 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 986, 19 September 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 38th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Base distributions, independent projects which serve as the foundation for other distributions, are often reassembled into all sorts of unexpected shapes and applied to a wide variety of purposes. This week we begin with a look at Porteus, a Slackware-based project which strives to be as desktop-friendly and modern as Slackware is server-focused and conservative. Jeff Siegel takes us for a tour of Porteus in this week's Feature Story and reports on his findings. Then, in our News section, we talk about an unofficial software centre being developed for Ubuntu which strives to overcome the problems in the existing Ubuntu Software Centre. We also report on a handy tool from Proxmox which offers offline updates in a variety of scenarios. Plus we talk about how to handle protecting data on a stolen laptop. Do you have a way to remotely connect to your laptop, possibly to track it or remotely wipe its disk? Let us know about your approach to gaining remote access in this week's Opinion Poll. In this issue we're pleased to welcome the young SpiralLinux distribution to our database. SpiralLinux provides a series of desktop spins based on Debian and is a spiritual sibling to GeckoLinux. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and share the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jeff Siegel) |
Porteus 5.0
Porteus is based on Slackware, which may be the most old-fashioned, command line-driven distro in the Linux community, including and particularly for installation. Nevertheless, Porteus' developers have come up with a live desktop distribution (with eight desktops for x86_64) that is portable and aims to be persistent. In other words, so much of what Slackware is not -- and does not want to be.
Does your brain hurt yet? Because mine does.
I spent a couple of weeks with three of the desktops - Xfce, KDE, and Cinnamon - and found that, yes, a Slackware-based distro can offer a live desktop that is portable and snappy. But it's far from straightforward to use or configure, and especially if you want to do more than marvel at how slick the desktop looks and acts. Package management, to quote from the Porteus forum, ain't pretty: "Package management (and dependency resolution) is a perpetual issue in this Slackware based Porteus."
And getting persistence to work? Just writing that sentence made my brain hurt yet again; I was never able to do it. Maybe the best way to explain the difficulty is with this analogy: You may be able to troubleshoot how to save changes to a Porteus USB stick so they'll be there the next time, but it's like walking around the block four times in order to cross the street - a lot of effort for something that should take almost no effort at all.
Getting started
I downloaded the three desktops and installed each on a 32GB USB stick. They're part of Porteus 5.0, which uses the 5.18.8 kernel and is based on Slackware 15.0. It can run on as little as 36MB of RAM, but probably needs 512MB to load into memory and to run effectively. The downloaded ISO files are stunningly small - 348MB for the Xfce desktop, 359MB for Cinnamon, and 417MB for KDE. By comparison, the current Mint Cinnamon ISO is 2.4 GB.
Porteus 5.0 -- The Cinnamon desktop and application menu
(full image size: 1.7MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Boot times, as advertised, are about 15 seconds - again, amazingly quick. Each desktop looks as it should (though the Xfce dark theme is a bit muddy) and responds quickly and easily. I wasn't surprised to see this with Xfce, but it was impressive with Cinnamon, which sometimes gives me trouble, and especially impressive with KDE - the latter truly acted as it was running on a high-end machine, and not from a generic USB stick on my decade-old, 4GB memory Asus laptop.
The software is also modern and top-notch, as opposed to the lighter and older (and sometimes ancient) apps that many portable distros use to save space and memory. There is the underrated Audacious media player, the MPV video player, the Dconf settings editor, and GParted to manage partitions. Interestingly, there are few strictly KDE apps for that desktop, no doubt to keep duplication of functions and bloat off the USB. Also convenient: a root terminal for each desktop and launch-as-root icons for the Thunar, Nemo, and Dolphin file managers.
Which, unfortunately, was about all of the good news. I should have figured something was up when I couldn't find a printer manager for any of the desktops, so no way to print to my networked Canon MX-920. Contrast this with EasyOS, which has turned network printing into a one-step app. Plus, there isn't a word processor or office suite and no email software.
Porteus 5.0 -- Trying to find printer settings
(full image size: 1.6MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
It's not so much that package management is so difficult and that persistence is even more complicated; it's that, since Porteus is based on Slackware, no one seems to worry about those things. There is very little documentation, and what there is - to quote again from the post on the Porteus forum - is often wrong: "Some of our documentation is outdated, [the] usm [package manager] is no longer with us." Hence my frustration when I tried to use the Porteus FAQ, loaded in the distro, and which called for USM to install new packages -- and couldn't find it.
Porteus 5.0 -- Exploring the project's documentation
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Problems, problems, problems
The problems started with Porteus' "Browser Selection and Update Tool," which offers to install any of eight browsers (including the Lynx terminal browser). You can also choose between specific versions of some of the browsers, like the current Firefox or Firefox ESR. The tool mostly works - except when it doesn't. One forum user said the Porteus server wouldn't download Firefox despite repeated attempts. The solution? He needed to go the mirror, download the package, and install it himself.
Porteus 5.0 -- Selecting web browsers to install
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Technically, these are not packages, but what Porteus calls modules. The idea is to avoid traditional package building, instead relying on modules that can be turned on and off. Don't need the word processor module you just loaded? Then click it again and turn it off, with the goal of keeping Porteus small and compact. This seems to be a change from previous versions of Porteus, which used the USM package manager and was relatively straightforward, but may have used too much USB space. In addition, there are a variety of scripts - called Porteus cheat sheets - that are supposed to help with packages, persistence, and the like.
Porteus 5.0 -- Trying to move a module
(full image size: 950kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The catch, of course, is that it's not clear how to build a module, though there is a module app with a handful of modules awaiting installation. Apparently, module building involves using a wrapper called pmod in conjunction with the Slackware package tool, slackpkg. There is also a script called pkginfo, which is used to check for missing dependencies as well as to find out if the package is already installed. All of which, frankly, makes typical command line package installation - the scourge of new Linux users - seem simple. Or, to quote from the same forum post one more time: "Beware - [slackpkg] is far from intuitive."
So yes, my brain is starting to hurt again.
I didn't have any trouble downloading and installing the Firefox module, and it worked most of the time I clicked on it. And it was snappy, too. And I could turn the module off, as well. But, of course, there was another catch. The module is loaded into /tmp, and needs to be moved to the /porteus/modules folder on the USB. Otherwise, it won't be there the next time you run Porteus.
How to move it is a mystery. I tried several approaches - dragging and dropping, cutting and pasting, and using the Porteus save manager to create a saved space on the USB. And I tried using the root account, as well.
All of which failed with the error message: "Error while copying to modules." And why not? The modules folder is there, but it has no space in it -- 0 bytes.
A few words about persistence
Persistence is not difficult. Puppy Linux has been doing it for years with a couple of mouse clicks, while Puppy successor EasyOS works even more smoothly. And Ubuntu's Ubiquity-driven persistence, despite having a couple of hurdles to overcome and the need to use a USB with enough space to account for the size of the Ubuntu ISO, is not all that difficult to work with.
It's not like I didn't want it to work, either. I'm just geeky enough to love this stuff, and I love to find something that is so different and so unique that I can tell people about it - and bore them in the process, since it's Linux. And maybe it was me; maybe the answer was in front of me the entire time and I just didn't see it. But I tried everything I could think of to make persistence work with Porteus, short of using GParted to force space on the USB. And the reason I didn't was simple - if I needed to do that, what's the point of persistence? Who else would bother except someone who wants to batter their brain with the pain of Slackware?
It's also why I didn't try to install any of the desktop ISOs on my laptop. If I couldn't get persistence to work, what was the point of installation other than making me even crazier?
Porteus 5.0 -- The KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 2.3MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
In the end, persistence in Porteus is past infuriating, maybe even more than package installation. Is that because of its Slackware roots? Is it a lack of resources for development? Porteus 5.0 was three years in the making, which speaks to some difficulties on that end. Or it is just the idea that the people who will use Porteus will figure it out for themselves?
Maybe. But that doesn't mean it's a good idea - or that I'll give up my copy of EasyOS.
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Hardware used for this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an Asus UX31A laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Core i5-3317U, 1.7GHz
- Storage: 128GB SSD
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Networking: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 802.11 a/b/g/n wireless
- Display: Integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000
When he is not testing out new versions of Linux distributions, Jeff Siegel can be found writing about all things related to wine at Wine Curmudgeon.
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Visitor supplied rating
Porteus has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.5/10 from 17 review(s).
Have you used Porteus? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Unofficial new software centre for Ubuntu, Proxmox offers offline mirroring
Though it is not official yet, it looks as though Ubuntu users may soon be given a new software centre. The current software centre, which ships with the Ubuntu Desktop edition, is often criticized for being slow and locking up during operations. An effort to create a more responsive, more reliable software centre is underway. A brief overview of the new software centre along with screenshots can be found on the project's GitHub page.
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The Proxmox project has announced a new mirroring tool to help administrators keep up with software updates in a variety of scenarios. "We are proud to announce the first release of our new Proxmox Offline Mirror tool. With the Proxmox Offline Mirror tool, you can manage a local APT mirror for all package updates for Proxmox and Debian projects. From this local APT mirror you can create an external medium, for example a USB flash drive or a local network share, to update systems which cannot access the package repositories directly (or proxied) via the Internet. Such systems might be restricted by policies to access the public internet or are completely air-gapped. Finally, you can also manage subscriptions for such restricted hosts." Additional details can be found in the project's announcement.
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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) |
Remotely wiping hard drive
This-hard-drive-will-self-destruct asks: I'm looking to set my laptop up so that if it's ever stolen I can remotely access it and wipe the drive. I am using Btrfs as a file system, which I know shred won't work properly on. Any ideas?
DistroWatch answers: I have a few thoughts on this sort of setup. The first thing which comes to mind is it is true tools like shred won't work on files contained in copy-on-write filesystems such as Btrfs and ZFS. The attempts to overwrite these files before they are erased will fail under normal circumstances. However, this limitation is just for individual files within a filesystem. You can use tools like shred to erase entire disks. When you use shred on a whole disk it doesn't matter which filesystem you are using because the operation isn't working through the filesystem, it's operating on the raw disk.
In other words, using shred to erase each file individually on a Btrfs volume will fail. However, running shred on the disk device itself will work. For example, if your laptop's hard drive was called sda then you could run the following:
shred /dev/sda
In short, you can use shred for wiping a disk clean. However, there are a number of problems with the plan of logging into the laptop remotely and running a command to wipe the hard drive. In no particular order, these are some challenges you'll face:
- The laptop needs to be powered on and connected to a network. This means the person who stole it has been able to login to an account and make a network connection.
- The laptop needs to not be blocked from making (or accepting) networking connections, for example by a local firewall.
- The person who stole the laptop must not have removed your user account or changed your password, or replaced your operating system while still leaving your user data intact.
- You need to have a method in place for you to make the network connection happen. In other words, your laptop either needs to initiate a connection when it connects to a network, or it needs to be able to accept a network connection. If the former, your laptop will probably be opening a remote forwarding port using OpenSSH and connecting to a server you control. In the latter case you need some way to know the IP address of your laptop, maybe by having it send a ping or connecting to a remote service.
In short, this plan of remotely connecting to your laptop is probably not going to work. For it to be successful the person who stole it will need to be technology savvy enough to break into a local account and connect to the network on a Linux machine, while also not being savvy enough to know this is a bad idea. You're also relying on them not making backups or installing a fresh operating system before making themselves vulnerable to your plan. The thief also needs to stay on-line long enough for you to detect the laptop is on-line, sign in, and run the wipe command.
Chances are anyone who steals your laptop will either just wipe it immediately, change your login credentials, or make a backup before taking it on-line. In most cases trying to remotely wipe the disk won't help you. Not to mention you'd need to enable remote access and monitor for the laptop after it was stolen. This can be done, but it's a relatively large amount of work.
An easier approach is to set up disk (or home directory) encryption. Most Linux distributions make disk encryption a single-click process at install time. Simply click the "Encrypt disk" box during the initial install and enter a password. After that, your files are protected. As long as no one steals your laptop while you're logged in and the system is powered on (ie not in sleep mode) your information should be secure. This is an easier form of security to enable, it's more likely to work, and prevents anyone who steals your laptop from reading your files.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
SME Server 10.1
Terry Fage has announced the release of SME Server 10.1, an updated version of the project's specialist distribution for home servers. This version continues to be based on CentOS 7 and will be supported until June 2024: "The Koozali SME Server development team is pleased to announce the release of SME Server 10.1. This release is based on CentOS 7. CentOS 7 has an end of life on 30 June 2024. Koozali SME Server users are encouraged to upgrade production servers to this release. Major changes in this release: httpd access control using httpd 2.4 syntax; improve handling of logs between journalctl and rsyslog; improve logrotate scripts; better handling of pseudonyms; improve yum update without reboot; upgrade bglibs and cvm-unix to latest version; Contribs data are now part of core backup, improved handling of SSL certificates; increased level of security in term of encryption for all services; FTP is only available over TLS by default to avoid clear text exchanges on the network; PHP module is not used anymore by Apache server, we now use php-fpm 7.4 by default...." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information.
IPFire 2.27 Core 170
IPFire is a lightweight Linux distribution for use with firewalls and routers. The project has released a new update which introduces publicly supplied IP block lists. "he next Core Update is released: IPFire 2.27 - Core Update 170. It features new IP blocklists for the firewall engine, significant improvements to Pakfire, modernizes the default cryptographic algorithm selection for IPsec connections, as well as a new kernel, and a plethora of bug fixes and security improvements under the hood. IP-Reputation Blocking to keep known threats out: Based on prior development by Tim FitzGeorge, Stefan brought a new feature to the firewall engine, which allows the easy activation of various public IP-based blocklists, just by a single click." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
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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: 2,771
- 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) |
Remotely accessing your laptop
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about protecting a laptop's hard drive contents from capture. One of the options touched on was remotely accessing the laptop, which could lead to finding or erasing the stolen computer. We'd like to hear if you have a way to remotely connect to your computer when it's not in your home or office. Do you have a remote login option set up using dynamic DNS, a proxy, or utility which phones home to you? Let us know how you remotely access your machines in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using a root account versus sudo in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Remotely accessing a computer outside the LAN
| I use dynamic DNS: | 114 (9%) |
| I use a phone home service: | 5 (0%) |
| I use a proxy: | 13 (1%) |
| I use a third-party connection app: | 150 (12%) |
| I use another solution: | 67 (5%) |
| I do not have remote access outside the LAN: | 239 (19%) |
| I do not have remote access at all: | 651 (53%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to database
SpiralLinux
SpiralLinux is a selection of desktop spins built from Debian GNU/Linux, with a focus on simplicity and out-of-the-box usability across all the major desktop environments. SpiralLinux serves as an alternative live installation method for a highly reliable customized Debian system using only official Debian package repositories. Unlike Debian's official install media, SpiralLinux includes non-free firmware. It also provides popular media codecs out of the box.
SpiralLinux 11.220628 -- The Plasma application menu
(full image size: 1.2MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 26 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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| Archives |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • 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 | 
gNOX
gNOX was a Linux Operating System that you run from a CD without the need for installing. gNOX was based on the Slackware Linux distribution, and uses Dropline GNOME 2.6 as its default desktop manager, with XFce also available as the lightweight alternative. gNOX also employs a modular system. This means it was very easy to add extra software applications to gNOX by the means of modules (a growing selection available in the downloads section ) that you can permanently add to the ISO image OR run 'on the fly' from a stored location (hard drive/CD/USB drive). gNOX can be customised to suit YOUR needs, and any changes you make to the look of your gNOX can be saved, then restored again next time you use it!
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.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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