 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 2, 16 June 2003 |
| JAMD Linux for Home Users |
It's official: Red Hat Linux is not the best distribution to run on your home computer. In its June edition, the Linux Format magazine provides comprehensive reviews of all three major commercial distributions released earlier this year - SuSE 8.2, Mandrake 9.1 and Red Hat 9. While SuSE 8.2 is declared a resounding winner and given the publication's "Top Stuff Award", the reviewers were not sufficiently impressed with Red Hat when compared directly to either SuSE or Mandrake. Some cited gripes include lack of a graphical partitioning tool during installation, less than sufficient support for notebook users, poor multimedia support and limited life span of the product. Red Hat fans will argue that installing apt4rpm and pointing it to FreshRPMs will cure some of the problems, but the point is that the out-of-the-box impression with Red Hat is simply not on par with the other two distributions.
However, there are many users who have valid reasons for using Red Hat - some might have invested into a Red Hat certification programme, others might use it because their employers have standardised on it. If this is the case, then consider a Red Hat-based alternative - tweaked for home users, but still fully compatible with the latest Red Hat release. One of them is JAMD Linux.
JAMD Linux has been around for almost one year and the latest release, version 0.0.6 has received some serious praise from users: "You have created the best, most up-to-date desktop/laptop distribution. It installed on my home system and laptop with no problems at all. Everything is up and running and doing well.", wrote one satisfied user on JAMD's user forums. Another agreed: "I have to say that JAMD is the best distribution I used to date, and I think I have tried them all." It seems that JAMD Linux has attracted many former Lycoris users, especially those who got tired of waiting for a new Lycoris release with more up-to-date software packages. In short, if you like Red Hat, but prefer a more KDE-centric distribution with apt-get and optimised for i686, give JAMD Linux a try. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Have you noticed how often SuSE has appeared in the headlines recently? It seems that SuSE is actually driving the current Linux desktop sentiment (with the usual help from Steve Ballmer), even manipulating the stock markets! It's not hard to see where SuSE's confidence is coming from - they've created the most praised desktop Linux distribution ever. The Linux Format magazine goes as far as suggesting that SuSE 8.2 should be able to compete successfully with distributions catering for less technical users, such as Xandros or Lindows, providing a lot more for a lot less than either of the two. At US$40 for the SuSE Personal Edition, it is the bargain of the year.
Speaking about SuSE, speculations about its possible merger with Turbolinux have suddenly appeared in the media. It would make sense, many of them concluded, to merge a major European Linux player with a major Asian Linux player. Sounds logical, except for the fact that Turbolinux is not a major Linux player - in Asia or anywhere else. In fact, Turbolinux is no longer a player of any scale and the only power that remains from a once mighty distribution is the grip on the Western media that keeps claiming its imaginary magnitude without checking the facts. Just visit the Linux section of any bookstore in Tokyo, Hong Kong or Taipei and do your research. The rows and rows of books about Red Hat give a good indication of who really is the major Linux player in Asia.
Knoppix is releasing a DVD edition. However, before you get too excited about the prospect of having 4.7GB of compressed software available on a bootable DVD, this is a one-time product, which will only be available to visitors of LinuxTag 2003 (10 - 13 July) in Karlsruhe, Germany. But the idea sounds very interesting, so putting some pressure on Mr Knopper to provide regular DVD editions might bear some fruit. Even if it is not free, many users will probably find it worthwhile to buy a bootable DVD containing just about the entire Debian unstable tree. Find more information in this forum thread at knoppix.net.
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| Released Last Week |
Lots of development releases last week. Red Flag has released a beta of its upcoming Red Flag Linux 4.0 and here is a screenshot of it sent in by Charles Bandy:
Red Flag Linux 4.0 Beta
As you can see, the Red Flag developers have gone further than anyone else to date to make Linux look like Windows XP. Do they perhaps plan a "Linux coup" by replacing all Windows installation with Red Flag Linux overnight, hoping that the government's office workers won't notice the difference? Contrary to a common belief in the Western world, Red Flag Linux is not a widely used distribution in China and most users prefer Red Hat or Mandrake (Mandrake has become very popular over the last year or so), while the geeks use Debian. All three have excellent Chinese support and have enjoyed a much larger user base than any of the domestic Linux distributions. Of course, not everybody has a choice and the Chinese government clearly prefers to use Red Flag Linux. The boxed version will ship with RedOffice, a modified version of OpenOffice with support for all aspects of the Chinese language, including printing.
Other development releases seen this week included ROCK Linux 2.0.0 beta4 (final release expected by the end of June), TA-Linux 0.2.0 beta4, IPCop 1.3.1 alpha3, Source Mage 0.6 beta3, MoviX 0.8.0 rc1, ClarkConnect 2.0 beta (final release expected in two weeks, but don't be surprised if it gets delayed) and e-smith SME Server 6.0 beta1. New releases were announced by SuSE, Quantian and ByzantineOS. SuSE's new SuSE Linux Desktop is an enterprise level product, sold only as part of a 5-year support bundle. Details about the Knoppix-based Quantian 0.3 are available here, while ByzantineOS, a Linux and Mozilla-based live CD distribution with a home entertainment bias, released version 20030614 on Sunday.
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| Expected This Week |
SmoothWall's 2.0 beta 5 did not arrive last week and its home page still displays the "coming soon" message. Maybe this week?
LindowsOS 4.0 was originally expected at about this time, but the latest edition of Michael's Minutes gives a subtle indication that it won't be out until next month. Expect a massive marketing campaign leading up to its release.
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| Web Site News |
Damn Small Linux was the only new addition to the DistroWatch database this week. Created by John Andrews in California, Damn Small Linux is a live CD distribution based on Knoppix, but its size has been reduced drastically to fit on a 50MB business-card shape CD. This is only the second "business-card size" distribution in our database, the first one being the better-known LNX-BBC. The main difference between the two is the fact that LNX-BBC is more of an expert rescue tool with a collection of utilities to repair damaged installations or recover data, while Damn Small Linux is a general purpose distribution to carry around in your wallet. It comes with XFree86 and Blackbox as the only available window manager, while other light-weight applications for email, word processing, instant messaging and playing music are also included.
The current waiting list was expanded with the addition of CDLinux. Spectra Linux, a less well-known distribution from Finland, was moved into the Discontinued Distributions section; its web site has been inaccessible for over two months and it seems that Probatus, which previously developed Spectra Linux, has decided to focus on other projects.
Summary:
Number of distributions in the database: 149
Number of discontinued distributions: 18
Number of distributions on the waiting list: 29
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| Reader Feedback |
First of all, thank you for all the kind words you wrote in our experimental forum last week. I did suspect that many people find this site useful, but it's always nice to hear it again :-)
On the subject of tracked packages, please visit the packages page to see a preliminary list of new packages that will be added to the existing list next month. If you still have some favourites, suggest them now, but you should have a very good reason to have them included. I've received requests to include about 150 new packages and I tried to include all packages that got more than one vote, but it is impossible to please everybody. Also, removing PHP-Nuke is under consideration - this package seems to be at the receiving end of user dissatisfaction and anger due to its licensing changes. I don't know how much of it is FUD and how much is genuine concern, so if somebody cares to shed some light on the subject, please use the space below.
BSD distributions will not be included in DistroWatch. A few voices for and against their inclusion were noted, but overall it seems that the interest just isn't there. Only 4 readers were prepared to put their money where their mouths were (if you don't know what I am talking about then re-read last week's forum posts), so the request has been declined.
That's about it for this week, see you next Monday,
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
Bodhi Linux
Bodhi Linux is an elegant and lightweight Debian/Ubuntu-based distribution featuring Moksha, an Enlightenment-17-based desktop environment. The project takes a decidedly minimalist approach by offering modularity, high levels of customisation, and choice of themes. Bodhi releases come in several editions, including Standard (64-bit) and Legacy (32-bit) which are minimalist, only including a web browser, terminal, file manger, text editor and photo GUI applications, while the AppPack edition includes more applications and tools preinstalled. Additional software can be added with Bodhi's web-based AppCenter, Synaptic, and APT.
Status: Active
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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