 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 939, 18 October 2021 |
Welcome to this year's 41st issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
This past week the launch of Ubuntu 21.10 eclipsed most of the developments in the open source world as Canonical published a new stable version of Ubuntu and the parade of Community Editions followed. We share highlights of the new releases below. First though we explore a young distribution called Auxtral, a Debian-based project featuring a range of desktop environments. We take Auxtral for a spin and report on its strengths and weaknesses in this week's Feature Story. In our News section we talk about Qubes working with Debian reproducible builds to see how well they work while the DragonFly BSD team publishes updated media to address a Let's Encrypt certificate issue. We also share a report on Canonical trying to speed up Snap package load times. Also on the topic of speed, we discuss virtual terminals and whether one terminal can be faster or more efficient than another. Plus we are pleased to share details on the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. Finally, we received some new artwork from one of our wonderful readers and we are curious whether you prefer it over our existing DistroWatch banner? Let us know your preference in the Opinion Poll. We wish you all a joyful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Auxtral 3
- News: Ubuntu speeds up Snap load times, Qubes experiments with Debian reproducible builds, DragonFly BSD publishes fix for Let's Encrypt issue
- Questions and answers: Terminal velocity
- Released last week: Ubuntu 21.10, OpenBSD 7.0, KaOS 2021.10
- Torrent corner: Archcraft, Archman, Bluestar, Devuan, KaOS, OpenBSD, openmamba, Snal Linux, SparkyLinux
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 12.3 BETA1
- Opinion poll: What do you think of the new banner artwork?
- New distributions: InstantOS, Kumuda OS
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (15MB) and MP3 (11MB) formats.
|
| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Auxtral 3
Auxtral is a relative newcomer to the DistroWatch waiting list. The distribution is a desktop-oriented project based on Debian for x86_64 computers. The project currently provides two editions: Cinnamon (1.6GB) and Xfce (1.5GB) with a new MATE edition being tested at the time of writing.
The Auxtral website does not share a lot of details about what we can expect from the distribution, but it does mention that there are two command line tools included to handle software updates called upgr and fupgr. The rest of the description, the available desktop editions, and the screenshots make the project sound like Linux Mint's Debian Edition.
I decided to try the Cinnamon edition of Auxtral. Booting from the live media brought up a menu offering to start the live desktop or switch localizations. A long list of alternative languages are supported and it appears the default is Spanish.
Auxtral 3 -- The Cinnamon application menu
(full image size: 227kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
Starting the live system brings up the Cinnamon desktop and places a panel at the bottom of the screen. This panel is crowded and holds the application menu, some quick-launch buttons, a task switcher, and system tray. The application menu is divided into three panes - places, categories, and launchers. A single icon on the desktop offers to launch the project's system installer.
Installing
Auxtral uses the Calamares graphical system installer. The installer walks us through selecting a time zone, keyboard layout, and making up login credentials. It also handles disk partitioning. We can choose to engage in manual partitioning which offers a fairly friendly, point and click experience. Alternatively we can opt for guided partitioning which automatically sets up the distribution on its own ext4 partition with a separate swap partition. Calamares worked smoothly and quickly, collecting information and copying packages to my hard drive. When it was finished the installer offered to reboot the computer.
Early impressions
The first thing that stood out about Auxtral was that the boot menu waits for a full minute before starting the operating system. This gives us plenty of time to consider options. Once the countdown finishes the system boots quickly to a graphical login screen. Signing in brings up the Cinnamon desktop.
Auxtral 3 -- Running the Brave browser
(full image size: 194kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
Shortly after I signed into my account a pop-up appeared to let me know software updates were available. A corresponding icon in the system tray also changes to indicate updates can be acquired. Clicking this update icon offers to show us notification preferences, but clicking the Preferences button doesn't do anything. There isn't any option to launch an update manager or software centre, so we need to find a less direct method of installing updates. I will talk more about working with software packages later.
The desktop environment has dark wallpaper, but a bright theme. I found the layout and colours easy to navigate and read.
The distribution ships with the sudo utility installed, but does not enable it by default. We will need to add permissions for our user if we wish to use sudo for administrative tasks. We can use the su program to sign into the root account and perform administrative tasks that way.
Hardware
I started out running Auxtral in a VirtualBox machine. The desktop experienced a little lag when running in the virtual environment, but it was still practical to use. The system ran smoothly and the Cinnamon desktop resized automatically to match the dimensions of the VirtualBox window.
When I tried out Auxtral on my laptop, I found the distribution would not boot in UEFI mode, it would only start in Legacy BIOS mode. Once it was up and running, Auxtral ran smoothly on the laptop and all my hardware was properly utilized. Desktop performance was good, pretty average overall.
One thing that did surprise me about Auxtral was how much RAM it required. The distribution used 1,350MB of RAM when signed into the Cinnamon desktop with no applications open. This is about twice the size of most distributions running the KDE Plasma or Xfce desktops. It's roughly on par with Ubuntu running GNOME and using ZFS as the root filesystem. I'm not sure I've ever seen a Linux distribution use up more than 1,300MB of memory before when sitting idle at the desktop and this seems excessive compared to mainstream distributions. At the same time, disk consumption was about average with a fresh install using up 5GB of space, plus a swap partition.
Applications
Auxtral ships with a fairly small number of desktop applications. Browsing through the wide, three-pane application menu we find the Brave web browser, a calendar application, and Mirage image viewer. There are a few media players, including the mpv multimedia player, the SMPayer, and Audacious for playing music. The distribution includes codecs for playing most audio and video files.
The Cheese webcam utility is included along with the Clam anti-virus software, and the SolydXK settings panel. The settings panel is unusual in that it is arranged in a series of tabs, each one for a low-level system task. Each tab typically contains a small number of options. The SolydXK settings panel offers options for enabling disk encryption, cleaning up unnecessary packages, and adjusting the boot screen (among a few other items).
Auxtral 3 -- The SolydXK settings panel
(full image size: 161kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
The Auxtral project also ships with the GNU Compiler Collection, GNU command line utilities, manual pages, and the systemd software. Version 5.10 of the Linux kernel is included.
Something I found odd is the icon for launching the Calamares system installer remains on the desktop of the installed system. At this point it doesn't really serve any purpose and could be removed. A more practical concern is that despite my account being set up to use an English locale and the interface appearing in English, the directories in my home directory were displayed in Spanish. It's a small matter to remove these or rename them, but this is one of the few times I've encountered a language mismatch with home sub-directories.
It is not often I encounter the Brave web browser as the default on a Linux distribution. In fact, this may be the first time it has happened. A week before I began this trial I gave Brave a solid try for a while and found it suited me really well. It's fast, open source, and fairly flexible. I'm hoping it gains more attention and I liked seeing it included as the default on Auxtral.
Software management
Auxtral ships with two graphical package managers and a few command line package tools. On the command line we can use the classic APT package manager used by Debian and related projects. Earlier I mentioned two tools, upgr and fupgr, which are just shell scripts for refreshing repository information and then running "apt-get upgrade" or "apt-get full-upgrade", respectively. Packages are all pulled from Debian's repositories with the exception of one add-on repository set up for the Brave browser.
Auxtral 3 -- Running the upgr script
(full image size: 336kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
The distribution's first graphical package manager is Synaptic. The Synaptic application is a classic package manager which can handle upgrades, installs, package removals, and adjusting repository links. Synaptic prompts for our administrative password right from the start and remembers it for performing actions later.
The second graphical front-end for package management is called Software Manager. It sets up two tabs: Explore and Installed. The former starts off by showing us available software with curated or suggested items at the top. Categories are displayed below and we can click interesting items to see a full page description. New applications can be installed by clicking a button and entering our password. The password must be typed in each time we want to add or remove an application which becomes tedious after a while.
The Installed tab shows items we have already installed or are in the process of installing along with progress information. We can then remove an item by clicking a button and putting in our password. The Software Manager application can be a little slow to respond compared to Synaptic, but it worked well.
Auxtral 3 -- The software centre
(full image size: 135kB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
Software Manager includes a button which will launch an installed application right from its description page. This is convenient for opening new programs right after installing them. However, this Launch button doesn't always work. It usually did, but some programs failed to open when pressing the Launch button. These same programs did open when launching them from the application menu, demonstrating they were functioning properly.
The distribution does not ship with Flatpak or Snap package support included. Both of these can be installed through the software manager should we need access to portable packages.
Conclusions
At the beginning of this review I mentioned Auxtral reminded me of Linux Mint Debian Edition. The theme, the Cinnamon desktop, and general look of the project certainly held that first impression. However, the default applications and tools (apart from the Cinnamon desktop and command line utilities) felt quite a bit different. Linux Mint has been around for several years and has earned a reputation for being beginner friendly, polished, and shipping with a lot of top-notch open source applications.
Auxtral appears to have a similar approach - similar base distribution, the same desktop environments, and a similar look. However, Auxtral does have its own personality under the surface. It ships with a quite different collection of applications, sometimes using less popular items (Brave in place of Firefox, SMPlayer instead of VLC, etc.) It has also gone its own way with software updates, preferring classic tools like APT and Synaptic over Mint's update manager.
Auxtral is off to a good start. This was my first time trying the distribution and the experience was mostly positive. The operating system is easy to install, offers multiple desktop environments, and walks a pretty good line between hand holding and staying out of the way. The application menu is uncluttered while including enough programs to be useful. Some of those programs are a bit more obscure or less beginner friendly than what you might find in Linux Mint, but otherwise it's a good collection. Virtually everything worked and worked smoothly. I was unpleasantly surprised by this distribution's memory usage, most projects consume about half as much RAM, but otherwise I liked what Auxtral had to offer. I might not recommended it to complete beginners, especially since the project does not appear to have any documentation or support options of its own, but for someone who doesn't mind a little command line work or who likes the idea of an easy to setup distribution that combines Debian with the Cinnamon (or Xfce desktop) this seems like a good option.
* * * * *
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
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Ubuntu speeds up Snap load times, Qubes experiments with Debian reproducible builds, DragonFly BSD publishes fix for Let's Encrypt issue
The Snap package format strives to provide a portable version of Linux applications and is integrated in some distributions such as Ubuntu. One of the criticisms Snap has received is the start-up speed for desktop applications. Igor Ljubuncic has published a status update on efforts going into speeding up Snap packages. "If you're a snap developer or publisher, the topic of speed may arise for various reasons. The differences in the overall architecture and principles of operation of snaps, in comparison to software deployed as Deb or RPM packages, can sometimes lead to a slower experience. This goes against the prime directive of desktop usage. In this article, we want to show you a number of methods and tools you can use to make your snaps snappy."
* * * * *
The Qubes OS project has been testing reproducible Debian builds to see what is working and what still needs to be improved. There are some challenges with rebuilding the entire Debian collection of packages, one of which is that Debian is just so massively large. "We started to put it in production in order to actively rebuild Qubes OS and Debian packages, but it quickly ceased to function, as the snapshot.debian.org service was unable to sustain the load of rebuilding even a single Debian package. That said, the question was: How should we proceed in order to make it work? Clearly, those issues are critical and make the snapshot.debian.org service awful or useless for reproducible builds. The snapshot.debian.org issues have still not been addressed even after several years. The service has existed for more than a decade, yet it still suffers from the aforementioned limitations. It's either a design problem or a lack of resources, but we still had to do something. That's why we decided to create our own snapshot service. Easy to say, but not to do. First, the original snapshot service from Debian is roughly 90 TB of repository data. Second, we cannot download files easily because only HTTP(S) is available, and downloading multiple files means we are impeded by availability issues." Additional information on this experiment can be found in the Qubes news post.
* * * * *
The DragonFly BSD team have published a minor update to the DragonFly BSD 6.x series. The new update provides a media refresh and addresses the expiry issue with some Let's Encrypt certificates which hit many projects at the start of October. "6.0.1 is tagged and available. The major reason for this update is an expired Let's Encrypt certificate that would cause problems when downloading dpkg binaries. A list of 6.0.1 commits is available."
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Terminal velocity
Typing-up-a-storm asks: I've heard people say that they like one terminal or another because it's faster. But is it really possible for Terminology to be faster than GNOME Terminal? I mean it's just typing and showing text, or am I missing something?
DistroWatch answers: You are essentially right that virtual terminals, such as Konsole, Terminology, and GNOME Terminal are usually just accepting text input (usually from a person typing) and then displaying text output from a command run in the shell. Usually, for most normal tasks, you're not likely to notice a difference in speed. Running commands such as free, ps, or df should all happen instantly, from the user's point of view.
Though typically not noticeable, different virtual terminals can use up different amounts of resources. Just as an example, the Konsole process takes up about seven times more RAM on my system than the xterm virtual terminal. It's not enough to be noticeable and you'd need to open hundreds of each terminal before it would make an impact on the system, but it goes to show that there are differences in the amount of memory and (presumably) CPU resources each terminal consumes.
Since virtual terminals handle collecting and displaying output differently, the output a terminal displays can be faster or slower, depending on which virtual terminal you are running, even on the same desktop on the same distribution. Since output can be sent to the screen at different rates in different terminals, this means jobs can complete faster or slower depending on which terminal we use. As an example, I ran the following loop which just counts from 1 through to 100,000 and displays the count in the terminal:
time for i in {1..100000} ; do echo "Pew pew $i"; done
In the simple xterm window the command consistently takes two to three times longer to finish than when the same command is run in Konsole. Here are the outputs from the time command for these two terminals:
|
xterm |
Konsole |
| real |
2.707s |
1.179s |
| user |
0.598s |
0.634s |
| sys |
0.337s |
0.347s |
What we are seeing here is that on my system, running two different terminals, the same command takes about 1.5 seconds longer to run in xterm than it does in Konsole. That is more than twice as long. The gap is noticeable to the user, even with such a small, simple loop. I ran the same test four times and this was the closest timing gap between the two terminals.
In short, it is possible for one virtual terminal to be faster or more efficient than another. Sometimes, as is the case with Konsole and xterm, the smaller shell can be slower when performing certain tasks. It's not typically noticeable to the human eye when performing small, simple commands. However, some bigger tasks will reveal a speed difference.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
KaOS 2021.10
KaOS is a rolling release distribution which features cutting edge versions of the KDE Plasma desktop and the Qt toolkit. The project's latest snapshot is KaOS 2021.10 which includes updates to Plasma's Kickoff and new Wayland features. "Highlights of Plasma 5.23 include Kickoff receiving a code overhaul with improved performance & accessibility, and the option to choose a list or grid view for all apps, Systemsettings has easier find options, sorted screen refresh rates, and a timer to revert possible undesired display settings, for Wayland sessions there is a new screen rotation animation and, it is now possible to middle-click-paste between native Wayland and XWayland apps. For the other KDE parts, the latest Frameworks (5.85.0) and KDE Applications 21.08.2 are included. All built on Qt 5.15.2+." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
OpenBSD 7.0
OpenBSD is a member of the UNIX family of operating systems which places a focus on portability, code correctness, security, and accurate documentation. The project's latest release, version 7.0, introduces RISC64 architecture support, drivers for Apple M1 systems, adds several driver improvements, and the timeout utility from NetBSD has been imported. "What's new: This is a partial list of new features and systems included in OpenBSD 7.0. For a comprehensive list, see the changelog leading to 7.0. New/extended platforms: Added new riscv64 platform for 64-bit RISC-V systems. The arm64 platform support was improved with the following changes: Support for Apple Silicon Macs has improved but is not ready for general use yet: Added support for installing on a disk with a GPT. Added apldart(4) support for a DART with two sets of registers, needed to support the Synopsis DesignWare USB 3 controller. Added apldwusb(4), a glue driver for the Synopsys DesignWare USB 3 controllers found on the Apple M1 SoC. Added aplns(4) to provide support for Apple NVME storage as found in Apple M1 devices. Added aplpinctrl(4), a driver for the Apple GPIO controller found on the M1 SoCs. Added aplpmu(4), a driver for the Apple "sera" SPMI power management unit that contains the RTC on Apple M1 systems. Added aplspmi(4), a driver for the Apple SPMI controller...." Further information on OpenBSD 7.0 can be found in the project's release announcement.
Devuan GNU+Linux 4.0.0
Devuan GNU+Linux is a Linux distribution forked from Debian in 2015. The project's primary goal is to provide a variant of Debian without the complexities and dependencies of systemd. The latest version of Devuan includes options for running the SysV, runit, and OpenRC init software implementations. "What's new in Chimaera 4.0? Based on Debian Bullseye (11.1) with Linux kernel 5.10. Your choice of init: sysvinit, runit, and OpenRC. Improved desktop support - virtually all desktop environments available in Debian are now part of Devuan, systemd-free. New boot, display manager and desktop theming. Enhanced accessibility: installation via GUI or console can now be accomplished via software or hardware speech synthesis, or using a refreshable braille display, and Devuan Chimaera has the ability to install desktop environments without PulseAudio, allowing speech synthesis in both console and GUI sessions at the same time." Further information on the new release can be found in the project's release announcement.
Ubuntu 21.10
Canonical has announced the release of Ubuntu 21.10. This version includes GNOME 40, enables Wayland sessions for NVIDIA cards, and offers a new Activities overview. The release announcement says: "Ubuntu 21.10, codenamed 'Impish Indri', is here. This release continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work through this cycle, partnering with the community and our partners, to introduce new features and fix bugs. Ubuntu Desktop 21.10 makes wayland sessions available while using the NVIDIA proprietary driver. PulseAudio 15 introduces support for Bluetooth LDAC and AptX codecs, as well as HFP Bluetooth profiles providing better audio quality. The recovery key feature at installation time has been improved, with the recovery key now optional, stronger and editable. Ubuntu Desktop 21.10 includes GNOME version 40, with a new and improved Activities Overview design. Workspaces are now arranged horizontally, and the overview and app grid are accessed vertically. Each direction has accompanying keyboard shortcuts, touchpad gestures and mouse actions." Additional information can be found in the release notes.
Ubuntu 21.10 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 1.7MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Ubuntu MATE 21.10
Martin Wimpress has announced the release of Ubuntu MATE 21.10. The new version will receive nine months of support and features MATE 1.26.0 as the default desktop environment. "A significant effort has been invested in fixing bugs in MATE Desktop 1.26.0, optimising performance and plugging memory leaks. MATE Desktop is faster and leaner as a result and its underpinnings have been modernised and updated. This last point mostly benefits developers working on MATE, but is important to highlight to users at it demonstrates MATE Desktop is being maintained to ensure its longevity. Here are some of the other quality of life improvements in MATE Desktop 1.26: The Control Center features: Improved Window Preferences dialog with a more comprehensive window behaviour and placement options presented. Display preferences now has an option for discrete display scaling. Power Manager has a new option to enable keyboard dimming. Notifications now support for hyperlinks. Caja can format drives and has a new Bookmarks sidebar." Further details can be found in the release announcement and release notes.
Ubuntu Studio 21.10
Ubuntu Studio is a community edition of Ubuntu featuring the KDE Plasma desktop and focusing on audio and video production. The project's latest release is version 21.10 which will be supported for nine months. "The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu Studio 21.10, code-named 'Impish Indri'. This marks Ubuntu Studio's 30th release. This release is a regular release and as such, it is supported for nine months, until July 2022. Due to the change in desktop environment that started after the release of 20.04 LTS, direct upgrades from supported releases prior to 21.04 are not supported. This release includes Plasma 5.22.5, the full-featured desktop environment made by KDE. It uses the Materia theme and Papirus icons. Studio Controls has seen further development as its own independent project and has been updated to version 2.2.7. This version has an all-new layout and features, including JACK over network and MIDI over network. Ardour has been updated to version 6.9 and includes a ton of bug fixes and enhancements." Additional information can be found in the Ubuntu Studio release announcement and release notes.
Ubuntu Budgie 21.10
Ubuntu Budgie is a community edition of the Ubuntu family featuring the Budgie desktop environment. The project has published Ubuntu Budgie 21.10 which offers nine months of support. "We are pleased to announce the release of the next version of our distro, 21.10. This is a regular release supported for 9 months. For those looking for a longer-term support release, we recommend our 20.04 LTS version which is supported for three years. Key highlights: release of our second Raspberry Pi image; brand-new Budgie desktop version - do look out for our optional Windows 11 layout; our Window Shuffler now automatically moves and rearranges windows across multiple monitors and workspaces; look out for our Window Shuffler Budgie applet; brand new applet - budgie-cputemp-applet; a mass of new capabilities, changes and fixes throughout our Budgie applets; GNOME 40 and GNOME 41 applications. We also inherit hundreds of stability enhancements, bug fixes and optimizations made to the underlying Ubuntu repositories." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement and release notes.
Ubuntu Budgie 21.10 -- Running the Budgie desktop
(full image size: 1.6MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Lubuntu 21.10
Dan Simmons has announced the release of Lubuntu 21.10, the new stable version of the project's Linux distribution featuring the LXQt desktop: "Lubuntu 21.10 has been released. With the code name 'Impish Indri', Lubuntu 21.10 is the 21st release of Lubuntu and the seventh release of Lubuntu with LXQt as the default desktop environment. Lubuntu 21.10 will be supported for 9 months until July 2022. You can find the following major applications and toolkits installed by default in this release: LXQt 0.17.0 with many improvements over 0.16; LXQt Archiver 0.4.0, which is based on Engrampa, is now included; Qt 5.15.2; Mozilla Firefox will be shipped as a Debian package with version 93.0 and will receive updates from the Ubuntu Security team throughout the support cycle of the release; the LibreOffice 7.2.1 suite; VLC 3.0.16 for viewing media and listening to music; Featherpad 0.17.1 for notes and code editing; Discover Software Center 5.22.5 for an easy, graphical way to install and update software. You can find a variety of other applications which aim to enhance your experience while staying out of the way of your normal workflow." Read the resto of the release announcement for more details and screenshots.
Xubuntu 21.10
Version 21.10 of Xubuntu, a distribution that integrates Ubuntu's base system with the latest version of the Xfce desktop, has been released: "The Xubuntu team is happy to announce the immediate release of Xubuntu 21.10. Xubuntu 21.10, code-named Impish Indri, is a regular release and will be supported for 9 months, until June 2022. If you need a stable environment with longer support time we recommend that you use Xubuntu 20.04 LTS instead. Highlights: Xubuntu now comes pre-installed with GNOME Disk Analyzer, GNOME Disk Utility and Rhythmbox; Disk Analyzer and Disk Utility make it easier to monitor and manage your partitions; Rhythmbox enables music playback with a dedicated media library; Pipewire is now included in Xubuntu and is used in conjunction with PulseAudio to improve audio playback and hardware support in Linux; Keyboard shortcuts - the Super (Windows) key will now reveal the applications menu, existing Super+ keyboard shortcuts are unaffected. Known issues: the shutdown prompt may not be displayed at the end of the installation." Continue to the release announcement for further details.
Kubuntu 21.10
Kubuntu is a community edition of the Ubuntu family which features the KDE Plasma desktop. The project's new release is Kubuntu 21.10 which offers nine months of support and runs the KDE Plasma 5.22 desktop. "The Kubuntu Team is happy to announce that Kubuntu 21.10 has been released, featuring the 'beautiful' KDE Plasma 5.22: simple by default, powerful when needed. Codenamed 'Impish Indri', Kubuntu 21.10 continues our tradition of giving you Friendly Computing by integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work through this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs. Under the hood, there have been updates to many core packages, including a new 5.13-based kernel, KDE Frameworks 5.86, KDE Plasma 5.22 and KDE Gear 21.08." Further details and a screenshot can be found in the project's release announcement.
Ubuntu 21.10 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 1.6MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
|
| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,630
- Total data uploaded: 40.5TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
What do you think of the new banner artwork?
One of our wonderful readers kindly put together some new artwork for us. Specifically they made a banner for the header of DistroWatch which presents a more modern, flat style than the one we are currently using. We'd like to hear what you think of the new banner and whether you'd like to see it replace our existing banner. What do you think, do you like the classic look or is it time for a change?
For comparison's sake, these are the two banner options:
Current banner
New, flat style banner
You can see the results of our previous poll on using the lol alternative to Snap in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
|
Do you like the classic banner or the new banner better?
| I like the new flat banner: | 623 (35%) |
| I like old classic banner: | 1155 (65%) |
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|
| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- InstantOS. InstantOS is an Arch Linux-based distribution featuring its own custom window manager called InstantWM. The InstantWM environment supports both free-floating and tiled windows.
- Kumuda OS. Kumuda OS is a desktop Linux distribution which is available in three editions: GNOME, KDE Plasma, and Xfce. It is based on Debian 11.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 25 October 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 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 |
| • 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 |
| • 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.
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| Random Distribution | 
MoviX, MoviX², eMoviX
MoviX was a package that allows you to create bootable CDs able to boot & autoplay your multimedia files. It was intended mainly to play video files but if you want it can be used to play also audio files. I plan to release eventually a distro similar to MoviX but aimed at audio only, so stay tuned! The philosophy behind MoviX was to make possible to generate video/audio CDs that are self-sufficient, i.e. that you can play on every PC regardless of what was installed on it: just insert the MoviX CD inside a CD/DVD-ROM and boot the PC from there! MoviX2 was a small Linux distro on CD aimed at playing multimedia: when you boot your PC with the MoviX2 CD the distro should be able to start X-Window and launch gmplayer, the GUI interface to mplayer, so that you are left with a nice user-friendly interface you can control by your mouse. At that point you can safely remove the MoviX2 CD and play all multimedia files you want: DVD [no zone constraint], VCD, DivX, avi, mpg, mp3, ogg etc.
Status: Discontinued
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TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
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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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