 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 859, 30 March 2020 |
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Welcome to this year's 13th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Migrating between different technology platforms can be daunting. Operating systems include a lot of interconnected pieces that need to work together smoothly. With this in mind, Project Trident's recent move from being based on TrueOS (and by extension FreeBSD) to using the Void Linux distribution as its new foundation is a big migration. We talk about Project Trident's new Void-based Linux distribution in this week's Feature Story. Then, in our News section, we link to tools and instructions administrators can use to migrate from CentOS or Oracle Linux to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution. Plus we talk about UBports making porting progress to new phones and share tips on how to help the Ubuntu community test its various editions prior to the next long-term support (LTS) release. In our Questions and Answers section we discuss how to volunteer CPU resources to the Folding@home distributed computing project and where to find Folding@home packages. We would like to know if you participate in a distributed computing project like Folding@home or SETI@home in our Opinion Poll. Then we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and share the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a great week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Project Trident 20.02
- News: UBports project updates, Red Hat provides migration path from CentOS, Xubuntu presents Testing Week
- Questions and answers: Donating CPU resources to help Folding@home
- Released last week: Bodhi 5.1.0, Parrot 4.8, Univention 4.4-4
- Torrent corner: Alpine, Android-x86, antiX, Bodhi, EasyOS, KDE neon, LibreELEC, Nitrux, Parrot, pfSense, SparkyLinux, SystemRescueCd, Tails, Univention
- Upcoming releases: Ubuntu 20.04 Beta
- Opinion poll: Donating computing cycles
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (17MB) and MP3 (13MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Project Trident 20.02
Late in 2019 the Project Trident team announced they would be moving their operating system from its existing TrueOS base over to Void. This was an unusual move as the two bases are not only quite different in the tools they use, but also in the kernels and basic userland packages they use. TrueOS is itself based on FreeBSD while Void is an independent Linux distribution.
When Project Trident first published a development snapshot of its new Void-based distribution, I gave it a try. At the time it was still very much in the early stages, more of a proof-of-concept than a functioning desktop operating system. Then, about two months later, I gave Void's latest install media a try and, while I very much appreciated aspects of the distribution's design, it had some significant issues which prevent me from wanting to use it on a regular basis.
Now Project Trident has published its first stable release based on Void and I was curious to see what the experience would be like. Trident aims to take its parent (Void) and make it easy to set up and offers a friendly desktop option with ZFS support on top of the base. I wanted to see if Trident could improve upon Void's foundation and perhaps address some of the implementation issues I had when I tried Void earlier this year.
One key difference I noticed right away was that Void provides many installation discs. There are images for different CPU architectures, different C libraries, and different desktop editions. Picking the right media is akin to an archaeological dig through the various options. Trident provides just one ISO file for 64-bit (x86_64) computers. This disc acts as a net-install platform that allows us to install one of four pre-selected groups of software packages. This effectively gives Trident four editions:
- Void (just the basic Void distribution with ZFS as the root filesystem)
- Server (Void's base system, ZFS, and some command line tools),
- Lite Desktop (Void's base, ZFS, and a minimal install of the Lumina desktop)
- Full Desktop (Void's base, ZFS, Lumina, plus some common desktop applications).
Installing
The install media is 523MB in size and booting from it brings up a series of text-based menus. The first screen asks us to scan for active network devices. If a wireless network card is detected the installer will give us the option of connecting to a wi-fi network. This works, but is a little unfriendly. The password prompt does not show characters or even stand-in symbols (like a series of *) while we type the wi-fi password. It is not ideal if we have a long password on the network. I also found that once I had connected to a network, the installer did not recognize the connection until I told it to rescan for available networks. Otherwise it indicates the computer is still off-line.
Next we are asked to select which group of packages we want, "Master" or "20.02". The former appears to be Trident's development branch and so I went with the 20.02 option. Then I was warned that Trident would work better if it was set up in UEFI mode instead of Legacy BIOS mode. The reason for this was not given. However, in an ironic twist, I found Trident was unable to boot when run in UEFI mode, it could only start in Legacy BIOS mode, making the recommendation moot.
The installer next asks which disk it should use. We need to be careful here as Trident will take over the entire disk, setting it up for use with ZFS. We cannot use free space or a spare partition. We are then asked how much swap space we would like to use, with sizes varying from "none" up to 32GB. We are next asked whether we would like to use packages built against glibc or musl, the two C libraries Void supports. I opted for glibc.
The installer asks us to make up a root password and a name for our ZFS pool. Then we pick which edition (Void, Server, Lite, or Full) to install. I went with Full since I planned to run Trident as a desktop system. We then make up a username and password for ourselves. Our user's password must be at least eight characters long, though there is no such requirement for the root password. I was curious about this and the reason is discussed on the Trident website: "The user password must be a minimum of 8 characters due to the ZFS encryption key length requirement. Modifying a user password to be less than 8 characters later on will break the user account!"
The installer copies its packages to the hard drive, builds the ZFS module from source code, and then offers to reboot the machine. I found the process, while cumbersome at times, ultimately worked.
Early impressions
My freshly installed copy of Trident booted to a graphical login screen where we can sign into the Lumina desktop. The default layout of Lumina places the panel at the bottom of the screen with an application menu in the bottom-left corner and the system tray in the bottom-right. A task switcher, which groups similar windows, sits in the middle. Lumina is set up with a dark theme which I found pleasant. There are icons on the desktop for accessing desktop and theme settings, launching the Firefox browser, opening the Trojita e-mail client, and launching the VLC media player.
Project Trident 20.02 -- An alternative application menu
(full image size: 795kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
While the desktop was slow to load at first, once it was up and running the interface was pleasantly responsive and ran smoothly. I found the default application menu to be small on my screen and a bit awkward to navigate so I swapped it out with an alternative, tree-style menu. These and other widget changes can be handled in the Panels module in the settings panel. I also swapped out the task switcher for one that does not group families of open windows. Apart from these little adjustments, I liked Lumina and the way it was set up. It is a very flexible, mid-weight desktop environment which uses Fluxbox as its window manager, and I found it generally worked quite well.
Hardware
I began by experimenting with Trident in a VirtualBox virtual machine. When I had tried this with Trident's Alpha snapshot a few months ago, I could not get the desktop environment to work. This time Lumina started up and worked smoothly. The default screen resolution was low, but this could easily be adjusted in the settings panel. Otherwise, Trident worked very well in the virtual environment this time.
When running on a physical workstation, Trident gave a similarly good performance. The system was responsive, sound and networking worked (unlike plain Void where the distribution was unable to produce audio output), and my wireless card was detected.
A fresh install of Trident used about 450MB of RAM when signed into the Lumina desktop and a Full Desktop installation used about 2.1GB of disk space. Both of these statistics are lower than the average desktop distribution, though slightly higher than plain Void running the Xfce desktop.
Included software
The Full Desktop install of Trident sets up a fairly minimal desktop environment with a handful of graphical utilities. The Firefox web browser and LibreOffice are installed for us. The Trojita e-mail client and a desktop client for Telegram are installed. The Insight file manager and Lumina's image viewer are installed too. The VLC media player and a full range of codecs are available out of the box. While I could play local audio and video files, as well a YouTube videos, I found the media keys on my keyboard did not function. We can manually set up short-cuts for these keys.
Project Trident 20.02 -- Running LibreOffice
(full image size: 339kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Behind the scenes Trident uses Void's runit init software and version 5.4.19 of the Linux kernel. (The kernel was updated during my trial to 5.4.20).
I found the first user we create has access to sudo to perform administrative functions. Additional users I added to the system afterwards could not use sudo. I also found the first user is special in that it has its own ZFS sub-volume which can be handy for making snapshots. Other users do not have their own sub-volume, at least not automatically, but the /home directory is on its own sub-volume and we can snapshot it when multiple users exist on the system.
Project Trident 20.02 -- The Desktop Settings panel
(full image size: 981kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
ZFS and boot environments
Trident uses ZFS as its root filesystem, which supports snapshots, multi-device volumes, deduplication, and automated data checksums. These are all handy features and I appreciated having them. I had hoped that Trident might include support for boot environments, the way FreeBSD and openSUSE do. However, boot environments do not seem to be available yet and I was unable to find tools for managing boot environments in the default software repositories. Hopefully this feature will be added later as it would make upgrading this rolling release platform virtually bullet-proof.
Package management
As far as I can tell, Trident ships with no graphical package front-end or update manager. Instead we are given the XBPS command line tools, specifically xbps-query, xbps-install, and xbps-remove to find, install, and remove software. These tools need to be run as root, or using the sudo prefix.
XBPS is fast, sometimes terse, and has an unusual syntax for some operations. It worked well for me and I encountered no problems while adding, upgrading and finding software. New desktop applications, once installed, had their launcher added to the Lumina desktop. We can also use XBPS to add extra repositories as known community repositories can be installed as packages.
Project Trident 20.02 -- Fetching package upgrades with XBPS
(full image size: 905kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
During my trial there were four packages made available for updating, totalling about 100MB in size. These were all downloaded and applied cleanly. One package update was for the Linux kernel which, in turn, meant the upgrade process needed to rebuild the ZFS add-on module. This worked well, but took several minutes, greatly slowing down XBPS's typical high performance.
Comparison to Void
While using Trident, I regularly found myself comparing it to plain Void, which I also used recently. Some key differences stood out right away. For example, Trident has one install image which can be used to set up multiple editions. Void offers many install images, each for setting up one specific edition on a specific architecture. In a similar vein, Void offers many desktop environments at install time while Trident only offers one. However, we can install alternative desktops later. Unlike its parent, Trident does not offer a live desktop option.
Audio worked under Trident while I could not get any applications to produce sound under Void. However, a volume control in the system tray was still missing from Trident. A concern that was made bigger given that my media keys were not recognized by Lumina.
Where Void ships with vanilla, bland-looking desktops, Trident offers a customized Lumina experience with a crisp, dark theme. I very much appreciated the visual style of Trident.
Project Trident 20.02 -- Browsing Project Trident's website in Firefox
(full image size: 227kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
When I was using Void, after the first wave up package upgrades, the shutdown & reboot options in the Xfce menu no longer worked. On Trident these options were always available through Lumina's Leave menu.
I appreciate Trident makes ZFS available as it is a powerful filesystem. Void does not offer this same option. However, Void is much more flexible about which disks and partitions it uses while Trident requires one full disk to be wiped and used for its install.
Conclusions
Project Trident made a lot of progress very quickly between the time the Alpha snapshot of its new Void base was launched and when the stable release came out. The issues with the desktop not loading were fixed, I got sound working under Trident where it did not under Void, and the ZFS implementation was smooth. I think Lumina, as a desktop, has progressed nicely in the past year or so since I last used it. The distribution's performance is strong and its resource footprint relatively small. For someone who is interested in either ZFS on Linux or rolling release distributions, Trident is a promising option.
However, there are several rough edges. The installer is not particularly friendly yet and forces the user to dedicate an entire disk to Trident. While the ZFS implementation is good, it appears to lack boot environments which would be an excellent feature to incorporate, especially with Void's rolling upgrade approach. I also think Trident's goal of being a friendly layer on top of Void would be helped a lot by adding a graphical package manager as XBPS's syntax is a little unusual at times.
At this point Trident's Void-based distribution is in its early stages. It is a good first attempt, though there are still a few pieces that can be improved and polished. I'm hopeful that, in six months or a year, Trident will have progressed to a point where I feel comfortable recommending and using it in the long-term. For now I think it is an interesting distribution to try, as it showcases several unusual technologies, but I'm not sure it is ready to be used as a day-to-day operating system, unless the user is comfortable working a lot with the command line and working around a few issues.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card, Ralink RT5390R PCIe Wireless card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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Visitor supplied rating
Project Trident has a visitor supplied average rating of: 10/10 from 1 review(s).
Have you used Project Trident? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
UBports project updates, Red Hat provides migration path from CentOS, Xubuntu presents Testing Week
The UBports team have published status updates on a number of their projects. The UBports team has been working to bring their mobile operating system to new phones, including the PinePhone, and package the Lomiri (formerly Unity8) desktop for Debian. "Marius has had some of his time taken up with Covid-19 related stuff recently but in the last few days he has been able to pay some attention to the PinePhone. It now has functioning bluetooth. In addition, the accelerometer and gyroscope work. Vibration works, so does rotation. Finally, the notification led works and so does the proximity sensor. Mike Gabriel has been packaging Lomiri in Debian. Testing of some components is already taking place on that platform." Additional updates from the UBports team can be found in their latest Q&A post.
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The CentOS project provides a freely available distribution that has been built with the source code used in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). The CentOS distribution provides binary compatibility with Red Hat's operating system, but without the trademarks or commercial support that Red Hat provides. CentOS is often used in smaller organizations which may want a free distribution now, but wish to switch to Red Hat's supported platform later. Red Hat provides tools to help with the conversion and has recently published instructions on how to make the transition from CentOS to RHEL. The conversion tool also works on Oracle's RHEL-based distribution.
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The Xubuntu project has put out a call for testers to help try development snapshots of Xubuntu, along with other members of the Ubuntu family, and report issues. The intention is to have as many bugs fixed as possible before the 20.04 long-term release. "We're delighted to announce that we're participating in an 'Ubuntu Testing Week' from April 2nd to April 8th with other flavors in the Ubuntu family. On April 2nd, we'll be releasing the beta release of Xubuntu 20.04 LTS, after halting all new changes to its features, user interface and documentation. And between April 2nd and the final release on April 23rd, all efforts by the Xubuntu team and community are focused on ISO testing, bug reporting, and fixing bugs. So, we highly encourage you to join the community by downloading the daily ISO image and trying it out, though you are welcome to start from today." Details on how testers can help can be found in the project's blog post.
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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) |
Donating CPU resources to help Folding@home
Wanting-to-help asks: Recently I read about a program called Folding@home that could be installed on different operating systems in order to donate computer resources to the Stanford University to help fighting against the coronavirus. My question: is there an OS especially only for this purpose without wasting computer resources for not necessary issues like a graphical desktop? I mean an OS that only includes these components that are really necessary to run this program that gives the Stanford University added computer resources.
DistroWatch answers: There is no operating system or Linux distribution I am aware of which is set up to only run Folding@home. The Folding@home project does make packages available for distributions which use RPM and Deb packages. Their download page also provides a VMware appliance for people who wish to run the software in a virtual machine.
As for the overhead involved with running the operating system and desktop environment, I do not think this is something people should worry about too much. While sitting idle at a desktop environment, most Linux distributions are around 98% idle. When I am signed into Xfce and running half a dozen graphical applications my CPU is 99% idle and at least half of my RAM is free. There would be very little increase in available resources if I were running an operating system with just enough resources to run Folding@home and connect to the network.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Parrot 4.8
Lorenzo Faletra has announced the release of Parrot 4.8, an updated build of the project's Debian-based, security-oriented distribution set designed for penetration testing, digital forensics and privacy protection, as well as standard home desktops: "Parrot 4.8 is here. Parrot is based on Debian 'Testing', meaning that Parrot 4.8 includes all the updates that landed in the Debian 'Testing' repository between September 2019 and March 2020. Some noticeable updates include: Linux kernel 5.4, MATE 1.24, revision of sandbox, updated Anonsurf, Aircrack 1.6.... We wanted to stress the importance of containers and Parrot as a service, since we want anyone to be able to use the Parrot tools on their favorite desktop operating system or in the cloud. Now we offer docker containers that can be run on any docker-supported operating system. A detailed description of the whole Parrot for docker project, the available containers, their usage and a quick reference is available here." Here are the complete release notes.
Univention Corporate Server 4.4-4
Univention Corporate Server (UCS) is an enterprise-class distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux. It features an integrated management system for central administration of servers, Microsoft Active Directory-compatible domain services, and functions for parallel operation of virtualised server and desktop operating systems. The distribution's latest version, 4.4-4, introduces better logging options and improved Active Directory security and compatibility. "We've just published the 4th point release of UCS 4.4: apart from bug fixes and some patches, we added some cool new features and improved numerous apps. For example, UCS 4.4-4 introduces logging of LDAP authentications, something that was previously only available via Samba 4. Our developers also put some work into the AD Connector (enhanced security, performance and compatibility), the Univention App Center and the UCS portal login screen. Read on to find out more about the most important innovations." Further information can be found in the distribution's release announcement and in the release notes.
Bodhi Linux 5.1.0
Bodhi Linux is a lightweight, Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the Moksha desktop environment. The new version, 5.1.0, is the first release under the project's new management. "Today I am pleased to announce the release of Bodhi Linux 5.1.0. This is my first official release and is somewhat delayed from our original plans. Hopefully, this delay is worth it to our users. Much thanks to Stefan 'the waiter' Uram for his work on both the code and the themes and icons, Bodhi would not be the same without his creative input. In addition, it features several breaks with Bodhi tradition. In addition to replacing epad with leafpad, midori with epiphany and ditching eepDater we now offer two 64 bit ISOs and a revamped AppPack ISO. If you are unsure which version is best for you, please see this wiki page explaining the differences between them."
Bodhi Linux 5.1.0 -- Running the Moksha desktop
(full image size: 654kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
pfSense 2.4.5
pfSense is a free, open source customized distribution of FreeBSD specifically tailored for use as a firewall and router that is entirely managed via web interface. The project's latest release upgrades the base operating system, adds improvements to the web interface and disables access time writes by default to improve disk performance. "2.4.5 adds several new features, including: OS Upgrade: Base Operating System upgraded to FreeBSD 11-STABLE after FreeBSD 11.3. Added sorting and search/filtering to several pages including the Certificate Manager, DHCP Leases, and ARP/NDP Tables. Added DNS Resolver (Unbound) Python Integration. Added IPsec DH and PFS groups 25, 26, 27, and 31. Changed UFS filesystem defaults to noatime on new installations to reduce unnecessary disk writes. Set autocomplete=new-password for forms containing authentication fields to help prevent browser auto-fill from completing irrelevant fields. Added new Dynamic DNS providers Linode and Gandi." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
antiX 19.2
Version 19.2 of antiX, a lightweight, desktop Linux distribution featuring IceWM as the default window manager, has been released. Besides the usual antiX variants, the project now also provides a separate edition with the runit init system: "antiX 19.2 bug-fix/upgrade ISO images available. All new ISO images are bug-fix/upgrades of antiX 19 SysVInit series. Bonus - we now offer editions running the runit init system as well. Changes: we believe we have fixed the issue when running (g)ufw firewall; apt-notifier included and enabled on full versions for those who prefer update notifications; tray icon manager for IceWM; improved and updated localisation; mproved cli-installer - more 'safety' checks added; a newer 4.9.212 Linux kernel; Firefox 68.6.0esr; LibreOffice 6.4.1; IceWM upgraded to latest upstream version (1.6.5); elogind upgrade to 243.7; ceni network manager included, but ConnMan is default in full and base editions; various upstream Debian security upgrades." Read the complete release announcement for more details.
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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: 1,903
- Total data uploaded: 31.1TB
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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) |
Donating computing cycles
In our Questions and Answers column we discussed software called Folding@home which can donate a computer's spare CPU resources to medical research. There have been a number of similar distributed computing projects over the years, most of them set up to consume the idle CPU cycles provided by volunteers. We would like to know if you currently run a distributed computing service on your computer, such as Folding@home or SETI@home.
You can see the results of our previous poll on EarlyOOM in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Donating computing cycles
| I run Folding@home: | 90 (8%) |
| I run SETI@home: | 41 (4%) |
| I run another distributed computing service: | 55 (5%) |
| I do not run any distributed computing service: | 936 (83%) |
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 6 April 2020. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • moving to void (by vern on 2020-03-30 00:04:24 GMT from United States)
I just read that TureOS just folded. Maybe that's why the move Trident to Void.
2 • Borrow My CPU? I Don't Think So. (by Matt E on 2020-03-30 01:44:49 GMT from United States)
1. Shut off your PC when not in use. If you leave your PC running all the time to donate CPU cycles, it's a waste of power compared to the efficiencies of a high end cloud server.
2. Now days, I would question any research facility begging for spare CPU cycles as opposed to paying for the service. They should be able to manage their funds and pay for such a critical process in their research. If they can manage that, then I don't trust them with my CPU. Maybe AWS or Google should donate. That would be way more efficient.
3 • Distributed Computing (by Wedge009 on 2020-03-30 02:25:57 GMT from Australia)
@2 If you haven't heard of this until recently I think you're missing the point. Distributed computing started during the days when CPUs always ran at full clocks and CPUs often ran idle without the power saving states of today's technology.
Too, I completely understand that you may not want to contribute, but this is all *volunteer* work - users understand (or should be) what they are contributing to any given project. And the sheer scale of distributed computing (assuming a given project attracts enough users and can divide tasks into parallel workloads) can't be competed with by dedicated supercomputers. Given the current attention on COVID-19 research, I understand Folding@home has amassed enough computing power to exceed the top 7 supercomputers *combined* (and that was news reported several days ago).
With respect to efficiency, ideally users would not - or should not - be contributing on extremely old hardware, but the reality every little bit helps. And on a personal note, I think any such research is more valuable than the electrical power and engineering effort that goes into cryptocurrency 'mining'. There is a certain irony with projects like climate prediction potentially adding to the global energy use, but I understand those projects are aware of the cost-benefit ratios and encourage users to operate accordingly.
As for funding, not every 'research facility' can afford to fund massive computing resources. Volunteer distributed computing is a good option for such organisations.
4 • Distributed Computing (by Sam Crawford on 2020-03-30 02:29:32 GMT from United States)
I have a computer at home dedicated to just running Rosetta@home.
5 • antiX 19.2 with runit (by Andy Prough on 2020-03-30 02:50:14 GMT from United States)
antiX 19.2 with the runit init system is a very interesting distro spin. I downloaded the version based on Debian Sid unstable, as I've been wanting to try a distro that uses the Sid repos for awhile now. The installation time on my SSD was shocking - about one minute total on a full disk install. Then first boot was so fast that I would have missed it entirely if I had turned my head to talk to someone for a few seconds.
I'll be spending some time with this one for the next couple of weeks, and see if it can be a daily driver. It will have to beat out MX and Artix openRC, which is not going to be easy, as those are easily the 2 finest distros I've tried in over 20 years with GNU/Linux.
6 • volunteering CPU cycles (by John the Stirrer of Pots on 2020-03-30 03:31:20 GMT from New Zealand)
Can be fun when done responsibly. SETI = pointless. Eliminating candidates for Mersenne Primes = useful. I have two retired laptops working an exponent each. With a 1 in 60,000 chance of finding another prime, I have so far eliminated a dozen or so exponents that are now confirmed as not prime. :)
mersenne.org is the website.
7 • SETI@home shutting down (by Rusty Scupper on 2020-03-30 04:11:29 GMT from United States)
On March 2nd, SETI@home announced that they will stop distributing work and go on hiatus at the end of the month. You can read the announcement at https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/.
8 • Volunteer projects (by Wedge009 on 2020-03-30 05:03:53 GMT from Australia)
@6 I should have also mentioned that different people put different values on different projects. And that's okay! Some may well find mathematics to be a 'pointless' pursuit! Of course, you may just be living up (or down) to your name. ;)
9 • Trident (by Semiarticulate on 2020-03-30 05:17:35 GMT from United States)
The Trident project looks promising enough, but I don't see a compelling reason to switch from Void. Void has been rock solid, fast and problem-free for me. I do wish them luck though, and hope they find a niche to inhabit.
10 • RIP PC-BSD (by Microlinux on 2020-03-30 07:25:04 GMT from France)
I gave PC-BSD a spin quite a few years back and even bought Dru Lavigne's excellent "Definitive Guide to PC-BSD" published by Nostarch Press. PC-BSD was based on stable FreeBSD, rock solid with a no-nonsense KDE desktop.
And then it got improved to death.
First, it got a new name.
Then KDE got replaced by that joke of a desktop that is Lumina.
Then, the project decided to become a moving target by rebasing itself on FreeBSD's development branch.
There's a popular french saying: "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien." Improvement is the enemy of a good thing.
11 • SETI@home (by far2fish on 2020-03-30 08:13:03 GMT from Denmark)
I used to collect hardware, and in early 2000, less than a year after SETI@home was launched, I decided to dedicate all free CPU time to run SETI@home on all my computers. They were always on anyway, and used for various purposes like web server, file server, database servers etc. The power bill of having this running was already very high, ad I don't know how much extra SETI@home added to this.
About 3 years later, I was a top 5 contributer to SETI@home in my home city. Then in the span of just a few months, the power supply of two of my computers fried. These computers were home computers, and not built for 24/7 operation, but I can't shake the feeling that the constant CPU utilization was to blame.
My wife was happy though that we now had fever computers ;)
I continued to run SETI@home from time to time, but never 24/7. Only when my computer was on anyway, and was taking a break from it.
12 • BOINC and Covid19 (by Any on 2020-03-30 09:14:07 GMT from Spain)
I started running Seti@Home to help University of Washington to determine the 3D shapes of proteins and in particular of Covid19.
This is what I can do from my home to help. Not much but I wish more people did that.
I do not run my PC 24/7 and not all of my cores neither RAM. But a little help is better than none.
13 • @12 (by Any on 2020-03-30 09:17:23 GMT from Spain)
Rosetta@Home not Seti@Home.
14 • Distributed computing (by Adam on 2020-03-30 09:33:02 GMT from Hungary)
I used to donate CPU-cycles to F@H, but I quit. While I believe their distributed Covide-results will be under an open license, I couldn't find any info on the licenses of their other calculations. And I'd rather a useful drug doesn't get developed (for any disease, including any disease I do or will have), than have the drug in the hands of big pharma, selling it for huge profit, while volunteers helped to develop it for free. If it's community developed (even just partially), then all knowledge/info about that drug should be free (both as in "freedom" and as in "free beer".)
15 • distributed computing (by Wally on 2020-03-30 12:09:36 GMT from United States)
Have run Mersenne Primes though many PCs for many years. It costs me a little (very little) and adds to the worlds knowledge base.
16 • LMDE 4 Cinnamon w/PLSDR (by Roy on 2020-03-30 14:24:20 GMT from United States)
I really like PLSDR; It works on Debian. As the creator says it works for people who don't read and have trouble following simple instructions. LOL I like his K.I.S.S. instructions. (Keep it simple stupid) I am glad he isn't my sponsor. He is a genius in my humble opinion. What a novel approach he has done with scrips and he says working with Linux is easier than working with Windows. With a scrip a shortcut appears on the desktop like with Windows but on Debian. I am totally impressed. I can't move the shortcut to the panel but can live with that.
17 • Volunteer distributed computing / citizen science (by TheTKS on 2020-03-30 15:21:01 GMT from Canada)
A couple of others
https://www.citizensciencealliance.org/index.html
https://www.zooniverse.org/
Still looking for one I want to contribute CPU cycles to.
TKS
18 • Distributed Computing Distro (by Justin on 2020-03-30 18:31:29 GMT from United States)
There is a distro on the waiting list for BOINC: AlienPupOS. The link now just goes to a Berkley site. I remember trying it out when it was added to the list in July but don't remember if it worked for me or not. This is the link I remember: http://www.alienpupos.com/mobile/mobile.html.
19 • PC-bsd (by hotdiggettydog on 2020-03-30 18:44:32 GMT from Canada)
I agree with #10.
I used it for some months and found it quite capable. Had it matched linux Vbox support it would have been a keeper.
I'm still intrigued with bsd and will get around to some test drives.
20 • flash-not-bricked (by thumbsup on 2020-03-30 19:11:36 GMT from Brazil)
A thumb drive has, perhaps only recently, some means of turn itself readonly for some days as you burn there something - maybe just to preserve its life as a flash memory further.
That unit isn't bricked at all, and you may wish to set the readonly flag to zero earlier...
Please look at option -I (info) output of hdparm from your device.
JMTP
21 • @19 PC-BSD (cont'd) (by Microlinux on 2020-03-30 19:55:44 GMT from France)
Looks like FuryBSD (KDE edition) is the way to go now. I gave it a spin last week and was pleasantly surprised. (BTW, I'm using OpenSUSE Leap KDE on all my desktops and CentOS on all my servers.)
https://www.furybsd.org/
22 • Alternative to FAH (by mikef90000 on 2020-03-30 21:33:02 GMT from United States)
I've run FAH in the past but the current Ubuntu LTS version did not install and run properly. Fortunately Rosetta@Home running on the BOINC package works fine.
23 • BOINC and COVID-19 (by Any Other on 2020-03-30 23:10:24 GMT from Brazil)
@12
>> I started running Seti@Home (okay, Rosetta@Home) to help University of Washington to determine the 3D shapes of proteins and in particular of Covid19. <<
Wtf... The shape of proteins and viruses can be shown by an electron microscope. How could a CPU sharing project help do it?
By the way, I cannot think of a more pointless project than SETI@Home. No smart alien would ever send radio waves to make contact with such a primitive and dangerous lifeform as the Homo sapiens.
24 • Distributed Computing (by MikeC on 2020-03-31 05:05:25 GMT from United States)
Have recently switched from asteroids@home to rosetta@home because of the recent emphasis on the coronavirus. Didn't go with FAH because they seem to be in beta on their software. Will probably stay with rosetta simply because it is medical research. Currently have 7 of the 9 local computers running rosetta, one running asteroids and one running einstein@home. Why not? As previously pointed out, there is a tremendous do-nothing time on all of our computers and the software immediately idles itself as soon as I touch the keyboard or mouse to do my own work.
25 • Rosetta@home via Boinc (by Ession on 2020-03-31 06:44:30 GMT from Australia)
well done Sam Crawford, mikef90000, MikeC et al. for highlighting the wonderful Rosetta@home via Boinc,
i decided to run it (on MX) as the Folding@home project is currently overwhelmed by inputs...
all cpu cores (but zero gpu unfortunately, 'coz i'm using an apu) in use,
@ 90% of cycle time,
& my usage on daily driver pc is still fine!
just a hotter cpu, so a _slightly_ higher electricity bill i reckon ;P
(just wish it's Manager had a choice of built-in skins, oh well)
atm it's working on "3yg6qa0x_Junior_HalfRoid_design2_COVID-19_SAVE_ALL_OUT_904294_1",
& install & setup was a breeze :)
26 • BOIN and Covid (by Any on 2020-03-31 08:39:55 GMT from Spain)
@23
"By running Rosetta@home on your computer when you're not using it you will speed up and extend our efforts to design new proteins and to predict their 3-dimensional shapes. Proteins are the molecular machines and building blocks of life. You can read more about protein folding and design here. "
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/
http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/rah/rah_about.php
27 • Slight topic change... (by Friar Tux on 2020-03-31 14:57:45 GMT from Canada)
I see MakuluLinux is listed in the Latest Distros column on the DW Home Page. Jesse/Joshua, I would love to see that one reviewed as I would love your input on it. At the risk of sounding like I'm making fun of it (which I'm not), it has got to be THE most hilariously funny distro I have ever come across. Of all the distros that claim to be most MSWindows-like this one takes the prize. You can have any version from Windows 3.1 to 10. I'm actually surprised Microsoft hasn't taken any legal action.
28 • Ma-Coo-Loo (by vern on 2020-03-31 15:08:50 GMT from United States)
#27 I have seen this distro in the past and have disregarded it since I already have Windows installed, along with a bunch of Linuxes.
After looking at its web page, it looks interesting as you pointed out. I think I will try it out.
Yes they take a more humorous approach, as that Hippo Logo suggests.
Thanks for the suggestion!
29 • Folding@home (by Francesco Turco on 2020-03-31 15:24:20 GMT from Italy)
Folding@home is proprietary software: https://foldingathome.org/support/faq/opensource/
For this reason, I certainly won't install it on my computers.
30 • folding@home (by Otis on 2020-03-31 18:39:35 GMT from United States)
@29 https://foldingathome.org/ is a very, VERY worthwhile tree of projects, irrespective of being proprietary.
31 • Makulu (by Justin on 2020-03-31 19:15:36 GMT from United States)
I tried Makulu because of the post above. I had the "Windows" experience. The distro boots to a login prompt rather than auto-logging in. The credentials are makulu, makulu. Then I get to a shell where X then starts after some brief delay. The system locked up the first time in Virtualbox when I opened the Cinnamon menu. I had to hard shutdown and then add RAM to my VM (you need more than 1GB apparently). I tried the different Windows themes. They look right in the picture but not in the implementation. The "start" menu is the same in all four even though the behavior should be different (and the theme picture shows it different). After that I shut it down. All the lookalikes are exactly that--lookalikes, not the real thing. The macOS themes for Linux also don't look right, even though yes I understand they should be different for legal reasons. From what I can tell, Makulu Lindoz edition is just four Cinnamon themes with a few bugs thrown in. I don't think selling Linux to be just like Windows is the way to go. We should talk about what makes Linux better, like privacy and security (no phone homes, generally speaking), rather than being a copycat OS.
32 • CPU Cycles for sale (by Sloopy on 2020-03-31 20:11:16 GMT from Canada)
Sure, come on in and borrow a cup of cpu cycles.
While your at it, have a look around at my family pictures, bank statements, passwords, ect.
Uhhh no thanks.
Same scam was pulled years ago, donating cpu cycles to help look for aliens chatting god knows where. Remember?
They always rinse and repeat the same ol stuff...dont they?
sloopy
33 • Distributed computing & BSDs (by M.Z. on 2020-03-31 21:27:37 GMT from United States)
On the distributed computing front, I really don't get all the negativity. It didn't take much searching to find that it has been making positive contributions for a long time:
https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2002/10/1099-2/
Helping to predict and categorize the way tiny proteins act has huge numbers of scientific & medical applications & could spur big breakthroughs that help everyone.The SETI project was never too likely to find anything but it seems like it was a fairly reasonable search. One of the biggest lessons in science is that you find nothing if you don't look & ask questions rather than making a bunch of assumptions one way or another.
----------------------------------
On the BSD topic, I've never had any luck with running BSD for a desktop due to hardware support. Given how bad hardware support was all the times I tried things like PC-BSD I can see why a BSD project might switch to a Linux base. Software that is GPL also has the advantage of staying in the open source community regardless of what some attempt at a corporate version may do. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I don't think all the BSD use Apple has done has improved hardware support, as an example. I prefer Linux for a few reasons, but would still be willing to give BSD on the desktop a try if I started hearing a lot more reports about improved hardware support.
34 • Folding@home (by Tman on 2020-04-01 01:15:43 GMT from United States)
I will pass on supporting this effort. Stanford = liberalist computer modeling = fake modeling. Won't waste my electricity.
35 • Used to run Folding@Home and other but not now (by Dxvid on 2020-04-01 11:45:42 GMT from Sweden)
I used to run Folding@Home and other similar distributed computing software, but I noticed how much they increased temperature and electricity consumption. Often computation jobs were also sent out to more than one computer in case one home user would shut down his/her computer, so it wasn't very efficient either. Having CPU or GPU work for long periods close to 100% might also shorten the life of the computer. So I thought about it and decided it was a very inefficient way of doing lots of computations on protein folding and other projects. It wasn't good for the environment so I stopped. If using specialized hardware like a lot of asics or running the software on high performance computers/servers possibly with graphics cards you would get more computations per watt, which would be better for the environment.
36 • Errors in the review (by Kira on 2020-04-01 14:42:52 GMT from United States)
This was a nice review of Project Trident, but it's not that representative of the actual OS due to the issue of UEFI that the author keeps dealing with on Void-based distros.
He needs to try a different system or something because clearly it's the fault of his computer's handling of UEFI that preventing booting into Void-based distros. On my typical HP laptop (well not that typical, it's an Omen from early 2017 but it still is so damn similar to their plain consumer laptops of the time) Void boots fine on UEFI, as well as Project Trident 20.02 when I gave that a go in an attempt to use ZFS on Void. Same when using the UEFI implementation in VMware and VirtualBox. So something funky is going on with the computer the reviewer is using. Probably bias towards Windows OSes and Linux distros have tried to work around these issues but Void didn't do that, to chuck out a guess.
The reason why UEFI was recommended by Project Trident has to do with the missing feature of boot environments the reviewer complained about. It uses zfsbootmenu, a UEFI bootloader that has boot environments and the ability to pick the kernel, on top of refind, instead of the typical Grub setup that Trident uses in BIOS mode. So boot environments do exist, but I bet they aren't planned to arrive into BIOS based systems any time soon, unfortunately due to the fact BIOS is a dated technology.
But please Jesse, find a newer computer that is better representative of UEFI support. That PC reeks of early UEFI PCs during the Win 8 (not even 8.1) era that had crappy implementations that mostly just booted Windows and that's all. The irony of my laptop's great handling of Void is that HP were one of the worst offenders, as I heard about them hardcoding Windows to be number one in boot priority and not wanting to boot to Linux easily. I understand using an older PC to test the weightlessness of software but it'd be wiser to use an older PC from 2008 or so for that purpose of a secondary performance test, and having more recent hardware for most of the overall review to realistically represent the OS on most hardware today.
37 • Void review (by Jesse on 2020-04-01 15:13:58 GMT from Canada)
@36: "This was a nice review of Project Trident, but it's not that representative of the actual OS due to the issue of UEFI that the author keeps dealing with on Void-based distros. He needs to try a different system or something because clearly it's the fault of his computer's handling of UEFI that preventing booting into Void-based distros."
I have trouble understanding this point of view. Both of my test machines work with dozens, probably hundreds, of Linux distributions and are able to boot them in UEFI mode. But the machines are unable to boot one distro, Void, and you conclude that it must be the fault of the hardware?
If dozens of distros boot in UEFI mode on the same hardware, then what leads you to the conclusion that it is the equipment at fault rather than the one distro that fails to boot? Especially when it has been tested on multiple machines that boot other distros? Wouldn't it make more sense to assume the distro has incomplete UEFI support if it fails in a test environment where dozens of others succeed?
38 • BSD on desktop? @33 (by curious on 2020-04-01 15:53:47 GMT from Germany)
Your comment on BSD hardware support is spot-on.
Another important feature that BSDs don't care about is being easily installable in a partition, alongside other operating systems on the same physical disk. That should be easy enough, Linux has been able to do so for well over a decade.
Some BSD-gurus will probably know a highly complicated, secret and unintuitive magical solution which actually allows this, but that is exactly what a desktop distro shouldn't require.
Any OS that I try out gets tested in a VM first. And if its installer demands a full disk and will not easily install to a partition, I will not put it on bare metal, regardless of how good the rest may be.
39 • @37 Jesse (by dragonmouth on 2020-04-01 17:22:29 GMT from United States)
"Both of my test machines work with dozens, probably hundreds, of Linux distributions and are able to boot them in UEFI mode. But the machines are unable to boot one distro, Void, and you conclude that it must be the fault of the hardware?"
Be that as it may, trying Void on another PC or two would go a long way to determining if it's your laptops or Void that's at fault. From my personal experience, anecdotal though it may be, I know that some distros run better on one of my PC than on another one.
If it is Void rather than your hardware, then why are there who do not have the same UEFI as you do?
40 • @38 BSD on Desktop (by DaveT on 2020-04-01 21:06:24 GMT from United Kingdom)
Choose the right hardware and BSD works. OpenBSD runs happily on my ASUS UX305F laptop.
Dual-booting: Why? I abandoned dual-booting 10 years ago. Find the distro you like and stick with it! (debian sid for many a long year...)
41 • @39 Void an U EFI (by DaveT on 2020-04-01 21:13:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
The short answer is: UEFI should just work. Mainly UEFI works when Jesse tests it. If it does not work : that is NOT Jesse's fault! It is the distro that has a problem. You can whinge and complain about the hardware he uses not being 'modern' but being a tight-fisted Yorkshire Bastard I expect the distro I choose to work on my 2006 Apple iMac. And it does! (devuan since you ask...)
42 • @37 Void and UEFI (by Andy Prough on 2020-04-01 23:18:42 GMT from United States)
I think Jesse and Void are both right here. Jesse prefers distros that just work with his computer's UEFI, and most of them do. Void doesn't want to support that type of UEFI, and they shouldn't.
I know I have a newer ASUS laptop with an unusual UEFI setup, which Debian and MX both support. However, Arch and most Arch distros and most other distros won't boot from a live USB. It makes sense: MX and Debian are willing to deal with the headaches with that particular type of UEFI, and Arch and most other distros don't want to be bothered with those headaches. So they don't support it, and their live media doesn't work with it and its a royal pain to get anything other than MX or Debian installed with it.
In this case, I say 'good for Void' - don't support unusual UEFI setups if Void developers don't want the hassle. And 'good for Jesse' - use distros that DO want to support your setup. Great thing about GNU/Linux is that we have so many options.
43 • MakuluLinux release announcement (by barnabyh on 2020-04-02 00:07:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
Clicking on the link to read the full announcement I was led to this page in another language. It seems it was just fed through Google Translate and reading it was very, very painful. Most of the time can't even make sense of what they're trying to say.
Better to only post in English if you don't have native language users who can help out with this.
44 • Coronavirus/BOINC/Folding@Home (by on 2020-04-02 03:08:36 GMT from Germany)
I would very much prefer the crunching for coronavirus be shared with BOINC. BOINC is open source, folding@home is and/or contains proprietary design. Irregardless of how important it is to support this effort, proprietary software should be a no no.
I'll save crunching on other projects in BOINC for the winter, when my pc heats up the room a little.
45 • MakuluLinux release announcement (by Translator, but not traitor on 2020-04-02 08:12:20 GMT from Brazil)
@43 (barnabyh)
I suppose you refer to the website http://www.makululinux.com/wp/flash/
When I clicked that link, it led me to a page initially written in ENGLISH. Then, it suddenly translated to PORTUGUESE (my native language) even without my intervention.
But you live in the United Kingdom. So I don't understand why the mentioned link redirected your browser to a page NOT written in English.
Strange stuff...
In the words of William Shakespeare:
"There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our vain philosophy."
Well, I must be frank to you; it sounds better in my native language:
"Há mais coisas no céu e na terra do que sonhado em nossa vã filosofia."
Curiously, in both Portugal and Brazil, the same phrase is known as:
"Há mais mistérios entre o céu e a terra do que sonha a nossa vã filosofia."
which is a WRONG version of the words of Shakespeare...
As the Italians say: "Traduttore, traditore." ("Translator, traitor.")
46 • Void, UEFI, hardware (by Vakkotaur on 2020-04-02 08:36:21 GMT from United States)
Considering the age of some of my hardware, having things tested on older machines is something I appreciate. It's easy to SAY "get a better/newer" X. You buying? Didn't think so.
47 • mono-boot? Sorry... (by 1-hw-n-distro-here on 2020-04-02 10:41:46 GMT from Brazil)
@40 Monoboot? Why? I abandoned monoboot 13 years ago...
I run more than one distro in multiboot - few installed but more in iso from hdd for fun.
Thats the fun! Liberty! In only one desktop! No RPies, no Laps, no Tabs, not even Cells -
And no CPU cycles to would-be monopoly-patenters...
@41 But I expect the distro I choose to work on my one hardware of course.
MX if you ask.
48 • Beware the (Web)dogs (by Any Other on 2020-04-02 13:28:36 GMT from Brazil)
@26
Did you believe in the "good intentions" of Rosetta@Home? I didn't. (Of course, many people in this forum disagree with me.)
In my not so humble opinion, each and every "@Home" project is SUSPECT just because it wants to access computers remotely... Remember: "Big Brother is watching you!"
Don't you know that the NSA can easily read/modify/erase email messages of any user of Hotmail, Gmail, and any other mail service in the United States of America? Therefore, why should we trust the American SETI@Home if the NSA can also use it to pry on us? Aren't you affraid of what they could do with your banking-account data?
The FBI (a kind of Gestapo) is another bad news for persons living in the American territory. In California, a man was arrested in the airport (when returning from vaccation in Hawaii) and was put under interrogatory just because he had made a "suspect search" at Google several weeks ago...
Fortunately, Brazil is relatively secure for online activity. Our government doesn't have money to spend in a stupid "National SPYING Agency" or in a stupid "Federal Bureau of INSANITY". And our politicians are much more interested in running corruption schemes than in running spyware in our computers.
49 • Donating CPU cycles (by mandatory name on 2020-04-03 04:32:25 GMT from Netherlands)
I was once active donating CPU cycles to the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, and a bit of SETI@home as well. Then I heard of Bitcoin. Now my donations are in the Serious Money category.
I sort of feel good about that!
50 • Pesky Facts & Reason (by M.Z. on 2020-04-03 22:49:19 GMT from United States)
@Tman
Well if the modeling you're interested in pursuing is full of tribalistic us vs them thinking then the world is better off without you gracious aid. Any scientifically rigorous model has to be open enough to allow peer review, rational skeptical debate AND eventual consensus, which is of course impossible when someone starts puking out attacks based on ideology.
@48
It's always a 'them' problem isn't it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Intelligence_Agency
Perhaps not the most accurate or up to date wikipedia article, but it doesn't paint the all together rosy picture you seem to believe of your local '...kind of Gestapo' to borrow a phrase. It's doesn't seem like the hundreds of millions a year spent on your local equivalent of US security & law enforcement are spent in ways that are any wiser or better aligned with civil rights from what little I can tell.
The truth is that if you care a lot about privacy then any intelligence agency is at best a necessary evil & every country with any significant amount of money almost certainly has an intelligence agency that has done something bad whether you know it or not. Isn't it smarter to be wary of all of them?
Number of Comments: 50
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| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Ximper Linux
Ximper Linux is a Russian, rolling-release distribution based on ALT Linux's development branch called "Sisyphus". The project develops a custom package manager called EPM which enables installing and removing individual software or upgrading the entire distribution with one command. It also includes PortProton, a tool designed to help users run Windows games on Linux systems. Ximper Linux provides a set of live images, with GNOME or Hyprland, and with a flexible system installer that can be used to build any installation scenario, from a minimal system to a complex workstation with various desktop environments.
Status: Active
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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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