 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1126, 16 June 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 24th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Time is a funny thing. As it moves forward our world changes. Some people embrace what is new and different while some people want to maintain their connection to the past. Change is consistent, but how we (and open source projects) respond to our changing world, can differ greatly. This week we begin with a look at the SDesk distribution, a member of the Arch family which strives to be modern in all aspects - in the package versions, desktop, and graphics display. We also report on Ubuntu dropping the X11 session option for GNOME, focusing instead on a Wayland-only experience. At the same time, GNOME has announced it will be increasing its dependency on the systemd suite of software with its modern conveniences. We also take a look backwards this week. In our News section we talk about an embedded device running NetBSD and a Commodore-like BASIC environment. Plus we share news about Google making it more difficult to create Android-based distributions for Pixel phones and we celebrate the Electronic Frontier Foundation's 35th birthday. Plus we field a question from a reader who wonders whether the Ubuntu Touch project might see a resurgence of popularity. Then we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and share the torrents we are seeding. We wrap up this issue by welcoming the Exton Linux collective to our database. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: SDesk 2025.05.06 (aka 20mini)
- News: A BASIC box runs NetBSD, Ubuntu drops GNOME X11 session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holds back parts of Android source, Nitrux changes its desktop, the EFF turns 35
- Questions and answers: Could Ubuntu Touch return?
- Released last week: FreeBSD 14.3, Rocky Linux 10.0, Securonis Linux 3.0, Kali Linux 2025.2
- Torrent corner: Endless OS, Kali Linux, KDE neon, Rocky Linux
- Opinion poll: Version names and numbers
- New additions: Besgnulinux, Exton Linux, Gnuinos, MagOS, OmniOS, Security Onion, TileOS
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
SDesk 2025.05.06 (aka 20mini)
I recently returned from a vacation, the first one in a few years, and I reunited with my virtual terminal with a sense of a fresh start, a feeling of renewal. With this in mind, I went back through my reviews of recent years looking for projects where we'd got off to a rough start - ideally a young project which maybe hadn't had time to be polished before I sank my reviewer's fangs into it. I found a suitable match in the SDesk distribution.
SDesk is an Arch-based project which aims to provide a modern, sleek user interface (GNOME) along with a friendly system installer (Calamares). When I first tried SDesk, approximately two years ago, the distribution was still young. It had several rough edges and it hadn't had a chance to distinguish itself from other Arch-based projects featuring the Calamares installer. The latest snapshot of the rolling SDesk distribution (which is alternatively called "20mini" or version "2025.05.06") looked to be a promising upgrade. The project's website lists some of the key features in the latest release:
The latest release of our Linux system is more powerful and secure than ever. Take a look at just some of its new features - from SELinux to GNOME 48, to helpful new quality-of-life features.
20mini includes the gorgeous Marwaita icon theme, and we've tweaked many parts of the interface to be more consistent.
The workspace menu is now much more minimal and intuitive, so you can launch apps and get working quicker.
The dock is also cleaner and more customizable - it's faster, too!
The Swirl browser now allows for DRM-protected video streaming - and is much more visually crisp and responsive, thanks to its support for Wayland.
You can use the new fuse-zip utility to mount Zip files as disks and modify their contents without extracting.
You can now select Emojis from the top bar and easily use them in your messages and projects.
SDesk runs on x86_64 machines exclusively and reportedly works with both UEFI and Legacy BIOS systems. The 2025.05.06 snapshot is offered in two flavours: Intel/AMD and NVIDIA. Either edition is about 3.0GB in size.
Installing
The SDesk medium boots and automatically loads a GNOME session. Then the Calamares installer is launched for us. We can close the installer and explore the live desktop if we wish.
Calamares presents us with the usual prompts about picking our language and timezone. We are then given the chance to manually partition the disk using a friendly graphical tool or take an automated approach. The automatic partitioning tool will take over available space with a single ext4 filesystem and no swap space. We can ask the automatic partitioning tool to create a swap file or a swap partition for us. Then the installer copies packages to our disk and offers to restart the computer. The install process is pleasantly smooth and fairly quick.
First impressions
The first time we boot our new copy of SDesk a graphical configuration wizard appeared. It asks us to pick our preferred language, keyboard layout, and it asks us if we want to enable location services. I found that when I set my language to Canadian English I could then no longer pick a keyboard with a "US" layout. To get my proper "US" layout I had to set my language to American English. We're then asked to select our timezone (again) and make up a username and password for ourselves.
The configuration wizard then vanishes and GNOME Shell loads. GNOME is presented in light mode, with a soft, blue desktop. A thin panel is placed across the top of the screen. This panel holds the overview/search button on the left and a system tray on the right. Icons on the desktop open the file manager. At the bottom of the display we find a thick panel which holds the application menu and quick-launch buttons. This panel acts as a dock, both helping to organize available software and switch between open windows.
SDesk 2025.05.06 -- The GNOME application menu
(full image size: 168kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
My initial impression of the desktop was that it was simple, yet pretty. I think it will feel somewhat familiar to people migrating from Windows without trying to directly imitate the Windows desktop.
In the future, when I booted into SDesk, the system presented me with a graphical login screen where I could sign into GNOME Shell or GNOME Classic. Both desktops run under Wayland; there is no X11 session option.
Hardware support
I tested SDesk in VirtualBox and on my laptop. The distribution worked well in both scenarios. SDesk works in both Legacy BIOS and UEFI environments, as advertised. The distribution ran fairly well in VirtualBox. The GNOME desktop defaulted to a low resolution in the virtual machine, but this was easy to fix in the desktop's settings panel. Performance in the virtual machine was slightly sluggish at times, but not bad. When running on my laptop, GNOME performed well and all of my hardware was detected. Audio and wireless networking worked flawlessly, desktop performance was average, and my shortcut keys for media and screen brightness functioned. I also found taps on my touchpad were recognized as clicks.
SDesk 2025.05.06 -- The dark theme and GNOME Settings panel
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I particularly liked that SDesk did not make any annoying noises when I was adjusting the volume levels using shortcut keys. Several distribution/desktop combinations play loud, high-pitched feedback sounds (I'm looking at you, KDE Plasma) when adjusting the volume and it is really annoying when adjusting audio levels while listening to music or watching a movie. Kudos to SDesk for adjusting the volume without assaulting my ears in the process.
The distribution is a little above average in size, taking up about 8.7GB of disk space and requiring 980MB of memory when signed into the GNOME desktop. While larger than many distributions, this is a smaller footprint than most Linux distributions running KDE Plasma or COSMIC these days.
Included software
Most of the software included with SDesk is part of the GNOME family of applications. We find several GNOME programs in the application menu, including Contacts, Clocks, Files, Maps, and Calendar. The GNOME Help and GNOME Tour applications are available to assist us in getting comfortable with the environment. The GNOME Settings panel helps us customize the desktop experience and it worked well for me. LibreOffice is installed for us and it also worked for me without any issues.
SDesk ships with a web browser called Swirl, which I think is made by the same developers as SDesk. Swirl is a super minimal web browser that just browses the web and has a text-on-page search feature. The browser does play multimedia, display pages, and includes tabs. However, classic tab shortcut keys do not work; we cannot press Ctrl+T or Ctrl+W to create and close tabs. Instead we need to visit the File menu to create a tab or remove it. The awkwardness of this is magnified because the bar which displays open tabs (and allows us to switch between tabs) is at the bottom of the screen. To close a tab we need to move the mouse to the bottom of the window, click the tab, then return to the top of the window, open the File menu, then select the option to close the tab.
SDesk 2025.05.06 -- The Swirl web browser
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What really makes Swirl unusable though is its terrible performance. The interface responses much too slowly to be practical. It is also unusually slow to load and display pages. There is a long delay between clicking on anything and having a menu open or a new page load and it makes Swirl an impractical browser choice.
In the application menu we find three SELinux tools which are labelled as being for managing SELinux and generating new security rules. Trying to launch any of these tools prompts us for our password before the application is launched. I found the SELinux Management tool worked, but the SELinux Policy Management tool failed to open and the SELinux Policy Generation utility also failed to launch.
The SELinux Management tool worked well enough for me and it provides a high-level view of SELinux's status and settings. I noticed SELinux is set to Permissive mode by default. This means SELinux does not actually block any security violations, it just logs instances of them. I feel this makes SDesk's comments about securing the distribution with SELinux a bit misleading. Yes, technically, SELinux is included with the distribution, but it also doesn't do anything by default. The user needs to manually launch a tool and switch to Enforcing mode to start enjoying the benefits of SELinux's protection. This should be made more clear on the project's website.
SDesk 2025.05.06 -- Managing SELinux settings
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Exploring the application menu some more we find a few multimedia applications. There is Videos (also known as Totem) and this video player worked well for me. There is an application called Music which, when I first launched it, told me I had to place audio files in my Music folder in order for them to be imported. I did this and relaunched the player, but nothing showed up. The window appeared to be blank. Then I realized the Music application has three tabs (labelled with white text on a light grey background): Artists, Albums, and Playlists. For some reason none of my music was displayed in the first two tabs, only in the Playlists tab. From there I could play songs, but I couldn't find any way to stop or pause them. Pressing the Play button would just restart the current song over from the beginning. In short, the Music application was unusable.
SDesk 2025.05.06 -- The GNOME Music player once my music had been imported
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There is a third media application called Audio Player, and it worked, but it could only play one media file at a time. We need to press a button to open a new file or drag-and-drop new audio tracks into the player once it has finished a song.
SDesk ships with the standard GNU command line tools and the GNU Compiler Collection. The distribution offers us manual pages and manages services using systemd. In the background we can find version 6.14 of the Linux kernel.
Software management
Early in my trial a pop-up notification let me know 126 updates were available. An entry in the system tray shows how many updates are waiting too. Clicking this system tray entry gives us the option to check for new updates or install available updates. Choosing to install updates opens a terminal where we are asked for our sudo password. Then a windows shows the pacman package manager fetching updates. The 126 new packages required a 1.2GB download, just two weeks after the distribution's ISO was published. Running an Arch-based distribution can feel like drinking from a firehose when it comes time to apply updates.
We can also run the pacman package manager directly from the command line. The pacman software is quick and managed to handle large jobs with many packages without any problems. I found Flatpak was also installed and available from the command line. Flatpak on SDesk automatically connects with the popular Flathub repository.
SDesk doesn't ship with any graphical front-end for Flatpak management, but it does include a desktop front-end for pacman called Octopi. Octopi is a low-level package manager which allows us to search for packages and queue multiple installs to run in batches. For the most part Octopi worked for me, but it does have one unfortunate trait. Before installing a new package, Octopi will ask if we want to also fetch suggested dependencies. The default is to not fetch any of the suggested optional packages and, if we want to install a dependency, we click a checkbox next to its name. I had two issues with this approach. The first was that some packages could have a dozen suggested options and there is no way to "select all"; we need to manually check each box. If you were to install ten new packages, each with ten optional dependencies, that's one hundred boxes to check. My second issue was Octopi doesn't warn about dependency conflicts before it starts downloading, but once it runs into a conflict, it terminates the process.
SDesk 2025.05.06 -- The Octopi package manager
(full image size: 502kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
I ran into a few conflicting packages, for example systemd-libs conflicting with systemd-libs-selinux, when installing VLC and then PulseAudio conflicting with PipeWire when installing the XMMS2 player. This meant I had to cancel the install and start over, re-selecting all of the dependencies (minus the conflicts) and starting over. This made for more unnecessary work than if Octopi had warned up front that there was a problem.
Other observations
I tried the GNOME Classic desktop session, briefly, to confirm it worked. It did technically function and ran in a Wayland session, but it looked like it wasn't tested before release. GNOME Classic is basically just the GNOME Shell desktop with extra menu entries for "Apps" and "Places" located in the top panel. It also has a panel across the bottom of the screen which can be used as a task switcher. But this bottom panel is displayed behind the transparent dock panel we experience in the normal GNOME session. This makes the bottom dock hard to read (because of the opaque panel behind it) and makes the task switcher panel impossible to use because there is a thicker dock placed over it.
SDesk 2025.05.06 -- The GNOME Classic session
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The performance of GNOME Classic is the same as the main GNOME session and the only real difference is the broken panel layout so there isn't any reason to use the GNOME Classic session, raising the question of why it was included.
Conclusions
A few years ago I had the following to say about SDesk following my first taste of the distribution:
The distribution seems to be aiming to be an ultra-modern, desktop-oriented, Arch-based project. However, it doesn't seem to set itself apart from the other approximately twenty Arch-based desktop distributions which do the same thing. Most of them run cutting-edge packages, use the Calamares installer, and a fairly small set of default applications. SDesk mostly does the same thing, but has more rough edges when it comes to the live media and default settings.
In other words I believe SDesk accomplishes its goal, but has a ways to go before it will feel polished and on par with other distributions in the same category.
The other main criteria I look at is how well the operating suits my needs. Can I fire it up and just start working? Is it easy to get the software I want? Do I pause and disable annoying notifications and animations? The more the experience becomes seamless for me, making me forget about the operating system while I work, the happier I am. SDesk was the opposite of seamless in my trial.
This time around, the experience was better, at least at the start. The initial install and configuration steps were smooth, the distribution did an excellent job of supporting my hardware, the default GNOME theme looks pretty nice, especially when dark mode is enabled. The first impression, in fact the first few impressions, were good.
A lot of that initial good will was won by Calamares and by the current state of GNOME. I've never been a fan of the GNOME desktop, but it has improved a lot in the 40+ series compared to where GNOME was in the 3.x days. It's smoother, maybe more responsive, and the distribution has done a nice job setting up the dock, desktop icons, and layout.
Looking through the release announcement highlights I mentioned at the start of this review, I found that the points talked about were mostly in place and functioning. There is an emoji bar, there is a pretty GNOME theme, and the new dock works nicely - at least in the GNOME Shell session. The project deserves credit for getting these features in place and clearly explaining them to its audience.
Where the distribution falls apart is just about everything beyond hardware, system installer, and GNOME. The most glaring issue is the default web browser, Swirl. It is a terrible, early-alpha quality web browser which is far too slow and awkward to be included, let alone made the default. Swirl has almost no features, but is slower and less responsive than full-featured browsers like Firefox and Chromium, making it a poor choice for inclusion. Likewise, the music player (both music players, really) are terribly limited and unsuitable for desktop use. On top of that, two of the three included SELinux utilities failed to even launch, let alone function properly. This, along with SELinux being turned off by default, makes for a poor showing for a distribution which touted its SELinux-based security capabilities in its release announcement.
There were a few other problems, such as Octopi not handling dependencies well and sometimes bailing out when recommended dependencies conflicted with installed ones. This made Octopi slower and less convenient than just using the pacman command line tool. As someone who finds pacman's syntax cryptic, at best, it takes a lot to drive me away from graphical front-ends for the package manager.
To cap it off, GNOME Classic's layout conflicts with the dock used by both desktop sessions, making it hard to use GNOME Classic at all, so I'm not sure why it was included.
The whole experience makes me wonder if anyone on the development team has used the distribution. This feels like something which was built and pushed out the door once they confirmed the live ISO would boot, but without actually trying to run any of the software included in the distribution.
SDesk looks pretty and it has a decent base and a good installer. What it does not have are applications which have been tested, an enabled SELinux implementation, or a package front-end that handled dependencies properly. I think it is getting better, but the lack of quality assurance and the questionable choice to include an early preview of barely-functioning web browser makes me recommend leaving this project alone to mature for another two years.
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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
SDesk has a visitor supplied average rating of: 5.8/10 from 4 review(s).
Have you used SDesk? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
A BASIC box runs NetBSD, Ubuntu drops GNOME X11 session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holds back parts of Android source, Nitrux changes its desktop, the EFF turns 35
Fans of classic computing and BASIC may be interested in the NetBSD-powered EndBOX. The EndBOX is an embedded computing device which uses NetBSD to boot directly into a BASIC environment, provided by EndBASIC. "The EndBOX will run, for lack of a better name, the EndBOX OS. This OS is a quick-to-boot disk image, built on NetBSD, that just exposes EndBASIC. The primary goal behind the OS is get you to a prompt as quickly as possible while offering 'advanced' features like USB input and wi-fi connectivity. A secondary goal is to be resilient to power cuts: you should be able to yank power and reboot the machine at any time to get back to a known-good state, just like you used to do." This may appeal to people who wish to learn a first programming language or who miss the days of operating Commodore 64 machines.
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The Ubuntu team is following Fedora's example and dropping GNOME's X11 session in the distribution's next version. The announcement for the change reads, in part: "The login screen (powered by GDM) will no longer offer the Ubuntu on Xorg option. All sessions based on GNOME Shell and Mutter are now Wayland-only and users who rely on X11-specific behaviors will not be able to use the GNOME desktop environment on Xorg. We understand that some users still depend on Xorg's implementation of X11; for example, in remote desktop setups, or highly specialized workflows. If you require Xorg specifically, you can install and use a non-GNOME desktop environment. Xorg itself is not going away, only GNOME's support for Xorg."
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In other GNOME-related news, the desktop environment is increasing its reliance on the systemd project. GNOME already relies on some elements of systemd, such as logind. These small dependencies are often provided by other components or patched out on operating systems that do not run the systemd software. However, GNOME is doubling down on its reliance on systemd which will likely remove GNOME from consideration on several Linux distributions and the BSDs. A post on the GNOME blog shares details: "While GNOME can run with other init systems, most upstream GNOME developers are not testing GNOME in these situations. Our automated testing infrastructure (i.e. GNOME OS) doesn't test any non-systemd codepaths. And many modules that have non-systemd codepaths do so with the expectation that someone else will maintain them and fix them when they break. GNOME is about to gain a few strong dependencies on systemd, and this will make running GNOME harder in environments that don't have systemd available."
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The GrapheneOS project has raised a concern about the way Google releases its source code, posting on Mastodon: "Unfortunately, Android has made changes which will make it much harder for us to port to Android 16 and future releases. It will also make adding support for new Pixels much more difficult. We're likely going to need to focus on making GrapheneOS devices sooner than we expected."
CalyxOS, another Android-based distribution, clarified the situation: "On June 10th, Google released Android 16 to AOSP - but without Pixel device-specific source code. This unexpected change impacts all custom Android ROM development, including CalyxOS. We're adapting our plans and will share updates as development progresses. Google has released Android 16 to AOSP, but this year's release is different in a significant way: none of the usual source code for Pixel phones has been made available. This impacts not only CalyxOS, but the entire custom Android ecosystem."
Google's Pixel phones were often well supported in the custom distribution ecosystem due to the availability of their source code. However, with the code being withheld, it means it will become increasingly difficult for open source projects to support Pixel devices.
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The Nitrux project has announced it plans to change its default desktop environment for future releases. "These will be the fundamental changes in the distribution moving forward: Desktop: Plasma -> Hyprland and its utilities + Waybar + Wlogout. Effective June 10, 2025, all components of NX Desktop are no longer maintained, and our nx-desktop organization on GitHub has been archived. Therefore, we have decided to use Hyprland and its utilities, along with Waybar and Wlogout, to put together the default desktop in Nitrux." The project is also making changes to its kernel and login manager, with details on these changes offered in the project's blog post.
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Free and open source software has a long history of working for (and being a benefit to) its users. Unlike many proprietary projects, open source places control into the hands of its users. This approach goes hand-in-hand with the mission of the Electronic Frontier Foundation which seeks to improve the digital privacy, protection, and speech of people around the world. The EFF turns 35 this year and Cindy Cohn, the organization's Executive Director, had some uplifting words to share which I think mirrors the views of the open source community: "The future we envision is possible. It's a future where your device is truly yours. It's a world where you can speak, move, and organize without the threat of pervasive surveillance. Your technology helps you connect with the people you care about, wherever they might be. With support from members around the world, EFF uses law, technology, and activism to create the conditions for human rights and civil liberties to flourish, and for repression to fail." Best wishes to the EFF and happy birthday!
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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) |
Could Ubuntu Touch return?
Back-to-the-future asks: Lately I've been reading that Android is becoming more desktop friendly and HarmonyOS is offering convergence. This is the stuff that was promised to us with Ubuntu Touch! Is it possible Ubuntu Touch could return from the dead? Would love to have a proper Linux phone.
DistroWatch answers: For those who maybe were not in the Linux community at the time, around ten years ago Canonical (the makers of the Ubuntu distribution) announced an ambitious project. They wanted to create a mobile operating system (called Ubuntu Touch) which would feature a new user interface called Unity 8. The big-picture goal was to make it possible for applications to work on mobile devices and desktop computers and use the same desktop environment (Unity 8) across all devices (phones, tablets, laptops, and workstations).
While a few phones shipped with Ubuntu Touch and its Unity 8 interface, the project was quickly dropped by Canonical. They stopped making a mobile operating system, stopped work on Unity 8, and phased out their cloud synchronization services which were supposed to tie together all of their supported devices.
However, Ubuntu Touch didn't die. When Canonical stopped developing their mobile operating system, a community group called UBports took up the challenge. They have been putting out updates of the mobile operating system and its user interface (which is now called Lomiri) for several years. They managed to update the base, weathered the transition from Upstart init to systemd, and have expanded support to about twenty phones (plus a few tablets).
While Ubuntu Touch lives on under the care of the UBports project, the concept of convergence (one interface which works across multiple devices) is no closer to reality. Unity 8 was developed with mobile interfaces as a priority and its successor, Lomiri, is still very much geared toward small touch screens. What works for a classic mouse-and-keyboard workstation just does not translate well into a pocket-sized touch screen. Likewise, what works on a tiny touch screen doesn't make sense on a workstation. One unifying interface just ends up being awkward and limited in both environments and I think the UBports team recognizes this.
UBports, like Android, can run classic Linux desktop applications. If you want to run a full office suite or a desktop web browser on your phone, plugged into a workstation monitor or a TV, you can do that with the modern version of Ubuntu Touch. You just need a docking station and to install the applications you want on your phone. You can install desktop applications on your UBports-powered device either by making the filesystem writable (which isn't usually recommended) or you can create a container and install desktop packages inside the container.
You can also try other mobile operating systems in the Linux community, each with their own approach to user interfaces. Manjaro Linux, for example, can run on some phones and pairs fairly well with the Plasma Mobile desktop interface. The postmarketOS project is suitable for providing a more traditional Linux desktop experience on a mobile device and it supports multiple desktop environments you can try.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
FreeBSD 14.3
Colin Percival has announced the release of FreeBSD 14.3, the project's latest point release which will be supported until 30 June, 2026. The release brings support for the 802.11ac networking standard in the iwlwifi network card driver and updates several packages, notably OpenSSH to version 9.9p2 and OpenSSL to version 3.0.16. "The FreeBSD Release Engineering team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE. This is the fourth release of the stable/14 branch. Some of the highlights: 802.11ac is now supported by the iwlwifi driver for modern chipsets found in many laptops; OCI container images are now published in Docker and GitHub repositories; LLVM and associated tools have been upgraded to version 19.1.7; OpenZFS has been updated to version 2.2.7; OpenSSH has been upgraded to version 9.9p2; xz has been upgraded to version 5.8.1; expat has been upgraded to 2.7.1. FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE is now available for the amd64, i386, aarch64, armv7, powerpc, powerpc64 and riscv64 architectures." See the release announcement and the release notes for further information.
Rocky Linux 10.0
The Rocky Linux project has published Rocky Linux 10.0, which mirrors the changes and updates from upstream's Enterprise Linux product line. Some of the key changes in version 10.0 include dropping X11 in favour of Wayland for the GNOME desktop session and introducing a RISC-V branch. "All 32-bit packages have been removed from Rocky Linux 10. This means that 32-bit applications will no longer run on this version of Rocky Linux. Please use 64-bit libraries or containers with 32-bit dependencies instead. Users will have administrative privileges by default, unless you deselect the option. The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is now the default for graphical remote access, replacing VNC. The DHCP client in RL 10 is implemented as an internal subsystem of NetworkManager. The legacy dhcp-client package is no longer supported upstream and has been removed. The ISC DHCP server is end-of-life upstream and is replaced by its successor, Kea DHCP, in RL 10. In RL 10, Wayland replaces the X.Org Server. Xwayland will support most X11 clients that have not yet been ported to Wayland. Some desktop applications and components are also replaced in RL 10." Details can be found in the release announcement and in the release notes.
Rocky Linux 10.0 -- Running the GNOME desktop
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Securonis Linux 3.0
Securonis Linux is a privacy- and security-focused Linux distribution based on Debian's Testing branch. The project has published a new update which carries the version number 3.0. The release announcement reports: "Securonis Linux 3.0 is the biggest Securonis update so far. This version includes many new tools, bug fixes and theme improvements. Additionally, in this version we're saying goodbye to the GNOME desktop environment. New features: FireScorpion browser - a hardened Firefox customization for privacy and security, blocks ads and tracking; Data Destroyer - a GUI tool that securely erases data by overwriting it; System Knight - a client for malware and rootkit scanning; migrated to the more stable and faster OpenMammoth Lite edition; the password manager has been redesigned from scratch with a brand new interface; Nuke2System, Paranoia and PhysicalSec have been redesigned from scratch as a separate tool; system hardening settings now offer two new kernel settings - Performance and Extreme hardening; Speedtest - a CLI tool that measures internet speed; ColdBootDef - a tool that clears RAM during system shutdown to prevent cold boot attacks; new theme added and some icons fixed; I2P router menu - interface renewed and bugs fixed...."
Securonis Linux 3.0 -- Running the MATE desktop
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Kali Linux 2025.2
The Kali Linux team has released a new snapshot of the project's penetration testing distribution. Kali Linux 2025.2 features GNOME 48 and KDE Plasma 6.3, but the biggest visible change is to the application menu: "We've completely reworked the Kali Menu! It's now reorganized to follow the MITRE ATT&CK framework structure - which means that finding the right tool for your task should now be a lot more intuitive for red and blue teams alike. Previously the Kali menu structure followed what was in BackTrack, which followed WHAX before it. The previous structure was an in-house item, before MITRE was a thing. When our menu was first created, there wasn't as much design planning done, which we suffered for later. It meant that over time, scaling and adding new tools became difficult for us. The knock on effect was that this made it harder for you, the end-users, to discover new tools as similar tools with overlapping functions were in different places or missing entries. Yes, seasoned professionals may not use the menu to start up items, using shortcuts such as super key and typing the tool name, or via a terminal window. We see the menu as a way to discover tools." Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement.
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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: 3,226
- Total data uploaded: 47.5TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Version names and numbers
There are many ways distributions can label their new releases. Some projects, such as Fedora, simply use sequential numbers: 1, 2, 3... Others, like Ubuntu and Arch Linux tag their ISO files with the date: 25.04 or 2025-04-01. Some projects, like blendOS, use hash tags from their source code repositories which look like this: bad197f5. Other distributions use codenames, like TrueNAS's "Fangtooth". Which is your preferred label? A simple number, a date, a repository tag, or a word?
You can see the results of our previous poll on the importance of distribution longevity in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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What is your preferred versioning label?
| Code name: | 115 (8%) |
| Date: | 895 (59%) |
| Sequential number: | 470 (31%) |
| Source code hash: | 9 (1%) |
| Other: | 31 (2%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to database
Besgnulinux
Besgnulinux is a lightweight, desktop Linux distribution based on Debian's "Stable" branch. Using the JWM window manager, it is designed to be fast, lightweight and easy to use, suitable for older and low-specification computers. Besgnulinux comes with the Calamares system installer, the Brave web browser, and over 40 custom-built tools to control the systems settings as well as the desktop's look-and-feel.
Exton Linux
Exton Linux is a set of over 15 Linux distributions based on Arch Linux, CRUX, Debian, deepin, Fedora, openSUSE, Puppy Linux and Slackware Linux. They are designed to be lightweight, fast and easy to use. Exton Linux comes with popular pre-configured desktop environments and a set of pre-installed software packages, including web browsers, office suites, multimedia players and development tools. It also includes various customization options, such as the ability to change the appearance of the desktop and install additional software packages. Exton Linux is available in several editions, each tailored to a specific use case, such as general-purpose computing, gaming, multimedia or servers.
Exton Linux OpSuS 250523 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 3.0MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Gnuinos
Gnuinos is a spin of Devuan GNU+Linux consisting exclusively of Free Software (as defined by the Free Software Foundation) and a choice of several alternative init systems, such as OpenRC, Runit, s6 and SysV. The distribution ships with the GNU Linux-libre kernel. The project provides installation images for desktop and server deployments, as well as pre-configured live images with JWM, KDE Plasma, Openbox and Xfce desktops available for the i686 and x86_64 architectures.
Gnuinos 2025.04.22 -- Exploring the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 115kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
MagOS Linux
MagOS Linux is a Russian desktop-oriented distribution based on ROSA, a distribution that was forked from Mandriva Linux in 2011. It uses the RPM package management. MagOS Linux comes with KDE Plasma desktop by default, but it also ships the lightweight LXQt desktop for older and low-specification computers. Besides the standard upstream packages from ROSA, the project also provides its own RPM package repository (with various network and NVIDIA display drivers), as well as separate modules (in XZM format) with extra hardware drivers, server tools, MATE desktop, Wine emulator, Java software and additional web browsers, including Chromium and Yandex.
OmniOS
OmniOS is an open-source operating system for servers, with support for many popular Solaris and OpenSolaris technologies, such as the ZFS file system, bhyve hypervisor, Dtrace (a dynamic tracing framework for troubleshooting kernel and application problems), kernel-based virtual machine, and Linux zone. It is based on Illumos, a free software implementation of the Solaris kernel.
Security Onion
Security Onion is a specialist, security-oriented Linux distribution based on Oracle Linux. It is a free and open platform for threat hunting, enterprise security monitoring and log management. It includes custom interfaces for alerting, dashboards, hunting, PCAP, detections and case management. It also includes other tools, such as osquery (a tool for exploring and monitoring operating system data with SQL queries), CyberChef (a web application for encryption, encoding, compression and data analysis), Elasticsearch (a data search engine), Logstash (a data collection and processing engine), Kibana (a data visualization plugin for Elasticsearch), Suricata (an intrusion detection and prevention system) and Zeek (a software network analysis framework).
TileOS
TileOS is a Debian-based desktop Linux distribution featuring a selection of several Wayland tiling compositors, notably Sway, River, Qtile and miracle-wm. It is based on the latest stable Debian release, with some packages, such as the Mesa graphics drivers, back-ported from Debian's "Testing" repository. The distribution comes with many device drivers and non-free firmware included in the base system, some performance optimizations and system tweaks, additional repositories for installing programs not found in Debian (such as OnlyOffice, VirtualBox, Librewolf, Visual Studio Code and Brave), and the Calamares system installer.
TileOS 1.3 -- Running the Swap interface
(full image size: 795kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 23 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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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • 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 | 
Amarok Live
amaroK Live was a stripped-down live CD of the GNU/Linux operating system, based on PCLinuxOS, with a fully functional amaroK music player. It was meant to display the features and power of amaroK. The goals of this project are: create something cool to promote amaroK, offer an easy way to introduce people to amaroK, provide a way to demonstrate the new features of amaroK when a suitable Linux installation was not available, and make it easy to remaster the live CD.
Status: Discontinued
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TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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