 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 32, 19 January 2004 |
Content:
Welcome to this year's third edition of DistroWatch Weekly.
Debian-based versus Red Hat-based
Our statistics pages provide an interesting insight into various aspects of Linux distributions. One of them is the distribution's "independence", listing distributions and their relationships or dependence on other distributions, if any. This table is not nearly as simple to put together as it might seem. As an example, answer this questions: what is Mandrake Linux based on? Many readers will probably answer "Red Hat", simply because that's how Mandrake Linux started - as a modified version of Red Hat. But is true today? Of course not. Mandrake Linux is not based on Red Hat, it is based on "Cooker", Mandrake's own, independently maintained development tree.
Other common misconceptions include statements, such as "Xandros is based on Corel". Among those of you who still remember Corel Linux and have tried Xandros Desktop, how much resemblance there is between the two? Not much. In fact it seems that the only thing that Xandros developers are still using from the old Corel code is the modified lilo boot loader, and perhaps snippets of code from the Corel file manager, but not much beyond that. Similarly, some people are quick to assert that LindowsOS is in fact based on Xandros. Yes, there might have been some code sharing and cooperation between the two at some point, but to claim that they have a parent-child relationship is a complete nonsense. The simple truth is that both of them are based on Debian, period. Without Debian, there would be no Xandros and no LindowsOS, at least not in the present form.
Which brings us to an interesting discovery found this week on the statistics page: Red Hat/Fedora is no longer the most popular distribution to be used as a base for a new distribution. It has been overtaken by Debian. This is primarily due to two factors:
- The success of the Debian-based Knoppix at introducing Linux to a wide audience has resulted in dozens of attempts at remastering the original Knoppix and releasing it under a different name. Some might argue that these are not real distributions; yet they play an important role in the Linux ecosystem, good examples of which include support for less widely used languages (Ankur Bangla, Arabbix, Kinneret, Shabdix, Soyombo...) or a complete redesign to fit a certain niche (Damn Small Linux, Gnoppix...). All these projects get their packages from the Debian archives and use the Knoppix technology of hardware autodetection and cloop file compression to create a new product.
Screenshot: Hebrew speakers will feel right at home with the Debian/Knoppix-based Kinneret GNU/Linux.
(full image size 220kB)
- The second factor is the quality of Debian packages. It is no coincidence that Knoppix, MEPIS and even commercial Debian derivatives such as Libranet, LindowsOS and Xandros are quite happy to base their products on the Debian's so called "unstable" branch. While it is certainly not without its bugs, Debian "unstable" is probably a lot more stable than the development branches of other distributions, such as Red Hat's Rawhide or Mandrake's Cooker.
Of course, this is not to say that there are now more people using Debian and Debian-based distributions than those who prefer Red Hat/Fedora. But if this trend in distribution development is anything to go by, we might soon see a similar trend in usage.
Happy Chinese New Year!
DistroWatch.com 祝您猴年行大運, 新年快樂! To all our visitors from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore and all Chinese communities from around the world: we would like to wish you a happy and prosperous New Year and lots of Linuxing in the Year of the Monkey! Thank you for visiting and supporting DistroWatch!
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| Released Last Week |
ThePacketMaster Security Server 1.2.0
A new version of ThePacketMaster Security Server has been released: "The new release of the TPM security server, 1.2.0, is now out. It includes: kernel 2.4.24 to address issues found in 2.4.23 and earlier; added new packages for forensic analysis and vulnerability testing; /usr is now in a cloop file system for a smaller ISO image; XFree86 X-window system is now included, as well as the enlightenment window manager, Mozilla web browser and Java." Read the rest of the release announcement.
L.A.S. Linux 0.4.1
This is a new release of Local Area Security Linux, version 0.4.1: "I am pleased to announce the release of the first of the 210MB images of L.A.S. Linux! With this release come many improvements, in terms of all packages being upgraded to current, as well as a new theme and other cosmetic additions. Special thanks to iceman81 for his help in getting this release out. (For those curious of when 0.4.1-185MB will be released, it will be in a few days.) With this release it also marks a new direction we are headed in when it comes to L.A.S. Linux as a whole. As always, we are dedicated to providing a no-frills security toolkit distribution aimed at PROFESSIONALS free of most fat." Read the rest of the release announcement.
Bonzai Linux 3.2
Bonzai Linux 3.2 has been released: "Due to the great interest in the KDE version of the Bonzai Linux distribution, this is a KDE release again. Version 3.2 includes the current stable version of K Desktop Environment 3.1.4. It also includes all current security patches and proposed updates from debian.org. Bonzai Linux is now 100% compatible with Debian 3.0r2." Read the release announcement in English or German.
AGNULA/DeMuDi 1.1.0
A new version of DeMuDi, a sub-project of the AGNULA GNU/Linux Audio Distribution project has been released: "AGNULA/DeMuDi 1.1.0, the Debian-based GNU/Linux distribution for audio/video, has been released. The 1.1.x series of AGNULA/DeMuDi mark a major infrastructural change from the 1.0 release. While the latter was based on Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (aka 'Woody'), AGNULA/DeMuDi 1.1.0 (and subsequent releases) are/will be based on a snapshot of Debian GNU/Linux Unstable (aka 'sid'). Instructions on how to download and install AGNULA/DeMuDi 1.1.0 are available here." The full release announcement.
STUX GNU/Linux 0.6.1
STUX GNU/Linux 0.6.1 has been released. Changes: "OpenOffice added. Peripherals: drivers and configuration saving has been added for printers, modems and scanners. Scripts added for: sound volumes saving, ample server (MP3 streamer) configuration, apache web server configuration; MySQL db configuration, ProFTPd FTP server configuration, ssh server configuration, Samba server configuration, swaps manager, passwords setting and saving, loop filesystems creation, Flash plugin installation, Tcl/Tk installation, AMSN installation. X-CD-Roast has been replaced by K3b (for CD/DVD burning)..." The full changelog.
Buffalo Linux 1.1.1
A new version of Buffalo Linux has been released: "The main new features are the 2.6.1 kernel, a 'newkernel' GUI rebuild feature, and a new modutils 3.0.0 (with a Buffalo wrapper for switching back to the old version if needed). All other packages are the same as 1.1.0. There are many minor bugfixes and a few new features, such as a 'RUN Program' option on the main menu which supports adding desktop icons and Programs entries for both Linux and MS Windows programs."
Lunar Linux 1.3.3
Lunar Linux has been updated to version 1.3.3: "An updated Lunar install/rescue ISO is now available. Linux kernel 2.4.24 based. glibc recompiled with 2.4.24 kernel headers. No more /usr/include/linux symlinks to /usr/src/linux. SATA is supported in the kernel on the ISO. More kernel modules for ethernet, SCSI, IDE, fusion, firewire, USB, ppp now included on the ISO. BitchX is now included. For full details of all the changes please see ISO.Changelog. A xdelta patch is also available from 1.3.2 ISO to the 1.3.3 ISO." Read the rest of the official announcement.
Development releases
Unannounced releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
GoboLinux 011
The GoboLinux project has published a roadmap leading towards the release of version 011: "GoboLinux 007 and 010 featured large improvements, namely the installer and hardware detection. These would be hard to top on 011: the plan is to have smaller things as new features, and focus on improving these larger features that were introduced in the last releases. So, what's new to be expected? New bootscripts. They are going to be as simple as the current ones, but more modular than the current ones. While some scenarios need extra complexity (daemon management, dependency-based boot, runlevels) others just need a few programs to be launched in a certain order at startup and "that's it". We believe it is possible to support both in an elegant manner. And do all of this in a themeable way, of course. ;-)" More details about the release can be found here.
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| Web Site News |
DistroWatch.org
In addition to "distrowatch.com", you can now also access DistroWatch via "distrowatch.org".
Cheats from Poland
It has come to our attention that there has been a massive effort at increasing the page hit count of the Debian page by visitors from Poland. This has been going on since early in October last year, but it has accelerated dramatically during the last three weeks (with brief high-hit periods during late November and early December. During this time, the number of visitors from Poland represented some 30% of all visitors on the Debian page, while on the main page they only represented less than 1.6%. Although the hits came from varying IP addresses, the visitors were invariably using a version of a popular Windows browser to access the Debian page.
After examining the log files for the period between 2003-10-15 and 2004-01-17, the number of illegal hits on the Debian page by visitors from Poland was determined to be 9756. This number has been deducted from data on the statistics page. The overall number of hits on the Debian page, as calculated for the Page Hit Ranking (PHR) statistics, has been reduced by an average of 37 hits per day during the above period (this number is lower because the counter already ignores hits from identical IP addresses). The adjusted count will be displayed after the next PHR update scheduled for Saturday, 24 January.
As a result of the above fact, all visitors from Poland trying to access the Debian page while using Windows are currently banned from loading the page, and are being redirected to debian.org instead. This will remain in effect until all extraneous hits from Polish IP addresses stop (which hasn't, even some 48 hours after the redirection came into effect!).
Unfortunately, cheating is a way of life for many people and I doubt that appealing to visitor's conscience will change that. The Page Hit Ranking was never meant to be taken seriously, yet some people are prepared to go to great lengths to promote their favourite distribution. Any blatant attempts to manipulate the distribution ranking will result in deduction of page hits, and in more serious cases, we'll call on the FBI to investigate the breach of rules. Unless of course this is all a big mistake and there has suddenly been a massive increase of interest in Debian among the Windows users in Poland, in which case please leave an explanation below. (Don't take the FBI threat too seriously though, just grow up, prosze bardzo!)
New additions
- Ares Desktop. Ares Desktop is a free operating system for people looking for a polished desktop environment for the educational, business desktop and home user fields. Ares Desktop is based on the Linux core system. Ares Desktop offers more than just an operating system: It comes with many packages that are used daily by desktop educational, business and home users. All these packages are bundled up in an easy installation program.
- Zeus Linux. Zeus Linux is a Greek Linux distribution based on Slackware Linux. It includes many fixes, such as remaking init scripts, new precompiled kernels for workstation machines, several tools that we believe should be included in all distributions (Zebra for advanced routing, FreeSwan ipsec tunnels, Open-nms for network monitoring, Ntop, Mailscanner, Sophos Antivirus, Mrtg, Rrdtool for graph making, sawmill log analyser and many other useful tools for power users).
- Condorux. Condorux is a Peruvian Linux distribution based on Knoppix.
New on the waiting list
- Good-Day GNU/Linux. Good-Day GNU/Linux is a free Japanese server distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux.
DistroWatch database summary
- Number of distributions in the database: 239
- Number of discontinued distributions: 26
- Number of distributions on the waiting list: 60
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| Reader Feedback |
DistroWatch server slow?
- "Hey Ladislav, I (and several of our readers) have noticed your site being
very unresponsive the past week or so. Are you having server issues?"
No, not as far as I know. It seems to be just general overload caused by a surge of interest. We've had a major influx of visitors just after publishing the Knoppix review (that wasn't the first time the site was slashdotted, but it was by far the most intense "attack" on the server; no wonder Knoppix is at No 3 in our Page Hit Ranking!). Last week, following the appearance of PHLAK on TechTV, we had an incredible amount of people accessing the PHLAK page. In fact, the number of visitors interested in this relatively unknown distribution was as high as the number of visitors on the Mandrake or Red Hat pages shortly after a release! Also of note was the massive effort of some visitors from Polish IP addresses to increase the page hits on the Debian page (see the "Web Site News" section above). All this contributed to the general sluggishness of the server hosting DistroWatch.
The solution? I am going to spend some time on the PHP code to see what I can speed up, but in the meantime, simply bookmark and visit one of the mirrors. The main reason we have everything in text files, rather than a proper database is the ease of mirroring. Most mirrors rsync hourly, including the ones in Bratislava, Budapest, Cluj-Napoca and Vienna, as well as our newest mirrors in Prague and Florida (see the very top of this page for links).
That's all for this week, see you next Monday :-)
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Alternate PHR (by Arnold Skimminge at 2004-01-19 14:31:28 GMT)
Just for fun i tried searching google for linux distribution, and got the following order of distributions/sites
Debian
Redhat/Fedora
Slackware
Suse
linux.org
PLD Linux
Gentoo
The familiar project
Mandrake
Distrowatch.com :)
This might be as informative as PHR
2 • Debian PHR (by Jacek at 2004-01-19 14:50:58 GMT)
Debian is getting more popular in Poland. In my opinion PHR increased because:
1. Fedora made lots of Linux fans look for other distro.
2. The release date has been moved and is still unknown, so people are impatient and often browse Debian page.
And is it so strange that they often use Windows to do it? No. They certainly visit Debian site from work (where Windows dominates), not from home (a lot of people connect to Internet by modem).
3 • Google search (by anonymous on 2004-01-19 14:52:09 GMT)
:: Linux
1. Red Hat
2. Debian
3. Mandrake
4. Slackware
5. SUSE
:: UNIX
1. GNU
2. FreeBSD
3. SCO
4. Tru64
:: Linux distribution
1. Debian
2. Distrowatch
3. Red Hat
4. Slackware
5. SUSE
6. Gentoo
4 • Happy Chinese New Year (by CN on 2004-01-19 15:50:04 GMT)
On behalf of all Chinese visitors from all over the world, I wish everyone here a happy Chinese New Year (22 Jan), and wish the coming Year of the Monkey be a fabulous year for Linux and distrowatch.com.
5 • Site still slow (by CipheR at 2004-01-19 21:21:39 GMT)
The website has been very slow for 2 weeks now, the slowdowns came long before TechTV did their report on PHLAK. I'm running a very fast cable connection ( average download speeds of 350kbps ) and each page of this site takes nearly 30 seconds to load up. Nowhere else on the net am I seeing such a problem, so there is obviously something happening with your servers that you may not be aware of.
6 • Slow Site (by gnu-dude at 2004-01-19 23:17:13 GMT)
Even if it's slow it is worth the wait.
7 • One MandrakeMove Review Wasn't Posted (by Dude on 2004-01-20 01:44:37 GMT)
Please post this review: http://osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5640
It was at OSNEWS a few days ago. Probably the best one so far, should pos it. Better late than never.
8 • Re: DistroWatch server slow? (by nilb on 2004-01-20 01:59:43 GMT)
Not a complaint, but just to add to other users, the server has been pretty slow lately. I'm sitting on a cable line. To rule out the hypothesis of slow dns resolution I've attempted to access the site directly from the ip: http://66.111.55.60/ . Still slow. So there's definitely a problem you guys are having on that end. Otherwise keep up the good work!
NilB
9 • WooHoo! (by madhunter at 2004-01-20 03:34:39 GMT)
I really have nothing to talk about... just wanted to say "WooHoo!"
:)
10 • Slowness (by Rusty on 2004-01-20 04:10:55 GMT)
Just wanted to chime in--I've also noticed some sort of problem accessing distrowatch lately--I'm on a cable modem and often it'll take 30 seconds for a distrowatch page to load.
Thanks for all the hard work!!
11 • No subject (by -Slowness at 2004-01-20 04:57:41 GMT)
IVe notice slowness aswell, I thought maybe it was my connection,
12 • slow page loads... try the mirrors (by Brad at 2004-01-20 07:23:37 GMT)
I have noticed the slow page loads also. user's solution... search distrowatch in google -> open google's cache of distrowatch homepage -> then use link in cached page to open site at one of the mirrors. I'm on a 2Mbps cable line in St. Louis and the Dallas mirrors work nicely!
13 • Slow (by MixMatch at 2004-01-20 09:43:59 GMT)
maybe its all those polish guys again...
I also have experienced incredible slowness... and its not that the graphics take time to load, it just takes a long time to actually access the page for some reason.
BTW, saw the new t-shirt ad... looks very professional.
14 • Google Search: Linux Distro (by Eavy at 2004-01-20 09:56:17 GMT)
For some very interesting results, search for this: "Linux Distro"
http://www.google.com/search?q=linux+distro
1st: DistroWatch.com :-)
2nd: Microsoft Linux - the premier linux distro ;-)
3rd: A Linux Distro for Barbie?
Whoa!
15 • DNS Resolution of Distrowatch (by Kumarmu at 2004-01-20 11:40:00 GMT)
We in India also had problem in accessing www.distrowatch.com.
The error message was `cannot resolve the address'.
After a few days, it started working fine.
16 • Panic in Poland (by mrcactus at 2004-01-20 13:31:24 GMT)
I'd really be carefull about saying that visitors from Poland are tryng to cheat(of course that migth bo possible as well).
Recently, our police started to visit private homes (in two districts, AFAIR - 'Lubuskie' and 'Slaskie') to find illegal software. The panic started.
Since most of the people are using pirated version of Windows at home, they got scared and started to seek a way to become legal, so that they can avoid charges from the police. That's how the rush towards Linux began. Just imagine a situation where a whole stock of a newspaper with Linux CDs is sold out in a few hours, and people are standing in queues to get it.
In my opinion, the increased activity of visitors from Poland is really understanbable in these circumstances.
17 • Re: Panic in Poland (by wvh on 2004-01-20 14:38:05 GMT)
Isn't Poland much bigger than Bill Gates? What if all people decided to stand up and tell Gates to shove it - it's not as if he always plays by the rules, and I'm pretty sure he's rich enough after all that lobbying and rule-bending. The man is born a millionaire, and cheated his way to bilionaire, for crying out loud. If we all stick to nice little hypocrite rules, a few morons that ignore all basic human morality, honour and honesty shall always rule this planet, and we shall take it like the Western fearfully apathic judeo-christian capitalist slaves we are.
I'm fed up hearing about RIAA, Microsoft and friends threatening us for doing what they do in a much larger scale. It's not because they can pay to get the law bent a bit their way, that they are right about the things they do. Bill Gates, of all people, shouldn't come crying about copying software or dishonesty...
Anyway, if that means more users of opensource software, that can only be a good thing.
18 • Re: Re: Panic in Poland (by mrcactus at 2004-01-20 15:00:45 GMT)
I think it's rather a matter of consciousness. If people were given any alternative, they would not *steal* (at least most of them wouldn't, I guess).
But , guess what, it's very hard to find a computer sience teacher in Polish grammar/high school who knows anything about Linux/Open source alternatives. Children are tought to use Windows, think Windows, without even knowing there's anyting 'outside' that world.
Nobody cares that license fees are rather expensive for families. Acctually, most families don't know they have to pay for them.
To make things worse, Polish government seems to be very attached to MS as well. (AFAIR Bill G. and Ballmer even visited our prime minister to settle some contracts, correct me if I'm wrong).
I'm not talking MS is bad. I'd just like to see an alternative presented to the people.
19 • WIN/LINUX statistics? (by surfer on 2004-01-20 15:37:39 GMT)
Ladislav,
You've never published hit statistics by operating system. It would be interesting to know how large share of accesses are with Linux, and whether it's increasing or decreasing..
I'd suspect that decreasing Linux share would be a good sign, indicating growing interest among windows users.
20 • Slowness (by A User on 2004-01-20 19:40:45 GMT)
I noticed the slowdown a little over a week ago. Funny thing is that I can load up a dallas mirror in 1/3 the time that I can the New York Mirror 25 miles away!
BTW on a cable line here too...
21 • Slow (by Gary on 2004-01-20 23:29:46 GMT)
FYI
On cable modem and have to wait 30 seconds and longer to get on. Sometimes up to and over a minute. "Waiting for Distrowatch..." is displayed in the Mozilla message bar. The ip in question appears to be 66.111.55.60.
22 • polish page hits (by jim at 2004-01-21 08:00:46 GMT)
hey ladislov kick those polish debian hunters over to mepis . theyll be sendin hugs & kisses. :>) theyve got sarge workin great. installs easier than windows. ya might want to play with it yourself. very fine distro. regards
23 • Re: Panic in Poland (by MixMatch at 2004-01-21 09:11:32 GMT)
Sure, there may be many polish people switching to linux or whatever. You have to read the accusation carefully, however. The key is that there was a multitude of visits to the debian page, with very few to the main distrowatch page from these same visitors. Is there some fettish with Debian in Poland or?
24 • Debian and Polish ingenuity (by Tom Korzan at 2004-01-21 11:56:02 GMT)
I suppose somebody has just selected the Debian page as the default url in their browser, without meaning anything wrong. The vast majority of users in Poland connect through a variable IP address (policy of TP$A, the Polish Telecom), so if the chap goes on line pretty frequently, it might result in the unintentional abuse. You can perhaps write a script preventing people from getting onto the distribution pages otherwise than by clicking the link on the main page. I wonder how this would change your statistics?
25 • just a little joke (by Benjamin Vander Jagt at 2004-01-24 03:04:12 GMT)
make install, not war
(sorry, that's a bit spammish!)
I used the mirrors before, and at times, the news was very old. even shift-reload didn't update them. anyone else had that problem?
and BTW, as an update, Linux (SuSE 9.0 in particular) is very popular in my store. refusing to sell Windows systems hasn't hurt me in the slightest. in fact, though I can't prove it with numbers, it seems to have helped. hooray for the paradigm shift, unstoppable since the GNU GPL started!
26 • Hallo Distrovsatch. (by Miroslav Karlovsky at 2004-01-24 20:06:20 GMT)
((;-o
Number of Comments: 26
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
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| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
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| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
Ojuba
Ojuba was a Fedora-based Linux distribution whose main focus was to provide the best Arabic support, as well as some Islamic tools such as Hijra (Hijri calendar) and Minbar (prayer time indicator). It was available as an installation DVD or installable live CD.
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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