 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 836, 14 October 2019 |
Welcome to this year's 41st issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Arch Linux is probably one of the world's most popular rolling release distributions and it is also one of the more common base projects developers use to create new distributions. This week we begin with a look at Archman GNU/Linux, a Arch-based project featuring the Xfce desktop. Joshua Allen Holm test drives Archman and reports on how this rolling release distribution performs in our Feature Story. In our News section we talk about the Haiku project working toward better ARM processor support as well as UBports receiving updates to the mobile operating system's installer and PinePhone support. We also share news from the openSUSE team about what features we can expect when openSUSE 15.2 becomes available next year, and report on Project Trident planning a migration to a new base operating system. We are also pleased to wish Unix a happy 50th birthday. Then, in our Questions and Answers column we talk about working with server distributions which offer an easy, graphical approach to installing. We also explore ways of easing into using server distributions for new administrators. We follow this up in our Opinion Poll, asking if your server runs a graphical interface. There are lots of web-based and desktop-based server tools and we would like to hear if you use these. Let us know about your favourite server configuration tools in the comments. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Archman GNU/Linux Xfce 2019-09
- News: Haiku improves ARM compatibility, UBports team improving their installer and PinePhone support, openSUSE upgrading Plasma for 15.2 release, Trident plans migration to new base, Unix turns 50 years old
- Questions and answers: Finding a home server distro that is easy to set up
- Torrent corner: ArcoLinux, AUSTRUMI, Clonezilla, EasyOS, IPFire, NethServer, NixOS, Obarun, SmartOS, SparkyLinux
- Upcoming releases: Ubuntu 19.10, FreeBSD 12.1-RC2
- Opinion poll: Does your server run a graphical interface?
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (15MB) and MP3 (11MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Joshua Allen Holm) |
Archman GNU/Linux Xfce 2019-09
Archman is an Arch Linux-based distribution developed in Turkey. The project's website is available in both Turkish and English, which makes the distribution approachable to non-Turkish audiences. Archman has various releases with different desktop environments and release dates. In this review, I will be reviewing Archman's Xfce 2019-09 release, which is codenamed Lake With Fish.
To begin, I downloaded the 1.6GB ISO and copied it to a flash drive. I rebooted my computer, turned off Secure Boot, and started Archman from the flash drive. The boot process was quick, but I ended up at a graphical login screen instead of a working desktop environment. I pressed the Enter key and I logged in without needing a password.
The live desktop looked very nice. It is an interesting blend of classic and modern. The live desktop has icons for the user's home folder and Trash. There is also a shortcut for Hexchat and the Calamares Archman Installer. The panel at the bottom of the screen holds the application menu, shortcuts for showing the desktop/quickly minimizing all running applications, Firefox, the user's home folder, sections for the currently running applications, switching desktops, a clock, Bluetooth and wireless controls, a battery meter, update notifications, volume control, and a log out/reboot/shutdown shortcut. The panel is 70% the width of the screen and set to automatically hide.
I looked around the live desktop for a little while. I tested to make sure that everything was working okay with my hardware, and once I was certain that all my hardware worked, I moved on to installing Archman.
Installing Archman
Archman uses the Calamares installer. This provided a fairly typical installation experience. The installer walks the user through all the standard installation steps: selecting language/keyboard layout, setting location/timezone information, partitioning the hard drive, and setting up a user. Pretty standard stuff, but there were a few issues I ran into when I was installing. First, the installer required Internet access. It is nice enough to tell the user this up front, but it still was a pain, because the first time I tried to install Archman, I was somewhere without Internet access. I had to try again later. When I did get the chance to install Archman, I ran into an issue where the installer could not successfully use the option to erase and use my entire drive. It would fail no matter what I did. I ended up using the option to replace one partition, which had Ubuntu installed on it, and the installer used my existing EFI partition. This worked, but the use entire disk option had three choices for how large the swap partition should be, which ranged from none to large enough to support hibernate, but the replace partition option left me with no swap. I could have used the manual partition option, or spent more time figuring out why the option to use the entire disk was not working with my computer, but the option I picked worked well enough.
Archman GNU/Linux 2019-09 -- The Calamares installer
(full image size: 1.8MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Default Xfce desktop and applications
Archman Xfce 2019-09 comes with Xfce 4.14 with a customized layout. It also comes with Firefox 69, LibreOffice 6.2, GIMP 2.10, Inkscape 0.92, Quod Libet for listening to music, Ex Falso for editing tags in audio files, Parole for playing videos, Hexchat, various Xfce utilities and applications, and two games: GNOME Chess and Chromium B.S.U., which is an arcade-style, top-scrolling space shooter. The pre-installed selection of software is quite good, and the video player can play movies without having having to track down codecs, but for some odd reason, the chess game does not have a chess engine installed to allow the user to play against the computer.
Archman GNU/Linux 2019-09 -- The default Xfce desktop
(full image size: 2.5MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Xfce 4.14 introduced a large number of enhancements, many of which were small, but welcome improvements to various aspects of the Xfce desktop and standard applications. There are a lot of "under the hood" enhancements and the core components now use GTK3 instead of GTK2, but Xfce 4.14 is basically a very nice revision and upgrade of the Xfce 4.12 desktop environment. Xfce users will probably like the enchantments, but users of distributions that are still using Xfce 4.12 probably will not have reason enough to distro hop just to get the latest and greatest. However, because of Archman's customizations, users interesting in seeing what Xfce 4.14 has to offer might wish to look at a distribution that uses a more vanilla Xfce 4.14 to test out the new version for themselves.
While Xfce 4.14 is nice, I ran into several minor issues with Archman's settings. Some of these settings might be upstream defaults, some are not, but they really frustrated me when trying to use Archman. The biggest issue was the default touchpad settings. The touchpad was way too sensitive. I have never had any problem with any other distribution regardless of desktop environment, but the touchpad in Archman was constantly registering my palm as a touch when I was typing. I would find my cursor moved, text selected, and the like while just typing the way I usually do, which has never caused an issue on any other distribution I have tried. I enabled the "disable touchpad while typing" option in the settings, but the default time to disable the touch pad was too long and I had to go back and reduce the time from 2 seconds to 0.5 seconds. I also had trouble getting the touchpad to register tapping with two fingers as a right click, and I had to change the scrolling option to two-finger mode to help alleviate the issue with the touchpad detecting the side of my hand as a touch.
Archman GNU/Linux 2019-09 -- Bluetooth panel showing error
(full image size: 2.1MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
There were a few other issues that were fairly minor, but still annoying. The bottom panel has an icon for Bluetooth that opens a device manager. That device manager has the option to disable Bluetooth, but I could not use it because my account did not have permission to do so. A quick Google search provided a solution (add my user to the rfkill group), but something like this should have worked out of the box. Also, with the default software selection, LibreOffice could not spell check my documents; I had to install the hunspell-en_US package before spell check would work.
A couple of issues I had were very subjective nitpicks, but they bothered me enough that I had to change settings from their defaults. The terminal uses a teal text on a black background, which did not have enough contrast for me to comfortably use. Thankfully, there were several preset options available that were easier on the eyes. I also did not like the auto-hiding bottom panel. When it is hidden I had no clock, so I could not easily check to see what time it was, which is admittedly minor, but it bothered me. I also found that the hidden panel would get activated when I tried to access the various features at the bottom of some program's windows. For example, when I tried to use the bottom panel in LibreOffice Writer to change the page style by clicking on on "Default Style", I would active the panel instead. I could have tried to be more precise with my touchpad movements, but I ended up turning off auto-hide and tweaking a few other settings to make the panel more to my liking.
Installing additional software
Archman is basically Arch Linux with an extra repository added for the Archman specific packages, so there is a large selection of software available from Arch's Core, Extra, Community, and Multilib repositories. The default GUI application for installing and updating software is Pamac, which can sort packages by categories, groups, or repository, so it is pretty easy to find packages. In the Pamac settings panel there are options for enabling several advanced options like automatically removing unrequired dependencies, enabling downgrades, and enabling AUR support to get software from the community maintained AUR repository.
Archman GNU/Linux 2019-09 -- Pamac displaying Archman's repository
(full image size: 169kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Command-line users have the option of using the Pamac utility to install, remove, and upgrade packages, or they can use the pacman command. Archman also comes with several aliases pre-configured to simplify some of the more common pacman commands. Trizen is the command-line utility for managing AUR packages and it is aliased to the 'aur' command.
Archman GNU/Linux 2019-09 -- Xfce's terminal displaying aliases
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Final thoughts
Archman is a nice way to get started with Arch Linux. It provides a pre-configured desktop that, for the most part, works out of the box. There are a few headaches, but most of those are easily fixable and take less time than installing and configuring Arch Linux. That said, there are a few out of the box configuration items that should not have required fixing, especially the issue with enabling/disabling Bluetooth. Sure, the fix was very easy, but it should have worked right without the user having to do anything.
I have mixed feeling about Archman's specific customizations, but almost all the issues I have are subjective opinions. The desktop environment looks very nice and is easy to use, but there are some things that I just had to change. Turning off the auto-hide feature for the bottom panel and making it used 100% of the screen's width solved my problems with the panel showing up when I did not want it, but a slightly better auto-hiding that let me use the functions at the bottom of various applications would be ideal. I have yet to find trackpad settings that I really like, but that may be me just being too used to the defaults found in Fedora's and Ubuntu's GNOME desktops.
Overall, if you are interested in an Arch Linux-based distribution that will let you get started quickly with only a handful of tweaks and fixes, Archman is a great option. Every issue I had was quickly solved by looking through the Arch wiki or Arch forums, but it would have been nice if Archman had just a little more polish so users did not have to fix minor issues.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an ASUS VivoBook E406MA laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Pentium Silver N5000 CPU
- Storage: 64GB eMMC
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Networking: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
- Display: Intel UHD Graphics 605
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Visitor supplied rating
FreedomBox has a visitor supplied average rating of: N/A from 0 review(s).
Have you used FreedomBox? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Haiku improves ARM compatibility, UBports team improving their installer and PinePhone support, openSUSE upgrading Plasma for 15.2 release, Trident plans migration to new base, Unix turns 50 years old
The Haiku team has been working on improving many aspects of their lightweight operating system. Haiku's developers have been updating their documentation, improving driver support, and making disk scanning more resilient against errors and corrupted partitions. The team is also working toward ARM compatibility, both for 32-bit and 64-bit ARM processors. "Some initial work for ARM64 was completed by kallisti5. This includes setting up the Haikuports package declarations, writing the early boot files, and in general getting the buildsystem going. Jaroslaw Pelczar also contributed several further patches (some of these still undergoing review), providing the initial interrupt handling support, and various stubs to let things compile. kallisti5 did some work on 32-bit ARM as well, cleaning up some of the code to better match other platforms and preparing the reuse of EFI for ARM and ARM64 (as u-boot now implements an EFI interface, which would make things much simpler for our ARM boot process if we manage to use it)." Details on the work going into Haiku can be found in the project's monthly newsletter.
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The UBports team has published a blog post about work being done on their mobile operating system, its installer, and future platforms. One of the topics addressed is the progress being made running UBports on the PinePhone. The PinePhone is a low-cost device designed to work with multiple open source operating systems. "Marius showed off the PinePhone, running UT. It can also be seen on his Twitter account. Lima was used to build it. That performs amazingly well for an open driver project. The model shown was one of the 100 original developer phones. The antennae needs attention still. The next batch will still not ship with an OS but we expect to see PinePhones shipping with UT installed early next year, along with other OS options."
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The next release of openSUSE is not expected to happen until May of 2020, but the distribution's developers are already planning features for openSUSE 15.2. The team is planning upgrades to the Linux kernel, Qt libraries, Plasma desktop and Wayland support: "Next to a new version of the Linux kernel, it’s planned to ship with Qt 5.12 LTS, Plasma 5.18 (of course also LTS) and the latest KDE Frameworks and Applications, which we can get in early enough for proper testing to ensure the best user experience possible! This means that the 'Full Wayland' session that landed in Tumbleweed a few weeks ago will also be available in Leap 15.2 and support per-screen fractional scaling.". Further details can be found on the distribution's news page.
The openSUSE team has also sent out a reminder that openSUSE 15.0 will soon reach the end of its supported life: "This is the advance discontinuation notice for openSUSE Leap 15.0. On November 30th 2019 openSUSE Leap 15.0 will reach its end of support after 1.5 years of lifetime (it was released May 2018). openSUSE Leap 15.0 will receive no further maintenance or security updates after that date. It is recommended for openSUSE Leap users to upgrade to the current release, openSUSE Leap 15.1."
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The Project Trident team has published an update on the operating system's migration from being based on an experimental rolling branch to a more stable platform. The update mentions the old, experimental branch will be removed at the end of 2019. The post goes on to say the new, stable repository will also be removed in April of 2020. Which raises the question of what will replace the new stable branch? The developers have indicated Project Trident will migrate to another operating system, but have not stated which one: "For long-term stability, Project Trident is hard at work migrating to an alternate operating system as the basis for the project. The migration is planned to be complete in late 2019. A new version of Project Trident based on the different operating system is planned for release in early 2020. For a small preview, we're already experiencing faster boot times, daily app updates, newer hardware drivers, and Bluetooth support in the new version of Project Trident."
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Finally, we are pleased to celebrate the Unix operating system turning 50 years old. Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie famously created the original Unix operating system which was then used as the basis for the BSDs, Solaris, parts of macOS, and its design was used as a template for MINIX and GNU/Linux. FOSS Bytes has an article on some modern Unix enthusiasts having fun by cracking the passwords in a snapshot of the original Unix system. The hashes used on the original passwords is considered weak by modern standards and can typically be broken in a few hours or days. The passwords used give a little insight into the habits and interests of the original Unix team.
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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) |
Finding a home server distro that is easy to set up
Serving-the-home asks: I have learned a lot over the years but it has been self-taught. I am not much of a typist and I still have trouble using the command line. This brings me to my question about home servers. Is there a home server that comes with a GUI installer? Also, can you set-up a home server and still allow individual computers to access the Internet separately? Any pointers or information would be greatly appreciated.
DistroWatch answers: First, before I answer your specific questions, I would like to mention while some distributions are referred to as server distros and some as desktop distros, most can do both, even at the same time. If you are setting up a home server for the first time, you may find it easiest to install network services on your existing desktop machine. Alternatively, you can install your usual desktop distribution on a separate home computer and use it as your server. This will give you the chance to ease into setting up network services while still enjoying the comfort of the desktop interface. Some distributions, such as Mageia and openSUSE, have powerful tools for configuring network services from the comfort of your desktop environment.
With that out of the way, it is true that running a server without a desktop is more efficient and, in some cases, more secure than when a desktop is installed. This is why professionals run servers without a graphical interface. However, for learning at home, I think you would benefit from installing a desktop distro first and practise setting up services like web hosting, file storage or e-mail on it. Once you get some practise then consider starting your next project without the desktop interface.
To answer your question as to whether there are server distros that have graphical installers, there are. The mainstream server distros usually do this. openSUSE, CentOS, Fedora, and Debian all provide graphical installers that can be used to set up a server without a desktop. Usually whether a desktop is configured or not is a matter of checking a box during the install process.
On most networks the individual computers can access the Internet independently of the server. You may have seen network diagrams or older text books which talk about routing traffic through a server. This allows the server to perform web filtering and firewall duty. However, these days the firewall and parental controls are usually built into your home's router. You won't need to run your network traffic through the server and each workstation and desktop can connect directly to the router and access the Internet independently.
I'm not sure what type of services you planned to set up, but you can usually find excellent guides in your distribution's documentation. Most of the major distributions have wikis that will guide you step-by-step through setting up services. You may especially want to look into installing openSUSE for your first server since its YaST control panel makes setting up some services a point-and-click experience.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
SparkyLinux 5.9
SparkyLinux is a lightweight distribution based on Debian. The project's latest release is an update to the project's Stable 5.x branch. The new version, SparkyLinux 5.9, includes updates from Debian 10 "Buster", an updated LTS kernel, and a Hungarian translation for the Sparky tools. The release announcement has the details: "SparkyLinux 5.9 "Nibiru" is out. This is a quarterly update of live/install media of the stable line, which is based on Debian 10 "Buster". The base system has been upgraded from Debian stable repos as of October 4, 2019. It works on the Linux kernel 4.19.67 LTS. As usually, new ISO/IMG images provide small bug fixes and improvements as well. Sparky project page and Sparky forums got new skins; no big changes about the colors but they are much mobile devices friendly now. Nemomen finished translating Sparky tools to Hungarian (thanks a lot), but many of them still waiting for adding to packages."
NixOS 19.09
NixOS is an independently developed distribution that aims to improve the state of the art in system configuration management. In NixOS, the entire operating system, including the kernel, applications, system packages and configuration files, are built by the Nix package manager. The project has released version 19.09 of NixOS which provides approximately six months of support. "In addition to numerous new and upgraded packages, this release has the following highlights. End of support is planned for end of April 2020, handing over to 20.03. PHP now defaults to PHP 7.3, updated from 7.2. PHP 7.1 is no longer supported due to upstream not supporting this version for the entire lifecycle of the 19.09 release. The binfmt module is now easier to use. Additional systems can be added. The installer now uses a less privileged nixos user whereas before we logged in as root. To gain root privileges use sudo -i without a password. We've updated to Xfce 4.14. There are incompatibilities with the current Xfce module; it doesn't support thunarPlugins. The GNOME 3 desktop manager module sports an interface to enable/disable core services, applications and optional GNOME packages like games." Additional information can be found in the project's release notes.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 1,649
- Total data uploaded: 28.5TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Does your server run a graphical interface?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we discussed setting up a server distro, and options for running a server with a desktop environment. While running a server with a desktop is rare in professional settings, lots of people run servers with a desktop or web-based interface at home and in small office environment. This week we would like to know, if you run network services on one of your computers at home, does that computer have a desktop interface?
You can see the results of our previous poll on which Ubuntu edition to review in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Does your server run a graphical interface?
| My server runs a desktop or window manager: | 212 (13%) |
| My server runs a web-based interface: | 190 (12%) |
| My server has a command line interface only: | 397 (25%) |
| My server uses a desktop and web-based interface: | 86 (5%) |
| I do not have a home server: | 729 (45%) |
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 21 October 2019. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. 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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| Random Distribution | 
Redcore Linux
Redcore Linux explores the idea of bringing the power of Gentoo Linux to the masses. It aims to be a very quick way to install a pure Gentoo Linux system without spending hours or days compiling from source code, and reading documentation. To achieve this goal, Redcore provides a repository with pre-built binary packages which receives continuous updates, following a rolling release model.
Status: Active
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TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
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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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