 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 158, 3 July 2006 |
Welcome to this year's 27th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Last week was a slow one - among the major distributions, only Novell provided some excitement with the first public development release of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10. Several smaller distributions also continued their work - the SME Server project has finally released its long-awaited version 7.0, while a new and excellent live CD edition of Zenwalk Linux also made its first appearance last week. In other news, Smart for SUSE Linux and DesktopBSD's new package management tool are the focus of the news section, while the first look part of DistroWatch Weekly brings a short review of Frenzy 1.0, an excellent live CD based on FreeBSD. Finally, we are pleased to announce that the June 2006 DistroWatch donation of US$500.00 has been awarded to Gentoo Foundation. Happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG format (4.5MB)
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in MP3 format (4.7MB)
(The Podcast edition is provided by Shawn Milo.)
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Miscellaneous News |
Novell's new distributions for enterprise, Smart for SUSE, DesktopBSD, ZenLive Linux
 In terms of new distribution releases, last week has to go down as one of the slowest ever on DistroWatch, with only a handful of interesting news items worth reporting. One of them was a public development release of Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise 10. Both Desktop and Server editions of the product were made available for public download and the first reports indicate that this is indeed a substantially improved edition of the recently released SUSE Linux 10.1 -- complete with some enterprise features (Novell ZENworks Linux Management, Novell Customer Center) and Novell-specific enhancements (new graphical user interface, integrated search capabilities, intuitive menu design). With the networking giant struggling to return to profitability, let's hope that the new product family will turn into a winner so that Novell can continue supporting openSUSE, Xgl with Compiz, Evolution and other Free Software projects under its umbrella for years to come!
* * * * *
 Speaking about SUSE Linux 10.1, the package management troubles that continue to plague some users of the distribution have created a market for alternative software management options for the users of this popular distribution. For years, it was the port of Debian's apt-get for RPM-based distributions that some preferred over SUSE's native YOU. More recently, it is the increasingly popular Smart package manager that is now available for SUSE Linux. Setting it up is easy: "Smart has only one requirement - that's 'rpm-python'." Besides the standard command line options (e.g. smart install package_name), the Smart project also offers a graphical utility similar to Synaptic. If you continue experiencing difficulties while installing applications on SUSE Linux 10.1, give Smart a try - you might be pleasantly surprised!
* * * * *
 The DesktopBSD project, which develops a desktop FreeBSD operating system with intuitive graphical configuration tools, has announced a series of enhancements to its package manager. The planned improvements are the result of feedback received from users, many of whom wanted a simpler interface with some of the more advanced options hidden from the default view. A new feature, designed for those who prefer to compile their applications from the FreeBSD port system with a graphical menu to configure build options, will be added. The developers also promise to refine the right-click context menu. The new package manager will make its first appearance in the upcoming DesktopBSD 1.6, the development of which is expected to complete within the next few months. Please visit the announcement for more details and a link to screenshots.
* * * * *
 The fans of Zenwalk Linux -- and there seem to be quite a few among the DistroWatch readers -- will be excited to learn that a new live CD edition of the Slackware-based distribution is now available. Michael Verret explains: "An idea has quickly become a reality as the ZenLive Linux live CD project is happy to announce its first major release - ZenLive 2.6! This first release is based on a combination of the current tree of the revolutionary and blazingly fast Zenwalk Linux OS, together with Tomas Matejicek's famous Linux-Live scripts to create the ultimate Linux live CD. Features of this release include hardware recognition using Zenwalk's configuration tools, international translations, the latest XFce window manager, multimedia applications, video games, office software, and networking and development tools - all in a single CD. Future release plans will follow Zenwalk's release cycle." Find more information and download links on the project's home page.
ZenLive Linux - a new live CD based on Zenwalk Linux
(full image size: 140kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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| First Looks |
Frenzy 1.0 "Extended" Edition (by Andrei Raevsky)
After recently reviewing various BSD based live-CDs for DistroWatch, I decided to take a closer look at new version of the distro which I had singled out for its quality: Frenzy. I have to admit that I had great expectations. I was not disappointed.
Sergei Mozhaiskii, the 26 year old PhD student (and system administrator for a local ISP) from the city of Melitopol in the Ukraine and the 'father' of Frenzy just released several new editions of his distro, including the basic Frenzy 1.0, Frenzy 1.0 'extended', and Frenzy 1.0 'lite' - a CLI rescue credit card-sized 50MB mini-CD. I chose the 'extended' edition for this review.
Frenzy 1.0 is clearly oriented towards the experienced power user or system administrator. It comes packed with 500 applications squeezed into only 200MB, while the 'extended' edition totals 600 applications for a size of 250MB. The new version of Frenzy is based on FreeBSD 6.1-STABLE and comes with various interpreters and compilers, file managers, archiving applications, editors, web browsers, mail and news clients, network and traffic monitoring utilities, database clients, a Samba server and client, plenty of security applications, hardware information and troubleshooting utilities, CD burning tools, mp3 and ogg players and numerous other applications. The 'extended' edition adds some additional tools and the MPlayer multimedia player. As far as I can tell, the man/info pages for all these applications are present. Furthermore, the CD includes basic documentation about Frenzy and the official FreeBSD Handbook and FAQ (both in HTML).
Frenzy 1.0 - a FreeBSD-based live CD with Fluxbox
(full image size: 114kB, resolution: 800x600 pixels)
Consistent with this 'for sysadmin only' approach, no games or word processors are included (Catdoc and AntiWord are available for emergencies).
Mozhaiskii began working with BSD in 2000 while still a student. Soon he began thinking about creating a live CD based on FreeBSD which he could carry on a small 200MB mini-CD; he had, however, no idea as to how to proceed. In 2003, he came across and article by Manuel Kasper - MiniBSD - reducing FreeBSD, in which the author described how he squeezed FreeBSD into 20MB. Mozhaiskii tried this and succeeded. Soon thereafter, Frenzy 0.1 was born.
Initially, Mozhaiskii planned to keep Frenzy for himself, convinced that nobody would be interested in his product. Soon, however, he realized that a great number of people were highly interested in his work and he made an ISO image of Frenzy 0.2 (an improved version with some requested modifications) available. Almost at the same time, by a happy coincidence, a FreeBSD developer wrote a module called geom_ugz (now called geom_uzip) which made the creation of a compressed file system, similar to Knoppix's cloop, possible for FreeBSD. Thanks to this module, Mozhaiskii soon released Frenzy 0.3 with 600MB worth of applications compressed into a 200MB CD. This version was the first one to be fully bilingual - Russian and English.
Having completed this work, Mozhaiskii took some time off work (to marry and have a son, Konstantine). With the help of his employer, he later managed to return to Frenzy in April and by May 1st, the first beta version of Frenzy 1.0 was out. After two more release candidates, the final Frenzy 1.0 came out on June 5th. This new version is a massive improvement over the previous one.
Frenzy can now be installed on a hard drive or a USB flash disk. Another innovation is that Frenzy can now be uncompressed to the RAM memory with a 'toram' cheat code, thereby freeing the disk drive and improving speed and battery use (on a laptop). However, due to a bug in the FreeBSD kernel, this option only works well with very large RAM sizes. There is also an option of copying the Frenzy subdirectory from the CD into the root directory of any hard disk and then run it from there with the 'fromhdd' cheat code (the CD is then automatically ejected). I tested this option on an ext2 file system mounted read-only and it worked perfectly.
Like the very best GNU/Linux live CDs, Frenzy now has the option of saving all its configuration and any number of subdirectories, including a permanent /home directory, on a floppy disk, USB device or hard disk. These files, and the complete system configuration, are automatically restored on boot-up.
Frenzy 1.0 now features a brand new configuration center (frconf) from which the console, swapping, network parameters and various servers can be configured.
At boot-up (non-graphical), Frenzy first offers a number of basic options (default, ACPI, safe mode, single user, verbose) and an option to either escape to a prompt or reboot. The next menu offers the choice of Russian, Ukrainian or English, and a number of cheat codes. Unless the 'gui' cheatcode is entered at that time Frenzy's boot up will end up with a command line prompt and no graphical desktop will be automatically loaded. I think that this is an excellent choice as many, if not most, of Frenzy's applications are designed to run in CLI. You can even play music from the CLI with mpg123 and aumix.
When needed, the command 'startx' will load Fluxbox (another excellent choice) with fully populated menus and the torsmo system monitoring running application.
One word of caution here: Frenzy users will always login as 'root' and no passwords or other users are created. The distro clearly assumes that you know what you are doing.
The shell used by Frenzy is tcsh - not my favorite choice. I would have much preferred a bash shell, but this is probably a matter of habit as I had no difficulties whatsoever using tcsh.
Frenzy has a number of hotkeys to launch frequently used applications, among them the Opera web browser. According to Mozhaiskii, Opera is 52% smaller than Firefox, loads twice as fast and uses 45% less memory. Maybe so, but Opera is at least twice as ugly, does not have all the powerful extensions of Firefox and, worst of all, is proprietary and sends a very wrong message to potential Frenzy users (I should note here that the rest of Frenzy is all composed of free software and Frenzy-specific scripts are licensed under the BSD license). The choice of Opera is, in my opinion, the single worst mistake made in Frenzy 1.0, in particular considering that the excellent, light and superfast Dillo web browser is also available. In this regard, I find the choice made by the creator of the fantastic 50MB Damn Small Linux distribution, John Andrews, much wiser: he included both Firefox and a patched Dillo version. Frenzy also features the CLI Lynx browser - a very good choice.
One very useful tool is the frmount utility which automatically mounts all the partitions found and makes the correct changes in /etc/fstab. During the boot process all partitions are automatically mounted in read-only mode (if needed, the 'nohdmnt' cheatcode prevents any hard disk partition from being mounted at boot-up). This is, in my opinion, another excellent choice combining clarity and safety. To write on a partition the command 'remount' must be used, either from the command line, or from the corresponding Fluxbox menu.
Frenzy can read from and write to the following file systems: USF1, USF2, ext2, FAT and NTFS (only editing, renaming, moving and removal of files). Frenzy 1.0 can also read ReiserFS but cannot write to it. This is a little too basic compared to GNU/Linux distros, but the inclusion of ReiserFS, despite its read-only mode, is a definite sign of progress. I hope that ext3, read/write ReiserFS and full NTFS (native?) will soon become possible.
Frenzy 1.0 is definitely a stunning success. I consider myself rather hard to please, used as I am to such GNU/Linux heavyweights as KANOTIX, Damn Small Linux and, of course, Debian, but Frenzy truly impressed me. It is extremely well designed and slick to use, and it offers an array of system administration tools at least as good as those found on STD (Security Tools Distribution). The only feature of Frenzy which still puzzles me is one of its most fundamental ones: its size.
Frenzy 1.0 - a FreeBSD-based live CD with Fluxbox
(full image size: 160kB, resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
I see the point of a 50MB credit card-size distro like Damn Small Linux or Frenzy 'lite'. And I see the point of a full-size 700MB general distro such as KANOTIX or a specialized one such as STD. But what is the point of a 200MB distro? A 200MB CD does, of course, fit into a pocket, but not in a wallet with credit cards. Since Mozhaiskii also created a 50MB Frenzy 'lite' edition and a 250MB 'extended' edition, I suppose that he sees this also.
To be truly honest, Frenzy is simply too good a distro to remain in the specialized 'sysadmin-only' category and I very much hope that Mozhaiskii will consider a full-size 700MB desktop version with all the current applications of Frenzy 1.0 'extended', but with all the other applications found on 'general' live CDs, including a complete office suite in two languages at least. Going for the 700MB size will also put an end to the entire 'Opera versus Firefox' issue.
Of course, going for 700MB will dramatically increase the workload for Mozhaiskii, but it will also bring him a far larger user and contributor base. Frenzy clearly has the potential of becoming 'FreeBSD's KNOPPIX': a fantastic advocacy tool which, no doubt, the entire FreeBSD community will recognize as such.
Anyone willing to encourage further development can either go to this page and contribute some money, or contact Sergei Mozhaiskii at technix at frenzy.org.ua and contribute his/her skills.
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| Released Last Week |
B2D Linux 20060630
A new version of B2Dr Linux, a Taiwanese Debian-based live and installation CD with support for traditional Chinese, has been released. The most important changes in this release are kernel upgrade to version 2.6.16.19, udev support, switch to X.Org (version 6.9.0), upgrade to KDE 3.5.3 and GNOME 2.14.1, and NTFS write support with libntfs + fuse (replaces captive-ntfs). One important known issue: the Unionfs file system is not functional in this release. If you understand Chinese, you can find more information and screenshots in the release announcement.
SME Server 7.0
SME Server 7.0 is finally out: "Version 7.0 of SME Server has been released. The new release represents the culmination of months of hard work by numerous developers and beta testers and is sure to impress those that select it as their server distribution. Some of these features include: the industry leading web server capable of hosting multiple domains; a full featured email server with virus and spam filtering, webmail and secure access; industry standard firewall for intrusion protection; a proxy server with content filtering capability and internet sharing...." Read the release announcement and overview of features for further details.
FreeNAS 0.67
A new version of FreeNAS, a FreeBSD-based operating system providing free Network-Attached Storage services, has been released. From the changelog: "Multilingual WebGUI ready; upgrade to FreeBSD 6.1-STABLE; add software RAID: geom mirror; replace vsftpd 2.0.4 by pure-ftpd 1.0.21 (support UTF-8); update rsync to 2.6.8, Smartmon tools to 5.36, e2fsprogs to 1.39, iSCSI initiator to 0.17; replace Howl (maintenance stopped) by Apple Bonjour; SSH: added sftp subsystem; CIFS: added DOS charset 852, added UNIX charset, option for hiding some shares; FTP: added FTP banner option; added CLI tools: fetch (FTP/HTTP download client); support large FAT32 partition."
ZenLive Linux 2.6
The fans of Zenwalk Linux will be excited to learn that a new live CD edition of the Slackware-based distribution has been released: "An idea has quickly become a reality as the ZenLive Linux live CD project is happy to announce its first major release - ZenLive 2.6! This first release is based on a combination of Zenwalk Linux and Linux-Live scripts to create the ultimate Linux live CD. The features of this release include hardware recognition using Zenwalk's configuration tools, international translations, the latest XFce window manager, multimedia applications, video games, office software, and networking and development tools - all in a single CD." More information and download links can be found on the project's home page.
* * * * *
Development and unannounced releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Ubuntu 6.10
The Ubuntu project has announced a preliminary release schedule for the upcoming Ubuntu 6.10, code name "Edgy Eft": "Wondering when Edgy Eft will be released? No need to keep scratching your head. As expected, Edgy Eft will be released to the world in October of 2006, making it Ubuntu 6.10. The Edgy Eft development cycle is going to be a fast one with only around four months until its release." The first alpha release, called "Knot CD", is scheduled for release on 13 July, the beta for 28 September, the release candidate for 19 October and the final release for 26 October. Check out the full details on the Edgy Release Schedule page.
Mandriva Linux 2007
Mandriva has published a press release announcing an "evolutionary" new Mandriva Linux 2007 to be released later this year: "Mandriva is putting the final touches on its brand new distro: Mandriva Linux 2007. To this end, besides the qualities that ensured the success of Mandriva Linux 2006, it includes brand new innovations in the fields of office suite applications, Internet, multimedia and the new virtualization and 3D-accelerated desktop technologies." The "final touches" part seems particularly surprising given that Mandriva has yet to release any development build of Mandriva Linux 2007 (other than an early alpha of the live CD edition). Nevertheless, the press release contains a general list of features set to be included in the new product and information about the planned editions.
* * * * *
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
June 2006 donation: Gentoo Foundation US$500.00
 We are pleased to announce that the DistroWatch June 2006 donation has been awarded to Gentoo Foundation (US$500.00). As became obvious from the readers' comments following the publication of last week's DistroWatch Weekly, Gentoo Linux is a project enjoyed by many devoted followers, developers and users. Additionally, Gentoo has also emerged as one of the leading distributions on which other Linux distributions and live CDs are based on these days, including the increasingly popular Sabayon Linux (formerly RR4/RR64 Linux), Kororaa, VLOS, SystemRescueCd, Ututo GNU/Linux, and many others. Since all users of these distributions benefit from the excellent work done by the Gentoo developers, it's only natural to promote and encourage the development of the world's most popular source distribution in this way.
Further good news is that OSDisc.com has joined our donations programme by making a monthly contribution of US$50.00. OSDisc.com is one of the largest vendors of open source software products with an excellent selection and good prices - they even offer free worldwide shipping on orders valued at more than US$20.00. If you need Linux or BSD CDs and DVDs, but are stuck on a slow Internet connection, head over to OSDisc.com to order a stack of media to keep you entertained.
The monthly donations programme is a joint initiative between DistroWatch, which allocates 10% of its advertising revenue, and three online shops selling low-cost CDs and DVDs with Linux, BSD and other open source software - LinuxISO.co.uk and LinuxCD.org and OSDisc.com. The three CD/DVD vendors contributed US$50.00 each towards this month's donation to Gentoo Linux.
This is the PayPal receipt for the donation to Gentoo Foundation:
Dear DistroWatch.com,
This email confirms that you have paid Gentoo Linux Foundation $500.00 USD using PayPal.
------------------------------
Payment Details:
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Transaction ID: 5EE3225242424364N
Item Price: $500.00 USD
Item/Product Name: Gentoo Linux Support
Item/Product Number: 1000
Buyer: DistroWatch.com
Message: A donation by DistroWatch.com. Keep up the good work!
Here is the list of projects that received a DistroWatch donation since the launch of the programme:
Since the launch of the DistroWatch Donations Programme in March 2004, we have donated a total of US$8,800 to various open source software projects.
* * * * *
The great MINIX debate
Last week's discussion prompt about whether to include MINIX in DistroWatch has resulted in a largest number of posts ever recorded in the weekly discussion forum. With hindsight, it was a wrong question - it was akin to asking a group of tourists walking across the Sahara desert whether they want a cold beer. The result was an overwhelming "yes", with only a handful of voices arguing against the inclusion of the microkernel project. Unfortunately, one negative side effect of a potential addition of MINIX is that including one non-mainstream operating system in DistroWatch will likely increase the pressure on your DistroWatch maintainer to add others. With time and resources as limiting factors, it is time to draw the line somewhere.
After going through the readers' suggestions, I liked the idea of listing on DistroWatch only those open source operating systems that have established themselves as viable alternatives in production environments and which can run a variety of open source software applications available on the Internet (that is, without having to modify their source codes first). This would ensure that only those projects, likely to be useful to a reasonably large number of end users, are listed on DistroWatch. This would also exclude MINIX, which appears to be an interesting operating system for certain uses in the embedded world or as an education tool, but not a very practical system for the majority of DistroWatch readers.
If you feel disappointed by the above reasoning, please remember that there are web sites that specialise in reporting about the great variety of operating systems, both large and small and inclusive of various hobby projects, such as OSNews.com or OSViews.com. DistroWatch also maintains a list of alternative operating systems on its Related Links page.
* * * * *
DistroWatch Weekly archives
As requested by several readers, a complete list of all past DistroWatch Weekly issues is now available here.
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- Everest Linux. Everest Linux is a new Chinese distribution based on Fedora Core. The project doesn't seem to have its own web site, but the release notes for version 0.1 can be found in the above link (in Chinese), while download links are available here. There are two CDs - an installation CD and a "tools" CD.
- LazyDragon GNU/Linux. LazyDragon GNU/Linux is a Slackware-based live DVD aimed at video & audio editing and production.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
That's all for today. The next issue of DistroWatch Weekly will be published on Monday, 10 July 2006. See you then :-)
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Issue 1032 (2023-08-14): MX Linux 23, positioning new windows on the desktop, Linux Containers adopts LXD fork, Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ form OpenELA |
| • Issue 1031 (2023-08-07): Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, preventing a file from being changed, Asahi Linux partners with Fedora, Linux Mint plans new releases |
| • Issue 1030 (2023-07-31): Solus 4.4, Linux Mint 21.2, Debian introduces RISC-V support, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 |
| • Issue 1029 (2023-07-24): Running Murena on the Fairphone 4, Flatpak vs Snap sandboxing technologies, Redox OS plans to borrow Linux drivers to expand hardware support, Debian updates Bookworm media |
| • Issue 1028 (2023-07-17): KDE Connect; Oracle, SUSE, and AlmaLinux repsond to Red Hat's source code policy change, KaOS issues media fix, Slackware turns 30; security and immutable distributions |
| • Issue 1027 (2023-07-10): Crystal Linux 2023-03-16, StartOS (embassyOS 0.3.4.2), changing options on a mounted filesystem, Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Fedora debates telemetry for desktop team |
| • Issue 1026 (2023-07-03): Kumander Linux 1.0, Red Hat changing its approach to sharing source code, TrueNAS offers SMB Multichannel, Zorin OS introduces upgrade utility |
| • Issue 1025 (2023-06-26): KaOS with Plasma 6, information which can leak from desktop environments, Red Hat closes door on sharing RHEL source code, SUSE introduces new security features |
| • Issue 1024 (2023-06-19): Debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Debian releases GNU/Hurd 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 nears its end of life, FreeBSD turns 30 |
| • Issue 1023 (2023-06-12): openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the differences between independent distributions, openSUSE lengthens Leap life, Murena offers new phone for North America |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Issue 993 (2022-11-07): Static Linux, working with just a kernel, Mint streamlines Flatpak management, updates coming to elementary OS |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
Red Flag Linux
Red Flag Software Co., Ltd. (Red Flag Software) was founded by Software Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and NewMargin Venture Capital. The company was focused on the development and marketing of Linux-based operating systems and application software on multiple platforms for the constantly growing base of Chinese technology users.
Status: Discontinued
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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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