 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1095, 4 November 2024 |
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Welcome to this year's 45th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
This past week the Fedora team published a new release, Fedora 41, which is available in many editions and community spins. The Fedora project's many flavours include multiple desktop editions, a server edition, and specialized editions for IoT and container servers. This week we take the Kinoite edition for a spin which provides atomic package management combined with the latest version of the Plasma desktop. In our News section we talk about new official accessories for Raspberry Pi computers along with openSUSE's many major package upgrades for the distribution's Tumbleweed branch. We also share plans for Ubuntu where the developers are trying out new compiler optimizations in an effort to boost application performance. Then, in our Questions and Answers column, we discuss creating a list of installed packages which can then be transferred to another computer to automate installing our favourite programs. How do you make sure your preferred applications get installed on a new system? Let us know in the Opinion Poll below. Plus we are pleased to share the many releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: Fedora 41 Kinoite
- News: Raspberry Pi computers gain official SSD storage options, openSUSE Tumbleweed introduces several major upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partnering with Framework
- Questions and answers: Get a list of installed applications
- Released last week: Fedora 41, Raspberry Pi OS 2024-10-22, BackBox Linux 9, Linux Lite 7.2, TrueNAS 24.10.0, Br OS 24.10
- Torrent corner: ArcoLinux, Fedora, Linux Lite, Raspberry Pi OS, Tails, TUXEDO OS
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 14.2 BETA2
- Opinion poll: Installing applications on a new system
- New distributions: Besgnulinux
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Fedora 41 Kinoite
About a month ago we posted a poll which asked in which version of Fedora people were most interested. The answers were strongly focused on desktop flavours of the distribution. The Server, IoT, CoreOS, and Cloud editions combined only attracted about 3% of the vote. Fedora's Silverblue edition was slightly more popular, bringing in 10% of the votes. The Workstation flavour was the single most popular edition at 38%, but even it lost out to the more general "Another spin" opinion which took nearly half (48%) of the votes. So, with this in mind, I decided when Fedora 41 came out I would review an edition I'd never before tried. This led me to download Fedora's Kinoite edition on release day.
What is Kinoite? It's an atomic flavour of Fedora which uses the KDE Plasma desktop environment. The edition is described as follows: "The KDE Plasma desktop, in an atomic fashion. Surf the web, keep in touch with friends, manage files, enjoy music and video, and get productive at work without having to worry about breaking your system.
Each version is updated for approximately 13 months, and each update takes effect on your next reboot, keeping your system consistent. You can even keep working while the updates are being applied!
The whole system is updated in one go, and an update will not apply if anything goes wrong, meaning you will always have a working computer."
The Kinoite list of features goes on to mention there are no advertisements and rolling back to a previous update is supported. We are also informed that applications are installed through Flatpak packages which are kept separate from the main operating system and we have the option of applying fine-grained permissions to control what resources applications can access.
Installing
I downloaded Fedora 41 Kinoite which was available through a 3.5GB ISO file. The distribution is available in builds for x86_64, aarch64, and ppc64le CPUs. I was testing the x86_64 build.
The media's boot menu offers to perform a self test and then launch the system installer or jump straight into the system installer. Once I completed the verification test, the live system started a graphical environment and launched the Anaconda system installer. There is no live desktop mode available for Kinoite users, though most other Fedora spins, such as Workstation, do provide a live desktop for testing and recovery purposes.
The Anaconda installer begins by asking us for our preferred language which we can select from a list. We are then shown a hub screen with configuration modules we can open. These modules walk us through picking our keyboard layout, time and timezone, enabling a network connection, and user creation. There is a module for enabling the root account, though it is disabled by default and the first regular user is granted admin rights. The disk partitioning module is a little awkward to navigate when compared next to other graphical partition managers, but it does work and offers a guided option. The guided approach will set up a Btrfs filesystem with no swap space.
Once Anaconda has collected its information it begins copying Fedora to the hard drive. Anaconda feels more responsive now than it did a few years ago. Visually it looks and behaves the same, but I think it's a little quicker to move between modules now compared to how it behaved a few years ago. Once Anaconda finishes its work it waits for our confirmation before rebooting the computer.
Early impressions
My new copy of Fedora Kinoite booted quickly, unusually quickly in fact, to a graphical login screen. Here I had one session option: KDE Plasma running on a Wayland session. There are no other desktops or an X11 session.
The Plasma 6 desktop is presented with a thick, dark panel across the bottom of the screen. The wallpaper is mostly soft blue and there were no icons on the desktop. The panel holds an application menu, task switcher, and the system tray. The panel hovers a bit above the bottom of the screen, and its placement and orientation can be adjusted.
Fedora 41 Kinoite -- Adjusting the desktop panel
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The first time we sign in a welcome window appears. This welcome application tells us about Plasma's desktop elements, such as the various widgets on the panel, and gives us a feature tour which mentions the KRunner launcher, KDE Connect, and other key components of the desktop. It's a nice way to get a sense for the layout of the environment.
The welcome window's following screens offer to open the Discover software centre and ask us if we'd like to share usage data with the developers. Sending telemetry is disabled by default. At the end of the welcome tour we are asked if we'd like to enable third-party software repositories. Doing so gives us access to software packages offered under a restrictive license, or which may be patent protected in some countries.
The Plasma desktop was fairly responsive during my trial and offered a clean, quiet experience. The application menu was split into two panes (for software categories and launchers), there weren't many visual effects, and the environment was stable.
Fedora 41 Kinoite -- Browsing the application menu
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When opening a terminal we are shown a message which tells us the terminal is running directly on the host system. If we want an environment where we can install RPM packages and use their programs we're advised to use the Toolbx utility to set up a regular (mutable) environment.
The message tells us we can "see the documentation" for more information, but not where to find it.
I'd like to note that sometimes the documentation refers to the container utility as "Toolbx" and sometimes as "Toolbox", the terms seem to be used interchangeably. Fedora's release notes use "Toolbx" and even have a comment about it: "Toolbx is not a typo, see the project page." On the other hand, the program's command line name is toolbox, the Toolbox website shows examples where the name is "toolbox", and the manual page refers to it as "toolbox".
Software management
Fedora's Kinoite edition ships with the Discover software centre. Discover handles both installing Flatpak bundles and system level updates. Discover reported it had found a new update for the base system my first day with the distribution. This new update was shown as being of unknown size. Fetching it resulted in Discover installing the update and then advising that I should reboot the computer. The update process happens instantly in the background when we next boot the computer.
Discover is a pretty capable software centre which makes it possible to browse software categories, perform searches, and it offers single-click installation of new Flatpak bundles. With that said, there were some issues and confusing moments for me while navigating Discover. For instance, when I first started using Discover no applications had a corresponding icon or logo, each application was listed with a generic box where its icon should be displayed. Later, I found that Flatpaks from Flathub would be shown with their icon, but anything from Fedora's own Flatpak repositories was shown without an icon. Likewise, the information screens of some applications showed a screenshot and others did not. This missing feature didn't appear to be strictly divided by which repository the application was in.
Fedora 41 Kinoite -- Exploring the Discover software centre
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On the subject of Flatpak repositories, Discover shows a drop-down menu in the upper-right corner of each application's information page. This drop-down lists repositories where the displayed software can be found. What I found confusing was the names of the repositories. One was called Flathub, which was straightforward, but many applications were listed as also being in one repository called "Fedora" and in another repository called "Fedora Project". The distinction doesn't appear to be explained anywhere in Discover or its repository settings. Sometimes these entries would be shown multiple times in the same drop-down menu, giving me the option of downloading a package from "Fedora, Fedora Project, Fedora, or Flathub."
Despite these quirks, Discover itself worked well enough, it just seemed to be lacking information from Fedora's repositories. Discover properly downloaded new packages and applied updates without any issues. I noticed that sometimes Discover's progress bars would not update while performing downloads. The downloads finished successfully, I just couldn't see how long the operation would take.
Toolbx/Toolbox
While most Fedora editions use the DNF command line package manager to install and upgrade RPM packages on the system, Kinoite is different. It ships with an atomic base and much of the filesystem is immutable. Apart from a few places like /etc, /tmp, and /var the filesystem is read-only. This means if we want to install RPM packages and use them we need to set up a container. A container environment allows us to run a minimal copy of a distribution and install any low-level (non-Flatpak) packages we need.
On Kinoite setting up and working with containers is handled by a tool called Toolbx (or Toolbox). Running "toolbox create" sets up a new container. By default the new container uses Fedora as its base operating system, but we can install other distributions inside a container. Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, and Arch Linux are also supported options. A list of options is provided in the Toolbox manual page.
Once a container has been created we can run a command line shell inside it by running "toolbox enter". From there we can use the guest operating system's package manager (DNF in the case of the default Fedora container) to install new packages. DNF is a bit on the slow side compared to other package managers, but it worked for me.
Fedora 41 Kinoite -- Working inside a Toolbx container
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Using DNF I was able to install both command line programs and some desktop applications. These programs were accessible from within the container only, once I terminated the container's shell, the software I had installed in the Toolbox container was no longer available.
I'd like to mention that, when we are working inside the container, we have access to our user's home directory. This isn't a copy of our home, it's the real deal. This means if we run a command inside the container which edits or deletes a file in our home directory, the file is really gone, it isn't just a copy in the container that is removed.
Using the Toolbox command line we can list containers we have created using "toolbox list" and we can delete old containers we no longer need by running "toolbox rm" followed by the name of the container.
Hardware
Fedora worked well in my test environments. The distribution booted and ran smoothly in VirtualBox and all of my laptop's hardware was recognised. The Plasma desktop offered average performance, running well and without any crashes or other issues. I found Fedora Kinoite was able to boot in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes.
Fedora 41 Kinoite -- Playing music in Elisa
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Fedora Kinoite is a bit on the heavy side. A fresh install takes up 8.3GB of space, even without any area set aside for swap space. When signed into the Plasma desktop the system consumed 1.3GB of RAM, almost double what most other mainstream distributions typically require in the same test environments. A lot of this is due to Plasma 6 which, as I mentioned in my recent review of Kubuntu is nearly twice the size of Plasma 5 in RAM.
Included software
The distribution ships with a relatively small collection of applications. Firefox is installed for us along with a remote desktop client, the Okular document viewer, and KolourPaint drawing program. KDE Connect and KDE's System Settings panel are provided. There is no video player on the system, but the Elisa music player is included. There is a firewall utility and the Dolphin file manager. A tool called Filelight for removing unused files is available along with the KDE Help documentation viewer.
Fedora 41 Kinoite -- The System Settings panel
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Digging deeper we find the GNU command line utilities, manual pages, and the systemd init software. Fedora Kinoite ships with version 6.11 of the Linux kernel.
Rollback
One nice feature Fedora Kinoite offers is the ability to rollback recent updates to the system. If an update to the core system breaks something we can rollback the change by rebooting and selecting the previous version from the boot menu. This offers us an immediate fix against a broken driver or damaging change to an application. It's not quite as flexible as openSUSE filesystem snapshots, but it should work well enough for most cases.
Other observations
Speaking of snapshots, Fedora does not appear to include any filesystem snapshot utility such as Snapper or Timeshift. I think this is a missed opportunity since Btrfs is the default filesystem. Other projects, such as openSUSE and Linux Mint, have embraced the features Btrfs offers (like snapshots) to make recovering user data and configurations easy, but Fedora is still lagging behind in this area.
I think it's worth noting Kinoite keeps home directories under /var/home instead of /home. To avoid breaking software which expects /home to exist, this location is now a symbolic link to /var/home.
When using automated partitioning at install time, Fedora sets up compressed swap (zRAM) inside memory. This is done in place of a swap partition or swap file.
Conclusions
I've run Fedora's Silverblue in the past, when it was a young branch of the distribution. At the time Silverblue still had some growing pains and I was expecting there to be some rough edges when I tried Kinoite this week. However, for the most part, I was pleased with how well Kinoite performed. There were a few visual glitches in Discover and the duplicate names of repositories was confusing in the software centre, but otherwise Fedora Kinoite performed well.
The Anaconda system installer is still awkward compared to other mainstream distribution installers, but it worked. Likewise, Plasma 6 is overly heavy and several of its configuration options are buried under piles of customization screens, but it also worked. The Wayland session was pleasantly responsive and stable.
I think Kinoite has found a good balance in shipping enough applications to be useful right away without cluttering the application menu. Thanks to the Flathub repository we have access to plenty of desktop applications and games.
One of my complaints about running atomic distributions tends to be how awkward it is to install new containers and run software inside them when I want a compiler or additional command line utilities. Kinoite still has this problem, but the Toolbx/Toolbox utility does a lot to simplify the process and make it more comfortable to fetch and run additional programs in the classic way.
Generally speaking, I liked the setup of Kinoite. It's a bit heavy, a bit awkward at times, but the main concept (atomic updates combined with Flatpak packages and containers) worked well. This is one of the better experiences I've had with a branch of Fedora in recent years.
One of my few complaints while running Fedora Kinoite this week wasn't about what was included in the distribution (virtually all of the included tools worked well), but what wasn't offered. Something I enjoy about Mint and openSUSE are the ways in which those distributions meld their components together. They aren't just collections of separate packages, but a mesh of components which work together. Fedora, in my opinion lacks in this area. There are a lot of great technologies showcased in Fedora (Btrfs, Discover, Flatpak, Toolbx, and atomic system images), but they don't work together.
Fedora uses Btrfs by default, but there are no tools for automating home directory snapshots to help us recover deleted files. Toolbx makes it easy to install RPM packages, but there is no way to launch those installed applications from the host desktop without opening a terminal, entering a Toolbx container, and launching it manually. There doesn't appear to be any way to enable and manage multiple system images in case we want to rollback further than the penultimate version. The first time we open the terminal we're told to read the Toolbx documentation to learn more about containers, with no indication of where that documentation is. Adding a link to the message would have taken just a few seconds while making the system feel one step more cohesive.
Another example of this disconnect comes from the Kinoite website where it mentions one of the key features is the ability to set fine-grained permissions. This is technically true, we can use Flatpak controls to limit application access. But the tool which usually does this, Flatseal, is not included in the distribution and isn't a featured/recommended application in Discover. This felt like a missed opportunity to provide the sort of experience on the distribution the website was advertising.
Don't get me wrong. Fedora Kinoite offered a good experience and it is one of the better atomic distributions I've used to date. It feels pretty solid, shows off its features well, and I like how streamlined Toolbx containers are. I'd definitely recommend checking out Fedora if you're interested in atomic distributions. My main complaint is it feels like each developer is working separately rather than taking one extra step to tie the whole experience together for the end user.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an HP DY2048CA laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 512GB solid state drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Wireless network device: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + BT Wireless network card
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Visitor supplied rating
Fedora has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.3/10 from 462 review(s).
Have you used Fedora? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Raspberry Pi computers gain official SSD storage options, openSUSE Tumbleweed introduces several major upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partnering with Framework
The latest member of the Raspberry Pi family is the Raspberry Pi 5 which introduced several performance and hardware specification improvements. Despite these significant upgrades, the main draw of the new version 5 hardware is the range of hardware add-ons which can work with the Pi. Eben Upton of the Raspberry Pi team writes: "We've seen everything from Ethernet adapters, to AI accelerators, to regular PC graphics cards attached to the PCI Express port. We offer our own low-cost M.2 HAT+, which converts from our FPC standard to the standard M.2 M-key format, and there are a wide variety of third-party adapters which do basically the same thing. We've also released an AI Kit, which bundles the M.2 HAT+ with an AI inference accelerator from our friends at Hailo. But the most popular use case for the PCI Express port on Raspberry Pi 5 is to attach an NVMe solid-state disk (SSD). SSDs are fast; faster even than our branded A2-class SD cards. If no-compromises performance is your goal, you'll want to run Raspberry Pi OS from an SSD, and Raspberry Pi SSDs are the perfect choice." Upton then goes on to talk about the new Raspberry Pi official solid state drives (SSDs) which are available in 256GB and 512GB flavours, granting the tiny Pi computers storage capacity on par with a low-end laptop.
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People running the rolling release Tumbleweed edition of openSUSE had an exciting month with major updates arriving for LibreSSL, the Qt development libraries, and Network Manager. Smaller updates also arrived for the GNOME and Plasma desktop environments along with new systemd, PHP, and the CUPS printing packages. The openSUSE news post shared highlights: "October 2024 brought significant updates to Tumbleweed users and gave them a secure and performant system. Updating critical packages like systemd, PGP, PHP, GTK4 and more keeps your system up-to-date with the latest snapshots. Stay updated with the latest snapshots by subscribing to the openSUSE Factory mailing list."
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Canonical is experimenting with package builds to try to make applications run faster. One possible change coming to Ubuntu 25.04 is level 3 compiler optimizations. "O3 is a GCC optimization level that applies more aggressive code transformations compared to the default O2 level. These include advanced function and the use of sophisticated algorithms aimed at enhancing execution speed. While O3 can increase binary size and compilation time, it has the potential to improve runtime performance." Some tests indicate this improves program performance by about 5% in some cases. More on the optimizations and tests can be found in this Discourse thread.
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The Linux Mint team have published their monthly newsletter for October. In it, the team unveils a new colour warmth control for the Cinnamon desktop called Night Light: "The team is working on adding Night Light support in Cinnamon. Night Light consists in reducing the amount of blue light emitted by the screen. It makes the color of your monitor warmer as you get closer to bed time to help reduce eyestrain and improve sleep quality. In the past Linux Mint shipped with Redshift to provide this functionality. Redshift wasn't integrated in the settings though, it only worked in Xorg and it was auto-configured by something called geoclue which is no longer functional. The team is hoping to have this feature fully integrated into the Cinnamon desktop and working out of the box, both in Wayland and Xorg."
The newsletter also mentions Mint is partnering with Framework to make Framework laptops run Linux Mint smoothly. Framework laptops currently support running some major distribution such as Fedora and Ubuntu, but still ship with Windows pre-installed. Hopefully this cooperation with Mint will lead to Linux Mint being offered as a pre-installed operating system on future Framework laptops.
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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) |
Get a list of installed applications
Saving-and-upgrading asks: Is there a way to get a list of running programs? I'm planning to do a fresh install soon and want to make sure all the stuff I run gets saved so I can install it on my new system.
DistroWatch answers: There is a way to get a list of all running programs on your system. You can run the following ps command to see every process that is running right now:
ps aux
The ps command will display a list of all running process, which user is running them, the identifying number of each process (called a PID) and some other information. You can clean up the data a bit and just show the names of processes without the rest of the data by doing this:
ps aux | awk '{print $11}' | sort -fu
The awk and sort commands will filter down the information to just the names of the running programs and then arrange them into alphabetical order, while removing duplicate entries.
With that said, while knowing what programs are currently running on the system can be helpful, I don't think it is the best approach for the job in this instance. Since you are performing a fresh install, the best thing to do is to find a list of packages you have on your system. Then we'll save this list and we can even automate installing these same programs on the new system later.
The specific steps involved will vary, depending on your distribution, since different distributions use different package managers. Also, keep in mind some packages are named differently by different distributions. If you're migrating from, for example, Fedora to Arch Linux, the names of some packages will change and this process may not work. However, performing a fresh install of the same distribution (either the same version or a newer version) should work.
First, let's look at saving a list of installed packages, using some popular families of distributions as examples. In each of the following examples we will get a list of installed software from the package manager and save the information in a file called package-list.txt. On the Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint family, backing up a list of installed programs looks like this:
dpkg --get-selections > package-list.txt
When using the Red Hat/Fedora family, the same step looks like this:
rpm -qa --qf "%{NAME}\n" > package-list.txt
People running a distribution in the Arch Linux family can use the following command:
pacman -Q | cut -f 1 -d ' ' > package-list.txt
We should make a backup of the package-list.txt file and place it on a thumb drive or another computer before performing the fresh install of the distribution. Later, we can restore the package list and have the package manager install all of our old software for us.
On the Debian family, the commands will use the dselect program and look like this:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dselect
sudo dselect update
sudo dpkg --set-selections < package-list.txt
sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade
When running a member of the Red Hat family we have an easier time of things:
sudo dnf install $(cat package-list.txt | tr '\n' ' ')
When running a member of the Arch Linux family we can run this command:
sudo pacman -S --needed - < package-list.txt
Though I haven't seen this done in real life, we can also backup and restore the names of portable package formats on the system. For example, here we create a list of all Flatpak bundles on the distribution:
flatpak list | awk -F '\t' '{print $2}' > package-list.txt
Later, when we want to install these Flatpak bundles on another computer we can run the following:
flatpak install $(cat package-list.txt | tr '\n' ' ')
When the package manager is finished, we should have all of the same applications on the system as we did before the fresh install was performed.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Raspberry Pi OS 2024-10-22
The Raspberry Pi organization has launched a new version of the project's Linux distribution, Raspberry Pi OS. The new version introduces a number of changes, with the most visible being the shift to using a Wayland desktop session by default. "After much optimisation for our hardware, we have reached the point where labwc desktops run just as fast as X on older Raspberry Pi models. Today, we make the switch with our latest desktop image: Raspberry Pi Desktop now runs Wayland by default across all models. When you update an existing installation of Bookworm, you will see a prompt asking to switch to labwc the next time you reboot. We recommend that most people switch to labwc. Existing Pi 4 or 5 Bookworm installations running Wayfire shouldn't change in any noticeable way, besides the loss of a couple of animations which we haven't yet implemented in labwc. Because we will no longer support Wayfire with updates on Raspberry Pi OS, it's best to adopt labwc as soon as possible. Older Pis that currently use X should also switch to labwc." The release announcement offers additional details.
Fedora 41
The Fedora team have announced the availability of Fedora 41. The project's latest release ships with version 6.11 of the Linux kernel, RPM 4.20 and GNOME 47 for the distribution's Workstation edition. This release also removes GNOME's X11 support in the Workstation edition. "Fedora Workstation 41 is based on GNOME 47. Read What's New in Fedora Workstation 41? for details. Notably for command-line users, we've changed the default terminal to GNOME Console. It's more lightweight, but has some nice new features as well. (GNOME Terminal is still there if you need some of the flexibility it offers.) Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop ships with the latest KDE 6.2 release. See What's New in Fedora KDE 41? for more. We also have a new Spin featuring KDE Plasma Mobile. If you're interested in trying something new, take a look at Fedora Miracle! Miracle is a new desktop environment built on Mir and Wayland. " Additional information can be found in the release announcement and in the release notes.
Fedora 41 -- The GNOME desktop
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TrueNAS 24.10.0
The TrueNAS project has released a new version of its SCALE branch for network-attached storage devices. The latest version of TrueNAS introduces support for Docker containers, new monitoring widgets, and expanded SMART support. "The TrueNAS Apps feature backend moves from Kubernetes to Docker to streamline App deployment and management (announcement). Custom App deployment of Docker images is available via a guided wizard or a Compose YAML file. Extend a RAIDZ vdev with individual disks (OpenZFS feature sponsored by iXsystems). New TrueCloud Backup Tasks with streamlined functionality for Storj iX cloud backups and restoration. New global search for finding pages and settings in the TrueNAS UI. Dashboard reworked with more widgets, data reporting, and customization. UI support for NVMe S.M.A.R.T. tests." Additional information on the new release, which carries the codename Electric Eel, can be found in the project's release notes.
Br OS 24.10
Br OS is a Brazilian Linux distribution based on Ubuntu and featuring the KDE Plasma desktop. The project's latest release, Br OS 24.10, ships with the Plasma 6 desktop environment and enabled Wayland by default. "This is a regular version that aims to introduce new technologies to the system and the latest news is the introduction of KDE 6 which was responsible for this version coming with some features and design elements missing, since such features are still under development or have not yet been ported to Qt 6. With KDE Plasma 6 comes Qt 6, which opens up a huge range of possibilities for new features that will come gradually in the new versions of the system, now Br OS comes with Wayland by default, which is fully functional in KDE 6 a great news for KDE haters who complained about its instability (which made Br OS adopt Latte Dock to get around the problem), is that KDE 6 is incredibly stable, surpassing GNOME and other very solid environments, unfortunately the look of KDE 6 is very strange if you try to start the section via X.Org, however this should be fixed in future versions of KDE. This version comes with KDE Plasma 6.1.5, KDE Framework 6.6.0, Qt 6.6.2, Linux kernel 6.11, Wayland standard graphic server (X.Org as an alternative)." Additional details can be found in the release announcement.
Br OS 24.10 -- Running the Plasma desktop
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BackBox Linux 9
Raffaele Forte has announced the release of BackBox Linux 9 un updated build of the project's Ubuntu-based distribution featuring a collection of ethical hacking tools. This release continues updates the base system to the the long-term supported Ubuntu 24.04 and uses the 6.8 Linux kernel: "BackBox Linux 9 released. The BackBox team is happy to announce the updated release of BackBox Linux, version 9, code name 'Noble Numbat'. As usual, this major release includes many updates. These include new kernel, updated tools and some structural changes with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. What's new: updated Linux kernel 6.8; updated desktop environment; updated hacking tools; updated anonymous mode. System requirements: 64-bit processor; 1,024 MB of system memory (RAM); 30 GB of disk space for installation; graphics card capable of 800x600 resolution; DVD-ROM drive or USB port. The ISO image for 64bit architecture can be downloaded from the official web site download section." Here is the brief release announcement.
Linux Lite 7.2
Jerry Bezencon has announced the release of Linux Lite 7.2, an update to the project's Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the Xfce desktop. The new release includes a new update manager, a new theme manager, and the website now offers a chatbot intended to offer techniical support for Linux Lite's community. "Linux Lite is leading the way in which AI is complementing the support portion of our operating system. We're extremely happy with the way that it's turned out and a huge thank you again to Huzaifa Qureshi for his efforts on this. Click here to take a look. Lite Updates - Re-written in Yad. Lite Updates has been re-written in Yad as Yad provides more flexibility than Zenity and will help us to expand and add more options to it in the future. Lite Theme Manager: Brand new to the Linux Lite family of Applications is Lite Theme Manager. Lite Theme Manager takes the guess work out of adding themes to your desktop, icons and mouse cursors with an easy point-and-click solution. Thank you and credit goes to Huzaifa Qureshi for writing this application." Additional information and screenshots can be found in the project's release announcement.
Pisi 2.4
Erkan Işik has announced the release of Pisi Linux 2.4, code name "Karagül", the latest stable version from the project that builds an independently-developed Linux distribution for the desktop. It uses the Pisi package management tool, also developed in-house. The new version updates the KDE Plasma desktop to version 6.2 and the Linux kernel to version 6.6.56. "Inspired by the rare flowers of Anatolia, Pisi GNU/Linux delivers the 2.4 version 'Karagül' to its users. This version is designed to offer users a modern, fast and flexible experience. Pisi GNU/Linux 2.4 'Karagül' is updated with the latest version of the KDE desktop environment, KDE Plasma 6. This version promises its users a more contemporary, rich and efficient desktop experience by bringing together the Wayland graphics platform and the Qt6 application framework. With its features that emphasize performance and stability, a more efficient working environment awaits on your computer." Read the complete release announcement (in Turkish) for more information. Besides Turkish, the distribution supports English and several European languages.
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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: 3,106
- Total data uploaded: 45.7TB
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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) |
Installing applications on a new system
In our Questions and Answers column this week we talked about backing up a list of software install on the system and then using this list to install the same software on another system. We'd like to hear how you approach this task. Do you have a script that backs up and restores lists of applications, do you clone your system to a new computer, do you manually keep a list of all the important applications you installed? Let us know your preferred method in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on scheduling background jobs in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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How do you set up applications on a new computer?
| I clone the filesystem/disk: | 35 (2%) |
| I use the package manager(s) to backup/restore software: | 103 (6%) |
| I have a custom script that installs everything: | 100 (6%) |
| I sync files/programs from one computer to another: | 30 (2%) |
| I use a third-party backup/restore application: | 12 (1%) |
| I install everything manually all at once: | 276 (16%) |
| I install everything manually as I need it: | 1169 (66%) |
| Other: | 36 (2%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Besgnulinux. Besgnulinux is a Debian-based distribution for older computers. It features the JWM window manager and runs packages from the Debian Stable repositories.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 11 November 2024. 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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| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 1, value: US$13.00) |
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
YunoHost
YunoHost is a Debian-based distribution which strives to make it easy to quickly set up a server and host web applications. The distribution can be managed through a custom command line utility or through a web-based administration panel.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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