 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 875, 20 July 2020 |
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Welcome to this year's 29th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The Ubuntu distribution has proven to be a popular starting point for developers planning to create their own projects. Ubuntu serves as the base for over 50 distributions that re-spin, customize, or otherwise build upon Ubuntu packages. This week we begin with a look at a lightweight, newcomer-friendly distribution in the Ubuntu family called Linux Lite. Read on to find out how Linux Lite tries to make users' lives easier. In our News section we talk about ReactOS hiring a developer to work on key components of the operating system while the UBports team fixes Wi-Fi issues on the PinePhone. Plus we share highlights from the FreeBSD project's Quarterly Status Report and Debian's refreshed install media. Then we discuss which distributions have easy access to VeraCrypt encryption software in our Questions and Answers column. Recently there has been talk about commercial support options being made available for LibreOffice and we would like to hear your thoughts about that in our Opinion Poll. Would you be interested in a formally supported LibreOffice package for work or home? This week we are pleased to welcome the Linux Mint based HamoniKR distribution to our database and we have details on this project below. Plus we share details on recent releases and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Linux Lite 5.0
- News: ReactOS hires storage developer, UBports fixes Wi-Fi issues on PinePhone, FreeBSD publishes status report, Debian updates install media
- Questions and answers: Easy access to VeraCrypt packages
- Released last week: Univention Corporate Server 4.4-5, EndeavourOS 2020.07.15
- Torrent corner: Archman, Bluestar, EndeavourOS, KaOS, KDE neon, Linuxfx, Robolinux, Smoothwall, Univention, Volumio
- Opinion poll: Purchasing LibreOffice
- New additions: HamoniKR
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (18MB) and MP3 (13MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Linux Lite 5.0
Linux Lite is an Ubuntu-based desktop distribution featuring the Xfce desktop. The project includes several "Lite"-branded tools to make system maintenance easier. The project also provides a good deal of documentation that covers how to perform common tasks and customizations.
The distribution's latest release, Linux Lite 5.0, is based on Ubuntu 20.04 which is a long-term support release. The project provides one 64-bit (x86_64) edition. The new version includes UEFI and Secure Boot support along with an automatic integrity check of the live media:
UEFI is now supported out of the box. It is recommended that you disable Secure Boot even though it will work, it's just a huge hassle to have it enabled. See the new inbuilt Help Manual for ways to do this on the Start page.
No hidden telemetry: Integrity Check during live boot (an Ubuntu implementation) Ctrl+C cancels check.
There are a few other changes in this release, including swapping out the GUFW firewall tool for FireWallD, which is reportedly disabled by default. We are also treated to a new software update notification system which can be configured to check for new packages at set intervals and will let us know when new software fixes become available.
GUFW has been replaced by the highly configurable FireWallD (disabled by default).
New Updater notifier: Enabled by default to check for updates twice per day, and only notify when there are updates.
Live environment
Booting from the project's 1.3GB media brings up a menu which allows us to start a live desktop environment or immediately launch the system installer. Taking the live desktop option automatically starts an integrity check of the media, which we can skip. Then the distribution boots and launches the Xfce desktop. A welcome window appears on the desktop which features buttons we can click to open commonly used configuration tools. Most of these should only be used once the distribution has been installed so I will talk about them later. The welcome window also includes links to the distribution's on-line forum, manual, and information about working with UEFI & Secure Boot.
There was no button for launching the system installer in the welcome window, but there is an icon for the installer - along with the settings panel, documentation, and file manager - on the desktop. The Xfce panel is placed along the bottom of the screen with the application menu to the left and system tray on the right.
Linux Lite 5.0 -- The application menu
(full image size: 95kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
Installing
Linux Lite uses the Ubiquity system installer, a graphical program it inherits from Ubuntu. The installer begins by asking us to select our preferred language from a list and it offers to show us the project's release notes. The link to open the release notes was broken and did not display any information. The following screens offer to download software updates and third-party codecs & drivers. We are then asked if we would like to manually partition the disk or have the installer handle the disk layout. The two automated options are to use a LVM volume or a ZFS volume which will take over the entire disk. As I had tried the ZFS option when exploring Ubuntu a few months ago I decided to do the same again in order to better compare the two distributions. The manual partitioning option, should we wish to use it, is pleasantly friendly while still providing a good deal of flexibility in working with partitions and filesystem types. We are then asked to pick our time zone from a map of the world and make up a username and password combination for ourselves.
Once the installer is finished it offers to restart the computer. When I instead chose to return to the live desktop a pop-up appeared indicating there were software updates available to be installed. This would have installed them to the live environment which would not have been useful to me, so I ignored the offer and continued exploring the live desktop.
Early impressions
My fresh copy of Linux Lite booted to a graphical login screen where I could sign into the Xfce 4.14 desktop. Once I had signed in the welcome window returned. Earlier I mentioned the welcome application lists a number of common tasks we may wish to perform shortly after installing the distribution. The buttons on the welcome window invite us to install updates, check for new hardware drivers, create a restore point, add language support, and switch desktop themes.
Linux Lite 5.0 -- The distribution's documentation
(full image size: 236kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
The update button opens a minimal update tool which lets us know what software packages can be upgraded. This tool had very few features and worked well. Clicking the button for drivers opens the Software Sources tool to the Additional Drivers tab and offers to install third-party drivers if any are available for our hardware. In my case there were no alternative drivers offered and I moved on.
The button to create restore points opens the Timeshift application which can schedule backups of the operating system. Timeshift can make file copies using the rsync tool or Btrfs snapshots, if we have the advanced Btr filesystem installed. I had opted to use ZFS (instead of Btrfs) and, while ZFS also supports filesystem-level snapshots, Timeshift cannot work with ZFS at this time. As an alternative we can manually manage ZFS snapshots from the command line.
The language support button in the welcome window opened a tool which listed the languages installed on my system. A warning immediately popped-up and let me know language support was not properly installed for English and offered to correct this. Language packages were then downloaded onto my system.
The theme button in the welcome window simply allows us to toggle between Lite's dark and light themes. I did not notice much of a difference between the two options, other than the backgrounds of some windows switched between charcoal and white.
Some other features I noticed while poking around the desktop were that Xfce is set up to use two virtual workspaces by default. This can be useful for people who like to keep open many windows at a time, but I tend to find multiple workspaces confuse new users.
Linux Lite 5.0 -- The welcome window and Timeshift
(full image size: 176kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
Something else I've been noticing lately, and this is not specific to Linux Lite, is that Xfce has a crowded logout menu. Choosing to sign out gives us seven options: logout, restart, shutdown, suspend, switch user, hibernate, and hybrid sleep. While there is nothing wrong with these options, I've shown this screen to some less technical users and they generally report recognizing four or five options, but are not familiar with the differences between suspend, hibernate, and hybrid sleep. All of which makes me wonder if distributions might better serve their users by trimming this menu a bit.
Included applications
Looking through the application menu I found most applications were listed with their icon and a brief description of the software. For example, Firefox is listed as Web Browser, Thunderbird as Mail Client, and the GNU Image Manipulation Program as Image Editor. However, not all programs are listed this way and a few show their official name in place of the description.
Digging through the menu I found LibreOffice, the Deja Dup backup utility, the Thunar file manager, and the Timeshift snapshot tool. The VLC media player was included along with codecs for playing popular audio and video formats. I also spotted an archive manager, text editor, and administration tools such as a firewall manager, package manager, and settings panel.
In the background we can find Java, the GNU Compiler Collection, and GNU command line tools. The systemd init software is installed for us. Version 5.4 of the Linux kernel made it all run from behind the scenes.
I found when working from the command line that if I typed the name of a program that was not yet installed, a message would appear in the terminal advising me of the APT command I could use to install the missing software. This happened fairly quickly and did not introduce much of a delay when running commands.
Earlier I mentioned the firewall service is disabled by default. What this means, from the user's point of view, is trying to open the firewall configuration tool pops up an error saying it cannot connect to the FireWallD service. There is no option to enable the firewall from within the graphical tool and, as far as I can tell, there is no service manager in the settings panel or in the application menu. This means to enable the firewall we need to make a trip to the command line to enable and start the firewall service using the systemctl utility. With that done, the graphical firewall tool can be launched and we can use it to configure the firewall.
Linux Lite 5.0 -- Configuring the firewall
(full image size: 146kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
Personally, I'm not a fan of the firewall utility. It is complex and intended, it seems, to be used in multiple environments (called zones). The user is invited to configure the firewall for different zones, using a combination of interfaces, ports, service names, and other rules. Which is flexible and probably useful to some administrators. However, for home users or people in simple office environments it feels much more complex and not much more useful than the previous GUFW tool Lite used in the past. Personally I find GUFW to be much more simple without sacrificing useful functionality.
Hardware
I began by experimenting with Lite in a VirtualBox environment. The distribution ran fairly smoothly and I did not run into any serious problems. My one issue was that the desktop's resolution was limited to 800x600 pixels by default and would not dynamically resize with the VirtualBox window. I found Xfce's resolution could be adjusted through the settings panel.
Linux Lite 5.0 -- The settings panel
(full image size: 125kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
When I switched over to running Lite on a laptop I found performance was good, the desktop ran smoothly and used my screen's full resolution. Networking and audio worked perfectly on the laptop and the system was stable. I was able to confirm the distribution would boot in UEFI mode as advertised.
I found that Lite would sometimes boot slowly once it was installed. This appeared to be triggered when there was a delay in bringing the network interfaces on-line. Though I did not find a cure for this issue, it was a minor detail and only slowed down my boot times by around ten seconds or so.
A fresh install of Linux Lite used about 3.5GB of disk space. When installed on ZFS the system used about 980MB of memory once I had signed into the Xfce desktop. When I was running on ext4 instead of ZFS the distribution consumed just 460MB of memory. The welcome window, which launched automatically when I first signed in, tended to use up an extra 60MB of memory, bringing the total RAM consumption up slightly.
Software management
People running Linux Lite have a few options for managing software packages. The Synaptic package manager, a classic, low-level package manager is included. It makes it possible to queue multiple packages to be installed, removed, or upgraded. Synaptic can also manage repositories. Synaptic's interface is geared toward lower level work rather than providing a friendly, modern application installer.
For people who want a more streamlined experience there is Lite Software. This program begins by asking if we would like to install or remove software. Taking the install option brings up a list of about 30 desktop applications we can install. These are mostly popular items like Redshift, Steam, and Skype. Each item is accompanied by a brief description. We can click one or more of these items to highlight them, then click a button to install the selected items. I found Lite Software, while it lists a small collection of packages, worked without any problems.
If we take the removal option when launching Lite Software then the program displays a list of applications it knows how to remove. It seems the software manager can only remove applications it also knows how to install. This means, for example, I could use Lite Software to remove the Steam package, but not LibreOffice.
There is an icon in the system tray which, when clicked, will give us the option of installing available software updates or changing the frequency in which we check for new updates. I like that Lite is flexible in how often these automated checks are performed. The update manager was a tool I used infrequently, but it worked each time without error.
Conclusions
One of the reasons I wanted to test Linux Lite 5.0 was to see how it would compare to Ubuntu 20.04. In particular I was curious to see if both distributions, installed with all the default settings (and on ZFS) would encounter similar problems or not. As it turned out, Lite ran smoothly and rarely gave me any issues, regardless of the test environment or filesystem being used.
In the past I have found Linux Lite to be a solid desktop distribution, the sort of project I tend to suggest Linux newcomers try, especially if they are on older hardware which might not be responsive when tasked to run the Cinnamon or GNOME desktops. The project's team does a nice job of communicating well and this tends to show itself in the documentation. There are often clear examples or screenshots in the project's release announcements and documentation. The welcome window presents common tasks we might want to use, and I feel the distribution does a fine job of walking the line between streamlining the user experience and providing enough options for more advanced users.
I like the distribution's hardware support, its documentation, its responsiveness, and its custom "Lite" tools. During my trial there was little for me to complain about as I was generally able to dive in and get work done with minimal fuss. I might prefer a friendly software manager with a wider range of applications, or a logout menu with fewer options, but these are tiny nit-picks.
Some of my few complaints or suggestions were with features which were mostly good, but could be improved just a little to make for a smoother user experience. For instance, the firewall service is disabled by default. This is certainly a valid default configuration for a lot of home users. However, when the user tries to launch the firewall tool, it exits with an error saying it cannot connect to the service. This seems like a great opportunity to give the user a choice - close the firewall tool or start the firewall service. This would save them a trip to the command line to enable and start the firewall, which is not something less experienced computer users will be comfortable doing.
Likewise, the Timeshift tool can be very useful, but it only works with rsync and Btrfs. It would be great to have this tool, or a similar one included, that would handle ZFS snapshots since ZFS is a new feature.
I'd like to note that I'm not necessarily suggesting the small Linux Lite team address these missing features, it's probably work that needs to be done upstream as the distribution's developer efforts are limited. In this case Lite is just the vehicle that displays these powerful tools and some areas where they could be improved. Still, I hope these are changes which will show up in a future version as little features like this can make the difference between a good user experience and a great one.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a de-branded HP laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: Intel i3 2.5GHz CPU
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 700GB hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Wired network device: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast
- Wireless network device: Realtek RTL8188EE Wireless network card
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Visitor supplied rating
Linux Lite has a visitor supplied average rating of: 7.9/10 from 129 review(s).
Have you used Linux Lite? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
ReactOS hires storage developer, UBports fixes Wi-Fi issues on PinePhone, FreeBSD publishes status report, Debian updates install media
The ReactOS team, which develops an open source, binary compatible alternative to Microsoft Windows, has hired a developer to tackle some key components of their operating system. In particular, how ReactOS handles storage media will be improved. "I am proud to announce that ReactOS Deutschland e.V. has hired Victor Perevertkin to work full-time on the ReactOS storage stack for the next 3 months. Victor has been a proven contributor to various ReactOS components since 2018. He already got deep into the kernel side of things when writing Btrfs boot sector code in his GSoC debut, later managed the integration of a new USB stack, and recently touched nearly all parts of ReactOS when preparing it for the major upgrade to a new compiler toolchain. During his contract with ReactOS Deutschland e.V., Victor will primarily work on the storage stack, a long neglected piece of ReactOS. He plans to finally turn scsiport into a Plug & Play aware driver and fix kernel Plug & Play bugs in the process, thereby improving USB storage support and compatibility to Windows storage drivers." Further information can be found in the project's announcement.
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The UBports team has been improving their mobile operating system, adding new features to the Contacts application, sorting out some issues with Wi-Fi on the PinePhone, and making upgrades work smoothly on the PineTab. "Pine64 devices got a Stable update on 4 July, remedying a Wi-Fi failure problem. It uses a hack involving power management, which is not ideal as it cuts a couple of hours off battery life. It is worth it though, as prior to this, there was a wait of 10 to 20 seconds every time you wanted to use Wi-Fi, which made the device almost unusable. Aeroplane mode has also been fixed, after a reboot. The PineTab now has a system update process built in so you don't have to use the installer every time." Additional information on improvements to the UBports operating system can be found in the project's blog post.
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The FreeBSD project has published a Quarterly Status Report which outlines work being done on FreeBSD over the past three months. Some of the highlights includes updated video drivers, encrypted NFS connections, and improvements to the Linux compatibility layer. Efforts have also been made to allow storage to be forcibly unmounted when a device is no longer accessible. "Commit -r361491 on May 25, 2020 enables a UFS file system to do a forcible unmount when the underlying media fails or becomes inaccessible. For example when a USB flash memory card hosting a UFS file system is unplugged. The rest of this report describes in more detail how forcible unmounts are done. Surprisingly, less than 500 lines of file system code were added or changed."
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The Debian project has announced the availability of new install media for Debian 9 "Stretch". The new media is not a new release of the distribution, but provides updated packages with bug fixes to cut down on the number of upgrades a new install of the distribution requires. This is expected to be the last media refresh for Debian 9. "The Debian project is pleased to announce the thirteenth (and final) update of its oldstable distribution Debian 9 (codename Stretch). This point release mainly adds corrections for security issues, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories have already been published separately and are referenced where available. After this point release, Debian's Security and Release Teams will no longer be producing updates for Debian 9."
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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) |
Easy access to VeraCrypt packages
Looking-to-work-with-file-vaults asks: Have you run across some distros that have VeraCrypt pre-built? I'm not looking for distros with VeraCrypt pre-installed. I'm looking for it to be available in their repositories to install. I have an external hard drive that I want encrypted, but also runnable. I guess I could use LUKS. But will the distro run on an external drive through USB?
DistroWatch answers: Some distributions have VeraCrypt packages in their repositories. The Arch Linux distribution and its many children can access VeraCrypt in the Arch Community repository. The Gentoo project and its children have a port of VeraCrypt.
The VeraCrypt website lists download links for pre-built packages for the Debian, Ubuntu, openSUSE, and CentOS distributions. For anyone else feeling left out, the VeraCrypt site also offers generic builds that should run on most Linux distributions, a FreeBSD package, and the source code for people who need to build the software from scratch.
The original question did not mention which distribution was being used from an external USB drive, but almost all distributions can be installed to, and run from, removable media. Booting from removable media can be slower than using an internal hard drive, but assuming your computer supports booting from a USB-attached device (most do) then there should be no problem.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Univention Corporate Server 4.4-5
Univention Corporate Server (UCS) is an enterprise-class distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux. The distribution's latest release introduces LDAP improvements and single sign-on features: "The release of version 4.4-5 of Univention Corporate Server (UCS) brings a series of technical innovations for the Single Sign-on of users to applications connected to UCS. There are also new functions for the UCS Self Service. Users can now register themselves at a UCS domain via the User Self Service and create a user account, assign a user name and password, and store further information. Performance improvements in the LDAP directory service have accelerated the replication of groups. And in preparation for UCS 5.0, which is scheduled for release at the end of this year, our development department has made more than 45 UCS packages compatible with Python 3. So when you upgrade to UCS 5.0, the corresponding code parts in UCS will run for both Python 2 and Python 3." Further information can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
EndeavourOS 2020.07.15
EndeavourOS is a rolling release Linux distribution based on Arch Linux. The project aims to be a spiritual successor to Antergos - providing an easy setup and pre-configured desktop environment on an Arch base. The distribution's latest snapshot introduces some package updates along with some new tools for cleaning up package management information and installing alternative kernels. "Package cleanup configuration - A handy tool to set the system to clean up the paccache history of installed packages and reduce it to the last three versions of each installed package after an update. This prevents your root partition from getting clogged up with packages you don't need. AKM - Arch Kernel Management lets you install the several kernel versions and their headers available in the Arch repository with a simple click. Not only does it install Linux kernels it also provides you info which version is in the stable and which one is in the testing repos and it also informs you which version Kernel.org is working on. AKM isn't installed by default, but this is easily done by clicking the button in our Welcome app." Further information can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
KaOS 2020.07
KaOS is a rolling release distribution that focuses on one desktop (KDE Plasma) and one toolkit (Qt). The distribution's latest snapshot provides a series of package updates, more configuration options, and additional firmware for wider hardware support. "You will find Plasma 5.19 on this ISO. Highlights of 5.19 include incorporation of a consistent design and header area for system tray applets as well as notifications, refreshed look of the media playback applet in the System Tray, System monitor widgets have all been rewritten from scratch and Sticky notes get several usability improvements and if you use Wayland, you will also appreciate the new option that lets you configure the mouse and touchpad scroll speed. Frameworks is at 5.72.0, Plasma at 5.19.3, and KDE Applications at 20.04.3. All built on Qt 5.15.0. For the installer Calamares, KaOS has started a move to using as many QML modules as possible. For the Welcome screen that means any text or needed info can now be shown as a QML file within the Calamares window, no need for pop-ups or external applications. The keyboard module is also rewritten in QML, which now gives a much clearer overview of possible keyboard models, languages and variants." Further details may be found in the project's release announcement.
KaOS 2020.07 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 840kB, resolution: 1600x900 pixels)
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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: 2,073
- Total data uploaded: 32.7TB
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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) |
Purchasing LibreOffice
The Document Foundation is the organization behind LibreOffice, arguably the most widely used open source productivity suite. The Document Foundation recently began talking about providing a way for LibreOffice users to purchase support for the suite, while continuing to develop and maintain the entirely free LibreOffice applications people use today. Having an optional, commercial branch of LibreOffice could allow companies and individuals to purchase desired support options while opening up a revenue stream for The Document Foundation. We would like to know if you would be interested in purchasing LibreOffice, either for the support or as a way to fund future development?
You can see the results of our previous poll on using Btrfs in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Would you purchase LibreOffice?
| Yes - for personal use: | 253 (13%) |
| Yes - for company/office use: | 422 (21%) |
| No: | 1013 (51%) |
| Unsure: | 309 (15%) |
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
New projects added to database
HamoniKR
HamoniKR is a Korean Linux distribution based on Linux Mint's Ubuntu branch. It features the Cinnamon desktop environment. The distribution includes Korean localization and educational software to be used in schools.
HamoniKR 3.0 - running the Cinnamon desktop
(full image size: 984kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
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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, 27 July 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 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 |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
Archcraft
Archcraft is a minimal Linux distribution based on Arch Linux. The project provides a graphical user interface using minimal window managers rather than full featured desktop environments. Archcraft is installed using the Calamares system installer and includes the yay package manager to facilitate fetching software from the Arch User Repository.
Status: Active
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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