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1 • New Year (by Jules Ambrosi on 2023-01-02 02:06:58 GMT from Australia)
Hi,
Just thought I wish you people and the readers a Happy New Year !
Keep up the good work...
2 • Memories (to the tune of Memories by ?) (by New User on 2023-01-02 02:27:14 GMT from Canada)
Thanks for sharing your memories of the Linux user experience over the years.
Also; 1000 issues - and everyone a gem. Have learned so much, not only from your reviews and tips, but also from user comments as well. Have found the comments here informative, well moderated, and even the "flame wars" (especially over things like, cough, cough, s-y-s-t-e-m-d) to be educational and entertaining.
Re the number of partitions: added up the number of partitions used; then had to remember, with 64bit systems, we also have that uefi thingy we often forget about....(so add 1 to your total).
Personal longtime favourites would be Slackware for learning, stability, and just plain working; Salix when I want Slackware and too lazy to do a full install, and MX for providing a an almost instant Debian workspace without the hassles (sort of a salix-style lazy install). I do remember tinkering with the original Redhat, but every point zero release (4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0) was frought with bugs.
Speaking of Slackware, this week's news about kernel video issues seems to tie in with comments 7 and 15 in Distrowatch Issue 944. Maybe I should spend more time watching developments on the kernel page? Unfortunately, much of the discussion is somewhat beyond my programming level. Perhaps in your weekly news, there might be interest in a summary of where kernel development is going, and how that effects the community longterm, (as changes there effect all users)?
3 • How many partitions (by penguinx86 on 2023-01-02 02:36:27 GMT from United States)
My preference is everything on a single partition. My laptop has a 1tb SSD and there's plenty of room for everything. The only reason I'd need multiple partitions mounted is if I had multiple disks. In the good ole days, I could install everything on a single partition using Legacy Boot and MBR. But now, the installer creates annyoing /boot and /efi partitions that are tiny and useless once the system boots. Even more annoying are all the Snaps that appear as filesystems in the output of the df command. So even though I voted 1 partition that I actually use, I'm stuck with all the extra junk that I don't really want or use.
4 • Distributions-- (by smsharma on 2023-01-02 02:40:08 GMT from United States)
Glad to discover someone is on the same wavelength.
I used Debian as desktop for ~10 years and then went back to Windows as Debian frustrated the eeks out of me -- and regretted that move painfully with their forced updates.
Now I only have MxLinux except on Pi's and I am done experimenting!
5 • MX Linux (by Steve K on 2023-01-02 02:51:52 GMT from United States)
I agree with your review of MX Linux. It is one of my two favorite Linux distros, the other being Linux Mint Mate, my daily driver. Even though you have observed that "MX Linux isn't flashy" and consider it to be "an exercise in function over form, practicality over pure design, and what works over idealism" it doesn't mean that one has to give up aesthetics and settle for a purely practical distro. This is Linux and Linux is totally customizable so that you can make it look and feel exactly the way you want to on top of the underlying practicality, stability and features that MX Linux offers. This is what I do and I always customize the hell out of all my distros by changing desktop themes, icon themes, wallpaper, tweaking desktop themes with the Compiz window manager and adding Emerald themes, etc. None of my Linux distros look like they did out-of-the-box but they perform just as well. My customized distros are some of the coolest-looking on the planet but I'm not sacrificing anything in functionality. You can have the best of both worlds!
(BTW, the MX Linux taskbar can be moved from the left side of the screen to the bottom, but you probably already new that. Some others may not.)
6 • Happy New Year and 1000th issue (by Vic on 2023-01-02 03:32:29 GMT from Canada)
Thanks for the two decades plus of wonderful content. Can't claim to have been here at the very beginning but I wouldn't be surprised if I've caught close to the last 800 or so issues. And after all these years I still look forward to every Sunday evening read. Looking further forward still to seeing another 1000+ more to come in future issues. Keep up the great work. Happy New Year and cheers to another great year of Linux/open source computing!
- Vic
7 • Memories and Distros Over the Years (by Jared on 2023-01-02 03:52:51 GMT from United States)
Very Nostalgic distro weekly. I've been using Linux for 21 years and found distrowatch shortly after.
Thank you for all you do for the Linux community.
My first distro was Red Hat 7.1 back in 2001, installed as a dual boot with Windows ME by a friend.
Shortly there after I moved to Mandrake 7.1 (2002 - 2005) and removed the dual boot with Windows, then PCLinuxOS (2005 - 2008). Ubuntu (2008 - 2011), Crunchbang (2011 - 2015), Ubuntu (2015 - 2020) until I found Manjaro 2 years ago (2020). Now, I can't see myself using anything beside an Arch-base on the Desktop.
On servers, It's always Debian from the beginning, now and probably forever.
Happy New Year to Everyone!
8 • Happy 1,000 DW!! TempleOS is still the most special to me (by Andy Prough on 2023-01-02 03:56:55 GMT from United States)
This week's main article is very fun, I'm glad to read about everyone's favorite projects.
As far as my all-time most special distro/OS, the one that jumps to mind is the famous TempleOS by Terry Davis. I just love how he poured everything he had into it, and how he created something that was a completely new paradigm for OS's. Cheers to your memory, Terry. My wish would be that someday Jesse could do an official TempleOS review.
Runners up for me are TinyCore Linux and Hyperbola GNU/Linux, both of which are similarly incredible in their visionary work.
9 • QandA_Root-Space (by jonathon on 2023-01-02 04:18:18 GMT from Australia)
When I've run out of space on a root partition it was due to me forgetting to remove old kernels. This was an Ubuntu based O.S.
Congratulations DistroWatch...!
10 • The 1000th issue (by David Milovanovic on 2023-01-02 05:09:39 GMT from Serbia)
Congrats on the 1000th issue! It's a great achievement. You guys are doing an amazing work and I hope you will be doing it for many, many years to come. Thank you and Happy New Year to everyone!
11 • My induvidual alltime highlights (by always-curious-about-FOSS on 2023-01-02 06:44:22 GMT from Germany)
Happy new Year
first off all, many thanks to the team of distrowatch for all the interessting and importent informations that been edited in the former Years.
So what are ma alltime highlights? I using Foss since April 2014 ( end of support for xp ). So perhaps i am still too newbie for alltime highlights, but these two OS that have influenced me the most are Bunsenlabs and NomadBSD. My daily driver is Xubuntu. NomadBSD was my daily driver for a whole summer becauce it was installed on my Laptop Ithat I am using on my balcony.
12 • Today's themes (by PLM on 2023-01-02 07:42:39 GMT from Spain)
Favourite distro here? Sparky stable w/Xfce... it's perfect. It could be LMDE (Mint-Debian)... but no Xfce version (so I install it and get rid of Cinnamon). It could be MX... but I had to reinstall it a couple of times after catastrophic updates (no more MX, thank you).
Another distros I like: The brand new Spiral, the new Debian based Peppermint and the old reliable PCLOS.
Partitions per disk here? One for each system (always 2 different systems in each computer) and at least another partition for data. In my distro-test machine... a lot more per disk!
Happy New Year!!
13 • Congratulations DW (by Guido on 2023-01-02 08:25:40 GMT from Philippines)
Happy New Year 2023 to all Linux users and the editors. Congratulations on so many editions of these great articles about Linux.
My Linux of choice is Manjaro, which I use in three different editions. It is very stable, always up-to-date and does not need to be reinstalled every two years. That certainly speaks against Debian and MX.
14 • Congratulations! (by Abhijeet on 2023-01-02 08:34:14 GMT from India)
Many Congratulations on 1000 DW Weeklies & a Happy New Year!
I remember using CrunchBang in late aughts & later. Great distro & probably the best linux community while it was there. I do miss it.
15 • highlights (by tomposter on 2023-01-02 08:54:31 GMT from United States)
Highlights are all in earlier days. Steps forward were exciting then. After that, enthusiasm and expectations have been somewhat reduced, as most every major step forward seems to leave behind some functionality available in the past.
#1 Highlight: Knoppix 3
Honorable mentions: Kanotix, Librenet, Mepis
(2005 thru 2007)
Part of the early fun of Knoppix and Kanotix was "klik" (later version is AppImage).
16 • Memories ... (by DaveB on 2023-01-02 09:09:01 GMT from Australia)
I think it was 1996. I installed Slackware onto a spare 386 using two 1.44MB floppy disks (that was all I could find spare). While my desktop downloaded the next floppy, I'd be using the other floppy for the next install step. It took a while.
In 1999 I discovered that Linux on a P120 downloaded my mail quicker than W95 on a P166. I haven't looked back - been using Linux as my primary OS ever since. I forget which distro I was using back then - I've used quite a few over the years - currently Mint derivatives)
With partitions, I keep Win partitions in case I need to compile something on it. It is hardly touched. There is always at least one spare 50GB partitions - which means I can spin up another distro if I feel like swapping / trying out a new one if something in my current one annoys me to much. This way I can slowly move over. Hint if you're doing this with a shared /home, use different usernames / home folder names as sometimes different versions of software expect different config files. You can link your Documents & other folders to not lose anything if swapping distros.
Congrat's on 1,000 issues. Distrowatch has been a useful resource for me for several years - especially when I feel like changing distros.
17 • Memories and partitions (by mdisaster on 2023-01-02 09:31:08 GMT from Italy)
DISTROS
I started in the '90s with whatever version of Slackware came on those shareware CDs, not sure about the version number but I remember it had kernel 1.09. I did some distro hopping across the ages and used a lot of Puppy Linux, both as a main system on those old PCs I can't get rid of and as a rescue disk.
Then I mostly settled on Linux Mint, but I still like to try out something now and then - of late for example I checked out Void, Deepin and MX Linux, I liked them a lot (for different reasons) but not enough for me to switch over. So I'm sticking with Linux Mint, which works well for me and doesn't require jumping through hoops to make things work.
PARTITIONS
I generally use the classic layout of /, /home, /swap, maybe /boot if the installer insists on it, plus whatever (U)EFI stuff is required to boot. However the next time I could just dispense with /swap and have just / plus a /data partition on an external disk for the stuff meant to survive a reinstall - documents, media and such.
Happy New Year and thanks for Distrowatch !!!
18 • Favorite Distros (by kc1di on 2023-01-02 09:57:04 GMT from United States)
Thank you for the 1000 issue and the look back. I started out in the 90's with slackware that came on about 25 floppy discs. Those were the days. No hand holding, no easy installs remember it took a couple weeks to get everything working and on configurations done. I Then used Redhat (Came in boxed set) But it never quite fit my operating style. Of course over the year have tried many distros. including Debian,Ubuntu, Mint, PClinuxOs,Arch and it's derivatives. One of my all time favorites was Mepis. Used it on several machines and it just always seemed to work. So I guess it's natural that today I use MX - XFCE most of the time. Like Jessie I like the way it's stable but stays out of my way. That's not to say in future I may go to a newer Distro who knows. I've always from the beginning liked Mint. But for some reason i always seem to return to MX. Happy New year to all and keep up the good work.
19 • Partitions (by John on 2023-01-02 10:20:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
One drive with four partitions, each holding a different distro (at present Manjaro, MX, openSUSE and Kubuntu), and a second drive holding data and swap.
20 • Memories. (by DachshundMan on 2023-01-02 10:30:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
Firstly, happy 1000th edition to DistroWatch. I read it nearly every week.
I started my Linux journey with Ubuntu (UB) only because it was supplied on the cover disk of a computer magazine I bought in an airport. As a traveling engineer I wanted to play some games in the evening and I realised that if I ran UB from an external disk it gave me a way to get around the corporate locking of my laptop. I also tried Arch but quickly switched to Manjaro (MJ) and decided to use Ubuntu for things where I cared about stability and MJ when I wanted to play with the OS or install programs not in the UB repositories. When UB got Unity I did not like the look and feel so I switched over to Mint which is where I am now. When I retired I mainly stopped messing with the internals of OS so the Manjaro external disk got put away and is gathering dust. However, I sometimes run MJ on my Raspberry Pi although mainly I use the Arm version of UB.
Whilst there are some really interesting distros out there I decided long ago not to use any with a single developer due to a bad experience with a distro that went defunct.
21 • Linux nostalgia (by César E. M. R. on 2023-01-02 10:31:30 GMT from Chile)
Buenos días y saludos a todos. Feliz año nuevo a todos desde Santiago de Chile.
I remember my first distro around the 2003 (+/-), i install SUSE in my old Athlon XP, works much better than Windows ME.
From that time, i test a lot of distros Linux and BSD (Slackware, Devuan, Debian, PCLinuxOS, OpenSUSE, Mandriva, Mageia, Ubuntu (and derivated), PCBSD, FREEBSD, etc., etc., etc..
Now in present times, i use Debian in my HP Workstation and Fedora in my laptop HP (because everything works with Fedora, including Bluetooth and Wifi, in Debian not, i don't know why)
¡¡¡Saludos!!!
22 • Partitions (by Nobod Yin on 2023-01-02 11:21:01 GMT from United States)
I have 3 partitions: /boot/efi, /, and /home. I can reinstall the os or use any kernel without messing with my data.
23 • Linux distros & my partitions (by Star Picket on 2023-01-02 11:43:53 GMT from Australia)
I found it interesting to read your experiences with Linux over the years. It was a nice start to the year - thank you.
My first distro was Mandrake and then Mepis. After that Fedora and later Mint when it was first released. I used Puppy on a persistent USB for work since I hated the forced use of Windows on the network server at my work place at the time. Since those days it is a blur.
As for the number of partitions I use, there are 5. I have a dedicated Data disk which includes work data that says put when I choose to change my distro. I also have back up and time shift partitions on it. I have a separate root and home partition, as well as a swap partition.
One thing I hate about many apps these days is that they assume you only have a home partition for everything. It's a pain the the butt to have to track down my data on a different drive because the app doesn't expect there to be one.
24 • Partions (by James on 2023-01-02 12:06:34 GMT from United States)
Usually two. The FAT UEFI partition and ext 4 for the OS. On a couple of older laptops I have also two, the ext. 4 partition for the OS and some swap. I used to dual boot more than one linux OS, but UEFI and os prober disabled by default has mad that a pain I avoid these days.
25 • Distros, partitions and @13 Debian+rolling (by Dr. Who on 2023-01-02 12:27:59 GMT from Philippines)
Tried Linux early on, but didn't find it useful until around 2006. Tried PCLOS, Ubuntu and Mint. Stayed with Mint for a few years, then roamed for a while. Tried Manjaro but preferred EndeavourOS. Still too frequent a need for updates. Now have Ubuntu on a laptop and Debian on my daily desktop. MX just hasn't done it for me. I use separate root and home partitions, no swap. I wont count uefi since it's not a Linux partition, nor the Windows 11 on dual boot.
@13, Debian does not have to be reinstalled every two years. They release every two years, but support for around three, and if it goes to LTS, a total of five. Or you can change your sources to "testing" and roll. You can even use "unstable" if you feel adventurous. Right now I am using the Bookworm repos, still in "testing" which should be good until 2028, and then I can simply change to the next release or directly to testing and keep going. There are a few Debian rolling distros on "testing," and there's Siduction on "unstable," and maybe others.
26 • Distros and Partitions (by Dr.J on 2023-01-02 12:28:50 GMT from Germany)
Happy New Year to everybody
Distros: I can't remember my distro history completely. There were very many and it started with Debian and OpenSuse (not to mention the early Unix-Years in the 80s). Then came a phase with many experiments and several distros in parallel (Ubuntu,Kubuntu,Lubuntu, Mint, Majaro, AntiX,BSD). Around 2012 I ended up with Arch, where I feel so at home since then that the distro hopping has come to an end. But from time to time I always check out new distros in Virtualbox (such as Void, MX, Garuda or most recently Mabox).
Partitions: I have two built-in hard drives (each with 3 Partitions: OS, Data, Backup) and a network drive. In addition, all other computers and devices (such as set-top-boxes) in our home network are connected to my computer via NFS and some encrypted data containers are mounted as drives. Finally, the "temp" folder is mounted as RAMfs. The whole thing is partly functional (two hard disks with two operating systems plus backup partitions; Network-Admin), partly historical. In the future (PCI-SSD, no second slot in newer notebooks) this will change, though.
27 • Partions or not? (by Otis on 2023-01-02 12:59:40 GMT from United States)
Reasons for:
Ease of use – Make it easier to recover a corrupted file system or operating system installation.
Performance – Smaller file systems are more efficient. You can tune file system as per application such as log or cache files. Dedicated swap partition can also improve the performance (this may not be true with some kernels).
Security – Separation of the operating system files from user files may result into a better and secure system. Restrict the growth of certain file systems is possible using various techniques.
Backup and Recovery – Easier backup and recovery.
Stability and efficiency – You can increase disk space efficiency by formatting disk with various block sizes. It depends upon usage. For example, if the data is lots of small files, it is better to use small block size.
Testing – Boot multiple operating systems such as Linux, Windows and FreeBSD from a single hard disk.
Reasons against:
?
28 • Partitions (by vmclark on 2023-01-02 13:15:35 GMT from United States)
Seven partitions. Remember efi is also a partition, and I have a swap as partition + 4 Linux installs + 1 Windows:
├─nvme0n1p1 vfat 2787-600D
├─nvme0n1p2 ntfs Windows 1079A18749D11406
├─nvme0n1p3 swap 542e5af0-7004-48f1-8238-bfc416b7eed8
├─nvme0n1p4 ext4 ubuntu 6c2e6801-6481-4c18-aa6c-6a8675528460
├─nvme0n1p5 ext4 gnome 47645145-f7f4-4717-accb-572c301218f3
├─nvme0n1p6 ext4 gecko 56617ffb-0123-4979-b4ec-993088a11e51
└─nvme0n1p7 ext4 xfce bfbf2e3c-c12f-4a51-a058-798b9488e29b
29 • I don't need to partition my disks (by Sumire on 2023-01-02 13:40:40 GMT from United Kingdom)
I use stable ZFS on Linux (NixOS) root partition and the removable drive where I store my data. ZFS supports Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and illumos, but currently has limited support for Windows, It doesn't affect me because I don't use Windows. ZFS doesn't require partitioning, I don't need to calculate the size of each partition, just create some datasets to use. However, GRUB has limited support for ZFS, so I cannot enable all features, such as zstd compression.
30 • vanilla doesn't work in virtualbox (by icecream on 2023-01-02 14:08:49 GMT from Moldova)
Wanted to try Vanilla OS,
Unfortunatelly it doesn't work in VirtualBox
i cannot see the mouse pointer -> so essentially cannot install it.
31 • all time best open source projects and distributions (by Matt on 2023-01-02 14:12:29 GMT from United States)
Glad to see Debian made the list. It would have been my top choice for most impactful Linux distribution of all time. Ubuntu would have not be possible without Debian, and Mint wouldn't be here without Ubuntu.
Apache would get my vote for the most important open source project. The LAMP server is the most impactful Linux application in history.
Libreoffice is hands down the most important open source project for Linux desktop and workstation applications.
32 • partitioning with LVM (by Matt on 2023-01-02 14:17:23 GMT from United States)
Thanks to logical volume management, I don't need a complex partitioning scheme. My laptop has three partitions: EFI, boot, and an encrypted physical volume used for LVM.
33 • Partitions and Vanilla OS (by Jesse on 2023-01-02 14:55:56 GMT from Canada)
@30: If your mouse pointer isn't showing up in VirtualBox it's probably either due to a graphical problem (meaning you can switch video drivers in the VirtualBox settings), or you're running a Wayland desktop session. Switching to the X11 GNOME session will probably fix it.
@27: With regards to whether to use multiple partitions or not, most of the "pro" reasons listed are not true. Or, more accurately, not true _anymore_ or not relevant for most people. About the only two reasons for using partitions these days are running multiple systems (or upgrading the OS) and preventing files on one partition from taking up too much space.
Recovery, performance, and security are not usually benefits of multi-partition systems. Unless you're doing a lot of fine-tuning of your filesystem options or locking down partitions with noexec for security, you won't get much benefit from multiple partitions.
On the other hand, having fewer partitions means more flexibility, more space available for each part of the system, less confusion when setting things up. For most personal systems, especially single user systems, it makes sense to stick with minimal partitions. Typically one for the OS and one for data to make it easy to upgrade or re-install.
34 • Congrats Distrowatch (by Geo on 2023-01-02 15:21:31 GMT from Canada)
So, it turned out Linux wasn't a flash in the pan afterall. 😉
35 • Favorite Distros (by bittermann on 2023-01-02 15:30:17 GMT from United States)
I've tried about half of the top 100 distros from here and keep coming back to Linux Mint with cinnamon. It just plain works and seems to be the easiest to configure gaming on. I've recently discovered Manjaro with Xfce and am really impressed. Never really got into Arch distros but I will be giving it a thorough test on the gaming side. I guess half the fun is testing new distros.
36 • Number of partitions (by Tim on 2023-01-02 15:43:12 GMT from United States)
I have five partitions across three drives. My main system SSD has a VFAT UEFI partition, a btrfs partition with / and /home subvolumes, and a swap partition (I am old fashioned like that). My second SSD has a btrfs partition that contains my "big" data files, which are mostly photo image files. And my HDD has a btrfs partition with "old" backup and data files; it is mostly unused in day-to-day system usage.
37 • Partition and favorite distro (by Zed on 2023-01-02 16:48:01 GMT from Italy)
3 partitions:
/
/home
swap
Favorite distro: Mageia.
38 • Memories (by zhymm on 2023-01-02 17:04:00 GMT from United States)
My journey with linux began c. 1999-2000 with attempts to install one distribution or another. Usually without success. Then PCLOS 0.93 "Big Daddy" happened and for me it just simply worked. I dual booted Windows and PCLOS for a few years until one of Windows' inevitable BSODs had me cut that cord for good in 2006. I remember the moment, mid afternoon on August 16th. Though I no longer use PCLOS as my daily driver, I still look on it with some fondness because it's the one that really got my linux journey going for good.
Much distro-hopping and multi-booting ensued. With a separate partition for each distro. A few highlights for me here were Crunchbang, Peppernint, vanilla Debian, and Arch. Arch was a real adventure. I would 'bork' the system trying something odd that I had the whole Arch install process memorized to the point I could do a full manual re-install in less than 30 minutes. And a special nod goes to Vector Linux, which for a short time had me packaging (and compiling those packages from source).
Today it's Manjaro on my main desktop and MX on my laptop. The first to be near the "cutting edge" and the latter for stability.
An, in closing, just one partition. For simplicity.
OMZ
39 • p.s. (by zhymm on 2023-01-02 17:10:56 GMT from United States)
I forgot to add that MX has got me to placing the panel vertically on the left side regardless of the distro.
OMZ
40 • Favourite distro (by David on 2023-01-02 17:41:30 GMT from United Kingdom)
I started with Shoestring — a port of Red Hat 7 to the Motorola architecture. When I moved to the Intel (actually AMD) architecture, I switched to Fedora 1. When Gnome 3 came in, I moved to CentOS 6. When the support ran out, I moved to PCLinuxOS with Xfce. You might guess that I don't like change!
41 • First OS (by Roger on 2023-01-02 18:08:01 GMT from Belgium)
My alternative first OS was BeOS in 1998, reason was that I thought there must be something better than Win98.
BeOS was better and I had no problem printing and going on the internet thru a modem, graphical it was a lot better.
42 • 20 Years!!! (by kilgoretrout on 2023-01-02 18:20:52 GMT from United States)
I started using linux 20 years ago, Mandrake 8.2, so are linux timelines are about the same. Congratulations on 20 years of discovery, reviews and news as well as gaming the Distrowatch rankings and arguing about what it all means. May you have 20 more!
43 • Partitions (by Robert on 2023-01-02 19:34:00 GMT from United States)
I use 3 or 4 partitions depending how you count.
1 efi partition that doubles as /boot
1 LVM partition I use for OS
2 disks in a ZFS mirror for /home. 1 filesystem, but I suppose that's 2 partitions, 1 for each disk.
44 • Warm congratulations! (by James Larue on 2023-01-02 20:09:02 GMT from United States)
Distrowatch has been part of my Mondays for many years now. So in 2023, I'm sending you many thanks, and warm best wishes for many years to come.
45 • Warm congratulations! (by James Larue on 2023-01-02 20:09:03 GMT from United States)
Distrowatch has been part of my Mondays for many years now. So in 2023, I'm sending you many thanks, and warm best wishes for many years to come.
47 • Warm congratulations! (by James Larue on 2023-01-02 20:09:03 GMT from United States)
Distrowatch has been part of my Mondays for many years now. So in 2023, I'm sending you many thanks, and warm best wishes for many years to come.
48 • natsukashii (by Jay on 2023-01-02 20:27:01 GMT from Austria)
My first Linux memories go back to ordering a CD with Linux v1.0.1 on it. After Slack, I jumped to RedHat and ended up on Mandrake until Stormix.
I still have soft spots for Debian minimals (Crunchbang, MX, Q4OS [in VMs], WattOS, Zen) but my Debian days are done. I may still create custom servers via Parrot Architect, but my desktops have been Arch for years.
I'll be replacing my last remaining Debian install (a VM server) with Alpine shortly and continue using Arch variants in virtual desktops.
Linux has been a long, interesting, and rewarding choice and I've no regrets; using it has granted me privacy, security, autonomy, and an opportunity to grow personally and professionally for decades.
49 • patitions (by M.Z. on 2023-01-02 20:59:26 GMT from United States)
I'm at 5+ on my two main computers:
1 shared swap across all the distros I boot +
1 shared /data across everything +
3-4 /boot partitions (one for each distro that I can go to the bios & manually select if my main one with grub customizer has an issue) +
3-4 / root partitions - one for each distro (Mint LMDE, KDE neon, & Mageia, plus or minus some thing random on occasion)
50 • Warm congratulations! (by James Larue on 2023-01-02 20:09:04 GMT from United States)
Distrowatch has been part of my Mondays for many years now. So in 2023, I'm sending you many thanks, and warm best wishes for many years to come.
51 • Partitions (by V on 2023-01-02 21:47:03 GMT from United States)
I've got 5 partitions.
One is the EFI Boot partition
The second is the Microsoft Reserved partition.
The third is Windows 10
Fourth is Kubuntu 22.04
Fifth is Windows Recovery (OEM)
BTW, congrats on 1000 issues!
52 • Memories, WayBack (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2023-01-02 22:18:11 GMT from United States)
First experience with Linux should have been with a free CD from Canonical, but it just wouldn't boot on the hardware I had at the time without parameter(s) found years later.
First viable experience was Trisquel, a Freed Open-Source Software variant of Ubuntu.
Best early experience was Kongoni, a Freed Open-Source Software variant of Slackware.
In those days necessity forced learning to resemble a "power user". Distro-hopped for years, until MX.
53 • Thank you Jesse (by Simon on 2023-01-03 01:01:15 GMT from New Zealand)
I've been grateful for many years for this, my favourite website... but I had no idea you also maintained sysvinit. For maintaining (at least) two important FOSS projects, thank you.
54 • First Linux (by Sam Crawford on 2023-01-03 04:03:57 GMT from United States)
Distrowatch, contrats on 20 years and 1,000 issues. I look forward to reading it every Sunday night.
It took me awhile to remember my first Linux distro. In 2001 I bought a box with a few 3 1/2 floppy disks from Xandros and installed the Xandros desktop.
It was simple enough and ran well. Over the years I've gone back and forth from Windows and different distros, mostly Debian derivatives and occassionally, Opensuse-Tumblewed.
Today my desktop boots into Windows 11 and Debian "Bullseye" with the Gnome desktop. Debian Stable with a few Flatpaks works well for me. No issues to fix.
55 • Software projects (by Jesse on 2023-01-03 04:33:22 GMT from Canada)
@53: Thanks, I work on a number of open source projects. Most of them probably not as well known as sysvinit. I also work on the FreeBSD (and other platforms) port of doas, cpulimit, Bftpd, a handful of games like Atanks, a D&D character generator and Sopwith, You can follow my updates here (shameless plug): https://www.patreon.com/sysvinit
56 • Distros, partitions (by Albert on 2023-01-03 04:35:58 GMT from United States)
Firstly, congratulations on your 1,000th issue of DWW!
I have multiboot setups of several linux distros on my machines. The first system has /boot/efi, /root and /home partitions, the rest only root and home (no swap). I keep all my personal files on an external drive.
I've tried many different distros and finally set on Debian and Ubuntu derivatives (L.Mint, MX, Neptune, etc.) for their stability. I started with Ubuntu and Gnome 2, but the evolution of this system has been very disappointing to me: the adoption of Unity, Gnome 3 later and the Snaps finally made me shy away from it.
Thank you, Jesse, for your work.
Happy new year everyone!!
57 • Partitions (by Plume on 2023-01-03 06:53:06 GMT from France)
Six partitions here:
- one for boot
- one for Windows
- three for Linuxes (MX, Debian, Solus)
- one for data ($HOME for Linux users, /opt and appimages shared by the tree Linuxes)
No swap
58 • Congrats & Distro memories (by MadBrownDog on 2023-01-03 07:22:45 GMT from Australia)
I've been reading this site for ~10 years. These days it's the only computer site I check regularly.
I've been Windows free since 2015, with Linux Mint as daily driver. It works, meets my needs, can't think of a reason to change. I recently installed MX on another partition to check it out. (Don't like LH panel, still figuring out how to change it.)
Messed about with live CD's since Lindows in ~2003. Ran a laptop on PClinuxOS 0.93 and 2007, and later on Puppy. I had a Puppy disc customised with same wallpaper as I had on my desktop XP installation. Left it in the CD drive one time and my 13yo turned on the PC and screamed "Dad, the computer's gone all Linuxy!"
59 • Disk space hogs (by MadBrownDog on 2023-01-03 07:33:53 GMT from Australia)
Had the "low space of root partition" issue about 2 years ago, and traced it to /var/tmp containing LOTS of files starting with "cnij", each of 93MB. Canon printer driver starts with cnij. A bit of monitoring revealed that my printer was dumping these files in there at least daily, possibly more often. I set up a cron job to remove cnij* files from /var/tmp daily.
60 • Congratulations and the number of partitions (by Alexandru on 2023-01-03 08:20:17 GMT from Romania)
First of all, congratulations for the 1000th issue of DWW. I started to follow this site in 2004 when I was technical redactor of Linux Magazin Romania.
My first Linux experience was Mandrake Linux shortly switched to SuSE Linux. After few years when I discovered Debian I switched to it and never regretted. Of course, I continued to test other distributions. But I don't find a better Debian than Debian. I also tested other OSes: FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris/OpenSolaris/Indiana/OpenIndiana, BeOS/Haiku, Plan 9, MenuetOS/ColiblriOS and other more or less exotic OSes.
As of the number of partitions, there are some more considerations:
1. As it is already pointed out, ZFS, BtrFS and *BSD disklabel has internal partitioning/mountpoint usually opaque for disk partitioning software. It may be considered as different partitions or not depending on point of view.
2. BSD land usually recommends different partitions for other reasons than saving disk space. There can be different filesystem types or different mount options which best make sense for different filesystem locations.
3. Computer architecture may impose some special partitions, e.g. for EFI, /boot etc.
Usually I have separate /home partition and all the rest keep in the same different partition. Nowadays I don't use swap partition. However, when swap is necessary, and because I usually keep several Linux installs, I make a shared swap partition too.
61 • Saving disk space (by Alexandru on 2023-01-03 08:23:55 GMT from Romania)
Additionally to what already was said here, I found browser cache may easily exceed 1GB. So, cleaning browser cache/history is a very efficient way to save disk space.
62 • Happy New Year! (by Andy on 2023-01-03 13:37:40 GMT from United States)
Happy New Year everyone, I just wanted to thank the staff of Distrowatch for the many years of work. I've been at the same job for 21 years now and a big part of making Monday's fun is reading the newsletter every week and checking out different distro's that get added to the list. So thank you so much!.
63 • First Distro (by Hugh on 2023-01-03 14:39:33 GMT from United States)
My first was Linux Mint Helena back in 2009. Tried a lot of other distros in between then and now, but I'm back to Mint LMDE with Cinnamon. It might be a tad boring, but it works and I don't have to spend time taking care of it.
64 • 1000th issue (by Will on 2023-01-03 15:16:08 GMT from United States)
Wow. Has it really been that long? I've followed the site since its inception and was addicted from the beginning. It's been a goto site for me to compare distributions, learn about new ones, and as a grab bag to choose a random one to play with. Kudos. This issue was a fun read.
My personal list:
slackware and x11 via 11, if I remember correctly, floppy disks, as the first and most eye popping distro I ever downloaded and installed - so much more powerful than dos/windows at the time, running on the same hardware!
redhat 4 for it's installer (anaconda or some such snake), ease of use and package management rpm was extraordinary at the time.
debian for its romance, the gift of apt, its stability, and its children (mint, ubuntu, and mx) - by far my favorite lineage.
freebsd 8+ - installed as my server of choice for all things requiring minimal intervention, and for ZFS, of course!
sco - for suing att and exploding the popularity of linux. nevermind that caldera was actually pretty cool
oracle - for putting out a database that worked better on linux than anything else. oh, and for daring to put out an unkillable? linux.
65 • From Windows to Linux (by Otis on 2023-01-03 15:22:09 GMT from United States)
Back in '98 we were noticing RedHat Linux and SuseLinux and TurboLinux in the big box stores right next to Windows. Seemed natural and I did entertain notions that Windows might be in a fight for supremacy for the desktop market.
Well they won. But we're still here with our Linux and BSD machines and I guess we won, too.
My Linux foray began with RedHat 5.2. Struggled with it to try to make it more like Windows 95 then 98. I wonder how many others began back then and spent years trying to make Linux at least look like Windows and realizing later that there is no real reason to do that as one can make Linux and BSD look and function in any way one fancies.
66 • Used disk space (by David on 2023-01-03 18:41:57 GMT from United States)
Besides removing old kernels, which someone else mentioned, another possible issue is applications that have been upgraded but are still running. In Linux, when a file is deleted, it stays on disk as long as it is still open by a process (which includes executables that are currently running). I've had this exact same problem the user described on my parents' machine because of Google Chrome. Its executable is rather large, and it installs to /opt which isn't separated onto its own partition as often as some other parts of the filesystem tree, so it can fill up the root partition pretty easily. Solution: restart applications when installing updates.
67 • Congrats on 1000 issues! (by Luke on 2023-01-03 20:19:23 GMT from United States)
Very cool to see Ladislav join in once again! I remember all the way back when DWW first started, as I was an avid distro hopper at the time and visited this site all the time. Nowadays I just run Ubuntu, but I always come back for DWW.
Much love to all of the contributors over the years, thanks for the first 1000, and here's to the next!
68 • Gift (by stargbx on 2023-01-03 22:05:04 GMT from Puerto Rico)
I take as a Christmas gift to us readers the stories told by each of you DW managers/contributors on your experiences/preferences with your distros of choice. Really interesting, really fun to know :)
69 • Looking back (by Trihexagonal on 2023-01-04 00:42:48 GMT from United States)
Mandriva was the first distro I installed successfully and still have a screenshot from 2000 posted at a UNIX forum. I used Tao Linux for a while, still have a BackTrack 5 Live CD, which eventually became Kali Linux, in my desk but Debian was my distro of choice and settled on that early..
In 2005 I found PC-BSD and signed up as a beta tester. In 2012 I built my first vanilla FreeBSD desktop, have had OpenBSD, OpenIndiana and Solaris desktops.
A couple years ago I reincarnated a Thiinkpad T61 with Lenovo 100GB HDD and thought Kali GNU/Linux would be perfect for that. When I had to look up GNU to see exactly what that meant realized I had very little Linux experience and started to get some, much to the chagrin of Chicken Little chickadees everywhere.
One partition and one Operating System on one laptop my mantra with multiple laptops running FreeBSD or Kali Linux my Tao today.
70 • Distros used... (by LongInteresButLongConversion on 2023-01-04 01:47:28 GMT from France)
My road to Linux took time, but now it's my daily driver at home.
When i first got my own desktop personal computer, i installed Windows 95, then 98, along Debian and Red Hat (RPMS nightmare) on it, but got lazy when trying to configure Xfree86 and desktopn environment. I stuck with Windows 95 which was usable even with its blue screen sof death (BSOD). And i could play Age of Empires on it... After 2 months, i installed a firewall freeware on it, with paranoid parameters regarding incoming traffic, And after a week i noticed no BSOD had appeared ever since its installation. Hence a big lesson: the major source of BSOD were neither crappy device drivers, nor faulty RAM, but hackers scanning your sockets ad trying to connect to them, probably getting connected to some Windows service - i always used a firewall on Windows thereafter and never got any BSOD anymore, whatever the machine or version of Windows...
A few months later, i lay hands on an old PC at my new work and tried Mandrake on it. it installed and i got a KDE session. But at some point, my manager found some use for me, and i settled to work on my official Windows 95 workstation, and the Mandrake machine ended up discarded as garbage. That was the end of running Linux at work. But...
My home computer use filled the harddisk to the point i removed the Debian and Red Hat partitions i actually never used. For a few years my Linux interest was limited to reading information about it. Nothing more.
in 2001 i bought an Windows XP Asus Laptop for travels, whose Hitachi hard disk broke 2 years later. After replacing the disk with a Seagate, it worked great for another decade.
In 2004 i had to replace my desktop PC. It bought a new Shuttle small factor desktop to replace the old one that didnot support SATA. Its Shuttle motherboard power controler got fried 4 years later - a defect common to the brand (for this model). No Shuttle anymore for me.
So in 2008, i replaced it with a big 18" Sony Vaio laptop with (for desktop use), plus another 13" Sony Vaio laptop for travels, both running Windows 7 with 4GiB of RAM and respectively two and one 512-GiB harddisks (still decent today, and both machine still work, but not under Windows anymore).
I still had that old 2001 IA-32 Asus laptop with a RAM tripled in the meantime to a whooping... 768 MiB. It couldn't run Windows 7, so i tried and installed Desktop-BSB an PC-BSD on it (but they use KDE, something too much like Windows to my taste), then Debian-based Linux distros: Xandros and Linspire failed (actually, once they where installed i couldnot login because the silly designers didnot register in the installed OS the French AZERTY keyboard layout used at installation (or maybe the editors' customised login screen where juste hardcoded for US QWERTY keyboards you cannot really find here). Each time, before searching the Web for a solution i juste tried another distro. Third trial was the right one : Ubuntu 07.04 remembered the keyboard layout after the first reboot. Ubuntu upgraded regularly on it, until it installed Unity which was apparently developped by idiots who didnot know of accelerated graphics: it couldnot even exploit the old IGP for its transparency gimmicks, meaning the Unity shells took a dozen second to display itself, one screen refresh per second, before you could click on anaything...). I then tried GNOME 3 with the community Ubuntu GNOME Remix. It was fluid (despite embedding a JavaScript engine - at least GNOME 3 uses accelerated graphics!), but it didnot let enough RAM for Firefox... So I stuck with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS until Ubuntu MATE was released in 2014. A few months later after using Ubuntu MATE, the hardisk died after a dozen years of intensive service. And i then discovered i had fastened the harddisk screws so hard that trying to unfasten them damaged their heads. Otherwise, i would have been able to use the machine until now (albeit switching along the way to an IA-32-still-supporting distro, enventually with a tiling windows manager and text based applications).
In the meantime, Microsoft urged users to replace Windows 7 with Windows 10. But Windows 10 didnot support the IGP of the bigger, so i migrated it to Linux too. On the other one, Windows 10 worked for a 4-5 months, en then one peculiar Windows update managed to corrupt Windows itself to the point it couldnot proprely reboot. So instead reinstallinng the OEM Windows 7, then the upgrade to Windows 10, an ten the updates (risking to ncounter the same trouble again, i also teh machine to Linux. On both, i installed Ubuntu GNOME Remix (because i still prefer GNOME 3 to anything else, for its ease of use). Since 2011, my personal machines have never run Windows anymore.
One day Ubuntu decided to ditch their Unity crap to embrace GNOME 3, and Ubuntu GNOME Remix ended up updating itself to nowadays' Ubuntu.
I've bought 2 Asus laptop more modern machine since then and immediately installed Ubuntu GNOME, and then Ubuntu on them.
I keep my 2 2008 Sony Vaios, because they have integrated DVD drives, and i still need them so digitalize may DVDs and CDs. One of them i also my testbed for alternative distros - you never know if Ubuntu is not going to do again something as stupid as Unity, Amazons "lenses" or over-Snapping (i have found a way to get Firefox updates without Snap, but this is the current itch). This machine has been running Manjaro GNOME for 3 years now. I have tried other distros and desktop environments on it, but GNOME is still the best for me (it just run and is so simple to use), and i have found nothing match Ubunu yet, despite being obliged to deactivate Snaps an circumventing Firefox updates via Snaps: Last spring manjaro update corrupted something that made the screen flicker and i found no other way to get out of the mess than resinstalling Manjaro form scratch. Whatever the non Ubuntu distros i have used, i always get in some kind of trouble one day, while Ubuntu installations has been updating themselves for years seemlessly (my 2 oldest current has run since 2011 - their boot splashscreen animation is still the original community Ubuntu GNOME Remix one!).
To my experience only Debian-based distros are this rock-solid, but Linux Mint ignores GNOME and Debian is supposedly a little rougher on the edges for an end-user like me, who likes that everything just runs out of the box as smootly as a Macinhtosh, and only opens a terminal for fun or when feeling like learning something under the hood.
71 • Distros used... [Erratum) (by LongInteresButLongConversion on 2023-01-04 01:56:10 GMT from France)
The send-to-las Pragarph is abourt my 2 Sony Vaios.
It should have been wrtten:
"In the meantime, Microsoft urged users to replace Windows 7 with Windows 10. But Windows 10 didnot support the IGP of the bigger Sony Vaio, so i migrated it to Linux too. On the other Vaio, Windows 10 worked for a 4-5 months, and then one peculiar Windows update managed to corrupt Windows itself to the point it couldnot proprely reboot. [etc.]"
72 • Distros used... [Erratum again] (by LongInteresButLongConversion on 2023-01-04 02:00:47 GMT from France)
Sorry, my finger get tired too. So let me rewrite the erratum.
The second-to-last paragraph is about my 2 Sony Vaios.
It should have been written:
"In the meantime, Microsoft urged users to replace Windows 7 with Windows 10. But Windows 10 didnot support the IGP of the bigger Sony Vaio, so i migrated it to Linux too. On the other Vaio, Windows 10 worked for a 4-5 months, and then one peculiar Windows update managed to corrupt Windows itself to the point it couldnot proprely reboot. So instead of reinstalling the OEM Windows 7, then the upgrade to Windows 10, an then the updates (risking to encounter the same trouble again, i also migrated it machine to Linux. On both, i installed Ubuntu GNOME Remix [etc.]"
73 • Disks and partitions (by Andy Figueroa on 2023-01-04 04:19:56 GMT from United States)
I run Gentoo on my primary desktop. All my drives are spinning media. My primary drive, a 1 GB /dev/sda has eight user partitions. The drive is partitioned with a DOS/MBR partition table.
lsblk /dev/sda
sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 125G 0 part /
├─sda2 8:2 0 125G 0 part /home
├─sda3 8:3 0 125G 0 part /scratch
├─sda4 8:4 0 1K 0 part
├─sda5 8:5 0 125G 0 part /mnt/vbox
├─sda6 8:6 0 125G 0 part
├─sda7 8:7 0 125G 0 part
├─sda8 8:8 0 125G 0 part
└─sda9 8:9 0 56.5G 0 part
/scratch contains additional personal files that are not in /home.
/mnt/vbox contains VirtualBox virtual machines that are in addition to the ones in /home. /home and /mnt/vbox are both 62% used. /scratch is 84% used. The other four sda partitions are spares for future use.
I have two additional hard drives, 1 GB and 2 GB. Each of these has nine user partitions, one on each drive being a swap partition, and all of the other more or less equal sized partitions used for systematic backups. That third hard drive was added because I outgrew the second one. I also backup weekly to external media on a weekly and monthly rotating basis.
74 • The past & the future (by Gary W on 2023-01-04 05:38:36 GMT from Australia)
Let me echo the many congratulations for such a milestone issue! Looking forward to the next 1000 (especially next week's :-)
I started in 1996 with Slackware (installed from floppy on a CD-less machine).
Moved to Red Hat 6 (or 7) on CD-equipped hardware when I discovered package management.
Moved to Debian testing when I discovered working package management.
Had a spell of distro-hopping in the late noughties (to go with new hardware): Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, Mint, Debian again, Arch, quite a few others (briefly).
Finally settled on MX; it works for me. PCLinuxOS is my fallback if/when there's a problem with MX. I play with EXE (Devuan with the Trinity desktop) as a viable option for old (32-bit) systems (and my old scanner).
As for partitions, unless I'm just testing, I make a system partition, an alternate system partition (which has been handy for the situation of broken upgrades, notably due to Nvidia drivers), and a data partition. I use a swap file instead of a swap partition. Works for me.
75 • Disks and partitions (by Disks and partitions on 2023-01-04 11:43:22 GMT from France)
The number of disks and partitions varies across different machines but the essential partition is always the one containing my personal files. In addition I have a partition for my OS (currently Mint XFCE or MX XFCE) and one for a small home directory. /home is sym linked to the partition containing my personal files.
On work machines I have an EFI partition that also holds a copy of Clonezilla.iso for taking partition image backups.
76 • Congrats and fav distro (by George on 2023-01-04 11:50:03 GMT from Canada)
I've read you for at least 10 years. Happy new year and congrats on your 1000th issue!
As for distros, I've tried a few but mostly been disappointed. I don't want to make a hobby of customizing anything, I just need to get to work. I find Linux to be quite amateurish, that is lacking in cohesiveness. However, when I use Linux it's Mint Cinnamon. Though looking very basic, it was easy to use and just worked for me. I think Elementary is promising and is an example of a cohesive OS that I am referring to. It's impossible to leave Windows; the games my friends play need it, because of deep kernel anti-cheat hooks that won't ever work with Wine. Besides that, there's far too many scientific Windows programs that I use.
77 • Guhnoo slash leenux (by Cheker on 2023-01-04 16:54:20 GMT from Portugal)
I'm a relatively new face, been visiting the site since around mid 2019 (which is also more or less when I got serious about dual booting Linux, up until then it was just messing around in VMs). For no particular reason I landed on Manjaro, and it's what I use on the desktop to this day.
78 • Partitions Used (by PalomarJack on 2023-01-04 21:04:16 GMT from United States)
A long time ago there was an operating "environment" that seemed to be (or still is) designed to randomly crash, but, I was intrigued as a hobbyist by multitasking, so I kept at it. Later in version 4.x it still was not much better. All Microsoft did was make it boot at the same time as DOS. V4.1, Win98', was marginally better, but I still didn't trust it, it crashed randomly, too. At least there was long file names, at least.
Back on v3.x I lost many letters and much hobbyist programming code to Windows 3.x. It seemed the over bearing strain of a programming environment, text editor and calculator accessory was just too much. Yes, soon I saved to a separate disk, a partition was not a safe haven. Even those files were potential victims of a Windows tantrum. I managed to save files, but my whole computing world came to a, yes, crashing halt as Windows committed digital suicide by making it's system files a tangled mess, usually while writing an important correspondence. And never, ever print before saving. Just what the hell...?! As they whined about digitally deadly Windows crashes, what was the computer media missing? Microsoft was (is?) clearly clueless. So, I tried something I heard about in the Unix world, a swap partition. Was it really that simple? I put it on a small but fast hard drive, system files on the first partition of the larger drive and my files in the second partition. Hey, imagine that! Well, it never fixed the crashes, but it stopped windows from trashing everything in the process. And, I could reinstall or upgrade without the tedious task of backing up. Seems when Windows crashed most of the time, it was during a swap access which sent the heads careening about the disk while writing to the swap file. The swap drive also sped up disk access because now Windows could write to swap and read data at the same time in the new 32 bit mode. These were the reasons Unix admins were utilizing separate partitions, with swap preferably on a separate drive. DUH! Yes! It is true, the best solutions are the easiest to implement.
The moral of my lengthy story is, don't duplicate the way a more popular but inferior OS is utilized, EVER. Unix and earlier Linux installs were partitioned as they were for a reason. And their hard drives were far more expensive, so drive cost is no good excuse. Doing it the "Microsoft Way" is just plain, lazy. Some will profess that Linux is too advanced and reliable to require separate partitions. That may be so, but all it takes is one failed chip on the motherboard to change your mind.
Now I know, not everyone has a laptop that can accommodate two drives, but for Gods sake man, at least use home and swap partitions and back up your files to something reliable, not some "cloud".
Epilogue: Did Microsoft ever fix this? Well, an unknown virus is usually blamed for Windows wiping out an entire drive, including the install partition. Was that a virus? Could be. But, what do you think? Like COVID being the favorite excuse for government and corporate laziness, so are obscure computer viruses for lazy coding and install procedures. Don't do it the Microsoft Way, do it the Right Way.
79 • distro (by jay on 2023-01-04 21:19:45 GMT from United States)
i like garuda linux for its amazing options, but it is really heavy due to kde, and kde is always fixing bugs. Not good for light network. One thing rest of linux community can do -- add support for searx out of the box, instead of relying on google or bing or even duck duck go. searx is excellent search engine its a shame its complicated to install, or that firefox does not support out of box.
80 • Congrats and fav distro (by Raymond on 2023-01-04 23:26:07 GMT from Netherlands)
I started reading Distrowatch around 2002. Then using Knoppix live cd. Since then there have been many good distros, but PCLinuxOS is the one I always getting back to. Distrowatch has meant a lot to the Linux community. Both in content and its support for open source projects. Congrats to the team.
81 • How many partitions? Too many but there is a logical reason for each. (by Clarence on 2023-01-05 02:05:00 GMT from United States)
I started out having a very hard break between Linux and windows 3.x I think, Good old AT&T Linux and network. My first time with having actual email. Go down to Micro Center and buy some CD;s. Slackware for sure because it would actually run on my computer.Skip Red Hat because I probably bought 10 different versions of Red Hat over the years and eventually gave up on getting it to work.
.I still experiment with new distro's and everyone uses a boot, root, and user partitioon. This explains how I now have 12 disk partitions and feel that everyone should too.
82 • tech turmoil (by Billy-Jo Daniels on 2023-01-05 21:37:49 GMT from United States)
20 years of distrowatching, and who would have thought these things would happen:
* Sun Microsystems would go belly-up.
* Apple would become the world's richest company.
* Donald Trump would become the US President, whose claim to fame would be the use of Internet social media.
* Cybercrime would bcome a $-multibillion industry.
* Vint Cerf, the creater of the Internet - for friendly file sharing - would now recommend that ppl require a licence to use the Internet to combat its negative influence.
* An open source CPU would be developed to challenge the proprietory tech giants' CPUs.
* Distrowatch would still be going strong.
It's been a wild ride...
83 • CyberSecurity (by Antonio C Miles on 2023-01-05 19:43:53 GMT from United States)
N/A
84 • 1000th DW weekly (by dolphin oracle on 2023-01-06 03:29:02 GMT from United States)
Congratulations on your 1000th!
and thanks for including MX as one of the favorites.
85 • Finding what is consuming disk space (by Carlos Moreira on 2023-01-06 15:50:19 GMT from Brazil)
I like to use the application ncdu, the command:
sudo ncdu -x /
will open up a cli application interface showing you a nice view of your root partition files, from there you can manage it, even deleting some folders to free up some space.
86 • ncdu (by Steve Lane on 2023-01-06 19:16:45 GMT from United States)
I use ncdu all the time.
1) to check storage usage
2) to remove unneeded files; firmware is one such huge folder.
Number of Comments: 85
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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 |
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BSD Router Project
BSD Router Project (BSDRP) is an embedded free and open-source router distribution based on FreeBSD with Quagga (a software routing suite) and BIRD (an open-source implementation for routing Internet Protocol packets). Unlike other embedded networking tools, BSDRP focuses exclusively on routing packets and not on advanced firewall techniques. Additional functionality can be added to the operating system via FreeBSD's ports collection.
Status: Active
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Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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