 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 800, 4 February 2019 |
Welcome to this year's 5th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Some of us keep a lot of data on our hard drives - documents, family photos, favourite movies, copies of that website we were building, and archives of old e-mails tend to clutter up our hard drives. When we have a lot of data it helps to have it stored, or even backed up, in a central location for easy access. That is where a network attached storage (NAS) device comes in handy. This week we explore FreeNAS 11.2, a FreeBSD-based operating system which can turn a home computer or server into a file storage vault. In our Opinion Poll we continue to talk about network storage, asking if our readers use a NAS at home. We further explore the subject of storage in our Questions and Answers column where we discuss matching operating systems with file systems and the limiting factors when selecting a preferred file system. This week we also talk about Ubuntu Studio working toward making it possible to run Ubuntu Studio software on other flavours of the Ubuntu family and the Nitrux team developing a tool to manage multiple distributions on the same disk partition. Plus we link to a summary of experimental projects being worked on by the Linux Mint team. As usual, we share the distribution releases of the past week and we are pleased to list the torrents we are seeding. Finally, we are pleased to welcome the Condres OS distribution to our database. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: FreeNAS 11.2
- News: Using Ubuntu Studio as an add-on, Nitrux developing a tool to manage multiple distributions, Mint experimenting with new Cinnamon features
- Questions and answers: Matching operating systems with file systems
- Released last week: OPNsense 19.1, Tails 3.12, Alpine 3.9.0
- Torrent corner: 4MLinux, Alpine, Container, LibreELEC, Makulu, OPNsense, Slax, SmartOS, SWagArch, SystemRescueCd, Tails, Voyager
- Upcoming releases: Ubuntu 18.04.2
- Opinion poll: Do you have a NAS for home/personal use?
- New additions: Condres OS
- New distributions: Unknown OS
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (18MB) and MP3 (13MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
FreeNAS 11.2
FreeNAS is an operating system for network attached storage (NAS) devices. The system is based on FreeBSD and features a streamlined setup process and friendly web-based administration interface.
The project's latest release is FreeNAS 11.2 and, at first, I nearly overlooked the new version because it appeared to be a minor point release. However, a lot of work went into the new version and 11.2 offers a lot of changes when compared next to 11.1, "including a major revamp of the web interface, support for self-encrypting drives, and new, backwards-compatible REST and WebSocket APIs. This update also introduces iocage for improved plugins and jails management and simplified plugin development."
The release announcement also mentions FreeNAS can backup to multiple on-line storage options, including Amazon's AWS, Azure, Dropbox and Google.
Installing
The new version of FreeNAS is available as a 575MB download. Booting from the install media brings up a text menu asking if we wish to install or upgrade the operating system, access a command line shell, or shutdown the system. Taking the install option first brought up a message letting me know FreeNAS recommends having at least 8GB of RAM on the host system. This seems like a lot to me. None of my computers (at home) have 8GB of RAM. Even my NAS-like backup server with ZFS storage only uses about 700MB of RAM, less than 10% the amount recommended for FreeNAS.
At any rate, I acknowledged the warning and then the installer asked which disk in my computer it should use for the operating system. It then warns all data will be wiped from the disk; FreeNAS does not wish to be run alongside another operating system. We are then asked to make up a password for the root account and given the chance to set up FreeNAS to boot in UEFI or legacy BIOS mode. The installer copies its files to the hard drive and then offers to reboot the computer, or open up a command line shell. The whole install process took less than eight minutes.
Early impressions
FreeNAS boots to a text console where we are shown a menu of configuration options and the computer's IP address. The configuration options include setting up a network connection, setting the default network route, setting DNS servers, and changing the root password. There are also menu items for resetting all options back to their defaults, launching a command line shell, and rebooting or shutting down the computer. Selecting these options presents us with prompts where we are asked to type in information, such as the address for the network gateway or a new root password.
I think it worth mentioning that there is no password protection on the console. Anyone with physical access (or VNC access to the NAS if it is on a virtual machine) immediately has root access and can access a shell, change our settings or take the system off-line. In a large business environment where the NAS is likely to be behind a locked door this approach is convenient, but in a small office or home situation I think leaving the console open and logged in as root is a risky way to operate.
Exploring the command line option, I found FreeNAS runs about 32 processes on a fresh install. My system used 460MB of Active memory and 310MB of Wired memory, with the bulk of RAM being used by ZFS and a handful of Python scripts.
The web interface
By default, FreeNAS's web interface is available over HTTP connections only. HTTPS is not enabled out of the box, but we can set it up later. Visiting the computer's IP address in a web browser brings up a login page where we can sign in as the root user. Later I tried signing in using other account names I had created, but they did not work, it seems root is the only user able to sign into the web portal.
The web interface begins by showing us a dashboard with an overview of the server's hardware. Further down the page we can see graphs which show current (and recent) statistics on memory, the CPU, system load and temperature. There is an area for monitoring bandwidth usage, but this graph failed to load when I first started using FreeNAS.
A menu is displayed down the left side of the web interface. There are a lot of menu options and rather than dive deeply into all of them, I will give a quick listing of the menu sections and then talk about some specifics from my trial below.
The menu items are as follows:
Accounts - This top-level menu includes two sub menus, one for working with groups and the other for managing user accounts. This lets us create users who will later be able to sign in remotely or access services.
System - This group of modules deals with the FreeNAS operating system, mostly low-level stuff. Specific items include connecting to time (NTP) servers, managing boot environments, notification e-mails, managing certificate authorities, creating security certificates and installing software updates. There are two generic modules called General and Advanced which mostly deal with connecting to the NAS's web service, describing which network port to use, our preferred language and time zone.
FreeNAS 11.2 -- Configuring portal connections
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Tasks - Here we can set up scheduled tasks such as running cron jobs, taking snapshots of ZFS volumes, synchronizing files with cloud services and performing maintenance on ZFS pools.
Network - This small group of modules gives us access to network connections, available network interfaces, network routes and virtual LANs.
Storage - This category handles setting up ZFS storage pools, working with file system snapshots and accessing the disks attached to the NAS.
Directory Services - Lets us authenticate users over LDAP, Active Directory and Kerberos.
Sharing - Enables setting up Apple Shares, NFS, WebDAV and Samba network shares.
Services - Lists built-in services the NAS can use, such as secure shell. We can toggle a button to enable or disable services. Most are turned off out of the box.
FreeNAS 11.2 -- A list of available services
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Plugins - There are two screens in the Plugins section, one to browse and install new Plugins. The other shows installed modules we may want to configure.
Jails - Enables the creation and management of FreeBSD style jails. There is a related section called Virtual Machines in case we need to work with services under a different operating system.
Reporting - This page shows us more detailed graphs related to our CPU usage and system load. These charts can be swapped out for others, showing ZFS statistics, memory consumption, disk usage and network traffic information.
Display System Processes - This page is basically just the output of the top process monitor in our web browser.
Shell - This page gives us access to a terminal shell from inside the web browser.
Guide - Gives us access to FreeNAS's on-line documentation.
FreeNAS 11.2 -- Accessing a command line in the web browser
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Observations
While exploring and using FreeNAS's web interface I made a number of observations as I went about customizing the environment, updating the operating system and setting up an accessible storage volume. The first is I like the new interface's look and organization. I have used a handful of different NAS solutions over the years and most of them, frankly, are not organized in a way I find intuitive. FreeNAS's menu structure is pretty well organized and I feel the items are located in places which make sense. I only once had to dig for a menu item because enabling a feature occurred in one place and managing it was in another, but typically options were easy to find. This is important because there are a lot of configuration options, plugins and features. Being able to find something in the large list of modules is important. Plus the new dark theme looks good in my opinion, which made the whole experience nicer.
I found the FreeNAS interface was a bit slow to load new pages. Interacting with buttons or options on one page went quickly, but switching pages took a while. Operating from the command line interface was snappy, so the delay seems to be specific to page load times in my environment.
When setting up most NAS systems, including FreeNAS, I find there is often a certain order to the steps we need to perform. For example, my first instinct is to create a non-root user account, as I would on a server system. However, with FreeNAS we should first create a storage pool from additional disks attached to the server, then create a user account. That way we can place the user's home directory in the storage pool.
FreeNAS 11.2 -- Creating a storage pool
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Earlier I mentioned the FreeNAS web interface is available over HTTP only. We can change this, but there are a series of steps we need to perform, in a set order. To enable HTTPS we need to enable a security certificate. To create the certificate we need to set up a self-signing authority. This might confuse users not familiar with setting up secure websites, but basically we are setting ourselves up as someone who can make certificates, then making one with these self-assigned credentials, then enabling the secure HTTPS connection. All of these actions can be performed under the System menu.
When creating a new pool the interface doesn't seem to give any indication of where the pool is mounted. This is information we need if we are to create user accounts with home directories in the pool or network shares. Pools are, I found, created under /mnt/<poolname>. So a home directory in the Data pool for my user might be located at /mnt/Data/jesse
When I first started using FreeNAS I performed a check for software updates, which failed. An error was displayed indicating the network could not be reached. It turned out that FreeNAS had correctly used DHCP to get an IP address and I could therefore access the web portal over my local network, however no Internet gateway had been set up and DNS was not working. I supplied the network gateway and two DNS servers which allowed the system to check for updates. New patches were found, downloaded and installed without any further issue. I like that the update module provides a link to the project's release notes so we can get a sense for new developments before installing the patches.
When I first began using FreeNAS the status dashboard would not show network statistics and graphs, but following the first wave of updates the network graph started to work.
On the subject of network errors, sometimes when trying to download items such as plugins, an error would be displayed saying FreeNAS could not access the network due to a missing gateway. When this happened I could still ping outside servers from the NAS and check for software updates, it was just when downloading plugins the system failed to connect to remote servers,
FreeNAS 11.2 -- Error when downloading plugins
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There is a feature on FreeNAS which allows us to set up cloud storage and remote host accounts. This lets us connect to a service like Dropbox, or a server running FTP or OpenSSH. Once a remote service's credentials have been provided we can schedule tasks to synchronize files with this service. I had limited success with this feature. When I tried to set up a secure file transfer (SFTP) connection, the web interface would not accept just a username and password as credentials, it wanted a key file. There is a tip on the page which says if we do not have a key file to leave the field blank, but when the key file field is empty, the provided credentials cannot be saved.
I was able to set up credentials to connect to an FTP service and confirmed the connection worked from FreeNAS's command line. However, any time I tried to push or pull files across the connection the sync task failed without an error to indicate why it was unable to complete.
During my trial I tried to install a few plugins. There is quite a list of plugins available, including media servers, bittorrent clients, and various database tools. Whenever I tried to install a plugin, it would download and then the web interface would lock up during the installation process. None of the plugins installed successfully, even after waiting for the process to complete for 30 minutes.
I was able to enable a few built-in services, such as secure shell and Samba shares, and these worked without issue.
Creating snapshots and boot environments was quite easy and I like how straight forward it is to make a snapshot and schedule future snapshots. This makes it easier to recover from a bad update or to rescue a file that was deleted on the NAS.
Another feature of FreeNAS I appreciate is the system will prompt before performing any destructive tasks. Not only does the system offer a typical "Really do this? OK or Cancel" style prompt, but the web interface will also show a checkbox we need to click to confirm the action. This may seem like overkill to some people, but I like the extra speed bump that prevents us from wiping out potentially large amounts of data.
FreeNAS 11.2 -- Managing user accounts
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Conclusions
In my opinion, FreeNAS is probably one of the easier NAS solutions to set up and it has probably the nicest web-based interface I have used. The web portal looks nice, I think it is well organized and there are a huge number of features. Further, FreeNAS offers good documentation and is fairly light on resources. The base system is smaller than 1GB on the disk and typically uses less than 1GB of RAM.
I also like the support for ZFS, an advanced file system well known for its reliability, snapshots and ability to handle vast amounts of data. FreeNAS makes setting up ZFS volumes, and user accounts on these volumes, a point-n-click process and I applaud the developers for that.
On the negative side of things, some features did not work for me. I struggled with plugins and file synchronization through the web portal (working with files from the command line worked fine for me) and getting networking set up properly took more effort than I had expected. I was also a bit concerned about the lack of local security. If your server is headless or in a locked room, it is not a big deal to have root logged in, but for a lot of environments it is not advisable to leave root logged in at the console.
I think whether FreeNAS is a good choice for managing storage will depend a lot on how comfortable the administrator is with FreeBSD. For people who are comfortable setting up a FreeBSD server and manually adding storage pools, there may not be a lot of added benefit to FreeNAS. However, if you want to manage a lot of storage space and other services through a polished point-n-click web interface rather than manually doing everything through the command line, then FreeNAS is an excellent tool. There are a few rough edges to work out, I think, but on the whole I found FreeNAS made administering ZFS volumes and related services pleasantly straight forward.
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Visitor supplied rating
FreeNAS has a visitor supplied average rating of: N/A from 0 review(s).
Have you used FreeNAS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Using Ubuntu Studio as an add-on, Nitrux developing a tool to manage multiple distributions, Mint experimenting with new Cinnamon features
The Ubuntu Studio team has been working on a method to enable users of other flavours of Ubuntu to enjoy the benefits of running the Ubuntu Studio suite of software. The team's goal is to allow people to use Ubuntu Studio's optimizations and applications as an add-on to other distributions. The project's blog explains: "One of the visions for Ubuntu Studio has been the ability for users of other Ubuntu flavors to essentially 'bolt-on' Ubuntu Studio to their existing installation. This will be easily available for those users beginning with Ubuntu 19.04 Disco Dingo. It will be a 2-step process: 1) install the 'ubuntustudio-installer' package, and 2) Launch it and select the features you want. It will allow you to install any of the meta packages along with the under-the-hood performance tweaks that Ubuntu Studio includes by default." This should allow more people to try Ubuntu Studio's software without requiring a lot of tweaking or installing a separate operating system.
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The Nitrux team is working on a special operating system management program called znx. The znx software is designed to make it easier to experiment with multiple operating systems and multiple versions of operating systems. "A typical desktop operating system consumes about 4-5GB after installation, so that's at least 4-5GB consumed for every new root folder partition. All this complexity is unnecessary, and with that in mind, we developed znx. With znx, every single operating system that it deploys remains as a single file in the storage device, effectively consuming less space. Utilizing znx means the complexity of using more operating systems decreases. You may ask yourself if znx works by utilizing the ISO files of Linux distributions, wouldn't that mean the ISO files that it deploys to the storage device would be Live CDs? Yes and no, let me explain..." More information on znx can be found in this blog post and on the znx GitHub page.
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The Linux Mint team mentioned a number of exciting developments in their January newsletter. The distribution earned a record $22,803 from donations in December of 2018 and the team is planning a number of ambitious projects to improve the Cinnamon desktop experience. One of these experimental projects separates Cinnamon components into separate processes, which could improve performance and make the desktop more secure. "Michael Webster is working on something really complicated, something we've talked about since the dawn of time: splitting Cinnamon into multiple processes. He's studying the possibility of having applets run in their own process and render objects remotely. This is very ambitious and pretty much R&D at this point. We're hoping he'll succeed with a prototype. Failing that there's also the idea of keeping the rendering of the applet content in Cinnamon itself and only delegating the processing (similar to dbus–menu), or to keep Cinnamon and applets together and split away the WM."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Matching operating systems with file systems
File-system-naive asks: I'm guessing that since "File System" is not listed as a criterion on the Search Distributions page, any OS can be installed on any file system. If that is not the case, what factors determine whether an OS is compatible with a given file system?
I envision (in a business, not home, context) using a partitioning tool to format a disk (or even RAID) in preparation for a desired file system, then installing the OS. I might prioritize a file system that provides integrity+reliability+security+snapshot-ability over speed. Which OSes will adapt immediately to this selected file system? Which OSes do not work "out-of-the-box", but could work with some effort? Which OSes will never work? (Example: Perhaps I've "landed" on OrangeFS as ideal. Can I run LMDE3 on top of it instead of ext3?) If my thinking is naive, what additional concepts should I first understand? Ultimately, once I'm sold on a (well-researched) specific file system, I'd like to distinguish the distros that include it by default or, at least, can play nicely with it.
TL;DR: Assuming a certain file system, which distros are recommended?
DistroWatch answers: There is a lot of ground to cover here so I am going to try to keep my answers brief. This may gloss over some finer points of file systems and operating systems, so please forgive me when I speak in generalities and ignore some corner cases.
In short, you cannot install every OS on any file system. Every operating system supports working with one or more file systems and will (usually) only boot on file systems it recognizes.
You can install an OS on any of the file systems supported natively by its kernel. This means you can install Windows on NTFS, FreeBSD can be installed on UFS or ZFS, Linux distributions can generally be installed on ext2/3/4, JFS, XFS, Btrfs, and Reiserfs. Some distributions may have exceptions or add-on options, but generally speaking Linux distributions will boot on the above list of file systems or a subset of them.
So basically if a file system is supported by the operating system's kernel without an add-on like FUSE or a third-party kernel module, then you can usually install the OS on that file system.
When it comes to Linux, the installer will usually recommend one or more file systems to use, depending on your situation. For example, most home-focused distros run on ext4 by default as it is a good, fast, general purpose file system. Enterprise distros like Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise typically recommend XFS and Btrfs, respectively, for the massive amounts of storage and flexibility they offer.
With all that being said, you have some wiggle room if you keep your data on one file system and your operating system on another, which is fairly common. I recommend installing your OS on whichever file system its installer recommends. Then pick the best file system for your data later from the list of ones your OS supports. This will offer you more options and allow you to upgrade your OS later without affecting your data.
You specifically mentioned OrangeFS. While OrangeFS can work with Linux systems, it appears to be a recent addition to the kernel. (You traditionally needed to install the OrangeFS package as it was not included in the kernel.) This means most installers do not yet support OrangeFS and you will not be able to install Linux Mint on top of it. But you should be able to attach OrangeFS storage to your Mint system after you set up Mint on ext4 or Btrfs and make sure OrangeFS support is enabled.
In short, I recommend you install your distribution on whichever file system its installer suggests. Then find a separate file system for your data that can work with your kernel (such as Linux) and enable it. This will open up more options and avoid the issue of whether your kernel (and installer) can work on the file system you want to use for your data.
For the most part, since all Linux distributions use the Linux kernel, they can all work with the same file systems. The installers for different distributions may add or remove some options, but ultimately you can use any Linux-supporting file system for a data partition with any distro, you just may not be able to boot from it. For example, any Linux distro can work with ZFS, but very few distributions include support for booting from a ZFS volume because the file system is not included in the kernel.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
MakuluLinux 2019.01.25
MakuluLinux is a Debian-based desktop distribution which ships with many applications and media codecs installed out of the box. The project has published an update, MakuluLinux 2019.01.25, to its Core series which experiments with mouse gestures. This allows users to optionally use their computer almost entirely without the aid of a keyboard. "The optional gesture system will let users navigate their computers with barely even having to touch a keyboard if that is their wish. The more traditional users don't have to enable gestures, they can simply use the operating system in much the same way they are used to navigating Linux. Core also offers many 'instant access' features like a one-click wallpaper changer or one-click 3D option, easily control every aspect of your OS with a simply few clicks." Further information and a list of supported features can be found in the distribution's blog post. The page also features a video of the gestures system in action.
MakuluLinux 2019.01.25 -- Initial desktop customization
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Tails 3.12
The Amnesic Incognito Live System (Tails) is a Debian-based live DVD/USB with the goal of providing complete Internet anonymity for the user. The project's latest release is Tails 3.12 which introduces a new install method: "The biggest news for 3.12 is that we completely changed the installation methods for Tails. In short, instead of downloading an ISO image (a format originally designed for CDs), you now download Tails as a USB image: an image of the data as it needs to be written to the USB stick. ISO files are still available for people using optical media and virtual machines. The distribution includes some additional changes: "Starting Tails should be a bit faster on most machines. Tell users to use sudo when they try to use su on the command line. Update Linux to 4.19. Update Intel and AMD microcodes and most firmware packages. This should improve the support for newer hardware (graphics, Wi-Fi, etc.). Remove Liferea, as announced in Tails 3.9. Update Tor Browser to 8.0.5. Update Thunderbird to 60.4.0." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Alpine Linux 3.9.0
Alpine Linux is a lightweight distribution which features the BusyBox userland utilities and the musl C library. The project has published a new release, Alpine Linux 3.9.0, which expands hardware architecture support and switches its security library from LibreSSL to OpenSSL. "New features and noteworthy new packages: Support for armv7; Switch from LibreSSL to OpenSSL; Modloop is now being signed; Improved GRUB support; GRUB users should check if their config is generated correctly and have emergency boot media prepared. Significant updates: Linux 4.19; GCC 8.2.0; Busybox 1.29; musl libc 1.1.20; Go 1.11.5; LXC 3.1; PostgreSQL 11.1; Node.js 10.14.2; Crystal 0.27; Zabbix 4.0.3; Nextcloud 15.0.2." The release announcement also mentions that the Firefox browser will only be available on the x86_64 build of Alpine Linux due to its dependency on Rust.
OPNsense 19.1
OPNsense is a specialist operating system (and a fork of pfSense) designed for firewalls and routers. The project's latest release, OPNsense 19.1, shifts the operating system's base from FreeBSD to HardenedBSD which includes a number of security enhancements. "The 19.1 release, nicknamed "Inspiring Iguana", consists of a total of 620 individual changes since 18.7 came out 6 months ago, spread out over 12 intermediate releases including the recent release candidates. That is the average of two stable releases per month, security updates and important bug fixes included! If we had to pick a few highlights it would be: The firewall alias API is finally in place. The migration to HardenedBSD 11.2 has been completed. 2FA now works with a remote LDAP / local TOTP combination. And the OpenVPN client export was rewritten for full API support as well." Further details and links to the project's download mirrors can be found in the release announcement.
SystemRescueCd 6.0.0
SystemRescueCd is a Linux system on a bootable CD-ROM or USB drive, designed for repairing a system and data after a crash. The distribution's developers have published SystemRescueCd 6.0.0 which deviates from previous releases in two significant ways: 32-bit support has been dropped in favour of a 64-bit build, and the base distribution has been switched from Gentoo to Arch Linux. The project's changelog reports: "System is now based on ArchLinux and built using archiso and its dependencies. Kernel and user space programs are now fully 64-bit (dropped 32-bit support). Boot options are the ones provided by new upstream rather than old version. Graphical environment based on xorg-1.20.3 and xfce-4.12. Implemented 'setkmap=xx' option on the boot command line to setup keyboard. Updated kernel to Long-Term-Supported linux-4.19.19. Updated filesystem tools: e2fsprogs-1.44.5, xfsprogs-4.19.0, btrfs-progs-4.19.1. Updated disk tools: gparted-0.33.0, lvm2-2.02.183.
LibreELEC 9.0
LibreELEC is "just enough OS" to run the Kodi media centre. LibreELEC is a Linux distribution built to run Kodi on current and popular hardware. The project's latest release, LibreELEC 9.0, includes a number of security improvements. "Changeable SSH passwords and a default firewall configuration have been added to combat the increasing number of HTPC installs that can be found on the public internet. The increase is partly due to simple maths; our userbase has grown so the number of users inappropriately exposing their HTPC to the internet has also grown. The static password for libreelec is present on most/all password dictionary lists so it’s important we start encouraging users to change it (the first-run wizard will prompt when SSH is enabled). More people are using VPN services for privacy without realising this exposes SSH/SMB/Web services. To combat this problem we have added simple firewall configurations for Home/Public networks; the Home configuration blocks inbound connections from non-private networks, e.g. traffic from the Internet to the public IP address used with the VPN connection." Further details can be found in the project's 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: 1,230
- Total data uploaded: 23.7TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
Do you have a NAS for home/personal use?
This week we began with a review of FreeNAS, a FreeBSD-based storage solution. While many NAS solutions are designed for offices and enterprise environments, they can be equally useful in the home. We would like to find out how many of our readers use a dedicated NAS device or operating system at home. Please let us know which operating system your NAS uses in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on selecting a distribution for our Major Distributions page in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you have a NAS for home/personal use?
| Yes - I have a NAS at home: | 671 (36%) |
| No - I do not have a NAS at home: | 1204 (64%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New projects added to database
Condres OS
Condres OS is a rolling release distribution based on Arch Linux. The distribution is available in nine editions (most of them for various desktop environments) and ships with convenience features such as desktop icons enabled (on GNOME), the ICE site specific browser, and the TLP power management software.
Condres OS 19.02 -- Running the MATE desktop
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Distributions added to waiting list
- Unknown OS. Unknown OS is a Debian-based distribution which strives to keep the user anonymous when on-line and attempts to side-step fingerprinting methodology.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 11 February 2019. 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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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Issue 993 (2022-11-07): Static Linux, working with just a kernel, Mint streamlines Flatpak management, updates coming to elementary OS |
| • Issue 992 (2022-10-31): Lubuntu 22.10, setting permissions on home directories, Linux may drop i486, Fedora delays next version for OpenSSL bug |
| • Issue 991 (2022-10-24): XeroLinux 2022.09, learning who ran sudo, exploring firewall tools, Rolling Rhino Remix gets a fresh start, Fedora plans to revamp live media |
| • Issue 990 (2022-10-17): ravynOS 0.4.0, Lion Linux 3.0, accessing low numbered network ports, Pop!_OS makes progress on COSMIC, Murena launches new phone |
| • Issue 989 (2022-10-10): Ubuntu Unity, kernel bug causes issues with Intel cards, Canonical offers free Ubuntu Pro subscriptions, customizing the command line prompt |
| • Issue 988 (2022-10-03): SpiralLinux 11.220628, finding distros for older equipment and other purposes, SUSE begins releasing ALP prototypes, Debian votes on non-free firmware in installer |
| • Issue 987 (2022-09-26): openSUSE's MicroOS, converting people to using Linux, pfSense updates base system and PHP, Python 2 dropped from Arch |
| • Issue 986 (2022-09-19): Porteus 5.0, remotely wiping a hard drive, a new software centre for Ubuntu, Proxmox offers offline updates |
| • Issue 985 (2022-09-12): Garuda Linux, using root versus sudo, UBports on the Fairphone 4, Slackware reverses change to grep |
| • Issue 984 (2022-09-05): deepin 23 Preview, watching for changing to directories, Mint team tests Steam Deck, Devuan posts fix for repository key expiry |
| • Issue 983 (2022-08-29): Qubes OS 4.1.1, Alchg Linux, immutable operating systems, Debian considers stance on non-free firmware, Arch-based projects suffer boot issue |
| • Issue 982 (2022-08-22): Peropesis 1.6.2, KaOS strips out Python 2 and PulseAudio, deepin becomes independent, getting security update notifications |
| • Issue 981 (2022-08-15): Linux Lite 6.0, defining desktop environments and window managers, Mint releases upgrade tool, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 980 (2022-08-08): Linux Mint 21, Pledge on Linux, SparkyLinux updates classic desktop packages, Peppermint OS experiments with Devuan base |
| • Issue 979 (2022-08-01): KaOS 2022.06 and KDE Plasma 5.25, terminating processes after a set time, GNOME plans Secure Boot check |
| • Issue 978 (2022-07-25): EndeavourOS 22.6, Slax explores a return to Slackware, Ubuntu certified with Dell's XPS 13, Linux running on Apple's M2 |
| • Issue 977 (2022-07-18): EasyOS 4.2, transferring desktop themes between distros, Tails publishes list of updates, Zevenet automates Let's Encrypt renewals |
| • Issue 976 (2022-07-11): NixOS 22.05, making a fake webcam, exploring the Linux scheduler, Debian publishes updated media |
| • Issue 975 (2022-07-04): Murena One running /e/OS, where are all the openSUSE distributions, Fedora to offer unfiltered Flathub access |
| • Issue 974 (2022-06-27): AlmaLinux 9.0, the changing data of DistroWatch's database, UBports on the Pixel 3a, Tails and GhostBSD publish hot fixes |
| • Issue 973 (2022-06-20): openSUSE 15.4, collecting distro media, FreeBSD status report, Ubuntu Core with optional real-time kernel |
| • Issue 972 (2022-06-13): Rolling Rhino Remix, SambaBox 4.1, SUSE team considers future of SUSE and openSUSE Leap, Tails improves Tor Connection Assistant |
| • Issue 971 (2022-06-06): ChimeraOS 2022.01.03, Lilidog 22.04, NixOS gains graphical installer, Mint replaces Bluetooth stack and adopts Timeshift, how to change a MAC address |
| • Issue 970 (2022-05-30): Tails 5.0, taking apart a Linux distro, Ubuntu users seeing processes terminated, Budgie team plans future of their desktop |
| • Issue 969 (2022-05-23): Fedora 36, a return to Unity, Canonical seeks to improve gaming on Ubuntu, HP plans to ship laptops with Pop!_OS |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Shells.com |
Your own personal Linux computer in the cloud, available on any device. Supported operating systems include Android, Debian, Fedora, KDE neon, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro and Ubuntu, ready in minutes.
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| Random Distribution | 
DuZeru
DuZeru was a Brazilian Linux distribution based on Debian's "Stable" branch. It features thes Xfce desktop environment.
Status: Discontinued
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| Free Tech Guides |
NEW! GPT-3
FREE FOR LIMITED TIME! The ultimate guide to building NLP products with OpenAI API (a free 151-page ebook)
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| MALIBAL |
MALIBAL: Linux Laptops Custom Built for YouMALIBAL is an innovative computer manufacturer that produces high-performance, custom laptops for Linux. If your MALIBAL laptop is not the best Linux laptop you have ever used, you can return it for a full 100% refund. We will even pay the return shipping fees! For more info, visit: https://www.malibal.com
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
| Free Tech Guides |
NEW! Learn Linux in 5 Days
In this FREE ebook, you will learn the most important concepts and commands and be guided step-by-step through several practical and real-world examples (a free 212-page ebook).
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