 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1019, 15 May 2023 |
Welcome to this year's 20th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The official Ubuntu family of distributions offers a lot of variety. There are community editions of Ubuntu featuring almost every desktop environment, lots of different configurations, and both short-term and long-term support versions. One thing the official Ubuntu family has not embraced is a rolling release edition. This week we talk about an unofficial spin of Ubuntu which offers a rolling release running the Xfce desktop. This special edition, called Rhino Linux, is in its early stages of development, but already seems to be quite functional. Jesse Smith takes Rhino Linux for a test drive and reports on his experiences in this week's Feature Story. In our News section we discuss the NethServer project coming back from vacation with a new approach and style. Plus we share a comparison of the pfSense and OPNsense operating systems. The latter is a fork of pfSense and we link to a side-by-side comparison of the two projects. Meanwhile the System76 developers are working to improve the performance of whichever desktop application is currently in focus and Fedora 36 is nearing the end of its life. In our Questions and Answers column we talk about reverse dependencies and how to determine which applications rely on a low-level system package. This week we welcome a new project, rlxos, to our database. The rlxos distribution offers an immutable base running the GNOME desktop and Flatpak packages. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Rhino Linux (Beta)
One of the most recent additions to the DistroWatch waiting list is Rhino Linux. The project takes an unusual approach by offering an Ubuntu-based rolling release operating system. The project's website describes the distribution as follows:
Rhino Linux re-invents the Ubuntu experience as a rolling release distribution atop a stable desktop environment. Pacstall is at the very heart of the distribution, providing essential packages such as the Linux kernel, Firefox, Rhino Linux specific applications and theming. We have sane defaults, making the traditional desktop beautiful. With Xfce your desktop is lightweight, fast and customisable.
If this description, or even the name of the project, sounds familiar then you may be remembering Rolling Rhino Remix which we reviewed about a year ago. Back in October, the Rolling Rhino Remix project was replaced with Rhino Linux. Both projects present the user with an Ubuntu-based distribution with rolling updates. The new Rhino Linux project appears to take a more long-term view with fewer custom tools and a greater focus on providing easy access to a wide source of applications.
Reading through the Rhino Linux wiki the main feature of the distribution which stands out, apart from its rolling nature, is the package manager: rhino-pkg. The rhino-pkg utility, which is also called rpk, acts as an all-in-one package manager which gives the user quick access to multiple software sources. The wiki describes rhino-pkg:
rhino-pkg is our custom package management wrapper written in Bash. It was designed with simplicity and ease of use in mind. It will allow for you to search, install, remove, and update packages from all of our supported package manager repositories (APT, Pacstall, Flatpak, and Snap), all with easy-to-read terminal outputs to improve your experience whilst using the distribution. It is strongly recommended to utilise rhino-pkg, rather than each package manager individually.
Rhino Linux is available in builds for 64-bit (x86_64) desktop machines, Raspberry Pi computers, and the PinePhone. This is an unusual line of supported hardware, but it's nice to see a range of options. I downloaded the ISO for the x86_64 build which is 1.6GB in size.
Rhino Linux boots to a live version of the Xfce 4.18 desktop with purple, Rhino-themed wallpaper. A desktop panel is placed along the bottom of the screen. This panel holds the application menu, task switcher, and system tray. On the desktop we find a single icon for launching the Calamares system installer.
The live environment offered average performance and seemed to work well. The one problem I ran into while doing initial exploration of the system was Firefox's active tab would crash when visiting YouTube. The browser would continue to run, but any tab used to try to play a video would crash and offer to send an error report to the developers. Other websites would display without any issues.
Rhino Linux Beta -- The default Xfce desktop and notifications
(full image size: 151kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Installing
Rhino uses the Calamares system installer which offers a friendly, streamlined experience. We're walked through selecting our preferred language and offered button to see support links and release notes. Clicking these buttons to see on-line resources brings up a window asking us to select a web browser to use. Firefox isn't in the list and the browser which is offered fails to launch when selected. I also tried manually setting Firefox as the browser to use by default and it also failed to launch.
Moving on to the next screens, I was asked to pick my time zone and confirm my keyboard's layout. Disk partitioning was the next task and we're given the option of letting the installer take over a portion of the drive or manually partitioning the disk. The guided option sets up a single ext4 partition and gives us the option of enabling a swap file. We do not have the option of using a swap partition instead. Taking the manual approach to partitioning gives us a nice, point-and-click disk partitioning interface which I found easy to navigate.
The final step of the installer asks us to make up a username and password. With that completed, files are copied to the local drive. The first time I tried installing Rhino, I walked away while the installer was running and, when I came back, the Calamares window was gone. I wasn't sure if it had completed its work or crashed. When I restarted the computer, the distribution failed to boot, indicating the installer probably crashed.
I went through the process again, this time using manual disk partitioning instead of the guided option. The installer reached about 95% completion and then crashed while removing unneeded packages. Since it had, for all practical purposes, finished everything except some clean-up and installing GRUB, I decided to lend the system a hand. I performed a chroot to the target partition and ran update-grub. This set up the boot loader and, upon restarting the machine, I was able to boot into Rhino Linux.
Early impressions
When Rhino first boots it presents the user with a simple graphical login page. The default session option is referred to as "Xubuntu Session". Signing in the first time brings up a graphical wizard which asks us a few customization questions. We're asked to pick a dark or light theme (the dark one is the default and the one I used throughout most of my trial).
We're asked which package management options we want to enable. These options include Flatpak, Snap, and AppImage. Snap is shown as enabled by default while the others are turned off. I added Flatpak to the enabled list. We're asked if we'd like to use Nala, the more modern alternative to APT which I also accepted. Then we're asked if we want to enable the Apport service, which will send crash reports to developers. Apport was disabled by default and I left it turned off. The wizard then prompted for my administrative password twice and then prompted me to restart the computer.
Rhino Linux Beta -- Exploring the application menu
(full image size: 210kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
I asked the wizard to enable Flatpak and to keep Snap (which was already selected). After the reboot I found Flatpak was enabled with the Flathub repository enabled automatically. Snap support was not installed on the system. This may be a bug or maybe Flatpak and Snap are supposed to be mutually exclusive, I'm not sure.
Once installed, Rhino provided a pretty good desktop experience. I liked the dark theme and the desktop offered average or slightly above average performance. I liked that text was large and usually high contrast, making it easier to read than the text on most Linux distributions.
Hardware
One problem I ran into early on with Rhino was that the distribution's live media only booted in Legacy BIOS mode. When I tried to get it to launch in UEFI mode an error message appeared and cryptically declared I'd need to start the kernel first.
Apart from this initial hiccup, Rhino ran well on my workstation and in a VirtualBox instance. The system was medium weight, using about 570MB of RAM upon logging in and consuming 5.6GB of disk space for a fresh install.
The distribution was responsive and performed tasks quickly, though not unusually so. I'd say it was about on par with other mainstream distributions running the Xfce or KDE Plasma desktops.
Included software
Browsing through the Rhino application menu, I found the system ships with a fairly small collection of desktop applications. Firefox is included and continued to crash semi-regularly when asked to play videos. I was curious what kind of package Firefox was, given that Rhino's parent distribution uses a Snap to provide the web browser, but Rhino didn't have Snap installed. Firefox was installed as a Deb package and placed in the /opt directory.
The distribution also ships with the Ristretto image viewer, the Xfburn disc burning software, and the Thunar file manager. The mpv media player is included along with VSCodium. The distribution includes the Xfce configuration modules and handy control panel. I quite like how Xfce groups and presents its settings and find them easy to use.
In the background Rhino offers us the GNU command line utilities, the GNU Compiler Collection, and manual pages. The system runs the systemd init software and the install media offered version 6.2 of the Linux kernel.
Managing software
The provided software, and a lot of the future items we may wish to install, come from Ubuntu's development (devel) repository. This allows us to enjoy cutting-edge versions of software and new packages should regularly become available, especially in the middle of Ubuntu's development cycle. As mentioned earlier, when Flatpak is installed it automatically pulls from the Flathub repository.
Rhino Linux Beta -- Getting usage information for rpk
(full image size: 264kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The Rhino documentation tells us it is recommended users manage software through the rhino-pkg command which can also be invoked by typing rpk. However, if a user goes looking for a software manager in the application menu, the first thing they will find is GNOME Software, a modern software centre. I decided to check out GNOME Software since it's probably what new users will try first. I tried using the Updates tab to check for new packages. GNOME Software showed its spinning progress wheel and did nothing for the next five minutes, seemingly locking up. I left it and open the GNOME Software centre again, this time attempting to remove an installed application I didn't want. The software centre immediately crashed, underlining the point in Rhino's documentation which reminds us there are better ways to manage packages.
The rhino-pkg command is a shell script which provides high-level management of all other package managers on the operating system. It is pleasantly straight forward in its syntax. Running "rpk install package" will search for any packages with a matching name in any repository and then offer to install the one we want. The command "rpk remove package" does the same in reverse, locating matching packages on our system and using the appropriate tool to delete it. The "rpk update" command tries to upgrade all software on the system, regardless of how it was installed. Finally, "rpk search name" will try to find any matching items in the various repositories, but will not attempt to install anything. These are the only four commands we need to remember or use. The rpk command checks for items in the APT, Flatpak, and Pacstall repositories and will pass along the appropriate commands to the lower level package manager.
This approach, using a central, higher level package manager to handle everything felt to me, at first, to be overkill. As someone who already knows how to use Flatpak and APT, I felt like it was an unnecessary extra tool. This feeling was amplified when doing my first round of software updates when rpk asked me repeatedly to confirm I really wanted to update a few items, specifically kernel packages. I think the confirmation was a good idea because the kernel is a key component, I just wasn't thrilled about needing to confirm I really wanted to apply updates three times in a row.
After a while though, I started to appreciate rpk. Partly because it meant I could run one command and upgrade multiple types of packages (APT, Flatpak, and Pacstall). This approach just saved me typing in the long run. I also enjoyed the ability to "comparison shop". I could run "rpk install wesnoth", for example, and see which repositories had which versions of the game Battle for Wesnoth. Other packages could similarly be presented side-by-side, compared, and then one selected whenever I wished to install new applications.
I also learned that confirmations during the upgrade process could be skipped by passing rpk the "-y" flag, which will assume we always want to answer "yes" at prompts. This could be dangerous, but certainly faster.
Ultimately, I enjoyed having the all-in-one package manager. I do wonder if it can be expanded to offer a graphical experience that could replace GNOME Software. Right now it appears this is just a script to glue lower level package managers together so the output from, for example Nala and Flatpak, look entirely different and I suspect this will make it harder to put a nice desktop application in front of the user and tie it all together. However, for people who don't mind using the command line, rpk is quite convenient.
Rhino Linux Beta -- Installing the Falkon web browser
(full image size: 327kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
It wasn't always smooth sailing. There were a few times when Flatpak failed, due to corrupted packages, while installing new software. However, in those cases a fairly clear error message was displayed and I was able to try again later, with success. This isn't a fault of rpk, just the underlying Flatpak bundle. Apart from these minor moments, rpk worked smoothly and I like how clear the package manager is in what it is doing and the information provided about packages. I like how all available packages matching our search criteria are listed with their repository to make it clear what we will be installing.
Conclusions
I want to underline that Rhino Linux is in its early stages of development. The snapshot I was using was a development release of a rolling platform, built on Ubuntu's development branch. In other words, we should expect some issues and unpredictability. In fact, I would have been surprised if there had not been a few problems.
Early on there were a few glitches. The live media wouldn't boot in UEFI mode which is a problem on newer hardware. I also found Calamares was prone to crashing during its clean-up phase, preventing the system from booting. I could work around these problems, but it would be a barrier for anyone not familiar with using the command line and chroot environments.
After those initial issues, things actually became pretty comfortable for me while using Rhino. The distribution is a pleasantly medium weight, I like the initial welcome wizard which helps us configure a few things, and Xfce offers a pleasant, stable user interface. The application menu is lightly populated, encouraging us to install software we need beyond the bare basics. Apart from some issues with Firefox, the included software worked well.
The key feature though of Rhino Linux is its package manager. I found it worked quite well. Really, this is just glue binding together multiple package managers behind the scenes, but it works unusually well. It's fairly quick, the packages and their sources are neatly organized, and it makes upgrading software much more streamlined for the user.
It's still early days for Rhino Linux, but it's off to a good start. If the developers can sort out a few issues with the start-up process and maybe remove GNOME Software so people aren't tempted to use it over the prescribed package manager, I think it will be a good experience.
A lot of people have been saying they'd like to see a rolling flavour of Ubuntu and now it is here. It's not an entirely smooth experience yet, but it's close. The one thing I feel is missing is a method to rescue or rollback system upgrades, perhaps using Btrfs snapshots, so that following Ubuntu's development branch doesn't break the system. Once some rollback method is in place, I think it will make Rhino a very appealing, Ubuntu-compatible rolling release platform.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
NethServer reborn in a few form, a detailed comparison of pfSense and OPNsense, System76 improves application responsiveness, Fedora 36 nears the end of its supported life
NethServer is a CentOS-based distribution which has been silent the past three years, following the release of NethServer 7.9 in November 2019. The project has shown renewed signs of life recently, publishing a beta release offering virtual machine images designed to run containerized applications. The project's beta release announcement reads: "NethServer 8 is the new NethServer version with a different architecture and a brand new UI. We changed the product but our mission has remained untouched, it is still easy to administrate and perfectly suited for small offices and medium enterprises. It's an application hosting platform that provides a simplified yet comprehensive experience for deploying, managing, and scaling your applications."
The project's FAQ page describes the key changes from version 7 to the version 8 beta: "NethServer 7 is an operating system built on top of CentOS 7. It is heavily-coupled with the underlying OS. It installs applications using RPM packages and configures them with a configuration management system called e-smith. NethServer 8 can run on different Linux distributions. It installs applications using containers and configures them using a multi-node architecture."
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pfSense is a free, open source customized distribution of FreeBSD specifically tailored for use as a firewall and router that is entirely managed via web interface. There is a fork of pfSense called OPNsense and Dustin Casto decided to explore how much the two projects had diverged from each other. "I thought it may be informative to do a side-by-side comparison of the differences between the two software platforms. There has been 8+ years of development since OPNsense was born so I am personally curious in how the two platforms have diverged over the years." What follows in Casto's blog post is a detailed, side-by-side comparison of the two projects.
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One of the features System76 has provided in its Pop!_OS distribution is a scheduler which will detect which desktop application is currently in focus and attempt to boost its performance. The scheduling tool, called system76-scheduler, has been updated to improve audio latency as well. "With its second major release, system76-scheduler adds new features that further optimize system responsiveness and expand custom configuration. New PipeWire integration gives audio processes real-time priority to reduce the chance of audio stutters when the application playing audio is in the background." Details on this change and other work going into Pop!_OS can be found in the company's blog post.
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Kevin Fenzi has sent out a reminder that Fedora 36 will soon reach the end of its supported life and no longer receive security updates. "Fedora Linux 36 will go end of life for updates and support on 2023-05-16. No more updates of any kind, including security updates or security announcements, will be available for Fedora Linux 36 after the above date. All the updates of Fedora Linux 36 being pushed to stable will be stopped as well. Fedora Linux 37 will continue to receive updates until approximately one month after the release of Fedora Linux 39."
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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) |
Checking on which applications depend on a low-level package
Depending-on-too-many-things asks: Is there a way to tell which applications are affected by a package update? Sometimes my package manager wants to swap out packages or it updates a bunch of libraries and I want to know what applications I should restart.
DistroWatch answers: When an application relies on other, lower-level packages, those lower-level items are called dependencies.
When we want to find out what higher-level applications depend on a specific, lower-level package the software higher up the chain is referred to as a reverse dependency. You may sometimes see the process of checking for higher level software which depends on a package as a "reverse depends".
Most package managers have a method for displaying reverse dependencies and mention the necessary syntax in their manual pages, but this only helps after we know the terminology.
On distributions which use the APT package management software, such as Debian and Ubuntu, we can get a list of higher level packages which rely on a specific package by running "apt-cache rdepends --installed package". For instance, the following command displays a list of all programs which rely on the libcurl4 library:
apt-cache rdepends --installed libcurl4
On distributions which use the pacman package manager, like Arch Linux and KaOS, we can look up a list of reverse dependencies by running "pacman -Sii package". This will actually display several lines of information about the package, some of it relating to dependencies. We can use the grep command to filter down the results. In this example, we display all programs which rely on the zlib package:
pacman -Sii zlib | grep "Required By"
The distributions which use DNF for package management, such as Fedora, can display reverse dependencies using the following command: "dnf repoquery --installed --whatrequires package". For instance, the following command will display a list of programs which rely on the libcurl-minimal package:
dnf repoquery --installed --whatrequires libcurl-minimal
Most other package managers will provide information on how to find reverse dependencies in their manual pages or on-line documentation.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Alpine Linux 3.18.0
Alpine Linux is a community-developed operating system designed for routers, firewalls, VPNs, VoIP boxes, containers and servers. The project's latest release is Alpine Linux 3.18.0 which offers version 6.1 of the Linux kernel with signed binaries, musl libc 1.2.4 which features TCP fallback for DNS, and Python 3.11. "We are pleased to announce the release of Alpine Linux 3.18.0, the first in the v3.18 stable series. Highlights: Linux kernel 6.1 - with signed kernel modules; musl libc 1.2.4 - now with TCP fallback in DNS resolver; Python 3.11; Ruby 3.2; Node.js (current) 20.1; GNOME 44; Go 1.20; KDE Plasma 5.27; Rust 1.69; experimental support for unattended installs via tiny-cloud. Linux kernel modules are now signed; verified modules are not enforced by default, so 3rd party modules with akms still works. All packages for ppc64le, x86, and x86_64 was linked with DT_RELR. This should have reduced size of compiled binaries. Python pre-compiled files (pyc) are now shipped in separate packages. It is now possible to avoid install those and save space by doing apk add !pyc." Additional information is provided through the distribution's release notes.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2
Red Hat, Inc. has announced the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9.2: "Red Hat, Inc., the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 and the forthcoming availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8. These new releases further Red Hat's efforts to simplify and streamline complex Linux platform tasks across the hybrid cloud, from datacenters to public clouds to edge deployments, helping IT teams to better overcome staffing and skill shortages and improve efficiency in critical infrastructure areas. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 and 8.8 continue to expand the capabilities of system roles, Red Hat Enterprise Linux-specific Ansible content that helps bring greater consistency and efficiency at scale by automating common administrative tasks. This means that a number of common Linux roles, from Microsoft SQL Server to virtual private networks (VPNs), can be readily configured, credentialed and deployed with rudimentary Linux knowledge." See the press release and the detailed release notes for further information.
AlmaLinux OS 9.2
Jack Aboutboul has announced the release of AlmaLinux OS 9.2, the latest stable version of the project's Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone: "The AlmaLinux OS Foundation is proud to announce the general availability of AlmaLinux OS 9.2, code-named 'Turquoise Kodkod'. AlmaLinux 9.2 provides enhancements and features to the hybrid cloud's foundation and helps deliver workloads, applications and services for multiple environments faster and with less effort. This release includes security updates such as the realmd system role, a SCAP profile, and Ansible content for enhanced system checks to simplify managing security and compliance. Improvements to application streams provide compilers, runtime languages, databases and web server updates. Enhancements to the web console and new system roles make it easier to automate and standardize systems." Please see the release announcement and the release notes for more details.
EuroLinux 9.2
The EuroLinux team have announced the availability of EuroLinux 9.2, a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 which includes a number of key package updates. "On May 11, 2023, we released version 9.2 of the EuroLinux operating system. It maintains compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2. EuroLinux 9.2 repositories have been expanded to include Python 3.11, Nginx 1.22, PostgreSQL 15, new versions of Performance Co-Pilot, updated toolsets: Rust v1.66, Go v1.19 and LLVM v15. The new version of the system also introduces a variety of improvements to the web console (cockpit). The Linux kernel has been updated to version 5.14.0-284" Additional details can be found in the distribution's release announcement and in the release notes.
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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: 2,866
- Total data uploaded: 43.3TB
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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) |
What do you think of a rolling Ubuntu edition?
This week we talked about Rhino Linux, a young, rolling release distribution which is based on Ubuntu. The constantly updated Rhino distribution offers users a cutting edge experience and software from a variety of sources. What do you think of having a rolling release of Ubuntu, a sort of inverse approach to Ubuntu's popular long-term support (LTS) versions? Let us know your impressions of Rhino Linux in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on whether our readers want to see more immutable editions of their distribution in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you want to use a rolling version of Ubuntu?
| Yes - I am using a rolling edition of Ubuntu: | 28 (2%) |
| Yes - I want to use a rolling edition of Ubuntu: | 402 (28%) |
| No - I have no need for a rolling Ubuntu: | 1020 (70%) |
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| Website News |
New projects added to database
rlxos
rlxos is an independent Linux distribution which runs on an immutable filesystem and features the GNOME desktop. The project features the Distrobox container manager to facilitate running software from multiple other distributions. It also includes support for Flatpak and includes the Bolt AI assistant.
rlxos -- Running the GNOME desktop and it settings panel
(full image size: 334kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
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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, 22 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)
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
XigmaNAS
XigmaNAS (formerly NAS4Free) is an embedded open-source NAS (Network-Attached Storage) distribution based on FreeBSD. XigmaNAS supports sharing across multiple operating systems, including Windows, Apple and UNIX-like systems. XigmaNAS is easy to set up in most home and enterprise environments and will allow to manage and share large amounts of data easily across a network. XigmaNAS also incorporates many different streaming features for sharing multimedia with other devices on the network. XigmaNAS includes ZFS v28 (RAIDZ, RAIDZ2 and RAIDZ3) Software RAID (0,1,5), Disk Encryption, S.M.A.R.T / Email Reports, and it supports the following protocols: CIFS (samba), FTP, NFS, TFTP, AFP, RSYNC, Unison, iSCSI (initiator and target), HAST, CARP, Bridge, UPnP, and BitTorrent. All are highly configurable by using a web interface.
Status: Active
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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!
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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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0x969CD4E778C7b6549A2B00e34114e0168c86A542 
