 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.
|
| 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: 8.9/10 from 32 review(s).
Have you used EasyOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
|
| 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.
|
| 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.
|
| 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
|
| 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
|
| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
|
Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| 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.
|
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%) |
|
|
| 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)
|
|
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 0, value: US$0.00) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Partition Cloning (by dhinds on 2020-02-10 01:32:26 GMT from Mexico)
dd is fine for burning an installation iso to a flash thumb drive. (Or Suse Image Burner, if available).
Gparted has produced a few errores and CloneZilla or Parted Magic are probably worth a try.
2 • unity, debian, tablets, phones yeah right (by koolaid guzzler on 2020-02-10 01:34:33 GMT from United States)
Unity is a trash heap. It's astounding that these people keep regurgitating Canonical's putrid, rotten marketing fluff about 'unified' this and that. Oh yeah?? it works on all these different platforms you say? Which ones? Which Tablets are you installing Debian on? Which phones are you installing Debian on? You're not. Stastistically NOBODY is. Hackers and wannabe developers simply don't count.
It's a joke that people keep insisting that this day will come when it clearly will not-- at least not anytime soon. There may be a few corner cases where someone has specifically tailored this or that distro to run on this or that particular device, but to continue to push this lie about how 'convergent' Unity supposedly is such a bald faced lie, I don't know why more people don't call them out for this nonsense.
Look, whether it's systemd or some equally proven disaster like Unity, the people pushing these unwanted projects have identical hatchet-wielding strategies to push their lies. They market the software first, then try to develop a round peg through a square hole. When your only tool is a hammer, suddenly everything looks like a nail!
Amazing how a previously cool project like Debian has fallen so far in to the rat's nest-- cutting out things people actually like and use while laying prostrate to accept stuff nobody asked for that will not work out in the long run. Real dumb.
3 • dd, GParted (by DaveW on 2020-02-10 01:38:33 GMT from United States)
In Linux Mint dd and GParted are the obvious, easy choices.
4 • #2 - unity, debian... (by Andy Prough on 2020-02-10 04:20:51 GMT from United States)
I also had to laugh. The same people who can't be bothered to support multiple init systems are going to fix the Unity convergence problem? I'm sure that this developer, sunweaver, is a very fine person. But I highly doubt they are going to get the support they need from the broader Debian developer community to pull this off.
If I were sunweaver and I really wanted to get this done, I'd be working with the UBports community - they at least seem to be willing to role up their sleeves and get things done without bogging down in endless developer tribal warfare.
5 • Whenever cloning a whole partition one should be well conscious of every detail! (by Gerhard Goetzhaber on 2020-02-10 04:58:41 GMT from Austria)
That said and because I'm used to get my OSs driven on XFS exclusively I do all FS cloning with xfsdump and xfsrestore which even allows me to simply set the UUID of any partition by myself.
6 • Tools for cloning hard drives and partitions (by Andy Figueroa on 2020-02-10 05:01:53 GMT from United States)
Users should realize that one doesn't NEED a cloning tool with Linux. One can actually cp -a /sda1 /sdb1 where sda1=the source partition and sda2=the destination partition. After the copy, adjust /etc/fstab and set up your boot manager (i.e. grub) and it will just work. Ideally, using cp -a, first boot from a CD, DVD, or flash drive, but you can also do it from a live system. It seems a little messy, but the reboot will clean up the mess automatically.
One can also tarball (preferably compressed) an installed system and un-tar to another partition. With a little thoughtfulness, one can exclude certain portions of the source system that don't need to be copied to the destination, those thinks like /dev/* /sys/* and /proc/*
With some distributions, i.e.MX-Linux, one can make a snapshot of the running system, create a live-usb from the snapshot.iso, then install it onto a different partition or computer. This works really well in MX.
Or, you can use a cloning tool and let the cloning tool developers do the technical work.
7 • Ghost4Linux (by Microlinux on 2020-02-10 08:34:41 GMT from France)
I'm using Ghost4Linux and a local FTP server for disk cloning. Works great.
8 • D Ebian or will it be Potterbian (by hank on 2020-02-10 08:35:25 GMT from Germany)
When will the new name be announced, looking at the viral spread of Potterings lunacy it should come soon.
Debian was once called the universal operating system and really deserved the name, now we get system d rammed down our throats, a growing number of packets compiled with system D as a requirement. Gnome ever harder to avoid.
I tried it and hate it by the way, it is as transparent and flexible as systemD with its idiotic binary files to improve the user desaster when things go wrong which the Disease spread makes more likely.
9 • Partition cloning (by fox on 2020-02-10 13:12:31 GMT from Canada)
#5 - conscious of every detail. Being able to set the UUID of any new partition would be a useful feature in Clonezilla. I frequently clone a partition on an external device and have the new and old partitions connected at the same time. This "confuses" grub (or Refind, which I use on Macs). I have to go in manually and change the UUID of one of these partitions, and also fix its fstab to make both of them operational.
10 • Cloning (by brad on 2020-02-10 14:21:26 GMT from United States)
@6 - The need for cloning becomes apparent for those of us who run Win(10) and Linux on the same physical machine. In my case (and in my case only?) Clonezilla does the job, especially when I want to move from a smaller drive to a larger drive, or if I *really* screw up, and need to re-install the OSs to the machine (it happens - not for a few years now).
Acronis makes a Windows-only solution that allows you to clone all partitions from on disk to another, but I've never gotten it to successfully re-image my machine, when I tested it. It also costs money, whereas Clonezilla if free. What more could I ask?
11 • Debian, Unity, Systemd (by Otis on 2020-02-10 15:10:12 GMT from United States)
@2 : "Amazing how a previously cool project like Debian has fallen so far in to the rat's nest-- cutting out things people actually like and use while laying prostrate to accept stuff nobody asked for that will not work out in the long run."
Well... yep. And, speaking of the long run and thinking back to discussion about "core" linux distros years and years ago, we were fighting about what would become of them as time (and original devs of those distros) left, died, were purchased, went back to Windows, joined convents, etc.
Here we are. Systemd won. Canonical won. There is some struggle, a few voices here and there posting links to the non-systemd distros and talking in here and a few other places about all this.. but.. I ask: what made this happen? Money? Influence? Were we wrong about something?
Linux has either evolved or degenerated over time. Take your pick. After you do that, please explain. Honest.. I want to know how this came about.
12 • Easy OS @ Jesse (by OstroL on 2020-02-10 15:31:13 GMT from Poland)
"EasyOS is an experimental Linux distribution which uses many of the technologies and package formats pioneered by Puppy Linux. "
This tells everything about Easy OS. It is Barry Kauler's experimental project after he retired from Puppy. Interestingly, Puppy Linux gets developed by the community. One of the most interesting Linux distros ever created.
An interesting reading, https://easyos.org/about/how-and-why-easyos-is-different.html
13 • Partition cloning (by JimM on 2020-02-10 15:44:09 GMT from United States)
I've successfully used REDO Backup and Recovery on both Linux and Win7. Much easier than Clonezilla and others mentioned.
14 • Unity/cloning (by Gary on 2020-02-10 18:16:08 GMT from United States)
Tried Unity when it was first used in Ubuntu. Quickly switched yo Kubuntu. Unity was more divisive than unifying.
Use Clonezilla and Gparted depending on the work I need to do on a disk. Don't have to worry about problems when I use them.
15 • Cloning (by vern on 2020-02-10 19:52:01 GMT from United States)
I use to use CloneZilla, but now only use FSArchiver, as I can restore from a larger partition to a smaller one as long as the data fits, which CZ can't without a lot of effort .
The difference from CZ to dd, is 'dd' copies everything including non-used sectors, but CZ has within its program, Partclone witch copies only used sectors. Much faster.
16 • Another Advantage of Clonezilla (by Ben Myers on 2020-02-10 19:54:22 GMT from United States)
As a service provider, I am often called on to take care of failing hard drives, not dead yet, but with defective sectors, in the worlds of Linux, Windows and Mac OS. I use several packages to clone hard drives. Most others have GUI interfaces to make the job easier. But when I find a hard drive with bad sectors, I turn to Clonezilla which has the option to continue the cloning process even after finding defective sectors. Most other packages do not offer this option, so I then use Clonezilla which is only marginally more difficult to use.
One feature Clonezilla lacks, but available in other disk management/cloning utilities, is the ability to resize partitions on the target drive when the target has less capacity than the source.
17 • Clonezilla handles drives with defective sectors (by Ben Myers on 2020-02-10 20:01:34 GMT from United States)
As a service provider, I clone a lot of drives in the Windows, Linux and Mac OS worlds. Some source drives are error-free, but others have defective sectors. I use several free packages, some with GUI interfaces to make the process easier. I have never used Acronis so I cannot speak for it.
Whenever I encounter a drive with defective sectors, I trot out Clonezilla, which has an option to continue the process even when it encounters a bad sector. My other choices do not offer this possibility, but they do have a small advantage over Clonezilla, allowing the user (me) to change partition sizes so I can squeeze the contents of a larger drive onto a smaller one.
18 • Clone or no (by Friar Tux on 2020-02-10 22:27:42 GMT from Canada)
I voted "I do not use any cloning tools." as I find it just as easy to do a clean install and use my backups to reload all my stuff. Usually takes me about a half hour or less depending on how fussy I want to be, post install. Mind you, I don't usually change any of the default 'tools' as I find I like them fine. My backups are usually quite up to date, so no problem there, either. Also, if, by chance, I do happen to need a special tool most of the software managers make it very quick and easy to add what I need. About the only tool I find is a 'must-have' is Giuseppe Penone's Cherrytree program. I CANNOT do without that one. In fact, when I try out any new distro the first place I go to is the software manager to see if it's offered. If it's not there and I cannot install it by some other means, that distro is gone.
19 • Cloning (by Vukota on 2020-02-11 00:06:09 GMT from Serbia)
dd can cope with defective sectors as well if given proper switches, and can be used with other tools/commands in combination like gzip/ftp/..., but for some use cases you need live distro to boot from.
Clonezilla is probably easiest well documented way to perform cloning using live distro, but can't deal with all scenarios, like BitLocker protected drives. Parted Magic is equipped/configured better for some of these tasks.
There are other valid choices as well, depending on the use case and personal preferences.
20 • @19 - Bitlocker (by brad on 2020-02-11 00:27:06 GMT from United States)
I was able to recover using Clonezilla - I just had to use the BitLocker key to unlock the drive after recovery.
I do like all the different endorsements of cloning tools, and even the concept of not cloning - as long as you have a separate /home partition, or you only use Windows to test updates, then not cloning is a legitimate option...
21 • Cloning (by OstroL on 2020-02-11 07:24:05 GMT from Poland)
It must be strange, but I just cloned the whole hdd to an ssd one to one with EaseUS Todo Backup from Windows. The hdd had Windows 10 and 6 Linux distros plus 2 data partitions, ntfs and ext4. It was done in few minutes and everything was cloned as is. Replaced the hdd with ssd and laptop worked just the same, only very much faster. And, the app EaseUS Todo Backup was free.
Usually, if I need to clone a Linux distro with all the changes I had made to it, I use rsync to create a one file. But, using this Windows app was nice and surprisingly easy.
22 • EasyOS (by bob_hayden on 2020-02-11 08:13:03 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the review. I do not use any Puppies on a day to day basis but every machine has some version installed plus I have boot CDs. For me this is the replacement for ye olde DOS boot disk that you use when the GUI OS has tanked a machine. For that purpose running as root is a valuable feature as you can fix (or break) anything. So far, in many years of using various Puppies in this way, I have managed not to break anything.
23 • Cloning (by Angel on 2020-02-11 09:53:07 GMT from Philippines)
@21, Not so strange. I've used AOMEI Backupper for years for backup images and cloning. Quite versatile, simple and quick; and a bootable disc can be created in Windows PE or Linux. Free for home use, although, as with EaseUS Todo, a "pro" version is available for a fee.
24 • uNITY (by Jessica on 2020-02-11 13:28:37 GMT from United States)
@2: Unity is not that bad as a desktop other then the lack of custom settings. Even that is no longer an issue as Chanonicle can't break it any more. Gnome 3 is worse for many of us who don't like the workflow. I use XFCE my self do to RAM. As for Unity's code most of us could not tell as we are not programers. eOS has a good mac like desktop, but XFCE is better for that if you want to customize it. Unity might not be for you but it is not as bad as gnome 3. It does not need endless addons that need to be updated and can break. As for Debian what do you expect with there funding and programer issues. They can't even support Debain/bsd and so dropped it. To many people care about things that don't matter. As for System D who really cares. It is needed to use snaps in the first place. Even FreeBSD is working on there own version of SystemD. Linux is better then BSD so why not force them to use our standards. That is the only reason to keep int at all. Who cares about the int system. As for the OS in an OS thing who cares as most of you don't use PowerPC and stuck to intel's X86. Kind of useless complaining about some thing so useless. Also we do have linux powered phones for awhile now. All we need is to get it working on android phones. As for the smart tv thing with Ubuntu TV who will even want one anyway.
@4: They should take over all of Ubuntu as UBports would be better at it. That is the whole reason why we need PPA's.
I don't care what Desktop they use any way for Debian as it is Debain where you can just do what you want if you have the patance to modify the system.
25 • The Sweet Messy Truth about Freedom (by M.Z. on 2020-02-12 02:21:49 GMT from United States)
@11 "... Systemd won."
I'd argue there has been no victory at all. If you mean that most Distros don't use your preferred init system, well welcome to reality - which is a place that will never do exactly as you want. If on the other hand you want choice in init systems, well Devuan and other systems exist - so you are in fact winning every single day and will continue to do so for as long as options exist.
If on the other hand you want to take some hard line all or nothing position, you'll never win & you'll just annoy others along the way. If you want to purity test everything you adopt a self defeating mind set, and cut yourself off to converts. You do get to complain more, but you make people care about you position less & take you less seriously, especially if you move the goal posts.
Why not take the fact that init choice exists as a win, rather than worrying about how many distros are doing what you want? If you do that you can start to focus on actually out performing other options in some way, like finding a lighter, leaner init system that does all the important stuff systemd does, but does if faster, better, & without the cruft. If you find projects to support that do what systemd does but better & leaner, then you may actually get projects to convert & start winning in the way you seem to care about. Of course, if you want to purity test things and use the existence of systemd distros as some goal post, then you'll never win.
@11
"Linux has either evolved or degenerated over time. Take your pick. After you do that, please explain. Honest.. I want to know how this came about. "
Why A or B? That's far too simplistic a way too look at any bigger picture. The truth is that Linux doesn't have systemd at all just as much as it has systemd, all you have to do is pick your version. The truth is that Linux is always evolving in 12 different directions at once, and that while a few of those directions will go nowhere, multiple other will certainly stick around as options. When you chose free/open software you chose an OS family that offers lots of options & lets you do things in lots of different ways, you can get all worked up about the freedom of others not to do what you want the way you want, or or could perhaps ignore, accept, or even celebrate it. Regardless of if you want some version of Linux to exist or not, chances are someone will fork it to create the option and that's the sweet & messy truth about software freedom.
26 • Cloning by means of a Windows LiveDVD (by Stefan on 2020-02-12 05:13:49 GMT from Brazil)
@10 (brad) "... Acronis makes a Windows-only solution that allows you to clone all partitions from on disk to another, but I've never gotten it to successfully re-image my machine, when I tested it. ..."
@21 (OstroL) "... I just cloned the whole hdd to an ssd one to one with EaseUS Todo Backup from Windows. ..."
@23 (Angel) "... I've used AOMEI Backupper for years for backup images and cloning. ..."
___________
I have never used anyone of those Windows-based solutions for cloning an HDD/SDD device. But there are a bunch of other options to choose from in the Microsoft realm. One of the older and most versatile is "Active Boot Disk Creator" ( http://www.boot-disk.com/boot_disk_creator.htm ). It is an executable (".exe" file) which generates a LiveDVD of "Windows PE 5.1" containing free utilities to clone/recover disk partitions. A must-have in those situations when you are forced to rely on a DVD-RW. And it works beautifully, although quite slow to boot up. (Of course, we are not speaking of a lightning-fast Linux LiveUSB...)
27 • minority is always right (by win10 sucks on 2020-02-12 10:23:05 GMT from United States)
Linux noob here. Yup, Linux is cool and there are smart guys like:
@2 "When your only tool is a hammer, suddenly everything looks like a nail!"
@4 "The same people who can't be bothered to support multiple init systems are going to fix the Unity convergence problem?"
@11 - "Linux has either evolved or degenerated over time. Take your pick. After you do that, please explain. Honest.. I want to know how this came about."
And then are "smart" guys like:
@26 "I have never used anyone of those Windows-based solutions" but "Of course, we are not speaking of a lightning-fast Linux LiveUSB..."
@25 "welcome to reality - which is a place that will never do exactly as you want"
All the Distros are made for geeks who know their way around, but are full of junk like office, gimp, cups, etc. that any guy with more than 2 neurons can easily add after install using soft manager. I wander way?
28 • Drumming your own beat... (by Friar Tux on 2020-02-12 13:54:17 GMT from Canada)
Hmmm... it appears we have a few drummers wanting to drum their own beat creating a cacophony of noise but no real music. Folks, Linux is perfect as-is. I see it like General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. Under each, there are/were a number of brands of cars. As a driver you simply pick the car you felt you liked best. Maybe my memory is failing me, but I don't remember people having heated discussions, in the marketplace, as to which brand to keep and scrap-the-rest. Sure, we teased each other about what choice of vehicle was better. They were cars, they got us from point A to point B, and those of us so inclined, 'souped the coupe' up to our liking. This is Linux, folks, same difference.
29 • disk copy (by Paul on 2020-02-12 15:23:52 GMT from Germany)
i could make disk copy with windows program MiniTool Partition Wizard Free
30 • Drumming your own beat... (by a tux but not a friar on 2020-02-12 21:37:38 GMT from United States)
@28 "Linux is perfect as-is" ... Wanna bet?
"As a driver you simply pick the car you felt you liked best" ... What if the major car manufacturer will suddenly decide to use a squirrel wheel instead of an engine, put sunroofs, spinner rims, bike & skis stand, extreme hydraulic suspension, huge rims and many other "useful" gadgets?
31 • @30 30 • Drumming your own beat.. (by Titus_Groan on 2020-02-12 22:15:30 GMT from New Zealand)
"What if the major car manufacturer will suddenly decide to use a squirrel wheel instead of an engine"
Likely that model would be a very poor seller and be pulled from the market, and the designer team pulled up for an explanation, if not shown the door.
any in the used car market would likely be only for enthusiasts whom have swapped out that enviro-friendly squirrel wheel power unit for something more useful.
back to the topic at hand:
Clonezilla is my cloning tool of preference, both as a backup tool, whole drives with multiple partitions, or, just a single partition, and then restoring back to the original drive or installing a system onto to a new drive. much faster than any live install method as you also benefit from not having to install extras.
Caveate: video cards will always get you, but any good system will let you setup a different graphics driver before presenting the desktop.
sometimes grub needs to be installed to the new drive - so a method for grub installation should be in your emergency kit.
32 • Cloning partitions & drives (by Simon Plaistowe on 2020-02-13 00:48:26 GMT from New Zealand)
Clonezila works well for imaging drives and partitions. If the target dive is smaller than the source drive (eg: replacing an old HDD with a new but smaller SSD), I just use GParted to resize the source partitions first, before cloning them. GParted itself works well for cloning partitions, but you'll need to sort out your bootloader separately. Or try fsarchiver, I've had good success with that too, and it can restore to a smaller target partition.
33 • @28 Ford or Chevy (by Tom on 2020-02-13 15:11:37 GMT from United States)
"Maybe my memory is failing me, but I don't remember people having heated discussions, in the marketplace, as to which brand to keep and scrap-the-rest."
You clearly haven't talked to a Ford owner or a Chevy owner. Put one of each in a room and pro-wrestling wouldn't be able to come close.
34 • Systemd won, etc (by Otis on 2020-02-13 17:46:10 GMT from United States)
@25 .. nice try, Professor WanderMind. But sytemd has won as it moves through and is accepted by the linux distro devs more and more. Debian? Who would have thought. MX is next, just watch.
My question is not "did this happen," but "why did this happen?" What's so good about it? What's so economical about it (as to developers' work)? Canonical? Why?
That about choices is a point I make all the time, so it's not necessary here (I used distros irrespective of the init system; I've got just about all of the top 100 of the DW PHR list (with, happily, the notable exceptions of Sabayon and OpenSuse). They all have merit, each in their own ways, and more importantly, systemd is appearing in updated versions of more of them each year.
I do not have a favorite init to brag about, but I do wonder (again) why this systemd thing happened at all; I thought for years that the spread would be about even as to all the init choices across distros.
But, no.. systemd won, despite there still being other inits out there.. systemd is spreading and the others are not.
35 • Clonezilla (by Jay on 2020-02-13 18:24:35 GMT from India)
I use Clonezilla but have had problems with it recently. The latest versions have some "drive detection" script that is effectively running `watch` and requires Ctrl-C for me to actually get to the cloning part. The detection only and cloning on the two laptops I tried took much longer than older versions. I also ran into more annoyances that caused me to restart the process a few times. It helped to know the command line to workaround whatever was wrong.
I ended up reverting back to 2.4.x because it worked much faster and didn't have the annoyances. Unfortunately, that version does not correctly support btrfs cloning, which I learned the hard way. The kernel does not support btrfs correctly, so partclone gets fooled and will say everything is fine... until you try to restore the image. It "restores" but then doesn't actually work. I ended up having to do `dd`, and then tried upgrading Clonezilla and ran into problems above.
I normally favor clean installs, but when it comes to Windows, I have to be extra careful. I like the Win10 now stores a digital entitlement on their server so that you can do clean installs and not lose your pre-install key. That coupled with continuous updates makes it more like Linux. I don't like it as a daily driver, but it's nice to see the concepts I like in Linux showing up elsewhere.
36 • From A Straight To C... (by M.Z. on 2020-02-13 23:57:52 GMT from United States)
@34
"...My question is not "did this happen," but "why did this happen?" ..."
Sure, you can always be right if you frame the question a certain way. That's called a leading question & considered a bad moving in polling & various other places. In this case you're jumping from point A - the existence of some bit of code you don't like straight to point C - some big victory/defeat. Guess what lives a point B along that street? A fork in the road filled with things like Devuan & PCLinuxOS, where in you can chose the main road others don't care about taking or pick that side street.
As to the why question, it seems fairly obvious that the main Linux init choice of today provides something of a real benefit to devs & packagers, while not bothering a majority of users nearly as much as you. No real mystery there, the only question is how many of the complainers will get off there butts & find a way to support the distros they should be dying to use. The road to init choice is perfectly open regardless of how many people take it, there just has to be some form of support to keep it open.
@33
"You clearly haven't talked to a Ford owner or a Chevy owner..."
Funny, most of the people in my immediate famiyl have owned both & don't have any issues getting along regardless of who is driving what at the moment. Of course there have been some die hard loyalists over the years who take meaningless smack talk waay too far & make too big a deal about stuff. One has to wonder how many of the init hard liners can step back and ask themselves how they compare to such overblown shenanigans & talk.
37 • Tiny Core (by Germany)
Is there any distro smaller than Tiny Core? I've heard of tinywm, could there be something which uses tinywm by default?
38 • @ 37 • Tiny Core (by Germany) (by zcatav on 2020-02-14 11:43:46 GMT from Turkey)
May be Kolibri OS (http://kolibrios.org/en/index) is smaller than Tiny Core.
39 • EasyOS (by Rooey on 2020-02-14 14:54:37 GMT from Australia)
"..and the distribution seems geared to be run from a thumb drive".
EasyOS is a full install. If bigger, mainstream distros, can't be both fully installed & updated on both internal drives & thumb drives, it shouldn't be assumed that EasyOS is as limited.
40 • Unbelieveable (by Otis on 2020-02-14 18:08:10 GMT from United States)
@36 .. I'm not trying to be "right" or wrong or anything other than inquisitive. My gosh is it all about combat in here? Hope not. Systemd is increasing its influence in the linux world. Agreed?
Now: Why?
41 • Disk cloning, Debian (by cykodrone on 2020-02-14 20:13:54 GMT from Canada)
Cloning-->whatever works, usually use the most popular/stable. Get informed before you start, avoid a disaster.
How's the whole 'democracy' thing at Debian going? Have they started removing 'bullying through software dependencies' systemd yet?
42 • Re #36 (by M.Z. on 2020-02-14 22:26:28 GMT from United States)
@40
I though that 'Why' thing you keep coming back was covered quite reasonably. You're outside the mainstream of users who aren't bothered by some GPL init code, while devs see benefit to it as per @36.
Also, regardless of your intent, and mine was never combative, you are clearly very set on your views & ignoring how things are evolving outside the major distros & what community forks are doing for the situation at hand.
A vast array of options & branches exist in the Linux world & if you care about any particular issue you should use & support whatever distro/project you think tackles that issue best. Just because most people look at the issue different doesn't mean multiple Linux branches can't exist & give you the freedom to have things the way you want them, or that the way things are is set in stone.
Number of Comments: 42
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
| | |
| 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.
|
| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Full list of all issues |
| 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.
|
| Random Distribution | 
OSMC
OSMC (formerly Raspbmc) is a Debian-based minimal Linux distribution that brings the Kodi media centre software to a Raspberry Pi, Apple TV and Vero devices. This device has an excellent form factor and enough power to handle media playback, making it an ideal component in a low-cost HTPC (Home Theatre Personal Computer) setup, yet delivering the same Kodi experience that can be enjoyed on much more costly platforms.
Status: Active
|
| 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.
|
| 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.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
