 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 750, 12 February 2018 |
|
Welcome to this year's 7th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Typically when we review rolling release distributions it is right after a new snapshot has been released. We get to see a moment in the distribution's time-line where not many packages are changing because the snapshot is fresh. This week we explore Solus 3, a rolling release distribution that last released a snapshot several months ago, and report on what happens when the distribution's packages are updated. We also talk about features of the distribution's Budgie desktop in our Feature Story. In our News section we talk about work being done to further secure the NetBSD operating system and changes coming to the elementary OS AppCentre. Plus we talk about a new security module for the Linux kernel and Snap packages being added to Ubuntu 18.04. We then share an opinion piece from Jesse Smith on packages in Debian-based distributions not getting sent back upstream to benefit the entire Debian ecosystem. We are pleased to share the distribution releases of the past week and offer a list of the torrents we are seeding. In our Opinion Poll we inquire as to how our readers feel about browser based cryptocurrency mining in comparison with advertisements. Finally, we are pleased to welcome UBports, a Linux distribution for mobile devices, to our database. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Solus 3 and the Budgie desktop
- News: NetBSD reports on security work, elementary OS exploring AppCentre changes, Ubuntu 18.04 to include Snap packages, run-time kernel protection for Linux
- Opinion: Packages not flowing upstream into Debian
- Released last week: Peppermint OS 8-20180203, Kali 2018.1, Quirky 8.4
- Torrent corner: Endless OS, ExTiX, Kali, KDE neon, Peppermint, Quirky, Robolinux
- Opinion poll: Mining cryptocurrency vs advertisements
- New additions: UBports
- New distributions: Scion Linux, Pixel OS
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (30MB) and MP3 (44MB) formats.
|
| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Solus 3 and the Budgie desktop
Solus is an independent, rolling release distribution. Solus's design is mostly aimed at home users who want a friendly desktop operating system. The distribution is available in three editions (Budgie, GNOME and MATE) and runs on 64-bit x86 computers exclusively. Each edition's installation media is approximately 1.2GB in size.
The project's latest release is Solus 3 which features support for Snap packages as well as more traditional packages managed by Solus's eopkg package manager, which is a fork of the PiSi package manager. There were many tweaks in this release with a number of improvements made to the application menu and searches. The Budgie edition also includes the ability to place the desktop panel on any of the four sides of the screen. There are more changes and tweaks listed, with accompanying screen shots, in the project's release announcement.
One of the reasons I wanted to try out Solus 3 and do it now is because I typically test rolling release distributions immediately after a new snapshot has been released. Solus 3 was made available back in August of 2017 and I was curious to see how well the distribution would handle being rolled forward several months and what changes might be visible between the August snapshot and Solus's current packages.
I decided to try out the Budgie edition of Solus. Booting from the Solus live media brings up the Budgie desktop with a panel placed along the bottom of the screen. The panel houses an application menu, task switcher and system tray. On the desktop we find a single icon for launching the project's system installer. I did not see any welcome screen or encounter any immediate issues so I jumped straight into the installer.
Installing
Solus features a graphical system installer which I think is custom-made for the distribution. The installer resembles Calamares or Ubuntu's Ubiquity in its style and steps, with a few minor differences. The steps to select our preferred language, keyboard and time zone from map are about the same. However, Solus's installer does not handle manipulating disk partitions. For managing the disk's layout we need to turn to the GParted partition manager which is included on the live disc. The installer won't launch GParted for us, we need to quit the installer, run GParted and then re-launch the installer to set up partitions on our drive. Once we have partitioned the hard drive, the installer will show us a list of partitions and let us click on them to assign mount points for the root file system, home directories and swap.
Solus 3 -- The system installer
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
A second characteristic Solus's installer has that I quite like is we can set up multiple user accounts during the install process. This lets us create accounts for the entire family all at once, marking each account as a regular user or an administrator. The installer pauses before it gets to work, showing us a list of changes it will make to our computer and asking for confirmation before it proceeds. I like Solus's installer as it is easy to navigate and keeps the configuration process streamlined.
Early impressions
One of the first, and rare, issues I ran into with Solus was when I rebooted my system following the install process, the live disc started up and showed me the boot menu. The menu offers just two options: start the live desktop or boot from the computer's hard drive. I took the hard drive option and the system reported that booting had failed. I then removed the live disc and restarted the system, which booted from the hard drive as expected. I ran into this inability of the live media to hand over booting to the hard drive in both my test environments.
Solus boots to a graphical login screen where the available user accounts are listed vertically. We can click on an account and sign in to get back to the Budgie desktop. Budgie manages to be feature rich, but also stays out of our way. The panel is small, there are no icons on the desktop and no welcome window greets us. When notifications are presented they don't take up much space and then disappear, simply changing the notification icon in the system tray to let us know something has changed.
Solus 3 -- The application menu
(full image size: 917kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The distribution's notification panel features two tabs. One tab shows the latest notifications, such as when software updates are available. The second tab displays some applets, including a calendar, a volume control and media player controls. This dual-purpose panel built into the system tray gives us access to several controls and bits of information in one compact space and I found it quite useful. My only complaint was clicking on notifications for software updates did not open the software manager to get us started installing security fixes.
Package management
Managing software is handled by Solus's Software Centre. The Software Centre is divided into six screens. One lets us browse through categories of available software, another shows a list of installed packages. A third page lets us search for packages by name and another displays a list of available upgrades. The final two pages display available third-party applications and the Centre's settings. I was a little surprised to find third-party programs entirely separated from the packages in Solus's repositories, but I can see the reasoning in play. The third-party items tend to be closed source applications such as Chrome or Skype and the user should be aware they cannot expect fixes or support for these items from the Solus team.
Solus 3 -- Software Centre
(full image size: 802kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The updates page of Software Centre is further divided into three parts with sections for required updates, security updates and miscellaneous updates. We can expand these three sections and decide which items we want to download. When I first started using the distribution there were 339 updates available, totalling 696MB. Throughout the rest of the week I rarely saw additional updates. 696MB is an accumulation of several months of updates and about half the size of the installation ISO, which makes me think the ISO may be due for a refresh.
There were a few features of Software Centre I appreciated. One was we can locate both desktop applications and background packages (libraries and command line tools) through Software Centre without switching to the distribution's command line package manager, eopkg. I also like that most package pages include links to the software's upstream website and bug tracker that will open in Firefox. This makes it easier to get issues reported to the original developers.
On the other hand, I could only perform one action (installing or removing a package) at a time. The Software Centre would not let me queue new actions while it was already working on installing a package.
One odd thing I noticed while using Software Centre concerned not the package manager, but a handful of packages. When I was testing Solus in VirtualBox I discovered the guest add-on modules are packaged as "virtualbox" rather than "virtualbox-guest-additions". This leads to an odd situation where installing the "virtualbox" package gives us guest virtual machine features, but not the VirtualBox application.
Earlier I mentioned Solus includes a command line package manager called eopkg. This tool has a fairly straight forward syntax, similar to APT or DNF, and will show useful hints when we type "eopkg help". While eopkg works, I found Software Centre was both fast and convenient enough I did not want to use the command line option.
Settings
Solus features two settings panels. One panel is specifically for dealing with the Budgie desktop, its window manager and panel. The Budgie settings panel can also help us select applications which should be started when we login and adjust fonts. The second settings panel deals with just about all other aspects of the desktop environment and operating system. The second panel handles our wallpaper, privacy settings, user accounts, printer management and display resolution.
Solus 3 -- The settings panels before an upgrade
(full image size: 701kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Earlier I mentioned I wanted to see what, if anything, would change when I installed multiple months of software updates. The general settings panel was the only area where I saw a significant change when over 300 updates were installed. The settings panel went from displaying a grid of modules I could click on and back out of to a two-pane layout. I talked about this switch in panel styles back when I reviewed Ubuntu 17.10. Personally, I like the two-pane layout as I find it takes fewer steps to switch between pages of settings.
Both settings panels (and both versions of the general settings panel) worked well for me and I encountered no issues while using either. I especially found the Budgie window manager settings convenient. I liked being able to quickly switch the location of window control buttons, toggle a dark theme and tweak the panel's size and location.
Solus 3 -- The settings panels following an upgrade
(full image size: 393kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Software
Solus ships with a fairly standard collection of popular open source applications. Firefox is available along with the Thunderbird e-mail client, LibreOffice and the HexChat IRC software. GNOME Calendar is included along with the Transmission bittorrent software. Solus provides us with the MPV media player and the Rhythmbox audio player, both of which have access to a full range of media codecs. The distribution uses the Nautilus file manager and Network Manager is present to help us connect to the Internet. The system includes a password manager, text editor, archive manager and image viewer. The GNOME Help documentation is present, though some desktop features of Budgie may not work exactly the same way as GNOME's documentation suggests. Solus ships with the systemd init software and the installation media installs version 4.12 of the Linux kernel. Following the first large batch of updates, I found version 4.14 of the kernel was installed.
Solus 3 -- Working with the calendar and Firefox
(full image size: 336kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Hardware
I experimented with Solus on a desktop computer and in a VirtualBox environment. When running on the desktop computer, Solus ran beautifully. The Budgie desktop was responsive, the visual effects were both minimal and attractive. All my desktop's hardware was automatically detected and worked well. When running in VirtualBox Solus did not automatically integrate with the virtual environment. However, once I had installed VirtualBox's guest modules through Software Centre, I was able to use my host computer's full screen resolution. Budgie gave fairly good performance in VirtualBox, and was neither remarkably snappy or sluggish. I found Solus used about 4GB of disk space on a fresh install and logging into Budgie used about 490MB of my computer's memory.
Other observations
While playing with Solus I made a few general observations, mostly about the Budgie desktop. For instance, I like how flexible Budgie is with placing window buttons as well as the size and position of the desktop panel. I was less enthusiastic about the way moving dialog boxes also moved the dialog's application window, making it so I could not uncover a window hidden by a dialog box. This feature is easily disabled in the window manager settings.
I found the icons in the system tray to be small and close together. This sometimes caused me to click the wrong button, or click the right one only to have a different panel open when my mouse slid slightly left or right. I would have liked to have the system tray icons further apart. Also on the topic of the system tray, I found it odd there are two separate buttons to open the Applets/Notifications panel. The two icons only differ by which tab is activated when the panel opens. Personally, I found this feature offered more clutter than convenience, but I could see the appeal of these two short-cuts if I were using Solus for longer than a week.
On a similar note, I found having two separate settings panels with matching icons a little confusing, especially since both include desktop-related settings. After a day or two I got into the groove of choosing the right panel, but I think two similarly designed settings panels with the same icon is going to cause me tech-support headaches if I install Solus on other people's computers.
Solus 3 -- Working with user accounts
(full image size: 524kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Finally, I'd like to say that I like Budgie's default set of effects. They tended to be minimal and more attractive than distracting. I like the somewhat toned down colours present in window decorations and in the default terminal colours. The desktop does a nice job of offering a visually appealing environment while not drawing this user's attention away from work.
Conclusions
While I was using Solus's live disc I ran into a few minor inconveniences, such as the disc's boot menu not being able to initiate booting from my hard drive and the installer's requirement that I find and launch GParted to partition my disk. Otherwise getting the distribution up and running was a fairly easy experience. Once Solus was installed it performed very well for me. Budgie was responsive, even when run in VirtualBox, the distribution was stable during my trial and memory usage was comfortably in the mid-range. All my hardware was detected and the distribution ran well in both test environments.
I very much liked Budgie's settings panel with window manager tweaks. I found it easy to customize my desktop to have the layout and style I wanted. I also think the developers have done a great job with the distribution's Software Centre. It's well organized, responsive and doesn't hide non-desktop applications.
One of my only complaints while using Solus was that Budgie tends to duplicate some things. I mentioned the two settings panels earlier. I also found some software categories in the application menu felt redundant. The menu includes the categories "Other" and "Sundry", which mean approximately the same thing and both of which are practically empty. There are also "Accessories" and "Utilities" categories, leading me to second-guess myself as to whether text editors and screen shot apps are accessories or utilities. The only other issue I ran into was I found desktop elements tended to be grouped closely together, such as menu entries or icons in the system tray. I clicked on the wrong icons semi-frequently this week due to small shifts in the mouse.
Honestly though, those issues were pretty minor. I took some time to think about potential "cons" to balance out Solus's many "pros" and couldn't come up with anything more severe than small icons. Solus provided an unusually polished, attractive and easy to use experience. Even with the massive influx of new packages near the start of my trial, the distribution didn't cause me any headaches. I definitely recommend giving Solus a try. It has been one of the more user friendly distributions I have used lately and I like how the desktop lets me focus on getting work done with minimal customization and distractions.
* * * * *
Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
* * * * *
Visitor supplied rating
Solus has a visitor supplied average rating of: 7.7/10 from 255 review(s).
Have you used Solus? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
|
| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
NetBSD reports on security work, elementary OS exploring AppCentre changes, Ubuntu 18.04 to include Snap packages, run-time kernel protection for Linux
The NetBSD team has been working to improve the security of their highly portable operating system. Several of the enhancements coming to NetBSD's stable branch involve the removal of legacy code and patches to work around the Meltdown and Spectre CPU bugs: "Ilja Van Sprundel presented at Defcon 25 (July 2017) and 34c3 (December 2017) the results of his audit of the BSD kernels. The issues affecting NetBSD were fixed overnight in the NetBSD-current branch, and were propagated to the stable branches within a month. Kernels from NetBSD-6 and NetBSD-7 built after August 23rd 2017 had all the necessary fixes. Some reports published recently suggest that the stable branches remained vulnerable for months, and that NetBSD was lagging behind; that is simply not true. In Ilja Van Sprundel's report, NetBSD was criticized for having too much legacy and buggy code. Several proactive measures were taken, within a month again, to clean up the system." Further details can be found in a blog post on the NetBSD website.
* * * * *
In the past we have talked about elementary OS's software marketplace, called AppCentre. AppCentre offers customers a chance to purchase software using a pay-what-you-want model. The elementary OS team has some thoughts on the experiment so far and plans for the future: "One of the primary goals of developing AppCentre Dashboard was to build a sustainable app ecosystem. I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that although the AppCentre ecosystem is growing, nobody can make a living on it yet. That's what we mean when we say 'sustainable'. Writing apps is a real, hard, full-time job. If we want to see more high-quality, open source apps then we need to prioritize getting third-party app developers paid. Let's talk numbers a second. We released AppCentre in May 2017 and since then we've processed about $1,700 worth of payments from a little over 750 charges. On the one hand this is good because it means the average paid price for an app in AppCentre is about $2.30. We have to remember that this is a non-zero number in an ecosystem where previously the standard was zero." Further details and upcoming changes to AppCentre can be found in this post by Daniel Foré.
* * * * *
Portable Snap packages have been available for many Linux users for some time, but most distributions have avoided installing Snaps by default. It looks as though Ubuntu 18.04 will be one of the first distributions (after Ubuntu MATE) to experiment with including Snaps as default packages. Steve Langasek wrote a mailing list post with more details: "We are confident that Snaps today represent a solid delivery vehicle for third-party software on top of Ubuntu, and that Snaps stand as a first-class alternative to Deb packages for Ubuntu users where appropriate. Snaps are already presented alongside Debs in the software catalog on the Ubuntu Desktop, and with the 17.10 release, the Ubuntu MATE team took the first foray into including Snaps by default in an Ubuntu flavor image. Now in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, we are looking at broadening the inclusion of Snaps in Ubuntu images by default. This raises important questions about what the policies should be for software installed by default as a Snap, since the review processes around the Ubuntu archive for Universe and Main don't directly translate to the Snap Store."
* * * * *
After several years in development, a new security module for the Linux kernel has made its debut. The Linux Kernel Runtime Guard (LKRG) "is a loadable kernel module that performs runtime integrity checking of the Linux kernel and detection of security vulnerability exploits against the kernel." The module can be loaded into a running kernel where it attempts to detect (and then either report or block) unauthorized access. This should make it possible to prevent some exploits against the Linux kernel or at least make administrators aware of attacks against the kernel. The software is still in its early stages, but is available for testing. Further information and download links can be found on the project's website and in the initial release announcement.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
|
| Opinion (by Jesse Smith) |
|
Packages not flowing upstream into Debian
About five years ago I spent a month using the Unity 7 desktop. Overall, it was a good experience and, shortly after that, I decided to adopt Unity as my main desktop environment for a time. Using Unity went well while I was running Ubuntu, but when I switched to another Debian-based distribution, Unity was no longer available. Canonical had developed and packaged Unity for their Ubuntu distribution only and the packages had never made their way back upstream to Debian.
About a year ago I was experimenting with installing UBports on an Android phone. At the time I had to run a tool called ubuntu-device-flash to get my new operating system onto the phone. But while this tool is available for Ubuntu users, it was not available to people like me running its cousin, Linux Mint Debian Edition, even though both projects are derived from Debian.
A little over a year ago I was experimenting with the Lumina desktop. While running SparkyLinux, it was easy to install Lumina as it was packaged and in the official repositories. However, some months later I had switched to running MX Linux as my workstation distribution and Lumina were no longer available. Both SparkyLinux and MX Linux are based on Debian and closely related, but MX doesn't have Sparky's Lumina package. And, for that matter, Sparky does not have access to MX's custom configuration tools. This is a result of MX-Tools and Lumina packages not making their way back upstream to Debian.
Around the start of 2018 I was experimenting with two Debian-based distributions, MX Linux and deepin. I really liked deepin's desktop environment and I enjoyed using MX's configuration tools. Once again, despite the two projects both being direct descendants of Debian, MX did not have deepin's desktop packages and deepin did not have access to MX's administration tools.
At this point the pattern is probably pretty clear. It is quite common for Debian-based distributions to feature their own tools and packages which do not exist in the official Debian repositories. It seems there is either a barrier or a lack of motivation for developers working on Debian-based projects to get their software included in Debian itself. Which is a shame, because Debian has a lot of children, over 100 active distributions at the time of writing. While all these children use the same package formats, libraries and package managers, they are often prevented from using software developed by their sibling projects.
I suspect part of the problem is developers are already busy enough working on their own software and do not feel they have time to upload their packages to Debian. Perhaps there is not much motivation either. Developers make software for their distribution's users and probably do not see much benefit in spreading their work to other Debian-based projects. There may even be a sense of friendly competition between sibling projects which reduces the motivation to share packages.
Another hurdle to sharing packages though is, I think, the process involved in getting software into Debian's official repositories. The page on Debian's wiki which gives a brief summary on how to become a Debian contributor is about 100 lines long. That's before we get into creating security keys, reading the developer documentation or going through the software guidelines, social contract and finding a mentor. What I'm saying is it is a bit of a long process to become a Debian Developer and I think it discourages software developers from contributing their work back into the larger Debian family.
I contrast the situation with Debian's children and their variety in packages with FreeBSD's family. FreeBSD has around a dozen actively maintained children. While it is common for different branches of the Debian family tree to feature unique software packages, members of the FreeBSD family usually do not have packages unique to one project. The teams working on FreeBSD-based projects certainly make their own software. For instance, TrueOS created Lumina and GhostBSD developed their own graphical network manager. The swap extender daemon grew out of TrueOS. The Octopkg package manager was started for a downstream project, as was the SysAdm remote administration daemon. Each of these new packages, while developed by separate projects, made their ways back into the FreeBSD software repository. Which means all FreeBSD-based projects can make use of these pieces of software.
Presumably people working on FreeBSD-based projects have the same incentives to focus on their own work, rather than put effort into helping other projects. And, presumably people working on these projects do not necessarily want to spend a lot of time helping their competition (ie other FreeBSD-based operating systems). Still, there seems to be more sharing, more cross-pollination, in the FreeBSD ecosystem than there is in the Debian family. I suspect a big reason for the difference is in the steps required to get software into FreeBSD's repository.
People looking to get their work included into FreeBSD often just need to perform two steps: sign up for a free account to access FreeBSD's issue tracker, and submit an issue asking to have a new package added, with the package's recipe (called a port) attached. Assuming the new port builds properly, that's often all the work involved. A FreeBSD developer may ask for the port to be tweaked a little for style and correctness, but otherwise the author's work is done. There is no security key generation, no social contract to read, no required mentorship, the developer simply sends in their code, it's looked over and (usually) accepted. This puts adding software to FreeBSD approximately on par with getting new packages accepted into Arch Linux's Arch User Repository.
I have spent approximately the same amount of time in the Debian and FreeBSD communities and I think, while both are world-class, stable operating systems, the FreeBSD team has found a better way of encouraging derivative projects to submit their work back to the parent operating system. I think both Debian, and distributions based on Debian, would benefit a lot if it were easier to get software from downstream distributions back upstream to Debian. Even if only into a semi-official, community maintained repository similar to the Arch User Repository. There is a lot of good work being done by developers working on Debian-based projects and it should be easier for users to get packages from other Debian-based distributions so they don't need to either switch distributions or compile their own packages to get desired features.
|
| Released Last Week |
Peppermint OS 8-20180203
Peppermint OS is a lightweight distribution based on Lubuntu. The Peppermint team has released a new minor update to the project's version 8 release. The new installation media features bug fixes and an updated version of the Linux kernel. "This is a security refresh of the Peppermint 8 ISO images to include all updates to date (as of 3rd Feb 2018), including the Meltdown and Spectre mitigations such as the new HWE kernel 4.13.0-32 and the latest Chromium web browser version 64. The new ISO also contains bug fixes for flash content in ICE SSB's, and Chromium not remembering user selected xdg-open preferences for magnet and mailto links. There is no need for Peppermint 8 or Peppermint 8 (first) Respin users to reinstall this version, the mitigations and bug fixes have already been pushed as automatic updates to the earlier Peppermint 8 versions." A list of changes and fixes can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
Kali Linux 2018.1
Kali Linux is a Debian-based distribution that includes a collection of security and forensics tools. The Kali developers have released a new version, Kali Linux 2018.1, which features an updated kernel and two new security features: "Kali Linux 2018.1 has a shiny new 4.14.12 kernel. New kernels always have a lot of new features and the 4.14 kernel is no exception, although two new features really stand out. AMD Secure Memory Encryption Support - Secure Memory Encryption is a feature that will be in newer AMD processors that enables automatic encryption and decryption of DRAM. The addition of this features means that systems will no longer (in theory) be vulnerable to cold-boot attacks because, even with physical access, the memory will be not be readable. Increased Memory Limits - Current (and older) 64-bit processors have a limit of 64 TB of physical address space and 256 TB of virtual address space (VAS), which was sufficient for more than a decade but with some server hardware shipping with 64 TB of memory, the limits have been reached. Fortunately, upcoming processors will enable 5-level paging, support for which is included in the 4.14 kernel." More details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Quirky 8.4
Barry Kauler has announced the release of a new version of the Quirky distribution. Quirky is a lightweight distribution and a sister project to Puppy Linux. It is assembled using a custom tool called Woof. The new version, Quirky 8.4, is built using the latest available packages from the Ubuntu 16.04 repositories: "Version 8.4 has many architectural improvements and package upgrades, including new packages Sakura, Refind, EasyApps, PupControl, VTE and EasyShare. EasyShare is a simple 'one stop shop' for network file sharing and printing, using Samba and SSHFS. Upgraded applications include Pclock (0.8.2) and SeaMonkey (2.49.1). The Linux kernel is now version 4.14.17. Xerus 8.4 has retained the theme of 8.2; however, the desktop has a simplified icon layout, with new 'apps' and 'share' - 'share' launches EasyShare and 'apps' launches radky's EasyApps. There is an introduction to EasyShare here. Note that EasyShare works in EasyOS 0.7.1 and Quirky 8.4, but is designed to be able to be ported to other Puppy distributions." Further information on Quirky 8.4 can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
Robolinux 9.1
Robolinux is a desktop operating system and one of the project's more interesting features is the availability of a pre-configured virtual machine support pack with Windows XP, 7 or 10. The project's latest release, Robolinux 9.1, is based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and includes support for UEFI, Secure Boot and disk encryption. "Robolinux has really listened carefully to its user base and is extremely excited to release its first Robolinux 64-bit 9 series version MATE 3D which is based upon the 4.13 Linux kernel. This first of many Robolinux 9 series versions with a focus on privacy was built with a flawless crash free balance of the best current but highly stable Debian and Ubuntu source code, delivering exactly what our Users wanted in a Linux OS that runs Windows XP, 7 and 10 natively inside it, with blazing fast speeds which is a hallmark of all Robolinux operating systems built since 2011." More information can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
Robolinux 9.1 -- Running the MATE desktop
(full image size: 940kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Endless OS 3.3.10
Endless OS is a Linux-based operating system which provides a simplified and streamlined user experience using a customized desktop environment forked from GNOME 3. The project has released a new version, Endless OS 3.3.10, which features automatic updates, improved launch speed for applications and some Flatpak programs will be downloaded from the Flathub community repository rather than Endless's custom repository. "Automatic App Updates: Apps will now automatically update in the background when the system is connected to an unmetered network connection. This can be turned off in the App Center by pressing the icon in the top left hand corner of the window and unticking 'Automatic updates'. Migrating older apps to Flathub: With this release, some of the apps in the App Center that were previously provided by Endless will now be provided by the Flathub community. Users will see upgrades and better quality since the Flathub community will be able to provide more support for the apps than Endless alone. Improved app launch speed: Many apps were slow the very first time they were started after installation, as they detected the fonts available on the system. This has now been considerably sped up." Further information can be found in the project's release announcement. Endless OS can be downloaded in a variety of languages using torrents from the project's Download page.
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
|
| 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: 736
- Total data uploaded: 17.8TB
|
| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
|
Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| Opinion Poll |
Mining cryptocurrency vs advertisements
Most websites which offer free content, including this one, are sustained primarily through advertising. Recently some sites have been experimenting with alternatives, such as mining cryptocurrency in the web browsers of visitors to the site. How this works is, while a visitor is viewing the website, their web browser works to mine cryptocurrency for the website. The owners of the website can then trade the cryptocurrency for cash or services such as web hosting.
Some people like having their browser generate revenue for the websites they visit as it is an easy way to help support content creators. Using cryptocurrency mining also allows websites to show fewer advertisements which can clutter the page. The downside to in-browser cryptocurrency mining is that it requires a lot of CPU cycles and can slow down the visitor's computer or cause the computer's fan to run.
This week we would like to find out what our visitors think of these two options for supporting DistroWatch. Do you think mining cryptocurrency is better or worse than showing advertisements? If we experiment with providing both options on select pages with the ability to switch between them, would you prefer ads or mining be the default? Please leave us your thoughts in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running commercial Linux distributions in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
|
Mining cryptocurrency vs advertisements
| I prefer ads with to the option to switch to mining: | 698 (54%) |
| I prefer mining with the option to switch to ads: | 154 (12%) |
| I prefer another option like Patreon: | 445 (34%) |
|
|
| DistroWatch.com News |
New projects added to database
UBports
UBports is a community-developed fork of Canonical's Ubuntu Touch operating system for mobile devices. UBports works on getting the mobile operating system working on new devices, provides software updates and ports new versions of Ubuntu to mobile devices.
UBports 15.04 -- The UBports app scope
(full image size: 463kB, resolution: 1080x1920 pixels)
* * * * *
Distributions added to waiting list
- Scion Linux. Scion Linux is a lightweight distribution based on Ubuntu and featuring the Openbox window manager.
- Pixel OS. Pixel OS is a Linux distribution based on Lubuntu for 64-bit computers.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 19 February 2018. 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)
|
|
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 1, value: US$10) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Crypto vs Ads (by Mike on 2018-02-12 00:55:25 GMT from Australia)
I prefer ads with no option to switch to cryptocurrency. Bitcoin et al will never become mainstream and should not be promoted. Too many investment novices wil get their fingers burned.
2 • Please don't even think of running a miner on Distrowatch (by eco2geek on 2018-02-12 02:31:39 GMT from United States)
I'm really not interested in you, or anyone, running cryptocurrency mining software on my computer. If I find that you are, I won't stop coming here, but I will block every single last thing that I can block, be it advertising or mining code.
3 • Apples vs. oranges (by David on 2018-02-12 03:05:36 GMT from United States)
Jesse's rant makes a good point but ends with one that makes no sense. Who reviews, accepts, and commits the packages submitted to FreeBSD? Committers. Who puts packages into the Debian repositories? Committers. Yet, Jesse attempted to compare the process of becoming a committer to Debian to simply submitting a package to the existing committers in FreeBSD. You could submit a package to the existing committers in Debian too. The process to become a committer in FreeBSD is and should be much more involved. The BSD community may do a better job of upstreaming packages, but it's not because of the process involved in becoming a committer.
4 • Running Pixel OS (by eco2geek on 2018-02-12 03:12:26 GMT from United States)
Pixel OS, a new distribution added to the waiting list, doesn't seem to be anything but Lubuntu with a new wallpaper, some different widget styles, and some added software that Lubuntu doesn't ship with by default, but which the end user could easily add by themselves. So I'm not sure what makes it a "distribution", as opposed to someone's modified version of Lubuntu.
And their web site warns that the installer could bork your computer.
Also, you're going to have to change the locale and keyboard settings if you don't live in Great Britain.
5 • Solus Installation (by Winchester on 2018-02-12 04:17:02 GMT from United States)
I actually found the Solus 1.2.1 installation media to work more smoothly than the installation media initially released for Solus 3. The latter may require some GRUB boot cheat code. I can't recall the exact one ..... maybe nomodeset.
I installed Solus 1.2.1 ,then being a rolling distribution,updated everything to Solus 3 from the terminal command " sudo eopkg upgrade " .
The graphical GUI package / update manager sometimes will hang when there are additional dependency packages to install beyond the updated packages. It is rare but,it happens once in a while including when jumping from Solus 1.2.1 to Solus 3 so , I would recommend just using the terminal command,at least for the first set of updates.
Next were things such as " sudo sysctl kernel.unprivileged_bpf_disabled=1 " and,after installing the Uncomplicated Firewall GUFW ..... " sudo ufw enable ". Added my user to some groups after the update : " sudo usermod -a -G " ( lightdm , wheel, sys). I might have had to re-add (as root) my normal user to the sudo group at some point early on. Added custom wallpapers to replace the (for most part) poor default selection of wallpapers in Solus. Had to change the default hot pink text color in the terminal. This can be altered system-wide or for specific users. After that,just added additional software from the repositories etc. .
The small panel icon issue can be resolved by removing all launchers from the primary panel and adding a second panel in "dock mode" which will enable larger icons. A couple of spacers and separators can be added as well.
These minor adjustments should be able to get beginners on their way. The operating system seems otherwise almost fool-proof for most intents an purposes.
Under Solus,you can even play almost all flash content WITHOUT installing the Adobe flash plug-in .... via FireFox and presumably the included gstreamer plug-ins. Some online photo editors may not work without the Adobe flash plug-in but,most every other form of flash content will work.
6 • No to mining (by Tony Agudo on 2018-02-12 04:57:20 GMT from United States)
Here's another option: Have advertisements by default, with the option to go ad-less(with a perk or two) with a Patreon or other micropayment subscription. With those two options, you're sure to get at least some actual money to cover costs.
7 • vote - yes ads no mining (by fonz on 2018-02-12 05:29:39 GMT from Indonesia)
the world is getting eviler with new tech. ive always rejected every cryptos since what exactly is backing their value? i dont mind ads as long as theyre not popups nor plugins.
8 • More (by Other options on 2018-02-12 05:59:50 GMT from Australia)
Please no mining. Why no have a 'subscriber' option instead (not necessarily patron) and add some benefits to suit. Mining would end a worse option than advertising imo. Also, why is Archmerge.com not on the distro list? It's far more mature than a lot of the re-skins and half finished distros already there... Which poses another question: can distros please be removed if they are not reviewed to be real world stable/usable? Or at least have some categories, stable and beta/alpha?
9 • Solus (by Ali on 2018-02-12 06:09:22 GMT from Iran, Islamic Republic of)
Tried Solus 3 few days ago. There is no option in installer to select partition for grub installation if your system uses legacy bios. This is ridiculous. Gentlemen, you don't have to reinvent the wheel if you can't add basic features like partitioning and selecting boot loader location. Use Calameras.
10 • Regarding ads (by eco2geek on 2018-02-12 07:33:18 GMT from United States)
If you're running short on funds because of all the people running ad blockers, make a public announcement asking them (OK, us :-) to turn them off, and explain why.
Or come up with some sort of premium services that people could get by paying a subscription fee (as @6 suggested, maybe via Patreon).
11 • Barriers to development (by Simon on 2018-02-12 07:43:42 GMT from New Zealand)
Well, the more trustworthy you want your operating system to be, the harder it has to be for casual contributers to add their code to it...or, the more time developers have to spend auditing those casually contributed packages. The ideal of a trustworthy operating system to which it's easy for anyone to contribute without taking up anyone's time doesn't exist: either it's hard to contribute (because you have to earn your stripes as a developer, as with Debian) or someone who's already a team member has to spend a lot of time auditing and then maintaining the contributions...or it's just a hope-for-the-best situation like it says on the AUR home page: "any use of the provided files is at your own risk".
It's not just "risk" in terms of malware, bugs, etc. Part of that long process of becoming a Debian developer is the Debian project's taking the time to ensure that someone submitting a package will actually bother to fix bugs and respond to questions etc. All of this is part of maintaining a trustworthy OS. Nine times out of ten, casual package contributers may be really great in that respect...but what happens when a package (that was, when submitted, nice and bug-free) breaks and the casual contributer has disappeared and/or just doesn't care? Fine if you're a hobbyist with the time and inclination to tinker with your setup, but Debian and its children power thousands of "mission critical" servers and desktops that just need to work the way they're meant to work. I'm grateful for the barriers that Debian puts up, to casually introducing packages to the OS.
12 • Upstreaming packages to Debian (by Alexandru on 2018-02-12 08:12:54 GMT from Romania)
The difference between Debian and FreeBSD is not limited to the process of committing into them. The official Debian policy is "release it when ready" does not apply to FreeBSD. That simply means, Debian prefers more stable software then more recent software. And the new software makes its way into Debian repositories much slower. It doesn't mean, the software born in Debian derivatives never reaches Debian. You can see Mate and Cinnamon in official Debian repositories, as well as Systemd and other packages.
That being said, the formal process of becoming Debian Developer is very long and difficult, the problem recognized by Debian project itself. That's why Debian Maintainer role was introduced, different sort of official documentation, semi-official documentation, easy-to-follow documentation, short documentation, wiki-like documentation and so on. It seems like Debian is more interested in finding available manpower to port and maintain the software Debian wants into its repositories, than in welcoming software authors to provide their software to official Debian repositories. That's why many packages special prepared for Debian are available from non-official repositories which can be easily added to Debian Linux.
13 • mining on distrowatch.com (by the usual suspects on 2018-02-12 09:27:50 GMT from Portugal)
Feel free to mine on this site. But I will never visit again. And I have overlooked the boring news stories, the same "fill in the blanks" reviews every episode, but I shall not overlook websites using my web browser- my cpu cycles- and my electricity to mine bitcoin. This is indistinguishable from malware.
14 • Ad alternatives (by Karkass on 2018-02-12 09:59:30 GMT from Poland)
The response to ads which slow down websites is the use of crypto which would slow them down even more? Since when did that become a sensible option?
People who'd want to support their favorite websites would have even more of a dilemma: to either run some kind of "mineBlock" plugin, or have their (sometimes crappy and already overheating) CPU's subjected to constant heavy loads even though they're just reading articles. Bogus!
15 • Ads or mining crytocurrency (by Romane on 2018-02-12 10:25:48 GMT from Australia)
I chose the first, but actually, something does not feel right to me about such a behind-the-scenes means of making money, so would never switch to the mining option. If it became forced upon me, I have no doubt someone will quickly develop something that will stop such a process dead in its tracks (if such means do not already exist).
Ads give me choice, mining takes away that choice from me. I feel (rightly or wrongly) that to use anothers' browser for ones own ends without any option to completely opt out is immoral, even if it may be legal.
16 • Mining cryptocurrency vs advertisements (by Skinny Skimmer on 2018-02-12 10:27:32 GMT from Canada)
At the sunset of privacy and tech-ethics, is there any OEM scheme that pays end-users to use their products or brands? As a end-user I would definitely like to get paid in said scenario.
17 • getting into Debian (by bob_hayden on 2018-02-12 10:46:35 GMT from United States)
I do not know much about the general issues but I do wish there were a means of making more stuff available to Debian users. In particular, my experience with the optical disk burning software in Debian is that it rarely works, while that provided by Schily always works. The latter was packaged up almost instantly upon user request by the developer of Kwheezy, but AFAIK there is no package anywhere for users of Debian 8 or 9. Because of the bitter history here I do not expect Debian to put this in their own repositories but it sure would be nice if there were a repository for politically incorrect (and other) software that works;-)
18 • 9: Solus Installer (by Ikey Doherty on 2018-02-12 10:48:10 GMT from Ireland)
> This is ridiculous. Gentlemen, you don't have to reinvent the wheel if you can't add basic features like partitioning and selecting boot loader location. Use Calameras.
The installer is far older than Calamares (or even Manjaro) so I'd hardly call it reinventing the wheel. It was a design decision to not enable poorly supported per-partition bootloader given that the distribution defaults to ext4 and supported automatic encryption. Even GRUB will warn you during install that installing to a partition is a very bad idea. I have no intention of supporting that.
You're able to select any valid MBR disk for bootloader location in the installer, and with a UEFI install you can select any valid ESP (or the installer can construct one in automated schemes)
19 • Ads VS mining (by Kazlu on 2018-02-12 10:55:33 GMT from France)
Forcing visitors to mine would be a mistake, but doing an experiment is a great idea. For the sake of old computers users (like myself, I run a rather recent one and several old ones), I'd prefer ads as default with the option to switch to mining. That way, everyone can easily see the impact it has on one's computer performance. For the same reason, I would dislike resource intensive ads!
As for the ethical/political aspect of promoting crypto currencies, I am unsure. I wouldn't be decisively for or against it and will let other, better informed people develop their points. However, it is likely that more and more websites will go this way without asking permission or informing their visitors. Thus, I would greatly appreciate any information Distrowatch could retrieve and communicate in an experiment comparing ads VS mining.
Should mining like this become a problem in the future, I would not hesitate using a blocking extension.
20 • ads vs mining (by Dxvid on 2018-02-12 11:43:05 GMT from Sweden)
I've tried mining through web browser by going to a site which I knew used minero mining, (and I've also run similar tests directly on a few machines to see if I wanted to start mining or not on some of my machines). The web browser mining uses all available CPU time up to 100% of all CPU-cores which causes them to go into turbo mode, on my machines around 3.7-4.2GHz and this brings up the temperature to around 60-68 degrees Celsius (140-155 degrees Farenheit). This in turn switches on the fans on maximum speed and if they're not of a silent type the noise is quite annoying. On one of the machines the fans are so silent I didn't even notice that the mining was using 100% of 8 vCPU cores, I could also use the desktop like I do normally while mining. On the older machines with noisier fans it was really annoying to mine on the other hand. All chassis are of silent type with sound insulation. I did the tests for a couple of days on 3 computers in parallel and they normally use around 270W according to my UPS, when doing the CPU-mining tests they used around 750W! 3 times as much power consumption, and the heat and noise was disturbing. If I would've tried GPU-mining the power consumption and heat production would probably have been even higher. My conclusion is that mining shouldn't be done in someone's home, it should be done in a basement or a garage if done privately. If done by a company or in very large scale by a private person it should be done in a server room with AC or heat exchangers and very high air flow. Most people wouldn't even notice if you enabled browser mining and they were reading distrowatch for 5-10 minutes, but if they kept the tab open for hours they might get angry at the fan noise and the rising room temperature. One way to circumvent the problem is to lock the web browser to a single CPU-core, this would give you some money without creating extreme amounts of heat for the user, only this has to be done by everyone and it might impact the performance of the web browser. Another way is if you enable mining and give the users through a cookie or a link the possibility to choose how many CPU-cores they want to let you use. But if you enable mining I still think you have to make it opt-in rather than opt-out as many older laptops with dust in them or older computer with broken fans could crash or in worst case take permanent damage from overheating. That would be very bad advertisement for you if you break people's computers or make them crash every time they enter your site. I would continue to visit your site if you make mining opt-in even if I prefer cool computers and ads. I might turn on mining if I leave the computer/room for a while and open my window, for example during a lunch break.
21 • Ads & mining (by MarkE on 2018-02-12 12:04:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
I don't mind ads per se, what I do mind is flash ads, because they're so distracting.
I wouldn't bother with adblock if there weren't so many animations shouting at you when you visit web pages.
(I turn adblock off for your site, of course!)
I'm ambivalent about cryptocurrencies in general, but I don't really like the idea of my computer being used as a mining tool. However, if mining was to be used for website visitors, I'd prefer to be informed on the website that it was going on, rather than it run surreptitiously in the background.
22 • @18:Solus installer (by Ali on 2018-02-12 12:07:15 GMT from Iran, Islamic Republic of)
Thank you Mr. Doherty. I prefer those poorly supported distros that allow me to install grub on the root partition. As such, I can use my favorite tools to handle my multi boot system.
23 • Ads V Mining (by kc1di on 2018-02-12 12:21:32 GMT from United States)
I Would be against any effort to use my machine for mining with out my knowledge.
That being said I also hate adds that cover page content and that should be more regulated.
also sometime not often on Distrowatch some of the added are inappropriate and should not be shown.
I love Distrowatch and know they must pay the bills of offering such a wealth of information. But it should be done in the least obtrusive manner possible.
just my opinion.
24 • No Mining (by UpTheCreek on 2018-02-12 12:50:36 GMT from United States)
I shudder to think what mining would do to this old machine. One of the reasons I use Linux and am here to begin with, is that I can take this old box and have a strong environment in which to function.
25 • @ 18 Solus installer (by OstroL on 2018-02-12 12:51:55 GMT from Poland)
"You're able to select any valid MBR disk for bootloader location in the installer, and with a UEFI install you can select any valid ESP (or the installer can construct one in automated schemes)"
One problem of the Solus installer is that it doesn't like other Linux distros on a UEFI laptop. It doesn't like dual booting with them.
"The installer is far older than Calamares (or even Manjaro) so I'd hardly call it reinventing the wheel."
Maybe that it is old that it can only install grub with other Linuxes with it--show the other linux distros in the grub login screen.
Well, the MBR disks are now going out. No one is making them any more, just like the VHS cassettes. All other known installers would give a grub login screen with other Linuxes. Maybe, its time to redo the Solus Installer?
26 • @22 Solus Installer (by Ikey Doherty on 2018-02-12 12:53:51 GMT from Ireland)
I didn't say the distros were poorly supported, only per partition (specifically with ext4) bootloader embedding. Its far easier to do this stuff with UEFI fwiw. Anyway, if I had a wider selection of hardware (disks and BIOS implementations) then I'd be open to enabling it, but I don't, so I don't want to take the risk of entirely broken installs :)
27 • @ 18 Solus installer (by OstroL on 2018-02-12 13:01:25 GMT from Poland)
"Maybe that it is old that it can only install grub with other Linuxes with it--show the other linux distros in the grub login screen."
I meant here the UEFI systems.
28 • Opera's default adblocker with nocoin (by aquila on 2018-02-12 13:09:22 GMT from France)
Bitcoins are really hot right now, but did you know that they might actually be making your computer hotter? Your CPU suddenly working at 100 percent capacity, the fan is going crazy for seemingly no reason and your battery quickly depleting might all be signs that someone is using your computer to mine for cryptocurrency. This cryptocurrency mining can sometimes continue after you have first visited the site.
Simply enable Opera’s ad blocker to prevent cryptocurrency mining sites from doing their dirty work on your computer.
29 • Mining. (by PhantomTramp on 2018-02-12 13:27:27 GMT from United States)
I, too run slim linux distros on older machines. I don't believe my hobo-hardware would be much help to you. Having a switch to turn it on or off would be a good compromise, I think.
Thanks,
The Tramp
30 • Mining vs Ads (by ladislav on 2018-02-12 13:43:47 GMT from Taiwan)
In light of some hostile anti-mining comments this week, let me reassure everybody that we have never run any crypto-mining scripts on the site and have absolutely no intention to do so. The poll was a simple survey to find out what our readers prefer if given a hypothetical choice.
As for the ads - yes, we have quite a few of them on the site. If you don't want to see them, by all means use an ad-blocking plugin. Unlike many websites nowadays, we won't nag you to disable it. It's your choice.
31 • Ads vs mining; FreeBSD & Arch vs Debian (by Brenton Horne on 2018-02-12 13:48:57 GMT from Australia)
Ads & mining: well I don't think anyone likes either of these, but of course DW has to be pragmatic and support itself somehow. Ads should be the default. But a clearly visible button (like on the ads themselves) asking whether you'd prefer mining or a third option (e.g. Patreon) should be available.
I personally think Arch's approach is best. Have well-vetted, tested and trustworthy packages in official binary repositories, with a semi-official source repository containing user-submitted packages. One that anyone can contribute to. As for which is best after that (FreeBSD vs Debian) that is hard to say.
FreeBSD's approach at least means it's easy for new packages to enter the repository but it also means several packages are in limbo (no maintainer, not being deleted, just being left in a broken/out-of-date state) in its repositories. Like GNOME is presently stuck at version 3.18 (from September 2015) and KDE is stuck at 4.14 (from ~2014). They're stuck at these versions even though newer versions are known to work (based on them being tried in the https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-ports-gnome and https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-ports-kde) due to a lack of committed maintainers.
While Debian's approach means that packages are seldom deleted unless their upstream project goes belly up. But it also means fewer packages than there certainly could be.
32 • Not a viable option (by Trihexagonal on 2018-02-12 14:11:33 GMT from United States)
I hope I never see a marked spike in my CPU usage when I log onto this site, and I will see it.
It's bad enough to have to concern myself with Meltdown and Spectre without a site I trust (read trusted) attempting to use my machine to mine bitcoin, with or without my knowledge.
33 • @Jesse: (by dragonmouth on 2018-02-12 14:28:44 GMT from United States)
The idea of a new distro is to create something different than already exists (and to get your name up in lights). If what makes your distro unique were to be included into Debian repos, it would negate your distro's uniqueness and make it irrelevant and unnecessary.
Mark Shuttleworth stated in so many words that Canonical develops their versions of popular Linux software because THEY want to be in control of their development.
BTW - NO MINING! My PC is wheezing already.
34 • FreeBSD vs Debian (by Jesse on 2018-02-12 15:01:37 GMT from Canada)
@3: "You could submit a package to the existing committers in Debian too. The process to become a committer in FreeBSD is and should be much more involved."
I'd like to clear something up here. Yes, both Debian and FreeBSD have official package committers and it takes a lot of time/effort to get that official status, however their roles are quite different. In the Debian camp a committer is responsible for packages they enter into the distribution which means committers usually only work on packages they personally find useful or interesting. I have submitted a handful of packages to Debian committers and they were all rejected. Not because of errors or licensing, but because the committer did not want to take on more work, looking after a package they had no interest in.
On FreeBSD official committers also look over submitted packages and test them, but the FreeBSD commiter is not responsible for maintaining the package and keeping it up to date, the submitter is. As a result, FreeBSD committers rarely reject packages (unless there there is a security issue or they fail to build properly). They can accept any valid/secure package without worrying about the extra burden of looking after the package in the future.
This means FreeBSD can have relatively few committers (who check security/syntax) but a lot of submitters who maintain the packages. Debian tends to have a lot of committers, but few submitters outside of that core group because submitted packages are often ignored/rejected.
I'm not comparing the process to becoming an _official_ committer in my article above, I'm comparing the process for submitting and getting new packages accepted.
35 • Mining or Ads??? (by Tom Joad on 2018-02-12 15:43:11 GMT from France)
My thoiught is do ads first or, maybe, only. I am not against the mining thing but I am suspicious of 'stuff' going on in the background while using my browser. I know I would have to enable the mining stuff. But nontheless, I would rather not the mining take place in my browser.
This issue reminds me of an old political saying. "Once the Camel gets his nose under the tent, soon, the Camel is IN the tent."
Me thinks this mining stuff will become a wide spread issue in the not to distant future. And I am hoping No Scripts, for instance, will stay in front of it by allowing us to turn all that mining nonsense OFF. And the way things go these days browser mining will become a big, big issue.
For my part, I do not want that Camel anywhere near the 'tent.'
36 • Advertisements and so on... (by Per on 2018-02-12 15:56:40 GMT from France)
"Most websites which offer free content, including this one, are sustained primarily through advertising. Recently some sites have been experimenting with alternatives, such as mining cryptocurrency in the web browsers of visitors to the site. How this works is, while a visitor is viewing the website, their web browser works to mine cryptocurrency for the website. The owners of the website can then trade the cryptocurrency for cash or services such as web hosting."
Somebody creates website to publish something. After sometime, they might think that they are giving the readers a service, and that their website has to be supported by the readers. They forget to think that the web is an unending one, and no user/reader of their web content has to pay for it, in other words, it is simply up to the publisher to sustain the website. If the content is not interesting, the readers won't come again. The publishers think that if they add advertisements, they'd get money. True enough, but no one can force people to read those advertisements or even click on them. No one is saying that the website publishers shouldn't earn money, but whatever they publish is not compulsory to be read by the user. This fact is understood by the web browser developers, so there are all kinds of ways integrated to the browser to safeguard the user. The web browser developers had understood that their product is more valuable than the web site the user would look into.
Now, while we don't mind Distrowatch earning money through advertisements, but it would be good to understand that, if Distrowatch stops today, there'd be few other such web sites around and some are still to appear. Talking about ads, that's the time I go and make a coffee or go to the toilet, do something else, when TV ads come in while watching a TV programme.
37 • Mining (by Gooby on 2018-02-12 16:35:13 GMT from Moldova, Republic of)
This computer of mine is not a mine!
38 • Solus (by Me on 2018-02-12 16:35:39 GMT from United States)
"runs on 64-bit x86 computers exclusively".
Why not just say x64? Almost downloaded it. My mind only saw x86. To me, x86 means 32-bit.
I know, it's trivial. Just a comment.
39 • Compensation for use, Solus GRUB (by Stephen on 2018-02-12 17:13:04 GMT from United States)
@30 - Ladislav, I would welcome a premium option where I could contribute funding to cover my share of your costs and in exchange turn off ads. In setting up a contribution, it would be useful to know what that share of costs would be. For instance, what do hits to the distro pages cost per user? I use those for reference a dozen times a week. What does the weekly digest cost to produce in relation to the number of users? I read this digest most weeks. If there were a payment option and the costs were published, I'd be happy to contribute.
@26 - Ikey, Like some other commentators, I run a complex multiboot system (actually several of them) and rely on partition embedding. The main unreliability cited by Grub2's installer (and documents) relates to moving partitions or, in some circumstances, changing partition layout. Since this is something entirely in control of the system administrator, I have never encountered a problem with it in some years of managing systems this way. I understand your reasons for not supporting it, however.
As I recall, Solus can be installed with the Grub2 written to the MBR of a spare drive, and then Grub can be reinstalled embedded to a partition manually after the fact, but it's been a while since I tested that, so I may be misremembering.
40 • @ 26 Solus (by OstroL on 2018-02-12 18:12:18 GMT from Poland)
I have a Solus system installed in my UEFI laptop, and it only shows up, if I click Esc while my laptop starts. Then, I have to choose Linux Boot Manager to boot Solus. But, as I have other Linuxes and also Windows, and one of the Linux distros have the grub, I can see all other Linuxes and Windows, but I can't see Solus. What happens is after a while, I forget that I have Solus system installed. Most of us have multiboot systems, and we like to see what we have at the given moment. Solus doesn't like other Linuxes, so don't like to coexist with them, I gather.
41 • @41 - Solus (by Hoos on 2018-02-12 18:50:23 GMT from Singapore)
Solus has its kernels and img files in /usr/lib64/kernel rather than /boot, unlike other distros.
42 • Revenue methods (by Fairly Reticent on 2018-02-12 19:07:04 GMT from United States)
Contributing to worthy causes, including apps, distros & DW, is fine.
I avoid subscribing. Burned many times.
…
With proper controls, I might explore putting my computer's otherwise idle time to use, whether locating distant stars or blockchain mining (and directing what's generated) - but I haven't seen any mention of a dashboard or advanced settings for general javascript or particular j'scripts. Ought to be. Same for cookies, etc.
…
I don't mind a few basic ads, even if related to web-page content, provided they're unobtrusive (including bandwidth/performance/storage). In fact, I've gone out of my way for a few websites to make sure their own ads display for me.
43 • Solus OS (by Philippe on 2018-02-12 19:55:03 GMT from France)
I have Solus installed since 2 monthes, in addition to Debian. Pleasantly surprised by this OS and Budgie desktop. Budgie is clean but maybe it ressembles to much to Windows10?
The system is as fast as my Debian/XFCE. Updates are fast but less informative than Debian's updates via synaptic. However they always worked till now.
Just one issue: sometimes - not always - the resolution of my screen is lost when coming out from suspend. Not found an other way to retrieve it than to reboot.
44 • Ads vs mining (by Bob on 2018-02-12 20:38:27 GMT from Australia)
I will block either option in my browser.
45 • ads vs. mining vs. patreon (by strg on 2018-02-12 21:06:06 GMT from Poland)
In competition of models reconizing creators I would most happily vote for flattr, which is a system much more presidposed to spread and be a big scale alternative. https://flattr.com/
46 • @ 42 (by OstroL on 2018-02-12 21:13:14 GMT from Poland)
"Solus has its kernels and img files in /usr/lib64/kernel rather than /boot, unlike other distros."
What does this has to do with multibooting Solus with other Linuxes in an UEFI system?
47 • mine on this site (by avelinus on 2018-02-12 21:27:18 GMT from Portugal)
Like someone, number 13, said "Feel free to mine on this site. But I will never visit again. And I have overlooked the boring news stories, the same "fill in the blanks" reviews every episode, but I shall not overlook websites using my web browser- my cpu cycles- and my electricity to mine bitcoin. This is indistinguishable from malware".
If i know my cpu is used. my fan went to turbo, i end the visits to the site.
When i want something paid, I look for it myself.
48 • Crypto-mining NO! (by UncleVom on 2018-02-12 22:49:45 GMT from Canada)
Ads are annoying enough, but crypto-mining currency on my browser fsck that sith.
I often stop by here when my computer is doing something else usually a couple of times a day.
It is already multi-tasking with what I want.
The site is interesting to me as I like to keep informed, but it could easily drop from my list, it's not that important.
49 • Bitcoin (by Scott Eno on 2018-02-12 23:58:10 GMT from United States)
If you ever mine my computer with your page i will turn you into authorities. I use linux to stay virus free not to have my favorite site for obtaining them send virus to my very very clean computer.
50 • Re: upstreaming packages to Debian (by Chris on 2018-02-13 00:00:20 GMT from United States)
Why in the world would developers of Debian based children submit their specialized tools, desktops and utilities packages back to Debian?!? These are unique features of Debian's children designed to get a user to use the child distribution instead of the parent. A good example of this is Manjaro Linux which is a child of Arch Linux but can be installed by a beginner, unlike Arch Linux which has a more complicated installation process. Furthermore, many of the customizations that Debian based distributions develop cannot be easily backported to Debian. An example of this is the PPA functionality developed by Ubuntu. Trying to get it to work in Debian requires all sorts of fiddling and even then it doesn't work the same way as it does in Ubuntu. The good news is that the source code for the tools, desktops and utilities that you like is freely available and nothing is stopping you from compiling it yourself on your distribution of choice.
51 • Cryptomining (by Mike W on 2018-02-12 23:59:59 GMT from Ukraine)
I dislike the idea of using so much electricity worldwide to mine cryptocurrency.
Already some security sites are starting to mention IP addresses and domains that mine. I'm sure it won't be long before someone posts an Ipset and iptables rule to block them.
What javascripts allow your CPU to be taken over for the task and are there specific javascript elements that can be blocked, say with a filtering proxy?
52 • Compensation for use, Solus GRUB (by Stephen on 2018-02-13 00:03:04 GMT from United States)
@30 - Ladislav, I would welcome a premium option where I could contribute funding to cover my share of your costs and in exchange turn off ads. In setting up a contribution, it would be useful to know what that share of costs would be. For instance, what do hits to the distro pages cost per user? I use those for reference a dozen times a week. What does the weekly digest cost to produce in relation to the number of users? I read this digest most weeks. If there were a payment option and the costs were published, I'd be happy to contribute.
@26 - Ikey, Like some other commentators, I run a complex multiboot system (actually several of them) and rely on partition embedding. The main unreliability cited by Grub2's installer (and documents) relates to moving partitions or, in some circumstances, changing partition layout. Since this is something entirely in control of the system administrator, I have never encountered a problem with it in some years of managing systems this way. I understand your reasons for not supporting it, however.
As I recall, Solus can be installed with the Grub2 written to the MBR of a spare drive, and then Grub can be reinstalled embedded to a partition manually after the fact, but it's been a while since I tested that, so I may be misremembering.
53 • ads (by Pat Menendez on 2018-02-13 00:36:23 GMT from Canada)
Ads are profoundly insidious! There is no such thing as a "relevant ad"! For myself, I don't care if the ad is for brand new Ferrari or Porsche cars for $5. I ain't buying!!!!!! Yes, there are sites that need ad revenue. It is incumbent on them to find a way to trick or work around ad servers so that the ads appear to have been seen but have not annoyed, insulted, frustrated, etc. the user. Find a way to display them invisibly. Put the ads in a tab that can be browsed. People use ad block for very legitimate reasons! People us Spam blockers for very legitimate reasons! Sites need to get a better deal and more options, leeway, in how to balance the need for income without driving away their users.There are several sites I have visited that refuse to function or let me access them unless I turn off my ad blocker. I go elsewhere for the information. I am not ever tempted or enticed to click on an ad and find most ads nauseatingly insulting to my intelligence! I can fully understand the need for funding to maintain a site and service. For as good and informative a site as this with the suspected huge number of regular visitors, an ad free subscription should be a pittance per year and to me well worth avoiding the insult of ads and the incumbent trackers or mining.
54 • @46 (by Hoos on 2018-02-13 02:38:24 GMT from Singapore)
I think you mentioned that in your multiboot machine, another distro was the main grub. But it might not be able to find the kernel(s) in solus when you updated grub, so might not generate any menu entry for it.
55 • Getting grubby (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2018-02-13 05:14:28 GMT from United States)
Why not just name each partition, and boot to {name}? Might only need to install bootloader once.
…
(Warning: this may require (gasp!) plain-text boot-configuration-file manual composition and/or editing.)
56 • RE: 54 & 46 Grub. (by MoreGee on 2018-02-13 05:55:35 GMT from United States)
Puppy always saves the day for this. It will even let you edit the entries before writing GRUB.
It will also save you from a Systemd or Wayland update. You just may have to reinstall the one that broke it. If it does it again have it install the boot loader to the partition and not the MBR. Then run puppy again.
57 • To Jesses opinion of upstream to Debian (by debianxfce on 2018-02-13 06:08:51 GMT from Finland)
Debian derivatives are a waste of human resources. Debian has over 50 000 software packages and that should be enough for most of the people. In Debian you have software like alsamixergui and qasmixer for alsa only users. Those are not in tumbleweed and there stopped my distribution change plans. Also the zynaddsubfx-dssi synth is missing from many distributions. Use the Xfce desktop and tweak it freely.
Big problem in Debian testing/sid is that because of the nvidia GLVND package (libegl1) and canonicall mesa maintainer, open source Mesa git packages from Oibaf ppa are not compatible anymore. Latest AMD hardware, Vega and Raven Ridge is supported poorly and mesa bug fixing takes a long time. It is horrible when an open source distribution breaks itself with closed source drivers.
58 • Liberapay (by sam on 2018-02-13 10:59:16 GMT from United Kingdom)
How about a Liberapay account. (like patreon, but opensource and lower fees).
59 • Post # 41 : Solus Kernels (by Winchester on 2018-02-13 13:00:21 GMT from United States)
Solus has its kernels and img files in /boot/ as well as /usr/lib64/kernel/ in my up to date Solus installation.
There are also symlinks " initrd.img " and " vmlinuz " in the main / directory which link to the latest LTS kernel and images etc. .
60 • Solus and GRUB Bootloader (by Winchester on 2018-02-13 13:33:01 GMT from United States)
It is somewhat of a small hassle that Solus installs its GRUB into the MBR without providing any other options but,at least on BIOS MBR machines,you can easily boot into another GNU\Linux OS from the Solus GRUB .... and then re-install the other GNU\Linux OS's GRUB2 back into the MBR if so desired.
Then,add the following entry into the other OS's /etc/grub.d/40_custom file :
menuentry 'Solus O.S. ( on /dev/sda14 )' --class solus --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux-simple-6e85c15b-ff97-4e9e-9297-84c74c451704' {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='hd0,msdos14'
if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos14 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos14 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos14 --hint='hd0,msdos14' 6e85c15b-ff97-4e9e-9297-84c74c451704
else
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 6e85c15b-ff97-4e9e-9297-84c74c451704
fi
linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda14
initrd /initrd.img
}
In some cases, if using BURG or an older version of GRUB2 , just :
menuentry 'Solus O.S. (on /dev/sda14)' --class solus_os --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os --group group_/dev/sda14 {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='hd0,msdos14'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root a557c63f-48d6-445e-9828-f8efc452988d
linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda14
initrd /initrd.img
}
Replacing all of the 14's with the appropriate partition # which Solus is installed into and replacing the "a557c63f-48d6-445e-9828-f8efc452988d" and " 6e85c15b-ff97-4e9e-9297-84c74c451704" with the appropriate UUID # of the partition that Solus is installed to.
When setting up a multi-boot system,I would install any Slackware system first (because its installer assigns a new UUID to the SWAP partition ..... at least Solus doesn't do this unless you tell it to) ..... Then Solus and / or OpenSUSE and / or Gentoo as they all install their GRUB bootloaders into the MBR no matter what ..... then install last the OS whose bootloader you want to be in the MBR. That seems like the best way of going about things.
61 • debian (by dolphin oracle on 2018-02-13 13:46:41 GMT from United States)
@57
it has often been noted in history that whenever this phrase is uttered:
"and that should be enough for most of the people. "
it almost invariably isn't.
62 • Feeding back to Debian (by CSRoad on 2018-02-13 15:38:13 GMT from Canada)
The basic concept is good, Debian does have great volume in the repositories and most of the devs and maintainers are excellent.
The problem I see is that Debian is no longer truly "The Universal Operating System", it is really just another Gnome/freedesktop/systemd distro, but with the above listed benefits.
When Debian forked itself back on the Gnome/freedesktop/systemd path it became so tangled and committed that child distros are having to deviate further and further if Debian's current vision and dependency choices do not match their own.
The Debian system still makes a lot of sense as well stocked base distro, but it makes limited sense to feed back pieces that no longer fit Debian's currently limited vision of what a distro should be.
Maybe in many cases when it comes to functional improvements to existing software it might make sense to feed these further upstream to the original dev as well as offer it to the deb maintainer.
As you may gather I'm no fan of what Debian has become, but I really don't want to start a fanboi battle, but rather just express what I see as possibly a futile effort in pushing pieces that no longer fit the mold back into Debian.
63 • DebIan process-management methods (not just init) (by Somewhat Reticent on 2018-02-13 16:34:13 GMT from United States)
One fine point deserves mention: DebIan developers have also worked on keeping process-management method (systemd/xml, sysV/text-configs) options open, and one derivative distro uses and appreciates their consideration/effort.
64 • mining, etc. (by Jordan on 2018-02-13 16:54:26 GMT from United States)
@30 thanks for that explanation, ladislav.
65 • crypto and ads (by edcoolio on 2018-02-13 21:37:28 GMT from United States)
Let me be crystal clear:
If mining is ever forced on me, my friends, business, or family - the website in question will be blocked at the router level forever. Period.
I don't care how light it is on resources, I don't care that "I will hardly notice", I don't care that I'm warned in advance. Mining on my equipment for the profit of others = blocked forever.
It is a stupid trend that has wrecked the financials of many individuals trying to chase vapor, it wastes electricity on a monumental scale, it squanders otherwise useful equipment, and it has all but destroyed the graphics card market for gamers/end users. Nothing like wrecking the environment AND fun for gamers in one fell swoop.
That being said, a system whereby an ad-free "login" that enables mining is perfectly acceptable. Of course, it needs to be very, very obvious that the user is logging into the website for the ad-free benefits via mining. The payment for no ads is the ability for the website to run the code (*cough* virus *cough*).
To each their own, but personally, I would never allow this to run on my equipment in a million years.
66 • A solution (by Simon on 2018-02-14 00:16:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
Surprised about all the FUD regarding cryptos here. However ...
The solution to removing ads and mining and still allow websites to earn from visitors: https://oysterprotocol.com/
67 • oysterprotocol (by Jordan on 2018-02-14 12:29:27 GMT from United States)
@66
Nah. I hope the site operators here just go with ads. As long as they are not intrusive flashing ads or popups or popunders, I've okay with it. I'll turn off my ad blocker and be willing to sign an agreement to that effect for distrowatch.
68 • FUD ? (by edcoolio on 2018-02-14 18:41:37 GMT from United States)
@66
FUD regarding cryptos? Maybe we are reading different comments here on DW.
I have read no one espousing a fear of of cryptos.
No one seems uncertain about cryptos, however they do seem opinionated (like both you and myself).
There is no doubt. Most do not want our CPU's or GPU cycles eaten up in the background by a website without our explicit approval.
To be sure, there are differing opinions (both positive and negative) to crypto mining on website visits and in general, but stating there is "FUD" about the subject amongst DW comments seems a bit much. People here, as a rule, are far to tech. savvy to be painted with such a broad brush regarding crypto... or anything else.
69 • Mining (by Jem on 2018-02-15 03:35:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
Let's be very clear here: Any site implementing mining in the browser, is going to increase the electricity bill of the end user dramatically. The PSU on my Mac normally draws around 100W of power. With web mining, that will increase to about 400W. Being on that website is then actively costing me money, as opposed to Salon's claim that "you're just wasting it anyway".
Electricity is not cheap, and it's getting even less so over time. Meanwhile, ROI on crypto is poor as well so the site won't make much from this. And then there's the environmental impact. Basically, this is an insanely stupid idea where LITERALLY EVERYONE LOSES.
70 • Custom software in Debian based distros (by Kazlu on 2018-02-15 14:44:17 GMT from France)
@Jesse
"Both SparkyLinux and MX Linux are based on Debian and closely related, but MX doesn't have Sparky's Lumina package. And, for that matter, Sparky does not have access to MX's custom configuration tools."
Maybe I am missing something here, but wouldn't it be possible to add Sparky's repositories in MX Linux (checking that they are usually associated with the same version of Debian as a base) and then install Lumina from that repo in MX Linux? Or the other way around of course?
71 • Mixing repositories (by Jesse on 2018-02-15 15:02:16 GMT from Canada)
>> "Maybe I am missing something here, but wouldn't it be possible to add Sparky's repositories in MX Linux"
You could try, but I would highly recommend against it. If MX and Sparky had repositories solely for their own packages (and packages they had patched uniquely) and never included anything else, then you could probably get away with it. But custom distro repositories can have different versions of libraries, packages with unique patches, etc. You're likely to risk having packages from one repo replace those in another. Or a package update in one repo change your setup.
Imagine the frustration if every so often an update from the second distro disabled a media codec, or the other distro shipped a new kernel version that did not include your wireless driver.
And that's in a situation where most packages are compatible, but different distros have slightly different settings. It gets worse if you look at situations like Unity 7 where Canonical patched system libraries to handle their new desktop. You probably don't want the custom libraries overwriting the ones your applications rely on to work.
72 • Ads/Mining (by mchlbk on 2018-02-15 16:04:56 GMT from Denmark)
Mining: Never. Widespread implementation of browser mining will cause even more people to block ads. (The filters block mining too.)
Ads: A while back I disabled adblocking to support DW. Unfortunately, as the ads were inappropriate, I re-enabled it after a few days.
73 • @36 Advertisements and so on... (by Kazlu on 2018-02-15 16:24:07 GMT from France)
"Somebody creates website to publish something. After sometime, they might think that they are giving the readers a service, and that their website has to be supported by the readers."
Has it come to your mind that maintaining a website to publish something is not free? Either you pay a company that hosts your website, or you pay for the domain name and host the website yourself, which requires a computer running 24/7 that consumes some energy. And I'm not counting the Internet bill when you need a decent upload bitrate to feed your readers.
And that's just for a website which would be fed on your spare time, meaning you have a job outside of the website to be able to, well, buy some food. In order to have websites that provide more in-depth analysis and some technical information, the people publishing on it need to spend much more time on it. Meaning they cannot work full-time on something else. Therefore, then must find some other source of revenue for, well, buying some food.
If no one were earning money from websites, the web would only be filled with blogs and cats videos. It's already a large part of it, but there wouldn't be any really technical website in addition to find information, like Distrowatch is.
74 • @57 "Debian derivatives are a waste of human resources." (by Kazlu on 2018-02-15 16:36:18 GMT from France)
I tried Debian, it works well but it's quite barebones and not practical in the long run. I had to dive often into documentation to set what in many other distros is a casual setting. I now run MX Linux, a Debian derivative, which is *much* easier - and takes less time - to manage day-to-day. It's not just a question of the number of packages available, it's also what is actually installed by default and how is everything configured.
Actually, I don't need specific MX Linux software. A Debian respin, using nothing else than software from Debian repos but with different settings, could be entirely sufficient. But that does not exist to my knowledge (Point Linux maybe?) and I do not have the spare time do do this myself. MX Linux has a solution that completely fits my needs, so I use it and I made a donation since this distro really made me spare some time! I also did a donation to Debian though, since I need it as well in the end :)
I suppose YMMV.
75 • Mining (by ned on 2018-02-15 17:16:22 GMT from Austria)
Mining ==> Goodbye Distrowatch
It was fun while it lasted. Well, all things must pass ...
76 • a (by a on 2018-02-15 19:59:12 GMT from France)
Worst poll ever.
77 • @ 73 websites and so on.. (by Per on 2018-02-15 21:17:41 GMT from France)
"Has it come to your mind that maintaining a website to publish something is not free? Either you pay a company that hosts your website, or you pay for the domain name and host the website yourself, which requires a computer running 24/7 that consumes some energy."
You should at least know how to stay afloat, before you jump in water. And, that staying afloat can be done for short time, if you don't know how to swim. You can always have a blog for free offered by some websites like Wordpress. But, if you are into business, then you should find a way to make a profit. If ads make you money that;s OK by us, but if you want use our electricity and some other things on the sly, you are NOT wanted, whatever the contents is!
Btw, this website is pretty old fashioned, and the reviews are as someone said here "fill in the blanks", the same way all the time. There is nothing seriously interesting here these days. For example, Solus 3 was released on 15th August 2017, but the review is in the middle of February 2018. How many other websites reviewed this distro within one month since its release!
If ads don't pay, then DWW has to find another way to sustain itself. DWW is a business, so the decision is not ours.
78 • How much is monero trading for these days anyway? (by CS on 2018-02-15 23:02:41 GMT from United States)
2017 was the year of the cryptocurrency. Bandwagon has left the station.
The various coinhive scammers managed to make a pitiful amount of money, kill usability (see e.g. https://twitter.com/bad_packets/status/963512608610332672) and many malware programs now block them.
You'll be better off with the Patreon type approaches.
79 • @77 "There is nothing seriously interesting here these days" (by curious on 2018-02-16 08:59:50 GMT from Germany)
Nobody is forcing you to visit this website. Don't let the door hit you on the way out...
80 • Ads and/or Patreon, but no mining (by Lionel on 2018-02-16 09:44:42 GMT from France)
Unsurprisingly, mining isn't the preferred option among users, to say the least. If the current ad system isn't enough, I suppose that Patreon could help.
Even though I don't believe that you're going to implement the idea because users would strongly resent it, and that would hurt you, I've just marked DW as untrusted for script execution ;)
81 • @ 79 "There is nothing seriously interesting here these days" (by Per on 2018-02-16 10:05:50 GMT from France)
"Nobody is forcing you to visit this website. Don't let the door hit you on the way out."
Exactly!
The same way, the website shouldn't force the random readers to pay for it in a sly way!
82 • Something Interesting Here (by Winchester on 2018-02-16 11:35:43 GMT from United States)
Where else can you find out about all of the "exciting" new Lubuntu and Xubuntu clones with alternate themes and fonts??
83 • Packages not flowing upstream into Debian (by Mauro on 2018-02-16 13:05:52 GMT from Argentina)
I can't have an opinion about FreeBSD because I really don't know the workflow, but about Debian packaging, I think the fundamental difference is the fact that when a maintainer takes a particular software under his/her wing, they take responsibility for adhering to the specifics of the Debian policy (that is licensing check, separating libraries from package, making it available to the different architectures [x86 and amd64 are not the only ones], and a lot of other tasks that make the user life easier).
But above all, the maintainter obliges himself to keep the package updated, and that means: a) keep "testing" & "unstable" in sync with upstream; b) backport security fixes when the package is in the stable repository; and c) take care of bugs during the whole lifespan of the release, even with an older toolchain and libraries.
That is IMHO what makes Debian both a "Stable" OS and a "Universal" OS. Not always is a developer in a position (and/or have time) to take such a high responsibility.
(pardon me, I'm slowly correcting my English)
84 • People need to read more (by Garon on 2018-02-16 15:41:29 GMT from United States)
@all the whiners.
What is wrong with you people? It seems that a lot of you are commenting without reading the other comments. Before you start bitching and crying please read comment #30 and stop being so arrogant.
85 • Cryptomining (by Meya Yu on 2018-02-17 20:10:04 GMT from Canada)
If I ever find that this site is crypto mining, that will be the end of my coming here.
And the fallout on social media would be EPIC- because I'm not very nice when it comes to lambasting a site on my Twitter page....
I'm okay with ads- I'm also okay with the whole donating through PayPal (which I've done). But you start using my CPU for your own gain, and that will be the end of my using this site....
PERIOD.
86 • upstream (by ludvig on 2018-02-17 20:48:08 GMT from United States)
a topic page with 52 posts on the subject, inspired by the DW article:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/7www6v/deb_packages_are_not_getting_upstream_to_debian
So far, I haven't found a related slashdot or ycombinator (HackerNew) discussion -- which is surprising to me, because I think it's an important issue to discuss.
87 • Mining (by hotdiggettydog on 2018-02-18 01:08:45 GMT from Canada)
I'm pretty sure DW brought up mining to get a rise out of us. We expect it at dicey sites like piratebay and porn.
Btw, Torbrowser and firejail should be enough to discourage miners.
88 • Devun 2.0Beta grub multiboot-NFG (by Sarcastic Fringehead on 2018-02-18 04:39:19 GMT from United States)
Installed on sda1&2, sda3&4 have Salix, on an SSD. Got a complaint box during install, grub "this may not be an error", but when I booted, I got grub rescue prompt. Re-installed Mint on sda1&2,
all OK now, but it looks like Devuan may not have tested for multiboot setups. Has anyone else run into this?
89 • .deb packages not swimming upstream (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2018-02-18 05:50:18 GMT from United States)
Aren't these Freed Open-Source software?
90 • .deb (by tim on 2018-02-18 18:30:03 GMT from United States)
.deb filetype is simply an archive file format. Some debfiles do (esp those packaged by 3rd parties, "doing us a favor" by packaging their software so that it is installable on users' systems) contain non-free content.
Number of Comments: 90
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
| | |
| NovaCustom |
NovaCustom PrivacyGuard Laptops - Escape from Big Tech
The NovaCustom PrivacyGuard Laptop is ideal for anyone who prioritizes privacy. Comes with Dasharo coreboot open source firmware and Zorin OS Pro, free from influence of Big Tech.
|
| 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.
|
| Archives |
| • Issue 1176 (2026-06-08): Redcore Linux 2601, the problem with minimal system requirements, Red Hat account linked to compromised npm repositories, COSMIC to get frosted glass effect, openSUSE shows off system extension manager, Origami merges with RakuOS |
| • Issue 1175 (2026-06-01): PineTab2 with various distros, less common words of wisdom, Canonical shutting down Ubuntu's Pastebin, Murena nears 100k users, DistroWatch turns 25 |
| • Issue 1174 (2026-05-25): Solus 4.9, Linux tablets, Haiku boots on Apple M1 machines, Fedora drops Deepin packages, Mint improves Nemo performance |
| • Issue 1173 (2026-05-18): Sylve on FreeBSD, the benefit of BleachBit, Debian commits to reproducible builds, Debian publishes updated install media, Haiku introduces SMP support on ARM64 processors, Rocky Linux creates opt-in security repository, Fedora reconsiders AI tools, KDE receives generous donation |
| • Issue 1172 (2026-05-11): Fedora 44, dealing with extra fonts, Fedora plans to provide AI tools, problems with Ubuntu's new coreutils, TrueNAS extends its development cycle, postmarktetOS improves the boot splash screen, Redox ports tmux |
| • Issue 1171 (2026-05-04): Xubuntu 26.04, extending memory with VRAM, Ubuntu plans AI features, Devuan developer forks GTK2, Mint introduces hardware enablement builds, Linux running on a PlayStation 5, local kernel exploit found in Linux |
| • Issue 1170 (2026-04-27): ENux 5.2.1, picking a second distro, AlmaLinux expands CPU support, FreeBSD publishes Status Report, Ubuntu MATE skips 26.04 release |
| • Issue 1169 (2026-04-20): Lakka 6.1, free software and source-based distributions, FreeBSD Foundation publishes compatible laptop list, Debian holds Project Leader election, Haiku progresses ARM64 port, Mint to extend development cycle, Linux 7.0 released |
| • Issue 1168 (2026-04-13): pearOS 2026.03, EndeavourOS 2026.03.06, which distros are adopting age verification, Arch adjusts its firewall packages, Linux dropping i486 support, Red Hat extends its release cycle, Debian's APT introduces rollbacks, Redox improves its scheduler |
| • Issue 1167 (2026-04-06): Origami Linux 2026.03, answering questions for Linux newcomers, Ubuntu MATE seeking new contributors, Ubuntu software centre is expanding Deb support, FreeBSD fixes forum exploit, openSUSE 15 Leap nears its end of life |
| • Issue 1166 (2026-03-30): NetBSD jails, publishing software for Linux, Ubuntu joins Rust Foundation, Canonical plans to trim GRUB features, Peppermint works on new utilities, PINE64 shows off open hardware capabilities |
| • Issue 1165 (2026-03-23): Argent Linux 1.5.3, disk space required by Linux, Manjaro team goes on strike, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA driver support and builds RISC-V packages, systemd introduces age tracking |
| • Issue 1164 (2026-03-16): d77void, age verification laws and Linux, SUSE may be for sale, TrueNAS takes its build system private, Debian publishes updated Trixie media, MidnightBSD and System76 respond to age verification laws |
| • Issue 1163 (2026-03-09): KaOS 2026.02, TinyCore 17.0, NuTyX 26.02.2, Would one big collection of packages help?, Guix offers 64-bit Hurd options, Linux communities discuss age delcaration laws, Mint unveils new screensaver for Cinnamon, Redox ports new COSMIC features |
| • Issue 1162 (2026-03-02): AerynOS 2026.01, anti-virus and firewall tools, Manjaro fixes website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating a map app |
| • Issue 1161 (2026-02-23): The Guix package manager, quick Q&As, Gentoo migrating its mirrors, Fedora considers more informative kernel panic screens, GhostBSD testing alternative X11 implementation, Asahi makes progress with Apple M3, NetBSD userland ported, FreeBSD improves web-based system management |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
| Random Distribution | 
ArchStrike
ArchStrike is a distribution for security professionals and researchers based on Arch Linux. ArchStrike provides an extra repository of security software and is available in Openbox and Minimal 64-bit builds. ArchStrike provides a live desktop environment based on the Openbox window manager.
Status: Dormant
|
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
