 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.
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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) |
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.
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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)
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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: 2,264
- 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)
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New distributions added to waiting list
- HefftorLinux. HefftorLinux is an ArcoLinux-based distribution with multiple desktop environments.
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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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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • auto mount (by vern on 2020-12-14 00:51:18 GMT from United States)
My fstab does not contain mounting for my usb device, and yet its mounted differently.
I only have 3 devices in fstab. I never really bouther adjusting fstab.
2 • auto mount 2 (by vern on 2020-12-14 00:53:34 GMT from United States)
The USB device does appear on /proc/mounts though. I never knew about checking there before.
3 • Springdale Linux (by Oko on 2020-12-14 00:55:35 GMT from United States)
In the lieu of the fact that IBM just killed CentOS, how about reviewing the oldest and the only remaining truly free RHEL clone Springdale Linux, which people can use to do the actual work?
http://springdale.math.ias.edu/
4 • fstab (by Newby on 2020-12-14 01:40:41 GMT from Canada)
This week's tip about using and modifying the /etc/fstab entry brings up a question:
I have some 128 Gb USB memory keys from both Lexar and Kingston.
The Lexar units can easily be mounted from the commandline if no fstab entry:
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/memory
The Kingston Data Traveler units will only work by using the UUID.
Is there any way to tell BEFORE you buy such devices whether they are compatible with old-style mounting?
Also, by adding user (or users) and rw options with the above mount command, SHOULD be able to transfer files, but the UUID only devices also seem to reject that, yet work fine if done in X instead of from the commandline. Doesn't seem to be a permissions issue, as this works just fine with the non-UUID supporting devices.
Any ideas?
5 • mounting USB drives (by Jesse on 2020-12-14 02:07:00 GMT from Canada)
@4: "The Kingston Data Traveler units will only work by using the UUID.
Is there any way to tell BEFORE you buy such devices whether they are compatible with old-style mounting?"
I have never encountered a drive that couldn't be mounted using partition names instead of UUID. In fact, I've never used UUIDs when mounting any removable media as it requires more typing and doesn't match dmesg log entries or lsblk output. Half of my thumb drives are Kingstons and they all work with classic /dev/sdc1 style names.
I think there must be either something wrong with the drives (either hardware or partition table corruption) or you've got the wrong device name when you're trying to mount them.
This line, "but the UUID only devices also seem to reject that, yet work fine if done in X instead of from the commandline," also gives me pause. This strongly suggests there is an issue with the command given as the same underlying software is typically used from X.
My suggestions would be to reformat the misbehaving drives and then make very sure the proper device names are being used.
6 • fstab (by Adina on 2020-12-14 02:07:35 GMT from United States)
genfstab / >> /etc/fstab
If you're not an Arch user there are standalone versions of genfstab you can download. It automatically includes swap and any devices mounted to subdirectories of /. If you've restarted the machine already and for some reason can't boot your system, boot it with an Arch Linux install USB, mount your root device to /mnt and other devices to the appropriate subdirectories of /mnt, swapon your swap partition if applicable, and then run
genfstab /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
as though you were in the process of installing Arch. This should restore your fstab to a bootable state, and you can unmount everything and restart into your repaired system. Looking at the new fstab to make sure it includes everything you want is recommended. If you wanted it to refer to UUIDs use option -U and if you wanted it to refer to labels use option -L. Either way the other option will be in a comment so you can switch manually later if you want.
7 • Apple Touch Icon (by Shadow53 on 2020-12-14 02:44:15 GMT from United States)
The TTOS website icon is likely called "apple touch" because that is the hard-coded name of an image that will be used if an iDevice user bookmarks the page or adds the page to their home screen. They evidently decided to reuse that icon file in other places as well.
8 • How many entries are in your fstab file? (by Steve K on 2020-12-14 03:37:18 GMT from United States)
I have 18 entries in my fstab file. Haha, that's because I set up a multi-boot SSD with 14 different Linux distros, 3 data partitions and one swap partition. What fun!
9 • Mounting USB Drives (by Newby on 2020-12-14 03:47:44 GMT from Canada)
@6 Thanks for the helpful comments. After digging up the "suspect" keys and trying to retrace my steps from maybe 3 or 4 months ago, realized my faulty memory had confused 2 different issues I had run into at the time. With the USB keys, the problem did turn out to be permissions. Where my confusion came in was, at that same time, I was trying out a new distro. After some confusion about the fstab, the install memory, and permissions, realized the new distro was assigning the the partitions by UUIDs rather than mount points.
Seeing today's discussion about fstab brought hazy flashback of the issues. Your suggestions helped me retrace what happened. Also taught me that from now on, when trying out a new distro, to keep written notes. Used to do that, but after numerous installs, one gets blase. My memory (the biological one, not the USB keys) "ain't" what it used to be. Trying to think of a suitable Mark Twain quote to insert here......
I seem to have succeeded in reversing the one shown below ("Get your facts first; then you can distort them as much as you please).
10 • Loss of CentOS (by Bobbie Sellers on 2020-12-14 05:31:02 GMT from United States)
Just quoting from the column i scrape together for CUCUG.
"Meet Rocky Linux:
New RHEL Fork by the Original CentOS Creator
December 9, 2020 by Ankush Das
CentOS is a fork of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and
undoubtedly a popular choice to deploy on production servers
because of its rock solid stability and compatibility.
But, now with CentOS Stream, Red Hat just killed CentOS
as we know it. And as expected, people started to fork
Red Hat to give a viable community based alternative to RHEL.
A Brief Recap of the “CentOS Stream” Episode
In case you didn’t know, let me give you a quick overview:
CentOS was a community-driven project which was the
fork of RHEL and acted as a downstream for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux. Soon after IBM acquired Red Hat,
a CentOS Stream distribution was introduced as an
upstream for RHEL. More information at the URL below.
<https://news.itsfoss.com/rocky-linux-announcement/>"
I have heard good things about the former CentOS
developer and as one person points out Springdale
Linux will do the same work as CentOS.
I wonder if Rocky Linux will give it a challenge.
bliss - “Nearly any fool can use a computer. Many do.” After all here I am...
11 • other RHEL clones (by Alexis de Tocqueville on 2020-12-14 06:37:51 GMT from United States)
In addition to the aforementioned Springdale, there's Oracle and Scientific Linux.
Oracle and Larry Ellison are, of course, twirl-the-moustache evil. But if you need somebody to sponsor a tennis tournament in California, go for it.
Many observers, including Distrowatch, think Scientific has lost its way. That's a shame, for at one time it had appeal to an audience wider than the scientific and research communities it was originally aimed at.
12 • Moving from CentOS to Oracle (by Microlinux on 2020-12-14 07:01:47 GMT from France)
I've decided to move my company's servers from CentOS to Oracle. Since the CentOS announce, I've spent quite some time experimenting, and I published a detailed blog article about it.
https://blog.microlinux.fr/migration-centos-oracle-linux/
tl;dr: Oracle has done evil things, but Oracle Linux is excellent.
13 • Oracle Linux? (by Pjo on 2020-12-14 08:52:17 GMT from Ireland)
Not being a Red Hat or Centos user I never considered it. Curious to know more I searched. Found this
https://www.itcentralstation.com/questions/what-is-the-biggest-difference-between-oracle-linux-and-redhat
Dumping Centos immediately seems a bit precipitate given the prospects for Rocky Linux appear bright.
14 • Rocky Linux (by Any on 2020-12-14 10:32:59 GMT from Spain)
Too rocky the name. They (he) should've paid the tribute by other way e.g. the logo.
15 • CentOS and commerce with Linux (by Random Thought on 2020-12-14 10:45:03 GMT from India)
I think it's a good beginning.
IBM wants an useful server software to replace it's ancient AIX business. RHEL is a good choice. CentOS is taking away some share free of cost.
What is for client now ? Well there are Windows, Android, Chrome OS, Mac, iOS already in good shape and no need to compete in that flooded sector, so forget GNOME. At least IBM doesn't suffer from NIH syndrome or any sentimental issue as far as I know unlike Red Hat.
Now, we the general GNU Linux desktop/laptop users will no more get surprising & disturbing UX experiences any more. No more Pot... or similar creature will come up to show it's talent now & then and disturb our talent growth.
We are better with natural development process than development for the sake of development (on a rocket engine to entice the financial investors).
Peace be hold on the GNU Linux world.
Now what about the Linux? Let us see ...
16 • RHEL clones (by whoKnows on 2020-12-14 11:51:28 GMT from Switzerland)
@11 • other RHEL clones (by Alexis de Tocqueville)
"In addition to the aforementioned Springdale, there's Oracle and Scientific Linux."
Scientific Linux is no more.
"Scientific Linux (SL) is a Linux distribution produced by Fermilab, CERN, DESY and by ETH Zurich.
In April 2019, it was announced that Scientific Linux would be discontinued, but that maintenance will continue to be provided for the 6.x and 7.x releases through the end of their lifecycles. Fermilab will utilize CentOS for its deployment of 8.0 instead."
https://listserv.fnal.gov/scripts/wa.exe?A2=SCIENTIFIC-LINUX-ANNOUNCE;11d6001.1904
And Oracle ... I don't know ... many of those who played with fire got burned ...
Anyway, the only place I know where one can download it for FREE is here:
https://mirror.netcologne.de/oracle-linux/OL8/
17 • fstab (by James on 2020-12-14 11:59:39 GMT from United States)
The only time I have had to edit fstab was when putting a second OS on my computer, which changed the UUID for swap. The first tutorial I read on fsab said to always back it up before editing it, which I have always done.
18 • Rocky Linux vs. Oracle Linux (by Microlinux on 2020-12-14 12:17:28 GMT from France)
Right now, Rocky Linux is a README file on Github. Oracle Linux is a full-blown free-as-in-speech-and-beer Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone with a few nifty extras that's been alive and kicking for the last 14 years.
19 • @11 Oracle: (by dragonmouth on 2020-12-14 12:48:10 GMT from United States)
"if you need somebody to sponsor a tennis tournament in California, go for it."
Not for much longer. Larry Ellison has announced that he will be moving his HQ from Silicon Valley to Texas. Of course, he could be only trying to extort concessions from the California.
20 • TTOS, fstab, and CentOS (by cykodrone on 2020-12-14 13:39:45 GMT from Germany)
Re:TTOS, "The website offers very little information about the distribution or its add-on sync product".
I use a distro based on Debian (TTOS is based on Debian), and loaded it to the breasts with internet programs, games, multimedia, workhorse applications (office, etc), utilities, hack/crack tools, monitors, etc. I'd be lucky to max out at 3,000 PACKAGES, that includes the supporting libs, base OS, etc. This is from the TTOS webpage, "59,000+ Applications Available", wrong, that's the count of packages in their ("Our in house repositories") repo, nowhere near the number of actual user-space "application" options. I'm not fond of deception (blatant or accidental), that's why I'm mentioning it. While all packages are software, not all packages are applications, far from it.
Re: fstab, I can write an fstab from scratch, by hand, and I know the commands to discover the drives' UUIDs, and attributes. Depends on the machine, my PC has multiple SSDs, and even more storage HDDs (NTFS, and 'Trash' configged, by me, but prefer to just 'delete' in Thunar though, which bypasses 'Trash'). This is why I buy dependable PSUs ('Gold' or higher), with plenty of power overhead, I never know what extra junk might get stuffed in to the PC, aside from making sure the CPU has plenty of oomph, when it needs it.
Sad to see CentOS fade to oblivion, flirted with it back in the day. I liked it, but because it was the 'free' version of RH, it was a bit too locked down and restrictive. I did 'unlock' it for 'unapproved' apps and repos, but like any other distro with the same 'model', things started to get messy.
Thanks for reading my comment, and have a nice day. :)
21 • fstab and UUID (by jinnicky on 2020-12-14 14:45:48 GMT from United States)
grep "^/" /proc/mounts does not list the NFS mounts which are vital for me.
Like @17, I have had problems with the UUID on swap files when I added another distribution to the system. When a new version of the distribution I'm using comes out, I generally install it in new partitions. That way I can access old config files etc or switch back to the old version to check something.
I'm not sure what the point is of the UUID when they are changed that way. I generally edit my fstab back to the drive and partition number which doesn't change.
22 • adding distro re: swap (by wally on 2020-12-14 16:13:37 GMT from United States)
Distro install options differ some but when possible, I always manually set the partitions and do NOT format the swap partition (except when I forget). That keeps the UUID constant and does not require updating the other OS fstabs.
Obviously, I share one swap partition among all my distros.
23 • Centos (by Robert on 2020-12-14 16:54:56 GMT from United States)
Too bad about the date of Centos. I wasn't a user myself, but RH/IBM just pulled the rug out from under a lot of people and businesses. The profit motive is understandable, but this short notice is just burning bridges unnecessarily. Hopefully the new Rocky linux can provide a seamless transition.
I do wonder if the panic is slightly overstated though. I've seen sentiments along the lines of "if centos stream is rolling, I might as well just run fedora." I really doubt it will be that bleeding edge. Probably more along the lines of Debian testing than Debian unstable.
24 • So you accidentally wiped out a critical system file (by Kingneutron on 2020-12-14 17:20:08 GMT from United States)
--The tips contained in the article are gold, but the bigger question is:
WHY are you not doing at least weekly tar backups of critical system files??
--If you had that, it would be easy-restore.
25 • CentOS is Dead, Long live Rocky Linux (by superjc710e on 2020-12-14 18:09:20 GMT from Canada)
Just another shoutout to Rocky Linux (https://rockylinux.org/). It's been thrilling to watch the community rally and coalesce around this new replacement headed by the one of the original founders of CentOS. If the momentum continues at this pace, we should see something tangible real soon!
Forums: https://forums.rockylinux.org/
Slack: https://join.slack.com/t/hpcng/shared_invite/zt-k29vv4ab-yj1ksbHK_ZkXYi6HGtTYfw
26 • Yes, go to Oracle Linux... (by ohnoo on 2020-12-14 18:32:47 GMT from Puerto Rico)
... and see it transforming into Oracle Stream.
27 • CentOS Stream replacing CentOS (by Raphael Mendes on 2020-12-14 19:35:41 GMT from Brazil)
@15 (by Random Thought):
If I understood the meaning of your comment, you welcomes the IBM's decision to make "CentOS Stream" a kind of "Debian Testing" or "Slackware Current" for RHEL development. You even seem to believe it could exorcise evil spirits like Mr. Poettering...
But any giant corporation is just a serious business trying to be profitable, not trying to "make Linux great again". So IBM keeps fighting to be ahead of their competitors. And it certainly bought Red Hat for pure convenience, not for love to Linux. By the way, what "amazing and non-proprietary technology" IBM brought to RHEL?
GRUB2 (an ugly script jungle), Systemd (the plague of binary blobs), and many other abominations, are still there. Do you really think "CentOS Stream" will get better by the influence of IBM? I think the ever growing insanity in the corporate world will end up destroying the Linux world. Then we should now jump on the BSD ship to save our geeky lives from that crapware flood.
Corporations want power and money, and nothing else. Not a single one of them, no matter how "benevolent" it be, will put the fun back to computing!
28 • Shame about CentOS (by CS on 2020-12-14 19:49:20 GMT from United States)
Red Hat honeymoon at IBM is officially over. I'm not optimistic about the community-driven approach, this is not a Jenkins vs. Hudson type situation, it takes way more time and money to keep an OS secure and current with new hardware and RHEL development will continue fast and furious. Hope I'm proven wrong so good luck to those teams.
I answered "0" for fstab entries, just for the giggles. To be fair though I haven't looked at an fstab in many many years. I agree with Kingneutron here - the real tip here is to set up Timeshift or something like it.
29 • dual OS fstab and swap (by cykodrone on 2020-12-14 19:52:42 GMT from France)
I had to lay out (partition edit) my lappy's SSD to accommodate two OSes, and a single swap. The first OS on the drive demanded a separate root/home, then the second OS (single partition, home in root), then swap at the end of the drive (just over the physical RAM size). Purposely locating partitions is a leftover habit from partition editing magnetic media HDDs, and swinging read/write head arms access times, lol. So 'Model T', lol.
So it was like, total size minus 9GiB, remainder divided by 2, then the first half subdivided (1/3root+2/3home). Both OSes are fine with the one swap, but, kernel 4.9.x was not, had to upgrade to 4.19.x to fix the problem (did both OSes, just to keep them consistent), then the partition 'discovery' stalling during boot disappeared.
My fstab's swap entry (last entry at bottom)...
UUID=big-long-private-random-number none swap sw 0 0
grub/OS1-root/OS1-home/OS2/swap, eezy peezy
30 • IBM/RH eating its young (by mikef90000 on 2020-12-14 20:44:31 GMT from United States)
The huge factor that the Centos change ignored was the ability to learn and get sysadmin 'production level' experience for RHEL Now building that base may require (much?) more paid RH training. Shades of old school Cisco CCNA ..... grrrr ....
31 • my ideal disk layout (by Matt on 2020-12-14 20:53:34 GMT from United States)
My main workstation has a solid state drive with root filesystem, boot and swap partitions. Then I have two identical traditional spinning platter drives set up in RAID 1 configuration that are used for mirroring /home. The RAID drives are high quality ones built for NAS.
The data in my home directory is always mirrored by RAID to protect against drive failure. Since I use free software exclusively, a failure of my SSD is just a matter of reinstalling the Debian operating system, so I am less concerned about that drive failing.
32 • Did someone mention Timeshift?? (by Friar Tux on 2020-12-14 23:11:03 GMT from Canada)
I have tried/tested so many of the backup/system snapshot options out there and have found that all of them (so far) are more bother than they are worth (Timeshift included). I simply copy my 'home' directory to a couple of external drives and keep my favourite OS on a USB stick. The amount of time it takes to reinstall a Linux OS is well worth the time. My go-to OS takes, at the most, 15 minutes - the same time it takes me to make and drink a hot cuppa tea. About the only thing that would make it any easier would be if someone added "Sync This Folder With..." to the system context menu.
To be fair to Timeshift, it does work better if you do manual snapshots to a USB and then restore from there.
33 • CentOS Stream replacing CentOS (by Random Thought on 2020-12-14 23:17:21 GMT from India)
@27 (by Raphael Mendes)
You missed the sarcasm.
Actually, it's not sarcasm, it's reality.
And I'm not contradicting with you, just my words are little cryptic.
Although, discontinuing CentOS doesn't mean IBM ditching GNU Linux as a whole,
I do wish sincerely, that "commercial" Linux distros better leave us alone. Linux was supposed to be community project, it better be that. No disturbing commercial interference is expected. We are not money making Machine.
34 • CentOS Thoughts (by M.Z. on 2020-12-15 00:30:58 GMT from United States)
I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with the CentOS situation, because while I may have never used really used it, I thought it was worthwhile & did good things for both RHEL & the Linux community. I can't imagine that the folks high up at Red Hat wouldn't have known that a fork would be caused & it would be bad for corporate relations with the Linux community. Perhaps finding a quick & easy way to create a more stable step between RHEL & Fedora was always the point of taking over CentOS & getting the Devs form the project was the main goal, but it was bad move regardless of how planned out it was. I thought the RHEL team had higher regard for the Linux community than this & would have tried to discourage this sort of behaviour from within IBM.
At any rate, Oracle is a farcically bad alternative if you have half a clue about how they are & just got a bit burned by IBM/RHEL with CentOS; however, Prinction University seems to have been supporting the Springdale Linux project based on RHEL for a while. If Springdale works anywhere near as well as CentOS I would think the smart users of CentOS would start there for testing alternatives while community forks are sorted out. It might even be worth staying there if its good enough, because no one is buying Princeton University anytime soon & big university like them would seem to want such a project for a variety of reasons, IE a test bed & training ground for IT students based on popular real world OS, a customizable OS for special research projects, etc. They don't give much documentation, but claim to have been doing their thing since before CentOS was a thing.
Worth a try for those interested in such things. Regardless Linux is owned by it's users & it's hard to see anything like the CentOS changes not leading to a movement of users to some other community version, forked or existing.
35 • TTOS - waste of a review (by Andy Figueroa on 2020-12-15 04:33:04 GMT from United States)
Seems to me that reviewing TTOS was a huge waste of electrons. From the web site it looks like the objective is to sell PCs and services, and even that is unfinished and not working.
36 • A21 • fstab and UUID by jinnicky (by James on 2020-12-15 11:47:46 GMT from United States)
Swap having the wrong UUID is not a killer, just a pain. It slows your boot down.
Fix Slow Boot “A start job is running …” in Ubuntu 18.04
http://ubuntuhandbook.org/?s=start+job
“A start job is running for dev-disk-by\x2uuid …(35s \ 1min 30s)”
37 • CentOS (by Otis on 2020-12-15 13:32:49 GMT from United States)
Relevant to me only in that I have been glad such a distro was there, similar to most Linux distros. Indeed, since 1996, when I first encountered Linux, I tried them all. But back then "all" meant just seven or eight.
It's been fun, interesting, and educational, trying different distos since then. But now the list is so long.. ah choices.. yes. But, along with all that fun and interesting education comes growing areas of irrelevancy for each of us, I'm thinking.
38 • Wrong fstab UUID (by cykodrone on 2020-12-15 13:39:43 GMT from Netherlands)
My fstabs have always had the right swap (and other partitions) UUIDs, in my case, the kernel upgrade fixed it. This is a really old glitch, take note of the thread date... https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-desktop-74/waiting-for-device-sda1-to-appear-timeout-1-min-835730-print/
39 • Migrate from CentOS to Debian (by LiuYan on 2020-12-16 07:13:43 GMT from United States)
The decision made by Red Hat or IBM for CentOS is understandable, and it looks like the situation of MySQL in Oracle.
The purpose of this decision is try to turn CentOS users to RHEL users, or, try to turn CentOS users to white rat users of RHEL, or in general: try to make more money.
The impact to CentOS users is that, the free cake is not delicious anymore. But you can still use CentOS, or you can try to migrate to other OS (including RHEL).
Several years ago, I had already started to migrate from CentOS to Debian Unstable for non-critical mission servers due to the lack of packages (ffmpeg, asterisk, media players, media codecs, etc) or package version is too old in CentOS. And Debian seems to be a good replacement for CentOS.
40 • CentOS and Red Hat (by Simon on 2020-12-16 07:52:46 GMT from New Zealand)
Red Hat have done something that may turn out to be quite foolish but is certainly very typical (in business) by sabotaging CentOS. In the short term, by destroying the free version of their product they will indeed push a significant number of CentOS users into RHEL (because people running critical stuff on CentOS will often be prepared to pay to continue with a nearly identical system rather than shift to something like Debian or Ubuntu LTS with the learning curve involved in that). Effectively Red Hat have managed to fulfill their legal (GPL) obligations by releasing the source code...and then while posing as friends, deliberately dismantled the project that had grown up around that code, as many predicted they would do.
It's foolish though, because other users will simply replace CentOS with something like Oracle Linux from Red Hat's commercial competitor. Oracle Linux is, like CentOS, a completely free Red Hat clone....however, whereas CentOS were a Red-Hat-friendly community project that happily pointed their users to Red Hat if they needed commercial support, Oracle is a direct competitor who are now likely to catch the interest of a growing number of community projects who (like most CentOS users) need a *stable* enterprise OS, not some unsupportable rapidly changing half-baked testing OS like Stream. CentOS had a very large user base: if that becomes an Oracle Linux community, steering projects into Oracle's paid support and other products, Red Hat's greed may backfire.
41 • They're helping Canonical too (by Simon on 2020-12-16 08:04:56 GMT from New Zealand)
Of course many others *will* bite the bullet and engage with the learning curve necessary to switch to Debian or (perhaps more likely, as it's a closer fit both in terms of predictable support cycles and availability of commercial support) Ubuntu LTS. If I were a CentOS user there ain't a snowball's chance in hell I'd be thanking Red Hat for sabotaging my free OS by paying them and switching to RHEL, when there are perfectly good free alternatives available. Yes, "my free OS" would have been nearly 100% rebranded Red Hat product anyway...but that's how free software works: they've built Red Hat on and with free software, enjoying the benefits of that, and it's simply their legal obligation to pass that along...so dismantling the most active free distribution of their code was a cynical move that I wouldn't be rewarding out of some misguided (and anti-FOSS) sense of owing them money for developing it.
42 • @39 (by Simon on 2020-12-16 08:26:15 GMT from New Zealand)
Yes indeed, Debian (and Ubuntu LTS) is already a vastly superior alternative to CentOS for desktop stuff like media playback. With the Red Hat family you either have to build your own rpms from source or start injecting packages from third party repos. With Debian and Ubuntu you have a good stable server OS, *and* you can deploy fully functional modern desktops using purely the official packages. Of course you can still do the PPA thing if you don't mind installing stuff from all over the show, but you don't have to: unlike the Red Hat family, the Debian family has enough official packages to put together a decently fully functional modern desktop.
Also, Oracle is basically another greedy corporation like Red Hat: the moment they thought they had enough people depending on it that it would be profitable to stop providing Oracle Linux for free, they'd likely follow Red Hat's example. With the Debian family you have a completely free project produced by volunteers who aren't going to start extorting money from you as soon as they can see your business depends on their product. Red Hat's killing CentOS may turn out to be the best thing that's happened in a long time for Canonical, pushing users right away from the commercially developed Red Hat distro family and into the wide open arms of the Debian family (from which Canonical rather than Red Hat products are the natural fit, when commercial support's necessary).
43 • Centos 8 (by Hoos on 2020-12-16 13:39:43 GMT from Singapore)
"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. "
I think the decision to cut short Centos 8's support to end 2021 is a really nasty move. It's normally a 10-yr support distro, and users would probably have planned on that when they chose to move to Centos 8. It was a clear expectation they would have had. To pull the rug from under them and give them such short notice to move or migrate away is essentially trying to blackmail them into moving onto RHEL. I suspect that for users running many and/or complex systems on Centos 8, 1 year is a blink of an eye, what with needing to test different alternatives, assess the financial impact of each, implement the chosen alternative, sort out any teething problems, etc.
I'm not saying RH/IBM is not entitled to make commercial decisions on something they own, but reasonable notice should have been something similar to the EOL date for Centos7 (or at least 2 years). Act reasonably and more people might consider moving to your paid platform. Instead they are destroying their goodwill with the potential customer base. Talk about burning bridges.
44 • Regarding Centos (by Matt on 2020-12-16 16:59:13 GMT from Singapore)
Personally I think it is botched messaging from Red Hat. However I believe it is not as big a problem as most people think.
I will state that I am not working for Red Hat and cannot speak for them. I am just somebody learning about Linux system admin.
Probably in Red Hat's perspective, it makes more sense to roll out patches and bug fixes first to Centos then to RHEL rather than the current way of doing things. Why offer Centos when they can offer you RHEL since it is the same code?
Some users use Centos to do testing to avoid Red Hat's license fee. With the previous Centos dev model downstream of RHEL, how will they know know the next RHEL update used in production will not break their application? With Centos Stream, They can test the same updates first before the updates are applied to RHEL.
For people arguing that Centos Stream is the beta testing for RHEL, from what I read in the web that is not exactly the case. The beta is Fedora Rawhide, similar to Debian's unstable. Every three years, the next RHEL and Centos Stream release will forked from Fedora release version. Red Hat developers will work on Centos Stream first before applying the patches to RHEL. This is similar to FreeBSD stable and release branches.
I think if you or your company already had a contract with Red Hat, it is unwise to recommend to advise migrating to another vendor like Oracle. They know you are migrating due to fear of Red Hat dropping support and will try to charge a higher price. Furthermore if the migration runs into problems, you will be taking the blame. It is better to make use of Red Hat's bad PR move to extract big discounts from their sales team.
45 • CentOS (by Cheker on 2020-12-16 17:54:39 GMT from Portugal)
Good ol' corporate arrogance. IBM will achieve nothing with this other than send more users to the Ubuntu family and erode whatever trust was left in them as a company.
46 • ...and SUSE! (by Simon on 2020-12-16 21:11:45 GMT from New Zealand)
Actually the decision to make OpenSUSE (the more stable “leap” editions) binary compatible with SLED going forward makes this another potentially attractive road away from Red Hat... as the alpha release announcement notes explicitly. @44, the repositioning of CentOS from a stable 100% RHEL compatible enterprise-grade release to an unfinished work in progress that may (in its current form on any particular occasion) differ from the eventual RHEL release is significant and a deal breaker for admins who choose a stable OS precisely in order to be able to forget about it and trust that it will continue to function without time wasting interventions. I wonder sometimes if the people who take stability so lightly have ever really been responsible for supporting hundreds of users? Every change is potentially a bunch of documentation to rewrite, scripts to edit, training sessions to develop and deliver... change is a freaking nightmare unless your entire company is staffed by tech savvy power users. CentOS was one of the few platforms you could trust to invest significant hours into documentation and training and customisations and so on in the knowledge that your work would function as expected for years to come. The fact that so many people now accept shoddy shifting software platforms that require you to hunt around the Internet for documentation (if you’re lucky) doesn’t mean admins who can choose between that circus and stability are going to opt for the circus. CentOS is off the table now, if you want long term stability. It’s pay Red Hat or find a new platform.
47 • Red Hat Shenanigans (by Friar Tux on 2020-12-17 03:54:23 GMT from Canada)
Hmmm, it seems as though we're all forgetting that CentOS code is open source, therefore it stands to reason we can just carry on developing it (maybe with a new name if the old name messes with some copyright). I mean if Oracle can take RH code and use it to become a competitor, surely the CentOS folks can split off and carry on - or am I missing something?
Also, it appears there is a noticeable absence of comments from anyone from Red Hat/IGM. Surely those folks read here, too. Let's hear it from their perspective. Anybody... anybody...
48 • The problem with alternatives (by whoKnows on 2020-12-17 12:14:04 GMT from Switzerland)
@41 • They're helping Canonical too (by Simon)
"[...] when there are perfectly good free alternatives available."
What you say because of CentOS and what all other people always say here, when one mentions Adobe, Avid ...
There is NO alternative.
Yes, there is another alternative in a sense: I can use Inkscape instead of Illustrator, GIMP instead of Photoshop, cut movies with OpenShot ... but ...
It's more than the basic set of functions - it's about the time (Open Source is missing all those tiny AI, 'intelligent' functions), about a collaboration (only the application that wrote a file, is 100 % compatible and only in the exact same version), about professional support ...
Oracle MySQL Enterprise DB is CERTIFIED to work only together RHEL and Oracle Linux - if you let it run on Debian, it might or might not run, but even if it does, you'll still have to pay the full price for it and will get NO SUPPORT in case of trouble.
Just as is with any other professional Windows only SW, there are alternatives, but they are no alternatives (for one or the other reason) even if they work.
49 • To migrate (by whoKnows on 2020-12-17 12:23:56 GMT from Switzerland)
@43 • Centos 8 (by Hoos)
"To pull the rug from under them and give them such short notice to move or migrate away is essentially trying to blackmail them into moving onto RHEL. I suspect that for users running many and/or complex systems on Centos 8, 1 year is a blink of an eye, what with needing to test different alternatives, assess the financial impact of each, implement the chosen alternative, sort out any teething problems, etc."
Well, if we can trust CentOS and Springdale to be "binary compatible" with RHEL, then the migration should be possible in a matter of minutes or hours, if there are many thousands of servers - namely, all it needs is to change the sources.
If they aren't all that "binary compatible" as they claim to be, then the migration might become a serious issue.
50 • The problem stays the same (by whoKnows on 2020-12-17 12:32:17 GMT from Switzerland)
@44 • Regarding Centos (by Matt)
You understood properly how the system works and what CentOS will become, however for many, it will still be a problem because of the certifications.
The certifications are valid only for RHEL and "binary clones" (CentOS, Oracle, Scientific and Springdale)!
Please see @48 • The problem with alternatives (by whoKnows)
51 • CentOS (by RHoagland on 2020-12-18 02:59:47 GMT from United States)
I sincerely hope that no business moves to Red Hat out of protest for IBM's repugnant decision to end support so abruptly.
52 • @9--NO one's memory is what it used to be. (by R. Cain on 2020-12-18 23:16:08 GMT from United States)
@9: "...My memory (the biological one, not the USB keys) "ain't" what it used to be. Trying to think of a suitable Mark Twain quote to insert here......"
Two come immediately to mind (there are probably lots more):
"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."
and
"When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not."
Number of Comments: 52
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| • 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 |
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| • 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 |
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| • 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 |
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| | • 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 |
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| • 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 |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
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