 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 978, 25 July 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 30th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
EndeavourOS is an Arch-based project which provides access to multiple desktop environments at install time. The distribution strives to be flexible and up to date with cutting edge software. This week we begin with a look at EndeavourOS and report on the setup process and experiences gained by running this Arch-based distribution. Arch and its family of distributions are known for their flexibility and people can run a wide range of graphical user interfaces - desktop environments and window managers - on Arch's core operating system. We'd like to hear from all the Arch users out there: what graphical user interface do you currently run? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. In our Questions and Answers column this week we talk about hardware compatibility and how people react to Linux distributions not working with a user's hardware. Then, in our News section, we share good news on the hardware compatibility topic as Canonical has officially certified Ubuntu as working with Dell's XPS 13 Plus Developer Edition laptop. We also share news on Slax experimenting with a return to its Slackware Linux base and report on efforts to run Linux on Apple's M1 and M2 hardware. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (18MB) and MP3 (13MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
EndeavourOS 22.6
The EndeavourOS distribution is a member of the Arch Linux family. Endeavour is a rolling release platform which strives to be easy to set up and run as a desktop operating system. The project puts a strong focus on initial customization, providing the ability to choose our desktop environment (and various extras) at install time.
I previously reviewed EndeavourOS just over a year ago and the distribution was one of a handful which made my list of remarkably good distributions of 2021. As you might imagine, I was eager to try out the project's latest snapshot to see how it had evolved over the past year.
Endeavour is available as a single 1.8GB download for 64-bit (x86_64) computers. Booting from the project's live media brings up a menu asking if we'd like to launch the distribution normally, run the live media with improved NVIDIA video support, or launch in fallback mode. The normal method worked well for me and the live media quickly loaded the Xfce desktop. The Xfce interface is arranged with a panel across the bottom of the screen. This panel holds the application menu, quick-launch icons, task switcher, and system tray.
EndeavourOS 22.6 -- The application menu
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Once Xfce loads a welcome window appears on the desktop. This window offers two tabs. The first tab has buttons we can use to initiate actions such as running the system installer, opening a partition manager, running an ARM image writer, and updating the package mirrors. There are additional buttons for opening a display settings utility. The second tab in the welcome window provides us with access to information and support resources. The buttons in the second tab open the Firefox browser and link us with the Endeavour website, wiki, and forum. One of the buttons opens a page which displays news related to software updates. Since EndeavourOS is a rolling release it sometimes introduces major changes or incompatibilities. This news page shares warnings and tips to help users deal with Endeavour's rolling nature.
Installing
Clicking the action button to launch the system installer pops up a window to ask if we want to run the off-line or on-line installer. Both options launch the graphical, Calamares installer, but there are a few differences. The off-line version will use local packages to set up Endeavour with the Xfce desktop and a custom theme. The on-line version will allow us to select which desktop environment we want and then grab the necessary packages from remote repositories and set up the selected desktop with a generic theme.
Calamares is a friendly, graphical installer which starts by helping us select our time zone and keyboard layout. We are asked if we want to use guided or manual disk partitioning. The installer's manual process is quite easy to use and offers simple point and click partition management. The guided option will take over available free space or take over the entire disk with a single ext4 filesystem. We have the option of setting up a swap partition, a swap file, or not using swap space at all. The next screen of the installer asks us to make up a username and password.
The first time I ran the installer it was in off-line mode and the install process started off well enough with a progress bar showing packages being installed to the disk. About halfway through the install process Calamares crashed, leaving my hard drive in an unbootable state.
I launched the live media and this time tried the on-line install process. This is virtually identical to the off-line procedure, except we can select which desktop environment (or multiple desktop environments) we want. Most open source desktops are supported, including KDE Plasma, Xfce, GNOME, and LXQt. We can also optionally choose to install alternative kernels and printer support. This time, after picking a username and password Calamares immediately crashed without downloading or installing any packages.
Wondering if my trial might be doomed to end early, I launched Calamares again and took the off-line approach. This time I got through all the steps and the installer completed successfully. I was using the same settings, partition layout, and username as my first run through so I'm not sure why Calamares crashed the first two times and not the third.
Early impressions
My new copy of EndeavourOS booted to a graphical login screen where I could sign into the Xfce desktop. Xfce is the only available session, by default. Signing into my account brought up the welcome screen again, though this time it had more tabs. The information tab is still there and it's joined by a few extras. One tab is called After Install and it has buttons which launch tools to update the package mirrors, install software updates, clean up package information, and change the display resolution. There is also a tool for changing which display manager is used. The other tabs mostly connect us with on-line resources such as forums and documentation.
EndeavourOS 22.6 -- The welcome window
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One tab in the welcome window is called Add More Apps. One button in this tab opens Firefox to display the packages available in Arch Linux's official repositories while another also opens Firefox and shows us a searchable list of packages available in Arch's community repository (the AUR). A third button on this page opens a custom software installer.
This software installer opens in a new window and shows us a list of categories of software. We can click on a category to expand it. Each category holds around half a dozen popular software applications. The applications are listed with their package name and a brief description. Next to the packages we find a box we can check to mark the item for installation. This gives us quick access to popular items such as LibreOffice, Flatpak support, bittorrent clients, e-mail software, and media players.
EndeavourOS 22.6 -- Installing popular applications
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While simple in its appearance, the software installer works well and makes it possible to quickly install multiple items at once. The previous time I ran Endeavour I commented one of the only things I missed while running the distribution was a graphical software manager. This tool only handles installing popular applications, it doesn't help with updates, removing items, or browsing the whole package repository, but it's certainly useful and a good step toward making Endeavour more welcoming.
Using the popular application installer or running the system update tool will open a virtual terminal window and launch the appropriate pacman command to accomplish the task. The first time I tried to fetch updates the process failed reporting some package signatures were not valid or corrupted. Running the update again completed successfully.
Something I noticed early on, after I'd fetched waiting updates and restarted the computer, my login screen changed slightly. Alongside the Xfce session option there were four new session options for GNOME. These were labelled GNOME, GNOME [again], GNOME on Wayland, and GNOME on Xorg. These sessions worked which was interested to me as I hadn't knowingly installed the GNOME desktop, just a few applications and updates. It seems one of the applications, or one of the updates, caused the entire GNOME desktop, applications, and window manager to be pulled onto my system. This was an unexpected change and one which took me a while to remove due to the interconnected dependencies involved.
Default software
Endeavour, by default, ships with a fairly small collection of desktop software. The Xfce 4.16 desktop is included along with its detailed and easy to navigate settings panel. The Firefox web browser is included along with the Parole media player, a system monitor, and the Thunar file manager. In the live environment there is a log collector tool which makes it possible to select log files we'd like to concatenate and then compiles them into one big log file in our home directory. This should help with trouble-shooting problems and sharing information on forums.
EndeavourOS 22.6 -- The Xfce settings panel
(full image size: 1.3MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The distribution ships with the GNU Compiler Collection, GNU command line utilities, and manual pages. The distribution runs the systemd init software and version 5.18 of the Linux kernel.
Most of the included utilities worked well for me and as expected. The one problem I ran into was with Parole. The media player kept freezing when asked to play video files. I installed VLC through the popular software installer and it played videos smoothly.
Hardware
I tried running EndeavourOS in two test environments, starting with VirtualBox and then moving to a workstation. The distribution performed well in VirtualBox. The system was responsive and generally ran smoothly. EndeavourOS integrates with the host operating system and Xfce dynamically resized with the VirtualBox window.
EndeavourOS 22.6 -- Accessing on-line tutorials and help
(full image size: 691kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
When I switched to the workstation Endeavour ran very quickly. The desktop was highly responsive and all my hardware was detected. Endeavour did something I haven't seen before: when I first launched the system a window popped up and let me know there were two network drivers available which could work with my system. I was told one was the default and should work, but there was an alternative I could switch to with the click of a button. The default driver worked and I didn't need to try the alternative.
A fresh install of Endeavour with the Xfce desktop and no other add-ons or alternative kernels consumed 6GB of disk space, plus some space for a swap partition (or swap file). When I first logged into Endeavour, when using the custom theme, the system used about 640MB of RAM.
Package management options
Earlier I talked about the popular apps installer which we can access from the welcome window. In fact, I couldn't find the popular app installer in the application menu, so the only way I could access it was through the welcome window. Despite this hurdle, the utility worked really well.
I didn't find any general purpose graphical software manager or update manager on the system. However, we can use the welcome window to launch an update process. We can also use the command line pacman package manager. The pacman tool is fast and, despite its cryptic syntax, mostly functioned well. It provided a firehose of updates during my trial, sometimes providing around 100MB of updates per day. This is quite a lot compared to fixed release distributions.
I ran into a few instances where pacman ran into problems. A few times while applying updates the utility refused to proceed, reporting checksum mismatch errors or problems with package signatures. Clearing the cache and trying again fixed this. I ran into the same problem when installing the GNU Image Manipulation Program - it failed to install the first time due to a checksum mismatch, but succeeded the second time. This repeated issue with packages makes me wonder if one of the project's mirrors has been compromised or if there is a regularly occurring glitch in the download process.
Other observations
For the most part Endeavour ran well and provided a smooth, snappy experience. However, I did run into the occasional crash. During the first few days of my trial Firefox crashed two or three times. The welcome window crashed once after I logged in. I find it rare to see any desktop Linux application crash these days so having three within 48 hours was surprising.
I also noted earlier that Calamares crashed a few times - the first time trying the off-line installer, and then any time I tried the on-line installer after that. Usually Calamares works quite well for me so this was an unpleasant surprise.
Earlier I mentioned one of the tools listed in the welcome window will change the display manager (more popularly known as the login screen). We can choose between the default LightDM, LXDM, GDM, and SSDM. I tried this and the selection screen accepted my choice, asked me for my password and, a few seconds later, told me I should reboot for the change to take effect. I did this and found I had successfully changed to LXDM. I later switched to GDM. It seems as though the new display managers are quickly and quietly installed in the background after we select them (they aren't all installed by default). This makes the system appear flexible while not cluttering up the hard drive with extra display managers out of the box.
Looking back, I think selecting GDM and then cancelling it in favour of LXDM early in my trial is how I ended up with the entire GNOME desktop installed. I found out when I switched machines later in the week and installed GDM that selecting the GNOME display manager not only installs GDM, it also switches our default desktop from Xfce to GNOME without asking. I guess GDM assumes we want GNOME and pulls it in as a dependency and switches the default session.
Conclusions
When I talked about EndeavourOS back in January and why I included the distribution in my list of favourite projects of 2021 I had this to say:
Despite being one of the younger projects on this list, Endeavour performed beautifully, offered good performance, flexibility, and a pleasantly uncluttered default configuration.
The one drawback I ran into was Endeavour doesn't ship with a graphical package manager, but this was (for me) a minor concern. The project is producing a quick, sparse, rolling release that felt remarkably stable and error-free. As with Artix, I wouldn't recommend EndeavourOS to Linux newcomers, it expects a degree of familiarity with Linux software and the command line, but it's a great platform for people who want to run Arch while enjoying an easy setup process.
I feel this statement is still mostly true. The project has taken steps to try to add more graphical and user-friendly tools to help with software updates and installing new packages. This feels like step in the right direction. I still feel like a full featured desktop software centre would be welcome, but the project is clearly trying to lower the bar for new users.
In fact, a lot of effort has been put into the initial setup and welcome process. There are a lot of documentation resources, some quick access to settings, log files for trouble-shooting, and the installer can install alternative desktop environments with a few clicks. This makes EndeavourOS quite flexible and a relatively friendly member of the Arch Linux family of distributions.
However, there were some issues this time around that I didn't run into in early 2021. The big one was Calamares crashing a couple of times. The installer is usually rock solid on other distributions and having it crash, both in off-line and on-line modes, was a poor early impression. Having GDM pull in the entire GNOME desktop and switch my desktop session without asking was, if not a bug, certainly an unwelcome surprise. I also ran into a handful of crashes with Firefox and other utilities.
In short, EndeavourOS introduces some good new tools and features, but it feels like it is struggling with stability issues. This wasn't helped by the fact on at least four occasions the package manager bailed out of a procedure because new packages failed their checksum verification. It's good the package manager stopped what it was doing when there was a problem, but it's not good there was repeatedly a problem - possibly due to corrupted downloads or comprised packages. This suggests something going wrong on the infrastructure level of the project.
Some of the things I liked about EndeavourOS before are still present. The distribution is still unusually fast, pleasantly mid-weight when it comes to resource consumption, and I like that the default is to start us off with just a handful of desktop applications we can add to as needed. This is helped by the popular application installer which gives us access to items such as LibreOffice, other web browsers, and many other useful programs.
In short, EndeavourOS provided a mostly good experience, but it still isn't quite as user friendly as I'd like and there are some stability issues that need fixing before I'd feel entirely comfortable using this distribution as my day-to-day work system.
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Visitor supplied rating
EndeavourOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.5/10 from 377 review(s).
Have you used EndeavourOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Slax explores return to Slackware base, Ubuntu certified to run on Dell's XPS 13, Linux running on Apple's M2 hardware
The Slax project once provided a live CD based on Slackware Linux which ran the KDE desktop. The project has recently shifted its base to Debian and now provides a Fluxbox-based interface. The developer of Slax has decided to test a new branch which returns to the project's roots and is based on Slackware once again. "I had nothing better to do so I decided to give Slackware 15.0 a try. Slax is no more a KDE-based distro with full applications, so it shouldn't be hard to make a Fluxbox-based version from Slackware, right? Well yeah. I managed to build a working prototype. For a limited time, it is available only for supporters at patreon.com/slax. If you wish to test it out, feel free to join the community of supporters with any monthly plan you can afford. You can find the download link to the prototype of Slackware-based version of Slax there."
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Canonical has announced that the Dell XPS 13 Plus Developer Edition computer is now certified to work with Ubuntu 22.04. "July 21st 2022 - Canonical is excited to announce the new Dell XPS 13 Plus Developer Edition has been officially certified for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. Starting from August, developers can buy Dell's flagship XPS 13-inch laptop with the latest version of Canonical's desktop Linux preinstalled. Also, from today current XPS 13 Plus owners can install Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and automatically receive the same hardware-optimised experience that will ship with the new Developer Edition. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS brings new features, performance and stability improvements backed by up to 10 years of software updates." The Dell XPS 13 joins a wide range of other computers which have been certified to work with Canonical's Ubuntu distribution.
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Ever since the Apple M1 computer appeared with its custom ARM processor, people have been working to port Linux distributions to the new architecture. The Asahi Linux project has made great strides in getting Linux software running on the Apple hardware. In a recent blog post the project has announced support for the newer Apple M2 processors along with Bluetooth. "Bluetooth had been on the back burner for a while now, since Apple switched to a new bespoke PCIe interface that apparently no other vendor uses. But all that changed when R picked up the challenge of reverse engineering it! Thankfully, Bluetooth itself is quite simple, since the host to controller interface is largely standardized. Apple made a variant that runs over PCIe, but the higher layers are the same as any other Bluetooth controller. After R put together a userspace proof of concept driver, Sven picked up the work and started writing a proper kernel driver. As of a few days ago, Bluetooth started working!"
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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) |
A question regarding hardware compatibility and reviews
Wondering-about-hardware-compatibility asks: I have a question. In reading the reviews of many distros, installing many distros over the decades, I am left with a fundamental question. There are a lot of people who try to install a distro and the installation fails. I can understand this particularly on a new or in the waiting list distro. My question is, What are the real chances / probabilities of an installation failure of a mainstream distro that most users rate 10 being a fault of the release or developers. I have seen these install issues when working with really old hardware or brand new latest versions of hardware, but have never made the claim or thought it justifiable to state that it was the developer's fault that the ISO would not install. I have installed ISOs that would not install from the machines optical drive yet installed flawlessly from an external USB optical drive. That makes me think that perhaps for many or most failed installs it is a weird hardware configuration and not a problem with the ISO. It frustrates me when people leave bad reviews for what to me is lack of experience or their own weird hardware configuration. Neither of which, to me, can justifiably be blamed on the distro's developers. I find it completely absurd that these people seem to believe that every distro's developers have a warehouse of hardware, and the manpower, to test their ISO on every machine and every conceivable combination of hardware.
DistroWatch answers: I've read over this question half a dozen times and what I take away from it is a question of my own: Why is there a need to assign blame to anyone in this situation?
The question keeps using terms like fails, failed, blamed, and fault and it all seems geared toward trying to either deflect blame (from developers) or assign blame (to end-users).
Let's take a step back for a moment and look at the big picture. It is a fact that no operating system works on all hardware. Some operating systems, especially those with commercial backing, will often run on a wider range of hardware or have better driver compatibility. Some are even certified to work with certain hardware. But the fact remains no operating system will work properly on all available hardware. In light of this fact, I think it is profitless to try to assign blame, to either users or developers, when this fact is pointed out.
It is true that sometimes a distribution doesn't install properly because a person's computer is too old, too young, or uses components which are too exotic. However, it's equally as true to turn the tables and say some distributions don't work well with computers that are modern, or older, or uncommon. Pointing the finger of blame at a user or developer in this situation doesn't help either side and it doesn't make the hardware/software compatibility any better.
I think everyone (the developers, the user, and the people reading reviews) would be better served by realizing that a review is not meant to be an objective declaration of a universal truth. Each review is one person's observations and opinions based on their own experiences, needs, and situation. People reading reviews are going to be best served by trying to identify situations, equipment, and needs described in reviews which are similar to their own and learning from those experiences. Likewise they'd be better served by ignoring reviews where the equipment, scenario, or needs don't match their own.
I'd also like to point out that reviews are not press releases. A review which only says good things about an operating system isn't particularly useful as it's ignoring the problems; all operating systems have problems. It's useful to point out when something doesn't work, especially if there is some context for the issues encountered. Pointing out limitations isn't the same as complaining or assigning blame, it's just sharing information.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Qubes OS 4.1.1
Andrew David Wong has announced the release of Qubes OS 4.1.1, a "patch" release of the project's security-oriented operating system for single-user desktop computing. This version upgrades the Fedora template to version 36 and the Linux kernel to version 5.15: "We're pleased to announce the stable release of Qubes 4.1.1. This release aims to consolidate all the security patches, bug fixes, and upstream template OS upgrades that have occurred since the initial Qubes 4.1.0 release in February. Our goal is to provide a secure and convenient way for users to install (or reinstall) the latest stable Qubes release with an up-to-date ISO. If you are already using Qubes 4.1.0 or Qubes 4.1.1-rc1, then you should simply update normally (which includes upgrading any EOL templates you might have) in order to make your system essentially equivalent to this stable Qubes 4.1.1 release. No special action is required on your part. Qubes 4.1.1 includes numerous updates over the initial 4.1.0 release, in particular: 4.1.0 dom0 updates to date; Fedora 36 template (upgraded from Fedora 34); Linux kernel 5.15 (upgraded from 5.10)." See the release announcement for more details.
NuTyX 22.07.0
NuTyX is a French Linux distribution (with multi-language support) built from Linux From Scratch and Beyond Linux From Scratch, with a custom package manager called "cards". The project's latest snapshot is NuTyX 22.07.0 which includes several new tools and updates to its wide range of desktop editions. "The NuTyX team is happy to announce the new version of NuTyX 22.07.0 and cards 2.5.4. New toolchain gcc 12.1.0, glibc 2.35 and binutils 2.38. The xorg-server graphics server version 21.1.3, the Mesa 3D library in 22.1.4, GTK4 4.6.6 and Qt 6.3.0. The Python interpreters are at 3.10.5 and 2.7.18. The Xfce desktop environment is updated to version 4.16.0. The MATE desktop environment is at 1.26.0 version. The GNOME desktop environment is also updated to version 42.3. The KDE desktop environment is available in Plasma 5.25.3, Framework 5.96.0 and applications in 22.04.3. Available browsers are: Firefox 102.0.1, Chromium 103.0.5060.134, Epiphany 42.3." Additional details can be found on the distribution's news page.
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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: 2,747
- Total data uploaded: 42.3TB
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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) |
Running desktop environments on Arch Linux base
In this week's Feature Story we talked about the EndeavourOS distribution. EndeavourOS is an Arch-based project which provides easy access to a wide range of desktop environments. We would like to hear, from those of you running Arch-based systems, which desktop environment you run, if any?
You can see the results of our previous poll on customizing desktop themes in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Which desktop do you run on an Arch base?
| Budgie: | 21 (1%) |
| Cinnamon: | 120 (8%) |
| Deepin: | 4 (0%) |
| GNOME: | 169 (11%) |
| KDE Plasma: | 499 (32%) |
| LXDE: | 41 (3%) |
| LXQt: | 27 (2%) |
| MATE: | 86 (6%) |
| Xfce: | 376 (24%) |
| Another desktop: | 19 (1%) |
| A window manager: | 168 (11%) |
| Command line only: | 13 (1%) |
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| Website News |
Donations and Sponsors
Each month we receive support and kindness from our readers in the forms of donations. These donations help us keep the web server running, pay contributors, and keep infrastructure like our torrent seed box running. We'd like to thank our generous readers and acknowledge how much their contributions mean to us.
This month we're grateful for the $127 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| Olivier S | $50 |
| Douglas S | $23 |
| Johnathan H | $14 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| Simon M | $7 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| DuCakedHare | $5 |
| Matt C | $5 |
| Ross M | $3 |
| J.D. L | $2 |
| P.B. C | $2 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
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New distributions added to waiting list
- AaricKDE. AaricKDE is an Arch-based Linux distribution. It features the KDE Plasma desktop environment and runs on the Zen edition of the Linux kernel.
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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, 1 August 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 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Finnix
Finnix is a small, self-contained, bootable Linux CD distribution for system administrators, based on Debian. It can be used to mount and manipulate hard drives and partitions, monitor networks, rebuild boot records, install other operating systems, and much more.
Status: Active
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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0x969CD4E778C7b6549A2B00e34114e0168c86A542 
