 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 851, 3 February 2020 |
Welcome to this year's 5th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
There are a lot of ways to approach getting more performance out of an operating system. Sometimes speed improvements can come from code optimizations, from streamlining features, or improving the way resources are handled. This week we begin with a look at KaOS, a distribution which takes a specific focus, aiming to work on one CPU with one specific set of software in an effort to offer a polished desktop experience and better performance. In our Opinion Poll we ask whether you like this focused approach in distributions or if you prefer a more general purpose operating system. Then, in our Tips and Tricks column, we talk about dealing with Linux slowing down when using swap space and a method for recovering the operating system when it is running out of memory. In our News section we report on work going into FreeBSD and, in particular, the project's Linux compatibility layer which allows FreeBSD to run some Linux software. We also cover Linux Mint's roadmap for new features and talk about WireGuard, a young VPN technology, being merged into the Linux kernel. Plus we are pleased to bring you the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: KaOS 2020.01
- News: Development updates from the FreeBSD team, Linux Mint plans new features and LMDE4, Linux kernel to include WireGuard
- Tips and tricks: Dealing with low-memory performance
- Released last week: Kali Linux 2020.1, FreeNAS 11.3, OLPC OS 13.2.11
- Torrent corner: Arch, DuZeru, ExTiX, FreeNAS, Kali Linux, Nitrux, OLPC OS, OpenMandriva, OPNsense
- Upcoming releases: Ubuntu 18.04.4
- Opinion poll: Single focus versus general purpose distributions
- New distributions: TAZ
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (17MB) and MP3 (13MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
KaOS 2020.01
KaOS is a rolling release distribution whose team chooses to focus on one CPU architecture (x86_64), one desktop environment (KDE Plasma) and one application toolkit (Qt). The project publishes regular, monthly snapshots of the distribution. The January snapshot featured a few interesting changes. In particular, the distribution now features signed kernel modules for added security and supports installing non-free NVIDIA video drivers during the install process if an NVIDIA card is detected. KaOS has also replaced the Calligra productivity suite with LibreOffice.
The latest snapshot is a 2.1GB download. Booting from the project's media brings up a menu offering to start a live desktop environment, start the desktop with non-free NVIDIA drivers, or run a hardware detection tool. When the system boots, the KDE Plasma desktop loads and displays a welcome screen. This window provides quick access to the system installer, a list of available packages, and links to the distribution's forum and install guide. The provided documentation seemed clear to me and includes screenshots to guide new users in setting up the distribution. The welcome screen also features a second tab which provides the default usernames and passwords for the live media.
KaOS may be unique in the way it sets up Plasma. The desktop places the panel vertically down the right-hand side of the screen. The application menu is located in the upper-right corner and the system tray at the bottom-right. In the middle are a few quick-launch icons and the task switcher. It makes for a fairly busy panel by default, especially when notifications, the update indicator, and network connection icon are all trying to grab the user's attention.
KaOS 2020.01 -- Running the Falkon web browser and the Dolphin file manager
(full image size: 501kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Installing
KaOS uses the Calamares graphical installer to get the distribution up and running. Calamares does a nice job of walking us through picking our time zone from a map, picking our keyboard layout, and creating a new user account. Calamares will also show us the distribution's release notes and can walk us through guided or manual partitioning. I went with the manual option which is quite flexible and supports a great range of filesystems, including ext2/3/4, JFS, and Btrfs. The installer suggests XFS as the default. I switched this to Btrfs and it worked well for me.
Once the installer finishes setting up the distribution on the hard drive it offers to reboot the computer. In my test runs, Calamares crashed as it was closing, producing an error report. This did not impact my ability to boot the installed system, but it was an unfortunate part of my first impression of the distribution.
Early impressions
Booting into my fresh copy of KaOS brought up a graphical login screen. We have the option of choosing between a "Plasma" session (running on X.Org) and a "Plasma Wayland" session. The X.Org session is the default. The login screen features a mostly white and grey background and white text. This caused some problems. For example, it was impossible for me to read the time and almost impossible to see the session options because the text and the background are the same colour in places. This seems like an obvious oversight, or the result of the KaOS team all having monitors of a resolution where the wallpaper and elements line up differently than they do on my screens.
KaOS 2020.01 -- The login screen
(full image size: 244kB, resolution: 1232x945 pixels)
I tried both the X.Org session and the Plasma on Wayland session. The Wayland session was, for all practical purposes, unusable. The desktop would load, but the screen resolution was unusually low, making it hard to see most desktop components and the mouse pointer did not work. The X.Org session worked as expected and, with the exception of some settings issues I will mention later, the desktop ran smoothly.
Once we get signed into the desktop a welcome screen appears. This is a different welcome screen than we saw during the live session. This one includes several tabs full of buttons that launch settings modules and other tools. The first tab mostly includes general desktop settings such as themes, widget styles, colours, and mouse behaviour. The second tab deals with wallpaper. One tab includes links to documentation, user forums, and alternative (ie newer) kernels. The documentation includes tips on posting support questions with system reports that will help developers assist users who are having trouble.
One tab in the welcome window is called Advanced and it handles user accounts, systemd settings and network management. Then there are two tabs providing a general overview of the distribution's philosophy and news updates such as new releases.
KaOS 2020.01 -- The welcome window
(full image size: 287kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Hardware
I started out trying KaOS in a VirtualBox environment. The distribution mostly ran well and integrated into the virtual machine automatically. Desktop performance was slow at first, however I was able to improve the experience by disabling compositing, file search and some visual effects. After that Plasma provided average performance in the virtual machine. When I switched over to running KaOS on physical hardware the experience was better. Plasma was much more responsive and applications opened quickly. The distribution correctly handled my screen resolution, wireless card, and audio worked out of the box. KaOS supported running in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes.
The distribution is heavier than most. A fresh install of KaOS took up 7.3GB of disk space and signing into Plasma consumed at least 715MB of RAM. This is more than most desktop distributions I have run lately and over 40% heavier than the last distribution (SolydXK) I ran with KDE Plasma.
Software management
When new software updates are available we can click on a red icon in the system tray which opens a simple, graphical update manager. This utility will list new packages it knows about and we can update all available packages in a batch. The update manager seems to only support an all-or-nothing approach to installing updates. Though only one small update was listed the first day I was using KaOS, 179 new packages were downloaded (total size unknown). I think this gap between what was reported and what was downloaded came from the package manager not refreshing its repository data before I clicked the update icon. The updates all installed without any problems.
KaOS 2020.01 -- Installing software with Octopi
(full image size: 284kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
KaOS ships with a graphical package manager called Octopi. The Octopi window lists packages on the left and categories of software on the right. There is a search bar at the top of the window. Near the bottom of the Octopi window is an information area which can display details of selected packages and status information during operations.
Octopi can handle installing, removing, and upgrading software. I only used it for installing and deleting software and it worked well in both situations. I'm not a big fan of Octopi as I find its approach to searching and filtering packages a bit cumbersome. However, it is functional and, thanks to the underlying pacman package manager, it is fast too.
One handy tool Octopi includes is the ability to collect information about the operating system and dump it into one big text file in our home directory. This information gathered includes package data, some logs, and statistics that may help other users or developers identify and fix problems. The project's documentation mentions we can attach this text file to requests for assistance to provide a better picture of the operating system for others to see. The information seems to be pretty general and, when I went through it, none of it seemed specifically identifying so it should be safe to post on user forums when asking for help.
KaOS 2020.01 -- Getting system information through Octopi
(full image size: 229kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Applications
The distribution ships with a relatively small collection of desktop software, with applications coming from the KDE/Qt family of software. The Falkon web browser is included along with the Quassel IRC client, and LibreOffice. The Okular document viewer is available along with the KDE Connect software for interacting with Android phones. I found the Dolphin file manager and Krita drawing program included. To manage the look and feel of the desktop the KDE System Settings panel is available and it contains more features, switches, and options than I'd care to try to count.
KaOS ships with the K3b disc burning software, the Kamoso web cam utility, and a few multimedia applications. The mpv, SMPlayer, and SMTube applications are installed for us along with a full range of media codecs for playing audio and video files. We are also treated to the Marble virtual globe and KDE's useful Help documentation.
KaOS 2020.01 -- The KDE System Settings panel
(full image size: 233kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
There is a short-cut for Skype which simply opens a web browser to display the Skype website. Digging a little deeper we find the GNU Compiler Collection, the systemd init software, and version 5.4 of the Linux kernel.
While the included applications are mostly in the KDE/Qt family, there are alternatives available through the distribution's repositories. I was able to easily install the Firefox web browser, for example, and there are often alternatives to the default programs.
Other observations
While I was playing with KaOS I made a handful of observations about using the distribution, mostly with regards to little quirks or features that kept catching my attention. The most obvious one was the way in which the update notification icon in the system tray turns red and pulses when new software packages become available. I found this unusually distracting and a feature I wanted to remove right away. It is probably helpful for people who always want to install every update immediately, but I don't want to interrupt my work every time a new package enters the queue and having a throbbing red icon on the screen is something I find hard to ignore.
While I was using the live desktop session, opening the Falkon web browser would cause repeated prompts for a wallet password. (Four prompts appeared in succession if they were dismissed.) These prompts did not appear when I was running KaOS from my hard drive.
Once I tried to change the Plasma desktop's screen orientation, just to see if it would work upside down. Not only did Plasma immediately stop responding once its picture was flipped, but the next day I signed in to find my desktop had rotated again (this time 90 degrees) and the environment was non-responsive. The cure for this ailment was to sign into a text console, delete my .kde directory and then sign back into the desktop session.
The Wayland session did not work in any practical way in VirtualBox. While Wayland can function on physical hardware, it always felt a little stiff, as though the desktop was responding a little after I provided input. While in VirtualBox, screen resolution was severely limited and the mouse pointed did not work. The keyboard did response, but using the Wayland session was not practical.
KaOS ships with a number of shell aliases built in. Personally I don't like these and tend to remove them as the flags added to the aliased commands can cause errors or unexpected behaviour when mixed with the flags I typically use. I suspect these aliases are intended to be time saving devices, but for someone like me who is accustomed to using few or no aliases, they trip me up.
There is a neat feature built into Plasma that I quite like which allows the user to individually configure how specific applications display notifications. This on its own is helpful. What makes it even better is individual programs can be told to override the desktop's Do Not Disturb feature. In effect this means we can silence most applications' notices (like e-mail, updates, and network connectivity) while keeping notifications from the media keys and screen brightness enabled. This is a feature Robert Rijkhoff mentioned wanting to experience during his review of Zorin OS earlier this year.
Conclusions
I tend to have mixed feelings when I dive into a new snapshot of KaOS. On the one hand I appreciate it when developers have a vision for their distribution. I like it when a small team like the one behind Linux Mint or Void seems to have a clear idea of what they want to accomplish and focus on that without getting bogged down trying to make something that tries to appeal to everyone and ends up getting spread too thin. A focused project tends to have a sense of polish about it and a clear approach to doing things.
On the other hand, I tend to find distributions which aim for software or toolkit purity (for example, only shipping Qt-based or GTK-based software) impractical. There are lots of programs in the GTK camp that work very well and lots in the Qt camp that work beautifully. Ignoring some of the best tools the open source community has to offer, on either side, simply means I'm going to spend more of my time hunting down the utilities I feel are the best ones for the job.
All of that is to say that I appreciate what the developers are doing, but it's not necessarily an approach I want to use. Which means, for the sake of this trial, I was trying to focus more on whether KaOS did a good job at what it was trying to do (focus on one desktop, toolkit and architecture) rather than whether I liked it.
For the most part I think KaOS does a good job. It took me a while to get used to having the login options, panel, application menu, and window buttons on the right side. But once I shifted to this way of doing things, I had to admit it was more efficient than the defaults most distributions use. I'm used to having everything on the left, but it's probably equally helpful to group everything on the right.
The Plasma desktop did a good job for the most part, especially when running on physical hardware. At least it did in the X.Org session, the Wayland session still is not practical in my test environments.
I really like the welcome window, most of the default applications, and the Calamares installer. My only consistent issue tended to be with visuals. Specifically the pulsing red update notification icon and the way the login screen hid the date and the session options. White text on a white background is not a good combination, visually.
Otherwise, I think KaOS did a pretty good job at delivering a solid experience. Some of the default applications were not to my taste and the distribution is surprisingly heavy in memory, but the performance was still solid. There were a handful of bugs or little issues that annoyed me, but it was possible to work around them all. KaOS may not be my cup of tea, exactly, but I can see it would have strong appeal if you are a fan of the Plasma desktop and rolling release distributions.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card, Ralink RT5390R PCIe Wireless card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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Visitor supplied rating
KaOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 5.7/10 from 25 review(s).
Have you used KaOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Development updates from the FreeBSD team, Linux Mint plans new features and LMDE4, Linux kernel to include WireGuard
The FreeBSD project has published a new Quarterly Status Update detailing the project's progress over the past three months. The FreeBSD team has done a lot of work to improve driver support, particularly for newer Intel wireless cards, and refreshed ports. One key feature that received attention was the Linux compatibility layer, which allows FreeBSD to run some Linux programs: "There was a fair number of all kinds of improvements to the layer, ranging from updated linux(4) man page, to a new linux rc script, which now takes care of eg mounting Linux-specific filesystems or setting ELF fallback brand, to new syscalls, to tiny improvements such as making ^T work for Linux binaries. From the user point of view, when running 13-CURRENT, Linux jails are now in a mostly working state: you can SSH into a jail with CentOS 8 binaries, run screen(1), Emacs, Postgres, OpenJDK 11, use 'yum upgrade'... Of course there's still a bunch of things that need work." The report has many more details on the work going into FreeBSD.
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The Linux Mint team is currently looking forward to releasing new versions of the project's Debian- and Ubuntu-based editions. The fourth version of the Debian branch will be released first and contains many improvements and bug fixes. Some of the key points deal with Btrfs support and NVIDIA video drivers. "LMDE 4 will be released first. It will feature all the improvements we shipped with Linux Mint 19.3 (HDT, boot-repair, system reports, language settings, HiDPI and artwork improvements, new boot menus, Celluloid, Gnote, Drawing, Cinnamon 4.4, XApp status icons etc) on top of an improved Debian 10 package base. Some of the features which were missing in LMDE 3 were also ported from Linux Mint. The installer was given a better look and the same slideshow as in ubiquity: It also now supports Btrfs submodules and home directory encryption. Like every new release, LMDE 4 is an opportunity to try new things. We've had issues with Nouveau (the open-source driver) compatibility on some NVIDIA cards for a while now. In most cases people had to use nomodeset, but when Nouveau didn't recognize the chipset at all, they were left with no graphical display. In LMDE 4 we're adding a new entry in the boot menu which installs the NVIDIA drivers on the fly, so both the live session and the installed OS work out of the box." More information on the upcoming releases can be found in the distribution's newsletter.
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A recent change to the Linux kernel that will likely affect most distributions in the near future is the inclusion of WireGuard. WireGuard is a VPN technology which aims to be smaller, faster, easy to set up, and more secure than competing VPN technologies like OpenVPN. Arstechnica reports that WireGuard has been merged into the kernel by Linus Torvalds and should be present when Linux 5.6 is released. The site also has an overview of what it is like to use WireGuard on Linux: "These are still early days for WireGuard, but right now, it looks like it's probably the most secure and reliable option out there. WireGuard might also be the fastest - it operates entirely in kernel space, unlike OpenVPN, which has to context-switch in and out from kernel to userspace rapidly. But I haven't really been able to confirm that; I saw much better speedtests from WireGuard on a very starved LTE connection from my local public library, but I saw OpenVPN holding its own or even outrunning it on a much faster wi-fi connection at the house later."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
Dealing with low-memory performance
When an operating system runs out of room in its memory for applications, it will try to shove inactive programs and their data out to the disk. In the GNU/Linux and BSD families of operating systems this disk-based storage is called swap space. Using swap space effectively gives the computer a lot more memory, in theory, because it means once RAM is full we can continue to run more programs. However, there is a sharp performance penalty. Moving data back and forth from the disk is slow and this means juggling programs in and out of swap space will greatly reduce the performance of the computer.
What is worse is when swap space begins to fill up too. Generally operating systems do not want to kill off running programs and so they will allow software to consume more and more resources, consuming RAM and swap space until there is virtually no room left. When this happens the computer effectively becomes unresponsive and usually needs to be rebooted in order to restore normal functionality.
Linux is notorious for letting memory consumption get out of control and will attempt to continue to move information in and out of swap space until the system is effectively frozen. In short, individual programs are kept alive, but at the expense of bringing the whole operating system to its knees.
In early January we reported on a plan Fedora developers have for dealing with this situation. The Fedora proposal uses a tool called Early OOM which will monitor how much memory and swap space have been consumed and attempt to kill off overly heavy processes before the system becomes entirely unresponsive. This means if a big application, like a web browser, gobbles up too much RAM, it can be terminated before the desktop is no longer usable. The system will still slow down, but should recover.
Early OOM is not a new piece of technology, it has been around for a while, helping users and administrators keep their systems from slowing to a crawl. However, most distributions do not install Early OOM by default, leaving the user to experience the kernel's default behaviour. The reason I'm talking about Early OOM today is I feel many people could benefit from this program, not just Fedora users who will likely have it running by default in the near future.
Apart from monitoring the system's memory consumption and killing off greedy processes, Early OOM has a few handy features. One is that we can set the percentage of RAM and swap that can be consumed before Early OOM begins reaping processes. Maybe we want swap to be nearly full before we kill off processes, hoping they will sort themselves out on their own. Or maybe we want to terminate programs if only 10% of swap is consumed, in order to enjoy maximum performance. Early OOM will let us make these adjustments.
One of the bigger concerns when using a program to kill off applications is the worry that something we really want to keep running will be terminated when we would prefer another, perhaps less heavy, program to be closed instead. Early OOM will help us with this. We can specify programs we would prefer to have killed off and programs we would prefer to have remain in memory. This gives us a layer of protection against having a useful program suddenly disappear.
A final interesting option is the ability to tell us, through a desktop notification, when a process is being terminated to free up memory. This can be useful if we are running background processes and want to know when one of them is being killed. Or if we just want to have a visible notification that Early OOM is working.
These and other features of Early OOM are covered in detail in the project's manual page. I definitely recommend exploring it if you are running a system that occasionally runs low on memory and becomes unresponsive as a result.
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Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Kali Linux 2020.1
Kali Linux is a Debian-based distribution with a collection of security and forensics tools. The project has started off the 2020 year with a new release and a series of significant changes. The new version, 2020.1, of Kali Linux merges the various desktop editions into single download options and does away with running as the root user by default. "Throughout the history of Kali (and its predecessors BackTrack, WHAX, and Whoppix), the default credentials have been root/toor. This is no more. We are no longer using the superuser account, root, as default in Kali 2020.1. The default user account is now a standard, unprivileged, user. For more of the reasons behind this switch, please see our previous blog post. As you can imagine, this is a very large change, with years of history behind it. As a result, if you notice any issues with this, please do let us know on the bug tracker. So with this, should you use Kali as your daily driver, as the primary OS? It's up to you. There wasn't anything really stopping you before, we just don't encourage it. We still don't. But its a helping hand for the people who are familiar with Kali enough."
FreeNAS 11.3
Joon Lee has announced the release of FreeNAS 11.3, an updated build of the project's FreeBSD-based operating system for computers used as Network-Attached Storage (NAS) devices: "We are pleased to announce the general availability of FreeNAS 11.3-RELEASE. The 11.3 series represents a year-long development effort and brings with it a wide variety of improvements and fixes. FreeNAS 11.3 includes many new features and improvements, with the following highlights: re-implemented Replication Engine, allows up to 10GB replication speeds (a 10x improvement), resume support on failed transfers, as well as ability to replicate locally; ACL Manager - allows setup and management of SMB ACL's directly via the FreeNAS web interface; SMB Shadow Copies are now enabled by default for new shares - note that Snapshots will only show up in Windows 'Previous Versions Tab' if the snapshot USED size shows changes to the file; a repository of Community plugins has been created, users can now create and distribute 3rd party plugins which are not officially iXsystems supported." Read the press release and the release notes for more information and screenshots.
OLPC OS 13.2.11
James Cameron has announced the release of OLPC OS 13.2.11, the latest stable version of the project's specialist distribution developed for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project which aims to provide children in developing countries with low-cost Linux laptops. The new version continues to be based on Fedora 18: "We're pleased to announce the release of OLPC OS 13.2.11 for XO-1, XO-1.5, XO-1.75 and XO-4. Fixes: Browse 157.5 - hide browser tabs in fullscreen mode, reset title after a download starts, ignore leading spaces in a URL, add dark mode for PDFs, new translations, fixed collaboration; Calculate 45.1 - reduce lower limit of number of digits shown, add non-Arabic numerals depending on locale, fix unsupported operand type(s) error, adjust font sizes depending on org.sugarlabs.font, change to TelepathyGLib API for collaboration, new translations; Chat 85.1 - advise of connection in progress, search chat text feature, fix emoji menu horizontal overflow, dismiss emoji menu on escape key, decrease startup time by delaying emoji menu construction, fix log warning on entry focus, change to TelepathyGLib API for collaboration...." See the release announcement and release notes for more details.
OPNsense 20.1
Jos Schellevis has announced the release of OPNsense 20.1, which carries the code name "Keen Kingfisher". OPNsense is a HardenedBSD-based specialist operating system (and a fork of pfSense) designed for firewalls and routers. The project's latest introduces a number of security improvements and updates the default Python version to 3.7. "20.1, nicknamed "Keen Kingfisher", is a subtle improvement on sustainable firewall experience. This release adds VXLAN and additional loopback device support, IPsec public key authentication and elliptic curve TLS certificate creation amongst others. Third party software has been updated to their latest versions. The logging front-end was rewritten for MVC with seamless API support. On the far side the documentation increased in quality as well as quantity and now presents itself in a familiar menu layout." Additional details, along with a list of changes and known issues, can be found in the project's release announcement.
OPNsense 20.1
(full image size: 2.1MB, resolution: 1919x1298 pixels)
OpenMandriva Lx 4.1
The final build of OpenMandriva Lx 4.1, a cutting-edge, desktop-oriented Linux distribution featuring KDE Plasma, is now available. The new release brings Linux kernel 5.5, Plasma 5.17.5 and LibreOffice 6.4.0, among many other updates and improvements: "OpenMandriva Lx 4.0 turned out to be a great one but... we made it better. A few days after the release candidate, we are very proud to introduce the OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 final release. The release includes: Linux kernel 5.5, Qt Framework 5.14.1, KDE Plasma Desktop 5.17.5, KDE Frameworks 5.66.0, KDE Applications 19.12.1, LLVM/clang 9.0.1, systemd 244, Java 13, Calamares 3.2.17, LibreOffice 6.4.0.... OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 now supports package compression in zstd instead of xz. FFmpeg supports av1 decoding via dav1d and nvdec/nvenc for NVIDIA GPU. And Chromium now includes VAAPI (hardware decoding video h264/vp9) support." Read the release announcement for more details and screenshots. OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 images are available in four variants, including "znver1" (optimised for the current range AMD processors) and "clang" (the Linux kernel is compiled with Clang instead of GCC).
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 1,801
- Total data uploaded: 30.0TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Single focus versus general purpose distributions
In our review of KaOS this week we talked about how KaOS takes a narrow focus, choosing to work on one CPU architecture (x86_64), with one toolkit (Qt), and one desktop (KDE Plasma). Other distributions, particularly Debian, take a general purpose approach, working on multiple CPUs, with multiple toolkits, and supporting multiple desktops. We would like to hear if you have a preference for one approach over the other? Do you want a distribution that runs anywhere with a wide range of configurations, or a distribution that focuses on doing one thing?
You can see the results of our previous poll on purchasing computers with official ties to a distribution in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Single focus versus general purpose distributions
| I prefer a general purpose distro: | 1028 (60%) |
| I prefer a single focus distro: | 191 (11%) |
| I prefer a middle ground between these two: | 297 (17%) |
| I have no preference: | 196 (11%) |
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
Distributions added to waiting list
- TAZ. TAZ is a Gentoo-based live DVD/USB distribution which can run on 32-bit and 64-bit computers. TAZ can be loaded into and run from RAM at boot time.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 10 February 2020. 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 • No preference, absolutely. (by Otto Ouster on 2020-02-03 00:45:39 GMT from Canada)
I have voted no preference, as a matter of fact I have tried almost all sort of distro,
and ended-up discarded distro from archiveOS which do not serve any other specific purpose, but, it does serve my minimal purpose. I have used Arch, Gentoo, OpenSUSE, CentOS, Ubuntu(s), PCLOS, MX/ANTIX, Debian, Devuan, Tails, Void and many others.
As long as it works out-of-the box, I have absolutely no preference(s) either for systemd or init, even for any DE(s).
May be, I am the only one here who has absolutely no preferences at all.
2 • Special-purpose vs. general-purpose Linux distributions. (by R. Cain on 2020-02-03 00:47:31 GMT from United States)
Why in the *WORLD* would someone choose to be absolutely constrained by a special-purpose distribution? Talk about placing all your faith in the distro developers! As the British would say: "...a fool's errand...".
3 • Special-purpose vs. .... (by R. Cain on 2020-02-03 00:58:48 GMT from United States)
...forgot to add that, as of right now, "I prefer a single focus distro" stands at 3%.
That's where it will end... and that's too high.
4 • single focus distros only work when... (by greenpossum on 2020-02-03 01:15:22 GMT from Australia)
The intended use is narrow, like firewall, NAS, VPN, and it just works out of the box. Maybe even headless and operated by a web interface. Otherwise eventually they accumulate features and then why didn't they just use a GP distro in the first place. When these projects fade they leave behind orphaned users. Better for the effort to have been put into customisations for existing distros. Devs, please ask yourselves before launching yet another distro, does the world need it, especially if it's just a respin of an existing one?
5 • single focus distro (by Ted on 2020-02-03 01:26:38 GMT from Australia)
I only use KDE+qt on a 64 bit processor, so I want a distro that offers a well setup, curated experience for that.
6 • Poll Question Musing (by A.F. on 2020-02-03 01:40:13 GMT from United States)
I suspect that this week's subject of review will act as a red-herring for a lot of responses to this week's poll. A desktop OS/distro is meant to be a platform for the user's other work or tasks. Whether you're using a general-purpose desktop distro (your Debians and Ubuntus of the world), or something that's very obviously tailored to a certain hardware platform, desktop layout, internal architecture, or even just its own personality (your KaOSs and NixOSs, Peppermints and Puppys), at the end of the day that distro still has to accommodate all of the workflow tasks that a user may need. I'm sure many fans of this-or-that distro will (quite justifiably!) disagree with this, but: once you get out from under the hood, a lot of these distros tend to be very homogenized, because as an operating system, that software is acting as a canvas for other tasks, rather than a task unto itself.
As a result, the way this poll is phrased, it's hard not to see it as a leading question: unless a user knows exactly what workflow or environment they want, and on what platform they need it, it's hard to justify a distro that only accommodates one hyper-specific use case, when so many others can accommodate that scenario plus many others. The trouble is, any power user who's so confident (or, depending on your perspective, picky) about what they want will probably also have the expertise needed to modify their system to suit their needs. Hence, the enduring popularity of distros like Arch and Gentoo (which are so vague as distros that you'd be hard pressed to find two identical users of either), even when other projects seek to take their work and simplify or pre-package it. To take one popular example, Manjaro makes Arch much easier to use, but it also cuts away some of its parent's raison d'etre, its KISS-ness and customizability, in the process.
I would suggest, then, that it's more productive to use/discuss "single-focus" distros not in terms of their installation applicability (except in cases where there really is a specialized need, such as supporting old/nonstandard architectures), but rather in terms of their actual use case: for unique projects such as embedded tasks, network storage, thin clients, and the like. Distros such as Alpine or WebConverger justify themselves by serving specific tasks, and are a vital part of the Linux ecosystem.
A specialized-desktop distro like KaOS, on the other hand, is at the mercy of the user's tastes being compatible with its creator's. It justifies itself to its own developers, who make that distro "in their own image," and the fact that such a project can exist exemplifies just why the Linux ecosystem is still so valuable in this day and age of lowest-common-denominator computing. Still, the side effect of that personalized project is that its reach will likely be limited to the devs themselves, plus a few odd users/distro-hoppers here and there.
7 • What ever (by Otto Ouster on 2020-02-03 01:55:22 GMT from Canada)
Butter Pecen, Chocolate chips, Pistachio, Strawberry or Raspberry does not matter for those who prefers plain vanilla. Exactly same as-in for GNULinux/FreeBSD, Enterprise/Desktop, KDE/GNOME, Mate/XFCE/LXDE, GCC/Clang or X/No-X or what so ever.
8 • single purpose vs general purpose (by Jeff on 2020-02-03 02:24:04 GMT from United States)
For all around use obviously general purpose, but that does not mean a single purpose distro is useless.
Gparted, Clonezilla, Tails (or Heads), Puppy...
Single purpose distros when you need one specific thing done they are the best tool for the job.
9 • Never needs winding never needs winding (by Trihexagonal on 2020-02-03 02:36:42 GMT from United States)
While FreeBSD may be considered for use as a server, firewall, etc. it fits my needs best as a desktop OS. When installed on a Thinkpad X61 makes the best dedicated .mp3 player I've ever had.
10 • Single focus v general purpose @8 (by pengxuin on 2020-02-03 03:56:35 GMT from New Zealand)
agree
single focus for a specific task - Clonezilla specifically.
otherwise GP for everyday computing. (web browsing, music / video playback or editing / processing, document creation.)
desktop agnostic, whatever the day brings ;-)
11 • EarlyOOM (by Andy Figueroa on 2020-02-03 05:04:44 GMT from United States)
Out of memory issues: really? I'm a Gentoo user, and I've installed and maintained Gentoo on low memory systems, as low as 512M, and occasionally used a little bit of swap, but never ran out of memory. If one has enough RAM (2 GB for most), it won't ever swap to disk. I think this is a non-problem. Admittedly, I'm currently running 16 GB, with 3 GB free, and if I do heavy compiling, it still never swaps to disk. Linux kernel has excellent memory management if left to default settings.
12 • Linux Kernel (by Otto Ouster on 2020-02-03 06:02:44 GMT from Canada)
Linux Kernel - 5.6
In addition to connectionless protocol, WireGuard VPN protocol is being merged into linux mainline kernel as a kernel-networking-tunnel operator as a companion to UDP.
13 • Linux kernel perfect fit for IoT Devices. (by Otto Ouster on 2020-02-03 07:58:14 GMT from Canada)
Latest Linux kernels with embedded broadcom-sta, zero-conf networking, systemd, wayland client and server, tons of tcp/ip protocols, UDP, and WireGuard VPN protocol makes it well-equipped & perfect-fit for IoT devices.
With latest Linux Kernel, users can get rid-off network manager completely.
I hope, it will be perfectly alright and in-line with European Data Protection Regulations and Data Protection Regulations in some other countries.
14 • Single or dual purpose (by Jim on 2020-02-03 10:50:30 GMT from United States)
I install dual purpose distros, but keep single purpose like Parted Magic and Ubuntu "boot-repair-disk" in my arsenal.
15 • I prefer General Purpose distros (by TuxRaider on 2020-02-03 14:59:38 GMT from United States)
i can always git the newest packages from github and build any specific software i like to focus on, like SDR radio software, i have the newest builds running, the only special purpose SDR radio distro is Skywave Linux which is basically ubuntu 16.04 with older SDR software installed, and i dont think the developers of Skywave linux has built a new ISO with an updated Linux distro and the newest SDR packages in several years, besides that i dont like depending on somebody else to put it all together for me if i dont actually have to
16 • Distro Focus (by Ken Harbit on 2020-02-03 15:44:18 GMT from United States)
I voted for general simply because it fills my need, which is a desktop that can handle any kind of document and email/web connection. But if you have a specific need, and there is a distro focused on that need, by all means use and support the focused distro. Having all these disros, both general and focused, is one of the things that make Linux great. If one distro doesn't do it for you, do some research, find one that does what you want then support it. So, the question is missing a checkbox, it needs one that says "The Linux world needs both."
17 • Distos should be good at what they do (by Dxvid on 2020-02-03 16:51:25 GMT from Sweden)
I prefer if distro's are good at what they do. It's better to do a few things well than to do everything halfhearted. If I select KDE or Gnome or LxQt I want everything to run smoothly and optimized for that environment. If I run on ARM or POWER instead of Intel/AMD, I expect everything to run perfectly on that CPU arch. If providing Wayland, make sure it works first. If distro maintainers aren't able to provide this, then don't waste our time trying out for countless hours finding support is limited. It's better to be good at what you do than to provide everything halfhearted. I selected middle ground because of this. However I really only genuinely like distros who provide a lot of choice, and do it well at the same time. So I stick with the big ones: OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, and sometimes if needed i use RedHat or Debian if the customer requires it.
18 • Special purpose distros are needed. (by Garon on 2020-02-03 17:24:12 GMT from United States)
Contary to what some others may say, general purpose distros, can for the most part, not do it all. Only someone on a "fool's errand" would believe a GP distro could do it all very well. I'm sure some may come close. I do use a GP distro for my daily computing needs but sometimes nothing but a specialized distro will do the job I need. I dare say that is what most people do. Futhermore there is nothing wrong with a person wanting to stick to a certain platform like KDE or Gnome or even headless. That's what is so great about being in this eco system. All the choices.
19 • General and task-specific (by Gary on 2020-02-03 19:17:00 GMT from United States)
Since most people I have contact with are still using Windows or are new-bees to Linux, I use a general purpose distro. There are several desktops I prefer over others such as KDE and Cinnamon. The task specific type distros that I use regularly are Clonezilla and GParted.
20 • General purpose distro (by voidpin on 2020-02-03 19:42:29 GMT from Sweden)
I voted general purpose but, actually this is not the whole true.
I only use systems that provide a base-install, no DE. I don't want a DE, just a tiling WM and then configure my system with my own choice of applications.
21 • Dealing with low-memory performance (by John Crawford on 2020-02-03 19:49:26 GMT from United States)
I use Xubuntu and have to watch pretty carefully that my old system with 4 gigabytes of memory doesn't consume all memory, as well as all swap, when I have multiple Firefox tabs open. I don't understand why there has been a movement in recent years to reduce the size of, or even eliminate, swap partitions. Is it just based on the performance hit from using swap? Personally, I need tens of gigabytes of swap to prevent my system from becoming completely unresponsive.
22 • xPUD (by Justin on 2020-02-03 20:05:38 GMT from India)
xPUD was one of my favorite single-purpose distros. It was very lean, both in ISO size and RAM usage, and did what I needed it to do. It was designed for netbook users, but I found it useful for VMs and a portable OS when visiting friends. There is something appealing about distros that do so much with little. At the time I was also into Puppy, DSL, and later TCL and Slitaz.
Unfortunately, times change and these types of distros either get heavy or get unsupported (TCL is still around, but its software packaging makes it a non-starter). I loved xPUD's interface and wish I could create a spin of it with just updated packages (e.g., the latest Firefox). Trying to make my own kiosk spins just aren't the same, and kiosk distros are too limiting (I don't need public use).
It reminds me of other projects like Xombrero. That was an OpenBSD attempt at writing a browser that was so small, more secure, better/simpler privacy controls, etc., that I would have made it my daily driver... if it hadn't been discarded a few years before I found it.
I guess if you're going to make your own special-purpose distro, at least leave an easy recipe for people to replicate your work. I don't mean publish a repo on github, have some convoluted magic scripts that you run. I mean make a recipe. Work on your build system early and then make that available. Do yourself that favor by thinking about your own maintenance burden and keep it small.
23 • memory usage by distros (by Fred on 2020-02-03 21:26:18 GMT from New Zealand)
RAM is cheap. Even low-level old machines I find being sold in my area used have 4GB. The occasional one has 2GB, but those are a joke anyway. I have 8GB of which 6 mostly sit there and sleep. This is very unlike W7/W10 where memory gets sucked up for all sorts of nonsense. With Linux I am always pleasantly surprised at memory usage into 700-1100MB range, even with a couple of apps open. So that fits without issue even on the lowest rung laptops having 2GB.
Now what would you fellow readers do in the opposite scenario - say a machine with 16GB or even 64GB of RAM, running any one of today's memory-efficient Linux distros?
24 • Mostly General, & Some Tailored To The Task Distros (by M.Z. on 2020-02-04 00:31:16 GMT from United States)
I chose the middle ground option, because I use some fairly general purpose distors like Mageia & to a lesser extent Mint (which is very focused on the desktop & a bit Gtk focused for programs), & then sometimes I use a very specific distro for a firewall OS. If you have a specific task for a specific pice of hardware or want to multi-boot a computer to do one specific thing some of the time I think it could be a lot smarter & easier to explore a few purpose built distros. It could save time & create far better results than fighting to configure a general distro to do a specific thing less well than a pre configured alternative would have done it.
25 • My personal choices and flavors. (by Otto Ouster on 2020-02-04 06:28:23 GMT from Canada)
n latest or decent hardwares, I prefer:
PCLOS -> KDE (somehow get PCLOS link was not working last time!) - Mirrors were OK.)
CentOS/Ubuntu -> GNOME
LinuxMint -> Cinnamon
Devuan/MX -> XFCE
Debian -> XFCE/LXQT
OpenMandriva -> KDE Plasma - Clang compile is bit faster distro.
Antix -> IceWM/JWM/Fluxbox
Gento -> Many Flavors - Robust Distro.
Puppy -> Many Endless Cute Flavors.
My current hardware does not like what I like.
Second, How hard or How easy it is to convert GP Disto(s) into Specialized ones, or, a specialized distro into GP one?
26 • Did I just forget Slackware? (by Otto Ouste on 2020-02-04 06:38:06 GMT from Canada)
Yes, Slackware mostly XFCE.
A very few derivative(s) of Slackware has multiple choices of DEs, but, they are fast enough.
27 • middle grounds..? (by fonz on 2020-02-04 17:19:02 GMT from Indonesia)
voted for middle grounds, since i think my preferred choice of using debian testing cd xfce covers (all?) major platforms, and starts us off with a minimal working gui with not a lot of stuff installed. sure i did some cleanup after that, but its been years since ive last felt like installing an os. modern distros IMHO tend to offer too much fluff.
28 • * (by Cynic on 2020-02-06 06:36:41 GMT from Ghana)
@26 - Not sure what exactly that means.. XFCE, KDE, and about 5 window managers come with Slackware by default..
Only reason(s) it doesn't have gnome:
1. They don't have "stable" releases - and even if they "do", they require constant patching which doesn't fit the Slackware focus on stability.
2. They made the choice to jump on the SystemD bandwagon, with no regard for init systems. (I say init systems because SystemD does far too much to fall into that category alone.)
It was a very anti-*NIX decision..
There is a project called dlackware which offers gnome and SystemD but I have never used it.. nor to I know anyone who does.
@Topic of Specialized OSs:
It boils down to the same question every developer (myself included) must ask when releasing almost any piece of software:
" Am I reinventing the wheel or am I providing a solution no one has either thought of or publicly released? "
My question would be how this differs in concept of a KDE/QT showcase more than Neon itself..
I would also wonder why in a world of choice, the concept behind the distro in question seems to be that a reduction in said choice is the "answer".
If KDE wasn't included in Slackware by default I would have stopped using it entirely by 3.2.something. QT (imo) is far too plastic and glossed for my liking, and I'm not a huge fan of large all-inclusive suites. That being said, I know many are and as such I would never make software which prevents, hides, or disables the choice to install well.. anything?
Gparted, systemrescueCD, Kali, tails, all examples of perfectly viable specialized OS's.
This system.. unless they make GTK an option.. most likely will be unsustainable due to simple user frustration.
29 • distro reviews - thank you (by David on 2020-02-07 00:50:18 GMT from New Zealand)
I continue to be amazed that every week you guys (mostly Jesse it seems) do quite an in-depth review of a distro. These are very helpful and an interesting read. The issues, shortfalls and caveats are numerous and help us the readers understand what lies ahead. Hopefully too, the distro teams read these, and make improvements!
Number of Comments: 29
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