 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 665, 13 June 2016 |
Welcome to this year's 24th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
In recent months we have been working on cleaning up our waiting list of distributions and adding more projects to our database. One project which we have recently added to our database has also received several review requests. The distribution is BunsenLabs Linux and Jesse Smith's review of this Debian-based project is our Feature Story this week. In our News section we discuss delays in Fedora 24's schedule, the growth of code bases (using NetBSD as an example) and cover Ubuntu MATE updating their copy of the MATE desktop environment. In our Questions and Answer column we discuss Clonezilla and its limitations. We then provide a list of the torrents we are seeding and cover the distributions released last week. In our Opinion Poll we talk about IPv6 adoption and we welcome the BlueOnyx distribution to our database. Plus we are happy to report we received a generous donation from Metapress. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading.
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (22MB) and MP3 (32MB) formats
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
BunsenLabs Linux
BunsenLabs Linux was recently added to the DistroWatch database and has been one of our most requested reviews this year. For those who have not encountered the project before, the distribution's website describes BunsenLabs as follows:
BunsenLabs Linux is a distribution offering a light-weight and easily customizable Openbox desktop. The current release is Hydrogen, built on top of Debian Jessie. The project is a community continuation of CrunchBang Linux.
The Hydrogen release of BunsenLabs (or simply Bunsen as I will refer to the distribution during this review) is essentially Debian Stable with a few customizations. They are listed on the Bunsen website as follows:
- Pre-configured Openbox window manager with tint2 panel and Conky system monitor
- Assortment of harmonizing GTK2/3 themes, wallpapers and Conky configurations
- Various configuration and application utilities to maintain this system
- Additional desktop-, multimedia- and hardware-related packages come pre-installed to offer a better out-of-the-box experience.
The Hydrogen release is available in 32-bit and 64-bit builds for the x86 CPU architecture. There is an extra 32-bit build which does not require PAE support in the computer's CPU, making this edition suitable for older machines. I downloaded the 64-bit build which is available as a 836MB download.
Booting from Bunsen's media brings up a menu asking if we would like to explore the distribution's live environment, run a text installer or launch a graphical system installer. Taking the live option brings up a graphical environment powered by the Openbox window manager. The default theme displays a grey background with a grey panel at the top of the screen. The panel includes a quick-launch bar on the left, a task switcher in the middle and there is a system tray on the right side of the panel. A Conky status panel sits on the right side of the display and provides data on the operating system's resource usage. We can right-click on any empty part of the screen to bring up an application menu.
After confirming the distribution was running smoothly, I looked around for a system installer, but did not find one. I rebooted and took the graphical installer option from the live media's boot menu.
Bunsen uses Debian's graphical system installer and the experience of installing Bunsen is almost identical to installing recent releases of Debian. The only technical difference I noted was that Bunsen's version of the installer did not ask me to create a password for the root account. The only other difference was visual. While Debian's version of the installer uses a red, white and grey theme, Bunsen uses a grey-on-grey theme which makes all of the buttons and elements on the screen look as though they have been disabled.
BunsenLabs Linux Hydrogen -- The system installer
(full image size: 26kB, resolution: 800x600 pixels)
The system installer walks us through selecting our region, language and computer's hostname. We set up a user account, choose our time zone from a list and then partition the hard drive. Bunsen's installer supports both guided partitioning and manual partitioning. The manual option gives us access to ext2/3/4, Btrfs, JFS and XFS along with RAID and LVM configurations. The guided partitioning method sets us up with a ext4 partition and a swap partition with the option of adding a separate /home partition. Once our disk has been partitioned and the installer has copied its packages to our hard drive we are given the option of installing the GRUB boot loader on the storage device of our choice. The system installer then reports it has finished and we can reboot the computer to start exploring the Bunsen distribution.
Booting into Bunsen brings us to a grey-on-grey login screen. Signing into our account brings us back to the Openbox environment. The first time we sign into our account, a terminal window opens and provides a brief welcome message. The message tells us a script will run to help us set up the system. We are told we should have an active Internet connection and the sudo/admin password before beginning the customization process. At this point in the process there is no admin password (the system installer does not set one and the root account is locked) so the user needs to know that their password is the sudo password. The configuration script then warns us against adding Ubuntu PPAs to the system and tells us it is a bad idea to install newer versions of software not available in the official repositories.
The configuration script then walks us through a series of steps beginning with updating our package repository information and then installing any available security updates. The script then checks to see if we are running Bunsen on a laptop and, if not, offers to remove the power status indicator package. A similar check looks for hardware which supports PAE and offers to install an appropriate kernel. We are then given the option of installing 83MB of additional wallpapers. Since all of the wallpapers in Bunsen's default collection are grey, I happily downloaded the additional package. Next, the welcome script reports LibreOffice Writer is the only member of the LibreOffice suite installed by default and offers to install the rest of the LibreOffice applications (a 75MB download). Likewise, we are given the chance to install printer support (33MB).
The welcome script performs one step at a time, offering a new feature and then installing it before asking its next question. After the first half hour, I found myself wishing the script had asked all of its questions up front and then performed its actions in one big batch. The welcome script continues though, offering to install Java and enabling a Backports repository with newer versions of software. In my case, adding the Backports software repository failed and the script abruptly terminated after having run for about forty minutes.
BunsenLabs Linux Hydrogen -- Running Openbox with the default theme
(full image size: 731kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
<<
While the welcome script was running, I was exploring the Openbox environment and found a few characteristics which rubbed me the wrong way. For example, when I was trying to scroll with my computer's mouse wheel, sometimes windows would scroll as expected, but sometimes Openbox would switch me to a different virtual desktop. I found that going into the Openbox Preferences panel (accessible through the application menu) allowed me to disable extra virtual desktops and avoid the issue. I also found the ubiquitous grey theme difficult to look at and, to be honest, a bit depressing and so added a splash of colour to the theme and changed the wallpaper. Perhaps my least favourite feature of the user interface was Conky, which I always find more distracting than useful. Disabling all Conky configurations (again through the Openbox application menu) would temporarily shut down the resource monitor, but Conky always returned the next time I logged in. I decided to simply remove Conky from the system and found there were multiple conky packages installed, removing these cleared up my visual environment.
BunsenLabs Linux Hydrogen -- Using the Iceweasel web browser
(full image size: 450kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Looking through Bunsen's application menu we find a fairly standard collection of software. The Iceweasel web browser is present (Flash is not included by default), along with the Filezilla file transfer application, the Transmission bittorrent software and the HexChat IRC client. LibreOffice Writer is installed and, during the initial configuration, we have the option of adding the rest of the productivity suite. The Gnumeric spreadsheet application is present, along with the Evince PDF viewer and a calculator. The application menu includes a link to the Google Docs website which opens in Iceweasel. Further investigation turns up the VLC multimedia player and a full range of media codecs, allowing us to play a range of audio and video files. The Xfburn disc burning application is present along with the Mirage image viewer and a screen shot utility. Bunsen uses the Thunar file manager, offers us an archive manager and the htop process monitor. There are applications for setting up printers and partitioning the hard drive. Plus I found a sub-menu of links which connect us to on-line support forums, Debian's Handbook and the Arch Linux wiki. Bunsen ships with Network Manager to help us get on-line and systemd version 215. In the background we find version 3.16 of the Linux kernel.
Exploring and using the applications provided, I found the default programs all worked as expected. I was able to get on-line, add printers to my system, edit documents and watch funny cat videos on YouTube. The only item in the Bunsen application menu that did not seem to function properly was a program called "About Bunsen Alternatives". Launching this program would open an empty window with no content. I'm not sure what this program was supposed to do, but it didn't do anything (good or bad) when I ran it.
BunsenLabs Linux Hydrogen -- Installing software updates through Synaptic
(full image size: 518kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Should we need additional software, or if we want to install security updates, we can turn to the Synaptic graphical front-end for package management. Synaptic presents us with software categories and filtering options on the left side of the window and a list of low-level software packages on the right that meet our search criteria. We can click a box next to packages to mark them for installation, removal or updating. I generally found Synaptic worked quickly and without problems. I think newcomers might find it difficult to navigate Synaptic as we usually need to know the name of a package we want to install, but otherwise the graphical front-end worked well.
One feature of Bunsen I enjoyed was the distribution's alternative approach to installing software. In the application menu we find categories of software, such as Graphics or Network. In these categories we find launchers for available applications and we also find a sub-menu called Install which provides a list of programs in the category we could install. For example, in the Graphics category there is an Install sub-menu which contains "GIMP". Clicking this item installs the GNU Image Manipulation Program for us. Likewise, in the Network menu we find an Install sub-menu where we can click buttons to install Opera and the Google Chrome web browser. These menu short-cuts made it easy to quickly install additional software without the need for opening a new window to manage packages.
I tried running Bunsen in two environments, a VirtualBox virtual machine and on a desktop computer. When run in VirtualBox everything worked smoothly, but my screen resolution was somewhat limited. I was able to install VirtualBox guest modules from the default repositories and doing so allowed me to run Bunsen with full screen resolution. When running on the desktop computer, Bunsen performed well. The operating system properly set up a network connection, sound worked out of the box and my display's full resolution was used. Bunsen performed quickly in both environments and the Openbox window manager was pleasantly responsive. The distribution was fairly light in memory, using approximately 225MB of RAM when logged into the Openbox environment.
BunsenLabs Linux Hydrogen -- Exploring Openbox and Conky settings
(full image size: 645kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Conclusions
When I first started using BunsenLabs Linux I did not enjoy the experience. At first, it felt like installing Debian with a depressing theme and fewer features. The initial installation and configuration steps felt overly long and complicated. The Openbox environment lacked the features of fuller desktop environments while, at the same time, offering unwanted distractions such as Conky and extra virtual desktops. It would be fair to say the first two or three hours with Bunsen were unpleasant for me.
However, there was definitely a turning point during my trial. Around the start of the second day -- once I had a more colourful theme in place, the Conky packages had been banished and I had got into the habit of installing software I wanted from the application menu -- there was a point where I began to enjoy Bunsen. The distribution's hardware and multimedia support were top notch, performance and the interface's responsiveness were excellent and the applications available all worked properly. Openbox has enough configuration tools to make it flexible without being overwhelming. What really sold me on the distribution though was the way Openbox stayed out of my way, a feature I feel Debian's default desktop does not offer.
At the end of my trial, I still had some mixed feelings. As much as Bunsen grew on me, I couldn't help but feel the experience felt very much like installing Debian and adding the Openbox window manager as a session option. While Bunsen takes care of that step for us, it also adds several extra steps during the initial configuration that made me feel like going with plain Debian and installing Openbox might have been faster and easier.
In the end, I did grow to like Bunsen with its clean, fast user interface. I like the distribution's tweaks to Debian such as adding sudo and providing application menu installers. I think the initial welcome script should probably either be automated or ask all its questions up front and then go to work in the background. It took a while for me to get the interface looking the way I wanted it to and less like the inside of a mine shaft, but once I did the distribution provided a good set of default applications and desktop functionality.
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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 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Fedora 24 delayed again, NetBSD grows, Ubuntu MATE updates MATE desktop
The Fedora developers have decided to delay the launch of Fedora 24 a fourth time. The upcoming release of Fedora 24 was originally scheduled to be made public on May 17th, but various bugs have caused the project to hold off on publishing the new version. The updated schedule calls for Fedora 24 to be launched on June 21st. The Fedora team has merged a lot of significant changes into Fedora 24, including GNOME 3.20 and version 6 of the GNU Compiler Collection.
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Operating systems and applications tend to grow in size over time, taking up more resources as new features, security checks and layers of abstraction are added. While we tend not to notice software's expansion year-to-year, software does tend to gain significant bloat over time. Krister Walfridsson has begun an investigation into the growth of software, using NetBSD as an example. The initial results show great increases in size over the past 14 years. "These plots do not say much, and code increase is not necessarily bad, even on constrained platforms, if unused functionality never gets paged in. My plan is to look into the details of the reason for these increases (such as new functionality, support for more hardware, compiler changes, careless developers, etc.), to get a feel for how much each reason contributes. Please let me know if there are some specific questions you want me to investigate!" Walfridsson plans to explore why NetBSD has grown so much over the years in future blog posts.
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People who wish to enjoy the most recent version of the MATE desktop environment on the popular Ubuntu MATE distribution are in luck: Martin Wimpress has announced MATE 1.14 is now available for people running Ubuntu MATE 16.04. "You might be wondering why it has taken two months to release this PPA? Here's why: they've been well tested. The packages in this PPA are derived from the MATE Desktop 1.14 packages that were recently uploaded to Debian Unstable. The upgrade issues encountered in Debian Unstable have been fixed and all the packages have transitioned to Debian Testing. All the upgrade fixes are included in this PPA to ensure a smooth transition. We also waited for the first MATE desktop bugfix release, so what you are getting today is actually MATE desktop 1.14.1." Details on how to install the MATE update can be found in the announcement.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Clearing up Clonezilla
Bring-in-the-clones asks:
Thanks for the informative Clonezilla review. I was wondering what happens if I try to backup and/or restore GRUB2 when it is installed in the MBR? I assume in that case it would require a full disk backup/restore, not just partitions? Or can the MBR also be imaged? And what about limitations or gotchas with full disk images being restored to disks of different sizes?
DistroWatch answers: When you want to backup your GRUB installation from the MBR then you need to do a full backup/restore of the entire hard drive. The MBR is not considered a partition by Clonezilla and it will not be affected by individual partition saves/restores. So your assumptions are correct, do a full disk backup if you want to preserve GRUB.
The MBR cannot (so far as I know) be imaged on its own by Clonezilla. You can either do a full disk backup or you can backup individual partitions and then use a live disc to re-install GRUB on the new hard drive.
Regarding doing backups/restores to disks of different sizes, you cannot restore an image to a smaller physical disk. The operation will fail since the cloning process will run out of room on the new disk. You can restore an image to a larger disk. Your partitions will be their original size and some disk space will be wasted. In that case you may use a tool like GParted to expand the new partitions after you restore the image.
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Past Questions and Answers columns can be found in our Q&A Archive.
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
Bittorrent is a great way to transfer large files, particularly open source operating system images, from one place to another. Most bittorrent clients recover from dropped connections automatically, check the integrity of files and can re-download corrupted bits of data without starting a download over from scratch. These characteristics make bittorrent well suited for distributing open source operating systems, particularly to regions where Internet connections are slow or unstable.
Many Linux and BSD projects offer bittorrent as a download option, partly for the reasons listed above and partly because bittorrent's peer-to-peer nature takes some of the strain off the project's servers. However, some projects do not offer bittorrent as a download option. There can be several reasons for excluding bittorrent as an option. Some projects do not have enough time or volunteers, some may be restricted by their web host provider's terms of service. Whatever the reason, the lack of a bittorrent option puts more strain on a distribution's bandwidth and may prevent some people from downloading their preferred open source operating system.
With this in mind, DistroWatch plans to give back to the open source community by hosting and seeding bittorrent files. For now, we are hosting a small number of distribution torrents, listed below. The list of torrents offered will be updated each week and we invite readers to e-mail us with suggestions as to which distributions we should be hosting. When you message us, please place the word "Torrent" in the subject line, make sure to include a link to the ISO file you want us to seed. To help us maintain and grow this free service, please consider making a donation.
The table below provides a list of torrents we currently host. If you do not currently have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found here. All torrents we make available here are also listed on the very useful Linux Tracker website. Thanks to Linux Tracker we are able to share the following torrent statistics.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 203
- Total data uploaded: 37.0TB
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| Released Last Week |
Manjaro Linux 16.06
Philip Muller has announced a new release of Manjaro Linux, an Arch-based rolling release distribution. The new version, Manjaro Linux 16.06, features Linux kernel 4.4 (along with ten alternative kernel versions) and many improvements to the graphical software manager. "Some features to point out in this release: Kernel 4.4 LTS is used for this release, such as the latest drivers available to date. Relative to the last installation media release, our tools have been improved and polished. The Manjaro Settings Manager (MSM) now provides an easy-to-use graphical interface for installing and removing the many series of kernels we offer. Manjaro's selection of available kernels remains the most extensive of all Linux distribution we know of. At the time of this 16.06 release, eleven kernel-series are available directly from our binary repositories, ranging from the mature & rock-solid 3.10 series to the latest 4.6 release. Such a wide array of available kernel options results in extensive hardware support, getting the most out of your system for you, be it old or new. We also created a kcm module to integrate MSM seamlessly into System-Settings of Plasma 5. We have now several notifier for MSM to be installed optionally." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Manjaro Linux 16.06 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 176kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Tails 2.4
The Amnesic Incognito Live System (Tails) is a Debian-based live disc with the goal of providing Internet anonymity for the user. The project's latest release, Tails 2.4, includes security updates, firewall enhancements and additional security checks built into the Icedove e-mail client. "We enabled the automatic account configuration of Icedove which discovers the correct parameters to connect to your email provider based on your email address. We improved it to rely only on secure protocol and we are working on sharing these improvements with Mozilla so that users of Thunderbird outside Tails can benefit from them as well. Upgrades and changes: update Tor Browser to 6.0.1, based on Firefox 45.; remove the pre-configured #tails IRC channel, join us on XMPP instead; always display minimize and maximize buttons in title bars; remove GNOME Tweak Tool and hledger...." Additional information and a list of corrected issues can be found in the project's release announcement. Steps for downloading and verifying the integrity of the distribution's live media are provided.
HandyLinux 2.5
The HandyLinux distribution, a user-friendly French distribution based on Debian, has released an update to the project's 2.x series. The new version, HandyLinux 2.5, offers mostly minor updates and bug fixes and is based on Debian 8.5. An English translation of the project's release announcement lists the changes in 2.5: "Update the base to Debian 8.5. Update Firefox to version 47. Setting up a service hosting images. Everything is hosted on servers controlled by HandyLinux to avoid some risky images on other services. Update Thunar custom actions. Update Handysoft by Thuban (mainly bug fixes and better management of search). Added translations for Handysoft by the distribution Emmabuntüs. Thanks to them! Added Xfwm4 theme (window borders)..."
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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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| Opinion Poll |
Accessing the Internet using IPv6
Last week we announced that IPv6 access had been added to the DistroWatch web server. This week we would like to get a feel for how many of our readers are accessing the web using IPv6 addresses. Do you use the more common IPv4, the newer IPv6, or perhaps a combination of both? Please let us know what your experiences with IPv6 have been.
You can see the results of our previous poll on open source projects raising funds here. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Accessing the Internet using IPv6
| I use IPv4 exclusively: | 734 (53%) |
| I use IPv6 exclusively: | 13 (1%) |
| I use a mixture of IPv4 and IPv6: | 307 (22%) |
| I do not know: | 325 (24%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Donation from Metapress
Usually we talk about donations we make to open source projects. We feel it is important to give back to the community which writes the software we use every day. What we tend not to mention is that some generous readers and projects feel we are also a useful resource and very generously send us money to help us keep DistroWatch running. This past week we received $100.00 USD from Metapress.
We greatly appreciate it when people and companies support us and we thank Metapress for their generosity.
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Distributions added to the database
BlueOnyx
BlueOnyx is a server distribution based on CentOS. It is the mission of BlueOnyx to provide a fully-integrated Internet hosting platform that includes web, e-mail, DNS and file transfer services from a simple, user-friendly web-based interface that is easily installed on commodity hardware or virtual private server.
BlueOnyx 5209R -- The web-based control panel
(full image size: 333kB, resolution: 1221x1004 pixels)
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 20 June 2016. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Issue 1032 (2023-08-14): MX Linux 23, positioning new windows on the desktop, Linux Containers adopts LXD fork, Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ form OpenELA |
| • Issue 1031 (2023-08-07): Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, preventing a file from being changed, Asahi Linux partners with Fedora, Linux Mint plans new releases |
| • Issue 1030 (2023-07-31): Solus 4.4, Linux Mint 21.2, Debian introduces RISC-V support, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 |
| • Issue 1029 (2023-07-24): Running Murena on the Fairphone 4, Flatpak vs Snap sandboxing technologies, Redox OS plans to borrow Linux drivers to expand hardware support, Debian updates Bookworm media |
| • Issue 1028 (2023-07-17): KDE Connect; Oracle, SUSE, and AlmaLinux repsond to Red Hat's source code policy change, KaOS issues media fix, Slackware turns 30; security and immutable distributions |
| • Issue 1027 (2023-07-10): Crystal Linux 2023-03-16, StartOS (embassyOS 0.3.4.2), changing options on a mounted filesystem, Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Fedora debates telemetry for desktop team |
| • Issue 1026 (2023-07-03): Kumander Linux 1.0, Red Hat changing its approach to sharing source code, TrueNAS offers SMB Multichannel, Zorin OS introduces upgrade utility |
| • Issue 1025 (2023-06-26): KaOS with Plasma 6, information which can leak from desktop environments, Red Hat closes door on sharing RHEL source code, SUSE introduces new security features |
| • Issue 1024 (2023-06-19): Debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Debian releases GNU/Hurd 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 nears its end of life, FreeBSD turns 30 |
| • Issue 1023 (2023-06-12): openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the differences between independent distributions, openSUSE lengthens Leap life, Murena offers new phone for North America |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Issue 993 (2022-11-07): Static Linux, working with just a kernel, Mint streamlines Flatpak management, updates coming to elementary OS |
| • Issue 992 (2022-10-31): Lubuntu 22.10, setting permissions on home directories, Linux may drop i486, Fedora delays next version for OpenSSL bug |
| • Issue 991 (2022-10-24): XeroLinux 2022.09, learning who ran sudo, exploring firewall tools, Rolling Rhino Remix gets a fresh start, Fedora plans to revamp live media |
| • Issue 990 (2022-10-17): ravynOS 0.4.0, Lion Linux 3.0, accessing low numbered network ports, Pop!_OS makes progress on COSMIC, Murena launches new phone |
| • Issue 989 (2022-10-10): Ubuntu Unity, kernel bug causes issues with Intel cards, Canonical offers free Ubuntu Pro subscriptions, customizing the command line prompt |
| • Issue 988 (2022-10-03): SpiralLinux 11.220628, finding distros for older equipment and other purposes, SUSE begins releasing ALP prototypes, Debian votes on non-free firmware in installer |
| • Issue 987 (2022-09-26): openSUSE's MicroOS, converting people to using Linux, pfSense updates base system and PHP, Python 2 dropped from Arch |
| • Issue 986 (2022-09-19): Porteus 5.0, remotely wiping a hard drive, a new software centre for Ubuntu, Proxmox offers offline updates |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Ubuntu Unity
Ubuntu Unity is a flavour of Ubuntu featuring the Unity desktop environment (the default desktop environment developed and used by Ubuntu from 2010 to 2017). Unity debuted in the netbook edition of Ubuntu 10.10; it was initially designed to make more efficient use of space given the limited screen size of netbooks, including a vertical application switcher called "the launcher" and a space-saving horizontal multipurpose top menu bar. Ubuntu switched from Unity to GNOME in 2017, but the desktop was resurrected again as an unofficial "Ubuntu Unity Remix" in 2020. It became an official flavour of Ubuntu during the development cycle of Ubuntu 22.10 in 2022.
Status: Active
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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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