 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 785, 15 October 2018 |
Welcome to this year's 42nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Our readers tend to be curious people, investigating new technologies and discovering new ways of doing things. Keeping that inquisitiveness in mind, this week we explore a variety of technologies, talking about reasons to try flavours of BSD and porting an operating system between computers in our Questions and Answers column. We also take quick looks at two Linux distributions this week. First, we talk about Reborn OS, an Antergos-based project with several special features, and then review Nitrux which focuses on using portable packages on a custom desktop environment. Our Feature Story has more details on these two ambitious distributions. In our News section we discuss feren OS experimenting with an edition featuring the KDE Plasma desktop, a Linux patch which may offer great power savings across multiple CPU architectures, and we talk about the benefits of Linux-based firmware. This week our Opinion Poll touches on Linux user groups (LUGs) and asks if any of our readers are members of these computer clubs. Plus we are pleased to share details of last week's releases and provide a list of the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Reborn OS 2018.09.09 and Nitrux 1.0.15
- News: feren OS experiments with Plasma edition, Linux kernel patch may offer 20% power savings, Linux-based firmware
- Questions and answers: Reasons to try BSD, swapping hard drives
- Released last week: Proxmox 5.1 "Mail Gateway", UBports 16.04 OTA-5, MidnightBSD 1.0
- Torrent corner: ArcoLinux, Clonezilla, KaOS, Kodachi, MakuluLinux, MidnightBSD, Obarun, Omarine, OSMC, Raspbian, Robolinux, SmartOS
- Upcoming releases: Ubuntu 18.10, FreeBSD-12.0-BETA1
- Opinion poll: Linux user groups (LUGs)
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (22MB) and MP3 (16MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Reborn OS 2018.09.09
This month I spent some time digging through the waiting list and trimming projects that have not survived the harsh and demanding growing period of their first year of existence. Among them I found a project which seemed simple on the surface, an Antergos-based distribution offering even more install-time options than its parent. What caught my attention was the specific list of extra options: 15 desktop environments to choose from, able to run Android apps through the Anbox compatibility software, optional Flatpak support, and the Mycroft desktop assistant. All of this on a rolling release base provided by Arch Linux.
The distribution is called Reborn OS and I downloaded what was, at the time, the latest build. Reborn is available as a 64-bit build only. The ISO I downloaded was 1.5GB in size and, booting from this ISO brought up the Budgie desktop environment. At the top of the desktop is a panel with the application menu, a couple of quick-launch buttons and a system tray. The Budgie desktop seemed to respond well once it finished loading and I was eager to get started.
Installing
Reborn automatically launches the Cnchi graphical installer, a component it borrows from Antergos. The installer lets us know it requires a network connection to download the latest available packages. The installer also insists we have at least 8GB of free disk space for the operating system. I had both of these and so proceeded.
Cnchi walks us through selecting our language, location and time zone. We are then given a chance to select what kind of user interface we want. There are a lot of options, ranging from KDE, GNOME, i3 and a console only setup. We can also install Budgie, along with other popular desktops and something called Windows Interface, which looks like it might be GNOME with Zorin's Windows 7 style theme. Unfortunately we can only select one desktop to install. I decided to go with Budgie, since it seemed to be the distribution's default.
We are then asked to select which optional features we would like. There is a long list of items we can toggle to enable or disable, including the Chrome web browser, Bluetooth support, Firefox, Dropbox, Flash, LibreOffice, Mycroft, Redshift, WINE, VLC and WPS Office. The Anbox software for compatibility with Android apps was mentioned on the website, but not listed as an optional feature in the installer. We are then given the chance to manually select package mirrors or have the installer do it for us. Taking the automatic mirror selection takes a few minutes during which the installer appears to lock up.
Disk partitioning comes next and we can choose automated or manual partitioning. I noticed the ZFS storage volume option was disabled in Reborn's version of Cnchi, otherwise the options are the same as on Antergos. The last step is to create a username and password for ourselves.
Here the installer failed, reporting it had run into error zero, which the Reborn website says is a common problem that happens when a package cannot be found or downloaded. There is a manual workaround suggested, but the problem is the workaround assumes the installer is failing to download a specific package. In my case the installer was failing before that, while apparently trying to download a manifest of available packages. To make matters worse, the installer exits when it encounters error zero, forcing the user to go through the entire configuration process again.
I went through the installer a few more times, after confirming I had a working and stable Internet connection. Each time the installer failed with the same error and quit, whether I used automatic mirror selection or manually picked mirrors myself. Since Reborn could not install, even after multiple reboots and trying different package selections, I gave up and moved onto another project.
Update: After writing this review I corresponded with one of the Reborn OS developers about the installer bug. They believe the issue has been corrected, but I have not yet had a chance to confirm whether their fix works.
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Nitrux 1.0.15
Since Reborn OS had left me with some spare time in my week, I decided to follow-up on a request to review Nitrux. I previously reviewed Nitrux just over a year ago and, from what I have been told, the project has made some significant progress since then. I wanted to see if the reports of an improved Nitrux were true and so downloaded the latest release. The distribution is described as follows:
Nitrux is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu suitable for laptops and desktop computers. Nitrux provides all the benefits of the Ubuntu operating system combined with a focus on portable, redistributable application formats like AppImages.
While based on Ubuntu, Nitrux trims down the list of applications installed by default. Only a small collection of desktop software is included. The distribution uses a customized version of the KDE Plasma 5 desktop, called Nomad. The download for Nitrux was 1.5GB in size and I found the distribution is available for 64-bit computers only.
Nitrux 1.0.15 -- The Nomad Menu
(full image size: 225kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Booting from the project's live media brings up the Nomad desktop. A panel at the top of the screen holds the application menu and system tray. A single icon on the desktop launches the system installer. A dock at the bottom of the display provides quick-launch buttons for commonly accessed applications and also doubles as the desktop's task switcher. My initial impression was the desktop, with its brightly coloured wallpaper, was working and I immediately opened the system installer.
Installing
Unlike its parent distribution, Nitrux does not use the Ubiquity installer. Instead Nitrux uses the Calamares installer. Calamares is quite easy to navigate and makes selecting our time zone, keyboard layout and making up a username/password combination straight forward. We can opt to have the installer set up disk partitions for us (which will result in a ext4 partition for the operating system and a small swap partition), or we can manually set up file systems. The manual partitioning option is quite easy to navigate. The installer then copies its files to our local hard drive, completing its work quickly.
While the installer was working, my screen locked and asked me for a password to get back to the desktop. The password for the live environment is blank. Something else I noticed at the end of the process was, when we reboot the computer, Nitrux will appear to lock-up when powering off the system. I found out the operating system had not crashed, it had merely paused and (I suspect) displayed a message asking for the install media to be removed, but if there was a message it was displayed as white text on a white background, making it invisible and the system seem unresponsive. Pressing Enter got things moving again and the computer restarted.
Hardware
My freshly installed copy of Nitrux booted to a graphical login screen where I could sign into the Nomad desktop. When running in a VirtualBox test environment, the login screen was unusually slow to respond to input, but performed quickly when run on my desktop computer. In a similar fashion, the Nomad desktop proved to be slightly sluggish to respond in VirtualBox, but ran smoothly on physical hardware. I was pleased to find the desktop automatically resized itself to match my host computer's screen resolution when run from a virtual environment.
Nitrux took up about 4.4GB of disk space for a fresh install and consumed about 510MB of RAM when logged into the Nomad desktop. All in all, the resource usage and performance of Nitrux running Nomad appears to be about the same for me as running most Linux distributions with the Plasma desktop.
Early impressions
Once I got signed in and started looking around the Nomad desktop, a few key characteristics popped out. One is that the application menu, located in the top-left corner of the screen, presents launchers in a small grid. The menu, which is a custom widget called Nomad Menu, is divided into two pages, one for favourite/popular items and one for all installed applications. I tried swapping out the Nomad menu for a classic tree-style menu and not only did the alternative menu not appear, but the Nomad Menu button disappeared too. This left me temporarily without an application menu until I tracked down a solution.
Another feature of Nomad is the dock at the bottom of the screen. To avoid taking up too much space, the dock gets hidden behind application windows. However, if the mouse pointer gets close to where the dock is, it pops-up, hiding the content behind it. I found this a frustrating arrangement as it meant I couldn't, at a glance, see which windows were open, but it also meant that if I was working on something near the bottom of a window it would get covered by the dock.
Nomad uses a global menu bar at the top of the screen. This means our application windows do not have their own menus, whichever window is active displays its menu in the top panel. Some people like this, some don't, and I fall into the latter group. I tried to remove the global menu to restore in-window menus, but the steps to do this in Plasma do not work in Nomad. I then tried to remove the default panel and replace it with a custom Plasma panel of my design, but found it is not possible to remove the Nomad panel. Going into the panel settings and trying to remove it does nothing. I could create as many new panels as I wanted and arrange them as I liked, but never remove the default one. I couldn't find a way to move the default panel either though moving new panels I created was straight forward.
Nitrux 1.0.15 -- Using the global menu bar
(full image size: 323kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Settings
Since I am talking about adjusting settings and widgets I think it is worth talking about the desktop settings panel. Nomad appears to use a nearly unaltered copy of the Plasma System Settings panel. This gives us access to a wide range of themes, looks, window behaviours and the chance to adjust visual effects. I think a few minor items dealing with themes and the KWin window manager were missing, or maybe Nomad is just using an older version of the Plasma settings panel. The controls which were present all worked well for me.
Nomad Software Centre
Of all the features in Nitrux, I feel the Nomad Software Centre probably deserves the most attention. Nitrux makes a point of being geared toward portable software packages, AppImages in particular, and the Software Centre reflects this. The software manager displays available AppImage packages in a grid, listing just their name and a truncated version number. There are no descriptions or icons associated with the packages and we cannot get more information about them by clicking on them. The packages are shown in alphabetical order with no method, so far as I could find, for sorting them into categories. We can search for packages based on their name, but otherwise we are left with a long list of packages with short names like "jaxx" or "xchat" without context.
Each package has a "Get" button associated with it and clicking "Get" appears to do nothing for a minute or so, and then the button changes to say "Remove". New applications do not appear in our application menu and are not added to our path and I began to wonder if the items I had selected were downloaded at all.
Nitrux 1.0.15 -- The Nomad Software Centre
(full image size: 265kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
After some digging around, I found AppImage programs can be located in one of two places. In our home directory there are two folders, Applications and bin. The former holds programs added to the system at install time, as far as I can tell, and the bin directory holds programs installed from the Nomad Software Centre. Neither of these locations was a part of my user's path, which meant I had to open a terminal and explicitly run the newly installed items using their full path name.
As far as I could tell, there does not appear to be any method in place to upgrade packages. Perhaps this happens automatically in the background, but I could find no method for checking on potential AppImage updates and downloading them.
For me, installing large, portable versions of packages which are (for the most part) already available in Ubuntu's repository and which will not be added to my menu or path seems like a big step backwards. I probably would have overlooked the inconvenience of this approach had there been another software centre, like GNOME Software or Discover, on the system, but to deal with Ubuntu's underlying packages we need to use the APT command line tools.
The one aspect of working with portable packages I did like was AppImage packages did not integrate with the Nomad desktop. Basically this means that any program we install via AppImages cannot use Nomad's global menu bar and instead has its own, in-window menu. There is a touch of irony in that AppImages not working with the Nomad desktop provided me with programs which presented themselves in the manner I wanted.
Applications
Nitrux ships with a minimal collection of software. In the application menu we find the Chromium web browser, the VLC media player, the Babe music player and the qpdfviewer document viewer. Media codecs are included for playing videos and music. The Dolphin file manager is included along with the Kate text editor and a calculator. In the background I found the GNU Compiler Collection, the systemd init software and version 4.18.5 of the Linux kernel. The included software worked well and I had no problems with the default applications.
Conclusions
I went into my experiment with Nitrux optimistic that the reports I had been given that the distribution had changed and improved would prove to be true. To the developers' credit, Nitrux has matured over the past year. The last time I tried Nitrux it failed to work with my desktop computer, even though its parent (Ubuntu) ran smoothly on the same equipment. Now Nitrux runs well on my workstation, so hardware support has improved. In the past I questioned the wisdom of swapping out Ubuntu's friendly Ubiquity installer for an alternative. While Nitrux still uses a different installer (Calamares), I have to say Calamares is just about on par with Ubiquity these days so the choice to use an alternative did not have any negative side effects for me.
Previously, when I tried Nitrux I did not like the default audio player. I think the Babe audio player has come along nicely. While it might not be my first choice for a music player, it gets the job done and worked much better for me during this trial.
I did run into some design choices that frustrated me. The first being that Nomad seems to be basically the Plasma desktop with some hard-wired choices made for us. I like the Plasma desktop and greatly appreciate its flexibility. To run into fixed features I didn't want (such as the global menu bar I couldn't remove) in a Plasma-based environment somewhat soured me to the experience. This is all the more unfortunate because some of Nomad's style and approach I liked, but being unable to tweak it to better suit my workflow left me wanting to swap out Nomad for plain KDE Plasma.
My biggest issue with Nitrux though is the software manager. Instead of having a rich and easy to browse software manager like GNOME Software or mintInstall (or a powerful package manager like Synaptic) the distribution uses a custom software manager that only works on AppImages. This not only limits easy access to Ubuntu's massive package repositories, it also makes searching for packages harder. There are some other possible side effects too. For instance, AppImages are a mixed bag when it comes to security updates. Ubuntu's main repositories get regular security fixes, but AppImages may or may not depending on the specific package's maintainer and there isn't much the user can do about that. Another concern I had was that each AppImage is installed in the user's home directory, not a central location. This means on computers with multiple users we may end up with the same AppImage installed multiple times as each user gets their own copy. AppImages are relatively large so it may become a storage issue as well as a security concern.
Finally, AppImages are not added to the application menu so the user needs to be able to find and manually run their newly installed programs and this seems like a lot of unnecessary fiddling about when most software managers add new programs to the menu for us.
To be fair, I like AppImages, I use them sometimes myself. But I feel they work best when used sparingly as an add-on to the distribution's default repository, not as a replacement. It's helpful to have an AppImage when we need a newer version of a package than what is in the repositories, or a program that hasn't been added to our distribution, but it is not a convenient method for doing day-to-day software management.
While Nitrux does some things well - it is easy to install, desktop performance is good, the default layout is nice and fairly clean - after a few days I was reminded of something I wrote about the distribution last year. "This style of approach seems to be repeated throughout the distribution: replacing working utilities (music player, system installer, software manager, application menu) with alternatives that do not function as well as the ones provided by the parent distribution."
I believe the same description applies today. By the end of the week I wanted to replace Nomad with the more flexible Plasma, replace the software manager with Ubuntu's GNOME Software, replace the dock with a classic task switcher. All the customizations and special features Nitrux introduces I wanted to undo to get back to a more mainstream, arguably more convenient set of tools.
It's not that Nitrux introduces poor ideas, but that it replaces existing good tools with its new ideas which haven't matured to the same levels as the items being replaced. I would probably like the new software manager if it were an add-on alongside another package manager, like Discover. I might enjoy the Nomad menu and panel if I could customize it as I can any other Plasma widget without my application menu vanishing. In short, I think Nitrux's custom tools make good additions to the Ubuntu base, but not good replacements for more mainstream utilities.
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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
Nitrux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 4.1/10 from 22 review(s).
Have you used Nitrux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
feren OS experiments with Plasma edition, Linux kernel patch may offer 20% power savings, Linux-based firmware
The feren OS project has previously released editions featuring the Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce desktop environments. This past week the project announced an experimental spin featuring KDE Plasma and based on Ubuntu's 18.10 Beta release. "Another new build for experimental ISO of feren OS is now available, showing the early workings of what feren OS could be like with the KDE desktop environment. Note that what you see in the ISO is nowhere near the finished product, with a lot of change planned over time, some of which will potentially make the experience as a whole feel different, and all the ISO is right now is the accumulation of the default settings and experience for KDE being put in the OS. This means that the ISO is nowhere near the final product still." More details on this experimental spin can be found on the project's blog.
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Next, we are happy to share some good news for all Linux users. Developer Rafael Wysocki recently gave a talk in which he discussed what a computer's CPU is doing when the operating system is idle. As it happens, a lot goes on in the background to try to make CPUs energy efficient when the operating system has no tasks to perform. Wysocki made some adjustments to the way Linux handles idle periods on all CPUs and came up with a way to greatly improve energy saving. "As Wysocki put it, this new scheme predicts short idles less often than the old scheme did, but it is right about them being short more often. In response to a question from the audience, Wysocki said that the work is architecture-independent. Intel CPUs will benefit from it particularly, because they have a comparatively large array of idle states from which the governor may select, giving the governor the best chance of doing well if it predicts correctly; but ARM CPUs, for example, will also benefit." The LWN article suggests the new approach could improve power saving on CPUs running Linux by about 20%. This, in turn, means Linux machines with Wysocki's improvements should run cooler.
Another victory for open source enthusiasts was mentioned in It's FOSS. The It's FOSS article talks about a project called LinuxBoot which provides an open source alternative for proprietary UEFI firmware. The LinuxBoot firmware gives administrators the ability to update or customize their systems without waiting on a vendor to release updates. The open source firmware can also be audited for security purposes and can offer significant improvements in boot times: "Here are some of the major advantages of LinuxBoot over UEFI: Significantly faster startup - it can boot up server boards in less than twenty seconds, versus multiple minutes on UEFI. Significantly more flexible - LinuxBoot can make use of any devices, filesystems and protocols that Linux supports. Potentially more secure - Linux device drivers and filesystems have significantly more scrutiny than through UEFI." Further details can be found on the LinuxBoot website.
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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) |
Reasons to try BSD, swapping hard drives
Looking-to-try-something-new asks: I have been using Linux since a few years, currently on Arch, and have heard about BSD. Is there anything that BSD does better that would make a Linux user like me want to use it instead?
DistroWatch answers: One of the tricky aspects of comparing Linux distributions with the various BSDs is the amount of diversity in each community. There are hundreds of Linux distributions and around two dozen BSD variants that I am aware of. Given the range of styles, goals and communities of each project, it is hard to speak in generalizations. For instance, I could say that most of the BSDs are not geared toward desktop usage, but there are key exceptions like GhostBSD and TrueOS which specifically target desktop systems.
Since you are running Arch Linux I will try to do my best to compare it against the big names in the BSD community: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFly BSD and NetBSD. I think one feature you will appreciate about the BSDs, coming from Arch, is the level of documentation. Both Arch and most of the BSDs are famous for having detailed, correct documentation on just about every subject.
Like Arch, the mainstream BSDs typically do not set up a desktop environment (or many services) by default. Coming from Arch, you will likely be at home with the typically minimum BSD base operating system. Likewise, if you have used Arch's AUR to install community-supplied software, you will probably feel at home with the BSD style of package management. The BSDs separate most applications into a third-party repository where you can install software from binary packages or source code.
Putting aside the similarities you are likely to run into, let's look at some reasons you might want to switch. The mainstream BSDs tend to be more conservative in introducing changes to the core system. If you have ever felt that Arch was changing too quickly for your taste, the BSDs will seem calm and conservative in comparison. The BSDs usually have a slow moving core system with up to date end-user applications.
The BSDs are developed as a whole operating system, while GNU/Linux distributions are collections of components from separately maintained projects. This means the programs in a core BSD system tend to work well together and not break during upgrades as they are all developed and tested together. In a similar fashion, the documentation tends to be well organized and consistent.
The FreeBSD operating system, and its children, have built in ZFS support which can be very useful for large collections of data, network storage systems and taking snapshots of the operating system for safe keeping.
There are just two things I can think of which may make you want to stay on Arch and not try a flavour of BSD. The first is application support. Most Linux software will work on the BSDs, but some components, particularly closed source applications, will not. If you run Steam or Chrome, then the BSDs are probably not a good fit for you.
Hardware is another area where I often run into problems with the BSDs. The BSDs tend to lag a little behind Linux in getting hardware drivers, so if you're using exotic hardware or a very new computer then the BSDs may not support your equipment yet.
My suggestion is to try a couple of the BSDs in a virtual machine and see what you like about them. That way you can become familiar with their way of doing things before you take the plunge. You may also want to start with a newcomer-friendly flavour of BSD such as GhostBSD. It ships with a pre-configured desktop and graphical package management to help ease you into the experience.
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Moving-hard-drives-between-computers asks: I have a computer with Fedora installed on the 250GB hard drive. If I take this drive and place it into a new computer, will I be able to boot it up without issues?
DistroWatch answers: You can probably take the hard drive out of the old computer and place it into the new machine and boot from it. Once you have made the migration you may need to make a few minor adjustments. For example, you may find you need to re-configure your wireless network connection if the operating system assigns a different name to the new computer's network card. Likewise, you may find yourself changing your screen resolution if the new computer has a different sized screen.
While migrating a hard drive from one computer to another will usually work, there are some potential hurdles you should be aware of. The two computers should have the same CPU architecture. For example if your old computer was a 64-bit x86 system, then the new computer should also be a 64-bit x86 system. If the new computer is running an ARM processor then your operating system will not boot.
Likewise, if your old computer had two hard drives and had the boot loader on another disk, putting your distribution's hard drive into the new computer would not work because the boot loader would be missing.
These rare cases aside, swapping your disk out of one computer and into another should not be a problem when running Linux. The kernel and most low level components are pretty forgiving when the system's hardware changes.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Proxmox 5.1 "Mail Gateway"
Proxmox is a commercial company which offers specialized products based on Debian. The company recently launched Proxmox Mail Gateway version 5.1 based on Debian 9 "Stretch". "Proxmox Mail Gateway 5.1 comes with Debian security updates, new features, bug fixes, and GUI improvements: The new Transport Layer Security (TLS) policy provides certificate-based authentication and encrypted sessions. Users can now set a different TLS policy per destination domain, in case they need to prevent e-mail delivery without encryption, or to work around a broken STARTTLS ESMTP implementation. Configuration of the TLS policy can be done via GUI. TLS is also possible on internal SMTP port/traffic. The updated user management now allows a new help desk role enabling help desk staff to access the quarantine. Proxmox Mail Gateway 5.1 supports SMTPUTF8. This will fix the problem with some non delivered Google mails. Smarthost ports: Editing and showing smarthost port is possible. On the web-based user interface, the Proxmox developers improved the Spam Quarantine section adding keyboard shortcuts (for Whitelist, Blacklist, Deliver, and Delete), allowing contextual menus with right click, and enabling multiselection of emails. Graphs and reports on the GUI have been optimized in Proxmox Mail Gateway 5.1." Further information can be found in the company's press release.
UBports 16.04 OTA-5
The UBports project maintains a community-developed continuation of Canonical's Ubuntu Touch operating system for mobile devices. The UBports team has published a new update, based on Ubuntu 16.04. The new release, UBports OTA-5, includes several bug and stability improvements. The update also features a new web browser. "The old Oxide web engine 'Browser' app is being replaced by our new QtWebEngine browser, Morph (formerly known as browser-ng). 'Morphing' the browser to QtWebEngine means that the code will have upstream benefits from the Qt company, and it uses a more recent version of the Chromium engine as its base. This should resolve a number of browser issues, and make use of new scaling features. Morph Browser takes advantage of Qt Automatic Scaling, so that the websites you visit look the way that they are supposed to no matter what form factor you are using." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement. A list of supported devices and installation instructions can be found on the project's Devices page.
MidnightBSD 1.0
Lucas Holt has announced the availability of MidnightBSD 1.0, a new stable release of the project's FreeBSD-derived operating system with a goal to create an easy-to-use desktop environment with graphical ports management and system configuration: "I'm happy to announce the availability of MidnightBSD 1.0 for amd64 and i386. Over the years, many ambitious goals were set for our 1.0 release. As it approached, it was clear we wouldn't be able to accomplish all of them. This release is more of a natural progression rather than a groundbreaking event. It includes many updates to the base system, improvements to the package manager, an updated compiler and tools. Of particular note, you can now boot off of ZFS and use NVME SSDs and some AMD Radeon graphics cards support acceleration. AMD Ryzen support has greatly improved in this release. We also have added bhyve from FreeBSD. The single largest removal of functionality was the sensors framework. We found that there were some locking issues that couldn't easily be addressed without some major work. Sudo was removed from the base system and replaced with doas(1) from OpenBSD." See the release announcement and release notes for further information.
KaOS 2018.10
KaOS is a rolling release, desktop Linux distribution that features the latest version of the KDE desktop environment. The project's newest snapshot, KaOS 2018.10, features KDE Plasma 5.14.0 and offers improvements to Croeso, a welcome screen that helps customize the operating system when the user first logs in. "Plasma 5.14.0 was announced just a few days ago and is already included in this ISO. Highlights of this version include a new Display Configuration widget for screen management which is useful for presentations, the Audio Volume widget now has a built-in speaker test feature moved from Phonon settings, Plasma now warns on logout when other users are logged in, fixed non-centered task switchers on Wayland and the Kickoff application menu now switches tabs instantly on hover. A new Glibc 2.27/GCC 7.3.1 based toolchain is among the many changes to the base of the system. Updates to Boost, ICU, x265, Protobuf, Net-SNMP, Qt required the rebuild of a large percentage of the KaOS repositories." The release announcement mentions that Qt4 has been dropped from the KaOS repositories.
KaOS 2018.10 -- The welcome window and Plasma application menu
(full image size: 436kB, 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: 1,063
- Total data uploaded: 21.5TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
Linux user groups (LUGs)
In the early days of GNU/Linux distributions it was common for Linux users to gather together on a regular basis to swap tips, help newcomers install a distribution, and share media with people who had slower Internet connections. These gatherings were called Linux User Groups (or LUGs). These days many people have high speed Internet connections and can download their own install media, Linux distributions have become easier to install, and tutorials are easier to find on-line. LUGs have gradually become less popular as a result of these changes and we are curious to know if any of our readers are still attending LUG meetings.
You can see the results of our previous poll on region-specific distributions in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Linux user groups (LUGs)
| I currently attend LUG meetings: | 97 (6%) |
| I previously went to LUGs but do not anymore: | 211 (14%) |
| I have never attended a LUG meeting: | 1202 (80%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 22 October 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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| Archives |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
Super OS
Super OS (formerly Super Ubuntu) was a modified version of Ubuntu with the goal of making it more usable, in particular for users without an internet connection, while trying to remain compatible with Ubuntu. Features compared to Ubuntu include better multimedia support, improved Internet experience (aMSN, Opera, Flash), App Runner, and other software, such as Java, Ubuntu Tweak and live USB creator.
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.
|
| 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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