 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 159, 10 July 2006 |
Welcome to this year's 28th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! As the Debian Weekly News celebrates its five years of existence, some of our readers will be pleased to learn about a renewed effort to port the world's largest Linux distribution to the MINIX kernel. On the not so positive side, the Debian/Ubuntu world was rocked by a Debian developer's revelation that there is still much tension between the two projects. Good reviews continue to follow the recent development release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, while a new FreeBSD-based live CD project should cause some welcome excitement among the BSD geeks. In the First Looks section, we'll evaluate a commercial Linux distribution from Japan - Turbolinux 11 "Fuji" International edition. Happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG format (5.6MB)
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in MP3 format (6.7MB)
(The Podcast edition is provided by Shawn Milo.)
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Miscellaneous News |
Five years of DWN, Debian GNU/MINIX, Fedora and DejaVu, TrueBSD
 As noted in last week's Debian Weekly News, the weekly newsletter of the Debian GNU/Linux developer and user community has completed five years of existence: "The DWN is a weekly online edition which informs about what is going on in the Debian community and was first published in 1999 by Joey Hess." The first issue, which was published in January 1999, has some interesting information about the start of the 2.2 kernel development series, a story about Richard Stallman's experience in installing Debian (together with a predictable complaint about the easy availability of non-free applications in the distribution), and news about the upcoming release of Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 "slink", which eventually shipped in March of that year. A nice read for the nostalgic amongst us.
* * * * *
 As widely reported on many Linux news sites, tension between Debian and Ubuntu developers continues to brew underneath the blanket of seemingly peaceful coexistence between the two projects. Explains Martin Krafft, a Debian developer and the author of the excellent The Debian System - Concept and Techniques: "In discussions with Mark Shuttleworth and other Ubuntu developers during Debconf6, I was able to spell out the main criticisms of the way Canonical/Ubuntu is handling things from the Debian perspective." The author provides details and also solutions for the main points of friction between the two projects, namely some technical issues, such as the way Ubuntu presents patches which are often incompatible with the way Debian works, and philosophical issues, e.g. jealousy between the two development groups. Worth a read if you are interested in the current state of affairs in the two distributions.
* * * * *
Some interesting news for those of you who took part in our recent discussion about MINIX in DistroWatch Weekly. According to this mailing list post, Debian's Jaldhar H. Vyas has done some initial work on porting Debian applications and utilities to the MINIX kernel: "I've done a lot of compiling of packages over the past few months, but avoided the hard parts of a full port; also my build machine has become severely limited in disk space. Next week I'm getting a replacement and at that time I'll tidy things up and hopefully start making faster progress." Called "Preventa", the author has set up an initial project page to track the port's progress. There is nothing to download yet, but at least there is intent, which will no doubt please the many MINIX fans among DistroWatch readers ;-).
* * * * *
 The Fedora project has issued a call for testing of the DejaVu font family, which is scheduled to become the default font in the new Fedora Core 6: "DejaVu is the most popular FLOSS derivative of the Bitstream Vera font family. DejaVu is currently consolidating the Vera forks initiated after it become clear Vera would not be updated or fixed any time soon (the last Vera release was done April 16, 2003). The main DejaVu aims are quality (fix all the problems of existing Vera glyphs) and coverage (extend Vera beyond its current Latin-9 limits: Cyrillic, Greek, Armenian, Arabic, etc)." DejaVu is already used as the default font in a number of major distributions. While it is certainly a beautiful font for displaying text written in the Latin alphabet, some Fedora developers are concerned that it is not yet ready to become the standard font for users of several Asian writing systems, notably Arabic, Chinese and Persian.
* * * * *
 Mad Penguin continues its series of comprehensive reviews with a thorough evaluation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10: "The attention to detail is evident at every turn, right down to using the right icons for mounted devices. For instance, if you were to plug a white iPod into the system, and then plug in a black one, you will see two icons: One depicting a white iPod. One depicting a black iPod. See what I mean? ... SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 is a very capable, industrial strength desktop which is ready to take on basic desktop chores in the corporate environment, and for the price you simply cannot go wrong. Two thumbs up to Novell for redefining the way I look at the desktop operating system." This is another highly positive review of the latest desktop Linux product from Novell, which is turning out to be a real winner!
* * * * *
 Our recent roundup of the BSD live CDs has attracted much feedback. One of the more interesting emails we received on the subject was from Edson Brandi, FreeBSD User Group in Brazil, who pointed out a factual error in our article: "I'm the founder of FreeBSD User Group Brazil (FUG-BR). Reading your article i see that you made a little mistake - in your text about FreeSBIE you say 'FreeSBIE 1.2 - the original live CD based on FreeBSD'. This is incorrect. FUG-BR was the first group in the world to release a FreeBSD live CD; our project was born in 2001 as a rescue disk, and in 2002 we also released a set of shell scripts to make it possible for anyone to create a FreeBSD live CD. In contrast, FreeSBIE was only launched in November 2002 and was created with the help of the FUG-BR scripts." Although FUG-BR no longer develops its FreeBSD live CD, its early work was responsible for helping to launch FreeSBIE and possibly other BSD live CDs available today.
* * * * *
And while on the topic of BSD live CDs, here is some information about a new project called TrueBSD. Launched by a group of Russian developers (correction: the developers of TrueBSD seem to come from Belarus), the project's first official release, version 0.1-RC1, is based on FreeBSD 6.1 and uses XFce and Ion window managers. Besides several popular desktop applications, such as AbiWord (version 2.2.8), Firefox (1.5.0.1), Gaim (1.5.0), MPlayer (0.99.7) and Sylpheed (2.2.6), the live CD also comes with a handful of server software, including Apache (1.3.33), PHP (4.4.0) and MySQL (4.1.18). The project's web site is currently in Russian only and so is the default desktop and some of the included configuration utilities; nevertheless, those of you who can find your ways around a UNIX system will no doubt appreciate this new toy. The project's download server has severe limits on the number of simultaneous connections, but hopefully the TrueBSD developers will set up new mirror sites soon.
TrueBSD - a new live CD based on FreeBSD
(full image size: 113kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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| First Looks |
Turbolinux 11 International Edition
Although Turbolinux 11 "Fuji" was originally released in Japan in November last year, it wasn't until the end of May 2006 that the Japanese distribution maker announced availability of the "International" edition. The product, which sells for US$39.00 and which can be ordered from a US-based online store, is one of the few commercial distributions available today. But is it worth the asking price? And more importantly, with the large number of Linux distributions available on the Internet free of charge, is there anything in Turbolinux that makes it a product worth recommending?
The International edition of Turbolinux 11 arrived wrapped in a CD-size plastic container with three CDs and a single A4 sheet containing "Release Notes". The distribution is built on top of a slightly older kernel 2.6.13, and includes glibc 2.3.5, X.Org 6.8.2, GCC 3.4.3, KDE 3.4.2 and OpenOffice.org 2.0.2. Besides free software, the product also comes with a number of non-free applications, such as Acrobat Reader, RealPlayer and Flash Player. I installed Turbolinux 11 on a 5-year old system with Intel Pentium 4 1.4 GHz, an ASUS P4T mainboard, a Matrox Millennium G450 graphics card, 384MB or RDRAM, a Realtek 8139too network card, an on-board Intel sound card, and a 17-inch generic LCD monitor.
The installer is the venerable Mongoose, originally based on Red Hat's Anaconda, but bearing little resemblance to its more famous parent after several years of independent development. The installation starts with language configuration (English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese are supported), then continues through the usual steps of selecting partitions, creating users, setting the root password and configuring hardware. Most of the hardware configuration is done automatically. The Turbolinux installer is excellent and does the job of getting the operating system to the hard disk with minimum of fuss, but without taking away choice.
"Fuji" offers an intuitive desktop with many of its elements and terminology borrowed from Windows XP
(full image size: 362kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
After the installation and the initial reboot I found myself looking at a standard KDE desktop with a Turbolinux wallpaper and slightly altered taskbar and menus. Especially the K menu had been simplified and some items renamed to resemble those found in Windows XP, while some of the folders (e.g. My Computer, My Documents) had also been re-branded to make Windows converts more at home. The system tray contained a networking applet and a "Turboalert" icon indicating the availability of security and bug fix updates.
For Turboalert to work, however, it was first necessary to "obtain a license". And this is where I started noticing some similarities between Turbolinux 11 and another commercial distribution released recently - Xandros Desktop 4. In both cases the product would work, but access to software updates required the extra registration step. Turbolinux's registration was more straightforward than the one thought out by Xandros, as it only required inputting the serial number found on the rub of the CD pack.
Once registered, I was able to start Turboplus - the distribution's software management program similar to Xandros Networks. Turboplus provides an intuitive way for installing and uninstalling software and plugins, as well as software updates, but unlike Xandros Networks, it does not give access to extra applications; in other words, what you get on the three CDs is all that's available; beyond that you are on your own. And although Turboplus worked as advertised, it doesn't quite compare to Xandros Networks in terms of information it provides, access to software and advanced features.
Turboplus - a utility to manage software and receive updates on Turbolinux 11
(full image size: 69kB, resolution: 832x726 pixels)
Turboplus is the only "in-house" program supplied in this edition of Turbolinux. Unlike Xandros Desktop 4, which includes a number of proprietary applications and enhancements, Turbolinux 11 is almost exclusively free and freely available software; in fact even the "Turbo Media Player" is just a re-branded edition of Kaffeine 0.7.1. And while the distribution offers support for MP3 playback and gtkpod iPod communication utility, playback of encoded DVDs is not available out of the box.
After spending a weekend investigating the latest release from Turbolinux, I couldn't help noticing a few bugs which indicated that, unlike the distribution's earlier releases, the product did not go through a very rigorous testing procedure. As an example, I installed Turbolinux three times to three different partitions, but the installer failed to configure the bootloader on all three occasions. Also, the DVD drive in /dev/hdb was incorrectly set up, so inserting any CD or DVD into the drive would fail to mount automatically (the CD-RW drive in /dev/hdd was configured correctly though). And an application crash resulted in a core dump right in my home directory - a rather unsightly stain on a distribution that was designed for non-technical users.
Despite the admittedly short time I spent putting Turbolinux 11 through its paces, I couldn't help asking myself the purpose of this commercial Linux distribution. Yes, it looks nice and is stable enough to become an operating system of choice for some users, while it is certainly very intuitive to entice new Windows-to-Linux converts. But so are other Linux distributions, many of which are free to download and use. Besides, if somebody prefers a commercial distribution with technical support, Xandros Desktop 4 seems to offer a lot more bang for the money.
There is one particular speciality of this product that some users might find useful - its support for Japanese and Chinese input. While most mainstream distributions offer the functionality, there is a difference between integrating it into the system and simply providing the tools, as those of you who have tried using the complex Asian languages on some of the main distribution can attest. Turbolinux has been a leader in support for Japanese and Chinese input on Linux and although it uses free tools to achieve this, the company's know-how and experience are still head and shoulders above most other distributions, whether free or commercial.
The "langsel" tool offers on-the-fly switch between four languages, but notice the missing Chinese character on the highlighted line.
(full image size: 69kB, resolution: 732x636 pixels)
In conclusion, the US$40 Turbolinux 11 Fuji "International" edition is a fairly decent product, especially for new Linux users and those who need good support for Chinese or Japanese input under Linux. Nevertheless, it suffers from bugs, lack of attention to detail, out-dated applications, and absence of useful enhancements that would make it worth the asking price. In the commercial distribution space it doesn't compare well with Xandros Desktop 4 on features, while even many free distributions, such as Ubuntu, SUSE or Fedora are possibly better options for the majority of Linux users.
For more information about Turbolinux 11 International edition please visit the product pages at Turbolinux.com.
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| Released Last Week |
Gentoox 5.0
The project developing Gentoox, a Gentoo-based operating system for the Xbox, has announced a number of new releases: "New release: Gentoox Home v5.0. Summary: Gentoox Loader v6.04; updated software as of 29th July 2006; fully synced with magic as of 29th July 2006; on screen keyboard in GDM activated by hitting 'B' 5 times; KDE 3.5.2 and XFce 4.2.x; ext3 file system; junk moved out of local.start and local.stop; checkroot / checkfs bug fixed; Sparkle 2.0; ALSA and kernel ebuilds made to be more compatible with Gentoo; Linux kernel 2.4.32." Besides Gentoox Home, the project's Pro, Sparkle and Resctoox editions have all been updated; see the release announcement for more details.
StartCom Enterprise Linux 4.0.2
An updated version of StartCom Enterprise Linux has been released: "The updated release of the StartCom Enterprise Linux AS-4 series received the YUM Extender as its new package and software updater, as well as the 1.5 Firefox browser and Thunderbird mail client. This, together with additional 200 updated packages, makes this stable and proven operating system the work horse for your mission critical enterprise applications. The YUM Extender, a graphical front-end application for YUM, makes the installing, removing of software packages and updating of your system even more easy." Read the brief press release for further information.
Mini-Pentoo 2006.1
Michael Zanetta has announced the release of Mini-Pentoo 2006.1, a Gentoo-based mini live CD with the Enlightenment desktop and a selection of tools designed for penetration testing. From the changelog: "Added WiFi injection support for Madwifi-ng, Hostap, wlan-ng, rtl8180, prism54/GT; integrated portagedb so no need for the module during install; created an MPlayer module; added some Firefox extensions (Live-Http-Headers, Temper-data, ShowIP, No-Referrer); updated Nessus, Yersinia, bluediving, metasploit, nmap, kernel (2.6.16); added Kismet auto-configure script based on airmon-ng, Pentoo installer, Wifitap, tcpdump, Bluetooth stack smasher...."
Nonux 3.1
Marcel J. Zwiebel has announced the availability of a new release of Nonux, a Slackware-based desktop-oriented distribution and live CD (with Dropline GNOME as its desktop environment) designed for use in Dutch-speaking business environments. What's new in Nonux 3.1? Upgraded Linux kernel to version 2.6.17.3, upgraded GNOME to version 2.14.2, upgraded OpenOffice.org to version 2.0.3, upgraded Evolution to version 2.6.2, and upgraded Mozilla Firefox to version 1.5.0.4. Ekiga, GnuPG and Liferea have also been upgraded to newer versions. Find a complete changelog on the distribution's news page (in Dutch).
GParted LiveCD 0.2.5-3
Patrick Verner has announced the release of a new version of GParted LiveCD. What's new? "I added some goodies people have been asking for: Partimage, GRUB, rsync, fdisk, cfdisk, and sfdisk. Links has also been included to view LarryT's documentation while running the live CD and live USB. Some other stuff was upgraded like adding a shut-down menu and the entire layout of the root file system. The entire root file system is compressed with SquashFS and the boot process has been vastly changed. This saved almost 5 MB to add extras. The kernel was also updated to Linux 2.6.17.4." Here is the full release announcement with changelog.
* * * * *
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 |
New distributions added to waiting list
- EDU-Nix. EDU-Nix is Gentoo-based live CD with KDE. The project's main goal is to provide US public schools with an open source alternative to proprietary software products.
- Shift Linux. A project by Neowin.net, Shift Linux is a new Debian/Morphix-based Linux distribution with Fluxbox and the goal of serving the (mostly) Windows user community at Neowin.net.
- TrueBSD. TrueBSD is a new general purpose live CD based on FreeBSD, using XFce and Ion window managers. The project's web site is in Russian.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
Holiday notice
It's that time of the year when your DistroWatch maintainer takes a break from his everyday routine of reporting about new distribution releases and writing DistroWatch Weekly. Although I am not planning to touch a computer during my much needed 3-week break in South Pacific, DistroWatch will continue as normal - the news section will be maintained by Dr W T Zhu (who has been helping with the site for nearly four years), while DistroWatch Weekly will be in the hands of an experienced reviewer and Linux enthusiast - Susan Linton from Tuxmachines. See you all later!
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
| 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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| Random Distribution | 
United Linux
UnitedLinux was a standards-based, worldwide Linux solution targeted at the business user and developed by The SCO Group, Conectiva, SuSE, and Turbolinux. Designed to be an enterprise-class, industry-standard Linux operating system, UL provides a single stable, uniform platform for application development, certification, and deployment and allows Linux vendors, Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), and Independent Hardware Vendors (IHVs) to support a single high value Linux offering rather than many different versions.
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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