 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 894, 30 November 2020 |
Welcome to this year's 48th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The concept of software freedom states that people should be able to view the code of the software they use as well as improve and share it with others. While there are several projects and distributions which strive to provide software that upholds these ideals, there are still many applications and hardware drivers which do not and this can make software freedom a difficult goal for user friendly distributions to achieve. We begin this week with a look at a project called Trisquel GNU/Linux, one of the few Linux distributions on the Free Software Foundation's list of endorsed operating systems. Trisquel provides a friendly desktop experience while running free software exclusively. Our Feature Story this week shares a look at what it is like to run Trisquel. Are you able to accomplish everything you want with your computer running only freely licensed software? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll if your needs are entirely met by free software. In our News section we talk about the HardenedBSD project gaining new contributions and explore how an operating system boots, using NetBSD as an example. We also report on work going into the UBports installer which makes it easier to switch between mobile operating systems. Plus we talk about kernel stability and how it affects both applications and hardware drivers. Then we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Trisquel GNU/Linux 9.0
- News: HardenedBSD welcomes new contributors, exploring how NetBSD boots, UBports installer now works with LineageOS and Android
- Questions and answers: Consistent stability from the Linux kernel
- Released last week: Proxmox 6.3 "Virtual Environment", Guix System 1.2.0, AV Linux 2020.11.23
- Torrent corner: AV Linux, GParted Live, Guix System, NethServer, Nitrux, openmamba, Proxmox, Snal Linux, SystemRescue
- Opinion poll: Does an entirely free operating system cover all your needs?
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (13MB) and MP3 (10MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Trisquel GNU/Linux 9.0
Trisquel GNU/Linux is an entirely free (libre) distribution based on Ubuntu. Trisquel offers a variety of desktop editions, all of which are stripped of non-free software components. The project is one of the few Linux distributions endorsed by the Free Software Foundation and a rare project that attempts to both be entirely free and friendly to less experienced Linux users.
The Trisquel website lists several desktop editions. The main edition (which is a 2.5GB download) features the MATE desktop environment while the Mini edition is about half the size and runs LXDE. There is also a KDE Plasma edition (called Triskel) along with Trisquel TOAST which runs the Sugar learning platform. Finally, there is a minimal net-install option for people who are comfortable building their system from the ground up using a command line interface.
The release announcement for Trisquel 9.0 is fairly brief and does not mention many features. The bulk of the information is provided in this paragraph: "The default web browser Abrowser, our freedom and privacy respecting take on Mozilla's browser, provides the latest updates from upstream for a great browsing experience. Backports provide extended hardware support." Though it does not appear to be mentioned specifically in the release announcement, Trisquel 9.0 looks to be based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS packages, with some applications backported.
Live disc
Booting from the distribution's ISO brings up a menu asking us to select our preferred language from a list. Then we are shown the project's boot menu where we can set startup options. We can also choose between trying Trisquel's live desktop, installing the distribution, or running a text-based system installer. Taking the Try option loads the MATE desktop.
Trisquel GNU/Linux 9.0 -- Running Abrowser on the MATE desktop
(full image size: 998kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
MATE places its panel across the bottom of the screen. An application menu and a few quick-launch buttons sit in the bottom-left corner of the display. The system tray takes up the lower-right corner and a task switcher sits in the middle of the panel. On the desktop we find icons for launching the file manager and opening the Ubiquity system installer.
The application menu has a tree-style layout and no search option. This makes it easy to browse categories of software, but harder to find programs where we only know the name and not the category. Some of the sub-menus get pretty deep. For example, to adjust the monitor settings we need to burrow through four layers of the menu (System -> Preferences -> Hardware -> Displays) or, alternatively, we can visit the settings panel.
Installing
Trisquel uses the Ubiquity graphical installer which will be familiar to most people who run members of the Ubuntu family of distributions. Ubiquity quickly and smoothly walks us through the paces, selecting our language, keyboard layout, time zone, and picking a username for ourselves. Ubiquity offers to show us the project's release notes which opens a web browser to display Trisquel's on-line release announcement. We are also asked if we would like to download any available package updates during the install process. When I was first starting to use Trisquel there were no updates available so this option made no difference.
When it comes to dividing up the local disk Trisquel offers us guided and manual partitioning options. Ubiquity's manual partitioning is quite friendly and easily to navigate with nice graphics outlining the layout of the disk. When it comes to guided partitioning Ubiquity will take over available space, setting up an ext4 filesystem to hold the operating system and a swap partition. Alternatively we can enable a guided option that uses LVM volumes and encryption to protect the system.
The system installer performed all of its tasks without any issues. When it was finished Ubiquity offered to restart the computer.
Early impressions
My fresh copy of Trisquel booted to a graphical login screen. Signing into my account brought up the same MATE desktop I explored on the live disc. The login page and default MATE wallpaper display a blue seascape with fluffy clouds in the background. It's a scene I found quite pleasing and it worked fairly well with the light grey default theme. Trisquel does not include any welcome screen or first-run customizations. We dive straight into using the desktop, which displayed no notifications or distractions.
Hardware
The distribution ran unusually well in VirtualBox. The MATE desktop was highly responsive, new applications opened quickly, and the operating system ran smoothly. The desktop would not dynamically resize with its VirtualBox window, but I could set the desktop resolution in the Displays settings module.
Trisquel GNU/Linux 9.0 -- Exploring configuration options in the settings panel
(full image size: 708kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
When I switched over to testing the distribution on my workstation the performance was again great. I love how responsive MATE was in both test environments. The desktop flies on this distribution and windows are wonderfully snappy. MATE is a mid-weight desktop environment, yet it performs like a lightweight window manager on this distribution.
The one serious problem I ran into with Trisquel is that, being an entirely free operating system, it does not include non-free firmware. This means the operating system cannot use my wireless card. In an environment where wired Ethernet connections are available this won't be a problem, but for anyone who uses wireless networking, Trisquel will likely not be able to set up a network connection. Likewise, people hoping to use non-free video drivers for improved video and/or gaming support will not find them included in this distribution or its repositories.
Trisquel uses a relatively small amount of resources. When signed into MATE I found the system consumed 340MB of RAM and a fresh install used up 5.6GB of disk space. This is just slightly lighter than what Ubuntu MATE, one of Trisquel's closest relatives, used when I tested it last year.
Applications
Trisquel ships with a fairly standard collection of applications. Though, in some cases, popular software has been swapped out for more libre or privacy-protecting alternatives. For instance Trisquel uses Abrowser as the default web browser, which is a modified version of Firefox. Likewise Icedove replaces the Thunderbird e-mail client.
Looking through the application menu we also find the Pidgin and Jami communication clients, the Liferea feed reader, and the Electrum Bitcoin Wallet. The Transmission bittorrent software is included along with LibreOffice and a remote desktop viewer. The GNU Image Manipulation Program is included along with the Cheese webcam utility and Brasero disc burning software.
Trisquel GNU/Linux 9.0 -- Playing a game and running LibreOffice
(full image size: 196kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The Rhythmbox audio and VLC multimedia programs are available along with a extensive collection of media codecs. There are a few games present along with the Caja file manager and the Back In Time backup software. To tweak the desktop and adjust some underlying settings, such as setting up printers and creating user accounts, we can visit the MATE settings panel. The settings panel is nicely laid out and offers a search box to help us filter the list of available modules. These worked quite nicely for me.
In the background Trisquel ships with the systemd init software and version 4.15 of the Linux kernel.
Software management
When it comes to managing software the utility which sits front and centre in the application menu is called Add/Remove Applications. This program, also known as trisquel-app-install appears to be a Python application that is divided into three panes. One large pane on the left shows software categories similar to those in the application menu. Clicking these categories shows packages in that category in the upper-right pane. Clicking a specific program in the upper-right pane shows a description of the software in the lower-right corner of the window.
Trisquel GNU/Linux 9.0 -- The software manager
(full image size: 954kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
We can click a box next to programs we wish to install and choose to download these programs in a batch. Once packages begin to download the software manager's interface is locked until the operations are all completed. It appears as though the Add/Remove Applications tool calls Synaptic in the background as Synaptic is the program which prompts us for password authorization.
While Add/Remove Applications worked quite well for me and I had no problems with it, in fact I quite like the simple, uncluttered interface, we also have the option of launching Synaptic directly to install, remove, and upgrade packages. Alternatively, we can manage software packages through the APT command line tools.
In addition to these options there is a simple update manager in the System sub-menu of the application menu. I like that this tool asks if it is okay for it to access the network before checking remote repositories for new packages. This potentially reduces bandwidth consumption and improves privacy on untrusted networks.
Trisquel maintains its own software repositories which appear to contain exclusively free software, mostly pulled from Ubuntu. By default there is no portable package framework (such as Flatpak or Snap) installed. I found Flatpak can be installed from Trisquel's repositories. There are also tools in the repositories for creating Snap packages, but the Snap software itself is missing.
Other observations
While exploring Trisquel and using it to get some work done I started noticing a few things. One is that, unlike many modern distributions, Trisquel does not activate the screensaver after just five minutes of inactivity. The screensaver kicks on after 30 minutes which is much more to my taste.
The Jami communication client, when closed, remains running in the system tray. Even if we terminate the program from the system tray it always restarts itself the next time we login, taking up about an extra 100MB of memory. There is no in-app setting to disable this automatic start-up. Fortunately MATE can disable Jami's automatic activation through the Startup Applications module in the settings panel.
Pressing the Ctrl+Shift+E combination brings up a window for selecting emjoi characters. This interferes with the GNU Image Manipulation Program's keyboard shortcuts. As far as I can tell this key combination is not defined in MATE's global keyboard shortcuts and I did not find an easy way to disable it, slowing me down when I was editing images.
Conclusions
Trisquel is a fairly solid desktop operating system. The distribution ships with many useful applications and provides access to a large amount of software. It has a highly responsive desktop that I found fairly easy to navigate and a flexible & friendly settings panel. The system looks fairly nice with the default theme and offers some alternatives for people who want darker or higher contrast themes.
Trisquel GNU/Linux 9.0 -- Trying alternative themes
(full image size: 832kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
On the whole I found Trisquel to be pleasant to use, easy to set up, and pretty capable out of the box. I really like how fast it performed tasks and how uncluttered/unbusy the desktop felt.
The one problem I had with Trisquel was the lack of wireless networking support. The distribution strives for software freedom (as defined by the Free Software Foundation) and this means no non-free firmware, drivers, or applications. This slightly limits its hardware support compared to most Linux distributions. It also means no easy access to applications such as Steam, Chrome, Spotify, and so on. This may make Trisquel a less practical operating system to some, but that is sort of the point: Trisquel takes a hard stance in favour of software freedom over convenience.
If you are a person who does not use non-free software and doesn't need non-free wireless support, then Trisquel is probably the best experience you can have with an entirely free Linux distribution. It is painless to set up, offers several desktop flavours, and runs quickly. For free software enthusiasts I would highly recommend giving Trisquel a try.
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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
Trisquel GNU/Linux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.2/10 from 22 review(s).
Have you used Trisquel GNU/Linux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
HardenedBSD welcomes new contributors, exploring how NetBSD boots, UBports installer now works with LineageOS and Android
The HardenedBSD team works to develop a more security-rich version of FreeBSD. The project's latest newsletter outlines some progress the team has made with their infrastructure and mentions the project is now receiving contributions from commercial vendors. "I've worked on merging in some code and documentation contributions. We had our first vendor code contribution this month. I still need to review and merge in their patch for the hardening-check port. Our self-hosted git server is still experiencing issues, but is still getting more stable as time goes on. We've noticed malicious bot scanning activity over our Tor Onion Service endpoints that put a lot of pressure on Gitea, to the point of crashing Gitea. Happens every other week or so." Technical details of the team's work can be found in their November newsletter.
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Have you ever wondered how a computer knows how to start its operating system? What goes on under the hood when a computer's CPU tries to load a kernel? Maciej Grochowski goes into a detail-oriented exploration of how a modern computer boots, using NetBSD as an example. "System initialization is one of the niche areas that few people look into. The exact details vary considerably between different platforms, firmwares, CPU architectures and operating systems, making it difficult to learn it all. Usually, if something is not working correctly during the early stages of system startup or if the OS does not boot, it rarely has anything to do with the code responsible for booting. Most of the time, it is due to other factors, such as the boot media or BIOS configuration. However, understanding the early initialization process may help debug or to familiarize yourself with a new platform or hardware." It's a fascinating dive into the nuts and bolts of the boot process.
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The UBports team has added an unusual new feature to their system installer: the ability to install alternative operating systems. The UBports installer is being modified to also function as an installer for LineageOS and Android as well as Ubuntu Touch (UT). The project's latest newsletter explains: "Installer updates are arriving twice a week at the moment. There are both bug fixes and new features. Devices are now correctly detected in fast-boot and OEM unlocking is done automatically in many cases, if you forgot. The installer now reconnects if you get the 'authorization is required' screen. USB debugging is sorted out live. It now acts as an Android and Lineage OS installer, so you can now easily go back if you were just curious to try UT."
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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) |
Consistent stability from the Linux kernel
Where-is-the-stability asks: I thought I'd heard that Linux doesn't break userland. But then just the other week you said the NVIDIA driver was broken. Has Linux policy changed?
DistroWatch answers: It is true that the kernel team has a guiding principle that changes made to the kernel should not break programs running in userspace. (Userspace referring here, basically, to programs and data not contained in the kernel.) The idea is that if an existing program uses some kernel function or feature that the kernel developers should not change or remove that feature. This avoids kernel developers deciding to bring in some new, exciting change or alternative way of doing things that suddenly causes a bunch of programs to stop working.
The NVIDIA video driver however is not a part of userland, it is a kernel module. The Linux developers do occasionally tweak the internals of how the kernel works. This can cause existing components of the kernel, including drivers, to stop working. Usually this just happens with non-free drivers which are maintained by third-party companies (like NVIDIA). Open source drivers which have been added to the kernel get updated by their maintainers when changes happen in the kernel so that the drivers continue to work.
In some rare instances open source drivers and modules may also be affected if they are not included in the kernel. The ZFS on Linux module, for example, occasionally needs to be updated by its developers to maintain compatibility with the rest of the kernel because (though ZFS is open source software) ZFS's license prevents it from being merged with the rest of the kernel source code.
I'd also like to note there are some rare exceptions to Linux not breaking userspace applications. Some long-term Linux users may remember when cutting edge distributions such as Fedora and Arch Linux ran into an issue with the K3b disc burning software no longer working on Linux 2.6.8.1. If memory serves this was the result of a security fix. The "don't break userspace" rule followed by the upstream kernel developers also doesn't protect users from distributions patching changes into their own kernel packages. I can recall Red Hat backporting features from the 2.5.x development kernel into Linux 2.4 and causing some issues. The vanilla kernel was fine, but the Red Hat Linux package for the kernel caused issues which were outside of the upstream developers' hands.
In short, the "don't break userspace" guideline is still there. It's almost always still followed, except in some very rare instances. However, NVIDIA's module is a third-party kernel module rather than part of userland and therefore doesn't fall under the rule's scope. Hopefully, in the future, companies like NVIDIA will merge their drivers into the kernel so it can be updated as part of the kernel to avoid this sort of problem.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Guix System 1.2.0
Guix System is a Linux-based, stateless operating system that is built around the GNU Guix package manager. The operating system provides advanced package management features such as transactional upgrades and roll-backs, reproducible build environments, unprivileged package management, and per-user profiles. The project's latest version, 1.2.0, focuses on improving the security of the software supplied to the distribution. "A major highlight in this release is the ability to authenticate channels, which probably makes Guix one of the safest ways to deliver complete operating systems today. This was the missing link in our 'software supply chain' and we're glad it's now fixed. The end result is that 'guix pull' and related commands now cryptographically authenticate channel code that they fetch; you cannot, for instance, retrieve unauthorized commits to the official Guix repository. We detailed the design and implementation back in July. The manual explains what you need to know as a user and as a channel author. There's also a new 'guix git authenticate' command to use this authentication mechanism for arbitrary Git repositories!" Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
AV Linux 2020.11.23
Glen MacArthur has announced the release of AV Linux 2020.11.23, the latest version of the multimedia-oriented distribution with a collection of audio and video production software. This is the project's first build based on MX Linux and it also features separate editions for x86_64 (with Xfce) and i386 (with Openbox) platforms: "After several months of behind-the-scenes work, two ISO images of the brand new 'AV Linux MX Edition' have been released. With 32-bit Xfce/Openbox and 64-bit Xfce editions, this new project is based on MX Linux 19.3. The MX development team is aware of this project and have kindly provided assistance and a warm welcome but it is important to note that this project is an unofficial respin and at the current time not under the umbrella of the antiX/MX projects. MX is the new home base of AV Linux and I'm very excited about combining the phenomenal tools and utilities of MX with the well-known content-creation focus that has defined AV Linux since 2008. Highlights of this release: Linux kernel 5.9.1, includes the Bluetooth stack security fix; greatly expanded AVL-MXE Assistant; new custom 'Diehard' and 'Earth' themes...." Here is the full release announcement with a screenshots and video overview.
AV Linux 2020.11.23 -- Exploring the AV Linux menu
(full image size: 691kB, resolution: 1920x1200 pixels)
EuroLinux 7.9
EuroLinux is an enterprise-class Linux distribution made and supported by the EuroLinux company, built mostly from code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The project's latest release is EuroLinux 7.9 which enters a new phase of support. "Because EuroLinux 7 is in the second phase of support, there are no revolutionary changes. It is the same stable, mission-critical, proved operating system in which many packages were updated and upgraded to a higher version. It should be anticipated since Enterprise Linux 7 during its life was repeatedly subjected to a reasonably common, aggressive rebase, that is, upgrading packages to recent, nevertheless proven and reliable, versions. Among the most significant changes are: sssd upgraded to version 1.165; pacemaker and stack responsible for clustering updated to version - 1.1.23; MariaDB database updated to this year's version - 5.5.68." The release announcement goes on to mention that EuroLinux 6 raches the end of its normal life cycle on November 30, 2020. However, customes can purchase extended support after this date.
Proxmox 6.3 "Virtual Environment"
Proxmox is a commercial company offering specialised products based on Debian. The company's latest release is Proxmox 6.3 "Virtual Environment" which integrates with the distribution's Backup Server software. The release announcement reports: "We are really excited to announce the general availability of our virtualization management platform Proxmox VE 6.3. The most notable new feature is the integration of the stable version 1.0 of our new Proxmox Backup Server. We have strong encryption on the client-side and we have made creating and managing encryption keys for you very simple, providing multiple ways to store keys. VM backups are blazing fast with QEMU dirty-bitmaps. This release also brings stable integration of Ceph Octopus 15.2.6, and you can now select your preferred Ceph version during the installation process. Many new Ceph-specific management features have been added to the GUI like for example displaying the recovery progress in the Ceph status panel or setting the placement groups (PGs) auto-scaling mode for each Ceph pool in the storage cluster. In general, we have added even more functionality and usability enhancements to the GUI." Additional information can be found in the company's release notes.
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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: 2,242
- Total data uploaded: 35.0TB
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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) |
Does an entirely free operating system cover all your needs?
In this week's review of Trisquel GNU/Linux we talked about how this desktop distribution strives to provide software for most tasks in a friendly desktop environment while also being made entirely from free software. Can an entirely free software operating system cover all your computing needs? Can free drivers run all your hardware and free & open source applications perform all the tasks you want to accomplish on your computer? Let us know if there are any gaps in free software functionality you would like to see addressed in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using Secure Boot in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Free software covers...
| All of my needs: | 439 (26%) |
| All my application needs but not hardware: | 364 (22%) |
| All my hardware needs but not applications: | 222 (13%) |
| Is missing hardware and application functionality: | 532 (32%) |
| Unsure: | 109 (7%) |
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| Website News |
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 7 December 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 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Issue 1032 (2023-08-14): MX Linux 23, positioning new windows on the desktop, Linux Containers adopts LXD fork, Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ form OpenELA |
| • Issue 1031 (2023-08-07): Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, preventing a file from being changed, Asahi Linux partners with Fedora, Linux Mint plans new releases |
| • Issue 1030 (2023-07-31): Solus 4.4, Linux Mint 21.2, Debian introduces RISC-V support, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 |
| • Issue 1029 (2023-07-24): Running Murena on the Fairphone 4, Flatpak vs Snap sandboxing technologies, Redox OS plans to borrow Linux drivers to expand hardware support, Debian updates Bookworm media |
| • Issue 1028 (2023-07-17): KDE Connect; Oracle, SUSE, and AlmaLinux repsond to Red Hat's source code policy change, KaOS issues media fix, Slackware turns 30; security and immutable distributions |
| • Issue 1027 (2023-07-10): Crystal Linux 2023-03-16, StartOS (embassyOS 0.3.4.2), changing options on a mounted filesystem, Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Fedora debates telemetry for desktop team |
| • Issue 1026 (2023-07-03): Kumander Linux 1.0, Red Hat changing its approach to sharing source code, TrueNAS offers SMB Multichannel, Zorin OS introduces upgrade utility |
| • Issue 1025 (2023-06-26): KaOS with Plasma 6, information which can leak from desktop environments, Red Hat closes door on sharing RHEL source code, SUSE introduces new security features |
| • Issue 1024 (2023-06-19): Debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Debian releases GNU/Hurd 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 nears its end of life, FreeBSD turns 30 |
| • Issue 1023 (2023-06-12): openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the differences between independent distributions, openSUSE lengthens Leap life, Murena offers new phone for North America |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Issue 993 (2022-11-07): Static Linux, working with just a kernel, Mint streamlines Flatpak management, updates coming to elementary OS |
| • Issue 992 (2022-10-31): Lubuntu 22.10, setting permissions on home directories, Linux may drop i486, Fedora delays next version for OpenSSL bug |
| • Issue 991 (2022-10-24): XeroLinux 2022.09, learning who ran sudo, exploring firewall tools, Rolling Rhino Remix gets a fresh start, Fedora plans to revamp live media |
| • Issue 990 (2022-10-17): ravynOS 0.4.0, Lion Linux 3.0, accessing low numbered network ports, Pop!_OS makes progress on COSMIC, Murena launches new phone |
| • Issue 989 (2022-10-10): Ubuntu Unity, kernel bug causes issues with Intel cards, Canonical offers free Ubuntu Pro subscriptions, customizing the command line prompt |
| • Issue 988 (2022-10-03): SpiralLinux 11.220628, finding distros for older equipment and other purposes, SUSE begins releasing ALP prototypes, Debian votes on non-free firmware in installer |
| • Issue 987 (2022-09-26): openSUSE's MicroOS, converting people to using Linux, pfSense updates base system and PHP, Python 2 dropped from Arch |
| • Full list of all issues |
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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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