 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 685, 31 October 2016 |
Welcome to this year's 44th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
While some Linux distributions focus on new low-level features, others focus on improving the desktop experience for end users. While some distributions strive for stability, others stay on the cutting edge of software development. This week we explore some of these polar opposites, beginning with elementary OS. The elementary OS distribution tries to provide a polished, simple interface for its users and we explore what elementary has to offer in our Feature Story this week. In our News section we discuss SUSE Linux Enterprise Server's growing support for the ARM CPU architecture, new features coming to Linux Mint 18.1 and the highly hyped Dirty COW kernel flaw. Plus we begin a new Rolling Release trial which investigates how four open source operating systems perform when continuously upgraded. In our Opinion Poll we talk about favourite window managers. Plus we share a list of torrents we are seeding and provide a list of the distributions released last week. We are pleased to announce two new distributions, 3CX and arkOS, have been added to our database and details on these projects are provided below. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (46MB) and MP3 (63MB) formats
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
elementary OS 0.4 "Loki"
elementary OS is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. While the project uses Ubuntu as a package base, elementary ships its own desktop environment, called Pantheon, which strives to provide a simple, easy to navigate graphical user interface. The elementary developers have also created an array of desktop applications which try to provide the functionality most users will need while maintaining a simplified interface.
Looking through the release notes for elementary OS 0.4, we can find many new and interesting changes. The distribution's 0.4 release provides users with a new software manager called AppCenter. The notification area has been overhauled and now features a button to mute notifications for when the user needs to focus without distractions. The release notes mention the distribution's calendar and appointment application recognizes natural language descriptions. The virtual terminal will auto-complete file names while ignoring case sensitivity and the e-mail client is an updated version of the Geary e-mail application. The elementary team has decided to switch to using Epiphany as the default web browser. This new release also features parental controls and a new networking configuration panel which should be easier to navigate than Network Manager's default look.
The elementary 0.4 release is available in one edition and, as far as I could tell from the download options, runs on 64-bit x86 powered computers exclusively. The ISO I downloaded was 1.2GB in size. Booting from the downloaded media brings up a graphical screen with a single window. From this window we can select our preferred language from a list. Buttons in the window prompt us to either explore elementary's live desktop environment or launch the project's system installer. There is a link in this window which will open a web browser to display an on-line copy of the release notes. At the time of writing the release notes displayed are for the second beta of elementary 0.4, but these will probably be updated to cover the final release soon.
Taking the option to try elementary's live desktop environment launches the Pantheon desktop running the Gala window manager. The layout and theme Pantheon uses brings to mind a mingling of the GNOME Shell and OS X desktop environments. In the upper-left corner of the screen we find the application menu. In the top-middle of the display is a clock and calendar widget. Over in the top-right corner we find the system tray and user menu. At the bottom of the screen is a launch bar. There are no icons on the desktop. When we launch applications the control buttons (maximize and close) are placed on opposite sides of their window. The close button is located in the upper-left corner of the window and the maximize button is located in the upper-right.
elementary uses the Ubiquity system installer, the same installer used by the other members of the Ubuntu family of distributions. Ubiquity begins by getting us to select our preferred language from a list. We then choose whether to install third-party software such as wi-fi drivers and media codecs. Next we are given the choice of whether to let the installer divide up our disk or we can choose to manually partition our hard drive. I like Ubiquity's manual partition management page, it has a nice, simple layout and it supports a wide range of file systems. Next, we are asked to select our time zone from a map of the world and then pick our keyboard's layout from a list. The final screen asks us to create a user account for ourselves. On the user creation screen we can optionally encrypt our user's home directory and decide whether to automatically have the system login to our account when the computer boots. When the system installer finishes copying files to our hard disk, we are given the option of returning to the live desktop environment or rebooting the computer.
Something I noticed while using the live disc was that some windows would display text in different languages. Most programs displayed information and menus in English, but a few (such as the About and Language & Region configuration modules) would display a different language which I think may have been Russian. This mixture of languages only lasted while I was using the elementary live disc and, once the distribution was installed, all screens displayed text in English.
elementary boots to a graphical login screen. From the login screen we can sign into the user account we created during the installation process or we can sign into a guest account. The guest account acts like a regular account while in use, but requires no password and is wiped clean after the user logs out, erasing any changes to the account. This guest account can be disabled through the distribution's control panel, which I will talk about later.
I ran into a few problems with elementary right away. When running the distribution in a VirtualBox environment, I discovered an unusual issue where about one in every three logins gave me a desktop environment where the top panel was unresponsive and short-cut keys would not work. This prevented the user from accessing the application menu, clock or user settings. In other words, there was no easy way to logout without switching from the desktop to a text console. The problem appeared to happen more or less at random and affected both my regular user accounts and the guest account. Usually, rebooting the virtual machine and signing in again would fix the issue. Other aspects of running elementary in a virtual machine were mixed. The distribution integrates seamlessly with VirtualBox, providing full screen resolution. However, the Gala window manager would frequently consume large amounts of my CPU, bringing the desktop to a crawl. These bursts of CPU usage usually lasted a few minutes and would eventually settle down, resulting in smoother operation for a while before the next spike.
Running elementary on a desktop computer presented its own challenges. The distribution, upon booting, would turn off my computer's monitor. The system would still run and function, but I was unable to see anything. This has been a semi-common issue with distributions based on Ubuntu 16.04. Editing the GRUB boot menu and adding the kernel parameter "nomodeset" corrected the issue. After that, elementary ran on the desktop computer without further hardware-related difficulties. In either test environment, the distribution required about 430MB of memory to sign into the Pantheon desktop.
elementary OS 0.4 -- The AppCenter software manager
(full image size: 633kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Shortly after signing into the Pantheon desktop a notification appeared in the upper-right corner of the screen letting me know software updates were available. Accessing the notification or launching the distribution's AppCenter software manager will bring up a screen where we can see available software updates. Each available update is presented with an icon, the package's name and an update button. This makes is easy to install individual updates while skipping others. There is also a button at the top of the page which will cause all available updates to download and install. I noticed low-level packages are all bundled into one meta package called "Operating System Updates". This does a nice job of reducing clutter in the interface. The first day I was using elementary there were two updates available, 80kB in size. Over the week a few more updates trickled in, most of them similarly tiny.
The AppCenter handles more than just updates. The application features two tabs, one for updates and another for browsing available software provided by elementary's repositories. In the available software tab we are first presented with a grid of categories. These categories divide software into groups such as Audio, Education, Games and Video. Clicking on a category brings up a list of available applications, sorted alphabetically by name. Each application is listed with its name, an icon and a one-line description. We can click an Install button next to the entry to download the package. Clicking on the entry itself brings up a full page description of the application with a screen shot. The description page features an Install/Remove button.
Browsing the AppCenter for new software was a fairly straight forward experience. The software manager has a nice layout. In fact, I think newcomers will find AppCenter particularly easy to navigate because the way information is arranged reminds me of mobile app stores such as Google's Play Store. I did run into a few minor issues while working with AppCenter. The first time I used the software manager, the interface locked up while an application was being downloaded. The download and install process still completed successfully, but the AppCenter window was unresponsive and I had to kill its process. This bug only happened once during the week. There is a search box in AppCenter where we can locate packages by name and description. However, I found two problems with the search feature. One was that it only works when on the initial categories page. Once we select a category, the search box is disabled. If we are browsing and wish to perform a search, we need to back out to the initial screen. The second problem was searches would return a lot of unrelated results. Searches for "word" or "paint" would return perhaps one good result like AbiWord or a drawing program, but these would be mixed in with a few dozen unrelated programs, games and anything else with "word" or "paint" in the full length description. My final concern was that each time I installed a new package I had to enter my password. When we only need one or two new programs, this is a fine security feature, but it becomes tedious if we want to install ten new applications.
elementary OS 0.4 -- The application menu and calendar
(full image size: 710kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
On the subject of software, I found elementary uses a flexible application menu. The Pantheon application menu has two possible views. The first one presents us with one large area with a grid of 15 icons. When we have lots of applications installed, the menu breaks the available icons into separate pages. The second view we can toggle to shows us a list of software categories down the left side of the menu and a list of applications in the highlighted category on the right. This lets us switch between a modern app grid and a traditional tree view, depending on our preference.
elementary ships with a fairly small collection of desktop applications. The Epiphany web browser is present and features Flash support. There is an e-mail client that's a modified version of Geany. We are given a calendar and appointment application, a photo viewer and an image scanner. There is an application called Camera for handling web cams. elementary ships with a custom audio player and video player. The audio player is called Music in the application menu and noise on the command line while the video player is called Videos in the application menu and audience on the command line. The distribution supplies a full range of multimedia codecs we can enable during the installation process, allowing us to play media files. There is a file manager called Pantheon Files which looks like it might share heritage with the Caja file manager as it has a similarly clean interface. The GNU Compiler Collection is installed for us along with systemd 229. Network Manager is present to connect us to the Internet. In the background we find version 4.4.0 of the Linux kernel. I was a little surprised not to find any productivity suite installed by default, but office software such as LibreOffice and AbiWord are available in the distribution's repositories.
After the first round of software updates were installed, I found the Epiphany web browser would no longer launch. A little investigation revealed that Epiphany was crashing immediately with a segfault upon loading the application. To work around this I installed the Firefox web browser and found it worked well. The following day, without performing any trouble shooting, I clicked on the Epiphany icon again and the browser opened. Epiphany continued to work for the remainder of my trial.
One of the new elementary features I was curious to try was the natural language calendar entries. According to the release notes, a person can type in an appointment like, "Meet Mark tomorrow at the office at 2pm" and the calendar will fill in the necessary fields. Perhaps this feature is present, but I was unable to find a way to make it work. The release notes do not give details and typing similar sentences into the calendar's comments and event descriptions did not produce any results. There may be a setting that needs to be toggled I have not found.
elementary OS 0.4 -- The settings panel
(full image size: 809kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The distribution ships with a settings panel which closely resembles the settings panels one usually finds when using the MATE or Cinnamon desktop environments. Most of the control modules deal with changing the look of the desktop, adjusting the screensaver, changing privacy settings and setting up a printer. There are also modules for setting up network shares, creating user accounts and working with accessibility options. I generally found the modules were easy to navigate and worked well. I like that the privacy settings panel has an option to clear out files which might be used to track our activity. There was one quirk I found with the firewall module. When a regular user goes into the firewall configuration tool, any rules enabled on the system are hidden. The user needs to elevate their access to system administrator in order to see the firewall rules. This might be a security feature, but it makes it look (at first glance) as though there are no firewall rules enabled. When I first noticed this I had been worried the firewall was not working properly, but once I unlocked the module I could see the rules and confirm they were working.
Parental controls are present in elementary OS 0.4. These controls give the administrator the ability to limit logins and Internet access to specific times. Each account can be given its own set of limits. This may be useful not only for parents, but any administrator who needs to ration access. The controls work, but I noticed when a blocked user tried to login outside of their set time, the login screen merely returned them to the login prompt. This is the same behaviour we get when the user enters an incorrect password. Either issue (being locked out or entering an incorrect password) produces no error message so the user may not know why they cannot login.
elementary OS 0.4 -- Creating firewall rules
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Conclusions
I had very mixed impressions of elementary OS 0.4 and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about the distribution after a week of use. Early on I encountered a lot of little issues. The distribution did not play particularly well with either of my test environments, giving me video issues on the desktop and both performance issues and interface problems in VirtualBox. The software manager locked up on me and prompted for my password a lot during the first few days I was using the distribution while I added extra applications. The Pantheon desktop does offer some flexibility, but not the level of customization I'm used to from Plasma, Lumina or MATE and I missed that sometimes. Earlier I mentioned when a user cannot login (whether from an incorrect password, parental blocks or locked account) there is no visible error message which I suspect will aggravate some users. Having the Epiphany browser segfault for a day only to resume working the following day fed the impression that elementary was unpolished.
While the above aspects of the distribution bothered me, I have to give a good deal of credit to the developers for doing a lot of things well. elementary really does have an unusual desktop design compared with most other Linux distributions and I think the developers are doing a great job of designing a newcomer friendly interface. There is a strong sense that this desktop was designed with former OS X users or current Android users in mind. Looking at the application menu grid and the AppCenter in particular, there is a very mobile-like familiarity. The control panel is fairly similar to what we might find when running the MATE or Cinnamon desktops, but again there is a style present which I think will feel familiar to anyone who uses a smart phone.
The elementary application menu is pleasantly uncluttered and this is probably a good thing. The developers seem to be relying on the AppCenter to deliver additional applications and I think it is an approach which will work for them.
Right now my overall opinion of elementary OS 0.4 is that there are some great design ideas at work, but a lot of rough edges in the implementation. Looking at the desktop, its layout and especially when looking at the well organized (and mute-able) notification area, it's clear a lot of thought has gone into the design. However, I ran into several lock-ups or glitches which would probably turn away the newcomers this efficient design is going to attract. Hopefully the problems I ran into will be worked out in time for the next release, because I like the style and approach elementary OS is taking.
* * * * *
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) |
SUSE grows ARM support, Mint improves add-on language support, Linux hit by Dirty COW flaw
ARM processors have become quite popular in environments where low-energy consumption is considered more important than raw performance. Mobile devices, such as smart phones, tend to run on ARM processors and ARM has increasingly been used in servers where power savings offer significant cost advantages. SUSE has announced that ARM support has landed in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) and the distribution will support running all of SUSE's core packages on ARM-powered devices. "SLES for ARM is part of the SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 common code base. This means that the versions, and thereby the source code, of all core packages of the SUSE Linux Enterprise product family are the same - from the desktop to the mainframe. The tool chain, like compilers and libraries are the same across the supported hardware architectures. The common code base guarantees product consistency and a persistent look and feel, which lets you leverage the skills of your IT staff. It also provides for the highest code quality, better supportability and preemptive code maintenance. SLES for ARM will become available later this year and initially will support SOCs from AMD, Applied Micro, Cavium, NXP, and Xilinx. A number of solution vendors will exploit SLES for ARM to deliver servers to support a wide range of workloads." Further details can be found in the SUSE blog post.
* * * * *
The next release of Linux Mint, version 18.1, is expected to arrive by the end of 2016. The upcoming release will likely feature the MATE 1.16 and Cinnamon 3.2 desktop environments. One new feature which will appear in Linux Mint 18.1 is improved language support: "Support for languages was also improved. Language pack detection now checks for spell checkers, fonts and a variety of other packages. The selection and installation of input methods was also completely redesigned. You now choose which language you're interested in, and this installs support for typing in this language and recommends methods to select." A list of new features and accompanying screen shots can be found on the Linux Mint blog.
* * * * *
Last week many news sites featured stories about a flaw in the Linux kernel which has been given the name Dirty COW. The bug in the kernel, which was quickly fixed with patches being rolled out to most GNU/Linux distributions, has existed for several years and was present in most Linux-based desktop, server and mobile operating systems, including Android. A skilled attacker can use the bug to elevate their access to that of the root user, giving them control of the operating system. Though the issue was wide spread, fixes are available for most distributions. The Linux.com website has an article which does a great job of explaining what Dirty COW is and how it works. "The race condition described above allows the attacker to bypass this permissions framework by tricking the COW mechanism to modify the original read-only objects instead of their copies. In other words, a carefully crafted attack can indeed replace "/bin/bash" with a malicious version by an unprivileged user." The author also points out that for the Dirty COW exploit to work, the attacker needs to be already in a position to run code on an unpatched operating system in order to trigger the bug. For people who do not yet have access to the proper fix, Red Hat's Bugzilla database has workarounds which will prevent the bug from being exploited.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Rolling release trial #2 (by Jesse Smith) |
Rolling release trial #2: Week one
Two years ago I began an experiment in which I installed several rolling release distributions and compared them. I explored the installation processes of each operating system, the steps required to upgrade the packages on the system and the pitfalls I ran into. I also kept track of how up to date key packages on each system were. Finally, I kept updating each distribution until one finally broke, which only took about five weeks.
Several people asked me to do another rolling release trial and, last month, I put out an invitation to nominate the projects which should be included in the new rolling release trial. Four projects were suggested: Arch Linux, openSUSE's Tumbleweed edition, Sabayon and TrueOS. This week I installed the four operating systems and installed all waiting package upgrades to see how the systems would perform.
* * * * *
Arch Linux
My trial began with Arch Linux, perhaps the most famous of the rolling release distributions. Arch has a reputation for leaving installation and system maintenance up to the user. The Arch distribution avoids automation and choosing defaults for the user. In place of a system installer, the user is given an installation guide and documentation on how to set up networking, graphical software and other services.
The Arch installation media is 792MB in size and features dual 32-bit and 64-bit support for x86 processors. Booting from the installation media brings us to a text console where we are signed in as the system administrator. Since there is no installer, we set up Arch by typing in a series of commands and editing configuration files. We can set up a partition for Arch using the fdisk or cfdisk commands. Then we run a few commands to download the necessary packages and perform a few more steps to set up the base system.
The first time I went through the install process and rebooted, Arch failed to load, reporting the kernel could not be found. A little exploring revealed that the installation script for the GRUB boot loader had incorrectly detected the drive identifier (UUID) on my hard disk. I swapped out the bad identifier in my GRUB configuration file with the ones reported by Arch's blkid program and rebooted and, this time, my copy of Arch Linux booted to a text console.
I then set about manually enabling networking, installing a display manager and installing a desktop environment, along with the proper video drivers. Here, I once again ran into a problem as the LightDM display manager I had selected for handling logins installed, but failed to load. LightDM would crash on start-up and the log entries it provided were of no help in trouble-shooting. I removed LightDM and installed SDDM in its place, which worked as expected. I could then boot the system and log into my selected desktop environment. For my time with Arch I decided to use LXQt as my graphical environment. LXQt ran without any problems and I found the desktop to be pleasantly light and responsive.
Arch Linux 2016.10.01 -- Running the LXQt desktop
(full image size: 145kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Arch uses the Pacman package manager to install software and keep packages up to date. Since Arch downloads packages from on-line repositories at install time, there were no updates available to me on the first day of my trial. Later in the week, a total of nine new packages downloaded, totalling about 5MB in size.
One issue I noticed with Arch, beyond the setup problems with UUIDs and the LightDM login manager, was that the boot process was unusually slow. While booting, at least one service would be unresponsive, leaving systemd to wait. This meant booting Arch took a little over two minutes with the default configuration.
* * * * *
openSUSE "Tumbleweed"
The openSUSE project has two main editions: Leap and Tumbleweed. While Leap strives to be stable and conservative, Tumbleweed is a rolling release and features up to date packages. We can download Tumbleweed as a full DVD ISO (4.3GB in size) or as a small net-install ISO. I opted to use the full DVD.
Booting from the DVD launches the project's graphical installer. Setting up openSUSE is a quick and easy process. We can pretty much zip through the installer, clicking the "Next" button a handful of times if we are in a hurry. By default openSUSE wants to install the root file system on a Btrfs volume and our user's files on XFS. I changed this to use Btrfs everywhere. The installer offers to set us up with a text console interface or either the GNOME or KDE desktop environments. I kept the default option which was KDE's Plasma desktop. The installer then shows us a summary of changes it plans to make to our system and gives us the opportunity to change its settings.
When we first boot openSUSE the boot menu gives us the chance to switch to an older snapshot of the operating system. This means if we break the operating system with a configuration change or package update we can roll back the operating system to a previous snapshot, undoing the damage.
openSUSE Tumbleweed -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 473kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Much like Arch, openSUSE took an unusually long time to load, requiring over a minute to bring the system to a graphical login screen. On this same hardware, Linux Mint recently showed it would boot in about twenty seconds.
openSUSE uses the Zypper package manager which acts as a higher level front end for the project's RPM package manager. The first day of my trial, openSUSE's update manager reported there were 130 new packages available to download. These upgrades downloaded and appeared to install properly. However, the next time I booted openSUSE the system was only able to load as far as a text console. I was unable to get openSUSE to load to a graphical login screen and X would crash if I tried to launch my desktop from the command line. I was able to reboot the system and roll back to my initial Btrfs snapshot of the operating system, but this was of limited use since from there installing the upgrades would again place my system in a damaged state. This effectively took Tumbleweed out of the running on my first day with the distribution.
Luckily, about two days later, a second wave of about 250 updates arrived. This second group of updates fixed the graphical login service and allowed me to return to using the Plasma desktop environment. This second group of updates, while several hundred megabytes in size, restored openSUSE to a fully working state and I decided to keep the distribution in the trial.
* * * * *
Sabayon
Sabayon is a Gentoo-based distribution which offers lots of software pre-installed and lots of desktop editions. I decided to download the project's MATE edition which is available via a 1.7GB ISO.
Booting from the installation media brings up a boot menu asking if we would like to run a live desktop environment or launch the system installer. At first I tried launching the installer and this option brought me to a text console. On the console was a message which read "Text installation unfortunately it's not available. To run the installation start installer-text.sh". Running this provided command resulted in a "command not found" error.
Slightly discouraged, I rebooted and loaded Sabayon's live desktop environment. This brought up the MATE desktop with a two-panel layout. On the desktop there is an icon which will launch the project's system installer. Sabayon uses the Anaconda graphical system installer which is also the installer used by Fedora. When running on Sabayon, the Anaconda installer was slow to respond to input and took several seconds to refresh the display when switching between screens. Partitioning the hard drive with Anaconda was an awkward experience. Originally, I had decided to use a guided partitioning option, but this brought me to a page where I had to manually set up all of my partitions. I opted to set up Sabayon with a /boot partition formatted with ext4 and a root partition formatted with Btrfs.
Though the installer was sluggish, it did eventually complete successfully. I was able to boot into my fresh copy of Sabayon and sign into my account to explore the distribution's MATE desktop.
Sabayon 16.07 -- Running the MATE desktop
(full image size: 149kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Sabayon uses Rigo as the graphical front end for managing software. Personally, I found using Rigo required extra steps for each task I wished to perform and I found it hard to navigate the application's many tools, but the software does work. When I ran Rigo it reported there was one package upgrade available. This one package turned out to be the distribution's Portage software system and it resulted in a lengthy download. Eventually, the package manager finished its work and I was able to successfully reboot and continue using the distribution.
For people who do not wish to use the Rigo graphical front end, we can either use Portage or the Equo command line package manager. Equo is unusual in that it shows its output in a variety of colours and the package manager is verbose. However, Equo worked well for me and I found it worked fairly quickly.
One quirk I noticed while using Sabayon is that this distribution is the only one I can remember using in a long time which does not include the vi text editor by default. In its place, Sabayon uses the more user friendly nano editor.
* * * * *
TrueOS
TrueOS (formally PC-BSD) is a FreeBSD-based operating system which uses a rolling release model to supply newer features and hardware support compared to its parent operating system. TrueOS is available in Desktop and Server editions and I decided to download the 1.8GB Desktop media.
Booting from the TrueOS ISO shows us a menu where we can select to run a text-based installer or a graphical installer. I launched the graphical installer which asked if I wanted to set up a Desktop or Server system. I selected the Desktop option and then was given a chance to tweak the operating system's ZFS and swap settings. The installer then copies its files to the hard drive and we can reboot to load our new operating system.
The first time TrueOS starts up we are walked through a few configuration options. We are asked to supply our time zone, set a password for the root account and create a normal user account. We can also enable encryption on removable media at this stage to provide secure storage for our user account.
TrueOS then presents us with a graphical login screen where we can sign into the Lumina desktop environment. When we sign in a desktop widget appears and displays news from the Lumina, TrueOS and FreeBSD projects. Clicking on any of the news headlines caused an error to display reporting the Firefox web browser was missing. A few seconds later, Firefox opened and displayed the relevant news item.
TrueOS 2016-10-14 -- Running the Lumina desktop
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
I checked TrueOS's update manager and, on my first day with the operating system, it reported there were no software updates available. The command line package manager, pkg, confirmed there were no third-party updates available, but the core update program, freebsd-update, reported an error saying it was unable to fetch data from the TrueOS server. Later in the week, a large collection of 655 updates appeared in the TrueOS repositories, totalling about 432MB in size.
* * * * *
Conclusions
I only used each of the operating systems in my trial briefly this week, but there were clearly issues with each one. Arch set up my boot loader with incorrect UUIDs and the first display manager I tried failed to load. It was possible to work around these issues, but it made for a poor first impression. Sabayon's installer option, accessible from the boot menu, failed as did the fall back option provided. I had to work around this by booting into live mode and using an unusually slow Anaconda installer to get the system up and running. The openSUSE distribution had the worst showing of the group, failing to even display a login screen after the first wave of software updates. If I had simply made a mistake configuring openSUSE, I could have rolled back to an earlier snapshot and fixed the issue, but with updates I was stuck for three days where I had to choose between having up to date security fixes or a system with no graphical interface. TrueOS did fairly well, but threw errors about missing Firefox and the core system update program fails when checking for updates. I later discovered freebsd-update fails because the pkg package manager now handles updates to the base system as well as third-party packages, making freebsd-update obsolete.
In short, while some projects did fairly well, for the most part each of the rolling release projects in this trial got off to a rocky start and I spent more time trouble-shooting the initial configurations than should have been necessary.
* * * * *
Package versions
| Package |
Arch Linux |
openSUSE |
Sabayon |
TrueOS |
| Kernel |
4.8.4 |
4.8.4 |
4.6.0 |
FreeBSD 12.0-CURRENT |
| X Server |
1.18.4 |
1.18.4 |
1.17.4 |
1.18.4 |
| systemd/init |
231 |
228 |
226 |
-- |
| LibreOffice |
5.2.2 |
5.2.2 |
5.1.4 |
5.0.6 |
| Firefox |
49.0.2 |
49.0.1 |
49.0 |
49.0 |
Package updates
| Operating system |
Packages updated |
Bandwidth required (MB) |
| Arch Linux |
9 |
5 |
| openSUSE |
381 |
501 |
| Sabayon |
4 |
unknown |
| TrueOS |
655 |
432 |
|
| 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: 251
- Total data uploaded: 46.0TB
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| Released Last Week |
Black Lab Enterprise Linux 8.0 SP1
The Black Lab Linux team has announced the launch of a service pack update to the project's enterprise product line. The updated release, Black Lab Enterprise Linux 8 Service Pack 1, is a commercial release and uses software available in the Ubuntu LTS repositories. Black Lab Enterprise 8 offers the ability to boot on UEFI-enabled computers and will be supported through to the year 2021. "Today the Black Lab Linux Development team is pleased to announce the release of Black Lab Enterprise Linux 8.0 SP1. Service Pack 1 is jam packed full of new innovations and features. Black Lab Enterprise Linux is the fastest growing Enterprise desktop Linux offering on the market today. Black Lab Enterprise Linux 8.0 SP1 is a hybrid operating system meaning you can deploy local applications that you need as well as the cloud based applications that you want." The release announcement has further details and purchasing options."
Clonezilla Live 2.4.9-17
Steven Shiau has announced the release of Clonezilla Live 2.4.9-17, the latest stable version of the project's specialist Debian-based distribution designed for disk cloning and backups: "This release of Clonezilla Live (2.4.9-17) includes major enhancements and bug fixes. Enhancements and changes: the underlying GNU/Linux operating system has been upgraded, this release is based on the Debian 'Sid' repository as of 2016-10-21; Linux kernel has been updated to 4.7.8; removed 'nodmraid' from boot parameters in drbl-ocs.conf, fakeraid and firmware raid are supported now; updated language files hu_HU, ja_JP.UTF-8, de_DE, fr_FR, it_IT and es_ES; the drbl Clonezilla Live version information will be in /etc/ocs/ocs-live.conf and when an image is saved, the information will be saved in Info-packages.txt; applied patches from Aaron Burling, so now when mounting image repository, it is able to browse the directories recursively; force dhclient timeout at 60 seconds...." Continue to the release announcement to read the long list of enhancements and bug fixes.
Quirky 8.1
Barry Kauler has announced the release of Quirky 8.1. Quirky is a sister project to Puppy Linux and offers a lightweight, user friendly desktop experience. The latest version, Quirky 8.1, diverges from past Quirky releases by supplying download images for Raspberry Pi 2 & 3 computers and not x86-powered computers. "All Quirkies prior to 8.1 have been built for x86 and x86_64 PCs. Version 8.1 is the first to be built for the ARM platform, specifically the Raspberry Pi 2 and Pi 3. Note that Quirky will not work on a Pi 1. It is expected a build for the Odroid XU4 is coming soon. The functionality is much as you have come to expect with a Puppy-derivative -- you get 'the kitchen sink' in a very small package. That is, an application for just about everything and utilities to setup and configure just about anything. A difference though, with the Raspberry Pi build, is that it includes LibreOffice and Inkscape, whereas Puppy-derivatives usually have light-weight choices, such as Gnumeric, Abiword and InkscapeLite. This decision was made so as to provide the same functionality out-of-the-box as Raspbian, and in fact a whole lot more." The release announcement has more information.
KNOPPIX 7.7.1
Klaus Knopper has announced the release KNOPPIX 7.7.1, the latest stable version of the project's Debian-based live CD/DVD with a choice of LXDE, KDE Plasma 5.7 and GNOME Shell 3.22 desktops, together with a special edition (ADRIANE) with an audio desktop: "Version 7.7.1 of KNOPPIX is based on the usual picks from Debian stable 'Jessie', testing 'Stretch' and unstable 'Sid' for newer graphics drivers or desktop software packages. It uses Linux kernel 4.7.9 (not affected by the 'Dirty Cow Bug') and X.Org 7.7 (Core 1.18.1) for supporting current computer hardware. New in 7.7.1: kernel and system software updated; new, experimental version of 3D window manager - Compiz 0.9.12.2, LXDE (default) with PCManFM 1.2.4 file manager, KDE Plasma 5.7.4 (boot option 'knoppix desktop=kde'), GNOME 3.22 (boot option 'knoppix desktop=gnome'), WINE version 1.9.20...." See the detailed release notes for a complete list of changes and other information.
KNOPPIX 7.7.1 -- Running the LXDE desktop
(full image size: 1.5MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
NetBSD 7.0.2
The NetBSD project has announced a second security update to the highly portable operating system's 7.0.x branch. The new release, NetBSD 7.0.2, mostly fixes bugs and potential crashes in the operating system's core components. "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 7.0.2, the second security/bugfix update of the NetBSD 7.0 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons. If you are running an earlier release of NetBSD, we strongly suggest updating to 7.0.2." In addition, the OpenSSL, ntp and BIND components have updated: "Update OpenSSL to 1.0.1u. Update ntp to 4.2.8p8. Update BIND to 9.10.4-P3. Fix several protocol handling issues in X Window System client libraries. libsa getpass: check bounds on input." The project's release announcement, the release notes for NetBSD 7.0.2 and the detailed changes file have further information on the new update.
Maui Linux 2
Clemens Toennies has announced a new release of the Maui Linux distribution. Maui Linux is a continuation of Netrunner's Kubuntu-based edition, but Maui Linux has been re-based on the KDE neon project. The new version, Maui Linux 2, includes many package upgrades and cloned package repositories for increased flexibility. The distribution has also switched to using the Calamares system installer. "We decided to move our repositories to a new infrastructure and cloned the Neon-based repo so we have control over when to push new updates to the user and let the users themselves decide when they want to move to a new Plasma version or KDE Frameworks 5 version. That way we provide a very stable KDE Plasma user experience without losing the option to have the latest and greatest of KDE Plasma. In order to streamline the installation process we decided to switch to the distribution independent installer Calamares. This one installs automatically all language packs for the default applications shipped with Maui and the language you choose during installation. In order to use this feature please have network access configured in the live environment. This should also support more UEFI installations than with the prior version of Maui." Further details on the new version can be found in the project's release announcement.
PrimTux 2
PrimTux is a French distribution for use in education settings. The project is based on Debian and uses Fluxbox as the default window manager. PrimTux runs on 32-bit x86 processors and is suitable for use on lower end computers. The latest release of PrimTux, version 2, further separates free and open source components from non-free items, reducing licensing and sharing restrictions. The non-free items are packaged in a separate ISO file which can be mounted and the extra packages can be installed from the add-on ISO. The new version features new artwork and a "Public" folder where student and teacher users can share documents. The HandyMenu, which acts as an an easy to navigate application menu, has been cleaned up and no longer displays old programs which are not installed. Additional information on the new version of PrimTux, along with several screen shots, can be found in the project's release announcement (in French).
PrimTux 2 -- Default desktop with application menu
(full image size: 624kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Sabayon 16.11
Ettore Di Giacinto has announced the release of new installation media for the Sabayon distribution. Sabayon is a rolling release distribution based on Gentoo and the project offers many different editions and flavours. The new snapshot, Sabayon 16.11, offers users version 4.8 of the Linux kernel, an update to the Anaconda system installer and the latest KDE Plasma desktop packages. "This Sabayon release is the result of team work, time and care, to provide you with a stable, solid and bleeding edge release. There are a lot of exciting changes in this release, here are a few: new Anaconda installer, with tons of bug fixes; latest Linux kernel 4.8; latest KDE Plasma; renewed artwork; new greeter; improvements and fixes to Entropy...." The project has also revamped its website with this new release. Further details on the project's release cycle, features and website design can be found in the release announcement.
Bodhi Linux 4.0.0
Bodhi Linux 4.0.0 has been released. Bodhi is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring a custom-built variant of the Enlightenment desktop named "Moksha", with some usability tweaks and other enhancements. This release is based on Ubuntu 16.04 which is supported until April 2021. From the release announcement: "Hot on the heels of the Moksha 0.2.1 desktop release, I am happy to announce the stable release of Bodhi 4.0.0. The highlights of this release are: Ubuntu 16.04.1 core; Moksha 0.2.1 desktop; Linux 4.4 kernel; EFL 1.18.1; new and updated Moksha modules. Ultimately, our end users should be pleased to see the same stable operating system they have grown accustomed to in the past years, with newer application versions the updated Ubuntu LTS brings with it. I would like to take this time to remind users that we do not support a direct upgrade path from 3.2.1 to 4.0.0." The Bodhi release is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavours, and it provides two specialist editions - "AppPack" with a large number of pre-installed applications and "Legacy" for older computers.
Bodhi Linux 4.0.0 -- Running the Moksha desktop
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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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 |
Favourite window managers
The very first poll we ran on DistroWatch asked our readers which desktop environment was their favourite. One reader pointed out that more than 1-in-20 people selected "Other" in that poll, suggesting many were probably using minimal graphical environments and window managers.
This week we would like to hear from users who run window managers instead of full desktop environments. Please let us know what your favourite window manager is. If we missed your preferred window manager, let us know in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on methods of governing Linux distributions here. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Favourite window manager
| awesome: | 43 (3%) |
| Blackbox: | 31 (2%) |
| Enlightenment: | 119 (8%) |
| Fluxbox: | 147 (9%) |
| i3: | 147 (9%) |
| IceWM: | 84 (5%) |
| JWM: | 83 (5%) |
| Openbox: | 431 (27%) |
| Ratpoison: | 11 (1%) |
| twm: | 13 (1%) |
| Other: | 459 (29%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to database
3CX Phone System
3CX Phone System is a specialist, Debian-based Linux distribution designed to run a complete unified communications platform. The 3CX client, included in the distribution, can also be installed separately on most hardware as well as the cloud. It provides a complete open standards-based IP PBX and phone system that works with popular SIP trunks and IP phones. It will automatically configure all supported peripherals and it also comes with clients for Windows, OS X, iOS and Android. The ISO image includes a free license for the 3CX PBX edition. The ISO images contains the standard Debian installer which installs a minimal system with the nginx web server, PostgreSQL database, iptables firewall and Secure Shell. Options not relevant to 3CX have been removed form the distribution.
3CX -- Status page
(full image size: 989kB, resolution: 2071x1271 pixels)
arkOS
arkOS is a flavour of Arch Linux ARM, a lightweight Linux-based operating system, that runs on embedded devices and standalone servers. arkOS allows you to run websites, email accounts, social networking profiles from its graphical interface.
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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, 7 November 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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If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 1, value: US$5.54) |
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Elementary Review (by Ari Torres on 2016-10-31 00:31:42 GMT from United States)
Right ON Jesse
Elementary OS Loki 0.4 is too buggy to say the least. It is a beautiful design but compare to previous releases this one is a regression.
There are tons of improvements to be apply, WiFi, Printers, Pantheon and few Apps that are badly designed.
Good Luck eOS Team.
2 • Elementary OS Loki (by Dion on 2016-10-31 00:34:38 GMT from United States)
I have not had any of the issues the reviewer had. I am running Loki on Surface Pro 3 (i7 8GB RAM, 250GB SSD) and Alienware i3 Desktop. Other than having to install software-properties-common and gnome-software so I can add PPAs and deb files, the OS runs smoothly.
I wish there was a way to install proprietary drivers. Seeing how there are daily OS updates, I figure there they will get there soon.
3 • Fav WM (by linuxista on 2016-10-31 00:34:51 GMT from United States)
Hard to choose b/t i3 and openbox. Fav. tiling vs. fav. stacking.
4 • Other WM (by Torres Johoinon on 2016-10-31 00:39:43 GMT from United States)
Motif Window Manager for me.
5 • No particular subject ? (by bigsky on 2016-10-31 00:45:37 GMT from Hungary)
That's it. I am done Distro hopping and that's not elementary Watson.( and don't ask me have I ever tried it ) No more experiments. Stick a fork in me as I am done. It's LINUX MINT from now on. END of STORY. Thanks
6 • Window manager & Rolling release (by Sparky on 2016-10-31 00:51:49 GMT from United States)
Favorite window manager: Budgie
Favorite rolling release: Solus
'nuff said!
7 • window manager (by Gilbert Sanford on 2016-10-31 01:10:12 GMT from United States)
cwm (the calm window manager) on OpenBSD is my all time favorite. It's part of the default installation along with tmux and vi (not vim,) a developer's dream come true (I'm old school, and, yes, I even use ed from time to time :-) You can read the man pages at:
http://man.openbsd.org/OpenBSD-current/man1/cwm.1
http://man.openbsd.org/OpenBSD-current/man5/cwmrc.5
How clean and concise compared to the manual pages of other window managers!
Regarding rolling releases, try running OpenBSD current, and see what you think. I've tried a few operating systems in my day, and OpenBSD is hard to beat.
Cheers,
Gilbert
8 • WindowMaker (by tuxmm on 2016-10-31 02:13:28 GMT from United States)
WindowMaker; highly customizable, super fast, stays out of the way.
9 • DIRTY COW DISEASE affects Linux - not scary (by Greg Zeng on 2016-10-31 02:38:07 GMT from Australia)
Https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v4.x/ChangeLog-4.4.26
Author: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Date: Thu Oct 20 10:01:03 2016 +0200
Linux 4.4.26
Author: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Thu Oct 13 13:07:36 2016 -0700
This is an ancient bug that was actually attempted to be fixed once
(badly) by me eleven years ago in commit 4ceb5db9757a ("Fix
get_user_pages() race for write access") but that was then undone due to
problems on s390 by commit f33ea7f404e5 ("fix get_user_pages bug").
In the meantime, the s390 situation has long been fixed
The above "press release" shows that any Linux Kernel released by the Linux Foundation after the above date ... Is "safe", for every kernel dated after "Thu Oct 20 10:01:03 2016". These updated kernels could be from not just the Linux Foundation. Some distro makers will have their own kernel upgrades: Canonical, Arch, PCLOS, etc.
Kernel updates can also be upgraded easily with some down-time and a few CLI lines of code, depending on the version of Linux. It also means that all Linux kernels after Kernel 4.8.3 is auto-immune.
What is not mentioned is that the next major Linux Kernel (version 4.9) will allow system admins update the Linux kernel, but not have any major down-time. To every responsible operating system, down-time can be enormously expensive. Ver 4.9 is now in Beta x release now. New kernels are being updated & released almost every day now, much to my annoyance. Some kernel updates are very trivial imho. The final ver 4.9 will be released next year, on a supposed fixed date.
On this week's survey ... I don't know, and I don't care which windows manager I use. All I know is that it is Gnome, MATE, KDE, LXDE, etc. Some claim to also use OpenBox, etc. Most advanced Linux users imho, are not coders. We use our operating systems to get non-computer tasks done. Computers are not our reasons for living, nor working.
10 • Fav WM (by slick on 2016-10-31 02:41:25 GMT from United States)
Have to say that Openbox is my all time favorite, run multiple distributions which I also run Fluxbox and i3. WM's are just easier without the bloat of a DE.
Devuan is become my preference for a distribution, just a very stable and reliable release. Super light on the memory usage which further compliments the enjoyment of a WM.
Happy day!
Slick
11 • Rolling releases (by TheOtherDonald on 2016-10-31 02:53:04 GMT from United States)
I have never understood why Sabayon does not include vi. It wouldn't take up much room, and legend has it that vi is the best test editor to learn, since its guaranteed to be on every UNIX system. Apparently not this one. In general, there are several things I like about Sabayon's approach, and have thought it looks impressive when booted, but has been flakey for me once installed.
I would really like to be able to run OpenSUSE again. It was good in the early days, when it was done in Germany and there were only about 4 Linuxes. But it always seems to have its glitches. The last time I tried it (13.2), it would not install because it could not find a directory on its own DVD.
All in all, most Linux distros seem to be regressing lately.
12 • eOS Loki, rolling releases & desktop enviroments. (by mystified1234 on 2016-10-31 03:44:13 GMT from Australia)
I switched from Windows about 6 yrs ago. I think I've tried over 100 Distro's in that time, For a Noob one can't go past Deb/Ububtu/Mint for their first Linux. There is so much written in support & not mention in various forms of social media.
If we look at SysD based Distro's my preference would be either elementary Pantheon or Gnome 3. Elementary should be shipped with default elementary-tweak-daily, With these added features there is much more that can be done to enhance the desktop experience for a user to customize the Desktop in ways that only Gnome 3 can offer, The benefits of pantheon over Gnome 3 is it uses less resources & I believe it's, considerably faster. I enjoy gnome 3, but I don't like having to be connected to the net to constantly add plugins to tweak tool. I have been using Arch ( Apricity & Arch-Anywhere) with Gnome 3. I really prefer the benefit's of the rolling release over LTS Distros. I also prefer the Arch (pacman) package manager Vs Apt package manager.
I have started to move away from SysD (I have found it very buggy) & it's often hard to find solutions to rectify the boot solutions( that can take over 3 mins to boot), Especially if you do not have a technical background. I have been experimenting with Distro's that are not using SysD Unfortunately, there is really no options in Linux for SysD free (Gnome3 or Pantheon ), So I have been testing Calculate-Linux (Gentoo) with the Mate desktop. If you are wanting to test the waters with a Gentoo distro that is configured, having done all the hard work for you this is the one. It's good place to start for an intermediate Linux user, I certainly prefer it over Sabayon. The downside for Gentoo is it feels like you downloading half the internet when you are building pkgs or updating the Os, so if you have limited bandwidth then keep away from Gentoo based Distro's.
In the last fortnight I have enjoyed using TrueOs with Lumina desktop, I was initially frustrated with Idea of using lumina as my preferences were gnome 3 or pantheon. Lumina is based Kde. I have grown to like this, its fast & responsive & low on resources. TrueOs is based "freebsd12-current, thus is is a rolling release. Is configured & ready to go from the box. I will say they are incredibly helpful & friendly on their small but close forum & chat site. They go out of their way to help Noobs. It also uses
ZFS file system.
With respect to rolling releases my preferences would 1. Arch 2. TrueOs 3. Calculate-linux. Preference on Desktops 1. Pantheon (must have elementary-tweaks-daily installed) 2. Gnome3 . 3. Lumina.
As an Os, my preference has now moved to Bsd, I have in the past tried Freebsd & NetBsd I find for a noob, these are a to difficult for my level of understanding, So If you are considering testing a Bsd try TrueOs. I must emphasize that if you are considerin resting a Bsdm ake sure your hardware is compatible before trying to instal. So my Os preference would be 1. TrueOs 2. Arch ( either Apricity or Arch-anywhere) 3. Elementary.
I hope I have not bored you guys with my lengthy comments & I hope this is not tossed in the trash by Distrowatch.
Mystified.
Ps Love this website..
13 • favorite window manager = compiz (by LiuYan on 2016-10-31 03:55:56 GMT from Singapore)
Operating system: Fedora
Desktop Environment: MATE
Window Manager: Compiz
Optionally, I may use LXDE which use openbox as window manager.
14 • KWin forgotten? (by BeGo on 2016-10-31 04:03:45 GMT from Indonesia)
Correct me, please,
KWin is a windows manager. :)
15 • Re: favorite window manager (by Destino on 2016-10-31 05:55:20 GMT from United States)
I vote KDE in the destop poll as I find it most confortable for recreational use.
But in the office (I'm a system admin), I find wmii (short for Window Manager Improved Improved) compact and efficient. I think it's similar to i3 but has a more interesting configuration.
16 • favorite window manager (by argent on 2016-10-31 06:53:13 GMT from United States)
Past year have elected to spend time with tiling Wm's, bit tasking at first adjusting to something new and quite fond of i3. Still use openbox, fluxbox and blackbox as well.
@ 15 Destino: Will have to take a look at wmii, thank you!
@ 10 slick: Devuan has a lot to offer, simply the only way to go, getting away from the main stream big distributions. My desktop has never run at login at 165mb of memory, it does now!
17 • Favourite WM (by OstroL on 2016-10-31 07:24:55 GMT from Germany)
Openbox.
Also gave you guys a few distros to download, Monara, Nelum (Debian and Devuan).
18 • Rolling release distros (by billc on 2016-10-31 07:44:15 GMT from Australia)
Void and Calculate if you want to avoid systemd. I have been running Calculate for >6 months with no issues except for the LXQT DE freezing - fixed with XFCE! I have just started using Void - it is awesome.
19 • Fave Window Manager (by RoboNuggie on 2016-10-31 08:49:16 GMT from United Kingdom)
Motif Window Manager on FreeBSD. . . Scartches my *nix itch.
20 • Favourite window manager (by devtry on 2016-10-31 09:07:11 GMT from Italy)
dwm, http://dwm.suckless.org, btw awesome derived from it if I'm not mistaken
21 • Rolling (by Rick on 2016-10-31 10:26:36 GMT from United States)
I always liked the concept of rolling distros, because you always are up to date without waiting for releases or adding numerous third party repositories. When Arch based distros started to appear, I started trying them out. It is a great way to try Arch and then you can decide whether you want to do the "Arch way" installation.
I have found that Antergos works so well for me that I have forgone the Arch installation and it has replaced Ubuntu on most of my machines. It is definitely worth a try, if you want to check out Arch and see if it suits you.
22 • Other WM (by Charles on 2016-10-31 10:29:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
FVWM for me.
23 • JWM for the win (by session on 2016-10-31 10:35:29 GMT from United States)
I discovered Joe's Window Manager through Puppy Linux. Like Puppy, JWM is very fast, unadorned and extraordinarily usable--it's like a lighter version of Marco, the default wm on my current Mint setup. Stacking managers like Openbox and Xfwm are supposed to be this way too, but they're so much slower it's not funny.
24 • favorite wm (by karga on 2016-10-31 10:35:56 GMT from United States)
Been a fan and user of Openbox primarily, but on the other hand really appreciate Fluxbox. Started using various tiling window managers and liked i3 the most. JWM is another Wm that has been around a long while, found it to be a very lightweight and fast, plus easy to configure.
Openbox was the first I landed with after departing Windows for good, it just worked for me. Liked everything about it and wanted to learn Linux and Debian in particular.
Devuan has replaced Debian for me, simply a much better distribution base which offers better stability, certainly easier to configure and maintain.
Star Linux offer Ob, Fb, i3, and Jwm window managers along with Xfce. Those who would like to try them and Devuan can find the at SF.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/linnix/?source=directory
Zephyr Linux also has Ob, Fb, and Jwm.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/zephyrlinux/
These distributions are very lightweight and small (less than 600mb) live-hybrid image installable from a USB.
25 • My favourite window manager (by Don Shae on 2016-10-31 10:48:33 GMT from Netherlands)
I use PEKWM (https://www.pekwm.org/) with very much satisfaction.
26 • Boot Time of Rolling Releases (by sydneyj on 2016-10-31 11:11:37 GMT from United States)
@ Jessie - I was very surprised to see the 2-minute boot time noted for Arch, and over a minute for SUSE Tumbleweed. I have used Arch as a daily driver for some time, and just timed my boot at 12 seconds. I have Gentoo in a VM, and it boots under 15 seconds. Maybe a hardware problem at Distrowatch?
I don't believe any Arch or Gentoo user would tolerate a 2-minute boot time for very long. I would have changed years ago.
27 • Apps, package managers etc @ Jessie (by Lennie on 2016-10-31 11:53:42 GMT from Canada)
Our Linux distros are wound around a package manager. These package managers bind the apps to it in such a way, so the user has to use the distro's package manager, the gui one or through the terminal. In a way, that keeps the user a noob all the time, blocking them from digging in. You can install apps in another way and be the owner of the apps in your computer, and also not be worried about unwanted upgrades. Some upgrade might brake your system.
Take for example the .deb package based distros. Download a deb package and unpack it. You may get 3 folders. Unpack everyone and have a look at them. The control file would tell you what this app is dependant on. You may have all or some of the dependencies already. Check if you want to "install" any of the dependencies.
Inside the unpacked data file, you'd most find 3 folders, etc, usr and sometimes lib. Copy to /etc. /lib, /usr, only those you think you need for the app to run. You might need a link (desktop file) in /usr/share/applications, a file in /usr/bin, few folders and files in /usr/share.
Putting files and folders all over the root is what Linux distros (package managers) do. Most of the devs say, you need to update periodically. In other words, they are saying is that their app is not that ready. By not upgrading the app won't stop working.
By learning where to put files and folders, you'd start learning how the Linux system works. Don't rely on package managers or their shiny GUIs. Try yourself.
28 • WM / Desktop (by John on 2016-10-31 12:01:08 GMT from Canada)
@5 - I agree - Linux Mint for me! I've been distro-hopping since Slackware 2 in the early 90s, and no distro works better / smoother / "just works" than Mint. Currently using 18 Cinnamon and unless something really major happens, I think this is it for me :-)
29 • Boot time (by mandog on 2016-10-31 12:04:15 GMT from Peru)
Jessie Idon't suppose you asked systemD why it was hanging at boot?
Its in the Arch Wiki Just one the page is all the user needs https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd
in a terminal $ systemd-analyze blame would of told you the process that was hanging
as it prints the start time of every process starting with the longest 1st
$ systemd-analyze prints the total start time like this
Startup finished in 3.416s (kernel) + 5.433s (userspace) = 8.850s everything is simple commands even children can use much easier to use than any other init system to fix boot problems.
30 • For rolling release I can surely reccomend Void linux (by UT on 2016-10-31 12:18:00 GMT from Germany)
I run Void Linux for >12 months now, both on homerserver and every-day-use-laptop.
Besides the issues everyone else may have had with upstream-induced flaws (gtk3 theming for example...) I did not erxperience real trouble on my daily working machine.
Boots from grub to login in about 25sec, even less if would cut some things down to minimal ;)
check it out: www.voidlinux.eu
31 • Window manager (by César on 2016-10-31 13:16:20 GMT from Chile)
Hellow!!!
In the ancient times (Suse 9.3), i use window Maker, i like the style and the performance with the green Chameleon.
Now, in this time, i use Devuan Jessie with Mate in the main PC and Ubuntu Mate Edition in the old laptop.
Saludos desde Santiago de Chile.
32 • Favorite Window Manager... (by PMcCartney on 2016-10-31 13:29:43 GMT from United States)
If I had to choose, I would have to say, 'WindowMaker' as my favorite WM. It's super lightweight, and extremely fast and customizable. Before any of the desktop environments came into existence, WindowMaker was my WM of choice.
33 • JWM, because the code is so good (by bison on 2016-10-31 13:45:41 GMT from United States)
I like JWM because the code is clean and well written. If you are interested in modifying your window manager, JWM is a really good place to start.
At the other end of the spectrum is FLWM; it desperately needs to be refactored.
34 • Arch issues (by DaveW on 2016-10-31 13:48:27 GMT from United States)
I have been using Arch with the Mate DE for several years now. I think there was one time (maybe twice) when an update broke something. A little research was required to fix the problem(s), but not a lot. The system has never been unusable.
My boot time has always been about 10-15 seconds.
35 • Window Manager (by Jose on 2016-10-31 13:52:04 GMT from United States)
Favorite Window Manager is Windows Maker. Love the look and functionality.
Favorite Rooling Distro is PCLinuxOS. It is what I use everyday.
36 • poll (by Jordan on 2016-10-31 14:02:09 GMT from United States)
Looks like the "other" choice is getting about a third of us.
Mate and Cinnamon occupy my two laptops. I can't decide which one is my "favorite," as they serve different purposes on the two machines. Both are grand environments.
37 • Favorite Window Manager (by Kevin on 2016-10-31 14:10:56 GMT from United States)
Favorite window manager - DWM
38 • distro review (by Jordan on 2016-10-31 14:31:35 GMT from United States)
Something that has always intrigued and puzzled me a bit is the disparity in page hit ranking between distros that basically function very well from install to daily use, and distros that are troubled.
Case in point; this week's review of elementary, a terrible distro by my experience, which is borne out by the review in some ways. That distro enjoys being high in the top ten, while Korora and KaOS, as two examples, which function wonderfully and reliably, are way down the list, about 49 and 37 respectively.
I know that many factors drive distros up and down that page hit ranking list, but those examples seem almost startling.
39 • fav window manager (by Mark D on 2016-10-31 14:48:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
I installed OpenBSD a few weeks ago and got FVWM window manager; what a blast from the past! I had to remember how to use it, and I had forgotten that 'sloppy' focus used to be common on Unix machines.
Nice, but I wouldn't particularly want to go back to it. Gnome/Unity/XCFE may have their problems, but they have a lot of nice usability features and feel good to use too, in my experience, so I'm happy with today's 'desktop environments'.
40 • Elementary OS review (by Ennio on 2016-10-31 14:49:31 GMT from Netherlands)
Thanks to OSNews(.com, if you like), there is a review of Loki by a very professional user, that which contrasts with Mr. Smith's goal of assessing how painless/friendly/noobie/etc. a give GNU/Linux distribution can, should, or hopefully might be. The test on a Chromebook Acer C720 is here: http://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2016/10/29/2240.
Mind we all, not all hardware is created equal, and so are users. I wouldn't have bet a dime on the smoothness of such experience on a hardware category (prop products made "in house", aka: close the gate, spaff the sources) that inspires me sighs like "... and here it goes the cryptic piece of hardware with no drivers (yet)". On the other hand, I too, at times, would like to be spoon-fed. Corrections and remarks are welcome.
Cheers
41 • Rolling Releases (by Sam Crawford on 2016-10-31 14:54:50 GMT from United States)
I love Debian Stretch.
42 • Rolling Release left OUT! (by Bobbie Sellers on 2016-10-31 15:39:35 GMT from United States)
Should have included a mention of PCLinux OS.
Since the Weekly did not hear is my little report.
I will say that you can encounter some problems
at various installation points but always found
a work-around.
I am running a fully updated PCLinux OS 2016.03
on my Pavilion notebook with 12 Gigabytes of RAM
and an AMD A10 4 core machine.
The kernel updates have been coming thru very quickly,
One had a <90 minute interval from the previous release.
Currently on the Pavilion have 4.8.4-pclos1 with KDE's
Plasma 4,14.18
Updates to Plasma (about 40) came down last week.
On my salvaged Dell E6420 I have a useless Windows 7,
the main control for the rest of the system is again PCLOS 2016.03
again fully updated and using kernel 4.8.5,
There is a preview version of PCLinuxOS 2019.07 with KDE's
Plasma 5 running kernel 4.8.5, Updates are coming thru
pretty fast but Plasma 5 remains far from the smoothness and
convenience of Plasma 4, with only slight improvements to
a few points and lots of missing plugins.
On the same machine I have a Ubuntu Studio install that I haven't
looked at much because the interface in 16.04.1 turns me off.
Finally a blast from the past, pclos-babymate-2015.10 is
updated to kernel 4.1.26 and has a older version of Mate
the was appealing running live as it looked a lot like my
old Amiga. The unique thing in these days of simplified
releases is that the pclos-babymate-2015.10.iso is about
490 Megabytes. Of course they get to that size by
leaving out tools like Firefox and Thunderbird that
require more space.
I started Linux with Mandriva 2006 and update every
year until 2011 when the late release was broken,
I love the drakxtools which is why I went to Mageia 4.1
and Mageia 5 when PCLOS had no way to deal with
the UEFI systems on the Pavilion except by removing
Windows installation. As soon as I heard via Distrowatch
in a tiny note that PCLOS 2016.03 was out and could deal
with UEFI I started trying it again and by the second month
had moved across from Mageia 5 to PCLinux OS.
I have checked out each release of Open Mandriva and
been unimpressed even when it worked on my hardware.
Truely Rolling releases need an system duplication so that
if and when an update fails a quick reboot will take you back
to the latest operating version. Failing that do those backups.
bliss
43 • Rolling Releases (openSUSE) (by Pierre on 2016-10-31 15:56:37 GMT from Germany)
I used openSUSE tumbleweed for quite a long time now. Never had real issues. And if you install openSUSE like suggested onto a Btrfs partition it is very easy to revert to the last snapshot of the system via snapper as zypper does a snapshot before and after every package manager job.
This is what I am missing about almost every other rolling release distro at the moment. The only OS which does something comparable is TrueOS.
Manjaro is based on Arch and is rolling as well - it replaced my openSUSE installation on my Laptop recently and performes great since the installation. So maybe worth a try as well.
44 • @ Jessie - the GRUB problem (by Mark on 2016-10-31 16:05:37 GMT from Canada)
> The first time I went through the install process and rebooted, Arch failed to load, reporting the kernel could not be found. A little exploring revealed that the installation script for the GRUB boot loader had incorrectly detected the drive identifier (UUID) on my hard disk. I swapped out the bad identifier in my GRUB configuration...<
This is nothing to do with Arch installation. It is a problem with your GRUB from your other distro you have in your computer.
45 • Window Managers (by Jake on 2016-10-31 16:21:14 GMT from United States)
I really like this memory comparison of window managers and desktops:
https://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops/
I used to think that XFCE was "light," but it is up there with Cinnamon. In that case, I'd use Mate instead! I use Openbox on my netbook and on some custom stuff I've done. Probably would give JWM a try, used it on Puppy.
What does a DE offer over a WM? For example, why would I want Cinnamon over Openbox (with "start" menus installed)? Is it all eye candy, or is there something else?
46 • Rolling release trial#2 - Problems with Arch Linux (by Wim Herremans on 2016-10-31 16:43:29 GMT from Belgium)
@JessSmith.
I cannot confirm the problems you had with Archlinux in your article on "Rolling releasetrial #2".
You wrote:
"I then set about manually enabling networking, installing a display manager and installing a desktop environment, along with the proper video drivers. Here, I once again ran into a problem as the LightDM display manager I had selected for handling logins installed, but failed to load. LightDM would crash on start-up and the log entries it provided were of no help in trouble-shooting."
I am using Arch Linux already many years and I have never has any serious problems with it.
Today, I freshly installed Arch Linux on my 4 year old Acer Aspire V3-571 laptop (i5 processor) to see if I encountered the problems you mentioned.
I have installed the XFCE desktop environment and the Lightdm display manager with gtk-greeter (packages lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter and lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings).
This enabled me to start the XCFE desktop without any problems.
You also wrote:
"One issue I noticed with Arch, beyond the setup problems with UUIDs and the LightDM login manager, was that the boot process was unusually slow. While booting, at least one service would be unresponsive, leaving systemd to wait. This meant booting Arch took a little over two minutes with the default configuration."
I have measured the boottime from the moment that I press ENTER on the bootmanager until the display of Lightdm. The result: 20 s.
I agree this is a rather minimum installation without networkmanager and without CUPS.
Therefore, I also measured the boottime on the Arch installation I normally use, which has lightdm, XFCE, networkmanager and CUPS and which is already installed for more than a a year. Result: 30 s.
47 • Boot loader (by Jesse on 2016-10-31 17:10:23 GMT from Canada)
>> "This is nothing to do with Arch installation. It is a problem with your GRUB from your other distro you have in your computer."
I know this is not the case and the reason I know is the drive was wiped clean before the trial and Arch was the first distro installed. There was no existing GRUB entry or installation before Arch was set up. So, yes, it is a problem with the Arch set up.
>> "Jessie Idon't suppose you asked systemD why it was hanging at boot? "
No and it is not an issue which interests me, really. Not for the pruposes of this trial anyway. By the way, the preferrd spellings are "Jesse" and "systemd".
>> " I was very surprised to see the 2-minute boot time noted for Arch, and over a minute for SUSE Tumbleweed. Maybe a hardware problem at Distrowatch?"
Clearly not since both the other operating systems in the trial (and, as I mentioned, Mint before that) all have very good boot times. The boot time issue was specific to just Arch and openSUSE, the other three distros I tested later in the week booted quickly.
48 • Favorite WM (by Pavel on 2016-10-31 17:21:54 GMT from Romania)
My favorite Window manager is JWM ! although I do NOT USE it on my computer !!! I cannot have my computer the way I truly dream to because I need my computer to be productive, to feature professional tools ( utilities ) so I use Budgie window manager&desktop session. I have tested JWM and sometimes under multitasking with lot-of-RAM using ( hungry ) applications crashes and the session ends up instantly redirecting me ( the user ) to the default login manager. So JWM is my favorite window manager and I hope Linux distributions and maybe even BSDs to feature editions of Live Disks ( ISOs ) with it so I can enjoy it when I have the time !
49 • Window Managers (by evbo on 2016-10-31 17:23:39 GMT from United States)
I've floated between i3-gaps and bspwm in the past, but always come back to bspwm
50 • Rolling release wm (by Gekxxx on 2016-10-31 17:24:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
Very happy with Antergos xcfe. Keeps getting better all the time.
51 • Window mangers (by David on 2016-10-31 17:26:01 GMT from United Kingdom)
I need the facilities of a full desktop, but I've tried most WMs over the years. For me, the best are Icewm and JWM, but it may be that AntiX and Puppy have added enhancements.
52 • crashed on the rocky, barren shores of UEFI (by tom joad on 2016-10-31 17:40:06 GMT from United States)
I just bought a new computer. I checked to make sure the hardware would work with Anti-x and others in the Debian branch. That is always what I have done in the past with good results.
Only I crashed hard on the rocky, barren shores of UEFI!
OMG. Who this side of Hell dreamed that up? Worse still, looks like the ghouls in Redmond had their wretched fingers in it as well.
I gather their utter failure to write tight relatively bug free software caused them to come up with the concepts of Secure Boot!
My guess is the goal is for folks just to go with Windows 10 and shut up. Sorry, ain't a-gonna happen on my watch.
So I will work through it, the sun will shine again too. But what an Oooooogly surprise UEFI was for me.
53 • crashed on... (by nolinuxguru on 2016-10-31 17:58:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
@52 I have been waiting for the decision by Mircosoft affiliates at UEFI-central to not require Window-10 computers to allow an opt-out from Secure Boot to hit home. Did you buy such a machine? I have been buying HP machines with Windows 7 [and Windows 10 as option], but this choice may not last.
The only alternative would be to replace the BIOS with LibreBoot, but that is a scary and difficult path.
54 • @52 (by Jay on 2016-10-31 18:10:47 GMT from United States)
I hit this same problem with a new Dell laptop. You're right, you will get through it. The one trick to make it work for me was needing to set up a boot entry from the BIOS itself (or the UEFI manager or whatever they call it now... hitting F2 from boot). Until I did that, the system refused to boot from the internal eMMC because it required UEFI as a special "feature." The laptop did boot legacy from USB which drove me crazy for a long time!! The installer also did not do this properly. It set up a folder for grub, but then I had to manually point the boot manager to it.
55 • @47 Jessie (by Mark on 2016-10-31 19:33:23 GMT from Canada)
> know this is not the case and the reason I know is the drive was wiped clean before the trial and Arch was the first distro installed. There was no existing GRUB entry or installation before Arch was set up.
If you've wiped your hard disk clean, and there was no other distros installed, there would be one partition, OR where did you install it? Or you had so many (free) partitions, HOW did you know your installed Arch didn't find the installed partition's UUID?
I just installed Arch, just to check. Nothing like what you say happened!
56 • Desktop Manager (by Chazd on 2016-10-31 19:39:36 GMT from United States)
@6 I agree Budgie/Solus all the way. Best rolling distro out there.
57 • Arch and UUIDs (by Jesse on 2016-10-31 20:03:26 GMT from Canada)
>> "If you've wiped your hard disk clean, and there was no other distros installed, there would be one partition, OR where did you install it? "
When i began the installation of Arch there were zero partitions, the drive had been zeroed. When I ran the Arch install process I created two partitions, one for root (/) and one for swap. Those were the only partitions at the time. The UUIDs which were written to the GRUB configuration file during the grub install/setup did not match either partition. I don't know where they came from.
>> "HOW did you know your installed Arch didn't find the installed partition's UUID?
If you read the article you'll find I explained Arch would not boot because GRUB had the wrong UUIDs. When I manually changed them in the grub config file, the distribution was able to boot.
>> "I just installed Arch, just to check. Nothing like what you say happened!"
That is nice for you, but not at all relevant to my experiences.
58 • @ 57 (by Mark on 2016-10-31 20:23:30 GMT from Canada)
> I don't know where they came from. <
That's better than saying Arch is bad.
If you had only 2 partitions, there'd be 2 UUIDs, so it can be one or the other. There can't be something out of the sky. Its a GRUB problem. Or maybe the way you installed Arch.
Installing Arch is quite a straightforward matter, and its a simple boot. Try again, until you get it right.
59 • WMs (by geert on 2016-10-31 20:26:24 GMT from Netherlands)
I use Openbox most of the time, and sometimes DWM. Do you use DWM?
60 • rolling (by mike on 2016-10-31 20:37:07 GMT from United States)
I've been using Sparky Linux (Debian testing) for over a year now. It's been rock-solid. When I do reboot, which is not very often, it's fast, in the 15 to 20 second range. Although the current standard Debian itself may not be as bleeding edge as some others, it's testing release really isn't as stodgy as some make it out to be. It's not quite Sid, but is very stable.
61 • Window Managers (by nolinuxguru on 2016-10-31 20:40:47 GMT from United Kingdom)
I use Openbox mainly because on Devuan it has obmenu. Obmenu is a really easy-to-use way of creating your own menus away from the complications of XML [or worse]. With this and lxterminal [borrowed from LXDE], I can get started with as little as 150mb memory]. Still, running [and using] Chromium or Firefox as a browser soon gets the actual memory requirement up to 1gb.
62 • Arch install (by Jesse on 2016-10-31 20:41:55 GMT from Canada)
>> "If you had only 2 partitions, there'd be 2 UUIDs, so it can be one or the other. There can't be something out of the sky. "
Nope, the UUIDs of either of my partitions did not match the ones which the GRUB setup process placed in the configuration file. So, this time it seems it really was just (as you put it) out of the sky.
>> "Try again, until you get it right."
That's a bit silly and patronizing. I've done many installations of Arch (a handful I've documented here on DW), all of them prior to now have worked out. And there really are only two commands for setting up GRUB. It's not like there is any room for the GRUB installation to go wrong. You're really just making excuses for an issue which A) shouldn't exist and B) has very little to do with the focus of the article.
63 • PekWM (by Markus on 2016-10-31 20:55:21 GMT from Serbia)
PekWM has all that openbox has + tabbing as in fluxbox.
I add compton, skippy-xd & piedock for ergonomy/i-candy(C).
After 5 years Arch is more stable than Pclos. Both are good.
64 • Rolling release left out (by Harold on 2016-10-31 21:01:18 GMT from United States)
To Bobbie Sellers... I totally agree with your post. I have been running PCLOS for several years now and still love it. It just works. Many of the other linux flavors that I have looked at just don't cut it.
I run the latest KDE version on my desktop and laptop. I also have the latest Mate version installed on another desktop that has Windows 7 on it. Mate controls the boot menu. Great job Texstar and all the minions.
65 • antiX Linux makes it very easy to try different window managers (by billc on 2016-10-31 21:45:34 GMT from Australia)
antiX has an interesting feature, it allows you to change window manager from the application Start menu. The options are Fluxbox, IceWM, Jwm and Herbsluftwm. You can also choose the WM with Rox, Space or minimal.
This works from the live distro as well - makes it very easy to see these WMs in action.
66 • @62 (by Mark on 2016-10-31 22:02:00 GMT from Canada)
As you've installed many distros, you should know if grub fails, then its a grub problem, rather than the distro problem. Grub is the app, and an app can fail sometimes. Grub is also notoriously know to fail.
Now that you have 4 distros in your comp, try installing Loki in one of the free partitions. Elementary Loki would take over Grub. When you try to boot OpenSuse or Arch or whatever you have, Grub might not see one or few. Lately Grub is having problems in recognizing partitions.
67 • @59 DWM? (by Mark on 2016-10-31 22:05:47 GMT from Canada)
Sure, geert, I too sometimes use DWM. I know what you mean. I'm sure many of us use DWM to.
68 • GRUB (by Jesse on 2016-10-31 22:17:07 GMT from Canada)
>> "you should know if grub fails, then its a grub problem"
I'm not sure it really matters whose fault it is, the end result is the same. I think too much time gets spent trying to point blame in the open source community when, in the end, what matters is whether something works. The end user is not going to care if their computer doesn't boot because of the installer, GRUB or a distro config error or a package maintainer bungled a script. What the end user knows is their computer is not booting, the fine details are not important to them.
>> "Grub is also notoriously know to fail."
Maybe, but I think this is only the third time I've experienced a problem with GRUB in the past 15 years or so. When we take into account how many thousands of installs I've performed, across hundreds of distros, that's a pretty decent track record.
69 • @58 Mark (by Dave on 2016-10-31 22:37:04 GMT from United States)
-That's better than saying Arch is bad.
It's not that great, either.
-If you had only 2 partitions, there'd be 2 UUIDs, so it can be one or the other. There can't be something out of the sky. Its a GRUB problem. Or maybe the way you installed Arch.
How many different ways are there to install Arch? I only know one.
-Installing Arch is quite a straightforward matter, and its a simple boot. Try again, until you get it right.
Arch is not straightforward, and all distro's are a 'simple boot.' "Try again?" Really, is that what you did? Several times till you got it right?
70 • 45 • Window Managers (by Greg Zeng on 2016-11-01 00:29:28 GMT from Australia)
The url is more than three years old. Many changes have been made. Significant or not changes? Unsure, until the tests are repeated.
https://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops/ (March 17, 2013).
Interesting questions you posed: "What does a DE offer over a WM? ... "
Answers afaik. If you are using Raspberry Pi CPU, with a very low powered CPU and scarcely any memory, and very poor GPU, then DE in not wanted. If it is a desktop computer, the CPU, GPU, memory, storage & IO ports are not so tight, so DE is ok.
The scary-cats will pretend we all run matchbox gadgets. Most of us do not. So XFCE, KDE-Plasma, MATE, Cinnamon, Unity, etc are ok. The WM-fuss is for the match-box gadgeteers. The 30% percentage of "other" in the original poll indicates this imho.
71 • WM vs DE (by jeff on 2016-11-01 02:53:52 GMT from United States)
The idea that only people that have low power computers would want a WM instead of a DE is like saying _everyone_ wants a big luxury car.
Personally I prefer a high performance hot rod over a luxury car.
With a WM instead of a DE a fast computer is even faster.
Does a DE really do enough to justify the extra overhead?
Does a DE make your web browser work better?
Does a DE make your video or audio player work better?
Does a DE make your text editor work better?
Does a DE make your (insert anything you use your computer for) work better?
72 • Enlighten Me (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2016-11-01 03:51:59 GMT from United States)
Rolling releases
I second the recommendation for Void Linux. I wish Void had been enrolled in this testing cycle. It's what Arch Linux should have become by now. Other good options for VD- avoidance include Alpine Linux "Edge" and Manjaro OpenRC.
The marvel of Void is how such a tiny team keeps thousands of packages instantly up-to-date, on all architectures, while other distros need prodding. Void's build chain is git atop buildbot.net. Would you other distros please copy? It's awesome.
Window Managers and Desktop Environments
The terms seem misnomers. They're conglomerate concepts needing old-school software factoring. Few gizmos in this realm do things The Unix Way (tm). They do things the M$FT or Crapple Way. Challenge: find a single-purpose tool for desktop icon management still actively developed.
Most WMs/DEs center on a file manager. That because what they really do, from a user standpoint, is drag-n-drop and file association. It's all about icons: what happens when you drag one, what when you click one.
Window resize, compositing, etc. is properly "window management." I don't even include "theme management" here, let alone panels.
What I want is mix-n-match. I hope Lumina Desktop will offer such factoring. It promises a plug-in architecture.
OpenBox needs no hacker 5k!11z. Just use the GUI tools. I suppose LXQt is the minimalist DE "for the rest of us." Many center on keyboard control, which I detest, but to each his own.
I wish I could grok Enlightenment, but it seems in everlasting beta for the latest spiffy new API 2.0 du jour. The API is all E ever advertises with any enthusiasm. E lacks a user-centric outlook. It may run super fast and light on everything, but I can't work the widgets. The default rigging always sends me away confused. If someone has configs to make E look like Manjaro XFCE then I'm all ears.
No WMs/DEs offer GUIs to control "special" locations ($XDG vars). None do security / sweeping for recent files listings. Why should my wife see the titles in my vast trove of ... oh, never mind ...
73 • WM vs DE (by m1 on 2016-11-01 04:10:20 GMT from Switzerland)
>>Does a DE really do enough to justify the extra overhead?
Yes. Plenty of eyecandy and complete solutions for all those many users which don't wan't to have anything to configure and tweak, and yet an attractive system.
PS. I'm a WM user! (openbox with my own tyling config, and every now and then i3)
74 • And Another Thing (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2016-11-01 04:10:58 GMT from United States)
And would you DEs kindly take a heavy, bloodthirsty hatchet to your ridiculous file indexing Spotlight-Google crappleware. These slow-down spyware gizmos need to be OPTIONAL EXTRAS, not mandatory dependencies.
So does PulseAudio. A DE should let me use any sound platform I want. Believe it or not, some of us don't give a rip about bluetooth, and don't want our sound streams tied into network ports or smartphones.
75 • Void Linux and DE.vs.WM (by nolinuxguru on 2016-11-01 07:59:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
@72 I agree on Void Linux, and use it on one of my computers. However, I am forced to use XFCE4 Desktop as Openbox lacks Obmenu which makes it usable as a desktop. Having said that, Void represents a significant advance with the xbps package manager, Runit init/daemon manager etc etc. I like where it is going.
76 • Favourite Window Manager (by brain_death on 2016-11-01 12:22:28 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have no issues with Xfwm, the default window manager for Xfce...
77 • FVWM Crystal : Austrumi / Void Enlightenment (by Lionel Winchester on 2016-11-01 15:31:50 GMT from United States)
FVWM Crystal was left out of the poll.
It is very well implemented in the Austrumi distribution.
Multiple themes to choose from. Run in RAM off of a USB stick.
The hard drive installation would not work in version 3.5.2 (it would only start from a command line entry prompt and then fail to work anyway) but,still worked very well off a USB flash drive. Very fast.
I could not get either of the last 2 Void Linux Enlightenment releases to boot after installation. April 20th,2016 iso + the prior iso. Maybe the next one will be better or maybe I should try the MATE .iso ??
78 • rolling release os (by debianxfce on 2016-11-01 15:36:44 GMT from Finland)
Debian testing Xfce is a stable, easy to use rolling release distribution. Update whatever and when ever you want, Debian packaging system takes care of dependencies. It is hidden here:
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/stretch_di_alpha7/amd64/iso-cd/
Padoka ppa and Oibaf ppa are compatible if you need the latest Mesa drivers. Install nvidia driver from nvidia site Use the Xfce Whisker menu plugin and tune the desktop to your liking.
79 • FaVorite WM (by lain on 2016-11-01 15:54:34 GMT from United States)
Heh, I can't believe that FVWM wasn't included in the poll... it's one of the oldest around. But I still use it to great effect.
I love customizing it(though I admit, it takes up a LOT of my time lol). It's customizability can't be beat: you can basically program the thing. I have it set up to give me a minimal titlebar on the left side, dynamic menus, 'pseudo-tiling', tons of keybinds, and even mouse bindings!
The fact that it barely uses any resources is icing on the cake.
I do also enjoy WindowMaker, and Spectrwm on the tiling side of things.
80 • @70-74 (by Jake on 2016-11-01 17:21:10 GMT from United States)
Thanks for your thoughts. As time goes on, I start to think a DE isn't really necessary. Sometimes I like eye candy and Knoppix attracted me to Linux when KDE looked so familiar. However, I agree with Arch Watcher's rant of why the heck is the system spending so much time indexing, searching, etc., for things I don't want. I learned "chattr +i" and other tricks when /dev/null failed to stop doing that crap.
I have an Openbox setup with keyboard shortcuts for all programs (not a production machine so that's only a few). I used to do that for XP for common programs. I don't do much with spacefm because the machine is for browsing and not files. I like Nemo from Cinnamon but wish I could turn off the gnome crapware that is still there that my workarounds above "fix" (and then give me a complaining popup each session). That machine is very fast and could run anything, but that isn't the point. I bought a fast machine, so I want it to be fast. They are my bits and my cycles; if I want to waste or not waste them, I want that ability to choose.
81 • Void Linux and wm.vs.de (by nolinuxguru on 2016-11-01 17:50:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
@75 correction: Void Linux with Openbox window manager DOES have Obmenu, so my desktop is now setup almost as on Devuan. However, I have to borrow xfce4-{taskmanager,terminal,settings-manager} from XFCE4. I like the way Linux allows this mix-and-match approach.
82 • Favourite window managers (by John on 2016-11-01 20:28:11 GMT from United States)
fvwm2 for me
@79, same here, surprised fvwm was not on the list either. at one time it was the goto window manager on Linux
83 • Boot Manager Systemd Grub etc. (by MoreGee on 2016-11-01 21:17:53 GMT from United States)
I have had to do this many times. Sometimes it is upon first install or after an update. All I do is Boot Puppy and run Grub Update then reboot. Problem solved. But like UEFI this needs to addressed and give users an option to black list this package on install. Used to be the installer would ask what you wanted now you have no choice. Another trick is to install Mint last on a dual boot machine that also works 100 percent of the time.
84 • Bare-bones, WM, DE or not. (by Greg Zeng on 2016-11-02 02:38:21 GMT from Australia)
Very expert Linux troubleshooters can solve all problems with CLI and multiple terminals, with RTFM embedded permanently & very expensively into the expert's brain. CLI-only, will not destroy the costly, expensive learning needed by the true Linux-only "experts". Unfortunately, I prefer the GUI-only world, where RTFM is easily visible, being deliberately designed into GUI-display. Computer-operating-system stuff is not my interest, which is Human-Operating Systems: ergonomics).
Purists like bare-bones, it seems. Fixed, simple tasks. No windows managers, no desktop environments, etc. No indexing. No further expansion, no debugging ever needed again. No upgrades, ever again. These purists are so scared of the extra 0.1 % of any "flab" that might be added to their "perfect" system.
My real world is different. Some "errors" need upgrades, or bigger partitions, or new hardware & software. Simple, inflexible systems do adjust easily to future changes. So many distribution creators, even the big-names, refuse to include partition managers (e.g. gparted), proper application packagers (e.g. synaptic package manager, apt-get, aptitude), yet allow so much junk: Braille, foreign languages, etc.
I do agree: simple users have simple needs. IoT is the plain example. My wife seems to also be simple, until diagnosing the "trouble" in her system. Many Linux systems have simple WM or DE, have only one window as a default. Debugging needs two or more Windows. A full DE (LXDE, XFCE, KDE, ...) easily allow this. Sometimes the solution might be to have only one task per Window, in a DE rather than just a WM.
Eye & Ear candy might seem a luxury to "experts". For fatigued users, these gimmicks might lessen user mistakes. But I forgot. Operating system trouble shooters would loose their jobs & job-skills, if the world was easier for everyone. Linux might not be confined to the two-per-cent elitists on computer desktops,tablets, etc. That would be so very, very terrible.
83 • Boot Manager Systemd Grub etc.
Agreed. Mint and most other Ubuntu-based distributions handle Grub well. Other Linux operating systems really mess the boot process with multiple operating systems.
85 • Favourite window managers @ 59 and 67 (by adamek on 2016-11-02 13:17:27 GMT from United States)
I was thinking what you were asking about DWM.
86 • @ 85 DWM? (by OstroL on 2016-11-02 16:07:51 GMT from Canada)
What is this window manager called DWM? I haven't found this anywhere. Is it a new type of a WM?
87 • dwm window manager (by nolinuxguru on 2016-11-02 17:03:29 GMT from United Kingdom)
@86 "dwm" is the suckless.org window manager. Very frugal. It is available to "apt" users on Debian, etc.
88 • MX Linux as an "independent" distro (by Debian Supporter on 2016-11-02 17:44:21 GMT from Brazil)
Hello, UNIX community! This is the first time I post in DWW. Unfortunately, not to say nice things... So you major geeks have patience and try to help one more n00b struggling to learn a little bit about the intricacies of Linux.
Okay, this is my point-of-view regarding MX Linux:
Just like Mint is seen as a "separate" distro amidst gazillions of Ubuntu respins, I always thought MX Linux should also be considered not exactly an antiX variant, but a mature project with a unique personality. By the way, in my opinion, it's better than LMDE in each and every detail, except for the fact that the Brazilian national keyboard standard (called ABNT2, or "br-abnt2" in the form of a keymap) is WRONGLY implemented, so I cannot type accented vowels. Examples: "é" and "ã", which appear as "'e" and "~a". All non-accented vowels and all remaining symbols appear normal, including "Ç" (C cedilla, uppercase) and "ç" (c cedilla, lowercase).
Following the route of all neo-Latin idioms (Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, and even French), several non-Latin derivatives (including the nordic lineage of tongues like German, Danish, and Swedish) also have accented vowels. Check, Turkish, and many other European languages that use the Roman alphabet, have their own set of accented vowels. The sad truth is that ALL of them could be implemented by an ONLY keyboard standard, by means of an ONLY keymap, if the IBM engineers weren't so narrow-mind. Of course, a character-page with just 128 hex codes would not be enough to include the whole bunch of symbols the Europeans use to write documents.
As everybody knows, the guys who created the IBM-PC didn't see the need for a "universal" keyboard standard that could encompass anyone of the Western alphabets, both using Roman characters. They didn't even include the "Ç", a letter used in France, Spain, Portugal and Turkey. Thus Linux and the BSDs had to cope with an insanely high quantity of keymaps for an insanely high quantity of national keyboards that use the very same Roman alphabet with some particular group of accented vowels. It makes, for instance, an e-mail from Sweden (thus written in a Swedish keyboard) be read in Brazil with some characters CHANGED by the corresponding symbols in the ABNT2 standard; what doesn't occur if the message is PRINTED in a paper sheet and then sent by snail-mail in the shape of a letter.
In other words: The modern technology of making documents by typing characters in a computer keyboard SUCKS in the sense that it is not standardized enough to avoid such a basic problem as eventually get "wrong symbols" in a mail message or an HTML page from a foreign country. And then, probably because of a mistake in the br-abnt2 keymap, the splendid MX Linux version 15 simply doesn't let me type accented vowels in the Brazilian standard keyboard... Same trouble my father had years ago with a certain version of VectorLinux Standard Gold... What an absurd situation!
Well, it finally made me choose PCLinuxOS LXDE as my multimedia oriented distro. Now testing Scientific Linux (with GNOME2, that I hate) and a couple of other rock-solid, professionally crafted distros that also recognize the ABNT2 keyboard without a glitch. And because I love Debian Stable with XFCE, MX Linux will replace PCLinuxOS LXDE in my PC the day it replaces the apparently flawed br-abnt2 keymap. (Yes, I still wait for an antiX respin which make my keyboard happy
Great job, anticapitalista and friends! Debian community rules the world!
89 • @88 - MX Linux (by Hoos on 2016-11-02 18:05:50 GMT from Singapore)
Re: "mistake in the br-abnt2 keymap"
Have you tried asking for help in the MX Linux forums? They are very helpful and have a great packaging team. Since you say that the package in PCLinuxOS for the ABNT2 keyboard works well, if you explain the problem the team might be able, if at all possible, to import over the relevant PCLOS packages for MX.
You never know unless you ask.
90 • @87 DWM (by geert on 2016-11-02 18:59:46 GMT from Netherlands)
Really?
DWM stands for Desktop Window Manager.
Most of us use it, maybe without knowing they are using it. Strange, no one had found what that is!
91 • @89 - MX Linux (by Debian Supporter on 2016-11-02 20:50:46 GMT from Brazil)
Prior to post in DWW, I did think of entering the MX Linux forums to ask for help. But then I decided to do it in DWW because of the phenomenal popularity of this webpage, which every week aggregates millions of distro-lovers searching for news and reviews.
As I have frequently realized, it seems to be "impossible" not being read when releasing a message hereby due to the fact that distrowatch.com is the world's most relevant website for the entire bunch of Linux communities. (Why bother just one of them when you can bother all of them? :)
By the way, I confess my ignorance: I'm not sure whether the problem exposed in the #88 post is related to the br-abnt2 keymap or to any other part of the MX 15 distro. It's just a dumb assumption... What I can positively affirm is that some distros have a weird, unexpected behavior, especially when running from a live environment. Only for the record: The problem with my Logitech ABNT2 keyboard was verified after I run from an HDD an MX 15 "real install" and also after I run from a pendrive a "frugal install" of the same system (in reality, a "snapshot" of a configured HDD installation taken by means of "MX Snapshot", a script that creates an ISO image of the distro).
Anyway, your advice is perfect. Thanks, Hoos! Maybe I join the MX Linux forum the next time I find a difficulty. My dad could help me because he's a proficient Debian user who knows a lot about CLI, source compilation, and stuff like that, but he said: "Linux is neither for dumb people, nor for lazy bastards. So you have to learn it the hard way. Do your homework. Otherwise, F**K YOU!!!"
Oh, this is my dad...
92 • dwm dual identity (by nolinuxguru on 2016-11-02 20:55:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
@90 the dwm window manager FOR LINUX is described at dwm.suckless.org; there is another DWM used by Microsoft Windows 7 etc [see wikipedia for disambiguation].
93 • MX Linux as an "independent" distro (by Debian Supporter on 2016-11-02 23:16:21 GMT from Brazil)
Hello, UNIX community! This is the first time I post in DWW. Unfortunately, not to say nice things... So you major geeks have patience and try to help one more n00b struggling to learn a little bit about the intricacies of Linux.
Okay, this is my point-of-view regarding MX Linux:
Just like Mint is seen as a "separate" distro amidst gazillions of Ubuntu respins, I always thought MX Linux should also be considered not exactly an antiX variant, but a mature project with a unique personality. By the way, in my opinion, it's better than LMDE in each and every detail, except for the fact that the Brazilian national keyboard standard (called ABNT2, or "br-abnt2" in the form of a keymap) is WRONGLY implemented, so I cannot type accented vowels. Examples: "é" and "ã", which appear as "'e" and "~a". All non-accented vowels and all remaining symbols appear normal, including "Ç" (C cedilla, uppercase) and "ç" (c cedilla, lowercase).
Following the route of all neo-Latin idioms (Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, and even French), several non-Latin derivatives (including the nordic lineage of tongues like German, Danish, and Swedish) also have accented vowels. Check, Turkish, and many other European languages that use the Roman alphabet, have their own set of accented vowels. The sad truth is that ALL of them could be implemented by an ONLY keyboard standard, by means of an ONLY keymap, if the IBM engineers weren't so narrow-mind. Of course, a character-page with just 128 hex codes would not be enough to include the whole bunch of symbols the Europeans use to write documents.
As everybody knows, the guys who created the IBM-PC didn't see the need for a "universal" keyboard standard that could encompass anyone of the Western alphabets, both using Roman characters. They didn't even include the "Ç", a letter used in France, Spain, Portugal and Turkey. Thus Linux and the BSDs had to cope with an insanely high quantity of keymaps for an insanely high quantity of national keyboards that use the very same Roman alphabet with some particular group of accented vowels. It makes, for instance, an e-mail from Sweden (thus written in a Swedish keyboard) be read in Brazil with some characters CHANGED by the corresponding symbols in the ABNT2 standard; what doesn't occur if the message is PRINTED in a paper sheet and then sent by snail-mail in the shape of a letter.
In other words: The modern technology of making documents by typing characters in a computer keyboard SUCKS in the sense that it is not standardized enough to avoid such a basic problem as eventually get "wrong symbols" in a mail message or an HTML page from a foreign country. And then, probably because of a mistake in the br-abnt2 keymap, the splendid MX Linux version 15 simply doesn't let me type accented vowels in the Brazilian standard keyboard... Same trouble my father had years ago with a certain version of VectorLinux Standard Gold... What an absurd situation!
Well, it finally made me choose PCLinuxOS LXDE as my multimedia oriented distro. Now testing Scientific Linux (with GNOME2, that I hate) and a couple of other rock-solid, professionally crafted distros that also recognize the ABNT2 keyboard without a glitch. And because I love Debian Stable with XFCE, MX Linux will replace PCLinuxOS LXDE in my PC the day it replaces the apparently flawed br-abnt2 keymap. (Yes, I still wait for an antiX respin which make my keyboard happy :)
Great job, anticapitalista and friends! Debian community rules the world!
94 • Favourite window managers (by Nemesis1963 on 2016-11-02 23:18:32 GMT from Europe)
PekWM.
95 • Knoppix 7.7.1 and DIRTY COW DISEASE affects Linux - not scary (by k on 2016-11-03 07:11:18 GMT from Canada)
@ 9 by Greg Zeng and 5 by bigsky
Thank you for interesting and informative comment, Greg.
Relating to the "Dirty Cow Disease", it might be useful for
some to know:
"Version 7.7.1 of KNOPPIX ... uses Linux kernel 4.7.9
(not affected by the "Dirty Cow Bug""
Having quite thoroughly "broken" our sole Linux Mint Debian
Edition 2 installation, I used Debian for downloading, Tails
for verifying signature and ISO, and antiX (contains UNetbootin)
for forming a bootable USB of KNOPPIX 7.7.1.
So, despite bigsky's "sentiment(s)", distro-hopping has served
very vital educational and adaptation functions.
96 • favorite wm (by argent on 2016-11-05 20:55:47 GMT from United States)
Good to see that there are many Wm only fans enjoying the DE-less Linux experience.
Regardless what distribution you use, so many really cool Wm's to pick and choose or just test as I frequently do. Tiling Wm's have my attention and enjoy the similarity of many, while some are an interesting departure from the rest.
A full DE never cut for me, need a minimalist approach to computing and just don't understand the large, bloated attempt of producing a distro. Guess it is really about choice and something for everyone!
97 • wm (by anticapitalista on 2016-11-05 23:08:17 GMT from Greece)
I love window managers and over the years have tested lots of them.
My initial love was fluxbox, but then I came to love IceWM and jwm. All stackers.
It took me months to get used to tilers. Really. It can be quite a conceptual change.
I tried lots of them, some very obscure (for those interested in testing out obscure window managers - give Linux BBQ a try - what they have produced will bow your brains!) before settling on favourites like dwm, wmii, spectrwm, i3.
Then I discovered herbstlutfwm and have been using it on all my boxes/laptops for at least 3 years now.
98 • Dead & dying languages @93 (by Greg Zeng on 2016-11-06 03:03:10 GMT from Australia)
93 •
> "Hello, UNIX community! This is the first time I post in DWW. ...
except for the fact that the Brazilian national keyboard standard (called ABNT2, or "br-abnt2" in the form of a keymap) is WRONGLY implemented, so I cannot type accented vowels. Examples: "é" and "ã", which appear as "'e" and "~a". All non-accented vowels and all remaining symbols appear normal, including "Ç" (C cedilla, uppercase) and "ç" (c cedilla, lowercase). ... "
Welcome, new-comer. This Unix "community" is one of many communities on the internet, but it is the widest publicized, because of its simplicity, ease of use ... for experts in this area. Not Unix, but open-source Unix-based, with some minimal credibility.
At the end of each week, which is in your post here, there are few readers, few responders to the "comments". Dw by design, does not encourage old threads (discussion-topics). No does it encourage threads to last more than just one week.
You do raise many important points: designed disappearance of human languages. Hopefully this might be covered again, in some other internet forum. I'm not sure where however. The topic is at the edge of my interests in cognitive sciences.
99 • uefi's barren, rocky and stormy shore.... (by tom joad on 2016-11-06 03:19:12 GMT from France)
@ 53 and 54...
Big ol' tip of my hat! Both of you pointed out that there are ways around that ugly, stinky pile of misbegotten code called 'uefi.' Again, thanks.
Another pain for me and this uefi stuff is that not all flavors of Linux are uefi capable. And I want access to all of the smorgasbord, not those just those versions who ponied up the money to buy 'their key.' I am a 'hopper' and I wander a bit.
Anywho I did a simple search; 'how to point uefi to grub' and voila!
If it is open source, the answers and the solutions are 'out there.' Just ask.
Number of Comments: 99
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TrueNAS
TrueNAS CORE (previously known as FreeNAS) is a free and Open Source Network-Attached Storage (NAS) operating system that supports file, block and object storage. TrueNAS CORE is FreeBSD based and is a community-supported branch of the TrueNAS project, sponsored by iXsystems. It also has a commercial branch called TrueNAS Enterprise and a free and HyperConverged storage solution called TrueNAS SCALE. The TrueNAS SCALE branch is based on the Debian Linux distribution.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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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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