 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 861, 13 April 2020 |
Welcome to this year's 15th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
A lot of modern Linux distributions attempt to make other, older distributions easier to install or use. Many distributions offer Arch Linux with an installer, or Debian with customized desktop environments. This week we begin with a look at Netrunner, a Debian-based project featuring the KDE Plasma desktop. Read on to learn more about this desktop-oriented project. In our News section we discuss improvements coming to the elementary OS distribution and OpenMediaVault 4.x nearing the end of its supported life. Plus we cover openSUSE merging more closely with SUSE Linux Enterprise and link to an overview of how this will affect openSUSE. We also link to a questions and answers thread with Linux developer Greg Kroah-Hartman where he talks about the kernel, his workflow and various technical challenges. Then we discuss how to monitor network connections to keep track of bandwidth and the different layers of package management. Our Opinion Poll this week asks which network monitoring tools you use to see what is consuming your bandwidth. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and provide a list of the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Netrunner 20.01
- News: Desktop improvements in elementary OS, openSUSE merging closer to SUSE Linux Enterprise, OpenMediaVault 4.x nearing its end of life, Greg Kroah-Hartman answers Linux questions
- Questions and answers: Live network statistics and package management layers
- Released last week: Tails 4.5, AV Linux 2020.4.10, ReactOS 0.4.13
- Torrent corner: ALT, AV Linux, Bluestar, EasyOS, KDE neon, ReactOS, Septor, Tails
- Opinion poll: Monitoring network traffic rates
- New distributions: HoleOS
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (15MB) and MP3 (10MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Netrunner 20.01
Netrunner is a Debian-based distribution featuring a customized KDE Plasma desktop with some extra applications and conveniences. The Netrunner project has had several different editions over the years which seem to come and go fairly quickly. For example, there was a rolling edition that was based on Manjaro Linux, which has appeared and been abandoned a few times. There have also been editions for ARM-powered devices over the years, but those seem to no longer be included in new releases. In the past there was a Core edition which offers a more minimal approach than the distribution's main Desktop edition and it seems as though the developers plan to continue the Core line, but at the time of writing only the Desktop edition is available for version 20.01. [Note: After this review was written, but before publication, the Core edition was published.]
All of that is to say that, in the past, Netrunner had many editions and supported multiple architectures. However, as I write this Netrunner 20.01 is only available in a Desktop edition for 64-bit (x86_64) computers and this offering is a 2.4GB download.
Booting from the provided media brings up the KDE Plasma desktop environment. The desktop features a panel at the bottom of the display with an application menu and system tray. The system tray includes the usual array of status icons along with two uncommon items: one icon for opening a drop-down virtual terminal and another for creating screenshots. There are icons on the desktop for launching the project's system installer, opening a Read Me document, launching the Dolphin file manager and opening a window which displays hardware-related information. The default wallpaper looks like a rainbow that has been broken up and used as pieces in a game of pick-up-sticks.
Clicking the Read Me launcher opens the Firefox browser and displays an on-line document which contains tips on using Netrunner. These are mostly random tips concerning the live media's login credentials, working with the Steam gaming portal and customizing the desktop.
While exploring the live environment I soon noticed the application menu has an unusual layout. The application menu covers the entire desktop and is divided into three panes. On the left side is a Favourites area along with options for logging out and powering off the computer. On the far right side are categories of software we can explore. Specific launchers in the selected category are displayed in the middle of the menu. This full-screen approach wastes a lot of space and requires a lot more mouse movement than other menus as the mouse needs to travel from the bottom-left corner to the far right and then back to the middle to launch any program. Swapping this menu out for an alternative (which can be done by right-clicking the menu's button) was the first thing I did once Netrunner was installed.
Netrunner 20.01 -- The default application menu
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Installing
Netrunner makes use of the Calamares system installer, a graphical application that quickly guides us through the usual options to get the operating system configured. Calamares provides a nice interface for selecting our language, time zone and keyboard layout. Calamares helps us create a username and password for ourselves. When it comes to disk partitioning we can take the guided option, which takes over available free space, or manually manage partitions. I tried the manual option first and, while setting up a second partition, Calamares crashed without providing any error. I relaunched the installer, took exactly the same options and, this time, Calamares completed its work successfully.
Early impressions
A newly installed copy of Netrunner boots to a mostly black graphical login page. Signing into our account loads the KDE Plasma desktop. I saw no pop-ups, welcome windows, or other notifications when I first signed into the desktop.
One thing I did notice though is the default mouse pointer is reddish-orange. I'm not sure if this unusual choice was done to make the mouse easier to see, or perhaps as a personal choice by a developer. Should we wish to have a more commonly coloured pointer the cursor theme can be changed in the System Settings panel.
When I first started using Netrunner the desktop mostly ran well, but lagged when opening menus, launching programs, or highlighting elements with the mouse. I was able to improve performance by adjusting (or disabling) the compositor, which can be managed in the System Settings panel. This improved the desktop's responsiveness and resulted in good performance when I was running the distribution on a workstation. Though desktop performance was improved in my VirtualBox test environment, Plasma never reached a point where the system felt properly snappy to respond in the virtual machine.
Netrunner 20.01 -- Adjusting desktop performance
(full image size: 411kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Applications
Netrunner ships with KDE Plasma 5.14.5, which is now several versions behind upstream, which is at 5.18. Most of the time this does not have a practical impact, but I think it may account for some of the performance issues I ran into. I also noticed that Plasma Vaults was missing, a feature which makes it easy to access encrypted volumes. Vaults is older than Plasma 5.14 and I expected to see it, but it appears to have been omitted from Netrunner. I found the Vaults functionality could be added to Plasma by installing the plasma-vault package and its dependencies.
Netrunner 20.01 -- Using LibreOffice and playing a game
(full image size: 165kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Apart from the KDE Plasma desktop itself, Netrunner ships with quite a lot of software, including the Firefox browser, the Marble virtual globe and Thunderbird for checking e-mail. The Pidgin messaging software, Transmission bittorrent client and LibreOffice are available too. There is a native Skype application, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, Inkscape and the Krita drawing application.
There are a handful of games and Steam. The first time I tried to open Steam nothing appeared to happen for a few minutes, at least on the desktop - my hard drive was working hard. Eventually a window appeared saying Steam was being updated and then the game portal launched a few minutes later.
Netrunner 20.01 -- Running Steam and using an alternative application menu
(full image size: 204kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Netrunner offers users a remote desktop viewer, the KDE Help documentation, the Dolphin file manager and Okular document reader. We are also treated to the Cheese webcam utility, the Audacious and SMPlayer media players, the HandBrake media conversion utility and Kdenlive video editor. The distribution supplies a full range of media codecs for audio and video formats.
One interesting additional to the application menu is a category of web applications. In theory these give us access to some on-line services such as Telegram, Whatsapp and Skype. Unfortunately these web applications do not always work as well as one might hope. For example, the Whatapp web client requires we have the native Whatsapp client already installed and set up on another device. The Skype web-based client seems redundant since we already have a native implementation, plus trying to open the Skype web app just displays a message saying it is not compatible with Firefox (Netrunner's default browser) and that we need to use either the Edge or Chrome proprietary browsers to access the Skype service.
Digging further into the Netrunner distribution I found Java is installed for us, along with the GNU Compiler Collection. The distribution uses the systemd init software and runs on Linux 4.19.
Software management
The distribution provides a few different methods for handling software. The primary one appears to be Discover, a graphical front-end that divides available packages into applications and KDE plugins. It then further organizes applications into categories and, in some cases, sub-categories. This can make for some drilling down through the options to find what we want. However, Discover worked well for me. We can also search or software by name and check for updates through Discover.
Netrunner 20.01 -- The Discover software centre
(full image size: 523kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
I found Discover's interface to be slow to respond and sometimes the way it was organized made navigating between elements slower, due to lots of sub-categories and the lack of an Install button on applications' information screens. Otherwise Discover provides a pretty solid, familiar software centre experience.
While using Discover the software centre let me know there were 8 new updates available totalling 18MB in size. These were all downloaded and installed without any problems.
Another utility we can use for handling updates is the Update Manager tool (also known as mintUpdate). This tool provides an easy way to review and download new packages. Unfortunately it is not accompanied by any update notification in the system tray to let us know when to use it, we need to check for updates manually. One minor issue I ran into with mintUpdate was when I went to check its About information, the window that popped up gave an error message about a missing library file (version.py) instead of any information about mintUpdate.
For people who like more fine-grained package management, Netrunner provides the Synaptic package manager and the command line APT tools. As with the previously mentioned software management tools, these both worked well.
Netrunner 20.01 -- Running the Dolphin file manager and Synaptic package manager
(full image size: 360kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Hardware
I explored Netrunner in two test environments. When I was running the distribution in VirtualBox the operating system was stable and functioned fairly well, though it was a bit slow to respond and load applications. Otherwise the experience was fine and, with some tweaks, I was able to coax more performance out of the Plasma desktop.
When running on my workstation, Netrunner detected all of my computer's hardware and the performance was noticeably better. One or two programs, such as the Discover software centre, were still sluggish at times, but the operating system in general worked smoothly.
Netrunner is a medium-weight distribution in memory, using about 470MB. However, it is quite large on disk, requiring 7.6GB of storage space for a fresh install, not including swap space.
Conclusions
This may sound odd, but after using Netrunner for a while I struggled to come up with much to say about it, good or bad. The distribution essentially takes Debian and adds a polished KDE Plasma desktop to the experience. The result works, runs well and did not present me with any serious problems. I did end up tweaking Plasma to get better performance and I had to add a few tools, like Vaults, but otherwise the experience was not lacking anything.
On the other hand, I don't feel as though Netrunner brings anything particularly new or special to the experience. It feels much the same as other Debian-based distributions featuring KDE Plasma, such as Neptune or SolydXK. There is nothing wrong with this, but it means the distribution did not do anything to set itself apart from the competition in my mind, nothing to make me choose it over one of the alternatives.
In short, Netrunner offers a good, solid experience. The included software is a little older, but not so old as to interfere with functionality and, if needed, there are backports repositories we can use. I don't think Netrunner has any special gifts or surprises that make it stand out, but I do think it offers a pleasantly uneventful experience.
One of the few concerns I had with Netrunner was not technical; it was the project's shifting focus. While Netrunner has been around in one form or another for quite a while, the project keeps spinning off new editions, new concepts and new architecture support. These tend to fade away after a number of months or years. Netrunner as a whole continues, but I would not want to become too attached to any one flavour of the distribution.
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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
Netrunner has a visitor supplied average rating of: 7.6/10 from 9 review(s).
Have you used Netrunner? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Desktop improvements in elementary OS, openSUSE merging closer to SUSE Linux Enterprise, OpenMediaVault 4.x nearing its end of life, Greg Kroah-Hartman answers Linux questions
The elementary OS developers have been working to polish their distribution's desktop environment and settings. Recent changes include better panel placement on multi-monitor setups, avoiding crashes in the file manager and removing duplication of options in the settings panel. "We landed several fixes for Files this month. We corrected a 'New Folder' shortcut label, fixed navigation with back/forward context menu items, ensured the path bar shows the correct path when closing a tab and at startup, fixed several small issues when renaming a file and omitted 'file://' in certain user-facing places. We also fixed a few rare freezes and crashes. We spent some time this month pushing out updates to Panel itself along with many of the indicators. Importantly, we fixed the panel interfering with certain display setups, like when a secondary display is above the primary display - multi-display users rejoice!" Additional details can be found in the project's blog post.
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Gerald Pfeifer has posted to the openSUSE Announce mailing list that openSUSE's Leap edition and SUSE Linux Enterprise are in the process of moving closer together. "The proposal includes a three step approach: 1. Merge the code bases for the intersection of openSUSE Leap 15.2
and SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP2 as much as possible without loss of functionality or stability. (SUSE has started a cleanup process on the SUSE Linux Enterprise side already.) 2. In parallel to classic openSUSE Leap 15.2 create a flavor leveraging
SLE binaries, leading to an intermediate release in the October 2020 time frame.
3. Build openSUSE Leap 15.3 with SLE binaries included by default (assuming community agreement)." Further details on the proposed merge can be found in Pfeifer's e-mail.
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The OpenMediaVault project published version 5.3.9 of their network attached storage distribution at the end of March. The project has since announced that version 4.x of the distribution will no longer be supported after the end of June 2020. People using older versions of the distribution are urged to upgrade to the latest release. "At 30.06.2020 OpenMediaVault 4.x will become EOL. This means no security/bugfix updates will be released anymore. Please upgrade to 5.x to be up-to-date."
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The Linux kernel sits at the heart of GNU/Linux distributions, Android, most super computers and countless embedded devices. The kernel runs on billions of devices and has thousands of contributors. One of the lead Linux developers, Greg Kroah-Hartman, took to Reddit this past week to answer questions about Linux development, how to contribute, attempts to regain lost performance in the wake of Intel CPU bugs and which kernel module he would be. He also talks about his development environment a little: "For a distro I use Arch on my laptop and for some tiny cloud instances I run and manage for some minor tasks. My build server runs Fedora and I have help maintaining that at times as I am a horrible sysadmin. For a desktop environment I use GNOME and here's a picture of my normal desktop while working on reviewing and modifying kernel code." The entire thread of questions and answers contains all sorts of interesting insights.
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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) |
Live network statistics and package management layers
Trying-to-understand-the-pieces-of-package-management asks: Can you explain the difference between DNF, Zypper and RPM?
DistroWatch answers: I think the easiest way to understand the various pieces of package management is to start from the ground up. At the lowest level of the package management tree we have the packages themselves. A package is an archive containing files which will be installed on our operating system. The exact contents and format of a package file vary a bit depending on its type, but basically all packages include a bunch of files to be installed and a manifest listing their contents. Common package formats are RPM (identified by their .rpm extension) and Deb (.deb). The former is mostly used in the Fedora, Red Hat and openSUSE families of distributions. Meanwhile Deb packages are mostly seen in the Debian and Ubuntu families. There are lots of other package types, but the important thing to remember is the low level packages of any distribution are really just archives containing files that will be unpacked and installed on the system.
On many distributions the next level up is a basic package manager that can unpack, install, remove, or upgrade a single package. This is the low-level software that can work directly with the aforementioned package files. On Fedora and openSUSE this low level package manager is called rpm. On Debian and Ubuntu it is dpkg. These tools are useful for managing or inspecting a single package file, but they are not particularly user friendly and generally do not do anything to handle dependencies.
The next level up is generally the high-level, command line package manager. The high-level package manager can usually download package files, resolve missing dependencies, clean-up old archives and figure out how to handle software upgrades. The high-level package managers are DNF (on Fedora), Zypper (on openSUSE) and APT (on Debian and Ubuntu). In the case of high-level package managers, like Zypper and DNF, these tools perform the same actions, but have different implementations. They may have different command line syntax, but are designed to do the same work.
Finally, the top layer in this whole stack is a graphical software centre. These are the programs most users run to find and install software. These desktop tools use the underlying package managers to accomplish their work while putting a friendly face on the whole process. Popular graphical software managers include GNOME Software (often just called Software), Synaptic and Discover.
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Watching-the-network asks: Is there a tool for showing network statistics the way top shows CPU and memory?
DistroWatch answers: There are a few tools to do this. The one which is probably the most like top, but for showing current network usage, is iftop. It will show which remote computers your system is talking to, how much bandwidth is currently being used and how much traffic is both going out from your computer (sending) and coming in (receiving). You can specify which network interface to monitor if you have more than one on your machine, making iftop quite flexible.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Tails 4.5
The Amnesic Incognito Live System (Tails) is a Debian-based live DVD/USB with the goal of providing complete Internet anonymity for the user. The project's latest release, Tails 4.5, fixes a security vulnerability in the Firefox web browser and provides support for Secure Boot. "New features: Tails now starts on computers with Secure Boot enabled. If your Mac displays the following error: 'Security settings do not allow this Mac to use an external startup disk.' Then you have to change the settings of the Startup Security Utility of your Mac to authorize starting from Tails. Changes and updates: Update Tor Browser to 9.0.9. This update fixes several vulnerabilities in Firefox, including some critical ones. Mozilla is aware of targeted attacks in the wild abusing this vulnerability." Further details along with tips for upgrading existing copies of Tails can be found in the project's release announcement.
AV Linux 2020.4.10
Glen MacArthur has announced the release of a brand-new version of AV Linux, a Debian-based, multimedia-oriented distribution with a collection of audio and video production software. AV Linux 2020.4.10 is the project's first release based on Debian 10: "AV Linux 2020.4.10 is released. What's new? Moved to Debian 10 'Buster'; new Linux 5.4.28 realtime and lowlatency kernels; new Systemback fork with NVMe support; added Pulseaudio Bluetooth module and BT support frontends; disabled automounting of external drives on live ISO image (it can be re-enabled post-install) - some users viewed automount as a security intrusion; removed all KDE libraries and Kdenlive - too much bulk and ISO image space for one application, it can easily be installed from Debian or Flatpak post-install; added latest KXStudio repositories compliant with Debian 'Buster'; added new Thunar custom actions, including sample editing and image manipulation; completely rewritten 'AV Linux Assistant' with many new features; consolidation of many small AV Linux scripts and apps into AV Linux Assistant; consolidation of extra plugins into a single 'avlinux-extra-plugins' package...." Continue to the release announcement for further information and screenshots.
AV Linux 2020.4.10 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 1.6MB, 1920x1080 pixels)
ReactOS 0.4.13
ReactOS is an open source operating system which strives to offer binary compatibility with Microsoft Windows. The project's developers have published a new release, ReactOS 0.4.13, which offers a number of improvements to the graphical shell, USB support and the Xbox port of ReactOS has been updated. "The ReactOS Team is pleased to announce the release of version 0.4.13. As with prior releases, keywords are noted representing the release itself and highlighting key improvements. In this particular case, the 0.4.13 version shows the results of significant hard work to bring improvements to the USB stack, further development on the Xbox port boot process, an Explorer File Search for the Shell module, as well as many other changes. USB (Universal Serial Bus) is an important standard adopted throughout the industry and used widely on many devices such as external storage, keyboards, mice and various other devices. Notably, there are a great number of computers that do not come with a CD-ROM drive these days, with the only option being USB in order to boot or install an operating system." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
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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: 1,923
- Total data uploaded: 31.3TB
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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) |
Monitoring network traffic rates
In our Questions and Answers column this week we talked about monitoring network traffic to see which connections with remote computers re consuming the system's bandwidth. We specifically mentioned the iftop tool which can help and shows statistics in a similar fashion to the top process monitor. Which utility do you use to keep track of your network traffic? Let us know what works for you in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using OpenSSH's "fingerprint" feature in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Monitoring network traffic rates
| I monitor traffic with iftop: | 60 (7%) |
| I monitor traffic with another tool: | 239 (27%) |
| I do not monitor network traffic: | 581 (66%) |
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
Distributions added to waiting list
- HoleOS. HoleOS is an Ubuntu-based distribution for general purpose computing.
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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, 20 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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| Archives |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Full list of all issues |
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SAMity Linux
SAMity Linux, a live and installation CD based on Unity Linux, was an easy-to-use, fast and clean Xfce Linux desktop for home users.
Status: Discontinued
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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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