 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 678, 12 September 2016 |
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Welcome to this year's 37th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
One pleasant feature of open source software is it allows for the mingling and cross-pollination of technologies. When one developer comes up with a good idea, it can be shared, improved upon and spread around the community. This week, in our News section, we look at three projects sharing and improving technologies. We begin with Mageia which is adopting Fedora's DNF package manager. We also talk about KDE neon testing Wayland and FreeBSD updating its Linux compatibility software. Plus we report on Adobe updating the Linux version of Flash. In our Feature Story this week we cover Apricity OS, an Arch Linux based distribution. Additionally, in our Questions and Answers column we talk about scheduling automated tasks using a tool called cron. We also share the distribution releases of the past week and provide a list of torrents we are seeding. In our Opinion Poll we talk about preferred web browsers and ask what our readers are using. We wish you all a great week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (30MB) and MP3 (43MB) formats
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Apricity OS 07.2016
Apricity OS was added to the DistroWatch database earlier this year and the project launched its first stable release, Apricity OS 07.2016, at the beginning of August. Apricity is based on Arch Linux and features a rolling release model of software updates. The distribution is currently available in two editions, Cinnamon and GNOME, and is available for the 64-bit x86 architecture exclusively. Apart from up to date software, Apricity offers users the ICE site specific browser which makes accessing web apps more like working with locally installed applications.
I decided to download the distribution's Cinnamon edition, which is available as a 1.9GB ISO. Booting from the downloaded media brings up the Cinnamon desktop environment. The wallpaper features a bright landscape image. The desktop's application menu, task switcher and system tray sit at the bottom of the display. There are no icons on the live desktop. We can access the distribution's system installer through a quick-launch icon next to the application menu. We can also launch the system installer through the application menu.
Apricity 07.2016 -- The Cinnamon application menu
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Apricity uses the Calamares graphical installer, which is becoming increasingly popular as a distribution-neutral installation method. Calamares offers a nice, streamlined series of steps. We begin by selecting our preferred language and choosing our time zone from a map of the world. Calamares then gets us to select our keyboard's layout. When it comes to partitioning, the installer will let us either wipe the hard drive and use a default partition layout or we can manually divide up our disk. The manual partitioning method is fairly simple and supports lots of options. We can work with GPT and MBR disk layouts. Apricity can be set up on the ext2/3/4, JFS, XFS or Reiser file systems and the installer supports working with LVM volumes. The next screen gets us to create a user account for ourselves and we can optionally set up our account to automatically login. From there, Calamares shows us a summary of the actions it plans to take and waits for us to confirm its settings are correct. The installer then copies its files to our hard drive and offers to either return us to the live desktop environment or reboot the computer.
My new copy of Apricity booted to a graphical login screen. Attempting to sign into my account caused the screen to go blank for a second before returning me to the login screen. I found I was unable to login using either my normal user account or the root user account. Both the Cinnamon and GNOME desktop environments were listed as possible session options and neither of these worked for me, both returning me immediately to the login screen.
I found it was possible to switch to a text console and sign in from there, accessing both the root account and my regular user account. While the text session worked, the terminal font in the command prompt did not display properly, showing little blocks in place of letters. I could navigate the file system and use command line tools, but I could not launch new graphical desktop sessions from the command line, nor could I find any obvious reason for the lack of a working desktop session. The X server was running and file permissions were correct. The X logs gave no useful clue as to why connections to the display server were not working.
I next decided to install available software updates to see if that would fix the missing desktop issue. Apricity, like its parent distribution, uses the pacman command line package manager. Using pacman, I installed many new packages, totalling 446MB in size. Following a successful update, I rebooted the computer and discovered I was right where I had left off, with a working text console, a graphical login screen and no functional desktop session.
As it seemed I was stuck without a functional desktop on my locally installed copy of Apricity, I decided to shift gears and spend some time using the live desktop on the installation media. The live desktop was surprisingly responsive and the distribution was quick to boot and run applications in the live environment. While a live session does not give a complete picture of how a distribution will run, it can give us clues and what follows are some observations I made while using the live disc.
Apricity 07.2016 -- Running desktop applications
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I mostly enjoyed Apricity's default desktop theme. I found the icons and desktop to be easy on the eyes. My one complaint with the default theme was that windows tended not to have distinct borders. This made windows, with their white and grey colours, blend into each other. Sometimes I wasn't sure which window's menu I was looking at since two or three windows open at the same time all looked like one big blob.
While most Linux distributions use bash as the default command line shell, Apricity uses zsh. The two shells are similar enough to make the transition fairly easy and I tended to only notice differences when using the Tab key to complete file names.
The distribution uses pacman as the command line package manager and Pamac for its graphical front-end. Pamac presents us with a simple text-based list of package names. Each package is listed with its size and version. There are filters for narrowing down the list of packages, but there are so many software categories the categories could use their own filter. I found Pacman could enable/disable available repositories and there is a Pamac-updater application which will list and install available software updates.
Apricity 07.2016 -- The Pamac software manager
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On the subject of software, Apricity ships with many useful desktop applications. Looking through the live disc's application menu I found the Chrome web browser, the FileZilla file transfer program, the Transmission bittorrent software and the Syncthing file sync application. I don't usually see Syncthing installed by default, but I like the concept of having an easy way to sync and share files. Sharing large files between geographically separate people is still often a non-trivial process and I like that Apricity is offering a solution which does not involve signing up for a third-party cloud service. The distribution further includes the Steam gaming software, PlayOnLinux for people who wish to install Windows software, a document viewer and the LibreOffice productivity suite. Inkscape and the GNU Image Manipulation Program are included along with the Cheese webcam manager.
Apricity ships with a full range of media codecs along with the Rhythmbox audio player and the Totem video player. We also find an archive manager, calculator, text editor and two file managers. There are utilities for setting up printers, monitoring system processes and creating user accounts. In the background I found the GNU Compiler Collection was installed as was Java. Apricity includes systemd 231 and Linux 4.6.4, though since the distribution uses a rolling release model these version numbers will gradually rise over time.
The distribution ships with a useful control panel. Most of the featured configuration modules deal with the look and feel of the Cinnamon desktop. Some deal with extensions and preferred applications. There are modules for managing system settings too. For example, the control panel features modules for configuring the operating system's firewall, creating user accounts and managing printers. I found these worked well, even in the live environment.
Apricity 07.2016 -- The settings panel
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Conclusions
I hesitate to make any sweeping statements about Apricity, its strengths and it weaknesses as I only got to use my installed copy of the operating system in a limited capacity. Almost all of my brief time with the distribution was spent running it from a live disc. That being said, despite my installed copy of Apricity failing to give me a desktop session, most of what I experienced this week I liked.
Apricity had some features I didn't care for. The indistinct window borders weren't ideal, but it's possible to change the theme and experiment with different desktop styles. I don't like using the Totem media player, but there are plenty others to choose from in the repositories.
Apricity 07.2016 -- Running the Syncthing application
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I do like that Apricity ships with a lot of software without much duplication. There tends to be one program per task available and the distribution covers a lot of tasks. Everything from gaming with Steam to a productivity suite to multimedia codecs is included. A new user can jump into just about anything other than video editing with the default applications available. I especially liked that Syncthing was installed as it is a tool I hope sees more wide-spread use, both for setting up backups and for sharing files.
All in all, I like what Apricity is trying to do. The project is relatively new and off to a good start. There are some rough edges, but not many and I think the distribution will appeal to a lot of people, especially those who want to run a rolling release operating system with a very easy initial set up.
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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) |
Mageia adopts DNF, KDE neon to use Wayland, FreeBSD updates Linux compatibility, Adobe to update Linux Flash player
The Mageia distribution has decided to include the Dandified Yum (DNF) high-level package manager, starting with the upcoming release of Mageia 6. For people who already like and prefer Mageia's urpmi command line package manager, it will remain as part of the distribution. "Among the many less-than-visible improvements across the board is a brand new dependency resolver: DNF. DNF (Dandified Yum) is a next generation dependency resolver and high-level package management tool with an interesting history. DNF traces its ancestry to two projects: Fedora's Yum (Yellowdog Updater, Modified) and openSUSE's SAT Solver (libsolv). DNF was forked from Yum several years ago in order to rewrite it to use the SAT Solver library from openSUSE (which is used in their own tool, Zypper). Another goal of the fork was to massively restructure the code base so that a sane API would be available for both extending DNF (via plugins and hooks) and building applications on top of it (such as graphical front-ends and system life-cycle automation frameworks). DNF will be available for those willing to use it, however, urpmi and the current familiar Mageia software management tools will remain as the default in Mageia for the foreseeable future." More information on package management and how Mageia is making it easier to build .rpm packages for the distribution can be down in the full blog post.
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A few weeks ago we reported the Workstation edition of the Fedora distribution will soon switch to GNOME on Wayland as the project's default desktop environment. Wayland is designed to replace the classic X display software which is currently used by most Linux distributions and other Unix-like operating systems. Fedora is not the only project adopting Wayland. The KDE neon project, which combines a stable base built on Ubuntu with cutting edge KDE packages, has announced it will be switching to Wayland too. "During this year's Akademy we had a few discussions about Wayland, and the Plasma and Neon teams decided to switch Neon developer unstable edition to Wayland by default soonish. There are still a few things in the stack which need to be shaken out - we need a newer Xwayland in Neon, we want to wait for Plasma 5.8 to be released, we need to get the latest QtWayland 5.7 build, etc."
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The FreeBSD operating system maintains a compatibility layer which allows FreeBSD users to run some Linux programs. FreeBSD previously maintained a port of CentOS 6 software. However, CentOS 6 is several years old now and Linux compatibility is being updated. A new port, introduced on September 5, 2016, offers compatibility with CentOS 7 packages. This should allow FreeBSD users to run more modern Linux software, for which source code is not available. "This port contains packages from a near-minimal installation of CentOS 7 Linux. These packages, in conjunction with the Linux kernel module, form the basis of the Linux compatibility environment. It is designed to provide a nice user experience by using the FreeBSD configuration for corresponding Linux stuff where possible."
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A few years ago Adobe announced the company would no longer actively develop its traditional NPAPI Flash plugin for Linux. At the time, the NPAPI plugin was scheduled to receive security updates only on Linux through until the year 2017. People who wanted to use more modern versions of Flash, versions newer than 11.2, would need to run a web browser which supported the PPAPI Flash plugin. This was a problem for some users as the PPAPI plugin was supported by a limited number of browsers on Linux. Adobe has changed its mind and the NPAPI Flash plugin will move forward, receiving most of the same features as the PPAPI version of the plugin. The Adobe blog has more information: "Today we are updating the beta channel with Linux NPAPI Flash Player by moving it forward and in sync with the modern release branch (currently version 23). We have done this significant change to improve security and provide additional mitigation to the Linux community. In the past, we communicated that NPAPI Linux releases would stop in 2017. This is no longer the case and once we have performed sufficient testing and received community feedback, we will release both NPAPI and PPAPI Linux builds with their major version numbers in sync and on a regular basis."
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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) |
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All about cron jobs
Always-on-time asks: I keep hearing that backups and file clean-ups should be done through something called a cron job. How does this work and what are some best practices for creating cron jobs?
DistroWatch answers: A cron job is a task or process that is run at a specified time. On almost all GNU/Linux and BSD systems there is a background service (or daemon) called cron. The cron daemon runs in the background and runs tasks or commands at a given time. The cron daemon is often used to check for software updates, delete old files, create backups or do any other task which needs to happen periodically without user intervention.
The cron service maintains a list of commands to run in a series of text files. These text files, which list the jobs to be run and at what times, are called crontabs. There are two types of crontab files. There is a system-wide crontab file which can be edited by the system administrator. This file is almost always located at /etc/crontab. On most systems, each user has their own crontab where they can set up scheduled jobs to be run under their own user account.
A crontab is organized with one schedule job per line. Each line contains at least two fields: the time when the task should be performed and the command to be run. The system-wide crontab contains a third field: the user the task will be run as. This allows the administrator to set up tasks to be run as a specific (usually less privileged) user.
The first field in a crontab, the time when the job will be run, is further broken down into five smaller fields. These indicate the minute, hour, day, month and day-of-the-week when the task should be performed. This might be easiest to understand with an example. In the following example we have a one-line crontab file which will run every day at 12:15pm. The job will be run as the root user and will remove (rm) all the files in the /tmp directory.
15 12 * * * root rm /tmp/*
The stars in the day, month and day-of-the-week fields indicate that any time will match. This means the job will run every day, once a day, at 12:15. In this next example, we use the rsync command to run a backup at 9:00am every Sunday. The rsync command will backup our files to a remote host, called example.com. Sunday, for most implementations of cron, can be considered either day zero (0) or day seven (7). This job is run as the user "jesse".
0 9 * * 7 jesse rsync -a /home/jesse/Documents/ example.com:Backups/
This next job will create a text file called holiday.txt at 3:02am on January 1st of every year, regardless of what day of the week it is. January is considered month number one (1).
2 3 1 1 * jesse echo "Happy new year!" > /home/jesse/holiday.txt
There are more complex examples we could explore. Some implementations of cron will allow us to specify ranges or increments of time. I will not go into using those here, but if you want to experiment with more advanced time settings, check your operating system's crontab manual page.
The system administrator can create new scheduled jobs by adding them to the bottom of the /etc/crontab file. Regular users can create their own scheduled jobs by running the crontab edit command:
crontab -e
We can confirm a job has been added to our crontab file by listing all scheduled jobs:
crontab -l
One of the most common questions asked about cron is why a command does not run as expected. Often times a person will (wisely) test a new script by running it from the command line. The script will complete successfully when run manually, but fails when the same script is run as a cron job. The reason is almost always an issue with path names. User accounts are typically set up to look in a variety of places for commands to run. When we run the command rsync, our command line shell looks in the directories /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/sbin, /usr/bin, /bin, /sbin and maybe a few other locations. The cron command is usually less flexible and will look in just one or two places for executable files. This means jobs run from crontabs will often fail to find a command unless its full path is provided. For this reason, I recommend people get in the habit of writing /usr/bin/rsync rather than just rsync or /bin/rm instead of plain rm. It may look more cumbersome, but it can save a lot of time trouble-shooting cron issues.
When in doubt as to where a command is located, the which command line tool will tell you. Running the following displays "/usr/bin/scp":
which scp
I can offer a few other quick tips that have helped me over the years. For example, do not schedule a job to run more frequently than the time it takes to complete the job. For instance, if you have a backup script which takes two hours to run, scheduling it to run every hour will soon cause problems.
By default, most operating systems tend to schedule jobs to happen in the middle of the night (between 2:00am and 4:00am). This is fine for servers as usage will probably be low in the night, but it might not suit desktop and laptop users. Try to schedule jobs when the computer will likely be turned on, but not in heavy use. For example, a small office might set their desktop machines to backup files at lunch time.
Do not put passwords in your crontab file. The system wide crontab can be read by anyone and, when a job runs, its parameters appear on the command line. This information can be observed by other users.
Finally, I find it helpful to remember that people do not like it when their computers suddenly start running slower. Whenever possible, I recommend running cron jobs with a lowered priority via the nice command. This avoids stealing CPU cycles and disk access time from other applications the user has running. As an example, this cronjob runs with a low priority as the root user and cleans up the /tmp directory, removing files which have not been modified in the past week. The job runs on the first day of every month at noon.
0 12 1 * * root /usr/bin/nice /usr/bin/find /tmp -mtime 7 -exec rm {} \;
Cron is a very powerful tool and, when set up correctly, can automate many routine tasks.
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For more questions and answers, visit our Questions and Answers 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: 235
- Total data uploaded: 44.0TB
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| Released Last Week |
Porteus Kiosk 4.1.0
Tomasz Jokiel has announced the release of Porteus Kiosk 4.1.0, a new version of the project's Gentoo-based distribution for web kiosks: "I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 4.1.0 is now available for download. Linux kernel has been updated to version 4.4.19, Mozilla Firefox to version 45.3.0ESR and Google Chrome to version 52.0.2743.116. Packages from the userland are upgraded to the Portage snapshot tagged on 2016-09-03. The new release brings two new spins of Porteus Kiosk system - a Cloud variant and a ThinClient variant. The Cloud variant provides an easy access to the web applications and services, such as Google Apps for Education, Jolicloud, OwnCloud or Dropbox. It is less restrictive than the Kiosk variant as it offers functionality which cannot be easily implemented in the standard Kiosk image." See the release announcement and changelog for more details.
Frugalware 2.1
The Frugalware development team has announced the availability of a new version of the Frugalware distribution. Frugalware is an independent distribution which follows a "keep it simple" style of design and features the pacman package manager. With the release of Frugalware 2.1, the team has announced it is dropping the project's stable branch in favour of maintaining a single, "-current" development branch. "The Frugalware Developer Team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Frugalware 2.1, our twenty-first stable release. Important notice: Frugalware provided a -stable and -current tree in the past. As our team shrinked quite a bit lately we lack the manpower to continue providing a, secure and stable tree while providing bleeding edge and latest package in another. Therefore we decided to move all users to the -current tree. For users not wanting that we will provide a static, not updated snapshot of the -current tree each time we do a release. We also plan to release more often so this snapshots get updated faster." This release also drops 32-bit installation media, though 32-bit packages are still provided. Additional information and a list of changes in Frugalware 2.1 can be found in the release announcement.
Frugalware Linux 2.1 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 535kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixles)
Emmabuntu 1.01 "Debian"
The Emmabuntus project, which creates a desktop operating system designed to be run primarily on older computers, has announced an update to the distribution's Debian Edition. The new version, Emmabuntus 1.01 "Debian", is based on Debian 8.5 and introduces support for the 64-bit x86 architecture. "This 1.01 version includes the following updates, fixes and improvements: Based on Debian 8.5. Implementation of the 64-bit version (Thanks to the HandyLinux project). Added the improved management of the Recovery Utility. Added installation management utility for proprietary drivers from the distribution SolydXK. Added the default re-install utility of Emmabuntüs Cairo-Dock (Thanks to Robert). Added mechanism for locking or not the Emmabuntüs Cairo-Dock. Added the full screen management in VirtualBox. Added quick search in Synaptic. Added Xfce4-screenshooter configuration file to avoid having ":" in the default file name. Added utility KeepassX. Added integration Wine shortcuts in XFCE and link to the installation (Thanks to Bernard). Added the list of users at the login window..." Additional changes and features are listed in the release announcement.
Solus 1.2.0.5
Joshua Strobl has announced the release of Solus 1.2.0.5, the latest stable version of the desktop-oriented Linux distribution with the home-built Budgie as the preferred desktop user interface. Despite the tiny increment in the version number, the new release is packed with fresh software updates, including the latest stable kernel, as well as bug fixes. "Solus 1.2.0.5 released. Today we are providing a minor update to Solus 1.2 in the form of Solus 1.2.0.5. This release enables us to address a multitude of issues that have since been resolved after the release of Solus 1.2. Budgie: battery icon refresh issues were solved; we resolved an issue where the keyboard layout would revert to the default guessed layout for the locale on login; we switched to GNOME Screensaver for screen locking and power management. Installation: issues using Solus and the installation media on some hardware configurations, such as NVIDIA Maxwell cards and Intel Skylake processors; we solved an issue whereby the installer might hang scanning disks. We have delivered an updated GNOME 3.20 Stack, PulseAudio 9, as well as Mesa 12." Read the rest of the release announcement for full details and screenshots.
AV Linux 2016.8.30
The AV Linux distribution is a Debian-based project which features many applications to assist the user in working with audio and video formats. The project has released a new version, AV Linux 2016.8.30, with a long list of changes: "Fixed UID/GID issue and restored Live and installed UID/GID to '1000'. Updated to 4.4.6-RT Kernel with fixed 32-bit app support and VBox module building support. Enabled running shell scripts by clicking in Thunar to ease installing Ardour and Mixbus bundles. Fixed WinFF presets for aac encoding. Added some module configs for AMD Video cards and modesetting. Complete new 'Zukitre' based theme necessitated by GTK3 3.20 changing it's API and breaking older GTK3 themes intentionally. Complete new 'Hooli' theme for AVL 32bit (note 'resize' is in the Hooli window manager titlebar options). Complete Removal of Kdenlive and KDE5 runtime components, Kdenlive is simply not in a good place right now to feature on a LiveISO. As always you can install it later if you want it. Removed Openshot for same reason as Kdenlive, it has great potential but just isn't there yet.. Complete removal of LibreOffice it updates far too often and wastes huge amounts of time and bandwidth to keep current in my development builds..." A complete list of changes and a screen shot can be found in the release announcement.
AryaLinux 2016.08
Chandrakant Singh has announced a new release of AryaLinux, a cutting-edge distribution based on Linux From Scratch. The new release of AryaLinux, version 2016.08, features MATE 1.15, support for KDE and LXQt desktop envrionments and Qt4 has been dropped in favour of Qt 5. The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) has been updated to version 6. "Building upon the stability of AryaLinux 2016.04, this release focuses on bringing about standardization by solidifying the already established method of building AryaLinux and provides support for additional Desktop Environments - KDE and LXQt. Here are some of the features that come as a part of this release of AryaLinux: Latest kernel - 4.7. This kernel release supports a lot of new hardware. GCC upgraded to gcc6. The entire system is built using gcc6. MATE Desktop Environment upgraded from 1.12 to 1.15. Support for KDE and LXQt desktop environment. Please find documents to install them in the documentation/help section. Qt 4 dropped. Qt 5 is the default Qt version. VLC Media player upgraded to 3.x version..." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement. Download (MD5): aryalinux-mate-2016.08-x86_64-r2.iso (2,219MB).
AryaLinux 2016.08 -- Running the MATE desktop
(full image size: 592kB, resolution: 960x539 pixels)
Linux From Stratch 7.10
Bruce Dubbs has announced the release of Linux From Scratch (LFS) 7.10, the latest version of the project's electronic book of step-by-step instructions on how to build a base Linux system from scratch. A separate book, Beyond Linux From Scratch (BLFS), which extends the base system with additional desktop and server applications, has also been released: "The Linux From Scratch community is pleased to announce the release of LFS 7.10, LFS 7.10 (systemd), BLFS 7.10 and BLFS 7.10 (systemd). This release is a major update to both LFS and BLFS. The LFS release includes updates to glibc 2.24, Binutils 2.27 and GCC 6.2.0. In total, 29 packages were updated, fixes made to bootscripts and changes to text have been made throughout the book. The BLFS version includes approximately 800 packages beyond the base Linux From Scratch 7.9 book. This release has over 810 updates from the previous version including numerous text and formatting changes." Here is the brief release announcement. The books are available in both standard (SysVInit) and systemd editions.
Linux Mint 18 "KDE"
Clement Lefebvre has announced the release of Linux Mint 18 "KDE", an edition of the Mint family featuring the KDE Plasma 5.6 desktop: "The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 18 'Sarah' KDE edition. Linux Mint 18 is a long-term support release which will be supported until 2021. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use. This edition of Linux Mint features the KDE Plasma 5.6 desktop environment. The default display manager is SDDM. The APT sources include the Kubuntu backports PPA, which provides updates to newer versions of the Plasma desktop. The update manager received many improvements, both visual and under the hood. The main screen and the preferences screen now use stack widgets and subtle animations, and better support was given to alternative themes." Here is the brief release announcement, with further details, screenshots and videos provided in the new features page as well as the release notes.
elementary OS 0.4
The elementary OS team has announced the launch of elementary OS 0.4, code name "Loki". The new version includes many new features, such as a new software manager called AppCenter. New natural language processing has been added to the calendar application and the distribution now ships with the Epiphany web browser. Desktop notifications have been revamped too for the 0.4 release: "The brand new Notification Center catches notifications from apps and lets you see and act on them later. It also provides a handy system-wide Do Not Disturb toggle. By default, all apps show in the Notification Center, but you can disable noisy apps in the Notifications section of System Settings. The Notification Center is powered by the FreeDesktop notifications specification, so any apps following this open standard will work automatically." Additional details and screen shots can be found in the project's release announcement. Pay what you want (including free) downloads are available through the project's home page.
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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 |
Preferred web browser
Many of us spend a good deal of our time visiting web pages. Whether we are browsing the web for entertainment, work or research, a web browser is an important tool.
Linux users have a lot of choice when it comes to web browsers, from Google's proprietary Chrome browser, to the popular Firefox browser, to lesser known browsers such as Qupzilla and Otter. This week we would like to know which web browser you prefer.
You can see the results of our previous poll on encrypting messages here. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Preferred web browser
| Firefox: | 2028 (60%) |
| Chrome/Chromium: | 744 (22%) |
| Opera: | 138 (4%) |
| Vivaldi: | 122 (4%) |
| Konquorer: | 22 (1%) |
| Qupzilla: | 53 (2%) |
| Otter: | 25 (1%) |
| Other: | 235 (7%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Distributions added to waiting list
- WHALinux. WHALinux is a Linux distribution based on openSUSE and featuring the GNOME desktop environment.
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DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 19 September 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 |
| • Ussye 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 |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Linux Lite
Linux Lite is a beginner-friendly Linux distribution based on Ubuntu's long-term support (LTS) release and featuring the Xfce desktop. Linux Lite primarily targets Windows users. It aims to provide a complete set of applications to assist users with their everyday computing needs, including a full office suite, media players and other essential daily software.
Status: Active
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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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