 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 867, 25 May 2020 |
Welcome to this year's 21st issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
A large part of any user experience is the overall impression which is made up of lots of tiny details. Font choices, background colours, the positioning of buttons, available shortcuts, and other defaults flow together to create strong first impressions with users. These defaults can usually be changed and new shortcuts created, but the initial way software presents itself can have a big impact on its users. This week we focus on little changes and customizations. In our Tips and Tricks column we discuss how to work with command line aliases, shortcuts in the shell which can make performing common tasks easier and faster. In our Opinion Poll we would like to hear whether you use aliases and, if so, where you get your aliases. First though we look at Pop!_OS. The Pop!_OS distribution is based on Ubuntu and offers most of the same software and the same desktop environment, yet has its own distinct approach. We talk more about this and how Pop!_OS sets itself apart in our Feature Story. In our News section we talk about Slackware Linux merging PAM support and take a look behind the scenes at the Finnix project. We also share news on Haiku gaining support for additional filesystems. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Pop!_OS 20.04
- News: Slackware merges PAM support, glimpses behind the scenes at the Finnix project, Haiku developing support for additional filesystems
- Tips and tricks: Creating, removing, modifying, and ignoring aliases
- Released last week: OpenBSD 6.7, NuTyX 11.5, GoboLinux 017
- Torrent corner: Bicom Systems, Container, Endless OS, KDE neon, NuTyX, OpenBSD, Redcore
- Opinion poll: Command line aliases
- New distributions: DVKBuntu
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (15MB) and MP3 (11MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Pop!_OS 20.04
Pop!_OS (or simply Pop, as I will refer to it throughout most of this article) is an Ubuntu-based distribution created by System76. The distribution sticks fairly close to its Ubuntu parent in terms of software, desktop environment, and features, but makes a number of customizations to the user interface and drivers. The focus of Pop appears to be on making it easier to use the desktop for work, especially for people who want to focus on keyboard usage over moving the mouse pointer.
Pop is available in two editions for 64-bit (x86_64) computers. One edition ships with Intel and AMD video drivers while the other ships with NVIDIA drivers. Otherwise the two editions appear to be the same. The installation media is a 2GB download.
The latest release of Pop is version 20.04 which is based on Ubuntu's 20.04 LTS release and should therefore receive five years of security updates. There are a handful of new features available. One is an easy point-n-click method for associating a specific application with a laptop's dedicated or NVIDIA video card. This should help users find a better balance between performance and energy savings. This release also puts more focus on providing keyboard shortcuts to manipulate windows instead of using the mouse. We can see a list of all available window management shortcuts in the desktop's notification menu under the heading "View All Shortcuts". I will come back to this feature later.
There is an optional feature to auto-tile new application windows. This feature is off by default, but is available through the same notification menu in the upper-right corner of the desktop.
On the subject of software management, Pop 20.04 offers a few new features. One is a firmware updating tool which can be found in the GNOME settings panel. The other feature is that Pop enables Flatpak support with the Flathub repository enabled by default. While Ubuntu has focused on Snap packages and does not enable Flatpak support by default, Pop is going the other way and focuses on Flatpak while not enabling Snap.
Installing
The Pop media boots to a graphical environment where a window appears and asks us to select our preferred language from a list. We are then asked to choose our keyboard layout. We are next asked if we would like to perform a clean (guided) installation or custom (manual) install. The guided option sets up an ext4 filesystem with the noatime flag to reduce writes to the disk while the manual option allows us to manage partitions however we like. We can also optionally encrypt the hard drive at this point. The installer then sets about copying files to our hard drive and lets us know when it is finished so we can restart the computer.
Pop!_OS 20.04 -- Browsing the application menu
(full image size: 1.2MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
After we make our language and keyboard selections the installer displays a button at the bottom of the window that offers us the chance to "try demo mode". Clicking this button dismisses the installer and launches the GNOME Shell desktop. I will talk more about how it feels to run GNOME on Pop later, but for now I want to acknowledge the live environment performed well for me and the desktop proved to be fairly responsive and functional. The live environment also confirmed for me that my hardware was all properly detected.
First boot
The first time my new copy of Pop booted it brought up a welcome screen. This welcome window asked me to confirm my keyboard's layout and asked if I would like to enable or disable location services. I was then asked to select my time zone. The welcome window then offered to connect me with my on-line accounts, such as Google and Microsoft. I was then asked to make up a username and password for myself. The welcome window then disappeared and presented me with the GNOME desktop. In he future, when the computer started, Pop would display a graphical login screen.
Early impressions
When Pop boots it brings up a login screen with one session option (GNOME on X.Org). This is in slight contrast to its parent distribution offering two options: GNOME on X.Org or GNOME on Wayland. Signing into our account brings up the GNOME desktop with a dark theme. The look mixes blue and black which, personally, I find easier on my eyes than Ubuntu's orange and purple theme. There is an Activities menu in the upper-left; a user panel and system tray sit in the upper-right.
Early on I noticed the desktop does not offer window control buttons to minimize or maximize applications. This is a bit inconvenient, but is somewhat offset by the custom Pop keyboard shortcuts for managing windows which I will come back to later.
My initial impression of Pop's desktop was that it ran smoothly and usually responded quickly, whether run in a virtual machine or on physical hardware. The one exception to this rule was when I was searching in the Activities menu. If I performed a search for an application that was already installed on the system, it would be shown immediately. However, if I searched for a program that was not yet installed the Activities window would cease responding for a few seconds while it checked the distribution's on-line software repositories for a match. Disabling the repository searches in the settings panel prevented this slowdown from happening.
One visual aspect that took me a while to get used to was the way Pop displayed GNOME's toggle buttons, typically found in the settings panel. Some distributions match toggle buttons with the words "on/off", or make it clear when a button is lighting up or going dark to reflect its status. I found Pop's toggle buttons were less obvious in whether they were in the On or Off position at first.
One convenience I enjoyed while using Ubuntu was the application menu could be accessed directly from the desktop panel on the left side of the screen. Pop makes accessing the application menu a two-step process. First we need to open the Activities menu, then click the application menu button. It is a small difference, but one which I felt repeatedly during my trial having just come from Ubuntu two weeks prior.
One of Pop's new features is tiled windows. This feature is not enabled by default and windows are created and placed as they are on most other desktops. However, enabling auto-tiling from the notification menu causes windows to be placed on the desktop in a grid. Both existing and new windows are placed in the grid when tiling is turned on. When we disable auto-tiling windows are left in the grid until we move them and newly created windows are placed around the desktop wherever there is room for them.
Pop!_OS 20.04 -- Tiling windows
(full image size: 154kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Hardware
Pop integrated well with VirtualBox and was able to resize its desktop seamlessly. GNOME's performance when running in VirtualBox was good. Not great, but well within the average range and about on par with other mainstream desktops like KDE Plasma or MATE. This was in sharp contrast to trying to run Ubuntu in VirtualBox which was too slow to be practical on the same system.
When running on a workstation, all of my hardware was detected and the distribution ran smoothly. GNOME performed well on my workstation and was bordering on providing snappy performance. Again, Pop provided better performance here than Ubuntu had running the same desktop. In fact, I found Pop's desktop performance in a virtual machine was about the same as Ubuntu's running directly on physical hardware.
A fresh install of Pop took up about 5.4GB of disk space. Logging into a new GNOME session consumed about 860MB of RAM straight away and, within a minute or two, memory usage would quickly rise to 1.1GB without any applications being opened. Memory usage tended to stay steadily in the 1.1GB range at that point.
Applications
Pop ships with a small collection of open source applications. Looking through the application menu we find Firefox, LibreOffice, the GNOME Calendar, Contacts, and Files applications. There is a Weather application, the Geary e-mail client, and the Evince document viewer. The GNOME Help documentation (presented as the Ubuntu Desktop Guide) is available. There is a Deb package installer called Eddy which helps us install new software by dragging Deb packages from the file manager into the Eddy window.
In the background we find the GNU Compiler Collection and the systemd init software. Version 5.4 of the Linux kernel is included too.
Pop!_OS 20.04 -- Running Firefox and GNOME Files
(full image size: 634kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Software management
While I was using Pop, whenever software updates would become available a notification would appear at the top of the desktop. Software management is primarily handled by a software centre called Pop!_Shop. The Shop has two tabs. The first tab displays a list of categories of software we can browse. From this tab we can also type in searches for specific applications. Clicking on a displayed application brings up a full page description of the program along with screenshots.
On the description page for an application there is a large Install button near the top of the window. Clicking this button queues the application to be downloaded. One thing I like about the Shop is that, next to the Install button, there is a clear indication of the source of the software. Most software is listed as being either an Ubuntu Deb file or a Flatpak. However, some packages come from Pop's own repositories and this indicator clearly tells us the specific origin of software, which is especially nice if we either prefer (or wish to avoid) portable bundles. For example, the Chromium browser comes from Pop's Deb repositories. This means that, unlike the Ubuntu Chromium package that forces the installation of a Snap, we know we are actually getting the Pop Chromium Deb package when we click its Install button.
Pop!_OS 20.04 -- The Shop displays software sources
(full image size: 756kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The second tab in the Shop displays a list of installed applications. We can click a button next to existing packages to update them to their latest version. Clicking on a package's entry brings up its description page where we can choose to either upgrade or remove the application. The Shop can also handle lower level package upgrades (not just desktop applications) and these are bundled together under the catch-all entry called Operating System Updates.
In the upper-right corner of the Shop window there is a button which, when clicked, helps us enable or turn off software sources, including Flatpak repositories.
I liked Pop!_Shop. The software centre worked quickly and smoothly. I like that it clearly marks the source of applications and makes it easy to adjust sources. It finds a nice balance between seamlessly dealing with Flatpak and Deb packages while also making sure there is no confusion about which type of package we are installing. My only issue with the Shop was that it prompts for the user's password for every package installation or removal. This means if we queue five packages to be downloaded, the Shop will download them one at a time, pausing before each one to ask for our password. This means we cannot set-and-forget the installation of applications, we need to stay and babysit the Shop while it is working.
There was one issue I ran into which may have been related to the Shop, or a coincidence of timing. Once, during a series of upgrades, I walked away from the computer and when I returned I unlocked my screen and the desktop remained (mostly) blank. The top panel was visible, but the desktop, wallpaper, and applications were all invisible. I was unable to click on anything or see any windows. I could switch to a text terminal and force a restart, but nothing I did would restore the desktop. This happened twice, both times during package operations, though not necessarily as a direct result from them.
Settings and desktop customizations
Earlier I mentioned one of Pop's key features is keyboard shortcuts for the desktop. We can view all preset shortcuts through the notification menu. The shortcuts are designed to make it easy to manage, resize, move, dismiss, and open application windows using only the keyboard. I experimented with these shortcuts and appreciated them a lot. I find GNOME tends to rely heavily on the mouse (or complex, unintuitive keyboard shortcuts) while Pop's shortcuts are clear and easy to remember. This feature is something I would like to see other distributions, not just those running GNOME, adopt.
Pop!_OS 20.04 -- Listing all desktop shortcuts
(full image size: 81kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
I also mentioned earlier that there is a graphical firmware update tool in the settings panel. I confirmed this is present and will check for firmware updates, but none were found for my computer so I was not able to test its functionality.
I feel it is worth mentioning the settings panel is generally well organized and worked well. I like GNOME's current two-pane layout for settings and feel it is easy to use and faster to navigate than the old panel. The one tool I had issues with was the account manager. When setting up new user accounts we must either provide a long, complex password for new users or no password at all. There is no middle ground and this all-or-nothing approach seems like it will only encourage poor security practises.
The settings panel has an entry for checking for new major releases of Pop!_OS. I was using the latest release and, naturally, was unable to use the settings module to try to upgrade the operating system.
Pop!_OS 20.04 -- The settings panel
(full image size: 736kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Conclusions
While Pop!_OS can and does stand on its own as a fairly friendly, fully featured desktop distribution, I spent most of my time mentally comparing Pop's 20.04 release against Ubuntu 20.04, which I had tested just a few weeks prior. For instance, Pop has a similar installer, and both are friendly, but Pop's feels more streamlined and its options feel better explained. Or at least explained in a way that I think more non-technical users will understand.
The themes and desktop layout are quite a bit different. Not so much with the positioning of items, but the look and style of the two GNOME implementations is quite a bit different. Ubuntu is, shall we say, bold in its colour choices while Pop sticks with a more familiar blue and black combination.
Ubuntu uses two software managers (one for installing and removing packages and one for upgrading software) while Pop uses just one. To make matters more interesting the harder working Pop!_Shop is again more streamlined than its Ubuntu equivalent.
Pop's desktop performance ran circles around Ubuntu on the same test equipment and in the same VirtualBox environment. I found this especially interesting as the two distributions use the same kernel, the same desktop, and most of the same versions of software. Yet desktop performance was night-and-day in its contrast with Pop coming out the clear winner in both test environments. Despite the speed improvement, memory usage was about the same.
When I was running Ubuntu I mentioned that when using ext4 the distribution failed to boot and, when using Ubuntu on ZFS the distribution often had to be launched from the recovery console. This problem did not manifest on Pop and the distribution consistently booted without problems.
To me it is interesting that these two distributions can share so much in common, be nearly 99% identical, yet produce such different results. The little tweaks and shortcuts the Pop team have put into their distribution make it a much more pleasant operating system to use compared to its parent running on my equipment. Those little changes, the tiny customizations, may seem small on paper, but they produced a much better GNOME Shell experience than I have had on Ubuntu or Fedora to date and I think that makes Pop!_OS work looking at.
* * * * *
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
* * * * *
Visitor supplied rating
Pop!_OS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.1/10 from 243 review(s).
Have you used Pop!_OS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Slackware merges PAM support, glimpses behind the scenes at the Finnix project, Haiku developing support for additional filesystems
Three months ago we reported that Slackware Linux was introducing Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) into its testing branch. The PAM libraries are now available to users of Slackware's Current branch. People adopting the PAM authentication technology should make a few adjustments to their systems. "After three months in /testing, the PAM merge into the main tree
is now complete. When updating, be sure to install the new pam, cracklib, and
libpwquality packages or you may find yourself locked out of your machine.
Otherwise, these changes should be completely transparent and you shouldn't
notice any obvious operational differences. Be careful if you make any changes
in /etc/pam.d/ - leaving an extra console logged in while testing PAM config
changes is a recommended standard procedure." Further details can be found in the Slackware changelog.
* * * * *
The Finnix project, which had been dormant for several years, published its first release in five years earlier this month. The project's developer published a behind the scenes look of the new version, Finnix 120, and talked about what it is like to maintain a small distribution. "Finnix was born out of a need, retrieving data from broken PCs when I worked at a dialup ISP in the 90s. Throughout the 2000s, I worked in a sysadmin role where I managed hundreds of physical servers, and Finnix continued to help with my needs. Finnix was downloaded millions of times, people would occasionally (but consistently) express their appreciation, and I loved that it's served as a useful tool for so many others. However, Finnix was never heavily mentioned by its users in the same way a desktop like, say, Linux Mint was. Why does the tool need to be praised?"
* * * * *
The Haiku project is hosting multiple Google Summer of Code (GSoC) projects this year. Two of these projects involve adding new filesystem support to Haiku. Specifically, the project will be adding support for XFS (Red Hat's default filesystem) and UFS2 (which is used by many UNIX and BSD flavours). Background information on the filesystems and the work planned for Haiku can be found in the project's blog posts. "Haiku has support for a number of file systems but it is completely missing support for other file systems. In this project I will add a file system called UFS2. It is also called Unix file system or Berkeley Fast File System. It is a file system supported by many Unix and Unix-like operating systems. It Allows files of about 1 terabyte in size in a file system that can be up to 16 terabytes in size."
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
Creating, removing, modifying, and ignoring aliases
One commonly used command line short-cut is a feature called aliases. An alias is a name we give to a command, usually one with a longer name or extra arguments, that we want to run without typing the entire line every time. In essence, an alias acts as a short-hand for a longer command. Most shells have some form of the alias short-cut feature and, this week, I will explore how to use aliases in Bash and compatible shells.
First let us imagine a scenario where I keep typing the long form of a command. For instance, if I use the ls command a lot to get a directory listing, but always add the "-l" flag to get additional file information, then this is a prime candidate for an alias. In this example, I create an alias so that every time I type "ls" it actually runs "ls -l":
$ alias ls='ls -l'
Now whenever I type "ls" I will see a longer, more detailed directory listing, just as though I had typed "ls -l". The shell performs a replacement of the "ls" text, expanding it to "ls -l" for me.
We can see which aliases, if any, have been set up for us in the shell by running the alias command without any arguments:
$ alias
alias ls='ls -l'
alias tac='tail -r'
Here we can see my shell has two aliases. One remaps "ls" to "ls -l" to give detailed directory listings. The other causes the command "tail -r" to run whenever I type the tac command.
Once an alias has been created, how do we modify or get rid of it? Modifying an existing alias in Bash is easy, we simply need to run the alias command again and provide a new definition. For example, here I change my existing "ls" alias from "ls -l" to "ls -la" so that I will see all files, including hidden ones, in my detailed directory listing:
$ alias
alias ls='ls -l'
alias tac='tail -r'
$ alias ls='ls -la'
$ alias
alias ls='ls -la'
alias tac='tail -r'
To remove an existing alias entirely, we can run the unalias command, followed by the name of the alias we wish to remove. For instance, to delete my alias for the tac command I can run this:
$ unalias tac
An alias is only remembered for as long as the current shell session is active. To make an alias permanent we can add alias commands to our ~/.bashrc file. Here I add the "ls" alias to the .bashrc file so that it gets loaded every time I open my shell:
$ echo "alias ls='ls -la'" >> ~/.bashrc
The above modification to the ~/.bashrc file can also be done in your preferred text editor.
What happens if you have an alias that you want to use 99% of the time, but want to ignore just once? For example, with the above aliases in play, the shell modifies the ls command every time I run it from "ls" to "ls -la". What if I want to get a plain, simple directory listing?
There are two ways to temporarily disable an alias. The first is to prefix the command you want to run with the keyword "command". This causes whatever follows to be taken literally and not aliased. For example, the following produces a bare-bones directory listing:
$ command ls
A short-cut to achieve this same result is to prefix a command with a backslash character. The following also disables the "ls" alias, providing a short directory listing:
$ \ls
Additional information on aliases can be found in the Simplified Manual Pages and in the manual page for Bash.
* * * * *
Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
OpenBSD 6.7
The OpenBSD project produces and operating system which places focus on portability, standardisation, code correctness, proactive security and integrated cryptography. The project's latest release is OpenBSD 6.7 which introduces several new improvements to the cron scheduling daemon, improvements to the web server daemon, and the top command now offers scrollable output. These and many more changes can be found in the project's release announcement: "This is a partial list of new features and systems included in OpenBSD 6.7. For a comprehensive list, see the changelog leading to 6.7. General improvements and bugfixes: Reduced the minimum allowed number of chunks in a CONCAT volume from 2 to 1, increasing the number of volumes which can be created on a single disk with bioctl(8) from 7 to 15. This can be used to create more partitions than previously. Rewrote the cron(8) flag-parsing code to be getopt-like, allowing tight formations like -ns and flag repetition. Renamed the 'options' field in crontab(5) to 'flags'. Added crontab(5) -s flag to the command field, indicating that only a single instance of the job should run concurrently. Added cron(8) support for random time values using the ~ operator."
NuTyX 11.5
NuTyX is a French Linux distribution (with multi-language support) built from Linux From Scratch and Beyond Linux From Scratch, with a custom package manager called "cards". The distribution's latest release is version 11.5 which ships with a number of package updates. "I'm very pleased to announce the new NuTyX 11.5 release. The 64-bit version contains about 700 packages upgraded. The 32-bit version of NuTyX, still actively supported. In the newest release, base NuTyX comes with the Long-Term Support (LTS) kernel 4.19.123 (4.9.224 for the 32-bit version). For 64-bit systems,the kernel release 5.6.13 is also available. Changelogs for the kernels are available here: kernel 4.19.123 changlog kernel 5.6.13 changelog. The GNU C library, glibc, is now glibc 2.31. The graphical server is xorg-server 1.20.8. The mesa library is 20.0.6, GTK3 is 3.24.20, and Qt has been updated to 5.14.2. Python interpreters 3.8.3 and 2.7.18 have been included in this release. The MATE desktop environment comes in 1.24.0, the latest version." Further details can be found on the project's news page.
GoboLinux 017
Lucas Villa Real has announced the release of GoboLinux 017, a new stable build of the project's independently-developed Linux distribution which departs from the standard UNIX filesystem hierarchy by replacing it with an database-like structure. The new GoboLinux also introduces a Homebrew-style package management and the latest version of the Awesome window manager: "We are pleased to present release 017 of GoboLinux, the Linux distribution featuring a re-thought file system structure. GoboLinux was created out of a desire to try new approaches in the Linux distribution design space. GoboLinux 017 continues this journey, with a focus on the exploration of novel ideas aiming to make the system simpler yet functional. The GoboLinux ISO image serves both as an installation disc and a Live environment, with a graphical desktop featuring Awesome WM. In fact, due to the modular nature of the GoboLinux filesystem, every program available in the image can be used directly from the Live environment - the work of the installer is to simply copy the user's selection to the destination partition (respecting dependency chains)." See the release announcement and the release notes for further details.
GoboLinux 017 -- Running the Awesome user interface
(full image size: 166kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Redcore Linux 2004
Redcore Linux, a Gentoo-based distribution featuring the KDE Plasma desktop environment and pre-built binary packages, has published a new version. The latest release is Redcore Linux 2004 "Neptune" which features new kernel versions, rebuilt packages with an updated tool chain, and swaps out SysV init for OpenRC's init software. "After 9 months of development, I'm happy to announce Redcore Linux Hardened 2004 (codename Neptune) is finally here. Alongside hundreds of package updates and way to many bugfixes to count, this release will make the maintenance of the system much more easy. Many previously over-complicated tasks have been greatly simplified. As an example, the installation of NVIDIA proprietary drivers is now only 1 step process, down from 8. Changelog:resync with Gentoo testing tree on 14.05.2020; Linux kernel 5.6.13 hardened, as default (with Wireguard enabled); Linux kernel LTS 5.4.41 hardened available in repository; Linux kernel LTS Legacy 4.19.123 hardened available in repository; toolchain has been updated with glibc 2.30, gcc 9.3.0, binutils 2.34, llvm 10.0.0; a mass rebuild has been triggered, all packages have been rebuilt with the new toolchain; OpenRC-init is now PID1, replacing SysV init." Further details can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
* * * * *
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: 1,986
- Total data uploaded: 31.9TB
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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) |
Command line aliases
In our Tips and Tricks column we talked about how to set up, modify and ignore aliases. Aliases provide great shortcuts for commonly used command line instructions and can greatly help to customize the command line shell experience. We would like to know if you use any aliases and, if so, were they supplied by your distribution or did you write your own?
You can see the results of our previous poll on the source of your web browser packages in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Command line aliases
| I do not use aliases: | 497 (40%) |
| I use distroo-supplied aliases: | 182 (15%) |
| I use my own aliases: | 247 (20%) |
| I use both custom and distro-supplied aliases: | 316 (25%) |
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|
| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
Distributions added to waiting list
- DVKBuntu. DVKBuntu is a Kubuntu-based distribution which focuses on accessibility options.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 1 June 2020. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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| Random Distribution | 
MirOS BSD
MirOS was an operating system based on OpenBSD and synchronised with the ongoing development of its parent. The most important differences between OpenBSD and MirOS include a completely rewritten bootloader and boot manager, a slim base system without NIS, Kerberos, BIND and i18n, binary security updates for stable releases, and current versions of the GNU developer toolchain.
Status: Discontinued
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TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
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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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