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1 • Static vs dynamic (by Technosaurus on 2020-08-10 01:55:52 GMT from United States)
First, some libraries are just plain bad at static builds (gnu-libc, x11, glib, gtk, most c++ libs) but many have alternatives such as musl-libc, tinyx11, etc...
If you use link time optimization (or similar), the size difference in the binaries is often negligible (and sometimes smaller than the shared binary)
Since the system doesn't need to load up additional shared libraries, the initial start time of static builds is often much quicker.
Static builds can work on different distros regardless of what packages are installed.
Dynamic library updates don't break static binaries (important for system repair tools).
Updates to static binaries are only necessary iff it uses the library code that required a CVE.
The updates for static builds could take advantage of binary diff tools to minimize network traffic - it's usually pretty minimal if the build systems don't change.
Anecdote:
Back when I was working on Puppy Linux (4.x timeframe), we used a hybrid method in the main iso where any library that was only used once was built in statically, but that was based on iso size constraints - static builds of single use libs reduced the iso size by 10-20%.
2 • Dynamic linking & static linking (by Friar Tux on 2020-08-10 01:58:22 GMT from Canada)
Isn't that the whole idea behind Flatpak, Snaps, and/or AppImages? And don't developers benefit in that it reduces the amount of work needed to satisfy the various distros? I've come to the point where I'm really not worried about duplication of libraries on my system, thanks to the amount of memory most laptops come with now-a-days. (This may be from my Windows years as Windows installs each app/program into its own folder WITH all the libraries needed. There was plenty of duplicating there.)
3 • Grub update issue (by Bin on 2020-08-10 04:22:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
Running Debian SparkyLinux 5.12 with unattended upgrades.
Normally UA handles grub updates - this time it didn't.
Dumped out at grub rescue prompt
Used rescatux to correct grub and all well. grub is now on the exception list along with xserver.
4 • Static vs dynamic linking (by Alexandru on 2020-08-10 07:37:14 GMT from Austria)
First of all, congrats for insightful article.
Static linking and dynamic linking both have their use cases.
1. Size. Static linking only gets those bits of a library which are actually used, dynamic linking always provides whole library. On the other hand, dynamic linking takes the storage space only once, while static linking takes space as many times as many different programs use that library.
2. Loading time. Statically linked programs usually load faster than dynamically linking ones except the case when the dynamic library is already loaded into memory by some other application that links against it. In this case new dynamically linked application (whose size is smaller than that of statically linked one) is loaded faster.
3. Uniformity. The same application which is statically linked to different versions of the same library, or different libraries that export the same symbols, may look or behave differently. And this is counter-intuitive. Additionally static linking creates problems with the size of updates and shortness of time they are available.
In conclusion:
- Static linking use cases:
1. The library is small
2. The library is used by few programs
- Dynamic linking use case are all the rest.
5 • Static vs dynamic linking (by Robert_M on 2020-08-10 09:17:35 GMT from Canada)
Historically, dynamic linking was used over static linking in order to reduce the memory and disk space footprint on a system.
When I started my career in computers, a 10 megabyte Winchester disk drive was several thousand dollars and memory was $1 per word. This was for unix based systems. I had a university professor who said that times were great as he remembered memory being $1 per bit. People of my generation actually remember real "core" memory.
It was not unusual to have systems with 1-2 K of memory and 20-40 mbytes of storage. We were memory constrained at the time. A system with 4gig of storage was a large system.
Dynamic linking reduced the need for expensive upgrades but came at a cost. When I worked for an R&D firm that had several thousand unix boxes, it would take about 6 months to a year to ensure that all applications were converted over to work with a new release. A very painful process.
This was at the time when tcp/ip networks were fairly new and the internet was a collection of statically connected sites. We initially had two diskless workstations configured to a single disk based system to reduce deployment costs.
Times were different back then. Today, with current memory and storage prices , it makes sense to come full circle and look static linking to take advantage of its simplicity. As an end user, I am constantly upgrading and I think of my systems as a collection of packages and not libraries. I feel that anything that makes a package self-contained is a good thing.
I am having a blast working with raspberry pi s that have the same power and storage of $30k workstation in the past for sub $100.
My apologies for the long rant, but to understand where we are, we need to understand where we've come from. Context is everything.
Now back to lurking.....
6 • Zentyal (by Bernard Fuller on 2020-08-10 09:28:17 GMT from United Kingdom)
I tried Zentyal in the past and never felt comfortable with it. I seem to remember that one server distribution I tried didn't include a Mail Server, was it this one??
I've been using ClearOS now for several years. If you get the chance, or have the energy, I'd be interested to hear what you make of that. Apart from their forum, I sometimes feel I'm working in a vacuum with it.
Some other independent view would be interesting.
7 • Static vs Dynamic Linking (by Newby on 2020-08-10 10:12:50 GMT from Canada)
@5 Enjoyed reading about your experience with "period era" hardware. Brought back painful memories of trying to input data on a Data General computer with 4K of core memory, via 8 toggle switches on the front panel.
For a more "excruciating" experience, there was inputting data into an IBM mainframe via punch cards. It could be a while before you got the results and found out if you were successful or not, and then try and remember what you were trying to do so you could "troubleshoot". And that was assuming the mechanics were aligned properly so the cards didn't "jam up".
And who could forget the joys of waiting ages for a cassette tape program to finish loading a simple game on a Commodore or Atari system (as well as Apple, Sinclair/Timex, BBC "Micro", etc.)
At the very end of your history lesson about "linking", you intrigued as with a reference about "lurking". Would be rather interesting if you could expound upon that. So many nefarious possibilities inferred by that last line..... :)
8 • LMDE (by OstroL on 2020-08-10 10:23:44 GMT from Poland)
>> LMDE is small but that’s not particularly relevant. It doesn’t get point-releases, it’s not promoted or given the same exposure, and its purpose isn’t to compete with Linux Mint or to attract new users. It’s developed as a plan B in case we need to switch package base one day. It could be seen as a costly investment but it’s strategically important to our project. It tells us exactly how much we rely on Ubuntu, how well we can do without it, and how much work would be involved if we had to stop using it.
9 • grub update issue (by CatInAHat on 2020-08-10 11:14:55 GMT from Australia)
on 'extra' OS, MX with grub on root Partition: update used grub-install (as a tui) to ask which location to update/install grub - eh? chose my current location of course... next boot gave me grub rescue prompt :P had to use SystemRescueCd to boot OS, repaired grub with MX Boot Repair tool
primary OS, MX with grub on mbr: same process, reboot = fine...
secondary OS, Artix, no issue...
10 • Static linking (by bison on 2020-08-10 14:14:33 GMT from United States)
One class of programs that would benefit from static linking are games.
I like to play older versions of SuperTuxKart (before they changed the game physics), but these will not run on modern Linux systems because they depend on obsolete shared libraries, which cannot be installed because they conflict with other libraries on the system.
I keep a copy of Ubuntu 14.04 around just for games.
11 • Static vs Dynamic (by Nathan on 2020-08-10 14:15:11 GMT from United States)
Static vs dynamic to me is a question of how I want abandonware to fail. As a prolific author of abandonware myself, it always has bugged me how android apps that I released never to update again would benefit from security patches if only I re-compiled them against updated libraries (of course, fixing breakages along the way). Sure they continue working (mostly), but they quickly become vulnerable to attacks because of the vulnerable libraries that are baked in. Same applies to my flatpak apps.
On the other hand, whenever I attempt to launch my dynamically-linked abandonware after a year or so of not touching it, I find that it errors out and I have to fix a few broken library calls first.
In the end, for me it boils down to security. If I want to be forced to have good security, dynamic linking is better. If I just want to run the program, never mind that it exposes me to an ever-expanding list of vulnerabilities, then static linking allows me that luxury. Unfortunately for me, I'm both lazy and a security minded person, so I live in constant guilt and worry about my statically-linked programs betraying me. ;)
12 • Linking, and file hash algorithms (by RJA on 2020-08-10 14:31:09 GMT from United States)
Well, over at the PaleMoon community, using the system libraries instead of libraries that are bundled with the package is a big no-no, because of outdated/wrong library versions.
Well, looks like Microsoft made the move to SHA-2 and considers even SHA-1 a risk.
SHA-1 has been considered a risk for a while, but has been tolerable.
So, I was horrified to see MD5! (Including Zentyal)
-RJA
13 • linking in programs (by Myrtle on 2020-08-10 15:07:03 GMT from United States)
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1993390/static-linking-vs-dynamic-linking
That page said it well and ended it well with a lot of "it depends" in answer to questions about performance.
Test test test is the takeaway, and in an environment as close to the real world working conditions as possible.
14 • Dynamically linked programs (by Tim on 2020-08-10 15:13:51 GMT from United States)
Jesse, that is an excellent paragraph about the benefits of dynamically linked programs. I have known that for many years (I started using UNIX in the early 80s), but it is great to get such a clear summary. Thank you.
FWIW, for the same reasons, I will avoid Flatpaks and Snaps for as long as possible. If they back me into a corner, I will switch to BSD.
15 • Linux Mint LMDE (by barnabyh on 2020-08-10 16:55:44 GMT from Germany)
Shame only 1% of Mint users run LMDE. It's exceptionally polished and runs really well without as much overhead, it could easily be the main edition. No idea what it is supposedly missing when compared to the Ubuntu Mint. Ok, I only used that one briefly about 11 years ago. Perhaps the hardware driver assistant I read about but how many people actually need that? Most is well supported ootb and adding the nVidia driver is not that hard.
Synaptic shows me 60010 packages available so it can't be availability of packages either.
Hope they don't discontinue it, it's the only Mint I would even consider. Running well for 16 months here incl. the upgrade.
16 • Linux Mint (by narly on 2020-08-10 18:48:53 GMT from United States)
I recently updated from Linux Mint 19 to 20. I wanted to wipe my hard drives and start over again from scratch. I also wanted to switch to the Xfce desktop. I gave up on MATE because it started to get buggy. Cinnamon is OK, but I like the speed and simplicity of Xfce better now. I did try LMDE4, but had intermittant wifi problems with my laptop. Now I'm happily running Linux Mint 20 Xfce on both my laptop and desktop.
17 • Linux Mint (by yrotadnam on 2020-08-10 20:59:06 GMT from New Zealand)
@8,@15 - I see LMDE as no more than an insurance policy by Mint. Rather unpolished in its current state, but important as Canonical could be bought or become unpredictable.
@17 - Cinnamon is good though I see some crashes and hangups. MATE is again in my experience more stable, has wobbly windows, but is a bit dated. I have tried Xfce but find it lacking after Cinnamon's powerhouse of ease-of-use, particularly things like file managers are where many DE's fall down. KDE have improved much over time, but Mint dropped KDE. You can add it, but its 4.1 which is ancient and rubbish compared to the new 5.8 or whatever you would get with Manjaro.
my 10c, YMMV
18 • Mint KDE, @17 (by WhatMeWorry on 2020-08-11 01:03:39 GMT from United States)
"You can add it, but its 4.1"
You can easily add KDE to Mint 20 by enabling Kubuntu backports, and it runs well. Currently it's 5.18.5. (Manjaro is on 5.19.3) Question is, why? If staying in the Ubuntu family, there's Kubuntu; and there's neon, which has the latest. I ran Mint for many years. Had many advantages for me, but in the last few years, the differences between Mint and others have become minor. I just choose a distro that offers the desktop I want.
19 • @18-- Mint. (by R. Cain on 2020-08-11 23:30:04 GMT from United States)
"...Question is, why?...in the last few years, the differences between Mint and others have become minor..."
It's been a very long time since there was any compelling reason to consider using Mint.
20 • LMDE (by other Tim on 2020-08-12 00:20:36 GMT from United States)
I need to push back a little on this idea that LMDE is just a backup plan for Mint and that it's unpolished.
I happily used LMDE 2 for years. There was nothing unpolished about it. The only reason newer LMDEs don't interest me is that I use MATE.
LMDE is a nice option because it's simple to set up a system with it, and by enabling Debian backports you can have relatively fresh packages on a very stable base for many years. There have been many times I've been wishing for a "Ubuntu Backports" but that role is taken by PPAs and sometimes its hard to see who you can trust.
Debian and LMDE are not unpolished. If you take the time to gain even basic knowledge of APT, it's more intuitive and much faster than any of these software stores that people think they need. I use all members of the Debian family (including Ubuntu and Mint) but I think it's been more than six years since I bothered opening a software store. My copies of Ubuntu or Mint are managed the same way my copies of Debian are.
21 • LMDE, @20 (by WhatMeWorry on 2020-08-12 09:32:41 GMT from United States)
"I need to push back a little on this idea that LMDE is just a backup plan for Mint" You'd be pushing back against the Mint devs, since they are the ones saying that. As for being unpolished, it seems OK to me, but I'm not a regular user.
"relatively fresh packages" Debian backports are usually taken from "testing", so "fresh" is definitely relative. Ubuntu does have backports, usually enabled by default.
I don't use the app stores much either, but "basic knowledge of APT" is no substitute for Synaptic. (And vice versa.)
22 • In the last few years... (by Friar Tux on 2020-08-12 13:36:10 GMT from Canada)
@19 (R Cain) "...in the last few years, the differences between Mint and others have become minor..." Some of us see that as a good thing. So long as those others work as well and as problem-free as Mint has worked (for me). Also, it's to be expected. With the number of distros out there, and each one 'improving' with each version, it stands to reason they will soon all meld together. While I like having the choice of hundreds of distros, I can foresee a time when they will all meld into one 'super-distro'. The other route is that we will end up with five or six different versions of Linux and/or BSD, with hundreds of distros in each version. But then, that's freedom for you. (It reminds me of the auto industry. While it only takes four wheels and a motor to get you from point A to point B, still, look how many, many models of vehicles we have come up with.)
23 • Grub Boot(black)hole (by cykodrone on 2020-08-12 19:16:31 GMT from France)
No, my humble dual distro lappy was not affected (Devuan grub), but I must say, that's embarrassing, I bet some faces were as red as RH's logo, eek. :/
24 • @20--"Backup Plan" (by R. Cain on 2020-08-13 13:02:15 GMT from United States)
"I need to push back a little on this idea that LMDE is just a backup plan for Mint..."; "...I happily used LMDE 2 for years..." [this last lends *no* credibility to the commenter's objection; it is NOT ABOUT you, folks]
One needs to be aware of history, to not fall victim to the "Facebook Syndrome" of 'putting it out there' without doing any thinking OR research, before rushing to "...push back..."; to wit--
Clement Lefebvre *HIMSELF* said a few years ago, in one of Mint's blogs or forums, that yes, indeed, the entire, SOLE purpose of developing LMDE was as an insurance policy" against any untoward circumstances which might occur if Mint were absolutely, only tied and committed to Ubuntu.
Push back all you like, folks. Know what you're talking about when you do.
25 • Lmde (by Tim on 2020-08-14 02:07:27 GMT from United States)
I know exactly what I'm talking about: that LMDE is a good distro that gave me a problem free two years.
Clem and Mint are super clear why they make LMDE. My argument is not with them- it's with those voices here dismissing LMDE as unpolished and not worth anything other than this backup plan. If you like Cinnamon and know how to use apt, this might be the distro for you.
26 • LMDE & Mint (by M.Z. on 2020-08-14 20:12:36 GMT from United States)
I've had a lot of good years with LMDE, and it has seemed fairly solid all around to me. It's got plenty of good polish & is very stable, while offering the friendly & easy sort of desktop computing users expect out of Mint. If you use any sort of general PC desktop like KDE/Windows then LMDE could be an excellent distro for you.
The only thing LMDE sort of lacks for me now is the level BTRFS + Timeshift integration in the update manager in LMDE 4 verses LMDE 3. In the previous release I could use Calamares to more easily setup partitions as BTRFS & get the whole thing up & running & doing daily snapshots. There was no need to ever use my daily or weekly BTRFS snaps shots in LMDE 3 give how rock solid stable it was, but that level of stability + a back up plan in a dirt simple desktop distro was very compelling to me. I gave up on additional trouble shooting of getting LMDE4 on BTRFS to load via my Grub customizer in Mageia, though it may well work as well in the main edition as it did for me in LMDE 3.
I could wax poetic about how quickly Mint integrated flatpak into their nice & easy software manager, how long they offered BTRFS + Timeshift before Ubuntu started playing with experimental ZFS support, or how they continue to consistently improve their easy to use set of desktop options. Regardless of all that or how many more details could be given, Mint is one of if not the biggest community based Linux distros & one of the most widely used distros as well, and given how good an alternative it is for windows I can see many compelling reasons why.
27 • Mint (by Friar Tux on 2020-08-14 22:32:28 GMT from Canada)
@26 (MZ) I agree 100%. In fact, Mint is so trouble-free (four years for me) that the joke in my family is that I have to play with other distros to keep my Linux skills up to par. Clem and gang have got one rock solid OS there (LMDE included). Plus, if you don't care for the default polish, you can easily change that. Just hope over to pling.org have have fun. (I'm interpreting polish as the visuals. I could be wrong here.)
28 • SOHO server distros (by Ankleface Wroughlandmire on 2020-08-14 23:16:37 GMT from Ecuador)
Zentyal looks quite underwhelming. If you have hardware that supports it I'd always recommend TrueNAS as the first option. Or if you prefer something Linux-based and/or have less-common or even extremely uncommon hardware, then OpenMediaVault is your solution. It's Debian-based, and can be installed directly as a distro on most normal hardware. But if you have something more arcane you can install it on top of a regular Debian install. Proof in point, I found a site that let me install Debian on an old Lacie NAS with an armv5 processor, and now it runs OpenMediaVault just fine.
29 • "...trouble free.." (by Otis on 2020-08-15 12:16:00 GMT from United States)
@27 I agree but about MX, not Mint. Same thing except it's been only two years (or there abouts) for me. And minus the systemd.
Number of Comments: 29
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| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
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| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
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| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • 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 |
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| • 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 |
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| • 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 |
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| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Side GNU/Linux
Side GNU/Linux is an independently-developed lightweight Linux distribution featuring the PiSi package manager. It uses the Simple Desktop Environment (SDE, a fork of LXDE) together with the Openbox window manager and the text-mode Lynx web browser. The distribution, designed for more experienced Linux users, offers a choice between a simple text-mode system installer and the graphical Calamares installation program.
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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