 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 823, 15 July 2019 |
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Welcome to this year's 28th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Last week the Debian project released a new version of its distribution, Debian 10 "Buster". The new version, which was accompanied by a new update of the project's GNU/Hurd port, introduces some new changes, including running GNOME on Wayland sessions by default and enabling AppArmor for increased security. We begin this week with first impressions of Debian 10 in our Feature Story. In our News section we link to an interview with Will Cooke in which he talks about Ubuntu, GNOME, Wayland and the future of Ubuntu's Desktop edition. We also talk about Fedora removing optional Snap support from GNOME Software and Red Hat's sale to IBM finalizing. Then we share tips on how to check for 32-bit packages on a Linux distribution in our Questions and Answers column. We are also pleased to share the releases of the past week and link to the torrents we are seeding. Our Opinion Poll this week asks whether our readers use do-it-yourself firewalls or routers and, if so, what type of equipment is used. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Debian 10 "Buster"
- News: Will Cooke discusses Ubuntu's desktop plans, Fedora to remove Snap support from GNOME Software, Red Hat's sale to IBM finalized
- Questions and answers: Checking for 32-bit applications on the operating system
- Released last week: FreeBSD 11.3, Tails 3.15, Clonezilla 2.6.2-15
- Torrent corner: Alpine, ArchBang, Berry, BunsenLabs, Clonezilla, Debian Edu, Endless, Feren, FreeBSD, KDE neon, RancherOS, Raspbian, Septor, Sparky, Tails, Trident
- Upcoming releases: Q4OS 3.8
- Opinion poll: DIY routers and firewalls
- New distributions: EndeavourOS, Forensic Hard Copy
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Debian 10 "Buster"
Debian is one of the world's oldest Linux distributions and, in terms of the number of developers involved, also one of the largest. Around 1,300 contributors worked on Debian 10, which was released on July 6th.
Debian 10 offers package upgrades across the entire operating system, but the main changes for this release include enabling AppArmor by default and running GNOME Shell on Wayland. (GNOME running on X.Org is available as an alternative desktop session.) The project's release announcement also mentions nftables can be used to manage the operating system's firewall and Secure Boot is enabled for some architectures. This version of Debian will receive a total of five years of support, thanks to the project's long-term support team.
The new version of Debian, codenamed "Buster", runs on over half a dozen CPU architectures and is available in net-install, full DVD install, and seven live desktop editions. This gives users many install options and avenues for trying the distribution. Though not mentioned in the distribution's release announcement Debian's media does not include non-free firmware which is often required to connect with wireless networks. People who need wireless networking have the option of downloading unofficial live images with non-free firmware.
Some more experimental users may be interested in knowing that Debian not only has a Linux flavour, but also offers builds with alternative kernels. The Debian GNU/Hurd team published new install media alongside the main Linux editions.
I ended up downloading the DVD install media, which is 3.6GB in size. I also downloaded the official live GNOME edition which is 2.3GB. My observations in this review come from installing and running Debian based on the install DVD media, unless otherwise specified.
Debian 10 -- Running GNOME Shell
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Installing
Booting from the install DVD brings up a menu which asks if we would like to launch a text-based installer or the project's graphical installer. I opted for the graphical path, though traditionally both installers walk us through the same steps. A series of screens then appeared and guided me through picking a preferred language, selecting my country from a list, picking a keyboard layout, setting a hostname, and making up a root password. There is an option, disabled by default, which allows us to see the password we are typing.
We are then asked to make up a username and password for a regular user and select our time zone from a list. Partitioning comes next and I find Debian's partition editing a bit cumbersome. There are more screens to navigate and more options we can adjust compared to other distributions. This gives the user more flexibility over simplicity. Debian supports setting up and working with ext2/3/4, Btrfs, XFS, JFS and LVM volumes. I decided to use Btrfs to see if it would work with system snapshots the way some Ubuntu-based distributions do.
The installer then copies packages it needs for the base system, which takes a few minutes. When it is done we are given the choice of installing local packages from the DVD or using a network mirror. Then we are asked whether we wish to participate in reporting which packages we use to let the developers know what is popular. The next screen gives us the chance to install optional items, including a desktop (GNOME, MATE, Plasma, Cinnamon, Xfce, LXDE, and LXQt are available). I opted to install GNOME (Debian's default desktop) and MATE since my recent experiments with GNOME have not gone well and I wanted a backup option. I was then asked if I wanted to use LightDM or GDM as the session manager. I went with LightDM and was told I could adjust this or change login screen settings by editing scripts in the /etc/init.d/ directory. We are given the choice of enabling some services, such as a print server and secure shell (OpenSSH). Then we are asked where we would like to install the GRUB boot loader. The installer finished its work successfully and rebooted the computer.
For the most part Debian's installer feels the same now as it did for Debian 9, Debian 8, Debian 7, and so on. Not much has changed on the surface, other than the previous reddish-pink progress bars and highlights that appeared over white backgrounds have been replaced by blue highlights over a grey/creamy background. It's a small change, but I find it looks nicer.
Early impressions
The first time I booted Debian 10, the AppArmor service got stuck for a while, increasing my boot time by about ten seconds. During the remainder of the week all services started and stopped quickly and the boot process was fast. The distribution boots to a graphical login screen where we can sign in with one of the following session options: GNOME, GNOME, GNOME Classic, GNOME on Xorg, and MATE. (The GNOME on Wayland session is listed twice.) Debian ships with version 3.30 of the GNOME desktop.
Debian 10 -- Running Firefox on GNOME Shell
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For the most part, I used GNOME Classic during my trial, but I did occasionally use the GNOME Shell session too. Both desktops use an unusually light theme and my screen, with a terminal open, was sometimes almost entirely white - a sharp contrast from the common trend these days of defaulting to darker themes. The theme can be adjusted, if we wish, in the Tweaks tool, which I will talk about later.
GNOME Shell presents us with a mostly empty desktop with a panel and the Activities menu at the top of the screen. The Activities menu can present us with a full screen grid of icons to launch applications. The GNOME Classic session uses a two-pane layout with the menus and system tray at the top and the task switcher at the bottom of the display. The Classic desktop uses a tree-style menu that takes up a small corner of the upper-left corner of the desktop.
Debian 10 -- Debian's default light theme
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Hardware
I ran into a few problems when running Debian on my workstation. The first was that, when booting from the live desktop disc, the distribution could not launch a graphical interface when loading in UEFI mode. I could boot to a text console, but the operating system could not display a desktop or launch an X.Org session. When booting from legacy BIOS mode, Debian's live disc booted into the GNOME desktop and ran smoothly. Another issue I ran into was that Debian's official media could not detect and use my wireless card due to missing firmware. This can be fixed by using the unofficial media or installing Debian and grabbing the necessary firmware from off-line media.
Once these problems were overcome, Debian ran well on my workstation. GNOME Shell and GNOME Classic functioned well, the operating system booted quickly and hardware (apart from my early issue the wireless card) all worked properly.
I had similar success with running Debian in a VirtualBox instance. Debian automatically integrates with VirtualBox and can dynamically resize its desktop. What surprised me the most during my trial was both GNOME desktops performed very well and were responsive. My recent trials with GNOME on Fedora and Ubuntu offered passable performance on physical hardware and awful performance when running in VirtualBox. Debian's GNOME was not only much faster, it also required less memory to run. GNOME Shell memory usage varied a lot, starting at 724MB when I first logged in and eventually settling down at 590MB. GNOME Classic used 526MB of RAM and stayed consistent. With both GNOME and MATE installed, a fresh install used 4.9GB of disk space.
Applications
Buster does not ship with a lot of applications out of the box. We are provided with some standard items, such as the Firefox web browser, the Evolution e-mail client, and LibreOffice. The GNOME Files file manager, a calendar application, an application for checking local weather, and GNOME Maps are included too. The Transmission bittorrent software is installed by default, along with a document viewer, the Shotwell photo manager and the GNU Image Manipulation Program.
Debian ships with the Totem video player, Rhythmbox and the Cheese webcam utility. Media codecs were included for playing most audio and video formats, including MP3. Debian uses Network Manager to connect to networks, systemd as its default init software and runs on version 4.19 of the Linux kernel.
Generally speaking, the software included in Debian worked well for me. I am not a big fan of Totem's interface and ended up swapping it for VLC. I noticed when I first started using Firefox, a message would be displayed warning me the browser was out of date. Buster ships with Firefox 60 ESR, which (despite being about a year old) was the latest ESR version at the time Buster was released, so it appeared Firefox's warning was incorrect. However, later in the week Mozilla published Firefox 68.0 ESR which will presumably be made available or backported for Debian users.
While not necessarily a problem where Firefox is concerned, since the browser offers extended support options, running older versions of software is something Debian users need to be comfortable doing. I tended to find applications in Debian 10 were around six months to a year old. Bug fixes are often applied to Debian packages to keep users secure, but new versions with new features are typically not available unless we enable a backports repository or install software from a third-party.
Settings
During my trial I had access to two settings panels. The GNOME Settings panel provides access to many aspects of the system, including setting up on-line accounts, adjusting power and sleep settings, setting up network connections, and customizing the Activities search results. Apart from adjusting the wallpaper, the GNOME Settings panel does not deal much with the appearance of the desktop; it handles more of the underlying mechanics and options rather than the look of things.
Debian 10 -- The GNOME Settings panel
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To adjust the visual aspects of the desktop we can use a tool called Tweaks. The Tweaks utility can adjust the theme, fonts, window button placement and other visual components of the desktop. Both settings panels worked well for me and I encountered no issues while using either of them.
Debian 10 -- Adjusting the look of GNOME Classic
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Software management
When installing Debian from the DVD where packages are provided by local media, the local disc is kept in the distribution's list of package sources. In fact, most other potential sources for packages are disabled. This means the first thing people installing from the DVD will need to do is edit APT's list of repositories and sources. The bad news is the system does not really make it clear that Debian does this and it will look like the package manager is simply unable to contact repositories. The good news is enabling on-line repositories can be done through the Synaptic package manager with a few clicks.
Luckily I've installed Debian frequently over the years and know to enable repositories right away, but new users are likely to be caught unaware as Debian is one of the only open source operating systems to short-circuit its package manager this way post-install.
Buster offers several ways to handle software. Debian's classic Synaptic package manager is included. Synaptic offers a handful of filtering options and displays packages (and search results) in a simple list of names and versions. We can click a box next to package names to mark the software for installation or removal. Synaptic also handles upgrading packages and can enable optional repositories. Synaptic may not be pretty or modern in its style, but it works and performs quickly.
GNOME Software was the other graphical software manager I found on the system. This utility provides a more modern interface where we can browse through categories of applications and click a program's icon to see a full page description with a screenshot of the program in action. While GNOME Software does have a pleasantly modern look and makes it easy to browse types of applications, I did run into some quirks while using it.
Debian 10 -- Browsing applications in GNOME Software
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For instance, sometimes there are multiple versions of a package listed. Software listed two instances of the GNU Image Manipulation Program. Both had the same version, the same source, same statistics and both were listed as being installed, but the two entries had entirely different descriptions. At first I thought one might be a Flatpak, but Flatpak support is not installed on Debian out of the box.
At one point I was installing a new package using Software and the process locked up, stuck at 0% completion. I clicked the software centre's Cancel button and the action appeared to stop. After that, I was unable to install any new packages for a while. I discovered that GNOME Software had not canceled its earlier install cleanly and there were bits of packages caught in limbo. I had to make a trip to the command line and use the low-level dpkg package manager to clean up the mess before I could install any new programs. Later on, I did use GNOME Software again to install some packages and grab updates. These processes worked, but always ran very slowly compared to using Synaptic or APT from the command line.
While Flatpak and Snap support are not installed by default, these portable package formats are available in Debian's repositories. I installed Flatpak and used it enough to confirm it works to install and run portable packages listed on Flathub.
Debian 10 -- Installing a Flatpak package
(full image size: 178kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Other observations
I made a few other observations while running Debian 10. One is that, unlike many other mainstream Linux distributions, Debian does not enable sudo by default. We can use su to gain admin access, or manually configure sudo to work with our user account.
I was happy to find that when the OpenSSH service was enabled, it blocked remote root logins. I feel this is a good default to have and I'm pleased this configuration is becoming more common. Blocking root logins used to be one of the first tasks I would perform after setting up a system and I like that it is now done for me on most distributions.
The most common complaint I keep seeing about Debian 10 in user-supplied reviews and on forums is that wireless connections do not work. This is because people are downloading the official ISO files which do not include non-free firmware, meaning most wireless cards will not work. While Debian offers unofficial media with the non-free firmware, which would enable wi-fi to work, the unofficial media is hard to find and it's not clear from the download page that it even exists or why people would need to use it. This separation of free and non-free firmware media is not even mentioned in the release announcement. Which means a lot of people are giving up on using Debian from a combination of the free firmware only policy and unclear documentation.
Earlier I mentioned installing Buster on a Btrfs volume. My hope was that I could use Btrfs along with a tool such as Timeshift to take snapshots of the operating system, offering a level of protection against broken updates or configuration mistakes. I found Timeshift does not work with Debian's default Btrfs configuration the way it automatically does on Ubuntu-based distributions. An administrator could make adjustments to get Timeshift working with Debian's Btrfs layout, but it would take manual work
Conclusions
Debian has a well earned reputation for stability and performance. The distribution starts up quickly, its GNOME implementation runs circles around GNOME on most other mainstream distributions on my system, and Debian offers a relatively small disk and memory footprint. The software which ships by default was reliable during my trial and worked as expected. Just these points on their own would make me consider Debian a solid choice as a desktop or server operating system.
There are some other strong points in Debian's favour. The project describes itself as "the universal operating system" with good reason. Debian runs on many hardware architectures, offers lots of desktop options, and ships with a massive amount of software packages. Debian can work with portable package formats, multiple kernel types, and is small enough to work in many different environments. It is amazingly flexible.
There are some negative trade-offs to balance Debian's stability and flexibility. One is that packages in Debian's Stable branch are often quite old compared to the same software in other distributions. Virtually every package will be at least six months old at release time, some are a year old, and I found at least one package that was a year and a half old on launch day. For people who want to stay on the cutting edge, Debian's Stable releases are not ideal.
To me, Debian also feels like it lacks a coordinated design. Some distributions integrate their pieces, have a shared look, or a particular focus. Debian does the opposite, providing a amazing range of options, packages, and tools, but doing so in a way which feels vanilla. It's the difference between having a model car and having a box of Lego bricks - one has a clear design, but that is all it is good for while the other leaves the design up to the owner while being more flexible. Put another way, Debian doesn't try to be great at any one thing, but provides a good starting point for many roles.
One the whole, I was happy with Debian 10. It has some rough edges, particularly with GNOME Software and the lack of non-free firmware. Or, more specifically, with how hidden the non-free firmware installation media is. However, the performance, range of software, CPU support and low resource usage make this release feel really good. I wouldn't recommend Debian to a Linux newcomer, the operating system does not do any hand holding and expects some degree of comfort with working with Linux, but for intermediate and experienced users I think Debian is an excellent choice.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card, Ralink RT5390R PCIe Wireless card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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Visitor supplied rating
Debian has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.6/10 from 525 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) |
Will Cooke discusses Ubuntu's desktop plans, Fedora to remove Snap support from GNOME Software, Red Hat's sale to IBM finalized
TechRepublic has published an interview with Will Cooke, the Director of Engineering for Ubuntu Desktop. Cooke was asked about Ubuntu's plans for 32-bit support, the distribution's relationship with the GNOME desktop, and the move to running GNOME on a Wayland session. When asked about when Ubuntu would switch to using Wayland as the default desktop session Cooke indicated it is still a few versions away: "I can tell you it won't be for 20.04. We're too close to the release now. We're only one cycle away from the release. The cycle before the LTS release is a final fit-and-finish. We should be going into that cycle, which starts in October this year, with these decisions already made. So we haven't got time, in six months, to debug and fully test a change to the display server. In order to try and get it in for the next LTS - Ubuntu 22.04 - we will be moving pretty quickly to get Wayland as the default again and shake the rest of the bugs out. So I think we'll see it move in 20.10, and then we'll have to see how that goes, and then we'll make a decision from there." TechRepublic's website has the rest of the interview.
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It would appear the next version of Fedora, Fedora 31, will be disabling optional Snap portable package support in GNOME Software. The move follows reports that Ubuntu will be making its own graphical Snap store application and will no longer rely on GNOME Software to display and distribute Snap packages. "In Fedora 31 I'll be disabling the snap plugin from GNOME Software. It's never been enabled in RHEL and so this change only affects Fedora. It's also not installed by default and so this change should only affect a few people. It's also not really a FutureFeature, it's a RemovalOfFeature but I'm happy to write something for the process and release notes if required. Recently Canonical decided that they are not going to be installing gnome-software in the next LTS, preferring instead to ship a 'Snap Store by Canonical' rather than GNOME Software. The new Snap store will obviously not support Flatpaks (or packages, or even firmware updates for that matter)." A more detailed overview on the proposed change is presented in Richard Hughes' mailing list post.
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Late last year we reported that Red Hat was in the process of being purchased by IBM. Red Hat has now confirmed that the sale has concluded. "IBM and Red Hat announced today that they have closed the transaction under which IBM acquired all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Red Hat for $190.00 per share in cash, representing a total equity value of approximately $34 billion."
Matthew Miller of the Fedora project published a post on Fedora Magazine in which he states the acquisition will have no impact on the development of Fedora. "Today marks a new day in the 26-year history of Red Hat. IBM has finalized its acquisition of Red Hat, which will operate as a distinct unit within IBM. What does this mean for Red Hat's participation in the Fedora Project? In short, nothing."
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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) |
Checking for 32-bit applications on the operating system
Looking-for-32-bit-programs asks: With all the talk about Ubuntu and other distros dropping 32-bit support, how can I tell if my system uses any 32-bit apps? I don't think I use any, but how do I make sure?
DistroWatch answers: First, I'd like to point out that while there has been some concern over exactly when and how Ubuntu plans to phase out 32-bit support, the current plan makes it sound like 32-bit package support will continue at least through to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. This means you will be able to run 32-bit applications on Ubuntu, and most of its derivative distributions, through to around 2025. In short: if you are still using 32-bit programs, don't panic, they will continue to work for at least another six years.
As to how you can tell if there are any 32-bit programs being used on your system, I feel there are two approaches to take with this. One is to check for running 32-bit applications. In other words, to see if a program you are running at this moment is 32-bit. The other, better option is to look for any and all programs on your system which use 32-bit packages.
On members of the Debian and Ubuntu families of distributions you can check to see if a 32-bit program is running by looking for open 32-bit library files. The lsof command checks for open files and lists them. The grep command then checks to see if they look like 32-bit libraries. As an example, the following command tells me if I am presently running any programs linked to 32-bit libraries:
lsof | grep i386-linux-gnu && echo "Found 32-bit library in use" || echo "No 32-bit library in use"
While this can be useful for testing a specific application, or group of applications, you have running at a given time, a better solution is to look for any 32-bit packages installed on your system. This can be done on Debian, Ubuntu or a related distribution by running:
dpkg -l | grep "^ii" | grep ":i386" && echo "Found 32-bit packages" || echo "Did not find 32-bit packages"
The above command works by examining the names of all packages installed on the system and looking for ones marked with the "i386" suffix. This suffix is used when installing 32-bit software on a 64-bit system.
For people running members of the Arch Linux family of distributions, you can perform a similar check. The following line should list any programs installed with multilib support, indicating they are probably 32-bit:
pacman -Sl multilib | grep -F '[installed]'
On distributions in the Fedora and Mageia families of projects, or any others running the RPM package manager, the following command will check for 32-bit software and display any 32-bit packages it finds:
rpm -qa --queryformat '%{NAME} %{ARCH}\n' | grep 'i[3456]86'
Typically 32-bit software is only used on otherwise 64-bit operating systems when running games, Windows applications through WINE, and emulators. There are some exceptions, but chances are you will only need 32-bit library support if you run programs in one of those three categories.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Debian Edu/Skolelinux 10
Wolfgang Schweer has announced the release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux 10, a major new version of the project's Debian-based specialist distribution designed for educational institutions, computer labs and school networks: "The Debian Edu developer team is happy to announce Debian Edu 10 Buster, the Debian Edu / Skolelinux release based on the Debian 10 Buster release. New features: official Debian installation images are now available; site-specific modular installation is possible; additional meta-packages grouping educational packages by school level are provided; improved desktop localization for all languages Debian supports; tool available to ease setting up site specific multi-language support; GOsa-Plugin password management has been added; improved TLS/SSL support inside the internal network; the Kerberos setup supports NFS and SSH services; a tool to re-generate the LDAP database is available; X2Go server is installed on all systems with the LTSP-Server profile." Read the full release announcement for further information.
Debian Edu/Skolelinux 10 -- Running the Xfce desktop
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FreeBSD 11.3
The FreeBSD team has announced the launch of an update to the operating system's 11.x series: FreeBSD 11.3. The new version updates build and compiler tools, upgrades the package manager, improves jail logging messages, and updates the KDE Plasma and GNOME desktops. "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 11.3-RELEASE. This is the fourth release of the stable/11 branch. Some of the highlights: The clang, llvm, lld, lldb, and compiler-rt utilities as well as libc++ have been updated to upstream version 8.0.0. The ELF Tool Chain has been updated to version r3614. OpenSSL has been updated to version 1.0.2s. The ZFS filesystem has been updated to implement parallel mounting. The loader(8) has been updated to extend geli(8) support to all architectures. The pkg(8) utility has been updated to version 1.10.5. The KDE desktop environment has been updated to version 5.15.3. The GNOME desktop environment has been updated to version 3.28. Further details can be found in the release announcement and in the release notes.
Tails 3.15
It's time for another update to Tails (The Amnesic Incognito Live System), a Debian-based live DVD/USB image with the goal of providing complete Internet anonymity for the user. Version 3.15 ships with updated Tor Browser and Thunderbird, and it also fixes several bugs: "Tails 3.15 is out. This release fixes many security vulnerabilities. You should upgrade as soon as possible. Changes and upgrades: update Tor Browser to 8.5.4; update Thunderbird to 60.7.2. Fixed problems: fix Tails failing to start a second time on some computers; display an error message in the Unlock VeraCrypt Volumes utility when closing a volume fails because the volume is being used; fix starting Tails through the Heads boot firmware. Known issues: none specific to this release. To upgrade your Tails USB stick and keep your persistent storage: automatic upgrades are available from 3.13, 3.13.1, 3.13.2, 3.14, 3.14.1, and 3.14.2 to 3.15; iff you cannot do an automatic upgrade or if Tails fails to start after an automatic upgrade, please try to do a manual upgrade. What's coming up? Tails 3.16 is scheduled for September 3." Here is the complete release announcement.
Clonezilla Live 2.6.2-15
Steven Shiau has announced the release of Clonezilla Live 2.6.2-15, the latest stable build of the project's specialist Debian-based live image featuring Clonezilla, a partition and disk imaging/cloning application: "This release of Clonezilla Live includes major enhancements and bug fixes: the underlying GNU/Linux operating system has been upgraded, this release is based on the Debian Sid repository as of 2019-07-07; Linux kernel has been updated to 4.19.37; live-config has been updated to 5.20190519; make sure label will have one name only in update-efi-nvram boot entry; improve the mechanism to update UEFI nvram boot entry - it's the same way as boot-local-efi.cfg; default to run ocs-update-initrd for the restored OS when running ocs-sr - this helps to make initramfs work for different hardware, especially the GNU/Linux distributions which use dracut, e.g. CentOS; language files have been updated; the boot menu has been sorted - KMS with large font (for HiDPI monitors) is now at 1st level with hotkey 'l'; two more menus were added in uEFI boot menu - uEFI firmware setup and Clonezilla Live version info." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details.
Feren OS 2019.07
Feren OS is a desktop Linux distribution based on Linux Mint's main edition. The project has published a new quarterly snapshot which introduces new themes, a new icon set, and a new splash screen at boot time. On a more technical note, this snapshot fixes an issue with repository signing keys: "Unfortunately, another smaller change had to be made to all the ISOs in this snapshot, due to a mess up on my part with deleting the original package signing keys for the Feren OS repositories by accident. The old signing keys had to be replaced with new ones, and so current users ended up getting 'NO_PUBKEY' errors on APT Package List Updates. While the ISOs for the previous snapshot were updated first to include the new signing keys out of the box, this snapshot is technically the first snapshot to do so too. If you're suffering from that issue, go here to get instructions on how to fix it." A complete list of changes can be found in the project's release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 1,503
- Total data uploaded: 26.6TB
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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) |
DIY routers and firewalls
A do-it-yourself (DIY) router is a computer that someone has set up to act as their network's router or firewall. These homemade routers often run an open source operating system such as IPFire or OpenBSD and can use VPN clients, firewall rules, and proxy software to provide a custom experience in the home or office.
This week we are curious to know if our readers use DIY routers and, if so, how that came about.
You can see the results of our previous poll on Mageia and OpenMandriva in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
Distributions added to waiting list
- EndeavourOS. EndeavourOS is an Arch Linux-based project which features a live desktop environment and off-line installer to get the distribution up and running.
- Forensic Hard Copy. Forensic Hard Copy (FHC) is a live Linux distribution used for making copies of storage media for forensic investigation or data recovery.
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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, 22 July 2019. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. 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)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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1 • DIY Router (by Ken on 2019-07-15 00:33:00 GMT from United States)
Around 5ish years ago I bought an ASRock ITX mainboard with an AMD 5350 and 4GB, used a 2nd network card I had lying around and an old 80GB HDD, put on IPFire and haven't looked back. It's been great with expansive features. I'd recommend anyone capable of building their own in some way, great way to learn and keep control of your network. DIY Routers need some more attention since they have been so great to me.
2 • Debian and Newness of Packages (by User on 2019-07-15 01:12:18 GMT from United States)
I don't think it's fair to repeatedly criticize Debian for having older versions of programs in a review without even mentioning the easy option of enabling the Testing repositories. Although Testing is not officially recommended, it is more stable in my experience than the stable branches of other distros. I have run it as my daily machine for all my professional needs without any problems at all for over a year now.
I also think the warnings away from Debian for newcomers are overstated---there are a few hurdles to overcome (like learning how to edit sources.list and enabling encrypted DVD support), but these are relatively easy to do with hundreds of internet sites guiding the way (HUGE user base), and after that it is smooth sailing and just as easy to maintain as any other distro.
The lack of explanation of how to get non-free components is a serious flaw that will confuse newcomers, and could be fixed with a simple pop-up on first startup explaining why Debian only endorses free software and how to enable the non-free repository.
3 • Debian (by Jon Wright on 2019-07-15 01:15:33 GMT from Moldova, Republic of)
Debian review much appreciated. I think I'll install, might even try GNOME.
I like how you go into the history and the metrics around the project - Debian distinguishes itself here, along with the excellent infrastructure. I think you should give an outline like this for all distros you review. BTW a shame Debian isn't reproducible yet, but they're certainly trying.
4 • poll (by MikeOh Shark on 2019-07-15 01:18:58 GMT from Netherlands)
I don't run a separate machine as firewall but I do run iptables and have all Internet facing apps in their own firejails. My router keeps me fairly secure and I rarely take my laptop to other networks but it's good to practice with iptables and I will be ready if I decide to go outside of my network.
IPFire is interesting but I don't see a need at this time.
5 • Debian (by Carlos Felipe on 2019-07-15 02:09:21 GMT from Brazil)
Every day is easier to install and use Debian, but the option auto login (calamares) doesn't work. I would see a tool to config lightdm and set auto login graphically.
6 • DIY router (by greenpossum on 2019-07-15 04:19:56 GMT from Australia)
Do you consider an off the shelf router flashed with DD-WRT a DIY router? I used to have an ancient PC running IPCop (so long ago I had to look up the name) but decided I couldn't justify the power consumption and space so went with an embedded solution which does all I need.
7 • Debian multimedia (by eco2geek on 2019-07-15 04:25:18 GMT from Romania)
Given Debian's emphasis on free software, new users of Debian might wonder if there's a site which provides non-free multimedia codecs and applications. The answer is yes, it's at
https://deb-multimedia.org/
and has been updated for Buster. The site explains how to enable the repository and how to add the keyring.
8 • Debian 10 non-free (by corcaigher on 2019-07-15 05:02:01 GMT from United States)
"People who need wireless networking have the option of downloading unofficial live images with non-free firmware." Well I tried the non-free version, it did not help. Still had no access to wi-fi services using either the internal broadcom, or an edimax usb with rtl8812 support. And there is no easy way to communicate problems back to the development team, especially at debian! I don't know about anyone else but I am no longer willing jump through hoops to get peripherals working with new linux releases. It is bizarre the steps required to get those cards working. You really need to know what you are doing before delving into compiling drivers. I have technical knowledge and have compiled code in the past. More often than not I have encountered dependency issues which cannot be resolved. This is very frustrating and off-putting.
The broadcom issue has been allowed to continue for far too long. I can understand the edimax not working out of box as it is a relatively new device. These types of issues are what holds linux back. Warn users before they waste their time and effort, especially when the distro doesn't mention third-party or non-free drivers and software which may be required.
I have been using linux for over 15 years, relying on linux mint for the last 10 years. But linux mint dropped support for kde with verson 19. I really do not care for the gnome, cinnamon, mate, xfce desktops.
That's my gripe, pardon my ranting.
9 • Debian auto login (by Bob on 2019-07-15 05:02:41 GMT from United States)
@5 I just installed 10 xfce and had this same problem and fixed it. You have to edit the lightdm.conf:
autologin-user=YOURUSERNAME
autologin-user-timeout=0
autologin-session=DESKTOP_SESSION
For more details, do a web search for: debian set auto login
10 • "Debian is one of the world's oldest Linux distributions ... " (by Greg Zeng on 2019-07-15 05:39:16 GMT from Australia)
This week's Debian review has aroused so much debate already. Like RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux), Debian must retain its freedom from unusual copyright software, including the binary bits that can easily create international legal trouble.
Both bare bones foundation operating systems are used as the source for many derivative operating systems. According to Distrowatch's search database, the derived systems are the 129 Debian-based and another 6 Red Hat based. There are about 252 "living" Linux operating systems, so about half of them are based on the three Debian operating systems (Stable, Testing & Unstable). The RPM-based operating systems are far bigger than the Distrowatch data-base search engine shows, but that is another topic.
This week's review starts with:
> "Debian is one of the world's oldest Linux distributions ... ".
Of the "living" operating systems, we should be able to be more definite on the oldest, and the order that follows. Debate on this (with url references) should be done by Wikipedia editors, where I have recently resumed that debating editorial role. The Linux from scratch (CLI source code compilation) should be the oldest. The GUI installation (Graphical User Interface), running & administration means no more need for RTFM (read the flaming manual) rudeness.
These WIMP interfaces (Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointers) allows users to concentrate on the application, instead of the operating system. When Linux finally stays GUI, instead of CLI, then Linux will be able to move into the user friendliness valued by Apple & Microsoft Windows. WIMP was a Xerox PARC invention, which both Apple & Windows "borrowed".
GUI is now under continuous re-definition. It now includes historical and anticipated AI (artificial intelligence). User biofeedback sensors are now included into this AI, such as the bluetooth Fitbit-type of sensors.
Apple & Windows are trying to include these re-definitions of GUI. Debian and its team of official & unofficial developers have yet to try these new definitions of GUI.
11 • Installing Debian (by debiangamer on 2019-07-15 05:46:59 GMT from Finland)
Use Debian testing/Sid to have fresh versions of software. Stability of the stable version is a myth, years old software do have many bugs and you can break the stable version with testing, Sid and experimental packages that you can use with the testing/Sid version.
https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
You can find link to the firmware files from the above link too.
Use the Padoka mesa master ppa bionic version for latest open source graphics drivers, google ppas in Debian. Use a custom non debug 1000Hz timer kernel to speed up your system, google
Installing Debian testing Xfce and Amdgpu drivers
12 • Debian 10 (by Roy on 2019-07-15 05:57:49 GMT from United States)
Awesome! Does anyone remember Utnubu? Ubuntu sending back to Debian. I think there was some of that going on with regards to Buster. I downloaded the 2.3 GB version of Gnome, too. Then noticed you mentioning there was a Classic, too. That last UbuntuMate 19.04 seemed so different and more like Gnome 3.0 that I wonder what Debian MATE might look like. I liked the picture portion of Gnome Classic that you showed. I didn't notice Synaptic in Graphics & Photography in Gnome 3.30. I like the extra kernel that is normal for Ubuntu. In Software and Updates it lets do the extra stuff and even development for future updates. Yup. I think Utnubu is still alive.
13 • "in terms of the number of developers involved, also one of the largest" (by Greg Zeng on 2019-07-15 06:35:56 GMT from Australia)
As the Distrowatch search engine shows: there are about 252 "living" Linux operating systems, so about half of them are based on the three Debian operating systems (Stable, Testing & Unstable).
The three official Debian engines have a large number of officially recognised coders. The other teams of coding developers for the Debian engine comes from those 120+ operating systems based on Debian. Some of these Debian-based coding teams are very large. The biggest teams are probably Ubuntu, then Mint. Each team is further grouped into Desktop Environments (DE).
These Debian-based coding teams have created many Linux innovations. But all Linux teams still retain their fear of being too friendly of the WIMP interface (windows, icons, menus, pointer) pioneered by Xerox. All these fearful Linux development teams are so code-focused (alphanumerics) that they have yet to use the new biometric definitions of GUI.
These new GUI definitions include Fitbit-type of sensors, AI sensors, etc. Android is the only open source version of Linux that might be able to eventually be added to mainstream Linux.
It is not the NUMBERS of coding engineers that counts, nor the UNIFICATION of code of these large numbers. This INFRASTRUCTURE UNIFICATION allows enormous productivity gains shown in the workings of "The Linux Foundation" (TLF). TLF is creating so many updates of the Linux kernel that the rest of the Linux world cannot keep pace. Open source Android operating systems have given up trying to use the productivity gains of TLF.
The missing third link is QUALITY of the coding teams. These alpha-numeric coding teams are shy of GUI. Current coders fear both the old & the new bio-metric definitions of GUI.
The biometrics of humans is a newly emerged science. Apple, Android & Windows-10 are now starting these development teams. Linux has yet to follow these biometric leaders. Eventually the science of human biometrics should be evolved enough to create another technology, another ISO standard. After these definitions are created, they will later then become obligatory for all "operating systems", for both digital and analog computers.
14 • DIY Router (by Marc on 2019-07-15 07:46:36 GMT from Australia)
Back in the day I ran smoothwall on an old pc, well before the new roadster builds.
Last few years I have just plugged my modem into the wall to keep number of pcs down and mrs happy lol
15 • @8 (by Microlinux on 2019-07-15 08:16:44 GMT from France)
You might want to give OpenSUSE Leap 15.1 a spin. OpenSUSE has one of the nicest and cleanest KDE implementations I've ever seen. The SUSE company has been around since 1992, so there's quite some experience under the hood. I've been a Linux user since Slackware 7.1, and I don't understand why so many major players - Fedora, Red Hat, Debian - favor GNOME over KDE.
16 • feren os (by debian user on 2019-07-15 09:44:40 GMT from Netherlands)
Feren OS is based on Mint.
Mint is based on Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is based on Debian.
Is there an os based on Feren OS????????
17 • FerenOS (by Saleem Khan on 2019-07-15 10:54:20 GMT from Pakistan)
@16 yes there is one mentioned on sourceforge called Ferient OS !
18 • Semi-DIY Routers (by cpoakes on 2019-07-15 10:55:13 GMT from United States)
I have two requirements for a router: it must 1) consume a minimum amount of power, and 2) be quiet. I run off-the-shelf router hardware with alternative firmware like dd-wrt or openwrt. This semi-DIY linux solution leverages inexpensive low-power quiet hardware. While I like repurposing old PC equipment, the power requirements and fan noise are unwanted and unnecessary. A fanless SBC solution could meet my requirements but a hell of a lot of routers are basically single board solutions. And they come with extra ports already installed with a nice housing. You'd be hard pressed to find things you can do with a headless PC or SBC running a standard distro that you cannot do with openwrt.
19 • Debian (by Jim on 2019-07-15 11:13:31 GMT from United States)
I am a pretty causal computer user and I have had not had problems installing and using Debian. I just plug my laptop into the router on a wire to download and install my Broadcomm and Qualcom drivers. Then use the Internet for tutorials on giving my user sudo privileges, and adding the non-free and contrib repositories. I am guessing if I can do it, you can too. Usually each new release will be followed by Linux tech sites having tutorials something like "10 Things To Do After Installing Debian 10 Buster".
20 • Debian and non-free (by Jeff on 2019-07-15 11:32:14 GMT from United States)
Why Debian (and so many others) makes using non-free hardware so hard is because their origins are from academic intellectuals who work for governments or private universities.
They have financial backing using other people's money to buy whatever hardware will work for the project, they submit a purchase order and it 'magically' appears.
The elitist mindset many of them have is another contributing factor.
They have no understanding of or sympathy for those out in the real world who due to budget limitations are struggling to repurpose hardware that they already own which was built with other systems in mind.
I do not expect this to change.
21 • How to see Debian (by Gerhard Goetzhaber on 2019-07-15 12:17:17 GMT from Austria)
The true role of "Debian GNU Linux" is acting as a reliable base environment for child distributions to be made upon. As it seems to me this is also the intent of Debian's maintainers as it makes clear the relatively poor furnishing of all editions delivered by themselves.
Experienced Linux users will never run into severe issues when going to enhance a stable Debian due to individual needs. Newcomers and less patient people should select e.g. Sparkylinux (very close to Debian itself and holding a quite engaged team of developers) or pick any flavour out of the crowd of Ubuntus and Ubuntoids wherein Linuxmint with it's recent beta appears being about to win the cup again.
However, as I (as already mentioned in this forum ago) often work with bleeding edge distros thus recognizing the problems and risks within them very well I must also state that Debian's stable editions - and sometimes them ONLY - should be recognized and highly regarded as an island of stability in the riled sea of Linux distros ...
22 • DebIan and non-Freed (usually proprietary) firmware (by Somewhat Reticent on 2019-07-15 12:20:46 GMT from United States)
The Debian approach to coping with exceptions to Freed Open-Source is far kinder and gentler than most Freed Open-Source distros. A little too easy, really.
Shopping for hardware that works with Freed Open-Source software and conforms to standards can be quite eye-opening, Most hardware vendors, even those who advertise Linux or BSD compatibility, suffer from the popular delusion that proprietary is somehow better.
23 • Debian review (by Jordan on 2019-07-15 12:33:38 GMT from United States)
The negative things experienced with Debian (10, 9, et al) are in my opinion the reason for so many distros based on it. Countless projects out there begin with some version of Debian and weed out the reported issues, create a steady feel across the whole experience, polish it up and voila, another of dozens of Debian children (siblings, etc).
Not to mention having non-free software right there in the iso or available via repo.
24 • Deabian 10 (by Fabio on 2019-07-15 13:25:16 GMT from Italy)
I use debian in my laptop and professional workstations starting from version 6. I have always found it very stable and reliable at least in my field of interest related to scientific field. Clearly Debian has a lot of idiosyncrasies like the one that forbid to insert non-free packages in the installation ISO. This has caused many problems and delays also to me in some cases, but can be easily overcome preparing a USB stick with the firmware-nonfree packages. This is a case in which strict rigidity coincide with "stupidity". Another problem is, by using gnome3, the strong customization that is needed to make the machine usable (with the help of the extensions and tweak tools). After it is necessary to change the icon theme (i use the papirus one) and few other aestetics because Debian does not take care of these things contrary to other distributions. But finally once you have worked for few days to these little things and few bugs, Debian gives you a solid and nice system to be used for years.
25 • @9 Debian auto login (by Carlos Felipe on 2019-07-15 13:46:04 GMT from Brazil)
Yeah, we need edit the lightdm.conf, but we are in 2019. During 25 months the debian team haven't time to developed a simple tool. I didn't like so much try MX Linux, but they care make a functional (not beautiful) distro. That's my gripe, pardon my ranting (x2).
26 • Debian package versions (by Jesse on 2019-07-15 14:23:42 GMT from Canada)
@2: "I don't think it's fair to repeatedly criticize Debian for having older versions of programs in a review without even mentioning the easy option of enabling the Testing repositories. Although Testing is not officially recommended, it is more stable in my experience than the stable branches of other distros."
There are three reasons why I would not recommend enabling Testing repositories on a new copy of Debian Stable.
1. It is not supported. If you are running Debian Stable in the first place, chances are you want predictability, support and stability. You'd be sacrificing some of these by enabling the Testing repos.
2. If you need newer versions of applications Debian supports Flatpak and Snap. This allows you to get newer versions of software without running mixed repositories. I mentioned this in the review.
3. Enabling Testing right after a new Stable release won't do anything to help you. The versions of packages in Testing are the same as in Stable when the new release comes out. The packages will remain mostly the same in both repositories for a few weeks to a month or so until new packages trickle in from Sid. This means that if I really need a new version of LibreOffice or Falkon or VLC, that enabling Testing won't help at ll for probably a month or more. Eventually new packages will show up in Testing, but it's not a solution that will work right after a new Debian release. This is why people should use portable packages instead.
27 • Debian and non-free packages (by Bobbie Sellers on 2019-07-15 15:06:07 GMT from United States)
Hi,
Well someone remarks above about the problems with inserting non-free
packages in the Debian disks but this has been done,,,
<https://cdimage.debian.org/images/unofficial/non-free/images-including-firmware/10.0.0-live+nonfree/amd64/iso-hybrid/>
Some other LUG members had to tell me about it.
bliss -- still on PCLinuxOS64 2019.?
28 • Debian wireless (by bison on 2019-07-15 15:58:29 GMT from United States)
> People who need wireless networking have the option of downloading unofficial live images with non-free firmware.
I didn't know this and tried the official image a few days ago. I had to manually configure the network, which I thought was odd, but the wireless worked after that... until I rebooted. I had to reconfigure the network on each reboot. The system would retain some information of previous network interfaces, but they would not work. So after 3 reboots I had 3 non-functioning interfaces. I decided it wasn't worth the trouble at this point, but I may try a unofficial image in the future.
29 • @8, @15 - KDE (by asKme on 2019-07-15 18:09:49 GMT from United States)
Try Mageia 7. Lovely all around.
30 • Debian auto login (by Bob on 2019-07-15 18:49:31 GMT from United States)
@25 "That's my gripe, pardon my ranting (x2)" Hey, that's OK. This is a good place to rant. :)
My thoughts are: It's Linux, it's FREE, NONE of them are perfect, and I accept the fact that sometimes I'm going to have to tweak something behind the curtain to make it better for ME. ;)
31 • @28 - Some words about free and non-free, to you as having written from U.S. (by Gerhard Goetzhaber on 2019-07-15 19:15:35 GMT from Austria)
You and some others should learn to understand that all internal discussion around software as well as belonging to hardware requiring it as somewhat drivers originates from U.S. and U.S. law! However, it's not law itself causing problems herein but the common understanding of those rules by many U.S.' people nearly as much as by corporations holding any principal residence inside U.S. (as among other providers of officially free software is Debian : ):
Whenever a guy or even a small businessman outside U.S. strongly needs some special piece of software he will pick it the cheapest way! Within doing like this, he recognizes but at least does not respect legal restrictions the same way or in same sense a U.S. citizen or even U.S. enterprises do. All along he would convincedly reject any calling him a crimininal or somebody alike!
So please, think for yourself if you might not possibly better think as self-understandably the major part of people all around the world prefer to do ... ; ))
32 • DIY Router (by Semiarticulate on 2019-07-15 19:24:33 GMT from United States)
I tend to re-purpose an old Dell Optiplex for this task. They are cheap to get and have more resources than you will ever need. Add an ethernet card, install your router OS of choice and you'll never look back.
33 • @20 No, the reason there is no free software in Debian by default is not elitism (by Truls Rote on 2019-07-15 19:31:33 GMT from Norway)
The many developers involved in Debian comes from many different walks of life. Many of them are employed by Debian down-stream projects like Ubuntu, others are volunteers and your assumption that most work at government institutions is just plain false. Even if it were correct, your idea that if you work at a government institution, you can pick your hardware as you want is not necessarily true. Your elitism criticism seems to imply an anti-elitism elitism on your part in my opinion.
The reason to not include non-free software by default is that Debian is a distro that cares about the freedom of its users. With non-free software, you have no idea what the software does, and neither do anyone else, even if the binaries are distributable. In addidion, no one are able to modify the software for their own needs and contribute back to the project for everyone else to share the modifications. Closed source software is just a bad model of development that Debian is philosophically against.
At the same time, Debian has enough of a practical approach that the non-free software is easily available in the contrib and non-free repos unlike some distros like Trisquel or Parabola that is Free Software Foundation-recommended. I think this is a good compromise that gives the people that do not care about their freedom the choice to use non-free software if they really want to, but at the same time means that unless you actively opt in to these repos, Debian is free software only by default. In an ideal world, we would not need non-free drivers for commodity hardware, but since the world has yet to understand the importance of free software (although open source is coming along well and is a good first step in the right direction), sometimes we have to compromise to get our hardware to work and then Debian helps us out by having the contrib and non-free repos. It is not easy for a Linux newcomer from Windows or macOS, but it makes a lot of sense.
34 • Re: Debian and non-free (by DifferentJeff on 2019-07-15 20:21:34 GMT from United States)
@20 Wow. As someone who's submitted purchase orders while working at academic, government, private business, and public business, I've *never* had anything 'magically' appear. It was a fight everywhere. I've used re-purposed hardware everywhere, including when I worked at university. Disclosure: I never tried to re-purpose the VAX, though.
35 • Not Supportable, Not Official (by Somewhat Reticent on 2019-07-15 22:46:42 GMT from United States)
DebIan cannot support proprietary software; only the "proprietor" can.
That should be understandable: they don't make most hardware.
Some of us prefer to keep such things on as short a leash as possible.
Case-by-case - not wholesale - with access to further explanation/information.
36 • Endeavour to persevere! (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2019-07-15 23:06:42 GMT from United States)
The ambition to provide a better, less abrasive educational experience to those who want to learn the Arch way is most commendable.
…
Back in the day, the Full Manual was a large 3-ring binder; pages relevant to an update would supplement (or, for the lazy, replace) prior-version pages.
This only worked when all systems were essentially on the same version.
…
In time, Hypertext aimed to provide a better way to access version-specific details.
Unfortunately, multiplication of layers, languages, versions and varieties of software today makes proper maintenance of such a Full Manual highly challenging.
The sad truth is that the Full Manual no longer exists.
"Go Fish" only leads to further confusion.
There is no Full (HTML) Manual that covers all versions of all varieties of software and hardware.
37 • Do it yourself router (by GreginNC on 2019-07-16 00:42:04 GMT from United States)
I answered the pol with "repurposed an old PC to be a router".
Although I currently use an off the shelf router, around 3 years ago I set up PFSense on an old pc and used it for a router for just short of a year. I found it had more range than the retail routers I had used before and performed as well in every way I could tell with the benefit of an unbelievable number of utilities available to extend functionality.
I went back to the old table top router for one reason only, I didn't really have the room for a third PC in the room where I wanted it setup.
38 • FerenOS (by Roy on 2019-07-16 09:04:36 GMT from United States)
It didn't take me long to switch from Debian 10 to FerenOS. I like the better options in Power settings. The UEFI for my Intel with micro code I have now. I can get used to Cinnamon but would rather more Panel options as I would like to have it on top. It has Synaptic and an older kernel. I think it is cool.
39 • Debian install DVD in /etc/sources.lst (by Alexandru on 2019-07-16 11:08:39 GMT from Romania)
"When installing Debian from the DVD where packages are provided by local media, the local disc is kept in the distribution's list of package sources."
Each and every time new Debian version is released I hear this argument.
Please, open https://www.debian.org/ page and look at the upper-left corner. You will see "Download Debian 10.0" button, which points to netinstall image of 160 MB. THIS is the DEFAULT way to install Debian. If you install it using THIS way, your /etc/sources.lst will contain ONLY http sources and NO iso.
Please, explain why do you expect to download 3.6 GB iso full of Debian packages and install from it only to ignore all these packages immediately after installation? Why you consider THIS is more logical than your complain?
40 • @26 - Debian Testing support (by Alexandru on 2019-07-16 11:12:52 GMT from Romania)
"There are three reasons why I would not recommend enabling Testing repositories on a new copy of Debian Stable.
1. It is not supported. If you are running Debian Stable in the first place, chances are you want predictability, support and stability. You'd be sacrificing some of these by enabling the Testing repos."
Debian Testing has perfectly the same level of security support and updates as Debian Stable. Actually, Debian Testing is what other distributions call "Release", "Stable".
41 • Debian 10 (by Rick on 2019-07-16 11:35:19 GMT from United States)
I am pleasantly surprised using Debian 10. I downloaded and installed the non-free firmware version with the MATE desktop. WiFi works flawlessly. Shutdown time is about 3-4 seconds which is absolutely amazing. It also runs faster than Debian 9 and finally has a useable update manager which tells me when and what updates are available. This was a real sticking point in past releases and prevented me from using Debian as a daily driver. To me, older software doesn't matter. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Overall, 5 of 5 stars for Debian 10!
42 • @38 Cinnamon flipped. (by Angel on 2019-07-16 12:24:55 GMT from Philippines)
I don't see your problem. I used Cinnamon for years with the panel on top and a dock at the bottom.
43 • Installing Debian (by Jesse on 2019-07-16 13:58:06 GMT from Canada)
@39:
A couple of points: 1. The download button for Debian is in the upper-right corner of the site, not left.
2. You mentioned reading my complaint about Debian's default APT sources before. If you've read my other reviews before in which I pointed out the APT sources issues then you've also read my reasoning for not using net-install media. In short, it's incredibly inefficient when performing multiple installs, there is a greater risk of the install failing due to network problems, and it's far too slow on many people's Internet connections making it a poor default route.
3. Lots of other distributions offer net-install and local install media. None of them (with the possible exception of the way OpenBSD handles package mirrors) have this issue with missing package mirrors following a fresh install.There is no reason Debian can't set up their network mirrors in APT's configuration like every other Deb-based distribution.
4. Your argument seems to be that people should expect package management to be broken, unless they use the default install media. This does not make any sense to me. Package management should work with any of the official install media, just like it does on every other Linux distribution.
44 • @43 - Debian package mirrors (by Andy Prough on 2019-07-16 16:42:27 GMT from United States)
> 3. Lots of other distributions offer net-install and local install media. None of them (with the possible exception of the way OpenBSD handles package mirrors) have this issue with missing package mirrors following a fresh install.There is no reason Debian can't set up their network mirrors in APT's configuration like every other Deb-based distribution.
In my experience the ISO install only behaves this way if you do not connect to a network during installation. In that event, it assumes that you will be using the DVD image as your repository. Probably once you do connect to a network post-install, apt should offer to set up mirrors automatically.
But, in the end, if you can't figure out how to set up a mirror (or set up sudo, or get codecs), should you really be using Debian anyway? Probably better in that case to use a distro that's a lot more newbie friendly.
45 • Debian and APT mirrors (by Jesse on 2019-07-16 16:53:51 GMT from Canada)
@44: "In my experience the ISO install only behaves this way if you do not connect to a network during installation. In that event, it assumes that you will be using the DVD image as your repository. Probably once you do connect to a network post-install, apt should offer to set up mirrors automatically."
Neither of those assumptions is true. If you use network mirrors using the DVD install, the DVD stays in place post-install, short circuiting APT's downloads. APT does not fix this post-install automatically as you suggest.
46 • @45 Debian and APT mirrors (by Andy Prough on 2019-07-16 18:50:45 GMT from United States)
> Neither of those assumptions is true. If you use network mirrors using the DVD install, the DVD stays in place post-install, short circuiting APT's downloads. APT does not fix this post-install automatically as you suggest.
Not for me, but I was using a Debian Buster RC1 ISO and it was several weeks ago. I very clearly signed into my wifi network with a DVD ISO install, and the apt mirrors were set up and working at the end of the installation process. I will reinstall with the latest Buster release to double check how the official release ISO is working. When it asked you if you wanted to check for updates during the installation, did you tell it yes or no? Maybe this needs a bug report if it's misbehaving like you say.
47 • @29 Mageia (by Titus_Groan on 2019-07-16 19:12:13 GMT from New Zealand)
I see that they have released a new set of install media in response to AMD Ryzen : no boot issue.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ryzen-3700x-3900x-linux&num=1
seems to be a fast response for a community distro.
48 • Debian APT repositories (by Jesse on 2019-07-16 20:18:39 GMT from Canada)
@46: "When it asked you if you wanted to check for updates during the installation, did you tell it yes or no? Maybe this needs a bug report if it's misbehaving like you say."
Whenever I install Debian for a review I do it both ways, the results are the same either way. It has been this way since at least Debian 6. (You can see the same findings in my earlier reviews of the distro.) The funny thing is, I mention this in most of my reviews and someone always assumes it is because of the network-update question. I've brought it up multiple times with Debian developers, but they don't see it as an issue.
49 • Sudo (by Brian on 2019-07-16 23:07:16 GMT from United States)
sudo is installed and configured, if, during install, you create a user account, but do not set a root password; that user will have admin privileges through sudo.
I didn't see this documented, and didn't realize it was the case until someone in a Debian IRC chatroom mentioned it; I'd previously configured it after installation.
Debian's installer does seem rather backwards. I find the disk partitioning, in particular, is frustrating.
50 • Buster seems great (by Tim on 2019-07-17 01:36:37 GMT from United States)
It's good to see this mostly positive review of Debian Buster. My experience has been the same: some roughness to set up, but it's performed amazingly well ever since it was set up.
Every release of Debian or Ubuntu is a roll of the dice for every individual user. When was it frozen from sid, what versions of the packages that I personally use made it in, etc. So far, buster seems to have packages that I could see staying comfortable with for the life of the distribution.
I wanted to address one point that keeps being brought up- testing is NOT the other distro's stable. If it has never given you problems, that's great, but testing is a rolling distro where major systemwide changes eventually get pushed. Some of these changes break systems (like mine when fglrx was dropped.) The point of testing is to test, and such big issues can happen when major changes in packages are incorporated.
51 • Ferient OS, a "joke" OS (SourceForge) (by Greg Zeng on 2019-07-17 02:08:57 GMT from Australia)
There are many ego-only Linux operating systems. According to the SourceForge site:
> "'Feren OS is ****'? Time to fix that."
> " ... we worked together to make a Feren OS that is designed just for English Bob, the main cause of the whole 'it is ****' joke,"
Distrowatch has some Linux & BSD systems not yet listed. These may be on the waiting list, or may not yet be recognised by Distrowatch. This "joke" OS is available as a beta release only; not yet as a final release.
Most new operating systems are beta releases, although the supplier might package it as a final release. After the first installation of the new system, it usually needs an on-line update. This update repairs any older breakages & updates the operating system to its newest format, as designed by the supplier.
52 • No 32-bit package in my Debian installation (by arijit on 2019-07-17 04:21:23 GMT from United States)
I might be one of few minorities, but I don't think I'll be impacted with losing 32-bit support in Debian or Fedora. I don't use Ubuntu.
I have a latest Debian 10 installation with all day to day applications. I ran both the commands as given above.
$ lsof | grep i386-linux-gnu && echo "Found 32-bit library in use" || echo "No 32-bit library in use"
No 32-bit library in use
$ dpkg -l | grep "^ii" | grep ":i386" && echo "Found 32-bit packages" || echo "Did not find 32-bit packages"
Did not find 32-bit packages
That's a surprisingly 100% 64-bit system I have. I didn't know!
53 • @43 Installing Debian (by Alexandru on 2019-07-17 14:59:11 GMT from Romania)
"1. The download button for Debian is in the upper-right corner of the site, not left."
- Agree, my fail. Still, you usually perform installation of distributions in the way recommended by that distribution.
2. You mentioned reading my complaint about Debian's default APT sources before. If you've read my other reviews before in which I pointed out the APT sources issues then you've also read my reasoning for not using net-install media. In short, it's incredibly inefficient when performing multiple installs, there is a greater risk of the install failing due to network problems, and it's far too slow on many people's Internet connections making it a poor default route.
- In this case (poor network connection) there is even more reasons to keep DVD in resources list instead of dropping it. More than that, Debian is one of very few distributions that can be installed and used completely offline (without security updates, which is irrelevant in this scenario), and keeping the installation DVDs in sources list is crucial to achieve this.
3. Lots of other distributions offer net-install and local install media. None of them (with the possible exception of the way OpenBSD handles package mirrors) have this issue with missing package mirrors following a fresh install.There is no reason Debian can't set up their network mirrors in APT's configuration like every other Deb-based distribution.
-I am not sure I fully understand your point. Debian offers a good default mirror depending on location, but also lets user to choose a mirror from a large and officially curated list of mirrors.
4. Your argument seems to be that people should expect package management to be broken, unless they use the default install media. This does not make any sense to me. Package management should work with any of the official install media, just like it does on every other Linux distribution.
- No, my point is not that people should expect package management to be broken. My point is that the expectation of what is expected and what seems to be broken is different for different people, and Debian way seems more logical to me than your suggestion.
54 • @51 Re: Ferient OS, a "joke" OS (by Rev_Don on 2019-07-17 20:12:29 GMT from United States)
"There are many ego-only Linux operating systems. According to the SourceForge site:
> "'Feren OS is ****'? Time to fix that."
> " ... we worked together to make a Feren OS that is designed just for English Bob, the main cause of the whole 'it is ****' joke,"
I don't find any comments even remotely like the above on SourceForge. Care to provide specific links and more detailed location for them? Otherwise we can only assume they don't actually exist.
55 • @54, Ferient (by Angel on 2019-07-17 23:25:55 GMT from Philippines)
Google search, first result.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ferient-os/
56 • @55. Re: Ferient (by Rev_Don on 2019-07-18 02:34:50 GMT from United States)
Thank you. My problem was I was looking at Feron, not Ferient.
57 • @42 (by Roy on 2019-07-18 05:44:32 GMT from United States)
You are right. It can be adjusted.
58 • DIY Router / Firewall (by Simon Plaistowe on 2019-07-19 00:02:28 GMT from New Zealand)
I've been procrastinating on installing a firewall for ages, so when my old router died a few months ago I grabbed an old PC from my graveyard, slapped a second LAN card in and tried out a few distros.
Connection to our ONT requires VLAN/DHCP. I was impressed with the ease of configuring VLAN support on OPNsense and did run that for a few weeks. Eventually settled on IPFire for it's ease of configuring/monitoring several services I wanted, although the VLAN was a little harder to configure (had to use terminal to get it working).
With a WLAN access point on the LAN side, it's so much faster & more reliable than the old router. Definitely recommended if you have a crappy unreliable router supplied by your ISP. Also opens the way to better security and a bunch of other fun things to try. Speed up those horrific Windows updates, automagically kick the kids off the internet after bedtime, remotely log into your LAN, run a simple NFS or Samba server, set up a TOR relay, etc.
Number of Comments: 58
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| Archives |
| • Issue 823 (2019-07-15): Debian 10, finding 32-bit packages on a 64-bit system, Will Cooke discusses Ubuntu's desktop, IBM finalizes purchase of Red Hat |
| • Issue 822 (2019-07-08): Mageia 7, running development branches of distros, Mint team considers Snap, UBports to address Google account access |
| • Issue 821 (2019-07-01): OpenMandriva 4.0, Ubuntu's plan for 32-bit packages, Fedora Workstation improvements, DragonFly BSD's smaller kernel memory |
| • Issue 820 (2019-06-24): Clear Linux and Guix System 1.0.1, running Android applications using Anbox, Zorin partners with Star Labs, Red Hat explains networking bug, Ubuntu considers no longer updating 32-bit packages |
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| • Issue 818 (2019-06-10): openSUSE 15.1, improving boot times, FreeBSD's status report, DragonFly BSD reduces install media size |
| • Issue 817 (2019-06-03): Manjaro 18.0.4, Ubuntu Security Podcast, new Linux laptops from Dell and System76, Entroware Apollo |
| • Issue 816 (2019-05-27): Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.0, creating firewall rules, Antergos shuts down, Matthew Miller answers questions about Fedora |
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| • Issue 814 (2019-05-13): Fedora 30, distributions publish Firefox fixes, CentOS publishes roadmap to 8.0, Debian plans to use Wayland by default |
| • Issue 813 (2019-05-06): ROSA R11, MX seeks help with systemd-shim, FreeBSD tests unified package management, interview with Gael Duval |
| • Issue 812 (2019-04-29): Ubuntu MATE 19.04, setting up a SOCKS web proxy, Scientific Linux discontinued, Red Hat takes over Java LTS support |
| • Issue 811 (2019-04-22): Alpine 3.9.2, rsync examples, Ubuntu working on ZFS support, Debian elects new Project Leader, Obarun releases S6 tools |
| • Issue 810 (2019-04-15): SolydXK 201902, Bedrock Linux 0.7.2, Fedora phasing out Python 2, NetBSD gets virtual machine monitor |
| • Issue 809 (2019-04-08): PCLinuxOS 2019.02, installing Falkon and problems with portable packages, Mint offers daily build previews, Ubuntu speeds up Snap packages |
| • Issue 808 (2019-04-01): Solus 4.0, security benefits and drawbacks to using a live distro, Gentoo gets GNOME ports working without systemd, Redox OS update |
| • Issue 807 (2019-03-25): Pardus 17.5, finding out which user changed a file, new Budgie features, a tool for browsing FreeBSD's sysctl values |
| • Issue 806 (2019-03-18): Kubuntu vs KDE neon, Nitrux's znx, notes on Debian's election, SUSE becomes an independent entity |
| • Issue 805 (2019-03-11): EasyOS 1.0, managing background services, Devuan team debates machine ID file, Ubuntu Studio works to remain an Ubuntu Community Edition |
| • Issue 804 (2019-03-04): Condres OS 19.02, securely erasing hard drives, new UBports devices coming in 2019, Devuan to host first conference |
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| • Issue 801 (2019-02-11): Project Trident 18.12, the meaning of status symbols in top, FreeBSD Foundation lists ongoing projects, Plasma Mobile team answers questions |
| • Issue 800 (2019-02-04): FreeNAS 11.2, using Ubuntu Studio software as an add-on, Nitrux developing znx, matching operating systems to file systems |
| • Issue 799 (2019-01-28): KaOS 2018.12, Linux Basics For Hackers, Debian 10 enters freeze, Ubuntu publishes new version for IoT devices |
| • Issue 798 (2019-01-21): Sculpt OS 18.09, picking a location for swap space, Solus team plans ahead, Fedora trying to get a better user count |
| • Issue 797 (2019-01-14): Reborn OS 2018.11.28, TinyPaw-Linux 1.3, dealing with processes which make the desktop unresponsive, Debian testing Secure Boot support |
| • Issue 796 (2019-01-07): FreeBSD 12.0, Peppermint releases ISO update, picking the best distro of 2018, roundtable interview with Debian, Fedora and elementary developers |
| • Issue 795 (2018-12-24): Running a Pinebook, interview with Bedrock founder, Alpine being ported to RISC-V, Librem 5 dev-kits shipped |
| • Issue 794 (2018-12-17): Void 20181111, avoiding software bloat, improvements to HAMMER2, getting application overview in GNOME Shell |
| • Issue 793 (2018-12-10): openSUSE Tumbleweed, finding non-free packages, Debian migrates to usrmerge, Hyperbola gets FSF approval |
| • Issue 792 (2018-1203): GhostBSD 18.10, when to use swap space, DragonFly BSD's wireless support, Fedora planning to pause development schedule |
| • Issue 791 (2018-11-26): Haiku R1 Beta1, default passwords on live media, Slax and Kodachi update their media, dual booting DragonFly BSD on EFI |
| • Issue 790 (2018-11-19): NetBSD 8.0, Bash tips and short-cuts, Fedora's networking benchmarked with FreeBSD, Ubuntu 18.04 to get ten years of support |
| • Issue 789 (2018-11-12): Fedora 29 Workstation and Silverblue, Haiku recovering from server outage, Fedora turns 15, Debian publishes updated media |
| • Issue 788 (2018-11-05): Clu Linux Live 6.0, examining RAM consumpion, finding support for older CPUs, more Steam support for running Windows games on Linux, update from Solus team |
| • Issue 787 (2018-10-29): Lubuntu 18.10, limiting application access to specific users, Haiku hardware compatibility list, IBM purchasing Red Hat |
| • Issue 786 (2018-10-22): elementary OS 5.0, why init keeps running, DragonFly BSD enables virtual machine memory resizing, KDE neon plans to drop older base |
| • Issue 785 (2018-10-15): Reborn OS 2018.09, Nitrux 1.0.15, swapping hard drives between computers, feren OS tries KDE spin, power savings coming to Linux |
| • Issue 784 (2018-10-08): Hamara 2.1, improving manual pages, UBports gets VoIP app, Fedora testing power saving feature |
| • Issue 783 (2018-10-01): Quirky 8.6, setting up dual booting with Ubuntu and FreeBSD, Lubuntu switching to LXQt, Mint works on performance improvements |
| • Issue 782 (2018-09-24): Bodhi Linux 5.0.0, Elive 3.0.0, Solus publishes ISO refresh, UBports invites feedback, Linux Torvalds plans temporary vacation |
| • Issue 781 (2018-09-17): Linux Mint 3 "Debian Edition", file systems for SSDs, MX makes installing Flatpaks easier, Arch team answers questions, Mageia reaches EOL |
| • Issue 780 (2018-09-10): Netrunner 2018.08 Rolling, Fedora improves language support, how to customize Kali Linux, finding the right video drivers |
| • Issue 779 (2018-09-03): Redcore 1806, keeping ISO downloads safe from tampering, Lubuntu makes Calamares more flexible, Ubuntu improves GNOME performance |
| • Issue 778 (2018-08-27): GuixSD 0.15.0, ReactOS 0.4.9, Steam supports Windows games on Linux, Haiku plans for beta, merging disk partitions |
| • Issue 777 (2018-08-20): YunoHost 3.0.0.1, limiting process resource usage, converting file systems on Fedora, Debian turns 25, Lubuntu migrating to Wayland |
| • Issue 776 (2018-08-13): NomadBSD 1.1, Maximum storage limits on Linux, openSUSE extends life for 42.3, updates to the Librem 5 phone interface |
| • Issue 775 (2018-08-06): Secure-K OS 18.5, Linux is about choice, Korora tests community spin, elementary OS hires developer, ReactOS boots on Btrfs |
| • Issue 774 (2018-07-30): Ubuntu MATE & Ubuntu Budgie 18.04, upgrading software from source, Lubuntu shifts focus, NetBSD changes support policy |
| • Issue 773 (2018-07-23): Peppermint OS 9, types of security used by different projects, Mint reacts to bugs in core packages, Slackware turns 25 |
| • Issue 772 (2018-07-16): Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre 0.2.4, UBports running desktop applications, OpenBSD auto-joins wi-fi networks, boot environments and zedenv |
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BRLix
BRLix GNU/Linux (formerly Famelix GNU/Linux) was a distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux. Its peculiarity lies in the adaptation of the user interface so that it resembles Windows Vista (or optionally Windows XP) as much as possible.
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