 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 707, 10 April 2017 |
Welcome to this year's 15th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Open source software is always evolving with some projects growing and becoming more relevant while others are unable to attract enough attention to sustain themselves. This week we explore a few projects which are struggling and others which continue to develop and grow. We begin with a review of PCLinuxOS, a rolling release distribution which has maintained a significant following using an unusual combination of up to date desktop applications and conservative approach to change. In our News section we talk about Canonical discontinuing development of the Unity 8 desktop and Ubuntu's mobile operating system in favour of shipping the GNOME Shell for future versions of Ubuntu. We also cover changes to Chakra's infrastructure, how to run OpenBSD on a Raspberry Pi and the Tanglu project's search for ways to streamline and attract new developers to the distribution. Privacy is always an important topic and this week we discuss using VPNs to hide our network traffic from prying eyes in our Questions and Answers column. Let us know whether you use VPNs or related technologies such as Tor in our Opinion Poll. As usual, we cover the distribution releases of the past week and provide a list of the torrents we are seeding. Finally, we are happy to welcome the LibreELEC project to our database. We wish you all a superb week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (98MB) and MP3 (73MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
PCLinuxOS 2017.03
It has been about a year since I last explored the PCLinuxOS distribution. At that time I was experimenting with the project's MATE edition. Since I have not taken the chance to try PCLinuxOS since the distribution launched an edition with the KDE Plasma 5 desktop environment, I thought it would be fun to revisit this project. PCLinuxOS currently ships with version 5.8 of the Plasma desktop which is a long term support release of Plasma. The ISO file I downloaded for PCLinuxOS was 1.3GB in size.
Booting from the distribution's live media brings up a menu asking how we would like to launch the operating system. We can choose to launch PCLinuxOS with a graphical desktop with the default settings, load the desktop with safe mode graphics settings, boot to a text console or launch the project's system installer. Taking one of the live desktop options soon brings up a window asking us to select our keyboard's layout from a list. Then the Plasma desktop loads. PCLinuxOS has a varied and colourful wallpaper. There are icons on the desktop which open the Dolphin file manager and launch the system installer. At the bottom of the screen we find a panel which houses the application menu, a few quick-launch buttons, a task switcher and the system tray.
Installing
After confirming that the distribution could run in my test environments, I opened the system installer. PCLinuxOS uses a graphical installer which gently guides us through the steps required to get the distribution on our hard drive. We begin with disk partitioning and PCLinuxOS offers to automatically partition our hard drive for us or let us manually divide up our disk. The distribution supports working with ext2/3/4, Btrfs, XFS and JFS file systems as well as LVM and RAID configurations. I found the partition manager to be fairly flexible and easy to navigate. There are a lot of options in the installer, but many of the installer's features are tucked away and only shown if we specifically request Expert or Advanced options.
The installer next offers to remove unneeded software packages from the system. For example, I do not have an NVIDIA video card and the PCLinuxOS installer offers to remove NVIDIA driver packages to free up space. The installer then copies its files to the hard drive. A few minutes later the installer asks which boot loader (LILO, GRUB Legacy or GRUB2) we would like to install and what, if any, special options we would like the operating system to use when it boots. At this point we are finished with the installer and can reboot to start using our brand new copy of PCLinuxOS.
The first time our pristine operating system boots a graphical wizard appears and walks us through a few final configuration steps. We are asked to select our time zone list from a list and we have the option of using network time synchronization or manually setting our computer's clock. We are then asked to make up a password for our system administrator's account and create a regular user account for ourselves. Once these steps have been completed we are presented with a graphical login screen.
First impressions
Signing into our account brings up the Plasma 5.8 desktop environment. Though Plasma took a while to launch on my systems, once the desktop environment had finished loading the environment was responsive and I experienced no lag or delays. The default desktop theme is fairly bright and offers a variety colours. I found the theme allowed for a good deal of contrast without being visually distracting.
PCLinuxOS 2017.03 -- The Plasma application menu
(full image size: 334kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
For people who do not enjoy the default look and feel of the Plasma desktop, we can adjust most aspects of the desktop environment through the KDE System Settings panel. This configuration panel provides modules for adjusting the desktop's theme, notifications and media support as well as features like file indexing and pairing the desktop with Android phones via KDE Connect. The settings panel is fairly easy to navigate and offers users a search function to help us find the specific option we want to change.
Hardware
I tried running PCLinuxOS in two test environments, experimenting with the distribution in VirtualBox and on a desktop computer. I found PCLinuxOS was unable to integrate with the VirtualBox environment and therefore I could not make full use of my computer's screen resolution. The distribution does not provide guest modules for VirtualBox environments in its software repositories and the generic VirtualBox modules failed to install on the distribution. I tried installing VirtualBox using a script supplied by the distribution. While this successfully installed the VirtualBox software, it did not provide me with a working guest module. Apart from the poor desktop resolution, PCLinuxOS worked well in VirtualBox. The operating system was responsive, connected to the network and was able to play sound out of the box.
When I started playing with PCLinuxOS on a desktop computer, I ran into a few problems while using the live disc. One issue was that applications could not play sound. My audio volumes (both the PulseAudio and ALSA volumes) were turned up their maximum settings, but I could not get applications to produce sound. I eventually found I could get sound from my speakers by muting and then un-muting the PulseAudio controls. I ran into another problem with the system clock. When NTP time synchronization was enabled and my correct time zone set, PCLinuxOS's clock displayed a time that was off by six hours. Disabling network time synchronization and manually setting the correct time worked around the issue. Both of these problems only appeared when working from the live disc, once the distribution was installed these problems disappeared.
PCLinuxOS 2017.03 -- Adding a printer to the system
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PCLinuxOS was slow to boot in both test environments compared to other mainstream distributions and the Plasma desktop was slow to load. However, I got good performance out of the distribution once the Plasma desktop had finished loading. The desktop and applications were quick to respond. I was pleased to find the distribution properly detected my network printer. During my trial PCLinuxOS and its applications were stable and I encountered no crashes. In either test environment PCLinuxOS required about 420MB of RAM to sign into the Plasma desktop.
Applications
The Plasma edition of PCLinuxOS ships with a lot of software. While many of the default applications are Qt/KDE programs, many others are not and I like that the distribution places more focus on providing good tools than providing a pure Qt environment. The distribution ships with Firefox (with Flash support), LibreOffice 5, the Thunderbird e-mail client, the KeePassX password manager and the Pidgin chat client. There are remote desktop viewers, the Choqok micro-blogger, a couple of text editors and a DropBox client. PCLinuxOS ships with an application called Master PDF Editor which makes it easy to edit PDF documents. The Master PDF Editor is free to use for non-commercial purposes, but is provided under a proprietary license. The distribution also ships with the qBittorrent application for downloading and uploading torrents, the Krita drawing program and the BleachBit software for cleaning up temporary files. PCLinuxOS ships with the Dolphin file manager, a process monitor and a live radio streaming client. The distribution also supplies us with the VLC media player, the Kdenlive video editor and the Vokoscreen Recorder. To compliment these multimedia applications the distribution ships with a collection of media codecs so we can play most media files. In the background we find Java, the GNU Compiler Collection, version 4.9.2, and the SysV init software. At the time of writing the distribution runs on version 4.9 of the Linux kernel.
PCLinuxOS 2017.03 -- Cleaning up old files with BleachBit
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Several of the items in the application menu have names which may seem cryptic. In particular I noticed some names like zuluCrypt, MKVToolNix and DeadBeeF scattered through the menu and these are harder to intuit than something like LibreOffice Writer. For people who would like hints as to what these applications do, we can right-click on the application menu and enable program descriptions in the menu's settings. For those of you who are interested, zuluCrypt is a desktop application for encrypting and decrypting files as well as working with encrypted volumes. The zuluCrypt interface is fairly friendly, even for people new to working with encrypted files. DeadBeeF is a simple audio player for listening to music files. MKVToolNix website's contains a blurb which says MKVToolNix can "create, alter and inspect Matroska media files" but I was able to find little else to explain the practical workings of the utility.
I noticed a few applications included with PCLinuxOS do not include documentation. Launching MyLiveGTK or DeadBeeF and selecting items from their Help menus results in an error being displayed that reports the documentation is not available. When running the Click Radio audio streaming application I found clicking the application's About button caused the application to drop the audio stream while it looked for the requested information.
One last application I would like to highlight is MyLiveUSB. This program, and its friendly front-end MyLiveGTK, assist us in making a copy of our live operating system and transferring it to a USB thumb drive. I think this is a handy tool as it makes it easier to take an operating system with us or backup our configuration.
Software management
The distribution does not tell us when new software updates are available, we are left to check for new updates ourselves using the Synaptic graphical package manager. Alternatively we can use the apt-get command line package manager. Synaptic is a tried and true package manager which simply presents us with a list of available software and provides us with a search function to find programs based on a name or description. We can check a box next to any packages we wish to install or remove. There is also a handy button which will queue any available upgrades for installation. PCLinuxOS is a rolling release distribution which means we can expect a fairly steady stream of new package versions. During the week I was running the distribution I upgraded 34 packages, requiring about 33MB of downloads. Something I found interesting about Synaptic was the package manager did not, by default, check packages' signatures to guard against corrupted downloads. It is a feature we can enable though if we want the added security.
PCLinuxOS 2017.03 -- The Synaptic package manager
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Control Centre
One of the best features I think PCLinuxOS has to offer is the distribution's Control Centre. This control panel, which is shared by other distributions in the Mandriva/Mageia family of operating systems, provides the administrator with many useful configuration tools. The Control Centre divides its tools into categories such as Software, Security and Boot. Each category contains modules we can launch which provide us with friendly graphical interfaces for changing settings. The Control Centre makes it easy to do anything from simply launching the Synaptic package manager to setting up a web server to configuring network services such as DHCP, NTP and OpenSSH. We can also browse hardware information, configure the display server, set up printers and share our files over NFS and Samba shares. The Control Centre contains modules for configuring the distribution's firewall, managing user accounts, setting the system time and enabling automatic logins.
PCLinuxOS 2017.03 -- The Control Centre and KDE System Settings panels
(full image size: 294kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
I like the Control Centre as it makes a lot of administrative tasks straight forward and the modules generally provide clear explanations and options. Though I did run into one minor issue when using the OpenSSH module. The first time I went through the module to enable the secure shell service I took the defaults and was unable to connect to the service. I confirmed, using the Control Centre services module, that OpenSSH was running, but it was not accepting connections. I later found the OpenSSH module had incorrectly detected my IP address and caused the OpenSSH service to ignore incoming connections to my real address. Walking through the OpenSSH module and manually specifying my computer's proper IP address fixed the issue.
Conclusions
PCLinuxOS is fairly easy to set up, offers good performance and includes a wide range of software. I generally enjoyed using the Plasma 5.8 desktop and the System Settings panel makes it easy to customize the Plasma environment. I very much enjoyed working with the Control Centre as it makes tasks like setting up network shares or working with the firewall easy. In short, there is a lot about PCLinuxOS that I enjoyed.
However, I did run into several minor problems. Nothing show stopping, but a handful of "papercut" style issues that bothered me. For example, PCLinuxOS makes it easy to install VirtualBox, but not to get working VirtualBox guest modules. When running the live environment on my desktop computer I had trouble with sound and network time synchronization. A few programs were missing their documentation files and I ran into an error while setting up secure shell access. None of these items are big issues in themselves, but when combined they suggest to me that not enough people are testing the distribution and reporting issues to the developers.
In general though what stood out about PCLinuxOS was the distribution provides a rolling release platform that receives regular updates, while also providing a relatively conservative environment. Most distributions either stick with a static, point release system or offer a rolling release with cutting edge packages. PCLinuxOS seems to be finding a pleasant middle ground where core components and the layout of the desktop are conservative while the desktop applications are the latest and greatest. I like the balance that is achieved between providing a traditional environment and newer applications.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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Visitor supplied rating
PCLinuxOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.2/10 from 113 review(s).
Have you used PCLinuxOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Canonical pulls the plug on Unity 8 and convergence, Tanglu seeks additional developers, Chakra's infrastructure changes, OpenBSD on the Raspberry Pi
In a surprise announcement, a blog post attributed to Ubuntu's Mark Shuttleworth claims the Canonical-sponsored distribution will shift its default desktop environment from Unity 8 to GNOME for the next long term support (LTS) release. "I'm writing to let you know that we will end our investment in Unity 8, the phone and convergence shell. We will shift our default Ubuntu desktop back to GNOME for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. I'd like to emphasize our ongoing passion for, investment in, and commitment to, the Ubuntu desktop that millions rely on. We will continue to produce the most usable open source desktop in the world, to maintain the existing LTS releases, to work with our commercial partners to distribute that desktop, to support our corporate customers who rely on it, and to delight the millions of IoT and cloud developers who innovate on top of it." The change in focus likely means development of the Unity 8 desktop environment, and related technologies such as Mir and Ubuntu Phone, will no longer be sponsored by Canonical. At the time of writing, it is unclear what effect this will have on related community projects such as Ubuntu GNOME and UBports. Since the announcement, a fork of Canonical's Unity 8 desktop has been created at Unity8.org with the source code available through GitHub. The UBports team has also responded to the news with plans to continue porting Ubuntu to Android mobile devices.
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A blog post on Planet Tanglu seems to indicate the Debian-based distribution is struggling due to a lack of interested developers. Matthias Klumpp posted an overview of the project and its history and reported that he no longer has as much time to spend on the Tanglu project. The post echoes the message of many Linux distributions facing the strains of maintaining a large project with few developers and limited resources: "So, what actually is the way forward? First, maybe I have the chance to find a few people willing to work on tasks in Tanglu. It's a fun project, and I learned a lot while working on it. Tanglu also possesses some unique properties few other Debian derivatives have, like being built from source completely (allowing us things like swapping core components or compiling with more hardening flags, switching to newer KDE Plasma and GNOME faster, etc.). Second, if we do not have enough manpower, I think converting Tanglu into a rolling-release distribution might be the only viable way to keep the project running. A rolling release scheme creates much less effort for us than making releases (especially time-based ones!). That way, users will have a constantly updated and secure Tanglu system with machines doing most of the background work. If it turns out that absolutely nothing works and we can't attract new people to help with Tanglu, it would mean that there generally isn't much interest from the developer or user side in a project like this, so shutting it down or scaling it down dramatically would be the only option."
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The Chakra GNU/Linux project is overhauling some of its infrastructure, introducing hardware and networking enhancements to the distribution's build servers. The project is also rolling out some automation on the backend to improve the development process. There are some changes in the works for Chakra's end users too, including package signing and a new community forum: "totte introduced our new forum software, a closed beta for which is already running on community.chakralinux.org. We plan to use this as a replacement of our current forum, mailing list, wiki and news tools and we hope to soon make it available to everyone. totte has also already setup Gitlab, but we still need to migrate pending bug reports before we officially switch to it to host our code and issue-tracker. Samir (Ram-Z), Chaoting (brli) and Luca (AlmAck) are working on finalizing package signing on both our local build systems and on Chakra's build server. This is important in order to improve the security of our packages and repositories." Details on these changes and more can be found in the project's news update.
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The Raspberry Pi is a minimal, single board computer which has proved popular among hobbyists and in educational settings. The Pi's minimal resources are well suited to efficient operating systems that can be customized to the Pi's hardware. Ian Darwin has been working on getting OpenBSD running on the Raspberry Pi 3 computer. "The Raspberry Pi computers are interesting in their own way: intending to bring low-cost computing to everybody, they take shortcuts and omit things that you'd expect on a laptop or desktop. They aren't too bright on their own: there's very little smarts in the board compared to the "BIOS" and later firmwares on conventional systems. Some of the "smarts" are only available as binary files. This was part of the reason that our favorite OS never came to the Pi Party for the original RPi, and didn't quite arrive for the RPi2. With the RPi3, though, there is enough availability that our devs were able to make it boot. Some limitations remain, though: if you want to build your own full release, you have to install the dedicated raspberrypi-firmware package from the ports tree. And, the boot disks have to have several extra files on them - this is set up on the install sets, but you should be careful not to mess with these extra files until you know what you're doing!" Details on Darwin's experiment can be found in this post.
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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) |
Setting up VPN connections
Hiding-my-connection asks: I have been hearing a lot about VPNs and using them to hide my web browsing habits from ISPs. What are some good tips for using a VPN and how to set one up?
DistroWatch answers: A virtual private network, or VPN, provides a method by which computers can talk to each other over the Internet as though they were on the same local network. This feature is often used to treat a remote computer as our gateway to the Internet. Instead of our Internet traffic leaving our computer and going out into the world directly, our network connection effectively goes out to the VPN server and, from there, goes out into the world. This makes it look like the remote computer is where our network traffic is coming from. The VPN acts as a sort of proxy or gateway between us and the rest of the Internet.
Since it looks like our network traffic is coming from the VPN server and the server can be anywhere in the world, a VPN connection is often used to get around censorship or region limitations placed on on-line media. A connection to a VPN server is usually encrypted to prevent people from being able to see what it is we are sending or receiving between our local computer and the VPN server. Because the traffic between our computer and the VPN server is encrypted, VPNs are sometimes used to hide communications when we are connecting over an insecure network.
Recently, policy changes in the United States of America have made people want to shield their network traffic from the eyes of their Internet service providers (ISPs) to avoid having information about their web browsing habits sold. While a VPN can hide some of the specifics of what a person is doing on-line, using a VPN is not a perfect solution for Internet privacy. Connecting to websites over a VPN may hide the specifics of what we are doing from our local ISP, but it passes the privacy issue further down the line. Now the VPN provider and the VPN's ISP will see which websites we are visiting and when. The issue is shifted more than solved because now we need to trust the VPN to keep our secrets.
A VPN certainly has its uses, such as getting around censorship or protecting network traffic on an open network, but VPNs also have their limits. When trying to avoid being monitored by your ISP it makes sense to look for a VPN provider you can trust to not track the traffic moving through their servers. There is a chart comparing VPN providers and their features on That One Privacy Site which may be useful for people shopping for a VPN.
Another thing to consider is much of the time, when people are on-line, they sign into websites. People often log into places like their bank, Facebook, Twitter, Google and so on. These websites may also use methods to track their visitors. Using a VPN or other anonymizing service and then logging into a website largely removes the user's anonymity.
As for how to set up a VPN, that may vary depending on which VPN provider you decide to use. Your provider should offer basic set up instructions to enable the VPN once you have an account with them. There are a few common types of VPNs, one is OpenVPN which is particularly popular in the open source community. The Linux.com website has instructions for setting up connections to an OpenVPN server using a variety of methods. A second method, which has been around for a while, uses the Point-to-Point Tunnelling Protocol (PPTP). PPTP connections are supported by Network Manager on most Linux distributions and can be enabled by adding a VPN connection in Network Manager.
Another approach to maintaining on-line privacy would be to use Tor. The Tor Project uses methods to safeguard traffic which are similar in many ways to VPNs, but with more effort put into anonymizing network traffic. It is fairly easy to set up Tor, the service is free to use and it will offer many of the same benefits as a VPN. Tor connections tend to be a bit slower than premium VPN services, but can be used with similar effectiveness.
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These and other answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Vine Linux 6.5
Daisuke Suzuki has announced the release of a new version of Vine Linux, a general-purpose Japanese Linux distribution with RPM package management. Code-named "Poupille", Vine Linux 6.5 upgrades the Linux kernel to the long-term supported 4.4 branch and provides updates to many popular applications, but it continues to include GNOME 2 as the default desktop environment. From the release notes: "Vine Linux 6.5 (Poupille). Vine Linux 6.5 has following features (highlights): update the software collection; update Linux kernel to 4.4.y; update toolchain (GCC 4.9.3, glibc 2.23, Binutils 2.26); bundle newer software - Firefox 52, Thunderbird 45, LibreOffice 5.2, OpenJDK 1.7.0.91, OpenSSL 1.0.1u; improved stability; improved look and feel; improved hardware support; new user-friendly tools." See also the release announcement (in Japanese) for further information.
GoboLinux 016.01
Lucas Villa Real has announced the release of GoboLinux 016.01, an updated build of the project's independently-developed distribution with a custom file system hierarchy: "We are pleased to announce GoboLinux 016.01 after roughly 3.5 months since the release of 016. While it features some essential package upgrades, this revision aims at providing a more stable foundation for those who want to try it out. The list of improvements over 016 is extensive. The following is a high level summary of what's new since 016: enabled support for Core2 processors; improved support for UEFI systems and virtualized platforms; improved detection of other operating systems when creating the GRUB configuration file; support for installation to external hard drives; fixes the SSL certificate paths; fixes SSL support in our Compile tool; fixes the /usr/libexec compatibility link; inclusion of CryptSetup to enable mounting of encrypted partitions from the live ISO image; inclusion of Listener, a daemon that automatically cleans up broken links when entries from /Programs are removed...." Visit the project's home page to read the full release announcement and see also the release notes for further details.
Univention Corporate Server 4.2-0
Univention Corporate Server (UCS) is a Debian-based Linux distribution for enterprise server environments. The Univention team has announced the release of Univention Corporate Server 4.2-0. The new version shifts the distribution's base from Debian 7 to Debian 8 which also transitions UCS from using SysV init to the systemd init software. "We are very happy to announce the availability of Univention Corporate Server (UCS) 4.2. Considerable highlights are: The Debian base in UCS was changed from Debian 7 (Wheezy) to Debian 8 (Jessie). The entire Debian distribution will no longer be rebuilt. This allows security updates to be released even faster, and binary compatibility is increased. This change also involves the switch of the default start-up system to systemd. However, all previous init scripts are still started, so that the apps can be migrated successively. A configurable web portal provides an overview of the services installed in the domain. If there is more than one UCS system in the domain, an overview of servers is displayed." Further information on UCS 4.2-0 can be found in the company's release announcement and release notes.
CentOS 6.9
Johnny Hughes has announced the release of CentOS 6.9, a Red Hat-sponsored Linux distribution built from the source code for the recently-released Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.9. This is the project's legacy branch supported until November 2020. From the release announcement: "We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of CentOS Linux 6.9 and install media for i386 and x86_64 architectures. CentOS Linux 6.9 is derived from source code released by Red Hat, Inc. for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.9. All upstream variants have been placed into one combined repository to make it easier for end users. Workstation, server and minimal installs can all be done from our combined repository. There are many fundamental changes in this release, compared with the past CentOS Linux 6 releases, and we highly recommend everyone study the upstream release notes as well as the upstream technical notes about the changes and how they might impact your installation." See also the release notes for further information and upgrade instructions.
CentOS 6.9 -- Running the KDE desktop
(full image size: 489kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
NuTyX 9.0
Thierry Nuttens has announced the availability of a new version of the NuTyX distribution. NuTyX is based on Linux From Scratch (LFS) and features a custom software manager called "cards". The new release, NuTyX 9.0, features some of the latest software (Linux 4.10, Plasma 5.9, GNOME 3.22, MATE 1.16 and Python 3.6) and now supports booting on UEFI-enabled hardware. "The new ISOs can be launch on UEFI machines If you have a UEFI compatible computer, you can now install NuTyX in UEFI mode. If it's your case, the installer will guide the user to make the right choices during installation and the UEFI will take care of booting the machine, no other boot managers are needed by default. It is up to the end user to decide or not for choosing one if needed. You can find a tutorial, how to install on UEFI machines, on the web page documentation and on YouTube channel. ISO can be loaded 100% in memory if the target computer has more then 1GB of RAM. The USB key can then be disconnected and then make the single USB port available. Useful when you want to install NuTyX on tablets having one single USB port." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
TalkingArch 2017.04.04
TalkingArch is a re-spin of the Arch Linux live ISO image, modified to include speech and Braille output for blind and visually-impaired users. The project's latest release, version 2017.04.04, is the first build that limits hardware support to the x86_64 processor architecture: "The TalkingArch team is pleased to present the latest version of TalkingArch, available from the usual location. This version features all the latest software, including Linux kernel 4.10.6. The most important feature of this live image is the new x86_64-only compatibility, removing the i686 compatibility that was present in previous images. This makes the latest version much smaller, but it will no longer work on older i686 machines. This version is the only one that will be listed on the download page, as it always only includes the latest version. However, anyone needing an image that works on i686 may still download the last dual-architecture image until i686 is completely dropped from the Arch official repositories later this year." Continue to the release announcement for further information and listen to this audio tutorial while installing the distribution.
LXLE 16.04.2
Ronnie Whisler has announced the release of LXLE 16.04.2. As the name and version number suggests, this is a distribution based on Ubuntu's latest LTS (long-term support) release while featuring a customised LXDE desktop environment. From the release announcement: "LXLE 16.04.2 'Eclectica' released. What's new? Menu layout - reconfigured for cleaner, less cluttered navigation; Control Menu - completely re-worked to act as a dynamic 'Control Panel'; consistency - theme tweaks throughout the system for a more uniform look; Proposed - fixed 'proposed' Ubuntu repository not being included by default; Zenburned - Zenburn theme used as inspiration for custom terminal color scheme; Qt and GTK+ - forced GTK+ theme adaptation for stubborn Qt based default applications; languages - installer slideshow and custom menu entries have been fully translated; htop - replaced LXtask due to memory usage and new enhanced terminal capabilities; GRUB/login - backgrounds set to default wallpaper for overall theme consistency; games - semi-new selection to adhere to 'desktop' games philosophy and to save space; Synaptic - re-configured to showcase more features and facilitate ease of use...."
LXLE 16.04.2 -- The default desktop and menu
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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. Thanks to Linux Tracker we are able to share the following torrent statistics.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 362
- Total data uploaded: 61.2TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
Using a VPN or Tor
This week, in our Questions and Answers column we talked about virtual private networks (VPNs) and Tor. Both are often used to protect a user's privacy when browsing the web. We would like to find out how many of our readers use these technologies on a regular basis in an effort to get around region blocking, for privacy purposes or to work around censorship. Feel free to share your experiences using VPNs and Tor in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on methods for removing old or temporary files in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Using a VPN or Tor
| I use a free VPN: | 208 (12%) |
| I pay for a VPN: | 267 (15%) |
| I use Tor: | 302 (17%) |
| I use both a VPN and Tor: | 190 (11%) |
| I do not use a VPN or TOR: | 760 (44%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Torrent RSS feed and visitor ratings in the PHR table
In an effort to make it easier for people to find, download and seed distributions' torrents, we have created a new RSS feed. This feed provides links to the latest torrent files of Linux distributions and BSD flavours we have either created or shared. The new torrent feed is available over HTTPS and HTTP connections. If you are looking for a way to help promote Linux and take some of the load off projects' servers, this is a great way to assist your favourite projects.
On our front page, on the right-hand side, there is a chart showing projects listed along with the number of times their information pages are visited on DistroWatch. The drop-down box at the top of this chart allows visitors to change the view of the chart to show statistics over various amounts of time. The drop-down box can also show trends in page visits over periods of time.
This past week we updated the PHR chart so that it can also show distributions ranked according to visitor supplied ratings. Two new entries in the PHR drop-down menu allow people to view distributions sorted by average rating and by number of total reviews received.
To avoid skewing the rankings, projects which have only received three or fewer ratings are not displayed in the average rating statistics. This avoids projects with only one perfect rating from dominating the top of the chart.
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New projects added to database
LibreELEC
LibreELEC is "just enough OS" to run the Kodi media centre. LibreELEC is a Linux distribution built to run Kodi on current and popular hardware. The project is an evolution of the OpenELEC project. LibreELEC software will be familiar to OpenELEC users. The distribution runs on x86 desktop computers, Raspberry Pi devices and ODroid and WeTek computers.
LibreELEC 8.0.1 -- The settings panel
(full image size: 510kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
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Distributions added to waiting list
- Milis Linux. Milis Linux is a Turkish GNU/Linux distribution (with multi-language support) built from Linux From Scratch and Beyond Linux From Scratch, with a custom package manager called "mps". The package manager can install individual binary packages, a group of related binary packages (e.g. desktop packages, such as KDE or Xfce), and compile source packages. Milis Linux has web based system management and wiki program called Komutan.
- Fux. Fux is a desktop Linux distribution which features the DNF package manager for working with RPM packages. The distribution is available in GNOME, MATE, Cinnamon and Xfce editions.
- ARCHLabs. ARCHLabs is a rolling release, Arch Linux based distro, heavily influenced and inspired by the look and feel of BunsenLabs.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 17 April 2017. 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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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
ByzantineOS
ByzantineOS was a software Internet Appliance with a home entertainment bias. It was based on a networked Linux distribution/bootable system with Mozilla providing access to a range of services and applications. ByzantineOS fits on a 32MB (or 48MB) media and should work on any PC. With ByzantineOS CD-ROM, there was no need for hard-disks or floppy drives.
Status: Discontinued
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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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