 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 935, 20 September 2021 |
Welcome to this year's 37th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
One of the interesting aspects of the open source community is that people are always trying different approaches to solve the same problem. One of the reasons we have so many toolkits, word processors, and distributions is the creativity people have for trying out various ways to make our computing experiences better. This week we begin with a look at Obarun, an Arch-based Linux distribution which features a rarely-used init and service manager combination. Obarun is intended for more experienced users and we explore its unique features in this week's Feature Story. In our News section we talk about the Solus team branching out and working on their own versions of desktop applications in an attempt to distance the project from GNOME. We also report on the Linux cgroup filesystem being ported to the BSD family to help efforts to port software to the BSD projects. Plus we share news that Ubuntu will start packaging Firefox as a Snap. Then, in our Questions and Answers column, we explore ways to keep one application always in front of other application windows. We are also pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Obarun 2021.07.26
Obarun is a derivative of Arch Linux with systemd replaced by the s6 init software. The project's website describes the distribution's design and focus quite clearly as follows:
The goal of Obarun is to provide an alternative for people looking for more simplicity and transparency in maintaining their systems. Obarun is not designed with beginners to Linux in mind, but Obarun's community is dedicated in helping anyone with the will to try it.
Obarun is based on Arch Linux, but incorporates several changes, modifications, additions, in its effort to run reliably, without systemd and its intrusive by-products. Obarun separates the init and service management from the rest of the system that should be chosen freely by the user/sysadmin.
At the moment Obarun is only available for x86-64 architectures, as is Arch, but its own software has no such limitations on architecture.
systemd replacement is made by Skarnet's s6 supervision suite as init and by Obarun's own 66 service management. s6 and 66 is the heart of Obarun, it is what makes it unique and special from all other Linux systems.
The distribution is available in two flavours, Minimal and with JWM as the default window manager. The Minimal edition is an 837MB download while the JWM edition is 1.3GB in size. I chose to download the JWM edition for x86_64 computers.
Booting from the provided ISO brings up a menu offering to start the distribution in Live, Persistent, or Run From RAM modes. This gives us some flexibility in how we wish to use the live media. I chose to take the default, plain live mode. The live session boots to a text console where we are shown login credentials for both the root user and a regular user account. Signing in as the regular user, oblive, automatically launches a graphical environment.
The JWM-powered desktop places a panel along the bottom of the screen. The panel holds an application menu, task switcher, and system tray. On the desktop we find icons for opening a README file and for launching the system installer. The README file is a short text file with login credentials, links to on-line resources, and tips for launching programs from within JWM.
Shortly after signing into the live desktop a network management window opens. This provides us with a utility for getting us on-line with minimal effort. The network manager window makes it straight forward to connect to wired and wireless networks.
Installing
While it is possible to navigate Obarun's system installer by following its menus, the installer does some things differently from other Linux installers and I recommend reading the provided guide before proceeding. Launching the system installer opens a console window and then kicks off a long series of text-based menu screens. I don't want to go into a lot of detail here as the installer has over a dozen screens, even without going into the advanced options and customizations.
In general the installer works well enough. We are generally shown yes/no prompts or asked to pick options from lists - some lists contain keyboard layouts in two-character country codes, some lists offer time zones, others filesystems we can use. The installer worked fairly well for me, though I found the screens with yes/no options had very faint contrast in the selected text so it sometimes took me a while to discern which response was highlighted.
The installer typically shows us a list of hub modules we can access and then walks us through making selections in each one. Some choices we are asked to make include whether to update the installer, whether the system will be run in UEFI or Legacy BIOS mode, our time zone, keyboard layout, and which desktop to install. Desktop options include KDE Plasma, Xfce, JWM, Openbox, and something simply called Minimal. We are asked whether we prefer syslinux or GRUB for our boot loader, whether to check for local fast mirrors, which console partition manager to launch to divide up the disk, and which filesystem to use (Btrfs, ext2/3/4, and XFS are supported).
Once the installer collects all its information it downloads packages over the network. These packages started to install smoothly while showing some basic progress information. However, towards the end, the install started printing errors. Thousands of GPG errors were shown, telling me "no user ID for key". However, the installer completed this step and then asked me to make up a root password, create a new user account, and (when I ran the distribution in VirtualBox) the installer offered to install VirtualBox guest add-ons.
When all of these steps were completed I could return to the live JWM environment and reboot when it was convenient. Launching my new copy of Obarun presented me with a graphical login screen.
At this point I'd like to acknowledge two years ago I tried out Obarun using the same hardware I was using this week. At the time the experience got off to a poor start and I never successfully got Obarun to install and boot properly. In contrast, getting Obarun installed and running this time was a smooth experience and the distribution played well with both my test environments.
Early impressions
When I first signed into my account the Xfce desktop loaded. Immediately a pop-up appeared and asked if I wanted to save my clipboard history. I was warned that saving clipboard history would keep a copy of any passwords or other sensitive information I copied to the clipboard. Once I had selected not to save my history, the Xfce desktop finished loading. A thin panel is placed at the top of the screen and a dock for launching commonly used programs is placed along the bottom. Icons are displayed on the desktop for launching the Thunar file manager.
The desktop mostly uses a dark theme for menus and panels while application windows use a bright theme for their menus, borders, and backgrounds.
Obarun 2021.07.26 -- Changing the default desktop theme
(full image size: 175kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Early on I noticed there is no volume control icon in the system tray. There are audio mixers installed, including one that is run in the system tray, but none of them are enabled by default. We can launch one from the application menu.
Hardware
I began my trial with Obarun running in a VirtualBox virtual machine. The distribution performed well in VirtualBox. The system was stable and the Xfce desktop was responsive. The desktop did not dynamically resize to match the size of the VirtualBox window, but I could adjust the desktop's dimensions through the Xfce settings panel.
When I switched over to running Obarun on my physical workstation the distribution ran well. The distribution can boot in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes. The desktop performance was above average and all my hardware was properly detected.
The amount of memory the distribution requires will depend on which desktop we install. I found Obarun's services and implementation of Xfce consumed a relatively small amount of memory, just 275MB. A fresh install of the distribution took up about 4.3GB of disk space, plus a swap partition.
Applications
Obarun does not ship with a lot of desktop software by default. Along with the Xfce 4.16 desktop I found a small collection of applications in the distribution's tree-style menu. The Midori web browser is included, though it had some issues. Midori was unusually slow when running on Obarun and trying to type the "/" character in the address bar always opened a search box and stole focus from the address bar. This meant it was impossible to type any URLs which included a "/" character, which is most of them. Since Midori was effectively slow and crippled I ended up installing an alternative browser.
Obarun 2021.07.26 -- Exploring the application menu
(full image size: 158kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Also in the menu we find the Pidgin messaging software, the Geany text editor, the Parole media player with several audio mixers. The distribution does include media codecs, and I could play audio files. Parole was unable to play any video files and attempting to play one would cause the player's interface to lock up and necessitate terminating the Parole process. I installed the VLC player and it was able to handle both video and audio files.
The ePDF viewer is installed along with the Thunar file manager, a bulk file renaming tool, and the Xfce settings panel. The distribution includes the GNU Compiler Collection and manual pages. The default command line shell is zsh which, personally, I've never warmed to using, but it's functional and alternatives are available.
There is a shortcut for an e-mail client, but none is installed. I also noticed pressing the Print Screen button brings up an error reporting the screenshot utility isn't available. We can install the Xfce screenshot utility from the project's repositories.
Obarun uses the s6 init software, which I will talk about later, and the current kernel is Linux, version 5.13. Since Obarun is a rolling release distribution new versions of packages will become available over time.
Once, when signing into Xfce, the session crashed with an error saying it could not contact the settings server. I was returned to the login screen. After that I was able to immediately sign in again without an error and the issue never occurred again.
Package management
I don't have much to say about Obarun's package management. The distribution does not provide any graphical front-end for software management. We can install, remove, and upgrade software using the pacman command line utility. The pacman tool is fast and efficient. I encountered no problems while using it.
Obarun 2021.07.26 -- Installing a screenshot utility with pacman
(full image size: 190kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Since Obarun performs a network install, all software is up to date on the first day we are running the distribution. Over time new versions of packages will become available as the distribution provides a rolling release approach.
s6 and 66
The main selling points of Obarun are the init software and service manager, named s6 and 66, respectively. From a practical point of view the init software seems to work just fine. The system started and shutdown without any problems and in about the average amount of time.
Obarun 2021.07.26 -- Reading about 66 in the Midori browser
(full image size: 201kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
At first, when I started reading about the 66 service manager the software seemed complicated. The documentation is more geared toward explaining the design of s6 and 66 rather than how the user is expected to interface with it. The developers appear to be aware of this perception as one page of the wiki has the following to say about Obarun's service manager:
As both s6 and 66 documentation may be overwhelming at first and users may think they should consume the entirety of the documentation before they begin using the software, or the system incorporating it and in this case Obarun, this guide is an introduction to how simple and easy it is to use these tools right away. When comparing s6/66 to runit for example, an exercise in minimalism and simplicity, the abilities of s6 and 66 appear enormous, but not everyone and right away needs all those abilities. It is like obtaining a complete set of professional aircraft mechanic's tools, but for your use of servicing a washing machine only a few basic tools would suffice.
The wiki goes on to provide some examples. Some of these are still a bit more complex than most people will need, but we can pick through and find the key elements. One thing I soon found is that 66 commands need to be run as the root user, otherwise they either do not work or show incomplete information. This means checking the status of services might fail as a regular user and work as the root user, which is in contrast to how most other service managers work.
Once I learned this key point, I found there are really just a few 66 commands we need to know to interact with the service manager. The command 66-intree shows which services are available. The 66-inservice command shows the status and details of one specified service. We can see which services are installed by exploring the /usr/lib/66/ directory. Services are declared using simple text files which appear to have a similar layout as systemd unit files.
The commands 66-enable, 66-disable, 66-start, and 66-stop commands manage a specified service. For instance, "66-enable cupsd" enables the CUPS printing service. Running "66-start cupsd" and "66-stop cupsd" start and stop the service.
Obarun 2021.07.26 -- Managing services with 66
(full image size: 117kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
In short, while 66 can be fairly complicated and it can take a while to adjust to some aspects of how services are organized and declared, the day-to-day tools for handling background services are much the same as with systemd or SysV init. The big difference, from the end user's perspective, is that 66 offers a different command for each task (such as enabling or disabling a service) while other service managers usually provide one command which accepts "enable" or "disable" as a parameter. For example, on Obarun I would use "66-start ntpd" while with systemd I'd run "systemctl start ntpd" and with most SysV init implementations I'd run "service ntpd start".
One nice aspect of Obarun's init software is it is quite small. The PID 1 process is just a hair smaller than SysV init's PID 1 process in memory and less than a tenth of the size of systemd's init. This usually isn't an important metric, but in situations where memory is quite limited, every little bit helps.
Conclusions
When I first tried Obarun, a few years ago, the process got off to a rocky start. I suspect, at the time, the project was still relatively young and there were rough edges to sort out. The documentation wasn't as fleshed out yet and it led to a poor experience.
These days Obarun seems quite capable. While the distribution is aimed at more experienced users, those who are comfortable working with Arch Linux and who are interested in working with alternative init software, once the distribution is up and running it performed quite smoothly.
The install process is long and geared to more technically experienced users, the distribution (once installed) still needs a little setting up and customization to really work like a proper workstation. Once the initial set up is completed though, Obarun performs well. It is quick to boot, runs smoothly, worked with my hardware, and desktop performance was great. There were a few minor rough edges - stray error messages, a missing audio control - but for the most part Obarun does a good job and shows off its custom service manager nicely.
I will admit I'd like to see the project adopt another system installer, such as Calamares, for desktop installations. It would certainly speed up and simplify the initial process. Otherwise Obarun is pretty solid. I'd only recommend it to more advanced users, specifically those who are looking for an alternative to mainstream init software like systemd. For people who do fit that description, Obarun (and s6) are certainly interesting and worth a look.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card, Ralink RT5390R PCIe Wireless card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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Visitor supplied rating
Obarun has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.6/10 from 14 review(s).
Have you used Obarun? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
The cgroup filesystem ported to the BSDs, Solus works to replace GNOME components, Ubuntu to ship Firefox as a Snap
People who are interested in porting software between open source platforms such as Linux and the members of the BSD family just gained a new tool: a cgroup filesystem for the BSDs. "CGrpFS is a tiny implementation of the GNU/Linux CGroup filesystem for BSD platforms. It takes the form of a FUSE filesystem and implements robust tracking of processes. Resource control, however, is not present; the different BSD platforms each provide different mechanisms for this, none of which are easily adapted to CGroups semantics. The process tracking alone is sufficient for the main user of CGrpFS, InitWare, a service manager derived from systemd." This effort should make it easier to port software from Linux to the members of the BSD family, especially packages which usually rely on systemd.
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The Solus team, which also develops the Budgie desktop environment, is facing a crossroads with regards to the libraries which are used to make the Budgie desktop. Up to this point Budgie has used GTK, the same toolkit used to build GNOME. However, as both technical and political issues have grown over the past few years, the Solus team no longer views GTK as being a viable platform. Joshua Strobl has published a detailed blog post covering the issues the Solus team has with GTK and the GNOME development process. Alternatives and a plan to replace GNOME software in Solus are also outlined. "It would not be in the best interest for Solus to invest in a future version of Budgie that leverages relevant software (GTK as an example) developed by GNOME. In fact, it would not be in the best interest for Solus to invest at all in developing any software leveraging GTK4 and beyond. It would put us in an undesired position of being progressively negatively impacted by conscious decisions by GNOME, not to mention implying to others that we support the direction GNOME is taking their software stack, when that reality couldn't be further from the truth."
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The Ubuntu team is looking at changing the way Firefox is packaged on their distribution. An issue report indicates the minimal desktop flavour of the distribution will include a Firefox Snap package. "Per Canonical's distribution agreement with Mozilla, we're making the Snap the default installation of Firefox on desktop ISOs starting with Ubuntu 21.10. The snap is built and published for amd64, armhf and arm64. It is jointly maintained by Mozilla and the Ubuntu desktop team, and published by Mozilla."
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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) |
Keeping a specific application window on top
Put-it-on-top asks: Is there something I can install that would allow me to make it so certain program windows are always shown over top of others?
DistroWatch answers: I am not aware of one particular tool which is dedicated to keeping a specific application on top of others which works across all desktops. Most window managers and desktops allow you to right-click on a window's title bar and mark it as being on top or "always on top". However, if you're looking for a way to automate this so that windows for a selected application always get set to being shown above others, then there are a few ways to do this that will work. One approach works on the KDE Plasma desktop specifically while the second option I will talk about works on just about any desktop. At least the latter can be used with most window managers running on an X.Org display server (as opposed to Wayland).
Looking first at the approach, which works on KDE Plasma, we need to explore the Window Management module in the System Settings panel. Under Window Management, select Window Rules. This module makes it possible to select a type of window we want to adjust. Then we can add rules or properties to the new window. Here I set any window that mentions Firefox in its title to be placed above all other windows:
Creating a rule which always places Firefox above other windows
(full image size: 85kB, resolution: 1052x811 pixels)
For people not using KDE Plasma, the generic process that should work on most window managers to make sure an application is automatically set to always be shown in front of (or on top of) other application windows requires you make a small script. A launcher for this script might be placed in your application menu or on your desktop. The script will do three things: launch your application, wait a few seconds for the application to open, and then send the window manager a signal to let it know the new window should always be placed on top of all others.
The tool to send this special signal to the window manager is called xdotool. The xdotool is used to look up information about windows on the desktop or send commands to them. The xdotool utility can resize windows, move them, minimize, and maximize them. It can also send mouse and keyboard signals to windows.
This last feature is especially useful once you know the keyboard shortcut which tells your window manager to set the current window to be on top of the window stack. The keyboard shortcut may vary from desktop to desktop (and distribution to distribution). In Xfce the Window Manager configuration module has a section called Keyboard which lists supported shortcuts. On my system running Xfce the shortcut to force a window to always be on top (visible) is Alt+F12.
Finding the shortcut to place windows on top
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This means we can create a small script which launches an application, waits a few seconds for the program to finish loading, and then locks it on top of the window stack using the shortcut. In my case, since the shortcut is Alt+F12, my script would look like this for locking the kwrite application on top:
#!/bin/sh
kwrite &
sleep 3
xdotool key alt+F12
Once the above script is made executable by your user you can run it to launch kwrite or any other program you like to make sure the application window remains above all others.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
ExTiX 21.9
ExTiX is a deepin-based distribution with alternative installer and utilities. The project's latest release, ExTiX 21.9, features the Deepin desktop and a number of changes. "I've released a new version of ExTiX Deepin today (21-09-14). This ExTiX build is based on Deepin 20.2.3 released by Deepin Technology 210816. New functions: 1. You can run ExTiX from RAM. Use boot alternative 2 (load to RAM) or Advanced. A wonderful way to run Linux if you have enough RAM. Everything will be super fast. When ExTiX has booted up you can remove the DVD or USB stick. 2. You will have the opportunity to choose language before you enter the Deepin 20.2.3 Desktop. All main languages are supported. 3. I have replaced Deepin Installer with the Reborn version of Deepin Installer. Works better in every way. 4. I have replaced kernel 5.12.4-exton with kernel 5.14.2-exton. Corresponding the second latest available stable kernel from Kernel.org. 5. Spotify and Skype are pre-installed. 6. You can watch Netflix while running Firefox..." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
ExTiX 21.9 -- Running the Deepin desktop
(full image size: 2.4MB, resolution: 3440x1440 pixels)
Kali Linux 2021.3
Kali Linux is a Debian-based distribution with a collection of security and forensics tools. The project has published a new release, Kali Linux 2021.3, which introduces changes to the OpenSSL software. "OpenSSL - Wide compatibility by default - Keep reading for what that means. New Kali-Tools site - Following the footsteps of Kali-Docs, Kali-Tools has had a complete refresh. Better VM support in the Live image session - Copy & paste and drag & drop from your machine into a Kali VM by default. New tools - From adversary emulation, to subdomain takeover to Wi-Fi attacks. Kali NetHunter smartwatch - first of its kind, for TicHunter Pro. KDE 5.21 - Plasma desktop received a version bump. OpenSSL: wide compatibility by default. Going forwards from Kali Linux 2021.3, OpenSSL has now been configured for wider compatibility to allow Kali to talk to as many services as possible. This means that legacy protocols (such as TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1) and older ciphers are enabled by default." Further information is available in the project's release announcement.
Ubuntu 18.04.6
The Ubuntu team has announced an updated version of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS is now available. The new media includes security fixes, including a fix for the BootHole security issues. "The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS (Long-Term Support) for its Desktop and Server products. Unlike previous point releases, 18.04.6 is a refresh of the amd64 and arm64 installer media after the key revocation related to the BootHole vulnerability, re-enabling their usage on Secure Boot enabled systems. More detailed information can be found here. Many other security updates for additional high-impact bug fixes are also included, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS." Further information can be found in the release announcement and in the distribution's release notes.
SparkyLinux 2021.09
The SparkyLinux project develops a lightweight distribution based on Debian. The Sparky team has published a new update to the distribution's semi-rolling branch which presents users with software from Debian's development "Bookworm" branch. The project's release announcement lists the following changes: "Sparky 2021.09 of the (semi-)rolling line is out; it is based on Debian Testing 'Bookworm'. Changes: repositories set to Debian 'Bookworm' and Sparky 'Orion Belt; all packages updated as of September 17, 2021; new backgrounds: desktop, login manager, Plymouth & boot screen, etc.; Linux kernel 5.10.46 (5.14.6 & 5.15-rc1 in Sparky unstable repos); GCC 10 still as default, but GCC 11 is also installed; no more Sparky Advanced Installed GUI, the Advanced installer works in text mode only now, the first window lets you choose the standard version of the installer or DEV version with disk encryption and LVM support; 'sparky-upgrade' text based tool is also preinstalled in CLI ISO; packages removed from ISO: mc, gparted; new package installed: lfm; Calamares 3.2.43." People already running the semi-rolling branch of SparkyLinux do not need to re-install.
* * * * *
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: 2,598
- Total data uploaded: 40.1TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
USB disk images or ISO files?
For approximately the past 20 years DistroWatch has been providing direct download links to new open source operating system releases. In the early days Linux distributions almost always provided download images in the form of ISO files (images of optical media) which could be burned to CDs or DVDs. In more recent years projects have been publishing ISO files which can still be transferred to optical media and also written to USB thumb drives.
While most projects provide a single ISO file which can be written to multiple types of media, some projects publish separate media for USB thumb drives and for optical media. Files intended to be written to thumb drives or SD cards are called IMG files. An IMG file is often published if a project either wishes to not provide a single hybrid image (for both thumb drives and optical media) or when persistence is going to be used, allowing people to write files back to the thumb drive containing their distribution.
Up to this point, when there is a choice between IMG and ISO files we have continued to provide direct download links to the ISO file for new releases. Since many people no longer use optical media, do you think it is time we switched to linking to IMG files as the default when there is a choice?
You can see the results of our previous poll on the Calamares system installer in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Link to ISO or IMG files for new releases?
| Stay with ISO files: | 1228 (60%) |
| Switch to IMG files when available: | 459 (23%) |
| No opinion: | 343 (17%) |
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| Website News |
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 27 September 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 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 |
| • Issue 993 (2022-11-07): Static Linux, working with just a kernel, Mint streamlines Flatpak management, updates coming to elementary OS |
| • Issue 992 (2022-10-31): Lubuntu 22.10, setting permissions on home directories, Linux may drop i486, Fedora delays next version for OpenSSL bug |
| • Issue 991 (2022-10-24): XeroLinux 2022.09, learning who ran sudo, exploring firewall tools, Rolling Rhino Remix gets a fresh start, Fedora plans to revamp live media |
| • Issue 990 (2022-10-17): ravynOS 0.4.0, Lion Linux 3.0, accessing low numbered network ports, Pop!_OS makes progress on COSMIC, Murena launches new phone |
| • Issue 989 (2022-10-10): Ubuntu Unity, kernel bug causes issues with Intel cards, Canonical offers free Ubuntu Pro subscriptions, customizing the command line prompt |
| • Issue 988 (2022-10-03): SpiralLinux 11.220628, finding distros for older equipment and other purposes, SUSE begins releasing ALP prototypes, Debian votes on non-free firmware in installer |
| • Issue 987 (2022-09-26): openSUSE's MicroOS, converting people to using Linux, pfSense updates base system and PHP, Python 2 dropped from Arch |
| • Issue 986 (2022-09-19): Porteus 5.0, remotely wiping a hard drive, a new software centre for Ubuntu, Proxmox offers offline updates |
| • Full list of all issues |
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