 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 215, 13 August 2007 |
|
Welcome to this year's 33rd issue of DistroWatch Weekly! It was a great week for all those who enjoy testing open source software; not only are all the major Linux distributions busy readying their upcoming releases, the two main desktop environments, GNOME and KDE, are also keeping us interested in their latest desktop innovations. The openSUSE project especially has been generating plenty of news; it has published an update to its online software installation service and has released a new openSUSE live CD set. To add to the growing presence of openSUSE in the headlines, we have asked Stephan Kulow, the new Project Manager who took over in the middle of July, a few questions about the distribution's future direction. Also in this issue: ex-Gentoo's Daniel Robbins talks about the Portage package manager and DragonFly BSD's Matthew Dillon defends the BSD licence. Happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in mp3 (5.9MB) format (many thanks to Jim Putman).
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
|
| Featured Story |
Interview with Stephan Kulow, openSUSE Project Manager
  On 18 July 2007, Andreas Jaeger announced that he had handed the openSUSE project management reigns over to Stephan Kulow: "I'm glad to announce that I have given over my responsibilities for the openSUSE distribution to Stephan Kulow. As from now on Stephan is project manager for the openSUSE distribution. Stephan -- known also as Coolo -- the 'born release dude', has been with Novell/SUSE for five years. Before that he worked on Linux distributions at Caldera. His wide experience in Linux includes the dinosaurs (called s390), desktop technology (KDE), several build systems (including his own at Caldera), and SUSE tools like package translation."
We contacted Stephan to ask him a few questions about his past involvement with Linux and his future plans for the openSUSE distribution.
* * * * *
DW: Stephan, thank you very much for taking a few minutes off from your busy release schedule. Andreas Jaeger's announcement mentioned that you had been with Novel/SUSE for five years prior to which you used to work at Caldera. Can you expand on that? What exactly have you been doing at Novell and what is your area of expertise/interest?
SK: Since 1997 I have been working on the KDE project, mainly hacking libraries and doing release coordination. The Linux community was still pretty small back then, so while doing KDE releases I had good contacts with quite a few Linux distributions. In the summer of 1999 I was looking for a job I could do for two months as my girlfriend went on a long-planned US trip. Caldera had just introduced a graphical installer programmed using Qt and it was a very fascinating time helping to do a second version. But I noticed one thing that might be specific to me: building a Linux distribution is terribly fascinating. Since then there was no way back.
I finished my studies on the topic on large software distributions, wrote a build server for RPMs and started working for Caldera. I spend some months on KDE-away topics, such as tool chain, glibc and kernel power management. After Caldera stopped developing its own distribution, most of the German developers, including me, started working for SUSE in 2002. I worked mainly on the KDE desktop since then, but also worked on the code affecting the desktop from below, e.g. by improving the boot time in various ways.
DW: What did your first days as openSUSE Project Manager were like?
SK: My first action as Project Manager was to release Alpha 6, which had quite a few rough edges, so I had to learn quickly how to get the best out of it. Besides that, I had to get access to about 10 different repositories and subscribe to a half a dozen notification mailing lists and they are still coming. But slowly I think I am taking control and I'm the one controlling the beast, not the other way around.
DW: Can you describe your feelings when you finally uploaded all the Alpha 6 images and announced their availability to the world? Is this process just a routine part of your work or are there any emotions involved too?
SK: It's always mixed feelings. You want to get the release out to get testing and at the same time the mirrors are fetching the images you find three new bugs. And with this very release it was of course interesting what you can forget. We have documentation on how to do it in case the release manager is out of office, but it's always the same with documentation: it's too easy to forget something.
DW: From where I sit it looks like openSUSE 10.3 is a highly anticipated release, mainly because we have had no stable openSUSE version since December last year. Where does openSUSE stand in terms of its release cycle? Will this 9-month gap between new versions stay or will you follow other popular distributions which seem to have standardised on one stable release every six months?
SK: Yes, 10.3 was a bit later than usual. As openSUSE isn't the only product SUSE releases, we'll have to be flexible with our release cycles and will stay this way. But our goal is definitely to get out a release every 7 to 9 months. With the projects in the openSUSE build service we found a great way to shorten the waiting period since you can always get the latest Xgl, GNOME, KDE or Firefox for the latest released product. So we'll continue trying to find a balance between having regular releases and giving bigger changes more time.
DW: Another reason for the great expectations from openSUSE 10.3 is the fact that it promises to come in a variety of installation media; besides the traditional CD/DVD media, it will also be available in the form of an installable live CD and single-CD installation CD (correct?). How far are the developers with delivering these new products?
SK: Yes, I very welcome the one-CD installation (one for GNOME and one for KDE) and my guess is that it will be the favourite medium for most users as you can download a small medium and then choose what you want to download additionally. No need to download another major desktop if you only need one. But the DVD will still be there for those that prefer having everything in their home. What we won't continue offering is the set of five CDs - we only leave the add-on CDs.
The installable live CD will be an experiment as something that came out of the Novell "hackweek". They kind of work, but we put way more development and testing into the one-CD installations than in the live CDs. We'll put more work in the installable part in the following release.
The first test build of openSUSE 10.3 Live CD was released last weekend
(full image size: 585kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
DW: I recently tested a number of popular distributions and found that openSUSE 10.2 was the slowest to boot by far. Will we see any improvements in this respect?
SK: Unfortunately, boot times depend a lot on the hardware setup. I did tests myself and I couldn't find a single distribution that booted faster on my machine than 10.3. That still doesn't mean that it will be the fastest on your hardware, but my hopes are high. I would be glad to hear some feedback.
DW: You are right, 10.3 alpha 7 boots much faster than 10.2, even on my hardware. What's the reason?
SK: We optimised the way we start the display managers. And we reviewed every piece of the boot process to see whether it's doing what it should do.
DW: What other interesting new features will we find in version 10.3?
SK: Some things that cross my mind: we'll have the FTP tree available during installation, also for the DVD and the CD media; we'll include a preview version of KDE4; we're still working on improving the UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, one of the 3G mobile phone technologies) experience. We'll have of course tons of new versions of open source packages since 10.2, which will bring in plenty of new features; for a detailed list see Factory/News.
DW: Is the upcoming openSUSE 10.3 a distribution that will form a basis for Novell's enterprise products? I have to admit that I am not always clear on the relationship between openSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop/Server (SLES/SLED). Is there somebody at Novell who decides - hey, it's time for a new enterprise release, so we want the next openSUSE to be extremely stable and well-tested. How does this process work?
SK: It almost works as you describe. We define a release cycle for the enterprise products and then fit openSUSE releases into it. As I described above, this is the main reason we do not have a fixed release cycle for openSUSE. And 10.3 will not be the base of another enterprise release itself. We will reuse some of the developments and integrate it into the second service pack for SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 though.
DW: openSUSE has always been a highly polished and good-looking distro, but sometimes I miss that "wow" effect that comes with a brand new artwork or theme. Fedora has been doing a great job in this respect, so will we see a new, awesome, stylish artwork in openSUSE 10.3?
SK: We integrated new artwork with openSUSE 10.3 Alpha 7 and many, many like it. I hope you do too.
DW: Will it be possible to upgrade 10.2 to 10.3 over the network, without having to download any CD/DVD images?
SK: No, we do not support that yet. You have to download a mini ISO at least, but we only support updates from out of the system. We're constantly looking into making it easier to update from one version to another. Updating from within the system (and that's what you're asking for) is a different kind of problem than updating the system itself.
DW: What is your personal stance on the issue of proprietary graphics drivers? Some distributions are making it easy for the end user to install these drivers, while others insist that adhering to the principals of software freedom is more important than attracting less technical computer users to Linux. Can you comment on this?
SK: My personal stance is that users should prefer buying hardware from companies supporting open source. Having said that, I had no problem following the instructions on opensuse.org. But I personally rather avoid 3D than breaking my system on a regular basis and that's what happened to me with the binary drivers. But I'm a special case here as I follow the development versions of openSUSE and there are usually no binary drivers provided for such versions. They work great for released products in most cases though.
DW: What will you do differently from your predecessor as openSUSE Project Manager? Do you have any personal wish list that you intend to follow and implement? In other words, will your personality, management style and interest influence the final product? If so, in what way?
SK: Andreas' background is within the glibc and GCC projects, mine is from within the KDE project. So I think there might be a different focus, but don't expect a revolution.
DW: Stephan, thank you very much for your answers and all the best with openSUSE 10.3.
|
| Statistics |
DistroWatch in Asia
Continuing with the statistical analyses of visits on DistroWatch.com and evaluating the readership changes in different countries and territories, today we look at the numbers of visitors coming from the Asian continent. While Japan has been maintaining the top position since the beginning of this web site, it's interesting to note the dramatic growth of readership in the two most populous countries in the world - China and India. With a handful of exceptions, the number of readers visiting DistroWatch has been on the increase and a total number of Asian-based readers have grown by more than 20% since a year ago. Please note that only countries and territories with more than 1,000 visits during the months of January to July of 2007 are listed in the table. (The figures are obtained courtesy of the GeoLite Country IP-to-country database from Maxmind which claims an accuracy of 98%.)
| Rank |
Country/Territory |
2006 |
2007 |
% Change |
| 1 |
Japan (JP) |
328,336 |
347,879 |
+6.0% |
| 2 |
China (CN) |
151,915 |
209,203 |
+37.7% |
| 3 |
India (IN) |
80,889 |
137,702 |
+70.2% |
| 4 |
Indonesia (ID) |
72,668 |
112,998 |
+55.5% |
| 5 |
Turkey (TR) |
67,465 |
101,789 |
+50.9% |
| 6 |
Taiwan (TW) |
102,747 |
92,993 |
-9.5% |
| 7 |
Malaysia (MY) |
73,244 |
86,978 |
+18.8% |
| 8 |
Philippines (PH) |
70,914 |
81,523 |
+15.0% |
| 9 |
Israel (IL) |
72,651 |
78,848 |
+8.5% |
| 10 |
Singapore (SG) |
63,266 |
68,161 |
+7.7% |
| 11 |
Hong Kong (HK) |
58,838 |
57,334 |
-2.6% |
| 12 |
Thailand (TH) |
45,486 |
56,163 |
+23.5% |
| 13 |
South Korea (KR) |
35,357 |
44,638 |
+26.2% |
| 14 |
Saudi Arabia (SA) |
14,792 |
18,130 |
+22.6% |
| 15 |
Vietnam (VN) |
12,627 |
17,683 |
+40.0% |
| 16 |
Iran (IR) |
13,791 |
16,795 |
+21.8% |
| 17 |
Pakistan (PK) |
8,571 |
11,298 |
+31.8% |
| 18 |
United Arab Emirates (AE) |
6,370 |
6,421 |
+0.8% |
| 19 |
Kazakhstan (KZ) |
3,104 |
6,148 |
+98.1% |
| 20 |
Kuwait (KW) |
4,400 |
5,368 |
+22.0% |
| 21 |
Qatar (QA) |
2,675 |
4,099 |
+53.2% |
| 22 |
Sri Lanka (LK) |
4,377 |
3,967 |
-9.4% |
| 23 |
Jordan (JO) |
1,829 |
2,769 |
+51.4% |
| 24 |
Bahrain (BH) |
2,555 |
2,560 |
+0.2% |
| 25 |
Lebanon (LB) |
2,147 |
1,932 |
-10.0% |
| 26 |
Bangladesh (BD) |
986 |
1,881 |
+90.8% |
| 27 |
Oman (OM) |
1,367 |
1,861 |
+36.1% |
| 28 |
Brunei Darussalam (BN) |
3,375 |
1,700 |
-49.6% |
| 29 |
Nepal (NP) |
364 |
1,269 |
+248.6% |
| 30 |
Uzbekistan (UZ) |
1,343 |
1,229 |
-8.5% |
| 31 |
Syria (SY) |
1,410 |
1,203 |
-14.7% |
| 32 |
Yemen (YE) |
545 |
1,038 |
+90.5% |
| 33 |
Azerbaijan (AZ) |
709 |
1,028 |
+45.0% |
| 34 |
Iraq (IQ) |
120 |
1,010 |
+741.7% |
| Total |
Asia |
1,311,233 |
1,585,598 |
+20.9% |
| |
|
|
|
|
| -- |
USA (US) |
6,045,984 |
7,135,032 |
+18.0% |
|
|
| Miscellaneous News |
Development release galore, openSUSE updates, Daniel Robbins on Gentoo's Portage, DragonFly BSD interview
For those of you who enjoy testing development releases and filing bug reports, last week provided one of the biggest feasts on record. The first betas of openSUSE 10.3 and Mandriva Linux 2008, the first test build of Fedora 8 and the fourth alpha of Ubuntu 7.10, all these in a matter of just a couple of days - it rarely gets any better than this! On top of it, the developers of MEPIS Linux announced a new test release of their live DVD, complete with the first beta of KDE 4, while the upcoming initial beta of GNOME 2.20, scheduled for release this Wednesday and likely to be incorporated into this week's development release of Foresight Linux, will ensure that a steady string of test releases continues in the foreseeable future. Although it's still August, a month traditionally reserved for holidays in many parts of the world, it looks like the development of Linux and open source software continues at a neck-breaking speed.
Despite all this excitement, there is one worrying trend that I've been observing in recent years. With each passing year, it seems that fewer and fewer Linux users are interested in downloading and testing any development releases of distributions. Looking back at the late nineties and the early years of this century, each beta release of a major distro was accompanied by tremendous anticipation and followed by endless discussions on user forums and mailing lists. Nowadays, however, that sort of healthy exchange of ideas and suggestions is largely limited to just a few loyal users. The rest of us seem to be quite content to wait for the final release before downloading and installing the new product.
So here is a topic for this week's discussion: did you download and install any of the above-mentioned development releases during the past week? If so, did you do it merely out of curiosity or did you put it through rigorous testing in order to file bug reports? Have you ever opened a Bugzilla account at your favourite project? If not, why not? Is this a case of "too many releases, too little time"? Please discuss below.
* * * * *
 Of all the main distributions, openSUSE seems to be the busiest at the moment. Following the first beta release of openSUSE 10.3, the project's developers have announced the availability of an improved software search and installation interface, as well as a one-click installation YaST module: "The interface provides a very easy installation featuring the 1-Click Installation YaST module of Benjamin Weber. This means the installation of any package can be started by a single click. YaST will show which repositories are used and which packages will be installed; the dependency solving is also all done automatically by YaST. There is no need to do these steps manually anymore." Also announced late last week: a set of openSUSE 10.3 live CDs, with either GNOME or KDE. Although still in early testing and lacking the ability to be installed on a hard disk (correction: a new "LiveInstaller" module is available in the "Miscellaneous" section of YaST; type "linux" for root password), the new live media are a welcome addition to the growing list of openSUSE products for a variety of purposes.
* * * * *
 Another week and another link to an article at Funtoo, a blog maintained by the founder and former chief architect of Gentoo Linux, Daniel Robbins. This time it's all about Portage (the venerable Gentoo package manager) and its increasingly sluggish performance: "One challenge that Portage is facing is that it is essentially trying to achieve several divergent goals - be a ports system for a meta-distribution and also provide a good and safe user experience for Gentoo users. In some cases, Portage can't really do a good job in both areas at the same time. Here's why. As a meta-distribution, Gentoo can have very complex dependency chains. However, as a user-focused distribution, you kind of want the dependency chains in Gentoo to be as straightforward and elegant as possible, without any weird conflicts - in other words, have developers do a lot of the heavy lifting to make dependencies less-fine grained and eliminate strange corner cases and blockers. Yet this hard work impacts the ability of Gentoo developers to keep the Portage tree up-to-date." The story was prompted by the author's tests revealing that an older version of Portage performed better than a more recent one and that the Beagle search engine was partly responsible for the application's sluggishness on the latest release of Sabayon Linux. Read more in this report.
* * * * *
 KernelTrap has published an interview with Matthew Dillon, the founder of DragonFly BSD: "Matthew Dillon created DragonFly BSD in June of 2003 as a fork of the FreeBSD 4.8 code base. In this interview, Matthew discusses his incentive for starting a new BSD project and briefly compares DragonFly to FreeBSD and the other BSD projects. He goes on to discuss the new features in today's DragonFly 1.10 release. He also offers an in-depth explanation of the project's cluster goals, including a thorough description of his ambitious new clustering file system. Finally, he reflects back on some of his earlier experiences with FreeBSD and Linux, and explains the importance of the BSD license." A recommended read to anybody interested in the BSD family of operating systems or to those who wonder about the differences between the BSD license and the General Public Licence (GPL).
|
| Released Last Week |
DragonFly BSD 1.10
Matthew Dillon has announced the release of DragonFly BSD 1.10: "DragonFly 1.10 has been released!" From the release notes: "1.10 is our sixth major DragonFly release. Several big-ticket items are present in this release. Our default ATA driver has been switched to NATA (ported from FreeBSD). NATAs big claim to fame is support for AHCI which is the native SATA protocol standard. It is far, far better than the old ATA/IDE protocol. DragonFly now has non-booting support for GPT partitioning and 64-bit disklabels. Non-booting means we don't have boot support for these formats yet. DragonFly's Light Weight Process abstraction is now finished and working via libthread_xu but the default threading library is not quite ready to be changed from libc_r yet." Read the release announcement and release notes for further details.
Absolute Linux 12.0.1
Paul Sherman has announced the availability of Absolute Linux 12.0.1, a light-weight modification of Slackware Linux with IceWM: "Absolute Linux 12.0.1 released." From the changelog: "Kernel recompiled to support i586 CPUs (Pentium-1 and K6-2); K3b 1.0.3 updated for bug fixes, including one device error that could prevent application start-up; Firefox 2.0.0.5 and separate Absolute custom Firefox start-up scripts; Java, JRE version 6 update 2; Sylpheed 2.4.4; Lame and FFmpeg libraries recompiled; UFRaw plugin for GIMP now included by default; NVIDIA xconfig utility now included; Mail notification setup now restarts IceWM to take effect immediately; XFS file system now an additional formatting option upon install; RAR files have a handler under ROX now; GIMP 2.2.17 updated to include font path of data extras." Here is the full release announcement.
Bluewhite64 Linux 12.0 Live DVD
A live DVD edition of Bluewhite64 Linux 12.0, a 64-bit variant of Slackware Linux, has been released: "Bluewhite64 Linux 12.0 Live DVD runs entirely from DVD and includes all packages from Bluewhite64 Linux 12.0 (except the Y and KDEi software series) and the updated packages from the patches directory. Also, in addition to this version, I have included extra packages created by the Bluewhite64 Linux community. The DVD includes the latest stable SMP Linux kernel 2.6.22.1 with advanced features. It is designed to bring a modern Linux desktop to 64-bit architectures, including the modularized X.Org 7.2 with Compiz and Beryl, the award-winning KDE 3.5.7, OpenOffice.org 2.2, Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird 2.0.0.6, Swaret 1.6.3 and Qtswaret 0.1.5-3 package managers...." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information.
Sabayon Linux 3.4e
Fabio Erculiani has announced the availability of an updated release of Sabayon Linux 3.4: "We are happy to announce Sabayon Linux 3.4 Revision E. Distribution updates: introduced a (teaser) pre-alpha release of the Entropy stack (Equo application); updated Portato to 0.8.0; updated Compiz Fusion to work with XGL and AMD/ATI cards; updated WINE to 0.9.42 and fixed Wine Doors; re-introduced sudo after install; updated Second Life to 1.18.0.6; fixed partitioning issues on some system caused by dmraid stack (disabled by default now); re-introduced old and stable ipw3945 driver; updated pommed to 1.7 (better MacBook support); re-introduced old bcm43xx wireless driver." Read the release announcement for further details.
EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0.16
Guardian Digital has announced the release of EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0.16: "Guardian Digital is happy to announce the release of EnGarde Secure Community 3.0.16. This release includes many updated packages and bug fixes, some feature enhancements to Guardian Digital WebTool and the SELinux policy, and a few new features. What's New? EnGarde Secure Linux now has support for KVM, the Kernel-based Virtual Machine; limited support for the new ext4 file system; updated PCI tables and hardware detection system, which allows for much better detection of more recent hardware; several new packages such as ImageMagick (6.3.1), alsa-lib (1.0.14a), aspell (0.60.5)...; the latest stable versions of Asterisk (1.4.9), ClamAV (0.91.1), cURL (7.16.4), Dovecot (1.0.2)...." Read the release notes for detailed information about the latest version.
Linux Mint 3.0 "Xfce"
Clement Lefebvre has announced the release of the Xfce Community edition of Linux Mint 3.0: "This is the first Xfce release of Linux Mint. It is based on Cassandra and comes with the following mint tools: mintInstall, mintDisk, mintWifi, xfcemintConfig, xfcemintDesktop. Although similar to the main edition, the Xfce Community edition runs faster and takes fewer resources. It is ideal for older computers. The default software selection includes: OpenOffice.org 2.2.0, Firefox 2.0.0.6, Thunderbird 2.0.0.5... Notable differences with the main edition are: the presence of Exaile which replaces Amarok; the Xfce desktop replaces GNOME; Wicd replaces Network Manager." More details are available in the release notes.
Freespire 2.0
Freespire 2.0 has been released: "Freespire 2.0 is immediately available; the latest version of the free desktop Linux operating system. Building on the best of open source software using Ubuntu as its baseline, Freespire 2.0 adds legally licensed proprietary drivers, codecs, and applications in its core distribution, to provide a better user experience. Freespire is able to provide improved out-of-the-box hardware, file type, and multimedia support, such as MP3, Windows Media, Real Networks, Java, Flash, ATI, NVIDIA, WiFi, and many more. Freespire is also the first desktop Linux operating system that will include a CNR plugin for the soon-to-be-released new CNR Service, providing free one-click access to thousands of open source applications." Read the full release announcement for more information.
Freespire 2.0 - a new Ubuntu-based distribution with proprietary bits
(full image size: 436kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
|
| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
|
Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to database
- MidnightBSD. MidnightBSD is a FreeBSD derived operating system. A critical goal of the project is to create an easy-to-use desktop environment with graphical ports management, and system configuration using GNUstep. The vast majority of the operating system will maintain a BSD license. MidnightBSD was forked from FreeBSD 6.1 beta.
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 20 August 2007.
Ladislav Bodnar
|
|
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 0, value: US$0.00) |
|
|
|
 bc1qtede6f7adcce4kjpgx0e5j68wwgtdxrek2qvc4  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le |
|
| Linux Foundation Training |
|
|
| MALIBAL |
MALIBAL: Linux Laptops Custom Built for YouMALIBAL is an innovative computer manufacturer that produces high-performance, custom laptops for Linux. If your MALIBAL laptop is not the best Linux laptop you have ever used, you can return it for a full 100% refund. We will even pay the return shipping fees! For more info, visit: https://www.malibal.com
|
| 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.
|
| Archives |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Issue 993 (2022-11-07): Static Linux, working with just a kernel, Mint streamlines Flatpak management, updates coming to elementary OS |
| • Issue 992 (2022-10-31): Lubuntu 22.10, setting permissions on home directories, Linux may drop i486, Fedora delays next version for OpenSSL bug |
| • Issue 991 (2022-10-24): XeroLinux 2022.09, learning who ran sudo, exploring firewall tools, Rolling Rhino Remix gets a fresh start, Fedora plans to revamp live media |
| • Issue 990 (2022-10-17): ravynOS 0.4.0, Lion Linux 3.0, accessing low numbered network ports, Pop!_OS makes progress on COSMIC, Murena launches new phone |
| • Issue 989 (2022-10-10): Ubuntu Unity, kernel bug causes issues with Intel cards, Canonical offers free Ubuntu Pro subscriptions, customizing the command line prompt |
| • Issue 988 (2022-10-03): SpiralLinux 11.220628, finding distros for older equipment and other purposes, SUSE begins releasing ALP prototypes, Debian votes on non-free firmware in installer |
| • Issue 987 (2022-09-26): openSUSE's MicroOS, converting people to using Linux, pfSense updates base system and PHP, Python 2 dropped from Arch |
| • Issue 986 (2022-09-19): Porteus 5.0, remotely wiping a hard drive, a new software centre for Ubuntu, Proxmox offers offline updates |
| • Issue 985 (2022-09-12): Garuda Linux, using root versus sudo, UBports on the Fairphone 4, Slackware reverses change to grep |
| • Issue 984 (2022-09-05): deepin 23 Preview, watching for changing to directories, Mint team tests Steam Deck, Devuan posts fix for repository key expiry |
| • Issue 983 (2022-08-29): Qubes OS 4.1.1, Alchg Linux, immutable operating systems, Debian considers stance on non-free firmware, Arch-based projects suffer boot issue |
| • Issue 982 (2022-08-22): Peropesis 1.6.2, KaOS strips out Python 2 and PulseAudio, deepin becomes independent, getting security update notifications |
| • Issue 981 (2022-08-15): Linux Lite 6.0, defining desktop environments and window managers, Mint releases upgrade tool, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 980 (2022-08-08): Linux Mint 21, Pledge on Linux, SparkyLinux updates classic desktop packages, Peppermint OS experiments with Devuan base |
| • Issue 979 (2022-08-01): KaOS 2022.06 and KDE Plasma 5.25, terminating processes after a set time, GNOME plans Secure Boot check |
| • Issue 978 (2022-07-25): EndeavourOS 22.6, Slax explores a return to Slackware, Ubuntu certified with Dell's XPS 13, Linux running on Apple's M2 |
| • Issue 977 (2022-07-18): EasyOS 4.2, transferring desktop themes between distros, Tails publishes list of updates, Zevenet automates Let's Encrypt renewals |
| • Issue 976 (2022-07-11): NixOS 22.05, making a fake webcam, exploring the Linux scheduler, Debian publishes updated media |
| • Issue 975 (2022-07-04): Murena One running /e/OS, where are all the openSUSE distributions, Fedora to offer unfiltered Flathub access |
| • Issue 974 (2022-06-27): AlmaLinux 9.0, the changing data of DistroWatch's database, UBports on the Pixel 3a, Tails and GhostBSD publish hot fixes |
| • Issue 973 (2022-06-20): openSUSE 15.4, collecting distro media, FreeBSD status report, Ubuntu Core with optional real-time kernel |
| • Issue 972 (2022-06-13): Rolling Rhino Remix, SambaBox 4.1, SUSE team considers future of SUSE and openSUSE Leap, Tails improves Tor Connection Assistant |
| • Issue 971 (2022-06-06): ChimeraOS 2022.01.03, Lilidog 22.04, NixOS gains graphical installer, Mint replaces Bluetooth stack and adopts Timeshift, how to change a MAC address |
| • Issue 970 (2022-05-30): Tails 5.0, taking apart a Linux distro, Ubuntu users seeing processes terminated, Budgie team plans future of their desktop |
| • Issue 969 (2022-05-23): Fedora 36, a return to Unity, Canonical seeks to improve gaming on Ubuntu, HP plans to ship laptops with Pop!_OS |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Free Tech Guides |
NEW! Learn Linux in 5 Days
In this FREE ebook, you will learn the most important concepts and commands and be guided step-by-step through several practical and real-world examples (a free 212-page ebook).
|
| 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.
|
| Shells.com |
Your own personal Linux computer in the cloud, available on any device. Supported operating systems include Android, Debian, Fedora, KDE neon, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro and Ubuntu, ready in minutes.
Starting at US$4.95 per month, 7-day money-back guarantee
|
| Random Distribution | 
BitKey
BitKey was a Debian-based live distribution containing specialist utilities to perform highly secure air-gapped Bitcoin transactions. It contains a swiss army knife of handy Bitcoin tools that support a wide range of usage models, including a few very secure ones which would otherwise be difficult to perform. The system boots into one of the three available modes: "cold-offline" - for creating a wallet and signing transactions; "cold-online" - for watching the wallet and preparing transactions; "hot-online" - standard usage but less secure as the private keys are known to the computer which was connected to the internet. BitKey also provides tools for generating "brainwallets", for the most paranoid of Bitcoin users. The live CD provides a simple desktop based on the Metacity window manager with quick links to the Bitcoin tools and Chromium for web browsing.
Status: Discontinued
|
| Free Tech Guides |
NEW! Learn Linux in 5 Days
In this FREE ebook, you will learn the most important concepts and commands and be guided step-by-step through several practical and real-world examples (a free 212-page ebook).
|
| MALIBAL |
MALIBAL: Linux Laptops Custom Built for YouMALIBAL is an innovative computer manufacturer that produces high-performance, custom laptops for Linux. If your MALIBAL laptop is not the best Linux laptop you have ever used, you can return it for a full 100% refund. We will even pay the return shipping fees! For more info, visit: https://www.malibal.com
|
| 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.
|
| 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.
|
| Free Tech Guides |
NEW! Learn Linux in 5 Days
In this FREE ebook, you will learn the most important concepts and commands and be guided step-by-step through several practical and real-world examples (a free 212-page ebook).
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
