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1 • swap (by vern on 2018-12-03 00:41:52 GMT from United States)
I've used 2gig swap space for years, but wonder if its necessary now days. I use the old theory.
2 • swap (by DaveW on 2018-12-03 00:49:31 GMT from United States)
I have 16 GB of RAM and have a 20 GB swap partition defined. I think I used it once in the last five years, when a software development project ran amok. I don't use hibernate.
3 • Avouch Linux (by Richard Hannah on 2018-12-03 01:03:03 GMT from United States)
What is this based on? Arch, Debian? From their webpage I can find no answer.
4 • Swap (by Joseph on 2018-12-03 01:57:04 GMT from United States)
18 GB RAM, 30 GB swap. You never know when you might want to crunch lots of data with 1800 browser tabs open and then hibernate.
Given the massive sizes of hard drives today, I don't get the point of not having swap space. If you ever need that space and it's not there, your system is going to crash. Why take that risk?
5 • Swap and BSD kernels (by cykodrone on 2018-12-03 02:27:18 GMT from Canada)
My Debian based non systemd OS automatically allocated 1/2 GB above my system's physical RAM size (which is a lot). Some swap tips from my notes:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To show swap size (in KB):
cat /proc/swaps
To check your current value of swappiness, run this command:
cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
To make a change permanent, edit the configuration file with your favorite
editor as root:
<editor_name> /etc/sysctl.conf
If vm.swappiness does not exist, add it to the end of the file like this (0 is
disabled, or 10 to 100, 10 being least swappy, 100 being most swappy, default
value is 60):
vm.swappiness=10
Save the file and reboot. Changes will take effect once you reboot your system.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now I know why DW doesn't list the various BSD kernels...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Unix_timeline.en.svg
6 • GhostBSD (by Gekxxx on 2018-12-03 02:53:31 GMT from Belgium)
My experience with the old GBSD was login with querty while using azerty. OS did not recognise external HD. I hope this issues are solved now.
7 • swap (by Gekxxx on 2018-12-03 03:00:01 GMT from Belgium)
To my point of view it is crazy to allocate 32GB swap on 16GB memory. 4 GB swap is then more than enough. And here Ubuntu is great by using a swap file.
8 • Swap Space (by brain_death on 2018-12-03 03:48:54 GMT from United States)
Equating to your physical RAM, the size of your swap space depends on it. As HD space is plentiful and cheap, you might stick to the old-fashioned, 2.5x rule. Or perhaps you might imagine, you don't swap space at all. Python aficionados ought to embrace Glances. This script will prove enlightening, for newbies and old-timers alike. It works on Windoze too and runs there, under your web browser...
9 • About swap, and to Jesse Smith about the BSD base change (by RJA on 2018-12-03 04:05:28 GMT from United States)
@8, a bigger swap is laughable, unless you hibernate or doing crash dumping, these days, as I have found that at least in the past, Linux don't even seem to demand swap like Windows does.
And the BSD base change, is a disappointment. Feels like rolling-release getting shoved down my throat!
10 • swap (by pengxiun on 2018-12-03 04:12:20 GMT from New Zealand)
depends on the hardware in use.
mostly run 8GB of RAM systems, but I do have a 512MB, a 2G and a 4G system.
generally the rule: RAM + 20% (allows hopefully for suspect ram).
11 • swap (by zephyr on 2018-12-03 04:31:48 GMT from United States)
Use the old formula, as a variable of 1 and 1/2 times the amount of installed memory.
12 • Dynamic swap space? (by Dojnow on 2018-12-03 06:35:58 GMT from Bulgaria)
"a variable size swap space" == dynamic swap space? How to?
13 • swap (by zykoda on 2018-12-03 07:48:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
My swap partitions are ~4GB: one for each hard drive. Each installed distro uses the swap partition located on the installation drive. With 8GB RAM I have never seen any swap space used. I am in the habit of suspending the machine overnight with five second resume.
14 • GhostBSD (by Saladin on 2018-12-03 08:30:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
Couple (or more!) of issues with GhostBSD. When installing, be sure to set aside a hour or two - it's a looooong process. Preferably use a new hard disc and new DVD drive as the process is a massive to-ing & fro-ing process which could wear out older kit.
Shame Jesse didn't choose the Xfce version. It's not clear what this is - official or community release and where and how it can be obtained. When it first appeared as and alpha, I d/l-ed it. It ran OK on some machines as a liveDVD but refused to install to a stable version. Since then, the (semi?)official d/l site refuses to d/l at all, although it still appears as an option on some availability sites, not on all, though. Neither is its status, alpha, beta, final, given anywhere.
As for my installation of GhostBSD Mate, I find it cumbersome, arcane and bloated, although it was easy to install wifi on the live version, more tricky on the installed one. HW choice, level of dedication and expertise are factors to consider for putative users - many may not fully qualify!
15 • Swap (by Alexandru on 2018-12-03 09:36:21 GMT from Romania)
In Linux, the swap space is usually put in separate partition, but it can be configured to use a regular file in filesystem. In this later case its size can be adjusted on the fly (but in case of filesystem corruption, the precious swap file content may be lost).
One scenario when making a swap partition larger then amount of physical RAM size is justified, is when you are considering increasing the RAM amount. When upgrading the RAM, no OS needs re-installation, however resizing partitions potentially may corrupt them and need complete OS re-installation. Having the space on HDD and even of SSD so cheap makes viable the first option.
16 • GhostBSD (by alotov on 2018-12-03 11:07:29 GMT from United States)
I have a replacement laptop a dell 7 series with an i7 processor it has 16g of ram, but two graphic cards; one is an intel 5500 and the second is a radeon/amd/ati card. Ghost could not sort out the graphics, and just gave a black screen of failure. I have tried FreeBSD on this rig it also cannot sort out the graphics; but I think Ghost at least got a step further.
17 • 3 • Avouch Linux (by joji on 2018-12-03 12:26:22 GMT from Belgium)
Indeed this info is not available.
Downloaded the LXQT iso and did a poor man's install of Avouch on a stick.
Found that it is not depending on Debian nor Arch. Found out also that it has been developped in Pakistan Lahore by a certain Mr/Mrs Qurban Ullah. The packages' suffix is 'alp' (Avouch Linux Package?)
Am still looking for a means to add new packages (eg falkon, kshisen) but couldn't get any help on the internet nor on the distribution itself.
At first sight, this distro looks nice but I guess we have to wait for the 1,0 release and more info before we are able to judge ...
18 • GhostBSD (by Neville on 2018-12-03 12:39:37 GMT from Japan)
This is a reply to Saladin's comment. On a middle spec PC such as mine and using a USB thumb drive to install GhostBSD it takes about 10 minutes, not an hour or two. On a low spec laptop it takes at most 20 minutes. I have never used a DVD drive to install, but I seriously doubt it would take 2 hours.
19 • Swap Space (by Kevin on 2018-12-03 14:45:27 GMT from United States)
The amount of swap space I use varies with the number of applications I have running. At the moment, I'm using less than a GB. Now, if you're really wanting to know how much swap space I have available, that's a different story. It looks like I got carried away when I initially set up my current main desktop PC. I have 30GB of swap space in two 15GB partitions on two different drives.
20 • GhostBSD (by Jesse on 2018-12-03 14:50:45 GMT from Canada)
@14: >> "Couple (or more!) of issues with GhostBSD. When installing, be sure to set aside a hour or two - it's a looooong process."
In my case the install was under 20 minutes, about the same amount of time as any mainstream Linux distro.
>> "Shame Jesse didn't choose the Xfce version. "
There is no Xfce edtion. GhostBSD 18.10 is available in just one edition featuring the MATE desktop. Past versions did have an Xfce edition, but it has been dropped.
21 • SWAP (by Rev_Don on 2018-12-03 15:09:05 GMT from United States)
My rule of thumb for swap space is as much as I need and as little as I can get away with.
22 • Avouch (by cykodrone on 2018-12-03 15:41:20 GMT from Canada)
Went to the website, all desktop variants point to gnome(dot)org, umm? It calls itself a "company", the website is certainly not finished, most of the links don't work or point to the same thing. "Copyright avouch.org © 2018 | All Rights Reserved.", where, just Pakistan or worldwide?
23 • Dynamic swap space (by Jesse on 2018-12-03 15:45:50 GMT from Canada)
@12: You can manually add more swap space as needed. I wrote instructions for this before: https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20110117#qa
Or you can use a program that will do this automatically for you. On FreeBSD the swapexd program will do this for you, and I suspect there are equivalents on Linux.
24 • Swap (by P1nky on 2018-12-03 16:42:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
I just got some strange looks from colleagues when I read that "most computers have more RAM than back when the guidelines were created" and laughed!
Pretty much every system sold in the past 3 years has more RAM than we had as hard drives back then. My first Linux system was a P133 with a massive 32MB RAM and 3.2GB HDD, while my current laptop has 8 GB RAM and 2TB HDD.
25 • BSDs (all) - Strong advice from mine ... (by Gerhard Goetzhaber on 2018-12-03 17:21:54 GMT from Austria)
A. Besides all those problems with init procedures, consequently systems' everytime responsiveness and some as often as heartful desired Upnp functions there should be at least a simple boot configuration that can easily go together as minimally with Linux Systems. This said, I understand best NetBSD and OpenBSD having forked off from FreeBSD the matter they did. Instead of basicly requiring 1. one strangely tiny boot partition (<=64K) 2. one root partition 3. one swap partition all of them to be set up on GPT FreeBSD should better as fast as possible go back to ONE partition only then holding EITHER a BSD Disk Label (like Net- and OpenBSD) OR a ZFS tank!
B. Don't any more even further enlarge the distance to Linux systems - find some file system (may be XFS) getting supported from both sides to make holding an online contact on one machine possible! So far BSD maintainers want people adopt their system they should make it easier to step over from Linux - oder jumping BETWEEN planets : )
C. Though just this last opinion rather individually conceived by me, please do a lot more work to have (whatever) BSD install and run well wiith Xfce ...
26 • Swap's forensic benefits (by CS on 2018-12-03 19:52:49 GMT from United States)
Swap is certainly in the "might as well" category. Since memory is not aggressively evicted from swap you can log into a system that has been behaving strangely and if there is anything in swap you know the system ran out of memory at some point and adjustments are necessary.
"How to dynamically adjust swap"? Run Mac or Windows. There seems to be some half-baked Linux options but they look downright dangerous.
27 • Swap (by Justin on 2018-12-03 20:32:36 GMT from United States)
@24 is right. When we were working with MBs of RAM, having swap really mattered. I turned off swap on my 512MB XP machine (256MB still needed it because of greedy AV and Windows update) and never looked back. It made the machine much, much faster. On Linux, I don't use swap anywhere, even with bloated browsers, etc. I have 2GB machines that never use it, and on my larger machines I configure RAM disks to take advantage of all that extra (and fast) RAM. Unless I'm running several VMs (or maybe some kind of video editing or high-end games), configurations like @4 are just crazy.
The ext4 filesystem also does silly things like this. By default, 5% of the filesystem space is reserved for dumping system logs, file fragments, etc., when the drive is full. On modern 10TB drives, that's 500GB of wasted space! I turn the reserve blocks down to 0% on data drives and 1% on my OS drive. The setting must be whole percents and my OS drive is a 120GB SSD so I live with it (I only use 4-6% anyway for the OS).
The problem with rules based on percentages is that they grow exponentially. I expect 10 years from now people will be setting up 2TB of swap space "just in case" because they don't understand the reasoning or rationale behind where the numbers come from (put on your thinking caps people).
28 • #25 (by 0reilley on 2018-12-03 20:36:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
"...NetBSD and OpenBSD having forked off from FreeBSD..."
NetBSD was released before FreeBSD. OpenBSD is a fork of NetBSD.
29 • swap (by Steve L on 2018-12-03 23:52:51 GMT from United States)
Since I started when memory was in the KB range, I have always configured swap. As memory size has increased thru MB and into the GB range I have to admit I've thought twice about the need, but what does it hurt to configure swap and, worst case, it will keep the machine running when it might otherwise run out of memory.
My current daily driver is a desktop I built a few years back, running PCLinuxOS with 4GB of RAM and 4GB of swap. With "only" 4GB of RAM I have, on occasion, found swap being hit kinda hard as applications have gotten so much bigger and sloppier about memory use. Fortunately, that hasn't happened very often, but it has happened.
I have several other machines but voted using my PCLOS box for current use. Each machine is configured with swap but size varies based on expected use and, of course, base RAM installed, but not more than 4GB of swap on any of them. The more RAM the less likely swap will be hit, so I might configure a bit less swap.
30 • I was banned for even discussing whether need swap! (by Steve Miller on 2018-12-04 01:15:22 GMT from Sweden)
2007 the PCLinuxOS board. They didn't want to hear it.
31 • Avouch? (by Angel on 2018-12-04 02:52:03 GMT from Philippines)
Not only is Avouch's website copied from elementary's, the "Avouch Applications" don't exist on the live ISO, and their helpful wiki does a great job of detailing how to install Fedora. No kidding!
"Live images allow you to preview Fedora before installing it. Instead of booting directly into the installer, a live image loads the same environment you’ll get after installation. Avouch Linux Workstation is live image.Use a live image to install your favourite system, test Fedora on new hardware, troubleshoot, or share with friends."
https://wiki.avouch.org/doku.php?id=avouch_linux_0.1.0_installation_guide&s=install
32 • swap (by Trihexagonal on 2018-12-04 03:26:14 GMT from United States)
I have four FreeBSD boxen running, three online and one as my dedicated .mp3 player. I use GPT for a Partitioning Scheme and let it allocate swap as seen fit during the build. I use swapexd on them all as mentioned by Jessie @23.
The one I'm using has 8GB RAM and 500GB HDD with 3852MB swap allocated and 7619K shown in use. FreeBSD sees unused memory as wasted memory. Of that 8GB RAM I show 445MB RAM free with no shortage of resources available. What I expect to see and consider normal for an infernal machine.
Another has 4GB RAM and 200GB HDD with 3979MB swap allocated and none in use. Of that 4GB RAM I show 141MB free.
The 3rd has 8GB RAM and 200GB HDD with 3979MB swap allocated and none in use. Of the 8GB RAM I show 791MB free.
The 4th is my .mp3 player with 4GB RAM and 200GB HDD with 3979MB swap allocated and 30MB in use with 121 MB RAM free at 207 days uptime. The music never stops.
33 • Will Avoid Avouch (by TheTKS on 2018-12-04 04:58:14 GMT from Canada)
@3 @17 @22
They forgot to wipe the word "elementary" from the text they lifted from elementary's website (Loki version), in at least one spot. One of the links points to elementary's github.
@31 "their helpful wiki does a great job of detailing how to install Fedora"
Avouch is in the Wiki text 42 times, Fedora 101 times.
Sloppy ripoff.
Easy avoid.
TKS
34 • Swap (by Hadrian on 2018-12-04 09:48:48 GMT from Netherlands)
My main desktop has 16G of RAM memory. It still has swap-space because I installed the system when I had less RAM (4GB), and never got around to repurposing the 4G swap-space. My laptop, an old-timer that's about 150 in computer-years, has only 3G of RAM and needs a few Gs of swap-space.
35 • GhostBSD and TrueOS (by alex dumas on 2018-12-04 09:49:04 GMT from Australia)
It is sad that GhostBSD swapped to TrueOS. I am a long-time FreeBSD user and AIX admin. I have often used GhostBSD (the old one) but TrueOS and PCBSD were usually beyond me. Once or twice I got an installation to give me something other than a black screen, but then the package manager or something else would barf. The GUI and wireless seemed to work when running from live media, but be unsolvable when the OS was installed. The hardware I used was always Thinkpads, so nothing unusual.
I did once get to use it long enough to start to appreciate the Jail Warden graphical tool, but after an upgrade found that this tool had been dropped. Such blatant disregard for the user base was a bit shocking.
I think that TrueOS is a bit of a stain on Dru Lavigne's great work.
36 • Re: Swap space (by Chris on 2018-12-04 11:44:34 GMT from United States)
I usually define a SWAP partition that is 1.2 times the amount of RAM that I have installed. My current workstation has 86 GB of RAM so I don't think my SWAP partition has ever been touched even though it's still there. LOL!
37 • GhostBSD (by Ankleface Wroughtlandmire on 2018-12-04 14:00:11 GMT from Ecuador)
I tried GhostBSD recently after they switched to the TrueOS base. It also impressed me, and pretty much everything worked on my Thinkpad laptop. The major thing that would prevent me from using it or any other *BSD is the lack of support for Bluetooth, as I work all day wearing Bluetooth headphones. Also the difficulty/impossibility of installing proprietary applications that are available for Linux would be a problem.
38 • Swapping and security (by msi on 2018-12-04 18:17:04 GMT from Germany)
On a side note: Doesn't swapping also pose a security risk? If I understand it right, anything that is held in a machine's RAM might land in the swap space, i.e., on disk. That sounds like something you don't want on systems that don't use full disk encryption.
39 • The swap poll has turned into bragging. -- 86GB current Topper. (by Andy Szrwicki on 2018-12-04 18:25:31 GMT from United States)
Presumably most users are interested in mere desktop use. For that, it's a bloated / mem hungry distro that actually needs even one G of RAM, and will never touch swap. My bet.
40 • swap security (by Jesse on 2018-12-04 18:45:26 GMT from Canada)
@38: Swap poses a small security risk IF an attacker has physical access to the machine AND swap is not encrypted AND sensitive information was swapped out. Applications which use sensitive information can use the mlock() function to prevent things like passwords from being sent to swap space though.
In the end, if your disk is not encrypted there are easier ways for an attacker to gain access to your data than combing through swap space.
41 • Re: swap security (by msi on 2018-12-04 18:56:40 GMT from Germany)
@40: Ok, that was helpful. Thanks.
42 • To Swap or not to Swap...that is the question... (by tom Joad on 2018-12-04 23:09:42 GMT from Switzerland)
With winders a swap file is demanded and used. But I have always been at sea so to speak about Linux and Swap files. Linux is way more efficient that winders in a lot of ways including swap files.
So, owing to the poll question, I looked at all four of my running computers to see how much swap space I am using. All four have swap files of varying sizes and none of the machines are using the swap file.Those four machines are running either Mint 18 or MX Linux. None are struggling or having issues BTW.
So maybe deleting, removing, shrinking the swap file is in order. I know that can be done but SHOULD it be done?
Advice anyone? What is the downside and the upside or should I just let that sleeping dog peacefully sleep?
43 • Re: To Swap or not to Swap..that is the queation... (by DaveT on 2018-12-05 19:56:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
I stopped using swap on linux years ago. You don't need swap so get rid of it.
BUT, as has been pointed out above there are times when you will need it such as IF you do massive number-crunching or want to use hibernate etc.
44 • Swap Vs HDD Space (by M.Z. on 2018-12-05 22:56:50 GMT from United States)
Physical HDD space is fairly cheap these days. I remember a song that a friend of mine downloaded that had a line like "... Microsoft - 5 Gig Drives Don't Grow On Trees!". Times have change quite a lot. I'd say there is no particularly good reason not to give 4GB or so over to swap just in case. I had a fair bit more on my laptop for awhile, but last time I changed things around I put about 4GB, because I'm not going to miss it in the /data partition I created & I have plenty of room in other partitions to multi-boot different distros. I don't think any of my newer computers ever touch swap, but I see no reason to not make a little room so it's there if needed, just like a fire escape that should & hopefully will never be used, or airbags in a car.
Of course if I used hibernate more space would be better, which I didn't think of much before this DW Weekly.
45 • Swap Poll (by 2damncommon on 2018-12-06 01:20:01 GMT from United States)
I wonder why "Equal to Swap" and "Half of Swap" weren't options.
People would scatter their choices all over the options without being clear those were their choices.
46 • Poll bashing :) (by curious on 2018-12-06 12:04:22 GMT from Germany)
While everyone is at it:
Which options should one choose if one uses 2.5, 4.5 or 8.5 GB swap space? These values are outside any of the options given.
47 • Poll (by dragonmouth on 2018-12-06 13:38:09 GMT from United States)
I totally agree with M.Z. Were I to get rid of my 4 GB Swap and add the space to either my / or my /home, it effectively would not make any difference in the amount of available storage but it might make a difference during heavy use of the system. 4 GB is about half the size of the latest Scientific Linux .iso.
48 • SWAP use (by Plamen on 2018-12-06 14:22:19 GMT from Bulgaria)
I often use the hibernate option on linux. So swap of 1.1x times of RAM is a must. The current allocation of RAM is not in question.
49 • Swap... (by Vukota on 2018-12-06 18:39:18 GMT from Serbia)
Using a swap partition on the SSD only hard drive is crazy. I just had an SSD drive (less than 2 years old) fail on Windows, due to swap/hibernate. My linux laptop that has the same age SSD used 1/4th of the lifetime (without swap partition and without intensive re-installations and data intensive use).
On any computer that has magnetic HDD and enough RAM, having swap partition with default swappiness parameters (on most Linux distros) will kill performance. If you disable swap use unless 100% necessary, it should be ok to use 1x or 2x RAM size so you can do hibernation.
50 • swap on SSD (by Jesse on 2018-12-06 18:54:42 GMT from Canada)
@49: >> "Using a swap partition on the SSD only hard drive is crazy. I just had an SSD drive (less than 2 years old) fail on Windows, due to swap/hibernate. "
This is highly unlikely. Under normal use, a modern SSD should work with swap for years, possibly even decades. The old rule about SSDs wearing out due to too many writes in the same location just doesn't apply (and has not applied) for over a decade. These days SSDs should have about the same life span as spinning disks.
I'd also like to point out that these days it is recommended that you put swap on an SSD because it allows for faster random access and reading data back into RAM.
51 • BSD (by visnu on 2018-12-07 06:40:13 GMT from France)
to Richard Hannah, BSD is not based on Linux but on Unix !
There is many BSD distro out there to check out, interesting isn't it ?
52 • Swap space and why it may be needed (by GusFun on 2018-12-07 09:42:21 GMT from Greece)
The best argument for swap I have found is that if you use ext3-4 file systems their journaling activity needs swap space to be able to fix the disk when a sudden power interruption occurs. If it is not available the partition may be corrupted. This is also an argument against a swap file in the same partition.
If you have 4GB of RAM and your use mostly is around 1.2GB of it, then 1.5GB is plenty. If you have 1GB of ram and you are constantly at the limit 2GB swap may be good and you will see it being used.
The argument "I have 16GB of RAM and use 75MB of swap and never had a problem" is really not an argument at all. It is coincidence. It is like having car insurance all your life and never had an accident.
# free
is a nice command with options that shows you really what is going on. Sometimes you are only using 20% of ram but the system is also using swap, it stores memory parts that are not used often but needed eventually.
Number of Comments: 52
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| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • 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 | 
Turbolinux
Turbolinux distributions are designed from the ground-up specifically for enterprise computing. Turbolinux 7 Server was the first-ever to conform to Internationalization standards to help simplify development of applications that require multiple language support - a critical requirement for software distributed globally. Turbolinux 7 Server also supports the Large File Support (LFS) standard for working with applications that manage or handle up to four terabytes of data - a common requirement for infrastructures serving Fortune 500 and larger companies. Such industrial-strength environments provide the basis upon which PowerCockpit and other Turbolinux innovations were created.
Status: Discontinued
|
| Tips, Tricks, Q&As | | Tips and tricks: Gftp and Sftp - Like Peanut Butter and Jelly |
| Tips and tricks: Keep terminal programs running, using the at command, reverse OpenSSH connections |
| Questions and answers: Get a list of installed applications |
| Tips and tricks: What being free, stable and light-weight mean |
| Questions and answers: Finding software licensing information |
| Tips and tricks: Basename, for loop, dirname, aliases, bash history, xsel clipboard |
| Questions and answers: Comparing file systems - ZFS and Btrfs |
| Myths and misunderstandings: Unity, Mir and Ubuntu Touch |
| Tips and tricks: Using GRUB with XFS |
| Questions and answers: Balancing privacy with ease of use |
| More Tips & Tricks and Questions & Answers |
| 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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