 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 204, 28 May 2007 |
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Welcome to this year's 22nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Fedora 7, the latest and arguably most ambitious release from the increasingly community-friendly Fedora Project, will hit the download mirrors later this week. With its installable live CDs, merged package repositories and much improved artwork, the new Fedora should prove a major attraction on the 2nd quarter release calendar. But will it be able to regain some of the market share it lost in recent years to the more aggressive desktop Linux distributions? We'll have to wait and see. In other major news of the week, Dell has fulfilled its promise and started shipping the first desktop computers with Ubuntu pre-installed. Finally, don't miss our first look review of PCLinuxOS 2007 by Chris Smart and check out the list of four new Linux distributions that have been added to the DistroWatch database: BeaFanatIX, Granular Linux, Openfiler and Parted Magic. Happy reading!
Content:
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| Featured Article |
First look at PCLinuxOS 2007 (by Chris Smart)
 Having watched, like many others, the surge of PCLinuxOS towards the top of the DistroWatch rankings in recent months, I could not pass up the opportunity to test out their latest stable release and see what all the fuss was about. With the release of 2007, the rankings from the last 30 days show that PCLinuxOS has pipped Ubuntu from the number one spot! I downloaded the live CD and burned it to disk then proceeded to boot the operating system.
Booting from the CD presents the user with a very nice graphical boot screen, which defaults to loading the live CD after a short time-out. Knowing that my mainboard with an NVIDIA 590SLI chipset does not behave nicely with APIC, I added the 'noapic' option to the live CD kernel boot line. Instantly I was greeted with a splash screen and a booting PCLinuxOS environment that was busy loading from my DVD drive.
The live CD booted up, detecting all my hardware as it went and soon there was a GUI session up and running. I was greeted with a 'wizard' asking me to answer various questions such as the keyboard layout, time zone selection, clock settings, as well as the chance to configure my network. Annoyingly, I couldn't just cancel out of this wizard and there was no option to skip setting up my network. Once this was complete however, I was greeted with the KDE login manager and although the option to log in as 'root' was available, I chose to log on as user 'guest' (see Linux security 101). The splash screen and login manager use some black and white grill artwork that I would like to see changed as it tends to warp your brain, perhaps with something pretty and blue. Nevertheless we were in business and it was time to check out the goodies that came with the Live CD.
PCLinuxOS comes with the KDE desktop by default and it did not disappoint. The artwork for KDE was very pleasant and there was blue everywhere. As far as the eye can see, mild, soft, lovely blue. This was a nice change from the black and white grill that burned my brain previously.
PCLinuxOS 2007: the desktop
(full image size: 175kB, screen resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
The first thing I noticed was the clean desktop. The background image was pleasant to view and did not take over the desktop or distract the user, for which I add another 'tick'. The desktop had a few icons for Home, My Computer, Trash as well as installation options 'Installation Help' and 'Install PCLinuxOS'. Konsole was also included on the desktop and I don't really know why. The task bar launcher would have been a better place for it in my opinion, but there you have it. Speaking of the launcher, it was well thought out and included a button to 'show the desktop', as well as shortcuts to the user's home folder, control centre, administration centre and package manager. So far the desktop appears to have been set out in a friendly, usable and welcoming way. Nice work so far, PCLinuxOS.
Clicking on the 'PC' icon to launch the applications menu I browsed through the software they include for us on the live CD. The applications were set out in various groups such as 'Internet' and 'Multimedia' with sub-menus that helped to further narrow in on the application you were seeking. Unfortunately, for a system that promotes itself as 'radically simple', I was surprised by the lack of descriptions for the applications. Although an application like 'krfb' sits under the 'Internet, Remote access' menu, knowing what it actually does is still unknown. The simple act of turning on the descriptions feature in the KDE panel informs the user this application is for 'Desktop Sharing'. I highly suggest that the PCLinuxOS developers enable this for future releases, as it makes the system all the more friendly and appealing.
I also found it somewhat cumbersome to navigate the menu system and to find what I was looking for. The beryl-manager shortcut for example was under 'System, Configuration, Other' while the desire to change fonts caused me to navigate to 'System, Configuration, Other, KDE, Appearance & Themes, Fonts'. I am sure that after using PCLinuxOS for a while it would become second nature, but perhaps for the ease of new users there is some way it can be reorganised to make it more easily accessible.
Opening the GIMP, there was a short delay of 20 seconds while it loaded from the CD. Similarly, OpenOffice.org took considerable time to load, although this is to be expected on a live CD. As for standard packages that were missing, I couldn't think of any. The every-day packages I would expect for browsing the web, checking email, chatting, creating documents, playing multimedia and even watching TV were all included.
In an age where Linux distributions seem to be bowing to pressure and including non-free and potentially license violating drivers and programs by default it was nice to see PCLinuxOS claim on their website to leave out such packages as win32codecs, libdvdcss and the 3D video drivers from NVIDIA and ATI. Indeed these drivers were not included on the system and according to apt neither was libdvdcss or win32codecs. Unfortunately I was unable to confirm the lack of DVD playback, but PCLinuxOS did play (out-of-the-box) all the files that I could throw at it, including; WMV, DIVX, XVID, MOV, ASF and MP3. If you do require the above packages do not despair, as PCLinuxOS does make it easy to install them if the end user so desires. A simple 'apt-get install libdvdcss2 win32-codecs nvidia-_97xx ati' will do the trick.
I did find a few annoyances, however, which should be fixed in future versions. The very handy tool 'sudo' was not configured to allow my every-day user to become root. Also, opening 'My Computer' from the Desktop did not show the location bar. A small annoyance certainly, but it made it hard to easily switch to other locations, execute kioslaves and to even just get a feel for where I was. There was also no power management configured out of the box, so users with laptops will need to set this up manually. Likewise both suspend and hibernate were no-where to be seen.
PCLinuxOS 2007: the control centre
(full image size: 167kB, screen resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
Having browsed through the system for a while it was time to install PCLinuxOS to my hard drive. Kicking up the 'Install PCLinuxOS' shortcut left me quickly disappointed as it did not appear to support RAID or LVM. I booted PCLinuxOS on my MacBook instead and running the installer again showed it had detected my LVM system in the partitioning screen, which was great. Clicking on the empty region and making a new device did work, even if it spat up an error or two.
The installation process itself is quite painless and it asks very few questions. I simply nominated a partition to install the system to and then away it went! Radically simple. Later the installer asked me to reset the root password and create a new user. The install was also quite quick, taking only about 20 minutes on my MacBook after which time it asked me which boot loader I wanted to use and where to install it. Being a MacBook I actually didn't want to install a boot loader anywhere as I would use the one I already had installed. But there was no option to not install a boot loader so I hit 'Cancel' instead. This immediately kicked me out of the installer without so much as an 'Are you sure?' dialogue and upon inspection of 'df' I noticed my install partition was still mounted. I guess that wasn't supposed to happen. I also didn't have a populated grub.conf (obviously), so I took the configuration from the CD's isolinux configuration file and added it to the GRUB already on the system. A few minor setbacks but now it was installed and I was ready to boot into it from the hard drive and see what else I could do.
Booting the MacBook was trouble-free and although it did not detect my correct screen resolution I did get 3D support out of the box, yippee! I enabled the '3D Desktop' from within the control centre and chose to use Beryl. Logging out and back in as directed, I was playing with the very familiar Beryl running on AIGLX. Smooth, very smooth.
I have to say that overall I was quite impressed with this distribution. I was not blown away, but I was impressed by its clean feel and its simplistic approach to Linux computing. Some live CDs are fun to play with, but lose their charm when they don't follow up with a back-end system that makes the distribution usable every day. PCLinuxOS is different. It is nice to have a system that both looks and plays nice, with the added bonus of a fine package management system that won't leave you high and dry when you need that other piece of essential software.
While they are not quite there yet, PCLinuxOS are certainly on the right track to achieving their goal of being 'radically simple'. Currently the system feels like a bit of a mixed bag, but if they can start to make their own path a little more independent there will be no stopping them. The default package management is handled by Synaptic to APT to RPM, the control centre and installer both come from Mandriva, and the loading cursor reminds me of Fedora. Not that there's anything wrong with that, in fact that might be part of the reason for the success of PCLinuxOS. Perhaps they've taken proven components from various distributions, put them together and made it simple to use. Now who could argue with that?
7 out of 10 'Smarties'.
About the author: Chris Smart is the founder of Kororaa, a Gentoo-based Linux distribution, and the maintainer of Make The Move, a Linux advocacy web site. He lives in Canberra, Australia.
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| Miscellaneous News |
Fedora 7 final testing, Dell PCs with Ubuntu
 The final day of May will be marked by a brand new release from the Fedora Project: Fedora 7. This is the first time that the popular distribution will arrive without the word "Core" in its name; after merging what the developers used to call the "core" and "extras" package repositories, the distribution has now become simply Fedora. The merge should simplify both the package management part of the distribution (there won't be a need for two different repositories in the yum configuration file) and the ability of the project provide up-to-date, well-maintained packages from contributing developers - all in one central repository. No wonder that some have labelled Fedora 7 as the project's most ambitious release to-date!
How will these changes work out? In a surprising move, the merge between the two repositories was only completed after the final test release of Fedora 7, making the merge impossible to test on a wider scale. Perhaps the developers had underestimated the challenge; while the i386 merge was reasonably trouble-free, there were reports about problems with compiling and debugging some of the less frequently-used "extras" packages on other architectures. But despite lack of testing, the release will still go ahead as planned and this is perhaps a slight gamble on the part of the Fedora 7 developers.
For those who are interested in helping to squash any last-minute bugs, an unofficial release candidate of Fedora 7 was quietly made available on the Fedora test mailing list last Friday. Full DVD images for three architectures, as well as GNOME and KDE live CDs, can be had from torrent.fedoraproject.org; these are very close to what the final images will look like, so those Fedora users who are too impatient to wait until Thursday, might consider installing the new version from these CD/DVD sets. As always, don't be surprised by the Package Updater errors - since the Fedora 7 directories have not yet been created, the utility will keep failing at least until the official release of the new version on May 31st.
Fedora 7 is the project's most ambitious release ever
(full image size: 916kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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 The story that has kept many Linux news sites on their toes for the past few weeks has been successfully concluded and the brand new Ubuntu computers from Dell are now available online. The news is presently relevant to the residents of the United States only, since Dell has yet to start offering these products in other countries. Nevertheless, the world's largest computer maker has to be praised for having moved with an astonishing speed; it was only a few weeks ago that the "Dellinux" skeptics outnumbered those who believed otherwise by a considerable margin, but a few short weeks later one can indeed buy a Linux computer from Dell. Let's hope that this ambitious experiment will turn out to be a success and that one day we will start seeing many more Linux computers available in retails stores across the world.
Has any of the DistroWatch readers ordered one of these Ubuntu-based boxes from Dell? If so, what were your experiences? Do you think the sole laptop model is a good choice for an average (i.e. fairly technical) Linux user? And has your perception of Dell changed/improved since its ambitious drive to deliver computers with an alternative operating system to end users? Please discuss below.
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| Released Last Week |
BeleniX 0.6
Moinak Ghosh has announced a new version of BeleniX, a desktop live CD based on OpenSolaris: "BeleniX 0.6 released. After some gap due to a busy few months for many of the BeleniX folks, a new release is now available. Lots of changes have happened and here is a summary: based on OpenSolaris Build 60; full modular X.Org 7.2 based on the Solaris X consolidation sources; Compiz 0.5.0 3D manager integrated into Xfce and KDE; added the GNU Parted port to OpenSolaris and also added GParted (experimental) with the ability to resize NTFS, FAT, ext2 partitions; Usbdump integrated into the live CD; updates to various software packages, like Xfce 4.4.1, GTK+, Cairo, Pango, KOffice 0.6.2...." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information.
MCNLive "Toronto"
A new, enhanced version of MCNLive, a Mandriva-based live CD distribution, has been released: "I am glad to announce MCNLive, code name 'Toronto'. What's the difference to 'Delft'? VirtualBox OSE, KOffice suite, GIMP, gThumb, gxine, gFTP, Bluefish, Quanta, KAudioCreator, Kopete, KDE Bluetooth, a bunch of networking tools and printer packages added. English only edition. Improved isolinux bootsplash, with keyboard navigation to select a boot option, different wallpapers, fixed (non-critical) error messages when shutting down the system in live CD persist mode." Visit the project's home page to read the release announcement.
Pioneer Linux 2.1
An updated version of Pioneer Linux Basic, now based on the latest Kubuntu 7.04, has been released: "Technalign, Inc. has released Pioneer Basic 2.1 of its base Linux operating system. Pioneer Basic 2.1 is being released on DVD. Technalign will continue to ship Pioneer Basic 2.0 for those users who do not wish to purchase a DVD drive for their systems. Pioneer Basic 2.1 is similar to Basic 2.0 with several exceptions. The biggest exception is that Pioneer 2.1 is based on Feisty and not Edgy while it continues to be based on Kubuntu. Adept is no longer incorporated as the update manager, but is now replaced with Synaptic per the business and consumer communities. Also notable are the Guarddog Firewall as well as the KlamAV anti-virus utilities that have been added and OpenOffice.org 2.2." Read the full press release for further details.
Scientific Linux 5.0 Live CD
Urs Beyerle has announced the availability of a live CD edition of Scientific Linux 5.0: "Scientific Linux Live CD 5.0 has been released for i386 and x86_64 architectures. The Scientific Linux Live CD is a bootable CD that runs Scientific Linux directly from CD without installing. New feature: Live CD can be installed to local hard disk. Major software updates compared to Scientific Linux 4 Live CD: Linux kernel 2.6.18, OpenAFS client 1.4.4, X.Org 7.1, 3D desktop with Compiz and AIGLX, GNOME 2.16.0, OpenOffice.org 2.0.4, Firefox 1.5. Additional features: can be installed on USB key; can be mounted over NFS (as diskless client)." Read the full release announcement and visit the live CD project page for further information.
VectorLinux 5.8 Live CD
Robert Lange has announced the final release of the live CD edition of VectorLinux 5.8 "Standard", as well as the first alpha of the live CD/DVD edition of VectorLinux 5.8 "SOHO": "The VectorLinux team is proud to announce the release of VectorLinux 5.8 Live CD and the first SOHO 5.8 alpha live CD and DVD. This is the final release for 5.8 standard GOLD live. The hard drive installer that has been problematic is fixed and should work well. The SOHO 5.8 alpha live comes in either CD or DVD editions. The DVD edition includes all that is in the SOHO 5.8 install release plus 62 additional language packs for KDE. The CD version has lost some functionality due to size constraints. The development tool chain and OpenOffice.org were removed." See the release announcement for full details.
* * * * *
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 |
Translations of the Top Ten Distributions page
Many thanks to Vincent Rogister and Gilles Wallon who have translated the Top Ten Distributions page into French. The article is now available in 7 languages; besides English and French, you can also read it in Dutch, Italian, Polish, Russian and Spanish. Translations to other languages are most welcome - if you'd like to help, please email your work to distro at distrowatch dot com (preferably in plain text format using UTF-8 encoding).
* * * * *
New distributions added to database
- BeaFanatIX. BeaFanatIX is an Ubuntu-based mini live CD with utilities borrowed from KNOPPIX. It is developed by a small group of developers who have forked the successful, but discontinued BeatrIX distribution and added new features and scripts. The main purpose of BeaFanatIX is to provide a small, installable live CD, with good documentation and easy-to-use applications for a variety of desktop tasks.
BeaFanatIX 2006.2 - an easy-to-use, Ubuntu-based mini live CD
(full image size: 913kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
- Granular Linux. Granular Linux is an easy-to-use, desktop Linux distribution based on PCLinuxOS. Its main features are a carefully selected set of applications for common tasks, the ability to customise the distribution, and the inclusion of two popular desktop environments - the flexible KDE and the lightweight Xfce.
Granular 0.25 is a new desktop distribution made in India
(full image size: 247kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
- Openfiler. Openfiler is a storage management operating system based on rPath Linux. It is powered by the Linux kernel and open source applications such as Apache, Samba, Linux Volume Management, ext3, Linux NFS and iSCSI enterprise target. Openfiler combines these ubiquitous technologies into a small, easy-to-manage solution fronted by a powerful web-based management interface. Openfiler allows building a Network Attached Storage (NAS) and/or Storage Area Network (SAN) appliance, using industry-standard hardware, in less than 10 minutes of installation time.
- Parted Magic. Parted Magic is a 30 MB live CD/USB/PXE with its elemental purpose being to partition hard drives. Although GParted and Parted are the main programs, the CD/USB also offers other applications, such as Partition Image, TestDisk, fdisk, sfdisk, dd, ddrescue, etc.
Parted Magic 1.7 uses the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 199kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 4 June 2007. Until then,
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • 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 | 
Ulteo Open Virtual Desktop
Ulteo Application System (Ulteo AS) was a Debian/Ubuntu-based Linux distribution created by Gaël Duval, the original founder of Mandrake Linux (now Mandriva Linux) and co-founder of MandrakeSoft (now Mandriva). It was a hybrid, network-oriented and mostly automatic computing system that ships with hundreds of applications and innovative features. The basic version of the Ulteo AS provides a choice of applications for daily use, such as Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org, etc., but can be easily extended with a set of applications from the Ulteo panel. It also provides document and panel content synchronisation capabilities between a local installation of Ulteo AS and Ulteo Open Virtual Desktop.
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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