 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1, 9 June 2003 |
| Welcome to DistroWatch Weekly |
Last week, DistroWatch.com completed its second year in existence. In the beginning, this site was nothing more than a single-page table comparing basic characteristics and most important packages included in 10 popular Linux distributions. Many people found the page a useful reference and suggestions for improvements soon started coming in. Two years later, with 10,000 unique visitors each day and 100GB of file transfer every month, DistroWatch truly is a popular Linux distribution news and reference site. A big THANKS to all of you who have loaded the pages and took the time to write in with suggestions.
We have a useful news and reference site, but where to go next? Up until now, and with the exception of several reviews, DistroWatch has been a factual site, presenting little besides figures, tables, statistics and comparison charts. Perhaps one thing missing from the menu was some sort of an opinion column, a discussion about recent issues and happenings in the Linux distribution world. This is how the idea to publish DistroWatch Weekly came about.
How will the column be structured? The section you are reading now will either comment about a recent event or focus on a particular distribution we find worth mentioning. The next section, called Released Last Week will re-cap all distribution releases over the past week. In the Expected This Week section, we'll try to alert users on any upcoming releases that might appear within a week or so. This is a miss-and-hit thing as a released-when-ready philosophy is a dominant form of coding for most non-commercial and even many commercial Linux projects. The Web Site News will highlight any web site changes, including new features, new distributions added to the database and anything that could go to a web site changelog. Finally, the Reader Feedback section will answer some of the questions brought up by visitors over the past week.
DistroWatch Weekly will also have an area for reader comments. It will be experimental at first, to see how things go. While it is impossible to expect completely flame-free and sucks/rulez-free comments when the topic of discussion is "Linux distributions", please try your best to use common sense when posting. There is a reason why there are over 300 Linux distributions out there. There are people who spend enormous amount of their time coding something they strongly believe in and provide the rest of us with hours of great entertainment once the product is released. If the result sucks, give those developers feedback by providing suggestions and reporting bugs. If it rulez, explain the reasons. There are no guidelines for posting, but all comments that intend to insult, are irrelevant or provide no value, will be deleted.
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| Released Last Week |
Lorma Linux v.3. The effect of v.3 release took the developers of this Red Hat-based distribution by surprise as many people swarmed the main FTP server in order to download the ISO image. Luckily, new mirrors appeared swiftly so if you have been unsuccessful in getting Lorma Linux, visit the download page again. Why would a new distribution attract so much attention? It seems that the Lorma Linux developers have successfully addressed issues that some users of Red Hat consider as drawbacks - they've eliminated the bloat, replaced Gnome with KDE as the default desktop, included multimedia applications together with the DVD decoding library (one of the great advantages of developing a Linux distribution outside of US) and recompiled all packages for the i686 architecture. We have yet to see any reviews, but Lorma Linux seems like an excellent effort at a distribution designed for home use.
Trustix Secure Linux 2.0 Beta 3. The third beta of Trustix 2.0 still includes many package version updates, which is a good indication that more betas/release candidates will follow. Linux distributions with security as their primary feature tend to have very long development cycles and Trustix is no exception. Don't expect the final release of Trustix 2.0 very soon.
Knoppix 3.2-2003-06-06. Late Friday in Europe saw another Knoppix update with the usual range of package version upgrades, improved hardware detection database and other minor new features.
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| Expected This Week |
Two popular Linux firewalls should release new development versions of their products. ClarkConnect Broadband Getaway will announce the first beta of the upcoming 2.0 release - based on Red Hat 9, this promises to be a major upgrade. The release has been delayed several times, so expect a long development cycle. In the meantime, SmoothWall has announced an imminent release of the fifth beta of SmoothWall 2.0, code name "Orient". No other details are available at this stage.
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| Web Site News |
Two new distributions have been added to this site's database last week. One of them was Lorma Linux, a Red Hat-based Linux distribution developed by a small group of Linux enthusiasts at Lorma Colleges in San Fernando City in the Philippines. The other one is LinuxConsole, a Debian-based Live CD from France, developed with a primary objective to satisfy gamers and multimedia users.The total number of distribution on this site's database has risen to 148, of which 17 have been either discontinued or inactive for more than 2 years.
As usual, several new distributions were submitted for inclusion. These have all been queued up and if you haven't seen the long queue, it is available here (as part of the "About" page). It lists 31 new distributions, which are currently on a 3-month waiting list. New in this week's queue: EduLinux, Quantian and Sentry Firewall CD.
Last week has seen the return of Mandrake Linux back to the top of the Page Hit Ranking statistics. This will no doubt cheer up many readers who have written in with complaints and disbelief over Yoper's prolonged stay at number one. Yes, Yoper is not even close to being a widely used distribution, it is probably not the best distribution either. But the Page Hit Ranking simply counts how many times a distribution-specific page on DistroWatch has been visited and Yoper's page count has been very high over the last few months -- and no, it wasn't due to somebody's cheating or manipulating the counter. It was due to a combination of Yoper's clever advertising and catchy press releases that attracted visitors' attention. If anything, it shows that people are still hungry for new products and new distributions.
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| Reader Feedback |
This being the first issue of DistroWatch Weekly, we don't have any reader feedback just yet, but maybe we could give you some background about DistroWatch and its team. I did say "we", but up until fairly recently, the entire web site was developed and maintained by myself. Things have become more of a team work after several regular contributors have offered help. I have to mention Robert Storey, who is in fact a professional writer of travel guide books and mad about everything Linux. More of his excellent reviews will follow soon. Also many thanks to Andrew Balsa who contributed the recent Mandrake 9 development series of reviews.
The site has also become more internationalised with several volunteer translators joining the team. There are too many to list them all, but my special thanks go to Ossama Khayat in Kuwait and Zhu Wen Tao in China, who have made the most effort to bring Arabic and Chinese readership to this site and offer content in their native languages. Knowing that even people in countries where English is not widely spoken can benefit from the information here is perhaps the greatest satisfaction coming out from maintaining DistroWatch. (On a related note, if there is somebody who can offer help with translation of a few common terms into Korean, please email me - I'd really appreciate your help).
Finally, a few past reader comments -- to keep in line with this section's title:
"Just a little mail to tell you how impressed I'm about your site. This is such of a HUGE work, I don't know how you're doing to handle all that by yourself and so perfectly! It's so complete and accurate! It's the only web site I visit everyday and I advice it to all the people asking me a good web site about Linux. Keep the good work :-)" (Nicolas Heinen)
"This site is extremely well done and has obviously been very well thought out, executed, and maintained. It looks like maximum effort went into making this page easy to use and easy to understand. The information presented has saved me an enormous amount of time and effort, and made it very easy for me to select the Linux system I want. Thank you so very much for providing such a great service." (Catalina Ramos)
Unfortunately, we cannot satisfy everybody:
"DistroWatch is a site that is esthetically bad. I don't like it." (a poster on linux-egypt.org forum)
Until next week,
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Issue 1032 (2023-08-14): MX Linux 23, positioning new windows on the desktop, Linux Containers adopts LXD fork, Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ form OpenELA |
| • Issue 1031 (2023-08-07): Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, preventing a file from being changed, Asahi Linux partners with Fedora, Linux Mint plans new releases |
| • Issue 1030 (2023-07-31): Solus 4.4, Linux Mint 21.2, Debian introduces RISC-V support, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 |
| • Issue 1029 (2023-07-24): Running Murena on the Fairphone 4, Flatpak vs Snap sandboxing technologies, Redox OS plans to borrow Linux drivers to expand hardware support, Debian updates Bookworm media |
| • Issue 1028 (2023-07-17): KDE Connect; Oracle, SUSE, and AlmaLinux repsond to Red Hat's source code policy change, KaOS issues media fix, Slackware turns 30; security and immutable distributions |
| • Issue 1027 (2023-07-10): Crystal Linux 2023-03-16, StartOS (embassyOS 0.3.4.2), changing options on a mounted filesystem, Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Fedora debates telemetry for desktop team |
| • Issue 1026 (2023-07-03): Kumander Linux 1.0, Red Hat changing its approach to sharing source code, TrueNAS offers SMB Multichannel, Zorin OS introduces upgrade utility |
| • Issue 1025 (2023-06-26): KaOS with Plasma 6, information which can leak from desktop environments, Red Hat closes door on sharing RHEL source code, SUSE introduces new security features |
| • Issue 1024 (2023-06-19): Debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Debian releases GNU/Hurd 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 nears its end of life, FreeBSD turns 30 |
| • Issue 1023 (2023-06-12): openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the differences between independent distributions, openSUSE lengthens Leap life, Murena offers new phone for North America |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Issue 993 (2022-11-07): Static Linux, working with just a kernel, Mint streamlines Flatpak management, updates coming to elementary OS |
| • Issue 992 (2022-10-31): Lubuntu 22.10, setting permissions on home directories, Linux may drop i486, Fedora delays next version for OpenSSL bug |
| • Issue 991 (2022-10-24): XeroLinux 2022.09, learning who ran sudo, exploring firewall tools, Rolling Rhino Remix gets a fresh start, Fedora plans to revamp live media |
| • Issue 990 (2022-10-17): ravynOS 0.4.0, Lion Linux 3.0, accessing low numbered network ports, Pop!_OS makes progress on COSMIC, Murena launches new phone |
| • Issue 989 (2022-10-10): Ubuntu Unity, kernel bug causes issues with Intel cards, Canonical offers free Ubuntu Pro subscriptions, customizing the command line prompt |
| • Issue 988 (2022-10-03): SpiralLinux 11.220628, finding distros for older equipment and other purposes, SUSE begins releasing ALP prototypes, Debian votes on non-free firmware in installer |
| • Issue 987 (2022-09-26): openSUSE's MicroOS, converting people to using Linux, pfSense updates base system and PHP, Python 2 dropped from Arch |
| • Issue 986 (2022-09-19): Porteus 5.0, remotely wiping a hard drive, a new software centre for Ubuntu, Proxmox offers offline updates |
| • Issue 985 (2022-09-12): Garuda Linux, using root versus sudo, UBports on the Fairphone 4, Slackware reverses change to grep |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Happy Linux
Happy Linux was a Chinese Linux distribution based on Red Hat Linux.
Status: Discontinued
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