 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 944, 22 November 2021 |
Welcome to this year's 46th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The Fedora project is a cutting edge distribution which is always packaging and testing out new features. The Fedora team recently published version 35 of their Red Hat-sponsored distribution and Ivan Sanders took the latest release for a spin. Check out our Feature Story to learn about Ivan's first impressions of Fedora's Workstation edition. In our News section we talk about GhostBSD hosting an on-line meet-up for people interested in FreeBSD, ZFS, and related technologies. We also link to a report on the current status of work going into FreeBSD while the AlmaLinux OS team answers questions from the public about their Enterprise Linux clone. Our Questions and Answers column this week talks about various ways to run scripts and services at login time, either as the user signing in or as the administrator. Do you run any custom login scripts on your computer? Let us know about them in this week's Opinion Poll. Plus we are 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:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (15MB) and MP3 (11MB) formats.
|
| Feature Story (by Ivan Sanders) |
Fedora 35
Fedora 35 was released on 2 November 2021, slightly after the anticipated launch in late October. I respect their delay, the Fedora team did not want to release a buggy product, or they still had some key issues to workout; nevertheless Fedora 35 is here. For some background, Fedora is a Linux distribution which aims to create, "an innovative, free, and open source platform for hardware, clouds, and containers that enables software developers and community members to build tailored solutions for their users." (Quoted from getfedora.org.) Many Linux users will know Fedora as the community and upstream version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the enterprise version of Fedora known primarily for running on servers and a company to provide support.
Installing
The installation process for Fedora 35 was straightforward. I always encrypt my drives with LUKS encryption, and the installation process offered me a simple way to do this. Additionally, as a user who hops distros about 2-3 times per year, I have all my Steam games on one hard drive, and I install distros on the other (home and root on the same drive, usually same partition). GNOME Disks (after installation) allows me to setup auto-mount for the hard drive that stores all my games; this drive is also encrypted and when I setup auto-mount through GNOME Disks the application stores the encryption key on the LUKS encrypted drive where I installed Fedora. Very convenient.
Fedora 35 -- Setting up mount options
(full image size: 1.5MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Initial impressions
From a layman's perspective, and as someone who has installed dozens of distros over the last five years, the installation was simple and great, but it seemed to be missing something. Upon first boot I realize what was missing - I did not setup a user profile during installation, which is odd. But it works. Its almost as if you're installing the operating system for the machine, and whoever gets the machine can do the rest; the feel is similar to an OEM install.
Fedora 35 -- Accessing local printers
(full image size: 1.5MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Upon first boot, the user is presented with a Welcome Screen. First it displays privacy options, which allows the user to disable location services and automatic problem reporting. As a privacy advocate, I appreciate and respect these options. Next, the Welcome Screen allows the user to enable third-party repositories. This is a trick.
This is a trick because, if you read the intro, Fedora is an open source platform. What they have done with this simple toggle is profound: they are empowering the user with the ability to enable third-party repositories. The user can decide if they want to use proprietary software in support of their hardware needs, and most of us need proprietary software whether it be from NVIDIA, Intel, Microsoft, etc. Fedora: thank you for empowering the user through this easy option. The next section, called About You, allows the user to setup a profile and password, rating the strength of the password on a range from weak to strong. Usually this process is done in the installation, but I kind of like how the team behind Fedora went their own way.
Usage as a daily driver
The default desktop of GNOME 41 is beautiful. Although there surely are a few Fedora zealots, you will not find many fanatics in the Fedora community (the community seems very kind and professional). This correlation also applies to GNOME desktop environment users. GNOME 41 is beautiful, only needs minimal tweaking (such as enabling a dark theme), and I prefer all of the other defaults straight out of the box. One thing I miss in Fedora (which was available in the Arch Linux AUR) was NetworkManager's GNOME WireGuard plugin which allowed me to setup WireGuard connections through the GUI. I don't mind using the command line, but as a reviewer I like to see more user friendly interpretations of command line applications.
Fedora 35 -- Checking the NVIDIA driver
(full image size: 1.9MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Installing the NVIDIA drivers on Optimus (dual video card) laptops has become much easier in the past two-to-three years. With NVIDIA Prime Offloading most distros only require relatively new NVIDIA drivers and newish X.Org drivers. I had only minor issues utilizing my NVIDIA card in my laptop with Fedora - I needed to install the kernel-devel package through the dnf package manager to get NVIDIA to work. In hindsight, I would have liked to install the NVIDIA drivers through GNOME's Software GUI, but I used the command line before I thought to use the GUI.
Fedora 35 -- Multitasking in GNOME Shell
(full image size: 960kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Time from the LUKS decryption screen to GNOME Display Manager was approximately 20 seconds, quite good for boot-up times. Consider also that I use a solid-state hard drive for my main installation media, which improves boot times significantly. It's not mere milliseconds, but it is very good for a full distro.
GNOME 41 is super polished. It seems like everything works out of the box (come on NVIDIA, let's get you on board). Whereas on other distros I would need to configure many options and drivers to get everything working properly, Fedora just works. The polish extends to all of the facets of this operating system. The boot-up splash screen is simple and beautiful. The installation of updates is clean, and the rebooting during installation is well polished. Fedora knows how to take control of an operating system and do it properly. I love how dnf (the package manager) handles updates and installing software. My Steam games worked as expected. I could edit photos easily using the photo editing software of my choice. Firefox worked great for streaming media. The HDMI output was perfect. What can I say, Fedora leaves little left to want. Yes there may be more highly configurable distributions, but Fedora seems to be one of, if not the most professional distribution I have used. (I have not been a Fedora user in the past.)
Fedora 35 -- Changing the desktop theme
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Conclusion
Fedora has pushed out a polished, beautiful, and clean new version with the release of Fedora 35. It may not be a major, life changing, reinterpretation of Linux gospel, but it is a solid update bringing new features and was well thought through. Not all Linux distros are refined out of the box, but thankfully we have Fedora 35. I may be a chronic distro hopper, but I will stay with Fedora for the foreseeable future. I highly recommend Fedora 35 to new Linux users, professionals, and advanced users.
Additional details
Fedora 35 used 1,126MB of RAM upon first boot, with NVIDIA drivers.
* * * * *
Hardware used in this review
Laptop - Lenovo Legion Y530
- Processor: Intel Core i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz x 6
- Storage: 256GB NVMe SSD Samsung and 1TB HDD
- Memory: 16GB
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411
- Display: 1920x1080 @ 60Hz
- Graphics: Intel Corporation UHD Graphics 630, NVIDIA Corporation GP106M [GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile]
* * * * *
Visitor supplied rating
Fedora has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.3/10 from 353 review(s).
Have you used Fedora? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
|
| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
GhostBSD to host community meeting, FreeBSD publishes status update, AlmaLinux OS team answers questions from the public
GhostBSD is a desktop-oriented flavour of FreeBSD which supplies pre-configured desktop environments, ZFS support, and convenient utilities for common tasks such as getting on-line and installing packages. For people who would like to learn more about GhostBSD, its FreeBSD base, and ZFS technologies, the GhostBSD project is hosting an on-line meeting on December 11, 2021. "GhostBSD online meetups consist of open discussions on GhostBSD, OpenZFS, FreeBSD, and questions and answers. Everyone can suggest a subject of discussion. There will be no official presentations until the group is more established." Details are offered on the GhostBSD website.
* * * * *
The FreeBSD project has published a new Quarterly Update which lists ongoing work and improvements to the FreeBSD operating system. One of the impressive feats mentioned in the report is the halving of FreeBSD's boot times in some environments. "Colin Percival is coordinating an effort to speed up the FreeBSD boot process. For benchmarking purposes, he is using an EC2 c5.xlarge instance as a reference platform and is measuring the time between when the virtual machine enters the EC2 "running" state and when it is possible to SSH into the instance.
This work started in 2017, leading to a conference presentation, 'Profiling the FreeBSD kernel boot', and quickly yielded roughly 4850 ms of improvements (starting from a baseline of about 30 seconds).
Since June, another roughly 9790 ms of time has been shaved off the boot process, taking it down to approximately 15 seconds. There is still more work to be done; in particular, while the loader and kernel have been profiled, the TSLOG system Colin is using does not currently support userland profiling." Additional information can be found in the project's report.
* * * * *
The AlmaLinux OS team creates a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, based on the upstream provider's source code. The AlmaLinux developers have taken to Reddit in order to answer questions and field comments from the Linux community. "Hello everyone. We are the AlmaLinux team. AlmaLinux OS is an enterprise Linux distribution continuing the legacy of CentOS Linux and are a classical downstream 1:1 of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We did something unique and setup a 501(c)(6) non-profit along with an open and free membership so that the community can actually own the OS and all the related intellectual property, vote in elections and steward the project." The open forum and the developers' responses can be found in this Reddit thread.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
|
| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Running scripts at login as another user
Getting-things-started asks: With Windows there are many means for automatically running scripts: I can make startup/shutdown scripts (in group policy) to be executed by the builtin user "SYSTEM"; I can make logon/logoff scripts (in group policy) to be executed by the builtin user "Administrator"; I can make auto-start scripts, placed in the Start menu "Startup" folder which are executed by a user as they login.
Please explain how I can create logon scripts on Linux (with systemd) and execute them on behalf of the user "root". I already know how to create startup/shutdown scripts.
DistroWatch answers: I had to consider this question for a while because there are multiple ways to run commands as another user at login, but it's important to do it safely.
With Linux (and similar Unix-like operating systems) typically startup and shutdown scripts are run as the root user or another special user account that has been granted the privileges necessary to run the script. Scripts that are run at login time are usually run as the user who is logging in. Usually functions that need to be set up by the user (or for them) are handled by a user's own login script. These login scripts can be stored in a variety of locations, and the location may vary depending on which shell (or desktop) they are running.
Typically scripts which are run at login time are executed as the regular user and stored in the /etc/profile.d/ directory. Scripts to be run at logoff are specific to the shell or desktop used. For the popular bash shell, commands to be run when the user logs out can be run from the ~/.bash_logout script.
Each desktop environment has its own options for running scripts at login and logout, and these are typically found in the settings panel under either the Startup or Session modules.
The above options for running programs at login/logout all run the specified script as the user who is signed into the session, not as another user like root. Typically Linux administration assumes any service or program launched by the user signing in will be run as that user.
There are exceptions though where an administrator will really want to run a script as another user (such as root) when someone logs in. This can be accomplished on most Linux distributions through a Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM). Specifically through a module called pam_exec. (There is a similar module called pam_script.) The pam_exec module seems to be pretty standard and runs a command as either the root user or the user logging in, depending on how it is called. The pam_script module seems to be less commonly included on distributions by default, but offers some nice options for running scripts as any user we want.
The idea behind these PAM modules is you can edit your PAM login (or equivalent) module in the /etc/pam.d/ directory using any text editor. Then add an entry which says something like:
auth optional pam_exec.so seteuid /etc/my-special-script
The above will run the command /etc/my-special-script when the user logs in and the script will be run as the root user instead of the person who is signing in.
For instance, we can create a very simple command which creates a file in the /tmp directory whenever someone authenticates using the sudo command. This is accomplished by adding the following line near the top of the file /etc/pam.d/sudo:
auth optional pam_exec.so seteuid /usr/bin/touch /tmp/someone-sudoed
With the above line in place, someone trying to run sudo silently triggers the touch command and it makes an empty file in the /tmp directory.
A word of warning: changing PAM modules and login routines can break your system and prevent you from being able to login. Please test any changes to PAM (or other login functions) in a virtual machine or on a test box before applying them to an operating system you use regularly.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
|
| Released Last Week |
Rocky Linux 8.5
Rocky Linux is a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, built from the upstream project's source code. The Rocky Linux team have launched version 8.5 of their operating system. One of the major changes in this release is the debut support for Secure Boot. "In less then 48 hours from RHEL-8.5 being released, we had successful tests on our ISOs and just before we were about to pull the string to go GA with 8.5, Microsoft countersigned our Secure Boot shim. We quickly deliberated and decided to backtrack and incorporate that into the 8.5 release. There were some things that we had to get in order and resolved, but it is with great pleasure that this release includes the official Rocky Linux signed shim. Here is the full thread to the shim review. As with any security related diligence, it is important to be able to validate the Secure Boot shim is exactly what you expect and that it is properly activated." Additional information is available in the distribution's release notes.
CentOS 8.5.2111
Johnny Hughes has announced the release of CentOS 8.5.2111, the latest version of the project's Linux distribution compiled from the source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). All CentOS users are welcome to update to this version, but are also reminded that CentOS 8 will reach the end-of-life status at the end of this year. "We are pleased to announce the general availability of the latest version of CentOS Linux 8. Effective immediately, this is the current release for CentOS Linux 8 and is tagged as 2111, derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.5 source code. Please note: CentOS Linux 8 will EOL on 31 December 2021. We will handle the EOL as directed by the CentOS Project Board of Directors. Major changes: later versions of the following components are now available as new module streams - Ruby 3.0, nginx 1.20, Node.js 16; the following components have been upgraded - PHP to version 7.4.19, Squid to version 4.15, Mutt to version 2.0.7; the following compiler toolsets have been updated - GCC 11, LLVM 12.0.1, Rust 1.54.0, Go 1.16.7." See the release announcement and release notes for further details.
Proxmox 7.1 "Virtual Environment"
Proxmox is a commercial company offering specialised products based on Debian GNU/Linux. The distribution's latest release is Proxmox 7.1 Virtual Environment (VE) which is based on Debian 11. "We're excited to announce the release of Proxmox Virtual Environment 7.1. It's based on Debian 11.1 "Bullseye" but using a newer Linux kernel 5.13, QEMU 6.1, LXC 4.0, Ceph 16.2.6, and OpenZFS 2.1. and countless enhancements and bug fixes. Proxmox Virtual Environment brings several new functionalities and many improvements for management tasks in the web interface: support for Windows 11 including TPM, enhanced creation wizard for VM/container, ability to set backup retention policies per backup job in the GUI, and a new scheduler daemon supporting more flexible schedules. Here is a selection of the highlights: Debian 11.1 'Bullseye', but using a newer Linux kernel 5.13. LXC 4.0, Ceph 16.2.6, QEMU 6.1, and OpenZFS 2.1. VM wizard with defaults for Windows 11 (q35, OVMF, TPM). New backup scheduler daemon for flexible scheduling options. Backup retention. Protection flag for backups. Two-factor Authentication: WebAuthn, recovery keys, multiple factors for a single account. New container templates: Fedora, Ubuntu, Alma Linux, Rocky Linux and many more enhancements, bugfixes, etc." Additional details can be found in the company's release announcement and in the release notes.
UBports 16.04 OTA-20
UBports is a community-developed fork of Canonical's Ubuntu Touch operating system for mobile devices. The project's latest release is UBports 16.04 OTA-20. The new release includes several changes to notifications. "We implemented notification LED support for devices with Halium 9 base. If your device is still not blinking, keep in mind that many recent devices do not have a notification LED anymore: Vollaphone and Pixel 3a cannot blink physically for example. Also vibration works now for incoming notifications on those devices. We added support for Khmer and Bengali fonts to support users from these locales a bit better. It is now possible to define a custom notification sound. Like with ringtones one can now select any accessible audio file to be played when a new notification arrives. Let's annoy our co-workers with style! A few new devices were added to the range of installable devices again: Xiaomi Redmi 9 and 9 Prime (lancelot), Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 (merlin), Note 9 Pro (joyuese), Note 9 Pro Max (excalibur), Note 9S (curtana), Xiaomi Poco M2 Pro (gram) and Pixel 2 (walleye). The Pixel 2 has some battery lifetime issues though, so it might not be fully ready for your daily drive." Additional information is available in the project's release announcement.
Q4OS 4.7
The Q4OS project produces a Debian-based distribution which is available in KDE Plasma and Trinity desktop flavours. The project's latest release is Q4OS 4.7 which is based on Debian 11 "Bullseye" and which features an update to the Trinity Desktop Environment. The release announcement reads: "A significant update to the fourth Q4OS stable series codenamed 'Gemini' has been released. This upgrade includes set of security and bug fixes, receives the most recent Debian Bullseye 11.1. as well as Trinity desktop environment R14.0.11 stable versions. Trinity desktop maintenance release of the R14 series is intended to bring bug fixes, while preserving overall stability. You can find the complete Trinity desktop release notes and new features list at the Trinity desktop environment website. We are currently pushing all the changes mentioned above into the Q4OS repositories, automatic update process will take care about to update computers for current users."
Q4OS 4.7 -- Running the Trinity desktop
(full image size: 214kB, resolution: 1600x900 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:
- Peers connected: 2,157
- Total torrents seeded: 2,651
- Total data uploaded: 41.0TB
|
| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
|
Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Custom login scripts
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about various ways to run login scripts, either as the user signing in or as another user such as root. We'd like to hear if you use any custom login scripts. Let us know how you trigger these scripts in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on preferred lightweight desktops in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
|
Regarding scripts triggered at login
| I run custom scripts as the user signing in: | 197 (18%) |
| I run custom scripts as another user: | 13 (1%) |
| I have custom scripts for both situations: | 76 (7%) |
| I do not run any custom login scripts: | 822 (74%) |
|
|
| Website News |
Creating and tracking new torrents
For the past few years DistroWatch has been seeding torrents for new releases of distributions. Many of the torrents we have been sharing through our weekly Torrent Corner and through our Torrent Archive have been provided by the distribution developers themselves. A few torrents have been provided by community members who are helping out.
Some projects and their communities do not provide torrents of their distributions' ISO files. In these situations, when a new stable release comes out, we have been creating torrents for them and hosting them on our infrastructure. These torrents have made for Linux distributions are tracked through our very own torrent tracker.
A torrent tracker is a service which helps people who are downloading or seeding a torrent find each other. It's like a hub where torrent clients can find each other.
For the first few years this worked really well. Unfortunately, in recent months our torrent tracker has been absolutely flooded with requests and it seems like some people are trying to perform a denial-of-service attack against our torrent tracker. We've been able to keep it on-line, but the bandwidth requirements are becoming increasingly large. Our torrent tracker currently handles over ten times more bandwidth than both the DistroWatch website and our torrent seed server combined.
Given the expense associated with keeping the tracker on-line, after this month we'll be shutting down our torrent tracker at the end of November and will no longer be creating our own, custom torrents for projects which do not have their own. We will continue to seed torrents from Linux and BSD projects which provide a torrent file for new releases. We are happy to continue seeding torrents and contributing to the community. However, we will be relying on upstream projects to publish their own, official torrent files.
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- Lilidog. Lilidog is a Debian-based Linux distribution featuring the Openbox window manager. It is available in three editions: Full, Minimal, and Sid (a rolling release).
- Lirix. Lirix is distribution based on Arch Linux which features the MaXX Interactive Desktop environment. It is intended to be lightweight and use less than 200MB of memory at sign-in.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 29 November 2021. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
|
|
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 1, value: US$9.46) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Torrents (by marcos pereira de sousa on 2021-11-22 01:14:19 GMT from Brazil)
C'mon you devels, distro people!
C'mon make torrents for your releases!
Here we can find your torrents, download your iso's, etc and contribute seeding them!
A little while is better than nothing!
Yes I do prefer to download everything this way...
Cheers
2 • Lirix (by lirical bugs on 2021-11-22 01:39:27 GMT from France)
Lirix: good name for a distro, lightweight, Arch, with MaXX Interactive Desktop.
looks interesting; would like to have tried it, but couldn't navigate past the pre-teen talk. what is it with these gaming dudes?
3 • Torrents (by Bob on 2021-11-22 01:58:17 GMT from United States)
At least you guys tried to be a one-stop Linux shopping experience.
-- There's always Linux Tracker.
4 • Alma vs Rocky (by Angel on 2021-11-22 02:18:33 GMT from Philippines)
That Reddit thread got into bare-knuckles quickly. Rocky came to challenge and may have gotten a bit bruised in the exchange. Waiting for Rocky II.
5 • Torrents (by Andy Prough on 2021-11-22 03:09:00 GMT from United States)
>"Unfortunately, in recent months our torrent tracker has been absolutely flooded with requests and it seems like some people are trying to perform a denial-of-service attack against our torrent tracker."
Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer and Tim Cook laughing maniacally in the background, high-fiving each other as they count their billions. The scheme to keep GNU/Linux from dominating the desktop market continues apace as it enters its third decade...
6 • Custom login scripts (by ivan on 2021-11-22 04:55:32 GMT from Italy)
I'm working on an Application Manager (AM) that uses both scripts at the user's login or while the user launches the program. It uses only standalone programs and AppImages, and actually I'm porting some scripts from another project I've completed (AppMan) for the x86_64 architecture. These scripts are needed to update the program always to the latest version. Among these login scripts there are two that are using the appimageupdate tool. They stop working when the update is complete.
PS: I'm looking for cooperators to compile new scripts and improve the number of programs, AM is completelly wrote in shell, so the scripts can be compiled for all the other architectures. I hope you enjoy this project.
7 • GhostBSD meeting (by gelu on 2021-11-22 06:48:11 GMT from Moldova)
Will GhostBSD meeting be open to everyone ?
as a presentation of the state of the project
or it will be open only to developers ?
8 • Fedora and choices (by Hank on 2021-11-22 10:34:14 GMT from Germany)
Init, NO CHOICE
Desktops delivered 1
Installing non Free software is a choice on the majority of distros.
Most modern devices will not even boot without non free binary blobs or firmware.
and I do not mean just BIOS...
9 • Custom logins (by James on 2021-11-22 12:02:04 GMT from United States)
I do not run any custom login scripts:
I have no idea how to write a script, or enable it, so I do not run one.
10 • Fedora (by Sam on 2021-11-22 14:01:29 GMT from United States)
Fedora has really been putting out solid releases lately. My Linux laptop, normally a device that sees a lot of distro hopping, hasn't really hopped in a while -- Fedora 33, then 34, now 35. Just solid work by the Fedora team (despite any jokes about the distro from Linus "I don't pay attention when Pop_OS! tells me I'm going to hose my system" Sebastian.
11 • Fedora (by krell on 2021-11-22 15:48:48 GMT from Tajikistan)
I love Fedora Mate spin or KDE could never get used to gnome
Am on Fedora 34 and it is rock solid though it is funny how Wine o(installing microsoft office)can work well in one version
of a distrp(Fedora 33) but then fail to work in Fedora 34. Maybe it's time to give Fedora 35 a try.
12 • antiX 21 (by Dave on 2021-11-22 16:15:15 GMT from United States)
I’m hoping Distrowatch will review the new version of antiX in an upcoming issue. I’m thinking of putting it on an old 32-bit single-core laptop. When I’ve tried it in the past via live usb, it’s been almost shockingly fast.
13 • once bitten.. (by Tad Strange on 2021-11-22 18:39:01 GMT from Canada)
I've setup the KDE version of Fedora in a VM. It's certainly an interesting departure from my usual Debian-based preferences.
I can't bring myself to trust it for daily use, however. Too many bad memories of Fedora pushing the envelope a bit too far, delivering an alpha-grade technology demo, to put it politely.
once bitten, as they say
14 • Elevation (from last week) (by Kyle on 2021-11-22 23:42:02 GMT from United States)
@13 I recall that you and another person had posted in last week's comments about finding a UAC-like privilege elevation prompt that could cache your credentials. After a bit of tinkering, I was able to get KDE's solution, kdesu, to work on my personal system, though not in time to reply to you last week.
By default, kdesu uses the `su` command to launch programs as root, and therefore requires knowledge of root's password. To configure the prompt to ask for your password instead, you can edit the configuration file located at "~/.config/kdesurc" to specify the command `sudo`. Some distributions (such as Ubuntu) may arrive pre-configured this way, though that may not hold true in recent versions due to the technical limitations that I will link below.
Add the following two lines to your "~/.config/kdesurc":
[super-user-command]
super-user-command=sudo
I have been experimenting with OpenDoas lately, and it seems like the `doas` command also works in this role. Of course, ensure that whichever backend you choose has been configured to allow you to run programs as root.
The kdesu developers have noted some techincal considerations with commands other than `su` which you may want to study (if this is being used in an environment where strict, detailed security policies are needed):
https://techbase.kde.org/Projects/kdesu#Technical_considerations
With all that out of the way, you can now run a program through kdesu by adding this to the beginning of the command: `kdesu -c `. (I like to create special "Root Mode" desktop files for programs that I run frequently with this method, where the command field already includes this prefix.) The first time you run kdesu in a session, it will ask for your password, and offer a checkbox to remember your password, which is disabled by default. Select that option, then submit your password. Future invocations of kdesu shouldn't prompt for a password for the rest of the session. (The kdesu daemon, `kdesud`, is now running in the background to keep your password cached.)
I have noticed that some systems don't play nearly as nicely with the "remember password" option as I would like for them to, and kdesu will fail to open any application after submitting your password with this option enabled. I have not yet been able to identify the configuration difference that causes this issue. In the meantime, you can run `kdesu -s` to stop the daemon, forcing it to ask for your password again next time.
15 • #13 (by Simon on 2021-11-23 02:00:10 GMT from New Zealand)
It doesn't really matter how solid and trustworthy it appears to be, because it's only supported for a short while, after which you're forced to waste time upgrading, or you're stuck with increasingly insecure unsupported software. Fedora's release cycle is too short for it to be useful to me: it's one of the many distros that I don't even bother to test, because it offers no long term support. If I wanted a Red Hat flavoured distro I'd use Red Hat itself, or one of the community recompilations: to me those are basically Fedora, only grown up into versions that are actually useful. Fedora is Red Hat's little fashion-conscious teen version, endlessly "finding itself". I prefer grown up operating systems that know what they are.
16 • @15 (by Adam Drake on 2021-11-23 02:12:36 GMT from United States)
Waste time upgrading? That’s most of the fun. For some of us, working on PCs is much more entertaining than actually using them. I use Debian Testing BTW.
17 • Tools... (by Friar Tux on 2021-11-23 02:30:06 GMT from Canada)
@16 (Adam) For others, our computers are tools to get stuff done - banking, bill paying, communicating with kith and kin, music, photo albums, writing, etc.. I don't bother with any short term distros, either. I use a long term distro (5 years or more (Linux Mint, at present)). I think upgrading every five years is also good for clearing out leftover bits of junk files that tend to accumulate over time - hence I don't use a rolling releases, either. Besides all the rolling releases I've tried break after every second or third update/upgrade.
I DO have a second laptop that is used for monkeying about with different distros. That way I can still have the entertaining fun, as you call it. And yes, it is fun.
18 • nvidia and Fedora (by Brian on 2021-11-23 08:44:04 GMT from Canada)
" In hindsight, I would have liked to install the NVIDIA drivers through GNOME's Software GUI, but I used the command line before I thought to use the GUI. "
You probably saved yourself some aggravation to be honest. After a purge of everything nvidia, disabling RPM Fusion's nvidia repo, and installing Negativo17's version I'm once again up and running. I've never had success with RMP fusion's version - not once. Negativo17 works and keeps working on every install. Other that that, I agree with the review.
19 • @14, Elevation, passwords (by Angel on 2021-11-23 10:01:06 GMT from Hong Kong)
Somewhat the same result can be obtained by editing the /etc/sudoers file, or depending on distro, in /etc/sudoers.d, as shown here: tinyurl.com/4sc2xbt5
My settings: Defaults env_reset,timestamp_timeout=-2 and Defaults !tty_tickets
This allows me to enter my password in terminal once per session. Rather than create.desktop files, I edit the menu with sudo as prefix for any GUI apps that run with elevated privileges. Example: sudo synaptic. sudo partitionmanager. This doesn't help with apps that open as normal user but require passwords every time one installs something. For those one has to edit configuration files, which is more "guruish" than I want to get.
I thought of replying to last weeks post, but decided not to after reading this: "they talk to you like you are a linux guru and i don't understand anything they say.. i give up" Shows me he's looking for a point-and-click solution, and I've been there too many times over the years. Not that I blame him. Even Microsoft had a lot of push-back with their UAC, and had to backtrack to make it more of an "are you sure" reminder. If there is ever going to be a Linux-desktop for the masses to rival the big boys, it will have to be as simple to use. Maybe when someone figures out a way to make lots of money from it. But then, a lot of us would probably be looking for something else to use.
20 • Fedora 35 Okay for Newbies (by Matt E on 2021-11-23 11:40:30 GMT from United States)
With Fedora 35, I had to do "dnf provides" to add an extra gtk file for Veracrypt. Ubuntu didn't need this. Yes, a newbie most likely will not be installing Veracrypt. Some articles say Fedora is for experiences users (implying not for newbies). I disagree, but if there was a newbie distro. contest, Ubuntu would win over Fedora. Overall, Fedora is shinier and more impressive.
21 • @17 (by Adam Drake on 2021-11-23 13:16:35 GMT from United States)
I understand and agree completely. We use Red Hat for our servers and docker containers at work. My point was that there is a valid reason for bleeding edge distros like Fedora to exist.
On a side note, I joined the Licking County Computer Society over the weekend and was delighted to learn that they are working with local senior citizens to learn Linux (Mint mostly) on a regular basis.
22 • Fedora 35.. (by Az4x4 on 2021-11-23 14:52:37 GMT from United States)
Seems like forever since I last gave Fedora a go. But with this weeks highlight article extolling this new release I figured I'd take another look. ..Maybe, if Fedora came with a more traditional, more truly user friendly DE than the 'space cadet' piece of work we find in today's GNOME it might be worth using. As it is though it's a complete waste of time unless someone's a glutton for punishment. Fedora 35 with the new GNOME DE will punish the typical desktop user in every way possible before they finally throw up their hands in exasperation and pull the plug - which belatedly I ended up doing this past afternoon..
23 • Fedora 35 and Gnome 41 (by Tim Doran on 2021-11-23 15:48:45 GMT from United States)
Fedora has been my preferred distro for several years now with Ubuntu coming in second. Right now I'm running Ubuntu 20.04 on my work laptop and Fedora 35 on two laptops for personal use. The main reason I'm running Ubuntu on the work laptop is I need to spend zero time with Ubuntu getting the Nvidia card to work. Fedora requires a bit more effort.
Fedora 35's implementation of Gnome 41 is excellent. I've used everything from Awesome WM through KDE over the years, but have found that Gnome suits my workflow best, usually only after installing a few dozen extensions. With Gnome 41 I have had to install far fewer extensions to get it working as I like than with any other release. I'm running Gnome on Ubuntu as well. I have 3 dozen extensions installed on Ubuntu's Gnome. Some of those were installed mostly out of curiosity. With Gnome 41, I only have about a dozen. I've felt much less interest in experimenting with Gnome 41's configuration because it just seems to be the most polished and useful out of the box compared to previous releases.
Well done, Fedora!
24 • Fedora 35 (by Nico on 2021-11-23 15:59:39 GMT from United States)
@22 (Az4x4)
"Maybe, if Fedora came with a more traditional, more truly user friendly DE than the 'space cadet' piece of work we find in today's GNOME it might be worth using. As it is though it's a complete waste of time unless someone's a glutton for punishment. Fedora 35 with the new GNOME DE will punish the typical desktop user in every way possible before they finally throw up their hands in exasperation and pull the plug - which belatedly I ended up doing this past afternoon.."
Always nice to read some ***, but could you also elaborate? What exactly is your problem?
What you are saying here is basically: "What a terrible construct! I just want to leave, but I'm stuck inside. How do I come out? Heeelp ..." Can you see the issue?
25 • Fedora (by Nico on 2021-11-23 16:55:06 GMT from United States)
With OS's is just like with 'motor vehicles' - there is no such thing like 'one fits all'. One can't build a sports car, suitable for a family of 6, and being usable as a bus for 50, that'll transport gasoline. One needs to decide ...
Linux is a bad desktop OS, because it has a server concept. Having a system bound to some repositories is a great thing for a server, but a complete fail on the desktop. And then the software management, which just can't work, because of that repository misconception. Snaps and Flatpak were born out of desperation ...
Diversity killed the Linux.
Too many WM's and DE's, old and new stuff, all mixed up together, GTK & QT available through the same repository ... this just can't work. Linux (as a desktop) needs an urgent cleanup, or it'll always stay irrelevant.
Fedora is the best what one can get in Linux world. It makes the best possible compromise. Most people don't care for the OS - they care for their applications. On Ubuntu, one gets stuck 'forever' on some old versions, on rolling, one is a 'beta tester' for the developers. In Fedora, with their 1-year update cycles, one gets fresh software versions, but one doesn't need to upgrade 'all the time'. Mac and Windows also have annual cycles. For a good reason. And Fedora is beautiful, and it has great interface(s) - modern or classic, it's just one click (on a cogwheel on log-in screen) away. Currently, the best Linux system for a laptop or a desktop computer.
26 • Startup script (by Cheker on 2021-11-23 19:10:51 GMT from Portugal)
I run a simple script that plays a tune on system startup, my distro doesn't have that natively. An old habit that I brought with me from Redmond.
27 • @24 "..could you also elaborate? What exactly is your problem?" (by Az4x4 on 2021-11-23 20:47:33 GMT from United States)
Torvalds explained there is a "*huge* difference between being easy to use," and "*only* being easy to use. .."Being easy to use" means there isn't a steep learning curve involved. That's *good*. On the other hand "*only* being easy to use" is bad. It means that once the initial learning curve has been mastered, maybe you know the program in the form it presents itself, but you discover you can't actually do what you WANT to with it, and that's *bad*. It's a lot worse than being difficult to use to begin with. "Gnome people seem to think that once you've 'got into it,' you'd never want to do anything more. Not true."
A senior GNOME developer commented, "GNOME offers a lot of customization options, but some of them require (that) you..get extra applications to easily get to ... there are many such add-ons available, and of course a lot of things a power user can tweak using gconf-editor.."
Torvalds angrily responded, "Why the hell do you have to point to bogus programs that don't actually do what I want?" Torvalds continued, "I *know* what I want. I *know* gnome doesn't support it. How do I know? I've used it. I looked at the code. I talked to the original author of the code. The author, and the code, all agree: gnome doesn't do what I want."
"I want something very simple: (for example) I want to configure my mouse button window events. That doesn't sound so bad, does it? Everybody else can do it, Gnome does not. My laptop has a two-button mouse, which means that I want the right button to do something more useful than show me the menu that I never use."
Torvalds went on to write the code to fix this, then "sent the patches off to add these capabilities" to GNOME because he believes "gnome people always make *excuses*. "It took me a few hours to actually do the patches," he said. "It wasn't that hard.."
Torvalds (along with users who see things in a similar light) and the GNOME project don't share the same design goals. Torvalds wants to increase users' access to the internal workings of the system, giving them maximum power over their systems. GNOME on the other hand aims to increase the system's usability by severely limiting or outright denying access to system internals from the GUI.
In general GNOME policy is, "..no GUI options before thinking." This policy came into effect beginning with GNOME 2.x during UI design usability discussions, as a result of seeing GNOME 2.x's config menu's filled with options which where there because of bugs, missing features and a heterogeneous deployment environment that GNOME had been built upon. GNOME developers see part of why this problem has grown to become such an issue for people who don't closely follow GNOME is that, "..maybe we in GNOME have failed to package and present the power user tools actually available in a good way." But that more of an excuse instead of an answer to Torvalds' concern about system control being easily available to users.
As Torvalds explains, "This is why you want graphical tools, to configure stuff - even for 'experts.' Because I'm an expert Unix user..doesn't mean that I'm expert in some Gnome internal configuration issues. I know what I want, but that doesn't mean that I know how Gnome does (what I want it to do)."
Christopher Blizzard, a Red Hat software developer, said, "In GNOME I think we've done a very good, and 'somewhat painful job', of creating something that's very simple and very usable for someone who sits down in front of their machine. I say 'painful' because we've had to remove a lot of things that people were very used to in order to get a base experience that's pretty good. But the thing that I think Linus is stumbling over is that canyon. How does he figure out how to get what he needs, which does exist in GNOME, without having to learn everything there is to know about GNOME?
"I think that what GNOME has done is important," added Blizzard. "You have to have a very simple base to start with ..Building a system that's simple and friendly and works well is where we start. But if we're ever going to grow beyond our 'small community' we need to figure out how to grow with our users in an unobtrusive manner. I don't think that any of us have figured out how to do that, and we're paying the price for it."
The question comes down to whether desktop Linux users would rather have a highly simplified universal interface, toned down to the point of effectively being neutered, like GNOME, which makes customizing the system to suit individual needs painfully difficult? Or are power-user friendly DEs such as KDE, Mate', Cinnamon and Xfce, with their massive followings and wide spread appeal on a variety of levels, the more preferred choice?
We'll each make that decision for ourselves, but until Gnome's developers learn to accommodate users' needs for greatly increased control within the context of today's Gnome interface, they'll never be anything other than the self-declared "small community" they see themselves as being.
28 • RE: 27 and the Gnome way (by the Ghost of Christmas Past on 2021-11-23 22:30:51 GMT from United States)
In 2005 Patrick Volkerding gave Gnome the shove from Slackware, and it's astonishing how little has changed in the intervening 16 years. The Gnome people still act in insular, self-congratulatory and self-defeating ways. In a ZDNet article announcing that Slackware is dumping Gnome, Gnome leader Jeff Waugh says this:
"This is how open source is supposed to work..."
https://www.zdnet.com/article/slackware-ditches-gnome-service/
This is not how open source is supposed to work. The Gnome project -- dominated by IBM/Red Hat -- has been tuning out users for twenty years; it's time for the open source community to recognize and adapt to that truth.
System76 has moved on, the Solus team has moved on, the LXQt guy has moved on... why can't everyone else?
29 • Gnome and extensions (by Hoos on 2021-11-24 06:17:22 GMT from Singapore)
I think pure keyboard shortcut users will probably be more comfortable with a vanilla Gnome setup.
For mouse users like me though, I think many users will prefer having either dash to dock or dash to panel extension working. So the months after Gnome 40's release (on the newer rolling distros) broke dash to dock, while I was waiting for the said extension to be updated in time for when Ubuntu's new release with Gnome 40 came out, was a bit annoying. Yes, some temporary adaptation using other working extensions made things a little less annoying, but even so.
And others can't do without at least a few other extensions to ease their workflow.
For now, I'm fine with Gnome, but I'm very aware that for myself, it's a DE that is so very dependent on certain third party extensions to keep me comfortable in my workflow - for things that one takes for granted in other DEs.
So my continued use of Gnome depends on Gnome not breaking extensions with a new release, and/or on the extensions' developers continuing to maintain their extensions and patiently rejigging it whenever changes to Gnome break it. It's a tenuous relationship that might just end at any time. I don't have the same uncertainty using XFCE or Plasma.
30 • Gnome (by Nico on 2021-11-24 09:51:33 GMT from United States)
@27 (Az4x4)
Hold on! Please go back to @22, then to @24, then @27, and then back to @24.
1. You wrote a wall of text, but you still didn't answer my question, about what exactly is YOUR issue. You did say what Mr. Torvalds thinks (or was thinking at the time), but he is not you. Does that mean, that you can't make your own opinion, and you need someone to tell you what you should think?
2. Define "Being easy to use and a steep learning curve involved" in usage of Gnome, for somebody who is able to use Mate, Xfce ...
Screenshot of Xfce / Mate / Gnome Classic, one per row, and of Gnome 41:
https://imgur.com/sFzf2ly
https://imgur.com/EJe1MXE
Gnome Classic is definitely not a "'space cadet' piece of work", but it definitely looks much better and less cluttered, which also makes it much more pleasant to use, and there's exactly zero learning curve involved.
3. On "power-users" ...
"Or are power-user friendly DEs such as KDE, Mate', Cinnamon and Xfce, with their massive followings and wide spread appeal on a variety of levels, the more preferred choice?"
No, they are not, and the reason why, is very simple.
There are some 1.5 billion computers out there, and probably at least twice that many smartphones. Some people have computer at all, some have more than one ... let's assume that we have 1.5 billion computer users. How many of those are "power-users"?
Everybody needs and uses one ... doctor or professor, student or pupil, car mechanic or a cleaning person. One can safely assume, that the world consists of computer-incompetent people.
Are you now seriously suggesting, that one should make operating systems to suit the needs of 0.01 % of "power-users", instead of concentrating on the usability for "normal-users"?
The "power-users" are either IT-professionals or nerds, and they will always find a way to change something somehow, but the waste majority of "normal-users" shouldn't be bothered and be in need to fiddle with things they don't know how to do, nor they care for. They just want to use the thing, do their thing, and turn it off.
Just like with cars. Most people just drive one, and very few are "power-drivers". Imagine the car industry, if they would produce the cars that only rally or truck drivers, or even more precise, that only the car mechanics would be able to drive -- because that's exactly the case when comparing Mate, Xfce ... against Gnome -- all either broken or unfinished, mostly both. Are you trying to bring them all, a decade or two back in time?
31 • Fedora 35 Gnome (by RaySue on 2021-11-24 12:09:29 GMT from United States)
I'm running a flawlessly tweaked Gnome desktop on Fedora 35 right now -- all the extensions work perfectly and the workflow is intuitive and smooth as silk. So, I'm really getting a kick out of some of these comments.
32 • Desktop Enviro (by Marti on 2021-11-24 13:14:22 GMT from United States)
It was 1997 and a friend help me install Red Hat 4.something.....with blackbox WM. I miss that. Forward to Dec 2007 and brown Ubuntu 7.10.....
I left "formal" Ubuntu because of Unity, but stayed with Ubuntu derivatives/spins. I am still not a sys admin, but I might make the jump to Debian+non-free and LXDE.
I'm sure GNOME is coded by smart people, but I don't want my desktop to look like a smartphone, which I do not own.
Linux gives options. Please let's not destroy ourselves. Happy Thanksgiving.
33 • @16 (by Simon on 2021-11-24 20:56:08 GMT from New Zealand)
Yes, I get that. I think that's the case for most of the developers of desktop Linux distros these days: because they love endlessly installing and tinkering with their operating systems, they imagine their users the same way, and don't prioritise users who actually want to use their desktops to get stuff done. Fortunately, Debian stable, Red Hat (and its clones), Ubuntu LTS (and its many derivatives) and a handful of others cater to users who aren't just Linux hobbyists and who want to stay focused on their work for as long as possible without being distracted by the demands of the OS.
34 • Torrent seeding (by pengxuin on 2021-11-24 23:50:17 GMT from New Zealand)
I guess if some developers are not providing a link to a torrent seed, it is conceivable that they are using the direct download method as a rough guide for the number of users / trials of their linux vision.
35 • Gnome @30 (by OneHue on 2021-11-25 08:05:47 GMT from Mali)
The problem with gnome 3 is that it is harder to say what is bad, because it is mostly bad in every way. The only one thing that is good, is the fact there is no tearing at all.
I started using linux with Red Hat 7. I was a student, I saved money little by little, bought it and installed it on a HP Vectra desktop. I contributed to other free softwares by fixing help manuals, translati g them from english to french, submitting bugs. But nowadays, I barely use linux. Why ? Because, most distributions lack a end user vision (except Mint and MX).
Let come back to gnome. It is perfect on a 1920×1080 screen and plenty fast on a ssd powered computer ; but it is unusable on a 1366x768 screen and slow on a HDD powered computer. It is so simple that it is useless. People talked, shouted, but nothing change. We went from a good desktop environment (Gnome 2) to a lab experiment (Gnome 3). Today things are vertical, tomorrow they are horizontal. I can go other and other.
In short, linux distros are not any more the solid desktop operating systems you use when you are doing serious things. In the past, people were saying "Windows for office work, Mac for multimedia work, and Linux for science". Now it is Linux for server side programing. Narrowing its scope to a Unix replacement.
I hope, really hope, that things will be better.
36 • Gnome (by eganonoa on 2021-11-25 12:10:44 GMT from Netherlands)
@Az4x4 that was an extremely useful set of quotes there. Probably the most informative short read on the subject i have read. @Nico I feel you are over-egging the DE wars here.
On my end, Gnome is at once endlessly frustrating and utterly necessary, and it is for the very reasons of its "over"-simplicity. It is hands-down, the easiest DE to rollout across a wide team of people, some who know what they are doing, many who don't. There isn't a single other DE "online accounts" that makes Online Accounts integration so seamless (including Mac and Windows for whom it's only seamless if you use their cloud products). Only Macs and Chromebooks beat Gnome on the ability to give it to anyone and they can figure it out quickly (albeit a dock extension is necessary pre-Gnome 40).
But, the Gnome developers are very often horribly rude and angry about feedback. The release cycle is crazy, almost as if it is designed to deliberately break extensions. And there are some really strange decisions being made that have left some really important things in limbo, e.g.: (a) on office productivity you can either have a working and excellent but ugly Evolution maintained by one person; or you can have lovely-looking mail, calendar, contacts, and tasks apps that lack really basic and expected productivity features, like calendar sending or receiving/inputting calendar invites!); (b) (as discussed above) key advanced settings features are excluded, relegated to tweaks or endlessly-breaking extensions, or some really impossible to understand configuration frameworks). Ultimately, they are clearly spending too much time on looks and not enough on things like these. My hope is that with the looks pretty much looking great since Gnome 41 and performance less on an issue, we will finally see some more emphasis on these things. But I'm not holding my breath.
And yet still, I would never give anything else out to a wide team of people with different skills sets and knowledge. Everything else is too breakable or complex.
37 • Gnomish desktop (by Angel on 2021-11-25 12:27:19 GMT from Philippines)
Right after the debut of Windows 8, one of the big box stores held a demo allowing customers to play with the system and figure things out. There was a woman who tried for around half and hour and could not figure out how to shut it down. She was not alone. Even c|net felt the need to publish an article titles "How to, uh, turn Windows 8 off." Gnome is pretty close to being Linux's Windows 88. Simple and clean-looking? Yes. Easy to use? Hardly. I agree with @27 that "learn to accommodate users' needs for greatly increased control within the context of today's Gnome interface, they'll never be anything other than the self-declared "small community" they see themselves as being." What I don't agree with is direction. To be a mainline option, Linus Torvalds in not the one who needs pleasing. Torvalds is good enough to take care of any faults himself. What would be needed is to make it possible for that woman to shut the damn thing down without having to ask for help.
Say I'm a neophyte coming from that cursed thing from Redmond. I want my freedom, so I install (maybe with some help) Fedora. I log in, and I get a "colorful?" expanse and a black bar on top. What the hell are "Activities"? Some little icons on the right, like Windows 8's "charm bar" "Click." There! Power off. No! One more click. No! One more! Ah! Well, at least I can shut it down. In Windows the 'Windows" key gives me a menu. Click! No! I do have a dock at the bottom with a few apps. What's that thing with the square dots? Click! Wow! It IS Windows 8 without the live tiles!
There's nothing inherently wrong with Gnome, just like Windows 8. A third party start menu would fix Win 8, and you were of the races. I installed Fedora. First thing, I changed that garish (Sorry!) wallpaper, but I had to find pictures somewhere because none are provided. Then I wanted to get rid of that black bar on top. I installed "tweaks" and "extensions." Installed dash to panel and Plank. Plank is broken, so it's dash to dock and a transparent bar extension. Enable minimize on window tops. Some adjustments, and I have a desktop I can live with. Nice! To compare,
I install Manjaro Gnome. Comes with a muted wallpaper I can live with, and many alternative pictures, should I want. Tweaks and extensions already installed, dash to dock enabled. I install transparent bar, some adjustments, and done! Somebody up there loves me! Runs like a top! Guess which one I'll keep!
@30, Nico. While there are many kinds of cars, they all have steering wheels, pedals on the floor, a shifting mechanism, etc. Ergonomics! That's the kind of thing most people complain about in Gnome. "Where's the gas pedal?" I actually like Gnome, and use it, modified to my liking, along with KDE. I avoid the latest versions of Gnome because as the people at System 76 say, they keep breaking things.
38 • Gnome DE (by Nico on 2021-11-25 14:03:15 GMT from United States)
I'm reading DW for many years already, and occasionally I read comments. I noticed that it is often the same sort of people, and often even the same names, who are writing the same kind of things, about something that they obviously couldn't understand.
@37 (Angel)
"@30, Nico. While there are many kinds of cars, they all have steering wheels, pedals on the floor, a shifting mechanism, etc. Ergonomics!"
Gnome has its concept. It is different. If you can't use it without modifying it, it is you who is the problem, not the Gnome concept. Full-screen start menu and the huge icons? Like Macs, isn't it?
Just like with cars ... Gear shift lever for example:
https://cars.usnews.com/pics/size/776x517/images/Auto/izmo/353980/2013_toyota_tundra_2wd_truck_gearshift.jpg
https://cars.usnews.com/pics/size/776x517/images/Auto/izmo/i159613939/2020_dodge_grand_caravan_gearshift.jpg
https://bestride.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/mdx-shifter-acura-image.jpg
https://autopartskorea.ru/image/cache/catalog/I30(PD)/43711S0100RMW-1x0.jpg
https://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/197564_81_30209_e8pLaJxSc.jpg
MX-Linux is an example of bad ergonomics, despite Xfce, if you're looking for a bad ergonomics example on a Linux desktop. Comparing Gnome with Windows 8 makes little sense, as shutdown in Gnome is not harder than in any other DE. Click on the "battery-sound-network" (top right) opens the panel with settings ... shut-down options.
39 • @38 Gnome DE (by Angel on 2021-11-25 16:01:28 GMT from Philippines)
If you were going to show something different, you might have tried Tesla. Now that's a different concept. And yes, I find MX rather ugly and crude, but most of that can be changed with a few clicks. I don't use it, but many people here have no problem with it. Maybe the fact that you carp on it makes you the problem.
Apples and oranges. The shape or somewhat different position of controls is not the issue. The issue is whether they are reachable, usable and understandable for, or to different people. Example: I went to test-drive a small car. My wife is under 5 feet tall. From the driver's seat she was looking through the steering wheel. I asked if height adjustment is available. The answer: No! She could use a pillow, or the seat could be removed and shimmed, but why? Is the problem my wife, or the car's design/ "concept"? If the makers are happy to cater just to people over 5.3 or so or to those who don't mind sitting on a pillow, it's their privilege, I guess. But off to a different car we went.
I had a Mac just after the introduction of OS X. I liked the "concept of top panel and bottom dock. I still do. Not much configuring on Macs, but their initial presentation is usable. I still would like to change some things, but then again, I no longer use Macs. I don't use any DE just as it comes. All are modified to my liking. If they can't be configured, like Pantheon or Endless OS, I don't use them. Whether I am the problem or not is irrelevant. They will be on my computer and I will be using them. I will not sit on pillows to adapt to someone else's concept.
In any case, that Gnome in not configurable or not meant to be configured is pure BS. Gnome provides a tweak tool and an extensions app for that purpose. Take a look at Makulu Shift. Eight different looks, some with category or kickoff menus, available with one click. Cinnamon, on which I write this, is Gnome-based, and I can make Gnome look almost exactly like my Cinnamon desktop, but it would still be Gnome, whether you approve of it or not. So I'm the problem. I'm OK with that. And If Gnome just want to cater to a small group, that would be OK too.
40 • @39 (by Nico on 2021-11-25 17:07:28 GMT from United States)
No, I don't give a **** for MX and here you get it to the point: "but most of that can be changed with a few clicks". It can be, but that's the job of those who make it, because the "normals" can't do it on their own. One could also build the own distro, isn't it? It's all in the repos ... just download and combine. ;)
"The issue is whether they are reachable, usable and understandable for, or to different people."
Yes, they are, at least for those few over 80-year-olds, for which I installed it. But, they use the computer, they don't tweak anything.
Here lays your problem:
"All are modified to my liking. If they can't be configured, like Pantheon or Endless OS, I don't use them."
You are not supposed to modify your OS, but yourself -- to learn how it works, and to use it.
You are the wrong customer for Gnome. You need KDE.
41 • "Nico" sets Linux-dom a new standard for high-handed! (by nooneatall on 2021-11-25 22:44:12 GMT from United States)
> I'm reading DW for many years already, and occasionally I read comments. I noticed that it is often the same sort of people, and often even the same names, who are writing the same kind of things, about something that they obviously couldn't understand.
> Gnome has its concept. It is different. If you can't use it without modifying it, it is you who is the problem, not the Gnome concept.
And best of all, as if straight from GAWD itself:
> You are not supposed to modify your OS, but yourself -- to learn how it works, and to use it.
I'm glad to have at last been told.
42 • @40 Nico: (by dragonmouth on 2021-11-26 13:01:10 GMT from United States)
"> You are not supposed to modify your OS, but yourself -- to learn how it works, and to use it."
Spoken like real dyed-in-the-wool Windows Fanatic. "You WILL use any garbage that we give you and you WILL like it!"
Sorry, but I want to be able to configure my O/S to MY tastes, not to force myself to adapt to somebody else's vision of nirvana. That is why I use Linux, not Windows.
43 • Linux (by Nico on 2021-11-26 13:28:00 GMT from United States)
@41 (nooneatall)
The difference between the good and the bad OS (±DE) is, that after installing the good one, one start working. After installing the bad one, one MUST start reconfiguring and repairing.
@35 (OneHue)
"It is perfect on a 1920×1080 screen and plenty fast on a ssd powered computer ; but it is unusable on a 1366x768 screen and slow on a HDD powered computer."
Sure, it doesn't make much fun to work on a 1366x768 screen, because most modern websites and many applications are written in a 'small-screen hostile' way, but why 'unusable'?
https://imgur.com/a/5drs0BJ
https://imgur.com/a/P7aOzOj
As of HDD, HDD is not the same as HDD. There were some types with SSD cache, which helps a lot. But, why would anybody even want to use an HDD in 2021 (not talking about archiving, backup etc.)?
Brand-new SSDs are available for some $20 ~ 25 nowadays!
However, if it really has to be, that 20-year-old, 4200 rpm HDD, then one has to make some essential tweaks.
Using file indexing and BTRFS advanced file system (deduplication etc.) are using a lot of additional I/O, and with it, RAM usage and processor workload rise significantly ...
@42 (dragonmouth)
Well ... Windows, Mac and Chrome OS have some significant percentage of users. What do you think, why exactly?
Nobody is preventing you fiddling with your OS, but you and your needs are irrelevant for the development direction. You are not the measurement. As previously explained in @30.
Just as with that car example. Either you get used to that gear shift lever 'positioned wrong', or you get another product -- but, it is not bad because you can not handle it.
Number of Comments: 43
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
| | |
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Archives |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
| Random Distribution | 
Tiny Core Linux
Tiny Core Linux is a 16 MB graphical Linux desktop. It is based on a recent Linux kernel, BusyBox, Tiny X, Fltk, and Flwm. The core runs entirely in memory and boots very quickly. The user has complete control over which applications and/or additional hardware to have supported, be it for a desktop, a nettop, an appliance or server; selectable from the project's online repository.
Status: Active
|
| 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.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
/43711S0100RMW-1x0.jpg){kind=link}
