 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 968, 16 May 2022 |
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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 ββPerl 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.
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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: 2,722
- 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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| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Phone for Linux. (by R. Cain on 2022-05-16 03:06:41 GMT from United States)
For the easiest method of running a Linux distribution with the minimum amount of problems , I'd choose a phone which has maximum specs at a minimum price---
the ZTE Nubia Red Magic 5G Gaming Smartphone, with 128/12 GB of memory, active cooling, and running UserLAnd (highlighted in last week's DistroWatch feature story).
Nubia Red Magic costs between $630 and $680, depending on vendor.
2 • Pine Phone Pro (by Andy Prough on 2022-05-16 03:47:38 GMT from United States)
I would spend the extra $200 and get the Pine Phone Pro. It looks like it is a significant upgrade in terms of processing speed and power, and Jesse's reviews of the original Pine Phone indicated that it needed a cpu upgrade. I would think (or hope) that you should still be able to try a lot of different distros on it, like on the Pine Phone.
3 • NVIDIA (by Charlie on 2022-05-16 04:23:23 GMT from Hong Kong)
Actually it's the NVIDIA kernel module that becomes open source instead of the whole driver.
Still, it's more easy to distribute and make general Linux users available of installing it without some 3rd party repo.
4 • active cooling on a phone (by dave on 2022-05-16 04:51:03 GMT from United States)
a phone with a fan lol
I'm sure that'll last a long time
5 • Quark OS (by Hank on 2022-05-16 06:30:03 GMT from Germany)
Quark, German slang for bunk or rubbish seems pretty much fitting for the non distro.
Regarding phones for linux, the majority are rich boys toys, expensive and only partialy functional.
630 to 680 for a phone, I would rather have food and some heating.
6 • Quark...Really? (by anon on 2022-05-16 08:02:51 GMT from United States)
"Unlike Q4OS which is Debian Based, Quark is based on Ubuntu."
Do the devs not realize that Ubuntu is also based on Debian? Making a new distro out of an existing distro because you want to base it on another distro that is already based on the distro that you are trying to get away from. They don't seem to offer any groundbreaking feature other than a rebasing from upstream to downstream within the same distro family. Q4OS is already beginner friendly, and it already "just works" out of the box. This distro is a redundant redundancy, and a perfect example of what the "too many distos" crowd is talking about with regard to fragmentation and duplicated effort.
7 • Dr. Hu (by Quark fan phone on 2022-05-16 08:34:08 GMT from Philippines)
I have created my own distro with Plasma, Unity and TDE on Ubuntu 20.04. I call it PUTOS (Spanish). Soon to be featured in a Distrowatch near you. Or maybe not.
@4, In my experience, cooling fans have had long lives and few problems in desktops and laptops. No reason to believe they'd be less durable in smartphones. My concern would be battery life, unless the phone is one thick, heavy slab.
8 • Linux testing on a phone. (by DachshundMan on 2022-05-16 09:54:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
There seems to be at least 1 missing option in the poll and that would be "I do not have enough knowledge to recommend anything". This option would be my choice as, to me, "other" implies recommending some device not listed.
9 • Linux Phone (by penguinx86 on 2022-05-16 10:22:01 GMT from United States)
This weeks poll asked which phone I'd recommend for testing Linux. While I've never tried running Linux on a phone, I voted for Pinephone because it has the lowest price. One problem I see with Linux phones is drivers. The phone would have to be made entirely of hardware that does not require proprietary drivers for me to install my choice of Linux distros. For example, I have that problem with many distros being incompatible with the wifi adapter in my laptop out of the box. If a distro doesn't work with my wifi adapter, I don't see how it would work with 100% of Smartphone hardware either.
10 • Linux Phone (by kc1di on 2022-05-16 12:20:25 GMT from United States)
@ 8 I agree there should be a item in the survey that I don't know or something like that. I could not recommend one because never have used one.
11 • Fone fan... (by Friar Tux on 2022-05-16 13:37:43 GMT from Canada)
@7 (Quark fan) Pocket lint, my friend, you are forgetting pocket lint. If the phone had a fan, it has to have intake and out-flow vents. It will also probably run the fan for a while after the phone is shut off, to continue the cooling process. That would be like sticking a small lint vacuum into your pocket/purse. Have you ever cleaned out the fan of a desktop computer? It just sits on a desk and yet it will pick up quick the a collection of debris.
However, having said all that I get the feeling that the "active cooling" isn't a fan.
As for Q4OS, I've tried it. It's not bad. I didn't try Quark but the regular Trinity 64 bit version. To complain that Q4OS is duplicating efforts since Quark is Ubuntu basic, but Ubuntu is Debian based is kind of silly as many distros use both as a base. Linux Mint does (for different reasons). This way it one fails you have already got a back up in the wings. Seem a good idea. Most Linux users even have two (or more) distros on their machines for the same reason.
Oh, and about cell phones, I don't have one, either. They are, as one commenter said, just an expensive toy. Way overpriced, even at the low end, for what they do. I'll use the money to buy a decent, smallish, laptop. That way I can take it anyway I want, still have all the computer power I need, run the Linux OS I want, and still call my family and friends. Works for me.
12 • Phones and Quarks @11 (by Dr. Hu on 2022-05-16 14:50:04 GMT from Philippines)
Yes, the phones have fans. In fact Lenovo has one with not one fan, but two. Pocket lint? Really! These are specialty phones, aimed at gamers. I'm sure they're not going to be running around loose in someone's pocket on a daily basis right after playing. Your comments about laptops are a bit old. I helped my ex run a PC repair business here, so I've seen my share of dirty PCs. Here, the salt air was tough, and people can be careless. But I have a mini PC and a laptop here running daily for over 5 years and they are not dirty, nor have they needed cleaning. PCs don't run the fans so often these days, and the fans are not as strong. Lower wattage CPUs make much less heat, unless they are powerful laptops, like gaming machines, and they do so only when they are exercised. I'd expect the same from those phones. The likelihood of going into the pocket with a running fan should be very small indeed. As for running Linux on them, I tried UserLand on an 8" tablet. It worked after a fashion, but it's not for me. At least not yet.
It's not Q4OS that's duplicating efforts. It's Quark, and they are doing a pretty lousy job. I was not kidding. I installed TDE from a PPA. Less than a half hour later it was working a lot better than Quark worked for Jesse. So what is the devs point an purpose?
Hard to measure how strongly I disagree with you about smartphones. I used to carry as laptop in a small backpack, whenever I went where I might want it. Then it was a tablet in a fanny pack. Now, whenever I leave the house the phone goes in my pocket. Hard also to explain how useful that thing can be in an average day just around town, never mind traveling. I do little texting and even less calling, but there are many other ways that little piece of tech makes my life easier. I'm an old dog, older than you, but this is an old dog that learns new tricks..
13 • QuarkOS (by Glenn Condrey on 2022-05-16 21:54:09 GMT from United States)
@#6
Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, yet they also make a Linux Mint Debian Edition.
I have used QuarkOS, and I did not have the problems getting Trinity installed that Jesse did.
I guess it helps that I have previously used Q4OS before though.
I love the old KDE3.0 based desktop system... it still makes me feel welcome. Its like a comfortable baseball glove.
It may not be the BEST baseball glove, but ts comfortable, and you could not see yourself using any other glove.
That being said, while using QuarkOS was pleasant enough... I still prefer the parent Q4OS. Being based on Ubuntu means that at some point you're going to have to install another disk possibly... and I like the idea of my OS being based on a rolling release platform instead.
14 • Quark (by Justme on 2022-05-17 00:46:03 GMT from United States)
I've used Quark, the 20.04 release, and everything worked as advertised. It's just Kubuntu with some apps and theming, with their own "qubuntu" repos added.
15 • @12-- Dr. Hu (by R. Cain on 2022-05-17 02:28:36 GMT from United States)
"...Hard to measure how strongly I disagree with you about smartphones..."
That could be due to a not imperceptible bias *against* smartphones, which manifests itself by statements such as "...Way overpriced, even at the low end, for what they do...", and, "...I'll use the money to buy a decent, smallish, laptop...".
For $49.99? Really? I'll take one of those, myself. Read on...
I have noticed an absolutely delightful trend in smartphones: the price of very capable smartphones has been approaching that of "feature phones" for some time, and it appears as though that parity has now been achieved.
One can now buy a 3/32 GB smartphone---Android 11, 3-camera (depth/macro/main) phone with 5000 mAH battery (for 40 hrs of talk time), 8-core processor, and a *headphone jack* and 6.5-inch screen, all for the princely sum of $49.99.
One will most definitely pay more than that for almost all "flip-phones" nowadays.
Oh, and I almost forgot... the manufacturer is Samsung.
Not sure I'd consider this as "...way overpriced, for what [π¨π³π³] they do...".
16 • @11 - Mobile phones are not toys (by Ben Myers on 2022-05-17 03:39:27 GMT from United States)
A mobile phone may be a toy to you, but I am one of perhaps hundreds of millions (or more?) of people for whom a mobile phone is an essential business and personal tool. Now, I say that because I use my phone to call people, receive calls, send texts, receive texts, all for both business and personal reasons, at home or on the road (as long as there is cell coverage). My phone has a very nice and pretty accurate cardio app to measure my pulse rate when I am outdoors on a hiking trail or climbing a small mountain. My phone has a pretty good GPS navigation app, but I do not use it because I can go most anywhere without it, except maybe it would come in handy outside the US.
I do not use a browser on a cell phone, preferring to browse with my large screen computer. I do not watch movies, play music, tweet (ugh!) or use other social media. I sometimes use it for video calls via Messenger, especially to people overseas.
My usage may not be the norm, but does the above paragraph describe usage of a TOY?
Oh, yes, my phone is an elderly LG G4 which cost me all of $50, replacement batteries less than $10. Verizon keeps nagging me to upgrade to a 5G, when there is not much 5G available. If I could speak to a real Verizon person, well nigh impossible, I'd tell them to piss off. If someone needs the latest and greatest, let them pay the bucks. Not me.
17 • Fone fan again... (by Friar Tux on 2022-05-17 13:43:27 GMT from Canada)
@12 (Dr. Hu) Phones with fan. I wasn't actually talking about gamer phones. I was talking everyday use phones. I still don't think it a great idea to put a vacuum cleaner into a phone. Unless you have a way on keeping the dust and dirt out. But, each to his own
@15 (R. Cain) I'm not against smartphones, just the high prices asked for them. IF you can get one in your area for $50.00, by all means get one. Unless I'm looking in all the wrong places, I haven't seen one that low yet. (And yes, $50.00 is NOT way overpriced.)
@16 (Ben Myers) Oh yes, the smartphone actually IS a toy to MOST people. I haven't said anything in my earlier comment about using smartphones for business as I believe that's a great use case for a smartphone. But how many people do you really think use their phones for business. Definitely not the ones you see heading off to schools each day with their heads buried in their phones. Definitely not the ones you see in the mall, post office, shopping centres, parks, etc., etc., with the heads buried in their phones. For MOST people smartphones are a fad, a trend, A TOY! (Why do you think that statistically, games and social media are the most used apps of smartphones? Certainly THAT'S not a business use.) By the way, your ending sentence about "the latest and the greatest" is a rant all to it's own.
18 • Poll (by Otis on 2022-05-17 16:57:12 GMT from United States)
Once again, no "LMAO" choice in the poll. *sigh*
Just kidding.. but still, I threw my hands in the air and gave up hope for phone operating systems when Research In Motion changed more than their name.. heck I saw nothing of the future back before that when my Blackberry was so remarkably useful to me in remarkable ways. Now we're watered down to iOS and Android and what's left of Blackberry OS.
Linux on a phone? Have fun, it's not like Linux on a PC or laptop for the noted reasons, but some minimalists will bring out the best in it I suppose, proving that the smartphone is a toy indeed for many.
19 • poor phone security (by phoney on 2022-05-18 05:18:07 GMT from France)
The problem with phones and other devices is poor security. For example, passwords have been found to be easily revealed by hackers.
One brand of phone can be tracked even when it's turned off - because bluetooth is still active, since the chip operates for 24 hours in an ultra low power state. This was a "feature" of the phone so that it could be found if lost. Researchers say that there may be other undiscovered "features" that are security vulnerabilities in phones.
And there is a well-publicised war going on - where half-a-dozen officers have been "nutrilised" by having their mobile phones tracked.
The tech industry's desire for "ease-of-use", compromises the security of phones and computers - especially when it comes to wifi & bluetooth. There needs to be better hardware security, so that it's not left up to the less capable OS to provide.
20 • Phone mess (by Will on 2022-05-18 11:59:18 GMT from United States)
OMG, the phone thing... what a friggin' mess. I bought a Nexus 5, because it was supported by ubports. What a disaster, the touch interface was nice actually, the phone worked for sending and receiving voice, but after that, it was all downhill. Navigation - forget it - 30 minutes to triangulate a position via satellite and then it would lose its mind 5 minutes later. Text messages - uh, not good. Maybe ok for standard, person to person, but group messages, not so much. The error messages were cryptic, etc. Meanwhile, with Android on it, everything just worked. I am forlorn :) Well, maybe not - just need to be patient, surely it will improve...
21 • @19 phoney: (by dragonmouth on 2022-05-18 12:37:55 GMT from United States)
The price of convenience is security and privacy. But very few think about that. Everybody just wants to save a few milliseconds, as if that will make huge difference in their lives.
22 • Phones (by NoComment on 2022-05-18 13:06:32 GMT from Japan)
@19 phoney & @21 dragonmouth:
Now, just to clear up some very obvious misunderstanding here:
Passwords are easily revealed by hackers on just about every device, if the user doesn't know how to protect them.
EVERY mobile phone on Earth can be easily tracked and can be found in a very short time, as soon as it is powered on. No need for Bluetooth. And that is indeed one very important and useful feature of any mobile phone.
If you see that as a "security vulnerability", then you must be a criminal. Otherways, you would have to be grateful for such technology.
Namely, EACH and EVERY phone on the planet can call 911 or 112 at any time, WITHOUT a SIM-card. IMEI serves as a phone number and more importantly, it can be traced pretty quickly as soon as it has reception.
That is a very important feature as it does much more than just 'convenience feature' of finding a lost phone. It is a LIFESAVER. Thanks to that function, one can place the call, if one is in some serious trouble and the triangulation will do the rest. Same time, it allows us to find the criminals much easier and quicker.
So, to me, it seems like you misunderstood "the lifesaver" for "privacy miner" ... Paranoid much?
If you want "privacy", how about living without a computer and a phone? Not like the life didn't exist before their invention.
23 • @22 NoComment: (by dragonmouth on 2022-05-18 17:28:31 GMT from United States)
You have just proven my point. Since I do not own or use a mobile phone, I have never read the provider contract. Is there a clause in the contract that gives the service provider a blanket permission to track the user 24/7/365?!
Yes, in an emergency it is convenient and maybe even life-saving that a mobile phone can be tracked. But that is a specious argument. UNLESS the phone owner calls 911 or 112, how does the tracking entity determine that an emergency is occurring??? By monitoring the phone owners vital signs? That is a further invasion of privacy.
"one can place the call, if one is in some serious trouble"
Not if one is unconscious.
"how about living without a computer and a phone?"
I do live without a MOBILE phone, My landline does not spy on me or record my conversations. My desktop always broadcasts my location as 'home'.
Remember, Just because you're paranoid, does not mean that you are not being tracked.
24 • @dragonmouth (by NoComment on 2022-05-18 19:09:04 GMT from Japan)
Most of your comments over the past few years are kind of 'beside the shoes, paranoid case for the closed psychiatry"-type, and so, you've proven my point. Paranoid much ...
"The tracked entity determines the emergency" according to the common sense, education and intellectual capabilities (or the lack of them) ...
https://www.sos112.be/en/faq-112.html
https://eena.org/about-112/whats-112-all-about/
It is very well-known what those numbers are and if you don't know, it's easy to find (if one's not too lazy or ... 'disabled in some other way').
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/112_(emergency_telephone_number)
P.S. Unconscious don't care for the 'privacy', nether if the are dead or alive. They're just unconscious, and might get conscious or not.
25 • @17-- Some additional information for you, and others who may be curious... (by R. Cain on 2022-05-18 20:32:31 GMT from United States)
"@15 (R. Cain) I'm not against smartphones, just the high prices asked for them. IF you can get one in your area for $50.00, by all means get one. UNLESS I'M LOOKING IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES [emphasis added], I haven't seen one that low yet..."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So as to avoid the possibility of being tagged as a "shill", I will not mention any sources directly, but with your obvious expertise, it should be easy to track this down, given the following information---
the $49.99 Samsung phone is offered by a popular nation-wide (USA), low-cost MVNO carrier/reseller, both on its website and in a popular nation-wide retail store which sells the services and products of this MVNO.
Furthermore, another very popular nationwide MVNO carrier/reseller is offering its own version of a slightly less powerful phone, for $59, through the same nation-wide retailer (but $79 when you see it listed on the carrier's website. That's right---if you go in the store and say, "I want to buy a [MVNO] phone, model XXXX.", you will pay only $59. Go figure. Ain't marketing wonderful?).
I sincerely hope this helps not only you, but others who are curious about this $49.99 smartphone.
I am seriously considering buying one myself.
26 • Linux and phones. (by Justme on 2022-05-19 04:48:01 GMT from United States)
Linux devs can create an excellent Smartphone OS, better than Android even, and except for a few enthusiasts, it would make no difference any more than the this OS I'm running on my desktop being better than Windows in most respects will raise the Linux-on-the-desktop share above the usual 2%. Microsoft found this out with Windows Phone. It was a good OS, probably better than Android. But they thought it was subscription business as usual, and they were sorely wrong. It's not about the OS. It's about apps. I can deposit a check to my bank by scanning it into their Android app. Touch "deposit", and it's done. Try that with a laptop, and are you going to be able to do that on Linux phone no matter how smoothly it runs? There are millions of apps in Google and Apple stores. I use about 40 or so, and some are invaluable. A phone is not a laptop replacement, it is a complement. My laptop didn't replace my desktop. I like comfortable desk and chair, a big monitor and keyboard, and a good mouse. To do it with a laptop is just a kludge. Yet there are many who use only laptops, and they suffice. Millions also use just phones. For their particular use, a phone suffices, plus the phone can do many things a laptop cannot.
@23, dragonmouth -"My landline does not spy on me or record my conversations. My desktop always broadcasts my location as 'home'." You sure? Your provider certainly knows exactly where your "home" is, after all, they installed it. Location can be disabled on a phone so you can only be traced to the nearest tower. I leave location on. How else can Google direct me to the nearest place I want to reach. Yes, I get ads for local things, and not for sales available in Timbuktu.
@17, Friar Tux- "IF you can get one in your area for $50.00, by all means get one. Unless I'm looking in all the wrong places, I haven't seen one that low yet." Google 'Amazon phones", click on price ranges.
27 • @23, emergency (by Liam on 2022-05-19 06:11:09 GMT from Australia)
"one can place the call, if one is in some serious trouble"
"Not if one is unconscious."
Well, if you don't have a phone, you can't place the call even if you are conscious. Advantage: phone
28 • tech or cave? (by phoney on 2022-05-19 23:13:45 GMT from Singapore)
@22, @24 no comment,
The activites of cybercrims once caused a part of the Russian Government to go back to using pen-&-paper; The UK hospital system and numerous businesses worldwide to temporarily shut down; and now the Mexican Government also has had to go back to pen-&-paper.
Tech is a strange revolution when it fosters criminal behaviour of tracking, hacking, & cryptojacking, and renders us unable to safely use our devices. This revolution may eventually send us all back to living like Neanderthals in caves, drawing on the walls for communication. When is there ever going to be some very effective security? Separating network hardware from the motherboard could be a start.
29 • @28, tech (by Grug Crood on 2022-05-19 23:50:32 GMT from Australia)
The greatest vulnerability exists between the keyboard and the chair.
30 • overthrow (by phoney on 2022-05-19 23:56:36 GMT from Singapore)
@28, correction: not Mexico, but Costa Rican Government - where cybercrims are trying to βoverthrow the government by means of a cyberattack.β
31 • Common Sense @phoney (by NoComment on 2022-05-20 07:24:54 GMT from Japan)
You could've added "After spying on smartphones: Spain's secret service chief resigns" or hundreds of other similar cases from the past, but try to use ...
Common sense ... which needs the ability to differentiate among the nuances of the term "spying on me" or "tracking me".
The phones were tapped, the cars tracked ... a long time before the invention of smartphones.
The simple fact that one communication device is trackable, doesn't automatically mean that someone is "tracking you" -- that's far too expensive and if you aren't a criminal or some important person that matters, nobody will bother.
If the police or some secret service is behind you, they will get you sooner or later. Modern technology is quickly developing, and soon everything surrounding you will be "tracking you".
I guess that you already know how even the window glass and your light bulb are "tracking you" already now ... There are laser devices and sensors which can 'read' what are you talking about inside a room, if they only have a clear view at your room windows, or the light bulb through the window. Pretty soon, even your clothing will be "tracking you" ...
https://www.popsci.com/technology/fabric-microphone-converts-sound-to-electricity/
And then, you need to differentiate among tracking and "tracking", and who is the one "tracking you" ...
You'll have a very hard times if you are trying to hide from the police or the secret service, but they don't have any interest in tracking "you" or the vast majority of people.
Advertisement industry which is "tracking you" is actually also not really interested in "you" -- they track just about anyone and anything trackable, in hope they might sell someone a car, after one just bought one. ;) In such case, they use your position not to "track you" or to "spy on you", but simply because it allows them to offer you something that's near you. No much sense in offering me the advertisement for the car repair in the U. S., if I'm living in Japan ...
Like every other thing, everything that can be used, can be abused too.
The dynamite was invented to help mining and not to make wars. The water was 'invented' to help against thirst -- living -- and not to purposely drawn or torture people ... Everything can be abused, and since the mobile phones also fall in to that "everything" category ...
However, if you can use the common sense, you'll easily find out that this "tracking you" feature in mobile phones has many more advantages than disadvantages in everyday life.
Paranoid much?
Eventually you should really consider finding somewhere some nice, cold and moist cave and hide yourself inside like the Neanderthal ... we won't follow you -- I promise. ;)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/06/dystopian-world-singapore-patrol-robots-stoke-fears-of-surveillance-state
https://restofworld.org/2021/singapores-tech-utopia-dream-is-turning-into-a-surveillance-state-nightmare/
32 • Privacy; security. (by R. Cain on 2022-05-20 10:12:25 GMT from United States)
Communications "security" and "privacy" used to be as simple, and very nearly 100% effective, as a fax machine connected to a Western Union network (Western Union---"the telegram people"--- at one time had a physical plant comparable to the Bell system).
It was *de rigueur* for all companies of any reasonable size to transact all important business via fax machine over a *DEDICATED* Bell landline, or the Western Union network.
Since Western Union and Bell have disappeared, and all communications, ππππππ
πππ πππππ, are now transmitted via the internet, through "the cloud", there is ONLY ONE secure, highly and extremely private (and cheap, by the way) method of document transmission remaining: SEND A LETTER (or use FedEx or UPS for really 'weighty' stuff).
"All seemingly very hard problems have an extremely simple solution if you just look at them the right way"---Douglas Adams
33 • Security & Privacy, @32, R. Cain (by NoComment on 2022-05-20 11:10:36 GMT from Japan)
"Communications "security" and "privacy" [...] there is ONLY ONE secure, highly and extremely private [...] method of document transmission remaining: SEND A LETTER [...]."
Well, ... don't know. I guess it comes down to the definitions of "security" and "privacy".
Namely, if the "privacy intrusion" includes the "metadata" then it's good to know, that all mail traffic (letters) is getting scanned and one almost always knows the sender and receiver.
If the postcard can be assumed as "secure" and "private", then a fax did definitely meet the criteria -- only everybody in the office could read it ... or only everybody on one floor of some office building ...
;)
34 • @33-- NoComment; serious clarification needed, please. (by R. Cain on 2022-05-20 14:21:07 GMT from United States)
You wrote...
"...Namely, if the "privacy intrusion" includes the "metadata" then it's good to know, that all mail traffic (letters) is getting scanned and one almost always knows the sender and receiver.
If the postcard can be assumed as "secure" and "private", then a fax did definitely meet the criteria -- only everybody in the office could read it ... or only everybody on one floor of some office building ..."
Paragraph (1): please expand on this statement. If you mean that you think all ENVELOPES are being scanned, that's one thing (simply do NOT write your 'sender address' on the envelope). If you mean that you think all ENVELOPES of ALL MAIL are somehow being opened in order for the contents to be scanned, that's another; and will not even be commented on.
Paragraph (2): no mention was made, nor even implied, of sending sensitive information via a π·πΆπΊπ»πͺπ¨πΉπ«; as in anything else, but particularly as regards privacy and security: common sense must prevail at all times. As to the rest of the paragraph: of course any privacy and/or secrecy is 100% perishable, and vaporizes once the information is made available to the rest of the world.
"Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead."---Mark Twain
35 • No clarrification needed -- if you read carefuly and -- think @34 by R. Cain (by NoComment on 2022-05-20 15:50:25 GMT from Japan)
If you read carefully, no further clarification is needed ...
Scanning every envelope / package in "analog world" corresponds to "collecting metadata" in the "digital world". It is different from county to country though, but most of the ("civilized or half-civilized world") countries I know of, are scanning the mail, if nothing else, then to make the "delivery tracking" possible. Some were or are even opening the letters, but that is irrelevant at this point.
"Simply do NOT write your 'sender address' on the envelope" will or will not work -- depending who is the sender, but even if one writes no sender name, the "metadata" is still there (the city name, time ... and eventually your fingerprints if there is a need to further investigate). The real criminals could avoid all of it, but this is what they can do in digital world too, and we are talking about "paranoid", and not about "criminal" people here ...
"Sending sensitive information via a postcard" is exactly what you do, if you are using analog fax machines. Anybody and everybody can see it and read it. It doesn't even have an envelope. Who exactly "anybody and everybody" is, depends on the office or the company in case, and "sensitive information" is again the matter of your personal definition of "sensitive".
For example, all your personal data: name, address, telephone number, image (albeit of bad quality) ... the list of your diseases, your current health state, your finances ... if any of this is a "sensitive information" for you, then it is still sent from A to B as a postcard (fax) ... even in "highly civilized" countries in 2022 ...
36 • everyday vs targeted (by phoney on 2022-05-21 00:22:32 GMT from Netherlands)
@31, @33, @35 no comment
You're talking from a general perspective - where security and privacy is adequate for everyday people. But for those who become targeted - like with domestic violence, cults, crime gangs, extreme religions, stalkers, or the political state - they can be tracked via tech devices: phones, computers, CCTV cameras, cars, etc. That's where the tech industry's security and privacy falls down. For example, tech companies sell tracking tokens to place in/on personal items so that they can be found if lost. But those same tokens have been hacked, or placed in/on people's possessions to track them.
The way that the tech industry is going we will all be tracked and our privacy invaded eventually - as is happening in places like China with its use of face detection technology.
PS - Singapore is a proxy location - an attempt at privacy.
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| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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| Random Distribution | 
NixOS
NixOS is an independently developed GNU/Linux distribution that aims to improve the state of the art in system configuration management. In NixOS, the entire operating system, including the kernel, applications, system packages and configuration files, are built by the Nix package manager. Nix stores all packages in isolation from each other; as a result there are no /bin, /sbin, /lib or /usr directories and all packages are kept in /nix/store instead. Other innovative features of NixOS include reliable upgrades, rollbacks, reproducible system configurations, source-based model with binaries, and multi-user package management. Although NixOS started as a research project, it is now a functional and usable operating system that includes hardware detection, KDE as the default desktop, and systemd for managing system services.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
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!
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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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