 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 971, 6 June 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 23rd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
A big part of software development is trying to make computers more useful and more friendly for the people operating them. In our News section this week we share some examples of efforts going toward making computers more accessible. The NixOS project has adopted a graphical installer which provides an alternative to the text-based configuration file NixOS users worked with in the past. The DragonFly BSD project introduces labels for network interfaces, making it easier to keep track of which network devices are used for which tasks. We also share news from the Mint team that they are switching to a more universal Bluetooth implementation and taking over maintenance of the Timeshift utility. We share details of these changes in our News section, along with a notice that Ubuntu 21.10 is nearing the end of its supported life. First though we talk about two distributions on our waiting list. The first is ChimeraOS, an Arch-based operating system for dedicated gaming computers. Do you have a dedicated gaming machine in your home? Let us know in this week's opinion poll. We also take a quick look at the Debian-based Lilidog project which strives to offer more efficient performance by running the Openbox window manager. Then, in our Questions and Answers section, we discuss changing a network interface's MAC identification. A computer's MAC address can help track a specific computer or block access to network resources and we discuss side-stepping these restrictions below. Plus we welcome the Murena project to our database. Murena provides both a de-Googled, open source implementation of Android for mobile devices and a collection of cloud services built on Nextcloud. We are also pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We hope you all have a fantastic week and wish you happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
ChimeraOS 2022.01.03
ChimeraOS is an Arch-based system for 64-bit machines that specializes in running games. It's primarily intended to be easy to set up (it automates the installation and takes over our entire hard drive). ChimeraOS then boots into a console-style interface. The project's FAQ page says it works as a portal to Steam, Epic Games Store, Flathub, and GOG.
According to the Chimera website the distribution offers virtually no install options, no desktop environment, and no traditional package manager. The distribution strives to work with common console game controllers out of the box.
Chimera is available as a 704MB ISO for 64-bit (x86_64) computers exclusively. The project's website recommends 4GB of RAM and at least 20GB of disk space. Additional space will be required for games. While Chimera is intended to be used like a living room console, the operating system requires a keyboard for the install process.
Booting from the Chimera media brings up a text installer which immediately asks which disk it should take over. We are warned that the disk will be entirely erased to make room for the new operating system. The installer then downloads a system image from somewhere. We're not told how big the system image is or where it is hosted, but it's downloaded and copied to the local disk.
In situations where the computer uses a wireless network, the system installer offers to run a network configuration tool which will assist us in connecting us to local networks before attempting the download.
Once the installer finished copying its image to the disk it offers to restart the computer. At this point I ran into a bit of a wall with this distribution.
ChimeraOS booted to a blank screen. At first it looked like there was some disk activity, but after a few minutes this died down and nothing happened. I could use the Ctrl+Alt+F keys to switch between virtual terminals. These showed me a login prompt, but I didn't know the default credentials, or even if there would be a default account set up at this point in the initial experience. The remaining virtual terminal was the blank screen which held no text, windows, or even mouse pointer.
I tried a booting a few times with various boot parameters to adjust video driver settings, but nothing got me further along in the process. Maybe the distribution just doesn't work well with my equipment because I'm running a lower end Intel video card, not one intended for mainstream gaming. Which is a shame, my system is great for playing lots of games available through Steam and Flathub, but it seems the default interface ChimeraOS uses isn't compatible with my system.
I like the approach ChimeraOS takes - the concept of a super easy, automated installer with direct access to gaming portals sounds great. Unfortunately the implementation didn't work for me.
Update: After writing this review, just three days before this was published, a new snapshot of ChimeraOS was released. I have not yet had a chance to test it to see if it overcomes the issues post-install reported in this review. I did check the website and ChimeraOS's social media accounts and found no mention of this issue being addressed.
* * * * *
Lilidog 22.04
The next distribution on my list of projects to review was Lilidog. This distribution is based on Debian with Openbox as the default window manager. The project is available in three editions. The first is a full, 64-bit edition which features Openbox along with a collection of popular open source applications. These include Firefox, Thunderbird, and the Synaptic package manager. This full edition is a 1.6GB download. There is also a 32-bit version of this edition which is also 1.6GB. The third edition is a "minimal" edition which offers the same user interface, but almost no desktop applications. We're simply provided with the Thunar file manager, the Xfce virtual terminal, and a text editor. This minimal edition is still fairly large, 1.2GB in size. 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, but this edition does have five downloads at the time of writing.
Live media
Booting from the Lilidog media brings up a menu asking if we'd like to start a live session or launch the system installer. The live session boots to the Openbox environment with a dark theme - most elements are grey, or dark green on a black background. I found this low contrast theme with small text makes it difficult to read prompts and menus.
Lilidog 22.04 -- Exploring the live environment
(full image size: 124kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The system displays a brief welcome message in the middle of the screen. Over to the left we see a list of shortcut keys we can use to navigate Openbox. Across the bottom of the display is a thin panel. This panel holds a lot of items, including the application menu, quick-launch buttons, a virtual desktop widget, a task switcher, and a system tray.
The Openbox interface is light and quick. Running it on top of Debian in the live environment takes about 265MB of RAM only. The system is light and snappy. One of the few problems I ran into was that I wanted to adjust the system clock and time zone, but clicking on the clock only brought up a calendar and right-clicking the clock offers to create new timers. Adjusting the clock requires another module or a trip to the command line.
Also on the subject of the system tray there is an icon in the tray we can click to open a terminal and check for software updates. Right-clicking this same icon immediately launches the Synaptic package manager.
Included software
The Lilidog application menu is presented in a classic tree style with nested (sometimes deeply nested) categories. The items don't seem to be in alphabetical order, but rather are seemingly sorted by the length of the launcher's name. This results in sub-menus with launchers which make bell-curve style waves. This has a sort of visual appeal, but it makes it difficult to find anything. The application menu does not have a search feature and the lack of any useful approach to sorting means the user needs to spend a lot of time scanning sub-menus to find something. This is further complicated by a whole sub-menu dedicated to "Debian" software, meaning we basically have two sets of menus, but no clear indication of what qualifies software as being related to Debian versus what is specific to Lilidog.
Digging through the menu I found a lot of software, some of it popular open source applications and other, smaller programs. Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, and the Thunar file manager are included. The GNU Image Manipulation Program and a smaller image viewer are included. We are given the SMPlayer and an audio player. A text editor is available along with Network Manager.
Lilidog ships with GNU command line utilities along with manual pages and the systemd init software. Version 5.10 of the Linux kernel runs in the background.
If we dig deep into the application menu (under Utilities ->Extras) there are a bunch of icons for installing things like custom kernels, Discord, and the Steam gaming software. These launchers open a virtual terminal and offer to fetch the selected software. This seems to work, at least for the few items I tried.
Installing
I did not find a launcher for opening the system installer while running the live session. I rebooted and chose the installer from the boot menu. This opened Debian's graphical installer with Lilidog's branding and dark theme.
The installer walked me through the usual steps of selecting a region and creating a user account. Then we got to partitioning and I was offered the choice of using manual or guided partitioning. I went with the guided option, which said it would wipe the disk and set up an ext4 root filesystem with a swap partition. Accepting this arrangement caused an error message to appear saying the ext4 filesystem could not be created.
Lilidog 22.04 -- Running the system installer
(full image size: 17kB, resolution: 800x600 pixels)
I backed up and tried the manual partitioning option, setting up one root partition, formatted for ext4. Again, the installer failed to proceed, reporting the root filesystem could not be created.
Conclusions
This inability to proceed with partitioning, something which has not impacted me while using vanilla Debian, largely brought my trial to a halt. To be honest, I'm not sure I'm disappointed. There are a lot of lightweight, Debian-based distributions, including several which feature the Openbox window manager. Lilidog doesn't seem to provide anything new or engaging that isn't already covered by SparkyLinux, Star, or even Debian itself. Star even offers a similar dark theme.
In short, Lilidog doesn't seem to bring anything new to the table, no unique spin to the concept of Openbox on Debian, other than its oddly organized application menu.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
NixOS adopts a graphical installer, DragonFly BSD adds network interface descriptions, Ubuntu 21.10 nears its end of life, Mint replaces its Bluetooth software
Traditionally the NixOS distribution has been installed by editing a text file which holds Nix's configuration and then running a command to implement the rules inside the configuration file. While efficient, from a technical point of view, this approach raised the barrier for new users to experiment with NixOS. One of the changes in NixOS 22.05 is the inclusion of the Calamares graphical installer. Both the Plasma and GNOME editions of NixOS can launch Calamares in order to provide a friendly, graphical install experience. The previous approach is still available and the default approach for installing NixOS from the Minimal edition's media.
* * * * *
The DragonFly BSD team has introduced a handy new feature which allows users to assign descriptions to network interfaces. This will help administrators identify which interfaces are used for specific tasks or situations without needing to refer to documentation. The announcement was brief, though enlightening: "You can now set a description for a network interface on DragonFly. Don't use ETH0, please."
* * * * *
Version 21.10 of the Ubuntu distribution, along with its community editions, will reach the end of its supported life in July. An announcement was published, letting users of Ubuntu 21.10 know it is time to upgrade: "Ubuntu announced its 21.10 (Impish Indri) release almost 9 months ago, on October 14, 2021, and its support period is now nearing its end. Ubuntu 21.10 will reach end of life on July 14, 2022. At that time, Ubuntu Security Notices will no longer include information or updated packages for Ubuntu 21.10." Upgrade instructions are provided in the Ubuntu documentation.
* * * * *
The Linux Mint team has published its monthly newsletter which outlines changes coming to the distribution. One of the key changes involves Blueman taking over from Blueberry due to changes in the way GNOME's Bluetooth support is handled. "Starting with version 42 GNOME Bluetooth is no longer compatible with Blueberry. Blueberry would need to undergo significant changes to work with it. There is also frustration upstream from the GNOME Bluetooth development team who simply does not want to have users from other desktops than GNOME and so Blueberry will probably get discontinued. Blueman on the other hand welcomes users from all desktop environments. It does not rely on GNOME Bluetooth. It's a GTK frontend for the Bluez Bluetooth stack." The newsletter also reports the Mint developers will be taking over maintenance of the Timeshift utility as its original author, Tony George, has decided to focus on other projects.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Changing a network interface's MAC address
A-leopard-changing-its-spots asks: Is there a way to change my MAC address every time I go on-line?
DistroWatch answers: A MAC address, for those wondering, is a unique code which identifies a network interface. A MAC address is typically tied to a specific piece of hardware (like a network card). A computer's MAC address is often used to identify the machine on a network and can be used to filter at the router which devices are allowed to join a network and which are not.
As an example, a router might be given a list of MAC addresses which are allowed to connect to its wireless network and it will ban all other devices, refusing to assign them IP addresses.
It is possible to adjust a network interface's MAC address. The easiest way to do this on Linux is probably through Network Manager, which is available on most distributions. If you open Network Manager (in most desktop environments you can right-click on the network icon and select Edit Connections) you can then select a network name. Highlight the network you will be joining and click the Settings button.
Network Manager 1.30 -- Adjusting MAC settings
(full image size: 57kB, resolution: 645x588 pixels)
In the network settings window which comes up, click the Wi-Fi tab and look near the bottom of the tab. One of the fields will be labelled "Cloned MAC address". Set this field to "Random". This will cause the interface to be assigned a random MAC address each time it connects to the wireless network.
To check the current MAC address for a device, open a virtual terminal and run the command
ip link show
The above command will display a list of active interfaces. The last line of each entry will display the connection's MAC address. The output will look like the text below. In my example the MAC address is in bold text:
$ ip link show
wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP mode DORMANT group default qlen 1000
link/ether c6:cc:d0:b6:40:f0 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff permaddr 30:c9:aa:c4:f4:a7
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
NixOS 22.05
The NixOS team have announced the launch of NixOS 22.05, the latest version of their distribution which is built around the advanced Nix package manager. "A highlight of the release is Nix 2.8, which brings experimental flakes support for the default installed Nix version, along with tonnes of fixes, features and general improvements. Of course, these are just two things I want to highlight here. Not to mention the countless improvements, bug fixes and new features that have also gone into this release. I would like to thank every single contributor who has contributed to this release. Every NixOS release is an improvement over the previous one and I am already looking forward to the improvements of 22.11. Please remember that the new release also means that 21.11 channel is now obsolete and will only be updated for an another month." Additional information is provided in the release announcement and in the release notes.
Linux Lite 6.0
Jerry Bezencon has announced the release of Linux Lite 6.0. The distribution, which is geared toward providing a user friendly experience on an Ubuntu base, is focusing on bringing assistive technologies to users. "It's a well known fact that we target Windows users. Out of the box, Windows offers a fairly complete system. That includes tools for the hearing and sight impaired. In this release you can zoom in on the desktop, have a screen reader talk to you and complete tasks with an onscreen keyboard. We've made all of these functions highly configurable. The onscreen keyboard application is Onboard. On-screen virtual keyboard is an alternative input method that can replace a real hardware keyboard. Virtual keyboard may be a necessity in various cases. For example, your hardware keyboard is just broken; you do not have enough keyboards for extra machines; your hardware does not have an available port left to connect a keyboard; you experience difficulty in typing on a real keyboard; or you are building a touchscreen-based web kiosk. Orca is a free and open-source, flexible, extensible screen reader from the Gnome project for individuals who are blind or visually impaired." Additional information along with screenshots are available in the project's release announcement.
Linux Lite 6.0 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 370kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Murena 1.0
The Murena project has published version 1.0 of its /e/OS operating system for mobile devices. The project includes a new application installer and a number of new improvements and features: "We are proud to deliver the /e/OS v1.0. Enjoy all the new features and improvements it embeds. We embedded some new features! You are now able to limit your data exposure once you have installed third party apps on your devices. It allows you to manage in app trackers, IP address and location. App Lounge, the new application installer! Our new application installer lets you search and download all the applications you want directly from the smartphone. It connects you to millions of Android apps but not only. It also includes Progressive Web Apps and even open-source applications, all in one place. Safetynet test pass (/stable devices only): it allows more applications to run properly on /e/OS. You are now able to see your account details in a widget (including your aliases!) A new user interface for Mail, Message and Camera. The file synchronization now offers real time synchronization, from device to server. Improvement in BlissLauncher colors, and also a removable weather widget. Translations were improved thanks to the work of our community." Addition information is provided in the release announcement. A complete list of supported devices and associated install instructions can be found on the project's devices page.
deepin 20.6
deepin is a desktop distribution based on Debian and featuring the custom Deepin Desktop Environment. The project's latest release, deepin 20.6, features a number of updates to its software centre, disk partitioning, and search features. An English translation of the Chinese release announcement reads: "In deepin 20.6, we have developed and integrated a great number of practical features from the functional level based on the community users' feedback, synchronized with the upstream kernel version, fixed underlying vulnerabilities, upgraded the stable kernel to V5.15.34 and further improved system compatibility and security. Welcome to try it! App Store supports filtering and classifying the search results with Linux native applications, Windows applications, and Android applications distinguished directly so that you can quickly find your desired application and save time in searching and retrieving. The newly added settings and management in clearing the browser data automatically and the default encrypted cookies feature enhance your browser data security greatly. The new logical volume management feature effectively improves the scalability of the system and the convenience of disk management. You may allocate the root partition size manually as needed during full-disk installation."
* * * * *
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: 2,730
- Total data uploaded: 42.1TB
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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) |
Dedicated gaming machine
In this week's Feature Story we talked about ChimeraOS, a distribution aimed at gamers with the intention of having a dedicated, gaming operating system. Do you have a dedicated machine in your home for gaming, whether it's a PC, hand held device, or console? Let us know what devices you use for gaming in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on favourite privacy-oriented distributions in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Dedicated gaming machine
| I have a dedicated console machine: | 102 (7%) |
| I have a handheld gaming device: | 25 (2%) |
| I have a dedicated gaming PC: | 164 (11%) |
| I have a combination of the above: | 224 (15%) |
| I have none of the above: | 977 (65%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to database
Murena
Murena is an umbrella name for the /e/OS operating system, associated open source powered smartphones, and cloud-based services. The Murena project provides open source images for common smartphones, open source cloud-based storage, calendar, and backup solutions, and sells phones with /e/OS pre-installed. The project's operating system is based on LineageOS, itself based on Android. The Murena team removes closed source applications, trackers, and Google-specific elements of Android and replaces them with open source alternatives.
Murena -- The Murena launch screen
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1440x2960 pixels)
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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, 13 June 2022. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • 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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