 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 852, 10 February 2020 |
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.
* * * * *
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
* * * * *
Visitor supplied rating
EasyOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.8/10 from 26 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.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
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 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Issue 1032 (2023-08-14): MX Linux 23, positioning new windows on the desktop, Linux Containers adopts LXD fork, Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ form OpenELA |
| • Issue 1031 (2023-08-07): Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, preventing a file from being changed, Asahi Linux partners with Fedora, Linux Mint plans new releases |
| • Issue 1030 (2023-07-31): Solus 4.4, Linux Mint 21.2, Debian introduces RISC-V support, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 |
| • Issue 1029 (2023-07-24): Running Murena on the Fairphone 4, Flatpak vs Snap sandboxing technologies, Redox OS plans to borrow Linux drivers to expand hardware support, Debian updates Bookworm media |
| • Issue 1028 (2023-07-17): KDE Connect; Oracle, SUSE, and AlmaLinux repsond to Red Hat's source code policy change, KaOS issues media fix, Slackware turns 30; security and immutable distributions |
| • Issue 1027 (2023-07-10): Crystal Linux 2023-03-16, StartOS (embassyOS 0.3.4.2), changing options on a mounted filesystem, Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Fedora debates telemetry for desktop team |
| • Issue 1026 (2023-07-03): Kumander Linux 1.0, Red Hat changing its approach to sharing source code, TrueNAS offers SMB Multichannel, Zorin OS introduces upgrade utility |
| • Issue 1025 (2023-06-26): KaOS with Plasma 6, information which can leak from desktop environments, Red Hat closes door on sharing RHEL source code, SUSE introduces new security features |
| • Issue 1024 (2023-06-19): Debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Debian releases GNU/Hurd 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 nears its end of life, FreeBSD turns 30 |
| • Issue 1023 (2023-06-12): openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the differences between independent distributions, openSUSE lengthens Leap life, Murena offers new phone for North America |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
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| Shells.com |
Your own personal Linux computer in the cloud, available on any device. Supported operating systems include Android, Debian, Fedora, KDE neon, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro and Ubuntu, ready in minutes.
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| Random Distribution | 
Ignalum Linux
Ignalum was located in Markham, Ontario, Canada. The privately held company was founded in the year 2002 with a vision of creating a cost-effective, installation-friendly, complete Linux-based operating environment offering full Windows compatibility. Ignalum Linux was a complete, Red Hat and RPM-based operating system optimized for the i686-class processors. It contains an easy to use installation program, extensive online documentation, and a menu-driven package system. A full installation gives you the X Window System, C/C++ development environments, Perl, networking utilities, a mail server, a news server, a web server, an ftp server, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, OpenOffice Suite, Netscape Communicator, plus many more programs. Ignalum Linux can run on any P6-class and higher processors (but uses -march=i686 -O2 optimization for best performance on i686-class machines like the P3, P4, and Duron/Athlon).
Status: Discontinued
|
| Tips, Tricks, Q&As | | Questions and answers: Private communication and backups with GPG |
| Questions and answers: The LILO boot loader |
| Questions and answers: Recovering open files, starting a new Linux distro |
| Questions and answers: Getting started with Linux servers |
| Tips and tricks: Command line weather, ionice, rename files, video preview snapshot, calednar, ls colour settings |
| Questions and answers: Containing user accounts |
| Tips and tricks: Play nicely, drop secure shell sessions cleanly, check init's name |
| Tips and tricks: Working with media files on command line |
| Myths and misunderstandings: sudo |
| Tips and tricks: Advanced file systems, network traffic, running a script at login/logout |
| More Tips & Tricks and Questions & Answers |
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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