 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 747, 22 January 2018 |
Welcome to this year's 4th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
When the Ubuntu distribution decided to stop using the GNOME 2 desktop environment in favour of Unity, it resulted in a new community edition called Ubuntu MATE. The Ubuntu MATE project uses the MATE desktop (a fork of GNOME 2) and a more traditional desktop layout to give users a familiar environment while also providing some modern conveniences. This week we begin with a review of Ubuntu MATE 17.10 and its desktop features, such as global menu bars and menu HUD. In our News section we talk about KDE developers shifting more of their focus to supporting Wayland and DragonFly BSD removing old, insecure remote utilities. We also cover VirtualBox drivers being added to the mainline Linux kernel. Plus we explore how to retrieve deleted files which may still be open and how to get started with creating a new distribution of your own. We then list the distribution releases of the past week and share the torrents we are seeding. In our Opinion Poll we ask how many of our readers are using HiDPI monitors, and, to wrap up, we are pleased to welcome the Enso OS distribution to our database. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (21MB) and MP3 (26MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Joshua Allen Holm) |
Ubuntu MATE 17.10
Ubuntu MATE is an Ubuntu flavor that uses the MATE desktop environment instead of the GNOME 3 desktop used by Ubuntu 17.10 or the Unity desktop used in earlier Ubuntu releases. The MATE desktop is lighter and uses the traditional GNOME 2 desktop layout, which was featured in pre-Unity releases of Ubuntu, but with more refinements and polish as the MATE developers continue to develop their fork of GNOME 2. One noticeable enhancement is the multiple panel layouts found in the MATE Tweak tool, which lets MATE function like other desktop environments, including Unity. For this review I will look at Ubuntu MATE 17.10 using its standard Traditional layout and explore a layout designed to emulate Unity, called Mutiny.
Live desktop and installation
Downloading Ubuntu MATE, creating a bootable USB flash drive, and booting that flash drive is a familiar process for anyone familiar with Ubuntu or any of its official flavors. I began by downloading the 1.7GB 64-bit image from the Ubuntu MATE website and creating a bootable flash drive. I restarted my computer and booted from the newly created drive. The Ubuntu MATE boot process was quick and I was soon presented with the live desktop with a nice welcome screen. I briefly looked through the material presented by the welcome screen, which provided a nice overview of what Ubuntu MATE has to offer. Once I was done with that, I started the installer and began installing Ubuntu MATE.
Ubuntu MATE 17.10 -- The live desktop with welcome screen
(full image size: 244kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The process of installing Ubuntu MATE is near identical to installing Ubuntu or any of the other Ubuntu community flavors. The Ubiquity installer is themed to match Ubuntu MATE and provides some Ubuntu MATE specific details while installing, but other than that it is identical to installing Ubuntu. During the installation process I entered all the information I was asked for (the usual hard drive partition, timezone, user name, etc. prompts) and rebooted my computer when the process was complete.
Ubuntu MATE with Traditional panel layout
The MATE desktop is the continuation of the classic GNOME 2 desktop, so the default MATE experience is very similar to GNOME 2. Aside from changing the names of various applications, there are no major changes, especially as configured in Ubuntu MATE. There is a panel at the top with the Applications, Places, and System menus on the left and Bluetooth, wi-fi, volume control, battery, clock and shutdown on the right. The bottom panel has an icon to show the desktop, all of the running applications, four virtual desktops, and the trash can. The desktop is lighter than some, but it still used about 435MB of RAM with no applications running other than MATE Terminal.
Like most modern, desktop-focused, Linux distributions Ubuntu MATE comes with many of the most common programs pre-installed. The default software includes Firefox and Thunderbird for web browsing and e-mail, LibreOffice for word processing and other office tasks, Rhythmbox for music, VLC for video, and a selection of MATE tools and utilities. For basic tasks, I found that I did not need to install any additional software. I could browse the web, check my e-mail, and write documents with the software I am familiar with.
The Ubuntu MATE experience using the Traditional panel layout is very polished, but there is one odd exception. For some reason, there are three entries for "Language Support" in the Control Center and System menu. One appears in the "Look and Feel" section and two are in the "Personal" section. They all launch the same program. I first noticed this when I was using the live desktop and the issue is still present after installing the distribution and all the updates currently available.
Ubuntu MATE 17.10 -- The MATE Tweak tool
(full image size: 643kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
If the default settings are not to a user's liking, there are many options that can be changed using the various options in the Control Center. Some of these are the basic things like theming and window behaviors, but there is also MATE Tweak, which lets the user make more extreme changes, like completely changing the panel layout. In addition to the default GNOME 2 style, MATE Tweak has layout options that behave like Windows, macOS, Unity, and Pantheon. There is also a Netbook option and a Contemporary option, which is similar to the Traditional layout but has some of the same features as the Unity inspired Mutiny panel layout. Since Ubuntu is shifting away from Unity, I decided to try out the Mutiny panel layout to see if it came close enough to Unity to make a suitable replacement.
The Mutiny layout
Ubuntu MATE 17.10 -- Mutiny panel layout
(full image size: 904kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
MATE's Mutiny panel layout is designed to emulate the Unity desktop, but it is not an exact re-creation. It has a panel on the left side of the screen serving as dock, the Super key opens the application menu, applications' menu bars are integrated into the top panel, and there is a HUD that opens when pressing Alt, so users can search through application menu options. It recreates the major Unity features, so it is close to Unity, but do not expect a perfect recreation. I found that the application menu, the menus integrated in the top panel, and the HUD for applications' menus worked very well. The application menu is not a full screen menu like in Unity, but it is searchable and well organized. It works well enough, just do not expect it work exactly like Unity. Overall, I thought it worked well enough, but Unity power-users might feel differently.
Ubuntu MATE 17.10 -- LibreOffice with the HUD menu
(full image size: 109kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
While the Mutiny experience is certainly close to Unity, there are a few issues that do need to be fixed. The dock on the left side of the screen does not handle having too many applications open at the same time very well. When too many applications are open, the icons at the top, including the application menu icon, disappear to make space for other icons. While the Super key will still open the application menu when the icon is pushed off the screen, it is still sloppier than Unity's dock. Another problem with the Mutiny dock is how it handles virtual desktops. When I first switched to the Mutiny layout the virtual desktops were displayed as four thin strips that were side by side, so the entire virtual desktop section was about as tall as one icon, but sometimes, without any clear reason as to why, the virtual desktops are displayed stacked on top of each other. This makes it somewhat easier to use the virtual desktops, but it really takes up too much space, which exacerbates the issue with icons not appearing if there are too many items in the dock. A two-by-two virtual desktop grid would be ideal, and it is possible to manually set the virtual desktop widget to display that way, but it is not the default.
While Mutiny offers the most Unity-like experience, it is possible to get many of the Unity features using the Contemporary layout. This layout retains most of the GNOME 2 look-and-feel, but uses the same application menu as the Mutiny layout and enables the HUD and the menus in the top panel. Unity users looking for a new desktop should give both the Mutiny and Contemporary layouts a try to see if either of them meets their needs.
Installing additional software
Ubuntu MATE comes with plenty of software pre-installed, but other programs are available using the Software Boutique application. Like many other modern, graphical package managers, Software Boutique provides a selection of applications grouped by category. Each application has a brief description explaining what the application does. However, unlike GNOME Software/Ubuntu Software, which shows every graphical application with AppStream metadata, Software Boutique only provides a curated collection of applications. This means the selection of software is smaller, but the curated selections include many of the best applications available in each category. Software Boutique's selection includes both GNOME Software and Synaptic, so it is possible to install one of those applications to use instead, if the curated selection in Software Boutique is not enough. Ubuntu MATE also comes with GDebi for installing .deb packages with a graphical tool. In addition, apt, dpkg, and snap are all available from the terminal, so users can install whatever they want using command-line tools.
Ubuntu MATE 17.10 -- Software Boutique
(full image size: 206kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Final thoughts
Ubuntu MATE 17.10 is a solid release with a few minor caveats about the Mutiny layout. The Traditional MATE layout is very nice, but Mutiny still needs some work. For users who want the classic GNOME 2 look-and-feel, Ubuntu MATE is an excellent choice. However, Unity users looking for a Unity-like experience should still give Ubuntu MATE with the Mutiny layout a try, but need to be aware that it does have some issues and it won't work exactly like Unity. The Contemporary layout is also an option for Unity users, but is even further removed from the Unity experience than Mutiny is.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo Ideapad 100-15IBD laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: 2.2GHz Intel Core i3-5020U CPU
- Storage: Seagate 500GB 5400 RPM hard drive
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8723BE 802.11n Wireless Network Adapter
- Display: Intel HD Graphics 5500
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Visitor supplied rating
Ubuntu MATE has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.2/10 from 65 review(s).
Have you used Ubuntu MATE? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
KDE to focus on Wayland features, DragonFly BSD dropping insecure remote tools, VirtualBox support being added to Linux kernel
The developers of the KDE Plasma desktop have announced a shift in their focus to place more attention on working on features for Wayland. The shift, which will likely soon affect KDE neon and other projects featuring the Plasma desktop, will mean new features will not be created for the X11 branch of the KDE window manager (KWin). Instead, developers will focus on bringing new features to the Wayland branch of KWin while maintaining the X11 branch with bug fixes. Martin Floser explains: "Yesterday the KDE Community released the Beta for Plasma 5.12 LTS. With that release the feature freeze for 5.12 is in place and also an eternal feature freeze for KWin/X11. To quote the release announcement: '5.12 is the last release which sees feature development in KWin on X11. With 5.13 onwards only new features relevant to Wayland are going to be added.' This raised quite some questions, concerns and misunderstandings in the social networks. With this blog post I try to address those question and explain why this change in policy is done. Is KWin/X11 still maintained? Yes! We are just in the process of releasing an LTS. Of course KWin is fully maintained in the LTS life time. While in 5.8 only X11 was maintained, now we are able to offer maintenance for both X11 and Wayland. For the maintenance we do not differentiate between windowing systems." More information can be found in Floser's blog post.
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The DragonFly BSD team has announced the removal of the remote commands from their operating system. These commands, while they were useful in older versions of Unix, have generally been replaced by more secure utilities such as OpenSSH. "The commands rcp(1), rlogin(1), rlogind(1), rsh(1) and rshd(1) have been removed from DragonFly. There's a net/bsdrcmds port if you still need them. Though I imagine/hope ssh is filling the void for everyone."
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People who like to test out distributions in VirtualBox or who want to run applications in an isolated virtual machine received good news this week. VirtualBox guest drivers are being added to the Linux kernel. This will allow Linux distributions to automatically integrate with VirtualBox when running as guests, without requiring the user to install or compile a separate guest modules package. The kernel commit message reads: "This commit adds a driver for the VirtualBox Guest PCI device used in VirtualBox virtual machines. Enabling this driver will add support for VirtualBox Guest integration features such as copy-and-paste, seamless mode and OpenGL pass-through. This driver also offers vboxguest IPC functionality which is needed for the vboxfs driver which offers folder sharing support....This driver is already being patched into the kernel by several distros, thus it is good to get this driver upstream soon, so that work on the driver can be easily shared."
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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) |
Recovering open files, starting a new Linux distro
It-is-gone-but-I-can-still-see-it asks: If I accidentally delete a file, like a movie, I have opened so the file is still in memory. Can I get it back and recover the file?
DistroWatch answers: Assuming your media player (or whichever application you are using) still has the file open, then you should be able to recover it. Parts of the file may be in memory, but what really saves us in this situation is Linux does not delete files which are currently open. Linux has removed a reference to the file, the one in your directory, but while the file is still open, the application using your file holds another reference to the same file. Linux will not remove your file until all references to it are gone. In short, while an application has a file open, Linux will politely wait until the application is finished before deleting your file.
Let's assume your movie is being played by the VLC media player. The first thing we need to do is find out the unique process number of your VLC application. We can do this by running:
pgrep vlc
This should return a single number like 21859. That is VLC's process number or PID. Every process has information about itself, and what files it has open, stored under the /proc directory. In my case, VLC is using a PID of 21859, meaning a record of all files it has open are stored under /proc/21859/fd.
To look at the files my VLC player has open I can run the command
ls -l /proc/21859/fd
I will get back a list of files which looks like this:
0 -> pipe:[5824104]
1 -> /dev/null
10 -> pipe:[5823288]
11 -> /home/jesse/Videos/My-Awesome-Movie.mp4 (deleted)
The file we want is number 11, it stands out both because the location is in my home directory and because of the text "(deleted)" at the end of the name. We can next recover the file using the copy (cp) command:
cp /proc/21859/fd/11 /home/jesse/Videos/recovered-file.mp4
This recovery method only works if the application keeps the deleted file open, if the file is loaded entirely into memory and closed, then we do not have a file reference anymore and may need to turn to another file recovery method.
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Making-something-new asks: Where can I go to learn how to make my own distro?
DistroWatch answers: Personally, my suggestion is to start working on an existing project to learn the ropes. One of the best ways to find out what kind of effort and skills are required to make your own distribution is to volunteer with an existing project. Become a Debian or Fedora developer and adopt an orphaned package. Browse your current distribution's issue tracker and pick an item to fix. Browse the support forum (or IRC channel) and offer help to people who are struggling. Look at your distribution's roadmap and find a feature you can help implement.
If you can tackle all of the above tasks successfully then you are well on your way to having the skills necessary to make and maintain your own distribution. Maintaining packages especially, will give you an appreciation for the amount of time involved in creating your own distribution.
Assuming those steps go well, I recommend looking into setting up your own package repository to get practice maintaining a collection of custom packages. Finally, look into building a distribution from the ground up, possibly by using Linux From Scratch as a template.
By the time you reach this point you will be able to get trouble reports from users, fix bugs, build your own software and maintain your own repository. The only skill left to master will be finding time to sleep!
Alternatively, if you want to make a spin of an existing distribution then I suggest looking at the project's documentation for creating and customizing ISO images.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Porteus Kiosk 4.6.0
Tomasz Jokiel has announced the release of Porteus Kiosk 4.6.0, a new update of the project's specialist Gentoo-based Linux distribution designed for web-only kiosks. This version is predominantly a security update: "I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 4.6.0 is now available for download. Major software upgrades in this release include Linux kernel 4.14.13, Mozilla Firefox 52.5.3 ESR and Google Chrome 63.0.3239.132. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20180114. This release fixes the Meltdown attack and partially mitigates the Spectre vulnerability through updated CPU microcode and on the application level. Firefox 52 ESR browser is less affected by Spectre while Chrome 63 needs experimental Site Isolation security feature enabled. More patches to be merged as Meltdown/Spectre bugs are still a work in progress. Please consider enabling automatic updates service for your kiosks to receive latest fixes and patches as soon as they become available." See the release announcement and changelog for further details.
SolydXK 201801
SolydXK is a Debian-based, desktop distribution which offers two main flavours, with one edition featuring the KDE Plasma desktop and the other featuring the Xfce desktop. The SolydXK project has released a new snapshot which features fixes for the Meltdown CPU flaw and a number of new configuration tools. "All SolydXK ISOs are fully updated, including the latest kernel release with the Meltodown vulnarability patch. The ISOs come with a system configuration tool called SolydXK System Settings. Following is a list of features added since the 201707 releases: Device Driver Manager (DDM) has been integrated. Debian Plymouth Manager has been integrated. Add new partitions to fstab. Safely remove old kernel packages. After installation you can choose additional packages from the Welcome Screen but unfortunately, I had to remove the business application LetoDMS (document management system) as installable from the Welcome Screen. It installs just fine but I haven't been able to get it to work. I've removed the package from our own repository but if you need an Open Source DMS, I recommend to take a look at SeedDMS." Further information can be found in the project's release announcement.
SolydXK 201801 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 105kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
NuTyX 10.0
NuTyX is a French Linux distribution (with multi-language support) built from Linux From Scratch and Beyond Linux From Scratch, with a custom package manager called cards. The project has published a new release, NuTyX 10.0, which is available in 32-bit and 64-bit builds. There are two editions, one is a base image without a desktop and the other ships with an Xorg graphical environment. The new release also features a graphical front-end for package management called Flcards. "No need to used command line to search, install or remove packages. Flcards is able to install directly a graphical interface. You can choose between LXDE, LXQt, MATE, KDE5 and Xfce4. The Xorg ISO can be used to make an entire post-installation in graphical mode via Flcards application. Flcards uses administrator rights without password. If you're against this rule, get rid of the Flcards package and use the CLI or edit the /etc/sudoers to fit your needs. xorg-app, xorg-font, xorg-proto and xorg packages are now split. The Xorg meta package is removed. All the Xorg packages are now in separated packages. The documentation is updated." Further information can be found on the project's news page.
KaOS 2018.01
KaOS is an independent, rolling Linux distribution featuring a polished KDE Plasma desktop and the Pacman package manager. The KaOS project has released a new snapshot, KaOS 2018.01, which features fixes for the Meltdown and Spectre CPU bugs. "It is with great pleasure to present to you a first KaOS ISO for 2018. The policy is, once a first pacman -Syu becomes a major update, it is time for a new ISO so new users are not faced with a difficult first update. With the exceptional large amounts of updates the last six weeks most systems will see 70-80% of their install replaced by new packages so a new ISO is more than due. All currently available patches and fixes for the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities in modern processors are included. The Linux 4.14.14 kernel is built with Retpoline enabled, latest AMD aand Intel ucodes are also built into this kernel. As always with this rolling distribution, you will find the very latest packages for the Plasma Desktop, this includes Frameworks 5.42.0, Plasma 5.11.5, KDE Applications 17.12.1. All built on Qt 5.10.0." Further information can be found in the project's release announcement.
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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. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 712
- Total data uploaded: 17.4TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
HiDPI screens
High resolution displays with higher pixel density are becoming increasingly common, on laptops, workstations and mobile devices. This week we would like to find out if you own a laptop or desktop computer with a HiDPI screen.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running Wayland vs Xorg in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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HiDPI screens
| I own one or more HiDPI screens: | 476 (29%) |
| I do not own any HiDPI screens: | 1061 (64%) |
| Unsure: | 122 (7%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New projects added to database
Enso OS
Enso OS is a Linux distribution based on Xubuntu. Enso features the Xfce desktop with Gala, imported from elementary OS, as the default window manager. The distribution also features the Panther application launcher and the Plank dock.
Enso OS 0.2 -- Running the Xfce desktop with the Panther application launcher
(full image size: 529kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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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, 29 January 2018. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
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| Linux Foundation Training |
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Mutiny (by bison on 2018-01-22 00:35:28 GMT from United States)
I briefly tried the Mutiny layout while in beta, and something I noticed is that the upper-left corner is dead space. This is primary desktop real estate (corners are easy to access quickly with the mouse) and should be used for something more useful than... nothing. Did this change in the final release? It doesn't appear to have.
2 • HiDPI screens (by Greg Zeng on 2018-01-22 00:48:35 GMT from Australia)
Very interesting topic, which is part of the reason for eventually moving from x.org, to either MIR or Wayland. There are the usual major problems. Bugs, feature missing, & poor optimizations, etc. Particularly in the early releases of the code.
Then the lack of alpha & beta testers, with their unusual, unpredictable setups & needs. Whatever "choices" made will be a compromise between speed, accuracy, fidelity, and adjustments.
On my old (2013 Dell notebook) hardware, will the GPU's handle the screen displays, easily & smoothly enough, for the moment? Are better GPU's needed? Many (most?) modern computers can run two or more screen displays, simultaneously. Often USB3, wireless-transmitters, or other plugins may be needed. When we use these external monitors, can the different DPI rates be handled at all, or simultaneously?
In the weeks ahead, all operating systems, including Linux, will be facing these challenges.
3 • Recovering pending deleted files (by pedro on 2018-01-22 02:02:27 GMT from United States)
cp 11 /home/jesse/Videos/recovered-file.mp4
This will try to copy a file named "11" to the target file "/home/jesse/Videos/recovered-file.mp4"
4 • VirtualBox support in the kernel: will it include host modules? (by Brenton Horne on 2018-01-22 03:11:23 GMT from Australia)
Seems like this improvement will only affect VirtualBox guests, not hosts. Guest support will make VirtualBox'in easier, but host support would also be great.
5 • HiDPI screen (by LiuYan on 2018-01-22 05:48:25 GMT from China)
Screen of my laptop is a 13 inch screen in 1920x1080 resolution, bought in 2013.
It's not really a HiDPI one, but I can get the feel of using a HiDPI screen if I zoom the web page to 200% or more.
6 • coments (by ficskrell on 2018-01-22 10:23:18 GMT from Thailand)
cool Ubuntu Mate review. I am on Mate via Mint 18.3 and hav recently tested Ubuntu Mate Ubuntu seems to beat mint in the speed department. Faster booting menu lag and system lag better with Ubuntu. Maybe time to switch?
. hey let's get some more readers and more comments! Where did everyone go?
7 • @ 6 Mate (by OstroL on 2018-01-22 10:45:25 GMT from Poland)
You'd find Mate on Debian much faster than Ubuntu Mate or Mate on Mint. On Debian stable and in Debian testing.
8 • Virtual box kernel modules (by Pikolo on 2018-01-22 11:30:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
Does their introduction mean you'll be able to run VBox without disabling Secure Boot on the host PC? That would only leave Nvidia as a major cause for Secure Boot disabling...
PS. I know Secure boot isn't the most bulletproof of technologies, but it never gets a good reaction across when you have to tell Linux converts they'll have to disable it for Y to run
9 • @6 mate/mint (by MarkE on 2018-01-22 12:13:07 GMT from United Kingdom)
Mint has some customizations for Mate, maybe that's why it's slower? Works fast enough on my laptop though, and I like the menus etc. I've not tried it, but I could guess that 'vanilla' mate would be faster.
10 • MATE Great (by Lee on 2018-01-22 14:30:39 GMT from United States)
Have used Gnome 2 or MATE for over a decade and love it. The MATE support are not particularly responsive tho. A bug in the weather app has prevented the radar map from displaying for over a year. Despite much discussion in the forums, no solution has been provided.
11 • HiDpi and Linux are not a great combo (by Clicktician on 2018-01-22 14:36:37 GMT from United States)
I have a couple of HiDpi monitors which work great on Win 10 boxes, but are unusable on most Linux distros without dropping the resolution to 1920x1080.
A few months ago, I bought a System 76 notebook with a 13.3 inch screen at 3200x1800 resolution. It came with PopOS! and while that distro looked good with the default apps, other apps I installed sometimes had microscopic gui controls or dialogs that were were unreadable or placement was a jumbled mess.
I've installed several fave distros on this notebook searching for a love match. None of them knew what to do with a HiDpi screen. I always have to set the resolution to 1920x1080 or lower and put up with the rougher look.
I've been able to tweak gnome, XFCE, and some apps (notably browsers) to make them work better at HiDpi, but the average new user who wants to try Ubuntu on a notebook they saw at CES this year will probably just give up.
12 • Re: KDE to focus on Wayland features (by silent on 2018-01-22 15:18:49 GMT from Hungary)
So, no new features will be added to the X11 branch and there will be no wayland support in kwin for the proprietary nvidia driver? It sounds like KDE is going to lose some linux gamers just because "NVIDIA still does not support the standard Linux solution gbm". I immediately checked out NASDAQ: NVDA, shall I go short now? On the other hand KDE was never really something for the low end hardware, because it is quite heavy. The stated goal of KDE is "a lean, mean productivity machine for ordinary users who are not skilled at the command line".
Well, probably a poll could be launched as to which DE/WM fits this goal the best at the moment.
13 • MATE Desktop (by Winchester on 2018-01-22 16:05:44 GMT from United States)
The best experiences that I have had with the MATE desktop have been under Calculate Linux, Ultimate Edition , Debian 8, and Korora Linux.
Maybe worth noting that Calculate Linux Desktop - MATE doesn't fill up ~/.local/share/ with tons of "recently-used.xbel" files as the Debian / Ubuntu family does using the MATE desktop. The same goes for ~/.config/caja/ with desktop-metadata files. No "Mutiny lay-out" option that I am aware of,however. I have never really looked into it.
I just thought that I would throw that out there for anyone who uses this desktop.
14 • debian/ ubuntu mate (by Tim Dowd on 2018-01-22 17:11:24 GMT from United States)
@7 I use both, and haven't really noticed a difference. For my hardware they're both quite good.
Ubuntu MATE's real strength in my opinion is in how polished it is. Everything just works straight out of the box, to a higher degree than other distros I've used. I like to start with Debian and install just the packages I need, but with the string of non-standard and buggy hardware I've had recently, I've really appreciated how much easier Ubuntu MATE has made my life. I also feel like I can give it to a non-Linux user and they'll be impressed
15 • HiDPI or Not (by M.Z. on 2018-01-22 18:24:24 GMT from United States)
I double checked the nicest monitors I had & feel well short of the 213 DPI minimum Wikipedia's pixel density page listed as being high DPI. For those that want to check themselves you may want to try the following:
xdpyinfo | grep -B 2 resolution
16 • VirtualBox Support being added to Linux Kernel (by mrpuck on 2018-01-22 19:07:21 GMT from United States)
My thought would how could the Kernel keep up with all of the VBox updates/
17 • Enso test on Nvidia hp laptop (by Scott Eno on 2018-01-22 19:11:52 GMT from United States)
So far in testing on my laptop ENSO is passing and working great. NVDIA r installed no issue. Tv using hauppage usb and kaffeine no issue, Playback of of s and blurays after installing MAKEMKV AND LIbDVD-PKG no issues. The only issue was they add in by default plank and if misuninstall that annoying program wrong can effect the Panther launcher. On the launcher much better then default xfce found in standard Ubuntu great find there. Out of 10 rate it a 8.5. One point lost because of including Plank and half point deducted for no playback till programs added. A very good fast light system on my HP Pavillion laptop. intel 7 12 gb ram with nvidia mobile card with bluray player slot load . If helps you know machine i use to test distros.
18 • Recovering open files (by Will Senn on 2018-01-22 20:03:11 GMT from United States)
Just wanted to say how much I appreciated the tip. I hadn't thought of the possibility of recovering a deleted open file, but I was glad to see that the mechanism existed and that is was so completely unix in it's implementation. Great stuff.
19 • @4 VirtualBox support in the kernel: will it include host modules? (by Darkman on 2018-01-22 21:54:05 GMT from United States)
"Seems like this improvement will only affect VirtualBox guests, not hosts. Guest support will make VirtualBox'in easier, but host support would also be great."
Ditto. I want to run Linux as my host OS and that other OS as the guest. Still, I applaud the effort.
20 • Ubuntu MATE (by Rick on 2018-01-23 13:25:32 GMT from United States)
The new Mutiny panel is another indication that Ubuntu MATE has lost its focus and the main reason it was created in the first place to renew the Gnome 2 desktop. It's a real shame. Ubuntu MATE 14.04.x was their best work. Their ranking on Distrowatch dropped from #14 in 2016 to #26 in 2017. It is now #31 for the past 30 days. Unless the developers refocus their efforts, Ubuntu MATE's glory days are gone.
21 • Mate DE (by aquila on 2018-01-23 13:58:19 GMT from France)
With Debian, you'd get three distros for your liking, stable, buster (testing) and sid (unstable), while with Ubuntu, only the unstable. So, you are always safe with Debian.
22 • Everything Just Works (by Winchester on 2018-01-23 14:42:48 GMT from United States)
Maybe I just have standard and non-buggy hardware but,"everything just works" in nearly all 12 GNU/Linux distributions that I have installed.
Only one of them,NetRunner,being from the Debian (or Ubuntu) family.
A couple of exceptions being "Steam" (which I don't use myself) not working under PClinuxOS and the LibreOffice Database software not working under Calculate Linux. To be fair though,I haven't tried it in some time. The issue could have been corrected with an update.
The firewire connection for external hard drives to save USB ports doesn't seem to work in any GNU/Linux distribution where I have attempted it. That even includes Linux Mint a couple of years back.
Camera card readers are always a hassle if you want to mount the cards Read \ Write. I have had to resort to a USB to SD adapter to be able to mount the SD card as read \ writable instead of using the reader built into the computer or the reader built into my printer.
23 • More Distros. (by willi,amp on 2018-01-23 14:46:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
Why, Jessie, are you trying to encourage more hobbiests to build Distros? Aren’t several hundred enough? What we want are better Distros and if these people have anything useful to offer ….a big if…..would they not be better employed joining an existing one. I cannot but feel that current Linux desktop workstations are not as good as they were a few years ago. Typically the spelling checker on LibreOffice 5 doesn’t work; it did on 4.4.3. And why do they include a Screensaver, hands up all those still using a CRT monitor. KDE4 was working fine until an ‘upgrade’ made it jump, fade, bounce and bits to disappear, using KDE is like trying to nail a jelly to the wall. Thank goodness for Whisker on Xfce. I could go on but you get the idea.
24 • Screen Saver (by Winchester on 2018-01-23 15:07:21 GMT from United States)
LCD displays also suffer burn-in. Not nearly as easily as plasma,OLED,CRT but,it can still happen. The LCD panel where I work has major burn-in.
In most cases there are settings options to either disable or change the time-out of the screen saver kicking in.
25 • More distros (by Jesse on 2018-01-23 15:48:31 GMT from Canada)
@23: "Why, Jessie, are you trying to encourage more hobbiests to build Distros? .. What we want are better Distros and if these people have anything useful to offer ….a big if…..would they not be better employed joining an existing one."
That is exactly why I suggested people join an existing distribution and learn its ins and outs before creating their own project. It contributes to existing distributions and only encourages the creation of new projects if the necessary changes cannot be added to an existing project.
26 • @23 same distros... (by Per on 2018-01-23 16:30:19 GMT from France)
Would you buy the same car your neighbour has? The same mobile phone as your work mates have? Or have the same wife, as the neighbour?
27 • @26 same distros (by Lancre on 2018-01-23 17:03:06 GMT from United States)
Off topic answer to your questions: Yes, yes, and no.
On topic - Get you feet wet by working to improve existing distros first. Only create your own when you can't add the changes/features you need to the existing distros.
28 • not really (by Tim Dowd on 2018-01-23 17:08:08 GMT from United States)
@21
As someone who regularly runs both, I have to say that this is not an accurate characterization of Debian v. Ubuntu
The purpose of Debian unstable is to host the most up to date packages. The purpose of Debian testing is to make the packages that haven't screwed up unstable too much work together to build the next Debian stable. The purpose of neither is to run a production computer.
Running Debian testing is great until it very suddenly isn't. Maybe a driver has been dropped from the most recent Xorg, or maybe a toolkit is being switched, or maybe a package is removed from testing with a serious bug. You're out of luck until it gets fixed, and if its because of a permanent change (like when AMD dropped the non-free video driver) it will never get fixed.
Ubuntu is the compromise: it freezes unstable and works on whatever is in the snapshot to get as many benefits of up to date packages but without the risk of something major changing
Note that this isn't a crack on Debian, it's just that the point of testing is to slowly make changes and sometimes those are major.
Ubuntu is not unstable, in the world of Debian it's somewhere between stable and testing.
If Debian stable fits your needs, then its a great choice. If you want to contribute to the future, Debian testing is a great choice. But if you need up to date packages and some stability, Ubuntu is a great choice.
29 • @ 28 (by OstroL on 2018-01-23 22:20:40 GMT from Poland)
"If Debian stable fits your needs, then its a great choice. If you want to contribute to the future, Debian testing is a great choice."
This is true.
"But if you need up to date packages and some stability, Ubuntu is a great choice."
This is not and never was. The so-called LTS is the frozen one that practically never changes for nearly 5 years, but the LTS become somewhat stable, only after the 1st point release. But, it is already older than Debian stable, by that time. Check the Ubuntu 16.04.3 against Debian stable.
30 • @29 Ubuntu LTS (by verndog on 2018-01-24 01:23:37 GMT from United States)
"The so-called LTS is the frozen one that practically never changes for nearly 5 years..."
Obviously, you never used LTS. compare LTS point issue, say from .1 to .3, then you will see how great the changes are.
31 • @30 (by OstroL on 2018-01-24 11:43:15 GMT from Poland)
"The so-called LTS is the frozen one that practically never changes for nearly 5 years..."
Put the emphasis on the word 'practically'. The changes of Ubuntu LTS is not that much. By the time, the LTS comes to point 3, it is already older than Debian Stable.
You can find the changes here, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/ReleaseNotes/ChangeSummary/16.04.3 and they are mostly correcting internal problems. And, those internal problems comes from releasing an LTS, before the packages are really stable. The massive amount of those problems shows that how unstable the Ubuntu LTS is. Even at point 3, the release is not yet ready. The coming 18.04 LTS would also not be ready when it is released. That was the way all along the history of Ubuntu.
32 • different things (by Tim Dowd on 2018-01-24 14:40:53 GMT from United States)
@ 29
I don't disagree with you but we're talking about different things. Perhaps I should have been more clear, my comments were meant to refer to the Ubuntu releases every 6 months and not the LTS ones. I think they're a good compromise between stability and up-to-date.
As for the utility of the Ubuntu LTS releases (or Debian Stable, for that matter) I think it's important to evaluate each of these based on individual use cases. Each of these is simply a frozen version of unstable that's had bug fixes applied for a long period of time. If the software you like is at a version that meets your needs and isn't buggy, then sticking with an individual release as long as possible can make sense. Debian squeeze and Jessie with backports were like that for me, and if Ubuntu 15.04 and 17.04 were LTS I would probably still be using them.
This of course will be different for each person and their own tastes and hardware
33 • @ 32, 30, 29 (by Per on 2018-01-24 16:37:32 GMT from France)
The thing is that Cannonical abandons projects as soon as it cannot make money. It had more or less dropped the desktop, keeping just a front for it now. 18.04 might be the last LTS from Cannonical.
On the other hand, Debian lives because of the community. And, as it is not a business entity, a corporate honcho want make the development to stop. One is better off with Debian.
34 • both (by Tim Dowd on 2018-01-24 19:30:43 GMT from United States)
@ 33
I guess the idea that I reject is that by running Ubuntu one is being anti-Debian. At the moment I'm using Ubuntu-MATE, 2 different Debian releases, Mint, and a Spanish educational distro called Lliurex.
They're all good, they're all on different machines and running different packages. My default strategy is that when new hardware arrives, I install whatever I'm currently happiest with. I check all of my essential programs, and if one doesn't work I file a bug and then try one of the other available family members. Once I've got one working right then I stick with it until I need to upgrade.
35 • Ubuntu LTS vs Debian Stable (by Jesse on 2018-01-24 19:39:11 GMT from Canada)
>> "The changes of Ubuntu LTS is not that much. By the time, the LTS comes to point 3, it is already older than Debian Stable."
The flip side to that argument is that by the time Ubuntu LTS hits a .3 or .4 release, new versions of both Debian Stable and Ubuntu LTS have been released too. Both distributions publish new stable versions approximately every two years, so a .3 or .4 update will arrive around the same time as a new stable/LTS version of either project.
My point is that people who continue on with LTS into the .3 or .4 range want to be running older, unchanging versions of software. If they wanted something newer, they'd do an upgrade to the next LTS version.
36 • @ 35 (by Per on 2018-01-25 08:34:54 GMT from France)
"If they wanted something newer, they'd do an upgrade to the next LTS version."
Only this time, the users won't get the same known DE, if they upgrade to the "new" LTS. The LTS users, who usually make the change after the first point release may not like what they get. That is, if they had not been distro hopping.
The other matter is that Cannonical had lost interest in the desktop.
37 • LTS (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2018-01-25 21:22:03 GMT from United States)
One reason to use an LTS release is to have a reliable, stable platform to work from - many use "backported" apps to keep up.
To put it another way, nobody likes constant earthquakes in their floor.
Except maybe jugglers who want the constant practice.
38 • @37 LTS (by OstroL on 2018-01-25 21:59:55 GMT from Poland)
Long Term Support is long term support, not asking people to live with constantly getting old packages. Arch Linux also gives you long term support with its always up to date packages.
Arch like Debian is a community developed operating systems, without a corporate honcho.
39 • Debian (by imnotrich on 2018-01-25 23:47:11 GMT from Mexico)
When Linux was my hobby, Debian was my daily driver.
When that changed and I use Linux primarily for work, I switched to Mint. Why? Because I don't have hundreds of hours spare time to fight with printing, wired/wireless networking, display drivers and other stuff which most distros consider basic functionality.
But another reason I switched? Cinnamon. Because Unity and Gnome 3 are garbage. Like Windows 8.
40 • HiDPI display (by Sitwon on 2018-01-26 02:29:20 GMT from United States)
I would love to have a beautiful HiDPI display on a future laptop. Unfortunately what I've witnessed on other people's laptops is that the existing software ecosystem of many Linux distros render poorly on those displays. Rather than having to fight with obscure configurations to get my desktop to look nice, I've been opting for more conservative FHD resolutions and hoping that the situation will improve over time.
41 • RRecovering deleted files (by UKguy on 2018-01-26 04:47:38 GMT from Latvia)
Your example:
This recovery method only works if the application keeps the deleted file open, if the file is loaded entirely into memory and closed, then we do not have a file reference anymore and may need to turn to another file recovery method.
Question :
Why wouldn't you just use the open app to resave the file?
42 • Recovering deleted files (by Jesse on 2018-01-26 13:36:40 GMT from Canada)
@41: "Why wouldn't you just use the open app to resave the file?"
Lots of applications do not have an option for saving an open file. If you're working on a text document or editing an image, then you can certainly resave and no harm is done. But most video players, audio players, many image viewers, PDF viewers, etc do not have a save feature.
43 • Ubuntu woes (by aquila on 2018-01-26 18:00:08 GMT from France)
Ubuntu after the short adventure with Gnome and Wayland is shifting back to good old Xorg. That Gnome shell works badly with Wayland and hard to be recovered is one of the main problems.
https://community.ubuntu.com/t/xorg-will-be-the-default-in-18-04-lts/3623/6
44 • Archbang (by Justin on 2018-01-26 19:46:29 GMT from United States)
It seems that Archbang has taken down their website and has switched to Sourceforge only for updates (so their forums are down too). They also deleted their non-systemd versions (specifically Archbang-Artix). I'm sad to see this distribution slowly going away. It was my first introduction to Arch.
As an aside, when I tried to torrent the archbang-artix files from DW, I couldn't connect to the tracker. Do older releases continue to be offered, or do they disappear after a while?
45 • Torrents (by Jesse on 2018-01-26 20:01:03 GMT from Canada)
@44: We seed torrents of releases for a week and track for about a year.
46 • Virtualbox support Linux Kernel RAW-HiDE (by Vitton Virtual on 2018-01-26 20:19:44 GMT from Canada)
Virtualbox support inclusion into linux kernel 4.14.xxx will ease up at-least two things, regardless od resources consumption.
1) dynamic binary translations and,
2) allow execution of ring 0 instructions in ring 3.
47 • LTS (by Tim Dowd on 2018-01-26 20:22:46 GMT from United States)
@38
I don't think most users care that something is up to date- they care about the functionality of their computers. If something is working right, it's ok that it's old.
The advantage of an LTS distro for the average person is that it doesn't matter that a company stops making the graphics driver available, or that someone migrated between toolkits, or that a package got orphaned and is no longer available. What's in the distro is in the distro, and it works until support ends. It's also unlikely that a major bug is going to appear.
The only things that make the average user really need to jump are major feature upgrades in a package they rely on, or new hardware that requires a newer kernel. For me, honestly, the only package that's become vastly improved in recent years has been LibreOffice as it went to v5 (I'm a science teacher and the new functionality in the spreadsheet was tremendous.) Everything else I use is not significantly different now than it was in 2015. One of the dumber things I did in recent years was upgrade from Debian Jessie (with backports), because I've had no new functionality since then and a lot of work trying to work around bugs that weren't in those older versions of software
48 • @47 (by OstroL on 2018-01-26 22:14:00 GMT from Poland)
I agree about the functionality. It maybe because of that, Ubuntu is defaulting to Xorg (see post 43).
I used to use the spreadsheet extensively few years ago, but I don't need it any more. Actually, I don't need the office suite at all any more.
49 • If it works, … (by Somewhat Reticent on 2018-01-27 00:15:59 GMT from United States)
@47 "… it works until support ends…"
It works until requirements change, as noted: "… major feature upgrades in a package they rely on, or new hardware …". Support (and constant harassment about vague "threats") rarely drives gambling on buggy new code.
50 • Spectre and Meltdown Mammoth (by Immy Idiotta on 2018-01-28 00:14:35 GMT from Canada)
"Stop installing our buggy Spectre CPU firmware fixes, Intel says"
The firmware patches designed to protect Intel processors against nasty Spectre CPU exploits have a big downside: They’re forcing more frequent reboots and other performance issues on some systems, including PCs that released in 2017. The problem is severe enough that Intel is now recommending that users not install currently available patches and instead wait for new ones to be released. As of the date, couples of kernels are gone buggy as well.
Thanks all those who over trusted these intel's tech idiots more than themselves and recommended to apply patches immediately. And would be more thankful than ever before if
idiotties technology can ever get fixed. Anyone here up for the bet?
Who cares? where any any thing goes... goes where?
In a drain and a tech-sump.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PS : My mainframe is neither based on Intel nor AMD. Do I have to care?
51 • Ubuntu Mate 17.10 Traditional DE (Very good edition) (by Peter on 2018-01-28 01:32:07 GMT from Australia)
I am an openSUSE user for over 10 years now (currently using Leap 42.3 Plasma 5 / KDE) and I am quite satisfied with it thus far. I wanted to try the Mate DE in openSUSE Leap 42.1 because I previously used openSUSE 11.4 Gnome 2.32 edition for over 4 years (due to having an old laptop at the time) and liked the interface but found it unsuitable.
After playing around with Mint Mate 18/18.1, I tried UbuntuMate 16.10 (which rebased to Gnome 3.x) and found it to be an excellent edition. Upgraded to 17.04 and that was also stable and very good edition.
Lastly, the upgrade from 17.04 to 17.10 did not work because the kernel did not get upgraded and I had to do a clean reinstall. Though I was very disappointed with the failed upgrade, UM17.10 is now very stable and a very usable distro. I plan to upgrade to 18.04 Lts and possibly make it my main OS on my aging hp 6550b laptop.
52 • CPUs CHIPZILLAS (by Foggy Forgetti on 2018-01-28 01:58:10 GMT from Canada)
CPUs CHIPZILLAS are cooking two or three more bugs as a ingredients of buggy soup, as of this day. It's only matter of time How long do they take to cook, and How long does it take to make it publicly available.
Just in case, if you have some extra-cash-fund please support their development, and they deserve, please!
Number of Comments: 52
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Zentyal Server
Zentyal Server (formerly eBox Platform) is a unified network server that offers easy and efficient computer network administration for small and medium-size businesses. It can act as a gateway, an infrastructure manager, a unified threat manager, an office server, a unified communication server or a combination of them. These functionalities are tightly integrated, automating most tasks, avoiding mistakes and saving time for system administrators. Zentyal Server is available in free (Development) and commercial editions. Zentyal is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and runs on top of Ubuntu.
Status: Dormant
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| MALIBAL |
MALIBAL: Linux Laptops Custom Built for YouMALIBAL is an innovative computer manufacturer that produces high-performance, custom laptops for Linux. If your MALIBAL laptop is not the best Linux laptop you have ever used, you can return it for a full 100% refund. We will even pay the return shipping fees! For more info, visit: https://www.malibal.com
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Free Tech Guides |
NEW! GPT-3
FREE FOR LIMITED TIME! The ultimate guide to building NLP products with OpenAI API (a free 151-page ebook)
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