 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 916, 10 May 2021 |
Welcome to this year's 18th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Whichever operating system a person runs, a key feature is how to get applications to run on the platform. While most Linux distributions offer a curated collection of software through official repositories, people often want to access additional software. There are many approaches to acquiring extra software, varying from collections of ports to portable package formats and community repositories. We talk about some of these options in our Questions and Answers column. What is your primary method of acquiring third-party software? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. First though we take a look at a Linux distribution called JingOS designed with touch interfaces, specifically tablet computers, in mind. We also talk about a project in the illumos family called Tribblix which takes on a retro style. Plus we report on Fedora's new i3 window manager spin and pfSense providing an experimental WireGuard package. We also report on work being done, particularly with wireless support, in the FreeBSD project. Plus we are 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: JingOS 0.8 and Tribblix
- News: Fedora introduces i3 spin, pfSense provides WireGuard packages, FreeBSD improves wireless support
- Questions and answers: Installing third-party software on distributions
- Released last week: GParted Live 1.3.0-1
- Torrent corner: Bluestar, GParted Live, IPFire, KDE neon, Mabox, Manjaro, Plamo, SalientOS, SparkyLinux, SystemRescue
- Opinion poll: Methods for installing third party software
- New distributions: VzLinux
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
JingOS 0.8
One of the most recent additions to the DistroWatch database is JingOS, an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution for tablet computers. The project aims to run both GNU/Linux and Android applications via a graphical user interface which is designed to work in a familiar way on touch screens. While early versions of JingOS were developed for ARM-based devices, JingOS 0.8 is the project's first version to run on x86 processors.
The JingOS project requires that people register their e-mail address to obtain the project's free download. A download link is then sent to our e-mail address. When I downloaded an earlier version of JingOS (version 0.6) the download link was for the distribution's ISO file directly. When I downloaded version 0.8 I was given a link to the project's torrent file. At first my torrent download only had two seeders with an average download speed of 20kB/s. This eventually rose to eight seeders at 400kB/s, which is unusually slow compared to most free mirrors available these days. The ISO file's total size is 2.4GB so the download took over two hours.
Booting from the distribution's install media causes the system to start with a self-check of the media. This check can be skipped by pressing Ctrl+C. The screen then goes entirely black for a while. After a few minutes I started testing keyboard input without any response. The only thing I could do was to switch between terminals using the Ctrl+Alt+Function keys.
I found the first terminal remained blank, the second terminal showed a colourful background and a clock displaying UTC time. Terminals three through six all displayed a console login prompt. The login prompts identify the distribution as KDE neon's Unstable Edition.
There are no controls we can interact with on the graphical terminals and no obvious username/password combination worked on the text consoles. I checked the JingOS documentation and found no login information. The website's only instructions for working with the live media are as follows:
Install guide(English): Boot from USB or CD, click Install System.
This is not helpful as there are no buttons or windows in any of the available terminals or screens. I tried booting JingOS a few times and never found a way to get it to proceed any further than these bare screens.
* * * * *
Tribblix
The next project I decided to take a look at this week was Tribblix. The Tribblix project offers an "operating system distribution derived from OpenSolaris, OpenIndiana, and illumos, with a retro style and modern components. The base kernel and commands are from illumos, with a few components currently repackaged from OpenIndiana (mostly X11, some other oddments); pretty much everything else has been rebuilt from scratch. It is very much a traditional system. Software is distributed as SVR4 packages, lightweight window managers are preferred over heavy desktop environments, the primary desktop option is Xfce, and MATE and Enlightenment are also available, plus many others. The system is flexible, fast, and familiar to those who've used Solaris in the past, while shipping modern software on the solid foundation it's based on.
Tribblix isn't just a spin or repackaging of another illumos distribution. It's a completely independent distribution that, while sharing the key illumos technologies such as ZFS, zones, DTrace, and SMF, has been essentially built from scratch, with its own build and packaging system."
(Thank you to the developers for this rather detailed and technical description. It's a rare treat to know exactly what a project is and what it is meant to do.)
Tribblix is currently available for 64-bit (x86_64) processors and there is an older, legacy build for 32-bit (x86) machines. The project currently supplies a build for SPARC machines too. The operating system comes in two main editions: Standard (999MB) and Minimal (238MB). I decided to try the Standard edition, which is tagged as version 0m24.1.
Booting from the Tribblix media brings up a text console that displays green font on a black background. Apparently we are going really retro with this distribution. We are asked to pick our language from a numbered list and then shown a text console with a login prompt.
Installing
The Tribblix website provides the default login credentials (the username and password are both "jack"). The website's documentation also tells us we can run a script called live_install.sh to install the operating system to our hard drive. The script just needs to be given the device name of our hard drive.
A wall of text scrolls by as the operating system is installed. When it is finished we are returned to the command prompt. According to the website's documentation we can run the install script again and pass it the names of package bundles to add extra software such as desktop environments and development tools. There is a meta package called kitchen-sink which installs both desktop and development utilities and is the recommended approach to setting up a multi-purpose system.
I tried to install the kitchen-sink package and this appeared to work at first, but ended up displaying thousands of "cannot open file" errors on the terminal. This was followed by new packages being downloaded and then another series of errors indicating there was no space left on the storage device. This seemed odd at first because only about 10% of my on-disk filesystem was consumed. However, in hindsight, I suspect the download process was trying to save new packages either in RAM or to my live media, rather than the hard drive. I resolved to try installing packages again later, once I had booted into my new copy of Tribblix.
First impressions and package management
My fresh copy of Tribblix booted to a console and displayed a login prompt. The "jack" username and password still worked on the locally installed copy of Tribblix. I tried to use the startx and startxfce4 commands mentioned in the documentation and discovered neither command was found. This confirmed that the errors displayed during the initial setup had been accurate and no package bundles (Tribblix calls them "overlays") had been set up successfully.
The Tribblix website mentions a tool called zap which handles fetching new overlays once the operating system has been installed. We can use zap to list installed overlays, see which ones are available, and fetch new ones. The zap command works a lot like APT or DNF in the Linux world, but with a slightly modified syntax.
Graphical desktops
I again opted to try to install the kitchen-sink overlay and this appeared to be successful. I did end up with some development tools install and I could run startx to get a minimal window manager, powered by TWM. Unfortunately TWM doesn't provide us with much apart from opening a few virtual terminals and displaying a clock. It's a very minimal interface and one which did not respond to mouse input.
I decided to close TWM and switch to the Xfce desktop environment. The Xfce environment started to load and then crashed. This happened each time I tried to start Xfce, whether it was set to be my default graphical interface or not. Since TWM had worked, at least partially, I then tried to install the Openbox window manager to see if it would get me further along. Openbox failed to install, but the MATE desktop did install through zap. However, the MATE session also crashed prior to successfully getting to the desktop screen.
This left me, effectively, without a desktop environment. Running TWM worked, but wasn't much help as far as dealing with graphical workloads and so I played around with Tribblix as a console-only system. I found the operating system consumed about 250MB of RAM when logged into the console. A chunk of this memory appears to be used as cache for ZFS which is the default filesystem. The ZFS tools are installed and worked successfully for me.
Other observations
Some software on the operating system is showing its age. For instance, the GNU Compiler Collection is available, but is stuck on version 7.3 while modern Linux distributions ship version 10 and even Debian's aging Stable branch uses version 8.3. It seems Tribblix suffers from the same issue OpenIndiana has of often trailing behind in software versions.
Tribblix ships with standard UNIX command line tools and manual pages. However, some components seem to be missing. For instance, whenever I ran the shutdown command to halt or reboot the system, an error would be displayed saying the wall command could not be found. This is the program which would normally inform other users on the system that Tribblix was being shutdown.
Originally I had started testing Tribblix in a VirtualBox instance. I did switch gears and try the operating system on my laptop too for a while. However, Tribblix was unable to detect my laptop's wireless card which meant it was limited to working as a standalone machine during that portion of my trial and unable to install new software.
Conclusions
I did not have a great time with Tribblix. The concept of the illumos platform with a classic style appealed to me as I was a fan of Solaris in the early days of my career. On paper this operating system does offer some attractive features. I like that it provides ZFS out of the box and a fairly minimal default platform. The zap overlay manager does a nice job of fetching and setting up software on the system, at least most of the time.
However, Tribblix did not do well with regards to supporting my laptop's hardware, with getting a desktop environment up and running, or with providing even semi-recent versions of open source applications. Like its siblings in the illumos family, Tribblix feels like it is slipping behind the times and struggling to provide a polished user experience.
There are some positive aspects here and if I were setting up a server operating system or NAS that was expected to run without a desktop then I could certainly see the appeal of Tribblix, especially for people who are fans of the Solaris family of operating systems. However, there are still a number of rough edges to deal with before I think Tribblix will be in a position to replace FreeBSD or one of the mainstream Linux distributions in common roles.
* * * * *
Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a de-branded HP laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: Intel i3 2.5GHz CPU
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 700GB hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Wired network device: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast
- Wireless network device: Realtek RTL8188EE Wireless network card
* * * * *
Visitor supplied rating
JingOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 5.1/10 from 11 review(s).
Have you used JingOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Fedora introduces i3 spin, pfSense provides WireGuard packages, FreeBSD improves wireless support
One of the new features available to Fedora 34 users which largely when unnoticed in the project's latest release was the addition of the i3 spin. The new spin features the i3 window manager. Fedora Magazine highlights some of the key features of this new Fedora spin: "Fedora 34 features the brand new i3 Spin created by the Fedora i3 S.I.G. This new spin features the popular i3wm tiling window manager. This will appeal to both novices and advanced users who prefer not to use a mouse, touchpad, or other pointing device to interact with their environment. The Fedora i3 spin offers a complete experience with a minimalistic user interface and a lightweight environment. It is intended for the power user, as well as others."
* * * * *
At the start of 2021 we reported on pfSense gaining WireGuard support through new code being implemented in FreeBSD. Unfortunately a number of problems were found in the original WireGuard for FreeBSD code and it was removed and re-implemented. This resulted in FreeBSD and pfSense temporarily losing WireGuard support. Work continues to bring the lightweight VPN technology to the FreeBSD family of operating systems and pfSense is now providing a experimental package which restore WireGuard functionality. "We are pleased to be collaborating with Chris McDonald to bring WireGuard back to pfSense Plus and pfSense CE software in an experimental form. Chris approached our engineering team a few weeks ago to look for ways to collaborate on WireGuard, and we are pleased to work with him and share his results. Starting May 5, 2021, Netgate will build and distribute this new code as part of the library of extensions that exist for both development and future versions of pfSense Plus and pfSense CE."
* * * * *
The FreeBSD project has published its Quarterly Status Update for the first three months of 2021. The report talks about work being done in all aspects of the FreeBSD project along with its third-party ports. Among the infrastructure and security improvements there is some good news for people who use wireless networking: "The Intel Wireless driver update project aims to bring support for newer chipsets. During the first quarter the driver and firmware were synched from upstream so that we will have support for all modern cards currently supported in Linux. Some iwlwifi driver changes were also submitted back upstream. Several conflicts with the original implementation of LinuxKPI were or are being resolved and more LinuxKPI code was upstreamed to FreeBSD HEAD. LinuxKPI 802.11 compat code was improved and as of the day of writing we have data packets going over 11a." Further details can be found in the report.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Installing third-party software on distributions
An-AUR-fan asks: Whenever I ask people why they use Arch Linux they almost always mention the AUR. If it's so popular then why don't other distributions have the same thing? I don't mean why can't other distributions use the AUR itself, but it must be possible to have an equivalent user-generated repository?
DistroWatch answers: The Arch User Repository, for those unfamiliar with it, is a collection of software in the form of build scripts. These build instructions are provided by the community, which is to say it's an unvetted repository supplied by third-parties. The Arch Linux wiki describes the function of the AUR as follows:
The Arch User Repository (AUR) is a community-driven repository for Arch users. It contains package descriptions (PKGBUILDs) that allow you to compile a package from source with makepkg and then install it via pacman.
The AUR provides Arch Linux users with a wide range of software which can be compiled from source code and then installed using Arch's package manager. For people who want access to a large collection of software this is quite useful.
Which brings us back to the question of why, if the AUR is so popular and useful, are there not similar community repositories available for other Linux distributions? The answer is that most of the big Linux distributions do have some method (or multiple methods) for acquiring third-party (sometimes unvetted) software. Some of these third-party repositories are cross-platform, meaning they run on almost all distributions, while others are specific to one family of distributions.
To offer a few examples of distro-specific, third-party repositories, the Fedora Project has Copr, the Ubuntu family has Personal Package Archives (also known as PPAs), the openSUSE community has a variety of third-party repositories, and Slackware Linux has SlackBuilds. The various BSDs have port collections which are usually semi-open to outside contributors.
There are other repositories which are more portable and work across most distributions. For example, most Linux distributions which feature the systemd software can run Snap packages. Almost all desktop distributions can run portable desktop applications in the form of Flatpak bundles and these bundles can usually be found in the Flathub repository. The Nix package manager can be installed on most Linux distributions and provides access to over 60,000 Nixpkgs. There are also operating system agnostic port collections such as pkgsrc.
In short, most distributions have access to multiple third-party repositories, each with their own focus or flavour. Some are portable, some are targeting specific platforms, some are for software available under more restrictive license terms. The bottom line though is most distributions have lots of ways of accessing large collections of third-party packages. They may work slightly differently than the AUR, but the general concept is the same.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
GParted Live 1.3.0-1
GParted Live is a business card-size live CD distribution with a single purpose - to provide tools for partitioning hard disks in an intuitive, graphical environment. The project's latest release, GParted Live 1.3.0-1, improves exFAT filesystem support, makes it possible to resize LUKS2 encrypted volumes, and fixes a number of potential crashes. "This release of GParted includes enhancements, bug fixes and language translation updates. Key changes include: Support resizing open LUKS2 encryption mappings; improve exFAT support such as read FS usage and set UUID; fix crash in Create New Partition dialog when changing type; avoid GParted hanging when non-named device is hung. Bug Fixes: Stop GParted hanging when non-named device is hung; avoid detecting exfat-utils commands as exfatprogs commands; Add support for reading exFAT usage and updating the UUID; fix minor typos in docs (!68) and comments; add Ukrainian translation of docs; fix test suite failing in test_PipeCapture." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
* * * * *
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: 2,434
- Total data uploaded: 37.5TB
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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) |
Methods for installing third party software
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about methods for installing third-party software packages - those not available in a distribution's official repositories. What is your primary method for installing third-party packages on your distribution?
You can see the results of our previous poll on the Arch Linux system installer in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Primary method for installing third-party software
| AppImage: | 178 (11%) |
| AUR: | 343 (21%) |
| Copr/Contrib/PPA repo: | 234 (14%) |
| Flatpak: | 229 (14%) |
| Nix: | 10 (1%) |
| pkgsrc: | 18 (1%) |
| Ports/Slackbuilds: | 61 (4%) |
| Snap: | 79 (5%) |
| Source code: | 151 (9%) |
| Other: | 172 (10%) |
| I do not install third-party software: | 170 (10%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- VzLinux. VzLinux has been a base operating system for OpenVz and Virtuozzo Hybrid Server. Additionally, it is used as a guest operating system for containers and virtual machines. The distribution is 1:1 compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 17 May 2021. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Issue 1032 (2023-08-14): MX Linux 23, positioning new windows on the desktop, Linux Containers adopts LXD fork, Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ form OpenELA |
| • Issue 1031 (2023-08-07): Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, preventing a file from being changed, Asahi Linux partners with Fedora, Linux Mint plans new releases |
| • Issue 1030 (2023-07-31): Solus 4.4, Linux Mint 21.2, Debian introduces RISC-V support, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 |
| • Issue 1029 (2023-07-24): Running Murena on the Fairphone 4, Flatpak vs Snap sandboxing technologies, Redox OS plans to borrow Linux drivers to expand hardware support, Debian updates Bookworm media |
| • Issue 1028 (2023-07-17): KDE Connect; Oracle, SUSE, and AlmaLinux repsond to Red Hat's source code policy change, KaOS issues media fix, Slackware turns 30; security and immutable distributions |
| • Issue 1027 (2023-07-10): Crystal Linux 2023-03-16, StartOS (embassyOS 0.3.4.2), changing options on a mounted filesystem, Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Fedora debates telemetry for desktop team |
| • Issue 1026 (2023-07-03): Kumander Linux 1.0, Red Hat changing its approach to sharing source code, TrueNAS offers SMB Multichannel, Zorin OS introduces upgrade utility |
| • Issue 1025 (2023-06-26): KaOS with Plasma 6, information which can leak from desktop environments, Red Hat closes door on sharing RHEL source code, SUSE introduces new security features |
| • Issue 1024 (2023-06-19): Debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Debian releases GNU/Hurd 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 nears its end of life, FreeBSD turns 30 |
| • Issue 1023 (2023-06-12): openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the differences between independent distributions, openSUSE lengthens Leap life, Murena offers new phone for North America |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Full list of all issues |
| 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.
|
| Shells.com |
Your own personal Linux computer in the cloud, available on any device. Supported operating systems include Android, Debian, Fedora, KDE neon, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro and Ubuntu, ready in minutes.
Starting at US$4.95 per month, 7-day money-back guarantee
|
| Random Distribution | 
ArtistX
ArtistX was a Ubuntu-based bootable DVD containing many free multimedia software packages for audio, 2D and 3D graphics, and video production. The goal of this project was to showcase the variety of multimedia software available on the GNU/Linux platform and to enable creative individuals to accomplish their tasks with the help of Free Software.
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.
|
| 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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