 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 829, 26 August 2019 |
Welcome to this year's 34th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
New technologies come along and get adopted all the time. Software, in particular, evolves quickly with people trying out new ideas and new configurations. This week, in our News section, we report on a developer creating the first Wayland application for NetBSD and boot environments coming to DragonFly BSD. Plus we share updates coming to the UBports mobile operating system, GhostBSD switching to a slower upstream development branch, and changes to Kali Linux meta-packages. The FreeBSD team has published a new Status Report and we talk about the highlights. First though we take quick looks at two young distributions: Drauger OS and EndeavourOS. The former is intended to be used by gamers and offers a number of convenient features to offer better gaming performance. Meanwhile EndeavourOS strives to fill the shoes of Antergos as an easy to setup, Arch-based distribution. Read on to learn more about these two projects in our Feature Story. Antergos was a popular distribution, used by many to get easy access to an Arch-based experience. In our Opinion Poll we ask whether, with Antergos gone, you feel EndeavourOS is a good replacement. Last week we talked about open versus closed source hardware support and we follow it up this week with a guide to finding out whether kernel drivers and firmware are open source or proprietary. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Drauger OS 7.4.1, and EndeavourOS 2019.07.15
- News: NetBSD gets its first Wayland application, UBports publishes updates, Kali updates meta-packages, boot environments for DragonFly BSD, GhostBSD changes base repository, FreeBSD status update
- Tips and tricks: How to check the licenses of kernel modules
- Released last week: Runtu 18.04.3, Netrunner 19.08, EasyOS 2.1
- Torrent corner: Alpine, AUSTRUMI, BigLinux, Clonezilla, EasyOS, Karoshi, Netrunner, OSGeoLive, OviOS, Raspberry Digital Signage, Runtu
- Opinion poll: EndeavourOS taking over from Antergos
- New distributions: KISS Linux, Doge Linux, AutoTux
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (18MB) and MP3 (13MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Drauger OS 7.4.1
This week I once again turned to the DistroWatch waiting list to sample new items I had not tried before. Near the top of the list of projects waiting for evaluation was Drauger OS, a Linux distribution based on Xubuntu. The project uses the Xfce desktop environment and is built to run on 64-bit (x86_64) computers. The project places a strong focus on offering easy access to games and, correspondingly, good desktop performance. To this end, Drauger ships with Steam installed by default, along with WINE and PlayOnLinux. Drauger OS also comes with the modified, low-latency, Liquorix Linux kernel, which is based off the ZEN kernel.
According to the project's documentation, the distribution can run on UEFI-enabled machines, but booting in legacy BIOS mode is recommended. The documentation also mentions that in place of the regular Xubuntu installer, Drauger uses the System Install utility to copy the operating system from the live media to the local hard drive.
While most of the project's listed features are technical in nature, one of the main talking points goes a bit over the top when describing Drauger's security advantage: "Drauger OS is far more secure than the leading desktop operating system. This means that you can game without fear of trolls hacking into your computer, getting a virus, or losing your data." Of course Linux systems can be hacked and certainly may lose data due to various bugs, security breaches or hardware failure. The developers' claims strike me as being optimistic, at best.
Drauger is available in one edition and the distribution's ISO file is a 3.2GB download. Booting from the disc brings up a menu asking if we would like to run a live desktop session or launch a system installer. The live option shows the Ubuntu boot screen, which identifies the distribution as "Ubuntu 7.4.1". The system then presents us with a graphical login screen where we are given the choice of using a "user" account or a "guest" account. In either case we can sign in without a password.
Drauger's live mode uses the Xfce 4.12 desktop. Once the desktop loads, a welcome screen appears, showing buttons that open links to the distribution's website, launch a tool for installing third-party drivers, open a readme file, and link to some on-line resources. There is also a tutorial button which opens a series of pop-up messages about the desktop elements. We can only move forward through the tutorial tips one at a time, and cannot go back to previous pop-ups. The Additional Drivers button opens the Ubuntu software sources, updates and driver utility. On-line resources and documentation are opened in the Firefox web browser. The welcome window is pretty straight forward to use and navigate and I like that we are put in touch with both on-line and off-line resources.
Drauger OS 7.4.1 -- The desktop panel and welcome window
(full image size: 688kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The Xfce environment does not have a panel placed along the edge of the display like most desktops do. Instead there is a panel that runs horizontally through the middle of the screen. Sometimes this panel would appear and disappear, seemingly at random. At first I had trouble figuring out what I was doing to make it show up, or hide. I eventually found that I could make the panel appear by pressing the meta key (sometimes known as the windows key) on my keyboard. Alternatively, if I wanted to launch a program, I could right-click on an empty part of the desktop to open an application menu.
I could not find a launcher for Drauger's system installer in the live environment. The project's documentation indicates we need to reboot and take the installer option from the live disc's boot menu. Selecting the installer option resulted in the operating system showing a blank screen and then locking up. I was unable to get the installer to launch.
I made a few other notes while exploring the Drauger live media. For example, while the project's website claims Drauger can run on UEFI-enabled machines, I found the live media would not boot in UEFI mode. The live session would only start in legacy BIOS mode. I found that the live Xfce desktop would run smoothly on my workstation, however Drauger would not integrate with VirtualBox. This is a rare limitation these days, but it seems the distribution cannot resize its desktop dynamically or use the full screen resolution of the host machine when run in a virtual environment.
Another thing I noticed was that when I shutdown the operating system, it would power down cleanly. However, if I tried to reboot the live media, the media would be immediately unmounted, preventing the operating system from reading pieces of the distribution's live archive. This resulted in the system printing out an endless steam of read errors when trying to reboot.
I did not get very far with Drauger. I am certain many people will appreciate the idea of a performance and gaming focused distribution. However, I was unable to get it installed. I also found it unfortunate that Drauger has replaced the tried and true Ubiquity installer with an unusual install method. Going back to using Xubuntu's installer would probably offer a smoother, more flexible install process.
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EndeavourOS 2019.07.15
The next distribution on my list of projects to try was EndeavourOS. Endeavour plans to follow in the footsteps of Antergos. In other words, Endeavour is an Arch-based distribution which will provide a graphical system installer and a pre-configured desktop. Then, once the operating system is up and running, the user is effectively running Arch Linux. Unlike Antergos, which used an installer which only worked while connected to the Internet, Endeavour currently uses Calamares and performs installs off-line. Endeavour ships with the Xfce desktop and other desktops can be installed after the operating system has been set up.
EndeavourOS is available for 64-bit (x86_64) machines. The project makes one edition available which is a 1.3GB download. Booting from the project's media loads the Xfce 4.14 desktop. (4.14 is new stable branch of the Xfce desktop which migrates to GTK3 from GTK2.) A panel at the bottom of the screen holds the application menu, a handful of quick-launch buttons, the task switcher and system tray. Shortly after we sign in, a small window appears. This window displays buttons for showing us on-line and off-line documentation. There are also two buttons for launching the GParted disk partitioning utility and the Calamares installer. After looking around for a bit, I launched Calamares.
EndeavourOS 2019.07.15 -- Exploring the live desktop
(full image size: 271kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Installing
When the Calamares installer starts, it pauses for about ten seconds to load modules. At first I thought the installer might have locked up, but it sorted itself out and I got started. The installer offers straight forward, friendly screens that walk us through selecting our preferred language, our time zone, and keyboard layout. We are given the choice of manual or guided partitioning. The manual option is pretty easy to use; the guided option takes over free disk space with an ext4 filesystem for the root partition. Endeavour does not set up up a swap partition or a swap file by default. Should we want to use swap space we will need to set it up manually. We are then asked to make up a username and password for ourselves. The installer quickly copies its files, finishing in well under ten minutes, and offers to reboot the computer.
Early impressions
The first time we boot into Endeavour, the distribution displays a graphical login screen where we can sign into the Xfce desktop. At first the desktop appears to be clean, quiet and uncluttered. However, periodically the screen would be filled with news and package update notifications. These notifications are produced by a program called kalu which runs in the system tray. The kalu program checks for new packages, AUR changes, and project news updates every hour and displays a summary of what it finds on the desktop. We can right-click on the system tray icon to change the frequency of these checks and select what information (if any) is displayed.
Left-clicking on the kalu icon opens a window that lists all available package upgrades. Each package entry includes the software's name, the installed version, the new version and the size of the download. Upgrading through kalu is an all-or-nothing scenario, we cannot pick which items to download. The update manager displays progress information as software is downloaded, marking off each item in the list as it is fetched. Upgrades performed during my trial completed successfully.
EndeavourOS 2019.07.15 -- Checking for software updates
(full image size: 226kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Apart from the update manager mentioned above, Endeavour does not appear to have any graphical package manager installed by default. We can add one, or we can focus on using the pacman package manager. I decided to stick with the latter option during this experiment. The pacman utility has a short, unusual syntax, but it works quickly and I encountered no errors while using it.
Hardware
EndeavourOS worked well in both of my test environments. My workstation's hardware was all detected and used properly. The operating system ran quickly and smoothly. The Xfce desktop is especially snappy on Endeavour and I liked both the theme and the layout. When running in a virtual machine, Endeavour was responsive and worked well. The distribution was able to integrate with VirtualBox and use my host computer's full screen resolution.
EndeavourOS 2019.07.15 -- Running Firefox and checking Xfce's version
(full image size: 388kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
One of my few hardware-related complaints while running Endeavour was that the system would beep when it was shutting down. Some distributions have done away with the internal speaker beep at shutdown and I wish the rest would discard the practise.
Endeavour uses about 4.5GB of disk space with a fresh install and, when logged into Xfce, the distribution consumed 320MB of memory. This puts Endeavour slightly on the lighter side of average, compared to most mainstream Linux distributions.
Applications
Endeavour ships with a small collection of software. Some of the applications are popular items found in most distributions, such as the Firefox browser and the Transmission bittorrent software. We are also treated to the Parole media player, along with audio and video codecs. The distribution ships with an image viewer, dictionary, the Orage calendar, and the Xfburn disc burning software. Zenmap is included for checking for open network ports and Grsync provides a graphical tool for synchronizing files between multiple locations.
Endeavour uses the Thunar file manager and includes a file renaming tool. We are also given a full range of Xfce settings modules. These modules deal with the look and feel of the desktop, helping us adjust the theme, the placement of window control buttons, and display resolution. However, there are no lower level tools for managing things like user accounts, printers, or the firewall.
EndeavourOS 2019.07.15 -- Adjusting desktop settings
(full image size: 209kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The distribution uses the systemd init software and runs on version 5.2 of the Linux kernel. Endeavour is based on Arch Linux and uses the same rolling release approach to software updates. This means packages, including the kernel, will get upgraded fairly frequently.
Endeavour does not include an office suite, image editor or e-mail client in the default install. These utilities can be added later from the Arch Linux repositories. The AUR is also available if we need software not included in the main repositories. Though portable package frameworks, such as Snap and Flatpak, are not supported by default, we can install the Flatpak framework from the Arch repositories.
One bug I encountered early on was the main terminal emulator would display all text as little, white squares on a black background. It looked like the place holders a web browser displays when it does not recognize an emoji code. All other programs displayed text properly. Poking around the terminal's profile settings revealed the font was set to display these little boxes instead of normal text, or the system's default font. Selecting another font from the drop-down list, or telling the terminal to use the system-wide font fixed the issue.
EndeavourOS 2019.07.15 -- Unusual terminal font
(full image size: 186kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Conclusions
Endeavour is a young project, having just recently come into life after Antergos was discontinued earlier this year. I was not expecting it to have made much progress. However, apart from the terminal font issue, Endeavour provided a pretty solid experience. The installer and default desktop worked better for me than Antergos's counterparts did. In fact Endeavour installs faster and smoother than almost any distribution I have tried lately. I liked the default desktop layout and theme and the minimal, yet functional, collection of applications gives the user enough tools to get started without adding too much bloat to a pristine install.
I would like to see the welcome/install window on the live desktop expanded a bit, but otherwise Endeavour is off to a good start. If you are a person who wants to run Arch Linux while also wanting to get up and running with a desktop in five minutes without typing any commands, then this distribution is an attractive option.
Update: Right after I finished writing this review, a minor update to Endeavour was published (version 2019.08.17). The new snapshot is virtually identical to the one I began reviewing. However, the terminal font issue has been fixed. There is also a handy icon in the system tray for viewing recent notifications and enabling the do-not-disturb feature. Otherwise, as far as I can tell, the two snapshots are the same, apart from a few minor package updates.
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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
EndeavourOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.5/10 from 378 review(s).
Have you used EndeavourOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
NetBSD gets its first Wayland application, UBports publishes updates, Kali updates meta-packages, boot environments for DragonFly BSD, GhostBSD changes base repository, FreeBSD status update
Applications and desktop environments which can operate using the Wayland protocol have gradually been entering the Linux ecosystem for the past several years. However, during this time, Wayland generally has not seen much use in the BSD communities. This week one enterprising developer created what may be the first Wayland application to run on NetBSD. The application, called hello-wayland, simply displays an image on the computer's screen. This is the first step toward being able to build native Wayland applications and window managers on the NetBSD platform. The developer has tweeted that some display libraries, such as GTK3 and SDL, can be built with Wayland support on NetBSD, but more work is required to get these tools running properly.
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The UBports team has pushed out updates to supported devices. This over the air (OTA) update features improved camera support, better GPS accuracy, and the ability to write draft messages. "The default Messaging app, used for SMS and MMS messaging, now supports draft messages. You can begin writing a message, leave the chat, and come back to find that your message is still waiting for you to send. Pasting of phone numbers in the "To:" field and an issue with the header randomly switching between your contact's name and phone number were fixed. An option was added to allow the user to select whether to use the light or dark theme or the system preference. Libertine, the legacy application manager, now allows you to search for packages in the archive and select one to install from a list." Further changes can be found in the project's blog post.
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A meta-package is a special kind of package that does not contain files. Instead it contains dependency information which is typically used to let the package manager know we wish to install multiple packages. For instance, many distributions have a KDE or GNOME meta-package which downloads the many packages required to assemble the entire desktop environment. The Kali Linux team has reworked some of their meta-packages to be more flexible and hopefully reduce download requirements. "Depending on how you use Kali will determine which meta-package would suit you best. This is the power of meta-packages. For example: If you want a core set of tools, stick with kali-linux-default (designed for assessments that are straightforward). If you want a more general and wider range of tools, select kali-linux-large (useful if Internet access is permitted but slow). If you want to be prepared for anything, go with kali-linux-everything (great if you are going to be doing air-gap/offline work). Note: You can install multiple meta-packages at once and are not limited to just one, so mix and match!" Further details can be found in the distribution's blog post.
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Michael Voight has announced that he is working on a boot environment manager for DragonFly BSD. The command line utility takes snapshots of HAMMER2 filesystems and helps the user set up boot environments. This allows users to rollback to previous versions of the operating system's packages and configuration if something breaks the operating system. "A quick overview is that this is a C implementation of beadm on FreeBSD/Illumos, but specifically for DragonFly BSD and HAMMER2. The utility creates snapshots of every mounted HAMMER2 filesystem using the name given on the command line as an identifier, so for example, if you run 'sudo dfbeadm -c testing', a HAMMER2 filesystem 'nvme0s1d at ROOT' gets a new snapshot called 'nvme0s1d at ROOT:testing'. It'll create a backup copy of your fstab in /etc/fstab.bak before installing the new fstab for the boot environment."
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GhostBSD is a desktop-friendly flavour of the FreeBSD family. Specifically, GhostBSD is based on TrueOS and uses its parent's cutting edge, rolling release base. The GhostBSD project is planning to back away from the cutting edge and use a slower-moving TrueOS repository to gain more stability: "For the last three months, there were some efforts to bring OpenRC to 12-STABLE with TrueOS all thanks to Miwi. Due to this effort, we will follow the STABLE branch instead of CURRENT. This change brings ABI stability and less code change for system updates. The only downside is that all current GhostBSD users will need to reinstall GhostBSD. This change is mostly due because tracking all changes in CURRENT was hard, and the latest NVIDIA driver did not work well with CURRENT. The fast API changes in CURRENT, and GhostBSD not being able to keep up with CURRENT changes, it did bring problems with building our software packages, so the decision was made to go the STABLE ABI route with 12-STABLE branches."
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The FreeBSD team has published a new Quarterly Status Report which details work being done to the operating system and its infrastructure. The project has been working on video driver improvements, enhancements to Linux compatibility, and updating FUSE userland filesystem code. The project is also making it easier to migrate bhyve virtual machines: "The Migration feature uses the Save/Restore feature to migrate a bhyve guest from a FreeBSD host to another FreeBSD host. To migrate a bhyve guest, one needs to start an empty guest on the destination host from a shared guest image using the bhyve tool with the -R option followed by the source host IP and the port to listen to migration request. On the source host, the migration is started by executing the bhyvectl command with the --migrate or --migrate-live option, followed by the destination host IP and the port to send to the messages." Additional details can be found in the report.
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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) |
How to check the licenses of kernel modules
Last week we talked about running open source hardware drivers alongside non-free firmware in our Questions and Answers column. We explored some of the practical and philosophical considerations to consider when dealing with open versus closed hardware support. In our comments section one reader raised the important question: "How do I know whether the firmware and drivers are open or closed source?"
It is a significant question because most distributions do not exclude non-free firmware from the default installation, and some may not make it clear as to whether they are using non-free drivers. Fortunately there are tools we can use to check the licenses of the drivers and firmware a Linux system is running.
The problem of finding out which licenses are applied to our drivers and firmware can be broken down into two main parts. First, we need to know which drivers and firmware (called kernel modules) are being used by our operating system. Then we need to check each module to see what license is attached to it.
GNU/Linux distributions make these tasks relatively straight forward. To see which modules are being used on our system we can run the lsmod command. The lsmod (list modules) command shows all of the modules currently in use by the kernel. Each module is listed with its name, the amount of memory it is using and what components are using the module. It looks like this:
$ lsmod
| Module | Size | Used by |
| xfs | 1191936 | 0 |
| jfs | 180224 | 0 |
| fuse | 98304 | 5 |
This tells us which modules are in use, but it does not tell us what license is attached to each module. To see what license is being used, we can run the modinfo (module information) command with the "-l" flag. This tells modinfo to display one module's license. For instance, we can check the license of the XFS driver by running:
$ modinfo -l xfs
GPL
This tells us that the XFS driver is licensed under the GPL (GNU Public License), the same free software license as the Linux kernel. If we check more of the modules loaded on our system we will find almost all of them are licensed under the GPL. If we want even more information, such as the location of the driver on our disk, its author, and a brief description then we can run the modinfo command without any flags:
$ modinfo xfs
At this point you might be looking at the dozens of modules loaded by the kernel (there are 138 on my system at the time of writing) and wondering if there is a way to check all of these modules to see if they are distributed under an open or closed license. There is, with a little help from some command line programs.
We can run a command line that gets a list of modules on our system using lsmod. Then run another command, awk in this case, to clean up the output of lsmod so we can work with the name of each module. Then we can use modinfo to display the path of the each module next to its license. The command looks like this:
for i in $(lsmod | awk '{ if (NR > 1) print $1}' | tr '\n' ' ') ; do echo $(modinfo -n $i ; modinfo -l $i); done
This will print out a long list of module names and licenses. However, it is such a long list that it is tedious to check through it manually and almost all of the modules will be listed as having the GPL as their license. What if we only want to see licenses and modules which are not distributed under the GPL free software license? To do that we can add the grep command and tell it to only show us module entries that do not mention the GPL:
for i in $(lsmod | awk '{ if (NR > 1) print $1}' | tr '\n' ' ') ; do echo $(modinfo -n $i ; modinfo -l $i) | grep -iv GPL; done
On my machine this gives me one module:
/lib/modules/5.2.0-1-amd64/updates/dkms/wl.ko MIXED/Proprietary
I can get more information about the wl module by running:
modinfo wl
Usually it is a bad idea to try to remove a loaded module as it may prevent some parts of the system from working. In particular, some hardware may stop running. However, if you want to see what happens when a module is removed, you can run modprobe, as the administrator user, with the "-r" flag:
modprobe -r wl
This will attempt to remove the wl module from the running kernel. This is risky and it may cause key components such as wireless networking to stop working. Typically we would not remove modules from a running system.
Please note that some modules are open source while not licensed under the GPL. These are rare, but it is possible to find a module that is open source and distributed under the BSD, MIT or CDDL licenses. These are open source licenses, though rarely used in kernel development.
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Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Runtu 18.04.3
Runtu is a Russian desktop Linux distribution based on Ubuntu's LTS (long-term support) releases. It features full support for Russian and a variety of extra applications, tools and media codecs. The project's latest release is an update to its 18.04 branch. An English translation of the project's release announcement (with screenshots) in Russian states: "The 64-bit version of the Runtu Xfce 18.04 distribution is presented, based on the Bionic Beaver 18.04.3 LTS package release base. The release includes improvements backported from Ubuntu 19.04: the Linux kernel version 5.0 and the graphics stack components and the package database has been updated; the distribution kit is built using debootstrap, the base system and the working environment of Xfce 4.12 are installed; the software includes tools for playing audio and video files, the office suite LibreOffice 6.3.0, the graphic editor GIMP 2.10 and the printing subsystem; to work with the Internet, Firefox 68 browser, uGet download manager, Transmission torrent client and Thunderbird email client are preinstalled."
Netrunner 19.08
The Netrunner development team has announced the availability of Netrunner 19.08 (code name "Indigo"), the project's first release based on Debian 10: "The Netrunner team is happy to announce the immediate availability of Netrunner 19.08 Indigo, a 64-bit ISO image. This version is based on Debian 10 'Buster' and comes with a few new and updated software versions: KDE Plasma 5.14.5, KDE Frameworks 5.54, KDE Applications 18.08, Qt 5.11.3, Linux Kernel 4.19.37, Firefox 60.8.1, Thunderbird 60.7.2. Switching from Firefox to Firefox ESR allows our users to enjoy a stable long-term supported version which gets regular security updates provided by the Debian security team. KDE Plasma 5.14.5 provides a stable and advanced desktop environment that you can tweak to your needs. Netrunner 19.08 ships with a brand-new theme called Indigo which features the identically named color as main attraction. The mixture of darker blue and lighter blue together with classic white-like gray creates a pleasent-to-the-eye look that matches the Breeze icon theme perfectly." Continue to the release announcement for more details and screenshots.
Netrunner 19.08 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 1.3MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
EasyOS 2.1
Barry Kauler has announced the release of EasyOS 2.1. EasyOS is an experimental Linux distribution which uses many of the technologies and package formats pioneered by Puppy Linux. The distribution features custom container technology called Easy Containers which can run applications or the entire desktop environment in a container. The new release uses packages build for Debian 10 "Buster". "The 'Buster' series start from version 2.0, and are intended to be where most of the action is, ongoing. Version 2.0 was really a beta-quality build, to allow the testers to report back. The first official release is 2.1. The main feature of Easy Buster is that it is built from Debian 10 Buster DEBs, using WoofQ (a fork of Woof2. Woof-CE is another fork of Woof2, used to build Puppy Linux). The advantage of Buster over Pyro is access to the large Debian package repositories. That is a big plus. On the other hand, DEB packages have many dependencies, and the end result is a release considerably larger than Pyro with similar app selection. For example, the download file of Pyro 1.2 is 418MB, Buster is 504MB -- despite the Buster build having less apps (Pyro has Qt5 and big Qt5-based apps such as Scribus, this is all missing from the Buster build, but can be installed)." Additional 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: 1,572
- Total data uploaded: 27.5TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
EndeavourOS taking over from Antergos
In our Feature Story we discussed two distributions with the latter, EndeavourOS, attempting to fill the role vacated by Antergos. While both projects are based on Arch Linux, they have several differences, particularly with regards to the install process.
What do you think of EndeavourOS? Is it a good replacement for Antergos, or did you prefer the Antergos approach to setting up a custom, pre-configured flavour of Arch? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using open or closed drivers and firmware in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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How is EndeavourOS doing compared to Antergos?
| I think Endeavour is an improvement over Antergos: | 150 (15%) |
| I preferred Antergos over Endeavour: | 57 (6%) |
| I think they are about equal: | 59 (6%) |
| I do not see Endeavour as a replacement for Antergos: | 60 (6%) |
| I have not tried both of these distros: | 702 (68%) |
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
Distributions added to waiting list
- KISS Linux. KISS Linux is an independent Linux distribution with a focus on simplicity and privacy. The distribution currently targets the x86-64 architecture and the English language. KISS Linux is installed by building the system from an archive, using a process similar in style to Gentoo.
- Doge Linux. Dodge Linux is an Ubuntu-based distribution for storing and managing Dogecoin. It is not associated with the Dogecoin project.
- AutoTux. AutoTux is a Debian-based distribution which features the Xfce desktop. AutoTux completely automates the install process, taking over the computer's first drive and setting up packages and accounts.
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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, 2 September 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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1 • Kernel module licenses (by DaveW on 2019-08-26 01:20:36 GMT from United States)
Interesting. I ran your license check on my Linux Mint 18.3 system. There are 88 kernel modules. All have the GPL license.
2 • EndeavourOS taking over from Antergos (by jeffrydada on 2019-08-26 01:33:23 GMT from United States)
Nope, not even close. Check out Reborn OS (in the waiting list) Everything Antergos was plus more. (Apricity DE for one as well as all the other DE options) These guys have a great community and are working to make Arch accesible to all, like Antergos with a little more polish. They are working with the Endeavour Devs to develop an replacement for Cinchi. They are worth checking out, I use this distro and love it. Go get it!
3 • Anarchy Linux vs. EndeavorOS (by David on 2019-08-26 03:15:16 GMT from United States)
If you want a 99.9% pure Arch installer with multiple DE & WM choices, try this one -
https://anarchylinux.org/
I've been running it virtually flawlessly on multiple Intel & one AMD machines for a couple of years now, and I believe it is a superior alternative to the "value-added" Arch-based distros such as Manjaro, Archman, ArcoLinux, etc.
I haven't tested EndeavorOS personally, and though it appears to be a lean, solid and worthy effort, Anarchy Linux offers zero unwanted bloatware and a more expansive universe of personal customization options.
JMHO
4 • EndeavourOS, Calamares and LUKS no luck (by Lupus on 2019-08-26 06:17:08 GMT from Germany)
Is the calamares installer fixed so that fully encrypted Installs boots nowadays? It is a bothersome bug that doesn't seem to get fixed and gets to annoy the hell out of me as calamares seem to be taking over a big chunk of Linux-installs these days.
I believe a well versed Linux Guru can fix the problem after the install easily but the people I try to win over to Linux aren't that tech savvy.
Has anyone seen a fix for this recently cause I stopped looking and went Ubuntu for the NOOBS.
Thx in advance
Lupus
5 • when the Distro installer doesn't work are there options? (by tim on 2019-08-26 08:51:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi, Jess couldn't get the Drauger installer to work, are there any options then? is it possible to use another installer, either install one in a live session or use the installer from another Distro? I know they are generally set up to look for particular files but I remember with Puppy you used to have to search for the files yourself. Been trying to install the x86 Plasma Mobile demos to an old windows tablet but installer just "spins".
6 • EndeavourOS Observations and Kalu Annoyance (by Lawrence H. Bulk on 2019-08-26 13:48:00 GMT from United States)
If Kalu annoys you, as it does me, you can merely go into Settings Manager->Session and Startup->Application Autostart [tab] and uncheck it.
Kalu will still be available on your computer for you to check whenever you desire but its notices will not appear automatically.
I want to mention that, if you plan to install EndeavourOS, when the LiveISO is mounted, it has been my personal experience that you should access GParted and 'wipe' all of the partitions on your computer (which formerly held whatever had been installed previously). You need to start with a clean drive(s) in order for Calamares to install the system properly, with no hangups.
I had used Antergos for several years and was very disappointed when the system was discontinued. But, after having installed and used EndeavourOS on four computers (so far), I find it to be superior to Antergos in that only the programs which I desire are installed. (I have two more computers to go.) There is hardly any bloatware, certainly nothing of major annoyance (other than perhaps Kalu).
I have installed pamac-aur-git as my GUI "program manager" and that too is set to not open automatically on boot. But it's there when I want it (I use it to check for names of available programs which I then install through yay).
The yay command for updating and installing/removing programs is superb and I think that even a "newbie" would be comfortable with it.
Everything and every program that you want can be (and has to be) installed by you, either from the regular Arch repositories or the AUR; this means that probably no two computers running EndeavourOS will be exactly alike.
But once the programs that I desired were installed, I found that everything ran and continues to run smoothly and without flaw. In over one month of usage, I have had absolutely no problems whatsoever.
In addition, the EndeavourOS forum, if not the absolute best, is certainly one of the very best forums I have ever experienced. I have had lots of questions and have gotten intelligible answers to every one or them within a few minutes after asking. So far, I have found everyone on the forum to be friendly, patient, and knowledgeable and more than willing to help. I hope it stays that way.
There are also many helpful articles (such as for setting up printers) on the site.
For anyone interested in an Arch-based operating system, I feel that EndeavourOS is certainly worth a try. I like it!
7 • Antergos/Arch (by Jordan on 2019-08-26 13:58:27 GMT from United States)
I was attracted to Arch a long time ago, but failed at the learning curve (red face). So, I went to Antergos and later Manjaro. Manjaro remained on my main machine for a long time.
Now I'm on Debian after going round and round with so many of its children/siblings/uncles, whatever. Debian itself is the root of all those so I may stick with it as I find it a bit easier to set up and enjoy than I did Arch.
It seems that Antergos just could not stand up to Manjaro and shows some important differences of approach. I'm wondering if EndeavourOS will creep up on Manjaro over time.
8 • @6 • EndeavourOS Observations and Kalu Annoyance (by Lancre on 2019-08-26 14:51:30 GMT from United States)
"I want to mention that, if you plan to install EndeavourOS, when the LiveISO is mounted, it has been my personal experience that you should access GParted and 'wipe' all of the partitions on your computer (which formerly held whatever had been installed previously). You need to start with a clean drive(s) in order for Calamares to install the system properly, with no hangups."
You should NEVER have to clear all partitions to install a second OS, unless you are installing a security-based OS.
9 • Installing Arch Linux the easy way (by OstroL on 2019-08-26 14:55:22 GMT from Poland)
Install Archman from Turkey to get Arch Linux the easy way. http://archman.org/en/
"Although Archman GNU/Linux also has a package repository that has its own customizations and configurations, it uses almost all Arch Linux repositories."
"Using Arch Linux is a privilege, use of Pacman is a privilege."
Try it live, and then install. You can simply turn it to an Arch Linux install without the Archman customisation. But, those Archman customisations are pretty good. And, you still get pure Arch Linux. One can always get pure Arch Linux, when one uses Arch reps and recommended by Arch user repos, and you can add some of yours. Consider the Archman repos as some of yours.
Manjaro, on the other hand has some blocked apps, packages. I have tried both. And, also have installed Arch the Arch way.
10 • Which OS? (by Someguy on 2019-08-26 15:22:31 GMT from United Kingdom)
Arch and its derivatives have always seemed too far from the mainstream for regular guys like me. And, really don't like systemd slowing my speedy PCs. Why is MX top of the pops, then? Lots of reasons including a simple Xfce WM for simple folk like me and an optional systemd which can be omitted. Everything else is good, too, like installation, which seems to be a serious consideration in above review and comments, and updates, which is also discussed today. A delight to use. Although antiX, being of the same stable, is simpler, 32bit, faster and -d free. Archists - no thanks.
11 • ArcoLinux (by OstroL on 2019-08-26 18:07:39 GMT from Poland)
Arcolinux is another easy way to install pure arch Linux. https://arcolinux.info/, https://arcolinux.com/ You can also learn a lot from that person from Belgium. I have the Openbox Arcolinux in my system. An excellent Arch Linux based distro!
12 • Module Licenses, Netrunner (by cykodrone on 2019-08-26 19:02:08 GMT from Canada)
Thanks Jesse, 'lsmod' worked as reg user but had to su (I am a sudo hater, lol) to root for 'modinfo -l'.
# modinfo -l radeon
GPL and additional rights
# modinfo -l edac_mce_amd
GPL
In my (customized) Devuan 2.0.x ASCII Xfce (kernel 4.9.168-1+deb9u5), hardinfo (GUI) reports all 108 kernel modules are GPL or some such variant. :)
Netrunner is a nice and friendly distro, used it way back in the day, but I wish they would stick to one base distro.
13 • License info (by Jesse on 2019-08-26 19:06:21 GMT from Canada)
>> "Thanks Jesse, 'lsmod' worked as reg user but had to su (I am a sudo hater, lol) to root for 'modinfo -l'."
This is interesting. I don't need to use su or sudo to run modinfo on any of my machines. I'm curious if anyone else needed to elevate access to run modinfo when trying out the tutorial? I'm curious if it's distro-specific or a result of a security restriction like SELinux or AppArmor?
14 • #13 & EndeavourOS (by vern on 2019-08-26 20:12:00 GMT from United States)
No, I didn't have to either. 'modinfo -l' worked as normal user.
EndeavourOS, has got my interest. Manjaro XFCE fails on my pc. Wat to try it on EndeavourOS.
Also I enjoyed Antergos. Sad to see them leave.
15 • @6 absolute rubbish (by mandog on 2019-08-26 20:32:57 GMT from Peru)
I want to mention that, if you plan to install EndeavourOS, when the LiveISO is mounted, it has been my personal experience that you should access GParted and 'wipe' all of the partitions on your computer (which formerly held whatever had been installed previously). You need to start with a clean drive(s) in order for Calamares to install the system properly, with no hangups.
No you don't have to wipe the drive, you can wipe the partition its to be installed on, just overwrite the ESP partion not format it if duel booting.
Or you can tell the installer what to do unless you are not converse in what the heck you are doing.
16 • @13 mod command permissions (by cykodrone on 2019-08-26 21:24:47 GMT from Canada)
I usually mess with the users and groups (give my non-root user some extra powers), but did not this time, they are stock/default in Devuan. My PCLOS does not require CL root elevation to run the mod list and info commands.
@15, 6
Most installers will ask what drive/partition to install to, and auto format it for you. Telling people to wipe their machines is, umm, bogus?
Here is a tip for you Debian/Debian based lovers, if you are installing to a 2nd, 3rd, whatever drive (not the first drive in the system), and want a backup boot-loader on that drive, say no to auto installing the boot-loader, choose manual, example: /dev/sdb. Works every time for me, auto install (and using F12 to choose the target drive at boot) always puts me at a black screen and flashing white cursor. I 'update-grub' both boot-loaders after updates that effect either OS kernel. Command line extra(s) for the kernel should be added BEFORE starting the install process (at the first main menu), scroll to desired install method, Tab, add command(s), hit Enter. Having a backup boot-loader can't hurt, poop happens.
17 • @16 cykodrone: (by dragonmouth on 2019-08-26 22:55:16 GMT from United States)
"Telling people to wipe their machines is, umm, bogus?"
Not bogus, unnecessary. However, wiping the partition or even the entire drive does no harm. Just making sure the drive is clean.
18 • @17 mod command permissions (by mandog on 2019-08-27 02:06:57 GMT from Peru)
Most installers will ask what drive/partition to install to, and auto format it for you. Telling people to wipe their machines is, umm, bogus?
Again totally rubbish Every GUI installer will ask you when you choose partition if you want to format the partition or not. if you don't and try to install over another os it will fail due to corruption.
19 • @3 - Anarchy installer (by Hoos on 2019-08-27 04:51:37 GMT from Singapore)
I do like it.
Clear and nicely laid out, colourful ;-) , love all the options.
20 • EndeavourOS vs Anarchy (by vern on 2019-08-27 15:32:56 GMT from United States)
I downloaded EndeavourOS, but wasn't too impressed...
I remember Anarchy in the past as ArchMerge. One thing about Anarchy/ArchMerge is the docs and how it helps you to learn its system. Not another install and dumb out. Learn nothing in the process.
Can't decide, then go here and see for yourself:
https://arcolinux.info/arcolinux-editions/
Enjoy!
21 • Excuse the question, but what's different about Arch? (by man_of_toba on 2019-08-27 16:38:38 GMT from United States)
See a lot on how it's tough to install... so, why?
And why would I go to extra trouble? That you've put in work and now like it doesn't help me unless it's scads better!
22 • #21 Arch (by Arches on 2019-08-27 17:46:38 GMT from United States)
Then I guess Arch is not for you then.
Its one of those ubiquitous questions, if you have to ask how much....
In this case if you have to ask why...
23 • @20 - Anarchy was not Archmerge... (by Hoos on 2019-08-27 18:29:27 GMT from Singapore)
...it was Arch Anywhere
https://www.linux.com/tutorials/arch-anywhere-dead-long-live-anarchy-linux/
Archmerge was Arcolinux's old name.
24 • @21, Why Use Arch? (by Justin on 2019-08-27 19:12:04 GMT from United States)
Arch is very do-it-yourself and thus is good for either really learning something about how Linux systems work or for experienced users that want full control over their machines.
Here are my top reasons for using it:
1. Unless I turn it on (or set it up), Arch won't do it for me. I don't have to worry about the OS doing stuff I don't want because I need to explicitly tell it what to do. For contrast, Debian sets up a lot of stuff that I spend time turning off or don't know about or don't want.
2. Arch does not modify upstream packages. I get what the developer posted. For contrast, other distributions customize a lot of things. While that is nice, it is a double-edged sword. Bugs in Debian are sometimes caused by patches that Debian maintains. Alternately, something like Linux Mint sets up Cinnamon in a way I like, but since I did nothing, I have no idea how to make the same changes to run on a different platform.
3. The ArchWiki is gold once you get over the initial learning curve. In general, my experience with Arch has been all problems have been self-inflicted. When it hasn't worked, it's usually something dumb I was doing. Often there are wiki pages that could have helped me if I had read them (they also exist for specific laptops/desktops as well). I use the ArchWiki over any other resource because it is generally right, generally clear, and applies to most distributions because Arch isn't doing modifications (compare this, for example, to the Debian or Ubuntu wikis that are out of date, or the RedHat wiki that looks designed to get you to pay more support contracts).
4. Arch is rolling release, so there are no re-installs, it's always supported, etc. Once I've done an installation, I'm effectively done; just "pacman -Syu" every so often. It's really simple. Since I get things incrementally, I can adjust over time rather than having large updates every 5 years. Depending on your needs or environment (there's a reason people use Debian, and I use both Arch and Debian for my work), having these incremental updates is quite appealing.
5. The tools are straightforward and KISS once you understand the approach. It's fairly easy to make custom Arch ISOs once you've done it, and there are wiki pages to walk you through it. I've done custom Debian ISOs and find myself slowly automating a workflow that Arch has already provided me. The live ISO and install are similar enough that once you learn one, you can do the other. With other distributions, you're learning several different systems, which doesn't appeal to me.
The Arch site has a page comparing Arch to other distributions to give you an idea of whether you'd want to use it or not. Ironically, because of #4, installers for Arch never gain traction. I guess if you're willing and able to go over that initial bar, it sets you up as ready to maintain your system (btw, Arch has several wiki pages about doing that as well).
I run Arch + Openbox on my lowend netbooks because it's faster than other distributions (maybe it's the KISS principle), I can script a custom installation (you can use answer files in Debian to do some of this, but I like to customize a lot via a reproducible script), and for me it just works. If I need stable/stale/unchanging software, I go with Debian. Everything else is Arch.
For RPis, I do use Raspbian because ArchArm, while great, isn't as RPi customized (low memory, saves sdcard writes). Though, when I wanted to do something truly custom, I went with ArchArm.
25 • @22 and 24 " gold once you get over the initial learning curve" (by Neuromancer on 2019-08-28 15:35:26 GMT from United States)
With all due respect, you guys just proved 21's point by failing to answer: What's the advantage to doing the extra work for Arch? And went a bit beyond.
I don't see any major problem having every may-be-wanted service running as standard. I think that question has been answered as that it's just simplest for everyone in the long run to set up that way. On-demand, inactive services don't slow and shouldn't be a security risk. Experts can as easily write a script to turn them off as on.
26 • The point of Arch (by M.Z. on 2019-08-28 22:38:49 GMT from United States)
From what I've seen of Arch, the main point is that you get a cutting edge rolling distro that does as you tell it as #24 points out. It's always been a bit more technical than you average Linux distro, but then that seems to be part of the point as it can be a good learning experience. The Arch family also appears a bit more cutting edge than Fedora, and it requires less reinstall/system base upgrade work if it's running smoothly. It seems to me that there will always be users that want the latest & greatest from upstream & those that like it with a bit of learning involved, though for those who've done it before & want it faster and easier or new users that want to take a little of the technical edge off an Arch decedent may be a great option.
I may personally prefer Mint + a Flatpak or two for cutting edge software; however, I can certainly see the appeal of Arch family distros for some Linux users.
27 • How is EndeavourOS doing compared to Antergos? (by Kevin on 2019-08-29 15:01:15 GMT from United States)
I haven't run both distributions, or either distribution for that matter. When I'm in the mood to run an Arch based distro, In run Arch.
28 • How is EndeavourOS doing compared to Antergos? (by Gary on 2019-08-29 23:56:29 GMT from United States)
I suppose first is the fact that Antergos is an abandoned project and the developers have stated as much; so we have a very alive project with EndeavourOS and with it a helpful forum with the developers being very present there. EndeavourOS is my favorite Arch-based distro -- and seems to have propelled me past prior urges to distro-hop.
29 • @25 (by Justin on 2019-08-30 14:46:19 GMT from United States)
There is value in the effort spent depending on your circumstances. What is valuable to me may not be valuable to you. I have been able to take a couple jobs now because I put in the effort to learn how systems like Arch work. I enjoyed the process, and now I get paid (a lot more) to use those skills. If you don't enjoy the process or the challenge, then yes, stick with Debian/Ubuntu/Mint/Windows/Mac. I took the question to mean "why do people do this" and for me this is why. Everyone has to have their own reason, and that was mine.
30 • Non-challenging computing (by Jordan on 2019-08-30 23:58:28 GMT from United States)
@29 "...Debian/Ubuntu/Mint/Windows/Mac.."
That's quite a brotherhood of Operating Systems that, presumably, users don't learn anything from. Quite diverse.
Sorry, but I've learned from them all. But yes, Arch might be the next step.
Number of Comments: 30
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| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
KaOS
KaOS is a desktop Linux distribution that features the latest version of the KDE desktop environment, the Calligra office suite, and other popular software applications that use the Qt toolkit. It was inspired by Arch Linux, but the developers build their own packages which are available from in-house repositories. KaOS employs a rolling-release development model and is built exclusively for 64-bit computer systems.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| 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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