 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 882, 7 September 2020 |
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Welcome to this year's 36th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Nix is a portable package manager with a rapidly growing repository of software that compliments its many powerful features. Using Nix we can configure an operating system, install portable packages, enjoy atomic updates, and navigate snapshots of installed packages. The NixOS distribution showcases Nix and some of its powerful system administration features. We explore NixOS in our Feature Story this week and look at some of its commonly used features. Have you run Nix, either as part of NixOS or on another distribution? Let us know about it in our Opinion Poll. In our News section we discuss the Manjaro distribution coming to the low-cost PinePhone as the Fedora distribution becomes available on Lenovo laptops. Plus the Linux Mint team is making its Warpinator file sharing tool available as a Flatpak and we link to details below. Then we discuss the philosophy and structure of Linux distributions and why these aspects of many projects are difficult to quantify in our Questions and Answers column. We are also pleased to share the new releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: NixOS 20.03
- News: Manjaro running on a PinePhone, Fedora coming to Lenovo laptops, Mint publishes Warpinator as a Flatpak
- Questions and answers: Distribution members, donations, and governance structure
- Released last week: Q4OS 3.12, EasyOS 2.4.1, Garuda Linux 200831
- Torrent corner: Arch Linux, CloudReady, EasyOS, Endless OS, Garuda Linux, IPFire, Nitrux, Q4OS, RebornOS, SparkyLinux, Ubuntu DesktopPack
- Opinion poll: Using the Nix package manager
- 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) |
NixOS 20.03
NixOS is a Linux distribution with a special approach to package and configuration management. NixOS is built on top of the Nix package manager which is declarative and makes upgrading systems reliable by way of atomic updates and package snapshots. Nix also provides the ability to roll forwards and backwards through package snapshots, which it calls generations, allowing the administrator to rollback changes or move forward through available versions. Since package transactions are atomic this means upgrades and installations will not break the operating system if a crash or power failure occurs. The administrator can simply revert back to the original snapshot of the installed packages.
Nix can use declarative configuration, meaning we can use the same system configuration file on multiple machines to have them all set up the same way without needing to use disk cloning.
There are over 60,000 packages in the Nix repository. Since Nix can be installed on most Linux distributions, this provides a great repository of software to any distribution where we care to install the Nix package manager.
Back in 2017 I talked about running Nix on Debian. Back then the Nix repository had just 12,860 packages. The repository has grown but the tips on installing and running Nix have remained the same.
There are two editions of NixOS. The first is the Graphical edition which is a 64-bit (x86_64) build and features the KDE Plasma desktop. The Graphical edition is a 1.2GB download. The other edition provides a minimal, command line interface. The smaller edition is available in 32-bit and 64-bit builds and its ISO is approximately 550MB in size.
The latest version of NixOS includes mostly package updates, bringing KDE Plasma and GNOME up to date with their stable upstream versions. ZFS now performs automatic trimming on appropriate storage devices. Meanwhile the Nix package manager recognizes a wider range of services and programs we can enable.
Live media
I decided to try the Graphical edition of NixOS. Booting from the media brings up a menu where we are invited to start the live Plasma desktop with one of three options: normal boot, failsafe mode, or running the distribution from RAM. Selecting any of these options loads the KDE Plasma desktop. A panel holding the application menu, task switcher, and system tray sits at the bottom of the screen. Icons on the desktop launch GParted, open the Konsole virtual terminal, and open the NixOS manual. The manual is a locally stored web page that opens in Firefox. The manual is especially helpful and covers tips on using and installing the operating system. Since NixOS does not have a system installer in the usual sense, I recommend reading the manual to learn how to get started with the operating system.
NixOS 20.03 -- Reading the NixOS manual in Firefox
(full image size: 215kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Installing
When it comes to installing NixOS the manual points out a few things we need to do up front. For example, we need to have a working Internet connection. We also need to set aside at least one disk partition and format it. These steps are not handled for us, but NixOS includes networking tools and the GParted partition editor to help us.
Once we have the necessary partition, we need to mount it under the /mnt directory and edit the Nix configuration file. This file explains to Nix how to set up the operating system, it's like a recipe. Luckily for us, the file is mostly filled in with good default values. There are also a lot of optional features listed in the file in comments. This allows us to simply edit the existing lines to enable some common services and set up a user account.
Once we have edited the Nix file we run an install script which sets up the operating system, based on the rules outlined in the file. We are also asked to make up a password for the root account. At this point the system is all ready to go and we can reboot to give our local copy of NixOS a try.
Early impressions
Launching my fresh copy of NixOS brought up a graphical login screen. By default the login screen assumes we want to sign in as the first non-root user. However, at this point I hadn't had a chance to set a password on the account and could not sign in as my regular user. We can switch to a console or click a button at the bottom of the screen to login as root and set the user's password.
NixOS 20.03 -- The Plasma desktop and application menu
(full image size: 492kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Once I signed in as my regular user a KDE Plasma session started. The interface features a light theme with a panel at the bottom of the screen, as it was in the live session. The desktop icons for GParted, Konsole, and the manual are gone. The manual is still installed, we just need to browse the application menu to find it. Also missing is the Firefox web browser. Firefox is present in the live session, but is not included in the installed version of NixOS meaning we cannot open the manual to read it in a browser. We can add a web browser later using the Nix package manager and I will talk about Nix later.
Hardware
I began testing NixOS in VirtualBox and found the system generally worked well. Desktop performance was good and the system was stable. Loading programs and launching the Plasma desktop was slower than average, but the desktop was otherwise responsive. While running in VirtualBox, the Plasma desktop would not resize automatically when I changed the dimensions of its window. However, I could change the desktop's resolution from the System Settings panel. (To be more precise, I could not resize the Plasma desktop at all using VirtualBox's default video settings. I had to switch from VMSVGA to the VBoxVGA controller in my host's settings to be able to resize the desktop.)
When I tried running NixOS on my laptop, the distribution performed well. Programs loaded quickly, my full screen resolution was used, and wireless networking was recognized.
NixOS 20.03 -- Exploring the settings panel with a dark theme
(full image size: 424kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
A fresh install of NixOS is relatively light, using about 370MB of memory when signed into the Plasma desktop. A new install consumed about 4.1GB of disk space. Most of the time, NixOS did not use much CPU though some package management actions used more CPU and disk I/O and could slow down the desktop.
Applications
A fresh install of NixOS with a default configuration includes very few desktop applications. Apart from the Konsole virtual terminal, the KDE Help documentation, and the System Settings desktop configuration panel, there isn't much to be found.
There is no compiler, no web browser, no office suite. In the background we find the usual collection of GNU command line utilities and manual pages. The systemd software is installed and provides the distribution's init program. A fresh install runs on version 5.4 of the Linux kernel.
While running NixOS I noticed that typing the name of a command into the terminal that has not yet been installed causes a message to appear telling us what Nix command we need to run in order to install the missing program. This happens quickly and did not cause much disruption to my workflow.
Early on I found that any time I tried to connect to a new wireless network the system would prompt me for a wallet password. This is an annoying feature and it meant I sometimes had to try to connect multiple times to a new network before the system would accept my wi-fi password without corresponding wallet password.
Nix
While it is possible to use NixOS as a day-to-day operating system, it largely exists as a platform to show off the powerful Nix package manager. For the most part, using Nix feels like using most other command line package managers. We can run "nix-env -i <package name>" to install new software, "nix-env -e <package name>" to remove an item. The "nix-env -u" command updates software and "nix-env -qa <pattern>" searches for software. While the commands we run look familiar and produce similar results to the equivalent APT and pacman actions, Nix does several things differently.
NixOS 20.03 -- Installing new software and browsing package generations
(full image size: 216kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
For instance, Nix installs are atomic, meaning that if the power cuts out partway through an upgrade, nothing bad happens to your packages or the package database. We can just restart the computer and begin the process anew. Another intriguing feature is Nix creates snapshots of its packages. These snapshots are called generations and each time we install, remove, or upgrade software, Nix effectively takes a snapshot of the software we have installed. We can then move almost instantly between package snapshots. In practice, this means we can rollback any change that breaks the system or introduces a bug by running "nix-env --rollback".
We can also move forward into newer snapshots. This is especially handy if we want to test two versions of the same software. We can run the application, rollback to a previous version, then instantly move ahead to a newer snapshot to test the new version again. We can see a list of available snapshots by running "nix-env --list-generations".
One concern some people have about Nix is that these generations will use up extra disk space. However, the extra space is pretty minimal, at least in the short term. The extra space is not even noticeable after a few weeks of installing updates. For those concerned about disk space though we can discard old generations to free up space.
Another nice feature of Nix is that it handles the configuration of the operating system, not just packages. This, combined with Nix's reproducible builds, means we can take the configuration (recipe) file from one computer and use it to install NixOS on another computer. We should end up with identical operating systems on each machine.
In short, Nix is an amazing package manager. These features, along with the ability to run along side other package managers on other distributions, make it a very attractive tool. It does have a few problems though. I found Nix was sometime slow compared to other mainstream package managers and it does not show much progress information. This sometimes makes it look like the nix-env command has stopped working. In fact, it took me a while once to realize the desktop had locked up and stopped responding once when Nix was installing software updates. However, these small issues aside, Nix is quite powerful and useful, especially for people who need extra reliability or who want to be able to quickly rollback software changes.
Conclusions
The NixOS distribution, on its own, does not particularly stand out. Apart from the fact it has a very minimal, and very memory-friendly KDE Plasma session, the distribution (from a practical point of view) does not do much to attract users. NixOS mostly functions as a platform to show off Nix and demonstrate how a distribution can be shaped, managed, and even replicated through its package manager.
The Nix repository has grown by leaps, adding tens of thousands of new packages in the past three years. These packages are reproducible, are installed and upgraded atomically, and can be rolled back (or forward) almost instantly. The Nix approach to keeping software transactions safe while making it easy for us to switch between installed versions of programs makes it very attractive.
In recent years some filesystems, like Btrfs and ZFS, have also added snapshots at the filesystem level, rather than the package manager level. This, to my mind, takes a bite out of one of Nix's main selling features. However, Nix can work with any Linux filesystem, avoiding the overhead of advanced filesystems, and works independently of the distribution (and any other installed package manager). This makes Nix a very attractive way to gain access to more software and provides a way to experiment with new packages with minimal risk. Whether you try NixOS or not, I highly recommend installing and trying Nix, especially if you keep up to date with cutting edge packages and want to protect your system from regressions due to upgrades.
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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
NixOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9.2/10 from 85 review(s).
Have you used NixOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Manjaro running on a PinePhone, Fedora coming to Lenovo laptops, Mint publishes Warpinator as a Flatpak
The PinePhone has been capturing a lot of attention as an affordable device which can run such open source operating systems as UBports. The device's open nature also makes it an attractive platform for other Linux distributions, including Manjaro Linux. An announcement by PINE64, the organization behind the PinePhone, reports: "I am thrilled to announce that the next Community Edition (CE) of the PinePhone will feature Manjaro. For those of you who do not know, Manjaro is an Arch-based Linux operating system designed with user-friendliness in mind. But Manjaro is more than just an operating system, it is also a large and vibrant community of contributors and end-users, which I highly encourage you to join. Manjaro has offered support for PINE64 devices since the very beginning - with high-quality OS builds now available for nearly all our SBCs and devices - and the PinePhone is no exception in this regard." According to the PINE64 post it will be possible to pre-order PinePhones running Manjaro in September.
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Back in April we reported that Lenovo had plans to ship new laptops with the Fedora distribution. Christian Schaller has reported that Lenovo laptops with Fedora pre-installed are now available. "This weekend the X1 Carbon with Fedora Workstation went live in North America on Lenovo's webstore. This is a big milestone for us and for Lenovo as its the first time Fedora ships pre-installed on a laptop from a major vendor and its the first time the worlds largest laptop maker ships premium laptops with Linux directly to consumers. Currently only the X1 Carbon is available, but more models is on the way and more geographies will get added too soon. As a sidenote, the X1 Carbon and more has actually been available from Lenovo for a couple of months now, it is just the web sales that went online now. So if you are a IT department buying Lenovo laptops in bulk, be aware that you can already buy the X1 Carbon and the P1 for instance through the direct to business sales channel."
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The Linux Mint team has published their monthly newsletter which outlines progress the distribution's developers have made in addressing bugs and backporting fixes. The team has been working on the Warpinator peer-to-peer file sharing tool which is now available as a Flatpak to make it accessible to people running other Linux distributions. "We're happy to announce that Warpinator, the network transfer tool which shipped with Linux Mint 20 and was ported to LMDE 4, is now available to all users of Linux as a Flatpak. If you are using Linux Mint 19.x or Linux Mint 18.x open the Software Manager and search for 'Warpinator'. If you are using a different Linux distribution head over to Flathub."
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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) |
Distribution members, donations, and governance structure
Auditing-the-organization asks: When picking a Linux distro, a person can look at package management (eg, Deb, RPM, pacman, etc), package philosophy (eg, fixed, long-term release, rolling, etc), how long it has been active, security, community support, documentation, and general philosophy, but the one thing that doesn't standout is their organizational structure, by-laws, and how they are funded.
Debian comes to mind as an exception. It states it is a non-profit (Software in the Public Interest, a non-profit organization that holds assets in trust for Debian), lists its charter, officers, and meeting minutes.
How do distributions generally organize for income purposes and tax purposes? How does a community-based Linux distribution organize? A distribution is usually the work of many people, it would seem odd that the money would go into a personal account. It would also be helpful to know how they are funded (corporate backed, donations). I was wondering, with all your knowledge on the different distributions, if you could shed some light on this issue.
I know this stuff isn't as fun as the technical, but it is kind of important. Perhaps there could be an additional criteria at the top of the distro's description with: number of team members, organizational structure, funding, backers.
DistroWatch answers: One of the nice things about collecting technical information about a distribution, apart from it being fun, is that technical information on a project tends to be static. A distribution that uses pacman as it package manager and has a rolling release approach is unlikely to change those aspects of the project from one year to the next. We can pretty much look up which package manager a project uses and its release philosophy and that information is unlikely to need updating on a regular basis.
Another nice thing about gathering and listing technical information is it tends to be easy to verify. Anyone can download a new release and confirm which version of the Linux kernel it runs, or what its package manager is, or which init software the distribution is using. The information is easily accessible, objective, and verifiable.
Most Linux distributions, with a handful of key exceptions, are less clear about organizational structure, funding, and the number of members they have. Often times which category a project would fit into as far as funding goes is a matter of philosophy or point of view rather than a clearly defined answer. Information on a distribution's members and organization structure is also rarely published and, if it is available, tends to be updated quickly as people join and leave the project.
Linux distributions typically are not run like companies with a specific number of employees who each have defined roles. The number of people involved in a project and how they handle things - like code commits, funding, payments, filing taxes, and decision making - are often in flux and do not follow a formally defined set of rules.
A lot of community projects are essentially one person (or a small number of people) who publish code, accept "fly-by" contributions from community members, and may accept donations privately. They typically don't have any published guidelines or by-laws on how decisions are made, who is involved, or where any funding goes. There are exceptions to this rule; bigger organizations such as Red Hat, Debian, and SUSE are better about publishing information on the number of employees they have and their financial status. Though even then, this information can change rapidly with cutbacks, new hires or a flood of volunteers.
Perhaps the one criteria suggested that is usually easy to discover and which remains fixed is a distribution's funding model. We can usually find out how a project gets its money because this will be relatively clear on the website. Projects usually either ask for funds, offer support contracts, or charge money for their products. As a result we have sometimes been asked if we could divide distributions into Commercial and Community/Free categories. However, there is a complication to this approach: many projects could be both, or take another (less expected) approach.
Take Ubuntu for example. It is commercially backed by Canonical, which sells support, suggesting it is a commercial product. However, Ubuntu can be downloaded for free without restrictions, making it more of a community/free project. Fedora falls into much the same curious middle ground. Red Hat Enterprise Linux would seem to be pleasantly clear in that it is a commercial product, however there is an edition of RHEL which is available free of charge. Other distributions may not accept donations or sell products, but have private affiliate deals to bundle software or use search links to drive income. These deals are often not talked about publicly on the distribution's website and very few distributions publish financial information (such as income, expenses, backers, and funds in reserve).
This is why we tend to focus on the technical aspects of a distribution, the verifiable, objective aspects as much as possible. The philosophy, governance, and funding tend to be difficult to verify, are often changing, and are open to interpretation. Those aspects are certainly important to a lot of community members, but distributions very rarely publish this information.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Q4OS 3.12
A new version of Q4OS, a Debian-based desktop Linux distribution offering a choice of a classic-style user interface (Trinity or TDE, a fork of KDE 4) or the modern KDE Plasma desktop, has been released: "An update to Q4OS 3 'Centaurus' LTS has been released. The new 3.12 series receives the recent Debian 'Buster' 10.5 update, critical security and bug fixes, and several specific Q4OS enhancements. We've been working on visual Plasma themes - the Debonaire theme is now available directly in Plasma-based live media, and other new themes are available for installation from the repositories. Automatic detection of NVIDIA hardware and dedicated installer has been fixed. In addition to the above, Q4OS 3.12 brings other enhancements, such as the Firefox 80 installer, supplemented desktop profiles and a cumulative upgrade covering all changes from the previous stable Q4OS 3 'Centaurus' release. Current users only need to perform a regular update to get all the new features. Anyone can download installation media images from the Downloads section of the Q4OS website." See the release announcement and the changelog for further details.
EasyOS 2.4.1
EasyOS is an experimental Linux distribution which uses many of the technologies and package formats pioneered by Puppy Linux. EasyOS continues to improve its container technology, security features, and update its Debian-based packages. The project's release announcement offers the highlights of EasyOS 2.4.1: "EasyOS 2.4.1 has significant and exciting new features since version 2.3. This includes enhancements to 'lockdown in RAM' as an alternative security strategy to containers, tools and strategies for debugging bootup in the initrd, automatic version update via an 'update' icon on the desktop, and choice of settings to retain when erase the session. There are many package changes, including built from Debian 10.5 DEBs and kernel bump to 5.4.59. Updated applications include SeaMonkey, Pupradio, fftag, ffplay-GTK, Pmcputemp and EasyDD. New apps include MATE Calc and iotop. Many infrastructure improvements and fixes -- too many to list, see the release notes." The release notes offer greater detail.
Garuda Linux 200831
Version 200831 of Garuda Linux, an Arch-based desktop Linux distribution with a graphical installer and system management tools, and available in several popular desktop flavours, has been released: "Garuda Linux release 200831 - this is an ISO image refresh released today. Changelog: Garuda Welcome app - added a toggle for easy switching to HiDPI mode, added a toggle to switch GDM to Wayland, added a toggle to enable systemwide ad-blocking via AdGuard DNS, added a toggle for enabling and disabling the guest account; Garuda Network Assistant app - added WiFi restart button, added Bluetooth restart button, detect if NetworkManager or Connman are running if they are installed and not running; Garuda-zsh-config - switched to Powerlevel10k theme (including the patched font).... It also includes some software updates, including some major version upgrades for Linux-zen 5.8.5, Mesa 20.1.6, NVIDIA 450.66, Firefox 80, LibreOffice 7.0.0." Read the rest of the release announcement for more details.
Garuda Linux 200831 -- Garuda's welcome window
(full image size: 2.2MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Linux From Scratch 10.0
Linux From Scratch (LFS) is a project that provides you with the steps necessary to build your own custom Linux system. The project has announced a new version of its instructional handbook, Linux From Scratch 10.0, along with additional steps to create a more feature-rich distribution called Beyond Linux From Scratch (BLFS). The release announcement reads: "The Linux From Scratch community announces the release of LFS Version 10.0. This version of the book has undergone a major reorganization. It uses enhanced cross-compilation techniques and an environment isolated from the host system to build tools for the final system. This reduces both the chance for changing the the host system and the potential of the host system influencing the LFS build process. Major package updates include toolchain versions glibc-2.32, gccc-10.2.0, and binutils-2.35. In total, 37 packages were updated since the last release. The Linux kernel has also been updated to version 5.8.3." The main LFS volume uses SysV init while there is an alternative version which uses systemd.
Ubuntu DesktopPack 20.04
Mark Bezrukov has announced the release of Ubuntu DesktopPack, a comprehensive set of Ubuntu remixes created by Ukraine's UALinux. The project's latest version comes in 13 different flavours, including two new ones - one with the Deepin desktop and the other using GNOME with a Windows 10-like theme. From the release announcement: "The Ubuntu*Pack 20.04 distribution kit is available, presented in the form of 13 independent systems with various interfaces: original Ubuntu, plus Budgie, Cinnamon, GNOME, GNOME Classic, GNOME Flashback, KDE, LXqt, MATE, Unity, Xfce, DDE (Deepin desktop) and a Windows 10-style interface. The distributions are based on the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS operating system. The main differences between our distributions and the original Ubuntu is the already implemented official updates, various graphical interfaces, multimedia and additional drivers and programs that are absent in Ubuntu."
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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: 2,128
- Total data uploaded: 33.6TB
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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) |
Using the Nix package manager
In this week's review of NixOS we talked about the Nix package manager. Nix offers a lot of advanced system configuration features, allowing for package snapshots, atomic updates, and managing system configuration. Nix is capable of either managing the operating system, as it does with NixOS, or acting as a second package manager for another distribution. We would like to hear if you use Nix, either as the primary or secondary package manager.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running Fedora on a Btrfs volume in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you use the Nix package manager?
| I use Nix on NixOS: | 39 (3%) |
| I use Nix on another distro: | 38 (3%) |
| I do not use Nix: | 1191 (94%) |
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| Website News |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 14 September 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 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 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Full list of all issues |
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U-lite
U-lite (formerly Ubuntulite) was a light-weight distribution, based on Ubuntu, designed to run comfortably on old and low-resource computers. It comes with a careful selection of applications, such LXDE (featuring the Openbox window manager), Kazehakase web browser, Sylpheed mail client, AbiWord word processor and Gnumeric spreadsheet. Unlike most light-weight distributions, U-lite strives to provide a complete user experience out of the box.
Status: Discontinued
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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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