 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 555, 21 April 2014 |
Welcome to this year's 16th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Security is a process which requires a great deal of attention to many aspects of an operating system. When security is a concern we need to consider privacy, anonymity, code quality and software configurations. This week we take a look at many different security tools, practices and security-focused distributions. We start with Robolinux, a distribution which attempts to provide a secure environment for former Windows users who still need to run Windows-only applications. In our news section we discuss Debian's policy on security certificates and a project which is helping people run communication infrastructure within their own homes. We will also talk about a tool journalists are using to keep their communications private and a utility the PC-BSD project is working on to help users keep up with security updates. Finally, we report on the OpenBSD's efforts to audit the widely used OpenSSL cryptography library. This past week saw the release of Ubuntu, one of the community's most popular Linux distributions, along with the release of many community distributions based on Ubuntu. Read on below to learn more about these releases and find out which community flavour we will be reviewing next week. In our Questions and Answers column this week we discuss software patents and multimedia support and why different distributions ship with varying degrees of multimedia support. As usual, we cover the distribution releases from the past week and look ahead to exciting developments to come. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
- Reviews: First look at Robolinux 7.4.2
- News: Ubuntu release and stats, Debian drops CAcert certificates and extends Squeeze support, Tails receives praise in the press, OpenBSD audits OpenSSL library, PC-BSD and Porteus updates
- Questions and Answers: Multimedia support and patents
- Released last week: Ubuntu 14.04, Ultimate Edition 4.0, Tiny Core Linux 5.3
- New additions: KaOS
- New distributions: AlbatrOS, Albatross-X, AnitaOS, CoreOS, Serbian GNU/Linux
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
First look at Robolinux 7.4.2
 Robolinux is a Debian-based distribution which ships with the GNOME 3 desktop software. The project's website places strong emphases on user-friendliness and the idea that people should be able to easily migrate from Windows to Robolinux. The distribution's website makes a number of remarkable claims, such as: "Now you have a secure modern looking PC with sparkling cool 3D eye candy graphics that boots up in seconds, runs much faster, and never slows down or freezes up. If you want to run Windows XP or 7 inside Robolinux, simply download the free Robolinux Virtual Machine installers." Personally, I raised my eyebrows at the idea of any desktop operating system running without ever freezing, but the promise of fast, reliable software (provided by the project's Debian base) combined with free tools to make transitions between operating systems easier certainly sounded nice. Robolinux comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit x86 builds. The download image for the distribution's latest release is approximately 1.8 GB in size.
Booting from the Robolinux media brings up a menu where we are asked if we wold like to launch the distribution's system installer or try running a live desktop environment from the installation media. Taking the live desktop option brings us to the GNOME 3 desktop which is running in Classic mode. The desktop environment is themed to look like OS X with an application menu at the top of the screen. Colourful quick-launch buttons and the task switcher sit at the bottom of the display. There are Icons on the desktop which open links to the project's documentation and the project's contact web page. There is also an icon for accessing a Windows virtual machine installer, but we will get to that later. Looking through the application menu I found several entries for installers. Some of these installers were for installing third-party hardware drivers, others for installing software from repositories, but I did not find the Robolinux system installer. To access the system installer I rebooted and selected the installation option from the boot menu.
Robolinux 7.4.2 - browsing the web with Robolinux's default browser
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Robolinux uses Debian's graphical system installer. The software walks us through the process of selecting our preferred language from a list, choosing our location/country and a keyboard layout. Next we are asked to assign a hostname to our computer and create a regular user account. Robolinux appears to not use a separate root/administrator account and, instead, gets the user to perform administrative actions using the sudo command. The system installer gets us to select our time zone from a list of locations and then we are brought to the partitioning screen. We have the option of manually carving up our hard disk or taking a guided option. I went with the guided partitioning tool and found it created two partitions for me, a system partition formatted with the ext4 file system and a swap partition. The final screen of the installer asks us if we would like to install the GRUB boot loader. When the installer finishes its tasks it automatically reboots the machine, bringing us to a graphical login screen.
Robolinux uses GNOME 3's Classic interface as its default desktop. It is possible to switch from the Classic mode to GNOME Shell via an option on the login screen. The distribution ships with GNOME 3.4 which is starting to show its age a bit, but I found the classic interface to be quite functional. Earlier I mentioned that there is an icon on the desktop for downloading Windows virtual machine installers. Launching this icon brings us to a page on Robolinux's website where we are asked to donate $2 to use the project's virtual machine technology. Reading through the documentation for the supplied virtual machine technology it seems as through the offered download just provides a script which helps us set up a virtual machine. We can then install Microsoft Windows into this virtual machine, assuming we have installation media for the Windows operating system. The documentation provides steps for setting up the virtual machine and I couldn't help noticing that the steps seem more roundabout and numerous than the steps required to install an operating system in VirtualBox. This is especially interesting to me since Robolinux ships with a copy of VirtualBox in the default installation.
Robolinux 7.4.2 - running various desktop applications
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After using Robolinux for a while I noticed there hadn't been any notification of software updates. I went into the application menu and launched the distribution's update manager. The update manager is a small, graphical application that lists available updates and allows us to mark which items we want to download. Only one update was available the day I installed Robolinux and it downloaded and applied cleanly.
Robolinux comes with plenty of useful software, including Firefox and Google's Chrome web browsers. The distribution ships with the Transmission bittorrent client, the Empathy messaging software, the LibreOffice productivity suite and the Evolution e-mail client. We are provided with a document viewer, the VLC multimedia player, the Totem media player and the Rhythmbox audio player. An iPod manager is included along with the Brasero disc burning software and an audio CD ripping application. The GNU Image Manipulation Program is included in the application menu along with the Inkscape drawing application and the Shotwell photo manager. Robolinux comes with a handful of small games, an archive manager, virtual calculator and a text editor.
The distribution includes a text-to-speech screen reader and administrative tools for managing the network and printers. By default, Robolinux uses Network Manager to help us get on-line. The application menu is further populated with links for downloading third-party device drivers. Digging further I found Robolinux ships with the Flash player plugin, Java and the GNU Compiler Collection. Codecs are included for playing most multimedia formats. I found the Totem multimedia player would play anything I threw at it, but the version of the VLC media player which is provided would play audio files only. For some reason attempting to play video files in VLC would cause the application to lock up. In the background Robolinux runs on the Linux kernel, version 3.2.
Robolinux 7.4.2 - managing software packages
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Should we require additional software, Robolinux provides us with two graphical package managers. The first is labeled Add/Remove Software and this application offers a simple interface. Down the left side of the application's window we see categories of software. Over on the right side we see a list of packages available in the selected category. Software packages can be marked for installation or removal by clicking a checkbox next to the package's name. We can also search for items by name. I found the interface of Add/Remove Software a bit sluggish, but otherwise the software worked well for me. The second graphical package manager is Synaptic. While Synaptic does not have a pretty interface, it is fast. Synaptic also allows us to browse categories of software, and add or remove packages by checking a box next to the software's name.
Shortly after installing Robolinux I noticed that many of the software packages I was searching for (and knew to be in Debian's repositories) were not showing up in search results. Using Synaptic, I checked the list of software repositories being used. Most packages were apparently being pulled from Debian, with some third-party repositories providing copies of VirtualBox and the Chrome web browser. I found that some Debian repositories were not being used and attempted to add them through Synaptic. The changes did not stick and I eventually dropped to the command line in order to manually edit the package manager's list of software sources. Once all of Debian's repositories were enabled I was able to find the software I wanted.
I tried running Robolinux in two environments, a physical desktop machine and in a virtual machine provided by VirtualBox. I found Robolinux ran smoothly inside VirtualBox. The distribution booted fairly quickly, ran smoothly and the GNOME Classic desktop was responsive. The distribution required about 155MB of memory to sign into the default desktop environment. When I attempted to run Robolinux on my physical desktop I found the distribution would not complete its boot process. This left me to experiment with Robolinux entirely within the virtual environment.
Conclusions
Robolinux is one of those distributions which regularly provides me with pleasant surprises and unfortunate disappointments. For instance, the project's website says the virtual machine technology it offers is free of charge. However, this is misleading as the website insists on a donation in order to download the software. It is also not clear from the provided documentation what the advantages Robolinux's virtual machine technology offers over the free technology provided in the default installation. Perhaps Robolinux does offer something better than VirtualBox and snapshots, but I feel the documentation doesn't make those advantages clear. Robolinux also disappointed me by not enabling the full range of Debian repositories, leaving me to tinker with the configuration manually. I feel that, given the project's focus on user friendliness, this is an unfortunate oversight.
On the other hand, there were aspects of the distribution I greatly appreciated. One was the great collection of default software. Robolinux comes with many great applications, ranging from productivity software to web browsing to virtual machines and accessibility tools. I think many users will find everything they need in the default collection of applications. I was also pleasantly surprised by the look and feel of the default desktop environment. Personally, I do not like the OS X desktop interface, I find it awkward and restricting. I also typically do not like to use GNOME 3 for the same reasons. However, GNOME running in Classic mode with an OS X theme somehow managed to give me a smooth experience. I was pleasantly surprised to find the interface was fast to respond, uncluttered and not nearly as annoying dynamic as other Linux-based OS X themes I have tried in the past. I will admit to being a configuration junkie and would have liked to have had more options, but the default look and behaviour of the Robolinux desktop was quite good and I suspect it will be pleasantly familiar to former OS X users.
There were aspects of Robolinux which were not good or bad, but in hindsight feel odd. For example, the project's website talks a good deal about running Windows software and being a safe alternative to Windows. I assumed the distribution would be targeting people coming from Windows, but the default user interface is themed to look and act like OS X. Also, there are plenty of virtual machines and short-cuts to help users set up Windows in a virtual machine and, again, the documentation talks about Robolinux being a safe operating system where Windows application can be run. However, Robolinux does not ship with WINE, which seems like an oversight considering the target audience. All in all, I'm not sure if I can recommend Robolinux or not. The distribution has some good strengths, a solid base and useful software. I even liked the interface, to my surprise. However, the distribution's strengths and weaknesses do not seem to line up with the project's stated goals.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8 GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500 GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6 GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith and Ladislav Bodnar) |
Ubuntu release and stats, Debian drops CAcert certificates and extends Squeeze support, Tails receives praise in the press, OpenBSD audits OpenSSL library, PC-BSD and Porteus updates
 This past week saw the release of Ubuntu and the many community editions which draw from the Ubuntu software repositories. Despite the many controversies which have surrounded Ubuntu over the past few years, it remains a widely-used distribution, both on desktop and server machines. The latest Ubuntu release is a long-term support (LTS) offering, meaning it will receive security updates for the next five years. Community projects will, likewise, enjoy extended support for three to five years. Last week we mentioned our intention to review Ubuntu's main edition along with one community edition and opened the selection of which community distribution would be reviewed to a vote. In total, 70 people e-mailed in votes and nearly half the entries (after duplicate votes by people spamming the system were removed) were for Xubuntu. The Xubuntu project received 34 votes, followed by Lubuntu with 12 and Kubuntu with 11. Six people wrote in support for Ubuntu GNOME. Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu Server and Mythbuntu each received one vote. The Zorin OS distribution also received a vote, despite not being an official Ubuntu community edition. As a result of these votes, in the coming weeks we will be featuring reviews of Ubuntu and Xubuntu.
The Ubuntu release day always draws an enormous crowd to this website, but last Thursday was exceptionally busy, breaking many all-time records around here. The main page of DistroWatch received a total of 191,527 visits (an all-time high) of which 63,793 came from unique IP addresses. The Ubuntu page itself got 10,519 visits from unique IP addresses, also an all-time record for an individual distribution page. This was rather surprising considering that the official Ubuntu 14.04 announcement was made unusually late in the day, about 7 hours before midnight GMT (although the Ubuntu page had been updated for 14.04 a lot earlier - at around 04:00 GMT). The overall number of visits on the Ubuntu page on Thursday, Friday and Saturday came to 21,551 page hits from unique IP addresses - also an all-time record. For comparison, the equivalent number for the Ubuntu 13.10 release was only 14,913. Of the official Ubuntu derivatives the second most popular in terms of page views over the three days was Lubuntu (8,383), followed by Ubuntu GNOME (7,748), Xubuntu (6,919), Kubuntu (6,020), Ubuntu Studio (3,686), Ubuntu Kylin (3,641) and Mythbuntu (2,512).
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 One of the big issues when dealing with security is knowing who to trust. On the Internet it can be difficult to know to whom we are talking. This leads to a form of authentication called certificates which, hopefully, links people together in an unbroken chain of trust. At the root of these certificates of trust are certificate authorities , organizations which act as third-parties who help confirm the identity of a certificate holder. Because of their important position in the process of verifying a person's or organization's identity, the security processes of a certificate authority are very important. The Debian distribution recently made the decision to stop supporting certificates signed by CAcert, an organization which offers free certificates and supplies its source code under an open source license. Concerns were raised in a bug report as to whether CAcert maintains proper security practices and Debian has decided to stop distributing their root certificate. The move to drop CAcert's certificate was met with much debate over which certificate authorities should be trusted and why. Daniel Kahn Gillmor, in particular, raised an interesting concern, stating: "Some of these CAs are simply "too big to fail" right now; CAcert is not, so they're getting called out for their lack of security, whereas we simply can't afford to drop the other CAs because users would complain about not being able to reach their favorite websites. This tension results in further concentration of business among the "too big to fail" CAs (since they're the only ones who can issue acceptable certs, which ironically results in them being even less accountable to relying parties in the future. This is not a good long-term dynamic."
It has been rumoured for a while, but last week it became official - the current "oldstable" version of Debian GNU/Linux (version 6.0 "Squeeze") will receive extra security support lasting until February 2016. This will effectively make Squeeze a long-term support release, as it will have received a total of five years of security support (instead of planned three). From the announcement: "This is an advance notice that regular security support for Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 (code name "Squeeze") will be terminated on the 31st of May. However, we're happy to announce that security support for Squeeze is going to be extended until February 2016, i.e. five years after the initial release. This effort is driven by various interested parties / companies which require longer security support. See the "LTS" section of for the initial announcement. The details are currently being sorted out and a more detailed announcement will be made soon." This is excellent news for those system administrators who are responsible for large farms of Debian servers. Any upgrade process, no matter how well tested and reliable, is always a time-consuming affair which few sysadmins look forward to. Luckily for them, the Debian security team has been listening to their concerns and has responded with great news.
FreedomBox is a community project which attempts to put together all the pieces a home user would need to easily host their own server. The idea behind FreedomBox is to allow people to create their own infrastructure for hosting web content and Internet-based communication, removing reliance on third-party service providers. One of the goals of FreedomBox is to allow users to gather and assemble all the required FreedomBox components from within an existing Debian installation. That goal has nearly been reached, "Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable. It was the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images during build and on the first boot. Now all one need to get going is the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from Debian. And once the freedombox-setup package enters testing, we can build everything directly from Debian." With this move the project is one step closer to making it easy for home users to install the FreedomBox software on inexpensive consumer hardware.
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 It is not often we hear of Linux being mentioned in the mainstream media and it is very rare indeed when we hear talk of specialty distributions. It is a pleasant surprise to see the Tails security-oriented distribution being discussed on the Freedom of the Press website. Tails, a Debian-based project that focuses on privacy and security, was applauded for its role in helping journalists work privately and communicate with sources securely. One journalist, Barton Gellman, was quoted praising the Tails distribution, saying: "Privacy and encryption work, but it's too easy to make a mistake that exposes you. Tails puts the essential tools in one place, with a design that makes it hard to screw them up." The article points out the Tails project has limited finances and invites people to donate to Tails in order to help preserve freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
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 Keeping an operating system and its many packages up to date with security patches can be a daunting and confusing task. In few places are the challenges more apparent than in operating systems such as PC-BSD, where multiple package formats and installation vectors are supported. PC-BSD users often have the base operating system, packages, source ports and PBI bundles all installed at the same time. Luckily, the PC-BSD project is moving forward with a unified upgrade solution which helps users keep all aspects of their system up to date. "Update Center is moving forward, and has received some fine-tuning this week to help bring it into PC-BSD as the one-stop utility for managing updates. We'd like to add a special thanks to the author Yuri for primary design and layout for the update center. Ken will also be working to help smooth out GUI design elements and help with integrating it fully into PC-BSD."
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 In the wake of the Heartbleed bug, a vulnerability in the OpenSSL cryptography library, developers of the OpenBSD operating system have decided to audit and improve OpenSSL's code. A post on Undeadly reports: "The denizens of lobste.rs (and no doubt you, eagle-eyed reader!) have made note of the ongoing rototilling of the OpenSSL code in OpenBSD, and Joshua Stein has chimed in with a quick breakdown of the action thus far." The post goes on to list aspects of the OpenSSL code which are being examined or changed. FreeBSD developer, Poul-Henning Kamp, has also weighed in on OpenSSL and has some comments on why security is so difficult: "No one was ever truly in charge of OpenSSL, it just sort of became the default landfill for prototypes of cryptographic inventions, and since it had everything cryptographic under the sun (somewhere , if you could find out how to use it), it also became the default source of cryptographic functionality. I'm sure more than one person has thought "Nobody ever got fired for using OpenSSL". And that is why everybody is panicking on the Internet as I write this."
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 Last week several readers have alerted us to the fact that the website of Porteus, an excellent Slackware-based distribution with a choice of several lightweight desktop environments, has gone AWOL (absent without official leave). Although the brief note on the website was alarming, it turned out that the problem was simply the result of bandwidth limitation. A few days later a post by the website's administrator explained the unfortunate event that made the project (including its repositories) inaccessible: "As some of you have noticed porteus.org went down yesterday. We got plenty of emails and messages from people asking what happened (some were even funny like 'is Porteus dead?'). The answer is: 'we had some troubles but were able to overcome them after some heated discussion. Overall - we are back and stronger.' What actually happened? Here is the whole story: Porteus is a non profit organization which has not generate any direct income so far. Our funds come only from donations and DuckDuckGo search engine. Maintaining a distro means expenses - we have to pay for the server, domain and SSL certificate. ... Everything was nice and dandy till Porteus grew in popularity: 3.0 release almost killed our server. The situation became awkward when Porteus (which is hosted for free) started affecting the clients who pay money to get served."
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Multimedia support and patents
Playing-with-media asks: Why are Debian and Slackware able to ship with MP3 support while Ubuntu, CentOS and openSUSE are not? Are they governed by the same patent laws?
DistroWatch answers: In many cases the various distributions may not, in fact, be governed by the same patent laws. Software patents are not valid in most parts of the world and, therefore, developers in most nations have little concern for whether an algorithm is patented. Software patents are legal and enforced in the United States of America and, I believe, Japan, but are generally seen as invalid in the rest of the world.
Some organizations may consider themselves to be at higher legal risk than others and this can affect their stance on patents. For instance, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS and Fedora all have close ties to Red Hat. Red Hat is a company which makes money from its Linux-based business. Since Red Hat is also based in the USA this makes Red Hat a fairly inviting legal target if they violate USA patent law. Likewise, the openSUSE website points out the distribution does not ship packages if the "software violates laws concerning software distribution in jurisdictions where Novell conducts business." On the other hand, Debian and Slackware (despite their many members and users) are small projects from a financial perspective and not likely to be brought to court as a lawsuit would unlikely be profitable for the holder of any software patents. (Yes, that's the kind of twisted world we are living in!)
Some organizations try to shift responsibility to the end-user with regards to whether it is legal for them to download and use patented software. The Ubuntu distribution, for example, asks users at install time whether they would like to include mp3 support in the distribution. The Linux Mint project features multiple editions, some which ship with software covered by patents and others which do not include patent-encumbered software. This approach gives projects some wiggle room with regards to patents while providing the user with the option to include multimedia support right from the start.
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| Released Last Week |
Lightweight Portable Security 1.5.1
An updated version of Lightweight Portable Security (LPS), a privacy-oriented Linux live CD developed in the USA by Software Protection Initiative, is now available for download: "Version 1.5.1 of LPS is now available. Changes: fixed DNSCrypt feature; fixed printing; added power management controls; added support for Express Card CCID smartcard readers; updated encryption wizard to 3.4.1; updated Firefox to 24.4.0 ESR; updated Adobe Flash Player to 11.2.202.350; updated OpenSSH to 6.6p1; updated Firefox extension NoScript to version 2.6.8.19; updated Thunderbird to 24.4.0 (Deluxe edition only); Linux Kernel version 3.10.35." See the complete changelog for information about all the recent additions and software upgrades.
Slackel 6.0 "Live Openbox"
Dimitris Tzemos has announced the release of Slackel 6.0 "Live Openbox" edition, a live variant of the project's lightweight Linux distribution based on Slackware's "Current" branch: "Slackel Live 6.0 Openbox includes the latest 3.10.30 kernel and the latest updates from Slackware's 'Current' tree. Slackel is based on Slackware Linux and Salix. The graphical session is powered by the lightweight and minimal Openbox window manager which is comprised of a single, transparent panel located on the bottom edge of the screen. From this bottom taskbar, users can easily and quickly access the main menu, launch applications, interact with running programs and the system tray area, as well as switch between virtual workspaces. Default applications include the Exaile audio player, ISO Master CD/DVD image creator and editor, Whaaw! media player...." Continue to the release announcement for full details.
Rocks Cluster Distribution 6.1.1
Philip Papadopoulos has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 6.1.1, a CentOS-based distribution for building real and virtual clusters: "The latest update of Rocks, code name 'Sand Boa', is now released. Sand Boa is a 64-bit only release and is based upon CentOS 6.5. The Rocks-supplied OS rolls have all updates applied as of April 14, 2014. This includes updates for the OpenSSL Heartbleed vulnerability. Support for ZFS has been updated to version 0.6.2. Condor is now the HTCondor roll is at release 8.0.6. Also included is a new roll called fingerprint that dynamically determines dependencies of compiled code on both Rocks and non-Rocks systems. Enhancements and bug fixes: rocks add host verifies hostname is not an appliance name; fix reverse path filtering on centos 6.x...." See the release announcement and release notes for more details.
IPFire 2.13 Core 76
Michael Tremer has announced the release of IPFire 2.13 Core 76, a new build of the specialist firewall distribution that fixes a security issue in strongSwan: "This is the official release announcement for IPFire 2.13 – Core Update 76. It comes with a security fix for the strongSwan package which is responsible for IPsec VPN connections. The vulnerability has got the number CVE-2014-2338. It was possible to bypass the authentication and therefore to overtake a VPN connection whilst the original peers are rekeying. IKEv1 connections are not vulnerable, but IKEv2. Please update as soon as possible. I would also like to draw your attention towards the upcoming release of IPFire 2.15. The first release candidate has been released a couple of weeks ago and we are searching for testers to find any last-minute bugs." Here is the brief release announcement.
DEFT Linux 8.1
Stefano Fratepietro has announced the release of DEFT Linux 8, a Lubuntu-based distribution and live DVD with a large collection of open-source utilities for digital forensics and penetration testing: "During the third national conference DEFTCON we presented DEFT 8.1. What's new? file manager - we implemented the disk mount status - if the disk is mounted in read-only mode the eject button is green, if it's read-write mode (a further confirmation will be required before going in this mode) the eject button is orange; full support for BitLocker encrypted disks; The Sleuth Kit 4.1.3, Digital Forensics Framework 1.3; full support for Android and iOS 7.1 logical acquisitions; JD GUI; Skype Extractor 0.1.8.8,; Maltego 3.4 Tungsten; a new version of the OSINT browser; Fixed a bug in sources.list; full update of the deft packages and DART 2 software and tools." Here is the brief release announcement.
Ubuntu 14.04
Version 14.04 of Ubuntu, a popular Linux distribution with a highly customised user interface called Unity, has been released. This is a version with long-term (5 years) of security support and a convenient upgrade path from the previous release with long-term support features (version 12.04). From the press release: "Canonical announces the latest Ubuntu release, 14.04 LTS desktop will be available for download from the 17th April 2014. The long-term support (LTS) release is supported and maintained by Canonical for five years, making it the most stable, reliable, secure and cost-effective desktop for long-term, large scale deployments within enterprise and public sector organisations today." Read the comprehensive release notes for a detailed description of new features and known issues.
Ubuntu 14.04 - a distribution that will be supported for five years
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Lubuntu 14.04
Mario Behling has announced the release of Lubuntu 14.04, a lightweight variant of Ubuntu that provides the minimalist LXDE desktop and a selection of light applications: "Julien Lavergne has released Lubuntu 14.04. Features: based on the lightweight LXDE desktop environment; PCManFM, a fast and lightweight files manager using GIO/GVFS; Openbox, a fast and extensible default window manager of LXDE; LightDM, a simple GTK+ greeter; Firefox, the famous web browser; based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Improvements since Lubuntu 13.10: LTS Support (3 years); new PCManFM (version 1.2.0) with a lot of new features (folder settings, dual-pane view, menu editing); new LXSession default applications with a new user interface; an update of the artwork (new icons, theme update)." See the release announcement and release notes for more information.
Ubuntu Kylin 14.04
Ubuntu Kylin is an official flavour of Ubuntu developed specially for users in China and, unlike other official variants, generously promoted on the Ubuntu website. What's new in version 14.04? "In this final release, the Linux kernel is upgraded to 3.13 and Unity is upgraded to 7.2. Specifically designed for efficient Chinese input, 14.04 LTS uses the Sogou Input Method, a typing tool that provides intelligent predictive search and auto-completion. Sogou, combined with the Kingsoft WPS office suite, makes Ubuntu Kylin 14.04 LTS even faster and easier to use when creating documents and browsing the web. The new release also includes Kingsoft Kuaipan, the cloud file synchronising application, which offers a maximum of 2 TB personal cloud storage." Read the release announcement (in Chinese) and the release notes (in English, with screenshots) for further information.
Ubuntu Kylin 14.04 - an Ubuntu built for the Chinese market
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Edubuntu 14.04
Edubuntu 14.04, the latest version of an official Ubuntu variant designed primarily for educational and non-profit environments, has been released: "The Edubuntu development team announces today the release of Edubuntu 14.04 LTS. As the second long-term support release of the Edubuntu, this version will be supported for 5 years, until April 2019. The Edubuntu development team will also provide 'point releases' in sync with Ubuntu to offer new installation media containing all the latest bug fixes and hardware enablement stacks. As usual, Edubuntu inherits most of the changes that occur in Ubuntu. Additionally, this release brings you: Epoptes 0.5.7, an update to the popular classroom management software suite; new major version of LTSP (5.5.x), including numerous bug fixes, speed improvement, lowering bandwidth requirements and improving fat client support." See the release announcement for more details.
Kubuntu 14.04
Jonathan Riddell has announced the release of Kubuntu 14.04, a new version of the desktop Linux distribution shipping with the shiny new KDE 4.13.0: "Welcome to Kubuntu 14.04 LTS, a brand new long-term supported version with the latest KDE software to enjoy. Long-term support means that bug fixes and security updates will be added for the next 5 years, so you can be safe to use it until 2019. New releases of important KDE software will also be available from the Kubuntu Updates and Kubuntu Backports PPAs. Software highlights: the KDE Applications and Platform 4.13 release introduces a greatly improved semantic search as well as stabilization and improvements in key applications like Okular; Mozilla Firefox 28 as default web browser; Muon Suite 2.2 brings additional improvements to our Software Center applications...." Read the rest of the release announcement for a full list of features and screenshots.
Ubuntu GNOME 14.04
Ali Jawad has announced the release of Ubuntu GNOME 14.04, the latest update of this official Ubuntu flavour featuring the vanilla GNOME 3.10 desktop: "The Ubuntu GNOME team is proud and happy to announce the release of Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 LTS. Ubuntu GNOME is an official flavour of Ubuntu, featuring the GNOME desktop environment. Ubuntu GNOME is a mostly pure GNOME desktop experience built from the Ubuntu repositories. This is our very first long-term support (LTS) version. Features: Most of GNOME 3.10 is now included, the few missing bits of 3.10 are available in PPA; with GNOME 3.10 comes enhanced support for online accounts, and some general optimization of the user interface; a set of 10 new high-quality wallpapers are included; GNOME Classic session is included...." Read the brief release announcement and visit the detailed release notes for further information and screenshots.
Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 - the project's first LTS version
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KaOS 2014.04
KaOS is a desktop Linux distribution which was originally inspired by Arch Linux, but which is independently built and maintained using a rolling-release development model. It features the latest KDE desktop, the Calligra office suite and many popular KDE/Qt applications. A new version celebrating the project's first anniversary was released yesterday: "Many might not know, but it is one year to this date the website went live, the repositories came online, the forum was activated for what has since become the KaOS distribution. A nice way of celebrating this anniversary is with a new ISO image featuring the major new release, KDE 4.13.0. KDE 4.13 features a move to Baloo which poses a major improvement in semantic search for KDE. Other changes affected Kate, Okular, Marble and Palapelli. The artwork has had quite some changes too since the last release." Read the rest of the release announcement for further information.
Xubuntu 14.04
Pasi Lallinaho has announced the release of Xubuntu 14.04, a desktop distribution shipping with the latest development build of the Xfce desktop, version 4.11: "The Xubuntu team is pleased to announce the immediate release of Xubuntu 14.04. Xubuntu 14.04 is an LTS (long-term support) release and will be supported for 3 years. The highlights of this release include: Light Locker replaces XScreenSaver for screen locking, a settings GUI is included; the panel layout is updated, it now uses Whisker Menu by default; Mugshot is included to allow editing personal preferences; MenuLibre for menu editing with full Xfce support replaces Alacarte; a community wallpapers package which includes work from the five winners of the wallpaper contest; GTK+ Theme Config to customize desktop theme colors; updated artwork, including various enhancements to themes as well as a new default wallpaper." Here is the release announcement with known issues and acknowledgements.
Xubuntu 14.04 - now using the Whisker menu
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Ubuntu Studio 14.04
Kaj Ailomaa has announced the release of Ubuntu Studio 14.04, a customised variant of Ubuntu with a range of multimedia and content creation programs for audio, graphics, video, photography and publishing: "We're happy to announce our latest LTS release. Ubuntu Studio 14.04 will be supported for three years. Since it's just out, you may experience some problems. Read about them under known issues. Short list of new features: the installer has a new plugin which allows you to choose which packages to install out of our workflows - audio, video, graphics, photography and publishing, so you no longer need to install all the packages; Linux low-latency code is now merged with Linux generic, so it's better streamlined and follows all Linux generic changes more exactly; EFI support." Read the full release announcement for a rather long list of known issues and suggested solutions.
Mythbuntu 14.04
Thomas Mashos has announced the availability of Mythbuntu 14.04, the new stable version of an Ubuntu-derived distribution that makes it simple to set up a standalone MythTV system: "After some last-minute critical fixes and ISO respins by the release team, the Mythbuntu team is proud to announce that we have released Mythbuntu 14.04 LTS. This is the Mythbuntu team's second LTS release and will be supported until shortly after the 16.04 release. With this release, we are providing mirroring on sponsored mirrors and torrents. It is very important to note that this release is only compatible with MythTV 0.27 systems. The MythTV component of previous Mythbuntu releases can be upgraded to a compatible MythTV version by using the Mythbuntu repository. Highlights: a recent snapshot of the MythTV 0.27 release is included; Mythbuntu theme fixes." Here is the release announcement with a brief list of known issues.
Simplicity Linux 14.4
David Purse has announced the release of Simplicity Linux 14.4, the new stable release of the project's Puppy-based distributions for desktops and netbooks: "Simplicity Linux 14.4 is now available for download. It is based on the excellent Slacko Puppy 5.6.5, and uses LXDE as a desktop environment. There are three different versions this release cycle: Netbook, Desktop and X. Netbook 14.4 is designed to be fast and light, for people who just want an OS, a browser, and not much else. It comes with Chrome as the default browser and on the fully customisable dock you can also access MPlayer for playing media files. Desktop 14.4 is designed to be a more heavyweight Linux. It also uses the LXDE desktop environment, and comes preinstalled with Dropbox, Chrome, Skype, LibreOffice, Thunderbird, and a more refined audio mixer. All these applications are available from the dock, making access easy." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information.
NetBSD 6.1.4
Soren Jacobsen has announced the release of NetBSD 6.1.4, the latest stable version of NetBSD incorporating all the recent security and bug fixes, including a fix to OpenSSL's "heartbleed" vulnerability. Simultaneously, the 6.0 branch was updated to version 6.0.5. From the release announcement: "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1.4, the fourth security and bug-fix update of the NetBSD 6.1 release branch, and NetBSD 6.0.5, the fifth security and bug-fix update of the NetBSD 6.0 release branch. They represent a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, and if you are running a prior release of either branch, we strongly suggest that you update to one of these releases." Important security fixes include: "posix_spawn unbounded kernel memory allocation; OpenSSL information disclosure." Read the release notes for a full list of changes.
Tiny Core Linux 5.3
Version 5.3 of Tiny Core Linux, the latest stable build of the fast and minimalist (less than 15 MB) desktop Linux distribution built from scratch, has been released and is now available for download: "Team Tiny Core is pleased to announce the release of Tiny Core Linux 5.3: Changelog: BusyBox - updated nosuid to 1.22.1, added ntpd, corrected dc failure, modified wget timeout to 10s; tce-load - don't show an error when extension contains multiple modules; tc-config - change owner /tmp/tce/optional to support tftplist (thanks to Gerald Clark); tce-load - use sudo when unmounting meta-extensions; added full path to sudo commands; tc-config - introduce ntpserver boot option; switch getTime.sh to ntpd; replace aliases with functions in useBusyBox." Here is the brief release announcement.
Ultimate Edition 4.0
Ultimate Edition 4.0, another new release of the Ubuntu-based distribution (this time in MATE and GNOME variants), comes just two weeks after version 3.9: "Once again I am not going to make a big deal out of this release. It is very nice and works very well; however, it is based on the Ubuntu 13.10 'Saucy Salamander' branch and has very limited support time left. Our efforts once Ultimate Edition 4.1 is released is undivided concentration on Ultimate Edition 4.2 and Ultimate Edition 4.3, a long-term supported (LTS) release, previously released as a beta. Repostorm is honing Mate 1.8 to perfection with each line of code I write, the base of what will be in Ultimate Edition 4.2 Lite. A lot of catchup is going on in the persuit to perfection as I am hoping to present you in the release of Ultimate Edition 4.2." Here is the brief release announcement.
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to database
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- AlbatrOS. AlbatrOS is a Linux-based live CD, developped by the team of the LinuxConsole Project, which is primarily designed to turn old and semi-old computers into game console centres.
- Albatross-X. Albatross-X is a 32-bit Linux-based desktop operating system featuring the Xfce graphical desktop environment.
- AnitaOS. AnitaOS is a Puppy-based distribution designed to be run on older computers.
- CoreOS. CoreOS is a minimal server operating system based on the Linux kernel and designed to be run in clusters.
- Serbian GNU/Linux. Serbian GNU/Linux is a desktop distribution which combines the KDE desktop with a Debian base. The website and distribution are presented in the Serbian language.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 28 April 2014. 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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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Ubuntu (by joe on 2014-04-21 09:50:58 GMT from Mexico)
Congratulations and thanksful to Cannonical, They had reached the record of visits per week in all times of DW. Really Ubuntu was improved its Unity each new versión. Here I report a tiny bug and how to correct by oneself hopping this will be useful for everyone. Libreoffice Writter displays without buttons, this bug is not present in Calc neither in Impress, neither other Apps. and I found that forcing twice to display fullscreen with the key combination ctrl-shift-J this bug is fixed total. Only in the Guest Session the bug is persistan.
2 • enjoying Kubuntu 14.04 (by Elcaset on 2014-04-21 10:35:43 GMT from United States)
I'm really enjoying Kubuntu 14.04. The redesigned Plasma network manager is quite nice. Also, it's a great hint at what Mint KDE 17 LTS will be like.
3 • RoboLinux (by dragonmouth on 2014-04-21 11:10:46 GMT from United States)
Since RoboLinux is Debian-based, smxi could be used to update/upgrade the distro.
Synaptic, while not pretty, is more functional than the pretty Ubuntu Software Center or Mint Update. Synaptic display provides pertinent information rather than eye candy. With Synaptic users can add, remove and update/upgrade software in one job stream while with Software Center and Mint Update each function needs to be perfomed separately.
4 • Lubuntu and Xubuntu (by Dale Visser on 2014-04-21 13:46:54 GMT from United States)
I recently had a great upgrade experience from Lubuntu 13.10 to Lubuntu 14.04. I chose it specifically for low resource usage, but I'm definitely looking forward to the Xubuntu review, because I've never tried it.
5 • Votes for community edition (by Jesse on 2014-04-21 14:07:41 GMT from Canada)
Something I found interesting with regards to the voting process were the trends. For instance, almost all the votes for Kubuntu came in really early and, for a while it looked like Kubuntu would win, but then the votes for that project pretty much stopped. Almost all of the ballot stuffers (people who voted for the same project more than once) were fans of Xubuntu. In my call for votes I asked everyone to place the name of their preferred distribution in the subject line to make sorting/counting the votes easier. Almost everyone did this, with the exception of most of the people voting for Ubuntu GNOME. Fans of the GNOME edition placed their vote in the body of the e-mail. (GNOME users probably see the subject line as an unnecessary GUI element that only complicates e-mail. I jest.)
Right now I have Ubuntu and Xubuntu installed and will share my views on both next week. Right now both have been mostly positive experiences. I also played around with Kubuntu a little and have been pleased with its performance and the KDE-Connect feature which links Android phones to the KDE desktop.
6 • LTS just ain't what she used to be... (by DavidEF on 2014-04-21 14:59:41 GMT from United States)
I'm a regular Ubuntu user, and have been since 2005. I've seen lots of ups and downs, fixes and regressions, and I sometimes wonder what in the world they're smoking over there. But, try as I might, I can't find any other distro I'm happier with. I used to do a bunch of distro hopping, then I narrowed it down to only Debian based, only Gnome based, and now I don't even think about switching any more.
Having said all that, I need to warn everyone here who has AMD/ATI graphics in their computer to NOT upgrade or install Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Somehow, there is a bug or an incompatibility of some kind that didn't get fixed prior to release. Maybe they will fix it soon. Then again, maybe not.
I'm very interested to see what comes up in Jesse's review of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Since he has ATI graphics, it is certain that he will be affected by this. On one computer, I couldn't even get the media to boot. It stopped at a black screen. I didn't try nomodeset, so I don't know if that would have helped or not.
7 • K/Xubuntu (by Verndog on 2014-04-21 15:02:44 GMT from )
I have both Kubuntu and Xubuntu installed. I've recently switched from Ubuntu to Xubuntu because of X's stability.
I have installed Kubuntu and for me its the best KDE I have ever used!
8 • ATI graphics and Ubuntu (by Jesse on 2014-04-21 15:13:48 GMT from Canada)
>> "I'm very interested to see what comes up in Jesse's review of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Since he has ATI graphics, it is certain that he will be affected by this."
I have not run into any problems with Ubuntu and my Radeon graphics card. Quite the opposite. Ubutnu boots fine with the default kernel paramters and performance has been quite good. I suggest you try using the "nomodeset" kernel paramter and, if that doesn't work, report a bug. Your experience with a ATI video card and Ubuntu does not match mine.
9 • My vote for community edition: Ubuntu Mate! (by fernbap on 2014-04-21 16:09:04 GMT from Portugal)
Yes, it is easy to install Mate 1.8 on both Lubuntu and Xubuntu (easier on Xubuntu).
You can also add Compiz and Emerald, and both work fine.
Of all the community editions, Ubuntu Mate looks the best for me, followed by:
Lubuntu
Xubuntu
Kubuntu
Ubuntu
Ubuntu Gnome
10 • #6 LTS aint what she used to be (by computergeek97308 on 2014-04-21 16:17:46 GMT from Mexico)
Is that a song?
Yes I've had a similar experience with Linux even those Debian based ones. Not counting drug coma induced counter-intuitive GUI's as a "regression" but there seems to be a movement away from wifi support in the Linux community, at least for desktops and laptops. Same for some video. And that's across about 15 distros that I've tried in the last 2 years.
What I don't understand is that video and wireless hardware that worked perfectly in Debian Etch and Ubuntu deriviatives of the Etch era no longer are supported by the install...what's weird is that the live version (such as Tails or the Debian Squeeze and Wheezy installers) will work with wpa2, but once the OS is installed they get stuck in a password rejection loop even though the password is correct. Doesn't matter if you're using wicd or the default network manager and the current version of the wpa supplicant. And in order to get video to work you have to disable many features including acpi and kms. A known bug going back several years with no effective solution.
Currently using Ubuntu studio 13 on my desktop, and as previously noted the only multimedia function it does well is Audacity. Dvd ripping, video editing, laptop installs...forgetaboutit!
Last week I mentioned another regression involving Wine and Radiosure, probably the best streamer out there for Windows. Previous versions of Wine and Radiosure worked well together but add Pulse to the equation and Radiosure can no longer stream mp3 stations without a burp or stutter every 5 seconds.
Another annoying "feature" occurs when using Rhythmbox to listen to music on my ipod shuffle. Works fine, but when I try to listen to the pod later using my earbuds the file system on the pod has been corrupted and can't be recovered by itunes. I have to wipe and restore the pod.
So anyway thanks for the tip about poor video support with 14.04. Maybe I'll wait for Service Pack 1.
11 • @10 (by meh on 2014-04-21 16:44:59 GMT from United States)
At least you don't have to turn acpi off completely just to reboot.
12 • Ubuntu Mate (by Bill on 2014-04-21 17:04:05 GMT from United States)
@9 fernbap - I have not found Emerald in the Ubuntu repositories for 14.04
Did you compile from source or is there a PPA?
13 • Ubuntu mate (by fernbap on 2014-04-21 17:12:01 GMT from Portugal)
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:noobslab/themes
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install emerald compizconfig-settings-manager
then you can either call emerald with emerald--replace & disown or open compizconfig settings manager and replace /usr/bin/gtk-windows-decorator by /usr/bin/emerald in the general settings.
14 • Ubuntu mate (by Bill on 2014-04-21 18:39:30 GMT from United States)
thx mate!
15 • mp3 support (by Ulf on 2014-04-21 18:55:28 GMT from Netherlands)
Debian does not support MP3 out of the box!!!!
Geus why, eg whyothers dont go figure............,
moreover it isnt such a big task to get support after install.
Compared to windows you pay 350 euro for the newest version, and then you have nthing but a operating system, even a letter with simple layout you would not be able to make.
so quit vrying like a baby about whats there out of the bo a few clicks away and its installed.
Likewise the crying about desktop enviroments, if you dont like it just install youre favourite and get rid of the one preinstalled.
That free software. eg kernel = Linux everything on top you decide, a distro is therefore also nonsense.
if you dont understand this please donate 600 euros to microsoft and be happy with windows and microsoft office.
greetings the Linux GURU.
16 • Debian and mp3 support (by Jesse on 2014-04-21 19:17:16 GMT from Canada)
>> "Debian does not support MP3 out of the box!!!!"
Yes it does, at least Debian 7 "Wheezy" does. See this document on Debian's policy with regards to media codecs, including mp3 support. https://wiki.debian.org/MultimediaCodecs
Also, I pointed out the inclusion of Debian's mp3 support in my last Debian review: http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20130520#feature
17 • CAs (by Proud to be Stupid on 2014-04-21 22:29:56 GMT from Sweden)
There was never any need for certificate "authorities." It was just that users were happy to sacrifice their own security for the convenience of letting someone else do the thinking for them. With DNSSEC, even self-lobotomized users no longer need CAs.
18 • Re: Squeeze support (by :wq on 2014-04-21 23:16:18 GMT from United States)
The quote in the Miscellaneous News section briefly touches on it, but it is probably worth stressing (from the linked messages) that:
"squeeze-lts is not handled by the Debian security team, but by a separate group of volunteers and companies interested in making it a success (with some overlap in people involved)."
"The security team itself is driving the effort, NOT doing it. Some team members will contribute to it individually, however."
I am curious to see how it will turn out.
19 • Ubuntu Mate (by fernbap on 2014-04-21 23:47:25 GMT from Portugal)
Worth mentioning gnome-look.org.
Mate will work with the themes for:
GTK2
Metacity
With compiz installed, also:
Compiz
Beril
Besides, obviously,
Icons
Wallpapers
X11 mouse themes
20 • Robolinux (by Noob on 2014-04-22 03:10:30 GMT from Hong Kong)
I am a very old Windows XP user and have just tried out the latest 64 bit version of Robolinux and had a reasonably good experience with it. I was able to do most things that I normally do with Windows XP 64 bit version. The installation was very easy and I was able to play various kinds of video files with MPlayer or VLC , and also able to open magnet links with Transmission. I was not able to watch the live news on TVB because it required the installation of a plugin which came as a .bin file and so far I have not been able to install it. I was not able to access my USB external harddrive because it was formatted with NTFS and I didn't know how to mount it as root. I am trying hard to be able to make the break from Windows XP to linux but the learning curve is rather steep. I do not plan on using the Virtual Machine installers to install Windows XP , Windows 7 or 8 because I want to be able to do everything that I normally do on Windows with Linux even if I have to go out and buy some training manuals to learn the ropes. I wonder how many other long term Windows XP users will attempt to switch over to Linux ?
21 • KaOS... (by uz64 on 2014-04-22 03:40:25 GMT from United States)
...sounds interesting. Clean look. Bleeding edge (latest KDE) and forward-thinking (64-bit only; no legacy 32-bit version). Strict focus on Qt applications only; just a nice selection of programs that fit in nicely with the default desktop as a whole. No GTK applications or desktops to please the other guys, meaning (theoretically) higher quality, more-tested builds of what *is* available. I might seriously give this one a try, if only for trying something unique with a nice set of sound design goals.
22 • @21 KaOS (by Terence on 2014-04-22 04:24:52 GMT from United States)
I actually quite like the OS save for one thing. No matter what I try, I cannot get the VPN I use with success with every other distro, to work. It flat out refuses. I was going to ask on the forum, but you must register and be manually approved. I get bored easily that way and didn't ever register. So beautiful and clean.
23 • @ 20 (by AleCon on 2014-04-22 08:18:56 GMT from Italy)
Welcome to Linux! I hear you about steep learning curve, the good news is that you are not alone, a wide community of linux enthusiast can help you out if you get stuck.
24 • Robolinux etc (by Mark E on 2014-04-22 09:50:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
Robolinux appears to be yet another Linux distro trying to be a replacement for Windows XP. I wish it luck; however, I don't think most people will go for it. I've been trying to figure out for years why people would stick with something that causes them grief regularly (e.g. Windows) and not be interested in something technologically superior that's more reliable and does the things they need it to do. My current thinking is that most people are comfortable with something that is backed by a strong brand, even if it is a poorer product. Linux is just too out there for most.
The best chance Linux has to break into the desktop market at the moment is either ChromeOS or Android, in my opinion.
And I don't think Robolinux will break into the desktop market but I'd be happy to be proved wrong.
Re. Jesse raising eyebrows about claims of a desktop that doesn't freeze: Well, I've been running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS since it release on my desktop, a Core2Duo-based machine, and it has never frozen. Maybe I've been lucky.
I hope the same will be true with 14.04...
25 • Ubuntu crashing on ATI Hardware (by Transform Humanity on 2014-04-22 11:36:43 GMT from India)
@6 I confirm the problem!
In fact I've been off Ubuntu since 12.04!
26 • @24: MarkE: (by dragonmouth on 2014-04-22 13:00:55 GMT from United States)
RoboLinux, Zorin, etc. are not supposed to be exact replacement for Win XP. Their GUI is the closest to looking like XP and that is all. They offer the easiest transition path between Windows and "something technologically superior", that being Linux, for those wanting to abandon Windows.
"The best chance Linux has to break into the desktop market at the moment is either ChromeOS or Android, in my opinion. "
As you say, it is your opinion. It is obvious that you have not spent a lot of time with Linux. Interesting that you should recommend ChromeOS and Android as the future of Linux after saying that people should be interested in "something technologically superior." ChromeOS and Android are crippled and limited versions of Linux. Switching from Windows to those two is going from the proprietary lock-in of Microsoft to that of Google. Linux is about freedom of choice, which Google (in the form of Chrome and/or Android) does not provide.
27 • @26 (by Mark E on 2014-04-22 13:52:12 GMT from United Kingdom)
I wouldn't recommend Android or Chrome OS myself, partly for the reason you mention. I don't think my last post does recommend them actually.
I have spent a lot of time with Linux, though not so much distro-hopping these days.
My point about Robolinux being meant as an XP replacement was because one of the major selling points from their website is that it can run Windows programs out of the box. I wonder why you'd tout that on the front page if you weren't targetting Windows users, rather than people already using Linux.
If my post appeared as if I was being negative towards Robolinux, I'm sorry. From Jesse's review it sounds like it's a good distro.
28 • @8 ATI hardware (by DavidEF on 2014-04-22 15:01:29 GMT from United States)
Well, Jesse, I'm glad you're having no problems. I'm still looking forward to your review, as well. Maybe there is something else about my system that makes it not work. However, the same system works fine in 12.04 LTS, and it is built from all new hardware I bought just a month ago. It's weird that the older version of Ubuntu works OOTB with the all-new hardware and the newer version of Ubuntu does not.
29 • RE: ATI hardware (by Koroshiya Itchy on 2014-04-22 18:46:05 GMT from Belgium)
I have an old HP Pavilion laptop which is still running Debian Squeeze for that very reason: the ATI graphics card being deprecated in the kernel. As far as I know, this happens with every single distro on earth. The laptop is still usable with a modern distro but graphics performance is sluggish. Old distros work fine.
Graphics cards have always been one of Linux's main issues. I also have problems with Nvida cards which are not working with the Nouveau drivers. I need to install the OS in text mode and then install the proprietary drivers. This happens in systems that in the recent past used to be very compatible with Nouveau. Sometimes is the other way around and problems arise with the proprietary blobs.
Other of Linux's issues used to be wifi cards, however, I have not had any problem whatsoever for years.
Hardware-wise the main issue now for me is sound...
30 • Why (millions of) people stick with ... aggravation (by Somewhat Reticent on 2014-04-22 19:10:09 GMT from United States)
Technical superiority gives way to crude distro-agnostic providing a workable (robust) market platform.
Fragile fails.
Truth-in-labeling helps save time and prevent confusion.
The-Full-Manual helps save time and prevent confusion.
Keep-It-Short&Simple helps ... dumbing-down and obfuscation don't.
Complex (because it's fun!): See Fragile (above).
Over-hyped marketing doesn't help; nor does slang.
Similarity of GUI should be limited - some difference helps shift gears.
Meanwhile, vintage of kernels and drivers is still d-other-hell, as buyers still put up with hardware makers' proprietary pranks.
And Google's tentacles continue to tighten ...
31 • buntus 14.04 (by hotdiggettydog on 2014-04-22 21:48:37 GMT from Canada)
I'm not overly impressed.
Installed Xubuntu on two laptops only to find the display would not light up after closing the lid. Never did solve that one and moved on. Fail.
Lubuntu did not recognize my wireless on a netbook that had run previous versions of lubuntu just fine. Fail.
Kubuntu installed and ran fine on another machine. Took a while to get rid of the butt ugly. BTW .... I hate Muon. Why the heck use Muon when we have lovely synaptic? Semi-fail.
Looking forward to Mint or anyone else who releases a proper remaster of the above.
32 • Ubuntu crashing on ATI Hardware (by ruisimoes on 2014-04-22 22:05:03 GMT from Portugal)
@25 editing /etc/default/grub/ add 'radeon.dpm=1' in the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT
look like this "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="radeon.dpm=1 quiet splash"
done.
33 • Other Windows-oriented Linux (by Michael on 2014-04-22 22:41:14 GMT from United States)
It's be cool to see a review of the new Zorin OS on here, or perhaps even better, a review/comparison of a few Linux distributions marketed toward Windows users, like RoboLinux and Zorin OS, and any others I can't think of at the moment, and maybe comparing them to the parent distribution (Zorin to Ubuntu, Robo to Debian, etc.) to see if the added changes are really "worth it". Just a thought.
34 • Robolinux (by nemrutrealm on 2014-04-22 23:38:21 GMT from United States)
I enjoyed reading your Robolinux review. But pity that you had no chance to try running windows in its VM environment and see if it, indeed, works -- as this is the feaututre which intrigues me the most.
35 • Running windows in a VM environment (by fernbap on 2014-04-23 00:13:59 GMT from Portugal)
I think it needs to be said here that virtually ANY Linux distribution can have Virtualbox installed and make a windows VM. Also, you can, with ANY Linux distro running Virtualbox, make snapshots of the windows installation so that you can restore to a previous point.
Personally, i think it is just a waste of resources. Unless you are a gamer and want to take everything in terms of performance from your hardware when playing a windows game, in which case you should run windows, it is way better to just install and run the few windows applications you might need (and in most cases you won't, as there are many linux apps that can replace yours, and use a virtual machine only in the case your app is incapable of running under wine.
Another issue i would like to address: Ethics. Imho, any windows office user, when sharing a file with anyone, should use a format that he knows everyone would be able to read, like DOC or DOCX for text files, XLS for spreadsheets, etc.
We all know that MS changes the formats just to make the new versions of office incompatible with the previous ones, in order to wrongly convince people to buy the new one. However, all offices can export the documents to previous versions formats.
If you are a windows office user, you should make things easy to the others, not difficult. It takes you as much work to send a document in any format. Please, send it in formats that everyone will be able to read. Not so hard, isn't it?
36 • Separate Concerns for Safer Browsing (by FunkyBiz on 2014-04-23 02:05:05 GMT from United States)
Conflating ID with crypto has spawned a SSL/TLS cartel. ID is just one use for crypto, SSL/TLS certs just one protocol for checking ID, and government ID just one form of ID.
http://techrepublic.com/blog/it-security/ssl-tls-encryption-and-the-vacant-lot-scam-too-big-to-fail/
http://techrepublic.com/blog/it-security/the-tls-ssl-certifying-authority-system-is-a-scam/
Other methods can establish ID. When you buy a cert, what happens? Someone reads your government ID card. Why should that service cost $hundreds for "wildcard domain" certs? Why should even "cheap" certs need "annual renewal," when your gov card won't expire for 5-10 years?
Because the cert biz is a racket.
Let website visitors see your ID for themselves. Post it.
Why should only big governments hold trusted ID databases? We can develop ID methods based on webs of trust. A photo of someone standing among friends willing to vouch the pic's authenticity is MORE valid than some government card. You can't even call up the DMV to ask, "Is this a valid ID?" unless you're a cop.
Suppose you like your government card. Fine. Why should you need a SSL/TLS cert to show it off? Post a photo scan. Photograph yourself holding your card up right next to your face with your house in the background. Circle the house number in yellow pixels. Use GnuPG sigs on the pics. Get them signed by friends too. Whatever. Get creative.
Separate concerns (ID from crypto) and break the web security cartel of big browsers + big cert vendors + big government IDs. As we've seen with heartbleed and other scams, and from NSA and crime rings alike, the corporations cannot be trusted as we've trusted them. All they can be trusted to do is figure out ways to establish "captive markets" and take our money.
Every browser has fast C-compiled crypto routines baked in, but no JavaScript API to access them. Why not? The money.
(Tech note. Pure JS crypto is way too slow and needs secure code download, creating a circular problem. But a JavaScript API to internal browser routines is easily doable and trustworthy. We already trust browsers.)
What about anonymous websites wanting secure apps inside browsers without IDs? Hello, Tails/Debian? Why don't you wrap IceWeasel crypto routines in a JS API?
If each website someday needs a cert from a government-approved vendor, we can thank browser makers. Oh happy day. "Papers, please."
On the other hand, a different world is possible. Just think: a FreedomBox at home; visitors get security without cartel extortion or Mozilla FUD dialogs about self-signed certs, whose only distinction is not paying intertube barge tolls to cartel members. Money buys trust at Mozilla and Debian, it seems.
37 • @#10 & #6 LTS aint what she used to be (by greg on 2014-04-23 07:56:46 GMT from Slovenia)
Same here - quite dissapointed. Fn keys worked in 12.04, 12.10, some stopped working in 13.04 and 13.10 and in 14.04 they still do not work. additionally somehow they made the "prt sc" key not work anymore in 14.04. i do not have AMD issues others describe, but keys suddenly not working, camera not working in skype...i've also found other issues with recent 13.10 upgrade. things that were working fine &out of the box before not working anymore. and i am talking about a year old linux certified hardware here!!! it's getting ridiculuous. i will now try another flavour with same new kernel and see if it has same issues.
38 • @15 mp3 support (by Kazlu on 2014-04-23 10:59:36 GMT from France)
The problem is not to dot it, but to find how to do it. Won't you find boring that when you install an OS, for a few days you find yourself constantly needing to search the Internet to find a way to enable this or that feature? When you're a beginner, this can be a show-stopper, especially when you know how to do it (or don't need to) on another OS. Out-of-the-box is reassuring for beginners who already have a lot to learn when switching their OS.
39 • @24 XP replacement (by Kazlu on 2014-04-23 11:00:03 GMT from France)
"My current thinking is that most people are comfortable with something that is backed by a strong brand, even if it is a poorer product." I agree with that. Relying on a big brand is reassuring, because the service is commercially designed to work. Moreover, you can buy machines with the OS preinstalled and avoid the hassle of instaling the OS, an operation that can be scary or simply seem to be a waste of time. Big brands are also more capable of advertising their products. How many of us have friends and relatives who know about Robolinux?
"The best chance Linux has to break into the desktop market at the moment is either ChromeOS or Android, in my opinion." In my opinion Ubuntu might be a good option too. To be clearer, Android and ChromeOS might enforce the use of Linux, but they are not GNU/Linux desktop OSs. Ubuntu is and has the "big brand backup" argument, along with some advertisement capability (far less than Google of course!). In fact, Ubuntu is the only GNU/Linux distro that is usable for desktops, backed by a big brand and designed for consumers (not for professionnals). This seems like a good thing for beginners who do not have someone close to them to administer their computer (therefore pushing for this or that distro).
40 • degrading *buntus quality (by cykodrone on 2014-04-23 14:35:59 GMT from Canada)
It's not just with the *buntus, I am thinking this is a kernel thing, possibly to stay more in line with the GPL, proprietary hardware code, etc, because I've noticed the same flakey behaviour in other distros with newer kernels, until you trouble shoot and configure, it's kind of a dog's breakfast. I don't use Windows but if you compare it, pretty much the basic hardware gets configured automatically with minimal drivers, then after you're up and running you have to deal with proprietary drivers, not mainstream or exotic hardware has always been an issue for ANY OS.
41 • Real truth's (by Charles on 2014-04-23 18:25:39 GMT from Mexico)
@2, 7, 9
Kubuntu is Superb, but...Lack's of good integrated messagin app (Kopete discontinued and KDE Telepathy without encryption for a long time), also, Ubuntu repos = spyware elsewhere (don't have time for code review).
@10
GNU/Linux work out of the box, until you intend to do the impossible; Linux is not windows / Apple:
Wine = malware (security risk)
Apple (ipod, ithing, etc) never will work fully. Change your MP3/Music player or buy a Mac or comeback to winpirate/windo$.
@15
What version you try to install, etch or potato, because I have Debian 7 Gnome without third party repos and MP3 works out of the box.
.
42 • The one thing missing from the Windows discussions above (by Larry on 2014-04-23 21:51:15 GMT from United States)
In all the discussions above about how bad Windows is and how good Linux is - a generalization I agree with - there is one thing, or perhaps two, that Windows does that Linux does not: video capture with my usb DVD Xpresss DX2 and native use of virtually any US tax software. Someone is sure to suggest getting a new video capture device that is Linux compatible. Great advice; but I don't intend to get into financial discussions as to why that won't fly at my house. The point is that there are some things XP does easily that Linux still doesn't do. For what it is worth, I have been using Linux as my main - often only - os for about 10 years.
43 • @20 (by solt87 on 2014-04-23 23:49:44 GMT from Germany)
I used to be a WinXP user till I started with an XP/Lubuntu dual-boot setup almst two years ago. I used XP less and less in favor of Lubuntu, then in the summer of 2013, I left Win behind forever. Today I use Debian Wheezy with LXDE.
I can honestly recommend Lubuntu to any Linux newcomer, it is really pleasant, easy to use functional. Oh, and light on the resources....
44 • @41 real truth's (by Kazlu on 2014-04-24 08:06:40 GMT from France)
"Ubuntu repos = spyware elsewhere"
What do you mean? Could you be more specific as to why Ubuntu repos would be spyware (and possibly other distros repos wouldn't)?
45 • Thanks for the review (by Barnabyh on 2014-04-24 10:26:34 GMT from Hungary)
Thank you for the overview of Robolinux, I was wondering if it was worth a try for some ordinary computer users I know but it seems it's nothing that can't be achieved for free with Debian or Ubuntu and a Virtualbox installation with XP inside.
46 • Ubuntu 14.04 and ATI (by DavidEF on 2014-04-25 10:09:34 GMT from United States)
I made some comments above about an apparent problem with ATI graphics in Ubuntu 14.04. As an update, I tried it on a different computer, my main computer at home, and it works fine. Differences include:
Dedicated graphics card on my main computer versus onboard graphics on the other,
Graphics chipset was older on my main computer, versus newer on the other,
Upgraded from 13.10 on my main computer versus trying to do a fresh install on the other.
So far I've had no problems using Ubuntu 14.04. In fact, it is more stable than 13.10 (well it ought to be!) and seems to be a bit more responsive as well. There is a Gnome Flashback option on my login page now as well. I can't remember if I had already installed Gnome 3 before (for experimentation) or if this came with 14.04. Anyway, I logged into it once, and it looks like the old Gnome 2 interface that we were all so happy with before Gnome 3 and Unity came along. I like Unity, so I'll not be using this feature, but I'm sure some will appreciate it.
47 • @44, Repos... (by Charles on 2014-04-25 17:46:47 GMT from Mexico)
"As of October 2012, Ubuntu sends personal data about users' searches to a server belonging to Canonical, which sends back ads to buy things from Amazon. This does not, strictly speaking, affect whether Ubuntu is free software, but it is a VIOLATION of users' PRIVACY."
https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.en.html
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ubuntu-spyware-what-to-do
"Canonical’s Ubuntu is not recommended by PRISM Break because it contains Amazon ads and data leaks by default. GNU/Linux distributions based on Ubuntu are also currently not recommended due to several other reasons."
https://www.prism-break.org/en/categories/windows/#operating-systems
https://github.com/nylira/prism-break/issues/334
"Spyware coverage incomplete - limited to Dash"
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1070111
"We love that Ubuntu is bold enough to break new ground and compete directly with the large proprietary operating systems, but please make sure that you respect your users' privacy and security while you're doing it."
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/privacy-ubuntu-1210-amazon-ads-and-data-leaks
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/canonical-abused-trademark-law-to-target-a-site-critical-of-ubuntu-privacy/
https://fixubuntu.com/
THE CENTRAL POINT:
Canonical (Ubuntu owner) in version 12.10, by default began using software to collect private data from users without their consent and knowledge (spyware), the enormous GNU / Linux community which was discovered almost immediately.
For this reason (attitude), you should not rely on each software in its repositories including, without careful checking.
"possibly other distros repos wouldn't?"
I can not talk about other distributions that do not know, but I can tell you of Debian GNU / Linux, my main Distro:
The fundamental difference is ownership, unlike Ubuntu, Debian does not belong to a company which day he pleases insert spyware software in their repositories.
Debian is created, developed, maintained and owned by a community that is guided by a code of ethics does not allow something like what Canonical did to Ubuntu -> http://www.debian.org/social_contract.en. html
48 • Must be your system. (by Garon on 2014-04-25 18:36:10 GMT from United States)
@DavidEF,
Strange David that you are having problems. On my laptop I have an AMD E-450 system. Now I have had problems with ATI in the past but not at this time. Even my wireless is working great. Hope you get it fixed up, I'm curious at the problems.
49 • People still care about Ubuntu (by Caitlyn Martin on 2014-04-26 00:15:41 GMT from United States)
People still care about Ubuntu and Canonical? Who knew? OK, this is an LTS release so it does matter.... a little. Meanwhile, we are on the cusp of a once in four years event that really will impact business, government and non-profit servers around the world, plus some desktops like mine: a major new Red Hat Enterprise Linux release, hopefully closely followed by a new CentOS release. Now that's interesting... and I see exactly zero comments about it.
50 • @49 - controversy = attention (by M.Z. on 2014-04-26 02:54:26 GMT from United States)
@49
I once heard a saying about the news business that was something along the lines of: 'if it bleeds, it leads.' (I think it was Superman related). The reactions for and against Ubuntu are because of controversy. The OS that was the darling of the opensource world has rightly become the whipping boy for privacy advocates and many traditional desktop users alike. Wherever Ubuntu news leads controversy & comments are sure to follow because the OS has become very polarizing. Perhaps some of the flack even benefits Ubuntu because people want to see what the controversy is all about & decide to try it despite the poor privacy defaults & questionable design elements. Every time they try to put a new shade of lipstick on that pig more controversy will follow. The lack of any real fixes for biggest name in desktop Linux is sure to get people riled up, because Ubuntu continues to fail users on the privacy front while maintaining a great deal of popularity. This frustrates many privacy oriented opensource advocates to no end. The rest of the Linux world will continue turning, and Red Hat will continue to make real money on the business market; however, those of us not directly involved in servers or 'enterprise' Linux have far more of a connection to controversy on the desktop.
51 • @49,50 (by :wq on 2014-04-26 09:50:42 GMT from United States)
People tend to comment on whatever content is in that week's DistroWatch Weekly issue. Ubuntu's latest release is covered this week, RHEL's upcoming release is not. Also, a lot of people wait for general availability releases before they turn their attention to a distro release. Furthermore, the comments at DistroWatch probably reflect the tastes and preferences of home users more so than than they do enterprise users (I have no data to back up that claim).
I am curious how businesses that use Linux for their workstations have reacted to Ubuntu 12.04 and now 14.04, and how they will react to RHEL 7 and SLED 12, particularly as RHEL 6.x and SLED 11.x will live on for some time yet. I'm glad that GNOME Flashback is available for Ubuntu 14.04, and that, unless something changes, at least MATE (I would actually prefer Xfce) will be available for RHEL via EPEL. When it comes to operating systems aimed at enterprise and SOHO customers, most discussions I have seen, such as http://seven.centos.org/2014/03/mate-on-the-desktop/, seem to be full of comments not in favor of the direction of Windows 8, GNOME 3 or Unity. I'm not implying that GNOME 3 and Unity (or even Windows 8) don't have their fans, but their detractors don't constitute Rumsfeldian "pockets of dead-enders" either.
52 • @51 (by Ari Torres on 2014-04-27 18:49:28 GMT from United States)
I am just going to talk about RHEL 7
It was a waste of time having downloaded that 4.x GB of crap
Redhat doesn't get it or do they?
It's a monstrosity of data to download and install and the end you end up with the same feelings of 4 years ago,nothing new to add the distro that others much smaller cannot accomplish for instance Ubuntu 14.04. I will never look at RHEL again :P
53 • @52 Missed the point (by Charles on 2014-04-27 23:26:47 GMT from Mexico)
RHEL means Enterprise Linux (NOT Desktop):
Stability and security are the most valuable to the computer system of a company as a software failure or break, can mean monetary losses.
Security is handled very well in both, Ubuntu and RHEL.
Stability depends on:
Software new versions = more bugs
Software old versions = less bugs (with several patches adressed)
RHEL current version, in this moment have most Stability, unlike Ubuntu 12.04 and much more than 14.04.
Even at this point I would not recommend Ubuntu 14.04 for the business sector, as the period of extended support (LTS, greater stability) starts after 9 months. At this time, Ubuntu 14.04 has the same stability as Debian Unstable.
Number of Comments: 53
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Eridani Linux 6.3 was an updated and enhanced version of the downloadable release of Red Hat Linux 6.2 with all the updates and a number of extra applications and utilities. Eridani Linux 6.3 now also contains many updates and new features from Red Hat Linux 7.0, but retains the binary compatibility of the 6.x tree. If you're looking for an affordable copy of a Red Hat 6.2/7.0 hybrid and don't want the hassle of downloading the bug-fixes and security updates, look no further! It's also worth noting that Eridani Linux uses a stable compiler release, so there was no need to dig around for other compilers to compile your kernel.
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