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1 • favorite archive format (by Tux_Raider on 2017-02-13 01:28:24 GMT from United States)
since Slackware is my favorite distro i find myself using Slackware's makepkg command to zip up everything i want to archive, even things like a directory full of text files, or photos, anything and just like installing a package, and to un-package my personal stuff just like installing a slackware software package and it goes right back in to ~/ where it was originally
2 • Open source compression is best: 7z (by Greg Zeng on 2017-02-13 01:31:50 GMT from Australia)
Most Linux and other computer operating systems have this 7z compression. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7-Zip The official 7z has its forks, etc. The compression format also is part of many popular web browsers, with third-party shells. Surprisingly, it is not used by many coders as a default package container.
The official 7z also has a benchmark. It has 4 compression formats: (7z, tar, win, zip), 7 compression levels, 4 compression methods, 22 dictionary sizes, 12 word sizes, 19 block sizes, up to 16 CPU threads, SFX auto-extraction, encryption, etc. It is so effective that more than one independent competitor offers extra unusual, copyright compression structures (RAR, PEAZIP, etc).
The official 7z application can also open many other continers: ISO, RAR, GZ, TAR, etc.
My independent tests ever since the 7z format was created (18 July 1999; 17 years ago) show that it is almost the tightest compression container. Only very rarely do RAR or ZIP ever offer tighter compression sizes, imho.
3 • For archive formats, I choose 7z too (by LiuYan on 2017-02-13 02:14:17 GMT from United States)
.zip does not support i18n file name well: If zipping files in one character set encoding (say GBK, in Simplified Chinese Windows OS) will caused malformed characters after unzipping in another character set encoding (say UTF-8, in linux OS).
.tar.bz2 .tar.gz .tar.xz is not a good option cross platform.
So, .7z is my 1st choice, .rar would be 2nd choice.
4 • File Compression (by cykodrone on 2017-02-13 02:34:56 GMT from Canada)
7z all the way, I don't care about file size reduction ratios or the actual compression speed, I like it because you can password new archives and hide the file list. I voted other because 7z was not listed.
5 • LZMA Formats (by cpoakes on 2017-02-13 04:22:32 GMT from United States)
7z seems an obvious omission from the list. 7z, lzip (.lz,.lzma), and xz are archive formats employing LZMA/LZMA2 compression. Unlike other posts, I find 7z to be deficient - it only supports MS file metadata while xz supports both MS and Unix file metadata.
Furthermore, 7-zip (the most popular Windows 7z utility) has supported the xz format since 2010 and XZ Utils have been available in Windows since 2010. WinRAR also supports the xz format. Any assertion that xz is a poor cross-platform archive method is misinformed.
6 • Fairphone 2/Ubuntu Touch (by Paul M on 2017-02-13 06:28:03 GMT from Canada)
To say that I'm excited about the Fairphone 2/Ubuntu Touch collaboration would be an understatement! IMHO, THIS is what the Linux community should be focusing on: mobile phones running Linux, preferably FOSS, or as close as practically feasible to that. Except, I hope that this time, the Canonical people get it right - clean up the DE/UI, make sure it's all working properly - wi-fi, bluetooth, camera, sync, etc... And then.... actually BUILD & SELL the product - something that was not done with the Meizus or BQ Aquaris phones! Oh, and make sure the phones work on the U.S. 4GLTE, etc. networks and are compatible with U.S. carrier sim cards!!! Drooling with anticipation....
7 • Reply to cpoakes (by LiuYan on 2017-02-13 06:49:36 GMT from United States)
@cpoakes
>> Any assertion that xz is a poor cross-platform archive method is misinformed
Sorry I didn't make my opinion clear. I didn't mean .bz2 .gz .xz are not supported on other platform, because when using 7zFM on Windows, 7zFM surely can open those files.
What I mean here is when opening '.tar.gz' '.tar.bz2' '.tar.xz' (.tar.WHATEVER) using 7zFM on Windows, it will show '.tar' inside the the achive, then you must extract the '.tar' file then open the '.tar' to get the files. If the '.tar' file is too large, this could be a time wasting job. On linux, file-roller (GNOME) & engrampa (MATE) will show the files inside .tar directly when opening .tar.WHATEVER.
8 • Compressors (by Martin on 2017-02-13 07:01:58 GMT from Czech Republic)
Bzip2 doesn't make much sense these days because of the slow decompression. I guess xz is the best choice for software packages since it offers a great compression ratio and good decompression speed. The time to compress packages doesn't seem too relevant to me since you spend most of the time compiling them anyway. For general purpose compression Facebook's Zstd seems very promissing when it gets its way to the distro repos.
9 • Archive format (by LightBit on 2017-02-13 07:31:46 GMT from Slovenia)
My favourite compression algorithm is LZ4, but I usually use ZIP or tar.gz.
10 • Archive format (by Didier Spaier on 2017-02-13 07:43:16 GMT from France)
I use xz to save space on disk, and also transfer speed. It matters to me more than compression or decompression speed as a distribution maintainer, to minimize the size of storage media and the time needed for upload and download or backup.
11 • excited but (by tim on 2017-02-13 08:14:47 GMT from United States)
gasped when I read the purchase price of the "fairphone"
12 • Archive format (by Alexandru on 2017-02-13 09:09:39 GMT from Romania)
1. For people that don't care of compression ratio. Why then to use archive at all? If the only purpose of archiving is transforming a directory into a file, then tar (with no further archiving) plays just nice - it simply stores all the directory structure and all the files into one file without compressing it. And of course, it is very fast at decompression.
2. For archive testing author. The test is very childish:
- Different compression algorithms are good for different use-cases (text files vs. documents vs. images vs. executables vs. media files), different average file dimensions. Many document formats (notably, images and media files) use compression as a part of format.
- Majority of compression programs provide different levels of compression speed and ratio (quick compression / decompression usually have poor compression ratio and vice versa).
- Different compression algorithms provide different facilities: store files metadata, unicode support, password protection, decomposition in archive files of predefined size, etc.
It can be rigorously proven that there is no preferred archive algorithm that performs best for all use-cases. As for me, xz and 7zip work good enough, but I find myself using gzip the most simply because it is the most usual (when I distribute my archives to somebody, it helps to nothing if the archive is best compressed, but the receiver can't figure what to do with it).
13 • Media Center (by Lawrence H. Bulk on 2017-02-13 12:00:21 GMT from United States)
I have a home theater setup which includes a ZaReason MediaBox 5330 purchased in 2012.
It has an Intel i5-3570K 3.4 GHz processor, 16 GB RAM, and a 500 GB 7200 RPM hard drive.
I have tried a number of GNU/Linux distributions on this media center computer over the years but the very best one I have found is PCLinuxOS.
It is the only OS I have tried which displays video with no tearing. I use both VLC and SMPlayer; both work equally well.
As for music, it is excellent alsom using Audacious. I have adjusted the PulseAudio settings to allow (up to) 32-bit 384000 Khz files to be played.
In my opinion PCLinuxOs is a very good OS in general and, for use on a media player computer, it is great.
And, again in my opinion, ZaReason's MediaBox is a really fine and low-cost media center.
14 • OpenELEC 7.0.0 (by Antoine H on 2017-02-13 12:36:48 GMT from France)
OpenELEC's development is slower since lost of developers moved to the LibreELEC project in March 2016.
Can you plan to test LibreELEC 8.0 which should be available in the next weeks ?
15 • Clear Linux and XFCE (by Domino on 2017-02-13 13:05:08 GMT from Italy)
I tried today Clear Linux.
Also found some info about running a desktop environment on Clear Linux here
https://clearlinux.org/blogs/clarity-desktop
Instead of installing the 'xfce4-desktop' bundle it says to install the 'os-utils-gui' bundle (that includes the xfce4-desktop) bundle).
It worked for me in VirtualBox when launching with 'startxfce4' or 'startx'.
And it's a really good looking themed xfce!
Didn't try yet a setup to invoke properly some DM with the systemd graphical.target
Maybe tomorrow.
16 • zpaq compression (by Gerard Lally on 2017-02-13 14:05:15 GMT from Ireland)
Speed might be an issue, but nothing comes near zpaq in terms of compression ratio.
17 • DW Weekly (by Andy Mender on 2017-02-13 16:46:58 GMT from Austria)
Thanks for the awesome work, DW people :). Nice to see a new release of CRUX. I've been using it on and off as my go-to super minimalist Gentoo homolog. It's quite similar to FreeBSD in its approach to UNIX principles. In fact, one could call it the BSD of GNU/Linux!
18 • Thx Jessie & comment section! (by Bbig on 2017-02-13 18:16:54 GMT from Germany)
Thx Jessie for "Package compression compared".
And thx Greg Zeng (#2) for comparison to 7z.
I do like 7z, but most of the time i use *.zip, b/c it works on all platforms (e.g. Win / macos), too.
For myself, even tho' space is kinda cheap nowadays, i use 7z.
19 • Archive/compression (by far2fish on 2017-02-13 19:43:37 GMT from Denmark)
ZIP or tar and gzip are my preferred options.
For ad hoc backup purposes I use cpio though.
20 • Archive/Compression (by Mitchell on 2017-02-13 20:05:02 GMT from United States)
With the increased size and decreased price, backup drives are now a breeze. Over a decade ago, even five years or so, compression was a direct reflection of network speeds and storage costs. These bottlenecks have mostly disappeared for us. Pulls directly from backup drives require no real compression in my case. I am sure huge volumes still benefit from some form of compression, given the environment.
21 • Zip format (by Charles Burge on 2017-02-13 22:34:36 GMT from United States)
Linux is mostly a hobby for me, and I work in the Windows world. That's one reason I really like the 7z format - because it works natively in both. I've really embraced the command line version for Windows, since it works a lot like tar.
22 • Entropy (by \hbar on 2017-02-14 03:11:54 GMT from United States)
About the compression comparison: it may be interesting to know what the optimal compression ratio of the (uncompressed) tar archive is. In other words, what is its entropy?
Here is a tool that can be used to compute it: http://www.fourmilab.ch/random/
23 • bring Fairphone to US (by Elmo on 2017-02-14 05:03:08 GMT from United States)
@6 agree completely, I hope Fairphone with Ubuntu becomes available to US.
Lately US seems to be a worthless backwater to marketers of affordable innovative freedom-focused devices, last place on their list. Firefox phone, Ubuntu Touch, Jolla - were any of them even offered in US? Only things that seem to be on offer are multi-hundred dollar Samsungs, Motorolas and such Androids with proprietary layers, or iPhones that are completely proprietary.
Make US telecom market freedom-loving again.
24 • Compression programs have engineering contraints (by Greg Zeng on 2017-02-14 06:27:29 GMT from Australia)
Compression programs have engineering contraints of "efficiency". End-users need to balance speeds (compress, expand, adding, deleting, browsing, encryption, error-protections), space (memories, caches, storage) and safety (recovery, error-checks), etc.
Many partition systems also expect meta-package paremeters to also be stored in the compression: times, space-used, owners, users, permissions, accesses, etc.
Most partitions have limits of file-names and path-names. Using non-ASCII symbols, 255 character-limit, case-sensitive, etc. Windows has paths and file-names which are CASE-INSENSITIVE. Linux matters very much on the CASE of these names.
Often Linux creates names which appear in other operating systems as "?????.???"
The compression programs can avoid these file-name and path-name conflicts. Good compression applications can be used without CLI. These GUI applications avoid the close-study and errors of the CLI rubbish.
The better compression programs also allow one large file or folder to be "split" into many linked smaller files. These smaller files can then be more safety stored on other media, or more easily transmitted any tiny erroreous file, without having to re-transmit just one large file.
This is only a comment. Proper discussion requires a longer article.
25 • Fairphone 2 -- @ 23 & @11 (by Paul M on 2017-02-14 06:46:43 GMT from United States)
@23 I hear ya, Elmo... Like you say, Canonical, et al, have been guilty of neglecting the U.S. market with their lack of phone offerings. Porque? Well, that's a great question... I tend to think that this was a huge mistake on their part (i.e. Canonical - with the lack of availability of the Meizu's and BQ Aquaris phones here in the States). Let's hope that they don't repeat this again with the Fairphone 2. Also, like you point out - some of the major problems in the smartphone marketplace: locked bootloaders, proprietary software, high prices ($500+ for a phone!) - are all obstacles that need to be overcome. There IS a market for a REASONABLY priced smartphone (say, ~$150-250) that offers an open-source OS alternative (or, like I've previously stated - as close as possible to FOSS as can be realistically achieved).
Now, that being said, looking at the Fairphone 2 - yes, it's ~$557 U.S.D. - BUT, unlike buying say, a Galaxy Note or the latest iPhone - whose HARDWARE cannot be upgraded - the Fairphone 2 allows you to upgrade components, similar to how a desktop system can be upgraded, thus making the phone less prone to becoming obsolete within a couple of years. So, factoring that into the equation, is the $570 price tag justified??? I dunno... the jury is still out...
@11 Yes, Tim, I can see why you gasped at the price... After reading your comment, I went back & looked up the price of the phone: €525 = $557 U.S.D. ... Yikes!! It had BETTER be DAMN good for that price!! And regardless if it turns out to be a phenomenal phone... at that price, there will be a limited number of people who can afford it. And I take issue with Canonical regarding the high price of this phone... It seems to me that if you are trying to break into the U.S. (or European, etc.) markets, with a new phone OS... then you're competing with the big boys - Androids & iPhones... And to be successful at that, it's going to take more than just being a "better" OS... Ubuntu Touch devices will have to be competitively priced as well - or they will fail...
26 • Fairphone (by lupus on 2017-02-14 07:29:30 GMT from Germany)
Hey Guys you have to read what the people from Fairphone try to do in order to see where the (high) price is coming from.
Also... can anyone put a price tag on freedom, I can't but I'll admit if it's not available anywhere near you then maybe your freedom is in danger, anyone thought of that?
Price does matter if you are not able to afford this nice piece of Equipment your freedom seems to be in danger too!
27 • RE: Fairphone (by Andy Mender on 2017-02-14 13:02:34 GMT from Austria)
@25,
I completely agree on the entering the market point. iPhones are extremely expensive, but there are Samsung smartphones in the $150-250 price range. They're usually 1-2 years old so not top-of-the-shelf, but affordable nevertheless. Canonical would need to cut down on the price, otherwise the competition is purely philosophical. Same goes for Fairphones. With such a high price, only "hipsters" will be able to afford one.
@26,
That's polemics only. Freedom and its price are both relative and up for debate. However, I would add to this that if the Fairphone initiative succeeds, it would be a great way to cut down on the electronic garbage that we constantly produce. It seems to me that big name companies make a living by inventing new means of psychological warfare - how to coax people into buying commodities that they don't really need. That's market economy turned upside-down, where demand is harshly driven not by supply, but by the greed of the supplier.
28 • RE: Package compression compared (by Stack on 2017-02-14 15:33:33 GMT from United States)
I voted "gzip" but only because it's the easiest for me to type/remember on the command line and generally the package format I come across. I'm not picky about which one I use, but for the sake of consistency I use gzip on GNU/Linux.
I do like 7z for the portability and password protection features, but even 7zip on Windows can open .tar.gz!
29 • Archive formats (by Дмитрий on 2017-02-14 15:43:15 GMT from Russian Federation)
7z with LZMA2
30 • Fairphone (by lupus on 2017-02-14 16:45:53 GMT from Germany)
@27
It is a little bit polemic I´ll give you that.
But there is a price for our negelence and we are not willing to pay for it. Mostly it is paid for with child labour, bad working conditions, pollution etc. All these things the makers of Fairphone at least also try to address. I tried to order one for 540,- € which still seems cheap to me so I didn´t order. I try to investigate a little before I´ll jump on that train. For me having open source on my phone is the real kicker, but I´ m not the type ordering months in advance, who knows by the time it ships I could already be dead ;)!
Bye Lupus
31 • Archives (by scrumtime on 2017-02-14 19:37:16 GMT from Nicaragua)
Many years ago before we had the likes of dropbox and collaberation software hit the bigtime...I used to have to send a lot of sensitive type documents around the world almost daily and compression was needed to be able to send the lot in 1 hit when some e-mail comps had restrictions on file sizes. I preferred RAR over Zip and 7zip over all of them when it came in.. and even though i hardly use it now I still prefer 7zip.
Personally I wouldn't spend $500 on a phone.... ridiculous !!!!!!! I bought my long suffering GF a phone recently samsung android thing the salesguy waffled to me about all the BS it has like 4g ,what apps, etc etc...when asked if i could have it cheaper if they took a lot of unused unwanted things from it..he looked at me like i was an idiot......My GF phones her mother and sister or texts on whatapp or facebook to them contstantly, and has a bit of music sometimes .....most other things she has never used or will ever use, so why should i pay $100s for stuff i dont want.
but as it was her Birthday i got the cheapest i could get..
Ny phone is a Huawei which i got given when i took out the phone contract..it has little or no features outside phone and text..
32 • Naught Phair (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2017-02-14 21:33:45 GMT from United States)
Is the FairPhone made from open hardware?
Even with open software, how Fair is a phone controlled by a service cartel? (Mesh module?)
Fair-Trade materials - a phrase reminiscent of Organic Food?
33 • archive (by Pat Menendez on 2017-02-15 01:14:31 GMT from Canada)
With storage so cheap now, I can't think of very many reasons to compress files. When you can buy an 8 terabyte drive for $350. and 64 gig flash drives for just over $20. and "Cloud storage" I don't get the point of compressing files anymore. Back in the almost forgotten days of small sub terabyte drives and you had a lot of files it may have been a "necessary evil". Compressing image and media files ... This is the era of BIG monitors, 4K HD TVs, and everything High Definition. Compressing files today, other than perhaps specific needs, seems to me like an exercise in futility. Who can compress a file to the smallest size sounds like little boys arguing in the back lot. It may be of geek interest but in this day of 64 bit processors and many of us are running 16 or 32 gig if RAM, compressing files today seems impractical at best and a waste of time and effort to me.
34 • Package compression compared (by Tuxie on 2017-02-15 06:19:08 GMT from Czech Republic)
Just reminding that xz is the only one (as far as I know) able to use more than 1 core --> fastest and best in a server environments(expecting to have more than 4 cores at disposal).
35 • Fairphone 2 (by Paul M on 2017-02-15 09:04:00 GMT from United States)
@ 27
You nailed it, Andy... That market segment - like you point out - a 1 or 2 year old Samsung (or Motorola, I would add - like the Moto G, Gen. 3 - currently about $150, carrrier-unlocked)... That market segment is WHERE Canonical (and other Linux/open-source cell phone OS's) should be aiming at. Economies of scale will, of course, dictate the final price point... BUT, you & I know that a competitive open-source phone can be accomplished at WELL UNDER $500!!
The thing that intrigues me the most about the Fairphone 2 is its modularity. But... even given the fact that this type of phone will be more akin to a desktop computer - in the sense that you can swap components in and out/upgrade as need be - Fairphone/Canonical NEEDS to bring the initial price down. At almost 6 C-Notes, only die-hard & well-heeled Linux fans will be reaching for their wallets.... and, uh... some hipsters - fuck the hipsters... All of which translates to selling a few hundred (or few thousand) phones = a marketing failure = roomful of Canonical people, sitting around in a boardroom, scratching their heads, wondering why the world has not embraced Ubuntu Touch...
Also, you make a great point about the creation of "electronic garbage". The major carriers here in the U.S. - AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, etc. - are all guilty of creating & perpetuating this "throw-away" culture - with their cell-phone plans - whereby a customer gets a brand new phone when they sign up for a 2-3 year contract... And the phones that these customers get will be replaced with new phones every 2-3 years, as long as people re-up with a new contract. And, as a result of this, phones that are only a couple of years old are being frivolously tossed into the garbage - plastic, lead, toxic-metal batteries, etc. - and winding up in landfills & thus harming the environment. And the cell phone manufacturers are happy to help! Hell, with these companies offering people "a new phone" whenever they re-new a 2 or 3 year cell-phone contract - all these cell-phone manufacturers make money... And unfortunately, it's a model that works for the major carriers & the cell phone makers....
To break that cycle - which NEEDS to be done - I think that it's going to take a concept like the Fairphone 2 - modularity/interchangeability of components... on an affordable platform....
36 • LibreElec (by zibi on 2017-02-15 17:04:36 GMT from Canada)
Tested LibreElec 7.0.3 installed on pi2, tv installer not working, Kore remote have some problem ( entering text) , sometimes hangs for 10-20 seconds. Maybe 8 will be better but current version is not faster at all compared to current version of openelec
37 • @ 35 • Fairphone 2 (by mandog on 2017-02-16 23:17:20 GMT from Peru)
Here in Peru its 18 months and then new contract new phone beats me in a poor country that people fall for it shows how these companies manipulate their customers
38 • Archives... (by Vukota on 2017-02-16 23:55:03 GMT from Montenegro)
There are few things that are important about archive formats:
- Speed
- Compression ration
- Format itself (and its support/features)
- Standard (how many people can use it right away)
From my experience, compression ration by itself doesn't matter as long as it is +/-5% from the close competitor. Rest of the factors matters much more. As these days most of the systems can deal out of the box with ZIP archives and TAR+GZ, I prefer these two, depending on the purpose. ZIP for exchange with common people and TAR+GZ for my personal needs and Linux community. If gzip is fine for use in browsers and HTTP communication, it is certainly fine for my needs as well.
39 • Phones (by Dave Postles on 2017-02-17 00:46:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
Come back Mozilla Firefox phones. My Alcatel cost just over £60. It will take any service's SIM card (I use Pay as You Go). It has HERE maps; radio; music (mp3) player; nice downloadable free or very cheap apps; front and rear camera; video; photo gallery etc etc. I'd never consider paying 540 euros for a phone.
40 • OpenELEC (by Somewhat Reticent on 2017-02-17 09:16:37 GMT from United States)
Version 7.0.1 dated 2017-Jan-12 first listed fix is for installer on x86 ...
Bug reported, fixed?
41 • Archives and Fairphone (by Simon Wainscott-Plaistowe on 2017-02-17 10:35:26 GMT from New Zealand)
I seem to encounter ZIP and GZIP archives most often. If I need to create an archive, I usually use GZIP because it generally maintains a good balance between speed and compression.
The Fairphone looks promising, hopefully it will succeed. I like the ethics and the concept of an upgradeable phone. Personally I'd love to see Ubuntu phones gain some market share.
42 • @39 Come back Mozilla, we miss you (by gee7 on 2017-02-17 20:48:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
You have my agreement there, Dave.
I am using as my second phone a ZTE Open phone which I bought in 2013 for £60 - it runs the Firefox OS which suits basic needs of phone, texting, radio, music player and internet access, all on PAYG. There is definitively a market for such a phone, for the low end of the market, yes, but also for the security conscious, especially if one was strengthened, changing the default Google search for Oscobo or DuckDuckGo or better still using the new Cliqz browser alongside strong encryption. Mozilla could have carved themselves a large niche market if only they had kept faith (and made the touch screen more sensitive for a start!).
My first phone is a small neat Motorola clamshell from 2004, so comfortable to hold and never breaks when it's dropped.
Number of Comments: 42
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Linux4all LiveCd
Basilisk (formerly known as RPM Live CD) was a Linux live CD based on Fedora Core. The CD image was a workstation with KDE, GNOME, Office, Internet/network and other applications, as well as servers and services to integrate into a LAN workgroup or domain.
Status: Discontinued
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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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