 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 960, 21 March 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 12th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Software development occurs all around the world and people are always looking for ways to customize Linux or tailor it to handle a specific task. This week we begin with a look at Pardus, a Turkish distribution that is based on Debian's Stable branch. Joshua Allen Holm dives into Pardus and reports on its features and what makes this Debian-based distribution stand out. Also on the topic of Debian, in our News section we discuss the Debian team preparing for their next release: Bookworm. Debian 12 will enter a development freeze in early 2023 with plans to publish the new Stable branch shortly afterwards. Our News section also shares tips on changing FreeBSD's root filesystem without performing a complete reboot and we talk about a new client management tool available to Univention Corporate Server users. Then, in our Questions and Answers column, we discuss how to track changes that happen to local files. Keeping track of how a file changed and when is a good way to detect intrusions and to fix broken upgrades. We share some of the tools which can help with this below. Do you use a tool to detect file changes? Let us know what you use in this week's Opinion Poll. This past week we added two new projects to our database: Armbian - a distribution based on Debian for single board ARM computers, and postmarketOS - an Alpine-based distribution for mobile devices. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (15MB) and MP3 (11MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Joshua Allen Holm) |
Pardus 21.1
Pardus is a Debian-based Linux distribution based on Debian's Stable branch. It is developed by the Turkish Academic Network and Information Center. Pardus 21.1 is basically Debian 11.2 with a lot of customization to provide a Linux desktop for corporate environments that meets the needs of various Turkish governmental agencies.
In some ways, Pardus is like Ubuntu. The two distributions are based on different branches of Debian, Stable for Pardus and Unstable for Ubuntu, but the basic idea is similar. Both provide their own package repositories instead of relying on Debian's repositories with additional extra packages like some based-on distributions do, and both provide many configuration changes and a level of polish.
Pardus 21.1 has three versions available for download. Two of these versions are for desktop editions. One features Xfce and the other features GNOME. The third download is for servers. This review looks at the Xfce desktop version, which is the version predominantly featured on the Pardus homepage (the Xfce ISO can be downloaded directly from the homepage, but the other versions are alternate downloads that require a few extra clicks to download).
Installing Pardus 21.1
I downloaded the 2.3GB Pardus 21.1 Xfce image and copied it to a flash drive. (For those interested in the other Pardus versions, the GNOME image is 2.4GB and the server image is 883MB.) I rebooted my computer and started it from the flash drive. The first prompt asked if we wanted Turkish or English. I selected English. The second prompt provided options for a live desktop or going directly to installation. There was also an Advanced Options item that provided options for hardware information and a memory test. I opted for the live desktop.
Pardus 21.1 -- Pardus live desktop with installer
(full image size: 162kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The Pardus live desktop provides a very familiar looking interface. Xfce is customized to have a layout that matches the interface that first appeared in Windows 95 and, with minor variations, continues to be used by Windows. There is a single panel at the bottom of the screen with the application menu on the left, various utilities and clock on the right, and running applications in between. I will look at the desktop environment in more detail post-install, but the first impressions were positive. The Windows-like layout makes the experience familiar and the custom Pardus look-and-feel are nice to look at.
I was now ready to install Pardus, so I clicked on the Pardus Installer icon on the desktop. Pardus's installer asks for the same information as most installers, so there were no real surprises here. I selected a language, set location/timezone, picked a keyboard layout, made the choice between automated installation (i.e., use the entire disk) and manual partitioning (I selected automated), opted not to install updates during installation, configured a user account, and clicked Install on the final screen that summarized the options I had selected. After that, all I had to do was wait and then reboot the computer after the installer had done its job.
Pardus's Xfce desktop environment and default software selection
Xfce is a nice desktop environment, but the upstream defaults provide options for the user to customize their Xfce desktop the first time they log in. This is great for power users, but not so great for a corporate setting. Pardus has preconfigured Xfce to have a very Windows-like desktop experience, which should be comfortable for most users. Sure, it is Linux with an Xfce desktop, not Windows, so there are plenty of differences, but the basic layout and workflow is familiar.
Pardus 21.1 -- Pardus default desktop with welcome application
(full image size: 133kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Like I noted when covering the live desktop, Pardus's desktop has a single bottom panel with the application menu on the left, running applications in the middle, and various utilities and the clock on the right. Clicking the Pardus menu, or pressing the Super/Windows key on the keyboard opens Xfce's Whisker application menu. This menu sorts applications into various categories so everything is easy to find. From simple utilities to web browsers and office applications, a Pardus user should have no problem finding the program for accomplishing their standard office computing tasks.
The preinstalled software included in Pardus 21.1 includes a selection of common utilities (mostly from Xfce, but some are from GNOME), Firefox ESR, LibreOffice 7.0, GIMP, VLC, and, somewhat oddly, both Thunderbird and Evolution. Thunderbird is the default when opening the generic Mail Reader shortcut in the application menu. In the era of web-based email, where the email client for many people is a tab in their web browser, I am not sure why there are two desktop applications for managing email. Picking either Evolution or Thunderbird as the only preinstalled email client would have probably made a little more sense. Picking just one email client would free up about 200MB of disk space on an installed system.
Pardus 21.1 -- Pardus utilities
(full image size: 174kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
One nice thing about Pardus is a small selection of Pardus-specific utilities that come with the distribution. The first Pardus application users will experience is a first-run greater application for changing some settings and picking the wallpaper. This greeter application is listed in the application menu so it can be re-run at any time. There are applications for power management, managing the installed Java version, formatting USB drives, writing images to USB drives, installing individual Deb files, and an About This Computer program that can generate reports about the system. There is also a Pardus GUI package manager application, but more about that in the next section of this review.
Overall, the software selection is good and well-rounded. There are applications for performing most basic computer tasks. The only thing on my essential must-add list was installing the fonts-noto package and its dependencies. Some of the Noto fonts were preinstalled, but there was still a lot of "tofu" when browsing the web. Installing all the Noto fonts cleared this up, so maybe fonts-noto should be installed by default.
I should note that the default package selection is not entirely stable. It can change when a Pardus meta package is updated. While I was working on this review, an update removed galculator, replaced it with GNOME Calculator, and also installed Audacious. One calculator being swapped for a different one and one additional application being installed is minor, but that does not mean larger changes could not happen in the future. I have mixed feelings on the issue, but so far Pardus has not done anything to mess with my software selection beyond those minor changes.
Installing additional software
Being based on Debian, Pardus has plenty of other software available. I have yet to find anything that I usually install on Debian that is not also available in Pardus's repositories. Though, being based on Debian Stable does mean the software can sometimes be a little outdated.
Pardus 21.1 -- Pardus Software Center
(full image size: 194kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Installing addition software on Pardus is something that can be accomplished in many, many different ways. Honestly, too many different ways. Aside from the standard command line apt and dpkg utilities, Pardus comes with a lot of graphical utilities for managing packages. There are three applications for installing software from repositories: GNOME Packages, Pardus Software Center, and Synaptic Package Manager. Each of these applications offers different experiences, but ultimately perform the same basic task. GNOME Packages (and the associated Package Updater application) come from the use of GNOME PackageKit, while Pardus Software Center provides the most branded and user-friendly package experience, and Synaptic provides a tool for power users. There are also two different applications for installing individual Deb files: GDebi and Pardus Package Installer. Again, they differ slightly in function, but overlap in what they accomplish.
Choice is good, but there are too many choices when it comes to how to install software on Pardus. A power user can easily install Synaptic on their own if they want more control, so eliminating that from the default software would maybe make things more streamlined. By providing clear categories, editor's picks, most download, and most rated information, the Pardus Software Center application provides a nice, easy to use application for managing software, so the entire package installation experience should be focused around that.
The Pardus website
The number one barrier to using Pardus, at least for those who do not read Turkish, is the Pardus website. The entire site is in Turkish without even a minimal alternate site in English or some other more commonly spoken language. One small section of the Pardus Forum is dedicated to English language questions, but that is it. Turkish, while a lovely language and the language of the primary users of Pardus, does not rank very high on the list of languages people pick when learning a foreign language. This means that for most people, the site is only readable using Google Translate or a similar tool. An increased English language web presence would probably help bring in more users, which in turn means more people reporting and fixing bugs.
Pardus 21.1 -- The Pardus website
(full image size: 256kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Final thoughts
Pardus 21.1 is a very nice, polished distribution and well worth checking out. It provides the benefits of Debian with a more focused selection of preinstalled software to create a cohesive, corporate-friendly user experience. Do not get me wrong, I love Debian and the fact that I can have Debian with GNOME, KDE, Xfce, or a large list of other desktop environments, but that is sub-optimal for a corporate environment. GNOME is the default in Debian when selecting a desktop environment without specifying a particular one, but Debian can also easily be so many different things, which leaves it up to the person installing it to pick what the end result of a Debian installation will look like. Pardus picks one desktop environment (two if you count the GNOME alternate download) and provides some opinionated default settings. The end result is a user experience that would work well for its target audience. There are some minor oddities, like having way too many pre-installed GUI tools for managing packages, and some major drawbacks, namely the language barrier for people who do not read Turkish, making Pardus less accessible to non-Turkish users than other distributions, but those issues do not stop Pardus from being excellent software.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an ASUS VivoBook E406MA laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Pentium Silver N5000 CPU
- Storage: 64GB eMMC
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Networking: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
- Display: Intel UHD Graphics 605
Visitor supplied rating
Pardus has a visitor supplied average rating of: N/A from 0 review(s).
Have you used Pardus? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Debian prepares for Bookworm, Changing FreeBSD's root filesystem live, Univention offers new client management tool
The Debian project is famous for not having fixed release cycles, preferring to launch new versions "when they are ready" rather than at a specific date. Debian usually sticks to an approximate two-year release cycle and, despite Debian 11 being published just over six months ago, it looks like the distribution is already preparing for Debian 12's arrival next year. Paul Gevers posted to one of the project's mailing lists: "We are currently considering the following dates as our freeze dates. If you are aware of major clashes of these dates with anything we depend on please let us know. We also like to stress again that we really would like to have a short Hard and Full Freeze (counting in weeks, rather than months), so please plan accordingly. If serious delays turn up during any of the Freeze steps, we rather (partially or completely) thaw Bookworm again than staying frozen for a long time." The dates for the freeze points are listed as being in the first three months of 2022, though that is likely a typo with freezes expected to come in early 2023 with a final release likely by mid-2023. Update: A new message has been sent out with the correct dates.
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One popular feature of FreeBSD is the ability to create new filesystem snapshots, install new software packages in the snapshot, and then restart the system using the snapshot. This allows us to install new software without interfering with the running system. One hurdle in this process is the need to reboot in order to test out the new software we have installed in the new snapshot. A change to the way snapshots are managed is improving this situation and will allow the operating system to be effectively rebooted without actually shutting down the kernel. This reduces downtime and makes it easier to test changes while leaving us the option of rolling back to the previous configuration. The Vermaden blog explains how this works: "I do not know any downsides of ZFS boot environments but if you would stick a gun to my head and make me find one - I would say that you still have to reboot(8) to change to the other BE. This is about to change... What is reroot? It's the ability to switch to other root filesystem without the need for full system reboot. The loaded and running kernel stays the same of course - but this is the only downside. This feature is implemented in the reboot(8) command with -r argument." The blog post walks through how to perform these rapid restarts into a new boot environment.
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The Univention team have announced the arrival of a new tool in the Univention App Centre: opsi. What is opsi? It's a tool for managing client machines on a network. "opsi (Open System Integration) is an open source client management system for Windows, Linux and macOS clients. The core component is a Linux server which takes care of the clients' OS installation, the distribution of software, the inventory of hardware and software as well as patch management. All major components are free software, published under the AGPLv3 license. On top of that, there are paid modules available which add some extra features. opsi allows you to manage clients at different locations in one single administration interface. The configuration is stored at a central location, the depots for the clients' software packages can be located at different sites. The company uib gmbh from Mainz develops and maintains opsi; they also offer professional support." The opsi software runs across multiple platforms and details on the software can be found in Univention's blog post.
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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) |
Tracking local changes
Keeping-track-of-everything asks: What tools or methods can you recommend to track all the changes that happen on the system? I want to have a way to audit every configuration change and package update.
DistroWatch answers: This can be a pretty comprehensive list of things to track. If you plan to keep track of every file change, including logs and configuration files, the audit trail could get quite dense, producing a lot of information. This is going to cut into your storage space. The easiest way to do what you're suggesting is probably to make sure you're using an advanced filesystem such as Btrfs or ZFS. Then enable regular (probably daily) snapshots of the filesystem.
What this will do is maintain lightweight images of your system each day. You can then compare the snapshots from one day to the next to see what changes have taken place. Since the snapshots will maintain an image of the state of your system each day, you can do simple comparisons between files and directories to see what changes have happened. You will then be able to restore altered files, reverting changes you don't want.
You may be interested to know that openSUSE does a lot of the initial work for this sort of change tracking for you. openSUSE defaults to using Btrfs and its YaST system administration suite is tied into Btrfs snapshots. Each time you make a configuration change - adding a user, updating a package, changing your printer settings - YaST will create a filesystem snapshot. You can then browse and compare the snapshots using the built-in Snapper tool. There is a lot of detailed information on Snapper in the openSUSE wiki.
Other distributions can use Btrfs too. Snapper works on most of the major distributions and is probably one of the easiest ways to audit system changes.
In situations where you don't want to use an advanced filesystem like Btrfs you still have some options. One approach would be to identify specific files (like configuration files and package databases) you want to monitor. Then add these files to a local git repository. You can then update/commit any file changes daily and use the git utility to check for differences between files. This will be less efficient than working with filesystem snapshots and I wouldn't recommend using git to track a lot of binary files as it is typically used to track text file changes. However, a lot of people use git to monitor configuration files, source code, and other small data files they wish to audit or copy to other computers.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Lakka 4.0
Tomáš Kelemen has announced the release of Lakka 4.0, a major update of the project's lightweight Linux distribution that transforms a small computer into a full-blown retro-gaming console. This new release updates the distribution's build system to LibreELEC 10.0.2: "We are happy to announce the new and updated version of Lakka. Changes since version 3.7: build system based on LibreELEC 10.0.2; RetroArch updated to 1.10.1; cores updated to their most recent versions; superbroswar - added new libretro core; sameduck - added new libretro core; Mesa updated to 22.0.0; mainline Linux kernel updated to 5.10.103 (PC, Amlogic, Allwinner, NXP); Raspberry Pi Linux kernel updated to 5.10.95; most arm devices switched to Aarch64; Rockchip RK3288, RK3328 and RK3399 switched to mainline Linux kernel 5.10.76; added support for additional Allwinner and Amlogic devices; Nintendo Switch - complete rewrite of the port with many fixes and enhancements; Tinkerboard and MiQi now use common system RK3288 (hence the change of the image names); dropped support for RPi4.arm. This is our first release with the updated build system." See the release announcement for a full list of changes and known issues. As usual, Lakka 4.0 is available for a variety of popular hardware platforms.
Linux Mint 5 "LMDE"
Clement Lefebvre has announced the release of a brand-new version of Linux Mint's Debian edition, better known as LMDE. The new release is based on Debian 11 and uses the Cinnamon desktop: "The team is proud to announce the release of LMDE 5 'Elsie'." The release announcement contains a brief introduction to LMDE, while the release notes provide a list of known issues: "To launch the installer in expert mode, run the following command: sudo live-installer-expert-mode. To install LMDE on an existing LVM partition you must first remove it from the LVM volumes and groups to which it belongs. In manual partitioning mode, note that the installer will auto-mount all swap partitions. These partitions will also be placed in /etc/fstab in the installed system. The LMDE ISO images and the live installer use a different structure than the ones used by other distributions. Do not use Yumi or multi-boot technologies with LMDE as it won't install properly. The root account is locked by default. To use the recovery console (from the Grub menu) or log in as root, you first need to give root a new password: sudo passwd root."
Linux Mint 5 "LMDE" -- Running the Cinnamon desktop
(full image size: 775kB, resolution: 1920x1200 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: 2,698
- Total data uploaded: 41.7TB
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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) |
Tracking changes to local files
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about tracking changes to local files. Knowing which files change and how is useful when troubleshooting new problems and detecting intruders on the operating system. This week we would like to hear whether you track changes to your filesystem. If you do, what tool do you use to monitor and revert changes?
You can see the results of our previous poll on using computers which are running off-line in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Tracking filesystem changes
| I manually check files using snapshots: | 24 (2%) |
| I use a snapshot tool like Snapper: | 41 (4%) |
| I use version control software like git: | 45 (4%) |
| I use off the shelf monitoring software: | 19 (2%) |
| I use custom/homemade monitoring tools: | 18 (2%) |
| I use another method: | 53 (5%) |
| I do not monitor filesystem changes: | 819 (80%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to database
Armbian
Armbian is a Linux distribution designed for ARM development boards. It is usually based on one of the stable or development versions of Debian or Ubuntu and it supports a wide variety of popular ARM-based devices, including Banana Pi, Cubieboard, Olimex, Orange Pi, Odroid, Pine64 and others. Armbian includes a menu-driven configuration tool along with stock Debian utilities, the Bash shell, and a choice of Cinnamon or Xfce desktop.
Armbian 22.02.1 -- The Armbian desktop and application menu
(full image size: 248kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
postmarketOS
postmarketOS is an Alpine-based Linux distribution for mobile devices. The project offers three mobile interfaces: Phosh, Plasma Mobile, and Simple Mobile X Interface (Sxmo). The project aims to provide long-term support for a range of mobile devices, key among them the Librem 5 and the PinePhone, though other, traditionally Android devices, are supported.
postmarketOS 21.12 -- The Phosh home screen
(full image size: 124KB, resolution: 720x1440 pixels)
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Asahi Linux. Asahi Linux is a special build of Arch Linux for running on Apple M1-powered computers. The distribution is installed using a shell script which is launched from the macOS platform.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 28 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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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • etckeeper (by etckeeper-user on 2022-03-21 01:37:56 GMT from United States)
The etckeeper package tracks files in /etc with a git repository. Changes are saved on package manager actions so you can rollback to an old copy of a config file.
2 • file change check (by Trihexagonal on 2022-03-21 01:50:10 GMT from United States)
I install rkhunter early in the FreeBSD build process after completion of building the Base System, issue the # rehash command so I don't have to reboot and run an initial scan to get a baseline on a clean System to compare any changes to.
After all 3rd party programs are installed I run it again and use the --propupd to set prerequisites clean after examining reported changes..
It runs as a cron job nightly and when I run it if any changes have been made to files will be able to tell if it's from some work I did or if it's something that needs looked into.
I also run it and Luniz, made by same people, on my Kali Linux boxen, one of which I am using now. Lynis had helpful hints on Debian hardening I was not previously aware of and was most helpful during thre apt update process. Because it is a Debian box and I run them like one.
I used to run aide and tripwire but once installed rarely ever looked at them again. OpenBSD doesn't have rkhunter and considers it a gimmick. Which is fine with me.
3 • Tracking filesystem changes (by Greg Zeng on 2022-03-21 03:03:32 GMT from Australia)
Use BTRFS? Is this the only way that Linux allows this? Btrfs seems so unstable, that it is very rare when any Linux creator dares to offer this as a default partition type. My test runs show that it is currently incompatible with most types of Grub Customizer.
Btrfs offers so many optional features. Each additional feature adds more overheads, complexity & operating system weaknesses. The independent benchtests of this partition type show it is slow, compared to Ext4 and other partitions. Btrfs relies so much on CLI, rather than GUI. This means that it stays as as a geeks only experiment.
With the Microsoft agreement on their NTFS copyrights etc, Linux now can try their replacement to Btrfs. Perhaps WINE etc might allow the Windows based utilities to work?
4 • Armbian (by BobL on 2022-03-21 04:43:44 GMT from New Zealand)
Pleased to see Armbian is added to your database. I use it to make my TV smarter :) running in a Nanopi M4 V2 .Recent OS upgrade has been great. I think the Armbian developers have up against it for a while trying to support a large number of SBCs, have made some hard decisions and been seeking more support from their user base. SBCs are exciting. Such little cards/boxes but I run a full desktop suite -with a 500M M2 drive. My best wishes to the Armbian team and I look forward to Distrowatch reviewing them.
5 • Tracking filesystem changes (by tumbo on 2022-03-21 07:52:25 GMT from Bulgaria)
I do it semi-manually at debian, with scripts for pre and post snaphots for zfs-on-root upon apt upgrade, idea coined from opensuse snapper/btrfs
6 • No tracking (by Luke on 2022-03-21 13:16:44 GMT from United States)
I understand it's different if you need to audit changes, but I don't use whole system backups/snapshots or anything. I have a relatively small number of important files backed up in various ways (docs in cloud, code on github, etc), but other than that I live on the edge. If/when something goes wrong, I try to fix it, if I can't, I start fresh. Having a nice, clean, brand new install is kinda nice every once in a while.
7 • Tracking?? (by Friar Tux on 2022-03-21 13:33:06 GMT from Canada)
I'm with @6 (Luke) on this one. I basically only back up my Documents, Pictures, and Music folders. With today's distros, it take almost as much time to simply do a fresh re-install of the distro as it does to fiddle with the likes of back up software/images/etc.. Also, with a fresh install you get rid of a lot of hidden "dustball" files that tend to accumulate, but are a waste of time to monitor. (One of the many reasons I don't do rolling release distros.)
8 • Tracking file changes (by Otis on 2022-03-21 14:25:11 GMT from United States)
Never heard of doing that. Might look now and then now that I’ve been exposed to the notion. No, I expect too little from my operating systems to care about such things.
9 • Tracking filesystem changes (by Alexandru on 2022-03-21 15:42:14 GMT from Romania)
Thank you for suggesting git as a way to keep track of changed files. Git need not be remote or shared repository, but a local one. And it of course does exactly this - keeps track on any file changes.
Another option I didn't see mentioned is a shell utility: find. It can search for files based on creation / modification or access time. This option is great when no special setup is available and still one needs to find the changes.
10 • @3 - Btrfs, GUI, etc. (by Microlinux on 2022-03-21 17:55:34 GMT from France)
Btrfs is the default filesystem on SUSE Linux Enterprise systems (powering the NYSE among other things requiring reliability). And the command line is the standard way for system administrators (e. g. guys who run the Internet and those things) to interact with an operating system. :o)
11 • LMDE 5 (by dude on 2022-03-21 18:07:08 GMT from United States)
I like the idea of LMDE, but previous versions didn't support the wifi adapter in my laptop. But Linux Mint Xfce works just fine with my wifi. Why is that?
12 • Tracking filesystem changes (by Steve on 2022-03-21 19:19:38 GMT from United States)
As a system admin I would use other tools (than those in the poll) on servers to watch out for unexpected file changes.
I managed my own changes thru backups (in case I really screwed up) and only editing copies of stuff and keeping the original safe. It was a crude versioning system but it worked for me.
I also kept notes (or call it documentation) on everything I did on my systems. It was a small(ish) operation and I dealt with tens of servers instead of hundreds or thousands, so it was fairly easy to keep track of manually.
But I'm retired now and don't bother on my home systems. Theoretically I'm the only one making changes on my systems here at home. But I still backup all my systems on a strict and regular schedule. 8^)
13 • @3 (by Loup on 2022-03-21 22:19:30 GMT from Canada)
I use btrfs since introduction in linux.
Never had any problem.
Found over the years, that those with problem are most of the time missusing btrfs or lack knowledge.
Like @10 says " default filesystem on SUSE LINUX ENTERPRISE "
NTFS .... will keep the rest of my comments for myself !
14 • Tracking filesystem changes: ManicTime 5.0 (Freemium) (by Greg Zeng on 2022-03-22 03:05:11 GMT from Australia)
Just released today. Available for RPMM DEB, Arch, Chrome, Firefox. (MacOS, Android).
On Linux: "This is not a full ManicTime Windows port to Linux. It is only a tracker, which can send computer usage data to ManicTime Server, where you can view the reports."
> "ManicTime is a system tool for time management that quietly sits in the background and records your daily activities.
> When you are finished with your workday, you can use the collected data to track your time accurately. Since it is always tracking you, there is no more punch-clock-like software to report to, where you always forget to start or stop the clock. You sit back and do your work like normal, and ManicTime takes care of the rest.
> "ManicTime features a simple and intuitive UI, so, during the day, the average user can switch back and forth between applications more than 1000 times, which means it gathers a lot of data. Using their timeline technology, ManicTime presents the data in an easy-to-understand way. You can drag on the timelines to select time or just mouse over to see hints about underlying data. All the data gathered is stored locally on your computer, and you can delete it anytime you want. Having a local database also enables you to use it offline, without an internet connection.
> "ManicTime shows you which applications you use the most or on which websites you spend the most time and figure out how much time you spent working on projects to bill your clients or keep track of your work accurately."
15 • @11 LMDE5 (by kc1di on 2022-03-22 11:19:49 GMT from United States)
It's because the debian base does not ship with any proprietary drives which more than likely your wifi card requires. They can be added but it may take some work on your part. Where Main Mint is based upon Ubuntu which will include the needed drivers of firmware.
Straight up Debian will not even support my intel card which is well supported in linux because it will not out of the box supply the firmware needed to run it. Debian tries to be as completely free of Proprietary software as possible.
That's one reason so many distros tha would be Debian based have chosen Ubuntu as a base instead.
16 • LMDE5 (by Fabio on 2022-03-23 08:10:23 GMT from Italy)
i do not know LDME but in Debian it is very easy:
It is sufficient to add after "main" the contrib non-free labels
in the /etc/apt/sources.list file
After:$sudo apt update
:$sudo apt install firmware-linux-nonfree
and Debian at this point is similar to Ubuntu or mint when recognizing
the hardware (generally WiFi or in some case the Ethernet card or other).
By default Debian, when installed, contains just the label "main" with only
"free" packages. It is responsability of the user to enable the "non-free"
repository and install missing packages from this section. Unfortunately
due to this policy people think that debian has problem with hardware but
ubuntu, debian and mint have really the same behavior in this respect
17 • LMDE, Debian firmware (by Dr. Hu on 2022-03-23 12:18:03 GMT from Philippines)
@11, @15, LMDE 5 includes non-free firmware in the ISO. WiFi support should no be different from the Ubuntu-based Mint.
@16, the problem with Debian is that the official installer does not include the non-free firmware, so you either have to connect by wire, install, then add the firmware, or use a workaround by downloading the firmware prior on a WiFi enabled machine, then install it from a flash drive or other means. You can also download an unofficial CD/installer with the firmware included.
I faced a Catch-22 around 15 years ago, where I was trying to install Ubuntu and needed ndiswrapper to use the Windows WiFi driver. Problem was, I had to download ndiswrapper and I only had access to WiFi. To connect, I had to be connected. Linux Mint came to the rescue by including ndiswrapper in the ISO. Since, when installing "free" distros like Debian I make sure to have a wired connection handy.
18 • snapshots of the filesystem (by zcatav on 2022-03-23 12:23:59 GMT from Turkey)
Ubuntu has an option for ZFS during first install. You can add it later to Debian and derivatives (including Ubuntu). Ubuntu grub bootloader will allow you to revert the system (and optionally user) states on demand! An history entry will propose you to boot on an older state of your system.
It's very useful. You can manage it with CLI if desired.
19 • No Tracking (by Bill Donnelly on 2022-03-23 16:38:43 GMT from Canada)
I backup documents and photos to usb stick & USB disk drive. Run both Fedora 35 and Debian Testing on my SSD in case one of these distro's has an issue. Have been running Debian Stable since Debian 6. Too many issues with Debian 11 so I went back to 10. Still too many small issues with 10 so went to Fedora 35 which provided the icons, icon themes and fonts and none of the printing issues of Debian.
Installed Debian Testing a couple of days ago and was pleased to find that all of the issues I had with Debian 10 & 11 were overcome. Don't understand why 10 & 11 issues went unheeded.
20 • Tracking Changes with Overlayfs (by Justin on 2022-03-25 20:11:50 GMT from United States)
I have laptops set up with overlayfs to protect the root system. I'd like to be able to see what changes are made (stored in RAM), but I don't know a good way to do it. When I saw the question, I had hoped there would be answer on this topic.
Number of Comments: 20
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Damn Small Linux
Damn Small Linux was a business card size (50MB) live CD Linux distribution, based on Debian and Knoppix. After a 12 year break (from 2012 to 2024), the Damn Small Linux (DSL) project was relaunched. The distribution is now based on Debian and antiX with the goal of fitting on live media 700MB or smaller (in order to be usable in CD-ROM drives). Despite its minuscule size it strives to have a functional and easy to use desktop. Damn Small Linux has a nearly complete desktop suite, including web browsers, office software, an e-mail client, PDF viewer, media players, and FTP/SFTP client.
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