 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 143, 20 March 2006 |
Welcome to this year's 12th issue of DistroWatch Weekly. It's that time of the year when development activity in the open source software world is about to reach its peak - the release of GNOME 2.14 last week will be followed by Fedora Core 5 later today, with SUSE 10.1 coming out next month. At the same time, Ubuntu's Dapper Drake has received extra 6 weeks to get more polish, while Mandriva's new "One" product has been overshadowed by news about the sudden involuntary departure of the distribution's founder. Also in this issue: Debian developers on explaining their project to non-geeks, update on the custom DVD booting a number of distributions, and a quick look at the new KNOPPIX 5.0. Happy reading!
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (5.22MB) or mp3 (6.26MB) format (courtesy of Shawn Milo).
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Content:
Opinion: Mandriva on the rocks
  Despite the release of a new Mandriva edition last week, it was the company -- rather than the new product -- that stole the spotlight in the media. In a never-ending series of blunders that have relegated the best desktop Linux distribution on the market to a mediocre one over the last few years, the decision makers at Mandriva have asked Gaël Duval (pictured on the right) to leave the company! Yes, the same Gaël Duval who single-handedly created Mandrake Linux back in 1998. The same Gaël Duval who had a proven track record of understanding desktop Linux better than anyone else at the time. The same Gaël Duval who probably contributed more than anyone else to increased adoption of Linux at a time when very few distributions thought about usability of Linux on the desktop. Now, last week, Gaël Duval was deemed a burden to the company he helped to jump-start!
It was a telling sign of Mandriva's attitude towards their user community that we had to learn about such an important event in an obscure IRC channel or a private web log, rather than directly from the horse's mouth. It was only when a major news site picked up the story that the company found itself in an embarrassing position of having to provide an explanation. Although Gaël Duval disagreed on a few minor points, the message given by Mandriva's CEO was clear: Mandriva as a company is once again in a bad financial shape and needs to find ways to cut expenses. With the acquisition of Conectiva and Lycoris in 2005, the ill-contrived spending spree of the past year has come back to haunt the company's investors. Fresh doubts about the viability of its business model have re-surfaced.
Is this the end of Mandriva as a company? No, not just yet. Is this the end of a distribution that helped so many users (including your DistroWatch maintainer) to jump on the Linux bandwagon back in the late nineties? Sadly, yes. As one forum reader put it so bluntly, it is frightening to realise that in their quest to increase the value of their investments, Mandriva's desperate shareholders have made so many absurd decisions that instead of building a prosperous business entity they will bring about its downfall!
Right now, the only thing that can save Mandriva from certain death is return to its roots - by building a distribution for home users, not suits. Although following Red Hat's business model might sound like a perfect way to ensure future financial prosperity, the sad reality is that Mandriva will have hard time competing with the likes of Red Hat and Novell. Instead, the company should close its rapidly diminishing Club infrastructure, return to a 6-month release cycle, and give away the base distribution with no delays and no strings attached. With the dramatically increasing interest in Linux that we have been witnessing over the past 6 months, it shouldn't take too long before it would generate solid and sustainable revenue from private and government contracts, as well as by selling support and custom solutions.
For Mandriva to survive, it needs to stop laying off its best employees and start implementing a radical overhaul of its business strategy. It should strive to become a leader in one area, not a follower in another - no matter how lucrative it might seem to certain uninformed investors. Unfortunately, as its most recent action demonstrates, Mandriva might have already passed the point of no return....
* * * * *
Miscellaneous news: polishing Dapper Drake, tasting bubbly Bordeaux, explaining Debian
 The controversial decision of the Ubuntu developers to postpone the final release of Dapper Drake by six weeks has met with mixed reactions. Although the decision-making process was democratic and the reasons for the proposed delay sound, the decision has its critics. Up to this point, Ubuntu Linux was about the most trustworthy Linux distribution on the market, with the reliable 6-month release cycle as one of its stated goals. Suddenly, a big part of this trust is gone and users have every reason to question the validity of Ubuntu's other promises. Besides, six weeks sounds like a long time to reach that ever elusive goal called "polish". The delay will also put more pressure on the developers - with so much extra time, the expectations will rise considerably. But let's not judge the product too early. If the extra six weeks turn Dapper Drake into the most amazing Linux distribution ever built, then be it!
 In the meantime, the eagerly awaited Fedora Core 5, the distribution's first release in over 9 months, should provide enough features, software and entertainment for every Linux user to give the venerable operating system a serious test drive. Although Fedora's revamped installer and some of the custom utilities feel somewhat dumbed down, the new release promises to be a solid operating system. Code named "Bordeaux", the new Fedora will be formally announced on Monday, but as many have already discovered, the ISO images have started leaking from some of the distribution's mirrors as early as Friday last week. If you find yourself bored while downloading the product, here are a few interesting links to check out: Fedora Core 5 sneak preview, Stanton Finley's installation notes, and Fedora 5 screencast. One final note: users of proprietary NVIDIA and ATI video drivers should read this important message before installing or upgrading.
 How do you promote Debian at parties? Joshua Kwan, one of the distribution's developers happened to wear a Debian T-shirt at a party and soon found himself struggling to explain the purpose of the strange looking spiral to non-geek public. After describing the awkward situation on a web log, several Debian developers offered an advice on how to deal with the situation:
- Martin Krafft: "Rule number one: stay away from opinions, comparisons, and technical details (at least in the beginning). Give them humanly comprehensible facts and do not mention Windows or OS X unless asked."
- Erich Schubert: "You need to have what is called an 'elevator pitch'. That is a short preso you could give while going up a few floors with an elevator on your way to a meeting, back, at a conference, at a party..."
- Wouter Verhelst: "And about that Linux bit, I wouldn't worry too much. If the people you're talking to are business people, and they've never heard of Linux before, just get yourself a strange look on your face, and say something like you've never heard of Linux before?!?"
Any similar experiences among the readers of DistroWatch? How would you explain Linux to casual acquaintance? Please comment below.
Finally, a quick update on the Spanish article explaining the steps to create a custom DVD that can boot a number of live Linux distributions. Due to overwhelming demand, the author has spent time to update the script and to translate the article into English. Those of you who found it difficult to follow the original story can now access the English version of the updated article on this page.
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| First look at KNOPPIX 5.0 |
First look at KNOPPIX 5.0
 Those readers who recall the early days of KNOPPIX will also remember the high frequency with which new releases of the popular live CD used to appear on public mirrors - sometimes as much as three times a week! Although those excitingly hyperactive days are gone for good, having a more sedate release schedule has its benefits too. Probably the chief one among them is that awesome feeling of experiencing unexpected dramatic improvements. If you are still using KNOPPIX 4.0.x, then prepare yourself for a major update when version 5.0 finally hits the public mirrors in the next few weeks. It's good; in fact, it's probably the best KNOPPIX release to-date.
As has become tradition over the last few years, new KNOPPIX versions are first presented during major computing exhibitions, such as CeBIT or LinuxTag before they are updated and released to public mirrors. If you can't wait any longer, a hacked English edition of the new 3.88 GB KNOPPIX 5.0 live DVD can be downloaded via BitTorrent from LinuxTracker.org. This is the release I used to boot up a Pentium 4 computer to take an early look at the world's most popular live DVD.
Your first impressions are likely to be excellent. The KNOPPIX 5.0 DVD boots noticeably faster than version 4.0.2 (3 minutes and 20 seconds to full KDE on this test machine), the hardware detection is the usual perfection, and the new desktop theme looks a lot more professional than anything we have seen from KNOPPIX so far. Under the hood, there are many more improvements. The live DVD sports the latest KDE 3.5.1 running on top of kernel 2.6.15. Several other "firsts" will please a large number of users - KNOPPIX 5.0 is the distribution's first release that uses X.Org (version 6.9.0) instead of XFree86, provides udev for mounting storage devices, and includes Java and Java-based Jakarta Tomcat and the Eclipse SDK. Mono is also included for the first time, although disappointingly Mono-based Beagle, F-Spot and Tomboy have failed to make the cut. Besides the default KDE, users can also boot into GNOME 2.12, XFce 4.2.3, Fluxbox 0.9.14, WindowMaker 0.92.0, IceWM 1.2.25 and several other window managers.
The new KNOPPIX also ships with an improved hard disk installation program which is now able to upgrade a previous installation. Like version 4.0, the DVD includes a number of KNOPPIX-related electronic books in both English and German, such as the excellent Knowing Knoppix. Somewhat surprisingly, it also provides several open source applications for Windows, e.g. Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice.org. And speaking of Windows, transparent read/write access to partitions formatted with the NTFS file system is now a standard feature.
Despite my mostly positive impressions, a few negative points of KNOPPIX 5.0 need to mentioned too. The 'knoppix-installer' program is nowhere to be found in the menus, so users wishing to install the new KNOPPIX to their hard disks will have to read the changelog or resort to guesswork. Similarly, the KNOPPIX and KANOTIX menu entries are available in KDE only, making it hard to access all the great custom utilities from other desktops. If you do switch to a non-KDE desktop, it will become immediately obvious that no effort has been expended to synchronise the menus, wallpaper, font sizes, etc. with those on KDE. To get the best experience out of KNOPPIX you really should use KDE, otherwise you might be disappointed.
Overall, KNOPPIX 5.0 is a very good release with a huge number of up-to-date applications, improved speed and a pleasant desktop theme. I still prefer the faster and more polished live CD edition, but many users will no doubt be attracted by the versatility and extra software on the live DVD.
For more information about the project please visit the distribution's web site at Knoppix.com.
KNOPPIX 5.0 live DVD provides excellent allround improvements over the previous release
(full image size: 556kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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| Released Last Week |
PAIPIX 5.0
A new major version of the KNOPPIX/KANOTIX-based PAIPIX Linux live DVD has been released: "After a major restructuring PAIPIX version 5 is now available for download both for the 32-bit and AMD 64-bit architectures. A single image is now used for all supported languages. For hard disk installation, PAIPIX is now using the KANOTIX facility that renders the installed system pure Debian and therefore much more robust to upgrades. There was a lot of work over a long time that was put into this major restructuring that now includes OpenOffice.org 2.0.1, KDE 3.5.1, Apache 2, PHP 5, MySQL 5, PostgreSQL 8.1 and X.Org 6.8." The release announcement.
Source Mage GNU/Linux 0.9.6
Source Mage GNU/Linux 0.9.6 for i486 and PowerPC processors has been released: "'Guidance' ISO Release 0.9.6 stable PPC and x86. Our first stable PPC ISO release in a very long time. The PPC installer now has all the nice features that the x86 installer has. Main new features: a 'dependency' scheme that will make sure you don't accidentally skip a vital step or do things in the wrong order - you can still override dependencies if you really know what you're doing; spells get installed in the background while you are busy selecting options; software RAID support via mdadm." Read the release announcement for further details.
Foresight Linux 0.9.4
The first distribution release shipping with the hot-off-the-press GNOME 2.14 is Foresight Linux 0.9.4: "I am very pleased to announce the availability of Foresight Desktop Linux 0.9.4 with GNOME 2.14. This release includes a number of updates: GNOME 2.14; cleaner and shinier 'Clearlooks' theme; Tango desktop icons; kernel 2.6.15.6; Avahi (aka Rendezvous, Bonjour and sometimes Zeroconf); latest DBUS and HAL; GNOME Power Manager; Banshee, F-Spot, Beagle, Tomboy and more... Foresight Desktop Linux 0.9.4 is available as both CD and DVD ISOs, and -- drum roll please -- VMware player and QEMU images thanks to rBuilder!" Read the release announcement for more information.
Skolelinux 2.0
A new major version of Skolelinux, a distribution also known as DebianEdu, has been released: "After twenty-one months of development, Skolelinux has released a new version. Skolelinux, the Debian-edu project's Custom Debian Distribution, is installed in hundreds of schools in Norway, Germany, and other countries. Many municipalities use Skolelinux across all of their schools; such centralized operation offers low maintenance and operational costs. Skolelinux is free and open source software, and for those schools that need assistance, many commercial organizations offer maintenance and support solutions." Read the release announcement for more information.
Mandriva One 2006
The inaugural release of Mandriva One, a new live CD that aims to simplify the installation of the Mandriva Linux operating system to a hard disk directly from the live CD, has been released: "An operating system is generally available as a live CD or a set of installation CDs, but not both on the same disc. Mandriva One differs in offering an all-in-one CD based on Mandriva Linux 2006. It's a great way for all users to save space and time. This high quality Linux distribution not only includes live and install functionality but also a selection of the best free software available - and selected non-free applications and drivers are available on a special edition for Mandriva Club members." See the full release announcement and press release for additional details.
Nonux 2.3
Nonux has been updated to version 2.3. The new release brings several major updates, including new versions of the Linux kernel (2.6.15.6), GNOME (2.12.3), OpenOffice.org (2.0.2) and Firefox (1.5.0.1). Also, the distribution's hard disk installation program has seen considerable speed improvements. Please visit the Nonux news page (in Dutch) to read the complete release announcement.
Lineox Enterprise Linux 4.076 and 3.140
Following the recent updated releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 3 and 4, new versions of Lineox Enterprise Linux, a distribution rebuilt from source RPM packages for RHEL, are also available: "Always Current Lineox Enterprise Linux 3.140 with Update 7 available. In the 3.140 version the installation environment is rebuilt, so it offers better hardware support during the installation. Note however that booting from a floppy is no longer supported in x86 version. The x86_64 version has never had floppy boot support. New features introduced by this update include: improved support for NUMA architectures, addition of OpenIPMI userspace tools...." Please see the two release announcements (Lineox 4.076, Lineox 3.140).
* * * * *
Development and unannounced releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Linux Format Issue 78
 The April 2006 issue of Linux Format should now be available from your book store or news agent. As usual, the DistroWatch section on pages 34 and 35 has a mixture of articles on the latest distributions, starting with an opinion piece arguing the importance of Slackware Linux. Despite some voices in the community claiming that the advent of modern, user-friendly Linux operating systems has rendered the oldest surviving distribution obsolete, Slackware is still one of the most reliable and cleanest distributions available today. This is followed by an article describing some of the new features in Fedora Core 5, a brief review of VectorLinux 5.1 "SOHO", and a quick look at EnGarde Secure Linux 3, one of the friendliest server-oriented Linux distributions with excellent web-based administration tools. The section concludes with an interesting way of measuring the size of distributions - by ranking them according to the number of packages they ship. No prices for guessing which is the biggest of them all!
Elsewhere in the magazine, the main cover feature is dedicated to 8 pages of digital photography, including a basic set-up for beginners, photo manipulation techniques in GIMP, and printing and sharing of photographs. Although Linux Format is predominantly a Linux publication, the current issue branches out to cover another free operating system - the lightning-fast and easy-to-use Syllable. As always, don't miss the review section, which tests and rates a late beta release of SUSE Linux 10.1, Yellow Dog Linux 4.1, Gentoo Linux 2006.0, and a number of applications and games. There is also an excellent round-up of DVD players resulting in a surprise winner, while the highly informative interview section will be most appreciated by the fans of Mono, as Edd Dumbill and Niel Bornstein share their passion for the open source port of Microsoft's .NET framework.
Once again, the tutorial section is heavily focused on budding graphics designers. If you are one of them, you will have a chance to create a glass reflection in the GIMP, learn a few special text manipulation techniques in Inkscape, and get to grips with surface modelling in Realsoft 3D. Linux beginners will appreciate the 4-page story of managing email in Evolution, while those who enjoy working on the command line will find it informative to read about advanced Bash tricks using alias, less, top, grep, and find. Web masters will learn a few SQL optimisation techniques with PHP.
Whatever you do, don't miss the latest edition of the best Linux magazine on the market!
* * * * *
New distributions added to the waiting list
- Olive. Olive is an independently developed minimalist live CD featuring the Enlightenment window manager.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
That's all for today. The next issue of DistroWatch Weekly will be published on Monday, 27 March 2006. See you then :-)
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Full list of all issues |
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IPFire
IPFire is a Linux distribution that focuses on easy setup, good handling and high level of security. It is operated via an intuitive web-based interface which offers many configuration options for beginning and experienced system administrators. IPFire is maintained by developers who are concerned about security and who update the product regularly to keep it secure. IPFire ships with a custom package manager called Pakfire and the system can be expanded with various add-ons.
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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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