 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 968, 16 May 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 20th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
One of the useful aspects of open source software is that it can be maintained and improved upon long after the original developers have discontinued work on it. New coders can come along and breathe new life into old projects. One such example of software being kept alive is the Trinity desktop, a fork of KDE 3 which has found a home in a few Linux distributions, most notably Q4OS. The Q4OS distribution is based on Debian and offers both KDE Plasma 5 and Trinity as its default desktop sessions. The Quark project aims to provide similar desktop functionality while using Ubuntu as the package base rather than Debian. This week we begin with a look at the Quark project and report on what it's like to run this Kubuntu-based distribution. Then, in our News section, we talk about improvements coming to the Haiku operating system and report on NVIDIA open sourcing parts of its video drivers. Plus we share some history behind the Linux filesystem and why parts of its layout are duplicated in different directories. Plus we talk about good mobile devices to purchase in order to test drive various Linux-based operating systems. We're also pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Quark 21.10.2
One of the projects which has been awaiting my attention on the DistroWatch waiting list is Quark. The Quark distribution is described as follows:
Quark is a user friendly, desktop oriented operating system based on Ubuntu Linux with [the] Plasma desktop environment and an added value thanks to unique Q4OS tools integrated. Its goal is to provide [an] Ubuntu based operating system with Q4OS amenities. Unlike Q4OS, which is Debian based, Quark is based on Ubuntu.
Another unique Quark feature is a dedicated support for running incredibly fast and efficient Trinity desktop environment alongside the default Plasma desktop. Just select Trinity in the Desktop Profiler tool and enjoy it once easily installed.
We provide Quark bootable live media in two equal variants, that are actually the same, except the default visual theme. The primary one featuring [the] Q4OS Debonaire theme, and a second variant with [a] Windows 10 like theme, as a convenient download for users, who would prefer such [a] look and feel. The Windows visual theme is compiled exclusively from free software projects, no copyrighted or licensed elements are used.
One assumes the description's last paragraph means no copyrighted or restrictively licensed components from Microsoft are used since open source components are, by their nature, copyrighted and licensed by someone.
The latest version of Quark is available as a 2.7GB download for 64-bit (x86_64) machines. Once I had downloaded the live media and launched it, the operating system quickly brought up a welcome screen. This screen informed me that I was running Kubuntu 21.10 and I could try its live Plasma desktop or install the Kubuntu distribution.
This Kubuntu branding occurs in most aspects of the distribution. I saw little to no references to the "Quark" name or logo during my trial. The included tools always referred to Kubuntu, Ubuntu, or Q4OS, but none of the components, boot screen, documentation, or settings referred to Quark by name.
When taking the Try option from the welcome screen we are presented with the KDE Plasma desktop. A thick panel sits at the bottom of the screen. This panel holds our application menu, task switcher, and system tray. The application menu is laid out in a classic, tree-style. There is a single icon on the desktop for launching the Ubiquity system installer.
Quark 21.10.2 -- Being welcomed to Quark
(full image size: 146kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Shortly after the desktop session finishes loading, both on the live media and on the installed copy of the distribution, a Q4OS welcome window appears. This welcome screen offers to launch a number of tools. These include a desktop profiler, a simple software manager, and a tool to install media codecs. There are also toggles for changing the application menu layout, enabling auto-login, and enabling desktop visual effects. I will return to these options later.
The live session runs Plasma 5.22 which is largely unmodified from its upstream distribution. Once I had confirmed the live session was working well and cooperating with my hardware, I launched the Ubiquity graphical installer from its desktop icon.
Installing
Ubiquity begins by asking us to select our preferred language. A link is displayed which offers to show us the project's release notes. Clicking this opens Firefox and displays the Ubuntu release notes for 21.10. We are then walked through screens which help us pick our keyboard layout, select a full or minimal install (I opted for the full version), and we can choose to install third-party software such as media codecs and wireless drivers. Ubiquity offers both guided and manual partitioning. The manual path is fairly easy to use. The guided option sets up a single ext4 partition for the root filesystem. A swap file is automatically created for us on the root partition. Once we make up a username and password, Ubiquity finishes copying its files to the hard drive and offers to restart the computer.
Early impressions
Quark boots to a graphical login screen. From here we can choose two session options: "Plasma on X11" and "Plasma on Wayland". There was no Trinity option available, though the project's website does say we need to install Trinity from the desktop profiler tool.
Since the Q4OS welcome window appears as soon as we login, I immediately selected the desktop profiler utility. The profiler offers one of three options: Full Desktop, Basic Desktop, and Minimal Desktop. While the project's website says this will help us install the Trinity environment, none of the descriptions specify which desktop or applications will be installed, just the general amount of software and features. According to a label in the corner of the profiler's window, we're working with Plasma, not options relating to Trinity.
Quark 21.10.2 -- Selecting a desktop profile
(full image size: 129kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Still, I went ahead and installed the Basic desktop option. This just installed a few tools and upgraded my copy of LibreOffice, but didn't seem to do anything else. Restarting the computer showed I still just had the two Plasma session options. I considered trying to install Trinity manually, but I could not find a complete copy of the Trinity desktop environment (also known as TDE) in the default repositories. Which leaves me wondering if Trinity isn't installed by default and it is not installed by the desktop profiler and it is not in the repositories, then why is it advertised as an option on the distribution's website?
Another advertised piece of software turned out not to be available. When Quark is run in a VirtualBox environment a window pops-up when we login and offers to install guest add-ons to make the experience better. Agreeing to this offer causes an error message to appear which tells us VirtualBox guest additions are not available for this distribution. Not only is this inaccurate, the VirtualBox guest packages are in the default software repositories and can easily be installed manually using the APT package manager.
Included software
Quark ships with a fairly typical collection of popular open source software. Firefox and LibreOffice are provided along with the Dolphin file manager. The VLC media player and Elisa music player are present along with codecs for playing video and audio files. We're given the Muon package manager, the Discover software centre, and the Q4OS Software Centre (more on these in a bit). Quark also ships with the Kate text editor, KTorrent, and the Thunderbird e-mail client. The KDE Connect software is available for connecting with mobile devices and the Okular document viewer is included.
Quark 21.10.2 -- Running LibreOffice and KDE Connect
(full image size: 270kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Behind the scenes Quark is Kubuntu with the same command line utilities, documentation, and systemd init software. Like its parent, the distribution runs Linux 5.13 under the hood.
Software management
There are several approaches to managing software when running Quark. The first and most obvious approach is to use the Install Applications button from the welcome window. Clicking this button opens a simple software centre with 48 open source programs and the Chrome web browser listed. Each item shows its name, icon, and a brief description. We can select one item at a time and click a button to install it. The install process is set up to mimic the Windows setup wizard where we are prompted to click Next a few times as the package downloads and installs. It's not efficient, but it should be familiar to Windows users. When the faux setup wizard is finished, we're returned to the mini software centre. This tool works and is probably the easiest way for new users to install popular applications.
Quark 21.10.2 -- Installing new applications from the welcome window
(full image size: 229kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Discover should probably be considered the default software centre. It is available in the Favourites section of the application menu and it worked fairly well for me. I've never been a huge fan of Discover and its unusual way of organizing software. However, I will happily acknowledge it is getting faster and looks more polished now than it has in the past. Discover was able to install desktop applications and fetch available package updates from the Kubuntu repositories.
Quark 21.10.2 -- The Discover software centre
(full image size: 148kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
If these two options are not to our liking, Quark also ships with the Muon package manager which takes a low-level approach to software management. Alternatively, we can use the APT command line tools. Each of these worked and there is enough variety here for experienced users to find the specific style of software management they want. Newcomers are likely to be a bit confused by the many software management tools since they each work differently.
Hardware and other observations
A fresh installation of Quark uses just under 9GB of disk space and consumes 440MB of memory when sitting at the desktop (after the welcome window has been dismissed). The system is fast and responsive. It boots quickly and I liked how fast Plasma was to respond with desktop effects disabled.
When I was using the distribution in VirtualBox, most things worked as expected. There were two exceptions to this. One was the greeting window failing to install VirtualBox guest add-ons which I later installed manually from the software repositories. The other was trying to change the desktop resolution in VirtualBox caused the display settings module to crash. This left me with a very low resolution desktop when running the distribution in a virtual environment.
The experience was a little better on my laptop. My hardware was all detected and most things worked smoothly. Again, there were just two complaints when I was running Quark on my laptop. The first was the touchpad would not recognize taps as clicks. On modern touchpads, which often don't have clearly defined buttons, this is an irritation. Taps as clicks can be enabled in the System Settings panel in Plasma. The other issue I had was Quark set my screen to be at its dimmest light setting by default. Perhaps this is a battery saving measure, but it makes it difficult to read anything on the display until I had ramped up the brightness level. Fortunately this can be done using the function keys on my laptop, saving me from navigating the settings panel on a dark screen.
The project's website mentions there is a Windows theme available and this is indeed included. The default Plasma themes like Breeze and Breeze Dark are present, but Windows XP and Windows 10 themes are also installed for us.
Conclusions
While working on this review of Quark, I ran into a rare case of writer's block. Which, as Tom Robbins would tell you, is just another way of saying the author is lazy or uninspired. This lack of inspiration is, I feel, a direct reflection of the Quark distribution. The whole experience feels unmotivated.
According to the project's website, Quark has three distinct features: Q4OS utilities running on an Ubuntu base, easy access to the Trinity desktop, and Windows-like themes. The last point is certainly accurate, the distribution does ship with two optional Windows-like themes - mission accomplished.
Quark 21.10.2 -- Changing themes
(full image size: 220kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
However, the Trinity desktop was not to be found. It's not installed by default, the desktop profiler didn't install it for me as expected, and the desktop doesn't even appear to be available in the default repositories. (There are a few Trinity packages, but I could find no sign of a complete set of desktop packages.) This appears to either be a complete oversight from the developers or a lack of clear documentation.
The third feature (Q4OS utilities on an Ubuntu base) is a mixed experience. Technically the Q4OS welcome screen and associated utilities are present on the Kubuntu base, however not all the of them work. The tool to install VirtualBox additions, the option to change desktop resolution, and the desktop profiler all seem to be ill-suited to running on Kubuntu. In short, it feels like the Q4OS software was packaged for Kubuntu and included without any testing, resulting in a few things working and some that did not.
This half-finished impression came up a lot while using Quark with the distribution often referring to itself as either Kubuntu or Q4OS, or linking to Ubuntu documentation. The developers haven't even changed the colours of the project's logo to look different from Q4OS. It looks as though the developers simply took the Kubuntu live media, added the Q4OS packages and the Windows themes, and called it a day without pausing to see if any of it worked.
At this point I'd usually be inclined to pass off the rough edges as a proof-of-concept, a first attempt that will get polished later. However, I checked our database and found the project has been around for almost two full years (it was submitted to our waiting list in 2020) so it's not new, it's just unfinished.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Haiku improves FUSE filesystem creation and imports drivers, history of the Linux filesystem, NVIDIA open sources kernel drivers
The Haiku developers have published a status report which highlights the work done to Haiku in the month of April. The report covers desktop improvements, efforts make to help with the creation of FUSE filesystems, and porting work going into RISC-V and ARM. The report also talks about importing wireless card support from FreeBSD and OpenBSD. "The largest item I worked on last month, which I mentioned investigating in my previous report but had not started on, is some experiments incorporating OpenBSD WiFi drivers in addition to FreeBSD WiFi drivers. This would, if successful, bring in support for a few new classes of devices (including Intel's most recent line) as well as 802.11ac support on idualwifi7260 and some of the new drivers that would come along." More information on the work happening in the Haiku project can be found in the activity report.
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The layout of the Linux filesystem confuses a lot of newcomers, especially since a lot of directories have similar or matching names. There are countless posts on technical forums asking why Linux has directories called /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, and /usr/sbin. While there are a lot of modern reasons and conventions which have grown over the years to justify this as a design, the original reason was a bit more organic. Rob Landley shares this UNIX legend: "You know how Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie created Unix on a PDP-7 in 1969? Well around 1971 they upgraded to a PDP-11 with a pair of RK05 disk packs (1.5 megabytes each) for storage. When the operating system grew too big to fit on the first RK05 disk pack (their root filesystem) they let it leak into the second one, which is where all the user home directories lived (which is why the mount was called /usr). They replicated all the OS directories under there (/bin, /sbin, /lib, /tmp...) and wrote files to those new directories because their original disk was out of space." Additional information on the history of the UNIX (and Linux) filesystem layout is covered in this Busybox mailing list thread.
In other, exciting news NVIDIA have announced their latest video driver release is open source. "NVIDIA is now publishing Linux GPU kernel modules as open source with dual GPL/MIT license, starting with the R515 driver release. You can find the source code for these kernel modules in the NVIDIA Open GPU Kernel Modules repo on GitHub.
This release is a significant step toward improving the experience of using NVIDIA GPUs in Linux, for tighter integration with the OS and for developers to debug, integrate, and contribute back. For Linux distribution providers, the open source modules increase ease of use. They also improve the out-of-the-box user experience to sign and distribute the NVIDIA GPU driver. Canonical and SUSE are able to immediately package the open kernel modules with Ubuntu and SUSE Linux Enterprise distributions." At this point the newly open sourced NVIDIA video drivers are in the early stages of development and don't support all NVIDIA GPUs at the time of the release. However, this does open the door for kernel developers to improve and expand the NVIDIA modules.
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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) |
Finding a good phone for Linux-based operating systems
Seeking a new phone asks: Which is the best phone for installing Linux and custom Android ROMs?
DistroWatch answers: The challenge I find with answering this question is trying to figure out what criteria defines the "best" option. Are we looking at cost, hardware specifications, basic compatibility with the highest number of operating systems, outstanding compatibility with one operating system, ability to buy the device in the largest number of countries around the world? Without knowing what the key factors are in deciding which phone will be deemed the "best", it's difficult to give an answer.
Were I looking for an inexpensive, open hardware device which works a little bit with a wide range of operating systems I'd probably pick the PinePhone. It doesn't cost much and it works with over 20 Linux-based operating systems. However, I don't think Android is one of the supported systems and the hardware is quite low-end.
On the other hand, if you want a device which works with GNU/Linux operating systems, such as UBports, and which also runs Android, then you might try getting a used Nexus 5. It's also low end and inexpensive and is one of the supported devices recommended by UBports.
Should you wish for something with slightly higher specifications (and price tag) you might look at the Fairphone 3 which is almost entirely supported by UBports and will run custom Android flavours like LineageOS and /e/OS. At the time of writing a port of postmarketOS for the Fairphone 3 is in progress.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Fedora 36
The Fedora team have announced the release of Fedora 36. The new release offers desktop users a chance to run GNOME 42 with most applications ported to GTK 4. Fedora 36 also ships with a new version of the Ansible management software while Cockpit can now manage network shares. "Fedora Linux 36 includes the latest release of Ansible. Ansible 5 splits the 'engine' into an ansible-core package and collections packages. This makes maintenance easier and allows you to download only the collections you need. See the Ansible 5 Porting Guide to learn how to update your playbooks. Beginning in Fedora Server 36, Cockpit provides a module for provisioning and ongoing administration of NFS and Samba shares. This allows administrators to manage network file shares through the Cockpit web interface used to configure other server attributes." The release announcement and release notes offer additional information.
Fedora 36 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 2.7MB, 2560x1600 pixels)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6
Red Hat has announced the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.6, the latest update of the company's commercial, enterprise-class Linux distribution with bundled customer support: "With Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6, you can: Innovate - provides developers with a simplified experience for both access and application development. Support for the following AppStreams is now available: Added Perl 5.32 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 AppStream. Added PHP 8.0 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux8 AppStream. Updated to LLVM Toolset in Red Hat Enterprise Linux8 AppStream. Updated to Rust Toolset in Red Hat Enterprise Linux8 AppStream. Updated to Go Toolset in Red Hat Enterprise Linux8 AppStream. Optimize - offers Stratis Storage support in the web console (tech preview) to allow users to utilize the Red Hat Enterprise Linux console to create, configure, and manage Stratis Storage pools and filesystems." Read the release announcement, the What's New blog post and the release notes for more information.
EuroLinux 8.6
Following close on the heels of their upstream source, the EuroLinux team have published EuroLinux 8.6 which is based on the source code for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The organization's release announcement begins: "On May 11, 2022, we released version 8.6 of the EuroLinux operating system. It is compatible with the latest upstream release. With this release we focused on the support for modern software security technologies such as OpenSSL 3.0, verification of the versions of installed SELinux policies and updated hashing algorithms. New PHP and Perl versions have been added. The system was also enhanced by a secure version of log4j. Popular C/C++, Go and Rust compiler collections have been updated. The real-time Linux kernel test suite - rteval - has received the ability to specify a threshold value in microseconds. Options' names in Samba binaries have been standardized to provide a more consistent user interface. The changes will also satisfy the people who work with deep learning and deep neural networks - the OpenCV package in EuroLinux 8.6 now ships the dnn and text modules." The release notes offer additional details.
AlmaLinux OS 8.6
AlmaLinux OS, a distribution built from Red Hat Enterprise Linux sourcecode, has launched a new stable release. Version 8.6 has been published and can run on three architectures: x86_64, ppc64le, and aarch64. The release announcement states: "Hi, Community! The AlmaLinux OS Foundation is excited to announce that AlmaLinux OS 8.6 Stable is now available. Just like a flash after the beta release. This stable release is for the x86_64, aarch64 and ppc64le architectures and is ready for production installations and to power all your computing needs and workloads. Grab it from the nearest mirror and join us on the AlmaLinux Community Chat to discuss. Our Live Images, Raspberry Pi, Cloud and Container images updates are in process too, so stay tuned to catch the updates. Don't blink, you might miss them. The AlmaLinux 8.6 contains web console enhancements and some brand new System Roles that make system administration simpler. Security updates include upstream versions for the SCAP Security Guide, OpenSCAP and other packages among other improvements. You can read more about this release by checking out the Release Notes."
ALT Linux 10.0
The developers of ALT Linux have published a new stable version. The new release, ALT Linux 10.0 ships with the 5.15 version of the Linux kernel and updates development tools. "The distribution's latest version is a development snapshot for the 10.0 release. Members of the ALT family can run on different hardware platforms. All of these versions are built on the same codebase for Platform 10. Today, users have at their disposal ALT KWorkstation operating system for x86_64 architecture. The product is based on the Linux kernel (std-def) 5.15, programming languages Perl 5.34, Python 3.9.6, GCC 10.3.1. The package versions of the p10 repository can be viewed at packages.altlinux.org." Additional information is in the project's release announcement (in Russian). The distribution is provided in Live and Install editions.
* * * * *
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: 2,722
- Total data uploaded: 41.9TB
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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) |
Recommending a phone for testing Linux-based operating systems
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about a number of devices which are often used to test a range of Linux-based mobile operating systems. Have you used any of these? What phone would you recommend someone use if they wanted to test alternative operating systems on their mobile device? Let us know in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using UserLAnd to run desktop Linux distributions on Android devices in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Which phone would you recommend for testing Linux?
| Fairphone: | 53 (11%) |
| Librem 5: | 63 (13%) |
| Nexus 5: | 78 (16%) |
| PinePhone: | 179 (38%) |
| Other: | 104 (22%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Titan Linux. Titan Linux is a Debian-based desktop distribution featuring the KDE Plasma desktop.
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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, 23 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 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Issue 993 (2022-11-07): Static Linux, working with just a kernel, Mint streamlines Flatpak management, updates coming to elementary OS |
| • Issue 992 (2022-10-31): Lubuntu 22.10, setting permissions on home directories, Linux may drop i486, Fedora delays next version for OpenSSL bug |
| • Issue 991 (2022-10-24): XeroLinux 2022.09, learning who ran sudo, exploring firewall tools, Rolling Rhino Remix gets a fresh start, Fedora plans to revamp live media |
| • Issue 990 (2022-10-17): ravynOS 0.4.0, Lion Linux 3.0, accessing low numbered network ports, Pop!_OS makes progress on COSMIC, Murena launches new phone |
| • Issue 989 (2022-10-10): Ubuntu Unity, kernel bug causes issues with Intel cards, Canonical offers free Ubuntu Pro subscriptions, customizing the command line prompt |
| • Issue 988 (2022-10-03): SpiralLinux 11.220628, finding distros for older equipment and other purposes, SUSE begins releasing ALP prototypes, Debian votes on non-free firmware in installer |
| • Issue 987 (2022-09-26): openSUSE's MicroOS, converting people to using Linux, pfSense updates base system and PHP, Python 2 dropped from Arch |
| • Issue 986 (2022-09-19): Porteus 5.0, remotely wiping a hard drive, a new software centre for Ubuntu, Proxmox offers offline updates |
| • Issue 985 (2022-09-12): Garuda Linux, using root versus sudo, UBports on the Fairphone 4, Slackware reverses change to grep |
| • Issue 984 (2022-09-05): deepin 23 Preview, watching for changing to directories, Mint team tests Steam Deck, Devuan posts fix for repository key expiry |
| • Issue 983 (2022-08-29): Qubes OS 4.1.1, Alchg Linux, immutable operating systems, Debian considers stance on non-free firmware, Arch-based projects suffer boot issue |
| • Issue 982 (2022-08-22): Peropesis 1.6.2, KaOS strips out Python 2 and PulseAudio, deepin becomes independent, getting security update notifications |
| • Issue 981 (2022-08-15): Linux Lite 6.0, defining desktop environments and window managers, Mint releases upgrade tool, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 980 (2022-08-08): Linux Mint 21, Pledge on Linux, SparkyLinux updates classic desktop packages, Peppermint OS experiments with Devuan base |
| • Issue 979 (2022-08-01): KaOS 2022.06 and KDE Plasma 5.25, terminating processes after a set time, GNOME plans Secure Boot check |
| • Issue 978 (2022-07-25): EndeavourOS 22.6, Slax explores a return to Slackware, Ubuntu certified with Dell's XPS 13, Linux running on Apple's M2 |
| • Issue 977 (2022-07-18): EasyOS 4.2, transferring desktop themes between distros, Tails publishes list of updates, Zevenet automates Let's Encrypt renewals |
| • Issue 976 (2022-07-11): NixOS 22.05, making a fake webcam, exploring the Linux scheduler, Debian publishes updated media |
| • Issue 975 (2022-07-04): Murena One running /e/OS, where are all the openSUSE distributions, Fedora to offer unfiltered Flathub access |
| • Issue 974 (2022-06-27): AlmaLinux 9.0, the changing data of DistroWatch's database, UBports on the Pixel 3a, Tails and GhostBSD publish hot fixes |
| • Issue 973 (2022-06-20): openSUSE 15.4, collecting distro media, FreeBSD status report, Ubuntu Core with optional real-time kernel |
| • Issue 972 (2022-06-13): Rolling Rhino Remix, SambaBox 4.1, SUSE team considers future of SUSE and openSUSE Leap, Tails improves Tor Connection Assistant |
| • Issue 971 (2022-06-06): ChimeraOS 2022.01.03, Lilidog 22.04, NixOS gains graphical installer, Mint replaces Bluetooth stack and adopts Timeshift, how to change a MAC address |
| • Issue 970 (2022-05-30): Tails 5.0, taking apart a Linux distro, Ubuntu users seeing processes terminated, Budgie team plans future of their desktop |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Your own personal Linux computer in the cloud, available on any device. Supported operating systems include Android, Debian, Fedora, KDE neon, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro and Ubuntu, ready in minutes.
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| Random Distribution | 
UberStudent
UberStudent was an Ubuntu-based distribution on a DVD designed for learning and teaching academic computing at the higher education and advanced secondary levels. UberStudent comes with software for everyday computing tasks, plus a core set of programs and features designed to teach and make easier the tasks and habits common to high-performing students of all academic disciplines. Lifelong learners, as well as any sort of knowledge worker, will equally benefit. UberStudent was supported by a free Moodle virtual learning environment.
Status: Discontinued
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MALIBAL: Linux Laptops Custom Built for YouMALIBAL is an innovative computer manufacturer that produces high-performance, custom laptops for Linux. If your MALIBAL laptop is not the best Linux laptop you have ever used, you can return it for a full 100% refund. We will even pay the return shipping fees! For more info, visit: https://www.malibal.com
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TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at 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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