 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
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| 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."
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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
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Visitor supplied rating
Ubuntu has a visitor supplied average rating of: 7.7/10 from 298 review(s).
Have you used Ubuntu? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| 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.
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
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.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| 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.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,424
- Total data uploaded: 37.3TB
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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) |
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.
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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%) |
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| 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)
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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.
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DistroWatch database summary
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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:
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Text installer (by Charlie on 2021-05-03 01:53:34 GMT from Hong Kong)
Text installers seem more and more irrelevant nowadays, people prefer either GUI installer or no installer. That being said, text installer is really an efficient tool.
The Debian installer is always safe and familar, yet a bit clumsy. The Void Linux installer,probably inspired by the FreeBSD one, is really impressive, swift and very configuable. The Slackware installer is a bit out-of-date, but at least it does the job well.
From the review it semms that the Arch installer has a far way to go. For new comers and Arch lovers the old way to install is always fun, but for people who just want to have a system to be quickly installed, an installer is always welcomed.
Looking forward to seeing it becomes matured.
2 • Ubuntu 21.04 (by Leanne on 2021-05-03 01:55:10 GMT from Ireland)
That's a pretty massive bug regarding the upgrade of Ubuntu. I'm not sure how early you're version of EFI needs to be so I'll hold off on upgrading in case I'm affected by it.
3 • Ubuntu 21.04 and Arch's installer (by Pumpino on 2021-05-03 02:20:53 GMT from Australia)
Yeah, the Ubuntu 21.04 EFI bug sounds bad. I know that when I attempted to install a previous Ubuntu release, it refused to allow a bios install (EFI only). The only way for me to do it was to install an older release and upgrade. I don't know if that's still the case.
Including Gnome 3.38 rather than 3.40 seems overly conservative. It's not Debian stable. You'd think they could test beta versions of 3.40 and include the final version in 21.04.
As for Arch's text installer, I've installed Arch many times over the years. I switched to Manjaro testing, and it's nice to have a graphical installer and a distro that's more polished.
4 • Arch Installer and Alpine Init (by Andy Figueroa on 2021-05-03 03:00:51 GMT from United States)
1. A question asking about the Arch installer seems kind of irrelevant to most people.
2. So, Alpine thinks OpenRC development has stagnated? I rather like the pace of projects that don't do updates for updates sake.
5 • Ubuntu & Fedora (by Mark on 2021-05-03 03:02:21 GMT from United States)
I have a new computer so I figured the upgrade from Ubuntu 20.10 to 21.04 would probably be safe, and it was. I didn't have any problems at all. I didn't notice a lot of differences between the two versions, but the cosmetic imrovements were good, I thought. However, I always prefer a fresh install so several days later I blew it away and did a clean install of 21.04. It's running great.
I was also curious about Gnome 40, so I installed Fedora 34 in a dual boot configuration. I didn't have any problems with it, either, and think it's a good release - well, except for Gnome 40. It reminded me again why I hate the Gnome developers: they clearly aren't interested in doing things that people like, but just in doing things their own twisted way.
Unfortunately for Fedora, they seem to have wanted to get their distro released with Gnome 40 as fast as possible, so the things that could have helped, such as apps and extensions, aren't ready yet. So you can't "fix" Gnome 40 in a way that makes it usable and useful. Sure, those things will come out pretty soon, but for now you're just stuck with the insane vision of the Gnome developers. I applaud Canonical for holding off until such things as extensions come out that can make Gnome 40 usable. Too bad Fedora's developers were seduced by the desire to get "bragging rights" to adopting Gnome 40 first: they should hang their heads in shame.
6 • Text installer (by Hoos on 2021-05-03 03:32:19 GMT from Singapore)
Granted it's been some time since I used it, but the Anarchy text installer is very good, in my opinion. Wide range of options, everything clearly laid out, even the text itself is in a tasteful layout with various colors used.
7 • Text installers (by Yoda on 2021-05-03 04:21:57 GMT from Spain)
The preferable way the text installers are.
To read taught was I.
Instead of fancy icons the text I prefer.
Much more flexible a text installer is.
GUI is the path to the dark side. GUI leads to laziness. Laziness leads to conformism. Conformism leads to suffering.
Listen to me not. In KDE (Knight's Desktop Environment) wrote this I.
8 • archinstall (by Scott on 2021-05-03 05:41:34 GMT from Australia)
It didn't work for me either. Very let down that Arch actually released this. After 10 plus years using arch I can honestly say I'm stumped. Go figure. This is one time when Arch beat me....
9 • archinstall (by Scott on 2021-05-03 05:46:23 GMT from Australia)
The calam arch installer I have found to be very good. Its here https://sourceforge.net/projects/blue-arch-installer/ I used it on a old desktop and laptop and was very impressed.
10 • archinstall/fredoragnomenstein40 (by papapico on 2021-05-03 06:01:39 GMT from Australia)
for me the installer worked fine, I only needed a basic setup for a spare pc which was just going to be transferring data between drives.
was up and running in 15 minutes.
for a quick and dirty install, it's a good enough kit.
if you want more control, obviously spend more time with your install and go step by step. Or if you don't want to have to input each step of the install yourself, there are plenty of arch installers and minimal distros that are clean starting points. Archlabs is my go to.
I spun stable fedora up on a laptop I was hoping to use off site, gnome is still a mess. is it meant for tablet users? I honestly don't know. I know that rightclicking on the desktop doesn't bring up a useful menu like xfce/open/flux/etc, there are no usable taskbars like every other de and it wants to hide everything or obscure it to the point trying to set up a useful desktop is null and void.
in the end went with archlabs as it works makes sense with kde/xfce/flux/etc in most configurations.
11 • Arch installer (by Ghost 67 on 2021-05-03 09:10:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
Perhaps the Arch team should revisit the original installer that Arch shipped with way back in the day, the AIF - Arch Installer Framework. Failing that, why not just adapt Architect?
12 • Arch Installer (by manthropology on 2021-05-03 10:15:39 GMT from Australia)
I tried it on two machines. The first was a laptop and it worked very quickly and seamlessly, installing me a Gnome desktop with minimal fuss. However, when trying it on my desktop, the installer repeatedly crashed with pages of garbled error messages about it failing to mount the drive. No matter what I did, it wouldn't work.
13 • Arch installer (by César on 2021-05-03 11:06:27 GMT from Chile)
¡Hola a todos!
I tried to install with this installer, but the system will crash when try to format the disc, and i lost my dual boot.
Twice i tried, twice i die.
Nothing to do.
Saludos desde Santiago de Chile.
14 • Ubuntu and Fedora (by penguinx86 on 2021-05-03 11:44:49 GMT from United States)
I checked the Distrowatch Page Hit Rankings for the last 7 days. Ubuntu dropped to 8th place and Fedora rose to 4th place. I've been using Fedora 34 for and I think Gnome 40 is a big improvement over Gnome 3.x and the Gnome Shell that Ubuntu uses as the default desktop environment. In fact, Gnome 3 is why I quit using Ubuntu 10 years ago. I'm also interested in Pop! OS and the new Cosmic desktop environment that will be available next month. I plan to try that one too, but sorry, I'll pass on Ubuntu as long as Gnome 3 is the default desktop environment.
15 • Arch Installer (by Spitfire on 2021-05-03 12:31:04 GMT from United States)
Have not tried the Arch installer. I use Endeavor OS which is as near to pure Arch with a graphical install as is available right. Could not be happier with this distribution.
16 • "OpenRC maintenance has stagnated" is a lie (by RoestVrijStaal on 2021-05-03 13:27:41 GMT from Netherlands)
I wonder where those Alpine devs got that information from.
The list of recent commits (https://github.com/OpenRC/openrc/commits/master)
and the list of recent releases (https://github.com/OpenRC/openrc/releases) tell they are wrong.
17 • OpenRC (by Jesse on 2021-05-03 13:41:12 GMT from Canada)
@16:
The idea that OpenRC hasn't put out a new release in over a year wasn't wrong or a lie. Look at the timeline. Up until this past month OpenRC hadn't had a new stable release in about two years.
According to the OpenRC release page there was no activity between mid-2019 and April of 2021. Which means the Alpine developers saw no releases for almost two years and started planning their own service manager. Then, just last month, they happened to blog about their plans around the same time OpenRC put out a new stable release.
That doesn't make them wrong, it just means their announcement about why they were looking for an alternative came out around the same time OpenRC suddenly sprang back into life. We have the benefit of hindsight and can see the timing of their announcement lined up with OpenRC's new release, but they had no way of knowing that and their information was (at the time) true. Retroactively saying they were lying is ignoring the facts at the time they made their plans.
18 • Alpine Linux and OpenRC (by nanome on 2021-05-03 14:41:44 GMT from United Kingdom)
When I read the DW news article that Alpine Linux is planning to replace OpenRC with "something new" that is "systemd done right".
The plan seems to be to employ Laurent Bercot, author of the s6 init and supervision software, to "develop" the new system. I am not sure what is missing from s6 that requires major development.
Both OpenRC and S6 are small [16k and 18k lines of C code resp.]; compared to systemd's reported 1.2 million lines. Interestingly, Void Linux uses Runit for init and process supervision [author G. Pape], consists of 6k lines of C. It has required little "development" over the years.
Small projects like Runit, S6 and OpenRC require little ongoing "development" [aka tinkering]. Of course, it is good to have access to the original authors for critical projects.
If Alpine Linux come up with a replacement for OpenRC which is at least as small, fast and robust as the alternatives, then I would be impressed.
19 • @17 OpenRC (by Andy Prough on 2021-05-03 16:36:37 GMT from Switzerland)
@Jesse - "That doesn't make them wrong, it just means their announcement about why they were looking for an alternative came out around the same time OpenRC suddenly sprang back into life. We have the benefit of hindsight and can see the timing of their announcement lined up with OpenRC's new release, but they had no way of knowing that and their information was (at the time) true. Retroactively saying they were lying is ignoring the facts at the time they made their plans."
Alpine updated their blog post on April 27th, 25 days after openRC 0.43 was released (followed by 3 additional point releases by April 15th), but Alpine did not update their blog post to reflect that point. The updated blog post still says that "the last [openRC] release was over a year ago."
At the same time, Distrowatch has had this information for over a month, and still your page is repeating Alpine's incorrect information - "Unfortunately, OpenRC maintenance has stagnated: the last release was over a year ago."
There's no reason that DW cannot post a note below the Alpine quote that says that openRC 0.43 was released one week after Alpine's original blog post on March 25th.
20 • opinions (by Tad Strange on 2021-05-03 18:36:59 GMT from Canada)
@5 Re: bragging rights - I remember when Fedora did that with the (then) new KDE years back, delivering a DE that was utterly and literally unusable.
I walked away from Fedora at that point and never returned. Pre-alpha concept software isn't my thing.
Not sure why Arch wouldn't adopt an existing installer, other than out of the desire to continue to have a 20th century install experience, but with a few more prompts. If it actually left me with a functional VM it might be different, but instead I was left with a very 20th century hit-but-mostly-miss linux install experience.
Also - loved the "Bug for Bug" comment
21 • Lubuntu 18.04 EOL (by pmller on 2021-05-03 20:10:53 GMT from Germany)
This EOL announcement is a bit irritating.
It is valid or might be valid only for the universe software which can be found in Lubuntu (it is certainly valid for the LXDE software packages in Lubuntu, of course).
But all software in Lubuntu which belongs to Ubuntu main (and this means the whole basis software of Ubuntu/Lubuntu (e.g. the kernel)) is still supported by Canonical. So therefore, most of the software packages in Lubuntu 18.04 will be supported with updates until spring 2023.
So for most people there wil be no need for an upgrade, if they still want to use LXDE as a desktop, because up to now there are no severe security holes known in LXDE software and Ubuntu main is still supported until 2023.
22 • @18: Re: Alpine Linux and OpenRC (by Tony Agudo on 2021-05-03 20:59:12 GMT from United States)
There's a few features that systemd has that should definitely be implemented in whatever Alpine Linux comes out with:
1. A bootup analyzer.
2. An interface for control groups.
3. An interface to create, run and manage containers that meshes well with the service manager.
23 • Ubuntu 21.04 - waht can Ubuntu do? (by Kaczor on 2021-05-03 21:00:32 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu does release a snapshot of its always-in-development system once every April and October with different names and numbers, and always with bleeding edge packages for a Debian based distro. But, this time Ubuntu failed with the April release. It simply didn't have Gnome 40, while all other self-respecting distros had. What can Ubuntu do, when Debian doesn't have Gnome 40 in either Debian Testing or Unstable (Sid) repos?
Debian 11 is already frozen, but would come out with Gnome 3.38 and no one really knows when Debian 12 would be released. No one really knows, when Gnome 40 packages would arrive in either Debian Testing or Unstable. So, what can Ubuntu do, but fail?
24 • Arch installer (by Toran on 2021-05-03 22:09:55 GMT from Belgium)
Works only UEFI. Which I can understand. But I have MBR still.
25 • Gnome 40 on Ubuntu (by Buntuboy on 2021-05-04 00:39:22 GMT from United States)
For those wanting Both Gnome 40 and Ubuntu 21.04 and bemoaning the lack of Gnome 40 on Ubuntu, (@3, @23), 40 is available on a PPA. I have it running on VBox. Runs fine after a couple of minor hiccups. Won't go into details here. Just google "gnome 40 ubuntu" and plenty of youtubers and others will be happy to instruct. Aside from the new "activities" screen, most of the benefit seems to go to heavy users of touchpads. I spend most of my time on a desktop, so I don't see a worthwhile benefit.
That said, I run 20.04 dual boot with Kubuntu of the same vintage on my desktop and laptop. Both desktops are modified to my liking, and they resemble each other. On Gnome, I have the Dash to Panel extension, which is almost as configurable as KDE's panel. Panel on top, Plank on the bottom, on Xorg.
Problems with Gnome 40: The tweak tool no longer controls extensions. Can only be done from the Extensions app. The Dash to Panel extension is not compatible. Although there is a Dash to Plank extension The Extensions app will not run on Xorg, and Plank will not run on Wayland. Foiled again!! I'll stick to old fuddy-duddy 3.38 for the foreseeable future. I don't see what all the hoo-haw is about.
Don't care for Fedora, but should I feel emasculated without Gnome 40, I would use one of the Arch-based distros that already provide it: RebornOS and Garuda, for example
26 • What can Ubuntu do? (by Kaczor on 2021-05-04 08:10:21 GMT from United States)
There's nothing Ubuntu can do, until Gnome 40 arrives in Debian Testing/Unstable. A PPA is not going to help the "mighty" Ubuntu developers. It has to come officially from Debian. The last Ubuntu "stable" release is a disaster, with a 'snapshot' that was not ready, and still not ready today. The 21.10 daily is available, but how many are installing it? Yes, what can Ubuntu do?
27 • @26, Those who can, do. . . (by Buntuboy on 2021-05-04 09:35:24 GMT from United States)
Those who can't, stay with Gnome 3. The idea of the PPA is not what Ubuntu can do for you. It's what you can do with Ubuntu.
28 • @27 what those, who can't do... (by Lin on 2021-05-04 10:21:25 GMT from United States)
Exactly, that's all Ubuntu can do, stay with Gnome 3 until, some day, Debian might allow Gnome 40 in. End of an era! Ubuntu is dead or dying fast.
29 • No one cares anymore (by Mark on 2021-05-04 10:43:11 GMT from Singapore)
Lately there had been a call to get the community back at Ubuntu, even had a livestream, only the 'developers' talked between themselves, but had cheerless faces. The 'community' as such got disintegrated for last 3-4 years, without any new members coming in. They a talking about that at their "community hub", but among themselves. Three years ago, Ubuntu betrayed their community, so the majority moved on, most of them to Arch Linux.
Mark Shuttleworth didn't announce the new Impish this time like those days, only a mention at the Launchpad. How many had started testing it? Betrayed users won't come back.
30 • Ubuntu @28, @29 (by Buntuboy on 2021-05-04 11:58:31 GMT from United States)
@28. Ubuntu was dead when it changed to Gnome #. No, wait! When it changed to Unity. No, wait! When it changed back to Gnome 3. No, wait! But somehow it's still kicking. It never was about the latest and greatest. Still isn't. Rolling distros fill that role.
@29, The Ubuntu forum still has millions of members and lots of activity, so some people do care. Sorry you were betrayed! Wish you happiness in your new relationship.
Here are results for Google Trends. Still looks like a lot more people are interested in Ubuntu than in any other Linux, regardless of DW page hits. Yes, Searches tended down, but Ubuntu is still way ahead of others by far.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/164785504@N08/
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=Ubuntu,mx%20linux,Manjaro,linux%20mint,Arch%20Linux
31 • @30 (by Andy Prough on 2021-05-04 13:55:54 GMT from United States)
A lot of distros set up duckduckgo as the default search engine, and a very large percentage of users of non-Ubuntu distros are going to be using duckduckgo, searx, swisscows, metager, startpage, and other non-google search engines.
Showing a google trends line in favor of Ubuntu is simply confirmation bias in action - Ubuntu is the favored distro of the type of users who would be sticking with google for search.
32 • arch installer (by aurel on 2021-05-04 14:11:17 GMT from Moldova)
The guys from Arch have NIH syndrome, why on earth they didn't check what manjaro architect or other arch based text installers have to offer before writing a new installer for arch.
Maybe it is beneath them to even try those child distros :)
p.s:
the comments in this Weekly are heated, surprisingly there are a lot of "ubuntu is dead people",
but Ubuntu was, is and will gonna be the distro number 1
it terms of active user base.
It is hard to believe for distro hoppers and distrowatch folk, but people care for stability, and Ubuntu in 20 years was always the most stable distro.
So thats why they are using Gnome 3.38 in Gnome 40 era. And will switch to Gnome 42 when Gnome will be usable again.
Gnome never was usable until Ubuntu switched to it, and a lot of bugs were fixed by them.
In Gnome 2 era -> ubuntu was the main stability driver for that DE too.
Thats why people choose Ubuntu, and thats why it is Linux distro nr. 1
33 • GNOME yada yada (by Cheker on 2021-05-04 16:46:27 GMT from Portugal)
Buntu looks alright, I guess. I don't blame them for sticking with GNOME 3, but then, maybe they never had the choice to begin with.
GNOME is a weird one. Like I think I get what they're going for but it just feels weird on a desktop. Where's my minimize button?!
I have not tried the Arch installer and after reading all of this I'm not sure there's a point. I've played around with Anarchy before and I think it fills the "pure Arch install but easy" void pretty well. And this is to say nothing of all the Arch children like Manjaro, Endeavour and Artix.
Excited to look into Rocky one of these days.
34 • Arch Installer (by Justin on 2021-05-04 21:18:18 GMT from United States)
I made archinstall work in a VM with the basics. I'm not really impressed, but I appreciate the sentiment. Visual feedback when installing packages would really help. I liked Anarchy except that it changes my default shell colors and installs its own branding. I'll probably stick with pacstrap. It didn't feel "easier" to use, and I felt a loss of control for anything other than quick and dirty installs. Generally I just use the live disc with a VM unless I need something with a GUI. Then I use a Mint live disc.
35 • Ubuntu (by Otis on 2021-05-04 22:42:04 GMT from United States)
Good point made up there (@31) about search trends; it's THEM searching on THEIR fave.. mostly. That pans out for Windows, as well.
Meanwhile the OpenRC discussion scared me a bit as to the lag in development. Am I wrong to think it's going to go away, or worse, change in some horrid (systemd-like) way? I'm hoping the Artix devs don't let that happen, or again am I wrong to assume distro developers also develop init systems? Yes I'm that ill informed.. need to read about these init systems more.
36 • OpenRC (by Jesse on 2021-05-04 22:46:44 GMT from Canada)
@35: "Am I wrong to think it's going to go away, or worse, change in some horrid (systemd-like) way?"
OpenRC is not going to go away or change into something like systemd. Its development is just slower now between major releases because there isn't much to do. OpenRC is mostly "done" and just needs minor updates to keep it current. SysV init and runit are the same: mostly finished projects that just need a little maintenance once in a while.
" I'm hoping the Artix devs don't let that happen, or again am I wrong to assume distro developers also develop init systems?"
Distro developers don't work on the init systems. All the major init implementations are developed independently. The distros just package the init software developed elsewhere.
37 • DEs & Distros (by M.Z. on 2021-05-05 01:58:14 GMT from United States)
@5
"...adopting Gnome 40 first: they should hang their heads in shame."
Fedora isn't about being the most polished or user friendly, it's about being fairly cutting edge & the makers expect most users to know that & be able to figure out when to hold off a while upgrading. I feel like that's long been a known thing if you want RPM fusion repos which generally lag behind Fedora version releases. This is a similar situation for Gnome users, which probably see these breakages all the time on Fedora. Some people may like vanilla Gnome & want to upgrade fast, even if most Linux users don't want any part of that. I know I wouldn't want any kind of vanilla Gnome, but I fully expect Fedora to offer the option first & to break functionality in the process & that's fine with me as a former Fedora user because that's who they are.
@31
"Showing a google trends line in favor of Ubuntu is simply confirmation bias in action..."
I'm definitely not a fan of Google or Ubuntu, but let's be real - Google has the market share in terms of all searches. Their trends are simply more reliable overall. Trying to ignore the largest search engine on the planet is a kind of confirmation bias in its own right. I may prefer Mint, but most of the good info I've seen indicates Ubuntu has more users even if it's not searched on DW in the proportions of other Distros.
38 • @37 Google market share (by Andy Prough on 2021-05-05 02:19:03 GMT from Switzerland)
> "let's be real - Google has the market share in terms of all searches"
I highly doubt that Google has top market share among users of most distros.
Clearly Google is the favorite of the Windows crowd, and probably among those who dual boot Windows and Ubuntu, or use Ubuntu as WSL on Windows.
But since you were trying to correlate Google search trends with users of various distros, I just felt it was important to point out that most of them are probably not using Google for search.
39 • Ubuntu boot bug (by NeverGoogle-UbuntuUser on 2021-05-05 12:58:47 GMT from United States)
What does "older EFI" mean relative to the Ubuntu boot bug?
From what I can tell from the Ubuntu "bugzilla," the boot problem after update to 21.04 occurred on a MacBook from 2012 (although another user reported the bug with a PC). I have 20.10-upgraded-to-2104 on a 2017 Dell XPS13: So far so good.
40 • Google (by penguinx86 on 2021-05-05 20:37:54 GMT from United States)
It's easy to change your browser's default search engine to something else. In Firefox, I can switch from Duckduckgo to Google in 5 mouse clicks. I don't think the default search engine is a good metric for operating system statistics.
I like the concept of Duckduckgo, but the top search results aren't as relevant to me. The first 5 search results are usually ads, then I have click on "More Results" before I find what I was really looking for. Yahoo and Bing aren't any better. Google just provides better faster more relevant search results.
41 • Google vs Duckduckgo Ads (by nanome on 2021-05-05 22:27:30 GMT from United Kingdom)
@40 I never see adverts in duckduckgo search results as I switch them off [4 mouse clicks]. Also, it produces deterministic search results, rather reinforcing "bias" from remembered search history. I am sure that Google, with all their AI, can produce more results..
42 • Google vs DuckDuckGo, @41 (by Justme on 2021-05-05 23:22:36 GMT from Philippines)
"it produces deterministic search results, rather reinforcing "bias" from remembered search history"
What you call "bias" others might call relevance. Example: I just entered "Indian restaurant" in the search box. Google gives me three within a few kilometres, with maps and available directions, DuckDuckGo's first result is in Boca Raton, Florida, which is just a tad too far. It does show one in this country off to the side, but it's in another province requiring a 6 hour ferry and bus trip.
Yes, Google knows where I am, and keeps track of my searches and preferences. In return it offers relevance and convenience. I have a public web persona. I also value privacy when I need it, so I use other search engines, VPNs, and other things to remain anonymous when I wish. But that is less convenient for everyday use.
In any case, the discussion was about search term frequency, not results.
43 • Better Metric (by M.Z. on 2021-05-06 02:23:21 GMT from United States)
I may not like Google or Ubuntu, but I'm not going to pretend they aren't both at the top of their prospective fields in terms of user base. A little search on Alexa.com traffic ranking reviled these numbers for global internet engagement rankings:
google.com - #1
duckduckgo.com - #161
ubuntu.com - #3,671
linuxmint.com - #13,634
debian.org - #14,822
mxlinux.org - #117,906
Feel free to find a more objective or thorough source & let us know why it would be better to use, but I feel that is a fairly definitive indicator. I'm pleasantly surprised by the duckduckgo bit & the fact that a fair amount of people seem to actually care about their privacy, though I would would prefer if the Mint number were closer to the one for Ubuntu. That being said I try not to go out of my way to find confirmation bias, & try to accept what is over what I would prefer.
44 • Don't forget about Startpage (by Elcaset on 2021-05-06 06:37:42 GMT from United States)
When discussing privacy focused search engines, don't forget about Startpage.com. I like that it has the Anonymous View option for each result (using a proxy).
45 • @43 Better Metrics: (by dragojnmouth on 2021-05-06 11:32:09 GMT from United States)
Lies, damn lies and statistics.
The way Google has things rigged, it would be surprising if they were not #1 and by a large margin.
46 • Search engines (by Cheker on 2021-05-07 09:35:52 GMT from Portugal)
@45 You don't need rigging to justify Google being #1. It's the default search engine of the most used browser. Google is so big that it's a verb synonymous with "search online".
@44 I heard Startpage got sold a while back. Not saying it shouldn't be trusted anymore but you should at least know of it and make your decision from there.
47 • Arch Linux installer (by Thomas Mueller on 2021-05-07 10:08:57 GMT from United States)
I never got to Arch Linux installer. Eight years ago, almost to the day, I subscribed to Arch emailing lists but found the moderators too hostile. I asked how an Arch system could be built or rebuilt from source as is well-known in NetBSD and FreeBSD, but the moderator rejected my post, saying I could find the answer from the wiki in one minute (or was it five minutes?). I still never found the answer. Feeling unduly tongue-tied, I became an infant mortality by unsubscribing from all Arch lists. Arch became the only OS or distro that I rejected for sociological reasons. Now I see (Mozilla) Seamonkey flags "distro" with a wavy red underline as a spelling error.
48 • @46: (by dragonmouth on 2021-05-07 11:48:34 GMT from United States)
Thank you. You have just proven my point. The numbers M.Z. quotes are for ALL Google hits on the 'Net, not just its search engine. But since you mention it. Google is so big that it made itself the default search engine of the computing world. An 800 lbs gorilla does whatever it wants.
49 • @46 search engine privacy (by Elcaset on 2021-05-07 19:10:17 GMT from United States)
Thank you for mentioning that Startpage was bought by another company. I hadn't heard that. After some searching, I found many articles critical of Startpage & DuckDuckGo's privacy. It looks like Searx is the best option out there. There are many instances of Searx. Metasearch.nl is one instance of Searx that's working well for me.
50 • Alpine, s6 & OpenRC (by Jeang3nie on 2021-05-07 19:25:00 GMT from United States)
I seriously doubt that very many of the people who have posted about this here went on to fully read and absorb the linked articles, or the related content on skarnet.org. There is more afoot than the pace of OpenRC development. There are features that Alone wish to have that are not provided by OpenRC, and may never be.
As for what is wrong with s6 as it is, nothing really. The proposal is to use s6 as the backend and to code an easy to use service manager and init system that can be configured with something similar to Systemd unit files. Currently, s6-rc is definitely not that. It works, and quite well, but is definitely geared towards power users and those who don't mind taking a deep dive into the docs, or even the source code. Because really, having used it in the context of setting it all up from scratch, it's just not a turnkey solution right now.
The proposal is to turn s6 into something that is a easy to use as systemd, which is frankly what is required if ever its going to actually challenge systemd. I believe that is possible, especially with the person chosen to do the work. And I believe that what we get in the end would be a massive improvement over the status quo due to having an overall much better architecture and being completely decoupled from corporate interests. It's a massively worthwhile project.
51 • file labels (by just curious on 2021-05-07 21:32:57 GMT from United States)
has arch removed the use of file labels from their install?
or are they still stuck in 1972?
because all the distros that won't install using unetbootin and demand it be written with dd (or similar), you have some high high hopes of getting me to devote an entire usb stick to your crappy app. not happening
BONGware, because you have to be high to think its a good idea
Number of Comments: 51
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • 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 |
| • 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 | 
OpenGroupware.org Knoppix CD
The OpenGroupware.org (OGo) Knoppix CD was a bootable CD which contains a complete Debian GNU/Linux system, a fully configured OGo installation, a Cyrus server and some more Linux software. It's based on the original Knoppix CD created by Knopper.Net Consulting. It's certainly the fastest way to get a usable OpenGroupware.org demo up and running!
Status: Discontinued
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| 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.
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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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