 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 945, 29 November 2021 |
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Welcome to this year's 47th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
One interesting cycle the world has entered with regards to computers is the ever-growing capabilities of hardware along with the ever-expanding ways to use our new capabilities. Hard drives grow in size, network speeds increase, and processors get faster. At the same time we come up with more services, more data, and more calculations. When our capabilities outpace our needs, as users, then things run smoothly, but what happens when we start running into our upper limits? What happens when we run out of available resources, like memory? In this week's Questions and Answers column we talk about what happens when a Linux distribution runs out of available memory and why it behaves the way it does. Do you find your system running out of RAM often? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. First though we take a look at a young distribution called LockBox. The LockBox platform is reportedly developed with cryptocurrencies in mind and we talk about its capabilities in this week's Feature Story. Then, in our News section, we talk about Debian adjusting its APT package manager to avoid breaking essential packages and MX Linux releasing install media with updated hardware support. Plus we share a detailed overview on issues facing portable package formats such as Flatpak. We're also happy 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 (12MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
LockBox 1.0
LockBox is one of the most recent additions to the DistroWatch database. LockBox (sometimes referred to as LBX) is a Linux distribution derived from Ubuntu and elementary OS. It is especially intended for storing and managing cryptocurrencies. It includes several hardened configuration changes for security purposes, a highly restrictive firewall setup, several applications designed for data backups, a password manager, and the Brave Internet browser. LockBox is available for x86_64 machines exclusively and its install media is 3.4GB in size.
In a curious case of life imitating art, the LockBox website currently describes the project using a quote from the DistroWatch information page about the distribution.
One of the first things I discovered about the distribution is LockBox will not boot in Legacy BIOS mode. A boot menu will appear and begin a countdown from five seconds. When the countdown reaches zero, or when we select any of the boot options, the counter simply resets to five seconds again. The boot menu offers to let us "Try or install elementary OS" or "Check disks for defects" and both options simply reset the boot menu counter. When trying to launch the distribution in UEFI mode, only the Try/Install option is presented and choosing it boots the distribution's live environment.
When the live system boots we are shown a graphical window where we can choose our preferred language from a list. We are given the choice to try the live desktop, which loads the Pantheon desktop. Alternatively we can launch the system installer. I'll talk about the Pantheon desktop later in this review.
LockBox 1.0 -- The Pantheon application menu
(full image size: 616kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Installing
LockBox makes use of the Ubiquity system installer. It's a friendly, graphical installer that should be familiar to anyone who has used a member of the Ubuntu family of distributions. Ubiquity does a fine job of getting our keyboard layout and time zone, setting up a username and password for us, and partitioning the hard drive. Both guided and manual partitioning options are available and I find them quite easy to navigate. Ubiquity worked well and offered to restart the computer for me when it finished.
The only thing that stood out during the install process was, like many Ubuntu-based distributions, LockBox offers us the option of installing third-party software such as media codecs and wireless support. On this screen there is an option to toggle downloading package updates during the install process. This option is toggled on and the control disabled, preventing us from turning off the download option.
Early impressions
LockBox boots to a graphical login screen. Signing into my account brought up the Pantheon desktop. A thin panel is placed at the top of the screen and a dock holding web browsers and a few other applications sits at the bottom of the display. The top panel holds an application menu, clock, and system tray.
Once the desktop finishes loading a welcome window appears. The greeter offers to link us to online support options. Clicking these links opens a web browser and connects to the elementary OS documentation and support resources. The welcome window then offers to enable nightlight support (to adjust the screen colour during different times of the day). The wizard then offers to delete temporary files on the system, which I found odd since I'd just started using the distribution so there shouldn't have been any temporary files to remove yet.
The final two screens of the welcome window offer to launch the distribution's software centre and open the system settings panel. The welcome text refers to the distribution as elementary OS, something most of the screens and tools included with the distribution do, so the LockBox team haven't spent much time rebranding their project.
Soon into my experience with the distribution a notification appeared in the upper-right corner of the screen letting me know new package updates were available. Clicking this notification while it was on the desktop would open the software centre and show a list of available updates. However, if I ignored the notification at first, waiting until it disappeared, I could then click on the notification icon in the system tray to see the same information. I found clicking the entry in the system tray notification widget simply cleared the entry and did not open the software centre.
LockBox 1.0 -- The Pantheon settings panel
(full image size: 575kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Applications
LockBox ships with several web browsers. The Chromium browser is installed along with the Epiphany browser. Then there are two privacy-focused browsers: Brave and LibreWolf. LibreWolf is a privacy-focused fork of Firefox and is a browser I haven't previous found installed by default on a Linux distribution.
The distribution also includes a news feed reader, an e-mail client, the KeePassXC password manager, and a photo viewer. The distribution also ships with the Music and Videos tools provided by elementary OS. The Gufw firewall tool is included along with the elementary file manager.
LockBox includes a nice settings panel for adjusting the look and behaviour of the Pantheon desktop. Manual pages are includes along with the GNU Compiler Collection, the systemd init software, and version 5.4 of the Linux kernel.
I was surprised at first to find software included in LockBox is a bit on the older side. The GNU compiler, for example, was at version 7 which is about two years old. Likewise Linux 5.4 is about two years old at the time of writing. I discovered this is due to LockBox being based on elementary OS 5 "Hera" rather than the more recent release of elementary OS 6 "Odin". In short, most software included on the distribution will likely be close to two years old.
There were a handful of applications I felt stood out during my trial. For instance, this is the first distribution I can remember using that includes the Vorta backup application. This is a front-end desktop tool for creating backup archives and transferring them to remote servers. Vorta has a nice interface with simple, clear options and it feels like a good solution for people who want to schedule and transmit backups over OpenSSH to remote computers.
LockBox is unusual in that it ships with strict firewall rules. It not only blocks all incoming network connections (which is fairly common), it also blocks many outgoing connections. Web traffic is permitted to leave the system, but most other network protocols are blocked. Looking at the Gufw firewall utility we can see the default rules are to block all incoming traffic and all outgoing traffic too, apart from a few exceptions like connections to web servers. OpenSSH and most other network protocols are forbidden by the firewall unless we tweak the default rules. This is an interesting and unusual approach and it meant I had to add new firewall exceptions in order to login to remote servers, send ping requests, and transfer backups.
LockBox 1.0 -- Reviewing firewall rules with Gufw
(full image size: 768kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Perhaps the most interesting item in LockBox's toolbox is OpenSnitch. When OpenSnitch is launched it monitors all network connection requests and pops up a window letting us know when new programs try to connect over the network. We are then given the chance to permit the network connection or block it. The main OpenSnitch window offers a number of tabs with the main one displaying a list of events. This list shows recent connection attempts and their result (allowed or denied). We can then explore the other tabs to see more information about network activity and adjust the rules OpenSnitch is enforcing.
For instance, I might find that my web browser is blocked from attempting to connect to a remote website once I launch OpenSnitch. I can see any outgoing browser requests that are being stopped in the Events tab. I can then switch to the Rules tab, click the browser's entry and toggle its rule to allow outgoing traffic. This will allow the browser to resume working.
LockBox 1.0 -- Using OpenSnitch to block the Brave browser
(full image size: 185kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
OpenSnitch is surprisingly user friendly and does a very nice job of organizing its traffic events, rules, and showing us which applications are allowed or blocked from accessing the network. The pop-ups from OpenSnitch when new programs want access to the Internet can get tedious after a while, but we only need to respond to each program's request once. OpenSnitch remembers our answer and applies our ruling automatically from then on.
The LockBox website mentions crypto tools and cryptocurrency at least twice on the front page. The project describes itself as "security + privacy + crypto" and later states: "Download, burn, and install your way to a more secure operating system for your crypto." So I was surprised when I could find no crypto software on the system. There were no cryptocurrency wallets, recovery tools, or mining utilities as far as I could see. Certainly none in the application menu and nothing came up when I checked the command line for common crypto programs.
Hardware
When I began using LockBox it was in a VirtualBox instance. The distribution provided about average, or slightly worse than average, performance. The desktop resized automatically with the VirtualBox window and the system ran smoothly. When run on my laptop all my hardware was detected successfully, desktop responsiveness was excellent, and the distribution was stable.
Earlier I mentioned LockBox could boot in UEFI mode only and would not get past the boot menu when run in Legacy BIOS mode. This proved to be true when running both in the VirtualBox instance and on the laptop.
The distribution consumes about 550MB of memory when sitting idle at the Pantheon desktop. The distribution consumed about 18GB of hard drive space for the root filesystem. It also consumed a bit more disk for a swapfile which is automatically set up for us.
Software management
LockBox uses elementary OS's App Centre as its graphical package manager. This application is divided into two tabs, one for browsing available packages and one for viewing, removing, and updating existing applications. The software centre has a fairly simple layout that I found straight forward to navigate.
LockBox 1.0 -- Fetching updates with the software centre
(full image size: 387kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
LockBox pulls in software packages from Ubuntu's repositories, mostly. There are also some repositories set up for the Brave browser and the elementary OS project. As far as I can tell there aren't any repositories and PPAs specific to LockBox, which may explain why most of the artwork still says "elementary OS" on it.
Project goals
I want to talk a bit about the project's stated goals and how well it accomplishes them. The LockBox website currently lists three objectives, which I'll list here along with my impressions.
Fast: Powered by elementary OS, the customized LockBox image has been stripped to bare necessities thus making it lightweight and seemingly fast.
I am divided on this claim. On the one hand, LockBox is fast, at least when running directly on my laptop. It's a little sluggish in a virtual machine, but if we focus on the real life hardware side of things then LockBox is indeed fast. However, the distribution is not at all stripped down or lightweight. In fact, a fresh install of LockBox is a massive 18GB (plus swap file) on the disk, easily three times larger than most mainstream Linux distributions. The memory consumption is about average, around 550MB. This puts LockBox in the medium to heavy range of Linux distributions, quite the opposite of being lightweight or stripped down.
Secure: LockBox is a custom secure operating system leveraging the power of a variety of open source security and privacy tools.
I definitely agree with this description. LockBox may be one of the most locked down (from a network perspective) and privacy-oriented distributions for general desktop use. Putting aside specialty distributions such as Tails or Qubes OS, I'd say LockBox is one of the better desktop distributions for network privacy. There could have been more done to add application sandboxing, beyond what AppArmor provides, which would help, especially with the web browsers. This would certainly lock down the distribution further. Still, I really like the networking customizations like the Gufw firewall rules. OpenSnitch is a great tool for monitoring and blocking specific applications and including privacy-focused browsers like Brave is a nice touch.
Easy: Download, burn, and install your way to a more secure operating system for your crypto.
This claim puzzles me as there doesn't seem to be anything crypto-oriented about the distribution. I didn't find any Bitcoin wallet, crypto-recovery tools, mining software, or even classic crypto tools like KGpg installed. I agree the distribution is easy to install and set up. I like the Ubiquity installer and the easy to navigate settings panel. I just don't see how the project relates to crypto.
Conclusions
I had mostly good impressions of LockBox. The operating system is easy to install, has a fairly friendly desktop environment, I like the settings panel, and Pantheon offers a fairly friendly experience. I'm not a fan of the desktop effects and some of the overly simplified default applications, but I can see why they would appeal to some people. Performance, at least on physical hardware, is good and the distribution can pull from the massive Ubuntu software repositories to add anything we need.
I'm a big fan of the OpenSnitch application. Having it installed and on the dock by default was a nice touch and I'm mostly happy about the strict firewall rules. I did need to open a few gaps in the firewall to allow me to ping and use OpenSSH, but otherwise I think the default "deny in/deny out" firewall policy with exceptions for web browsing is welcome. I also like that a range of web browsers are included, from the privacy-focused Brave to the lighter Epiphany, and the more mainstream Chromium.
There are a few things I didn't like about LockBox. One is that it's basically an older version of elementary OS. The repositories, software, desktop, and branding are all provided by elementary OS 5. The whole distribution feels like we could have accomplished the same thing by installing elementary and then adding a few web browser packages and firewall rules. I don't mind LockBox being close to its parent, but I do wonder if the project (and its users) might be better served with a newer base that will receive longer support. Users may also be confused as to why they installed LockBox, but it keeps calling itself elementary OS and they get directed to elementary documentation.
Finally, my last issue is that LockBox was pleasant enough to use, but its description on the website doesn't appear to match what the project is actually accomplishing. The goals of being stripped down, lightweight, and good for crypto are not reflected in this distribution. This feels like elementary OS with a few more browsers and network security tools, not something light, minimal, or crypto-oriented. In short, LockBox is a decent desktop distribution and has some good tools for the security-minded people of the world, but it feels like it has an identity crisis where what it sets out to be is not what it is.
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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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Visitor supplied rating
LockBox has a visitor supplied average rating of: 7.3/10 from 3 review(s).
Have you used LockBox? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Debian makes APT safer, an overview of Flatpak problems, MX Linux releases Advanced Hardware Support editions
The Debian team has made a change to the APT package manager which should make working with low-level packages safer. In the past, an attempt to remove packages essential for the operating system to function would result in a warning which the user could override. Now APT will simply refuse to take action which would break the core operating system. The change was reported on Twitter: "The solver will no longer try to remove Essential or Protected packages, any dependency problem that would need such a solution will have to be resolved manually. The 'Yes, do as I say' prompt for removing essential packages has been replaced by an error message. The appropriate command-line option needs to be used instead."
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In recent years there have been a number of new initiatives to create universal package formats for Linux distributions. Canonical has championed Snap packages, particularly for Ubuntu while most other distributions have shown interest in portable Flatpak packages. The Fedora team in particular has been strongly advocating Flatpak, especially for Fedora's Silverblue edition. Flatpak declares itself "the future of apps on Linux", but some people have concerns about its design and whether these issues can be overcome. Ludocode has a detailed look at portable packages in general and Flatpak in particular. The article covers a number of issues with portable packages and why they may not be the best option for developers or users. "Snap and Flatpak in their current incarnations have been around for at least five years. AppImage, Steam and Docker have been around even longer. None of the above is new. The problems with alternate runtimes were known from the very beginning, yet little progress has been made in fixing them. I don't believe these are growing pains of a new technology. These are fundamental problems that are mostly not fixable."
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The MX Linux team have published new install media which includes updated hardware support. These new ISO file includes newer versions of the Linux kernel and drivers. "MX-21 AHS (Advanced Hardware Support) ISO is now available. The release features all the updates and goodness packaged up with the other MX-21 releases, but with a 5.14 kernel and updated Mesa, X.Org and Vulkan drivers to produce a graphic stack more in line with newer hardware, along with a few recompiled applications that utilize the later kernel. AHS by design is a little more on the edge, and not as tested as our primary releases, and the idea is that it will receive updates to the graphics stack over time, so for those that don't need the newer open source graphics stack, there is little point is using AHS."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Dealing with out of memory issues
Running-out-of-RAM asks: I moved to Linux a few months ago. Whenever RAM reaches its full amount the computer just stops, locks-up. What causes this, is there an update or something I can do?
DistroWatch answers: Welcome to Linux! It sounds like one of two things is happening. It could be your RAM is filling up and your computer does not have anywhere else to place data in the moment. When this happens the kernel will usually terminate one or more programs. The kernel doesn't always pick something non-essential and this could be what is bringing your computer to halt: the death of an essential process when the kernel is out of RAM to use.
The second, and in my opinion, more likely scenario is your system does have a place to store information when it runs out of RAM. This alternative data storage space is called "swap". Swap space is a special area of the disk drive (either a file or a partition) where data is placed when RAM gets full.
Often what will happen is RAM becomes full, data is (slowly) copied to the disk to free up space in memory. Then the data that got copied to swap is needed by another program and so the system needs to copy something else from RAM to the disk and read the original swapped data back into memory. This movement back and forth as different processes save information to the disk and load it back will quickly kill system performance and make it look like the system is entirely locked up. Usually the system isn't actually locked (non-functioning), it's just very very slow due to how slow accessing swap space is.
There are ways to avoid both of these scenarios. Typically what we need is an out of memory (OOM) service which runs in the background and kills off processes which are consuming too much memory. This prevents RAM from getting too full and swap from being used. Most Linux distributions do not ship with an OOM service enabled by default (though Fedora is an exception). You may want to look at installing an OOM service, such as EarlyOOM, which is fairly straight forward to set up to terminate applications when memory or swap gets too full.
You might be wondering why, given how badly the system performs when it runs out of memory, more distributions don't ship with an OOM service running by default. It's a bit of a philosophical issue.
The reason most distros operate the way they do by default is they're trying to avoid any unexpected behaviour (like killing a running process) which is considered risky. Instead the OS "hopes" the processes sort themselves out eventually and try to take a "hands off" approach to let them do that.
In some cases this is a good idea as it avoids data loss. This is especially a good thing if you're running server software in a bank. But in practice, these days, it usually makes more sense to kill or restart the offending process if you're running a desktop system. Since many Linux distributions still take the traditional "behave correctly, not quickly" approach and since many major Linux projects are server-oriented, most stick to letting processes sort themselves out, hoping they will finish their work eventually and free up memory.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Alpine Linux 3.15.0
Alpine Linux is a community developed operating system designed for routers, firewalls, VPNs, VoIP boxes and servers. The project's latest release is Alpine Linux 3.15.0 which provides version 5.15 of the Linux kernel along with updated desktops, development tools, and disk encryption from the system installer. The Alpine team have announced the sudo tool is being migrated to the Community repository and OpenDoas is now the recommended tool to use for privilege escalation. "We are pleased to announce the release of Alpine Linux 3.15.0, the first in the v3.15 stable series. Highlights: Linux kernel 5.15 (LTS), llvm 12, nodejs 16.13 (LTS) / nodejs-current 17.0, postgresql 14, openldap 2.6, ruby 3.0, rust 1.56, openjdk 17, kea 2.0, xorg-server 21.1, GNOME 41, KDE Plasma 5.23 / KDE Applications 21.08 / Plasma Mobile Gear 21.10. Support for disk encryption in installer,s support for out-of-tree kernel modules via AKMS (inspired by DKMS), initial support for UEFI Secure Boot on x86_64." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
Endless OS 4.0.0
Endless OS is a Linux-based operating system which provides a simplified and streamlined user experience using a customized desktop environment forked from GNOME Shell. The project's latest release is version 4.0.0 which introduces long-term support. With Endless OS 4, we are introducing a long-term support version of the OS, which will be supported for a number of years even after Endless OS 5 is released. By default, Endless OS 4 systems will automatically update to Endless OS 5 when it is released, as with all past versions of the OS. However, it is now possible to remain on Endless OS 4 and continue to receive critical bug fixes and security updates even after Endless OS 5 is released, keeping the same OS functionality and appearance for several years. Please see the Long-Term Support documentation for more details, including how to configure a system to use the LTS version of Endless OS. We have updated our low-level software platform, for improved hardware support, performance, and stability Linux kernel 5.11 and updated linux-firmware, bringing support for the latest PC hardware and several fixes to existing drivers and core kernel code." Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement.
Endless OS 4.0.0 -- The default Endless OS desktop
(full image size: 2.1MB, resolution: 1919x1079 pixels)
deepin 20.3
deepin is a Debian-based distribution which features its own, custom desktop environment - the Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE). The project's latest release is deepin 20.3 which includes an updated kernel and better support for NTFS partitions. "In deepin 20.3, the Stable kernel is upgraded to version 5.15 with better compatibility, system security vulnerabilities are fixed, some deepin applications come with new features and optimizations to meet the needs under different scenarios, and DDE issues are fixed and optimized to improve the overall user experience. The Stable kernel is upgraded to version 5.15 with better support for Intel 12th Gen processors and NTFS file systems, and better system compatibility. Both LTS and Stable kernels can be installed and manually upgraded in deepin. Album provides a better batch selection of photos and new buttons for quick actions, supports importing, previewing, and searching videos, displays the number of photos and videos separately in the status bar, and improves the interactions of main functions, making photo and video management more convenient." Additional information can be found in the distribution's release announcement (Chinese, English).
Clonezilla Live 2.8.0-27
Steven Shiau has announced the release of Clonezilla Live 2.8.0-27, the latest stable version of the project's Debian-based specialist live CD designed for partitioning, backups and disk-cloning jobs: "Stable Clonezilla Live 2.8.0-27 released. This release includes major enhancements and bug fixes. Enhancements and changes since 2.7.3-19: the underlying GNU/Linux operating system has been upgraded - this release is based on the Debian 'Sid' repository as of 2021-11-17; Linux kernel has been updated to 5.14.6; Partclone has been updated to 0.3.18; the ezio package has been updated to 1.2.0; the de_DE, hu_HU, es_ES, fr_FR, ja_JP, pl_PL, sk_SK and tr_TR language files have been updated; the ocs-live-netcfg program has been improved - wireless network can be configured using nmtui and boot parameter ocs_nic_type can be used to assign if wired or wireless when configuring network in ocs-live-netcfg; update-efi-nvram-boot-entry - improved to refer to saved nvram data (efi-nvram.dat); suppress the error message about 'setterm -blank 0'; add a cache mechanism to speed up device scanning; allow reserved image names to be used in TUI and the description about reserved image names is shown in TUI." Here is the full release announcement.
EuroLinux 8.5
EuroLinux is a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The project's latest release is EuroLinux 8.5. The distribution's release announcement offers highlights on the latest version: "We have released universal migration scripts. They are available at https://github.com/EuroLinux/eurolinux-migration-scripts. What's important is that these scripts update all packages of the distribution you are migrating from. No packages from the previous vendor remain after migration. This is the implementation of one of the popular requests made by our customers. In addition, the scripts have options that allow you to customize their operation to individual requirements. The migration process is described here. (New) HA and RS Repositories: EuroLinux 8.5 is the first release that includes High Availability and Resilient Storage repositories from the beginning. They significantly increase the system's capabilities and allow for easier migration, especially from very expensive cluster solutions from other vendors." The release notes for EuroLinux 8.5 offer additional details.
GhostBSD 21.11.24
GhostBSD is a desktop-oriented, rolling release operating system based on FreeBSD. The project's latest snapshot adds a new tool for tracking the version of the rolling release operating system. "This new ISO contains kernel, OS, and software updates. In addition, I added a new command-line software called ghostbsd-version that gives you the GhostBSD version, FreeBSD version, kernel version, and OS version. At the date of this release, if you run ghostbsd-version or ghostbsd-version -v, it should output 21.11.24. This version number will be increment by the date of new packages built on packages every update performed. The ISO version is now following the last package's build version instead of an ISO's build date in the hope of removing confusion about the ISO version." Additional information on the new GhostBSD snapshot can be found in the project's release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,655
- Total data uploaded: 41.1TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Running out of space in memory
In this week's Questions and Answers column we discussed how Linux distributions typically handle running low on available memory and why. The default behaviour of most desktop distributions when running out of RAM is notorious and tends to lead to poor performance. But how common is it for a modern computer to run out of RAM? Do you find you regularly run low on memory in your day-to-day operations? Let us know how you handle low-RAM situations in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running custom login scripts in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Running out of space in RAM
| I frequently run out of RAM: | 68 (4%) |
| I sometimes run out of RAM: | 163 (10%) |
| I rarely run out of RAM: | 417 (26%) |
| I never run out of RAM: | 933 (59%) |
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|
| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- CalinixOS. CalinixOS is an Arch-based Linux distribution which features a desktop layout similar in style to macOS.
- Debianissimo. Debianissimo is an Italian distribution which is based on Debian. Its goal is to provide a platform for the Ordissimo desktop environment.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 6 December 2021. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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RebeccaBlackOS
RebeccaBlackOS is a Debian-based live distribution which can be used to run Wayland desktop sessions. RebeccaBlackOS can run a number of popular open source desktop environments on top of a Wayland graphical session. The distribution was (and remains) one of the only Linux distributions to run a Wayland session from live media. The distribution is available in 32-bit and 64-bit builds for the x86 architecture.
Status: Active
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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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