 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 953, 31 January 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 5th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
There are a number of different approaches to making a desktop operating system appealing to new users. One way is to offer something new and interesting, a new feature or effect that will attract people. Another approach is to offer something familiar in an effort to lower the barrier to adoption. This week we begin with a look at two projects: CalinixOS and HefftorLinux. Both of these distributions are based on Arch Linux and both strive to mimic the macOS user interface. The projects provide quite different experiences though and we talk about that in our Feature Story. In our News section we discuss Ubuntu MATE releasing custom images for the GPD Pocket 3 computer while UBports gets video chat working in the Morph browser. Plus we share details on a wide-spread vulnerability which affects most Linux distributions. Then, in our Questions and Answers column we talk about the performance of different package formats and why portable packages have a reputation for slower start-up times. Then we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wrap up this week by asking people about Linux certifications in our Opinion Poll. Do you have a job working with Linux systems which required certification? Let us know about it below. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (14MB) and MP3 (11MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
CalinixOS 2021.10.17
This week I decided to go exploring through the DistroWatch waiting list to see what new wonders I could find. One project which jumped out at me was CalinixOS. The CalinixOS distribution is based on Arch Linux and uses the Calamares system installer to get set up. The project features a window manager configured to look like the macOS desktop. There is a stated focus on performance and being easy (or familiar) to use and the project's website mentions there is a focus on making it possible to work mostly from the keyboard. The CalinixOS website also mentions Btrfs is the default filesystem.
CalinixOS is available in one edition which is a 2.0GB download for 64-bit computers. Booting from the live media is slow and the boot processes repeated becomes stuck launching services. The infamous systemd message "A start job is running..." appears a few times. The live disc eventually boots to a graphical login screen. Here we can sign in with the username and password combination: "calinix/calinix". I did not spot this information on the project's website, but it seemed easy enough to guess.
CalinixOS does indeed feature a design which looks like macOS. The distribution runs the Awesome window manager. A thin panel is placed across the top of the screen which houses the application menu and system tray. A thicker dock is placed at the bottom of the display which holds many launchers. I found it curious that only the launchers for folders (which would open the file manager) had working tool tips. The other launchers, for items like Steam and a terminal, did not display tool tips and did not launch their associated application when clicked.
CalinixOS 2021.10-17 -- Running Firefox on the Awesome window manager
(full image size: 553kB, resolution: 1600x795 pixels)
In a similar fashion, when I opened the application menu in the upper-left corner of the desktop it would display a list of launchers. Clicking the entries in the application menu did nothing. I could also bring up an application menu by right-clicking on the desktop. Well, sometimes right-clicking brought up a menu, other times the desktop would just flicker like something was being drawn and then immediately removed. When the right-click menu did appear on the desktop I could use it to launch programs. I also found I was unable to interact with any icons in the system tray which made it difficult to adjust the clock or get on-line.
Since most aspects of the live environment did not work for me, I put aside CalinixOS and went looking for something different.
* * * * *
HefftorLinux 2021.06.26
The next project I selected at random was HefftorLinux (which I'll mostly refer to as Hefftor). Hefftor is an Arch-based Linux distribution which features a macOS style desktop. It is intended to be easy to set up and use, leveraging the Calamares system installer to assist with this goal. The distribution offers a handful of editions, including bspwm, GNOME, KDE Plasma, Kodi, and Xfce. I decided to try the Xfce edition which is a 2.0GB download.
The Hefftor live media boots quickly to the Xfce desktop. A thin, transparent panel is placed at the top of the display. This top panel holds the application menu and system tray, and I could interact with both. There is a thicker dock panel placed at the bottom of the display which holds application launchers. Both of these panels will disappear when windows are covering (or near) them. Shortly after the desktop loads a welcome window appears and provides a quick overview of the project and tells us where we can find more information on-line.
HefftorLinux 2021.06.26 -- The application menu
(full image size: 882kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Installing
There are two system installers in the upper-left application menu, one is labelled Basic and the other Expert. Trying to run either of these installer entries caused a pop-up message to appear briefly and then disappear. The window went by too quickly to read. I examined the launchers and found they use the pkexec program to launch Calamares and, when I tried to run any command using pkexec the same error window would appear and immediately vanish. I opened a terminal and found I could launch the Calamares installer by manually running the launcher's command and just swapping out pkexec with sudo. So basically running "sudo calamares" instead of "pkexec calamares". This allowed me to start the install process.
The Calamares installer begins by asking us which kernel option we want to use. The options range from running a regular kernel with NVIDIA drivers, to a long-term support (LTS) kernel with NVIDIA drivers, and both options without NIVIDIA support. There are also entries for Zen and Hardened kernels. We can then select our time zone from a map and pick our keyboard layout. Calamares offers manual and guided partitioning with the guided option taking over available space with the ext4 filesystem. The installer asked me to supply the name and password for a regular user and then began copying files to my hard drive.
The installer worked for a while and then reported an error saying it failed to sync with on-line repositories and bailed out. I confirmed I was on-line and could reach websites using the included Brave browser. Then I tried again. Once again the installer failed halfway through its file copying process saying it could not reach remote repositories.
I tried running the package manager (pacman) from the live environment and discovered half the repositories, those supplied by Arch Linux, seemed to be reachable. However, all the HefftorLinux repositories were off-line and could not be contacted. This prevented Calamares from fetching packages from the Hefftor servers and prevented the installation from completing.
Software management
Since the distribution's repositories were off-line, both the pacman command line package tool and the Pamac graphical software centre failed to work. To make matters worse, when Pamac runs into a situation where it cannot contact remote repositories to check for new software, it reports the distribution is up to date with security fixes. This provides a literal false sense of security.
Hefftor's live environment worked fairly well for me, apart from the package manager and system installer issues. The desktop offered average performance and generally Xfce worked well. The distribution ships with an interesting mix of software, including the Brave web browser, the Evince document viewer and the Thunar file manager. The GParted partition manager, GRsync graphical front-end for file transfers, and a system monitor are included. We also have VLC and qBittorrent included out of the box.
HefftorLinux 2021.06.26 -- The Xfce settings panel
(full image size: 660kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
There are a lot of aliases set up for command line usage. In fact there may be more included in Hefftor than I've ever encountered before. Some of these seem useful, but a few seem dangerous. For example, running "rmd" forces the removal of a directory. The "scp" command is a popular way to transfer files between computers, but it is now an alias to "sudo cp" which means instead of copying files to another machine as my regular user, I end up trying to copy files to a local location as the administrator. I cannot think of a good reason to override common, popular command line tools with aliases to do something that is both slightly different in nature and less secure. This seems like a recipe for a security breach or data loss.
HefftorLinux 2021.06.26 -- Checking for software updates
(full image size: 566kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Conclusions
For me, it was interesting to examine these two projects which declare almost identical designs and goals (a 2GB ISO offering a macOS-like desktop running on top of Arch Linux with the Calamares installer). Yet the two projects provided quite different experiences. CalinixOS required a password to sign into the live environment and the Awesome window manager barely functioned at all. The system was nearly impossible to use for any purpose and, while the layout of the desktop looked very macOS-ish, having windows display their control buttons down the left side looked alien to the macOS experience.
On the other hand, HefftorLinux offered a smoother introduction with a faster boot and logged into the live environment automatically. Its Xfce desktop worked and did a passable job at imitating macOS. However, the broken installer launcher and the way the panels kept disappearing whenever a window got close to them made navigating the interface frustrating. The biggest hurdle though was the lack of working Hefftor repository servers which prevented the package manager and system installer from working.
In short, these two projects may have had good ideals, but they both need a lot of work to become usable. Despite claiming to be user friendly, both require some guess work and technical ability just to navigate the desktop and launch programs (or the installer) and this is a poor first impression by both distributions.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Ubuntu MATE running on GPD Pocket 3, UBPorts gets video chat in browser, patching Polkit vulnerability
The GPD Pocket 3 is a small, personal computer. The mini personal computer can run Ubuntu MATE and the distribution has published custom download images for this device. "In what has become something of a tradition, the Ubuntu MATE team have released images for the GPD Pocket 3 modular handheld PC. Many thanks to the team at GPD for providing sample hardware for us to work with!" In a blog post about the Pocket 3, the Ubuntu MATE team outlines customizations which have been made to make their distribution run better on the small computer.
* * * * *
The UBports team has announced a number of significant changes to their mobile operating system. One of the new features is the ability to use the default Morph web browser for video chats. "The camera permission change mentioned above has been extended so that Morph can now upload video (and audio). Yes, this does mean that we can now video-chat in Morph! Alfred took the groundwork done by Chris and wove this into working video. Florian showed this working on his phone, with two streams of him appearing on the Q&A. He has good WiFi but what that showed is that the video stream has no lags introduced by UT." A complete list of recent changes can be found in the project's news post.
* * * * *
Several technology-related news sites posted a story this past week which talked about a vulnerability in Polkit. The Polkit software is installed on most Linux distributions and is a key part of the pkexec software which allows users to perform administrative actions. The vulnerability allows regular user accounts to gain root access to the machine if they can run programs. A fix has been released and most Linux distributions have already published package updates to fix the issue. Bleeping Computer shares details on this wide-spread issue: "Researchers at Qualys information security company found that the pkexec program could be used by local attackers to increase privileges to root on default installations of Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and CentOS. They warn that PwnKit is likely exploitable on other Linux operating systems as well."
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Comparing performance between package formats
Trying-out-a-new-package asks: I often want to have up to date versions of packages that I can't find in my distro's official repos. I've heard Flatpak and Snap are slow. Will the performance difference be significant to the point I should consider older native packages over Flatpak or Snap or is performance close to the same?
DistroWatch answers: Usually when people talk about portable packages being slower than a distribution's native package format, they're talking about the time it takes for an application to start. Portable packages, particularly Snap packages, have gained a reputation for starting up slowly compared to RPM/Deb package formats. However, once the application finishes loading, usually performance is in the same ballpark.
Since most people only need to open a new application once during a desktop session, the start-up time probably won't have a big impact on your application use. The more important factor will be how quickly the software performs once it is up and running.
I tried to do some research on the performance differences between the different formats and got widely different answers on how much of a difference (or even if there would be a difference) in performance a person would see from one package format to another. So I decided to test drive a few packages.
I decided to try running a few packages using multiple package formats on Manjaro Linux to see is there was a difference which could be observed. To do this I found a few applications which were available in each package format and then tried running the programs multiple times to see if I could spot a difference in start times and responsiveness. I chose Manjaro as my test platform as I was concerned distributions like Ubuntu and Fedora might be optimized to favour their preferred portable package format.
I chose Firefox, GIMP, and GnuCash as the three applications to test. Each is widely used and available in all three formats. Below I have recorded the average load times (in seconds) along with notes on how well the application performed once it was up and running.
| Package | Start-up Time (Cold) |
Start-up Time (Cached) | Performance |
| Firefox (Native) |
5s | 2s | good |
| Firefox (Flatpak) |
6s | 3s | good |
| Firefox (Snap) |
18s | 3s | good |
| GIMP (Native) |
12s | 3s | good |
| GIMP (Flatpak) |
9s | 3s | good |
| GIMP (Snap) |
failed to launch | failed to launch | n/a |
| GnuCash (Native) |
2s | 1s | excellent |
| GnuCash (Flatpak) |
2s | 1s | excellent |
GnuCash (Snap) |
failed to launch | failed to launch | n/a |
Ultimately, performance once the application was up and running was identical (or close enough I couldn't spot a difference) when using the applications. However, there was a noticeable difference in start times. Flatpak and native packages tended to open in about the same amount of time, give or take a second. However, the Firefox Snap package was three times slower to launch the first time. Future launches were a lot quicker, but that first start-up time for Firefox was unusually slow.
Unfortunately the other two Snap packages I installed failed to launch entirely. No error message was displayed when trying to open the GnuCash and GIMP Snap bundles from the command line, the programs simply failed to open and the snap program failed to terminate on its own.
Based on my experiences, both during this test and in the past, I'd say there isn't a significant difference in performance between running Flatpak and native packages. Though my trial here, and my reviews of previous versions of Ubuntu, suggest Snap packages still suffer a delay during their initialization.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
OPNsense 22.1
OPNsense is a FreeBSD-based specialist operating system designed for firewalls and routers. The project's latest release is OPNsense 22.1 is based on FreeBSD 13 and improves boot speed while removing older, insecure cryptography components. "22.1, nicknamed "Observant Owl", features the upgrade to FreeBSD 13, switch to logging supporting RFC 5424 with severity filtering, improved tunable sysctl value integration, faster boot sequence and interface initiation and dynamic IPv6 host alias support amongst others. On the flip side major operating system changes bear risk for regression and feature removal, e.g. no longer supporting insecure cryptography in the kernel for IPsec and switching the Realtek vendor driver back to its FreeBSD counterpart which does not yet support the newer 2.5G models. Circular logging support has also been removed." Additional information and a complete list of changes can be found in the project's release announcement.
Nitrux 2022.01.29
Nitrux is a Debian-based, desktop distribution which features a customized KDE Plasma desktop and the OpenRC service manager. The project's latest release updates key packages and features Pacstall, a framework for installing third-party software, similar to Arch Linux's user repository (AUR). "We've updated the following components of the distribution. For a most extensive list of changes, see Notes. KDE Plasma to version 5.23.5, KDE Frameworks to version 5.90.0, KDE Gear to version 21.12.1. Firefox to version 96.0. Pacstall to version 1.7.1. LibreOffice to version 7.5.2. We have tweaked our default configuration to provide smoother KWin performance and overall system responsiveness. We have added a package to include firmware for AMD GPUs unavailable in the kernel packages. We have changed the theme for powerlevel10k to a basic version due to a bug with Station and Nota (see Known Issues). We have reduced the size of both ISO files to 2.3G and 1.3G for the standard ISO and minimal ISO, respectively. Sidenote: The minimal ISO includes the package 'linux-firmware' that increases the size of the ISO to 1.3G; without it, the file size would be around 800M (or less); however, we'd reckon to remove it would cause users various issues." The release announcement contains further information and screenshots. Please note that the release announcement refers to this version as "2.0.0" while the ISO files are tagged with the date (2022-01-29) only. When an announcement and corresponding media do not align, DistroWatch uses the version in the ISO filename to make searching for information on archived versions easier.
Nitrux 2022.01.29 -- The Nitrux live desktop
(full image size: 204kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
* * * * *
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: 2,675
- 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) |
Linux certification
This week we received a question about Linux certifications and we left it best to allow our readers to respond based on their experiences in their region.
I'd like to see an opinion poll asking which Linux certifications people have. I'm curious, because I recently passed the LPIC-1 exam. When I look at Linux jobs in my area, most job ads want CompTIA Linux+ or RHCSE. Microsoft had an MCSA Linux certification for a while, but it's been discontinued. Are any of these other certifications helpful for a newbie Linux Sysadmin just getting started?
Do you have a certification from a Linux course? Did you need one to get a job in system administration? Let us know the details in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on trying UBports in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you have any Linux certifications?
| CompTIA: | 30 (2%) |
| GIAC: | 4 (0%) |
| Linux Foundation: | 23 (2%) |
| LPIC: | 34 (2%) |
| Oracle: | 5 (0%) |
| Red Hat: | 29 (2%) |
| SUSE: | 8 (1%) |
| More than one of the above: | 28 (2%) |
| Other certification: | 45 (3%) |
| None: | 1184 (85%) |
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| Website News |
Donations and Sponsors
Each month we receive support and kindness from our readers in the forms of donations. These donations help us keep the web server running, pay contributors, and keep infrastructure like our torrent seed box running. We'd like to thank our generous readers and acknowledge how much their contributions mean to us.
This month we're grateful for the $65 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| Werner S | $12 |
| John S | $11 |
| Steve W | $10 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| Olivier F | $8 |
| DuCakedHare | $5 |
| Gary P | $5 |
| J.D. L | $2 |
| Bizūnas S | $1 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
* * * * *
New distributions added to database
Ultramarine Linux
Ultramarine Linux is a Fedora-based distribution featuring extra package repositories such as RPM Fusion, the Budgie (or Cutefish) desktop, and multimedia codecs. Ultramarine can be considered a spiritual successor to Korora Project and aims to make Fedora a more desktop-friendly experience.
Ultramarine Linux 35 -- Running the Budgie desktop
(full image size: 597KB, resolution: 1536x864 pixels)
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 7 February 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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Your own personal Linux computer in the cloud, available on any device. Supported operating systems include Android, Debian, Fedora, KDE neon, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro and Ubuntu, ready in minutes.
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| Random Distribution | 
Syllable Server
Syllable Server was a small, efficient server operating system built to be similar to Syllable Desktop, but on the Linux kernel. Due to its light weight, Syllable Server was exceptionally suitable as a virtualisation platform for running other operating systems (or multiple instances of itself), using the QEMU emulator.
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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