 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 879, 17 August 2020 |
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Welcome to this year's 33rd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Slackware Linux, the world's oldest surviving distribution, has not published a new stable version in several years. However, some Slackware-based projects continue to publish new snapshots based on Slackware's active development branch. This week we open with a look at Zenwalk Linux, a desktop distribution that merges Slackware's reliable base with the Xfce interface and Flatpak. Read on to find out how Zenwalk performs. In our News section we discuss some bugs which were found and fixed in the Tails distribution along with KDE neon upgrading its base to Ubuntu 20.04 packages. Plus we outline some of the new features and improvements coming to elementary OS 6. Then, in our Questions and Answers column, we discuss MINIX running on Intel Management Engine and what the licensing implications of this might be. Do you own a computer that quietly runs MINIX in the background? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. 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: Zenwalk Linux 15.0-200703a
- News: Tails addresses welcome screen bugs, KDE neon upgrades its base, elementary OS prepares for version 6
- Questions and answers: The MINIX license and Intel's Management Engine
- Released last week: Ubuntu 16.04.7, Ubuntu 18.04.5, GhostBSD 20.08.4, Finnix 121, CAELinux 2020
- Torrent corner: Archman, EasyOS, Endless OS, Finnix, GhostBSD, LibreELEC, MX Linux, PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu, Voyager Live
- Opinion poll: Do you run MINIX?
- New distributions: Auxtral GNU/Linux, Quibian OS
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (15MB) and MP3 (12MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Zenwalk Linux 15.0-200703a
Zenwalk Linux is a Slackware-based distribution with a focus on the desktop. The distribution publishes periodic snapshots which provide users with new install media. By default the distribution ships with the Xfce interface, though other desktops can be installed later. The project's latest release includes Xfce 4.14 and support for working with Flatpak packages. Following in the steps of Slackware, Zenwalk now includes pluggable authentication modules (PAM) support. The download for Zenwalk is a 1.1GB ISO file which appears to work on 64-bit (x86_64) computers only.
Booting from the Zenwalk media brings up a screen where we are asked to type in any desired boot parameters. We can press Enter to boot with default options or press F2 to see a list of flags we can use. Another prompt then appears asking if we would like to use the default (US) keyboard mapping or see a list of alternatives. We are then brought to a text console where the system displays tips on creating partitions (we are advised to set up two partitions, one for the operating system and one for swap space). The helpful message also offers tips for working around issues with low-memory systems and computers that do not have colour displays.
We are then shown a login prompt where we can sign in as the root user without a password. Once we sign in another helpful message lets us know we can use the cfdisk and fdisk programs to partition the hard drive. Running the setup program from the command line will launch Zenwalk's installer.
Installing
I did as I was told and used cfdisk to prepare two partitions, then ran the setup command. Zenwalk's installer uses text-based menus and is quite flexible in that we can perform configuration steps in the order of our choosing. There are a lot of initial steps to perform. Each of them worked properly for me and the installer generally provides some information and context for its prompts, which is nice. Still, there are a lot of menus to get through and I'd like to list them here.
We go through selecting our keyboard layout, picking which partition to use for swap, and which partition to use for the root filesystem. We are then asked to pick which filesystem to use with options including ext2/3/4, Btrfs, JFS, ReiserFS, XFS, and F2FS. We can then select where software packages are located, such as a DVD, USB drive, or a network location.
Next we can choose which groups of packages to install. These include a Base package, development libraries, system libraries, the X display server, X (desktop) applications, and a category called Zenwalk. I opted to install everything to keep things easy for me. Files are then copied to the hard drive while detailed progress information scrolls by. Afterwards we are asked if we want to install the LILO boot loader and, if so, where. We are then asked to specify our screen's resolution and optionally provide any custom boot parameters.
The installer continues, asking us which background and network services it should launch at boot time. Options include cron, network time synchronization, secure shell, Samba, OpenVPN, and SMART disk monitoring, among others. Next we choose our timezone from a list and pick which text editor to use by default (elvis, vim, and nvi are the available options). We then make up a username and password for ourselves and create a password for the root user. At this point the installer finishes and offers to restart the computer.
Early impressions
My fresh copy of Zenwalk booted to a graphical login screen. We are presented with two session options, Default and Xfce. Both of these load the Xfce desktop. Something I found curious about the login screen is that it has an unlabelled text field in the middle of the screen. For most computer users it will be clear that we are to type in our username in this field, but the field is not identified in any way. At first I thought Zenwalk was going for a minimal design, one without unnecessary text cluttering the screen. However, when we press Enter the next text field that appears is labelled as a password box. Having the password field labelled while the username field is not comes across as inconsistent rather than minimal.
Zenwalk 15.0-200703a -- The Xfce desktop and application menu
(full image size: 662kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
Once we get signed into the Xfce desktop we find the session uses a dark theme. Most menus and programs use dark backgrounds. Some areas, such as the virtual terminal and application menu use transparent backgrounds, making text in these areas difficult to read. An exception to this dark theme is the desktop notification area. Notifications are displayed with yellow text on a bright pink background. Buttons in the notification area are purple. The theme name for these notifications is appropriately named "ZOMG PONIES!"
Zenwalk 15.0-200703a -- Displaying colourful notifications
(full image size: 416kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
Xfce does not have a visible desktop panel. Instead the application menu appears to freely float in the upper-left corner of the screen while the system tray occupies the upper-right. Icons representing open windows are grouped together in the bottom-left corner of the display. This is an unusual layout, but one which I feel makes the desktop seem larger and more open as all elements are tucked away in corners.
Hardware
I began my trial by running Zenwalk in VirtualBox. The distribution worked smoothly in the virtual machine. Zenwalk booted and shutdown quickly, the Xfce desktop was highly responsive, and I could resize my session to use my computer's full screen resolution. When I switched to running Zenwalk on my workstation the distribution again worked quickly and provided a light, responsive interface. Most of my hardware worked as expected, though I ran into trouble getting my workstation's wireless card to work. Though I haven't had as much time with Zenwalk yet as I would like to trouble-shoot the issue, it looks to be a case of missing firmware for the machine's wireless card.
Zenwalk uses relatively few resources. A full install with all available packages takes up 5.8GB of disk space and, when logged into Xfce, the distribution consumed 330MB of memory.
Applications
Zenwalk's application menu has two panes with buttons along the top of the menu to sign us out or shutdown the computer. The two panes place categories of software to the right and specific launchers in a category to the left.
The distribution ships with the Chromium web browser and Thunar file manager. We are also treated to the Transmission bittorrent client, gFTP for transferring files between computers, and the MPV media player with a full range of codecs.
The GNU Image Manipulation Program is included along with the Grsync file synchronization/backup software, and GParted for managing disks. The Htop system monitor is installed for us along with both the Clang and GNU compilers. I found the sudo authentication software is installed, though no users are able to use sudo in the default configuration. Until we get sudo set up we can use su to perform tasks as the administrator.
Zenwalk uses the SysV init software and runs on version 5.4 of the Linux kernel.
While I was browsing through Zenwalk's application menu I ran into a few quirks. Not bugs, but little issues that slowed me down. For example, in the Favourites category of the menu there are two launchers. The first is called Web Browser and it launches Chromium. The second is called Files and it brings up a window asking us to select which file manager we want to use. However, there is only one file manager, Thunar, available which makes this prompt redundant.
Zenwalk 15.0-200703a -- The Xfce terminal and its settings
(full image size: 465kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
Another thing I noticed was that searching for "terminal" in the menu would bring up three results: Terminal Emulator which would launch the Xfce virtual terminal; Xfce Terminal which would also launch the virtual terminal; and a second (seemingly identical) Xfce Terminal entry which would open settings related to the terminal. As far as I can tell there isn't any way to tell the two Xfce Terminal entries apart other than to try launching them.
In a similar vein there are two similar entries called Settings Editor and Settings Manager. Both of these tools help us customize the Xfce desktop, though in entirely different ways. Most people will probably want to use the Settings Manager which provides a friendly configuration panel. The Editor displays a more registry-style interface to tweak options.
Zenwalk 15.0-200703a -- The settings panel and Settings Editor
(full image size: 431kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
Last, though perhaps most visible, I noticed when I moved application windows close to the top of the screen, even if they were not on the left-hand side, the application menu would disappear. The menu was still there - I could still click on the invisible button to bring up the menu, but I could not see it until I moved the window lower or switched to another open application.
Software management
Zenwalk is coy about software management. Searching the application menu for terms such as "software" or "package" yielded no results. However, I did find an entry for Flatpak Hub which opens a graphical application (I think web-app would be more accurate) and displays software bundles available on Flathub.
The Flatpak Hub tool shows us categories of packages we can browse and each item is displayed with its name, icon, and a short description. We can click on an item to see a more complete description of the software along with a screenshot. It all looks very nice, however there is a significant problem. Or rather a few problems with this software management utility.
Zenwalk 15.0-200703a -- The Flatpak Hub software portal
(full image size: 293kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
The first is that clicking the Install button on any bundle's page does nothing. Nothing is downloaded and there is no error message telling us why. I found out, by using the command line flatpak tool that the problem is there are no Flatpak repositories enabled by default on Zenwalk. This seems strange as I'm not sure why the developers would go to the trouble of installing Flatpak and adding a graphical front-end to access Flathub while not enabling the Flathub repository.
The second issue is that the web-app provides a link we can click to see instructions on how to enable the Flathub repository on our distribution. This seems like good news, except that the instructions cover enabling Flathub on many distributions, but not on Zenwalk or Slackware. In other words the main graphical package tool does not work and its instructions for enabling it do not appear to be applicable to the distribution we are running. This can be worked around, but the steps will not be obvious to anyone not familiar with manually setting up Flatpak repositories from the command line.
There doesn't appear to be any graphical low-level package manager for Zenwalk. However, there is a command line package manager called netpkg. The netpkg tool has an unusual syntax and no manual page, which is not ideal. However, I found running "netpkg --help" on the command line would provide a brief list of commands we can use to install and update software.
The netpkg tool is further unusual in that it can connect to multiple repositories, to find software in each one, and it asks us which one it should use when performing actions. This means we might not only need to know the name of a package we want, but which repository it is in as netpkg appears to only access one server at a time.
To its credit, the netpkg tool worked when I wanted to upgrade or install software. However, it does not resolve software dependencies. This means if we install larger or graphical applications we may end up manually hunting down its dependencies and installing them afterwards. This is probably why Zenwalk has included Flatpak because adding software to the distribution using netpkg is a lot more time consuming that doing the same task under most other distributions.
Zenwalk 15.0-200703a -- Using netpkg in the terminal
(full image size: 785kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
Conclusions
In some ways my experiences with the Zenwalk system installer and the distribution's netpkg software manager largely reflected my overall view of the distribution. These tools, like Zenwalk in general, cover basic needs and perform tasks quickly, but there are some rough edges and things take more steps to get working than on most other distributions.
Zenwalk covers the basics of functionality, but I found doing anything outside of that, particularly if it involved installing more software, took a long time and tended to require manual steps that most distributions would automate. Zenwalk's software tools don't work with multiple repositories seamlessly, and in the case of Flatpak Hub, the system is not set up with a repository at all. I also find the lack of dependency resolution at this point a strange omission. Not installing required dependencies automatically does not cut down on bloat, it just prevents software from working. In a similar vein, the system installer takes over twice as many steps to install as Linux Mint or Fedora, but does not offer us much additional useful customization.
Visually, in a lot of ways, Zenwalk is beautiful. I really like the layout and dark theme used by the Xfce desktop. However, the visual tone is inconsistent. Sometimes windows are dark, sometimes they are transparent. Sometimes the system looks sleek and modern, yet the notifications look like they were (to quote someone who saw me using Zenwalk) "designed by a hyper five year old." The login screen sometimes labels its input fields, and sometimes it does not. Sometimes the application menu disappears, other times it is visible and beautiful.
All of this is to say Zenwalk has some rough edges. Which is understandable, it is a development snapshot after all. However, I wonder if its classic-style base will be appealing to many users. Using text-based installers, console-based service management, and package management without dependency resolution all feel like legacies of the past at this point. They work, in their fashion, but require more manual effort on the part of the user without, in my opinion, much benefit for their minimalism. People who like Slackware and Xfce will probably appreciate Zenwalk, but I'm not sure people from outside the Slackware community will have a reason to try this distribution.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card, Ralink RT5390R PCIe Wireless card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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Visitor supplied rating
Zenwalk Linux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9/10 from 3 review(s).
Have you used Zenwalk Linux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith and Ladislav Bodnar) |
Tails addresses welcome screen bugs, KDE neon upgrades its base, elementary OS prepares for version 6
The Tails project has a rapid release cycle which helps the distribution keep up with bugfixes and changing requirements in on-line security. This rapid cycle of new versions can also introduce new problems as it fixes others. The Tails July newsletter outlines a few issues that have appeared recently: "We started the month with Tails 4.8 and many users wrote to us because of problems with the Tails Welcome Screen: They had issues with administration passwords that had special characters. They could not access their persistent storage because changing the language on the Welcome Screen didn't change the keyboard layout as usual, although it claimed to do it. These two issues were very upsetting for the users, although had easy workarounds. They are fixed in Tails 4.9 (Apologies!)." The Tails project estimates that the distribution is booted approximately 30,700 times per day, based on the number of update checks performed by the distribution when it starts.
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The KDE neon project has updated its base platform from Ubuntu 18.04 to 20.04 to take advantage of the upstream operating system's newer packages and long-term support. "KDE neon is our installable Linux with continuous integration and deployment. It's based on Ubuntu who had a new Long Term Support release recently so we've rebased it on Ubuntu 20.04 now. You should see a popup on your install in the next day or so. It'll ask you to make sure your system is up to date then it'll upgrade the base to 20.04 which takes a while to download and then another while to install. Afterwards it should look just the same because it's the same wonderful Plasma desktop." Detailed upgrade instructions are provided for existing KDE neon users.
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The elementary OS team has started testing features and live media for the upcoming launch of elementary OS 6. There are several new features planned for version 6, including multi-touch support and improved synchronization of items such as mail and calendars. "Major updates to communication and organization apps by leaning on the Evolution data server back-end. This is still early and currently requires setting up an account in Evolution until the Online Accounts component is completed, but is thanks in large part to work done upstream by Corentin Noël. These updates enable syncing of mail, calendar events, tasks, etc. in relevant apps with a wider variety of account providers. A major rewrite of Mail, leaning on Evolution data server instead of the custom Geary mail engine. The look and feel will be largely the same, but it has not reached feature parity yet." Further details can be found in the distribution's blog post.
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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) |
The MINIX license and Intel's Management Engine
Me-against-the-ME asks: I've read that the Intel ME is based on MINIX. Since MINIX is only free to use with copyright attribution and Intel ME is inaccessible, then doesn't Intel have to make their source code available? Why aren't they being sued for shipping MINIX in a black box in millions of computers?
DistroWatch answers: The Intel Management Engine (or Intel ME) is a special feature built into Intel processors which is designed to run autonomously from the rest of the machine. The Management Engine runs its own operating system and can continue to function even when the computer is shutdown, assuming the motherboard can still draw power. In theory Intel ME allows administrators to remotely control the computer, however there are a number of security and privacy concerns surrounding having a separate, always-on processor built into the hardware that is able to bypass the computer's build-in firewall.
One of the interesting footnotes to the Intel ME is that the hardware runs MINIX, or more likely a slightly modified version of MINIX. From a design perspective this makes a lot of sense. MINIX is a very tiny operating system that is designed to be highly reliable. The MINIX project does not change quickly meaning it is easy to keep up to date with changes in the MINIX technology and ecosystem. Given how common Intel processors are it seems likely MINIX is, in one sense, one of the most widely distributed operating systems in the world.
Many people in the open source community were unhappy about the fact Intel was shipping MINIX as part of what was widely regarded as an insecure backdoor into millions of the world's computers. However, despite the bad feelings this use of MINIX caused, there is arguably nothing about this situation which triggers a license violation.
The MINIX license is fairly permissive and not really designed to prevent distribution or specific uses. There are just four key requirements of the MINIX license. The first is focused on source code, which does not apply here. Intel was not distributing source code, just a running binary. The third clause prevents using the original developers and their names to endorse products, which has not been done. The fourth clause requires written permission if the license is to be changed, which also does not apply.
This leaves us with the second condition of the license: "Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution." This would appear to be the only possible part of the license Intel could be accused of violating. Which means the question becomes whether the binary form of MINIX produces or includes a notification of the operating system's license. It probably does, unless Intel ripped out that part before shipping the Management Engine, and that seems unlikely.
The sticking point for some people is that most users never interact with Intel ME directly and therefore never see any output from it. At which point it becomes a bit of a philosophical question: Can we say the software includes its copyright notice if no one ever runs it directly and sees output from it? Some people may claim the software never prints its license anywhere for us to see it, therefore it is violation. However, I suspect this point could easily be countered by copying Intel ME's version of MINIX to another machine and running it there to confirm that, when accessed, the binary form does include the copyright notice.
In short, what Intel has done with MINIX may seem to be outside the spirit of the license, but not outside the letter of the law. We have seen similar situations with Linux. For example, when TiVo used the Linux kernel while locking down their hardware, a process now known as Tivoization. The behaviour was not in conflict with the license Linux was distributed under, it was just not a nice thing to do to the consumers who bought the product.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
GhostBSD 20.08.04
GhostBSD, a desktop operating system based on the development branch of FreeBSD has published a new version. The project now includes the option to automatically take filesystem snapshots (called boot environments) prior to performing package updates. This allows the administrator to recover in situations where package upgrades break the operating system or prevent it from booting. "I am happy to announce the availability of GhostBSD 20.08.04. This release comes with kernel, OS and software application updates. We updated the MATE desktop to 1.24.0. A new interesting feature is the boot environment backup before updates. Issue and Feature completed: Adding window to confirm changes to software on the system software-station. Change the release and dev version to yy.mm.dd. When upgrading, ask / help new user create a Boot Environment if one does not exist. Software Station: Columns should be resizeable. Disable user's ability to select 'check' button when the software is installing/uninstalling." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Finnix 121
Finnix is a small, self-contained, bootable Linux CD distribution for system administrators, based on Debian. The latest release migrates from Debian's Stable branch to Debian Testing and adds several new packages. "Today marks the release of Finnix 121, the live CD for system administrators. This release expands upon Finnix 120, and includes a number of fixes, new packages and new features. From the Finnix 121 release notes: switched back to building against Debian 'Testing'.... This release also removes the LILO boot loader, strips away some unnecessary programs, and fixes a number of bugs: "serial-getty consoles are now usable. Non-zero exit codes are now displayed in PS1. Added '0' command for easier access to keyboard configuration. GRUB is now being used for both BIOS and UEFI booting. Removed GRUB initial boot beep. Re-added shared per-user SSH agents. Fixed SSH remote access. Enabled zram swap compression, 50% of physical RAM; release ISO image layouts are again being optimized for CD-ROMs - this has no negative (or positive) effect when the ISO is written to a USB key, but speeds up CD-ROM booting." Further information can be found in the distribution's release announcement and in the release notes.
CAELinux 2020
Joël Cugnoni has announced the release of CAELinux 2020, a new version of the project's specialist distribution that features a collection of open-source tools designed for computer-aided engineering, based on Xubuntu 18.04: "I am happy to announce that a new CAELinux version is ready to download. CAELinux 2020 is based on Xubuntu 18.04 and, as usual, it is customized to offer many open-source simulation tools for stress analysis, thermal or fluid flow simulation and other physics, but it also contain a full range of mathematical modeling, graphic, design, CAD/CAM and prototyping software which makes it ideal for running a Fablab or a MakerSpace using purely open-source tools. CAELinux 2020 had many issues mostly related to the installer and live DVD creation or boot. The causes were related to the large size of the ISO image which could not be handled properly by most boot codes. As many software that we include become also much larger, we had to find a solution to keep proposing a full CAE workstation despite the usual 4 GB constrain on ISO images. We have now found a way to go past the barrier and still produce a valid ISO image." See the complete release announcement for further information and a list of new features.
Ubuntu 16.04.7, 18.04.5
The Ubuntu release team has announced the release of both Ubuntu 16.04.7 and 18.04.5. These releases offer up to date install media with package fixes rather than entirely new versions of the distribution. The new media includes fixes for the recent Boothole GRUB boot loader issue: "Similar to the 16.04.6 point release, 16.04.7 is a security-targeted release for the purpose of providing updated installation media which protects new installations from the recently discovered GRUB 2 vulnerabilities (USN-4432-1). Detailed information about USN-4432-1 can be found here." New 18.04.5 media is available for most community editions of Ubuntu, however just Ubuntu and Ubuntu Kylin have updated 16.04.7 media as this version is no longer covered under the three years of support most community editions offer. Further information can be found in the release announcements for 16.04.7 and 18.04.5.
MX Linux 19.2 "KDE"
The MX Linux project has announced the release of the distribution's first edition featuring the KDE Plasma desktop. The new version includes KDE Plasma 5.14.5 and ships with the familiar MX Tools collection of utilities: "MX-19.2 KDE is an Advanced Hardware Support (AHS) enabled 64-bit only version of MX featuring the KDE Plasma desktop. Applications utilizing Qt library frameworks are given a preference for inclusion on the ISO. This will be first officially supported MX/antiX family ISO utilizing the KDE Plasma desktop since the halting of the predecessor MEPIS project in 2013. MX-19.2 KDE includes the usual MX tools, antiX-live-usb-system, and snapshot technology that our users have come to expect from our standard flagship Xfce releases. Adding KDE Plasma to the existing Xfce/MX-fluxbox desktops will provide for a wider range user needs and wants." Further details and a list of known issues can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
MX Linux 19.2 "KDE" -- The Plasma desktop and application menu
(full image size: 315kB, resolution: 1360x768 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: 2,100
- Total data uploaded: 33.1TB
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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) |
Do you run MINIX?
In our Questions and Answers column we talked about the minimal MINIX operating system and how it has been used by Intel to run their Management Engine. Do you run MINIX on your computer, either intentionally, or as a result of having an Intel CPU? Let us know your thoughts about MINIX in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on being affected by the Boothole security patch in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you run MINIX?
| I run an install of MINIX: | 16 (1%) |
| I previously ran MINIX: | 108 (9%) |
| I probably run MINIX due to Intel ME: | 380 (32%) |
| I have not run MINIX: | 692 (58%) |
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| Website News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Auxtral GNU/Linux. Auxtral is a Debian-based distribution for users from Argentina. The distribution is available in Cinnamon and Xfce editions.
- Quibian OS. Quibian OS is an Ubuntu-based distribution. It is oriented to education, scientific research, robotics and software development.
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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, 24 August 2020. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • minix (by vern on 2020-08-17 00:09:12 GMT from United States)
I haven't run minix in years. I enjoyed trying to get the thing to work correctly.
Its interesting how many old distro that are not here anymore, that I enjoyed playing around with.
These days I prefer stability over experimenting.
2 • Minix (by bison on 2020-08-17 00:31:54 GMT from United States)
I like Minux a lot, but as far as I know they never succeeded in getting a modern web browser running on it. Back around 2007 they were trying to port Firefox, but Minux's lack of virtual memory (at the time; I don't know about now) was a problem.
3 • Everyone with an Intel CPU is running MINIX (by denPes on 2020-08-17 00:35:29 GMT from Belgium)
Everyone that runs an Intel CPU, that features the Intel management system, is running Intel's own fork of Minix (Since that is always running in the background).
I unfortunately have 1 PC and one laptop with an Intel CPU, so I voted: I run an install of MINIX.
4 • Minix (by Al on 2020-08-17 00:48:59 GMT from United States)
I thought the design and philosophy of Minix were really interesting. Unfortunately progress seems to have stalled... Another one bites the dust
5 • Minix (by DaveW on 2020-08-17 01:11:37 GMT from United States)
I have an 8-year old computer with an Intel Core I5 3550 CPU. The Intel specs page doesn't mention a Management Engine, so I have to assume no Minix.
6 • minix (by Friar Tux on 2020-08-17 01:15:54 GMT from Canada)
Like Vern (@1), above, I once played with it. That was a long, long time ago. Can't remember much about it. Now-a-days, I don't believe it's on my laptop as I run AMD. And, like Vern, at this age, I, too, prefer stability on my main machine. I do have a machine for messing with distros, but that's getting fewer and farther between.
7 • @5 (by Ben888 on 2020-08-17 02:13:26 GMT from Canada)
The ME engine run in the chipset of the motherboard not into the cpu... Check your chipset instead...
8 • Intel and MINIX (by Wedge009 on 2020-08-17 03:16:12 GMT from Australia)
I worked with MINIX in the early 2000s as part of my university course on operating systems but I don't recall actively using it since.
The situation with Intel using MINIX in the way described here doesn't sound nice but if Jesse's analysis is accurate it sounds like there's nothing technically wrong beyond not clearly showing the licence.
9 • minix (by Ciscoer on 2020-08-17 05:49:22 GMT from United States)
I only use AMD for my DT & LT. Android for the rest. AMD's the best all around.
10 • zenwalk (by working crass on 2020-08-17 09:38:19 GMT from United States)
A number of weeks ago I installed zen on an dell laptop (i7 16gb-ram). I ran into problems after installation. The home directory was not automatically created, I found it puzzling that zen has its own repo but is not included in the slackpkg mirrors file - had to entered manually and needed to go to website to get the url/s.
Its desktop IMHO is trying to mimick a mxlinux default desktop.
Overall I was lukewarm to this slackware based distro.
Slackware is the best followed by Salix.
11 • Zenwalk (by barnabyh on 2020-08-17 10:34:48 GMT from Germany)
Zenwalk was good in 2005, 2007, even 2009. I always had a ZW install on a machine back then and it was wonderfully fast and light. Looking at the problems Jesse encountered it seems to have got worse rather than improved.
These days I do expect a bit more - but that doesn't pertain to including Flathub (which doesn't even work). Netpkg is a bit arcane and I'm wondering why they're not just using the Slackware package management or slapt-get. Perhaps because Netpkg is the main developers baby and the main tool to differentiate.
Thanks for the review. I had considered trying it again but can shelve that now.
12 • zenwalk (by noarbaby on 2020-08-17 11:52:45 GMT from United States)
When I first started with linux, Slackware was my home. From there I tried various flavors of it's offspring, one being Zenwalk. Back then (early 2000's), Zenwalk struck me as the most polished of the lot, yet I never did run it as my goto for some reason. Slack's dependency hell was for me back then just part of the learning curve, so it was a plus not a minus, at the time. It also made sense to me as I was on a slow modem connection so I could just grab individual packages at a time. Well it made sense back then.) I still like to drop in on Zenwalk out of curiosity as to where they are now, and still find it a nice distro, but it is not a goto one for me.
13 • zenwalk (by dolphin oracle on 2020-08-17 12:37:44 GMT from United States)
To me Zenwalk gets bonus points for not being too serious and using ZOMG PONIES! by default for notifications! That's priceless! YOU WILL see these notifications, dang it!
14 • Salix (by gplcoder on 2020-08-17 13:36:13 GMT from United States)
@10 Salix is marked dormant.
15 • Minix, Zenwalk (by Robert on 2020-08-17 15:48:14 GMT from United States)
I previously used an Intel Skylake cpu, which I assume had the IME.
Zenwalk I don't really understand as a distro. I get slackware as a historical curiosity, or an education into low-level Linux, or even bragging rights like people think of arch or Gentoo. I just don't get why you'd bother with 'desktop' slack without making it user friendly like Manjaro does for Arch.
16 • Reply to 15 (by barnabyh on 2020-08-17 17:54:10 GMT from Germany)
True. I consider Slackel at the moment the best of the bunch for getting an up to date Slack, or aliens Live spins.
I'm pretty sure Slackel combined with the Plasma 5 in ktown would be nice but it's no Manjaro by far. An idea if someone is willing to put in the time.
17 • About Zenwalk (by César on 2020-08-17 20:19:22 GMT from Chile)
Slackware is for those who like the system as simple as possible, it could be said "only text", the installation is simpler than Arch's, keeping it up to date is the easiest thing in the world, just use "slackpgk" to install others. programs with "sbopkg" simplifies the matter a lot, and finally there is the repo of "alienbob".
Zenwalk is for those who like simplicity, but do not want to use or do not like KDE 4, in addition to having a more "beautiful" staging, since XFCE in Slackware is more crude; also, the kernel is newer (5. *), since Slackware uses version 4. *, in short, it's a matter of taste.
Years ago I used Zenwalk and I remember getting a really good image of the distro, maybe trying it one of these days.
Let's celebrate that Zenwalk has stayed true to its guidelines for so long.
Moving on, I have never used Minix as I tried to install it once for testing and failed, I remain true to Linux.
Greetings from Santiago de Chile.
18 • MINIX (by Otis on 2020-08-17 23:41:56 GMT from United States)
I.Had.No.Idea.
Yipe.
So, a linux vulnerability in all Intel CPU machines out there, Windows or not? I must get into this deeper to find out for real, with no emotion or politics or fanboi prejudgements, just what.the.hell.is.going.on.
19 • Intel CPU Vulnerabilities (by David on 2020-08-18 00:36:38 GMT from United States)
@18
Here's a few fairly recent links FYI -
"New Intel CSME CPU Bug is 'Unfixable' Security Vulnerability Affecting Chipsets Released Over Last Five Years"
https://www.newsweek.com/intel-csme-cpu-bug-unfixable-security-vulnerability-chipsets-five-years-1490746
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/6/21167782/intel-processor-flaw-root-of-trust-csme-security-vulnerability
I
Excerpt from the link above -
"The flaw exists at the hardware level of modern Intel processors released in the last five years, and could allow attackers to create special malware (like keyloggers) that runs at the hardware level and is undetectable by traditional antivirus systems. Intel’s latest 10th Gen processors are not vulnerable, though."
"This Unpatchable Flaw Affects All Intel CPUs Released in Last 5 Years"
https://thehackernews.com/2020/03/intel-csme-vulnerability.html
JMHO
20 • @9, AMD (by Angel on 2020-08-18 00:43:06 GMT from Philippines)
"I only use AMD for my DT & LT."
A backdoor by any other name. . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Processor
21 • minix and new distro releases (by yrotadnam on 2020-08-18 00:49:54 GMT from New Zealand)
Intel's ME - using Minix isn't the problem. Its the implementation. Just as Android implements Linux minus security and plus much googly shimware. Anyway, for my new rig, I moved to AMD. Note that Linus also moved to AMD. Someone said its in the chipset, not the CPU, and I'll read more and check my older Intel machines. How much other vulnware is baked in - Intel, and maybe AMD too?
This week has been interesting. MX releasing a formal KDE - and being systemd-optional - gives them another leap forward, if it is implemented right. I can't stand xfce, popular as it may be, it just does not work for me. And nice to see another distro like LinuxFX to bridge the waters for Windows refugees.
22 • Minix Way Back Machines (by R O on 2020-08-18 03:23:55 GMT from United States)
I dabbled with Minux in the late 90's for some years, mostly to see what it could do with old 8080/8086/80286 CPU's as I recall. After it came out with a 32-bit version (?), I dabbled on some 80386's (I think). It was designed by a Dutch CS professor, Andrew Tanenbaum, to get CompSci students involved with OS internals at a low level. He was motivated by AT&T commercializing UNIX version 7, and forbidding dissemination/study of the source code. So Tanenbaum came up with Minux (Mini Unix) to fill the gap in education. Nice Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINIX
23 • Minix, way back then (by SuperOscar on 2020-08-18 06:47:27 GMT from Finland)
I actually ran Minix 2 (or even 1, I’m not sure) in the early 90s in a 286 PC, because a friend of mine was studying computer science in university and was fascinated by it. I couldn’t be since all I could do with it was change the virtual console and run `ls` commands in each.
24 • MINIX (by rmcconnell on 2020-08-18 13:27:18 GMT from United States)
When first looking for an alternative to MS Windows back in '91, I downloaded enough of MINIX 2 to try it out. I also looked at many of the enhancements being pushed out for the upgrade to 3.0. I even bought the book. It looked very good as an educational tool, but not so impressive as a working platform. Dr. Tanenbaum's expressed plan was to keep it simple enough to learn the kernel through a one or two semester course, with the rest of the platform to be developed as side projects and class assignments. That severely limited what applications could be added, with most of them focused on tools for the system admin or developers. As the disappointment set in, I found Soft Landing Systems, which was already a much more rounded system, so I started using that. After they folded their tent in '92, I switched to Slackware, and have never found a need to move elsewhere. It now runs on everything I use except the Firewall (hardened FreeBSD), a MyCloud NAS (Debian 7.1) and a Raspberry Pi (Raspian is a derivative of Debian).
25 • Minix (by gplcoder on 2020-08-19 13:54:58 GMT from United States)
I started using and studying Minix i ~1987 when I purchased V1 of the book Operating Systems: Design and Implementation and also purchased the source code and binaries for the PC. I have been using and studying Minix ever since. It is an excellent platform for low-level, non-GUI software development (in my case, inter-process communication [IPC]) since it is micro-kernel based, not a monolithic kernel like just about all other OS's (except GNU Mach and QNX). There was a famous flame-war between Andy Tanenbaum and Linus Torvalds about a monolithic verses a micro kernel. I have always believed that Linux and BSD should be micro kernel based, not monolithic.
26 • Minix (by Banana Bob on 2020-08-20 08:01:26 GMT from United States)
I tried Minix, but gave up when it didn't recognize the wifi adapter in my laptop.
27 • Backdoors (by Dr. Dave on 2020-08-21 01:54:28 GMT from United States)
Another reason to keep using old hardware as long as possible. Of course, none of that changes the fact that the Internet itself is a military-designed killgrid. I've always supposed the benefits of avoiding Windows, systemd, Intel Management Engine / AMD Platform Security, etc are effectively cancelled out by using the Internet.
Besides that, there have been 'ethernet-over-powerline' solutions for years. Considering all the backdoors and chicanery we DO know about, we should assume there is a lot we DON'T know about. I have long assumed that most 'offline' systems are not truly offline. Anything connected to the power grid is probably vulnerable to something of which we are currently unaware. Wake-on-LAN features probably have more uses than we like think.
Anything with built-in wifi is probably never 100% truly offline + there are plenty of non-phone products that rely upon built-in cellular connections. Today, one should always assume they are in some way 'online'.
28 • Zenwalk review (by Hyperion on 2020-08-21 06:43:11 GMT from France)
- Zenwalk network packages manager is netpkg, it handles several repositories, provides dependency resolution, and has powerful "user friendly" search features not found in other package managers. Most users find it more efficient than apt-get. Netpkg doesn't replace Slackware native tools : it's complementary.
- Flathub is not a package manager : it's a more to be considered like a "playstore". It's a web app, and it works out of the box. Clicking on "install" button in the web app downloads a "flatpakef" file that can be easily processed in Thunar with right-click -> "Flatpak install". Flatpak can also be managed through CLI, of course, like packages should always be.
- The initial setup is text based, because a setup doesn't have to be graphical : it has to be quick and easy. Many recent OS have text based installers.
- Zenwalk is easier to use than most big bloated distributions, it provides latest mainstream applications and desktop. It targets experienced Linux users who wants more control over the operating system and want to be able to do things that bloated distros are not able to do, anymore.
29 • Zenwalk unclear (by curious on 2020-08-21 08:39:25 GMT from Germany)
@28: You state that netpkg provides dependency resolution. Jesse's review states that it does not. You state that clicking on the "install" button in the Flathub web-app downloads a file. Jesse's review states that nothing happens when clicking on "install".
I have NO reason not to believe what Jesse states in his review, especially considering his experience in reviewing Linux distros.
To me, it appears that you describe what should happen in Zenwalk and Jesse describes what really does.
Like in many other cases, I would assume that the main problem is lack of quality assurance and/or testing, and that the only people actually using Zenwalk are those that already know how to work around the problems, so they do not get adressed.
And what are the "things that bloated distros are not able to do, anymore"?
30 • YMMV (by Somewhat Reticent on 2020-08-21 11:46:42 GMT from United States)
@28, @29 - Perhaps the "things that bloated distros are not able to do anymore?" are "quality assurance and/or testing"?
…
Vintage rules.
31 • @ 29--"...the things that bloated distros are not able to do, anymore" (by R. Cain on 2020-08-22 18:23:03 GMT from United States)
You need to (a) listen to @28 and @30; and (b) be more aware of history.
It is a well-documented fact that the reason(s) that distros are now so bloated is because of the fact that MOST distros are in such a rush to crank out the biggest, fastest, newest, most feature-filled distro they can possibly imagine, and--here's the *really, REALLY* important part--do this EVERY SIX MONTHS.
Here's the other very important part, which every one of you who demand this be done (and make no mistake; it IS done because you expect and demand it): this leaves absolutely NO--as in ZERO--time to fix any bugs YOU might report, let alone even looking for bugs on the part of the distribution's seriously overworked developers. It is NOT at all uncommon to read comments in Mint's Blog very similar to "...hey, GREAT job on this newest release. *WHEN'S THE NEXT ONE COMING OUT?* And by the way, the bug I reported about the screen being trashed when I do XXX, in MINT 18, still hasn't been fixed...". (think I'm kidding? Take the time to read Mint's Blogs and forums).
The standard way, the ONLY way, bugs get fixed in any distribution any more is FBIY: Fix-By-Ignoring-You. Why not?--the NEW release will be out in less than six months, and if you can lulled into thinking that any bugs you find now will be fixed, great! If you can't, you'll be so overwhelmed by the NEW release, you'll ignore the fact that the bug (along with all previously reported, un-fixed bugs still there. Along with the inevitable NEW BUGS and NEW REGRESSIONS, due to all the code-bloat.)
And yes, @29 is absolutely correct: the things that bloated distros are incapable of doing any more is to provide you with a brand-new product EVERY SIX MONTHS which has been subjected to rigorous quality assurance, and validation testing.
Just for your information, people--
two of the absolute BEST Linux Mint distros EVER were Mint 13 (Maya), at less than 900 MB; and THE BEST one was the last one to EVER occupy DistroWatch's top slot, as well as being proclaimed that year's best-of-the-best Linux distros: Mint 17.3, at approximately 1300 MB. Got that? 900 MB and 1300 MB. Impossible; no way! Right, millenials?
And here's the best part of what and how Mint USED to be--very good Quality Assurance; outstanding validation testing; most all of your reported bugs acknowledged and fixed. Weren't the 'old days' absolute s**t, boys and girls?
THESE are the things that bloated distros are not able to do anymore. Isn't progress wonderful?
Oh, I forgot one of the best parts: over to you, Mint fanboys.
32 • Cue the Fanboy (by Friar Tux on 2020-08-23 00:21:56 GMT from Canada)
@31 (R Cain) OK, right on cue... Linux Mint. Some of us don't really care about the six month thing. I still have until 2023, so 'llI use my version 19.3 till then - unless something runs amok. I'll go the usual 5 years before going to the next version. As for the bloat, I like my distros well stacked - like I like my... oops, sorry, getting carried away, here. Mind you, I have my favourite apps and programs so I've been known to install and delete until I have what I think works best. Four years of absolutely no worries as definitely turned me into a Linux Mint fanboy.
33 • QA (by Cheker on 2020-08-23 02:00:06 GMT from Portugal)
R Cain is right, lack of proper QA is a common theme across IT in general. Everybody is so worried about the latest and greatest that they trip all over themselves and bugs get overlooked. That Red Hat recently rendered several installations temporarily unusable should tell you all you need to know about the state of QA across the tech industry.
34 • @31, blabbering about bloat (by Angel on 2020-08-23 02:02:58 GMT from Philippines)
"Right, millenials " [sic]
Hah! Been around since the 1st half of the 20th century, but managed to adjust to modern things like indoor plumbing, in spite of its complexity as opposed to latrines. Funny thing, but I seem to have more problems when trying out the old tried and true than with newfangled over-bloated minty things. Take Zenwalk, please! (If you remember Henny you ain't no millennial.)
One of the things most modern bloated distros don't do is tick me off enough to feel like smashing the PC. Maybe they are better, or maybe it's the Zanax.:-)
First installed Linux Mint in 2006 on an HP laptop with a 20GB HDD. Took about 3 hours to download, and then I had to extract the Windows XP driver and use ndiswrapper to get WiFi. Impressive for its time. Now I can download it in 10 minutes and install it in a 240GB SSD, all drivers present. I'm not using Mint as my main distro these days, not because it's gotten worse, but because others have gotten much better. It still sits in a VM with no complaints.
Done ranting. Need to go and crank my old car, if I can remember where I put the crank.
35 • @33 QA (by WhatMeWorry on 2020-08-23 05:05:54 GMT from United States)
Anyone using "Red Hat" and "latest and greatest" in the same sentence must have been in a coma for a while. Try Arch, Tumbleweed, etc.
36 • Each to his own (by Friar Tux on 2020-08-23 13:35:18 GMT from Canada)
I think bloat can be good IF it works and doesn't get in the way. Also, it may be time to just have a distro that doesn't feel the need to add something 'new' and flashy every six months. (One reason I prefer LTS distros.) When I test distros I use the 'catch and release' method (if your a fisherman), or the 'probe and release' method (if your an alien). I install it (NEVER use a VM), if everything works out of box - great. It's a keeper. If it had issues - back into the pond. So far, of the hundreds I've tried only three have been totally flawless - as in install and go right to work - Linux Mint, Q4OS, and Triquel, in that order. Anyway, 'nuff said.
Oh, @34, I have a spare crank if you need it, though I think she might protest, vehemently.
37 • Something new?? (by Friar Tux on 2020-08-23 13:43:23 GMT from Canada)
Note to Jesse and Team:- I love the new banner popping up at the top. New for me, anyway. It's a great way to highlight new distros - Garuda Linux, this time. Going to have to try it out.
Number of Comments: 37
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| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
AriOS
AriOS was a user-friendly, Ubuntu-based distribution containing extra applications, multimedia codecs, Flash and Java plugins, many tweaks and a unique look and feel.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| 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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