 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 964, 18 April 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 16th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
How long software and hardware should be supported is a matter of considerable debate. Consumers obviously want their purchases to have a long life, supported with security fixes for years while business would prefer to cut support short to reduce costs and drive new sales. One open source project is working to try to extend the life of mobile hardware by providing a lightweight operating system that runs on multiple phones and tablets. This project is postmarketOS and we report on it and how this Alpine-based distribution works in this week's Feature Story. In our News section we talk about the Fedora project considering phasing out the DNF package manager for the lighter Microdnf alternative while EndeavourOS tests out a new window manager called Worm. Plus we talk about running a Raspberry Pi computer with free software components only. Then we discuss running macOS software on Linux and how to reduce bandwidth consumption in this week's Questions and Answers column. Last week we talked about Fedora phasing out Legacy BIOS support in favour of UEFI. We'd like to hear how many of our readers still use the classic BIOS approach to boot their operating system. Let us know why you still use the Legacy BIOS mechanism in the comments. Plus this week we are thrilled to welcome Zephix, a Debian-based live distribution, to our database. We're also 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:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
postmarketOS on the PinePhone
In recent months I have talked about what it is like to run a mobile version of Manjaro with Plasma Mobile and UBports on a PinePhone. There are benefits and drawbacks to both operating systems, but one thing which stood out for me (during both trials) was both operating systems struggled with performance on the minimal device. Both operating systems ran and, in their own styles, made the PinePhone a useful, portable, low-spec computer. I was curious to see how the PinePhone would work with a mobile operating system specifically geared to lower-end (and older) hardware. It seems our readers were too.
After taking a break for a while, I turned my attention to other, mature, and open source operating systems which work with the PinePhone. One which stood out was postmarketOS. This project describes itself as "A real Linux distribution for phones and other mobile devices." The project goes on to talk about its focus in terms of privacy, sustainability, and security for older devices:
We are sick of not receiving updates shortly after buying new phones. Sick of the walled gardens deeply integrated into Android and iOS. That's why we are developing a sustainable, privacy and security focused free software mobile OS that is modeled after traditional Linux distributions. With privilege separation in mind. Let's keep our devices useful and safe until they physically break!
Background
The postmarketOS project is based on Alpine Linux and currently supports two main devices, the PinePhone and the Librem 5, along with a just over 20 other devices being worked on. Since virtually all features, including SMS and calls, are supposed to work on the PinePhone, this seemed like a good match.
There are three editions of postmarketOS for the PinePhone: Phosh, Plasma Mobile, and Simple X Mobile Interface (Sxmo). These seem to be updated about once every week or two. I decided to try out Phosh since I haven't experimented with this interface before. There are two builds offered: a live edition (434MB) and one with an installer (640MB). The former is recommended for casual testing while the latter is recommended for people who plan to use postmarketOS on a regular basis and want to set a custom password on their account. I decided to download the image with an installer.
Installing
The compressed installer image expands to 5.1GB and I then wrote this image file to my microSD card. Once this card was inserted into the appropriate port on the PinePhone the phone booted to a screen which informed me it was running postmarketOS with the Phosh interface on the aarch64 CPU architecture. I was then informed I was about to install a new operating system.
The postmarketOS installer offers to place the operating system on the PinePhone's internal storage or on the microSD from which we booted. The former is probably a good idea for long-term use. I chose to use the SD card as it meant I could unplug it later to revert back to running the device's default Manjaro operating system.
We are next asked to create a password which will be used for authentication and unlocking the device. We cannot skip creating a password and the password we make needs to be at least eight characters long. This is unusual for a mobile operating system and proved to be inconvenient later.
We are next given the chance to enable disk encryption, which will require a boot password if we enable it. I decided to skip the disk encryption. We are then shown a progress bar while the installer sets itself up. This final stage took almost exactly 30 minutes on my device.
The phone stops installing and displays a text login screen followed by the symbols "^@" which are written to the screen several times. After waiting a minute the PinePhone rebooted and told me it was resizing its filesystem. A few minutes later I was shown a lock screen which displayed the current time (for the UTC time zone) and the date (which was off by about six weeks). We can slide a finger up the display to bring up the unlock prompt and enter our eight-character password.
postmarketOS 21.12 -- The welcome window
(full image size: 180kB, resolution: 720x1440 pixels)
Early impressions
The first time I signed in postmarketOS showed me a welcome message. This provided some tips regarding connecting to wireless networks, opening the settings menu by tapping the top panel, and where to find software updates. The welcome window also explains how to power off the device.
The user interface places a thin panel at the top of the display. Tapping this panel (not dragging it) brings up a small settings widget where we can toggle networking, the flashlight, Bluetooth, screen rotation, volume levels, and screen brightness.
In the middle of the home screen we find launchers for several applications which I'll talk about later. When we have an app open, pulling up from the bottom of the display shows us a split view. At the top of the screen we are shown a list of open apps we can select or close (by swiping up). At the bottom of the split display we see app icons we can tap to open a new program.
postmarketOS 21.12 -- The home screen showing one open application
(full image size: 124kB, resolution: 720x1440 pixels)
The interface is fairly responsive. Phosh running on postmarketOS feels a lot faster and more responsive to touch than Plasma Mobile running on Manjaro. It's probably about the same speed, or maybe a little faster, than what I experienced when running UBports on this same device.
One of the first things I tried to do was adjust the screen brightness. The slider in the settings widget is slow to respond and I discovered that it's possible to accidentally turn the display off entirely by moving the slider too far to the left. Once the screen is off we can't see the slider to move it back. In fact, once the screen is dimmed that far the only way to do anything with the device is hold the power button until it reboots, which resets the brightness level.
The icons on the home screen offer us access to programs for making phone calls, sending and receiving text messages, Firefox, a clock, calculator, and an image viewer. There is a media player (called Lollypop), a software centre, camera, and text editor. We also have a Settings app, a Tweaks app (which is sort of an extension for Settings which focuses on the visual aspects of the operating system), and the Portfolio file manager. There is also a terminal app which I ended up using frequently.
These applications tended to work well for me. The Portfolio file manager was a highlight and quite responsive. The camera app appears to be the same one used by Plasma Mobile running on Manjaro and it worked, though it's a bit slow. The image viewer works, but doesn't have a default location where it will browse and show us thumbnails of pictures. The image viewer works more like a desktop application where we need to browse to the location we want and select an image file.
The one application which did not work was Firefox. The browser would load, but it is too large to run on the PinePhone. Even with all other applications closed, Firefox is so large and slow it took over 30 seconds to type a short search or URL. The browser was unable to load any web pages. This was similar to my experience with Manjaro on the PinePhone, though the Morph browser paired with UBports worked smoothly on the same hardware.
Quirks and problems
I could not find a way to take a screenshot using the Phosh interface or the buttons on the PinePhone. I found documentation which explains there is no screenshot function built-in. We have the option of using the command line to install a package called grim and then run it (usually with a delay) to take screenshots which are then saved to our home directory. This approach (running "sleep 10 ; grim" from the command line) is an awkward way to handle capturing images and I hope a more convenient method is introduced.
postmarketOS 21.12 -- The Settings application
(full image size: 91kB, resolution: 720x1440 pixels)
Something I noticed early on was postmarketOS was not detecting my wireless networks. A little poking around in the Settings app revealed airplane mode was on by default, blocking all connections. I then found wireless connections were also turned off in a separate section of the interface. Once the wi-fi toggle was pressed the device found my local networks. This is an unusual set of defaults, but in line with the project's goal of improving mobile privacy.
The postmarketOS platform, at least with Phosh as the interface, enables physical feedback (vibrations) when the user types. I find this quite irritating and soon went looking for a way to disabling it. This led me down a series of modules in the Settings panel and in the Tweaks tool, looking at notifications, sound, keyboard, and language options. None of them presented me with a clear way to disable keyboard vibration feedback. Eventually I found a forum post which explains how to disable the vibrations using the command line. This works (which is great), but the setting is lost whenever the phone restarts (which is bad).
I was hoping to disable the feedback by disabling or removing the feedbackd process which runs in the background. Unfortunately the feedbackd service is not registered (cannot be managed using the service manager) and killing the process causes it to automatically respawn. I tried removing its package using the apk package manager, but feedbackd is a dependency of the Phosh interface, the calling app, and the messaging app, making it effectively impossible to remove. All of which to say is it is possible to turn off feedback vibrations, but it requires command line experience and issuing the command on each start-up.
Earlier I mentioned the installer enforces an eight-character password which is used for everything (logins, sudo, remote shell sessions, and authentication in the Tweaks panel). It's very inconvenient to enter eight characters every time one picks up the phone and I went looking for a way around this. At first I tried removing the password in the Settings app, but the account manager refuses to allow empty passwords. I then enabled auto-login, but it has no effect.
I turned to the command line and did what I did with Manjaro's mobile platform: I ran "sudo passwd -d user" which deletes the account password. This had mixed results. The lock screen would still prompt for a password, but I could enter anything (as long as I typed at least one character) to unlock the phone. This was better, though still a speed bump in using the device.
Deleting the password raised new problems though. Up to this point I'd been able to remotely login to the phone using OpenSSH (more on that later). Deleting my password blocked remote logins. It also made it impossible to change some system settings as the phone will occasionally prompt for the admin password and, with my password deleted, all prompts would fail. This locked me out of various parts of the Tweaks panel, for example.
postmarketOS 21.12 -- The Tweaks interface adjustment tool
(full image size: 150kB, resolution: 720x1440 pixels)
In the end, I compromised with a single-character password which slowed me down a minimal amount while allowing OpenSSH and the Tweaks panel to work. This requirement of needing a user password and forcing an unlock prompt, even when no password exists, feels like a poorly thought out design and one which was a constant irritant during my trial.
I ran into some other problems while trying out various options. For instance, when I went into the Keyboard module in the Settings panel selecting most of the available options did nothing. At another point I went into the Accessibility module and selected the blinking cursor toggle. This brought up a dialog window with a slider. The dialog doesn't fit onto the screen and there is no direct way to close it or switch back to the main Settings app. This effectively locks the app until we either reboot or bring up the window list and close the offending dialog window.
Sometimes trying to open new applications would cause a new window to appear, then close as if the program was crashing. There was no corresponding error, but I suspect the system was running low on memory. Usually trying to launch the app again would cause it to work properly.
Alpine under the hood
The postmarketOS operating system is, at its heart, Alpine Linux. The distribution ships with some command line programs such as ps, scp, and the bash shell. The Busybox software is used to provide a good deal of this functionality, including the operating system's init service. There are no manual pages installed by default.
We can use the sudo command to run administrative tasks and Alpine's apk package manager to install and update programs. For instance, I followed a guide in the wiki which shows us how to enable remote command line access using OpenSSH. This, combined with the phone's built-in ifconfig command to find my IP address, made it possible for me to remotely manage the phone.
The ability to use Alpine's package manager and service manager makes the underlying operating system more flexible and provides access to a wider range of packages. I especially like that the root filesystem is writable, meaning we do not need to remount or do any fancy work arounds to make changes to the operating system the way one does with UBports.
Managing software and updates
Apart from Alpine's apk package manager, postmarketOS also ships with the GNOME Software application. This tool offers three tabs: Explore, Installed, and Updates. Even after pressing the Refresh button in GNOME Software the first two tabs did not show any entries. The Updates tab did though and a dozen new packages were offered. I selected and installed all available updates and they applied cleanly without problems.
postmarketOS 21.12 -- The GNOME Software centre
(full image size: 149kB, resolution: 720x1440 pixels)
I checked to see which repositories were enabled and found there were three listed in GNOME Software, though their names were truncated. The repositories were named "Remote repository c", "Remote repository m", and "Remote repository v". All three are enabled, but no entries could be found in the Explore tab or in search results for common application names.
Other observations
I made a few more observations during my brief trial with postmarketOS. One was the PinePhone's battery drained at around 10% per hour with medium-level use while running postmarketOS.
A challenge arose when I tried to use the device as a phone. When I placed a SIM card in the phone postmarketOS was unable to detect an available mobile network. I faced similar problems with the PinePhone when I tested Manjaro and UBports on this same device - UBports couldn't detect any networks while Manjaro could detect networks without successfully connecting. This surprised me since, during my previous trials, I've used UBports with my current mobile provider in past years.
I found some information on the PINE64 forum which talks about issues getting the PinePhone to talk with mobile networks. This led me to a page on the PINE64 wiki which talks about common mobile network settings which may need to be entered by the user in order for the phone to connect. I looked into this, but the Access Point Names (APN) section wasn't an option which appeared in my mobile settings under Phosh.
At this point I confirmed all hardware switches were toggled on and that the same SIM card would work in another phone. This ongoing problem seems to suggest there is an issue with my PinePhone talking with my mobile carrier's SIM card - possibly due to a hardware issue or carrier compatibility since mine isn't on the list of networks known to work with the PinePhone - rather than any shortcoming in the three operating systems I've tested.
Conclusions
In some ways I feel as though postmarketOS is the best of the three mobile operating systems I've tried so far on the PinePhone. It has a friendly and slick installer, it offers three user interfaces, and it has a nice welcome screen with helpful tips. The Phosh interface running on postmarketOS is probably the closest of the three to more mainstream mobile experiences, such as Android. The icons, top panel, and Settings app all seem fairly close to their Android counterparts. The names of pre-installed programs are some of the most clear as far as determining their utility - a problem I regularly faced when navigating the Plasma Mobile interface.
The performance of postmarketOS was the best of the three and the interface is fairly responsive. Considering the limited hardware of the PinePhone this is probably as good as one can hope for. It's not snappy compared to a medium-level phone running Android, but it's better than most other alternatives.
I also like that while Phosh provides a fairly familiar mobile interface, postmarketOS stays close to its roots behind the scenes. It's entirely possible to run postmarketOS on the PinePhone similar to how we would run Raspberry Pi OS on the Raspberry Pi. We have all the tools we need from the Alpine base to install packages and enable services should we wish to do so.
There were a number of problems I ran into while exploring postmarketOS. Putting aside the mobile network connection issues which seem to be consistent with my PinePhone, there were a number of issues which vexed me. It's unusually difficult to perform some common actions, such as disabling vibration feedback and taking a screenshot. There weren't any applications listed in the software centre, and some settings haven't been implemented yet.
My biggest issue though was dealing with passwords. There is no reason for a mobile device to force its user to have a password and, even if one wishes to debate that, I find it hard to imagine someone appreciating being forced to type an eight-character password every time they wish to use their phone. For someone who often picks up and puts down their phone (maybe a few dozen times a day) this is prohibitively annoying. To make matters worse, doing away with the password locks the user out of adjusting some settings.
The postmarketOS platform looks like it has a solid base and some good polish in places thanks to the Phosh interface. There are still issues - unfinished pieces and some bugs, but of the three mobile distributions I've tried on the PinePhone so far, I think postmarketOS will provide the best experience for someone coming from an Android background or someone wanting to run a small home server on a low-power device.
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Visitor supplied rating
postmarketOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9.5/10 from 2 review(s).
Have you used postmarketOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Fedora considers move to Microdnf, EndeavourOS tests new window manager, running a Raspberry Pi without non-free firmware
Microdnf is a lightweight package manager which offers the functionality most people experience with DNF with less overhead. The Fedora team is considering replacing the existing DNF tool with Microdnf in a future version of Fedora. "The new major Microdnf will provide huge improvements and in some cases better behavior then DNF. In the future, the new Microdnf will replace DNF. The new Microdnf will be accompanied by a new library (libdnf5) and a new DNF Daemon." Details on the benefits Microdnf plans to bring are covered in a Fedora change proposal.
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Along with the latest snapshot of EndeavourOS, the project shared some interesting news. The EndeavourOS project now offers a custom window manager called Worm. "This release is also shipping with a brand-new Window Manager developed by our community editions team member Codic12 and we are more than proud to present you this WM that was developed a little bit under our wing. Codic12 decided to develop this WM to satisfy his need for a lightweight window manager that worked well with both floating and tiling modes and had window decorations with minimise, maximise and close buttons in any layout desired and that could run on a semi-embedded system like the PIZero. Worm is written in Nim and is based on X11, a Wayland version isn't in the pipeline in the near future, according to him."
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The Raspberry Pi single board computer has been a favourite hobbyist tool in the open source community for the past ten years and its popularity has sparked the creation of a lot of similar low-end computers, ideal for small projects and educational environments. One thorn in the side of the Raspberry Pi community has long been the requirement of non-free firmware to boot the device. Gunnar Wolf checks in on the progress being made to replace this key piece of non-free firmware. "Raspberry Pi computers require a piece of non-free software to boot - the infamous raspi-firmware package. But for almost as long as there has been a Raspberry Pi to talk of (this year it turns 10 years old!), there have been efforts to get it to boot using only free software. How is it progressing? Michael Bishop (IRC user "clever") explained today in the #debian-raspberrypi channel in OFTC that it advances far better than what I expected." The blog post goes on to talk about running a Raspberry Pi machine exclusively with free components.
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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) |
Running macOS software and reducing bandwidth
An-apple-a-day asks: Is there a compatibility layer for macOS software like WINE does for Windows? Seems it would be easier given Linux and macOS are both UNIX-like.
DistroWatch answers: There is compatibility software for Linux which assists in running programs built for macOS. The project is called Darling. It's not as advanced at this time as WINE, but it has made progress in getting some macOS software to run.
It may be a little easier to translate some concepts between macOS and Linux, but even though both are members of the UNIX family a lot of the technology involved isn't intended to be compatible. There is also a problem of scale.
The macOS community is around a tenth the size of the Windows community and the platform has many fewer exclusive applications. This makes demand for a compatibility layer for macOS lower than the demand and attention for a Windows layer. For these reasons, Darling has made less progress and attracts fewer developers than its WINE counterpart.
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Running-out-of-bandwidth asks: Been running Arch for a while and my slower Internet speeds mean it takes ages to update the system. Would a non-rolling distro be better?
DistroWatch answers: A fixed release distribution does tend to require fewer updates. A rolling release distribution will typically upgrade every package as new upstream versions of software become available. This puts the user on a rapid treadmill of new packages.
A fixed release distribution will usually only release package updates to handle security issues or minor changes, like timezone and certificate information. This means, if there are no security issues found, a package might not be updated at all during the lifetime of the distribution, even if the upstream project is pumping out new versions with new features.
With a rolling release of a desktop distribution you might end up replacing hundreds of packages each month, consuming hundreds of megabytes of data. With a fixed release, you're likely to end up with less than a dozen security updates per week that require a fraction of the bandwidth.
This isn't to say every month you'll always see less bandwidth consumption from a fixed release platform versus a rolling release. However, on average, you're likely to save yourself a lot of bandwidth over the course of a year if you stick with a fixed release distribution.
The trade off though is that with a fixed release you will need to download a new ISO (or massive set of package upgrades) about once every two to five years to install the new version of the distribution. The total bandwidth is still probably a lot lower with the fixed release, but keep in mind how long a distribution is supported and how large it is when you're considering which one to install. You probably don't want to download an entire new distribution every six months if you're worried about bandwidth consumption, but a new distribution version every five years will probably put a minimal strain on your Internet connection.
Another approach to take would be to run updates while you're asleep. Since you're running Arch Linux, I'd assume you're somewhat comfortable with the command line. You could run a scheduled job which installs new packages while you're not using the computer and then puts the machine to sleep. Then you could keep using your existing distribution without the amount of time to run updates being much of a factor.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
EndeavourOS 22.1
Bryan Poerwo has announced the release of a brand-new version of EndeavourOS, an Arch-based Linux distribution featuring a customised Xfce desktop. Code-named "Apollo", the distribution's 22.1 version comes with various enhancements and bug fixes: "We changed the internet check not to rely on GitHub or GitLab and preventing a failed internet connection error in countries where either GitHub or GitLab is blocked; a fix when Xfce and i3 are both selected for installation; community editions now install with their dedicated display manager; different order for desktop environment option and package chooser; fix to Firefox getting installed when not chosen; Qogir icons and cursor are used in live environment and offline Xfce install; new info button for customised installation; rewritten custom EOS modules for better Calamares integration; when using a custom user_pkglist file, those packages are now displayed on the 'netinstall' page so you can confirm what will be installed...." Continue to the release announcement for a detailed list of changes.
EndeavourOS 22.1 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 3.5MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Turnkey Linux 17.0
Jeremy Davis has announced the release of TurnKey Linux 17.0, a new stable version of the project's highly-specialised, single-purpose set of server appliances. The project's version 17.0 is based on Debian 11 and includes an experimental build for Raspberry Pi 4 computers: "I'm excited to finally announce the stable release of Turnkey 17.0. It has been a bit of a slog, taking way longer than I had hoped and there are only two this time. Regardless, we've finally made it to the stable release milestone, at least for Core and TKLDev. Hopefully we can keep the momentum up and have more v17.0 appliances ready really soon! In the meantime, these two new version 17.0 appliances are published to our mirror network and are also available for download direct from their relevant appliance pages or launched directly from the Hub. Finally, whilst I can't take any credit at all, I'm super excited that community member Yannick has produced 'preliminary' Raspberry Pi 4 builds." See the release announcement for further details.
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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: 2,709
- Total data uploaded: 41.8TB
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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) |
Legacy BIOS or UEFI
Last week in our News section we talked about the Fedora team planning to phase out support for booting on Legacy BIOS machines. The idea being to support UEFI exclusively going forward.
While most modern computers support both methods, or UEFI exclusively now, many older machines use BIOS to boot or run into compatibility issues with some distributions when trying to boot in UEFI mode. We would like to hear which approach you use: do you boot in UEFI or Legacy BIOS mode?
You can see the results of our previous poll on spinning disks versus SSDs in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you boot in UEFI or Legacy BIOS mode?
| Legacy BIOS: | 850 (33%) |
| UEFI: | 824 (32%) |
| I use both across multiple machines: | 887 (34%) |
| Unsure: | 47 (2%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to database
Zephix is a live Linux operating system based on Debian's stable branch. It runs totally from removable media without touching any files stored on the user's system disk. The aim of Zephix is to provide a free modular operating system that users can carry with them and use wherever there is laptop or a desktop system available. The default ISO image comes without any graphical desktop, but a "desktop" module (with LXQt) is available separately, together with a "firmware" module and various popular application modules.
Zephix 4 -- Running the LXQt desktop
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
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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, 25 April 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 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Full list of all issues |
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m0n0wall
m0n0wall was a project aimed at creating a complete, embedded firewall software package that, when used together with an embedded PC, provides all the important features of commercial firewall boxes (including ease of use) at a fraction of the price (free software). m0n0wall was based on a bare-bones version of FreeBSD, along with a web server (thttpd), PHP and a few other utilities. The entire system configuration was stored in one single XML text file to keep things transparent. m0n0wall was probably the first UNIX system that has its boot-time configuration done with PHP, rather than the usual shell scripts, and that has the entire system configuration stored in XML format.
Status: Discontinued
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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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