 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 400, 11 April 2011 |
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Welcome to the 400th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! With the release of GNOME 3 last week, many distributions are hard at work not only integrating the radically redesigned desktop into their products, but also considering their options with respect to the end user. These are a complex decisions, especially since opinions about the changes in the most popular desktop environment tend to vary widely. For those who dislike GNOME 3, there are other options, including the subject of today's feature review - Openbox running on top of CrunchBang Linux or the new Unity on Ubuntu; see the interview with Mark Shuttleworth in the news section. Also in the news, CentOS is facing an uphill battle trying to regain the trust of its users, Mageia's Anne Nicolas doesn't fear fragmentation in the Linux developer communities, Canonical discontinues its free CD shipping service, and openSUSE devises a new versioning system for its distribution. Also not to be missed is the regular Question and Answers section which deals with package signing and related security implications. Finally, we are pleased to announce that the recipient of the March 2011 DistroWatch.com donation is the Imagination project. Happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (29MB) and MP3 (28MB) formats
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
First look at CrunchBang Linux 10
 The CrunchBang Linux distribution is a Debian-based project with a focus on providing a light, alternative desktop environment. The distro is offered in both 32-bit and 64-bit builds and comes in Openbox and Xfce editions. Looking at the project's website and screenshots suggests that CrunchBang is, in style, a cousin to ArchBang Linux. Both projects have dark interfaces and provide a simple layout. For my trial I grabbed the Xfce 32-bit flavour of CrunchBang. The download page has a colourful description of the distribution: "CrunchBang Linux is not recommended for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. CrunchBang Linux could possibly make your computer go CRUNCH! BANG!" I thought this was interesting as the distro is based on Debian "Squeeze", a distribution known for its stability. The website also features a forum with active users and, from my brief time spent there, they seem to be a helpful bunch.
The CrunchBang live CD boots into a mostly-black Xfce 4.6 desktop. A task switcher sits at the bottom of the screen and a Conky status panel takes up the right-hand side. Moving over to the left of the display we find a quick-launch bar with icons for starting commonly used programs. There's no traditional application menu button; right-clicking on the desktop brings up the menu. I didn't find a system installer in the menu and so rebooted and requested the graphical installer from CrunchBang's boot menu.
CrunchBang Linux 10 - finding application and changing settings
(full image size: 99kB, resolution 1366x768 pixels)
The CrunchBang system installer is basically the same installer that comes with Debian "Squeeze". We select our preferred language and give our location. Once we have confirmed our keyboard layout we're asked to create a user account and set our time zone. The next series of screens guides us through partitioning the hard drive. Manually partitioning is a bit longer and, I found, the process is less intuitive than in most other installers. We then wait while the operating system is copied to the hard drive. We're next given the option to install GRUB. Unlike Debian's installer, we're not asked if we want to connect to repositories or install software to track package popularity.
The first time we login to CrunchBang a virtual console window appears and asks us if we'd like to customize the system. What follows is essentially a text wizard walking us through updating our package repository information, installing any available security updates and then adding optional software to the operating system. We're given the opportunity to install printer support, Java, a Zen-based kernel, OpenOffice.org (AbiWord and Gnumeric are already included at install time), FUSE file system support, and developer tools. Each screen gives a short description of each optional item and we're given a simple yes/no prompt as to whether we want the software. After the wizard finishes we're shown a list of links to the project's documentation.
Assuming we don't install any new software using the first-run wizard, CrunchBang still comes with a good collection of software for common tasks. We're given Chromium 9 for web browsing, the Transmission BitTorrent client, gFTP and the XChat IRC client. We find AbiWord, Gnumeric and Orage in the Office section of the menu, along with the GIMP and an image viewer in the Graphics category. The distro comes with VLC, a disc burner program, GParted and the Synaptic package manager. We're given access to the Xfce configuration tools for adjusting the look & feel of the system. We also get programs for editing text files, working with archives and crunching numbers. CrunchBang additionally comes with the ability to play most video and audio files out of the box and the Adobe Flash player comes pre-installed. At install time the distro doesn't run any network services. Behind the scenes the Linux kernel, version 2.6.32, keeps things running smoothly. In total, the software takes up about 2 GB of disk space.
CrunchBang Linux 10 - office software and the GIMP
(full image size: 121kB, resolution 1366x768 pixels)
Being based on Debian, CrunchBang uses the APT family of programs for package management. The distro is also equipped with the aptitude command-line application. For users who prefer a graphical front-end to software management, CrunchBang features the Synaptic package manager. During my time with the distro I had no problems adding, removing and updating software. Something I found interesting is that CrunchBang is based on Debian "Squeeze" and, unlike its parent, CrunchBang did not require me to remove the installation media as a software source before I could use the on-line repositories. I also found it odd that by default my software sources were set to pull from servers in Germany, rather than the main servers or locations in Canada (where I live).
I ran CrunchBang on two machines, a generic desktop machine (2.5 GHz, 2 GB of RAM, NVIDIA video card) and my HP laptop (dual-core 2 GHz CPU, 3 GB of RAM, Intel video card). The distro detected and used all of my hardware on both machines. My screen resolution was set properly, audio volume was set to a reasonable level and wireless networking was a point-n-click setup. The one quirk I ran into was that the shortcut keys (listed on the Conky panel) didn't work on my laptop. They did, however, work on the desktop machine and in a virtual machine running on the same laptop. CrunchBang doesn't require much RAM, using approximately 75 MB upon logging in and I found that most simple tasks could be performed with 128 MB or less. Responsiveness was good, not amazing, but typical for the Xfce desktop.
Considering the relatively sparse look presented in the project's screenshots and the low-resource attributes of Xfce it may seem odd that my biggest complaint when using CrunchBang was that I found myself disabling so many features. The most obvious unwanted feature is probably the Statler Says pop-up which displays fortunes a few minutes after logging in. Some other things that annoyed me until I turned them off included the pop-up quick-launch panel, the Conky status display, the flashing terminal cursor and faux window transparency. Each of these items has its place, but I felt they were in uncomfortable contrast with what could have been a simple, minimal environment.
CrunchBang Linux 10 - browsing the web and using Heybuddy
(full image size: 98kB, resolution 1366x768 pixels)
Preferred desktop layout & look aside, I didn't run into any serious problems with CrunchBang aside from a few application crashes. The VLC player crashed once trying to open a file and my terminal window was killed during a desktop theme change. CrunchBang does have some good things going for it: the distro has side-stepped the repository problem I faced with plain Debian while keeping the parent project's vast collection of software; the non-free components I wanted were installed by default and I liked the first-run wizard, which gives us the option to add common extras. All of my hardware was picked up and there are applications provided out of the box for common tasks. I would have liked to have seen more applications pre-installed (an email client, dedicated music player and Pidgin come to mind), but I suppose there's only so much room on the CD. Once the system was up and running and looking the way I wanted it to, the experience was pleasantly boring. Nothing really jumped out at me as being great or terrible. Thus far I haven't found any niche CrunchBang fills -- its resource usage, install process and user-friendliness seems to be about on par with plain Debian, so I'm not sure who this project is targeting. My conclusion is CrunchBang appears to be a good tool, I just haven't found any task for it.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
CentOS updates legacy branch, openSUSE creates new versioning scheme, Ubuntu discontinues free CD service, interviews with Mark Shuttleworth and Anne Nicolas, GNOME 3 on Arch Linux
 The developers of CentOS, the most popular among the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) clones, have finally released version 5.6, some three months after the upstream release. This has alleviated some of the pressure the project's user community has been putting on the developers in recent months. However, CentOS 6 is still nowhere to be seen and as long as this situation persists, there will be critics (the CentOS mailing list is a rather rough place to be at the moment). LWN's editor-in-chief Jonathan Corbet summarises some of the issues facing the project: "The real problem is not delayed gratification; it is that there have been no CentOS 5 security updates since January 6, and only one since December 14, 2010. During this time, RHEL 5, on which CentOS 5 is based, has seen updates for dbus, Exim, Firefox (twice), GCC, hplip, OpenJDK, kernel (thrice)... Since these updates are based on the 5.6 release, CentOS cannot easily pass them on to its users until they, too, have a 5.6 base. Since that base has been slow in coming, all those security updates have been blocked." So what's the solution to the problem? According to LWN, it's the web hosting industry that could help: "One suspects that the hosting industry is getting a better deal than many. Now would be a good time for the top beneficiaries of the CentOS project to roll up their sleeves and put some serious time into making it better."
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 In recent weeks the openSUSE has been discussing the way its distro releases are numbered, with an effort to create some sort of a logical system that would be easy to understand. Now, following a poll and feedback, the project has reached a consensus - the next release will be openSUSE 12.1: "Recently, the project took these discussions to a poll, to gauge community feeling about the different options. Generally, the community expressed that they wanted a scheme that was uniquely openSUSE's and reflected our release methodology. We looked at other distros for examples, and while we felt many had come up with excellent versioning schemes for their distros, none properly reflected our own cycle. From this discussion and results of the poll, we have come up with the following scheme: The .x shall henceforth reflect the month of release: 1 = November, 2 = July, 3 = March. We will no longer ship a .0 version. This solution brings a meaningful rationale to the scheme, without completely revising the look. And thus, our next release in November will be 12.1. In July 2012, we will ship 12.2 and in March 2013, we will ship 12.3. Then in November 2013, we will ship 13.1."
With the recent release of openSUSE 11.4, many users have welcomed the new repository, called Tumbleweed, which allows the more experienced among them to run openSUSE as a rolling-release distribution, similar to Arch Linux. As such, they no longer need to wait for the project's next major release before running the latest software applications. Anastasios Ksouzafeiris shares his experiences with upgrading to and running Tumbleweed: "Tumbleweed is the name of the repository that, once added to your openSUSE installation, allows the whole system to be regularly upgraded to the latest and greatest software, without the need of ever upgrading the OS to a newer, major version of the distribution. The good news is that 'latest and greatest' doesn't mean 'bleeding edge'. That may be the case with the openSUSE Factory repository, but not with Tumbleweed. The bad news is that by turning openSUSE into a rolling distro you'll find yourself re-compiling and re-installing any closed-source drivers you rely on more often than you're probably used to -- and in most cases that entails some extra labor. But that couldn't possibly stop me from trying Tumbleweed, so I set off to a quest for transforming a local openSUSE 11.4 VMware virtual machine (GNOME edition)."
* * * * *
 Ubuntu's dramatic rise to fame was always heavily "sponsored" by the deep pockets of the distribution founder, Mark Shuttleworth. This is especially true when one considers the project's willingness to ship official CD sets to users across the globe - free of any charge. Unfortunately, this unusual generosity has now come to an end: "Today it was announced that ShipIt, the free CD service that Canonical has been running since the inception of Ubuntu, will be discontinued. Why? A few reasons. Firstly, CD distribution is not really as effective as it used to be, and it is expensive. These days, particularly with the availability of low-cost, hi-speed Internet growing across the world, more and more people are simply downloading the ISO images and burning them to a CD or installing from a USB stick. Canonical felt like it would make better sense to reduce the investment in snail-mail CD distribution and focus it more on LoCo Teams and use those savings to invest in other areas of the project." Does this mean that local Ubuntu communities will still get the free CDs? The answer is positive: "We are still going to provide approved LoCo Teams with CDs!"
One more on Ubuntu - a link to an interview with Mark Shuttleworth as published by Linux User, where the Ubuntu founder talks, among other things, about the forthcoming changes in the distribution: "On the enterprise front, the biggest changes have been in cloud computing and virtualisation. We were the lead distribution to adopt KVM, and that has now become an industry standard in Linux. Ubuntu has taken off on EC2 and Rackspace public clouds, where people are doing amazing innovation, and we've added some features just for cloud deployments that make it easier to keep your infrastructure in the cloud up to date and manageable. We also shipped the only free and open cloud infrastructure, which lets you create your own cloud with a few servers and the standard Ubuntu Server CD. On the desktop front, we introduced Unity, the brand new desktop experience that is designed and tested for usability and efficiency. We will make that our default desktop in 11.04 this April, and we have an implementation both for high-end computers with OpenGL and for low-end computers where memory and graphics are less advanced, in Qt."
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  Among the frequently expressed opinion on many Linux websites and blogs is the topic of excessive "fragmentation" in the Linux community. Too many distributions, too many applications designed for the same task, not enough collaboration between different groups... Speaking to Toolinux, Anne Nicolas, the former vice president of engineering at Mandriva Linux and the current head of the Mageia project (a fork of Mandriva), believes that there is no need to fear fragmentation (article in French): "It's not fragmentation that one should fear, but rather repetition, exclusivity and stagnation. We launched Mageia to give the project keys back to the community, to build a community around healthier and more dynamic operating rules and to allow the community to organise and innovate within the distribution." The interview also expands on the reasons for forking Mandriva Linux, touches on the subject of collaboration with the Mandriva developers, details the work which has received most of the developers' focus, and covers other related topics.
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 The last item in today's news section is about the biggest event of the past week by far - the release of GNOME 3. While the first major GNOME update of the popular desktop project since July 2002 brought many diverse opinions, it's unlikely that many end users would have tried the release since it will take some time before it appears in any of the big distributions. Apart from trying one of the live CDs with GNOME 3, only those users who follow the development or experimental branches of the main distributions, such as the Arch Linux testing tree, had a chance to experience the brand-new desktop: "GNOME 3.0.0 packages are now available in the [testing] repository. These bring with it an update to GTK+ 2, as well as the new GTK+ 3. This is a major update and you should take note of a couple of things: GNOME 3 will replace GNOME 2 once it gets moved to [extra]; GNOME 3 has two modes, 'standard' mode (gnome-shell) and 'fallback' mode (gnome-panel + metacity); panel applets using Bonobo aren't supported any more and packages depending on it will be dropped; PulseAudio is now required to run the GNOME desktop; some packages exist in separate versions for GTK+ 2 and GTK+ 3, these typically have a name like 'packagename3'." More information and upgrade instructions are available on the Arch Linux Wiki.
The visual look of GNOME 3.0 is rather different from its predecessor
(full image size: 1,744kB, resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
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All about package signing
On-the-dotted-line asks: Over the past few weeks there has been a bit of an upheaval with regards to package signing (or the absence of it) in the Arch Linux project. For those of us who don't touch source code too much, what exactly is package signing, how does it work, and what are the security implications to not using it?
DistroWatch answers: Over the past month I've been feeling increasingly sympathetic toward the Arch Linux developers. They've been cruising along fine for years, doing what they do so well. Then a few people point out that Pacman, the Arch Linux package manager, doesn't feature package signing and suddenly there are thousands of people up in arms as if the Arch people kicked a puppy. (I mean the cute little animal, not the cute little distribution.) As much as I like the practice of package signing I don't think the Arch team deserves all the flak they're getting.
At any rate, let's talk about signing. What is package signing? Digitally signing a package or a message is a little like putting an ink signature on a document, as you would with a personal cheque. It's a way of verifying the item (message, package, cheque) came from the person you think it came from. A person's digital signature should be unique, letting us know where the package originated. Signing also incorporates a method by which we can verify whether a package or document has been altered since it was signed by the author.
For example, let's say I create a package called FooBar. I sign FooBar with my digital signature, which puts my unique identifier on it and additionally takes a "fingerprint" of the file. Then I send the file to you. Given the included signature (and fingerprint) you can verify that the package came from me and that it has not been altered. Assuming that you trust me, you can then install the package. Were someone to intercept the package before you get it and were they to modify the package, the signature would no longer be valid and you would know not to install the package. Or, if the person who intercepted the package replaced my signature with their own, you'd know it wasn't from me and wouldn't trust it. In short, package signing tells you where an item came from and that it hasn't been tampered with. This is useful when we're installing software because we can be fairly certain that the software in our distribution's repository is trustworthy. When software isn't signed we're at risk of someone breaking into the repository server and replacing software with malware. It's also possible for an attacker to intercept our network traffic and send us the wrong package and, without signing, we might not be able to tell the difference.
In theory the only way someone can send you a package that looks like it came from me is if they get their hands on my signing key, a bit of data that's kept private. If you'd like to experiment with signing your files and messages I recommend trying KGpg which is a graphical front-end for GnuPG. KGpg makes it easy to create your own keys and sign messages. You may also want to read this document on how to use GnuPG to sign and verify files.
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| Released Last Week |
Zenwalk Linux 7.0 "Core"
Jean-Philippe Guillemin has announced the release of Zenwalk Linux 7.0 "Core" edition, a minimalist, but extensible distribution based on Slackware Linux: "Zenwalk Core 7.0 is ready. Zenwalk Core 7.0 is the base foundation of Zenwalk - everything except the X server and desktop environment. Installation process takes about 10 minutes and then you are free to install just the packages you need to create your very own desktop environment or your highly optimized and secured server. Zenwalk Core features the 2.6.37.4 kernel with BFS scheduler, KMS and many performance tweaks. Two kernels are available - the standard one supporting SATA or PATA disks, and a bigger kernel supporting any disk technology from SATA to SCSI. Note: the next version of Zenwalk Core will most probably be included in Zenwalk Standard edition as an installation option." Here is the brief release announcement.
Linux Mint 201104 "Xfce"
Clement Lefebvre has announced the release of Linux Mint 201104 "Xfce" edition, a Debian-based rolling-release distribution: "The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint Xfce. Linux Mint Xfce is rolling on top of a Debian 'Testing' package base and uses the same repositories as Linux Mint Debian edition. This offers the following advantages to Linux Mint Xfce: a huge performance boost; a continuous flow of updates which allows users to keep their system up to date without waiting for new releases; a more mainstream desktop and software selection; an easier maintenance for the team which makes it easier to release in both 32-bit and 64-bit with every Linux Mint Debian edition release." See the release announcement for full details.
SystemRescueCd 2.1.0
François Dupoux has released an updated version of SystemRescueCd, a Gentoo-based live CD containing a collection of utilities for disk management and data rescue tasks. What's new in version 2.1.0? "Updated standard kernels to 2.6.35.12 (long-term kernel: rescuecd + rescue64); alternative kernels re-based on linux-2.6.38.2 (most recent kernel); patched alternative kernels with loop-aes-3.6b (encrypt disks using AES); updated Testdisk to 6.11.3 (checks and undeletes partitions + PhotoRec); updated hdparm to 9.36 (utility to change hard drive parameters); updated the Xfce desktop environment to new major version 4.8; updated gDisk to 0.7.1 (the package has been renamed gptfdisk); 32-bit kernels (rescuecd + altker32) compiled for i586 instead of i686." Here is the complete changelog.
CTKArch 0.7
CTKArch is a minimalist, Arch-based Linux live CD (with a hard disk installation option) using the Openbox window manager. A new update of the distribution, version 0.7, was released yesterday: "CTKArch 0.7 released. It took some time because I've implemented something quite interesting: the possibility of turning your live CD into a 'nomad installation', by saving all system changes to the persistent data partition. The script for add-on creation and the installer have required quite big changes to support this and the add-ons without conflicts. Read the documentation, it's full of interesting info! If you have already installed 0.7 with the RC1 ISO image, don't even think of reinstalling - it will give the same result on your hard disk. However, you will certainly want to update the live image on your Flash memory stick or CD/DVD-RW." Here is the release announcement in English and French.
CTKArch 0.7 - a minimalist desktop system with Openbox, based on Arch Linux
(full image size: 1,744kB, resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
CentOS 5.6
Karanbir Singh has announced the release of CentOS 5.6, a Linux distribution built from source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.6: "We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of CentOS 5.6 for i386 and x86_64 architectures. CentOS 5.6 is based on the upstream release EL 5.6 and includes packages from all variants including Server and Client. All upstream repositories have been combined into one, to make it easier for end users to work with. CentOS 5.6 is the sixth update to the CentOS 5 distribution series; it contains a lot of bug fixes, updates and new functionality." Read the release announcement and release notes for further 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 |
March 2011 DistroWatch.com donation: Imagination
We are happy to announce that the recipient of the March 2011 DistroWatch.com donation is the Imagination project, an open-source DVD slideshow maker. It receives US$250.00 in cash.
Developed by Giuseppe Torelli, Imagination is "a lightweight and simple DVD slideshow maker written in C language and built with the GTK+ toolkit." The author writes on the project's website: "I noticed a lack of a user-friendly DVD slideshow maker for GNU/Linux, so I started developing Imagination. True, there are some other GUIs which do the job, but they usually require a lot of dependencies to be installed first and often their interfaces are bloated. Imagination has been designed from the ground up to be fast, light and easy-to-use. It requires the FFmpeg encoder to produce the movie file and libsox to handle the audio. That's correct, you don't need any other third-party software, I like the KISS principle."
Included with the software are many transition effects: "Imagination at present features 69 transition effects, random function to automatically set a random transition on all of the selected slides, cut, copy and paste ability on the slides, Ken Burns ability, text on the slides with some text animations, ability to add an empty slide with a gradient editor and export of the slideshow as OGV Theora/Vorbis, widescreen FLV video and 3GP for mobile phones." Visit the project's screenshot page to see Imagination in action.
Giuseppe Torelli has emailed DistroWatch with a brief thank-you note: "Thank you so much for your generous donation! I've never received a so big an amount of money for Imagination!"
Launched in 2004, this monthly donations programme is a DistroWatch initiative to support free and open-source software projects and operating systems with cash contributions. Readers are welcome to nominate their favourite project for future donations. Those readers who wish to contribute towards these donations, please use our advertising page to make a payment (PayPal and credit cards are accepted). Here is the list of the projects that have received a DistroWatch donation since the launch of the programme (figures in US dollars):
- 2004: GnuCash ($250), Quanta Plus ($200), PCLinuxOS ($300), The GIMP ($300), Vidalinux ($200), Fluxbox ($200), K3b ($350), Arch Linux ($300), Kile KDE LaTeX Editor ($100) and UNICEF - Tsunami Relief Operation ($340)
- 2005: Vim ($250), AbiWord ($220), BitTorrent ($300), NDISwrapper ($250), Audacity ($250), Debian GNU/Linux ($420), GNOME ($425), Enlightenment ($250), MPlayer ($400), Amarok ($300), KANOTIX ($250) and Cacti ($375)
- 2006: Gambas ($250), Krusader ($250), FreeBSD Foundation ($450), GParted ($360), Doxygen ($260), LilyPond ($250), Lua ($250), Gentoo Linux ($500), Blender ($500), Puppy Linux ($350), Inkscape ($350), Cape Linux Users Group ($130), Mandriva Linux ($405, a Powerpack competition), Digikam ($408) and Sabayon Linux ($450)
- 2007: GQview ($250), Kaffeine ($250), sidux ($350), CentOS ($400), LyX ($350), VectorLinux ($350), KTorrent ($400), FreeNAS ($350), lighttpd ($400), Damn Small Linux ($350), NimbleX ($450), MEPIS Linux ($300), Zenwalk Linux ($300)
- 2008: VLC ($350), Frugalware Linux ($340), cURL ($300), GSPCA ($400), FileZilla ($400), MythDora ($500), Linux Mint ($400), Parsix GNU/Linux ($300), Miro ($300), GoblinX ($250), Dillo ($150), LXDE ($250)
- 2009: Openbox ($250), Wolvix GNU/Linux ($200), smxi ($200), Python ($300), SliTaz GNU/Linux ($200), LiVES ($300), Osmo ($300), LMMS ($250), KompoZer ($360), OpenSSH ($350), Parted Magic ($350) and Krita ($285)
- 2010: Qimo 4 Kids ($250), Squid ($250), Libre Graphics Meeting ($300), Bacula ($250), FileZilla ($300), GCompris ($352), Xiph.org ($250), Clonezilla ($250), Debian Multimedia ($280), Geany ($300), Mageia ($470), gtkpod ($300)
- 2011: CGSecurity ($300), OpenShot ($300), Imagination ($250)
Since the launch of the Donations Program in March 2004, DistroWatch has donated a total of US$27,480 to various open-source software projects.
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Liquid Lemur Linux. Liquid Lemur Linux a Debian-based distribution. It uses the latest Xfce desktop, the latest Zen Kernel from Liquorix, Cairo-Dock, and all the usual everyday applications.
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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, 18 April 2011.
Jesse Smith and Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • 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 | 
Lernstick
Lernstick is a mobile and secure learning and working environment for school and at home that can be installed on external storage media (e.g. USB sticks, USB hard drives, SD cards, etc.). The distribution is based on Debian's stable branch. The distribution is intended to perform so that almost every computer can be started from this storage media. Basically, a hard drive with an installed operating system is no longer required. (Optionally, the system can still be installed on the hard disk.) As a result, the learning stick is a platform for so-called Bring Your Own Device scenarios, in which students can also use their private devices for school purposes, such as exams in an secure offline/online environment.
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.
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| 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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