 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 801, 11 February 2019 |
Welcome to this year's 6th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
It is always exciting for us to try out new projects, especially ones that are taking an unusual approach or experimenting with a new style of package manager or desktop environment. This week we begin with a look at Project Trident, a young project that is new to our database. Project Trident combines the rolling release base of TrueOS with the Lumina desktop and we explore its approach, perks and problems below. Our Questions and Answers section this week discusses what the status indicators in process monitors mean, and our Opinion Poll asks which process monitor our readers prefer. In our News section we cover an overview of the FreeBSD Foundation's current efforts to improve FreeBSD. Plus we talk about Project Trident adopting more desktop packages and link to a conversation with the Plasma Mobile developers. Then we are happy to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: First impressions of Project Trident 18.12
- News: FreeBSD Foundation overviews works in progress, Project Trident includes LXQt packages, Plasma Mobile developers answer questions
- Questions and answers: Reading status information from top
- Released last week: MidnightBSD 1.1, IPFire 2.21 Core 127, Redcore 1812
- Torrent corner: Antergos, Archman, HardenedBSD, IPFire, Kodachi, MidnightBSD, MX, Netrunner, Redcore, Refracta, Septor, SharkLinux, SystemRescueCd
- Upcoming releases: Ubuntu 18.04.2
- Opinion poll: Preferred process monitor
- New distributions: Mazon OS
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (13MB) and MP3 (11MB) formats.
|
| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
First impressions of Project Trident 18.12
Project Trident (hereafter referred to as Trident) is a desktop operating system based on TrueOS. Trident takes the rolling base platform of TrueOS, which is in turn based on FreeBSD's development branch, and combines it with the Lumina desktop environment.
Installing
The debut release of Trident is available as a 4.1GB download that can be burned to a disc or transferred to a USB thumb drive. Booting from the Trident media brings up a graphical interface and automatically launches the project's system installer. Down the left side of the display there are buttons we can click to show hardware information and configuration options. These buttons let us know if our wireless card and video card are compatible with Trident and give us a chance to change our preferred language and keyboard layout. At the bottom of the screen we find buttons that will open a terminal or shutdown the computer.
Project Trident 18.12 -- The system installer
(full image size: 90kB, resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
The centre of the screen is occupied by a series of pages offering configuration options. We begin by providing the time and our time zone. The next screen asks on which disk we should place Trident. It seems Trident takes over the whole disk and formats it with the ZFS advanced file system. The next screen gives us a series of software packages we can optionally install. These packages include a few desktop items, tools and specific drivers for video cards and virtual machines. Then the installer asks us to make up a password for the root account and gives us a chance to create a username/password combination for ourselves. The installer copies its packages to our hard drive and, while it is working, a button appears on the left side of the screen we can click to see detailed log information on its progress. The entire process of setting up Trident took a little under 15 minutes.
Early impressions
Trident boots to a graphical login screen where we can sign into the Lumina desktop or a minimal Fluxbox session. Lumina, by default, uses Fluxbox as its window manager. The Lumina desktop places its panel along the bottom of the screen and an application menu sits in the bottom-left corner. On the desktop we find icons for opening the software manager, launching the Falkon web browser, running the VLC media player, opening the Control Panel and adjusting the Lumina theme.
Project Trident 18.12 -- The two settings panels
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The application menu has an unusual and compact layout. The menu shows just a search box and buttons for browsing applications, opening a file manager, accessing desktop settings and signing out. To see what applications are available we can click the Browse Applications entry, which opens a window in the menu where we can scroll through installed programs. This is a bit awkward since the display window is small and only shows a few items at a time.
Early on I found it is possible to swap out the default "Start menu" with an alternative "Application menu" through the Panels configuration tool. This alternative menu offers a classic tree-style application menu. I found the latter menu easier to navigate as it expands to show all the applications in a selected category.
Hardware
I tried running Trident on a workstation and in a VirtualBox environment. Trident performed well on the physical workstation. My hardware was all detected (apart from a USB wireless card I tested later in the trial). Performance was fairly smooth and the system responsive.
When running in VirtualBox, Trident would function, but with some limitations. For example, the system does not detect the available screen resolution, making the desktop quite small. We can fix this by resizing the VirtualBox window and then manually killing the Fluxbox process. When Fluxbox gets restarted, it detects the proper resolution. I found the mouse pointer would sometimes register my mouse's scroll wheel activity as a mouse click, causing me to accidentally select all sorts of programs and links almost every time I tried to scroll.
I set up Trident with a fairly minimal collection of software, which used up just over 2GB of disk space. When logged into a Lumina session, the system consumed 150MB of Active memory and 270MB of Wired memory.
Applications
Trident does not include a lot of applications in its default install. The Falkon web browser and VLC media player were included. There were also a number of Lumina-specific applications such as a file manager, text editor, PDF viewer and screenshot tool. There is also a Lumina Media Player. There are some configuration tools which I will cover shortly, but otherwise the application menu is minimal.
Project Trident 18.12 -- Viewing the Project Trident website with Falkon
(full image size: 532kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Trident does ship with BSD command line tools and manual pages. When installed I found Trident did not include any compiler, though one was featured on the install disc. The project uses OpenRC instead of FreeBSD's RC service manager and I found it worked well.
Most of the included software, limited though it was in variety, did work. I was able to create text documents, browse the web and tweak the desktop's look. The only serious problems I ran into concerned multimedia. I could not get the Lumina player to play any files, either audio or video. I could get media to play in VLC. Further, I was unable to get Trident to play any sound when run in VirtualBox. When I tried to play YouTube videos or local media, I only got faint static. This was odd as usually I either get the sound I expect or nothing, but with Trident I got low-volume static in place of audio.
Managing software
Since Trident does not ship with a lot of desktop software, most users will want to make use of the project's software manager: AppCafe. The AppCafe window is divided into three tabs (Browse, Installed, and Pending). The Browse tab shows categories of software and features a search box. The Installed tab shows packages already on the system which we can remove. The Pending tab lists packages that we have queued to be installed or removed and their status.
Project Trident 18.12 -- The AppCafe software manager
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
When I first started using AppCafe, all the categories in the Browse tab were empty, except for programs already installed, like Falkon. The documentation mentions this is a known issue and closing and reopening AppCafe usually causes the categories to populate. This worked for me and I was soon able to look through lists of software packages which are ordered alphabetically. Each entry is shown with just a brief description and clicking on a package will bring up a slightly longer description and technical details. There is a region of the AppCafe window that should display screenshots of applications we have selected, but the screenshots never loaded during my trial. We can add or remove packages with a click of a button.
Newly installed applications have their icon added to the Lumina desktop. At first this is convenient, but over time it makes the desktop cluttered.
People who wish to use the command line can use FreeBSD's pkg package manager or the FreeBSD collection of ports to manage third-party software.
Settings
The Trident operating system features two settings panels. The first is called Control Panel and provides modules for managing the underlying operating system. From the Control Panel we can manage boot environments, browse and revoke SSL keys (I could not find a method for creating new keys), manage the firewall, and enable or disable background services. There are also tools for working with user accounts, adjusting how the mouse works, a graphical process monitor and tools for browsing hardware. These tools tend to be functional while having a rough look. They tend to use simple lists and layouts and, from my experience, work reliably.
The second settings panel contains modules for managing the Lumina desktop theme, changing window effects, selecting preferred applications and changing screensaver settings. We can also customize the desktop's context menu and enable auto-start programs. These modules, like those in the Control Panel, tend to have a simple, minimalist appearance and function as expected.
Project Trident 18.12 -- Changing desktop effects and the default application menu
(full image size: 988kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
One feature I did find odd is the Lumina settings panel includes a few entries that are also in the Control Panel. For example, the process monitor and account manager can both be launched from the Lumina settings window. However, once these shared modules are open, clicking their Back button displays the Control Panel rather than the desktop settings panel. This may throw off some users who expect to see the desktop settings module.
Another curious feature is that the settings modules appear to use different icon themes. This is not a functional problem, but it does look unusual to see different visual styles displayed in the same settings panel.
Project Trident 18.12 -- Managing background services
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Other observations
By default Trident uses a dark theme and, personally, I think it looks nice. However, I wanted to try some lighter themes. (It's winter where I live and I wanted some more light in my life.) I tried some lighter themes and they appealed to me, but a side effect was that some button icons became invisible when the lighter theme was used. This made it difficult to navigate toolbars which obeyed the desktop theme.
Project Trident 18.12 -- Toolbar buttons fading into the background
(full image size: 361kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The first user we create seems to have a number of special permissions. For example, my regular user was able to create new users and remove old accounts without providing a password. This seems like a security issue to me. Further, when creating new user accounts we are asked if the new user should be considered an Operator (can shutdown or reboot the computer) or an Administrator (can perform almost any task). I disabled both options when creating a guest account. Later, when I checked group permissions I found every user I had created was added to the Operator group even though I had explicitly disabled the option. Further, my guest account was able to launch the account manager and add and remove new accounts, effectively making their own administrator. Both of these issues seem to me to be significant security holes. However, once an account had been manually removed from the Operator group, the account lost the ability to manage other users.
Project Trident 18.12 -- Guest account removing installed packages
(full image size: 843kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Another security feature built into Trident involves hiding processes from other users. This is a feature borrowed from FreeBSD and prevents users from seeing the processes other users launch. This provides a small layer of security as it is harder to attack services the user cannot see. Trident appears to use randomized PIDs too, making to harder to predict process numbers or tell how many processes a user is running.
Here there was a hole in security too. While any regular user (without Operator or Administrator access) can only see their own processes using standard tools like top and ps, the same restriction does not apply to the Control Panel Tasks module. Any user can open the Control Panel, launch Tasks and see all processes, including the root user's. Further, and this part puzzled me a bit, users with no special privileges and no knowledge of the root password can kill any process on the system. This is a pretty large security flaw when any user can see hidden services and kill them at will.
Moving on from security, I tested boot environments, which are made possible through ZFS snapshots. It is easy to create and remove boot environments through the Control Panel. When the system is booting we can select older environments from the boot menu to restore the older snapshot. This gives us protection against bad system updates and configuration mistakes in the base operating system.
Conclusions
I have a lot of mixed feelings and impressions when it comes to Trident. On the one hand, the operating system has some great technology under the hook. It has cutting edge packages from the FreeBSD ecosystem, we have easy access to ZFS, boot environments, and lots of open source packages. Hardware support, at least on my physical workstation, was solid and the Lumina desktop is flexible.
However, there were a lot of problems I ran into during this trial. Some of them are matters of taste or style. The installer looks unusually crude, for example, and the mixed icon styles weren't appealing. Similarly, switching themes made some icons in toolbars disappear. These are not functional issues, just presentation ones. There were some functional problems too though. For example, needing to close and re-open AppCafe to see available packages, or the desktop not resizing when running Trident in a virtual machine, which required that I change the display settings at each login.
Lumina has come a long way and is highly flexible and I like the available alternative widgets for desktop elements. This is useful because Lumina's weakest link on Trident seems to be its defaults as I had some trouble with the "Start" application menu and I think some work to polish the initial impression would be helpful.
The biggest issues though were with security. Trident ships with some extra security features in place, but most of them can be easily bypassed by any user by simply opening the Control Panel to view or kill processes or even add or remove packages. Some systems intentionally give the user full access by running everything as root, but in those cases at least the administrator knows they have complete access. This situation seems worse since Trident gives the illusion of security and limited access, but any curious user can run administrator tools. I think the project needs time to mature before I would recommend using it.
* * * * *
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
* * * * *
Visitor supplied rating
Project Trident has a visitor supplied average rating of: 10/10 from 1 review(s).
Have you used Project Trident? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
|
| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
FreeBSD Foundation overviews works in progress, Project Trident includes LXQt packages, Plasma Mobile developers answer questions
The FreeBSD Foundation has published an overview of ongoing projects the Foundation wants to work on in 2019. On the list are improved infrastructure, better performance, and improving support for embedded hardware architectures. The Foundation also talks about making FreeBSD a better operating system for desktop and laptop computers. "Many people consider servers when thinking of FreeBSD, but it is also important that FreeBSD continues to run well on client devices (laptops and desktops). This allows (or requires) developers to test their work as well as the work of others on an ongoing basis under a variety of usage conditions. In addition, technologies often transition from being perceived as relevant only to client devices to being a critical requirement for servers - for example, power management. Some specific projects in this category include improved FUSE support, Linuxulator improvements, Intel graphics support, WiFi improvements, 802.11ac support, and driver updates, and work to finish and integrate the packaged base effort."
* * * * *
The young Project Trident operating system is a desktop platform based on TrueOS. Project Trident has published an update which includes a number of new features, including Python scripts for working with the Azure cloud service and the availability of LXQt desktop packages. "The LXQt desktop environment is finally available for the first time (version 0.13.0). A lot of new Python utilities to interact with Microsoft Azure (py[27⁄36]-azure-*). The Palemoon web browser is now available once again (it had been having build issues previously). This browser is available at version 27.9.4_3." Further details can be found in the Project Trident blog post.
* * * * *
The KDE's Plasma Mobile project works to make a touch-friendly, graphical user interface for mobile devices, such as smart phones. The Plasma Mobile team took to Reddit this past week to answer questions on a variety of topics. The team talked about porting Plasma Mobile to new devices, working with the Librem 5 team, synchronizing data with Android devices and fine-grained application permissions, among other things. The full questions and answers session can be found in this thread.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
|
| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Reading status information from top
Browsing-process-information asks: What do the letters in the status column of process monitors like top mean? I figure "R" probably means "running", but what are the others? And is it a bad thing if lots of processes are listed as running at the same time?
DistroWatch answers: You are correct, the letter "R" is used by programs like top and ps to indicate a program is running. In other words, the process is active right now. The letter "S" indicates the program is sleeping or waiting. A sleeping process could be waiting for something to happen or just resting to avoid taking up more CPU time than it needs. Most programs spent a lot of their lives sleeping, waiting for something to do.
The letter "D" is used to indicate a process is waiting for something, such as information being pulled from a disk, or written to a disk. The "D" typically means a process is stuck waiting for something else to happen and it cannot continue until that thing is finished.
The letter "T" means a process has been stopped. An upper-case "T" means the process was stopped by a signal while a small "t" means a process is paused in a debugger.
Finally, a "Z" indicates a process is a zombie. This means the process has finished and is no longer running, but its information has not been collected ("reaped") by the process's parent. This usually does not happen, unless the parent process is also paused or struggling under heavy load.
As to whether a lot of running processes is a bad thing, the answer varies depending on the situation and why lots of programs are running at the same time. Usually well behaved processes spend most of their time sleeping (S) waiting for input or for something to happen. As a result, quite often you might have over 100 processes sleeping and just a few running (R) at any given time, if you glance at the output from top. Seeing a lot of "R"s in the status column suggests that some processes are busy and busy constantly.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. Some programs do work on computations non-stop. If you run something like Folding@Home or a Bitcoin miner, those programs will likely always be in a "running" state. However, if you are not using such a service, then more than three or four programs running at the same time could mean these processes are stuck in a loop and draining your CPU's resources unnecessarily. In which case I recommend investigating and, if they are using a lot of your CPU, killing the running processes to free up your computer's resources for other things.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
|
| Released Last Week |
MidnightBSD 1.1
MidnightBSD is a FreeBSD-derived operating system. A critical goal of the project is to create an easy-to-use desktop environment with graphical ports management, and system configuration using GNUstep. The project's latest release, MidnightBSD 1.1, mostly focuses on security updates and improving hardware support. "I'm happy to announce the availability of MidnightBSD 1.1 for amd64 and i386. This is a minor release to fix a few hardware and security issues that have come up since the 1.0 release. It is strongly recommended that you upgrade, particularly if you have newer Intel hardware. This release also includes a new version of OpenSSL. This is a move from 1.0.1 to 1.0.2p in base. Many mports are built with a package and will likely not be affected. It is still recommended that you rebuild any mports using SSL or update the packages as appropriate. OpenSSH was also updated and removes support for older SSH v1 connections." Further details can be found in the project's release notes. The project can be downloaded in a dozen different builds: for UEFI machines, legacy BIOS machines, for 32-bit and 64-bit builds, and for USB thumb drives or optical media.
IPFire 2.21 Core 127
The IPFire project creates a Linux distribution for firewalls which offers a range of security tools and is designed to be easy to set up. The project has published an update, IPFire 2.21 Core Update 127, which improves web proxy speed and removes some old features in order to enhance security. "We have dropped some features that no longer make sense in 2019: Those are the web browser check and download throttling by file extension. Since the web is migrating more and more towards HTTPS, those neither work for all the traffic, nor are they very reliable or commonly used. We have also removed authentication against Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 domains. Those authentication protocols used back then are unsafe for years and nobody should be using those any more. Please consider this when updating to this release. We have also mitigated a security issue in the proxy authentication against Microsoft Windows Active Directory domains." The distribution's release announcement offers further details.
Redcore Linux 1812
Redcore Linux is a desktop-oriented distribution based on Gentoo. Redcore's latest release, version 1812, ships with KDE Plasma and LXQt editions as well as many package updates and a few new features: "Changelog: resync with Gentoo portage tree (31.01.2019); new GRUB theme, new Plymouth theme; Firefox browser updated to v65.0, Opera browser updated to v58.0.3135.53; Opera and Vivaldi browsers received some attention in the form of additional codecs, you'll now be able to install opera-ffmpeg-codecs and vivaldi-ffmpeg-codecs to be able to playback h264 web content; kde-frameworks updated to v5.54, kde-apps updated to v18.12.1, kde-plasma updated to v5.14.5; VLC media player updated to v3.0.6; vasile (versatile advanced script for ISO and latest enchantments): gained a new function '--adapt' it will detect how many CPU cores are active on your system, and adjust portage's MAKEOPTS variable, so you don't burn your machine while compiling packages with Emerge. While this feature was implemented since Redcore Linux 1806 (codename Kepler), it wasn't exposed directly and you had to reset and setup the whole portage config using vasile --setup." Further details can be found in the release announcement and in the earlier changelog for the alpha release.
Redcore Linux 1812 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 763kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Refracta 9.0
Version 9.0 of Refracta, a desktop Linux distribution based on the systemd-free Devuan distribution and featuring an Xfce 4.12 desktop, has been released. The new version comes with several improvements, including the ability to create a live ISO image from an installed Refracta system: "Refracta GNU/Linux has a new stable release (9.0) and a new home page at refracta.org. Refracta 9.0 is based on Devuan 2.0 (Ascii) and provides a lightweight desktop with software for most home computing needs. Features: Linux kernel 4.9, SysVInit, eudev, elogind, Xfce 4.12.3; the desktop is installed as individual parts rather than from a metapackage, making it easier to remove individual parts; utilities for diagnosis, rescue and repair; Refracta Snapshot and Refracta Installer allow you to easily make your own custom live ISO image from the installed system; boot to high-contrast accessibility theme with second item in boot menu; all free and open-source software installed; non-free wireless firmware packages are included in case you need to install them." See the release announcement and release notes for further information.
Linux Kodachi 6.0
The rapid development of Linux Kodachi continues with the release of version 6.0. This is the latest stable build of the project's Xubuntu-based distribution and live DVD with focus on preserving the privacy and anonymity on the internet through various specialist tools, including integrated Tor and Virtual Private Networks (VPN): "Version 6.0 based on Xubuntu 18.04 LTS. Linux kernel upgrade from 4.18 to 4.19; storage tools with: USB persistence (capsper-rw), mount storage device as read-only, wipe disk-free memory, nuke LUKS-encrypted storage device, add additional swap file, encrypt swap files, display advance disk information; memory tools kept all in one place with, normal memory clean-up, force memory clean-up, memory wipe, memory watch; new applications - Stacer Linux tuner and Grsync; with Tor you can exclude countries with a single click; added Tor obfuscation; added LUKS nuke feature for storage devices; new GRUB items to help assist booting, including Terminal boot, Full OS on RAM, forensic mode, fail safe and eth0 for networking names; added Quad 9 DNS to the DNS list; added wmctrl DuckDuckGo command-line search tool...." See this long (if somewhat cryptic) changelog for further information and notes.
MX Linux 18.1
Dolphin Oracle has announced the release of MX Linux 18.1, an updated build of the project's desktop Linux distribution (with Xfce, based on Debian's "stable" branch) built as a cooperative venture between the antiX and former MEPIS Linux communities. This version is an "ISO refresh" release, featuring bug fixes and application updates: "We are pleased to offer MX Linux 18.1 official releases ISO image for your use. MX Linux 18.1 is a refresh of our MX Linux 18 release, consisting of bug fixes and application updates since our original release of MX Linux 18. Note: existing users do not need to reinstall, all bug fixes and additions will come through the regular update channel. Updated packages: the latest updates from Debian 9.7 'Stretch', antiX and MX repositories; Firefox 65.0; VLC 3.0.6. New and updated mx-apps: mx-installer (based on gazelle-installer) received fixes to address crashes during grub install; mx-repo-manager now lists many many more repository mirrors; miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements to MX-PackageInstaller and MX-Conky." Read the rest of the release announcement for more details.
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
|
| 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: 1,243
- Total data uploaded: 23.7TB
|
| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
|
Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| Opinion Poll |
Preferred process monitor
In our Questions and Answers column we talked about monitoring processes and tools like top which can be used to get process information. We would like to find out which process monitors people most like to use. Do you use the classic top command line monitor, or its modern cousin, htop? Perhaps you mostly monitor programs using desktop monitors? Let us know which process monitor best suits your needs.
n
You can see the results of our previous poll on running a NAS at home in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
|
Preferred process monitor
| Conky: | 222 (12%) |
| GNOME System Monitor: | 257 (14%) |
| htop: | 507 (27%) |
| KSysGuard: | 157 (8%) |
| LXTask: | 70 (4%) |
| top: | 288 (15%) |
| Xfce Task Manager: | 141 (7%) |
| Other: | 96 (5%) |
| I do not use a process monitor: | 159 (8%) |
|
|
| DistroWatch.com News |
Distributions added to waiting list
- Mazon OS. Mazon OS is a KISS-style operating system built from the Linux From Scratch project. Mazon OS features a custom package manager, called bananapkg, which is implemented as a shell script.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 18 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)
|
|
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 1, value: US$1.00) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
|
| 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.
|
| Archives |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
| Random Distribution | 
Parrot
Parrot (formerly Parrot Security OS) is a Debian-based, security-oriented distribution featuring a collection of utilities designed for penetration testing, computer forensics, reverse engineering, hacking, privacy, anonymity and cryptography. The product, developed by Frozenbox, comes with MATE as the default desktop environment.
Status: Active
|
| 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.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
