 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 844, 9 December 2019 |
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Welcome to this year's 49th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! It doesn't happen often that a project with roots in BSD decides to switch its base system to Linux, so the shock decision taken by Project Trident to do just that has certainly risen a few eyebrows. But how is the transition going some two months after the announcement? Jesse Smith takes a look at Project Trident's first alpha release, now based on Void Linux, in the featured article of this week's DWW. In the news section, Debian releases the initial alpha build of its installer for "Bullseye", SparkyLinux creates a special portable edition of its distribution designed to run from a USB drive, Haiku works on improving support for 64-bit ARM processors, and OpenBSD publishes (and fixes) a number of security issues. Also on the security front, a group of researchers find a serious vulnerability in most recent Linux and BSD operating systems; it allows a bad actor to inject data into the TCP stream while using a virtual private network (VPN). As usual, you will also find a list of recent distribution releases and their respective torrents in the torrent corner below. Finally, don't miss our opinion poll which returns to the topic of the review: how do you feel about Project Trident's switch from BSD to Linux? We wish you all a great start of the week with the new issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Content:
- Review: Project Trident Void Alpha
- News: Debian releases alpha installer for "Bullseye", SparkyLinux creates portable edition, Haiku improves hardware and filesystem support, OpenBSD publishes four new security errata, VPN hijacking vulnerability on Linux and BSD
- Questions and answers: Dealing with massive log files being generated
- Released last week: CAINE 11.0, elementary OS 5.1, Tails 4.1, Univention Corporate Server 4.4-3
- Torrent corner: Arch, CAINE, Container, elementary OS, Endless OS, KDE neon, SmartOS, SparkyLinux, Tails, Univention
- Opinion poll: Project Trident migrating from FreeBSD/TrueOS to Void
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (16MB) and MP3 (12MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Project Trident Void Alpha
Project Trident began its life as a desktop operating system which was based on TrueOS, a rolling release platform that was, in turn, based on FreeBSD's development branch. Trident features the Lumina desktop environment, a lightweight, portable desktop that was designed with BSD platforms in mind - in other words it avoids some dependencies which are tied to Linux.
Despite starting out as part of the FreeBSD family, Project Trident is migrating to a Linux base. Specifically, future versions of Trident will be based on Void. The Void project also provides a rolling release platform and a lightweight foundation. In addition, Void's Linux core will provide a wider range of hardware support which the Trident project hopes to leverage. What does the Void community get in return? Trident plans to support ZFS on root, an easy to set up desktop, the portable Lumina applications, and fresh network-install media. Details on the migration can be found on the Project Trident blog. Migration from one base to the other will not be supported due to the major differences between the FreeBSD and Void operating systems.
Right now Trident's new Void edition is in its early stages and is considered alpha software. Usually I don't like to run development releases, but I was curious to see how the new Void-based Trident was measuring up against the FreeBSD flavour of Trident, which I had run earlier in the year. Going into the trial I noticed the project is up front about some features that have not been ported yet. ZFS on root is available, but boot environments are not. Multi-boot is not supported as the installer wants to take over an entire disk. The Lumina desktop is reportedly available, but Lumina's various desktop applications have not been ported yet. At install time we are told to expect access to just a root account and we can add regular user accounts later.
Installing
The alpha snapshot of Trident's Void edition is 502MB and runs on 64-bit (x86_64) machines exclusively. Booting from the media brings up a text-based menu where we are given the chance to scan for wireless networks or drop to a command line. Once we are connected to a wireless network (or the system has picked up a wired network automatically) we are given the option to install the operating system.
On the next text screen a menu appears and asks us to select one of our computer's disks to use as the root partition. We are then asked if we would like 1, 2, 4, or 8GB of swap space. Choosing no swap space is also an option. The installer next asks if we would prefer to install packages built with the glibc or the musl libraries. The glibc library is the default and the one I selected. The musl library, we are told, will not work with proprietary packages. We then make up a password for the root account, assign a hostname to our computer and make up a name for our ZFS storage pool. With these steps completed, the installer downloads packages over the network and builds the ZFS kernel module from its source code. The whole process took about half an hour in my case. At first I thought the ZFS build process had failed as no progress information was shown while ZFS was compiling, but eventually the build finished and I was asked to reboot the computer.
Early impressions
Trident boots to a text console where we can sign in as the root user. The root account uses Dash as the default shell. We can change this as Dash is somewhat limited in its features, better suited for speed and running scripts than interacting with the user. When we make new user accounts, which can be done with the useradd command, the new (non-root) users are set up with the Bash shell.
Exploring the command line interface I found we have access to the GNU userland utilities and the XBPS package manager, which I will explore more later. Manual pages are included for command line programs, the GNU Compiler Collection is installed, and version 5.3.9 of the Linux kernel is running behind the scenes. Trident, like its Void base, uses the runit init software which I found to be unusually fast. The runit start-up and shutdown processes are some of the fastest I have experienced.
According to Trident's website we should be able to start a graphical desktop session by running startx from the command line. When I tried this, I found X.Org would begin to start and then quickly crash. Looking into this a bit I believed it was because the packages for video drivers and input devices, such as the xorg-video-drivers package, were not installed by default.
I tried installing these drivers, then more support packages, and a window manager and, in the end, X.Org still failed to start. It may be possible to get it running but since there isn't much to trouble-shoot with and not much documentation yet for Trident's Void branch, it is an uphill battle. This left me to explore the distribution from the command line.
Software management
Trident works with Void's package management tools. The xbps-install tool installs and upgrades packages while xbps-query helps us find new software. I found the XBPS utilities to be fast and straight forward to use. The syntax is sometimes at odds with other package managers, but I found they got the job done.
I only had a few updates during the days I was playing with Trident. These updates amounted to about 1MB in size and they were applied without any issues.
Hardware
I did almost all of my experimenting with Trident's Void edition in a VirtualBox environment. I did not want to hand over my entire hard drive to Trident, at least not while it is still in its alpha stages, so I installed it in a virtual machine and tried the live environment on my physical workstation. Apart from the issue of getting a desktop environment running (despite installing X.Org drivers and VirtualBox guest modules) Trident ran smoothly in the virtual machine. The operating system was surprisingly fast to perform tasks, boot, and shutdown.
When I tried the live disc on my workstation, Trident was able to detect my computer's hardware and connect to a wireless network. The live media does not have a desktop interface yet, but I could connect wirelessly, install packages from the repositories, and browse the contents of local disks.
Trident, when running from a command line, uses a fairly small amount of memory (150MB) and a fresh install takes just 1.1GB of disk space, plus however much storage we assign to be swap space.
While Trident's Void edition does not yet support boot environments, which would let us roll back changes to the operating system at boot time, the system does allow us access to the full range of ZFS features. We can add new disks to increase storage volume, create snapshots, and send snapshots across the network. The filesystem is set up with root, /home, swap, and a few /var sub-volumes. This makes it easier to take separate snapshots of our home directories and operating system, making restoring and transferring snapshots more efficient.
Conclusions
As one should expect with an initial alpha release, Trident's Void branch is not yet ready for the general public. At the moment it is more of a proof of concept - that Void's base can be set up with an alternative installer and use ZFS on root. It's a good beginning, but I suspect there are still a few months to go before Trident's new branch will provide a live desktop and boot environments. When that happens, I think Trident will offer a good experience, and the ZFS snapshots will provide insurance against broken updates from Void's rolling repositories. For now Trident's Void branch is an interesting idea and I hope it gets rounded out by the time a stable release happens early in 2020.
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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
Project Trident has a visitor supplied average rating of: 4.4/10 from 13 review(s).
Have you used Project Trident? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith and Ladislav Bodnar) |
Debian releases alpha installer for "Bullseye", SparkyLinux creates portable edition, Haiku improves hardware and filesystem support, OpenBSD publishes four new security errata, VPN hijacking vulnerability on Linux and BSD
 The release of Debian 11 is still a long way off, but the developers are already updating and testing the distribution's installation program. The initial alpha release of the Debian installer for "Bullseye", the code name of the project's next stable release, is available for testing: "The Debian Installer team is pleased to announce the first alpha release of the installer for Debian 11 'Bullseye'. It's high time we started doing this: many components were updated, replacing 'CD'/'CD-ROM' with 'installation media'. Such changes are not documented individually below. That also explains why many languages are not fully translated in this alpha release. Improvements in this release: apt-setup - update generation of apt sources lines for security renamed from dist/updates to dist-security; base-installer - stop installing the apt-transport-https transitional package; brltty - stop creating my-at-spi-dbus-bus.desktop in user profile...." Cyril Brulebois outlines other changes to the installer, which currently supports an impressive number of 76 languages, in this mailing list post. If you are interested in testing the new installer, you are welcome to download the usual range of Debian installation media from the Debian Installer page.
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 The SparkyLinux team have announced the release of a new edition, called Sparky Bonsai. The new edition, like other SparkyLinux flavours, is based on Debian and is designed to be run from a USB thumb drive rather than installed on a computer's hard drive. This allows users to take their operating system with them and boot into it wherever they go. "Sparky Bonsai lives in a USB flash 4GB minimum and run with 512 MB of RAM on x86 processors. At the moment it's only available in a 64-bit version. It fits on a DVD or CD optical disk and runs in ext2/3/4, FAT32, XFS, exFAT filesystems. In order to load it to RAM, 1GB is recommended. It is a minimal Debian Buster file system using Debian Linux kernel 4.19.0.6 with the BusterDog's modules for Porteus boot, live-boot-3x and Aufs support." Additional details can be found in Sparky Bonsai – a portable edition of SparkyLinux.
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 The Haiku developers have been working on a lot of behind-the-scenes changes over the past two months. Two of the key areas of focus have been introducing write support for Btrfs storage volumes and improving 64-bit ARM process support. "Part of the work done by brjhaiku on Btrfs write support for Google Summer of Code has been merged. Nothing very exciting for end-users here, but at least we have a working and documented btrfs_shell to experiment with the code. Some time ago, a large set of patches preparing for ARM64 have been submitted by Jaroslaw Pelczar. These are a rework of an earlier and more invasive porting attempt, which could not be merged as-is because it had compatibility problems with other platforms. The code is slowly being reviewed and merged a small piece at a time. So far, it is mostly changes required to get Haiku to compile, without much in terms of actual added functionality or support." These changes, along with several others, are detailed in the project's monthly newsletter.
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 The OpenBSD project published four security errata during the past week. The last of them, revealed on 8 December, allows a user to log in to a OpenBSD system with a different user's login class. The vulnerability affects all architectures, but a source code patch is already available to remedy the issue. Other security errata published during the week include environment-provided paths are used for dlopen() in mesa, libc's authentication layer performed insufficient username validation, xenodm uses the libc authentication layer incorrectly. It's interesting to note that OpenBSD has published no fewer than 12 security errata since the release of OpenBSD 6.6 on 17 October 2019, an usually high number for a project that has a stated goal of being the number one most secure operating system on the market.
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 Speaking of security issues, a serious vulnerability affecting VPN users on Linux has been discovered by William J. Tolley. The author notes that most Linux distributions are vulnerable, especially those that "use a version of systemd pulled after November 28th of last year which turned reverse path filtering off.". The report, which was assigned a CVE number CVE-2019-14899, reads: "We have discovered a vulnerability in Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, MacOS, iOS, and Android which allows a malicious access point, or an adjacent user, to determine if a connected user is using a VPN, make positive inferences about the websites they are visiting, and determine the correct sequence and acknowledgement numbers in use, allowing the bad actor to inject data into the TCP stream. This provides everything that is needed for an attacker to hijack active connections inside the VPN tunnel. This vulnerability works against OpenVPN, WireGuard, and IKEv2/IPSec, but has not been thoroughly tested against tor, but we believe it is not vulnerable since it operates in a SOCKS layer and includes authentication and encryption that happen in userspace." The report also provides a list of distributions affected by this vulnerability, including Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, Arch Linux, Manjaro Linux, Devuan, MX Linux, Void Linux, Slackware Linux, Deepin, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. See this Linux Weekly News post for further details.
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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) |
Dealing with massive log files being generated
Purging-large-log-files asks: I have a log file that is growing super fast in /var/log and don't know what's making it. The file is growing about a GB every few minutes. How do I find out what program is making it and stop it?
DistroWatch answers: There are a few approaches you can take to try to figure out what program is writing to the log file and put a stop to it. The easiest approach may be to look inside the log file to see what is being written to it. If you see a lot of lines referring to blocked access attempts it may be a firewall log. However, if you see a lot of references to package versions you may be dealing with a runaway update script. Knowing what is in the rapidly growing file will probably give a clue as to what is making it.
Another approach you can try is to run the lsof command. The lsof program will provide a list of programs which currently have a specific file open. For instance, running the following command will provide a list of all programs that have the /var/log/boot log open:
lsof /var/log/boot
Hopefully the lsof command will provide the name of the program which is writing to your log file. This should work if the log file is being written to constantly, but if it is not, then we may need to take another approach and attempt to find the culprit by process of elimination.
If the logfile is growing constantly it is probably being generated by a background service or running application. Closing running applications and disabling any unneeded services one at a time while watching the size of the log file may tell you which process is causing the problem. On the other hand, if the log file only grows periodically, perhaps once an hour, then the cause is more likely a systemd timer or cron job. Checking the crontabs on the system and/or the systemd timer units will likely reveal what job is being run and growing the log.
Assuming one of the above methods helps you find out which process is generating all the log entries, what can you do about it? There are three simple approaches you can try, ones that will not involve containers, virtual machines, or changes to service manager options.
The first is very straight forward: stop and, optionally, uninstall the software that is creating the massive log file. This is the most simple solution, though if you need the process for whatever reason, it is not a practical one.
The second solution is to see if the program which is writing all the log entries has an option to disable logging. A lot of services have a flag in their configuration file which indicates whether to log data and, if so, where. Check the manual page for your verbose process and see if logging can be turned off.
However, if none of the above solutions work there is another approach you can take. It is not ideal, but will prevent your filesystem from filling up with this giant log file. What we can do is remove the log file and replace it with a virtual device which discards all data sent to it. This is what the /dev/null file does, it is a black hole that soaks up all data and merely throws it away. This allows the runaway process to believe it is writing to a log without any data being saved on your disk. Assuming you have a giant log file called /var/log/big-file this is how we can replace the log with a virtual device that discards all the data written to it:
rm /var/log/big-file
mknod -m=666 /var/log/big-file c 1 3
The above commands will need to be run as the root user or through a tool like sudo. This creates an unbuffered virtual device that throws away any data written to it. Anyone can write to this file and that is fine because nothing gets stored in it.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
CAINE 11.0
CAINE (Computer Aided INvestigative Environment) is an Ubuntu-based GNU/Linux live distribution created as a project of digital forensics. The project's latest release, CAINE 11.0, is based on Ubuntu 18.04 and reportedly supports booting on UEFI, Secure Boot, and Legacy BIOS devices. Version 11.0 includes a Btrfs forensic tool and limits access to all storage devices to read-only mode. "Important changes: All devices are blocked in Read-Only mode, by default. New tools, new OSINT, Autopsy 4.13 onboard, APFS ready,BTRFS foresic tool, NVME SSD drivers ready! SSH server disabled by default (see manual page for enabling it). SCRCPY - screen your Android device. Autopsy 4.13 + additional plugins by McKinnon. X11VNC Server - to control CAINE remotely. Hashcat. New scripts (in the Forensics Tools - Analysis menu). AutoMacTc - a forensics tool for Mac. Bitlocker - volatility plugin. Autotimeliner - automagically extract forensic timeline from volatile memory dumps. Firmwalker - firmware analyzer. CDQR - Cold Disk Quick Response tool." Further details can be found on the project's home page.
elementary OS 5.1
elementary OS is an Ubuntu-based desktop distribution. Some of its more interesting features include a custom desktop environment called Pantheon and a custom software centre. The project's latest release is elementary OS 5.1 "Hera", which introduces many package updates, a refreshed login screen, and an onboarding application to guide new users through available features. "The newly redesigned login and lockscreen greeter looks sharper, works better, and fixes many reported issues with the previous greeter including focus issues, HiDPI issues, and better localization. The new design in Hera was in response to user feedback from Juno, and enables some nice new features. It now always shows usernames for all users, shows users' backgrounds as cards so you can more easily find users who maybe haven't set differentiating avatars, notifies when Caps or Num Lock are on, and makes 'Log In as Guest' more distinct when it's enabled. The new Onboarding app that ships with Hera introduces key features to users and handles common first-run tasks like managing privacy settings." Further details and screenshots can be found in the project's release announcement.
elementary OS 5.1 -- Running the Pantheon desktop
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Tails 4.1
The Amnesic Incognito Live System (Tails) is a Debian-based live DVD/USB with the goal of providing complete Internet anonymity for the user. The project's latest release is Tails 4.1 which switches the default key server, updates the Tor Browser application and Thunderbird mail client, and adds newer hardware support. "Use keys.openpgp.org as the default OpenPGP key server. keys.openpgp.org is more trustworthy than other OpenPGP public key servers because it only references an OpenPGP public key after sending a confirmation email to the email addresses listed in the key. keys.openpgp.org does not distribute third-party signatures, which are the signatures on a key that were made by some other key. Third-party signatures are the signatures used to create the OpenPGP Web of Trust. keys.openpgp.org prevents OpenPGP certificate flooding attacks, which can make your OpenPGP keyring unusable and crash your computer. Update Tor Browser to 9.0.2. Update Thunderbird to from 60.9.0 to 68.2.2. Replace the TorBirdy extension with custom settings and patches in Thunderbird that provide equivalent privacy. Update Enigmail to 2.1.3, which has a simplified setup wizard that automatically creates an OpenPGP key for new email accounts." The project's release announcement offers further details.
Univention Corporate Server 4.4-3
Univention Corporate Server (UCS) is an enterprise-class distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux. The project's latest release is an update to the distribution's 4.4 series: 4.4-3. "With this release, we have found a solution to three challenges: first, we fixed problems with upgrading Docker which occurred in older UCS installations. These had led us to delay the update to UCS 4.4-2 for some environments and to extend the maintenance of UCS 4.4-1 in order to give all users sufficient time to perform updates. Less common, but all the trickier were two other cases. With some Samba 4 shares, newer versions of Windows Explorer could crash when accessing the security settings. This was caused by extended file system permissions in connection with local user accounts not stored in LDAP. From this Samba generated status codes unknown to Windows. The second and similarly difficult to pinpoint case in an Open Source software used by us was a startup problem of OpenLDAP, which only occurred with a very rare constellation of contents at the end of the database file. We were able to isolate both problems, solve them in UCS and make patches available to the OSS projects." Additional information can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
Proxmox 6.1 "Virtual Environment"
Proxmox is a commercial company which offers specialized products based on Debian. The company has launched Proxmox Virtual Environment version 6.1 which is based on Debian 10.2 "Buster". The release announcement covers the highlights of the new version: "It is built on Debian Buster 10.2 and a specially modified Linux kernel 5.3, QEMU 4.1.1, LXC 3.2, ZFS 0.8.2, Ceph 14.2.4.1 (Nautilus), Corosync 3.0, and more of the current leading open-source virtualization technologies. This release brings new configuration options available in the GUI which make working with Proxmox VE even more comfortable and secure. Editing the cluster-wide bandwidth limit for traffic types such as migration, backup-restore, clone, etc. is possible via the GUI. If the optional package ifupdown2 of the Debian network interface manager is installed, it's now possible to change the network configuration and reload it in the Proxmox web interface without a reboot. We have improvements to 2-factor authentication with TOTP and U2F. The HA stack has been improved and comes with a new 'migrate' shutdown policy, migrating running services to another node on shutdown. In the storage backend, all features offered by newer kernels with Ceph and KRBD are supported with version 6.1." Further details can be found in the 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: 1,727
- Total data uploaded: 29.1TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Project Trident migrating from FreeBSD/TrueOS to Void
At the start of this week's issue we talked about Project Trident migrating from its TrueOS base to using Void, a Linux distribution, as its foundation. It is a big shift, one which the developers hope will provide better hardware support, among other benefits. What do you think of the move? Is Trident better off sticking with its TrueOS rolling release or migrating to Void?
You can see the results of our previous poll on favourite shell short-cuts 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) |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 16 December 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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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Fairly small amount of memory (by whoKnows on 2019-12-09 07:02:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
"Trident, when running from a command line, uses a fairly small amount of memory (150MB) ..."
If memory usage is important at all, since today, even the cheap computers alredy have 8GB RAM ...
Astra Linux (Orel) is using custom KDE Plasma (== "Fly") and is using approx. 180 ~ 190 MB RAM. More or less, close to antiX with IceWM. ;)
Just sayin'.
2 • Trident (by m3city on 2019-12-09 08:29:36 GMT from Poland)
That move is an essence of failure. What is left from bsd after that move? Why bother using it if developers jump like jumping jack on system's backbone? (Btw, Is there anyone out there who remembers an amiga game of that title?;)
Such a waste of resources. Further fragmentation. I understand and appreciate selection in linux world, but this diversity might have been usefull years ago. I believe that what is neccessary today is consolidation and focus on projects that can be kept afloat. We are constantly underpressure of mortages, underpaid jobs, uncertainity of life in general, and thus it's a little bit useless if talented and generous people, who donate their free time to develop programs/distribute linux spend it that way.
3 • Trident (by DaveT on 2019-12-09 08:49:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
I understand their decision to move away from FreeBSD to Void but I am saddened by it,
I like the BSDs and would have preferred that they add what they need into FreeBSD. And yes, I know that would have been a major task!
The downside to FreeBSD is they don't support older hardware. I like to keep my old stuff running. OpenBSD and NetBSD allow me to do that.
The Lumina desktop is not bad, getting it running well on linux will be well worth it.
Void looks like a really good choice to move Trident to.
4 • Trident (by Georigios on 2019-12-09 10:19:36 GMT from United States)
@2 You seems to overestimate the move of Trident from Free Bsd to Void.
"That move is an essence of failure" - Why? It is a start of a new project.
"What is left from bsd after that move?" - What is left? Well, the entire FreeBsd.
"Why bother using it if developers jump like jumping jack on system's backbone?" - Maybe because it works. Ask Netflix, Sony, Yahoo, Yandex etc.
Stop complainig abour fragmentation and waste of resources. People are free to work on project they like.
" We are constantly underpressure of mortages, underpaid jobs, uncertainity of life in general" -- oh hell yes, yes, yes!!!!!! But this is not Tridents or Linux` fault.
5 • Trident (by Chris on 2019-12-09 12:59:38 GMT from United States)
While I understand the reasons why the Trident project wishes to move to Void as its new base, I hope they understand that many people used their operating system because they wanted a BSD and not just another Linux distro. There are already myriad Linux distros for every taste and function. Once Trident fully transitions, what will it have to offer that the many other distros already do? My guess is not much.
6 • Trident (by Roy Davies on 2019-12-09 14:20:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
I am not familiar with Trident, nor do I wish to be. Like @5, why try reinventing the wheel?
All of the Linux distros that interest me are tried and tested, and satisfy my requirements.
7 • Trident (by IamWhoIam on 2019-12-09 15:16:44 GMT from Hungary)
A BSD-to-linux switch is so huge leap time will tell was it a good idea.
As the say in benefits: "Stable: Keep it running all day, every day, without loss of performance."
Hope keep that stable tag!
NomadBSD 1.3 is now available! - 2019-12-07
https://nomadbsd.org/
8 • @6 Ron Davies: (by dragonmouth on 2019-12-09 16:26:28 GMT from United States)
"why try reinventing the wheel?"
Because of developers' hubris. Every one of them is convinced that their way is the best and the only way. All this blather about "People are free to work on project they like." and "providing choice" is just an attempt to justify a selfish and self-centered "I want to do MY way!" Out of the 900+ distros in the DW database, more than half are either dormant, discontinued or dead. Who knows how many more are breathing their last? All that "choice" has accomplished is to create confusion, fragmentation and splintering.
9 • Trident switch to Void Linux (by Ankleface Wroughlandmire on 2019-12-09 16:30:04 GMT from Ecuador)
I am cautiously optimistic about Trident switching to Void Linux. I think it has become abundantly clear after all these years that *BSD will never make for a good desktop system, despite its many technical superiorities over Linux. Especially for using proprietary software and drivers, I think that it's just not worth the effort on *BSD, if it's even possible at all. And I'm not even referring just to graphics hardware, for example I have an Epson printer that works perfectly on Linux, but with a proprietary driver that's installable via a DEB or RPM package. And there's a plethora of proprietary remote access and VoIP applications that also have DEB and RPM packages. Whether we like it or not, there will always be a usage case for some users that *need* the functionality that only proprietary packages can provide.
With that being said, I also wonder about the effort barrier of getting proprietary software and drivers running on a Void base, with its non-standard package and filesystem layout.
I think it makes sense for Trident to choose Void as a base, since the base system is definitely less user-friendly but technically very well put-together, similar to the *BSDs. So there should be a lot of opportunity for Trident to apply its special sauce.
I am excited about Trident offering ZFS on root, although I was hoping that it would come from a normal binary package, not DKMS. I don't know if Void already handles the ZFS module matchup with their latest kernel versions, or if Trident will have to always chase after the latest Void kernel releases to keep the ZFS module current. They'll have to be careful to not let users get into situations where the kernel upgrades but the ZFS module is no longer compatible, even if they do have boot environments to rollback and save the ship.
I really wish that Trident would eventually offer editions with any other desktop that is not Lumina, which frankly seems pointless and deficient compared to pretty much any other desktop option, especially now that they're no longer limited by the difficulty of getting other desktops running on the *BSDs.
So, thanks and congratulations to Trident for their pragmatism and efforts in this interesting space.
10 • Trident (by Cheker on 2019-12-09 18:25:19 GMT from Portugal)
For Linux it's just another user friendly(ish) distro that joins dozens. For BSD it's one of the only ones that it had to begin with. But if the devs feel the Void base better serves their objectives, then more power to them. They obviously have that right.
11 • @9: (by dragonmouth on 2019-12-09 19:36:50 GMT from United States)
"I think it has become abundantly clear after all these years that *BSD will never make for a good desktop system, despite its many technical superiorities over Linux."
The same has been claimed by Windows supporters about Linux vis-a-vis Windows.
12 • @ 9 (by Lin on 2019-12-09 19:59:53 GMT from United States)
"I think it has become abundantly clear after all these years that *BSD will never make for a good desktop system, despite its many technical superiorities over Linux."
You forgot Mac OS...
13 • Trident (by poseidon on 2019-12-09 20:46:32 GMT from Moldova, Republic of)
I think that ditching FreeBSD is a mistake,
It would be really nice if they wouldn't do it,
but still would move to Void and keep existing bsd version too.
In this way there would be 2 distributions of Lumina.
which would benefit Lumina working with current mesa and hardware
and porting it to wayland right now,
instead of waiting for wayland to be ported to BSD and rewriting lumina.
I think that current situation is still a win,
BSD will still get a new desktop which works with wayland and mesa and new hardware,
and Linux will get better ZFS userspace tools.
14 • Project Trident migrating (by Roger on 2019-12-09 22:46:59 GMT from Belgium)
I think they should migrate to a different platform, namely Debian.
That's my opinion, after trying different distro I stick with Debian based ones.
Another distro that joins the club makes Debian stronger.
For me it's Linux Mint Mate number one (all PC), Ubuntu Mate two (only one PC) that is to keep an eye on Mate my desktop of choice.
15 • Trident Project (by Galo on 2019-12-10 02:59:33 GMT from Peru)
No confidence ...
Searching for a replacement to Windows 7 y found PC-BSD 10 ... the best O.S. and distro I ever foound. Its main drawback: ZFS took the whole HD drive,
Sooner PC-BSD become a bare bones O.S. with another name. Later it was switched to "Trident Project" under freeBSD.
Now it is becoming a LinUX distro. There is no heck on it.
16 • Project Trident migrating from FreeBSD to Void. What do you think of the move? (by R. Cain on 2019-12-10 05:50:09 GMT from United States)
Does what we think matter one whit to the developers?
Are they going to change their mind(s) on the basis of this poll?...on the basis of what *WE* think?
17 • Linux Mint 19.3 Xfce (by R. Cain on 2019-12-10 06:36:04 GMT from United States)
"...Further details can be found in the project's release announcements (Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce) and in the What's New document. Download (pkglist): ... linuxmint-19.3-xfce-64bit-beta.iso (1,900MB, SHA256, signature, torrent)..."
1.9 GIGABYTES FOR THE XFCE VERSION?
When their same "Number-One-On-Distrowatch-Since-The-Last-Ice-Age version" was 1300 MB? (which was almost four years ago. Mint has never even APPROACHED being “Number One” on DistroWatch, since.)
Getting not just a little fat, are we? Wonder why their donations are dropping? Could be because they don't have time to fix all the bugs and regressions they introduce with their latest, greatest and glitziest copy of Ubuntu. Besides, ALL those bugs and regressions will be fixed in the NEXT latest, greatest...
18 • Devuan (by Cray XMP on 2019-12-10 09:23:18 GMT from France)
@14 "I think they should migrate to a different platform, namely Debian."
You probably meant Devuan ! If not, why add the systemd burden to the move ?
19 • Project Trident (by anon on 2019-12-10 10:35:19 GMT from United States)
I don't understand IX Systems. The one thing that Trident/TrueOS/PC-BSD had going for it was that it was a desktop focused BSD that the average non-unix user could install and immediately use with little to no issues. Abandoning *BSD alienates the only people who had any real interest in the project, and rebasing to Linux makes the project pointless and irrelevant due to the fact that there are several highly polished distros that offer what Trident offers, but at a much higher level of quality.
Similarly, what about Lumina? The only thing that made it worthwhile was that it was a native DE for the BSD world. The quality of Lumina is laughable compared to the more established Linux focused DE's, but it was forgivable because it represented an attempt to do something that had not been done before on its target platform. Now, what do they do with it? If they abandon it, then it was a complete waste of time. If they make it Linux native, then it becomes just another DE in an ocean of DE's, and it is not even close to the quality of what Linux offered even 5 years ago.
And TrueOS? The standalone fork of FreeBSD, not the desktop focused spin with Lumina DE (let me be specific because IX Systems has an issue when it comes to naming things). With the new focus on Linux, will they continue to maintain their own BSD fork? Judging by the number of commits, it seems like a firm "no". How will this affect FreeNAS going forward?
I'm sorry to sound so negative, but this decision was a slap in the face to everybody who believed in what IX Systems was trying to do. It leaves a lot of people in an extremely awkward situation, and it calls into question the legitimacy of everything that IX Systems does going forward. Even Eric decided to switch GhostBSD's base back to FreeBSD, and leave TrueOS behind. Besides, if somebody wants a BSD-like experience without dealing with the BSD's, they could just use Gentoo and its portage system. Oh, and as far as ZFS goes, there is the ZOL project. So, what do they bring to the table with Trident + Void base other than the fact that they have turned their backs on their BSD supporters? They've basically waved the white flag and destroyed their reputation in the process.
20 • Don't diss the GPL dragonmouth (by Garon on 2019-12-10 13:30:47 GMT from United States)
dragonmouth said, All this blather about "People are free to work on project they like." and "providing choice" is just an attempt to justify a selfish and self-centered "I want to do MY way!" All that "choice" has accomplished is to create confusion, fragmentation and splintering.
I have never seen so much disrespect for the GPL and the FLOSS world. You very much sound like you want everyone in the world of Linux to be doing the same thing, working on the same thing and thinking the same way. Maybe Linux and BSD are not for you. You could very well fit in the world of MS Windows or maybe even Apple. You would be very happy without having all of those confusing choices.
21 • Trident and Void (by FedUpMonkeyMan on 2019-12-10 15:04:15 GMT from Mexico)
One thing that nobody has so far mentioned about this migration, which is worth mentioning is that Voisd Linux is one of the few distros that do not use Systemd, it uses Runit. In my opinion, that makes this migration a definite candidate as my future OS especially with the inclusion of ZFS. They just need to make the installed a bit more user friendly as well as the partitioning. Make they could use Calamares in the future. It is also missing a package manager. I dont know why they cant use something from Solus for packages.
Void has massive potential, but those few kinks need to be ironed out.
22 • @20 Garon: (by dragonmouth on 2019-12-10 17:48:05 GMT from United States)
"I have never seen so much disrespect for the GPL and the FLOSS world. "
That is only YOUR interpretation. You are seeing disrespect where none exists. You are over analyzing and over thinking. My comments are directed at the one trick ponies who create a distro with some minor cosmetic differences and then abandon it.
"you want everyone in the world of Linux to be doing the same thing.............."
Now you are over dramatizing. There is a BIG difference between "doing the same thing" and over 900 distros and over 75 Window Managers and Desktop Environments. Seems like you are misunderstanding my post on purpose.
"You could very well fit in the world of MS Windows or maybe even Apple."
OH! Now you've hurt my feelings! NOT!
23 • @21: (by dragonmouth on 2019-12-10 17:51:47 GMT from United States)
If Trident developers wanted to avoid systemd, they should have kept the FreeBSD base since BSDs do not use systemd.
24 • Trident (by Joe Blogs on 2019-12-10 19:25:17 GMT from New Zealand)
I agree with many of the above. Moving from a BSD base to a Linux base is a poor choice and taking the easier route in my opinion. People that want to use a BSD desktop without the hassles tied to it, will use Trident whether features are present or not.
FreeBSD and many of the other BSDs are great platforms with tonnes of potential in the desktop space. That's what made Trident interesting. Persisting with FreeBSD as the base while harder would eventually yield greater results.
Granted Linux is alot easier to develop and maintain a desktop platform for, but there are so many. To be noticed you have to really have something to offer.
25 • Dragonmouth etc (by DaveT on 2019-12-10 19:58:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
It's like this: the developers can do whatever they want whenever they want.
How much are you paying them?
Nothing.
So STFU.
You could always develop your own BSD or Linux distro.
I can't be bothered. I have better things to do.
FYI neither systemd nor Windows nor Mac OSX are allowed in my house.
BSD first, Devuan for those few and very specialist things the BSDs can't do.
26 • At least we can agree (by CS on 2019-12-10 22:11:50 GMT from United States)
"It's like this: the developers can do whatever they want whenever they want.
How much are you paying them?
Nothing.
So STFU."
How much do I have to pay before I'm entitled to an opinion, kind sir? Is there a rate sheet posted somewhere?
Once I have paid up I'll feel free to state my opinion that these developers have chosen to move from filling a legitimate, albeit very small, niche in the market to being an inferior, me-too distribution to add to the pile of pointless Linux distributions nobody needs. Of course I won't think such forbidden thoughts until I've paid somebody!
27 • Trident to Void .. BSD vs Linux (by Jordan on 2019-12-10 22:53:16 GMT from United States)
And of course systemd comes into the discussion.
Good on all who seem to see this as freedom of developer forethought for their project(s), and of course the freedom of expression we all have in this fine comments area.
Those of you trying to stop the expression here.. well, you must be very frustrated.
Kudos to CS, post #26.
28 • Project Trident migrating (by Roger on 2019-12-10 23:17:21 GMT from Belgium)
@18 " You probably meant Devuan "
No I really mean Debian, tried Devuan and it dose not work at all !
29 • BSD to Linux (by angel trumpets on 2019-12-11 00:28:08 GMT from Australia)
There are lots of apps to choose from for one's use. But there aren't lots of OS's to choose from due to hardware / driver compatibility issues. Shame. It would be fun to be able to try lots of different OS's, but it's hard to get most of the alternative ones to even boot.
30 • Trident, systemd, etc.. (by Friar Tux on 2019-12-11 14:33:02 GMT from Canada)
While I've tried Trident, last month, and found it a total failure, I CHOOSE not to use it. Similarly, I CHOOSE to use systemd, as I find it superior and it works beautifully on my machine. The bottom line, for me, is will it work - period. If Trident plus Void works then great. If it doesn't work then don't use it. If systemd works - great - use it. If it doesn't - well, you get the drift. Just as there are many different opinions, here, there really ARE different choices as well. When I go into the local supermarket, to the soft drink aisle, I see hundreds of different brands and flavours of soft drinks. I try a few and find the ones I like best. I DO NOT stand there loudly expressing my dislike for the ones I have not chosen. (I think security would probably get involve if I did.) There is a Mark Twain quote at the bottom of this page/site that is quite appropriate here - "A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval." (Well said, Mr Twain. Well said.)
31 • Trident and Void (by FedUpMonkeyMan on 2019-12-11 15:53:29 GMT from Mexico)
Another issue which has been missed in this discussion, is the undeniable fact that Linus has complete control over the Linux kernel. He has the last say in what is included or excluded in the kernel release. Linux is an authoritarian dictatorship controlled by one man.
BSD, or rather the big 3 BSDs, FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD, seem more democratic in their development approach from what i have read, but correct me if I'm wrong, but according to this article it states,
"The BSD code is not "controlled" by any one user, which many people see as a big bonus. Whereas the Linux kernel is mostly controlled by Linus Torvalds (the creator of Linux), BSD does not have a single person dictating what can and can't go into the code. Instead, BSD uses a "core team" to manage the project. This core team has more say in the direction of the project than all non-core members of the BSD community."
I think, that BSDs like FreeBSD and their flavours such as TrueOS, NomadBSD and GhostBSD have a lot to offer, namely security and for devs a more democratic avenue of software development.
I will be testing GhostBSD and if it works for my needs, will make the switch permanent.
32 • @31: (by dragonmouth on 2019-12-11 19:13:15 GMT from United States)
With the " the developers can do whatever they want whenever they want" attitude of Linux, do you want each distro developer to use his own version of the kernel??? Things are bad enough when every Tom, Dick or Harry fancies himself to be a Linux distro developer.
33 • @21 Void package manager (by Amy on 2019-12-11 19:43:43 GMT from United States)
Void _does_ have its package manager, XBPS. Or did I misunderstand your post?
34 • What does Trident bring to Void? (by Artemis3 on 2019-12-12 01:00:44 GMT from Venezuela)
I'm actually more interested to learn the differences from Void vs Trident. What is Trident adding that would be worth using vs a regular Void Linux install?
I don't need to be sold on the idea of moving into Void Linux, it is a distro i have already used before. Void Linux is not based in Debian, and that is VERY GOOD. In fact, its very BSDish because one of its developers worked on Netbsd.
Its too early to tell, but so far i think ZFS at install time is one of those. Ironically, and this wasn't mentioned in the review, ZFS is a memory hog. That 150MB number is probably half if using ext4. This might be useful for servers, but not so much for desktops. I personally use Btrfs in my desktop and that still uses far less ram (with compression).
Lumina was already available, but maybe now it will get a little better Linux support. Lumina is a very light desktop with no dependencies beyond X11 libs IIRC.
I also agree that developers are entitled to use the projects and take them where they see fit, you are welcome to follow them or not. There are other BSD desktop distros out there, not many but there are. BSD is great, and i encourage you to do so. Vanilla Freebsd with your favorite desktop should do just fine for most tasks such as in a working environment where all you use is a browser or an office suite without any weird proprietary hardware.
Someone said Linux is systemd, no it isn't. There are several distros without it, and Void happened to be one of them. Yes, runit starts real quick, for desktop use is great. Artix and Devuan can use it among others. Its anyone's choice to pick and choose what elements they want in their distro. If you want systemd, go elsewhere. Just because its Linux, doesn't mean it has to use any particular init, text editor, or desktop. Linux itself can be swapped too, but this is a counter example.
35 • Trident joining Linux (by A-Man-Who-Does-Not-Like-BSDs on 2019-12-12 01:28:04 GMT from Brazil)
I have tried a lot of BSD variants (TrueOS, Trident, GhostBSD, NomadBSD, etc). All of them where a total waste of time. The only half-decent one was NomadBSD, but it didn't recognize my USB WiFi device...
Now that the Trident project developers decided to abandon the FreeBSD base, I think it will be much positive, especially if they adopt LXQt as the new graphical environment and Otter as the standard web-browser. However, it would be even better to replace FreeBSD for Slackware Stable/Release instead of Void.
36 • @19 (by xt-at on 2019-12-12 10:40:21 GMT from United Kingdom)
iXsystems only develop FreeNAS and partner FreeBSD. To paraphrase their website blurb they are primarily "storage and server solution providers".
37 • @33 (by FedUpMonkeyMan on 2019-12-12 14:50:42 GMT from Mexico)
Misunderstood. It does have a package manager however, in the context of making Void more user friendly, they should make a graphical front end for XBPS or use something like Solus's package manager (borrow the code and modify). Command line packcage management works but its not for everyone.
38 • @37 I gave up on GUI Package Managers (by nanome on 2019-12-12 16:26:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
@37 I gave up using graphical package managers almost a decade ago. They are hard for even major, established distributions to get right and bug-free. The illusion that a graphical version of XBPS would be helpful to users new to Linux is debatable, but in those distros with both [debian, slackware?] I wonder what people choose.
39 • @38 (by FedUpMonkeyMan on 2019-12-12 19:28:53 GMT from Mexico)
For most of my installs I also use command line, but we aren't n00bs so to speak. For n00bs or relative n00bs graphical front ends for package managers are necessary. Searching for applications is much easier when using a GUI than the terminal as you don't have to remember the exact name of the package plus they usually provide an informative description for the program. There are many reasons why GUI is preferred over command line.
I think we can all agree that using a GUI package manager is what new linux users prefer regardless of the distro. The progression to command line installs happens, but over time and with experience, confidence and necessitude.
Void Linux, in that it does not use Systemd would provide relative new linux users an alternative to Systemd distros but as said, it does need a better installer and GUI package manager to be more user friendly.
Other non Systemd distros like Devuan, are a little better, so perhaps this is a better choice for someone wanting this type of system.
40 • @37 - GUI for xbps (by Uncle Slacky on 2019-12-12 20:44:34 GMT from France)
There is already a GUI front end for xbps, it's called octoxbps: https://github.com/aarnt/octoxbps
41 • @35: (by dragonmouth on 2019-12-12 22:27:35 GMT from United States)
Why are most BSDs a "total waste of time"? You are the first in a long time to express a dislike for BSDs. Just wondering.
42 • octoxbps package manager (by nanome on 2019-12-12 23:54:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
@40 I just tried octoxbps [I installed it with "xbps-install -S octoxbps"] on a quiet computer and I was immediately disappointed by the response. Typing "bash" into the GUI search box echos 1 character every 1-2 seconds. Maybe it's because it is version 0.2.2, but still not ready.
43 • Mint (by M.Z. on 2019-12-13 00:43:34 GMT from United States)
@17
"Could be because they don't have time to fix all the bugs and regressions they introduce with their latest, greatest and glitziest copy of Ubuntu"
You know Mint has been all LTS for several years know right? They don't change bases until after a new LTS comes along. You'd come off better if you did a little more research & promoted what you like rather than trashing other things.
44 • Trident (by koolaid guzzler on 2019-12-13 02:46:20 GMT from United States)
Cmon who honestly cares? Probably less than a dozen people. It's a confusing strategy to advance a confused and insignificant set of priorities. Lumina is junk and I aint talkin about Chevrolet or Secret of Mana. With such an abundance of desktop options, it boggles the mind how the rationale even formed to initiate such a DOA project. And now Linux people are supposed to care? Please.
All this soulless marketing from the neverending churn of forks/distros/etc is so mind numbing. The amount of projects on here presenting themselves as the next hip thing is nauseating. But as comment #8 said "HUBRIS" leads arrogant coders to needlessly fragment their efficiency and hide this shame behind logos, uninteresting names and cookie cutter slogans about "OS for humans/people/everyone", etc. Inability to work with likeminded people? I can barely see a point to fork FreeBSD, but why why why fork TrueOS?? Fork Void? Why not just fork Arch? It's like going from not being able to work with FreeBSD/TrueOS people to not being able to work with Void/Arch people.
On 1-20-2020, SystemD/Linux becomes Windows 7. Such an odd time to move toward the growing Linux sinkhole, instead of farther away from it. Please just install Windows and get a different hobby-- you're doing this one wrong.
45 • Waste of time (by whoKnows on 2019-12-13 06:38:21 GMT from United Kingdom)
"Why are most BSDs a "total waste of time"? ... Just wondering."
It's probably the simple fact that an OS is basically nothing but the app-starter. It doesn't help anything having all the freedom and the most sophisticated OS on Earth, if you can't get Adobe Suite or MS Office running on it.
The same is also truth for Linux, even if, to somewhat lesser extent.
If you're not a “militant, idealistic freedom fighter” that only needs a surf-station or some hobby-tools, you've got no other choice but use the only one OS left, which can do it all.
46 • @45 (by OstroL on 2019-12-13 13:42:38 GMT from Poland)
While agreeing with you, I'd like to add that
It's probably the simple fact that an OS is basically nothing but the app-starter on given hardware.
47 • @44 (by FedUpMonkeyMan on 2019-12-13 15:05:49 GMT from Mexico)
Totally agree with Koolaid Guzzler; these forks of forks that don't bring anything new to the space is so mind numbing.
There are many interesting projects that are trying new things, really amazing things like these privacy focused distros like Qubes or Subgraph. But there are so many mundane mind numbing POS distros that only change the artwork, slap on a different wallpaper and think they are a new distro. No. Enough of these turds, please.
Void incorporating ZFS is something interesting and that's possibly good for the Linux space.
Trident forking from TrueOs which in turn was PCBSD which in turn is based on FreeBSD.....well, this exhaustive circle jerking can just fork-off.
Please review Subgraph. In this age of privacy errosion another privacy distro is needed.
48 • Subgraph (by Bloob on 2019-12-13 19:11:56 GMT from Portugal)
Seems Subgraph already dead.
49 • The Last To Know (by Trihexagonal on 2019-12-13 20:29:01 GMT from United States)
@45 "If you're not a “militant, idealistic freedom fighter” that only needs a surf-station or some hobby-tools, you've got no other choice but use the only one OS left, which can do it all"
@9 "I think it has become abundantly clear after all these years that *BSD will never make for a good desktop system, despite its many technical superiorities over Linux."
I hate being the last one to find these things out.
I currently have 4 laptops running FreeBSD and 1 running OpenBSD. I don't use Linux or Windows and was not aware I was missing out on anything. It's all so abundantly clear to me now.
I don't need Adobe Suite or MS Office. Those are Windows hobby-tools in my opinion. How I've managed with only programs from the ports tree all this time is a mystery in itself.
I do have a site and Beginners Tutorial on Building A FreeBSD Desktop From Scratch, but don't consider myself to be a "militant, idealistic freedom fighter". I'm a lot of things but idealistic freedom fighter not one of them.
But I could be mistaken. It took me 14 years using FreeBSD to find out I had no choice but stick with Debian for a "good desktop". Pay no attention to all the screenshots on my site, or those from other FreeBSD forum members.
@3 "The downside to FreeBSD is they don't support older hardware."
Well that's just great. What am I supposed to do with all these 11-12 year old laptops running BSD? I didn't even know they stopped supporting i386.
Now I really am embarrassed...
50 • @49 Trihexogonal: (by dragonmouth on 2019-12-13 22:06:19 GMT from United States)
LOL!
Thanks for the site address. I was looking for a tutorial on installing BSD.
Number of Comments: 50
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| • 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 |
| • Issue 803 (2019-02-25): Septor 2019, preventing windows from stealing focus, NetBSD and Nitrux experiment with virtual machines, pfSense upgrading to FreeBSD 12 base |
| • Issue 802 (2019-02-18): Slontoo 18.07.1, NetBSD tests newer compiler, Fedora packaging Deepin desktop, changes in Ubuntu Studio |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the Star Lite, Star LabTop and more. Available with a choice of Ubuntu, Linux Mint or Zorin OS pre-installed with many more distributions supported. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
Otakux
Otakux was an Ubuntu-based distribution designed for "Otaku", a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests in anime, manga and video games. It comes with a custom theme and includes support for most media formats out of the box.
Status: Discontinued
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