 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 815, 20 May 2019 |
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Welcome to this year's 20th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Security vulnerabilities, particularly those which affect hardware, such as CPUs, have been in the news media more frequently during the past year. Research into this area has raised awareness about how low-level components, like firmware and kernels, interact with our hardware. All of the terminology around low-level security concerns can be confusing, so this week we link to two articles about recent vulnerabilities. Our News section shares resources from Red Hat and Bleeping Computer to help people understand current threats and their fixes. Plus we talk about Clear Linux showcasing tools and current-edge packages for developers. In our Tips and Tricks column we discuss options for running GNU/Linux and Busybox/Linux distributions on mobile devices and we ask if our readers are using these platforms in our Opinion Poll. First though, we share a review of the Sabayon distribution. Sabayon is part of the Gentoo family and offers several editions for desktop and server roles. Robert Rijkhoff dives into what it's like to use Sabayon in our Feature Story. As usual, we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and provide links to the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Sabayon 19.03
- News: Clear Linux outlines features for developers, Red Hat explains MDS flaws, developers patch Linux networking vulnerability
- Tips and tricks: Overview of options for running open Linux distros on mobile devices (2019 edition)
- Released last week: Emmabuntus DE2-1.04, ArcoLinux 19.05.2, Peppermint OS 10
- Torrent corner: ArchBang, ArcoLinux, Bluestar, Container, deepin, Emmabuntus, IPFire, KDE neon, Obarun, OpenMediaVault, PBXware, Peppermint, Plamo, Robolinux, Ultimate
- Upcoming releases: Tails 3.14, openSUSE 15.1
- Opinion poll: Do you run a GNU/Linux distribution on a mobile device?
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (by Robert Rijkhoff) |
Sabayon 19.03
Sabayon is an Italian Linux operating system based on Gentoo. According to its home page, Sabayon is a "beginner-friendly" distro in which "everything should just work". What's more, Sabayon describes itself as "a bleeding edge operating system that is both stable and reliable".
There are three flavours to choose from. Apart from the Desktop edition, which I will review in this article, there are also Server and Cloud images. For the Desktop edition you can download a 64-bit ISO for five different desktop environments: GNOME, KDE, Xfce, MATE and Fluxbox. I mainly looked at the GNOME edition but also gave Fluxbox a quick spin.
Live environment and first impressions
The GNOME image is a 2.4GB download and the default option is to run Sabayon as a live environment. You are logged into the GNOME desktop automatically and presented with a "Welcome" window with an install button and links to various online resources. The wallpaper is a colourful, Cubist twirl and features the Sabayon logo with the slogan "simplicity is sophistication".
Sabayon 19.03 -- The welcome screen
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Sabayon has made a few tweaks to the GNOME desktop; by default applications use a dark theme and there is an applications menu in the top bar. The menu is quite handy as GNOME's default applications overview has a limited amount of space for application names (11 characters, to be precise). That works fine for GNOME applications, as their names tend to be delightfully short and descriptive ("Files", "Contacts", "Web", etc.). The overview doesn't work so great for applications with longer names. For instance, when I launched the overview I saw names like "Avahi SSH S ...", "Avahi VNC S ..." and "Avahi Zeroc ...". These three applications also use the same icon, making it difficult to quickly see which is which.
Sabayon 19.03 -- GNOME's applications overview
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Another thing I noticed while exploring the live environment is that Sabayon isn't as "bleeding edge" as you might expect. Most software was fairly up to date but there were two major exceptions: systemd was at version 239 and the GNOME desktop was at version 3.26.2. When I did the install systemd was at version 241 and GNOME had just released version 3.32.
Installation
The last time we reviewed Sabayon, in March 2018, the distro failed to install. For about an hour or so I feared that the 19.03 release suffered from a similar issue. The latest version of Sabayon uses the Calamares installer, which has never caused me any issues. This time, however, the installer would invariably fail to create partitions. Simply relaunching the installer would cause it to hang when trying to get information about existing partitions.
Sabayon 19.03 -- One of the many failed attempts to install Sabayon
(full image size: 720kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
To cut a long story short, the installation failed whenever I selected the option to encrypt my laptop's hard drive, and before I could relaunch the installer I had to wipe (and optionally recreate) existing partitions using GParted or a similar tool. This was disappointing, as "full disk encryption support" was one of the few items in the release notes that had caught my eye.
The GNOME experience
The GNOME edition ships with a fairly standard set of applications. You get everything from Firefox and the Evolution e-mail client to HexChat and Transmission. Among the more unusual applications are the above-mentioned Avahi local networking tools and various applications for writing Python code. There is also a "Sabayon" section in the applications menu, which provides links to online documentation and help.
All applications, with the exception of Firefox, use a dark theme. Oddly, the theme shown as being in use in GNOME Tweaks (which comes pre-installed) is the default, non-dark Arc theme. I am not sure why Tweaks is showing the wrong theme but switching to a lighter theme was easy enough.
Sabayon 19.03 -- LibreOffice and the GNOME calculator
(full image size: 645kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
I also don't quite understand why Sabayon lists five session options on the login page. The options in the drop-down menu are XSession, GNOME, GNOME (again), GNOME Classic and Custom. When I selected XSession I was simply thrown back to the login screen, while the two GNOME options and Custom all logged me into Sabayon's customised GNOME desktop. Sabayon doesn't appear to have support for Wayland.
Those minor issues aside, the GNOME desktop performed very well. The desktop environment was responsive, all applications worked as expected and I could play any type of multimedia file out of the box (Flash is not installed by default but, given the state of Flash, I see that as a bonus).
Package management
Another item mentioned in the release notes for Sabayon 19.03 is "work on progress for the new wiki". The new wiki is being developed on GitHub, though at the time of this review it is almost completely empty. The old wiki does indeed need a bit of an overhaul - all the pages I looked at hadn't been updated for several years. As far as I can tell the information is mostly still relevant and I did find the wiki useful.
Unless you are a seasoned Gentoo user you should definitely read the wiki entry about Entropy, which is Sabayon's binary package management system. Sabayon is based on Gentoo and you can use Gentoo's Portage package manager, but most users will probably want to install binary packages rather than compile everything from source. As an aside, using both Entropy and Portage is possible but not recommended.
Entropy's command line package manager is Equo. The basic commands for searching, installing, removing and upgrading packages are intuitive: "equo search <package>" will perform a search, "equo install <package> will install a package and so forth. However, towards the bottom of the Entropy wiki entry are instructions for upgrading a freshly installed copy of Sabayon, which are a lot more involved. It includes information about optimising mirrors (i.e. making sure that you are downloading packages from a fast source), updating and upgrading the system and checking if there are any missing dependencies.
Sabayon 19.03 -- Updating the system using Equo
(full image size: 232kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Software updates were applied rather slowly - updating a handful of packages could easily take 15 minutes - and I found Equo's output difficult to read because of the use of purple and red text on a black background. Another oddity was that Equo would regularly ask me to read and accept an individual package's license when updating or installing software. This comes across as the command line equivalent of websites forcing you to accept lengthy privacy notices written in Legalese (i.e. it is a nuisance). I couldn't find an option to always accept licenses and therefore had to keep an eye on Equo's output.
Major kernel upgrades and Rigo
The documentation section about upgrading a fresh Sabayon install mentions that Equo is unable to automatically upgrade the kernel to a new major version. Upgrading the kernel appears to be quite a manual process. If you prefer to avoid manually upgrading the kernel by copying and pasting commands from a somewhat out of date wiki, an easy work around is to do a fresh install whenever a new ISO is published (which seems to happen roughly once a year).
Alternatively, you can try upgrading the kernel via Sabayon's graphical application manager, called Rigo Application Browser. You can use Rigo to search for packages, install and remove individual applications, update the system and perform various advanced tasks, such as managing software repositories. Rigo is easy to use and does the job, although it does have a few rough edges. The application didn't prompt me for the root password when I applied updates; buttons were not always clickable and "extremely important" notices Rigo wanted me to review could not always be viewed. I found Rigo pleasant to use though, and toward the end of my trial I even managed to use it to install version 5.0.x of the Linux Sabayon kernel (which, according to Rigo, has already been installed more than half a million times).
Sabayon 19.03 -- Sabayon running Linux kernel 5.0.5
(full image size: 573kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
As an aside, one thing I like about Rigo is the informal language used in the application. The "extremely" important notices I just mentioned can be dismissed by clicking on a "Stop annoying me" button and when you start updates via Rigo the application will tell you to "go make some coffee" (acknowledging the fact that package upgrades are rather slow).
Sabayon 19.03 -- Extremely important notices from the repositories
(full image size: 113kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
I ran Sabayon for about three weeks and during this time I got about 100 updates. In the first week there were just a handful of minor updates and about ten days later there was a much larger batch of 70 updates. Among the latter updates was GNOME Shell itself - it jumped two major versions, to 3.30.2. The only issue I noticed after the second batch of updates was that I got a notification about the VirtualBox kernel service not running every time I logged into the GNOME desktop. I'm not sure if the VirtualBox kernel service ought to be running and the system remained fully functional.
The Fluxbox experience
There really isn't much I can write about using Sabayon's GNOME desktop for everyday tasks. Both the 3.26 and 3.30 versions were almost vanilla GNOME installs and everything worked as it should. As the GNOME versions aren't new and shiny either there also isn't much point in talking about the desktop environment's features. I therefore decided to instead explore Sabayon's Fluxbox edition.
The Fluxbox ISO is 1.6GB in size and described on Sabayon's download page as "Minimal, for hackers". As with the GNOME edition, the default option is to launch a live environment but alas, that didn't work - the boot process stalled after the Sabayon logo appeared on the screen. I could view the boot messages by hitting the Esc key, which revealed that the system was waiting for jobs to finish. I let the system try to sort itself out for about seven minutes before I rebooted the laptop, only to get the same result again. The ISO's MD5 checksum checked out and the issue wasn't a dodgy USB pen - I got the same result when I booted the ISO image in GNOME Boxes.
Luckily, the option to install Sabayon from the boot menu did work. Against my better judgment I did select the option to encrypt the hard drive, just to check if the install would again fail. I indeed encountered exactly the same error as before and this time I had to use fdisk to remove my partitions before I could run the installer again. Fluxbox installed correctly when I opted to not encrypt the hard drive.
The duplicate login sessions I had noticed in the GNOME edition were also present in Fluxbox. On the login screen I got the choice of four sessions: Default, Fluxbox, XSession and Fluxbox (again). Fluxbox itself is, as minimal window managers go, rather sparse. You get the same Cubist wallpaper, a single task bar that stretches two thirds of the bottom of the screen and you can launch an application menu by right-clicking on the desktop.
The Fluxbox edition comes with hardly any pre-installed software. The applications menu lists xterm and Firefox as the only graphical applications and, of the two, Firefox isn't actually installed. Of course, Fluxbox users tend to prefer it that way; the window manager is highly configurable and can be customised to your heart's content.
Sabayon 19.03 -- Installing Firefox (and having to accept another license)
(full image size: 838kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Fluxbox worked fine when I could get to the login screen. Unfortunately, every other time I booted my laptop I would only get to a blinking cursor on a black screen. The boot error may be related to a dependency issue: when I did the check for missing dependencies Equo reported that sysvinit-2.86-r6 was needed by openrc-0.38.3 but that it couldn't install the former package. Whatever the cause of the issue was, it made using Fluxbox infeasible.
Conclusions
Sabayon's claim that it is a "beginner-friendly" distro that is "bleeding edge" and "stable and reliable" is a bit of a stretch. I doubt "beginners" will comprehend the instructions for what to do after installing Sabayon - and that is assuming inexperienced users will find the information in the first place. Similarly, the systemd and GNOME versions are rather old for a distro that claims to be "bleeding edge". That said, I did find Sabayon's GNOME edition to be stable and reliable, bar a few minor issues (such as the notification about the VirtualBox kernel service not running).
I don't think it is entirely fair to ask if Sabayon lives up to the bold marketing slogans on its home page. Personally, I see Sabayon as a friendly and interesting distro for tinkerers and distro-hoppers, and a very good one at that. I should also mention that, in general, Sabayon's use of language is refreshingly informal; both the graphical Rigo package manager and the wiki put a smile on my face more than once. Even Equo has some jokes built in - the command equo moo prints an ASCII cow that says "Entromoooo!".
Sabayon does still has some way to go to become the sophisticated operating system it wants to be. With 19.03 the distro switched from the Anaconda to the Calamares installer which, to my mind at least, is a good decision. However, contrary to what is claimed in the release notes, the disk encryption issue has not been resolved yet and the wiki still talks about how to find your way through the Anaconda installer. Work on the new wiki announced in the release notes seems to be at a very early stage.
I also couldn't fail to notice that Sabayon's forums are rather quiet. Lively forums don't necessarily equate to a thriving community, but the overall feeling I got is that Sabayon could do with a bit more momentum. That shouldn't discourage you from giving Sabayon a try though. On the contrary, if you are a Linux-loving tinkerer then Sabayon might be the distro for you.
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Hardware used for this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo Thinkpad X220 with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Core i3-2520M, 2.5GHz
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Wireless network adaptor: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205
- Wired network adaptor: Intel 82579M
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Visitor supplied rating
Sabayon has a visitor supplied average rating of: 5/10 from 1 review(s).
Have you used Sabayon? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Clear Linux outlines features for developers, Red Hat explains MDS flaws, developers patch Linux networking vulnerability
Clear Linux is a distribution which is often highly regarded for its performance, typically winning benchmark tests against other, more general purpose, distributions. Clear Linux is not just a testing ground for optimizations though, the project is also hoping to attract developers with rolling release desktop offerings and cutting edge versions of the GNU Compiler Collection. A post on the distribution's blog reports: "For a distro looking to serve developers who pump out optimized code, being on the latest compiler is an absolute necessity. We're currently running GCC9 and are poised to move to GCC10 as soon as it becomes available. The Clear Linux OS has always been very aggressive with applying compiler flags to optimize builds and we look forward to continuing this trend. We'll also continue with our multiple-build approach so that those who aren't flying with Intel Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (Intel AVX-512) optimizations, are still getting bang for their Intel AVX2 buck. Stays in lockstep with upstream. Clear Linux OS's rolling release allows us to ensure that security mitigations that are available are included in the next release without any unreasonable delay."
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Tech blogs and security mailing lists have been abuzz this past week with discussions regarding a series of security flaws called Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS). These vulnerabilities could be used by a local attacker or process to read privileged data from the CPU cache. The issues appear to affect multiple processors and operating systems. Distributions have already begun publishing updates to address the flaws. The Red Hat website offers details on the MDS issue: "Four new microprocessor flaws have been discovered, the most severe of which is rated by Red Hat Product Security as having an Important impact. These flaws, if exploited by an attacker with local shell access to a system, could allow data in the CPU's cache to be exposed to unauthorized processes. While difficult to execute, a skilled attacker could use these flaws to read memory from a virtual or containerized instance, or the underlying host system..."
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Bleeping Computer has published a story covering a vulnerability in the Linux kernel's networking code which may be exploitable. The vulnerability affects Linux kernels prior to version 5.0.8 and has captured attention because it may be remotely exploitable on systems where services are using RDS sockets. Kernel developers have already published a patch and fixed the issue in versions of Linux newer than 5.0.8.
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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) |
Overview of options for running open Linux distros on mobile devices (2019 edition)
A lot of people are interested in running open source, Linux-based operating systems on their mobile devices, but due to the mobile ecosystem often making use of proprietary drivers and locked devices, it can be difficult to find open source friendly mobile platforms. Here are some of the mobile, Linux-powered options that are available now, or should be available by the end of 2019.
People who wish to start using Linux on their phone right away should probably look at the list of compatible devices on the UBports website. Many of the devices listed can be purchased new, or used at a discount. UBports is the project which took over development of Ubuntu Touch. UBports provides a graphical installer which allows the user to plug their phone into a computer and run the installer to download and copy the necessary files to their smart phone to install UBports. When paired with compatible devices, UBports provides a fully functional mobile experience with calling, texting, mobile data, GPS, wi-fi, hotspots, and an application store.
For people who want more of an application platform than a phone-like communication device there is postmarketOS. The postmarketOS project is based on Alpine Linux and provides software and updates for over one hundred devices. While postmarketOS works with a wide range of hardware, it is still in the alpha stage of development. The platform only runs applications and cannot be used to send or receive voice calls.
Though it is not yet available at the time of writing, many Linux fans will probably be interested in the Librem 5, which should be available later this year. The Librem 5 is a rare device that is specifically designed with free Linux distributions in mind and is intended to provide more privacy and security than other mobile platforms. The Purism team behind the Librem 5 has been selling laptops for a few years now bundled with free software and this will be their first adventure with providing mobile devices. The Librem 5 is expected to ship with the PureOS distribution and a modified version of GNOME as its primary interface. KDE's Plasma Mobile will be available as an alternative user interface option. Originally it was thought the phone should be compatible with UBports too for people who wish to install an alternative operating system, however the UBports team has reported they have yet to receive a development kit to aid in porting their operating system to the Librem 5.
Another Linux smart phone on the horizon is the PinePhone. The PinePhone is expected to become available toward the end of 2019 and will likely run software provided by UBports when it launches. The platform strives to be open and, in theory, should be able to run other mobile-oriented flavours of Linux and BSD, such as Purism's PureOS mentioned above.
I feel there are two more projects which deserve honourable mentions, even though they do not quite fit the criteria of providing full, open, traditional Linux distributions. LineageOS is a free and open source operating system based on Android. LineageOS is a libre version of Android/Linux rather than a member of the GNU/Linux and Busybox/Linux families of distributions mentioned above and runs on a large number of devices. Some manual work will be required to install the provided images on a supported phone or tablet. Another Linux-based platform is Sailfish OS which has received a lot of praise for its level of polish. However, Sailfish combines open and proprietary licenses, making it less free than the platforms listed above. Availability is also somewhat limited and I am not able to purchase a copy as Sailfish blocks connections to its store from some countries.
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Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Emmabuntus DE2-1.04
Emmabuntüs is a desktop Linux distribution with editions based Xubuntu and Debian's Stable branch. It strives to be beginner-friendly and reasonably light on resources so that it can be used on older computers. The project has published an update to its Debian-based branch, Emmabuntus Debian Edition 2-1.04, which is based on Debian 9.9. "This update of our distribution is taking over the improvements we implemented in our recent Emmabuntüs DE 3 beta release, based on Debian 10 Buster, and brings an improvement in the size of the ISO by the rationalization of the current software, and the removal of unsupported languages. In addition, it supports pkexec instead of gksu in all our post-installation and customization scripts. We hope that this new version will further facilitate the repackaging work made by the various associations using Emmabuntüs, and the task of our friends JerryClan from France and Africa." Further details and a list of changes to the default software can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
ArcoLinux 19.05.2
ArcoLinux is an Arch-based distribution which is available in three main branches, which provide a range of complete solutions, minimal editions designed to be customized by the user, and community flavours. The ArcoLinux project has published a new update, version 19.05.2, that adds some short-cuts and trims out features that were causing problems. "Redshift was included in the last ISO. During testing Redshift gave no issues. After the launch some of our users reported it was NOT working. Since reports were partially negative, we have decided not to include it on the ISO. You can install in later, if you want to have it. Software that gives our users frustrations is out as a rule of thumb. SUPER + Q: From the development of Qtile we have learned to use the keyboard shortcut super + q to close a window. We were so used to this shortcut that we have implemented it also in: Xfce, Openbox, i3, Awesome, bspwm, Qtile, xmonad." Further details and screenshots can be found in the project's release announcement.
IPFire 2.23 Core 131
Michael Tremer has announced the release of IPFire 2.23, a major update of the project's specialist Linux distribution for firewalls. The new version brings a brand-new intrusion detection system: "Finally, we are releasing another big release of IPFire. In IPFire 2.23 Core Update 131, we are rolling out our new Intrusion Prevention System (IPS). On top of that, this update also contains a number of other bug fixes and enhancements. We are finally shipping our recently announced IPS - making all of your networks more secure by deeply inspecting packets and trying to identify threats. This new system has many advantages over the old one in terms of performance, security and it simply put - more modern. We have put together some documentation on how to set up the IPS, what rulesets are supported and what hardware resources you will need. Your settings will automatically be converted if you are using the existing Intrusion Detection System (IDS) and replicated with the new IPS." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information.
Peppermint OS 10
Peppermint OS is a lightweight, desktop distribution based on packages from Ubuntu which merges components of the Xfce and LXDE desktop environments. Peppermint OS also tries to integrate web-based applications into the desktop, using site-specific browsers, and local programs. The project's latest version, Peppermint OS 10, is built from Ubuntu 18.04 LTS packages and features improved hardware support. It also includes an updated copy of Ice for managing web-app short-cuts. "Peppermint 10 main changes: Kernel 4.18.0-18 which is now on the rolling HWE-18.04 track so will eventually roll onto the 5.xx kernel automatically as the HWE is updated upstream. Updated X.Org stack, again via the rolling HWE-18.04 track. Proprietary NVIDIA graphics drivers now installed automatically if 'Install third party drivers/software' is selected as part of the installation routine, this includes automatic configuration of NVIDIA Optimus setups up to the NVIDIA-390 drivers. If you intend to install the later 396/410/415/418/430 drivers from the 'Proprietary GPU Drivers' PPA it would probably be best not to select this option during install and add them manually post-install. Ice (6.0.2) - Ice now has support for isolated profiles for Chromium, Chrome, and Vivaldi SSB's (Firefox SSB's are always isolated). Firefox SSB's now also have four bookmarks included by default making the addition of addons and other configuration changes on a per-SSB basis easier. There are also other under the hood changes, such as ICE will now rebuild your SSB profiles should you accidentally delete their directories." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
Peppermint OS 10 -- The default desktop
(full image size: 922kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Robolinux 10.5
Robolinux is a user-friendly and desktop operating system based on the latest long term support release of Ubuntu. The project's latest release of Robolinux 10.5 which includes many security fixes, including a patch for the Zombieland CPU vulnerability and an updated kernel. The project's release announcement reports: "The Robolinux 10 Series Cinnamon, MATE 3D, Xfce, LXDE and GNOME 64-bit Raptor versions have been upgraded with new kernels, hardware drivers, a new installer version and over five hundred fifty security and application updates. We had to rebuild the Cinnamon version from scratch which reduced the ISO and RAM significantly. We also patched the latest Intel chip vulnerability called Zombieland in all five versions of our Robolinux 10 series. All current Robolinux 10.4 users can upgrade to version 10.5 in just one click by using the built in Robolinux Auto Upgrade button in the main menu. Cinnamon Users will need to manually update their extensions."
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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: 1,418
- Total data uploaded: 25.5TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
Do you run a GNU/Linux distribution on a mobile device?
In our Tips and Tricks column we talked about mobile platforms which are currently available (or coming soon) that run GNU/Linux or Busybox/Linux operating systems. There are a few options available now and a couple more reportedly coming later in 2019. We would like to know how many of our readers currently use, or plan to use, one of these platforms that use a non-Android Linux distribution.
You can see the results of our previous poll on which kernel versions our readers are running in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you run a GNU/Linux distribution on a mobile device?
| I have run a GNU/Linux distro in the past: | 72 (6%) |
| I have run a Busybox/Linux distro in the past: | 33 (3%) |
| I currently run a GNU/Linux distro: | 97 (8%) |
| I currently run a Busybox/Linux distro: | 19 (2%) |
| I plan to run a GNU/Linux distro: | 320 (26%) |
| I plan to run a Busybox/Linux distro: | 58 (5%) |
| I do not plan to run either of these on a mobile device: | 616 (51%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 27 May 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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| Archives |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Slackel
Slackel is a Linux distribution and live CD based on Slackware Linux and Salix. It is fully compatible with both. It uses the current version of Slackware and the latest version of the KDE desktop. The Slackel disc images are offered in two different forms - installation and live.
Status: Active
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TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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