DistroWatch Weekly |
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 809, 8 April 2019 |
Welcome to this year's 14th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
There are many ways people can try to keep up with the latest available applications and make sure they always have the newest version of a program. Some people run rolling release distributions that continuously update, some people prefer to use portable package bundles like Flatpak and Snap, while others experiment with third-party package archives, or even compile software from its source code. We touch on several different approaches to staying up to date this week, beginning with a look at PCLinuxOS. PCLinuxOS is a rolling release distribution that combines a conservative style with modern software. We have more details on the distribution and its utilities in our Feature Story. In the News section this week we talk about Ubuntu improving the load time of Snap packages and elementary OS's software centre getting support for Flatpak portable bundles. Plus the Mint team has announced they will be offering daily previews of packages through a personal package archive (PPA), and Fedora begins its shift toward using Flatpak packages by default. Then, in our Tips and Tricks column, Jesse Smith explores different approaches to try out the latest version of the Falkon web browser and some of the pros and cons of each method. On the subject of web browsers, we ask in our Opinion Poll what is the most significant feature a web browser needs in order to attract our readers. Plus we are pleased to share this week's releases and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
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Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
PCLinuxOS 2019.02
PCLinuxOS is a distribution I like to check in on every few years. The project maintains a curious combination of styles and technology which make it both unusual and, curiously enough, pleasantly familiar at the same time. PCLinuxOS was originally forked from Mandriva and has since become an independent distribution that mixes RPM packages with the APT package manager, which is typically paired with Deb packages. The distribution is also unusual in that it is a rolling release that generally keeps up with the latest available software while maintaining a conservative style. The distribution ships with a modern release of KDE Plasma, for example, but uses a classic menu tree for its application menu.
I will get deeper into PCLinuxOS's approach later. For now, I think it is worth noting the project is available in KDE Plasma and MATE editions. There are also community editions in Xfce, LXDE, LXQt, and Trinity flavours. The official releases are available for 64-bit (x86_64) machines only and the ISO for the KDE Plasma edition is a 1GB download.
Booting from the live media brings up a graphical interface and a window appears, asking us to select our keyboard's layout from a list. The window then disappears and the Plasma desktop loads. The Plasma panel is placed at the bottom of the screen and populated with an application menu, the system tray, and quick-launch buttons for some key system utilities. Icons on the desktop open the Dolphin file manager and the distribution's system installer.

PCLinuxOS 2019.02 -- The application menu
(full image size: 547kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Installing
PCLinuxOS uses a graphical system installer that begins by asking how we would like to partition our hard drive. The installer can use available free space, replace an existing install or give us a chance to try manual partitioning. The manual partitioning screen has a pleasantly simple layout that displays a chart showing our current disk layout. It then allows us to make new partitions and format them with Btrfs, ext3, ext4, JFS or XFS file systems. LVM volumes are also an option. I did a couple of installs, which used either Btrfs or ext4, both of which worked well.
The installer then offers to remove any packages containing unneeded hardware support, in my case dropping NVIDIA video drivers from my system. We are asked where to install the boot loader and which boot loader to use (options are GRUB2 with a text menu or GRUB2 with a graphical menu). The installer finishes its work and returns us to the Plasma desktop.
This install process may seem short and simple, because it is. Some of the configuration work is saved for the first time we boot the computer. A graphical wizard pops up before we reach a login screen and asks us for our time zone, whether to enable time synchronization with network time servers and to set a root password. We can then make up a username and password for ourselves. With these steps completed, we are turned over to a graphical login screen decorated with blue and purple wallpaper.
Hardware
Early on I discovered that PCLinuxOS was not built with running in VirtualBox in mind. In my virtual test environment, I found that the distribution would not resize its desktop to match my host machine. Resizing the VirtualBox window or using either of PCLinuxOS's display configuration tools did not improve my screen resolution. There are no VirtualBox guest modules in the project's repositories. There is a installer script which will install the VirtualBox host software, but this gives us the ability to run virtual machines, not integrate with a host machine. My next step was to install VirtualBox's generic guest modules manually. These appeared to install correctly, but upon rebooting the virtual machine I discovered PCLinuxOS's graphical display no longer worked and X.Org refused to start.

PCLinuxOS 2019.02 -- Exploring the Control Centre
(full image size: 432kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Apart from the screen resolution issue, PCLinuxOS worked well in the virtual environment. The desktop was responsive, sound worked, and I could play videos. I just had to deal with a limited desktop size. The distribution performed very well on my workstation. PCLinuxOS handled sound, work with both wired and wireless networking, and set my display to its maximum resolution automatically. Desktop performance was above average and Plasma was unusually responsive. The distribution was light in its resource consumption, compared to many mainstream distributions, using up just 4GB of disk space and 410MB of RAM.
Applications
The distribution uses less disk space than average, but that comes as a result of having fewer applications installed. PCLinuxOS ships with version 5.15.1 of the Plasma desktop (and the desktop gets updated over time). The Falkon web browser is included and we also get copies of the Dolphin file manager, the KWrite text editor, a task monitor and a tool for setting up printers. There are two settings panels I will get to shortly, and the distribution uses the SysV init software. In the background we find version 4.20 of the Linux kernel, which can also be updated over time.

PCLinuxOS 2019.02 -- Running the Falkon web browser
(full image size: 477kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
I think it's worth noting that PCLinuxOS does not ship with manual pages for its command line utilities. It also does not ship with sudo for performing administrative actions by default. The distribution expects we will make use of the root account or provide the root password when we want to perform system changes. On a related note, I found any user on the system can run the su command to become the root user without a password. This seems like a serious misconfiguration that should be patched. The distribution does not ship with LibreOffice and the productivity suite is not in the project's repositories, though LibreOffice can be installed using a script and I will talk more about that later in this review.
There are some other interesting choices made with regards to the software selection in this distribution. For instance, Falkon is the default web browser. On one hand this makes sense as Falkon is a part of the KDE family, plus it is a lightweight browser and looks good in the Plasma environment. However, Falkon's last version update was about a year ago which makes me wary of running it as it does not appear to be getting security updates.
Desktop and system configuration
PCLinuxOS ships with two configuration panels. The system's settings are managed through Control Centre while desktop settings are handled through the System Settings panel. (This is one of those unfortunate naming situations which feel completely normal once a person has been using Linux for a while, but is confusing to newcomers.) The System Systems panel worked well for me. It uses the classic grid of icons layout as opposed to the newer two-pane layout used by many distributions running the Plasma desktop. I found the Plasma settings were generally easy to navigate and there is a search function to help us locate specific modules. I like that PCLinuxOS enables a minimum amount of visual effects and features and that file indexing is turned off. This might explain why the distribution was so responsive during my trial.

PCLinuxOS 2019.02 -- Browsing desktop settings
(full image size: 310kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The Control Centre offers a friendly, point-n-click approach to managing the underlying operating system. Through the Control Centre we can launch the Synaptic package manager, set up network shares, set up printers and scanners, change the system clock and configure network connections. We can also manage background services, set up a firewall, manage user accounts and enable automatic logins. There are a lot of modules in the Control Centre and I did not have cause to use them all. However, for the most part, the ones I did use worked beautifully. The Control Centre is wonderfully easy to navigate and provides a beginner friendly approach to system configuration.
I only ran into one problem while changing settings. Some modules need to install extra packages before they can be used. Sometimes this worked and sometimes the extra packages could not be installed. When I enabled the OpenSSH service, for example, the extra packages installed to set up the secure shell service without any problems. But when I wanted to enable a DNS service, the package failed to download. I feel at this point it is worth mentioning that the DNS server our computer uses is set in the Network Centre module, not the Configure DNS module, which helps us set up our own DNS server for other people to use - it's another one of those curious naming conventions.

PCLinuxOS 2019.02 -- Setting up firewall rules
(full image size: 335kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Software management
After using PCLinuxOS for a while I realized I had not received any notification of new software updates. We can manually check for updates by launching the Synaptic package manager. Synaptic is a flexible and powerful package manager for installing, removing and upgrading packages. It allows us to queue multiple actions and then process all of these actions in one big batch. Synaptic worked well during my trial and I had no complaints while using it. Through Synaptic we can add all sorts of popular packages, including Firefox, VLC and Thunderbird.
At the start of my trial there were 52 new updates available, totalling 56MB in size. These all downloaded and installed without any issues.

PCLinuxOS 2019.02 -- Locating software in the Synaptic package manager
(full image size: 137kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Earlier I mentioned LibreOffice is not included in the distribution's repositories. However, there is a launcher in the application menu that runs a script that will automate installing LibreOffice with our preferred language. I ran the script and got LibreOffice running. It was a fairly smooth experience, only somewhat marred by the script's window disappearing for a few minutes during the download, but it returned when the installation process had completed successfully. Later, if we want to update or remove LibreOffice, the same script will handle deleting or updating our copy of LibreOffice. This is an unusual approach to working with software on a Linux distribution. It works, but it means the user needs to be aware LibreOffice is handled separately from all the other software on the operating system.
Conclusions
Earlier I mentioned that PCLinuxOS has a distinct approach. Its modern software and conservative layout and style make it appealing to me as it provides modern software working in ways that feel familiar. I like that I can run the latest web browsers and LibreOffice while navigating menu layouts and themes that I have been using for years. The mixture of RPM packages with the APT command line tools and Synaptic is also unusual, but it works well and I did not run into an issues with this strange combination.
Sometimes the unusual approach of PCLinuxOS did trip me up, mentally speaking. For example, on the login screen the keyboard's arrow keys do not work to select our user from the list of available accounts. But I found I could Tab between users. Using separate scripts to install VirtualBox and LibreOffice was also not what I am used to on a Linux distribution, but again it works. It is just a different approach from what I am used to.
There were a few issues, such as having trouble getting PCLinuxOS to play well in the VirtualBox environment, but the distribution ran beautifully on my physical hardware. Another problem I ran into is the su command allows any user to run commands as the root user without a password. This seems like a big security hole as it means any user or guest can perform any administrative action on the system. This, combined with the year old default web browser give me some concerns when it comes to security. However, I very much like the style and performance of the distribution and think many people will find it an easy operating system to use.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card, Ralink RT5390R PCIe Wireless card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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Visitor supplied rating
PCLinuxOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.2/10 from 113 review(s).
Have you used PCLinuxOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Ubuntu speeds up Snap package load times, Mint offers daily test builds, elementary OS integrating Flatpak support, Fedora experiments with building Flatpak packages
One side effect of using portable Snap packages to install software on Linux distributions is that the snaps can take longer to load. Some benchmarks done on popular applications showed that a snap could have longer load times than its equivalent RPM or Deb counterpart, with snap load times ranging from about 150% to 1,000% longer. Work has been done to address this issue and users should soon see greatly improved start times. "The inclusion of fc-cache binaries in snapd 2.36.2 onwards introduces significant (2-6x) improvements in GUI application start-up times. The results are applicable for both Ubuntu and non-Ubuntu platforms. Snap users across different Linux distributions should be able to see immediate, positive differences in the loading of their snaps. The exact figures will depend on the application type, usage patterns and, to a lesser extent, the underlying hardware platform choice." Igor Ljubuncic has presented a comparison of using Snap packages versus native RPM and Deb packages across multiple distributions, before and after the performance improvements.
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Another project which is working on incremental improvements is Linux Mint. The Mint team are working to improve performance of the Cinnamon desktop, the Blueberry Bluetooth system tray tool now allows users to connect and disconnect paired devices with a click, and the project is making it possible to test cutting-edge packages that are updated daily: "We're currently working on making it possible to 'alpha-test' Linux Mint. A 'Daily Build' PPA is available. This PPA gathers the latest code changes for the software we work on (Mint tools, Xapps, Cinnamon etc.), builds packages on a daily basis and provides software updates. Be warned, daily builds are unstable by definition and translations aren't complete until we get close to beta." Further details can be found in the project's newsletter.
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The elementary OS team is working toward integrating Flatpak support with their distribution's application centre. The developers appear to be working on adding Flatpak packages to their own application centre rather than tying their centre to existing Flatpak repositories. "Before we get too far into it, we want to make sure there's a clear distinction that we'll be moving towards Flatpak (the packaging format) and not Flathub (a single Flatpak-powered app repository). While Flathub is a great place to get popular cross-platform apps, we still want AppCenter to be the best place to get apps that are specially developed for elementary OS. Moving to Flatpak doesn't mean moving away from our focus on native apps, from enabling developers to get paid with pay-what-you-want downloads, or from the online AppCenter Dashboard where each app is carefully tested, reviewed, and curated before being published to users in AppCenter. We'll be providing our own hosted and curated Flatpak repo for AppCenter, much like we provide our own hosted and curated Debian repo today." More information on how and why Flatpak will be supported can be found in the project's blog post.
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With the release of Fedora 30 rapidly approaching, Christian Schaller has published a list of changes and improvements coming to the distribution's Workstation edition. Many of these changes include improvements to Wayland - such as getting a native Firefox build for Wayland working, making NVIDIA binary drivers working smoothly with Wayland and fixing bugs gamers face when running Wayland sessions. Another area seeing progress is Flatpak support: "Owen Taylor has been in charge of getting Flatpaks building in Fedora, ensuring we can produce Flatpaks from Fedora packages. Owen set up a system to track the Fedora Flatpak status, we got about 10 applications so far, but hope to greatly grow that number of time as we polish up the system. This enables us to start planning for shipping some applications in Fedora Workstation as Flatpaks by default in a future release. This repository will be available by default in Fedora workstation 30 and you can choose the Flatpak version of the package through the new drop down box in the top right corner of GNOME Software. For now the RPM version of the package is still the default, but we expect to change that in later releases of Fedora Workstation." Schaller has a great write-up of the new features and enhancements coming to Fedora 30.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
A journey to get Falkon 3.1.0 running and problems with portable packages
I have long been a fan of the QupZilla web browser, a lightweight browser which uses the same rendering engine as Chromium and is built with the Qt toolkit. QupZilla reminds me of the classic Opera browser - it is quick, stays out of the way, and does not have many extra features. In other words it is a great tool for just browsing the web and does not get bogged down with dozens of other features and extensions, such as developer tools, an e-mail client, or bookmark synchronization. I talked about QupZilla a few years ago when I was looking for a new browser.
About a year ago QupZilla changed its name to Falkon and became part of the KDE family. The browser still runs on any Linux desktop and on a range of platforms (including Linux, FreeBSD, and Windows). I have been meaning to try out the re-branded browser and decided the release of Falkon 3.1.0 last month was a good excuse to try it out.
Trying out Falkon turned out to be more difficult than I had originally expected. You see, I run MX Linux on my laptop most of the time and MX is based on Debian, a distribution better known for its stability than up to date software. The most recent version of QupZilla/Falkon in the repositories is still 2.1.2, which is a few years old at this point. In the past I had downloaded portable AppImage packages of QupZilla when new versions came out, but the latest release of Falkon is not available as an AppImage.
The Falkon download page offers three options for Linux users: Snap packages, Flatpak and source code. There are pre-built Windows binaries too, but I did not relish the idea of trying to run Falkon through WINE. The Snap package I could skip as snaps will not run on MX as snaps do not work on distributions that do not run systemd as the default init process. I moved on to Flatpak.
The three command line instructions needed to install Falkon as a Flatpak are right on the download page and I gave them a whirl on two computers. The download was in the range of 1GB to grab Falkon and its dependencies. On the first computer, the Flatpak appeared to install successfully, but then the browser refused to launch, reporting it was missing a library dependency. This seemed odd since Flatpaks are essentially designed to bundle dependencies and avoid this issue entirely. On the second machine, the Falkon Flatpak launched and, at first, all seemed to be going well. The browser started quickly, ran smoothly, and was stable. However, a few problems started coming to light.
The first was all my bookmarks, history and settings had not carried over. I was able to get around this by copying my old QupZilla profile information and creating a link from the Falkon configuration directory:
cp -R ~/.config/qupzilla ~/.config/falkon
cd ~/.var/app/org.kde.falkon
rm -rf config
ln -s ~/.config config
This allowed me to use my old profile, settings, bookmarks and short-cuts. The next problem I faced was Falkon could not find any spell-checking dictionaries. I did not come up with a working solution to this problem. Falkon states in the settings panel where it looks for dictionaries, but creating these locations (both on the file system and in the Flatpak sandbox) did not correct the issue. Falkon, when run as a Flatpak, appears to be unable to see dictionary files.
The third problem I faced, which eventually made me abandon the Flatpak approach, was that some applications cannot use a Flatpak to open URLs. This is more a problem with other applications not properly understanding how to work with Flatpak bundles rather than an issue with Falkon or Flatpak, but it was still a significant problem. Those applications which could handle passing a URL to a Flatpak application resulted in a new browser window being launched. This is a bit slow, since every time I wanted to open a link it launched a new instance of Falkon.
My final approach was to try building the web browser from its source code. I unpacked the source code and read the accompanying README file which simply suggested I run the following commands to install Falkon:
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make && make install
No information was provided as to which dependencies should be installed or which build tools. Over the next hour or so I pieced together the packages I would need and came up with this compact list of instructions to get all the required components:
sudo apt install build-essential cmake extra-cmake-modules libkf5i18n-dev libxcb-util0-dev wget libssl-dev gettext qttools5-dev
wget http://download.qt-project.org/official_releases/qt/5.12/5.12.2/qt-opensource-linux-x64-5.12.2.run
chmod 755 qt-opensource-linux-x64-5.12.2.run
sudo ./qt-opensource-linux-x64-5.12.2.run
The last step opens a window on the desktop which asks which Qt components we need to install. I opted to install the latest stable version of all the components.
Then it is time to try to build Falkon:
cd falkon-3.1.0
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
This step failed because the build system cannot see the Qt version that has been installed. I fixed this by opening the CMakeLists.txt file in the top level of Falkon's source code and adding the following line at line 48, right after the text which reads "set(QT_MIN_VERSION "5.9.0")".
set(Qt5_DIR "/opt/Qt/5.12.2/gcc_64/lib/cmake/Qt5/")
Then I continued:
cmake Qt5_DIR=/opt/Qt/5.12.2/gcc_64/lib/cmake/Qt5 ..
make
Note: If the Qt5_DIR variable is not set in both the CMakeLists.txt file and on the command line, then (on my machines, at least) the compile process fails at approximately the 35% mark. It took me a few failed compile attempts to work that out.
The "make" step takes several minutes and displays a percentage of its progress as it works. When it is finished we can run the install command to place Falkon on our system:
sudo make install
The above instructions should work on any modern version of distributions in the Debian/Ubuntu family. By default, the Falkon binary ends up in the /usr/local/bin directory. Running the Falkon command automatically imported my old QupZilla profile, bookmarks, passwords and settings into Falkon.
My new copy of Falkon could be launched from third-party applications and opened URLs passed to it in new tabs rather than opening a new window, so things were certainly improving. However, spell-check still did not work. I had to track down my old QupZilla dictionary files and copy them into the /usr/local/bin/qtwebengine_dictionaries directory and restart Falkon before it would spell-check text. More information on setting up dictionaries for Falkon can be found in the KDE wiki.
It took a fair amount of trial and error to get Falkon built and running, but once it was in place and dependencies like dictionaries were copied to the proper locations, Falkon proved to be a fast, pleasantly minimal web browser that stayed out of my way and let me focus on browsing content. Falkon offers the benefits of running a popular rendering engine while maintaining a more traditional user interface and a smaller memory footprint. I have been very happy with the browser as it focuses on just browsing as does not distract me with suggestions or get weighed down by other features and recommended services.
On a related topic, I think my experiment with getting Falkon up and running on my machines demonstrates that while portable package formats (such as Flatpak and Snap) have their uses, they are not the silver bullet many in the Linux community were hoping they would be. Snaps are tied to a specific init system, while the Flatpak option proved to be a huge download, was cut off from system resources, and required several work-arounds. Both formats would be unable to integrate with other tools that might want to launch a web browser, greatly limiting their usefulness. In the past I have used an AppImage to get around some of these problems, but even then the browser only works like a native application if it is unpacked from the AppImage archive and manually installed somewhere. The AppImage, on its own, is not effective beyond running some tests.
In the end, I found myself spending a few hours hunting down undocumented dependencies, trying various command line flags and manually copying dependencies into place. All of this, largely because A) fixed release distributions generally do not provide a method for keeping up with versions of upstream software and B) the existing portable package formats are not suitable for the task of installing a web browser that needs to work with other parts of the operating system. I believe we are need of better solutions when it comes to distributing third-party applications.
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Released Last Week |
AV Linux 2019.4.10
AV Linux is a versatile, Debian-based distribution featuring a large collection of audio and video production software. The distribution's latest update is AV Linux 2019.4.10 which introduces a number of fixes and represents the project's last version to run on 32-bit hardware. "This release is basically an update of the ISO that fixes a couple of annoying bugs from the 2018.6.25 release with some notable updates and additions. It will mark the last release based on Debian Stretch and sadly it will also be the last release of the 32-bit version. Future AVL development will focus on Debian 'Buster' and 64-bit only. In the meantime I think this 2019.4.10 version will provide a fast, stable well prepared platform for AV Content creation for quite some time. Changelog: Refreshed expired repository keys for WineHQ and Spotify. Updated and fixed repositories for new Cinelerra-GG site. Updated and synced all Debian and third-party repos (including KXStudio). Fixed VirtualBox Guest Additions removal script to allow /etc/rc.local to remain executable and enable automount of external drives. Fixed missing 'linvstconverttree' in LinVST. Removed some obsoleted udev rules." 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: 1,335
- Total data uploaded: 24.9TB
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Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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Opinion Poll |
What is the most important web browser feature?
There are a lot of ways web browser developers can try to attract new users. They can focus on providing up to date standards compliance, speed, powerful extensions, unique features, maintaining a small resource footprint, or a better user interface. In this poll we would like to find out what aspect of the web browser is most important to you? If we missed your most important feature, please let us know what it is in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using live media for security-sensitive tasks in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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What is the most important web browser feature?
Cross-platform: | 156 (8%) |
Extensions: | 306 (15%) |
Flexibility/Options: | 169 (8%) |
Low resource usage: | 243 (12%) |
Performance/Speed: | 511 (25%) |
Standards compliance: | 360 (17%) |
Unique features: | 23 (1%) |
User interface: | 121 (6%) |
Other: | 169 (8%) |
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DistroWatch.com News |
Distributions added to waiting list
- PrimeOS. PrimeOS combines Android software with a desktop-oriented platform for 64-bit x86 computers.
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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, 15 April 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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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$12.00) |
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Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
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Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • PCLinuxOS (by Jordan on 2019-04-08 00:30:16 GMT from United States)
To its credit, the latest seems just like the last one I tested six years ago!
2 • Web Browser Poll (by EarlyBird on 2019-04-08 00:42:51 GMT from Canada)
Wasn't certain which item to check in your poll as most important. Guess it would be for the browser to stay out of my way and let me proceed with my workflow. On THAT note, Firefox fails miserably. In preferences, have checked flag to allow me to dictate WHERE to save files/downloads to, but the resulting downloads don't follow as I change download directories. If I am archiving massive number of files off a site, they should ALL go to to my present working directory (last saved position). Instead, maybe a jpeg will go there, but then the txt desciption describing the picture will go to where I last saved a txt, maybe a month ago, instead of going where it should, the last working directory where I saved that jpeg. This mean Firefox is fundamentally broken at its most bast functionality. In searching for answers, have seen numerous posts that this was a conscious decision by developers, and instead of allowing modifying this broken behaviour under preferences, you have to edit an obscure and badly documented hidden file. I expect to maybe manually edit a file in something like fluxbox, but at least that would be expected, and it is well documented. In a big, bloated package like Firefox, you would NOT expect this. If this is a conscious decision by developers, it reflects the same poor attitude that resulted in Gnome 3. The review of Falkon was very helpful. Presently, often use Qupzilla, and it is almost perfect. Was thinking of trying Falkon. Don't understand why they wanted to integrate with KDE. Qupzilla works fine without that integration. No explanation given for that decision. Also curious why so many other programs try to settle on Qt (KDE), or Gnome libraries. Audacity uses WxWidgets, and it looks and works great. And then you get smaller programs like mhwaveedit, that are fully functional with practically no bloat. OKay, those 2 examples are not web browsers. Dillo works really well. The lack of javascript does limit functionality, but sometimes it is just the thing to checkout otherwise malware-advertise-laden sites. All this to say, what's important in a web browser depends on what you are trying to do with the web browser, so can't really pick one choice from the poll Sorry for the long-winded attempt to answer the poll.
3 • Browsers (by FedorArch on 2019-04-08 01:30:49 GMT from United States)
I feel as though only two factors should matter for average users: functionality and standards compliance. Of course performance is always a concern, but this is typically hindered by cautious decisions of distribution developers and should not be entirely taken on by application developers. Clear Linux, a distro praised on phoronix.com as an example of innovation for the sake of performance, causes browser benchmarks in Firefox to show much better results than of the same benchmarks on other distros. Compatibility necessarily holds back new technologies.
This isn't to say everyone needs to use Vivaldi or Chrome or whatnot. Functionality and standards compliance means different things for different people. Some like UI theming, others prefer the familiar grey tones of Chrome. But ultimately, if sites display as intended and the browser does not make it difficult to perform common tasks, then it is a good browser. Size and performance, unless under certain constraints such as low disk space or web development, are hardly noticeable for users, and spending time on them rather than making a UI intuitive or failing to fix site compatibility issues seems misguided.
And I will comment on EarlyBird's criticism of "bloat" and GNOME's developers. Bloat can be useful for many people. Having extra features that aren't used is never an issue with 200GB hard drives, let alone 1TB in some workstations. Use Linux from Scratch or Gentoo if you don't want bloat. Making a functional distro means sacrificing customizability for general use. As for GNOME 3, it is absolutely annoying that common tasks are unintuitive and optimized for touchscreens. Yet, I exclusively use GNOME 3. Why? Because I actually like it. As it stands, the developers have made a desktop environment that gets better with every release. I think Qt and KDE are bloated and have only had issues getting consistent theming across all of my applications. If you want minimal, go with i3 or openbox or no window manager at all! I think the argument that developers don't respond to users is not sufficient evidence to criticize such a complex project. Just use KDE and let GNOME do what it does best: look awesome and set the standards of the future of the Linux desktop. It's much more ubiquitous than Plasma and KDE, so something must be nice :)
4 • Web Browser Poll (by Roger on 2019-04-08 01:31:15 GMT from Belgium)
Cross-platform, Extensions, Flexibility/Options and User interface. These four are for me the most important, Firefox is always my first choice and than comes Vivaldi. Next is Midori or SeaMonkey. Edge is out even they are going to use Chrome engine. I do not use Googles Chrome, they are invasive enough. I used Opera but from the moment the switched to use an other engine I dropped them. It also did not help they where sold to China, second mistake.
5 • PCLINUXOS (by A Reyes on 2019-04-08 01:48:18 GMT from United States)
I installed the Mate version. Download size 1.7 G, I went back to the PCLOS site and the website says the KDE version is 1.8 gigs, not the 1.0 you got.
I installed using the complete drive and it automatically formatted and partioned the drive with 50 gigs for the OS, 4 gigs for swap and the balance of the drive as a home partition for for files. No problems with installation. Upon reboot asks you install a root password and separate user password.
This type of partitioning should allow one to install other distros w/o too much concern about your home files, but I will still back up.
Got Firefox, not Falkon, got Libreoffice installed and a number of packages I did not know existed. Looking to gry out Strawberry and RawTherapee
The SU command asked for the password, it did not give me automatic log in to root, asked me for a password.
Downloaded updates using synaptic, everything updated no problems. Installed Notifier a package that notifies about update that landed next to the Parcellite icon. In a couple of days I will see if this works. This package should be included in the initial installation.
I installed this on a desktop with I5 processor, 4gig memory and a sata SSD drive. From pressing the ON button to desktop 35 seconds, including the couple of seconds to select user and enter password. The SSD drive does make a difference.
6 • Firefox is my favorite browser (by Roy on 2019-04-08 02:36:27 GMT from United States)
I prefer Firefox because standards compliance.
7 • Firefox still is number one (by Torsten on 2019-04-08 02:40:51 GMT from Germany)
I am using Firefox, because Chrome is tracking and spying on you. Firefox surely isn't perfect, but Firefox cares about your privacy! So, if you care about your privacy, you shouldn't use Chrome....
8 • Web browser Features (by Andy Figueroa on 2019-04-08 02:46:43 GMT from United States)
I voted "Other."
I want a web browser that just works, gets it done, stays out of the way, while maximizing privacy and minimizing danger. I've been using Firefox since it spun off of Netscape, and before that used Netscape from its first release.
9 • Browsers (by Romane on 2019-04-08 02:53:00 GMT from Australia)
In the poll, I chose performance/speed. Being restricted to one choice, that seems the most important to me.
Other important "things" include reliability, staying out of my way, and acceptable integration with the rest of the system. Likewise, personal taste in appearance and other non-core "things" likewise plays an important role.
There are those who say good things, and those that say not-so-good things about Firefox, but I find personally that Firefox suits my need. I don't bother with add-ons, staying fairly vanilla with whatever the repositories provide (Debian Testing for me). In other distros when I trial them Firefox remains my browser of choice.
As said above, personal taste plays some part in my choice. I have Chromium installed (but quite rarely used), and have used a number of other browsers; yet my taste consistently returns me to Firefox.In various ways, other browsers, regardless however good, just don't tick enough of those boxes.
10 • Web Browser Poll (by Web Browser Poll on 2019-04-08 03:07:14 GMT from United States)
The most important feature of a web browser is security. Firstly automatic deletion of cookies. Blocking trackers and effective ad removal second.
11 • PCLinuxOS64 (by Bobbie Sellers on 2019-04-08 03:29:33 GMT from United States)
i have been using PCLinux for quite some time now. The 2019.02 iso that were tested have been updated to 2019.03.
PCLinuxOS64 in both KDE and Mate versions of 2019.03. <https://repo.pclosusers.com/pclinuxos/live-cd/64bit/> These are in the range of 1.7-1.8 GB. One thing that seems to be missing is lighter colored and transparent backgrounds. But the situation is correctable using the simple tools to configure the Desktop from a "hamburger" icon. On KDE 4.x.x these were called "Plasmoids" or "Cashews" due to the outline. Then you can get into configuring the KDE Settings to get the desktop of your dream.
I installed PCLinuxOS64 KDE5 without problems on a new Dell Inspiron laptop for a friend who does not want to use Windows. I didn't want him to use Windows either and hate to use it myself.
The standard PCLinux KDE desktop is set up to resemble the Windows setup as was Mandriva from which it takes a lot. It was a friendly way for users to move from Windows to using Linux. The usually unseen versatility of KDE lets it move among the modern flag like menus and the older style of menu and setup, as well as the Application Dashboard which is a fullscreen application launcher, A simple launcher menu and a Tiled Menu based on Windows 10s Start Menu. With elementary editing you can create fresh task panels where ever your hands and mouse expect to find them.
And we are at Linux 5.0.7. from the PCLinux repositories
bliss
12 • Most important browser feature (by M. Edward (Ed) Borasky on 2019-04-08 03:46:25 GMT from United States)
The most important browser feature is being Firefox Nightly. ;-)
13 • Performance/Speed=chrome (by Vern on 2019-04-08 04:16:08 GMT from United States)
"Performance/Speed" is what I want Therefore its Chrome. I've tried all the rest. Nothing comes close to Chrome's speed. If your worried about exposure tracking. You might be surprised at how many other ways your being watched. Its just not an issue with me. I don't care id they know what I buy or what I had for lunch. The man on the street also knows.
14 • PCLinuxOS (by Fred on 2019-04-08 04:26:10 GMT from Australia)
PCLinuxOS was my first Linux distro when I started using Linux over 10 years ago. It was the only distro to include drivers for my printer and that wasn't too buggy to use. I still have fond memories of it after all these years.
15 • Flatpak as default in future Fedora Release?? (by MCBuhl on 2019-04-08 04:43:06 GMT from Europe)
Just: why??? 😱 Time to try out other distros... #sosad
16 • Browsers (by Argent on 2019-04-08 05:12:24 GMT from United States)
Simple, and easy to use would be Surf from suckless.org and a little fancier would be Epiphany.
Firefox and all its clones are still FF, keeping it simple can't be and won't be done folks! Free, as in free beer someone has to pay and that is your surfing habits and personal data!
Chrome is like putting a noose around your neck and shooting yourself in the foot, just bad news!
Linux could use a good, stable community-driven browser that isn't into data harvesting and based on webkit and not qt.
17 • PCLinuxOS (by DB on 2019-04-08 05:46:41 GMT from Canada)
Started experimenting with Linux about 2005 and did a lot of Distro Hopping for a while until I hit on Mandriva . I kind of liked that until about the end of 2009. Mandrive just didn't seem to work quite right after that, lots of little things popping up all the time. Then I tried PCLinuxOS!!! Been a happy customer ever since. I've always had to enter a password to use su, don't know why you had that problem. I also run it in virtualbox and run a lot of virtual machines on top of my this system with little to no trouble over the years. And any problem I have run into has been solved through the great people in their forums. In my opinion it's the best distro out there!!! Though the KDE desk top seems to have gone down hill from 4 to 5 so the XFCE spin is looking better and better these days.
18 • Web browser? Opera Beta (by Ostrol on 2019-04-08 06:50:34 GMT from Poland)
I use Opera Beta, created, maintained mainly in Wrocław, Poland.
19 • FALKON (by WH on 2019-04-08 08:19:50 GMT from Germany)
Great thanks Jesse. I am using Falkon, originally Qupzilla, since several years, originally in Mint, then in Manjaro. I planned to switch one of my computers to MX-Linux which itself seems to run fine, but now I hesitate a bit to undertake the work to permanently install it as I want to have MY browser... The latest version of Falkon works really well in Manjaro, after a few hic-ups in the past, kind of amazing for what is now a KDE product.
20 • browser facilities (by zykoda on 2019-04-08 08:25:29 GMT from United Kingdom)
The amount of extraneous advertising on the web (and generally in other media) which is forced down our throats leads the general saturation (and beyond). That is why I resort to lynx or dillo.
21 • Most important browser feature (by RTL on 2019-04-08 09:05:34 GMT from Hungary)
I always found the most important feature of a browser is convertion a HTML code received from the server into a human compatible interface.
22 • pclos 2019 (by CJ on 2019-04-08 09:06:51 GMT from United States)
The PCLiinuxOS Live ISO you reviewed is the mini version and comes with very few apps. You get konsole, kwrite and falkon. The full version has many more applications plus LibreOffice and firefox is the default browser. Setting a su root password is required upon installation to the hard disk as well as setting up a user account. The full version also comes with a package update notifier when new packages are available once PCLOS is installed to the hard drive. Removing the xorg.conf file after guest addition installation is the fix for virtualbox. Have a great day.
23 • Browser (by SC on 2019-04-08 09:26:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
Using Firefox Quantum, it just works on Fedora 30, and allows me to have the extensions I want. I have stopped using Falkon as it is quite 'buggy' now. I have mostly used SeaMonkey in the past, and Palemoon before then due to them being lightweight but also fast / reliable. With regards to your poll, there should have been a tick box for all of the above, as that's what we want ;)
24 • PCLinuxOS root (by O-P on 2019-04-08 10:13:41 GMT from United States)
Only during the live session, you autologin to the guest account, and using su to get root privileges doesn't require a password as a matter of convenience. When installed the first order of business is still setting a root password.
25 • PCLinuxOS (by Rick on 2019-04-08 10:48:57 GMT from United States)
The two times I have tested this distro on my Lenovo Thinkpad T420 it blew up. It is buggy and has been buggy for some time. I really don't understand all the '10' reviews in the ratings section. Using MX Linux and am quite happy with it. Very stable and reliable.
26 • PCLinuxOS (by kc1di on 2019-04-08 10:56:25 GMT from United States)
PCLinuxOS 2019.03 Runs well on my equipment and is solid and I've had few problems. Would recommend it for any Newbie. And their Forums is great. I run the xfce community edition and have grown to like it very much. This is on my old Laptop. I have it on a Desktop at a freinds house also and it' is used to do work every day. Solid, conservative and dependable.
27 • PCLinuxOS and root (by Jesse on 2019-04-08 12:11:25 GMT from Canada)
@24: "Only during the live session, you autologin to the guest account, and using su to get root privileges doesn't require a password as a matter of convenience. When installed the first order of business is still setting a root password."
In my review, when I mention it is possible to use "su" to get root access without a password, I am referring specifically to my installed copy of PCLinuxOS, not the live session.
As you can see in the review above, the first thing I did upon installing the OS was to set a root password through the first-run wizard. It's a step that I don't think can be skipped. Yet I ended up with a system where the root password is not required to run "su".
I found out later, through future tests, that what had happened was the root password was not set by the first-run wizard, even though I put one in (and had to repeat it to confirm). So it looks like the bug isn't so much in the "su" command as the first-run wizard. I later manually set the root password and got the password prompt. This is still a serious bug though as it means the password I created at install time was not applied, but there was no warning to indicate that.
@5: " I went back to the PCLOS site and the website says the KDE version is 1.8 gigs, not the 1.0 you got."
There are two KDE editions, a full one (1.8GB) and Darkstar (1.0GB). I was reviewing the latter.
28 • PcLinuxOS (by Dave on 2019-04-08 12:17:43 GMT from United States)
Ah yes, good old pcLinuxOS and the memories that it brings back.
TexStar started providing RPM packages to Mandrake, long before it was known as Mandriva. The name Mandrake was around for a few years before it drew the attention of the copyright holders of “Mandrake the Magician,” who felt it was a violation of the fair use doctrine and an agreement was struck, and Mandriva was thus born.
TexStar provided Mandrake/Mandriva with some of the very first packages compiled specific for the new cutting-edge AMD Athlon 64-bit processor, taking advantage of its 64-bit advantages for its time.
While those don’t seem like big challenges today they were huge steps in the 90s. Many distros have come and gone in that time. PcLinuxOS is still around though, that speaks volumes, doesn’t it?
29 • @25 Rick: (by dragonmouth on 2019-04-08 12:28:32 GMT from United States)
"It is buggy and has been buggy for some time." Did you ever consider that it might be you and/or your hardware that is causing the bugs and blow ups? Just ask yourself how do most of PCLOS users manage to automagically avoid the bugs you find?
I've been using PCLOS as my main distro since Woody Woodward quit developing Simply MEPIS. I have installed and maintained PCLOS on about half a dozen different machines, including a T21 and a T42. I may not like some features of PCLinuxOS but, over all, it is like a Times watch, it takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
30 • One missing choice (by CS on 2019-04-08 12:49:38 GMT from United States)
Equally important to speed and performance is good support from websites. I have one bank that flashes an ominous warning that Firefox is not supported. No similar warnings for Chrome. Practically speaking that limits the choices of what you can run to Chrome, Firefox, Safari and IE. Flame on, readers.
@29 Did you ever consider that a distro that can't even handle common hardware might be a bad choice and not worth the trouble? Just ask yourself why you would waste your life away compensating for some developer's bad choices when there are at least 3 Linux distributions that actually sort of work and will save you hours of pointless toil?
31 • PCLinuxOS and Browser Feature (by Geo. Savage on 2019-04-08 13:38:02 GMT from Canada)
PCLinuxOS - glad you're still around. :-)
Browser feature privacy AND security. Period.
32 • Freedom, standards and privacy (by Andrés González Cantú on 2019-04-08 13:57:55 GMT from Mexico)
For me -I've been using some GNU/Linux OS distros since the late 90s - the three most important features of a browser are: 1. That it is free software (https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software). 2. That respects the standards. 3. That it respects my privacy. The other features are important from a technical point of view but if the first three are not satisfied then I am not interested in the others. I use Firefox browser variants.Cheers.
33 • Web Browsing (by cflow on 2019-04-08 14:07:44 GMT from United States)
The sad truth is that if you're using anything based on Chromium's web engine, you are letting Google control the web standards it is developed upon:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/the-web-now-belongs-to-google-and-that-should-worry-us-all/
If you care about the future of web development, use Firefox, or some other browser with an engine not based nor derived from Webkit.
34 • @32 (by Ostrol on 2019-04-08 14:08:56 GMT from Poland)
The most important features of a browser,
1. It doesn't have to be free software, but free for me to use, 2. It has to be very easy to use, 3. It should respect my privacy -- by adding ad blocks by default, 4. And, made, maintained by people, who understand what an web browser should be.
So, I choose Opera.
35 • browser (by dogma on 2019-04-08 14:09:04 GMT from United States)
Most important is that it respect its role as a User Agent.
36 • Standard (by Gustavo on 2019-04-08 14:27:16 GMT from Brazil)
Like it or not, Chrome is THE standard. Every other browser or at least web engine will be dead soon or later. This battle is over already.
Install Chromium, fiddle a little with its privacy options, add some extensions and you will be just fine.
37 • @ 33 browser standards... (by Kazan on 2019-04-08 14:39:00 GMT from France)
"The sad truth is that if you're using anything based on Chromium's web engine, you are letting Google control the web standards it is developed upon"
Who cares? Just imagine this world without Uncle Google! I don't mind Google knowing what I need...and, giving me hints. Google also helps me to get from one point to another, free gps..., even when walking.
38 • MX Linux and Falkon (by Chris Whelan on 2019-04-08 15:18:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
@19
I installed Falkon on an MX Linux test box by temporarily enabling the 'Sid' repos. It ran well. If you make the move to MX Linux, ask in the appropriate part of the forum, and if it is possible the Devs will add Falkon to the MX Test Repo section of the Package Installer.
39 • Browsers (by Carney on 2019-04-08 15:29:32 GMT from United States)
@36 you may be right, but let's remember when it looked like Internet Explorer had vanquished Netscape and it seemed as if had taken over forever. Even Apple bowed the knee to IE, and Steve Jobs let the words "I use IE and I like it" come out of his mouth and had IE (and Outlook Express) installed by default in MacOS 8.
And yet IE is now an abandoned laughingstock and even its successor Edge has failed. So the battle is NEVER "over"...
40 • Browsers (by Shawn Faber on 2019-04-08 15:42:50 GMT from United States)
Is there a way to quickly see what the default browsers are for each distribution?
41 • @39 (by Gustavo on 2019-04-08 15:47:20 GMT from Brazil)
That´s a fair reasoning.
42 • How is TexStar? (by TexStar well-wisher on 2019-04-08 16:11:02 GMT from Australia)
Last I heard TexStar seemed to be losing his fight against cancer, so I'm just wondering if he's still alive, as I haven't heard any news in months now.
43 • Browser Features (by Kevin on 2019-04-08 16:15:36 GMT from United States)
Other - several of the above are important, and out of those it's hard to pick a single feature that's most important.
44 • TexStar (by Jesse on 2019-04-08 16:19:58 GMT from Canada)
@42: >> "Last I heard TexStar seemed to be losing his fight against cancer, so I'm just wondering if he's still alive, as I haven't heard any news in months now.
Since his account appears to still be posting on the PCLinuxOS forums daily, I'd say he's still alive and working. Personally, I hope he continues to be with us for a long time to come.
45 • Web Browsing (by Paul Nodine on 2019-04-08 16:24:03 GMT from United States)
@33 Except that Apple Safari web browser is the only mainstream browser that uses webkit. Google Chrome forked webkit to Blink some time ago. Opera and Vivaldi also use the Blink engine. I understand your argument but for mainstream browsers, there is Gecko/Firefox and Blink/Chromium based browsers. Not much choice if a person does not like Firefox
46 • @36: (by dragonmouth on 2019-04-08 16:24:39 GMT from United States)
When it comes to Google "Resistance Is Futile". Right, Gustavo?
It ain't over 'till it's over.
It ain't over until the fat lady sings and she hasn't even gotten dressed yet.
47 • @46 (by Gustavo on 2019-04-08 16:51:17 GMT from Brazil)
There is no resistance. Do you think that was the users that made Chrome get so big in market share? Only big corporations can do that. They have a massive amount of money spent in development and marketing. So that google actually has a great product, but also they have the "front page of the internet" (not R*ddit) and cell phones.
I don´t see that changing anytime soon.
Do you remember what happened to Mr. Smith at the end of the book?
48 • 39 • Browsers (by Pierre on 2019-04-08 17:35:27 GMT from France)
>> And yet IE is now an abandoned laughingstock and even its successor Edge has failed. So the battle is NEVER "over"...
None of those browsers are NOT relevant here. They don't work on either Linux or BSD. There's no need to prattle about other OS platforms.
49 • @30 CS: (by dragonmouth on 2019-04-08 17:54:03 GMT from United States)
Considering he's the only one complaining so far, I suspect it is him, rather than the distro. Too many other users are using PCLOS without problems As you say, there are many other distros that Rick can use.
50 • Advanced package formats (by K.U. on 2019-04-08 19:02:24 GMT from Finland)
Snap and Flatpak seem to be gaining ground. I wonder why doesn't nix enjoy similar popularity as it obviously is technically better. Anyway, there is a version of Falkon available in nix format: https://nixos.org/nixos/packages.html#falkon
51 • Browsers (by M.Z. on 2019-04-08 19:50:00 GMT from United States)
As others have mentioned privacy is by far the greatest feature a modern browser can deliver, especially given how the most popular browser demands that you give up on the idea altogether & surrender all info to Google. Ind addition, as the excellent Ars article @33 linked to points out, Google has a history of anti-competitive behaviour on YouTube and across other platforms. In addition to the article, there is a fair amount of wisdom to be gleaned via sorting the Ars comments via highest voted.
As per the Ars Article, problems happened when MS controlled 95% of the browsers market, & Google has a history of engaging in similar behaviour. Monopoly is bad for both innovation & privacy & as an Ars commentator pointed out, Google controls the chromium project & a large majority of its contributors & will steer it to it's own ends regardless of false open source tokenism.
Here & now, just as in the hey day of IE, Firefox stands for a truly open web based on standards & ensuring users their rights to privacy.
52 • Browsers (by Nathan on 2019-04-08 20:26:41 GMT from United States)
Falkon is a great web browser, and I like the ideas behind Brave. When EME was adopted by Firefox and Quantum ate my CPU, I switched to a combination of Falkon and Brave, but have since discovered that Firefox can be compiled eme-free on Gentoo, and the initial CPU issues have been resolved. Now I use Firefox with uBlock Origin as my adblocker of choice. I prefer uBlock Origin over the adblockers built into Falkon and Brave because it is more flexible (optionally doubles as a script blocker) and does a better job, in my opinion.
53 • PCLinuxOS in Virtual (by buster on 2019-04-08 21:22:38 GMT from Canada)
Years ago I used only Pclos. At the moment I need (shudder) Microsoft. For a few years now I've put my Linux distro in virtual and it's wonderful. I can use them both at the same time, side by side because of the guest additions software. No dual boots.
I'm old, and I wont do difficult stuff any more. The absence of the necessary software in Pclos is a huge obstacle for me, and I'm sure other people too. I think Jesse makes a good point in noting its absence.
And I suspect there are many like myself who just moved on to a different distro without giving it a fair trial. (And pretty well every other distro includes the software.) Not sure why it's not in their repositories, but is in everyone elses.
When it's there I'll give Pclos a whirl.
54 • PCLinuxOS in Virtual (by Francesco on 2019-04-08 22:26:42 GMT from United States)
PCLOS installs Virtualbox through an installation program which downloads the official Virtualbox and installs it and includes the guest additions ISO. Removal of the xorg.conf file is required after the guest additions have been installed. This is documented on their website.
55 • Missing Poll Option: Security (by Beolach on 2019-04-08 22:52:05 GMT from United States)
As a few others have already mentioned, Security/Privacy is the missing Browser Poll option that really should have been in there - I was honestly surprised it wasn't there. Just based on the nature of what browsers are, security is both really difficult and really important, and IMO it's the single biggest thing I'd like browsers to improve on. IMO Brave is far & away the best out-of-the-box-default browser for security/privacy, while Chromium+uBlock Origin & other extensions might be better once all the extensions are installed & set up. Brave is compatible w/ most Chromium extensions, but I'm not sure how well Brave Shields would interact w/ uBlock... I've been meaning to look into that, but haven't gotten around to it.
And of course Tor Browser whenever I think too much about how scary the web is.
56 • VirtualBox (by Jesse on 2019-04-08 23:22:51 GMT from Canada)
@54: " Removal of the xorg.conf file is required after the guest additions have been installed. This is documented on their website."
Could you post al ink as to where it is documented? I searched both the main website and the wiki for any mention of installing guest modules for VirtualBox and got no relevant results.
57 • PCLinuxOS in Virtual (by buster on 2019-04-08 23:23:54 GMT from Canada)
Sorry Francesco, but Jesse and I want Pclos in virtual, not a virtual inside Pclos. So my host is Win10, and my guest is Pclos. An easy mistake.
Guest additions are usually in the repositories of distros, but not in the case of Pclos.
58 • So, it looks like Microsoft dumped the Edge engine (by RJA on 2019-04-08 23:35:44 GMT from United States)
@39, Ironically, it looks like the Internet Explorer engine will be the only Microsoft web rendering engine left!
And thus, Internet Explorer outlived the Edge that we knew.
The only other ones that I can think of, with one of them whose name I forgot, can't even do JS...
59 • JS... (by Titus_Groan on 2019-04-09 00:56:00 GMT from New Zealand)
@58 JS = Java Script?
or the other one, Jack S**t?
probably inter-changeable anyway.
60 • Pclinuxos review (by Ljenux on 2019-04-09 01:08:30 GMT from Croatia)
This is extremely sloppy work on reviewing pclinuxos. First you dont have latest ISO. Version number is 2019.3. and it was released 15t of March, way before this article.
Secondly, so called "huge security issue" is fake news because su is run freely on live system only. After instalation, 2 accounts are created, root and normal user. You write about something while making conclusion based on live system. Pathetic.
And that virtualbox issue. I have no idea what are you talking about. Tried pclinuxos on virtualbox under winblows many times over the years. Never had problems.
There are serious issues with pclinuxos but you dont mention them. Main issue is repository. Some packages are outdated, not maintained anymore, and some dont even work. And their community is extremely arrogant. But to realize that, one has to use the distro more than few hours. You just run in virtualbox, maybe install, get some superficial impressions and than you write the article. People than read it and believe it. Pathetic.
61 • Best web browser feature (by Bill Lee on 2019-04-09 01:39:40 GMT from Canada)
Text browser. I use Lynx for the most part, and can hit Print, and send the text to a mail client. Full speed ahead, and no Postscript blockades. Setting the Blynx settings infernally means that all links are noted and numbered in the text. Bang! Blynx go to http://www.leb.net/blinux/blynx/ See https://lynx.browser.org/ or https://lynx.invisible-island.net/release/ for pages and features.
62 • web browser (by jeffrydada on 2019-04-09 02:47:42 GMT from United States)
there should have been an "all the above" option. I've been using Firefox since it was called Firebird, then Phoenix, It was the first to do tabbed broswing, allowing custimization, and still is the only browser that works to make the internet safe and is continously working to provide the best web experience. Are there issues? yes. But as a community driven web brower they are transparent and accept feedback from their users. That is what separates Firefox from other browsers.
63 • Missing Poll Option: Security (by Beolach on 2019-04-09 02:50:05 GMT from United States) As a few others have already mentioned, Security/Privacy is the missing Browser Poll option that really should have been in there - I was honestly surprised it wasn't there. Just based on the nature of what browsers are, security is both really difficult and really important, and IMO it's the single biggest thing I'd like browsers to improve on. IMO Brave is far & away the best out-of-the-box-default browser for security/privacy, while Chromium+uBlock Origin & other extensions might be better once all the extensions are installed & set up. Brave is compatible w/ most Chromium extensions, but I'm not sure how well Brave Shields would interact w/ uBlock... I've been meaning to look into that, but haven't gotten around to it.
And of course Tor Browser whenever I think too much about how scary the web is.
64 • JS? (by RJA on 2019-04-09 03:14:36 GMT from United States)
@59 JS=JavaScript
65 • @57 Virtualbox (by Antonio on 2019-04-09 04:12:20 GMT from Brazil)
The guest additions are not included in the PCLOS software repo because it comes included in the virtualbox package downloaded and installed through their virtualbox-manager. BTW guest additions do no properly install with 5.0 kernels.
66 • @60, PCLOS, arrogance (by Angel on 2019-04-09 05:19:35 GMT from Philippines)
"so called "huge security issue" is fake news"
Is this you, Donald?
67 • pclinuxos (not judging, not criticizing, just trying to understand) (by Tim on 2019-04-09 06:16:08 GMT from United States)
"pclinuxos live, su without password" I agree that is a remarkable feature but I'm left wondering if that is ONLY a feature during non-persistent live session. (The liveboot menu in some distributions labels this as "factory fresh" mode.) It's been over two years since I last trialed pclinuxos liveboot but, from memory, its permissions or restrictions seemed comparatively strict. In fact, as I recall, I bailed when I encountered difficulty performing some mundane operation (mounting a drive?) because I did not know the default root password. IIRC, later I discovered that detail, the password, was documented in their wiki.
Also, I clearly recall a harshly-worded sticky topic in pclinuxos forum (the one which disparagingly mentions "in the manner of the buntus")... yes, I opened another browser tab and checked just now, it's still there, titled "SUDO - Use and Abuse"
pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,90479.0.html
68 • Browers (by Jim on 2019-04-09 10:33:45 GMT from United States)
I like browsers with a lot of extensions. Trouble is that seems to be changing. I have used Palemoon and Firefox as my main browsers for years, but I see more and more of my favorite extensions disappear or fail to install with each browser upgrade.
69 • PCLOS, browsers (by Angel on 2019-04-09 12:42:19 GMT from Philippines)
@67 and others: If Jesse says he could become root without password AFTER installing. I have no reason to doubt him. I didn't have the same experience, but my last install was for the last 2018 ISO and he was using 2019.02. Could be that's the reason PCLOS released another ISO (2019.03) so soon after. (Pure speculation on my part, of course.)
PCLOS has not included sudo since I've known it, which is around 13 years, but "su" does require a password. You can't bypass entering a password on the installer. What you can do is bypass adding a user. Then you can log in directly as root on the GUI.
I think some people are confusing the Guest Additions ISO with the guest utilities which it installs. IN most distros, the guest-utils are either already installed or available from the repos. Not so with PCLOS. I installed those from the VBox Manager's Extension Pack. Those who mentioned the need to remove xorg.conf prior or after are correct. Works fine after that.
70 • Browser features: UI (by curious on 2019-04-09 12:54:04 GMT from Germany)
Privacy/Security is missing.
Of the other features, to me the UI is the most important. I don't like browsers that have the tabs on top. To me, they belong between the address bar and the browsing area. Unfortunately, that rules out the mainstream browsers, even if not KO'ed by privacy concerns.
Of course, I'm perfectly fine with this being configurable, so that the user can choose where the tab-bar goes.
Am currently quite happy with PaleMoon.
71 • Browsers (by Angel on 2019-04-09 13:13:07 GMT from Philippines)
If what you want is privacy, can't do much better than Firefox with NoScript. Hard to track or fingerprint you with that. More clicking needed, but that's the price. Just disable the extension for those websites where you need and want JS. Add a proxy or VPN if you wish. On security I'm more concerned with the corporate minion at the bank who can't resist opening the titillating pics he got from a friend, or who automatically replies with information to an email purportedly from his boss. The browsers themselves are quite good these days. I simply keep a browser (Firefox) in a VM, which is only used for financial and sensitive transactions Still, if you are concerned about things like DNS hijackings, there are other remedies such as dnscrypt, etc. Anonymity is a bit more difficult short of Tor, but there are browsers which help. Unfortunately, Linux only seems to have Opera with its proxies.
For my public persona, I use Chrome, logged in to everything and screaming "Here I am."
72 • Pclinuxos review (by Ljenux on 2019-04-09 13:14:55 GMT from Croatia)
@69
Jesse can say whatever he/she wants, but it is simply not true. I use pclinuxos since 2006 despite the fact i despise their community. It just works. And yes, su issue does not exist. It did not exist 2 months ago either, on version 2019.2
73 • PClinuxOS (by Jesse on 2019-04-09 13:52:36 GMT from Canada)
@72: The issue with the root password obviously did exist, otherwise I wouldn't have experienced it and written about it. And, despite what some have claimed, the issue exists on a hard disk install, not the live media (I spend almost no time working with live media during reviews).
I find it strange some people will go so far out of their way to disbelieve a report (or claim it false) rather than looking into the cause. I like PCLinuxOS and have no reason to make up false claims about the project.
74 • PCLinuxOS, the one I always go back to. (by Tony on 2019-04-09 14:53:53 GMT from United Kingdom)
Every now and then I will do a re-install and will try lots of other distros, Mint, Ubuntu, etc but I ALWAYS end up back with PCLinusOS. I have been using it for around 9 years now and I cannot recommend any other for someone who just wants to be a user. The only one that was as good as was Sidux a few years ago.
75 • @ 72, 73 etc Root (by Ostrol on 2019-04-09 15:25:25 GMT from Poland)
When you use a live iso, are you the root or a user named root? In any live Linux iso, by just writing su or sudo, you simply become the guy, who can damage any system from that live iso. You can even change/damage the Windows install in the computer with it, except of course, if you have the Windows install on fast start-up.
76 • Browser features (by The Voice of Reason on 2019-04-09 15:54:16 GMT from United States)
First, since no one has mentioned the Onion browser, I would nominate the most important unimplemented browser feature to be an Informed Public. No way are you going to get any privacy or independence from Google unless you make it impossible for them to snoop on you.
Second, there should be a way to feedback to those who ban the Onion browser from their websites to see how much legitimate traffic they are inconveniencing with their Page-Not-Founds and their damned time-wasting Find-The-Fireplug Captchas (thanks again, Google!).
Third, how tough would it be to implement a button to cut off those cursed page updates every thirty seconds? I'd love to read an entire Drudgereport without enduring a phalanx of page redraws.
77 • @72, PCLOS (by Angel on 2019-04-09 16:27:03 GMT from Philippines)
"Jesse can say whatever he/she wants, but it is simply not true. I use pclinuxos since 2006 despite the fact i despise their community."
I'll wager are a happy bunch at PCLOS community, and It's nice to see your effort to ingratiate yourself here.
78 • @73 Jesse: (by dragonmouth on 2019-04-09 16:28:35 GMT from United States)
I have been a PCLOS user for at least 5 years. Since your PCLOS review was published on Monday, I was unfortunate to have to re-install it on my PC from scratch. I specifically was on the lookout for your 'su' problem. It never materialized. Once I entered the admin (root) password during the install and completed the reboot, I WAS NOT able to access the root account from any user account using 'su' without having to provide the root password. I tried it in Konsole and xterm. The results were the same, I had to provide the password.
79 • PCLOS issues (by Friar Tux on 2019-04-09 17:14:49 GMT from Canada)
Hmmm... Jesse, I know what these guys are talking about. You see, I wasn't on the Titanic, so it didn't actually sink. I'm sure that because I, personally, didn't experience the sinking, all those that claim it sank were lying.
80 • PCLinuxOS (by Jesse on 2019-04-09 17:53:05 GMT from Canada)
@78: I'm glad to hear you were spared the bug. Hopefully it is only triggered in a small number of rare cases.
@79: To be fair, I have since tried the 2019.03 media and haven't been able to reproduce the su issue with it. Which means only one in three of my installs have had the problem. I think that points to a glitch at first-run rather than a consistent problem that is only triggered under certain conditions. Which is good news for users, but a troublesome spot for developers to be in as it makes it hard to address.
81 • Root, super user, etc (by Ostrol on 2019-04-09 18:55:48 GMT from Poland)
In Linux, you need to be "root" to install anything, even to install the the live iso to your computer. After that, to install any app, you can either use a shop app, package manager and give the password, or use the terminal, use su or sudo and give the password. Still, you are the owner of the computer, to which you install the app.
In Windows, when you need to install some app, it asks do you want to, and then once you say yes, it installs that app. You are being trusted to install anything you want, in your own computer. Now, someone would argue, that a virus would also could install itself, and harm the computer. It might, and it might also on a Linux box. Interestingly, Windows had looked after not letting any app t be installed without your specific yes. Which, Linux has not!
Puppy for example, uses root. Never heard of any Puppy user complaining being root. They also have one of the most friendly forum. Btw,I don't think there's any nut cases in the world, who'd waste time creating viruses for Linux, they might do that with Android, though.
82 • @79 (by dragonmouth on 2019-04-09 21:03:54 GMT from United States)
"all those that claim it sank were lying." That is only YOUR interpretation. Besides, the two events are not exactly analogous. As Auric Goldfinger was wont to say "Once is a happenstance, twice is a coincidence, three times is enemy action." Since, by his own admission, Jesse was not able to replicate the problem, it looks like a happenstance, a one-of occurrence.
For a person of the cloth, you are very uncharitable by implying that those that did not experience Jesse's glitch are Doubting Thomases.
83 • @76, Browser page reload fixes (by Angel on 2019-04-09 23:37:20 GMT from Philippines)
There is an extension for Chrome to block page reloads: Auto Refresh Blocker. The extension will also work with Chromium or other browsers allowing Chrome extensions.
For Firefox: Type about: config in the URL bar and click "Enter." Accept the "This may void your warranty" warning. In the search bar, type accessibility.blockautorefresh. Right click on the preference name accessibility.blockautorefresh and choose "toggle" option from the drop-down menu. It should change from "false" to "true".
Please note that I first obtained the above information through Google, which then forced me to purchase a pair of pink-and-green plaid boxer shorts and to promise never to read the Drudge Report.
84 • Browser (by EdCoolio on 2019-04-10 00:29:37 GMT from United States)
1. Opens all web pages I use without issue. 2. FAST 3. Can use UBlock 4. Can block HTML5 and all garbage with an extension 5. Secure
In that order. I can run my own security if you give me a browser that opens everything and is all about SPEED.
Did I mention SPEED??? Fast. Fastest!
How about someone put out a completely stripped down distro that is targeted around Chromium speed, and nothing else, in both 32 (no PAE and PAE) and 64 bit flavors with WiFi out of the box support?
85 • @81 (by Arky on 2019-04-10 07:13:48 GMT from France)
The comparison doesn't hold. In windows, you have your trust engaged each time you get an installer from the web. Has it been tempered with ? Who is this coming from ? Can I trust the installer ? Is something hidden in there ? You MUST verify this by yourself on windows.
On Linux, the fact everything is on repository limit that responsibility, the store can auto check if your package has been tempered with, the who is most likely the one who maintain your OS (on major linux distributions), the fact you install by package is that there's no "installation setup" so either nothing is hidden/ or you have a popup / additional agreement on CLI to ask you if you want that additional package.
Yes in both cases, you type a password, but most likely the steps you used on Linux are less risky at every steps. The only breach on linux is when you must use a script found on the internet to install things, like the one for docker, which you need to review before executing it because the script is clear on the web (Docker teams recommend that).
86 • @85 (by Pierre on 2019-04-10 09:01:11 GMT from France)
"Yes in both cases, you type a password, but most likely the steps you used on Linux are less risky at every steps."
Prove it!
87 • @85 on Linux viruses...and repos... (by Ostrol on 2019-04-10 10:25:47 GMT from Poland)
Well, you could have a look here, https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift/issues/406
88 • @85-87 Linux viruses (by Nathan on 2019-04-10 13:10:25 GMT from United States)
According to Kaspersky (https://securelist.com/ddos-attacks-in-q4-2018/89565/) in q4 2018 Linux accounted for 97.11% of DDoS hosts, meaning that at some point all of these Linux devices had been compromized and incorporated into the botnet. My guess is that most of these are IoT devices rather than desktop Linux, since the proportion of Linux DDoS hosts has been rising as IoT has spread.
It follows from the above that I'd have to agree with @85, that the reason why we don't see as many viruses on desktop Linux relative to Windows isn't because Linux is magically virus-proof, but because our repo structure reduces risk. If you are exposed to the internet, then stay up to date or risk becoming part of the botnet!
89 • Linux viruses (by Kim on 2019-04-10 14:02:13 GMT from Austria)
Linux is safer than Windows simply because of one simple fact: There is generally more to steal on Windows computers than on Linux boxes. If it were the other way round it would be certain that Linux becomes the major victim.
Just imagine a contributor who does not have a real name and can only be contacted at best via a forum. OSS is as bad as proprietary because no one I know is inclined of checking any of the zillions of lines of code in order to operate his box safely.
Wouldn't you rather trust the Redmonders to do whatever they can to protect their business than a moderately talented one-man show presenting the umpteenth Linux distro for some brag rights? It is utterly naive to think that a Linux password can protect you from sociopathic but nevertheless smart criminals.
Most of the time I use Linux. But Linux will never know any of my credit card numbers nor does it have access to some other sensitive stuff. Windows has the exclusive right to do my online banking, but it will never get any fancy external downloads as long as they can be avoided. Linux on the other hand is in charge of 99% of my internet browsing. Haven't had any problems so far in a long time.
90 • Doubting Thomases (by Friar Tux on 2019-04-10 15:13:27 GMT from Canada)
@82 (dragonmouth) Ah... but they were. As for the analogy, yes it was my interpretation, based on what I read. And I agree with your Auric Goldfinger comment. I only wish some of the prior commenters had taken it to heart.
91 • @89 Kim: (by dragonmouth on 2019-04-10 15:38:19 GMT from United States)
"moderately talented one-man show presenting the umpteenth Linux distro for some brag rights" Could you please tell us which of the Top 100 distros on the DW list is a "moderately talented one-man show"? Can you name ANY distro that is a "moderately talented one-man show"?
92 • @91 (by Jeff from Unites States on 2019-04-10 17:40:15 GMT from United States)
PCLinuxOS
93 • installing Falkon flatpak in MX17 (by Hoos on 2019-04-10 18:24:53 GMT from Singapore)
@Jesse,
I don't actually use Falkon, but I thought I would test to see if the MX Package Installer would be able to install the Falkon flatpak properly from within the GUI without resorting to terminal commands or compiling the program from source.
- opened the Packageinstaller and checked out the Flatpak tab. - the Flathub repo gets enabled the first time you click on the Flatpak tab - a search shows that Falkon is not in the Flathub repo - I click on the https://www.falkon.org/download/ URL you provided in your article and note that Falkon's in the kdeapps flatpak repo - click on "Advanced" button in the Flatpak tab to get to the "add remote (repo)" option - I paste the kdeapps repo URL into the appropriate field, and add the said repo - go back to main Flatpak tab to search the kdeapps repo and Falkon's there so I install it.
It appears to work as a basic browser, although I couldn't get Youtube video to run out of the box (I was able to play music streams/internet radio). I'm sure research will unearth the answer, but I can't be bothered.
Since I'd never used Qupzilla, I didn't have any profile, bookmarks etc to import.
And yes, looks like spellcheck dictionaries are not provided by default but that appears to be a weakness of Falkon in general, not the flatpak version.
Opening Falkon from another application - it took me some time to figure out where the executable was located so I could edit "Preferred Applications" in XFCE settings.
Once I did I was able to get Libreoffice to open a URL link, but only in a new Falkon window like you said, together with all the existing tabs currently opened in my first Falkon window. It opened quickly but of course you don't want another instance of Falkon opened if possible.
That's where my test ended.
To recap, I had no problem installing Falkon flatpak using MX Package Installer. But the limitations you noted are there. Some are possibly due to the flatpak/portable apps format while others are just a limitation of Falkon itself.
94 • Browser: Important (by Larry on 2019-04-10 19:05:15 GMT from United States)
Like others, I will first state that I don't do anything on the internet that I wish to keep secret BUT I also do not like others to profit from my use and feed me advertisements that I don't wish to see!
The internet has become a HUGE marketing tool and money maker ... too bad! My email inbox is bizarre, my browser pitiful, even with Adblocker.
Then to find out that not only Windows is stealing my information and selling it, after I paid a fortune for Windows, but my browser is doing the same thing. So Linux Mint is safe but Firefox is not?
I am looking for a browser that does not collect my use data and has no telemetry provisions. That's what is most important to me!
95 • On viruses... (by Ostrol on 2019-04-10 21:03:42 GMT from Poland)
If a Linux application on one distro can write to a partition of another Linux distro of the same computer, a Linux application on one distro might be able to read data stored in another distro without your knowledge. If that application is a malicious one, it can broadcast your data stored in another root partition out of your computer. All partitions in your computer are root partitions, whether a distro is there or not.
Just because, you are using a Linux distro, doesn't mean you are safe from viruses. Practically, all Linuxes have no way to safeguard you from such an attack.
96 • @92 Jeff: (by dragonmouth on 2019-04-10 21:30:14 GMT from United States)
Not to get into a big discussion but: 1) Texstar may have originally developed PCLOS all by himself but has, for various reasons, stepped away from development a while ago. 2) PCLOS has not been a "one man show" since some time around 2010. 3) PCLOS 2019.3 was released on time. Therefore there seems to be a group/team behind it. 4) PCLOS certainly is not a "moderately talented one-man show presenting the umpteenth Linux distro for some brag rights" as Kim says.
If you consider PCLOS a one man show then so is Budgie. Although, as is the case with PCLOS, others have taken over the development of Budgie from Ickey.
The last, popular distro that I know of that was a work of one man was SimplyMEPIS.
97 • One man created most popular distro... (by Akoy on 2019-04-10 21:36:07 GMT from United Kingdom)
The most popular one man created distro at the moment is Sparky Linux!
98 • @96 Budgie 11 (by Ostrol on 2019-04-10 22:28:35 GMT from Poland)
"Although, as is the case with PCLOS, others have taken over the development of Budgie from Ickey."
Budgie 11 would never happen, with Ikey gone out of the radar. With Ikey gone, his thinking too is gone. There'd be Budgie 10.5, then maybe 10.5.1 and so on, but not the original Budgie 11.
99 • "one man show" distros, etc (by Jordan on 2019-04-11 22:42:57 GMT from United States)
I was naive when I first got into linux way back in '96. I honestly thought they were huge team efforts, perhaps conceived and written by people from all over the world of the same mind as to linux vs Windows.
Some of it is that way now, but when my favorite distro went under, the one I thought had achieved all that a linux work could achive, I began to get it on the small team effort (not really a one man show but you know what I mean). Yoper was BEAUTIFUL, and functioned perfectly on my then ancient machine.
PCLinuxOS seems to owe a lot to Yoper as well as of course Mandrake/Mandriva, in that whole small team effort mentality; what a great project Texstar began. It seems to have an inertia among the long list of distros. Kudos. I don't use it any more, just test it when I see a review. But kudos indeed.
100 • @ 98 Budgie (by mandog on 2019-04-11 23:59:45 GMT from Peru)
Budgie was never going to happen as QT that was just wishful thinking on the part of Ikey, "the grass is greener on the other side of the fence moment, QT is harder to maintain than GTK it changes on almost a weekly basis so its a constant fight.
This is where LXQT made the same mistake will they ever make it complete. In the meantime, LXDE has been completely ported to gtk3 in Arch Linux it runs like butter with modern gtk3 themes
101 • LXQT v LXDE (by edcoolio on 2019-04-12 00:40:16 GMT from United States)
@100
I think this is where Lubuntu went wrong. They took a light, useful distro and DE, then attempted to "improve it".
Their idea of improvement was to turn that light 32 and 64 bit capable distro into another Me-Too 64 bit only pig. What a shame.
102 • @101 (by volunteer on 2019-04-12 01:42:46 GMT from Australia)
You could always fork it and then improve it yourself, its foss afterall.
103 • Budgie and the developer (by Kazan on 2019-04-12 06:11:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
I remember the long defunct SolusOS, which started somewhere in 2012, after Ikey left LMDE. SolusOS 2 sort of changed all the time, still staying at alpha level. On the way, Ikey was trying to make a new DE out of Gnome 2 called Consort and getting angry with deb packaging. Today, those forums are not around, so no one can read the arguments and despair Ikey was going through. At that time PiSi (package management) distro had stopped developing for some time, and Ikey was forking it to SolusOS. And, he pulled a plug on that. Later, he moved country and we heard of EvolveOS, at that time trying hard to look like Chrome OS. Then it became Solus (without the OS part) and the Raven panel looking more like Deepin's settings. And, there was a forum.
And, there was always some anger in his posts, at anyone, who criticised something. People left the forum. Budgie had its own website, and slowly new people (developers) came in the Solus (and maybe to Budgie). Most of them were those,, who just found out about Linux. Things went well, maybe up to Budgie 10.3, and after that it became stale. And, all of a sudden, Ikey left and with him the web sites and the forum. End of story for Budgie desktop.
It was good that some of the developers had some or all the packages stored somewhere, so they could piece Budgie and Solus together. Ikey didn't give it to them. If not for those guys, Josh Strobl, Justin etc, no one would have Solus and Budgie today. Later, of course, Ikey said that in a letter that he had to go for personal matters. But, he didn't have the decency to pass the website, forums, packages etc to the developers, his former friends to allow for Budgie and Solus to live on. Instead, he vanished, maybe hoping that Solus and Budgie would vanish too. He always dropped what he was "developing" and ran away, from SoluOS, from Evolve OS, from deb and pisi packaging and from Budgie and Solus, always angry. Most probably he found that it is much easier to use a proprietary OS (I remember that from old SolusOS/EvoloveOS forums).
104 • LXDE (by Tim on 2019-04-12 13:19:35 GMT from United States)
@100 @101
I can't speak for LXQT because I never made the switch to it, but I certainly remember being shocked when LXDE was abandoned. It was the first desktop that made me love Linux.
I'm very happy with MATE, and the few very old machines we still run (not on the internet) with old Linuxes usually have been switched to GNOME 2 (for consistency with MATE) but I recently put Ubuntu 14.04 into a Virtualbox and I threw LXDE on it. It was a nice reminder of just how great it was. It was so light but so full featured. It's a notable absence from today's offerings.
Number of Comments: 104
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• 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 |
• Full list of all issues |
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WinBi
WinBi was an Indonesian Linux distribution based on Trustix.
Status: Discontinued
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Star Labs |

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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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