 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 8, 28 July 2003 |
The birth of the Red Hat Project
The releases of Red Hat's new beta versions last week were overshadowed by the upcoming changes at Red Hat, notably the creation of a more community oriented distribution and withdrawal from retail sales. While clear policies and guidelines have yet to be specified, there is little doubt that this is a good move, a win-win situation for both parties - the Red Hat developers on one hand and the company's customers and users on the other.
The developers on Red Hat's payroll will be able to concentrate on the more lucrative Red Hat's offerings - the development and support of the enterprise class products, as well as custom solutions for companies. Let's face it, the twice-a-year release schedule of an extremely popular operating system does put a strain on those responsible for quality control, so giving part of this responsibility to the user community makes a lot of sense. The users should also benefit by seeing the often requested features, which until now were hitting the stubborn wall of Red Hat, Inc and the company's interests. In fact, LinuxCompatible.org reports that an RPM front-end called yum (Yellow dog Updater, Modified) has been spotted in the latest Rawhide, the Red Hat's development branch, and it will more than likely be part of the next beta release. Red Hat's reluctance to include and support any dependency resolving installation utility meant that users had to install one of the third-party applications (yum, apt4rpm) to avoid dependency nightmares often associated with installation of binary packages on a Linux system. Similarly, the out-of-the-box multimedia support on any recent Red Hat release was less than satisfactory and this is another area which could change in the near future.
Gone from the shelves?
Red Hat's withdrawal from retail sales means that those bright red (and white) boxes will no longer occupy shelves of software stores. Is this a trend? Mandrake's recent history suggests that the French company is also less than enthusiastic about getting their boxes out to retailers, relying instead on the MandrakeClub and online sales for most income. Other consumer-friendly distributions such as Xandros, Lycoris and Lindows don't seem particularly keen to use the traditional brick-and-mortar way of selling their products either. This leaves SuSE as the only distribution relentlessly pursuing this route. It will be interesting to see whether this will continue in the future, especially since SuSE has been increasingly successful in getting large enterprise accounts. Surely, these high-profile, large-volume deployments will have to take precedence over high-cost and low-profit options generated by sales of retail boxes. On the other hand, being the only brand left on the shelves could be a strong motivator to continue producing them. What do you think?
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| Released Last Week |
LinuxInstall.org 1.4
LinuxInstall.org 1.4, a single CD, Red Hat-based distribution for novice users was released: "Here is a list of major changes from last release: First of all, release number has been changed back to 1.x to respect other distro cycles; Mozilla 1.4 RPM packages have been re-compiled to make sure they are fully compatible with existing plugins; as a new plugin family, QuickTime Movies can now be played in Mozilla with the help of MPlayer; Evolution 1.4.3 RPM packages are included; OpenOffice.org 1.1RC RPM package comes with custom design Gnome Office Menu icons for easy launching; Scribus 1.0 RPM package, which is a desktop publishing software, is included..." LinuxInstall.org 1.4 can be ordered from here (US$5 - 10).
Arch Linux 0.5
The Arch Linux 0.5, code name "Nova" was released: "Over the last seven months we've added a million package updates, PAM support, LVM support, GRUB support, and a ton of other little things that you may not notice, but are working behind the scenes to make your Arch Linux experience as smooth as possible. We've provided two ISO images with this release: the full-size image contains all official packages and the base-only image contains only base packages needed to get your system up and running." A review of Arch Linux 0.5 is in the works and this will be preceded by an interview with Judd Vinet, the creator of Arch Linux later this week. If you still have any questions you'd like to ask Judd, please mention them in the discussion forum.
Damn Small Linux 0.4.1
The developers Damn Small Linux, which is full CD-based distribution on a business card size CD, released version 0.4.1: "Now in 0.4.1 there is the choice of two X servers -- Xvesa and Xfbdev. Xfbdev uses the framebuffer provided by the Linux framebuffer device. That means it may be a much better choice for older laptops. In fact I have a couple of old laptops (Pentium I) that were completely incompatible with Xvesa but worked very well with the framebuffer server. The key is to use a FB that your laptop can support -- this has to be selected at boot time. In the case of these two Pentium Is fb800x600 did the trick. (If your hardware supports it, Xvesa is still preferred because it is more flexible and faster.) Also new for 0.4.1 is the emelFM file manager. I liked worker a lot, but emelFM is simpler and has practically no learning curve. Also, emelFM is smaller than Worker, and I needed the room!"
Knoppix 3.2-2003-07-26
Not one, but three releases of Knoppix 3.2 appeared last week, the most recent is version 3.2-2003-07-06. See the changelog for information on what's new.
Development Releases
- Red Hat Linux 9.0.93, code name "Severn" - the first beta of the next stable version of Red Hat Linux, which will be known as "Cambridge" (version number has yet to be decided).
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.9.5AS (Advanced Server), code name "Taroon", see the release notes.
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.9.5WS (Workstation), code name "Taroon", see the release notes. Both enterprise class products come on 3 CDs of which the second and third CDs are identical. Download from mirrors.
- Mandrake Linux 9.2 Beta 1 "has arrived to offer you the opportunity of an entertaining summer bug squashing". See the beta information page for details.
- ClarkConnect Broadband Gateway 2.0rc2. The beta page provides the full changelog.
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Gentoo Linux 1.4 for PowerPC
The PowerPC edition of Gentoo Linux 1.4 is now available for pre-order: "Our new Gentoo store is now accepting pre-orders for Gentoo Linux 1.4 for PowerPC, PowerPC G3, PowerPC G4, and the KDE/GNOME PowerPC LiveCD, which now contains both desktop environments on one CD. Thanks to the Gentoo PowerPC team for their excellent work!"
Lorma Linux roadmap
The developers of Lorma Linux, a Red Hat-based, i686-optimised Linux distribution, have produced a road map and expected feature lists for their upcoming releases of both desktop and server editions. Version 4 is expected before the end of this year and version 5 about one year later.
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| Web Site News |
New additions
Five new distributions, three of which are live CDs, were added to the DistroWatch database last week:
- FIRE, formerly known as DMZS-Biatchux, is a portable bootable CD-based distribution with the goal of providing an immediate environment to perform forensic analysis, incident response, data recovery, virus scanning and vulnerability assessment.
- Onebase Linux is a new source distribution with a web-based interface for software installation. Although still in early development and a little rough around the edges, it promises to be user-friendly and powerful.
- Phayoune Linux is a Thai Linux distribution based on Linux From Scratch. Available editions include Desktop, Secure Server, Secure Firewall and Live CD editions.
- RPM Live Linux CD is a 120MB RedHat-based distribution that runs completely from CD, fits into around 80MB of RAM and is nearly indistinguishable from a system installed on a hard disk.
- Slackware Live CD is a 200MB Slackware-based live Linux distribution on CD. It features many add-ons, including scripts to create your own live CD.
New on the waiting list
Another bumper week of new submissions - six new distributions were added to waiting list:
- Dux Linux - the web site lacks information about the project, although Dux Linux 0.1beta is now available for download.
- Flonix - a French derivative of Knoppix.
- Kinneret - an Israeli Linux distribution for schools, fully localised.
- OpenSlackware GnuLinux - a Romanian Slackware-based distribution with security as its primary goal.
- Penguin Sleuth Bootable CD - a CD-based distribution with tools for data forensics.
- SPB Linux Bootable CD - a mini distribution running from a USB memory stick.
DistroWatch database summary
- Number of distributions in the database: 161
- Number of discontinued distributions: 21
- Number of distributions on the waiting list: 53
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| Reader Feedback |
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."
One more logo was submitted last week - time to make a decision?
Banner 1:
Banner 2:
Banner 3:
Banner 4:
Banner 5:
Banner 6:
Logo 1:
All opinions are welcome.
That's all for this week, keep well and see you next Monday,
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
TrX Live Firewall
TrX Live Firewall was a Turkish project. TrX produces a Debian GNU/Linux-based desktop router and firewall package. This package was bootable directly from CD-ROM, so hard disk installation was not necessary. TrX was designed to work completely off the CD-ROM, with configuration data stored on a floppy disk, harddisk partition or, in future versions, on a USB storage device.
Status: Discontinued
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