but mostly because compiling the kernel is a lengthy process, even if we just use the default configuration provided and don't manually tweak anything.
Early impressions
When I restarted the computer I was briefly shown the GRUB boot menu. Then my new copy of CRUX launched and booted almost instantly to a text console. There I was shown a login prompt. I could sign in to explore the shell environment. The GNU command line tools and GNU Compiler Collection are installed. Manual pages, which were missing from the install media, are available on the installed system. SysV init starts services in the background (there are not many, cron is one of the few daemons running by default) and CRUX ships with Linux 6.12.
By default, this is about all we really have to work with. We can run startx to launch a graphical environment. This just opens a terminal in a graphical display, but there are no desktop elements - nothing to click on, no menus, no icons, and no buttons. Those components need to be installed separately. The handbook doesn't cover how to do this, but it could be done if we are enterprising enough and I'll talk about how to fetch additional software later in this review.
Hardware
Since it's running from a text console and offers very few background services by default, CRUX is unusually light in memory. The distribution uses about 66MB to sign into the default shell. However, a full install of CRUX is fairly large on the disk, taking 6GB of space. A lot of this is, I believe, the build system, manual pages, and X.Org. We could slim this down by performing a minimal install, but it's probably not necessary in most situations.
CRUX was able to run in a VirtualBox instance and on my laptop. The distribution boots in Legacy BIOS mode and in UEFI mode. The default functionality is minimal and we need to set up networking, keyboard layout, and other common items manually. The default console font is tiny and, unfortunately, the usual console configuration tools available on mainstream distributions are not available to help us change this.
Package management
Package management on CRUX is handled by building software from source code. This means packages take a lot longer to install because we're not just downloading an archive, we also need to compile the software and any dependencies. This means smaller items can take a few minutes to fetch and install rather than a few seconds. It also means larger applications can take a few hours to build. Depending how much software we want to run on CRUX (and how fast our system is), we might spend a few hours to a day or two building all of the packages we want. As far as I could tell by browsing the collection of CRUX ports, there are just a few items available as pre-built binary packages - it looks like Firefox and Thunderbird are built for us.
The handbook offers a few tips for managing the CRUX port collection. We can run "prt-get search <keyword>" to find software, "prt-get install <package-name>" to compile and install a new package. Dependencies are not handled automatically, unless we run "prt-get depinst <package-name>" to install dependencies. We can update an installed port using "prt-get update <package-name>" and running "prt-get sysup" will update all installed software. The odd-one-out command in the bunch is "ports -u" which updates repository information.
CRUX does not appear to have a binary repository. The distribution also does not include support for portable package formats, such as Flatpak, either installed by default or in the repositories. This greatly limits the range of software we can install and many common desktops, applications, and even command line utilities are not available in the ports collection.
There are extra repositories available which we could enable. These appear to be provided by the CRUX community. The additional repositories expands the available packages a bit, but CRUX is still quite limited in what is available.
Other observations
CRUX is extremely minimal by default. While people running the distribution can expand its functionality by finding recommended packages listed in the wiki, but even the wiki offers very little information on how to work with the available software or configure it.
I was able to set up some basic tools, such as a text-based web browser, a bittorrent client, and wget. We can set up OpenSSH for communication with remote systems, and there are text editors (Nano and Vim) to help us configure the system. But this is about all there is and adding extra software to the system is an exercise in patience because each new application or desktop component needs to build from source. It can take hours to get just to the point of a minimal working system and days to get a fully functional one. Based on the handbook, it seems CRUX is intended to be used from the command line only (though a few desktop applications can be fetched from the ports collection). This makes for a limited system - one with no network services, no desktop software, and not much in the way of documentation or packages to expand.
Conclusions
CRUX is exactly what it says on the label (or website): "CRUX is a lightweight Linux distribution for the x86-64 architecture targeted at experienced Linux users. The primary focus of this distribution is keep it simple, which is reflected in a straightforward tar.gz-based package system, BSD-style initscripts, and a relatively small collection of trimmed packages"
The result is a fairly small, super fast distribution. One which boots and shuts down quickly, almost instantly, and can compile additional software from a ports collection. But this is about where the benefits stop.
DistroWatch has been covering CRUX since 2001 (though Wikipedia, for some reason, claims the project's initial release didn't happen until 2002). Yet, after over 20 years, there is still very little in terms of pre-built packages, friendly tools, or even (oddly enough) documentation. The handbook and wiki do briefly cover how to install the distribution and how to work with ports, and that's about it. There is nothing like the Arch wiki which covers configuration, setting up desktops, working with services, managing networking, etc. CRUX just dumps a bare bones system on us and expects us to figure out how to deal with it.
Twenty-some years ago, when CRUX was young, this sort of minimal set up where almost nothing was installed for us and we had to build our own kernel, could make sense in some situations - such as when hardware was unusually low-end. If a person only had access to 128MB of RAM, using about 60MB for the operating system would be a welcome, minimal change compared to more mainstream distributions. These days though, there isn't a practical benefit to building a kernel from source, even on low-end equipment, and the lack of binary packages means CRUX isn't really practical in most desktop or server settings.
These days we have other, similarly minimal distributions (such as Alpine, Arch Linux, and Void) which can run in lightweight environments, such which also provide binary packages, easier configuration, and lots of documentation. They can be installed and loaded with the software we need in a matter of minutes while CRUX would still be compiling its kernel.
CRUX is a project which made sense in some scenarios 25 years ago, but these days I don't think it has any practical benefit over other keep-it-simple distributions and it has several drawbacks, especially if we want modern features like Flatpak, binary packages, easy to install desktop environments, and quick install process. The project continues to exist, but it does not seem to have evolved at all to keep up with other KIS projects. Running CRUX feels more like visiting a museum than running a modern KIS distribution.
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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
CRUX has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.4/10 from 7 review(s).
Have you used CRUX? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
FreeBSD improves laptop support and introduces a tool to transition to pkgbase, Fedora confirms X11 sessions will be dropped from GNOME, HardenedBSD introduces Rust support in userland build, KDE works on virtual machine manager, Linux Mint forks libAdwaita
The FreeBSD Foundation is working on improving laptop support for the FreeBSD operating system. The efforts in this area include expanding wireless card support, updating graphics drivers, and, managing system upgrades using a unified package manager. There are also initiatives to improve sleep and lower power states. The latest update includes mention of Realtek wireless drivers and the ability to install FreeBSD on-line using packages for the pkg package manager: "Updated support for Realtek wireless drivers rtw88 and rtw89 is now in main, and will be in 14.3 soon. To test these, please go to the wireless mailing list. The FreeBSD installer now installs pkgbase in 15.0-CURRENT Users can now install a pkgbase system using bsdinstall on 15.0-CURRENT. The current state is not feature-complete, as it doesn't support offline installation, but will be in 15.0 release." Additional updates can be found in the project's monthly updates report.
The FreeBSD team has published a Quarterly Status Report, sharing new developments and improvements for the first quarter of 2025. One of the new features discussed is a tool for converting existing FreeBSD installs, which use the traditional freebsd-update upgrade manager, to a system which can use the new pkgbase system. "The new pkgbasify tool automatically converts an existing FreeBSD 14+ system to use pkgbase. I've done my best to make pkgbasify as robust as possible and currently believe it to be as reliable as manual conversion if not better. That said, pkgbasify could use testing on more diverse systems! See the README for usage instructions and details on pkgbasify's behavior."
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The Fedora team have confirmed plans to replace GNOME's X11 session support from the distribution. This means GNOME will be Wayland-only without the option to install X11 support from the repositories. The proposal, "Remove the GNOME X11 packages from the Fedora repositories. All users of the GNOME X11 session will be migrated to the GNOME Wayland session,' has been accepted and will be applied to Fedora 43, which will be released later this year.
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The HardenedBSD project is experimenting with making it possible to build userland programs written in the Rust language. Rust is a "memory safe" language, avoiding many of the issues which cause security issues in programs written in some older languages, such as C. "We introduced a new BSD makefile, located at share/mk/bsd.rust.mk, that enables building a Rust application during buildworld. As of this writing, we only support building and installing Rust applications. Supporting library crates is planned (we would like to be able to build/install library crates that expose an FFI, like for C/C++ compatibility). Normal library crates build and install just fine. Support for cdylib Rust library crates specifically is what's missing, but is desired and planned. We do not currently support Rust in the kernel. Kernel support requires more work that we deemed out-of-scope for this initial proof-of-concept/work-in-progress patchset." Additional information on this change is presented in the project's May 2025 newsletter.
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The KDE project is developing a graphical virtual machine manager. The new application, which is called Karton, is being worked on as a Google Summer of Code project and will provide a Qt-native alternative to GNOME Boxes. "Currently, GTK-based virtual machine managers (virt-manager, GNOME Boxes) are the norm for a lot of KDE users, but they are generally not well integrated into the Plasma environment. Although there has been work done in the past with making a Qt-Widget-based virtual machine manager, it has not been maintained for many years and the UI is quite dated. Karton, as originally started by Aaron Rainbolt, was planned to be a QEMU frontend for virtualization through its CLI. Eventually, the project ownership was handed over to Harald Sitter and it was made available as a GSoC project. My aim is to make Karton a native Qt-Quick/Kirigami virtual machine manager, using a libvirt backend. Through libvirt, lower-level tasks can be abstracted and it allows for the app to be potentially cross-platform." Additional information and a video demonstrating Karton's capabilities can be found in this blog post.
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The Linux Mint project is working to make applications written with the GTK development libraries look more natural on desktop environments other than GNOME. The project's GitHub page explains: "libAdapta is libAdwaita with theme support and a few extra. It provides the same features and the same look as libAdwaita by default. In desktop environments which provide theme selection, libAdapta apps follow the theme and use the proper window controls. libAdwaita also provides a compatibility header which makes it easy for developers to switch between libAdwaita and libAdapta without requiring code changes." This became necessary because, as the Mint team observes, libAdwaita "identifies as a GNOME-only platform" and its developers refused to include theme support, something which is required to make applications look natural on non-GNOME desktops.
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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) |
Preventing a laptop from going to sleep
Staying-up-all-day asks: Is there a way to block my laptop from going to sleep? It doesn't wake up properly.
DistroWatch answers: There are a few ways you can approach preventing your laptop from going into sleep/suspend mode. The approach you end up taking will depend on a few things. For example, your approach will likely change depending on whether you are trying to prevent other users from putting the laptop to sleep or if you just don't want the system to go into sleep mode automatically when not being actively used. Your approach might also vary depending on which distribution you are running.
Let's assume what you want to do is avoid having your laptop go to sleep automatically when it is idle or maybe you want to prevent the laptop from snoozing when you close its lid. If that is the case then your desktop environment likely provides a power management tool to help you. The major desktop environments, such as GNOME, Xfce, and KDE Plasma have graphical power management utilities, accessible through their configuration panels.
The Xfce Power Manager utility
(full image size: 55kB, resolution: 773x609 pixels)
You can open the power management tool, select which behaviour (if any) you want to assign to the system being idle, the laptop lid being closed, or the power button being pressed.
The KDE Plasma Power Management panel
(full image size: 117kB, resolution: 1062x809 pixels)
On the other hand, if what you are trying to do is to prevent another person or an application from being able to put the laptop to sleep then you have a more tricky situation. On most Linux distributions you can disable sleep and hibernate modes using the systemd systemctl command. Going into suspend or hibernate mode can be disabled by using a systemd concept called "masking". When a systemd target or service is masked, it is effectively disabled and inaccessible. This means we can "mask" the suspend, hibernate, and hybrid-sleep units in order to prevent them from being used. The command looks like this:
systemctl mask hibernate.target hybrid-sleep.target sleep.target suspend.target
To re-enable sleep and hibernate functions later, you can "unmask" these units:
systemctl unmask hibernate.target hybrid-sleep.target sleep.target suspend.target
Note: the above commands should be run as the root user or through an access elevation tool such as sudo.
On distributions which do not have systemd, then you may be able to accomplish the same thing using Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI). This is a bit more risky as disabling ACPI entirely means no power management is being handled by your operating system and this may cause increased power usage, additional heat, or unexpected behaviour.
Disabling ACPI can be handled at boot time by adding the following parameters to your kernel's boot options:
acpi=off apm=off
On most distributions this is accomplished by editing the GRUB configuration file (/boot/grub/grub.cfg) and adding the parameters "acpi=off apm=off" to the end of the kernel's boot line.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.0
Red Hat, Inc. has announced the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10.0, a major update of the company's enterprise Linux line of products. Some of the main new innovations of RHEL 10 include AI-powered Linux management with Lightspeed and enhanced security features for the quantum frontier. "Red Hat, the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today introduced Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, the evolution of the world's leading enterprise Linux platform to help meet the dynamic demands of hybrid cloud and the transformative power of AI. More than just an iteration, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 provides a strategic and intelligent backbone for enterprise IT to navigate increasing complexity, accelerate innovation and build a more secure computing foundation for the future. Recognizing the long-term security implications of quantum computing, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 leads the industry as the first enterprise Linux distribution to integrate Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) compliance for post-quantum cryptography." See the press release and read the detailed release notes for further information.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.0 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 2.3MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
AlmaLinux OS 9.6
The AlmaLinux project has released an update to the distribution's 9.x series. AlmaLinux OS 9.6 focuses on performance and security, as the release announcement highlights: "AlmaLinux 9.6 Stable continues to enhance performance, development tools, and security. Updated module streams improve support for web applications, while new compiler versions bring optimizations for better performance. The release also delivers updates to elfutils, Valgrind, SystemTap, and PCP improving system debugging and performance monitoring. Networking improvements come with new versions of NetworkManager and iproute. Security updates include new SELinux-policy and SSSD versions. Containerization and virtualization are improved with updated podman, buildah, libvirt, and QEMU-KVM. Additionally, the new snpguest and snphost packages enhance virtualization capabilities. AlmaLinux OS 9.6 also includes a tech-preview of KVM virtualization support for the IBM Power architecture. It has been unavailable upstream since version 9.0, but is fundamental for a number of AlmaLinux users." The release notes offer additional details.
NixOS 25.05
NixOS is an independently developed GNU/Linux distribution that aims to improve the state of the art in system configuration management. The distribution's latest release is version 25.05 "Warbler" which will be supported until the end of 2025. The project's release announcement mentions some key highlights, including the availbaility of GNOME 48 and COSMIC desktop packages. "The packaging of Mesa graphics drivers has been significantly reworked, in particular: Applications linked against different Mesa versions than installed on the system should now work correctly going forward (however, applications against older Mesa, e.g. from Nixpkgs releases before 25.05, remain broken). The global Mesa version can now be managed without a mass rebuild by setting hardware.graphics.package. Packages that used to depend on Mesa for libgbm or libdri should use libgbm or dri-pkgconfig-stub as inputs, respectively. OpenSSH has been updated from 9.9p2 to 10.0p2, dropping support for DSA keys and adding a new ssh-auth binary to handle user authentication in a different address space from unauthenticated sessions. Additionally, we now enable a configure option by default that attempts to lock sshd into RAM to prevent it from being swapped out, which may improve performance if the system is under memory pressure. See the full changelog for more details. GNOME has been updated to version 48."
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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: 3,213
- Total data uploaded: 47.3TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Sleep, hibernate, power off, or keep running?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about a computer's sleep/suspend state, a low-power mode where the system is (mostly) inactive to reduce energy consumption. There are other low-power states, such as hibernate, which saves even more power and dumps information from RAM to the disk for future access. When you are finished using your computer, what do you do with it: leave it running, put it to sleep, put it in hibernate mode, or off the machine?
You can see the results of our previous poll on changing the layout of the Linux filesystem in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you use sleep, hibernate, or power off your computer?
| Sleep/suspend: | 451 (25%) |
| Hibernate: | 76 (4%) |
| Power off: | 964 (54%) |
| I leave it running: | 284 (16%) |
| I do not have a personal computer: | 9 (1%) |
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| Website News |
Donations and Sponsors
Each month we receive support and kindness from our readers in the form of donations. These donations help us keep the web server running, pay contributors, and keep infrastructure like our torrent seed box running. We'd like to thank our generous readers and acknowledge how much their contributions mean to us.
This month we're grateful for the $113 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| J S | $50 |
| Jonathon B | $10 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| Joshua B | $7 |
| Brian59 | $5 |
| Chris S | $5 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| John B | $5 |
| TaiKedz | $5 |
| J.D. L | $2 |
| PB C | $2 |
| aRubes | $1 |
| Colton D | $1 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
| Kai D | $1 |
| Lars N | $1 |
| Shasheen E | $1 |
| William E | $1 |
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New distributions added to database
Aurora
Aurora is a Fedora Silverblue-based Linux distribution with the goal of being a general-purpose workstation. It uses the KDE Plasma desktop. Like Fedora Silverblue, Aurora's root filesystem is immutable (read-only), which makes the system more stable, less prone to bugs, and easier to test and develop. Updates, upgrades and rollbacks to a previous image are available via the rpm-ostree utility. The distribution also features Flatpak applications and Toolbox containers.
AxOS
AxOS is an Arch-based Linux distribution for the desktop. It features a custom package manager called Epsilon and it strives to present a modern and elegant look while remaining powerful, lightweight and customisable. Besides the default KDE Plasma desktop, the project offers two other desktop options - Calla (a custom desktop environment based on the Awesome window manager) and Sleex (a custom desktop environment based on the Hyprland compositor).
AxOS 25.01 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 1.3MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Bluefin
Bluefin is a Fedora Silverblue-based distribution that aims to provide a stable and secure system with pre-installed software and hardware support, GNOME desktop, Flatpak integration, and Distrobox inclusion. It features an immutable, read-only root file system, enhancing system stability and security. Bluefin provides various editions of the product, including "gts" (based on the previous stable version of Fedora), "stable" (based on the current stable version of Fedora), and "latest" (based on the latest stable version of Fedora, inclusive of daily updates). It also offers a developer mode with various tools and container-based technologies for developers.
Drauger OS
Drauger OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux desktop gaming distribution that ships with many modifications and optimizations over stock Ubuntu; these are intended to improve gaming performance and the gaming experience. From simple changes such as swapping GNOME out for KDE Plasma and using a dark Qt theme by default, to more complex changes such as using a kernel compiled in-house and replacing PulseAudio with PipeWire. Drauger OS is built from the ground up with a focus on performance.
Drauger OS 7.7 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 227kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
LastOSLinux
LastOSLinux is Linux Mint-based distribution with the goal of being a user-friendly alternative to Windows. It is designed for current Windows users wishing to migrate to Linux, with a Windows-like user interface and tools. The distribution uses the Cinnamon desktop and it also includes the Wine software which is able to run some Windows applications on Linux.
LastOSLinux 2025-03-02 -- Running the Cinnamon desktop
(full image size: 4.3MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Securonis
Securonis Linux is a privacy- and security-focused Linux distribution based on Debian's "Testing" branch. It includes a preconfigured tool that forces all incoming and outgoing connections through the Tor network. The system comes preloaded with various privacy and security tools, along with some custom-developed utilities. Securonis Linux uses the MATE and GNOME desktop environments. It can be run in live mode or installed permanently using the Calamares installer. The goal of Securonis is to provide a secure system suitable for everyday use.
Securonis 2.5 -- Running the MATE desktop
(full image size: 500kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 2 June 2025. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
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| TUXEDO |
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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| 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.
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| Random Distribution | 
Trusted End Node Security
Trusted End Node Security (TENS), previously called Lightweight Portable Security (LPS), was a Linux-based live CD with a goal of allowing users to work on a computer without the risk of exposing their credentials and private data to malware, key loggers and other Internet-era ills. It includes a minimal set of applications and utilities, such as the Firefox web browser or an encryption wizard for encrypting and decrypting personal files. The live CD was a product produced by the United States of America's Department of Defence and was part of that organization's Software Protection Initiative.
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.
|
| 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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