 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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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Netrunner review (by Andy Prough on 2020-04-13 01:01:17 GMT from United States)
This review of Netrunner is basically the state of KDE on Debian in 2020 - badly out-of-date, slow, and missing functionality. And the situation is unlikely to improve anytime soon, as the next release probably won't be out for over a year from now. By then, the KDE 5.14 plasma desktop that's on Buster will be nearly 3 years old. That's just a sad state of affairs.
2 • Net Traffic (by Nathan NetNoman on 2020-04-13 01:41:59 GMT from Canada)
Network Traffic,
Are we talking about traffic from individual components or cumulative?
In fact, I have voted for I Don't care I mean I do not measure.
3 • Netrunner and Debian KDE (by randomly generated entity on 2020-04-13 02:32:47 GMT from United States)
It's been a long while since I've tried Netrunner, so I can't really comment intelligently on its implementation of KDE, though I agree that that menu would be the first thing to go for me. As for Debian and KDE in general, the only hope of being anywhere near up to date is to use sid, and even then you'll be lagging severely. It's only been in the last month or two that it got bumped up to 5.17.5 from 5.14.x.
The moral of this story is that Debian is simply not the undercarriage best suited to getting the best and brightest out of KDE. That said, I do have a sid/KDE install that's been in place for a few years now with zero issues aside from age of packages. It does what I need it to do (the basics - web, torrents, music processing including tagging with Picard, light video editing) so it does get used as daily driver from time to time.
I'd agree with Jesse's conclusion... what indeed does Netrunner provide that its base doesn't, and probably better (sid anyway) because of less tinkering with defaults? I suppose Calamares is marginally easier, if less specific, than Debian's installer, but beyond that and choice of apps (something I'd rather see leaning toward less, not more), I can't see any reason to try Netrunner again anytime soon.
4 • Net Traffic (by greenpossum on 2020-04-13 03:44:57 GMT from Australia)
In short, no. I don't monitor work LANs anymore. My home LAN is Gbit so I never worry about bandwidth. As for traffic with the Internet, I live within my speed tier. It could be faster of course but I'd have to pay more.
5 • @1 re Netrunner (by Simon on 2020-04-13 06:24:11 GMT from New Zealand)
I use Debian precisely because it has the good sense to exclude software from "stable" until it's been thoroughly tested (in the "testing" distro), which takes time. The last thing I want is for the distributors to inflict software on me when it's only been written a short time ago: I'm happy to wait a few years for the latest bells and whistles, but I'm not happy to have software fail when I need it to work...and that's the inevitable risk you run if you allow your distro to package software for you before it's been properly tested. I guess it's a "sad state of affairs" if you prioritise features over dependability...but not everyone does. Bleeding edge distros exist so that folks like you can use software a short while after it's available upstream, and distros like Debian and CentOS exist so that folks like me can use the software a few years later, without worrying that it might crash when we're counting on it to work. To each his/her own: it's great to have the options.
6 • Network traffic with ksysguard (by Luca on 2020-04-13 07:43:00 GMT from Italy)
I do not monitor network traffic often, but if I need to, I use KDE System Monitor (ksysguard)
7 • Network monitoring (by Pikolo on 2020-04-13 09:50:30 GMT from United Kingdom)
@6 KSysGuard shows you a quantified approach for the internet connections - how much traffic goes out and in. That doesn't really let you see which programs are using the network.
I use lsof -i to peek at the open network sockets, to see what my programs are talking to. I'll probably install itop and check it out instead.
8 • Debian v Arch etc (by Abigail on 2020-04-13 11:13:20 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've been using Plasma on Debian stable for years now. I know it's a fairly old version, and I've tried the newest version via Arch and there are some nice improvements, but on the computer I use for work and play all day I just don't have the time or patience for the constant maintenance required on an Arch installation. Another 100MB of updates every morning when booting gets a bit wearing after a while.
I like the Debian approach - test everything exhaustively to make sure it all fits and works together, and then release a system that doesn't change underneath you for several years. It means I don't get to use the latest shiny Plasma, but it also means I don't have to spend more time fixing my computer than using it.
9 • Poll (by some random user on 2020-04-13 11:48:21 GMT from United States)
I do not know if gkrellm counts or not, but that is one of the tools that I use.
10 • Nothing wrong with stable, dependable (by Dark Man on 2020-04-13 12:08:44 GMT from United States)
@5 Well stated, Simon NZ
@8 Great comment, Abigail UK, "I don't have to spend more time fixing my computer than using it."
11 • Plasma (by Mark on 2020-04-13 12:10:05 GMT from Canada)
Anybody who rolls with a Debian Testing distro (me Sparky) can upgrade Plasma to 5.17.5 right now.
As always, Arch Linux has the latest Plasma 5.18.4 to grab.
Surprised no mention of the kerfuffle between KDE and QT_Company :
https://www.osnews.com/story/131646/new-qt-releases-possibly-restricted-to-paying-customers-for-12-months-kde-not-particularly-happy/
12 • Debian Stability (by Penguin on 2020-04-13 16:12:40 GMT from United States)
I too run Debian stable with KDE and am quite happy with it. No issues for a long time now. I am a musician rather than a coder and have had some unrecoverable (for me) issues with the more bleeding-edge distros. I use my computer extensively for production, recording and writing and prioritize stability over the newest software. KDE's new versions seem to usually be very incremental upgrades, so I guess if you need emojis in Konsole then you'll have to go with an Arch spin or whatever.
In the few instances I have needed a newer version of a product (Telegram), I've been able to install a flatpak that works great. I also plan to enjoy my trusty Firefox ESR as long as possible before I'm required to update to a version with the LARGER ADDRESS BAR! which for some reason helps me do something.
13 • Re: Network monitoring and KDE-Qt animosity (by Cheker on 2020-04-13 17:26:52 GMT from Portugal)
I rarely go beyond nmap and ksysguard, if those even count. Looked at wireshark once, found it overwhelming.
@11 Ah Jesus. Well then, y'all excuse me while I go and get further acquainted with MATE
14 • Stable Point Releases Vs Rolling (by M.Z. on 2020-04-14 00:28:26 GMT from United States)
I can't comment on all rolling distros, because most sounded like a bit of a hassle in terms of maintenance; however, having used Mageia, Mint, & Debian based systems along with PCLinuxOS I can say there are fewer upgrades on Debian based system & Mageia compared to PCLOS. The rolling on PCLOS is gentle, but it still has a fair bit more upgrades over the course of a typical week. I would say most of the rough edges were related to Kernel upgrades & could be rolled back fairly easily by booting into the old kernal in Grub & removing the new one. On the other hand I did run into other bugs over the course of 4 or 5 years that I ran PCLOS on one machine. I'm not entirely convinced that the difference is enough to matter on a personal use PC, but I'm sure no IT department would want a rolling distro & a long term point release like Debian is plenty good for those who don't yearn for fresh new software.
15 • @14 Point Releases Vs Rolling (by OstroL on 2020-04-14 06:25:20 GMT from Poland)
Its always better to use rolling releases. Whatever that needs to get updated would be wetted by the efficient developers before being published. If you are using any distro or OS, you trust the developers. All you need is an application that'd remind you about updates and then update them with your permission. Arch and Gentoo had been the forerunner of rolling distros and are developing today. More than 2 billion people use a Gentoo based distro daily, Android, and gets updates practically everyday.
Users are not interested in reinstalling a distro every 6 months. Even Windows 10 is rolling for last 4 and 1/2 years!
16 • @15 STABLE Point Releases vs Beta Point Releases (by curious on 2020-04-14 08:33:55 GMT from Germany)
You state categorically that rolling releases are better. That is obviously a very specialised opinion.
The argument that users are not interested in reinstalling every 6 months is true, but the distros that release every 6 months are not stable. The "regular" Ubuntu or Fedora releases are not to be taken seriously. They are for trying things out.
A STABLE point release is something like Mageia, Ubuntu LTS, RHEL/CentOS, OpenSUSE LEAP or Debian. A user would only need to reinstall or upgrade every few YEARS.
That model makes much more sense than constantly having major system components updated, just because some upstream developer wants to test a new experimental feature - oops - broken again ... please undo ...
And I very seriously doubt that Arch developers do much "wetting".
17 • @15 Rolling Android (by Noah on 2020-04-14 08:57:55 GMT from Switzerland)
Well, my Android are not rolling; one is stuck at 9 and the other one at 5. Updates and upgrades is not the same thing. Windows rolling? Sure. We all know how.
18 • @15 STABLE Point Releases vs Beta Point Releases (by Frank Nießen on 2020-04-14 08:59:18 GMT from Germany)
full ack to @16
and only for the records: Even Win 10 is not a rolling release because there are subreleases (1803, 1809, 1903, 1909 ...) like on Ubuntu et al.
19 • @16 (by akoy on 2020-04-14 09:21:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
"And I very seriously doubt that Arch developers do much "wetting". "
How do you know?
20 • @18 (by akoy on 2020-04-14 09:24:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
"and only for the records: Even Win 10 is not a rolling release because there are subreleases (1803, 1809, 1903, 1909 ...) like on Ubuntu et al."
No, not exactly. The user doesn't have to do anything to get the Windows 10 "subrelease" to install itself and get it going. With Ubuntu, it is your headache.
21 • Rolling with Andy (by Angel on 2020-04-14 10:09:01 GMT from Philippines)
@15 -Android? Rolling? You're not serious? You get what the manufacturer brung. You maybe get one or if you are lucky, two releases, when and if and assuming the said manufacturer cares to do so. If you want more and feel brave, you might get a custom ROM if available and flash it while crossing your fingers hoping it doesn't brick the device. You get security updates every once in a while, yes, and again maybe, at the manufacturer's whim.. Those "practically every day" updates are apps, northing to do with the OS, and not so much different from what you get with Ubuntu, et al.
Anyone who re-installs every few months does so because that's what they want to do. Centos: 10 years. Ubuntu LTS: 5 years, or more if paying. Even 5 years is quite a bit longer than your Android updates will be around.
Re-installing, I've found over the years, is not so difficult if you partition properly. That's of course assuming you don't have hundreds of apps to redo. I'll give you that Windows is getting easier. Last update, to 1909, didn't leave my PCs useless for hours. That is indeed progress.
22 • @15 rolling (by Fredo on 2020-04-14 10:26:54 GMT from United States)
I have nothing against rolling. Arch is nice. Lots of people love Manjaro and others. But they do take more time and care. Broke Arch doing an upgrade? Tsk! Tsk! You didn't read the alerts. We keep telling you: RTFM! If it's your thing, enjoy!
Artix was trending here, so I tried it with runit, fresh off the oven. Booted up nice and fast. Looked really good. Broke at the first upgrade. Didn't roll very far. It's not that I can't fix that, I can look up the problem, reinstall if needed, etc., when and if I want to dedicate time to that. In the meanwhile, I'll be using something else.
23 • @21 rolling.... (by akoy on 2020-04-14 11:32:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
Android is rolling, every month. And, it is based on another rolling distro, Gentoo.
If you have a problem with a device manufacturer, take that up with him. His device is proprietary. But, it doesn't mean Android is not rolling. It never stopped rolling.
"Re-installing, I've found over the years, is not so difficult if you partition properly."
Of course a geek like you might, but not your grandma, or the hundreds of your neighbours.
Windows 10 also is rolling, and it does the installing behind the scenes; it finishes updating and finishing up, when you put the computer off. And, it takes few minutes.
Arch doesn't break after an upgrade. Once installed, it stays installed. You may not use the system for months, and then let it update. Nothing goes wrong, nothing breaks. I've tested this many times.
24 • Network Monitor (by Jeff on 2020-04-14 12:39:42 GMT from Canada)
I've been using nethogs to monitor network traffic on my computer for almost a year now. I just have it running in a terminal in the corner and glance at it once in awhile.
Couple times it reported a few odd anomalies that made me have a look but in the end, they were all good.
25 • network monitoring (by Gary W on 2020-04-14 13:25:43 GMT from Australia)
iftop is handy for a quick look, but I find iptraf and netwatch provide a lot more information.
26 • All the kerfuffle over rolling distros (by Friar Tux on 2020-04-14 13:41:47 GMT from Canada)
Sorry, folks, for me it comes down to one simple priority - does it work without issues. I want/need something that will NOT require daily attention. I want/need an LTS distro that can handle my daily grind without getting jittery. I don't want/need the latest or greatest. And just to be clear, I'm retired and my laptop is usually on 16 hours a day. It is my 'everything'. (I've said this before.) It is my library (books), newspaper, magazine, technical journal, recipe box, encyclopedia, writer's tool (stories, poems, article, etc.), graphic artist's tool (painting, drawing, 'needle-work' - yup, you read that right), and much, much more. This has helped to declutter/downsize the amount of stuff I would have had to cram into my, now, small apartment (780 sq. ft.).
As with any device, be it car, phone, or toaster, if it doesn't work to MY satisfaction I get something that will. The same goes for my OS. (Mine has an EOL date of 2023.) I have not had to fiddle or fidget with it in four years (that's when I installed it). Definitely a keeper (Linux Mint/Cinnamon).
27 • Stable (by Gary W on 2020-04-14 13:59:56 GMT from Australia)
@26, @8 ditto. I have plenty of computers to experiment with, when I have time. But I want, and expect, my prime computer to assist my ventures in the real world, without, like a child, involving me with its own time-consuming peculiarities. I have a motorbike for intellectual and emotional engagement, but I also have a car for carrying stuff and just getting things done.
28 • @23, Arch and Android (by Angel on 2020-04-14 15:13:06 GMT from Philippines)
I'll go to the source:
Before upgrading, users are expected to visit the Arch Linux home page to check the latest news, or alternatively subscribe to the RSS feed or the arch-announce mailing list. When updates require out-of-the-ordinary user intervention (more than what can be handled simply by following the instructions given by pacman), an appropriate news post will be made.
Before upgrading fundamental software (such as the kernel, xorg, systemd, or glibc) to a new version, look over the appropriate forum to see if there have been any reported problems.
Users must equally be aware that upgrading packages can raise unexpected problems that could need immediate intervention; therefore, it is discouraged to upgrade a stable system shortly before it is required for carrying out an important task. It is wise to wait instead to have enough time in order to be able to deal with possible post-upgrade issues.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/System_maintenance#Read_before_upgrading_the_system
https://www.archlinux.org/
Te fact that you can upgrade to a new release does not make a rolling distro. You can upgrade to new releases in Ubuntu, Fedora, et al. Google it!
Android is developed by Google until the latest changes and updates are ready to be released, at which point the source code is made available to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP),[134] an open source initiative led by Google.[135] The AOSP code can be found without modification on select devices, mainly the Google Nexus and Google Pixel series of devices.[136] The source code is, in turn, customized by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to run on their hardware.[137][138] Android's source code does not contain the device drivers, often proprietary, that are needed for certain hardware components.[139] As a result, most Android devices, including Google's own, ship with a combination of free and open source and proprietary software, with the software required for accessing Google services falling into the latter category.
The fact that you can upgrade to a new release does not make a rolling distro. You can upgrade to new releases in Ubuntu, Fedora, and others. Google it! That's why we are on Android 10, or Ubuntu 20.04, but Arch is still Arch Linux, not Arch Linux 20.
29 • What is rolling? (by Fredo on 2020-04-14 16:06:39 GMT from United States)
I think there's some confusion as to what "rolling" is. A rolling distro is always ready for release. Arch may release install media at intervals using a snapshot of the system at that time, but development continues and maybe a few days later they could have a newer kernel, new libraries or whatever. No new install media is provided until the next snapshot, which is taken at an arbitrary. point Arch does it monthly.
A fixed release is developed to a point when it's deemed ready by the developers, then it's released. Major changes to the system will come as point (minor) releases or major ones. Updates are usually provided for the apps and for security purposes when needed. Whether you reinstall or upgrade using the package manager is irrelevant. Over the years I have done both quite a few times.
Android and Windows are not rolling releases, they are developed until ready, and then released. In between you get bug fixes and security updates. If some people want to redefine what rolling means, that's a different thing..
30 • What's rolling... (by OstroL on 2020-04-14 16:51:16 GMT from Poland)
Arch and Gentoo are rolling distros, no one appears to dispute that here. Ubuntu is not, because it just cannot be -- its pretty hard to continue using untested Debian unstable packages continuously. So, the LTSs, point releases and intermediate releases. Ubuntu packages are dependent on Debian and its developers.
Fedora on the other hand is a semi rolling distro, whatever number it carries at a given moment. Fedora creates the packages, together with the mother distro. It doesn't borrow them from another distro.
Android is a rolling, always developing. And, that's why it is based on Gentoo. The device you have has nothing to do with that. Windows 10 is a rolling OS, independent of the device you use to run it. It gets updated without the need of user intervention. The apps work always, and that's what the user wants. The 8 year old device will run the same OS as the brand new one and all the apps. This happens very well with Arch Linux on an old computer or on a brand new one, just the same. You can bring down the user intervention to a minimum with helper updater apps. I've not had Arch Linux breaking for last 5 or so years.
31 • Rolling windows (by anticapitalista on 2020-04-14 17:28:30 GMT from Greece)
@30 so are you saying that windows 10 will automatically roll on to windows 11 (or whatever they decide to call it)?
32 • @31 (by OstroL on 2020-04-14 18:34:48 GMT from Poland)
No, it won't. Not for next 5 years or so. If it ever change the number, it'd be given free, and installed without the user intervention. Creating OSs for people to own is not the business of today and of the future. It is a service, and the apps in the cloud. Read the thoughts of the current bossman. And, that's why he's the bossman. Btw, both the bosses of Google and MS were born in one country.
33 • @31 security??? (by Simon on 2020-04-14 19:23:20 GMT from Switzerland)
My Debian is also rolling: from version 7 to 8,9 and 10 and it will roll to version 11 in the future ; frankly, as long as Debian exists, I can not care less what the "thoughts of the current bossman" of MS are or in which country he is born. Btw, I certainly do not want some bossman to install something on my PC "without the user intervention".
34 • Comments (by Justin on 2020-04-14 19:51:50 GMT from United States)
@11: That is bad news. It makes me reconsider using Qt software.
@12: You can disable the larger bar in about:config by setting to False the different "update1" properties.
@20: With Windows 10, it is also your headache. Go ask all those people with problems from the March update, the February update, the January update. I expect more the same today.
@22: That was my unfortunate experience as well. It's not that I can't fix stuff. It's that I don't want to fix stuff. I don't want be "afraid" to take updates or replan my evening just in case. I do use pure Arch and run it on btrfs for that reason but only on a secondary computer.
@26: More power to you.
@31: I agree, that's why it's not rolling. Rolling has nothing to do with auto-updating. That is an add-on, and you can get it in Debian stable (unattended-upgrades). The base does not change from under you. There are no intended breaking changes or major version updates.
Windows 10 is such an ugly smear now. There is not a single Windows 10 but a family of point releases. They should just call it Windows 19.03, 19.10, 20.03. Wait, I think they already did that one.
35 • @33 (by OstroL on 2020-04-14 20:08:00 GMT from Poland)
I believe I didn't reply to you, Simon, but to anticapitalista, who asked the question. Sorry, if that troubled you, but I lost the interest to be fixed one OS or one type of OS about a decade ago. The life is short, it'd be a pity not to try many OSs as possible, but not become politically connected to one. Right now, I'm writing from a lovely Android tab with convergence. I even have Ubuntu 16.04 on it. I also have 2 dedicated Linux boxes with all kinds Linuxes. And, I use Onedrive to keep data and move them between Android, Linux and Windows computers. Life is short, but lovely!
36 • Rolling release thoughts (by randomly generated entity on 2020-04-14 21:32:35 GMT from United States)
Over the years I've spent significant stretches with both rolling and non-rolling flavors of Linux, mostly Debian stable for the latter and Arch for the former. I had more trouble upgrading my Wheezy with KDE to Jessie (admittedly not a recommended practice) than I've ever had with Arch.
Maybe my hardware is extra-cooperative or maybe my use case (very very basic) is ideal, but I almost never have problems with the rolling release model, and yes, I do enjoy having the latest versions of certain programs. My PC gets used more as an entertainment center than for serious work (sans hard core gaming - what gaming I do is what KDE provides mostly, i.e. kpat), so again, my needs are basic, as I suspect the majority of casual (non-geek) PC users' are.
There is no right answer is my point. Some folks need rock solid stability and can deal with few updates to programs, while others may need newer kernels/programs for any number of reasons. It all boils down to what the individual user demands from his or her computer, and no two people are the same.
I'm a guy with enough time to read up on possible pitfalls before updating my Arch, Gentoo, Void, etc. so I prefer to roll. To each their own.
37 • A song (by CS on 2020-04-14 22:43:02 GMT from United States)
Will my computer work today?
When you're running Arch you can never say!
Android is based on Gentoo, you know?
Even though Google doesn't say it's so.
Two billion people use rolling releases.
But they don't know since their phone version seldom increases.
But it's rolling, trust me I know!
Sundar Pichai, he told me so.
He came to me in a dream I had.
"Install new updates every day, my lad."
Nothing could go wrong, are you forgetting?
The packages were given a very thorough wetting!
38 • Gentoo Based OS - NOT Android (by M.Z. on 2020-04-14 23:20:00 GMT from United States)
Some of you folks appear to be very confused about what Android is and is not. Android is Not based on Gentoo at all, nor is it a rolling release. Android is based on a custom version of the Linux kernel & is basically a totally independent Linux based OS that phone manufacturers do hardware support on, as others have stated. The version my phone won't upgrade & that is a common problem that many run into within a couple of years or so of getting a Droid. That has to do with phone manufactures not wanting to do the work to support upgrading their custom hardware from one point release to another, or at least not from one release to many others.
Now if you want a rolling release Linux based OS from Google that is derived from Gentoo Linux, the you are thinking of Chrome OS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrome_OS#Architecture_2
sourced from here:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-secret-origins-of-googles-chrome-os/
It is important to note that while Android has some superficial similarities to Chrome OS they are very much different things, and the latest I've seen from a DDG search on compatibility between the two indicated that a VM for Android was likely to be built into Chrome OS. That of course indicates that the two projects are separate & have no real native compatibility without a special side effort from Google.
It's also worth noting that Google has done a fair amount to make upgrades easier since my old phone came out & they are trying to get better support for upgrades in part by moving more to the play store & by taking more control away from phone makers:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/09/android-10-the-ars-technica-review/3/#h3
There are a few neat technical bits about Android in there & improved upgrasdes, but nothing I've heard anywhere says anything about about rolling releases or a change to the base of the OS. If you've go a better source for 'rolling Android releases' info, by all means share: however, some here seem to confuse Chrome OS for Android.
39 • @38 • Gentoo Based OS - NOT Android (by Greg Zeng on 2020-04-15 02:54:22 GMT from Australia)
Read the links in greater detail:
> "While Gentoo's Portage is still used for package management in Chrome OS, sources say that today's Chrome OS "kernel is a regular upstream kernel plus our own changes.
> "We don't pick up anything from Gentoo in that area."
> "... Chrome OS is based on Google's own take on the vanilla Linux kernel while Portage is still used for software package management."
Similar to Android, Google's published Android & Chrome OS are both based on very different open sourced products, Android & Chromium OS". Independent OEM's use these open source versions to make the closed source products.
Many coding houses product branded closed source products which are licensed to be used by many OEM's. Samsung & others are finding that updates, more regular rolling releases, bug fixes etc are better done by these specialist coding houses, rather than inhouse by the OEM hardware factory.
Perhaps the Linux world might follow this coding house model as well: Ubuntu, Pop!_OS, Linspire, LinDoz etc.
This week's Distrowatch mentions Package Management. As the above Android link writes:
> "... Portage is Gentoo's package management system.
> "It's most noteworthy because, instead of using prepared program packages, such as those used in Red Hat's RPM or Debian's DEB, for installing software, it compiles programs directly from source code.
Package Management for all operating systems is the biggest hurdle. Poor architectural design (Windows) can be overcome if the application base is much better than any other operating system. All the Unix based systems (Apple, Linux, Abdroid, BSD, etc) are greatly disadvantaged by the poor package management.
Most Unix based systems can had tedoius & expert compilation from source code, or coversion utilities to try to make some other package formats work. These other formats include APK, RPM, DEB, AUR, APPIMAGE, SNAP, FLATPAK, PUP, EXE, MSI, etc.
When using "converters" to massage these packages to work on other operating systems, usually it is not successful. Canonical & Red Hat started and then allowed independent devolopment of more universal Linux packages: snap & Flatpak. These still are buggy and rapidly evolving, so are not yet popular end users nor applicatoin coders. Which of these last two will win is still undergoing the development race.
40 • Observations about Netrunner (by eco2geek on 2020-04-15 05:10:30 GMT from United States)
IIRC Netrunner used to have an edition based on Kubuntu. Then they based it on KDE neon and changed its name to Maui. That version doesn't seem to have been updated since 2017, although the web site is still up.
For desktop users, now they have one edition based on Debian Stable, which is the one Jesse reviewed, and one (rolling) edition based on Manjaro.
I tried Netrunner 20.01, running from a USB stick, and was confused when my changes to Firefox didn't stay. For example, I'd turn off the menu bar and get rid of the flexible spaces. I'd add in the zoom control and the bookmarks menu. But when I exited out of, then restarted Firefox, my customizations would be gone and it would look the way it did when it started.
It turns out that Netrunner has a bunch of *.deb packages installed that control its look and feel. One of them is named "netrunner-settings-firefox". Once that was uninstalled, my customizations to Firefox stayed put. I still had to figure out how to turn off the title bar, which didn't obey the on/off setting in Firefox. I imagine this has something to do with the way the Kvantum theme is set up.
There's nothing wrong with Debian Stable, except maybe for people who don't like systemd (use Devuan!) or older software (that's the tradeoff for being tested and stable). What Netrunner adds is a certain look and feel. They've got a bunch of user themes, nice downloadable wallpaper, and so on to choose from. If you like its mix of software and artwork, then try it out. (They also have instructions on how to upgrade it to Testing if you want to.)
(I'm unsure why reviewers like to judge how fast a distro runs in a virtual machine like VirtualBox. You're essentially running one operating system on top of another operating system. Of course it's going to be slow, unless you have a multi-core CPU, a bunch of RAM, and maybe are helped by starting out running a lightweight OS.)
41 • @39 (by OstroL on 2020-04-15 15:54:32 GMT from Poland)
" Poor architectural design (Windows) can be overcome if the application base is much better than any other operating system. All the Unix based systems (Apple, Linux, Android, BSD, etc) are greatly disadvantaged by the poor package management."
Could you explain in detail, 1) the poor architectural system, 2) poor package management system?
42 • @40 (by Justin on 2020-04-15 17:38:25 GMT from United States)
The VirtualBox comments matter in that performance can differ between platforms. I've experienced the same thing where running in VirtualBox is much worse than bare metal compared to another distro running in Virtualbox and bare metal. Not everyone will do a direct install, and having knowledge about Virtualbox is a valid use case. The Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon live CDs had a bug that showed up for me in VirtualBox but not on bare metal (I was using Mint's 17.2 VirtualBox, so I'm not sure how they missed it). I use tons of VMs, so I appreciate the reviews in VirtualBox since that is what I would test first and how I would likely run the distro.
43 • @42 - point taken (by eco2geek on 2020-04-15 19:33:20 GMT from United States)
I've gotten lazy over the last decade. I used to install one distro on a partition, then reformat and install another over it, etc. Then I went from doing that to using VBox to test out distros. Now I just use USB sticks. :-) Only problem with using USB sticks is that it doesn't usually allow you to test a distro out over a longer period of time than a couple days before the ramdisk fills up.
44 • re: Gentoo Based OS - NOT Android (by M.Z. on 2020-04-15 22:05:27 GMT from United States)
@39
If you want a longer more detailed explanation, of course read the link that is why it is there. And as the link states, Chrome OS was originally based on Ubuntu, then redone using Gentoo as a base & indeed moved to a more vanilla Linux kernel while retaining Portage from Gentoo, so it is indeed based _Loosely_ on Gentoo Linux. If you want to nitpick, there is certainly a distinction between a fork from Gentoo as Chrome OS is & being entirely based on Gentoo as an upstream parent Distro, like say Sabayon. Regardless of that Chrome OS is far closer to what's being misidentified as Android above, which was of course the point.
From #39
" As the above Android link writes:
> "... Portage is Gentoo's package management system."
Wait a second, you want me to read in greater detail, then misidentify the Chrome OS link as being about Android? I think you missed the point while you were nitpicking over the wrong details. There were two important things to take away:
1) Chrome OS was forked from Gentoo & is a rolling system from Google
2) Android is a different OS with a different base, while still being a Google system
45 • iotop (by Germany)
@7:
iotop is also a fine program for watching what is going on on your system(s) while complimenting the network monitoring app(s).
46 • Android and Chrome OS (by Hoos on 2020-04-16 02:33:59 GMT from Singapore)
I recall from reading about Google's litigation with Oracle long ago on Groklaw that while Android uses a Linux kernel, the rest of the OS is based on some form of Java environment with a compatibility layer called dalvik.
Wiki informs me that since then, Google has moved to a more clearly open source version of Java but it's still Java.
47 • Spheniscus Magellanicus vultus ex fenestram, and R2D2 too. (by Spheniscus Magellanicus on 2020-04-16 10:13:39 GMT from Canada)
Good grief! Of course one person can run a rolling distro without major problems. I installed Tumbleweed for someone, and not having the bandwidth for a net install or the big DVD, I used Gecko ISO I had lying around, about 18 months old, because once installed I could switch to a faster server. Installed and updated with barely a minor hitch or two. That doesn't mean it will always happen, nor would I recommend Tumbleweed to someone on a production or enterprise s system. That's why they make Leap, and of course Suse's paid products.
But according to you, since they do all their development and don't use someone else's repos, Leap is a rolling release too. And so is Slackware. Come to think of it, Slackware will run fine on ten year old systems. That's because it's probably at least that old, but it rocks, and by your definition, it rolls.
I'm a Windows insider, fast lane. That means I run beta (more like alpha sometimes) systems. Betas are for squashing bugs before a release is made available to the general users. Fixed date release. Rolling distros don't have betas. User intervention? Hell, that's what I like about Linux: It doesn't do things behind my back. I don't allow Windows to do that either, and any enterprise maintainer who does would be a fool. So it will still be called Windows 10, it's just a name. Active OSes are always under development, but they are not all rolling becuase of that..
I also have two older Android devices, neither of which can be upgraded anymore. Can't run the newer apps. (From the same maker as your convergence thingie, by the way. Your device will soon meet the same fate.) The old phone I will flash one of these days, when the wife decides to let me. The old tablet, while working fine, is really a goner, barely can connect to WiFi. It's American from Verizon, can't flash a custom ROM. No, Android is not rolling, and consumer versions are upgradable only for a short life.
@34, Justin - "Windows 10 is such an ugly smear now." I do wish people would be able to express a preference without, to use your word, smearing what doesn't suit them. I find Windows 10 much superior to earlier versions, and easier to manage. I can say that without also saying Linux (or Windows 7) is a POS. Just tried the Deepin beta. Beautiful looking thing.
48 • Windows... a smear (by Friar Tux on 2020-04-16 13:42:31 GMT from Canada)
@47 (Sph* Mag*) Unfortunately, my vote has to go to @34. The ONLY reason I, as an avid fan of Windows, switched to Linux was that Windows DID NOT WORK. Neither did it work for The Wife. True, it works BETTER now than even a year ago, but still not as well as what I'm getting from Linux. So far, four years of not even the slightest issue.
As for Android, and/or Chrome OS, again, as I commented earlier, DOES IT WORK? If yes, then use it. If no, then don't use it. Find something that does. Why are we making something so simple so difficult.
By the way, @43 (eco2geek), I, too, have stopped using VM's to test distros. I find running a distro in a VM is like working in a pool of molasses. Everything seem to go in slow motion. Also, running straight off a USB doesn't work for me either, for the same reason you mentioned. I just install and run on a dedicated laptop - wipe and install, wipe and install. Works the best and gives me an idea of how a non-tech-savvy person will be able to work with the installer. (I usually also supply a USB with the OS.iso just in case. Most folks don't seem to have trouble re-installing with a bit of help.)
49 • @48, what works (by Spheniscus Magellanicus on 2020-04-16 15:03:55 GMT from Canada)
Did not ask for a vote. "Windows DID NOT WORKI" Well, it works on over a billion machines, including some I own. Linux works too. I stopped using Linux Mint some years ago, but it still works for you, I believe, and I don't feel the need to call it an "ugly smear."
50 • Somthing that works (by Nathan NetNoman on 2020-04-17 02:11:31 GMT from Canada)
@#48 and @#49
Opinions are always self-centered.
Something that works for someone does not really mean that it will work for for others.
With Gentoo, of course a rolling released, while compiling various (numerous) packages for other lots of Linux users (newbies) I know, brought only three surprises. Two were mismatch of c library and one that I could not compile for various reasons.
51 • @49: (by dragonmouth on 2020-04-17 13:07:48 GMT from United States)
"it works on over a billion machines"
I agree that Windows "runs" on over a billion machines but whether it "works" depends on your definition of the word. How many of those "Billion machines" are in corporate use and HAVE TO run Windows whether the Windows "works" or not?
52 • Does Windows work or not? (by Mr T on 2020-04-17 17:28:29 GMT from United Kingdom)
In my various work environments Word, Excel, Autocad, Adobe and the like, running under various Windows flavours, were the staples which were relied on for productivity for the best part of 30 years. Mostly it worked well enough that I didn't care what the OS was.
Occasionally some things broke but got fixed quickly. Is any other OS different?
Perhaps Libreoffice could fulfll many of these office type functions as well as MS Office (as a VBA user I would have missed Excel). Is there an Autocad clone for Linux?
But that isn't to say that Windows doesn't just work for the vast majority of office based staff. Presumably if Windows was causing sufficient problems for the corporate machine they'd choose another way.
Personally I prefer Linux, but I also have a windows machine available "just in case".
It doesn't get much use, but then these days I'm just a home user.
53 • @# 52 (by Nathan NetNoman on 2020-04-17 23:00:11 GMT from Canada)
"In my various work environments Word, Excel, Autocad, Adobe and the like, running under various Windows flavours, were the staples which were relied on for productivity for the best part of 30 years."
Microsoft would not probably exist if three floppy disks of PC-DOS would not have been stolen from IBM. Still remember my dad using Word*Star, a perfect word-editor. And, Lotus-123 suite for spread-sheets and graphs. Some of Peter Norton's powerful utilities.
Rise of Microsoft (or any Gang FANG-AM) has paved a deep-dark grave yard for many other small software companies and patent trolling as a bonus.
As of the day, Microsoft Windows "works", Google Android "works", MacOSX "Works", BSD "works", and so does "GNU/Linux "works" as well.
Regarding GNU/Linux, Slackware, Debian, Arch, and Gentoo they all "works" with all of their derivatives as well. Because with GNU/Linux no matter what the brand it is, Debian or Arch or Slack, under the hood it almost same core ingredients.
For every GNU/Linux distro I have tried (with different DEs) has just "worked" perfectly.
Something that "WORKS" is merely defined by requirements or needs to be met of any particular user(s). For GNU/Linux under the hood - skeleton is almost same. Once can transform one brand into an another one. And, that's the beauty of GNU/Linux.
The only difference remains how you define "it works".
54 • Is there an Autocad clone for Linux? (by Nathan NetNoman on 2020-04-17 23:25:54 GMT from Canada)
One should give QCAD, LibreCAD, FreeCAD, SolveSpace or SketchUp a try, might not as featured as AutoCAD.
I have (long-ago) successfully installed AutoCAD-12 authentic version with a physical hardware lock with WINE on Linux for someone who was heavy AutoCAD user.
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