 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 722, 24 July 2017 |
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Running a source-based distribution gives the user a great deal of flexibility when it comes to deciding what features should be included in the operating system. However, compiling applications from their source code can be a time-consuming endeavour. For people who would like to find a balance between customization and convenience, there are distributions like Calculate Linux. Calculate maintains its roots in the source-based Gentoo project while offering convenient, graphical utilities for installing and configuring the operating system. This week, first-time DistroWatch contributor Robert Rijkhoff explores Calculate Linux and reports on his experiences. In our Questions and Answers column we talk about tracking what privileged users are doing with the sudo command. We also talk about monitoring the operating system and log files in our Opinion Poll. In our News section we talk about Jide discontinuing their desktop, Android-based operating system. We also talk about new Linux laptops being sold by Starlabs, an update to Debian 9 and link to an interview with Debian's Project Leader, Chris Lamb. This week we added three new projects to our database: RasPlex, Raspberry Slideshow and Raspberry Digital Signage. We also divided our Pardus Linux page into two separate pages to better represent the separate efforts of the Pardus and Pardus Topluluk organizations. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading.
Content:
- Review: Calculate Linux 17.6 "KDE"
- News: Remix OS discontinues desktop product, Starlabs launches line of Linux laptops, Debian project releases update for version 9, an interview with Debian's Project Leader
- Questions and answers: Logging sudo usage
- Released last week: SparkyLinux 5.0, Netrunner 2017.07, Quirky 8.2
- Torrent corner: AUSTRUMI, BackBox, Debian, deepin, Elive, Netrunner, OPNsense, Q4OS, Quirky, Revenge OS, SparkyLinux, Zenwalk
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 11.1, Ubuntu 17.10 Alpha 2
- Opinion poll: Checking system logs
- DistroWatch.com news: Dividing the Pardus page and renaming OBRevenge OS
- New additions: Raspberry Digital Signage, Raspberry Slideshow, RasPlex
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (52MB) and MP3 (89MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Robert Rijkhoff) |
Calculate Linux 17.6 KDE
Calculate Linux is a Gentoo-based distribution. The project's slogan is "Easy Linux from the source," which refers to the fact that Calculate is relatively easy to use but still benefits from Gentoo's powerful and flexible source-based Portage package manager.
Calculate recently celebrated its tenth birthday and released Calculate Linux 17.6. The distro comes in four flavours; apart from a desktop and server edition there's Calculate Scratch ("for those who want to build a customized system that works for them") and Calculate Media Center ("for your home multimedia center"). Each version is available for the x86_64 and i686 architectures and uses SysV init rather than systemd.
The desktop edition has ISOs for the KDE, Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce desktop environments - GNOME is presumably not available because of its dependency on systemd. I opted for the 64-bit KDE version, which is just over 2GB in size.
Installation
Booting from the ISO takes us to a live desktop environment, which enables us to check if everything works as expected before taking the plunge. The desktop includes short-cuts to a local install guide (which is in fact a single page with links to documentation on the Calculate website), the KDE Partition Manager and the Calculate Linux Installer. I used the partition manager to set up my partitions before running the installer and found the application worked very well - if you're familiar with GParted you'll have no problems with KDE's equivalent.
Calculate Linux 17.6 -- Managing disk partitions
(full image size: 257kB, resolution: 1280x720 pixels)
Calculate's installer is unlike any graphical installer I've seen - it asks for a lot more information than, say, Ubuntu's Ubiquity installer or Fedora's Anaconda. Among others, we can choose whether we want to use Pulse Audio or ALSA for sound, what graphics card and screen resolution we want to use and how often Calculate should check for software updates. These settings can be changed later via the Calculate Console configuration utility, but I appreciate having these options at install-time. I found Calculate automatically detected all my hardware, so I could simply accept the default settings.
Calculate Linux 17.6 -- The system installer
(full image size: 322kB, resolution: 1280x720 pixels)
I mentioned that I had set up my partitions before running the installer. If you prefer, you can let Calculate "auto-partition" your hard drive. "Auto-partition" isn't quite the right term as the installer gives us various options for how the auto-partitioning should be done. On the next tab, called Mount Points, you then have the option to tweak your partitions - it's still possible to add, remove and resize partitions at this stage.
The Users tab is worth mentioning as well. Here, we set the root password and add users. By default there's a user named "guest" with "Full access" - this can be changed to "Updates only". I opted to delete the guest user and add myself as a user with full access. When we add a user we need to choose what groups our new user should belong to and here I ran into an error. Selecting "Default" (which seemed a sensible option) caused a cryptic error message that suggested I hadn't added myself to any groups. Adding myself to all groups and then displaying and then hiding the advanced options on the tab seemed to somehow solve the issue and I was able to proceed.
Apart from the unexpected error while adding a user I was quite impressed with the installer. The developers have clearly put some thought into how an installer can be feature-rich but still user-friendly. I also quite liked the banner images on the first and last tab - the first tab features an image of colourful balloons in a bright blue sky ("let the party begin!") while the final tab shows an image of penguins sliding down a slope and plunging into the sea ("here we go!").
Calculate Linux 17.6 -- The application menu
(full image size: 384kB, resolution: 1280x720 pixels)
Package management (Gentoo-style)
Out of the box Calculate uses binary packages which can be updated either via the graphical Calculate Linux Update utility or via the command line. The commands for updating package information and installing and removing software are fairly straight-forward - for all intents and purposes you can maintain software as you would on, say, Debian or Fedora. There are some fundamental differences between Portage and package managers such as APT and DNF however, and this is where Calculate becomes interesting.
One of Portage's most powerful features is USE flags. You can think of USE flags as settings that define if an option should or shouldn't be compiled. If you don't have a fancy graphics card you don't need your software to support OpenGL, for instance, and so you can disable this option, either "locally" (for individual packages) or "globally" (for all packages). The more you specify USE flags, the more your software will be tailored to your requirements.
To give an example, I decided that I wanted to install the Shutter screen shot tool. We can search for applications using the eix utility:
# eix shutter
* x11-misc/shutter
Available versions: 0.93.1-r3 {drawing}
Homepage: http://shutter-project.org/
Description: Feature-rich screen shot program
* x11-misc/shutterbug
Available versions: 1.7.49 {debug doc +jpeg +png profile +tiff}
Homepage: http://www.fox-toolkit.org/
Description: Screenshot utility based on the FOX Toolkit
Found 2 matches
We can next check what USE flags are available. The below output shows that there's a "drawing" flag which is disabled by default:
# equery uses x11-misc/shutter
[ Legend : U - final flag setting for installation]
[ : I - package is installed with flag ]
* Found these USE flags for x11-misc/shutter-0.93.1-r3:
U I
- - drawing : Enables drawing tool
Shutter's drawing tool makes it possible to draw things like arrows on your screen shots. To enable the feature I created a file named "shutter" (the name is irrelevant) in the /etc/portage/package.use directory and added a statement to tell Portage that "drawing" should be enabled when we compile the "x11-misc/shutter" package:
# cat /etc/portage/package.use/shutter
x11-misc/shutter drawing
Features can be disabled by adding a minus sign in front of the USE option. For example, we can tell Portage to compile the Chromium browser without proprietary codecs (such as H.264 and MP3) using this line:
www-client/chromium -proprietary-codecs
Next, we need to tell Portage to install (or merge, in Portage-speak) our Shutter package by compiling it from source:
# emerge -uN shutter
Installing software this way takes a long time and uses lots of system resources (the output actually displays the system's load averages). Compiling and installing Shutter took about an hour - larger packages such as the Chromium browser will take several hours. The result, though, is software that has been optimized for your system and/or requirements. In my case, I got Shutter with the drawing tool.
Calculate Linux 17.6 -- Creating a screen shot with drawings
(full image size: 197kB, resolution: 1280x720 pixels)
The desktop environment
The KDE version of Calculate comes with Plasma 5.9.5. For browsing we get the latest version of Firefox while LibreOffice is at version 5.2.7. Typical KDE applications include the Kmail email client, Dolphin file manager, Kwrite text editor and Konversation IRC client. There were a couple of unusual applications installed as well. For instance, we get Qt Designer (a "WYSIWYG tool for designing and building Qt-based GUIs") and Ktnef (a proprietary file viewer for e-mail attachments in the TNEF format).
Calculate Linux 17.6 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 327kB, resolution: 1280x720 pixels)
I found a few applications that had been customized by the Calculate developers. Firefox, for instance, comes with an ad-blocker (uBlock) and a Flash plug-in pre-installed. Claws Mail, which isn't installed by default, has got a Calculate theme (which needs to be installed separately) and by default the e-mail client checked for new e-mails every five seconds (Claws' default setting is to not automatically check for new emails).
Calculate's KDE desktop has been customized quite a bit as well. There's a panel at the top of the screen crammed with a traditional application menu and lots of other widgets and moving the mouse cursor to the bottom of the screen reveals a dock-like panel with application short-cuts. I like having a traditional menu but Calculate's implementation felt a bit crowded. For each application both the name and description are displayed, which results in entries like "Clementine (Clementine Music Player)". Most of these lines are too long to be displayed and the menu therefore contains lots of truncated entries. Personally, I would have been happy with just the names of the applications being displayed.
I'm not very familiar with KDE but got on well with the desktop environment. My only gripe was that there were some seemingly simple customization's that I was unable to make. For instance, there appears to be no way to reduce the size of the humongous clock in the system tray (I ended up removing the eyesore) and I wasn't able to remove desktop icons.
I encountered a couple of small bugs as well. Most notably, the KDE handbook was completely broken. Links to the handbook from KDE applications invariably resulted in a "Documentation not found" page and even navigating the handbook wasn't possible. I also noticed a few translation errors. The default "activity", for instance, was called "Начальная комната" (which translates as "Start-up room"). Overall, though, I was impressed by how responsive the desktop was and I liked the look and feel - it's very much a desktop that doesn't get in your way.
Documentation and community
During my trial I had various questions. Calculate's website has a fair amount of documentation but it's nowhere near enough to really get started with Calculate's more advanced features. I quickly learned that Calculate's English language forums aren't very active (the Russian forums are more lively) and I didn't receive much of a response to questions I asked on Calculate's IRC channel.
My main source of information was Gentoo's excellent handbook. This helped me understand Portage but not some Calculate-specific features. To give two examples, I wasn't able to find out whether or not Calculate really is a rolling release distro (as the documentation mentions in passing) and the graphical Calculate Console utility has various features which aren't documented at all.
Calculate Linux 17.6 -- The settings console
(full image size: 454kB, resolution: 1280x720 pixels)
Conclusions
If you're interested in Gentoo but don't want to dive in head-first then Calculate might be for you. The project's documentation could be improved but if you're an experienced Linux user than I'm sure you'll slowly get familiar with Portage's more advanced features.
I think people who want to avoid systemd should also consider Calculate. The distro is perfectly usable without ever compiling software from source. Everything "just worked" and the developers have clearly made a huge effort to make a polished operating system.
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Hardware used for this review:
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo Z570 laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Core i3-2350M, 2.3GHz
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Wireless network adaptor: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285
- Wired network adaptor: Realtek RTL8101/2/6E 05)
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Visitor supplied rating
Calculate Linux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.1/10 from 21 review(s).
Have you used Calculate Linux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Remix OS discontinues desktop product, Starlabs launches line of Linux laptops, Debian project releases update for version 9, an interview with Debian's Project Leader
The Remix OS project took the desktop port of Android, Android-x86, and used it to develop an operating system for desktop and laptop computers. Jide, the organization behind Remix OS, has stated that they are discontinuing their Android-based desktop operating system. "Over the past year, we received an increasing number of inquiries from enterprises in various industries, and began helping them build great tools for their organizations by leveraging Jide software and hardware. We see huge potential in the role that Jide can play to revolutionize how these businesses operate. And given our existing resources, we decided to focus our company efforts solely on the enterprise space moving forward. We'll be restructuring our approach to Remix OS and transitioning away from the consumer space. As a result, development on all existing products such as Remix OS for PC as well as products in our pipeline such as Remix IO and IO+ will be discontinued. Full refunds will be issued to all backers via Kickstarter for both Remix IO and Remix IO+. In addition any purchases made via our on-line store that has remained unfulfilled will also be fully refunded. This requires no action from you as we will begin issuing refunds starting August 15th."
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Starlabs, a PC retailer in the United Kingdom, has announced a line of Linux-compatible laptops. These laptops can be purchased with either no operating installed, or with a selection of Linux distributions installed on the disk drive. There are four laptops available, which will run elementary OS, Kali Linux, Linux Mint and Ubuntu. Additional information and hardware specifications can be found on the Starlabs website.
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The Debian project has announced updated installation media for the distribution's Debian 9 "Stretch" release. The new media is not a new version of Debian, but does provide fresh media with available security updates for people performing new installations. An announcement on the Debian website states: "Please note that the point release does not constitute a new version of Debian 9 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away old Stretch media. After installation, packages can be upgraded to the current versions using an up-to-date Debian mirror. Those who frequently install updates from security.debian.org won't have to update many packages, and most such updates are included in the point release."
Chris Lamb became Debian's Project Leader earlier this year. In an interview with the Debian Brasil blog, Lamb shares how he got started with Debian, Debian's experimental ports and issues with the project's live installation media. "My first experience with Debian was a happy accident. I had sent off for a five CD set of Red Hat from 'The Linux Emporium', a company in the UK that shipped CD-ROMs of GNU/Linux distributions, an essential service prior to fast Internet connections. However, I was to discover I lacked the 12MB of RAM required to run the Red Hat installer. Annoyed, I reached for a Debian 'Potato' CD that was included (free-of-charge) in my order due to it being rather outdated, even at the time..."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
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Logging sudo usage
Watching-what-sudo-does asks: I have a computer where multiple people have sudo access. Is there a way I can keep track of what everyone is doing when they run sudo <some command> and log it to a file?
DistroWatch answers: The sudo command is a powerful tool for granting users the ability to run commands as other users. Usually we use sudo to give select people administrative access to the computer. This can be very convenient, but it also means we need to place a certain amount of trust in each person who is granted sudo access.
To answer your question, the sudo command and its cousin doas both automatically log the commands people try to run. The exact location of this log may vary, but is often saved as /var/log/auth.log. Both commands will record who ran the command and the specific command line that was passed to sudo or doas. The auth.log file contains other entries too, but you can filter those out if you wish. The following example with the grep command will show all instances of recent sudo usage on my system:
grep sudo /var/log/auth.log
If you are worried about someone trying to cover their tracks by tampering with the log, you can run a scheduled script to copy the log to another computer at regular intervals.
While the log file will tell you who did what, a better preventative measure is to grant each user access to only the specific commands they need. With sudo and doas you can grant specific privileges to different users, access does not need to be handed out in an "all or nothing" manner. In a previous Questions and Answers column we covered how to share sudo permissions with multiple users. If you are planning on providing sudo access specifically so someone can set up a printer or install software updates, fine-tuning sudo's configuration to only grant a user access to those tools will provide a more secure solution than logging what the user does with full access to the system.
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More answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
SparkyLinux 5.0
The SparkyLinux team has announced the release of SparkyLinux 5.0. The new release is based on Debian's Testing branch and is available in three editions: LXQt, MATE and Xfce. "Sparky "Home" edition provides fully featured operating system with lightweight desktops: LXQt, MATE and Xfce. As usually, Sparky MinimalGUI (Openbox) and MinimalCLI (text based) lets you install the base system with a minimal set of applications and a desktop of your choice, via the Sparky Advanced Installer. Changes between version 4.5 and 5.0: full system upgraded from Debian Testing repos as of July 14, 2017; Linux kernel 4.11.6 as default (4.12.x is available in Sparky Unstable repo); new theme 'Sparky5'; new theme of LXQt edition; new default wallpaper created by our community member 'barti'; new set of wallpapers of the Nature category, with a few nice landscapes from Poland; Calamares 3.1.1 as the default system installer; new tool for checking and displaying notification on your desktop about available updates." More information on SparkyLinux 5.0 can be found in the project's release announcement.
Netrunner 2017.07 "Rolling"
The Netrunner team has announced a new snapshot of the project's rolling release edition, which is based on Manjaro Linux. The rolling release, which was last updated about 18 months ago, includes package updates across the board. The new snapshot, Netrunner 2017.07, features the KDE Plasma 5.10.3 desktop environment, Firefox 54 and version 4.11.8 of the Linux kernel. "Yes, it's back: An up-to-date Netrunner Rolling ISO has been released today after 18 months from the last release. That means Netrunner is now available again as part of the two biggest non-commercial, community-driven distributions since our split from Maui: Debian and Manjaro/Arch. While it would have been possible to simply update the previous system due to its inherent rolling nature, we recommend a fresh install. Our plan is to release an updated install medium regularly 2-3x times a year. What's new? Compared to the 2016.01 version which featured KDE Plasma 5.5.4, Qt 5.5.1 and Firefox 44 at that time, here is what's changed: KDE Plasma 5.10.3, KDE Frameworks 5.35, KDE Applications 17.04.2, Qt 5.9.0, Linux Kernel 4.11.8, Firefox 54.0.1, Thunderbird 52.2.1, LibreOffice 5.2.7." Additional information and screen shots can be found in the project's release announcement.
Netrunner 2017.07 -- Running the Plasma desktop
(full image size: 365kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Quirky 8.2
Barry Kauler has announced the release of a new version of Quirky, a close relative to Puppy Linux that is built using a tool called Woof. The new release, Quirky 8.2, runs on 64-bit x86 computers and offers mostly incremental improvements over previous 8.x releases: "Quirky Linux 8.2 x86_64 is codenamed 'Xerus' and is built using the woofQ Quirky Linux build system, with the help of Ubuntu 16.04.2 binary packages. Thus, Xerus has compatibility with all of the Ubuntu repositories. Quirky is a fork of Puppy Linux, and is mainly differentiated by being a "full installation" only, with special snapshot and recovery features, and Service Pack upgrades, though recently there is limited support for live-CD session-saving and "frugal" installation. Version 8.2 has many architectural improvements and package upgrades, including new packages JWMDesk, UrxvtControl and Take-a-Shot. Among architectural improvements, the overlay file system has been dumped in favour of aufs, mime-handling fixes, and network-connection refinements. A significant change in application selection is VLC dumped in favour of Xine. The Linux kernel is version 4.11.11 and SeaMonkey is upgraded to version 2.48b1." Further information can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
deepin 15.4.1
The deepin team has announced the availability of a new release of the project's Debian-based distribution. The new version, deepin 15.4.1, provides mostly minor updates over the previously released 15.4 branch. "deepin is a Linux distribution devoted to providing beautiful, easy to use, security and reliable system for global users. As a revised edition, deepin 15.4.1 added Launcher mini mode, application start animation and window preview effect, optimized 2-D mode of window manager, fixed bugs that forum users submitted and updated Deepin applications to the newest version. Launcher mini mode is added, back to the classic operating way. Two modes are provided for user to switch freely. Well-designed application start animation increased the interest to run application. It's more efficient to drag and drop file to the application on Dock for opening. Window preview effect is back to make your dektop more vivid. Rebuilt Deepin Screenshot, really can start in one second. Newly designed the toolbar and marquee, added the function to directly capture context menu." Additional information and screen shots can be found in the project's release announcement.
BackBox 5
BackBox Linux is a Ubuntu-based distribution designed for penetration testing and security evaluations. The Backbox distribution is designed to be fast and easy to use with a wide collection of security utilities. It provides a minimal yet complete desktop environment The BackBox project has announced the release of a new version, BackBox 5. The new version features Linux 4.8, several updated tools and builds for 32-bit and 64-bit x86 computers. The release announcement shares the following details: "The BackBox Team proudly announces the major release of BackBox v5. It took long due to several development processes, but we worked hard and got through it. In this major release we made some structural changes, we removed outdated tools and added new ones. What's new: New logo and identity; updated Linux Kernel 4.8; updated all hacking tools."
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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. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. Thanks to Linux Tracker we are able to share the following torrent statistics.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 503
- Total data uploaded: 14.7TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
Checking system logs
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about monitoring the actions of privileged users through system logs. Some people check their system logs on a regular basis, others rely on automated tools to watch logs and report suspicious activity. Others ignore their log files entirely. This week we would like to find out how our readers regard their log files. Do you use them to keep an eye on the system, or are your log files just cluttering up the disk?
You can see the results of our previous poll on installing software from source code in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Checking system logs
| I check system logs manually: | 446 (36%) |
| I get log summaries from automated tools: | 81 (6%) |
| I do not check system logs: | 721 (58%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Dividing the Pardus page and renaming OBRevenge OS
A few years ago the organization which was developing the Turkish Pardus distribution appeared to go dormant and, about six months later, a group of community developers launched a continuation of Pardus called "Pardus Community" or "Pardus Topluluk". This community effort appeared to be the only active branch of the Pardus distribution and we continued to track Pardus Topluluk on our Pardus information page.
In early July, the original Pardus distribution came out of retirement and published a new release, Pardus 17.0. Around the same time the community group released a new version called Pardus Topluluk 4.0. E-mails exchanged with the respect projects give the impression the two projects will not merge in the future.
As both Pardus communities were using the Pardus name, but using separate websites, developers and version numbers, there was great potential for confusion among our readers. In an effort to make it clear which software releases were coming from which Pardus project, the Pardus DistroWatch page has been divided into two separate pages. The project which uses the pardus.org.tr website and has sometimes been referred to as the "Corporate" edition of the distribution, will be tracked on our Pardus page. The "Community" edition, located at pardustopluluk.org will be tracked on our Pardus Topluluk page.
Links to the resources of the respective projects and their previous release announcements are being divided between the two separate project pages.
In other DistroWatch.com news, following a change in the naming of the OBRevenge OS distribution to Revenge OS, we have updated our page for the project. Information on the Arch-based distribution can be found on our Revenge OS page. The links have also been updated as the distribution's old home page was no longer active.
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New projects added to database
Raspberry Digital Signage
Raspberry Digital Signage is an operating system designed for digital signage installations on the Raspberry Pi: it displays a full-screen browser view restricted to a specified resource. It shows web pages from an Internet, local area network or internal (SD-card contained) sources; there is no way to escape this view but rebooting the machine.
Raspberry Digital Signage 9.0 -- Configuring the browser view
(full image size: 336kB, resolution: 3200x1800 pixels)
Raspberry Slideshow
Raspberry Slideshow is focused on quick-to-set-up image and video slideshows for the Raspberry Pi. Insert a USB key with image/video files or retrieval information and boot: the system will display a slideshow of the media in a full-screen view using the Omxplayer.
RasPlex
RasPlex lets you turn your TV into a Smart TV. Similar to the AppleTV, but running on a Raspberry Pi computer and completely free and open source, RasPlex is basically a set-top box that lets you play content from your computer or smart phone to your TV. RasPlex currently uses LibreELEC as its base OS.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 31 July 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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| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • log viewing (by DaveW on 2017-07-24 00:42:28 GMT from United States)
Mine is a single user machine, so normally the only time I need to check logs is when something has gone wrong. Then it's manual access to the logs. For me it is also quite rare.
2 • logging (by anon de on 2017-07-24 00:59:57 GMT from United States)
I have all system logging disabled and thus cannot view any logs.
3 • System Logs (by rdaniels on 2017-07-24 01:09:11 GMT from United States)
I also only check logs when something has gone wrong and I need to dig into why. This is uncommon enough I never even thought to look into anything fancier than dmesg and such.
4 • Annoyed by redundant application menu entries (by Andre on 2017-07-24 01:35:54 GMT from Canada)
Blame the Clementine developers for the program's menu entry being "Clementine (Clementine Music Player)". You can copy /usr/share/applications/clementine.desktop to ~/.local/share/applications/ and edit the GenericName if you want to override the default with something more sane. This works for other programs too, by the way.
5 • Calculate Linux. (by Myst on 2017-07-24 01:40:32 GMT from Australia)
I'm not a Techie, so most things I learn about PC's is from trial & error, then searching the net for solutions or contacting IRC channels for support. I guess most of us are like that.. I've been distro hopping for a number of years after starting with Ubuntu/Debian distributions. Up to recently I was hooked on Arch based distributions. About 4 months my frustration with SystemD really hit a nerve, I started experimenting with No-SystemD derivatives, Like Alpine, Void, Manjaro-OpenRc and TrueOS & OpenBsd. The more I looked these alternatives I noticed improvement in stability of the OS, especially in & around the boot sequence. I really do like BSD especially, TrueOs, unfortunately in BSD there are number packages that I use daily that are not available in binary for BSD, and I stated above due to my lack of technical skills it's often to hard for me to compile from source.
Recently I have testing Gentoo based Linux, I've tested Calculate, Funtoo & a new distro RedCore. Of these, I found Redcore a great distro for Newbies to Gentoo. Offering a unique way to a familiarise them selves to PKG Build. It offers,the ability to switch modes. Binary mode Redcore's default mode, that is to install Pkgs from their binaries. a "mixed mode" the use of a combination of binaries & building from source. Thirdly a source mode. It's so easy to switch with " vasile" command. As much as liked Caclulate-Linux, it lacks what Redcore has to offer. I like Funtoo, my skill set is not quite there yet, to be able to comfortably resolve & find solutions.
So those looking at Gentoo, give due consideration to RedCore! I think you will be surprised with what you find. It's still new & evolving, so contact the team on their Facebook page or IRC & share your suggestions. I'm sure you will hear a lot more of this distributions in the coming months.
6 • Pardus with PISI (by Amand on 2017-07-24 02:10:13 GMT from Malaysia)
While two Pardus swith over to Debian, another Pardus continue what the real Pardus Linux left.
http://www.pisilinux.org/en
7 • Unlogging ISOs How To (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2017-07-24 02:29:31 GMT from United States)
"we can choose whether we want to use Pulse Audio or ALSA for sound"
+1 but make the choice JACK vs ALSA, with Pulse as an add-on option (which it is, literally layered atop ALSA)
"Do you use them to keep an eye on the system, or are your log files just cluttering up the disk?"
The latter. Logs are for sysadmins with multiuser workstations or multiclient servers. One-man desktop PCs don't need them save for debugging purposes. And PS someone should invent a way to encrypt them as they are made.
I'd like to know how logs can be completely disabled. The systemdeath documents don't say in so many words. I found the following possibly redudant, or possibly lacking, or possibly both, kernel command line paramters.
systemd.journald.forward_to_wall=false
systemd.journald.storage=none
systemd.mask=systemd-journald.service
It's not possible to tweak live ISO images with conf files. It must be done at boot time and that's the cleanest way for any system anyhow.
8 • About Starlab, Kali OS (by BeGo on 2017-07-24 02:58:03 GMT from Indonesia)
Just Curious,
Who, or what market segment, shall pick Kali Linux as Their 1st OS of Choice? :)
9 • system logs and sudo (by Trihexagonal on 2017-07-24 03:04:35 GMT from United States)
I check my logs once or twice a week. I use su instead of sudo, am the only one with physical access to my machines, keep a close eye on and use them every day so I know if something has gone wrong.
If there is any question in my mind of having been compromised or something doesn't look right I insert my boot media, reboot and rebuild the system from scratch.
10 • Debian 9.1 so soon ? (by Frederic Bezies on 2017-07-24 06:14:46 GMT from France)
Am I the only one to think that Debian 9.0 was released a little to early after full freeze back in february 2017?
This first point release seems to "confirm" spending one or two more months in full freeze would have been a good idea.
Anyway, this is a good news for people who were waiting for Debian 9.1 to migrate to it.
11 • Debian 9.1 so soon ? More infos! (by Frederic Bezies on 2017-07-24 06:16:11 GMT from France)
Forgot to add this headline : https://www.debian.org/News/2017/20170722
It is about Debian 9.1.
12 • My experience with latest Archbang distribution (by Srinivasprasad on 2017-07-24 08:57:28 GMT from India)
yesterday I tried Archbang distribution (latest) on my optiplex 330. The live session booted fine very fast.
But when I tried to install the same on my computer, i found that installer is missing in right click context menu.
After googling i found that I can use Sudo abinstall. I tried the same but this time an error came at the 8th step i.e boot loader installation, thereafter even several attempts it was not successful though I installed the grub manually.
it is necessary that the developer shall test the distro before uploading
13 • Calculate (by Dave Postles on 2017-07-24 09:58:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
I abandoned it (again) after trying in vain to get LibreOffice Base working.
14 • System Logs (by jymm on 2017-07-24 10:16:02 GMT from United States)
I am the only one that uses my Linux computers, so I do not check system logs.
15 • Logging (by Brenton Horne on 2017-07-24 11:02:40 GMT from Australia)
I only check at logs when an error occurs that I notice. For example, I check out logs in /var/log/Xorg.0.log if Xorg fails to launch.
16 • Kali Linux (by Jesse on 2017-07-24 11:57:12 GMT from Canada)
@8: "Who, or what market segment, shall pick Kali Linux as Their 1st OS of Choice? "
People who watch TV and movies. Over the past year or so a lot of newcomers have been showing up on Linux forums, asking for tips on using and installing Kali Linux. The distro has shown up in some TV shows (and I think a movie) and people interested in learning Linux (or hacking skills) pick it as their first Linux distro. It's probably one of the most popular "first Linux distro" projects available right now.
17 • Sound Choices (by OhioJoe on 2017-07-24 13:43:07 GMT from United States)
I wish they gave you an option for the volume control. I like the old simple up and down style. I don't need a big clunky confusing style, with side to side slider and a built in media player. On some distros a program called "Volti" may help you return to the simple control.
18 • @ 4 annoyed...? (by kaczor on 2017-07-24 14:46:49 GMT from United States)
" Blame the Clementine developers for the program's menu entry..."
You don't blame the developers, if you use their app, you say thank you for its given to you free.
19 • archbang @12 (by Dave on 2017-07-24 15:19:07 GMT from United States)
You did not verify the root partition is bootable in cfdisk. Just select the root partition, select bootable, write to disk and exit. No need to reinstall, just reboot. Enjoy!
20 • PinguyOS (by OstroL on 2017-07-24 15:48:32 GMT from Poland)
For quite sometime PinguyOS website had been off. Sometime ago, the PinguyOS creator had said he might take off the distro. Looks like it had happened. No one can do things without getting paid. A pity!
21 • @18: kaczor (by dragonmouth on 2017-07-24 18:43:27 GMT from United States)
You have it backwards, kaczor. The developers should thank the user for alpha and beta testing their half-baked software. Any suggestions for improvement should be received in the spirit they are given and thoughtfully considered. If it wasn't for the users, the developers would have no jobs. There would be nobody to try their clever software. BTW - I spent over 30 years as a software developer.
22 • @21 (by kaczor on 2017-07-24 20:28:18 GMT from United States)
1) What do you know about Pinguy OS and its developer?
2) "BTW - I spent over 30 years as a software developer."
Are you saying you've wasted 30 years of your life, creating alpha and beta software?
23 • @#4, and #18, and #21 (by sayyour on 2017-07-24 20:40:28 GMT from United States)
You don't Blame anyone. you help fix it or make it better so it works and then SHARE that with the world ( open source), Isn't that the whole idea? Even if that means asking the Original developer to look at his code again to see why it's not working.and any of the changes or additions along the way, those developers as well.. Just my belief , thats all. in regards to comments #4, #18, and #21
Or maybe I am wrong?
24 • mistake (by sayyour on 2017-07-24 21:12:31 GMT from United States)
"""Even if that means asking the Original developer to look at his code again to see why it's not working""".
I should have used a more appropriate word like ""their"", and not "his", sorry to All the women coders(developers) out there.
25 • easy @ comment #4 (by in my opinion on 2017-07-24 21:31:14 GMT from United States)
or just right click the icon in menu, and edit name in the applications properties..+ less typing
26 • Calculate Linux (by BillC on 2017-07-25 01:57:24 GMT from Australia)
Thanks for the Calculate Linux review. I have been using Calculate for over a year as my daily driver and I really enjoy it - everything works (well, almost) and I am learning Gentoo system admin. The 2-3 minor issues I have had have all been solved in the Calculate Forum - small and friendly. As you mentioned the English forum is small, but I have always received help within a day or two, usually from one of the developers.
Calculate is essentially Gentoo and you have access to all the Gentoo packages - just as extensive as what is available in Arch or Debian.
I liked the reviewer's examples of setting USE flags - but remember that with Calculate if you accept the defaults you do not need to compile packages, saving the sometimes long compile times. That is how I started using Calculate, but as I get more confident I have started to customise my packages. A slippery slope to becoming a Gentoo user!
It is also worth noting that the Calculate team try to make all the desktops look similar so that you could use the XFCE version on an older machine and it still looks similar to the KDE version. Personally I use the LXQT version :)
27 • i wish (by menu on 2017-07-25 02:52:22 GMT from United States)
@25 (and others)
Which menu, which desktop environment, supports in-place editing of menu entries via right-click?
28 • PiSi Linux is, also, a renegade PARDUS project ... (by Nemrut on 2017-07-25 04:44:23 GMT from Canada)
i truly appreciated and deeply enjoyed reading the DW's wonderful news about Pardus come back .... However, I'm very surprized that DW failed to mention the fact that another Turkish distro called PiSi Linux is also an offspring of the original Pardus project
Interestingly, the PiSi Linux DistroWatch page states this fact as follows:
"Pisi Linux is a GNU/Linux distribution based on the old Pardus Linux with its famous PiSi package management system..."
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pisi
(And by the way, Pardus is named after a Turkish Anatolian panther species, while "pisi" means "kitten" or "kitty" in Turkish).
But regardless, i truly appreciate and enjoy reading such great news stories often here on DW pages !
29 • Famous PiSi package management system... (by OstroL on 2017-07-25 05:59:42 GMT from Poland)
Solus is another distro using (its) famous PiSi package management system.
30 • redundant menu entries (by jymm on 2017-07-25 11:07:13 GMT from United States)
I edit my menu entries all the time, Like changing Kpat to Solitaire and Firefox Web Browser to just Firefox. Just be careful about Preferred applications, change the name and the default program setting cannot find them.
What drives me even crazier are applications like Krita, which I love and use, that make multiple entries in multiple categories.
I use the Mate desktop and Alacarte menu editor.
31 • @12 Archbang (by Jake on 2017-07-25 14:58:25 GMT from United States)
I've used Archbang since they offered an OpenRC version. I like having an installer since normal Arch installs require me to keep the manual handy and they can't be done offline. Double-check what @19 mentioned if you haven't already. I also had trouble with the bootloader but that was because my laptop only supported UEFI booting, and I needed to follow some special instructions for my hardware. Archbang is a great distro for me to start off in Arch land. I hope mrgreen continues to work on it, especially the OpenRC version.
32 • @8, @16 Kali (by Sting on 2017-07-25 15:04:03 GMT from United States)
I use Kali at work in a VM for penetration testing. It is nice to have several tools pre-installed and ready to go. Otherwise, it's basically Debian. If I were a full-time security researcher, I might have it as my daily on a laptop for doing my job. @8, I once wondered the same thing until I actually started doing a little work in the field.
33 • Archbang (by lenn on 2017-07-25 15:06:06 GMT from Canada)
Does anyone remember who started Archbang?
34 • The end of RemixOS (by Sebastien on 2017-07-25 15:21:27 GMT from France)
I can't believe Jide drops all this work around RemixOS ! I was particulary looking foward to try RemixOS for mobile which was very appealing to me: your phone and your computer in one same device. The ultimate convergence goal was reached ! I was not using RemixOS currently but I was about to (as soon as the mobile version would came out I guess). For me it was the most inovative project for user experience around so far. Really sad.
35 • OpenBSD (by DRLong on 2017-07-26 00:29:18 GMT from United States)
I could go on and on about how great OpenBSD 6.1 is, and I will. Now with syspatch, doas, and installurl it just could not be any easier. I know some of these features are not unique to 6.1 but keeping your system up to date is as easy as it gets.
Default install takes less than 5 min and then you have a fully secure, down right cool operating system. Albeit not the most user friendly unless you like the terminal, and I do.
Most of the best tilling wms are available e.g DWN, I3, AWESOME, fvwm to name a few. Hardware support is getting better and better and wireless could not be any easier. Simple .conf file and your online in minuets.
Give it a try....
36 • OpenBSD (by Trihexagonal on 2017-07-26 02:27:14 GMT from United States)
@35 You are correct, Sir! With "only two remote holes in the default install, in a heck of a long time" and the forthcoming introduction of KARL, or Kernel Address Randomized Link, which works by relinking internal kernel files in a random order so that it generates a unique kernel binary blob at install, upgrade, and boot time, OpenBSD is renown as a secure OS.
The build process is a breeze, and while I use ports exclusively with FreeBSD I do use the pkg system with OpenBSD, allowing me to have the base system and all my standard programs build in no time at all before ever invoking X.
Like DRLong said, give it a try.
Typed on my OpenBSD 6.1 box.
37 • Calculate Linux (by Winchester on 2017-07-26 10:19:29 GMT from United States)
Calculate Linux is great just as long as you DON'T go with the "Cinnamon" version. I installed that one first and it would freeze-up at (somewhat) random. File Manager operations via "Nemo" resulted in sluggish performance and freezes.
The Cinnamon desktop worked great on the same hardware under Porteus , Manjaro , Antergos , and Korora so,I am unsure what the exact problem was. I tried enabling and disabling composite effects. It did not matter.
So,I switched to the MATE desktop plus LXDE as another option and everything is running very smoothly. The only problem is that upon using "Calculate Update" the program prompts to remove all LXDE related packages because the profile of the system is "Calculate Linux Desktop MATE".
The solution there is to "emerge --no replace" all of the packages that I want to keep which are not part of the profile. I did it once already and now since upgrading from 17.1 to 17.6 , I have to go back and do it again because I selected to use a new configuration file during that update.
Also,the system keeps setting a bootloader default timeout of 2 seconds which I kept changing to 8 seconds only to have updates change it back to 2 seconds multiple times. So I took it (the GRUB) out of my MBR eventually because I have other bootloaders via other distributions on other HDD partitions.
Overall though,Calculate (with Mate or LXDE) is one of the very best distributions I have ever tried.
Post # 13 : Calculate Linux Desktop MATE comes with Libre Office Base pre-installed. I don't know if that's what you meant. The database software is not a program that I have actually tried to use as of yet. If it's installed and launches (which it does) ,I don't know why that it would work any differently than it does on any other distribution / operating system.
38 • @29 - Thank you for the Pardus > PiSi > Solus info ... (by Nemrut on 2017-07-26 11:53:10 GMT from Canada)
@29 - Really hank you pal.
Happy to learn that Solus -- one of my favorite distro -- is also using PiSi .....
Meanwhile, you are welcome to visit this Polish-Ottoman village (Polonezköy, or Adampol) on Istanbul's shores to mingle with local Linux geeks to talk about coding, etc, while enjoying the annual Vişne Festival and much more ......
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonezkoy
(P.S. ensure to check the Polonezköy's homepage listed at the end of the Wikipedia's entry for more details)
Cześć !
39 • Solus packager (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2017-07-26 15:42:01 GMT from United States)
Solus inherited/adapted/forked PiSi; the Solus packager is eopkg. They are not 'compatible'.
40 • Old days (by Mac on 2017-07-26 21:05:00 GMT from United States)
I miss the good old days of mepis and aptosid !!!
41 • PCLOS (by johnny on 2017-07-27 01:44:27 GMT from United States)
@ comment #25
I can do that using PCLOS KDE5, KDE4 but they dont support KDE4 anymore. Out of all the distro's i have used ONLY PCLOS has worked right out of the box every time. It is the Distro that I always return to, because it is easy, and it works.
42 • a little clarifaction about the new, or revenant Pardus (by Szulejmán on 2017-07-27 04:19:53 GMT from Canada)
As DistroWatch News current edition mentioned, "the original Pardus distribution came out of retirement and published a new release, Pardus 17.0. Around the same time the community group released a new version called Pardus Topluluk 4.0".
However, judging from some of the above-posted Pardus related comments, there seems to be a confusion, which, perhaps, happened because DistroWatch News neglected to mention the fact that both new [Pardus] distributions were now based on Debian, as opposed to being developed from scratch ..., hence, being Independent distros like they used to be ...
And this fact alone leaves the PiSi Linux project (which is still actively based on the old Pardus) to be the only distro which is still being developed independently where the original Pardus left off, as correctly mentioned by the commentator @6, and similarly stated here on http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pisi
Meanwhile, commentator @39 PiSi-Solus realeted clairifaction is appreciated.
43 • Old days (by zcatav on 2017-07-27 14:28:31 GMT from Turkey)
@40 • Old days - by Mac
What about MX linux and Siduction?
44 • Calculate Linux: Base (by Dave Postles on 2017-07-27 15:39:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
@37 Yes, Base is installed and it launches, but then try creating and CONNECTING a new database. I've tried everything I can think of to connect the jre, but still it will not connect a new database (nor open an existing one). I've tried the Calculate fora, but the answers there just don't seem to work. I've not had this issue with any other distro.
45 • Logging (by Jake on 2017-07-27 16:59:40 GMT from United States)
I mount /var/log as tmpfs. If I care, I'll check the log while the system is active, but I don't care after a restart what happened before. In the rare case where I can't boot and actually need to see what's wrong (I don't recall ever having this problem with Mint; this is truly rare since it means I can't get a shell), then I can run a live CD, remove the tmpfs mount, then boot again. I can use my live CD to analyze the logs, which is what I'd have to do anyway for failed boots. If the problem is intermittent, I just leave the normal mount permanent, maybe taking the directory off of my SSD and onto a regular HDD (the main reason for using a tmpfs).
46 • Pisi Linux (by claudecat on 2017-07-27 18:50:44 GMT from United States)
As someone that really liked the old Pardus, I decided to give Pisi a try. It's not bad! Pretty much Pardus with most of its unique features and a nice new Plasma 5 look and feel. Not without some minor issues, and it lacks a working gui tool for package management (a big issue), but Pisi could be a player again with some more polish and publicity.
I was sad when I learned that the future of Pardus, official or not, was to be based on Debian. It's always nice to see new paradigms emerge, and Pisi continues to keep the original (in all senses of the word) Pardus spirit alive.
47 • of Pardus, the PiSi Linux and still-independently-developed distros like Solus . (by Szulejmán on 2017-07-28 12:25:59 GMT from Canada)
@46 -- i agree with you, as it's, indeed, a pity that Pardus is now based on Debian ..., hence, another promising paradigm lost ...
But on the other hand, the good news is that there still are few Independent-based distros actively being developed out there, such as Solus, which is a truly independtly developed sublime quality and polished distro, and on top of that it's using Pardus-created avante garde PiSi package manager ...., as pointed out by @29 and @39 ...
Also, you're truly right that PiSi Linux is as great as the old Pardus. So, let's hope that PiSi Linux continues to be developed from scratch ....
48 • Starlabs and Netrunner (by Corentin on 2017-07-29 22:25:44 GMT from France)
It is great to see Linux computers but their prices are prohibitive, I find...
> " While it would have been possible to simply update the previous system due to its inherent rolling nature, we recommend a fresh install."
A fresh install for Manjaro, for a rolling distro? No need with Arch or Manjaro so why with Netrunner "Rolling" (which is based on Manjaro)? If this is really necessary, it's just stupid.
Number of Comments: 48
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
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| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
Funtoo Linux
Funtoo Linux was a Gentoo-based distribution developed by Daniel Robbins (the founder and former project leader of Gentoo Linux) and a core team of developers, built around a basic vision of improving the core technologies in Gentoo Linux. Funtoo Linux features native UTF-8 support enabled by default, a git-based, distributed Portage tree and Funtoo overlay, an enhanced Portage with more compact mini-manifest tree, automated imports of new Gentoo changes every 12 hours, GPT/GUID boot support and streamlined boot configuration, enhanced network configuration, up-to-date stable and current Funtoo stages - all built using Funtoo's Metro build tool.
Status: Discontinued
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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!
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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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