 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 155, 12 June 2006 |
Welcome to this year's 24th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! With the recent new Linux distribution releases being digested and evaluated, it's no surprise that news was somewhat slow last week. The developers of Debian GNU/Linux have engaged in yet another major flame war - this time over the new Java licence, while the openSUSE project continued its hard work resolving the package management problems affecting many users of SUSE Linux 10.1. In the opinion section, we take a look at the three major distribution releases of the past two months and suggest the winner. Finally, the annual DistroWatch package database update will take place this week and we would appreciate your input! Happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (5.7MB) or mp3 (7.0MB) format (courtesy of Shawn Milo).
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Miscellaneous News |
Debian split over Java license, SUSE apologises for package management troubles, Gentoo tips and tricks, Dzongkha Linux report
 Debian GNU/Linux, a Linux distribution developed by over a thousand volunteer developers in all corners the world, is well-known for the many public brawls that happen all too frequently on its mailing lists and web logs. However, the recent flame fest over the inclusion of Sun Microsystem's Java packages in Debian's 'non-free' archive has to go down as one of the most hotly debated issues in a long time. As reported on Slashdot and elsewhere, Anthony Towns, the Debian Project Leader, went as far as suggesting that the Debian Project should separate from Software in the Public Interest, its legal umbrella - after it expressed unhappiness over being left out from the decision-making process. Despite the heated debate and with the majority of Debian developers opposing the new Java license, the issue has yet to be resolved to everybody's satisfaction. Is this a good example of a working democracy in an Internet era software project or an unreasonable threat by the hot-headed Debian Project Leader?
* * * * *
 Besides releasing the live DVD edition of SUSE Linux 10.1, the openSUSE project team continued their effort to resolve issues affecting the distribution's package management software: "From today on we provide an important patch for the package management. It contains various bug fixes and performance improvements for YaST and Zen updater." Acknowledging the difficulties many SUSE users experienced over the past few weeks, the above message, written by Adrian Schröter, also contained an apology: "We regret any inconvenience you experienced so far. We consider this update a large step forward and will continue improving our product constantly." While we all like to see only perfectly stable and functional releases of any distribution, a big thumbs up to the SUSE Linux developers for their honest approach and a determined drive to solve problems affecting their products!
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 With the team behind the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter (GWN) running into production difficulties in recent weeks, here is something for those Gentoo users who miss the weekly updates: a list of tips and tricks compiled from the GWN archives. Steve Dibb explains: "I've set up a very crude archive of the previous Tips and Tricks sections from the GWN. There is a lot of good stuff in there. I remember reading a lot of them myself years back, and that’s where I learned quite a bit from what I know now. Pretty cool stuff." Arranged in an alphabetical order, the list of tips starts with a useful one-liner for generating random passwords and ends with tip describing how to limit system-wide resource use with 'ulimit' and 'sysctl'. A good resource for anybody, not just Gentoo users!
* * * * *
 As reported in last week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, Bhutan's first Linux distribution, the Debian-based Dzongkha Linux, had been unveiled during a launch ceremony in Thimphu, the kingdom's capital city. Debian's Christian Perrier attended the party: "On June 2nd (national holiday in Bhutan as anniversary of the coronation of the King), the Department of Information Technology was officially launching the Dzongkha Linux system ("Our language....our software"). The event was very widely advertised in Bhutan: it was covered in all newspapers and got a strong importance in the national television. Two ministers of the Bhutanese government were attending the event. The country's Prime Minister, originally scheduled to attend, had to cancel because of other commitments abroad." The report also mentions a "deceptive attempt" by Microsoft to include local language support in Windows, but the country's authorities eventually chose to work on Dzongkha Linux instead. A good read about a successful Free Software project that is set to enrich the lives of thousands of Bhutanese!
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| Opinion |
Still undecided? Then install Fedora Core 5!
With the recent release of Ubuntu 6.06, the second quarter release season has now come to an end. Although all big distributions are already busy finalising the feature sets for their upcoming versions -- in fact, the first development releases of SUSE, Mandriva and Fedora are expected before the end of June -- there won't be a major distribution release until after the end of the current "shoulder season", i.e. the 4th quarter of 2006. As such, it is a good time to look back at the past couple months to assess the successes and failures of the three most popular desktop Linux distributions.
Despite having been delayed by six weeks for "polish" and carrying a "Long Term Support" tag, the Ubuntu 6.06 release was a disappointment. This was probably exacerbated by the expectations the development team and Ubuntu user community had created prior to the release. Unfortunately, while the new product works perfectly well for a great number of Linux user, the many reports of serious issues hint at quality control problems and a failure to effect the promised "polish" in time for the release. The new graphical installer, which has now become the default way to install the distribution, is still immature and many users reported crashes while trying to install Ubuntu. The live CD itself is often unusable - on your DistroWatch maintainer's main system it takes over 20 minutes to complete its boot process! Further problems with printing and display on systems with ATI graphics cards have added to the perception that Ubuntu 6.06 is not on par with the project's previous three releases.
Similarly, SUSE Linux 10.1, delayed by some two months, also appears to have been released prematurely. Even some SUSE developers have now admitted that the switch to a new package management backend in the middle of the development process was short-sighted and the final product was eventually released before the new system was stabilised. As a result, many users experienced frustration while installing and upgrading packages - certainly a poor way to introduce new users to desktop Linux. The good news is that the openSUSE developers continue to resolve the problems, but the benefits of switching to a new package management system will likely become apparent only after the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 and SUSE Linux 10.2.
In the light of the above problems, don't you wish that Mandriva had returned to a bi-annual release cycle? In the past, some Mandriva releases were criticised for being too buggy on the day of the release, with a large number of bug fixes following just days later. Apparently, creating a full-featured, desktop-oriented operating system with broad hardware support and consisting of thousands of independently developed software packages is not an easy task and, as we can see now, Mandriva is certainly not the only distribution whose final releases were not always perfect.
So is there a distribution that has managed to release a solid, dependable and reasonably bug-free operating system this year? Yes - Fedora Core 5. After spending nine long months working on it, the developers of Fedora Core simplified the Anaconda installer, added a simple, but effective graphical utility for installing software updates, included a handful of Mono-based applications, and switched to the much improved and security-enhanced glibc 2.4 and GCC 4.1. While none of these are truly ground-breaking features, Fedora Core 5 has received the best reviews in the media. The availability of extra software repositories and the continuous upgrade of important software packages in the core system have been well received. Very few Fedora 5 users reported problems with the installation and, apart from having to setup multimedia support manually, it works great out of the box.
If you are still undecided about which distribution to try on your system, take a good look at Fedora Core 5. It is possibly one of the most stable and dependable Linux distributions ever built!
Fedora Core 5 - still the most professional, bug-free and solid distribution available today.
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| Released Last Week |
Parsix GNU/Linux 0.80
Parsix GNU/Linux 0.80 has been released: "After 3 months of development and testing, a brand new version of Parsix GNU/Linux i686-optimized desktop is available. Major improvements are better system performance, new documentation, updated software packages, better hardware support and Parsix's own apt repository that enables users to get further updates." The new Parsix is based on the current Debian unstable tree, with kernel 2.6.16.17 (plus many patches including CK's performance patches and extra WLAN drivers), X.Org 7.0.20, GNOME 2.14.2, OpenOffice.org 2.0.2 and new desktop theme. Read the full release announcement for more details.
Frenzy 1.0
Frenzy 1.0, a FreeBSD-based live CD with tools for system administration, network analysis and hardware testing, has been released: "New release: Frenzy 1.0 (Dreamchild). Frenzy is a system administrator's portable instrument, a live CD based on FreeBSD OS, which allows the administrator to boot from it and get a fully functional system with a wide variety of software for tuning, testing and analysing the network, testing computer hardware and much more. Frenzy is released in two different variants: Frenzy standard and Frenzy extended." Read the rest of the release notes for further information.
EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0.7
EnGarde Secure Linux has been updated to version 3.0.7: "Guardian Digital is happy to announce the release of EnGarde Secure Community 3.0.7. This release includes several bug fixes and feature enhancements to the Guardian Digital WebTool and the SELinux policy, several updated packages, and several new packages available for installation. New features: a new package (hwlister) which can be used to generate an inventory of all the hardware which comprises your system; PHP was re-built with Curl support...." Read the full release announcement for more details.
dyne:bolic 2.0
dyne:bolic 2.0, a Linux-based live CD with a collection of software for multimedia production, audio and video manipulation, sound composition and synthesis, has been released: "The dyne.org foundation proudly presents dyne:bolic version 2.0, code name "dhoruba". The new release comes out after two years of development and it's a complete rebuild and rewrite of the whole system; it brings new possibilities in customizing the running system and makes it modular and very easy to include new software, much more usable and maintainable than before." Read the complete release announcement for more details.
dyne:bolic 2.0 - a new release of a live CD designed to satisfy all your media production needs
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SUSE Linux 10.1 Live DVD
The openSUSE project has released the last of the series of SUSE Linux 10.1 products - the Live DVD: "The SUSE Linux 10.1 Live DVD is available now. The Live DVD is a 32bit Intel-based system which contains 4 GB of great Linux software compressed into a 1.7 GB ISO." Here is the brief release announcement. The Live DVD edition, which includes both GNOME and KDE desktop environments, is not installable to hard disk, but can be used to test hardware compatibility, perform system rescue tasks or evaluate SUSE Linux 10.1.
VectorLinux 5.1 Live
The final release of the live CD edition of VectorLinux 5.1 is now available for your downloading pleasure: "The VectorLinux team is proud to announce the release of the VL-5.1 standard Live CD. On this 1 little CD you get everything from VectorLinux standard edition, including 3 full-featured desktops - IceWM, Fluxbox, and XFce, a full office suite, and too many other apps to mention. We have added GParted for all of your GUI partitioning needs. We have added more options to the hard drive installer, including an option for a separate /home partition, and the ability to choose whether and where to install LILO. We have added wifi-radar for easy connections to wireless networks...." Read the full release announcement for more details.
OneBone Puppy 2.00
The Puppy Linux development team has released a new edition of Puppy Linux - OneBone Puppy. Without any graphical applications, the entire distribution takes only 26.4 MB: "This is a play-thing, requested by a few people on the forum, and definitely not for the average user. In other words, Linux command line nerds only! OneBone does not have any X GUI applications. It does have Elinks web browser, Ytree file manager and MP text editor. The Lucent and SmartLink modem drivers are included. There are lots of text-mode applications out there and a very interesting flavour of Puppy could be created, based on this starting point." Read the rest of the release announcement on the project's news page.
Voltalinux 1.0
Voltalinux, a distribution combining Slackware Linux with the 'pkgsrc' package management software from NetBSD, has reached the 1.0 milestone: "Voltalinux 1.0 is out! New feature: the installation is based on 3 sets: base, devel, net. Many server oriented packages ready to be deployed. Based on Slackware Current (almost Slackware 11) and pkgsrc 2006Q1. Remember to install rc-subr, to edit /etc/rc.conf and install the packages you like (Postfix, Dovecot, Pure FTP, MySQL, etc)." Here is the brief release announcement.
StartCom MultiMedia Edition 5.0.5
After two development builds, version 5.0.5 of StartCom MultiMedia Edition has been released: "StartCom has released its new Multimedia Edition, ML-5.0.5, code named 'Kessem'. It's probably one of the largest and most complete Linux distributions ever released to the public. Release ML-5.0.5, offers many 'out-of-the-box' capabilities, never bundled with an operating system before. Designed as a multimedia workstation with music studio and advanced video editing applications, it also provides the desktop user with the most applications for day to day use." Please refer to the press release for further information.
* * * * *
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 |
The annual package database update
As has become tradition on DistroWatch.com, the arrival of the month of June means an update to the list of software packages that are tracked on this site and displayed in tables on each distribution-specific page. This is done to ensure that we don't waste time monitoring packages that were perhaps useful several years ago, but which few users run today. At the same time, the open source development community continues to come up with great software ideas and we often get requests to include a particular package in the table.
As always, readers of DistroWatch are welcome and encouraged to suggest packages for inclusion in the tables. Before you do, however, please bear in mind that not all requested packages will be approved. This is because tracking packages in 300+ active distributions is a tedious and time-consuming task, especially since there is only so much that can be automated and much of the work needed to update the package tables after each new distribution release is still done manually. If this surprises you then bear in mind that many distributions (especially Debian and Debian-based ones) routinely rename packages and version numbers after they recompile them into binary ones. Even if we tried to automate the extraction of package versions from each distribution's repository, manual checking of version numbers is almost always necessary to ensure the accuracy of the tables.
Based on readers' requests during the past 12 months, the following packages have been approved as new additions to the package database:
There is space for a few more, so please let us know which packages you wish were tracked in the distribution tables. You can do it in two ways - either request a package in the forum below or email us directly. Don't forget to include a few words of justification why you think your preferred package should be included in the tables.
Several packages are scheduled to be removed from the tables; these include bin86, bochs, ipvsadm, licq, webalizer and xcdroast. If you have any objections, please voice them now.
As always, many thanks to all readers who have provided suggestions and helped to ensure that information on DistroWatch is as accurate as humanly possible!
* * * * *
Linux Format Issue 81, July 2006
 The July 2006 issue of Linux Format should now be available from your news agent or book store. As usual, the magazine is packed with news, reviews, interviews and tutorials about Linux and other free operating systems - don't miss it!
You can find the DistroWatch section on pages 30 and 31. The main feature, entitled "Turbo charged", discusses Turbolinux's successful business model of bundling a large number of proprietary software packages with the open source core and selling it to enterprise customers with long-term support contracts. Although this would certainly arouse objections among the Free Software purists, the fact that Turbolinux has been turning profit over the last few years is a proof that the concept is a workable solution for a company that bases its business model on freely available software. Also on the DistroWatch pages: a summary about the status of Ubuntu's Edgy Eft, a brief look at DesktopBSD 1.0, and a semi-annual list of main packages in several main distributions after the 2nd quarter release rush.
There are plenty of other interesting articles in the magazine. Here is a brief list of some of the more interesting among them:
- Reviews: Ubuntu 6.06, GnuCash 2.0, Oracle 10g Express Edition
- Roundup: self-hosted blogging engines (B2evolution, Blosxom, Movable Type, Nucleus, Pivot and WordPress)
- What on earth is: Elektra (a hierarchical database of configuration settings)
- Interview: Greg-Kroah Hartman, a Linux kernel developer
- Featured articles: Linux in education and Creative Commons licences
- Tutorials: Firefox, Inkscape, WordPress, OpenOffice.org Calc, PHP, DansGuardian, OpenXchange
- Cover DVD: PCLinuxOS 0.92 and CentOS 4.3
As always, the latest issue of Linux Format is packed with interesting reading material for both novice and advanced Linux users. Get it while it's hot!
* * * * *
New distributions added to the waiting list
- DeniX. DeniX is an independent Linux based distribution built from scratch. Its goal is to offer a user-friendly, full-featured server operating system - pre-configured, well structured, easy-to-work with, and filled with the latest stable versions of Linux applications. Every package is downloaded from the author's web site and compiled from source when installed.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
That's all for today. The next issue of DistroWatch Weekly will be published on Monday, 19 June 2006. See you then :-)
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • 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 |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
Nitrux
Nitrux is a desktop Linux distribution built from Debian, but with an immutable base system, the OpenRC init system, and without any traditional Debian package management tools. It uses the Calamares system installer and includes the Hyprland window manager, Hypr utilities, the greetd+QtGreet login manager, and the Waybar Wayland bar. Nitrux emphasizes the use of AppBox to manage end-user software and it also supports AppImage and Flatpak package formats.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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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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