 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 586, 24 November 2014 |
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Welcome to this year's 47th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! A great operating system is not always about having exciting features and the latest applications. Some people value stability and predictability in their operating system. Our Feature review this week covers Scientific Linux, a distribution that places a great deal of importance on being reliable. In our Questions and Answers column this week we talk about blocking network access for specific applications and the various methods we can use to block programs from phoning home. In our News section we discuss Debian's general resolution regarding init software. Plus we talk about the Ubuntu MATE community distribution, Mageia dropping support for older releases and we share good news from the FreeBSD Foundation. Plus we take a look at the distributions released last week and share two new projects added to our waiting list. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Observing Scientific Linux 7.0
 Scientific Linux is an operating system sponsored by Fermilab and built using the source code from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). The distribution is lightly customized, making it similar to RHEL in most respects, but with different artwork. The current release of Scientific is available for the 64-bit x86 CPU architecture only. There are several editions to choose from, including a regular installation DVD (3.9 GB), an "Everything" double-sided installation DVD (6.2 GB), a net-install minimal CD (394 MB), a live CD (690 MB), a GNOME-flavoured live DVD (1.1 GB) and a KDE-flavoured live DVD (1.2 GB). I opted to download the live KDE disc.
Booting from the Scientific Linux media brings up the KDE desktop with a background that resembles either dark, abstract art or perhaps a close-up view of black hair. The application menu, task switcher and system tray rest at the bottom of the screen. There are no icons on the desktop. For the most part, Scientific 7.0 looks and behaves like the latest version of RHEL, just with different artwork and branding. Browsing through the application menu we can find an entry for launching the project's system installer.
Scientific's system installer is a graphical application that starts by asking us for our preferred language. We are then brought to a hub-style screen where we can proceed through configuration modules in the order of our choosing. We are presented with modules for adjusting the system time, changing our keyboard's layout and setting our computer's hostname. There is also a module dedicated to partitioning the local hard drive. I found it interesting to note Scientific correctly guessed which time zone I was in, but provided me with an incorrect default keyboard layout. With regards to hard drive partitioning we have the option of letting Scientific automatically divide up our drive or we can manually adjust our partitions. The system installer supports regular partitions (such as ext3 and ext4), LVM volumes and the advanced Btr file system. The default approach appears to a combination of LVM volumes formatted with XFS.
I decided to experiment with Btrfs and used this as my operating system's root partition. When I chose Btrfs it seems this forced the use of a separate /boot partition formatted with a traditional file system, such as ext4. Once we complete each configuration module the installer begins copying its files to the local drive and we are presented with a second hub screen. This screen contains modules for setting a root password on the system and creating a new user account. When the installer finishes copying its files to the local drive it suggests we read the project's license agreement and then asks us to reboot the computer. Personally, I find the new system installer used by Scientific (and its upstream distribution) a little awkward to navigate. There doesn't appear to be much consistency in the interface, but the installer is functional and I encountered no errors.
The first time we boot into Scientific Linux 7.0 we are asked if we would like to enable kdump and then the system reboots again. When the distribution comes back on-line we are presented with a graphical login screen. Shortly after logging into the KDE desktop an error message appears letting us know there was a problem with the GNOME Shell software. This seems like a strange error to see on the KDE edition of the distribution since there isn't any reason for GNOME Shell to be present. This error message appeared after every login.
Scientific Linux 7.0 - KDE documentation and changing system clock
(full image size: 883kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
I tried running Scientific Linux in two environments, on a desktop machine and in a virtual environment provided by VirtualBox. When running on physical hardware Scientific performed very well. The distribution booted up quickly and ran smoothly. My display was set to its maximum resolution with networking and sound working out of the box. When running in VirtualBox I found Scientific was responsive, but my computer's mouse pointer did not integrate with the Scientific guest. In either environment Scientific used approximately 550 MB of RAM to login to the KDE desktop. The operating system also cached quite a lot of data in memory. Just booting and logging into KDE resulted in over 880MB of data being cached in RAM.
Concerning package management, Scientific Linux does not appear to ship with any graphical package manager or update manager. There were no notifications when new software updates were made available in the project's repositories. To work with packages I turned to YUM, a command line package manager. YUM works a bit slowly compared to Debian's APT or Arch's Pacman, but it gets the job done and the output and prompts displayed by YUM are clearer in their intent, I find. The first day I ran Scientific there were 16 updated packages waiting to be downloaded from the project's servers and these totalled 30MB in size. Toward the end of the week I checked for updates again and found 10 more packages, 5MB in size, waiting to be downloaded. Every action I performed with YUM, whether it was installing new software or applying security updates, completed successfully.
While I was using Scientific Linux I found the distribution did not ship with multimedia codecs or Flash and I looked into adding these features. Usually I would get these extras from a third-party repository such as RPMFusion or RepoForge, however neither repository appears to have support for Scientific 7.0 and compatible distributions at the time of writing. The Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) is available and this repository contains some extra software, though it appears to lack popular video and mp3 audio codecs.
Scientific Linux 7.0 - running various desktop applications
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Scientific Linux 7.0 ships with a small collection of desktop software. We are treated to the Firefox web browser, the LibreOffice productivity suite and the Evolution e-mail client. The distribution ships with the Ekiga Softphone software, the Empathy messaging client and the Konqueror web browser. Digging through the application menu we further find a remote desktop client, the Dragon Player media player and the k3b optical disc burning software. Scientific provides us with the KolourPaint drawing application, the Okular document viewer and the Gwenview image viewer. To adjust the look and feel of the desktop we are given the KDE System Setting panel. The KGpg and Kleopatra applications are provided to help us encrypt files and manage security keys. I found applications for working with the distribution's firewall, configuring printers and adjusting the computer's clock. To help us get on-line Network Manager is provided. In the background the distribution runs on the Linux kernel, version 3.10.
Conclusions
Running Scientific Linux 7.0 is what I would call an intentionally uninteresting experience. This distribution, and its upstream project, are both designed to be stable and to run, largely unchanged, for years. There are not supposed to be any surprises nor trendy flare. In this regard I would say Scientific is largely a success. It is dull in a predictable way, the sort of workstation operating system you can install and then pretty much forget about.
That being said, there were some aspects to the operating system that I felt stood out. Or rather there were pieces I felt were missing. For example, Scientific Linux does not appear to have any graphical package manager. In fact, RHEL is famous for its many flexible configuration tools and, apart from the firewall application and the printer manager, there appears to be a notable lack of administration tools installed on Scientific by default. Administration tools for working with user accounts, software packages and other aspects of the system are available in the package repositories. Following that line of thought, Scientific feels a lot like previous versions of Scientific, but with some corners cut. This version appears to ship with slightly less software while featuring a larger memory footprint.
Scientific Linux 7.0 - adjusting firewall and desktop settings
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Part of the problem with spending a week with a distribution like Scientific is that the benefits of running a stable distribution with nearly a decade of support ahead of it are largely lost on the person testing the software. I can point to minor bugs (like the GNOME Shell warning) or the lack of multimedia support or the giant command line I kept seeing in my process list (see below), but I did not get to experience the benefit of running a presumably stable operating system for over seven years. My trial was too short for that and I believe the strengths of Scientific exist in its predictability and longevity. I suspect if one were to install Scientific and enable automatic software updates the operating system would continue to run for the better part of decade without visible change or disruption and some people need that.
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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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Occasionally during my trial I would bring up a list of running processes and I kept seeing entries in the list with long command lines which looked like the one below. This is something I haven't seen a Linux distribution do before and the massive command line, with its developer comments thrown in, is a bit strange to see. Here is one such command line of a running process that appeared shortly after I logged in one evening:
/bin/sh -c nice sosreport --tmp-dir "$DUMP_DIR" --batch \ --only=anaconda --only=boot --only=devicemapper \ --only=filesys --only=hardware --only=kernel --only=libraries \ --only=memory --only=networking --only=nfsserver --only=pam \ --only=process --only=rpm -k rpm.rpmva=off --only=ssh \ --only=startup --only=yum --only=general --only=x11 \ --only=cups --only=logs --only=grub2 --only=cron --only=pci \ --only=auditd --only=selinux --only=lvm2 --only=sar \ >sosreport.log 2>&1 \ && { rm sosreport.log rm sosreport*.md5 mv sosreport*.tar.bz2 sosreport.tar.bz2 mv sosreport*.tar.xz sosreport.tar.xz exit 0 } 2>/dev/null # Error in sosreport run. Let user see the problem. echo "sosreport run failed with exit code $?, log follows:" # sosreport prints many useless empty lines, nuke them: # it looks awful in syslog otherwise. cat sosreport.log | sed 's/ *$//' | grep -v '^$' rm sosreport.log exit 1
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith and Ladislav Bodnar) |
Debian votes on init coupling, Ubuntu MATE combines classic desktop with Ubuntu packages, Mageia 3 approaches end of life, FreeBSD Foundation receives generous donation, Linux Voice releases first issue for free download
 Starting on November 5th, the Debian developers began casting votes on a general resolution which would determine whether packages included in Debian could require the use of a specific init package. With systemd becoming the default init implementation earlier this year there was some concern as to whether Debian users would be able to select their preferred init software. The vote would determine whether software accepted into Debian's repositories would force packages to be independent of a specific init implementation or if package maintainers could link to a specific init package. The votes have been counted and the result is Debian developers have chosen not to rule on coupling packages to any specific init software. This means upstream developers and package maintainers will be free to depend on (or not depend on) specific init software as they see fit.
The long and sometimes tumultuous debate over init software has stirred up a lot of emotion in the Debian community. Many users feel their voices are not being heard while several developers have expressed frustration over the delays caused by the long running debates. Two weeks ago we reported on the resignation of Debian developer Joey Hess. More recently developer Tollef Fog Heen left Debian's systemd package maintainers team, citing personal attacks as his motivation to contribute to other parts of the Debian project. On November 16th Russ Albery stepped down from his position on the Debian Technical Committee (TC), stating he would rather work on developing software than being a part of the project's governance: "Right now I don't have the additional resources to spend, I need to step down and let someone else take their own approach to the TC role. This is particularly true right now, where every decision the TC makes that has anything remotely to do with systemd is incredibly fraught."
Albery's resignation comes a week after Colin Watson declared his intention to retire from Debian's Technical Committee. In Waton's post to the Technical Committee's mailing list he wrote: "I've been doing a good deal of refactoring of my life recently as a result of realizing that I was burning out, and right now it's important that I make an effort to spend my Debian time on things I find relaxing rather than things I've been finding stressful." Last week also saw the resignation of Ian Jackson from Debian's Technical Committee. Jackson was the Debian developer who first put forward the general resolution addressing init coupling and the debate on init software appears to have taken its toll on him. In his departure letter Jackson wrote, "While it is important that the views of the 30-40% of the project who agree with me should continue to be represented on the TC, I myself am clearly too controversial a figure at this point to do so. I should step aside to try to reduce the extent to which conversations about the project's governance are personalized. And, speaking personally, I am exhausted." Jackson wrote that he hopes to turn his focus from politics to developing software.
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 For people who liked the user-friendly features of Ubuntu, but did not like the project's switch from GNOME 2 to the Unity desktop environment, there is good news. The Ubuntu MATE project is a flavor of Ubuntu that ships with a traditional GNOME 2 desktop: "Ubuntu MATE is an unofficial (for now) Ubuntu flavor which uses MATE as the default desktop environment. MATE is a GNOME 2 fork introduced after GNOME 3 and GNOME Shell replaced the classic desktop metaphor." The Ubuntu MATE project has released a development version and a long-term support release for people who long for Ubuntu with a classic look and feel. The project's release announcement can be found on the Ubuntu MATE blog. For the more adventurous, a newer build of Ubuntu MATE, version 14.10, is also available.
Ubuntu MATE 14.10 features the MATE 1.8.1 desktop.
(full image size: 1,216kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
(Editor's note. For those who are wondering why the seemingly very popular Ubuntu MATE has yet to be listed on DistroWatch, the explanation is simple - as it stands, the project is possibly violating trademark laws, since it's Canonical who owns the right to use the word "Ubuntu" in their product names. Unless Ubuntu MATE becomes an official member of the Ubuntu family or Ubuntu MATE obtains a permission to use the word "Ubuntu" in their product name or Ubuntu MATE renames itself to something else, we prefer to wait with the listing. This saves us a lot of unnecessary work in cases where distribution projects are forced to change their names and logos in compliance with international trademark laws. This, of course, shouldn't prevent you from giving it a try or using the distribution. Besides Ubuntu MATE, there are several other Ubuntu-based distributions with MATE, including Linux Mint, Ultimate Edition, wattOS and CAINE.)
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 The Mageia project, a community fork of the Mandriva distribution, announced last week that Mageia 3 is nearing the end of its support cycle: "It's time to say goodbye to Mageia 3. After Wednesday the 26th of November, this release won't benefit from any more security or bug fix updates. This will allow QA team to give more time for polishing our coming Mageia 5. So you have only one week left to upgrade to Mageia 4 if you want to keep an up-to-date system." Version 3 of the user friendly operating system will be retired as developers are currently focused on the final stages of Mageia 5. The project urges people who are still running Mageia 3 to upgrade their installations by following the steps provided in the Mageia Wiki pages.
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 The FreeBSD Foundation, a non-profit organization which supports the FreeBSD operating system, received a generous donation last week. The Foundation's blog reports: "The FreeBSD Foundation is pleased to announce it has received a $1,000,000 donation from Jan Koum, CEO and Co-Founder of WhatsApp. This marks the largest single donation to the Foundation since its inception almost 15 years ago, and serves as another example of someone using FreeBSD to great success and then giving back to the community." Jan Koum also commented on the donation, explaining why FreeBSD and similar open source operating systems are so important. "I started using FreeBSD in the late 90s, when I didn't have much money and was living in government housing. In a way, FreeBSD helped lift me out of poverty - one of the main reasons I got a job at Yahoo! is because they were using FreeBSD, and it was my operating system of choice. Years later, when Brian and I set out to build WhatsApp, we used FreeBSD to keep our servers running. We still do."
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 Despite much scepticism about the prospects of a new print publication in the digital era we live in, the Linux Voice magazine, launched by several former editors of Linux Format and crowdfunded by Linux users from around the world, appears to be a success. Nine months have passed since the inaugural issue hit the retails shelves and download servers (for subscribers) and as promised by the founders, this 116-page release is now available for free under the Creative Commons BY-SA license: "Yes, it's been nine months since the first issue of Linux Voice hit the newsstands, so we're making it available under the Creative Commons BY-SA license. In a nutshell: you can modify and share all content from the magazine (apart from adverts), even for commercial purposes, providing you credit Linux Voice as the original source, and retain the same license. Highlights in this issue: master Vim, understand systemd, solve word puzzles with Bash and grep, discover the technology behind Bitcoin, and secure your communications with PGP. Plus many more tutorials, features and interviews - 116 pages in total!" Download the complete 1st issue of Linux Voice from here: Linux-Voice-Issue-001.pdf (61MB).
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Blocking network access for specific applications
Taking-away-the-keys asks: I've been trying to switch over to Linux from Windows full time and I'm finding advice from people such as: "Firewalls at the application level don't exist on Linux as they essentially are of no use." But what if I want to block one specific application? I hear this too: "There really is not much of a point in having an application based firewall in Linux. The problem in Windows is all the spyware calling home. We do not have to deal with such things." Is it possible to block network connections on Linux on an application-by-application basis? If not, why not?
DistroWatch answers: First, let us examine, briefly, the difference between how Linux firewall configuration tools usually work and what people mean by application-aware firewalls. On some operating systems there is this concept of blocking network traffic based on which application is trying to send or receive information. For example, we might want our web browser to be able to access the Internet, but we might wish to prevent our media player from connecting to the outside world. An e-mail client should be able to connect to remote servers to send and receive messages, but we probably do not want our e-book reader reporting on our favourite titles. Some firewall configuration tools on other platforms, such as Windows, allow the user to specify which applications may connect to the Internet and which may not.
By contrast, Linux and other UNIX-like systems, focus on filtering traffic based on where the traffic is coming from and where it is going. For example, we might block all incoming connections from the Internet to our local network shares. Or we might block all traffic trying to leave our computer on its way to a server we suspect is malicious. Or we might block all incoming login attempts that come from outside the local network.
There is some truth to the idea that often times Linux does not need application based firewall protection. Traditionally, at least, Linux administrators have pulled in packages from vetted repositories where it has been generally assumed spyware and other malware would not exist. This meant packages installed on Linux were usually considered to be trusted or at least it was assumed packages installed from a repository would not misbehave and phone home. However, this approach makes a few assumptions. One is that software that reports on user activities will not exist in the software repository of your distribution and that users will never need to install software from a third-party. In the real world both these assumptions are often wrong.
I find it disappointing that many people don't think there is any reason to have application-based firewalls on Linux. There are lots of cases where an application-aware firewall makes sense. This is especially true of cases where applications report home on a common port, like port 80, which makes it look like just another connection attempt from a web browser. There is a demand for application-aware firewalls on Linux from people migrating from Windows, and this demand has existed for over a decade.
As to whether it is possible to block network traffic on an application-by-application basis, it is possible. Usually this involves some technical ability on the part of the user. For example, someone might be able to use fine-grained security technology like AppArmor or SELinux to limit a program's access to the network.
Another way to go would be to monitor your network traffic and spot the name/IP of the server your applications are contacting. Then block all traffic going out to that address. This would be a lot easier than blocking specific applications with fine-grained access tools. However, it does carry the downside that if the address of the remote server changes, then your misbehaving application will be able to report home.
Yet another approach would be to install a lightweight Linux distribution in a virtual machine. Then install the suspicious application and leave networking to the virtual machine disabled. In a virtual machine the user can enable networking to perform updates or download files and then disable networking again prior to starting the application we want to keep isolated.
Perhaps the easiest approach though is to take advantage of a Linux feature which allows you to block commands run by a specific user. If you can set up your application so that it runs as a specific user, let's call that user "dummy", then you can block all network access made by programs run by the "dummy" user. Here is an example of blocking a user's access to the Internet using iptables.
Though perhaps not entirely practical in some cases, I feel the best approach is to not install software you suspect is misbehaving. Programs that phone home or report on user activities should probably be removed from the system. Replacing a misbehaving program may be easier than regularly monitoring it to make sure it has not introduced any new bad behaviour.
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| Released Last Week |
PC-BSD 10.1
Dru Lavigne has announced the release of PC-BSD 10.1, a new stable release of the FreeBSD-based operating system for the desktop: "The PC-BSD team is pleased to announce the availability of PC-BSD 10.1. Highlights: KDE 4.14.2, GNOME 3.12.2, Cinnamon 2.2.16, Chromium 38.0.2125.104, Firefox 33.1, NVIDIA Driver 340.24, Lumina desktop 0.7.1-beta, pkg 1.3.8; new AppCafe HTML5 web/remote interface for both desktop and server usage; new CD-sized text-installer ISO files for TrueOS and server deployments; new Centos 6.6 Linux emulation base; new HostAP mode for WiFi GUI utilities; UEFI support for boot and installation; automatic tuning of ZFS memory usage at install time; support for full-disk (GELI) encryption without an unencrypted /boot partition (also on mirror/raidz setups!); new VirtualBox, VMware and RAW disk images of desktop and server installations." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information and upgrade instructions.
PC-BSD 10.1 - the Lumina desktop environment
(full image size: 1,350kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Grml 2014.11
Michael Prokop has announced the release of Grml 2014.11, a Debian-based live CD featuring ZSH as the default shell and a large collection of specialist scripts for system administrators: "We just released Grml 2014.11 'Gschistigschasti'. This Grml release provides fresh software packages from Debian 'testing'. As usual it also incorporates up-to-date hardware support and it fixes known bugs from the previous Grml release. New features: new boot option getfile.retries=... - by specifying a number it controls the number of download retries for the netscript=...; grml2usb - improved check for boot flag, new option --skip-bootflag and Python 3 support; grml-quickconfig - display IP and password if SSH boot option is used; grml-lang - support language settings for Italy; grml-hwinfo: support i2c-tools's decode-dimms, edac-utils and mcelog; grml-zshrc - rework and unify $PATH handling...." See the release announcement and release notes for further details.
Univention Corporate Server 4.0
Nico Gulden has announced the release of Univention Corporate Server 4.0. Univention Corporate Server is an enterprise-class distribution based on the stable release of Debian GNU/Linux, featuring an integrated management system for central administration of servers. From the release announcement: "We are very happy to announce the availability of Univention Corporate Server (UCS) 4.0. Considerable highlights are: the design and the usability of the UCS management system have been completely revamped to allow the comfortable administration with tablets and smartphones via a responsive design; in addition to local virtualization servers, the UCS Virtual Machine Manager (UVMM) can now also manage cloud computing environments based on OpenStack or Amazon EC2 environments; the management of applications has been simplified through a centralised App Center...." See the release notes for a detailed description of the product.
NetBSD 5.1.5, 5.2.3
Soren Jacobsen has announced the release of NetBSD 5.2.3 and 5.1.5, the project's legacy versions in the 5.2 and 5.1 release branches: "The NetBSD project is pleased to announce NetBSD 5.1.5, the fifth security and bug-fix update of the NetBSD 5.1 release branch, and NetBSD 5.2.3, the third security and bug-fix update of the NetBSD 5.2 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. For more details, please see the release notes at NetBSD-5.1.5.html and NetBSD-5.2.3.html. Complete source and binaries for NetBSD are available for download at many sites around the world. A list of download sites providing FTP, AnonCVS, SUP, and other services may be found here." This is the brief release announcement.
Guadalinex 9
Guadalinex 9 has been released. Guadalinex is a Linux distribution developed by the Council of Economy, Innovation and Science of the Government of Andalucía (Spain) to facilitate the access to information technology for all citizens of the Spanish province. It is largely based on Ubuntu 14.04, with elements from Linux Mint and Debian GNU/Linux. The main edition comes with the Cinnamon desktop, while the "lite" variant, provided for the first time and designed to run on older computers or computers with limited hardware, includes the lightweight LXDE desktop environment. The main components include: Linux kernel 3.13, Cinnamon 2.2.16, Firefox 24.3.0esr, LibreOffice 4.2.6 and the usual selection of popular open-source applications. The distribution also comes with a comprehensive installation and user guide (PDF format, in Spanish). See the brief release announcement (in Spanish) and follow the included links for further information.
Guadalinex 9 - the Cinnamon desktop environment
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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 |
Distributions added to database
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Distributions added to waiting list
- Chromixium OS. Chromixium is a project to recreate the functionality, look and feel of Google's Chrome OS on a conventional desktop, GNU/Linux base system.
- Quantum OS. Quantum OS is a Linux distribution which conforms to Google's Material Design guidelines. The focus of Quantum OS will be on creating a stable and easy-to-use operating system.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 1 December 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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| Archives |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Full list of all issues |
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CTKArch
CTKArch was a minimalist, Arch-based live CD using the Openbox window manager. It includes a text-based system installer, support for a number of popular file systems, and out-of-the-box support for English and French languages.
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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