 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 965, 25 April 2022 |
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Welcome to this year's 17th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
One of the big news items of this past week was the launch of a new long-term support (LTS) release of Ubuntu and the distribution's many community spins. Below we share a summary of new highlights from each flavour of the Ubuntu family. First though, we talk about Peppermint OS, a project which was previously based on Ubuntu packages, but has recently migrated to Debian. This move sparked a lot of discussion and letters to DistroWatch and we talk about how the new release performs. Have you tried the new version of Peppermint? Let us know how it compares to previous versions in this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section we report on Linux Mint testing a new upgrade tool to help users migrate between major versions. Plus we share commentary from former Debian Project Leader Steve McIntyre on the state of firmware in the Debian distribution. Moving from a former Debian Project Leader, to the current one: Jonathan Carter has won this year's election for Debian Project Leader. Then we explore the concept of breaking up large files into smaller pieces and later sewing them back together in this week's Questions and Answers column. We're also happy to share the torrents we are seeding and the many releases of the past week, not just Ubuntu's. The OpenBSD project and a few others also published significant updates last week and we share details below. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Peppermint OS 2022-02-02
Peppermint OS was, until recently, a Linux distribution based on Lubuntu which featured a hybrid desktop comprised of LXDE and Xfce components. Peppermint gained a reputation for being lightweight with a focus on making it easy to set up site specific browsers (SSBs) using a tool called ICE. A site specific browser is basically a minimal web browser window which is typically used to visit just one website or web app, making the website look like just another local application window.
The latest version of Peppermint has made a few changes. The base of the distribution has transitioned from Lubuntu/Ubuntu to Debian. The desktop has been altered too, shifting from a hybrid to a pure Xfce 4.16 experience. These were the main highlights talked about when Peppermint OS 2022-02-02 first arrived on the scene and, at first, the shift didn't appeal to me enough to explore the new version. However, a little time went by and people wrote to me to tell me how much they disliked the new version of Peppermint. I became increasingly curious to see what drastic changes had occurred to so upset people. My curiosity engaged, I found myself downloading the project's new 1.4GB ISO built for x86_64 computers.
The live environment
The live environment booted on my machine almost instantly, quickly presenting me with the Xfce desktop outfitted with a dark theme. The desktop places a thick panel across the bottom of the screen. This panel holds the usual application menu, quick-launch buttons, task switcher, and system tray. On the desktop we find a single icon for launching the Calamares system installer.
When we launch the live environment a welcome window greets us. The welcome screen offers a series of buttons for accessing features, most of which will probably be more useful once the distribution is installed. One button offers to launch a program that will assist us installing web browsers (Peppermint does not ship with a default web browser). Another button offers to download something called Peppermint Extras. These turned out to be additional themes, icon packs, and wallpapers. There is a third button for accessing Pephub, a unified settings panel which provides quick access to Xfce settings modules and some lower level tools which I'll go into later. There is another button for showing us the distribution's release notes. A final button opens a page of documentation which explains how to use ICE to set up SSB links, complete with screenshots.
Peppermint OS 2022-02-02 -- The welcome window
(full image size: 567kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
While in the live environment the release notes button was probably the most useful option. The release notes mention the new welcome window, the shift to a pure Xfce experience, and mention the Ubiquity system installer has been replaced by Calamares. We're also told about the unified settings panel, the lack of a default web browser, and advised the Thunar file manager has been usurped by Nemo. There is also mention of a new ad blocking tool which can be activated from the command line called hBlock.
Installing
The Calamares graphical installer does a good job of quickly walking us through a few common steps. We select our timezone, keyboard layout, and partitioning. Calamares provides easy methods for automated and manual partitioning. The automated approach sets up a swap partition and single root partition on the ext4 filesystem. We are also asked to make up a username and password for ourselves. Calamares then quickly copies its files to our hard drive and offers to restart the computer.
During the install process we are shown some slides with key features Peppermint offers. One of the slides mentions we can use native Debian packages, Flatpak, and Snap packages. The Flatpak and Snap frameworks are not installed by default, but can be fetched from the Debian package repositories.
Earlier I mentioned Peppermint uses a dark theme by default. Most of the time I liked this theme, I tend to prefer a darker look. However, sometimes Peppermint was a little too dark. One of the areas where this shows up is in the installer. Calamares features a black background and, in some areas, dark grey widgets. This can make it hard to tell what components are interactive. The same thing happens in some modules of the settings panel and on the welcome screen where text may be grey on black or dark red on black, making it hard to read.
Early impressions
My freshly installed copy of Peppermint booted quickly and presented me with a graphical login screen. From there I was able to sign into the Xfce desktop. The welcome window appears again when we sign in, at least the first time we access the account. Using the welcome screen I started by opening the module to install a web browser. Along with a series of nine browsers we can select there are a dozen other packages we can choose to install. These include a document viewer, Flatpak and Snap support, the GNOME Software centre, Parole media player, and a bittorrent client. It is a varied, fairly useful collection of popular software. This add-ons installer worked well for me and each of the six items I installed worked, including two browsers.
Peppermint OS 2022-02-02 -- Selecting browsers to install
(full image size: 594kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Peppermint ships with the Synaptic package manager and the APT command line tools. This means that we don't need to install GNOME Software in order to access additional applications, though it is probably a good idea if we don't want to deal with packages on a low-level basis. If we do install GNOME Software it does not automatically work with portable package repositories (such as Flatpak). In fact, trying to see which repositories are enabled in GNOME Software by selecting the Repositories option in the menu fails to open the list of repositories making managing software sources difficult.
Software and settings
I mentioned a unified settings panel earlier called Pephub. This application presents us with two tabs. In one tab we find desktop settings, mostly courtesy of the Xfce desktop. In the other tab we find modules for manipulating lower level settings. These settings modules handle checking for updates, enabling ad blocking, setting up printers, and opening various software centres and portals (such as Flathub). These modules worked well and I didn't encounter any problems while using them. Should we wish to, we can also use the native Xfce settings panel and settings manager rather than the Pephub application.
Peppermint OS 2022-02-02 -- The Pephub unified settings panel
(full image size: 593kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
In the Pephub panel and in the system tray we can find icons which will check for software updates. This causes a virtual terminal to open and indicate the system is refreshing its repository information. Then the terminal window closes.
I noticed no updates were found, despite Peppermint 2022-02-02 being released over a month earlier. Perhaps new package versions are downloaded during the install process, but during my week long trial with the operating system I did not see any software updates become available, in any of the package managers (APT, Synaptic, and GNOME Software), which does not match my experience on other Debian-based distributions during this same period.
Also on the topic of working with packages, I installed GNOME Software and it worked fairly well to help me find new packages in the Debian repositories. There were some problems though. I could not view or edit enabled repositories in GNOME Software. I also found that, once a new application had been installed, the Install button on its information page would change to a Launch button. The Launch button did nothing when it was clicked. I experimented with multiple applications and none of them could be launched from within the software centre. These same applications all launched successfully from the application menu.
Peppermint OS 2022-02-02 -- The Nemo file manager
(full image size: 568kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Apart from the Xfce 4.16 desktop and its settings modules, Peppermint ships with few applications. There are some basic desktop tools, the Nemo file manager, and the KDE Connect software for linking with Android devices. Digging deeper we find the GNU command line utilities, manual pages, and the GNU Compiler Collection. Peppermint OS runs the systemd init software and version 5.10 of the Linux kernel.
Hardware
This relatively small collection of software makes for a small footprint. Peppermint consumes about 5GB of disk space, plus swap space. When sitting idle at the Xfce desktop the system consumes about 400MB of RAM, placing the distribution in the lower end of the "medium weight" category.
The desktop is highly responsive, both in VirtualBox and running on my laptop. It's surprisingly fast and snappy. I found the same could be said of boot times. With the exception of a few specialty and super light distributions like Alpine Linux, I don't think I've ever observed a distribution booting this quickly.
Peppermint worked well in VirtualBox and detected all my laptop's hardware. By default the system would not register trackpad taps as mouse clicks, but this can be enabled in the settings panel.
One of the few issues I ran into was that Peppermint uses a small font size by default. This can be adjusted for aging eyes like mine. However, the font size settings are not respected by all programs. For instance, the tool which offers to install web browsers and other popular tools always has the same font size and family.
Other observations
ICE makes it easy to set up SSB shortcuts. Opening ICE brings up a window where all we need to do is provide a name for the shortcut and the URL of a website or web app. ICE will then fetch the web service's icon and add it to our application menu. We can then click it to open a minimal browser window to display the website.
Peppermint OS 2022-02-02 -- Using ICE to set up website shortcuts
(full image size: 568kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
I tested hBlock which downloads a series of files and then prompts for our sudo password. The service then enables blocking of Internet domains which are known to serve ads. I was not sure exactly how hBlock was accomplishing this (whether it was using a proxy, hosts file, or another approach. According to the hBlock website the service is a script which downloads list of domains to block and adds to them our system's hosts file.
Conclusions
Given how many angry messages I received about Peppermint's latest release I expected the transition from its former Lubuntu base to Debian to have been a minefield of issues and problems. My experience though was, if not amazing, then not bad either. On the positive side of things Peppermint is amazingly fast in my test environments, running circles around almost every other desktop distribution I have used in recent years. Its boot times, Xfce responsiveness, and small memory footprint are all fantastic.
For sake of comparison, Peppermint OS 2022-02-02 uses 400MB of RAM and 5GB of disk space while its previous release (Peppermint 10) used 300MB of RAM and 6.5GB of disk space.
I like the welcome window, which is fairly minimal, yet useful. I like the classic desktop layout and the dark theme. I like that the application menu is uncluttered and I appreciate the attempt to merge the various settings panels into one place.
There were some problems though, mostly with regards to package management. Synaptic is a great classic package manager, but it would be nice to have something with more mainstream appeal enabled by default. GNOME Software is available via a few clicks, but it has some issues like repository management not working and its Launch button doesn't work.
The choice to not ship with a web browser at all is unusual. The availability of several browsers through the welcome window mostly makes up for this, but it's still (in my opinion) a strange choice. There is a fine line being walked here between being minimal and not being able to do anything. I think the distribution pulls it off, the choice didn't cause me problems, but I wonder how some other people (especially those on slow Internet connections) would feel once they realize they need to install a web browser?
Peppermint, both its past Lubuntu-based versions and its new version, have striven to be a minimal base, a fast and light platform to which we can add things. There seems to be a focus on web apps, but we can grab all sorts of additional software from Debian and portable packages if we wish. There are a few rough edges (like the dark-on-more-dark theme and GNOME Software), but otherwise Peppermint does a good job of being a friendly, minimal platform. It has great performance, low resource requirements, and some friendly custom tools to help us get started.
I think for a lot of people, especially those who mostly want a light desktop system or who use a lot of web services rather than local applications will be happily at home with Peppermint OS.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an HP DY2048CA laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 512GB solid state drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Wireless network device: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + BT Wireless network card
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Visitor supplied rating
Peppermint OS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 7.6/10 from 100 review(s).
Have you used Peppermint OS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Mint tests upgrade tool, the state of firmware on Debian, Carter wins Debian election
A few weeks ago we talked about a new upgrade tool for Linux Mint which will assist users in upgrading Mint across major versions. A beta release of the new utility is available to upgrade existing Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) installations from version 4 to version 5. The upgrade utility ships with a few key comments: "If anything goes wrong all changes can be reverted using Timeshift. If you close the tool for any reason, you can run it again no matter how far you went in the upgrade. This beta is only available for LMDE. Do not test this tool in Linux Mint 20 (the Linux Mint 21 package base isn't stable yet)."
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Steve McIntyre is a Debian Developer and was Debian's Project Leader from April 2008 to April 2010. McIntyre has pointed out that project's current approach to non-free firmware (excluding non-free firmware from the default media, but providing separate, unofficial media with the missing firmware packages) is awkward and causes a lot of problems and confusion for new users. "In my opinion, the way we deal with (non-free) firmware in Debian is a mess, and this is hurting many of our users daily. For a long time we've been pretending that supporting and including (non-free) firmware on Debian systems is not necessary. We don't want to have to provide (non-free) firmware to our users, and in an ideal world we wouldn't need to. However, it's very clearly no longer a sensible path when trying to support lots of common current hardware." McIntyre goes on to suggest five options concerning how non-free firmware could be handled in future versions of Debian.
In other Debian-related news, Jonathan Carter has won this year's election for Debian Project Leader. Congratulations, to Carter who is leading one of the world's largest software projects.
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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) |
Splitting up and merging files
Merging-many-files asks: I have copies of files split over many removable media (floppies, CDs, etc), but they are huge and time consuming to refresh or copy over between devices. I had a brief look through the glossary of your Tips & Tricks. Isn't there a CLI command 'merge'? How can I get split up files pasted back together?
DistroWatch answers: For people who might not be aware of this, there is a command line utility called split. The split command divides up one large file into a collection of smaller files. Often this is done in order to spread out one large file onto a series of smaller storage units like floppy disks, CDs, or thumb drives.
There are a number of approaches the split command can take when choosing how to divide one large file. It can divide up a text file into a series of smaller files, each with a set number of lines. It can make one large binary file into a series of smaller files with each small file being a set size (in bytes). The command can also be told to make a specific number of smaller files and it will automatically calculate how big each of the smaller files will need to be to make each of them the same size.
As an example, let's say I have one text file called large. This file contains four lines with each line being six characters (five letters and the newline marker at the end):
hello
light
right
world
I can create four smaller files, each one containing a single line like this:
$ split -b 6 large small-
The "-b 6" tells split how many bytes should be in each file. The word "large" is the name of the original file. The "small-" parameter at the end tells split I want all the new files to be named with "small-" as the prefix. The result will be four new files as shown below:
$ ls
large small-aa small-ab small-ac small-ad
Each of the "small-" files contains a single line from the original large file. The small-ad file, for example, contains the word "world".
I'd like to acknowledge I'm using such a small size for each file for the sake of making an easy example. We could divide one really large file up into 700MB chucks for burning to a series of CDs, if we wanted, by increasing the size parameter. This could be done as shown below:
$ split -b 700M large small-
Now that we have split up the large file into smaller parts, how do we merge them back together? For this we use the concatenate command, better known as cat.
In this example we put all the files back together in their original order and save the result in a new file called new-large:
$ cat small-aa small-ab small-ac small-ad > new-large
For people who do not like a lot of typing (or who have more small files to stitch together) we can use shell shortcuts to perform the same action:
$ cat small-a{a..d} > new-large
However we want to do it, the smaller files have been merged back together in their original order. The new-large file will have the same checksum as the original large file.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
OpenBSD 7.1
The OpenBSD team have announced the release of OpenBSD 7.1, the latest version of this security-oriented operating system. The project has done a lot of work in the last six month, with efforts going into making OpenBSD compatible with Apple's M1 architecture. Improvements have also included wireless driver updates, fixes for tmux, and changes to how OpenSSH handles file transfers. "Near miss in sshd(8): fix an integer overflow in the user authentication path that, in conjunction with other logic errors, could have yielded unauthenticated access under difficult to exploit conditions. This situation is not exploitable because of independent checks in the privilege separation monitor. Privilege separation has been enabled by default in since OpenBSD 3.2 (released in 2002) and has been mandatory since OpenBSD 6.1 (released in 2017).Potentially incompatible changes: In OpenSSH 8.9 the FIDO security key middleware interface changed and increments SSH_SK_VERSION_MAJOR. This release switches scp(1) from using the legacy scp/rcp protocol to using the SFTP protocol by default. Legacy scp/rcp performs wildcard expansion of remote filenames (e.g. 'scp host:* .') through the remote shell. This has the side effect of requiring double quoting of shell meta-characters in file names included on scp(1) command-lines, otherwise they could be interpreted as shell commands on the remote side." Further information can be found in the project's release announcement.
Ubuntu MATE 22.04
Martin Wimpress has announced the release of Ubuntu MATE 22.04, a long-term support Ubuntu community edition. The new release ships with version 1.26.1 of the MATE desktop, offers an updated HUD, and refreshes the MATE Tweak tool. "MATE Tweak has refreshed its supported for 3rd party compositors. Support for Compton has been dropped, as it is no longer actively maintained and comprehensive support for picom has been added. picom has three compositor options: Xrender, GLX and Hybrid. All three are can be selected via MATE Tweak as the performance and compatibility of each varies depending on your hardware. Some people choose to use picom because they get better gaming performance or screen tearing is reduced. Some just like subtle animation effects picom adds. Recent versions of rofi, the tool used by MATE HUD to visualise menu searches, has a new theme system. MATE HUD has been updated to support this new theme engine and comes with two MATE specific themes (mate-hud and mate-hud-rounded) that automatically adapt to match the currently selected GTK theme." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
Ubuntu MATE 22.04 -- The welcome window
(full image size: 735kB, resolution: 1600x1200 pixels)
Ubuntu 22.04
Version 22.04 of Ubuntu has been published. The new reelase is a long-term support (LTS) release which will be supported for five years. The new version ships with components from GNOME 42 and includes support for a range of Raspberry Pi devices. "Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, codenamed 'Jammy Jellyfish', is here. This release continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work through this cycle, together with the community and our partners, to introduce new features and fix bugs. Ubuntu Desktop 22.04 LTS gains significant usability, battery and performance improvements with GNOME 42. It features GNOME power profiles and streamlined workspace transitions alongside significant optimisations which can double the desktop frame rate on Intel and Raspberry Pi graphics drivers. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is the first LTS release where the entire recent Raspberry Pi device portfolio is supported, from the new Raspberry Pi Zero 2W to the Raspberry Pi 4. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS adds Rust for memory-safe systems-level programming. It also moves to OpenSSL v3, with new cryptographic algorithms for elevated security." Additional details can be found in the release announcement and in the release notes.
Ubuntu Studio 22.04
Ubuntu Studio is a communtiy edition of Ubuntu which strives to provide useful tools for media creation. The project's latest release includes a new dark theme, rEFInd support, and offers three years of updates. "For this release, we have a neutral-toned dark theme by default. While we could have gone with the Breeze Dark color scheme since we dropped the Materia KDE widget and window theme (it was difficult to maintain and work with new Plasma features), we decided to develop our own based on GNOME's Adwaita Dark theme with a corresponding Light theme. This was to help with photography since a neutral tone is necessary as Breeze Dark has a more blueish hue, which can trick the eye into seeing photos as appearing warmer than they actually are. However, switching from the dark theme to the light theme is a breeze (pun somewhat intended). When opening the System Settings, one only has to look at the home screen to see how to do that. rEFInd is a bootloader for UEFI-based systems. Our settings which help to support the lowlatency kernel help to create a menu entry to help apply those settings and keep the lowlatency kernel as the default kernel detected by rEFInd. To keep it current, simply enter sudo dpkg-reconfigure ubuntustudio-lowlatency-settings in the command line after a kernel update." Additional details can be found in the release announcement.
Kubuntu 22.04
Kubuntu is an official Ubuntu community edition which features the KDE Plasma desktop. The project's latest version, 22.04, features three years of support. This release includes some of the latest LTS software fro the KDE project, including Plasma 5.24. "Under the hood, there have been updates to many core packages, including a new 5.15-based kernel, KDE Frameworks 5.92, Plasma 5.24 LTS and KDE Gear (formerly Applications) 21.12.3. Kubuntu has seen many updates for other applications, both in our default install, and installable from the Ubuntu archive. Elisa, KDE connect, Krita, Kdevelop, Digikam, Latte-dock, and many many more applications are updated. Applications that are key for day-to-day usage are included and updated, such as Firefox, VLC and Libreoffice. For this release we provide Thunderbird for email support, however the KDE PIM suite (including kontact and kmail) is still available to install from the archive." Additional details are presented in the release announcement and in the release notes.
Lubuntu 22.04
Lubuntu is a community flavour of Ubuntu which features the LXQt desktop environment. The project's latest release, Lubuntu 22.04, is supported for three years and ships with LXQt 0.17.0. "You can find the following major applications and toolkits installed by default in this release: LXQt 0.17.0 - more information here.Qt 5.15.3. Mozilla Firefox will be shipped as a Snap package with version 98.0.2 and will receive updates throughout the support cycle of the release. The LibreOffice 7.3.2 suite. VLC 3.0.16, for viewing media and listening to music. Featherpad 1.0.1, for notes and code editing. Discover Software Center 5.24.4, for an easy, graphical way to install and update software. You can find a variety of other applications installed which aim to enhance your experience while staying out of the way of your normal workflow. Please note: The change of firefox to snap package, results in the browser being slower to start. It does not impact execution or subsequent runs during that session. The reason for this is the setting up of the confined environment in which snaps run, and decompress the squashfs, with privacy and security benefits. This is very noticeable on first run especially with live media." Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement.
Lubuntu 22.04 -- Running the LXQt desktop
(full image size: 626kB, resolution: 1600x1200 pixels)
Xubuntu 22.04
Xubuntu 22.04, the latest version of the Ubuntu's popular subproject which features the Xfce desktop, has been released: "The Xubuntu team is happy to announce the immediate release of Xubuntu 22.04. Xubuntu 22.04, code-named 'Jammy Jellyfish', is a long-term support (LTS) release and will be supported for three years, until 2025. The Xubuntu and Xfce development teams have made great strides in usability, expanded features and additional applications in the last two years. Users coming from 20.04 will be delighted with improvements found in Xfce 4.16 and our expanded application set. 21.10 users will appreciate the added stability that comes from the numerous maintenance releases that landed this cycle. Highlights: Mousepad 0.5.8, our text editor, broadens its feature set with the addition of session backup and restore, plugin support and a new gspell plugin; Ristretto 0.12.2, the versatile image viewer, improves thumbnail support and features numerous performance improvements; Whisker Menu Plugin 2.7.1 expands customization options with several new preferences and CSS classes for theme developers...." See the release announcement and the release notes for more information and known issues.
Ubuntu Kylin 22.04
Version 22.04 of Ubuntu Kylin, a distribution of Ubuntu customised for the convenience of users based in China, has been released. The new version features the improved UKUI 3.1 desktop environment (a fork of MATE), together with a variety of improvements and bug fixes: "On April 22, 2022, the Ubuntu Kylin team officially released the new version 22.04 LTS. 22.04 is the fifth long-term support (LTS) release after 14.04, 16.04, 18.04 and 20.04, and will be officially supported for three years. Compared with the previous version, this updated version adds new functions such as displaying remaining charging time, complex touch gestures and operation animation teaching, system light mode setting, WeChat online login and support for opening personal hotspots. Further optimized the display form of the taskbar area, taskbar startup time, notification popup animation and file manager sidebar level, fixed known issues such as Ctrl+Q not being able to close the music program, and the risk of memory leaks in kylin-burner." See the release announcement (in Simplified Chinese or English) for further information and screenshots.
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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: 2,715
- 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) |
Which Peppermint OS base do you prefer?
We started this week with a look at the new, Debian-based version of Peppermint OS. Previous versions of Peppermint were based on Lubuntu and the migration to the new base received a lot of feedback. What did you think of the change? Did you prefer the old Lubuntu-based Peppermint or do you like the new Debian-based approach? Let us know why in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on booting in UEFI mode versus Legacy BIOS mode in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Debian-based or Lubuntu-based Peppermint OS?
| I prefer the Debian base: | 386 (33%) |
| I preferred the Lubuntu base: | 117 (10%) |
| I have not tried both: | 607 (52%) |
| I tried both with no preference: | 56 (5%) |
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| Website News |
Donations and Sponsors
Each month we receive support and kindness from our readers in the forms of donations. These donations help us keep the web server running, pay contributors, and keep infrastructure like our torrent seed box running. We'd like to thank our generous readers and acknowledge how much their contributions mean to us.
This month we're grateful for the $2,198 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| Anonymous | $2,000 |
| Porteus Kiosk | $100 |
| Bernhard K | $50 |
| Michael C | $20 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| DuCakedHare | $5 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| Bachir B | $5 |
| JD L | $2 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
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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, 2 May 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 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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| Random Distribution | 
Sculpt OS
Sculpt OS is an independent open-source operating system developed by Genode. It combines Genode's microkernel architecture, capability-based security, sandboxed device drivers, and virtual machines in a novel operating system for commodity PC hardware and the PinePhone. Sculpt uses an administrative user interface called "Leitzentrale".
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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