 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 835, 7 October 2019 |
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Welcome to this year's 40th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The freedom open source software provides to developers allows for a great deal of experimentation. Someone is always creating a new tool, a new desktop feature, or a distribution with a special focus. This week we explore a wide variety of programs, open source operating systems, and tools. We begin with three quick looks at young projects on our waiting list: Isotop, Mazon OS, and KduxOS. All three have completely different goals and designs and each is relatively new too, making for a mixed experience. Read on to learn more about these three projects. In our News section we talk about Solus developers updating the distribution's supported desktop environments while OpenMandriva manages to build the Linux kernel with an alternative compiler. We also talk about Linux Mint's new, proactive tools for system maintenance and Arch Linux's new mandatory base package. Then Matt Zand shares examples of the flexible find command in action. The find command locates files on the disk and Zand shows off ten ways to get the most out of this command line utility. Then we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. In our Opinion Poll we ask which Ubuntu flavour you think we should review when Ubuntu 19.10 and its community editions launch later this month. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Isotop, Mazon OS, and KduxOS
- News: Solus updates supported desktops, OpenMandriva compiles kernel with Clang, Linux Mint makes System Reports proactive, Arch Linux introduces new base package
- Tips and tricks: How to find files by multiple criteria in Linux
- Torrent corner: 4MLinux, Arch, AUSTRUMI, GParted, Project Trident, Raspbian, SparkyLinux, Volumio
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 12.1-RC1
- Opinion poll: Which Ubuntu flavour should we review?
- New distributions: OpenStage Linux
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (15MB) and MP3 (11MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
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Isotop, Mazon OS, and KduxOS
This past week I took the opportunity to browse three of the items on the DistroWatch waiting list to see what new and interesting ideas were being presented. I then experimented with the following intriguing projects.
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Isotop 651 - OpenBSD with desktop customisations
The first project I looked at was Isotop. Originally, Isotop began as a derivative of OpenBSD that ran the Xfce desktop and shipped its own installation media. The project's developer e-mailed me to say Isotop no longer spins its own media. Instead, Isotop provides a script which can be run on a vanilla install of OpenBSD (version 6.5 and higher are supported). The idea is that we install OpenBSD and then download and run the Isotop script. The script automates setting up the CWM window manager, CUPS for printing support; enables some command line aliases; installs a music player, the PCManFM file manager, and the doas utility for performing privileged tasks. A complete list of changes the script can make is listed in the project's documentation (available in French and English).
I began my experiment by installing OpenBSD's AMD64 (x86_64) build. I installed the base system, plus graphical packages. Then I downloaded the Isotop script and ran the file. One of the first things the script does is verify its checksum and this checked failed, causing the script to abort. I downloaded the script and its checksum file to another computer and confirmed that while the checksums and contents of the files on both computers were identical, the script was correct: its checksum did not match the ones published for verification purposes.
Usually this indicates a file has been corrupted or altered, but I suspect in this case it simply means the script has been updated while the verification data has not. At any rate, this correctly prevents the script from executing and brought my trial to a premature close.
My impression of Isotop at the moment is that the script does several nice, small configuration steps for the user. At least in theory. The script doesn't do anything really big, but it certainly offers some good time-saving options, according to the documentation. Hopefully the checksum bug is fixed soon as, at the moment, that is a barrier to trying out the customization script.
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Mazon OS 1.4-3 Beta - Linux From Scratch with a banana
The next project on my list was Mazon OS 1.4-3. The distribution, which is currently in Beta development, is based on Linux From Scratch (LFS) and sticks to the Keep It Simple philosophy of system design. The distribution reportedly has a minimal base system, runs SysV init, and uses a custom package manager called BananaPKG.
The distribution's documentation lays out a series of installation instructions which are similar in style to those used by Arch Linux.
The distribution ships a 1.7GB ISO file which boots to a text console. I was able to sign into the root account using the password "root". At this point I ran into a serious problem: the distribution incorrectly mapped my keyboard, meaning the keys I typed did not result in the same characters appearing on the screen. This made it difficult to run some commands, and prohibited the running of several of the commands in the installation guide.
The distribution's manual offers a suggestion for changing the keyboard mapping, but it only works in desktop sessions, and was not useful when working from a text terminal. At first I had thought I could use steps similar to those used by Arch or Debian to change keyboard layouts from the command line, but those standard methods did not work.
I had hoped to try Mazon OS, if for no other reason than I was curious to try the BananaPKG package manager. I like low-level tools that maintain a simple, UNIX-style approach, but this distribution will need to wait for another time.
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KduxOS 0.1.2 Alpha - Arch with an installer
At this point in my week I was, as they say, oh-for-two, and cast about for another project to try. KduxOS caught my eye. The project is still in its very early stages (version 0.1.2 Alpha is the latest release at the time of writing). KduxOS is an Arch-based project available in two editions: Standard and Desktop. The Standard edition provides a minimal, console-only environment while the Desktop edition provides a lightweight graphical interface.
KduxOS is a lightweight Linux distro based on Arch Linux, it aims to provide a better out-of-the-box installation. It comes with terminal based utilities like neovim, tmux, and ranger. There are currently two editions - Desktop and Standard. The Desktop edition comes with a graphical session using Openbox, polybar and jgmenu. The standard edition is a text-based release that gives users the most basic experience with KduxOS.
There are several distributions which try to make it easier to install Arch Linux, but most of them run a full featured desktop environment, such as Xfce. I was curious to see what it would be like to run an Arch-based system that, after installing, would stick to a bare minimum of tools.
I downloaded both editions of Kdux which are built for 64-bit (x86_86) machines exclusively. The ISO files weigh in at 664MB (for the Standard edition) and 1.3GB (for the Desktop edition). I got started with the Desktop edition first.
KduxOS 0.1.2 -- Running the KduxOS Desktop edition in a virtual machine
(full image size: 49kB, resolution: 800x600 pixels)
The Desktop edition boots to a graphical interface and presents us with the Openbox window manager. There are just a few tools installed in the live environment, such as a terminal, Firefox, and text editor. We can access these tools by right-clicking on the desktop. The Openbox interface is pleasantly responsive and the included tools seemed to be working. I then went looking for the system installer, but was unable to find it. I explored the menu and checked the project's website, but did not find any clues for running the installer from the live session.
I switched over to the Standard version of Kdux, which boots to a text console where we can sign into the root account without a password. The Standard edition (like the Desktop edition) uses zsh as the default shell. The text console provides access to some basic GNU/Linux tools, and runs the systemd init software, but otherwise is quite bare and uncluttered.
Once again I ran into the problem of figuring out how to install the distribution. There was no "install" or "installer" file and I didn't find any documentation to explain how to get the operating system onto the disk. After a while I discovered that the message of the day file (/etc/motd) contains one line which tells us to run the command kdux-install-cli to launch the installer. Usually the message of the day is displayed when a user logs in, however the first thing Kdux does when we sign in is clear the text console, thus preventing this tip from being shown. (The Desktop edition does not have the kdux-install-cli program and the Desktop message of the day file is empty.)
Installing
The Kdux installer is a text-based program which begins by showing us the GNU Public License (GPLv3) and asking us to accept it. Then we are asked to provide the name of our "target disk". No hints are given here as to our options so I typed in /dev/sda which was accepted. We are then asked if we want to use UEFI support. At this point the Pacman package manager is used to download packages over the network and install them to our hard drive without any further questions being asked. We are not given a chance to partition the drive, select a filesystem, or confirm we want to proceed. The disk is wiped and assigned one ext4 partition for Kdux. A boot loader is also installed for us without first asking for confirmation. In other words, be careful with Kdux, it may wipe out existing operating systems when you try to install it.
The installer does ask us two more questions. We are asked to type our time zone's name (for instance "America/New York". We are also asked to type our preferred language and country code, for instance "en-US". We need to know these and type them, there is no list or default selection to choose. The total install time was, according to zsh, 12 minutes. When the installer is finished we can reboot to try out the local copy of Kdux.
Early impressions
Kdux boots to a console environment where we can once against sign in as the root user without a password. (Passwords can be set once we login.) The default installation is fairly minimal. The operating system uses just 2.5GB of space and consumes 35MB of memory. The GNU command line tools and manual pages are installed. The systemd init software and an up to date Linux kernel are installed. There is no compiler or development tools.
By default there is no network connection enabled. We can run the dhcpcd command to get a dynamic, wired address. Otherwise we need to manually set up networking. Once we get on-line, the Pacman package manager can be used to install and upgrade packages. Pacman connects to the Arch Linux repositories.
At this point, as far as I could tell, there is virtually no difference between running Arch Linux with the zsh shell and running Kdux. We have the same base packages, the same repositories, the same Arch documentation seems to be relevant. We are given the bare minimum building blocks for a distribution and left to build whatever operating system we want from the pieces.
Hardware support, out of the box is limited. Kdux was unable to detect my laptop's wireless card, preventing me from getting on-line. The distribution ran smoothly in a VirtualBox instance, but was unable to use more than a 800x600 resolution.
I'm not sure I see many benefits to using Kdux instead of plain Arch. The install process is less flexible and at least as cryptic, but once it is up and running, Kdux and Arch appear to be virtually identical. The one perk to using Kdux seems to be the Desktop edition which allows us to test our hardware prior to installing. However, this benefit is somewhat balanced by the apparent lack of installer on the Desktop edition, meaning I had to download the Desktop edition to test Kdux on my hardware and then use the Standard edition to install the distribution. I could have set up Arch in a similar amount of time with one download and without wiping out the contents of my hard drive.
* * * * *
Each of these projects is fairly young and they do not have many resources. Some, particularly Isotop, are working with some interesting ideas, and all of them seem to seek to add value to their parent distributions. However, at this stage they all have issues to work out in key areas before I would recommend trying to use them.
* * * * *
Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a de-branded HP laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: Intel i3 2.5GHz CPU
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 700GB hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Wired network device: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast
- Wireless network device: Realtek RTL8188EE Wireless network card
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Solus updates supported desktops, OpenMandriva compiles kernel with Clang, Linux Mint makes System Reports proactive
The Solus team has announced a series of updates and improvements to each of the distribution's supported desktop environments. In particular, Budgie received several enhancements, gaining improved menu handling, new font options, and the ability to work with multiple modern versions of the GNOME software stack. "Budgie 10.5.1 introduces a few new goodies to make your Budgie experience, as well as those of our Budgie theme authors, even better! Budgie 10.5.1 introduces hinting and anti-aliasing settings in our Fonts section of Budgie Desktop Settings, allowing you even more flexibility with how document, interface, monospace, and window title fonts render. For font hinting, you can choose between a range of options ranging from no font hinting to full font hinting. For anti-aliasing, you can choose between subpixel anti-aliasing, standard grayscale, and no anti-aliasing." Details on these improvements and updates to Solus's other desktops can be found in the project's blog post.
* * * * *
Most Linux distributions use the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) to translate source code into binary programs that our computers can run. However, one distribution has been using the Clang compiler to build packages. Clang is generally well known in the BSD communities for having a more liberal license and clearer diagnostic messages, but it has not been widely adopting in the Linux community. In fact, until recently, Clang was unable to build the Linux kernel because Linux uses many GCC-specific features. This is changing as OpenMandriva can now build the Linux kernel using the latest version of Clang. Since GCC and Clang produce slightly different code and warnings, testing both on the same software package can reveal bugs or potential logic problems which would otherwise go unnoticed when just one compiler is used. Getting the kernel, and other packages, compiled with Clang is likely to result in more robust software for all Linux users.
* * * * *
The Linux Mint team is improving their distribution's System Reports tool. The System Reports utility is a desktop application for browsing system information. Originally, it was used to browse through basic information and crash reports, but now System Reports is taking on a more proactive role: "Going forward it will run in the background and let you know when issues require your attention. This allows us to communicate with you and to help you in a way we couldn't before. Unlike the documentation and the release notes which are generic and targeted at all users, this tool allows us to show information and solutions which are relevant to you specifically, and if we know how to fix them, to provide you with a button you can click to solve things easily. So far the tool checks: If a new version of Linux Mint is available. If your version of Linux Mint is getting close to EOL. If your Timeshift configuration is set up (the Update Manager won't care about this anymore). If there are drivers available. If you are missing language packs. If you are missing multimedia codecs." Further information on System Reports and the upcoming MintBox 3 hardware can be found in the project's monthly newsletter.
* * * * *
The Arch Linux team has published a notice about a change to the distribution which requires manual intervention. The announcement reads: "The base group has been replaced by a meta-package of the same name, we advise users to install this package (pacman -Syu base), as it is effectively mandatory from now on. Users requesting support are expected to be running a system with the base package. Addendum:
Be aware that base as it stands does not currently contain: a kernel; an editor; filesystem tools (e.g. e2fsprogs); and other software that you might expect. You will have to install these separately on new installations."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Tips and Tricks (by Matt Zand) |
How to find files by multiple criteria in Linux
Back in August we explored several ways to locate files on a Linux system. This week we are taking a more detailed approach to locating files on the system using the find command.
Imagine your new project or task at work is to find files that meet multiple criteria, then you wonder how you can achieve it. In this tutorial, I walk you through some hands-on examples to give you a better idea on how to run find commands in Linux for search for files.
As a reminder, beginner knowledge of Linux OS is required to proceed. If you are not familiar with Linux filesystem, here is a good article to learn it in depth.
You can combine many of find's options to find files that match multiple criteria. Here are two examples that show you how to combine multiple criteria.
Example 1: To list files in your home directory whose names begin with the string 'boy', and that are newer than the file '/etc/motd', type:
find ~ -name 'boy*' -newer /etc/motd
This command will search all directories on the system to which you have access; without execute permission for a directory, find will report that permission is denied to search the directory. Also, the '-name' option is case sensitive; use the similar '-iname' option to locate a file by name regardless of case.
Example 2: To compress all the files in your home directory that are 3 megabytes or larger, and that are not already compressed with gzip (having a '.gz' file name extension), type:
find ~ -size +3000000c -regex '.*[^gz]' -exec gzip '{}' ';'
Example 3: To list all files on the system whose names begin with the characters 'boy', type:
find / -name 'boy*'
Example 4: To list all files whose names begin with the four characters 'alex' followed by exactly two more characters, type:
find / -name 'alex??'
Example 5: To list all files whose names begin with the two characters 'up' followed by four or more characters, type:
find / -name 'up????*'
Example 6: To list all files in your home directory that end in '.png', regardless of case sensitivity, type:
find ~ -iname '*.png'
Example 7: To list the files in the '/usr/var' directory that were modified exactly 24 hours ago, type:
find /usr/var -mtime 1
Example 8: To list the files in the '/usr' directory tree that were modified exactly 10 minutes ago, type:
find /usr -mmin 10
Example 9: To find all files in the '~/html/' directory with an '.html' extension, and output lines from these files that contain the string 'book', type:
find ~/html/ -name '*.html' -exec grep book '{}' ';'
In this example, the command "grep book" is executed for each file that find finds, with file being the name of each file in turn.
Example 10: To find files in the '/etc' directory that are newer than the file '/etc/motd', type:
find /etc -newer /etc/motd
Additional information on the find command can be found in its manual page and in the simplified manual page.
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About the author
This tutorial is written by Matt Zand who is the founder of High School Technology Services, DC Web Makers and Coding Bootcamps. He has written extensively on advance topics on web design, mobile App development and blockchain. He is a senior editor at Touchstone Words where he writes and reviews coding and technology articles. He is also senior instructor and developer living in Washington DC. You can follow him on Linkedin.
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Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
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: 1,640
- Total data uploaded: 28.4TB
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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) |
Which Ubuntu flavour should we review?
In a few weeks Canonical will launch Ubuntu 19.10 and it will be accompanied by about half a dozen community editions, featuring various alternative desktops and utilities. Which of the many Ubuntu flavours would you like to see us review when 19.10 becomes available?
You can see the results of our previous poll on reasons for using portable packages in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Which Ubuntu flavour should we review?
| Ubuntu: | 399 (17%) |
| Kubuntu: | 436 (18%) |
| Lubuntu: | 223 (9%) |
| Ubuntu Budgie: | 152 (6%) |
| Ubuntu Kylin: | 33 (1%) |
| Ubuntu MATE: | 411 (17%) |
| Ubuntu Studio: | 179 (8%) |
| Xubuntu: | 548 (23%) |
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
Distributions added to waiting list
- OpenStage Linux. OpenStage Linux is an Arch-based, rolling release distribution. The project features the KDE Plasma desktop and is available in two editions: systemd and OpenRC. The OpenRC build is based on Artix.
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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, 14 October 2019. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
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| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Isotop (by YumaJoe on 2019-10-07 00:47:24 GMT from United States)
"The project's developer e-mailed me to say Isotop no longer spins its own media." I hope they reconsider. Will the old ISO still work if I can find it?
2 • Ubuntu flavor for review (by albinard on 2019-10-07 02:22:04 GMT from United States)
I voted for a review of Lubuntu, because that has recently abandoned GTK in favor of Qt and the result is rather interesting. Lubuntu is still fairly sparse in the way of configuration opportunities, but it is incredibly fast at bringing up LibreOffice pages ready for use, compared to lots of other *buntus.
3 • Have you's considered using preferential voting for polls? (by fusion809 on 2019-10-07 02:59:04 GMT from Australia)
I personally feel about as much in favour of Ubuntu Budgie as Ubuntu and Ubuntu MATE, and would like to assign them preferences in this poll, but can't. Have you considered possibly using preferential voting (or ranked-choice voting/instant-runoff voting/alternative voting as it's called in other countries) to decide the winner in polls? It's where if no option gets over 50% of first preference votes, the least popular option is eliminated and votes cast for it are re-allocated based on next preferences. Then, if still no option has achieved the required >50% of votes required to win, the next least popular option is eliminated and votes reallocated based on next preferences, and so forth. It might require a little clever programming to implement, but still it sounds like a more fair way of deciding the winner.
Honestly, I found this issue the most interesting in a long while. So, great work!
4 • Poll (by David on 2019-10-07 06:10:32 GMT from United States)
Need a "don't care" choice for ubuntu flavor poll.
How about a non-debian distro such as Crux?
5 • Poll (by denk_mal on 2019-10-07 06:16:50 GMT from Germany)
XUbuntu is a good choice if 19.10 uses the 4.14 version of xfce, otherwise it makes no sense to reviewing it.
my 2 ct
6 • Xubuntu (by swen on 2019-10-07 08:15:08 GMT from United States)
@5 yes it does. Xubuntu is a good choice because of XFCE 4.14
@4 you don't need to read a review of ubuntu, if you do not like.
7 • Poll (by burdi01 on 2019-10-07 08:16:20 GMT from Netherlands)
[Quote} if 19.10 uses the 4.14 version of xfce [/Quote]
It does.
:D
8 • Ubuntu Mate (by Roger on 2019-10-07 08:49:41 GMT from Belgium)
When you can I would like to moninate Ubuntu Mate, it's my prefert desktop and my version works very well.
I use Mate on Linux Mint, Ubuntu and other distro's.
9 • Which Ubuntu flavour should Distrowatch review? (by OstroL on 2019-10-07 09:43:31 GMT from Poland)
Distrowatch should review the default Ubuntu right away, before it'd be released as the released one would come with at least 3 major bugs. You can get the latest one at http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/
Some major bugs that Ubuntu might not be able to correct before the release are;
1) Yaru-dark theme not working correctly with all default apps,
2) Nautilus not be able to do copy and paste to print a file’s path,
3) Snaps starting up slowly, because of longer path,
4) Snaps are about 3 times heavier than their corresponding deb packages,
and so on...
10 • Xubuntu (by Tim on 2019-10-07 10:31:56 GMT from United States)
I think no matter your favorite flavor, this one should be Xubuntu because of the new XFCE
11 • Lubuntu (by Alwan Rosyidi on 2019-10-07 11:54:56 GMT from Indonesia)
Lubuntu 19.10 is now using Lxqt. It seems to be more mature for now.
12 • Poll (by Martin on 2019-10-07 12:17:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
@4 May I also add a vote for Crux, it would be good to have an independent distro reviewed please.
The only flavour of Ubuntu that ever use occasionally is Studio.
13 • Xubuntu (by bison on 2019-10-07 13:29:26 GMT from United States)
Another vote for Xubuntu, because of Xfce 4.14.
14 • definetely xubuntu, to know whats new in xfce 4.14 (by ionel on 2019-10-07 13:34:03 GMT from Moldova, Republic of)
xfce had half of decade of changes,
which were migrated to xubuntu 1 by 1,
when they were ready.
but how xfce 4.14 behaves with all new components brough together,
now thats a good question!
15 • Good riddance to 19.04 (by Tim on 2019-10-07 13:51:56 GMT from United States)
I'm generally excited for 19.10 because 19.04 for me was the buggiest Ubuntu ever. I was really surprised because 18.10 was one of the best ever. I switched to Debian Buster to get away from 19.04 and probably will stay with it on my main computers, but I have a number that will need an upgrade and I need to do it fast. So I will give 19.10 a try.
16 • Linux Mint (by Sebastien on 2019-10-07 20:36:39 GMT from France)
"it will run in the background and let you know when issues require your attention."
Hum... Not sure I feel like having this kind of Windows like process running in the background.
I would have prefered a checking action to click and run giving me a one shot report rather than bloating my system. At least I Hope you can disable this and enable it once a while when you need it.
17 • poll (by Ed Ktorp on 2019-10-08 01:51:54 GMT from United States)
Lubuntu because of Lxqt
Xubuntu because of a new Xfce
or completely ignore Ubuntu because it's blasé
18 • 'buntus (by Jordan on 2019-10-08 13:53:55 GMT from United States)
Never loaded any of them except kubuntu once and just lost interest in favor of other projects. Harder to really consider the 'buntus as projects now. Something else, perhaps offshoots re-painted. I don't like what Canonical has been doing over time. Personal preference abounds. :)
19 • the GPL is not a EULA (by Benno on 2019-10-08 15:15:15 GMT from Netherlands)
The Kdux installer asks the user to _accept_ the GPL? But the GPL is not an End-User License Agreement (EULA). You can use GPL'ed software without having to agree to anything. The makers of Kdux seem to be seriously misguided here. Anyhow, whenever a distro asks me to agree to some license (like openSuse when I last tried), I click Cancel and wipe the thing from the disk. Maybe this could be an extra selection criterium for the Search page: distros without any license clickery.
20 • Ubuntu Studio (by Bob on 2019-10-09 01:38:44 GMT from United States)
The last time Distrowatch reviewed Ubuntu Studio was 5 November 2007. (Ubuntu Studio 7.10)
C'mon, give the studio a chance.
21 • KDE or MATE, but, different from previous review. (by Matt on 2019-10-09 08:15:42 GMT from Canada)
With an exception of Ubuntu server, Ubuntu serves KDE, GNOME, MATE, BUDGIE, LXQT, AND XFCE.
I would rather say KDE or MATE (MATE and BUDGIE, both are having GNOME as a backbone). KDE an MATE are highly popular in corporate world.
KDE offers matured applications, and,
MATE offers feature-rich DE.
By the way, I already voted for MATE.
22 • Ubuntu flavours (by silent on 2019-10-09 10:55:37 GMT from Hungary)
This is a nice poll about the popularity of desktop environments. Although I think that the plain Ubuntu flavour is benefiting from the shortest name. It is not a surprise that XFCE and Mate are the most popular desktop environments, closely followed by KDE Plasma 5. Based on the results, Xubuntu should be the new Ubuntu, and Ubuntu Gnome could be the new name for the Gnome Shell version. On the other hand Mate is still the closest to the good old Ubuntu feeling, so I prefer that one. But it is just nostalgia.
23 • which *buntu? (by fonz on 2019-10-09 16:11:10 GMT from Indonesia)
another vote for xubuntu for xfce 4.14,
would be awesome if *buntu went with the same naming convention as the older gen. imagine mubuntu, bubuntu, subuntu, kyubuntu...
24 • Oh, what version to review.... (by tom joad on 2019-10-09 16:23:51 GMT from Netherlands)
I have been following the poll changes over the last few days. Today it looks as if they results have settled down to some favorites.
But I took a look at the poll results. Then I looked at the 'hits per day' list. And I looked at the reviews of each version. Then I compared what I had found.
After all that I found that folks like Xubuntu a lot followed pretty close by the Mate version. The rest lag, some pretty badly. I reflected on what I had learned.
I came to the conclusion that do we want Jesse to review what is hot and good or another version that could use some improvement, some shine?
I voted for the Studio version for that reason. I would like to see Cinelerra added to that version too.
25 • Ben & Jerry's (by Tech in San Diego on 2019-10-09 17:20:44 GMT from United States)
Too many buntu's in my opinion. Canonical could reduce the number of versions to 3. For me it's Arch or BSD.
26 • "Too many *buntu versions..." (by Friar Tux on 2019-10-09 21:51:29 GMT from Canada)
#25 (Tech) I disagree. Actually, the very fact that Debian has tons of derivatives, of which, the *buntu family is one. The *buntu family also has tons of derivatives, of which the one I favour (Mint) is a part. That, to me, says a lot. I see it as a good thing (Mint), of a good thing (Ubuntu), of a good thing (Debian). So far, I have not be proven wrong. I would encourage all teams involved to keep up the great work.
27 • Too many... (by Marcos Pereira de Sousa on 2019-10-10 03:57:46 GMT from Brazil)
I agree, it's more choice on the scene. But I miss Mint's LMDE2 for this same reason...
28 • Review different ubuntu distro (by Jeff TIncher on 2019-10-10 11:48:56 GMT from United States)
You did UbuntuMATE the last time you had the survey. Why not do another distro?
29 • #26 by Friar Tux (by Lancre on 2019-10-10 12:53:06 GMT from United States)
SolydXK is developed by a former developer of LMDE, so you can try there.
30 • Individual Software Reviews (by fpr on 2019-10-10 16:25:31 GMT from United States)
A suggestion for the weekly articles: please do an individual review of individual software - such as VLC, GPicView, Xfce, etcetera. I would've definitely liked Distrowatch to review Xfce 4.14 since the Desktop Manager (DM) is solelyused by so many mainstream distros like Xubuntu, MX Linux, and many more.
31 • Buster (by Tim on 2019-10-10 20:30:06 GMT from United States)
@26
I feel like it's a strange moment in the Debian family. For me at least, Buster has been rock solid and making it ready to go very straightforward. After my previous post I went and tried to upgrade my troubled 19.04 install to the 19.10 beta (Ubuntu MATE) and grub wouldn't install.
I used to recommend Ubuntu and Mint as an easy way to get a nice Debian based system up and running. But right now Debian itself seems to have fewer rough edges
32 • No Shortage of Deamons (by M.Z. on 2019-10-10 22:44:10 GMT from United States)
@16
That seems kinda silly to me, unless you have any good reason to suspect that Mint will be making it's newest deamon any bigger or more obtrusive than the plethora of other deamons/services already running in your typical desktop distro. The top command gives me about 230 different processes running in LMDE, so why is 1 more going to be an issue? I for one could care less about an extra deamon or two luring around in the background, so long as the distro makers ask themselves about the overall picture on occasion & make sure to avoid useless bloat. I have multiple CPU cores & multiple GB of RAM, so 1 more process seems useless to worry about in the big picture & it's certainly true for Mint which seems to keep responsiveness in mind while developing their various editions.
33 • Ask Google if 1 more daemon may lure around their farms (by Marcos Pereira de Sousa on 2019-10-11 04:36:27 GMT from Brazil)
Escuse me but the multiplicity of hardware is irrelevant. If I don't have a printer or scanner why start daemons to print & scan? Augmenting the surface exposed to a possible attack, without any benefit, is a no go. Even in a typical desktop.
I completely agree whith @16 Sebastien. Extra capacity is always wellcome.
Thanks for the greater choice MX.
34 • @31 Woes of Ubuntu (by kaczor on 2019-10-11 08:43:32 GMT from Greece)
"After my previous post I went and tried to upgrade my troubled 19.04 install to the 19.10 beta (Ubuntu MATE) and grub wouldn't install."
This had become a standard woe of "new" Ubuntu - grub won't install.
There's also woes of "mock extensions" slow starting snap apps and also Gnome 3.34 getting stuck, if you try to uninstall those "mock extensions."
Maybe there should be a disclaimer about the slow starting times of default snap apps, just like the system extensions are called mock extensions -https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1300/ubuntu-dock/ - to inform the users about the availability of equivalent deb packages.
35 • Arch Base Package (by Justin on 2019-10-11 14:45:03 GMT from United States)
This is a welcome change for me! I have an automated installation script to rebuild a netbook in case of disaster or to stand up a new machine. I did the latter yesterday and was a little surprised to see several packages I normally uninstall weren't there. I read the rationale here and love it: https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2019-January/029435.html. I'm glad someone decided that s-nail, ed, etc., aren't actually dependencies of an Arch system and then dealt with the other issues outlined in the post.
These are the types of improvements I like to see. I appreciate the help streamlining my system while making it useful for technologies like containers. I wish Docker were packaged for Linux by distributions and more widespread for daily use (I still use Virtualbox, which meets my needs most of the time).
36 • OpenMandriva clang kernels (by John on 2019-10-11 18:10:06 GMT from Switzerland)
Amazing how a small distro like OpenMandriva keeps innovating more than distributions with thousands of developers! Keep going!
Number of Comments: 36
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| • Issue 1169 (2026-04-20): Lakka 6.1, free software and source-based distributions, FreeBSD Foundation publishes compatible laptop list, Debian holds Project Leader election, Haiku progresses ARM64 port, Mint to extend development cycle, Linux 7.0 released |
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| • 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 |
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| • 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 |
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