DistroWatch Weekly |
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1020, 22 May 2023 |
Welcome to this year's 21st issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Computers are, ultimately, machines intended to accept, process, and output information. They are information storage and processing systems which can be used in all sorts of creative ways. This week, in our Questions and Answers column, we discuss looking up information. Specifically we talk about methods we can use to find a computer with an unknown IP address on our network and also how to look up a list of Linux distributions which ship with a specific kernel version. Do you run a brand new kernel on your distribution or an older, stable kernel? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. First though we take a look at the latest version of UBports. Version 20.04 of the mobile-focused UBports operating system has been anticipated for a few years and Jesse Smith takes an early snapshot of the distribution for a test run on the PinePhone. Read on to learn what works and what is still a work in progress. Then, in our News section, we discuss work going into preparing Debian 12 for release next month. We're also pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. Finally, we welcome the Liya distribution to our database. Liya is a desktop-focused, Arch-based project and we share more details on this young distribution below. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
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Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
UBports 20.04 on PinePhone
In March we discussed the release of UBports 20.04, a long-anticipated upgrade to the mobile operating system which is a community-run continuation of Ubuntu Touch. The new release is available for several devices, though the PinePhone was not one of the officially supported platforms. People running the PinePhone (and the PinePhone Pro) can rest assured that work to bring UBports 20.04 to their devices is ongoing and there is an early development snapshot people can use to try out the latest version of UBports on PinePhone devices.
I had some free time and a PinePhone that had been running UBports 16.04 for about a year. The device, while slow and limited in its capabilities, has been fairly reliable as a portable, battery-backed computer. One of my few ongoing issues with the PinePhone running UBports 16.04 is the system clock keeps getting out of sync. Whether the clock is set manually or automatically over the network time protocol (NTP), it keeps jumping ahead or behind several years, which tends to break network connections. A reboot and manually running the date command fixes this, but the clock's massive leaps happen about once a week, which isn't a great experience.
I hoped for better performance and fewer little bugs like this one would be provided with the upgrade. I grabbed the development image for UBports 20.04 and followed the directions for installing it on my device.
Before I get into what it is like operating the latest version of UBports on the PinePhone, I want to share some important warnings. This image I was using was discussed (one might go as far as say "endorsed") on the UBports blog, but it is not an official image, it didn't come from the UBports team. The 20.04 build is still very much in the early stages of porting to the PinePhone. Several functions, such as GPS and the camera, are known to not work. This isn't intended to be a daily driver, it's more of a proof that UBports 20.04 can run on the PinePhone and the hardware issues will be sorted out with time.
I'll mention this again later, but it bears saying more than once: this unofficial port uses a read-write filesystem while other UBports images use a read-only filesystem. The PinePhone port can be updated and maintained using the APT command line tools without making any adjustments to the root filesystem. While it is possible to switch other flavours of UBports into read-write mode and use the APT package manager, it's outside the realm of recommended behaviour. In other words, running and maintaining this unofficial port will work a little differently than using other editions of UBports.
In short, what follows is a review of what it is like, specifically, to run UBports 20.04 on a PinePhone. It's not necessarily a good reflection of what it is like to run UBports on other, Android devices.
Installing
The installation process happens in two parts, which may be confusing for some people. The blog post detailing the steps is pretty clear, I think, and guides us through the process. In short, we download two pieces, a boot image package and an image file for UBports. We then unpack the boot image and copy one of its files to an SD micro card. Specifically, we can use a disk writer or the dd command to write the file called mmcboot.installer.img to our SD card.
We then insert the SD card into the PinePhone and boot it. This will bring up a menu where we can wipe and do a fresh install of the boot firmware. This doesn't install UBports. What it does do for us is allow us to connect the PinePhone to our computer using a USB cable and then treat the phone's internal storage as removable storage media. In other words, we can then use an image writer or dd to write the ubuntu-touch-pinephone.img file to the PinePhone's internal storage. (People should only attempt this series of steps if they are familiar with the command line and writing images to removable media. A typo here can wipe the wrong disk!)
What we end up with is UBports installed on our PinePhone's internal drive, not on the SD card. The internal storage and any previous operating system is erased. We can then remove the SD card and boot from the internal storage. (Later, if we wish, we can format the SD card and use it as extra storage for the PinePhone.)
The instructions on the blog worked, though I did run into one minor issue. When I first wrote the boot firmware to the SD card, placed it in my PinePhone, and booted the phone the mobile device did not show up as a storage device when I plugged it into my computer. I had to plug the phone into my workstation first, then reboot the PinePhone before it would show up. Plugging the phone into my workstation after it had already booted didn't work for me.
First impressions
When the PinePhone boots UBports from its internal drive, the system begins by showing us a series of systemd start-up messages on a text console. These scroll by for a few seconds before we are shown a graphical splash screen. The first time we run UBports a configuration wizard launches. This wizard asks us to select our preferred language from a list and then our time zone. We are then asked to make up a name for ourselves and, optionally, a passcode for the phone.
This first series of steps is easy to navigate, but there is a long delay between each screen being displayed - possible because of the PinePhone's low specifications. This means when we press the Next button on each screen it appears as though the first-run wizard has locked up for about 10 to 15 seconds. When the wizard finishes we are shown a brief tutorial on using swipe gestures to navigate the phone's interface.
UBports 16.04 -- Scrolling through open windows
(full image size: 430kB, resolution: 1080x1920 pixels)
The four main swipe gestures are as follows:
- Swiping down from the top of the screen provides access to notifications and some settings.
- Swiping from the left to the right opens the application drawer, this is where we can see a complete list of installed apps.
- Swiping from the right to the left shows a list of open windows. We can then scroll through windows, tap one to bring it to the front, or swipe it upwards to close the app.
- Swiping upward from the bottom of the screen will usually start a new process. If we are in a messaging app, this gesture begins a fresh message thread. In the web browser it will open a new browser tab.
Once the tutorial is finished we find a panel down the left side of the display. This panel acts as a launcher for commonly used apps and also as a task switcher. The default interface uses a light theme. There doesn't appear to be any way to change between light and dark themes in the settings panel, but we can install and use an app called ThemeSwitch to adjust the theme.
Something I noticed right away was UBports 20.04 performs a lot faster than 16.04 did on the same device. The interface is more responsive, apps load faster, and the load average appears to be lower (around 0.1 versus 1.0). I think there could be a few reasons for this. One is that I was running UBports 16.04 from the SD card while 20.04 was running on the internal storage and I suspect this might be the primary cause for the loading times being reduced. Though I don't think that would affect the responsiveness of the interface which also appears to be improved. Another possibility is the new version is simply running fewer components. A number of features like the flashlight, camera, and GPS are not yet working under version 20.04 and their absence might make the system lighter.
I also think it's possible UBports 20.04 is simply faster and more efficient, perhaps due to having a newer kernel and updated user interface. A lot of work has gone into the kernel and into the display server between the two versions and that effort might be paying off with better performance.
As with version 16.04, when I first started using UBports 20.04, the clock was out of sync by a lot. However, it automatically synchronized itself with NTP and seemed to stay in sync. With 16.04 the time would jump by a few years about once a week and require a manual fix from the command line, but 20.04 does not appear to have this issue.
Software management
UBports ships with a collection of useful applications. These include such common items as a calculator, calendar app, contact manager, note taking program, music player, SMS messaging client, phone app, and weather app. There is also a virtual terminal along with the Morph web browser, and a clean and well organized settings panel.
UBports 16.04 -- Browsing applications in the app tray
(full image size: 645kB, resolution: 720x1440 pixels)
Should we wish to access additional programs there is a software centre built into UBports call Open Store. This software centre makes it easy to browse and search for applications, similar to the way the Play store works on Android or the app store on an iPhone functions.
On the PinePhone I found Open Store worked fairly quickly and I was able to locate most of the functionality I wanted. I tend not to use a lot of specific mobile programs and can make due with similar functionality from alternative apps. Some people, those married to a specific brand, may struggle with UBports as big name applications are often missing from the platform.
Apart from having a nice, clean interface and decent performance, one aspect of working with the Open Store I enjoyed was it would allow me to remove pre-installed applications. If I didn't feel the need to have a note taking application or camera app I could remove them.
UBports 16.04 -- Installing a new application from Open Store
(full image size: 301kB, resolution: 720x1440 pixels)
Other observations
I made a lot of little observations while using UBports 20.04 on the PinePhone, many of them while exploring the operating system's settings panel and command line. Speaking of the command line, UBports offers a read-write filesystem which has a fully functional GNU/Linux command line environment. Virtually anything we could run on Ubuntu's command line we should be able to run on the PinePhone. Given the device's current limitations when it comes to some smart phone operations this makes me think the device might be best thought of as a tiny portable server with a screen and battery backup. In theory we can also run Ubuntu desktop applications on the mobile platform through a technology called Libertine containers (found in the Settings app), but the functionality is hit-or-miss (in my experience) and likely to be quite slow when it works.
Screen rotation does not work yet with UBports 20.04 on the PinePhone. In a reverse situation, I could not get Bluetooth to turn off for more than a minute at a time. It seems to automatically enable itself within seconds of being disabled.
At the time of writing the camera doesn't work yet, neither does the flashlight. I'm not able to make calls on the PinePhone, but I think that is a limitation of the hardware not matching my carrier's frequencies rather than the operating system as I've made calls with UBports on Android phones.
I could not get the GPS and location functionality to work yet. As hinted at in the blog post about this port, it's in its early stages. Other devices supported by UBports tend to have much more complete functionality.
On a positive note, the Morph web browser is much more responsive and loads pages faster on this version.
UBports has a curious method for taking screenshots on the PinePhone. The option to take a screenshot appears alongside the options to shutdown or restart the device when we press the power button. Whenever I tapped the Screenshot button it would power off my phone. I tried this a few times in case I had simply tapped the wrong button, but each time I selected the option to take a screenshot my PinePhone would immediately power down. The screenshot function worked in version 16.04 so this would seem to be a bug which slipped in during the upgrade.
Earlier I mentioned this port of the operating system uses a read-write filesystem, meaning we can make changes to it without needing to make any mount adjustments first. This is convenient as it means we can use the APT package manager to install and upgrade software on the system. On most devices, UBports performs full, immutable operating system upgrades. On the PinePhone, for now, new updates happen through APT packages the way most workstations get updates.
Background services
One thing which makes working on the PinePhone easier, especially when setting up services and backup operations, is having remote shell access. I'd had this enabled with UBports 16.04 and hoped it would be straight forward to use again. I found the OpenSSH service is installed, however it is not enabled.
I tried starting the service (this can be done using the service command or the systemctl command). The daemon refused to start and, with a little poking around, I found the service was not working because host keys had not been generated yet. Often times keys are created at install time or during the first time a system boots, but a phone usually doesn't need to set up host keys. I manually generated a set of host keys by running "sudo dpkg-reconfigure openssh-server". I then followed this by running "sudo systemctl start sshd" and confirmed the service was running. This allowed me to remote into the phone as well as copy files over the network.
One problem I had while trying to work remotely on the phone was the phone would put itself to sleep after a minute and this would kill its network connection until I woke up the device. When I had been running UBports 16.04 I'd worked around this by disabling the screen's sleep mode and then locking the device. This didn't work for me with 20.04, at least at first. I could increase the time before the screen went to sleep, but not disable the sleep function entirely.
This issue resolved itself after I installed waiting updates using the APT package manager and restarted the phone. After this, the phone could be locked and left with the screen still awake. In this mode the network connection remained active.
Conclusions
I've said it before and want to underline again that this build of UBports 20.04 for the PinePhone is a community effort and not official. As such, it does a number of things differently. The focus of this port has been to get the operating system to boot and perform some low-level functions on the PinePhone. It hasn't introduced much hardware functionality yet, such as GPS, screen rotation, and flashlight activation. These will come with time, probably before the port is declared officially supported.
I mention this because other devices which run UBports typically have a full range of working hardware and most of the bugs have been corrected. However, I didn't have a supported device on hand, so I went with this unofficial port of UBports 20.04. It mostly works the same as version 16.04, but with some key improvements. It's faster, responds more quickly, and it looks like the time sync issue has been fixed. The regressions all seem to be specific to hardware support/drivers which I suspect will be fixed in the coming months.
I wouldn't recommend the PinePhone as a daily driver as a phone, probably with any operating system. However, I will say that with it running a full GNU/Linux platform, it works pretty well as an ARM-powered testing device and as a small home server. It's silent, it has a built-in battery, it has a touch screen for times when we need local access, and it has a slot for SD cards, giving it expanded disk space. I'm quite content using mine as a backup and test server at home. Plus it fits in my pocket if I want to relocate the device.
In this way, I think of the PinePhone as a flexible single-board computer, such as a Raspberry Pi, more than as a phone. And, while running UBports 20.04, it feels well suited to this niche role.
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Please note that I was unable to get the screenshot function to work on UBports 20.04. The images shown above are from 16.04 which are either identical or nearly identical to how the UBports interface looks in the latest version. They're offered here to show how UBports 20.04 looks and operate as the Unity interface has remained visually the same across both versions.
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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.
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Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Debian prepares for the launch of Bookworm, 20 years of running Gentoo
The Debian distribution is gearing up for a new release in mid-June. As we approach the upcoming release date for Debian 12 Bookworm, the system installer team is busy making final adjustments to Debian's venerable installer. Cyril Brulebois has published an overview of changes and fixes in Debian's installer and asked people to test it prior to the launch of Debian 12. People interested in trying out snapshots can find them on the Debian Installer page.
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The Gentoo project has been developing a meta-distribution for over two decades. Gentoo is probably the most well known source-based project and a popular option for people who want to customize their operating system on every level. One Gentoo user has looked back at what it has been like running Gentoo for the past 20 years and shares some benefits and drawbacks to the experience. "In the early years, Gentoo was known for having superb documentation. Often when I would tell people I ran Gentoo, they would relate a time they were stuck in their non-Gentoo distribution, but found the solution to their problems in the Gentoo docs."
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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 another machine's IP address and finding distributions with a recent kernel
Seeking-a-lost-machine asks: Is there a way to find the IP address of a headless machine that is connected to the network? I have a Pi that I'm pretty sure is connected to the network, but it has no display and I don't remember what address it was configured to have.
DistroWatch answers: Assuming you have another computer attached to the same local network, there are tools you can use to scan for other machines on the network.
If the computer or device you are trying to connect to has network services running, in other words it has open network ports, one of the easiest ways to find the machine is to use nmap. The nmap utility will scan a range of IP addresses and report on any computer with open ports it finds.
To find out what your computer's IP address is on the network, you can usually run the ifconfig or "ip a" command, depending on which distribution you're running. This will tell you what your computer's address is. Then you can use that as a basis for seeking other computers and devices on the network.
For instance, running the ifconfig command tells me my computer's IP address is 192.168.2.25. On most home networks the first three numbers of an address will remain the same while the last number will range from 1 through 255. Using nmap, we can then scan the whole local network for other devices by running:
nmap 192.168.2.1-255
The above command will probably find your router, the computer you're operating, and the mystery Pi. It may also turn up any phones or printers running network services on your network. The output from nmap will look like the following for any IP addresses it finds with a running network service:
$ nmap 192.168.2.1-255
Nmap scan report for 192.168.2.11
...
Nmap scan report for 192.168.2.14
Using nmap works well when you're trying to find a headless server. However, it doesn't work all that well if the device you are trying to find doesn't run any services. For example, most smart phones will have an IP address, but likely do not run services - they do not have open ports. We can usually still detect these devices using the ping command.
The following is a crude, one-line command which will use ping to try to detect each machine on the local network. For each attempted IP address, ping will report either a received response, or it will list an error if it doesn't get an answer.
for i in {1..255} ; do ping -q -c 1 192.168.2.$i ; done
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Seeking-a-new-kernel asks: Which distributions currently run the 6.x kernel? Not ones which have it in the repository, but enabled by default.
You can find which distributions offer a specific version of a package, either the kernel or another key piece of software, using the Package Search feature of our search page. For instance, this search returns a list of distributions with version 6.x of the Linux kernel included.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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Released Last Week |
Tails 5.13
The Amnesic Incognito Live System (Tails) is a Debian-based live DVD/USB with the goal of providing complete Internet anonymity for the user. The project has added a few new tools to the distribution in Tails 5.13, including the cURL downloading program which will run over the Tor network by default. Encryption for persistent storage has also been upgraded. "Add curl, a command line tool to download over HTTPS, FTP, and other protocols. curl can be useful for online investigations as an alternative to wget. Everything you do with curl goes through the Tor network. If you want to use curl on a local network, use /usr/bin/curl instead. Use LUKS2 by default for all new Persistent Storage and LUKS encrypted volumes. LUKS2 provide stronger cryptography by default. We will provide a migration plan from LUKS1 to LUKS2 for existing Persistent Storage in Tails 5.14 (early June). Update Tor Browser to 12.0.6." Additional information can be found in the release announcement and in the changelog.
Rocky Linux 9.2
Rocky Linux is a community enterprise operating system designed to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The project's latest update is Rocky Linux 9.2 which includes a number of fixes and improvements. The release announcement mentions an upgrade issue with Python along with a list of new features: "LVM cloud image variants now remove /etc/lvm/devices/system.devices to resolve issues with PV/VG/LVs upon installation of the images due to being hardcoded to a specific device. An aarch64 kernel with a 64kb page size is now available via the package kernel-64k. nfsrahead, a tool to configure the readahead for NFS mounts, was added. Intel Arc GPU support has been added. The infamous Flatpak bug that breaks all fonts in applications using the default font (Cantarell) has been fixed! Wireguard once again works with SELinux enabled. A more complete list of new features and changes is available in the Rocky Linux 9.2 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: 2,870
- Total data uploaded: 43.3TB
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Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
How cutting edge is your Linux kernel?
Visiting The Linux Kernel Archives reveals a number of different flavours of the kernel, at varying degrees of development. On the cutting edge we find the mainline kernel, offering the latest experimental features. Then there are stable kernels, versions which are considered stable and have been released for distributions to package. Finally, there are long-term support kernels which are maintained for longer periods to reduce maintenance on older and enterprise-level distributions. This week we'd like to hear from you: how cutting edge is your kernel?
You can see the results of our previous poll on the appeal of a rolling release edition of Ubuntu in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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How recent is your kernel?
Mainline/Development: | 144 (9%) |
Stable - latest: | 654 (40%) |
Stable - maintained: | 271 (17%) |
Stable - no longer maintained: | 28 (2%) |
Long term - maintained: | 498 (30%) |
Long term - no longer maintained: | 15 (1%) |
I am not running the Linux kernel: | 30 (2%) |
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Website News |
New projects added to database
Liya
Liya is an Arch Linux-based, rolling release distribution. The project uses the Calamares system installer to set up the distribution which offers users the Cinnamon desktop environment, Pamac graphical package manager, and OnlyOffice. The system is intended to be easy to use, easy to explore, and distraction-free.
Liya N4Si -- Exploring the Cinnamon desktop
(full image size: 550kB, resolution: 1680x1050 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, 29 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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Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip. (Tips this week: 1, value: US$28) |
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Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
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Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • UBPORTS (by Meister_Eder on 2023-05-22 00:32:46 GMT from Australia)
Version 20.04 but still no camera, GPS....
People use phones for surfing the web, sending messages, is taking photos and navigation.
It's a big fail for UBPORTS if they can't even get that to work on the Pinephone.
Does the U in UBPORTS stand for useless?
Devs should be embaressed and get this working asap.
2 • Finding another machine's IP address (by Geoffrey on 2023-05-22 01:09:14 GMT from Canada)
As noted, NMAP has a large number of methods for finding responsive devices on the network which can be extremely useful when machines are not responsive to ICMP. For more typical instances, FPING provides a clean and fast method for ping scanning multiple hosts.
3 • latest kernel on PCLinuxOS 64 (by Bobbie Sellers on 2023-05-22 01:17:39 GMT from United States)
Lucky me! Day before yesterday I installed and am running Linux 6.3.3. whee!
But it works very nicely.
bliss
4 • @ 1 • UBPORTS (by Titus Groan on 2023-05-22 01:26:23 GMT from New Zealand)
well, Jesse did say "...though the PinePhone was not one of the officially supported platforms."... " I grabbed the development image for UBports 20.04..." and "Several functions, such as GPS and the camera, are known to not work"
this is what happens in the early development of any operating system - some functions just don't work and you have to wait for the developers to address such issues before a general release.
Who knows, an image next week image may well support those functions.
hopefully Jesse will "stay tuned".
5 • Gentoo (by Charlie on 2023-05-22 01:40:03 GMT from Hong Kong)
I still remember how popular Gentoo was as I started using Linux 20 years ago. Every forum and book about Linux is talking about Gentoo.
Gentoo's documentation really declines a lot, or, being surpassed by Arch. The description that people from other distro can find solution with their documentation definitely goes to Arch now.
I like the author mentions Nix, a new concept of managing system like Gentoo did. It's less painful than Gentoo: edit one configuration file then your system is set up. Actually the packages even update faster than Gentoo. And it has more fancy and new packages than Gentoo. But it barely touches Linux basics. Nix's learning curve is on its unique package format and system structure.
Gentoo is somewhat out of date in my point of view. Like a hippie in 2023, you know it was the hottest, but you can feel its age.
6 • kernel (by fenglengshun on 2023-05-22 03:24:53 GMT from Indonesia)
I'd generally use latest, unless there's some issue with it. Some non-LTS kernel has had problem with my RX570 PC for example.
On Ubuntu-based, I usually use linux-xanmod -- usually latest, if I could run it. On Fedora-based, I don't usually bother with changing the kernel on Fedora, but now that I'm getting into the uBlue workflow, I might try to work out how to add the xanmod kernel. For Arch-based, I use the linux-tkg script to build my own kernel.
7 • @5 Gentoo (by nsp0323 on 2023-05-22 05:02:22 GMT from Sweden)
"I like the author mentions Nix, a new concept of managing system like Gentoo did. It's less painful than Gentoo"
Well, I thought that was strange, given the author early on referenced the advantage of not needing systemd on Gentoo. NixOS has interesting concepts but, unfortunately none of them matter as long as one is locked to systemd.
8 • kernel (by user on 2023-05-22 07:07:49 GMT from Bulgaria)
I use only LTS, even on cutting-edge rolling distros like Void. The truly maintained stability is of a paramount importance to me.
9 • Cutting edge kernel? (by Operius on 2023-05-22 07:55:33 GMT from Netherlands)
Distros like Red Hat and SUSE use kernel 5.14. This is not a LTS kernel, and it is released in august 2021, so it's old right? Maybe. Red Hat and SUSE backport a lot of stuff into this kernel. This means that you might still have the latest driver for your hardware or some feature anyway.
So what I'm trying to say is that you should not just look at the kernel version number for your hardware support or other features.
10 • Finding a headless machine on a network (by Microlinux on 2023-05-22 08:00:59 GMT from France)
As an admin working in a school that's 100 % GNU/Linux, I can give you this nifty little trick for finding a new machine's IP address. Let's say you're in the 10.23.45.0/24 network. Then you simple issue the following command:
# nmap -sP 10.23.45.* | grep scan
And you get a nice list of all the known connected hosts, plus your unknown machine.
11 • Kernel (by Kazlu on 2023-05-22 10:09:22 GMT from France)
For the majority of distros I am using, I install MX Linux and I migrate only when the underlying Debian base is EOL. My main machine is still running on a Debian 9 (Stretch) base, that is oldoldstable now... And it still works fine, no reason to change. Stretch is in the extended LTS phase, thank you Freexian. I will upgrade whenever I have a reason to (system needs more intervention to keep running, new hardware, etc.), not planned yet.
Sooooo yes, LTS maintained kernel all the way :)
12 • Please use LTS kernel (by freerxh on 2023-05-22 10:12:07 GMT from United States)
Ruan Xiaohuan (a.k.a ProgramThink) is a Chinese dissident, blogger, and InfoSec specialist. He used virtual machines, Tor and many other security technologies to protect himself, and for 12 years published many articles anonymously on his blog, including information security and anonymity tips, but was unfortunately arrested by authorities two years ago when his identity was revealed.
This is his opinion of the Linux kernel:
If security is important to you, you should not use the latest version (including the latest stable version) of the Linux kernel; instead, you should use the "Long-Term Support" (LTS) version.
The latest version (including the latest stable version) may have new features (added code) that have not undergone sufficient checks, testing, or auditing. In contrast, LTS versions, during their maintenance period, only fix bugs and do not introduce new features.
The Linux community maintains multiple LTS versions simultaneously, and the older an LTS version is, the longer ago its new features (added code) were merged into the kernel mainline. The longer the time, the more thorough the checks, testing, and auditing these added codes have undergone.
13 • Gentoo (by Simon on 2023-05-22 11:35:41 GMT from New Zealand)
No, Gentoo is not "out of date". Its popularly didn't decline through any technical decline (in fact it's slowly but surely got even more technically impressive over the years): it declined because Arch took its place as the distro for folk who wanted to brag "look, I built my own custom OS" with minimal effort, and the distro with the best documentation (because fiddling with custom setups requires much better documentation than a standard, same-for-everyone distro). Personally I think its founder's going to work for Microsoft also had a lot to do with its decline. Those were the early days of Linux users being ex-Windows users (they nearly all are now, but in those days a lot of us had come to Linux by way of UNIX), and it was a cultural thing that they all felt the need to assert, loudly, their hatred of Windows and Microsoft: Gentoo seemed to have a particularly large number of these "look how l33t I am now" folk (notoriously wrecking their systems with stupid compiler o!
ptions), and for them, Gentoo lost a ton of its credibility when Daniel Robbins "sold out" to Microsoft. I think a lot of them shifted to Arch, and as the user base got bigger on Arch, the Arch wiki documentation got more and more comprehensive, and Gentoo's started to develop gaps (in comparison with the amazing documentation over at Arch). The branding didn't help either: purple flying saucers and transgender cows didn't give it the appearance of a serious OS, and the artwork in the screenshots that used to be displayed here on Distrowatch looked like the efforts of an aesthetically challenged seven-year-old: I imagine many people took one glance at its childish, tossed-together desktop and thought "nope, that one's not for me".
It's still a technically superior distro to most others, enabling experienced users not only to customize the heck out of everything, but to maintain those personal customizations relatively easily as the system's continually updated. I've had Gentoo boxes sit neglected (e.g. as archived backups rather than running systems) for years, and then with a few minutes of fiddling with update instructions and a few hours of leaving the computer alone to compile stuff, the whole thing is fully working with all the original customisations on the latest package versions of everything... its package management is really amazing. It's not practical as a serious productivity distro (because like any non-LTS distro, and especially a rolling release distro like Gentoo or Arch, it's a pointless time-wasting risk to update package versions when there are stable distros that just fix bugs and security holes, leaving everything else untouched and fully trustworthy) but it's second to none for !
playing with different setups... vastly more flexible than Arch. The expertise on their forums is amazing too, with some really great developers in the community... but for all its technical merits, and all its contributions to the wider FOSS community (including even Google's ChromeOS), it just doesn't have the ambition/branding/vision to be a popular distro. It's like Steve Wozniak, compared to Steve Jobs: much less trendy and largely unheard of these days, but still, in fact, better with the actual technology... just too geeky to be interested in marketing itself.
14 • Kernels of many flavours (by TheTKS on 2023-05-22 13:41:21 GMT from Canada)
Running several distros, x86_64 and ARM 32 & 64 bit, several of the poll choices apply, but I don’t roll my own kernels and don’t modify the project-provided kernels.
Each distro serves its own purposes, with limited overlap in use between them.
When stability is really important to me - most of my usage - I use the stable/main/LTS version of the distros, Slackware and Xubuntu, and use the kernels provided.
When stability is less important, and for one oddball piece of hardware, I use a mix of distros - Slackware -current, Arch, Ubuntu and Raspberry Pi OS, and again use the kernels provided.
TKS
15 • Open Source on Mobile Phones (by Walt on 2023-05-22 15:05:19 GMT from United States)
I found the review of UBports 20.04 interesting, and I understand the appeal of having an Open Source OS on one's mobile phone. As someone who does not follow this area of development all that closely, I'm wondering which such efforts actually work on mobile phones for making calls (presumably still the basic purpose of a mobile phone) and work with any of the major providers here in the United States (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon). It seems to me that the major providers, because of whatever proprietary software they install, would not be amenable to supporting or even allowing a phone with an OS such as UBports. If I'm wrong or off-base, please enlighten me.
16 • What about GrapheneOS? (by CS on 2023-05-22 16:08:17 GMT from United States)
IMO these "Debian on a phone" ideas are just never going to be that useful. If you want a portable server with a battery backup laptops do a better job.
I recently heard about GrapheneOS and would be more interested in learning about that. Does it let your phone work as a phone? Does it protect your privacy? Is it open? That sort of stuff.
I searched on the site but it's on an exclude list and it doesn't seem to have been reviewed in the past. I could have missed it of course but if not I personally would find info on it more valuable than the other "on a phone" options I've seen so far.
17 • Hardware and carriers (by Jesse on 2023-05-22 16:53:33 GMT from Canada)
@15: "I'm wondering which such efforts actually work on mobile phones for making calls (presumably still the basic purpose of a mobile phone) and work with any of the major providers here in the United States (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon). It seems to me that the major providers, because of whatever proprietary software they install, would not be amenable to supporting or even allowing a phone with an OS such as UBports."
The issue usually isn't software. That is, in most places, it doesn't matter which OS you use on your phone. The carriers don't do anything to filter or support an OS.
What does tend to matter is the cell frequencies supported by the hardware. I can run UBports, Murena, or Manjaro on a phone and it will find with any carrier, so long as the phone supports the proper range of cell frequencies.
With that, said, things are getting slightly harder now in the USA. Carriers are switching to a specific type of cell support which also requires OS functionality. It does filter OSes specifically, but if your open source OS doesn't support the frequency/protocol then it's effectively kicked off the network. Other countries don't seem to have this limitation, at least it isn't a problem in Canada.
18 • Kernel version (by Will on 2023-05-22 18:36:29 GMT from Spain)
I seriously doubt that 40% of the respondents are using latest-stable kernel. This would be atypical for most distros. Mint is on longterm-supported aka 5.15. I think it sounds reasonable - as in I keep my system up to date, but most distros out there are not running the 6 series just yet. Sure, there are plenty that are, but a plurality of users, nah.
19 • ubports and navigation (by Will on 2023-05-22 18:47:53 GMT from Spain)
I tried ubports on their recommended hardware a year ago (a nexus 5, yes it's very old at this point, but it was what they recommended and still do today). The nav experience was so bad, it was hard to believe. It took around 30 minutes to get it to locate and then it would lose it every hour or so and need another 30 minutes to find again. This isn't an abnormal experience either, plenty of posts on it.
I so desperately want to get off my iphone/android, but the nav thing is a deal killer. I don't need much from my phone - if it did nav so I could find my way around places I don't know and the phone worked, I would switch - even if texting and browsing weren't possible. But, I just need nav!
I can't believe how hard nav is for open source phones. But, I keep hoping. My iphone 6 is really showing it's age (not really, the phone hardware is fine, just the forced obsolescence of the software - no updates after so many years, makes it impossible to run up to date apps). This year, it started complaining that the browser was unsupported on some websites, all cuz apple doesn't want to allow updates. Sheesh. Pulease get nav working ubports folks!
Will
20 • Finding ip address (by aaro on 2023-05-22 22:59:11 GMT from Venezuela)
You can also use level 2 scan with arp-scan. "arp-scan -l" will show all devices on your network with their ip and mac addresses. Pretty useful.
21 • @18 Kernel Version (by Reyfer on 2023-05-22 23:23:26 GMT from Venezuela)
Why do we, as humans, constantly fall to this mental trap that "if I don't use it, it must mean nobody else does"? Debian Testing (soon to be stable in a month) uses kernel 6, Manjaro uses kernel 6, Fedora 37 uses kernel 6
22 • Kernel 6 (by artytux on 2023-05-23 05:32:30 GMT from Australia)
Don't forget driving MXLinux KDE ahs with Kernel 6, it's good real good.
23 • @18: (by dragonmouth on 2023-05-23 12:23:45 GMT from United States)
Generalizing based on one's habits and actions can and will get one in trouble.
You may use the kernel that comes with your distro but thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of others like to install the latest and greatest kernels. My daily driver, PCLinuxOS, comes with 5.x kernel. However, I promptly replace it with the latest one and have been doing so for the past 10+ years. HYaving said that, I realize that not all users are so adventurous.
24 • @15 @19 Alternative mobile phone OS (by Kazlu on 2023-05-23 12:45:10 GMT from France)
I have been using SailfishOS for a few months on a Sony Xperia 10 II. I have not been totally convinced by it, but the base functionnality is there. It is a disappointment... compared to LineageOS. I think I might just revert to LineageOS for the functionnality, and because SailfishOS still feels like a beta... However, compared to UBports, it's way ahead. Plus Jolla partners with Sony so that the OS is well(ish) supported on a number of Sony devices. So even if I wouldn't recomment SailfishOS to the average Joe, maybe you guys would be interested in it since according to your posts your expectations are pretty low. Maybe it would suit you: - calling, texting works (in Europe at least) - MMS works on and off, I cannot find a permanent fix - tethering works after changing some settings - navigation works, although it takes a few minutes to locate you, it's stable and does not stop working. I am using OSM scout with some offline maps, the rest is online - email works (limited mail client though), web works, calendar with CalDAV works - camera works - nextcloud clients (not great but work), matrix client (partial support but what is there works), mattermost client, etc.
There is also a (paid) Android compatibility layer to install Android apps, but I did not try this.
25 • @24 MMS unfix (by mandatory name on 2023-05-23 13:53:45 GMT from Germany)
The "fix" for MMS working on and off is, unfortunately, to not use MMS. This is because at least some of the big European carriers are abandoning - as in no longer providing - this protocol, because it is allegedly no longer being used much. Soon it will not work at all any more ...
26 • @21 and @23 kernel version (by Will on 2023-05-23 15:53:11 GMT from United States)
No trap fallen into. As I said, plenty of folks run 6.x kernels, but I stand by the sentiment that I seriously doubt a plurality are. I think that a lot of folks claiming to be on stable are confused. The question should have been written as what kernel version are you running, ? and had actual version numbers with simple instructions to make things accurate and consistent such as:
dmesg|grep 'Linux version'
Then I would have been less skeptical.
You both seem to have misread my note - I made no personal claims about what I run. I was saying that it probably sounds reasonable to someone who reads the question "How recent is your kernel?", and who keeps their system up to date, that they would be running "Stable - latest" or maybe "Stable - maintained" regardless of what their actual kernel version was.
No worries though, if you think everybody (a plurality) are running 6.x kernels, have at.
Will
27 • @24 Alternative mobile phone OS (by Will on 2023-05-23 16:01:38 GMT from United States)
Sounds interesting enough to give it a shot. I had seen Sailfish and LineageOS, but I haven't gotten around to trying them. Distrohopping is addictive, very little hardware investment, if any and widely varied outcomes. PhoneOShopping on the other hand is painful - gotta get the right phone, gotta set up whatever crazy dev environment is required to load the phone, then, when it goes south, time to get the next right phone and so on. Expensive and somewhat painful process. Still, for peace of mind, it's prolly worth it. I just need a gap year every so often :)
28 • kernel (by Skullcandy on 2023-05-23 22:28:50 GMT from New Zealand)
voted for stable-latest:
uname -r 6.3.3-desktop-1.mga9
running on a wide variety of not so new hardware from Athlon xp2400 to 5yo Core i5 processors
29 • Latest kernels run worse and slower than LTS kernels (by Andy Prough on 2023-05-24 03:11:32 GMT from Switzerland)
It's been well established that older LTS kernels, such as the 5.15 series, generally (or always) run faster and with fewer bugs than the latest kernels. So unless you are running the latest greatest hardware that was just released within the past few months or you have some truly unusual hardware setup, you are nearly always going to perform better with a stable LTS kernel.
Remember: Latest kernels = new bugs and regressions Stable LTS kernels = years of stability and performance tuning
30 • @25 MMS (by Kazlu on 2023-05-24 08:28:36 GMT from France)
MMS does work flawlessly on my dumbphone, my Android backup phone, my partner's Android phone... You may be right about gloomy prospects of MMS, but right now, it's supposed to work.
31 • @27 OS-hoppong on a phone (by Kazlu on 2023-05-24 08:39:22 GMT from France)
Agreed, hopping is way more hazardous on phones than on computers. I myself bought a Sony device with SailfishOS preinstalled, making sure it was also supported by LineageOS just in case. Honestly, if you already distrohop, installing LineageOS is not that difficult, but as you say, you better have a supported phone. I did not check the installation process of SailfishOS.
In terms of functionnality, LineageOS is awesome. Without Google apps and with F-Droid, it covers all my needs except for games (I use another, dedicated device for that, and I do not own a tablet). I just wanted to try something even more independant of Google and on paper SailfishOS is great thanks to the GNU/Linux base and isolation principles.
If I may offer some advice, follow my lead: Do not hop on phones every month. Rather, whenever you need to buy a phone next time because your current one is dead, chose your new phone while making sure it is supported by LineageOS/SailfishOS. Then, when you warranty wears off, ditch Android and install another OS until you're satisfied.
I like to buy refurbished phones myself, OS support is already established. Works great, I am never going back. I hope to not need a new phone anytime soon, but if I lose mine tomorrow, a refurbished Fairphone would be my target. Otherwise I've had generally good experiences with refurbished Sony and Samsung.
32 • @26 Really? (by Reyfer on 2023-05-24 14:45:22 GMT from Venezuela)
"No trap fallen into. As I said, plenty of folks run 6.x kernels, but I stand by the sentiment that I seriously doubt a plurality are. I think that a lot of folks claiming to be on stable are confused" So your answer is that YOU are smarter than anybody else that replied to the poll so YOU understood the question but the rest of us didn't. Got it
33 • @26 Skewed Plurality (by Linux Revolution on 2023-05-24 15:25:45 GMT from United States)
Would you consider Fedora distribution a "plurality". Just with Fedora alone, I'd say a heck of a lot of people are using 6.x kernels.
34 • @32, @33 Really Skewed Plurality (by Will on 2023-05-24 15:38:01 GMT from United States)
Last comment on this one - plurality, as in most votes, but less than half... 4 of the top 5 distros visiting DistroWatch are 5.x kernels by default. Please try to be polite. I said it's fine if you disagree, but there's no need to be disrespectful.
Will
35 • clarification (by Will on 2023-05-24 15:42:42 GMT from United States)
With DistroWatch, stats are tricky... 4 out of the top 5 page hits are distros w/5.x kernels and the vast majority of the top 10.
36 • @35: (by dragonmouth on 2023-05-24 18:50:50 GMT from United States)
You are making the big assumption that users stick with the kernel the distro came with. Windows users are the ones that eat and drink whatever the developers serve them and ask no questions. Linux users are tinkerers. They update/upgrade as matter of habit.
37 • @34 Skewed plurality (by Reyfer on 2023-05-24 20:20:57 GMT from Venezuela)
Yes, you are right, no need to be disrespectful, but....I am not the one that implied that other people don't understand the poll.
And also, as has been proven several times in this same site and in several distro sites, Linux users like to tinker, and a very big percentage doesn't stick with the distro's shipped kernel
38 • How recent is your kernel? (by Fernando on 2023-05-24 23:19:42 GMT from Brazil)
@36 (dragonmouth):
"Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable. (Mark Twain)"
Yes, statistics are not facts!
Distrowatch's Opinion Poll is something very inaccurate in essence. Therefore, it could not be considered a reflex of truth. Even Distrowatch's PHR is nothing else than "ramdom data", not a measure for the popularity of distros.
So,,, Will (of Spain) MAY ACTUALLY BE RIGHT... I myself also don't believe that the majority of Linuxers worldwide prefer to replace a tried and tested "stable" kernel with a "cutting edge" one, given the risk of lowering the security level of their computers. To be honest, I did it only ONE time, many years ago, when I home-built a new PC. Off course, not all Linuxers are tinkerers (especially if they work almost 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, and have a life, like me).
But in developed nations, where people always buy new hardware ahead of us living in Third World countries, there must be a higher need for doing frequent software updates/upgrades. In such a case, I would say that a "bleeding edge" kernel makes more sense than an LTS one, no matter how adventurous (dangerous) it be.
P.S. The kernels in my two desktops and one laptop are 5.15, 5.10, and 4.19, respectively.
39 • @38 (by Reyfer on 2023-05-24 23:48:24 GMT from Venezuela)
Ok, I give up, you and Will can have it your way, people that visit this site answered a poll on this site, and still you both say you don't believe the poll because it goes against YOUR opinion on the matter....yes, I give up, nobody uses current stable kernel, all of us that selected that answer are being lied to by our distro of choice that says we're on 6 when, according to "what should be more logical" in reality we are on 5 LTS.
"Distrowatch's Opinion Poll is something very inaccurate in essence." Innacurate in which way? The poll doesn't claim to reflect ALL of the community, the percentages shown are based in THE PEOPLE THAT ANSWERED THE POLL ON THIS SITE, so I would say the poll is accurate in showing the percentages OF PEOPLE ON THIS SITE THAT ANSWERED.
40 • Linux on smartphones (by Mike on 2023-05-25 09:01:42 GMT from Netherlands)
I once had high hopes for linux on smartphones. But the lack of software like whatsapp and other proprietary stuff makes it a no-go for me.
41 • How recent is your kernel? (by Fernando on 2023-05-25 12:11:08 GMT from Brazil)
@39 (Reyfer):
You misunderstood my words. I didn't say people who answer Distrowatch's Opinion Poll may be "lying". For sure, I believe they are honest __ including you! What I'm trying to explain is that we cannot see those numerical results as a mathematically exact proportion of the WHOLE Linux community, since the vast majority of us simply do not vote __ including me...
By the way, I couldn't express my point better than this: "Innacurate in which way? The poll doesn't claim to reflect ALL of the community, the percentages shown are based in THE PEOPLE THAT ANSWERED THE POLL ON THIS SITE, so I would say the poll is accurate in showing the percentages OF PEOPLE ON THIS SITE THAT ANSWERED."
Correct! Distrowatch's Opinion Poll is just a small fraction of the whole Linux universe. Then, nobody will be able to know the REAL percentage of users whose computers run this or that kernel version. We can only "speculate" about it. And based on EVIDENCES (specifically, what I have seen by myself running in computers used by friends, family members, and co-workers), my particular OPINION is that the majority of people __at least in Brazil __ keep using LTS kernels of the series 5.x and 4.x.
But nobody is obliged to believe in "personal opinions", just as nobody is obliged to believe in Distrowatch's Opinion Poll, which in reality is a bunch of personal opinions translated as percentages... O.K.?
Peace!
42 • @40 Linux on smarphones (by Kazlu on 2023-05-25 14:42:37 GMT from France)
On paper, SailfishOS addresses this: A GNU/Linux OS with an Android compatibility layer. I can't tell how well this works though, especially when you rely on hardware features like location.
43 • @41 (by Reyfer on 2023-05-25 16:34:06 GMT from Venezuela)
Based on evidences in my country (Venezuela) with my family, friends, coworkers, people I deal with in my daily work in my company, people I work with in Italy, France, Japan, USA, and Australia, 65% of them use Stable-latest....but then again that is my experience. Plus, when you take into account how many people seem to use Arch, or Fedora, it seems stable-latest is pretty solid out there
44 • @41 Fernando: (by dragonmouth on 2023-05-25 17:12:39 GMT from United States)
If we follow your logic then ANY POLL is open to question, even voting. because there NEVER is a 100% participation.
Besides, this poll and any other DW poll reflects only the percentages of RESPONDENTS (those that bothered to answer the question). They DO NOT reflect the percentage of all DW readers or all Linux users. DW polls are not designed or meant to be scientific and/or rigorous. There are NO inferences that can be made from the DW polls.
45 • How recent is your kernel? (by Fernando on 2023-05-25 23:49:42 GMT from Brazil)
@43 (Reyfer):
The Linux users YOU deal with are certainly different from the people I deal with, that live in a country which is much more conservative than Italy, France, Japan, USA, and Australia. So we have different experiences. In my case, I work for a German company with a computer network that employs a relatively old Debian Stable system. If I still remember, it's Debian 9 'Stretch'. My boss has a laptop with PCLinuxOS 18.06. And my personal laptop uses MX 18.3 (rock-solid, much better than the version 19.4 AHS, which I rejected).
As you can see, not a single one of those computers has a "latest Stable" kernel, simply because their owners are not geeks. We all (myself included) prefer the proven STABILITY and SECURITY of an LTS kernel instead of experimenting with anything recently released just for the sake of updating. Not even my son's desktop PC __ a modern AMD Ryzen 5 __ departs from that standard I adopt since many years ago, when I became a Linux user.
To state it clearly, I'm a professional Linux user, not a geek playing with computers. For me, they are tools to do serious work, not toys to tinker with. The only person I know who doesn't think like me is a co-worker who upgrades his PC every 3 or 4 years with incredible regularity and change his operating system every time a new one is released. But he's a Windows gamer, so I cannot consider him a "normal" computer user...
46 • @45 (by Reyfer on 2023-05-26 01:53:03 GMT from Venezuela)
"To state it clearly, I'm a professional Linux user, not a geek playing with computers. For me, they are tools to do serious work, not toys to tinker with" And I told you that I use Linux IN MY WORK, in Venezuela (you know, 3rd world country just north of Brazil), and about my interactions with people I WORK WITH....and you still tell me I am not serious, because I don't use the same kernel you use? Wow
I have been using Linux since 2004, completely replaced windows for linux in 2016, using Debian Testing on my main work machine and Sid on my personal machine since 2019....but maybe I am not a professional Linux user in your eyes because I "tinker"
47 • Let me clarify things a little bit more (by Fernando on 2023-05-26 03:48:53 GMT from Brazil)
@46 (Reyfer):
"....and you still tell me I am not serious, because I don't use the same kernel you use? Wow"
No, no, no, no, I DIDN'T MEAN YOU ARE NOT SERIOUS. Why you repeatedly distort what I say? Please stop interpreting my words in such a "literal" way!
It's more than obvious that you, dragonmouth, and probably the majority of Distrowatch readers/posters are VERY skilled people. Many of you are IT professionals with a large background in system administration. The problem is that such a kind of people is generally biased toward "the geeky way of thinking", and so they are almost unable to understand that the rest of us "Linux users without geeky bias" hardly ever do things the same manner as them.
And I am pretty sure the typical Linux user doesn't upgrade kernels as frequently as a typical Linux geek, in both the corporate and domestic environments. Indeed, the number of machines running stable Unix-like operating systems in industrial and commercial companies (where OLD kernels are preferably used) is much higher than in homes and schools (where Microsoft Windows is the dominant power by a large extent).
At least in Brazil, it's extremely difficult to find a Linuxer out of the corporate environment. I don't know the situation in Venezuela and the rest of South America, but I hope it be better.
48 • @34, @45 kernels used in MX (by Hoos on 2023-05-26 08:18:17 GMT from Singapore)
re: "....4 of the top 5 distros visiting DistroWatch are 5.x kernels by default....",
and
"And my personal laptop uses MX 18.3 (rock-solid, much better than the version 19.4 AHS, which I rejected)."
Just a little observation on trying to use MX (as one of the 5 distros with the most page hits on DW) to support a conclusion that its users mostly use LTS kernels:
- MX's standard version may be using Debian's default supported kernel as its own default, but MX also has AHS (advanced hardware support) versions which use much newer and non-LTS kernels which MX packages. So one cannot assume that an MX user is automatically on the standard LTS kernel version.
- on all versions of MX, a simple graphical package installer is provided which makes it easy to install newer kernels, in particular the Liquorix kernels which MX packages.
So what kernel, really, are most MX users using? It may not be as straightforward as it seems.
49 • On arguing and common sense (by Cubehead on 2023-05-26 08:53:11 GMT from Netherlands)
I can't believe that you are still arguing about something so easy. Is it your lack of English-speaking skills, your lack of logical reasoning, or your lack of "common knowledge"? It seems like a combination of all three. "If we follow your logic then ANY POLL is open to question, even voting. because there NEVER is a 100% participation." Basically, it is always 100% participation, even if only 1 in 8 billion votes. There are voters and those who abstained from voting. The first ones are active voters, and the later ones are passive voters. 20 people on DW voted: 7 voted for X, 6 voted for Y, and 7 abstained. X wins, and the result is irrelevant... Because the "Users"... Linux users are multimillion-dollar companies, and what kernel they use we can only guess. We don't know. Linux users are big institutions, and which kernel they use can be safely assumed because we know what OS they are using. Princeton University likely uses the RHEL (Springdale) kernel that comes with the OS version they use. Linux users are private people who use Linux to prolong the life of their hardware after Mac or Windows support ends. In most cases, they don't care for the OS but for their applications, and in most cases, they are running Ubuntu or Fedora. Fedora uses the latest kernel, and Ubuntu maintains its own. Linux users are DW commenters, who are a non-representative group by absolutely all means. They are not only less than 1% of 1% of 1% of all Linux users, but a collection of individuals who can't agree on anything else except "if something works for the majority, then it is evil." "Distrowatch's Opinion Poll is something very inaccurate in essence." This statement is absolutely correct. "The poll doesn't claim to reflect ALL of the community, the percentages shown are based in THE PEOPLE THAT ANSWERED THE POLL ON THIS SITE, so I would say the poll is accurate in showing the percentages OF PEOPLE ON THIS SITE THAT ANSWERED." "Innacurate in which way?" The sentence above the question exactly explains why it is inaccurate. Since the poll does not reflect all of the Linux users but only the opinion of the most irrelevant of all irrelevant users, it reflects only the opinion of those few irrelevants. Such a poll is accurate only for and among those few DW irrelevants, and has absolutely no relevance for the Linux landscape in general.
50 • Kernel polling (by El Guapo on 2023-05-26 09:14:56 GMT from United States)
We'll need another poll in a week so to opine on whether the winner of this week's war is Lilliput or Blefuscu.
I have four systems: two with 6.2xx, 0ne with 6.0xx and one with 5,15xx. When using them, I can't really tell which is which unless I look. Big end? Little end? Does it matter?
51 • Polls wouldn't be needed with telemetry (by Cubehead on 2023-05-26 09:26:17 GMT from Netherlands)
Thanks to telemetry, Microsoft can exactly tell how many people in which country use some type of graphics card or network adapter, how much RAM people have installed, what software they are using, how long per day they use their computers, etc. It's much better to know than to assume or rely on surveys.
This can help develop future products more effectively, because you know that there is no point in developing something that almost nobody uses, but it also puts us at risk that it could be abused for personal profit, as one knows what to implement in Windows 11 to make most of the hardware perfectly capable of running it obsolete.
There is no advantage without a disadvantage, and people stay people. If they can use something to their advantage, they will do it.
The problem is with us, the people, not with technology developed by us.
52 • @50 • Kernel polling (by El Guapo from United States) (by Cubehead on 2023-05-26 11:09:51 GMT from Netherlands)
"We'll need another poll in a week so to opine on whether the winner of this week's war is Lilliput or Blefuscu."
Better not. ;)
This would be like "can't think" deciding if "can't think 1" can't think more than "can't think 2." :) :) :)
A better idea would be to discontinue DW polls so the people don't end up in debacles. ;)
Based on the only half-way representative list we have and can trust, I'd say the winner is:
Ubuntu 22.04
(Ubuntu 21.12% vs. Mint 8.96% vs. Endeavour 0.84% vs. MX 0.44% vs. PCLinuxOS 0%)
Kernel:
Ubuntu 5.19 non-LTS kernels
https://github.com/linuxhw/Trends/tree/master/
https://linux-hardware.org/
This is, of course, not a representative list (as explained in @49), but it's the best we have. * I also didn't send any new data to linux-hardware.org since 2016.
(followed by 6.2.6 and 5.15.0 kernels)
53 • @32, and the winner is. . . (by El Guapo on 2023-05-26 13:16:25 GMT from United States)
"Ubuntu 22.04" So is that big endian or little endian?
I doubt the folks running DW were out to decide the kernel championship, but they must be enjoying the ensuing battle. These simple weekly questions asking people's preferences keep the comments section from being totally boring, and may make for more page-views as well. So by all means, let's have more. Of course, some people will let their sense of righteousness and self-importance boil over (and the includes you), but that's part of the fun. Lilliput forever!!
54 • flame to fire (by Will on 2023-05-26 14:26:40 GMT from Finland)
I completely disagree :).
But seriously, the argument keeps spiraling out of control, one minute it's a critique of the question (stable-latest being, I would argue, intuitively misleading), the next it's about samples not being representative (the DW poll has an inherent self-selection bias, so what? It doesn't ever claim to be representative of a broader population), then it's ad-hominem attacks on people's character, claiming you said this (emphatically mischaracterized), when what they said was something else, cross talking like crazy, then moving to let's abolish DW polling - raucous man. If I was Jesse & Co,, I'd do a poll asking if anyone cares what version of the kernel folks are running.
Will (maybe from Finland, if the vpn's working right)
p.s. I'm a long time linux user and tech pro (used the pre 1.0 kernel). I'm really tall, too, so I know what I'm talking about.
55 • @big-little El Guapo (by Cubehead on 2023-05-26 15:55:58 GMT from Netherlands)
"Ubuntu 22.04" So is that big endian or little endian? "
Of course little—it runs on Intel iCore 64-bit processor; not running Ubuntu 22.04 on Mac from 2003. ;)
"Of course, some people will let their sense of righteousness and self-importance boil over (and that includes you), but that's part of the fun. Lilliput forever!!"
(Is that something like Lili put it in herself in? Are you Lili putting it in?) ;)
Some people know, while others talk nonsense or play "smart."
I suggest the subject should be all except Cubehead. ;)
But seriously, NOBODY gives a damn for DW, and even more for the DW folk. :)
56 • Final words (by Fernando on 2023-05-26 21:41:49 GMT from Brazil)
@55 (Cubehead):
>>Some people know, while others talk nonsense or play "smart." <<
It really doesn't matter if anybody's saying is incorrect (nonsense) or correct (knowledge), once EVERY opinion is welcome in a discussion forum like this. Traditionally, I have learnt more and better when other people show me different points of view. Of course, they have different insights, and I must have the dignity to give them attention because I MAY BE WRONG, eventually.
Anyway, I wanna THANK YOU for providing the Web address below:
https://github.com/linuxhw/Trends/tree/master/
In that long sequence of statistics, I could see a lot of useful information that I didn't know yet.
>>But seriously, NOBODY gives a damn for DW, and even more for the DW folk. :) <<
Oh, my goodness... I consider Distrowatch simply the most important, the most wonderful, and also the most COHERENT Website in existence. PERIOD. Many years ago, still in the era of Windows Millennium and dialup networking, this sacred place was my introduction to the amazing world of FLOSS. What a happy day when I could manage to install and use Linux for the first time! (The distro was the legendary DAMN SMALL LINUX, with a kernel of the series 2.4. :)
As for the endless argumentation on this week's Opinion Poll, it should be just a friendly exercise of logic between Linux lovers, not a "bloody battle" between fanatical people who don't admit to be wrong. In fact, nobody cares about which kernel someone chooses for a particular distro, since all of us Distrowatch readers are smart enough to make wise decisions when choosing kernels, browsers, mailers, and any other piece of software.
O.K., folks, that's all. From the deepness of my heart, I widh you a very, very, VERY nice weekend full of harmony!
Number of Comments: 56
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
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