 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 753, 5 March 2018 |
Welcome to this year's 10th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
It is fun to see different technologies come together to make something new. Sometimes toolkits, desktop environments or distributions will come together and their cross-pollination of ideas creates something new and special. This week we begin with a look at Enso OS, a young distribution that is based on Xubuntu. Enso borrows the Gala window manager and mixes it with the Xfce desktop to create something new and visually appealing. Then, in our News section, we talk about MX Linux working on updates and fixes for a fresh set of installation images. We also discuss a minimal install option for Ubuntu Budgie and link to an interview with the creator of MidnightBSD. Plus we take a look at the new features introduced in KDE's Plasma 5.12 desktop environment. Plasma's new features are the subject of this week's Opinion Poll and we hope you will tell us what, if any, new components caught your attention. As usual, we share the distribution releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. Last, but not least, we have added the ability to search through past news headlines on our Article Search page and the details are included below. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Enso OS 0.2
- News: MX Linux works on ISO update, Ubuntu Budgie plans minimal install option, interview with MidnightBSD founder
- Technology review: KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS
- Released last week: Ubuntu 16.04.4, ArchLabs 2018.02 Pardus 17.2
- Torrent corner: 4MLinux, Antergos, ArchLabs, AUSTRUMI, Endian Firewall, Pardus, Sabayon, SwagArch, Ubuntu
- Opinion poll: New Plasma features
- DistroWatch.com news: Searching for past Headlines
- New distributions: Emmi Linux, Exton|OS, Sortix
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Enso OS 0.2
Enso is a young distribution based on Xubuntu. Enso features the Xfce desktop environment running on the Gala window manager; Gala has been used with good effect on the elementary OS distribution. Enso also features the Panther application menu and the Plank dock. The Enso website mentions the project is trying to have a positive environmental impact: "Help plant trees while you search the web with Ecosia, the search engine that plants trees with it's ad revenue, included in Enso."
The project's latest release, Enso OS 0.2, is based on Xubuntu 16.04 and is available in just one edition for 64-bit x86 computers. The ISO we download is approximately 1.5GB in size. The downloaded media boots to a graphical screen where a window appears and asks if we would like to try Enso's live desktop environment or immediately begin the installation process. This window also lets us select our preferred language from a list.
While the live desktop uses Xfce components running on the Gala window manager, the desktop has a certain GNOME-like appearance. There is a thin top panel which includes an application menu, clock and system tray. At the bottom-left corner of the screen there is a dock (powered by Plank) which acts as both a quick-launch bar and task switcher. Enso uses bright colours for the window control buttons and the minimize, maximize and close buttons are presented in blue, green and yellow. The busy mouse cursor is shown as the macOS-style beach ball.
Enso OS 0.2 -- The application menu
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Installing
Enso's system installer can be launched from the dock at the bottom of the display. The distribution uses the Ubiquity graphical installer which is used by Ubuntu and its many community editions. The installer begins by giving us a chance to read the project's release notes. Clicking the link to the release notes opens the Firefox browser and connects to a page on the Ubuntu website which shows a list of past releases rather than showing us any information specific to Enso or any one release. The installer then gives us the option of installing third-party media support and downloading software updates. We can then choose automated or manual disk partitioning. Manual partitioning is, I found, fairly streamlined and we can see a visual overview of how our disk partitions are arranged. We are then asked to select our time zone, confirm the keyboard's layout and create a username and password for ourselves. The user creation screen gives us the option of encrypting our home directory. The installer worked quickly and concluded by offering to restart the computer.
Early impressions
Enso boots to a graphical login screen where we can sign into our account. Signing in loads up the Xfce 4.12 desktop. I found the desktop was pleasantly responsive when running on my desktop computer, but tended to lag a bit when running in a virtual machine. Given my recent experiences with Xfce, I suspect the extra window effects offered by Gala are probably the cause of the desktop's sluggishness in the virtual environment. One of the few other issues I ran into was the Plank dock at the bottom of the screen tended to appear above open windows, which got in the way when I was using large or maximized windows. The dock can be removed by disabling the Plank service in Enso's settings panel.
Settings
Speaking of changing settings, there are two ways to access Enso's settings modules. There is a settings panel which can be launched from the application menu. The panel provides a simple grid of modules which will help us tweak the desktop's appearance and behaviour. Alternatively, the application menu contains an entire sub-menu dedicated to listing the available settings modules. When I first started using Enso the sub-menu containing settings modules was simply labelled "Other", but after installing the first large batch of updates the sub-menu's name changed to "Preferences".
Enso OS 0.2 -- Changing wallpaper with a settings module
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Most of the modules worked for me, but a few did not. Trying to launch either the window manager settings module or the window manager tweaks tool would cause Enso to display the busy, beach ball mouse cursor for a few seconds and nothing would open. The behaviour was the same whether trying to open these tools from the application menu or the settings panel. I suspect these modules were originally put in place to manage Xfce's default window manager and were not updated when Gala was swapped in as the new window manager.
Software management
While I was running Enso I virtually never encountered any distractions. There was no welcome window when I first set up the distribution, no messages about background services and no mention of software updates. The desktop is a mostly-empty workspace. We can manually check for new software packages by running the distribution's update manager. This small application simply lists the package upgrades available and we mark which items we want to download or ignore. The first day I was running Enso there were several new packages available, totalling 310MB in size. A few more updates trickled in through the week, around one every day or so.
While the updates all installed cleanly, there were side effects. Earlier I mentioned an application sub-menu changed its name. I also noticed the next day that when I booted Enso the login page had changed. Originally Enso presented me with a simple login page with wallpaper featuring a purple flower. On the screen there was one account icon I could select to sign in. After installing the first big batch of updates the wallpaper disappeared and there were three account icons. One for my user, one for a guest session and a third for signing into other accounts. The new guest account session worked, I could sign in without a password and anything I did would be discarded when I logged out. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any option to disable the guest session. While guest accounts are convenient, having one created post-install without warning and without a clear way to disable it is, in my opinion, a security issue.
Another change I noticed during the week was some icons changed appearance. The Thunar file manager, in particular, got a new and quite different icon. I suspect changing icons on users like this without warning is likely to confuse people.
Enso OS 0.2 -- GNOME Software showing Snap and Deb packages
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Also on the subject of software packages, installing and removing applications is handled by GNOME Software, a modern package manager divided into three tabs. One tab displays software categories and guides us through browsing categories or searching for items based on key words. The second tab displays a list of installed applications and we can click a button next to each program to remove it. The third tab displays a list of available software upgrades.
GNOME Software generally worked well for me. I was able to find programs I wanted fairly easily. I do wish there was a search box to find or filter items while we are browsing a category, the search box is only visible at the top-level of the available software tab. Otherwise, finding items and removing old items was pretty easy. Installing upgrades worked as well.
I ran into two minor issues while using GNOME Software. One was that performing searches was slow, compared to searching with other software managers. It's a minor problem, but one which mintInstall and Synaptic do not have. The other concern I had was GNOME Software sometimes displayed duplicate entries. For example, searches for VLC or GIMP displayed two entries for the same program. As it turned out, what I was seeing was one entry for the Deb package and another for a Snap package. There is very little to distinguish one format from the other. Snaps don't have user ratings and tend to be much larger (VLC's Deb is 5MB while its Snap is 202MB), but otherwise there is no flag to set them apart. On the one hand new users might appreciate package format transparency, but on the other this may confuse people and result in them downloading much larger versions (and new, development versions) of software by accident. Both Snaps and Deb packages add launchers to the application menu when they are installed.
Applications
Enso ships with a fairly standard collection of applications. Firefox is included along with the Pidgin messaging software and the Thunderbird e-mail client. For some reason there are extra launchers in the application menu for Firefox and Thunderbird, apart from their standard launchers. These extra launchers are called "Web Browser" and "Mail Reader", respectively. The distribution provides us with LibreOffice and the Orage Calendar application and the Ristretto image viewer. There are other handy tools such as a desktop dictionary application, bulk file rename utility and the Thunar file manager. The distribution also ships with the Xfburn disc burning application, the GNOME Music player and the Parole media player. Enso ships with the systemd init software and version 4.4.0 of the Linux kernel.
Enso OS 0.2 -- The LibreOffice suite and a dictionary application
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One application I used quite a lot this week was Gigolo, an application which makes it easy to connect to remote computers, typically working through the OpenSSH service. Gigolo makes it easy to set up bookmarks to resources on remote computers and, with a few clicks, we can open a terminal on the remote machine or mount a remote directory and open it in our file manager. For me, having Gigolo installed by default largely replaced my usual tools of Filezilla and Yakuake for working on remote machines.
Enso OS 0.2 -- Connecting to remote computers using Gigolo
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One launcher in the application menu, called Learn Enso, opens the Firefox browser and displays some basic steps for navigating the desktop environment. There are also tips provided on the topics of finding desktop settings and installing new applications.
While using Firefox I looked for evidence of the Ecosia search engine mentioned on the distribution's website and did not find any. Google is Enso's default search engine. I could find no mention of Ecosia in Firefox's extensions or alternative search engines.
Enso OS 0.2 -- Browsing Enso's website with Firefox
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I found that while the GNOME Music player worked without any problems, the Parole media player was unable to play either audio or video files when run in VirtualBox. An error would be displayed indicating a driver was missing. Parole did work flawlessly when run on my physical desktop computer. I also found alternative media players, such as VLC, ran smoothly in the virtual environment so the playback issue was limited to Parole.
One final quirk I ran into while playing media is Enso does not display any volume controls on the desktop. When using a keyboard with media keys we can use the keyboard's volume up/down keys, but on keyboards without media controls the user has no convenient method of adjusting audio volume. There is a PulseAudio mixer launcher in the application menu, but it is a cumbersome and slow method for making minor volume changes.
Hardware
I experimented with Enso in two test environments, a VirtualBox virtual machine and a desktop computer. In both situations, Enso performed fairly well. My hardware was detected, sound and networking worked and Enso integrated smoothly with VirtualBox. I found the Xfce desktop was quite a bit more responsive on the physical desktop computer than when running in the virtual environment. I suspect this is because of Gala's visual effects. I had hoped to disable the extra effects, but the window manager control settings were inaccessible through the control panel. The system was stable in either environment and used about 440MB of RAM when signed into the desktop. A fresh install of Enso used about 4.5GB of hard drive space.
Conclusions
On the surface at least, running Enso feels a lot like running Xubuntu. The two distributions use the same core software and the differences, beyond desktop theme, seem minor. Both projects run the Xfce desktop and offer some of the same applications. The main difference I noticed was Enso uses Gala as the window manager. This seems to offer more eye candy, but on low-end hardware or in virtual environments, may cause reduced desktop performance.
Most of the time I enjoyed using Enso, the system was stable and provided the tools I wanted to use to work. GNOME Software's transparent mixture of Deb and Snap packages will probably appeal to people, especially users who want to run cutting edge packages on a stable, long term support platform.
My main issues with Enso tended to involve little rough edges. Nothing really showstopping happened during my week, but there were little quirks like the "release notes" link going to a generic Ubuntu page, or the window manager settings modules not opening. Having the default media player, Parole, fail to function in a virtual environment was a minor problem and worked around by using VLC. Having updates change program icons and the functionality of the login screen will probably unsettle new users.
Perhaps my biggest disappointment was the missing Ecosia search engine. The website had talked about Enso striving to be environmentally friendly, but I found no evidence of this feature. I'm not certain if the search engine was removed in version 0.2 or I just missed something. In the end, using Enso was a pretty good experience for me, but the little missing bits and changes introduced through software updates made me think I might have been better off with the distribution's parent, Xubuntu.
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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
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Visitor supplied rating
enso OS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9.3/10 from 6 review(s).
Have you used enso OS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
MX Linux works on ISO update, Ubuntu Budgie plans minimal install option, interview with MidnightBSD founder
The MX Linux team is working on a number of new features which will appear in the upcoming release of MX Linux 17.1. The new version will feature mostly bug fixes since the release of version 17, including patches for the Meltdown and Spectre CPU flaws. Other improvements include new translations and accessibility options: "There have been a lot of updates lately to several packages while we get ready to build the new MX-17.1 ISO. mx-installer - updated to address an issue with boot flags that affected some PCs when using legacy MBR boots. mx-packageinstaller - recently updated with a better and faster interface. Tons of new translations for most of the MX Tool apps. lightdm-gtk-greeter-mx17 - This will enable the selection of an on-screen keyboard from the accessibility menu of the LightDM login screen. This will be the default on the MX 17.1 ISO, but the change only takes place for existing installations if the user resets the LightDM configuration using the new Config Options tab in mx-tweak. Any auto-login settings in place will not be affected by the change." A list of additional improvements can be found in the project's blog post.
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The Ubuntu Budgie team has reported their distribution will feature a minimal desktop installation option. This will allow users to set up a new copy of the distribution with the Budgie desktop and very few applications or additional packages. The project tweeted: "For 18.04 Ubuntu Budgie - will now have a minimal installation option. Get ready to customise your desktop in any way you want!" A screen shot of the installer with the new Minimal Installation check box is attached to the tweet.
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What is MidnightBSD? Why does it exist? What are the project's goals? These are some of the topics John Paul explores in his It's FOSS interview with Lucas Holt, the founder and lead developer of a flavour of BSD which is not often talked about. "It's FOSS: Please explain MidnightBSD in a nutshell. How is it different than other BSDs? Lucas Holt: MidnightBSD is a desktop focused operating system. When it's considered stable, it will provide a full desktop experience. This differs from other efforts such as TrueOS or GhostBSD in that it's not a distro of FreeBSD, but rather a fork. MidnightBSD has its own package manager, mport, as well as unique package cluster software and several features built into user land such as mDNSresponder, libdispatch, and customizations throughout the system." The It's FOSS website has the rest of the interview.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Technology Review (by Jesse Smith) |
KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS
In early February the KDE team announced the release of a new version of their Plasma desktop. Plasma 5.12 is a long term support (LTS) release and introduces several new features. Some of these features sounded quite appealing and so I downloaded a copy of KDE neon which runs the latest Plasma packages on top of an Ubuntu 16.04 LTS base.
What follows is a quick overview of the new KDE Plasma features in version 5.12 rather than a complete look at the desktop or the KDE neon platform.
The first improvement mentioned in the Plasma 5.12 release announcement is that Plasma is now faster and requires less memory. "Speed and memory improvements are the focus of this long-term release. The new Plasma LTS uses less CPU and less memory than previous versions. The process of starting the Plasma desktop is now significantly faster."
I did not notice an improvement in desktop loading time. (I don't think loading times got longer either.) Applications did open fairly quickly though not fast enough for me to notice a difference over previous versions of Plasma. When I checked my memory usage, I found signing into Plasma 5.12 required about 380MB of RAM. When I disabled file indexing and compositing I was able to get memory usage down to 340MB. For comparison's sake, when I used KDE neon in October 2016 I noted then that the platform used 340MB of RAM. In my case at least, memory usage has not improved in the past 15 months.
The release announcement mentions Plasma now features better Wayland support and includes a colour adjustment tool which should make it easier to stare at the screen at night. The Wayland session reportedly also supports screen rotation and touch screen support. I wanted to test this, but my Plasma session was limited to running on X.Org. I could not find a way to enable a Wayland session, whether running KDE neon in a virtual machine or on a laptop, both of which have run Wayland sessions in the past. (After finishing this review I found out Plasma's Wayland session is available as an add-on package, through plasma-workspace-wayland, and not included by default as a part of KDE neon.)
In Plasma 5.12 we are told the Discover software manager's interface has been cleaned up, the headers are smaller and both Snaps and Flatpak packages are supported. Visually, I definitely agree that Discover looks nicer than it has in the past. The layout has remained consistent, but space is used more economically.
Plasma 5.12 -- Browsing packages with Discover
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I tried searching for portable packages (Snaps and Flatpaks), but none were showing up. I could confirm Snap support was installed and the command line Snap tool was available. With a little poking around I found there are entries for enabling Flatpak and Snap repositories on the Discover application's Settings page. However, the buttons for enabling these package formats are hidden under the window's scroll bar and cannot be clicked. I was able to access the buttons with the keyboard, but tapping/activating them did nothing.
The release announcement mentions: "The notification system gained support for interactive previews that allow you to quickly take a screenshot and drag it into a chat window, an e-mail composer, or a web browser form. This way you never have to leave the application you're currently working with."
At first I had trouble finding out how this features works. The Spectacle screen shot utility already lets us drag-n-drop new screen shots as well as copy screen shots to the clipboard. These are pretty useful features to have, but do not involve the notification widget. I also found saving new images in my Pictures directory did not affect the notification widget.
Eventually I found that if I simply saved a new screen shot without giving it a name or copying it to the clipboard, the screen shot would appear in a notification. If I was quick, I could then drag-and-drop the screen shot to another window. This is a very roundabout way of dealing with screen shots and less convenient that simply copying an image to the clipboard or dragging it from the Spectacle window. Some people might use this feature, but it is more cumbersome to use than the existing options available for accessing a screen shot.
The Plasma website tells us: "Due to popular demand, we implemented switching between windows in Task Manager using Meta + number short-cuts for heavy multi-tasking."
This may be my favourite new feature in Plasma. I often have around nine or ten application windows open. Being able to tap the Meta key followed by a number is much faster than holding Alt and tapping the Tab key eight times. Window numbers appear to be assigned based on their position on the Task Manager widget, meaning the first window on the left is #1, the next window over is #2 and so on. Depending on how our Task Manager is sorted, this may cause windows to change numbers as new applications are opened. Still, this is a big time saver for me and a feature I welcome with open arms and previously sore fingers.
Another attractive new feature is the audio indicator in the Task Manager: "Is some app making noise in the background while you are trying to focus on one task? Applications currently playing audio are now marked with an icon, similar to how it's done in modern web browsers."
This is, in my opinion, a very welcome feature. If I have several windows open, especially if a few of them are web browsers, then I would like to be able to identify which window is making noise. With Plasma we can now right-click on a window's Task Manager button and select Mute from the context menu to stop audio from playing. I really like this feature as I found it faster than opening PulseAudio, selecting a specific application and lowering its volume. At the moment this feature has its limitations. For instance, while media players like VLC will display an audio indicator when they are playing music, Firefox did not. Going to YouTube and playing a video did not cause the audio icon to appear when I tried it.
Plasma 5.12 -- Muting a media application
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Plasma's documentation tells us: "Global Menus have returned. KDE's pioneering feature to separate the menu bar from the application window allows for a new user interface paradigm, with either a Plasma Widget showing the menu, or with the menu neatly tucked away in the window title bar."
The global menu is not enabled by default, it is available as a widget which can be added to the desktop. I'm not going to sugarcoat this: the widget looks terrible. It changes in size depending on which window is active and looks like an awkward, gray rectangle which cannot be resized. The widget does not work with all windows and, worse, gets hidden behind windows if one is moved over the widget.
I looked into switching the menu into the application title bar, but all the global menu widget's options were grayed out when I opened the widget's settings. I also could not find an option in the settings panel to enable titlebar menus.
Plasma 5.12 -- The Global Menu widget
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Spring Loading is an interesting looking feature. Spring Loading displays the contents of a folder when we drag a file over the folder's icon. Now that Plasma is defaulting to putting folders on the desktop again, I can see the benefit of being able to drag files onto a folder's icon and having that folder open right on the desktop. Spring Loading files into a folder works, and I like the concept. My only complaint is the folder display is very twitchy. Getting the dragged file to drop into the correct folder or to get the right folder to open was tricky. Taking this screen shot, for example, took nine tries to get the file lined up with the right folder without an unwanted folder opening to cover up what I was doing:
Plasma 5.12 -- Moving a file into a Spring Loaded folder
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The release announcement has some news about media controls and the lock screen: "Media controls have been added to the lock screen. For added privacy, they can be disabled in Plasma 5.12. Moreover, music will automatically pause when the system suspends."
The media controls do indeed appear on the lock screen, which is convenient. I can especially see the benefit to having lock screen media controls at a party. We can start music playing, lock the computer and leave people to skip through songs, pause or play as they like. On the other hand, I could not find a way to disable the media controls on the lock screen. Under the settings panel I checked the modules for media and screen locking and performed a search for both "media" and "lock screen". None of my searches turned up any way to hide the media controls when my screen was locked.
Speaking of the settings panel, the Plasma team tells us: "We introduced a new System Settings user interface for easy access to commonly used settings. It is the first step in making this often-used and complex application easier to navigate and more user-friendly. The new design is added as an option, so users who prefer the older icon or tree views can move back to their preferred way of navigation."
The new layout tries to imitate the new GNOME settings panel, but seems to miss what made the new GNOME two-pane layout work. The benefit to the two-pane arrangement in GNOME is that we can quickly switch between modules without diving into and out of a module's screen. On GNOME we can browse through tabs without changing the menu displayed on the left side of the window and this makes browsing faster and less jarring. The KDE version has the same two-pane layout, but when we click on a module it takes us into the module which is further divided into multiple tabs These tabs overwrite the menu on the left, meaning that we need to back up a level to enter another module. KDE's Plasma settings give us the drawbacks of both approaches, cluttering the screen and forcing us to enter into and exit out of modules rather than making it a smooth transition between tabs.
Plasma 5.12 -- The new settings panel layout
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Security is also addressed in this release: "For users who often deal with sensitive, confidential and private information, the new Plasma Vault feature offers strong encryption options presented in a user-friendly way."
This sounded like a great feature, though at first I had trouble finding out how to use it. I searched the application menu and settings panel for mentions of "vault" and did not find anything on enabling the feature. I then found the Vault settings can be configured by clicking the lock icon in the system tray.
Plasma Vault works really well. We can create a new vault (encrypted folder) with a few clicks which gives us the chance to choose where our encrypted files will be saved and where they will be mounted when the vault is open. We also create a password to protect our vault. Once a vault has been created we can click the lock icon in the system tray to access or close the vault. (Accessing the vault requires our password.) While the vault is open our files are accessible just like they would be in any other folder, but when the vault closes only encrypted data is visible in our files.
Plasma 5.12 -- Opening a vault
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Last year I experimented with an equivalent GNOME privacy utility when I reviewed SwagArch GNU/Linux. GNOME Encfs Manager is a very friendly tool for doing the same task Plasma Vault is performing. There are two aspects of Plasma Vault which, I think, make it the more convenient tool. The first is the system tray icon which, at least in KDE neon, is present by default. We do not need to open a new application to set up or access vaults. The second benefit to Plasma Vault is we can access multiple vaults with just a click of the lock icon. We can open as many or few vaults as we like at a time and the Vault widget includes a short-cut to opening the file manager to show the files in a newly opened vault. It is a surprisingly convenient way to work with encrypted files.
While that covers all the new features which caught my eye, there is one other aspect of Plasma 5.12 I will mention: not all programs were stable on my systems. Dolphin and the settings panel tended to crash frequently. The other programs and widgets were stable, but these two tended to crash a few times per day. Which makes me want to hold off on upgrading until a few more bugs are worked out.
There are some really great ideas present in Plasma 5.12. I love the new vault system and the Meta + number short-cut to switch between windows. I definitely like the audio indicator on the Task Manager and hope it will be improved to monitor (and mute) all applications in the future. Some of the other new features need some work still, in my opinion. I could not access Discover's portable package support and the global menu widget has a long way to go. These items feel more like previews of features to come right now than a finished product.
My biggest concern right now is it is difficult to find Plasma's new features. Wayland's package was not included in KDE neon by default, I had trouble finding how to access Plasma Vault, I could not find the option to disable media controls on the lock screen, it took me several tries to find out how to get screen shots to show up in the notification tray. I could not get Snap and Flatpak packages to show up in Discover, even after I found the settings to enable portable packages. Plasma 5.12 has a lot of interesting features, but even though I knew they were there I still struggled to find and use them. Plasma includes a lot of cool technology, but finding it is an uphill battle, even when reading the release notes and using the search features on the settings panel and application menu.
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| Released Last Week |
ArchLabs 2018.02
ArchLabs is a rolling release distribution based on Arch Linux and featuring the Openbox window manager as the primary desktop interface. The project's latest release, ArchLabs 2018.02, features several small changes which streamline and improve the user experience. "Introducing ArchLabs Linux 2018.02. As usual we have a few improvements and changes. Firstly we removed GoRice, the addition of GoRice was more of a novelty than anything and as a result has been removed as it served no purpose other than a bit of fun. AL-Hello has again undergone a major overhaul, one of the best changes is that the additional installation options is now a multi-choice screen rather than a paginated multi- screen affair. Another major change is to how obmenu looks after your menus. Pipemenus now control the content of your standard obmenu." Further information and screen shots can be found in the project's release announcement. Download (MD5): archlabs-2018-02.iso (919MB, torrent, pkglist).
ArchLabs 2018.02 -- Running the Openbox window manager
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Endian Firewall 3.2.5
Endian Firewall is a Unified Threat Management (UTM) Appliance based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux that protects networks. The Endiana team has announced an update to the distribution's 3.2 series. The latest version, Endian Firewall 3.2.5, fixes a number of bugs, including one which prevented OpenVPN from starting following a reboot of the system. The release announcement reads: "Here's a short list of changes compared to the latest version: Improvement UTM-1722 - add option for load custom TLS ciphers. Improvement CORE-2143 - add CLI notification when a reboot is required. Bug UTM-1813 - OpenVPN job does not start after reboot. Bug CORE-1416 - Snort doesn't work when HTTP proxy is On. Bug UTM-270 - Squid terminates with an error if an entire domain and its subdomains are used in the same access policy. No need to say, this new image includes a lot of improvements and bug fixes as well. For more details, please see the changelog."
SwagArch GNU/Linux 18.03
Mike Krüger has announced the release of SwagArch GNU/Linux 18.03. SwagArch is a rolling release distribution based on Arch Linux and featuring the Xfce desktop environment. The project's latest snapshot features mostly bug fixes, addressing Intel microcode updating errors, correcting keyboard shortcuts and making sure the notifyd daemon works. The brief changelog for this snapshot reads: "[BugFix] Non working keyboard shortcuts. [BugFix] Change entries in mimeapps.list from "firefox.desktop" to "exo-web-browser.desktop". Whisker menu "Switch Users" option grayed out. [BugFix] Intel microcode won't set by default. [BugFix] notifyd sometimes doesn't work. Feature] xfce4-windowck-plugin - Xfce panel plugin which allows to put the maximized window title on the panel. Reworked Panel Layout." Additional information and screenshots can be found on the distribution's home page.
Ubuntu 16.04.4
Lukasz Zemczak has announced the launch of updated installation media for version 16.04 of Ubuntu, which is a long term support (LTS) release. Ubuntu, and its official community editions, have published version 16.04.4 which includes security updates and patches for bugs. "The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS (Long-Term Support) for its Desktop, Server, and Cloud products, as well as other flavours of Ubuntu with long-term support. Like previous LTS series, 16.04.4 includes hardware enablement stacks for use on newer hardware. This support is offered on all architectures except for 32-bit PowerPC, and is installed by default when using one of the desktop images. Ubuntu Server defaults to installing the GA kernel, however you may select the HWE kernel from the installer bootloader." Further details can be found in the release announcement and in the release notes.
Pardus 17.2
The Pardus project, which develops a Debian-based distribution for desktops and servers, has announced the release of Pardus 17.2. This updated build comes in two desktop variants featuring either Xfce or DDE (Deepin Desktop Environment) desktops, and there is as a separate edition for servers. The release notes are provided in Turkish only, but the distribution itself can be booted in installed in both Turkish and English. Some of the changes in Pardus 17.2 include: LibreOffice updated to version 6.0.1; fix to the navigation rectangle in the Start menu not following the mouse cursor; updated the most Xfce components to their latest versions; fixed incorrect Turkish translations in some Xfce components; miscellaneous package updates, including security patches; various improvements to DDE's dock, such as new functionality to hide plugins, network list refresh button, new 'Forced Quit' in the context menu, improved auto-hide function, improved Window preview.
Linux From Scratch 8.2
Bruce Dubbs has announced the release of version 8.2 of Linux From Scratch (LFS) and Beyond Linux From Scratch (BLFS). LFS is a book that provides step-by-step instructions on how to build a base Linux system from scratch. BLFS expands on the LFS book by giving further lessons on compiling several desktop environments, as well as many popular desktop and server packages. From the release announcement: "The Linux From Scratch community is pleased to announce the release of LFS version 8.2, LFS version 8.2 (systemd), BLFS version 8.2 and BLFS version 8.2 (systemd). This release is a major update to both LFS and BLFS. The LFS release includes updates to glibc 2.27, Binutils 2.30 and GCC 7.3.0. In addition, five new packages have been moved to the base LFS book from BLFS - libffi, OpenSSL, Python 3, ninja, and meson. Changes to text have been made throughout the book. The Linux kernel has also been updated to version 4.15.3. The BLFS version includes approximately 900 packages beyond the base Linux From Scratch Version 8.2 book."
4MLinux 24.0
4MLinux is a lightweight Linux distribution focusing on such capabilities as maintenance (as a system rescue live CD), multimedia (for playing video DVDs and other multimedia files), and miniserver (using the inetd daemon). The project's latest release is 4MLinux 24.0 which is available in desktop and server editions. The status of the 4MLinux 24.0 series has been changed to STABLE. Edit your documents with LibreOffice 6.0.0.1 and GNOME Office (AbiWord 3.0.2, GIMP 2.8.22, Gnumeric 1.12.38), share your files using DropBox 43.4.49, surf the Internet with Firefox 58.0.2 and Chromium 64.0.3282.119, stay in touch with your friends via Thunderbird 52.6.0 and Skype for Web, enjoy your music collection with Audacious 3.9, watch your favorite videos with VLC 3.0.0 and MPlayer SVN-r37946, play games powered by Mesa 17.1.4 and WINE 3.1. You can also setup the 4MLinux LAMP Server (Linux 4.14.18, Apache 2.4.29, MariaDB 10.2.12, PHP 5.6.33 and PHP 7.2.2). Perl 5.26.0 and Python 2.7.13 are also available." Further information can be found in the project's release announcement.
4MLinux 24.0 -- Running JWM
(full image size: 732kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 755
- Total data uploaded: 18.2TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
New Plasma features
In this week's Technology Review we talked about KDE's Plasma 5.12 desktop environment and Plasma's new features. This week we would like to find out which of the features we covered you find the most appealing. Are you more interested in the security features, performance improvements, Wayland support, Spring Loading folders or something else? Let us know what feature you think is the most useful in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on finding helpful documentation in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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New Plasma features
| Performance improvements: | 460 (47%) |
| Better Wayland support: | 167 (17%) |
| Discover improvements: | 67 (7%) |
| Notification screen shots: | 16 (2%) |
| Task Manager Meta shortcuts: | 25 (3%) |
| Task Manager audio icon: | 16 (2%) |
| Global Menu: | 70 (7%) |
| Spring Loading: | 27 (3%) |
| Lock screen media controls: | 27 (3%) |
| New System Settings layout: | 15 (2%) |
| Plasma Vault: | 84 (9%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
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Searching for past Headlines
Our Article Search page presents our readers with an easy way to find old articles, reviews, tips and Questions & Answers columns. This past week we extended our Article Search page to also find past news headlines. Our Headlines search feature finds past news stories which previously appeared in our Headlines feed.
* * * * *
Distributions added to waiting list
- Emmi Linux. Emmi Linux is a Linux distribution of Brazilian origin focused on flexibility, stability (inherited from its Debian base), lightness, beauty and ease of use.
- Exton|OS. Exton|OS is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the Budgie desktop environment.
- Sortix. Sortix is a hobbyist operating system and not a distribution of Linux. Sortix was recently written from scratch and strives to be POSIX compliant. Though hardware support is limited, it is self-hosting.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 12 March 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)
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If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • minimal desktop installation option (by Jim on 2018-03-05 00:49:00 GMT from United States)
I hope the minimal desktop installation option becomes a trend in Linux. I spend way to much time now days removing unwanted and unused software from a new installation. I think a document with recommend or suggested software from the official repository is all that is needed, It could be used by a newbie or easily deleted by a veteran Linux user that knows what software he wants, I would like to see all installation still fit on a CD, or at the least be less than 1 gig.
2 • Plasma Spin on Mint (by Will Senn on 2018-03-05 01:19:24 GMT from United States)
With KDE being dropped as a spin, or whatever you want to call a DE oriented DVD, from future releases of mint, I've already switched to XFCE - much lighter weight. Works fine, but bummer decision on Mint's part. Maybe they'll change their mind? Here's hoping, Plasma's pretty slick.
3 • KDE 5.12 caught up with Desqview of 1993. (by OS2_user on 2018-03-05 01:35:09 GMT from United States)
"This may be my favourite new feature in Plasma. ... Being able to tap the Meta key followed by a number is much faster..." -- Better implemented in Desqview, though, as non-full screen windows had number in border, plus with the tap a numbered list appeared at upper right.
"I'm not going to sugarcoat this: the [Global Menu] widget looks terrible. ... My only complaint is the folder display is very twitchy. ... took nine tries ... the drawbacks of both approaches, cluttering the screen and forcing us to enter into and exit out of modules" -- Sigh. Too many features, and inherently "twitchy" because too complex.
Think I've written here before that "using" Linux is like playing an adventure game, randomly trying actions to see what happens; well, with KDE they're definitely now adding video game aspects. I complained about the new green + marks on folders (for some "feature" I've now forgotten) which in practice means that you must dodge the upper left corner of icons. That's not improving my use; indeed, I just QUIT.
4 • minimal desktop (by albinard on 2018-03-05 03:38:38 GMT from United States)
@1: there is already a Xubuntu Core ISO (currently at version 17.10) at CD size that installs a pretty basic Xfce desktop with little in the way of applications. For simple provisioning, just install Synaptic and go wild - repositories at your fingertips.
And there is an Ubuntu Core also, though that one is much more software-rich.
Lubuntu has a Core as well. Looks like a trend!
5 • KDE Plasma (by Andy Figueroa on 2018-03-05 04:09:50 GMT from United States)
Not really interested in KDE. Bells and whistles get in the way of efficient use of a computer. That accounts for my null vote. I'm quite happy with Xorg and LXDE/XFCE.
6 • The Global Menu widget can be placed in a panel (by M. Bar on 2018-03-05 05:00:21 GMT from Canada)
Not sure why you'd put it on the desktop.
7 • MidnightBSD for lamba user desktop ? Not sure... (by TuxBSD fan on 2018-03-05 05:22:21 GMT from Canada)
Interesting interview with the developer of Midnightbsd. But there is one thing that is sure. MidnightBSD is not for beginners. I did a quick test in Virtual mode for installation, configuration Sorry my friends but there is not for beginner who will use MidnightBSD.
If you really want to make a BSD system for the lamba user, well you need to take other way. fist step is graphical mode and ready to use system. A beginner will not spend the day installing xorg, xfce4 or gnome 3 and then all packages to make it a complete system.
In the interview, the developer says he has been developing MidnightBSD since 2005, which is 13 years. GhostBSD is about 4 years old and is years ahead in terms of handling and ready to use. Surely someone who has not understood a few things.
This is also the problem of all other BSD projects. They are still hooked in the 90s.
I am always surprised to see people putting so much effort into projects to ultimately have so few real users.
Anyway, congratulations for your project and your perseverance
8 • minimal desktop installation@1 (by pengxuin on 2018-03-05 06:22:28 GMT from New Zealand)
Mageia could be for you:
Option #1.
Mageia offer a classical installer with multiple desktops.
One of the features of these .isos (~4Gb) is that the
installer offers a "Custom" option and the user can pick and choose what
software to install on a minimal base. how-ever, due to the limited size of the .isos, only so many packages are contained within these .isos.
adding on-line repositories during the install will of course allow more packages to be selected.
Option #2
Is a wired internet install (~60Mb) again install starts
with a bare minimal installation and you can add whatever applications /
packages you desire that are in the on-line repositories.
Option #3
Is a Mageia Live install. provided you have sufficient memory,
you can customise the live desktop to include or exclude any packages
above the minimal install. e.g. add on-line repositories, remove XFCE DE and install LXDE DE,
then install your live "LXDE" and reboot
9 • KDE Plasma 5.12 (by eco2geek on 2018-03-05 07:17:59 GMT from United States)
On KDE's announcement page, there's a video that demonstrates many of the things Jesse talks about, and some that he doesn't. It may help lessen confusion about Plasma 5.12's new features.
For example, it shows how the new "sidebar view" in System Settings automatically expands into two columns, rather than the one column view that Jesse criticizes, when the window is expanded.
Also, as @6 M. Bar notes above, the global menu was really meant to live in a panel, not as a standalone widget. Here's a screenshot of it in action (the main panel's been moved to the top of the screen): (click to embiggen)
https://imgur.com/a/EoTNW
10 • DT- KDE (by Someguy on 2018-03-05 07:31:53 GMT from United Kingdom)
Gave up on KDE over a decade ago on account of bloat. Don't need kitchen sink overlays to get work done. K.I.S.S. and switch to Xfce! Couldn't find a Poll entry -' Don't use KDE' which might've given a useful overall view of where it and its claims lies within the slew of options. Anyone for Openbox?!
11 • KDE 5.12 (by Brenton Horne on 2018-03-05 07:38:52 GMT from Australia)
Must admit I haven't noticed any real difference between KDE 5.12 and previous versions, although that could be because I do not use most of the features that have been added, the only exception being the Wayland session which I have tried quite a few times. They took a while to catch up with GNOME in terms of their Wayland support, though, but now their Wayland session is production ready.
12 • Ecosia web search (by Andy Prough on 2018-03-05 08:11:26 GMT from Asia/Pacific Region)
Jesse - Ecosia web search is disabled by default in the latest version of Firefox, according to Ecosia's FAQ page. To get it to work, you'll have to go into Firefox settings and enable it manually. Apparently, Firefox is changing the way search engines are enabled, in order to overcome the pesky problem of drive-by malware changing the search engine without your approval.
Ecosia does seem relatively quick and gave useful search results in my experiments, and claims to have some degree of privacy focus.
13 • KDE/dolphin green plus sign emblems (by tim on 2018-03-05 08:30:21 GMT from United States)
@3 wondering whether the plus sign emblems you mentioned are was mentioned here:
http://martys.typepad.com/blog/2011/11/the-great-features-of-kde-workspaces-and-applications-part-i-dolphin.html
If so, and they were displayed all the time, for all items... sure sounds like a bug. What's the "must dodge" detail though? Something happens if you just hover mouse cursor over one of the plus signs?
14 • KDE still have the same issues ? (by Fred R on 2018-03-05 09:50:43 GMT from France)
Some of the issues KDE had, and may still have, and prevent me from using it:
- I am using a Synology NAS, with SMB shares, and when I double click on a video on the NAS, it actually download the file on the PC, instead of launching it in Dragon Player
Bug 253547 since KDE 4.5 in 2010... Come on...
- When I press the Super Key (Win$ key) it doesn't launch the K menu. Annoying to be unable to set a shortcut to a Single Key ! I don't like Ctrl+Esc...
- When you want to click on the K menu, you need to click in the icon,but not in the corner of the screen... Means you can't simply drop the arrow in the corner and simpy click. Annoying.
It is sad as some K apps are very good, like Kdenlive, digikam, dolphin, Krita, gwenview...)
15 • Plasma (by Hey Duggee on 2018-03-05 10:20:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
I guess the global menu is the most interesting for me. I ditched KDE about 15 years ago but came back to it in the last 6 months. It was the ability to reduce underused menu bars to a title bar button that appealed to me. Plus I found it a good interface to get down to the minimum (although in the background it's a resource hog, admittedly - I use it on my laptops but servers use arch with no GUIs)
What I'd really like to see is an improvement to notifications. They're too big and there are few customisation options. I'd like to see them appear in a panel with the option to hover over to expand or click to dismiss.
But each to their own. I used to go for the more minimal window managers but the lack of options to deal with menubars made me move. I even used Unity for a while as it's such a big deal for me.
16 • Wayland Support (by KenP on 2018-03-05 10:53:30 GMT from Australia)
KDE's wayland support feels way better than other desktops. On my Dell Precision 5520, I have two external monitors, a full HD and a 4K. On startup, the desktop is scaled correctly without any setup (other than physical placement of screens with respect to each other).
I believe this is a great win for KDE devs!
17 • BSD (by César on 2018-03-05 11:25:50 GMT from Chile)
Saludos.
Well, i think the same of @7 "TuxBSD fan", the great number of BSD are not for newbies, the install process is not easy for users without the acknowledgement, is a lot of steps for configure a basic desktop environment.
Even the Slackware install process is more easy than a tipical BSD (with my own experience, i use every Slackware version since 2003).
But, exist a few exceptions (sure exist more, but i don't taste):
* TrueBSD
* GhostBSD
The last month i install GhostBSD in my old Compaq Presario laptop, the process is very simple, "click & run", only a simple questions is made in the procedure, change the disk format to BSD needs and a few more steps, nothing difficult.
The apps are the same of Linux, but the disk folders are different. And if you are user of Chrome or Opera, for example, only Chromium is in the repos, boy is very unstable, hangs and freeze every time, the most stable browser is Firefox, works without any problem.
The update process is very simple:
For update and upgrade the system:
# pkg update
# pkg upgrade
and this is for update and upgrade the BSD base of the system:
# freebsd-update fetch install
Perhaps the most problematic is the wifi, not working "out of the box" (if you install PCLinuxOS or MInt this is almost automatic), the wiki instructions and the forums are not simple to follow, sometimes you need to recompile the kernel...this is the great problem with my BSD system.
P.D.: Sorry for my bad english, is not my native language.
Saludos desde Santiago de Chile.
18 • KDE & Mini install .isos (by KC1DI on 2018-03-05 11:31:35 GMT from United States)
I'm rather ambivalent to the KDE thing - think the vault is a good Idea, but KDE is not my cup of tea. I do try Neon every once in a while to see where it's going.
I believe Debian give an opportunity for and expert install that you can choose what you want and don't want also. the net install disc it quite small also.
The thing about removing software after installing for a newbie they can get in trouble with this because they sometimes remove dependencies that are needed by the system or other programs and break there systems. Just causes confusion. In my opinion it's better to start small and add rather than start big and remove.
Nice reviews this week -Thanks.
19 • Ecosia (by Jesse on 2018-03-05 13:06:28 GMT from Canada)
@12 "Jesse - Ecosia web search is disabled by default in the latest version of Firefox, according to Ecosia's FAQ page. To get it to work, you'll have to go into Firefox settings and enable it manually. "
The issue I brought up in the review is that Enso claims Ecosia is enabled and available by default. Which suggests they have already set up the search engine in Firefox. However, Ecosia is not only not the default, it is not even available. The steps you outline should already be done, according to the Enso website.
20 • KDE Global Menu (by Christian on 2018-03-05 13:35:43 GMT from Brazil)
I have to try it yet, but while using Unity, I kept the menus on its respective windows... The global menu works better on smaller screens if you keep a top panel and have all your windows maximized (as it will save you some screen space).
What I would really like to see is KDE (or any other DE...) adopting something like Unity's HUD. Now that's a feature (IMO, obviously).
21 • New Plasma features (by Kevin on 2018-03-05 14:18:08 GMT from United States)
The poll should probably include a "none of the above" option. I use dwm. I'm not interested in KDE.
22 • #21 (by jadecat on 2018-03-05 15:35:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
With you on that option Kevin. Although in my case I'm still happily using KDE4 on FreeBSD and Slackware.
23 • Plasma 5.12 (by Bobbie Sellers on 2018-03-05 16:10:24 GMT from United States)
I am using System Settings Version 5.12.2 to work with on my KDE Plasma 5
setup(PCLinuxOS64). Not sure what that equates to in terms of KDE 5.12 LTS.
It is not KDE 4.14.18 still lacking features that many found useful.
I learned more about the so-called improvements in the article than
I have seen from any other source.
I do not run default. I have my own preferred background image, remove
all icons from the desktop and have two task panels/bars and I won't recite
the contents but I use a different Menu icon and put my main tools and
controls on the task panels at the top of the display and to the left, clock and
system tray on the top to the right. This is a rough copy of how I had
my Amiga Workbench setup in the 1990s and early 2000s until I switched
to Mandriva Linux. If you want a look you might try:
<http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,143367.0.html
My screen shot is smaller than the others and features a yellow flower
and transparent task panels.
bliss
24 • New Plasma features (by Alessandro di Roma on 2018-03-05 16:19:18 GMT from Italy)
@21: It's the same for me. I'm happy with XFCE and Xubuntu, and I'm more interested in applications than in GUI frills.
25 • Poll (by dragonmouth on 2018-03-05 16:23:24 GMT from United States)
Where is the NONE option? I,too, like KDE4 better than Plasma.
26 • BSD (by Tim Dowd on 2018-03-05 17:10:54 GMT from United States)
I've really enjoyed my experiences with FreeBSD. I currently use it as a server, but I had it running the MATE desktop for a while and it was fine. It doesn't install much by default, but the flip side to that is that installation is incredibly fast and there's a lot of good packages. Documentation is also really good. I wouldn't say it's a good choice as one's first Unix-like system, but between their wiki and the helpfulness of the community they're pretty good to newcomers who want to use their system.
@7
Not having the same priorities as you doesn't mean that a distro is "stuck in the '90s." These have been productive communities that have contributed a bunch to the open source world. We all owe OpenBSD for openssh
27 • Smart Improvements vs Stagnation (by M.Z. on 2018-03-05 17:27:07 GMT from United States)
@5
"...Bells and whistles get in the way of efficient use of a computer."
I've generally found that KDE has enhanced my computing experience & find that innovation that is well done is rather enriching. That being said, options are good.
@14
"...When you want to click on the K menu, you need to click in the icon,but not in the corner of the screen..."
Doesn't work that way in Mint 18.3 KDE. I can't move the mouse down far enough into the corner to avoid clicking the Menu, unless I set the corner as a hot/active corner.
@3
" I complained about the new green + marks on folders (for some "feature" I've now forgotten) which in practice means that you must dodge the upper left corner of icons. That's not improving my use; indeed, I just QUIT."
Easy to change via opening dolphin & going to 'Settings > Configure Dolphin > General > Show selection marker'. Or, given that I'm sure I've heard that from you before, you could stop making the same old complaint over & over again & acting like it's more cleaver to give up & complain after the fact rather than check a box.
28 • @21, @22, @24, etc (by Ricardo on 2018-03-05 18:13:29 GMT from Argentina)
The option is simply not to vote :)
What's wrong with that?
But even if you don't care about KDE you may still like some of those features.
29 • @14, Plasma issues (by Ricardo on 2018-03-05 18:22:06 GMT from Argentina)
"- I am using a Synology NAS, with SMB shares, and when I double click on a video on the NAS, it actually download the file on the PC, instead of launching it in Dragon Player
Bug 253547 since KDE 4.5 in 2010... Come on..."
This is actively being worked on, I believe that with the latest 5.12.x and VLC for example it's working as intended.
"- When I press the Super Key (Win$ key) it doesn't launch the K menu. Annoying to be unable to set a shortcut to a Single Key ! I don't like Ctrl+Esc..."
Weird, the Super/Win key is actually the default but I found it annoying and desabled it. Maybe your distro is doing the same? (And Ctrl+Esc is actually the process monitor, you surely meant Alt+F1 for the menu).
Check out https://superuser.com/questions/1156130/kde-disable-super-l-windows-key-key-shortcut-as-menu-luncher#1158462
"- When you want to click on the K menu, you need to click in the icon,but not in the corner of the screen... Means you can't simply drop the arrow in the corner and simpy click. Annoying."
Works for me, although I have a vertical panel on the left, with the K menu on the bottom.
Care to try with a different theme, or even another K menu icon?
"It is sad as some K apps are very good, like Kdenlive, digikam, dolphin, Krita, gwenview...)"
Well, no need to use Plasma to enjoy those apps :)
30 • BSD system (by TuxBSD fan on 2018-03-05 18:29:46 GMT from Canada)
@26
I understand your point of view.
I use OpenBSD on my Laptop and l like it for security reasons. Work great every day.
B
ut I remain objective for all standard users. When a BSD project claims to build a Desktop oriented operating system for normal users, You need to have an easy step for installation, configuration system with basic tools such as wifi. The normal user will not spend his time on wiki, open the terminal for simple basic operation.
It's in this sense that I believe many BSD Projects remained in the 1990s.
Many people say they use BSD but many of them use it in Virtualbox for fun.
Sorry, but a Virtual user is not a real user.
I'am a real OpenBSD user on my Laptop
best regard
31 • Ecosia (by gelkxxx on 2018-03-06 03:52:37 GMT from Belgium)
It looks like ecosia is actually not a search engine, but using the Bing of Microsoft. Bing runs on 44% Green Energy and rest nuclear. So Ecosia might not be so Green after all.
32 • KDE Applications (by Winchester on 2018-03-06 10:11:13 GMT from United States)
I have found Nautilus to be the most reliable file manager for copying files without error. 20 GB or less at a time,anyway. More reliable than Dolphin and the others. (Although,I prefer the layout of PCmanFM which,in some versions,allows you to unmount OR eject USB drives as opposed to "eject" only.)
K3B is a very solid GUI program,though. The K-Calc calculator has a nice look and feel to it. I prefer a few KDE applications but,for the most part,I would rather use non-KDE applications with a handful of exceptions. That's part of the reason I have multiple distributions installed.
33 • KDE/Plasma (by Jordan on 2018-03-06 15:11:29 GMT from United States)
I think the whole "bells and whistles" thing can be helpful for those doing the Windows or Mac to Linux transition. Perhaps later in the Linux life of the new user s/he'll come around to seeing that all of that stuff is not necessary and almost in the way of good computer use. Perhaps not, but I do think KDE and even Gnome have been developed over time with that in mind.
I began my Linux life back when KDE seemed like the closest thing to Windows and that was important to me as a newbie.. then learned a bit along the way, so XFCE eventually won.
Never could stand Gnome. ;)
34 • KDE 5.12 (by Kurtbw on 2018-03-06 18:10:14 GMT from United States)
Try running KDE 5.12 LTS under Maui Linux.
Only problem: Maui development is moribund. You will have to install the ISO and go through the update cycles.
I'm running the end result. Stable system, does what I want it to, little fuss or muss. Of course, YMMV.
35 • Plasma improvement (by Voncloft on 2018-03-06 19:09:46 GMT from United States)
Add the "tab" function back to windows where you can group multiple windows as one via tabs like in kde 4.12
36 • poll (by jon on 2018-03-07 01:01:23 GMT from United States)
If a poll solicits liking features with no option for "Don't like any" or "Not applicable" or "No opinion" or "Not interested" then it is NOT a poll, it is a slanted, biased, imprecise survey.
A poll should have pro & con choices that reflect the most likely yes or no opinions, including 'I don't know because I have not downloaded, installed, run, tried, or reviewed the product'.
Over the years I've noticed the polls always seem to be incomplete or unbalanced by yes/no or this/that choices, so the comments often will criticize the lack of choices.
But, I'd rather see a poll that asks for opinions than no poll at all.
37 • KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS (by JeauBleau on 2018-03-07 04:08:23 GMT from United States)
Back in the day KDE was my desktop environment of choice, but they lost me years ago when 4.x was released. I cannot deny that KDE presents a beautiful desktop, and the screen shots of subsequent releases often lured me back to give the next iteration a try, but I was always frustrated by too much mousing around and clicking for me to seriously consider using it as my daily driver. I also would have liked a "none of the above" option for this weeks opinion poll.
38 • Openbox (by Carlos on 2018-03-07 12:26:16 GMT from Portugal)
@10 - "Anyone for Openbox?!"
YES!
Openbox with the tint2 taskbar and thunar file manager.
No need for more.
39 • Desktop environments and also BSDs (by B Stack on 2018-03-07 13:32:28 GMT from United States)
I came from a non-free operating system, and entered the Fedora (through Korora). I found Cinnamon the best DE because it operates in a manner I understood and expected. For my lighter systems, I use XFCE. Really, the only reason I don't switch to xfce entirely is because I like the "Super-left" and similar keystroke behavior of the window manager in Cinnamon, where it will place the current window on the left half of the current screen/display. And then pressing "Super-up" will put the window in the upper, left quadrant of the current display. That's really it for Cinnamon. Otherwise, I'd be using xfce exclusively.
I did try KDE5 Plasma for a few months, but ultimately switched back to Cinnamon. I just didn't need the value-add of KDE. It definitely looks slick, and I don't care too much about GTK vs QT. But as the other big DE along with Gnome itself, KDE takes up too much space, RAM, configuration time, etc., that I just don't want to spend.
I tried TrueOS, but after I installed it the GUI package manager never worked, and I hadn't discovered how to manage packages from the terminal, and I didn't really care for the value-add of Lumina (which is what I tried TrueOS for). It looked a little unpolished, and it didn't seem to be configurable in a manner I was used to or expected.
I then tried FreeBSD, installed xfce, and was impressed that doing it all myself was so much easier than the TrueOS. Maybe I messed up the TrueOS install, but for myself, if I ever want a BSD-based system, I will go straight to FreeBSD and never need to consider TrueOS again.
40 • KDE for root user with nVidia ??? (by curious on 2018-03-07 14:07:16 GMT from Germany)
I'm most interested in the KDE features that are available for users with nVidia graphics cards. That means, NO NEW features anymore (see e.g. DWW747), since Wayland is BROKEN for nVidia. (Don't bother suggesting nouveau - I didn't invest in capable graphics hardware just to not use its capabilities!)
I would also be interested in new features making the file manager usable again for the root user.
41 • Ecosia (by RJA on 2018-03-07 14:42:23 GMT from United States)
@19, I found Ecosia annoying. Unlike DuckDuckGo, Ecosia decided to punish me with a CAPTCHA, IIRC... (or forced me to wait in a RapidShare-like manner)
42 • Priorities In Search (by M.Z. on 2018-03-07 18:57:57 GMT from United States)
@31
"It looks like ecosia is actually not a search engine, but using the Bing of Microsoft. Bing runs on 44% Green Energy and rest nuclear. So Ecosia might not be so Green after all."
Well, that all comes down to a matter of opinion doesn't it? Nuclear energy can be an excellent source of near zero emissions base load energy; however, there are some obvious drawbacks related to long term clean up & storage of waste. Still I've heard environmentally conscious people make decent arguments in favor of nuclear & others make arguments against.
Regardless I'm likely to stay with the privacy focused search engine I know in large part because ecosia admits that they have to give some information over Bing regardless of receiving a 'Do Not Track' header. I suppose it all comes down to your priorities in terms of which search engine you want, but to me privacy is a more connected & immediate issue when it comes to web searches, and of course direct donations would make a far larger impact on environmental causes.
43 • I use KDE for it PIM (by BeGo on 2018-03-08 03:06:38 GMT from Indonesia)
KDE PIM need some support. I use KDE mainly for it PIM.
It compatibility with new mails and social medias are poor. :)
44 • KDE vs. LTS (by Microlinux on 2018-03-08 19:29:50 GMT from France)
Here's what would be nice for KDE : LTS which really means LTS. Ten years... and not ten months or even ten weeks. I'm mainly a KDE user myself, running KDE 4.14 on my workstation with CentOS 7. Maybe some charitable soul could implore the KDE developers to slow down their frantic release cycle. Or eventually publish - on their side - an enterprise class version of their great desktop, maybe with a reduced feature set, but rock-solid. So I don't have a tsunami of new features that have to be potty-trained every six weeks or so.
45 • @44 Re: KDE vs LTS (by Rev_Don on 2018-03-08 23:29:37 GMT from United States)
I hate to tell you this but that concept goes against everything that the Linux environment stands for. Introducing new features that are unstable and don't work correctly are much more important than fixing the bugs in existing releases. If it gets close to stable and functional then you have to screw it up somehow as heaven forbid it actually becomes useful for the masses.
46 • KDE PLASMA 5.11 (by KDE KiDDo on 2018-03-09 15:35:28 GMT from Canada)
I use KDE plasma 5.11 and very much liked it. It's with rich GUI, applications and features.
I found KDE Plasma most elegant DE.
47 • Stable Linux Distros (by M.Z. on 2018-03-09 18:55:55 GMT from United States)
@45
"If it gets close to stable and functional then you have to screw it up somehow..."
I call BS on that. I've run the LMDE version of Mint for some time now & I can tell you that a distro based directly on Debian Stable can be extremely stable & reliable, just as the name implies. There are also some other base distros that prize stability meaning there are other options as well, like Mageia or perhaps something like Debian proper or CentOS if you don't mind the lack of desktop polish of those two. Either way I'd contend that there are options for stable desktop distros that make large portions of their users happy. That being said making distros that work on a large variety of hardware with a lot of different configurations is difficult, so no distro or general purpose OS is going to satisfy everyone.
48 • @47 Re: Stable Linux Distros (by Rev_Don on 2018-03-09 20:40:04 GMT from United States)
I stand by my comments. I have yet to see a distro (and I've tested and used a lot of them) that didn't have a lot of bugs that had been there for several years that the developers knew about and didn't bother addressing. When you call them out about it their response is always the same. They don't have the time or manpower to fix the known bugs. It's funny that they have the time and manpower to introduce some whiz bang new feature though.
49 • KDE (by Frank on 2018-03-10 03:36:48 GMT from United States)
I abandoned KDE after version 3. If I had to use any form of KDE, it would be Trinity, actually.
50 • KDE 3 (by Winchester on 2018-03-11 03:13:11 GMT from United States)
KDE 3 is still in the OpenSUSE Tumbleweed repositories.
It was going to be dropped about a year ago but,someone stepped up and committed to maintain it.
I have it installed on a cheap netbook. Just had to create a file so that it would appear as a session option in the LightDM greeter. It takes some customization much the same as Trinity. For some reason,there is only a "log-out" applet and no "power-off" applet. I have had to power-off via LightDM after logging out ..... until I get around to figuring out how to add a power-off button to the desktop menu and panel.
51 • KDE and sudo (by walter_j on 2018-03-11 16:47:23 GMT from Canada)
Can you explain the reasoning behind kde's changes to dolphin, kate and kwrite so that sudo is nolonger an option to run these applications? It's incredibly annoying. Opensuse patched dolphin, but the latest version doesn't recognize my NIC.
Kubuntu's getting nuked from my drive, and now I need to find a os with a decent file manager that won't impose restrictions on me.
52 • KDE and sudo/root (by Jesse on 2018-03-11 17:18:27 GMT from Canada)
@51 "Can you explain the reasoning behind kde's changes to dolphin, kate and kwrite so that sudo is nolonger an option to run these applications?"
As the Linux ecosystem moves toward Wayland this will become a common thing where no applications will be launched as root. (Wayland does not allow programs to launch with root access.) Applications will instead prompt for a root password when they require elevated access. The idea is that your file manager/text editor/etc will have the lowest access possible and only raise its access to perform specific tasks.
See this page for more info: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1274451
53 • Moving toward Wayland (the Unix way, or the Wear'em-down way?) (by Fairly Reticent on 2018-03-11 22:14:37 GMT from United States)
@52 • "Applications will instead prompt for a root password when they require elevated access." - repeatedly, even when you ARE root, or when they shouldn't need 'root' access? Will there be a way to set up a script or something that includes appropriate clearance(s)?
54 • KDE and root (by walter _j on 2018-03-11 23:53:46 GMT from Canada)
So SU is no longer super user under wayland. Thanks for the warning. That seems like a big shift away from the "roots" of Linux (couldn't resist)
55 • Root/su/sudo desktop applications (by Jesse on 2018-03-12 00:05:21 GMT from Canada)
@53: Whether the program prompts for a password repeatedly or just once will depend on the application, just like it is now when you run programs as regular users.
@54: su and sudo still run programs as the root user, they just won't work for Wayland desktop applications.
Number of Comments: 55
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