 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 915, 3 May 2021 |
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Welcome to this year's 17th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
About a week ago Canonical launched version 21.04 of its Ubuntu operating system with community editions of Ubuntu and derived projects soon following. This week we begin with a look at Ubuntu 21.04 as Joshua Allen Holm takes the distribution for a test drive. Read on to learn more about Ubuntu's package management, install process, and shift to using Wayland as the default display software. In our News section we talk about Alpine Linux considering the development of its own service manager while the Fedora team provides an upgrade path for Silverblue users. Both Fedora 32 and version 18.04 of the Ubuntu community editions are nearing the end of their supported lives and we share details below. Plus we share an interview with Linus Torvalds as the creator of Linux looks back on 30 years of kernel development. In April the Arch Linux team began including a system installer on the distribution's media and we report on what kind of experience it provides in our Questions and Answers column. Have you tried the new Arch installer? Let us know what you thought of it in our Opinion Poll. We are also pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Ubuntu 21.04
- News: Alpine considers own service manager, Fedora provides Silverblue upgrade instructions, Lubuntu 18.04 nears end of life, Mint changes Hypnotix provider and is included in Shells.com, Linus Torvalds discusses 30 years of Linux
- Questions and answers: The new Arch Linux system installer
- Released last week: Fedora 34, Calculate Linux 21, KaOS 2021.04
- Torrent corner: Artix, Calculate, Fedora, GhostBSD, KaOS, KDE neon, MakuluLinux, OpenBSD, OpenIndiana, Proxmox, Voyager Live
- Opinion poll: Have you tried Arch Linux's system installer?
- New additions: Rocky Linux
- New distributions: Archcraft, Neurolinux
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (by Joshua Allen Holm) |
Ubuntu 21.04
Like clockwork, every April sees the release of a new version of Ubuntu and all the official variants. This release of Ubuntu, Hirsute Hippo, is noteworthy for its decision to not include the new desktop layout featured in GNOME 40. Instead, Ubuntu 21.04 continues to use version 3.38 of GNOME Shell. This means the desktop experience remains much the same as it has been in recent Ubuntu releases.
Ubuntu 21.04 -- Default GNOME desktop
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
While Ubuntu 21.04 is not the most exciting release of a Linux distribution, it does introduce a handful of new features. Are these features enough to differentiate it from Ubuntu 20.10? To find out, I gave Ubuntu 21.04 a try.
To begin, I copied the 2.6GB Ubuntu 21.04 ISO to a flash drive, rebooted my computer, and was quickly greeted by the familiar Try Ubuntu/Install Ubuntu selection screen. I clicked on Install Ubuntu to start the installation process.
Installing Ubuntu 21.04
Ubuntu's Ubiquity installer is an extremely familiar experience. The basic installation workflow is exactly the same as it has been for the last several Ubuntu releases. Configure the keyboard layout, pick between a standard or minimal installation, decide if you want to install updates during installation, decide if you want to install third-party software for drivers and media codecs, choose where to install Ubuntu, select your geographic location, create a user, wait for the installation to complete, and reboot the system.
Ubuntu 21.04 -- Installer security key screen
(full image size: 693kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Despite the extremely familiar installation process, Ubuntu 21.04 does add two nice new features. The first is that the "Encrypt the new Ubuntu installation for security" advanced option on the "Installation type" screen now generates a recovery key file that can be saved somewhere safe and used to gain access to the system if the user forgets their security key. The other is integrated Active Directory support as part of the new user creation process. Neither of these features radically alter the Ubuntu installation workflow, but they are both nice additions.
For the purposes of this review, I selected all the default options when installing. That means no disk encryption, no ZFS, and the software selection included with the standard installation. Selecting other options might lead to a different experience, so keep that in mind when trying out Ubuntu 21.04.
Ubuntu 21.04's GNOME desktop
Ubuntu 21.04 -- Notification area with dark theme
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
At first glance, Ubuntu 21.04 looks just like Ubuntu 20.10, but there are changes. GNOME Shell now uses a dark theme. This means that the calendar/notification area that is accessed by clicking on the data and time in the top bar and the system menu in the top right are dark instead of light. The default theme for window decorations remains the same; a dark header bar with the rest of the window being light. It is just the GNOME Shell theme that has changed.
Ubuntu 21.04 -- Desktop icons settings
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
A more significant change is the improved support for desktop icons provided by the gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons-ng package. This improved desktop icon extension allows for dragging files to and from the desktop and other enhancements. Right-clicking on the desktop and selecting Settings from the menu opens a window that contains options for customizing the desktop icons. By default, icons for plugged in removal drives now appear on the right side of the screen instead of on the left, which is something that can be back to the old style using this settings window. For those users who like a traditional desktop with icons, this one extension is reason enough to make upgrade from 20.10 to 21.04.
A more subtle change is the switch to Wayland as the default display server. For my personal workflow, I had absolutely no issues with using Wayland. I know this experience might be different for other users, but I was pleased with the switch to Wayland. The last time Ubuntu tried to make Wayland the default was in Ubuntu 17.10, which did not carry over to the 18.04 LTS release. Maybe this time things will be different.
Ubuntu 21.04 -- Desktop wallpapers
(full image size: 259kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The only criticism I have of Ubuntu 21.04's desktop is the almost complete lack of desktop wallpapers. Ubuntu 21.04 comes with only four wallpapers: the default orange and purple line art hippo, a grayscale variant of the same image, and two photos of hippos. Very few options and all of the options have the same theme. While it is easy to install the wallpaper packages from all the past Ubuntu versions or acquire wallpapers from other sources, it would have been very nice to see a few more wallpapers included. At the very least, at least one non-hippo themed wallpaper to provide some diversity to the options.
Default software selection
The default software selection in Ubuntu 21.04 is much the same as it has been in all recent Ubuntu releases. In this release that means version 5.11 of the Linux kernel, Firefox 87, Thunderbird 78.8, LibreOffice 7.1, and a selection of GNOME games and utilities. Despite staying on version 3.38 for GNOME Shell, Files, Settings and a few other key components, several of the GNOME applications are the new GNOME 40 versions. These updated applications do not bring changes as massive as the redesigned GNOME Shell, but it is still nice to have the latest versions for many of the GNOME applications.
Except for Ubuntu Software, all the GUI applications installed are standard Deb packages. While I have no objections to Snaps per se, I found that installing the GNOME Software Deb and purging snapd entirely saved about 1GB of disk space. The default Ubuntu 21.04 install was approximately 8GB and the same installation with snapd removed and GNOME Software installed was approximately 7GB. Most of that gigabyte comes from Snaps like core18 and gnome-3-34-1804 that contain things that would be shared with other applications, so it is not Ubuntu Software itself taking up that entire gigabyte, but someone who is against Snaps entirely might bemoan the waste of disk space.
Installing additional software
Ubuntu's default software selection is near perfect for general computing tasks like web browsing, email, playing music and movies, and creating and editing various types of documents. However, there is plenty of software out there for more advanced or more specialized purposes. A wide variety of these software packages are available through the Ubuntu Software application.
Ubuntu 21.04 -- Ubuntu Software
(full image size: 217kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Ubuntu Software is basically a re-branded version of GNOME Software that provides a graphical way to install additional packages. Ubuntu Software lists the GUI applications available in the Ubuntu Deb repositories and all the Snaps available on Snapcraft.io. When a package is available from both sources, Ubuntu Software favors the Snap version, but the Deb version can be selection from a drop down menu in the header bar.
On the command line, Deb packages can be installed from the Ubuntu repositories using apt and Snaps can be installed using snap. Local deb packages can be installed using dpkg.
I ended up using a mixture of Deb packages and Snaps to configure my system to my liking. I installed Foliate, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, Inkscape, and Visual Studio Code as Snaps, but most of my other packages were installed from Deb packages. (I also compiled ScummVM from source, but that is just because I always want the latest development version to try out some of the upcoming features; normally, the Deb or Snap version would be fine.)
One minor annoyance I had was with some of the Snaps listed on Snapcraft.io not being kept up to date. For example, I wanted to try out the Julia programming language, but found that Snapcraft.io listed 1.0.4 as the latest version. The latest LTS version of Julia is 1.0.5, which came out a few months after the published date listed on the Julia 1.0.4 Snap. Both the version 1.0.4 Snap and the 1.0.5 release came out in 2019, so I am not simply being impatient. The difference between 1.0.4 and 1.0.5 is probably not huge, but the point of Snaps is to keep things up to date. Julia is far from the only example of this, which is disappointing.
Final thoughts
Ubuntu 21.04 is a very solid release. Users of new releases of other GNOME-based distributions might be experiencing the new GNOME 40 interface, but Ubuntu 21.04's GNOME 3.38 desktop environment is functional and familiar. I do look forward to seeing how Ubuntu might tweak GNOME Shell 40 (or whatever the current post-40 GNOME version is at the time) in the future, but can find no fault with the decision to stick with 3.38 for now. The few issues I had with release are so minor they are barely worth repeating, but it would have been nice to see some non-hippo wallpapers.
Overall, I would recommend Ubuntu 21.04 to anyone who is okay with the short 9-month support window. If you are already a user of non-LTS Ubuntu releases, the upgrade from 20.10 to 21.04 is something you should feel comfortable doing as soon as possible. The new features, while not massive, are very nice quality of life improvements. Distro hoppers might be slightly more interested in distributions that feature GNOME 40, but I would still recommend they at least try out Ubuntu 21.04 to see what it has to offer.
Editor's note
After Ubuntu 21.04 was released a problem was discovered which can cause the operating system to no longer boot on computers with older EFI implementations. Due to this issue Canonical has disabled upgrades from previous versions of Ubuntu until the issue can be corrected. Brian Murray explains: "In case you missed it in the release notes and hear people asking about it, I wanted to let you know that users of Ubuntu 20.10 are not being prompted to upgrade to Ubuntu 21.04. Subsequently, upgrading to Ubuntu 21.04 still requires running do-release-upgrade with the '-d' switch. This is due to a bug with the current version of shim in Ubuntu 21.04 which can cause systems with an early version of EFI to fail to boot after the upgrade. Due to the severity of the issue we shouldn't be encouraging people to upgrade at this point in time. After we have a new version of shim signed will make it available in Ubuntu 21.04 and then enable upgrades."
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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
Ubuntu has a visitor supplied average rating of: 7.7/10 from 375 review(s).
Have you used Ubuntu? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Alpine considers own service manager, Fedora provides Silverblue upgrade instructions, Lubuntu 18.04 nears end of life, Mint changes Hypnotix provider and is included in Shells.com, Linus Torvalds discusses 30 years of Linux
Alpine Linux is a lightweight, fast distribution often used on servers and in embedded environments. The project is considering adopting its own service manager with an eye toward replacing OpenRC. "As many of you already know, Alpine presently uses a fairly modified version of OpenRC as its service manager. Unfortunately, OpenRC maintenance has stagnated: the last release was over a year ago. We feel now is a good time to start working on a replacement service manager based on user feedback and design discussions we've had over the past few years which can be simply summarized as systemd done right. But what does systemd done right mean?" Further information on these plans to create a new service manager can be found in this blog post.
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This past week Fedora 34 was released, bringing with it new versions of the GNOME desktop, updated kernel, and other cutting edge packages. People who run the Silverblue edition of Fedora may wish to upgrade to the newer package base and Fedora Magazine has published a tutorial to help people update their Silverblue operating system. "Silverblue is an operating system for your desktop built on Fedora. It's excellent for daily use, development, and container-based workflows. It offers numerous advantages such as being able to roll back in case of any problems. If you want to update to Fedora 34 on your Silverblue system, this article tells you how. It not only shows you what to do, but also how to revert things if something unforeseen happens." The guide also explains how to revert the upgrade in case anything goes wrong.
In other Fedora-related news, Fedora 32 is nearing the end of its supported life. Fedora 32 will no longer receive support or fixes after May 25, 2021.
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The Lubuntu project has published an announcement reminding people that Lubuntu 18.04 (along with other Ubuntu community editions) will soon reach the end of their supported life spans. "Lubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver) was released April 27, 2018 and will reach End of Life on Friday, May 30, 2021. This means that after that date there will be no further security updates or bug fixes released. We highly recommend that you re-install with 20.04 as soon as possible if you are still running 18.04. After May 30th, the only supported releases of Lubuntu will be 20.04 (until April 2023), 20.10 (until July 2021), and 21.04 (until January 2022). All other releases of Lubuntu will be considered unsupported, and will no longer receive any further updates (or support) from the Lubuntu team."
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The Linux Mint team published a handful of important announcements in the project's monthly newsletter for April. One of the announcements concerns the Hypnotix IPTV video player. The default provider, Free-IPTV, is shutting down and the Mint team is transitioning to Free-TV as an alternative. The newsletter also mentions Linux Mint is now available on Shells.com virtual desktop service. Plus the Warpinator file sharing tool is now available for Android through the Play store, as well as for most other Linux distributions via a Flatpak. "With Warpinator you can quickly and easily transfer files from computer to computer across the local network. Warpinator was already available natively for Linux Mint 20, 20.1 and LMDE 4, and as a Flatpak for any other release and for other Linux distributions. Today we're delighted to announce that Warpinator is now also available for Android." Finally, the newsletter reports Linux Mint 18.x is no longer supported and users are advised to upgrade to version 19 to continue receiving security fixes.
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The Linux kernel will turn 30 years old in August of 2021. The creator of the kernel, Linus Torvalds, recently gave an interview with Tag1 in which he talks about Linux, the git version control software, licensing, his workflow, and his views on using the Rust language in the kernel. Torvalds also commented on the M1 Apple chip support being merged into Linux: "I'm checking in on it very occasionally, but it's early days yet. As you note, the very early support will likely be merged into 5.13, but you need to realize that that is really only the beginning, and doesn't make Apple hardware useful with Linux yet. It's not the arm64 part that ends up being the problem, but all the drivers for the hardware around it (the SSD and GPU in particular). The early work so far gets some of the really low-level stuff working, but doesn't result in anything useful outside of early hardware enablement. It will take some time for it to be a real option for people to try out. But it's not just the Apple hardware that has improved - the infrastructure for arm64 in general has grown up a lot, and the cores have gone from 'Meh' to being much more competitive in the server space." The rest of the interview can be found on Tag1's website.
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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) |
The new Arch Linux system installer
Automating-installs asks: Why haven't you guys talked about the new Arch installer yet? How does it compare to other installers? Will this mean the new Arch+Calamares flavours of the week will stop cropping up?
DistroWatch answers: To be perfectly honest, when I saw the announcement about Arch Linux having a system installer included on the distribution's installation media I thought it was an April Fools joke.
For the past decade or so the idea of Arch Linux having an official system installer has been a running April Fools prank, designed to trigger a response in the vocal corner of the Arch community which prefers to avoid automation. So when an announcement was posted on the Arch website on April 1st, it seemed suspect. Especially since there were very few useful details, with no documentation, screenshots, or even the name of the new installer included in the post. It looked as though the Arch team had decided to get in on the running joke.
It wasn't until about a week later that I stumbled across a forum post from someone who had tried the new installer it seemed real that Arch not only had a system installer, but it was included directly on the official media rather than as a separate download.
I did eventually download a recent snapshot of Arch Linux and decide to give the installer a try. Oddly enough the announcement about the system installer links to the project's manual installation guide. This same link to the wiki is shown when booting the Arch media and the system installer isn't mentioned in either the installation guide or in the media's welcome message.
The program we execute to launch the installer is archinstall. The installer is actually a one-line shell script which runs a Python module which is also called archinstall. The Python module walks us through a very basic console-based series of steps. First asking us to pick our keyboard layout from a list of two-letter country codes. We are then asked to pick our region or country from a list.
Arch Linux 2021.04.01 -- The text-based system installer
(full image size: 14kB, resolution: 800x600 pixels)
We are then asked to select a disk from a list of device names followed by a filesystem. Our filesystem selection is limited to Btfs, ext4, F2FS, and XFS. We are next asked to optionally enter a disk encryption password and make up a hostname for the computer. We can then make up a root password for our new install. The installer module then gives us the option of making up a username and password.
The next step is a bit vague. We are shown a list of "pre-programmed profiles" and asked to pick one. These seem to be commonly used graphical desktops and window managers, though they aren't explained at all. The list includes six items: awesome, desktop, gnome, kde, kde-wayland, and xorg.
I wasn't sure what "desktop" would be or how it would compare to the other desktop and window manager options. I tried to install KDE and the installer immediately crashed, returning me to the terminal.
I went through the process a second time. This time after I created a user account the installer skipped over the pre-programmed package selection, printed a warning that there was no network connection and this must be set up manually. Then a prompt was displayed asking me to type in my time zone and, before I could type anything, then installer displayed a JSON-formatted summary of my choices and paused until I pressed Enter.
There did not appear to be any way to abort the installer or go back to a previous step. At this point pressing Enter caused my entire hard drive to be formatted and some base packages to be installed. Curiously enough these packages were installed by downloading them over the active network, though the installer had just told me a network connection was not available.
No progress is shown as packages are downloaded and installed. The install process took just over ten minutes and, in the end, the installer reported it had completed without any errors. At this point I rebooted the system and was met with an error saying no bootable media was found.
The new Arch installer basically looks like a crude version of the MINIX or OpenBSD installers, but with less flexibility. It takes over an entire disk, crashes or skips over steps when selecting a desktop to install, and despite reporting it finished successfully, I did not end up with a bootable system.
The installer also failed to detect my active network connection even though it then used the same connection to download packages. To add to the confusion there doesn't seem to be much documentation for it. I was hoping to find some notes in the Arch wiki about whether a person needs to manually partition the disk or install a boot loader. This information appears to be missing, at least from the announcement and section on performing new installs.
In short, my experience with the installer was poor. I don't think this Python module will be slowing the tide of Arch-based projects which ship with preconfigured desktop environments and the Calamares installer any time soon. The archinstall program appears to exist to automate some typing, but doesn't offer a user friendly or flexible alternative to polished graphical installers like Calamares.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Fedora 34
Matthew Miller has announced the release of Fedora 34, the latest version of the popular Linux distribution sponsored by Red Hat: "I'm excited to share the results of the hard work of thousands of contributors to the Fedora Project: our latest release, Fedora Linux 34, is here." As usual, Fedora ships in several editions and spins, available for the x86_64 and AArch64 architectures. The "Workstation" variant now comes with GNOME 40: "Fedora editions are targeted outputs geared toward specific 'showcase' uses on the desktop, in server and cloud environments, and the Internet of Things. Fedora Workstation focuses on the desktop, and in particular, it's geared toward software developers who want a 'just works' Linux operating system experience. This release features GNOME 40, the next step in focused, distraction-free computing. GNOME 40 brings improvements to navigation whether you use a trackpad, a keyboard, or a mouse. The app grid and settings have been redesigned to make interaction more intuitive. You can read more about what changed and why in a Fedora Magazine article from March." See the full release announcement for further information.
KaOS 2021.04
KaOS is a rolling release distribution which is focused on providing one polished desktop (KDE Plasma) on one CPU architecture (x86_64). The distribution has published a new snapshot, 2021.04, which revamps the KaOS Community Packages utility (kcp). The Calamares system installer has been updated along with some changes to the distribution's package mirrors: "The installer Calamares has picked up the transition to QML again. All navigation is now done in QML for KaOS. The Finished module was also ported to QML, this gives a simpler end page, with clear buttons showing two options. It also opened the way to give users a clear message regarding installation logs once the install is completed. Usersq is another module being ported to QML, a preview is included in this release, but is not the default users module yet. The default mirror used for all KaOS installs is provided by Fosshost. Big change with Fosshost is that with just one mirror users will have access to a worldwide network of mirrors through Fastly CDN. No longer is there a need to adjust a mirrorlist, you will always be connected to the fastest mirror in your area. As always with this rolling distribution, you will find the very latest packages for the Plasma Desktop, this includes Frameworks 5.81.0, Plasma 5.21.3, and KDE Applications 21.04.0. All built on Qt 5.15.2+." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Calculate Linux 21
Calculate Linux is a Gentoo-based distribution which provides customized editions for a variety of tasks. There are several desktop flavours, a server edition, and there is now reportedly an edition for running Steam games in containers. The new Calculate Linux 21 version ships with the Btr filesystem as the default for fresh installs. "We are pleased to announce the release of Calculate Linux 21. It includes a new Calculate Container Games flavor, allowing you to run Steam games on your computer. All packages in the binary repository were recompiled with GCC 10.2 and packed with Zstd. Calculate Linux Desktop user profiles now synchronize much faster. Are available for download: Calculate Linux Desktop featuring the KDE (CLD), Cinnamon (CLDC), LXQt (CLDL), Mate (CLDM) or else Xfce (CLDX and CLDXS) scientific, Calculate Directory Server (CDS), Calculate Linux Scratch (CLS) and Calculate Scratch Server (CSS)." Additional information on version 21 of Calculate Linux can be found in the project's release announcement.
Calculate Linux 21 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 1.3MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
GhostBSD 21.04.27
Eric Turgeon has announced the release of GhostBSD 21.04.27, the latest version of the project's desktop operating system based on FreeBSD, with MATE as the default desktop. This release updates the base system to FreeBSD 13.0: "I am happy to announce the availability of the new ISO image, 21.04.27. When we started to port all the GhostBSD code from 12.2-STABLE to 13.0-STABLE, several problems arose with OpenRC, devd and drivers not loading at boot. We discovered that OpenRC devd and devmatch services implementations were not working properly. We had to create rc.devmatch to replace the OpenRC service implementation of devmatch.conf for devd. With devmatch now starting properly, all drivers get loaded at boot and when a new device is inserted. In addition, we were able to remove all changes we made in the GENERIC kernel, making the default kernel a bit smaller. I fixed ntpd and WireGuard services. Automatic configuration for network cards has been removed from NetworkMgr and added to the script started by devd." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information and upgrade instructions.
OpenBSD 6.9
Theo de Raadt has announced the release of OpenBSD 6.9, the latest of the regular bi-annual releases from the project that develops a multi-platform, security-oriented UNIX-like operating system. This is OpenBSD's 50th official release: "We are pleased to announce the official release of OpenBSD 6.9. This is our 50th release. We remain proud of OpenBSD's record of more than twenty years with only two remote holes in the default install. As in our previous releases, 6.9 provides significant improvements, including new features, in nearly all areas of the system. Support for the powerpc64 platform was improved: added astfb(4), a driver for the framebuffer of the Aspeed BMC found on many POWER8 and POWER9 systems; added bsd.mp to powerpc64's installXX.{img,iso}; added RETGUARD implementation for powerpc and powerpc64; added a workaround for PCIO devices that cannot address the full 64-bit PCI address space to powerpc64; added limited emulation of unaligned access in the powerpc64 kernel." See the detailed release notes for a full list of changes and improvements.
OpenIndiana 2021.04
OpenIndiana is a continuation of the OpenSolaris operating system. The project's latest release is 2021.04 which includes updates for key desktop applications, development tools, and hardware drivers. "We have updated firefox and Thunderbird to newer ESR versions (78.10.0 resp. 78.9.1). This was overdue and has been requested by many users. Finally we have more than one NVIDIA driver version available with nvidia-390.141 being the default. Changing the driver to another version is documented. At the moment we have the following versions in our repository: nvidia-460.67, nvidia-390.141, nvidia-340.108. Our gcc-7, gcc-8, gcc-9, and gcc-10 compilers have been patched to use the illumos libc SSP implementation for -fstack-protector. We have added openssl-1.1.1 and many packages have been updated to make use of the newer and supported version of openssl. Alas this process isn't finished yet as many packages don't use it out-of-the box and a few even don't work with its new interface. Work has been started to update our Python versions and the related packages. As a consequence we now have python-37 and python-39 packages. This is also an ongoing process that hasn't been finished yet." Further information is provided in the release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,424
- Total data uploaded: 37.3TB
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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) |
Have you tried Arch Linux's system installer?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we shared initial impressions of the new Python-based Arch Linux system installer. Have you tried running archinstall? If so, what were your impressions of it. Let us know about your experiences in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on tracking login times in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Running the Arch Linux installer
| I have tried archinstall and like it: | 77 (6%) |
| I have tried archinstall and do not like it: | 136 (11%) |
| I have not tried archinstall: | 1047 (83%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to database
Rocky Linux
Rocky Linux is a community enterprise operating system designed to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It is led by Gregory Kurtzer, the founder of the CentOS project and it is available for the x86_64 and AArch64 processor architectures.
Rocky Linux 8.3 RC1 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 1.8MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Archcraft. Archcraft is a minimal distribution based on Arch Linux. The Archcraft system supplies lightweight window managers instead of heavier desktop environments.
- Neurolinux. Neurolinux is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring tools for developing and working with AI such as OpenCV for processing video.
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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, 10 May 2021. 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 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Zeus Linux
Zeus Linux was a Greek Linux distribution based on Slackware Linux. It includes many fixes, such as remaking init scripts, new precompiled kernels for workstation machines, several tools that we believe should be included in all distributions (Zebra for advanced routing, FreeSwan ipsec tunnels, Open-nms for network monitoring, Ntop, Mailscanner, Sophos Antivirus, Mrtg, Rrdtool for graph making, sawmill log analyzer and many other useful tools for power users).
Status: Discontinued
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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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