 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 958, 7 March 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 10th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
There are lots of reasons to build your own Linux distribution. Some projects strive for license purity, others for performance, and some for a multitude of features. Then there are projects which aim to present a certain look, whether it is unique or a copy of another operating system. This week we begin with a look at XeroLinux, a project which strives to offer lots of eye candy on top of an Arch Linux base. Are you interested in developing your own operating system? In our News section we link to a tutorial on building your own kernel from scratch. We also share new package technology which is intended to make portable, minimal application bundles which can be transferred across multiple distributions. Plus we report on FreeBSD 12.2 approaching the end of its supported life while Mint gears up for Cinnamon desktop upgrades. Then we talk about reverting changes to upgraded packages in our Questions and Answers column. There are a number of ways to undo package changes, using either the package manager itself or filesystem snapshots. Does your package manager provide a way to rollback package updates? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. 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:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
XeroLinux in 2022
XeroLinux is a distribution based on Arch Linux with a focus on eye candy. The distribution is available in three editions: Main (which runs the KDE Plasma desktop), GNOME, and Xfce. Each edition is available for 64-bit (x86_64) machines exclusively.
I couldn't find a whole lot of other useful information about XeroLinux from its website or forum, other than it uses the Calamares system installer, requires a network connection during the install process, and the project appears to be the work of a single developer who is not interested in fielding support requests from Wayland users: "I have finally added KDE Wayland Session to ISO, enabling you to use it. But it's not all roses, yet. Especially if you are an NVIDIA owner like I am. Yes, if you are, then you are either out of luck, since NVIDIA did not yet bake the required modules into the driver yet, so you will have to do some tinkering to get it to work. If you do not feel comfortable or confident enough to do it then just use Xorg (X11) to log in and skip Wayland for now... Kindly note, that I will not be providing support in that area since, I am not yet confident in using it."
The latest version appears to have been released on January 3rd of 2022, though the project doesn't offer any version information attached to its ISO files. I downloaded the Main/KDE edition which is 2.7GB in size.
Live session
The live session boots to the KDE Plasma desktop and opens a welcome window. This window features six buttons which are apparently intended to launch the system installer, apply various display resolution fixes, and fetch package updates. There is also a button for launching the GNOME Disk partition manager. Speaking of GNOME, I found it interesting, and a little odd, that the Main/KDE edition of XeroLinux uses GNOME Disks instead of the KDE Partition Manager and its welcome window uses the GNOME foot icon, making it feel like we downloaded the wrong edition.
XeroLinux 2022 -- The live desktop session
(full image size: 120kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
When I started exploring the mostly empty desktop environment this sense of mixed environments grew. The desktop uses a plain, black background and its only feature is a panel across the bottom of the screen. This panel holds a few launchers for the Konsole virtual terminal, the Vivaldi web browser, a software manager (Pamac in this instance), and the KDE System Settings panel. It also holds launchers for two file managers, the KDE Dolphin application and the Thunar Xfce file manager. Right-clicking on the desktop doesn't do anything and there is no application menu. It's an unusually bare, customized version of the KDE Plasma desktop.
Installing
Running the Calamares system installer from the welcome window first gives us a chance to select our preferred language. We are then asked to select which core packages we want. These include picking which type of kernel (latest or long-term support) we want, whether we want Intel or AMD video drivers, whether we want fingerprint scanner support, printing drivers, and whether we prefer PipeWire or PulseAudio for audio support. We're given the option of installing the LightDM login manager, but are cautioned it's only for hybrid Intel/NVIDIA laptops with no further explanation.
The next Calamares screen goes further into package customization with a lot of categories. Unfortunately these categories can be quite vague. For instance, one is just called "Android & iOS Tools" and its description says "Adds support for Android & iOS". This doesn't really tell us anything. Does the package install development tools, utilities for transferring files, or Anbox to run Android applications? It's all left entirely to the imagination. Many of the categories have sub-categories so it can take a few minutes to get through them all. While the categories have short descriptions, the individual packages are shown with their name only. This means the user needs to know or recognized the name of the specific packages they wish to install. One other thing I found odd about this screen is there are items missing which feel like they should be included. For instance, I thought Konsole would be listed as a virtual terminal option, but it isn't. Likewise Pamac isn't one of the available software front-ends. Maybe they are skipped because they're on the live disc already, but it would be nice to get some clarity on this subject on the package selection screen as it's not clear if the software selection offered will be installed alongside the packages on the live media or instead of the packages on the live media.
The installer continues, asking us to select our time zone and keyboard layout. We are then given the chance to choose guided or manual partitioning. I like the Calamares manual partitioning manager. I also like that it gives us some good options when it comes to the guided method. We can pick a swap file, a swap partition, or no swap at all. We can also pick which filesystem to use with three options: ext4, Btrfs, and XFS. The last screen asks us to make up a username and password.
The installer finishes and I returned to live desktop. I noticed there does not appear to be any way to shutdown or restart the computer from the desktop. We can open a terminal and run "sudo poweroff" to shutdown from the live desktop.
Early impressions
My fresh copy of XeroLinux brought up a graphical login screen when it booted. We can choose between Plasma on X11 and Plasma on Wayland sessions. Despite the warnings about Wayland in the project's release announcement, Wayland is the default session.
Once I signed in I found the look of the Plasma session had changed. The same dock floated at the bottom of the screen, but in the installed session there was a new transparent panel at the top of the display. This panel holds the application menu, a CPU monitor, a clock, and the system tray.
XeroLinux 2022 -- The Plasma application menu
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
A welcome window greets us again, though this one has different options than the live session's greeter. This one offers to install or check for NVIDIA drivers, configure Samba, and install virtual machine tools. There are some vague options too. One offers to "Disable Autostart", one is simply called "Extra Packages", and one has the intriguing name "Snapper vs Timeshift".
The Configure Samba option opens a virtual terminal, downloads the Samba software, and then prompts us to make up a username and password for network shares. Then the terminal closes. This does not actually share our folders. To share a folder over the network we need to add ourselves to the sambashare group, then logout, then sign in again and select which folders we want to share using the Dolphin file manager. In Dolphin we can right-click on a folder to enabling sharing it.
XeroLinux 2022 -- Setting up network shares
(full image size: 828kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The Extra Packages option in the welcome window offers to install some extras, including an alternative kernel, the Edge web browser, and a package referred to as "Better Discord".
The Snapper vs Timeshift button opens a terminal and offers to download and configure one snapshot manager or the other. I opted to install Timeshift which caused some packages to download and then my system immediately rebooted without warning. When my system came back online I was able to run Timeshift and create snapshots with it, so this seems to work despite the surprising restart.
XeroLinux 2022 -- Setting up Timeshift
(full image size: 976kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The Disable Autostart button seems to simply cause the welcome window to not appear the next time we login.
Hardware
I started my trial with XeroLinux by running it in a VirtualBox environment. The system ran fairly well, giving average performance. Xero was stable and the Plasma desktop offered average performance, about on par with other distributions running MATE or KDE Plasma.
When I switched over to running the distribution on my workstation, the experience was much the same. My hardware all worked out of the box, desktop performance was average, and I encountered no issues with the hardware.
XeroLinux consumes about 660MB of RAM when logged into the KDE Plasma desktop. This is a little higher than what I have experienced with most other distributions, but within a normal range. Despite installing very few optional components through Calamares, Xero took up a massive 13GB of disk space, about double what other mainstream distributions use. The application menu is packed with utilities and components, which brings me to...
Included software
It's difficult to give a solid list of included software since so much can be configured at install time through Calamares. However, when I took a fairly minimal install, with just a few applications added, I ended up with the following: The Vivaldi browser; KDE Connect; a large collection of developer tools, including the GNU Compiler Collection; the mpv player; Dolphin; the Grub Customizer; KGpg; KWrite; and the KDE Help Centre.
There are also a handful of other tools, including the Thunar file manager, a bulk file renaming utility, several tools for examining hardware information, an archive manager, and various other minor desktop utilities.
In the background we find the systemd init software and one of the most recent versions of the Linux kernel. Xero is a rolling release platform so the kernel is typically updated regularly. When I first installed the distribution I was running Linux 5.15.
Xero features a tree-style application menu. The menu is well organized, in my opinion, though quite full of various little applications.
The distribution features a unified menu bar in the top panel. This works okay most of the time, but this menu bar built into the panel gets annoying if we use multiple applications not in full-screen mode, or if we switch between application windows and dialogs as this causes the menu bar to flicker back and forth between the menus for each window. This situation is somewhat made worse by some applications, such as the default web browser, not using the unified menu bar and instead using their own in-window menus.
Package management
XeroLinux ships with the Pamac software centre by default. There are alternatives available at install time, but Pamac (which is called Add/Remove Software in the application menu) is the distribution's go-to option. Pamac offers three tabs for browsing, removing, and updating software. The Pamac interface is pleasantly clean and I found it was fairly responsive during my trial.
XeroLinux 2022 -- The Pamac software centre
(full image size: 938kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
When new software updates become available a notification appears on the Plasma desktop. Clicking this notice opens Pamac and displays the Updates tab where we can fetch waiting package upgrades.
Pamac has a nice, modern look to it and we can install new items with a click, followed by entering our password. In short, Pamac acts as a pleasant front-end to the pacman package manager.
As far as I can tell, Pamac does not act as a front-end to Xero's other two package management backends. The distribution ships with support for both Snap and Flatpak. The Flatpak framework is automatically linked to the popular Flathub repository for us. These two portable package managers can be run from the command line and worked for me.
Other observations
While running XeroLinux I made a number of other observations while exploring the distribution and trying to get things done. One issue which kept happening was the mouse pointer would often get stuck displaying a particular icon. For instance, I'd be using an application and the cursor would get stuck displaying the spinning "busy" wheel, or I'd resize a window and the cursor would freeze in the "double-arrow" image. This made selecting text or clicking in a window with any precision difficult. The issue usually cleared itself up after a few minutes.
The transparency used throughout the distribution looks nice at first glance, but it quickly becomes impractical. It's difficult to read some menus and text in the virtual terminal is a lot harder to read due to the theme's heavy use of transparency.
XeroLinux 2022 -- The KDE System Settings panel
(full image size: 193kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
There is a visual effect enabled by default which "shuffles" open windows when switching between them. I found this jarring as it looked like windows were flying off to the edges of the screen whenever I switched between applications. I tend to use anywhere from three to a dozen applications together and this effect was confusing and slowed down my workflow. It can be disabled in the System Settings panel.
In the panel there are two widgets for monitoring resource usage. A CPU monitor is shown on the left and network traffic is displayed on the right. The CPU monitor occasionally got stuck at 100% despite the system being mostly idle. The top process monitor would show the system was consuming less than 10% of its CPU resources, but the desktop widget would show 100%, sometimes for minutes at a time before correcting itself.
Xero uses a lot of command line aliases (76 by default). Some of these conflict with existing commands. For example, scp (secure copy) is aliased to "sudo cp" which is inconvenient as it performs an entirely different function. It's confusing when the command fails. The ls command is aliased to "ls -a" with colour options so directory listings are more cluttered. These listings are harder to read in the transparent terminal since directories names are printed in the default wallpaper's background colour. In another example, passing flags to the free command fails due to conflicting flags in its alias. In short, while some command line aliases can be useful, many of the 76 aliases set up for us conflict with common commands and can even be destructive to data if we make a typo.
Conclusions
The stated goal of XeroLinux is to look good. There doesn't appear to be any other mission of the project other than to take Arch Linux and make it visually flashy. To be fair to the project, it largely does this. If I wanted to sell Arch Linux to a generation raised on pop music videos and TikTok then XeroLinux would be my first choice.
As an operating system for getting work done though, well, Xero isn't ideal. It's not entirely bad, I don't want to give the impression that Xero is unstable or unusable. The distribution is entirely capable. It's just that the system regularly gets in my way in small ways.
As an example, during the install process, there are two screens where we select optional components (kernels, productivity software, video players, etc). This greatly slows down the install process, but I figured it would be worth it since I was going to start with a very trimmed down selection of software. It stood to reason I'd have a light, minimal system to start with in exchange for my efforts during the install process. However, Xero installed a giant pile of software along with my minimal selection, making the selection at install time feel like a waste of time.
Likewise, the dozens of command line aliases could, in theory, be time savers. However, they conflicted with several commands I use regularly and so I spent much of the first two days of my trial working around or removing them so my commands would work properly. Eventually I decided it would be easier to just remove all the aliases.
Earlier I mentioned the menu bars and transparency which, again, tend to look nice at first glance. But the more I used the system the more I found myself spending more time adjusting the different ways applications handled menus and turning off transparency so I could better read text.
Admittedly, I know I sound old writing this, but what I mostly want from an operating system is for it to make things easy to set up and then get out of my way so I can do things. My ideal operating system experience is one I don't need to think about. XeroLinux makes me think about it by being flashy, by asking me more questions during the setup process, by getting in the way while I'm trying to use the command line, by presenting vague options in the welcome window, by causing the top panel to regularly flicker as I switch between windows and it hastily redraws its global menu.
All of this isn't bad, it's just distracting. XeroLinux is a capable, flexible operating system that keeps demanding my attention and trying to help me in ways than make me want to give it a colouring book and send it to another room so I can work in peace.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo desktop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Hex-core Intel i5-10400 CPU @ 2.90GHz
- Storage: Western Digital 1TB hard drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 wired network card, Realtek RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCIe wireless adapter
- Display: Intel CometLake-S GT2
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Making minimal application images in Alpine, Mint prepares desktop changes, FreeBSD 12.2 nears end of life, how to build your own kernel in Rust
There are a lot of ways to package software and there are many different package managers and formats for various Linux distributions. One intriguing approach to managing software uses a young tool called apko. This tool allows for the creation of minimal images which contain just enough dependencies to run an application. Ariadne Conill explains: "Earlier today, Chainguard released version 0.1 of our apko tool. This tool allows for the composition of so-called 'distroless' images from APK-based software distributions, such as Alpine Linux, using a declarative configuration. Unlike the traditional distroless tooling, apko enables the creation of minimal, small-attack-surface images without the complications of relying on Bazel. In short, apko streamlines the process for creating declarative container images, building on our efforts to improve the security and transparency of the software supply chain. A distroless image contains only the necessary components needed to support an application. Distroless images benefit from significantly reduced attack surface, omitting unnecessary package management capabilities, and occasionally even a shell."
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The Linux Mint team are looking ahead toward Linux Mint 21 which will likely become available in the middle of 2022. There are a few significant changes planned for the new version, including an updated version of the Mutter window manager and a change in Bluetooth support. "In preparation for Linux Mint 21 we are updating Cinnamon's JavaScript interpreter and rebasing its window manager on a more modern version of Mutter. This is a huge task and it requires many code changes in Cinnamon itself and causes a significant number of regressions. We needed a full development cycle for this so the timing is perfect. Linux Mint 21 is likely to switch from Blueberry (which uses the gnome-bluetooth backend) to Blueman (which uses bluez). Feedback showed that it worked better with Bluetooth audio headsets and connected to a wider range of devices. On the development side of things, the latest version of gnome-bluetooth introduced changes which broke compatibility with Blueberry and its main developer isn't keen on seeing his work used outside of GNOME." Additional information is provided in the distribution's newsletter.
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The FreeBSD team has published a reminder that FreeBSD 12.2 will reach the end of its supported life on March 31, 2022. Users of FreeBSD are advised to upgrade to either the 12.3 or 13.0 releases. "On March 31, 2022, FreeBSD 12.2 will reach end-of-life and will no longer be supported by the FreeBSD Security Team. Users of FreeBSD 12.2 are strongly encouraged to upgrade to a newer release as soon as possible." The support schedule for current FreeBSD versions is available in the announcement.
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While we typically talk about established operating systems and distributions in this space, every operating system gets started somewhere, by someone. This week we link to a tutorial on building your own kernel, in the Rust language, from scratch. Rust is a popular programming language which offers some nice safety features which can assist developers in avoiding common security issues. Philipp Oppermann has published a series of blog posts which take the reader through the beginning stages of making their own kernel in Rust. "This blog series creates a small operating system in the Rust programming language. Each post is a small tutorial and includes all needed code, so you can follow along if you like. The source code is also available in the corresponding GitHub repository."
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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) |
Rolling back package updates
Reverting-changes asks: Is there a Linux package manager that can rollback changes to a package the way Timeshift rolls back files? Why don't more package managers do this?
DistroWatch answers: For those who are not familiar with Timeshift, it is a service for Linux which allows users to create backups of an operating system. Typically Timeshift creates scheduled snapshots of the operating system (and optionally files in the user's home directory). Snapshots can be browsed for specific files or restored to revert changes to the operating system.
Regarding Linux package managers which do something similar, making it possible to revert changes such as package upgrades, there are some options. The Nix package manager (which is the core of NixOS) can do this. Nix uses an approach called package generations which make it possible to instantly switch between versions of packages. When using the Nix package manager we can revert the latest set of changes (whether it was installing a new package or upgrading an existing one) by running "nix-env --rollback". The Nix documentation has some examples. Though I haven't tried to do rollbacks with Guix, a package manager closely related to Nix, I think it's also possible to revert changes with Guix.
Some distributions such as Fedora Silverblue can use rpm-ostree to rollback updates. The Silverblue documentation shares details.
Other package managers such as those used by Debian, openSUSE, and Arch Linux usually don't have a specific, distinct function which handles rolling back a package or change. Part of the reason for this is the package managers for most distributions download new package versions to a cache, usually located under the /var directory. When a new version of a package fails to work properly, rolling back to the previous version is as simple as installing the old package from our cached copy.
As an example, let's say I upgraded my Firefox package to version 97.0 and it isn't working properly for me. On Debian (and related distributions such as Ubuntu) I can re-install the previous version from the cache directory, located at /var/cache/apt/archives/. This can be done by running a command like the one below where I rollback to version 96.0.1:
dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/firefox_96.0.1~mozillabinaries_amd64.deb
Because old versions of packages are typically cached and can be re-installed, at least on most Linux distributions, there hasn't been much need to add a specific rollback feature to the package manager itself. The ability to revert changes is pretty much built into the package handling infrastructure.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre 0.4
André Silva has announced the release of Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre 0.4, a new version of the project's Arch-based "libre" Linux distribution that meets the GNU Free System Distribution Guidelines (GNU FSDG). This version drops support for systemd and adds experimental support for the runit init system: "After a long and continuous period of tests and development, we are happy to announce a new release of Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre. Many of the commonly used frameworks that we identified as definitely not being wanted were dropped and alternatives where packaged and included. Lumina is one example of that, when it comes to desktop environments, given its non-dependence on D-Bus. Bluetooth is another, support has also been dropped, mostly because of the huge complexity of this codebase and derived and well-known vulnerabilities. In addition, Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre 0.4 stays further oriented towards INIT-Freedom. Therefore we have also added now experimental support for runit with the option to add also more alternatives (potentially S6)." Here is the full release announcement.
Linux From Scratch 11.1
Linux From Scratch (LFS) is a project that provides the steps necessary to build a custom Linux system. The project has published a new release of its instructions, labelled version 11.1. The new version was announced with the following description: "The Linux From Scratch community is pleased to announce the release of LFS version 11.1, LFS version 11.1 (systemd), BLFS version 11.1, and BLFS version 11.1 (systemd). This release is a major update to both LFS and BLFS. The LFS release includes updates to glibc 2.35 and Binutils 2.38. The Linux kernel has also been updated to version 5.16.9. Changes to text have been made throughout the books. The BLFS version includes approximately 1,000 packages beyond the base Linux From Scratch version 10.0 book. This release has over 900 updates from the previous version in addition to numerous text and formatting changes."
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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: 2,693
- Total data uploaded: 41.6TB
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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) |
Does your package manager have a built-in function for reverting changes?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about rolling back changes to packages. Some package managers, such as Nix, make it possible to revert changes to packages much the same way Timeshift and filesystem snapshots allow administrators to revert changes to files. Does your package manager have a feature to undo recent changes? Let us know how you revert package upgrades in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on the size of your bookmarks collection in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Reverting package changes
| My package manager(s) can revert package changes: | 215 (22%) |
| My package manager(s) cannot revert changes: | 357 (37%) |
| I have multiple package managers and some can revert: | 65 (7%) |
| Unknown: | 323 (34%) |
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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, 14 March 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 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 |
| • Issue 992 (2022-10-31): Lubuntu 22.10, setting permissions on home directories, Linux may drop i486, Fedora delays next version for OpenSSL bug |
| • Issue 991 (2022-10-24): XeroLinux 2022.09, learning who ran sudo, exploring firewall tools, Rolling Rhino Remix gets a fresh start, Fedora plans to revamp live media |
| • Issue 990 (2022-10-17): ravynOS 0.4.0, Lion Linux 3.0, accessing low numbered network ports, Pop!_OS makes progress on COSMIC, Murena launches new phone |
| • Issue 989 (2022-10-10): Ubuntu Unity, kernel bug causes issues with Intel cards, Canonical offers free Ubuntu Pro subscriptions, customizing the command line prompt |
| • Issue 988 (2022-10-03): SpiralLinux 11.220628, finding distros for older equipment and other purposes, SUSE begins releasing ALP prototypes, Debian votes on non-free firmware in installer |
| • Issue 987 (2022-09-26): openSUSE's MicroOS, converting people to using Linux, pfSense updates base system and PHP, Python 2 dropped from Arch |
| • Issue 986 (2022-09-19): Porteus 5.0, remotely wiping a hard drive, a new software centre for Ubuntu, Proxmox offers offline updates |
| • Issue 985 (2022-09-12): Garuda Linux, using root versus sudo, UBports on the Fairphone 4, Slackware reverses change to grep |
| • Full list of all issues |
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