 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 852, 10 February 2020 |
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Welcome to this year's 6th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
One of the great aspects of open source operating systems in general, and Linux distributions in particular, is the ability to shape the operating system into a specific, focused tool. Sometimes Linux distributions become live disc utilities that assist in data rescue or anonymous web browsing. Sometimes they are used to test experimental concepts or confirm hardware compatibility. This week we explore a few specialized distributions, beginning with EasyOS. The EasyOS platform provides user friendly, point-n-click containers which can be used to isolate individual applications or the whole desktop with virtually no effort from the user. We have further details on EasyOS in our Feature Story. In our Questions and Answers column we discuss tools which can be used to clone hard drives and partitions, including Clonezilla Live. We would like to hear which cloning tools you use in our Opinion Poll. Then, in our News column, we report on the Container Linux project shutting down, along with new features coming to elementary OS. Plus we discuss the convergent Unity8 desktop coming to Debian along with updates to Debian's install media. Then we are pleased to share the new releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: EasyOS 2.2
- News: Overview of new elementary OS features, Container Linux nears end of life, Unity8 gets packaged for Debian
- Questions and answers: Cloning one disk to another
- Released last week: elementary OS 5.1.2, Raspbian 2020-02-05, Simplicity Linux 20.1
- Torrent corner: 4MLinux, Archman, DeZeru, elementary OS, KDE neon, Nitrux, OSMC, Raspbian, Simplicity, SparkyLinux, Tiny Core, Ultimate Edition
- Opinion poll: Tools for cloning hard drives and partitions
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (13MB) and MP3 (10MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
EasyOS 2.2
EasyOS is an experimental Linux distribution which uses many of the technologies and package formats pioneered by Puppy Linux. The distribution features custom container technology called Easy Containers which can run applications, or the entire desktop environment, in a container.
The project's latest version is EasyOS 2.2 which is based on Debian 10 packages. I last tried EasyOS (version 1.0) about a year ago and I was curious to see how the distribution has evolved. EasyOS is available for 64-bit (x86_64) computers and its download is a compressed image file, 514MB in size. Once the file is unpacked, it expands to 1,281MB (about 1.2GB).
Once the image file is written to a thumb drive we can boot the distribution which brings up a text console. We are prompted to pick our keyboard from a list of abbreviated language options. Then we are asked to make up a password. The password is later used to unencrypt a filesystem - I suspect the area of the thumb drive which contains our data and settings. In other words, it is important to remember this password.
The desktop, a customized version of JWM, loads and shows us a setup screen where we can adjust language and desktop settings. We are then given a chance to enable a firewall and open any listed network ports we wish. The window manager then displays icons along the top of the screen for launching package managers, a virtual terminal, a web browser, and a program that helps us find installed applications. Towards the central-top area of the desktop we find specially marked icons which launch containers. Specifically there are containers for running a console, a web browser, and a fully contained desktop. I will come back to these a bit later.
The bottom of the desktop is home to a panel which includes an application menu, task switcher, and system tray. The system tray has a tiny resource monitor in it, along with a volume control, battery monitor, and icon for connecting to local networks.
EasyOS 2.2 -- Adjusting settings with PupControl
(full image size: 224kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The application menu is a bit crowded. There are a lot of programs, many of them for adjusting settings and tweaking the desktop. The programs are well organized, though labelled differently than we might usually see in other distributions, so it took me a while to find programs I wanted to run.
Containers
The main focus of EasyOS is its container technology. A container allows the user to click an icon and launch an application in an isolated environment, with its own filesystem and its own files. Data we save in a container is kept separate from the rest of the operating system, and files we save outside of containers are hidden from applications inside the container. This allows the user to run multiple programs (or copies of programs) that do not interfere with each other and cannot see files we may wish to keep private.
EasyOS 2.2 -- Running a regular and a contained terminal in the same directory
(full image size: 163kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
These containers are especially useful when running untrusted scripts or applications. For example, we might want to run a web browser that is unable to see any of our files and, if it is hijacked, it will be unable to place malicious code in our home directory.
The nice thing about EasyOS containers is that they work seamlessly with the desktop. At a glance, a contained application looks like any other. We can click a contained program's icon (contained applications have a little lock symbol next to them) and the program opens in a window as usual and functions just like any other desktop application.
We can check to see if our program is running in a container by checking for the existence of a file in the program's default directory. A contained application will find its default directory includes an empty file featuring the name of the container. For example, INSIDE_console or INSIDE_buster.
Apart from the default application containers, there is also a launcher on the desktop for running an entire separate desktop environment in its own container. Launching this icon immediately creates a new, full-screen desktop that has its own application menu and icons. We can then run programs, move icons around, and install new software inside the contained desktop. We can switch back to our regular desktop (leaving the container running) by pressing Alt+F6. At this point the contained desktop can be accessed like any other window in the task switcher, or closed like we would with any other window.
EasyOS 2.2 -- Running an entirely isolated desktop in a container
(full image size: 99kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Lots of operating systems, including other Linux distributions, feature application containers. This on its own is not new. What EasyOS does, which I have not seen done as well anywhere else, is make containers entirely seamless. They look and operate just like any other program running on the desktop, and are distinct only by their icons. This makes setting up and running isolated programs, for testing or privacy purposes, entirely a point-n-click experience.
Software management
EasyOS provides two package managers that can be accessed from desktop short-cuts. The first is PETget. This is a classic package manager that shows categories of applications on the left side of the window and a list of available software in the selected category on the right. At the top of the window there are a series of radio buttons that let us switch between different repositories, such as the Contrib, Main, and Multimedia repositories. This is a different approach from most package managers which merge package lists from all available repositories. With PETget we may need to browse through multiple repositories to find the software we want. There is a search box that helps us locate specific packages, located at the bottom of the window.
EasyOS 2.2 -- The PETget package manager
(full image size: 254kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
I installed a few programs using PETget and it worked well enough. PETget is unusual in that it asks us if we want to download dependencies, not just optional dependencies but hard requirements, for the software we are installing. Otherwise, PETget works mostly the same way as Pamac or Synaptic.
The second software manager is SFSget, which installs portable bundles of software. While I was using SFSget there were just a handful of packages (seven, to be accurate) available. These included larger applications such as Firefox, Chromium, and Krita. When we install these SFS bundles, we have the option of placing them on the main operating system (as we would with any other package) or we can install the software into a container. This allows us to place a specific application in an isolated environment, for security or testing purposes.
I experimented with this and found it worked pretty well. I could, for example, install Firefox into a container and then run the web browser in an environment separated from the main operating system. However, the application menu launcher for Firefox did not work, I had to open the container, launch a console and run Firefox from the command line. Apart from the Firefox launcher not working, everything else with managing SFS packages and containers worked beautifully and seamlessly.
EasyOS 2.2 -- Downloading SFS packages into a container
(full image size: 275kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Applications
The EasyOS application menu is packed with a lot of useful applications and tools. The Seamonkey web browser is available along with the GNOME-mpv multimedia player and LibreOffice. The Evince document viewer is installed for us along with the GNU Image Manipulation Program and mtPaint. The ROX-Filer file manager is available too, as are programs for ripping, burning, and playing audio discs.
EasyOS 2.2 -- Running Firefox in a desktop container
(full image size: 312kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The distribution ships with many small configuration programs for changing the wallpaper, adjusting the clock, setting up network connections, browsing hardware information, and adjusting the display. There are a lot of these little configuration modules and it can take a while to search through them, but they help insure that almost anything we want to do can be handled through a graphical utility instead of from the command line.
In the background EasyOS runs the Busybox init software and runs on version 5.4.6 of the Linux kernel.
Hardware
At first I tried to run EasyOS in a VirtualBox environment. The distribution could boot, but was unable to initiate a graphical environment. The user is asked to run the xorgwizard program which will try to help us find the right display settings. Unfortunately this program was unable to fix my problem and I was only able to run a text console environment in VirtualBox.
The distribution ran much better on my laptop. EasyOS was able to boot in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes. The system started up quickly, the desktop was highly responsive, and programs loaded quickly. My hardware was handled well for the most part. My screen was set to its maximum resolution, sound worked, and my wireless networking card worked as expected. At first my touchpad would not register taps as clicks. This behaviour can be enabled through the Input Devices settings in the EasyOS Setup module.
EasyOS 2.2 -- Adjusting the mouse settings
(full image size: 234kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
When running on the laptop, EasyOS used about 140MB of RAM when logged into the JWM environment. Running a minimal container used about an extra 15MB of memory. A fresh copy of the distribution used 510MB of space on my thumb drive. This makes EasyOS unusually small and light on resources compared to most Linux distributions.
While it is possible to install EasyOS to a hard drive, the distribution seems to be primarily designed for use as a live desktop system that maintains persistent file storage on a thumb drive and that is how I used it this week.
Conclusions
I want to say up front that EasyOS does not appear to be designed with day to day use in mind. Someone certainly could use EasyOS on a regular basis, but since most programs are run as root, and the distribution seems geared to be run from a thumb drive, it seems more of an experimental and portable tool than a day-to-day operating system. This is how I was using it, at any rate, during my trial.
As a portable operating system we can use to rescue files, run some tests, browse the web, and edit documents, EasyOS performs beautifully. It is fast, the interface is fairly clean, the system is lightweight, and it works on both UEFI and Legacy BIOS computers. If your system has a 64-bit processor and can boot from a thumb drive, EasyOS can probably run on it.
The main draw though is containers. EasyOS makes running, setting up, and installing software inside containers a point-n-click experience. It is wonderfully simple, lightweight, and smooth. Other distributions have put forward isolated environments in one form or another. However, the other containers and integrated virtual machines I have tried either were either very heavy or cumbersome to use in comparison. EasyOS does not require us to use the command line, or run a special container manager to set up isolated environments. Everything is built into the desktop and the package manager for us and I really like how simple the experience is for the end user.
I hope other distributions take a hard look at how EasyOS manages isolated environments because it makes testing software and running untrusted programs (or programs dealing with untrusted input, such as web browsers) a much more straightforward experience.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a de-branded HP laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: Intel i3 2.5GHz CPU
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 700GB hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Wired network device: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast
- Wireless network device: Realtek RTL8188EE Wireless network card
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Visitor supplied rating
EasyOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.8/10 from 35 review(s).
Have you used EasyOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Overview of new elementary OS features, Container Linux nears the end of its life, Unity8 being packaged for Debian
The elementary OS team have published an overview of changes that were added to their distribution in the past month. Some of the updates include improvements to the Code development application, the Files application being able to show the status of files in a Git project, and some tweaks to the virtual terminal. "We released Terminal 5.5 (and a 5.5.1 follow-up) in January. The big obvious new feature here is that we now expose the 'Natural Copy/Paste' setting in the Settings menu, along with a short description of what it does; this should be helpful to anyone who uses CLI apps that didn't play nicely with the feature. We also added zooming with Ctrl + Mouse Scroll, made Terminal instantly reflect font changes, added the sudo password prompt text when copying the last output, and fixed a couple of issues with duplicated or extra Home tabs on startup." Further details can be found in the project's blog post.
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The Container Linux distribution is nearing its end of life. The distribution is being replaced by Fedora CoreOS. "On May 26, 2020, CoreOS Container Linux will reach its end of life and will no longer receive updates. We strongly recommend that users begin migrating their workloads to another operating system as soon as possible. Introducing Fedora CoreOS: As we've previously announced, Fedora CoreOS is the official successor to CoreOS Container Linux. Fedora CoreOS is a new Fedora Edition built specifically for running containerized workloads securely and at scale. It combines the provisioning tools and automatic update model of Container Linux with the packaging technology, OCI support, and SELinux security of Atomic Host. For more on the Fedora CoreOS philosophy, goals, and design, see the announcement of the preview release and the Fedora CoreOS documentation." The announcement mentions that Fedora CoreOS cannot yet replace Container Linux in all situations, though the two projects are quite similar. Further details can be found in the end-of-life announcement.
* * * * *
Unity8 is a desktop environment that was originally created by Canonical to provide a convergent experience. Unity8 was designed to run on a wide variety of devices, including small smart phone screens and large workstation monitors. While Unity8 rarely saw use outside of Ubuntu Touch devices and Canonical has ceased development of the desktop, some community developers have continued work on the project. Unity8 is now being packaged for Debian with an eye toward making the desktop available for all Debian derivatives. Primarily it is hoped Unity8 packages will make it easier for Debian and related distributions to be useful on tablets. "Why Unity8? Because of its convergent desktop feature: Just one code base, usable on a phone, tablet and desktop. Unity8 currently is very well tested on the Ubuntu phone and on various tablet devices. The desktop implementation is lagging a bit behind, but that will be amended soonish, too. Why Unity8 for Debian? Because there is no real good solution for tablets in Debian at the moment. If I'm seeing this wrong, please correct me."
The Debian project has updated the distribution's install media for versions 10 and 9. The new media does not represent new versions of the distribution, but provides install media with up to date security updates. Further information can be found in the project's news announcements for Debian version 10 and version 9.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Cloning one disk to another
Bring-in-the-clones asks: I want to switch from using an HDD to an SDD for better performance. Is there a way to just image my HDD over to the new drive without re-installing?
DistroWatch answers: Yes, there are a few tools we can use to clone one hard drive over to another. The easiest way to do this is to use a live disc utility like Clonezilla Live. We can boot off the Clonezilla Live DVD (or USB thumb drive), select which disk we want to image, and where to place the image.
I have reviewed Clonezilla in the past and what I like about it is that it is incredibly flexible. We can clone (and compress) a disk and place the image either directly onto another disk, or save the data as a file on a remote server or on another local disk. This offers us a backup of the state of the original disk which can be placed on just about any OpenSSH server, network share, or attached storage device. Later we can run Clonezilla again to retrieve the file archive we created and copy it onto the drive of our choosing.
I especially recommend Clonezilla if your computer can only handle having one disk plugged in at a time. Clonezilla will make it fairly easy to snapshot one disk, save the image remotely, then copy the image back to the new drive once it has been plugged into the computer.
Some people will also point out you can do the same thing with command line tools such as dd, but Clonezilla has a nice, friendly menu system that makes the whole process easier.
Something to keep in mind before copying bits over from one disk to the other is the target drive (the SSD in this case) should be the same size or larger than the original spinning disk. A smaller disk will not hold the whole image of the original disk and that will almost certainly cause problems, possibly the inability to boot or the loss of files. Some tools can try to shift things around to compensate for the target drive being smaller than the original source drive, but it is a good idea to make sure your new disk is the same size or has a larger capacity than the original.
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Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Simplicity Linux 20.1
Simplicity Linux is a Devuan-based distribution which follows a similar design to Puppy Linux. The project's latest release, Simplicity Linux 20.1, is available in three editions: Desktop, Mini, and Gaming. It features PulseAudio and uses Cinnamon as the default graphical environment. "We are pleased to announce the release of Simplicity Linux 20.1. It is based on Buster Dog and uses Cinnamon as a window manager. We've also pre-installed PulseAudio rather than the usual ALSA because it was causing problems with a few modern apps. Simplicity Linux 20.1 comes in three different editions: Mini, Desktop and Gaming. We usually create an X Edition, which showcases features which may or may not appear in a future version of Simplicity Linux, but we've decided to rest this for one release cycle as will be explained later. Mini is our lightweight Linux distro. It features minimal pre-installed software, instead using cloud based software. It uses Google Chrome as the main portal to software, and has shortcuts to commonly used cloud based software." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Simplicity Linux 20.1 -- Running the Cinnamon desktop
(full image size: 133kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
elementary OS 5.1.2
The elementary OS team has published a new minor release to the project's 5.1 "Hera" series. The project's new release, elementary OS 5.1.2, introduces newer hardware support via an updated kernel and includes a fix for a significant sudo bug. "A few months ago, we shared how our release process has evolved over time and the release of elementary OS 5.1 'Hera' marked the first time we built the stable ISO image for elementary OS via our new, completely open-source pipeline. With the new process, it has become much easier to tag and release incremental builds of the OS, and consequently today we've released a new spin of the 5.1 ISO.The new 5.1.2 ISO comes pre-built with all of the latest goodies from the January updates, as well as a few important hardware and security updates. These include the latest 18.04.3 hardware enablement (HWE) stack provided by Ubuntu, plus a security fix for sudo. Thanks to the HWE updates, elementary OS is now using the the 5.3 Linux kernel which also improves support for newer devices and peripherals - especially AMD Navi GPUs and 2015 MacBook keyboards and trackpads." Further details can be found in the release announcement.
Raspbian 2020-02-05
Simon Long has announced the release of Raspbian 2020-02-05, an updated build of the specialist, Debian-based distribution designed for the Raspberry Pi single-board computers. The latest release delivers a number of interesting changes, including some modifications to the PCmanFM file manager: "We previously made some significant changes to the PCmanFM file manager included as part of the Raspberry Pi Desktop; we added a cutdown mode which excludes a lot of the less commonly used functionalities, and we set this as the default mode. One of the things we removed for this mode is the Places view, an optional view for the left-hand pane of the window which provides direct access to a few specific locations in the file system. We felt that the directory browser was more useful, so we chose to show that instead. But one useful feature of Places is that it displays external devices, such as USB drives, and these are somewhat awkward to find in the file manager otherwise." Read the detailed release announcement for further information.
Tiny Core Linux 11.0
Version 11.0 of Tiny Core Linux, an independently-developed, minimalist and modular distribution with community-built extensions, has been released. The new version features Linux kernel 5.4.3 and an updated toolchain: "Team Tiny Core is proud to announce the release of Tiny Core Linux 11.0. Changelog: Linux kernel updated to 5.4.3; glibc updated to 2.30; GCC updated to 9.2.0; e2fsprogs base libraries and applications updated to 1.45.4; util-linux base libraries and applications updated to 2.34; BusyBox updated to 1.31.1; .ashrc removed #alias d='dmenu_run &'. Note: we discovered a bug on the 32-bit edition, in Intel IOMMU, preventing boot - if you have a high-end Intel system with IOMMU and VT-D, you may need intel_iommu=off to boot the 32-bit edition; the nouveau kernel module is now enabled, but it is in a separate extension and not in graphics-KERNEL; the nvidia binary driver is still recommended; Intel compute sticks should now detect their embedded MMC Flash; for 64 bit version only - task_xacct and ipmi are enabled...." Please see the release announcement for more details.
* * * * *
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: 1,813
- Total data uploaded: 30.2TB
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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) |
Tools for cloning hard drives and partitions
In our Questions and Answers column we discussed cloning a hard drive, transferring its data byte-for-byte to a new device. There are a number of tools which can help clone partitions and disks. We would like to know which, if any, you use to transfer your data between devices.
You can see the results of our previous poll on single focus versus general purpose distributions in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Tools for cloning hard drives and partitions
| I use Clonezilla: | 422 (27%) |
| I use dd: | 235 (15%) |
| I use GParted: | 155 (10%) |
| I use Parted Magic: | 33 (2%) |
| I use Partition Image: | 10 (1%) |
| I use another cloning tool: | 123 (8%) |
| I use some/all of the above: | 252 (16%) |
| I do not use any cloning tools: | 345 (22%) |
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 17 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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| Archives |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Semplice Linux
Semplice Linux was a simple, fast and lightweight distribution based on Debian's unstable branch. It includes a small collection of up-to-date applications running on top of the Openbox window manager.
Status: Discontinued
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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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