 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 984, 5 September 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 36th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
People who develop software tend to be creative and experimental. A lot of developers want to try new things or test new approaches in solving problems. This week we talk about a number of projects taking experimental paths. We begin with a look at deepin, a distribution which is always changing its base, desktop design, and package management. The deepin project is currently striving to create an independent base with custom package management and atomic updates. Jesse Smith takes a preview of the upcoming deepin 23 for a test drive and reports on his findings. One of the big features arriving in deepin 23 is the introduction of the Linglong portable package repository. Linglong works similarly to Flatpak and is reportedly able to work on other distributions. Are you interested in using the Linglong repository? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section, we talk about a small tweak to Debian's Chromium web browser package to improve user privacy and report on experimental changes in the HardenedBSD project. We also talk about Devuan's repository key issue along with the Linux Mint team trying out the Steam Deck and sharing their observations on the device. While developers are dealing with changes to software and hardware, users often deal with changes to their systems and files too. In this week's Questions and Answers column we share tips on monitoring files and directories for changes, letting us know when a file is being altered. 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) |
deepin 23 Preview
Hiweed GNU/Linux is an Ubuntu-based distribution developed in China. Actually, that description is a bit out of date, let me start over. Linux Deepin is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution featuring a custom desktop environment called Deepin Desktop Environment. Actually, that's no longer accurate. Deepin is a Debian-based distribution featuring the custom Deepin desktop and a number of desktop applications developed in-house. Wait, I'm almost up to date now. deepin is a Chinese distribution which claims to be independently developed. It features the Deepin desktop, a custom system installer, a custom application repository called Linglong, and the project offers atomic updates.
A preview of the latest version of deepin was published in mid-August and its release announcement featured a few key points. Specifically: the move away from Debian to be an independent distribution; the use of Linglong to offer a custom repository of portable applications that can be run across multiple distributions; and the use of atomic updates to make updates more reliable.
The new deepin release, version 23, is currently in the development phase at the time of writing and I wanted to see what this departure from the previous, Debian-based model would look like. I downloaded the deepin ISO which is a 3.4GB build for 64-bit (x86_64) computers. After confirming the media's checksum was good, I tried booting from it.
The live media brings up a boot menu asking if we'd like to install deepin with version 5.15 of the Linux kernel or 5.18. Both options also have failsafe driver options, resulting in four menu options. There's a fifth menu entry for running a self-check on the media. There are no options for running a live desktop in the menu. I decided to try the 5.18 kernel option first.
Installing
The deepin distribution uses a custom installer that asks us to select our preferred language from a list and then accept the project's license agreement. We're then given the choice of manual or automated disk partitioning. The automated screen warns us that deepin requires at least 64GB of free disk space and recommends 128GB. It will not proceed if less than 64GB of free disk space is available. This struck me as odd as most distributions will install and run with less than 10GB of space. The manual partitioning screen is pretty simple and streamlined. We can add new partitions, remove old ones, and assign both mount points and filesystem types with a few clicks. The manual partitioning approach has no strict space requirements and our root filesystem can be any size over the 8GB required to hold deepin's packages.
With these steps completed, the installer starts copying its files to the hard drive. Here I ran into an issue. The installer eventually failed, about halfway through, with a report it was unable to operate on a file called /target/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libspatialite.so.7.1.2.
I restarted the computer and, this time, took the boot menu for the older 5.15 kernel to be installed. Whether this fixed the problem or it was a coincidence, the installer walked me through the same steps and completed its work successfully with the 5.15 kernel.
The first time we boot deepin a graphical configuration wizard opens. We're once again asked to pick our language and accept the license agreement. We can then pick our keyboard layout and time zone. Our time zone can be picked from a map or a plain text list of locations. The wizard spends a few minutes "tuning system" and then presents us with a graphical login screen.
Early impressions
Signing into my account brought up the Deepin desktop with a welcome window. The first page of the welcome screen displays a video which is basically a slideshow of the desktop's components. The welcome window then walks us through a few choices: asking if we want a Fashion or Efficient desktop, whether we want Effects mode or Normal mode, and which icon theme we want. I'm not entirely sure what the differences between the various desktop modes are as they aren't explained, but I suspect the first choice deals with themes and the second enables or disables effects.
deepin 23 -- The Deepin desktop and application menu
(full image size: 1.5MB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
The Deepin desktop worked fairly well for me and used 500MB of RAM. It looks a lot like KDE Plasma, in my opinion, but the settings panel looks like it was imported (or copied) from GNOME. Anyway, the desktop is attractive to me and I found it easy to navigate. By default the application menu takes up the full screen in a grid/mobile style. There is a button we can click to switch to a more compact, classic menu layout. I like the latter option as it involves less mouse movement.
One day during my trial the desktop suddenly became sluggish. A little looking around revealed there was a process called deepin-anything running and consuming all available CPU resources. I could not find a manual page for this utility. The program's GitHub page unhelpfully says, "Something like everything, but nothing is really like anything..." An English translation of the Chinese documentation is more illuminating: "The development of anything is derived from everything under Windows, which is committed to providing a lightning-fast filename search function for Linux users, as well as an offline search function. It turns out that there is a similar rlocate program in Linux, but that program is a bit too old, and it is not difficult to rewrite a better one, so I rewrite one."
In short, it seems to be a file indexing and search tool which is not properly throttled and consumes all available resources when it runs. The service does not respond to regular terminate signals, even from the root user, and I had to use the "kill -9" command as root to stop the process.
Also on the subject of performance, once during the boot process deepin seemed to lock up. Looking at the boot messages (accessed by pressing the Esc key) revealed systemd had stalled while trying to launch the network time service. After about a minute the boot process resumed.
Independent base?
For the purposes of this trial, especially where I was running a preview of the final deepin 23 release, I was mostly interested in exploring the key points of the project's announcement. Specifically: what does deepin look like as an independent distribution now that the team says they are moving away from Debian? Also, what package management options are available? What do Linglong and their atomic update system look like?
Starting with the status of the base distribution, looking around the system it seems the deepin files and tools have embraced the independent label. The lsb_release utility and /etc/os-version file report the system is deepin 23. The APT package manager, which I'll talk about later, pulls software from deepin servers.
deepin 23 -- Debian's copyright notice
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Digging further though I soon discovered deepin is still using Debian packages (or packages forked from Debian). The system contains Debian patches. Copyright notices and documentation are imported from Debian. The add-on drivers and extra packages on the ISO all marked as being maintained by Debian developers. Basically, the system seems to be Debian at its core with a custom installer and the Deepin Desktop Environment as the default interface. This appears to contradict the project's statement: "Independent upstream: Relying on the core packages and some optional components, a brand-new v23 repository is built in the Preview stage. deepin will continue learning from upstream distributions such as Debian and Arch Linux." In this case it seems "learning from" means forking from Debian's repositories.
Software management
While the base system appears to still be mostly Debian, what about package management? The deepin system has the Debian dpkg and APT utilities installed and they pull in packages from deepin's custom repositories. Or they would, expect one of the repositories is broken - APT reports a Release file is missing, preventing the repository from being used. This may be a bug or it may be that deepin intends to use these Deb packages as a base, but not have the user interact with them directly.
There are no Flatpak or Snap frameworks installed, but the project's release announcement does talk about a new software management utility and repository. Both appear to be called Linglong. The deepin project describes Linglong as follows:
Linglong is a new package format developed by deepin, aiming at solving various compatibility problems caused by complex dependencies of traditional package formats under Linux, and reducing the security risks caused by decentralised control of permissions. It is available to any Linux distribution, supports incremental updates of applications, managing, distributing, and sandboxing apps, which not only improves ease of use, but also greatly protects user privacy.
deepin 23 -- The Linglong store
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For people using other distributions who want to try Linglong there are install instructions. I searched for tools called "software", "package", or "linglong" in the application menu and settings panel without any luck. It turns out Linglong is a command line tool which can be accessed using the name ll-cli. This command line tool appears to be limited and I was unsuccessful in getting it to search for available software. The ll-cli tool only lists installed items and installs or runs installed programs. Most people will probably interact with the Linglong repository through its web portal.
This web portal presents us with a big grid of application launchers and short names. We can click on a button to install the desired software. This pops up a window in the web browser which shows progress information. This window notifies us when the application is installed. I installed a handful of programs and they all downloaded and ran without any problems. The only difficult part of the process is finding the link to the web portal to browse software. After that, it's a simple point-and-click process which automatically adds application launchers to the application menu for us.
Linglong looks and acts almost exactly like Flatpak with the Flathub repository. In fact, the experience (and the command line output) is so similar that I actually checked to see if they were compatible. I tested if Linglong could install Flatpak packages and it was not able to do this, but it looks like Linglong is strongly inspired and maybe borrows from Flatpak.
I also went looking for tools to update the system so I could try out the atomic updates feature. There don't appear to be any dedicated graphical update tools in the application menu, but I did find an update tool in the desktop's settings panel. This tool performed a check for updates and failed. It didn't say why it failed; I'm uncertain if it couldn't connect to remote servers, if it just found no updates, or if there was another problem. At any rate, the update tool reports it is unable to find updates.
deepin 23 -- Checking for software updates
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
As I mentioned before, the APT package tools didn't work and the settings panel updater didn't work. I looked through the documentation concerning package management. It talks about Linglong, which doesn't seem to have an update process. It also talks about dpkg which doesn't work, and rpm packages, but there is no rpm framework on the system.
The deepin system does include OSTree, which is typically used by atomic or immutable platforms such as Fedora Silverblue, however the documentation doesn't cover OSTree at all. I tried running some OSTree commands, including ones to list known repositories or references. These all failed and it looks like OSTree hasn't been configured by default.
Conclusions
I realise the version of deepin I was using is a preview of things to come, not the finished product. As such things are not going to be as polished and perfect as they could be. I'm okay with that, to a point. But I feel as though most of this preview release doesn't live up to its description.
There were three main points in this development snapshot I was interested in exploring: an independent base, Linglong packages, and atomic updates. As far as I can tell, deepin is not an independent distribution. It's either based on Debian or a fork of Debian. Its packages, the credited maintainers, low-level packaging tools, and copyright notices are all pulled from Debian.
I couldn't test atomic updates. I'm not clear as to whether this was a technological problem (with the update checker failing), a lack of available updates, or just a lack of documentation explaining what I was missing.
The one highlight of this release which worked for me was Linglong. The web portal for browsing and installing applications worked without any problems. It looks like new versions might need to be updated manually from the command line, but otherwise the experience was smooth. Linglong feels very similar in its style, syntax, and command line output to Flatpak. Linglong is either heavily inspired by Flatpak or borrows from it technologically, though they do not appear to be compatible. In short, while Linglong works and works well, it seems the same effect could have been produced by installing Flatpak and linking to the deepin repository rather than (or alongside) Flathub.
In other words, the one thing I found to celebrate in this release is the custom, Flathub-like repository which worked well. The other talking points - atomic updates and an independent distribution - appear to be future goals rather than something available at this time.
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Visitor supplied rating
deepin has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.1/10 from 123 review(s).
Have you used deepin? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Debian applies Chromium search engine change, HardenedBSD publishes status update, Mint tests utilities on the Steam Deck, Devuan repository key troubles
In an excellent example of the Debian project's conservative pace and dedication to protecting user privacy, the distribution has adjusted the default settings of the Chromium web browser package. The new configuration will use the DuckDuckGo search engine, which anonymizes search queries, instead of Google. This changes was committed and announced two years after the original proposal was submitted.
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The HardenedBSD project is a fork of FreeBSD which experiments with security features and hardening improvements. This allows people who typically use FreeBSD to test security features to see how useful or disruptive they will be before any changes are committed to the FreeBSD project. The August HardenedBSD newsletter shares a summary of changes being developed, including improved randomization and a custom firewall: "Loic fixed an issue MrUnix reported about a missing PaX ASLR macro when building a kernel with COMPAT_FREEBSD32 enabled. Loic updated bsdinstall with a few changes, updating which sysctl nodes to set. I pulled in a change from OpenBSD that randomizes how often the chacha20-based arc4random(3) reseeds itself. HardenedBSD user "apache2" enabled multi-console booting by default, enabling use of the serial console by default." The project's status report offers more information.
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Valve's Steam Deck gaming device runs a customized version of Arch Linux and doesn't have a lot in common with the Linux Mint ecosystem, but that hasn't stopped the Mint team from finding common ground and interesting trivia to share about the Steam Deck. The project's monthly newsletter reports: "Other than Linux and Proton, the Deck relies on an immutable version of Arch, Flatpak and KDE so its ecosystem is a little bit different than the one we have in Linux Mint. The development of SteamOS and Linux Mint aren't likely to have much in common or to converge in any way. That said there will likely be some use cases we'll be able to help with. Warpinator for instance, which we made available as a Flatpak, proved to be useful to share files between computers, smartphones and the Steam Deck."
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The Devuan GNU+Linux team reported issues with their repository verification keys this past weekend. The issue is the key expired which effectively prevented people running Devuan (and its child distributions) from installing or upgrading packages from the official repositories. "At 2022-09-04, the Devuan repository key BB23C00C61FC752C updated at 2017 expired, which has led to difficulties for many users. The key has been corrected in the repository by expanding the validity period, and a new version of devuan-keyring, version 2022.09.04, is available. It is only slightly complicated for an end user to get that new version installed given that their currently installed key version has expired." An overview of the problem along with steps to correct it are covered in a blog post.
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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) |
Watching for changes to directories
Ever-vigilant asks: Is it possible to detect changes in the /boot directory without using something like SELinux or Secure Boot?
DistroWatch answers: Yes, there are ways you can detect changes which happen in a specific directory. There are two main approaches to monitoring a directory I can recommend and they can be used together or individually.
The first approach I'd suggest is to use a utility which will monitor any and all changes to a directory and its contents in real-time. The utility will then report when something happens or log events for you which you can read through later. One such tool for performing this action is inotifywait.
The inotifywait command monitors a file or directory. It either reports when something happens or exits so another command can be run. In a situation where we wanted to monitor just one file for changes we could run a command like this:
inotifywait my-file.txt && echo "Something happened!"
If anything happens to the file my-file.txt - if it is opened, deleted, and changed in any way - then inotifywait exits and the line "Something happened!" will be printed to the terminal.
In the above example we were watching one file to see if it was changed or accessed. We can do the same with an entire directory, using the recursive (-r) flag for inotifywait. In the following example we watch the Documents directory until something changes, then notify the user:
inotifywait -r Documents && echo "Something happened!"
In many situations we will probably want to be notified when something happens in a directory and then have the inotifywait command continue to monitor the directory. We can do this by using the monitor (-m) flag. Using the monitor flag causes inotifywait to print out information when something happens and then continue to watch the directory for future events:
inotifywait -m -r /boot
The result of the above command will be a list of actions which took place and the names of the files which were accessed or altered under the /boot directory.
Using the inotifywait command is useful in situations where you can rely on real-time monitoring or logs to report when files have been changed. However, if you don't trust the system you are monitoring - perhaps because you're worried any monitoring might be compromised at the same time as your /boot directory - then you need to take another approach.
One way to verify files have not been tampered with is to use a live USB drive or live DVD. Boot your computer, ideally right after the operating system has been installed, from the live media and then run a checksum on all the files in your /boot directory. This will give you the hash or "fingerprint" of all the files. You can save these hashes somewhere - ideally on another computer or print them on a physical piece of paper. To get hash values for all the files in a directory you can run:
find /boot -type f -exec sha256sum {} \;
The output of the above command will list the hash file of each file next to its name. This information can be copied to a text file and saved or printed for later verification.
Later on, maybe a week or a month down the road, we can run the same command shown above to get the current hash values of each file. If any hash values are different or the number of files has changed without us performing an update then we know something was altered without our permission.
Ideally you can use both of these methods together. The first should let you know when something has changed. The latter will allow you to periodically audit the system from a live disc, meaning you do not need to trust the main (potentially compromised) system.
Something to keep in mind is, if you do perform system updates, this will change the hash values of the files stored under the /boot directory. It will also trigger a warning from inotifywait, so take this into consideration and plan to re-scan the hash values of your files under /boot after each system update.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
MX Linux 21.2
MX Linux 21.2 is out. The latest update of the number one distribution in our page hit ranking statistics continues to be based on Debian 11 and its 5.10 Linux kernel, but the AHS variant of the Xfce edition now comes with the Linux kernel 5.18. "We are pleased to offer MX Linux 21.2 for your use. MX 21.2 is the second refresh of our MX 21 release, consisting of bug fixes, kernels and application updates since our original release of MX 21. If you are already running MX 21, there is no need to reinstall. Packages are all available through the regular update channel. Highlights include: Debian 11.4 'Bullseye' base; mx-installer received several bug fixes and improvements; mx-tweak has new options for disabling Bluetooth adapters and moving Xfce/GTK file dialog buttons to bottom instead of the top of the dialog; Fluxbox gets a new mxfb-look tool to save and restore theme combinations; mx-updater/apt-notifier has option to use nala as the backend; kernel cleanup tool added to mx-cleanup; disk space check for /boot partitions to make sure a disk has enough room for a kernel update before the update starts...." Continue to the release announcement for full details.
MX Linux 21 -- Running the Xfce desktop
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GeckoLinux 154.220822.0, 999.220820.0
The GeckoLinux project maintains an openSUSE-based distribution which offers multiple desktop editions. The project has published new media for both the project's Static (Leap-based) branch and its Rolling (Tumbleweed-based) branch. "The GeckoLinux project is pleased to announce major updates to all editions of the Static branch, built from openSUSE Leap 15.4. This series of spins has significantly better support for new hardware thanks to the much newer kernel in openSUSE Leap 15.4. Most packages and desktop environments also have have significant new versions compared to the previous release built from openSUSE Leap 15.3. For this GeckoLinux release, permissions have been relaxed for easier printer administration without the root password. Apart from the major openSUSE updates, there are other no other major tweaks to the GeckoLinux configuration, which was already significantly improved in the previous release. GeckoLinux Static users with existing installations can simply update their systems with these simple GUI instructions." The release announcement also mentions known issues, such as Samba upgrade concerns and a warning that the openSUSE Leap branch will likely reach the end of its life in the next few years.
Linux From Scratch 11.2
Bruce Dubbs has announced the release of version 11.2 of Linux From Scratch, a project that provides a free book containing step-by-step instructions to build a custom Linux system from scratch. A separate book called "Beyond Linux From Scratch", which provides a broad range of instructions for installing and configuring various packages on top of a base LFS system, is also available in version 11.2. "The Linux From Scratch community is pleased to announce the release of LFS version 11.2, LFS version 11.2 (systemd), BLFS version 11.2 and BLFS version 11.2 (systemd). This release is a major update to both LFS and BLFS. The LFS release includes updates to GCC 12.2.0, glibc 2.36 and Binutils 2.39. The Linux kernel has also been updated to version 5.19.2. Changes to text have been made throughout the books. The BLFS version includes approximately 1,000 packages beyond the base Linux From Scratch Version 11.2 book. This release has over 1100 updates from the previous BLFS version including package updates and numerous text and formatting changes. You can read the books online or download to read locally." Here is the release announcement.
Ubuntu 20.04.5
Canonical has announced a point release for Ubuntu 20.04 and its community editions. The new release, 20.04.5, offers updated hardware support along with security fixes since the original 20.04 release. "The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS (Long-Term Support) for its Desktop, Server, and Cloud products, as well as other flavours of Ubuntu with long-term support. Like previous LTS series, 20.04.5 includes hardware enablement stacks for use on newer hardware. This support is offered on all architectures. Ubuntu Server defaults to installing the GA kernel; however you may select the HWE kernel from the installer bootloader." The release announcement and release notes offer additional details.
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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: 2,766
- 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) |
Using the Linglong package repository
In this week's look at deepin's new technologies we talked about Linglong. Linglong refers both to a new package manager and a repository of portable applications which appears to be a very close relative of Flatpak. The deepin project reports Linglong will run on other distributions, not just deepin. We would like to hear if our readers are interested in running packages from the Linglong repository.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running immutable operating systems in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you plan to use the Linglong repository?
| Yes: | 29 (2%) |
| No: | 1352 (85%) |
| Only if it has exclusive options: | 63 (4%) |
| Undecided: | 148 (9%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Ubuntu Unity. Ubuntu Unity is spin of the Ubuntu distribution featuring the Unity desktop.
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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, 12 September 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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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Monitoring of file changes (by Leo on 2022-09-05 00:52:37 GMT from United States)
I am disapointed a bit that the answer does not mention the established dedicated programs for detecting changes to files by comparison of cryptographic hashes. There are Tripwire and AIDE.
For /boot directory specifically, we have got Secure Boot and signed kernel images and modules. If you are really serious about security or locking down the system then you should consider Intel IMA (Integrity Measurement Architecture) or similar solutions. At least the administrator can use a dedicated read-only filesystem for /boot.
The superuser can "chattr +i" files to prevent ordinary users or system daemons (those running with reduced capabilities) from modifying files and to prevent accidental modification by privileged processes.
2 • File changes (by Jesse on 2022-09-05 01:05:16 GMT from Canada)
@1: The original question specifically mentioned Secure Boot and that it wasn't what they wanted. It also wasn't clear to me, based on the context of the question, that the person wanted to locked down their system. It seemed they were interested in detecting changes more than preventing them. Or maybe both.
Using tools to prevent changes, like putting /boot in read-only mode or using Secure Boot, come with their collection of issues the person may want to avoid. They can be useful tools, but aren't great for monitoring directories in general.
3 • Ubuntu Unity and Deepin (by Guido on 2022-09-05 01:11:01 GMT from Philippines)
I just learned that the main developer of this new distro is just 10 years old. I am impressed.
But I will probably not use it and surely not Deepin from China. In the past the Arch version of this desktop was very unstable.
https://ubuntuunity.org/
4 • Ubuntu Unity (by Jesse on 2022-09-05 02:18:02 GMT from Canada)
@3: "I just learned that the main developer of this new distro is just 10 years old. "
Something I find interesting about this person (and their project) is the developer keeps getting reported as being younger and younger. When I first heard about the project two or three years ago they were 14 reportedly . Last year someone told me the main developer is 12. Today it's 10. The kid is ageing backwards!
5 • New package formats (again) (by Charlie on 2022-09-05 03:49:40 GMT from Hong Kong)
Not sure why they reinvent the wheels again while we have Flatpak and Snap already.
That said, I know some still oppose to the new cotainer format of packagers while preferring the traditional one (rpm, deb etc.), but Flatpak has really begun showing its advantages.
I can now have wine on my 64bit system easily installed without adding a bunch of 32bit libraries as dependencies, and I am more willing to try some apps without worrying about cleaning the dependencies when I no longer want to use it. It's really handy.
6 • Debian DDG Chromium (by fenglengshun on 2022-09-05 03:51:38 GMT from Ireland)
I'm a little bit confused - why DDG? I guess 2 years ago, they seem like a trustworthy alternative to Google. But recently it has come to light that they have secret deals with Microsoft whose Bing search index is the provider for DDG search index. They only disclosed the deal after getting caught redhanded and even now they still do not disable certain Bing things.
In my mind, it is trading the devil we know with a new devil we know less about. Sure, it's probably better than Google, but at least Google's well documented and you can't argue that on average they bring the best search results for you. But we don't know what else DDG have in the background, and that makes it a questionable decision for me.
While I also understand that people don't like Brave, if the issue is with Google, then why not use a SearX or Whoogle instance? Heck, use Ecosia which at least does something decent with their profit or Startpage which is basically DDG but uses Google so it serves the same purpose but without the baggage that DDG has.
7 • Linglong (by penguinx86 on 2022-09-05 03:54:42 GMT from United States)
No, I won't use Linglong. I never heard of it before and the name sounds like it could contain Chinese spyware. I'll stick with Synaptic and Apt, because I'm more famaliar with them.
8 • Ubuntu Unity (by Rudra Saraswat on 2022-09-05 06:03:02 GMT from India)
@3 and @4: I'm the dev of Ubuntu Unity, and am 12 and will be turning 13 on September 25 (created Ubuntu Unity when I was 10). Hope it's clear now :)
9 • Linglong (by Pete on 2022-09-05 08:00:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
Anything to do with China......no chance. I couldn't trust any of it.
10 • I don't mind using a Chinese Linux distro (by Andrei Kim on 2022-09-05 08:49:28 GMT from South Korea)
South Korea, the country where I live in doesn't respect open source software that much and Chinese software engineers are much better training-wise. I might install deepin 23 with this new package system in my spare laptop eventually.
We software engineers are not politicians nor diplomats, so let's stop with boycotting new software introductions.
11 • Linglong and Deepin (by Kazlu on 2022-09-05 09:14:58 GMT from France)
I am already not using Flatpak, I have no reason to try Linglong. Should I need something of the sort one day, I would go for Flatpak because it is not designed for any specific distribution and therefore aims to be universal. I would not use Snap for exactly the same reason.
About Deepin, I must admit I have some reserves using software from a Chinese company. I don't know what ties there are with the Chinese government. I went through the deepin EULA, just to try to get the philosophy of the company. I found two elements that I found weird:
"this Agreement does not allow you to redistribute (including but not limited to software sales, pre-installation, bundling, etc.) the software or its components for any commercial purpose, regardless of whether the software or its components have been modified."
This means nobody is allowed to sell computers with deepin preinstalled. Or nobody is able to provide IT services that would include installation of deepin. That seems strange, since that can only enlarge the user base and potentially sell support... or does the company sell support? I don't know how they make money.
"If you fail to comply with the above provisions, Deepin Community does not take any liability, and has the right, in its sole discretion, to terminate, completely or partially suspend, or limit its normal function of the software, and reserves all rights to pursue your actions."
Am I reading that the "deepin community" grants itself the right, "in its sole discretion" to stop the deepin software on your computer from working???
I might not understand all this properly, so outside opinion on this would be appreciated.
12 • deepin to buntu unity (by linglong & prosper on 2022-09-05 10:33:01 GMT from Canada)
@11, it's also strange that the devs use a live-&-install script to boot deepin, but don't offer the live boot option - you have to edit the boot script yourself. why do they want users to only install deepin, and not use it live?
@3, @4, well the 14 year old dev doesn't make buntu unity all by himself - he has a team - probably all 14 year olds too.
13 • Deepin, Linglong, @8,Unity (by Dr. Hu on 2022-09-05 11:21:55 GMT from Philippines)
@Jesse, It's too bad you decided to forgo the fashion and effects. Without those, Deepin is just another DE, no better more efficient than KDE, XFCE or Cinnamon. It's really all about eye-candy, and I assure you, it doesn't look like KDE. I've installed it a couple of times, but as they say, beauty is only skin-deep, and it hasn't stayed long on my hardware. Strictly a VM for now.
The 23 preview is still quite rough around the edges. I've been Deepin 20 on a VM and it's much more polished. Don't really know what the independent upstream and Linglong are all about. Maybe like some in China they are retreating across a digital moat and pulling up the bridges. The web store only has 24 or so apps, of which some are Windows apps like Photoshop. Downloading from the store can call up Wine to install the Windows apps. Download and install takes a bit of time. For now, no Linglong for me. Maybe at some future time.
@8, Read some stuff about you. Congratulations on Unity. I've tried it, and it's excellent. So you are 12? Practically an old man, then. I read somewhere that Unity will be one of the Ubuntu community editions on 22.10. If so, more congratulations are in order. Try not to pay much attention to what is said in forums like this, or you may end up with gray hair before you are 18.
14 • Linux developers (by James on 2022-09-05 11:22:03 GMT from United States)
Seems Linux developers are more interested in re-inventing the wheel than improving Linux.
15 • Watching for changes in directories (by Jeffrey on 2022-09-05 11:45:52 GMT from Czechia)
Others already mentioned Tripwire and the like, so I'll only add the BSD utility `entr`. It is relatively simple, so one has to build their own solution on it, but it also means it is lightweight and that it can be used in many ways. (It can be found in the repositories of Debian and its derivatives, e.g. https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/entr .)
16 • Unity dev, Linglong (by Dr. Hu on 2022-09-05 11:46:05 GMT from Philippines)
The Unity dev does have a team: https://ubuntuunity.org/team/
And for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcwyb_LUVjY
Ling long means "exquisite" in Mandarin. Reading some of the posts, seems like for a technology forum we still have our share of knuckle-draggers.
17 • @ 6 DDG (by kc1di on 2022-09-05 12:18:18 GMT from United States)
One of the things that make Debian so stable is it takes so long for them to update. But the flip side of that is that they also miss some of the changes that come to light from the time something is purposed till it's enabled.
Two years from being purposed to finish is a long time in search engines today.
What you mentioned is one reason I've changed to Start Page. But I suppose they will find fault with it in some way sooner or later.
18 • @5 Charlie: (by dragonmouth on 2022-09-05 12:51:43 GMT from United States)
"Not sure why they reinvent the wheels again while we have Flatpak and Snap already."
Not sure why they reinvent the wheels again while we had AppImage already. Is it because they want to have things THEIR way?
@17 Dr.Hu:
IF one knows Mandarin. If one doesn't, then "linglong" is just a nonsense word much like "dingdong". Considering that there are hundreds of languages/dialects in the world, it is certain that a perfectly good word in one is a curse or a derogatory term in another. That's not knuckle-dragging, that's linguistics.
19 • @8 Ubuntu Unity (by Greateffort on 2022-09-05 13:03:16 GMT from Australia)
@8 well done on your efforts - it is mind-boggling for me to think someone so young is leading the way in doing this. You're an inspiration to some of us much older people...
20 • @19 dragonmouth (by Dr. Hu on 2022-09-05 13:06:08 GMT from Philippines)
Linguistics is the scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics. Where in there is the disparagement and dismissing of something or someone's name in another language because it sounds funny to you.
21 • Linglong (by Multiget on 2022-09-05 13:17:16 GMT from Italy)
I don't trust Linglong, Flatpak, Appimage and Snap. Only .deb and .rpm (with the only exception of "balena etcher" in appimage format).
22 • @22 China (by Justme on 2022-09-05 14:26:19 GMT from United States)
"Boycott China on what? Software? Phones? Computers?" Futile indeed. But first, it puzzles me that people think they have such valuable secrets that everyone from China to Microsoft wants to spy on them. I know some people who are afraid of vaccines because they think Bill Gates or someone like him have designed a chip which is inserted and by which they can track them. These are otherwise seemingly normal people. Why?
Most phones (including iPhones), laptops, desktop PCs, CCTV cameras, and just about every other gadgets are put together in China, including installing the OS and/or firmware if any. Wouldn't China take this golden opportunities to put their spy stuff in there. Wouldn't they be rather dumb to put the spyware on their own OS, where it can be easily laid at their door?
Last week I posted the website of Linux Foundation members. Here are some of them for your perusal: Tencent, Huawei, Alibaba, Baidu, WeBank, Allwinner, and of course Uniontech, which owns Deepin. These are some of the evil corporations on the Chinese side that fund the Linux kernel. And this is not nearly an exhaustive list. Seems to me that those who have strong objections to Chinese (or western) evil spying should probably go talk to trihexagonal, who posts here, about switching to BSD.
23 • What's the point? (by Appalachian on 2022-09-05 16:00:52 GMT from United States)
Linglong does the same thing as Flatpak, and it does it in the same way. So, if a person wanted that kind of thing on their system, then why not just use Flatpak in the first place? Linglong doesn't seem to bring anything new to the table which would justify its existence.
24 • Deepin, Linglong, and Unity (by Friar Tux on 2022-09-05 16:17:40 GMT from Canada)
I'm curious why the angst about government intrusion in Deepin and linglong. If it's toted as being open source, I'm sure someone in the know can check out the source code (or already has) to see if there is any "suspicious" coding. Otherwise, or until someone can point at something suspicious, wouldn't it be more appropriate to hold off with the conspiracy silliness?
Of the three, Flatpak, Snap and AppImage, I prefer AppImage as, so far, I find it is the only one that works best, on my machine. And it is truely portable - "one file = one app". (It is also the only one of the three (now four) that will use MY chosen theme, and has all the features/options of the version from the default repository.)
Rudra Saraswat, as said elsewhere, you are an inspiration. My hat comes off to you. While I, personally, do not like Unity (it make my laptop look ,ridiculously, like a giant cell phone), I DO like the idea of choice. And to think that someone as young as 12 in taking on developing/maintaining Unity, I think is fantastic. Keep it up.
Dragonmouth, your comment on linguistics - a good, normal word in one language is a curse word in another - is absolutely dead on. I speak three languages (English, French, German) and in just those three I find lots of examples of this (no, I won't quote them, here, as DW will feel the need to cancel this post, and I can't blame them.)
25 • @22 "Seemingly normal people" (by TFC on 2022-09-05 17:24:20 GMT from United States)
There is your explanation ...
The story goes on like, 99 % ('normal people') uses their preinstalled OS, 1 % uses something else, and of those 1 %, again 1 % goes to forums.
Those last ones really have and share a big secret -- almost all of them need a really good (psycho-) doctor, and they know it -- just refuse to visit one to get some help ...
As of 'good-looking' Deepin, if I take a look at the first screenshot in the review above, there's nothing good to see on that panel and start menu ...
As of the 'strange license terms', as much as I know, Deepin Desktop is a commercial product, but everybody is allowed to use it for free. Someone explained that here once in the past.
As of 'trusting Chinese', I'd be more scared to use the EU & USA distributions. They both are collecting data about everybody and everything -- and they are even trying to undermine encryption to spy on messengers, building the backdoors in HW ...
BTW, good luck with rejecting everything Chinese -- even US medicaments are produced there -- that this is also truth for the US cars, or for the US houses, is the smallest problem ...
26 • 2 Years for a simple search engine change (by Hank on 2022-09-05 17:38:06 GMT from Germany)
At the rate Debian is moving I will be dead before they fix a regression to NVidia drivers .
The install fails as one part of X points to a library which does not and never has existed.
Was declared fixed a few weeks ago and promptly broken again with a recent update.
Debian Quality assurance and user orientation are sadly lost in space these days.
27 • @22, @25 On the subject of trust (by Leo on 2022-09-05 20:17:17 GMT from United States)
Corporations usually do not "spy" on specific people, they collect as much bulk data as they can because it can increase their profits. These immense amounts of data can be and often are abused, compromised or shared with governments and various virtually unknown partners.
Free Software should provide transparency to avoid need of trusting software vendors. However this depends on people reviewing the code. The amount of code is such that it is reviewed poorly. Explicit backdoors and anti-features are catched, but subtle intentional vulnerabilities are very difficult to find.
So going independent is a reason to avoid Deepin, it was more trustworthy when it was more closely based on Debian, the established and widely used community distro.
28 • @22 - Deepin owned by UnionTech (by Andy Prough on 2022-09-05 21:08:48 GMT from New Zealand)
I read the post by @22, and having not heard of UnionTech I looked them up and their relationship with Deepin.
I'm not passing judgment, I'm just noting that Deepin is owned by a company that is developing an OS for the Chinese government. Some people may see that as either a good or a bad thing. On the good side, they are trying to replace MS Windows with a Linux distro, so there's that. From Wikipedia:
"The development of Deepin is led by China-based Deepin Technology Co., Ltd. The company generates revenue through the sale of technical support and other services related to it.[3] As of 1 January 2020, Deepin Technology is a wholly owned subsidiary of UnionTech (统信软件)."
"Unity Operating System (also known as Unified Operating System[2] or UOS, Chinese: 统一操作系统) is a Chinese Linux distribution developed by UnionTech (Chinese: 统信软件) based on Deepin,[3] which is based on Debian. It is used in China as part of a government initiative beginning in 2019 to replace foreign-made software such as Microsoft Windows with domestic products."
If a half-billion people start using a Linux distro instead of Windows, you could make an argument that this is a positive development. Of course, any government project by its nature is suspect, so you could argue the other side.
29 • buntu unity (by linglong $ prosper on 2022-09-05 22:33:30 GMT from Canada)
The buntu unity dev is young in the tech world - he's 10?...12?...13?...14? - already you can't even pin down his proper age. He's probly already had plastic surgery, and dated one or two of the Kardashians. :) (But the Unity distro does look good.)
30 • buntu unity dev (by Titus_Groan on 2022-09-05 22:53:41 GMT from New Zealand)
@29, "already you can't even pin down his proper age"
maybe read comment @8
looks like Rudra has a great future ahead in software development
31 • Deepin desktop @25 (by Dr Hu on 2022-09-05 23:12:56 GMT from Philippines)
"As of 'good-looking' Deepin, if I take a look at the first screenshot in the review above, there's nothing good to see on that panel and start menu ..." As I said earlier, it is unfortunate that the reviewer decided against fashion look and effects. It misses the transparencies and floating dock and menu effects. (Screenshots are available online by googling.) My DDE doesn't look anything like Jesse's screenshots. As shown, deepin looks like a stock KDE or Cinnamon, which will probably be better choices in that case. Maybe the icons are prettier, but that's it. The menu is versatile. It can be a category-based menu in the corner, or a full-screen dashboard like Gnome's or scrollable full-screen series of category panels.
"As of the 'strange license terms', as much as I know, Deepin Desktop is a commercial product, but everybody is allowed to use it for free. Someone explained that here once in the past." Deepin is a community distro. The commercial version is UOS, which is used, among others, by Huawei. As broadcast widely on the news a couple of years ago, Huawei is under sanctions by the US government, and cannot use Windows on their PCs or Google services on their phones. So China's corporations are looking for, and coming up with alternatives.
32 • Deepin license (by Justme on 2022-09-05 23:41:06 GMT from United States)
deepin is published under the GPL v3. Going back and forth about the EULA might be entertaining, but means nothing. Anyone with a vested interest would need to contact the FSF and let their lawyers decide if deepin is in compliance. For practical purposes, it doesn't matter unless one is in China, as the EULA is only enforceable there.
33 • @32 Deepin license (by Leo on 2022-09-06 01:30:00 GMT from Austria)
Of course they are not in compliance if their EULA supercedes GPLv3 in mainland China and if it has no provisions like "notwithstanding all of the above nothing herein shall supercede or modify the terms of any separate license agreements..." (of individual open source software components).
34 • @33 license (by Leo on 2022-09-06 02:00:34 GMT from France)
Hmm, it looks like clauses 1 and 7 of their EULA effectively cancel all of the additional restrictions from other clauses. So it looks like at least for Deepin (I have not looked up the UOS EULA) they are in compliance.
35 • @34 (by Leo on 2022-09-06 02:16:18 GMT from Austria)
However it is not clear from their EULA whether GPLv3 applies to software components developed solely by UnionTech or whether these components (if there are any) are governed by contradictory "EULA + GPLv3" nonsense mix. Maybe Chinese language version is more clear.
36 • Salix release this week (by Kazlu on 2022-09-06 08:42:13 GMT from France)
I'm reading the Salix release annoucement. I remember trying it a little less than a decade ago, worked very well but eventually I stayed with Debian-based distros because it's more widely used which has advantages in termes of QA, bug/vulnerability hunting/correction and software availability. But I am wondering, and honestly asking users of a Slackware based distro here: what is the drive to a Slackware-based distro? What do you find more appealing in a Slackware base than a Debian base (I am only mentioning Debian because I also see it as a stable, slow moving base)? This is an honest question here, I am absolutely not trying to criticise the choice of a Slackware-based distro, I am wondering this out of curiosity, because maybe I am missing something.
37 • Unity (by JS on 2022-09-06 10:21:02 GMT from Germany)
I can only congratulate the Unity team. This is really a great achievement. The project is going in a promising direction. I wonder about the comments regarding Rudra S.'s age that keep coming up. If I remember correctly, Mozart made his first concert tours at the age of 6 and started writing down his significant compositions at about 8. Would anyone refuse to listen because of that?
38 • @36 (by Simon on 2022-09-06 10:32:42 GMT from New Zealand)
Yes, I appreciate the fact that it's a genuine question. I've run far more Debian-based (including Ubuntu) systems than Slackware systems over the years, but genuinely preferred Slackware when I had the time to set it up (I don't these days).
Slackware is heaven for control freaks because it's so simple: Debian is a convoluted mess by comparison. Debian (and most other distros) pile an enormous amount of automation onto everything to make it easier to do stuff with minimal effort. Slackware is (or at least was, when I last used it) so simple that it's possible for a relatively unskilled administrator like me to understand most of what it's doing, just from reading the simple text files it uses for configuration. Everything is clean, tidy and straightforward... at the cost of requiring more time and effort to set up initially.
Debian's more like a chainsaw, Slackware's more like an old-fashioned hand saw: a chainsaw user might scoff at the "ridiculous" effort involved in sawing things manually, but there's a clean simplicity to Slackware that can make it more trustworthy in some circumstances, in roughly the same way that your arm's more trustworthy than a chainsaw's engine. I always felt like I knew what was going on in my Slackware boxes: perhaps the fact that it was basically the product of one man's oversight limited its complexity, in order to keep it comprehensible in its entirety by one person. I've never had that experience with the likes of Debian: it's so complex that it's a case of "well, I don't really understand what's going on here, but it seems to be working so I'll trust that others have configured this stuff wisely". Obviously there are degrees of that, and I've never come close to being able to say (without looking anything up) what every single file was doing, even on a Slackware box... but you can get a lot closer to that with Slackware than Debian.
Also, as a result (and again, after some effort to configure it), it was much faster in the old days, especially at booting up... breathtakingly fast ("what the heck, we're at the desktop already?!?!") compared to other distros. These days with systemd, a properly configured Debian-based box can boot very quickly, and I don't notice as much sluggishness in desktop responsiveness and so on either (with a few exceptions like launching Ubuntu's horrible default snap version of Firefox): there aren't as many practical arguments for Slackware as there used to be. It has an excellent long support life (many years, like Ubuntu LTS), but a much smaller official package set so there's a higher chance you'll have installed a bunch of your own stuff (and slackbuilds from slackbuilds.org or whatever) that won't be getting timely (or any) security fixes. Basically you're probably right to stick with Debian-based distros... to answer your question I don't think you're "missing" anything in that respect... but I'll always have a soft spot for Slackware's tidy simplicity.
39 • @Jesse - Deepin Review (by Linux Revolution on 2022-09-06 16:06:16 GMT from United States)
Way to exercise your diplomacy of Deepin. My paranoia compels me to read between the lines! LOL...
40 • Where is the source code for linglong? (by source-code-seeker on 2022-09-06 17:40:53 GMT from United States)
Sounds like flatpak, is it a fork or just another UI over the whole ostree stack? And where's the source code, so we can find out the answer? In any case we really don't need another packaging format. Unless a certain country wants to maintain a software stack independent of other certain countries.
41 • @38 (by Kazlu on 2022-09-07 07:57:51 GMT from France)
Thank you very much for this thorough and very clear description! The chainsaw VS hand saw image is particularly well chosen and helps getting your point. I guess I get it, I could even be interested in this especially on an older backup machine or a server, but like you I am already (s)lacking time to invest in it anyway. I suppose there is some appeal to Salix implementing Flatpak, to get additional packages from another source than slackbuilds and in a way that does not mess with your base OS, but you lose in snappiness... Anyway, it's good to know this is an option.
42 • @38 (by kc1di on 2022-09-07 09:58:40 GMT from United States)
Thank you for your good description. I found slackware about as you discribe it. Used it for many years, was my first distro when getting into Linux many years ago. Just got lazy and now use Debian distros mostly.
I have soft spot for the now discontinued Vector Linux - Which was a nice slack base system.
Have tried Salix yet. Kinda wish the has a live version.
If you have the time Slack is a good system. And will serve you for many years.
43 • Salix etc. (by Barnabyh on 2022-09-07 16:17:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
Nice to see Salix is back and has a new version out. Although these days I am tempted to stay with Linux Mint/ LMDE or try MX KDE if feeling adventurous.
Not keen on installing anything anymore though as the current systems have been running well for over three years. Getting old I guess. I leave it to the young folks to distrohop and try everything now.
Still, if ever a reinstall should be needed Salix will be on my list, as is AlienBob's Slackware live for thumb drives.
44 • Post 2 Years for a simple search engine change from Hank (by Lo Han Kuo on 2022-09-08 09:11:40 GMT from Germany)
Debian has it seems fixed the NVidia drivers. Installed Tesla 470 version without error yesterday.
Wonder if the post from Hank moved the issue in to focus.
Anyways I am very grateful for the fix.
Unfortunately open drivers are vastly inferior on some NVidia cards. On mine screen tearing and glitches are awful.
45 • Debian: open drivers VS manufacturer drivers (by Kazlu on 2022-09-08 13:58:35 GMT from France)
Since there are many comments about the poor hardware support of open drivers (and the implications for Debian), I'd like to add my 2 cents here.
My experience is different. Mostly for ecological reasons, I do not buy new hardware anymore, I make it last as much as possible and when I really need a new machine, I always go for second hand, refurbished if possible. So my hardware is never brand new. And I don't need that. Most od the time my needs are simple, but I am still doing some gaming or even video editing on occasion. These are resource intensive activities and I need capable hardware. But I don't need brand new hardware. I often end up with 2-4 years old hardware and that's plenty enough.
Why am I saying this? Well, in several occasions, on 2-4 years old Nvidia graphics card, the open drivers work better than the Nvidia drivers! Less crashes, even better resolution sometimes. And it makes sense: when a new graphics card comes out, the previous model goes out of fashion and manufacturer support slows down, before eventually ending. But open drivers continue to progress as long as there are developpers using the hardware, and they eventually catch up, even go beyond manufacturer drivers in terms of quality. So I actually feel much better with hardware that is a few years old, muuuuuuch less hassle. The only times I had issues was when I got hardware that didn't reach the 2 years old mark yet!
That being said, this is true for graphics. Wireless adapters are a whole different story. They don't evolve that much over time. And even the best retro-engineers have trouble getting them to work to create an open driver.
So my point is: don't associate open drivers with bad drivers.
46 • dev ages (by linglong & prosper on 2022-09-09 22:58:51 GMT from France)
Quote for the week:
"A 12 year old tech is better than an adult tech who acts like a 12 year old."
Number of Comments: 46
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| • 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 |
| 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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| Random Distribution | 
KRUD
KRUD was a Linux Distribution which tracks Red Hat Linux. It was updated every month, and was available by CD and CD Subscription. KRUD was based on a complete Red Hat Linux install with all of the errata and updates included, plus extra packages added in by Kevin of tummy.com. We've been making KRUD since 1999. We do it because it saves us time, and it makes updating our systems easier. We'd like you to try it because it will do the same for you.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| 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 
