 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 175, 30 October 2006 |
Welcome to this year's 44th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! The long awaited Fedora Core 6 and Ubuntu 6.10 are finally here! Amid all the usual excitement accompanying any major new release, reports from around the web suggest that Ubuntu's latest version might suffer from upgrade issues as many users find themselves unable to boot into "Edgy" despite following the standard upgrade procedure. After months of media speculation, Oracle's entry into the Linux distribution market was finally announced late last week - with a re-branded Red Hat Enterprise Linux and heavily discounted support costs. Also in this issue: update on Yellow Dog Linux 5.0, a link to an excellent audio interview with Slackware's Patrick Volkerding, and a contributed review of Elive 0.5. Finally, don't miss ArtistX, a new live DVD for audio, video and 2D/3D graphics artists. Happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (6.0MB) or mp3 (5.9MB) format (courtesy of Matt Taylor).
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Miscellaneous News |
Fedora Core 6, Ubuntu upgrade woes, Oracle Linux, Patrick Volkerding, Yellow Dog Linux 5.0
 Fedora Core 6 was finally released last week. Based on a few early reviews and first impressions on mailing lists, the Fedora development team has once again done a fantastic job. Many users have been impressed by the graphical configuration tool for Xen virtualisation, as well as the ability to add third-party repositories during installation. Most RPM repositories were especially quick to update their packages for Fedora Core 6 and provide instructions for configuring the yum package manager. And although yum is reportedly still as slow as ever, it seems like a reliable tool, which is probably the most important characteristic of any package manager.
The only black mark on the Fedora Core 6 experience was the downtime by fedoraproject.org, which saw unprecedented volumes of traffic shortly before and after the release. While download figures are hard to estimate (Fedora has more mirrors than any other distribution, except perhaps for Debian), the Fedora torrent tracker apparently served almost 90 Terabytes of data within the first 48 hours of the release! No wonder we had trouble getting to the project's web site! As for the breakdown of architectures, it's interesting to note that almost 20% of users downloaded the x86_64 editions of Fedora Core 6, while the PowerPC architecture accounted for less than 2% of all downloads.
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 Just two days after the release of Fedora Core 6, the Ubuntu project was the next one to saturate the bandwidth of many download servers around the world. "Edgy Eft", as the latest version is called, continues to impress with new artwork and features, as well as the latest versions of popular desktop applications, including GNOME 2.16, KDE 3.5.5, Firefox 2.0 and OpenOffice.org 2.0.4. Unfortunately, the release was marred by major troubles to upgrade from Ubuntu's previous version (6.06, code name "Dapper Drake") to the one released last week. According to an informal poll by UbuntuForums.org, almost 44% percent of those who attempted the upgrade process encountered "serious problems" or reported that their upgrades went "really bad".
This result actually echoes your DistroWatch maintainer's experience - during the upgrade procedure of two machines last week, one went without any major trouble, while the other required several hours of fiddling with dpkg and performing manual resolution of dependencies before the box was made to boot into Edgy. It is hard to pinpoint the cause of the problems at this stage, but they indicate continuing quality control problems at Ubuntu, despite an earlier promise to set up mechanisms to prevent any future update disasters. Nevertheless, once installed, Edgy appears to be a highly usable release, perhaps not as "edgy" as we were led to believe at the start of its development process, but still fairly up-to-date and certainly beautifully crafted. Just remember to download an installation CD in case your upgrade experience turns sour and you have to re-install.
Xubuntu 6.10 showing the Thunar file manager and Xfce settings manager
(full image size: 158kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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 The news about the Fedora Core and Ubuntu releases were soon overshadowed by the first appearance of what many Linux analysts speculated about for some time - Oracle's own Linux-based operating system. Called Oracle Unbreakable Linux, the distribution turned out to be not so much Oracle's as Red Hat's - it is built from source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and, once all the sombreros rojos and other registered trademarks are surgically removed from the files, it gets released under a new name. Oracle doesn't sell the distribution; like Red Hat, it intends to generate revenue from a "support programme", undercutting Red Hat's prices in the process. The modest pricing, Oracle hopes, will attract many potential Linux enterprise users who need support for their Linux deployments, but find Red Hat's support contracts a tad too expensive.
If you frequent Linux news sites, you have probably read many expert comments about Oracle's foray into the world of Linux. Unfortunately, as much as your DistroWatch maintainer would love to welcome the big database company in the community of Linux solution providers, the manner in which Oracle entered the market leaves a distinctly sour taste in the mouth. The company, although reasonably open source friendly in the sense that some of its major products are compatible with Linux, has done very little to advance the Linux cause over the years. Its latest move to re-brand Red Hat's distribution and provide support for the "new" product brings zero innovation to the Linux market; in fact, it only serves to generate revenue for Oracle and, as some analysts believe, to potentially destroy Red Hat, Inc.
Contrast that to Red Hat and its contribution to the Linux community. While the North Carolina company is a business which has to answer to its stakeholders and which is strongly motivated by corporate profits, it has succeeded in generating revenue without sacrificing the spirit of open source software development. For over a decade Red Hat has been giving away its Red Hat Linux and Fedora Core distributions (complete with security updates during the lifetime of the products), it has been developing or helping with the development of many essential open source software components (e.g. Autoconf, glibc, LVM, etc.), and it has been employing some of the brightest open source software developers the world has seen. Whatever your experiences with Red Hat as a company, you have to admit that it has contributed an enormous amount of work to the pool of Free Software which we all share, irrespective of whether or not we use one of its end products.
Oracle, on the other hand, has brought very little to the world of Linux so far. Besides much negative sentiment which the database giant generated in the Linux community last week, the technical aspects of Oracle Unbreakable Linux are not particularly attractive either. Promising unspecified bug fixes on its web site is one thing, but showing a changelog with a list of bugs fixed by the company's engineers -- which has yet to materialise anywhere -- is an entirely different matter. Also, despite claims to the contrary, Oracle Unbreakable Linux is not a complete recompile of Red Hat's source packages and some software, notably Thunderbird, are missing from the distribution. Furthermore, what Oracle claims to be "Update 4", does not correspond to Red Hat's "Update 4"; as an example, Oracle's product contains older versions of the Linux kernel, Firefox, LVM, and many other packages. It also provides Ethereal, a package which is no longer maintained and which Red Hat had already replaced with Wireshark. Worse, no updates were reportedly available for any of these packages, despite that fact that some of them have known security issues! Unbreakable? Hardly!
Granted, these are still early days, so let's hope that Oracle will fix their product and find a way to contribute back to the Linux community. But for now, customers who need comprehensive support contracts for their Linux deployments should definitely choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux - even if it's more expensive than Oracle's support programme. As they say, you get what you pay for. Based on a recent survey, the results of which are summarised here, Red Hat ranks as a number one computing technology company with customer satisfaction rated at 84%. In contrast, Oracle is 39th with only 55% of its customers giving Oracle a favourable rating. These numbers speak volumes.
* * * * *
 Slackware Linux is undoubtedly one of the most misunderstood Linux distributions on the market. Just one look at the default kernel version or bootloader seemingly conjures enough negativity on various Linux forums and web logs to warrant critical comments and even outright dismissals of the product. But is that all there is to Slackware?
If you happen to hold a negative view of the oldest surviving Linux distribution on the market, then please set aside some time and listen to this exclusive audio interview (OGG, 34.9MB, MP3, 29.7MB) with Patrick Volkerding. Published by The Linux Links Tech Show team, the elusive founder of Slackware Linux talks about the philosophy behind his distribution, explains the reasons for keeping the 2.4 kernel as the default, gives some hints about the project's future, and even branches out to talk about his pastimes. Will the seemingly old-fashioned distribution ever include AIGLX or other emerging technologies? And how is the business side of things over at Slackware? This 90-minute interview gives many answers that will hopefully clear up some misconceptions about the project that keeps proving its worth year after year.
* * * * *
 With the decision of Apple to switch its processor architecture from PowerPC to Intel, there was a danger that the specialist PowerPC-only Yellow Dog Linux distribution will soon run out of a market to cater for. Luckily, it seems that the project has re-invented itself. As announced recently, Yellow Dog Linux 5.0 will be released shortly - with a difference. Designed for PlayStation 3 and featuring the Enlightenment desktop, the new product should be of interest to users wishing to run a full operating system on their Sony gaming consoles. While details about Yellow Dog Linux 5.0 are still sketchy, Terra Soft Solutions has updated its product pages with new information about the upcoming release, including a brief FAQ section. Yellow Dog Linux 5.0 is expected to start shipping in the middle of November and should be available for free download about two months later.
* * * * *
 On the eve of the release of OpenBSD 4.0 -- the product will be formally announced on November 1st -- ONLamp published a comprehensive interview with the developers of this popular security-oriented operating system: "On October 18th, OpenBSD celebrated its 11th birthday and ten years of punctual biannual releases. Now it's time for OpenBSD version 4.0, which includes tons of new drivers for wireless, network, and storage chips. Discover what's new and what battles developers must face daily to access documentation and support new hardware." The highly technical interview touches on the subjects of wireless networking support, pf firewall, carp group demotion feature, storage drivers, X.Org issues, status of the SPARC64 port, Xen virtualisation, and other interesting topics. The 3-page interview starts here.
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| First Looks |
First look at Elive 0.5 (by Ryuga Akikawa)
Elive is more than just a Linux distro, it's a work of art.
Elive, or Enlightenment Live, is a Debian-based distribution that runs solely on the Enlightenment system. The system can be installed on your machine with the use of their installer. Enlightenment itself is a very beautiful window manager / desktop shell that allows everything to be customizable, while providing beautiful eye candy that would probably only be seen on Windows Vista systems.
Is this system a work of art like the Elive team boasts? We shall find out.
The Revolution Begins
I first put the Elive 0.5 CD on my disk and was whisked away to the wonderful world of Elive. The CD boots to a live CD, but before it does that, it asks some basic hardware questions, such as what type of screen you use and what theme do you want to start with by default. The choices are Elive and Night. I chose the night theme. Next you are asked what type of screen you are using, and the video card. I made my choices and proceeded onward.
Afterwards you are greeted with a login screen that is quite impressive with all of its animations and such. You are given a dummy account and password to login with, no need to log in as root, which is a good thing. Next you are greeted with a functional E17 environment. Once you are done playing around with the system you can choose to install Elive by clicking on the icon in their taskbar known as ibar.
Installation itself was pretty straightforward. You are greeted then asked to check the integrity of your system. I recommend doing this, once you are cleared you are then given the choice of how you want to create your partition layouts. (Note: if you have an Elive system already installed, it will ask you if you would like to update the system, rather then do a full-blown installation).
I chose the trusty cfdisk to make my partition layout (other option is GParted). If you need to reboot by this point, you can and just come back to the installation. Afterwards you are asked what partition will be the root partition, along with what file system you wish to use. I chose XFS and was told I needed to have a separate boot partition which I already did. I chose the partition to put boot in. Next you are asked if you wish to add more partitions. The choices are /home, /usr, /usr/local, and /var, then you are asked what file system you wish to use for each partition. Afterwards the installation begins. Then, out of nowhere, you are given a little card game program to kill time while then system installs. How cute. Once done you are then asked for the usual stuff; root password, user account, user password, what VGA settings you want to use for boot up and where to install GRUB. After making my choices the installation was complete and I rebooted the system.
Elive installed and ready to go
Once I rebooted I was greeted with the plain GRUB screen, which I didn't mind too much. On the Elive community site a nice little HOWTO shows you how to add your own GRUB splash. The system defaults to E17 but your other choice is E16. Once logged in I was greeted with my fully installed Elive E17 system. The system worked really well and everything was very pretty - from the twinkling background to all the pretty eye candy and colors. This was truly an amazing system. Elpanel also helped configuring a lot of different options, really handy and powerful. Since the system is Debian-based, we have the famous Synaptic package system which is always nice. The Elive community is also very friendly and filled with a lot of creative, intelligent people who are willing to help and contribute to Elive.
Though for all of its positives, there are negatives as well. Most of these bugs however are more problems and setbacks with Enlightenment then anything else since the system is still under heavy development and constantly evolving.
Is it a work of art? Is it the next big thing?
A lot of love and dedication went into this system and it shows. E16 and E17 were painstakingly tweaked and modified to be a very usable and powerful, while still showing off all of its eye candy potential.
Is this distro worth looking at? Is it a work of art like the Elive site boasts?
I most definitely agree.
Enlightenment is one very powerful and innovative desktop environment. I honestly think we are looking at the next big thing as far as desktop environments of the future goes. Elive just touches on the potential of this system and I must say, I like what I see. Keep your eyes opened for not only Elive, but for Enlightenment itself, as we may be witnessing the future in progress.
Elive - a Debian-based distribution featuring the impressive, light-weight Enlightenment 17 desktop
(full image size: 407kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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| Released Last Week |
Fedora Core 6
Fedora Core 6, code name "Zod", has been formally announced and officially released: "Tremble, Earthlings, for Zod is released from the confines of testing. Zod intends to hammer the servers of the world ... starting TODAY!" On a more serious note, Fedora Core 6 includes significant new versions of many key components and technologies, including improved look and feel for various international languages, the Compiz window manager, GNOME 2.16 and KDE 3.5.3 desktop environments, a refreshing new "DNA" theme, Dogtail - a graphical test and automation framework for the desktop, the GnuCash 2.0 accounting application, and many other enhancements. Please read the release announcement and release notes for further details.
Fedora Core 6 "Live-Spin"
The Fedora Unity project has announced the release of Fedora Core 6 "Live-Spins", a set of Fedora live CDs and DVDs for the i386 and x86_64 architectures: "The Fedora Unity Project is proud to announce the initial release of several Fedora Core 6 Live-Spin CD and DVD ISO images. These Live-Spins are based on the 24 October initial release of Fedora Core 6." The set consists of a GNOME live CD with GNOME 2.16.0 and related applications, a KDE live CD with KDE 3.5.4, a server live CD with Apache, MySQL, PHP and various server administration utilities, and a comprehensive live DVD with GNOME, KDE, Xfce and a number of packages from the "extras" repository. For more details please see the release announcement.
Ubuntu 6.10
Ubuntu 6.10, the latest version of the popular Linux distribution for desktops and servers, has been released: "The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the release of Ubuntu 6.10, codenamed 'Edgy Eft'. This release includes both installable Desktop CDs and alternate text-mode installation CDs for several architectures. Highlights of this release include: Tomboy, an easy-to-use and efficient note-taking tool; F-Spot, a photo management tool that enables tagging, photo editing and automatic uploading to on-line web management sites; GNOME 2.16; substantially faster startup and shutdown with eye-catching high-resolution graphics; the latest Firefox web browser, version 2.0; proactive security features, preventing many common security vulnerabilities even before they are discovered; Evolution 2.8.0...." Read the press release, release announcement and release notes for full details.
Kubuntu 6.10
The Kubuntu project has announced the release of Kubuntu 6.10, code name "Edgy Eft": "Kubuntu 6.10 has been released and is available for download now. Kubuntu 6.10 brings a bit of edginess to this release, including a new and improved desktop, artwork, applications and much more." Some of the more interesting features of Kubuntu 6.10 include: KDE 3.5.5 desktop; Digikam photo management tool; Guidance - a new power management system; a hardware database client; support for many special laptop buttons; accessibility profiles; an improved System Settings dialog; automatic setup of non-Latin writing systems. Read the complete release announcement for further details.
Edubuntu 6.10
Edubuntu 6.10, a distribution specifically designed for classroom use, has been released: "The Edubuntu team is proud to announce the release of Edubuntu 6.10, codenamed 'Edgy Eft'. This release includes both installation CDs and installable live CDs for several architectures. This version introduces a host of new features, an improved interface and a wide variety of new applications and desktop tools making Edubuntu 6.10 flexible and user-friendly. Highlights: the very recent versions of well-known free educational software like the KDEedu suite in version 3.5.5, GCompris 7.4, SchoolTool 0.11 and the Tux4Kids applications; GNOME 2.16; substantially faster startup and shutdown; the latest Firefox web browser; proactive security features; Evolution 2.8.0." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information.
Oracle Unbreakable Linux R4-U4
The first official release of Oracle Unbreakable Linux is out. According to the project's web site, "Oracle starts with Red Hat Linux, removes Red Hat trademarks, and then adds Linux bug fixes." Although Oracle Unbreakable Linux is touted as a "support programme", rather than a distribution, it is also provided in the form of freely downloadable CD images with optional support packages starting at US$99 per year. Oracle Unbreakable Linux is, and intends to remain, fully compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. While the distribution itself does not bring anything new or innovative to the table, the support programme does provide an extra choice for companies that require comprehensive support contracts for their Linux deployments. For more information please visit Oracle's Linux pages, read the press release, and consult the Linux Technology Centre.
Scientific Linux 4.4 Live CD/DVD
The Scientific Linux project has released a set of live CDs and live DVDs of the latest version of their Red Hat-based Linux distribution: "Scientific Linux live CD and DVD 4.4 have been released for both i386 and x86_64. Changes: update to Scientific Linux 4.4; update Unionfs to 1.1.5, Squashfs to 3.1-r2, NVIDIA driver to 1.0-8776; add SMP kernel to live CD/DVD (support for Dual-Core and multiprocessor systems); add r1000 and ipw3945 drivers; add more packages to the live DVD; add boot options: nopasswd, serviceon, serviceoff; live CD/DVD now runs with native Scientific Linux 4 kernel (no more special live CD kernel); live CD/DVD can boot from USB CD-ROM or DVD." Here is the full announcement.
Xubuntu 6.10
Jani Monoses has announced the release of Xubuntu 6.10: "The Xubuntu community is happy to announce the release of Xubuntu 6.10, codenamed 'Edgy Eft'. This release includes both installable Desktop CDs and alternate text-mode installation CDs for several architectures. Visible changes since Xubuntu 6.06: newer Xfce desktop environment (4.4 RC1) which brings trashcan support in Thunar and the panel, accessibility settings for the keyboard, and other improvements and fixes; new artwork for the boot splash, login screen and wallpaper; more mature gxine media player replaces Xfmedia; newer versions of Firefox, AbiWord and Gnumeric...." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information.
pfSense 1.0.1
A bug-fix update to the recently released pfSense 1.0, a FreeBSD-based firewall distribution, is out: "1.0.1 is now making its way to the mirrors and here is a rundown of the bugs fixed: set maximum cache size for APC to 7 MB; re-start 'check reload status' if it exits; miscellaneous syslog.conf fixes; Snort now blocks traffic correctly; PF does not know about congestion flags, remove from shaper; miscellaneous OpenNTPD system logging tab fixes; removes states from a user when disconnected by Captive Portal; fix FTP helper when strict LAN or Optional LAN rules are in place; ZoneEdit now works; filter reloads rules correctly after changes; faster, snappier webConfigurator and console." Here is the full release announcement.
* * * * *
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 |
Adding DistroWatch RSS feeds to Google
Last week, a reader reported an interesting issue - while trying to add one of the DistroWatch RSS feeds to Google Reader, the application reported that "no feed was available" whenever he linked directly to one of the XML files. The same was also observed when trying to add these feeds to Personalised Home on Google.com. While we haven't been able to work out the reason for this behaviour or a solution (if anybody knows, please let us know), there is a simple workaround: instead of linking directly to the XML file, you can add http://distrowatch.com/index.php to Google Reader or Google.com. The index page has embedded RSS feed links, which seems to be picked up correctly by Google's web site and its news reader.
* * * * *
New distributions added to database
- Oracle Unbreakable Linux. Oracle Unbreakable Linux is an enterprise-class Linux distribution supported by Oracle. According to the project's web site, "Oracle starts with Red Hat Linux, removes Red Hat trademarks, and then adds Linux bug fixes." Although Oracle Unbreakable Linux is touted as a "support programme", rather than a distribution, it is also provided in the form of freely downloadable CD images. Oracle Unbreakable Linux is, and intends to remain, fully compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- ArtistX. ArtistX, or eXtra ordinary art tool, is a Debian GNU/Linux live DVD based on Debian Live. The distribution includes thousands of multimedia software packages for audio, 2D/3D graphics and video artists. The project's web site lists software, hardware and media for free multimedia production and will grow slowly but constantly into a full source for creative enthusiasts mirroring and linking to the best free multimedia technology sources. ArtistX is created by Marco Ghirlanda, one of the former developers of Medialinux.
- Emanon Linux. Emanon Linux is a security-oriented server distribution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Endian Firewall. Made in Argentina.
- Majilux. Majilux is a KNOPPIX-based live CD that includes a thin client server (LTSP) and Internet filtering with DansGuardian. It is designed mainly for schools and the software is pre-configured to work "out-of-the-box". There are two editions - one based on Debian "sarge" and the other on Debian "etch". The project's web site is in French only, but the CD images support English and other languages as well.
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DistroWatch database summary
And that concludes our latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 6 November 2006. Until then,
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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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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