 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 997, 5 December 2022 |
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Welcome to this year's 49th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
These days rolling release distributions are quite popular, especially for desktop computing where people often want to be able to enjoy the latest features and updates. While many rolling parent distributions (Gentoo, Void, and Arch Linux, to name a few) require more technical experience to set up, these independent projects have given rise to whole families of user friendly distributions with point-n-click system installers. This week we begin with quick looks at two such child distributions: CachyOS from the Arch family and AgarimOS from the Void family. Read on to learn more about these two, young distributions. In our News section we talk about the openSUSE distribution slowly phasing out support for older 64-bit processors while, at the same time, openSUSE 15.3 Leap nears the end of its supported life. Plus we discuss new features coming to the conservative Xfce desktop environment. Xfce 4.18 is scheduled to be released later this month and we link to highlights this desktop's users can expect in the new version. Then, in our Questions and Answers column we talk about how to work with (and remove) files on Linux which contain special characters. Some characters in filenames can confuse command line tools and we offer tips for working around this problem. Do you do anything to scrub special or unusual characters from filenames? Let us know about your approach in this week's Opinion Poll. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
CachyOS 221023
Last week I took to the DistroWatch waiting list in search of new distributions to try. One which caught my eye was CachyOS. The distribution's website describes the project as follows:
"CachyOS is a Linux distribution based on Arch Linux. The default Linux kernel is linux-cacule which is the Arch Linux stock kernel plus the CacULE CPU Scheduler.
The project currently supplies three editions: KDE (2.2GB), GNOME (2.2GB), and a self-described command line edition which is 952MB. The command line (CLI) edition doesn't appear to be updated as often or as recently as the desktop editions. The CLI edition is eight months old at the time of writing while the two desktop editions are just over a month old.
The distribution's website mentions some key features, including the Cachy-Browser which is a web browser forked from LibreWolf. The website also mentions a tool called Firejail Toggle which will enable sandboxing for recognized applications. The CachyOS website also mentions one-click support for installing the operating system on ZFS, an advanced filesystem. Alternatives, XFS, ext4, Btrfs, and F2FS are reportedly supported at install time.
I decided to download the KDE edition of CachyOS. Booting from the provided media brings up a menu offering to start the live distribution normally or with NVIDIA drivers enabled. The system loads and presents us with the KDE Plasma desktop with a strong blue-on-blue theme. A panel is placed along the bottom of the screen with the desktop's application menu and system tray. A dock-like set of launchers appears in the middle of the panel.
Once the live desktop loads, a welcome screen appears. This screen is divided into three columns. In the first column we find buttons which provide us with documentation, release information, and a link to the project's wiki. The second column includes a link to the forum and a button called "Software" which connects us with the distribution's repository of custom package builds. The third column links us to source code and tips for getting involved with developing the distribution. At the bottom of the welcome window is a button which launches the Calamares system installer.
The welcome screen also features a drop-down menu where we can select our preferred language. Strangely, selecting different languages doesn't do anything. The welcome window and the Plasma desktop remain displaying English, regardless of which language I picked.
CachyOS 221023 -- Running the Plasma desktop
(full image size: 465kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Installing
When we launch the Calamares installer the system first displays two buttons labelled Online and Offline. No explanation is given for this choice, but presumably this indicates where Calamares will find the distribution's packages. I opted to try the Offline option first as it seemed likely to be more simple and therefore less vulnerable to error.
Calamares walks us through the standard questions concerning our preferred language, time zone, and locale. We can pick a keyboard layout and then we get to disk partitioning. There are two main options: guided or manual. The manual approach offers a friendly, fairly easy point-n-click experience. The guided approach asks us to pick which filesystem to use: ext4, Btrfs, ZFS, or XFS. I noted F2FS was not one of the options, though it was advertised on the CachyOS website. I decided to use ZFS as it was mentioned on the project's website in multiple places as a one-click option. I then made up a username and password for myself. The installer finished and immediately closed.
Early impressions
The first time I tried to launch my new copy of CachyOS, the system reported no boot medium was found. Digging through the project's documentation revealed what I think was the problem. It looks like, in Offline mode, the system installer doesn't know how to set up ZFS support. We need to not only pick ZFS as a guided filesystem option, we also need to pick a kernel which supports ZFS from a list of packages which are only shown in Online mode.
I decided to go through the process again, this time using Offline mode and asking Calamares to set up CachyOS on an ext4 filesystem. The installer completed its work and reported it had completed successfully. When I restarted the computer this time I was shown a boot menu. Then the system started systemd which immediately dropped me to a minimal, emergency shell. The system failed to proceed further.
Installing (again)
Since my first two attempts at installing CachyOS were done in Offline mode, and failed terribly, I tried again in Online mode. The Online mode of Calamares is almost identical, with two exceptions. The first is we get to pick our preferred desktop from a list. Most popular, open source desktops are supported and I decided to stick with the default KDE Plasma option. The next page then offers to let us select groups of optional packages we want to install. These include bundles for printing support, special kernels, and drivers. My first time through, Calamares crashed when it got to this screen.
My next time through the install process, I got through the desktop picker and package selection screens. Then the installer went to work copying files to my hard drive. Calamares got to 41% completion and locked up, reportedly while checking the integrity of a package (it didn't say which one).
Since my first four attempts had all failed with the graphical version of CachyOS, I decided to try the command line (CLI) edition. The CLI edition is somewhat misnamed; the live disc boots to a graphical environment, powered by a minimal window manager called dwm.
I couldn't find any documentation on the CachyOS website which explained how to install the distribution from the CLI edition. I eventually, through some guess work, identified a program called cachyos-installer which I could run from the command line. We're walked through a series of text menus, not unlike the Slackware or Void installers. However, after selecting my keyboard layout and doing some disk partitioning with cfdisk, I ask asked to confirm my package mirror configuration and refresh the distribution's verification keys. The installer crashed upon starting the verification step.
Conclusions
At this point I'd tried installing CachyOS five times, sticking as close as possible to the defaults and advertised features. Each attempt had been a clear failure and so I decided to move on to another project.
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AgarimOS
The next project on my list of distributions to test drive was AgarimOS. The project's website describes the creation as follows:
AgarimOS is a respin of Void Linux with a customized Plasma.
This is a short and simple description, but it's one which appealed to me. I very much enjoy the design and style of the Void distribution. I love how lightweight and clean it is. Void is a rare, special gem in the Linux community. However, it doesn't have a lot of polish on the desktop. Its default desktops are bland and more akin to a collection of parts than a designed experience. Also, Void, for some reason, refuses to ship with an audio mixer and leaves the volume on mute, which makes working with media applications and streaming media a hurdle. The idea of a distribution which takes Void's base and technologies and puts a polished KDE Plasma desktop on top greatly appeals to me.
The AgarimOS project appears to be constantly updating and replacing its ISO file, deleting old versions off the download mirrors and uploading new ones. The version I downloaded was 1.4GB in size.
Booting from the provided ISO image brings up the KDE Plasma desktop. A panel is placed across the bottom of the screen. This panel holds our application menu and system tray. Exploring the live environment offers no welcome window or documentation. We're just left to look around. If the system is left too long the screen locks and we can unlock it using he password "voidlinux".
As with Void itself, we can launch the system installer by running the command sudo void-installer in a terminal. The virtual terminal uses a cutesy rainbow prompt with hearts in it, which is a bit hard on the eyes.
Installing
AgarimOS uses the Void system installer and, as far as I can tell, hasn't made any changes to it. I've talked about Void's installer in previous reviews and this seems to be the same collection of menu-based text screens. The installer isn't pretty, but it works - much like the rest of the Void distribution.
AgarimOS installed successfully and booted to a graphical login screen where we can sign into the KDE Plasma desktop. Both X11 and Wayland sessions are offered. By default the login screen selects the "anon" username, though this user does not exist on the system. A problem I ran into early on was if I didn't log into my account within a few minutes the login screen would lock itself. At this point it was not possible to unlock the login screen and I had to force a reboot in order to get back to a functioning login screen.
AgarimOS 20221114 -- Exploring the Plasma application menu
(full image size: 421kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
My initial impression of the KDE Plasma session was the desktop was painfully slow to respond. The desktop often took a few seconds to open new menus or draw windows. It was unstable too. The desktop would often crash when launching new applications or switching between open windows. The system rarely remained running for more than a few minutes at a time.
I went into the Plasma System Settings panel and found disabling the compositor helped a lot. This greatly improved desktop performance and made the system crash less often. Plasma would still crash sometimes or elements, like the panel, would disappear during sessions. Even with visual effects and compositing disabled the desktop remained unstable, even though it became much faster.
While not a bug, I found the default theme colours to be unusual. The desktop often displays light blue text on a dark blue background, which is hard to read. Other times, a higher contrast font is used, for example on the application menu. The Dolphin file manager takes a third approach, using soft purple on black. This gives the desktop a disjointed, sometimes hard to read appearance.
Applications
AgarimOS ships with a small collection of applications. Firefox is included as are the Dolphin file manager and Kate text editor. There is no media player and no productivity suite, but we can install these if we wish. I did install a media player, VLC, and it worked.
The distribution also includes the GNU Compiler Collection and the runit init software. Not a lot of other utilities are included, but can be added from Void's repositories.
As with its parent, AgarimOS mutes audio by default. However, unlike its parent, the distribution features a system tray audio mixer which can be used to enable audio output and turn up the volume.
The distribution is relatively light, using about 4GB of disk space for a fresh install and consuming about 460MB of RAM when logged into the Plasma session.
Software management
As with its parent, AgarimOS includes the XBPS package manager. This is a fast and capable package manager, though its syntax is, at times, cryptic. For people who would like a more friendly interface, AgarimOS also includes a graphical front-end to handle software called OctoXBPS. This front-end is simple, just showing an alphabetical list of packages by default. However, I was able to perform upgrades, search for items I wanted, and install new packages without any problems. OctoXBPS works quickly and, while its aim is to deal with low-level packages rather than desktop applications, it is fairly straight forward to operate.
AgarimOS 20221114 -- Installing new software packages
(full image size: 512kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Conclusions
The AgarimOS distribution has some strong positive points to it. I very much enjoy its Void base along with the init software and package manager which come with it. The OctoXBPS package front-end and system installer are bare bones, as you'd expect from Void, but also functional.
There are some serious problems with this distribution though. The terrible desktop performance and the lack of stability undercut its parent's strengths in these areas. The weird mixture of colours and themes didn't help the situation either. Having the login screen lock up and refuse to come back was a serious issue that would keep me from installing AgarimOS in most environments - any place where someone might possibly not be logged in immediately and continuously.
I do like some of the little touches which build on Void's successes. Having a volume control by default, for example, was nice. I didn't like the default theme, but at least it was interesting to look at, as opposed to Void's vanilla appearance.
AgarimOS needs some polish and some stability fixes before I'd recommend it, but I like the basic idea of building on Void's foundation and hope the project continues to progress.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
openSUSE phasing out older 64-bit CPUs, openSUSE 15.3 nears its end of life, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce 4.18
The openSUSE distribution is going to be making a significant change to its rolling release branch, named Tumbleweed. Support for older 64-bit (x86_64) processors is being phased out. "Tumbleweed and openSUSE other distributions are built for old x86-64-v1 hardware and transitioning to x86-64-v2 will require community efforts to support users with hardware that can't make the transition to the microarchitecture.
The 'openSUSE Factory repository is repurposed to move forward with x86-64-v2,' wrote Tumbleweed release manager Dominique Leuenberger in an email to the openSUSE Factory mailing list. A new repository 'will be set up as openSUSE Factory currently exists today. This change is necessary to align with the SUSE Factory first policy to keep aligned with the project's sponsor's development efforts.
That new repository looks like it will be named openSUSE:Factory:LegacyX86 and volunteers would be needed to maintain aspects of the repository designed for x86-64-v1 users." Additional details can be found in the openSUSE project's news post.
Also on the subject of openSUSE, Marcus Meissner has sent out a reminder that openSUSE 15.3 Leap is nearing the end of its supported life. People still running version 15.3 are advised to upgrade to 15.4 before the end of the year. "SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3 leaves its regular maintenance and support phase on December 31st 2022. As openSUSE Leap 15.3 uses the SLES 15 SP3 updates, also openSUSE Leap 15.3 support from openSUSE Maintenance and Security will end on December 31st 2022. An upgrade to openSUSE Leap 15.4 is recommended."
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The elementary OS team have published their November newsletter which outlines work going into the distribution. One change will be especially welcome for people on metered or slow Internet connections: "In other 6.1 news, we recently fixed an issue on our Flatpak remote that was preventing delta updates from being generated, so expect your future Flatpak updates to be much smaller file sizes. For developers wanting to try the new Icon Browser we also fixed a reported crash on startup."
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New stable releases of the Xfce desktop do not happen very often. When they do, it is usually to introduce incremental changes and improvements which cause the desktop environment to evolve rather than make sharp changes. The OMG Ubuntu website shares a post which covers the key features in the upcoming release of Xfce 4.18 which is expected to be launched December 15th, 2022. "Nearly two years of development has gone in to shaping Xfce 4.18, which is due for release on December 15, 2022. The release will be the stable series follow-up to Xfce 4.16 which debuted back in Christmas of 2020 (and brought some cool new features like fractional scaling support). Keen to discover what's new and improved in the latest version of this lightweight desktop I've dug through code commits, developer tweets, and the odd bug report or two to write-up this run-down about what to expect."
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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) |
Working with filenames which contain special characters
Feeling-special asks: How does one go about working with files that lead with a "-" in the name, like "-f"? Someone made a file named "-f" and I can't find a way to delete it, apart from using the GUI file manager.
DistroWatch answers: The problem here is that the command to remove files, which is called rm, treats parameters you pass to it that start with a dash symbol (-) as options. For example, "rm -f myfile" means to force the removal of myfile without prompting to confirm it's okay.
This means if you run "rm -f" the rm command thinks you are asking it to force the removal of a file, but you haven't yet named the file to be removed. It doesn't recognize that, in this context, you're asking it to delete a file called "-f". We need a way to distinguish command line flags from the names of files we want removed.
There are two fairly straight forward ways to do this. The more universal approach is to specify a more complete path name for the file. The file is named "-f", which is confusing to the rm command. But if we specify the file's directory location, the rm command will recognize it. We can do this with either a full path name or a relative one. For example, here we specify we want to remove the "-f" file from the directory we are in. The directory we are in can always be referenced by a period:
rm ./-f
We can also use a full path name, for example here I remove the "-f" file from my home directory:
rm /home/jesse/-f
Another approach which should work on most flavours of Linux and the BSDs is to separate command options from filenames using double dashes (--). This doesn't work everywhere as not all programs recognize double dashes as a separator. Here I tell the rm command to remove a file called "-f" and indicate it is a file to be worked on, not an option flag, by using the double dashes:
rm -- -f
If I wanted the rm command to prompt me for confirmation first, which is usually a good idea, I'd put the interactive (-i) flag before the dashes:
rm -i -- -f
You may find other commands have similar quirks where they will treat filenames starting with a dash as an option flag. You can work around this by specifying the path name of the file. For instance, the touch command usually creates an empty file with a given name. Running "touch abc" creates a file called "abc". However, if we run the command "touch --help" it display helpful tips on how to use the touch command. We can force the creation of a file called "--help" by running the following command:
touch ./--help
Basically, whenever you run into a situation where your program is confused by the difference between a filename in the local directory and a command line option, specify the directory path of the file, not just its name.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Rocky Linux 9.1
Rocky Linux 9.1, a distribution built from the source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9.1 and 100% compatible with its parent, has been released: "We are pleased to announce the general availability of Rocky Linux 9.1. This release is currently available for the x86-64, aarch64, ppc64le and s390x architectures. Rocky Linux 9.1 was subjected to over 9 days of testing before receiving the team's approval. Testing logs, discussion and the release checklist can be viewed here. Notable changes: Keylime, a remote boot attestation and runtime integrity management solution using Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) is now available; new module stream versions include Node.js 18, PHP 8.1, Maven 3.8 and Ruby 3.1; new compiler toolset versions include GCC 12, LLVM 14.0.6, Rust 1.62 and Go 1.18. Container images are now available for all x86-64, aarch64, ppc64le and s390x. Vagrant images are now available for x86-64 and aarch64. Official Rocky Linux images are now available on Oracle Cloud Platform." Read the release announcement and the release notes for further information.
Snal Linux 1.24
Snal Linux is a small Linux distribution based on Arch Linux. It features the i3 window manager and it includes the Firefox web browser, as well as a handful of network and filesystem utilities. The project's latest release, Snal Linux 1.24, introduces a few key changes: "Snal Linux 1.24 brings a few new features including some commands written in Rust: bat is added as a modern alternative to cat. Aliased in .bashrc. bottom is added as a modern alternative to top. exa is added as a modern alternative to ls. Aliased in .bashrc. dust is added as a modern alternative to du. procs is added as a modern alternative to ps. taskwarrior is added for managing tasks. xkcdpass is added to generate passwords that are easy to remember and easy to transcribe. yay is added to manage aur packages. tty-clock, xkcdpass, and yay are all installed from the AUR." The release announcement includes checksums and a package listing.
Salix 15.0 "Live"
George Vlahavas has announced the release of Salix 15.0 "Live" edition, a live distribution based on Slackware Linux 15.0, featuring the Xfce desktop environment, and available for both x86_64 and i486 platforms: "After several rounds of extensive testing, we are proud to announce the release of Salix Live Xfce 15.0. The live environment is based on our own Salix Live Scripts and is available in both 64-bit and 32-bit architectures. The software included in Salix Live Xfce 15.0 closely matches that which comes with our standard installation ISO image, offering Xfce 4.16, Firefox ESR, LibreOffice, our Salix System tools collection along with everything else. Included in this release is also software that is specific to our Live release, featuring the Salix Live Installer, a graphical tool that allows the user to install Salix, from within the live environment to their hard drive. It is also possible, from within the live environment, to make a frugal install, a complete Salix installation to a portable USB stick. The live system also provides the option to use persistency." Read the release announcement for more details.
Proxmox 2.3 "Backup Server"
Proxmox is a commercial company offering specialised products based on Debian GNU/Linux. The company's latest release is Proxmox 2.3 "Backup Server" which is based on Debian 11 and includes ZFS support. The release announcement states: "We are pleased to announce version 2.3 of Proxmox Backup Server! It's based on Debian 11.5 (codename Bullseye), uses the newer Linux kernel 5.15 as stable default and kernel 5.19 as opt-in, and includes ZFS 2.1.6. We have expanded the prune job system and you can now limit pruning to namespaces. Tipp: test your planned retention options and backup schedules in advance with our built-in prune-simulator. Ransomware protection: Backup features such as fine-grained access control, data integrity verification, and the possibility to create off-site backups through remote sync and tape backups help planning a ransomware defense strategy and ensure that critical data stays protected. Read details in the documentation. We have included many GUI enhancements and further improved the client and back-end on many parts. Countless bugfixes and smaller improvements are included as well, see the full release notes for details." Additional details are provided in the release notes.
Oracle Linux 9.1
Simon Coter has announced the availability of the first update in the Oracle Linux 9 series, a distribution built from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9.1 source code but featuring Oracle's (optional) "Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK)": "Oracle Linux 9 Update 1 for the 64-bit Intel and AMD (x86_64) and 64-bit Arm (aarch64) platforms is generally available today. This release is 100% application binary compatible with corresponding Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Update 1 release. This Oracle Linux 9 release includes the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 7 (UEK R7). UEK R7 is based on the upstream Linux Kernel 5.15 and is supported on both Oracle Linux 9 and Oracle Linux 8. Oracle Linux 9 Update 1 reintroduces Application Stream modules and includes bug and security fixes, and feature updates. The most important changes are in the areas of security and development tools. Security: OpenSSH supports setting the minimum RSA key length; crypto-policies enforce the OpenSSH 2048-bit RSA key length minimum by default; OpenSSL option supports SHA-1 for signatures; keylime package is available." See the release announcement and the release notes for further information.
Grml 2022.11
Michael Prokop has announced the release of Grml 2022.11, a new stable release of the Debian-based distribution with a focus on the needs of system administrators: "Grml new stable release 2022.11 available. This Grml release provides fresh software packages from Debian 'bookworm'. As usual it also incorporates current hardware support and fixes known bugs from previous Grml releases. Important changes: the Grml live system now uses the merged-/usr layout; updated Perl from 5.32 to 5.36; updated Python from 3.9 to 3.10; updated Ruby from 2.7 to 3.0. New features: grml-hwinfo - iterate over present disks to collect sfdisk -d information; grml-terminalserver - suggest a proper IP range usage when configuring DHCP clients; netcardconfig - avoid suggesting default gateway if a default route exists already; integration of Memtest86+ 6, providing UEFI support; support Memtest86+ with UEFI; support Debian 'bookworm'; support for ZFS via new ZFS FAI class; provide workaround for kmod/initramfs-tools issue with NFS/netboot; exclude /var/lib/dkms/* from Squashfs...." See the release announcement and the detailed release notes for additional information.
Grml 2022.11 -- Running the Fluxbox window manager
(full image size: 101kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
EuroLinux 9.1
EuroLinux is an enterprise-class Linux distribution made and supported by the EuroLinux company, built mostly from code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The project's latest release is EuroLinux 9.1. The company's release announcement highlights new features: "On November 30, 2022, we released version 9.1 of the EuroLinux operating system. It is compatible with the latest upstream version. This release focuses on updating containerization and cloud tools. EuroLinux 9.1 introduces Keylime, a tool for remote machine authentication that uses Trusted Platform Module (TPM) technology. The Linux kernel has been updated to version 5.14.0-162. In EuroLinux 9.1, the SELinux package has been upgraded to version 3.4. Among the most noticeable changes are: improved relabeling performance with parallel relabeling; new policy tools in the libsepol-utils package; SHA-256 support in the semodule tool." Additional details can be found in the distribution's release notes.
NixOS 22.11
NixOS is an independently developed GNU/Linux distribution that uses the advanced Nix package manager for software management and system configuration. The project's latest release is NixOS 22.11 "Raccoon". One of the key changes in this version is an adjustment in how account passwords are handled. The release announcement shares some details: "During the NixOS 22.11 lifecycle old password hashes may need to be updated, because we plan to disable weak password hashes in NixOS 23.05. We consider password hashing methods weak, if the libxcrypt project did not flag them strong. If your system is configured with weak hashes a script will emit a warning during activation. We expect most users accounts to be set up with sha512crypt (hash prefixed with $6$) which we will continue to support. Interactively configured passwords can be updated using passwd, new password hashes can be generated through mkpasswd." Additional information and a summary of changes in the new version of NixOS can be found in the project's release notes.
NixOS 22.11 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 1.3MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
4MLinux 41.0
The independent 4MLinux distribution has published a new stable release. The new version, 4MLinux 41.0, offers a number of updates and new hardware support. A few new applications have been added to the distribution: "As always, the new major release has some new features. New applications available out of the box: FileZilla (FTP client), XPaint and GNU Paint (simple image-editing tools), nvme (command-line utility for managing NVM-Express partitions) as well as a collection of small SDL games. New applications available as downloadable extensions: BlueGriffon (HTML editor), The Legend of Edgar (platform game), ioquake3 (Quake III port), and BZFlag (tank battle game). The default video player in 4MLinux is now SMPlayer, and the default audio player is Audacious. Additionally, it is now possible to install 4MLinux on a Btrfs partition with the help of Syslinux, which acts as a boot manager." Additional information is presented in the project's release announcement.
Gnoppix Linux 22.12
Andreas Mueller has announced the release of Gnoppix Linux 22.12, the latest stable build from a project that develops a Debian and Kali Linux-based distribution with GNOME as the default desktop. This is a "new generation" of the old Knoppix-based Gnoppix that was discontinued in 2006. The new Gnoppix also ships with some penetration-testing and reverse-engineering tools. "Today I am happy to announce the Gnoppix 22.12 release. The update includes bug fixes, security updates, Linux kernel 6.x, GNOME 43.2, lots of performance improvements and lots of new security tools. In detail, what has changed in the latest version: started with GNOME 43.2; starting preparations for GNOME 44-beta; added the Gimp image editor; added the Nikto web scanner; added the Nuclei scanner; added the Deluge BitTorrent client; added the Transmission BitTorrent client; added the Clapper music player; added the gnome-firmware updater; updated outdated firmware; upgrade to Linux kernel 6.x; added the Afrog scanner; added sandly-entropyscan; upgraded Gnoppix Patreon support network - you'll get all the new exploits exclusively on Discord before they gent into Gnoppix." Read the rest of the release announcement for a complete list of changes and additions.
NomadBSD 131R
NomadBSD is a 64-bit live system for USB flash drives, based on FreeBSD. The project's latest release is version 131R and the release announcement offers a list of new features: "The base system has been changed to FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p5. Except for i386, We now provide two images for each supported achitecture. One which uses ZFS and one which uses UFS for the root filesystem. The file systems used on the UFS version are now created with soft updates journaling enabled to reduce file system repair problems after a crash. The automatic graphics driver detection has been improved. Support for VIA/Openchrome has been added. For Nvidia graphics card not supported by one of the Nvidia drivers nv is now used. For better support of non-latin keyboard input and switching between layouts, IBus is now used. The rc script for loading acpi modules has been improved. The display manager SLiM has been replaced by SDDM. In order to reduce image sizes, libreOffice and some multimedia packages have been removed."
OpenIndiana 2022.10
OpenIndiana is a continuation of the OpenSolaris operating system. The project's latest version is OpenIndiana 2022.10. The new release features a number of package changes, including upgrades to Perl and Python. The release announcement reads: "We have merged more than 2500 PR's with fixes, updates and new packages since our last release roughly one year ago. Some notable highlights are: Initial support to mount install media via NFS has been added. A fix to use NFSv3 instead NFSv4 is underway. We have updated the NVIDIA drivers to the latest production branch version and updated older versions. LibreOffice has been updated to 7.2.7 and is now a 64 bit application. Firefox and Thunderbird have been updated to the latest ESR releases. MATE desktop has been updated to the latest 1.26 version. We have removed our old Perl versions and replaced them with 5.34 and 5.36 which are 64-bit only. Version 5.36 is now our default. Our Python versions are undergoing a similar process which is not yet finished. We began to remove versions 2.7 and 3.5 and are updating (or removing if an update is not possible or the package is superfluous). IPS has been updated already to use Python 3.9 which increased its speed slitghtly. We have updated gcc-10 to its latest version and added gcc-11. We also added clang-13 and removed older versions."
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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: 2,799
- 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) |
Removing special characters from filenames
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about removing files which contain a special character in the filename. While it is possible to work around special characters to move, copy, or remove files, often times it is more practical to strip special characters from filenames. This makes it easier (and safer) to work on files.
What utility do you use to remove unusual characters from filenames? Let us know your preferred tool or approach in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on creating command line aliases in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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To remove special characters from filenames I use...
| detox command: | 46 (5%) |
| Graphical file manager: | 207 (23%) |
| Graphical rename application: | 49 (6%) |
| mv command: | 145 (16%) |
| rename command: | 74 (8%) |
| Other: | 45 (5%) |
| None of the above: | 26 (3%) |
| I do not remove special characters: | 295 (33%) |
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| Website News |
Updates to our package tracking database
DistroWatch tracks version information for approximately 230 software packages. Updates to these packages, along with information about which version of each package ships with distributions is stored in our database. This makes it possible to check which version of a package ships with a distribution and it also makes it possible to search for a distro which contains a specific version of a package.
Approximately once per year we update our package table, adding in new popular packages our readers have requested and pruning packages which are either no longer updated or no longer shipped on distributions' install media.
This month we updated our package database to introduce two new packages: cryptsetup and OpenVPN. We also stopped tracking five packages due to them either no longer receiving updates or no longer being included in most distributions by default. The five pruned packages were: AfterStep, Amarok, Clementine, cacti, and kmymoney.
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DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 12 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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| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 1, value: US$10) |
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • 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 |
| • 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 | 
Luinux
Luinux was an Internet Gateway for your home network equipment (PC, VideoConsole, TV, oven, ...). Luinux comes preconfigured so, ideally, you just have to install it and play. Once installed in your server PC, you get a Debian/Linux based installation with many features.
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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