 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 859, 30 March 2020 |
Welcome to this year's 13th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Migrating between different technology platforms can be daunting. Operating systems include a lot of interconnected pieces that need to work together smoothly. With this in mind, Project Trident's recent move from being based on TrueOS (and by extension FreeBSD) to using the Void Linux distribution as its new foundation is a big migration. We talk about Project Trident's new Void-based Linux distribution in this week's Feature Story. Then, in our News section, we link to tools and instructions administrators can use to migrate from CentOS or Oracle Linux to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution. Plus we talk about UBports making porting progress to new phones and share tips on how to help the Ubuntu community test its various editions prior to the next long-term support (LTS) release. In our Questions and Answers section we discuss how to volunteer CPU resources to the Folding@home distributed computing project and where to find Folding@home packages. We would like to know if you participate in a distributed computing project like Folding@home or SETI@home in our Opinion Poll. Then we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and share the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a great week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Project Trident 20.02
- News: UBports project updates, Red Hat provides migration path from CentOS, Xubuntu presents Testing Week
- Questions and answers: Donating CPU resources to help Folding@home
- Released last week: Bodhi 5.1.0, Parrot 4.8, Univention 4.4-4
- Torrent corner: Alpine, Android-x86, antiX, Bodhi, EasyOS, KDE neon, LibreELEC, Nitrux, Parrot, pfSense, SparkyLinux, SystemRescueCd, Tails, Univention
- Upcoming releases: Ubuntu 20.04 Beta
- Opinion poll: Donating computing cycles
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (17MB) and MP3 (13MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Project Trident 20.02
Late in 2019 the Project Trident team announced they would be moving their operating system from its existing TrueOS base over to Void. This was an unusual move as the two bases are not only quite different in the tools they use, but also in the kernels and basic userland packages they use. TrueOS is itself based on FreeBSD while Void is an independent Linux distribution.
When Project Trident first published a development snapshot of its new Void-based distribution, I gave it a try. At the time it was still very much in the early stages, more of a proof-of-concept than a functioning desktop operating system. Then, about two months later, I gave Void's latest install media a try and, while I very much appreciated aspects of the distribution's design, it had some significant issues which prevent me from wanting to use it on a regular basis.
Now Project Trident has published its first stable release based on Void and I was curious to see what the experience would be like. Trident aims to take its parent (Void) and make it easy to set up and offers a friendly desktop option with ZFS support on top of the base. I wanted to see if Trident could improve upon Void's foundation and perhaps address some of the implementation issues I had when I tried Void earlier this year.
One key difference I noticed right away was that Void provides many installation discs. There are images for different CPU architectures, different C libraries, and different desktop editions. Picking the right media is akin to an archaeological dig through the various options. Trident provides just one ISO file for 64-bit (x86_64) computers. This disc acts as a net-install platform that allows us to install one of four pre-selected groups of software packages. This effectively gives Trident four editions:
- Void (just the basic Void distribution with ZFS as the root filesystem)
- Server (Void's base system, ZFS, and some command line tools),
- Lite Desktop (Void's base, ZFS, and a minimal install of the Lumina desktop)
- Full Desktop (Void's base, ZFS, Lumina, plus some common desktop applications).
Installing
The install media is 523MB in size and booting from it brings up a series of text-based menus. The first screen asks us to scan for active network devices. If a wireless network card is detected the installer will give us the option of connecting to a wi-fi network. This works, but is a little unfriendly. The password prompt does not show characters or even stand-in symbols (like a series of *) while we type the wi-fi password. It is not ideal if we have a long password on the network. I also found that once I had connected to a network, the installer did not recognize the connection until I told it to rescan for available networks. Otherwise it indicates the computer is still off-line.
Next we are asked to select which group of packages we want, "Master" or "20.02". The former appears to be Trident's development branch and so I went with the 20.02 option. Then I was warned that Trident would work better if it was set up in UEFI mode instead of Legacy BIOS mode. The reason for this was not given. However, in an ironic twist, I found Trident was unable to boot when run in UEFI mode, it could only start in Legacy BIOS mode, making the recommendation moot.
The installer next asks which disk it should use. We need to be careful here as Trident will take over the entire disk, setting it up for use with ZFS. We cannot use free space or a spare partition. We are then asked how much swap space we would like to use, with sizes varying from "none" up to 32GB. We are next asked whether we would like to use packages built against glibc or musl, the two C libraries Void supports. I opted for glibc.
The installer asks us to make up a root password and a name for our ZFS pool. Then we pick which edition (Void, Server, Lite, or Full) to install. I went with Full since I planned to run Trident as a desktop system. We then make up a username and password for ourselves. Our user's password must be at least eight characters long, though there is no such requirement for the root password. I was curious about this and the reason is discussed on the Trident website: "The user password must be a minimum of 8 characters due to the ZFS encryption key length requirement. Modifying a user password to be less than 8 characters later on will break the user account!"
The installer copies its packages to the hard drive, builds the ZFS module from source code, and then offers to reboot the machine. I found the process, while cumbersome at times, ultimately worked.
Early impressions
My freshly installed copy of Trident booted to a graphical login screen where we can sign into the Lumina desktop. The default layout of Lumina places the panel at the bottom of the screen with an application menu in the bottom-left corner and the system tray in the bottom-right. A task switcher, which groups similar windows, sits in the middle. Lumina is set up with a dark theme which I found pleasant. There are icons on the desktop for accessing desktop and theme settings, launching the Firefox browser, opening the Trojita e-mail client, and launching the VLC media player.
Project Trident 20.02 -- An alternative application menu
(full image size: 795kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
While the desktop was slow to load at first, once it was up and running the interface was pleasantly responsive and ran smoothly. I found the default application menu to be small on my screen and a bit awkward to navigate so I swapped it out with an alternative, tree-style menu. These and other widget changes can be handled in the Panels module in the settings panel. I also swapped out the task switcher for one that does not group families of open windows. Apart from these little adjustments, I liked Lumina and the way it was set up. It is a very flexible, mid-weight desktop environment which uses Fluxbox as its window manager, and I found it generally worked quite well.
Hardware
I began by experimenting with Trident in a VirtualBox virtual machine. When I had tried this with Trident's Alpha snapshot a few months ago, I could not get the desktop environment to work. This time Lumina started up and worked smoothly. The default screen resolution was low, but this could easily be adjusted in the settings panel. Otherwise, Trident worked very well in the virtual environment this time.
When running on a physical workstation, Trident gave a similarly good performance. The system was responsive, sound and networking worked (unlike plain Void where the distribution was unable to produce audio output), and my wireless card was detected.
A fresh install of Trident used about 450MB of RAM when signed into the Lumina desktop and a Full Desktop installation used about 2.1GB of disk space. Both of these statistics are lower than the average desktop distribution, though slightly higher than plain Void running the Xfce desktop.
Included software
The Full Desktop install of Trident sets up a fairly minimal desktop environment with a handful of graphical utilities. The Firefox web browser and LibreOffice are installed for us. The Trojita e-mail client and a desktop client for Telegram are installed. The Insight file manager and Lumina's image viewer are installed too. The VLC media player and a full range of codecs are available out of the box. While I could play local audio and video files, as well a YouTube videos, I found the media keys on my keyboard did not function. We can manually set up short-cuts for these keys.
Project Trident 20.02 -- Running LibreOffice
(full image size: 339kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Behind the scenes Trident uses Void's runit init software and version 5.4.19 of the Linux kernel. (The kernel was updated during my trial to 5.4.20).
I found the first user we create has access to sudo to perform administrative functions. Additional users I added to the system afterwards could not use sudo. I also found the first user is special in that it has its own ZFS sub-volume which can be handy for making snapshots. Other users do not have their own sub-volume, at least not automatically, but the /home directory is on its own sub-volume and we can snapshot it when multiple users exist on the system.
Project Trident 20.02 -- The Desktop Settings panel
(full image size: 981kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
ZFS and boot environments
Trident uses ZFS as its root filesystem, which supports snapshots, multi-device volumes, deduplication, and automated data checksums. These are all handy features and I appreciated having them. I had hoped that Trident might include support for boot environments, the way FreeBSD and openSUSE do. However, boot environments do not seem to be available yet and I was unable to find tools for managing boot environments in the default software repositories. Hopefully this feature will be added later as it would make upgrading this rolling release platform virtually bullet-proof.
Package management
As far as I can tell, Trident ships with no graphical package front-end or update manager. Instead we are given the XBPS command line tools, specifically xbps-query, xbps-install, and xbps-remove to find, install, and remove software. These tools need to be run as root, or using the sudo prefix.
XBPS is fast, sometimes terse, and has an unusual syntax for some operations. It worked well for me and I encountered no problems while adding, upgrading and finding software. New desktop applications, once installed, had their launcher added to the Lumina desktop. We can also use XBPS to add extra repositories as known community repositories can be installed as packages.
Project Trident 20.02 -- Fetching package upgrades with XBPS
(full image size: 905kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
During my trial there were four packages made available for updating, totalling about 100MB in size. These were all downloaded and applied cleanly. One package update was for the Linux kernel which, in turn, meant the upgrade process needed to rebuild the ZFS add-on module. This worked well, but took several minutes, greatly slowing down XBPS's typical high performance.
Comparison to Void
While using Trident, I regularly found myself comparing it to plain Void, which I also used recently. Some key differences stood out right away. For example, Trident has one install image which can be used to set up multiple editions. Void offers many install images, each for setting up one specific edition on a specific architecture. In a similar vein, Void offers many desktop environments at install time while Trident only offers one. However, we can install alternative desktops later. Unlike its parent, Trident does not offer a live desktop option.
Audio worked under Trident while I could not get any applications to produce sound under Void. However, a volume control in the system tray was still missing from Trident. A concern that was made bigger given that my media keys were not recognized by Lumina.
Where Void ships with vanilla, bland-looking desktops, Trident offers a customized Lumina experience with a crisp, dark theme. I very much appreciated the visual style of Trident.
Project Trident 20.02 -- Browsing Project Trident's website in Firefox
(full image size: 227kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
When I was using Void, after the first wave up package upgrades, the shutdown & reboot options in the Xfce menu no longer worked. On Trident these options were always available through Lumina's Leave menu.
I appreciate Trident makes ZFS available as it is a powerful filesystem. Void does not offer this same option. However, Void is much more flexible about which disks and partitions it uses while Trident requires one full disk to be wiped and used for its install.
Conclusions
Project Trident made a lot of progress very quickly between the time the Alpha snapshot of its new Void base was launched and when the stable release came out. The issues with the desktop not loading were fixed, I got sound working under Trident where it did not under Void, and the ZFS implementation was smooth. I think Lumina, as a desktop, has progressed nicely in the past year or so since I last used it. The distribution's performance is strong and its resource footprint relatively small. For someone who is interested in either ZFS on Linux or rolling release distributions, Trident is a promising option.
However, there are several rough edges. The installer is not particularly friendly yet and forces the user to dedicate an entire disk to Trident. While the ZFS implementation is good, it appears to lack boot environments which would be an excellent feature to incorporate, especially with Void's rolling upgrade approach. I also think Trident's goal of being a friendly layer on top of Void would be helped a lot by adding a graphical package manager as XBPS's syntax is a little unusual at times.
At this point Trident's Void-based distribution is in its early stages. It is a good first attempt, though there are still a few pieces that can be improved and polished. I'm hopeful that, in six months or a year, Trident will have progressed to a point where I feel comfortable recommending and using it in the long-term. For now I think it is an interesting distribution to try, as it showcases several unusual technologies, but I'm not sure it is ready to be used as a day-to-day operating system, unless the user is comfortable working a lot with the command line and working around a few issues.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card, Ralink RT5390R PCIe Wireless card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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Visitor supplied rating
Project Trident has a visitor supplied average rating of: 10/10 from 1 review(s).
Have you used Project Trident? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
UBports project updates, Red Hat provides migration path from CentOS, Xubuntu presents Testing Week
The UBports team have published status updates on a number of their projects. The UBports team has been working to bring their mobile operating system to new phones, including the PinePhone, and package the Lomiri (formerly Unity8) desktop for Debian. "Marius has had some of his time taken up with Covid-19 related stuff recently but in the last few days he has been able to pay some attention to the PinePhone. It now has functioning bluetooth. In addition, the accelerometer and gyroscope work. Vibration works, so does rotation. Finally, the notification led works and so does the proximity sensor. Mike Gabriel has been packaging Lomiri in Debian. Testing of some components is already taking place on that platform." Additional updates from the UBports team can be found in their latest Q&A post.
* * * * *
The CentOS project provides a freely available distribution that has been built with the source code used in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). The CentOS distribution provides binary compatibility with Red Hat's operating system, but without the trademarks or commercial support that Red Hat provides. CentOS is often used in smaller organizations which may want a free distribution now, but wish to switch to Red Hat's supported platform later. Red Hat provides tools to help with the conversion and has recently published instructions on how to make the transition from CentOS to RHEL. The conversion tool also works on Oracle's RHEL-based distribution.
* * * * *
The Xubuntu project has put out a call for testers to help try development snapshots of Xubuntu, along with other members of the Ubuntu family, and report issues. The intention is to have as many bugs fixed as possible before the 20.04 long-term release. "We're delighted to announce that we're participating in an 'Ubuntu Testing Week' from April 2nd to April 8th with other flavors in the Ubuntu family. On April 2nd, we'll be releasing the beta release of Xubuntu 20.04 LTS, after halting all new changes to its features, user interface and documentation. And between April 2nd and the final release on April 23rd, all efforts by the Xubuntu team and community are focused on ISO testing, bug reporting, and fixing bugs. So, we highly encourage you to join the community by downloading the daily ISO image and trying it out, though you are welcome to start from today." Details on how testers can help can be found in the project's blog 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) |
Donating CPU resources to help Folding@home
Wanting-to-help asks: Recently I read about a program called Folding@home that could be installed on different operating systems in order to donate computer resources to the Stanford University to help fighting against the coronavirus. My question: is there an OS especially only for this purpose without wasting computer resources for not necessary issues like a graphical desktop? I mean an OS that only includes these components that are really necessary to run this program that gives the Stanford University added computer resources.
DistroWatch answers: There is no operating system or Linux distribution I am aware of which is set up to only run Folding@home. The Folding@home project does make packages available for distributions which use RPM and Deb packages. Their download page also provides a VMware appliance for people who wish to run the software in a virtual machine.
As for the overhead involved with running the operating system and desktop environment, I do not think this is something people should worry about too much. While sitting idle at a desktop environment, most Linux distributions are around 98% idle. When I am signed into Xfce and running half a dozen graphical applications my CPU is 99% idle and at least half of my RAM is free. There would be very little increase in available resources if I were running an operating system with just enough resources to run Folding@home and connect to the network.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Parrot 4.8
Lorenzo Faletra has announced the release of Parrot 4.8, an updated build of the project's Debian-based, security-oriented distribution set designed for penetration testing, digital forensics and privacy protection, as well as standard home desktops: "Parrot 4.8 is here. Parrot is based on Debian 'Testing', meaning that Parrot 4.8 includes all the updates that landed in the Debian 'Testing' repository between September 2019 and March 2020. Some noticeable updates include: Linux kernel 5.4, MATE 1.24, revision of sandbox, updated Anonsurf, Aircrack 1.6.... We wanted to stress the importance of containers and Parrot as a service, since we want anyone to be able to use the Parrot tools on their favorite desktop operating system or in the cloud. Now we offer docker containers that can be run on any docker-supported operating system. A detailed description of the whole Parrot for docker project, the available containers, their usage and a quick reference is available here." Here are the complete release notes.
Univention Corporate Server 4.4-4
Univention Corporate Server (UCS) is an enterprise-class distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux. It features an integrated management system for central administration of servers, Microsoft Active Directory-compatible domain services, and functions for parallel operation of virtualised server and desktop operating systems. The distribution's latest version, 4.4-4, introduces better logging options and improved Active Directory security and compatibility. "We've just published the 4th point release of UCS 4.4: apart from bug fixes and some patches, we added some cool new features and improved numerous apps. For example, UCS 4.4-4 introduces logging of LDAP authentications, something that was previously only available via Samba 4. Our developers also put some work into the AD Connector (enhanced security, performance and compatibility), the Univention App Center and the UCS portal login screen. Read on to find out more about the most important innovations." Further information can be found in the distribution's release announcement and in the release notes.
Bodhi Linux 5.1.0
Bodhi Linux is a lightweight, Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the Moksha desktop environment. The new version, 5.1.0, is the first release under the project's new management. "Today I am pleased to announce the release of Bodhi Linux 5.1.0. This is my first official release and is somewhat delayed from our original plans. Hopefully, this delay is worth it to our users. Much thanks to Stefan 'the waiter' Uram for his work on both the code and the themes and icons, Bodhi would not be the same without his creative input. In addition, it features several breaks with Bodhi tradition. In addition to replacing epad with leafpad, midori with epiphany and ditching eepDater we now offer two 64 bit ISOs and a revamped AppPack ISO. If you are unsure which version is best for you, please see this wiki page explaining the differences between them."
Bodhi Linux 5.1.0 -- Running the Moksha desktop
(full image size: 654kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
pfSense 2.4.5
pfSense is a free, open source customized distribution of FreeBSD specifically tailored for use as a firewall and router that is entirely managed via web interface. The project's latest release upgrades the base operating system, adds improvements to the web interface and disables access time writes by default to improve disk performance. "2.4.5 adds several new features, including: OS Upgrade: Base Operating System upgraded to FreeBSD 11-STABLE after FreeBSD 11.3. Added sorting and search/filtering to several pages including the Certificate Manager, DHCP Leases, and ARP/NDP Tables. Added DNS Resolver (Unbound) Python Integration. Added IPsec DH and PFS groups 25, 26, 27, and 31. Changed UFS filesystem defaults to noatime on new installations to reduce unnecessary disk writes. Set autocomplete=new-password for forms containing authentication fields to help prevent browser auto-fill from completing irrelevant fields. Added new Dynamic DNS providers Linode and Gandi." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
antiX 19.2
Version 19.2 of antiX, a lightweight, desktop Linux distribution featuring IceWM as the default window manager, has been released. Besides the usual antiX variants, the project now also provides a separate edition with the runit init system: "antiX 19.2 bug-fix/upgrade ISO images available. All new ISO images are bug-fix/upgrades of antiX 19 SysVInit series. Bonus - we now offer editions running the runit init system as well. Changes: we believe we have fixed the issue when running (g)ufw firewall; apt-notifier included and enabled on full versions for those who prefer update notifications; tray icon manager for IceWM; improved and updated localisation; mproved cli-installer - more 'safety' checks added; a newer 4.9.212 Linux kernel; Firefox 68.6.0esr; LibreOffice 6.4.1; IceWM upgraded to latest upstream version (1.6.5); elogind upgrade to 243.7; ceni network manager included, but ConnMan is default in full and base editions; various upstream Debian security upgrades." Read the complete release announcement for more details.
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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: 1,903
- Total data uploaded: 31.1TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Donating computing cycles
In our Questions and Answers column we discussed software called Folding@home which can donate a computer's spare CPU resources to medical research. There have been a number of similar distributed computing projects over the years, most of them set up to consume the idle CPU cycles provided by volunteers. We would like to know if you currently run a distributed computing service on your computer, such as Folding@home or SETI@home.
You can see the results of our previous poll on EarlyOOM in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Donating computing cycles
| I run Folding@home: | 90 (8%) |
| I run SETI@home: | 41 (4%) |
| I run another distributed computing service: | 55 (5%) |
| I do not run any distributed computing service: | 936 (83%) |
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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, 6 April 2020. 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 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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Source Mage GNU/Linux
Sourcemage is a source-based GNU/Linux distribution based on a Sorcery metaphor of 'casting' and 'dispelling' programs, which we refer to as 'spells'.
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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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