 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 699, 13 February 2017 |
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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) |
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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 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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| Random Distribution | 
Mythbuntu
Mythbuntu was an Ubuntu-based distribution and live CD focused upon setting up a standalone MythTV system similar to KnoppMyth or Mythdora. It can be used to install a standalone frontend, backend, or combination machines. Mythbuntu uses Xfce as its default desktop and provides a graphical Control Centre to configure the system.
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.
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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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