 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 845, 16 December 2019 |
Welcome to this year's 50th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Linux has evolved from its UNIX roots into a modern and highly versatile operating system that can be used efficiently on a desktop computer, but how about other operating systems that traditionally dominated the server rooms? There have been some efforts to make BSDs usable on the desktop too (arguably with limited success) and even the Solaris world has seen a tentative push to get a user-friendly graphical desktop onto our computers. Probably the best-known product that emerged from the demise of Sun Microsystem's open-source OpenSolaris project is OpenIndiana. Robert Rijkhoff has taken a long hard look at the latest release, version 2019.10, in our featured review. Are there any good reasons to use it over Linux or BSDs on our desktops? Read on to find out. In the news section, BunsenLabs releases the first preview of the project's upcoming release based on Debian 10, the MX Linux project goes lightweight with the introduction of an integrated MX-Fluxbox overlay, and the developers of the privacy-oriented Tails distribution celebrate their 10-year anniversary. Don't miss our Questions and Answers section which deals with installing local packages and running Flatpak text editing applications as root. Today's poll question asks about your boot preference when testing or installing a new distribution on a standard desktop computer. And speaking about desktop BSDs, there is a new kid in town and its name is FuryBSD, available in both Xfce and KDE Plasma edition. Do give it a try and let us know what you think. Happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (16MB) and MP3 (12MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Robert Rijkhoff) |
OpenIndiana 2019.10 Hipster
OpenIndiana is an operating system with an interesting history. The project is the continuation of OpenSolaris, which was the open source version of Sun Microsystems' Solaris operating system. OpenSolaris was killed in 2010 after Oracle bought Sun, and OpenIndiana's raison d'être is "to ensure the continued availability of an openly developed distribution based on OpenSolaris."
As the mission statement suggests, OpenIndiana mainly conserves technologies such as DTrace and Time Slider. Software is kept up to date at a modest pace but other than that nothing much changes from one version to the next. That is not to say that OpenIndiana is on life-support. Two items in the release notes for OpenIndiana Hipster 2019.10 that caught my eye were "native and metadata encryption" for ZFS and an option to disable hyper-treading.
Live environment and hardware compatibility
OpenIndiana boots to a live environment and the desktop is a fairly standard MATE 1.22 implementation. A nice touch is that OpenIndiana automatically checks if there are any driver issues. On my laptop - a Lenovo Ideapad Z570 - there was one issue: OpenIndiana lacks support for the Intel C200 chipset. As I am not a hardware person, this didn't mean much to me. I did read up on chipsets but it's a topic that makes me very sleepy very quickly. My strategy for avoiding having to deal with hardware issues is to buy computers that are unlikely to cause any issues, which is an approach that has served me very well for the last decade or so.
OpenIndiana 2019.10 -- The Device Driver Utility
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In any case, the only issues I noticed in the live environment were that I wasn't able to connect to wireless networks and that my laptop's trackpad didn't grasp two-finger scrolling. Both issues were not major show-stoppers as laptops mostly sit on my desk with an Ethernet cable and a wired mouse plugged in.
Before diving in head-first I did check if OpenIndiana would run better on my Thinkpad X220. The answer to that question is a resounding 'no'. As OpenIndiana's wiki suggests I had to select the Vesa graphics driver from the boot menu to get the display to work. The system nevertheless appeared to freeze early in the boot process; I got lots of white horizontal lines on the display, and nothing was happening. It was only by chance that I discovered that the horizontal lines were in fact lines of text - they were so tiny that they looked like perfectly straight lines - and hitting the Enter key a few times brought up the live environment. The problem with connecting to wireless networks was still present, as was the issue with the trackpad. In addition, the screen resolution was set to 1024x768 (on the X220 that should be 1366x768) and the volume keys weren't working either.
I next checked if I could install OpenIndiana in GNOME Boxes. That didn't work at all; within seconds Boxes cancelled the install and removed the virtual system. In short, my Ideapad laptop seemed to be best test environment.
OpenIndiana's installer is easy to use but a little limited. In particular, there is no option to encrypt the hard drive. This surprised me, as the release notes mention "native and metadata encryption". I also found the installer to be slow. The first time I launched the installer it became unresponsive, even though the system was using hardly any resources. I got lucky the second time. The installer started exhibiting more and more conceptual art on my display - mostly randomly organised horizontal bars - but it did get over the finishing line. The installation took about 40 minutes.
OpenIndiana 2019.10 -- The installer copying files while exhibiting modern art
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First impressions / struggles
Booting OpenIndiana is a little scary. Once I get past the boot menu my laptop makes quite a loud bang. It is as if there is a little man in my laptop that hits a switch with a hammer to force the laptop to boot the system (remember, I am not a hardware person - in my mind this is how hardware works). The screen will then display the text "console login:" for about 15 seconds, which is long enough to encourage you to enter your user name. After the 15 seconds have lapsed OpenIndiana displays the most amazing 1970s psychedelic art - a screen with hundreds of blocks using different colours and patterns, and the screen then goes blank for about 30 seconds. After that it finally presents me with the login screen. The whole process takes just under two minutes, which is more than twice as long it takes the likes of Fedora to boot on the same laptop - and that includes the time it takes to decrypt the hard drive. I guess the long boot time is a downside of using the ZFS filesystem.
I've also got a gripe with the login screen. In the installer I had selected British English as the locale. That setting is respected by MATE but not by the LightDM login manager: it defaults to American English. That is a problem if your user password contains one or more characters that are mapped differently on an American English keyboard. There is a drop-down menu in the login screen's panel from which you can select an alternative keyboard layout. The list is pulled from the "language" and "options" sections in the /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base.lst file, which is sorted in no particular order. I found English UK towards the bottom of the list, below Ukrainian, but above Irish and Esperanto.
After this minor login drama I was finally ready to start exploring OpenIndiana. I quickly noticed that there are many small differences between OpenIndiana and modern Linux distros. To mention just a few, my home directory was /export/home/rijkhoff and the Music, Pictures and Videos directories live inside the Documents directory. My user ID was 101 and there wasn't a group named after me; instead I was a member of the staff group. There are also no aliases, so by default the output of ls doesn't use pretty colours for files and directories. None of this is a problem, but it illustrates OpenIndiana is quite old-school.
OpenIndiana 2019.10 -- My home directory in the Caja file manager and the MATE terminal
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Wifi and VPN troubles
Now that I had overcome some small hurdles I was ready for a bigger challenge: getting wifi to work. Right-clicking on the network icon in the system tray would display a list with available networks, but there was no way to connect to them. Left-clicking on the icon launched the network manager (NWAM), which needs to be run as root. I couldn't discover anything in NWAM that would help resolve the wifi issue.
It must have been about ten years since I encountered wifi issues on Linux. At the time Ubuntu still had brown title bars and Debian had the SpaceFun wallpaper, with drawings of cartoony rockets flying through space. I was new to Linux at the time, and these wifi issues were frustrating - so much so that I swore to always buy Linux-compatible hardware.
Back then I wasn't facing wifi issues all by myself though: there were lots of other people who had to deal with wifi troubles, and there was plenty of helpful documentation on the interwebs. In a way this helped me master Linux - I had to use the command line to figure out what drivers were being used, edit files using vi and install whatever needed to be installed, and at the end there was always a feeling of satisfaction.
Mastering OpenIndiana is a little like that, but there are two exceptions: the user base appears to be rather small and most documentation is about a decade old - if it exists at all. There is a new Hipster Handbook (also mentioned in the release notes) but at the moment it is basically a wish list of topics that should be covered in the book. I did find a link in the documentation to an OpenSolaris page that has been captured by the Wayback Machine. The article is from January 2008 but it was still relevant. A bit more digging also lead me to a How to connect to a wifi network article in the Oracle Solaris documentation, which was more useful.
I was able to get wifi to work but the connection was a bit flaky. At times it worked fine for about an hour or so, but then it would suddenly disconnect and reconnect every couple of minutes. At other times NWAM showed that I was connected to my wireless network but unable to use the Internet - the output of "dladm scan-wifi" suggested my wifi was working but the output of ping showed that it wasn't. Restarting NWAM (using "svcadm restart nwam") usually did the trick.
OpenIndiana 2019.10 -- Troubleshooting wifi issues
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Speaking of NWAM, I also wasn't able to connect to a VPN. I didn't see any VPN-related options in the graphical interface and connecting via OpenVPN on the command line completely killed my Internet connection. I did find an article in which someone describes how to get OpenVPN to work on Solaris, and I suspect I might have been able to solve the issue eventually.
Applications and package management
OpenIndiana ships with a fairly small number of applications. Apart from the standard MATE applications you get Firefox (the extended support release) and Thunderbird (the 32-bit version). There are a few unusual applications as well, such as the Brasero CD and DVD burner and a very old version of the Sound Juicer CD ripper (version 2.32.0, released in September 2010). The most exotic application is a five year old version of Glade, a user interface designer for GTK and GNOME.
Notably absent from the collection of pre-installed applications is anything to do with audio and video. The handbook also has very little to say on multimedia. There is a note from the Doc Team that states that it would be nice to have content that explains how to get OpenIndiana to play a DVD and information on how to get the Flash player, VLC and Totem installed and working. The mention of Flash suggests that these articles have been on the wish list for quite some time - I'd wager Flash will die before the documentation is written.
I was able to install VLC after enabling the hipster-encumbered repo. I also found instructions for installing LibreOffice 5.2 via the localhostoih repository and after two failed attempts (including some error 500s that popped up while the packages were being downloaded) I was able to install the office suite. It is worth mentioning that the only office application in the default repository is Gnumeric - other common applications such as Abiword are not available.
OpenIndiana 2019.10 -- VLC, the MATE Calculator and LibreOffice Writer
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I could install most of the applications I use regularly, including GIMP (version 2.8.22), Inkscape (0.92) and Hexchat. The FileZilla FTP client is in the localhostoih repo but couldn't be installed because the dependencies couldn't be resolved: it required the obsolete gnome/base-libs@2.30.0 library. Other popular applications, such as Chromium and Scribus, are not to be found in any of the repositories, and the same is true for command line utilities such as pass (a password manager), moc (a very nice music player) and youtube-dl (a utility to download content from YouTube).
To be fair, OpenIndiana is primarily a server operating system. The experience on the desktop is rather minimal and it almost goes without saying that the system won't notify you of available software updates and that there is no graphical package manager. OpenIndiana uses the Image Packaging System (IPS), which in turn uses the pkg utility as the client. The package manager's syntax is straight forward: you can install a package with "pkg install <package>" and remove it again with "pkg uninstall <package>". For adding repositories, such as the hipster-encumbered repo, you can use the set-publisher option.
OpenIndiana 2019.10 -- Updating packages
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There were quite a few updates during my trial. The package manager felt somewhat slow, but I don't really mind that when it comes to package managers. They can take as much time as they like, as long as they don't break the system.
Snapshots
One of OpenIndiana's main features is that the system takes filesystem snapshots. The Time Slider, which is a graphical utility that lets you configure how snapshots are taken, isn't enabled by default, but once it is enabled the system will take regular snapshots of selected ZFS filesystems. You can then boot into an old snapshot from the boot menu, which works like magic. As a test I booted into the oldest available snapshot, and everything was back to how the system was at that point. Files I had added since the snapshot was taken weren't there, nor were applications I had installed.
OpenIndiana 2019.10 -- The snapshot dated 19 November - LibreOffice was not yet installed on that date
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Even better, the Time Slider is also integrated in the Caja file manager. When you click on the Time Slider icon in Caja you see all available snapshots for that directory, and when you select a snapshot you see exactly what the contents of a directory looked like at the time. It is a marvellous feature.
OpenIndiana 2019.10 -- Viewing a snapshot of the Pictures directory
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Hipster usage
According to Wikipedia, hipsters are people who typically work in the media or digital industry and own single gear bicycles, preferably with coaster brakes. Male hipsters often have a moustache and/or beard, and they are into things like specialty coffees and veganism. By that definition I am probably a hipster. If I could use OpenIndiana for my work I would most definitely qualify.
Sadly, I didn't manage to get much work done on OpenIndiana. Some things worked as expected. For instance, I could simply copy-paste my SSH keys and connect to my CentOS VPS. Similarly, using git was as easy as it is on Linux - I could clone my repositories using SSH and get to work straight away.
I could not connect to Windows servers, which unfortunately is something I need to do for my job. The only available utility for RDP appears to be rdesktop, which is the one tool I have never had much luck with. I also didn't manage to set up a local web development environment. I first tried to install Apache, PHP and MySQL separately and later tried installing the lot via "pkg install group/feature/amp". Apache was set up a little differently than I'm used to and the mysql_secure_installation utility that I typically run after installing MySQL/MariaDB wasn't available, but I could deal with those issues. However, I could not get PHP to work. A test file containing just the phpinfo() function returned a blank page and I could not get any errors printed to either a log file or the screen. Running the PHP script from the command line worked fine but it just would not work in the browser.
OpenIndiana 2019.10 -- Trying to get PHP to report errors
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While trying to debug the issue I again ended up reading very old documentation. Tellingly, the Wayback Machine is one of the more useful resources for OpenIndiana (another useful source is the Solaris documentation). I somehow came across an archived wiki page about installing AMP stacks. The reason I am linking to the page is because it was at this point that I decided to give up on OpenIndiana. I really hate it when people respond to fair questions with stuff like "Luckily this is super easy to install on OpenIndiana."
It wasn't just that I had to come to terms with not being a hipster after all. I was also running out of time. Much as I like problem solving, OpenIndiana proved to be quite a challenge. So much so that my wife had to send me to the allotment in order for me to reconnect with the real world. The remaining items on my to-do list - mainly exploring pfexec (role-based access controls) and zones (operating system-level virtualisation) had to be dropped.
Conclusions
For me, the conclusion after battling with OpenIndiana for a few weeks is quite simple: the operating system's aim is to "ensure the continued availability of an openly developed distribution based on OpenSolaris" and it clearly achieves that goal. However, it does very little beyond that modest aim, and the lack of documentation makes it difficult to use OpenIndiana for people unfamiliar with OpenSolaris and/or Solaris.
My advice for Linux users like me is to take plenty of time to get familiar with the operating system. At times I found using OpenIndiana hugely frustrating but that was largely because things weren't working as I expected. I am fairly confident that I would have solved most of the issues I encountered if I had spent more time with OpenIndiana. Some issues may be show-stoppers, including OpenIndiana's struggle with connecting to wireless networks and the limited amount of applications that are available. Many of these issues can be solved though.
One of the main struggles I faced was finding documentation. The best place to look for information appears to be Oracle's Solaris documentation. Unfortunately, OpenIndiana's Hipster Handbook is not much use. It is mostly populated with content placeholders and the section on web servers counts exactly two words: "Apache" and "nginx". Even new features, such as the "native and metadata encryption" for ZFS and an option to disable hyper-treading are not mentioned in the handbook.
At times OpenIndiana felt like an operating system that belongs in a museum. The set-up is quite old-school, the theme looks very dated and everything felt sluggish; the system is slow to boot and launching applications always took just a little too long for my liking. OpenIndiana's stand-out features are also nothing new - they are what made OpenSolaris a powerful operating system a decade years ago. Yet, in the Linux world there aren't many distros - if any - that have something like the Time Slider. openSUSE comes close but, in my humble opinion, OpenIndiana's Time Slider is more advanced and easier to use than OpenSUSE's Snapper.
I am hoping Linux will catch up when it comes to OpenIndiana's ZFS goodness. Ubuntu is working on integrating ZFS, and I for one hope that in time there will be a Time Slider in file managers such as GNOME Files and Dolphin.
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Hardware used for this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo Z570 laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Core i3-2350M, 2.3GHz
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Wireless network adaptor: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285
- Wired network adaptor: Realtek RTL8101/2/6E 05
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Visitor supplied rating
OpenIndiana has a visitor supplied average rating of: 4.1/10 from 14 review(s).
Have you used OpenIndiana? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
BunsenLabs releases preview of "Lithium", MX Linux introduces MX-Fluxbox, Tails celebrates 10-year anniversary
 The BunsenLabs project, which produces a lightweight, Debian-based distribution with Openbox as the preferred graphical user interface, has released an early unofficial snapshot of its upcoming stable release. Code-named "Lithium", the new version is based on Debian 10: "We now have an ISO image file available; it will install the current testing version of BunsenLabs 'Lithium'. There are still many details to be ironed out, but the basic system seems to be working. Any feedback and bug reports will be most welcome. This ISO image file is hosted on a Google Drive account, but of course the eventual official release will be available from the BunsenLabs website. This testing ISO image is not yet an official release and it still uses the experimental repository, so it should not be considered ready for general use. A discussion thread has been started here." The ISO image file, named "
lithium-dev-4-amd64.hybrid.iso" (1,209MB) is available from this Google Drive account. See the release announcement for more information and the SHA256 checksum.
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 MX Linux has turned into a very polished distribution over the last few years, mainly due to its user-friendliness and effective integration of the desktop with its configuration tools. But it has never meant to be used as a lightweight desktop - until now. Thanks to a freshly developed and fully integrated Fluxbox overlay for MX Linux, the distribution can be installed and used even on less powerful computers: "MX Linux has made desktop environments and window managers available through the package installer since the beginning of time (well, since 2014). But those are basic vanilla install packages, essentially unaltered for MX Linux use. That pattern changed with the release on December 12, 2019 of MX-Fluxbox, a version of Fluxbox developed specifically as a fully integrated overlay for MX Linux (versions 17 and later). Installation involves two steps. The base installation is enabled through the MX Package Installer, Popular Applications tab, Window Managers entry. Once that installation finishes, the user clicks an entry in the 'MX-flux' menu to initiate the second step - moving a few small files and folders to the user's Home directory once permission has been given. The user then logs out, selects Fluxbox from the session menu in the upper right corner of the login screen, and logs back in." See this blog post for further information and a screenshot of the Fluxbox user interface.
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 Tails, one of the most popular privacy-oriented Linux distributions today, has completed its first decade of existence. Starting out as "amnesia" in 2009, the Debian-based project used a standard GNOME 2 desktop, with the Iceweasel web browser and a built-in Tor button to enable private browsing via the Tor network. Some ten years later, it's a modern, easy-to-use live distribution with persistence, advanced anonymity features and frequent releases to respond to any security issues: "In 2019, we are especially proud of celebrating with you the 10 years of Tails. The first release of Tails, back then amnesia, was announced in 2009. Since then we released 98 versions of Tails, which were used more than 25 million times. Here are some stories about how it all started and some vintage screenshots. But first of all, the birthday cake!" The long blog post gives all the details about the history of the project and also provides information about current work and future plans. Happy birthday, Tails!
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Installing local packages and running Flatpak text editing applications as root
Installing-from-a-local-file asks: I have a weird situation where I'm interacting with a system that is off-line. There is a .deb package I need to install and I've got it transferred to the machine, but now don't know how to install it. Trying to run "apt install package-name.deb" doesn't work so how do I get a local file installed?
DistroWatch answers: The apt command on the Debian family of distributions is designed to primarily work with packages stored in a remote repository. It is very good at finding packages, working out dependencies, and downloading the necessary components to install software. However, if you want to install a package which has already been downloaded you will want to go a level deeper and work with the distribution's lower level package manager. On Debian-based distributions this tool is called dpkg.
To install a new, local .deb package you can run the following command, either as the root user or by prefixing "sudo" to the command:
dpkg -i package-name.deb
The only problem with this approach is if the package you are installing has dependencies, the software may install, but not function. You will need to track down and install the other dependencies using the same process of downloading them on another machine and then transferring the packages over to the off-line computer.
Most distributions have a method which allows the user to install local packages. On Fedora-based operating systems the command is:
dnf localinstall package-name.rpm
You can find out how to install local packages on a wide range of Linux distributions and FreeBSD by visiting our Package Management page.
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Working-with-Flatpak-text-editors asks: How can I edit system configuration files from gEdit that I installed as a Flatpak? On Fedora Silverblue when I run "sudo flatpak run gedit" it doesn't let me edit files under /etc, maybe because of the sandbox? How can I work around this?
DistroWatch answers: I did not have time to look into this, but it seemed to me that running Flatpak applications as root to edit configuration files, especially on Silverblue, would defeat both the intention of Flatpak and Fedora Silverblue. Silverblue tries to be a fixed platform the user can build on top of, rather than modify to fit a situation. And Flatpak tries to isolate applications from the system, so this seemed like a tricky way to approach editing files.
Since Joshua Allen Holm was reviewing Fedora 31 recently, and therefore had access to the latest Flatpak setup on that distribution, I asked him to give editing system files from an editor installed via Flatpak a try and see what happened. This is what he reported:
As to the question about using Flatpak applications to edit files in /etc, it looks like applications only have read-only access to the host system. I ran various editors using "sudo flatpak run [flatpak application] [filename]" and still had read only access. I tried gEdit from both Flathub and the Fedora Flatpak repository, and both behaved the same way: I could read files from the host filesystem, including files in /etc, but they were read-only. It was the same thing with Vim from Flathub. There might be some way to override the default permissions and give read/write access to the host system, so a user with appropriate privileges could edit files in /etc, but I was unable to figure out what that might be in the limited time I spent looking into this. The "flatpak override --filesystem" option seems to the most likely option, but I could not get it to change the host filesystem access privileges from read-only to read-write.
My recommendation is to use the editors available either in the default install, or outside of Silverblue, the editors you can install from the traditional package repositories rather than Flatpak.
If one of our readers has overcome this challenge and has used text editors installed through Flatpak to edit system files, please let us know the steps you took in the comments.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
NomadBSD 1.3
Marcel Kaiser has announced the release of NomadBSD 1.3, a new stable version of the project's FreeBSD-based, desktop-oriented operating system featuring the Openbox window manager: "We are pleased to present the release of NomadBSD 1.3. Changes since 1.2: the base system has been changed to FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE-p1; due to a deadlock problem, FreeBSD's Unionfs has been replaced by Unionfs-fuse; the GPT layout has been changed to MBR - this prevents problems with Lenovo systems that refuse to boot from GPT if 'lenovofix' is not set, and systems that hang on boot if 'lenovofix' is set; support for ZFS installations has been added to the NomadBSD installer; the rc-script for setting up the network interfaces has been fixed and improved; support for setting the country code for the WLAN device has been added; auto configuration for running in VirtualBox has been added; a check for the default display has been added to the graphics configuration scripts - this fixes problems where users with Optimus have their NVIDIA card disabled; NVIDIA driver version 440 has been added...." Continue to the release announcement for more information. NomadBSD 1.3 is available in the form of IMG files for amd64 and i386 architectures as well as Apple computers.
NomadBSD 1.3 - a lightweight operating system with a customised Openbox
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ArcoLinux 19.12.15
Erik Dubois has announced the release of ArcoLinux 19.12.15, a new stable version of the project's Arch-based distribution featuring Xfce as the default desktop. This release brings the latest Calamares installer with several new modules: "Calamares 3.2.16 - beginning of November 2019 Calamares released a new version, we are using this version on our 19.12 release. We have added the possibility to install the NVIDIA driver to the ISO image. If you select the box on the NVIDIA page with an internet connection it will install nvidia, nvidia-settings, nvidia-utils. There is currently no support for the 390x driver. This needs to be installed manually. We had a separate script to build LTS ISO images - this resulted in 64 ISO images. Because of the new module we went from 64 to 35 ISO images. Every ISO image can potentially install an LTS kernel. You will need internet to get it installed. If there is no internet, the LTS kernel will not be installed and installation will finish with the standard Linux kernel." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information and screenshots.
Robolinux 10.6
John Martinson has announced the release of Robolinux 10.6, the latest update of the project's Ubuntu-based distribution with integrated VirtualBox for running non-Linux operating systems. The current release targets the users of Microsoft Windows 7, the support of which will end next month: "Since Windows 7 expires on January 14th, 2020, Robolinux is anticipating a massive number of new Linux users who do not want to upgrade to a newer version of Windows. This is exactly what happened back in April 2014 when XP expired. This time Robolinux will offer screen sharing in order to support these new users who do not want to go through a Linux learning curve. In order to get ready for this massive number of new Linux users we have made sure that all five of our 10 series versions - Cinnamon, Mate 3D, Xfce, LXDE and GNOME are as rock-solid as possible with new kernels, hardware drivers and over five hundred security and application updates. VirtualBox was upgraded to version 5.2.34 and we added the privacy Brave browser to our free App installers." Here is the full release announcement.
Zorin OS 15.1
Artyom Zorin has announced the release of Zorin OS 15.1, an updated version from the project that develops a set of beginner-friendly Linux distributions based on Ubuntu's latest LTS (long-term support) release: "Today, we're excited to announce that Zorin OS is getting even better with the release of version 15.1. We've paid close attention to your feedback and worked hard to make the desktop experience better for work, learning, playing and everything in between. We've focused on making the desktop feel even more familiar and user-friendly to new users, especially those moving away from Windows 7 leading up to the end of its support in one month. Zorin Connect has been upgraded to make the experience between your computer and Android phone even more seamless. The Slideshow remote feature now includes a pointer that responds to your phone's movement." See the complete release announcement for more information and screenshots.
Minimal Linux Live 15-Dec-2019
Ivan Davidov has announced the release of a new build of Minimal Linux Live (MLL), version 15-Dec-2019. MLL is a tiny, educational Linux distribution designed to be built from scratch by using a collection of automated shell scripts. It offers a core environment with just the Linux kernel, GNU C library and Busybox userland utilities. The changelog of the current release includes the following items: "Updated software base - MLL is based on Linux kernel 5.4.3, GNU C library 2.30 and Busybox 1.31.1; the generated ISO image file is 10MB (x86_64) and requires 256MB RAM in order to run properly; CloudFlare DNS resolvers - by default MLL has three DNS resolvers: Gogle Public DNS (8.8.8.8), Quad4 (4.4.4.4) and CloudFlare DNS (1.1.1.1); GraalVM overlay bundle - this overlay bundle provides JDK, Python, Ruby and Node.JS/JavaScript; adopt OpenJDK overlay bundle - this overlay bundle provides JDK from the AdoptOpenJDK project; Zulu JDK overlay bundle - this overlay bundle provides JDK from Azul Systems...."
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
Installing distributions on desktop computers
Today's poll question is a simple one. Once you decide to test a distribution or install a distribution on a standard desktop computer (which has a DVD drive and, of course, several USB drives), what is your preferred method? Do you download the installation/live ISO image, burn it to a CD/DVD and boot from the DVD drive? Or are you more inclined to download an ISO image (or IMG file), transfer it to a USB memory stick and boot from the USB drive instead?
Personally, I prefer the DVD drive. I remember the days when burning CDs on Linux wasn't nearly as straightforward and trouble-free as it is today, but things have improved a lot since the early 2000s. I use rewritable DVDs. Of course, it isn't always possible to boot from a DVD. Most lightweight laptops nowadays don't include a DVD drive and sometimes the ISO image might be too large for a standard DVD. In these cases I don't have an option, but to boot from a USB drive. But if I have a choice, I prefer the good old DVD.
Or do you use some other method? Have you tried booting a distribution over the network with PXE? Feel free to discuss this topic in the comments section below.
You can see the results of our previous poll on favourite shell short-cuts in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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When installing (or testing) a distribution on a desktop computer, I prefer:
| Booting from CD/DVD drive: | 436 (22%) |
| Booting from USB drive: | 1506 (75%) |
| Other: | 69 (3%) |
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| Website News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
New projects added to database
FuryBSD
FuryBSD is an open-source, desktop-oriented operating system based on FreeBSD. It is an attempt to revive the spirit of other easy-to-use FreeBSD-based projects of the past (e.g. PC-BSD and TrueOS), but it also adds additional convenience in the form of a hybrid USB/DVD image. The project provides separate live images with Xfce and KDE Plasma desktops. FuryBSD is free to use and it can be freely distributed under the BSD license.
FuryBSD 12.0 - a recently-released edition featuring KDE Plasma
(full image size: 618kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 23 December 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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If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Issue 1032 (2023-08-14): MX Linux 23, positioning new windows on the desktop, Linux Containers adopts LXD fork, Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ form OpenELA |
| • Issue 1031 (2023-08-07): Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, preventing a file from being changed, Asahi Linux partners with Fedora, Linux Mint plans new releases |
| • Issue 1030 (2023-07-31): Solus 4.4, Linux Mint 21.2, Debian introduces RISC-V support, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 |
| • Issue 1029 (2023-07-24): Running Murena on the Fairphone 4, Flatpak vs Snap sandboxing technologies, Redox OS plans to borrow Linux drivers to expand hardware support, Debian updates Bookworm media |
| • Issue 1028 (2023-07-17): KDE Connect; Oracle, SUSE, and AlmaLinux repsond to Red Hat's source code policy change, KaOS issues media fix, Slackware turns 30; security and immutable distributions |
| • Issue 1027 (2023-07-10): Crystal Linux 2023-03-16, StartOS (embassyOS 0.3.4.2), changing options on a mounted filesystem, Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Fedora debates telemetry for desktop team |
| • Issue 1026 (2023-07-03): Kumander Linux 1.0, Red Hat changing its approach to sharing source code, TrueNAS offers SMB Multichannel, Zorin OS introduces upgrade utility |
| • Issue 1025 (2023-06-26): KaOS with Plasma 6, information which can leak from desktop environments, Red Hat closes door on sharing RHEL source code, SUSE introduces new security features |
| • Issue 1024 (2023-06-19): Debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Debian releases GNU/Hurd 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 nears its end of life, FreeBSD turns 30 |
| • Issue 1023 (2023-06-12): openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the differences between independent distributions, openSUSE lengthens Leap life, Murena offers new phone for North America |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Full list of all issues |
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OPNsense
OPNsense is a FreeBSD-based specialist operating system (and a fork of pfSense) designed for firewalls and routers. It is developed by Deciso B.V. in the Netherlands. Some of the features of OPNsense include forward caching proxy, traffic shaping, intrusion detection, two-factor authentication and easy OpenVPN client setup. The project's focus on security brings a number of unique features, such as the option to use LibreSSL instead of OpenSSL (selectable in the GUI). OPNsense also includes an update mechanism that delivers important security updates in a timely fashion.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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