 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 393, 21 February 2011 |
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Welcome to this year's 8th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! The recently released Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 is by far the largest Linux-based operating system ever created. In this week's feature story Jesse Smith takes a look at the new version and wonders, while marvelling at the achievement, whether the distribution can successfully compete for desktop market share with more user-friendly Debian-based projects, such as Ubuntu or Linux Mint. Read on for the full review of "Squeeze". In the news section, Fedora announces the upcoming graphics test day for Nouveau, Radeon and Intel graphics cards, openSUSE and Fedora put asides plans for packaging Ubuntu's Unity desktop, and OpenBSD developer and Undeadly.org editor writes about innovative ways of raising funds for developer conferences. Also in this issue, a brief introduction to Mageia, a new distribution created by ex-Mandriva employees and contributors, a Questions and Answers section that brings attention to "noexec" as a way of preventing some social engineering attacks, and five new distro submissions, including FrameOS, a distro built from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 sources. Happy reading!
Content:
- Reviews: Introducing Debian GNU/Linux 6.0
- News: Fedora announces graphics test day, openSUSE drops Unity from 11.4, OpenBSD developer's fund raising story
- Questions and answers: Using noexec to prevent social engineering attacks
- Released last week: Ubuntu 10.04.2, Tiny Core Linux 3.5, Pardus Linux 2 "Corporate"
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 8.2, PC-BSD 8.2, openSUSE 11.4 RC2
- New additions: Mageia
- New distributions: Dax OS, Express Linux, FrameOS, Hanthana Linux, Progress Linux
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (38MB) and MP3 (31MB) formats
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Introducing Debian GNU/Linux 6.0
 Debian and I have an unusual relationship -- I respect the work the Debian team does, I admire the huge amount of packages, infrastructure, coordination and testing which goes into the project. Quite often I find myself using the children or grandchildren of Debian for work and on my home machines. I've worked with a handful of the Debian developers fixing or updating packages and have found them to be great, helpful people. (Yes, I'm leading up to a "but".) But, up to this point, I've never managed to get a stable release of Debian GNU/Linux to install and run on my hardware. When each new stable release ships, I grab a copy and give it a whirl and, each time, I run into an installer cash, failure to boot or some key component isn't recognized. It's a condition I've found puzzling as several other distros have worked successfully on the same equipment, including Debian-based projects, such as KNOPPIX and Ubuntu. With the release of Debian 6.0 I went into my trial hoping this would be the release to break my streak of bad luck.
Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 "Squeeze" contains approximately 29,000 software packages and fills several CDs/DVDs. To install Debian we don't need all of the discs; typically we just need the first disc of the set. Users with fast and reliable Internet connections have the option of grabbing smaller net-install CDs. Additionally the project maintains a list of disc vendors for people who have slow connections or who wish to contribute funds to the Debian project. I opted to download Debian on a DVD, a heavy ISO of 4.4 GB. While waiting for my download to complete I took the opportunity to look over the project's new website. Debian has, in the past, taken some flak for having a website which looks like it was developed with the Lynx web browser in mind. While the new design does still largely favour columns of black text on a plain white background, the layout has been greatly improved. I found navigation much more intuitive and the site map at the bottom of the screen makes accessing information faster. The site is still geared toward developers and Linux enthusiasts and the documentation assumes we already have a level of comfort with Linux.
Looking through the release notes we find that, aside from including a lot of new packages, there have been some important changes behind the scenes since the project's last stable release. For instance, support has been dropped for the HP PA-RISC, Alpha and ARM architectures. The sub-project of porting GNU's tools onto the FreeBSD kernel is now officially a part of the release. As we read a few weeks back the Debian team has removed firmware blobs from their Linux kernel and moved those pieces of firmware to their non-free repository. This means once Debian is installed we can later install the firmware, but it won't be available out of the box. "Squeeze" also includes support for LDAP authentication.
Installation and first boot
Enough background information, let's see how Debian "Squeeze", "the universal operating system," works. The install DVD begins by presenting us with a boot menu which allows us to launch either a text installer or graphical installer, perform an expert install, run an automated install or enter into rescue mode. Given that I was reviewing Debian from desktop perspective I opted for the graphical installer. The Debian GUI installer uses a simple layout where we are typically asked for one small piece of information per page. The appearance is a bit crude, similar to the Red Hat installer of a decade ago. We're walked through selecting our preferred language, choosing our global location and a keyboard layout. We provide a hostname for the machine and enter a network name. We're prompted for a root password and then we're walked through screens to create a regular user account.
The installer asks us to provide our time zone, which is helpfully narrowed down for us based on the location we picked earlier. Next up is disk partitioning and here the Debian installer stands out with its own style. We're given the chance to manually partition the disk or have the installer guide us through plain partitions, a LVM layout or an encrypted LVM layout. I tried both guided and manual options and found both to be functional, but quite awkward. Where installers for Fedora and Ubuntu use one main partition layout screen and a pop-up to configure a specific partition, Debian uses multiple screens to walk the user through options for each partition. This especially makes manual partitioning a longer process than it would usually be. However, as I mentioned, it does work and there are a wide variety of Linux partition types from which to choose.
After we're done partitioning the disk, the installer copies over the base system from the DVD. We're then asked if we'd like to make use of additional discs, which I did not. We're asked if we'd like to use the online repositories during the install to make sure we're up to date. I chose "no", yet still had to wait while the installer tried to connect to various Debian repositories and, finally, displayed an error message saying the Volatile repository wasn't available. Next up the installer asks if we'd be willing to submit package popularity information to Debian. Here, again, I selected "no" and had to wait while the installer told me it was installing the popularity software. (I checked post-install and found the popularity software had not really been installed.) The last two steps are selecting which package groups we would like to install, most of which are for servers. I stuck with the graphical desktop environment package and, on my laptop, a package group plainly called "Laptop". The last step is to confirm we want to install GRUB. To install the desktop software took about half an hour on my test machines and then I was asked to remove the DVD and reboot.
Firing up "Squeeze" for the first time I was briefly presented with a GRUB 2 boot menu and then Debian loads. The boot process was fairly short and concluded by leaving me at a graphical login screen. GNOME (version 2.30) was the only desktop environment installed and I logged in to find a screen populated with a few navigation icons and a menu bar across the top of the screen. The GNOME task switcher sat at the bottom of the display and the wallpaper was a dark sky populated with stars. The theme for menus and icons is plain and make the desktop look older than the software really is. Upon logging in one of the first things I did was to open the Synaptic package manager (more on package management later) and tried to refresh the package list. Synaptic popped up an error message telling me it couldn't update my package list and requested I provide it with DVD 1. Apparently the installer leaves the installation disc as a package source and APT won't work around it when the disc is removed. After I manually removed my disc drive from the source list, Synaptic was able to connect to Debian's mirrors and update my list of available software.
Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 - fetching updates post-install
(full image size: 185kB, resolution 1024x768 pixels)
Software and package management
Debian has a huge selection of software in its repositories, but the default install is fairly standard. Epiphany is the distro's default web browser and Iceweasel 3.5.16 (Debian's de-branded Firefox) is also available. We're given the Evolution e-mail client, the Empathy instant messaging client and the Ekiga phone software. OpenOffice 3.2 is installed for us, as is the GIMP and the Transmission BitTorrent client. The Shotwell photo manager is included in the application menu, as is Tomboy Notes and a standard grouping of GNOME games. There is a CD ripper, the Rhythmbox music player, a video player and the Cheese webcam application. Debian includes some accessibility tools, including an on-screen keyboard and screen reader. To go along with the GNOME environment, Debian includes the GConf configuration editor and makes it easy to find. There's the usual set of GNOME configuration tools to adjust the look & feel of the desktop, a user manager, a utility for handling system services and a printer manager. In the background Debian provides codecs for playing popular media formats, including MP3 audio files.
Debian tries to provide users with strictly free software solutions and that choice shows up in some of the available software. For instance, "Squeeze" comes with Gnash in place of Flash. I've found that it works on some sites, but the version included in Debian 6.0 won't play YouTube videos. GNU's Java is included in place of Sun's/Oracle's Java. For users who prefer non-libre Flash and Sun's flavour of Java, those packages are available in Debian's repositories. Considering Debian's strong focus on developers I was a bit surprised not to find the GNU Compiler Collection pre-installed on the system. All of this software sits on top of the 2.6.32 version of the Linux kernel. Or, more specifically, a libre variant of the Linux kernel as some firmware has been moved to Debian's non-free repository. These pieces of firmware can be added to the system via the project's firmware-linux package. One of the few items I felt was missing from the default install was a graphical firewall application. Debian runs a mail transfer agent service out of the box which I suspect most desktop users will not require.
Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 - web browsing and reporting bugs
(full image size: 113kB, resolution 1024x768 pixels)
In addition to the APT family of command-line tools, Debian has two graphical package managers, Synaptic and Software Centre. Synaptic will probably be familiar to anyone who uses the Debian family of distributions. It's a powerful, responsive program and works very well. Synaptic's appearance and options may put off novice users and, for them, there's the Software Centre. This second GUI package manager takes a simplified approach, presenting software in easy-to-understand categories and boiling down the options to essentially "Install" and "Remove". I found Software Centre also works quite well and had no serious problems with it. I did run into an odd quirk where if I closed Software Centre it would leave an icon in the system tray letting me know the application was continuing to work. When I clicked on the icon to restore the Software Centre window, the Synaptic application was launched instead. It's an approach I think likely to confuse people. Aside from the main package managers there is also a small update tool. At the time of writing no updated packages have appeared in Debian's repositories and I've been unable to test the update tool.
Hardware
I began my experiment with "Squeeze" on my HP laptop (dual-core 2 GHz CPU, 3 GB of RAM, Intel video card). The operating system performed well on my laptop, setting my screen to a suitable resolution, audio worked without any trouble and my touchpad was properly picked up. My Intel wireless card was not handled out of the box. Moving to my desktop machine (2.5 GHz CPU, 2 GB of RAM, NVIDIA video card) I felt the desktop was slightly more responsive. Again, my desktop was set to the appropriate resolution, though I did have to fiddle with the audio controls a bit to get sound from my speakers. On both machines boot up times were short and the desktop was snappy. When run in a virtual environment I found Debian could login and perform basic functions with 128 MB of RAM, though with those limited resources the desktop lagged a lot. For common tasks, such as web browsing, listening to music and document writing I found 512 MB was typically enough memory. A fresh install of Debian from the DVD used about 3 GB of disk space, making Debian unusual in that the default install actually required less space than the ISO I downloaded.
When talking about Debian and what the project brings to the table I think it's important to separate the Debian infrastructure from the released distribution. With "Squeeze" now out in the wild a lot of talk has been going on debating whether Debian is relevant, whether it's still useful in the face of more recent distributions, such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint. Of course projects like Ubuntu, Knoppix, MEPIS and many others are based on Debian packages. Debian is the parent (and grandparent) of dozens of active distros and without the Debian infrastructure those projects wouldn't exist or would, at least, be a lot poorer. I'm of the opinion Debian has one of the best bug trackers in the open source ecosystem, their repositories are treasure troves of software and they have good documentation to back up the whole thing. Debian has an open approach and their team is committed to free and open source software.
Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 - enabling system services and searching for software
(full image size: 154kB, resolution 1024x768 pixels)
Conclusions
But how does their 6.0 release measure up? My first reaction to Debian's latest was one of disappointment. The graphical installer feels like it's about ten years behind the other big-name distributions, the issue with the package manager giving up when it couldn't find the installation DVD struck me as something which shouldn't have made it through testing. Most of my first day was a series of these sorts of little issues which I'd expect from beta software, not from a distro that had been in feature freeze for months. And that's why this review is appearing two weeks after the official release, because after such a poor start I wanted to give the distro a chance to win me over. After a few days Debian's virtues did shine through. For instance, the project's implementation of GNOME is very light, putting the usually heavy desktop environment about on par with the mid-weight Xfce. The system is fast and responsive, boot times are quick and the presented software is stable without being terribly out of date. Apart from the early quirks with the package managers, adding and removing software went smoothly.
Of course there's a wealth of software available and, with the non-free repository added, I found everything I wanted. I did come to appreciate Debian "Squeeze", but not to the point where I'd recommend it to people. This may sound a bit odd, but I'm of the opinion Debian isn't one of the better Debian-based distributions. People looking for a libre distribution with Debian's strengths can find what they're looking for in Trisquel, users who want a polished Debian where everything works out of the box might try Mint (which comes in a Debian flavour). People who want to benefit from Debian's low-resource nature can get up and running easier and faster with Saline. Administrators looking for a server distro can get up and running quickly with Ubuntu's server edition, enjoy five years of updates, have better ISV support and have the option of buying commercial support from the vendor. Each of these projects stand on the shoulders of the Debian giant, but in doing so they are able to give a more specialized, more polished experience to the user. I found that, once it was up and running, Debian was all very satisfactory -- stable, useful, fast, accessible -- but by being so general, so universal, I felt Squeeze didn't excel at anything.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
Fedora announces graphics test day, openSUSE drops Unity from 11.4, OpenBSD developer's fund raising story
 The public alpha release of Fedora 15 is scheduled for 1 March and the Fedora developers are working hard to ensure a smooth experience for all users. As always, hardware compatibility is high on the priority list. Adam Williamson calls on testers (irrespective if you are a Fedora user or not) to participate in a graphics test day later this week: "This week is Fedora graphics test week, when the Fedora project runs test days for each of the major graphics drivers. Tuesday is Nouveau test day, Wednesday is Radeon test day, and, Thursday is Intel (graphics) test day. Although this is a Fedora event, since Fedora has a strong emphasis on working upstream, any fixes resulting from the event will go upstream straight away, and benefit all distributions - so even if you don't run Fedora, it's a good idea to come along and help contribute to testing. Testing is very easy and can be done entirely from a live image - there's no need to install Fedora pre-release onto your system. You can help with testing in only a few minutes, plus the time it takes to download a live image. All the information you need to test is present on each test day Wiki page, and there will also be QA group members and Fedora graphics developers in the IRC channel - #fedora-test-day on Freenode - all day long to help you out. If you don't know how to use IRC, you can use WebIRC. Please come along and help out!"
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 The next release of Ubuntu, version 11.04 and code-name "Natty Narwhal", is also currently in heavy development. But when the final version is released in April, chances are that many users will adopt the new default user interface called Unity. This radical change has already received a fair amount of coverage, both positive and negative, and there were even reports that other major distros might also make Unity available as an option. These hopes now appear to be squashed, writes Katherine Noyes in "Fedora and openSUSE Linux Drop Unity Efforts": "Not long after Canonical's announcement, developers of both the Fedora and openSUSE projects indicated that they'd start implementing Unity on their own distributions as well. This week, however, both efforts apparently stalled. Fedora's Williamson, for example, wrote on Monday that he has 'had little time or inclination for doing much with Unity / Poulsbo. Unity is still stuck on this bug that the upstream maintainer promised to look at after Christmas (I last submitted a requested change on Jan 25 and it's been crickets since),' he explained, noting that his work on the effort has been entirely voluntary. Nelson Marques of the openSUSE project, meanwhile, has encountered similar obstacles. 'Packaging Unity wasn't much of a problem, but implementing is being translated into frustration,' Marques wrote in a blog post on Tuesday."
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 With the imminent releases of both FreeBSD 8.2, a highly popular operating system used in many mission-critical deployments, and PC-BSD 8.2, a user-friendly desktop BSD system, it's obvious that these excellent free alternatives to Linux continue to thrive. One way to ensure that they keep on doing so is to raise funds and donate them to these projects. Janne Johansson, the editor of Undeadly.org and an OpenBSD developer, writes about some innovative and creative ideas to generate money for conferences, developers' meetings and other useful purposes: "A long time ago, I read a post on Undeadly about some person claiming he would donate a small sum but the currency conversion and money transfer would eat most of it. I wrote a reply about how he should get a bunch of friends to donate at the same time to reduce the losses and then it just hit me: I can do that too, even if my conversion rates weren't that evil. This ended up becoming a yearly fund-raiser event called Slackathon which ran from 2006 to 2009 and even if I think many of the visitors would have donated to OpenBSD anyhow, it collected large amounts of money, while also allowing people to attend a free conference with BSD and development-related talks and meet up with other Swedish and international OpenBSD people. This was not a single-person effort from me, I had very good help from friends, colleagues and my workplace in order to make it work."
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
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Using noexec to prevent social engineering attacks
Trying-to-block-social-engineering asks: I've heard that security on a Linux system can be overcome by social engineering, i.e. getting a user to download a trojan and run chmod u+x screensaver.bin and ./screensaver.bin. Is there a way to prevent this type of attack?
DistroWatch answers: I'm sorry to say that no system is entirely safe from its users, particularly not when they are sitting next to the machine. For instance, I once discovered a user using the red voltage switch on his power supply as a reset button. Some people will find ways to damage their computers you just wouldn't imagine and it's difficult to protect a system from its users while still making it useful.
Working with the example given above, there are ways to make running such a program more difficult. For instance, you could configure the user's directory to be mounted with the noexec flag (see "man mount" for details). This would allow the user to run chmod on a file and they would appear to gain execute permissions on the file, but it won't run. The noexec flag blocks program execution. Now this will work if screensaver.bin is an application, but it's only a speed bump if screensaver.bin is a shell script. Shell scripts can still be run without execute permission using the source command, as in "source screensaver.bin". The same goes for other scripts, such as the Perl and awk variety.
In short, mount's noexec parameter will block the attacks of users who are trying to run compiled programs and unknowing users who don't understand what a script is and are just parroting commands to the terminal. It won't stop a determined attacker, just drive-by social engineering attacks.
If you do decide to implement this on your system, keep in mind that users may have the ability to save and execute programs in other directories. The /tmp directory is an area which is almost always open for users to save and run whatever they want. In addition, if you plan to use noexec, do not apply it to the root (/) directory. Blocking execution on / will likely prevent your system from booting. Make sure the areas you mark as noexec zones are separate partitions.
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| Released Last Week |
Tiny Core Linux 3.5
Robert Shingledecker has announced the release of Tiny Core Linux 3.5, a minimalist, but extensible distribution: "Team Tiny Core is pleased to announce the release of Tiny Core Linux 3.5. Change log: updated BusyBox to 1.18.3 plus patches; updated zsync to 0.6.2; updated Fluff file manager to 0.8.9; new autoscan-devices compiled to improve boot speed; updated tc-functions for call to autoscan-devices; new rotdash compiled to improve boot speed; updated tce-audit builddb to not force fetch of all .dep files when no tce.db exists; updated appsaudit to support removing on-demand uninstalled extensions without rebooting; clean up of tce-audit 'delete' spurious messages; new tce-remove support for appsaudit; update wbar_rm_icon to support tce-remove; updated appsaudit, added highlight on failed MD5 checking...." Here is the complete changelog.
SystemRescueCd 2.0.1
François Dupoux has released an updated version of SystemRescueCd, a Gentoo-based live CD with a collection of utilities for data rescue and disk management tasks. As always, the new version comes with updated Linux kernels as well as the brand new GParted 0.8.0 and X.Org Server 1.9.4. From the changelog: "Updated standard kernels to 2.6.35.11 (rescuecd + rescue64); updated alternative kernels to 2.6.36.3 (altker32 + altker64); updated Memtest86+ floppy disk image to 4.20 (supports Sandy-Bridge + fusion); updated X.Org Server to 1.9.4 (graphical server and drivers); updated initramfs software (programs involved in the boot process); upgraded atl1c driver in standard kernel for Atheros AR8151 Gigabit devices; fixed name resolution in the initramfs environment (used for PXE booting); updated GParted to version 0.8.0."
Comfusion 3
Comfusion is a Spanish Ubuntu-based distribution formerly known as Uberyl. The latest release, version 3, is the project's first stable build in over two years and it comes with a number of major changes. Firstly, there is a choice of desktop environments which includes GNOME, the full-featured desktop for modern computers, LXDE, a lightweight desktop similar to GNOME but with less resource-hungry components, and Openbox, a very light, but highly configurable window manager. Secondly, the release also comes with the XBMC media centre, the Cairo-Dock application launchbar, and a large variety of usability improvements and modifications of all aspects of the desktop. Please head for the detailed release notes (in Spanish, PDF format) if you'd like to learn more about Comfusion 3.
Comfusion 3 - an Ubuntu-based distribution with XMBC media player and Cairo-Dock
(full image size: 500kB, resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Parted Magic 5.10
Patrick Verner has announced the release of Parted Magic 5.10, a Linux-based live CD containing a variety of disk partitioning and data rescue utilities: "Parted Magic 5.10. It seems like it has been longer than a month, but it's time for a new release. The most notable changes are the Linux 2.6.37 kernel, GParted 0.8.0, and the move back to Firefox as the default web browser. We updated some programs and here is the list: FSArchiver 0.6.12, gzip 1.4, hdparm 9.37, xz 5.0.1, Conky 1.8.1, NTFS-3G 2011.1.15, Linux kernel 2.6.37, gDisk 0.6.14, HDT 0.4.1, Squashfs 4.1 and GParted 0.8.0. These programs have been added: Firefox 3.6.13, and NTP 4.2.6p3 (ntpd starts automatically at boot). Some of the lesser changes were fixing the 'shred' bug in the 'Erase Disk' menu and the boot/isolinux directory has been removed (instead we use the boot/syslinux directory and the syslinux.cfg). Some other bugs were fixed, as always." Visit the project's home page to read the release announcement.
Pardus Linux 2 "Corporate"
Ozan Çağlayan has announced the release of Pardus Linux 2 "Corporate" edition, a desktop distribution featuring the legacy KDE 3 desktop: "The final release of the Pardus Corporate 2 is now available. Pardus Corporate 2 is shipped with KDE 3.5.10 which has a good reputation for its stability and performance. All other components of the system are updated to offer a fast, comfortable and problem-free desktop experience. Here are the basic components and their versions shipped within Pardus Corporate 2: KDE Desktop Environment 3.5.10, Linux kernel 2.6.35.11, LibreOffice office suite 3.3.1, Mozilla Firefox web browser 3.6.13, X.Org 1.7.7, GIMP 2.6.11, Python 2.6.5. The installation image includes support for all officially supported languages." Here is the brief release announcement.
Pardus Linux 2 "Corporate" - remember KDE 3?
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.9
Red Hat has announced the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4.9, the final maintenance release of the company's legacy 4.x product series. According to Red Hat's life cycle policy, this release brings "production stage 2" to an end, with only selected security advisories of critical impact and urgent bug fixes getting released from now on. From the release announcement: "Red Hat is pleased to announce the availability of the latest update to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, release 4.9 (with kernel 2.6.9-100.EL) for a family of products. This is the final minor release for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4. With this release Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 will be entering production 3 phase during which qualified security errata advisories of critical impact, as well as, selected urgent priority bug-fix errata may be released." See also the detailed release notes.
Ubuntu 10.04.2
Kate Stewart has announced the release of Ubuntu 10.04.2, an updated set of CD and DVD images with all the security errata and bug-fix updates since the release of Ubuntu 10.04 in April 2010: "The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the release of Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS, the second maintenance update to Ubuntu's 10.04 LTS release. This release includes updated images for the desktop, alternate installation CDs and DVDs for the i386 and amd64 architectures. Numerous updates have been integrated, and updated installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation." Here is the release announcement.
Superb Mini Server 1.5.6
Superb Mini Server (SMS) 1.5.6, a Slackware-based server distribution, has been released: "Superb Mini Server version 1.5.6 released (Linux kernel 2.6.35.11). SMS 1.5.6 comes with a long-term version of the Linux kernel. This release upgrades packages to Slackware 'Current' and brings the latest stable versions of several packages. New packages in this release are Berkeley DB 4.6 (this is the default DB for SMS from now on) LXC, libcgroup, nss-mdns, util-linux (replaces util-linux-ng) and Yasm. New packages in extra are the Avahi directory which includes Avahi, libdaemon, nss-mdns with Avahi support and imlib2 which is mostly for sharing photo libraries through Avahi to iPhoto or FronRow on a Mac OS X or to an Apple TV. Important changes for those who are upgrading are Netatalk and OpenLDAP compiled against Berkeley DB 4.6." Here is the release announcement with a brief changelog.
Puppy Linux 5.1 "Wary"
Barry Kauler has announced the release of Puppy Linux 5.1 "Wary" edition, a small, fast and light distribution designed for older hardware: "Wary Puppy 5.1 has been released. Wary Puppy is our Puppy Linux variant that targets support for older hardware, especially in the areas of video and analog modem dial-up. Wary Puppy 5.1 is a bug-fix and minor upgrade of Wary 5.0. The default kernel is now the long-term supported 2.6.32.28. The PET package repository is still small but is growing, with many major applications added to it. For a 'minor upgrade', rather a lot of applications have been upgraded, as well as one new one, the 'Wcpufreq' CPU frequency scaling tool, added. There have been numerous tweaks in the underlying infrastructure." Read the release announcement and check out the more detailed release notes for more information.
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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
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Dax OS. Dax OS is a lightweight, but configurable distribution based on Ubuntu. The project's website is in Spanish.
- Express Linux. Express Linux is an Ubuntu-based lightweight distribution (with Openbox) designed for older or less powerful computers. The project's website is in Italian.
- FrameOS. FrameOS is a distribution built by recompiling source code for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It includes an up-to-date Ruby stack as well as the latest Xen virtualisation stack.
- Hanthana Linux. Hanthana Linux is a Fedora remix suitable for desktop and laptop users. It has all the features of Fedora and loads of additional software, including multimedia players and out-of-the-box codecs support.
- Progress Linux. Progress Linux is a Debian-based distribution. At this time the project's website provides no details about the distribution's objectives.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 28 February 2011.
Jesse Smith and Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Full list of all issues |
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AgarimOS
AgarimOS is a desktop Linux distribution based on Void. It comes in several popular desktop flavours, including Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE Plasma, LXQt, MATE and Xfce, all with a limited set of applications in their default states. Like its parent, AgarimOS does not use the systemd service manager, relying instead on the runit init scheme. It employs the XBPS package management system, together with a graphical front-end called OctoXBPS. The distribution also includes various optimisations, custom themes and some interesting software selection, such as the WezTerm terminal emulator, the Neofetch system information utility, the hBlock ad blocker, and the aria2 download tool.
Status: Active
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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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