 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 913, 19 April 2021 |
Welcome to this year's 16th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
When people talk about computer security they are usually looking for ways to keep untrusted individuals out of their data. There are a lot of people out there who would like to access, corrupt, or delete our files for profit, amusement, or leverage. It is less common for people to want to protect their computer systems from themselves and this is the topic we tackle in this week's Questions and Answers column. Do you use any technologies to guard against accidentally deleting files or running a malicious program? Let us know about your approach to saving your data from yourself in our Opinion Poll. We begin this week with a look at two projects: helloSystem, a FreeBSD-based desktop operating system, and Peux OS, an Arch-based Linux distribution. Read on to explore first impressions of these two platforms. In our News section we cover the Pop!_OS team's efforts to customize the GNOME desktop, TENS shutting down, and talk about openSUSE pulling its support from the Free Software Foundation. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: helloSystem 0.5.0 and Peux OS 21.01
- News: openSUSE pulls FSF sponsorship, Pop!_OS unveils modified GNOME desktop, TENS loses its funding, Jonathan Carter wins Debian Project Leader election
- Questions and answers: Protecting files in a user's home directory
- Released last week: FreeBSD 13.0, EasyOS 2.7, Proxmox 1.1 "Backup Server"
- Torrent corner: AcademiX, Alpine, EasyOS, EndeavourOS, FreeBSD, KDE neon, Pisi, Promox, Regata OS, SystemRescue, Ultimate Edition
- Upcoming releases: Ubuntu 21.04, Tails 4.18
- Opinion poll: Protecting files from yourself
- New distributions: Carbs Linux
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (14MB) and MP3 (11MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
helloSystem 0.5.0
This week I decided to browse the DistroWatch waiting list for some young projects I have not had a chance to try previously. The first project that caught my eye was helloSystem (sometimes referred to as simply "hello"). The helloSystem project sets out to create a FreeBSD-based operating system which will feel pleasantly familiar to macOS users. The project's website describes the team's efforts as follows:
Based on FreeBSD. Less, but better! For mere mortals. Welcoming to switchers from macOS. Not just a theme. Not a clone of anything, but something with which the long-time Mac user should feel instantly comfortable. The latest technologies, without the complexities of Linux distributions. Without lock down. Without Big Brother. The user in full control.
The operating system ships with FreeBSD 12 as its base with a preconfigured desktop which bears a resemblance to macOS. The project offers one edition, a 1.8GB download for 64-bit (x86_64) machines.
Unfortunately the operating system's live media failed to boot on my test systems, systems which can run FreeBSD, and so I put it aside to try another project.
* * * * *
Peux OS 21.01
The next operating system to catch my attention was Peux OS. Peux is an Arch-based distribution which provides a graphical installer (Calamares) and multiple desktop editions.
Peux OS uses customized Xfce as its default-version. It uses Polybar as its default panel and is tied with apps that will help you secure your data and privacy. Btrfs is the default filesystem with autosnap enabled. As any Arch Linux distributions, Peux OS comes with pacman as default CLI package manager along with yay and Pamac as alternatives. For GUI, use Pamac-Manager, with Flatpak and AUR support options in its settings. It comes with four different desktop flavours: GNOME, KDE, LXQt and Xfce. Xfce is the flagship.
I decided to try the Xfce flagship edition, which is 2GB download for x86_64 machines. Peux OS is unusual in that it does not appear to provide direct download links or mirrors for any of its live media options. Instead we are given torrent links to download. When I was downloading the Xfce edition there was only one seed for the ISO which topped out at 500kB/s which is relatively slow compared to the speeds provided by most free, open source mirrors.
Peux OS's live media boots to the Xfce desktop. A panel at the top of the display holds a search icon in the left corner which, when clicked, opens the application menu. There are some quick launch buttons also on the left side of the panel. Over on the right side we find the system tray and an icon which provides logout options.
There is a large Conky panel in the middle of the desktop which displays the current date. At the bottom of the desktop there is a task switcher which lists the names of open windows. On the desktop we find icons for opening the file manager, a README file, and the Calamares system installer. The README file contains a list of desktop shortcuts and links for contributing to the Peux OS project.
Something which immediately stood out as unusual about Peux is that there are no tool tips for quick-launch and system tray icons. The icons feature simple designs which are small and monochrome. This makes it difficult to tell what an icon does without clicking it. Sometimes even clicking an icon doesn't clear up the mystery. For instance, clicking one icon opens a terminal window and prompts for the user's sudo password, but gives no indication as to why this is happening. I gave it a try and discovered the terminal window runs the pacman package manager to check for software updates and download them if any are available.
The application menu offers a similar challenge. The menu is divided into pages with 30 icons on a page. The icons are packed close together and the text under the icons is often truncated, making it impossible to know what an application is before opening it. Even then sometimes there is some confusion. For instance, when I launched an icon called Butter it prompted for my password, but again gave no indication as to why or what action would be accomplished with the elevated access.
Peux OS 21.01 -- The custom application menu
(full image size: 1.8MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Installing
When trying to launch the Calamares installer a warning appears on the desktop saying the program is not marked as executable and is stored in an insecure location. We are asked if we wish to proceed. With a warning like this it seems like a bad idea, which is made worse when, after the warning appears, a second pop-up appears saying that launching the program has failed due to a timeout. Despite these warnings, choosing to proceed opens the Calamares installer.
On the first page of the installer are two buttons marked Donate and Support. Clicking either of these buttons produces an error saying "Failed to execute default WebBrowser." Launching Firefox manually works without any problems so this appears to be a configuration issue with Calamares.
The second page of the installer asks us to select one or more office suits to install. The options include LibreOffice, OnlyOffice, WPS, and Ghostwriter. These options have a description field, but no useful descriptions. I opted to install LibreOffice. We are then asked to confirm our time zone and keyboard layout.
When it comes to partitioning we can use a friendly, manual partitioning tool which is fairly straight forward. Alternatively we can take a guided option which will automatically set up a Btrfs volume using available disk space. The guided approach also allows us to pick one of three options for swap space: no swap, a swap file, or a swap partition. I chose to use a swap partition since Btrfs has some known issues with swap files. The last page of the installer asks us to make up a username and password for ourselves. Calamares then copies its packages to the hard drive and offers to restart the computer.
Early impressions
My pristine copy of Peux booted to a graphical login screen with an image of swirling clouds of coloured smoke in the background. Available usernames are displayed on this page and we can click one to bring up the password prompt. Signing in brings up the Xfce desktop.
Earlier I mentioned the application menu is unusual in that it displays 30 tightly packed launchers which don't always have enough room to display the name of the corresponding program under them. Another unusual aspect is we need to double-click icons to launch a program. Alternatively we can click a launcher once, then press Enter to launch the desired item. To switch between pages in the menu (there are three pages of icons on a fresh install), we need to scroll through the icons and, getting to the end of the page moves us to the next page of 30 icons.
This is unusually cumbersome as it means either using the mouse wheel to scroll through 30 icons per page or selecting the last icon on the page and then moving down to the next page. Luckily we also have the option of typing the name of the program we want to run and this will filter down the list of displayed launchers. However we approach things, this is an inefficient way to access applications.
While I'm talking about the appearance of the distribution, I found the theme to be difficult on the eyes at times. I didn't mind the relatively bright theme with purple icons most of the time. However, buttons often display grey text on a white background making them difficult to read. Not all buttons are like this, some are more brightly lit with better contrast, bringing to mind the classic Windows XP Start button, but enough were low-contrast that I soon wanted to adjust the theme.
Peux OS 21.01 -- Using a terminal with the default colours and transparency
(full image size: 1.6MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
I found the wallpaper would change occasionally. I think about once every five minutes or so we are treated to a new background.
Hardware
When I began testing Peux it was in a VirtualBox environment. I had a few problems with the distribution in the virtual machine. The Xfce desktop did not resize to fit the VirtualBox window. Fixing the resolution situation was made harder because the application menu does not scale well and it proved difficult to find the Display module to adjust the dimensions of the desktop.
The distribution launched applications somewhat slowly and Xfce was unusually sluggish in VirtualBox. Typically Xfce is quite snappy, even in virtual machines, but this time windows stuttered and flickered when moved. There was typically a notable pause when opening menus.
When I switched over to running Peux on my workstation things were much better. There were no delays when loading applications and the Xfce desktop was responsive. All of my workstation's hardware was detected and used properly.
Peux OS 21.01 -- Disabling unnecessary services
(full image size: 1.5MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
I did run into a speed bump when trying to get on-line. While my wireless card was detected, clicking the Network Manager icon in the system tray did nothing. I had to right-click the icon, choose to create a new network connection, and then manually input the network name, security type, and password. Usually, with distributions which use Network Manager, one can simply click the icon, click the name of the network we want to join, and type the password. Peux forces the user through a roundabout approach which is likely to throw off less experienced users.
Peux consumed about 514MB of memory when signed into the Xfce desktop. This puts the distribution around the middle-weight category for Linux distributions. However, Peux consumes a surprisingly large amount (11GB) of disk space for a fresh install, not including swap space.
Applications
Peux ships with a collection of software which is mostly made up of standard items. Firefox, LibreOffice, the MPV media player, the Leafpad text editor, and the GNU Compiler Collection are all present. There are some tools though which are much less common. BlueMail and Discord are installed for us, along with Electron and Lplayer. The distribution supplies codecs for popular media formats.
Peux OS 21.01 -- Running the Tor Browser and LibreOffice
(full image size: 382kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
There are some security tools included such as the Firejail sandboxing software and Firetools, which is used to make shortcuts for applications we wish to run inside a sandbox. The Tor web browser is present for anonymous web surfing. We are also given a copy of the Clam anti-virus software and a graphical front-end to manage it.
In the background Peux ships with the systemd init software and version 5.10 of the Linux kernel.
At first it seemed as though there was no screenshot utility installed. I couldn't find one in the application menu and pressing the Print Screen button did not appear to do anything. I found out later than pressing Print Screen caused a screenshot to be taken and silently saved in my home directory with the timestamp conveniently placed in the filename. Usually screenshot tools tend to place new items in the Pictures directory, but once I found out where the images were being saved, I was able to sort them into new locations.
I tried using the Clam anti-virus software. Performing scans, even on directories with very few (or zero) files took over a minute. I discovered that performing scans of directories does not include sub-directories or hidden files, making it important to remember to scan each sub-directory separately.
Peux OS 21.01 -- Clam's scanning results for the home directory
(full image size: 864kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
I do like that Firejail is installed by default. It is a useful way to isolate software, especially network-facing applications. I'm hoping future releases integrate Firejail more completely, perhaps launching applications inside sandboxes by default.
Software management
While we can use command line tools such as pacman and yay to manage software on Peux OS, the Pamac software centre is readily available in the application menu. Pamac is split into three tabs: Browse, Installed, and Updates.
Sometimes while I was using Peux, a notification would appear next to the system tray telling me new software updates were available. Clicking the provided button would open Pamac and display the Updates tab. It looks as through Pamac lists new packages from both the official Arch Linux repositories and from the Arch User Repository (AUR). Some of the items available to upgrade are listed as needing to be built and are not available through the pacman command line tool which leads me to believe they are third-party community contributions from the AUR.
The Installed tab lists packages already on our system with the option of removing them. Both the Installed tab and the Updates tab functioned smoothly. When I tried to use the Browse tab to discover new applications I ran into a problem. The Browse tab always showed me a message which said "No package found." I tried changing the filter for types of software shown, I tried switching between Group and Category views, I tried to refresh the package database. In each case Pamac failed to find any software to show me. Meanwhile the pacman command line tool not only successfully performed searches, it also installed new packages and updates without any issues.
Peux OS 21.01 -- The Pamac software centre
(full image size: 570kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
While Pamac was unable to find or install new applications for me, it was able to fetch new software updates. The first time I used Pamac for this purpose it prompted me to import and trust the Tor Browser security key. This probably should have been enabled ahead of time, but accepting the key allowed all updates to proceed cleanly.
Other observations
Right-clicking window names on the task switcher panel causes the window to close without confirmation. Other task switchers usually bring up a window control menu in response to right-clicks so this may surprise people and result in data loss.
A few days into my trial, a new dock appeared at bottom of the desktop. I had not added any new programs or services so it was a surprise when it just showed up one day when I signed in.
Conclusions
It appears as though Peux OS is still in its early stages so it is reasonable to expect the distribution to have some rough edges. Which is good, because there are a lot of rough edges. Just during the first hour setting up the distribution I ran into several issues. The project doesn't appear to offer (at the time of writing) direct download links, the live media warns us against running the Calamares installer, and the Support button in the system installer doesn't work.
To make matters worse, Peux does not function well in a virtual machine, which is unusual for a distribution running the Xfce desktop. Plus the graphical front-end for package management seems to be broken and unable to install new applications.
My biggest concerns with this distribution though are in the little day-to-day tasks. The application menu is unusual in many ways (it doesn't scale well, it requires double-clicks to launch applications, and it is horribly tedious to navigate). I also found the lack of tool tips when hovering the mouse over quick-launch and system tray icons, combined with the tiny, minimal icon designs, meant I constantly had to take my best guess at what any given button would do.
I sometimes encounter distributions which try something different. A new launcher, a new desktop layout, a different style of managing packages or organizing windows. Sometimes these unusual approaches take some time to adjust to before they make sense. Sometimes the design is good and the problem is me and my habits - my muscle memory. I can see the benefit of the alternative approach, even if it takes me all week to relearn how to use it efficiently. I cannot find any benefit to Peux's unusual application menu layout, mystery icons, or the way programs instantly close instead of displaying a menu when I right-click on their window button. All of this seems to add extra steps and guess work without any perceived benefit.
When I add to this the launcher dock magically showing up on the third day of my trial and the problems I ran into setting up networking and installing software, I'm hard pressed to find a benefit to using Peux over any of the other dozen Arch-based distributions which use Calamares to set them up and run Xfce as their flagship desktop.
* * * * *
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) |
openSUSE pulls FSF sponsorship, Pop!_OS unveils modified GNOME desktop, TENS loses its funding, Jonathan Carter wins Debian Project Leader election
The openSUSE project decided to follow Red Hat's example and pulled their sponsorship of the Free Software Foundation along with events and organizations associated with it. "As a board, we also believe that these principles that apply to our openSUSE communities shall also apply to the events and groups that we partner with and sponsor. We are reassessing our sponsorships in that light. In accordance with this statement, we are discontinuing sponsorship of all events and organizations affiliated with the Free Software Foundation until further notice." This move comes about two weeks after Red Hat made a similar announcement.
* * * * *
System76 sells computers bundled with their custom, Ubuntu-based operating system, called Pop!_OS. System76 is experimenting with a modified GNOME desktop experience based on feedback from their community. For instance: "We separated the Activities Overview into two distinct views: Workspaces and Applications. As before, the Workspaces view will allow you to view your open windows and workspaces, while the Applications view will open an application picker. The latter's new dark background looks slick as a tuxedo and makes it easier to scan for your desired application. During user testing, we found that even GNOME veterans have a tendency to pause in their task after opening the Activities Overview. The split views allow you to access the application picker in a single click, while the cleaner UI design prevents visual distraction." The new desktop style is called COSMIC and is expected to ship with Pop!_OS 21.04 in June of 2021. Further details are available in the company's blog post about COSMIC.
* * * * *
The Trusted End Node Security project, better known as TENS, is a product produced by the United States of America's Department of Defence and is part of that organization's Software Protection Initiative. The TENS project has announced it has lost funding and will be discontinued in the near future. "DISA has announced that they are no longer willing to fund the TENS program. Without a champion organization and funding, the program will be decommissioned in the coming months." While Linux distributions often rise and fall, due to limited time or funds, it is unusual for a government-backed distribution to die out due to a lack of funding.
* * * * *
The Debian developers have cast their votes and elected Jonathan Carter as the Debian Project Leader. Carter ran on a platform of improving stability and filling in administrative gaps in the Debian infrastructure.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Protecting files in a user's home directory
Becoming-more-cautious asks: The other day I nearly wiped out my entire Documents folder. Luckily I just trashed it instead of deleting it and could get it back. Is there a way I can guard my important directories against accidentally deleting them, like forcing the system to ask for my password first?
DistroWatch answers: This is an interesting issue because, unlike most of the security-related questions I received, this one is not asking for a way to guard against outside attacks or protection from malicious family members. Instead this question is basically asking how someone can protect their files from themselves and that is quite a different style of challenge.
There are some things you can do to make it less likely you will delete or overwrite your own files. Assuming you don't plan to change the files yourself you can remove your user's write permission on the files or directories you want to protect. Just about any file manager or the chmod command will let you remove write/delete permission from files and directories. However, if you do this it means you need to give yourself permission back again if you want to update any of the files. If you make certain directories, such as .config or .local, unwriteable then some programs which save information in these locations may no longer function properly.
Most file managers will prompt before deleting data and you can use an alias to make sure the command line deletion tool (rm) prompts before removing a file.
If you are likely to wipe out files while using a specific program, then you can run that application in a sandbox which is not allowed to access or delete your important files. I have written before about how to use Firejail to protect files and resources when running a specific utility.
Ultimately though the best protection against mistakes is to have multiple backups, one kept locally and one stored remotely. I recommend setting up filesystem snapshots (on Btrfs or ZFS) to maintain local copies of files or getting an external hard drive. Having a second external drive which is typically kept at another location, or an on-line storage account, are both good ways to make sure your backups are out of harm's way if your computer is damaged or compromised.
Any data you have on your computer is one power surge, strong magnet, or typo away from being erased. The best defence against this sort of data loss is to make multiple copies and keep at least one of them detached from your computer.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
FreeBSD 13.0
The FreeBSD project has announced the availability of FreeBSD 13.0. After an extended development cycle, FreeBSD has arrived with a number of key improvements and features, in particular ARM64 is now a Tier 1 architecture, meaning it will receive additional support: "Removed the obsolete version of the GNU debugger that was installed to /usr/libexec for use by crashinfo(8). Detailed kernel crash information can be obtained by installing modern GDB from ports or packages. Removed the obsolete binutils 2.17 and gcc(1) 4.2.1 from the tree. All supported architectures now use the LLVM/clang toolchain. The BSD version of grep(1) is now installed by default. The obsolete GNU version that was the previous default has been removed. Removed CU-SeeMe support from libalias(3). The qat(4) driver has been added, supporting some of the cryptographic acceleration functions of the Intel QuickAssist (QAT) device. The qat(4) driver supports the QAT devices integrated with Atom C2000 and C3000 and Xeon C620 and D-1500 platforms, and the Intel QAT Adapter 8950. Several deprecated drivers have been removed. Several drivers have been ported to the PowerPC64 architecture. The kernel now supports in-kernel framing and encryption of Transport Layer Security (TLS) data on TCP sockets for TLS versions 1.0 through 1.3." Further information can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
EasyOS 2.7
Barry Kauler has announced the release of EasyOS 2.7, a new version of the project's minimalist (and experimental) Linux distribution with roots in Puppy Linux. This version is part of the "Dunfell" series, compiled from the source code of a port of the OpenEmbedded project. From the release announcement: "EasyOS 'Dunfell' version 2.7 has the driver's seat and is the flagship release. Almost all of the packages are compiled in OpenEmbedded, with the exception of a few large and difficult-to-cross-compile packages, such as LibreOffice and SeaMonkey - these were compiled in the running EasyOS 2.7 pre-release. LibreOffice and SeaMonkey are the latest versions, 7.1.2 and 2.53.7. Network management has been enhanced with ModemManager, which NetworkManager Applet and ModemManage GUI are frontends for. NetworkManager Applet is an icon in the systray and ModemManager GUI is in the 'Network' menu. The Linux kernel is 5.10.26. There have been some significant bug fixes since the previous release of EasyOS, including faster startup of a Linux distribution desktop in a container (without wallpaper corruption), Osmo stability, and the X.Org Wizard previously causing X not to start."
EasyOS -- Running a desktop container
(full image size: 96kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Proxmox 1.1 "Backup Server"
Proxmox is a commercial company offering specialized products based on Debian GNU/Linux. The company's latest release is Proxmox 1.1 "Backup Server". The new release is based on Debian 10 and features ZFS 2.0. "Proxmox Backup Server supports LTO (LTO 4 and newer). Tape backup jobs: back up datastores to a media pool. Tape restore jobs: restore content of a media set to one or more datastores. Flexible retention policies. New user space tape driver written in Rust. Support for various tape autoloaders: mtx tool rewritten in Rust (now called pmtx). Configuration of components, jobs, and schedules via GUI. Proxmox LTO Barcode Label Generator, a small web-app, to generate and print bar-code labels. Two-factor authentication (TFA) for the GUI. Time-base One-Time Password (TOTP), WebAuthn, and recovery keys for single use." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
EndeavourOS 2021.04.17
Bryan Poerwo has announced the release of a new version of EndeavourOS, a rolling-release Linux distribution based on Arch Linux. It aims to be an easy-to-install and pre-configured system featuring Xfce as the default desktop environment. From the release announcement: "We are proud to announce our second release of 2021 and this one is a bit more than a refresh ISO image release, so before you hit the download button and go play with it, just sit back and let us inform you first because we are really excited about this release. We already covered our websites receiving a new look but in this case, I want to put the spotlight on our wiki. Our Discovery magazine has been discontinued due to a lack of writers and it now has been rebooted as the EndeavourOS knowledge base for both x86_64 and ARM. The other new feature on the knowledge base are video tutorials - like the wiki articles, this category will expand over time and at the moment it contains general Linux and Arch-specific tutorials from the Chris Titus Tech and EF Linux YouTube channels."
* * * * *
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: 2,403
- Total data uploaded: 37.1TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Protecting files from yourself
In our Questions and Answers column this week we discussed methods for protecting a person's files from themselves. Or, more broadly, we looked at ways to protect files from a person's own programs and mistakes. Do you use any technical solutions to guard against data loss due to a mistyped command or rogue program?
You can see the results of our previous poll on deciding whether to install a distribution based on preferred Linux filesystems in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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I guard my files from my own programs with...
| Containers: | 16 (1%) |
| Filesystem permissions: | 127 (10%) |
| MAC (SELinux/AppArmor): | 38 (3%) |
| Multiple user accounts: | 27 (2%) |
| Sandboxing: | 22 (2%) |
| Virtual machines: | 57 (5%) |
| Other: | 159 (13%) |
| Some of the above: | 174 (14%) |
| None of the above: | 608 (50%) |
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|
| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Carbs Linux. Carbs Linux is a source-based Linux distribution that aims to be simple, flexible and extensible while staying as pragmatic and practical as possible. The system can consist of as much or as little as its user can intend to. Carbs Linux uses its own package manager Carbs Packaging Tools, a POSIX shell package manager forked from KISS. Carbs uses Busybox for its core command line tools and supports multiple init implementations.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 26 April 2021. 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 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Issue 1032 (2023-08-14): MX Linux 23, positioning new windows on the desktop, Linux Containers adopts LXD fork, Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ form OpenELA |
| • Issue 1031 (2023-08-07): Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, preventing a file from being changed, Asahi Linux partners with Fedora, Linux Mint plans new releases |
| • Issue 1030 (2023-07-31): Solus 4.4, Linux Mint 21.2, Debian introduces RISC-V support, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 |
| • Issue 1029 (2023-07-24): Running Murena on the Fairphone 4, Flatpak vs Snap sandboxing technologies, Redox OS plans to borrow Linux drivers to expand hardware support, Debian updates Bookworm media |
| • Issue 1028 (2023-07-17): KDE Connect; Oracle, SUSE, and AlmaLinux repsond to Red Hat's source code policy change, KaOS issues media fix, Slackware turns 30; security and immutable distributions |
| • Issue 1027 (2023-07-10): Crystal Linux 2023-03-16, StartOS (embassyOS 0.3.4.2), changing options on a mounted filesystem, Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Fedora debates telemetry for desktop team |
| • Issue 1026 (2023-07-03): Kumander Linux 1.0, Red Hat changing its approach to sharing source code, TrueNAS offers SMB Multichannel, Zorin OS introduces upgrade utility |
| • Issue 1025 (2023-06-26): KaOS with Plasma 6, information which can leak from desktop environments, Red Hat closes door on sharing RHEL source code, SUSE introduces new security features |
| • Issue 1024 (2023-06-19): Debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Debian releases GNU/Hurd 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 nears its end of life, FreeBSD turns 30 |
| • Issue 1023 (2023-06-12): openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the differences between independent distributions, openSUSE lengthens Leap life, Murena offers new phone for North America |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Full list of all issues |
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