 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 952, 24 January 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 4th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The last issue of DistroWatch Weekly we ran in 2021 talked about an open, mobile platform called the PinePhone. This device ships with Manjaro Linux as the default operating system and uses KDE's Plasma Mobile user interface. It is quite easy to experiment with alternative open source operating systems on the PinePhone and this week we take the device for another spin, this time running the UBports operating system. Read on to learn how UBports compares to the platform's default Manjaro operating system. Have you tried UBports, on any phone? Let us know what you think about this GNU/Linux mobile distribution in this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section we talk about Linux Mint releasing updated media with more modern hardware support while Red Hat announces support for live kernel patching through a web interface. We also report on SUSE offering to provide commercial support for multiple distributions while Ubuntu 21.04 reaches the end of its supported life. Plus we talk about EuroLinux publishing the distribution's first install media for the aarch64 architecture. Then we share some basic security tips that should be fairly easy to implement while offering effective layers of protection. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (14MB) and MP3 (10MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
UBports on the PinePhone
At the end of 2021 I posted a review about the PinePhone and what it was like running the device's default operating system: Manjaro Linux featuring the Plasma Mobile interface. While I've had decent experiences with Plasma Mobile in the past, the combination of Manjaro, the PinePhone, and this interface left a lot to be desired. It was slow, it was unstable, and there were issues with the battery charge indicator. To make matters worse, the default applications were not polished or well named. It was a rough experience and, though I can see where there is hope for Manjaro on the PinePhone, I was eager to try something different.
In the past I have had mostly good experiences with the UBports distribution. UBports is a community project which has continued Canonical's Ubuntu Touch operating system for smart phones and tablets. Since I've run UBports on devices which didn't have any more memory or processing power than the PinePhone, I was optimistic about trying out the PinePhone with this alternative distribution.
Getting started
Running alternative operating systems on the PinePhone is unusually easy. Because the PinePhone features open hardware, all we need to do to install a different operating system is flash the image of another mobile distribution to a microSD card and place the card in the proper slot above the PinePhone's battery. The next time the phone boots, it'll load the new operating system.
When booting the new operating system the phone briefly displays the PINE64 logo, followed by the new operating system's splash screen. UBports starts its graphical environment and then asks us to pick our preferred language from a list. The start-up wizard then offers to connect us to a wireless network and asks us to pick our time zone by searching for nearby cities. The last screen of the welcome process asks if we'd like to make up a password, a passcode (numbers only), or not bother locking the device.
Early impressions
When the UBports interface appears it has a layout not unlike Ubuntu's current GNOME style. A status bar is placed at the top. Pulling down this status bar presents us with a collection of settings modules we can flip through like a series of pages. These modules typically include shortcuts to more complete settings options. Over to the left is a vertical panel that acts like a desktop dock. The dock holds the icons of commonly used applications we can tap to open. Once an app is open we can switch to it using this dock.
The UBports app tray
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The first time we run the operating system the interface will display some tutorial tips. For instance a pop-up tells us we can swipe from the left side of the screen to open a full screen of application launchers. We can also access this complete app listing by pressing the Ubuntu button at the bottom of the dock. We're also told how to access the status bar at the top. Finally, we're told we can access a list of open applications and preview their contents by swiping from the right side of the screen.
The use of the application drawer is relatively new and feels more in line with how Android and Plasma Mobile work. In the past UBports used a series of widgets, called scopes, which provided access to commonly used information and features. These scopes included a widget for browsing and launching applications. While that was a useful feature, this approach feels more likely to be familiar to people who use other mobile devices and desktop environments.
The UBports interface is much more responsive than Plasma Mobile was on this device. The interface is usually quick to respond and most actions are a second or two faster on UBports than on Plasma Mobile. Applications are still a little slow to load, compared to iOS or Android on other devices I've used, but they open faster than on Manjaro.
The collection of default applications are named more clearly too. While Plasma Mobile included applications named things like Buho, Kongress, and Spacebar the UBports system ships with Calendar, Notes, and Messaging. This makes it easier to pick out which applications we want to use.
At first I couldn't find a way to take screenshots. In the past I've been able to use the Volume Up and Volume Down buttons, pressed at the same time, to take images of the UBports interface. This doesn't work on the PinePhone. I asked around and someone told me that I could press and hold the Power button on the side of the phone and then select Screenshot in the menu that pops-up. This didn't work and I discovered it's because I was running the Stable branch of UBports. Upgrading to a development release installs the screenshot option in the Power menu.
Settings and updates
I particularly like the UBports approach to settings. Both the status bar modules, which we can flip through quickly, and the full featured Settings app are fast, smooth, and feel polished. Everything feels unusually clear and straight forward. I much prefer the simple, clean approach to UBports settings compared to the cluttered style of iOS or Android.
The UBports settings panel
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When I was using the PinePhone with Manjaro the battery indicator didn't work, seemingly jumping up and down, regardless of whether the phone was plugged in. With UBports the battery indicator works and we can access graphs to show how quickly the battery is charging or draining.
It was easy to get connected to local wireless networks and, at first, the connection seemed to be stable. After a while though I found the PinePhone would sometimes drop its wi-fi connection after it had been asleep for a minute or more. It's possible to increase the delay before the phone goes to sleep, but I have not found a way to keep it from shutting down the wi-fi connection. This makes installing updates harder. When the phone wakes it does not always automatically reconnect, requiring the user to drop the connection and re-select the local network. This dropped connection did not always happen, but it popped up enough to be frustrating.
While I was using the settings panel I noticed there were five application updates waiting to be installed. These downloaded without any problems. When I switched release channels from Stable to Release Candidate I was prompted to download and install a new system image. This failed the first time because the PinePhone went to sleep and dropped its wi-fi connection. The second time around I kept the phone active and it completed the update flawlessly.
Included software and the interface
When I was running Manjaro on the PinePhone I mentioned the default web browser, Angelfish, was slow and tended to flicker. Switching to an alternative browser helped, but the experience was still sluggish. UBports includes the Morph browser and, while it's not going to win any speed contests, it is a bit faster and smoother than Angelfish.
The Morph web browser running on UBports
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UBports uses a light theme by default. Some applications can adjust their theme between dark and light, independently of the rest of the system. Should we wish to switch to another theme entirely, we can download alternative themes from the software centre. I'll talk more about the software centre in a moment.
One thing I appreciate about UBports is it has a consistent interface. When using an application, settings are typically found at the top of the display. To start something new (whether it's making a new appointment in the calendar, a new conversation in the messaging app, or a new tab in the browser) the action is always performed by swiping up from the bottom of the screen. This pulls up a new tab, page, or appointment to be used. I found this to be in pleasant contrast to the multiple menus with no clear organization often found in the Plasma Mobile ecosystem.
Browsing additional applications in OpenStore
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UBports has a camera app which mostly works. It can view and take pictures with the rear-facing camera. I tried to turn the camera view to face forward (toward the user) and it was unable to do so. Pressing the rotate button caused the camera app to flicker and then return to the rear-facing view. This is a feature which worked on Manjaro, but an area where UBports was unable to deliver.
A fresh install of UBports uses about 460MB of memory at the home screen and around 2GB of disk space. This puts the distribution is the mid-weight range compared to most desktop Linux distributions.
A software centre called OpenStore
UBports uses a software centre called OpenStore. The software centre has a home screen which shows a list of featured software. We can then browse categories of apps or search for items using a name or description. I found OpenStore to be pleasantly uneventful. It looks and acts a lot like other mobile stores like F-Droid, Google Play, and the iOS store. Applications in OpenStore provide full screen descriptions, screenshots, and can be installed by tapping a button.
Installing a Signal client
(full image size: 301kB, resolution: 720x1440 pixels)
For the more adventurous it is possible to install software from a traditional Linux software repository using the APT command line tools in the provided terminal. This gives us access to a wide range of Deb packages. Before we use APT we need to remount the root filesystem from the terminal with read-write access because, by default, the UBports filesystem is read-only. This can be accomplished by running the command "sudo mount -o remount,rw /" from the terminal.
I was curious to see if Waydroid was available on UBports in the hopes it would allow me to run Android applications. I couldn't find Waydroid in OpenStore, but I did dig up instructions for installing the Waydroid compatibility package. The package installed properly, but failed in the initialization stage. Running "waydroid init" or "sudo waydroid init" failed due to missing dependencies.
This is unfortunate because, apart from the network connection dropping occasionally, I felt the one weak point in the UBports experience was the limited app ecosystem. There are a lot of useful applications included in OpenStore, but many popular and mainstream applications are not available.
As a phone
I tried using the PinePhone running UBports with a SIM card. The operating system did not detect the presence of the SIM card at all. Rebooting into the Manjaro platform showed the device could detect the SIM, so the problem appears to be limited to UBports. Attempting to send texts or make calls fail due to the inability to use the SIM card.
I found this interesting because while UBports failed to work as a phone it failed differently than Manjaro did. Manjaro could detect the SIM and report network connectivity, just not make calls or send texts. UBports using the same SIM card on the same network does not detect the SIM card at all. This does not quite match the list of supported features on the UBports website which makes me think the Release Candidate I was using may be out of date.
Conclusions
I was happy to find that, apart from a few minor issues, my second trial with the PinePhone was a breath of fresh air. UBports proved to be faster, easier to navigate, and more reliable compared to my previous experience. The whole operating system feels more polished, faster, and better organized. While there were some issues with hardware (the wi-fi connection dropping and the front-facing camera not working), the interface, its consistency, and its performance were very much appreciated.
I feel one of the few weak links in the UBports experience is the lack of mainstream applications. Waydroid is helping to fill in the gaps on some hardware, but it looks like Waydroid doesn't run reliably on the PinePhone with UBports yet. Hopefully that will change in the coming year.
At this moment, I don't feel like the PinePhone running UBports is quite ready for use as a daily driver, but it has been fun to tinker with and try as a secondary device. I'm hopefully that within a year this combination will be ready to be used as my primary device.
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Visitor supplied rating
UBports has a visitor supplied average rating of: 7.6/10 from 8 review(s).
Have you used UBports? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Mint releases install media with refreshed hardware support, Red Hat offers live kernel patching through Web Console, SUSE offers support for multiple distributions, Ubuntu 21.04 reaches end of life, EuroLinux supports aarch64
The Linux Mint team have announced the availability of a special build of Linux Mint 20.3 which features more up to date hardware support. "This is a quick announcement to let you know an 'Edge' ISO image is now available for Linux Mint 20.3. This image is made for people whose hardware is too new to boot the 5.4 LTS kernel included in Linux Mint 20.3. It ships with kernel 5.13.0-25 instead." The Edge flavour of Linux Mint can be downloaded through the project's user guide documentation.
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Live kernel patching is a process in which the kernel is updated in memory while it is still running. This allows system administrators to perform security updates without rebooting the computer. It is a process intended to allow systems to be secured without changing their maintenance cycle. Red Hat is adjusting its live patching process and making it possible to patch Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems through the web portal. "With the increased availability of live kernel patches, we have also included functionality to make this process even easier! While today, Live Kernel Patches are easily installed via the command line, in the latest release there is support for this same operation through the web console! This new capability brings greater visibility and accessibility to live kernel patching by placing this information right into the same tool you use to administrate your RHEL systems today, the Web Console."
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SUSE has announced a new offering called SUSE Liberty. The new product is a support option which not only provides enterprise support for SUSE Linux Enterprise, but also for other Linux platforms. "SUSE Liberty Linux is a new technology and support offering that provides customers a unified support experience for managing their heterogeneous IT environments. With SUSE Liberty Linux, you get trusted support with optional proven management tools that are optimized for mixed Linux environments, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, and as you would expect openSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server." This is an interesting move as most companies only support their own distribution while SUSE is planning to support a range of products, including those created by their competition.
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Brian Murray has published an announcement reminding people who run Ubuntu (or one of its community editions) that Ubuntu 21.04 is no longer being supported. "This is a follow-up to the End of Life warning sent earlier this month to confirm that as of January 20, 2022, Ubuntu 21.04 is no longer supported. No more package updates will be accepted to 21.04, and it will be archived to old-releases.ubuntu.com in the coming weeks." A link to upgrade instructions was provided.
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The EuroLinux team have published the distribution's first ARM64 (aarch64) install media. EuroLinux 8.5 now includes support for both x86_64 and aarch64 CPU architectures. "We start the new year 2022 with the release of the General Availability (GA) version of EuroLinux 8.5 for ARM64 (aarch64) architecture. For the EuroLinux community and our customers, this is another milestone in the wide adoption of this architecture. It is also essential in the further development of our manufacturing processes." The announcement goes on to offer further details.
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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) |
Basic and practical security tips
Keeping-security-simple asks: Do you have any basic, yet useful, security tips for someone starting out with Linux? I'd like to lock down my system, but don't have a lot of experience.
DistroWatch answers: Something to consider when you're talking about computer security is this: The Internet is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. There are literally billions of people connected through the Internet and there are billions of devices - phones, laptops, and servers - all linked together through it. This means there are a lot of potential threats lurking out there, but the vast size of the Internet also works in our favour.
How is having a giant network of potentially malicious people and computers useful to us when we're planning our security? Well, despite what movies and some paranoid people on technology forums would have you believe, most of the time people who are looking to break into computers are not targeting individuals. Nor are they super-smart, wizard-like masters of technology who are going to stop at nothing to hack into your computer. Most modern malicious actors who are interested in breaking into computer systems are searching for easy targets, what we might call "low-hanging fruit".
The Internet is massive and mostly populated by people without much technology experience and who don't take steps to secure their computers. Most malicious attackers want to work economically. In other words, they want to get access to the most amount of computers they can for the least amount of effort. This is why most network attacks take really simple approaches to gaining access to insecure computers.
People who monitor network traffic for potential threats will typically notice a common pattern: most attacks are from automated bots which will attempt to locate common network services on default ports and then try to guess a few common exploits or username/password combinations before moving on. Very few attacks will attempt more than the bare minimum of effort because, thanks to the vastness of the Internet, the most efficient way to gain access to a lot of computers is to attack as many as possible using quick, simple methods. It's more effective for most attackers to try a default username/password combination like "pi/password123" on a billion targets in a day than it is to try more sophisticated attacks on a million targets in that same day. A recent report from Microsoft shows that most password attacks on their servers use passwords that are seven characters or fewer.
This is good news for us because it means our computers don't need to be super secure with advanced hardening techniques in order to be safe from most attacks. We just need to make our systems more secure than the low-hanging fruit of the Internet. We can do this with a handful of fairly easy steps.
My first bit of advice is to password protect your computer accounts. This is helpful both as a protection against people logging in remotely as you and it keeps people with casual physical access from taking over your machine. Try to avoid using common usernames and passwords. People often set up usernames like "admin", "ubuntu", "pi", "jsmith", and "owner". You're better off with something less generic such as "susan", "mrzippy", or "justsomeguy". For passwords try to avoid using common terms like "password", "secret1", or "12345". Your password doesn't need to be overly complex or unique, but it can be helpful to come up with a simple phrase. Something like "IeatPeanuts4U!", "SheRidesHorses2021", or "StampCollectingIsFun?" The phrase should be fairly easy to remember while incorporating some extra numbers or characters.
It's a good idea to run security updates regularly. It doesn't need to be every hour, but try to do it at least once a week. A lot of exploits in the wild use security flaws which are weeks or even months old. Keeping your machine up to date once a day, or even once a week, using your distribution's package manager will go a long way toward keeping you out of reach of common attacks.
One tip which frequently gets overlooked is to only run software from trusted sources. Don't run software from third-party repositories or untrusted sources. These have not been vetted by your distribution's developers. Also, don't run scripts or commands you don't understand. Often times websites will share tips that involve changing system settings or downloading scripts to run. Avoid doing this unless you really know what the command does. If you're unsure, look up the command using your system's manual pages or do a web search for the command being recommended.
Encrypt your hard drive or at least your home directory. Most modern Linux distributions have a checkbox for this in the system installer. Encrypting your drive will not only help keep your data private from other people who have physical access to your computer, it also makes it harder for people to install software or change your administrative password.
Try to run less common applications. Attackers will typically target the most popular software in order to reach a wide audience. It's more likely someone will try to exploit uTorrent than KTorrent, more likely someone will target the Chrome browser than Epiphany. More attackers try to exploit systems running Microsoft Office than LibreOffice. By just using slightly less popular application alternatives you can avoid a lot of common exploits. Lots of hackers are targeting iPhones, almost no one is targeting UBports. Almost every web browser exploit is aiming at Chrome users on Windows, but almost none target Falkon on GhostBSD.
Whenever possible try to avoid running network services on your computer. Services like Samba shares, secure shell, e-mail server, and web hosts expose your system to remote attacks. The fewer network services you are running the fewer holes there are for an attacker to crawl through. If you must run network services, such as a file sharing service, make sure there is a firewall between your computer and the Internet. This could be a firewall supplied by a router, but I also recommend having a local firewall on your computer, especially if it's a laptop you take to other locations.
One trick I find very useful is to use the "limit" function of the ufw firewall utility. The "limit" option will allow a few connections to a local network service, but will block frequent attempts. This usually allows legitimate users who are allowed to talk to your computer to access it while blocking most attempts by attackers to guess your login credentials. For instance, the following command prevents more than six connection attempts to the OpenSSH service in 30 seconds, making automated password attempts mostly ineffective:
ufw limit 22/tcp
Something else you can do when you need to run network services is run them on ports other than the defaults. Probably around 90% of attempts to guess OpenSSH passwords happen on the default network port 22. Most web server exploits happen on ports 80, 8080, and 443. Editing the configuration of these services to use alternative ports means the majority of attackers won't even see that you're running a service let alone attack it.
Some of these tips may seem overly simplistic or easy for attackers to overcome. Which is true, these are relatively straight forward security measures and most of them would be easy for an attacker to work around. The nice thing is that most attackers are looking to exploit the lowest common denominator, the easiest targets. The majority of people take no security precautions - they do use simple passwords, download third-party software, and don't stay on top of security updates. The vastness of the Internet allows attackers to take over thousands of machines by just going after these easy targets so they don't usually put in additional work. To put it another way, you don't need to be the fastest gazelle on the savanna, you just need to not be the slowest because that's who the lions are chasing - the slowest gazelle.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
SystemRescue 9.00
François Dupoux has released a brand-new update to SystemRescue, a specialist, Arch-based Linux distribution that ships with a comprehensive system rescue toolkit for administrating and repairing a system and rescuing data. This version updates the Linux kernel to the latest long-term supported kernel, version 5.15.14. From the changelog: "Updated the Linux kernel to the long-term supported Linux kernel 5.15.14; the new kernel brings the ntfs3 module which provides better NTFS support; the system comes with a copy of the website as an offline manual; added sysrescue-customize script to create custom ISO images; initial support for configuring the system with YAML files; support for configuring autorun with the new YAML configuration files; replaced the Mesa package with a minimal alternative to save 52MB; converted the Bash system initialisation script to Python; removed the'xf86-video-qxl' X.Org driver as it is currently not stable; bring back accidently removed inetutils packate (telnet, ftp, hostname); added packages: aq, libisoburn, patch, python-llfuse, python-yaml, rdiff-backup."
Parted Magic 2022_01_18
Parted Magic is a small live CD/USB/PXE with its elemental purpose being to partition hard drives. The project has published a new update which addresses issues with Secure Erase functionality. The release announcement on the project's news page reads: "This version of Parted Magic updates to Linux 5.16.1 and fixes a few minor problems with the Secure Erase and NVME Secure Erase programs. Manufacturers are starting to get a bit carried away with the length of names given to drives. The names are now limited to 15 characters, so the Secure Erase GUI should now fit well on everybody's screen. If there is still any doubt to what drive is what, do a mouse over and the entire name will be shown in the tool tip. We are using the bleeding edge NVIDIA 510.39.01 driver because it's the only driver that will compile with the 5.16.1 kernel."
deepin 20.4
Version 20.4 of deepin, a desktop Linux distribution based on the latest stable Debian release and featuring the Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE), has been released. This version updates the stable Linux kernel to the 5.15 branch and provides various other usability improvements: "In deepin 20.4, the kernels are updated for better compatibility - the LTS kernel is upgraded to version 5.10.83 and the stable kernel is upgraded to version 5.15.6, system vulnerabilities are fixed for enhanced security, and lots of functions are developed and optimized to solve issues from users and to improve user experience. In this release, the 'Privacy Policy' in the system installer is updated and the logic for creating partitions is optimized - if there is an existing EFI partition, there is no need to create the EFI partition again. Based on user feedback, the Chromium browser is upgraded - tab groups and collections are added and quick tab search and share are supported, so that tab management can become more convenient and diversified. A new monitoring plugin, which detects the CPU and memory usage, is added to System Monitor." Read the detailed release announcement, in Chinese or in English, for further information.
ArchLabs Linux 2022.01.18
The ArchLabs team has announced the release of ArchLabs Linux 2022.01.18, the latest version of the project's minimalist, Arch-based distribution designed for users who prefer to customise and fine-tune their system and software selection during installation. The new version ads the dk and Sway window managers to the list of available options: "Welcome to 2022, along with the arrival of the new year, there is a new ArchLabs release. This is one of the more exciting releases we have put out in quite some time because with the new additions we also have three new team members to join. Release notes: ArchLabs release 2022.01.18 is available for download; the addition of dk and Sway window managers; tweak and tidy up of Xfce session; new default wallpaper; updated the ArchLabs repository; updated the Rofi theme; ArchLabs AUR helper BAPH has had an update - version 1.5 brings a new 'check update' flag and other minor improvements." Visit the distribution's home page to read the full release announcement and to see the "what's new" video; the release notes are available on the project's GitHub page.
Linuxfx 11.1.1103
Rafael Rachid has announced the release of Linuxfx 11.1.1103, an updated build of the project's Ubuntu-based Linux distribution with a KDE Plasma desktop themed to resemble either the Windows 10 or the Windows 11 user interface. This version is based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, it includes support for running Android apps and games, and it also integrates many popular Microsoft applications, such as Edge and PowerShell: "It is with great pleasure that we announce the release of Linuxfx version 11.1.1103. This update ads several new features to the operating system. The system kernel has been updated to version 5.13, bringing better support for more modern hardware. System tools gained new translations - French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, US English and Portuguese are now supported on WxDesktop. Android support has been improved - now in addition to supporting OpenGL, we also offer support for Vulkan (experimental). Finally, all system packages have been updated, including WxDesktop and OnlyOffice. The image has been scaled down to fit on a DVD." Visit the distribution's news page to read the full release announcement.
Linuxfx 11.1.1103 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 2.2MB, 2560x1600 pixels)
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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: 2,674
- Total data uploaded: 41.5TB
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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) |
What do you think about UBports?
In this week's Feature Story we talked about UBports running on the open platform PinePhone. While UBports offers a smaller collection of applications than mainstream devices running iOS or Android, the platform does offer several useful features and a pleasantly consistent user interface. What do you think of UBports? Do you use it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on learning how to use the command line in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Your opinion on UBports?
| I have used it and like it: | 247 (19%) |
| I have used it and do not like it: | 34 (3%) |
| I have not used it and want to: | 481 (36%) |
| I have not used it and do not wish to: | 561 (42%) |
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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, 31 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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| Archives |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Issue 1032 (2023-08-14): MX Linux 23, positioning new windows on the desktop, Linux Containers adopts LXD fork, Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ form OpenELA |
| • Issue 1031 (2023-08-07): Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, preventing a file from being changed, Asahi Linux partners with Fedora, Linux Mint plans new releases |
| • Issue 1030 (2023-07-31): Solus 4.4, Linux Mint 21.2, Debian introduces RISC-V support, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 |
| • Issue 1029 (2023-07-24): Running Murena on the Fairphone 4, Flatpak vs Snap sandboxing technologies, Redox OS plans to borrow Linux drivers to expand hardware support, Debian updates Bookworm media |
| • Issue 1028 (2023-07-17): KDE Connect; Oracle, SUSE, and AlmaLinux repsond to Red Hat's source code policy change, KaOS issues media fix, Slackware turns 30; security and immutable distributions |
| • Issue 1027 (2023-07-10): Crystal Linux 2023-03-16, StartOS (embassyOS 0.3.4.2), changing options on a mounted filesystem, Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Fedora debates telemetry for desktop team |
| • Issue 1026 (2023-07-03): Kumander Linux 1.0, Red Hat changing its approach to sharing source code, TrueNAS offers SMB Multichannel, Zorin OS introduces upgrade utility |
| • Issue 1025 (2023-06-26): KaOS with Plasma 6, information which can leak from desktop environments, Red Hat closes door on sharing RHEL source code, SUSE introduces new security features |
| • Issue 1024 (2023-06-19): Debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Debian releases GNU/Hurd 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 nears its end of life, FreeBSD turns 30 |
| • Issue 1023 (2023-06-12): openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the differences between independent distributions, openSUSE lengthens Leap life, Murena offers new phone for North America |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Issue 993 (2022-11-07): Static Linux, working with just a kernel, Mint streamlines Flatpak management, updates coming to elementary OS |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Super Grub2 Disk
Super Grub2 Disk is a live CD that helps the user to boot into almost any operating system even if the system cannot boot into it by normal means. This allows a user to boot into an installed operating system if their GRUB installation has been overwritten, erased or otherwise corrupted. Super Grub2 Disk can detect installed operating systems and provide a boot menu which allows the user to boot into their desired operating system. Super Grub2 Disk is not an operating system itself, but a live boot loader which can be run from a CD or USB thumb drive.
Status: Active
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| More Tips & Tricks and Questions & Answers |
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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!
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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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