 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 794, 17 December 2018 |
Welcome to this year's 51st issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
While there are many Linux distributions, literally hundreds, most of them run similar collections of software by default. At the lower levels, almost all Linux distributions run GNU userland software, make use of the same libraries and most of them use one of four popular package managers. This week we begin with a look at Void, a distribution which offers a slightly different approach to multiple facets of the operating system. We would like to hear your thoughts on Void's unusual features in our Opinion Poll. Then, in an opinion column, we talk about software bloat and how the open source community provides a way to avoid it. In our News section we talk about making it easier to get an overview of open windows on GNOME and improvements to DragonFly BSD's HAMMER2 file system. We also cover a story on x32 support being removed from Linux and Quirky being discontinued. Plus we are thrilled to bring you the releases of the past week and share the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Rolling in the Void
- News: Getting an overview of open windows in GNOME, improvements to HAMMER2, Linux to drop x32 support, Quirky discontinued
- Opinion: Avoiding the effects of software bloat
- Released last week: Tails 3.11, FreeBSD 12.0, Univention 4.3-3
- Torrent corner: ArcoLinux, Clonezilla, EndlessOS, FreeBSD, GParted, Kodachi, Tails, Univention, Ultimate Edition, Voyager
- Opinion poll: What do you think of Void's unusual approach?
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (25MB) and MP3 (19MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Rolling in the Void
Void is an independently-developed, rolling-release Linux distribution with a number of interesting characteristics, such as its own package management system (called XBPS), a custom init system (runit), integration of LibreSSL instead of OpenSSL in the base operating system, and support for several popular ARM-based devices as well as x86 images. The operating system is available in several editions, including Cinnamon, Enlightenment, LXDE, LXQt, MATE and Xfce. New Void users will also be able to choose whether to run the distribution with the GNU C Library or musl libc library. I opted to download the Xfce edition running on the GNU C Library for 64-bit machines; the ISO was 693MB in size.
Booting from the Void media brought up the Xfce 4.12 desktop environment. The desktop is presented with a panel at the top of the screen which holds the application menu and system tray. At the bottom of the display is a dock where we can quick-launch applications. The desktop has a few icons for launching the Thunar file manager. If Void detects any disk partitions these will also be listed on the desktop for easy access. The theme is mostly grey and relatively plain.
Void 20181111 -- Running the Firefox browser
(full image size: 235kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
I did not find a launcher for the project's system installer, either on the desktop or in the application menu. The distribution's download page says we can run the void-installer program from a command line to get started.
Installing
Void's installer is run in a virtual terminal window and uses a series of text-based menus. The main menu of the installer acts like a hub, letting us perform configuration steps in the order of our choosing and we can easily jump back to redo a previous step. The steps are fairly typical and involve selecting our keyboard layout and preferred language from long, somewhat cryptic lists. We are also asked to select our time zone from a list and we are given the chance to enable networking (and optionally automatic DHCP network configuration). We are asked to make up a password for the system's root account and create a username/password combination for our main user.
When it comes to partitioning, Void's installer asks us to select which disk we want to use and then launches the cfdisk partitioning tool. It is not the most friendly interface for setting up partitions, but it works. We are then asked which file system should be used, with options including the Btrfs, ext2/3/4, XFS and f2fs file systems. I decided to go with Btrfs for my trial. The installer then copies its files, a task which took under ten minutes, and offers to reboot the computer.
Early impressions
My new copy of Void booted to a graphical login screen where I could sign back into the Xfce desktop. Everything on the desktop was the same as when running the live disc, so there were no immediate surprises. There were no welcome screens, notifications or prompts to install updates either. Void is a distribution which tries to stay out of the user's way, and assumes we know what we are doing.
For experienced users, this focus on efficiency and no-frills computing is probably welcome. However, newcomers may be intimidated at first. Void does a number of things differently from other mainstream distributions (it has its own package manager, a different init system, and some editions run an infrequently used C library) and I recommend reading the project's documentation. The
Void wiki has a series of articles (linked on the front page) which will get newcomers started.
Void 20181111 -- The settings panel and application menu
(full image size: 325kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Hardware
I began experimenting with Void in a VirtualBox virtual machine. The first challenge I ran into was the distribution could not make full use of my display's resolution. I found trying to open the Display configuration module to fix this caused the module to immediate crash with a segmentation fault. I searched for VirtualBox guest packages in Void's repositories and installed them (more on working with the XBPS package manager later). Once the guest modules were installed Void was able to match my display's resolution automatically.
Then I tried void on a desktop computer. Immediately I found Void could not boot in UEFI mode, but I was able to start the distribution in my computer's legacy BIOS mode. Once up and running networking functioned, the desktop was responsive and the Display configuration module worked. However, none of my applications were able to play audio. Sound support, such as PulseAudio, was installed, but not working for some reason. I ended up installing the PulseAudio mixer (there is no sound mixer installed by default) and the ALSA mixer. At first neither tool worked to restore volume. However, once I had rebooted, the PulseAudio mixer I had installed was able to enable sound for my applications.
Void 20181111 -- Trying an alternative dark theme
(full image size: 345kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Void is a relatively lightweight distribution. The Xfce edition uses just 1.8GB of disk space and consumed 210MB of RAM when signed into the desktop. The distribution was always responsive, booted quickly and was fast when launching programs and performing tasks.
Applications
The distribution ships with a small collection of open source applications. The Firefox ESR web browser is included along with the Orage calendar and Parole media player. Parole has access to media codecs, allowing us to play audio and video formats out of the box. Audio did not work right away, as I mentioned above, but once that was fixed the multimedia experience was solid. Void includes an image viewer, a tool to bulk rename files and the Thunar file manager. The Mousepad text editor is included along with a process monitor.
Void 20181111 -- Running the Parole media player
(full image size: 565kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
There is an entry in the application menu for a mail reader but it does not work as no e-mail client is installed. Void uses the runit init software which is relatively light and worked to quickly bring up and shutdown the system. When I started experimenting with Void the distribution ran on version 4.18 of the Linux kernel, with newer versions becoming available over time.
Software management
The Void distribution uses a package manager called the X Binary Package System (XBPS). XBPS is a collection of utilities rather than one unified tool. I found XBPS's syntax to be short and cryptic and it took me a while to get accustomed to running different tools to complete actions. As an example, on Fedora I might run "dnf search clang" to find the item I want and "dnf install clang" to install the package. With XBPS I would run one tool to find a package, "xbps-query -Rs clang", and then another, such as "xbps-install -S clang", to install it. If I were to run Void for a long time, I would probably create command aliases to help me find, install and remove programs.
I found XBPS does not automatically refresh its repository information and, since Void is a rolling release, our package information can be come outdated quickly. Users should remember to update package information prior to searching for items or installing new software.
Void 20181111 -- Using XBPS to install the Falkon web browser
(full image size: 249kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
When I first started using Void, about a week after the most recent ISO refresh, there were 44 updates totalling 161MB in size waiting for me. I suspect new packages versions will become available quickly and steadily based on my experience so far. Despite the steady flow of new packages, I did not encounter any errors with XBPS. It took me a while to get used to the utility and its approach, but there were no problems with the XBPS software. As far as I can tell, Void does not offer a graphical package manager.
The XBPS package manager has a source-based companion which allows users to build and customize their own packages from source code. I discussed how to use XBPS to work with source packages last year.
Other observations
For the most part, Void stayed out of my way, providing a light and responsive environment in which I could work and play. One of the nicest things I can say about any distribution is that it is pleasantly boring. When I don't have much to write about, that means the operating system is behaving the way I want it to, or not doing anything distracting or weird. For the most part, Void provided this kind of experience, largely due to its minimalism.
There were occasional issues though, usually when I was trying to add new features or adjust settings away from their defaults. For example, I ran into a problem when I tried to set up the Xfce panel on the left side of the screen instead of the top, and removed the quick-launch bar. Removing the bottom bar was easy, and the panel moved to the left, but the text on the panel was always rotated ninety degrees. On other distributions this has not been a problem, for example when I ran MX Linux earlier this year the panel automatically rotated its text to be the right way up. On Void this did not happen and removing and re-adding the items did not fix the problem.
Void 20181111 -- Moving the panel to the left side of the display
(full image size: 407kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Earlier I mentioned Void uses very little disk space compared to most mainstream distributions. This is because few desktop applications are installed. Once I had most of my typical work tools installed, disk usage grew from under 2GB to over 5GB of space. One item I was surprised to find missing was the cron software. Almost every Linux, UNIX and BSD flavour I have used over the years runs cron to perform periodic tasks, but Void does not. There are several cron implementations in the repositories if we want to install one.
There doesn't appear to be any support on Void for using Btrfs snapshots as boot environments, as I enjoyed recently with openSUSE Tumbleweed and with ZFS snapshots on GhostBSD. I had hoped, with Btrfs enabled, that boot environments might be set up, but this was not the case. The Timeshift utility is available in the distribution's repositories and I had hoped it would work for people who want to take snapshots of their operating system. However, Timeshift does not pull in all of its dependencies so some manual work is required to add the required packages. Then, once Timeshift was installed, I found out Void did not set up Btrfs in a way which is compatible with Timeshift, rendering the snapshot utility unable to function.
Void's software repositories are a little smaller than those of mainstream Linux distributions. There is also less support from third-party software companies. For example, you will not find a XBPS package of Google's Chrome or Steam. And these items are not in the distribution's repositories. One of the few reasons I use any non-free software these days is to watch Netflix and I found Void's Firefox package was able to automatically download an add-on to work with the streaming service. This is the first time I have ever had a Firefox package work with Netflix on Linux without additional tinkering required on my part.
Conclusions
When I started using Void the distribution looked promising. The project clearly is not targeting beginners and people who want to be able to point-n-click their way through things. Void is designed for people who don't mind text-based installers, managing packages from the command line, and manually configuring things, like scheduled jobs. This may be more work up front, but it provides a very slick, high performance, rolling release operating system. Early on, I felt Void was a good match for me, as I like its lightweight nature and I don't mind trading a little convenience for efficiency.
Another thing I like about Void is it is taking a different approach. This is not yet another spin of Ubuntu, or another desktop distribution based on Debian. Void is very much its own creation, with its own package manager, its own ports tree, its own init software, and some different low-level libraries. Void is different enough to be interesting while still able to run most of the same software other GNU/Linux distributions use.
However, by the end of the week I was beginning to realize Void was not going to be a practical distribution for me, personally, to run on an ongoing basis. There were too many little things I had to manage or work around. The lack of working sound early on is a prime example. It's not hard to fix, I just needed to install a mixer tool and reboot, but this pattern of fixing this which simply work on mainstream distributions continued throughout the week. As the days went by I had to install and set up cron to perform house-keeping tasks, work with Firefox with add-ons because Chrome wasn't available, deal with a missing icon for the file search feature, tinker with the panel to try to get text oriented in the right direction, manually track down dependencies for Timeshift, and so on.
I came away from my trial with Void thinking it is a highly interesting distribution and I like its design and style. But it is not a distribution I can "just use" day after day and be productive. It is a distribution more akin to Arch Linux where the user needs to craft their own system, set up the background services and work to maintain it. Which is great for many people, lots of Linux users want to tinker and enjoy the latest available software. And I recommend such people try Void. But if you crave a distribution where everything works out of the box and keeps working without maintenance, then Void is going to be a rough experience.
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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
Void has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9.3/10 from 192 review(s).
Have you used Void? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Getting an overview of open windows in GNOME, improvements to HAMMER2, Linux to drop x32 support, Quirky discontinued
Fedora Magazine ran an article this week which talks about how to add an overview of open applications to the GNOME Shell desktop using an extension available in the Fedora repositories. "The default desktop of Fedora Workstation - GNOME Shell - is known and loved by many users for its minimal, clutter-free user interface. However, one thing that many users want is an always-visible view of open applications. One simple and effective way to get this is with the awesome Dash to Dock GNOME Shell extension. Dash to Dock takes the dock that is visible in the GNOME Shell Overview, and places it on the main desktop. This provides a view of open applications at a glance, and provides a quick way to switch windows using the mouse." Installation instructions and notes on the extension's features can be found in the Fedora Magazine article.
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DragonFly BSD users will be happy to learn the operating system's HAMMER2 file system has received a number of improvements. The file system can now better recover from crashes and offers the ability to have an encrypted root volume. "Matthew Dillon's been working on 'reliable on-media topology' for HAMMER2. If you had a crash at just the right time with HAMMER2, you wouldn't lose data but you might have to do some manual cleanup. (Don't ask me the steps; never happened to me.) With these changes, that doesn't happen any more. It's present now in -master and will be in what should be DragonFly 5.4.1 by the end of the year. He has a post to users@ that goes into better detail. If you want way too much detail, you can check the commits." More information and links to in-depth details on the changes can be found in a DragonFly BSD Digest post.
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The x32 architecture is a special offshoot of the 64-bit x86 (x86-64) architecture which allows a program to use 64-bit instructions while still using smaller, 32-bit pointers. The idea is to allow applications to use faster, 64-bit instructions while consuming smaller amounts of memory than "pure" 64-bit application do. The x32 feature is rarely used and Andy Lutomirski has suggested it be removed from the Linux kernel. LWN explains: "The x32 subarchitecture is a software variant of x86-64; it runs the processor in the 64-bit mode, but uses 32-bit pointers and arithmetic. The idea is to get the advantages of x86-64 without the extra memory usage that goes along with it. It seems, though, that x32 is not much appreciated; few distributions support it and the number of users appears to be small. So now Andy Lutomirski is proposing its eventual removal: 'I propose that we make CONFIG_X86_X32 depend on BROKEN for a release or two and then remove all the code if no one complains. If anyone wants to re-add it, IMO they're welcome to do so, but they need to do it in a way that is maintainable.'" It is important to note that x32 is different from 32-bit support. The removal of x32 instructions will not affect 32-bit x86 hardware support, which continues to be maintained in the kernel.
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Barry Kauler has announced that the experimental Quirky distribution has been discontinued. In an e-mail Kauler wrote: "I am now formally announcing that my project Quirky Linux is retired. I am working on another distribution, EasyOS, and that is where all the action is these days. I was stretched too thin trying to maintain both distributions. The repository at ibiblio.org will remain up indefinitely, but I cannot guarantee how long." Information on Kauler's new distribution can be found on the EasyOS website.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Opinion (by Jesse Smith) |
Avoiding the effects of software bloat
Software bloat refers to the way programs and software libraries tend to grow over time, taking on more features and working in a wider variety of environments. Software usually starts off doing one thing and, if it works well, users will request new features and abilities be added to the program, causing it to grow in size, using up more disk, memory and CPU resources.
A common example of this progression towards higher resource consumption and more features can be seen in most web browsers. A web browser might start off just showing web pages and storing bookmarks. But then someone wants the browser to store passwords too, and another user requests a feature to synchronize bookmarks across devices and someone else submits a patch to manage cookies. A simple web browser can quickly balloon into a massive program that talks over multiple network protocols, blocks ads, plays videos, filters cookies and syncs bookmarks & passwords.
A lot of people feel negatively about software bloat. They, correctly, point out that software often becomes slower over time and requires new computer hardware to run. This can get expensive as new hardware is often purchased to keep up with growing software demands. For better or worse, programs that get big rarely reverse direction because removing features invariably upsets users who have come to rely on the added bells and whistles.
The good news is it is possible to fight against the steady current of software bloat. While individual programs almost always grow in size and resource consumption, the software ecosystem has a natural and positive response: writing smaller programs with a sharper focus. Whenever popular software packages get large and slow, developers pop up to write leaner alternatives. When Firefox began to get noticeably bigger, several alternatives such as Epiphany and Falkon were available to take its place. When GNOME and KDE expand, there are several lighter alternatives such as Xfce and LXQt to take their places. The same holds true for productivity suites, music players, and even the system's C library.
In a way, the open source community enters into a cycle where new programs are created, become popular, get larger, and then smaller alternatives get created - restarting the process. Some may choose to see this cycle of new programs coming into existence, growing and (in some cases) being replaced, as depressing, but it serves the open source community well. This approach allows people who want all the bells and whistles to use full featured applications while others stick to lean and fast equivalents. Each distribution, and each user, can choose to find their preferred balance between efficiency and features.
Friends asked me recently why I haven't upgraded my computer in the past couple of years and, upon thinking about it, I realized that I'm performing the same tasks I was three years ago and using the same features, but my resource usage is actually lower now than it was when I first bought this computer. Small migrations, such as moving from Firefox to Falkon and Unity to Xfce have allowed me to keep performing the same tasks in mostly the same ways while gobbling up less RAM and CPU cycles.
While some software continues to march forward, becoming bigger, better, richer and heavier, it is important to remember that for nearly every full-featured heavyweight application out there, there are smaller ones. Software which may not have every feature and the kitchen sink, but which can do most of what users need with a smaller footprint. In a similar fashion, for every Linux distribution which eats resources in a effort to provide a shiny, feature-rich experience, there is another which will get by on resources which were available nearly two decades ago. This gives us a whole spectrum of resource usage versus features, and we can pick the tools we feel best suit our needs. In other words, software bloat is very real, but we do not need to fall victim to it in the open source community. We can choose the tools, small or large, that best suits our environment.
What are some of your favourite lightweight application and desktop alternatives? Do you run a minimal window manager, use a bare-bones e-mail client, or a low-resource office suite? Let us know how you keep your system skinny in the comments.
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More answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Tails 3.11
A new version of Tails has been released. Tails is a Debian-based live distribution whose goal is to help its users to browse the Internet anonymously and to circumvent censorship. This version is a standard minor upgrade and bug-fix release: "Upgrades and changes: Add a confirm dialog between downloading and applying an automatic upgrade to control better when the network is disabled and prevent partially applied upgrades. When running from a virtual machine, warn about the trustworthiness of the operating system even when running from a free virtualization software. Disable Autocrypt in Thunderbird to prevent sending unencrypted emails by mistake. Update Linux to 4.18.20. Update Tor Browser to 8.0.4. Update Thunderbird to 60.3.0. Fixed problems: Fix the opening of Thunderbird in non-English languages. Reduce the logging level of Tor when using bridges. For more details, read our changelog." Further information is available in the project's release announcement.
FreeBSD 12.0
The FreeBSD team has announced the project's first release in its 12 series. FreeBSD 12.0 features a number of software updates, including OpenSSL 1.1.1, OpenSSH 7.8, and the Clang compiler has been updated to version 6.0.1. TRIM support has been improved for the UFS filesystem and the bhyve virtualization software can now be run inside a jail. "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE. This is the first release of the stable/12 branch. Some of the highlights: OpenSSL has been updated to version 1.1.1a (LTS). Unbound has been updated to version 1.8.1, and DANE-TA has been enabled by default. OpenSSH has been updated to version 7.8p1. Additional capsicum(4) support has been added to sshd(8). Clang, LLVM, LLD, LLDB, compiler-rt and libc++ has been updated to version 6.0.1. The vt(4) Terminus BSD Console font has been update to version 4.46. The bsdinstall(8) utility now supports UEFI+GELI as an installation option. The VIMAGE kernel configuration option has been enabled by default." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
FreeBSD 12.0 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 536kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Univention Corporate Server 4.3-3
Stefan Gohmann has announced the release of Univention Corporate Server (UCS) 4.3-3, the latest update of the project's Debian-based distribution for servers with a web-based administration system: "Third point release for Univention Corporate Server (UCS) 4.3 is now available. It includes a number of important updates and various new features. The portal is the starting point for many UCS users and administrators. As described in the blog article Design the UCS Portal with Drag & Drop, you can adapt it very easily to your needs. The 'Applications' and 'Administration' categories were static until now. We have extended the portal so that you can now define your own categories. In addition, you can add static links to the portal. In many environments different users should be shown different tiles. To do this, the group members for whom a particular tile is displayed are stored in the tiles. Previously, you could only assign each tile to one group. With UCS 4.3-3 you can now assign several groups to each tile. As soon as a user is a member of one of these groups, the corresponding tile will be displayed." See the release announcement and release notes for further information.
SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 SP4
Raj Meel has announced the availability of the fourth service pack for SUSE Linux Enterprise 12, the current legacy branch of the company's commercial, enterprise-class distribution with long-term support of over 10 years: "SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Service Pack 4 is now generally available. Service Pack 4 marks the fourth generation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12, a major code stream and product foundation with a lifecycle from 2014 to 2024 plus long-term support (10 + 3 years). This release consolidates all fixes and updates introduced since SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Service Pack 3. Key features of this release include: persistent memory enhancements - Intel Optane DC persistent memory (NVDIMM) with SAP HANA is supported for faster recovery from planned and unplanned outages; new hardware support - latest Intel processors, AMD's 'Zen 2' core processor generation, IBM Z14, IBM LinuxONE Rockhopper II, IBM POWER9 (Little Endian) enhancements, Arm SoC/ODM support for selected vendors including Raspberry Pi devices...." See the brief release announcement and the detailed release notes for further information.
GParted Live 0.33.0-1
Curtis Gedak has announced the release of GParted Live 0.33.0-1, the latest stable version of the project's specialist live CD with a collection of disk partitioning and data rescue tools: "The GParted team is pleased to announce a new stable release of GParted Live. This release includes GParted 0.33.0, updated packages and other improvements. Items of note include GParted 0.33.0 which adds the following enhancements: support copying and moving of unsupported partition content; add MINIX file system support; recognise APFS Apple file system; GTK+ 2 code modernisation; based on the Debian Sid repository as of 2018-12-14; Linux kernel updated to 4.18.20. This release of GParted Live has been successfully tested on VirtualBox, VMware, BIOS, UEFI and physical computers with AMD/ATI, NVDIA and Intel graphics. Note that the default boot options does not display an X desktop on old Acer Aspire laptops. The workaround is to select 'Other modes' of GParted Live and choose 'GParted Live (Safe graphics setting, vga-normal)'. If this issue occurs on a 64-bit computer with UEFI then try the amd64 image." Here is the full release announcement.
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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: 1,166
- Total data uploaded: 22.7TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
What do you think of Void's unusual approach?
This week we reviewed Void, a Linux distribution with some unusual characteristics. Void does a number of things differently, using its own package manager, init software, an alternative security library and its own software building framework. While Void runs most of the same software other Linux distributions do, and performs the same tasks, it offers a different approach.
We would like to hear how you feel about Void taking alternative approaches. Do you like that they are trying something different, or is their style too far off the beaten track for your taste?
You can see the results of our previous poll on how many non-free packages are installed on our readers' computers in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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What do you think of Void's unusual approach?
| I am using Void and like that it is different: | 88 (9%) |
| I am using Void and do not like how it is different: | 5 (0%) |
| I am not using Void but like its differences: | 375 (36%) |
| I am not using Void and do not like its differences: | 153 (15%) |
| I have no strong feelings on Void being different: | 310 (30%) |
| Void is not all that different: | 47 (5%) |
| Other: | 54 (5%) |
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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, 24 December 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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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Software bloat (by Guido on 2018-12-17 01:05:33 GMT from Philippines)
Software bloat was one of the reasons for me to leave MS Windows behind and try Linux. Windows is another good example how software can grow over the years and decades,right? After my switch to the world of open source 2008 my PC, which was already 7 years old, felt much faster and lighter than ever before. Important is that you install the software and environment that really fits to your hardware, esp. the memory, the graphic card and the size of your screen.
2 • VOID (by Zephyr on 2018-12-17 01:26:31 GMT from United States)
VOID to me is not unusual at all, different than Debian, Arch or Ubuntu but not unusual at all. Devuan is my first choice of distributions. Found VOID easy enough to install but admit failed before due to bios settings and now run with UEFI.
It is a rolling release, not preferable but tolerable and it is a minimalist dream. Very responsive and running latest kernel release of 4.19.9.
Xbps works very well and no issues with updating, there is also a xbps-gui similar to synaptic. Currently unaware of any distribution that can run 4.19 kernel without major issues other than VOID. VOID also has a Rosetta Stone page, list most common distribution CLI command and it's compatible command with VOID.
Alsa works great OOTB, no workaround needed. What I found pleasing is Xfce4-mixer is in the VOID repos. Alsa works like a charm and wouldn't use Pulse.
VOID is also systemd free and uses runit, for those users who do care!
Keep on rocking VOID!
3 • Void and Steam update (by Jesse on 2018-12-17 01:26:50 GMT from Canada)
A Void community member pointed out that technically it is possible to install Steam using Void's xbps package manager, but it takes several (six or seven) extra steps. There is a wiki article on it here: https://wiki.voidlinux.org/Steam
It may also be possible to install Chrome using the xbps-src framework, but Void cannot distribute Chrome binaries due to licensing/distribution restrictions.
4 • small apps (by MikeOh Shark on 2018-12-17 01:27:58 GMT from United States)
One thing to consider about the smaller apps is that sometimes you need multiple programs to do what one might do. I would like to find a single program that allows me to manipulate PDFs as well as Adobe Acrobat. Instead, I use one to add/remove pages and change page order, another to add bookmarks, and others to compress or edit links.
5 • BLOAT (by Bob on 2018-12-17 02:17:58 GMT from United States)
"for every Linux distribution which eats resources in a effort to provide a shiny, feature-rich experience, there is another which will get by on resources which were available nearly two decades ago. "
TRUE! For audio/video media, including DVDs, all I need is mplayer.
6 • Void (by Jordan on 2018-12-17 02:25:07 GMT from United States)
I've had to struggle off and on with various distro early on, some knowing at the outset that it would be more about my learning the distro and Linux than just installing a new OS to try out (Arch, Slackware, Gentoo, etc).
No need or desire to go through that again, especially with a distro that diverts from important to me norms. No void here.
7 • small apps comment #4 (by Bobbie Sellers on 2018-12-17 03:05:07 GMT from United States)
Comment #4 relates to the problems with finding a single file
to create and modify PDF files. I suggest Master PDF Editor which
is currently up to version 5. It is one large tool that can do many
of the operations mentioned by(by MikeOh Shark on 2018-12-17
01:27:58 GMT from United States)
On files i want to keep the same I use Okular which leaves
my online receipts and payment records alone.
bliss
8 • Into the Void (by pin on 2018-12-17 05:50:33 GMT from Sweden)
I've been using Void, musl libC build for the last two years. Started from the base image and running awesome wm. I'm booting in UEFI mode without any issues. Everything works as it should, sound, video, wifi,...
Yes, you have to do some work in the beggining, but afterwards is mainly a metter of xbps-install -Suv and every now and then xbps-remove -Oo and vkpurge remove
I don't use Google Chrome but, for those running the GlibC build it can be accessed using the non-free repo.
9 • Overbloat (by John on 2018-12-17 07:40:36 GMT from United States)
All the discussions about size seem to miss to me the MAJOR point.
I still have a useful version of Linux running on a 386DX2. Still works well. Still works reliably, Still supports printers. Supports networking well. Does real work.
It does things 'modern' distributions cannot or do not do.
I find the claims about the current small size claims hilarious. Compared to what?
My overbloat is better than your overbloat.?
The whole idea of small is beautiful seems to have been lost in the compiler wars.
John - Concord, NH
10 • Bloat (by Gustavo on 2018-12-17 10:14:51 GMT from Brazil)
Most of the 'bloat' is caused by web browsers anyway, and you can´t live without Chromium or Firefox.
Sometimes a desktop environment is too heavy (bad programmed) on the GPU. I believe Gnome could be much faster (better frame rate) than what currently is.
I find Cinnamon the best balance between eye-candy and speed, even on low end computers with integrated GPU. It really got faster since latest releases and is faster than Xfce is some instances.
11 • @1 Bloat (by Kim on 2018-12-17 11:14:25 GMT from Austria)
I am using several computers with only half of them running Linux, the other half Windows. It is equally easy to get Windows and KDE to forget about most of the unneeded eye candy to pick up speed. So in both worlds responsiveness is satisfactory. If there is any bloat I cannot feel it. The only foolproof method to get a noticeable difference between the 2 OSes is to install nouveau instead of nvidia on Linux machines. FOSS junkies might survive that, I won't ;-)
12 • You Have A Choice... (by R. Cain on 2018-12-17 11:25:24 GMT from United States)
@9 --'Overbloat' (by John)
Agreed. Perhaps the major contributor to overbloat is the operating system.
Consider all the low-cost "Chromebook-wannabe" laptops / notebooks which come with a 32 GB HDD (in reality, a 'poor-man's SSD': an eMMC module) to support Windows10. Even the Win10 fanboys gripe that, after two or three of MS's (infamous) "leave-your-computer-on-all-night-for-this" upgrades, the computer really can handle nothing else; it's out of HDD space. We Linux types, always quick to point out the shortcomings of Microsoft, were among the first to cite this as THE problem to dual-booting Linux on these machines.
Before we get too smug: as @9 points out, this exact, same MS mentality has infected most all major Linux OS distributions; and which has led to an almost exponential rise in bugs due to the increased complexity of the software (see OCS Magazine, 10/19/2016--"Systemd – Progress Through Complexity”).
Which is the reason why, after being a solid user of a particular Linux distribution, I'm shifting--no, make that "being forced to shift"; the old 'franchise' has gotten a bad case of 'bigger is better' (the latest version is more than twice the size of my original), and--in the process--introduced innumerable never-fixed bugs (the major bug-fix strategy seems to be: 'ignore') and hardware and software regressions into their once incomparable product,
MX-Linux is my choice; it's very fast, light (1200 MB download), *full-featured*, outstanding battery life, no 'systemd', named 'best-of' two years in a row by OCS Magazine, and is now #2 iin DistroWatch's 7-Day ranking.
This is what Linux distributions USED to be. And are, once again.
http://www.ocsmag.com/2018/12/05/best-xfce-distro-of-2018/
http://www.ocsmag.com/2017/12/23/best-xfce-distro-of-2017/
13 • Software bloat (by lincoln on 2018-12-17 11:47:55 GMT from Brazil)
Comment #1 I feel the same with 5-year hardware, much faster and lighter than before switching to the open source world. Note: For some reason I should use Windows on my brother's laptop with hardware more advanced than I {[i7 7th gen, 8 GB, NVidia GPU] vs [i7 3th gen, 8 GB, onboard graphics]}. I get angry at super delay, no responsive software. Even opening a pdf is an eternity.
Small migrations
from Ubuntu to Debian
from Unity to Mate
from Writer to Latex
from Impress to Beamer
from Netbeans to Pluma (little software)
from Chromium to Firefox
14 • PDF editor (by MikeOh Shark on 2018-12-17 12:05:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
@7, Thanks!
I will look into this. It's not in my repository but I think I saw it in one of my other boot disks.
15 • @13, Bloat? (by Angel on 2018-12-17 13:05:22 GMT from Philippines)
I won't get into the bad or good of bloat. In my case I find that hardware and software seem to keep pace and have no desire to run hardware from the last century. Now if someone running a 7th or any generation i7 needs an eternity to open a pdf, they have other problems, whether in Windows or whatever.
My hardware needs are modest: two i3s, 5th qen 7 gen and. one i5 6th gen. Highest ram at 8GB. Could do with less, but needed because I run VMs. The one bottleneck I found was in hard drive access, so I installed SSDs, nothing fancy. All PCs dual-boot Windows 10 and Ubuntu or Arch derivatives with KDE or Gnome. The performance of all three units is more than satisfactory. No eternities, not even seconds to open such a thing as a pdf.
16 • Void and Bloat (by dragonmouth on 2018-12-17 13:19:38 GMT from United States)
Void and Bloat.. An interesting and unintentional juxtaposition of words.
@2 Zephyr:
"Currently unaware of any distribution that can run 4.19 kernel without major issues other than VOID"
I am using PCLinuxOS that currently runs 4.19.9 kernel without any perceived issues.
@Bloat:
Once upon the time the function of an init program was to only boot up the system. Then someone decided that was archaic and simplistic and so last millennium. In their opinion, an init program should perform as many tasks as it can, maybe even cook our meals and walk the dog. So they developed systemd, the Borg program that is slowly assimilating any software it comes in contact with. It seems that it is also assimilating the reasoning capacity of more and more distro distributors, causing then to replace other simpler init systems with bloated (and growing) systemd. Pretty soon there will be precious few distros not built around systemd. Resistance is futile.
I'm sure someone here is going to hop up and declare that systemd can be removed and replaced by an init of one's choice. Really? Not if applications are written with systemd as a dependency. Maybe if one is a Linux expert used to re-compiling their kernels on a daily basis. The average Linux user does not have neither the expertise, the desire nor the time to slice and dice their O/S. So the average Linux user is at the mercy of distro developers who think the bloat of systemd is the Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread.
17 • @15 Angel: (by dragonmouth on 2018-12-17 13:32:40 GMT from United States)
"I find that hardware and software seem to keep pace"
No, they don't. At any point in time either hardware or software is ahead.
Hardware vs software is a vicious circle. As soon as more powerful hardware is developed, new software is written to take advantage of that power and capability. Of course, the new software has so many "enhancements" and is so bloated that it brings the hardware to its knees. So new, more powerful hardware must be developed which, in turn, leads to more "new and improved" software. Rinse and repeat. Ad Nauseam.
18 • @17 (by Angel on 2018-12-17 15:24:37 GMT from Philippines)
I suppose I should have made it clear the I'm referring to normal use: office, photos, viewing videos, internet and such. There will always be specialized software, gaming, and others testing the limits and wanting more. But for a normal home or office user, a Core 2 Duo from a decade ago, with 4GB of DDR3 RAM will do nicely in most cases, especially if coupled with an SSD. I get to see many around here working fine.
19 • Bloat and Void (by cykodrone on 2018-12-17 15:40:57 GMT from Canada)
I use Pale Moon with uBlock Origin AND NoScript (my S.P./OpenSuse Pale Moon repo stopped working, hopefully it will come back up, I get a not signed key error), which is not available in by default in my distro's repo, Claws mail, and the Xfce DE without PulseAudio, I have a FULL set of system sounds with Alsa (I had to COMPLETELY remove PulseAudio and do some old school tweaking to get the system sounds working). I use a non systemd Debian based distro. Even though my computer can easily handle bloat, I still don't care for it, it just becomes laggy and buggy Frankeware with bolted on fixes. I also use a balance of aesthetically pleasing yet fast GUI enhancements in Xfce, most OOTB Xfce installs look so late 90s, with all the custom themes and icons since then, there's no reason for it. My LibreOffice 5.2.7.2 (writer) just whips open (cold start from an SSD) in literally two seconds, this is a major improvement from back in the day.
Void looks interesting, but unless it has a decent choice of video transcoding and DVD authoring apps, it just aint gunna happen. I can get my printer working in almost any distro, I have not tested it yet, but if I can't get it to work or print properly from most apps (simple text editors, web browser, LibreOffice, etc), that would be an instant deal breaker. It appears to be like most independent and ground breaking projects, a work in progress, hopefully they get it under control and its popularity takes off, we need more alternatives to foofy mainstream cult distros.
20 • Void Linux review (by eznix on 2018-12-17 16:28:13 GMT from United States)
Problems with the review:
1. Void's documentation clearly states how to start the installation in a terminal
2. cfdisk is perfectly friendly. Neglects to mention that installation routine does not automatically progress past the filesystem step to installation as all previous steps do so the user must manually arrow down to start the installation - a bit confusing.
3. The 4.18 kernel has virtualbox guest additions baked in. The resolution can be set through the desktop's display tool IF the user does not try to manually adjust the screen size by dragging the window borders. Let the desktop come up and go directly to the display settings tool and select the desired resolution and it works every time.
4. Sound was muted by default. Unmute and turn up the volume and it works out of the box (Mate desktop edition tested, but no reason why it should not work in Xfce). Installing a mixer is no big deal on a minimalist distro.
5. No mention of installing multimedia codecs and how the names of the packages may elude many people. gstreamer plugins are named beginning with "gst..."
6. Xbps-install -S updates the repositories each time you run it to install a package, so repository information is up to the minute each package install.
7. GUI package manager is available with OctoXBPS.
8. no mention of how to setup the repository mirrors and add non-free repositories? This is very different from most distributions and deserves some coverage.
9. MX Linux is about the ONLY distro that correctly rotates the text when reorienting the panels. Void is by far not aloe in this regard, rather it is in the vast majority of normal behavior.
Overall, the reviewer did not spend enough time reading the documentation before jumping into the review.
21 • Void Linux review - part 2 (by eznix on 2018-12-17 16:33:02 GMT from United States)
Lastly, Void Linux installed and worked perfectly in Virtualbox with EFI enabled and GPT partitions used. The installer tells the user exactly how to partition the drive for both legacy bios, UEFI, MBR and GPT. If you follow the instructions, it appears to work just fine, at least in VB.
22 • @18 Angel: (by dragonmouth on 2018-12-17 17:58:11 GMT from United States)
I'm speaking on general, not specialized software. Hardware vs software across all platforms - from tablets and smartphones to main frames. A decade ago, you could fit most Linux distros on a CD, today you need a DVD for most of them. How big is today's MS Office as opposed to a decade ago? Between user friendliness, extra features and eye candy apps grow like Topsy requiring more RAM, faster CPUs and more storage.
23 • Void Linux review - part 3 (by eznix on 2018-12-17 16:50:45 GMT from United States)
Btw, I have done three recent Void Linux video installations, each one demonstrating a different installation type (legacy bios with MBR, EFI with GPT, and legacy with GPT) on YT. Very easy to get up and running once you read the documentation.
24 • Old School Is Better Than New School (by Arnold on 2018-12-17 16:56:22 GMT from United States)
"...However, one thing that many users want is an always-visible view of open applications. One simple and effective way to get this is with the awesome [Xfce. Xubuntu] places it on the main desktop. This provides a view of open applications at a glance, and provides a quick way to switch windows using the mouse."
25 • Void review (by Jesse on 2018-12-17 17:08:23 GMT from Canada)
@20: Regarding the problems you say are in the review I'd like to offer the following:
1. I mentioned the instructions for starting the installer were on the Void website.
2. cfdisk is not a friendly partition manager compared to a GUI partition manager which is available in most other distributions. I like it, but it's not suitable for most uses.
3. My experience contradicts yours with regards to resizing VirtualBox windows. I don't try to resize VB windows by dragging their edges. I tried the way you suggested and it did not work. So, no, your suggestion does not work every time.
4. Yes, that is what I wrote. We're in agreement so I'm not sure why you list this as a problem with the review.
5. I didn't need to do anything special to get multimedia support working, that is why it's not covered. I didn't need to, for example, hunt down gstreamer packages as you seem to suggest is required.
6. Yes, xbps can update repo information, but it doesn't do that up front. If the user tries to search for a package before installing or syncing, the search will fail.
7. Yes, you can get GUI front-ends, but none are installed by default, which is what I was covering.
8. Maybe it does (which is why I added it in a comment). But I did not run into any situations where I had to use the non-free repo in my review so it didn't come up naturally.
9. This is simply not the case. Void is the first distro I've run into that doesn't properly align text in a vertical panel.
You conclude I needed to spend more time reading the documentation but your points don't seem to support that. None of my issues with running Void came from a lack of information on how the system works, but rather technical issues or Void doing things differently.
26 • Correction, Pale Moon repo key fix (by cykodrone on 2018-12-17 17:35:04 GMT from Canada)
Works in my non sytemd Debian fork...
run (as root) in a terminal (one at a time):
wget https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/stevenpusser/Debian_9.0/Release.key
apt-key add - < Release.key
apt-get update
This fixed the problem for me. My humble apologies to Mr. Pusser.
27 • Software bloat (by Mindaugas on 2018-12-17 18:26:00 GMT from Lithuania)
Hello. I use Devuan Ascii. I made minimal install and on top i installed only what I needed. I use the i3wm window manager, and practically do not use any graphic programs. I have enough CLI programs. Old School Is Better Than New School.
28 • @22 (by Angel on 2018-12-17 18:35:06 GMT from Philippines)
And I remember when you could run Linux ran off a floppy. So? I did not say that software didn't grow in size, but that hardware has kept pace. DVDs didn't come about out of a need to fit Linux distros. And now that DVDs are old hat, USB sticks and SD cards keep growing. I own no DVDs, and the smallest sticks and cards I own are 8GB. Hard drives can be 16TB, for which most of us have no need. I probably never will. Nor do most of us have need for the more powerful CPUs or graphic cards, which keep getting more powerful.
Slow running software came about because manufacturers sold under-powered PCs for the software, not because better hardware was not available. And because on top they loaded the PCs with crapware. Remember netbooks? They weren't the first, nor the last. They still sell that kind of crap, although it's not as bad as old times.
29 • Bloat (by Friar Tux on 2018-12-17 19:03:18 GMT from Canada)
There is another way to keep the bloat at bay. Find an app/programme that does everything you need and delete the rest, Example:- I have been using Cherrytree (by Giuseppe Penone) for a long time, now. It is my all-purpose, go-to programme. I use it as a PIM, word processor, to do list, task manager, data base, address book, appointment book, and much more. About the only thing it does NOT do is wash my car and do my dishes (Hey, Giuseppe, you're dropping the ball). I use Orage Calendar for all my calendar needs. VLC for audio and video. This keeps the collection of apps/programmes down to a minimum. Works for me, quite nicely.
30 • void (by a on 2018-12-17 19:54:04 GMT from France)
When I was looking for a systemd-free distro to get away from Arch a few years ago, I considered Void, but at the time it was pretty new and they didn’t have any web forum, they only had some google+ thing… the horror. I think now they have a web forum but it’s the unbearable discourse, so no thank you.
Actually the void forums are down at the moment…
Besides that issue it looks like a great distro. Having to work a little bit to configure it is a requirement for any distro, anyway.
31 • Software bloat (by lincoln on 2018-12-17 20:13:50 GMT from Brazil)
"needs an eternity to open a pdf, they have other problems, whether in Windows or whatever",
"The one bottleneck I found was in hard drive access"
comment 15 by Angel
To know the dimension of "eternity", given pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/BlenderDocumentation2.pdf approximately the file opening times on my machine and on my brother's machine:
[1.741s, 1.513s, 1.490s] // Debian, Atril Document Viewer
[76.674s, 16.666s, 5.863s] // Windows, Google Chrome
[43.700s, 1.637s, 1.646s] // Windows, Foxit Reader
Yes, the HDD is a bottleneck, but the two machines use hard drive. I can only imagine that the operating system itself and PDF Reader are the biggest culprits. The first opening in the Windows operating system (the most common operation) is terrible.
32 • Software bloat vs hardware (by Dxvid on 2018-12-17 22:51:55 GMT from Sweden)
I can remember the time when software bloat used to be a common problem. But since I started using fast SSDs (500+MB/s), 4+ core CPUs and having 16GB RAM on all my computers around 8+ years ago I very rarely have experienced any problems with bloat independently if I used Win7 or Linux. Firefox and chrome run smoothly even though they are bloated. The only times I have experienced slowness because of bloatware the latest 8 years is with the official pdf reader, Win 8.x, Win10, big .net and java applications. But with very fast U.2 SSD (2000+GB/s) drives the bloat isn't as noticeable even in Win10. However if I use old equipment or servers where efficiency is needed I always prefer Linux and I've always appreciated the possibility to use lightweight WMs like lxde, lxqt, icewm.
33 • Something to consider... (by R. Cain on 2018-12-18 03:32:10 GMT from United States)
The 'holy trinity' of office applications is / are the word processor, the spreadsheet, and the database programs. Anyone mildly 'into' spreadsheet programs knows that one can use a speadsheet as an absolutely *excellent* flat-file database (probably the only thing you'll ever need for >99% of the time).
I thought the following information, taken from one of my laptop machines, might be interesting--
LibreOffice (v 5.1.6.2): 250.1 MB file,
vs
Gnuneric (v 1.12.28): 3.8 MB file; and
AbiWord (v 3.0.1-6): 4.0 MB file.
34 • Another great DW Weekly (by Paul on 2018-12-18 11:16:53 GMT from United States)
Thanks Jesse for your continuing great articles! It was interesting reading about VOID since isn't that the distro where a few months ago the lead programmer dropped out of contact and disappeared for awhile?
That being said though I found VOID interesting to read about, I will probably never try it. Ive found I don't really have the temperament to have to manually adjust several things out of the box. I can deal with setting up NFS or building a program or two from source but anymore than that, I move on.
I'm currently running Manjaro with Deepin. I'm not sure where that falls on the bloat or no bloat scale but on a AMD A4-7300 APU with 4GB ram it seems to run well
35 • about bloatware (by debianxfce on 2018-12-18 11:29:02 GMT from Finland)
Debian is full of bloatware and garbage software from redhat and its popular derivatives adds more. By creating your own distribution you can choose what to install and minimize bloatware. It is super simple with:
build-simple-cdd --dist sid --local-packages /home/xfce/Downloads/cd/debs/ --profiles desktop
I have optimized the boot time for years and that does not improve. The systemd garbage is bloated and slowing down with many hidden services that are visible with: systemd-analyze dot
Systemd waits randomness entropy to fill and some idiot in kernel development team has implement that by using HID events, in other words you need to move you mouse or install the haveged package. Only badly designed software comes from redhat: systemd,pulseaudio,gnome3 and networkmanager.
I can not switch the distribution because Debian is is the only with fluidsynth and zynaddsubfx ddsi synths for Rosegarden.
36 • @33 R.Cain: (by dragonmouth on 2018-12-18 14:12:51 GMT from United States)
I'll grant you your premise that single apps are smaller than suites or suite components. However, comparing AbiWord & Gnumeric with Libre Office is like comparing a go kart to a Lexus. Besides a word processor and a spreadsheet, Libre Office provides a database app, presentation app, draw app and a formula editor. How much space would it take to use six stand-alone apps instead of Libre Office? Besides, there are countless plug-ins and add-ons to extend Libre Office capabilities that just do not exist for the stand-alone apps. Also, Libre Office provides an integrated environment which allows data from one module to be easily used in another one.
37 • Void developer (by Jesse on 2018-12-18 15:00:01 GMT from Canada)
@34: >> "Was interesting reading about VOID since isn't that the distro where a few months ago the lead programmer dropped out of contact and disappeared for awhile?"
Yes and no. The Void founder left the project around a year ago, I think. The team migrated their resources around six or seven months ago. You might also be thinking of Solus, another rolling release distro where the founder left and the team went public with it in the past couple of months.
38 • We're zeroing in on the problem... (by R. Cain on 2018-12-18 15:02:06 GMT from United States)
@ 36 --
Your comment falls into the same category as those comments in the Blogs of an (un-named) Distro, surrounding the--no; make that *another*--release of a new, buggy, bloated offering--
"Hi there, XXXX,
What an absolutely GREAT job you guys are doing. I found the following new bugs, and you still haven't fixed the yyyy and zzzz bugs I reported two releases ago, but the feature in this new release makes up for all that. Keep up the great work!!!"
You seriously need to read the following:
https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/software-development-cancer.html
(If you do your homework, you'll find that LibreOffice its own set of problems.
And, even assuming that LibreOffice were absolutely *perfect*, in every and all respects, why would anyone want to harbor an application which is so large simply because it contains options they'll never use--except, of course, the word-processor, for writing the next Great American Novel.)
39 • LibreOffice, Red Hat (by cykodrone on 2018-12-18 16:33:44 GMT from Canada)
I landed on LibreOffice because occasionally I have to open files created by insanely expensive and super bloated proprietary software, if the lighter solutions could do everything LO does, I would use them. I used MS Office back in the day, I hated it, and their forced upgrade path extortion. If I wanted ransomware, I would click of dodgy links in spam email. ;D
Red Hat never met a problem they couldn't bloat to death, I doubt they've ever heard of the Occam's razor principle, there is one developer at Red Hat that had to keep himself relevant to keep his job, in his mind, he thinks he is the darling of the Linux world.
40 • Lean Desktoo (by Elch on 2018-12-18 19:54:32 GMT from Germany)
I set up my 10 years old eeepc with Antix and the old but shiny e16 wm and I'm very happy with it. The system boots faster than MX Linux on my netbook from 2016. On the other hand I have that heavy but easy rhythmbox for music, firefox for the internet, but may change to midori or xmms, in case cpu reaches temperarures ready for frying eggs
41 • @38 R.Cain: (by dragonmouth on 2018-12-18 20:50:18 GMT from United States)
You seem to be fixated on those that can get by with AbiWord and GnuCash. What about those that need/want a database or a graphics program and/or a presentation software? How much space do Firebird, MySQL, Maria or PostgreSQL take? Would you suggest that these people use KolourPaint rather than LO Draw? What about when they need to use data from one app in another? How compatible are those stand-alone applications with each other?
I read dedoimedo's screed against software developers and the companies that employ them. While I agree with muchof what he writes, I noticed one very glaring omission. There is absolutely no mention of bloat being caused, even in part, by users demanding more features in more user friendly programs with prettier UIs. If users refused to use the bloated crap that developers foist on them, the developers would get the hint.
He somehow manages to overlook software written before year 2000. Software bloat started way back in the 1950s, long before he was even a gleam in his father's eye. Back then very few complained about software bloat because few, if any, users ever interacted with software in any way. All the users saw was the paper output generated by the software.
"If you do your homework, you'll find that LibreOffice its own set of problems."
So does any software you wish to name. Well, maybe not "Hello World" programs.
42 • @39 cykodrone: (by dragonmouth on 2018-12-18 20:55:10 GMT from United States)
" I doubt they've ever heard of the Occam's razor principle"
LOL
Or the KISS principle.
43 • @9 (by satan on 2018-12-18 21:40:42 GMT from Australia)
John, you'd be better off buying a very cheap raspberry pi zero (about $15) to replace that 386, not because of the functionality but because of the power usage. that 386's thermals and powersupply are going to be super inefficient compared to a modern low power device like the PI or similar tinker board system
44 • Void Linux (by Winchester on 2018-12-19 15:48:24 GMT from United States)
I would say that the review on Void Linux is fairly accurate but,probably a little bit too critical.
Once set-up (maybe a little bit more work than usual),it is not hard to maintain.
Xbps-install -Su updates the whole system and it does not break so far in my experience. Rolling for nearly one full year with no breakages. It's more stable in my experience than Arch Linux. Easier to maintain than Slackware and Gentoo as far as I can tell.
The only negatives that I have noticed so far :
1) FireFox ESR updates arrive too slowly from the repository. I have had to download the FireFox 60.x versions from the Mozilla web-site and extract to the /opt/ directory.
2) I have had trouble getting the clock in the XFCE panel to show local time.
3) Maybe not Void's fault but,TicketMaster would not allow me to purchase tickets to a professional hockey game using Void Linux."Use a different computer" message. So,I booted into Solus Linux and was able to complete the transaction.
4) Old kernels are not automatically deleted. It has to be done from the command line or you will end up with a ton of them. Likewise,symbolic links to the most recent kernel has to be done manually.
Other than that,Void Linux suits my needs almost perfectly.
I have around 12 distributions installed on my main computer but,when the day arrives for a new computer,I will probably install fewer. Maybe four. Void Linux will definitely be one of them.
45 • @9 "386DX2" (by ned on 2018-12-19 20:12:34 GMT from Austria)
You probably mean 486DX2 ... the 386 had only a DX version.
46 • bloat (by michael in texas on 2018-12-19 20:49:58 GMT from United States)
I think, at the end of the day, one person's bloatware is another person's essential feature.
LibreOffice is one example among others; it's the one with which I have the most experience. I'm an older guy -- I learned to type on an IBM Selectric with a daisy wheel and a ribbon! I used WordPerfect for DOS -- there were no such things as MS Windows or mice. But, I learned it and used it as a young attorney. I loved it with what, in retrospect, could only be described as an unwholesome affinity -- it did everything perfectly! I saw how word processors evolved from specialized, quite unfriendly applications to where they are today -- where they're so friendly that, whether you like it or not, they prompt you to choose whether you're writing a greeting card or a resume. I mourned a little when Corel Wordperfect fell by the wayside, and I was compelled by foolish law office managers to use MS Word. But, when they weren't looking, I still sneaked around and used OpenOffice and then LibreOffice, though. But, even setting aside the features of LibreOffice that I didn't need (such as Draw and Math (who ever heard of a lawyer who knows math? ;))), the word processor itself became increasingly out of control with what seemed to me to be useless clutter everywhere. These features were called "shortcuts" and "enhancements" and "templates." It made me sad. Now, in my retirement and semi-dotage, I get to use what I want. I use Abiword -- it opens in a few milliseconds, converts common formats, composes intricate documents. In short, it does everything, just like my old DOS-based WordPerfect did 30 years ago! I've filed Abiword-generated pleadings in the Supreme Court of the United States and throughout the federal court system -- they're perfect! I add Evince (or Atril for Mate), and I have what I need.
Having said that, I completely understand what others have said about their need for more from an office suite. For example, I remember how easy it was to use LibreOffice when I was teaching and needed presentation slides. And, I still like LibreOffice. I just quit using it.
47 • Xfce4 panel (by Hundovir on 2018-12-19 21:14:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
The panel needs to be set as "Deskbar" in the preferences, not "vertical". The text/labels/etc will then appear correctly. I thought that this was the same in any Xfce4 install.
Have been running Void for a couple of months. Nice "do-it-yourself" distro - reminds me of Arch. No problems installing on an HP laptop. After tinkering to my preferences I now find it runs with no problems at all.
48 • @31, lincoln, bloat (by Angel on 2018-12-20 10:21:34 GMT from Philippines)
Just for kicks, I downloaded the file in your link. I am running a Gigabyte Brix mini PC with a Core i5-6200U CPU, Intel graphics, 8GB RAM, and a run-of-the-mill Kingston SSD. I opened the file in a Windows 10 32bit and a 64bit Windows Virtualbox VM, both running at the same time in a Kubuntu 18.04 host. Te 32bit VM is allowed 1.5GB Ram, and the 64bit VM has 2GB. I also opened it in the host OS. Then rebooted into my bare metal installation of WIndows 10.
In both SSD Linux and Windows OSes, it was fast enough to be missed if I blinked too slowly. The VMs took at most 2 seconds. Slowest was the 64bit Windows and that is because the VM resides in a USB external HDD. ON Windows I used Acrobat, Chrome and Edge. On Linux I used Okular. Edge and Okular were fastest. Chrome was slowest. As I said before, seems to me that there's a hardware or software problem in your brother's PC.
49 • Bloat Vs PC Power (by M.Z. on 2018-12-20 23:16:44 GMT from United States)
@38
"...why would anyone want to harbor an application which is so large simply because it contains options they'll never use..."
How about because my CPU is measured as much by core count as Mhz/Ghz & because my RAM is measured in GB rather than MB? How about because I don't always know how much of a full office suite I need, but prefer to have it at the ready in a program I'm already fairly familiar with & need minimal time to transition to?
There are plenty of good reasons if you have vaguely modern hardware.
That being said it's a far more reasonable position than '1 of the top 10 distros most viewed on DW have something I like about them & are moving in a direction I like on DW rankings, ergo I'm right about everything'. Flowery rhetoric doesn't dismiss weak reasoning, or forgive you for only wanting to see what you want to see in the world when there is actually a whole picture if you care to look at it.
The big picture on bloat seems to me to be that we can save & reuse a lot of older computers with small & good enough programs, but it's nice to have feature rich options available to anyone who wants them. I don't see any good reason we wouldn't want options to continue to be available for different program sizes, init systems, etc.
50 • libre office (by Tim on 2018-12-21 01:02:55 GMT from United States)
It’s hard for me to see much wrong with LibreOffice lately. Version 5 and above have pretty serious data analysis capabilities built into Calc. It’s just awesome. While I find each edition of MS office harder and harder to use, Libre Office is incredibly straightforward and powerful
51 • @49, M.Z. (by Angel on 2018-12-21 08:00:45 GMT from Philippines)
Nothing I can add to that. Just glad that Friar Ockham can have his razor back.:)
52 • Another great DW Weekly. (by Friar Ockham on 2018-12-21 18:22:47 GMT from United States)
Thanks Jesse for your continuing great articles! It was interesting reading about VOID since isn't that the distro where a few months ago the lead programmer dropped out of contact and disappeared for awhile?
That being said though I found VOID interesting to read about, I will probably never try it. Ive found I don't really have the temperament to have to manually adjust several things out of the box. I can deal with setting up NFS or building a program or two from source but anymore than that, I move on.
I'm currently running Manjaro with Deepin. I'm not sure where that falls on the bloat or no bloat scale but on a AMD A4-7300 APU with 4GB ram it seems to run well
53 • libreoffice & bloat (by michael in texas on 2018-12-21 18:28:18 GMT from United States)
@49 makes good points, but still misses the target a little. It isn't a matter of whether an application harmlessly provides a feature on the off-chance that you may need it. It's that the feature is there, in your face, over and over again, whether you need it or not. The former condition is benign, if you have the computing resources to spare, but the latter situation is a pain in the rear, regardless of how new an shiny your machine is.
54 • What a riot! (by Garon on 2018-12-21 19:59:47 GMT from United States)
This is so funny. For a lot of these past years the most complaints I've heard about a Linux distro is that there are no feature rich apps for Linux. We have them now and what do I hear? We don't need all these features. It's hard for us to understand how to use them on our old hardware. You people need to think about what you're saying. The world isn't going to stand still and if you do then you'll be left behind. Think about it.
55 • ironic software bloat talk while suggesting end of unknown 64-bit/x32 option (by jmichael2497 on 2018-12-21 21:56:04 GMT from United States)
software bloats like moore's law.
obviously software bloat is a thing... often due to disconnected developers accustomed to the latest high end systems and consider others might not be in that same situation, or developers using overly abstracted systems that don't know how to make efficient programs so just use whatever gets spit out and call it good.
for example, see many open source apps that have basically the exact same minimal feature set and while one does so efficiently, the other is inexplicably 5x or more larger with no appreciable difference in capability.
although to be fair to LibreOffice, their entire suite is still tiny compared to even just one component of the big Redmond company's office suite.
(bloat is something i look at more carefully in mobile devices due to tighter space and resource restrictions, i recommend open source https://f-droid.org to find lighter options)
x32 what are you?
apparently it reads like being an obvious path to retiring 32-bit support for random low contributor distros that don't need to be trying to support legacy devices.
i think i may have only ever seen mention of x32 once recently on an unusual distro download list, and didn't really understand what it was. if x32 had been generally promoted properly as described here, being 64-bit function with hybrid 32-bit memory usage (and actually works as advertised) then maybe there would be many distros offering it (classic chicken and egg situation).
plenty of distros dropped 32-bit support, correctly pointing out that many people have 64-bit cpus anyway, and it reduces their dev burden. meanwhile plenty of distros are maintaining 32-bit builds because they are more memory efficient and being used on systems with maybe 1-2G or less ram.
when someone asks if they should install 32-bit for performance or 64-bit for better security support (as 32-bit fades away) on that dual core 1G ram system... what is the less wrong answer?
(x86-32) 32-bit
(x86-x32) 64-bit hybrid
(x86-64) 64-bit
i'm curious to see some stats on performance, and would likely go with the hybrid option, since that would help with software bloat (bringing it back around full circle) in regards to wasting memory unnecessarily to run a basic notepad app.
maybe if debian promotes it, then the ubuntu empire and others will follow, so i can just answer hybrid and done.
56 • @54 Bloat vs Feature Rich (by Rev_Don on 2018-12-21 21:56:20 GMT from United States)
You nailed it right on the head with that one. One of the things I find really annoying about a lot of Linux users is their "I want it MY way or else", "If I don't need it then no one else does either", and never satisfied attitudes. It doesn't matter what an issue or feature is they will find something to complain about. The fact that there are word processors with fewer features and have a smaller footprint than LibreOffice isn't sufficient to them. They have to complain that something with more features even exists or comes with some distros by default.
Here's a thought. If you don't like a certain app, don't use it. If the distro you prefer comes with it, uninstall it. If a program that you do want isn't included by default in your distro of choice, install it. But most of all QUIT COMPLAINING ABOUT EVERYTHING that you can take care of yourself.
57 • what a riot! (by michael in texas on 2018-12-21 22:34:36 GMT from United States)
@54 "The world isn't going to stand still and if you do then you'll be left behind. Think about it."
I just have to laugh -- particularly at the "think about it" part. The perennial hubris of youth is always funny. Young people think they're so deep and profound. And, that's not criticism. It's empathy. I was that way too! Once.
LibreOffice is good, but I have options that are more tailored to my purposes.. Or, to put it your way, "I don't use LibreOffice,because it's too feature-rich for my poor enfeebled geriatric brain." Whatever make your narrative go.
By the way, how do you know the world won't stand still? I venture to guess your conclusion is based on what some old person told you. See how that works?
58 • @56 bloat (by michael in texas on 2018-12-21 23:02:38 GMT from United States)
Which commenters here complained about feature-rich applications? I didn't see that in the comments here. I think what people said was that some applications have burgeoned beyond what the users understood their mission to be, and became bloated. And, that these users simply adopted other options. I don't think anyone "complained" about the situation. They simply remarked upon it and set forth their steps to ameliorate the situation.
59 • on the topic of distro bloat (by jmichael2497 on 2018-12-21 23:27:56 GMT from United States)
@56 generally agree with the sentiment of uninstall the unwanted app and install the preferred replacement, as generally that is a rare task (unless someone is distro hopping frequently).
that did remind me i forgot to mention distro bloat in the context of software bloat. it seems some people have the impression that a distro *should* be a full 4G DVD or at least over 1G iso size... well, not really.
that is one situation where it depends on usage, because for example including LibreOffice will add another 250M to a live distro image. if it is really needed, can always install it to a flash drive and customize as desired.
i feel like a live distro should be more a demonstration of can it boot? does it internet? and play media? and open office files for light reading or editing?
i appreciate that some distros offer multiple images (with or without LibreOffice specifically) so i can save some bandwidth keeping updated ISOs for my multi-iso flash drive (using Easy2Boot).
and really for all the folks that say 1-4G should be the distro media size: look at Puppy distros with a lot of compatibility and function, for example upup bionic 18.05 at 260M (though granted you'll want to install firefox or chrome for a fuller featured browser).
anyway, cheers for options (sometimes)
60 • "Bloat": Unix used to be one purpose per tool. (by Stedley on 2018-12-22 00:54:32 GMT from Canada)
Let's agree that somewhere between terminal and Libreoffice is the right place.
61 • @58 Complaining about Feature Rich Applications (by Rev_Don on 2018-12-22 01:23:08 GMT from United States)
"Which commenters here complained about feature-rich applications? I didn't see that in the comments here."
I take those comments about how bloated LibreOffice is with all of its various capabilities to be complaining about Feature Rich applications. But I wasn't just referring to here. I was referring to lots of forums, message boards, and YouTube videos.
But the main point I was trying to make is that no matter what you put in front of a lot of Linux users they are going to complain about it. It's either too big or not big enough. They will complain about an applications adding a new feature just as much as if they take one out. They are simply never staisfied with any of the offerings out before them.
62 • @57, and real life UNIX way. (by Angel on 2018-12-22 05:28:19 GMT from Philippines)
@57
"@54 'The world isn't going to stand still and if you do then you'll be left behind. Think about it.'" I'm 73 years old, feel young, have a young GF and still a young attitude. I agree with 54 (Garon), however old he is. It pains me and amuses me at once to see all the retired old farts around here (And there are lots.) peering into their tiny dumb phone screens, trying to hit minuscule qwerty keys with creaky, unwilling fingers. "Oh, too complicated, Wouldn't know what to do." These people lost the desire to learn anything new along with the first bloom of youth. Bah! Humbug!
The UNIX way in real life: If I were going somewhere for a while some years back, I might carry a cellphone. Maybe a camera for pictures. I may want stop somewhere for coffee and use the WiFi to go online, so I would carry a laptop, later, a tablet. A pen in my pocket and maybe a little notebook in case I wanted to jot something down. A small flashlight for possible dark spots, never know. A map or a GPS gadget in my car, An alarm clock if I was staying overnight. A calculator if I wanted to do sums other than in my head. A little pocket calendar maybe. Oh,for the good old times of one tool for each purpose!
Now I carry a big-ass over-bloated 6.4" smartphone that still fits in my trouser pockets. That's it. It has 4GB RAM and 128GB internal storage plus 256 external capacity on an SD card. It cost me much less than the aggregation of previous gadgets and assorted stuff, and it simplifies my life by its very complexity. When they have a smartphone with a usable folding screen that opens to over 12", with maybe 3 times the RAM and plenty of storage, you bet I will go for one if its affordable. Excelsior!
63 • somewhere between terminal and libreoffice (by michael in texas on 2018-12-22 16:05:58 GMT from United States)
I agree with @60. I don't think that @62 fairly or accurately describes older people, particularly those who frequent Distrowatch, which, after all is intended to "put the fun back into computing." LibreOffice 6 is out. Go put it on your smart phone and have a ball! It'll probably still fit in your trousers....
Number of Comments: 63
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