 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 699, 13 February 2017 |
Welcome to this year's 7th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Open source is virtually everywhere these days. Open source operating systems power many of the world's servers, run many of our media players and run on most of our smart phones. This week we explore several niche projects and distributions, starting with the OpenELEC and Clear Linux projects. OpenELEC is a distribution dedicated to running the Kodi media software on a variety of devices and Clear Linux is a fast, minimal server operating system. We also talk about Ubuntu's mobile operating system running on the modifiable Fairphone, GhostBSD's network configuration utility being ported to FreeBSD and the elementary OS team working on a pay-what-you-want app store. Plus we talk about the benefits and drawbacks to different types of file compression in our Tips and Tricks column and ask people about their preferred archive formats in our Opinion Poll. We are happy to provide a list of last week's releases and share the torrents we are seeding. Plus we have a new distribution, SLG OS, on our waiting list. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (43MB) and MP3 (28MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
OpenELEC 7.0.0
OpenELEC is a Linux-based distribution designed to act as a media hub and, in particular, to run the Kodi media software. (Kodi was previously named XBMC.) The Kodi software essentially turns the computer into a dedicated media centre which can either play media directly or through an attached television. The OpenELEC distribution provides a range of builds for x86-powered computers, Raspberry Pi and WeTek devices, along with a few other platforms.
The installation images we download from OpenELEC are compressed disk images which can be written to USB thumb drives or SD cards. There do not appear to be any ISO images which would be suitable for writing to a CD or DVD.
Since I had previously experimented with OpenELEC on my Raspberry Pi computer which features an ARM processor, I decided to shift focus and run OpenELEC 7.0.0 on a laptop computer, running on a 64-bit x86 processor. I downloaded the 221MB compressed disk image which, when unpacked, expanded to 548MB. I then copied this image file to a USB thumb drive and used it to boot my laptop.
Booting from the OpenELEC media brought up a series of text menus which asked if I would like to install a fresh copy of the distribution or upgrade an existing installation. Selecting the fresh install option brought up a menu asking me to select which hard drive would host my new copy of OpenELEC. I selected my hard drive and a warning appeared letting me know any data on the disk would be lost when OpenELEC was installed.
I opted to proceed and, a minute later, the installer announced it was finished. From there I removed my thumb drive and rebooted the computer. At this point I ran into a wall as OpenELEC failed to boot. I was a little disappointed as my past experimented with OpenELEC 5.0.8 had gone well.
OpenELEC's latest version looks enticing and I've had good luck with the distribution before, but this time around the system did not play well with my laptop so I moved on to a new project I had not tried before.
* * * * *
Clear Linux
I next turned my attention to a distribution which has only recently been added to the DistroWatch database: Clear Linux. The Clear Linux distribution is unusual in a few ways. For one, the project is not designed to be a full featured or general purpose operating system; Clear Linux focuses on performance more than features. The distribution is fairly minimal and is designed with cloud computing in mind, though it may also be used in other areas, particularly on servers. The project's website states:
The Clear Linux Project for Intel Architecture is a distribution built for various cloud use cases. We want to showcase the best of Intel Architecture technology and performance, from low-level kernel features to complex applications that span across the entire OS stack. We're putting emphasis on power and performance optimizations throughout the operating system as a whole... Our aim was not to make yet another general-purpose Linux distribution; sometimes lean-and-fast is better than big-and-universal.
Another aspect of Clear Linux which sets it apart is the distribution does not handle software the same way most other Linux distributions do. Instead of upgrading thousands of individual packages, the Clear Linux operating system gets upgraded as a whole. We do not upgrade the desktop or our text editor individually, with Clear Linux we upgrade the entire operating system from one version to the next. This makes Clear Linux a sort of unified rolling release operating system. We can add or remove software, but these components (called "bundles" rather than "packages") encapsulate a piece of software and its dependencies. Again, the project's website explains:
We do not deploy software through packages as many distributions do. Instead, we provide "bundles" that each contain a set of functionality for the system administrator -- functionality that is enabled by composing all the required upstream open source projects into one logical unit: a bundle.... There is another notable difference between package-based distributions and the Clear Linux OS for Intel Architecture. On a package-based OS, a system administrator can update each individual package or piece of software to a newer (or older!) version. In the Clear Linux OS for Intel Architecture, an update translates to an entirely new OS version, containing one or many updates; it is not possible to update a piece of the system while remaining on the same version of Clear Linux.
Clear Linux is available in several builds for various virtual environments, including KVM, Azure and Hyper-V. However, the build I wanted to try on my laptop was the "Live" edition which can be run from a USB thumb drive. I feel it worth mentioning the Live edition collects and sends telemetry data back to the project's developers.
The Live edition of Clear Linux was a 211MB download which gave me a compressed image file. Unpacking the downloaded file resulted in a 5,185MB (approximately 5GB) image file which I could then transfer to a USB thumb drive. I plugged the drive into my laptop and attempted to boot Clear Linux. I found the distribution failed to boot when my laptop was run in legacy BIOS mode, but Clear Linux booted without issue when running in UEFI mode.
Clear Linux's Live edition boots very quickly, taking just a few seconds to bring us to a text console with a login prompt. From here we can sign into the root account without a password. The system insists on getting us to create a password for the root account and we cannot complete logging in until a suitable password is provided. This caused me a little frustration as Clear Linux insisted on a long password that was not based on a dictionary word, it had to be complex and not based on any recognizable pattern. It took me more than a few tries to come up with something the distribution would accept.
Once we get signed in we find ourselves in a very minimal environment. Clear Linux basically just runs a few systemd background services and the login terminal. There are only about a dozen processes running in total, using about 51MB of memory. The distribution features the GNU command line utilities, the OpenSSH secure shell service and Python. I intentionally downloaded a version of Clear Linux which was a few versions out of date to test the upgrade functionality. Version 12100 of the operating system used systemd 231 and version 4.8.12 of the Linux kernel. There are no manual pages or compiler and there is no graphical environment. The distribution takes up about 914MB of disk space.
At first, the root account is the only user on the system. There are not even any other accounts for background services as is common on other distributions. We can add other users to the system using the useradd command line program.
When running on my laptop, I noticed Clear Linux did not recognize my wireless network card, but I was able to plug into a wired connection and use the Ethernet port. Clear Linux automatically sets up a wired network connection and uses Google's DNS servers to resolve hostnames.
Since Clear Linux starts us off with a minimal environment, we will likely want to install new software (bundles) from the distribution's software repository. Installing new bundles, removing unwanted bundles and upgrading the operating system are all tasks handled by a command line program called swupd. To check for new versions of the operating system we can run swupd check-update. This will display the version of the operating system we are using (12100 in my case) and display the version number of the latest release, such as 12400. We can then run swupd update to grab the next version. There is no prompt to confirm the action, swupd simply proceeds. I found upgrades happened fairly quickly, requiring just a few minutes.
To find new bundles we may want to install we can run swupd bundle-add --list. This shows us a simple list of available bundles. The names of these bundles can be short and a bit cryptic and there are no detailed descriptions of bundles so far as I could find. Some item names are fairly straight forward, like the php bundle installs the PHP development language. But I wasn't sure what bat was, or what the differences were between the iot, iot-base and iot-extras bundles.
I noticed there was a bundle for the Xfce desktop. This package does install the components of the Xfce desktop environment, but I was unsuccessful in getting the desktop environment to launch on my laptop.
The swupd software manager works quickly and with very little output. This can make it look like the software manager has locked up, but it always successfully completed its tasks while I was experimenting with it. I was able to install a few tools and experiment with them and found Clear Linux to be stable and fast, as advertised.
I was pleased to note changes to the operating system are persistent across reboots with the changes and upgrades I made being written to the USB thumb drive. All in all, I felt like Clear Linux was a cousin to RancherOS which I explored in my article on small Linux distributions. Like RancherOS, Clear Linux focuses on being a small platform on which we can add new bundles, containers or services. It's probably not an operating system a person would run at home, at least not on a desktop computer, but Clear Linux's performance and simplified software management does make it an appealing option for cloud and server deployments. If you are interested in squeezing more performance out of a server system, I recommend looking through the distribution's documentation as it has several helpful hints and tutorials for setting up services.
* * * * *
Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a de-branded HP laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: Intel i3 2.5GHz CPU
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 700GB hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Wired network device: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast
- Wireless network device: Realtek RTL8188EE Wireless network card
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
GhostBSD's network utility ported to FreeBSD, Ubuntu coming to the Fairphone, elementary OS crowd funding an app store
For a while now people running the GhostBSD operating system have been able to use a graphical desktop utility to connect to nearby networks. The tool, called NetworkMgr, has a similar interface and purpose as the Network Manager program that is used by most Linux distributions. The easy point-n-click nature of the GhostBSD networking tool has made it an attractive option to many FreeBSD users and the NetworkMgr program has recently been added to FreeBSD's port collection. Detailed information on the NetworkMgr port can be found on the FreshPorts website.
* * * * *
Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu operating system, will be showcasing an interesting device at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at the end of February. The Canonical booth will be featuring the Fairphone 2 mobile device running Ubuntu Touch as its operating system. "The Ubuntu Community UBports has one mission: to have the open source software Ubuntu on every device, starting with smart phones. UBports' actions are based on collaborative development where developers are putting Ubuntu on different smart phones. During the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona end of February UBports will show a very special combination: Ubuntu on the Fairphone 2. With this successfully working device two worlds come together: sustainability and open source." The Fairphone is a development effort to create a modular phone where individual pieces of the phone can be repaired or upgraded. This allows the owner of the Fairphone to upgrade or modify their phone rather than regularly purchasing a new device. The Fairphone 2 can run both the Android and Ubuntu Touch operating systems, mostly due to porting work done by the UBports project. Further information on the phone and UBports can be found on this Ubuntu Insights page.
* * * * *
The elementary OS team is trying to entice more developers to create software for Linux by creating a pay-what-you-want app store. The specifications for the elementary app store outline a portal where Linux users will be able to download third-party software that is DRM-free and pay what they want. This approach to providing software to Linux users on a pay-what-you-want basis has worked well for Humble Bundle sales. "If the Humble Indie Bundle has shown us anything, it's that people place varying amounts of value on indie content and you can still be wildly successful while letting people vote with their wallets. We believe that pay-what-you-want both allows indie developers to get paid for their time and ensures that apps are available to the widest audience possible. We've built our company on pay-what-you-want by making every release of elementary OS available with this model. We're excited to bring this unique model to our users and third party developers by making AppCenter 100% pay-what-you-want." The elementary OS team is running a crowd funding campaign in order to try to raise the money to develop their AppCenter.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
Package compression compared
These days people move a lot of data over the Internet. We load web pages, view videos, stream music and download software over our network connections. Ideally, we would like the things we download to use as little bandwidth as possible. Reducing bandwidth means finding a form of data compression which will keep our downloads small and, hopefully, not use up too much of our processor's time.
This past week I decided to try out five different compression technologies to see how they compare in terms of the time required to compress (or decompress) a package archive. I also measured how much each compression method was able to shrink the size of the archive and listed these statistics in the chart below.
I selected these five compression methods (bzip2, gzip, lzip, LZOP and xz/LZMA) because they are the options listed in the tar manual page and therefore most likely to be used when creating package archives. To test each compression method, I put together a package archive which included several text files, some images and some binary data (system libraries). I then compressed and unpacked the archive multiple times and recorded the average time it took to create and unpack the compressed archive.
The results of my test are listed below with the best results marked in bold. In each field, lower values are better.
| Compression type |
Average time to compress (s) |
Average time to unpack (s) |
Compressed size (%) |
| bzip2
| 5.364 |
1.890 |
64.6 |
| gzip
| 1.205 |
0.378 |
66.8 |
| lzip
| 10.233 |
1.909 |
62.2 |
| LZOP
| 0.217 |
0.324 |
73.6 |
| xz
| 9.508 |
0.947 |
62.0 |
As you can see from the above chart, the xz/LZMA compression option (as offered through tar) provided strong compression, though relatively slow performance. The gzip method, which is probably the most commonly used way to compress tarballs, offers a great deal of speed and pretty good compression. The LZOP approach worked so quickly I was not sure at first it had done anything at all. LZOP did well when considering how quickly it worked, but the trade-off was the lowest compression ratio of the trial.
Looking at the above statistics, I think it becomes more clear why packagers tend to favour the compression methods (typically bzip2, gzip and xz) they use. The gzip approach is very quick, bzip2 offers a pretty good balance between performance and compression while xz trades off performance for better compression.
* * * * *
For more questions and answers, visit our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
NethServer 7.3
Alessio Fattorini has announced the release of NethServer 7.3. The NethServer distribution is a CentOS-based project for servers and features a modular design along with web-based administrative controls. The new version can use Samba to replace Microsoft Active Directory domain controllers and features centralized account management. "NethServer is now able to act as a Samba Active Directory Controller. NethServer can replace a Microsoft Active Directory Domain Controller Native MS-Windows management tools, like RSAT tools and AD PowerShell are compatible with NethServer Group policies can be deployed through native MS-Windows tools Windows workstations can seamlessly join the AD Domain, no more registry tweaks are needed. NethServer 7 brings a centralized account management (so-called 'multi-site') supporting authentication and authorization against either a local or remote accounts provider." Additional details can be found in the NethServer release announcement.
CRUX 3.3
Juergen Daubert has announced the release of CRUX 3.3, a new version of the project's lightweight (and systemd-free) Linux distribution designed for experienced Linux users (or users willing to follow a detailed handbook). This is the distribution's first stable release in nearly 15 months. "The CRUX team is happy to announce the release of CRUX 3.3. CRUX 3.3 comes with a multilib toolchain which includes glibc 2.24, GCC 6.3.0 and Binutils 2.27. Kernel - Linux 4.9.6. CRUX 3.3 ships with X.Org 7.7 and X.Org Server 1.19.1. The ISO image is processed with isohybrid and is suitable for burning on a CD and putting on a USB drive. UEFI support is available during installation with dosfstools, efibootmgr, and grub2-efi added to the image. Important libraries have been updated to new major versions which are not ABI compatible with the old versions. We strongly advise against manually updating to CRUX 3.3 via ports, since these changes will temporarily break the system." Here is the brief release announcement, with further details provided in the release notes.
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not 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 in our Torrent Archive. Thanks to Linux Tracker we are able to share the following torrent statistics.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 295
- Total data uploaded: 56.5TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
Archive formats
There are a lot of archive formats out there, each with a different set of strengths and weaknesses. Some formats are designed to be fast, others are portable and some strive to produce very small archives. This week we would like to find out if you have a preferred format to work with. You can leave us a comment with your reasons below.
You can see the results of our previous poll on portable packages, virtual machines and containers here. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Favourite archive format
| BZIP2: | 98 (5%) |
| GZIP: | 280 (15%) |
| LZIP: | 67 (4%) |
| LZOP: | 10 (1%) |
| RAR: | 159 (8%) |
| XZ: | 263 (14%) |
| ZIP: | 394 (21%) |
| Other: | 178 (9%) |
| No strong preference: | 458 (24%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Testing searches for language support
This past week we introduced a new search feature: finding distributions based on multi-language support. It is now possible to filter search results based on which languages a distribution supports out of the box.
At the moment our information on which languages each project includes is somewhat limited and there are gaps in our data. We mostly have just a project's website or wiki to use for confirmation of multilingual support. For this reason, some of the projects in our database simply have "Yes/Other" listed in the multi-language field and other projects may have an incomplete listing of included language codes. If you spot a gap our information, please help us correct it by e-mailing us with a link to where the distribution has listed their supported languages. Together we can make the language search function more useful.
We have also added a page which lists the torrents we are seeding and have seeded in the past. The new Torrent Archive can display torrents listed alphabetically (if you want to look for a specific distribution) or by date (if you want to find a recent upload).
* * * * *
Distributions added to waiting list
- SLG OS. SLG OS stands for the Security Learning Group Operating System. The distribution is a Persian-language operating system based on Ubuntu and featuring the Budgie desktop environment.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 20 February 2017. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Issue 1032 (2023-08-14): MX Linux 23, positioning new windows on the desktop, Linux Containers adopts LXD fork, Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ form OpenELA |
| • Issue 1031 (2023-08-07): Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, preventing a file from being changed, Asahi Linux partners with Fedora, Linux Mint plans new releases |
| • Issue 1030 (2023-07-31): Solus 4.4, Linux Mint 21.2, Debian introduces RISC-V support, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 |
| • Issue 1029 (2023-07-24): Running Murena on the Fairphone 4, Flatpak vs Snap sandboxing technologies, Redox OS plans to borrow Linux drivers to expand hardware support, Debian updates Bookworm media |
| • Issue 1028 (2023-07-17): KDE Connect; Oracle, SUSE, and AlmaLinux repsond to Red Hat's source code policy change, KaOS issues media fix, Slackware turns 30; security and immutable distributions |
| • Issue 1027 (2023-07-10): Crystal Linux 2023-03-16, StartOS (embassyOS 0.3.4.2), changing options on a mounted filesystem, Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Fedora debates telemetry for desktop team |
| • Issue 1026 (2023-07-03): Kumander Linux 1.0, Red Hat changing its approach to sharing source code, TrueNAS offers SMB Multichannel, Zorin OS introduces upgrade utility |
| • Issue 1025 (2023-06-26): KaOS with Plasma 6, information which can leak from desktop environments, Red Hat closes door on sharing RHEL source code, SUSE introduces new security features |
| • Issue 1024 (2023-06-19): Debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Debian releases GNU/Hurd 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 nears its end of life, FreeBSD turns 30 |
| • Issue 1023 (2023-06-12): openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the differences between independent distributions, openSUSE lengthens Leap life, Murena offers new phone for North America |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Full list of all issues |
| 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.
|
| Shells.com |
Your own personal Linux computer in the cloud, available on any device. Supported operating systems include Android, Debian, Fedora, KDE neon, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro and Ubuntu, ready in minutes.
Starting at US$4.95 per month, 7-day money-back guarantee
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| Random Distribution | 
CensorNet
CensorNet was an Internet Management Appliance designed to control and monitor individuals accessing Internet resources on a local area network. This dedicated server inspects all inbound and outbound data and decides, based on configurable rules, whether the individual or workstation concerned has the correct access profile to allow the request to be completed.
Status: Discontinued
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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.
|
| 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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