 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 7, 21 July 2003 |
Choice in Linux distros is healthy
Or so says Linus Torvalds as quoted in this article by linuxworld.com.au: "A lot of these 130 distros are a little oddball. Some are only used by Bob and his five friends. But that's okay -- because sometimes Bob did something right and his 5 friends become 50. Then five thousand, and so on. Clearly 130 distros is not practical for a middleware vendor so in that sense what everyone does is just to ignore most of them, and end up with just a few things. Even with the top 2 or 3, mind you, folks working in the enterprise space find it confusing to have a choice."
This is another way of saying that while there are plenty of distributions which simply modify an existing one and release it under a different name, there are also many great ideas, some of which might eventually evolve into extremely popular products. Take Knoppix as an example - few people heard of it as recently as one year ago, but it has since become a darling of the distribution world and an indispensable tool to have around at all times. It can be used to demonstrate Linux to those who have never seen it, as a rescue tool and even as a way to read password protected Microsoft documents on any computer. Knoppix is a great Linux advocate.
Blue Linux
Which brings us to a distribution called Blue Linux. After seeing very little activity for an extended period of time, a customary warning that "this distribution appears dormant" seemed like a reasonable statement to place in the status line of the Blue Linux page. But Matt Jezorek, the Blue Linux developer was quick to email us saying that "this distribution is not dormant; it is actually in a long development cycle". The arrival of Matt's email coincided with the sudden disappearance of the bluelinux.org web site and worse, all email to Blue Linux bounced due to the fact that "distrowatch.com is not on the list of allowed domains to communicate with the bluelinux.org mail server"! Needless to say, the email from Blue Linux did little to alleviate concerns about its current status.
A note to all distribution authors and developers
In the context of the above paragraph, it is only appropriate to clarify the "dormant" issue to all distribution authors and developers: if you are creating a distribution and find that its status has been set to "dormant" on DistroWatch, please don't waste time emailing us and saying "no, it's not dormant". Update your own web site instead. Publish a news item, show us a changelog, produce a road map. Most importantly, create a community of users by providing mailing lists and forums for them to share their experiences and help each other. It still amazes us how many distribution neglect these simple things, yet the developers seem offended when their distribution is called "dormant"! Rest assured that we visit your site every day and note the progress. If your web site hasn't been updated for three months, you provide no change log and no active development tree, your are dormant! Simple as that!
Kernel 2.6
Have you been playing with the new test kernel 2.6.0-test1? The kernel is still far from production quality and seems to suffer from many problems in this early stage, but more eyes find more bugs and it should slowly find its way to many systems, at least to those used by more experienced Linux users. There certainly are many exciting new features (see this technical overview), which will not doubt please the technology enthusiasts. Red Hat has already released an RPM package of the new kernel for the adventurous souls and a discussion about its features has been ongoing on the Shrike mailing list. For nVidia graphics card users, see this document for further information about how to get the nVidia driver work with the 2.6 kernel. As it improves, we should start seeing more distributions include one of the 2.6 test releases as an experimental kernel. Interesting times ahead!
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| Released Last Week |
Red Flag Linux 4.0
Red Flag Linux 4.0 has been released. Featuring a re-designed user interface, faster system boot and improved application responsiveness, this version of Red Flag Linux provides the usual range of desktop applications for both home and office use, including Internet connectivity tools, graphics and multimedia software, games and MS Office compatible office suite with the ability to edit and print documents in Chinese. A four-CD plus manual boxed set is available from retailers around China for the equivalent of about US$12. The ISO image can be downloaded from one of these mirrors (page in Chinese). However, the downloadable edition is not full-featured - it is missing an office suite (a customised version of OpenOffice ships with the retail edition). Also, simplified Chinese is the only language supported by the downloadable edition, which makes it impractical for potential users in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
ADIOS 1.30
The ADIOS Project has released ADIOS Linux Boot CD, version 1.30. ADIOS is a Red Hat based live CD with excellent hardware auto-detection, option to install the system on hard disk and option to save configuration files to floppy or USB storage devices. Created by the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, ADIOS comes with a choice of KDE, GNOME or IceWM desktop environments and support for LIDS (Linux Intrusion Detection System) and User Mode Linux. Find out more on the ADIOS project page.
GNOPPIX 0.4-2
GNOPPIX Linux version 0.4-2 is out. As you have probably guessed, GNOPPIX Linux is a GNOME-centric live Linux CD based on Knoppix and designed for those who prefer the GNOME desktop environment, rather than KDE. The first version of GNOPPIX was announced only two weeks before, so this is probably a bug fix release; unfortunately, I haven't been able to locate any changelogs, release notes or package lists (running 'dpkg -l' returns an error). The GNOPPIX Linux web site is in German.
MoviX2 0.3.0
The MoviX project has released MoviX2, version 0.3.0: "Since the 0.3.0rc2 turned out to be pretty stable and no big bug was found in the last three weeks I promoted it to 0.3.0 with just a few minor fixes." Work has started on version 0.3.1: "Since now I've got an EPIA M-10000 I immediately started a new "experimental" version 0.3.1pre1 that supports that beautiful MB!" The MoviX web site has some nice new screenshots.
Kurumin 2.0
After extensive beta testing, Kurumin 2.0 has been released. Known as Kurumin 1.5 during its beta phase, the new release has many updated packages (including XFree86 4.3.0 and KDE 3.1.2), bug fixes, improved hard disk installation procedure and new user-friendly enhancements and icons in its default user interface. The release announcement (in Portuguese) is available here. Kurumin is an increasingly popular Brazilian Linux live CD based on Knoppix.
Development Releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Red Hat Linux 9.0.93 (Severn)
Yes, it's the start of another beta testing period for Red Hat users once Red Hat Linux 9.0.93, code name "Severn" is released later today (no, we are not going to speculate on what the final release is going to be called). Don't expect too much new, however, as the beta release appears to be more of a consolidation release of Red Hat Linux 9, rather than a release full of cutting edge features. Severn has been spotted on many Red Hat mirrors, but the directory is still locked. If you can't wait until the official announcement, read the Severn release notes.
The release will likely be accompanied by further announcements. Many of you have seen the usual attention-grabbing headline from Linux and Main: "Red Hat to abandon retail channel" which was later "updated" to "Red Hat to change development model, abandon shrinkwrap". The full story is here. We'll wait for the full announcement before making any comments, but things rarely look as bad as journalist make them look and you will certainly be able to buy the Red Hat Linux distribution in the future. In fact, the experimental launch of the Red Hat Linux magazine in Germany and Italy seems like a great success and similar models might be on the cards for other parts of the world. There will be more on the subject in the next weekly edition of Linux Weekly News, including an interview with Red Hat's Matt Wilson.
Gentoo Linux 1.4
The long awaited Gentoo Linux 1.4 will be out early in August, or so says the Gentoo web site: "Gentoo Linux 1.4 will be officially released at LinuxWorld Expo '03 in San Francisco, CA (August 5-7.) The Gentoo Linux crew will be at the show in .org pavilion booth #1. Please make plans to stop by, chat, and pick up your favorite build of Gentoo Linux 1.4 for free :)" If you can't make it to San Francisco, you can order the official CD set directly from the new Gentoo store: "Our new Gentoo Store is now online at http://store.gentoo.org, and we are now accepting pre-orders for Gentoo Linux 1.4 for x86, i686, Pentium III, Pentium 4 and Athlon XP, with other architectures coming soon. Each 2-CD set allows Gentoo to be installed without the need for an Internet connection, contains a large selection of pre-built packages (XFree86, KDE, GNOME and many more,) and includes printed installation instructions. Gentoo Linux 1.4 will be officially released (and will ship) on August 5, 2003." Of course, with a source-based distribution such as Gentoo, there is no reason to wait for the final release before installing it, but an increase in version number creates a psychologically important reference point.
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| Web Site News |
New sponsor
Aurox Linux has become a new sponsor of DistroWatch.com and you might have noticed a disclaimer accompanying the Aurox Linux news published last week. A similar disclaimer will accompany all news items where a sponsor is involved. This comes after the often questioned Yoper sponsorship deal which saw Yoper climb up steadily to the number one spot in the page hit ranking statistics and which resulted in many false accusations that all had not been fair and square. This wasn't the case and we will continue to provide unbiased coverage of all distributions, big and small, commercial and non-commercial, but all future news related to sponsors who help to pay our bills will be accompanied by a similar disclaimer. If you haven't done so, do check out Aurox Linux, which is a free distribution released under GPL; French, Spanish and German editions were made available for free download last week. Aurox Linux was one of the recommended distributions in a recent distribution roundup by linuxfrench.net.
New additions
Two new distributions were added to the DistroWatch database last week - these were ADIOS and GNOPPIX. Both of them happened to release new versions, so check out the "Released Last Week" section for more information about them.
New on the waiting list
Five new projects have been added to the DistroWatch waiting list:
- BlackRhino GNU/Linux - a free Debian-based GNU/Linux software distribution for the Sony PlayStation 2.
- Lambdaux - another Debian (and LinEx) based distribution by LambdaUX Software Services, a company established in February this year in Madrid, Spain.
- Kix - a German project, a mini live Linux CD, based on Debian and Knoppix.
- Pilot Linux - a bootable cd with just a client for a MS terminal server. Just boot the cd, enter the name of the server and you're off. Based on Debian, Knoppix and Damn Small Linux.
- Sunrise Linux - a new secure Linux distribution using RPM package management. It is currently in early development, but the first alpha releases are available for testing.
DistroWatch database summary
- Number of distributions in the database: 156
- Number of discontinued distributions: 21
- Number of distributions on the waiting list: 50
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| Reader Feedback |
About interviews
- "I wonder if it would be a good idea for DW to do regular interviews with developers or management from interesting distros, specially the emerging ones, to see what the focus of the distro is, how they differ from others, how they compare to others, etc. That is, to make interviews from a DW point of view: to sort out the distro mess :-)"
Good idea. I would even take it one step further and suggest that you contact the developers directly and ask them whether they'll be willing to answer a few questions. If they agree, go ahead and ask to your heart's content, send us the complete interview for formatting and publishing. In other words, feel free to conduct the entire interview in the name of DistroWatch; you'll get credited as the author of the story. Failing that, send in some concrete suggestions, together with a few questions you wish to ask; these can be published here and other readers can contribute their own questions in the discussion forum.
On DistroWatch icons, logos and banners
- "I have created a banner, not sure where i should send it in to, I'll give you a link, tell me what you think."
More logos/banners were submitted last week - this is what we have so far:
Banner 1:
Banner 2:
Banner 3:
Banner 4:
Banner 5:
Logo 1:
All opinions are welcome.
About Ron Garland's Lindows review
- "I'd like to ask distrowatch to have at least a quick look in future before recommending a review to its readers. I have never seen such a poorly written review: amateurish, tons of factual mistakes, confused and confusing. Regardless of whether you like Lindows or not, reading such a review can only be a pain."
I agree. At first glance, it looked like a lot of work has gone into the review, but the length can be misleading. I have removed the link from the Lindows page.
That's all for this week, keep well and 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 | 
Bio-Linux
Bio-Linux was a full-featured, powerful, configurable and easy-to-maintain bioinformatics workstation. Bio-Linux provides more than 500 bioinformatics programs on an Ubuntu base. There was a graphical menu for bioinformatics programs, as well as easy access to the Bio-Linux bioinformatics documentation system and sample data useful for testing programs. Bio-Linux packages that handle new generation sequence data types can also be installed.
Status: Discontinued
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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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