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1 • upstream, downstream (by richrd on 2016-04-11 00:30:21 GMT from North America)
I use Mint but as I like the latest & greatest photo tools, I add darktable and GiMP PPAs to the downstream base repositories (thanks, Ubuntu ecosystem!)
That gives me the best of both worlds.
2 • poll (by a on 2016-04-11 00:53:52 GMT from Europe)
I want a distro without systemd that works, and there is only one. So upstream, downstream, who cares…
3 • @2 (by Will B on 2016-04-11 01:18:40 GMT from North America)
> I want a distro without systemd that works, and there is only one. So upstream, downstream, who cares…
I thought there were a few without systemd? Which one do you prefer? (I don't like systemd either)
4 • Ads slowing down DW (by Will B on 2016-04-11 01:20:10 GMT from North America)
Hi Jesse and the team.
Lately I have noticed that your ad providers are slowing down, or downright pausing, the loading of DW. Maybe you can rewrite your site so the main content renders first, *then* the ads. Just a thought. :-)
5 • @2 (by Dr_CR on 2016-04-11 01:43:55 GMT from North America)
What "just works" depends on the situation.
I love Slackware and Arch but depending on the situation, I use derivatives as well and particularly Ubuntu (formerly Mint) for Linux gaming since Ubuntu/Mint are what "just works" without fanfare for Steam.
6 • Upstream Downstream (by DrDavid on 2016-04-11 02:10:31 GMT from North America)
I like main distros like Debian for learning and for production use in enterprise and other critical situations. I like experimenting with downstream distros to see what works for desktops, old computers, and other specialty uses like routers/firewalls, because there are some great choices in these downstream distros. Lately looking at pfsense (router/firewall), lxle and various xfce spins of several main ("upstream") distros for desktop use for old and new computers. The lightweight distros don't just work on old computers, they run like lightning on new ones, and I like that! Of course, the thing to look for in desktop distros is the mix of applications (available in default install OR via easy download from repos) to let you DO what you need in a desktop!
Thanks to Redhat we have CentOS/Scientific/etc (directly), and Fedora as a derivative. Thanks to Debian we have tons of derivatives, but I like the special-use and the lightweight derivatives best.
Then there's the specialized security and pen-testing and forensics distros, and I don't fret about where they come from, I want to check out them all. Unfortunately some seem abandoned, like Blackbuntu, but I am pressing on with Kali and others.
Keep on learning and having fun.
7 • I miss the old Arch..... (by McRae on 2016-04-11 02:50:57 GMT from North America)
I know things progress but I really miss the old Arch linux......I'd install, break out nano, edit the rc.config and was good to go! I know I could go to a BSD system but I prefer linux. Is there a simple distro like that out there anymore?
8 • partitioning (by Reuben Perelman on 2016-04-11 02:58:36 GMT from North America)
For a desktop system, it's a good idea to put your important data on a separate partition. Usually that means giving /home a separate partition. That way you can easily install a new Linux distro without disturbing your important data.
Alternatively, you could use a single btrfs and zfs partition, and divide the data up onto multiple subvolumes. This is the setup that I use. The problem with this, not many installers allow setting this up, so you'd have to create a setup like this manually.
Finally, if you're using UEFI, then you have to have a seperate UEFI partition to store the bootloader.
As for upstream/downstream, don't really have a preference. Just want stuff that isn't ancient. Recently switched from Debian Sid (an upstream distro) to Manjaro (downstream) because Manjaro is more up to date.
9 • My preference (by Brenton Horne on 2016-04-11 03:36:10 GMT from Oceania)
I prefer distributions that are simpler to package for, install desired packages on and otherwise work with. Arch Linux and Sabayon Linux are probably my favourite distros because they fulfill these requires. Sabayon maybe downstream from Gentoo but Gentoo is such a complex and tedious distribution that I prefer Sabayon. Arch Linux is my preferred distro instead of Manjaro, although I have used Manjaro in the past, because of the fact that software updates come out so infrequently with Manjaro that I can't really call it a bleeding edge system like Arch or Sabayon.
10 • Release schedule of Fedora 24 had been delayed (by LiuYan on 2016-04-11 03:50:07 GMT from North America)
Fedora 24 Beta: 2016-05-03.
Fedora 24 Final: 2016-06-07.
11 • Upstream, downstream (by argent on 2016-04-11 05:19:06 GMT from North America)
@2: There are many systemd less distros, antiX, Devuan, and Openrc, these are but a few of them.
Check out Sourceforge: Devuan currently alpha 4, soon to be released beta, very good solid distro.
Star Morbius - Devaun
ZephyrLinux - Devuan
antiX - also a very excellent systemd-less distro.
Systemd can be removed and install Openrc, currently running VSIDO with this process.
@3: Yes, the options and choices are there!
12 • pclinuxos does not use systemd (by Elcaset on 2016-04-11 05:52:51 GMT from North America)
pclinuxos works well, & it's another distro that doesn't use systemd.
13 • Puppy Linux: downstream lighweight ... (by gregzeng on 2016-04-11 06:29:42 GMT from Oceania)
http://puppylinux.com/family-tree.html shows that there are only two living distributions; based on Slackware or Ubuntun14.04 LTS trusty tahr packages, 3.14.20 kernel. So they have old Linux kernels, which could be user updated.
"sharing the same principles, built using the same set of tools, and provide consistent features between all of them" ... meaning that it has ease of compilation for distribution creators, but nothing else for end-users?
According to Dw, the last Puppy release was Version 5, 28th Oct 2014 Version 6, dated 16th Dec 2015 has never been reviewed? http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/puppy-tahr/iso/tahrpup -6.0-CE/
As others have commented here, downstream lightweight versions of the upstream parents can easily be customized for our specific needs. All these lightweights can also be upscaled to most specialist needs, such as "Security", server, etc.
In my tests, I will now compare Puppy (#16, Ubuntu) with other similar Ubuntu-based distributions: Peppermint (#47) and wattOS (#63 on Dw). btw: the Dw distribution numbering system gives different results. If you use Dw:Search, this differs from the results on the home screen.
Puppy's claim to be able to run in memory, or off a CD, is no longer so amazing. Most good Linux distributions can now run "Live", in memory, without installation. I found that this "Live" method is the fastest, most accurate way to install any of the hundreds of Linux distributions that I have tested. If it can be put onto a USB stick and run "Live", it is very silly and primitive, so don't bother with it imho.
14 • Partitioning. (by Jag59 on 2016-04-11 06:32:35 GMT from Asia)
On my 500 GiB harddisk,I have 3 partitions of 30 GiB each and a 'data' partition of @370 GiB and a swap of 5 GiB. Three Linux OSs reside on each of 30 GiB partition without a separate home partition i.e. '/home' being in '/' of every OS.
Keeping a single '/home' for different OSs may lead to conflicts due to different versions of applications in the various OSs installed.
GRUB is installed at MBR of my main LTS Linux and other OSs' boot loader is at their '/'.
Better to keep minimum primary partitions to facilitate rearrangement of partitions if needed later.
PC-BSD needs 'Primary' partition to get installed.
Jesse already mentioned regarding presence of 'boot' partition if you want use ZFS or Btrfs.
I am not using LVM.
Folders in 'data' partition can be simlinked in each OS to store data accessable from all OSs.
15 • pclinuxos does not use systemd (by Elcaset on 2016-04-11 06:43:40 GMT from North America)
pclinuxos works well, & it's another distro that doesn't use systemd.
16 • Testing distros in VM. (by Jag59 on 2016-04-11 06:47:58 GMT from Asia)
I prefer real installation over VM, because in VM
1)Hibernate, sleep and successful resumeing from these cant be checked, which is required in real senerio.
2)Working of blue tooth can't be confirmed if it is not working in the the host OS.
3) Duel head/monitor performance, working of wacom pen tablet, smartphone connectivity etc. are the other things for which real installation is a must.
17 • pclinuxos does not use systemd (by Elcaset on 2016-04-11 06:50:45 GMT from North America)
pclinuxos works well, & it's another distro that doesn't use systemd.
18 • sorry for the unintentional triple posting. (by Elcaset on 2016-04-11 06:53:48 GMT from North America)
sorry for the unintentional triple posting. it happens every time I reload this page in my web browser. I'll stop using this browser until I fund the cause.
19 • puppy linux "family tree" page (by sam on 2016-04-11 07:00:25 GMT from North America)
@13 Seems you just glanced at the chart, without reading the entire page.
debiandog, fatdog64, simplicity linux... several current (active) puppy linux variants exist which aren't based on Slackware or Ubuntu.
20 • upstream, downstream (by thim on 2016-04-11 08:05:53 GMT from Europe)
For the last 3-4 years, my distro of choice is Slackware and it's vanilla approach has something to do with this.
IMHO, there are two kinds of downstream distros.
Some distros, (let's take the *buntus as example), are miles ahead in terms of compatibility with their mother distribution.
And there are distros fully compatible backwards (Salix to Slackware etc..). I think this is a huge difference too (for some users at least).
21 • Data partition. (by Antony on 2016-04-11 10:26:50 GMT from Europe)
Jag59 (@14) comments: " ..... a 'data' partition .... Linux OSs reside on each partition without a separate home partition i.e. '/home' being in '/' of every OS."
I have used this approach for *many* years. Works well.
22 • partitioning @14 (by Hoos on 2016-04-11 11:39:44 GMT from Asia)
My setup is similar to @14, except I have many more distros, each residing in a root partition of 25GB with no separate /home partition for each. My data and media are all in a large separate partition which each distro automounts on bootup.
For fixed release distros with no upgrade path, if there is a new version of the distro, I just install the newer version to an empty partition (lots of space on my HDD) and then copy over whatever configuration files, icons and themes I want from the older installed version.
I don't need to have the newer version look or be set up exactly the same as the older version so a fresh install gives me the chance to change things up if I choose.
Once everything I want has been copied, the older partition will be reformatted over, leaving an empty partition for future use.
23 • upstream or downstream (by Kazlu on 2016-04-11 12:21:26 GMT from Europe)
Normally, I would prefer upstream distros. After a few years of distro-hopping I drastically reduced the number of distros I was even willing to consider trying and eventually install due to lack of spare time. I ended up staying in the Debian ecosystem as much as possible. Vanilla Debian works fine and the Debian way of managing packages works fine with me. My most trouble free machine is a 9 year old HP laptop with Debian Wheezy, used 2 to 6 times a week.
The only problem I have with Debian is that it lacks some tools and configurations that I would normally expect from a desktop OS. I regularly discover I have to go command line to enable this or activate that in order to do simple tasks. For example, users are not by default in the group you need to be able to print... Not that it is necessarily bad, but it is what I would expect from a desktop OS. I have become tired of these little things and although I learned by setting those things right, sometimes I just don't have time for this. That's why I tried some downstream distros with varied rates of success. The last one is MX Linux (the antiX variant) and I must say it has impressed me a lot. It is downstream Debian but it uses the Debian repositories and is much easier to use from the beginning without being slowed down. Everything does not have the same level of polish and hand-dolding as an Ubuntu for example, but it is very complete, it has many tools which explain to you what they do even if they are not always pretty and it bloody works. In addition, no systemd, which has become optional to me but today I am satisfied I can still avoid using it for at least a few years. MX is clearly meant for intermediately experienced Linux users: a lot of thigs are already installed, available and configured with sane defaults, but you have many options you can tweak. I feel particularly well with this design, it really is what I needed.
The fact that MX uses the Debian repositories and adds its own software on it (most of it actually being backports from Debian Testing) instead of using its own repositories is really giving me trust in the quality of what I have installed on my machine. And it is for me an argument to take into account when comparing upstream and downstream distros: do they use their own repos or the parent distro repos? There are pros and cons in both ways, I personnaly prefer the second way, which allows for a distro that is closer to "the original distro with additional things" than "a complete distro which happens to use existing packages from another one". Besides, with antiX and MX, you have two distros with two similar yet different philosophies but with the same quality code base, that is a really good way to do things in my opinion.
24 • Down vs Up (by Jordan on 2016-04-11 12:40:11 GMT from North America)
Years ago I tried Slackware and Gentoo within about a week of each other.
That week between them was my ineptitude at getting Gentoo to work much at all.
Slackware went better, but I found myself wondering something like, "..just wtf am I DOING?"
So, yeah, downstream won, big time. Manjaro has my fancy now.. with a bit of chance taking on thumb drives with other distros of similar ilk.
25 • Ups & Downs (by Bill on 2016-04-11 14:07:40 GMT from North America)
I like both distro's as they both offer great performance. My main distro for the past several years has been Debian xfce 6, 7 & 8. My latest distro is Manjaro xfce. Manjaro does some things better than Debian such as auto setup of discard on a SSD and imagewriter for booting from a USB drive. It is a very fast and easy install compared to Debian.
The reason Debian is still my favourite distro is that it has a faster boot up time and quick overall with smooth operation of all the apps that I have installed and no update issues that Manjaro has had. However, I am impressed with how fast Manjaro has improved and have it installed on a separate HHD. They both are great distros, There are many others great choices in the Linux family.
26 • upstream vs downstream (by Bob McIsaac on 2016-04-11 14:28:57 GMT from North America)
I prefer Xubuntu because it has a comfortable look-and-feel and because it just works. Nothing interesting should happen with a daily distro because "interesting" usually leads to tedium and time wasted.
I just installed Manjaro 16 Xfce on a spare computer. It looks good and had no problems doing upgrades and web surfing.
27 • upstream and downstream (by ken on 2016-04-11 14:42:41 GMT from Africa)
I have voted upstream because my favourites are debian, centos and slackware but after voting I have thought of whether centos is upstream. Centos should be downstream of fedora I think.
28 • @8 Partitioning (by vw72 on 2016-04-11 16:20:24 GMT from North America)
openSUSE is one of the distros that allows/creates subvolumes for btrfs during the install. Coupling btrfs with snapper for rollbacks is pretty slick. If something goes wrong with an update, it is a simple matter to boot back into a previous snapshot.
29 • @28 going back to snapshot (by Bill Gates on 2016-04-11 17:06:06 GMT from North America)
Sort of like Windows. ;)
j/k
30 • @8 Old Arch Linux (by SilentSam on 2016-04-11 17:56:35 GMT from North America)
I definitely feel your pain... Old Arch Linux with the /etc/rc.conf file was the epitome of K.I.S.S... Definitely miss the ease of the one stop shop for configuration.
31 • Qubes OS (by Teresa e Junior on 2016-04-11 18:26:24 GMT from South America)
Qubes OS is an awesome idea, and is probably the best one can get today in terms of security. I know they support Debian besides Fedora too. The only problem for me is that it doesn't support 3D, which I need for Google Earth.
32 • @28 re:openSuSE (by Reuben Perelman on 2016-04-11 19:38:43 GMT from North America)
The problem with the SuSE installer is that it expects the top level subvolume to be /. Anaconda offers more flexibility.
33 • Upstream or Downstream (by Mike on 2016-04-12 04:45:25 GMT from Oceania)
I was a dedicated Debian user until a hardware failure just before Easter. I bought a new laptop and needed to be up and running real fast; including Java and MariaDb. So Mint became the obvious choice. It's horser for courses
34 • Disk Partitions: no /home (by cpoakes on 2016-04-12 07:44:36 GMT from North America)
If your hard disk contains multiple distros and even versions of those distros, a /home partition does not make sense. Your home directory doesn't contain generic data; the ~/.files and ~/.directories (including ~/.config) are often incompatible between versions and/or distros. It does make sense to have another common data partition for your well-defined/generic data (JPG, MP3, video, text, open document format files) to share between installed operating systems. One can even map the freedesktop.org XDG directories (XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR "Documents", XDG_MUSIC_DIR "Music" et al ) to this common data partition rather than leaving them assigned to directories in $HOME. (See .config/user-dirs.dirs).
35 • can I delete contents of /tmp (by Vytas on 2016-04-12 08:48:30 GMT from Europe)
Can I do?
rm -r /tmp/*
Is it safe?
36 • Success or not of new versions (by Gerhard Goetzhaber on 2016-04-12 14:22:47 GMT from Europe)
This is a matter rarely reported. So I want to mark out some according positive notice herein:
1. A distro I think much lesser recognized than actually worth is SPARKY! It's a kind of Debian Testing that brings with it the experience of a dynamically rolling as well as top administrated Debian. So trying it you may see the advantage of best hardware and even protected driver and software compatibility combined with pure progress in development. And the prerelease 4.3 is the first system of so many I've tried out where LXQt is really working fine. I suppose Sparky being the very best Debian based system at all!
2. For those who prefer the well established OSs CentOS should be possibly more often given a chance. Getting multimedia functionality on it may need a lot of commandline action to do, but EPEL, NUX and RPMFORGE do integrate well and make a stable and fine working multipurpose desktop out of the good old enterprise determined RedHat!
37 • RE: can I delete contents of /tmp (by Devesh on 2016-04-12 14:29:18 GMT from Africa)
Hi Vytas.
There is some session information stored in tmp so deleting it might cause some issues in your current session. Restarting in some distros, I know Debian, does clear it out. Is there any particular reason you want to do this?
I will give it a try sometime and report back.
38 • One more systemd-free distro (by bigbenaugust on 2016-04-12 14:30:33 GMT from North America)
LinuxMint Debian Edition (currently in its second iteration, based on Debian Jessie) is still on sysvinit. It's almost as friendly and easy to deal with as Mint, but all Debian Stable under the hood. Since you can treat it like a vanilla Debian box, apt and backports and switching init systems works great too. The Mint MATE setup is also great.
I have one LMDE2 box on systemd and one on sysvinit, and am using backports repos for LO and the kernel on both.
39 • security OS (by phishing licence $1m on 2016-04-13 02:39:03 GMT from Oceania)
As others have noted, new tech developments like wifi maintenance feature built into CPUs (like i5 & i7), offer new means of exploitation by hackers. So while security distros like Qubes and TAILS try to protect against malware, hackers have moved on to trying to infiltrate air-gapped computers. As always, security OS's are one step behind the hackers.
40 • Qubes (by some guy on 2016-04-13 04:08:40 GMT from Europe)
I've been wanting to try out Qubes for some time, but have been stymied verifying the download. There is no published checksum, and I just don't seem to be smart enough to follow the instructions for verifying signatures.
Also, the iso image is too large to fit on a standard DVD. Distrowatch reviews are usually all about installing the different distros, but you seem to have blown right past these two roadblocks without comment this week. Was your review system already installed?
41 • Linux Mint Debian & Qubes (by Rocket on 2016-04-13 06:58:52 GMT from North America)
Linux Mint Debian was awesome, I've installed it on many computers back in the day, unfortunately I dont know if its still being maintained at all. Qubes is awesome too, but you have to learn allot to be able to use it, and it was just too much for me, but I will keep coming back to this distro in the future cause its just so cool, then again I dont know if I will be able to figure out a way to do what I want on it.
I've been running FreeBSD 10.3 since the day it was released, been great so far. For people hating systemd and talking about old Arch, you should really try FreeBSD for a week. You can install binary packages from a repo by doing the pkg install command, you dont have to compile everything from ports, you have to edit rc.conf just like you used to in Arch years ago, the packages are mostly pretty recent, the OS is really solid and will probably last longer than your hard drive.
42 • Rollbacks (by Barnabyh on 2016-04-13 11:54:44 GMT from Europe)
Kind of reminds me of the Mono controversy back in the day. So SUSE still is the Windows of the Linux world with its snapshots -;). But no, yes I agree, it's good to have backups, it just so much reminds of the bad old days...
43 • Qubes (by Jesse on 2016-04-13 15:35:03 GMT from North America)
>> "Also, the iso image is too large to fit on a standard DVD. Distrowatch reviews are usually all about installing the different distros, but you seem to have blown right past these two roadblocks without comment this week. Was your review system already installed?"
Qubes OS publishes both checksums and signatures. And we included these in our release announcement for the project (https://distrowatch.com/?newsid=09323)
As for the size of the ISO, I believe Qubes is meant to be transferred to a thumb drive, not run from a DVD. As i started in my review, I did not install Qubes, I ran the operating system as a live environment.
44 • Qubes (by some guy on 2016-04-13 16:16:30 GMT from Europe)
So you did publish the checksums! Thanks.
The newest 3.1 Qubes only had instructions for verifying the earlier version. I gave up on that and tried the install anyway. USB drive weirdness across three operating systems prevented me from going further.
Just my experience. Maybe it will help in making the next version a bit more accessible.
45 • Upstream vs. Downstream (by Microlinux on 2016-04-13 17:18:44 GMT from Europe)
I *am* downstream. http://www.microlinux.eu
:o)
46 • LMDE 2 (by M.Z. on 2016-04-13 19:42:27 GMT from North America)
@41 - LMDE 1 reached EOL in January
If you had an original LMDE system you should have upgraded the old rolling release version to LMDE 2 already. The Mint team tried to make it clear that the old rolling version was being dropped & that users needed to switch to the new version based on Debian Stable. The new LMDE maintains a piece of the old versions cutting edge nature my automatically updating Mint tools & the desktop (either Cinnamon or Mate) to the latest version, while keeping the same Debian Stable base. The End Of Life plans for LMDE 1 & the upgrade path to LMDE 2 were covered many months ago:
http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2832
I don't know about the upgrade path, but I put LMDE 2 Cinnamon on my laptop around the time it came put & have been fairly happy with it since. It's quite solid & easy to use as ever, though I find Mint KDE has easier to configure wifi than the LMDE & Mageia systems I'm multi-booting with. The only other thing I don't like is that Cinnamon has a tearing issue with some full screen video that I don't really get in KDE. Overall LMDE 2 is excellent, & if you had version one installed on anything you want security updates for you should definitely upgrade.
@46 - Firefox
Firefox works well for me, while Chrome is a fat memory hogging piece of spyware. I do like Opera okay & have some trust in them even if their product is no better than Firefox, & of course I need Chrome for Netflix. Otherwise I wouldn't use Chrome for anything as it's fat & slow compared to Firefox & yes I also speak from experience.
47 • Clementine 1.3.0 (Music Player) Released @ 4/15/2016 - A Massive Release! (by iateachickenonce on 2016-04-16 08:09:34 GMT from Netherlands)
"Clementine is a modern music player and library organizer for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X."
https://www.clementine-player.org/
48 • http://buymadden15coins.spruz.com/pt/nba-2k16-mt-a-step-by-step.4-14-2016/blog.htm (by nba2k16mtratings on 2016-04-17 04:21:04 GMT from North America)
I like this site - its so usefull and helpfull.|
49 • 47 - Clementine (by edked on 2016-04-17 04:42:03 GMT from North America)
Clementine is dead to me until they reverse their decision to remove lipgpod support.
They could also remove "copy to and from your iPod and iPhone" from the feature list on their main page while this feature continues to be missing.
50 • xfce (by xfce on 2016-04-17 06:18:32 GMT from Europe)
"Recently switched from Debian Sid (an upstream distro) to Manjaro (downstream) because Manjaro is more up to date."
Use the Xfce desktop and proprietary drivers form nvidia site. For amd graphics, amdgpu and radeon kernel drivers are good. Play dx9 games and don to cry after lates opengl features. Use a custom kernel from kernel.org to speed up your system. No reasons to switch from debian sid.
Number of Comments: 50
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1176 (2026-06-08): Redcore Linux 2601, the problem with minimal system requirements, Red Hat account linked to compromised npm repositories, COSMIC to get frosted glass effect, openSUSE shows off system extension manager, Origami merges with RakuOS |
| • Issue 1175 (2026-06-01): PineTab2 with various distros, less common words of wisdom, Canonical shutting down Ubuntu's Pastebin, Murena nears 100k users, DistroWatch turns 25 |
| • Issue 1174 (2026-05-25): Solus 4.9, Linux tablets, Haiku boots on Apple M1 machines, Fedora drops Deepin packages, Mint improves Nemo performance |
| • Issue 1173 (2026-05-18): Sylve on FreeBSD, the benefit of BleachBit, Debian commits to reproducible builds, Debian publishes updated install media, Haiku introduces SMP support on ARM64 processors, Rocky Linux creates opt-in security repository, Fedora reconsiders AI tools, KDE receives generous donation |
| • Issue 1172 (2026-05-11): Fedora 44, dealing with extra fonts, Fedora plans to provide AI tools, problems with Ubuntu's new coreutils, TrueNAS extends its development cycle, postmarktetOS improves the boot splash screen, Redox ports tmux |
| • Issue 1171 (2026-05-04): Xubuntu 26.04, extending memory with VRAM, Ubuntu plans AI features, Devuan developer forks GTK2, Mint introduces hardware enablement builds, Linux running on a PlayStation 5, local kernel exploit found in Linux |
| • Issue 1170 (2026-04-27): ENux 5.2.1, picking a second distro, AlmaLinux expands CPU support, FreeBSD publishes Status Report, Ubuntu MATE skips 26.04 release |
| • Issue 1169 (2026-04-20): Lakka 6.1, free software and source-based distributions, FreeBSD Foundation publishes compatible laptop list, Debian holds Project Leader election, Haiku progresses ARM64 port, Mint to extend development cycle, Linux 7.0 released |
| • Issue 1168 (2026-04-13): pearOS 2026.03, EndeavourOS 2026.03.06, which distros are adopting age verification, Arch adjusts its firewall packages, Linux dropping i486 support, Red Hat extends its release cycle, Debian's APT introduces rollbacks, Redox improves its scheduler |
| • Issue 1167 (2026-04-06): Origami Linux 2026.03, answering questions for Linux newcomers, Ubuntu MATE seeking new contributors, Ubuntu software centre is expanding Deb support, FreeBSD fixes forum exploit, openSUSE 15 Leap nears its end of life |
| • Issue 1166 (2026-03-30): NetBSD jails, publishing software for Linux, Ubuntu joins Rust Foundation, Canonical plans to trim GRUB features, Peppermint works on new utilities, PINE64 shows off open hardware capabilities |
| • Issue 1165 (2026-03-23): Argent Linux 1.5.3, disk space required by Linux, Manjaro team goes on strike, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA driver support and builds RISC-V packages, systemd introduces age tracking |
| • Issue 1164 (2026-03-16): d77void, age verification laws and Linux, SUSE may be for sale, TrueNAS takes its build system private, Debian publishes updated Trixie media, MidnightBSD and System76 respond to age verification laws |
| • Issue 1163 (2026-03-09): KaOS 2026.02, TinyCore 17.0, NuTyX 26.02.2, Would one big collection of packages help?, Guix offers 64-bit Hurd options, Linux communities discuss age delcaration laws, Mint unveils new screensaver for Cinnamon, Redox ports new COSMIC features |
| • Issue 1162 (2026-03-02): AerynOS 2026.01, anti-virus and firewall tools, Manjaro fixes website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating a map app |
| • Issue 1161 (2026-02-23): The Guix package manager, quick Q&As, Gentoo migrating its mirrors, Fedora considers more informative kernel panic screens, GhostBSD testing alternative X11 implementation, Asahi makes progress with Apple M3, NetBSD userland ported, FreeBSD improves web-based system management |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Full list of all issues |
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ChaletOS
ChaletOS was a beginner-friendly Linux distribution based on Xubuntu and featuring the Xfce desktop. It provides a simple and intuitive desktop interface, modest hardware requirements and five years of security support. The name ChaletOS was derived from Swiss mountain houses whose concepts of simplicity, beauty and recognisability inspired the creation and design of ChaletOS.
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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