 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 996, 28 November 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 48th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
While many of the world's Linux distributions are built upon popular parent distributions - such as Fedora, Debian, and Arch - there are some projects which are independent. These projects often try out new or less commonly used technologies. This week we begin with a look at Void, a Linux distribution which is independent and runs an unusual combination of technologies. Void uses its own package manager, the rarely implemented runit init software, and offers multiple C libraries. Read on to learn more about this unique distribution. Then, in our News section, we talk about Debian's warning to users of its development branches that the Anacron service may have become disabled, preventing scheduled jobs from running in some cases. We also report on Fedora making its new web-based system installer available for testing. Plus, we talk about the Redox OS platform running on some physical hardware. We also offer tips on remotely shutting down a computer and how to set up complex command line aliases. Do you make your own command aliases? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. Plus, we are pleased to share details on the distribution 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) |
Void 20221001
The Void project produces an unusual Linux distribution with a number of special characteristics. The project is described on its website as follows:
Void is a general purpose operating system, based on the monolithic Linux kernel. Its package system allows you to quickly install, update and remove software; software is provided in binary packages or can be built directly from sources with the help of the XBPS source packages collection.
Void is a rolling release distribution which features the fast XBPS package manager which can work with both binary and source-based software. The distribution uses the super lightweight runit init software for booting the system and managing services. Void is also unusual in that it provides multiple builds, based on different C libraries. A C library is a core component of the operating system. While most Linux distributions use the glibc library, Void offers both glibc and musl libc varieties for most supported architectures. Speaking of CPU architectures, Void provides 32-bit (x86), 64-bit (x86_64), and ARM builds of its distribution. Most of these builds are available in both muslc and glibc variants. I decided to focus on the x86_64 editions and selected glibc as I figured it would be more likely to work with a wide variety of software.
At this point I could also choose whether to take a minimal Base edition or an edition with the Xfce desktop. I decided to take the desktop edition. The Base edition is 650MB in size while the Xfce edition is still relatively small by modern standards, weighing in at 983MB.
Booting from the live media brings up a menu offering to run the distribution from the media or to load Void entirely into RAM to run from memory. The distribution boots unusually quickly, even from the live media, and presents us with the Xfce desktop in under five seconds.
The Void project publishes default login credentials on their download page, though I did not find they were necessary for testing and installing the operating system.
The Xfce desktop is arranged with a thin panel at the top of the screen which holds the application menu, task switcher, and system tray. At the bottom we find a dock with application launchers. There are icons on the desktop for launching the Thunar file manager to browse the filesystem in various places.
Void 20221001 -- Browsing the application menu
(full image size: 321kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Installing
There is no launcher for the system installer on the desktop or in the application menu. According to Void's documentation we can launch the system installer by running void-installer from the command line.
Void uses a text-based menu system to configure the operating system and install it. This series of text menus walks us through selecting our keyboard layout, enabling networking, choosing a preferred language, and setting a root password. The keyboard and language codes are short and cryptic - using "en_US" rather than "English (American)", for example - and this may take less experienced users by surprise. We are asked to partition the hard drive, also with console-based tools. We can use fdisk or cfdisk to carve up the disk. Another series of menus then walk us through assigning filesystems or swap space to the partitions. We have the option of making a regular user account and setting its password. The installer copies its files to the local drive, operating unusually quickly. The whole process can take as little as five minutes, even on my less-than-high-end equipment.
Early impressions
My new copy of Void booted almost instantly to the login screen. This is one of the fastest booting systems I've encountered in its time from power on to graphical environment. From the login screen I was able to sign into my account which presented me with the Xfce 4.16 desktop.
Void 20221001 -- The Xfce desktop and the Thunar file manager
(full image size: 314kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The Xfce desktop appears to be set up to be as vanilla and uncustomized as possible. The system doesn't use any special or eye-catching themes, no welcome window, and no pop-ups. The distribution simply leaves us to explore and adjust the environment as we wish.
One odd characteristic of Void is there is no volume control in the system tray. We can access networking features, but no audio features from the system tray. This has been the case for a few years now and I find it an odd default to assume users won't want to adjust their sound levels.
Hardware
I found Void ran smoothly in VirtualBox. The distribution was fast and responsive, in particular when booting. Menus and applications were quick to respond too. This performance continued when I ran Void on my laptop where the distribution always felt snappy.
As I mentioned before, the system doesn't include an audio mixer in the system tray or in the application menu. When I installed one while running Void from my laptop, I found that even with the mixer installed the distribution could not detect my sound card. This is really unusual and, even after reading the section on working with sound systems in the documentation, I was unable to get audio working on my laptop. I thought this was an interesting development, because a month previously I ran Redcore Linux on this laptop and had the same issue with my sound system not being detected. However, other distributions I've run on this laptop recently (including XeroLinux, SpiralLinux, and MX Linux) have all handed the sound system of this laptop flawlessly.
At first audio did not work when I was running Void in VirtualBox either. However, I found the audio was simply muted. Once I had installed audio mixers and adjusted the volume (of both the ALSA and PulseAudio sound systems) I was able to play audio files and hear streaming videos.
Apart from the audio issue, the distribution correctly handled my hardware. Networking and video resolution worked as expected. By default my touchpad did not register taps as clicks, but this can be adjusted in the Xfce settings panel.
Void is a small and lightweight operating system, especially compared to most mainstream desktop distributions. A fresh install takes 2.2GB of disk space, about a third of the size of many mainstream distributions. When signed into Xfce the operating system Void uses a mere 320MB of RAM, which makes it lighter than most desktop distributions, particularly those running KDE Plasma and members of the GNOME family.
Included software
The distribution does not include many applications by default. The Firefox web browser is included along with an image viewer, a system monitor, and the Thunar file manager. The Parole media player is included along with codecs for playing video and audio files. The sudo utility is present for performing administrative tasks. Void includes the GNU command line utilities and manual pages. There are no compilers on the system.
Void 20221001 -- The Xfce settings panel
(full image size: 307kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Behind the scenes, Void uses the blazingly fast and lightweight runit init software which I'll touch on later. The install media ships with version 5.19 of the Linux kernel.
We are not given common tools like LibreOffice or an email client. These can be added later through the package manager.
Package management
The Void distribution doesn't ship with any graphical software centre. Working with packages happens on the command line and uses the XBPS package manager. We have a short cheatsheet for XBPS and the Void documentation has more details and examples.
Void 20221001 -- Performing package upgrades
(full image size: 380kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The XBPS package manager works quickly and it has fairly clear output. However, its command line syntax is a bit cryptic. Some package managers use a single command with an English verb which I find easy to use. For example, "apt install", "apt upgrade", "apt remove", and "apt search" are fairly straight forward. XBPS uses separate commands, with fairly clear names, but with some strange syntax for upgrades and searches. The equivalent XBPS commands are "xbps-install", "xbps-install -Su", "xbps-remove", and "xbps-query -Rs".
I soon got into the flow of using XBPS and it worked well for me. I had no problems when performing upgrades or installing new packages.
One of Void's key features is the ability to easily work with source packages. The Void source framework can be built using the xbps-src utility. This allows us to change build-time flags and dependencies for software in the distribution's repository. Usually this will not be necessary and building from source is a lot slower than installing pre-built binary files, but this is convenient for people who need to tweak low-level features of their software.
runit
Another special feature of Void is the runit init software and service manager. As I mentioned earlier, runit is unusually light and super fast. Void boots in less than half the time of most distributions I've trialed with systemd or SysV init software. Despite its small nature, runit can be fairly flexible and its service manager provides some convenient features such as optionally automatically restarting crashed services.
Managing runit services is closely tied to the filesystem and uses symbolic links to sort out which services will be started by default. The syntax for managing services is fairly simple and is handled by the sv command, which is detailed in the manual pages.
Once I got used to the location of service files and a few basic sv commands, I felt quite at home with runit and appreciated its simplicity.
Conclusions
There are a lot of aspects of the Void distribution I enjoy. The project walks a tightrope between being too minimal and cryptic on one side and being full featured and heavy on the other. Everything seems to be set up to provide just enough features to get things done, but without providing any more than is necessary.
The installer, for example, has easy to navigate screens, but they're text-based and sometimes use short-hand, terse messages. Someone who has been around Linux for a while can navigate it, but it's not a simple point-n-click experience. The same goes for package management. There is a very capable package manager, but no graphical front-end. There is a very fast and flexible service manager accompanied by useful documentation, but again no graphical tools to make it easy for newcomers.
Void 20221001 -- The Void documentation
(full image size: 493kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Basically, Void is set up to be "easy" to use for experienced users while probably being too minimal or cryptic for beginners. It's a lot faster and more convenient to set up Void than, for example, Gentoo or Arch, while also being a far cry short of the beginner friendly experience of Linux Mint. Which, for someone like me, is pretty ideal. I've been using Linux for over 20 years and can navigate the command line easier than I can read the menus at some restaurants. At the same time, I want the experience to be quick and easy (for my skill level). I don't want to spend time customizing, tweaking compile flags, and hunting down drivers. I just want to use my computer, have it work efficiently, and stay out of my way. I'm not too worried about the distinction of working on the command line or the desktop, as long as the tools I want are available and the documentation is clear.
Void very nicely fits into this niche - of being convenient to use for more experienced users, of being efficient, of staying out of the way. It's not particularly pretty, it's not beginner oriented, it doesn't have flashy GUIs or welcome windows. But it has enough features and performance for me to pretty much install it and get to work in five minutes. Which is really nice.
Void certainly isn't for everyone. If you want graphical administration tools, if you want a huge repository of official software the way Debian or Ubuntu has then Void isn't ideal. It's more minimal, it's smaller, it has fewer packages. But it probably has enough for most people.
My one key complaint this time around, as with the last time I used the distribution, is the surprising lack of out of the box audio support. I could get audio working in VirtualBox, with some effort, but it requires installing and running a sound mixer and maybe setting it to auto-run to make it accessible each time we login. It's something I haven't had to do with other desktop Linux distributions and I'm not sure why the Void team continues to ignore this common feature. Otherwise, I think Void strikes a good balance, at least for more experienced users who want performance and have no need for hand holding.
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Visitor supplied rating
Void has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9.3/10 from 128 review(s).
Have you used Void? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Debian warns Anacron service may be disabled, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Redox OS runs on some real hardware
The Debian project has published a summary of developer news. One of the items is likely to also affect users who run Debian's Testing or Unstable branches. People running one of these development branches may find their Anacron service is no longer enabled, which can cause cron jobs to no longer run when expected: "If you run Debian Testing/Unstable and ever installed anacron 2.3-33 on a systemd based system, then anacron will no longer be enabled and the daily/weekly/monthly cron jobs will not be run until it is. Since not all cron jobs have migrated to systemd timers, Debian Testing/Unstable systems with systemd and anacron may be missing some essential cron jobs, such as making backups of [the] aptitude state."
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The Fedora team is in the process of testing out a new system installer with a web-based user interface. The new installer can be run on test media which the developers hope will provide users with the chance to report feedback. "We are excited to announce the first public preview image of the new Anaconda web interface! Our vision is to reimagine and modernize our installer's user experience (see our blog post Anaconda is getting a new suit). We are doing this by redesigning the user experience on all fronts to make it more easy and approachable for everyone to use. Today, we would like to introduce our plans for the public preview release, as our new project has already reached a point where core code functionality is already developed and the new interface can be used for real installations." Details on the new test images and the web-based installer can be found in a Fedora Magazine post.
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Redox OS is a Unix-like operating system written in Rust which features a microkernel and a number of shifts in design in an attempt to modernise the operating system. Up until now Redox OS was almost entirely limited to running in virtual machines, but the open source operating system is making strides and is now compatible with a number of physical hardware components. "We have a lot to show since the 0.7.0 release! This release, care has been taken to ensure real hardware is working, i686 support has been added, features like audio and preliminary multi-display support have been enabled, and the boot and install infrastructure has been simplified and made more robust." The announcement lists supported hardware and warns this release does not yet work with USB or wi-fi devices.
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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 shutting down and complex aliases
Shutting-it-all-down asks: I have my computer set up so I can SSH into it to check on things. Is there any way I can suspend the machine remotely?
DistroWatch answers: There are a few ways to put a computer into suspend/sleep mode remotely on the command line. One is to run the pm-suspend command. If you're not logged in as root you may need to prefix the command with sudo, for example:
sudo pm-suspend
On distributions which use the systemd software you should also be able to run the systemctl command as follows:
sudo systemctl suspend
Keep in mind that using either of these commands will likely cause your secure shell connection to immediately freeze when the suspend command takes effect. In other words, it'll seem like your remote shell has locked up. You can force OpenSSH to drop the frozen connecting by pressing the ~ key followed by a period. (~.).
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Making-things-complex asks: I've been setting up aliases to act as shortcuts on the command line. Some of the stuff I want to do involves quoting parameters, like "foo=bar --value='do this'", but the quotes mess up the alias. Any advice?
DistroWatch answers: An alias, for those who haven't used them, is basically a bookmark on the command line. When you set up an alias, whenever you type the name of the alias, the value of the alias gets substituted in its place.
For example, if I create an alias called "hi" which has the value "echo hello world", each time I type the command "hi" in my shell, the text "hello world" will get printed to the screen. It looks like this:
$ alias hi="echo hello world"
$ hi
hello world
Usually this sort of thing is done to help us avoid repeating long commands over and over. For instance, I might set up an alias called "update" which runs "apt update; apt upgrade", thereby saving me some typing each time I want to upgrade all the packages on my system.
Assuming I understand the issue in the question correctly, when you're setting up a shell alias you're typing something like this:
alias foo=bar --value='do this'
Which does not work because the space between the "bar" and the "--value" tells the alias command it has hit the end of the alias. You can fix this by placing double-quotes around your alias, for example:
alias foo="bar --value='do this'"
In situations where you find yourself making more complex aliases, perhaps stringing multiple commands together or using quoted parameters, it might be worth looking at creating a script instead of an alias. An alias is great for short, simple commands. For more complex tasks a one or two line shell script can work just as well and be easier to enhance in the future.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Oracle Linux 8.7
Simon Coter has announced the availability of Oracle Linux 8.7, an updated release of Oracle's Linux distribution (its legacy 8.x branch) built from source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL): "The Oracle Linux team is pleased to announce the availability of the Oracle Linux 8 Update 7 release for the 64-bit Intel and AMD (x86_64) and 64-bit Arm (aarch64) platforms. As with all Oracle Linux releases, this release is 100% application binary compatible with the corresponding Red Hat Enterprise Linux release. Notable changes are in the areas of security and high availability and enable customers to manage their systems more efficiently by simplifying administration tasks and operations at scale. Network Security Services (NSS) libraries are updated to set the minimum key size for all RSA operations from 128 to 1023 bits. Greater compliance with the DISA's STIG requirements for Oracle Linux 8, part of the updated scap-security-guidepackage. Enhancements have been introduced for Pacemaker, including 'multiple-active', 'allow-unhealthy-node', access control lists and UUID for Pacemaker clusters." Read the release announcement and the release notes for more details.
Proxmox 7.3 "Virtual Environment"
Proxmox is a commercial company offering specialised products based on Debian GNU/Linux. The company's latest release is Promix 7.3 "Virtual Environment" which is based on Debian 11.5 and supports ZFS storage volumes. "Proxmox Virtual Environment 7.3 comes with initial support for Cluster Resource Scheduling, enables updates for air-gapped systems with the new Proxmox Offline Mirror tool, and has improved UX for various management tasks, as well as interesting storage technologies like ZFS dRAID and countless enhancements and bugfixes. Here is a selection of the highlights: Debian 11.5 'Bullseye', but using a newer Linux kernel 5.15 or 5.19. QEMU 7.1, LXC 5.0.0, and ZFS 2.1.6. Ceph Quincy 17.2.5 and Ceph Pacific 16.2.10; heuristical checks to see if it is safe to stop or remove a service instance (MON, MDS, OSD). Initial support for a Cluster Resource Scheduler (CRS). Proxmox Offline Mirror. Tagging virtual guests in the web interface. CPU pinning: Easier affinity control using taskset core lists. New container templates: Fedora, Ubuntu, Alma Linux, Rocky Linux. Reworked USB devices: can now be hot-plugged. ZFS dRAID pools. Proxmox Mobile: based on Flutter 3.0" Further information is provided in the company's release announcement and in the release notes.
Alpine Linux 3.17.0
Alpine Linux is a community developed operating system designed for routers, firewalls, VPNs, VoIP boxes, containers and servers. The project's latest release is version 3.17.0 which upgrades OpenSSL to the 3.0 series. The release announcement offers details: "We are pleased to announce the release of Alpine Linux 3.17.0, the first in the v3.17 stable series. Significant changes: OpenSSL 3.0 is now the default OpenSSL version; OpenSSL 1.1 is available via the openssl1.1-compat package; Rust is now available on all supported architectures. Upgrade notes: as always, make sure to use 'apk upgrade --available' when switching between major versions. Deprecation notes: PHP 8.0 has been deprecated; ISC Kea moved to main repository for long time support while ISC dhcp moved to community repository; Users of dhcpd are encouraged to migrate to Kea. Changes: the full list of changes can be found in the wiki, git log and bug tracker."
BlueOnyx 5211R
Michael Stauber has announced the release of a new version of BlueOnyx, a specialist server distribution which provides a fully-integrated internet hosting platform. Version 5211R is based on AlmaLinux 9.1: "We just published the first ISO image of our new BlueOnyx 5211R (AlmaLinux 9.1) to the download mirrors. The ISO image provides the usual installation options that you might already know from previous BlueOnyx ISO installs. Just boot off the ISO image and in the boot menu choose your form of installation and the rest of the procedure is entirely free of user input. After the reboot at the end of the installation, login to your new BlueOnyx 5211R server with the login details shown on the screen. That will automatically launch network_settings.sh to perform the initial network configuration. It may be that after configuring the network details for the very first time after installation, the server still has no network connection due to the gateway settings not having been applied correctly by NetworkManager. If that's the case, simply reboot." Here is the brief release announcement.
BlueOnyx 5211R -- Accessing the web interface
(full image size: 117kB, resolution: 972x638 pixels)
UBports 16.04 OTA-24
UBports is a community project which develops a GNU/Linux distribution for mobile devices. The project's latest update is UBports 16.04 OTA-24 which introduces a number of improvements, particularly with handling text messages and fingerprint unlocking. "Note: This is the last OTA for Ubuntu 16.04 (xenial) with major features. The next OTA-25 will be mainly security fixes and long-term support updates for xenial. Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal) base has progressed quite far and so we are preparing everything for the switch. This also means that we will prepare OTA support for 20.04! Fingerprint unlock: More backoff time between read retries. Initial gesture support with double-tap to wake for selected devices. Handle sms:// URL scheme to open messaging-app properly Aethercast: 1080p support, various other fixes. messaging-app and sms/mms middleware: Various fixes. Media buttons on headsets work for most devices. Mir-Android-Platform performance tweaks, configurable." Additional information along with install and upgrade instructions can be found in the project's release announcement. A list of supported devices and download options can be found on the project's devices page.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,795
- Total data uploaded: 42.6TB
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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) |
Do you create your own command line aliases?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about command aliases and how to include complex parameters. Aliases are shortcuts which help the user run long or complex commands with a short-hand command. We'd like to hear from our readers if you create your own command line aliases.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using a swap partition versus a swap file in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you create your own aliases?
| Yes - I make my own aliases: | 539 (45%) |
| No - but I use aliases provided by my distro: | 139 (12%) |
| No - I do not use aliases: | 521 (43%) |
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| Website News |
Donations and Sponsors
Each month we receive support and kindness from our readers in the forms of donations. These donations help us keep the web server running, pay contributors, and keep infrastructure like our torrent seed box running. We'd like to thank our generous readers and acknowledge how much their contributions mean to us.
This month we're grateful for the $89 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| Henry T | $19 |
| John T | $18 |
| Ronald M | $10 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| Joshua L | $5 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| DuCakedHare | $5 |
| Matt | $5 |
| Joe H | $3 |
| Vory | $3 |
| J.D. L | $2 |
| PB C | $2 |
| c6WWldo9 | $1 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- Exodia OS. Exodia OS is an Arch-based distribution which can be installed the Calamares system installer. It features the bspwm tiling window manager and offers multiple editions geared toward general purpose computing and penetration testing.
- risiOS. risiOS is a Fedora-based distribution which provides utilities to further customize and tweak the distribution, making it easier to add codecs, third-party packages, and web-apps.
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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, 5 December 2022. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. 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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| Linux Foundation Training |
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Issue 993 (2022-11-07): Static Linux, working with just a kernel, Mint streamlines Flatpak management, updates coming to elementary OS |
| • Issue 992 (2022-10-31): Lubuntu 22.10, setting permissions on home directories, Linux may drop i486, Fedora delays next version for OpenSSL bug |
| • Issue 991 (2022-10-24): XeroLinux 2022.09, learning who ran sudo, exploring firewall tools, Rolling Rhino Remix gets a fresh start, Fedora plans to revamp live media |
| • Issue 990 (2022-10-17): ravynOS 0.4.0, Lion Linux 3.0, accessing low numbered network ports, Pop!_OS makes progress on COSMIC, Murena launches new phone |
| • Issue 989 (2022-10-10): Ubuntu Unity, kernel bug causes issues with Intel cards, Canonical offers free Ubuntu Pro subscriptions, customizing the command line prompt |
| • Issue 988 (2022-10-03): SpiralLinux 11.220628, finding distros for older equipment and other purposes, SUSE begins releasing ALP prototypes, Debian votes on non-free firmware in installer |
| • Issue 987 (2022-09-26): openSUSE's MicroOS, converting people to using Linux, pfSense updates base system and PHP, Python 2 dropped from Arch |
| • Issue 986 (2022-09-19): Porteus 5.0, remotely wiping a hard drive, a new software centre for Ubuntu, Proxmox offers offline updates |
| • Issue 985 (2022-09-12): Garuda Linux, using root versus sudo, UBports on the Fairphone 4, Slackware reverses change to grep |
| • Issue 984 (2022-09-05): deepin 23 Preview, watching for changing to directories, Mint team tests Steam Deck, Devuan posts fix for repository key expiry |
| • Issue 983 (2022-08-29): Qubes OS 4.1.1, Alchg Linux, immutable operating systems, Debian considers stance on non-free firmware, Arch-based projects suffer boot issue |
| • Issue 982 (2022-08-22): Peropesis 1.6.2, KaOS strips out Python 2 and PulseAudio, deepin becomes independent, getting security update notifications |
| • Issue 981 (2022-08-15): Linux Lite 6.0, defining desktop environments and window managers, Mint releases upgrade tool, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 980 (2022-08-08): Linux Mint 21, Pledge on Linux, SparkyLinux updates classic desktop packages, Peppermint OS experiments with Devuan base |
| • Issue 979 (2022-08-01): KaOS 2022.06 and KDE Plasma 5.25, terminating processes after a set time, GNOME plans Secure Boot check |
| • Issue 978 (2022-07-25): EndeavourOS 22.6, Slax explores a return to Slackware, Ubuntu certified with Dell's XPS 13, Linux running on Apple's M2 |
| • Issue 977 (2022-07-18): EasyOS 4.2, transferring desktop themes between distros, Tails publishes list of updates, Zevenet automates Let's Encrypt renewals |
| • Issue 976 (2022-07-11): NixOS 22.05, making a fake webcam, exploring the Linux scheduler, Debian publishes updated media |
| • Issue 975 (2022-07-04): Murena One running /e/OS, where are all the openSUSE distributions, Fedora to offer unfiltered Flathub access |
| • Issue 974 (2022-06-27): AlmaLinux 9.0, the changing data of DistroWatch's database, UBports on the Pixel 3a, Tails and GhostBSD publish hot fixes |
| • Issue 973 (2022-06-20): openSUSE 15.4, collecting distro media, FreeBSD status report, Ubuntu Core with optional real-time kernel |
| • Issue 972 (2022-06-13): Rolling Rhino Remix, SambaBox 4.1, SUSE team considers future of SUSE and openSUSE Leap, Tails improves Tor Connection Assistant |
| • Issue 971 (2022-06-06): ChimeraOS 2022.01.03, Lilidog 22.04, NixOS gains graphical installer, Mint replaces Bluetooth stack and adopts Timeshift, how to change a MAC address |
| • Issue 970 (2022-05-30): Tails 5.0, taking apart a Linux distro, Ubuntu users seeing processes terminated, Budgie team plans future of their desktop |
| • Full list of all issues |
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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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