 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 840, 11 November 2019 |
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Welcome to this year's 45th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Fedora is a community project that features cutting edge technology and a preview of features that will come to future versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The Fedora team recently published Fedora 31 and we begin this week by sharing a review of the distribution by Joshua Allen Holm. The developers of Fedora are already looking at ways to improve their distribution with Python performance being examined. We have details on the planned changes to Fedora's Python package in our News section. We also celebrate network performance improvements coming to FreeBSD and link to an overview of changes planned for elementary OS 5.1. Then, in our Tips and Tricks column, we talk about keeping track of what users are running on an operating system and how to monitor multi-user systems. Many people no longer share computers at home and we are curious if your home machine is a shared environment or a single-user system. 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: Fedora 31 Workstation
- News: Fedora works to improve Python performance, FreeBSD gets faster networking thanks to Netflix, elementary team plans new greeter and system installer
- Tips and tricks: Monitoring and recording user activity
- Released last week: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1, NethServer 7.7, OpenIndiana 2019.10
- Torrent corner: Archman, batocera, Clonezilla, Container, EasyOS, FreeBSD, FuguIta, KDE neon, NethServer, Obarun, OpenIndiana, OSMC, SmartOS, Star, XigmaNAS
- Opinion poll: How many people use your main home computer?
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (15MB) and MP3 (12MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Joshua Allen Holm) |
Fedora 31 Workstation
Fedora 31, like all recent Fedora releases, has a wide selection installation media available, each focused on some different function or desktop environment. The Fedora website treats the Workstation edition, which is the desktop version featuring the GNOME desktop, and the Server edition as the main downloads. Below Workstation and Server are three emerging Fedora versions: Fedora CoreOS, "an automatically updating, minimal, container-focused operating system"; Fedora Silverblue, "an immutable desktop operating system aimed at good support for container-focused workflows"; and Fedora IoT, which is designed to "[provide] a trusted open source platform as a strong foundation for IoT ecosystems". Tucked down closer to the bottom of the page are the options to download Fedora Spins, which are installation media with different default desktop environments, and Fedora Labs, which provide a preselected set of packages designed around a specific task. For the purposes of this review, I mostly look at Fedora 31 Workstation, but also take a brief look at Fedora Silverblue to see how that project is progressing.
Fedora 31 -- The GNOME desktop
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To begin, I downloaded the 1.8GB Workstation image and the 2.2GB Silverblue image. I copied the Workstation image to a flash drive, rebooted my computer, and started the Fedora Workstation live desktop. Once the live desktop started, I explored a little bit, but quickly started the Anaconda installer to start the installation process.
Installing Fedora
Installing Fedora Workstation is a very straightforward process. For the Workstation variant there are only three tasks that can be performed inside the installer: configure the keyboard layout, set the date and time, and partition the the disk that Fedora will be installed on. Manual partition configuration using Fedora's Anaconda installer is easy, and there is an advanced option for power-users that offers a little more control, but this time I opted to use the automatic option and let Fedora pick its own defaults.
Fedora 31 -- Anaconda installation options
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Using the automatic partitioning option worked out okay. I installed Fedora 31 on a small 64GB eMMC drive, but neither my root nor my home volumes were overly cramped. I will probably manually configure things the next time I install Fedora 31, but the 38GB root volume and 19GB home volume are comfortable to work with. My root volume is currently 25% full with all my must-have software installed, and my home volume is about 10% full with all of my important files.
The other half of the installation experience, creating a new user account, is handled on first boot by GNOME's Initial Setup application. This part of the process makes a new administrator account, which has sudo privileges, lets the user set up various on-line accounts, and configure a few other options.
Overall, there is not much choice presented to the user during Fedora Workstation's installation process, which may, or may not, be an issue. I find Fedora Workstation's options to be close enough to what I like that I only have to install a few extra things post-install, but other users may want an installation process with more options.
GNOME desktop and default applications
The Fedora Workstation desktop is a very standard GNOME 3.34 desktop. Other than a custom desktop wallpaper, there are few, if any, major changes to GNOME's default settings. The only GNOME extension that is enabled is one that displays "Fedora" on top of the bottom right corner of the desktop wallpaper. For some people, including myself, that is great. I love GNOME's defaults and usually only change a handful of settings, but other users might feel very differently. If that is the case, maybe one of Fedora Spins is a better option as they provide other desktop environments and software.
Fedora 31 -- Workstation's default software
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The default selection of software is good and provides tools for most basic tasks. Fedora Workstation comes with Firefox 69 (which was updated to version 70 almost immediately after Fedora 31 was released) and LibreOffice 6.3. The rest of the default applications are the usual collection of GNOME applications and utilities: Boxes, Calendar, Cheese, Clocks, Contacts, Document Scanner, Files , Maps, Photos, Rhythmbox, Software, Text Editor, Videos, Weather, and various utilities. The one thing that is missing is an e-mail client. Recent releases of Fedora Workstation do not come with Evolution preinstalled. In the age of webmail, that might be okay, but I always end up installing it.
Fedora Workstation's GNOME 3.34 brings some nice improvements over earlier releases, but the changes are mostly small, but welcome, quality of life improvements. For example, it is now possible to drag and drop application icons into application folders. When I did this with LibreOffice's various applications, the group was automatically named "Office". However, this feature is not without bugs. While I was testing out this feature, I ended up with double and triple icons for some of the applications I have installed. I had icons labeled gVim and Vim when I only had one icon before, and I ended up with three identical icons for Zotero even though I had not actually done anything to the Zotero icon. Logging out and back in again fixed some of this, but it was still annoying.
Fedora 31 -- Freedoom Flatpak application failing to exit
(full image size: 1.6MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
One other headache I had was with certain Flatpak games. Several games would not cleanly exit and left a slightly faded and distorted image of their final screen stuck overlaying everything else. Full control returned to GNOME Shell, so I could interact with the desktop using the mouse and keyboard shortcuts, but I could not see what I was doing. I would have to terminate my session and log in again to get a usable desktop. At first I thought the issue might be caused by an older Freedesktop Platform, but that turned out to not be the case. Freedoom: Phase 1, Freedoom: Phase 2, and FreeDM were using version 18.08 of the Freedesktop Platform, but they were recently updated to use version 19.08 and still exhibit the same problem. The games exit perfectly fine when I use a non-OpenGL renderer in the game, or if I switch the an X.Org session instead of Wayland, but they will not work correctly using Fedora's default Wayland session and with the default settings for the games.
Fedora 31 -- GNOME Classic session
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One change I really liked in this new version of GNOME was the enhancement made to the GNOME Classic session. This session is using a layout closer to the old GNOME 2 style, and the changes make this new version also behave more like GNOME 2. The Activities overview behavior has been altered to make it not so jarring. The GNOME Classic session is not GNOME 2 revisited, but it is a nice, slightly more traditional desktop experience for users who want that instead of GNOME 3's standard settings.
Installing additional software
Like I noted above, Fedora 31 Workstation has a nice selection of default software, but there is plenty of other software available in Fedora's repositories. Fedora Workstation uses GNOME Software as the graphical tool for installing additional packages. When GNOME Software is run for the first time, it asks the user if they want to enable some third party repositories. This option provides a few proprietary packages, including a small subset of RPM Fusion packages, but does not provide full access to RPM Fusion's repositories. Users who want to enable those repositories need to do so by installing the RPM Fusion release RPMs.
Just like with RPM Fusion packages not being included by default, the Flathub Flatpak repository is also not enabled. Users who want to use it need to install it. Thankfully, that is as easy as heading over to Flathub.org and following the instructions, but it is still an extra step users need to take. There is now a Fedora Flatpak repository, but the selection of software is very, very small, mostly consisting of games and various GNOME applications.
On the command line, Fedora uses DNF to install and update RPM packages. There is not much to say about DNF; it works just like it has on all the recent release of Fedora. However, there does seem to be an issue right now with the "dnf autoremove" command wanting to uninstall the kernel-core package or complaining about being unable to autoremove because kernel-core is a protected package. Flatpak applications can be installed using the flatpak command line program which does keep improving over earlier releases. It is much easier to search for and install packages than in earlier Flatpak versions, especially the version of Flatpak that comes with RHEL 8 and CentOS 8.
Aside from the fact that users need to know about RPM Fusion and Flathub before they install those sources, and Fedora does little to make users aware of those sources, Fedora's software selection is solid. Even without Flathub and RPM Fusion, I found most of the software I needed in Fedora's repositories. I have a short list of software that I cannot get from Fedora's repositories, but I always compile those programs from source anyway to get the latest development versions.
Fedora Silverblue
Fedora Silverblue is a very interesting alternative to Fedora Workstation. They both feature the same GNOME desktop environment, but Silverblue does not use DNF to install and update individual packages. Instead, the base image is a single unit, which can be updated using rpm-ostree on the command line, or by using GNOME Software. Additional packages can be layered on top of the base image, but the concept for Silverblue is to have minimal base image and use Flatpak applications on top of that image. The problem with that is Fedora Silverblue, like Workstation, does not come with Flathub enabled, so the selection of software that shows up in GNOME Software is limited to the applications from the Fedora Flatpak repository, which, like I noted above, is lacking in software. Most of the standard GNOME applications are in the Fedora Flatpak repository, and they will need to be installed from either there or from Flathub, because the default selection of software in Silverblue is very, very minimal. There is no office suite in the Fedora Flatpak repo, so Flathub or layering packages using rpm-ostree is absolutely necessary for having a usable system, if the user needs an office suite.
Fedora 31 -- Silverblue's default software
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Do not get me wrong, once Flathub is added and applications are installed, Silverblue is very nice to work with. Some things like video thumbnails in Files do not work, unless the appropriate packages are layered on top of the base image, but even without doing so, I found the system very usable for my workflow. The Flathub release of GNOME Videos comes with the right codecs to play all my media files without having to install RPM Fusion's packages. However, video playback in the browser was hit or miss as a result of not adding packages to the base system. I was impressed when I installed GNOME Clocks and GNOME Weather, both of which integrated with GNOME's notification/calendar area. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for GNOME Contacts, which could not integrate with the on-line accounts I had configured in GNOME Settings, but other applications could successfully connect to those accounts.
One of the most interesting features in Silverblue is Toolbox, which creates a container for the user to work in that, unlike the base system, is managed by using DNF to install and update packages. This allows the user to install packages like programming languages and other tools without having to layer packages. When inside a Toolbox container, the user can access their entire home directory, so they can work on projects and edit files without having to worry about syncing files between two different environments. Toolbox is also available in the Workstation version, and in other Fedora variants, but it is included by default in Silverblue as part of Silverblue's intended workflow.
Final thoughts
Fedora 31 is another in a long line of recent Fedora releases that are slightly more polished and updated than the previous version. Fedora 31 brings in updated packages and some nice polish, but it is a very boring release for anyone looking to try something different. However, users looking for a combination of mature, polished GNOME desktop should be very happy with what Fedora 31 Workstation offers. There are a few minor issues, but those should be fixed shortly. If you are looking for a distribution that fits nicely between mature and bleeding edge, Fedora 31 Workstation is an excellent choice. If you want to try something very different, Fedora Silverblue is also an excellent choice, but be aware that is does take more effort to get the system to a usable state.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an ASUS VivoBook E406MA laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Pentium Silver N5000 CPU
- Storage: 64GB eMMC
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Networking: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
- Display: Intel UHD Graphics 605
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Visitor supplied rating
Fedora has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.3/10 from 387 review(s).
Have you used Fedora? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Fedora working to improve Python performance, FreeBSD getting faster networking thanks to Netflix, elementary team plans new greeter and system installer
Fedora 31 was published very recently and already the project's developers are looking ahead to improvements they can make in Fedora 32. One of the interesting changes on the horizon is producing a static build of Python 3, which could offer significant performance improvements. Ben Cotton explains: "Python 3 traditionally in Fedora was built with a shared library
libpython3.?.so and the final binary was dynamically linked against that shared library. This change is about creating the static library and linking the final python3 binary against it, as it provides significant performance improvement, up to 27% depending on the workload. The static library will not be shipped. The shared library
will continue to exist in a separate subpackage. In essence, python3 will no longer depend on libpython." Cotton mentions this change has already taken place in Debian and Ubuntu.
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People who use FreeBSD, particularly those who deal with large amounts of network traffic, will be pleased to know Netflix has contributed improvements to FreeBSD's networking code. Drew Gallatin of Netflix presented some of the work his company has put into FreeBSD which is widely used in Netflix's data centres. "Netflix has long been known to be using FreeBSD in their data centers particularly where network performance is concerned. But in wanting to deliver 200Gb/s throughput from individual servers led them to making NUMA optimizations to the FreeBSD network stack. Allocating NUMA local memory for kernel TLS crypto buffers and for backing files sent via sentfile were among their optimizations. Changes to network connection handling and dealing with incoming connections to Nginx were also made. For those just wanting the end result, Netflix's NUMA optimizations to FreeBSD resulted in their Intel Xeon servers going from 105Gb/s to 191Gb/s while the NUMA fabric utilization dropped from 40% to 13%."
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The elementary OS team are hard at work developing version 5.1 of their operating system. Several changes are planned for 5.1, including Flatpak integration with the software centre, as well as side-loading Flatpak packages. A new greeting application is in the works and, sometime in the future, the developers are planning to replace the Ubiquity system installer. "In an effort to get 5.1 out to users more quickly, we’ve decided to bump the new installer to a future release. Too many issues remain with the integration right now, and the existing Ubiquity installer - while perhaps a bit long in the tooth - continues to work as it always has. This means 5.1 will be focused around five key areas: A brand new Greeter and Onboarding experience. Flatpak support with sideload and AppCenter. Major updates around accessibility and System Settings. Iterative improvements across several apps.
The latest hardware enablement and support. Under the hood, 5.1 will also bring an entirely new process for building ISOs that is faster, better documented, and more reproducible." Further details can be found on the distribution's blog.
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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) |
Monitoring and recording user activity
When multiple people use a computer, whether it is a laptop at home or a server at work, it is useful to keep track of what each person is doing. This week we will talk about keeping track of who is running what commands on your system and when.
One set of tools which can help us keep track of these things are the GNU Accounting Utilities (GNU acct). The GNU acct package (often bundled in distribution repositories as simply acct) keeps track of who is logged in, how long a person was logged in, and what commands they were running.
Let's take a look at how the GNU acct tools can be used to keep track of the activity on our systems. First, we need to install the acct package through our distribution's software manager. Once that is done we may need to start the accounting service. Some distributions do this for us, but if yours does not, or you just want to make sure accounting is enabled, you can run:
accton on
The above command turns on the accounting service. Like all commands in this article, it will need to be run as the administrator. So make sure you are logged in as root, or prefix your command with sudo. Should you wish to disable accounting later, you can do this by running the following command:
accton off
Now that accounting is turned on, what can we monitor with it? One thing we can keep track of is which commands have been run recently. We can also see how frequently a command is run along with who ran the program. All of this information is available through the lastcomm program. To see a list of all recently run commands, type:
lastcomm
This shows us how often a command was run, who ran it, and when. We can apply filters to the output to see the commands one specific user is running. For instance, the following command line shows us a list of programs Jesse has been running:
lastcomm --user jesse
Alternatively, we can check to see if a specific program has been run by anybody. Perhaps we want to know who has been deleting files using the rm command. In that case we can get a list by using the following:
lastcomm --command rm
What if we want to see a list of the most commonly used commands by a specific user? We can do that with a combination of the lastcomm program, awk and some creative sorting. The following example shows us which commands Jesse is running most often:
lastcomm --user jesse | awk '{print $1}' | sort -f | uniq -c | sort -frn
In the above example, we print a list of all the commands Jesse has been running using lastcomm. Then we use awk to look at just the command names, none of the other information. The sort command then groups the list of programs in order and uniq counts them. At the end, we use another sort instruction to place the list of commands, and how often they are run, in order from most frequently used to least.
I feel it is worth mentioning that when a program is run using a privilege escalation tool like sudo or doas, the command will appear to have been run as the root user. For instance, if Jesse runs "sudo pacman -Syu", the lastcomm program will show that root ran pacman, not Jesse. If you want to know who invoked sudo to do this, you can search for sudo usage in the lastcomm logs, or read our tips for logging sudo usage.
The GNU accounting suite includes some other useful tools. For instance the sa command will show a list of commands that were run on the system, the amount of time they spent running, and how often they were launched. This may sound a lot like what lastcomm does, but there is an important distinction. The sa command tells us what was run and how much time it spent running, while the lastcomm program tells us who ran the programs and when. Typically sa can be run without any parameters as follows:
sa
The last tool in the GNU accounting suite I want to talk about is ac. The ac program prints statistics about how much time a user spent connected or logged into the system. There are two parameters which are especially useful when using ac. The first is the "-p" flag. This shows us how much time each separate user spent logged in:
ac -p
While the "-d" flag can be used to print a total for login time for each day:
ac -d
Often the two flags are combined to show how much time each user spent on the system each day:
ac -d -p
These tools, along with the sudo logging tips mentioned above, and the ability to place storage quotas on specific users, make it possible to ensure no one is using too many resources or acting in an unfriendly manner on your system.
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Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
FreeBSD 12.1
Glen Barber has announced the release of FreeBSD 12.1. The new version includes BearSSL, the Clang compiler has been updated to version 8.0.1, and OpenSSL has also been updated. The 12.x series of FreeBSD is expected to receive support through to June 2024. The release announcement states: "The FreeBSD Release Engineering team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE. This is the second release of the stable/12 branch. Some of the highlights: BearSSL has been imported to the base system; yhe clang, llvm, lld, lldb, compiler-rt utilities and libc++ have been updated to version 8.0.1; OpenSSL has been updated to version 1.1.1d. The FreeBSD Project dedicates the FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE to the memory of Kurt Lidl. FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE is now available for the amd64, i386, powerpc, powerpc64, powerpcspe, sparc64, armv6, armv7 and aarch64 architectures." Additional information on FreeBSD 12.1 and the changes since 12.0 can be found in the project's release notes. Install and upgrade instructions are also available.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1
Red Hat has announced the availability of the first update to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.x series. The new release, 8.1, introduces a new, predictable update cycle with minor releases every six months. It also provides better SELInux controls for dealing with containers. This release also focuses on providing longer uptime with live kernel patching: "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 adds full support for live kernel patching to help IT operations teams keep pace with a shifting threat landscape without incurring excessive system downtime. Kernel updates can now be applied to remediate Critical or Important Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) while reducing the need for a system reboot, helping to keep critical workloads running more securely. Additional security enhancements include enhanced CVE remediation, kernel-level memory protection and application whitelisting technologies. Container-centric SELinux profiles are included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1, making it possible to create more tailored security policies to control how containerized services access host system resources." The release announcement and in the release notes.
NethServer 7.7
NethServer is a CentOS-based Linux distribution for servers. The product's main feature is a modular design which makes it simple to turn the distribution into a mail server and filter, web server, groupware, firewall, web filter, IPS/IDS or VPN server. The project's latest release is NethServer 7.7 and the new version improves on the integration of Cockpit introduced in 7.6. "Already introduced in version 7.6, Cockpit is now complete and available by default on new installations. It makes the server administration easier providing a modern looking and user-friendly interface. We didn't only redesigned the web interface but also improved usability and added new features. What's new? This release marks a big step forward for communication, collaboration and security, introducing: New interface and stats for VPNs. New interface for firewall panel and dashboard. New interface for fail2ban and Web Proxy. New dashboard for fileserver, stats on shared folders and audit integration. New way to manage multiple backups and restore. New NextCloud panel. Webtop 5.7.3. Mattermost 5.15 and NextCloud 16.0.5. New panel for UPS and NUT. New system reports. New Apache integration and welcome page." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
OpenIndiana 2019.10
OpenIndiana is a continuation of the OpenSolaris operating system. OpenIndiana is part of the Illumos Foundation, and provides a true open-source community alternative to Solaris 11 and Solaris 11 Express, with an open development model and full community participation. The project's latest release, OpenIndiana Hipster 2019.10, migrates some tools from Python 2 to version 3 along with several package updates: "During this development cycle we've worked on updating IPS, migrating remaining OpenIndiana-specific applications to Python 3, rewriting some DDU closed binary blobs. Desktop software and libraries: VirtualBox was updated to 6.0.14. Xorg fonts, tools and libraries were updated. FreeType was updated to 2.10.1. GTK 3 was updated to 3.24.12. LightDM was updated to 1.30. mpg123, x265, and mpack packages were added, x264 was updated. Powerline, the nice status line, was added and integrated with Bash, tmux, and Vim. Supplementary x11-init service was added to create necessary directories with root permissions prior to X11 applications startup." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement and release notes.
XigmaNAS 12.1.0.4
Michael Zoon has announced the release of XigmaNAS 12.1.0.4, the latest stable version of the project's embedded, open-source NAS (Network-Attached Storage) distribution based on FreeBSD. This version upgrades the underlying FreeBSD base system to version 12.1: "We are pleased to announce the release of XigmaNAS version 12.1.0.4.7091 - Ingva. The 12.1 series does replace and upgrade the 12.0.0.4 series which are now unsupported. We suggest to upgrade your 12.0.0.4 servers to 12.1.0.4.7091 or latest 11.3.0.4.xxxx series. Changes for release 12.1.0.4.7091: upgrade FreeBSD to FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE; WebGUI code and framework improvements; update translations; add sesutil, sas2ircu, sas3ircu and Aquantia AQtion (Atlantic) AQC107 Network Driver; upgrade arcconf to 3.02.23600; upgrade PHP to 7.3.11; upgrade VirtualBox to 5.2.34; upgrade sudo to 1.8.29; upgrade Samba to 4.10.10; upgrade pecl-APCu to 5.1.18; upgrade syncthing to 1.3.1. Notes: make a new backup of your system configuration and store this on safe location, the system config.xml could be upgraded; clear your browser's cache to avoid display issues after upgrade when coming from older releases." Here is the complete 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: 1,692
- Total data uploaded: 28.7TB
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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) |
How many people use your main home computer?
In our Tips and Tricks column we talked about accounting tools which can be used to monitor which processes are being run on a computer. These sorts of tools can be useful in multi-user environments, but are rarely helpful on computers with just one user - a common situation in today's world of laptops and smart phones. We would like to know if you have your home computer all to yourself or if you share it with other users?
You can see the results of our previous poll on vertical desktop panels in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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How many people use your home computer?
| One: | 1639 (72%) |
| Two: | 366 (16%) |
| Three to Five: | 201 (9%) |
| Six or more: | 27 (1%) |
| I do not have a home PC: | 59 (3%) |
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 18 November 2019. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Fedora - a distro without a compelling argument to use it (by Andy Prough on 2019-11-11 00:36:15 GMT from United States)
Fedora appears to offer nearly nothing to older machines with fewer resources, as it seems to only offer x64 versions with fairly bloated requirements such as Gnome and Flatpak.
At the same time, it seems to offer almost nothing of interest to a power user with recent modern, expensive hardware.
And web pages and documentation seem to have the oddest mistakes. For example, their download page says "But Wait there's More! Check out our other workstation downloads here..." - and yet, there's absolutely nothing linked to it. I get the feeling that there are more architectures or versions to choose from, but how do you find them? Kind of similar to them not mentioning that you need Flathub to actually make any good use of Flatpak.
I guess that's just the way it is when your distro is nothing but a testing ground for a big multi-billion dollar enterprise offering. RedHat is quickly becoming the new Oracle. Got to wonder how long before Fedora goes the way of Solaris. In the meantime, I'm not sure the Fedora project leaders have a clear vision for what type of user would be compelled to use it instead of a growing number of technically advanced distros that target actual user needs.
2 • No main computer here (by Ed Ktorp on 2019-11-11 00:39:53 GMT from United States)
There is a computer connected to the TV in the living room, but it's not "the main home computer" by any stretch. Multiple people might touch that computer in a single day, but calling it the main computer wouldn't be true to the definition. All systems in this home are essentially single user configurations.
3 • WLAN (by Luxie Tuxie on 2019-11-11 00:34:56 GMT from United States)
I only have user name and password. I hate accumulating electronics junk.
On W-WLAN and with GNU/Linux, username and password are just enough to access the internet from anywhere. By the way FreeBSD networking capabilities is awesome.
4 • home computers (by Tim on 2019-11-11 00:49:52 GMT from United States)
We don't have a main computer persay but several computers scattered in various places around the house. All users can use any of them, and do. They're all currently running Debian Buster except an old iMac G4 that runs Ubuntu Karmic and is our main music player. We have a VM that runs Windows 10 if we need it.
5 • Main Computer (by Zephyr on 2019-11-11 00:51:49 GMT from United States)
Have 5 computers, 2 multi-drive build boxes for office and a Rasp Pi 4, 2 laptops, 1 on the dining table, and other on the coffee table. Honestly, just need 2 but other machines just showed up as fix it and keep it!
Computing is a lot of fun, both learning Linux and dabbling with building computers of various types.
6 • home computer (by wally on 2019-11-11 03:19:08 GMT from United States)
not a straight forward answer -
two main pcs, one main user each, but may be used by others on occasion
three laptops, my own use
7 • Home Computer (by Terry on 2019-11-11 03:39:22 GMT from United States)
Me and my wife each have our own computer and we don't need to share either. We both have Mac mini's and love it. I run multi-platform operating systems to meet all my needs.
8 • Home Computer (by Gary on 2019-11-11 04:52:56 GMT from United States)
My wife has a laptop she uses exclusively. I use several computers at home including one desktop. Usually I use the desktop, but I have a laptop, an older mini, and a tablet depending where, what, and the need.
9 • Home computers (by Ravi on 2019-11-11 05:29:04 GMT from India)
I have 3 PCs all running Debian buster. All used by me and occasionally used by my cat.
1 user(Me)
1 power user(My beasty muscular cat)
10 • Home Computer (by Geoff_the_Chef on 2019-11-11 09:19:29 GMT from United States)
So many. I've one main computer that'll do anything. My principal OS is Mint because it's bulletproof, very easy to use and maintain, but there are three other OSs I could boot into. Dozens of virtual machines and networks on that one too. Every Windows OS from 3.11 to 10, including servers, Linux and BSD desktops, firewalls, servers. That not all, a NAS, two other PCs, three Laptops 17", 13", 10" to hand more in the cupboards. To top it off there's another modo in the post. Why? I guess I'm just a nerd.
11 • @ Joshua Allen Holm - installing on a eMMC (by OstroL on 2019-11-11 09:23:21 GMT from Poland)
"I installed Fedora 31 on a small 64GB eMMC drive."
Joshua, thank you for the review. I would like to know, how to install a Linux distro on an eMMC laptop/tablet, either dual boot or single boot. It'd be nice to have a how-to on it. It'd be nice, if you can write a comment on that, how you did it on your ASUS VivoBook E406MA. Thanks!
12 • F31 on eMMC (by Maarten Hendrickx on 2019-11-11 09:45:36 GMT from Belgium)
I also installed Fedora on a few machines with eMMC. Nothing special, you can just select it when you start the installer.
13 • @12 on eMMC (by OstroL on 2019-11-11 10:13:16 GMT from Poland)
Have you done that on tablets too? Can you tell how you did that?
14 • Fedora (by Pat on 2019-11-11 11:21:30 GMT from United States)
I like the many interesting "spins" and "labs" available from Fedora to look at but I prefer a Debian-based distro for regular usage (at least for now). Keep up the good work!
15 • Main Computer Poll (by Rick on 2019-11-11 12:27:26 GMT from United States)
I can't take the poll because there is no main computer in my home. My wife and I each have our own laptops. I also have a laptop to test various Linux distros. Finally I have a media laptop attached to our main TV. For these reasons I think this week's poll is somewhat useless.
16 • Computer poll (by Friar Tux on 2019-11-11 13:29:08 GMT from Canada)
While I'm exactly in the same boat as @15 (Rick), I'm didn't find the poll useless. It's interesting to see how folks actually use their machines (if they have more than one). The Wife has her own laptop running Mint/Cinnamon. I have two - one is my main work station, also running Mint/Cinnamon; the other is my testing laptop, running whatever OS I happen to be checking out. It appears by these comments that I'm not alone in this 'hobby'. Love it.
17 • Main Computer Poll (by Jeff from Unites States on 2019-11-11 14:20:00 GMT from United States)
@15 There was an option to say no main pc at home. If you don't like the question then don't post anything.
18 • one screen (by Lee on 2019-11-11 14:25:01 GMT from United States)
My 14 yo 26 in LCD TV also serves as my computer monitor. I watch TV and surf the web from my recliner. If I didn't go to the gym my legs would fall off.
19 • Slowing down? (by Ralph Smole on 2019-11-11 05:51:44 GMT from United States)
Every week I look forward to Sunday when new distros are posted in DistroWatch weekly. Seems like every week there's less and less. Is this due to fewer people creating new stuff?
20 • Main Computer (by Bill Donnelly on 2019-11-11 15:29:25 GMT from Canada)
I am running Debian Stretch on a Lenovo M700 mini-computer, which is my main computer. I run openSUSE Leap on my Lenovo T530 laptop. No other users in this household. Debian Buster has difficulty finding my intel 8260 wireless chip on my M700 whereas Stretch works, so I am staying with it, also Buster really has nothing new to offer except for automatic fstrim of my SSD.
21 • Re: 1, Fedora (by The Walrus on 2019-11-11 15:51:04 GMT from France)
Once, sometime between 2006-2008, I gave Fedora a spin and after just a few minutes of of clicking around and looking at things I was confronted with a large pop-up, telling me something like ...
You have just bla bla bla bla.
This incident will be reported!
... needless to say, I've never been back since. Unfortunately, practically all of the well established, great old Linux distros and their gazillions of spin-offs have by now gone down that same road. To me they're all poorly documented, in-transparent, bloated, patronizing corporatised junk that doesn't work in the user's best interest. And while they are still all making a lot of noise about being "open source", you'll find the word "free" much less frequently on their pages.
Thankfully, there are still some distros that seem to resist this trend. So far, Slackware hasn't been afflicted by such maldevelopments and newer projects like Alpine and Void look very promising.
22 • One user (by Dino on 2019-11-11 15:51:55 GMT from Denmark)
My main production machine with Linux Mint 19.2 Cinnamon Ed. is used almost solely by me. The 13 year young Inspiron 6400 with LXLE (soon Void Linux) is also used by me. :) Kids and wide have their own tablets, Airs or laptops.
23 • Fedora Silverblue (by silent on 2019-11-11 15:59:41 GMT from Hungary)
I think that SIlverblue must be a great tool for RHEL business.deployment, but not so interesting for home users.
Now I have the latest Ubuntu and Fedora Mate desktops and frankly there is no difference but the wallpaper. They have the very same new features or bugs (for some strange reason Thunderbird cannot be removed from the indicator applet, network-manager-applet only works with that) The fedup uprade was so incredibly slow and I had some conflicting packages. The only issue with Ubuntu was that my proprietary video driver had to be reinstalled after the upgrade to 19.10. Of course, I use open source video driver with Fedora.
As for Gnome, it is sad to see that many great GS extensions no longer work with the latest version(s), and their developers are stopping the support being tired of fixing the unpredictable compatibility issues instead of adding new features. I have read in the reviews that now GS is faster and more stable. It is true after removing all the deprecated extensions. But then it is no longer my desktop, it is that of GS think tank. So I just take *WM, learn the text config, and I can do whatever I want. Freedom.
24 • Just 1 (very old) desktop PC (by Flavio on 2019-11-11 16:23:01 GMT from Brazil)
Just 1 very old (2008) Bios-MBR desktop PC with 3 HDDs + 1 old USB2 SSD ─ and my dogs cannot reach it.
Dualbooting (multibooting) 10 Linux distros just now, although there are 12 "slots" ─ one of them used to try a 2nd Arch by "the long way".
25 • I thought it odd... (by tom joad on 2019-11-11 16:27:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
I thought it odd that that 10% of the poll admit to having either no home computer or 3 or more users per computer which is like not having a computer in a way. I wonder too if those with no computer at home use their 'smart' phone heavily instead.
As for me, I have four computers with me being the only user. I have my tower, mint/cinn. My laptop, mint/cinn. Two tor relays running mx Linux.
Lastly, I can not imagine the state of mind of folks not having any computer of some sort. Odd.
26 • Red Hat offers free developer subscriptions (by Distrowitch on 2019-11-11 16:57:09 GMT from United States)
Since RHEL 8.1 was just released I thought it might be a good idea to remind people or let folks know that you can have a registered, maintained copy at no charge with a free Red Hat Developer Subscription: https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2016/03/31/no-cost-rhel-developer-subscription-now-available/
27 • How many people use my home computer? (by Niki Kovacs on 2019-11-11 17:13:08 GMT from France)
Guess you'd have to ask the good people working for the NSA.
28 • @1 - Lots more Fedora flavors to pick from (by Scott Dowdle on 2019-11-11 19:29:04 GMT from United States)
Fedora offers a handful of different desktop spins as well as Lab spins for a fairly wide variety of options from lower end hardware, arm, etc. I can't imagine a higher end then their support for IBM z Systems' s390x.
So far as Red Hat being the "new Oracle", I guess you missed the memo from 15 years or so ago... Red Hat was the "new Microsoft". If you are going to completely mis-characterize them without any evidence, I'm glad you broke the mold and went with something new... but why call them Oracle when you could just call them who they are now, IBM. :)
The truth is that Red Hat is changing IBM more than IBM is changing Red Hat. Fedora hit 15 years old not too long ago and I look forward to the 20th anniversary.
29 • Why Fedora is not on my list .... and home computers (by mikef90000 on 2019-11-11 20:03:58 GMT from United States)
Thank you Mr. Holm for reminding me why evaluating Fedora is so frustrating.
IIRC many releases ago the team was looking at including (but probably not enabling) links to RPM Fusion, still waiting ..... No easy access to Flathub and its 'whopping' selection of apps .........
BTW do any of the Fedora community spins include the above repos?
In my household there are multiple computers per person. Besides a daily driver desktop with Linux Mint, I have a backup desktop with Windoze for helping friends, an 'occasionally on' file server, a Raspberry Pi 3 with new uses discovered frequently, a Thinkpad for news browsing / travel and an old Intel Compute Stick (extremely limiting form factor, not recommended).
30 • Home Computers (by Charles Hale on 2019-11-12 00:03:29 GMT from Philippines)
Lets see, there's the bedroom computer, the theater computer in the media room, the NAS and the one I'm writing this comment on, also in the media room. It's really the main computer for me. But then there are the tablets and smart phones. For those who use them, they are the MAIN computer. The smart phones get more use via wifi and boardband then any of the 'computers'.
"Linux for all, not just the few."
31 • Re: "How many people use your home computer?" (by eco2geek on 2019-11-12 00:28:17 GMT from United States)
As the comments suggest, the poll isn't very applicable to this site's readership, because the poll's question implies that a person only has one home computer. However, the readership here isn't likely to have only one home computer. Nor is the readership here likely to run only one OS on their computers.
For example, my wife and I have separate computers and separate laptops. She may or may not be able to log onto my computer, because I have multiple OS's on it, and there's an account for her on some of them but not others.
So I didn't take the poll because none of the options fit my circumstances.
32 • Re: Old Fedora error message (by eco2geek on 2019-11-12 00:49:18 GMT from United States)
@21 -- Off the top of my head, Linux will give you that error message when you try to "su" to a particular user, but that user isn't in the "sudoers" file.
Point being, the operating system was doing what it was supposed to, by implementing its security protocols. It wasn't proof that Linux is (as you wrote) "poorly documented, in-transparent, bloated, patronizing corporatised junk". In fact, it was trying to, as you put it, "work in the user's best interest."
Try googling for more information about that error message. There's tons of documentation available.
33 • Re: you'll find the word "free" much less frequently on their pages (by Charles Hale on 2019-11-12 02:09:19 GMT from Philippines)
@21 -- the word "free" for linux open source distros is somewhat of a miss understood term to many. For a distro to be considered TRULY "free" it must contain ONLY OPEN SOURCE CODE. If a distro contains even one proprietary driver then it should not describe itself as "free". Since many distro DO contain a few proprietary drivers, mainly wifi and/or video drivers, they, rightfully, do not advertise themselves as "free". They're still free to download and free to use, they are just NOT "free" in the open source sense of "free". Got it!!
Linux for all, not just the few!!
34 • Free (by Friar Tux on 2019-11-12 13:35:46 GMT from Canada)
@33 (Charles) The word 'free' means different things to different people. To me, if I can use it, do with it as I wish, share it with whom I wish, and all that at no cost (financially) to me, then it is free in the truest sense of the word. The 'open source' term is there to simply describe the fact that the code, within, is open to all to use. Linux is FREE, whether it uses proprietary drivers/codex or not. Having said all that, I do believe that we should encourage/help Linux developers by making financial donations. We tip waiters/waitresses if they do an exceptional job, don't we?
35 • Fedora's Unique Theme (by Larr on 2019-11-12 14:48:00 GMT from United States)
I miss the uniqueness of Fedora’s gnome 2. Their blue along with the max and min icons were truly beautiful. As I recall, the login sound was also different from other distribution. Please bring these back!
36 • Home computers (by Gordo on 2019-11-12 15:49:25 GMT from Canada)
In our home there are 2 desktop machines and an older Asus Laptop that we take travelling.
One computer runs Windows 10 and the other is a dedicated Linux box running the latest Mint at the moment, although I tend to switch up Distro's when something shiny and new strikes my fancy. (I do tend to return to Mint on a regular basis however)
We consider our home computers to be very welcoming in that they are totally accessible to anyone who visits, whether it's grandchildren, friends or other family. Of course I have backups of anything that's truly important and Quicken is password protected.
This idea of having the computers open and accessible have made for some interesting observations. For one, my wife has become very adept at moving from Windows to Linux and actually uses the two operating systems with equal skill and ease.
My grandchildren (6 and 8 years old) are equally comfortable playing "their" games on either machine and have favorites on both systems. They never have to ask me to get things running either... they handle it all themselves. (Proud grandfather moment)
I can't forsee a time when there won't be desktop computers in our home!!!
37 • Home computers (by Davide on 2019-11-12 16:57:20 GMT from Italy)
Almost no more pc in my house, only two notebook.
But to every tv is connected an android tv box.
38 • Re: you'll find the word "free" much less frequently on their pages (by Charles Hale on 2019-11-12 23:10:12 GMT from Philippines)
@34 (Friar Tux) my ranting is in reference to @21 statement "you'll find the word "free" much less frequently on their pages". According to a gnu.org document sponsored by the Free Software Foundation:
A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms:
1.The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
2.The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
3.The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others.
4.The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Therefore, because a distro contains some proprietary code it does not represent itself as "free" in it's documentation or web page.
Some,like gNewSense, Dragora, BLAG Linux,Musix GNU/Linux and Trisquel, contain NO non-free software and therefore advertise themselves as 'fully free software" or "Libre" software.
We don't hear about these distros very often because without some non-free software drivers, like Broadcom WIFI drivers, they won't work with a lot of hardware, say netbooks and laptops.
I totally agree with supporting those who spend their time to provide us, the masses, with premium distros and apps.
39 • home computers (by GreginNC on 2019-11-13 07:06:51 GMT from United States)
Seven total, two in my bedroom and one in basement that only I use, one gaming computer in each of my sons rooms that only they use, one in my wifes bedroom that only she uses, and one in living room connected to the TV.
40 • Fedora User (by Tourniquette on 2019-11-13 23:49:19 GMT from United States)
I've been a happy Fedora user since Fedora 20, it usually just needs a little setting up. I used to distrohop a lot, used openSUSE, Mint, Sabayon, and Arch just to name a few of my old primaries. I prefer Fedora because it was the first distro I used that had Delta-RPMs to make updates and installs soooo much faster. I also really liked Yum (now dnf), and like that it's one of the more bleeding-edge distros out there. I've toyed around with the idea of switching to an Arch based system again, but for right now I'm happy with 31.
41 • @40 Fedora: Delta-RPMs for small and fast updates and installs (by curious on 2019-11-14 13:33:17 GMT from Germany)
Now, they are doing exactly the opposite by leveraging Flatpaks.
42 • openMandriva Lx (by Luxie Tuxie on 2019-11-14 04:22:14 GMT from United States)
Just tried OpenMandriva with KDE Plasma packed with systemd, wayland, OMA-welcome, Calligra, Krita, LibreOffice, and Firefox which is not too bad. Chrome can be installed very easy.
43 • Fedora 31 - Performance Woes (by Jason the Destroyer on 2019-11-14 18:55:45 GMT from Mexico)
I just installed Fedora 31 Workstation as I read that it does not suffer from the security flaw that Ubuntu has. I was hoping that what I was getting was hopefully slicker than Ubuntu, or at least equal. Alas, dreams have been crushed today. As I was copying back files from an external HDD, i experienced frequent system freezes. WTF! This never happened in Ubuntu 18.04. I checked the scheduler and it was using BFQ. Perhaps that is why but there is no option for CFQ in Fedora. I am so gutted, honestly, especially after having to download about 1GB of "updates" (why the f&ck can't they make point releases with upgrades like Ubuntu). For me this abysmal performance lag is unacceptable. I have also found no solution online. I will now have to dump this turd, and try Manjaro. If anyone from Fedora is reading this, please, get your shit together.
44 • Computers (by Zarg on 2019-11-15 12:09:41 GMT from United States)
Main is an Acer 64x2 with MX 19. Backup is a 32 bit cell inspiring 4700 which has sparky or mx laptop is an Acer 720p chrome book converted to gal!jumps which is the main look stuff up computer. My wife does not know or care about the operating system as long as everything works.
45 • Multiple computers (by Lucky Linux on 2019-11-15 13:30:38 GMT from United States)
Have one in the living room for the TV , and two desktops that my wife and I use for various
things.
46 • @42 security flaw (by Jason the Destroyer on 2019-11-15 18:01:39 GMT from Mexico)
I was reading an article that i regrettably did not bookmark, regarding the differences between Ubuntu and Fedora. In the article there was a section about a long standing security vurnerability in Ubuntu, for the login as it was possible to umask permisisons on $USER $HOME directories in Ubuntu(and Debian), but that this had been patched in Fedora making it more secure.
Number of Comments: 46
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| • Ussye 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
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| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
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| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
Polar Bear Linux
Polar Bear Linux was a source-based GNU/Linux distribution derived from Linux From Scratch. All software packages are provided in the form of source code, which are compiled during installation. This has many advantages, as well as a major drawback in the time it takes to install the system (approximately 9 hours for a base system). Polar Bear Linux uses a simple package manager called Tarball Package Manager (TBPKG).
Status: Discontinued
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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.
|
| 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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