 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 866, 18 May 2020 |
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Welcome to this year's 20th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The Fedora Linux distribution is a cutting-edge project that is often used as a testing ground for new technologies. The latest compilers, development tools, desktop environments, and systemd features often appear in Fedora before arriving in other fixed-release distributions. This week Joshua Allen Holm takes us on a tour of Fedora's latest Workstation release and explores some of the features and improvements available in Fedora 32. In our Questions and Answers column we share reasons distributions tend to build their own software packages, such as web browsers, instead of redistributing binary packages from their upstream source. Where does your web browser package come from? Let us know in the Opinion Poll. In our News section we talk about Fedora's Silverblue project along with new features coming to the UBports mobile operating system. Plus we say farewell to the TrueOS project as it officially shuts down. Then we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the distribution torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Fedora 32 Workstation
- News: UBports status report, TrueOS shuts down, an overview of Fedora Silverblue
- Questions and answers: Why distros offer custom builds of packages
- Released last week: Proxmox 6.2 "Virtual Environment", Q4OS 3.11, Kali Linux 2020.2
- Torrent corner: 4MLinux, Android-x86, ArcoLinux, BackBox, Bluestar, Finnix, Kali Linux, Manjaro 20.0.1, KDE neon, Plamo, Q4OS, Zevenet
- Upcoming releases: OpenBSD 6.7
- Opinion poll: The source of your web browser package
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (16MB) and MP3 (12MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Joshua Allen Holm) |
Fedora 32 Workstation
In late April, the Fedora project released Fedora 32. This release, like all recent Fedora releases, is available in several different editions. Workstation and Server are the two main editions, and there are three emerging editions: Fedora CoreOS, Fedora Silverblue, and Fedora IoT. There are also several spins that feature alternate desktop environments and labs that serve specific purposes. For this review I will be focusing on Fedora Workstation, which uses GNOME as the desktop environment, but many of the enhancements made in Fedora 32 are available in all the Fedora editions.
Installing Fedora Workstation
I began by downloading the 1.8GB Fedora 32 Workstation x86_64 ISO and copying it to a flash drive. Then I rebooted the computer and booted from the flash drive. Fedora booted quickly and I was soon looking at a GNOME desktop with a prompt asking me if I wanted to "Try Fedora" or "Install to Hard Drive". Because I already knew that my hardware (except for the fingerprint scanner on the touchpad) worked with Fedora's previous release, I picked the install option.
Fedora 32 -- Live desktop with Try or Install options
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The first part of Fedora's installation process is handled by Anaconda. The only things that are configured during this part of the process are keyboard layout, time & date, and selecting/partitioning the disk Fedora will be installed on. The partitioning option does provide advanced customization options, but I opted for the defaults. This worked fine for the most part, but I did notice that on my new Fedora installation the volume group name for the LVM volume group created by Anaconda was "fedora_localhost--live". Because Anaconda has no option for configuring networking or setting the hostname, and because I did not use any other method to change the hostname of the live image, this name carried over to the volume group during installation. For comparison, the hostname changes from "localhost-live" on the live image to "localhost" on an installed system. The hostname gets adjusted if no hostname is set, but the volume group retains the "-live" suffix. Changing the hostname on the live image before running Anaconda solves this problem, but it is not very intuitive to have to go into GNOME Settings or use another method to change the hostname of the live image to properly set the volume group labels. Of course, this only applies when selecting the default partitioning option; when using the custom option, the volume group names can be configured by the user.
Fedora 32 -- The Anaconda installer
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The next step of the installation process is handled after the new Fedora installation is booted for the first time. GNOME Initial Setup handles creating a new user and configuring a few privacy settings. This new user has administrator privileges and the root account is disabled. Installing additional users can be done using the GNOME Settings application. The root account can be enabled by using "sudo passwd" to set a password for the root account.
Fedora 32 -- Creating a new user during the initial setup
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Fedora Workstation's default GNOME desktop and software
Fedora 32's GNOME desktop is very close to GNOME's default settings. The only GNOME extension enabled by default is one that shows "Fedora" in the lower right corner of the background, but Fedora does provide a "Classic" login option that enables more extensions and provides a desktop experience closer to, but not exactly like, GNOME 2. If you like GNOME, Fedora Workstation is an excellent choice, but if do not like the GNOME way of doing things, one of Fedora's spins or a different distribution entirely might be a better choice. Personally, I really like GNOME as is, so I do prefer Fedora's take on GNOME, but I know not everyone feels the same way.
Fedora 32 -- The default software selection
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The default selection of software that comes pre-installed with Fedora 32 consists of Firefox, the Calc, Impress, Math, and Writer components of LibreOffice 6.4 , and a selection of GNOME applications and utilities. There is no e-mail application installed by default, but in the age of web-based e-mail that is understandable. The default audio player is Rhythmbox, the default video player is GNOME Videos, and the default image viewer is Image Viewer, but GNOME Photos is also installed.
Fedora 32 Workstation's GNOME 3.36 desktop environment works extremely well. Earlier versions of Fedora and GNOME would occasionally slow down or freeze up entirely on the laptop I used for this review, but nothing like that occurred so far with Fedora 32. Part of this is thanks to improvements made to GNOME, and part is due to the inclusion of EarlyOOM, which makes Fedora handle low memory situations much better than it did in earlier versions.
Installing additional software
Like most Fedora releases, the bulk of the change log is "new version of [some programming language or development tool]". Most of these packages do not come pre-installed, but can easily be installed using the DNF package manager. Fedora has up to date packages for Go, GCC, Pascal, Python, Ruby, and a wide selection of other options, which makes Fedora a good choice for developers. Python 2.7 is end of life, but there is still a python27 package available.
In Fedora 32 DNF feels much, much faster. Packages install faster than they did in Fedora 31. Given the network congestion caused by everyone working from home right now, it is not possible for me to properly benchmark DNF's Fedora 31 and Fedora 32 performance, but it is snappier enough to be noticeable. The "command not found" feature on the command line also works better. It still takes a while to return information the first time it runs in a session, but after that it seems to behave much better and quickly provides the option to install a package that provides the entered command or state that the command was not found if no package provides that command.
Fedora 32 -- GNOME Software
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The graphical option to install additional software is GNOME Software. This application provides a selection of GUI applications from Fedora's RPM repositories and from Fedora's own Flatpak repository. Fedora's RPM repository contains a lot of packages, but the Flatpak repository is very, very small. The Flatpak repository contains mostly games and GNOME applications. Most of these Flatpak applications are already packaged as RPMs, so, at present, the Fedora Flatpak repository does not provide much value. GNOME Software does allow the user to enable a selection of "Third Party Repositories", but this option only enables a Copr repository for PyCharm, a repository for Google Chrome, and Steam and NVIDIA drivers provided by RPM Fusion. Despite using RPM Fusion for two packages, there is no automatic way to enable the full RPM Fusion repositories. There is the same issue for Flathub, which contains way more packages than the Fedora Flatpak repository. Enabling Flathub would be helpful, but it is not an option presented by GNOME Software. If a user wants to use Flathub, they must enable it themselves by going to the Flathub website and following the instructions. While there are understandable legal issues around providing RPM Fusion and Flathub by default, it is unfortunate that the optimal Fedora experience requires knowing that RPM Fusion and Flathub exist.
One minor frustration with GNOME Software is that it keeps displaying an error message stating that it is "Unable to install English as not supported". Fedora 32 changed the way language packs are installed, but GNOME Software seems to have some issues with the changes. The English language tools seem to be installed properly, and are working just fine in LibreOffice and other applications, but GNOME Software keeps displaying the error every time I open it.
Final thoughts
If you are already a Fedora user, Fedora 32 is something you should upgrade to immediately. Fedora 32's improvements far outweigh the few minor issues (e.g. GNOME Software complaining about being unable to install English). If you are currently using a different distribution or if you are new to Linux, I still recommend Fedora 32, but with the caveat that you need to know about RPM Fusion and be able to follow the instructions on the RPM Fusion website to install the repositories and install the multimedia codec packages to have an experience on par with other distributions. While not as crucial, it also helps to enable Flathub, which provides a much larger set of packages than Fedora's own Flatpak repository, including many applications that are not available as standard RPM packages. There are valid reasons for a Red Hat sponsored project not enabling those things by default, but it does make the Fedora installation process and user experience more complicated that it could be. Even with the extra work needed to set everything up, Fedora 32 Workstation is a great choice for general desktop computing, development work, or for learning the ins and outs of how Red Hat-style distributions work.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an ASUS VivoBook E406MA laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Pentium Silver N5000 CPU
- Storage: 64GB eMMC
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Networking: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
- Display: Intel UHD Graphics 605
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Visitor supplied rating
Fedora has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.3/10 from 452 review(s).
Have you used Fedora? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
UBports status report, TrueOS shuts down, an overview of Fedora Silverblue
The UBports team has published an update on work being done to their mobile operating system. The team has reported improvements in compatibility with the PinePhone and upgrades to the user interface. There have also been improvements to the Morph web browser: "OTA-12 includes the very last version of Unity 8 (now Lomiri) that Canonical ever prepared. It has finally been brought out of mothballs. There are better contrasting colours across the whole OS, thanks to Cibersheep. The keyboard edit overlay now operates by swiping up, instead of the long press on the space bar. Double tap now works to control it. With Morph improvements, apps can now utilise it to download files. Deleting cookies is now possible! Yes, that should have been in there before but everything takes time... Devices equipped with multi-colour LEDs now show charging status properly. [white/green = charging, green = charged, orange = battery low]. Also some translations have been tidied up and now appear correctly in system settings and elsewhere." Additional details can be found in the project's Q&A post.
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The TrueOS project has been dormant for several months and the team has now announced that the project is officially being discontinued. "With a heavy heart, the TrueOS Project's core team has decided to discontinue the development of TrueOS for the foreseeable future. We'll still be heavily involved in other Open Source projects like FreeNAS & TrueNAS CORE. We're incredibly proud of the work we put into TrueOS and its predecessor, PC-BSD. TrueOS source code will remain available on GitHub for others that may want to continue the work that we started so many years ago." People who are interested in rolling release varieties of FreeBSD and desktop flavours of FreeBSD may be interested in exploring the closely related GhostBSD project.
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Fedora Silverblue is an interesting branch of the Fedora project which presents the core operating system as a set image. Modules can be added on top of Silverblue, but the base operating system is intended to stay as a single, atomic foundation. Nick Hardiman dives into some of Silverblue's features: "The libostree project supplies the goods for managing Silverblue's file system. It is an upgrade system that the user can control using rpm-ostree commands. libostree knows nothing about packages - an upgrade means replacing one complete file system with another complete file system. libostree treats the file system tree as one atomic object (an unbreakable unit). In fact, the forerunner to Silverblue was named Project Atomic. The libostree project provides a library and set of tools. It's an upgrade system that carries out these tasks: Pull in a new file system, store the new file system, deploy the new file system." Hardiman's post further explores managing software on Silverblue.
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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) |
Why distros offer custom builds of packages
Looking-at-the-label asks: Back when I was hopping around for which distro to stick with (thanks to DistroWatch for being my guide), I noticed that the About page for Firefox usually said "Firefox for <distro name>". What are the differences between a "distro specific" Firefox build and the "generic" Firefox build from Mozilla? Why do distros (the ones I've tried, at least) prefer to have their own build rather than use the "generic" build?
DistroWatch answers: There are a handful of reasons a project might want to make their own, custom build of Firefox rather than just install a generic build from Mozilla.
One is customizing locations of files or making Firefox fit better with the distribution's filesystem layout. A distribution might want to shuffle things around to keep resources, icons, or libraries organized more consistently.
A second option is the distribution has security patches which they apply to their build which might not yet be available upstream. Similarly, maybe there aren't any patches at the moment, but doing a custom build means it is easier to insert patches later if they are needed. It is more straight forward to add a patch to a source build than to re-write the packaging routine from using a generic build to then incorporate a patch.
Building a custom package for Firefox, or any other software, allows the distribution to introduce compile-time improvements. These can include code optimizations to make the software faster, security features that make the browser harder to exploit, debugging information to help developers find problems. A lot of little tweaks can be made during the build that make a big difference in program size, speed, and security.
Branding can also play a role. Some projects may want to put their name on the browser, or adjust the browser's identification slightly to make their distribution show up in website statistics. It also lets users know where to report bugs. If you run into a problem with Mozilla's build of Firefox it should be reported to Mozilla. If you run into issues while running Ubuntu's build of Firefox it should be reported to Ubuntu.
Building from source code will often produce warnings or errors which developers can address and fix. This can result in potential problems being addressed early rather than waiting for Mozilla (or another upstream team) to notice the issue and address it.
There is also the issue of reproducible builds. Some projects want to make sure that the binary package they are providing can be reproduced. In other words, they want to confirm the binary they share with their users was built using the corresponding source code and that fact can be verified. Shipping a pre-made, generic binary, does not allow a distribution to confirm their software builds are reproducible.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Proxmox 6.2 "Virtual Environment"
Proxmox is a commercial company which offers specialized products based on Debian. The company has launched Proxmox Virtual Environment version 6.2 which is based on Debian 10.4 "Buster". The release announcement covers the highlights of the new version which include updates to the kernel and ZFS support. "We are proud to announce the general availability of our virtualization management platform Proxmox VE 6.2. It's built on Debian Buster 10.4 and a 5.4 long-term Linux kernel, QEMU 5.0, LXC 4.0, ZFS 0.8.3, Ceph 14.2.9 (Nautilus), and ZFS 0.8.3. This release brings a built-in validation of domains for Let's Encrypt TLS certificates via the DNS-based challenge mechanism, full support for up to eight corosync network links, support for Zstandard for Backup/Restore, and a new LDAP sync for users and groups and full support for API tokens. Countless bugfixes and smaller improvements are included as well, see the full release notes." Further information on the new version and upgrade instructions can be found in the release announcement.
Q4OS 3.11
Q4OS is a Debian-based desktop Linux distribution designed to offer classic-style user interface (Trinity) or the more modern Plasma desktop. The project's latest version, Q4OS 3.11, offers several package upgrades and introduces new dedicated installers for the Firefox and Palemoon web browsers. The release announcement offers further details: "A significant update to Q4OS 3 Centaurus LTS is immediately available for download. The new 3.11 series receives all the fixes and goodies from the recent Debian Buster 10.4 update, critical security and bug fixes and brings several Q4OS specific improvements. Most importantly, the Q4OS Software centre applications list has got a bunch of new items. National keyboard layout configuration has been enhanced. In addition to the above, Q4OS 3.11 brings other exciting enhancements, such as dedicated installers for Firefox 76 and Palemoon browsers as well as cumulative upgrade covering all changes since the previous stable version of Q4OS 3 Centaurus."
Kali Linux 2020.2
Kali Linux is a Debian-based distribution with a collection of security and forensics tools. The project's latest release makes it easier for users to access PowerShell, updates themes for KDE Plasma, and the size requirements for the distribution's ARM-build SD cards has been increased from 8GB to 16GB. "A while ago, we put PowerShell into Kali Linux's network repository. This means if you wanted PowerShell, you had to install the package as a one off by doing 'sudo apt install -y powershell'. We now have put PowerShell into one of our (primary) metapackages, kali-linux-large. This means, if you choose to install this metapackage during system setup, or once Kali is up and running (sudo apt install -y kali-linux-large), if PowerShell is compatible with your architecture, you can just jump straight into it (pwsh). PowerShell isn't in the default metapackage (that's kali-linux-default), but it is in the one that includes the default and many extras, and can be included during system setup." Additional information and screenshots of the new KDE Plasma themes can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
Kali Linux 2020.2 -- The live desktop
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Finnix 120
After a 5-year hiatus, the Finnix distribution has come to life once more with a release of version 120. Finnix is a Debian-based live Linux CD made for system administrators and designed to manipulate hard drives and partitions, monitor networks, and rebuild boot records. The new version is the project's first release for the x86_64 architecture: "Finnix 120 released. That's right: after a 5-year hiatus, Finnix - the live CD for system administrators and the oldest live CD in production - is back to celebrate its 20-year anniversary in 2020 with Finnix 120. Finnix 120 is a complete overhaul, with a number of major changes (as well as too many minor changes to enumerate): Finnix 120 is now a native 64-bit amd64 userland and kernel system; both BIOS and UEFI booting are now available, with Secure Boot; hundreds of new utility packages have been added; automatic setup attempts of complex block device layouts have been removed in favor of management via udisksctl with tab-completion; other legacy features and boot modes have been discontinued or are no longer supported, in favor of core USB/CD booting...." Read the release announcement and release notes for more information.
UBports 16.04 OTA-12
The UBports team has published an update to their mobile operating system. The new version, 16.04 OTA-12 introduces a new version of the Lomiri (formerly Unity8) user interface and Mir now supports working with Wayland clients. "The headline feature of this new release is our import of Canonical's final changes to Unity8. This is a transition that started in April of 2019 and has brought many new features. As an Ubuntu Touch user, you'll be seeing the effects of the revision right away -- the Ubuntu Touch 'home screen', the Unity8 Dash, has now been replaced by a blank background, with the Drawer serving as the new app list. The new version of Unity8 performs extensive self-tests, helping us to avoid introducing new bugs or triggering old ones again. Unity8 is now called Lomiri, though the code naming is only being updated slowly to reflect this. Most importantly for us, we upgraded from Mir 0.24, released back in 2015, to Mir 1.2, released in 2019. This newer version of Mir features support for Wayland clients!" Further details can be found in the project's release announcement.
BackBox Linux 7
BackBox Linux is an Ubuntu-based distribution developed to perform penetration tests and security assessments. The distribution's latest release is BackBox 7 which is based on Ubuntu's 20.04 long-term support release. The distribution now features version 5.4 of the Linux kernel and Xfce 4.14. "The BackBox Team, ten years after its first release, is happy to announce the new major release of BackBox Linux, version 7. As usual, this major release includes many updates. These include new kernel, updated tools and some structural changes with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. What's new: Updated Linux Kernel 5.4. Updated desktop environment. Updated hacking tools. Updated ISO Hybrid with UEFI support." Further details, including minimal system requirements, can be found in the project's release announcement.
BackBox 7 -- Running the Xfce desktop
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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: 1,979
- Total data uploaded: 31.8TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
The source of your web browser package
In our Questions and Answers article this week we talked about why distributions would provide their own builds of Firefox rather than simply redistributing Mozilla's binary package of the web browser. Many packages, particularly popular ones like Firefox, can be installed through several methods and we would like to know how you get your web brwoser installed.
Do you install your web browser through your distribution's traditional package manager or through a portable package like Flatpak or Snap? Do you build your browser from source code, use a PPA, download the browser as a binary from its upstream website?
You can see the results of our previous poll on using screen sharing applications in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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The source of your web browser package
| My distro's default repository: | 1395 (76%) |
| A third-party/PAA repository: | 159 (9%) |
| A portable package (Flatpak/Snap): | 41 (2%) |
| Generic binary from upstream: | 138 (8%) |
| I build it from source code: | 32 (2%) |
| Other: | 51 (3%) |
| Unsure: | 23 (1%) |
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 25 May 2020. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
Bicom Systems SERVERware
Bicom Systems' SERVERware is a commercial, Gentoo-based, purpose-built virtualization platform designed specifically for telephony and cloud-based Unified Communications (UC) environments. Its goal is to deliver high performance, reliability and scalability in a modern, intuitive user interface. The distribution's main features include built-in data integrity and resilience, geo-redundancy for disaster preparedness, user-friendly management, and support for modern virtualization technologies. Bicom SERVERware can be used as a standalone server, as a mirror for enhanced redundancy via real-time mirrored storage, or as a cluster.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
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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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