 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 517, 22 July 2013 |
Welcome to this year's 29th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Converting computer users from Windows to Linux isn't always an easy task, but there are distributions that try hard to recreate a Windows-like experience in Linux to make new users feel more at home in their new operating system. One of such distributions is Zorin OS. The "Lite" edition of the project's latest version is the subject of this week's review by Jesse Smith who enjoyed the experience despite not being the distribution's target market. The featured article is followed by a news section which starts with a celebratory article on the 20th anniversary of Slackware Linux, then continues with the weekend report about a security breach at UbuntuForums.org before concluding with two interesting articles about UberStudent, an Ubuntu-based distribution for students, and Raspbian, a Debian-based distro for the Raspberry Pi minicomputer. Also in this week's issue, a Questions and Answers section on the importance of the Tor anonymity network, an introduction to a distribution that features no fewer than 53 window managers on one live CD, and the usual regular sections with the weekly release roundup. Happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (15MB) and MP3 (32MB) formats
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
First look at Zorin OS 7 "Lite"
 Running a Linux-based operating system can be a wonderful experience. Linux distributions have relatively few security problems, are typically stable and are set up to have convenient access to massive amounts of gratis software. Perhaps I'm preaching to the choir here, but I feel Linux distributions offer some of the best desktop solutions available today. The problem, as I see it, is that many people either aren't aware that Linux-based solutions exist or are not comfortable transitioning from their current desktop operating system to something different. I understand the transition can be a difficult one, I made it myself and it wasn't entirely smooth -- there was definitely a learning curve going from Windows to Slackware. Fortunately there are developers out there who recognize that a lack of familiarity is one of the big hurdles to entering the Linux community and they have tackled the task of making Linux distributions that will be feel familiar to new users. One of these distributions is Zorin OS.
Zorin is a project which attempts to bridge the divide between the Windows world and Linux desktop distributions. It does this by setting up the desktop environment to be somewhat Windows-like in appearance and the project also makes it fairly easy to run Windows software by way of WINE. The Zorin project recently released Zorin OS 7 Lite. This distribution is based on Lubuntu 13.04 and ships with the LXDE desktop. The Lite edition is designed with the idea of helping people who were running Windows on lower-spec hardware keep their machines alive by way of a Linux-based solution.
Zorin OS 7 "Lite" - browsing the project's website
(full image size: 636kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
The ISO image for Zorin OS Lite is 790 MB in size. Booting from this media brings us to a boot menu where we are given the option of either immediately launching the system installer or, alternatively, trying the distribution's live environment. I decided to jump directly into the installation process. Zorin uses the Ubuntu project's graphical installer and it quickly walks us through the usual steps. We select our preferred language, partition our hard drive and confirm our time zone. Then we confirm our keyboard's layout and create a user account for ourselves. The steps are all fairly straight forward and the process goes quickly. Once the installation process is complete Zorin prompts us to reboot the machine. Loading up the locally installed copy of the distribution brings us to a graphical login screen, the appearance of which brings to mind blue honeycomb. Zorin allows us to login using either our user account (created at install time) or we can login using a guest account which will be wiped clean after we logout.
When we have entered our user name we also have the option of selecting the style of our graphical interface. The default is the standard LXDE desktop with a traditional layout. In addition there are several others labeled "Netbook Desktop", "Nexus 7", "Openbox" and "LX Games". The Openbox option takes us to a completely blank graphical interface powered by the Openbox window manager. Most people probably will not want this option, but it does give us a way into the system should the default desktop become corrupted. The other session options, "Nexus 7", "LX Games" and "Netbook Desktop" all bring up variations styled after the interfaces of mobile devices. Generally these interfaces consist of large icons filling the screen and tabs along the top of the display allowing us to filter the icons displayed. Personally I didn't find these mobile-like options appealing for a desktop system and focused solely on the default LXDE offering.
Logging into LXDE we find a blue honeycomb wallpaper. The system's application menu and task switcher sit at the bottom of the display. The graphical environment is pleasantly uncluttered. A few minutes after I started poking around the application menu a window appeared and let me know updated packages were available in the distribution's repositories and the software update utility offered to download them for me. The update app shows a little information about each package and we can get further details if we so choose. While the newer software packages were downloading I noticed the update app refers to the distribution as "Ubuntu 7", an amusing combination of the parent distribution's name and Zorin 7. All updates downloaded and applied smoothly and I encountered no problems from applying updates during my week with Zorin.
The distribution comes with a small, yet effective, collection of software. We are given a copy of the Chrome web browser, the Geary e-mail client and the Pidgin instant messaging software. Zorin comes with the AbiWord word processor, a document viewer and image viewer. The Audacious music player and the GNOME front end for MPlayer are available in the application menu. Zorin comes with popular multimedia codecs and Adobe's Flash player too. There is a program available for changing the desktop's theme and layout, two graphical package managers and a utility for importing wireless networking drivers from Windows. There is a small application for working with the distribution's firewall and another for handling user accounts. Network Manager is installed for us and automatically connects us to the local network. We are provided with a text editor, archive manager and calculator along with a system monitor for watching processes. In the background we find Zorin runs on the Linux kernel, version 3.8. I think, based on past experience, the full edition of Zorin OS comes with a copy of WINE for running Windows binaries, but it is not present by default in the Lite edition.
Zorin OS 7 "Lite" - changing the appearance of the desktop
(full image size: 765kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
There are two programs listed in the application menu which I believe are unique to the Zorin distribution and deserve special mention. One is a web browser manager. This utility is quite simple. It displays icons for four web browsers (Chrome, Opera, Firefox and Midori). By clicking a button we can install or remove any one of these web browsers. It's like having a tiny package manager dedicated entirely to web browsers. I used the web browser manager a couple of times and it worked well for me. The other application that I feel deserves to be mentioned is referred to as "Zorin OS Lite Extra Software". It is similar in concept to the web browser manager and allows for the quick one-click installation of popular software. Using this tightly focused package manager we can click icons to install WINE, the VLC multimedia player, mtPaint, a spreadsheet application and a few other items. Opting to install the offered WINE package automatically installs the PlayOnLinux software too which makes it much easier for us to run third-party software built for the Windows platform.
Zorin OS comes with two graphical package managers, apart from the highly specific (and limited) software managers listed above. The first is called Software Centre. It features a nice, modern interface where we can browse bright icons representing software categories and desktop applications. We can click on entries to get a full page description of the software, complete with screen shots and user-supplied ratings. While browsing we can queue items to be installed with a click. Actions wait in the queue and are all processed in one big batch. Zorin also comes with the Synaptic package manager. Synaptic is a little less flashy and focuses more on working with individual packages instead of desktop applications. Like the Software Centre, Synaptic lets us create batches of actions to perform on packages and these actions are all processed at once. Both package managers worked smoothly for me and I encountered no problems. Most packages accessible to us are provided by the Ubuntu software repositories with a few specific items coming from the Zorin project's custom repositories. We are also connected to repositories run by Opera and Google giving us access to those companies' proprietary web browsers.
Zorin OS 7 "Lite" - browsing available software packages
(full image size: 343kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
I tried running Zorin OS Lite on my desktop computer (dual-core 2.8 GHz CPU, 6 GB of RAM, Radeon video card, Realtek network card) and found the two were a good fit. Zorin booted quickly and ran smoothly. My desktop was set to my screen's maximum resolution, sound worked out of the box and the LXDE desktop is wonderfully responsive. I also tried running Zorin in a virtual machine, courtesy of VirtualBox, and experienced similar results. In the virtual environment Zorin was fast and responsive. The distribution is fairly light, using around 100MB of RAM to run the LXDE interface.
In the past I have used earlier releases of Zorin OS, typically the project's full-featured edition. Despite some of the convenience that is achieved by the full-sized edition of Zorin OS I always felt a little out of place when I was using it. Perhaps because it has been ages since I ran Windows at home and Zorin OS is a distribution aimed at making Windows-to-Linux converts feel comfortable. Personally, I feel better having fewer connections with the Windows world. I've also felt that earlier versions of the full Zorin desktop were either a little cluttered or a bit sluggish.
My experience with Zorin's Lite edition, however, was very positive. The distribution finds a nice balance between features and performance. The distribution is easy to install and carries an interface that is both attractive and responsive. Zorin comes with several tools to ease the burden of package management, the system ships with codecs, Flash and an easy way to gain Windows compatibility. The one-click installation of PlayOnLinux and the many installation scripts that framework offers greatly reduce the work required to run Windows software on the Linux platform. During my week with the Lite edition I didn't run into any serious bugs or stability issues. It was a pleasantly smooth week and I think newcomers to the Linux community will appreciate the work put into this distribution.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
Slackware turns twenty, security breach at UbuntuForums.org, overview of UberStudent, Raspbian as perfect home server
 Incredible as it sounds, last week marked exactly 20 years since the famous release of Slackware Linux 1.0! The modest beginnings of Patrick Volkerding's contribution to Linux started with the .99pl11 alpha kernel included on one of the distribution's 11 floppy disks (you'd need additional 13 of them if you were optimistic enough to want to turn your computer into a graphical workstation). Susan Linton looks back at Slackware's long history by citing some of the quotes from her own past reviews: "Slackware has never been accused of being cutting edge, instead opting for stability and usability. It did employ udev but I found no hardware issues other than it detecting my BIOS-disabled on-board sound before my Sound Blaster Live! Little edit of this file and that was resolved." And another one: "In the past I enjoyed Slackware for its ease of configuration, all set up nice and easy in a few start-up files. But these days, one really doesn't have to mess with that too much. I personally didn't have to change a thing. All my hardware was detected properly and functioned perfectly upon boot." Interestingly, Patrick Volkerding too must have forgotten about the unique achievement as the Slackware "Current" changelog, which happened to be updated on 16 July, makes no mention of the anniversary either.
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 The otherwise quiet weekend in terms of interesting Linux-related news was rudely interrupted on Sunday with reports about a massive security compromise affecting Ubuntu's primary user forum - UbuntuForums.org. A temporary page that replaced the busy communication channel explained what happened: "Ubuntu Forums is down for maintenance. There has been a security breach on the Ubuntu Forums. The Canonical IS team is working hard as we speak to restore normal operations. This page will be updated regularly with progress reports. Unfortunately the attackers have gotten every user's local username, password, and email address from the Ubuntu Forums database. The passwords are not stored in plain text, they are stored as salted hashes. However, if you were using the same password as your Ubuntu Forums one on another service (such as email), you are strongly encouraged to change the password on the other service ASAP. Ubuntu One, Launchpad and other Ubuntu/Canonical services are NOT affected by the breach." The latest entry in the site's progress report at the time of writing confirms the unfortunate event: "Site taken down, this splash page put in place while investigation continues."
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 The UberStudent distribution, while probably not one of the most widely-used operating systems in the universe, is a very useful tool, especially if you are a student and need to have good open-source educational programs ready at your fingertips. Last week TechWorld's Rohan Pearce wrote an interesting overview of the UberStudent project with explanatory quotes from project founder Stephen Ewen: "What differentiates UberStudent from other Linux distribution designed for tertiary education is that it delivers 'pedagogical cohesion' says Stephen Ewen. 'Standard Linux desktops are barebones,' partly due to the legacy of having to fit on a single CD, says Ewen, 'and in a lot of ways assume you already know Linux, or else have weeks or even months to climb a learning curve to learn how to customise it for a particular task set.' By contrast the Linux distribution that Ewen is at the helm of -- the education-focused UberStudent -- 'responds by providing a complete, out-of-the-box system not just for doing every day home computing tasks, as does a standard desktop, but for learning, doing, and teaching the core academic skills required to excel in higher education, regardless of the academic major. Those core areas are research and writing, studying, and self-management,' Ewen adds."
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 In this day and age many of us use a simple home server for sharing files, streaming videos or performing various specialist tasks. With the recent arrival of low-cost ARM-based computer boards, the price for owning a simple server has come down to historic lows as a €30 Raspberry Pi could be all that's needed to cover most users' needs. Linux Journal's Brian Trapp explains how to set up the hardware and how to install Raspbian (a Debian-based distribution developed specifically for the Pi) to function as a perfect home server: "For a home server, you'll need a medium-size SD Flash card for local storage. It's possible to use a USB thumbdrive for booting, but that would use up one of the two precious USB slots. The Flash storage card doesn't need to be large, but the faster the better. I chose a name-brand SD card with an 8 GB capacity and class 10 speed rating. For backups and multimedia files, a large hard drive with a USB dock is a must. I chose a 1.5 TB hard drive and a Calvary EN-CAHDD-D 2-bay USB 2.0 hard drive dock. This dock has a feature to run two drives in RAID-0 mode, which could be useful someday. Finally, the RPi doesn't come with a power supply, but most smartphone chargers supply the required 5V over micro USB. To see if the RPi was fussy about the power source, I swapped through three different micro-USB cell-phone chargers for power supplies. I tried each one for about a week, with no issues on any of the units."
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| Question and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
What is Tor and why is it important
Why-Tor asks: In your review of Whonix you mention that the distribution connects to Tor. What is Tor and why is it important for maintaining privacy?
DistroWatch answers: Tor is a network of computers which is designed in such a way as to prevent surveillance software from figuring out who is talking to who and, perhaps more importantly, from where. Usually when we visit a website or a chat room there is a traceable connection formed between us and the remote service. This means anyone watching the traffic being passed across the network can figure out two things: 1. Approximately where we are physically in the world. 2. That a connection has been made between our computer and another specific service.
There are a few reasons we might not want this. Some websites will filter connections from specific parts of the world. On-line stores may adjust prices based upon the location of the person visiting the website. Using Tor allows us to mask our real location. Other people may wish to hide their connection making it harder to tell with whom they are in communication. This can be useful for whistle blowers or people living in countries which discourage freedom of expression. I may not want anyone listening to my network traffic to know my political leanings, for example, and therefore use Tor when visiting political websites.
When we connect to the Tor network data passed to and from our computer does not go directly to its destination. Instead our network traffic goes to one computer in the Tor network, then gets passed to another computer and, after bouncing around a little, leaves the Tor network and heads for its destination. While bouncing around inside the Tor network our data is temporarily encrypted to prevent people from identifying its contents so long as it remains inside Tor's internal network.
In a lot of ways using Tor is like passing notes in a classroom. If we scribble a note to a friend, get up and walk across the room to give it to the other person everyone can see exactly who we are communicating with and where the note passer was sitting. The instructor can easily intercept us and instantly knows exactly who to scold. A safer approach would be to write a note and pass it to the person next to us, who then passes it to another person, who passes it to another person who then passes it to the final person. If the note is intercepted partway through the chain it's going to be difficult to tell who originally wrote it (assuming we didn't sign our name). And not signing our name is an important aspect of using Tor. The Tor network can help hide our location and our associations, but that privacy goes out the window the minute we hand out our name or address or login credentials. Signing into a website or identifying ourselves while using Tor is the Internet equivalent of going to a masquerade ball and handing out business cards.
The Tor network can help keep us anonymous and it can hide our associations to a point, but it's important to use Tor with other recommended security practices. Besides not identifying ourselves it is also a good idea to use encryption on our connections to limit the effectiveness of intercepting our digital notes. It may also be possible to identify a person on the network by things like their web browser's fingerprint. In short, Tor is a very useful utility and one part of an array of tools for staying anonymous and protected on-line.
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| Released Last Week |
PCLinuxOS 2013.07 "KDE MiniMe", "LXDE", "MATE"
New maintenance releases for three editions of the PCLinuxOS distribution were announced yesterday. Featuring a minimalist KDE, as well as LXDE and MATE desktops, the new version is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit computer systems. From the PCLinuxOS 2013.07 "KDE MiniMe" announcement: "Maintenance release - PCLinuxOS KDE-MiniME 2013.07. KDE 4.10.5, Linux kernel 3.4.52, PulseAudio enabled by default." From the PCLinuxOS 2013.07 "LXDE" announcement: "Maintenance release - PCLinuxOS LXDE 2013.07. LXDE panel bug-fixes, Linux kernel 3.4.52, volume control panel applet added, PulseAudio enabled by default." From the PCLinuxOS 2013.0715 "MATE" announcement: "Maintenance release - PCLinuxOS MATE 2013.0715. MATE 1.6.x, Linux kernel 3.4.52, PulseAudio enabled by default. All of the MATE desktop applications plus Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin...."
Webconverger 21.0
Kai Hendry has announced the release of Webconverger 21.0, an updated version of the project's Debian-based distribution for Internet-only kiosks and similar deployments: "Webconverger 21 release. Firefox 22 and Flash security updates; fixed an issue whereby the installer would not show up on a small subset of machines; upgraded to syslinux 6 which should make the boot experience slightly smoother; re-introduced support for allowing pop-ups via the prefs= API; prefs= API has been beefed up so you can practically script Firefox to do whatever you want using autoconfig files; removed the proprietary Google Talk plugin in favour of WebRTC; TTF Liberation fonts are back to improve compatibility with Windows renderings. In other news we are working on a Webconverger Raspberry PI port, finally. With the caveat that it will only be used in web signage use cases (Neon) and not as a kiosk browsing machine. We were recently interviewed about Neon if you want to learn more." Here is the brief release announcement with a screenshots.
Salix OS 14.0.1 "Xfce"
George Vlahavas has announced the release of Salix OS 14.0.1 "Xfce" edition, a Slackware-based distribution featuring the latest Xfce desktop environment: "Salix Xfce 14.0.1 is ready. There have been a lot of updates in the 14.0 branch, including several security updates that prompted this new release. Salix Xfce 14.0.1 is based on Xfce 4.10 and it comes with an updated 3.2.45 kernel that fixes several security issues, LibreOffice updated to version 4.x, Java security updates, an update to Midori, our main browser, to version 0.5.2 along with an updated Webkit engine that includes a lot of stability fixes, plus a lot more security updates to several packages like Flash plugin, Pidgin, Perl, X.Org etc. A couple of minor bugs that were also present after the original 14.0 release are fixed now. Also, the screensaver is disabled by default now, as it seems there were a few cases with some graphics cards acting up with certain 3D screensavers." Read the rest of the release announcement for further information.
OLPC OS 13.2.0
Daniel Drake has announced the release of OLPC OS 13.2.0, a Fedora-based Linux distribution developed under the initiative of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project to provide children in developing countries with low-cost laptops: "We're pleased to announce the release of OLPC OS 13.2.0 for XO-1, XO-1.5, XO-1.75 and XO-4. OLPC OS 13.2.0 is a new software release focusing on cleaning up a few edges from our previous release, and finishing off support for the new XO-4 laptop. Features: XO-4 power management is now stable and enabled by default; Bluetooth support as a purchase option; in the Clock activity, you can now use the touchscreen to drag the clock hands to another time, a useful exercise for learning about time; drop-down lists are sub-optimal for touch, they have been replaced by more intuitive and touch-friendly UI elements in Record; the pinch-to-zoom touch gestures in Image Viewer behave much better than before...." Read the release announcement and release notes for more details.
DEFT Linux 8
Stefano Fratepietro has announced the release of DEFT Linux 8, a Lubuntu-based distribution and live DVD featuring a collection of open-source tools for digital forensics and penetration testing: "Dear guys, we did our best to turn the DEFT 8 beta version into stable -- also by listening to your precious suggestions and feedback -- and here we are. You can download the DEFT 8 final stable ISO image (which now includes DART 2). The stable version has been checked against common bugs but we are human and pretty busy with our jobs so if we missed something, just drop a line to bug at deftlinux.net and we'll collect suggestions and bug fixes for the next release. A big thank to the DEFT team and to all the supporters. Stay tuned, because much more is yet to come, such as the release of the DEFT 8 virtual appliance (a pre-configured virtual machine you will be able to launch on your workstation by means of VMware Workstation or VMPlayer or Virtualbox); the DEFT 8 user manual; the updated website." Here is the brief release announcement.
DEFT Linux 8 - a distribution for digital forensics and penetration testing
(full image size: 937kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Linux Mint 15 "KDE"
Clement Lefebvre has announced the release of the "KDE" edition of Linux Mint 15: "The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 15 'Olivia' KDE. KDE is a vibrant, innovative, advanced, modern looking and full-featured desktop environment. This edition features all the improvements from the latest Linux Mint release on top of KDE 4.10. Here are a few examples of what is new in KDE 4.10: a new screen locker makes Workspaces more secure; KWin now detects some virtual machines and enables OpenGL compositing if possible; the proprietary AMD driver now has OpenGL 2 support; printer setup, maintenance and job control are improved with a new implementation of the Print Manager; Dolphin has seen many bug fixes, improvements and new features, e.g. transferring files to and from a phone or other mobile device has become easier with support for MTP devices, which show up in the Places panel." Continue reading the release announcement and the what's new page for more information.
Emmabuntüs 12.04.2-1.05
Patrick d'Emmabuntüs has announced the availability of the updated build of Emmabuntüs, a Xubuntu-based distribution designed specifically for refurbished computers given to humanitarian organisations: "The Emmabuntüs team is pleased to announce the fourth maintenance release of Emmabuntüs 2 1.05 based on Xubuntu 12.04.2. This distribution was designed to facilitate the refurbishing of computers given to humanitarian organizations and to promote the discovery of Linux by beginners, but also to extend the life of the equipment and to reduce waste caused by over-consumption of raw materials. This update is delivered to improve the use of Emmabuntüs 2 and allow JerryClan Ivory Coast easily recondition machines and develop a Jerry/Emmabuntüs set of services. This service is based on a free mobile tracking application by SMS for tuberculosis patients, as well as M-Pregnancy for monitoring pregnancies and pregnant women." Read the rest of the release announcement for more details.
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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 (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
New distributions added to database
- LinuxBBQ. LinuxBBQ is a multi-purpose operating system based on Debian's "unstable" branch and spiced up with kernels and tools from siduction, Grml and Linux Mint. LinuxBBQ offers different flavours and desktops which are released as "editions" (with no version numbers) and which can be customised and remixed by the user. The individual editions are built to include most major desktop environments (with the exception of GNOME) and there is a special edition offering a choice of no fewer than 53 window managers - everything from aewm to xmonad.
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Birds Linux. Birds Linux is a Sabayon-based distribution designed for students of technical and vocational schools.
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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, 29 July 2013. To contact the authors please send email to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, suggestions and corrections: news, donations, distribution submissions, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (feedback and suggestions: podcast edition)
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Issue 1032 (2023-08-14): MX Linux 23, positioning new windows on the desktop, Linux Containers adopts LXD fork, Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ form OpenELA |
| • Issue 1031 (2023-08-07): Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, preventing a file from being changed, Asahi Linux partners with Fedora, Linux Mint plans new releases |
| • Issue 1030 (2023-07-31): Solus 4.4, Linux Mint 21.2, Debian introduces RISC-V support, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 |
| • Issue 1029 (2023-07-24): Running Murena on the Fairphone 4, Flatpak vs Snap sandboxing technologies, Redox OS plans to borrow Linux drivers to expand hardware support, Debian updates Bookworm media |
| • Issue 1028 (2023-07-17): KDE Connect; Oracle, SUSE, and AlmaLinux repsond to Red Hat's source code policy change, KaOS issues media fix, Slackware turns 30; security and immutable distributions |
| • Issue 1027 (2023-07-10): Crystal Linux 2023-03-16, StartOS (embassyOS 0.3.4.2), changing options on a mounted filesystem, Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Fedora debates telemetry for desktop team |
| • Issue 1026 (2023-07-03): Kumander Linux 1.0, Red Hat changing its approach to sharing source code, TrueNAS offers SMB Multichannel, Zorin OS introduces upgrade utility |
| • Issue 1025 (2023-06-26): KaOS with Plasma 6, information which can leak from desktop environments, Red Hat closes door on sharing RHEL source code, SUSE introduces new security features |
| • Issue 1024 (2023-06-19): Debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Debian releases GNU/Hurd 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 nears its end of life, FreeBSD turns 30 |
| • Issue 1023 (2023-06-12): openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the differences between independent distributions, openSUSE lengthens Leap life, Murena offers new phone for North America |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Issue 993 (2022-11-07): Static Linux, working with just a kernel, Mint streamlines Flatpak management, updates coming to elementary OS |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Ultima Linux
Ultima Linux was a Slackware-compatible Linux distribution available for Intel and AMD-based personal computers. Although first intended as a lightweight, techie-oriented desktop system when development began in November 2004, Ultima has since evolved into a highly stable distribution supporting both desktop and server capabilities. Ultima Linux was built around the K Desktop Environment (KDE), and includes many popular applications such as Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird, the OpenOffice.org office suite, the GIMP image editor, MPlayer and Xine media players, and many others. It borrows Slackware's TGZ package format, and can be extended with additional software from a public repository, or various third-party sites.
Status: Discontinued
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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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