 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1018, 8 May 2023 |
Welcome to this year's 19th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
A few weeks ago we reported on the release of Fedora 38, the latest update from the Red Hat sponsored community distribution. Fedora typically provides the latest stable versions of many software packages, including systemd and GNOME. This week Joshua Allen Holm takes Fedora 38 for a test drive and reports on his experiences. Also on the subject of Fedora, the project is looking at adding a new immutable edition. The new flavour will combine a read-only filesystem with the Budgie desktop and should be available with the launch of Fedora 39 later this year and we discuss this in our News section. Does your distribution provide an edition with an immutable filesystem? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. We also report on changes coming to the Linux Mint project, including work going into a fix for booting the Mint distribution on systems where Secure Boot is enabled. Plus we share a report of Voyager Live introducing an edition with a ChatGPT client installed by default. Then, in our Questions and Answers column, we share command line tips, including how to find appropriate manual pages for a specific task and how to string a series of audio tracks into one file. We're also pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Joshua Allen Holm) |
Fedora 38 Workstation
The many official editions, spins, labs, and immutable desktop variants of Fedora 38 were released on April 18, 2023. The five official editions are: Workstation, Server, IoT, Cloud, and CoreOS. There are ten spins featuring alternate desktop environments and nine labs that focus on specific functionality. The specifics about these versions can be found on the newly redesigned Fedora website. Oddly, the three immutable editions (Silverblue, Kinoite, and Sericea) are relegated to the footer of the new website. All the other options, including alternate downloads, are featured more predominately.
Fedora 38 -- The GNOME desktop
(full image size: 2.4MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Each edition, spin, or lab offers something different. They are all based around the same base Fedora packages, but the user experience for each of them could be vastly different, depending on which variants are being compared. Sadly, time does not permit me to look at multiple variants and compare their strengths and weaknesses. For this review, I will be using the Workstation edition, which comes with the GNOME desktop environment. Some of what I cover will be applicable to all the Fedora variants, but not everything.
Installing Fedora 38 Workstation
I started by downloading the 2.1GB Fedora Workstation ISO and copying it to a flash drive. Booting from the flash drive brought up Fedora 38 Workstation's live desktop environment with the options to install Fedora or try out the live desktop. I selected Install Fedora, which started Fedora's Anaconda installer.
Fedora 38 -- The live desktop with install prompt
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Anaconda can provide a lot of options, but in Fedora 38 Workstation it only does three things: Keyboard, Time & Date, and Installation Destination. Everything else is either handled using the live desktop's settings (e.g, for configuring networking and hostname), or by the post-install initial setup wizard, which handles new user creation. This process is okay, but I mildly dislike that failing to set a hostname manually outside of Anaconda results in a volume group being created with "live" as part of the volume group's name. For partitioning, I selected all the default options and allowed Anaconda to remove all preexisting partitions, so I ended up with a 629MB EFI partition, a 1.1GB ext4 partition mounted at /boot, and a 61GB Btrfs partition for everything else. Because I did nothing to set the hostname, this Btrfs partition ended up with the name "fedora_localhost-live". That live suffix is not going to hurt anything, but it also has no reason to be there. Yes, I could have used advanced partitioning to make things exactly the way I wanted, or I could have set the hostname, but the default volume name ending does not need to be the default hostname of the live image instead of just "fedora_localhost". Ideally, it should be possible to connect to a wireless network (or some other network) and set a hostname from inside of the installer.
Fedora 38 -- The Anaconda installer
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After Anaconda finished, I restarted the computer. The initial setup wizard ran through various steps to finish configuring the system. The steps were privacy settings for location services and automatic reporting, enabling third-party repositories, connecting to on-line accounts, and creating a new user. Pretty standard stuff, and there is nothing to say about this part of the process other than to say that it did exactly what was expected.
Fedora 38 -- Performing initial setup steps
(full image size: 1.6MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The GNOME 44 desktop environment
Much of what is new in the Workstation edition of Fedora 38 comes from GNOME 44. The upgrade from GNOME 43 to GNOME 44 is not major, but there are some really nice improvements. Several panels in the Settings application have been revised, the quick setting menu now has a menu for Bluetooth connections and the speaker icon next to the volume slider can be used to mute and un-mute the sound. Applications that use the GTK4 file chooser can now display items in a grid view. These enhancements are most welcome, but not massive changes.
Fedora 38 -- The Settings accessibility panel and quick settings menu
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Default software selection
Fedora 38 Workstation comes with Firefox 111 (already updated to 112), LibreOffice 7.5.2 (Calc, Impress, and Writer), and various GNOME applications and utilities. All of this is running on version 6.2 of the Linux kernel. The default selection of software is adequate. The standard selection of open source applications are included. There is a web browser, an office suite, and everything needed to do most basic computer tasks. The only issue is that Fedora does not ship patent-encumbered codecs in its repositories, so audio and video playback may be an issue for some. One other thing to note is the fact that this version of Fedora does not come with the GNU Compiler Collection and Make preinstalled. These were included with Fedora 37, but not in 38. Other developer tools, like Git and Toolbox, are still part of the default package set.
Fedora 38 -- The default software
(full image size: 280kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
While working on this review I only encountered a couple moderate issues with the included applications. The first was the fact that I frequently had Firefox freeze and then crash when trying to view and download PDF files. The first time I had this happen was when I tried to download OpenStax's new World History, Volume 1 textbook. This textbook is about 200MB, so tried again with something smaller. I tried to download some old 1980s programming books from Usborne and frequently had the same result. The misbehavior has improved significantly over the first week since release, but has not gone away entirely. The second issue was related to codecs and video playback, so I will cover this issue in the RPM Fusion section below.
Installing additional software
Additional RPM packages can be installed using either DNF on the command line or by using the GNOME Software GUI application. Flatpaks can be installed using either the flatpak command or by using GNOME Software. By default, the only Flatpaks available are from the Fedora Flatpak repository, which has the same patent-related restrictions as the RPM repositories. Enabling third-party repositories enables Flathub as a source of Flatpaks, and unlike in early Fedora releases, the Flathub repository is not filtered. Running the "flatpak remotes" command still lists Flathub as filtered, but no packages are actually filtered out and all the Flathub packages are available without having to take additional steps to install an unfiltered version of the repository from the Flathub website. The third-party RPM repositories include PyCharm, Google Chrome, and NVIDIA drivers and Steam from RPM Fusion.
Fedora 38 -- GNOME Software
(full image size: 150kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
RPM Fusion
As with all the distributions in the Red Hat family, using RPM Fusion is almost mandatory. Without enabling RPM Fusion, it is impossible to play anything that uses a patent-encumbered codec, which is a lot of media.
Adding the RPM Fusion repositories is not a complicated task, but is more complicated than checking a box in Ubuntu's installer. The initial step for adding RPM Fusion to Fedora involves copying and pasting a single line, but after that it gets a little complicated. If you want to add appstream metadata so RPM Fusion applications show up in GNOME Software, there is one command you need to run. Adding in codecs by updating the multimedia group is another command, and now that the ffmpeg-free package from Fedora's repositories conflicts the the RPM Fusion ffmpeg package, the '--allowerasing' flag is required. Honestly, the process of getting codecs installed in Fedora is actually getting slightly more complex instead of getting easier.
My preferred method of enabling all the RPM Fusion things is to use the command "dnf groupupdate workstation-product-environment --allowerasing" to bring in the appstream packages, the GStreamer codecs, and Intel graphic drivers in one step. However, this time things did not go as smoothly. It seems that the package name of the libav plugin changed recently and this was not initially updated in the multimedia group's metadata (as I write this, you can still see the discrepancy in Fedora 37, but not Fedora 38), which caused one of many problems I had with video files the first couple of days of using Fedora 38.
I also had to install the gstreamer1-vaapi package to get H.265 videos to play correctly. Before installing that package, all the videos were green garbage. For the first several days, with or without the vaapi package, the thumbnailer would produce garbage thumbnails of H.265 video files and would crash after producing a few of the broken thumbnail images. Lastly, and most oddly, I could not play Matroska files with E-AC-3 (ATSC A/52B) audio. I finally managed to solve this by uninstalling some GStreamer plugins and reinstalling them. The reinstalled packages were the same ones that were uninstalled (I triple checked that there were no updates available before trying this), so I have no idea why "turning it off and on again" actually worked. One week on and almost all of my multimedia issues have been resolved. I am just waiting on something to fix the fact that the Totem video player freezes when trying to load a external text subtitle file. Even an empty .srt file is enough to cause this to happen.
Final thoughts
Fedora 38 is not perfect, but I am sure the last few issues with be dealt with quickly. Minor issues aside, Fedora 38 is an okay, if somewhat boring, release. The new features are nice, but not anything so crucial that a Fedora 37 user needs to upgrade right away. That said, anyone who does upgrade will probably like the refinements.
Overall, I would recommend Fedora 38 Workstation to anyone who wants a Red Hat style distribution that is more up to date than CentOS Stream, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, or one of the various RHEL clones. If you are not tied to the Red Hat ecosystem, Fedora 38 is still a good choice, but it does not stand out enough to recommended it above Ubuntu 23.04, openSUSE Tumbleweed, or any other distribution with recent packages.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an ASUS VivoBook E406MA laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Pentium Silver N5000 CPU
- Storage: 64GB eMMC
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Networking: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
- Display: Intel UHD Graphics 605
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Visitor supplied rating
Fedora has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.3/10 from 289 review(s).
Have you used Fedora? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Fedora plans new immutable flavour, Linux Mint works to correct issue with Secure Boot, Voyager Live demonstrates ChatGPT client
The Fedora project is currently considering adding a new member to the distribution's family, expanding the number of immutable filesystem options users will have. "Fedora Onyx is an immutable desktop operating system, featuring the Budgie desktop environment. Fedora Onyx leverages the same foundational technologies as other Fedora immutable variants such as Fedora Silverblue, Fedora Kinoite, and Fedora Sericea (flatpak, rpm-ostree, podman, toolbx). Fedora Onyx is built for people that are attracted to / find value in the Fedora computing platform and Budgie desktop environment, but need the robust immutability and atomic capabilities that rpm-ostree provides, which are not offered through traditional Fedora spins (e.g. Fedora Budgie Spin)." Assuming the proposal goes ahead, Onyx will be available alongside other Fedora 39 releases later this year.
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The Linux Mint team have published their April newsletter. The report covers new visual changes to notifications and tooltips as well as security enhancements to the Warpinator file transfer tool. The newsletter also talks about an issue concerning Secure Boot: "An update in Ubuntu's shim-signed broke the compatibility of all Linux Mint (and past Ubuntu and derivative) ISOs with Secure Boot. If because of this you are unable to install Linux Mint, for now we recommend to disable Secure Boot. We are currently working on a fix for future ISOs and taking this opportunity to review the way we produce our images."
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In what is likely to be the beginning of a popular trend in many desktop Linux distributions, the Voyager Live team has announced a new edition of their desktop distribution which features a ChatGPT client: "We are at the dawn of a digital break with the arrival of AI (artificial intelligence) and ChatGPT, so it seems important to know what it is and to talk about it in the Linux community, as we do it at the beginning. So I installed a small application named Chat based on ChatGPT 3.5 on the latest Voyager 23.04, to give you an idea of its power, for simple queries. In the future, I won't integrate ChatGPT for other versions, it's just for this single version as a test." Additional information on the new edition can be found on the Voyager Live website.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Finding relevant manual pages and merging audio files
Looking-for-related-topics asks: Is there a way to do a fuzzy search on manual pages? Like, if I didn't know to look up "man cp" is there a way to find any manual page about copying files?
DistroWatch answers: For some reason it took me awhile to consider this when I first started using UNIX and Linux, but the man command - which is used to display local manual pages for programs, concepts and functions - has its own manual page. We can see it by running the command:
man man
I mention this because, while the man command is mostly used for simply displaying manual pages, it has a few other features and they're listed in its own manual.
One of the more useful features of the man command, in my opinion, is its keyword search function. We can perform keyword searches by passing the man command the "-k" flag. For example, to seek manual pages about programs which can copy files we would run:
man -k copy
The above command will return a lot of results, 66 on my machine. These results will cover commands which involve file copying, programming functions which copy data, and filesystem features. Assuming we're specifically interested in command line programs which can copy files or directories we can narrow our search by filtering down the results to include only section one (1) of the manual pages. There are nine manual page sections (helpfully listed in the man manual page). Section 1 is for command line programs.
In the following example, we perform a search for manual pages which reference the term "copy" in their description and are in the first section of the manual pages:
man -k copy | grep 1
The above command returns results such as the cp program along with other programs for transferring files like scp and rsync.
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Seeking-longer-songs asks: Is there a way to merge multiple audio files together into one long track?
DistroWatch answers: There are a few ways to concatenate multiple audio files into one, ongoing audio file. For people interested in a graphical, desktop application the Audacity audio editor can do this. You can open Audacity, import multiple tracks and then copy/paste the audio stream from one track to the end of another. Then, from the File menu, select Export and then the format (MP3, OGG) you want to use.
For people who want to use the command line, there are a few utilities which will concatenate audio files. The most simple approach is to use the sox program. It will accept a list of existing audio files, followed by the name of the new file to create. For example, here we take three small audio clips and merge them into one long MP3 file:
sox small-audio1.mp3 small-audio2.mp3 small-audio3.mp3 long-audio.mp3
The sox command works fairly quickly and doesn't require any extra flags or parameters, just the list of files we want to concatenate.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Br OS 23.04
Anderson Marques has announced the release of Br OS 23.04. Br OS, developed in Brazil, is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the KDE Plasma desktop and a set of applications designed for web content creation. This release marks the project's third anniversary. An interesting new feature of the release is an integration of ChatGPT directly in the work area. It can be accessed by an icon located on the right side of the start menu. After clicking on the icon, the user can login with an OpenAI account or create a new account. It is important to stress that ChatGPT does not have any power over the user's computer; it runs isolated inside the application. This was purposely done to prevent ChatGPT from accessing any data on the computer. In this way, the only data ChatGPT will collect are limited to those typed by the user while interacting with the application. Br OS 23.04 ships with Linux kernel 6.2, KDE Plasma 5.27.4 and Qt 5.15.8. Other items on the changelog include various interface improvements and bug fixes. See the release announcement and the changelog (both links in Portuguese) for more information and a screenshot.
Br OS 23.04 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 5.3MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,863
- Total data uploaded: 43.2TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Would you like your distribution to provide an immutable edition?
In our News section this week we reported on Fedora providing a new immutable edition, this one featuring the Budgie desktop. Immutable filesystems offer an additional layer of security and have the potential to supply smoother upgrades over time. Would you like to see your distribution provide an immutable edition?
You can see the results of our previous poll on installing software to a manually selected location in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you want your distro to offer an immutable edition?
| Yes: | 406 (33%) |
| No: | 702 (57%) |
| My distro already has an immutable edition: | 120 (10%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Dr.Parted Live. Dr.Parted Live is a bootable GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian Testing. Live CD/USB featuring a lightweight Openbox window manager and useful applications for data backup, restore and recovery. It contains Apart GUI that is a front end to the Partclone command line utility, and is capable of bare-metal backup and recovery of disk partitions. It can use external hard drives and network shares. Dr.Parted also aims to provide an easy way to carry out administration tasks on a computer, such as creating and editing hard disk partitions.
- huronOS. huronOS is a Debian-based distribution which can be run in live mode and that is specialized in competitive programming and all the activities around it, like official contests, training camps, practice contests or tests. The huronOS distribution can synchronize files between multiple instances to improve data sharing and collaboration.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 15 May 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)
- Joshua Allen Holm (feature review)
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Issue 1032 (2023-08-14): MX Linux 23, positioning new windows on the desktop, Linux Containers adopts LXD fork, Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ form OpenELA |
| • Issue 1031 (2023-08-07): Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, preventing a file from being changed, Asahi Linux partners with Fedora, Linux Mint plans new releases |
| • Issue 1030 (2023-07-31): Solus 4.4, Linux Mint 21.2, Debian introduces RISC-V support, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 |
| • Issue 1029 (2023-07-24): Running Murena on the Fairphone 4, Flatpak vs Snap sandboxing technologies, Redox OS plans to borrow Linux drivers to expand hardware support, Debian updates Bookworm media |
| • Issue 1028 (2023-07-17): KDE Connect; Oracle, SUSE, and AlmaLinux repsond to Red Hat's source code policy change, KaOS issues media fix, Slackware turns 30; security and immutable distributions |
| • Issue 1027 (2023-07-10): Crystal Linux 2023-03-16, StartOS (embassyOS 0.3.4.2), changing options on a mounted filesystem, Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Fedora debates telemetry for desktop team |
| • Issue 1026 (2023-07-03): Kumander Linux 1.0, Red Hat changing its approach to sharing source code, TrueNAS offers SMB Multichannel, Zorin OS introduces upgrade utility |
| • Issue 1025 (2023-06-26): KaOS with Plasma 6, information which can leak from desktop environments, Red Hat closes door on sharing RHEL source code, SUSE introduces new security features |
| • Issue 1024 (2023-06-19): Debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Debian releases GNU/Hurd 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 nears its end of life, FreeBSD turns 30 |
| • Issue 1023 (2023-06-12): openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the differences between independent distributions, openSUSE lengthens Leap life, Murena offers new phone for North America |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Issue 993 (2022-11-07): Static Linux, working with just a kernel, Mint streamlines Flatpak management, updates coming to elementary OS |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Shells.com |
Your own personal Linux computer in the cloud, available on any device. Supported operating systems include Android, Debian, Fedora, KDE neon, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro and Ubuntu, ready in minutes.
Starting at US$4.95 per month, 7-day money-back guarantee
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| Random Distribution | 
Rescuezilla
Rescuezilla is a specialist Ubuntu-based distribution designed for system rescue tasks, including backups and system restoration. It was forked from the "Redo Backup & Rescue" project which was abandoned in 2012. Like its predecessor, it allows a "bare-metal restore" after any hardware failure directly from the live image. Some of the features include: works directly from the live CD/USB image; works with Linux, macOS and Windows; automatically searches a local area network for drives to backup to or restore from; recovers lost or deleted data files; includes configuration tools for managing disk and drives. Rescuezilla uses a simplified LXDE user interface.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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