 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 896, 14 December 2020 |
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Welcome to this year's 50th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The CentOS and Red Hat teams drew a lot of attention last week as they jointly announced support for CentOS Linux will be phased out over the next few years. In its place, the CentOS project will be providing CentOS Stream, a development branch which will sit downstream from Fedora and upstream from stable Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases. Details on this change are covered in our News section. We also discuss the openSUSE project working on a build of their distribution for the PinePhone mobile device and the Tails project changing their live media verification process. We also report on the feature roadmap for Univention Corporate Server as the project prepares for version 5.0. First though we discuss a Debian-based distribution on our waiting list called TTOS Linux. Our Feature Story explores this distribution and its features. System administrators often run into moments where they need to recover or restore lost information. This week, in our Questions and Answers section, we explain how to restore a distribution's fstab file. This is the file which tells the operating system which hard drive partitions to mount and how, making it an important part of the boot process. A system's fstab file can vary a lot in size and complexity and we would like to hear how many entries are in your fstab file in this week's Opinion Poll. Then we are pleased to welcome the Debian-based PakOS distribution to our database. PakOS is a general purpose desktop operating system, but has a specific focus on being useful to people living in (or who are from) Pakistan. Plus we are pleased to shared the distribution releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: TTOS Linux 1.1.2
- News: CentOS Linux being phased out for CentOS Stream, openSUSE running on the PinePhone, Tails changing their ISO verification process, changes coming to Univention
- Questions and answers: Restoring the fstab file
- Released last week: CRUX 3.6, GeckoLinux 152.201210, Rescuezilla 2.1
- Torrent corner: Alpine, Archman, CRUX, EasyOS, Endless OS, Garuda, GeckoLinux, KDE neon, Rescuezilla, Zenwalk
- Upcoming releases: Tails 4.14
- Opinion poll: How many entries are in your fstab file?
- New additions: PakOS
- New distributions: HefftorLinux
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (16MB) and MP3 (11MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
TTOS Linux 1.1.2
The TTOS Linux distribution is based on Debian's Stable branch and the main edition of TTOS ships with the KDE Plasma desktop environment. There are other editions of TTOS mentioned on the project's Downloads page which ship with a variety of other desktops such as GNOME and Trinity in case people want an alternative to Plasma. Though I noticed these alternative editions are distributed under separate SourceForge projects, making them appear to be community editions. I downloaded the main Plasma edition for my trial. This edition is available as a 64-bit (x86_64) build exclusively.
The TTOS website does not provide much information on what sets this distribution apart from other projects, the exceptions being a tool called PerformaSync. Not a lot of information is presented, but it appears as though PerformaSync provides on-line storage and file synchronization, similar to Nextcloud.
Usually I don't talk much about project websites, but this one seems to be unusually terse and it gave me spare time to poke around while my copy of their ISO was downloading. One thing which stood out is the project's logo is saved under a filename which identifies it as "apple touch". I'm not sure why TTOS would save their logo filename as "apple touch", but it was one of what turned out to be several visual quirks of the project and this puzzle set the tone for my experience with this distribution.
Installing
The live media boots into the Calamares installer. At least it does when the distribution is running in VirtualBox; when run on my desktop machine I got a different result which I will talk about later. Calamares begins by offering to show us the project's release notes, known issues, and provides buttons to connect us with support. The release notes go to the Calamares release notes rather than documentation for TTOS. The buttons for support and known issues lead nowhere; a web browser opens but fails to display any pages.
Assuming we choose to proceed, the Calamares installer helpfully gets us to pick our time zone and keyboard layout. It also helps us make up a new username and password. We are given the chance to use guided partitioning or use a friendly, manual partitioning tool which works quite well and is easy to navigate. Should we decide to take the guided partitioning option Calamares will set up TTOS on an ext4 filesystem that takes over the entire disk. No other partitions or swap space are enabled. The installer copies its files to the hard drive and offers to restart the computer. If we decide not to restart the machine Calamares closes and we are dropped to a minimal version of the Plasma graphical environment. An icon in the upper-right corner of the screen allows us to logout, moving us to a login page. From there we can shutdown the computer.
TTOS Linux 1.1.2 -- The application menu
(full image size: 211kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Early impressions
TTOS boots to a graphical login screen. The screen is fairly busy with a big clock and options for switching sessions (only Plasma is offered) and keyboard layout. There are large buttons for shutting down the machine in the upper-right corner.
When we sign into Plasma there are icons on the desktop for opening the Dolphin file manager. At the bottom if the display is a panel which holds the application menu, task switcher, and system tray. Immediately after signing in a welcome screen appears.
The welcome screen features five columns of buttons. The first column offers "post install resources", such as access to the project's website and the firewall configuration tool. The second column of buttons list hardware types (NVIDIA, Intel, AMD, Wifi). The third column lists popular applications (LibreOffice, Calligra, Krita), the fourth lists non-free applications (Google Chrome, WPS Office, Steam). The last column is titled "Pimp My Box" and its buttons are labelled "live wallpaper", "ultimate gaming", "ultimate a/v studio", and "Extra's" [sic].
TTOS Linux 1.1.2 -- The welcome window
(full image size: 301kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The welcome screen does not indicate whether any particular buttons are intended to download the listed items or launch them. As it turns it, it's mostly the former, but with a bit of the latter. The Firewall button, for instance, launches a firewall configuration module. This module allows us to enable/disable the firewall and set default incoming and outgoing policy and some basic rules. For some reason the firewall tool would not allow me to disable IPv6 rules. Trying to disable IPv6 caused the firewall to be disabled entirely even though I was on an IPv4 connection.
The other buttons in the welcome screen, the ones listing popular and non-free applications, all try to download those software packages. This is probably why the welcome screen has a notice at the bottom saying we need to run the distribution's update manager from the system tray before pressing any of the download buttons. Unfortunately there is no update icon in the system tray. Well, technically, there is an icon which opens a notification area which includes a widget that can launch the update manager, but it requires a little digging to get there. The warning in the welcome window is accurate though, the download buttons don't work until after we refresh the package database.
Clicking the download buttons in the welcome window worked to download the desired application. Each time I'd be prompted for a password and then a terminal window would open to show the APT package utility working to grab the new software. One button did not work: the WiFi button which appears to be grabbing non-free firmware. I eventually found that prior to clicking the WiFi button I first had to click on another button in the welcome window labelled "able Non-Free Repositori" [sic]. This would set up Debian's non-free repository and then the WiFi firmware button would work. Since one relies on the other it seems like the WiFi button should automatically enable the non-free repositories.
The "Extra's" button was the one which intrigued me most. Clicking this button opens a separate page of the welcome window which offers to install AndroidStudio, AirDroid, and Android Messages.
TTOS Linux 1.1.2 -- The KDE Help application
(full image size: 168kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Hardware
I started out using TTOS in a VirtualBox virtual machine. The distribution worked fairly well in the virtual environment. By default the guest desktop resolution was low (800x600 pixels) and would not dynamically resize. However, I could change the screen resolution of the guest distribution through the KDE Plasma settings panel.
The desktop was a little sluggish to respond at first. However, I found disabling compositing (via another trip to the settings panel) improved performance. After that, Plasma was responsive. The desktop would lock every five minutes without interaction and, as it proved annoying, this too was fixed with a visit to the settings panel.
TTOS Linux 1.1.2 -- The System Settings panel
(full image size: 108kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
When I switched over to running TTOS on a workstation I ran into a few issues. One was that TTOS did not support booting in UEFI mode on my workstation, I had to use Legacy BIOS mode to load the live disc. I ran into another issue while using the live disc which was TTOS booted to a text console rather than the graphical interface. I could run "startx" from the text console to launch Plasma and the Calamares installer.
Another potential problem is that TTOS does not include non-free firmware by default. This prevents some wireless cards from working. If your computer requires non-free firmware to connect to the network then this distribution will not be a good fit.
Another issue I ran into is I could not shutdown or restart the computer from within the Plasma desktop. I had to sign out of my account and then use the poweroff button on the login screen in order to shutdown the computer. This issue existed in both the virtual machine and on physical hardware.
TTOS is a relatively heavy distribution. When signed into the Plasma desktop TTOS consumed 660MB of memory. A fresh install used about 8.5GB of disk space. Both of these space requirements are on the larger side compared to most Linux distributions I have run this year.
Applications
The TTOS application menu is divided into tabs, presenting us with favourite applications by default, but with the full range of applications and other options under separate tabs. When browsing applications we are shown categories of programs and clicking on a category allows us to drill down to specific programs, or sometimes further sub-menus. This method of navigation is slow and can require a lot of digging down and back up if we are not sure which category holds our desired program. To counteract this inefficiency the menu offers a search feature where we can type the name or description of a program we are planning to open.
One thing I like about the application menu is it shows both the description and name of each application next to its icon. This makes it easier to tell what we are about to launch. For example, there may be three programs all labelled "Web Browser" but then they also have names like "Firefox" and "Chromium" underneath.
TTOS Linux 1.1.2 -- Running the Firefox and Konqueror web browsers
(full image size: 783kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Apart from the Firefox and Chromium browsers, TTOS also ships with the Konqueror browser, KMail to check e-mail, the Okular document viewer, a feed reader, and the Kopete messaging software. There are desktop sharing tools, the Dolphin file manager, and the KSysGuard system monitor. There are at least two text editors (Kate and KWrite) along with an archive manager, and a hex editor. TTOS ships with the Dragon Player and Juk for playing video and audio files, respectively. The distribution also includes media codecs, allowing us to play most audio and video files.
Browsing further we find the GNU Compiler Collection is installed to help us build software. The systemd init software is included and the distribution runs on version 4.19 of the Linux kernel.
There are some interesting traits when we look at the included software as a whole. For instance, almost all of it is KDE/Qt software. The developers seems to be sticking to toolkit purity as much as possible in each of the distribution's editions rather than selecting the best tool for the job, independently of the toolkit. I found that trying to run GTK-based software was not practical as the GTK tools do not work with the default theme. Text and background colours on input boxes were often the same, making most tools impractical to use with the default settings.
TTOS Linux 1.1.2 -- Running GIMP with the default theme
(full image size: 136kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
I also failed to find any productivity software. The developers seem to be targeting people who feel multiple web browsers, a compiler, and hex editor are essential, but working with written documents and spreadsheets is not.
I ran into a few crashes, or at least crash reports, while exploring the distribution's range of software. At one point I closed the Juk audio player and, as the player was closing, a crash report appeared in my system tray. I'm not sure if Juk crashed while shutting down or if Plasma mistakenly thought the closing program was terminated prematurely. At another point the entire Plasma desktop crashed, taking my session with it. Plasma restarted after about ten seconds and advised me to submit a bug report.
Software management
Software management on TTOS is primarily handled by Discover. The Discover software manager handled system updates, finding new software, and removing unwanted applications. Discover defaults to showing us popular applications we may wish to install, but can also find new software by name or show us categories of available applications.
Discover has a fairly nice interface and makes finding new applications pretty easy. It also shows progress information as it is working and allows us to work with multiple packages at once. My only complaint with Discover (at least the version which ships with TTOS) is that it is slow to respond. Sometimes when browsing available software the interface seems to have finished loading or to have locked up. Waiting a few extra seconds would cause Discover to "catch up" and finish presenting its information. Should we not wish to use Discover, we can use the APT command line tools to manage packages.
TTOS Linux 1.1.2 -- Browsing the Discover software manager
(full image size: 122kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The first day I was running TTOS Discover reported there were 138 updates available, totalling 238MB in size. The software manager properly handled these updates and, though the process took some time, Discover completed the task successfully.
Most of the available software comes from Debian's Stable repositories, though optionally some also comes from Google's Chrome repository, Debian's non-free repository, and there are a few custom items that are imported from a TTOS server.
By default TTOS does not provide support for portable package formats such as Snap and Flatpak. We can add these ourselves if portable packages are needed.
Conclusions
If I had to sum up my impressions of TTOS in a word it would be "unfinished". Despite being on the DistroWatch waiting list for over a year, the project feels as though it is still on the drawing board. The website offers very little information about the distribution or its add-on sync product. There is virtually no documentation, the wiki is empty, there are no support forums or mailing lists. The documentation links in the system installer don't provide release information, the welcome screen features typos and labels that don't fit on their buttons. We can't restart the computer from within Plasma, which is an unusual limitation.
The Debian core of the operating system is pretty solid, with a lot of software available, but TTOS doesn't appear to offer anything over plain Debian with the KDE Plasma desktop installed. It might actually be a less pleasant experience since GTK-based applications are practically unusable with the default TTOS theme settings. Not to mention TTOS is a surprisingly heavy distribution on disk and in memory without a clear benefit to excuse the extra weight.
This distribution feels like it was rushed out the door, possibly to promote the commercial PerformaSync service, without taking time to test it and polish up the various issues.
* * * * *
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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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
CentOS Linux being phased out for CentOS Stream, openSUSE running on the PinePhone, Tails changing their ISO verification process, changes coming to Univention
The CentOS project will be going through some changes in the coming year. According to a blog post on the Red Hat website, CentOS Linux is going to be phased out in favour of CentOS Stream. The blog post breaks down Red Hat's plans for CentOS in point form: "There will not be a CentOS Linux 9. Updates for the CentOS Linux 8 distribution continue until December 31, 2021. Updates for the CentOS Linux 7 distribution continue as before until June 30, 2024. Updates for the CentOS Linux 6 distribution ended November 30, 2020. Q: What about the releases of CentOS Stream? CentOS Stream 9 will launch in Q2 2021 as part of the RHEL 9 development process. Updates for the CentOS Stream 8 distribution continue through the full RHEL support phase." People who currently use CentOS Linux and do not wish to migrate to Stream are being advised to switch to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The CentOS team have published their own announcement.
* * * * *
The openSUSE project is moving forward in its support for the open, mobile PinePhone device. Basic functionality is in place, but there is still a ways to go to support all of the PinePhone's hardware: "There are still some known issues that need fixing like the Bluetooth, accelerometer and GPS. Garrido has been focused on keeping the releases as stable as possible and plans on progressing with a roadmap to allow him to have a clearer objective of where to continue." People interested in working on or using the PinePhone build of openSUSE can find a lot of useful information and links in the project's news post.
* * * * *
The Tails project is making a change to the tools provided alongside the distribution's live media which verify the origins of the media. "Today, we are retiring the Tails Verification browser extension that used to be advertised on our download page. We are replacing it with similar JavaScript code that now runs directly on the page. This new verification procedure is: Simpler and faster for first-time users; compatible with more web browsers, for example, Edge and Safari; as secure as the Tails Verification extension." The details of this change and available verification options can be found in the project's news post.
* * * * *
There are some changes planned for Univention Corporate Server which will be appearing in version 5.0 of the operating system. The Univention team plans to bring Univention up to date with its Debian base, phase out 32-bit upgrades, and shift service management away from runsv toward systemd. "One section that we will no longer support in UCS 5.0 is updating systems with the i386 architecture, i.e. operating UCS as a 32 bit operating system. Installation media for this architecture have not been available for some time now. With UCS 5.0, you will also no longer be able to update from existing 32-bit systems. Another part of our base updates is the removal of the "runsv" service and the associated package "univention-runit". This service was introduced to monitor other services and restart them in case of problems. With "systemd", this task can be executed more easily and services such as the Univention Notifier, Univention Listener or the DHCP daemon will be converted accordingly." The project's blog post offers further details.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Restoring the fstab file
Recovering-mount-points asks: I whoopsed while updating my fstab file and wiped it out. The system is still running and I can login to it. I wonder if there is any easy way to rebuild /etc/fstab based on the state of the running system?
DistroWatch answers: Linux keeps information on which filesystems are mounted in the /proc/mounts file. This information is already formatted in a way that makes it possible to copy and paste it into the /etc/fstab file for future use.
However, most Linux systems automatically generate additional mount points while they are running which are not stored in the fstab file. You will likely see extra entries in the /proc/mounts file that were not originally in your fstab file. These will include entries for the /proc filesystem, probably sysfs, some tmpfs entries, and most Linux distributions will have entries for systemd. Usually you can filter these entries out by displaying only lines which begin with the "/" character. The following command should provide you with the information you need to copy into your /etc/fstab file:
$ grep "^/" /proc/mounts
/dev/sda1 / ext4 rw,noatime 0 0
/dev/sda2 /home ext4 rw,noatime 0 0
There is a catch though. Any swap partitions you have on the system will not be listed in the /proc/mounts information. You can get a listing of active swap partitions and files which can be added to /etc/fstab by running:
swapon -s
The swapon command will tell you the device name of any swap partitions in use, but will not write out the entire fstab line for us. You will need to write out the line for swap space in your fstab file manually. Assuming swapon tells us our swap partition is /dev/sda3 then we would add the following line to our fstab file:
/dev/sda3 swap swap defaults 0 0
Just be sure to substitute "/dev/sda3" from the above example with the device name the swapon command provides you with on your own machine.
Please note that the above commands will provide information for your fstab file while using specific device names rather than the more commonly used unique device identifiers most distributions use these days. Usually, at least on home computers that just have one or two hard drives, this is probably fine. However, if you are working in a more dynamic environment the device names, like /dev/sda1, can change when you reboot the computer which will cause havoc. Ideally you should exchange the specific device names, like /dev/sda3, with UUID codes in your /etc/fstab file. You can look up the UUID information for your storage devices by running the lsblk command:
$ lsblk -f
| NAME | FSTYPE | LABEL | UUID | FSAVAIL | FSUSE% | MOUNTPOINT |
| sda |
| sda1 | ext4 | root | 9be3f1ba-b47b-42b3-800c-2e4b58c47fb0 | 12.9G | 36% | / |
| sda2 | ext4 | home | 23f06e4c-c074-4091-bad3-6eff87d8c5e0 | 148.8G | 61% | /home |
| sda3 | swap | | d6b081b7-6042-4d10-a077-8d121872f77e | | | [SWAP] |
Note that each entry, such as sda1, has a five-part UUID in the fourth column. We can use this UUID in the fstab file to make sure the system always picks the right partition when mounting filesystems. Originally, let us say we had the following in our /etc/fstab file:
/dev/sda1 / ext4 rw,noatime 0 0
/dev/sda2 /home ext4 rw,noatime 0 0
/dev/sda3 swap swap defaults 0 0
Now, using the UUID information listed by the lsblk command, we can swap out the specific device names for UUID codes and end up with the following in /etc/fstab:
UUID=9be3f1ba-b47b-42b3-800c-2e4b58c47fb0 / ext4 defaults,noatime 1 1
UUID=23f06e4c-c074-4091-bad3-6eff87d8c5e0 /home ext4 defaults,noatime 1 2
UUID=d6b081b7-6042-4d10-a077-8d121872f77e swap swap defaults 0 0
At this point you should be able to restart the system and have all your critical filesystems mounted automatically.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
CRUX 3.6
Juergen Daubert has announced the release of CRUX 3.6, the latest stable build of the project's lightweight Linux distribution featuring a straightforward tar.xz-based package system, BSD-style init scripts, and a collection of trimmed packages: "The CRUX team is happy to announce the release of CRUX 3.6. CRUX 3.6 comes with a multilib toolchain which includes glibc 2.32, GCC 10.2.0, Binutils 2.35.1, Linux kernel 5.4.80 (LTS), X.Org 7.7 and X.Org Server 1.20.10. The ISO image is processed with isohybrid and is suitable for burning on a DVD and putting on a USB drive. UEFI support is available during installation with dosfstools, efibootmgr and grub2-efi/syslinux. Because all bootloaders are in our opt collection now, LILO is no longer installed as a core port by default. To give the possibility to select a bootloader we have added a new menu to setup. Important notes: glibc depends at buildtime on Python 3 now, Python 3 and its dependencies have been moved from the opt collection to core; glibc removed rpc and nsl stuff, we've added the libnsl and rpcsvc-proto ports; we renamed openrdate to rdate, jdk to jdk8-bin and mesa3d to mesa...." See the release announcement, release notes, changelog and the updated CRUX Handbook for further details.
GeckoLinux 152.201210
GeckoLinux is a Linux spin based on the openSUSE distribution, with a focus on polish and out-of-the-box usability on the desktop. The project has published updated media for both its Static and Rolling branches. "All editions in this update receive quality of life improvements for Bluetooth audio users. The default PulseAudio configuration now prevents undesired automatic switching to the low-quality HSP/HFP device profile, and audio streams will automatically switch to newly connected Bluetooth devices using the A2DP profile. Additionally, improved support has been included for the 7zip archive format. Finally, the default GRUB boot sloader configuration has been tweaked to be cleaner and more predictable on EFI systems. A variety of GeckoLinux ISO spins are available with polished desktop environments to suit every need and preference. Each spin contains a well curated selection of preinstalled applications appropriate for the particular desktop environment." Further information can be found in the project's release announcement. There are eight editions of the Static branch and nine of the Rolling branch, one of each are listed here for simplicity.
Rescuezilla 2.1
Shasheen Ediriweera has announced the release of Rescuezilla 2.1, an updated version of the project's easy-to-use disk imaging application compatible with Clonezilla. The key new feature of this version is the ability to easily mount and explore Clonezilla images to extract files: "Rescuezilla 2.1 provides key bug fixes, performance improvements and it also introduces the highly-requested ability to easily extract files from backup images. Key changes: added 'Image Explorer' (beta) to easily mount Partclone images and to extract files; accessing files from uncompressed images (created by Clonezilla's Expert mode) is extremely fast even for very large images; both Clonezilla and Rescuezilla currently default to gzip compression, which requires decompressing a lot of data and makes mounting and exploring images over 50 GB too slow - a future release of Rescuezilla will change the default compression format so mounting large images is always fast and efficient.... Read the rest of the changelog for more details.
Rescuezilla 2.1 -- Starting a backup/restore operation
(full image size: 130kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
* * * * *
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: 2,264
- Total data uploaded: 35.2TB
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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) |
How many entries are in your fstab file?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about restoring the /etc/fstab file. This text file contains a list of filesystems that should be automatically attached to the operating system at boot time, including swap space.
In recent years some tools and filesystems, like ZFS, have side-stepped the fstab file and used other methods of keeping track of what should be mounted. We would like to hear how many entries you have in your /etc/fstab file.
You can see the results of our previous poll on digital assistants in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Number of entries in my fstab file
| 0: | 29 (3%) |
| 1: | 34 (4%) |
| 2: | 128 (13%) |
| 3: | 218 (23%) |
| 4: | 185 (19%) |
| 5: | 117 (12%) |
| 6: | 56 (6%) |
| More than 6: | 201 (21%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to database
PakOS
PakOS is a Debian-based, desktop Linux distribution. The project aims to supply software and tools that will be useful for the people of Pakistan, though the distribution runs well in other regions and includes multi-language support. The project ships with LXQt as the default desktop and pre-installs many desktop applications and security tools.
PakOS 2020-08-24 -- Running the LXQt desktop
(full image size: 708kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- HefftorLinux. HefftorLinux is an ArcoLinux-based distribution with multiple desktop environments.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 21 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 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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aptosid
The aptosid distribution was a desktop-oriented operating system and live CD based on the unstable branch of Debian GNU/Linux. Besides full compatibility with its parent, the distribution also offers a custom kernel with support for a wide variety of modern hardware devices, KDE as the default desktop environment, a rolling release cycle, and compliance with Debian's Free Software guidelines.
Status: Discontinued
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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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