 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1147, 10 November 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 45th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The Fedora project is a testing ground for new technologies. People running Fedora often get to experience the latest versions of software and see previews of what will be showing up in future versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This week we take a look at the recently launched Fedora 43 and report on its new features, new installer, and updated package management. Which flavour or spin of Fedora is your favourite? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section we report on the developer of Debian's package manager planning a move to include code written in Rust. This will help secure some parts of the APT code while expanding the package manager's dependencies. We also talk about Redox OS gaining new process monitors and a ported web engine while Flatpak development resumes. Plus we report on another issue in the Ubuntu family of community editions and the Mint team working on a new troubleshooting tool for desktop users. The FreeBSD project is making progress in terms of building their operating system in a reproducible manner and we share details below. This week, in our Questions and Answers section, we talk about the size of the Linux kernel. The kernel gradually gains new drivers and features over time and we discuss if and how this growth affects performance and stability. Plus we are pleased to share the new distribution releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: Fedora 43
- News: Debian introduces Rust dependency into APT, Redox ports process monitors and web engine, Kubuntu website goes off-line, Mint introduces new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak resumes development
- Questions and answers: Size and stability of the Linux kernel
- Released last week: Devuan GNU+Linux 6.0.0, umbrelOS 1.5.0, iodeOS 6.9, Murena 3.2, PorteuX 2.4, MX Linux 25
- Torrent corner: Devuan, FreedomBox, KDE neon, TUXEDO OS
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 15.0-RC2
- Opinion poll: Favourite flavour of Fedora?
- Site news: Front page filtering options
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Fedora 43
Every six months the Fedora project publishes a new release with the latest versions of open source software the community has to offer. This Red Hat-sponsored distribution recently published version 43 with a few notable changes from the previous release.
One of the key changes in Fedora 43 is the new system installer, which debuted in Fedora 42's Workstation edition and is now available across all editions. In addition, the main Fedora editions, Workstation and KDE, have moved to Wayland-only sessions with the X11 session options dropped. Behind the scenes, Fedora 43 introduces version 6.0 of the RPM package manager. The package manager change should go unnoticed by users, but sets up improved package signing for the developers.
I decided to try the KDE flavour of Fedora as it was elevated to be on par with the Workstation edition earlier this year. The download for Fedora 43's KDE edition is 3.0GB in size. Booting from this media brings up a menu offering to boot into the live desktop or perform a self-check on the live media.
Fedora 43 -- The Plasma desktop and application menu
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Launching the live environment brings up the KDE Plasma desktop with a panel placed horizontally across the bottom of the screen. On the desktop we find a single icon for launching the project's new system installer. The panel and application menu are dark while applications use a light theme. Plasma's default wallpaper features a space theme with an image of the space shuttle launching into orbit. Once the desktop loads a welcome window appears. The welcome window offers to launch the system installer. If we ignore this offer the welcome window next provides a quick overview of KDE's desktop features and offers to enable third-party software repositories.
Once I had explored the desktop and confirmed the key elements of my system were functioning, I launched the system installer.
Installing
Once I had clicked the installer's icon nothing happened for about a minute. Then the installer's window opened and it spent another minute just sitting while text in the window told me it was "initializing".
The new installer has a blocky, flat look to it (much like openSUSE's new installer). Each screen of the process is painfully slow. Button clicks take several seconds to register and menus are slow to respond. The installer begins by asking us to select our language and keyboard layout from lists. Then we are asked to pick our timezone.
The next stage of the installer covers disk partitioning. While the installer will allow the user to select on which disk to install the distribution I could not find any way to select which partition(s) the installer should use or a way to create new partitions. The only option appears to take over the entire disk. This may be an effort to streamline the installer or a sign the new installer does not detect existing disk layouts properly. In either case it feels like a huge step backwards in terms of what the installer is capable of doing with a disk.
The next screens offer to encrypt the hard drive and ask us to make up a username and password for our user. There is a checkbox to enable a root account and set a password on it too. The installer then goes to work, very slowly copying files to the hard drive.
I was curious about this lack of performance form the new installer and did some looking into it. The new system installer uses 100% of all available CPUs the whole time it is running, even when it is sitting idly in background waiting for input. This causes my laptop fan spin up and run hard the whole time the installer is on the screen. I think the installer must have a bug in it which causes it to refresh its window constantly in an unchecked loop because the installer causes the kwin_wayland process (the window manager) to always consume all available CPU resources across all cores. Other applications, such as Dolphin, Firefox, and LibreOffice, do not have the same effect. The window manager sits near idle when those applications are open and interacting with the user. The system installer was the only application I could find which had this effect.
It seems nearly impossible that the Fedora team have made the old Anaconda installer (with its awkward disk management and its clunky hub screens) seem like a good alternative, but this new installer offers a terrible experience. Its steps are at least sequential, but the new disk partitioning options are almost non-existent and the performance is embarrassing.
Early impressions
My new copy of Fedora 43 booted to a graphical login screen where I could sign into my account to launch the Plasma desktop. This version of Fedora offers a Wayland session only, there is no longer a fallback option to run Plasma in an X11 session.
Upon signing in the welcome window appears once more and offers to show us an overview of the Plasma desktop and its elements. We are also told about key features the KDE project offers. The next screens of the welcome window offer to launch the Discover software centre and ask if we'd like to send telemetry to the developers. With these steps completed the welcome window leaves us to explore the Plasma environment.
Fedora 43 -- The KDE welcome window
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The desktop's main elements (the panel and application menu) have a dark theme while application windows themselves (the file manager, text editor, and settings panel) use a light theme by default. The appearance of all elements can be adjusted in the System Settings panel.
The application menu makes use of transparency by default. The text has a high contrast to its background and this actually works fairly well, better than transparency usually does for desktop menus.
I found Plasma was fairly responsive in my test environments. Performance was about average - good, but slightly hampered by animations when using the default settings. These effects and other performance adjustments can be managed in the settings panel.
Hardware
I tested Fedora 43 in VirtualBox and on a laptop. The distribution worked well in VirtualBox, offering a stable experience and decent performance. The same could be said of the distribution running on the laptop. I found most of my hardware worked well. Networking, audio, and my touchpad all worked as expected. My touchpad was set up to handle taps and clicks which was convenient.
Fedora 43 -- The System Settings panel
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There were a few quirks in the distribution's handling of my hardware. For example, my laptop's screen was set to a dim brightness level (17%), making it difficult to read. Usually I would use the laptop's shortcut keys (for adjusting brightness, volume, and media playing) to fix this, but they did not work. With some experimenting I found these shortcut keys would work if I held down the function (Fn) key at the same time. This behaviour is reversed in Fedora compared to every other distribution I have used.
The distribution is unusually heavy on resources. Fedora 43 used an unprecedented 2.2GB of RAM during my trial, just for logging into the Plasma desktop. This is about 30% larger than the next heaviest distribution I have ever run and about double the size of Linux Mint (running the Cinnamon desktop) and Kubuntu running the same version of Plasma. Since Fedora does not appear to offer any features above what those two distributions offer, its massive memory footprint seems like either a configuration issue or a case of the developers accidentally leaving their build system in "debug" mode". Fedora does not use a great deal of disk space though, with a fresh install using 5.4GB of space.
By default Fedora does not use any disk space for swap (either in a file or a partition), instead the distribution sets up a zRAM virtual device and compresses unused program memory inside RAM.
Software
The distribution ships with a few popular applications (such as Firefox and LibreOffice), but mostly sticks to software in the KDE family. The Dolphin file manager, KMail e-mail client, remote desktop viewer, Okular document viewer, and Gwenview image viewer all hail from the KDE community. We also find a system monitor, some games, and the KolourPaint drawing program. The Kamoso webcam manager is installed for us. I found the Dragon Player video player and the Elisa music player were installed. These players shipped with codecs for playing (most) media formats and I was able to use them to listen to music and watch videos. The video player did warn some video files might not be supported, but the videos I played worked properly.
Fedora 43 -- Using the Dolphin file manager and KWrite text editor
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In the background we find Java is installed for us. The systemd software manages services, and the distribution ships with version 6.17 of the Linux kernel.
When working from the command line, if we try to run a program which has not been installed the shell will pause. It checks to see if it can find a matching program in the repositories and then, when a match it found, it will display a prompt asking if we want to install the missing package. This process is somewhat similar to what openSUSE and Ubuntu do when a program is missing. However, Ubuntu and openSUSE display results much faster, avoiding interrupting the user's flow on the command line. Also, Fedora stops us and displays a prompt rather than just showing the command which we could run to install the missing package. This is fine when it happens once or twice, but it quickly becomes annoying as each prompt needs to be dismissed before we return to working in the shell.
Fedora 43 -- Trying a dark theme
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Package management
On the day Fedora 43 was launched I installed the distribution and soon found an icon in the system tray which indicated package updates were available. Clicking the icon launched the Discover software centre. Discover indicated it had one system update available, made up of 310 packages, which would be 2.2GB in size. Since the whole install ISO was 3.0GB in size, this would indicate a large portion of the operating system was being replaced right away on release day.
Discover reported it had successfully fetched and installed the updates and let me know I should restart the computer for the updates to be applied. This feels clumsy and out of date compared to how other distributions simply apply updates on the fly. To make matters worse, once I had restarted the computer I was using the DNF command line package manager and it reported the same 310 packages were available to be downloaded. I ran "sudo dnf update" and it successfully fetched and installed the updates (without requiring a reboot) and I was not prompted about it again.
Fedora 43 -- Fetching software with Discover
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I had this same process happen a few days later. I had fetched updates using Discover and then, following a system restart, DNF found the same updates again. I asked a peer about this experience to see if they witnessed the same behaviour. They said a special button should appear in the shutdown/restart menu to trigger the second part of the update process. Since this wasn't happening, either there is a bug or I'm "rebooting wrong". Both explanations sound like buggy behaviour to me since, again, almost every other Linux distribution handles updates without requiring a restart at all, let alone one triggered by a specific command. Another explanation I came up with was a verification key might have been missing or untrusted. At one point I had to respond to a prompt from the DNF package manager to accept a new verification key and that hadn't happened when I was using Discover, which makes me wonder if Discover could have fetched updates and then silently rejected them due to the untrusted key. I don't know for sure, but in either case fetching package updates on Fedora is not a smooth experience.
Also on the topic of software management, Fedora ships with Flatpak support enabled. We can manage Flatpak bundles from the command line or from inside the Discover software centre. By default Fedora pulls from a custom repository of Flatpak bundles which matches the distribution's licensing ideals. However, there is a button in Discover's Settings page which will grant us access to the larger and more popular Flathub repository. Discover also has options for connecting us with third-party RPM package repositories that provide Steam, NVIDIA drivers, and Google Chrome. These are not enabled by default.
Fedora 43 -- Enabling extra repositories
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Conclusions
Fedora is a testbed for trying out new technologies and an upstream development environment for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. As a result the distribution is regularly using new versions of software. This can make running Fedora a bit unpredictable because, on one hand, we are getting the latest features from upstream projects, but we are also getting the latest versions that have not yet been widely tested. Running Fedora can have some fun high points and some uncomfortable low moments.
On the positive side of things, the Plasma desktop was faster and its Wayland session was more polished on Fedora than when running Kubuntu on the same hardware. I didn't run into the issue of duplicate mouse pointers, for example, with Fedora. I like the layout of the Discover software centre. It may have had problems with providing updates, but it was able to fetch and install new packages without any issues. I also like that Discover can enable extra repositories.
While several distributions I have used this year have provided media players that struggled to play videos in a Wayland session, Fedora does not have this problem and was able to play videos right away.
There are some issues though. The slow response on the command line when trying to run a program that isn't installed (or when making a typo) interrupts my workflow. I also found DNF was slower than most other command line package managers.
Asking users to restart the computer to apply non-kernel updates feels about 30 years out of date and a painful return to Windows-style software management. Most other distributions do not do this, unless they are immutable. Fedora 43 "KDE" is not immutable, but it insists on this awkward behaviour with no benefit to the user.
The biggest problem with this release though is definitely the slow, CPU-intensive system installer. It makes the CPU run hot, even when it's idle, it has almost no disk partitioning and swap options, and it is painfully slow. I didn't think it was possible for Fedora to introduce a system installer I would like less than its previous version of Anaconda with its inconsistent menus and strange hub screens, but at least that installer had options. This installer has fewer options, it is slower, and its flat design is less attractive. I think it's nice to see Fedora return to a sequential install experience, but this feels like one step forward and three backwards.
On the whole, Fedora 43 has some good points and some problems. As usual, Fedora feels like an operating system which was assembled by separate committees who were not allowed to talk with each other. It results in some good points and some problems (as one might expect from a cutting-edge project), but it does not seem to have a consistent approach or design. It feels like a collection of beta releases, not an operating system intended to target a specific audience or solve a specific problem.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an HP DY2048CA laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 512GB solid state drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Wireless network device: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + BT Wireless network card
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Visitor supplied rating
Fedora has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.3/10 from 452 review(s).
Have you used Fedora? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Debian introduces Rust dependency into APT, Redox ports process monitors and web engine, Kubuntu website goes off-line, Mint introduces new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak resumes development
Debian developer Julian Klode has announced intentions to introduce Rust language dependencies into the APT package manager. Since APT is a central tool of the Debian distribution this raises a challenge for ports of the distribution which run on less popular CPU architectures where Rust does not yet exist. "I plan to introduce hard Rust dependencies and Rust code into APT, no earlier than May 2026. This extends at first to the Rust compiler and standard library, and the Sequoia ecosystem. In particular, our code to parse .deb, .ar, .tar, and the HTTP signature verification code would strongly benefit from memory safe languages and a stronger approach to unit testing. If you maintain a port without a working Rust toolchain, please ensure it has one within the next 6 months, or sunset the port." In particular it has been pointed out Rust does not run on the alpha, hppa, m68k, and
sh4 ports of Debian.
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The Redox team are making progress with their Unix-like, open source operating system. The project's October newsletter mentions multiple new programs which have been ported to Redox OS, including "htop", "bottom", and the Servo web rendering software. "Wildan Mubarok successfully launched Servo after some effort to fix bugs and add missing functionality. Thanks also to Jeremy Soller, Andrzej J. Skalski, and other contributors that helped move it forward. Unfortunately, it crashes if a second website is loaded and it doesn't respond to keyboard input yet. We hope to make more progress in the near future." Details on these ports and new features can be found in the project's newsletter.
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The past month has been a difficult one for people in the Ubuntu community. When Ubuntu 25.10 was released Flatpak bundles failed to work, or even install, on the distribution. Then it was revealed the Xubuntu website had been hacked and download links replaced with links to malware. Then it was discovered Ubuntu's new, Rust-based coreutils were missing functionality and blocking automatic updates. The latest issue comes from Kubuntu where a problem with the website's security certificate knocked the project off-line temporarily. The issue appears to have come about because the expiry date for the certificate was the same as the date it was created. The website administrator has been contacted and the community is awaiting a replacement certificate at the time of writing. Update: The Kubuntu website is back on-line.
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The Linux Mint team have published their monthly newsletter for October which reminds users that Linux Mint Debian Edition 6 will reach the end of its supported life on January 1st, 2026. The newsletter also mentions new troubleshooting tools are being created to help Mint users gather information and get help with problems. "The 'System Reports' tool was given a plethora of new features and it was rebranded as 'System Information'. In addition to its 'System Information', 'System Reports' and 'Crash Reports' pages, the tool received 4 new pages to show you more information and help you troubleshoot common issues." Details and screenshots are provided in the October newsletter.
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The FreeBSD Foundation has announced improvements to the operating system's build infrastructure. The new improvements allow FreeBSD to be built without administrator access on the build system. The FreeBSD Foundation has also reported progress in making reproducible builds: "Removing the need for root privileges in the build pipeline has reduced the attack surface and potential for privilege escalation. It enables safer and more flexible build environments, both for official infrastructure and for community contributors. In parallel with the no-root work, FreeBSD has introduced several changes to improve build reproducibility - ensuring that identical source inputs always produce identical binary outputs, byte-for-byte. These changes span the operating system itself, the release tooling, and the build process."
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Back in May 2025 the OSNews website ran a story in which it was pointed out Flatpak development had largely come to a halt. This left Flatpak developers with a lot of issues to address without many people working on the big ticket items: "Flatpak still uses PulseAudio instead of PipeWire, which means that if a Flatpak applications needs permission to play audio, it also automatically gets permission to use the microphone. NVIDIA drivers also pose a big problem, network namespacing in Flatpak is 'kind of ugly', you can't specify backwards-compatible permissions, and tons more problems. There's a lot of ideas and proposed solutions, but nobody to implement them, leaving Flatpak stagnated."
The good news, for Flatpak fans, is the project is now working on these problems. The Linuxiac website reports: "In his latest blog post titled Flatpak Happenings, Wick acknowledged that Flatpak had reached a stagnant phase earlier in 2025, with development slowing and open contributions piling up. Fortunately, development has now restarted thanks to renewed efforts from long-time contributors along with new maintainers stepping up to review and merge code more actively. Now, the project has been reorganized, streamlined its review process, and reestablished an active development rhythm." The report also mentions Flatpak's sparse documentation is being improved.
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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) |
Size and stability of the Linux kernel
Size-goes-before-the-fall asks: So I've heard that there is a bug in something like every ten lines of code written. If that's true then won't Linux get less stable as it gets bigger? How big can the kernel get before it's got more holes than Swiss cheese?
DistroWatch answers: Humans are imperfect and developers write code which contains mistakes. Sometimes these mistakes are minor typos, other times they are faulty assumptions, and sometimes they are memory vulnerabilities which could cause instability in a program.
Depending on who you ask, the average number of bugs in a given number of lines of new code can vary quite a bit. Depending on the source of the statistics, I've encountered numbers ranging as high as one bug per ten lines of new code (1:10) to as low as one bug for every two thousand lines (1:2000). The number tends to vary depending on the organization, the coding language being used, and whether the code is in its development phase or in production. In other words, code being written the first time will have more bugs than code which has been peer reviewed and has some tests run on it to find common mistakes.
Regardless of the exact ratio, there is some truth to the idea that for every N number of new lines of code written, there will eventually be some bugs.
Next, let's look at the Linux kernel. The Linux kernel reached approximately 40 million lines of source code (40,000,000) earlier this year. This is double the size of Linux's code from ten years ago when it passed the 20 million lines of code milestone.
If we go back and look at our earlier statistics for bugs-to-lines ratio, that would mean the kernel contains anywhere from 20,000 to 4,000,000 errors, right? Well, fortunately, no, this is not the case. There are several reasons why the kernel doesn't leak errors like a rusty sieve. Code entering into the kernel goes through a review process. One person writes the new code, a tool or two check it for common problems, another person who is experienced in maintaining that part of the kernel reviews the code, and then it gets passed up the chain. By the time the new code lands in a kernel release that you or I are going to run on our computers at home or at work, it has passed through multiple reviews.
Another big factor to consider is that a large portion of the kernel's new code is in optional modules. A lot of the new development which ends up in the kernel's source code is for hardware drivers or other optional components which are only loaded into memory as needed. This means there may be thousands of drivers supported in the kernel's source code, but only the handful you need to run your own equipment are actually being run on your computer. It doesn't matter (from your point of view) how many bugs are in new drivers which don't run on your machine. Those modules aren't loaded into memory and so won't affect your machine's stability or security.
One more aspect of code development to consider is that there may be 1 bug in every N lines of code when writing new functionality, but those bugs can be found and fixed over time. Over the months and years a significant number of problems are found and fixed. Unless you are running a cutting-edge distribution, chances are new kernel code will be running in the real world, getting tested and fixed, for months before it lands on your computer. This means even when a bug makes it into a published kernel, it is often found and fixed before it reaches the desktops and servers of most people running Linux distributions.
Going back to the original question - yes there are often bugs in new code as it gets written. However, the reason every large software project isn't a terribly flawed mess is that code doesn't stay "new". It gets reviewed, it gets tested, it gets patched, it gets battle tested in the world, and it is refined over time.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Devuan GNU+Linux 6.0.0
Devuan GNU+Linux 6.0.0, code name "Excalibur", has been released. This latest version of the project's systemd-free Linux distribution forked from Debian in 2015 is based on Debian 13: "It is with great pleasure that the Devuan developers hereby announce the release of Devuan Excalibur 6.0 as the project's newest stable release. This is the result of lots of painstaking work by the team and extensive testing by the wider Devuan community. New in this release: a [merged-/usr]filesystem is obligatory, if you are upgrading from 'Daedalus' ensure you have complied with this requirement before upgrading; PipeWire audio - in general (with the notable exception of users requiring a screen reader for graphical login), the PipeWire media server is a superior solution to PulseAudio, in particular it has fewer latency issues; non-free firmware - all Devuan 6 installation media make non-free firmware packages available at install time, in the majority of the cases, these packages are needed (and will be installed) only if your hardware (usually WiFi adapter) requires them." See the brief release announcements and the detailed release notes for further information.
Devuan GNU+Linux 6.0.0 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 142kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
umbrelOS 1.5.0
Umbrel, Inc. has announced the release of umbrelOS 1.5.0, the latest version of the company's Debian-based Linux distribution for home servers, available for standard 64-bit and Raspberry Pi computers. The distribution features a web-based user interface and an online app store with a large range of applications - anything from web hosting, productivity and finance to media streaming, networking, automation, artificial intelligence, development and Bitcoin mining. Version 1.5.0 delivers a number of improvements: "umbrelOS 1.5 brings automatic encrypted backups, Rewind in Files, network drive mounts, external USB storage and formatting support on amd64 devices, GPU acceleration for apps, and several performance improvements and bug fixes. New features: backups - umbrelOS can now automatically back up all of your files, apps and data to another Umbrel or a NAS on your network, or an external USB drive; Rewind in Files - time travel through your backups to restore specific files and folders from any point in the past; network mounts in Files - mount network drives and shares, like another Umbrel or a NAS, and browse them directly within Files...." Read the release notes on the project's GitHub pages for further details.
iodeOS 6.9
The iodeOS team have announced the availability of iodeOS 6.9. The new version focuses on security and user accounts, enabling auomatic reboot after a period of inactivity, full signing out of user accounts, and better protection of device settings. "Full Logout for Secondary Users: Secondary users can now be fully logged out of the device, rather than just switching accounts. This ensures a cleaner separation of user environments and better privacy for everyone sharing the device. Also included in iodéOS 4 and later versions. Private Space and Work Profiles for Secondary Users: Secondary users can now use Private Space and Work Profiles, allowing them to leverage apps like Shelter for better data isolation. This is ideal for families or teams who need to keep personal and work data separate, even on shared devices. Work Profiles also included in iodéOS 5.App links (deep links) let apps open specific URLs directly instead of defaulting to the browser. With iodéOS 6.9, apps can now automatically validate these links if configured, eliminating the need for manual approval and making the experience smoother and more efficient." The project's release announcement has further details.
Murena 3.2
The Murena team have announced a new version of their /e/OS operating system for mobile devices. The new 3.2 version features notifications when apps are leaking data and customization options for the side button on the Fairphone 6. There are also improvements to the project's software centre: "In Advanced Privacy, users are now informed in real time when apps attempt to leak data, with simple controls to manage notifications. The App Lounge has also been refined: app sizes from F-Droid are now displayed, and common apps are shown based on region for a better browsing experience. For Fairphone (Gen.6) users, /e/OS 3.2 introduces customization of the side button, allowing you to assign your preferred actions. While the dedicated Moments feature from Android is not yet available, this new customization gives you more flexibility in how you use the button. A major improvement has been implemented to the Fairphone (Gen.6). Fairphone Camera app is now available on /e/OS, enjoy an even better camera experience on your phone." Additional details are offered in the project's newsletter and in the release notes.
PorteuX 2.4
The PorteuX development team has release PorteuX 2.4, the latest version of the project's set of lightweight and stripped-down Linux distribution featuring a number of popular desktop environments. This release presents a new desktop option, the COSMIC desktop developed by System 76: "This release brings the COSMIC desktop environment for 'current'. Bear in mind it's still in beta, so expect many issues, including cosmic-osd running at full CPU load (already reported). This is the last PorteuX release that will include a version based on Slackware stable. After much consideration, we decided that this version is just too old and brings no advantage over the current version, which is extensively tested before each PorteuX release. Changes: fixed date/time during boot time; fixed cheatcode from using UUID not having a trailing slash; fixed Cinnamon rendering in Wayland; fixed cropped title bar in Xfce; fixed small title bar icons in Openbox...." See the changelog for a complete list of changes and bug fixes.
MX Linux 25
The MX Linux team have announced version 25 of their distribution is now available. MX Linux 25 is based on Debian 13 "Trixie". The release announcement shares key new features: "MX-25 is now available for use. MX-25 is built from Debian 13 Trixie and MX repositories. All releases come with systemd. The Xfce, Xfce-AHS, and Fluxbox releases are also available in sysVint variants. sysvVinit ISOs are clearly labeled such in the file name. Reasons for this change from past editions are in this blog post. Major Desktop versions: Xfce 4.20, Fluxbox 1.3.7, KDE/Plasma 6.3.6 Most ISOs come with the latest 6.12.48 kernel from the debian stable repositories. The Xfce AHS variants have 6.16 Liquorix kernels. The antiX live system has been modified to work better with systemd as the init system. To those that want to run live systems as a primary system, the sysVinit versions better support the antiX live system. The Qt based gui MX Tools have been migrated to Qt 6. Most apps have also received bug fixes and translation updates. Our long time updater tool, apt-notifier, has been replaced with a new tool, mx-updater. Functionally they are very similar, but under the hood there are some additional tricks and preference options, including the ability to use nala as the backend rather than APT."
MX Linux 25 -- Running the Xfce desktop
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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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) |
Favourite flavour of Fedora?
This week's Feature Story talked about Fedora, a cutting-edge distribution which is sponsored by Red Hat. Fedora is available in many flavours, including two main desktop editions (Workstation and KDE), a Server edition, several atomic editions, and many community spins. Which one of these is your favourite?
You can see the results of our previous poll on preferred methods to manage a server in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Which flavour of Fedora is your favourite?
| Cloud: | 3 (0%) |
| CoreOS: | 11 (1%) |
| IoT: | 5 (0%) |
| KDE: | 391 (36%) |
| Server: | 12 (1%) |
| Silverblue/Kinoite/Sway Atomic: | 122 (11%) |
| Workstation: | 314 (29%) |
| One of the spins: | 215 (20%) |
| One of the labs: | 13 (1%) |
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| Website News |
Front page filtering options
When DistroWatch got started, over 20 years ago, the website tracked just a handful of Linux distributions. These Linux distributions might run on desktops or on servers, but there was a small selection. As such, if you visited our front page some of the few search/filtering options were to display announcements for "Development" releases or "Stable" releases.
Over time, the site added new categories of open source software operating systems. Members of the BSD and OpenSolaris communities were added to our database, along with Haiku and MINIX. In the past decade we have also started posting announcement for some open source mobile operating systems. The announcement database has grown to over 12,000 announcements and filtering these are beyond the capability of a simple Stable/Development toggle.
With this in mind we have adjusted the filters at the top of the front page announcements. Now, under the Releases drop-down menu, our readers can select from a wider range of announcement categories. The new collection of categories are as follows:
- All - display all announcements and newsletters
- Stable Linux - all stable releases of standard desktop/server Linux distributions
- Weekly - see past issues of our newsletter
- Development - all development releases (alpha, beta, and release candidates)
- BSD - all stable releases from the BSD communities
- Mobile - all stable mobile releases
- Other OS - any open source operating system not covered by the above options
We hope these new filters will help our visitors more easily find the new items which interest them.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 17 November 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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If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • 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 |
| • 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 | 
OPNsense
OPNsense is a FreeBSD-based specialist operating system (and a fork of pfSense) designed for firewalls and routers. It is developed by Deciso B.V. in the Netherlands. Some of the features of OPNsense include forward caching proxy, traffic shaping, intrusion detection, two-factor authentication and easy OpenVPN client setup. The project's focus on security brings a number of unique features, such as the option to use LibreSSL instead of OpenSSL (selectable in the GUI). OPNsense also includes an update mechanism that delivers important security updates in a timely fashion.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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