DistroWatch Weekly |
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 915, 3 May 2021 |
Welcome to this year's 17th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
About a week ago Canonical launched version 21.04 of its Ubuntu operating system with community editions of Ubuntu and derived projects soon following. This week we begin with a look at Ubuntu 21.04 as Joshua Allen Holm takes the distribution for a test drive. Read on to learn more about Ubuntu's package management, install process, and shift to using Wayland as the default display software. In our News section we talk about Alpine Linux considering the development of its own service manager while the Fedora team provides an upgrade path for Silverblue users. Both Fedora 32 and version 18.04 of the Ubuntu community editions are nearing the end of their supported lives and we share details below. Plus we share an interview with Linus Torvalds as the creator of Linux looks back on 30 years of kernel development. In April the Arch Linux team began including a system installer on the distribution's media and we report on what kind of experience it provides in our Questions and Answers column. Have you tried the new Arch installer? Let us know what you thought of it in our Opinion Poll. We are also pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Ubuntu 21.04
- News: Alpine considers own service manager, Fedora provides Silverblue upgrade instructions, Lubuntu 18.04 nears end of life, Mint changes Hypnotix provider and is included in Shells.com, Linus Torvalds discusses 30 years of Linux
- Questions and answers: The new Arch Linux system installer
- Released last week: Fedora 34, Calculate Linux 21, KaOS 2021.04
- Torrent corner: Artix, Calculate, Fedora, GhostBSD, KaOS, KDE neon, MakuluLinux, OpenBSD, OpenIndiana, Proxmox, Voyager Live
- Opinion poll: Have you tried Arch Linux's system installer?
- New additions: Rocky Linux
- New distributions: Archcraft, Neurolinux
- Reader comments
|
Feature Story (by Joshua Allen Holm) |
Ubuntu 21.04
Like clockwork, every April sees the release of a new version of Ubuntu and all the official variants. This release of Ubuntu, Hirsute Hippo, is noteworthy for its decision to not include the new desktop layout featured in GNOME 40. Instead, Ubuntu 21.04 continues to use version 3.38 of GNOME Shell. This means the desktop experience remains much the same as it has been in recent Ubuntu releases.

Ubuntu 21.04 -- Default GNOME desktop
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
While Ubuntu 21.04 is not the most exciting release of a Linux distribution, it does introduce a handful of new features. Are these features enough to differentiate it from Ubuntu 20.10? To find out, I gave Ubuntu 21.04 a try.
To begin, I copied the 2.6GB Ubuntu 21.04 ISO to a flash drive, rebooted my computer, and was quickly greeted by the familiar Try Ubuntu/Install Ubuntu selection screen. I clicked on Install Ubuntu to start the installation process.
Installing Ubuntu 21.04
Ubuntu's Ubiquity installer is an extremely familiar experience. The basic installation workflow is exactly the same as it has been for the last several Ubuntu releases. Configure the keyboard layout, pick between a standard or minimal installation, decide if you want to install updates during installation, decide if you want to install third-party software for drivers and media codecs, choose where to install Ubuntu, select your geographic location, create a user, wait for the installation to complete, and reboot the system.

Ubuntu 21.04 -- Installer security key screen
(full image size: 693kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Despite the extremely familiar installation process, Ubuntu 21.04 does add two nice new features. The first is that the "Encrypt the new Ubuntu installation for security" advanced option on the "Installation type" screen now generates a recovery key file that can be saved somewhere safe and used to gain access to the system if the user forgets their security key. The other is integrated Active Directory support as part of the new user creation process. Neither of these features radically alter the Ubuntu installation workflow, but they are both nice additions.
For the purposes of this review, I selected all the default options when installing. That means no disk encryption, no ZFS, and the software selection included with the standard installation. Selecting other options might lead to a different experience, so keep that in mind when trying out Ubuntu 21.04.
Ubuntu 21.04's GNOME desktop

Ubuntu 21.04 -- Notification area with dark theme
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
At first glance, Ubuntu 21.04 looks just like Ubuntu 20.10, but there are changes. GNOME Shell now uses a dark theme. This means that the calendar/notification area that is accessed by clicking on the data and time in the top bar and the system menu in the top right are dark instead of light. The default theme for window decorations remains the same; a dark header bar with the rest of the window being light. It is just the GNOME Shell theme that has changed.

Ubuntu 21.04 -- Desktop icons settings
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
A more significant change is the improved support for desktop icons provided by the gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons-ng package. This improved desktop icon extension allows for dragging files to and from the desktop and other enhancements. Right-clicking on the desktop and selecting Settings from the menu opens a window that contains options for customizing the desktop icons. By default, icons for plugged in removal drives now appear on the right side of the screen instead of on the left, which is something that can be back to the old style using this settings window. For those users who like a traditional desktop with icons, this one extension is reason enough to make upgrade from 20.10 to 21.04.
A more subtle change is the switch to Wayland as the default display server. For my personal workflow, I had absolutely no issues with using Wayland. I know this experience might be different for other users, but I was pleased with the switch to Wayland. The last time Ubuntu tried to make Wayland the default was in Ubuntu 17.10, which did not carry over to the 18.04 LTS release. Maybe this time things will be different.

Ubuntu 21.04 -- Desktop wallpapers
(full image size: 259kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The only criticism I have of Ubuntu 21.04's desktop is the almost complete lack of desktop wallpapers. Ubuntu 21.04 comes with only four wallpapers: the default orange and purple line art hippo, a grayscale variant of the same image, and two photos of hippos. Very few options and all of the options have the same theme. While it is easy to install the wallpaper packages from all the past Ubuntu versions or acquire wallpapers from other sources, it would have been very nice to see a few more wallpapers included. At the very least, at least one non-hippo themed wallpaper to provide some diversity to the options.
Default software selection
The default software selection in Ubuntu 21.04 is much the same as it has been in all recent Ubuntu releases. In this release that means version 5.11 of the Linux kernel, Firefox 87, Thunderbird 78.8, LibreOffice 7.1, and a selection of GNOME games and utilities. Despite staying on version 3.38 for GNOME Shell, Files, Settings and a few other key components, several of the GNOME applications are the new GNOME 40 versions. These updated applications do not bring changes as massive as the redesigned GNOME Shell, but it is still nice to have the latest versions for many of the GNOME applications.
Except for Ubuntu Software, all the GUI applications installed are standard Deb packages. While I have no objections to Snaps per se, I found that installing the GNOME Software Deb and purging snapd entirely saved about 1GB of disk space. The default Ubuntu 21.04 install was approximately 8GB and the same installation with snapd removed and GNOME Software installed was approximately 7GB. Most of that gigabyte comes from Snaps like core18 and gnome-3-34-1804 that contain things that would be shared with other applications, so it is not Ubuntu Software itself taking up that entire gigabyte, but someone who is against Snaps entirely might bemoan the waste of disk space.
Installing additional software
Ubuntu's default software selection is near perfect for general computing tasks like web browsing, email, playing music and movies, and creating and editing various types of documents. However, there is plenty of software out there for more advanced or more specialized purposes. A wide variety of these software packages are available through the Ubuntu Software application.

Ubuntu 21.04 -- Ubuntu Software
(full image size: 217kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Ubuntu Software is basically a re-branded version of GNOME Software that provides a graphical way to install additional packages. Ubuntu Software lists the GUI applications available in the Ubuntu Deb repositories and all the Snaps available on Snapcraft.io. When a package is available from both sources, Ubuntu Software favors the Snap version, but the Deb version can be selection from a drop down menu in the header bar.
On the command line, Deb packages can be installed from the Ubuntu repositories using apt and Snaps can be installed using snap. Local deb packages can be installed using dpkg.
I ended up using a mixture of Deb packages and Snaps to configure my system to my liking. I installed Foliate, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, Inkscape, and Visual Studio Code as Snaps, but most of my other packages were installed from Deb packages. (I also compiled ScummVM from source, but that is just because I always want the latest development version to try out some of the upcoming features; normally, the Deb or Snap version would be fine.)
One minor annoyance I had was with some of the Snaps listed on Snapcraft.io not being kept up to date. For example, I wanted to try out the Julia programming language, but found that Snapcraft.io listed 1.0.4 as the latest version. The latest LTS version of Julia is 1.0.5, which came out a few months after the published date listed on the Julia 1.0.4 Snap. Both the version 1.0.4 Snap and the 1.0.5 release came out in 2019, so I am not simply being impatient. The difference between 1.0.4 and 1.0.5 is probably not huge, but the point of Snaps is to keep things up to date. Julia is far from the only example of this, which is disappointing.
Final thoughts
Ubuntu 21.04 is a very solid release. Users of new releases of other GNOME-based distributions might be experiencing the new GNOME 40 interface, but Ubuntu 21.04's GNOME 3.38 desktop environment is functional and familiar. I do look forward to seeing how Ubuntu might tweak GNOME Shell 40 (or whatever the current post-40 GNOME version is at the time) in the future, but can find no fault with the decision to stick with 3.38 for now. The few issues I had with release are so minor they are barely worth repeating, but it would have been nice to see some non-hippo wallpapers.
Overall, I would recommend Ubuntu 21.04 to anyone who is okay with the short 9-month support window. If you are already a user of non-LTS Ubuntu releases, the upgrade from 20.10 to 21.04 is something you should feel comfortable doing as soon as possible. The new features, while not massive, are very nice quality of life improvements. Distro hoppers might be slightly more interested in distributions that feature GNOME 40, but I would still recommend they at least try out Ubuntu 21.04 to see what it has to offer.
Editor's note
After Ubuntu 21.04 was released a problem was discovered which can cause the operating system to no longer boot on computers with older EFI implementations. Due to this issue Canonical has disabled upgrades from previous versions of Ubuntu until the issue can be corrected. Brian Murray explains: "In case you missed it in the release notes and hear people asking about it, I wanted to let you know that users of Ubuntu 20.10 are not being prompted to upgrade to Ubuntu 21.04. Subsequently, upgrading to Ubuntu 21.04 still requires running do-release-upgrade with the '-d' switch. This is due to a bug with the current version of shim in Ubuntu 21.04 which can cause systems with an early version of EFI to fail to boot after the upgrade. Due to the severity of the issue we shouldn't be encouraging people to upgrade at this point in time. After we have a new version of shim signed will make it available in Ubuntu 21.04 and then enable upgrades."
* * * * *
Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an ASUS VivoBook E406MA laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Pentium Silver N5000 CPU
- Storage: 64GB eMMC
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Networking: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
- Display: Intel UHD Graphics 605
* * * * *
Visitor supplied rating
Ubuntu has a visitor supplied average rating of: 7.7/10 from 311 review(s).
Have you used Ubuntu? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
|
Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Alpine considers own service manager, Fedora provides Silverblue upgrade instructions, Lubuntu 18.04 nears end of life, Mint changes Hypnotix provider and is included in Shells.com, Linus Torvalds discusses 30 years of Linux
Alpine Linux is a lightweight, fast distribution often used on servers and in embedded environments. The project is considering adopting its own service manager with an eye toward replacing OpenRC. "As many of you already know, Alpine presently uses a fairly modified version of OpenRC as its service manager. Unfortunately, OpenRC maintenance has stagnated: the last release was over a year ago. We feel now is a good time to start working on a replacement service manager based on user feedback and design discussions we've had over the past few years which can be simply summarized as systemd done right. But what does systemd done right mean?" Further information on these plans to create a new service manager can be found in this blog post.
* * * * *
This past week Fedora 34 was released, bringing with it new versions of the GNOME desktop, updated kernel, and other cutting edge packages. People who run the Silverblue edition of Fedora may wish to upgrade to the newer package base and Fedora Magazine has published a tutorial to help people update their Silverblue operating system. "Silverblue is an operating system for your desktop built on Fedora. It's excellent for daily use, development, and container-based workflows. It offers numerous advantages such as being able to roll back in case of any problems. If you want to update to Fedora 34 on your Silverblue system, this article tells you how. It not only shows you what to do, but also how to revert things if something unforeseen happens." The guide also explains how to revert the upgrade in case anything goes wrong.
In other Fedora-related news, Fedora 32 is nearing the end of its supported life. Fedora 32 will no longer receive support or fixes after May 25, 2021.
* * * * *
The Lubuntu project has published an announcement reminding people that Lubuntu 18.04 (along with other Ubuntu community editions) will soon reach the end of their supported life spans. "Lubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver) was released April 27, 2018 and will reach End of Life on Friday, May 30, 2021. This means that after that date there will be no further security updates or bug fixes released. We highly recommend that you re-install with 20.04 as soon as possible if you are still running 18.04. After May 30th, the only supported releases of Lubuntu will be 20.04 (until April 2023), 20.10 (until July 2021), and 21.04 (until January 2022). All other releases of Lubuntu will be considered unsupported, and will no longer receive any further updates (or support) from the Lubuntu team."
* * * * *
The Linux Mint team published a handful of important announcements in the project's monthly newsletter for April. One of the announcements concerns the Hypnotix IPTV video player. The default provider, Free-IPTV, is shutting down and the Mint team is transitioning to Free-TV as an alternative. The newsletter also mentions Linux Mint is now available on Shells.com virtual desktop service. Plus the Warpinator file sharing tool is now available for Android through the Play store, as well as for most other Linux distributions via a Flatpak. "With Warpinator you can quickly and easily transfer files from computer to computer across the local network. Warpinator was already available natively for Linux Mint 20, 20.1 and LMDE 4, and as a Flatpak for any other release and for other Linux distributions. Today we're delighted to announce that Warpinator is now also available for Android." Finally, the newsletter reports Linux Mint 18.x is no longer supported and users are advised to upgrade to version 19 to continue receiving security fixes.
* * * * *
The Linux kernel will turn 30 years old in August of 2021. The creator of the kernel, Linus Torvalds, recently gave an interview with Tag1 in which he talks about Linux, the git version control software, licensing, his workflow, and his views on using the Rust language in the kernel. Torvalds also commented on the M1 Apple chip support being merged into Linux: "I'm checking in on it very occasionally, but it's early days yet. As you note, the very early support will likely be merged into 5.13, but you need to realize that that is really only the beginning, and doesn't make Apple hardware useful with Linux yet. It's not the arm64 part that ends up being the problem, but all the drivers for the hardware around it (the SSD and GPU in particular). The early work so far gets some of the really low-level stuff working, but doesn't result in anything useful outside of early hardware enablement. It will take some time for it to be a real option for people to try out. But it's not just the Apple hardware that has improved - the infrastructure for arm64 in general has grown up a lot, and the cores have gone from 'Meh' to being much more competitive in the server space." The rest of the interview can be found on Tag1's website.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
|
Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
The new Arch Linux system installer
Automating-installs asks: Why haven't you guys talked about the new Arch installer yet? How does it compare to other installers? Will this mean the new Arch+Calamares flavours of the week will stop cropping up?
DistroWatch answers: To be perfectly honest, when I saw the announcement about Arch Linux having a system installer included on the distribution's installation media I thought it was an April Fools joke.
For the past decade or so the idea of Arch Linux having an official system installer has been a running April Fools prank, designed to trigger a response in the vocal corner of the Arch community which prefers to avoid automation. So when an announcement was posted on the Arch website on April 1st, it seemed suspect. Especially since there were very few useful details, with no documentation, screenshots, or even the name of the new installer included in the post. It looked as though the Arch team had decided to get in on the running joke.
It wasn't until about a week later that I stumbled across a forum post from someone who had tried the new installer it seemed real that Arch not only had a system installer, but it was included directly on the official media rather than as a separate download.
I did eventually download a recent snapshot of Arch Linux and decide to give the installer a try. Oddly enough the announcement about the system installer links to the project's manual installation guide. This same link to the wiki is shown when booting the Arch media and the system installer isn't mentioned in either the installation guide or in the media's welcome message.
The program we execute to launch the installer is archinstall. The installer is actually a one-line shell script which runs a Python module which is also called archinstall. The Python module walks us through a very basic console-based series of steps. First asking us to pick our keyboard layout from a list of two-letter country codes. We are then asked to pick our region or country from a list.

Arch Linux 2021.04.01 -- The text-based system installer
(full image size: 14kB, resolution: 800x600 pixels)
We are then asked to select a disk from a list of device names followed by a filesystem. Our filesystem selection is limited to Btfs, ext4, F2FS, and XFS. We are next asked to optionally enter a disk encryption password and make up a hostname for the computer. We can then make up a root password for our new install. The installer module then gives us the option of making up a username and password.
The next step is a bit vague. We are shown a list of "pre-programmed profiles" and asked to pick one. These seem to be commonly used graphical desktops and window managers, though they aren't explained at all. The list includes six items: awesome, desktop, gnome, kde, kde-wayland, and xorg.
I wasn't sure what "desktop" would be or how it would compare to the other desktop and window manager options. I tried to install KDE and the installer immediately crashed, returning me to the terminal.
I went through the process a second time. This time after I created a user account the installer skipped over the pre-programmed package selection, printed a warning that there was no network connection and this must be set up manually. Then a prompt was displayed asking me to type in my time zone and, before I could type anything, then installer displayed a JSON-formatted summary of my choices and paused until I pressed Enter.
There did not appear to be any way to abort the installer or go back to a previous step. At this point pressing Enter caused my entire hard drive to be formatted and some base packages to be installed. Curiously enough these packages were installed by downloading them over the active network, though the installer had just told me a network connection was not available.
No progress is shown as packages are downloaded and installed. The install process took just over ten minutes and, in the end, the installer reported it had completed without any errors. At this point I rebooted the system and was met with an error saying no bootable media was found.
The new Arch installer basically looks like a crude version of the MINIX or OpenBSD installers, but with less flexibility. It takes over an entire disk, crashes or skips over steps when selecting a desktop to install, and despite reporting it finished successfully, I did not end up with a bootable system.
The installer also failed to detect my active network connection even though it then used the same connection to download packages. To add to the confusion there doesn't seem to be much documentation for it. I was hoping to find some notes in the Arch wiki about whether a person needs to manually partition the disk or install a boot loader. This information appears to be missing, at least from the announcement and section on performing new installs.
In short, my experience with the installer was poor. I don't think this Python module will be slowing the tide of Arch-based projects which ship with preconfigured desktop environments and the Calamares installer any time soon. The archinstall program appears to exist to automate some typing, but doesn't offer a user friendly or flexible alternative to polished graphical installers like Calamares.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
|
Released Last Week |
Fedora 34
Matthew Miller has announced the release of Fedora 34, the latest version of the popular Linux distribution sponsored by Red Hat: "I'm excited to share the results of the hard work of thousands of contributors to the Fedora Project: our latest release, Fedora Linux 34, is here." As usual, Fedora ships in several editions and spins, available for the x86_64 and AArch64 architectures. The "Workstation" variant now comes with GNOME 40: "Fedora editions are targeted outputs geared toward specific 'showcase' uses on the desktop, in server and cloud environments, and the Internet of Things. Fedora Workstation focuses on the desktop, and in particular, it's geared toward software developers who want a 'just works' Linux operating system experience. This release features GNOME 40, the next step in focused, distraction-free computing. GNOME 40 brings improvements to navigation whether you use a trackpad, a keyboard, or a mouse. The app grid and settings have been redesigned to make interaction more intuitive. You can read more about what changed and why in a Fedora Magazine article from March." See the full release announcement for further information.
KaOS 2021.04
KaOS is a rolling release distribution which is focused on providing one polished desktop (KDE Plasma) on one CPU architecture (x86_64). The distribution has published a new snapshot, 2021.04, which revamps the KaOS Community Packages utility (kcp). The Calamares system installer has been updated along with some changes to the distribution's package mirrors: "The installer Calamares has picked up the transition to QML again. All navigation is now done in QML for KaOS. The Finished module was also ported to QML, this gives a simpler end page, with clear buttons showing two options. It also opened the way to give users a clear message regarding installation logs once the install is completed. Usersq is another module being ported to QML, a preview is included in this release, but is not the default users module yet. The default mirror used for all KaOS installs is provided by Fosshost. Big change with Fosshost is that with just one mirror users will have access to a worldwide network of mirrors through Fastly CDN. No longer is there a need to adjust a mirrorlist, you will always be connected to the fastest mirror in your area. As always with this rolling distribution, you will find the very latest packages for the Plasma Desktop, this includes Frameworks 5.81.0, Plasma 5.21.3, and KDE Applications 21.04.0. All built on Qt 5.15.2+." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Calculate Linux 21
Calculate Linux is a Gentoo-based distribution which provides customized editions for a variety of tasks. There are several desktop flavours, a server edition, and there is now reportedly an edition for running Steam games in containers. The new Calculate Linux 21 version ships with the Btr filesystem as the default for fresh installs. "We are pleased to announce the release of Calculate Linux 21. It includes a new Calculate Container Games flavor, allowing you to run Steam games on your computer. All packages in the binary repository were recompiled with GCC 10.2 and packed with Zstd. Calculate Linux Desktop user profiles now synchronize much faster. Are available for download: Calculate Linux Desktop featuring the KDE (CLD), Cinnamon (CLDC), LXQt (CLDL), Mate (CLDM) or else Xfce (CLDX and CLDXS) scientific, Calculate Directory Server (CDS), Calculate Linux Scratch (CLS) and Calculate Scratch Server (CSS)." Additional information on version 21 of Calculate Linux can be found in the project's release announcement.

Calculate Linux 21 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 1.3MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
GhostBSD 21.04.27
Eric Turgeon has announced the release of GhostBSD 21.04.27, the latest version of the project's desktop operating system based on FreeBSD, with MATE as the default desktop. This release updates the base system to FreeBSD 13.0: "I am happy to announce the availability of the new ISO image, 21.04.27. When we started to port all the GhostBSD code from 12.2-STABLE to 13.0-STABLE, several problems arose with OpenRC, devd and drivers not loading at boot. We discovered that OpenRC devd and devmatch services implementations were not working properly. We had to create rc.devmatch to replace the OpenRC service implementation of devmatch.conf for devd. With devmatch now starting properly, all drivers get loaded at boot and when a new device is inserted. In addition, we were able to remove all changes we made in the GENERIC kernel, making the default kernel a bit smaller. I fixed ntpd and WireGuard services. Automatic configuration for network cards has been removed from NetworkMgr and added to the script started by devd." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information and upgrade instructions.
OpenBSD 6.9
Theo de Raadt has announced the release of OpenBSD 6.9, the latest of the regular bi-annual releases from the project that develops a multi-platform, security-oriented UNIX-like operating system. This is OpenBSD's 50th official release: "We are pleased to announce the official release of OpenBSD 6.9. This is our 50th release. We remain proud of OpenBSD's record of more than twenty years with only two remote holes in the default install. As in our previous releases, 6.9 provides significant improvements, including new features, in nearly all areas of the system. Support for the powerpc64 platform was improved: added astfb(4), a driver for the framebuffer of the Aspeed BMC found on many POWER8 and POWER9 systems; added bsd.mp to powerpc64's installXX.{img,iso}; added RETGUARD implementation for powerpc and powerpc64; added a workaround for PCIO devices that cannot address the full 64-bit PCI address space to powerpc64; added limited emulation of unaligned access in the powerpc64 kernel." See the detailed release notes for a full list of changes and improvements.
OpenIndiana 2021.04
OpenIndiana is a continuation of the OpenSolaris operating system. The project's latest release is 2021.04 which includes updates for key desktop applications, development tools, and hardware drivers. "We have updated firefox and Thunderbird to newer ESR versions (78.10.0 resp. 78.9.1). This was overdue and has been requested by many users. Finally we have more than one NVIDIA driver version available with nvidia-390.141 being the default. Changing the driver to another version is documented. At the moment we have the following versions in our repository: nvidia-460.67, nvidia-390.141, nvidia-340.108. Our gcc-7, gcc-8, gcc-9, and gcc-10 compilers have been patched to use the illumos libc SSP implementation for -fstack-protector. We have added openssl-1.1.1 and many packages have been updated to make use of the newer and supported version of openssl. Alas this process isn't finished yet as many packages don't use it out-of-the box and a few even don't work with its new interface. Work has been started to update our Python versions and the related packages. As a consequence we now have python-37 and python-39 packages. This is also an ongoing process that hasn't been finished yet." Further information is provided in the release announcement.
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
|
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: 2,424
- Total data uploaded: 37.3TB
|
Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Have you tried Arch Linux's system installer?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we shared initial impressions of the new Python-based Arch Linux system installer. Have you tried running archinstall? If so, what were your impressions of it. Let us know about your experiences in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on tracking login times in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
|
Running the Arch Linux installer
I have tried archinstall and like it: | 77 (6%) |
I have tried archinstall and do not like it: | 136 (11%) |
I have not tried archinstall: | 1047 (83%) |
|
|
Website News |
New distributions added to database
Rocky Linux
Rocky Linux is a community enterprise operating system designed to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It is led by Gregory Kurtzer, the founder of the CentOS project and it is available for the x86_64 and AArch64 processor architectures.

Rocky Linux 8.3 RC1 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 1.8MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- Archcraft. Archcraft is a minimal distribution based on Arch Linux. The Archcraft system supplies lightweight window managers instead of heavier desktop environments.
- Neurolinux. Neurolinux is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring tools for developing and working with AI such as OpenCV for processing video.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 10 May 2021. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
|
|
Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip. (Tips this week: 1, value: US$3.45) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
| |
TUXEDO |

TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
Archives |
• Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
• Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
• Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
• Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
• Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
• Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
• Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
• Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
• Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
• Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
• Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
• Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
• Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
• Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20 |
• Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
• Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
• Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
• Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
• Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
• Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
• Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
• Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
• Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
• Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
• Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
• Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
• Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
• Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
• Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
• Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
• Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
• Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
• Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
• Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
• Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
• Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
• Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
• Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
• 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 |
• Full list of all issues |
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.
|
Random Distribution | 
Tao Linux
Tao Linux (pronounced 'dow' Linux) was a project to build a free Linux distribution from the sources used in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux product line. The target market was either experienced system administrators who would like freely available binaries of this code, or end users who are interested in experimenting with enterprise functionality. Besides being mostly compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, it also includes software packages such as Eclipse and clustering tools not found in the base RHEL products.
Status: Discontinued
|
TUXEDO |

TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
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.
|
|