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1 • Several security strategies (by Andy Prough on 2021-04-19 01:55:51 GMT from United States)
I use a combination of apparmor, sandboxing, and virtual machines to segregate data from programs. This is one of the main advantages in using a Linux distro over Windows, is the ability to guard the system and the data better in multiple ways.
2 • protecting files (by Andy Alt on 2021-04-19 02:03:57 GMT from United States)
>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?
This isn't quite the solution for what OP asked, but some may find it useful. I maintain an open source project called rmw.
rmw (ReMove to Waste) is a safe-remove utility for the command line. Its goal is to conform to the FreeDesktop.org Trash specification and therefore be compatible with KDE, GNOME, XFCE, and others. Desktop integration is optional however, and by default, rmw will only use a waste folder separated from your desktop trash. One of its unique features is the ability to purge files from your Waste/Trash directories after x number of days.
3 • Xubuntu tweaked (by Lola Ada Borg on 2021-04-19 02:20:29 GMT from Netherlands)
My comment is not specific to the new Linux distro being reviewed Peux OS.
XFCE is great and it works on many distro's, from Debian, Ubuntu to whatever :)
Years ago I gradually switched to Linux and it was a steep learning curve = through Slackware based stuff (Zenwalk and ... ) until I settled with Xubuntu 11
As a nerd I worked with a tweaked Win98 for a few years. That is decades ago indeed.
SystemRescue (has switched to Arch) and Bootrepair (based on Lubuntu) are essential tools for me at home. Gosh, I have lost count of how much PC's I have worked with, most of them were or are 2nd hand. And is just a hobby, simple.
Regarding bloatware, no further comment. Recently me installed Xub20LTS and removed the [software center] to replace it with synaptic. The default web browser is Firefox, Falkon is an option.
Is Gparted part of Ubuntu - or GSmartControl? Yups, old hardware here and 2 of 5 old hard disks almost failed. Never mind, managed to save all data.
Now I am just an average nerd from Europe ... There are new distro's on the waiting list.
Building a new distro, that is beyond my knowledge and experience. ReactOs is an interesting project, they have been working on it for years. My idea is for an even more basic version of Xubuntu - let's call it Zubuntu? Lola is not a coder, she has done webdesign.
Reviewing a new (version of) of any distro may take a few days. Hardware here is a second hand desktop PC [Lisa] with 2 modern hard disks. No laptop yet, though that could be nice.
By the road, Lola is a Dutch transgendered person and a geek.
4 • 128GB of music mounted @home/Music... (by eee shepherd on 2021-04-19 02:47:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
Accidentally deleted entire /home.
Sadly with 128 gb music sdcard attached, Takes forever to restore from identical backup copy
5 • Protecting yourself from shooting your own feet (by Love Bami Goreng on 2021-04-19 04:55:06 GMT from United States)
I haven't used ext4 attributes much, but I think you can set the immutable attribute (see chattr). This might make the files a little too immutable for your purposes, though.
Another way would be to create hard links to the files using ln. This kinda creates a poor man's backup. I used to do this in the days when you had to write your own XF86config file, and in those days, I would occasionally find files were somehow mysteriously deleted, and having to redo all those modelines was annoying. Saved me once. Of course, the links have to be on the same partition as the files.
If I were doing it, I probably wouldn't use either of these methods, though.
6 • Hello System (by matt on 2021-04-19 05:00:18 GMT from United States)
I've tried the hello system in a VM and on an old thinkpad. Never had a problem installing. I like the idea behind it and I hope it takes off. I don't think I would use it over my preferred OS (debian) but hello system has some good ideas and I hope it grows.
7 • Protection (by Sondar on 2021-04-19 07:03:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
None of us mere humans are immune from our own actions.
Only one computer? Surely not - get another one gratis from the local tip; if necessary renovate two (several?!) into one working box. Can stack two on top of each other under the desk. [Spousal objections are not relevant where the family's wealth & knowledge base are concerned.]
Got a laptop? Never touch them; unreliable, prone to accidental damage, tedious repair options, over-stressed components, theft risk, you-name-it.
Then there's multiple discs, rotating & SSD, Clonezilla, caddies, external self-powered, USB-powered and separately powered.
As for risks from external forces, flood, fire, pestilence, theft, etc. with caddies and stored clone discs - only need to grab one of them with your wallet and trousers...
8 • Protect home? (by Jan K. on 2021-04-19 07:09:45 GMT from Denmark)
Sorry, but nothing on my systems are in any way or form protected against me. I'm the user, administrator and what-not... everything's on my mercy! :)
But I do keep multiple backups of everything...
9 • file protection (by James on 2021-04-19 09:59:20 GMT from United States)
Not only don't I protect my files, I also use the optional "delete" command in my file manager rather than the "move to trash". The best protection is paying close attention before you delete anything!
10 • Protecting my files (by burdi01 on 2021-04-19 10:22:47 GMT from Netherlands)
Over here the same as in #8.
As an aside: the poll does not mention the multiple backups option.
:D
11 • Protecting against accidental deletions (by Scott Dowdle on 2021-04-19 11:51:59 GMT from United States)
The only real protection against accidental deletion is backups. If you are using other methods thinking it'll save you, think again. Drive failure and accidental deletions... has had a solution for decades... and didn't need some new technology to come around and save you. Backup the stuff you care about. No really, backup the stuff you care about.
12 • How I backup (by John on 2021-04-19 12:10:41 GMT from United States)
Hi All,
I just lost a 32GB SD card with a 3 weeks of work on it.
Yesterday I backed up a whole SD card to a USB magnetic disk.
Gotta remember to do this more regularly.
John - NH USA
13 • Protect against data loss (by Will on 2021-04-19 12:45:43 GMT from United States)
Two things - Git and ZFS. Git for specific stuff and ZFS for everything. Haven’t lost a file or part if a file this way other than through my own stupidity (delete, delete snapshots, overwrite disk!)... ever.
14 • Protecting File in a Users Home Directory (by Rick on 2021-04-19 13:32:21 GMT from United States)
Ha! Feeling that pain right now, how ironic. "Oh! That was a symlink back to ~/subfolder?" while cleaning cruft from my backup.
15 • Protecting files (by Robert McConnell on 2021-04-19 13:38:26 GMT from United States)
Each workstation has a cron job that calls rsync for multiple file trees every night, even on the Raspberry Pi's. The file servers used as a destination all have multiple drives in RAID-1 configurations. I occasionally prune the destination drives of files that have been untouched for over a year, but I am more likely to use mv than rm. Not letting my fingers get too familiar with the latter command helps make me think about it more closely when I do need to use it.
16 • Midnight Commander (by Kingneutron on 2021-04-19 13:31:13 GMT from United States)
If you want to be extra careful when deleting multiple files or a directory tree, use Midnight Commander instead of the GUI. Can tag multiple files and F8 to delete, it will even prompt you yes/no. Safest way I know of to delete a directory.
I protect my files with ZFS snapshots and have a script to move /home to zfs here:
https://github.com/kneutron/ansitest/tree/master/ZFS
The best way to really protect your files is to have a backup schedule. If you can't put it in cron then do it every Friday or Saturday, as long as it's the same day each week.
17 • Protecting user files using chattr? (by Kyle on 2021-04-19 13:39:24 GMT from United States)
Upon reading the Q&A about protecting user files, I immediately thought about the chattr command and file attributes. The only attribute I have personally used up to this point is the immutable ('i') flag, but as @5 mentioned, that might make things too unchangeable. So I looked at the documentation and found two seemingly promising alternatives, append only ('a') and undeletable ('u').
Without changing any of my (default) access control settings, applying the 'a' attribute required switching to the superuser, which is generally not a good idea when trying to protect files from mistakes. This would also mean that you would need the ability to either log in as root or at least use sudo/doas to run chattr, which makes this solution impossible for non-administrator users. For the sake of testing how well this would work assuming that superuser permissions are available, I proceeded to set the 'a' flag on a test file where I had written a couple lines of text. I expected to be able to add text to the end of the file, but not between existing characters, and that I would not be able to delete the file. It was indeed protected from deletion and modifications between existing characters, but I was not able to append to it either! This was true of both my unprivileged account and the superuser. So on my system, this attribute would not even be acceptable for log files where data is only added to the end.
The 'u' attribute was similarly disappointing. I set that attribute on another test file, and I was still perfectly capable of editing and even deleting it. When I looked for the command to undelete the file, though, I quickly found that my kernel does not support that attribute on the ext4 filesystem. This was set forth plainly in my local man page for chattr, a reminder that it is always a good idea to consult your system's documentation before trying something new.
The failure of the undeletable attribute was purely a limitation of my kernel and filesystem choices; perhaps it would work on yours, but you will need to read the documentation and do some tests of your own. I wonder if my observation of the append-only attribute behaving as immutable was also implementation-dependent, but that would still require some configuration so that non-superuser accounts would be able to access it.
18 • Poll (BACKUPS) (by Andy Figueroa on 2021-04-19 20:21:11 GMT from United States)
How is it that BACKUPS didn't make it into the choices of this week's pool?
19 • backups (by Jesse on 2021-04-19 20:25:02 GMT from Canada)
@18: Backups don't protect files. They just give you a method of recovery after the files have been lost.
20 • Protection against failing OS (by Jan on 2021-04-19 23:43:47 GMT from Netherlands)
I always have a few of the latest bootable live linux DVD's. To access a failing OS. And I have always the latest GParted-CD.
21 • PopperOS Gnome mods (by Dave on 2021-04-20 05:39:02 GMT from United States)
It's hilarious to watch these Gnome 3 users discovering all these hip new ways to pretend that they're not wishing Gnome Shell worked like Gnome 2; a sane, conventional work environment. I imagine long about the time somebody twists Gnome Shell in to something resembling a usable desktop, the Gnome devs will release Gnome 4 and they'll have to start all over again.
22 • backup (by denk_mal on 2021-04-20 07:21:06 GMT from Germany)
@19 sure, a backup won't protect files and folders directely but it is the better method of protecting files and folders. With a good backup strategy (and good mediums of course) you need not really a file protection.
23 • File/OS protection (by Cheker on 2021-04-20 15:33:18 GMT from Portugal)
It wasn't always like this but at some point I started doing the more questionable/risky browsing and software testing inside Virtual Machines. It's probably overkill in a lot of cases, too, but I got used to it and I have a good amount of RAM to spare for it. Shoutouts to Mutahar for making it worse
24 • overlayfs (by Justin on 2021-04-20 21:32:40 GMT from United States)
VMs are excellent. I also use overlayfs on a laptop. It was mainly for browser malware protection, but being able to reset each time into a clean state is very useful!
25 • Hello and more (by mikef90000 on 2021-04-20 22:43:43 GMT from United States)
I had no problem booting Hello* in virtualbox after I found that it needed 4GB of memory AND legacy BIOS.
As far as backing up personal files, the usual belt and suspenders: a) local USB HDD and b) RAID 5 array on file backup server.
26 • Protection (by penguinx86 on 2021-04-21 02:12:22 GMT from United States)
I backup my important data to a WD Passport external drive. if I screw something up on my Linux PC, I just reinstall the OS and restore my data from the external drive.
27 • File protection (by Kazlu on 2021-04-21 10:00:23 GMT from France)
I am joining the backup clan here. I am past the days where I had time to try out and setup tons of fancy pieces of software to improve this or that aspect of my computing needs. I now try to streamline it as much as possible so I don't forget too much about what I setup. If a tool/procedure covers multiple needs, it's better that seting up several.
The risk associated with incorrect manipulation of files from the user is data loss. Data loss scenario is already covered by a backup strategy: files synchronised with a local nextcloud server, manual backups on an offline HDD every now and then and another distant workstation is syncing (on manual request, offline otherwise) important files from the nextcloud server, should my house be burned or robbed. Whatever the source of data loss, be it hacking, accident at home, hardware failure, software upgrade failure or wrong user manipulation, the situation is already covered by the backup strategy. Adding file protection would add an extra layer of complexity for the sole purpose of speeding up the recovery process of an event that is very, very rare. Not worth it in my case.
28 • Accidental Removal (by Wanderer By on 2021-04-21 17:29:50 GMT from Canada)
Testdisk and photorec have come in handy several times in the past for me to recover deleted files.
29 • Backups (by Mandatory Name on 2021-04-21 20:03:47 GMT from Canada)
I keep most files on a seperate physical hard drive. And regularly create a backup.
Worst case scenario, installing an OS takes a few minutes.
@21 "about the time somebody twists Gnome Shell in to something resembling a usable desktop"
That just sounds like Cinnamon.
30 • Protection vs. Restoration (by Kyle on 2021-04-22 17:52:01 GMT from United States)
I think that the arguments for backups being the ultimate (or only) method of protecting files miss the point of this Q&A as I understand it. There is no substitute for a proper backup when data gets overwritten, wiped, or corrupted, but a backup must be isolated from the rest of the system by design. I do not think that it is unreasonable for somebody to ask about preventative measures that would, in certain situations, eliminate the need to resort to a slower storage area to restore what was lost.
Consider a case where somebody enters a malformed rm command, causing some unintended files to get caught up in the delete operation. In most implementations I have seen, rm succeeds silently, so the user may not notice this mistake for some time. When they do, they can restore the files from their latest backup; hopefully they have not made too many changes since then! This could be a significant setback if changes have been made rapidly. Even the most disciplined of users have a limit to how often they will (or can) make a backup of their work.
Now suppose that some of these files had been protected from deletion, such as by setting the immutable attribute. rm would have given the user an error message such as "operation not permitted," alerting them immediately that something had gone wrong. Not all of the unintended files would be safe, but presumably the most "important" (relatively speaking) would have been protected, and thus remain intact. Only the "unimportant" files would need to be restored from the backup, if at all. Importantly, the user had a chance to specify that some files were important enough to get an extra layer of protection.
Is the immutable attribute an odd choice for a file that would be modified so rapidly? Of course it is. But that just serves to highlight why this question is valuable: Maybe somebody would come forward with a better alternative. Out of curiosity, I tried the append-only and undeletable attributes to see if they would work. They did not, but at least I learned about a shortcoming of my filesystem before that fact had the chance to cause any harm.
What may seem like an unnecessarily complicated feature to you might be a lifesaver to somebody who has a different use case.
31 • om gnome gnome (by TS on 2021-04-22 18:01:59 GMT from Canada)
@21 I don't have a problem with Gnome being what it is, but what boggles me why any distribution would choose what is really a touch-centric interface for their flagship desktop OS, relegating traditional environments to secondary status, re-spins, community editions, etc..
Even Microsoft figured out their error of forcing that touch-first model with the steaming turd that was Win8, and backpedaled.
32 • gnome (by fred on 2021-04-22 21:59:28 GMT from Portugal)
Gnome is a leap avant of our time. Earlier than later traditional keyboards will have a touch-centric real state. Just my 2cts, may be wrong and Gnome too :)
33 • GNOME (by M.Z. on 2021-04-23 02:56:06 GMT from United States)
I saw the Pop!_OS thing about Gnome as well, as I remember it's a whole new shell called Cosmic. The System76 team found a majority of desktop users actually wanted a dock & all the basic functionality stuff that Gnome tossed out by default. I've been wondering since version 3 came out why they weren't just making things easier on users to begin with by adding more sane defaults that desktop users expect & apparently its still an issue, which surprises virtually nobody.
@21
"...I imagine long about the time somebody twists Gnome Shell in to something resembling a usable desktop, the Gnome devs will release Gnome 4 and they'll have to start all over again."
Too late, they pulled a Chrome versioning scheme about 3 weeks ago & jumped straight to version 40. Apparently bigger numbers solve everything... or so they're hoping. They really ought to have moved toward what the new Cosmic shell is doing a long time ago, get user feed back & put in the improvements people want by default.
Personally I didn't really like any of the defaults System76 was offering up till now, but I've got a spare partition on the system they sent me that I'll be happy to try their reworked DE on.
34 • GNOME (and Debian) (by Barnabyh on 2021-04-23 11:15:55 GMT from Germany)
GNOME and Debian used to be the stalwarts of freedom and free software. As time went on younger developers joined and took over, had their own ideas and increasingly shaped these projects, many of the original or older developers retired, passed away, were forced out or chose to leave (--> Devuan, for instance).
Apart from the name, these are not the same projects they were 10 or 20 years ago.
The GNOME project in particular do not seem interested in changing their desktop vision to anything remotely sane that would work for people that do not use a touch screen. Debian has other problems with their politics, having released the buggiest version yet with Debian 10 and no longer being quite that synonimous with stability for many users. Choice of packages is still great though. Fortunately there are enough forks and derivatives.
35 • @ 34 (by kaczor on 2021-04-23 12:17:23 GMT from United States)
No one, my friend, makes you use Gnome, or Debian. There are so many DEs, WMs in the stew.
36 • @34, @35 (by Justin on 2021-04-23 16:24:40 GMT from United States)
I agree with @34. Debian was my default for so long because it filled the niche of stability (some call it "staleness") of software and security updates. Many new features just aren't useful to me. But without security updates, you leave yourself vulnerable. I just want to fix the lock on my door, not replace the entire entryway.
@35, yes no one forces us to use them. However when your friend stops being the person you used to know, do you not regret the loss of that friend?
37 • Of crashes, hiccups and life boats... (by tom joad on 2021-04-23 19:05:05 GMT from United States)
I had an issue with my laptop just this week. The laptop had been booting fine. But I attempted to load the xscreensavers. I used synaptic but nonetheless I jacked up the computer. The computer rebooted just fine. Only when I attempted to log into my everyday account I got a message that the xscreensavers were not loaded and that the default would be used. I clicked ok but nothing ever happened. I tried to get to the terminal but that was gone too. I tried the sudo account but got the same silly message about loading the defaults only it didn't.
It was Timeshift to the rescue. Bing, bang, boom...everything was back to normal in a jiffy.
No, I didn't write the message down. Whatever. I will stay away from those silly xscreensavers but on to compiz in another attempt to jack up my computer.
Lastly I was in no danger. I have back ups and I have constant cloud storage too. And I have a number of 'rescue' usb's at the ready if I had needed them. Luckily, I didn't. But the hiccup was a bother and would have been a real *pain* had I had to reload the whole bloody computer.
Isn't Linux fun?!?!?!?
Number of Comments: 37
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1176 (2026-06-08): Redcore Linux 2601, the problem with minimal system requirements, Red Hat account linked to compromised npm repositories, COSMIC to get frosted glass effect, openSUSE shows off system extension manager, Origami merges with RakuOS |
| • Issue 1175 (2026-06-01): PineTab2 with various distros, less common words of wisdom, Canonical shutting down Ubuntu's Pastebin, Murena nears 100k users, DistroWatch turns 25 |
| • Issue 1174 (2026-05-25): Solus 4.9, Linux tablets, Haiku boots on Apple M1 machines, Fedora drops Deepin packages, Mint improves Nemo performance |
| • Issue 1173 (2026-05-18): Sylve on FreeBSD, the benefit of BleachBit, Debian commits to reproducible builds, Debian publishes updated install media, Haiku introduces SMP support on ARM64 processors, Rocky Linux creates opt-in security repository, Fedora reconsiders AI tools, KDE receives generous donation |
| • Issue 1172 (2026-05-11): Fedora 44, dealing with extra fonts, Fedora plans to provide AI tools, problems with Ubuntu's new coreutils, TrueNAS extends its development cycle, postmarktetOS improves the boot splash screen, Redox ports tmux |
| • Issue 1171 (2026-05-04): Xubuntu 26.04, extending memory with VRAM, Ubuntu plans AI features, Devuan developer forks GTK2, Mint introduces hardware enablement builds, Linux running on a PlayStation 5, local kernel exploit found in Linux |
| • Issue 1170 (2026-04-27): ENux 5.2.1, picking a second distro, AlmaLinux expands CPU support, FreeBSD publishes Status Report, Ubuntu MATE skips 26.04 release |
| • Issue 1169 (2026-04-20): Lakka 6.1, free software and source-based distributions, FreeBSD Foundation publishes compatible laptop list, Debian holds Project Leader election, Haiku progresses ARM64 port, Mint to extend development cycle, Linux 7.0 released |
| • Issue 1168 (2026-04-13): pearOS 2026.03, EndeavourOS 2026.03.06, which distros are adopting age verification, Arch adjusts its firewall packages, Linux dropping i486 support, Red Hat extends its release cycle, Debian's APT introduces rollbacks, Redox improves its scheduler |
| • Issue 1167 (2026-04-06): Origami Linux 2026.03, answering questions for Linux newcomers, Ubuntu MATE seeking new contributors, Ubuntu software centre is expanding Deb support, FreeBSD fixes forum exploit, openSUSE 15 Leap nears its end of life |
| • Issue 1166 (2026-03-30): NetBSD jails, publishing software for Linux, Ubuntu joins Rust Foundation, Canonical plans to trim GRUB features, Peppermint works on new utilities, PINE64 shows off open hardware capabilities |
| • Issue 1165 (2026-03-23): Argent Linux 1.5.3, disk space required by Linux, Manjaro team goes on strike, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA driver support and builds RISC-V packages, systemd introduces age tracking |
| • Issue 1164 (2026-03-16): d77void, age verification laws and Linux, SUSE may be for sale, TrueNAS takes its build system private, Debian publishes updated Trixie media, MidnightBSD and System76 respond to age verification laws |
| • Issue 1163 (2026-03-09): KaOS 2026.02, TinyCore 17.0, NuTyX 26.02.2, Would one big collection of packages help?, Guix offers 64-bit Hurd options, Linux communities discuss age delcaration laws, Mint unveils new screensaver for Cinnamon, Redox ports new COSMIC features |
| • Issue 1162 (2026-03-02): AerynOS 2026.01, anti-virus and firewall tools, Manjaro fixes website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating a map app |
| • Issue 1161 (2026-02-23): The Guix package manager, quick Q&As, Gentoo migrating its mirrors, Fedora considers more informative kernel panic screens, GhostBSD testing alternative X11 implementation, Asahi makes progress with Apple M3, NetBSD userland ported, FreeBSD improves web-based system management |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
3CX Phone System
3CX Phone System is a specialist, Debian-based Linux distribution designed to run a complete unified communications platform. The 3CX client, included in the distribution, is a secure, scalable business phone system and contact center solution designed for companies with 25+ users; it can be hosted on-premise, in a private cloud or through a managed service – all for a single annual rate, with no per-user charges and no third-party data sharing. The ISO image includes a free license for the 3CX PBX edition. The ISO image contains the standard Debian installer which installs a minimal system with the nginx web server, PostgreSQL database, iptables firewall and Secure Shell. Options not relevant to 3CX have been removed from the distribution.
Status: Active
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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