 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1027, 10 July 2023 |
Welcome to this year's 28th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
While Android, a Linux-based mobile operating system, has dominated the smart phone market for many years, a lot of people within the Linux desktop community take issue with the mobile platform's privacy issues. In our News section we talk about Murena - an organization which offers a privacy-focused, de-Googled version of Android - launching a new device in North America. The new phone is a repairable, upgradable Fairphone 4 which is paired with Murena's open source flavour of Android. We also share word on Red Hat extending the support life cycle for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) version 7 while Canonical draws the LXD container management software further under its control. Meanwhile elementary OS is introducing new security and privacy tools to its software centre and the Fedora community is debating the merits of adding desktop usage telemetry. First though we report on two distributions: Crystal Linux, an Arch-based project with some attractive features and the Jade installer; and embassyOS (now called StartOS) which makes setting up a personal server quite easy. We have details on both projects below. This week we also talk about custom filesystem mount options and how to set them once the operating system is running. Do you use any custom filesystem features? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and torrent we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Crystal Linux 2023-03-16
Crystal Linux is a young, rolling release Linux distribution which is based on Arch. The distribution has a focus on desktop usage and features the Onyx desktop, a customized version of GNOME with a Windows-like panel and layout. The other key feature the Crystal Linux website mentions is Timeshift, which is available for making optional filesystem snapshots.
I downloaded the sole edition of Crystal which is 1.7GB in size. The live media was able to boot in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes and quickly loads the GNOME (Onyx) desktop. A panel is placed along the bottom of the display which holds the application menu, task switcher, and system tray. The desktop has a dark, purple theme.
Installing
Once the desktop loads the system installer is automatically launched. Crystal uses the graphical Jade installer which is quite streamlined and reminds me of mobile setup wizards in its visual style.
Jade walks us through picking our keyboard layout, confirming our timezone, and picking a locale. On the locale screen, my first time through the install process, the installer crashed. I opened the Onyx application menu to see if I could find the installer's launcher to try again and the entire desktop crashed, sending me to a login screen.
Crystal Linux 2023-03-16 -- Running the Jade installer
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The login screen helpfully tells us the login password is "crystal" and we can select our user with the mouse. Once I signed into the desktop session again Jade automatically launched and I tried again. This time I got through the first three configuration screens. The fourth screen asks us to create a username and password combination and gives us the option of enabling a root account.
Next we're asked which desktop environment we want with the options being Onyx, GNOME, Plasma, Xfce, Sway, and i3. We can pick just one of these options and I chose to stick with Onyx as it was the default. We're then given the option to enable Timeshift and Zramd. I chose to turn on Timeshift and disable Zramd. We're then asked if we want to manually partition a hard drive or let Jade take over an entire disk.
The final page of the installer shows a summary of actions Jade will take. I noticed that, despite disabling Zramd, it was listed as enabled on the summary page. I went back and toggled Zramd on and then back off, returned to the summary page and confirmed it then showed as being disabled.
Jade goes to work, downloading the necessary packages over the network and shows progress information in a mini terminal while it works. The installer crashed early on in the download process and failed to finish installing its packages.
I tried five more times to install Crystal Linux. On the third attempt the installer crashed on the desktop selection page. The fourth time through it crashed while I was making up a username and password. On the fifth attempt the installer remained stable, listed the packages it was going to download and then locked up. It never managed to download anything, though it also didn't crash, it just remained locked up.
A reboot later, I tried a sixth time. This time the installer crashed while I was making up my username. The seventh time through the installer began downloading packages and reported it would be fetching 445MB of files. It then almost immediately crashed.
In short, Jade managed to die on almost every screen at one point or another and Onyx managed to crash on me too, for good measure. Hopefully the developers will work out their issues with Jade before the next release.
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StartOS (previously embassyOS) 0.3.4.2
I almost didn't get a chance to review the next project I wanted to look at. I'd been hoping to review a server-oriented distribution on the DistroWatch waiting list called embassyOS. However, when I went looking for it, I ran into some confusion. The project had changed its name in recent months from embassyOS to StartOS, which makes it difficult to find accurate information about the distribution since this is also the name of a Chinese Linux distribution featuring the GNOME desktop.
Once I found the new StartOS (formerly embassyOS) website, I found the following description of the distribution:
StartOS is a browser-based, graphical operating system for a personal server. StartOS facilitates the discovery, installation, network configuration, service configuration, data backup, dependency management, and health monitoring of self-hosted software services. It is the most advanced, secure, reliable, and user friendly personal server OS in the world.
It's generally not a good start when developers clearly over-hype their creation this much. It makes the distribution feel more like a prop in a Monty Python skit than a serious operating system. However, I endeavoured to dig deeper and, while I found a handful of screenshots, I couldn't find much documentation or other information which would indicate what features StartOS offers or how it achieves its lofty goals.
StartOS is available for Aarch64 systems, Raspberry Pi single-board computers, and x86_64 machines. I downloaded the final option, which offers free and non-free builds. There aren't many details offered, but I think the two flavours offer free firmware and non-free firmware, respectively. The ISO file I downloaded was 1.0GB in size.
The distribution boots through a series of text consoles which appear to display systemd status messages. It also looks as though the distribution is based on Debian, judging by the status information and package data I could see.
StartOS boots to a graphical environment and launches the Firefox web browser. There is no window manager and desktop environment on display, just the web browser taking up the whole screen. Firefox is connected to a web service running on the local machine. The web page we are shown asks us to select an available disk from a list. Once we pick a local disk we are shown an Install button which, we are warned, will wipe the local drive when it is clicked.
I clicked the Install button, accepted a second warning, and a pop-up appeared to tell me the distribution was being installed. No progress information was shown and, after several minutes with apparently nothing happening, I was returned to the first page and asked to select a disk which would hold the distribution.
I went through the same steps again (picking the appropriate disk and clicking the Install button). This time the system worked for a couple of minutes and then popped up a message saying the install had finished successfully and I was shown a button I could click to reboot the machine.
Early impressions
What is interesting about StartOS is we can access the system locally, using the distribution's built-in web browser. We can also connect to the distribution remotely using a browser on another computer. So long as we know (or can learn) the IP address of the machine running StartOS we can connect to it from virtually anywhere.
The first time I booted StartOS it asked me if I'd like to perform a fresh setup or recover an old install. I chose to start fresh. The next screen asked me where it could save data and I was invited to select a disk. We're then asked to make up an administrator's password which must be at least 12 characters in length. The distribution then goes to work, performing its initial configuration.
The first time I tried setting up StartOS, the web browser popped up an error which read: "No key available with this passphrase." Closing the error just caused the pop-up to reappear, then appear again and again and again in a loop. I forced a reboot and was walked through the initial setup steps again. I took all the same settings and, this time, the initial configuration completed successfully. I was shown a "Setup Complete" message with a red, Matrix-like rainfall in the background. A button appears inviting us to login.
From this point onward, visiting the IP address for StartOS (or sitting at the console of the machine running StartOS) brings up a login page where we are asked for our password only, we don't need a separate username to sign in.
Signing into the StartOS web portal brings up a grid of six icons. These icons give us access to a variety of information and features which I'll quickly outline below:
StartOS 0.3.4.2 -- The home screen
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- Visit the marketplace - provides a friendly overview of available web-based modules we can download. These mostly fall under the categories of Bitcoin, communications, data, and lightning. By clicking package entries we can bring up more complete descriptions of packages and the option to install the selected module. There are not a lot of these packages, maybe around ten in each category with some overlap across categories.
I installed a few items and they mostly worked well. Sometimes they'd run into an error during the install process and need to be re-fetched. Once installed the items I grabbed could be activated/enabled. Then the web-based service would be left running in the background, awaiting someone to connect to it. I will talk a bit more about these web services later.
StartOS 0.3.4.2 -- The software Marketplace
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- Secure LAN - this page simply provides us with a button which will download the server's self-made certificate. This can be added to our list of known certificates on client machines to provide secure connections to the StartOS server.
- Create backup - this page gives us the option of backing up our data to a network share, such as a Samba share.
- Server info - This is a fairly simple information page which shows the operating system's version details, Tor address, and local IP address.
- User manual - connects us to the on-line user manual. I'd had trouble finding the project's documentation through its website, but this button takes us straight to it. The documentation offers a good overview of features with accompanying screenshots.
- Contact support - opens a browser tab which connects us with social media, e-mail, and community support channels.
StartOS 0.3.4.2 -- The Files web service
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Apart from these six icons on the main page there is also a menu near the top of the portal with the following options:
Services - opens a page to display a list of installed modules. We can select modules to run or access.
Marketplace - this opens the Marketplace software centre I mentioned above.
Updates - checks for system and module updates. No updates were available at the time of writing.
Notifications - this page displays a list of messages and warnings the distribution wants to share with us. Typically it'll be an error message.
StartOS 0.3.4.2 -- Checking notifications
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System - this page is a sort of a catch-all. From this screen we can access a number of other features such as creating and restoring backups, checking for updates, and managing OpenSSH keys. The System page will also help us connect to wi-fi networks. We're also given the chance to monitor CPU, memory, and disk consumption. I found, for instance, a fresh install of StartOS uses around 700MB of RAM and 400MB of disk space. The System page also provides us with access to system logs, a link to contact community support, and buttons to shutdown, restart, and logout.
While there are a number of tools built into the web interface, I feel the main focus of StartOS is to provide us with a platform where we can easily add web-based modules. Specifically there are a few dozen packages modules for us which can be used to set up Nextcloud, Bitcoin, file sharing, communication, and information storage. There isn't exactly a wide range of functionality offered through the official software modules. However, the handful of modules I installed to test functionality worked fairly well. Hopefully the collection will be expanded over time as, at the moment, there isn't a lot in the Marketplace.
StartOS 0.3.4.2 -- Checking for updates
(full image size: 100kB, resolution: 1640x1025 pixels)
As I said, despite there being a limited selection, what was available generally worked well. I like that we can go into a service's information page and launch its interface from within the StartOS portal, this makes it easier to find services. I also found that most services have default credentials built in which we can typically find by opening a module from the Services page and clicking a button to view its "properties".
StartOS doesn't do a lot on its own, it's mostly there as a platform from which we can quickly install and launch services, and mostly services geared toward home use. This means there isn't a lot to look at, but the platform is a base we are meant to extend.
On the whole, I think StartOS does a pretty good job at its core mission. Despite having a few missteps when I was first setting up the distribution, once it was up and running, StartOS was stable and unusually easy to navigate. I found it quite natural, browsing items, checking their settings, and launching them. StartOS makes the progression through these steps flow naturally and the interface is uncluttered.
There were a few issues I ran into. The installer died and I had to restart the initial install process. Then I had to perform the post-install configuration twice. This got things off to a rough start, and these glitches were made worse by the lack of clear errors or guidance. Once the system was installed, I sometimes ran into situations where modules would fail to download the first time, but they always worked the second or third time I tried to fetch them. Again, there usually wasn't any useful information presented when these errors occurred.
Conclusions
When I'm testing a new distribution I tend to look at three basic criteria: does it work at all, is it useful for me, and does the project fulfill its stated goals or description?
StartOS certainly works. As I mentioned, there were a few rough edges, but on the whole it functioned pretty well. It was easy to set up and navigate. Despite some early problems, which were typically solved by simply performing the task again, StartOS generally worked and made the experience of setting up new web services easy.
Is StartOS something I would use? In most circumstances, I wouldn't. For two reasons. The first is I feel the Marketplace store is a bit limited. There are some good items there now, like Nextcloud, but not a lot of functionality is present yet. I'm hoping this will get expanded over time. The second is StartOS is geared toward providing an appliance-like approach to service management. It's friendly, it's streamlined, but it's also fairly rigid. We're not meant to explore the command line, pull in services from Debian's repositories, or enable our own backup scripts. Which, for many people, is probably a perk. I like something that's a bit more customizable, a bit more general purpose.
Finally, I'd like to examine the project's goals and comment on whether I think it is achieving them:
- "StartOS is a browser-based, graphical operating system for a personal server." This is accurate, StartOS does provide both a local and remote web-based management portal.
- "StartOS facilitates the discovery, installation, network configuration, service configuration, data backup, dependency management, and health monitoring of self-hosted software services." I'd say this statement is mostly accurate. There aren't any low-level service or health monitoring tools. There are tools for monitoring and managing the web-based services StartOS provides.
- "It is the most advanced, secure, reliable, and user friendly personal server OS in the world." This statement is more subjective, but I'd say it's pretty obviously empty hype. While well executed, there isn't anything about StartOS which feels particularly advanced compared to other server distributions with web-based services. Further, security seems to be lacking and there were some reliability issues. StartOS is pretty friendly for a newcomer though, so I'd say the above statement is one-fourth accurate.
I think this project might need a little more time in order to polish the setup process and add more web services. Once it does it will be a very attractive home server platform for people who want to set-and-forget a couple of services.
* * * * *
Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo desktop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Hex-core Intel i5-10400 CPU @ 2.90GHz
- Storage: Western Digital 1TB hard drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 wired network card, Realtek RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCIe wireless adapter
- Display: Intel CometLake-S GT2
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Red Hat extends the life of RHEL 7, Canonical pulls LXD in closer, elementary adds security warnings to the software centre, Fedora discusses new desktop telemetry
Murena, an organization which sells phones with a de-Google version of Android (called /e/OS), is bringing a new product to North America. Murena has announced this week they have begun selling the Fairphone 4 in the United States. "Built with a focus on sustainability and privacy, Murena Fairphone 4 is the ultimate smartphone for those who value ethics and still want premium smartphone features.
The Murena Fairphone 4 is a 'Google-free' Android smartphone that runs on a privacy-oriented Android ecosystem, /e/OS. This not only includes a privacy focused operating system, but a range of default Murena Cloud apps including email, cloud storage, calendar etc, and your own murena.io email address. It also has a dedicated app store with privacy ratings and advanced privacy widget to give you more visibility and control of how various apps are tracking your online activity.
Like all Fairphone models, it's built with a modular design so that individual components can easily be repaired and replaced with just a screwdriver, increasing the phone's longevity and reducing waste at landfills. The Murena Fairphone 4 will retail for $599. Details on the Fairphone 4, along with other devices sold by Murena, can be found on the organization's shop page.
* * * * *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) customers still running version 7 of the distribution received some good news this week. The Red Hat team has extended support for RHEL 7. Originally RHEL 7 was set to reach the end of its supported life at the end of June 2024, however the deadline has been extended by four years to 2028. "As we near the end of the standard 10-year life cycle of RHEL 7, some IT organizations are finding that they cannot complete their planned migrations before June 30, 2024. To support IT teams while they catch up on their migration schedules, Red Hat is announcing a one-time, 4 year ELS maintenance period for RHEL 7 ELS."
* * * * *
LXD is a technology which provides a unified user experience for managing system containers and virtual machines. The software was originally created by Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu, and placed under the care of the Linux Containers project. There, LXD has been maintained for the past eight years. However, Canonical has decided to consolidate LXD with its own infrastructure and is drawing LXD under its own umbrella. A message on the Linux Containers website states: "Canonical, the creator and main contributor of the LXD project, has decided that after over 8 years as part of the Linux Containers community, the project would now be better served directly under Canonical's own set of projects. While the team behind Linux Containers regrets that decision and will be missing LXD as one of its projects, it does respect Canonical's decision and is now in the process of moving the project over."
* * * * *
The elementary team published a newsletter this week in which they highlighted new changes coming to the distribution. One of the key adjustments is giving users more warning when an application might misbehave or engage in questionable behaviour. "This month we've rolled out a new set of app sandbox warnings to help you better assess risk when installing apps. AppCenter will now inform you if an app can read your location without asking first, if it can access system folders or your home folder, if it can read and write system settings, or if it could possibly escape the sandbox altogether and gain advanced permissions. For certain types of administrative apps, having advanced system permissions makes sense, but our goal is to keep you informed and ensure that apps are always operating with your consent."
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The Fedora team has opened a discussion on the subject of collecting telemetry on desktop usage to be given to the Red Hat Display Systems Team. "The Red Hat Display Systems Team (which develops the desktop) proposes to enable limited data collection of anonymous Fedora Workstation usage metrics. Fedora is an open source community project, and nobody is interested in violating user privacy. We do not want to collect data about individual users. We want to collect only aggregate usage metrics that are actually needed to achieve specific Fedora improvement objectives, and no more." A debate on the proposal is ongoing in which it is stated the data collection would be opt-out if implemented.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Changing the options on a mounted filesystem
Already-attached asks: Is there a way to change mount options for the root filesystem after the system has already booted? I only have ssh access to the server.
DistroWatch answers: You can change basic mount options and flags after the operating system boots, even on filesystems which are already mounted. This will work in most instances where a filesystem is mounted and cannot be unmounted, as is the case for the root filesystem.
Changing the flags associated with a filesystem will change its behaviour or tune its performance.
The changing of mount flags is accomplished with the mount command and an option called remount. The remount option is described in the mount manual page as follows: "Attempt to remount an already-mounted filesystem. This is commonly used to change the mount flags for a filesystem, especially to make a read-only filesystem writable. It does not change device or mount point."
Most of the mount options we might want to use from the command line are listed in the mount manual page under the section titled Filesystem-Independent Mount Options. Let's look at a few examples.
In the following example, we use the "rw" flag to change the root (/) filesystem's write status from read-only, to read-write:
mount -o remount,rw /
In this next example we disable the users' ability to run executable files found on the /home filesystem. This is a handy way to lock down the running of programs a user might download from the Internet or compile themselves:
mount -o remount,noexec /home
Once the above command has been run, users trying to execute binary files or scripts stored in their home directories will encounter a "permission denied" error.
Please note that when the operating system reboots, changes you made to filesystem flags will be lost. Each time the system boots it checks the /etc/fstab file to see which flags should be applied to each filesystem. Specifically, filesystem flags are listed (and separated by commas) in the fourth column of each /etc/fstab entry. You should update this file if you want your changes to filesystem flags to be permanent.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Fatdog64 Linux 814
Fatdog64 Linux is a small, desktop, 64-bit Linux distribution. Originally created as a derivative of Puppy Linux with additional applications. The project's latest release, Fatdog64 814, is the final version in the 8xx series with future releases moving on to a 9xx base. Though it is the last of the series, version 814 still includes some key updates and new features. The release notes list these changes: "This is the final release of Fatdog64 800 series. No further release is planned. Fatdog64 will however continue with a new base, the 900 series. Changes from 813 - updates: Linux-5.19.17, low-latency, 1000Hz, dynamic preemption; Microcode as of 2022.10.09; tzdata 2022.e; iptables 1.8.8 with nftables support; Bluetooth Manager fixes; vlc-3.0.18; rox-jun7 2022.12; apfs-fuse 2023.03; pfilesearch 2.3; UExtract 4.11; Avidemux 2.8.1; mdview 2023.04; yad_gtk2 0.42.782023.04; SMB Browser 2.2.2. New Features: fzf-0.35.0; geany-themes-1.24.22; apply LFS 11.3 patch to recognise ext4 filesystems created by newer e2fsprogs; add DJVU thumbnailer for ROX; fatdog-drive-mounter.sh: support UDF labels, add support to mount by label and numerous bug fixes and fine tunings."
Q4OS 5.2
The Q4OS project develops a Debian-based desktop distribution which features editions for the KDE Plasma and Trinity desktop environments. Q4OS has published a new stable version, Q4OS 5.2, which is based on Debian 12. "A brand new stable Q4OS 5.2 version codenamed 'Aquarius' is immediately available for download and use in production environments. This is a long-term support LTS version to be supported for at least five years with security patches and software updates. Q4OS Aquarius is based on Debian Bookworm 12 and Plasma 5.27.5, optionally Trinity 14.1.1 desktop environment, and it's available for 64bit/x64 computers. A 32bit/i686pae edition for older i386 systems with or without PAE extension will follow soon, in a few days. We plan to bring Aquarius for ARM devices as well. The objective is to provide rock stable, as lightweight as possible, Debian based operating system with added value thanks to unique Q4OS tools." Additional information is presented on the project's blog page.
Solus 4.4
The Solus project has released its first new stable release in two years. The rolling release's latest version, Solus 4.4, offers four desktop editions: Budgie, KDE Plasma, MATE, and GNOME. "All our editions feature: Firefox 114.0.1, LibreOffice 7.5.3.2, Thunderbird 102.12.0, For audio and video multimedia playback, we offer software out-of-the-box that caters specifically to our desired experience for each edition. Budgie, GNOME, and MATE editions all ship with Rhythmbox for audio playback, with the latest release of the Alternate Toolbar extension to provide a more modern user experience. Budgie and GNOME ship with Celluloid for video playback. MATE ships with VLC for video playback. Plasma ships with Elisa for audio playback and Haruna for video playback. Hardware and Kernel Enablement: This release of Solus ships with Linux kernel 6.3.8, enabling us to provide support for a broader range of hardware, such as: Secure Boot support. See our documentation for enablement." The release announcement has additional information.
Solus 4.4 -- Running the Budgie desktop
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blendOS 3
blendOS is an Arch Linux-based, rolling release distribution which automates installing software from supported distributions into containers. Version 3 of the distribution introduces wider support for source distributions (nine now in total) and seven desktop environments. "blendOS v3 introduces two new command line utilities, system and user, and both of these are designed to make the lives of developers much, much easier. system allows you to install packages on the host itself, such as drivers and virtualization software from the Arch Linux repositories (system install and system remove). Speaking of which, unlike quite a few other immutable distributions, blendOS supports software such as VirtualBox if installed on the host. user is a replacement for the old blend CLI (was deprecated in v2). It allows you to create and manage containers and associatiions, as well as generate and move dotfiles and containers between different blendOS machines, as touched upon in the previous section." The release announcemnt offers additional information.
* * * * *
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: 2,884
- Total data uploaded: 43.4TB
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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) |
Using special mount flags
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about using mount flags to enable or disable filesystem features. Mount flags can be used to tune performance or provide additional functionality. Some distributions disable features, such as access time (atime) stamps, in order to reduce the number of writes to the disk. Do you have any non-default flags set on your filesystems? (Filesystem flags are listed in the /etc/fstab file.) Let us know which flags you set in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on whether our readers' distributions are affected by Red Hat's source code distribution policy change in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you have any filesystem flags set?
| Yes - my distro set custom flags: | 67 (8%) |
| Yes - I set custom flags: | 215 (25%) |
| No - my filesystems use default settings: | 582 (67%) |
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| Website News |
Cleaning the waiting list
The DistroWatch waiting list is the first step for new distributions in their journey to being added to our database. The list contains young projects which are then evaluated and either added to our database or sorted into categories for future consideration.
A lot of new Linux distributions do not survive beyond their first year and are often dropped from the waiting list when they become dormant. This past week Ted P combed through the waiting list, identifying over 20 projects which are no longer maintained and which could therefore be pruned from the list. Thanks, Ted, for your diligent work and assistance.
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- openKylin. openKylin is a Chinese distribution designed to run on a wide variety of computers, including x86_64 machines, single-board ARM computers, and RISV.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 17 July 2023. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. 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)
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Biadix
Biadix was Knoppix-based Linux live CD with support for the Catalan language.
Status: Discontinued
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0x969CD4E778C7b6549A2B00e34114e0168c86A542 
