DistroWatch Weekly |
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 965, 25 April 2022 |
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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 92 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
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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 |
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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Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Peppermint - not really all that minimal (by Andy Prough on 2022-04-25 00:28:11 GMT from Switzerland)
>"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. "
For me, these are not minimal specs. I'm much more used to starting up in a window manager in 64-bit antiX with less than 140mb of memory used, or with 32-bit antiX where I routinely start with less than 80mb. My experience with XFCE is that 300-400mb is pretty average, so I don't personally see this as really minimal at all.
2 • Peppermint (by V on 2022-04-25 01:46:57 GMT from United States)
Peppermint OS Debian seems to use less disk space than RAM. A 100MB increase in RAM usage is probably not that bad on the hardware that is being used for this distro. The Debian base definitely helps with decreasing the storage footprint.
If Peppermint was based on something like Alpine the storage footprint would go down even further, probably to something like 3-4 GB.
3 • Peppermint. Lite. Mint LXDE. Lubuntu or Debian? (by Greg Zeng on 2022-04-25 02:40:25 GMT from Australia)
So much confusion on "lightweight" Linux operating systems. A few years ago, it seemed simple. Debian, LXDE, XFCE used to be considered light if any desktop environment was required.
These "light" versions have inbuilt limits. The more flexible alternatives have improved to now reach the lightness of the previous offerings. The application containers appimage, Snap and Flatpak are large, limited and "heavy".
Ubuntu-base offers the PPA updates not available to Debian-based systems, but with possible security risks. The Nemo file manager is a lightweight version of Dolphin, which is preferred by power users.
Linux kernels are released, ready to run, compiled, by Ubuntu, every few days. The official Debian kernels are less loaded with closed source binaries, but not very regularly released. Ubuntu-based systems try to have the latest updates officially. Other Ubuntu based operating systems are less cautious than the upstream Ubuntu.
The many other Linux operating systems are less lively with updates of all kinds. Ubuntu's main system, like Fedora, is daringly experimenting, at high risk with Wayland. Unlike Fedora, the Ubuntu systems still are shy about BTRFS.
There are other lightweight Linux systems, such as PCLOS and the Puppy based family, but these do not offer the full range of applications nor hardware.
4 • Ubuntu 22.04 and variants (by denflen on 2022-04-25 04:33:00 GMT from United States)
I have been a user of Lubuntu for a long time. I didn't like the switch from LXDE to LXQT from several year ago. But I have finally got used to it, and continue to use it. But now, after hearing about the switch of Firefox (my favorite and comfortable browser) to a Snap package, I am having doubts again. It is slow to start? WTF! I don't use any Snap packages at all and don't want to. I am old and slow to accept changes, sure, but this should be unacceptable to most. Is this just a unique feature of Lubuntu, or is it across all Ubuntu variants? Specifically, does this also apply to Xubuntu? It might be time for me to move on....
5 • Peppermint (by Hank on 2022-04-25 05:08:05 GMT from Germany)
Peppermint, I welcome the move to debian, just wish they had been brave enough to make a bigger jump. Get rid of poetterings lunacy. Promoting snap and other huge packages, nothing light about that.
Middelweight, both disk space required and RAM requirements middle of the road performance compared to antiX with ICEWM. antiX does come complete so size installed brings all needed for daily usage. And a highly advanced toolset on top. It also was one of the first distros to offer the easy adblock setup option.
6 • Ubuntu variants (by Jeff on 2022-04-25 06:41:11 GMT from Switzerland)
@5 All official Ubuntu variants use the Firefox Snap package. For Ubuntu based OS with no Snaps use Linux Mint or Trisquel.
7 • Lightweight systems (by Magda on 2022-04-25 07:27:38 GMT from Germany)
@3 Perhaps this might be because devs, that already are getting sloppier in terms of developing efficient programs, don't really know, or tend to ignore for various reasons, what the de-facto low-level standard regarding hardware is, and some vocal Linux users online aren't helping, either. In practice, the most common type of hardware you'll encounter outside of tech sites online encompasses low-end machines capable of 4 and 8 GB RAM max, yet RAM doesn't determine the performance of an OS as much as CPU and GPU do – vendor-specific configuration among low-end hardware can be quite odd, if not even bad on purpose (planned obsolescence), in some cases and this issue appears to become more prevalent. This becomes pretty noticeable the older your current hardware is, given you keep track of CPU/GPU performance and compare specs. This might explain why advanced distributions like Puppy provide extra GUI tools to adjust the OS to low-end and outdated components with a little less hassle, though, of course, this really shouldn't be something the "average end-user" should have to deal with, and likely never will, anyway.
Distros such as Ubuntu, on the other hand, pretty much are "forced" to follow the "latest trends" due to their popularity and some vocal users pretty much demanding big distros to be "more like Windows". And although switching from Windows 10/11 to Ubuntu still provides significant relief to aging or poorly-configured hardware, and devs mostly ignoring people like Artem S. Tashkinov, the biggest distributions – and the dozens, if not hundreds of projects shaping said distros – are (more or less) doomed to follow a similar path in terms of "bloat", especially if they desire to *appear* to be suited for non-Linux users, as well, and increase their user base in the process. The underlying issues are not exclusive to Linux and more part of a general trend within software development: Appearance over technical efficiency.
8 • @7 (by James on 2022-04-25 10:43:31 GMT from United States)
Distros such as Ubuntu, on the other hand, pretty much are "forced" to follow the "latest trends" due to their popularity and some vocal users pretty much demanding big distros to be "more like Windows".
I switched from Windows for a reason. The last thing I want is Linux to be more Windows like.
9 • Linux SHOULD be unique. (by Bob on 2022-04-25 11:08:02 GMT from United States)
@8 "The last thing I want is Linux to be more Windows like."
I agree with you 100%.
10 • peppermint Article (by pat on 2022-04-25 12:40:02 GMT from United States)
Hi. It might be helpful if you could post a chart showing by memory usage each distro's classification as a light, low medium, high medium or the various shades of heavy. Thanks. Like those Twains too!
11 • Windows like... (by Friar Tux on 2022-04-25 14:00:02 GMT from Canada)
@8 &@9... "Windows like..." If you mean the placement of a task bar/panel then Windows like is a good thing. When I switched from Windows to Linux, "Windows like" is what I went for as it allowed me, and The Wife, to carry on with our work without much interruption. Muscle memory plays a big part in working on a computer, so Windows like is a huge benefit when switching. I tried the recent iteration of Gnome but found it unworkable. I chose Cinnamon because it IS Windows like. You are not going to get a lot of Windows converts if Linux is too radically different. In fact, those who WANT to switch will feel trapped in Windows because Linux is TOO different. This, to a point already happens, now. By the way, early on, ALL GUI OS's looked like Windows - or rather looked like each other. It was, sort of, "The Trend", though not really a trend. Windows 95/98, Motif, CDE, early KDE, even early Gnome, all had similar element, and placement of those elements, on screen. There are still themes for most DE's out there that have a "nostalgic" design to them. I have a couple just for fun. @10 (pat) I love those Twain quotes, too. (Especially since The Wife is a Twain aficionado.)
12 • peppermint (by winr5 on 2022-04-25 15:15:14 GMT from Germany)
relatively small collection of software makes for a small footprint. Peppermint consumes about 5GB of disk space.
No browser, No Libreoffice, Claiming 5GB installed is lightweight is a sad joke To do anything useful with the system requires installing a lot of heavy software on top for even general usage.
13 • Windows vs. Linux (by Magda on 2022-04-25 15:31:44 GMT from Germany)
@11 If I remember correctly, GUI played no role in the failure of LiMux, a project initiated and later killed by the city of Munich. And end-users can differ vastly from each other, depending on who you ask. While an employee from my health insurance gets a mental BSOD when explaining "software versions" to her, my mother (mid-50s, home user) is capable, though a little out of practice, of using a computer with just TTY and can navigate herself through my Arch machine quite well, despite only providing a minimal WM that looks like it's straight outta a certain subreddit for "nice rices".
Depending on the distro, Linux doesn't differ much from Windows in terms of end-user experience. Anyone can get adjusted to a different DE, as long as they got the motivation to sincerely revise their routines. I mean, we got used to smartphones, too, and they didn't (and often still don't) resemble Desktops in many aspects.
14 • Windows-like...uh, no thanks (by Liam on 2022-04-25 16:45:47 GMT from United States)
I dislike the Windows interface—even Windows 11 is still mired in 1990s UI design. It's the main reason I don't like Mint in general and Cinnamon in particular. It's a blatant Windows clone, and the Mate and Xfce versions are configured the same way. It always astounds me how many Linux users talk about how bad and unusable Windows is, then complain if someone takes away their Start menu sitting in a tray on the bottom of the screen and their min-max-close window buttons in the opposite corner.
15 • @11 Friar Tux: (by dragonmouth on 2022-04-25 17:21:29 GMT from United States)
"Windows converts" want Linux to run Windows programs natively, have the exact look & feel and the exact same functionality as Windows but not be from Redmond and come at no cost. I don't see/hear anybody complaining that OS/X must be made "more Windows-like".
Linux IS NOT Windows and never will be (hopefully). Get used to it.
I have not used Windows in about 15 years. When I have to use it, I need my kids to interpret for me. Windows is no easier to re-learn that Linux was to learn.
16 • Ubuntu - Firefox, snapped or not (by TheTKS on 2022-04-25 17:47:02 GMT from Canada)
@4 @6
Ubuntu and Xubuntu LTS 22.04 and later will have Firefox as a Snap by default. I presume all other flavours will as well.
There is apparently a way around that: remove the Snap package and install the Firefox .deb package. I intend to try that on Xubuntu after upgrading to 22.04. I assume that would have to be done each LTS version upgrade
Do an internet search for instructions.
TKS
17 • Ooops... (by Friar Tux on 2022-04-25 18:09:14 GMT from Canada)
Hmmm... seems folks have misunderstood my post, here. The thing I was trying to say is that the "Windows like" tag is a misnomer. Windows did not invent the "Windows like" look and feel. They just went along with what was going at the time. Turns out it worked quite well for everyone AT THE TIME. Even Linux originally used it, and, thankfully still does. Muscle memory is a good thing. It helps us humans work more efficiently. Martial arts, construction, in fact, pretty well everything we do depends to some degree on muscle memory. On computers, it's no different. If you have been used to the task bar/Start Menu/etc., in a certain place, it will be harder to be productive if they suddenly move, or the screen is rearranged. I chose Linux Mint/Cinnamon BECAUSE they had a more TRADITIONAL - not Windows like - layout. And again, the traditional layout was originally universal. Even Apple used it originally. Most of us are used to it and it is quite efficient. By the way, I DO play with other setups. Two of my favourite are the desktop environment that Haiku uses (BeOS, I think), and the Window Maker window manager. I would never use those for production, though, as both require a lot of menu chasing to find anything.
18 • Peppermint (by marty on 2022-04-25 21:09:06 GMT from United States)
I tried the Debian version, but did not keep it long. I do not plan to try this newer distro. I use Mint on my machines and Raspbian on the Pi 3 and that is taking care of all that I need right now.
19 • Peppermint (by Marti on 2022-04-25 23:50:31 GMT from United States)
The latest Peppermint is on my current laptop. I have had a Peppermint on my laptops since Peppermint Ice distro, about 2010. Installing is always easy, but I also found the fact that NO web browser was automatically installed a bit odd, too. My laptop is just for e-mail, and sometimes word processing on the go. Latest LibreOffice runs fine.
Synaptic works flawlessly, as it has for me since Ubuntu 07.10. I was a bit apprehensive about the change to Debian base, especially for my wi-fi: it worked OOTB.
20 • Ubuntu Windows (by Dr. Hu on 2022-04-26 01:19:07 GMT from Philippines)
@17, Windows-like Ubuntu indeed! Funny thing is Gnome and its devs get a lot of flak for not being Windows-like enough out of the box. With respect to the memory of Gilda Radner: It's always something.
I bought an iMac just after OS X was released and immediately liked the desktop layout, minus perhaps the global menu. The iMac is long-gone, but any Linux DE I install ends up with panel at top and dock at bottom. If I can't do that properly, the DE is canned. So, Mac-like, if you wish. On Windows XP and 7 I would do the same. Now Microsoft in their abundant wisdom have locked the taskbar at the bottom and there are no docks worth having. So now when and if I use Windows, I resurrect the old creaky "muscle memory'. :) On Windows 11, in a wild fit of creativity, Microsoft decided to move the start menu to the bottom middle. I move it to the left, where God intended. If the future changes in that department and I'm still using Windows here and there, I'll go back to being a full-time Mac-worshiper.
21 • Desnapping *buntu (by silent on 2022-04-26 02:20:54 GMT from Hungary)
*buntu is no longer Linux. Creating a snap backdoor in apt is not only a security problem, it is against the FOSS KISS philosophy, Complete desnapping took me only a couple of minutes, but later on I will remove any *buntu branding, and from now on I will proudly use my own Noname Linux distribution. Please list it in Distrowatch :D
22 • *Buntu KISS @21 (by Justme on 2022-04-26 04:34:09 GMT from United States)
271 active distros and 177 waiting on DW's list, Multiple incompatible package managers, multiple "universal" packaging, lots of desktops and window managers, and you still think Linux is about keeping it simple? If you say so. . .
23 • Debian and non-free firmware (by penguinx86 on 2022-04-26 10:15:32 GMT from United States)
I like Debian, but it's incompatible with the Wifi adapter in my laptop. I tried LMDE and it has the same Wifi incompatibility problems too. I have an Intel Wifi adapter, so it's not some cheap obscure Chinese knock off. By omitting non-free drivers on the install media, Debian is useless to me. How is my laptop supposed to download missing drivers with no Wifi? But Debian isn't alone. Ubuntu doesn't include drivers for my Intel Wifi adapter, as well as many other distros. But Linux Mint works great with my Intel Wifi adapter with no driver hassles. Why can't more distros be like Linux Mint?
24 • Vista (by Bob on 2022-04-26 10:52:36 GMT from United States)
@15 "I don't see/hear anybody complaining that OS/X must be made more Windows-like."
Funny you should mention that. All those many years ago, the first time I saw Vista, I asked the owner "Is this a Mac?"
25 • non-free drivers (by Barry on 2022-04-26 11:06:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
I agree with what penguinx86 is getting at. Though personally I find that PClinxOS does all I need.
And this could be said nearly every week here on the comments section: Most people use their computer as a tool. They aren't bothered about the 'chin stroking' and philosophizing about how a distro should be all free and open source and that in an ideal world that should be fine, despite the fact that it's not an ideal world and it won't get the job done without including such things for a lot of people. I don't thing is thought of as an ethical problem to the average person.
26 • @23 • Debian and non-free firmware (by penguinx86 (by zcatav on 2022-04-26 12:03:50 GMT from Turkey)
You can try, Unofficial installers with non-free firmware, helpful for some network and video adapters, can be downloaded from Unofficial non-free images including firmware packages.
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/
27 • @20 by Dr. Hu (by AdamFirst on 2022-04-26 14:23:49 GMT from United States)
"any Linux DE I install ends up with panel at top and dock at bottom. If I can't do that properly, the DE is canned" AMEN!
Y'all are free to worship where you will.
28 • Snappery etc (by Cheker on 2022-04-26 15:35:13 GMT from Portugal)
Sad state of affairs in the Ubuntu ecosystem. I swear the spinoffs didn't have snap this ingrained in them, but maybe I just hadn't noticed. The twists and turns to install a browser the true way are a little pathetic. I'm glad Trisquel got a shoutout a couple of comments above, it's marginally related to the other topic of this week (whether firmware being libre is important or not.)
Of all of the FSF approved distros that I have tried, Trisquel is the only one that feels mature and had no gaga whatsoever upon installing. I tried it a while back in my old desktop, and it just worked. Can't say the same for PureOS, Dragora, Guix... I'm sure those distros all have their purposes, but Trisquel is the only one I would consider putting in front of an inexperienced user.
29 • unfree Debian (by Tad Strange on 2022-04-26 16:08:14 GMT from Canada)
Got to agree with the blurb about Debian.
I mean, I get it - the whole purity business, but they certainly don't make it easy or obvious where to get a full featured installer: Just a link dumping you unceremoniously at the root of the server directory to let you puzzle out just what you might need, whereas the download link from the main page helpfully initiates a download of an appropriate libre-ISO the moment that the link is clicked.
The disdain for the ordinary pragmatic user is palpable.
And it has always been that way.
30 • Linux: Great server OS.... (by CS on 2022-04-26 17:22:11 GMT from United States)
@23
"I like Debian, but it's incompatible with the Wifi adapter in my laptop" - this is by far the biggest gripe I have about Linux distros and why I would never recommend using Linux on a laptop to anyone, lest I turn into the help desk.
"But Linux Mint works great with my Intel Wifi adapter with no driver hassles. Why can't more distros be like Linux Mint?"
Various flavors of Linux have various flavors of extremists who think various kinds of firmware need to be kept out for ideological reasons. Has this led to an upsurge of open firmware? Not that I can tell, in truth it just shifts the burden to users, who must find workarounds, and reinforces the perception that Linux is unusable for most people.
31 • @30 (by kc1di on 2022-04-26 17:55:41 GMT from United States)
Hi, Debian indeed errs on the side of caution when it come to wifi drivers. It will not ship with an propriety drivers. And thus your problem with your intel wireless on Debian Then to make a non-free version that ships with the needed drivers and firmware. But it's not obvious from the web page that you need to down load it. Mint is a fine Distro and I've used it on a variety of boxes and it has always worked well. But if you don't mind chasing down the firmware and drives Debian is also a good Distro. If it were not then the likes of Ubuntu/Mint would not be based upon it. Along with may others. Some distros just have a ideological aversion to any non free software.
32 • #22 *buntu KISS (by silent on 2022-04-26 18:13:58 GMT from Hungary)
The freedom of choice is really important, so it is good that there are many package managers and lots of free applications and there are several distributions as well for different use cases, for example for experimenting. The problem is - as described in the Linux Mint documentation: "Some APT packages in the Ubuntu repositories not only install snap as a dependency but also run snap commands as root without your knowledge or consent and connect your computer to the remote proprietary store operated by Canonical". Therefore it is more secure to remove snapd and put it on hold in apt - and by that remove any installed snapped APT meta packages. But then it makes much more sense to use another Debian based distro without snapped APT meta packages than using APT packages from PPA's with an unclear level of security.
33 • Debian and non-free firmware (by JeffC on 2022-04-26 22:25:53 GMT from United States)
For so long they have all but hidden the images with the firmware many (most?) users need to make their hardware work down the website equivalent of a sketchy alley into the ghetto.
Due to that I have come to view Debian as not so much a distro but a parts kit for other people to build a distro on.
The Amish make nice furniture, but most people would not want to live like them to have it.
34 • @32 Ubuntu and FOSS, @23 Debian firmware (by Justme on 2022-04-27 01:08:02 GMT from United States)
"The freedom of choice is really important" -Now you're talking, and that's one thing FOSS is about, not some "KISS" principle. In fact, with everyone pulling in their own disparate directions, things can get just a tad complicated. There are people who think it would be better with everyone pulling in the same direction, but that would require some kind on dictator (or at least a competent cat herder), and there goes the "Free" in FOSS; and since it's also "Open Source" anyone can tell the 'leaders' where they can put their directions. What is or is not a secure way of downloading software needs more than just an assertion, but that is for another day and another place. For the record, I have Ubuntu and Kubuntu 22.04 on two PCs with nary a snap to the cartload. Snaps annoy me, but I'm not religious about it.
@23, "non-free firmware" -I've read the same complaint from you before here. I have now and in the past run Ubuntu and variants, Debian, Devuan, PCLinuxOS, MX, and many others on PCs with Intel WiFi with not a single problem. I am running Kubuntu, Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS right now. Debian can be tricky, but they offer the firmware, or "unofficial" installers and Live ISOs with the Intel firmware. Your problem seems to me to be quite local. Examine your hardware, or your methods, or both.
35 • Debian letter (by Toran on 2022-04-27 18:45:28 GMT from Belgium)
It just does not make any sense to make iso's which can not be used. No matter what ideology is followed. Devuan has understood this, as well as Ubuntu. In a rational world a distro is only valid when usable.
36 • Workarounds... (by Friar Tux on 2022-04-28 13:46:13 GMT from Canada)
@30 (CS) "... it just shifts the burden to users, who must find workarounds..." Nope. At least not with me. When I test a distro, the final criteria to my accepting it and using it, is that it works out-of-box. If I can install the distro, and then go right to work, I deem it a good workable distro. If it need ANY post-install messing about, or "workarounds" then it's a bust and I move on. Believe me, there are very few distros that I find good and workable. Most of the ones I've tested require some form of post-install fiddling. BUT, while those distros are not for me, they do fill a niche with people that enjoy fiddling with their distros. To me, distros are a tool to get work done. If they're missing parts, or don't work as advertised, then I move on and find one that does work.
37 • Peppermint OS having Debian Stable and Unstable repos (by Bear Dogg on 2022-04-28 16:05:27 GMT from United States)
Only issue I have with Peppermint OS is it has the Debian Bullseye and Unstable repos active at the same time. I ran a sudo apt update and the update failed. I told Roberto Dohnent from PC/OpenSystems about this, and he agreed with me that they should have one or the other, not both at the same time.
38 • Peppermint ~ Thunar ~ Nemo (by dave on 2022-04-29 14:48:35 GMT from United States)
Sorta funny that they shifted to Xfce and then proceeded to not use Thunar. I wonder if Nemo uses more, less or the same amount of resources. I get that some people don't like Thunar, but it's a strange choice imo; seems like an unnecessary amount of work for the maintainer(s) of the distribution.
39 • Non-Free Firmware (by Justin on 2022-04-29 16:34:05 GMT from United States)
I really, really hope that Debian takes up that proposal to have a non-free-firmware repository. Firmware for hardware and application software are two very different things. The "philosophy", development cycle, even the personalities are vastly different.
If you can't solve everything at once, divide and conquer. I can live with non-free-firmware given the current industry state. I love the notification proposal to let me know what hardware is a problem. Then I can choose to avoid it in the future. I tried Trisquel on a laptop. Wifi and everything worked except for backlight control. That is a big deal for me (eye issues), so I had to stop using. I wasn't going to ditch the laptop, but I also don't have more knowledge of even what _would_ be supported as free/libre so that I could make a more informed choice. It will still be a nightmare for prebuilt laptops since you don't have much control, but Linux reviewers could show the results of some scan or that message to, again, help inform users that care and want that knowledge.
Currently hardware vendors have little reason to care--they make hardware not software. Proprietary or libre firmware makes them no more money. Unless they see value in it, it won't happen. At least educating users who could be advocates or care enough to point it out (maybe in a review how the following laptop has X non-free components) can move the situation forward.
I really like the idea of a scanner tool. Does one exist already? Maybe even one that uploads to a database a la something like CPU benchmark scores?
40 • LCD backlight control (by Just a little boy on 2022-04-29 21:14:21 GMT from Brazil)
"I tried Trisquel on a laptop. Wifi and everything worked except for backlight control. That is a big deal for me (eye issues), so I had to stop using."
If Trisquel (or any other Linux distro) is unable to adjust the luminous intensity of your laptop's LCD backlight, then try to make it by means of setting up the BIOS/UEFI.
Number of Comments: 40
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• 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 |
• Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
• Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
• Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
• Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
• Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
• Full list of all issues |
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Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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ATmission
ATmission was a Fedora-based Linux live CD that enables you to experiment with the Linux operating system and other open source software, without the requirement to install Linux on your PC. The ATmission Live CD contains the KDE desktop, OpenOffice.org, and many other application programs.
Status: Discontinued
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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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