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1 • MAC address (by 0323pin on 2022-06-06 04:55:44 GMT from Sweden)
Was looking forward to check on the answer on MAC address switch but, unfortunately only the case of Network-manager was covered. I only use dhcp and wpa_supplicant and have no wish to install network-manager. Any hints on documentation for those of us not using network-manager?
2 • MAC address spoofing @1 (by 0323pin) (by Leon on 2022-06-06 06:07:47 GMT from France)
This should work in most cases, whatever distribution you use.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/MAC_address_spoofing
3 • Gaming Distro (by feng lengshun on 2022-06-06 08:24:44 GMT from Indonesia)
Man, was it with gaming-oriented distro and falling apart when someone take a look at it. It happened with Pop OS with Linus, it happened with Garuda Linux with EposVox, and now it happened again with Chimera. Both Pop and Garuda was fine when I took a look into it, and Chimera seems to be a fine if fairly niche distro, so I don't know what it is with this badluck when bigger spotlight are put on gaming distro.
4 • guh-new plus linux in re dwatch (by grindstone on 2022-06-06 09:01:20 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the (attempted) reviews:
As I looked on todays DB summary,
DistroWatch database summary
Number of all distributions in the database: 933
Number of active distributions in the database: 271
Number of dormant distributions: 51
Number of discontinued distributions: 611
Number of distributions on the waiting list: 180
Number of distributions waiting for evaluation: 28
I can't help but wonder what Ladislav thinks the future holds. This site is still just as valuable as the heady days when he hatched it, but the world has changed a lot. The names/particulars change, but, for say top-25 on the hits-per-day list, it seems this pattern of "types" of distros has held more or less steady.
When you guys look at your own site data, are you seeing any noteworthy differences?
Thanks for all the work and the steady presence over the years.
5 • @2 MAC (by 0323pin on 2022-06-06 09:19:57 GMT from Sweden)
Cheers, the manual option should work just fine with some of the information specific to wpa_supplicant and some slight modifications. The remaining of the wiki entry covers systemd, which I don't use.
6 • Gaming console (by Luca on 2022-06-06 09:28:42 GMT from Italy)
I have a PS4 at home, and I hope I'll be able to install Retroarch on it in the future! ^^
7 • Games (by James on 2022-06-06 10:32:26 GMT from United States)
The only game I have on my computer is Kpat an the only solitaire game I play is Klondike, and then only if I have to wait for something and am bored. Not a gamer.
8 • DB Summary (by Brad on 2022-06-06 10:45:14 GMT from United States)
It would be interesting to see the DB summary graphed over time (1/5/10 years?) and see what trends might be picked up from the data.
9 • Reviews (by RoestVrijStaal on 2022-06-06 11:47:01 GMT from Netherlands)
While the unfortunate reviews may be bad PR of the two distros, they deserve it.
Correctly booting and installing on trivial hardware with minimal amount of manual (re)configuration(s) must be mandatory.
Thumbs up to Jesse for raising (if not, holding) the bar!
10 • data (by Jesse on 2022-06-06 11:54:01 GMT from Canada)
@4: When you guys look at your own site data, are you seeing any noteworthy differences?
What sort of data points or differences were you thinking about?
Off the top of my head one of the biggest changes I have noticed is the rise of rolling releases. When I started with Linux a rolling release would be almost impossible. Due to bandwidth limits and many distros not having modern package management. Distro versions came on physical CDs often tines and mostly just got security updates.
Now rolling releases are common and bandwidth is relatively plentiful. It is common to download whole DVDs of data and then upgrade almost every package every month.
11 • lilidog (by crayola-eater on 2022-06-06 12:35:30 GMT from United States)
I like minimal Openbox distros, but the size of the download seems anything but minimal. But what really caught my eye was Jesse's note that "I suspect not many computers are old enough to be 32-bit while still being able to run DVDs or boot from USB thumb drives"
While my current getting older laptop boots nicely from DVD and USB, my older 32 bit Acer failed to have a BIOS to boot from USB. But that never stopped me because I used Plop Boot Manager that among many things, lets you boot from USBs regardless of the limitations of your BIOS. I was surprised to see that it is still being maintaned, and updated. It always served me well, and does still when I pull out that old ACER and boot from USB to test a distro on old hardware!
12 • MAC spoof (by crayola-eater on 2022-06-06 12:46:46 GMT from United States)
@1 Does you distro's repos have 'macchanger'? A little utility to change your MAC address via the terminal. I use [ sudo macchanger -A eth0 ] to automagically change my wired MAC as needed. It can be set to change it every time you log on as well.
13 • @13 MAC spoof (by 0323pin on 2022-06-06 13:33:55 GMT from Sweden)
Thanks! It depends, my kids run Void Linux, so there it's available. As for myself, I run NetBSD, and it's not available. I might look into packaging it, though. Appreciated.
14 • Macchanger (by Chris on 2022-06-06 13:49:10 GMT from Canada)
Been using macchanger for a year or so. I would like a way to randomly change the router's MAC, then it would be perfect.
15 • I tried.. sort of.. (by Otis on 2022-06-06 16:57:24 GMT from United States)
Instead of recycling my old HP lapper I tried to use it as a dedicated game machine, but The Talos Principle laughed at it and stopped. So, I relented and purchased a proper device for games and a bit of streaming, which is what I really wanted to do anyway. ;)
16 • Dedicated gaming machine (by Sean Greenhalgh on 2022-06-06 18:38:38 GMT from Australia)
We have one in our house, it's called an Xbox...
I think it's cool if you have a computer laying around that you can install games onto. It beats buying an Xbox actually...
17 • dedicated gamin' machine (by Rincewind III on 2022-06-06 19:11:40 GMT from New Zealand)
nintendo, circa 1985.
last use approx 2 weeks ago.
also NES 64, and WII- not in constant use, but regular gameplay.
18 • Dedicated gaming PC (by Elpo on 2022-06-06 19:23:46 GMT from Belgium)
I have a dedicated gaming PC and it's a Windows 2000 Pro sp4, AMD single core CPU and a Ati card. Why because I only play one game sometimes and it dose not work higher that W2K. IOt dose not takes up a lot of space and I have that space so that's it.
19 • NetworkManager and MAC addresses (by N on 2022-06-06 19:59:57 GMT from Switzerland)
I dislike that NetworkManager resets the MAC address to the original (hardware) one when the link is down and restores the chosen MAC address when the link is up again. This behavior seems to be unnecessary, fragile and bug-prone. Why not just leave it alone?
It seems to be impossible to setup the NetworkManager to automatically detect wired networks by their gateway's MAC addresses, it would be a useful feature.
20 • DB Summery (by Bob on 2022-06-07 00:13:35 GMT from United States)
@8 Jesse did a comparison/summary many years ago. The part of the review I remember was his comment about how CrunchBang consistently always ranked in the top 25 for the period of years that the review covered.
That comment comes back to me when I see Zorin in the list. I could be wrong, but it seems like it's always at +/- #10.
21 • @1 (by MrSparkleWonder on 2022-06-07 00:40:55 GMT from Mexico)
You can randomize your MAC address easily
Open /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
Make the modifications shown below
================
[device]
wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=yes
[connection]
wifi.cloned-mac-address=random
ethernet.cloned-mac-address=stable
===============
You can also set your ethernet to random if you want.
Reboot.
22 • Retro Gaming on Linux (by Scott Dowdle on 2022-06-07 00:52:40 GMT from United States)
I use a Terassic DE10-Nano SBC with a few open add-on boards to run software created by the MiSTer FPGA project... that runs on Linux. FPGA cores for a significant number of 8-bit, 16-bit, and (some) 32-bit consoles, handhelds... as well as 300-400 arcade machines... and 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit home computers. It is simply amazing.
I'd be happy to let the Distrowatch folks borrow a fully setup system to check it out if they are interested.
23 • @4 (by Simon on 2022-06-07 04:39:50 GMT from New Zealand)
"Number of all distributions in the database: 933"
Number of distributions in the database that deserve the title of "distribution": maybe 33.
The other 900 are pointless vanity projects where an existing distribution is rebranded so that someone can say "look, I made my own Linux distribution!", as if selecting some packages from an existing distro and making a custom wallpaper is equivalent to taking thousands of upstream packages and distributing them as a coherent OS. There are a few modern distros that aren't distributions in the original sense and yet still deserve the title because they have large user communities and add significant value to the parent distro: Ubuntu is the most obvious example, but even the likes of Mint (in some respects a rebranding of a distro that's already a rebranded Debian) obviously add enough value that they deserve the title.
OK, 33 is probably a bit stingy: maybe if you count all the distros that take existing distributions and make significant technical changes to how they work (i.e. not stuff that could be applied to an existing distro with a simple BASH script, like package selections and so on), those deserve a listing too, even if their user communities are very small... so maybe there are around 100 distributions in the database. The other 833 are just a waste of time: one look at the description of a "distro" like Lilidog and you can see it's just someone's personal Debian desktop published as a vanity project. The whole thing could probably be distributed as a single package, containing a few scripts, a small text file containing the selection of packages for apt to install/uninstall, and a folder of wallpapers or whatever. Instead this one-package "distribution" is bundled with thousands of other packages from a real distribution and we're meant to acknowledge it as a "distribution" in its own right! It's an insult to the real distros, with their thousands of human hours of work per release.
In fact Distrowatch's "major distributions" page lists quite a large chunk of the projects that really are "distributions" in the original sense, distributing enormous numbers of upstream packages with the GNU/Linux kernel, so that we have a coherent OS, thanks to that huge effort of integration and quality control and development of tools for managing it all. I'd toss CentOS out and put Red Hat in its place, as that's the more important distro that CentOS really serves (and in fact used to clone and rebrand, so I'm not sure why it got to be a "major distribution" while the distro it was cloning didn't!)... and I'd include a few more like LFS that work directly with upstream sources (they're not based off any existing distros) and have large communities and are regularly updated and so on.
I watch the developments of those key distros with interest, and a few more in the top 50 (specialist forks like Devuan and popular active projects like elementary), and a tiny handful in the 50-100 range (Raspberry Pi OS and so on)... but most of the new distros reviewed here are just pointless tamperings with existing distros that I'd never bother trying. If I want "Debian with an OpenBox desktop" or whatever Lilidog claims to be, I'll install Debian with an Openbox desktop. I don't need to download several gig of OS data just to try someone's snazzy wallpaper: give me the wallpaper as a .jpg and I can make it the Openbox background on a real distro. For package selections, just publish the list of packages and we can install them. As for custom menus to go with the package selections, please: even with the .desktop files and "desktop-directories" categories and custom icons and so on, a whole complex custom menu setup with submenus can be packaged as a single small package for installation on an existing distro. Trivial cosmetic tweaks like that should be hosted somewhere as resources for real distros... not as "new distros" just because they look a bit different at first glance!
I don't blame Distrowatch for its open policy of treating anything that claims to be a distro as a distro: you never know what innovations you might find in a tedious-looking project. I just wish all these sad little vanity "distros" would put their efforts into supporting real distros instead of trying to rebrand them as new ones.
24 • Randomizing MAC, and @1,@13 (by Justme on 2022-06-07 05:07:11 GMT from United States)
@1, @13- This applies to OpenBSD, not sure if it's the same on netBSD.
https://why-openbsd.rocks/fact/ifconfig-mac-address/
MAC addresses were a problem for cellphones. Keeping the WiFi on while traveling would send the MAC address to any hotspot that came near, and when connecting to WiFi at different places. Both Android and iOS addressed that by randomizing MACs by default. Laptops that are used outside the home are also a problem, but not addressed completely without user input. Windows, as does Linux Network Manager, offers GUI settings. Some privacy focused distros have randomizing on by default. Mac still needs 'ifconfig' as far as I know. The need for randomization for privacy is obvious in those cases.
What I don't see is the need to randomize MACs at home. If someone were sniffing around nearby an could pick up the MAC addresses of my devices and router, they would know if's my network and my stuff, but what can they do with that information. And if I change addresses, they would still know it's me. What would be the difference? Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm always willing to be enlightened.
25 • @33 Simon: (by dragonmouth on 2022-06-07 12:42:19 GMT from United States)
Wash your mouth out with soap! You're talking sense. :-)
Would you deny all these people their 15 minutes of fame?!
26 • Lilidog (by Colonel Panic on 2022-06-07 12:47:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
@9
"Correctly booting and installing on trivial hardware with minimal amount of manual (re)configuration(s) must be mandatory."
There's a certain amount of "Your Mileage May Vary" in this though. I installed LiliDog to the hard drive of my computer (the motherboard of which dates from 2010) a couple of months ago with no problems at all, and it's worked just fine ever since.
27 • Changing a MAC address every time when going online (by Earl McCoy on 2022-06-07 15:08:03 GMT from United States)
When using IPv6 one can employ the IPv6 "global temporary address" as the outgoing source IPv6 address. This uses a randomized "MAC address" in the last 64-bits. For example on my system the command "ip address" includes the following line:
inet6 2601:243:480:8cb0:3da9:b21:29b0:9b13/64 scope global temporary dynamic
valid_lft 233956sec preferred_lft 77478sec
Note that this address has a "preferred lifetime" of less than 24 hours so exposing it is not a security list.
28 • Idea for a Poll (by Vukota on 2022-06-07 15:42:57 GMT from Serbia)
I am surprised about the answers in this poll, so maybe next natural question should be what age group do you belong to? I consider myself "old", but still have a mix of dedicated gaming hardware between me and my kids. Personally, I would never dedicate computer just for gaming, unless it was a locked gaming console to begin with or a dedicated server (though cloud is a first choice these days for it).
29 • dev efforts, "major distros" (by Otis on 2022-06-07 16:39:53 GMT from United States)
@23 I was cruising along enjoying your spiel until I encountered this remark which seems to negate the rest of the post entirely: "I just wish all these sad little vanity "distros" would put their efforts into supporting real distros instead of trying to rebrand them as new ones."
The minimal/almost non-existent efforts by these "vanity distro" developers are of no value, in your mind, and then you express desire for those efforts in supporting the distros which exist as legitimate.
I find the dozens, nay hundreds, of minimal effort distros to be of value in the same way that I find the entire Linux ecosystem to be of value: it's a wide and interesting range of works by people with varying degrees of know-how and knowledge. Many of the so-called vanity distributions are likely put out there by people who are moving through that stage of their education and experience. I'm glad they're here. Very glad, and it's a tribute to this site that they are counted and noticed.
30 • Re: data (by grindstone on 2022-06-07 17:02:20 GMT from United States)
Jesse - Thanks for the reply @https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20220606#comment-10.
Not sure it's answerable, but I was wondering about geographical/location changes in interest (on the day you write about MAC's so everyone is now browsing from a refrigerator...) Secondly, I was wondering if the interest in types of data reflected anything you might conclude about shifts in visitor interests. Are we all just the same people that keep coming back (and did we learn to ask different questions of DW)?
31 • macchanger (by Andy Prough on 2022-06-07 19:25:14 GMT from Switzerland)
With macchanger we have a few options - does anyone know which is preferred, and why?
-e, --ending Don't change the vendor bytes
-a, --another Set random vendor MAC of the same kind
-A Set random vendor MAC of any kind
-r, --random Set fully random MAC
Just eyeballing it, it would seem like -e for a random mac address with the same vendor info would be the safe bet. Otherwise, you could be broadcasting a mac address for a tablet when you are really on a laptop, or something like that. It would seem like that would make you stick out, rather than blending in.
32 • Database info (by Jesse on 2022-06-07 21:35:48 GMT from Canada)
@20: I suspect the article (or articles) you're referring to were Ladislav's end of the year PHR analysis articles. He used to do them regularly. If you want to read them, check out these "end of the year PHR" stories: https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=article-search&lookfor=phr&questions=on&tips=on&reviews=on&headlines=on&misc=on
@30: This an interesting question and once which I'll probably tackle in a future Weekly rather than try to cram my thoughts all in here.
33 • distro-o-o-os (by manifestu on 2022-06-07 23:47:38 GMT from Netherlands)
Distros that don't add much over main distributions....and they just keep coming:
* Titan Linux: claims to be a better Arch than other Arch distros
* Spiral Linux: claims to be a better Debian than other Debian distros
It's all about philosophy. Political activists create new manifestos; Religious radicals create new doctrines; and itchy tech ppl create new OS's and distros - and we distrohop to their tune.
The main Linux distributions are like big religions, and the distros are like local church derivatives with their own congregations. The biggest trouble occurs when a Linux comes along and tries to muscle in amongst the main religions - like buntu has done - and we are all expected to convert. Hence all the buntu bashing from ppl who don't want to drink the new distribution coolaid, but are just happy to play with its inevitable derivative distros.
34 • Database Info (by Bob on 2022-06-08 00:42:02 GMT from United States)
@32 @Jesse Thanks for the PRH link. I found it, but didn't realize just how long ago it was.
From 3 January 2011: PHR 2009-2010 "while CrunchBang Linux, a lightweight distribution with Openbox is still in the top 25 even though it failed to produce a stable release for well over a year."
And Thanks @Ladislav. Cheers
35 • @31 (by Andy Prough) (by Leon on 2022-06-08 05:12:39 GMT from France)
"With macchanger we have a few options - does anyone know which is preferred, and why?"
Reading helps. I did post a link which clearly explains it right at the beginning...
"Any hexadecimal value will do, but some networks may be configured to refuse to assign IP addresses to a client whose MAC does not match up with any of known vendors."
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/MAC_address_spoofing
A network interface vendor (manufacturer), mind you, not a device specific.
"Otherwise, you could be broadcasting a mac address for a tablet when you are really on a laptop, or something like that. It would seem like that would make you stick out, rather than blending in."
A MAC address is a MAC address -- there is no difference among the tablet, laptop, watch or the refrigerator.
Your household has an IP. All of your devices (tablet, laptop ...) have the same IP. How the IP packet knows where should it go? Because of the MAC address ... It is used for mapping IPv4 addresses to network devices’ MAC addresses and vice versa (ARP).
Nobody is ever tracking you based on a MAC address, and you are sticking out more than blend yourself by using Linux instead of Windows -- you're already one among 1 %, instead of 1 among 80 %.
https://bluecatnetworks.com/blog/mac-address-vs-ip-address-whats-the-difference/
However, whatever you use, your device is always pretty much unique, recognizable and identifiable, because 'your device' is a combination of hundreds of parameters.
36 • Dedicated gaming machines: (by Kazlu on 2022-06-08 07:31:29 GMT from France)
Not exactly a dedicated computer, but I have a triple boot on my computer: my regular Linux, a more "unsafe" Linux OS with less trusted or less stable applications which I use (rarely) for gaming, video conferencing, video editing, etc. And a Windows OS which sole purpose is playing with games that are not functional in Linux.
I also have a dedicated "unsafe applications" and gaming phone, running Android, without any SIM card (uses tethering from my main phone running LineageOS without Google Apps).
And a couple of gaming consoles that are at least 10 years old, but should that count? :D
37 • @35, MAC and fingerprinting (by Justme on 2022-06-08 08:35:45 GMT from Philippines)
Mostly in agreement with your comments. After an experiment, and when later a marketing company tracked devices around London using MAC addresses, there was enough alarm to spur action.. Unless carrying iPhones with iOS 13 and under, Android prior to 8, or frequently using a laptop at different spots; and if one is also concerned about being stalked, MAC addresses are of no concern.
About fingerprints: Yes, every device is almost certainly unique. And using Linux makes it more likely. However a fingerprint needs a body to be assigned to, and if I keep my personal data masked, spoofed or unavailable, the fingerprint is not of much use in pointing in my direction. I can go to amiunique.org ten times and generate ten different 'unique' fingerprints. I can appear as Windows, MacOS, Linux, or other OSes, and several different browsers in different releases. I can be using larger or smaller monitors. And I can be in several locations. All this is done with freely available software.
I suppose someone with the means and desire could put all the similarities together, discard the differences and come up with a single unique fingerprint, but that still doesn't lead them to me. After all, Tor on Tails will leave a unique fingerprint, but it's unlikely to lead to the user.
One caveat: Many people using VPNs to mask their location don't realize that their browser can be broadcasting the time on their system clock.
38 • @35 - macchanger (by Andy Prough on 2022-06-08 16:47:48 GMT from Switzerland)
>"Any hexadecimal value will do, but some networks may be configured to refuse to assign IP addresses to a client whose MAC does not match up with any of known vendors."
That's useful info, thanks Leon, I did not see your earlier post. I think the answer then is to use one of:
macchanger -e eth0
macchanger -a eth0
or
macchanger -A eth0
Any one of those should give you the bytes for a known vendor.
39 • @36 • Dedicated gaming machines: (by Kazlu (by zcatav on 2022-06-09 10:35:53 GMT from Turkey)
Your operating systems that use the same hardware as unsafe as most unsafe one.
Your phones that use the same network as unsafe as most unsafe one.
40 • MAC spoofing on FreeBSD (by Trihexagonal on 2022-06-10 19:19:15 GMT from United States)
I show how to spoof your Ethernet MAC on a FreeBSD machine using an ifconfig command in a tutorial posted on my site.
And elsewhere.
Number of Comments: 40
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| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
knopILS
knopILS was a variant of the Knoppix live CD with support for Italian.
Status: Discontinued
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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