 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 309, 29 June 2009 |
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Welcome to this year's 26th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Everybody knows that LinuxTag is a premier open-source exhibition and conference in Europe. But how does it feel being there? What are the people like? What takes place at the stands, conference halls, informal parties? This week's DistroWatch Weekly gives first-hand answers to these and many other questions. In the news this past week, Debian contributors release an updated kernel for "Lenny", while Fedora settles on a code name for its upcoming release, version 12. If you've ever been tempted to try the oldest surviving Linux distribution, a beginner's install guide for Slackware we link to might be just what you need. Finally, don't miss the story about the BSD Magazine which has released some great articles from its print publication for your reading pleasure. Have a great Monday and the rest of the week!
Content:
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story |
LinuxTag 2009
 I have had a fair share of experiences with computing conferences and trade shows. Whether as an employee of a company that hired a stand at a popular event or as a neutral visitor ready to be swayed by the exhibitors' eagerness to demonstrate their products, I have often found these fairs both educational and stimulating. Perhaps the only disappointment on these large shows was the fact that computers running a decent operating system were extremely rare, even non-existent. As a result, I longed for the day when I would attend a "real" computing exhibition, one where free software would be the dominant topic of conversations and where open-source operating systems would power every single computer on the floor.
The day finally arrived last week. LinuxTag, Europe's premier open-source event, opened in Berlin on Tuesday and continued until the closing moments late on Saturday. Imagine two large halls, equipped with stands of varied sizes, all manned by a rather informal and relaxed bunch of people -- ranging from sociable and talkative to withdrawn geeks who spent most of the week behind their computers as if they were in their usual environment, instead of a large social event. Imagine walking around the show and meeting people with T-shirts saying "No, I won't fix your Windows" or another reading "# emerge life" in front and "segmentation fault" on the back (no prizes for guessing which distribution's logo accompanied the text). Imagine meeting famous Linux personalities that you read about all the time, but never meet in person. Yes, that was LinuxTag, a 4-day even taking place last week in the German capital.
For your DistroWatch maintainer, this was a dream come true. Enter the show and the first booth belongs to no other than Gentoo Linux, a very popular place that was always busy. I spent long moments talking to Robert Buchholtz, a Gentoo developer, and Luca Barbato, a member of the Gentoo council. "Why don't you guys publish more announcements and tell us more about your innovations?" I asked. "That's not how we work," replied Luca. "We are no Ubuntu and we aren't interested in grabbing attention. We are a big group of developers, each one working on his or her itch." He also refused the idea that the council should direct the development according to the project's goals. "We will only step in if there is a conflict, otherwise we won't interfere with each individual's work."
Right next to the Gentoo stand was a group of young people, proudly displaying their affiliation with CentOS. Dag Wieers, the well-known maintainer of a once very popular RPM repository, greeted me with a big smile: "Do you know CentOS?" When I introduced myself, he looked somewhat disappointed: "Oh, so you know CentOS..." Still, we found a lot to talk about. "Yes, CentOS is often considered a server operating system," explained Dag, "but we are trying to change that. In fact, the latest release has many up-to-date desktop packages and we also have an extra repository with many application and drivers that are not officially part of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)." He asserted: "CentOS can be a perfect system for those who need long-term stability and who don't want to take frequent and potentially risky upgrade paths." He is right; just consider this: although already more than two years old, RHEL 5 (and, by extension, CentOS 5) will continue to receive security updates until at least March 2014. That's mind-boggling!
A discussion at the CentOS stand.
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The topic of CentOS came up once again at the Fedora stand, right at the end of the second hall. After approaching the group of men, all wearing uniform blue T-shirts with the famous infinity symbol, my first question wasn't very flattering: "What have you guys done with Fedora 11? It's broken. At least that's what many Fedora users are saying." A long-winded explanation followed, but in the end, the conclusion was simple - it is just not possible to create a distribution that is both a leader in innovation and extremely stable at the same time. The consensus was that Fedora wasn't an operating system for everybody. Those who like to live on the cutting edge of Linux development will love it, but those who want stability should probably take a closer look at CentOS. One of the stars of this year's LinuxTag was Max Spevack, the former Fedora project leader, who also gave a speech entitled "Introduction to the Fedora Users and Developers Conference (FUDCon)".
Close to the rather smallish Fedora stand was a cluster of high-profile booths displaying the many variations of the "Linux for humanity" logo. Yes, Ubuntu was at LinuxTag too. The stands were not sponsored by Canonical, but rather organised by the local Ubuntu communities. I spoke to Julius Bloch, one of the maintainers of ubuntu-de.org who gave me some hard evidence about the rising popularity of Ubuntu in Germany - tens of thousands of registered users in the forums and more 50 local Ubuntu communities in every part of the country. Across the aisle, Alexander Kopf was eagerly demonstrating the latest advances in Kubuntu, in a large stand that the project shared with KDE and Amarok, the music player.
One Ubuntu-related stand that caught my eye belonged to a little-known live CD project called Ubuntu Privacy Remix, currently still on DistroWatch's waiting list. But as Rike Jacobs explained, this is a product that should become a lot more popular; after all, protecting one's important data from prying eyes or theft is something that every user should take extremely seriously. The live CD, available for free download from the project's web site, boots into a standard Ubuntu, but it does not access the computer's hard disks at all; instead, it saves all data to an encrypted USB storage device. An option to create a backup from the USB drive is also available, as are many other interesting features. An excellent product to keep around when you travel or when you can't take any chances with your important files!
Nearby, the joint Debian GNU/Linux and sidux stand was attracting a steady steam of visitors. The Debian half was one of the few distribution booths with female staff on duty (two young ladies were frequently seen handing out fliers and explaining the project to interested visitors), which made a pleasant change from the otherwise overly masculine appearance of the show. A regular activity at the stand was GPG keysigning, a very serious exercise which inevitably turned into a giggle as soon as the two parties exchanged their ID cards to ascertain that the person signing the key is indeed who he or she claims to be. On the other hand, the sidux part of the booth seemed like a busy computer lab, with developers constantly running between their computers as if their reason for coming to LinuxTag was to finalise the upcoming new release. But that didn't mean to be. As explained one of the sidux developers, Debian "sid", which sidux is based on, is undergoing a major transition to KDE 4, which means a rather large number of release-critical bugs at the moment.
Still in the second hall, but moving towards the entrance, one could hardly miss the greenest of all the stands - the one belonging to openSUSE. This was a large, nicely designed area with plenty of convenient sitting space for the many curious visitors who ventured inside. The stand was attended by well-known former and current openSUSE personalities, including Joe Brockmeier (the openSUSE community manager), Andreas Jaeger (the former openSUSE release manager) and Stephan Binner (a KDE developer). The last day of the show was dedicated to openSUSE, with speeches ranging from creating an openSUSE-based home theatre to what's new in the upcoming openSUSE 11.2 to using WINE on the popular distribution. Most of the talks were in German though.
Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier demonstrates the SUSE build service
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But which do you think was the largest and busiest distribution stand at the show? No, it wasn't Ubuntu's or openSUSE's; instead the overwhelmingly attractive area of linuX-gamers took the prize. Displaying a large number of computers with big screen, this place was buzzing with activity and various sound effects as visitors tried the many games on offer. It took some effort before I managed to pull over Marko Kaiser, one of the developers of the Arch Linux-based live CD and DVD (now also available as an image for USB storage drives). The new CD image with a limited number of games was only made available recently, following a heated discussion in Germany over the relationship between violent games and real-life tragic school shootings that took place in recent months. While the full DVD still contains all the popular free games available for the Linux platform, the live CD is limited to non-violent games only and suitable for children.
Of course, LinuxTag wasn't only about distributions. Many other projects took part, including the popular desktop environments (KDE, GNOME and LXDE), projects specialising in making Linux a great media platform (VLC, FFmpeg and XBMC media centre) and the usual suspects, such as Free Software Foundation Europe or Linux Professional Institute. A handful of commercial companies where also on the floor. Large conference hall above and below the trade show were reserved for talks (both in English and German), which included such exciting topics as new features in the upcoming VLC 1.0 and fun and games with Nmap. And even though this was a Linux show, other free software projects were also part of the overall experience - the joint BSD stand representing the three big ones (FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD) was there to educate users about the virtues of netpkg among others, while a German UNIX Users Group was handing out CDs with the recently released OpenSolaris 2009.06.
So how would I rate the LinuxTag exhibition overall? There were one or two disappointments, the most serious being the fact that there was no free WiFi connection at the trade floor, and I also regretted that there weren't more well-known Linux personalities at the show to act as drawcards. Nevertheless, it was nice to meet ordinary guys who simply enjoy Linux. But I think the biggest value of the show was being able to share experiences and listen to other people's views. Regular readers of DistroWatch Weekly will know that I've been critical of Gentoo's lack of PR in recent years, but after talking to the guys at the Gentoo stand I changed my view. Gentoo is Gentoo and I have to accept its way of doing things rather than trying to force it into something it doesn't want to be. I've also made one or two critical remarks about KDE 4 in the past, but seeing Luca Gugelmann's enthusiastic presentation of KDE 4 features made me want to switch to this exciting desktop straight away. These were important interactions; if somebody who disagrees with me sends me a nasty email it does nothing to change my opinion. But enthusiasm and belief in one's project is a completely different story.
Great show, excellent ambiance, and authoritative presentations - that was LinuxTag 2009. Hope you can join us next year!
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| Miscellaneous News (by Chris Smart) |
Updated kernel for "Lenny", Slackware install guide, Fedora 12 "Constantine", free articles by BSD Magazine
 Debian is one of the most popular distributions today and one of the largest open source community projects in the world. Known for its stability (which often contributes to delayed releases), Debian's packages are often much older than those that ship with most other distros. The project is able to focus on stability more than features because it is not driven by a corporate entity like other major distributions. At times however, newer software is essential for getting the operating system working on a computer. With "Etch", Debian introduced updated kernels to help combat this but there are other kernels available. Developer Kenshi Muto has been maintaining an updated kernel for "Lenny" and released a version for 2.6.30 including firmware and support for ext4.
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 The oldest surviving Linux distribution continues to plod along, minding its own business and getting on with the job. If you've ever been enticed to try the distro yourself, perhaps a beginner's guide will be helpful! As the article quotes: "Give a man Ubuntu, and he'll learn Ubuntu. Give a man SUSE, and he'll learn SUSE. But give a man Slackware, and he'll learn Linux." Slackware is a distribution for advanced users or at least those willing to learn. It has no complex package manager like Debian or Fedora to automatically handle dependencies, but instead expects the end user to know what is required and handle all that manually. Here's an interesting article on why a user prefers Slackware over Ubuntu.
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 The new name for the upcoming Fedora version 12 has been announced at FUDCon in Berlin, and is to be "Constantine". As with all releases of Fedora, the new name must be linked to the name of the previous version, in this case both Constantine and Leonidas are townships in the state of Michigan, USA. If you're interested in following the movement of release 12, the accepted features list is now being updated. The current number stands at nine, but this is expected to rise dramatically over the coming months. The current release, Fedora 11, had fifty-two new features.
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 Finally, BSD Magazine has released some free articles from their current issue. Among them is an article on installing NetBSD. Author Patrick Pippen writes: "NetBSD is not as difficult to install as you may think, it comes with an easy-to-use menu-driven program called sysinst to make installation quick and simple. In reality it's not that difficult if you take the time to read through the NetBSD Guide and follow the instructions within it. After some time you'll be surprised how fast you can get it up and running." Also available is an article on encrypting your data under BSD operating systems and an interview with NetBSD developers. Even an entire issue, which focuses on OpenBSD, is available. Certainly worth looking into if you're a BSD fan, or considering trying it out. Before the PDFs are accessible, you are required to register with an email address.
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| Released Last Week |
Guadalinex 6
Guadalinex 6, a Spanish, Ubuntu-based distribution developed by the regional government of Andalucía in Spain, has been released. This version incorporates new functionality inherited from Ubuntu 9.04, with some of the most noticeable improvements being faster boot, several new programs and utilities, and the ability to run Windows applications. However, the new Guadalinex also includes features that differentiates it from Ubuntu, such as the Amigu migration assistant which can import files, settings, email and browser favourites from Windows (including Vista), and a practical user manual written specifically for this version of the distribution. Read the release announcement (in Spanish) for further details and see also this blog post by Juanje Ojeda (in English) which explains the goals of the distribution.
GoblinX 3.0 "g:Mini"
Flavio Pereira de Oliveira has announced the release of GoblinX 3.0 "g:Mini" edition, a small, Slackware-based distribution and live CD with Xfce: "The GoblinX Project is proud to announce the release of the a stable g:Mini distribution. The g:Mini, formerly known as 'GoblinX Mini' is the son of GoblinX and contains only Xfce as the windows manager and GTK+ applications. g:Mini 3.0 includes the latest Xfce 4.6 which has brought several improvements and new features. Xfce session now offers hibernate and suspend options. It has a new notification system with themes managed by Xfce 'notifyd', Xfce power manager to help laptop users set up a power profile for two different modes, Gigolo to manage connections to remote file systems, a better control center and more." See the release announcement and changelog for more information.
Linux Mint 7 "x86_64"
Clement Lefebvre has announced that the 64-bit edition of Linux Mint 7 is now available: "The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 7 'x86_64'. This edition of Linux Mint 7 is almost identical to the main edition but, compiled for 64-bit processors (Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Core 2 Quad, AMD Athlon X2 64 and all x86_64 compliant processors). It comes with all the improvements featured in Linux Mint 7 main edition. Known issues: the root password is now the same as the one chosen during the installation, a blog post will follow to explain why and how this was implemented; if you’re using Mint tools in other distributions, make sure to turn off the adjustment system by editing mintSystem.conf." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information.
MoLinux 5.0
MoLinux 5.0, a Spanish, Ubuntu-based distribution developed by the regional government of Castilla la Mancha in Spain, has been released. Code-named "Dorotea", in reference to a pretty girl in Cervantes' Don Quijote de la Mancha, MoLinux 5.0 is distributed as an installable live DVD. New features: improved hardware support and boot speed; optional ext4 file system support; connectivity improvements with the latest version of NetworkManager; newest versions of most of the included applications. New software: GNOME Control Centre for configuring the system; CompizConfig, a utility for setting up 3D desktop effects; Tucan, a download manager; Gru, a tool for restoring the bootloader in case it has been accidentally overwritten or damaged.... Please refer to the release announcement and release notes (both links in Spanish) for further details about the release.
Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.2
Greg Bruno has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.2, a specialist, CentOS-based distribution designed to make it simple to build high-performance computer clusters: "Rocks 5.2 is released for Linux on the i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures and Solaris for the x86_64 architecture. New features: with the new JumpStart roll one can now install and configure a Linux-based Rocks front-end to 'JumpStart' Solaris-based back-end machines; can assign 'attributes' to nodes at four levels - global, appliance type, OS (e.g., Linux or SunOS), and host; Anaconda installer updated to version 11.1.2.168; isolated MySQL for the Rocks database under /opt/rocks; fix for software RAID partitioning...." Read the rest of the release announcement for further information.
linuX-gamers Live 0.9.5
Marko Kaiser has announced the release of linuX-gamers Live 0.9.5, a set of Arch-based live media (on CD, DVD and USB drives) featuring a variety of popular 3D games: "We are proud to announce a new version of our live DVD at LinuxTag 2009 in Berlin. We now have different versions of our distribution: 'Lite ISO' - a small CD image containing a limited selection of games suitable for children and older computers; 'Lite USB' - the same selection of games as 'Lite ISO' but for USB keys; 'Big ISO' - a big DVD image (4.7 GB) containing the full selection of games for adults and more recent computers; 'Big USB' - contains full selection of fames, but is meant for USB sticks with the capacity of at least 5 GB capacity." Here is the complete release announcement.
Calculate Linux 9.7 "Directory Server"
Calculate Directory Server is a Gentoo-based LDAP server providing a centralised storage of application settings, user accounts and access privileges. A new version of the product was announced yesterday. Some of the main changes include: "Support for Italian and Polish languages; support for the proxy service with user authorization in LDAP; support for Samba group settings in the LDAP server; support for setting of some Jabber service hosts; isolinux has been used for booting; when booting from CD user can now select a keyboard layout; support from loading the CD into memory; improved hardware compatibility when booting from a USB DVD...." More information in the release announcement.
Toorox 06.2009
Joern Lindau has announced the release of Toorox 06.2009, a Gentoo-based live DVD featuring the latest KDE 4: "Toorox 06.2009 is finished now. As always, the KDE was updated to the latest version 4.2.4. The recent CVS snapshot of the lancelot_part plasmoid was included because Qt was updated to 4.5.1 and the old version of the plasmoid had some trouble with it. The USB stick creator script was optimised; now there are three options - static, personal and encrypted. For the last two options the home folder will be stored and with the remaining option even password-encrypted when shut down. Now two partitions will be created - ext2 for Toorox and FAT32 for regular data storage on the pen drive. Some users had kernel panics after installation and booting from an USB hard disk - this has been fixed." Here is the brief release announcement.
Tiny Core Linux 2.1
Robert Shingledecker has announced the release of Tiny Core Linux 2.1, a minimalist desktop distribution in 11 MB: "The Tiny Core team is pleased to announce version 2.1 of Tiny Core and Micro Core Linux. Changelog: new modutils results in much space savings; new changed from using initramfs to tmpfs for better support of df and mount bind option; new Squashfs module to prevent spurious Squashfs errors upon boot; new aterm for better interaction with Appbrowser; new waitforX eliminates WM timing issues; new BusyBox 1.13.4 - command line history set to 150; new usbinstall, a command line tool to install to pen drive, USB hard disk drive, USB zip, or USB ext; new upgrade_tce.sh command line script, an extremely conservative batch upgrade script; new added modules hwmon and rfkill for better support of laptops; updated virtual hard drive to support persistent home on a virtual hard drive...." Read the rest of the release announcement for more changes.
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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 waiting list
- openArtist. openArtist is an Ubuntu-based distribution designed for artists. It ships with nearly every relevant software applications available in the free software world, including 2D and 3D image manipulation tools, audio and video packages, software for hardware interfacing and collaboration, etc.
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DistroWatch database summary
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And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 6 July 2009.
Ladislav Bodnar and Chris Smart
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • 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 | 
Zentyal Server
Zentyal Server (formerly eBox Platform) is a unified network server that offers easy and efficient computer network administration for small and medium-size businesses. It can act as a gateway, an infrastructure manager, a unified threat manager, an office server, a unified communication server or a combination of them. These functionalities are tightly integrated, automating most tasks, avoiding mistakes and saving time for system administrators. Zentyal Server is available in free (Development) and commercial editions. Zentyal is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and runs on top of Ubuntu.
Status: Active
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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.
|
| 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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