 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 690, 5 December 2016 |
Welcome to this year's 49th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The Fedora distribution is one of the more cutting edge Linux distributions. This Red Hat sponsored project is often seen as a testing ground for new technologies, many of which later arrive in Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS. This week we begin with a look at Fedora 25 and talk about its new changes, including using Wayland as the default display technology in Fedora Workstation. In our News section we discuss Ubuntu's policy with regards to LTS upgrades and new hardware support. Plus we share package changes coming to SparkyLinux and talk about Haiku's push toward supporting EFI-enabled computers. In the Questions and Answers column we talk about trying to run Android applications on desktop computers and desktop applications on Android devices. Plus we share the distribution releases of the past week and the torrents we are seeding. In our Opinion Poll we again raise the topic of the look of the DistroWatch website, plus we go over some of the incremental improvements and features we have been working on behind the scenes. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (22MB) and MP3 (32MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Joshua Allen Holm) |
Fedora 25 review
As someone who started their Linux experience with a Red Hat Linux retail box set and switched to Fedora after Red Hat transitioned to Red Hat Enterprise Linux as their commercial product, I have been using Fedora for a long, long time. The cumulative changes since the first Fedora release have been considerable, but the list of changes for Fedora 25 is really quite short. Basically, the key points in the change log are newer versions of all the packages, Wayland by default, and Fedora Media Writer as the method for creating installation media. Below, I focus on each of those new features as I detail my first week using the latest release of Fedora.
Installing Fedora
Supplanting Fedora Live USB Creator, Fedora Media Writer is the new method for creating Live USB sticks. On the Fedora project's download page it is this application that is the item presented to Windows and macOS users as the primary download instead of offering them the ISO directly. Fedora users are informed that they can use the dnf package manager to install Fedora Media Writer. The download page also contains a link to the 1.3GB ISO for the 64-bit Workstation edition.
Fedora 25 -- The Fedora Media Writer
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Because I use a lot of virtual machines, I opted to download the ISO directly to have it on hand, but I used Fedora Media Writer's "Custom Media" option to create my Live USB installation media. However, had I decided to do so, Fedora Media Writer could have downloaded and created install media for most of the available Fedora 25 or Fedora 24 variants. Fedora Workstation and Server are predominantly featured, but clicking the item with three dots, which says "Display additional Fedora flavors" on mouse over, reveals options for all the "Fedora Spins" with alternate desktop environments and the "Fedora Labs" specialized variants (e.g., the Fedora Robotics Suite). The Fedora Atomic Host images seem to be the only omission.
Creating my install media using Fedora Media Writer was a breeze. Most Live USB creation tools work just fine, but Fedora Media Writer provides an extra bit of polish to the process. It even works well with ISO files from other projects. I even successfully created a bootable USB installer for TrueOS using it, so Fedora Media Writer is not limited to just Linux ISOs.
Fedora 25 -- The GNOME Shell desktop
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Once I had my Live USB drive ready, I rebooted my computer and Fedora started up. Fedora's default GNOME desktop was ready to use in a short time and I was presented with the option to try Fedora as a live desktop or install Fedora. I went straight for the install option, which launched Fedora's Anaconda installer.
Anaconda provides all the options required to install Fedora, and it works well enough, but it is not without flaws. Some of these flaws are Anaconda issues, mostly minor bugs that already have bug reports filed against them, but some are Fedora specific. The Fedora specific issues are the things that are a bigger deal to me. The default size of the root partition is just too small for my usage, which is probably not that atypical. Once I install all of the packages I want (which includes all of the texlive packages), I end up with only enough space a few virtual machine images stored under /var/lib/libvirt before I max out the root partition. I always end up customizing my partition scheme because of this, but in this era of huge hard drives, I would love it if the automatically created root partition on my 500GB hard drive was 100GB instead of 50GB. My other issue is fairly minor, but the Fedora project really, really needs to update some of the informational banner advertisements that are displayed during installation. The Workstation product installs LibreOffice by default, so a banner telling the user to "install LibreOffice" if they want create documents is misleading and possibly confusing. What is worse is the same banners display when installing Fedora Server, where installing LibreOffice makes little sense. Fedora Server adds a banner about Cockpit to the items it displays, so there is room for customization, but some of the default banners need to be pulled from variants that they do not make sense in.
The Fedora 25 experience
I will be honest, Fedora 25 is a very boring release. Everything is newer, but there are not a lot of new features. The biggest change is the switch to Wayland as the default display server (which I cover in more detail below), but just about everything else is just a version number bump. GNOME is now version 3.22. Firefox 49 is what came on the ISO, but the update to Firefox 50 is already available. Evolution, also version 3.22, serves as the default e-mail client. LibreOffice 5.2 rounds out the major software included by default.
Fedora 25 -- The Software application manager
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Plenty of additional software is available in Fedora's repositories, and the main tool for installing additional programs is the Software application. Using Software to install and update packages is really easy and the program, while simple, does provide a nice selection of programs and a usable search feature. However, Software is focused on GUI applications, so installing some packages requires using dnf in a terminal. While this is not awful, Software and dnf do not have a shared history, so the command "dnf history" will not show any transactions made by Software.
What is really nice about Fedora 25 is just how many programming languages are well supported by the distribution with up-to-date releases. I was able to easily set up support for C, C++, D, Java, Node.js, Python, Perl, R, Ruby, and Rust, with Rust being a new addition in Fedora 25. While I was certainly excited to see Rust packages included, I was disappointed that GnuCOBOL does not seem to be packaged for Fedora anymore.
The Fedora 25 experience is not perfect, and could use a few enhancements here and there, but it is really nice. However, there are numerous minor issues, and almost all of them can be traced back to Wayland.
GNOME on Wayland
The most significant change in Fedora 25 is the use of Wayland as the default display server. This change has been long promised, but the implementation has been frequently pushed back. Fedora 25 now defaults to using Wayland and, while perfectly usable, it is not perfect. After using Fedora daily since release, I have yet to find any issues that completely disrupt my work-flow, or make doing something important impossible, but there are a handful of issues that I ran across all the time. The first thing most people will notice is that the Videos application does not display video when in the Activities overview, instead it displays a solid gray window. This is not a major issue, but it is a missing feature. Other things that I have noticed are the fact that Files displays an extra blank line at the bottom of its right-click context menu that does not appear under Xorg and that LibreOffice messes up when returning from full screen mode. Under Xorg, when LibreOffice exits full screen mode, it properly restores to the size it was before, but under Wayland it reduces to a small window and, while this small window can be resized, it will no longer correctly maximize to use the full screen; it leaves a small gap on the right side of the screen.
Fedora 25 -- The Activities overview
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Despite some minor issues, Wayland is usable enough for me that I feel comfortable using it for everyday usage. I even installed a few open source games and only had minor issues. SuperTuxKart worked wonderfully, but only gave me two different screen resolution options, while running under Xorg provided me with a third. The two options provided under Wayland were the native resolution for my display and a 4:3 mode with the proper height for my display, so the lack of a non-native resolution for my display is almost a non-issue. ScummVM had a issue with displaying a half-inch strip of the desktop when playing full screen, but that has already disappeared. Though I have no idea if that was a Wayland issue or some other random glitch. I am not a huge gamer, but every open source game that I tried worked in Fedora 25's Wayland session without complaint or major issue. Granted, I am using Intel graphics, so others may have a vastly different experience.
Final thoughts
Even when dealing with the various Wayland oddities and issues, Fedora 25 is a great distribution. Everything is reasonably polished and the default software provides a functional desktop for those looking for a basic web browsing, e-mail, and word processing environment. The additional packages available can easily turn Fedora into an excellent development workstation customized for a developer's specific needs. If you are programming in most of the current major programming languages, Fedora provides you the tools to easily do so. Overall, I am very pleased using Fedora 25, but I am even more excited for future releases of Fedora as the various minor Wayland issues get cleaned up.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo Ideapad 100-15IBD laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: 2.2GHz Intel Core i3-5020U CPU
- Storage: Seagate 500GB 5400 RPM hard drive
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8723BE 802.11n Wireless Network Adapter
- Display: Intel HD Graphics 5500
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Ubuntu adopts rolling HWE kernel, SparkyLinux plans package changes, Haiku works toward EFI support
Leann Ogasawara has announced that the next point upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04 will arrive in January of 2017. The new point upgrade (Ubuntu 16.04.2) will provide a new Hardware Enablement (HWE) kernel. The HWE kernel features new hardware and driver support, enabling Ubuntu LTS releases to run on modern hardware. Ubuntu Desktop users will automatically be upgraded to the new HWE kernel with each point release while Ubuntu Server installations will default to a more conservative kernel without new hardware support or features. Server installations can switch from the conservative (GA) kernel to the HWE kernel if the administrator wishes. "As with previous point releases, we will deliver a newer Hardware Enablement kernel with the point release. This newer HWE kernel will be derived from the 16.10 Yakkety kernel (ie v4.8 based). There are some changes however that we wanted to make sure were communicated. The biggest change is that we are moving to what we refer to as a 'rolling HWE kernel' model. Essentially, consumers of an HWE kernel will automatically be upgraded to the next HWE kernel offered in subsequent point releases until reaching the final HWE kernel offered in 16.04.5. " Further details can be found in Ogasawara's mailing list post and in the Ubuntu wiki.
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The SparkyLinux team has announced a number of changes to the project's website and distribution. The SparkyLinux website now supports HTTPS secure connections across all pages and there have also been a number of changes to the distribution's default packages and repositories: "The Pantheon desktop's repo is not available any more (for Debian Testing) so will be removed from APTus and Minimal ISO images. There is an unofficial repo for Debian Stable available somewhere, so if you need it, it's not hard to find it. SlimJet web browser landed in our repos, and I debianized the Palemoon web browser which is available in our repos too. The live system of the new ISO images still does not work well inside VirtualBox, but works fine inside VMware Workstation, in BIOS and EFI mode." A full list of changes can be found on the project's website.
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The Haiku project develops an operating system which provides a responsive desktop environment in the tradition of BeOS. The Haiku developers have introduced a number of improvements in the past month. Some of these changes include automated e-mail account configuration for specific domains, better ncurses support in virtual terminals and fixes for playing HTML5 audio and video streams. In addition, the project is close to supporting computers with EFI enabled: "jessicah merged her branch with work on EFI support. This work was started by tqh, with the goal of making it possible to boot Haiku on EFI machines. While this is not working yet (the kernel crashes with memory access errors when started that way), it is now available in the main development tree for people to work on it." A longer list of changes can be found in the project's newsletter.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Running Android apps on a desktop Linux system
Using-the-same-apps-everywhere asks: Since Android is Linux, is it possible to load desktop Linux apps onto an Android phone? And can I do the reverse, installing Android apps on my Linux desktop?
DistroWatch answers: While Android and GNU/Linux desktop operating systems both run atop the Linux kernel, the part of these systems which is Linux relatively small. The Linux kernel is one component of hundreds (or even thousands) that make up a desktop or mobile operating system. Most of the parts which make up the Android operating system are different and incompatible with the parts which make up a desktop operating system such as Ubuntu or Fedora.
Some people like to point out that desktop systems like Ubuntu runs on Linux and Android runs on Linux, but the amount of shared technology between the two is fairly limited. A car and an airplane both have wheels, but we generally do not expect cars to fly or airplanes to get good gas mileage going to the grocery store and back.
That being said, there are some ways to share applications between the two platforms. For instance, if we want to run Android applications on a desktop computer, we can install Android-x86 in a virtual machine on our desktop. Android-x86 can run many applications in the Google Play Store, bringing them a bit indirectly to our desktop computer. Web applications can generally be run in any modern web browser, whether that browser is running on Android or on a Linux desktop system.
Though it is not straight forward to set up, some people have had luck getting Android apps to run inside the Chrome web browser. Taking this approach requires installing Chrome and then adding a special extension and then downloading and installing the Android app. Not all apps are going to work properly, but some people have reported limited success.
Getting GNU/Linux applications to run on Android is even more difficult. With the right tools you can sometimes get simple command line programs written for GNU/Linux to build and run on Android. However, Android does not have the X display software or the window managers usually available on desktop Linux systems. This effectively blocks desktop Linux applications from running on Android.
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Fir more questions and answers, visit our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Peppermint 7-20161129
Peppermint OS is a lightweight, Lubuntu-based Linux distribution. The Peppermint team has announced the release of an update (respin) to the project's version 7 installation media. The new media offers a update to the Linux kernel, fixes multimedia keyboard keys, includes better HP printer support through the hplip package and includes support for Bluetooth headsets. "Peppermint 7 Respin (Peppermint-7-20161129) Improvements: All updates to date (including the 4.4.0-47 kernel); Fixed multimedia keyboard function keys; Fixed browsing for smb network printers; Fix for Google Chrome keyring prompt; Added hplip for HP Printer support out of the box; Added pulseaudio-module-bluetooth for bluetooth headsets; Update manager will not prompt to upgrade to next 'Ubuntu LTS' version by default." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement. Peppermint OS downloads, signatures and checksum information can be found on the project's home page.
Peppermint 7-20161129 -- The default desktop environment
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Zentyal Server 5.0
José Antonio Calvo has announced the release of Zentyal Server 5.0, a major new version of the project's Ubuntu-based distribution designed for small business servers. This is Zentyal's first build based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS: "The Zentyal development team is proud to announce Zentyal Server 5.0, a new release of the Zentyal open-source Linux small business server with Active Directory interoperability. Zentyal Server 5.0 is based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and it comes with the latest versions of all the integrated software. New features and improvements include: Samba 4.5.1 - the latest released version of Samba directly from upstream, without any custom patch by Zentyal, it comes with all the fixes in the Samba project since Samba 4.3, which are many, specially on the replication code; the Zentyal integration code has been rewritten to no longer need custom patches - this will result in more stability and maintainability; NSS/PAM is now managed with winbind instead of sssd, which is the recommended way...." See the release announcement and changelog for more information.
Raspbian 2016-11-25
Simon Long has announced the release of Raspbian 2016-11-25, a security update of the Debian-based distribution for the Raspberry Pi single-board computers: "The more observant among you may have spotted that we've recently updated the Raspbian-with-PIXEL image. With any major release of the OS, we usually find a few small bugs and other issues as soon as the wider community starts using it, and so we gather up the fixes and produce a 1.1 release a few weeks later. We don't make a fuss about these bug fix releases, as there's no new functionality; these are just fixes to make things work as originally intended. However, in this case, we've made a couple of important changes. They won't be noticed by many users, but to those who do notice them and who will be affected by them, we should explain ourselves! What has changed? First, from now on SSH will be disabled by default on our images." Here is the full release announcement with an explanation of the changes made in this release.
Mageia 5.1
Donald Stewart has announced the release of Mageia 5.1, an updated build of the distribution current stable branch. This unscheduled version was put together due to delays delivering the upcoming Mageia 6 which is currently in development. From the release announcement: "We are very pleased to announce the release of Mageia 5.1. This release is a respin of the Mageia 5 installation and live ISO images, based on the Mageia 5 repository and incorporating all updates to allow for an up-to-date installation without the need to install almost a year-and-a-half worth of updates. It is therefore recommended for new installations and upgrades from Mageia 4. If you are currently running Mageia 5 then there is no need to install Mageia 5.1 as it is the same as your system, provided that updates have been installed. Mageia 5.1 ships with many updated packages, including LibreOffice 4.4.7, Linux kernel 4.4.32, KDE4 4.14.5, GNOME 3.14.3 and countless other updates." See also the release notes for detailed technical information.
Mageia 5.1 -- Running the KDE desktop
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SparkyLinux 4.5
The SparkyLinux distribution is based on Debian and features many editions, providing many different desktop environments for its users. The project has announced the release of SparkyLinux 4.5 which features LibreOffice 5, version 4.8 of the Linux kernel and systemd 232. The Pantheon desktop environment has been removed in favour of the Deepin desktop and the Common Desktop Environment (CDE). "Changes between 4.4 and 4.5: Full system upgrade as of November 29, 2016; Linux kernel 4.8.7 as default (4.8.12-sparky available in Sparky 'unstable' repo); Firefox 45.5.0 ESR (Firefox 50.0.2 available in our repos); Icedove 45.4 (Thunderbird 45.5.1 available in our repos); LibreOffice 5.2.3-rc1; libc6 2.24, systemd 232-6, python 2.7.12 + 3.5.2, gcc 5.4.1 + 6.2.0; added two new desktops to be installed via the MinimalGUI/CLI and APTus - CDE (Common Desktop Environment), DDE (Deepin Desktop Environment); Pantheon desktop has been removed from the configuration" The release announcement has further details.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
Bittorrent is a great way to transfer large files, particularly open source operating system images, from one place to another. Most bittorrent clients recover from dropped connections automatically, check the integrity of files and can re-download corrupted bits of data without starting a download over from scratch. These characteristics make bittorrent well suited for distributing open source operating systems, particularly to regions where Internet connections are slow or unstable.
Many Linux and BSD projects offer bittorrent as a download option, partly for the reasons listed above and partly because bittorrent's peer-to-peer nature takes some of the strain off the project's servers. However, some projects do not offer bittorrent as a download option. There can be several reasons for excluding bittorrent as an option. Some projects do not have enough time or volunteers, some may be restricted by their web host provider's terms of service. Whatever the reason, the lack of a bittorrent option puts more strain on a distribution's bandwidth and may prevent some people from downloading their preferred open source operating system.
With this in mind, DistroWatch plans to give back to the open source community by hosting and seeding bittorrent files. For now, we are hosting a small number of distribution torrents, listed below. The list of torrents offered will be updated each week and we invite readers to e-mail us with suggestions as to which distributions we should be hosting. When you message us, please place the word "Torrent" in the subject line, make sure to include a link to the ISO file you want us to seed. To help us maintain and grow this free service, please consider making a donation.
The table below provides a list of torrents we currently host. If you do not currently 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 here. All torrents we make available here are also listed on the very useful Linux Tracker website. Thanks to Linux Tracker we are able to share the following torrent statistics.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 261
- Total data uploaded: 48.4TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
New header bar appearance
Last week we ran a poll asking whether our readers would like to see DistroWatch switch to a more modern web theme. The majority of voters asked us to keep things the same and/or make minor improvements.
Last week we received some suggestions as to what a streamlined navigation/header bar at the top of the site might look like. This week we would like to know if you think this new look is an improvement over our current design.
New header bar suggestion
(full image size: 48kB, resolution: 1365x357 pixels)
You can see the results of our previous poll on the look of the DistroWatch website here. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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New header bar appearance
| I like the new design: | 681 (41%) |
| I prefer the old/existing design: | 513 (31%) |
| No strong preference: | 466 (28%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Changes to the website
Over the past few weeks we have been looking at the design of the DistroWatch website and considering where we can make improvements. In last week's poll readers indicated a desire for things to stay largely the same, possibly with evolutionary changes rather than an entirely new design. Several readers sent in new design suggestions and we have been working on implementing a few things.
One change we have made is creating a mobile-friendly version of DistroWatch. The mobile version of the site is very similar in look and behaviour to the full desktop site. The navigation bar has been redesigned and the pages should be more streamlined (and load faster) than before. The fonts are larger and easier to see on small screens too, but otherwise the content and style are all the same. We will be making small tweaks to the mobile version of the site over time.
For people who want to leave the mobile site and get back to the full featured/desktop version, you can select the Full Website option from the Navigation menu at the top of the page. People on mobile devices who are not automatically redirected to the mobile site can click the Mobile Site link at the top of the page to see the more streamlined site.
Regarding the feedback we received last week, a few people mentioned the time it takes to scroll through the comments to get to the bottom. There is now a link at the top of the comments section to jump directly to the bottom of the comments. We plan to introduce additional links like this to make our various resources and past articles easier to find. Some people mentioned a desire for more variety in the style of articles and reviews and it is our hope aspiring writers will check out our Contributing page and send in their reviews, tutorials and commentaries.
Another feature we have put into place is the Security Advisories page. This page collects security advisories from multiple open source projects and presents them all in one location. The list of advisories can be filtered by distribution and by date. At the moment, we are tracking advisories from five projects: Debian, FreeBSD, Red Hat, SUSE Linux Enterprise and Ubuntu. We hope this new feature will help people keep up to date with security fixes and provide a way for readers to compare the security and response times of various projects. If there is another project whose security advisories you would like us to track, please e-mail us with a link to the project's security RSS feed.
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Distributions added to waiting list
- Zephyr Linux. Zephyr Linux is a distribution with editions formed from two bases: Debian and Devuan. The project provides editions that feature the Fluxbox, JWM and Openbox window managers.
- SemiCode OS. SemiCode OS is a Linux Distribution made for programmers and web developers. It includes most popular programming languages, compilers and integrated development environments (IDEs).
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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, 12 December 2016. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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DemoLinux
We wanted to make it possible to everybody to look at what Linux can offer, and to make it possible for software publishers wanting to show their Linux-based software to distribute a no hassle hands-off demo CD. But this kind of CD makes also a wonderful Linux-to-go solution: you might carry your favorite desktop configuration in your pocket, sit in front of a non-Linux box, boot from the CD and be in front of your preferred environment in minutes.
Status: Discontinued
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TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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