 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 229, 19 November 2007 |
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Welcome to this year's 47th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Following our review of Fedora 8 last Monday, this week's DistroWatch Weekly offers a few more observations about Red Hat's community distribution - this time from the perspective of your DistroWatch maintainer. While clearly an excellent product, it nevertheless suffers from a few annoyances and dubious design decisions. In the news section, Red Hat Magazine introduces GNOME Online Desktop, Ubuntu releases a specialist distribution for virtual appliances, Oracle's Larry Ellison fires more ugly shots at Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Kurumin's Carlos Morimoto considers the future of the popular Brazilian community project. Finally, for those interested in Computer Aided Engineering, don't miss the new release from CAELinux. Happy reading!
Content:
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Reviews |
Impressions of Fedora 8
 Two weeks ago I switched my main production workstation from Sabayon Linux 3.4 to Fedora 8. This was part of my scheduled distro rotation plan that I started two years ago in order to better evaluate the different options on the market and to stay on top of the latest open source innovations. It was also the first time in years that I used a Red Hat product; as far as I can remember, I haven't installed any on a production box since Red Hat Linux 9 and even that was just a simple mail server. But the Fedora of today is a very different operating system - not only is it one of the most innovative distributions around, it is now also a well-oiled community project with increasing participation of third-party developers and volunteer contributors.
I performed a clean installation of Fedora 8 RC3 (a near-final build), x86_64 edition, on a machine with the following specifications: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ dual-core processor; GIGABYTE GA-M55S-S3 motherboard with AMD Socket AM2 (with on-board LAN and audio, one IDE and four SATA channels), 2 GB of DDR II RAM PC2-5300, NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT video card, 2 x 250 GB SATA hard disks (Maxtor); Acer AL2016W 20-inch wide screen monitor supporting maximum resolution of 1680x1050 pixels. I used the standard installation DVD (rather than the newer live CD option). Things didn't go as smoothly as I expected; after completing the installation with a customised package selection (to include KDE, a web server and development packages), the system refused to boot with a "file system error". I repeated the exact same installation - with the exact same result (the fsck utility found no errors, though). On the third attempt, I reverted to the default package selection and this time the system booted fine.
As soon as the new operating system was up and running, the early troubles were quickly forgotten. Fedora's hardware detection was flawless (it configured even the screen resolution correctly) and the desktop looked exceptionally pleasant; I was particularly impressed with the new Liberation fonts. I don't have any benchmarks to support my claim, but the desktop and applications felt noticeably snappier than on Sabayon Linux 3.4. After installing the NVIDIA proprietary driver from Livna.org, I enabled CompizFusion and this too worked very well. I spent the following hours installing all my favourite applications from the standard Fedora repositories and media codecs from third-party sources. This was perhaps the only disadvantage of Fedora 8 when compared to Sabayon Linux, which comes pre-configured with all the media goodies and browser plugins a desktop Linux user could possibly need.
No Linux distribution is perfect and Fedora 8 is no exception. In the process of installing software and configuring the system I came across a number of issues; most of them minor, but one near show-stopper that almost made me abandon the distribution. Since DistroWatch uses the SQLite database to store news and some statistical bits and pieces, I was rather shocked to discover that PHP on Fedora 8 is compiled with the "--without-sqlite" flag. This was apparently done because the maintainer of the PHP package at Fedora considers SQLite support in PHP unsafe. I am not an expert on the issue, but if the upstream, as well as Debian, FreeBSD, Mandriva, openSUSE and Slackware are all happy to ship PHP with SQLite enabled, then I somehow doubt that Fedora has a valid case here. In the end I solved the problem by downloading the source RPM of PHP, removed the absurd "--without-sqlite" line from the php.spec file and recompiled the package. Luckily, this worked fine, so now I can load DistroWatch from my own workstation too.
The default package management infrastructure as represented by yum, Pirut and yum-updatesd was another part of Fedora 8 that I found unsatisfactory. The way a Fedora installation seems to be configured is that every time any of these applications is run, it connects to the Fedora Project web server to retrieve a mirror list, then automatically assigns a mirror from which to retrieve the package database. For some reason, I always found myself getting the database from what seemed like the slowest mirror imaginable, located somewhere in Russia - it sometimes took several hours just to retrieve the package database! During this time it was, of course, impossible to use any other package management application, not even for search. It also drove me insane to see how there was no way to sort searched packages in an alphabetical order in Pirut. It wasn't until I discovered yum-fastestmirror and yumex (Yum Extender) that package management on Fedora became an acceptable experience. Why aren't these two applications installed in Fedora by default?
I prefer KDE on my desktop, so after a brief moment exploring the latest GNOME, I logged into KDE. This I always do with some apprehension; it is interesting to note that while the traditionally KDE-centric distributions, such as openSUSE or Mandriva, now treat GNOME as an equal desktop, the traditionally GNOME-centric distribution, such as Ubuntu or Fedora, still consider KDE a second-class citizen. That's not to say that the KDE desktop on Fedora is broken, but it's rather obvious that some of the new features as well as the new artwork were designed for and fully integrated with GNOME only. Also, while CompizFusion run without problem in GNOME, I couldn't start it in KDE - not until I came across a brief tutorial that included a list of extra packages that needed to be installed before CompizFusion would run in KDE. An occasional Arts error message also suggested that KDE had not receive the same amount of testing as GNOME.
The only other bug I found was in gFTP, which is my preferred application for uploading files to the DistroWatch server due to its support for the SSH2 protocol. It's an upstream bug that gives a "permission denied" error on world-readable files when in SSH2 mode; however, this bug was fixed in Debian and Gentoo almost two years ago, so I was disappointed to see it still present in Fedora 8 (it is also unfixed in the current release of Mandriva). I suppose it's just a matter of reporting the bug in Red Hat's Bugzilla, which -- as a good open source citizen -- I promised myself to do as soon as I find a bit of spare time.
With the exception of the PHP/SQLite issue and perhaps also the default package management infrastructure (which just isn't anywhere near par with Debian's APT), I found Fedora 8 a very usable and complete distribution. Besides all the innovation and generally trouble-free computing, I was pleasantly surprised to see how well the community part of Fedora now functions - the Livna.org packages were already in testing repositories before Fedora 8 final was released and I found them to be of very high quality. Even better, the Livna.org package maintainers are extremely fast with updates - I was impressed with the almost instant release of Livna.org kernel modules shortly after the recent Fedora 8 kernel update.
I also appreciate the fact that many of the more visible packages in Fedora get updated to their latest versions after the distribution's stable release; as an example the original Fedora 8 shipped with GIMP 2.4.0rc3, but it has since been updated to GIMP 2.4.1 via the normal update mechanism. I know that openSUSE does this too sometimes, but Ubuntu and Mandriva generally do not. With the exception of those who need a desktop with a mission-critical stability (in which case Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS would be better alternatives), most users will probably appreciate that the distribution is kept up-to-date with well-tested packages throughout its lifespan.
Overall, nothing (except for the occasional work needed to recompile PHP after any future updates) indicates that I won't be a happy Fedora 8 user for the next six months. It is considerably less buggy than Sabayon Linux 3.4 was and the existence of Livna.org makes adding media codecs and non-free drivers a painless experience. I didn't encounter any problems with using the 64-bit edition of Fedora - like in recent Mandriva and Sabayon Linux releases, the 32-bit and 64-bit libraries are seamlessly integrated into the system. Although Fedora 8 isn't perfect (which distribution is?), it comes a lot closer to delivering a superb desktop experience than one would expect from a company whose business is focused almost exclusively on the server market. Great job overall and a well-deserved 8.5 out of 10.
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| Statistics |
Windows versus Linux
Will 2008 be the Year of Linux? While it doesn't look likely that Linux will become a dominant operating system for some time yet, the gap between Windows and Linux is definitely narrowing. That's at least according to the DistroWatch web server statistics, which collects information about the operating systems used to visit this web site. While in late 2004 the percentage of Windows-using visitors hovered at around 65% of all readers, this figure has since dropped to around 55%. At same time, the percentage of visitors using Linux has risen from around 28% in late 2004 to 36% today. In reality, the percentage of Linux-using readers is probably still higher, but the sheer number of search and spam bots which access the web site daily and which invariable identify themselves as arriving from a Windows client make the result look overly flattering for the Microsoft operating system.
The narrowing gap between the usage of Windows and Linux
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| Miscellaneous News |
Fedora's GNOME Online Desktop, Ubuntu JeOS, Oracle vs Red Hat, future of Kurumin Linux, CAELinux 2007
 One of the little advertised new features in Fedora 8 is the GNOME Online Desktop, an experimental variant of GNOME that offers quick access to popular Internet services. Red Hat Magazine offers a tour of the new desktop layout and its features: "GNOME Online Desktop is an alternate 'mode' or flavor of the GNOME desktop. We're experimenting with a few different things here. 1. The overall concept of tightly integrating the web into the desktop, as described here. 2. Specific user interface ideas, such as a desktop sidebar called BigBoard. 3. A set of platform components that support web integration - these can be used with any application or UI, including the more traditional GNOME desktop flavor. The platform components are hard to see in the screenshots, of course. But this tour shows off some of the user interface ideas."
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 The Ubuntu development team has announced the inaugural release of Ubuntu JeOS (pronounced "juice"), a customised Ubuntu operating system layer designed for VMware virtual appliances: "Canonical Ltd., the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, today announced the availability of its Ubuntu JeOS (Just Enough Operating System) edition. Ubuntu JeOS (pronounced "Juice") is an efficient variant of the popular desktop and server operating system, configured specifically for virtual appliances. ISVs looking to develop virtual appliances will have a compelling platform in Ubuntu JeOS, an OS optimised for virtualisation that greatly reduces the complexity and maintenance overhead normally associated with general purpose operating systems. Ubuntu JeOS Edition has been tuned to take advantage of key performance technologies of the latest virtualisation products from VMware."
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 The big business once again demonstrated its ugly face last week when Oracle's Larry Ellison attacked and derided Red Hat and its enterprise Linux distribution: "Oracle has been in the Linux business for a year now. With the Red Hat code all we did for the first year was fix bugs." Just to recap on the events, Red Hat released Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4 in February 2005, while Oracle announced the availability of its "own" build of RHEL 4 in October 2006, attempting to undercut Red Hat's support business by offering a cheaper alternative. In March 2007, Red Hat released RHEL 5, a much improved version of its flagship product with many enterprise-class features - a challenge that Oracle has yet to respond to. But why does Larry Ellison dislike Red Hat so much? CNET's Matt Assay offers an answer: "Larry doesn't understand open source. Oracle desperately wants open source to be 'just another tool' that it uses for IT domination. It's not. It actually has the opposite effect."
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  "Fim do Kurumin?" This was a question many Brazilian Linux web sites asked last week. The Debian-based Kurumin Linux, created by Carlos Morimoto (pictured on the right), has become one of the most widely used Linux distributions in Brazil since its launch in 2003, largely due to its compact size, attractive artwork, custom configuration tools, and excellent support for popular Brazilian hardware (e.g. "winmodems" and USB ADSL modems). But in a forum post last week, Morimoto hinted at a possible change in direction or even a complete closure of the project. As the main reasons he cited lack of time and availability of well-localised, easy-to-use distributions, such as Mandriva Linux or Ubuntu. As expected, the announcement was greeted with mixed reactions in the Brazilian Linux community. If you understand Portuguese, you can follow the discussion in this thread, with additional commentary and reaction by BR-Linux and MaxINFO.
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"People are often looking for a CAD solution for Linux but don't know that there is a full distro." This was a message sent to DistroWatch by the developers of CAELinux, a PCLinuxOS-based distribution with a collection of Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) software. CAELinux is still on the DistroWatch's waiting list, but those readers who find this distribution useful will be pleased to know that a new version was released last week: "This first stable version of CAELinux is now officially released. Thanks to the new PCLinuxOS 2007 distribution base and the unique Salome_Meca 2007 FEA suite, CAELinux 2007 represents a jump in stability and ease of use, and we hope that you will enjoy it. As usual, this release is available either as a installable live DVD distribution or under Windows with our pre-configured VMware edition." The CAELinux 2007 live DVD image is available for download from here: CAELinux2007.iso (2,361MB, MD5).
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| Released Last Week |
StartCom Enterprise Linux 5.0.1
StartCom Ltd has announced the release of StartCom Enterprise Linux 5.0.1, a distribution rebuilt from source RPM packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and enhanced with additional software: "StartCom is pleased to announce the availability of StartCom Enterprise Linux AS-5.0.1. StartCom Linux is using the latest in open source technology and with its known stability, reliability and security allows for mission-critical server deployments. This update release provides improved support for virtualization - the running of multiple instances of operating systems on one physical hardware unit. The Global File System (GFS) provided in AS-5.0.1 allows the building and maintaining of high availability computer clusters, mainly used for data centers." Read the release announcement for further information.
BLAG Linux And GNU 70000
Jeff Moe has announced the release of BLAG Linux And GNU 70000, a single-CD desktop distribution based on Fedora 7: "BLAG 70000 (sugarwater) released. BLAG is a 100% Free Software distribution with all the tools you want from a desktop computer, plus more. It comes on a single CD, is easily installed, and user friendly. Power users have the resources of a repository that combines bits from Fedora, freshrpms, Dries, ATrpms, Livna, Planet CCRMA, and our own special brews. BLAG 70000 (sugarwater) is a new series with a new base (F7) and many new applications. It is released under the GNU GPL v3." Optimised for the i686 processor architecture, BLAG 70000 uses Linux kernel 2.6.22.9 and GNOME 2.18 as the default desktop. Read the complete release announcement for further details.
Blag Linux And GNU 70000 - a Fedora-based desktop distribution containing Free Software only
(full image size: 714kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Linux Mint 4.0
Clement Lefebvre has announced the final release of Linux Mint 4.0, code name "Daryna": "Linux Mint 4.0, codename Daryna, was officially released today in both Main and Light editions. What's new in Daryna: mintUpdate - get automatic updates without compromising the stability of the system; mintInstall & the Software Portal - interact with mintInstall without starting from the Portal; mintDesktop improvements - major improvements in terms of usability; Liberation fonts; CompizFusion; upstream improvements - Gnome 2.20, Linux kernel 2.6.22; new repository structure. What makes Daryna ideal for the desktop? Out-of-the-box multimedia support; Windows integration (dual-boot, NTFS read/write support, migration assistant); one-click install system; easy file sharing (mintUpload)...." See the release notes for more detailed information about the product.
Linux Mint 4.0 - "Daryna" comes with many subtle improvements
(full image size: 937kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.6
Red Hat has announced the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4.6, the 6th update to its legacy Red Hat 4.x product line: "Red Hat is pleased to announce the availability of the release of 4.6 (kernel 2.6.9-67.EL) for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 family of products. This release includes the following enhancements: availability of a full set of updated installable CD ISO with OS package updates and install-time support for new hardware; availability of updated Extras ISO images with third party package updates. New kernel features include: added getcpu system call on ia64; added /proc numa maps support; updated Infiniband OFED support to 1.2; added ability to disable out of memory killer; added smaps functionality; updated CIFS client to version 1.48aRH...." Read the release announcement and release notes for further details.
Zenwalk Linux 4.8 "Live"
Michael Verret has announced the release of the "Live" edition of Zenwalk Linux 4.8: "With great joy the Zenwalk Live team presents Zenwalk Live 4.8. New or improved features of Zenwalk Live include automatic wide-screen resolution adjustments, the ability to read and write to the NTFS file system, a LiloFix GUI tool, wireless free drivers and much, much more. This release also comes complete with enhanced localization and user guides translated into more languages than ever before so that you feel right at home, no matter where you are as you learn all of its features and just what this thing can really do for you. Weighing in at under 500 MB, this baby packs a punch!" Here is the full release announcement.
PC-BSD 1.4.1
The PC-BSD development team has announced the release of PC-BSD 1.4.1, an update version of the FreeBSD-based operating system for the desktop: "An update to PC-BSD was released today, version 1.4.1. This new version may be obtained from our download page, additionally users who are running version 1.4 may download a patch to upgrade. This version of PC-BSD has several important fixes: upgrades Compiz 0.5.2 to CompizFusion 0.6.0; switches from HPIJS to HPLIP for better printer / scanner support; adds extra screen savers with XScreenSaver package; updates NVIDIA drivers to latest releases from NVIDIA; fixes issue with 'tar' extract error during install when using custom partitioning; switches ISO to LZMA compression, speeding up the install and reducing the size of the CD ISO image." See the release announcement, changelog and release notes for further details.
ArtistX 0.4
Marco Ghirlanda has announced the release of ArtistX 0.4, a Debian-based live DVD with a collection of audio, video and 2D/3D graphics software: "ArtistX 0.4 is ready for download. It comes in two flavours (GNOME and KDE) and both include the Powua client and Powua tutorials. Powua is the Super Internet Computer and has been created to speed up CPU intensive tasks. For example you can realize an animation with Blender and directly from ArtistX upload and render it on Powua (more info on the Powua Wiki and in the DVD). ArtistX is based on the Debian Live initiative and includes the 2.6.22 kernel, GNOME 2.20, KDE 3.5.7, and includes about 2,500 free multimedia software, nearly everything that exists for the GNU/Linux environment." Visit the project's home page to read the full release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to database
- gOS. gOS is an easy-to-use, Ubuntu-based distribution designed for less technical computer users. Its main features are the use of Enlightenment as the default desktop and tight integration of various Google products and services into the product.
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New distributions added to waiting list
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DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 26 November 2007.
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Issue 993 (2022-11-07): Static Linux, working with just a kernel, Mint streamlines Flatpak management, updates coming to elementary OS |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
Shift Linux
Shift Linux was a project that was created by the Neowin community. Based on Ubuntu, it has access to all of the software and applications as other Ubuntu-based distributions. Neowin's Shift Linux was designed to give the user an experience of being part of the Neowin community and to have a simple, easy-to-use live CD that can be installed to a hard drive. Shift was a free distribution released under the General Public License. It can be freely distributed or modified.
Status: Discontinued
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