 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 973, 20 June 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 25th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
A little over a week ago the openSUSE team published a new version of the distribution's Leap branch. This branch shares code with SUSE Linux Enterprise and provides a stable, general purpose distribution free of charge. In this week's Feature Story we take openSUSE's latest Leap for a test drive and report on the experience. Alongside Leap openSUSE also supplies Tumbleweed, a rolling release platform. Let us know which of these two editions, Leap or Tumbleweed, you like better in our Opinion Poll. In the News section this week we talk about progress being made in multiple corners of the FreeBSD project. Meanwhile Canonical has published a new version of Ubuntu Core which offers an optional real-time kernel. We also share some changes we're making to our TrueNAS information page. Then, in our Questions and Answers column, we talk about finding and collecting install media for Linux distributions. There are a lot of distributions and many of them offer multiple editions so collecting them all can be quite a challenge. We talk about some of the options and barriers for collecting install media below. Plus we are 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) |
openSUSE 15.4 Leap
The openSUSE team published a new version of their distribution about a week ago. The new release, openSUSE 15.4 Leap, shares its code base with SUSE Linux Enterprise. The new release offers a number of specialized features, particularly with tools focused on AI projects, machine learning, and setting up git repositories. The distribution also ships with tools for hospitals via GNU Health, and offers version 5.14 of the Linux kernel. Several desktop environment are packaged for openSUSE, including KDE Plasma 5.24, Xfce 4.16, GNOME 41, MATE 1.26, and Deepin 20.3. I also found it interesting the distribution offers a copy of the DNF package manager which can be used in place of openSUSE's Zypper. The DNF utility reportedly doesn't have any repositories enabled by default, but the project offers documentation on how to switch from Zypper to DNF.
The openSUSE release announcement also talks about how driver and codec support has been improved:
This version of Leap simplifies multimedia codec installation. Progress has been made to bring Cisco's openh264 video codecs to users via a repository present by default on the system, which will come in a maintenance update. The release not only gains multimedia improvements; it gains open source driver support. Besides AMD's and Intel's continual open source Linux graphics drivers commitment, users of modern NVIDIA GPUs will benefit from it signing firmware images for the latest generation GeForce 30 series GPUs.
openSUSE is available in builds for x86_64, aarch64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures. The two main editions are a full DVD edition which is 3.8GB in size and a net-install edition which is a 173MB download. I decided to download the full DVD for x86_64 computers.
When booting from the DVD we are presented with a menu which offers to launch the distribution's system installer or check the integrity of the media. When performing the media check the system will launch the installer, assuming the check passes.
Installer
openSUSE uses a graphical system installer which begins by showing us the project's license agreement. On this page we can change the system language and our keyboard layout. The installer then asks if we would like to enable on-line repositories to provide access to newer (and extra) packages. I enabled on-line repositories.
The installer then asks us to select a role. Roles are predefined groups of packages, each suited to a particular environment. Available roles include Desktop with KDE, Desktop with GNOME, Desktop with Xfce, "Generic Desktop", Server, and Transactional Server. The last item is a server platform with a read-only root filesystem. I decided to try the first option: Desktop with KDE.
Disk partitioning comes next. While it is possible to perform manual partitioning, and access a wide range of options and filesystem choices, openSUSE's guided option is unusually flexible. The guided choice lets us toggle options on/off, such as whether we want to use Btrfs or LVM, whether we want a larger swap partition to support hibernation, and whether we want to use a separate /home partition. I opted to use Btrfs with a separate swap partition. We then select our time zone from a map and make up a username and password for a new user. The user account creation page is an optional step.
The last page of the installer shows us a summary of all actions it will take, including the disk layout, default services, firewall configuration, and user accounts. We can click links next to options in order to bring up a screen to adjust the settings. This summary screen with quick links is my favourite aspect of the installer. It allows the installer to be mostly streamlined and uncluttered while also giving us optional access to a wide range of customizations.
Once the installer finished its work it restarted the computer.
Early impressions
My new copy of openSUSE booted to a graphical login screen. I was given the chance to login to KDE Plasma running on X11 or KDE Plasma running on a Wayland session. The former is the default. I appreciated this as my recent experiences with Wayland sessions have had various problems and it was nice to see openSUSE taking the more conservative approach and still using X11 as the default.
openSUSE 15.4 -- The welcome window
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The KDE Plasma desktop is presented with the panel placed across the bottom of the screen. This panel holds the application menu, some quick-launch buttons, and the system tray. The application menu is arranged with software categories on the left and launchers on the right.
When first signing into my account I was presented with a welcome window. This window provides some links on openSUSE's social media and support options. We're also told how to find community software repositories and documentation. Links are opened in the Firefox web browser.
One of the links in the welcome window I found particularly interesting, it's called Get Software. Clicking this button opens Firefox to display an on-line software centre. The layout is similar to other software centres such as GNOME Software. From the first web page we can browse categories of software and click items we find interesting. Clicking an entry opens a full page description with a screenshot. We can then click a button to install the selected package. Clicking the install button offers to open the local software manager which is Discover, in my case.
openSUSE 15.4 -- The Discover software centre
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Once Discover has been opened it displays information on the same application we were looking at on the website. We can click a button and enter our password to install the package. Once it has been installed, we can click a button to launch the newly fetched application. Well, most of the time we can launch the new application. Some items I installed could be launched from Discover, others failed to run unless I launched them from the application menu or from a terminal.
This process - the welcome window opening a web-based software centre, which can be used to open Discover, which can install software - works. It's all quite easy to navigate and functional. What I find strange though is the Get Software button in the welcome screen opens a web page which opens the local software centre. It seems like it would be easier and faster for the welcome window to simply open Discover directly and save us a few steps. I think web-based software stores can be useful, it just seems redundant in this situation.
Hardware support
I ran openSUSE in VirtualBox and on my laptop. The distribution was pleasantly responsive, I might even say unusually responsive, in both environments. The system doesn't present many visual effects or distractions, which I appreciate. My laptop's hardware was all detected and the system ran smoothly.
When running in VirtualBox, the KDE Plasma desktop integrated with the host desktop and I could resize the Plasma desktop by resizing the VirtualBox window.
A fresh install of openSUSE with Plasma consumed about 6GB of disk space, plus a swap partition. Disk usage will depend on the role we select at install time, but the base system with any of the main three desktop environments should be in the 6GB range. When I first signed into Plasma the system usually used about 490MB of RAM. This grew a little for the first few minutes, up to about 550MB, and then settled back down to about 530MB. There wasn't any notable amount of network activity or disk access during this time. I didn't spend the time to track down which processes were slowly expanding and deflating in RAM, but at its highest point memory usage was still under 550MB, relatively light by modern standards.
Live media
On the openSUSE download page there is a section for alternative media, including live desktop media. This allows us to test drive openSUSE with desktops such as KDE Plasma and GNOME without installing the distribution. The download page includes an unusual warning about the live media:
They should not be used to install or upgrade. Please use the installation media instead. They have a limited package and driver selection, so cannot be considered an accurate reflection as to whether the distribution will work on your hardware or not.
This is strange for two reasons. One is that the live media includes both Install and Upgrade icons on the desktop. It seems strange for the developers to tell people not to use the live media for installs and upgrades and then explicitly put icons on the desktop to perform those actions.
The other, more pressing issue is the comment about how the live media doesn't include the same drivers and therefore isn't a good test to see if our hardware will work well with the operating system. This negates the main purpose of live desktop media. Apart from possible rescue operations, the main reason to have live media is to test hardware compatibility prior to installing a distribution.
The warning is correct though. While openSUSE ran well for me when installed from the official DVD media and offered better than normal performance, the distribution's live KDE media worked terribly. It took around three minutes to boot and another minute to finish loading the desktop environment. Audio failed to work when running from the live media. The system load was always high and the desktop always sluggish. With only a virtual terminal window open, running top, the system showed almost no disk or CPU activity and yet the load average stayed above 2.50 without a break. The interface was slow to respond with opening the application menu or resizing a window taking several seconds.
Usually, in my experience, most distributions perform about as well from live media as they do when installed locally - giving some wiggle room for loading applications from the slower boot media. But running openSUSE's live media was the night to the installed version's day and made me wonder how the developers got the experience so wrong on the live disc compared next to the install media.
Included software
A fresh install of openSUSE includes the Firefox web browser, LibreOffice, the VLC media player (missing some codecs), a file manager (Dolphin, in my case), a document viewer, a few games, and Java. There are also some desktop-specific applications to monitor the system and adjust settings. In the background we find the systemd init software and version 5.14 of the Linux kernel.
openSUSE 15.4 -- The Plasma application menu
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As I mentioned, a media player is installed and openSUSE does ship with most audio codecs, but it is unable to play common video formats. One of the listed features of the 15.4 release was easier access to media codecs and a look through the openSUSE documentation provides a page on installing these codecs. There are a few options of varying degrees of manual involvement that include setting up a community package repository and fetching the missing codecs. The easiest approach I found was to install a package called opi and then run the command "opi codecs" from the command line. This will add the Packman repository for us and then offer to fetch popular codecs. This works, though it involves a few pauses along the way - we are prompted once to confirm we trust the Packman repository key and then three more times to confirm we really want to install the new media packages. The process, while a bit involved, did work for me and I was able to then play both audio and video files.
Also on the topic of included software, if we try to run a command line program that doesn't exist, the system will politely suggest we run another utility called cnf to find out if the program is available. For instance, running "cnf gcc" tells us we can run "sudo zypper install gcc" to install the missing compiler.
Something which kept coming up as I explored the included software was a lot of actions - such as opening a web browser, connecting my laptop to wireless networks, and anything else involving credentials - would cause the KDE Wallet application to appear and demand I use it for handling my credentials. Sometimes I could merely cancel this window and it would go away, but I was blocked entirely from using some programs if I didn't set up KDE Wallet. This is really frustrating as it regularly nags the user to set up software which is vague about what it is doing and cryptic in its options.
YaST
One of the core features of openSUSE is its YaST control panel. YaST provides a central, graphical series of modules for managing the operating system. Through the YaST panel we can manage software packages, updates, and repositories. We can adjust sound settings, change the keyboard layout, set up printers, and manage user accounts. We can also manage disk partitions, set up network shares, adjust the firewall, and enable network proxies. There is a module for browsing the systemd journal, and another for browsing and restoring filesystem snapshots.
openSUSE 15.4 -- Browsing the YaST control panel
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This last point is key. Whenever we use YaST to change settings or install new packages, the system automatically creates a new Btrfs snapshot. (This assumes we installed openSUSE on a Btrfs volume.) We can browse snapshots and compare them with other snapshots using a tool called Snapper. We can also boot into a past snapshot from the boot menu. This means we can easily compare files between snapshots to see when adjusting a setting or upgrading a package broke something. We can also rollback the change. Since we can access and boot old snapshots from the boot menu, this makes openSUSE virtually bullet proof, short of a hardware failure.
openSUSE 15.4 -- Browsing filesystem snapshots
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YaST is one of my favourite utilities in the Linux community - most of its components are friendly, it automates snapshots allowing us to rollback changes, and it handles low level changes in a nice, point-n-click interface. I especially like the user manager which, while simple by default, offers extra tabs where we can fine-tune settings and permissions.
Some of the YaST modules may be more complex than they need to be for most users. The firewall utility, for example, focuses heavily on zones which will be overkill for most users and there isn't any simplified version of the tool for just blocking or opening a specific port. The YaST software manager is also a bit complex, but it's nicely balanced by the simplified Discover software centre.
Something I noticed while using the Services module in YaST is it will queue up the changes we want to make and then apply them all at once. For example, if I tell the utility to stop CUPS and enable OpenSSH, these services won't be adjusted until I click the Apply button or exit the utility. Usually service managers apply changes right away. This isn't good or bad, just different from how most distributions handle things.
openSUSE 15.4 -- The KDE System Settings panel
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While YaST handles low-level operating system configuration, customising the desktop is handled by KDE's System Settings panel. The System Settings panel is detailed and has many modules for tweaking KDE. Luckily, the panel includes a search function to help us find specific settings. I quite like the System Settings utility and find it's a great way to adjust Plasma to better suit my workflow.
Conclusions
openSUSE is a project which almost always impresses me with its technology, its integration, and its flexibility. However, it's never a distribution I've run as my main operating system for various reasons. One of the main reasons I haven't fully embraced openSUSE, despite its many technological capabilities, is its inconsistent polish. Some aspect of the operating system are polished and developed to near perfection. The installer is both fairly easy to navigate and surprisingly flexible. The default Btr filesystem is powerful and its snapshots easy to use. The YaST control panel is remarkably good at adjusting low level aspects of the operating system and integrates nicely with Btrfs.
However, on the other side of things, we have issues like the KDE Wallet utility nagging the user and displaying vague prompts about which cryptography functions to use. The live media offers a different and quite less appealing experience than the installed operating system, and (despite the progress in this arena) the documented steps to install media codecs are still some of the most complex in the Linux ecosystem.
openSUSE 15.4 feels like a distribution by system administrators for administrators. We can set up a printer and rollback filesystem snapshots with a few clicks of the mouse, but installing video codecs is a two-commands-and-four-prompts command line process. Managing services and setting up network shares takes just a few clicks, but getting sound working on the live disc was an exercise in frustration. openSUSE is a distribution which makes a lot of usually hard tasks easy and the normally easy tasks hard.
In short, some parts of openSUSE feel like the Iron Man nanotech suit and some parts feel like they were built in a cave. The former parts definitely outweigh the latter, but the little issues are what separate a good, solid distribution from a great experience.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an HP DY2048CA laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 512GB solid state drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Wireless network device: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + BT Wireless network card
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Visitor supplied rating
openSUSE has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.7/10 from 380 review(s).
Have you used openSUSE? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
FreeBSD publishes status report, Ubuntu Core 22 released with real-time kernel, updates to TrueNAS
The FreeBSD team have published a status update which provides an overview of work going into the operating system. Several of the key updates involve getting FreeBSD to work better on new hardware, including RISC-V processors and Framework laptops. Efforts are being made to reduce boot times and several developers are also working on wireless networking support. One interesting project looks at using Linux to broaden wireless support on FreeBSD: "Wifibox is an experimental project for exploring the ways of deploying a virtualized Linux guest to drive wireless networking cards on the FreeBSD host system. There have been guides on the Internet to suggest the use of such techniques to improve the wireless networking experience, of which Wifibox aims to implement as a single easy-to-use software package." Details on Wifibox and other efforts can be found in FreeBSD's quarterly status report.
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Canonical has announced the release of Ubuntu Core 22, an embedded operating system with support for Snap packages intended to be used for embedded systems, robotics, and industrial settings. One of the key features being tested in version 22 is a real-time kernel. "The Ubuntu 22.04 LTS real-time kernel, now available in beta, delivers high performance, ultra-low latency and workload predictability for time-sensitive industrial, telco, automotive and robotics use cases. The new release includes a fully preemptible kernel to ensure time-bound responses. Canonical partners with silicon and hardware manufacturers to enable advanced real-time features out of the box on Ubuntu Certified Hardware." Further information on Ubuntu Core 22 is presented in the company's announcement.
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People who are fans of network attached storage (NAS) technologies are probably familiar with the name FreeNAS. The FreeNAS project was a dedicated NAS operating system based on FreeBSD and sponsored by iXsystems. As the name implies, FreeNAS was available to the public free of charge. People who wanted a commercially backed storage solution could explore a similar product from iXsystems called TrueNAS.
A little while back FreeNAS changed its name to TrueNAS Core and more closely joined its cousin under the iXsystems umbrella. The brand and product line have continued to evolve and now there are three branches of TrueNAS: Core, Enterprise (which offers commercial support), and SCALE for multi-node deployments.
In an effort to keep track of each of these branches without adding confusion, we've merged all of the TrueNAS product family into one page. This page includes the historical information for FreeNAS along with current information on the three TrueNAS editions.
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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) |
Collecting distro ISO files
Got-to-catch-them-all asks: Is there any software, script or website where you can easily check the newest ISOs of Linux and Windows?
I have a folder with operating system images, divided by those that I'd like to keep up-to-date and another that is for some collectionary value or doesn't update at all (Windows versions, last version of Kali with GNOME). However it gets messy to keep up with (rolling releases, delays, different desktops) so I'd like to have an automatic way of checking my downloaded ISOs with some on-line database.
If there isn't anything as such, does DistroWatch have some public API that could be used for that? I could try to make some basic JavaScript website that allows you to pick ISOs that you have downloaded and then compare them with the DistroWatch database. Nothing fancy, just if it's the newest or not. You could make it more advanced by marking major versions or different desktop environments, but I'd be satisfied with something simple.
DistroWatch answers: The short answer is no, there isn't (to my knowledge) anything like that which will test a collection of local ISO files against a database of existing (including past) releases to see if any versions are missing or should be downloaded.
We don't track this sort of information, really. That is, we don't track a list of existing ISOs or host any ISOs on DistroWatch. We also don't have any public API. The closest thing we have is a collection of version numbers for each distribution on each project's information page, which you could (in theory) compare to ISO files you have downloaded. However, a lot of distros do not use consistent filenames. This makes scripting any sort of comparison with version numbers difficult.
You might be able to write a script that extracts the version number of a distro from its filename and then compare it to our latest version information on the distro's info page. However, it would be an imperfect solution and require a lot of bandwidth/scraping to make work. In theory you could also check the release announcements for each distribution on its information page and scan the announcement for a filename that includes an ISO or IMG extension. However, that's a lot of scanning and parsing for what will be an imperfect solution.
I think a better approach would be to subscribe to our Latest Distributions RSS feed. This will provide you with a list of new ISO files as they become available. Then you can download each new item as it is published. Some RSS clients will even do most of the work for you. This won't keep you up to speed with past versions, but it'll keep you updated on new versions going forward which will get added to your collection. You can also check the download mirrors of projects that interest you as many of them keep archives of past releases.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
IPFire 2.27 Core 168
The IPFire team have published a new update to their security and firewall focused distribution. A key update affects the project's intrusion prevention system (IPS): "Stefan contributed a patch series for notably improving the IPS, particularly when it comes to handling of ruleset providers. While many of the changes are done under the hood, the following are visible to the web interface: Monitoring mode can now be enabled for each ruleset provider individually. This makes baselining and testing much less of a hassle, since newly introduced IPS ruleset providers can now first be used for logging only, without risking disruptions or unintended side-effects. Parsing and restructuring changed or updated rulesets has been improved and is now faster by orders of magnitude. The downloader will now automatically check whether a ruleset has been updated on its providers' server by checking the ETag HTTP header. This allows us to drop the update interval selection; every IPS ruleset will now updated automatically on the appropriate interval." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Kaisen Linux 2.1
Kevin Chevreuil has announced the release of Kaisen Linux 2.1. Kaisen Linux is a rolling-release, Debian-based desktop distribution. The project aims to be useful for IT professionals. The new release includes several technical changes and some visual ones. For instance, Kaisen 2.1 swaps out the default zsh shell for bash and drops the themed Conky desktop widget. "ZSH is no longer the default terminal for Kaisen Linux! It was since the first release of Kaisen Linux the default terminal, but the majority of users asked for the return of Bash by default, which has been done on this release. Several polls on the different social network pages have been done for this. However, it is still installed as it was before (with oh-my-zsh), and it is possible to reset it to the default. The documentation is here: ZSH on Kaisen Linux. The Conky theme is no longer installed by default with the GUIs, but is a separate package named kaisen-conky, which is no longer installed by default. The reason for this is that user feedback was not unanimous about the default presence of Conky on Kaisen Linux and therefore it is now considered a 'goodie' and can be installed optionally." The full list of changes can be found in the release announcement.
Kaisen Linux 2.1 -- Running the MATE desktop
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EuroLinux 9.0
EuroLinux is a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The project's latest release is EuroLinux 9.0 which will be supported through to June 2032. "We released version 9.0 of the EuroLinux operating system. It is compatible with the latest upstream release. This release focuses on providing improved default cryptographic policies, a 5.14 kernel, a graphical management interface via a web panel, and improvements related to cloud, virtualization and containerization. "Nine" also introduces a major update in the form of the GNOME 40 desktop environment (with modern GTK 4). An important change for those who want to use EuroLinux on x86_64 architecture, is the need to have a processor supporting x86_64-v2 microarchitecture (also on virtual machines). Since version 8.3, the EuroLinux operating system is offered in an Open Core model - both as a paid subscription and free of charge. Customers and the community get access to the software at the same time, in the same version and in the same repositories. The paid subscription additionally provides: manufacturer's technical support, access to errata files, access to additional intermediate packages, the possibility to influence product development." Further information is provided in the distribution's release announcement and release notes.
GhostBSD 22.06.15
The GhostBSD project develops a desktop operating system based on FreeBSD. The project's latest snapshot is GhostBSD 22.06.15 which includes better handling of NVIDIA drivers and smoothly upgrade processes. "Some of the improvements are automation on the livecd to install the proper Nvidia driver, and when a package fails to upgrade, Update Station will reinstall it and resume the update. I have added the BWN_GPL_PHY option in our default GENERIC kernel to compile drivers that include GPLv2 code. Now, most Broadcom devices are detected, including my iMac. In most cases bwn_v4_ucode_load="YES" or bwn_v4_lp_ucode_load="YES" need to be added in /boot/loader.conf. In addition, GhostBSD was upgraded to 13.1-STABLE from 22/05/31. Features added: Do not show updates available when packages are syncing. Add a file called syncing when new packages are syncing and remove it when completed. Add code to update-station read if syncing is in the repository and do not prompt users for upgrades. Add code to software-station to not allow software installation with software-station during a packages sync." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Manjaro Linux 21.3.0
Philip Müller has announced the release of Manjaro Linux 21.3.0, the latest stable version of the project's rolling-release distribution offering a choice of KDE Plasma, Xfce and GNOME desktops. This release features version 3.2 of the Calamares installer. "Manjaro 21.3.0 'Ruah' released. Since we released 'Qonos' at the end of last year, our developer team worked hard to get the next release of Manjaro out there. We call it 'Ruah'. This release features the final release of Calamares 3.2. Partition module gained more support for LUKS partitions. Users module now has lists of forbidden login names and host names, to avoid settings that will mess up the install. The GNOME edition has received a major update to GNOME 42. A new global dark user interface style preference has arrived. This can be used to request that apps use a dark user interface style instead of light. The new setting can be found in the new Appearance panel in the Settings app, and is followed by most GNOME apps." Continue to the release announcement for further information.
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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: 2,735
- 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) |
openSUSE Leap or Tumbleweed?
This week we shared observations on openSUSE Leap, the project's stable edition. The openSUSE project has another edition, Tumbleweed, which provides a rolling release model for people who want to be on the cutting edge of software features. Have you used either of openSUSE's editions? Let us know your preference - Leap's stable approach or Tumbleweed's rolling nature.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running a rolling Ubuntu release in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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openSUSE Leap or Tumbleweed?
| Leap: | 346 (19%) |
| Tumbleweed: | 508 (29%) |
| I like both: | 178 (10%) |
| I have not used either: | 748 (42%) |
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|
| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- CROWZ. CROWZ is a Devuan-based desktop distribution which features a variety of lightweight window managers. Editions of CROWZ ship with Fluxbox, Openbox, and JWM.
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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, 27 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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| Archives |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Issue 1032 (2023-08-14): MX Linux 23, positioning new windows on the desktop, Linux Containers adopts LXD fork, Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ form OpenELA |
| • Issue 1031 (2023-08-07): Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, preventing a file from being changed, Asahi Linux partners with Fedora, Linux Mint plans new releases |
| • Issue 1030 (2023-07-31): Solus 4.4, Linux Mint 21.2, Debian introduces RISC-V support, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 |
| • Issue 1029 (2023-07-24): Running Murena on the Fairphone 4, Flatpak vs Snap sandboxing technologies, Redox OS plans to borrow Linux drivers to expand hardware support, Debian updates Bookworm media |
| • Issue 1028 (2023-07-17): KDE Connect; Oracle, SUSE, and AlmaLinux repsond to Red Hat's source code policy change, KaOS issues media fix, Slackware turns 30; security and immutable distributions |
| • Issue 1027 (2023-07-10): Crystal Linux 2023-03-16, StartOS (embassyOS 0.3.4.2), changing options on a mounted filesystem, Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Fedora debates telemetry for desktop team |
| • Issue 1026 (2023-07-03): Kumander Linux 1.0, Red Hat changing its approach to sharing source code, TrueNAS offers SMB Multichannel, Zorin OS introduces upgrade utility |
| • Issue 1025 (2023-06-26): KaOS with Plasma 6, information which can leak from desktop environments, Red Hat closes door on sharing RHEL source code, SUSE introduces new security features |
| • Issue 1024 (2023-06-19): Debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Debian releases GNU/Hurd 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 nears its end of life, FreeBSD turns 30 |
| • Issue 1023 (2023-06-12): openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the differences between independent distributions, openSUSE lengthens Leap life, Murena offers new phone for North America |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
ZoneCD
The Public IP ZoneCD was a re-mastered variant of the Morphix CD. Public IP's ZoneCD was a bootable CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software pre-configured to create a WiFi gateway. The CD was a mini operating system with automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards and other peripherals. The gateway includes support for WiFi end-user authentication and web content filtering. Public IP ZoneCD was distributed under the GNU General Public License.
Status: Discontinued
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TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
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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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