 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 856, 9 March 2020 |
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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: 8.4/10 from 80 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.
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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 |
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 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • 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.
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| Random Distribution | 
Conectiva Linux
Conectiva Inc. was a Brazilian company which used to develop a Linux distribution for the Brazilian and South American markets. It merged with MandrakeSoft in February 2005 to form Mandriva S.A., with headquarters in Paris, France.
Status: Discontinued
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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.
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