 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1006, 13 February 2023 |
Welcome to this year's 7th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Do you have any old computers, phones, or other devices in your home, collecting dust? Do you ever ponder what you might like to do with those under-powered, but still functional computers? This week Jesse Smith talks about revisiting his PinePhone and exploring different methods for turning the low powered smart phone into a working media server. He also discusses limitations of the PinePhone's hardware and software while trying to stream media from the phone. Then, in our News section, we talk about Fedora expanding third-party software support to include the entire Flathub repository. Plus we share a status update from the Gentoo project as the team looks back on progress made in 2022 and also report on Vanilla OS expanding its package compatibility. We then explore three questions about using the command line and scripts, providing quick and simple solutions in this week's Questions and Answers column. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. Speaking of torrents, do you use bittorrent to download the ISO files of Linux distributions? Over the years we have noticed a decreased interest in using bittorrent for fetching install media and we'd like to hear, through our Opinion Poll, whether this is a service you feel we should continue providing. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
|
| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Playing (music) with the PinePhone
As some of you may recall, I got my hands on a PinePhone about a year ago. After testing a few operating systems on it, including Manjaro Linux, postmarketOS, and UBports, I discovered the hardware wouldn't work with my local mobile carriers. I also found the device was a bit slow to react to input and this combination of limitations meant I was unable to use the PinePhone as a daily smartphone device. I was, however, able to set up the PinePhone to be a local backup and test server.
The PinePhone runs UBports fairly well and, through this mobile GNU/Linux operating system, I was able to set up OpenSSH access, rsync, Python, and other tools which allowed me to test scripts and backup work files. The device's built-in battery meant I had a highly portable, low energy, power-outage-resistant computer which I can use to backup and transfer files. The PinePhone has been mostly sitting in my office, quietly working (with the occasional interruption for upgrades) for about a year.
Recently, I'd been thinking about setting up a new project on the PINE64 device, but hadn't made room in my schedule or found a project I was motivated to start. Then, dear reader, my dinner plans got cancelled one evening and I found myself inside on a rainy day, considering how it would be convenient to be able to play music in the living room from one of the devices in my office.
As you may have worked out already, this is going to be more of a story of exploration than a review. I hope you'll join me for the journey.
A situation which sometimes crops up for me is I'll have media on a computer in my office or on my laptop in the bedroom. I'll be in the living room or kitchen, talking with someone about music, swapping new favourite songs, and then want to play something I think we'll both find interesting. My media collection doesn't fit on my primary smart phone, I don't want to lead people into my office on the far side of the house just to play a song, and it's going to break the conversation flow to pause, go power up my laptop, and launch a media player. Unless they have a streaming account, such as Spotify, and the song is available on their service, it's going to be inconvenient for us to swap music recommendations.
With this in mind, I've sometimes thought it would be worthwhile to set up a streaming media server, but just haven't got around to it. Not a local media service like Kodi, Plex, or the Music Player Daemon. These services are remotely controlled music players that use the local device (the server) to actually play the media. What I wanted was more like an on-demand Internet radio. Something I could leave active, but not constantly streaming, in the background, and access it remotely from my laptop or phone whenever I wanted. Ideally, it would be something with web access or work with a popular, remote media player. I wanted Something that I could use to search for and play music using my phone or laptop from any room in the house.
There I was, a quiet evening to myself with a spare, low-power device that had enough spare room to hold my music collection, and which was just waiting for me to find a new use for it. I decided to set out to see how much of a challenge it would be to set up my PinePhone as a remotely controlled, streaming media player. What would follow would involve multiple false starts, lots of out of date documentation, failed dependencies, broken links, and hours of troubleshooting. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
My first thought was to try Nextcloud. Nextcloud is a mature product which is open source. It offers web-based services which can synchronize files, edit documents, play music, manage files, and it has clients for just about every desktop and mobile operating system. This seemed like an easy solution, assuming I could get the necessary dependencies (such as a web server and database) running easily on UBports. You see, UBports is an immutable operating system and changes to the root filesystem are overwritten at each upgrade. This means we need to be careful, or at least conservative, when it comes to making changes to the base operating system. I didn't want to install too many packages which would get overwritten or make changes to too many configuration files.
Fortunately, for me, Nextcloud is available as a Docker container. This meant, as long as Docker was installed, and as long as Nextcloud had a Docker container for ARM-powered computers, I should have been able to download the container and run it with minimal fuss. This seemed like an easy solution!
I put my PinePhone's root filesystem in read and write mode so I could make changes to the system:
sudo mount -o remount,rw /
Then I downloaded the Docker software:
sudo apt-get install docker.io
sudo service docker start
I then tried to install and run the Nextcloud container. This involved a long command I found a few pages into the documentation:
sudo docker run \
--sig-proxy=false \
--name nextcloud-aio-mastercontainer \
--restart always \
--publish 80:80 \
--publish 8080:8080 \
--publish 8443:8443 \
--volume nextcloud_aio_mastercontainer:/mnt/docker-aio-config \
--volume /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro \
nextcloud/all-in-one:latest-arm64
This process failed, reporting there was not enough room on my filesystem. Docker tried to pull new containers into /var/lib/docker which was part of the root filesystem. Since I had very limited space on the root partition, the 680MB download, plus Docker, plus decompression meant I quickly ran out of space. I cleaned up the files and worked around the issue by binding the directory Docker was using to a location on my home and data partition:
sudo service docker stop
sudo mkdir /userdata/user-data/docker
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/docker
sudo mkdir /var/lib/docker
sudo mount --bind /userdata/user-data/docker /var/lib/docker
sudo service docker start
Checking my mount points showed the Docker service was running and now had several gigabytes of free space. I ran the giant fetch command again...
sudo docker run \
--sig-proxy=false \
--name nextcloud-aio-mastercontainer \
--restart always \
--publish 80:80 \
--publish 8080:8080 \
--publish 8443:8443 \
--volume nextcloud_aio_mastercontainer:/mnt/docker-aio-config \
--volume /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro \
nextcloud/all-in-one:latest-arm64
This time the container failed to run, reporting my version of Docker was too old. This was frustrating, but fair. I was using the version of Docker which shipped with Ubuntu 16.04 over six years ago. I removed the Nextcloud container and went looking for another solution.
* * * * *
The next challenge I faced was it was difficult to find recommendations. Performing searches for "streaming media player for Linux" or "web-based Linux media player" or "simple streaming media player for Linux" turned up dozens of hits and articles. But they're mostly "Top 5" or "Top 10" lists. I was overwhelmed with short blurbs about any or all projects the author could find that in any way involved media players running on Linux. Most of the results were not helpful, didn't involve streaming, or were for projects which were abandoned years ago.
I eventually found one article which was actually pretty relevant and covered media streaming from Linux servers. Some of the options were closed source, or required a lot of resources, or would require setting up a full web server stack manually. Once these were eliminated from the list, one project stood out: Gerbera.
The Gerbera project was described as a free, low-resource, web-based media streaming platform which could work with virtually any client operating system. Like Nextcloud, Gerbera provides a Docker container we can download and run.
I followed the instructions, running the following commands to fetch and run Gerbera:
sudo docker pull gerbera/gerbera
sudo docker run gerbera/gerbera
The experience was off to a good start, the container ran and seemed to be functioning, though the IP address it published was not one valid for my local network. According to the documentation, I'd need to change settings inside the container and edit a configuration file, or specify an IP address on the command line. The tips I found for doing this seemed out of date and threw errors. When I accessed the running container to view the configuration file, the section for an IP address seemed to be missing. Trying to force an IP address from the Docker command line failed, perhaps due to not being compatible with my older version of the container technology.
After reading more Docker documentation and some trial and error, I came up with a solution to work around the issue, binding a network port on my phone to the Docker instance:
sudo docker run --publish=8080:49494 gerbera/gerbera
Accessing Gerbera's web portal
(full image size: 52kB, resolution: 1640x1025 pixels)
At this point, any network connections coming into my PinePhone on port 8080 would be forwarded to the running copy of Gerbera which used port 49494. I was making progress. I was able to connect to Gerbera using my web browser, browse its empty folders, and confirm its settings. However, the container had no access to my music collection. The container was, of course, empty and unable to see files on my host system. I had to stop the Gerbera container and then run it again, this time passing it the path to the multimedia folder on my PinePhone. The directory on my PinePhone where I keep my music is called, unimaginatively, Music. The directory where the Gerbera container looks for media is called /content. I linked them together as follows:
sudo docker run -v /home/phablet/Music/:/content/ --publish=8080:49494 gerbera/gerbera
At this point I could browse to my PinePhone's network port using any web browser pointed to http://pinephone:8080.I could see my music collection and import music into my Gerbera library. The only problem was, I could not find a way to play the music. I could see tracks, I could download tracks through the web interface, but not play them.
With a little digging, I found out Gerbera requires a third-party client. Any software which can detect and play UPnP streams should work. Such players can include Totem, VLC, and Rhythmbox on desktop Linux systems or BubbleUPnP on Android. However, despite trying all four of these options (and a few others), none were able to detect my PinePhone running on the same network. I confirmed my phone wasn't running a firewall and that I could remotely scan its open ports, but Gerbera failed to show up in the network scans of all four media players. None of the media players offered a method for forcing a connection attempt to a specific host and port -- presumably that's not the "plug and play" way. This meant I'd hit yet another roadblock and it was time to start fresh once more.
* * * * *
After removing Docker from my PinePhone, I decided to start fresh. After some more web searches and reading more "Top 10" lists, I found another project which looked promising: Subsonic. The Subsonic project offers web-based streaming, requires no client (other than a web browser), and should run on any platform with OpenJDK 8 or higher. As it happens, UBports 16.04 had a package for OpenJDK 8.
Following the install instructions, I performed the following commands, which used about 167MB of my PinePhone's limit root partition:
sudo apt-get install openjdk-11-jre
wget https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/subsonic-public/download/subsonic-6.1.6.deb
sudo dpkg -i subsonic-6.1.6.deb
sudo service subsonic start
The above commands fetched Java, downloaded the Subsonic package, installed the package, and started the Subsonic service. At first, connecting to my phone on the default Subsonic port (4040) produced an error: "503, service unavailable". This was disappointing, but at least I was getting some form of response from the Subsonic service.
With a little trial and error, I ended up stopping the service, editing its configuration file (located at /etc/default/subsonic), and launching the service again. In short, the sequence of commands looked like this:
sudo service subsonic stop
sudo vi /etc/default/subsonic
sudo service subsonic start
There were two key lines in the configuration file (/etc/default/subsonic) which I wanted to change. One was to change the default user from root to the UBports default user which is called phablet, so the last line in the configuration file looked like this:
SUBSONIC_USER=phablet
The other change was to set the default HTTP and HTTPS connection ports. The defaults are, according to the documentation, to use ports 80 and 443, which are too low for a regular user to enable. I changed the ports to 8080 and 8043. My line in the configuration file looked like this:
SUBSONIC_ARGS="--max-memory=150 --port=8080 --https-port=8043"
Subsonic 6.1.6 -- Searching for media files
(full image size: 146kB, resolution: 1640x1025 pixels)
At this point visiting either of the network ports on my PinePhone using a web browser displayed a website with a login page. The username/password combination is displayed under the login box. I logged in, selected the option to change my password, and began looking around.
The next thing I did was go into a section call Settings and changed the location of the media folder from its default to my user's Music directory. The system then scanned my music folder and... no tracks appeared in the media library.
Puzzled, I checked the Subsonic logs and confirmed multiple files had been found during the scan. Which left the questions of what happened to them afterwards and why were they not in my library? I tried triggering another scan, confirmed the files were found in Subsonic's log, but still couldn't see any music in the subsonic library.
Through some exploration I eventually stumbled across an option which fixed the issue. After scanning the media directory I had to go to the Settings panel, then click the Users tab. Then select my username, then check a box to grant my user (the admin user) permission to access the music folder. Suddenly tracks appeared in my library! I'm not sure why the admin user cannot see the contents of their own media folder by default, but things were starting to move forward.
Subsonic 6.1.6 -- Granting the admin user access to the media library
(full image size: 129kB, resolution: 1640x1025 pixels)
Through the Subsonic portal I was able to play music, create playlists, and mark songs as favourites. The interface can take a little period of adjustment. The player appears at the bottom of the screen and our playlist only appears when the mouse pointer is over the player. I also found the player would stop playing occasionally, about once every dozen songs, and I'm not sure why. Otherwise, Subsonic was exactly what I was looking to install. It automatically scans for new files in my media directory, it can play music over the network to any device with a modern web browser, and it can serve multiple clients at the same time. Basically, it takes no set up or configuration on the client side, so long as we know the device's name or IP address on our network.
Subsonic 6.1.6 -- Playing a music track
(full image size: 84kB, resolution: 1640x1025 pixels)
The Subsonic settings page suggests it is possible to play video files in some form, though when I added a video to the media folder and did a scan for new material it was not found. The settings page has a section which allows us to select which folder is used to save video files and I tried changing this to my media directory, which caused Subsonic to throw an error with a Java traceback. It seems, in my instance at least, I'll need to be content with streaming audio files and not video. Which is okay, this is what I set out to do.
As a bonus, I was pleased to discover I could use KDE Connect to remotely control my browser based media player remotely. This means my PinePhone can stream audio to my desktop or laptop and, when I get a phone call, KDE Connect will pause the audio currently playing.
* * * * *
Conclusions
Having spent an evening hunting for software, experimenting, reading documentation, troubleshooting, reading log files, and trying various client applications I came to a few conclusions, most of which won't surprise anyone.
One of the more obvious is that "Top 10" lists of applications are usually useless. They typically don't provide a list of features or drawbacks, they never provide dependency information, most of them don't mention a license, whether the software is still maintained, or (in some cases) even include a link to the software's website. Most of them feel like copy and pasted blurbs from a Wikipedia list.
Docker can be a useful piece of technology if a person is using the latest version, has lots of free space on their root partition, isn't using a long-term support distribution, and has up to date documentation with which to work. When any one of these stops being true, Docker suddenly becomes a lot less useful. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, there isn't any clearly presented information to tell the user which version of Docker a container requires or how much space it will use once installed.
When doing any amount of terminal-based work on a PinePhone it is a huge benefit to do the work over OpenSSH rather than try to interact with the phone directly.
In hindsight, I wish the root partition of the UBports installation was larger. I don't remember seeing an option for that during the setup process but it would be helpful to have a way to easily increase the size. People like me, who use a package manager, would benefit from being able to reduce the user data partition in favour of the root partition.
Out of date documentation is the bane of many open source projects and a regular source of frustration for people hoping to build or work with software.
Plug in play is rarely as straight forward as the name implies.
The PinePhone can be a handy media server with decent performance if you can find a media service which runs on ARM64 processors and doesn't require much disk and memory. Subsonic, for its occasional hiccups and unusual configuration defaults, fits the bill and has a pleasantly uncomplicated configuration file when compared next to the alternatives.
One of the few downsides to using a web-based media player, as opposed to a local application, is the loss of shortcut keys. I'm unable to use my usual media keys to pause or skip songs and it's one of the few things I miss while using Subsonic through my web browser.
* * * * *
Visitor supplied rating
UBports has a visitor supplied average rating of: 7.8/10 from 9 review(s).
Have you used UBports? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
|
| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Fedora expands third-party software repository support, Gentoo project looks back on 2022, Vanilla OS adds support for Nix packages
The Fedora distribution famously tries to avoid shipping any non-free software or even providing easy access to non-free components. The project is considering a change to the upcoming release of Fedora 38 which would allow users to have unfiltered access to the Flathub package repository. A summary of the proposed change reads: "Fedora Workstation's existing third party repo feature allows users to enable a selection of software repos that are hosted by external organizations. This selection has included a filtered version of Flathub since F35, which provides access to a small number of Flathub apps. This change would remove the filtering from our Flathub offering, so that users can enable a complete version of Flathub using the third party repositories feature. In the graphical software manager app, Flathub packages will only be selected by default when no Fedora package is available."
* * * * *
The Gentoo project has published a look back on 2022 to share new developments and changes. The project shares commit statistics, a list of new contributors to Gentoo, and some key changes to the project which happened over the past year. One of the key features is a live disc running the KDE Plasma desktop: "LiveGUI Gentoo ISO download: For an instant, full-fledged Gentoo experience we now have a weekly-built 3.7GByte amd64 LiveGUI ISO ready for download. It is suitable for booting from DVDs or USB sticks, and boots into a full KDE Plasma desktop based on stable Gentoo. A ton of ready-to-use software is included, from dozens of system utilities, LibreOffice, Inkscape, and TeXLive all the way to Firefox and Chromium. Also, all build dependencies are installed and you can emerge additional packages as you like!" Further information is provided in the project's blog post.
* * * * *
One of the core features of Vanilla OS is the Apx package manager, a utility which can install software from multiple distributions, such as Arch Linux, Fedora, and Ubuntu. The developers have added support another source of packages: the advanced Nix package manager. "Nix has now integrated with Apx using a flag, which allows users to install software from Nix repositories. Unlike other supported distributions in Apx, Nix does not use containers and has it's own --nix flag similar to the usual Apx flags. Packages installed using the Nix flag in Apx are located in the home directory, keeping the root clean and free from changes. This implementation requires a dedicated implementation of package management methods incompatible with the existing framework." Additional details can be found in the project's announcement.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
|
| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Quick command line and shell script questions
Checking-the-load asks: The top command displays three numbers for load average. Is there any way to get these values and just these values so I can collect the load average periodically?
DistroWatch answers: The first three numbers in the /proc/loadavg file are the current load average statistics for your system. You can see them, without any other information, by running the following cut command:
cut -f 1-3 -d ' ' /proc/loadavg
* * * * *
Cannot-get-this-thing-running asks: I created a shell script, but now it doesn't run when I type its name. I just get the error "permission denied".
DistroWatch answers: Typically when a new shell script does not run at all, one of two things is happening. The first is you might be typing the name of the script without its relative path. For example, if I created a script called my-script I should run it this way:
./my-script
I should not try to run it this way:
my-script
The latter seeks any program called my-script in a list of common directories, referred to collectively as the user's path (or $PATH). For security reasons, the current working directory is not necessarily part of the path. Specifying the relative name of the script (./my-script instead of my-script) tells the system where the script is.
The other common issue is the script has not been made executable. In other words, you have permission to read and edit the script, but not run it. Most Linux distributions block executable permission on new files by default which prevents things like dangerous document files or scripts from being run when downloaded from the Internet.
We can allow the script to be executed by running the chmod command:
chmod +x my-script
* * * * *
Accessing-everything-everywhere asks: Are there any filesystems which both Windows and Linux can access for sharing files?
DistroWatch answers: There are several. The exFAT, FAT32, and NTFS filesystems can be used by both Linux and Windows. There are drivers which Windows can use to read ext4 filesystems too, though I have not confirmed whether Windows can write safely to ext4 filesystems.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
|
| Released Last Week |
SparkyLinux 6.6
SparkyLinux is a Debian-based distribution which provides several desktop editions accompanied by convenient tools. The latest release from the project is SparkyLinux 6.6 which includes persistent storage when run live from USB drives. "A Sparky tool to create live USB disk (sparky-live-usb-creator) has gotten a new feature which lets you make a live USB disk with persistence. It means you can use Sparky Live system from a USB disk and save your work and new installed applications to the same USB disk. The 6.6 ISO images received some small changes of live boot lists (isolinux and GRUB) to make it compatible with the persistence feature. Make sure that ISO images older than 6.6 are note compatible with the persistence feature. The ISO images compatible with persistence feature are (in this moment) Stable 6.6 and higher and Rolling 2023.01 and higher." Additional information and a list of key package updates can be found in the project's release announcement for version 6.6.
Endless OS 5.0.0
João Paulo Rechi Vita has announced the release of Endless OS 5.0.0, a significant upgrade of the project's app-centric, Debian-based distribution featuring the EOS Shell (a fork of GNOME Shell), available for x86_64 and arm64 (including Raspberry Pi and Pinebook) computers. The new version introduces a refreshed desktop experience, multiple workspaces and an all-new app centre. Users of Endless OS 4 will need to upgrade to version 4.0.14 before they can upgrade to version 5.0.0. Endless OS 5.0.0 is out. Endless OS 5 continues to be the app-centric operating system you've come to know and love, but the experience has been refreshed based on user testing and feedback. At a glance, you'll notice the grid of apps and search are largely the same, while the taskbar a the bottom of the screen in Endless OS 4 has been split into two more purposeful elements in Endless OS 5 - the bottom dash for your favorite and running apps at the bottom of the screen, and the top panel with more information and system status at the top of the screen." See the release announcement and the release notes for more information and screenshots.
Endless OS 5.0.0 -- Application launchers and dock
(full image size: 6.6MB, resolution: 3840x2400 pixels)
Univention Corporate Server 5.0-3
Univention Corporate Server (UCS) is an enterprise-class distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux. The distribution's 5.0 series has been updated, bringing new features, improved performance, and some new security options. "Determine group membership of users faster: The group membership of a user in UCS is now conveyed via the 'memberof' attribute of the user. This means you no longer have to search across all groups for a user but can access a cache on the user object that contains this information. This considerably speeds up the search for group membership. Synchronisation of password history: With the new UCS version, to prevent the use of passwords that have already been used, a user's passwords that have been used in the past are stored in a history. For this purpose, UCS saves hashes of the passwords in the history. In the past, the history was saved individually by the system that processes the password change - this can be OpenLDAP (for changes via UDM and Kerberos), Samba4 (for changes via desktop systems in the UCS domain) or Active Directory (when using the AD connector). From now on, these different histories will be synchronised, so it doesn't matter which system the user changes their password on since the same overarching password history now applies." Additional information can be found in the distribution's release announcement and in the release notes.
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
|
| 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: 2,829
- Total data uploaded: 42.9TB
|
| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
|
Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Should DistroWatch be seeding torrents?
Years ago DistroWatch began the practise of downloading install media for new releases of open source operating systems and seeding the media through bittorrent. Over the years, this site has seeded over 2,800 torrents for new Linux and BSD releases and uploaded over 42TB (42,000GB) of ISO files.
While a lot of people found our torrents useful in the first few years we were providing this service, interest in torrents seems to be dropping off. Early on, we would usually upload hundreds of gigabytes of ISO files each week and have dozens of people downloading torrents from our server at any given time.
In the past year interest in torrents as a download method seems to have waned. These days we might only have a few dozen clients download torrents from us over the span of the entire week and most weeks we upload less than 50GB of data via torrents.
At this point it seems almost all of our readers download install media directly over HTTP or HTTPS rather than using the bittorrent protocol. As a result we are curious to hear whether you feel our bittorrent seeding service is worth keeping?
You can see the results of our previous poll on using the CDE desktop and its modern clone in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
|
Should we continue to seed torrents?
| Yes: | 879 (47%) |
| No: | 990 (53%) |
|
|
| Website News |
|
Article swap with FOSS Force
This week DistroWatch and FOSS Force partnered to perform an article swap. Christine Hall has offered to review the latest release of the elementary OS distribution for us, and we'll have that for you here next Monday. In exchange, our Jesse Smith wrote an overview of KDE, its KDE Plasma desktop, and its cool features such as KDE Connect. The article on KDE has been published on FOSS Force for your enjoyment.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 20 February 2023. 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)
|
|
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 0, value: US$0.00) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Torrents (by Brad on 2023-02-13 01:27:17 GMT from United States)
One advantage of your torrent service, is that I can find older versions of distributions that the distro maintainers no longer host. I realize that this is not a compelling reason to keep the service, but it has helped me in the past.
2 • This week's "review" (by don't mention on 2023-02-13 01:52:54 GMT from Australia)
I thoroughly enjoyed reading that Jesse, even though I don't have a Pinephone (or any intentions of getting one).
I for one would like to see more of these experiments in print - I wouldn't have had a clue you could do that sort of thing and the number of old devices is starting to build up around here...
3 • PinePhone review (by Jesse on 2023-02-13 02:08:22 GMT from Canada)
@2: Thank you. I sometimes start articles like this one, but usually end up scrapping them because "Nothing works and the documentation is non-existent" doesn't make for an interesting expose. This one was one of the few to get far enough along in the process it felt worth discussing.
4 • Torrents... (by tom joad on 2023-02-13 02:28:41 GMT from Netherlands)
I rarely do torrents. Yes, there have been times when I have used torrents. But I just don't see the benefit in time. Maybe back in the day there was was a benefit. I don't know.
That is just my view. There may well be others in other places that embrace torrents and see the need of them. No doubt torrents fill a need.
However, here we have public wifi that is smoking fast. At home my wifi is pretty fast though that really depends on the site at the other end. And maybe torrents can fix that though I suspect not. Again, I don't know. But here I can download a full version of Linux Mint Vera Cinnamon in less than two minutes.
Maybe I am unusual. Again, I don't know. But if I can do that, what benefit is a torrent to me?
Yes, that is subjective. And subjectivity may lead one astray here as it can in any decision or discussion.
Lastly, I would say if the overhead and cost is not a lot to continue torrents, continue them. We have no or little idea what internet life is like in Third world areas. But we do know there are a lot of Third world folks who want to "Know." Torrents may be a benefit to them.
5 • torrents (by Toran on 2023-02-13 02:55:40 GMT from Belgium)
Hi, I do not see why DW is seeding torrents as we can easily download from te distro website.But I would like to see the service continued for isos which have no torrent on the distro page. I do prefer downloading via torrent.
6 • Gentoo (by Toran on 2023-02-13 02:59:35 GMT from Belgium)
It would be nice for Gentoo to provide a real installer like Calamares so we can do an easy install and use an original Gentoo. A couple of days to install a distro is quite long...and thus far from practical.
7 • Torrents (by Sam Crawford on 2023-02-13 04:26:27 GMT from United States)
I still download torrents and install from them but I always download the torrents from the project's site.
8 • Torrents (by Andy Prough on 2023-02-13 04:45:20 GMT from United States)
I use torrents for downloading distro ISO's whenever they are available, so I always would rather see more torrent options rather than less. My preferred torrent client is qBittorrent. Some clients, like Transmission, don't usually download torrents from archive.org correctly, and archive.org is usually where I host ISOs of my respins.
9 • KDE article (by Joe on 2023-02-13 04:52:41 GMT from New Zealand)
Great to see the colab with FOSS Force and the article is an informative read. KDE a nod to last week's big subject, CDE. Those old interfaces were well designed but lacked the speedy hardware and awesome graphics we have today. Going back to last week, Xfce is based a lot on CDE? .. maybe that's why I get an allergic reaction to it. :)
Torrents - I use them sometimes, mostly from the distro sites themselves, except for some distros that don't. But then the ISO direct doesn't take too long. Must be quite a chunk of drive and server housework around it for you.
10 • "Top 10" lists (by Simon on 2023-02-13 07:49:16 GMT from New Zealand)
Yes, and it's not just these that are useless, there's a massive infestation of AI-generated garbage out there now (many "comparison" sites, with side-by-side comparisons of tech products, are examples of this kind of empty click-bait garbage). In fact when I've searched recently for info on some products I've come across more useless AI-generated crap than actual human-authored reviews. The challenge of carving our way through all the cynically mass-produced advertising-driven noise to find some actual information is getting harder every day, and there doesn't seem to be anyting in place to control it: the Internet is less and less a source of real information, more and more a disgusting rubbish dump of AI-generated click-bait.
Fortunately most of this crap is so soullessly market-driven that it follows research-based patterns and therefore winds up looking/reading like every other top 10 / comparison / whatever site: after you've suffered through a few of them, you can at least smell the AI immediately in the next few as you search for the human stuff.
11 • Why I prefer torrents over direct downloads (by Gwynion on 2023-02-13 08:36:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
I admit I was surprised to hear that the popularity of torrent downloads are waning while direct downloads are increasing.
I have always considered torrent downloads to be preferable from a file integrity angle, dispensing with the need for MD5 integrity checks and the like.
Secondly, torrent downloads can handle power cuts or loss of internet connection and later be resumed from where it got suspended - unlike direct downloads where you have to start all over again.
Thirdly, torrents are a co-operative community driven technology more in spirit with the whole open source philosophy. A community of peers, if you like, as opposed to a master / slave model of direct downloads.
12 • Torrents (by Arnold on 2023-02-13 09:59:38 GMT from United States)
I no longer hop around for new distros much any more. Therefore, I just don't use torrents.
13 • Torrents (by Dino on 2023-02-13 11:07:49 GMT from Denmark)
I admit, I don't use torrents. I prefer direct downloads, especially the fast ones. I guess, I always asume I want to avoid potential slow downloads by torrent. I know it's wrong, but thw the direct download is just one click away, and I don't like to use "a middleman" - a torrent client.
14 • Torrent downloads (by Jesse on 2023-02-13 14:01:01 GMT from Canada)
@11: "I have always considered torrent downloads to be preferable from a file integrity angle, dispensing with the need for MD5 integrity checks and the like."
This is probably not a safe idea. We ran an article just a few weeks ago about why torrent checksums do not replace the need to run MD5/SHA checksums on downloaded media: https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20230116#qa
"Secondly, torrent downloads can handle power cuts or loss of internet connection and later be resumed from where it got suspended - unlike direct downloads where you have to start all over again."
Almost all direct file download clients support resuming transfers that were interrupted. If your connection drops or the power cuts, almost all download clients have an option to resume where they were stopped. You don't need to rely on torrents for this.
15 • Torrents (by dragonmouth on 2023-02-13 14:05:09 GMT from United States)
I do not use torrents so I have no preference either pro or con.
16 • Torrents (by isyankar47 on 2023-02-13 14:36:59 GMT from Turkey)
I don't know what are the most popular torrent iso files, the device I use is open most of the time, it would be helpful if you list the most downloaded ones, don't close it anyway, I will support the seed
17 • Torrents and torrents (by npaladin2000 on 2023-02-13 15:05:03 GMT from United States)
I like the idea of torrents but I think they're going to continue to wane as long as they require interfacing with another program to download. There's nothing stopping Firefox from implementing torrents in a limited fashion as a download protocol at the very least...or even Chrome or Edge, but I'd expect it see it in Firefox first, then maybe Chromium. And I think it's telling that so far no one's done it.
18 • media playing (by David on 2023-02-13 16:42:22 GMT from United States)
I also enjoyed the non-review review and found it interesting. I have Gerbera set up on my parents' computer. It was harder to get it to work when it was called Mediatomb, but it doesn't seem so bad now. I had to change protocolInfo extend to yes in the config.xml. I haven't tried playing from VLC or any computer-based player, but our old Samsung smart TV picks it up.
19 • MPD remote database (by Tim on 2023-02-13 16:47:46 GMT from Netherlands)
Just a little tip: MPD can be configured to run as a server for music - and it's fairly simple to do.
On the server share your music directory over nfs or smb (and a playlist directory if you want) and configure mpd like normal, adding a bind_to_address for your network interface.
In the client mpd.conf set music_directory to your network share eg. "smb:/someshare/music" (and playlist directory), comment out the db_file line, and enable the database "proxy" plugin to point to the server. Then you can use whatever frontend you want.
If you want to get fancy you can set up pulseaudio to stream over the network, but that is a bit more fiddly.
20 • Torrents (by Matt on 2023-02-13 17:11:50 GMT from United States)
With Broadband connections being more common and reliable around the world, the decline of torrents are understandable. They still have a place though, as many of the smaller, less popular distros may not be able to afford the bandwidth costs associated with hosting consistently fast http(s) downloads.
For many of these distros, Distrowatch could provide much needed accessibility.
21 • MPD (by Jesse on 2023-02-13 17:58:41 GMT from Canada)
@19: "Just a little tip: MPD can be configured to run as a server for music - and it's fairly simple to do."
As it happens, MPD was the first project I looked at as a possibility. However, reading through the introduction documentation made it seem like MPD would only play music on the server, not stream remotely. (The documentation and Debian package description both say the MPD service plays locally and is controlled remotely.) The MPD documentation on clients also says clients only control playback, not accept music streams.
Just now, even with the tip provided, I went back and browsed the MPD documentation and still can't find any guide to remote streaming. If you find a guide for this, please share a link to it so others can enjoy it.
22 • Seeding torrents (by Roger on 2023-02-13 19:21:56 GMT from Belgium)
I don see the benefit of DistroWatch seeding torrents.
There is a lot of information on this excellent site and this is not needed in my opinion.
Keeping your core business and maintaining this level of excellence would be the right choice.
23 • Torrents (by stefan on 2023-02-13 19:38:55 GMT from United States)
Hosting torrents on DW takes away traffic from the distros own websites.
24 • compatible file systems (by StpehenC on 2023-02-13 22:28:25 GMT from United States)
In the answer to "Accessing-everything-everywhere asks" don't forget there is the UDF file system as well and works with Apple Mac too. A script to make it easy: https://github.com/JElchison/format-udf
25 • Gerbera (by Chen on 2023-02-14 01:26:13 GMT from United States)
Maybe there should be additional ports configured to be published by the Docker container for UPnP access? UPnP is not HTTP, and the published port is presumably bound to a HTTP or HTTPS service accessible to web browsers.
26 • Torrent culture (by AdamB on 2023-02-14 01:34:34 GMT from Australia)
I have done my downloading of distros with torrents, by preference, for quite a few years.
It has been my practice to leave the torrent program running for a few days, in order to make a contribution to the community.
27 • Torrents (by RevLee on 2023-02-14 01:41:01 GMT from United States)
If you do continue to seed torrents you really need to supply Magnet links. Firefox now requires you to download the torrent file first, then load it into the Torrent client to download the full file directly unless you use a Magnet link.
28 • Torrents (by Jesse on 2023-02-14 03:21:44 GMT from Canada)
@17: "I like the idea of torrents but I think they're going to continue to wane as long as they require interfacing with another program to download. There's nothing stopping Firefox from implementing torrents in a limited fashion as a download protocol at the very least...or even Chrome or Edge, but I'd expect it see it in Firefox first, then maybe Chromium. And I think it's telling that so far no one's done it."
Opera had torrent downloading capabilities around a decade or so ago. Brave has had torrent downloading built in for a few years. Browsers like Firefox and Chromium can use uTorrent and JSTorrent extensions, respectively, to download torrents. Firefox and Chrome don't have the feature built in because there are extensions to do it already.
@23: "Hosting torrents on DW takes away traffic from the distros own websites."
Yes, exactly right. This is a big part of why we do it. Distro websites are often short on funding and bandwidth. Providing torrents is one way to take the burden off them.
@27: "If you do continue to seed torrents you really need to supply Magnet links. Firefox now requires you to download the torrent file first, then load it into the Torrent client to download the full file directly unless you use a Magnet link."
This is not the case. Firefox will pass .torrent files to any application you tell it to. It sounds like your copy of Firefox either A) doesn't have the torrent mime type registered to it (check your settings page, under the Applications section) AND B) you have Firefox set to download unknown files only, not ask what it should do with unknown files. Changing either of these options on your Settings page in Firefox will allow you to open any .torrent files in the client of your choice.
29 • torrents (by balloongineer on 2023-02-14 05:19:13 GMT from United States)
The most common distros can be downloaded, at a good AC speed, from a popular fast food retaurante. Since they make $millions off the public, why not take advantage of their free (though time-limited) internet. The more obscure distros might be located on slower servers, so they would benefit from a torrent service.
30 • torrents (by dave on 2023-02-14 05:40:54 GMT from United States)
I don't distrohop these days, but my default preference is to download ISOs via torrent, because it's less bandwidth from the distribution's hosting. Maybe nowadays they don't care as much (???) but I don't currently see any reason in curtailing the habit. I use Transmission and though I don't have it running all the time, I keep the latest MX Linux ISO seeding.
I don't know about everyone else, but when there are enough seeders, torrents far exceed (xseed lol) http download speeds. Where most centralized hosts will top out at 2.5mb/sec, I can hit 7mb/sec with a lot of fast seeders.
31 • Hosting torrent service (by Otis on 2023-02-14 13:19:01 GMT from United States)
I think it's a natural part of Distrowatch's legacy, to be a hub for distros in general and via torrent service. It has dwindled, but not gone away and the "few dozen" who use it per week are grateful, I'm sure.
32 • hosting torrents (by Joey on 2023-02-14 14:34:21 GMT from Netherlands)
I rarely download iso/img files over http/s. Torrents download faster and more reliably. I personally believe people should be using torrents to download as much as possible just for building mental muscle memory for using distributed systems over feeding centralized bad habits.
The Venn diagram of benefits of torrents over http is in greater favor of torrenting. If anything, this site should spotlight its role and supporting the use of torrents more.
33 • Torrents (by Kazlu on 2023-02-14 17:30:26 GMT from France)
Should we continue using torrents? Yes! The more people use torrents to download Linux ISOs, the weaker the burder on the distro's infrastructure! Ok I get that big distro providers can take it, but still! And like some of you said, with enough seeders you still get download speeds surpassing direct downloads. Well, it depends how long ago the ISO went out I guess!
However: should *Distrowatch* seed torrents? Eh... I myself only get ISOs from the project's website. I prefer using torrents, but if they don't have it, I fall back on the direct download. It's their choice.
I personally don't really see the need for a "3rd party torrent provider". Torrents are precisely a way to ease off the burden on the project's website. If they don't do it... Their loss.
34 • Torrents (by Jesse on 2023-02-14 17:34:00 GMT from Canada)
@33: "However: should *Distrowatch* seed torrents? Eh... I myself only get ISOs from the project's website. I prefer using torrents, but if they don't have it, I fall back on the direct download. It's their choice."
We don't make our own torrents. We're just seeding torrents provided by the distribution. We download the torrent, seed it, and then provide links to the torrents created by the distribution. It doesn't matter if you click the link on DistroWatch or on the project's website, you're downloading the same torrent.
35 • "simple streaming media player for Linux" (by lincoln on 2023-02-14 18:09:08 GMT from Brazil)
Did Jesse take a look at rygel (DLNA/UPnP server)? It is a straightforward and efficient solution for streaming audio, video, photos and media player control.
According to the project itself (https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/rygel/):
"Rygel is a home media solution that allows you to easily share audio, video and
pictures, and control of media player on your home network. In technical terms
it is both a UPnP AV MediaServer and MediaRenderer implemented through a plug-in
mechanism. Interoperability with other devices in the market is achieved by
conformance to very strict requirements of DLNA and on the fly conversion of
media to format that client devices are capable of handling." "search and play media using a phone, TV, or PC."
36 • rygel (by Jesse on 2023-02-14 18:16:54 GMT from Canada)
@35: "Did Jesse take a look at rygel?"
No, never heard of it before. None of the searches I did for media servers mentioned it. There is a rygel package for UBports 16.04 so it would have been a possibility, in theory. However, the rygel project doesn't seem to have any user documentation. There is no wiki, no getting started docs, no official releases listed on their GitLab page, so I would have skipped over it had it turned up in search results.
37 • rygel (by lincoln on 2023-02-14 20:36:19 GMT from Brazil)
@36 I regret not listing the relevant links and information earlier.
documentation: http://rygel-project.org/doc/latest/rygel.html
project wiki: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Rygel
arch linux wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Rygel
//standard folders (${HOME}/Videos, ${HOME}/Music, ${HOME}/Pictures)
how to run: $ rygel
config: "Rygel can be configured globally (/etc/rygel.conf) or per-user (~/.config/rygel.conf). The default /etc/rygel.conf is well documented. More information on these and other configuration options can be found with rygel.conf(5)."
38 • Torrents++ (by Harriet on 2023-02-14 21:04:47 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thank You for sharing the torrents.
There are some of us round the planet who do not have always-on blistering-speed reliable internet.
WE are helped by torrents.
I wish you did ALL the different distros as torrents, gathered for convenience and serendipitous discovery.
I am currently auditioning distros.
Canonical says my Kubuntu 20.04 LTS will be unsupported two months from now.
Over several years I've grown increasingly disappointed and frustrated at their software and their policies.
They're getting ever more like Apple/Google etc, you can't trust that their next move will be in YOUR best interests.
You grow weary each version, hunting down what new grubby behind-the-scenes changes need reverting or disabling.
I'm fond of KDE, but I'm going to ditch Ubuntu, probably switching to a Debian or Arch.
Something more "community" less "corporate" where the bright and the passionate "eat their own dogfood."
It's a few years since my last proper distro-search, and I was much less Linux-savvy back then.
Your distro-news website and its torrents is very helpful.
Beyond torrent vs http, I suspect your drop in weekly downloads may reflect wider tech trends and societal shift.
The heyday of "gonna be the Year Of The Linux Desktop" surely fades as the masses have moved away from PCs to phones.
These days, the focus among the latest cool Bright Young Things is surely all Apps, not distros.
They've all got the devices in their pockets, and the industry-serving school tech-curricula foster it too.
It's all about Apps for one of the two tech-giant's platforms, and all within education-departments still in bed with Bill.
The entrenched pernicious tentacles of big Yankee corporates deliberately stifle diversity, blinkering young minds.
Few if any entrants to STEM generally (and even CS specifically) bother about Linux and "distros."
Where's the fresh interest in "distros" coming from?
As a longtime Linux user I've noticed the dwindling, the withering, the death of software I've used and liked.
Mirroring actual biodiversity-loss around the planet, in a changed Linux-landscape, projects go extinct.
It would be interesting to know the age-profile of the surviving Linux developer-communities.
I'll bet it's an aging demographic, increasingly weary and stressed and subject to Other Life Issues.
Meanwhile a generation has been conditioned and lured into always-networked tech they don't control.
Freedom-hostile channels which abuse and exploit and control them is the norm, but they just don't care.
Despite even big headline scandals, they still return like "sows to the mire, and dogs to the vomit."
Sovereign local-control distro-worthy IT devices are tools valued and used by only a tiny percentage.
But that tiny percentage of determined users welcomes every community-resource still available.
So, please don't be distracted by the HTTP-direct vs Torrent thing.
I endorse the comments of others.
Your torrents DO help some of us end-users (speed/robustness/convenience), and hard-up distro-projects too.
So please don't pull the plug.
Thanks for reading.
39 • torrents (and seeding) (by Titus_Groan on 2023-02-15 06:48:49 GMT from New Zealand)
I use torrents and when downloaded, I leave my torrent client up and running to act as a seeder for those also wanting the file(s) not just ISOs I have.
If using ktorrent, I have "keep seeding after downloading is complete" enabled.
community spirit n' all
40 • Media Service Article (by jmac on 2023-02-15 12:21:45 GMT from Canada)
Thank you for a well-put together article on your quest for media streaming. I found it interesting from a techie point of view and I admire the problem solving. However in the end, it reflects frustrations I have had using Linux. It's something you can do for a hobby for sure, but it is often so difficult to do simple things that I can't use it effectively for work, research or other hobbies. I don't mean to offend the Linux crowd, but I always feel that Linux has never been as polished as Windows in my experience.
I look forward to next week's articles, keep up the good work!
41 • Playing (music) with the PinePhone (by Jack on 2023-02-15 11:52:28 GMT from Australia)
Hopefully Jesse's future dinner engagement wouldn't be cancelled so that he's not tempted again to write another article about an obscure topic like playing music on a cranky mobile phone!
42 • Re 28 (by RevLee on 2023-02-15 23:48:19 GMT from United States)
"This is not the case. Firefox will pass .torrent files to any application you tell it to. It sounds like your copy of Firefox either A) doesn't have the torrent mime type registered to it (check your settings page, under the Applications section) AND B) you have Firefox set to download unknown files only, not ask what it should do with unknown files. Changing either of these options on your Settings page in Firefox will allow you to open any .torrent files in the client of your choice. "
That used to be the case, but not any longer, and hasn't been the case for several months. Mozilla changed that as a "so called" security feature several versions ago. Unless they have changed it within the last 5 minutes, you can no longer do that (and I just checked that prior to typing out this reply).
43 • Firefox and torrents (by Jesse on 2023-02-16 03:08:46 GMT from Canada)
@42: "That used to be the case, but not any longer, and hasn't been the case for several months. Mozilla changed that as a "so called" security feature several versions ago."
I also checked before I posted my previous reply, explaining how to download torrents in Firefox. It still works, as of Tuesday and successfully downloads torrent files and offers to launch Transmission. Actually, I updated Firefox and checked again today after reading your latest post. Still works with a vanilla version of Firefox here.
I also checked the changelog and security fixes for all the versions in the past few months. None of them mention disabling torrents or forcing magnet links only. This isn't a Firefox issue, at least not vanilla Firefox, it seems to just be your setup.
44 • Windy security (by deflated tek on 2023-02-16 05:20:09 GMT from United States)
@40 Windows uses the TPM chip for security. But after physical exploits were demonstrated in a lab, it now uses the Pluton (on-die) chip. Don't know why there is so much concern for physical attacks on computers. You would think that most attacks and vulnerabilities exist via networking - e.g., numerous exploitable ports / ransomware attacks. Surely what is a needed is a network security chip.
45 • Torrents (by Justin on 2023-02-16 18:36:38 GMT from United States)
My experience was the opposite of @1. I tried downloading a torrent for an old distribution from DW that was maybe a couple weeks old, and it said that it was no longer available. After that I stopped checking to see if I could use torrents. I assumed if I didn't get it the week it was released, they were taking it down.
I've tried using torrents in the past and found they can be slower than direct connections. That was true with Linux Mint at least. Also, I don't want to build a bad reputation with the trackers. I share while I'm downloading, but my firewall/router prevent me from seeding to anyone long term because the packets get dropped. Maybe that is an article in the future, using a Raspberry Pi and configuring a NAT router to have a seed box. I'd love to share, but I also like to keep my front door closed. Maybe trackers no longer care about seed ratio, but there was a time that was the case, and it didn't seem worth the risk in case one day I really needed something. Also, I don't want to have to explain to my ISP that I'm only downloading Linux ISOs when they traffic shape and are hostile to torrents (at least they used to be).
Torrents are awesome though. I read an article once about setting up a torrent update server to update a fleet of internal machines. It's much faster and doesn't even require public internet once the file is down.
46 • FOSS Force (by Justin on 2023-02-16 18:39:35 GMT from United States)
I wanted to read the KDE article, but there is a stupid "BREAKING NEWS" red banner that scrolls on the top of their site and keeps itself at the top even when I try to scroll past it. I just closed the article instead. Thank you DW for not doing crap like that. And the "breaking news"? One was for a top 10 list...
47 • Torrents (by Jesse on 2023-02-16 18:46:22 GMT from Canada)
@45: " I assumed if I didn't get it the week it was released, they were taking it down."
It depends on the project. We only seed for a week, but how long the torrent remains active depends on the tracker and the other peers seeding.
"I've tried using torrents in the past and found they can be slower than direct connections."
This can be true, especially when a distribution is less popular or a lot of time has gone by after the release. Torrents tend to work best with popular items.
"I don't want to build a bad reputation with the trackers."
That is only applicable for very specific pirating trackers. It's never been a common rule that applied everywhere. I've never seen it applied to any open source trackers.
"I share while I'm downloading, but my firewall/router prevent me from seeding to anyone long term because the packets get dropped."
That is weird behaviour. You might want to look into getting your router fixed/replaced.
"I don't want to have to explain to my ISP that I'm only downloading Linux ISOs when they traffic shape and are hostile to torrents (at least they used to be)."
Why would your ISP care? I've never had an ISP ask me what I was torrenting, downloading, or streaming. Maybe this is an American thing?
48 • @47 (by Justin on 2023-02-17 18:46:35 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the reply, Jesse.
The packets dropping are probably firewall rules. The router is set to drop all incoming packets unless they are from an associated connection. I don't host any services, so it made sense. I use torrents so infrequently I've never looked at what to open up to make it work.
Re: ISPs, it is a US thing. Since torrents are commonly used for pirating, ISPs in the past have been accused of blocking or restricting traffic among other things (I won't comment further because there are legal cases and court records). Even though no infringement happens, torrenting still gets associated with pirating and may attract "special attention" I'm not interested in (just because a person has nothing to hide doesn't mean they want someone rummaging around). I ran into similar problems trying to use IRC for support channels and having malware scanners on Windows flag or block traffic because, apparently, only malware uses IRC.
49 • a goldmine of information and news! (by chubby rain on 2023-02-20 00:52:47 GMT from Sweden)
What an incredible resource this website is! I wish every user would at least part with $1.00 (or more) because how useful and fun this website is! Thank you Distrowatch.
Number of Comments: 49
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
| | |
| 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.
|
| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
| Random Distribution | 
Super OS
Super OS (formerly Super Ubuntu) was a modified version of Ubuntu with the goal of making it more usable, in particular for users without an internet connection, while trying to remain compatible with Ubuntu. Features compared to Ubuntu include better multimedia support, improved Internet experience (aMSN, Opera, Flash), App Runner, and other software, such as Java, Ubuntu Tweak and live USB creator.
Status: Discontinued
|
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
0x969CD4E778C7b6549A2B00e34114e0168c86A542 
