 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 385, 20 December 2010 |
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Welcome to this year's final issue of DistroWatch Weekly! We conclude the year 2010 with a first-look review of LinuxConsole 1.0.2010 before we highlight some of the more interesting news items from the past week, including a sensational report about an alleged 10-year old backdoor exploit in OpenBSD financed by US government's Federal Bureau of Investigations, an interview with Attachmate CEO Jeff Hawn about the future of openSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise, and an announcement by the Debian project that the upcoming stable release will feature a completely "free" Linux kernel. For those who have enjoyed the recent command-line tips and tricks sessions, Jesse Smith has another instalment of useful Bash one-liners. And although DistroWatch Weekly will take a break until early January, the website's news page will continue to receive updates, which should include one or two big-name distro releases before the end of the year. With wishes of enjoyable and fun-filled end-of the year holidays, we conclude with the usual - happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
A look at LinuxConsole 1.0.2010
 The LinuxConsole distribution was my dark horse of 2009. It was a small, French Linux distro which managed to be compact, fast and included an interesting approach to software management. Aside from some translation quirks in the distro's text, I found it to be an enjoyable system to use. Fast forward about a year and I received a few e-mails informing me that a new LinuxConsole release was up on their website. This version, labelled 1.0.2010, was made available in mid-November and boasts improved module management and a new desktop in the form of LXDE. The project's website maintains a fairly simple layout with a black & white theme and six translations (Dutch, English, French, German, Italian and Portuguese). There is a small forum for requesting support, reporting bugs and making suggestions. There is a link to frequently asked questions on the menu, but at time of writing it throws up an error saying the page could not be found. The site has links providing access to the project's source code, a download page and a link to additional modules in a section of the site called the Jukebox.
We'll cover more on modules later, but the Jukebox isn't just for browsing available modules, it's also a method by which we can customize our download image. We can search through the modules by name and by category and click a link to add a given module to our custom ISO download. When we've added all the modules we want, we're given the option of downloading our image file with a regular or real-time kernel. The server puts it all together and gives us a download link. A vanilla image is about 80 MB. However, wanting the default experience, I decided to take the pre-made download, which weighed in at about 230 MB.
When the CD boots, we're shown a menu which gives us the option to run the live disc, perform an install, perform an auto-install, or perform an update. There is also a sub-menu with additional boot options, such as launching the disc with fail safe parameters. I chose to begin with testing LinuxConsole from the live environment and this is where I started running into problems. The first time around I was testing the distribution on a desktop machine (2.5 GHz CPU, 2 GB of RAM, NVIDIA video card) and I found the live disc wouldn't boot. It would chug along for a while and then come to a halt and completely lock-up. Unfortunately even fail safe mode wouldn't get me as far as a login screen. I next moved to my HP laptop (dual-core 2 GHz CPU, 3 GB of RAM, Intel video card) and found LinuxConsole would boot. However, even with the vesa video driver, my desktop environment ended up looking like a crushed kaleidoscope and was effectively unusable. After some trial and error, I gave up trying to get LinuxConsole to boot on my physical hardware and turned to working with VirtualBox.
In the virtual environment LinuxConsole loaded without any problems, asked me to select my preferred language (from a list of the six mentioned above), choose a suitable keyboard layout and then presented me with a desktop. The environment is LXDE, making for a resource-light experience. The menu bar sits at the bottom of the screen and the wallpaper is a pleasant nature shot. Once I confirmed that I had an active network connection and the distro appeared to be functioning well, I went looking for an installer. I didn't find one, not exactly. There's an application for transferring LinuxConsole to another device, but the presentation makes me think the tool is for saving LinuxConsole to a USB drive, not a local hard disk. I rebooted and went back to the original boot menu and took the installer option. The installer took a look at my virtual hard disk and reported it couldn't find a suitable partition on which to install the system, suggested I try the auto-install option and exited. Once again I returned to the boot menu and, this time, chose the auto-install option. The auto-installer took over the entire hard drive (creating a single ext4 partition and a small swap partition) and copied over its modules from the CD to the virtual machine. The entire process was quick, requiring about five minutes.
The install process doesn't include many of the normal steps (setting the time zone, creating user accounts and selecting a place for the boot loader) and so it wasn't a surprise when, with the install completed, I rebooted and was automatically logged into the desktop as root. It strikes me as a poor idea to throw the user into a desktop as the administrator without at least warning them, so one of the first things I did was set up a regular user account and put a password on the root account. Upon rebooting I found that root still logged in automatically and, further, logging out so I could switch users would cause the machine to shutdown. This strikes me as a backward practice as it effectively forces users to function as the system administrator unless they're willing to do some behind-the-scenes tinkering.
LinuxConsole 1.0.2010 - running various applications
(full image size: 343kB, resolution 1025x765 pixels)
My next surprise came when trying to run Firefox, or as it's labelled in the menu, "latest Firefox". Clicking on the Firefox icon displayed an error saying the package couldn't be downloaded. The default ISO doesn't come with Firefox, but instead includes a script to download and install the latest version of Firefox from Mozilla's servers. This same approach is taken with the Thunderbird e-mail client. When I brought up the download issue on the LinuxConsole forum, the developer quickly provided me with a fixed script and I was able to install the latest version of Firefox.
Since LinuxConsole is a small distro the application menu is sparse. There's the usual collection of apps, including a text editor, calculator, archive manager and a task monitor. We also find a file manager, image viewer, PDF viewer and the game FooBillard. There's a multimedia player, a CD burner app and a collection of configuration tools. The last category covers system management from changing the desktop's appearance, to configuring the network, to handling packages. In the background, the distro comes equipped to play mp3 files and popular video codecs. There is no Flash player installed by default, but there is a link in the menu which works much the same as the "latest Firefox" option. Selecting the Flash menu item downloads and installs the latest version of Flash on the user's machine. While running LinuxConsole I didn't find any network services operating, leaving that particular door closed.
LinuxConsole 1.0.2010 - changing system settings
(full image size: 182kB, resolution 1025x764 pixels)
Package management on LinuxConsole is a bit of a strange experience when compared with other distributions. There are two ways to approach the modules provided by the project and neither worked smoothly for me. When I clicked the "applications" link in the application menu I was told to use the command line program "lcmtool" for module management. I opened a console and ran "lcmtool" and was given a help message which let me know the program would take options to search for a package, list available packages, and either add or remove a package. All this seems straight forward enough. Where it takes an unusual turn is when searching for a specific package ("chess", for example) the search results are displayed in a GUI dialogue box, not in the console where the command was run. I soon found that asking lcmtool to list all available applications and then filtering those with grep (ie "lcmtool list | grep chess") yielded faster and cleaner results.
While the repository is fairly small, it covers a wide range of applications. There are about 270 packages, spread out over the categories Games, Audio/Video, Internet, Network, Music, Office and Drivers. Attempting to install modules resulted in a package being downloaded and then my console being filled with linking errors, after which I found the module hadn't installed. Going to the LinuxConsole website and manually downloading modules worked a little better. Opening a file browser window and double-clicking on a downloaded module would cause the module to be installed. Whether the module would run or not post-install was hit or miss. Some modules refused to run unless launched from the console, others would run sometimes or fail, regardless of how they were launched.
Updates are handled by a script called "liveupdate", which contacts the LinuxConsole server, pulls down any available updates and installs them. So far as I could tell, the liveupdate script doesn't accept any parameters to filter which updates the system will get, but the few times I made use of the script It worked without any problems.
LinuxConsole 1.0.2010 - browsing available modules
(full image size: 116kB, resolution 1027x766 pixels)
Though there were certainly stumbling blocks along the way, LinuxConsole has some points in its favour. Its memory foot print is very small, using around 50 MB of RAM. LXDE is responsive and attractive for a minimal environment. I like the concept of the independent modules, even if some of them didn't always work properly. The project's greatest asset though is, without a doubt, its developer, Yann Le Doare. Any time I asked for help or posted a bug on the forum, I received a quick reply and a fix. There was a definite enthusiasm and willingness on his part to help get the system working the way I wanted it to work. That's a spirit often times lacking in other projects and I applaud him for it.
Having played with LinuxConsole for a week, I find that it's an interesting approach, but it probably isn't a good choice for home users. At least not installed locally. As a light live CD it performs well, but the requirement of downloading Firefox each time the live disc boots puts a speed bump in the road. My biggest issue was with hardware support. It's not often Linux refuses to run properly on both of my test machines leaving me to wonder where the problems lies and, to date, I haven't had time to track down the issue. I think the idea of a small distro with an ISO builder and add-on modules is a good one, but this release just didn't work gracefully for me.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
OpenBSD on FBI-sponsored backdoor allegations, Attachmate comments on future of openSUSE, Debian "Squeeze" to default to free kernel
 Several readers have emailed us about the well-publicised story concerning FBI-sponsored backdoor exploits in OpenBSD, allegedly inserted some ten years ago by two US government contractors. The Register reports: "Former government contractor Gregory Perry, who helped develop the OpenBSD crypto framework a decade ago, claims that contractors were paid to insert backdoors into OpenBSD's IPSec stack around 10 years ago. Perry recently warned the OpenBSD's Theo de Raadt of the development, years after the event, via an email that de Raadt has published in the spirit of openness. Perry said he had waited until his ten year NDA with the FBI had expired before coming forward with the claims, which remain unsupported by secondary sources. If true the allegations mean that would have an easy way to tap into supposedly secure VPN links and other technologies based on OpenBSD's crypto stack." Both of the alleged coders denied the accusations. ITworld follows up on the story: "I contacted Scott Lowe, VMware-Cisco Solutions Principal at EMC to ask if he had a comment about Perry's statement to de Raadt. Lowe quickly responded via e-mail his denial: 'Mr. Perry is mistaken. I am not, nor have I ever been, affiliated with or employed by the FBI or any other government agency. Likewise, I have not ever contributed a single line of code to OpenBSD; my advocacy is strictly due to appreciation of the project and nothing more,' Lowe replied."
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 The openSUSE project has published an interview with Jeff Hawn, chairman and CEO of Attachmate, about the future of openSUSE under the new management. This follows the recent acquisition of Novell (and openSUSE) by the Seattle-based software company. Answering a question whether Attachmate intends to shut down the openSUSE community project, Hawn replies: "No, we don’t. Attachmate intends to continue the sponsorship and collaboration with the openSUSE project. We view the openSUSE project and its extended community as an important part of the overall SUSE business and we value its contributions to the technology that forms the heart of the SUSE offerings." And what is the plan for SUSE? "We cannot speak to specifics until after close, but what we can communicate now is our intention to establish a SUSE business unit on par with the existing Attachmate and NetIQ business units. We believe that establishing SUSE as its own business unit will give greater focus and flexibility to grow within a competitive market. We view SUSE as a well regarded and proven technology in the open source and enterprise Linux community and we want to further build upon that. We intend for SUSE to continue to provide the same high quality open source technology solutions, such as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, needed to meet users’ demands for scalability, interoperability and cost effectiveness."
In a separate development, openSUSE has "named Alan Clark as new openSUSE Board Chairman: "As you know, Michael Loeffler has left the openSUSE Board to pursue new opportunities, we are sad to see him go and wish him well. With his departure and with the upcoming Board elections, we have a desire to see a new Chairperson selected. The election rules state that the Chairperson be appointed by Novell and yesterday Markus Rex, General Manager of Novell's Open Platform Solutions, presented Alan Clark to us as the new Chairperson. As you may be aware, we have focused a significant amount of our time on the creation of an openSUSE Foundation to be independent and to be able to collect and spread funds. And Novell has been very supportive with our desire to see this come to fruition. Markus told us that one of the reasons he selected Alan is that he has a lot of expertise in setting up foundations. Alan helped to form the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) and the Linux Foundation, as well as several other open source projects and organisations. We, along with Markus, believe that Alan’s experience and expertise will be an asset of immense value to the Board, and we welcome that as we, and Novell, partner together in forging ahead on an exciting and promising future for the openSUSE Project."
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 Interesting news from the Debian project. According to this recent official communication by Alexander Reichle-Schmehl, the distribution's upcoming stable release, version 6.0 "Squeeze", will ship with a Linux kernel that won't include any non-free firmware. This will be the default kernel. Nevertheless, an alternative kernel with non-free firmware will be made available in the "non-free" repository: "We are proud to announce that, to the best of our knowledge, all issues are solved and that we will be able to deliver a Linux kernel which is completely free, according to the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG), with Debian 'Squeeze'. In accordance with the Debian Social Contract, we acknowledge that some users require the use of works that do not conform to the DFSG and that those works might include non-free firmware bits. For the time being, we have added to the 'non-free' area of our archives alternative installation images and additional packages for Debian 'Squeeze', that include non-free firmware bits needed to enable specific pieces of hardware. They are not part of Debian, they should be looked for explicitly by interested users, and we cannot support them to the same extent of free firmware as we do not have access to the corresponding source code."
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| Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
More command-line fun
This week I'd like to cover some command line tips and tricks. There are a lot of tasks which can be completed with one or two lines and I'd like to share a handful that I've found useful.
Have you ever read a report that talked about the number of times a given word appears in a story, a script or a play? You might wonder if the report is correct about the number of times Shakespeare used the term "love" in Romeo and Juliet. There is a quick way to check. The following command will display a list of the words that appear in a given file and a count of how many times each word is used.
cat my_text_file.txt | tr -c a-zA-z '\n' | sed '/^$/d' | sort | uniq -i -c
We kick things off with the cat command and give it the name of the file we want to examine. The cat command then passes the contents of our text file to "tr". The tr command breaks up the file, putting each word on its own line, for easy access. (The '\n' after "tr" indicates we want to add newline characters to our text.) We next filter our file through the sed command, which removes any empty lines. (The ^ immediately followed by the $ mean we're looking for lines that effectively have nothing between the beginning of the line and the end. The "d" on the end of the sed command indicates we want to delete any such lines.) The list of words we have is sorted alphabetically and then passed to the "uniq" command, which performs the actual count for us. Should we want to narrow things down so we just see the count for the word "love" we can append the grep program to our command in this manner:
cat my_text_file.txt | tr -c a-zA-z '\n' | sed '/^$/d' | sort | uniq -i -c | grep -i \ love$
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At times you may be using your computer and wonder which process is using the most memory. To answer that, we can use this line to show us the top ten memory hogs on the system.
ps aux | awk '{if ((NR > 1)&&($5!=0)) print $1, $2, $3, $5, $11}' | sort -k4nr | head -n 10
The ps command will give us a list of all the processes currently running. We then filter out unwanted information, such as headers, from the output using awk. We pass the filtered data to the sort command and tell it to sort our information based on the forth column. The forth column in this case being memory usage. The "nr" at the tail of the sort command means we want to sort numbers and do so in reverse order (largest to smallest). Lastly, we use the head command to limit our results to the top ten items.
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Next up we have a command which looks a lot easier to deal with and I mention it here simply because I use it so often. This command returns us to the previous working directory.
cd -
This is a helpful shortcut if you have to frequently change between directories and find yourself performing a lot of these:
cd ~/Documents/shared/work
cd /var/log/security/samba
cd ~/Documents/shared/work
cd /var/log/security/samba
Instead you can use
cd ~/Documents/shared/work
cd /var/log/security/samba
cd -
cd -
Alternatively you can use pushd and popd, which will keep track of directories for you.
pushd .
cd /to/some/other/directory
popd
This second approach is handy because pushd can keep track of directories besides the currently working directory. Instead of using "pushd ." we can use "pushd /any/directory/we/want".
* * * * *
Fans of word puzzles may appreciate this next item. The echo command can be used to display all combinations of a set of letters. For instance running
echo {a,b}{a,b}
Will output "aa ab ba bb". If we further want to see all combinations of three different letters we can use:
echo {a,c,t}{a,c,t}{a,c,t} | tr -c a-z '\n'
The above command will display all possible combinations and, with the help of the tr command, will put each possibility on its own line. This in itself probably isn't very useful. But what we can do from here is to save the output to a file. Then perform the same command and place any misspelled words in another file. This means that the file with all of the letter combinations, minus the contents of the file with misspellings, will give us a list of properly spelled words. In the following example, we save the complete list of letter combinations, then a list of letter combinations which do not spell anything. The third line uses the diff command to show us the differences between the two files. The final result is a list of words found in the system's dictionary. The awk command at the end of our third line filters out some of the extra data diff can provide which isn't useful to us in this case.
echo {a,c,t}{a,c,t}{a,c,t} | tr -c a-z '\n' > complete_list.txt
echo {a,c,t}{a,c,t}{a,c,t} | tr -c a-z '\n' | spell > misspellings.txt
diff complete_list.txt misspellings.txt | awk '{ if (! (NR % 2)) print $2}'
The above example, tries all three-letter combinations of the letters a, c and t and tells us they can be used to spell act, cat and tat. Technically you could combine this into one large command, but it would be both long and a pain to edit.
* * * * *
This last example is useful in that it will take a video recording of your desktop. It's particularly helpful if you want to show someone else the exact steps you are performing. The two important parameters here are the "-s" option, which sets the screen resolution. You can either provide your desktop resolution in exact pixels, such as "-s 1024x768", or you can use a pre-defined setting, as I have below. There is a full list of presets in the ffmpeg manual page. The last parameter is the name of the file where we are going to save the video. In this case I am saving the output from my screen to a file in my home directory, called "my_video.mpg". The program will continue to record until you kill the process, so don't forget to hit Control-C when you're done, otherwise this will fill up your disk in a hurry.
ffmpeg -f x11grab -s wxga -r 25 -i :0.0 -sameq ~/my_video.mpg
This command is the odd one of this article because ffmpeg isn't a standard package across the various distributions, but it's quite handy to have.
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| Released Last Week |
Parsix GNU/Linux 3.6r1
Alan Baghumian has announced the release of Parsix GNU/Linux 3.6r1, a new revision of the Debian-based distribution for the desktop: "The first updated version of Parsix GNU/Linux 3.6 'Vinnie' is available for immediate download. This version merges all the published updates into the ISO images. Parsix now offers security updates. Vinnie ISO images are compiled using Squashfs 4.0 with LZMA compression and will fit on a blank DVD. We are back to using isolinux as CD/DVD boot loader, as GRUB 2 has issues such as booting from external USB devices. The updated Linux 2.6.32.26 kernel with improved configuration is patched using the latest TuxOnIce suspension and hibernation and Kon Kolivas's BFS patches. Improved live boot system loads the system faster and this version also ships our experimental USB installer that enables users to run Parsix from USB keys." Read the rest of the release announcement for more details.
Openwall GNU/*/Linux 3.0
Openwall GNU/*/Linux 3.0 is a small security-enhanced Linux distribution for servers, appliances, and virtual appliances. Today's release of version 3.0 marks the 10-year anniversary of the project: "I am pleased to announce that we have made a new major release of Openwall GNU/*/Linux, version 3.0. The ISO images include a live system, installable packages, the installer program, as well as full source code and the build environment. This release marks roughly 10 years of our project - development started in mid-2000, and Owl 0.1-prerelease was made public in 2001. With the 3.0 release, the Owl 2.0-stable branch is formally discontinued. We intend to proceed with further development under Owl-current and to maintain the newly-created Owl 3.0-stable branch until the next release, as usual." See the full release announcement for more information and upgrade instructions.
PCLinuxOS 2010.12
Billy "Texstar" Reynolds has announced the release of PCLinuxOS 2010.12: "PCLinuxOS 2010.12 holiday CDs are now available for KDE, GNOME, LXDE, Xfce and Enlightenment desktops featuring the latest updates from the PCLinuxOS software repository. All CDs feature Linux kernel 2.6.33.7bfs for maximum desktop performance, NVIDIA and ATI fglrx driver support, multimedia playback support for many popular formats, wireless support for many network devices, and printer support for many local and networked printer devices. 'Addlocale' allows you to convert PCLinuxOS into over 60 languages. 'GetOpenOffice' can install OpenOffice.org supporting over 100 languages. 'MyLiveCD' allows you to take a snapshot of your installation and burn it to a live CD or DVD. PCLinuxOS 'liveusb' allows you to install PCLinuxOS on a USB key disk." Here is the brief release announcement.
Tiny Core Linux 3.4
Robert Shingledecker has announced the release of Tiny Core Linux 3.4, a minimalist graphical distribution in under 11 megabytes: "Team Tiny Core is pleased to announce the release of Tiny Core 3.4. Change log: updated appsaudit multi-select updates and md5 checking; updated fluff to 0.8.5 with integrated file type and associations as well as many UI improvements; updated mnttool to show all drives and mount launch filemgr via FILEMGR env; updated mnttool to support labels and 10+ partitions; updated wallpaper gradients and color preview; updated editor for named new file argument; updated wbarconf for control of text, zoom, and icon size; updated exittc 'Exit to prompt' to be PID driven; updated wbar for fluff startup via '~'; updated fluff .desktop item for startup via '~'; updated ab2tce.sh to terminate if appbrowser is aborted by killing X...." Read the rest of the release announcement for a complete changelog.
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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 |
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New distributions added to database
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- Bittix Linux. Bittix Linux is a KNOPPIX-based live DVD with support for the Finnish language.
- HPC-Europa2 Virtual Cluster. HPC-Europa2 Virtual Cluster is a SliTaz-based live Linux DVD. It boots and runs completely from DVD providing recent tools, compilers and libraries for the development of parallel applications. Furthermore, the DVD also includes training material, videos from past virtual surgeries and reports from past HPC-Europa visitors.
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DistroWatch database summary
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 This is the final issue of DistroWatch Weekly in 2010. To all our readers who celebrate the end-of-the-year holidays we wish you a memorable festive season and an excellent and prosperous New Year. DistroWatch Weekly will return on Monday, 3 January 2010.
Ladislav Bodnar, Jesse Smith, Caitlyn Martin and Susan Linton
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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RancherOS was a tiny Linux distribution that runs the entire operating system as Docker containers. This includes system services, such as udev and rsyslog. RancherOS includes only the bare minimum amount of software needed to run Docker. This keeps the binary download of RancherOS very small. Everything else can be pulled in dynamically through Docker.
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