 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 856, 9 March 2020 |
Welcome to this year's 10th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Many Linux distributions strive to provide accessible, newcomer-friendly experiences in order to entice new community members away from Windows and macOS. One family of distributions which has long been known for its beginner-friendly approach is Mandriva (formerly Mandrake Linux). Though Mandriva itself is no longer developed, it has spawned multiple community projects, including OpenMandriva. This week Robert Rijkhoff takes OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 for a spin and reports on his experiences with the project. Then we discuss the Ubuntu team making Snap package upgrades smoother and the Kali Linux team publishing new install media with fixes for the setup process. Meanwhile, iXsystems is planning to unite their commercial TrueNAS platform with the community-supported FreeNAS project. Plus we offer tips on sharing a home directory and data files between multiple distributions. Our Opinion Poll this week asks how many of you share a home directory between operating systems and, if you do, we would like to hear how you set up your shared space. We are also pleased to cover the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 "Mercury"
- News: Ubuntu works on smoother Snap updates, Kali provides refreshed install media, FreeNAS unites with TrueNAS
- Questions and answers: Sharing a home directory between distributions
- Released last week: Linux From Scratch 9.1, Porteus Kiosk 5.0.0, DragonFly BSD 5.8.0
- Torrent corner: Arch Linux, AUSTRUMI, Container, DragonFly BSD, FuryBSD, Kali Linux, KDE Neon, Netrunner, NomadBSD, Obarun, Pardus, Porteus Kiosk, SparkyLinux, Zorin OS
- Upcoming releases: Tails 4.4
- Opinion poll: Sharing a home directory between distributions
- New distributions: Rescuezilla, Openxi
- 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 Robert Rijkhoff) |
OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 "Mercury"
OpenMandriva Lx, which I will call OpenMandriva from here on, is an independent Linux distro. The project's roots go back to Mandriva Linux, which was a distro produced by Mandriva S.A. The company went under in 2011 but, as is typical for Linux, new distros rose from the ashes, including Mageia and OpenMandriva.
Unlike Mandriva, OpenMandriva is very much a community project. The distro's aim is to provide a free alternative to Windows and macOS and the distro relies on donations to cover expenses. It also appears to be a struggling project. I started my trial on the 4th February, and for pretty much the whole day the OpenMandriva website was down. I sometimes got a "Site under construction" message, while at other times I got a "gateway time-out" error. The next day the home page was showing a "Congratulations, you installed Discourse" message, and after that the site was again either "under construction" or throwing errors. As OpenMandriva 4.1 was released on the 2nd February the timing of the website troubles was unfortunate.
Installation
While the website was down I was able to grab an OpenMandriva ISO image from SourceForge. There are two ISOs: plasma.x86_64 and plasma.znver1. The latter image is optimised for current AMD processors (Ryzen, ThreadRipper and EPYC).
I later learned that SourceForge is the only location from where you can download the latest OpenMandriva version. OpenMandriva's download page does list various mirrors but none of them includes an image for the latest release. There is also a link to torrents, but there is again no torrent for version 4.1.
OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 -- The live desktop environment
(full image size: 618kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
OpenMandriva can be run as a live environment and uses the Calamares installer. I do like Calamares. It looks clean and, for the most part, it works. If you just click "Next, Next, Next" and let the distro take over your entire disk everything will be fine. Calamares does, however, always seem to struggle with encrypting partitions. I had opted to encrypt my system and all seemed to go well. The installer started to perform its magic and I was presented with a little slide show made up of self-congratulatory marketing slogans:
- OpenMandriva, Everybody, Everywhere
- OpenMandriva is innovative
- OpenMandriva is fast
And then the install failed with the message "cryptsetup -s 512 --batch-mode --force-password --type luks1 luksFormat /dev/sda3".
After a bit of digging I found that the solution was to not use a swap partition. My second attempt was successful and I got to see the remaining slides. I learned that OpenMandriva is also "an exciting ground for users and developers", "stable", "mobile" and "unique".
OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 -- Don't use swap and encryption in Calamares
(full image size: 450kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
First impressions
The boot process is far from flicker-free but I got to the login screen fairly quickly - and throughout my trial I would have no issues when it came to performance. I would have various other gripes, and one them is the sound clip that is played when you log in. I don't know why, but I found it annoying, and it didn't help that the clip is about ten seconds long. If you are a fellow opponent of sound clips, the feature can be disabled via System Settings > Notifications > Applications: Configure > Plasma Workspace > Configure Events > Login.
OpenMandriva's Plasma desktop uses a fairly standard layout. There is a taskbar at the bottom of the display with all the usual suspects: an applications menu, application launchers and a system tray. Open applications are displayed in two rows, which feels a little odd. After some poking in the settings I was able to organise the taskbar to my liking. I was even able to tidy up the rather overcrowded system tray.
OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 -- A slightly customised desktop with OM Welcome
(full image size: 520kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
I should also mention "OM Welcome", which is - surprise, surprise - a welcome application. OM Welcome is launched automatically when you log in and features a handful of tabs. The "Features" tab contains information about the kernel, the Plasma desktop and a few applications. The information is presented in a slide show, and each slide is displayed for three seconds. If you aren't proficient at speed reading, you can pause individual slides by putting your cursor on a slide's label.
The "Configure" tab provides shortcuts to various Plasma setting menus (of which there are many) and the "Applications" menu features a selection of curated software, which you can install with the click of a button. You don't get any progress information when you install an application but the software installer works - I managed to install GIMP and Scribus via the Welcome application.
Finally, the "Contribute" tab provides links to various resources, including the OpenMandriva forums and donate page. Four of the eight links on the tab result in a "page not found" error. I suspect that this is because various sections and pages on the website have moved elsewhere - I encountered lots of dead links on the OpenMandriva website as well.
What's cooking?
On the third day of my trial the OpenMandriva website had recovered, and I was able to read the release notes [PDF]. Apart from the usual version updates (Linux kernel 5.5.0, systemd 244, Plasma 5.17.5 etc.) there are a few interesting new features. There are two new tools: om-update-config can be used to configure automatic updates and om-feeling-like is a desktop theme switcher. Also, Zypper has been added as an alternative package manager.
I was missing some basic information in the release notes. It is unclear, for instance, how long OpenMandriva 4.1 will be supported and what the upgrade path from version 4 to 4.1 is.
om-update-config
om-update-config appears in the menu as "Update Configuration" and gives you three options for applying updates:
- Do not install updates automatically
- Download updates automatically, install manually
- Download and install updates automatically
The first option ("do not install updates automatically") is a little unclear, as it doesn't tell you whether or not updates will be downloaded automatically. You can deduce that nothing will be downloaded, as the option would otherwise be identical to "download updates automatically, install manually". Still, a description along the lines of "Manually manage updates" would have made more sense. You shouldn't have to deduce what an option does.
I did not get to test the tool. That is partly because I got very few updates during my trial, and partly because the tool was removed when I uninstalled DNF (I will get to that shortly). I do have a Top Tip related to the tool though: you can run om-config-update from the command line (as root). The utility takes one of three arguments: none, download or install.
OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 -- The Update Configuration tool
(full image size: 442kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
om-feeling-like
om-feeling-like appears in the menu as Desktop Presets. Put simply, with the click of a button you can change the desktop theme. The available flavours are OpenMandriva (the default), Plasma (which is a stock Plasma desktop), Windows 7, Windows 10, Ubuntu and macOS. It is an idea that has been borrowed from Ubuntu MATE, which has a similar desktop layout switcher.
OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 -- The om-feeling-like application
(full image size: 378kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
I tried two themes: macOS and Ubuntu. The macOS theme was fairly nice. I like having a global application menu and I liked the Latte dock. The overall experience wasn't great though. For instance, clicking the OpenMandriva icon opens the menu, which has a semi-transparent background. That might look pretty, but it becomes difficult to navigate the menu when another application is open in the background. When I tried (and failed) to find a setting to change the background I noticed that the global menu also doesn't work as expected: the menu of the Falkon browser would still be displayed when another application had focus.
The Ubuntu theme was much worse and, frankly, looks like a joke. The vertical dock overlaps the top bar and the "Default" button (which is named "Activities" in GNOME); the clock isn't centred properly and you can't open the activities overview using the Super key. The latter might actually be a good thing, as the activities overview looks dreadful.
OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 -- The Ubuntu theme
(full image size: 857kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
I also found that most of the customisations I had made to the default desktop were lost when I switched back to the OpenMandriva theme. I am sure many users will enjoy om-feeling-like, but to me it felt like a beta application that should not have been pre-installed.
Zypper
OpenMandriva uses the DNF package manager, but you can now install Zypper. I felt a little nervous about this. In particular, I wasn't sure if Zypper could be installed alongside DNF, or whether it would be better to replace DNF with Zypper. Having two package managers installed just doesn't feel right.
I decided that it was my duty to take the plunge. As far as I can tell DNF and Zypper can live happily side-by-side (but please don't get angry with me if the experiment turns out to be a disaster for you). I also tested what happens if you uninstall DNF, and that didn't cause any obvious issues either. It is worth mentioning, though, that uninstalling DNF will also remove the above-mentioned om-update-config utility and dnfdragora, which is a graphical front-end for DNF. Removing DNF will also break the software installer in the Welcome application, as clicking on any of the applications executes the command "dnf install --assumeyes ".
OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 -- Using Zypper to uninstall DNF
(full image size: 409kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Software and the KDE experience
OpenMandriva ships with a fairly large collection of software. I got on well with most applications. The only real issue I encountered was that KMail was broken, but then I have never had much luck with KMail. This time I got the error "Could not convert value of setting 'AccountIdentity' to required type" when I tried to configure an e-mail account. That appears to be a Qt bug.
As an alternative I installed Trojitá. The e-mail client consistently crashed when I clicked on any of the headers in the messages pane (i.e. if you try to sort e-mails by date, sender or subject) but other than that I liked Trojitá. It's minimal, but does the job as an e-mail client on a spare laptop.
The default web browser is Falkon, which comes with a basic ad-blocking extension enabled by default. For some reason OpenMandriva uses a local file (/usr/share/mdk/indexhtml.html) as the default home page. That is odd, as the page redirects to the OpenMandriva website. When you open the browser it will show the local HTML file for a few seconds before you are redirected. Of course, that is easily fixed - Falkon is quite configurable.
The application I liked most was Elisa, which is one of four pre-installed media players. It looks nice and it strikes just the right balance between ease of use and functionality - at least for me.
OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 -- The Elisa music player and digiKam photo manager
(full image size: 468kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
There were a few applications I was missing. Most of them were command line applications, such as pass, moc and newsboat. There were also a few graphical applications I would have liked, including a password manager and podcast player. I could work around these issues by installing pass from source and by adding podcast feeds to Akregator, which is another application I got on with very well.
Discover, which is KDE's software centre, worked better than expected. In the past I never cared much for Discover, but I feel it has improved quite a bit. It was easy to install and remove packages, and I like that it also lets you manage repositories and updates. There were a few bugs though. For instance, Firefox wasn't listed in the category "Web Browsers".
OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 -- Available web browsers, according to Discover
(full image size: 269kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
In general, Plasma pleasantly surprised me. There were a few weird dependencies, such as Marble being tied to KMail. There were a few applications with toolbars on all four sides of the window (digiKam was a notable exception) and my volume keys worked on the login screen. For the most part, things worked and the desktop got out of my way - and when it didn't I was able to tweak the relevant settings.
Plasma on Wayland, which is an available session on the login screen, isn't quite in its prime yet. It mostly worked but there were various minor nibbles. The task switcher, for instance, didn't work. Using Alt-Tab would show me open windows, but I couldn't cycle through them.
Documentation and more website troubles
Even though the OpenMandriva website had recovered I wasn't able to find any useful information on the website. For instance, I was hoping to find some information about proprietary codecs (which seem to be installed by default) and Zypper in the wiki. Unfortunately, the SSL certificate for wiki.openmandriva.org had expired in late December. As they have set up a redirect to always use HTTPS the page could only be accessed by adding an SSL exception in my browser, which I tend not to do.
I wanted to report the expired certificate as a bug. It had been six weeks since the certificate had expired, and nobody seemed to have noticed the issue. The bug tracker, though, was also buggy. After entering my e-mail address I was supposed to be sent an account verification e-mail, but instead I got a blank page.
The wiki got a new Let's Encrypt certificate on the 8th of February. However, to my surprise the wiki was complete empty. The domain showed a "MediaWiki has been installed" message, and there was no content whatsoever. And on that same day I noticed that the SSL certificate for the "downloads" subdomain had expired on the 8th February. Whoever is looking after the website is having a difficult few weeks.
OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 -- The OpenMandriva wiki
(full image size: 472kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
There is another section on the website with documentation. However, it contains very little content and what documentation exists talks about OpenMandriva Lx 3, which was released in 2017. Like the project's website, the documentation doesn't get much love.
Conclusions
I did not like OpenMandriva very much. The project has quite a few issues with its infrastructure and the documentation is in a very poor state. My main issue, though, was that I found the OpenMandriva-specific features rather underwhelming.
That is an unkind conclusion, and I don't enjoy writing negative reviews. But then, the distro aims to be an alternative to Windows and macOS, and I honestly don't think OpenMandriva is that alternative. There are much better distros for both Windows / macOS refugees and KDE-lovers.
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Hardware used for this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo Z570 laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Core i3-2350M, 2.3GHz
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Wireless network adaptor: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285
- Wired network adaptor: Realtek RTL8101/2/6E 05)
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Visitor supplied rating
OpenMandriva has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.1/10 from 31 review(s).
Have you used OpenMandriva? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Ubuntu works on smoother Snap updates, Kali provides refreshed install media, FreeNAS unites with TrueNAS
Normally, when Snap packages are updated, the experience should be seamless. Assuming all goes well, the user will not notice the shift from one version to the next. However, there are situations when we do not want software to automatically update without warning and Snap packages will soon include the ability to hold back updates when the application is running. Igor Ljubuncic writes: "By design, snaps come with automatic updates, and by default, the update (refresh) frequency check is four times a day. Whenever new application versions are published, they soon become available and propagate to all end-user systems. Normally, the process is transparent and seamless, but there could be exceptions. For instance, if you have an app open and running, an update could be disruptive in the middle of your work. Some developers have asked for an option to inhibit refreshes of snaps while they are running, and this is now a new, experimental feature that you can enable and test on your system." Details on how to test inhibiting Snap updates can be found Ljubuncic's blog post.
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Last month the Kali Linux team published a new version, Kali Linux 2020.1, which introduced a number of important changes in the distribution's system installer. Some users reported problems with the new installer and the team has published new media with an updated installer. The fixed media carries the version number 2020.1a. "Just a quick update to the 2020.1 release we put out last month. We made some major changes to the installers, and some people had a few issues with some of the images we released. So, we made some slight alternations to smooth things out and make the install process easier for everyone." The project's blog post has more information about the updated media.
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The FreeNAS project, along with TrueNAS, are very closely related network attached storage platforms maintained by iXsystems. FreeNAS is a community-supported NAS solution while TrueNAS receives commercial support from iXsystems. The two projects have been growing closer together and will unite later this year. The iXsystems team plans to call the newly merged platforms TrueNAS. FreeNAS will continue under the name TrueNAS CORE while TrueNAS will be referred to as TrueNAS Enterprise. "The only thing changing is the name. FreeNAS will take on the name of TrueNAS CORE. More than just a Free-NAS, TrueNAS CORE is enterprise-quality software-defined storage that can be used without restrictions or cost. It is also the core of the full-fledged enterprise edition, TrueNAS Enterprise, which provides the additional fault-tolerance, performance, and support that businesses and critical applications require."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Sharing a home directory between distributions
Looking for a place to call home asks: Is it safe to share a home directory between distros? What are the best practises for maintaining one home with two or three or four distros?
DistroWatch answers: It is possible to share the same /home partition (or home directories) between Linux distributions. From a technical side of things there isn't anything which prevents one distribution from mounting the same /home partition used by another distribution [1].
Once the /home partition is mounted though there are some potential problems with sharing the same home folders between distributions. For instance, if your user account has a different identification number (UID) on each system you may run into permission problems. Most distributions start numbering user accounts at 1,000 and go up incrementally, but not all do. If your user IDs start at different points (for example, 500 versus 1,000), or you create your user accounts in a different order on each distribution, then the permissions will not be the same for each account and you may have trouble accessing your own files because they will be associated with different UIDs.
Another problem, and a more common one, is different distributions will have different default settings. They are also likely to run different versions of programs which may save their options in your home directory differently. This can lead to programs not working properly or desktop environments breaking when they do not recognize the settings saved by another version in the same directory. You may also end up overwriting your settings for one distribution when you are working in another.
To get around this, people will often maintain separate home directories for each distribution while maintaining one common space for data files and information that they wish to share between systems. This is typically done by settings up one large, common, shared partition that can be accessed by all distributions. We might call this partition /Data. Under /Data we might have directories like:
jesse/Documents
jesse/Downloads
jesse/Music
guest/Documents
guest/Downloads
In our home directory we can then make symbolic links to this shared /Data directory. Here I remove my distribution's Documents directory and link it to the shared equivalent space in /Data:
cd
rmdir Documents
ln -s /Data/jesse/Documents Documents
Now whenever I save a file in my Documents folder, it goes into the shared partition which can be accessed from each distribution. Meanwhile my configuration files for each distribution remain separate, in my local /home folder rather than in the shared space where they may conflict with my accounts on the other systems.
The key to this approach is making sure you create a large, shared data partition ahead of time, maybe when you install the first distribution. Then you can add as many additional distributions as you wish later, each one having its own home folders. Then each distribution can mount the shared data partition and users can link to the shared storage space.
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1. There is an exception. If you are using a non-standard filesystem or one that is not widely supported across distributions yet, such as ZFS, then it may not mount properly across all distributions. Standard Linux filesystems like ext2/3/4 and XFS are generally supported on all distributions.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Linux From Scratch 9.1
Bruce Dubbs has announced the release of Linux From Scratch (LFS) 9.1 and Beyond Linux From Scratch (BLFS) 9.1, updated versions of the project's books that provides step-by-step instructions on how to build a base Linux system from scratch (using a standard Linux live system): "The Linux From Scratch community is pleased to announce the release of LFS version 9.1, LFS version 9.1 (systemd), BLFS version 9.1, and BLFS version 9.1 (systemd). This release is a major update to both LFS and BLFS. The LFS release includes updates to glibc 2.31, and Binutils 2.34. A total of 35 packages have been updated. A new package, zstd 1.4.4, has also been added. Changes to text have been made throughout the book. The Linux kernel has also been updated to version 5.5.3. BLFS includes approximately 1,000 packages beyond the base Linux From Scratch Version 9.1 book. This release has over 840 updates from the previous version in addition to numerous text and formatting changes." Here is the brief release announcement. The LFS and BLFS books are available for on-line viewing or they can be downloaded in HTML and PDF formats.
Porteus Kiosk 5.0.0
Porteus Kiosk is a lightweight Gentoo-based Linux operating system which has been downscaled and confined to allow the use of one application only - the Firefox web browser. The project's latest release, Porteus Kiosk 5.0.0, offers several package updates and user interface improvements. "I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 5.0.0 is now available for download. Major software upgrades in this release include: Linux kernel 5.4.23, Google Chrome 80.0.3987.122 and Mozilla Firefox 68.5.0 ESR. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20190908. Short changelog for 5.0.0 release: Added support for setting mouse speed (acceleration) in the system. Its possible to set different number of seconds for every browser tab which is displayed on the kiosk screen. Added support for viewing TIFF files in the Firefox browser. TIFF files are converted to the PDF format first so its possible to open them directly in Firefox. This function requires 'enable_file_protocol=yes' parameter present in the kiosk config. System clock is fetched every day from remote NTP server. It helps the kiosks which are not rebooted for a long time (e.g. 6 months) to retain correct system time." Further information can be found in the project's release announcement.
DragonFly BSD 5.8.0
The DragonFly BSD team has published a new release, version 5.8.0 of the server-oriented operating system. The new version makes it easier for users to compile their own repository of binary packages from ports, addresses some glitches in low-memory situations and improves video driver support. "Big-ticket items: dsynth(1) written and added to base, making it more convenient for users to build their own binary repos for DPorts(7). dsynth is used to build some or all of the DPorts collection, over 25000 third-party packages. It's also working as an informal performance measure, with many of the changes in this release to speed up DragonFly when building multiple dependent packages. Many ports these days seem to assume a greater degree of signal safety for libc function, particularly for malloc(). We have implemented a low-overhead signal masking feature that now allows us to make malloc*() and other related functions signal-safe. A ton of bug fixes, stability work, and usability work has gone into this release. Many niggling little annoyances, such as Chrome/Chromium stuttering when system memory is low, have been fixed. DRM (GPU) support continues to improve slowly but steadily. Significantly improved paging algorithms reduces or eliminates UI/browser glitches in low-memory situations." Further details can be found in the release announcement.
Zorin OS 15.2
Zorin OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution designed especially for newcomers to Linux. It has a Windows-like graphical user interface. The project has published a new release, Zorin OS 15.2, which provides both updated hardware support and newer versions of desktop applications. "Today we're introducing Zorin OS 15.2. With this new release, we've focused on refining the foundation of Zorin OS: its core technologies and software stack. This allows us to provide you with an even faster, more secure, and powerful computing experience. Stronger security and hardware compatibility: Many of the built-in system technologies have seen improvements for better security, compatibility, and performance. Zorin OS 15.2 is now powered by Linux Kernel version 5.3, which introduces new security patches, so you can have the peace of mind knowing that you're using the most secure version of Zorin OS ever. In addition, support for even more hardware has been included, such as: AMD Navi GPUs, including the Radeon RX 5700, Intel 10th generation processors, Newer MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards and touchpads." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Zorin OS 15.2 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 926kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
NomadBSD 1.3.1
Marcel Kaiser has announced the release of NomadBSD 1.3.1, an updated build of the project's FreeBSD-based, desktop-oriented operating system featuring the Openbox window manager. This release brings various improvements, but also an increased size of the decompressed image: "We are pleased to present the release of NomadBSD 1.3.1. Changes since 1.3: the base system has been upgraded to FreeBSD 12.1-p2; the automatic network interface setup has been improved - this includes better hardware detection and support for IPv6; the NomadBSD image size has exceeded the 4 GB mark - a Flash drive of 5 GB and above is now required; due to the bigger image size, Claws-mail could be replaced by Thunderbird; the NomadBSD setup now locks all kernel module packages to prevent users from running into problems when upgrading their packages; nomadbsd-chusr, which is a graphical tool for modifying user accounts, has been added; nomadbsd-sysinfo, which is a shell script to collect information about the running system, has been added; Zeroconf via avahi and mdns has been added...." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details. As usual, NomadBSD is available in the form of IMG files for amd64 and i386 architectures as well as Apple computers.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 1,862
- Total data uploaded: 30.8TB
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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) |
Sharing a home directory between distributions
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about sharing a home directory between distributions and some issues to consider when setting up shared storage space. We would like to hear whether you share a home directory on your main computer. Let us know how you share files between operating systems in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on the desktop editions of Solus in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Sharing a home directory
| I share one home directory between distributions: | 73 (5%) |
| I keep separate home directories for settings but share data files: | 259 (18%) |
| I maintain completely separate home directories: | 361 (25%) |
| Other: | 27 (2%) |
| I run only one distro on my computer: | 749 (51%) |
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|
| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
Distributions added to waiting list
- Rescuezilla. Rescuezilla is a revival of the Redo Backup & Recovery distribution, now under a new name and with a new maintainer. The project still uses Ubuntu as a base and strives to provide powerful backup and restore options for hard drives and partitions.
- Openxi Linux. Openxi Linux is an Arch Linux-based distribution featuring the GNOME desktop environment.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 16 March 2020. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
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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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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 993 (2022-11-07): Static Linux, working with just a kernel, Mint streamlines Flatpak management, updates coming to elementary OS |
| • Issue 992 (2022-10-31): Lubuntu 22.10, setting permissions on home directories, Linux may drop i486, Fedora delays next version for OpenSSL bug |
| • Issue 991 (2022-10-24): XeroLinux 2022.09, learning who ran sudo, exploring firewall tools, Rolling Rhino Remix gets a fresh start, Fedora plans to revamp live media |
| • Issue 990 (2022-10-17): ravynOS 0.4.0, Lion Linux 3.0, accessing low numbered network ports, Pop!_OS makes progress on COSMIC, Murena launches new phone |
| • Issue 989 (2022-10-10): Ubuntu Unity, kernel bug causes issues with Intel cards, Canonical offers free Ubuntu Pro subscriptions, customizing the command line prompt |
| • Issue 988 (2022-10-03): SpiralLinux 11.220628, finding distros for older equipment and other purposes, SUSE begins releasing ALP prototypes, Debian votes on non-free firmware in installer |
| • Issue 987 (2022-09-26): openSUSE's MicroOS, converting people to using Linux, pfSense updates base system and PHP, Python 2 dropped from Arch |
| • Issue 986 (2022-09-19): Porteus 5.0, remotely wiping a hard drive, a new software centre for Ubuntu, Proxmox offers offline updates |
| • Issue 985 (2022-09-12): Garuda Linux, using root versus sudo, UBports on the Fairphone 4, Slackware reverses change to grep |
| • Issue 984 (2022-09-05): deepin 23 Preview, watching for changing to directories, Mint team tests Steam Deck, Devuan posts fix for repository key expiry |
| • Issue 983 (2022-08-29): Qubes OS 4.1.1, Alchg Linux, immutable operating systems, Debian considers stance on non-free firmware, Arch-based projects suffer boot issue |
| • Issue 982 (2022-08-22): Peropesis 1.6.2, KaOS strips out Python 2 and PulseAudio, deepin becomes independent, getting security update notifications |
| • Issue 981 (2022-08-15): Linux Lite 6.0, defining desktop environments and window managers, Mint releases upgrade tool, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 980 (2022-08-08): Linux Mint 21, Pledge on Linux, SparkyLinux updates classic desktop packages, Peppermint OS experiments with Devuan base |
| • Issue 979 (2022-08-01): KaOS 2022.06 and KDE Plasma 5.25, terminating processes after a set time, GNOME plans Secure Boot check |
| • Issue 978 (2022-07-25): EndeavourOS 22.6, Slax explores a return to Slackware, Ubuntu certified with Dell's XPS 13, Linux running on Apple's M2 |
| • Issue 977 (2022-07-18): EasyOS 4.2, transferring desktop themes between distros, Tails publishes list of updates, Zevenet automates Let's Encrypt renewals |
| • Issue 976 (2022-07-11): NixOS 22.05, making a fake webcam, exploring the Linux scheduler, Debian publishes updated media |
| • Issue 975 (2022-07-04): Murena One running /e/OS, where are all the openSUSE distributions, Fedora to offer unfiltered Flathub access |
| • Issue 974 (2022-06-27): AlmaLinux 9.0, the changing data of DistroWatch's database, UBports on the Pixel 3a, Tails and GhostBSD publish hot fixes |
| • Issue 973 (2022-06-20): openSUSE 15.4, collecting distro media, FreeBSD status report, Ubuntu Core with optional real-time kernel |
| • Issue 972 (2022-06-13): Rolling Rhino Remix, SambaBox 4.1, SUSE team considers future of SUSE and openSUSE Leap, Tails improves Tor Connection Assistant |
| • Issue 971 (2022-06-06): ChimeraOS 2022.01.03, Lilidog 22.04, NixOS gains graphical installer, Mint replaces Bluetooth stack and adopts Timeshift, how to change a MAC address |
| • Issue 970 (2022-05-30): Tails 5.0, taking apart a Linux distro, Ubuntu users seeing processes terminated, Budgie team plans future of their desktop |
| • Issue 969 (2022-05-23): Fedora 36, a return to Unity, Canonical seeks to improve gaming on Ubuntu, HP plans to ship laptops with Pop!_OS |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Free Tech Guides |
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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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| 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 | 
Sabayon
Sabayon was a Funtoo-based (prior to 2020 a Gentoo-based) distribution which follows the works-out-of-the-box philosophy, aiming to give the user a wide number of applications that are ready for use and a self-configured operating system. Sabayon offers the user an easy-to-use workspace with a captivating look, good hardware detection and a large number of up-to-date software packages installed by default, with additional software available from a repository. Sabayon was available in several flavors featuring respectively the KDE, GNOME and Xfce desktop environments.
Status: Discontinued
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| Free Tech Guides |
NEW! Learn Linux in 5 Days
In this FREE ebook, you will learn the most important concepts and commands and be guided step-by-step through several practical and real-world examples (a free 212-page ebook).
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| MALIBAL |
MALIBAL: Linux Laptops Custom Built for YouMALIBAL is an innovative computer manufacturer that produces high-performance, custom laptops for Linux. If your MALIBAL laptop is not the best Linux laptop you have ever used, you can return it for a full 100% refund. We will even pay the return shipping fees! For more info, visit: https://www.malibal.com
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
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.
|
| Free Tech Guides |
NEW! Learn Linux in 5 Days
In this FREE ebook, you will learn the most important concepts and commands and be guided step-by-step through several practical and real-world examples (a free 212-page ebook).
|
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