 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1135, 18 August 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 33rd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The Debian project is one of oldest, largest, and most widely used distributions in the world. Debian (and projects based on it) make up a huge portion of the Linux ecosystem - both in terms of the number of child distributions and the number of people using them. Last weekly the project published Debian 13 "Trixie" and this week we talk about this latest addition to the Debian family in our Feature Story. Do you run Debian or a child distribution based on Debian? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. Debian's Linux distribution wasn't alone in receiving an update, Debian also has a lesser-known Hurd port which runs most of the same software, but on top of the GNU Hurd kernel instead of the Linux kernel. We report on the new Debian GNU/Hurd release in our News section. We also talk about KDE receiving a patch to add customised Liquid Glass effects, and report on new changes in the Haiku operating system. In our Questions and Answers column we field queries about compatibility software, particularly Proton and Wayback. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: Debian 13 "Trixie"
- News: Debian GNU/Hurd team publishes new release, KDE's window manager gets customised Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tool behaviour
- Questions and answers: Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback
- Released last week: Kaisen Linux 3.0, SparkyLinux 8.0, EasyOS 7.0, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Zephix 8, Grml 2025.08
- Torrent corner: BigLinux, SparkyLinux
- Opinion poll: Do you run Debian or a child of Debian?
- New additions: Asmi Linux, Predator-OS
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Debian 13 "Trixie"
Debian is one of the world's oldest surviving distributions. The project has lasted about three decades and it is unusually large, both in terms of the number of packages it provides and the number of developers working on the distribution. Debian runs on several CPU architectures and has a long-maintained reputation for stability, making it a common choice for servers and as a base for other distributions.
New features
Debian 13 is a fairly tame release on the surface, with not many new features for end-users, apart from the Plasma 6 desktop. However, there are several less visible changes taking place behind the scenes. The project's release notes offers the highlights:
This release for the first time officially supports the riscv64 architecture, allowing users to run Debian on 64-bit RISC-V hardware and benefit from all Debian 13 features.
(Information on the RISC-V build of Debian can be found in the project's RISC-V wiki document.)
Trixie introduces security features on the amd64 and arm64 architectures designed to mitigate Return-Oriented Programming (ROP) exploits and Call/Jump-Oriented Programming (COP/JOP) attacks.
The Debian Installer and Debian Live Images can now be booted using "HTTP Boot" on supported UEFI and U-Boot firmware.
Debian 13 -- Running the GNOME desktop
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Many improved and new translations for manual pages. Especially Romanian and Polish translations are greatly enhanced since Bookworm.
Web browsers based on Qt WebEngine, notably Privacy Browser and Falkon, now support spell-checking using hunspell data.
All architectures other than i386 now use a 64-bit time_t ABI, supporting dates beyond 2038.
Both the curl CLI and libcurl now have support for HTTP/3.
This new release of Debian comes with a lot more software than its predecessor Bookworm; the distribution includes over 14,116 new packages, for a total of over 69,830 packages.
Debian again ships with several desktop applications and environments. Among others it now includes the desktop environments GNOME 48, KDE Plasma 6.3, LXDE 13, LXQt 2.1.0, and Xfce 4.20.
Productivity applications have also been upgraded, including the office suites: LibreOffice is upgraded to version 25; GNUcash is upgraded to 5.10.
Along with the above changes, the project mentions a number of known issues and potential concerns, particularly for people upgrading from previous versions of Debian.
An issue in OpenSSH in Bookworm can lead to inaccessible remote systems if an upgrade being supervised over an SSH connection is interrupted. Users may be unable to re-connect to the remote system to resume the upgrade.
Updated packages for Bookworm will resolve this issue in Debian 12.12, but this release was still in preparation at the time of releasing Trixie.
From Trixie, i386 is no longer supported as a regular architecture: there is no official kernel and no Debian installer for i386 systems. Fewer packages are available for i386 because many projects no longer support it. The architecture's sole remaining purpose is to support running legacy code, for example, by way of multiarch or a chroot on a 64-bit (amd64) system.
From Trixie, armel is no longer supported as a regular architecture: there is no Debian installer for armel systems, and only Raspberry Pi 1, Zero, and Zero W are supported by the kernel packages.
The Linux kernel and firmware packages have increased considerably in size in previous Debian releases and in Trixie. As a result your /boot partition might be too small, causing the upgrade to fail. If your system was installed with Debian 10 (Buster) or earlier, your system is very likely to be affected.
Before starting the upgrade, make sure your /boot partition is at least 768MB in size, and has about 300MB free. If your system does not have a separate /boot partition, there should be nothing to do.
From Trixie, the default is for the /tmp/ directory to be stored in memory using a tmpfs filesystem. This should make applications using temporary files faster, but if you put large files there, you may run out of memory.
openssh-server no longer reads ~/.pam_environment and OpenSSH no longer supports DSA keys.
Users of systems without easy out-of-band management are advised to proceed with caution as we're aware of two circumstances where network interface names assigned by Trixie systems may be different from Bookworm. This can cause broken network connectivity when rebooting to complete the upgrade.
Information on application-specific changes and potential issues can be found in the release notes.
Installing
There are several download options for Debian 13, ranging across at least six CPU architectures and with various flavours. There is a large DVD ISO file (4.0GB), a smaller net-install ISO (791MB), and there is collection of live desktop ISO files for several desktop environments, including GNOME, Cinnamon, Plasma, and Xfce. These range in size from about 1.5GB to approximately 4.0GB and the live ISOs appear to be available for x86_64 platforms only at the time of writing.
I downloaded the full DVD install ISO for x86_64 computers. I also grabbed a copy of the project's LXQt live media.
Debian 13 -- Exploring the LXQt desktop
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Booting from the install media offers us three main options: running the graphical installer, running a text installer, and running the installer with text-to-speech. There is also a high-contrast option for the text installer.
Debian's graphical installer has not visibly changed much in the past 15 years, apart from the default colour theme. The installer walks us through many steps, including asking us for our language and region. We are asked to pick our keyboard layout from a list and the system tries to connect to our local network. We're asked to create a hostname, a root password, a regular user account name, and our regular account's password. Then we are asked again for our region, this time so the installer will have our timezone.
Disk partitioning comes next with Debian offering to automatically set up our disk or hand us over to a manual approach. Neither option is particularly beginner-friendly, but the guided option does give us additional options, such as splitting the operating system and home directories. By default, Debian will set up the operating system on an ext4 filesystem and creates a separate swap partition. Common performance improves, such as disabling access time tracking on the filesystem are not enabled by default, but we can set filesystem options before proceeding to the next step.
The installer then asks if it should scan additional install media for packages and whether we want to connect to on-line repositories. When I opted to enable on-line repositories I was asked if I wanted to use a package mirror and was then asked (for the third time) what my region was so I could then pick my specific local package mirror.
The installer asks if we want to engage in Debian's package popularity contest where what we install is reported to the project. Then we are asked which package groups we want to install. Options include GNOME (the desktop selected by default), Xfce, GNOME Flashback (which is GNOME Classic under a different name), KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, MATE, LXDE, LXQt, web server packages, SSH server packages, and standard system packages (also enabled by default). We can choose to install a Debian Blend - a Blend is a bit like a spin with a specific setup and focus. I decided to try the GNOME and LXQt packages to give me a range on both the GTK/Qt spectrum and on the heavy/light spectrum. Unfortunately the software selection screen does not offer any description, explanation, or screenshots of the items we are selecting, making it more difficult for newcomers to select what is best for their situation.
At this point we're about 16 screens into the process and the installer finally starts copying files to the local disk. It pauses occasionally mid-process to ask follow-up questions, for instance I was asked if I would prefer to use SDDM or GDM as my login screen - again with no explanation to what the choice meant.
The install process wraps up by asking if we would like to install the GRUB bootloader and, if so, where it should go. The installer finishes its work and pauses until we give it permission to reboot.
Early impressions
Debian booted to a graphical login screen with a dark background. From there I could sign into my account using one of three session options: GNOME (on Wayland), GNOME on X11, or LXQt. The first time I signed into the GNOME desktop a welcome window appeared and offered to give me a brief tour of the desktop's features. GNOME uses a dark panel across the top of the screen, but otherwise the theme is light and bright.
The GNOME on Wayland session was pretty responsive. In fact, I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever thought of GNOME Shell as being "snappy" or quick, not just adequate or below average in its performance.
Debian 13 -- GNOME's settings panel
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Hardware
I found the experience of trying Debian was entirely different when using the live desktop media compared to installing and running the distribution. When I installed Debian from its install DVD the distribution ran smoothly and all of my hardware was recognized. Audio (and the volume controls) and networking functioned and the system ran quickly.
When signed into GNOME's Wayland session Debian used 975MB of RAM, which is heavy by most desktop standards, but about 25% lighter than GNOME running a Wayland session on almost any other distribution I have used in the past year. The LXQt session was lighter still at 640MB. A fresh install of Debian with both desktop environments took 5.4GB of space, plus a swap partition. This is also relatively small compared to most mainstream Linux distributions.
Debian 13 -- Running the Firefox web browser
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Running Debian from the live LXQt ISO provided a painfully different experience. The live session would loudly beep my laptop's speakers twice each time the system started. When the desktop loaded the screen was far too dim (even when on AC power), with the brightness level set to 10% by default. This situation was made worse by the fact my laptop's shortcut keys (volume and brightness) were not recognized which meant I had to navigate an almost black screen to find the settings module for raising the screen brightness.
I also found the volume control in the LXQt system tray did nothing in the live session. It started at 100% volume and yet audio was clearly turned down almost to the point of being muted. Trying to adjust the system volume using the system tray control had no effect. To raise the volume we need to either launch the PulseAudio application window or open a command line and run the alsamixer command line tool. This felt woefully outdated and sloppy, especially for a project of Debian's legacy.
While network functioned on my live session, my touchpad did not register taps as clicks. This required another trip to the settings modules to adjust my mouse settings.
While not a bug, it was unfortunate Debian's live session did not recognise its region or timezone the way some distributions do. It assumed the UTC timezone and I had to add a new timezone to the clock application to get the proper time to display on my desktop.
Included software
Debian ships with the Firefox web browser, LibreOffice, and Evolution. The usual collection of GNOME applications is provided: Files, Clocks, Weather, Maps, Calendar, Camera, and a text editor. The HexChat IRC client is included, which I found odd since the HexChat project was discontinued about a year and a half ago (a full year before Debian's feature freeze).
The Totem video player and GNOME's Music player are included and these are accompanied by media codecs for audio and video files. The Music application is split into three tabs (Albums, Artists, and Playlists), but my music only shows up in the third tab.
Debian 13 -- The GNOME file manager and a game
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The Shotwell photo manager, an image viewer, and a document viewer are included for us. There were a few applications specific to LXQt too, in my case, such as the QTerminal application and another lightweight text editor.
Debian includes local manual pages, the GNU command line tools, and the systemd service manager. Version 6.12 of the Linux kernel can be found in the background.
The sudo utility is installed, but no users are included in its configuration. We can use the root account or su program to perform admin actions. Alternatively, we can add users to the sudo group using the groupmod command. (Note: On Debian, if we skip setting a password for the root account, the first user will be granted sudo access.)
Software management
When the GNOME desktop is installed Debian provides us with the GNOME Software application for managing packages. The software centre provides three tabs to manage applications. The first shows what is currently available, the second tab shows what is installed, and the third allows us to check for updates. GNOME Software can also enable and disable repositories.
Debian 13 -- GNOME Software
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For people who wish to manage lower level packages, not just applications, Debian ships with the Synaptic package manager. While Synaptic is not as streamlined, it does allow us to create batch jobs of installing, removing, and upgrading software. Synaptic can also configure repositories.
Having options for managing repositories is especially important on Debian because, when we install the distribution from its full sized install media, the distribution leaves the local media (the DVD/USB) as a package source. When this source is removed after the install is finished, it remains enabled and this blocks any additional package actions (such as updates and fetching new packages). This is terrible behaviour and a bug which has existed for at least the past 15 years, even when the user selects to fetch packages from repositories during the install process the local media remains enabled once the install is finished. It's a well known issue and one which new users often complain about so it is ridiculous Debian still has not fixed this problem.
Debian 13 -- Managing repositories with Synaptic
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For people who want to work with packages from the command line Debian offers the APT suite of tools. These work well and work quickly. There are no portable package frameworks enabled by default though we can install Flatpak and Snap support if we wish. Debian offers an unusually large collection of software, but the versions of most packages (apart from specific web browsers) are fixed, so portable bundles become increasingly valuable over time for people who wish to keep their desktop applications up to date.
Conclusions
I think the best, and worst, thing I can say about Debian is that version 13 is practically indistinguishable from version 12 and version 11 and version 10. Apart from the update of Plasma 5 desktop to Plasma 6, I don't think there are any visible changes. If you have enjoyed Debian in the past and previously installed Debian several times, then you can probably set up Debian 13 with your eyes closed. On the other hand, if you didn't like Debian in the past, nothing has improved; you would be having the same experience with version 13.
Debian 13 -- Trying a dark theme
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Something that I think makes Debian difficult to review is that the project has some amazing strengths, but also some glaring weaknesses. The live environment is terrible - noisy with buggy audio management, poor keyboard support, and a misaligned clock. The theme is bland, the panel icons tiny, and there is no welcome window or guide to help new users get started. The situation is not helped by the fact Debian has what is probably the longest, most repetitive install process in the Linux ecosystem. It should not take 20+ screens to set up the distribution, especially when three of them are asking where we live. Most distributions can get set up with four or five screens and, if flexibility is a concern, extra steps can be accessed through an Advanced Settings button.
These problems are somewhat balanced by the fact that, once installed, once the hardware is configured properly, and once the APT repository information is fixed, Debian is a world-class distribution. Its small size on disk, low memory footprint, dedication to reproducible builds, and massive software repository make it one of the most capable, flexible, and high performance distributions on the planet. There is a good reason why Debian is the base for so many other distributions.
Debian provides an incredible platform in terms of efficiency, in terms of the amount of software available, and the number of architectures on which the distribution can run. All of this is very enticing, especially if you don't mind some manual steps. Actually, many manual steps. It's important to keep in mind though that Debian will not do much hand holding. Debian doesn't tell us when new software updates become available, there is no first-run wizard, the documentation is... well, it's there if you can find the appropriate pages. Debian is a project which acts like a collection of parts which have been tossed together rather than an operating system which has been designed. The parts are all capable, but they aren't inclined to work together for you, that is up to the administrator to implement.
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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
Debian has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9/10 from 492 review(s).
Have you used Debian? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Debian GNU/Hurd team publishes new release, KDE's window manager gets customised Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tool behaviour
While the Debian project is best known for its Linux distribution, branches of Debian also experiment with alternative kernels. There is a port of Debian which runs on the GNU Hurd kernel and it supports approximately 72% of the same software as Debian's Linux distribution. The Debian GNU/Hurd team have released a new snapshot which is built with mostly the same source software as Debian 13: "Debian GNU/Hurd is currently available for the i386 and amd64 architectures with about 72% of the Debian archive, and more to come! 64-bit support is now complete, with the same archive coverage as i386 (actually a bit more since some packages are 64-bit-only). This 64-bit support is completely using userland disk drivers from NetBSD thanks to the Rump layer. We now use xattr by default for recording translators, allowing to bootstrap seamlessly from other OSes, with mmdebstrap for instance. Rust was ported to GNU/Hurd. Support for USB disk and CD-ROM was added through Rump. Packages are now available for SMP support, which is quite working. The console is now using xkb for keyboard layouts, and supports multiboot-provided framebuffer. Various other support were added (acpi, rtc, apic, hpet, ...)" Download options and documentation can be found through the team's mailing list post.
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Linux users who are fans of Apple's "Liquid Glass" effect will soon be able to enable a similar experience on the Plasma desktop. A message attached to the change reports: "Added a Concave (lens) refraction mode for a more 'Liquid Glass' look, it's a lot closer than the current implementation. Also added a Refraction Corner Radius slider (0-200px, 30 steps) to shape the SDF independently of edge size. Because the concave implementation is a bit 'weaker', I've raised the maxima to 30 for the relevant sliders. Added some UI logic for irrelevant options between modes." In other words, not only will Plasma users be able to enable the Liquid Glass effect on their desktops, they will also be able to tweak it in the System Settings panel.
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The Haiku team have published their monthly newsletter for July, summarizing the changes and work going into their lightweight operating system. Some key fixes include how groups are handled by authentication tools. "waddlesplash fixed su asking for a password even when run as root directly, and fixed all the multiuser commands (su, login, etc.) to properly set groups when logging in as another user. (This is mostly relevant for SSH sessions and the like.) PulkoMandy added locking and protection printing to listarea. waddlesplash added coded to fdinfo to allow it to print applications' current working directories (which would have greatly simplified the debugging process to solve the Terminal issue.)" Additional information is provided in the project's newsletter.
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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) |
Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback
Seeking-compatibility asks: Is there anything for Windows desktop applications that works like Proton for Windows games?
DistroWatch answers: For people who might not be familiar with Proton, it is compatibility software which allows Linux users to run many games which were built to work with Windows. Proton is developed by the Valve company and is based on WINE. Typically Proton is used in combination with Valve's Steam gaming portal.
WINE is compatibility software that makes many Windows desktop applications and games run on Linux. Most people who want to run Windows applications directly on Linux can do so by installing WINE.
If you need compatibility beyond what WINE provides then you might want to try CrossOver. The CrossOver software is developed by the CodeWeavers company. It basically extends and polishes WINE, working to make installing Windows applications easier and improving compatibility. You can get a two week free trial of CrossOver from their download page to see if it fulfills your needs.
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Another-display-server asks: What is the point of Wayback? Is it basically the reverse of Xwayland?
DistroWatch answers: In the big picture, Linux basically has two main display technologies for drawing desktops and applications on the screen: X11 and Wayland. X11 has been with us for around 40 years and has proven to be quite useful. However, some of its design and legacy code made it difficult to maintain and extend. To address this, Wayland was created and has been gradually adopted by most of the major desktop environments and distributions.
Xwayland is software which allows applications built to work on X11 to run on desktop environments running Wayland. Basically, if you are using a modern desktop environment that is running in a Wayland session, the Xwayland software makes it possible for you to run applications which expect to be running in an X11 session. You can think of Xwayland as a compatibility layer, making sure you can run X11 applications alongside Wayland applications in a Wayland session. This is fine if you want to run just an application which expects to work with X11, but what if you want to run an entire X11 desktop?
Wayback is an extension of the Xwayland idea. The idea behind Wayback is to make it possible to run entire X11 desktop environments using Wayland as the underlying display technology. With Wayback, the idea is that X11 desktops and window managers would be able to run on distributions which have migrated to using Wayland exclusively. The Wayback project describes itself as follows: "It is essentially a stub compositor which provides just enough Wayland capabilities to host a rootful Xwayland server."
In theory, this means if your distribution stops packaging X11 packages you will still be able to run X11 desktop environments as long as you have a Wayland display server and Wayback to act as a stub or layer in between the display server and the desktop environment.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Kaisen Linux 3.0
Exactly one year after Kaisen Linux's most recent release candidate, the project has announced version 3.0 of its Debian-based, desktop distribution. In an unusual move, the release announcement also includes a report that the distribution is being discontinued. "I would like to begin this blog post by announcing the end of the Kaisen Linux project with this latest release. I wish to embark on other professional and personal projects that will take up a considerable amount of my time, and for this reason, I can no longer continue developing Kaisen Linux. This release will therefore be the last. However, security updates will still be provided for two years, giving you time to switch to another Linux system and familiarize yourself with your new environment." The announcement goes on to share highlights of the new version: "KDE is now the default interface for Kaisen Linux, and is in version 6! SDDM is now the default display manager instead of lightdm. Lightdm was used instead of SDDM due to some missing customization settings, which were introduced with KDE version 6. XFCE is now available in version 4.20 The apt upgrade and apt-get upgrade commands automatically redirect to apt full-upgrade and apt-get full-upgrade. This is intended to simplify the update process if the kaisen-update command is not used and to limit the risk of breaking the system through updates. The snapshot from which the system was booted can now be restored automatically with a single command: sudo kaisen-timeshift-fast-restore. This command is intended to simplify the use of bootable Btrfs snapshots as much as possible...."
SparkyLinux 8.0
SparkyLinux is a lightweight, Debian-base distribution. The project has published version 8.0 which is based on Debian 13 "Trixie". "A new version of SparkyLinux 8.0, codenamed 'Seven Sisters,' has been released. SpakyLinux 8.0 'The Seven Sisters' is based on an fully compatible with Debian 13.0 'Trixie'. Sparky 8 codename 'The Seven Sisters' (or Pleiades - in the Messier catalog, M45 or Messier 45; other names: Babies, Chickens, Church of the Masonic) - is the most famous open cluster in the sky. Its popularity is primarily due to its ability to be easily observed with the naked eye. It is located in the constellation Taurus, approximately 444 light-years (136 parsecs) away. Main changes: all packages updated from the stable Debian and Sparky repositories as of August 13, 2025; Linux kernel: 6.12.41-LTS (6.16.0, 6.12.41-LTS, 6.6.99-LTS in sparky repositories); LibreOffice 25.2.3; KDE Plasma 6.3.6; LXQt 2.1.0; MATE 1.26; Xfce 4.20; Openbox 3.6.1; Firefox 128.13.0esr (141.0.3 in sparky repo); Thunderbird 128.13.0esr." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
SparkyLinux 8.0 -- Running the Plasma desktop
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EasyOS 7.0
Barry Kauler has announced the release of EasyOS 7.0, a major new version of the experimental distribution that changes several pieces of technology behind the scenes. "Compared with prior releases of EasyOS, the Excalibur-series is a 'whole new ball game'. All prior EasyOSs were built with woofQ; Easy Excalibur is built with woofQ2, that is a redesign of woofQ based on Debian's APT underpinning all package management. Easy has PKGget, a package manager GUI, that is able to install all kinds of packages, such as .deb, .txz, .rpm and .pet; that chameleon-like ability is retained, but now PKGget is a wrapper on top of APT. So now PKGget and APT talk to each other, and even if utilities such as 'apt' and 'apt-get' are used in a terminal, it will automatically sync in PKGget. Easy Excalibur is built with Devuan Excalibur packages, equivalent to Debian 13 Trixie, but without systemd. Instead, EasyOS uses the simple busybox init, enhanced with pup_event service management. EasyOS has inbuilt containers support, known as 'Easy Containers' and this is taken to the next level. In particular, there is now a pre-created container named "devx" that has everything for a compiler/development environment." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
LibreELEC 12.2.0
The development team behind LibreELEC, a multi-platform Linux distribution featuring the Kodi media centre, have released a new update, version 12.2.0. This is a minor update that improves support for Intel hardware and upgrades Kodi to version 21.2: "LibreELEC 12.2 with Kodi 21.2 'Omega' is released. The main purpose of the LibreELEC 12.2 release is hardware support - bumping kernels and display components to better handle current and recent Intel hardware and keeping Raspberry Pi boards aligned with RPiOS. The release contains Kodi 21.2 'Omega' with a small number of additional improvements that Kodi backported to Omega since the Kodi 21.2 release (no 21.3 release is planned). The NVIDIA Legacy 340.xx driver remained usable for six years after NVIDIA discontinued support, but it no longer compiles with the latest X.Org release so has been dropped from the Generic-Legacy image for LibreELEC 12.2 and the future 13.0 release. This impacts older NVIDIA cards, which are unfortunately the majority of active NVIDIA installations." Continue to the release announcement for further details. LibreELEC 12 is available for Raspberry Pi, Allwinner, Rockchip, Amlogic, NXP and generic x86_64 devices, as well as an OVA image for VirtualBox.
Zephix 8
Robert Spiteri has announced a major new release of Zephix, a lightweight and fast Linux distribution, based on Debian's "Stable" branch and built for simplicity and speed. This release marks a departure from the project's modular approach with several popular desktop options; instead, Zephix 8 adopts the i3 tiling window manager as the sole desktop user interface. It is based on the recently-released Debian 13. "Zephix 8 (Zephix_8-x86_64) has been released: updated distribution principles, embracing simplicity and speed as core principles, moving away from a modular approach to deliver unparalleled performance; streamlined the user experience by adopting i3 as the sole interface, eliminating the complexity of multiple desktops; included firmware drivers to ensure seamless compatibility with a wide range of laptops; packaged essential software like GIMP, Inkscape, VLC, LibreOffice and other utilities, making the distribution ideal for daily use; revamped the official website to reflect all these changes." Visit the project's home page to read the brief release announcement.
Zephix 8 -- Running the i3 window manager
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Grml 2025.08
Grml is a bootable CD (live CD) based on Debian GNU/Linux. The project has announced the launch of Grml 2025.08 which is based on Debian 13. "This release is based on the Debian 13 Release named 'Trixie'. We use a new signing key for the deb.grml.org repositories. The grml-live build system incorporated the previously separate packages grml-autoconfig, grml-etc, grml-scripts, grml-udev-config. Boot options lang= and the grml-lang tool have been fixed. The highlight of this release is it being based on the Debian 13 trixie release. We spent most of our time on cleaning the house. Still some noteworthy changes were implemented: grml-debootstrap - wrapper around debootstrap for installing pure Debian: Drop support for Debian 10 codename Buster; Skip udevadm execution on unsupported network interfaces like bonding_masters; grml-live - build system for creating Grml (based). Linux live systems: Support building Debian forky based images; incorporate previously separate packages grml-autoconfig, grml-etc, grml-scripts, grml-udev-config; add Hungarian keyboard support, with keyboard=hu; add German neo keyboard variant, with keyboard=de-neo; new PACKAGE skip feature for package_config lists; fix lang=/keyboard= boot options; built ISOs are now reproducible." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
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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: 3,269
- Total data uploaded: 48.1TB
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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) |
Do you run Debian or a child of Debian?
This week our Feature Story talked about Debian 13, the latest stable version of this venerable distribution. Debian is not only popular on its own, it is also commonly used as a base for other projects. The Debian distribution is the parent (or grandparent) of about a third of all active Linux distributions, including popular choices like Ubuntu and Linux Mint.
We would like to hear if you run Debian or one of its many children. Let us know which one in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on distributions which offer unified package management in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you run Debian or one of its child distros?
| I run Debian: | 866 (30%) |
| I run a child of Debian: | 1373 (48%) |
| I run a Linux distro not in the Debian family: | 597 (21%) |
| I do not run Linux: | 54 (2%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to database
Asmi Linux
Asmi Linux is desktop-oriented Linux distribution with editions based on either Ubuntu or Debian. It uses a highly-customised Xfce desktop with some user-friendly touches. Some of its other features include the Calamares system installer, out-of-the-box support for several popular virtual machine managers, a load-to-RAM boot option, the latest Firefox browser, Cloudflare DNS for faster DNS lookup, and SSH multiplexing for faster SSH connections. The project also offers a commercial "Ultimate" edition with additional software and tools.
Asmi Linux 13 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 635kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Predator-OS
Predator-OS is a Debian-based Linux distribution designed for penetration testing, ethical hacking, privacy and anonymity. It features customised KDE Plasma, LXQT, MATE and LXDE desktops with tailored menus. Predator-OS has over 1,200 pre-installed tools in 40 categories; these tools have been sourced from both Debian repositories and GitHub pages. Most kernel and user configurations are customised by default to prevent hacking attempts, to restrict non-privileged access, and to reduce the chances of an attack. Additionally, numerous built-in firewalls and defensive tools enable end-users to have full control over the system. Predator-OS also supports various privacy and security tools, and it can be run as a live medium or from a USB drive, as well as in installation mode.
Predator-OS 3.5 -- Exploring the application menu
(full image size: 615kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 25 August 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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| Tip Jar |
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • 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 |
| • 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 | 
Lunar Linux
Lunar is a source based Linux distribution with a unique package management system which builds each software package, or module, for the machine it is being installed on. Though it can take a while to do a complete Lunar installation it's worth it as it tends to be quite fast, once installed! In the beginning Lunar was a fork of Sorcerer GNU Linux (SGL). The fork occurred in late January to early February of 2002 and was originally made up of a small group of people who wanted to collaboratively develop and extend the Sorcerer technology. The original name for the project was Lunar-Penguin but the group decided to re-christen it Lunar Linux while the Lunar-Penguin name has become a sort of umbrella which the team could use if they decide to collaboratively develop something besides Lunar Linux.
Status: Dormant
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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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