 DistroWatch Weekly |
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 2, value: US$347.01) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Solus (by Vern on 2019-04-01 01:38:38 GMT from United States)
The problem I have with Solus is two fold. It wants a lot more esp storage and having trouble with grub.
2 • Solus (by Gustavo on 2019-04-01 02:46:08 GMT from Brazil)
Solus having no Chromium browser in repository is a showstopper. They say Chrome is all right, but it is not open source.
3 • Live Distro (by Simon Plaistowe on 2019-04-01 02:54:46 GMT from Australia)
I use live distros mostly for diagnostics/repairs and to demo Linux for people who want to know how well it will run on their machines. Security not so much, although I did take a brief look at Kodachi recently and was initially impressed. Must look at it in more detail very soon. Has anyone else tried it - what did you think?
4 • @2 - Solus Chromium browser (by Shadow53 on 2019-04-01 04:05:20 GMT from United States)
Solus has Vivaldi (based on Chromium) available in the main repositories and encourages people wanting open source Chromium to use the chromium snap. They are also working on packaging Chromium I believe, if they haven't finished that yet. Finally, most packaged browsers that are not Firefox use the Chromium renderer, so there are those options as well.
5 • @1 Solus grub problems (by jan on 2019-04-01 07:19:33 GMT from Poland)
Since I have a multiboot setting on my laptop, could you please describe a bit more the grub related problems you had?
6 • Solus (by Ostrol on 2019-04-01 09:38:04 GMT from Poland)
I was expecting at least a mention of the original creator of Budgie desktop in the review. He's gone silent for the moment, but without his vision, this desktop and the file system never would have happened. It happened because he didn't want to compile deb packages any more, and because he wanted to make a desktop environment for himself. You can find Budgie desktop in any Linux system, and loved by those, who use it.
7 • WPS Office license (mentioned in Solus review) (by Daniel on 2019-04-01 10:15:17 GMT from United States)
I hadn't read the WPS Office EULA, but I see why the Solus developers would remove WPS Office (apart from it being proprietary software).
"(3)If this Software is a WPS Office version for Linux OS, the following apply:
1) You are only entitled to install and use this Software on computers meeting the following operating environment requirements as agreed herein:
OS: Linux OS produced by China brand enterprises, such as Ubuntu or Ubentu Kylin, Deepin, NeoKylin, NFS China, and New Start
CPU: X86 or CPU produced by China enterprises such as Loongson, Phytium, SW, Zhaoxin, and MPRC"
I prefer to avoid using online office suites when possible, and I'm not interested in Microsoft Office via Wine or a virtual machine. A few years ago I tested LibreOffice, WPS Office, AbiWord + Gnumeric (Ease and Glide were long since stagnate, so I didn't bother testing either of those presentation applications), Calligra Suite, and SoftMaker Office (trial version) with regard to several qualities, one of which was best compatibility with word processing, spreadsheet, and (where applicable) presentation file formats I frequently have to deal with. At the time I tested these suites, when it came to word processing documents, WPS Writer noticeably did the best job of preserving formatting in Microsoft Word documents (particularly with regard to more complex formatting). WPS Presentation was marginally better at preserving formatting in Microsoft PowerPoint slides. I still distro hop a fair bit, so I've primarily used LibreOffice as I can be reasonably certain nearly all Linux distributions have LibreOffice in their repositories, whereas WPS Office availability has been hit or miss, but I recently noticed that WPS Office is available on Flathub, and I had considered installing it to see how it currently compares. Now, I'm leaning towards not giving WPS Office another look.
8 • Clarification (by Daniel on 2019-04-01 10:23:11 GMT from United States)
For the sake of clarity, I have no issue with Chinese distributions (I've tested numerous). But I don't use these with any regularity, and I won't be. I have no plans to do business directly with any of the listed CPU manufacturers either.
9 • @ 7, 8 country bias... (by Kazan on 2019-04-01 11:09:17 GMT from France)
Why this country bias?
Do you know, how many day to day apps, open-source or not, created by the Chinese that you use?
10 • @9 (by Daniel on 2019-04-01 11:29:10 GMT from United States)
Is your comment tongue-in-cheek, or are you serious?
As I tried explaining in #8, I have no issue with Chinese distributions, or Chinese CPU manufacturers (though, as stated, I have no current plans to buy from any of those manufacturers directly). However, the WPS Office EULA is quite restrictive in stating that you should not use the Linux version of the office suite unless you are running a Chinese distribution and are also using a processor released by a Chinese manufacturer.
I, in no way, seek to downplay the work done by Chinese companies and organizations in either hardware or software.
It's bad enough to have government-enforced export controls which essentially blacklist users in certain countries (e.g. Iran, North Korea, Sudan, etc.) from using software from certain other countries (e.g. the US). In the case of WPS Office for Linux, only people using distributions originating in China and processors originating in China are whitelisted to use WPS Office. No one else is entitled to use WPS Office for Linux as per the EULA. Sure, you can disregard it, just as you can work around export restrictions, but you shouldn't have to.
11 • Live distro (by Christian on 2019-04-01 13:34:17 GMT from Brazil)
I usually don't use a Live Distro for banking. My bank demands the install of a specific package (called warsaw), that's usually only distributed as a DEB package, for Ubuntu.
A 2 FA is also mandatory and you have to go to the bank to enable the app on your smartphone. If you reset your phone, buy a new one, or sometimes only update the app, you'll have to enable the app again, at the bank (can't do it online).
I think the guest account works better than a live distro. The environment is already updated and everything is lost after a log out (please correct me if I'm wrong).
Firefox containers are another must.
12 • Solus, Budgie in the black (by Sam on 2019-04-01 14:43:32 GMT from United States)
Ye gods do I yearn for the day when this "make everything black... black on black... dark grey on black..." fad in UI design finally goes away. ::goes back to waiting for the Windows 10 Spring update so he can finally switch that ugly black panel for a proper white/grey panel::
13 • @10 (by Kazan on 2019-04-01 14:44:22 GMT from France)
Yes, I am serious.
There's certain madness in attacking anything, everything Chinese. And, they create all kinds of excellent stuff. One of the best open source file mangers is made by a Chinese. A top class open source file system cleaner is made by a Chinese. There's a multitude of such apps in Linux world. Some people even claim that the WPS Office is much better than MS Office (both closed source).
The top selling US based laptops (HP, Dell) are made in China, made by the Chinese. And, closed source US based laptops (Windows, Mac) ar ealso made by the Chinese. There should be respect for the Chinese, without any politics clouding that judgement.
14 • Solus (by Jordan on 2019-04-01 15:08:38 GMT from United States)
What I like very much about Solus is that it is obviously going in a good direction. The devs have even outlined at the Solus website in some detail what and where and why they are going. Solus 4 is a keeper, just like KDE Neon is. Dual booted them for a while then saw no need for KDE Neon and removed it in favor of Solus as quite a bit more innovative and much faster from click to click.
15 • @13 (by Daniel on 2019-04-01 15:40:45 GMT from United States)
Let me reiterate that I am not attacking anything and everything Chinese. I couldn't escape Chinese contributions to hardware and software if I wanted to, and I have no desire to. And as I said in my original post, I was impressed with certain aspects of WPS Office when I tested it. But the EULA has issues (hence my original post), which is, I assume, what Solus devs were addressing when they removed WPS Office from their 3rd-party repo.
I don't think I can make my viewpoint much clearer than I did in #10, so I will leave it here.
16 • @13, 15 Restrictive licences (by Nathan on 2019-04-01 16:14:16 GMT from United States)
I primarily used three different distros, Arch Linux (based out of Canada), Gentoo (USA), and Slackware (also USA). When I settled on these I had no idea nor did I care what their countries of origin were, I just liked the control they gave me. It's fine that WPS imposes arbitrary restrictions on their software - they have the right to do so, and I hope that the referenced stanza in their EULA brings them whatever benefits they foresaw in putting it there. It just saddens me that I and other Arch/Gentoo/Slackware etc. users are precluded from enjoying their work on our distros (or CPU architectures) of choice.
17 • Chinese distro deepin (by Vern on 2019-04-01 16:23:19 GMT from United States)
I've been using deepin for a while now. I really like it. Have read how the Chinese are infiltrating your data. As soon as Chinese comes up FUD is not far behind.
Regarding WPS. The one thing I don't loke is you can't import Libreoffice files. Or at least I couldn't. I didn't far though.
18 • @ 7 WPS Eula and so on... (by Ostrol on 2019-04-01 16:50:21 GMT from Poland)
No idea where you got that "only can be used" in Chinese CPUs and distros/
This website https://www.wps.com/office-free says that WPS Office is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish and Russian.
Well, never heard of a Polish language distro made in China.
19 • Solus (by lupus on 2019-04-01 17:06:46 GMT from Germany)
I loved Solus so much until I learned the hard way that limited repositories are quite unacceptable for my needs. Though congrats to the team who held on to their Distribution although Ikey seem to have left somewhat abruptly to say the least.
Budgie DE is far superior to KDE GNOME XFCE etc. but it even got surpassed at least in my view by the deepin DE.
As much as I distrust the Chinese government it is a good thing we can use deepin on other distros than Deepin itself. The deepin DE goes even further with one unified control panel. I love that and it's better than the Solus one!
20 • @18 (by Daniel on 2019-04-01 17:16:44 GMT from United States)
I copied the wording verbatim from their EULA. "You are only entitled to install and use this Software on computers meeting the following operating environment requirements as agreed herein".
Why would a distribution originating in China (or any other country) preclude support for non-native languages? E.g. Can openSUSE, Mageia, Deepin, etc. not be configured in any number of languages? Of course they can.
21 • WPS, misreadings and Chinese English (by Angel on 2019-04-01 17:21:22 GMT from Philippines)
First to misreadings: "X86 or CPU produced by China enterprises" Two little letters, "o" and "r," make a lot of difference. Don't they?
Second: Anyone as familiar as I am with Chinese user's manuals and such documents knows that the English can be puzzling and sometimes amusing. Granted, the EULA does say "Linux OS produced by China brand enterprises," but then it includes Ubuntu, which is definitely not Chinese. (And then misspells it.) Other things that lead me to think it's unintentional: The WPS Office Software subsidiary of Kingsoft has headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. There may be several chinatowns in California, but it's not China. Also, the Linux version advertises itself as "Compatible with Fedora, CentOS, OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Mint, Knoppix and more." Anyway. the comments made me look and get curious. I will email WPS and ask. Maybe I'll get an answer, maybe not.
The Linux version, by the way, is a community edition, maintained by the usual under/unpaid devs. They even have the obligatory "Donate" button to emphasize their abject poverty.
https://wps.com/office/linux
http://wps-community.org/
http://wps-community.org/donate
22 • What a bizarre EULA (by CS on 2019-04-01 18:15:37 GMT from United States)
A little puzzling how people are trying to explain the strange and restrictive EULA away as something they didn't really intend to say, companies spend months crafting these things under intense legal scrutiny. It says exactly what they wanted it to say.
I expect that Kingsoft didn't really care about the Linux market, but some Chinese government agency really needed support so they added support, but wanted to keep it extremely restrictive, limiting themselves only to Chinese OSes and Chinese CPUs. But who knows! Certainly the strangest EULA I've ever read.
23 • "Everything black on black" (by Friar Tux on 2019-04-01 19:13:09 GMT from Canada)
@12 (Sam)... I love the BLACK backdrop themes. I find the bright white 60 watt bulb themes a pain in the eyes. (Haha, see what I did there?) I also hate those grey supposedly 'dark' themes. I find the grey looks totally crappy. I have taken a number of the grey themes are redid the grey to black or very dark cyan (#001616). I can now work at my laptop for eight hoirs straight WITHOUT getting tired eyes or headaches. So I said, "Long life to black themes!!" (By the way, I realize that touch screens sometimes have difficulty with totally #000000 screens so I usually do #020202 as that appears to be the lowest colour code these screens appear to be able to handle without issues.)
24 • WPS EULA (by Hoos on 2019-04-01 19:15:24 GMT from Singapore)
Obviously if individuals want to install WPS themselves, they are free to do so.
But for distros who want to respect copyright and licence terms of software, you cannot expect them to officially house WPS in their own repos or distribute it, if doing so will breach the terms in the WPS EULA. They can't pick and choose which EULA to comply with or which to ignore.
So I really don't see why posters are criticising this dropping of WPS by distros as some act of discrimination against Chinese entities or developers. Blame the WPS creators for their own EULA.
25 • Black on black (by aguador on 2019-04-01 21:25:33 GMT from Bulgaria)
@12 I can't wait for Firefox to fix the problems with dark themes it exacerbated with the move to Quantum and couldn't agree more with @23 about the pain in the . . . eyes. When I moved to Linux I thought dark themes odd at first, but have found them so much easier on the eyes. One simply cannot work with that brilliant white all the time. Hurray for Solus for recognizing the problem!
26 • @2 Gustavo (by sarkaara on 2019-04-01 23:13:40 GMT from United States)
Don't they have Vivaldi? it's chromium based but not Chrome.
27 • IPFire sigs are lacking (by casual user on 2019-04-01 23:20:46 GMT from United States)
Only sha256 and no key files or GPG signatures? Not something I would trust in a super-privileged position.
28 • Live Distros are only secure if recent (by casual user on 2019-04-01 23:23:50 GMT from United States)
Witness heartbleed, krak, etc.
29 • EULAs, @22 (by Angel on 2019-04-02 01:11:13 GMT from Philippines)
I was not commenting on EULAs in general, only about Chinese companies. However, rather than a roomful of careful attorneys making sure all 'ts" are crossed, many EULAs tend to read more like they threw everything at the wall to see what would stick. Facebook is an extreme example, and these days they are starting to pay for some of it. I also offer no opinion on whether a distro should offer it or not. Their distro, their choice. If I wanted it I could easily install it. I don't use or recommend it. The free Windows and Android versions are adware. They are not so yet on Linux, but why encourage them.
Relative newcomers to western marketing, maybe the Chinese haven't got the hang of it so well. Many user documents are translations from Simplified Chinese, most pretty bad. (Where I am I get a lot of stuff directly from China, cutting out the middleman, so to speak.) For example: Deepin's EULA had a clause whereby you agree to abide by the laws of the PRC, including those about badmouthing the government. When asked they pointed out that it only applied if you live in China. It took a while, but they did remove the clause on the free version. It still exists on the commercial editions. WPS"s EULA with its poor editing and spelling just doesn't read like a roomful of lawyers, more like a quick adaptation from the Chinese versions.
Some odd ones:
https://www.onelegal.com/blog/fantastic-clauses-hidden-in-contracts-and-eulas/
30 • Solus Not So Ryzen-friendly? (by R O on 2019-04-02 02:53:08 GMT from United States)
Solus 4 has a lot of hype about the recent kernel version and AMD support it has, which got my hopes up, but as far as I could see, the installation did not have that activated for my new Dell Inspiron 7000 series with Ryzen 5 2500U and Vega 8 GPU, and I did not find how to set the necessary boot options (iommu=soft noapic) to let it start up, so I bailed out, and went with the more familiar Mint 19 Mate, which runs it well with those aforementioned tweaks (aside from a few niggles like a MS mouse, but not a generic one, locking up the PC after using a while, and incomplete power management sleep support). After reading Jesse's review, I am glad I stayed with Mint/Mate for a reliable and familiar (to me) distro.
31 • China (by EdCoolio on 2019-04-02 06:04:31 GMT from United States)
I do not care, not even a little bit, if Office software is proprietary or restricted. I don't care if it is produced in China, America, or Swaziland. Seriously, I could care less.
What I do care about:
1. The ability to use it on my distro of choice, cost free and legally.
2. The software is free of all tracking and viruses.
3. Maximum, if not complete, compatibility with Microsoft Office.
Yeah, I know, not popular opinions among the hardcore Linux believers. I do believe, however, that it is the popular opinion for most users looking to dump Microsoft while keeping compatibility with the rest of the business world.
32 • Black on black (by dragonmouth on 2019-04-02 12:35:07 GMT from United States)
I have been distro-hopping for at least 12 years and have rarely encountered dark default themes in distros, most of them years ago. Anyway, with Linux being as flexible as it is, there should be very little trouble with installing ANY kind of a theme your heart, or eyes, desire.
@23 &25:
Dark themes are YOUR personal preference. There is nothing that makes them inherently better or worse than light themes. AFAIC, dark themes give me a headache. However, popular DEs allow the user to theme the screen any way (s)he wants. That is why I always make sure that any theme I use has a pastel background and no stark contrasts.
33 • @22 EULAs (by dragonmouth on 2019-04-02 12:43:23 GMT from United States)
"companies spend months crafting these things under intense legal scrutiny"
Maybe, in addition to intense legal scrutiny, these companies should subject these EULAs to intense grammatical, idiomatic and syntactical scrutiny. As we have seen in the posts above, EULAs written in Engrish could, and do lead, to misunderstanding.
34 • KduxOS - Distributions added to waiting list (by babu on 2019-04-02 18:33:34 GMT from Belgium)
Would like to let you know that your statement : "KduxOS is an Arch Linux-based distribution featuring the Openbox window manager." seems to be wrong. There is no Openbox window manager. Command-line only iso.
As far as I know only ArchBang is providing an very nice Arch Linux-based distribution featuring the Openbox window manager.
Thank you.
35 • Live distros for secure tasks (by Vee on 2019-04-02 19:16:49 GMT from Hong Kong)
To solve the issue of clean slate (ideal for the kind of secure tasks people seek a live distro for anyway) vs updated software/security patches, I recommend getting live distros with persistent file saving and an "always fresh" option. This way you can boot up the distro in its default (persistent file saving enabled) mode, update necessary software and get the security patches you need. Then you can reboot in "always fresh" mode to get a true clean slate for performing your secure tasks. In my opinion this is better than a guest account on your main install because a guest account still has all the same packages on your main install, and all the risks that come with it.
My live distro of choice for these cases is Porteus (Slackware-based) due to its small size, lightweight-ness enabling it to run on very low end hardware, and all around speed. And of course, because it can run the configuration I described above (switching between persistent file saving and "always fresh" mode). It mostly works out of the box but is very minimal, and I'd understand the trepidation some people will get hearing the words "Slackware-based" if they're not very familiar. It's easy to configure, though, after you spend a little time learning the conf files to edit, and in my experience Porteus has shaped up to be one of the most reliable options out there for lightweight distros completely functionally run-able on a small USB drive.
36 • Live distros (by Roger on 2019-04-02 23:15:39 GMT from Belgium)
Live distros I only use to repair broken Windows PC or save the data, sometimes to save a Linux I messed up by trying something new.
37 • OpenRC (by Durwood Protske on 2019-04-02 23:53:16 GMT from United States)
Thanks to the heroic Developers of Gentoo, for fighting with such valiance against the Cybernetic Devil. Even though it would probably be better for people to avoid Gnome altogether, it's still a proper gesture in the general direction of the offensive strategists over at Gnome Corp.
Long live Gentoo!
38 • WPS EULA revisited (by Angel on 2019-04-03 01:41:20 GMT from Philippines)
Sometimes a little knowledge can be a problem and result in misinformation. As previously stated, I have asked and researched. Seems there are two separate licenses for WPS Office. One is for the commercial version and the other for the community version. The Linux version we would use is the community version. Below is a Link to the license agreement. It is meant to be freely distributed, and those you distribute to are free to redistribute, and on and on.
http://wps-community.org/license.md
Also as stated, I am not pushing WPS. I don't use it, and I consider the Windows and Android versions to be adware. I don't much care for adware.
39 • @38 - EULA refers to another EULA unfortunately.... (by Hoos on 2019-04-03 02:20:45 GMT from Singapore)
When I read the link you provided, I thought the same as you at first. Then I noticed it referred to another EULA in Section 1, paragraph 2(a).
That one is found here: https://www.wps.com/eula
and that is the one that has the "China distros/hardware only" clause.
That document is also described as being applicable for WPS Office running on Linux (as well as for Android and Microsoft versions). Is there a commercial WPS version? If not, it seems a little hard to say it doesn't apply when the Community Licence does refer to it.
40 • @39, true believers (by Angel on 2019-04-03 05:20:26 GMT from Philippines)
Believe what you wish. Not my job to convert true believers. Others may choose as they want. As per your section 1 paragraph 2 , it refers to the EULA included with the installation package, not to the website. That seems clear enough. Yes, you have to agree to the license terms before first use, which are the same as on the community license.. Unlike you, I have downloaded and installed the software rather than prattle on about things I don't know.
41 • 34 • KduxOS - Distributions added to waiting list (by babu on 2019-04-03 18:19:35 GMT from Belgium)
Further ...
Have to apologize. Was wrong when I stated that KduxOS is command-line only. My remark was based on the link you provided.
Discovered today a kduxos-desktop-0.1.1-prealpha iso featuring the Openbox window manager.
Downloaded it immediately and did a frugal install. Looks nice. Am writing now from this distribution. Will do some more testing.
Thank you for mentioning this distro in your News section.
42 • WPS (by Garon on 2019-04-03 18:34:43 GMT from United States)
Is WPS any good?
43 • @42 Re: Is WPS any good? (by Rev_Don on 2019-04-03 18:49:36 GMT from United States)
Depends. It tends to import MS Office files better than other programs do, but if that isn't important to you then LibreOffice is just as good overall.
44 • Upcoming Releases and Announcements (by Marathon Man on 2019-04-04 06:53:54 GMT from Kenya)
Ubuntu = Debian + added bugs!
I see that Ubuntu 19.04 is scheduled for release in two weeks. I've really tried to love Ubuntu, but every time I end up being disappointed by all the annoying bugs. I really hope that this time they give me a reason to change my opinion.
45 • Added bugs... (by Friar Tux on 2019-04-04 13:31:01 GMT from Canada)
@44 (Marathon Man) I usually find the opposite. Ubuntu takes Debian and improves it. Linux Mint takes Ubuntu and improves on it. (Though I DID find that Feren, which is based on Mint was a bust.)
46 • Ubuntu/Debian (by Jordan on 2019-04-04 15:52:26 GMT from United States)
@44 @45
I agree with the buggy nature of Ubuntu, as to my experience (and my wife's.. after seeing Ubuntu marketing out there she had high hopes of using Ubuntu to get away from Windows, didn't happen). Mint was a bit better, but neither of us can understand the high PHR of Mint (and Ubuntu, for that matter).
Ubuntu wrecks Debian.. reminds me of the Ford Edsel, which was ruined by too many "ideas" as to design being implimented; turned out to be a freak.
There are a lot of well-honed distros out there. For us, Ubuntu isn't it at all.
47 • Different Experience (by Garon on 2019-04-04 16:38:43 GMT from United States)
While it may hold true that some people don't have a good experience with Ubuntu most seem to. I've had different experiences with different distros and with different hardware. I has a lot with what you want to do and what you do it with. My favorite was Ubuntu with Unity. That really isn't an option anymore. Just can't seem to buddy up with Gnome or Cinnamon. Mate is a step backward even tho I've used it quite a lot. I believe that Kde is really about the only innovative system now. I miss the days of Warren Woodford and Mepis. Sorry but MX just isn't the same.
48 • Ubuntu 19.04 all releases beta (by Vern on 2019-04-04 16:46:32 GMT from United States)
I have zero issues with any of the current 'disco' Ubuntu's.
Hardware? knowledge? Installed apps? Don't know, but I've used 'disco' from the start. Everything I need to run works.
49 • Ubuntu (by mcellius on 2019-04-04 18:42:21 GMT from United States)
I've been using Ubuntu for a number of years now and have found it more free from bugs than any other distro I've tried. (And I've tried a lot!) It works extremely well for me, is very customizable and flexible in the ways that matter to me, and has been very solid and reliable.
Of course different peoople have different experiences. I tried to help a friend a couple years ago by installing Mint on his machine, and whatever I did I could not get it to install. I finally gave up and installed Ubuntu, and it worked perfectly. That won't be everyone's experience, of course (Mint seems to install just fine on most systems, including my own), but one bad experience won't cause me to badmouth a fine distro.
I've also used various desktop environments: KDE, Gnome 2 and 3, MATE, Cinnamon, LXDE, Unity, etc. I liked Unity quite a lot, but now use Gnome 3 (which I've managed to make look quite a lot like Unity, just to please myself) and find it fine.
I tried Fedora 29 when it came out. Not bad, and nothing really wrong with it, but I just found it more difficult to work with. I've installed and used Arch several times, but each time found it to be more trouble than it was worth (to me; there are also those for whom it is perfect).
My point is that it's silly and arrogant to get on here and try to pre-emptively badmouth a particular distro. It might not be your cup of tea, but so what? Others may like it and find it very useful - in fact, perhaps the best option - even if you don't think it works well for you. So what? Use what you like, and encourage others to use what they like. It's far better to tout the positive features of whatever you prefer, than to try to tear down those you don't like.
50 • Distro dissing (by Friar Tux on 2019-04-04 22:44:04 GMT from Canada)
@49 (mcellius) Whoa... easy there, big fella... no one's dissing your distros. We're merely comparing notes. My experience has been this... Debian = buggy, not working; Ubuntu = buggy, lots of issues; Mint = absolutely great, not a glitch in three whole years. Do I think Debian or Ubuntu are rubbish - nope, not at all. I have friends that swear by them. As well as friends that will use naught but Arch (and tease the rest of us for using a 'Linux toy distro'). One thing I absolutely love about Linux is the diversity. In the people and the distros.
51 • @37 (Gentoo, GNOME and systemd) (by Simon on 2019-04-05 00:15:11 GMT from New Zealand)
Agreed. Well done Distrowatch, too, for putting Gentoo back among the "major distributions" where it belongs. Gentoo is a genuinely unique and productive distro that makes significant contributions to the wider Linux community, most often in the form of fixes and patches to upstream projects...but this is a great example too, purging GNOME of systemd. I also agree that it's probably better to abandon GNOME given that it has clearly tied its fate to that of systemd...but the kind of work that Gentoo have done here opens the way for a major fork (like MATE did with GNOME 2) into something that develops GNOME in the right direction.
52 • Debian, Ubuntu and Arch experiences (by RJA on 2019-04-05 01:15:57 GMT from United States)
@49 and @50, I've had excellent experiences with Ubuntu and I like their LTS releases.
I've also had an excellent experience with Debian, who Ubuntu is based on.
My experience with Arch, was poor in 2010, I had to play mirrorlist musical chairs, because one mirror was apparently missing a required file that another mirror had, and vice-versa!
So, when installing KDE with pacman, I had to keep changing the mirror server and run pacman multiple times, because random files were missing! The mirrors were completely inconsistent!
53 • @51 Gentoo, GNOME and systemd (by mandog on 2019-04-05 01:56:24 GMT from Peru)
Your about 3 years to late Void was offering Gnome3 on runit 3 years ago.
Gentoo has done nothing new apart from using openrc.
54 • Dissing distros (by mcellius on 2019-04-05 11:31:15 GMT from United States)
@50 "... no one's dissing your distros."
Not so. You didn't, but @44 came out of nowhere, changing the topic just to diss a distro; @46 joined in. Furthermore, their dissing came with hyperbole and without logic or reason. Such behavior seems pretty anti-Linux, where we encourage people to base their choices on things that make sense, not baseless emotional outbursts.
55 • Distros (by EdCoolio on 2019-04-05 16:36:48 GMT from United States)
@54
It sounded like DistroWatch readers's personal comments about distros. Re-reading the comments, they were opinionated but respectful - if not hopeful.
Is this not the "Reader Comments" section of DistroWatch, where readers of DistroWatch make comments? This is not a forum full of overzealous moderators which seem to pervade discussions these days (thank God).
Maybe you're too sensitive for an unmoderated Internet discussion, maybe not... but either way, I respect your off topic post.
56 • Dissing distros (by dragonmouth on 2019-04-05 17:39:36 GMT from United States)
@54:
And if they are dissing Ubuntu, so what?! Every other distro gets dissed at some point in time. Why should Ubuntu be different? Is Ubuntu some sacred cow that cannot be talked badly about? Marathon Man and Jordan did not have the same warm & fuzzy experiences with Ubuntu that you did. They are basing their statements on how Ubuntu behaved for them. Are Linux distros so fragile that they cannot stand criticism? Steve Balmer and Microsoft dissed Linux for years and it just kept on growing.
57 • @56, dis-distros (by Angel on 2019-04-06 01:00:53 GMT from Philippines)
Steve Ballmer attacked Linux not because he despised it, but because he feared it. As it turns out, there was nothing to fear. Perhaps all this inter-distro dissing is powered by a smaller fear: That one's choice is insignificant.
58 • @ 57 distros... (by Ostrol on 2019-04-06 06:53:44 GMT from Poland)
No distro is good enough until you tweaked it for your liking, for example, gnome shell becomes somewhat easy to use, if/when you change the default file manager, add placing icons on desktop, add categories to app-grid etc. Or moving Linux Mint to disco base.
59 • @57: (by dragonmouth on 2019-04-06 13:12:34 GMT from United States)
For whatever reason, he dissed it. Just as, for various reasons, DW posters diss various distros at one time or another. Don't pick nits.
Number of Comments: 59
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
| | |
| 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 |
| • Ussye 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • 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 |
| • 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 | 
SystemRescue
SystemRescue is an Arch-based Linux system on a bootable CD-ROM or USB drive, designed for repairing a system and data after a crash. It also aims to provide an easy way to carry out administration tasks on a computer, such as creating and editing hard disk partitions. It contains many useful system utilities (GNU Parted, PartImage, FSTools) and some basic ones (editors, Midnight Commander, network tools). It aims to be very easy to use. The kernel of the system supports all of today's most important file systems, including ext2, ext3, ext4, ReiserFS, Reiser4FS, btrfs, XFS, JFS, VFAT, NTFS, ISO9660, as well as network file systems, such as Samba and NFS.
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.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
