 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 948, 20 December 2021 |
Welcome to this year's 50th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Linux is virtually everywhere these days. It's in most smart phones, single board computers, a vast number of servers, and millions of desktop machines. In this week's Feature Story we focus on mobile Linux, taking the open hardware PinePhone device for a spin with its default operating system: Manjaro Linux. Read on to hear about Jesse Smith's first impressions of the PinePhone. This time of year a lot of families are getting new personal computing devices and also have small children at home. Mixing the two can be a dangerous combination and, in our Questions and Answers column, we talk about how to protect computers being used by the whole family from data loss. Do you use a shared family computer? Let us know your approach to locking it down in this week's Opinion Poll and in the comments below. This week we are also pleased to talk about how well Wayland works for gaming compared to X.Org display servers. Plus we discuss work progressing on bringing Linux distributions to Apple M1 ARM computers and link to a talk on what it is like to hunt and fix bugs on Ubuntu. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We will be on holiday next Monday and DistroWatch Weekly will return on January 3, 2022. We wish you all a wonderful week and, for those of you who celebrate this time of year, enjoy your holiday!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
The PinePhone running Manjaro and Plasma Mobile
The PinePhone is an open source hardware device created by PINE64. While the PINE64 team has a number of successful creations in their portfolio, the PinePhone is probably the one which has gained the most attention in recent years.
The PinePhone is an inexpensive ($149.99 USD), low-end phone which can be used to run a number of operating systems, including several flavours of mobile Linux distributions. Through most of the PinePhone's life it has shown up as being out-of-stock when I've visited the PINE64 website, but for a brief window last month there were units available and I happily got my hands on one.
The PinePhone took about two weeks to arrive and came in a small, white box with the slogan "Open. Friendly. Community Driven." on the cover. The box contains a user manual, a getting started guide, a USB C charging cable and, of course, the PinePhone. The phone boasts a modest set of specifications. It has a quad-core 1.1GHz CPU, 2GB of RAM, and 14GB of storage space. 4.7GB of that storage is consumed by the default operating system, Manjaro Linux running the Plasma Mobile interface. Of the 2GB of RAM available, around 850MB is taken up by the operating system. The device is about six inches long and around three inches wide, making it almost exactly the same size as my Galaxy S9, though the PinePhone is a few millimetres thicker.
Getting started
I'm getting ahead of myself. The getting started guide let's us know that we need to pop the back off the phone and remove the plastic between the phone's body and the battery. We're also told which software the phone runs by default (Manjaro Linux running Plasma Mobile) and where to find more information about Plasma Mobile, PINE64, and where to find the PinePhone wiki.
Opening up the back of the phone reveals two card slots, one for a SIM card and another for an SD card. One nice feature of the PinePhone is we can copy an operating system image to an SD card and plug it into the phone to boot from it. We do not need to overwrite the internal storage of the device in order to try booting alternative operating systems.
Turning on the PinePhone for the first time brings up a first-run wizard which welcomes us and asks us to select our time zone from a list. We're also given the chance to connect to local wireless networks. The final screen asks us to make up a username and password for ourselves. The password may contain numbers only. I discovered later this password is used to unlock the device each time we want to use it, so I recommend making up a short passcode.
The Plasma Mobile home screen with dark theme
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With these steps completed we are presented with the Plasma Mobile interface. The main screen is mostly blank. The background is made up of tiny, geometric shapes. Near the bottom of the screen we find an Up arrow and three icons labelled: Phone, Phone Book, and Angelfish. For those, like me, who were not aware of Angelfish, it's a web browser.
There are three buttons placed at the very bottom of the display. A square button accesses a list of open applications, a small version of Plasma's logo brings up the Home screen, and an X closes the current application.
Swiping up from the bottom of the screen opens a drawer of application launchers. This drawer mostly fills the screen. Most of the icons have labels I was not familiar with, though with many of them I could guess their purpose just by looking at the icons. For example, I could figure out Discover (the software centre), Index (the file manager), and Wave (the audio player) fairly easily. But I had no idea what Angelfish, Buho, Nota, Kongress or Spacebar were. Most of the default applications present are listed with a short description on the Plasma Mobile website, though some are missing, so there is trial and error involved in exploring the available software.
Using Angelfish to learn about available applications
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We can also swipe down from the top of the Plasma Mobile interface to access a group of buttons and toggles for commonly used settings. These provide quick access to wireless networks, the Flashlight feature, the settings panel, taking a screenshot, and toggling Bluetooth.
Early impressions
One issue I ran into early on was that the phone's screen tended to go to sleep, even sometimes while I was using it. Each time the device went to sleep and I woke it again the phone would prompt me for my PIN, something I don't have enabled on any of my other mobile devices. At first I tried increasing the screen sleep delay, but even with it set to being five minutes, the screen still shut off after ten seconds of inactivity. It would also occasionally shut off while I was interacting with it.
I went into the settings panel and brought up the PIN module and found that it would allow me to set a new PIN, but not remove my PIN entirely. My PIN had to be at least one digit in length. As I often do when trouble-shooting Linux issues, I turned to the terminal application which is very slow and tended to lock-up while I was using it. However, I was able to disable the password on my account using the passwd command. Unfortunately, even with no PIN or password set, I'd still see the PIN prompt each time I picked up the phone. I could simply press Enter to gain access the device, but this is an extra (and unnecessary) step which I have not been able to find a way to skip despite browsing the PinePhone and Plasma Mobile documentation.
The Plasma Mobile settings panel
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The Plasma Mobile interface is slow and not particularly responsive. This is probably the most sluggish mobile experience I've had to date. It feels as though Plasma Mobile is too heavy for the PinePhone's hardware. There's often a second or two of delay between typing a key on the virtual keyboard and getting a response. Dragging the settings panel down or the apps drawer up feels choppy. Taking a screenshot takes three or four seconds. Sometimes the device seems to lock up and not respond to any input for a few seconds. Typically getting around this requires turning off the screen, turning it back on, then going through the PIN unlock screen.
Included software
The Manjaro mobile platform ships with several applications. Earlier I mentioned the Angelfish web browser, which seems to work well enough for some basic browsing, though I struggled to find a way to type in specific URLs I wanted to visit. Alternative browsers are available in the Discover software centre which I'll talk about later in this review. The Buho note taking and task list app is included along with the Calindori calendar app. Calindori will display a calendar and it seems to be designed to show tasks and events on the calendar. I was unable to find a way to add events to the calendar so perhaps it is meant to offer a read-only view of existing shared calendars.
Adjusting audio settings
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The KDE Connect application is present. This program makes it easy to connect with desktop Linux systems and share files, remotely control media players, and share clipboard information. I like KDE Connect and it is one of the few programs included which feels like it has a truly polished and mobile-friendly design.
There is an app called Keysmith which appears to be a password generator, but its purpose isn't explicitly stated. Likewise the Kongress app doesn't have a clear purpose. It seems to be designed to keep track of meetings or presentations, though without any clear source of information or an indication of what assistance it provides.
There is an app for planning trips around European public transit systems called Ktrip and the mpv media player is included. There is a Matrix client called Neochat and a camera application called Megapixels. The cameras are relatively low-resolution by modern standards, but they exist and can be used to take front-facing or back-facing snapshots.
Digging through the list I found the Okular document viewer, a contact editor called Phone Book, and the Koko photo manager. There is a simple text editor called Nota, and a dialer which is plainly called Phone.
Something that took me a while to get accustomed to is different applications use different methods for navigating the interface and accessing features. The Plasma Mobile interface doesn't have a Back button the way some other mobile platforms, such as Android, do. Most native members of the Plasma Mobile family use breadcrumb navigation at the top of the window. For instance, if I'm in the Settings panel and select the Audio module, the top of the screen will read "Settings > Audio" and I can return to the top level of the panel by tapping the word Settings.
The Plasma Mobile settings panel with breadcrumb navigation
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Navigation is sometimes complicated by the fact some apps will hide the Home button along with the Open Windows and Close buttons at the bottom of the screen. This means if a full screen app locks up it can be hard to get rid of it. We usually need to open the settings drawer and launch something which will take over the screen and restore the navigation buttons.
Another curious quirk is that many applications have multiple menus. One will be represented by three dashes and another by three dots. These buttons are usually placed near the bottom of the app window. Often both menus only have a few entries and it's usually not clear which of the two menus I want to use to find a particular option. Maybe there is a pattern to what goes into each menu, but it wasn't clear. Some menus are really sparse, for example the camera tool simply has a menu which says "Settings aren't functional yet."
To make matters more unusual, a lot of the applications we can install from the software centre use classic, desktop style menu bars across the top of the window rather than the three dash/dot style menus. This means we're regularly switching between navigation approaches, menu styles, and menu locations since the desktop menu bars are placed at the top of windows and the dot/dash menus are typically placed at the bottom.
I think the dot/dash menus are placed lower down on the display to make accessing the menu with a thumb easier and I'd say this approach mostly works. However, some app interfaces are not well designed for the layout. As an example, the calendar app looks (at first) as though it doesn't have a zero button. The "0" is mostly covered by a menu button.
Earlier I mentioned Plasma Mobile ships with the Angelfish browser. This browser is functional for simple browsing, but doesn't have many features and it's on the slow side. I tried some alternative browsers I found through Discover. They offered more features, but were also slow and tended to flicker while displaying content. Browsing was sometimes made harder because the PinePhone seemed to drop its network connection whenever its screen was off. The device would automatically reconnect to my wireless network, but it caused a hiccup in connectivity.
Software management
Earlier I mentioned the Plasma Mobile interface uses Discover as its software manager. Discover looks and works the same on mobile as it does on the desktop. It's a bit complicated in its approach for a mobile app store. For instance, if we want to browse for a new program we first need to filter our searches based on whether the item we want is an application, an application add-on, or a Plasma add-on. We can search for items by name, but this doesn't always seem to be accurate and I got a lot of search results where I think the word I was looking for must have been in the program's detailed description as it didn't match the program's name or short description.
Browsing software categories in Discover
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Whether we browse for items in categories (and sub-categories) or search for key words, available programs are listed along with their name, icon, and a short description. A download button is placed to the right of the program's entry. Sometimes the download button is disabled and I think this indicates a program is available for other architectures (such as x86_64), but not ARM. For instance, I was unable to install the Signal client or Firefox. When an entry has already been installed the download button turns into a trash button, allowing us to remove the item.
Discover, as awkward as I found it to navigate at times, worked as expected. Newly installed applications were added to my application drawer on the home screen. One of the few serious problems I ran into came when I tried to check for updates. Discover seemed to lock up for a while after showing me an update was available. After several seconds it resumed working and I suspect it had been calculating the size of the available updates. These turned out to be one single bundle of many packages that was presented as a 1.1GB download (about a quarter of the size of the entire operating system). Given the performance issues I'd experienced I decided to put off applying this update for a few days. When I did try to fetch the update, Discover immediately reported an error saying "Dependency resolution failed: libcanberra." Unfortunately until this is resolved I'll be stuck with the existing versions of packages since Discover takes an "all or nothing" approach to updating the base system.
Running Android applications
One of the most common questions I hear when people talk about GNU/Linux distributions running on mobile devices is "Can it run Android applications?" Many people, perhaps even most people, feel locked into their existing iOS and Android ecosystems and are hesitant to migrate to another platform which doesn't provide the same apps.
In theory it is possible to run Android applications on GNU/Linux systems using software called Waydroid. I reviewed Waydroid running on desktop distributions in an earlier article. The Plasma Mobile interface reports it is running a Wayland session and so I checked for Waydroid in the Discover software centre. I found it and was able to install the Waydroid package.
Once Waydroid was installed its icon was added to my app drawer. Trying to launch Waydroid simply brought up the Waydroid logo and then the app locked up. Even after waiting several minutes, nothing happened. I tried launching Waydroid a few more times, but nothing happened apart from seeing the project's logo. It seems there is still a ways to go before Waydroid will make it possible for users to easily access and run Android applications.
Other observations
After a while I started getting used to the way Plasma Mobile handled on the PinePhone. The interaction was a little jerky, but I got into a rhythm with it on the second day. The device sometimes locked up, especially when running two or more applications, and this usually required turning off the screen and turning it back on. Getting the phone to wake up sometimes required pressing the power button two or three times.
The battery indicator doesn't seem to work. While the phone was charging it stayed at 65% for about an hour, then suddenly jumped to 73%, then up to 94%. When I unplugged the phone it almost immediately fell to 68% battery, then back up to 74% (without being plugged back in). I'm guessing this is a software bug coupled with a slow refresh rate on the status bar.
I want to give special credit to the Weather app. This program worked well, automatically detected its location and has a polished look above and beyond what most of the other pre-installed apps offer.
Earlier I mentioned the camera app works, though the images it takes are lower resolution and tend to look unusually dark. Despite this limitation, the Megapixel camera application worked as well as can expected with the available hardware and has a more familiar style to it than most of the programs available.
I usually use a wireless charging pad for my phone. This doesn't work with the PinePhone and it required I plug it into a charge block or the USB port on my computer to recharge the battery.
Also on the subject of the battery, the PinePhone sometimes reported its battery was running low when the charge was over 80%. When this would happen it would regularly send "low battery" notifications via KDE Connect and refuse to turn on the display for more than two seconds at a time. This generally required either a restart or leaving the phone plugged in until it stopped reporting its low battery status.
Hardware switches
The PinePhone's documentation mentions there are hardware switches which will toggle key components on/off. The camera, microphone, headphone jack, modem, Bluetooth, and wireless card can all be toggled with these switches. It took me a minute to find them. These are very tiny switches located under the back cover, just above the SIM card slot. Given their small size, I needed a tool (like a set of tweezers or pocket knife) to toggle the switches. Once toggled this should prevent software from enabling the camera, wi-fi, etc in order to provide better privacy.
Conclusions
A thought which kept coming to mind while using the PinePhone with its default operating system was that the experience feels really rough, like an early beta. Which, upon reflection, is appropriate since that's exactly what it is. I was running what's essentially a beta platform with young software on it and the mixed experience is to be expected. These are still early days for the PinePhone and for mobile branches of distributions such as Manjaro. Plasma Mobile has only been running on the PinePhone for about a year and I was running a version which, since I was unable to install updates, was out of date.
With all of this in mind I'd like to say that I don't think Manjaro and Plasma Mobile running on the PinePhone is a good experience yet - it's not something I'd use on a daily basis like I have /e/ OS or UBports. But the pieces are all there. Plasma Mobile on Manjaro has a phone, text messaging, an app store with most of the same software we can run on desktop distributions, a minimal yet functional settings panel, and similar key features. At the moment this combination (Plasma Mobile and the PinePhone) is probably only going to appeal to Linux enthusiasts who want to tinker, who want to push the limits of the hardware, who want to set up hobbyist projects to see if they can run a web server on the device, or who want to help polish open source solutions.
This is all fine and good. This is an early offering and a modest one and it's paving the way for more polished and more advanced options down the road. As I said, right now it isn't ready to replace my existing phone, but all the right pieces are present and, with slightly better performance and a little more RAM, I could see the next generation of PinePhones running Plasma Mobile being suitable as a daily device.
I'd also like to acknowledge there are other Linux distributions which can run on the PinePhone. The PINE64 wiki lists over 20 flavours of Linux which can run on this device and I'm eager to try out the alternatives.
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Have questions about the PinePhone running Manjaro? Let us know via e-mail or in the comments. Queries will be answered in our next issue of DistroWatch Weekly.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
How good is Wayland for gaming, running Linux on Apple M1 computers, finding and fixing bugs on Ubuntu, Debian updates Bullseye media
Last week we reported the Fedora Workstation distribution will begin using Wayland as the default display software for all video cards, including NVIDIA cards. This has raised some questions about how effective Wayland is, particularly in situations which require low latency, like gaming. Xaver's blog has a detailed look at Wayland and X.Org with a special focus on gaming. "A considerable amount of people assume Wayland isn't particularly suitable for gaming, usually because you can't turn off the compositor. This post will challenge that assumption and see how the current state of gaming on Wayland is, with a focus on KWin, KDE's compositor."
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The arrival of Apple's M1 class of computers last year sparked a lot of interest in tech circles. Though Linux was not supported when the M1 series arrived, work has been progressing on getting the Linux kernel (and related components) running on the new Mac hardware. The Asahi Linux project has been making progress in this regard and have published an update: "Over the past year, we've seen lots of development happening in separate kernel branches, but there wasn't any 'official' kernel branch collecting work before it is upstreamed. Now that many drivers are landing upstream and platform device trees are settling down, it's time to start collecting our ongoing work into a common branch. Say hi to the linux-asahi kernel branch!" Details on the history and progress of the project can be found in the Asahi Linux progress report.
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Finding and fixing bugs is an important part of software development. Sometimes issues can be mysterious, even for the people who are accustomed to exploiting and patching bugs. Kevin Backhouse shares a look inside the process of working with software vulnerabilities, using an unusual example of an unexpected bug in Ubuntu. "As a general rule, you would expect the author of an exploit to understand how it works, even if it might seem like magic to everybody else. Well, not this time. This is the story of how I successfully exploited CVE-2021-3939 in Ubuntu's accountsservice, then spent the next two weeks trying to figure out how my own exploit worked. It seemed like magic, even to me!" The full write-up can be found in Backhouse's explanation of the issue.
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The Debian project is publishing refreshed media for Debian 11 "Bullseye". The new media carries the version number 11.2. "The Debian project is pleased to announce the second update of its stable distribution Debian 11 (codename Bullseye). This point release mainly adds corrections for security issues, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories have already been published separately and are referenced where available. Please note that the point release does not constitute a new version of Debian 11 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away old bullseye media. After installation, packages can be upgraded to the current versions using an up-to-date Debian mirror."
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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) |
Protecting our computers from children
Kids-in-the-machine asks: Is there a distribution I can use that will protect the operating system from my kids if they use the command line? I'd like to be able to restore the system if they break anything.
DistroWatch answers: The good news, in your situation, is that you can use virtually any mainstream distribution for this task. Almost all Linux distributions are designed to be multi-user systems, which means it's fairly easy to set up the operating system to survive accidents and mischief from its users.
The easiest approach to take is to give each person in your family their own user account. Then make one user account (yours) the administrator. This should be the only user who can perform significant changes on the system and run commands through privilege-raising tools such as sudo. Every other user account you create (for your kids or friends) should be regular user accounts. These are user accounts which can be used to create documents, browse the Internet, play media files, and so on. However, they cannot install new packages, delete important system files, or otherwise cause havoc for other users. Creating users is handled a little differently on each distribution, but the Ubuntu family makes this fairly easy and the steps are documented in the Ubuntu Help pages.
Simply making separate accounts for your kids will do most of the work required to protect your operating system from their actions. There are a few other security steps you might want to consider. One is locking down the permissions for each user's home directory. Many modern Linux distributions make it possible for other users to view the files of other users, probably in an effort to make collaboration and document sharing easier. However, this also raises the issue of privacy. You can check to see what the home directories on your system are using for permissions by running the ls command as follows:
$ ls -l /home
drwxr-xr-x 44 jesse jesse 4096 Nov 6 11:04 jesse
In the above example we can see that the jesse directory is owned by the jesse account, which is good. However, there are a lot of permissions applied to the directory we do not want. These are represented by the "rwxr-xr-x" series of characters. I won't go into the details here, but this string of letters means that the user has full access, referred to as "read, write, and execute" (or simply rwx) for their own directory. Other users have read and execute permission (r-x). Ideally we don't want other users to have any access to our home directory and its files. We can lock things down by using the chmod command:
chmod 700 /home/jesse
The above command gives the directory owner (jesse, in this case) full access while granting no permissions to anyone else. Now the directory listing looks more secure:
$ ls -l /home
drwx------ 44 jesse jesse 4096 Nov 6 15:57 jesse
When people who have access to our system have regular user accounts (ie. are not administrators) and home directories are locked down with "700" permissions, it's difficult for them to cause any damage or snoop on us. There is one other thing I recommend doing and that is making backups.
Regardless of the computing environment, backups are critical if you have any files at all that you want to keep. Computers can be broken into, or simply broken. Hard drives fail, people pour juice on sensitive components, even relatively secure systems can be hacked. The bottom line is, if you want to save yourself heartache down the road, make sure you keep backups of important files.
One of the easier backup utilities to use is, in my opinion, Deja Dup. This graphical tool makes it possible to select which files you want to back up, set an automated schedule for backups, and save your backups to a local device (like an external hard drive) or a cloud storage service. That way if someone does manage to damage your system you can copy your files back from the backup.
One other thing you can do is use a distribution, such as Linux Mint, which supports installing with the Btr filesystem and ships with Timeshift installed for you. Timeshift will take snapshots of your filesystem periodically and can be used to revert most damage to the operating system (or a user's personal files) with a few mouse clicks. This allows you to roll back most changes or damage done to the system.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Kaisen Linux 2.0
Kaisen Linux is a rolling release, Debian-based desktop distribution. the project has published Kaisen Linux 2.0 which moves the base to Debian's Testing (Bookworm) branch. The project has also dropped the LXDE interface for LXQt. "Kaisen is now based on Debian Bookworm (Debian 12), also justifying the version number change. Among the most important things done on this new release, a complete overhaul of the menu with new, nicer and more modern icons, simplification of the menu and removal of about 15 launchers among the basic commands (such as mount and umount for example), new implementation of Btrfs snapshot tools, new tools dedicated to Cloud engineers! Many new packages have been packaged for the distribution for this, software such as Terraform, Trivy, Kubernetes, k6, k9s... LXDE has been replaced by LXQt because it is more modern and more compatible with Kaisen configurations such as Conky (which is now unique for all interfaces). LXDE is still installable, but will no longer be provided by default via an ISO or installed via the net-install ISO. The kaisen-lxde metapackage will no longer be installable and will be removed from the repositories when Kaisen Linux is upgraded to 3.0. This will leave at least 1.5 years for users to migrate to another interface." Further details are available in the project's release announcement.
Kaisen Linux 2.0 -- Running the new LXQt edition
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Pop!_OS 21.10
Pop!_OS is a desktop Linux distribution based on Ubuntu and developed by Sysetm76. The distribution's latest version is Pop!_OS 21.10 which includes initial support for Raspberry Pi computers. The release announcement shares other changes and features: "Previously when navigating to Applications, a full screen Application Wall would appear. In Pop!_OS 21.10, the Application Library opens in a small, searchable window over your current workspace. Like the former view, the Application Library can be opened from the top bar, a 4-finger swipe right on the trackpad, or by using Super + A on your keyboard. What this means for you: Better multi-monitor experience: The Application Library will launch on the display that has your mouse focus. This way, you can keep your eyes on your current workspace and launch the application on the display you intended. Easy scanning: Alphabetical listing makes it easier to scan and find the application or folder you want. Simple app organization: Drag and drop applications into custom folders. The new folders are always visible, and act like tabs to move between your personally organized applications. Search: Quickly filters your installed applications as well as apps available to install from the Pop!_Shop. Just the right size: Achieves the same information density while using much less space. The Application Library provides the optimal experience, especially on ultra-wide monitors." Pop!_OOS is available in Intel/AMD, NVIDIA, and Raspberry Pi editions.
Univention Corporate Server 5.0-1
Univention Corporate Server (UCS) is an enterprise-class distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux. It features an integrated management system for central administration of servers. The project's latest release is an update to the 5.x series which improves user account management. "Administrators can specify an activation date when creating a new user account. User accounts with an activation date in the future are deactivated after creation and are only activated on this date. Thus, user accounts can be created in advance and UCS automatically takes care of the staggered activation. For the creation of users, there is a wizard in UCS that asks for all the required information. Administrators can specify additional attributes as required for a user account in addition to those already required, such as last name, user name, and password, for example, the e-mail address. As soon as additional attributes are defined, they are now also displayed in the UCS 5.0-1 wizard when users are created. This guarantees that administrators can also assign customized values for these attributes and not only the default values are used." Additional details can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
ReactOS 0.4.14
The ReactOS team has announced the release of ReactOS 0.4.14, the latest stable build of the project's open-source operating system whose goal is to be able to run Microsoft Windows programs and drivers. The new version is a "maintenance" release that fixes various regressions and does not introduce many new features: "The ReactOS Team is pleased to announce the release of version 0.4.14. As with every other release, we're regularly noting improvements and updates to keep you in touch with what is being done in ReactOS. In this release, improvements range from FreeLoader fixes, Shell features, kernel fixes, NetKVM VirtIO bringup, further work on the Xbox port and support for NEC PC-9800. One of the main highlights of this release is the amount of improvements done to the Shell component, which makes up a vital part of the ReactOS user experience. Katayama Hirofumi MZ is the pioneer of the 'Send To' implementation, a feature of the Shell that can be used to send files or directories to a certain predefined location. In addition, 'Open File Location' and 'Open Command prompt here' were also implemented thanks to him. Apart from the aforementioned features, let's not forget the bug fixes that affected the operability of the Shell." See the complete release announcement for further details.
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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: 2,663
- Total data uploaded: 41.3TB
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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) |
Sharing computers with family
In this week's Questions and Answers column we discussed ways to lock down a distribution in order to prevent it from being harmed by family members. Do you share a computer in your household? Do you take any steps to lock it down? Let us know what keeps your data safe on your shared devices in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on the year of the Linux desktop in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Protecting a shared computer
| I share a computer and lock it down: | 187 (12%) |
| I share a computer and it is the wild west: | 126 (8%) |
| I do not share a computer: | 1279 (80%) |
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| Website News |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 3 January 2022. 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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1 • home directory permissions (by brad on 2021-12-20 01:14:19 GMT from United States)
Although my computers are only used by myself, I was curious to check out my home directory permissions, because I've never touched them.
I'm running Manjaro, and I was pleased to find that my home directory was already locked down - but it made me wonder (especially given Jesse's example) if other distros create home directories with "excessive" privileges.
2 • Home directories (by Jesse on 2021-12-20 02:07:51 GMT from Canada)
@1: Many distributions do have very open home directory permissions. It's a pet peev of mine that many distributions enable read/execute on home directories for everyone.
3 • Computer use... (by Friar Tux on 2021-12-20 02:14:45 GMT from Canada)
In our household, because of how inexpensive laptops are, everyone has their own. We only use laptops as they are quite portable. Also, we do EVERYTHING on those machines. They are our library (books, newspapers, magazines, technical journals), recipe box, encyclopedia, writer's tool (stories, poems, articles, etc.), graphic artist's tool (painting, drawing), communications device, music, and much, much more. The Wife is learning French from hers, and has quite an extensive family genealogy and photo album on her machine. (Yes, everything has backups - about 50+ GB worth.) (By the way, anyone under 8 years old gets a used machine for obvious reasons.)
On a side note, I don't actually use Timeshift as it is useless when things go belly up (my experience - yours may be different). I also don't use backup apps/programs as they only copy parts of what you want backed up. All, yes, all have come back with "Error. Could not copy [ filename ]" with some reason for not doing so. For me the best method is to simply use the "Copy To" right click option. It has not failed me yet.
4 • PinePhone (by pined piper on 2021-12-20 02:17:39 GMT from New Zealand)
Interesting to read a proper review on the PinePhone. I was hovering over the order now button late last week. The few other reviews gave little - seemed written by people expecting an Android device and zero to sketchy Linux knowledge. This week's review here on Distrowatch gives the depth needed. I did not click order and will continue to hesitate. All a bit too plasticky and alpha quality at this time. It has great potential and if they release one that is better I will order. The shipping to NZ was reasonable too, which normally is the deal killer.
@2 .. which distros in particular have these "bad" permissions? Maybe some control over which groups you join users to would help. I find the defaults out of the box work for me just fine across many distros.
5 • Permissions (by Jesse on 2021-12-20 03:28:47 GMT from Canada)
@4: Most modern distributions don't lock down home directories. It was one of the things I remember finding weird about coming into the Linux ecosystem after working with Unix platforms, most home directories were accessible by default.
6 • Pinephone (by Marc on 2021-12-20 07:09:29 GMT from United Kingdom)
The Pinephone review was really interesting. Clearly there is massive potential, but to persuade me, I think it would need the following:
Better performance - while the processor does sound low spec, it seems like more ram, or a better optimised set of software is a more urgent requirement.
Removable battery (you don't say), but that would definitely be a plus in making it a long-term option, rather than a burner.
Those switches sound like an intelligent idea, but what I'd largely be interested in turning off is the 'selfie cam' for security purposes. Is that a separate switch?
Also, it would be interesting to know whether other distributions are better, but I understand you can't review all of them.
7 • Phone OS usability (by John on 2021-12-20 07:09:51 GMT from Finland)
The terrible usability described here makes me wonder why nobody is using the old and proven stuff. By this I mean whatever the N900 used, and Symbian is supposedly open source too.
8 • the PinePhone experience (by dogma on 2021-12-20 07:16:53 GMT from United States)
It’s so dumb that Manjaro with Plasma Mobile is what they ship with. Most people use postmarketOS or Mobian. I hope Plasma Mobile catches up to Phosh now that it’s switched to ModemManager and may become reliable enough to get more activity, but we’ll see.
9 • P.S. (by dogma on 2021-12-20 07:23:25 GMT from United States)
A PinePhone Pro is supposed to be released before long. Faster processor, stronger glass, etc., but rather more expensive.
10 • pinephone and sharing computers (by papapito on 2021-12-20 08:25:55 GMT from Australia)
pinephone is a fantastic testbed for getting more linux and therefore linux apps on phones. I am keen to try it but I think I will be waiting a while as while I dick about with linux, I can't afford to dick about on my phone as I need it. I also can't go without a FHD+ screen, 5g, apps for work. :(
If I can get a linux phone that's secure, makes phone calls, SMS, and allows for my choice of software with modern hardware and a non inflated price, I am very interested.
As for sharing a computer, I have not done that since the early 90's and have no plans to revisit it.
11 • kids... (by Torsten on 2021-12-20 08:43:48 GMT from Germany)
Well, I have no kids = no problems. ;-)
12 • PinePhone (by Pete on 2021-12-20 09:07:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
Sounds worse than this Nokia running Android.
No kids here either.
Am I the first...... Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all.
13 • PinePhone (by Pumpino on 2021-12-20 09:09:21 GMT from Australia)
@4: Have you looked at the FairPhone? It's certainly built to last and comes with a screwdriver. Upgrades are sold as modules, so the user can easily replace the camera when a new one is released, rather than replacing the phone. The battery is removable.
14 • Shared computers and privacy (by Mike S on 2021-12-20 10:18:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
If you are not comfortable modifying folder permissions in terminal and are running KDE Plasma you can always use Vaults (see the excellent techrepublic guide). It's an encrypting utility and the contents of a Vault are only visible to the user that creates it.
15 • Phone internet usage (by ostro on 2021-12-20 12:39:29 GMT from Poland)
I have 17GB free usage for the month on a equivalent to 6$/month whole day usage including free calls and sms, but only use less than 100MB/month, as all the internet usage is on the laptop. What's not used can be given away to kids from poorer families through the internet provider. At least the mobile GBs don't get wasted. :)
16 • Pinephone | Update issue (by Manjaro Developers on 2021-12-20 22:49:18 GMT from Germany)
Hi Jesse,
thx for this honest review of Plasma Mobile from March 2021. We looked into the update issue and provided a fix for it: https://gitlab.manjaro.org/manjaro-arm/packages/community/pinephone/pinephone-manjaro-tweaks/-/commit/90352f1c8479e146001b6f273b0e8392f31b55b1. Simply use Discover and try to update again. We would be glad to hear a follow-up on the improvements you may see after updating the system.
17 • Pinephone with manjaro (by Antonio on 2021-12-21 01:31:49 GMT from United States)
@16 thank you for the fix
Yesterday I was able to update to fix issues with modem no carrier error. When applying the updates, it replaced some systems scripts . I could receive calls but not make them. It cannot connect to internet at times, but that maybe because of the network? I don't know how to troubleshoot. Wifi works, but only able to connect on open networks.
18 • linux phone (by dave on 2021-12-21 02:10:03 GMT from United States)
we need an ncurses phone interface! okay maybe that's a bit extreme..
but what we do need is the equivalent of IceWM or JWM in terms of cutting down on bloat.. what is it about phones and tablets that suddenly makes everybody need swoopy doopy transitions??
Remember when compiz and kwin special effects were popular and how 90% of that eventually became passe?? I've only owned 2 phones in my life (1st was webOS, 2nd is android).. barely use them because I hate the whole cult-ure surrounding the concept.. but I have tried to disable as many transition effects and graphical bloat as possible.
I just think it's weird that people pretty much eschew from heavy graphical effects on their computers, but then they get these phones/tablets with comparatively low spec hardware and the OS will have immense graphical bloat by default.
19 • Phones and sharing. (by Angel on 2021-12-21 02:44:54 GMT from Philippines)
Much as I enjoy Linux on my PCs, I will not be pining for a Pinephone any time soon. Or for a Fairphone, for that matter: 500 to 750 euros, with no charger or headphones, plus shipping? I'd rather sink my teeth into the forbidden fruit. But it's modular!! Sure, which parts and improvements they'll probably be happy to ship for a fee, at fruit company prices. No thanks! Well, at least it's organic.
For the Pinephone's $150 I can have a choice of 4 or 5 brands, around 6.6", 4-128, dual sim, fancy cameras, etc. I'm sure the weather apps work, and if they don't there are many other to swap for. I just followed an approaching typhoon on MSN Weather, with satellite view at one-hour delay. None better.
Assuming they can develop at breakneck speed, à la ReactOS, by the time they get a decently working Linux phone, the younger ones will be wandering around, lost in the metaverse, and I'll be playing a harp, or a lute, or whatever it is they play in Atheist heaven.
20 • PinePhone (by V on 2021-12-21 04:53:02 GMT from United States)
I have a PinePhone KDE CE, so before the Beta Edition or PinePhone Pro. It arrived early this year, after waiting for it for a few months. You can actually run any Linux distro you want on it, not just the 20 listed on that page, as long as you can get ahold of an arm64 version of it. The battery is 100% dead after not using it for some time, and it will NOT charge, even after waiting for several days. I have a replacement battery on the way, however not from Pine64, since they are out of stock.
Plasma Mobile should not actually be slow. That is more likely the fault of the OS (Manjaro) being heavier than something like postmarketOS. It also probably depends if you got the Convergence Edition that has 32GB of storage and 3GB of RAM.
The PinePhone Pro, is currently in development stages and has 128GB!! of storage. It also has 4GB of RAM, a RK3399S, which is basically a binned RK3399, which is the processor inside of the very powerful Pinebook Pro. The processor is only 20%!! less powerful than the one found in the Pinebook Pro. It is also a 6 core chip, operating at 1.5Ghz. The PinePhone Pro annihilated the Librem 5 in CPU, RAM, Storage, and even GPU. It is even more open than the Librem 5, with the modem having an open source firmware, where the Librem 5 does not. All of this - for less than half the price of the Librem.
- I am not an advertiser.
21 • User sharing,@20, phone (by Timon on 2021-12-21 09:05:12 GMT from United States)
I have two computers, one wife, and three smartphones. The wife mostly uses her phone, but if she needs to use any of the others phones or computers, she's welcome to my user name and space. She knows all my passwords, PINs, and whatnots anyhow. If she starts snooping around and finds out I've been sexting some cute young thing, that's her problem.
@20- Last time I had a smartphone battery that would not charge, the problem was not the battery. Hope you tested it or tried external charging.
22 • Pine Phone review (by J on 2021-12-21 12:43:47 GMT from Germany)
Thanks a lot for the review. I assume other Linux users are like me and that even though we may be a small percentage, there is still a potentially huge market of people hungry for smart phones and tablets based on (non-Android) Linux once the kinks are worked out.
23 • Ta (by Tad Strange on 2021-12-21 15:48:46 GMT from Canada)
Thanks for the Pine Phone review. I admit that I was curious about it, but now that I see that it's more of a technology demo / hobbyists delight, I know that it's not yet for me.
But on a broader front, I would be interested in the possibility of putting a mobile friendly OS on obsolete Android devices that no longer receive updates, or for the cheap generic Ali Express type devices.
It's been a very long time since a computer was shared in my family. Everyone has multiple devices, be it a phone, tablet, PC... I only deal with shared devices in the work environment, and even those are becoming few.
24 • Friends and family (by eee shepherd on 2021-12-22 01:07:05 GMT from United Kingdom)
I simply issue them with an asus eee pc from my fleet.
25 • PinePhone experience (by Alexandru on 2021-12-22 07:42:00 GMT from Romania)
I own PinePhone with the same specs as in review (ARM64 Quad core CPU 1.2 GHZ, 2GB RAM, 16 GB ROM). I have tested about dozen OSes on it and now I am happy with Mobian + Phosh. It is responsive and has all software I need.
For people demanding Android experience on Linux phone, please choose some other product. PinePhone was really designed with the goal to bring Linux (or BSD, etc PC like experience) to mobile device. And I like it exactly for that. I am able to install Linux (not Android) software on it and heavy use command line to perform my tasks. I can connect an external screen, plug keyboard and mouse in it and ethernet cable (together with charging cable) and turn it into mini PC. And all this pocket sized.
26 • Android or Linux (by Alexandru on 2021-12-22 07:54:47 GMT from Romania)
I recall in the early Android epoch the corner question was: Can I install Linux software on Android? There were all sort of projects to enable it. Well, now Android ecosystem is well established (as well as Linux one). But now the question is: Can I install Android software on Linux?
It is possible of course, but the solutions like Anbox or Waydroid are not optimal ones. Just as many people use different computers for Linux, MacOS and Windows, in my opinion it is better to use different devices for Android, iOS and Linux. But there is yet another option for PinePhone owners: multiple boot. You can either install Android side by side with Linux on the same ROM and choose which to start at boot time, or install different OSes on different microSD cards and boot from them. In this scenario, you can dedicate phone's ROM just to keep personal data on it, accessible from each OS.
27 • Other users (by Marco on 2021-12-22 19:39:31 GMT from United States)
First, thank you for the tip to ls -l /home
Mine was the same as your 'after', but it never occurred to me to check.
Currently, I seldom/never share my laptops, but I do create a guest account (not in wheel) just in case.
I miss the old Kubuntu / lightdm approach were a guest account would mount $HOME over /tmp as part of the default install.
28 • big tech kids (by unsharer on 2021-12-22 20:40:46 GMT from France)
The tech revolution began decades ago with the idea of ppl sharing information between their machines. But now it's all about trying to protect your machines from intrusion from others. What is it about technology that feeds all the kids who never grew up, never matured, never got a life for themselves - but who have to live vicariously inside other ppl's machines - harassing, scamming and stealing from them?
29 • PP (by Cheker on 2021-12-22 22:47:49 GMT from Portugal)
I have the 3GB edition of the Pinephone and I've been daily driving it for a while since my previous Android became obsolete sooner than I expected. The OS I ended up on was Mobian with Phosh, and I gotta say it's fairly stable. The battery goes to hell in a single day, and that's with me only checking it every once in a while. I also restart it every 2 days or so because I noticed that if I don't, eventually it'll crash and reboot randomly when going to sleep or straight up in my hands.
This phone came with Manjaro, and back then it "worked", but honestly my last two attempts with Manjaro (one Phosh, one KDE) were horrendous - I didn't make it to the home screen in either trial. Seems less functional now than half a year ago, somehow.
@25 @26 how's your battery experience? I've talked to people who say they get a whole day of activity, but I don't. Didn't occur to me to ask them what OS they were on.
30 • Pinephone (by Doug on 2021-12-23 06:56:43 GMT from United States)
I have a Pinephone Convergence edition, so with the extra gig of RAM. I found that many of the problems you are having went away when I reflashed with the latest edition of Manjaro KDE- not just updating. It's still pretty slow, and the apps are hit or miss. But it is in better shape now than the state of the OS as you are using it.
31 • @29 PinePhone battery experience (by Alexandru on 2021-12-23 10:35:26 GMT from Romania)
I don't use PinePhone as my primary mobile device. When I started using Mobian + Phosh at beginning of 2020, the battery lasted about 1 day in standby + some minor activity. Now the experience is much better, the battery lasts 3 or even 4 days in standby.
I also don't have stability problems, i.e. I am not forced to restart the phone. I just do it every time the kernel is updated.
32 • Pinephone (by lincoln on 2021-12-23 19:35:01 GMT from Brazil)
Taking into account the device's battery (we don't need a UPS) and network redundancy (network over Wifi and mobile network), is it a reliable web server running on Pinephone? It would be interesting to read about the experiences in this regard from Distrowatch readers.
33 • PinePhone web server (by Jesse on 2021-12-23 20:20:05 GMT from Canada)
@32: If you want to run the PinePhone as a web server you'll need to leave it plugged in all the time. The device drops network connections when the screen goes to sleep. Which means either your device will drain its battery in just a few hours or you need to leave it plugged in and disable sleep mode.
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WIENUX was a Debian-based Linux distribution developed by the City of Vienna in Austria. Its main purpose was to replace proprietary operating systems and applications on the municipality's thousands of desktop computers with free and open source alternatives based around KDE, OpenOffice.org and Firefox. WIENUX was released under the General Public License and available for free download from the distribution's web site.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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