 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 790, 19 November 2018 |
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Welcome to this year's 47th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
NetBSD is an operating system famous for being able to run on a wide variety of processor architectures and in many different environments due to its small, portable nature. This week we begin with a look at the operating system's latest stable release, NetBSD 8.0, and how well it performs a variety of tasks. Read on to learn about this operating system's perks and drawbacks. In our News section we link to a test which pits Fedora's networking performance against FreeBSD's and talk about plans for changes coming in Ubuntu 19.04. We also discuss automatic updates and desktop performance improvements coming to Endless OS. Plus we cover comments Mark Shuttleworth has reportedly made indicating Ubuntu 18.04 will be getting a full ten years of support, double the usual five years of other LTS releases. We are also pleased to share some handy Bash shell shortcuts which can save time when working on the command line. As usual, we share last week's releases and provide a list of torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: NetBSD 8.0
- News: Fedora networking benchmarked against FreeBSD, Ubuntu team makes plans for 19.04, Ubuntu 18.04 to get extended support, Endless OS offers improved desktop performance
- Tips and tricks: Bash command line shortcuts and tips
- Released last week: Void 20181111, deepin 15.8, Slax 9.6.0
- Torrent corner: ArcoLinux, deepin, Hyperbola, Kodachi, Omarine, Qubes OS, Raspbian, Robolinux, Slax, SystemRescueCd, Void, Voyager
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 12.0-RC2, UBports 16.04 OTA-6
- Opinion poll: Size and frequency of package updates
- New distributions: Bentoo
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (20MB) and MP3 (15MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
NetBSD 8.0
NetBSD is a highly portable operating system which can be run on dozens of different hardware architectures. The operating system's clean and minimal design allow it to be run in all sorts of environments, ranging from embedded devices, to servers, to workstations. While the base operating system is minimal, NetBSD users have access to a large repository of binary packages and a ports tree which I will touch upon later.
I last tried NetBSD 7.0 about three years ago and decided it was time to test drive the operating system again. In the past three years NetBSD has introduced a few new features, many of them security enhancements. For example, NetBSD now supports write exclusive-or execute (W^X) protection and address space layout randomization (ASLR) to protect programs against common attacks. NetBSD 8.0 also includes USB3 support and the ability to work with ZFS storage volumes.
Installing
I downloaded the 64-bit (AMD64) build of NetBSD. The build is offered in two versions, one for burning to optical media and one for USB devices. The optical media download is about 716MB in size. Booting from this media brings up a menu-driven screen where we can launch the installer or drop to a command line shell. Taking the installer option brings up a series of text-based menus. We are asked to select our preferred language from a list, select our keyboard's layout and decide whether to install, upgrade, or re-install the operating system with different packages. I opted for the fresh install.
The installer asks us on which hard disk it should place NetBSD and we are then walked through a multi-step partitioning section. First we need to set up partitions, creating space for NetBSD and potentially other systems, such as Linux or shared FAT-formatted space. Then we further divide the NetBSD partition into sections for swap space, the root file system and other mount points. Then we select the amount of space that will be given to each mount point. It can take a while to get used to the way the BSDs set up storage space if you're coming from a Windows or Linux background. The BSDs tend to place mount points inside a partition on the disk, so the operating system is somewhat self-contained in one section of the disk. While this adds a layer for us to think about, it offers an added degree of portability.
We then move on to deciding what kind of install we want to perform: Full, Without X11, Minimal, or Custom. I went will the Full option that, despite its name, provides a relatively lightweight operating system with a bare bones graphical environment. We can then select where the installer can find packages (on a CD or from a network service).
Once the packages have been copied to our hard drive we can go through a number of configuration options. These all seem to be optional, but it is probably easier to do them up front, using the installer, rather than wait and perform these steps later. The installer provides quick configuration screens for setting up networking (including a DHCP method), setting the time zone, creating a password for the root account and enabling the administrator to install binary packages. We can also download the pkgsrc ports framework (for building packages from source code), enable OpenSSH connections, enable graphical logins (using xdm), and enable network time synchronization. We can also set up a new user account and make some file system tweaks.
In the end, NetBSD has a long initial install process, but it gives us a lot of control over the initial state of the operating system. When we are done, we are advised to read the afterboot manual page which includes tips for further customizing the operating system. The afterboot page suggests changing the root password, and offers tips on blocking remote logins, setting up wired networking and connecting to wireless networks.
Early impressions
Since I had set up NetBSD with a Full install and enabled xdm during the setup process, the operating system booted to a graphical login screen. From here we can sign into our account. The login screen does not provide options to shut down or restart the computer. Logging into our account brings up the twm window manager and provides a virtual terminal, courtesy of xterm. There is a panel that provides a method for logging out of the window manager. The twm environment is sparse, fast and devoid of distractions.
NetBSD 8.0 -- The twm interface
(full image size: 10kB, resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
Software management
NetBSD ships with a fairly standard collection of command line tools and manual pages, but otherwise it is a fairly minimal platform. If we want to run network services, have access to a web browser, or use a word processor we are going to need to install more software. There are two main approaches to installing new packages. The first, and easier approach, is to use the pkgin package manager. The pkgin utility works much the same way APT or DNF work in the Linux world, or as pkg works on FreeBSD. We can search for software by name, install or remove items. I found pkgin worked well, though its output can be terse. My only complaint with pkgin is that it does not handle "close enough" package names. For example, if I tried to run "pkgin install vlc" or "pkgin install firefox" I would quickly be told these items did not exist. But a more forgiving package manager will realize items like vlc2 or firefox45 are available and offer to install those.
The pkgin tool installs new programs in the /usr/pkg/bin directory. Depending on your configuration and shell, this location may not be in your user's path, and it will be helpful to adjust your PATH variable accordingly.
The other common approach to acquiring new software is to use the pkgsrc framework. I have talked about using pkgsrc before and I will skip the details. Basically, we can download a collection of recipes for building popular open source software and run a command to download and install these items from their source code. Using pkgsrc basically gives us the same software as using pkgin would, but with some added flexibility on the options we use.
Once new software has been installed, it may need to be enabled and activated, particularly if it uses (or is) a background service. New items can be enabled in the /etc/rc.conf file and started or stopped using the service command. This works about the same as the service command on FreeBSD and most non-systemd Linux distributions.
NetBSD 8.0 -- The Fluxbox interface and application menu
(full image size: 11kB, resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
Hardware
I found that, when logged into the twm environment, NetBSD used about 130MB of RAM. This included kernel memory and all active memory. A fresh, Full install used up 1.5GB of disk space. I generally found NetBSD ran well in both VirtualBox and on my desktop computer. The system was quick and stable. I did have trouble getting a higher screen resolution in both environments. NetBSD does not offer VirtualBox add-on modules. There are NetBSD patches for VirtualBox out there, but there is some manual work involved in getting them working. When running on my desktop computer I think the resolution issue was one of finding and dealing with the correct video driver. Screen resolution aside, NetBSD performed well and detected all my hardware.
Personal projects
Since NetBSD provides users with a small, core operating system without many utilities if we want to use NetBSD for something we need to have a project in mind. I had four mini projects in mind I wanted to try this week: install a desktop environment, enable file sharing for computers on the local network, test multimedia (video, audio and YouTube capabilities), and set up a ZFS volume for storage.
I began with the desktop. Specifically, I followed the same tutorial I used three years ago to try to set up the Xfce desktop. While Xfce and its supporting services installed, I was unable to get a working desktop out of the experience. I could get the Xfce window manager working, but not the entire session. This tutorial worked beautifully with NetBSD 7.0, but not with version 8.0. Undeterred, I switched gears and installed Fluxbox instead. This gave me a slightly more powerful graphical environment than what I had before with twm while maintaining performance. Fluxbox ran without any problems, though its application menu was automatically populated with many programs which were not actually installed.
Next, I tried installing a few multimedia applications to play audio and video files. Here I ran into a couple of interesting problems. I found the music players I installed would play audio files, but the audio was quite slow. It always sounded like a cassette tape dragging. When I tried to play a video, the entire graphical session would crash, taking me back to the login screen. When I installed Firefox, I found I could play YouTube videos, and the video played smoothly, but again the audio was unusually slow.
NetBSD 8.0 -- Running the Firefox web browser
(full image size: 139kB, resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
I set up two methods of sharing files on the local network: OpenSSH and FTP. NetBSD basically gives us OpenSSH for free at install time and I added an FTP server through the pkgin package manager which worked beautifully with its default configuration.
I experimented with ZFS support a little, just enough to confirm I could create and access ZFS volumes. ZFS seems to work on NetBSD just as well, and with the same basic features, as it does on FreeBSD and mainstream Linux distributions. I think this is a good feature for the portable operating system to have since it means we can stick NetBSD on nearly any networked computer and use it as a NAS.
Conclusions
NetBSD, like its close cousins (FreeBSD and OpenBSD) does not do a lot of hand holding or automation. It offers a foundation that will run on most CPUs and we can choose to build on that foundation. I mention this because, on its own, NetBSD does not do much. If we want to get something out of it, we need to be willing to build on its foundation - we need a project. This is important to keep in mind as I think going into NetBSD and thinking, "Oh I'll just explore around and expand on this as I go," will likely lead to disappointment. I recommend figuring out what you want to do before installing NetBSD and making sure the required tools are available in the operating system's repositories.
Some of the projects I embarked on this week (using ZFS and setting up file sharing) worked well. Others, like getting multimedia support and a full-featured desktop, did not. Given more time, I'm sure I could find a suitable desktop to install (along with the required documentation to get it and its services running), or customize one based on one of the available window managers. However, any full featured desktop is going to require some manual work. Media support was not great. The right players and codecs were there, but I was not able to get audio to play smoothly.
My main complaint with NetBSD relates to my struggle to get some features working to my satisfaction: the documentation is scattered. There are four different sections of the project's website for documentation (FAQs, The Guide, manual pages and the wiki). Whatever we are looking for is likely to be in one of those, but which one? Or, just as likely, the tutorial we want is not there, but is on a forum or blog somewhere. I found that the documentation provided was often thin, more of a quick reference to remind people how something works rather than a full explanation.
As an example, I found a couple of documents relating to setting up a firewall. One dealt with networking NetBSD on a LAN, another explored IPv6 support, but neither gave an overview on syntax or a basic guide to blocking all but one or two ports. It seemed like that information should already be known, or picked up elsewhere.
Newcomers are likely to be a bit confused by software management guides for the same reason. Some pages refer to using a tool called pkg_add, others use pkgsrc and its make utility, others mention pkgin. Ultimately, these tools each give approximately the same result, but work differently and yet are mentioned almost interchangeably. I have used NetBSD before a few times and could stumble through these guides, but new users are likely to come away confused.
One quirk of NetBSD, which may be a security feature or an inconvenience, depending on one's point of view, is super user programs are not included in regular users' paths. This means we need to change our path if we want to be able to run programs typically used by root. For example, shutdown and mount are not in regular users' paths by default. This made checking some things tricky for me.
Ultimately though, NetBSD is not famous for its convenience or features so much as its flexibility. The operating system will run on virtually any processor and should work almost identically across multiple platforms. That gives NetBSD users a good deal of consistency across a range of hardware and the chance to experiment with a member of the Unix family on hardware that might not be compatible with Linux or the other BSDs.
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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
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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Visitor supplied rating
NetBSD has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9.1/10 from 14 review(s).
Have you used NetBSD? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Fedora networking benchmarked against FreeBSD, Ubuntu team makes plans for 19.04, Ubuntu 18.04 to get extended support, Endless OS offers improved desktop performance
For years there has been a general acceptance of the idea that the FreeBSD kernel uses networking code which is more mature and higher performing than its Linux counterpart. Matteo Croce set out to test this idea, putting Fedora 29 up against FreeBSD 11.2 to see how each would perform in a number of networking scenarios. "I work on the networking subsystem of the Linux kernel and I find networks rather fascinating. Often I read statements about the FreeBSD networking stack being faster and more mature than the Linux counterpart, but I didn't find any comparative tests between the two OS, and I was so curious that I decided to do some tests myself." Croce walks us through the various configurations used and trouble-shooting steps introduced to make the test as fair as possible between the Linux and FreeBSD kernels.
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The development process for Ubuntu 19.04 is just getting started, but already some key information on the underlying system has been published. Matthias Klose has sent out an e-mail detailing the Python, Perl and OpenSSL versions to be featured in the next version of Ubuntu. Klose also has some guidelines for dealing with merged-usr systems: "Merged-usr is now the default in Disco for new installations only. It means that /bin is a symlink to usr/bin, similarly /lib and /sbin. Existing systems, upon upgrade, will not be reconfigured for merged-usr. Care needs to be taken to ensure that both merged-usr and split-usr systems are continued to be supported. For example AppArmor rules may need to be adjusted to use {,/usr}/bin/touch and similar."
According to an article on ServerWatch, Canonical's CEO, Mark Shuttleworth, announced that Ubuntu 18.04 LTS would receive support for ten years, through to 2028. Originally Ubuntu 18.04 was scheduled to receive Ubuntu's typical five years of support and security updates. "'I'm delighted to announce that Ubuntu 18.04 will be supported for a full ten years,' Shuttleworth said. 'In part because of the very long time horizons in some of industries like financial services and telecommunications but also from IOT where manufacturing lines for example are being deployed that will be in production for at least a decade.'" The announcement from Shuttleworth has not yet been reflected on the Ubuntu website and the distribution's support schedule still shows Ubuntu 18.04 LTS reaching its end of life in April of 2023 at the time of writing.
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A while back the Endless OS distribution introduced automatic updates in order to make sure its users always had the latest available security updates. While this move made the distribution's desktop software more secure, it had an unfortunate side effect: the user interface would sometimes become unresponsive while security update were being installed. The Endless OS team is now addressing desktop performance by switching process schedulers and making the update process run with a lower priority. "In Endless OS, we switched the I/O scheduler from CFQ to BFQ, and set the I/O priority of the threads doing Flatpak downloads, installs and upgrades to 'idle'; this makes the interactive performance of the system while doing Flatpak operations indistinguishable from when the system is idle." Details on the change can be found in this blog post.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
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Bash command line shortcuts and tips
The Bash shell is the default command line interface for most Linux distributions and available on virtually every Unix-like operating system. The Bash command line is well known for its flexibility and impressive list of features which make it a powerful tool. This week we will explore some Bash command line tips and shortcuts.
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I often find myself performing multiple actions on the same file. I might want to copy a file to another computer and then move my local copy to another directory. Rather than typing the file's name each time, we can use a shortcut that refers to the file. The shortcut takes the form of the exclamation mark, followed by a colon and the position of the command line argument we want to use again. Let's look at an example. Here, I use the scp program to copy a file to a remote location and then move my local copy of the file into my Archives folder:
scp myfile.tar.gz remote-computer:
mv myfile.tar.gz ~/Archives
Using the Bash shortcut mentioned above, we can substitute the name of the file for "!:1" in the second line.
scp myfile.tar.gz remote-computer:
mv !:1 ~/Archives
The "!:1" shortcut looks at the previous line and grabs the first parameter from the previous command to use. In this case it is the myfile.tar.gz filename.
In the following example, we use the same substitution to sync two folders and then move into the destination folder, ~/Backup:
rsync -av ~/Documents/ ~/Backup/
cd !:3
When the above two commands are finished, we will have changed to the ~/Backup directory. A related shortcut uses double-exclamation marks (!!) to repeat an entire command line. The following example displays "Hello World" twice:
echo Hello World
!!
One of the situations where we might want to use the !! shortcut is when running a command the first time fails because we did not prefix it with sudo to get elevated access. In the below example, we try to mount a USB drive and it fails. We then run the same command again with sudo to get the proper access:
mount /dev/sdc Disk
sudo !!
It is important to be very careful when mixing command line shortcuts with sudo. We could find ourselves very quickly executing the wrong command if we are not paying attention.
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Have you ever run a command which was going to take a long time and then realized you wanted to perform a second action once the first command was finished? Maybe we want to copy a local directory to a remote server and then delete our local copy to free up space. Typically we could do this by running rsync and rm, joined by the && symbols. The two & symbols together indicate the second half of the command should be performed only if the first part completed without errors:
rsync -a MyFiles/ remote-computer:MyFiles/ && rm -rf MyFiles
The above command would be useful because the rsync command would copy our files to the remote machine and then, if rsync finished successfully, the remove (rm) program would clean up the directory. If the files do not all copy successfully then the directory is not erased.
But what if we only wrote the first part of the command and hit Enter before filling in the second half?
rsync -a MyFiles/ remote-computer:MyFiles/
Now the synchronization is going to happen, but our local directory will not get cleaned up afterwards. We don't want to sit around and wait for the task to finish, so what can we do? We can use a few special commands to pause the current job (the rsync command) and then resume it with an addition. This takes place in three steps. First we run the original command:
rsync -a MyFiles/ remote-computer:MyFiles/
Now, once we realize the command is running and we did not type the second half, we can press Ctrl and Z (Ctrl+z) to pause the job. Now the rsync command is waiting in the background. We can resume the job and add on a new command by using the foreground (fg) command. In this case fg effectively sits in as a short-hand for the paused job.
fg && rm -rf MyFiles
The fg command unpauses the last job and brings the synchronization back into the foreground. It then tacks on the "&& rm -rf MyFiles" command which will clean up our local directory if, and only if, the rsync command succeeds.
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While the && set of symbols will cause a second command to run when the first one completes successfully, the double-pipes (||) symbols will cause a second command to run only if the first one fails. In the following example, we check for the existence of a made-up word in the system's dictionary. If the made-up word was found, it would be displayed on the screen. But if the word is not found, we report as much on the screen:
grep berowm /usr/share/dict/words || echo No match found
Running the above command results in "No match found" being displayed on the screen. This is because grep failed to find our pretend word (berowm) in the dictionary.
The && and || symbols can be used in the same command. Here we try to perform the same dictionary search and then play different sounds depending on whether the word is found:
grep berowm /usr/share/dict/words && mplayer success.ogg || mplayer failure.ogg
In the above example the grep command fails to find our word. Therefore Bash skips over the successful option and skips ahead to playing the failure.ogg audio file.
These are just a few of the shortcuts and helpful tricks Bash supplies. Let us know what one of your favourite time saving command line tricks is in the comments.
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More tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Void 20181111
Void is an independently-developed, rolling-release Linux distribution with a number of interesting specifics, such as its own package management system (called XBPS), a native init system (runit), integration of LibreSSL instead of OpenSSL and support for several popular ARM-based devices. The latest release, version 20181111, provides a large number of updates and fixes: "New x86 and ARM images are now available. The x86 images come with multiple flavours: Base system, Enlightenment, Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce, LXDE and LXQt. As usual we also have a supply of ARM images including: BeagleBone and BeagleBone Black, Cubieboard 2, Odroid U2/U3, RaspberryPi (armv6), RaspberryPi 2/3 (armv7). Void also comes in musl C flavors, which use the musl C library, a lightweight alternative to the popular glibc library." Here is the brief release announcement.
Void 20181111 -- Running the Cinnamon desktop
(full image size: 59kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
deepin 15.8
A new version of deepin, a Debian-based distribution featuring the Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE), has been released. Version 15.8 brings a re-designed control centre, a full disk encryption installation option and various other improvements and bug fixes: "Compared with deepin 15.7, the ISO image size of deepin 15.8 has been reduced by 200 MB. The new release features newly designed control center, dock tray and boot theme, as well as improved native applications, hoping to bring users a more beautiful and efficient experience. Dock - fashion or efficient mode. In fashion mode, a hide/show button is added in the new designed dock tray, click it to hide the icons in tray area and save the dock space. And the power button is separated from the tray area to reduce the clicks and to avoid the function confusion. In efficient mode, the right corner is set to show desktop and the previous 'Show Desktop' icon is removed to meet user habits. In the new control center, the weather page, system widgets and bottom tools are removed and the layout is re-designed to improve the efficiency. What's more, the new control center is adaptive to different resolutions and languages." See the release announcement for further information and screenshots.
Slax 9.6.0
Tomáš Matějíček has announced the availability of a new release of Slax, a distribution formerly based on Slackware Linux, but recently re-designed and built on top of Debian's stable branch. The new version, Slax 9.6.0, is the latest build; it brings the usual round of security and bug-fix updates, including a fix to the PXE boot support: "Slax 9.0 released. I am happy to announce that a new version of Slax Linux is available for download. It features updates for all included packages, and fixes PXE boot support, so it is now possible to boot Slax over network again. There is also a 'pxe' script included, which you can execute on a running Slax to start a pxe server (it will auto-assign a random IP address from range 10.0.0.x). In order to download Slax, visit the newly redesigned website at www.slax.org. Enjoy the new release!" Here is the brief release announcement as published on the project's newly re-designed website.
Raspbian 2018-11-13
Simon Long has announced the availability of a new release of Raspbian, a Debian-based distribution for the Raspberry Pi single-board computers. One major change in this release is the addition of the VLC media player: "When I first joined Raspberry Pi, back in the dim and distant past (in reality 2014, but it does seem a long time ago now) and I started looking at Raspbian, I made a list of the additional features and applications that I thought it needed to be a 'complete' modern desktop operating system. Over the years, we've managed to tick off most of the items on that list, but one glaring omission has been nagging at me all this time: a decent media player. Windows has Windows Media Player, MacOS has QuickTime Player and iTunes, but we've had a big hole where something similar ought to be for Raspbian. It has been a common request on the forums and while we've had bits and pieces that do some of the job, we really wanted a nice GUI-based media player." See the release announcement for more details and screenshots.
Voyager Live 18.10
The Voyager Live team has announced a new version of their Ubuntu-based distribution. The new release, Voyager Live 18.10, switches from using the Xfce desktop to using GNOME Shell as the default interface. An English translation of the original French release announcement reads: "I present to you for the first time: Voyager - GE 18.10 based on the GNOME Shell desktop and Ubuntu 18.10 (Cosmic Cuttlefish). Why GNOME Shell now? Because Voyager had abandoned the GNOME Shell desktop 10 years ago for Xfce, because of its youth and especially a lack of flexibility and extensions was problematic at the time. Now, after several tests, the conclusion is that part of the GNOME Shell system is again ergonomic, customizable and more flexible than it was in the beginning. So it was considered to make a version named GE for GNOME Shell." The new release offers nine months of support.
Voyager Live 18.10 -- Running the GNOME Shell desktop
(full image size: 277kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
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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: 1,127
- Total data uploaded: 22.1TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
Size and frequency of package updates
Downloading a steady stream of package updates, whether to acquire new features or security fixes, is a regular part of running any modern operating system. The size and frequency of new updates varies a lot from one distribution to the next. We would like to know how you feel about the rate of updates you receive? Do they tickle in at a comfortable rate, or do you feel as though your computer is drinking from a firehose?
You can see the results of our previous poll on Fedora's Silverblue in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Distributions added to waiting list
- Bentoo. Bentoo is a Funtoo-based distribution with optional pre-configured GNOME and Plasma desktop editions.
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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, 26 November 2018. 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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| Linux Foundation Training |
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Distribution updates. (by R.Cain on 2018-11-19 02:10:55 GMT from United States)
I am not a fan of applying. or even paying attention to updates--even when all Linux distros went crazy issuing all manner of kernel updates...and updates...and updates...because of the 'Spectre' and 'Meltdown' issues. And please don't bother to respond with your doomsday scenarios. I've been running Mint 17.3 ever since installing it when it became available, have never installed any updates, and have *never* had to perform a 're-install' (perhaps I didn't have a 'Spectre' or 'Meltdown' problem *precisely because* I never updated my system when it really didn't need to be updated?).
The ONLY downside are the damnable nagware banners across the top of the screen from Yahoo occasionally telling me that DIRE things are getting ready to happen to me because my browser is "...CRITICALLY out of date...". The only dire things that have happened is that this nagware keeps showing up. Why haven't I updated to something beyond 17.3? Because that was the last, BEST version of Mint. And then Mint went stupid. And lost its #1 ranking. See the latest DistroWatch 7-day rolling average, if you need convincing. Mint has turned into nothing more than an Ubuntu clone--'Ubuntu with Cinnamon', as it were.
Mint 17.3 will stay on this machine as long as the machine lives. When I get a new, or different, machine, it appears as though the only distro with all the good qualities of 17.3 Mint is now MX Linux. And I'll continue with MY strategy regarding updates. Which works beautifully.
2 • Distribution updates (by Moat on 2018-11-19 03:39:42 GMT from United States)
I tend to agree with R.Cain, above - the fervor to update as largely provoked by a current culture of runaway Security Nannies seems to often introduce more everyday end-user disadvantages than it's worth, for such extremely remote likelihoods of related security issues (for home desktop use, that is; business use = an *entirely different story*). And indeed, the Mint 17.x series was pretty much the pinnacle of an OOTB "everything works", trouble-free distro. The Mint 18/19 series are still nearly as excellent, but both definitely represented a bit of a step backwards in relation to issues/bugs/papercuts (mostly minor stuff).
But, R.Cain - I *would* suggest updating your browser, at least, to relieve yourself of that Yahoo (and other sites, I'm sure) "out of date" page nagging. Unfortunately, the internet is a rapidly moving & developing target - and browsers have to be constantly updated in order to keep up with those changes. A sad fact of web use... but unavoidable at this point.
Either that, or look into disabling that "nagging" within the browser, itself (for example, I use Firefox, and within it are many available background tweaks/customizations via it's hidden "about:config" settings).
FWIW...
3 • updates (by Trihexagonal on 2018-11-19 03:52:16 GMT from United States)
I use ports exclusively on my FreeBSD boxen so updating 3rd party programs for me consists of keeping the ports tree up to date and checking for vulnerabilities on a daily basis. Patches need to come from upstream so the time that passes between an exploit being found and patched can vary.
If it's only a version bump for a program I may or may not update depending on the program. I keep the number of programs I install to a minimum and always use the same ones.
Updates for the base system are separate. Those are checked for daily and addressed as needed.
4 • Mint and updates (by RV on 2018-11-19 05:34:11 GMT from Romania)
@1 Whilst I can only echo your opinion on the current state of affairs in Mintlandia, I don't think your approach with regards to security updates is adequate. Even if you're wary of performing frequent system-wide updates, nothing's stopping you from updating your web browser (with Firefox it's as easy as untarring the official archive and overwriting /usr/lib/firefox) .
One of the great things about Linux is that it offers uncanny amounts of choice and freedom. Just like you, I had been using Mint exclusively for a number of years, and thought that 17.3 was the epitome of operating systems. It wasn't until I got out of my comfort zone and started testing various other distros that I've found that several of them (antiX/MX, Antergos, Artix) were nothing short of brilliant and, in fact, met my needs even better that the old Mint 17.3 ever did.
5 • Updates (by Bin on 2018-11-19 05:46:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have been running unattended upgrades on my systems since as long as it has been possible to do so.
It all got a bit silly with systemd based stuff but that was because the .timer files were in need of a tweak.
That aside it just works. OK the 50unattended file takes a bit of sorting when you're using PPAs or other additional sources. I've used linux since October 1998 and in all that time have only ever had one update issue with an xserver upgrade.
Seeing all the fun our Windows using colleagues have with their latest distro I do feel a bit sorry for them.
6 • Updates, easy peasy! (by Brad on 2018-11-19 06:05:35 GMT from United States)
I've been through the gauntlet of many distros, distro-hopping etc. I used Mint/PcLinuxOS for a few years. Then took the plunge w/ bleeding edge; ArchLinux... Cut my teeth on Manjaro, enjoyed it so much, went arch proper and haven't looked back in years.. one command.. "pacman -Syyu" and "yay-syyu" updates everything.. no ppas, no forcing installs, no mess.. unless you DO NOT read the homepage and see if there's any interventions you must do or what to watch out for.. I'm NOT saying Mint/hand-holding distros don't have their place, they do... I'm only saying once I went Arch, I've never looked back and anything else is no longer "comfortable" for me to use.. but YMMV. I say use what you can figure out, what you can understand, what you can install and what makes you use your computer the way you want and the way you like..
7 • bash commands (by vern on 2018-11-19 06:50:13 GMT from United States)
I enjoy reading your bash examples.
One of my newest commands deals with getting all the currency from the end of every line and adding the results. The problem is each line has multiple tabs spaces, etc. Hence the command:
grep \\$ ~/TheFile | tr -d "$," | paste -sd+ | bc
grep gets the currency which begins with the dollar sign ($) the '\\' escapes the EOL character '$'
tr removes all "," and the dollar sign for use in adding
piping into paste get a "+" (add) to each value, and
bc adds up the value. For example:
$1,134.25
$1,583.90
$267.99
$2,520.55
$178.36
$6.98
$283.02
$178.36
gets this
1134.25+1583.90+267.99+2520.55+178.36+6.98+283.02+178.36
then 'bc' will add that up and post the results (6153.41).
8 • To update or not, that is the ? (by Sondar on 2018-11-19 08:25:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
Agree about Mint17.3, I still have it and run it. And Mint 18 & 19. And MX as well as a few minor players (but not Manjaro - don't like it). Suppose it was the hated systemd that set the feline loose amongst the birdies?
The answer is caddies. Have as many distros as hard discs you can handle - they're so cheap these days. Tidy folks could use one of those letter cabinets to hold discs, all neatly labelled, like in a server repository. I don't bother, just mark them with a permanent pen and stack them on top of the box.
9 • NetBSD (by pin on 2018-11-19 08:44:16 GMT from Sweden)
I was happy to see a review on NetBSD 8.0 this week. I'm currently using NetBSD as a daily driver on a laptop running awesome wm :-)
Must say I haven't experienced any of the issues with sound and/or video, everything works as expected. Didn't try to set-up xfce though.
I really like this OS and how minimal and effective it can be. In case anyone would be interested, I've written a little guide for newcomers that you can find here, https://unitedbsd.com/t/netbsd-a-little-guide-for-newcomers/261
Regards.
10 • Updates, what updates? (by Griffin MacAuley on 2018-11-19 09:21:44 GMT from United States)
I am little bit confused with variety of updates in Linux with thousands security holes and moles right from boot-loaders, bloated-back-doored kernels, home dialing browsers, apps and shutdown.
There are plenty of boot-loaders, variety of system initialization, tons of similar applications,
But, only one kernel that all distros normally stick to.
Is it not really strange?
Does anyone ever think of forking linux main stream kernel apart from libre-linux?
My head starts spinning with variety of updates.
11 • bash commands (by greenpossum on 2018-11-19 09:44:10 GMT from Australia)
How could you write about previous arguments and miss a very common case, reusing the last argument of the previous command?
ls somefile
ls -l !$
12 • Updates (by John on 2018-11-19 10:11:49 GMT from United States)
I agree - use old proven distros that come on CD/DVD.
Gotta try mint 17.3. This box uses old AntiX.
Just works. What a concept.
If there were just a decent browser!! I generally use dumbed down Dillo which is still way to smart. Forget about the latest encryption. What a sad joke.
I am reading distrowatch on dillo. Nice :).
More browser junk and bloatware: All so the Google Giggle gets bigger and more obtuse.
John
13 • netbsd (by Tim on 2018-11-19 10:46:40 GMT from United States)
Nice job this week Jesse I really enjoyed the review. I used NetBSD 6 to keep an old iMac G4 going a couple of years ago and really learned to like it. I need to think of another project to get me using it again. I actually learned to kind of love twm from it.
As for the rest of you, update your systems. The idea it’s some sort of a burden is nonsense. I just shut down the computer by updating apt and then sudo apt-get dist-upgrade && sudo poweroff.
14 • Size and frequency of package updates (by jim on 2018-11-19 11:05:20 GMT from United States)
This week opinion poll seems pretty worthless. Opinions will vary on what is small and what is large. Same with what is frequent and what is infrequent, I don't know my chosen Distros opinion on how their update schedules are released. It also seem updates have more to do with discovered bugs and vulnerabilities as to when released and size. Point releases and distribution upgrades can be quick or take a long time on the same Distro over time.
15 • Command line parameters (by SuperOscar on 2018-11-19 12:02:31 GMT from Finland)
I don’t like “bang history”, I find it too difficult to remember (or recheck) the numbers. Instead I created the following Zsh function and bound it to a shortcut key:
LBUFFER=$(fc -ln -1)
This copies the whole of the previous command line in the present position. This is extremely useful if you just forgot to “sudo”: type “sudo”, press the shortcut key, and hey! There’s the command in its correct form.
16 • @15, correction (by SuperOscar on 2018-11-19 12:03:21 GMT from Finland)
Oops, sorry, meant:
LBUFFER+=$(fc -ln -1)
17 • @11 reuse last parameter of command (by Marjorie on 2018-11-19 14:07:50 GMT from United States)
Had not heard of !$ before. I often use the alt-dot keystroke which will print the last parameter of the previous command into the one you are typing. Surprised no one mentioned this tip.
18 • package updates (by dogma on 2018-11-19 15:08:50 GMT from United States)
I always avoided anything like rolling release because I’d read a million experiences of how common it was to have a broken system (esp. in the case of Arch — where it seemed to be brought up almost as a point of pride, as in basically “I’m manly enough to handle this. But probably you aren’t!” kind of young man idiocy.)
But then I switched package from quarterly to latest on freebsd quite a while ago when I wanted some particular security update that wasn’t getting propagated, and it’s been going well so far.
19 • NetBSD: the documentation is scattered (by petras on 2018-11-19 15:42:44 GMT from Switzerland)
Thank you for reviewing NetBSD 8.0. I think you're right saying that « the (NetBSD) documentation is scattered ». Yes, NetBSD Guide isn't comparable as the beautiful and powerful FreeBSD handbook.
NetBSD has really good documentation in ... manpages and directly in source code as comments.
Maybe someone is interested updating the online NetBSD documentation, building a nice User Guide inspired by FreeBSD handbook plus the tons of NetBSD documentation available in manpage and source code.
20 • 8 • To update or not, that is the ? (by Sondar) (by CountryYokel on 2018-11-19 18:47:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
Totally agree with Sondar including the permanent marker - HDs are so inexpensive now that swapping one rather than multi-booting is the way to go.
That way experimenting with a distro is a no-risk proposition.
21 • Updates (by Rooster12 on 2018-11-19 19:59:47 GMT from United States)
It would be safe to say the bigger the iso, would generate more apps updates along with the kernel. Systemd is growing in size and adds substantially to a bloated distribution.
On the other hand, security is important, so whatever it takes to stay secure I'm for but let's not allow exploit code into Linux, then we are nothing more than what we are trying to get away from with Windows.
Have been watching that arc with Linux, full circle toward being a Windows-like OS.
We don't need or want that folks, it's should be about FOSS and KISS, keep it minimal and unbloated!
22 • Windows (currently w10) EasyBCD Grub4Dos Easy2Boot Linux Live ISOs (by jmichael2497 on 2018-11-19 20:44:01 GMT from United States)
that is my current setup on "for fun" living room tv laptop was w7p64 currently w10p64.
install and run EasyBCD to add NeoGrub entry then retitle to Grub4Dos.
delete C:\NST\NeoGrub.mbr
delete C:\NeoGrub
delete C:\NST\menu.lst
md C:\grub
copy _ISO\docs\linux_utils\grldr.mbr to C:\NST\NeoGrub.mbr
copy \grldr to C:\
copy \menu.lst to C:\grub\menu.lst
xcopy /herky _ISO\*.* C:\_ISO\*.*
drop linux live ISOs in the linux subfolder, use wincontig to defrag that folder, reboot and have fun trying linux live distros that make proper isohybrid bootable images.
(so this doesn't work for quickly testing LibreELEC without wasting actual flash drive life cycles on their non-standard image, but that is what vbox is for)
i use windows zsync script to grab current Lubuntu LTS every friday, and deltas for puppy bionic, or for those who don't bother to offer zsync updates to reduce everyone's bandwidth costs, then i will at least use linuxtracker for bittorrents of smaller distros.
i like trying Antix, Bodhi, Slax, Porteus, Puppy, and even the Android x86-64 8.1 works (so why doesn't LibreELEC use isohybrid?) but generally stick with Lubuntu since that one already has Fx with DRM watching ability required by legit streaming sites (easy for the roomie so i can avoid adding a profile on my windows).
Heads and Tails both don't seem able to get TOR running but only tried on this device in this network (but at least Heads was the one that seems to allow non-TOR), so ymmv.
hope that helps.
23 • Windows (currently w10) EasyBCD Grub4Dos Easy2Boot Linux Live ISOs (by jmichael2497 on 2018-11-19 20:47:22 GMT from United States)
oops forgot to specify all those commands are relative from the root of Easy2Boot folder, such a handy set of scripts intended for external usb drives, but this is how i use it on my internal hdd and mostly works just fine without having to waste usb flash drive life cycles.
24 • Voyager GE (by Any on 2018-11-19 21:05:43 GMT from Netherlands)
Just tried Voyager GE in VirtualBox and it's too slow (with 2GB RAM). I liked the distro and it's site but I've never liked GNOME Shell. I tried (using it) many times but every time it is a no go. Very nice job, Voyager, though.
Updates - I don't like updating. Once I have the OS installed (and maybe updated) I disable the updates if the system has the shape I want, and leave it. I'm a bit conservative - if a thing works fine, then do not touch it!
Jesse, very nice tips and tricks. Thank you.
25 • @15 Command line parameters (by greenpossum on 2018-11-19 21:10:46 GMT from Australia)
Or in bash just uparrow and ctrl-A to move to the beginning of the command to prepend sudo.
26 • updates (by Friar Tux on 2018-11-20 00:49:43 GMT from Canada)
The Wife and I, both, run Mint 18.3 and love it. Not sure why folks are haling the praises of 17.3 but that's their choice (maybe someone can clarify in another comment - do a comparison). As to updating, The Wife never remembers to update (or purposely forgets). I update when I'm not going to be on my laptop for a while - mealtime, nature calling, and such. And, you know, 'R.Cain' in comment #1 may have a point. I have found NO difference in either Mint 18.3 OS. Both seem to operate at about the same speed and usability. And speed and usability are the only important factors for the two of us, that's why we switched to Linux in the first place.
27 • @R.Cain (by Sam on 2018-11-20 05:54:50 GMT from Australia)
I love people like you. They make my job as a pen tester super easy. Customers love it when my report shows I got root access and importfiles in less than 3 minutes.
Protip: updates are important
28 • Linux Mint versions (by Morton on 2018-11-20 10:18:49 GMT from Ukraine)
Linux Mint 17 is the most stable desktop OS I ever seen. I have been running Mint 17 since it first showed in 2014 on several laptops and desktops without any problem. I installed it on the external 'pocket' HDD and the same '17.3' is starting promptly on different hardware. It's a shame that support will end next spring. Anyway I ran several systems every day including Linux Mint 17, 18 and 19 and it's a pleasure to use all of them, sometimes choice depends on newer software base. Mint 19 is built on Ubuntu 18.04 and making the most of it in usability department. Cinnamon DE and its standard apps are constantly improving and it is still one of the best full-featured Desktop available. So I see no logic in negative comments regarding Mint 18 and 19 which are based paradoxically on a great success of Linux Mint 17.
29 • @25 Command line parameters (by SuperOscar on 2018-11-20 12:29:26 GMT from Finland)
Of course you can do that in Zsh too, but I find it’s the wrong way around.
Actually I first created a “sudoing function” that just prepends “sudo” to the last command and runs it. Bind the following function to a shortcut key:
sudo $(fc -ln -1)
But then I found many more prepending needs that just sudoing.
30 • Bash (by phil on 2018-11-20 14:43:07 GMT from United Kingdom)
#11 already mentioned it, but I use !$ all the time.
You can also use !^ to substitute the first parameter (not the command)
I also set shopt -s histverify in my .bashrc which means the substitutions will be made in the command prompt rather than just executing. It does mean you have to hit return twice but you get used to it pretty quickly.
Ctrl-R is something else I would struggle without.
31 • Post # 4 and Post # 12 (by Winchester on 2018-11-20 14:48:18 GMT from United States)
Regarding post # 4 , you can (and some recommend) extracting the latest official FireFox to /opt/ instead of to /usr/lib/.
Then, you just execute /opt/firefox/firefox.
Since in this case FireFox is already installed with any dependencies.
You can also create a new desktop file or launcher the same as the original only changing the exec= line to exec=/opt/firefox/firefox. Save it as Mozilla_FireFox.desktop or some other alternate name instead of just firefox.desktop which should be the original file.
Just be aware that sometimes while using MATE and Caja,when you create a new desktop file by editing an existing one,it might end-up being named .desktop.desktop unless you are careful.
Regarding post # 12,whether or not a distribution comes on a CD or DVD is irrelevant. The vast majority of them can be burned to CD or DVD or just put on a USB flash drive.
Old distribution,not really a good idea. A proven distribution is just that. Less popular distributions work fine also. Some of them do,anyway. And some have good features and qualities missing in more popular distributions. The experience often depends on your specific hardware.
32 • Firefox (by Morton on 2018-11-20 15:45:05 GMT from Ukraine)
More to post 31:
After extracting the latest FireFox to /opt/ you may
execute
sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox-latest
and create launcher pointing to /usr/bin/firefox-latest
Additionally installing FireFox ESR from
mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all/
and extracing it to /opt/firefoxESR/
execute
sudo ln -s /opt/firefoxESR/firefox /usr/bin/firefox-ESR
and create launcher pointing to /usr/bin/firefox-ESR
To use both Firefox intermittently you need to create separate profile directories and edit your profiles.ini accordingly in /home/user/.mozilla/firefox/profiles.ini
To start both versions simultaneously use in launcher switch
--no-remote -p profile_name
33 • Agree with @14 (by Dxvid on 2018-11-20 21:15:16 GMT from Sweden)
I think you need to define large, small, frequent and infrequent for the poll to give a relevant result. Also my distro sometimes send out a small diff/incremental update of a few kB, and sometimes a 10+MB update. Most weeks there's new updates 4 days/week but it depends on if there are security problems found or not. Also it depends on the repo's you're getting your stuff from, if the repo tries to be very stable or have the latest stuff. In the distro I'm using I can choose stable or latest.
34 • Reply to @1 @2 and others who don't apply updates (by Dxvid on 2018-11-20 21:30:49 GMT from Sweden)
If you're using Linux on a desktop/laptop for personal use and have a firewall with no open ports you're not at very high risk. I believe most patches/security updates in the Linux world are targeted for servers with ports open to the internet, important corporate servers which need to be both stable and secure, important corporate desktop installations for improving productivity and security, etc... The distros targeted for less important usage (private home use, hobby projects, etc) mainly apply security patches because someone else fixed the issues and made them available for free (SUSE, RedHat, Ubuntu, Debian, or Linux kernel devs) and it might please some users to have the latest patches.
On a desktop Linux installation it's more important to have security updates in browsers and email programs and other things accessing the internet and running stuff locally (javascript or other client side scripts).
35 • @ 27--Sam from Australia (by R. Cain on 2018-11-20 23:59:27 GMT from United States)
So, you get "...root access and importfiles in less than 3 minutes...", do you?
What takes you so long? Why are your customers happy with *this*?
It would be a really good topic for DistroWatch to somehow work the subject of *real* Forensic Software into their normal flow of important topics. Then you could be immensely more efficient (and, by the way, you'll *never* compromise my system. You'll never know *how* I know that, either).
ProTip: Have all facts. Don't shoot self in foot. Then comment.
36 • Updates, @9 netbsd for newcomers (by saravanan on 2018-11-21 03:39:30 GMT from United States)
Receiving Updates seems to be not that frequent on some distribution. In some distributions which "keep it simple stupid" or "keep it simple secure" principles receive updates regularly due to the dependency on the lightness of number of packages installed and patches they receive. Linux community is contributing and updating is good.
@9 netbsd for newcomers
Thank you for sharing the link.
Number of Comments: 36
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| Random Distribution | 
Sophos UTM
Sophos UTM (formerly Astaro Security Gateway) offers an integrated software solution that provides superior performance in an all-in-one firewall. Its hardened operating system, stateful packet inspection, content filtering (virus & surf protection), application proxies and IPsec based VPN provides a powerful solution to today's security issues. It is designed to maximise networks security without compromising its performance enabling telecommuters, branch offices, customers and suppliers to safely share critical business information. Our proprietary user interface, WebAdmin allows ease of use and manageability of all open source firewall components, as well as the Up2Date service via the Internet. It is easy to install with all components on one CD achieving simple implementation and integration to existing network environments.
Status: Active
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