 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 758, 9 April 2018 |
Welcome to this year's 15th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Software is constantly changing, new features are added and security holes are patched. Virtually every operating system connected to the Internet will receive a regular stream of new packages in an effort to keep up. All of these changes and upgrades are a problem for administrators who crave reliability and openSUSE is hoping to address that with their new Transactional Updates. These updates should be atomic, reversible and can be managed using the existing openSUSE tools. We have more details on openSUSE's Transactional Updates in our News section. Plus we talk about LibreELEC expanding and looking for help building and testing their many device images. We also report on SUSE Linux Enterprise getting official support on the Raspberry Pi, SparkyLinux reducing the number of editions it provides, and Fedora phasing out Python 2. First though, we turn our attention to a small, UNIX-like operating system called Sortix. The Sortix project may lack some modern features, but it is small, fast and well documented. We have more on this young operating system in our Feature Story. Then, in our Questions and Answers column we talk about where to find collections of portable packages in the popular Flatpak, AppImage and Snap formats. We are also happy to share the releases of the past week and provide a list of the torrents we are seeding. In our Opinion Poll we ask how long you have been running your current operating system. Are you content to stick with one OS for a while or do you prefer to hop around? Whatever your distrohopping style, we wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Sortix 1.0
- News: LibreELEC seeks image builders, SLE supports Raspberry Pi, openSUSE introduces atomic updates, Fedora phasing out Python 2, SparkyLinux streamlining downloads
- Questions and answers: Locating portable packages
- Released last week: OpenBSD 6.3, NixOS 18.03
- Torrent corner: Antergos, feren OS, Live Rasizo, NixOS, OpenBSD, Raspberry Slideshow, SwagArch, SystemRescueCd
- Upcoming releases: SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 RC3
- Opinion poll: How long do you run the same distro?
- New distributions: SoNebuntu, SuperGamer Linux
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Sortix 1.0
Most of the time I review Linux distributions with the occasional trek into BSDland. This week I want to shift gears and focus on a lesser-known branch of the UNIX-like family tree: Sortix. The Sortix operating system began development in 2011 and is made up of a custom kernel and userland tools. The project implements a modern implementation of the POSIX standard without carrying legacy backward compatibility. The project's website states:
Sortix is a small self-hosting operating system aiming to be a clean and modern POSIX implementation. It is a hobbyist operating system written from scratch with its own base system, including kernel and standard library, as well as ports of third party software. It has a straightforward installer and can be developed under itself. Releases come with the source code in /src, ready for tinkering.
Sortix is available in 32-bit and 64-bit builds for x86 systems and the whole operating system (kernel, command line utilities, installer and source code) is available as a single 70MB download. Booting from the downloaded ISO brings up a boot menu where we can choose to start a live session of the OS or launch the project's installer.
Sortix 1.0 -- Exploring the live environment
(full image size: 7kB, resolution: 800x600 pixels)
Taking the live session option boots us to a text console with the Sortix logo displayed at the top of the screen. We are automatically logged in as the root user. A quick look around the command line interface reveals that Sortix includes most of the standard UNIX command line programs such as ls, cat, man and cd. This allows us to navigate the file system, which shares the same layout as most Linux distributions and the BSDs. There is a welcome text file in the root user's home directory which tells us we can run "man installation" to get advice on setting up the operating system on our hard drive. We are also told to run "man user-guide" to get introductory information on navigating and using Sortix.
The Sortix shell looks and acts like the Bash shell and accepts control characters such as Ctrl-C to terminate a process and Ctrl-L to clear the screen. We can use the up/down arrows to access our past command line history.
Installing
Sortix's installer can be accessed through the boot menu or by running sysinstall from the live environment. The installer's steps are outlined in a manual page and in the on-line documentation. The installer is text-based and begins by warning us of some of Sortix's shortcomings. For example, Sortix features file system permissions, but they are not enforced and user programs can gain root access by calling certain functions. In other words, Sortix has several features, but still lacks security and people should not run it on multi-user systems.
Sortix 1.0 -- The system installer
(full image size: 14kB, resolution: 800x600 pixels)
The installer walks us through selecting a keyboard layout and screen resolution. We can choose where to install the GRUB boot loader and then the installer runs a command line partition manager called Disk Editor (disked).
Disk Editor has some good points and some rough edges. For example, I like that typing "man" in Disk Editor opens its manual page so we can learn how to use its options. I think that is a great feature. However, I found Disk Editor does not recognize partition or device names and we need to reference partitions by their index in Disk Editor. This means if we have three partitions (ata0p1, ata0p2 and ata0p3) we must refer to ata0p2 as "2" and not "ata0p2" because it is the second one in the list.
At first Disk Editor did not know how to work with the ext2 partition I had set up ahead of time and I had to delete it and create a new partition using Disk Editor and assign it a mount point. After that the installer copied its files to the hard drive, a process which took approximately 15 seconds. Then we can set a password for the root account and, optionally, create more user accounts on the new system. The installer then finishes and we can exit our shell to reboot into our new copy of Sortix. The live system does not recognize commands like "reboot" or "halt".
Early impressions
The first time I installed Sortix the system failed to boot or even display the boot loader screen. I went through the installer again and, the second time through, I ended up with a working system. As far as I know I applied all the same configuration options during both attempts.
Sortix 1.0 -- The login screen
(full image size: 4kB, resolution: 800x600 pixels)
Sortix takes about one second to get from the GRUB boot loader to a graphical login screen. It's an impressive feat and, when shutting down, the operating system halts in about one second as well. From the login screen we can sign into a user account which will present us with a command line interface. We can also try to login using the names "reboot" or "poweroff" to shutdown the operating system. These power management account names do not require a password.
Sortix runs very quickly, completing most simple commands almost instantly. If we do not look closely, working from the Sortix command line feels a lot like using Bash on a Linux distribution or one of the BSDs. It was only when I looked closely at a command's output or tried to run a program that was not available on Sortix yet that I was reminded I was running a young, hobbyist system.
Sortix 1.0 -- Playing Asteroids
(full image size: 26kB, resolution: 800x600 pixels)
One of the big missing features at the moment is, unfortunately, network support. Sortix has a lot of command line tools, a working shell, manual pages for most commands and even some graphical programs (including a copy of the Asteroids arcade game), but the operating system cannot connect to networks. This means we can test POSIX tools, compile software and explore the source code of this small operating system, but we cannot browse the web, exchange files or check e-mail.
Hardware
Sortix is a light operating system. A fresh install only uses about 476MB of disk space and 25MB of RAM. It runs very quickly, but the flip side to that is Sortix uses 100% of the CPU the whole time it is running. The kernel does not yet know how to scale back its CPU usage.
Sortix 1.0 -- Testing the graphics with spinning gears demo
(full image size: 19kB, resolution: 800x600 pixels)
There are some other limitations, for instance Sortix does not yet have USB support. This means, unless we are running quite old equipment, it will probably be difficult to use a keyboard or mouse. These issues can be side-stepped by running Sortix in a virtual machine.
Other observations
One thing which pleasantly surprised me about Sortix is the operating system is well documented. It looks as though the main developer has written all new manual pages for each home grown program (some GNU programs were imported with their own manuals) and they are generally easy to read. The manual page for Sortix's text editor is a particularly good example. Open source projects are notorious for not including useful manual pages and I was happy to see Sortix not only includes documentation but the text is presented in a way that someone who has not written their own operating system from scratch can understand.
Speaking of developing an operating system from scratch, Sortix may not yet be a practical system to use day-to-day, but it does come with a complete set of source code. This means we can explore how the kernel and utilities were put together without downloading anything new. all system source code is kept in the /src directory. A compiler and related build tools are included too in case we want to try our hand at editing and building some of the source code.
Sortix 1.0 -- Testing the compiler
(full image size: 5kB, resolution: 800x600 pixels)
Sortix was entirely stable during my time using it. I only spent a couple of days playing with the system in my spare time, but I never saw the operating system lock up, glitch or a program crash. For a one-person effort, the focus on having stable, working code impressed me.
Conclusions
Sortix is a relatively new project, less than a third the age of Linux, and appears to be mostly a one-person development project. To me, this makes the progress made so far amazing. The system has a working installer and partition manager, it works with multiple file systems, has a working collection of ported GNU tools and can run graphical games. It's quite a feat of coding to get all of this working in so short a time. What really impressed me though was that the operating system's documentation (exploring what it does, what it does not yet do and how the pieces work) is clear and up to date. In that regard a lot of other open source projects could follow Sortix's example.
Unfortunately, at this time, Sortix is not a practical operating system for most scenarios. We can test it, develop code on the platform and learn from its design, but Sortix lacks networking, multi-user security and a working desktop environment. This makes the project more of a developer playground than a system for end users to run. Still, in the realm of a personal hobby project, Sortix is one of the coolest creations I have seen in a while.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
LibreELEC seeks image builders, SLE supports Raspberry Pi, openSUSE introduces atomic updates, Fedora phasing out Python 2, SparkyLinux streamlining downloads
The LibreELEC project is growing and supporting a wider range of devices. With this expansion comes the need to build and test a larger number of installation images. As a result, the project is looking for help in maintaining its expanding collection of images. "The project needs help. We would like to start releasing new images for a number of Amlogic and Rockchip devices including long talked-about (and needed) generic catch-all images, but this has a major impact on project resources. LE 7.0 released 8x images, LE 8.0/8.2 has 11x images, and LE 9.0 increases output to 22x images with another increase on the horizon once Allwinner support becomes possible and NXP (iMX) support is re-added. Increased output impacts our build server/slave capacity and requires us to rethink how our images are tested. It also affects our human resources." Information on the resources the project is looking for to help expand its support can be found in this blog post.
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The Raspberry Pi computer may have got its start in hobbyist and educational environments, but its low cost and low energy consumption have made it popular in other areas. This has led some organizations to seek commercial support for operating systems running on the Raspberry Pi. SUSE is now offering official support for SUSE Linux Enterprise on Raspberry Pi boards. "When SUSE created a Raspberry Pi image for SUSECon in 2016, there was a tremendous amount of interest. We saw thousands of downloads in just the first few days. Many people asked, 'When are you going to offer real support for the Raspberry Pi?' The answer is: now! Increasing customer demand drove our decision to offer commercial support for the Raspberry Pi to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for ARM (SLES for ARM). A number of large companies decided to use Raspberry Pi based monitoring solutions in their industrial manufacturing operations." More information on SUSE's support for their Pi images can be found in the company's announcement.
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The openSUSE developers are looking at ways to make software updates smoother and less likely to break existing functionality. This is especially important on servers where administrators need their operating system to be reliable, but may also need to apply regular security fixes. openSUSE's approach to fixing this problem is called Transactional Updates and it allows new updates to be installed in a separate file system snapshot which can be activated when the computer reboots and rolled back if anything goes wrong. "Under the hood, we have worked hard to keep Transactional Updates simple. We are utilising the same Btrfs, Snapper, and Zypper technologies we know and trust by default in openSUSE and SLE. At its heart, Transactional Updates does something very similar to our traditional snapshots with rollback. But with Transactional Updates it never touches the running system. Instead of patching the current system, the transactional-update tool creates a new, empty, snapshot. All of the operations required by the update are carried out into that snapshot, ensuring the current system is untouched with no changes impacting the running system. At the end of the update, assuming the update is successful, this completed snapshot is marked as the new default. These updates then take effect when the system is rebooted." The announcement also mentions openSUSE 15 will offer an optional read-only root file system than can be updated with the transactional-update tool.
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The Python scripting language, which is popular for its relatively clear syntax and many convenient libraries, is roughly divided into two dialects - Python 2 and Python 3. While the two dialects are very similar, there are differences which make it tricky to upgrade older Python 2 code to Python 3. This may soon be a problem because Python 2 will no longer be supported by its developers after the year 2020. Linux distributions have known this for a while and have been trying to get Python packages all migrated to Python 3 in time. However, a lot of work remains to be done and distribution maintainers are wondering what to do about it. Fedora still has over 3,000 packages depending on Python 2 and there is some debate as to how to best handle the situation. Jake Edge has a deeper look into the situation and potential solutions in this LWN article.
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The SparkyLinux project is well known for having many editions and multiple development branches, providing potential users with over a dozen different download options. According to a post on the SparkyLinux website, the distribution is about to be streamlined. "I have to cut the ISO numbers down and focus on one, main point of Sparky view/core. The point was and still is Openbox. So, to conclude and make it clean and straight: 1. From now, only one main, Openbox based desktop: LXQt (rolling) or LXDE (stable). 2. MinimalGUI (Openbox)/MinimalCLI (text based) lets you install your favorite desktop with a small set of apps, as before. 3. Special Editions with no changes (so far) with Openbox, as before. It lets me find a little more time to make and focus on new Sparky releases better than before."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Locating portable packages
Searching-for-a-package-that-works-everywhere asks: Portable applications are getting talked about a lot, but where can we find them? I can't just do a "apt-get install Flatpak-app" to get Flatpak apps. Where can I go to find Snaps and Flatpaks?
DistroWatch answers: Depending on which distribution you are running, Snaps and/or Flatpak packages may be accessible through your distribution's software manager. Recent versions of Linux distributions which use GNOME Software or mintInstall typically already support downloading Flatpak packages or Snaps from within the software manager, which makes finding and installing portable packages quite easy.
Applications which offer their users AppImages or other portable packages usually list them on the upstream project's download page. The Krita and the QupZilla projects provide links to their AppImage packages, for example.
However, if you are browsing without knowing exactly what you are looking for, then there are resources available for getting an overview of available portable packages. People looking for Snap packages can use their distribution's snap command line utility. For instance, running "snap find media" will bring up a list of multimedia Snap packages such as VLC and MPV.
People who wish to browse available Flatpak packages can check out an on-line repository located at Flathub. Flathub collects Flatpak packages and provides click-to-download and command line instructions for installing the applications in the Flathub repository.
Users who want to find AppImage packages can use a similar resource called AppImageHub. The AppImageHub website lists applications in alphabetical order with an accompanying description. The AppImage packages can be downloaded with just a couple of clicks.
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More answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
OpenBSD 6.3
OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system with a focus on correct code and accurate documentation. The project has released OpenBSD 6.3 which introduces SMP support on the ARM64 architecture, includes ISO support in the virtual machine daemon (vmd) and makes memory allocation more efficient. There have also been several updates to the LibreSSL and OpenSSH secure communication tools: "LibreSSL 2.7.2 - Added support for many OpenSSL 1.0.2 and 1.1 APIs, based on observations of real-world usage in applications. These are implemented in parallel with existing OpenSSL 1.0.1 APIs - visibility changes have not been made to existing structs, allowing code written for older OpenSSL APIs to continue working. Extensive corrections, improvements, and additions to the API documentation, including new public APIs from OpenSSL that had no pre-existing documentation. Added support for automatic library initialization in libcrypto, libssl, and libtls. Support for pthread_once or a compatible equivalent is now required of the target operating system. As a side-effect, minimum Windows support is Vista or higher." The release announcement has more information.
NixOS 18.03
NixOS is an independently developed Linux distribution which is configured and managed using the Nix package manager. The NixOS project has released a new version, NixOS 18.03, which includes version 2.0 of the Nix package manager minor upgrades to the GNOME and KDE Plasma desktops along with several new services. "In addition to numerous new and upgraded packages, this release has the following highlights: End of support is planned for end of October 2018, handing over to 18.09. Platform support: x86_64-linux and x86_64-darwin since release time (the latter isn't NixOS, really). Binaries for aarch64-linux are available, but no channel exists yet, as it's waiting for some test fixes, etc. Nix now defaults to 2.0; see its release notes. Core version changes: Linux: 4.9 to 4.14, glibc: 2.25 to 2.26, gcc: 6 to 7, systemd: 234 to 237. Desktop version changes: GNOME: 3.24 to 3.26, (KDE) Plasma Desktop: 5.10 to 5.12. MariaDB 10.2, updated from 10.1, is now the default MySQL implementation. While upgrading a few changes have been made to the infrastructure involved." Further information can be found in the distribution's release notes. NixOS is available in a full Graphical edition running KDE Plasma and a Minimal edition which features a command line interface.
NixOS 18.03 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 626kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 800
- Total data uploaded: 18.9TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
How long have you been running the same distro?
The Linux ecosystem is full of diversity with many options to choose from. Some people like to take advantage of this variety, switching distributions and trying different technologies on a regular basis. Others prefer to settle into using one distro for long periods of time. This week we would like to find out how long you have been running your current distribution.
You can see the results of our previous poll on learning Linux from books in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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How long have you been running the same distro?
| Less than a week: | 58 (2%) |
| Between a week and a month: | 132 (4%) |
| Between one and six months: | 329 (10%) |
| Six months to a year: | 358 (11%) |
| More than a year: | 1171 (37%) |
| More than five years: | 1084 (34%) |
| I am not running a Linux distro: | 58 (2%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Distributions added to waiting list
- SoNebuntu. SoNebuntu is Linux Distribution based on Ubuntu 16.04. SoNebuntu contains useful tools for a Social Network Analyzer (SNA) and Information Collector. Beside, it has development environment for building apps for SNA and tools needed for researchers.
- SuperGamer Linux. SuperGamer Linux is a spiritual successor to SuperGamer. While the original SuperGamer was based on VectorLinux and featured open source games exclusively, the new project is based on Ubuntu and features gaming options from GOG and Steam.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 16 April 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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| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Debian (by chris on 2018-04-09 00:21:29 GMT from United States)
Debian since Potato, so 18 years. Currently on Debian 8, probably upgrade to 9 next year.
2 • Is april fools' day today? (by sofiasmith on 2018-04-09 00:36:27 GMT from Spain)
Sortix? No X. No Desktop Environment. No Network. No Browsers. No updates. No ...No...No to everything.
What the hell are you doing testing this "distro", Jesse?
Of course is very stable. Fedora rawhide or Arch testing or Debian sid will be also very stable without X, DE, and without any updates.
3 • Opinion Poll (by Jadecat on 2018-04-09 00:40:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've been using Slackware longer than I care to remember.
4 • more t a year (by Fantomas on 2018-04-09 00:46:57 GMT from France)
There has been Distros I have Installed, and have departed from them the same week.Some Distros are nice, but end up disappearing or not being worked on, like Distroastro for expl. But mostly
I am happy using Debian based and Ubu based Distros, for more than a year.
Thank you and Greetings to all.
5 • Same Distro (by linuxista on 2018-04-09 00:51:52 GMT from United States)
Not just same distro, but same Arch install for 6 years.
6 • Sortix, etc (by eye_of_man on 2018-04-09 00:52:02 GMT from United States)
Personally, I rather enjoyed Jesse's review of Sortix, a project of which I was previously unaware. It may not seem like much compared to Linux or BSD today, but given enough time, who knows? Keep up the good work Jesse.
Also regarding the poll question, I've been using MX Linux for a couple of years now, and I've never been more pleased with an operating system than the current release of MX-17.
7 • re how long have you been using the same distro (by EarlyBird on 2018-04-09 00:52:23 GMT from Canada)
Slackware since 1996; currently on 14.2 with all updates. Do use other distros, but always have one system with this solid, stable, conservative, and reliable workhorse. Had actually been looking at this earlier (when Ygdrasill was still around), but 1996 was the point I had enough experience to make it a mainstay, with Windows relegated to "the other box". One of the things that helped in the transition, was the availability of Applixware as a serious (for my purposes at least) office suite. If I recall correctly, that might have been "spun-off" as Star Office, later to to evolve into OpenOffice and now Libre Office.
Also Like SalixOS, Absolute, Zenwalk, Puppy-Slacko, etc.
8 • How long have you been running the same distro? (by jwjones on 2018-04-09 01:06:17 GMT from United States)
I've been running Slackware for many years until just recently, and I'm now also running Gentoo, mostly to achieve finer-grained control via USE flags to avoid such things as pulseaudio, gnome, openssl, etc.
9 • Using the same distro (by M.Z. on 2018-04-09 01:09:30 GMT from United States)
I've been running the same copy LMDE 2 on my laptop since it came out in 2015, so I put 1 year+; however, I did just install a couple of new distros on a newly refurbished desktop this week & I plan to put another 3-4 there in the next few weeks. My longest run was with PCLinuxOS on the hardware I just did the work on & that was close to six years, though I may have been running KDE4 beyond the recommended EOL(end of life) on that one.
10 • How Long using the same distro (by TuxRaider on 2018-04-09 01:09:59 GMT from United States)
generally i am a slackware or slackware for user (absolute or salix) or non-systemd debian fork user (antiX) but since i bought a new PC and i been distro hopping trying to find something that runs decently on it, even debian stable or slackware-14.2 wont run on it because the hardware is too new, but antix-17.1 seems to do good on it, i am looking forward to slackware-15 to see how it runs on it, and by next summer i will wipe windows-10 off it and run strictly Linux on it, (keeping windows just in case an update breaks linux, i trust linux its just that i dont trust this new hardware yet, but i am confident Linux will support it better soon
11 • Opinion Poll (by Bushpilot on 2018-04-09 01:10:26 GMT from France)
I have been running Debian since Ver 6. I run many other Distro's but have found nothing as stable as Debian so far. Very impressed with Arch distor like Antergo and Namib.
12 • Poll (by DaveW on 2018-04-09 01:11:16 GMT from United States)
Compared to some, I'm a short-timer, but Linux Mint has been my primary OS since Mint 11 Katya. That's nearly 7 years. I'm now running Mint 18.3 Sylvia on my main machine. However, Katya is still installed and running on one of my old machines.
13 • same distro (by MikeOh Shark on 2018-04-09 01:12:55 GMT from France)
I have been using the same LTS Linux Mint for more than five years. It's now out of support but I haven't been able to get the new install set up with all my required apps. The problem is the switch to systemd. Some programs don't reliably start or don't restart on failure. As soon as I can get dnscrypt and dnsmasq both working well in Mint 18.3, I will be back to a supported version.
14 • How Long using the same distro (by mandog on 2018-04-09 01:19:38 GMT from Peru)
Arch Linux since 1995 reinstalled just once due to HD failing.
But allway like to play with others Arch always wins hands down.
15 • same distro question (by albinard on 2018-04-09 02:17:08 GMT from United States)
Installed Ubuntu 8.10 just 9 years ago this month, and have had at least one K/L/Xubuntu running ever since, with side-trips to Fedora, Suse, TinyCore, DamnSmall, Puppy, MX, antiX, Arch, and of course Debian. Fond memories of the original Mepis as well.
Current favorite is Xubuntu Core plus my choice of software (differing by the day), with two instances of 16.04 and one 18.04 Beta 2.
16 • re: How long using the same distro (by manuel garcia de madrid on 2018-04-09 02:27:09 GMT from Spain)
@14 mandog from Peru.
Judd Vinet start Arch Linux on March 2002. In 1995 Judd was 14 years old.
17 • How long have you been running the same distro? (by Jeau Bleau on 2018-04-09 02:32:07 GMT from United States)
To make a long story short, 10 years. To make a short story long...
I was perfectly happy to run Microsoft Windows XP until around 2007~2008, when I became incensed by their seemingly constant Windows Genuine Advantage checks...for my own benefit, of course. Yeah, right. It felt more like an insult than an assurance of quality.
I tried Windows Vista briefly, and it eventually pushed me over the edge. That was when I decided that if I was going to have to learn an effectively new operating system, then I was going to learn a NEW operating system: Linux.
I tried a few different distros: some lasted less than a day on my system and others a few weeks. Eventually, I settled on Linux Mint (Elyssa at the time), and I've been using subsequent iterations ever since.
18 • How long has the current distribution been running (by Bobbie Sellers on 2018-04-09 02:44:24 GMT from United States)
Hey!
I have been running Mandriva or its forks for about 12 years now with
the use of other distros under GNU/Linux for investigation or utility.
Mandriva until 2011 which failed to be usable on my system, Compaq Presario
PCLinuxOS for about 2 years on the same hardware,
New hardware(HP Presario) ran Mageia for a year or two,then back to
PCLinuxOS in 2016 when it caught up with UEFI and GPT.
Same install here as on the old HP but Windows 8.1 of course won't run
on my Dell E6520. Maybe I will put PCLinuxOS64 Mate on that
partition to show to LUG members. My regular system is KDE's pretty
Plasma 5 but I would be on 4.14.18 if I had my druthers
Other stuff I have used have been Knoppix but I did not care for the
Debian install you get out of it. Debian Educational version at 9.1
using KDE was pretty nice but not nice enough to part me from
my Mandriva forks with the draxtools under MCC interface.
I have tried out a lot of systems running KDE's Plasma 5 hoping to
see the things I liked under Plasma 4.14.18 or better under 3.5.9!
Included in the list have been Kubuntu, Neon, and Open Mandriva
which in my opinion has left the true Path of Mandrake. &;^=} ]
bliss
19 • How long using same distro? (by rich52 on 2018-04-09 02:49:51 GMT from United States)
I've been using Manjaro Linux now for about 3 years. Getting better with time. Before I've tried most all of the others. . . i.e. (Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu, OpenSuse, PClinuxOS , Mandriva, etc. etc. etc. . . . ;)
20 • Distro life (by Gary W on 2018-04-09 02:55:54 GMT from Australia)
I've been using antix and MX, far and away the best of the non-systemd distros, on my last new hardware for about 2 1/2 years.
On my next new hardware I have Ubuntu MATE beta, over a month or so, for its much-improved HiDPI support (with which XFCE is underwhelming).
As soon as MATE 1.20 appears in a non-systemd distro (probably MX18 or PCLinuxOS), I'm there!
21 • Flatpak .... still not ready? (by mikef90000 on 2018-04-09 03:23:10 GMT from United States)
I've been looking forward to flatpak support in Mint 18.3 but, for reasons unknown, that section is grayed out in the Mint installer. Followed the cmd line instructions on flathub.org and things started out ........... very slowly ........... followed by different timeout errors for some referenced packages.
Not sure if it is a flathub repo issue, but it is ungawdly Slow kinda like ........ Windows 10 Update Slow - ouch !!
22 • Poll question... (by distro-addict on 2018-04-09 03:27:34 GMT from United States)
I didn't vote, as I couldn't figure out a way to fit my experience into one of the narrowly constructed slots.
I guess I've been running an Ubuntu install of some sort since 8.04, a Mint since shortly thereafter, so there are those. But then there's also Red Hat/Fedora and SUSE/openSUSE, both of which I I monkeyed around with starting in the late 90's and have generally had installed since I ditched Microsoft and became a full-on Linux zealot 8-9 years ago. I spent 4-5 years with Debian stable as my daily driver, so maybe that's my longest and deepest immersion in terms of hours of use, but I moved from there to Gentoo a couple years ago, which I find to be the ultimate in aesthetics (Plasma) and utility/convenience. Plus I've had Arch and Slackware installs going steadily for 4-5 years now, and intermittently prior to that.
Sure, I'm nuts, but I've always liked having several (dozen) distros installed. One goes wacky for a week or two (until updates inevitably sort things out)? Pick another, use separate drives for storage, etc. Yes, I'm a distro-addict, but there's a method to my madness.
23 • obscure distributions (by tim on 2018-04-09 04:12:08 GMT from United States)
@2 a short while ago, via the DW poll, 22% of us indicated interest in reading about obscure distros. So it's April, and I'm a happy fool, and wish you peace during this joyous time of year.
https://distrowatch.com/polls.php?poll=80
24 • Poll - length of time with same distro (by TheTKS on 2018-04-09 04:38:31 GMT from Canada)
I picked 6 months to a year, because I am using distros I expect to stick with, but have only been using Linux for about a year and a half.
In five years, my answer will probably be 5 years or more, as a user of home desktop Linux (and maybe BSD) who likes to tinker.
I started with *buntus on a 10-year old machine. Once comfortable with that, I gave Windows the heave-ho (was XP, but while this machine could run Win 7, it will never see Win again.)
Early on did a lot of distrohopping, some live dvd only, some installed for hours to days.
I've settled down, but am still running more than one distro and still check out others from time to time.
Expect to grab new LTS/stable releases of the same distros I'm using now, as soon as they're available. So far, I haven't run anything rolling release.
Xubuntu LTS has been my main distro, and I expect to stick with the newest LTS indefinitely, although might try Ubuntu on a new machine once 18.04 comes out.
Have been running elementary, and Puppies tahr/xenial and Slacko, about as long as Xubuntu
Tiny Core almost as long but much less often, so check for a new release each time I use it, and I've missed at least one.
About half a year ago I started using Slackware stable, and I think I may be evolving into a Slacker. I still use Xubuntu more, but less and less while using Slackware more and more.
Playing with Kubuntu LTS, liking their rendition of KDE Plasma with the package availability and ease of use of Ubuntu. But if the next Slackware stable has KDE Plasma, Kubuntu will probably go.
Experimenting with OpenBSD with Xfce in a VB. If it works out, I will probably install it alone on one machine, but will have to decide whether I'll run release or stable.
TKS
25 • flatpaks in mint (by M.Z. on 2018-04-09 05:03:30 GMT from United States)
@21
The flatpak setup in the Mint software manager works fine for me in Mint KDE 18.3. I've been playing games & had a few other bits of software installed since around the time I upgraded to 18.3 without any issues. I've also noticed that the programs seem to get automatic updates by default, so everything is working as advertised for me. It would be nice to get some more software options, but it is very easy to use flatpaks & it's been trouble free for me. I think they are really on to something. Sorry to hear it isn't working for everyone.
26 • Poll question (by Lupus on 2018-04-09 07:46:32 GMT from Germany)
I run Solus now on nearly all my machines for over 6 Months hence my polling answer 6 Months-1 Year.
Manjaro and Ubuntu are installed and running for the same period cause those machines do what they are supposed to do and I tend to not change a runnning system.
Got turned away from Windows when Vista arrived cause it was an abomination. Have to say that Windows 10 which I have to use professionally could have technically won me back if it wasn't for privacy and security issues.
27 • User Poll (by Alexander Dumas on 2018-04-09 07:49:37 GMT from Australia)
@8 I am the same, Slackware and Gentoo for many years. Although I am getting lazy, I use Calculate Linux as my Gentoo machine now...
Isn't it amazing how many Slackware users responded to this question? Is there a reason for that I wonder?
28 • @27 why Slackware? (by Simon on 2018-04-09 08:37:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
From my recollection, installing Slackware is a long and cumbersome process. It stands to reason that people who complete that process will not want to revisit it too soon. Hence Slackware users tend to stick longer with their installation rather than risk a re-install. Or so I presume.
(Slackware 10 was my first introduction to Linux back in 2004. Took me around 6 months before I could even get a DE up and running after digging up the obscure startx command. Never got the modem to work. Later in 2005 I installed MEPIS, one of the first 'live' distros, borrowing that capacity from Knoppix. After many hours of command line torture I got connected to the Internet. I danced around the room. Linux, with an Internet connection. Amazing!)
29 • User Poll (by tdockery97 on 2018-04-09 09:06:14 GMT from United States)
I've been using Linux Mint for 8 years, beginning in January 2010. I've used all flavors, my favorite being KDE. Since Mint has decided to drop the KDE version I've switched to Cinnamon because the Mint distro is more important to me than the desktop environment I'm using.
30 • #28 (by Jadecat on 2018-04-09 09:47:53 GMT from United Kingdom)
Slackware doesn't take that long to install. What is time consuming is compiling applications.
31 • QupZilla (by Jim on 2018-04-09 10:04:41 GMT from United States)
QupZilla is now deprecated as it has been folded into the KDE project as Falkon. Just a heads up - that's not a good AppImage to install.
32 • Years with distro (by Romane on 2018-04-09 10:41:58 GMT from Australia)
Debian testing, since Lenny became testing.
33 • User Poll (by Lee on 2018-04-09 10:56:35 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu 16.04 since ... umm 04 of 2016
34 • RE: 28 why Slackware (by TuxRaider on 2018-04-09 11:08:05 GMT from United States)
slackware is easy to install, try installing gentoo or crux if you want to see what a long winded & tedius install of a distro is
35 • @30 -- Slackware: you could use Slackel instead (by Hoos on 2018-04-09 11:15:41 GMT from Singapore)
It has a good GUI installer and is based on Slackware current + Salix.
Packages can be installed via terminal or gslapt package manager from repositories of the above 2.
36 • Poll (by Val on 2018-04-09 11:49:19 GMT from Canada)
Ubuntu Mate for 4 yrs, before that Mint for about 4yrs. Mate is still the best DE, stable, easy to configure, and looks great.
37 • #35 (by Jadecat on 2018-04-09 12:29:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
Yes thank you, however, I personally don't mind the long way round.
38 • Slackware vs Gentoo install (by Daniels. Stormy Daniels. on 2018-04-09 12:54:57 GMT from United States)
(I feel this descending into a religious war again)
Its been a long time since I've installed a Slack. It is a bit longer than most modern installs, as I recall, but not painfully so.
The Gentoo install is really long, according to others I've heard from who have installed it. I haven't myself. Those who have, reported an install of over 24 hours. That's because almost everything is compiled from scratch on your hardware. Yes, its inordinately long, but compiling from scratch has definite security and speed advantages. It depends on where your interests lie.
As with most things, pick the best tool for your job.
39 • some of these distro claims are questionable (by Matt on 2018-04-09 13:27:26 GMT from United States)
Someone has been using Arch Linux since 1995? Hmmm. I've been using Linux since 2001 and I don't recall a lot of these distributions existing back then.
For me, I've tried many over the years and finally settled on Debian stable + backports. I've learned that it is better to have a stable foundation than to constantly be fixing things and then breaking them again.
40 • Poll (by seacat on 2018-04-09 13:36:07 GMT from Argentina)
Life is circular. I began with Corel Linux based in Debian. When died, I changed to Zenwalk. After that, Salix. And finally, I returned to Debian through Sparkylinux and now by need, Ubuntu LTS (MATE). In 2007 I used a very excellent debian-based distro, Dreamlinux. The pity was that only version 2.2 was perfect. Subsequent versions had a lot of problems and finally distro died. Snif, snif...
41 • distro (by wally on 2018-04-09 13:37:58 GMT from United States)
Debian - 15 years, although I also run a number of other distros regularly, but Debian is the one all my 'real' work is done on.
42 • Poll (by seacat on 2018-04-09 13:41:17 GMT from Argentina)
@41 Ufff, bad day to leave the glue... Between Corel Linux and Zenwalk, I used Mandrake Linux
43 • SuperGamer Linux (by Lilith Valentine on 2018-04-09 14:05:45 GMT from United States)
SuperGamer Linux is one of the worst looking Linux distros I have ever seen. It looks like a 15 year old made it in one night and the fact that the screenshots are done in a VM says a lot about the distro. The fact that they didn't even edit out the VM window just shows the poor quality this distro is going to have. I am gonna test it out later because I need to experience this in person.
44 • Distro Poll (by Garon on 2018-04-09 14:28:06 GMT from United States)
I started out with Knoppix and then went to Ubuntu 5.04 and pretty much have stayed with Ubuntu. My fondest memories are of Mepis Linux. Not only the distro but the community as well was A1 in my book. I really miss them both.
45 • Suggestion for new OpinionP. Question (by Fantomas on 2018-04-09 14:40:30 GMT from France)
SUGGESTION;
Wanted to suggest to Distrow. New Question to the Opinion P. And that is: What Distro do you help Installing to your friends PC. What Distro of Linux you show them, for Dual-booting at first, so nobody starts to panic. Or if possible to dedicate just another PC, only for Linux,Would be the best option.
And I would divide the question, depending on who the User is, that becomes the Distro.
Like somebody who does not know nothing about PC, but is using it for basic stuff, and some User that knows the basics, like knowing how to get to the BIOS...Exampl. And is willing to learn, more under Linux. Then after clarifying this;
MY PERSONAL ANSWER-OPINION;
My answer would be, for the very very basic user who does not or has no time and wants only the basic stuff, would be:
1) Linux Mint Cinnamon, latest version
2) Kubuntu KDE, latest version
3) Manjaro Xfce, only from the version 17.1.7
4) Peppermint OS 8, latest version
I must admit in the Distros I have named here, the only thing I do not like is systemD.
Perhaps for Students at Universities that do Robotics, I would suggest the latest version of Ubuntu,
for mainly work from the Terminal. (Ubuntu is to clunky in the GUI)
FAST GROING USER-READY FOR COUNTDOWN AND TAKE OFF TO D.HOPP;
My answer would be, for the user I might think , he or she is willing to learn and will grow up quick, I would still suggest the same Distros I named above, and I would Add, my most favorite, non systemd, and that is MX-17.1 to the list. Great Workhorse.
BOOTING TIME;
Also I must add. It is also great to demonstrate any linux Distribution to friends, that is booting up,
fast, and not slower as Win10, for example. Linux Mint was not that case in the past. Looks like they, have picked up in the latest version as I am writing this – 18.3 – and So I have come back to
Mint again and am testing it for my Friend, the Cinnamon version, and so far, for the basic stuff I am very pleased, and am going to install it as my Nr.1 from the list, for my Friend.
SOME END WORDS OF THIS ROMAN;
This is my suggestion. Would love to see this in the Opinion P. Some time.
It is like some Appetizer to Reader Comments, as I start in a way, reading the Comments the same way, some people going to the Movie Theater, watching Movies. Except, this is by far better then
Movies...Because I am never late on here and the Movie on Distrowatch keeps playing and playing, and all I need to add is maybe just, to get some Popcorn ready or French fries. Or any fries..
Fantastic !
Todays Opinion P. Movie I have answered under 4. And I keep enjoying the Movie as it Reads on.
Sorry for my Grammar. I am hibernating under some Rock and wake up from time to time, just to check, if the English Language is still around..And then I add my version to it.
Thank you all, and thank you Distrowatch.
46 • How long using same distro? (by Saleem Khan on 2018-04-09 14:44:18 GMT from Pakistan)
Arch Linux , same installation back from 2009 .
47 • How long? (by jeffrydada on 2018-04-09 14:51:33 GMT from United States)
Like I've seen others post I have a "stable" os that runs for a long time. In my recording Studo that would be Peppermint with KX Studios repos added currently at 2 years. My laptop however is a revolving triple boot door. Currently running Fedora 28 beta, Backslash, and the latest Bluestar build. I also run gnome-boxes as VM to test all the new stuff Distrowatch posts!!
48 • Slackware, Gentoo, other distros - ease of installation, set up and use (by TheTKS on 2018-04-09 15:28:27 GMT from United States)
@27 28 30 35 38
Someone put it very well on Distrowatch once: with Slackware the complexity is available if you want it, but by no means do you have to take it.
I didn't find the Slackware 14.2 default installation hard, nor did it take long vs other distributions. But I did that after taking time to learn some Linux using "easy" Linuxes for a few months. I also did enough reading about Slackware installation to feel comfortable giving it shot. On the other hand, once installed it took me awhile to go look for the extra steps to set up printing and 3rd party packages, while I was finding my way around Slackware. Easy Linuxes practically hand-hold you through those.
While I wouldn't call Slackware hard to set up, there is more Linux and Slackware specific knowledge needed before installing than for "easy" Linuxes (Ubuntu, elementary, Mint, Zorin and Manjaro being ones I found easy to install.) But before touching Linux I had experience with DOS and text menus and learned some Fortran. For a Windows or Mac basic user coming to Linux with GUI-only experience, I would recommend starting with an easy Linux.
As for use, *once set up* I have found Slackware stable and the default installation very easy to use, with maybe with a couple more steps for the odd task vs easy Linuxes.
I haven't yet tried installing/building/configuring Gentoo, Arch or LFS. I can probably pursue as much of that as I might ever want with Slackware, other Linuxes and OpenBSD.
TKS
49 • How long on same distro (by Michael Doblado on 2018-04-09 15:40:56 GMT from United States)
Since switching all five of my boxes to linux in October, 2016, there has always been a Kubuntu install running. I also had an Antergos KDE install going on a laptop until last month, but finally got tired of the boot work-around necessary because of a cranky BIOS..Really, the biggest thing since going Penguin has been choice of DE's. I love KDE Plasma with the dashboard widget and integrated apps like Kdenlive and Calligra and, of course, Kate, the best GUI based text editor out there!
50 • Post # 43 (by Winchester on 2018-04-09 15:45:31 GMT from United States)
Maybe,maybe not although it's another Ubuntu clone. But,that's judging a book by its cover.
In this case it's just a default icon theme,a font,and a default wallpaper. Those are the only things that can be determined for sure without using it. And the above 3 can all be easily changed if so desired.
51 • Poll and choice of distro and DE (by TheTKS on 2018-04-09 15:46:13 GMT from United States)
Related to the poll, but maybe already polled on DW, DE/WM choice seems to me to be tightly connected to distro choice for some people, but maybe not for others.
So Jesse, if the functionality is available, I would find an interesting poll to be preferred DE/WM and preferred distro, multiple of each if possible.
Of course, this would also be a wish list poll - it would allow people to choose combinations that don't exist or are very hard to implement.
And that might not even be a clear distinction. Ex. I once had Ubuntu or Xubuntu set up with a choice of Xubuntu DE and straight Xfce DE; some distro defaults are minimally modified base DEs while others develop a very distinctive dialect.
TKS
52 • linux (by Tomy Young on 2018-04-09 16:05:24 GMT from Canada)
Sotix? Yes to everything. Yes Browsers Yes Network Yes Desktop Environment Yes updates.Yes...What the hell are you doing testing this "distro", Jesse?
Of course is very stable. Fedora rawhide or Arch testing or Debian sid will be also very stable without X, DE, and without any updates. Yes sure if it is a flathub repo issue, but it is ungawdly Slow kinda like ........ Windows 7 Update Slow - ouch !! load!
53 • Poll (by David on 2018-04-09 17:09:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've been using CentOS since 2011. That's when Fedora adopted Gnome 3: I took one look and said "not on my computer!" But I'd been feeling more and more like a hamster in a wheel for some time, so perhaps that was just an excuse to reduce the rate of change.
54 • LTS distros (by corktowner on 2018-04-09 17:12:32 GMT from United States)
I have been using Linux Mint since version 10. I currently use 17.3 Rosa KDE, which is supported for another year. I find the customization of KDE to be excellent, especially widgets for the desktop. It is a solid and very stable distro. However, since Clem announced they would no longer be supporting a KDE version after 18, I have been evaluating other distros. The focus on Cinnamon and Mate versions at Linux Mint seems to be non-progressive, neither version has impressed me in the slightest. Manjaro and Fedora have both been tested with difficulty. Switching to LMDE is being considered as well. If it works, why switch? Change is good, but only if there is improvement.
55 • MX Linux (by gplcoder on 2018-04-09 17:15:11 GMT from Canada)
@20 and @45 According to the MX Linux page here both MX-16 and MX-17 are systemd distributions. Something is incorrect. Either you people are or the MX Linux page here is.
Which is it going to be?
56 • MX Linux (by Jesse on 2018-04-09 17:19:57 GMT from Canada)
@55: You are mistaken, our MX Linux page lists it as a SysV init distribution. Neither the people commenting on it here nor our page are incorrect.
57 • Re: flatpaks in mint (by M.Z. on 2018-04-09 17:22:38 GMT from United States)
@21
"Followed the cmd line instructions on flathub.org and things started out ........... very slowly ........... followed by different timeout errors..."
Just as an addendum to my comment #25, did you try just using the Mint Software Manager? Everything is automatically set up t go & already pointed at flathub if you click the flatpak button on the categories list. Not sure where the command line comes into it when you have everything already integrated & setup in the Mint Software Manager. I've misread a few situations on my Linux distro at times, so you might have been over thinking things or looking at the hard way without realizing how well things were setup by default.
The only issues I can see are that it would be nice to have more flatpak software options & that the nice point & click easy Mint Software Manager had a great GUI but poor handling of categories in flatpak, & they also need a way to search just for flatpaks. What's in the GUI Software Manager by default is an excellent start though & I think there is a lot to be said for it as a first step.
58 • MX Linux (by gplcoder on 2018-04-09 17:27:41 GMT from Canada)
@56 Jessie: Yes it does but I was looking at the systemd entry near the end. MX-16 shows as having version 215 installed and MX-17 shows as having version 232 installed. How can a distribution use a non-systems init and still have systemd installed?
59 • systemd info (by Jesse on 2018-04-09 17:45:18 GMT from Canada)
@58: Several distributions make systemd packages available without using systemd as init. Devuan, MX and I think antiX all do this so that SysV is used as init but people have the option of using systemd functions.
60 • MX (by X-Hacker on 2018-04-09 18:04:48 GMT from Greece)
I use MX since January (17-17.1), The init is SysV, However there's systemd-shim, It just immtates the systemd functionality for some Debian packages that need the dependencies like CUPS, antiX is fully systemd-free.
61 • antiX and systemd - not! (by anticapitalista on 2018-04-09 18:07:38 GMT from Greece)
@59 antiX does not have systemd in it (get it) at all. It uses SysV. No systemd-shim and no libsystemd0
MX uses systemd-shim (like Knoppix), but defaults to SysV as its init.
Devuan does not include systemd, defaults to SysV init, but does ship with libsystemd0
62 • LM 1.3 and flatpak (by mikef90000 on 2018-04-09 18:17:10 GMT from United States)
@57, plz reread my post. Mintinstall IS their software manager UI but the flatpak category was inactive (grayed out) on my system. I searched for a known flatpak (gradio) but it was not found through the UI. I will check this out further in a fresh VM install.
63 • @28 Simon: (by dragonmouth on 2018-04-09 18:55:34 GMT from United States)
" After many hours of command line torture I got connected to the Internet."
It seems like you did the Linux installs the hard way.
Slackware, even in its early single digit versions, although it used a text installer, included both setup of a GUI desktop and the network as part of its install process. Once you re-booted off the HD, it automatically came up with a GUI DE.
Slackware was the distro I installed when I gave up on Windows. I had no prior training in any Unix-based O/S. It took me a couple of hours to install Slackware because, although I took all the default options, I read every screen carefully and checked every package on the install list. However, once the install process was finished, I had a GUI DE, a network connection and a working printer. Never had to use the terminal.
One of the great features of Mepis was its super simple and super easy GUI installer that set everything up for the user, including the Internet access. It took about 20-25 minutes to install a completely turnkey Mepis system. There were no "hours of command line torture" required. In fact, one could use Mepis for years without ever having to use the command line.
64 • opinion poll (by AJ Field on 2018-04-09 19:33:40 GMT from Canada)
Slackware since 1999.
65 • How long have you been running the same distro? (by Ricky on 2018-04-09 20:17:20 GMT from United Kingdom)
Currently i've been running the same Slackware install since June of 2014. I believe i stopped distro hopping around 2012, particularly because of the widespread adoption of systemd (i really don't like the concept of it). I remember during 2012 Arch Linux starting used systemd for it's init system, i had been using Arch at the time, and that's what made me decide to just stick with one distro from then on. Went to Slackware and have never looked back. Apart from messing up a few years ago (having to reinstall during 2014), it's been a long run for me and i have no complaints!
66 • @2 Sortix (by Charles on 2018-04-09 20:28:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
"Sortix? No X. No Desktop Environment. No Network. No Browsers. No updates. No ...No...No to everything.
What the hell are you doing testing this "distro", Jesse?"
A brand new POSIX implementation with its own kernel, userland and libc? This is the most interesting thing that's been reviewed in ages!! I'm really glad this was featured, I had no idea it even existed.
67 • How long have you been running the same distro? (by ZsurNZ on 2018-04-09 21:05:18 GMT from France)
Started using Linux in the late 90, but do not remember which distribution. At that time having no internet connection I systematically tried the few distros I came across. Mandrake became quite popular but I found it slow and bloated on low-end machines. In contrast I got very fond of Yoper and used it for some time. Finally I got internet at home and immediately googled for a "lightweight distro", reading that ArchLinux just released a new version "Wombat". I installed it and was immediately very happy with it, as I am still now, after 13 years. Only very few distros appear as good to me, including Slitaz and maybe Void, but Arch is much more mainstrea
68 • The new SuperGamer distro doesn't come with games (by eco2geek on 2018-04-09 21:42:37 GMT from United States)
The "new" SuperGamer linked above is, as its website says, based on Linux Lite, which is based on Ubuntu. The GRUB background and default wallpaper are the same as the last, discontinued version of SuperGamer (which, IIRC, was based on Vector Linux and was ~8 GB in size).
(Watch out, there's a startup sound that might startle you.;-)
The biggest difference between the old SuperGamer and this new one, is that this one doesn't come with any games pre-installed. Installing games is up to you, the end user.
69 • @16 • re: How long using the same distro (by mandog on 2018-04-09 22:57:30 GMT from Peru)
Sorry that was a typo by me It was indeed 2005 that I installed Arch it was the 1st Linux Distro I installed, Thanks for pointing out my error.
70 • Poll (by Morton on 2018-04-09 23:56:36 GMT from Ukraine)
...how long you have been running your current distribution:
A particular version of the distro:
Linux Mint 17 - 17.3 -- 4 years, from May 2014 till now, without a break. It is the most stable distro I ever saw.
Linux Mint 18 - 18.3 -- 2 years, from June 2016 till now, unceasingly as well.
Linux Mint all versions (8 to 18.3) -- 9 years, from 2009
Debian Testing - three years till now, without a break.
71 • Re: Poll question - my main distro is Kubuntu (by eco2geek on 2018-04-09 23:57:21 GMT from United States)
The short answer is that I've mainly been using Kubuntu since 2011.
The long answer is that I played around with various distros in the 1990s, but had some bad experiences with Lilo and GRUB (and was mainly running Windows on a computer I shared with my wife). So I didn't start seriously using Linux until 2004, when I had my own computer, and started using Kanotix, which was based on Debian Sid.
Then the main developer of Kanotix broke up with the rest of his development team around 2006, at which point I switched to Suse. Then when KDE 4.0 came out, I decided to try Ubuntu, since I'd never really used GNOME before. Finally, when Ubuntu switched to Unity as its desktop environment, I switched to Kubuntu.
(I currently have 9 different operating systems installed on my computer; it's partitioned so I can try out new distros. But Kubuntu's the one I mainly use.)
72 • why Slackware? (by Alexander Dumas on 2018-04-10 01:50:32 GMT from Australia)
@28 It is quite easy to install Slackware with a GUI straight away. I sympathise with you though, I think most of us can relate to something like 'startx' costing a lot of hours - by that I mean something that is easy once you know about it, but very hard to find when you don't!
But getting back to your point, the poll question was "How long have you been running the same distro?" - any perceived difficulty in installing Slackware would not stop someone from trying another distro surely?
I was trying to suggest that Slackware users tend to remain Slackware users because I am one of them and I know why!
73 • Sortix and How Long (by Andy Figueroa on 2018-04-10 04:15:48 GMT from United States)
Sortix; why?
Been running the same Gentoo since 2004. It's boring. I love it. I first installed Slackware v1.0 perhaps, downloading from USENET to 24 720K 3.5" diskettes, so it must have been 1993. I had been using Unix at work since 1985. Memory is a little foggy.
74 • Poll (by pengxuin on 2018-04-10 04:44:19 GMT from New Zealand)
Family Mandrake.
Started with Mandrake V5.1 (apparently I still have the .iso "handy-ish") and upwards.
continued with Mandriva up to 2010.
then on to Mageia, up to current V.6.
Have tried the 'buntus, but disagree with PPA's.
Likewise, tried to like Linuxmint, but it doesn't agree with me. (PPA's again)
75 • Same distro (by OstroL on 2018-04-10 06:09:28 GMT from Poland)
Ubuntu is the distro that had stayed with me for a long time since 2005. Lately, not the new default with Gnome, but Unity. Its still alive at https://community.ubuntu.com/c/desktop/ubuntu-unity-dev
Also, you can download it by googling for Unity7sl based on 18.04 and upgrade to today's state.
(Strangely, the other "distro" that stays long in my computers is Windows 10. Wouldn't throw it away, as it works out of box.)
76 • Same distro? (by Roy Davies on 2018-04-10 06:44:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
Although a Debian/Ubuntu distro is always on at least one laptop, I do like to try new releases.
In the last few weeks, I have tried a number of the 18.04 LTS beta releases, but not Lubuntu nor Kubuntu. The most stable so far seems to be Voyager. My anchor always seems to be Xubuntu, or Mint. I will certainly be trying Mint 19 when it is released.
I've tried many others during the four years since I started using Linux. I have found most non-Ubuntu based distros to be lacking in some way. Usually in setting up the network, or wireless printing.
77 • Arch + Mint (by Goetz on 2018-04-10 06:54:28 GMT from Germany)
=== Arch ===
I stopped distrohopping after Arch linux was available. It was the best distro I knew. But in 2012 I had do pause for two months. During that time was there was a major update. After I could get to the computer again, the update messed up the installation.
=== Mint ===
So I switched to Mint in 2012 and I am still using it. Personally, I prefer the Mate desktop.
78 • to distro hop or not (by Simon Wainscott-Plaistowe on 2018-04-10 11:33:03 GMT from New Zealand)
Since 2011 I've stuck with Linux Mint (MATE, Cinnamon & XFCE on different machines). Prior to that I distro-hopped looking for something solid & reliable. If I recall correctly, Mint 13 was a bit dodgy, other than that it's been a smooth ride. I still try out other distros now & then, but always on a spare partition or a test machine. Mint remains my "daily driver" coz it just works.
79 • "same" distro (by zykoda on 2018-04-10 13:30:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
Been running Mint LTS (Mate/Gnome2/Cinnamon) since version 7. Prefer Debian, but costs time & (too much) effort to reach OOTB Mint. 30+ machines (all BIOS not yet UEFI) wired/wireless networked with Macs(IOS,phones+ipads), Win(XP,Vista,7+10). Nothing is very flawless or stable (long term) over the range of OSs and vintages as can be expected. Servers running Debian. 20 other distros boot selectable on board a few machines, but lack resilience with updates/upgrades compared to Mint, maybe due to its Debian stable base.
80 • How long have I been running the same distro? (by cramlin on 2018-04-10 14:47:43 GMT from United States)
I used PCLinuxOS since around 2003 pretty much steadily, jumping back to Debian for some older computers.
But since PCLinuxOS doesn't offer a 32-bit version, I've been exclusively a "Debian-style" user ever since. I'm using MX, Debian, Mint, and Q4OS (yes, all of these). I would have stayed with PCL because their community is second-to-none.
I really like Q4OS. I installed it on an old Thinkpad T61 for a friend and it looks just like Windows to them. Learning curve = 30 minutes. Win!
81 • Arch way (by Jyrki on 2018-04-10 17:10:17 GMT from Czech Republic)
I started with Linux way back in 1997. My first distro was RedHat 4.2. In 2005 I switched to FreeBSD and returned back to Linux in 2008 when I found Arch.
I've been Arch-addicted since then even though I am not happy with it like ever before. It started with change of init. The old good bsd-like init was perfect. Arch is rolling release and I changed repos and upgraded to Manjaro and recently to Artix.
I am running DragonFly BSD in virtualbox and on older PCs, thinking of and pioneering another switch to the world of BSD... but on my PC I've been upgrading Arch since 2008.
82 • ... running the same distro? (by Toto on 2018-04-10 18:29:59 GMT from France)
I began experimenting Debian and Red Hat, 20 years ago, lost my nerves in the RPM package mess and gained a total bias in favor to Debian-based distros.
11 years ago, i had to reinstall a spare 6 years-old PC. I decided to go Linux for real on that one. I tried Linspire, Xandros, immediately dumped because they couldn't memorize the keyboard setup declared on setup until the next reboot. A pity when you use AZERTY keyboard. Then i tried Ubuntu, which was supposed to be less quality and - surprise ! - found there a distro you can use without ever opening a shell. Now that's end-user-oriented !
Since then, i'm sticking with Ubuntu on my three machine (one with a Windows, just in case).
Every experiment with other distro bring some trouble, and the eventually the need to open a shell (this i do at work, and i do it to program stuff, i don't want to do it at home to circumvent GUI shortcomings...). And i'm stoicking with GNOME, because it's designed to be as easy to use as a Mac.
The only years when i disrepected the standard Ubuntu distro was when it used Unity, which i found too impractical and absurdly slow. Then i used Ubuntu MATE on my oldest PC (it was just then the continuation of previous Ubuntu (when it used GNOME 2), and Ubuntu GNOME Remiw (later Ubuntu GNOME) with GNOME 3 on 2008-bought PC, because i found GNOME 3 perfectly simple for use. And that's now the default for Ubuntu.
83 • Running Same Distro (by chazdg99 on 2018-04-10 19:27:20 GMT from United States)
I used Mandrake, but lost interest when they merged and became Mandriva.
I used Windows XP & Windows 7. I started dual booting with Linux mint 10, but I just got bored with it.
Did some distro hopping including Antergos (very buggy), Ubuntu, Fedora, Opensuse and Sabayon.
I finally settled on Manjaro KDE. It has almost been a year and I will most likely never change. Very stable rolling distro.
84 • Flatpak .... still not ready :-( (by mikef90000 on 2018-04-10 21:42:03 GMT from United States)
Just checked on a VM fresh install of LM 18.3 - same symptoms of being greyed out on the mintinstall GUI and missing gradio package. Ah, well, not much longer to wait for LM 19.
85 • SUSE & OpenSUSE for 16+ years (by Dxvid on 2018-04-10 21:42:44 GMT from Sweden)
I started using Debian in the mid nineties, then I used RedHat, then I switched to Mandrake/Mandriva. Sometime around year 2000 I had started liking KDE too much to go to another desktop but Mandriva wasn't stable enough, so I switched to SUSE (version 6, 7 or 8?).
I switched to SUSE for KDE but I stayed because of YAST which is a fantastic tool for both experienced users and people with 1+ years experience in Linux. They later introduced BTRFS and added "snapper rollback" which is absolutely fantastic as many errors can be undone and backups/snapshots are done automatically during package upgrades and can be setup to be made under various circumstances or manually. I also like their package search engine where one can easily find alternate repositories and compare version numbers in repositories.
When setting up servers I found that SLES & OpenSUSE offered HUGE advantages to other distros like Debian and Ubuntu in daily use, speed of configuration, ease of configuration, stability, manual snapshots, automatic snapshots, automation in setup, reversing mistakes made, detecting faulty drives, etc... I never imagined before I tried that the difference could be so big.
I still think that RedHat/CentOS can have some advantages when setting up complicated servers running enterprise Java stuff that are required to run old stuff for years.
SLES offers the possibility to run either a modern stable environment or an old stable environment(similar to RedHat and Debian) depending on licenses bought. OpenSUSE Leap offers a modern stable environment for free. OpenSUSE Tumbleweed offers an ultramodern less stable rolling release environment for free (similar to Arch).
Customers require me to work with Ubuntu or Debian so I've setup a bunch of servers running especially Ubuntu LTS, but I have so far not found a single advantage these two distros have over SUSE or RedHat and their free derivatives. The only advantage would be low price, but CentOS and OpenSUSE are free so there's simply no advantage left. Basically you need external tools to get Ubuntu or Debian up to a decent level but it's still lacking. I think the puritans like Debian because it's not owned by a company, not because it's better. Why people like Ubuntu servers I don't know, they probably haven't tried anything better and think because it's popular and offered at every hosting company it must be good. Official updates from Ubuntu LTS have several times broken servers, why don't they do enough testing before they mess up people's servers? If I would've paid for Ubuntu I would've been pretty angry at them, but now I get angry at customers thinking they save money by using Ubuntu LTS just because it's offered for free but working more hours cost money too.
A few rarely used databases run better on Debian or Ubuntu than on the rpm-distros, but that is only because the developers create them for and fine tune them for Debian and/or Ubuntu for unknown reasons, in my opinion they should also make a small effort to make them optimized for professional distros too. ;-)
86 • Compaq laptop on Mint 9 Isadora (by Jay Speed on 2018-04-10 21:52:01 GMT from Belgium)
I have still one Compaq laptop on Mint 9 Isadora with Fluxbox (32-bit).
Working fine even now, the CPU is 1,2 Ghz and 1GB memory.
Going on the net is a bit slow these days, but the rest of apps are working great.
87 • others running servers? (by Dxvid on 2018-04-10 22:21:27 GMT from Sweden)
Out of 86 comments I seem to have made the only comment primarily related to servers. It would be interesting for me to read other's opinions who have also tried all the 4 big server distros for at least 1+ year each.
I primarily use Linux on desktop machines daily as it greatly simplifies working against Linux servers and ensures a higher security.
Also I never mentioned it but I have also used Windows and Windows server, but the last 10 years Linux servers have been so much better so I don't think I will ever return. From now on Linux server distros will only improve more and more so I have a low expectation Windows Server releases will ever catch up to SLES or RHEL for general server usage. For Microsoft-specific stuff Windows might still be better for a while, but it's just a matter of time even before everything .net related will run better on Linux unless Microsoft tries to stop it on purpose in various ways. Them opening up core .net makes it obvious they think the battle is almost lost on server side OS. They would be better off creating their own Linux server distro sometime in the future.
88 • Servers (by Andy Figueroa on 2018-04-11 02:54:11 GMT from United States)
I have primarily used Gentoo servers for a dozen years or so. But, I've also used Debian and Ubuntu, preferring Debian of the two.
89 • Gentoo compiling times (by RJA on 2018-04-11 05:39:19 GMT from United States)
@38, with stage 3, back in the very-early 2010s, the only thing that took 24 hours or the like, for the tools to build, was KDE! That was probably KDE 4x at that time... I compiled pretty much everything else in a much shorter time than a full KDE. I was forced to have a USE=X flag for a full KDE, or Portage (or one of it's components) would error out, LOL.
90 • PcLinuxOS for 7 years now (by Tony on 2018-04-11 13:10:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
Tried other excellent distros but I always come back to this one (KDE flavour)
91 • Servers (by gplcoder on 2018-04-11 13:52:02 GMT from Slovakia)
@87: I have many (7) servers running for years. They all run Ubuntu 14.04 (since the init system is Upstart and systemd is only partially used). Now with 14.04 nearing EOL and subsequent versions of Ubuntu server having full systemd being used, I am experimenting with something different. @88: I tried Gentoo many times but Portage fouls up on me after some months every time. I have read dozens of articles on the best way to package maintain Gentoo without success. I am now thinking I have the answer with OpenBSD.
92 • glad to see sortix (by dogma on 2018-04-11 14:24:57 GMT from United States)
The linux distributions get so same-old after a while ... I am happy to see some attention given to something more fringy alternative. You could touch genode as it becomes more general-purpose, and possibly 9front and haiku. Redox would probably even be a little trendy.
93 • Sortix and fringe projects (by Jesse on 2018-04-11 14:44:37 GMT from Canada)
@92: I think I've covered Redox here in the past. And I've talked about Haiku a few times. I may cover them again if any major progress or changes happen in either project. Genode is something I find interesting, but it hasn't really progressed to a point where I feel it's ready for people to test drive yet. But I do read their periodic updates.
94 • flatpak in Mint (by M.Z. on 2018-04-11 19:01:29 GMT from United States)
@84
"Just checked on a VM fresh install of LM 18.3 - same symptoms of being greyed out on the mintinstall GUI"
Funny, it works fine in my two Mint 18.3 installs on physical PCs. I've go Mint KDE 18.3 on my main Intel CPU & graphics based desktop, as well as an old AMD/ATI combo with Mint XFCE 18.3. Both have multiple flatpaks installed & working fine, though I havn't tried using flatpaks in a VM.
95 • learn linux from books (by james on 2018-04-12 17:29:34 GMT from United States)
Linux from scratch.
However, to take this another direction...
a) there used to be a kind of maxim that one learns Linux by "doing" it.
b) and there is always a "plea" for people to "get involved"
the problem is that the question implies that one will have to learn a lot of Linux stuff and work on maybe a word processor.
I learned a LOT about "Linux" by fiddling with the old player - XMMS - not xmms2
And then purchased the aforementioned book.
XMMS was a very small app, a :sound server, which could run by itself using CLI or using a "client" ... and it had a with a very defined set of inputs and outputs.
there are very few "xmms" sized apps around nowadays, but I would suggest that possibly the resurrection of such as "training wheels" as it were, and the "transient" volunteering a few experienced people to help guide the new person to Linux would pay large dividends in terms of people getting comfortable with Linux and thereby being able to work on larger projects with comfort.
96 • So many years, so many distros (by Basil Fernie on 2018-04-12 22:19:22 GMT from )
In the 1990s I was selling PCs packaged with a software package I'd written for managing construction projects. Most ran on DR-DOS, a few (and my own development and business system) on OS/2. At the time Linux was unfit for human consumption, whenever I occasionally took a look at someone's CD (eg Caldera), because of an inadequate range of office-user apps. It was a losing battle and when IBM caved on OS/2 I was forced to accept that my target market of small professional firms were totally brainwashed by M$, so for the early 2000s, so for most of that decade sold my DOS-based software onto Windows hardware, regularly checking on progress in the Linux world.
I even bought a new laptop with Windows 7 to replace a stolen machine, trimmed the Windows installation down to a small fraction of the HDU real estate, and started playing with Linux on the rest, steadily transferring more and more of my own files and apps into Linuxland. Dabbled with various distros, SuSE getting honorable mention by comparison with the rather ragged competition.
Ubuntu or similar seemed an increasingly credible option, since there was (a little) market awareness and partisan feeling here in South Africa for Mark Shuttleworth and his creation. But I didn't like the user interface and needed a light usage of RAM, so played around with the various subspecies and landed up on Lubuntu as my go-to platform. The transition was much eased by the existence of Star Office which I used right from DOS days and through the ups and downs and different OSes to, currently, LibreOffice 6.0.3 - the version control is so good these days that I'm quite happy to stay at the bleeding edge, haven't had any problems for several years
If memory serves, I still have a 2010 Lubuntu installation DVD, and maybe even one from 2008. Haven't installed 18.04 yet, am waiting for Rev 1 based on much experience of new Lubuntu releases. The Win7 partition is down to a few hundred MB now, I just keep it there in case UEFI starts giving problems with Linux, although that possibility has pretty well vanished now as far as I can see.
I keep and update a bootable partition with the latest (more conservative) version of LXLE on it, as a reminder of what Lubuntu should be (in my opinion), and that's what I usually entrust newbie Linux users to.
Last couple of years I've had good experiences with MX16 and MX17, and probably boot into the latter about 80% of the time now. But Lubuntu is still the default boot-up distro.
I have a lot of pleasure with, e.g, Fat Dog, 4MLinux, CoreOS - I'm about to start playing with this and BusyBox just to build my own light (<500MB .iso) custom distro in preparation for dipping my toes into the maelstrom of Android replacement on tablets (I have a couple to spare), maybe a Gemini in the near future if I can get my hands on one, see if I can de-Google a spare no-name Android 6 smart-phone that has to return from a warranty repair which has already taken so long that I bought a new Huawei out of frustration.
A later step would probably be to invest in Jolla's Sailfish which may have the potential to become my universal platform...?
Linux is never ... boring! (Apart that is, for its resolute refusal to terminate disastrously,)
97 • Same distro (by argent on 2018-04-13 03:10:25 GMT from United States)
Have been a long time Debian user and content up to Wheezy, not a fan of systemd and embraced Devuan early on. Very happy with the progress the devs has made with their release.
AntiX was my favorite distribution and happy they had joined the systemd-free effort. Have it now installed on my laptop with Devuan ascii on my main machine.
98 • @16, about 1995 (by RJA on 2018-04-14 01:32:08 GMT from United States)
I was the same age in 1995, LOL. I was a computer noob at best... I had difficulty even remembering how to use Windows...
99 • Been Using Manjaro... (by Rinav on 2018-04-14 06:30:35 GMT from India)
After lots of hopping I finally setteled for Manjaro for almost 4+ years, I dont even remember. I have tested almost all of their flavours. I probably will never switch to another distro, as Manjaro is Rock Solid Stable distro with amazing and helpful community
100 • Poll (by Alessandro di Roma on 2018-04-14 13:20:20 GMT from Italy)
Xubuntu LTS by several years, now 16.04, soon 18.04!
101 • More than a year with UbuntuMATE (by Roy on 2018-04-15 23:44:26 GMT from United States)
I went to UbuntuMATE so I could have the Chrome web browser and Adobe flash player which would let me use HULU on my computer. Now it says on the HULU website that I have to have a Java script enabled on Chrome and adjust my Internet security so that HULU can work on my computer. But HULU works fine on my Roku HDMI stick without this hassle after I updated it to get around the DRM problem. Listening to the SMLR (Sunday Morning Linux Review) got me to thinking about dropping Chrome, Adobe, and maybe just going back to Debian.
Number of Comments: 101
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SharkLinux
SharkLinux was an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the MATE desktop. The distribution automatically upgrades packages on the system to apply security patches. The distribution also enables sudo access by default without requiring a password for user convenience. SharkLinux features the Ubuntu Hardware Enablement (HWE) kernel by default.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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