 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
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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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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Installing distributions on desktop computers (by Andy Figueroa on 2019-12-16 05:11:24 GMT from United States)
Shocking question to be a poll. USB is the obvious answer. It's much more flexible, faster, reusable. One can "burn" the iso to a optical media or USB (using DD, for example), and once booting there is no functional difference.
2 • DVD drive is my boot (by Roy on 2019-12-16 05:41:48 GMT from United States)
I tried to download Cubuntu which is on the waiting list. Feren is still cool but I thought it might be interesting to try another Cinnamon. The burn was okay but it didn't load for me.
3 • Installing distributions on desktop computers (by SK on 2019-12-16 06:50:58 GMT from United States)
All sentimentality aside this is a no-brainer. USB is the way to go. It's much, much faster and has greater storage capabilities than CD's or DVD's.
4 • OpenIndiana (by Romane on 2019-12-16 06:58:35 GMT from Australia)
Yeah, tried it too only just a very few weeks ago. Total failure. Won't be trying it again anytime soon, as the previous time I tried a year or so ago, likewise a complete failure. Great idea to keep the tradition alive, but so far as usefulness....
5 • DVD or USB installl (by nanome on 2019-12-16 07:22:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
When it works, I prefer burning a USB drive with "dd". When that doesn't work, I try running isohybrid.pl PERL script [H. Peter Anvin] to make the drive "bootable". Only when all that fails do I burn a DVD.
6 • Another Waste of Time (by whoKnows on 2019-12-16 07:26:20 GMT from United Kingdom)
Solaris (as well as BSD, OS/2 [Ecomstation/Arka] etc.) is dead, but some just can't let it rest in peace.
Top 500 supercomputers are all running Linux. Yes, there are still a few NIXs around, mostly because of historical reasons, but they are disappearing one by one too. On desktop, Linux is dead too.
Some 10 years ago, after Oracle bought Solaris, most of the administrations, banks and universities switched to Linux. It was extremely expensive, but still much cheaper than paying Oracle support.
“Why are most BSDs, Solaris and such a “total waste of time”? ... Just wondering.”
Sure, there's always going to be someone who will state something like:
“I currently have XYZ PCs running FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris and GNUWhatnot.
I don't use Linux, Mac or Windows and was not aware I was missing out on anything.
I don't need Adobe Suite or MS Office. Those are Windows hobby-tools in my opinion.”
Notice that repeating “I” (~'m the belly of the world) attitude?
Avid has no NIX version, some Software-Clients commonly used by doctors and lawyers integrates in MS Office only, partners and customers accept any type of files as long as they end on “.psd” and “.indd” ...
Professionals use professional tools.
And -- all that “diversity” and “freedom of choice” doesn't help to make it better.
Nobody sane is going to develop tools for 2 % of users (which are usually unwilling to pay a couple of thousands for some application) in total, divided over 5 or more packaging formats.
It's the simple fact that an OS is basically nothing but the app-starter and it doesn't help anything having all the freedoms and the most sophisticated OS on Earth, if you can't get Adobe Suite or MS Office (and of course, many hundreds, if not thousands of specialized applications too, which have extensions, add-ons and what not bound to them) running on it.
If you're not toying around or using your PCs as a surf-station with some extra hobby-tools, you've got no other choice but use the only one OS left, which can do it all.
7 • USB vs DVD (by Dino on 2019-12-16 08:19:40 GMT from Denmark)
Of course I use an USB when installing a Linux distribution. I did the old DVD burning back when Fedora Core arrived and Libranet was still alive, but those days are long gone. A USB is just so much more convenient.
8 • Installing from USB (by Jean on 2019-12-16 08:31:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
I concur that installing from USB seems the obvious and easy way. I had however two instances of traying to install Mint 19.2, on two different computers, using USB and both failed. Using the Mint 19.2 from a CD did work no issues on both PCs. I used balena etcher to create the USB drives and tried later on by creating them using multibootusb on a different USB drive, still no joy.
9 • Installing Mint 19.2 from USB (by whoKnows on 2019-12-16 08:40:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
Rufus never failed on Mint until this day.
https://rufus.ie/
For multiboot, I usually used YUMI, however NOT in UEFI mode.
https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/
10 • USB vs DVD (by A vd Tweel on 2019-12-16 08:54:10 GMT from Netherlands)
I use DVDs. a blanc DVD costs about 28 eurocent, the cheapist USB stick is euro 7,50. So, for the price of 1 USB stick you can buy more than 25 DVDs, giving you 12 times the storage capacity,
11 • OpenIndiana Maté theme (by themix on 2019-12-16 09:00:39 GMT from Mali)
Hi ! The Maté theme and icons are very nice and I want to use them. What are the names of the theme and the icons pack ? And where can I download them ?
Thanks.
12 • OpenIndiana Maté theme (by whoKnows on 2019-12-16 09:55:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
Theme:
https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1230976/
Icons:
Default Mate (Gnome green)
13 • Nimbus GTK2 Themes (by whoKnows on 2019-12-16 09:59:24 GMT from United Kingdom)
https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1080244/
https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1015424/
14 • DVD vs USB, and tea leaves . (by Angel on 2019-12-16 10:20:00 GMT from Philippines)
Even out here in the hinterlands, DVDs are on the path of the dodo. CD-R King, once a thriving national chain, is now pretty much dead. My only laptop with a DVD player bay now houses an SSD. It's been several years since I used a CD or DVD. I keep several ISOs most of the time, but they reside in an HDD or SSD, ready to be "burned" to a USB stick in a few minutes. Never had a problem.
@11, I know it's nitpicking, but my birth language is Spanish and I'm bothered just a tad: The word is "mate", no accent on the "e". Mate is a leaf infusion popular in Argentina, where the original developer is from. Maté translates to "I killed."
15 • Installations (by Tony on 2019-12-16 10:20:40 GMT from Philippines)
I think most people nowadays use USB to install new distros and so do I. I few months back I had to install antiX on a very old PC so I was forced to use the classical CD method. PXE is a interesting method to do installations, but in my opinion it finds best use in corporate environments.
16 • Linux Desktop (by Jim on 2019-12-16 11:08:02 GMT from United States)
On desktop, Linux is dead too.
No it is not, it is on my Desktop, alive, functioning and doing just fine.
17 • USB vs DVD - VirtualBox (by Andrew Yeomans on 2019-12-16 11:20:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
For testing - just use VirtualBox on the ISO file.
For trial installation - USB for all except very old computers, or for those distros that just refuse to work off USB properly (rare nowadays).
18 • To #6 Another Waste of Time (by Joe blogs on 2019-12-16 11:38:02 GMT from New Zealand)
Your reference to not being able to run MS Office on Linux will soon be defunct. As there have been several announcements from Microsoft, that sometime during 2020 they will be releasing a version of their MS Office Suite for Linux (aka native not through wine etc).
Which means not long after that other Unix's will likely provide some form of compatibility to run. Which I think will change the unix desktop ecosystem.
19 • Linux Desktop (by Daniel on 2019-12-16 11:41:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
I'm with Jim on this one. Linux lives on my desktop (main distro Arch, with backup Debian if I tweak Arch just a little too far and temporarily break it).
I've tried BSDs (Open, Free) in the past but found them too time-consuming to install and configure - certainly compared with Debian or even Arch. Other people's experience with BSD is different, and that's fine. If the tool meets your needs and works for you, what does it matter if few others use it? *nix is all about choice.
I haven't booted from CD/DVD for years now and have no desire to return to the bad old days of creating coasters.
20 • Apt install deb packages (by Chris on 2019-12-16 11:48:07 GMT from Spain)
This info is out of date. You only have to tell apt that you want to install a file by putting the path instead of just the name, e.g.
apt install ./foo.deb
or
apt install /home/penguin/foo.deb
This also will check dependencies for you.
21 • Linux... (by Lin on 2019-12-16 12:01:09 GMT from India)
Linux is doing well alright, but not as a desktop system. There are few of us still use it as desktop OS, but with all kinds of new laptops coming about, on which Linux might never work. The device is made to work on Windows 10, so all parts of it were either manufactured to fit the specifications. These days the "hard disk" is M.2 or Nvme or even faster storage. The question of lagging, breakage and so on is something of the past.
Linux, sort of playing the catch-up game. Most businesses that helped to make Linux distros are slowly moving out. Cannonical is an example.
Today, Linux is still a distro for the geeky, or for those, who wants to experiment. Sure, I have 2 Linux boxes with lots of up to date Linux distros in them, from Arch to Ubuntu in the alphabet. But, they are slowly becoming testing grounds, to play with, when I have free time. But to do work, I am quite safe with the other OS.
What the use of installing Linux on such laptops as https://www.asus.com/Laptops/ASUS-VivoBook-S14-S432FL/ or https://www.asus.com/Laptops/ZenBook-Pro-Duo-UX581GV/? Would we be able to get full use of touchpads on these with Linux, for example? Or, is the Linux desktop is only for older devices?
22 • Re: 6 Another Waste of Time (by msi on 2019-12-16 13:19:27 GMT from Germany)
“Solaris (as well as BSD, OS/2 [Ecomstation/Arka] etc.) is dead, but some just can't let it rest in peace.”
That's a bit of a bold statement, don't you think? For example, take OpenBSD: They have been pushing out new releases about every six months since 1996. The last one happened this October. And they keep pushing things forward constantly. Since OpenBSD 5.5, releases are digitally signed with a tool called “signify” that was – you guessed it – developed as part of the OpenBSD project, in part because GPG was deemed too complicated. And with the 6.6 release, they – finally – introduced “sysupgrade”, a command that will let you upgrade to the next OpenBSD release easily from within your currently running system. Not to mention all the other things you can read up on at https://www.openbsd.org/innovations.html in a first attempt to get your facts together. Just search this page for things that happened in 201*, or even just in 2019. Doesn't look all that dead, does it?
Another fact worth considering here is that the OpenBSD Foundation has received a total amount of $619998 in donations this year. That's Canadian Dollars and not US dollars, I believe. But that doesn't really matter here. What matters is that their fundraising goal for 2019 was a mere $300000. So, they're also pretty well off financially.
“Professionals use professional tools.”
Sure, and quite a few professionals will value the freedom to choose a (largely) no-compromise, proactively defensive operating system that doesn't collect their data an send it to $big_corp or $not_so_big_corp.
“And -- all that ‘diversity’ and ‘freedom of choice’ doesn't help to make it better.”
Oh, it does. Because of that freedom of choice and diversity, some of OpenBSD's innovations are ported to Linux. For example, Void Linux has readily installable packages for “doas”, “signify” and “sndio”, to name just a few. So, if you like those tools but would still rather use Linux instead of OpenBSD, there you go. This is not the same as freedom of choice and diversity in the sense of the next Debian/Ubuntu-based distribution with “a better desktop experience”™ or the latest vanity distribution by $random_hacker that prides itself in basically giving you nothing because “minimalism” and “Works great for me, I use it every day...”.
“It's the simple fact that an OS is basically nothing but the app-starter and it doesn't help anything having all the freedoms and the most sophisticated OS on Earth, if you can't get Adobe Suite or MS Office (and of course, many hundreds, if not thousands of specialized applications too, which have extensions, add-ons and what not bound to them) running on it.”
You do realize that there are other use cases for operating systems than being “basically nothing but the app-starter” that will run your Adobe Suite and MS Office, don't you? Well, apparently you don't.
23 • OpenIndiana (by dragonmouth on 2019-12-16 13:43:11 GMT from United States)
Why bang your head against a wall trying to install and run OpenIndiana when there are 278 Linux distros in the DW database? With the exception of DIY distros like Linux from Scratch and Gentoo, all of them are so easy to install and run that a complete newbie can do it.
24 • installing distros (by wally on 2019-12-16 14:15:20 GMT from United States)
My prefs don't matter, it's the hardware that determines whether it's CD or USB
25 • @14 Thanks for Clarifying - Finally (by Linux Revolution on 2019-12-16 14:44:11 GMT from United States)
Please get this memo sent out to every Linux Podcast network. Hopefully it can now be put to rest. :-)
26 • USB vs CD (by hybrid on 2019-12-16 14:55:35 GMT from Moldova, Republic of)
BOTH-> .iso is easily dd-ed to a USB, and CD is easily used in Virtualbox,
so .iso is an universal image format.
27 • Linux on desktop is not dead (by meKnows on 2019-12-16 14:55:44 GMT from France)
@6 You know that preaching to deaf ears is Another Waste of Time, right?
28 • dvd v usb for booting a Linux distro (by Roy Davies on 2019-12-16 14:56:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
Personally, I am happy using either medium. However, many modern laptops are not equipped with a disk drive so, if you do not have an external disk drive, using a usb is essential.
29 • Not your expectations, it really was that bad. (by CS on 2019-12-16 14:58:05 GMT from United States)
I cut my teeth on a SparkStation 10, back when Linux kernels started with 0s rather than 4s. Stuff like OpenIndiana and *BSD these days exist as vehicles of understanding just how bad things were in those dark ages of computing. Struggling against these helps us appreciate how well off we really are. Some people get their history from Gibbon, some people experience it first hand.
30 • rumours of OpenIndiana death are exagerated (by hybrid on 2019-12-16 14:59:15 GMT from Moldova, Republic of)
OSS community need alternatives, and OpenIndiana is a very nice alternative to Linux,
It has few very good things like ZFS and dtrace, and good driver model,
the fact that majority is using linux, doesn't mean that research should stop,
cause linux and other systems can benefit from ideas from OI...
31 • Lets Help Oracle Exit the *Nix industry (by Linux Revolution on 2019-12-16 15:02:44 GMT from United States)
I'm sorry but Oracle is bad news with anything and everything they take over. Don't help them by contributing to their baited openness. Once the community has contributed enough to polish off their product, they would surely stick it behind a paywall and threaten the community which they benefited from with lawsuits.
32 • @ 21 and everyone (by OstroL on 2019-12-16 15:37:07 GMT from Poland)
Interesting!
Actually, if one buys one of those laptops, what the use of Linux distros that won't work with those specialised touchpads?
33 • Desktop (by Jim on 2019-12-16 15:49:44 GMT from United States)
Why worry about a desktops popularity? If it works for you, it works for you. That is all I care about. As long as the Linux Desktop works for me, I will use it. I am hardly a "geek'. I use the GUI, not the command line. I have never successfully installed a tar ball, though I have tried, yet I love Linux. Dell and HP are offering Linux computers, and their are more Linux computer companies than ever. the only problems Linux has no central authority like a private company would, so no advertising and then their is that other OS's fanboys spreading FUD, people saying it is only for geeks and people like me can't use it.
As for the Linux Desktop, I will use it as long as it exists. I will quit computers before ever using MS Windows again.
34 • Minimal Linux Live (by bison on 2019-12-16 16:25:46 GMT from United States)
MLL is very impressive. I tried it last year, and it would only work in a VM, since it didn't have drivers for the keyboard or other hardware devices. I just tried this version, and it works on real hardware. Excellent!
35 • Yeah, buddy...the usb option. (by tom joad on 2019-12-16 16:28:51 GMT from Moldova, Republic of)
@1 I agree with everything you wrote.
Furthermore I can not tell when I bought my last CD/DVD disks! I don't know. Nor can I tell you the last time I even used one for anything! I do have some in a draw in my desk in the cave.
BTW, I have some 3.5 floppies too and no floppy drive in any of my computers. Who knows why. No, no 5" floppies though. Those are long gone.
36 • Linux on the Desktop dead? (by nanome on 2019-12-16 17:18:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
@many: Linux on the desktop is dead? I have used it for at least 20 years [various Unix before that for another 10 years]. Now it is used on most Supercomputers and many of the workstations that feed them. However, since I can't afford to buy a Supercomputer, Linux is dead to me. Cool.
I am pleased to use a relatively secure operating system on all my computers, and am confused when I read in the press of PCs being hijacked en-mass by trojans, viruses, ransomware, etc. I am missing out on all that MS fun! Am I alone in the Distrowatch community in never being affected by malware?
37 • Special use for DVD (by albinard on 2019-12-16 18:38:13 GMT from United States)
I test early releases with USBs, install final releases with USBs, but for the first point release of an Ubuntu LTS version I burn a DVD so I can stick with the original kernel for the life of the LTS.
38 • DVD vs USB install preference (by Wally Johnn on 2019-12-16 19:09:32 GMT from United States)
I prefer DVDs to USBs for the simple reason that DVDs can be labelled. 100 DVDs in paper envelopes take a lot less space in one box than 100 different sized USB sticks in one box. I can find a labelled DVD a lot quicker than sorting through 100 unlabelled USB sticks. Yes, I have many USB sticks with labels on strings, usually labelled "Do Not Erase" and with the .iso name, like Windows Recovery, Linux gparted, MemTest86, GRUB repair, Apple OSX or Chromebook install disks. Now imagine 100 USB sticks, all with labels on strings in the same box... It will take a long time to untangle the mess.
I know that when a DVD doesn't install that the problem is probably the .iso, whereas if the USB image doesn't install it could be the stick, the image (for example, Hybrid), or the method the stick was burned (dd, Etcher.io, Unetbootin, etc.)
For single-use installations USBs are more convenient than DVDs. But what if you need to re-install that same image from a year ago because the latest update has munged your system? I would rather "waste" 30 cents on a DVD than $30 on a USB. When a DVD goes bad you're not likely to care. When a USB goes bad you will move Heaven and Hell to get the files back. "We" can accept a DVD going bad, but we can't accept that a USB stick is dead.
39 • Security (by - on 2019-12-16 19:12:28 GMT from United States)
One slight security advantage cd/dvd still has is that once the image is burnt, it can't be altered and nothing else can be written to the disc.
40 • usb v dvd/cd -- not no-brainer (by preferred on 2019-12-16 19:44:14 GMT from United States)
Actually, prefer to boot iso from HD via grub instead of burning usb or dvd/cd to test or install
Or, VirtualBox
41 • DVD vs USB (by Titus_Groan on 2019-12-16 19:58:49 GMT from New Zealand)
hmm, tough one.
When needing to use a DVD for install, will use a DVD-RW (x4) if available.
Burn time is essentially the same as a USB 2.0 stick.
Install time from either a fast DVD optical reader or USB 2.0 is essentially the same, give or take 30 sec
However, if speed is your game, use a USB 3.0 device and port.
That said, booting to an install image on an HDD or SSD for install speed is my preferred option. Also removes the time trying to find and then waiting for the burn to the media- so a win for me.
As stated by @38, media quality is always an issue.
Fingerprints / scratches on a DVD surface can render the DVD burn useless. Optical drives also fail.
USB sticks likewise can fail. they can go from full capacity to 0Gb overnight it sometimes seems.
Poor connections at the overused USB port are not uncommon.
Booting the .iso on a HDD or SSD gets rid of the suspect media issue for me.
Also, if you have the storage capacity, definitely gets rid of the "hunting through boxes of CD, DVD or USB sticks, looking for your install media."
My safety net is a couple of USB boot media that can be used to install from the net or directed to boot stored .iso files on the HDD/SSD. Download is only <100MB, so can be burnt to CD, DVD or tiny USB stick
42 • DVD vs USB installs, Security (by Howard on 2019-12-16 20:00:43 GMT from United States)
I personally still like to use DVDs to install Linux, compared to USB flash drives. I find DVDs are cheaper and more reliable to install from. I agree that installing from USB flash drives is faster, and they can be altered (updated) to a new ISO image much easier. Which can also be a negative, from a security perspective. Viruses and malware can also easily modify an USB flash drive.
I use quality DVD-Rs (and even some CD-Rs) depending on the size of the ISO file.
I tend to use USB flash drives as a quick backup drive, and to easily move files from one computer to another. I use my two external hard drives for long term backup purposes.
It is partly habit, from 20 years of using Linux, and 30 years using computers. But then again, all of my computers have DVD drives. Except for a couple of very old netbooks, which I hardly ever use. I have an external DVD drive (USB bus powered), so I can install Linux on those netbooks. No flash drive needed.
Also, 25 DVDs take up far less space, compared to 25 USB flash drives, and the DVDs are easier to label. I additionally like to use plastic clam-shell type plastic cases for my DVD drives, the same type that are used for DVD and Blu-Ray movies and console games. Because I use those type of cases to hold my DVDs, I can include more information on the paper label. Such as a full descriptive name, date of download, kernel version, whether 64 or 32 bit, etc.
43 • DVD drive? (by a on 2019-12-16 20:20:22 GMT from France)
errrr it’s been MANY years since DVD drives have been useless. Normal computers don’t have a DVD (or optical) drive.
44 • DVD/USB (by Gary on 2019-12-16 21:26:51 GMT from United States)
I used to use DVD'd all the time. Now I use the USB drives.It's become more difficult to locate Rewritable DVDs and the USB drives boot quicker. On the external HD drives I can install several different OS's. That makes it possible to carry several systems with me at any one time.
45 • USB vs DVD for installers (by mikef90000 on 2019-12-16 21:40:33 GMT from United States)
I only have to use DVD media for installations due to brain-dead commercial BIOS (lack of) functionality.
OTOH optical media is still useful for content archival - here in the US the big media companies have prevented DVRs and media servers from becoming consumer products. Only geeks can deal with handbrake, Plex, Kodi, etc. We are stuck with renting streamed, heavily DRMed content over pricey Internet connections.
46 • FuryBSD (by Cheker on 2019-12-16 22:48:07 GMT from Portugal)
Just popped in to say that FuryBSD looks very promising and I hope it's here to stay. About time BSD got a user friendly...ish... distro that doesn't look like absolute garbage.
47 • Waste of time, waste of BSD (by FedUpMonkeyMan on 2019-12-16 23:20:44 GMT from Mexico)
Another missed opportunity and waste of time by the OP in his review of OpenIndiana. Why, because hardly anyone uses it. Why review such an obscure BSD when there are so many other systems out there that have use case and users that could do with a review? But for some unknown reason, OpenIndiana was desperately in need of reviewing. I didn't even need to read the review to know the outcome of said review, that being, OpenIndiana is an unuseable pile of garbage. Is December BSD month? I didn't get the memo.
How about reviewing something more relevant, like Purism OS, Tails, Subgraph, heck, anything is better and more relevant than a BSD at the moment.
48 • Re: 47 • Waste of time, waste of BSD (by msi on 2019-12-16 23:51:26 GMT from Germany)
“I didn't even need to read the review to know the outcome of said review, that being, OpenIndiana is an unuseable pile of garbage.”
Reading said review would, however, have prevented you from mistaking OpenIndiana for a BSD system.
49 • Openindiana (by anon on 2019-12-17 02:23:49 GMT from United States)
Openindiana is not a waste of time, it just isn't quite there yet for the average desktop user. It is very picky when it comes to hardware. I tested it out with an old Dell Inspirion that I had laying around, and firefox did not play well with it at all. The other apps that I installed worked just fine for the most part. The problem was the lack of an extra graphical web browser as a fallback on systems where running their version of firefox was an issue. Trying to compile software with their versions GCC and MAKE threw up errors that I did not experience on Linux, too.
Now, I installed this very same OS on an old Compaq and did not have any issues at all. Everything worked perfectly except for the GCC and MAKE issues, but that is more of a Solaris issue that was inherited from their old upstream. It is a very decent OS when you are running it on supported hardware, but the software selection is a little sparse. I added the hipster-encumbered and spec files extra repos, and I was able to install the bare basics. My OpenIndiana system has Gimp, Inkscape, LibreOffice, FFMPEG, VLC Media Player, DOSBOX, Audacity, Wireshark, XScreensaver, and ClamAV installed on it and they all work just as well as they would on any of my Linux systems.
It is not exactly Ubuntu, but it is not trying to be Ubuntu, either. The person who told me to try it hyped it up as the IllumOS equivalent of Ubuntu, and I was very disappointed when I went into it with that mindset, but the actual website merely states that it is a basic graphical system that is aimed at devs. It offers a minimal .ISO image for server deployments, too. Solaris documentation, which there is plenty of out there if you know where to look, is a necessity if you are not familiar wih the base system. It is a nice little boutique OS that offers the absolute bare minimum of apps for desktop use. The only downsides were picky hardware support, a lack of extra graphical web browser incase firefox doesn't play nice on your system, and legacy issues with the build chain inherited from the Solaris base (you can even find old stack overflow pages where people ran into issues trying to compile Dillo on Solaris).
50 • Openindiana...again (by anon on 2019-12-17 02:37:12 GMT from United States)
@30: I agree with you. As Linux becomes more corporate-oriented and less community-oriented, it becomes even more important for the OSS community to have other options. Microsoft is one of the largest members of the Linux foundation, IBM/Redhat has too much control over the entire stack, and Oracle will always be Oracle. Canonical isn't exactly OSS friendly these days, either. Add to that Google making their own replacement kernel, and the future of Linux doesn't look very promising. It is nice that we have other OSS options besides Linux, and I will always favor choice over closed gardens.
51 • USB / DVD / Other for install media (by cad on 2019-12-17 03:30:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
I use a USB 3.0 Zalman HDD enclosure that is also a virtual CD/DVD/BR drive. You can switch it between 3 modes: HDD (only), ODD (only) or both - i.e. it shows up as two devices.
Not 100% guaranteed but my experience has been REALLY good. Pop the ISO files into an _ISO folder on the HDD and they're picked up automatically.
One gripe: it has to be NTFS, and every once in a while the drive will show "DEFRAG" meaning it HAS to be defragged before further use. A problem back when I didn't have access to a "real" Win box.
Amazon UK example:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/External-Enclosure-included-Virtual-ZM-VE300/dp/B00TDJ4BJU/
I *do* like the booting ISO from grub idea though, I had forgotten about that! ;-)
52 • @31, Help Oracle Exit the *Nix industry (by Angel on 2019-12-17 04:46:47 GMT from Philippines)
Does that mean I have to give back my VirtualBox? :- (
53 • Linux on the Desktop (by Simon Plaistowe on 2019-12-17 09:36:16 GMT from United States)
Seems we have a troll amongst us, plugging for the Microsoft camp. Just ignore the bugger, it'll go away. As for Linux on the Desktop, dead I think not ...at least not on my desktops. I've not had a need to run any Microsoft product for a good ten years now ...and a damn good bullshit-free ten years they've been too!
54 • FuryBSD • 46 (by babu on 2019-12-17 09:43:48 GMT from Belgium)
"FuryBSD looks very promising"? I hope so. Find it (xfce-4 edition) rather rough.
NomadBSD is much easier and elegant. And the NomadBSD community is very kind.
But to have a choice is a nice thing.
55 • @52 • @31, Help Oracle Exit the *Nix industry (by Angel (by zcatav on 2019-12-17 09:54:29 GMT from Turkey)
Yes, but You have Gnome-boxes :)
56 • DVD / USB (by Pat Menendez on 2019-12-17 12:47:15 GMT from Canada)
DVDs cost pocket change while USBs cost several times more, good ones several 10s of times more. If you look at the stack of DVDs I've burned to test / install distros it's literally in the hundreds. I've tried USB. Yes, it works but then that USB stick is good for nothing else! Having to go through the hassle of creating a USB every time I want to install a specific distro AGAIN would make the process even more time consuming and tedious! If I feel nostalgic I can go back and install a distro from years ago without having to tie up a USB stick, AGAIN. External DVD drives work very well on netbooks and computers that don't have optical drives. USB is fine for taking some files to school to do presentations and would be fine if I only ever tested one or installed one distro. I prefer to burn it to DVD and add it to the library once and it's permanent. Cheap USB sticks are neither fast or long term reliable. If you read the user reviews they generally have high failure rates. "Cheap" = don't go there! Premium DVDs bought by the spool of 100 disks are consistently reliable and 1/10th or less the cost of the cheapest USB stick! And I don't have to erase it to test another distro and erase it again to install another distro, etc. It's true that betas are a lost disk but at pennies who cares. Some fringe distros end up a complete waste of time, non functional at that point. That's OK. For the huge number of distros I run through their paces every year, the very small percentage that completely don't work is insignificant! I may not like it personally but that does not make it a lousy distro! That's the beauty of choice! All the rest I have an ISO on file ready to test on other hardware at any time. Some older "lite" distros are a giggle to play with so nice to have that ISO burned to just pop in the DVD to install and play with for a few days. USB sticks definitely have their place. For me, that place isn't for ISOs. I'm too old to give a damn about geek factor anymore! :-)
57 • @55, Not a purist here. (by Angel on 2019-12-17 13:30:32 GMT from Philippines)
I really like VBox. It's convenient, easy to use, and versatile. I can boot up either Windows or Linux, (or Mac) and run the same VMs.
Been using and playing with Linux since it could run off floppies, but I've never become a member of the Us Versus Them club. In any case, like Microsoft, Oracle seems to have got the OSS religion:
https://developer.oracle.com/open-source/
58 • DVD or USB install (by Ricardo Pineda on 2019-12-17 15:57:45 GMT from Nicaragua)
I used to try Linux distros live through USB, but now i first try them on a virtual machine (VirtualBox). But when i install them i use USB. I don't use DVDs anymore, my PC doesn't have a disk drive but i have an external disk drive in case i need to read CDs or DVDs.
59 • DVD vs USB drive installations (by Otis on 2019-12-17 16:28:40 GMT from United States)
lmao at all the "it's a no brainer" remarks, typically used by people who feel strongly about just about any choices in their life.
For me it's not a "no brainer," but it's my choice: DVDs most of the time. Reasons? We don't need no $%&$ing reasons. :oD But I do have a few, not the least of which is that the USB choice is needed for a few projects out there.. Zorin main paid version comes to mind, and the DVD method is just more natural for me and that's okay despite strange arguments about this (reminds me of the systemd vs every other init method wars.. c'mon peeps, linux is about choices and favorite ways to approach and do things).
60 • @6, all dead, corpses all around (by Igor on 2019-12-17 23:27:02 GMT from Croatia)
I wonder what is your profession. I am working in printing, and it is pdf that is universally accepted, sometimes even required here. We also like eps, ps and tiff. Post-2008 years taught us humility, so we're accepting just about everything, including samizdats written in Word for Windows, and doctors' congress posters self-designed in Power Point, and then, with deep sigh do our best to make it printable, knowing that it probably won't be possible to make it presentable. But we do not accept indd, because it would mean that we accept finishing someone else's well paid job for free. And we do roll our eyes when our raster processor detects that pdf was created by Adobe InDesign because it announces trouble: uncontrolled and unhandled transparencies and messy colour management. You might ask how does the product of such a respectable software manufacturer be flawed in any respect? In my opinion that's because InDesign shares one distinct feature with MS Office: it promises to do almost all of the job for and instead of user. As some sort of professional, I prefer having control over what I do, instead of transferring it to software. Or rather, I am trying to keep quality of output over productivity, as I believe most of professional do.
But is it the sofware, or toolbox at all that defines a professional? Of course, I am doing a lot of my work using Adobeware: Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat Pro. But sometimes I am asked to correct something in a Corel file, and was able to handle FreeHand too, before Adobe euthanized it. And when I come home, my family sometimes expects me to do something for them, e.g a poster. I do that in Inkscape and GIMP. GIMP doesn't support CMYK? Big deal, contact icc profiles are so advanced these days that I do not bother converting occasional RGB files any more, as I get better results printing RGB directly using some of these. My point is clear in balkanian proverb that battle is not won by shiny arms, but by the spirit of the hero. Even a modest professional like me is basically earning his money by solving the problems all the time. What tools does someone use depends on the problem, and solutions are usually unconventional. Once you sniff a solution, you take the tools at hand and try doing it. When doing some graphics for the web, I always prefer GIMP to Photoshop as it handles png in more controlled manner, ditto Incscape vs. Illustrator with svg in mind. You may recollect that semiinformed people once believed Dreamweaver was professional software for web design. Well, if even modest HTML, or LaTeX is out of grasp, then OK, Dreamweaver and InDesign are tools for, ahem, some professionals. I my very humble opinion these are closer to accessibility tools.
To make it even more clear, I am yet to see the output of some guy who keeps Mac Pro under his table (better yet on the table, so the customer can easily see the proof of professionalism), and spins Adobe CC Unlimited on it, that is nearing complexity and refinement of what was an average 18th century engraver producing on a daily basis with his needle, copper plate, sponge and acid. Don't get me wrong, I myself am no better than that. So why are we all producing what art history calls naïve art, distinguished from the folk art in that the name of artist is known? In my most humble opinion it is primarily because our customers are not nobility and clergy. And second, because our tools, software, is better suited to such an use. And I mean expensive, high end, p r o f e s s i o n a l software, like Adobe. With its basically simple mathematical transformations it encourages very simple and naïve designs, with touching knack for smooth curves, drawn out shapes and poverty of colour. My wife who is trained sculptor was astonished by misery of colours we print and are proud of. Small wonder when one realizes that majority of those are defined by numbers ending with zeros. So, professionalism is not necessarily such a big deal after all.
Than MS Office. I hope you had Excel on your mind when mentioning it, although, I don't see too many advantages when compared to Gnumeric. Admittedly, it is capable and indispensable tool to accounting professionals. One Note was the first and the best notetaker until Microsoft started adding features, and now it takes a century to make a simple note the way you want it, at least twice the time it takes to do it with classy software as Zim or Tiddly Wiki. Again, Visio is excellent piece fo software serving real needs. But if you write about Word, please! My wife was forced to write her phD in art history using it (don't ask me about university, this is Balkans! I just hope it is out of corruption rather than sheer stupidity), and spent about third of the time to what was in effect debugging the professional software, trying to stop it doing things for her, getting unstable file that kept collapsing all the time under the weight of pasted images. But, for the sake of comparison, when my mother in law brought me her first book to tidy it for printing, I converted it to txt, did some regular expressions on it, and processed it in LaTeX to get very pleasing and professionally satisfactory outcome. In all, less than an hour of work. Mentioning LaTeX have you ever wondered what do mathematicians, physicists, and other scientists use when writing their articles? Do they qualify as professionals? Seriously, Word is software to impress a boss with clipart in three page report, or at least it was before everyone learned how to do it. But I can hardly be convinced that office work is professional writing in any sense of the word.
Oh, and I have some about dead operating systems. Few years ago I have picked one, Mageia, not the lightest of all distros and put it to my mother in law's feeble desktop that wouldn't hear about Windows beyond Vista. Since then I almost forgot about support. Lady was 80 then, not quite a geek. She is professor of English, and translates books. I figure it counts as professional writing.
61 • astounded (by tim on 2019-12-17 23:50:04 GMT from United States)
@56 "I've tried USB. Yes, it works but then that USB stick is good for nothing else!"
Huh? Was that preposterous statement intended as joke, or does some ill-conceived (and probably unenforceable) Canadian law stand in your way of rewriting the contents of the USB stick?
62 • all dead, corpses all around (by anon on 2019-12-18 02:51:09 GMT from United States)
This is one of the best comments that I have read since I started following this site. Reality is a knife that will always cut through nonsense. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and shining a light where so much darkness dwells. Comments such as your own are why I read the comments section.
63 • Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (by Stefan on 2019-12-18 03:43:38 GMT from Brazil)
Surprisingly, there are people who still use the old-fashioned optical media to install Linux/BSD/Solaris. They dare to burn tens or even hundreds of DVD-Rs not realizing how anti-ecological is such an attitude in these times, when everything should be done to reduce the consumption of plastics and fossil fuels.
Why not to replace all those short-life DVD-Rs for just a couple of DVD-RWs or DVD+RWs? I did it at least ten years ago. Since then, no more useless waste. Every new distro I try is burnt in the same re-writable media.
Well, it would probably make Greta Thunberg very happy... Don't you agree?
64 • USB flash or HDD/SSD, or plastic disc (CD/DVD/BD)? (by Somewhat Reticent on 2019-12-18 05:54:18 GMT from United States)
Each medium has advantages and tradeoffs.
With recent capacities, many distros can coexist on one USB storage device, which can hold several partitions and accommodate many changes.
This facilitates demonstrating and testing various distros and DEs.
Convenience tools like easy2boot/RMprepUSB, YUMI, multibootusb, LinuxLive, Rufus, grub2win or unetbootin also help.
Once a particular combination of software is found workable for some particular hardware, plastic disc storage can hold configuration snapshot(s) or start accumulating other data.
Once installed, isn't booting from the fastest storage available normally best?
65 • USB vs Optical (by Angel on 2019-12-18 11:24:11 GMT from Philippines)
"I've tried USB. Yes, it works but then that USB stick is good for nothing else!"
I assume you mean that you can't write other files to the stick while the ISO is there, and not that it can't be used ever again. You can write an ISO to a USB as an ISO image (disk copy,) or as a DD image, (disk image). If you do a disk copy, any empty space in the USB can still be used to write, copy, transfer files, etc. That is my choice unless I absolutely have to use DD. Most times I use Rufus, which offers a choice if available.
"Some older "lite" distros are a giggle to play with so nice to have that ISO burned to just pop in the DVD to install and play with for a few days."
I do the same in a VM. Some months ago, someone here was extolling the virtues of Lubuntu 10.04. Curious, I downloaded the image and booted it on VBox. No need to "burn" anything.
As to the lifespan of flash drives, I have 6 or 7. The oldest is a 1 GB. Can't remember how old. Others are from 4 to 16 GB, none newer than 4 years or so. All work as advertised.
66 • Disk or USB (by Rooster12 on 2019-12-18 11:27:56 GMT from United States)
For one very happy for USB, been with linux bout 12 years and no longer waste a CD or DVD with a broken iso. There are just as many broken distros now as there was 12 years ago. Regardless if it was grub, fstab, or something not allowing a full boot and to the noob many issues create breakage and a burned image and disk wasted. For a distro-hopper the disk was an expensive failure.
USB is simple, either use dd or even Linux Mintstick, haven't tried the others but know there are many good ways to write to a USB and use it over and over.
67 • Disk or USB. also Long term prospects for Linux (by Basil Fernie on 2019-12-18 23:28:32 GMT from United States)
I have built up a fairly large collection of CDs/DVDs over the years but my current modus is to download an iso, burn it to a USB, add a few frequently-used apps (e.g. LibreOffice) and at my ease try it out with live booting on my collection of desktops/laptops, and possibly some friends' machines. If it looks like a keeper, e.g. an early LTS version, I'll add it to my DVD archives.
It's sometimes useful to have a quick rescue stick available for live booting Fat Dog or Clonezilla, etc, without too much regard for permissions. Carrying around a couple of 8GB USBs in a jacket pocket is a much better option than trying to accommodate the much larger and more fragile perimeter of a couple of DVDs in some folder that will get left at home.
To @18 and @21, and to anyone thinking that Microsoft has settled down to a grudging detente with Linux I would say "Find and read Microsoft's infamous, exhaustive and prescient 'Halloween Memorandum', repeating at a mantra-like pace Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, and see what nightmares your pleasant dreams turn into".
Now, MXLinux a hero and a zero A hero because at last the Elantech touchpad problem seems to have been natively revoled so that the touchpad doesn't generate spruious sursor movements while you are typing. For years (and not only with MXLinux) I have have to type in the terminal command synclient touchpadoff=1 on logging in to keep control over the meanderings of the cursor. No longer needed.,
The "zero" part refers only to the new and lovely MX-Fluxbox overlay, which I implemented without delay, thinking back to the joys of using #! ("Crash-Bang"). Bit of a problem - I couldn't raise most of my apps, they seemed to have been restrained behind a (pixel-thin) barrier down the lefthand side of the screen. Mr Trump would have been proud.
Reason seems to have been, I installed it on top of my regular xcfe4-based screen, with a vertical panel up the left side of the screen with a 2x2 area for clickable buttons for the 4 workspaces, which could no longer be selected.
Took a while to reverse myself out of that tiny gap. I'll give MX-Flux another shot after a respectful wait for updates.
68 • DVD + trolls (by lovable rogues on 2019-12-19 03:06:03 GMT from Australia)
Prefer DVD RWs for distrohopping. They're easy to burn and throw into a drive. They're not a target for fakes, they have a reliable capacity and speed, and when they've expired they're recyclable.
@53 "Seems we have a troll amongst us"
There's a few. They like to get in your face with big brash posts. But they just want to be recognised for having something of value to say, God love 'em.
69 • New operating system (by tahir almas on 2019-12-20 14:40:48 GMT from Pakistan)
Sun solaris was my child hood love , I encountered with SCO Unix and Sun Solaris in 1995 , more than 24 years back . I still love unix / linux
70 • OpenIndiana Review used wrong hardware for the OS (by jdrch on 2019-12-20 20:48:54 GMT from United States)
> "native and metadata encryption" for ZFS
I wouldn't even attempt this, tbh. Not only is it risky, but there isn't a lot of tooling available in the OI repos to help you if you run into trouble. Not to mention OI's hardware support is dodgy.
> fairly standard MATE 1.22 implementation
🤔 Well it's missing a lot of customization features relative other non-Linux MATE installations, such as the one in GhostBSD. Some features, such as local weather, simply don't work.
> On my laptop - a Lenovo Ideapad Z570
I don't know if you've noticed, but Windows, Linux, and macOS are the only operating systems with decent widespread laptop support. As such, when testing OSes other than those, it's a good idea to use a desktop system instead. I recommend Core 2nd or 3rd Gen Dell OptiPlex: the hardware is standard and sufficiently mature to be well supported, recent BIOS updates are available, OEM documentation is thorough, and user forum is responsive. You can pick one up in decent working condition off Craigslist for as little as 35 USD.
> OpenIndiana lacks support for the Intel C200 chipset
Don't worry about chipset driver warnings; from my observation those are due to OI not supporting Intel's remote management features. Most OI users wouldn't be using those anyway.
Thanks for looking over OI. While it's a pretty difficult OS to get up and running, much less install (it took 5 hours to figure all of that out on this end), it's pretty rewarding in other ways. Because it's essentially an open source Solaris implementation, Solaris' **excellent**, best-in-class documentation is where you'll find everything except MATE and repo and update details. OI's handbook provides the latter 2. You definitley need to enable Joyent pkgsrc, the encumbered repo, and the SFE repo if you want anywhere near a ghost of a chance of decent software selection. Once you do that, though, most commonly used command line tools are available.
> my home directory was /export/home/rijkhoff
I suppose the true sign of a server OS is that the user folders are deliberately intended to be NFS exports ;)
> there wasn't a group named after me; instead I was a member of the staff group
That's because Solaris and OI use the RBAC security concept, in which users are organized via role as opposed to group.
> the user base appears to be rather small
True, but the (Solaris) documentation is so thorough OI's behavior so well defined that, unlike other distros, you don't necessarily need a forum with tens of thousands of users. r/Illumos, Illumos TopicBox, and the OI mailing list are good places to start.
> OpenIndiana is primarily a server operating system.
Correct. Albeit a rolling release(!!!) one with a DE bolted on to help new users get up and running easily.
> The package manager felt somewhat slow
That's an understatement. The downloads are slow (~ 0.2 Mb/s max) and the package processes themselves take forever. It can literally take 3 minutes to install something as simple as VLC.
> take plenty of time to get familiar with the operating system
Agreed. Although some things are a bit ... confusing. For example, while Solaris is supposed to use pfexec instead of sudo, it wound up integrating sudo for the sake of users who were used to Linux. That said, there is *plenty* of documentation for any feature that came from Solaris. Just check the Solaris docs.
> everything felt sluggish
My experience is OI needs at least 16 GB RAM, even if it's not actually using that much. I started off with 8 GB and had a lot of system instability. Upgraded to 16 and its been smooth sailing since.
OI is for users who:
1) want to use an actual Unix (not just Unix-like) OS without an EOL date (Solaris) or exorbitant associated hardware cost (macOS)
2) want Solaris, specifically, without an EOL date
3) want a rock solid ZFS implementation
Number of Comments: 70
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| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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| Random Distribution | 
NixOS
NixOS is an independently developed GNU/Linux distribution that aims to improve the state of the art in system configuration management. In NixOS, the entire operating system, including the kernel, applications, system packages and configuration files, are built by the Nix package manager. Nix stores all packages in isolation from each other; as a result there are no /bin, /sbin, /lib or /usr directories and all packages are kept in /nix/store instead. Other innovative features of NixOS include reliable upgrades, rollbacks, reproducible system configurations, source-based model with binaries, and multi-user package management. Although NixOS started as a research project, it is now a functional and usable operating system that includes hardware detection, KDE as the default desktop, and systemd for managing system services.
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!
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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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