DistroWatch Weekly |
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 950, 10 January 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 2nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
For people who were using desktop flavours of Unix in the 1990s the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) was a familiar, often appreciated experience. While CDE has generally been viewed as technology that has been left to rot on the trash heap of history, efforts in recent years have attempted to resurrect the classic desktop environment. CDE now runs on a number of Linux distributions and BSD flavours. We begin this week with a look at CDE and how to get it running on Debian. Have you used the CDE interface? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section we take a look back on work that has gone into the Gentoo project in 2021 and share news that Haiku will soon be able to run Windows applications courtesy of WINE. Plus we are pleased to report the Dolphin file manager is gaining the ability to perform privileged actions. In this week's Questions and Answers section we talk about how to limit logins to specific times. We are also pleased to share the releases of the past week. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (11MB) and MP3 (8MB) formats.
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Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
The Common Desktop Environment (CDE) on a modern Linux distribution
Once upon a time, in a long ago age called the 1990s, I attended a class on operating systems. It was my first hands-on exposure to UNIX-like operating systems and the course focused on Solaris. One feature which was relatively new to Solaris at the time was the Common Desktop Environment (CDE).
CDE was developed, from 1993, by the Open Software Foundation (OSF) to build upon the GUI work done in Motif. Contributions came from HP, DEC, AT&T, Sun and SCO. HP donated HPVUE, which resembled what became CDE. Sun donated its desktop tools, mail, calendar, etc. AT&T gave workspace communication software and SCO the session manager and virtual desktop from Panorama. Later Fujitsu and Hitachi also contributed to the project. CDE 1.0 was released in 1995 and was quickly adopted among various UNIX vendors. SGI even used CDE for a time as an alternative to Indigo Magic Desktop.
CDE took an approach to the desktop concept I had not experienced before. Windows, at the time, focused on launching applications from its Start menu and then tracking open windows with a task manager; and macOS was mostly driven by a global menu at the time. CDE took a different approach which seemed designed to truly reflect the concept of a literal work desk. A panel along the bottom of the display contained drawers and toggle buttons. Programs and files could be accessed by opening the drawers and placing work items on the desktop. (It might be more proper to say "desktops" since CDE offered four virtual desktops by default.) Items on the desktop could be minimized or moved off to the corner of the desk when not being used.
Running CDE on Debian
(full image size: 1.3MB, resolution: 1,237x918 pixels)
While some of the approaches CDE took were unusual to me at the time I appreciated its tidy style (keeping most things tucked into drawers and organized by category). After college I didn't see the CDE desktop again for about two decades. Part of this lapse was due to CDE being proprietary software, but CDE was eventually open sourced and work went into porting it to Linux distributions and modern members of the BSD family.
A little while ago I came across a guide for compiling and install CDE on modern Linux distributions such as Debian. The guide surfaced on a number of technology blogs and it triggered my interest, so I decided to revisit my first taste of UNIX.
The guide is fairly brief and clear, which I always appreciate. I decided to follow along using an install of Debian 11 as the guide is written with Debian in mind. First we need to add package dependencies, particularly development libraries and tools.
apt install xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core xfonts-base xinit lightdm git
build-essential libxt-dev libxmu-dev libxft-dev libxinerama-dev libxpm-dev
libmotif-common libmotif-dev libxaw7-dev libx11-dev libxss-dev libtirpc-dev
x11-xserver-utils libjpeg62-turbo-dev libfreetype6-dev tcl-dev ksh m4
ncompress xfonts-100dpi xfonts-100dpi-transcoded xfonts-75dpi
xfonts-75dpi-transcoded rpcbind bison xbitmaps libjpeg-dev libssl-dev x11proto-fonts-dev
We are then told to download a copy of the CDE source code using git:
git clone http://git.code.sf.net/p/cdesktopenv/code cdesktopenv-code
cd cdesktopenv-code/cde/
The guide, along with a copy of the official documentation I found when performing a web search, then suggested we can build the CDE source code by running the command "make" or "make World", depending on which version of the code we have. These instructions did not work for me and make reported an error saying there was no matching rule for it to follow.
The README file which came with the CDE source code mentions that additional steps may be needed to successfully build CDE. While the README file does not provide explicit details it does say we can find the steps required for a variety of Linux and BSD systems by visiting the CDE wiki. The wiki recommends installing additional items, including the autoconf and automake packages which were not listed in the original guide. I fetched the remaining dependencies I needed by running the recommend line:
apt install autoconf automake libtool git build-essential g++ lib{xt,xmu,xft,xinerama,xpm,pam,motif,ssl,xaw7,x11,XSs,tirpc,jpeg,freetype6,utempter}-dev tcl-dev ksh m4 ncompress xfonts-{100,75}dpi{,-transcoded} rpcbind bison patch xbitmaps x11proto-fonts-dev flex
At this point the documentation told me to run the following three commands to build CDE's source code into something usable:
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
The last command, make, takes several minutes to run. It did complete successfully and then I could run the install command to copy CDE onto my system:
make install
There was one more step to take, adding CDE as a session option to my login screen. This could be accomplished by copying one file:
cp contrib/desktopentry/cde.desktop /usr/share/xsessions/
The next time I signed out of my existing desktop and tried to login, CDE was one of the session options. So far things were going fairly well!
The CDE interface loaded very quickly and looked much how I remembered it. Apart from the colour theme, the desktop has been preserved in its 1990s era look throughout the porting process.
The bottom panel still holds launchers for programs, drawers for tucking away items, and four large buttons representing virtual desktops. Minimized programs don't get tracked on a task bar. Instead they are compacted into a small icon which can be positioned on the desktop. This means it is difficult to have a mixture of minimized and maximized windows on a desktop, but I believe the theory here is we will make use of virtual desktops to avoid cluttering up the space. This is not entirely unlike GNOME Shell's philosophy of using multiple workspaces rather than minimizing application windows.
Running GNOME Terminal in CDE
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Unfortunately my experiment with CDE was cut short by a surprising issue. While my mouse pointer worked and I could right-click on the desktop to bring up a context menu (allowing me to logout), left-clicking failed to work. I was unable to use the mouse to left-click on any menus, drawers, window controls, or menu options. I could work around this a little by using right-click and the keyboard to navigate context menus, but not being able to left-click greatly reduced the functionality of the desktop.
I searched for bug reports with this left-click issue, but did not find any or workarounds for the issue. The best I could do was add programs I wanted to launch at sign-in time to the bottom of my account's ~/.dtprofile file, which gets run when CDE launches. This gave me access to programs like a virtual terminal, clock, and other tools. Then I could use the terminal to open other programs, but I was still unable to interact with the majority of CDE's desktop features.
I still like the concept of CDE even if it wasn't working well for me. The style of the desktop is different than most modern desktops, but it's conceptionally one that I think is relatable, even if it's not necessarily as efficient as some other designs. I also like that CDE is relatively light. It's fast, it uses about 510MB of RAM at login time, with a GNOME terminal session open. On the same system GNOME Shell uses 875MB of RAM to sign in without any windows open.
In my opinion it would be nice to see CDE get more attention and a little polish. Not because it's particularly better in its approach or design than other desktop environments, just because it is different. It has an unusual design which sets it apart from most of the open source desktops we have at the moment and I like the variety.
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Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Gentoo shares statistics from 2021, Haiku runs WINE port, Dolphin can perform privileged file operations
The Gentoo team have published a retrospective on the 2021 year which also provides an updated status report for the project. "The number of commits to the main ::gentoo repository has once more clearly grown in 2021, from 104,507 to 126,920, i.e., by 21%. While the number of commits by external contributors, 11,775, has remained roughly constant, this number now distributes across 435 unique external authors compared to 391 last year. We may have recruited some of the top contributors." Along with the statistics, the project has shared a look at new developers, new packages, and work going into new architectures. The news post shares all the details.
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The Haiku project will soon be gaining a powerful new feature: the ability to run many Windows applications through WINE. A developer which goes by the handle x512 has been porting WINE to the Haiku platform and has managed to get some graphical applications running. A forum thread is being updated with ongoing progress and screenshots of Windows programs running on the Haiku operating system.
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Some good news came out of the KDE camp last week for people who enjoy using the KDE Plasma desktop or at least its file manager, Dolphin. In recent years Dolphin has been unable to move, create, or copy files in directories where the user does not have write access. Attempting to write to these locations would result in an error. Now Dolphin will prompt for the administrator's password in order to gain write access to these locations. Gaming On Linux reports: "A major new feature is that Dolphin, and anything that hooks into KIO, can now create, move, copy, trash, and delete files in non-user-owned locations. Instead of just giving you a warning and not letting you do anything, it should now ask for a password and let you do what you need to without resorting to a terminal window."
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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) |
Preventing logins at specific times
Preparing-for-bed asks: I know about Unix permissions and user management and also chmod and chown. So I know how to allow the kids to use a program or directory, or even not. But I don't know how to permit them to use (log in to) the computer for a specific time. For example 3pm to 9pm and then it is time for bed.
I know to do "sudo shutdown -h 21:00" if the kids are not named in the /etc/sudoers file. But then the kids are able to start it again (if the computer is in their room).
Perhaps a script owned by root? How should this script look so that the kids are allowed to log in again next day at 3pm?
DistroWatch answers: I'd like to start off by acknowledging that you can certainly use a variety of technical methods to prevent users from logging in at specific times. This would allow you to force a logout or shutdown as you mentioned with a crontab entry and then prevent future logins until a specified time. However, I do not believe the technical answer is always the best approach.
You've got kids, presumably relatively mature kids since they might be awake after 9pm unsupervised, who have physical access to their computer. In this situation you may find they become quite creative in finding ways to circumvent the locks you place on the computer.
Let's say you put restrictions on their login times and reboot the machine at a certain hour. You may find they learn how to login as the administrator and remove the restriction on login times. Then if you password protect the boot loader and encrypt the hard drive you might find they figure out how to use a live USB to boot an alternative operating system. Or they may smuggle in mobile devices (laptops or phones) so they can use devices at night you don't control.
Since trying to lock the kids out using technical means is likely to initiate an arms race, a better approach might be to simply monitor their activity and then let them know there are consequences for breaking the rules. You can periodically sign into the machine and checks the logs. Using the last command, the history file in their home directory, and the modification times of files in the /tmp directory will all provide clues as to when people last signed into the computer. You can also run a script to log or report login attempts. I covered how to do this using PAM modules in an earlier article.
Some routers will also enable logging to let you know when devices connected to the network. Performing random checks on your computer's logs and the router will let you know when the computer is active and you can address any abnormal usage times with your children without telling them how you know they were on-line late at night.
In short, monitoring the situation and using personal/social consequences will be easier and less likely to push your children to find better ways to circumvent your rules.
With all that said, there are tools available to lock down your computer. There is a utility called Timekpr-nEXT which can be used to set limits on login sessions. Timekpr-nEXT offers a friendly, graphical interface and will warn users when their time is almost finished. Timekpr-nEXT is available for members of the Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch Linux families of distributions.
A more universal, more low-level approach is to use PAM to restrict login times. This can be done using the pam_time.so module, available on most Linux distributions. Setting up the PAM module happens in two steps. In the first step we tell PAM to use the timing module to allow logins only at specific times or on specific days. In the second step we create a file which lists which users we want to allow to login and at which times.
The first step is fairly easy. We just need to open the file /etc/pam.d/common-auth and add the following line to the bottom of the text file:
account required pam_time.so
Then save the file. I feel it worth mentioning some distributions name their common login PAM module differently. Please check with your distribution's documentation to see which PAM module is a common base for logins. This tells the system we need users signing into the computer to be doing so in a specific time range. Next we open (or create, if it doesn't exist) the text file /etc/security/time.conf. At the bottom of this file we will specify two rules - one for the kids and one for everyone else.
*;*;kid;Al1500-2100
*;*;!kid;Al0000-2400
The first rule says to allow the user kid to sign in on all days (Al) between the hours of 1500 and 2100 (3:00pm through to 9:00pm). The second rule says that everyone else (anyone not called kid) can sign in on all days from 0000 through to 2400, which is all day. This prevents us from locking ourselves out of the system.
Please note: the second rule, the one which sets the login times for everyone else ("!kid", which means "not kid") is important because we want to make sure our user can always sign into the computer. Making a mistake when setting up these rules, particularly rules which will exclude or block the root account, may prevent you from signing in or even being able to boot the operating system. I'd recommend testing out your changes in a virtual machine before enabling the rules on your home computer.
The time.conf manual page has some great tips and examples which explain how to set up rules for specific days of the week. This allows us to set alternative login times for an account depending on which day of the week it is.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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Released Last Week |
UBports 16.04 OTA-21
UBports is a community-developed fork of Canonical's Ubuntu Touch operating system for mobile devices. The project's latest release is UBports 16.04 OTA-21. The new release improves the first-run greeter and adjusts the way used storage space is calculated. "The storage statistics (free / occupied space) in the system settings got an overhaul, more categories are being shown, and the calculation of space occupied by the system partition layout and Ubuntu Touch core files has been made more precise. Greeter redesign: Most notably the style of the Greeter (the thing that is shown when the screen is about to be unlocked) has improved significantly to give a more modern and slick appearance. It shows a different style depending on if PIN or password unlock has been selected." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement. A list of devices which can run UBports can be found on the project's devices page.
GeckoLinux 153.220104.0, 999.220105.0
GeckoLinux is a member of the openSUSE family of distributions with a special focus on making the operating system desktop-ready out of the box. The project has publisehd a new set of both Static and Rolling editions along with a Next series of editions. The project's news page offers details on the new install images: "Thanks to some important improvements from the Calamares installer project, and after lots and lots of trial and error to tweak the GeckoLinux configuration, inclusion of openSUSE's famous integration of the GRUB bootloader with Btrfs and Snapper snapshots has finally arrived in GeckoLinux. This also required a major rework of the default Btrfs subvolume layout, allowing for effective snapshot rollbacks without manual manipulation of the bootloader or default subvolumes. Important note: When performing a rollback in GeckoLinux for the first time the command is slightly different from vanilla openSUSE: 'sudo snapper --ambit classic rollback' (please see the wiki entry). Another important improvement to all GeckoLinux editions is the addition of improved installation logic based on whether the system is running in EFI or legacy BIOS mode, leading to much better reliability during future GRUB bootloader updates."
Linux Mint 20.3
The Linux Mint team has announced the release of Linux Mint 20.3 which is available in Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce flavours. The distribution has polished a number of its desktop applications and utilities. "The Hypnotix IPTV player looks better than ever, thanks to Dark Mode support and a new set of flags:The Hypnotix IPTV player: A new search function was added so you can easily find TV channels, movies and series. In addition to M3U and local playlists, the IPTV player now also supports the Xtream API. Thingy: Linux Mint 20.3 introduces a brand new XApp called Thingy. Thingy is a Document Manager. It gives you a quick access to your favorite and recently opened documents and keeps track of your reading progress. Sticky Notes: The Sticky Notes application now has a search function. The look of the notes was improved by embedding the title within the note. Multiple text size: A new control was added inside the notes toolbar to control the size of the text. Theme Changes: Linux Mint 20.3 features an updated look and feel with larger titlebar buttons, rounded corners, a cleaner theme and support for dark mode. Titlebars and corners: The titlebars were quite small. We made them rounder with bigger buttons to make the desktop look more pleasant and generous. The hover zone around the icons was also widened to make it easier to press the buttons." Additional information can be found in each edition's release announcement (Cinnamon,MATE, Xfce).
Linux Mint 20.3 -- Running the Cinnamon desktop
(full image size: 785kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
EasyOS 3.2
Barry Kauler has announced the release of EasyOS 3.2, an experimental Linux distribution with a focus on using containers for both applications and the entire desktop. "Since version 3.1, EasyOS has undergone major structural changes and many new applications added. Some of the structural changes include a move from ALSA-only to PulseAudio, applications running as their own user, improved hardware-profiling for audio, fixes for samba, audio and video, more video drivers, new /files top-level folder. Software changes include a recompile of all packages in OpenEmbedded (OE) and the addition of major multimedia applications such as LiVES video editor, VLC video player, OBS Studio video recorder/streamer and Scribus desktop publisher -- all cross-compiled in OE. Qt5 packages are now compiled in OE. More development packages in the 'devx' SFS, including Mercurial source-control and Nemiver debugger. Numerous bug-fixes and improvements." Additional information 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: 2,668
- Total data uploaded: 41.4TB
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Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Have you ever used CDE?
In this week's Feature Story we talked about the classic Common Desktop Environment (CDE), a user interface which gained popularity in the 1990s. Have you ever used CDE? Let us know what you thought of the desktop in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on your favourite distribution in 2021 in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Have you tried CDE?
Yes and I liked it: | 347 (22%) |
Yes and I did not like it: | 152 (10%) |
I have not used CDE: | 1095 (69%) |
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Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Twister OS. Twister OS is a distribution for Raspberry Pi 4 single board computers. It features the custom Twister UI user interface.
- LX4U. LX4U is a Russian project which forks the Linux From Scratch (LFS) guide to manually building a distribution from source code.
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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, 17 January 2022. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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Tip Jar |
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Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • CDE on (Open)VMS (by brad on 2022-01-10 01:08:13 GMT from United States)
Yup, that was one of my first experiences with GUI's on a non-Windows OS.
2 • CDE on a Sun Blade with Solaris (by marti on 2022-01-10 01:36:10 GMT from United States)
I loved that Sun Blade workstation with Solaris 8 and Rational ClearDDTS. Too bad it was at an evil Intel agency at which I had to sell my soul. I'll end up paying for that.....
3 • The Common Desktop Environment is history (by Heinz on 2022-01-10 01:52:01 GMT from United States)
CDE looks interesting only in the context of its place in the development of modern computing. I can’t imagine ever wanting to take the time to install it, let alone use it on a production machine.
4 • Does being a Sun employee count? (by bigbenaugust on 2022-01-10 02:14:16 GMT from United States)
Used it for several years on Solaris.
5 • CDE was Simple, and Universal (by Graham on 2022-01-10 02:20:33 GMT from Australia)
I used CDE on the Solaris, HP and DEC machines that my organization had in service, and subsequently on SCO machines at another organization.
So of course I now use XFCE on the machines that I currently access, because it's probably the closest thing to CDE that's now available.
It's a pity that CDE isn't currently available as a Snap for current Ubuntu and derivative operating systems.
6 • CDE (by gatton on 2022-01-10 02:35:24 GMT from United States)
I'm surprised Jesse didn't check out the NsCDE project.
https://github.com/NsCDE/NsCDE
7 • CDE in Debian Unstable (by Andy Prough on 2022-01-10 02:38:27 GMT from United States)
CDE is in Debian/Devuan unstable, you should be able to try it again soon once it moves over from testing I would thing. Or just dist-upgrade your Debian 11 installation to unstable, and install CDE from there.
8 • CDE (by Friar Tux on 2022-01-10 02:51:11 GMT from Canada)
I came across CDE a few years ago. It reminded me of my favourite Windows 95 theme as it had the "normal" task bar, not the one pictured in Jesse's example. Now-a-days, if I feel the need for nostalgia, I use the OneStepBack theme by Jean-Pierre Bucciol (the darker version). It's pretty close. I've reworked the colours more to my liking but it has that CDE/Motif/Win 95 charm.
9 • CDE again (by Friar Tux on 2022-01-10 03:15:28 GMT from Canada)
By the way, if you want the actual CDE theme try this:- https://www.pling.com/p/1231025
10 • Dolphin (by Shawn Rogers on 2022-01-10 03:34:06 GMT from United States)
I wish we could also get an unmount option for dolphin. ATM it only has "safely remove", which completely removes the mounted device, and has to be reattached to the PC to be mounted again.
11 • CDE - mainframe fork of WIMP (ex-XEROX) (by Greg Zeng on 2022-01-10 03:52:22 GMT from Australia)
There are many attempts to simplify the CLI dominance of computers. The microcomputers of the 1970's had Wordstar, Visicalc, Supercalc, and other CLI and Window Managers (WM), keyboard only.
Xerox researched their Desktop Environment "metaphor", often called WIMP: Windows, Icon, Mouse, Pointer.
Microsoft tried its version of WIMP, after Apple "borrowed" these Xerox experiments. Unix (including BSD) and Linux (including Android) then tried their Desktop versions, including the CDE version mentioned in Wikipedia, and this Distrowatch article. Many coders released versions of WIMP: Atari & Commodore included.
Linux improvements to the original WIMP settings have been numerous: XFCE, GNOME-2, KDE, GNOME-3, and others. Currently no Desktop aenvironment has yet the luxury to be correct, nor suitable enough to stisfy the rapidle evolving user requirements.
Linux (with Android) and BSD (with Apple) have more serious demands. Rapidly evolving are storage, system management & user interfaces. User interfaces need multiple inputs: touch, proximity, eye & body sensing, multiple work stations, and complex security demands. The three biggest market areas for end-user interfaces are Android, Apple and Microsoft. Linux is playing catchup, with beta-only versions of Wayland, Flatpak and BTRFS, especially in the KDE & GNOME interfaces. The old Unix CLI and their alternatives are very far behind.
12 • @11 (by Simon on 2022-01-10 05:02:17 GMT from New Zealand)
Shells are not "far behind" clumsy GUI interfaces, any more than Ferraris and Lamborghinis are "far behind" modern electric cars just because the electric cars are more recent and complex. New versions of shells like BASH continue to be released. Competent users continue to use them. The fact that a drooling idiot can stab at pictures on a touch screen doesn't make the modern interface objectively "better" than an interface that requires learning and competence...it just makes it better for the drooling idiot. For some tasks, shells remain more powerful and efficient than GUI tools. In terms of power and flexibility they're still miles ahead of modern GUI alternatives.
13 • NsCDE (by Ali on 2022-01-10 05:52:45 GMT from Iran)
@Jesse
There is NsCDE, please take a look and provide one of your great reviews.
" NsCDE is a retro but powerful UNIX desktop environment which resembles CDE look (and partially feel) but with a more powerful and flexible framework beneath-the-surface, more suited for 21st century unix-like and Linux systems and user requirements than original CDE"
https://github.com/NsCDE/NsCDE
14 • CDE (by OneHue on 2022-01-10 06:00:44 GMT from Mali)
Yes, I used the NsCDE incarnation on SparkyLinux.
15 • a ghost from 1995 (by yikes!! on 2022-01-10 06:20:53 GMT from New Zealand)
CDE? Curious, so I scrolled down. And staring back at me was a ghost last seen circa 1995. Wow.
16 • Dolphin (by lupus on 2022-01-10 06:27:52 GMT from Germany)
It's not that often I agree with Linus Sebastian on anything but Dolphin..... If only there was a way to uninstall that piece of crap and use another File Manager...... but wait this is Linux which means there is and it's always the first thing I do when I try out another KDE DE. For me it's not worth the effort of hard working people to maintain that particular piece of Software. Let it die and rot in hell where it belongs
17 • CDE... yes and no (by Microlinux on 2022-01-10 06:49:39 GMT from France)
Back in 1996 Olivier Fourdan built an open source version of CDE and named it... Xfce. I'm surprised so few people know this.
18 • CDE (by Fabio on 2022-01-10 08:08:35 GMT from Italy)
I used CDE in 90th in Solaris and Unix machines from Digital when i was a student and after at work before the progressive substitution of this expensive machines with Linux workstations running generally redhat and Gnome desktops in the first years 2000. I have a good memories of CDE (i suppose that modern desktop environments relies on concepts developed with CDE) but returning back to this last century technology make no sense today. Just for nostalgy or for fun. I have to say that for work reasons i yet compile or use some old applications using Motif in modern PCs (for example the editor nedit). If i remember well CDE was based on Motif.
19 • Parental controls (by Someguy on 2022-01-10 09:47:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
Kids are smart, just a matter of time before they'll outsmart parents. Tin boxes are 2-a-penny so give them one of their own. Run the mains plug to your own bedroom/where-ever. Ban outright laptops from your house - they're thoroughly nasty, unreliable monstrosities anyway, so doing yourself a favour. Then there's mobile phones! [Never use them, personally, too many interlopers - landlines are almost secure except from GCHQ and BT] Ultimately, all your efforts will be thwarted when they go for a 'sleep-over' with their mates/share a mobile with friends at school. There's an entire industry of crooks, ne'er-do-wells, pushers,' entrepreneurs' out there just waiting to pervert your offspring, divert their funds and welcome them to communities of alternative lifestyles, etc. Best option is good home life, good education, good example & hope. Nothing new in that advice.
20 • CDE was nice (by CDE was nice on 2022-01-10 09:50:02 GMT from Italy)
I, too, used CDE while studying IT engineering, and I definitely preferred that above olvwm. That's why I've been using Xfce since many years: it sounds like being the easiest and nearest approach to CDE paradigm. But should an official CDE package for Debian be released, I'd quite give that a chance.
21 • @12 Gui vs shell (by Angel on 2022-01-10 09:52:42 GMT from Philippines)
I can't count how many times I've heard or read someone expounding on the relative efficiency of shell vs GUI. Perhaps you might explain in words even this drooling idiot can understand. More efficient at doing what? Using a modern office app? Choosing videos to stream from a web-page? Video conference calls? Online gaming? Using messaging apps? I could go on, but perhaps you don't realize that the majority of non-drooling non-geek-cultist non-idiots have other things to do than engage in geeky pursuits requiring time and effort learning arcane expressions. Even the Catholic church gave up om Latin. And by the way, Ferrari automobiles are incredibly complex machines, many times more so than electric cars.
22 • Motif and CDE (by Curious on 2022-01-10 10:07:36 GMT from Canada)
Speaking of Motif and CDE, seem to recall there was an open source version of Motiff called Lesstif available on old versions of Slackware. Doing a search turns up: http://lesstif.sourceforge.net And: lesstif.sf.net Licensed under lpgl.
23 • re my comment 22 on lesstif (by Curious on 2022-01-10 10:15:03 GMT from Canada)
Reading through the lesstiff page, noticed the last release was in 2009, and it was considered freeware, released under lpgl. Then under that, it is mentioned that as of 2012, Motiff was released under lpgl, that lesstif developers had "moved on", so best to use versions of Motiff as of 2012.
24 • CDE (by xChris on 2022-01-10 10:53:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
CDE is nice, but I m not fan of it's dock, waste of display space, I had the opportunity to play with it on Sun Systems, but I was more fan of the OpenWindows , way lean interface.
25 • CDE (by Otis on 2022-01-10 12:21:34 GMT from United States)
Never heard of it but found myself jealous that I had not been exposed to CDE in my early forays from Windows decades ago. The earliest stuff I remember were the first browsers and email utilities, etc. Thank you for the education on an important portion of personal computing evolution.
26 • CDE (by James on 2022-01-10 12:43:07 GMT from United States)
I am a diehard traditional desktop user (Mate for now), CDE holds no interest for me.
27 • CDE is a useless joke! (by Jörg on 2022-01-10 12:52:54 GMT from Germany)
CDE is a real joke, looks like Windows 95....nothing for me.
28 • @27 Jorg: (by dragonmouth on 2022-01-10 13:10:25 GMT from United States)
Many comedians make a good living out from useless jokes. :-)
29 • CDE (by crayola-eater on 2022-01-10 13:12:10 GMT from United States)
A year or so ago, while looking at various desktops, I ran across CDE. I installed it (from where or how I don't recall, but neither do I recall having to compile it). Never having used it in the past, it seemed to run and work quite nicely for me (was running on Debian 10). In fact, I was having so much fun playing with it I started to dig into trying to get it to where I might use it as a daily driver. Eventually I ran into a speed bump that no amount of sweat and FAQs seemed to be able to conquer, so I left CDE on the roadside. I suspect that with a bit more work, and I'm sure prior working knowledge would have helped, CDE could make a basic daily desktop - not a gaming or media platform, but surely a basic office work/tech platform. Was tempted to try nsCDE at that point, but just rolled back to openbox and continued on.
While writing, just recalled that I got the CDE-desktop from the SparkyLinux repositories, if anyone cares to take a look at it.
30 • @16 What's wrong with Dolphin (by Scott Dowdle on 2022-01-10 13:30:08 GMT from United States)
I use Dolphin and ton and it works great for me. I'm not sure what issues folks have with it... but I do admit, when I have a freshly installed system, I do take a few minutes to configure the Dolphin interface by adding several things to the main toolbar including an Up button, and a reload button... and I have the menu always showing... and generally use detailed view.
Regarding CDE, quite a few distros package NsCDE. I installed it on Fedora some time ago and it showed up in my graphical login manager as a graphical session I could select... but it wouldn't load. My guess is that I was still missing some package needed to make it work. I do have about a dozen DEs and WMs installed which can sometime lead to a sub-optimal configuration.
31 • CDE (by Scott R on 2022-01-10 13:36:55 GMT from United States)
I used cde on OpenVMS, Solaris, and Tru64 Unix
32 • CDE (by Tim on 2022-01-10 13:42:08 GMT from United States)
I used UNIX long before CDE, but I used CDE for a little more than a decade on HP-UX and Solaris systems. I have never tried it on Linux, but sometimes for kicks, I run twm, which reminds me of CDE.
33 • CDE (by kc1di on 2022-01-10 14:14:17 GMT from United States)
Yep, Showing my age used it in the 90's. On HP-Ux and Solaris If I remember right there was one Linux Distro that tried it But don't remember which one.
34 • CDE (by kc1di on 2022-01-10 14:40:58 GMT from United States)
I now remember it was RedHat V? In 1997 or so.
35 • CDE and the dinosaurs (by Sondar on 2022-01-10 15:09:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
Oh no! Not another round of bragging rights by the youngster from the '90s. Think Pegasus & Autocode, Colossus & Atlas, Commodore64 and Amstrad128 closely followed by Amstrad 128 with disks and the advent of the turtle. Been there, done that. Have we removed all the Official Secrets about Tutte & Flowers amazing innovations yet?! Will the Nobel Committee change their rules and give the brilliant pair from Bletchley Park posthumous medals....
36 • what's old remains old (by Tad Strange on 2022-01-10 15:44:28 GMT from Canada)
Can't say that CDE interests me beyond the curious screenshots.
The oldest UIs I've tried recently have been Trinity and "Win95" (Via TwisterOS).
I really see no advantage to going back to something like that. Same reason why I wouldn't want to go back in time to my first vehicle - the present iteration is simply superior.
37 • Twister OS (by Ultrix on 2022-01-10 16:52:38 GMT from Italy)
Twister OS is a backup created with gnome disks, it have a looong way to go before becaming a proper OS
38 • CDE (by Bobbie Sellers on 2022-01-10 19:34:15 GMT from United States)
I never used CDE. If the main panel could be slimmed down and moved to the top of the screen I might try it. The Amiga OS used the visual Metaphor of drawers for the folders and some additions to the system took the concept even further. Click on a drawer and open a Window to the Folder/Directory,
I use KDE and like to keep the display screen space open as far as possible on my laptop and on notebooks, one slim panel on top of display with a panel at the left side of the screen which curiously enough was how I ended my time with the Amiga OS.
CDE does sound interesting and the article is worthwhile. Too bad it has been out of the limelight so long.
bliss - brought to you by the power and ease of PCLinuxOS and a minor case of hypergraphia
39 • CDR (by John on 2022-01-10 20:10:47 GMT from Canada)
I never used CDE but it interests me a lot. I remember early on people using Linux was trying to get Motif and CDE to be released in a compatible license. When they did, it was too late. I sometimes wonder what things would be like of CDR/Motif was released in 1995 when people were asking for it.
@22, lesstiff we created as a clone/work-like of Motif when people gave up "begging" for a license change by OSF.
40 • CDE & Dolphin (by cor on 2022-01-10 22:48:23 GMT from United States)
CDE? Why is this being discussed, at all? I used it very briefly. It isn't appealing considering all I can accomplish with Plasma. I have been using Dolphin since it became the default file manager for KDE. It was easy enough to bypass the ridiculous sudo privilege restrictions placed on Dolphin in the past. But everything is working again since Plasma 5.18 was released. Dolphin is customizable, I recommend making it the file manager you want. That's what I did and it serves me well.
41 • CDE (by Kanwar on 2022-01-11 05:52:35 GMT from Australia)
That "Style Manager" from CDE is still seriously cooler than any other contemporary desktop out there, including MacOS!
42 • CDE (by penguinx86 on 2022-01-11 11:07:40 GMT from United States)
I answered NO to the poll. But then I looked at the screenshot and realized I have used CDE, back in the Pre-Y2k UNIX days. Isn't CDE based on X11? It probably won't work well with Wayland.
43 • Not Only, CDE, to revive old excellent Sofware like... (by Andre Gompel on 2022-01-11 16:44:20 GMT from Poland)
As an old timer, I have used CDE, on both Sun & SGI Indigo workstations. It may be there (not so sure due to the maturity of KDE, MATE, and other Desktops) a value. --- But there are some old sofware, which were excellent like:
* TECO editor (I used it on PDP8, PDP11, VAX), I used it extensively, the best and most editor I ever used, I could not (On Fedora) get to to work. A good package, with documentation would still be a great value. The old OS8 manual, has OK user manual there.
* VMS, (DEC) a very clean, simple and elegant Operating System, I used it on VAX and micro-VAX. The DEC shell (common to several DEC computers and OS'es) , was very good, very clean, very consistent. Porting at least this shell, would nicely complement the BASH (and like) Linux Shells.
* PAL11 and similar DEC's macro assemblers: I used extensively GCC, largely on ARM, and liked it. Still a version of PAL11 (macro-assembler) for at least the ARM and RISC-V architectures, would be a great asset, in my view, no disrespect to RMS's GCC.
* COBOL language: old venerable COBOL still has a feature that I think is sorely missing in more modern high level languages (HLL), it is the concept and features of KIF or Key Indexed Files (a.k.a Sequentially Indexed Files), which greatly simplify files records access in an intelligent, elegant, and space efficient way. I used extensively KIF files, on a large project, and found it a precious asset. IBM has a linux library for COBOL files, I don't know if it is really Open Source, that IBM until it purchased REDHAT never endorsed with enthusiasm (Ah the IBM and more corporate culture of secrecy !)
* DEC FMS, a friend (Henry M.) and great S/W engineer worked at DEC, and told me DEC's FMS (or "Forms Management System" was a superb, masterpiece of S/W, I have never used it though.
**** MORE : Please add to this list, and perhaps Distrowatch's Ladislas, may have a special page for these old superb software's worth reviving ! (first as they wer, then possibly enhanced, like VIM is old VI enhanced etc... ****
A.G
44 • Interfaces (by mmphosis on 2022-01-11 20:00:59 GMT from Canada)
Mac Applications were opened from the Finder, in earlier Systems via single tasking, and later via collaborative multi-tasking. They were self contained binary executables with all the resources embedded in the resource fork of the file: Similar to flatpak, snap. There were also smaller Desk Accessory items that could be launched from the Apple menu similar to Terminate-and-stay-resident programs in MS-DOS. The term global menu, I had not heard of until I started using Linux. It is good to try different interfaces, Linux certainly allows the opportunity to try many different ways. It was interesting to read how the author revived CDE.
45 • thoughts on the Common Desktop Environment (by Simon Plaistowe on 2022-01-11 20:18:25 GMT from New Zealand)
Looks innovative for it's time and interesting from a historical perspective, but I've never used it and unlikely to feel motivated to do so. I'd rather just use a modern DE to get stuff done efficiently. I'm most familiar with Cinnamon & XFCE since I use them daily. Familiarity helps, I suppose if you were entirely familiar with CDE then you'd get a lot of stuff done efficiently with it. But why bother if it doesn't do anything the modern DEs can do?
46 • @21 (by Simon on 2022-01-11 20:39:49 GMT from New Zealand)
Thank you, your examples nicely illustrate my point. Those are all tasks that drooling idiots perform every day. Rather than dismissing "geeky pursuits" on the grounds that they require time and effort to learn, maybe notice that the Internet doesn't run on "choosing videos from a web page" and "using messaging apps": those kinds of activities, that young children do every day, run on the software produced and maintained by the "geeky pursuits" you seem to hold in contempt as a result of their requiring effort to learn. It was claimed that "the old UNIX CLI" is "very far behind", as if like the CDE it's been superseded by something better. It hasn't: shells are still the preferred interface for many "geeky pursuits".
They're also more efficient at many everyday tasks. A single quick shell instruction can find all of the photos on a disk with a specific name in them, shrink them for emailing and add them to an archive ready to send. It's not just that GUI tools are slower and clumsier at that kind of thing, it's also that their use doesn't encourage efficiency: someone used to pointing and clicking on things is likely to keep doing it when it's no longer efficient (e.g. to manually look for and drag across five different files with "conference" in their name, rather than just mv *conference* as a shell user does automatically and much more efficiently). Shells are great at what they do.
You missed the point of the example with traditional high performance cars. Like shells and the CDE GUI, there are very old Ferraris and Lamborghinis that are "behind" modern electric cars chronologically (and in terms of complexity, too)...but they would leave the modern cars in their dust on the track. Of course not everyone wants to go fast, and you're right, not everyone wants to learn "geeky pursuits". This is Distrowatch: not many of the drooling idiots who can't cope with geeky pursuits are going to be here reading these posts...they'll have better things to do with their precious video browsing and messaging time, than learning Linux. For those of us who aren't afraid of learning, shells remain useful...they have not been made redundant by GUI desktops.
47 • CDE (@45) (by Simon on 2022-01-11 20:52:35 GMT from New Zealand)
Exactly. CDE was the first UNIX GUI I ever used, on Solaris back in the 90s. You may be right that if it had also been my first GUI, period, perhaps I'd have liked it more just as a result of familiarity...but I had already given the Windows and Mac desktops of the day a spin, and found them more intuitive and pleasant to use. I used CDE for several years and did not enjoy it. I wouldn't recommend CDE to anyone except, as you say, people who are already fond of it: modern DEs are better.
48 • There is no CLI vs GUI just different tools for different jobs (by mmphosis on 2022-01-11 22:45:03 GMT from Canada)
I switch and integrate between a variety of interfaces, commands and automated scripts. It’s is easy to dismiss and miss the power available.
For example:
Type open . to open the $PWD in a file browser, click and choose with shift and ctrl/command key modifiers what would be super awkward from the command line, and drag to the command line to run a complex script with the selected files.
49 • CDE and also XFCE (by DistroWitch on 2022-01-11 22:46:48 GMT from United States)
First, to answer Jesse's question, yes, I used CDE on Sun boxes and on the earliest versions of Red Hat Linux I used back in the 90s. That would be RH 3 and 4. Back in the day it was brilliant. Yes, it was proprietary but the Linux desktop was in its infancy and honestly, not very good. In RH 4 and 5.x the default desktop was FVWM2.
XFCE started life as a free CDE look-alike. You can still configure it that way if you want with the current version.
50 • Bring back the TRS-80 on a single chip. (by nooneatall on 2022-01-11 23:16:41 GMT from United States)
Gosh, that'd be handy for simple control systems. -- No, a "Pi" isn't near so convenient for my ideas as ROM BASIC interpreter. -- That's just nostalgic musing (sort of topic this week due to CDE brought up) after I needed a subject line. Excuse.
@44: "It was interesting to read how the author revived CDE."
"Revived"? Did you read all? He never got left mouse click working! Yet he says: "I still like the concept of CDE even if it wasn't working well for me." -- That seems to mark the gulf between Linux fans and those who want to use for higher purposes without first "fixing" the basic system.
@46: "A single quick shell instruction can find all of the photos n a disk with a specific name in them,"
Experts who've put in the necessary years think the Linux shell is simple. You cheat by having "name" text that can be found by simple filtering, but that was likely manual work, far easier in a GUI. Suppose you had to pick out specific images with, uh, TRS-80 computers: what help is your command-line fu then? -- It's easy to contrive examples to "prove" any position, is the point.
But here's a question for everyone: Are the ancient Linux / Unix shells and "tools" the very best that you can imagine? [If yes, then, So we're at the end of progress in computering? If no, then where are the new better shells?]
51 • used on SunOS originally (by Niall on 2022-01-11 23:58:28 GMT from Ireland)
Used CDE on SunOS/Solaris and chose XFCE on Linux because it was originally very similar.
52 • @48, there's no cli vs gui (by Wally on 2022-01-12 00:20:39 GMT from Australia)
"Type open . to open the $PWD in a file browser, click and choose with shift and ctrl/command key modifiers what would be super awkward from the command line, and drag to the command line to run a complex script with the selected files."
Huh?
53 • Aha (by mmphosis on 2022-01-12 03:14:17 GMT from Canada)
Somewhere from .bashrc / .profile that calls ~/.bash_aliases, I have this excerpt of code that creates an "open" function ...
### open ###
[ -x /usr/bin/xdg-open ] && function open() { local file; for file in "$@"; do /usr/bin/xdg-open "$file"; done ; }
If I type "open ." from the Terminal, it opens a new thunar window showing the folder contents. The folder/directory it shows is the Path to the Working Directory (PWD) that I am in, in the Terminal.
From thunar, the file browser that came with the Linux distro I am using, I can pick and choose multiple files and folders. Thunar respects the Shift and Control keys. I have a vintage Apple keyboard, so my "Control" key is the "Command" key. Now I can click, shift click down the list to select many files all at once, and then Control click to deselect (or select) files and folders that I want (or don't want) selected. On my iPhone, it seems that I have to go through items one at a time which is extremely tedious. Or from the command line, I would have a lot of typing to do, and the file names don't fit some nice search pattern. Thunar is the best tool for this particular example.
Back in the Terminal, I can type "backup2mydrive " which is the complicated script I want to run. I drag the files and folder that I just selected from thunar to the Terminal window, and voila all the names are typed in automatically.
That's just one example. There's lots of power like embedding a command in a GUI program launcher like Xfce.
54 • CDE (by jol25 on 2022-01-12 15:47:09 GMT from France)
Used CDE in 1990-2000 years, first with DEC during my studies, then with AIX and Solaris for work (and a bit of HP) aside IRIX with its own windows manager, much better. Frankly no regret for this... Users were not used to it, and it was not friendly. Administrators used terminal instead of GUI, and were more than happy to do so.
55 • CDE (by CS on 2022-01-12 17:25:13 GMT from United States)
What a time capsule. On a SparkStation I would ditch CDE in a hurry in favor of fvwm. On Trusted Solaris you were pretty much stuck with CDE, good luck trying to get another window manager to even function, that's the only place I ever really used it.
I'd rather use CDE than Gnome 3 but that's probably it.
56 • Benefits of CDE (by Friar Tux on 2022-01-12 17:30:32 GMT from Canada)
One of the things I forgot to mention in my earlier comments (8 & 9) was what I appreciated about CDE. The "drawers". I lovered the drawers. I have looked for something similar in other OSes and DEs. I DID find a third party program in Windows 98 that I liked better. Can't remember the name but it let you put tabs at the top of the desktop screen. Each tab acted as a pull-down drawer, in which, you could put anything you wanted. I had quite a few, one of which, was my Office drawer that held my word processor, text editor, note taker, etc.. I haven't found anything like it in Linux, yet.
57 • CDE - so that's what its name is (by eco2geek on 2022-01-12 19:40:50 GMT from United States)
I can't say I "used" CDE. I used an application that ran on a workstation running CDE. The IT people installed two workstations for us to use at work in the mid-90's. A map application ran on each workstation (I believe they were HP's). Unfortunately the map application went down pretty often, and when it went down, the CDE desktop was what you saw. I didn't know its name was "CDE" at the time. It's interesting, but somehow not surprising, that it's still around.
58 • That reminds me (by mxgogo on 2022-01-17 01:11:18 GMT from South Africa)
Pre-2000 I happily used OS/2 Warp on my development-and-admin PC (was mainly writing for DOS and Windows before Microsoft strangled OS/2 with win32s.) Loading it from 32 stiffies was ... memorable, though.
Seeing the upcoming implications of 64-bit hardware and suddenly very expensive system software as OS/2 was privatised as eComstation (where's Bob StJohn these days?) I was anxiously scanning the Linux theatre around 2000 for something I might package with my specialist software for a certain profession, but Linux-for-desktop was nowhere near mature enough to expose my newbie clients and their typist-secretaries to. For my own part, I disliked all (!) the desktops that I saw offered on Linux distros.
Imagine my surprise on seeing the pic in Jesse's CDE review. Albeit not exactly what I remember, it certainly reminded me of the OS/2 desktop that I had become very comfortable with and was reluctant to transition from. Had to spend a couple of years with Windows before Lubuntu started checking some boxes.
Methinks I'll make a turn past the CDE sites in a while, time's a bit tight right now, see if I can run it as an alternative to xfce. I tend to use several virtual desktops in preference to several windows open on one desktop, so (if the left-click gets sorted) it might be quite feasible.
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• Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
• Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
• Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
• Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
• Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
• Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
• Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
• Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
• Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
• Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
• Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
• Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
• Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
• Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
• Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
• Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
• Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
• Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
• Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
• Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
• Full list of all issues |
Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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Random Distribution |
SprezzOS
SprezzOS was a Debian-based Linux distribution for people who enjoy experimentation, change and a deep understanding of their tools. SprezzOS was perfectly suitable as a first Linux or a quick VM install or the day-to-day workstation of a thirty-something hacker who just wants things to work, but from all of them it will require a willingness to reason out the choices they make, and perhaps recover from bad -- or catastrophic -- decisions.
Status: Discontinued
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TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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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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