 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 980, 8 August 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 32nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
It seems to be increasingly common that we see open source projects experiment with multiple base operating systems on which to build. In recent weeks we have talked about TrueNAS running FreeBSD and Debian branches, Slax running Debian and Slackware editions, and this week we report on Peppermint OS experimenting with both Debian and Devuan editions. We also report on SparkyLinux updating classic (and classic-looking) desktop environments in this week's News section. Before we get to those stories, we share a look at Linux Mint 21. Linux Mint is a popular, Ubuntu-based operating system (which also offers a Debian branch) that features its own, custom desktop environment: Cinnamon. We talk about what it's like to set up and run this distribution with the Cinnamon desktop in this week's Feature Story. Then we turn our attention to a security tool for Linux which has its roots in OpenBSD. This utility, called Pledge, creates a sandbox which reduces the access to resources a program has in order to prevent it from doing damage or phoning home. Do you use any sandbox software, such as Pledge or Firejail, to limit what your applications can do? Let us know about your sandboxing utilities in this week's Opinion Poll. 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:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Linux Mint 21
Linux Mint is one of the better known, beginner-friendly Linux distributions. The project's main branch is based on Ubuntu's long-term support (LTS) releases with an alternative branch based on Debian. The project's main branch is further split into three editions: Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce.
The latest version of Mint features a handful of key features. This long-term support release will be maintained through to 2027. It includes a new rebase of the Muffin window manager to import improvements from the upstream Mutter window manager. It also includes a switch from the Blueberry Bluetooth software to Blueman for better cross-desktop support. This release also includes a process monitor which will let us know when automated tasks are running in the background and may impact system performance. A few other improvements and cosmetic changes are mentioned in the project's What's New document.
I downloaded the Cinnamon edition of Linux Mint 21 which is approximately 2.8GB in size. Booting from this media brings up a menu asking if we want to launch the live desktop, launch the desktop in compatibility mode (in case of video card issues), or launch the OEM installer. Taking the default quickly launched the Cinnamon desktop. On the desktop we find icons for launching the file manager and system installer. At the bottom of the display is a panel where we can find the application menu, task switcher, and system tray. The system was responsive and my hardware worked fairly well out of the box so I dived into installing the distribution.
Installing
Linux Mint uses the Ubiquity system installer. It's a friendly, graphical application which streamlines the initial install process. Ubiquity walks us through selecting a language, optionally viewing the project's release notes, and picking a keyboard layout. We're also asked if we'd like to install optional media codecs.
The next screen asks if we'd like to use guided or manual partitioning and here I ran into my first issue. If I opted for guided partitioning there was a button to press to see more options, such as using LVM or ZFS storage volumes. Clicking the Cancel button to back out of this menu disabled the button to proceed to the next screen of the installer. Switching to manual or back to guided partitioning also left the button to start the install disabled. I had to go back a step to the media codec selection screen, then step forward again to enable the button to proceed past partitioning.
On the subject of partitioning, the guided option defaults to using an ext4 filesystem for the root partition. As I mentioned, we can also use LVM or ZFS. There is no option for automated Btrfs partitioning which I found odd as some of Linux Mint's core utilities make use of Btrfs features. I tried going into the manual partitioning screen which, to be fair, is pretty easy to use. However, when I chose to take over the disk with a Btrfs volume the partition manager crashed and sent me back to the previous screen of the installer.
Eventually I got through the partitioning section, made up a username and password for myself, and the installer got to work. I feel it worthwhile to mention Mint allows users to encrypt their home directory, something most distributions have dropped in favour of full disk encryption. When the installer concludes its work it offers to restart the computer.
Early impressions
Mint booted to a graphical login screen where I could sign into my account. Once signed in a welcome window appears on the Cinnamon desktop. This window is divided into tabs which give us quick access to on-line documentation and release notes along with links which connect us with the Mint community forum and the project's IRC support channel. Most links open in Firefox with HexChat providing access to the IRC channel.
Linux Mint 21 -- The welcome window
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The bulk of the welcome window's functionality can be found under a tab called First Steps. The First Steps tab features a handful of settings we can toggle which allow us to change theme colours, switch between dark and light themes, and change the style of the desktop panel. This tab also offers buttons which will launch various utilities. These include Timeshift for taking snapshots, a driver manager, an update manager, the system settings panel, the software centre, and the Gufw firewall tool. The firewall is turned off by default.
I feel it is worth saying that I really like how the Mint welcome screen is presented and the configuration tools it launches are pleasant to use. The design is clean, information is clearly presented, the style feels consistent to me. I like the easy access to theme customization and the quick access to updates and the suggestion of making snapshots. It's a good early impression of the distribution and makes it easy to complete common tasks right from the start.
Software management
Mint's update manager is a pleasantly streamlined tool which still allows for some flexibility. By default, the update manager shows us a list of packages waiting to be updated and we can click a button to fetch them all. The update manager also allows us to do some neat things, such as filtering and sorting the list of available updates. We can unselect updates to prevent specific packages from updating. The update manager will also try to find faster mirrors for us and can be used to launch the Timeshift utility to take snapshots of our filesystem.
Linux Mint 21 -- Fetching software updates and creating a Timeshift snapshot
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I've mentioned Timeshift a few times now. It's a graphical utility which will take snapshots of our filesystem (using either rsync or Btrfs snapshots). These snapshots can be stored somewhere for quick access later, assisting us in recovering data files or rolling back the operating system to an earlier point.
After performing the first wave of updates and restarting the computer, the system failed to boot. At first I suspected there was an issue with the new kernel version (the new kernel was why I restarted the machine). Selecting the older kernel from the boot menu did allow the system to start, which seemed to confirm my suspicions. However, later I tried booting the newer kernel again and it worked. Which means I don't know why the system failed to start and both kernels booted without further problems during the rest of my trial.
Mint's software centre has a modern layout and approach. The software centre begins by showing us featured, popular applications at the top of the window and categories we can browse underneath. We can either browse through available packages or perform key word searches to find items we want. We can queue software to be installed in the background and items are added or removed while we can continue to browse the centre.
Linux Mint 21 -- Installing new applications
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Mint pulls software from Deb package repositories and Flatpak packages from Flathub. These packages are displayed side-by-side and Flatpaks have their repository name displayed next to the package name. For example, the VLC Flatpak is shown with the name "VLC (Flathub)" to distinguish it from the VLC Deb package.
Mint's software centre is one of the few, perhaps the only, software manager I have used in the past year which works smoothly with both classic and portable package formats without locking up, throwing errors, or crashing. It's an unusually fast and smooth experience and Mint's software centre is probably my favourite modern software centre just for this trouble-free experience.
Included software
Mint ships with a collection of popular and capable open source software. Included in the application menu are Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, and a calendar application. The Transmission bittorrent software is included along with the HexChat IRC client. The Celluloid video player and Rhythmbox audio player are included along with the IPTV client Hypnotix. The media players were able to play all the audio and video files I threw at them. There is a drawing tool and an image viewer. The Nemo file manager is featured too.
Mint ships with Java and the GNU Compiler Collection. On the command line we have access to GNU utilities along with corresponding manual pages. In the background we find the systemd init software and version 5.15 of the Linux kernel.
Linux Mint 21 -- Browsing channels through Hypnotix
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The software included with Mint tended to work and work well. Both the third-party applications and the in-house Mint utilities worked smoothly for me. One of the rare glitches I ran into came about when trying out Hypnotix, the IPTV client which provides us with streaming access to TV shows and movies. I could use Hypnotix to browse available channels and movie categories. However, sometimes when selecting a channel the application would get stuck trying to load the stream. I also found that sometimes I'd be watching a stream and try to close the player window only to have it lock up. I had to terminate the Hypnotix process or use xkill on its window to close it.
Hardware
I began by running Linux Mint in a VirtualBox virtual machine. The distribution ran smoothly in VirtualBox and quickly. The Cinnamon desktop resized dynamically with the VirtualBox window, the desktop was responsive, and the system was stable. When I switched over to running Mint on my laptop the distribution ran well, detecting my hardware and running quickly.
While there were virtually no bugs while running the distribution on my laptop, there were defaults which I felt were not ideal. For example, Cinnamon does not detect touchpad taps as clicks by default, though this can be adjusted in the settings panel. Likewise, mouse and touchpad scrolling using the "natural" or "inverse" style which I've yet to adapt to and so I changed it. Interestingly, mouse wheel and touchpad scrolling can be adjusted independently of each other. At one point I had my mouse using classic scrolling while my touchpad was still using natural scrolling. Personally, I found this confusing until I synchronised them, but if you're someone who wants these behaviours to be handled independently, Cinnamon will accommodate you.
Linux Mint 21 -- The settings panel
(full image size: 700kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
On the subject of default settings I didn't like, changing the volume level using media keys produces a chirping sound. This quickly grows annoying and can be disabled in the sound settings.
The one issue I ran into which classified as a bug in my mind appeared when I enabled desktop scaling. Most desktop elements scaled as expected at 1.25x. However, the application menu collapsed, showing just three icons and taking up a tiny corner of the desktop, until I logged out and back in again. The rest of the desktop resized gracefully while I was still logged in.
The distribution took up about 8GB of disk space for a fresh install, plus some space set aside for a swap file. In total Mint took up 10GB of my disk. When signed into Cinnamon Mint consumed 640MB of memory (plus a little more when the welcome window was open). This put Mint around the boundary between medium and heavy, compared to other distributions - Xfce and KDE Plasma are usually lighter while GNOME is heavier.
Conclusions
Linux Mint is one of the more beginner friendly distributions I have used. Everything about it feels unusually polished, consistent, and considered. It has an easy to use system installer, one of the best software centres I've experienced, and Cinnamon has become both faster and more flexible over the years. It's an unusually smooth and easy experience.
Linux Mint 21 -- Running LibreOffice, Nemo, and Firefox
(full image size: 168kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
I especially like the welcome window and the various utilities it connects us with. The firewall manager, the Timeshift snapshot utility, and the settings panel are all simple to use and easy to understand.
One of my few complaints was it feels weird the default filesystem is ext4 with ZFS as a guided option. It's difficult to set up Btrfs in a way which works with Timeshift and, when I tried, the partition manager crashed. Yet Timeshift is a recommended tool to use from the welcome window and pairs with the update manager. I feel it would make sense to have Btrfs as the default filesystem since Timeshift works best with it and it would make all the tools work together seamlessly, much the way openSUSE connects Btrfs, boot environments, and YaST.
Apart from this, and one glitch when the system didn't boot after updating (then seemed to fix itself), my experience with Linux Mint 21 was problem free. The distribution is fast, easy to set up, and unusually convenient to use and customize. I especially like the software centre. It's unusually fast and error-free and I'd like to see more distributions adopt it (swapping out Discover or GNOME Software).
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo desktop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Hex-core Intel i5-10400 CPU @ 2.90GHz
- Storage: Western Digital 1TB hard drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 wired network card, Realtek RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCIe wireless adapter
- Display: Intel CometLake-S GT2
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Visitor supplied rating
Linux Mint has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.7/10 from 606 review(s).
Have you used Linux Mint? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
SparkyLinux updates classic desktop packages, Peppermint OS experiments with Devuan-based branch
The SparkyLinux project has published a blog post which contains information on several updates to the Debian-based distribution. These include the end of life of SparkyLinux 4, the inclusion of updated Spanish and Italian language support, and updated packages for some classic-style desktops. "Italian locales updated of the all Sparky tools, thanks to Yodel Sinatra. Started adding es_ES locales to all Sparky tools, thanks to depaz. Common Desktop Environment (CDE) updated up to 2.5.0; amd64 only. Not so Common Desktop Environment (NsCDE) updated up to 2.2 to all Sparky archs. Browsh browser updated up to version 1.8.0 for all Sparky archs, after more than 3 years of break of development."
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The Peppermint OS team is experimenting with a new, Devuan-based branch of their distribution which is being released alongside the project's existing Debian-based offering. The new Devuan-based ISO files are available on the distribution's download page in 32-bit and 64-bit builds. A brief release announcement mentions minor changes to the Devuan builds.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Software Review (by Jesse Smith) |
Pledge on Linux
People who are familiar with the OpenBSD operating system, particularly those who have written code on the OpenBSD platform, are probably aware of a tool called pledge. On OpenBSD, pledge is a function call applications can use to voluntarily restrict themselves. Basically, an application can choose to give up access to certain system resources and capabilities in order to make the program less dangerous.
For instance, if your application is going to analyze some local data and has no reason to access the Internet, it can drop its ability to access the network. This way, even if the software is compromised, it won't be able to download a trojan or phone home. A program might also lock down its ability to create files or edit existing files, effectively making it so it can only read information in a directory, but not make any changes.
This sort of sandboxing can be quite useful. It is especially helpful if we can force other applications to respect these same limitations, not just rely on programs to restrict themselves. People who use Linux distributions now have the option of sandboxing applications using similar restrictions to OpenBSD's pledge without needing to edit source code or make changes to existing applications. This ability is due to a command line program appropriately named Pledge.
This new Pledge program "Will work on all Linux distros since RHEL 6. Root privileges are not required. You just use it to wrap your command invocations. It's so tiny and lightweight that it only adds a few microseconds of startup latency to your program. It's great for shell scripts and automated tools."
Pledge for Linux is a userland utility (it doesn't need any changes to the kernel or a kernel module). We can download the Pledge source code to build it ourselves or download a pre-built binary copy.
The Pledge utility works in a similar fashion to Firejail. Pledge runs as a sort of wrapper around other programs, determining which functions the target program can perform and how many resources it can access. I decided to try Pledge on a copy of MX Linux I already had running to see how it would perform.
One of the things I like about Pledge is, when it is run without any parameters, it displays a list of options and a summary of permissions it can grant programs it is sandboxing. The default behaviour is to block all access, apart from reading filesystem information (called rpath) and benign system calls (stdio).
It might be easiest to understand how Pledge works by looking at some examples. First, let's look at what happens if I run the ls command in my home directory. We end up with output which looks like this:
$ ls
abc def xyz
Now this is what happens if I run ls in a sandbox with Pledge's default restrictions:
$ pledge ls
abc
def
xyz
The output is mostly the same, but each entry is on its own line when ls is invoked from Pledge. In the Pledge sandbox the ls command is able to read the local directory and print output to the terminal. However, it is unable to access terminal information to see, for example, how wide the terminal is. This means ls falls back to putting each entry on its own line rather than trying to guess the width of the terminal. We can grant the ls command the ability to get this terminal information and format its output more effectively by passing it the tty permission. This, along with the default rpath and stdio permissions, gives the ls program all the access it needs to behave normally:
$ pledge -p 'stdio rpath tty' ls
abc def xyz
We can use the same restrictive permissions if we want to open a text file in read-only mode, preventing any edits to the file:
$ pledge -p 'stdio rpath tty' vi abc
In these examples, the commands (ls and vi) are unable to access the Internet, unable to edit the files they are accessing, and unable to create new processes of their own. All they can do is read files and display them on the terminal.
The Pledge documentation mentions we can grant Internet and DNS access to programs. I tried this, but none of the utilities I tried to use to download information, such as cURL and wget, were able to look up hostname information for remote servers, even when the DNS feature was granted. The documentation uses the following example, which doesn't work on my machine, resulting in an error saying the DNS lookup failed:
$ pledge -p 'stdio rpath inet dns thread' curl https://distrowatch.com/
Despite this drawback, any command line programs which only needed local access to work properly ran well.
Which means, I think, some issues still need to be sorted out. There are also limitations when it comes to running graphical applications. I wasn't able to get any desktop programs to run, even when granting the full range of permissions Pledge recognizes. It looks as though Pledge is intended primarily to run and sandbox command line utilities while Firejail is geared toward desktop applications.
In short, Pledge is a really powerful tool and one which can lock down a program's access a lot. It's certainly something we can use to avoid leaking any information or overwriting files. However, it takes some practise to get used to the cryptic shorthand permission codes Pledge uses. It also has some limitations in the types of applications we can sandbox. Firejail is a bit more polished and a little more permissive by default and more geared toward desktop applications. Pledge has a niche in restricting command line tools and background services which should only be reading information or only accessing certain parts of the operating system.
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| Released Last Week |
Q4OS 4.10
Q4OS is a Debian-based distribution which features KDE Plasma and Trinity desktop editions. The project's latest release, Q4OS 4.10, upgrades Trinity to version 14.0.12 of the classic desktop. The announcement was made on the project's blog: "Q4OS 4.10 'Gemini', stable. We have released a major update to the Q4OS 4 'Gemini' LTS. The new Gemini 4.10 series receives the recent Debian 'Bullseye' 11.4 updates, updated Debian stable kernel and important security and bug fixes. After a careful review and testing we have concluded to include the full upgrade of the Trinity desktop environment into this release as well, so Q4OS 'Gemini' now features the most recent Trinity 14.0.12 version. For more details see the Trinity desktop environment website. This release brings along improvements of Q4OS specific tools and cumulative upgrade covering all the changes from the previous stable 'Gemini' release. We are currently pushing all the changes mentioned above into the Q4OS repositories, automatic update process will take care about to upgrade for current Q4OS users."
Emmabuntus DE4-1.02
Emmabuntüs is a desktop Linux distribution with editions based on Debian's Stable branch with the Xfce and LXQt desktop environments. The project's latest update fixes a number of boot time and install issues. It also includes updated versions of packages, particularly web browsers. "For this version 1.02, the following and improvements and fixes have been implemented: based on the Debian 11.4; added 64-bit UEFI boot with a 32-bit ISO and vice versa; added installation of boot in UEFI 64-bits with a 32-bits ISO images and vice versa; added MemTest86+ launch in UEFI mode; fixed not launching keyboard selection in SysLinux and GRUB; Fixed Zenity crash when installing new language packs; fixed language change script due to Calamares; fixed APT cache creation script; updated Debian Beginner's Handbook 11.3; updated Calamares slideshow by adding a slide about the reuse campaign and an updated version of the computer rooms map in Togo; updated a new version of DWService agent and implemented a package; updated gSpeech to version 0.11.0." Further details can be found in the release announcement.
NetBSD 9.3
The NetBSD project creates a highly portable operating system which runs on a wide range of processors. The project has published a new version in the 9.x series: NetBSD 9.3. "Aside from many bug fixes, 9.3 includes backported improvements to suspend and resume support, various minor additions of new hardware to existing device drivers, compatibility with UDF file systems created on Windows 10, enhanced support for newer Intel Gigabit Ethernet chipsets, better support for new Intel and AMD Zen 3 chipsets, support for configuring connections to Wi-Fi networks using sysinst(8), support for wsfb-based X11 servers on the Commodore Amiga, and minor performance improvements for the Xen hypervisor." Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
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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: 2,753
- Total data uploaded: 42.4TB
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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 sandboxing tools on Linux
In this week's software review we talked about a tool called Pledge which sandboxes software on Linux. This can greatly reduce the amount of access a program has to its host system. Sandboxing software can block programs from accessing sensitive information, prevent applications from transmitting information over the network, and block programs from writing data they shouldn't to the filesystem. This week we'd like to hear whether you use any sandboxing software such as Pledge or Firejail. Let us know about your sandboxing setup in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on waiting for stable point releases of distributions in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Sandboxing software for Linux
| I run Firejail: | 126 (11%) |
| I run Pledge: | 10 (1%) |
| I use containers (LXC/Docker): | 115 (10%) |
| I use another sandboxing tool: | 43 (4%) |
| I do not use sandboxing tools: | 882 (75%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- FreedomOS. FreedomOS is an Arch Linux-based distribution featuring the KDE Plasma desktop.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 15 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)
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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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Athena OS
Athena OS is an Arch-derived Linux distribution designed for penetration testing, bug-bounty hunting and InfoSec students. The distribution provides a way to connect directly to some of the e-learning hacking resources, such as Hack The Box, Offensive Security, PWNX and InfoSec certifications, and it provides integration with the Hack The Box hacking platform and connections to InfoSec communities. Athena OS also introduces InfoSec roles (e.g. penetration tester or open-source intelligence specialist) based on user preferences, so the user's system is populated with relevant tools only.
Status: Active
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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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