 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1030, 31 July 2023 |
Welcome to this year's 31st issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Earlier this year it looked as though the Solus project might have come to an end. The project's infrastructure was off-line and there were limited updates about the nature of the outage and how long it would take to bring the project back on-line. After several weeks Solus returned, reorganized and with plans for new releases. The project has recently published Solus 4.4, the first new snapshot since the rolling distribution's triumphant return, and Jesse Smith shares his views on the new Solus release in our Feature Story. One of the upcoming changes highlighted in the Solus 4.4 release announcement concerns the distribution dropping its MATE desktop edition in favour of a new Xfce edition. What do you think about this change? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section we report on Debian introducing RISC-V processor support while OpenBSD enables microcode updates on AMD chips. We also report on Ubuntu patching a custom kernel vulnerability while FreeBSD imports OpenSSL into the base operating system and introduces initial support for BATMAN. Plus we talk about Linux Mint's many new desktop features in this week's Technology Review. We're also happy to talk about last week's releases and share the torrents we are seeding. Finally, we give thanks to the many readers who continue to fund us and help keep DistroWatch running. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Solus 4.4
Almost exactly two years after the project's previous release (version 4.3), and about seven months after the Solus project dropped off-line for several weeks, the project's developers launched Solus 4.4. It was a comeback which was surprising for some observers and a welcome return for others.
The new Solus 4.4 release is available in four editions (Budgie, KDE Plasma, MATE, and GNOME) for the x86_64 architecture. The new release ships with Secure Boot support, version 6.3.8 of the Linux kernel, and zRAM enabled. In this release the Nemo file manager replaces Nautilus in the Budgie edition. The release announcement also mentions version 4.4 will be the final release offering a MATE edition, the next version of Solus will offer an edition running the Xfce desktop instead.
There are a few other key features too, in particular with regards to the included media players: "Budgie, GNOME, and MATE editions all ship with Rhythmbox for audio playback, with the latest release of the Alternate Toolbar extension to provide a more modern user experience. Budgie and GNOME ship with Celluloid for video playback. MATE ships with VLC for video playback. Plasma ships with Elisa for audio playback and Haruna for video playback."
I decided to download the project's flagship edition, Budgie, which is available as a 2.3GB ISO file. Booting from this media loads the Budgie desktop quite quickly. On the desktop we find icons which will open the Nemo file manager and launch the system installer. Across the bottom of the screen we find a thin panel which holds the application menu, some quick-launch buttons, and a system tray.
Budgie uses a dark theme by default, most of the backgrounds (such as the panel and application menu) are black with white text. This makes for a pleasant, high contrast. However, font sizes are relatively small (9pt) and this can make menus and the virtual terminal look cramped.
Installing
Solus uses a graphical system installer with a fairly straightforward, modern-looking layout. The installer walks us through selecting our preferred language and it offers to find our location automatically. The installer then helps us select our keyboard layout and choose our timezone from a map.
Disk partitioning comes next. We can let the installer take over our disk or we can manually partition the disk ahead of time, then just use the installer to assign mount points to each partition. When we take the automated approach, Solus will be set up on an ext4 partition with a separate swap partition.
The installer then gets us to make up a hostname for our computer and optionally install a boot loader (we can pick the boot loader's location). We are then given the opportunity to create a user account, or multiple ones if we wish. The first user is granted administrator access while any additional users do not have special access by default, though we can give them admin/sudo access if we wish. Each password for new user accounts must be at least six characters long, though the passwords do not need to be complex (123456 is accepted, for example). The installer concludes by asking us to confirm our choices and then goes to work. It copies its files very quickly, taking just a couple of minutes to finish its work, and then offers to restart the computer.
Early impressions
Solus boots to a graphical login screen where we are shown available user accounts in alphabetical order. Signing into an account brings us back to the Budgie desktop.
Shortly after signing in, a notification appeared to let me know software updates were available. Clicking on this notification doesn't open an update manager or the software centre. There is a launcher for the software centre on the panel and, open I opened the software centre, it let me know there were 59 updates (438MB in size) waiting. These updates were fetched without any problems. I'll talk more about the software centre later in this review.
Solus 4.4 -- The Budgie application menu
(full image size: 2.4MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Budgie locks the screen after just five minutes of inactivity. This timeout can be adjusted in the Budgie Desktop Settings panel, one of the two settings panels. I'll also come back to talk about these two settings portals later.
By default, Budgie's desktop icons launch with a single-click. This behaviour can be changed in the Budgie Desktop Settings utility. I found that Nemo, the default file manager, does not respect the desktop's single/double-click policy. When Budgie has been set to use double-clicks to open items, Nemo still uses a single-click. I had a surprisingly tricky time trying to change Nemo's behaviour as there doesn't appear to be a separate entry in either of the settings panels which deal with Nemo's configuration and Nemo itself doesn't have a visible settings button or menu. I eventually worked out that if I right-clicked in the middle or right side of Nemo's top bar (but not the left) that it would cause a menubar to appear where I could find settings specific to the file manager. This seems like an unusually well hidden approach and not a straightforward to discover. Having the user randomly right-click parts of a window to see if it might cause a menu to appear feels like a 1990s style adventure game approach to finding secrets, not a reasonable user interface design.
Solus 4.4 -- Setting click behaviour for the desktop and file manager
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Hardware
I started my trial with Solus in a VirtualBox environment. Solus performed well in VirtualBox, running smoothly and offering a fairly responsive desktop experience. The Budgie desktop didn't dynamically resize to fit the host's window, but the desktop could be resized through one of the setting panels.
Solus also ran smoothly on my laptop and offered good performance. However, sound didn't work on my laptop. While audio played without any problems in the virtual machine, when running directly on my laptop Solus was unable to detect my sound card. In its place there was only a "dummy" audio device. This is the first time in quite a while a running Linux distribution has failed to work with my sound card.
Solus 4.4 -- Trying to play audio on a laptop
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Solus consumes about 530MB of RAM when signed into the Budgie desktop and a fresh install took up about 7.2GB of hard drive space. By default, Solus sets up zRAM to make use of compressed swap running inside memory. None of my tasks consume enough memory to really make use of this feature, but zRAM can be handy on systems will lower memory specifications.
Included applications
Solus ships with a fairly standard collection of open source applications. The Firefox web browser is included along with the Thunderbird e-mail client, a calendar application, and the LibreOffice suite. The Nemo file manager is installed for us along with a screenshot tool and a text editor. The Rhythmbox audio player and the Celluloid video player are installed along with a range of media codecs.
In the background we find Solus ships with the GNU command line utilities and manual pages. The systemd init software manages services in the background and the distribution ships with version 6.3.8 of the Linux kernel.
The Budgie edition of Solus ships with two settings panels: Budgie Control Centre and Budgie Desktop Settings. The Desktop Settings panel handles configuration options for fonts, icon styles, tiling windows, the number of Budgie virtual workspaces, and interface scaling. These setting modules worked well for me and I like how easy the Budgie Desktop Settings panel is to navigate. It feels straightforward, organized and not overly crowded.
Solus 4.4 -- Running Firefox and Celluloid
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The Budgie Control Centre appears to be the GNOME Settings panel under a different name. Through it we can manage user accounts, printers, mouse and touchpad settings, screen resolution, and the keyboard layout. Both settings panels worked well for me and were easy to navigate. I do think having two panels will be likely to cause some confusion among new users. One is slightly more desktop focused while one is more geared toward the underlying operating system. However, there is quite a bit of overlap in the scope of the two settings portals and I think it's going to mean people are going to spend time hunting through both panels for the settings they want to change.
Software management
Solus ships with a software centre that walks an unusual line between acting like a modern software centre and a classic package manager. The utility has a series of tabs to divide functionality. These tabs include one which shows categories we can browse through looking for applications in the modern approach as well as a useful search tab. There is also a tab for showing us a list of all installed packages (including low-level packages) in alphabetical order. This tab showing installed items has a more classic package manager feel to it. These all worked well for me and I had no trouble adding and removing software.
Solus 4.4 -- Browsing for new software to install
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There is a tab which shows available software updates and this screen also worked well for me. There is another tab which I found interesting which shows us available third-party proprietary software, such as TeamViewer, Slack, and Spotify. Clicking the items in the third-party tab does not bring up more information on the items, but we can install these applications with a click.
The third-party section of the software centre was the one area which gave me a bit of trouble. For one thing, it seems third-party applications are not shown in search results under the Search tab. There are not a lot of third-party applications so it might have seemed unnecessary to show them, but it draws a virtual line between "native" applications and third-party software.
The other quirk I ran into came when I installed a few third-party applications. Like native applications, third-party software gets automatically added to the application menu. Most of the applications worked as expected, with the exception of Spotify. Its application menu launcher failed to work. I could, however, launch it from the command line without any problem.
At first I thought third-party software might be provided by Flatpak bundles, but this does not appear to be the case. Solus ships with both Snap and Flatpak support, but no applications of either type are installed. There also are not any Flatpak repositories enabled by default; we need to configure them manually.
Solus has a command line package manager too, called eopkg. It has a slightly unusual syntax compared to some of the other mainstream Linux package managers, but it works well and seems to perform quickly.
Other observations
A couple of issues came up during my trial. One was a minor annoyance and more of a personal preference, but I found it jarring how the applications did not share a common theme. I tend to notice this whenever I use distributions with the GNOME desktop or a lot of GNOME/GTK applications. The most obvious mismatch is the light/dark theme. The Budgie Desktop Settings panel is dark, the renamed GNOME settings panel has a light theme. Rhythmbox is light, Celluloid is dark, and Nemo is light. Menus are not consistent either. Nemo's menu is hidden, Firefox uses a restaurant menu button, and the Control Centre uses a three-dot drop-down. Budgie is, in my opinion, a very pretty desktop. It is also, unfortunately, a very inconsistent experience. Some of this we can fix, but we begin with inconsistent defaults.
Solus 4.4 -- Budgie's mixed light and dark windows
(full image size: 1.2MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The other issue I ran into, which I feel has the potential to be more serious, is I discovered admin access is not limited by user account, but rather by password. When I set up Solus I created two user accounts, one for myself (with admin access) and a guest account without admin access. However, the guest account could perform admin actions. Sometimes this access was for minor things which do not require a password. For example, the guest account could change the software centre's settings to change how often it checks for updates and other minor things like that. Not a serious problem, but probably not something which should be allowed.
A bigger concern for me is that the guest account, which was not granted admin access, can perform admin actions if the user types the admin's password. Now a person might reasonably say that if the guest user has the admin password they could access the admin account anyway and cause havoc if they wanted, which is true. However, there are still two reasons not to allow this. First, non-admin accounts shouldn't be able to perform admin/sudo actions at all, regardless of the password they use. Since Solus doesn't make use of a root account, it just grants admin access to one user (or optionally multiple users), multiple accounts shouldn't be able to elevate access through sharing a single password. The second reason this is a bad idea (I'd go as far to call it a bug) is it means if two people have matching or very similar passwords, an unprivileged user can perform admin actions, possibly even by accident.
Conclusions
Most of my experiences with Solus 4.4 were positive ones. The installer was pretty easy to get through, the live environment was nice. I like the look of Budgie and it's fairly easy to navigate. The desktop was responsive and stable, which is always a nice combination. I especially like the Budgie-specific settings panel as it's clearly organized and doesn't overwhelm the user with choices.
Solus ships with a pretty nice collection of default software and I like the software centre. The way it handles third-party software is a little unusual and I was hoping the software centre would support Flatpak, but this doesn't appear to be the case at this time.
There were some problems. As I mentioned above, the theme and application style are not consistent and I think the shared password approach is likely a bug as there isn't a good reason for separate accounts to share a non-root admin password. I also feel as though having two settings panels (with similar names) is likely to cause more confusion than assistance. The biggest problem though was highly unusual: my laptop's sound card not being detected. It is very rare for me to run a Linux distribution which doesn't have working sound. Some systems mute sound or don't offer a mixer control. Solus has the volume turned up, it just can't detect my sound output device on physical hardware. Inside a virtual machine audio worked without any issues.
I was hoping that Solus would introduce some reliability features. The distribution is a rolling release and would benefit from using technologies such as Btrfs and Timeshift to allow users to rollback packages. However, Solus defaults to ext4 for the filesystem and doesn't appear to offer any graphical tools which would help us create or rollback snapshots.
In short, Solus does a lot of things well and often looks really nice and polished with a great collection of applications. But then there are other times when components of the distribution offer a surprisingly jarring contrast or experience - themes not matching, sound not working. There were times when I would find myself considering Solus as being one of the smoother experiences I've had so far in 2023 and the next minute I'd be fuming as I tried to figure out by what logic a user should know to right-click to the right of the file manager top bar in order to open a hidden menu to find preferences that have seemingly already been changed in the settings panel. It was a weird experience and Solus's polish in some areas meant I was repeatedly caught off guard when I ran into problems or inconsistencies in other areas.
I don't know if Solus is here to stay now, or if this is the distribution's swan song after a valiant rescue attempt earlier in the year. I'm hoping it sticks around. I think the project is doing some things well, but it feels as though it just doesn't have the development power behind it yet to make a more consistent, complete experience.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an HP DY2048CA laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 512GB solid state drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Wireless network device: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + BT Wireless network card
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Visitor supplied rating
Solus has a visitor supplied average rating of: 7.5/10 from 195 review(s).
Have you used Solus? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Debian introduces RISC-V support, OpenBSD enables AMD microcode updates, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 and BATMAN
The Debian project has embraced a new CPU architecture for which the distribution will build packages. Aurelien Jarno announced Debian will now build RISC-V packages, though the efforts are in their very early stages. "Therefore our next step is to build a minimal set of about 90 source packages using the debian-ports archive and then import them into the official archive. These packages will be signed with a special GPG key using debian-riscv@lists.debian.org as the email address, enabling easy tracking." The Debian wiki has a page dedicated to the RISC-V port and its progress.
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The OpenBSD project has introduced support for updating microcode on AMD processors. The security-focused operating system has supported Intel microcode updates since 2018 and now supports 32-bit and 64-bit CPU updates on AMD chips as well. The small commit notification shares the update along with a list of changed source code files.
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An unusual set of circumstances has given rise to a rare occurrence: a situation where one Linux distribution contains a kernel vulnerability while others do not. The problem arose after Ubuntu introduced custom changes to its OverlayFS kernel module. This change was fine and didn't introduce any immediate problems, until the mainline kernel developers made related changes which were also fine when used with the vanilla kernel. However, mixing the two sets of changes (those from Ubuntu and those from the vanilla kernel) resulted in two security vulnerabilities. "Ubuntu, as one of the distributions using OverlayFS, had implemented custom changes to its OverlayFS module in 2018, which were generally safe. However, in 2019 and 2022, the Linux kernel project made its own modifications to the module, which conflicted with Ubuntu's changes. The widespread distribution adopted the code containing these changes recently, and the conflicts caused the introduction of the two flaws. Unfortunately, the risk of exploitation is imminent, as PoCs for the two flaws have been publicly available for a long time." People running the Ubuntu distribution (or related, downstream distributions and spins) are advised to update their kernel. Bleeping Computer has the details.
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The FreeBSD project has published a new status report which covers the past three months of work and progress in the project's infrastructure and operating system. A few of the highlights include OpenSSL 3 being imported into the base operating system which provides a major upgrade over OpenSSL 1.1. There are also plans to introduce BATMAN support in FreeBSD 14: "BATMAN (Better Approach to Mobile Ad-hoc Networking), as developed and used by the Freifunk project, is a routing protocol for (primarily wireless) multi-hop ad-hoc networks. Freifunk is a German initiative to build an open Wi-Fi network at city-scale, based on the principles of net-neutrality. BATMAN's motive is to be a completely decentralized protocol; no one node in the network knows or has to care about the topology of the whole network. Support for this protocol is provided by the batman-adv kernel module on Linux, and this project aims to bring that to FreeBSD. This includes the kernel module itself, but also userland networking libraries and tools necessary to create BATMAN networks." The status report offers further details.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Technology Review (by Jesse Smith) |
Linux Mint 21.2
About a year ago I decided to try the (then new) Linux Mint 21 release. In my conclusion I wrote at the time "Linux Mint is one of the more beginner friendly distributions I have used. Everything about it feels unusually polished, consistent, and considered."
One of the key benefits of Linux Mint, in my opinion, is that the distribution has been consistent in providing reliable, friendly, polished releases. It's one of the few distributions I feel I can say has managed to be equally beginner-friendly, up to date, and stable on a regular basis for over a decade. Lots of Linux distributions manage to deliver one or all of those characteristics occasionally, very few deliver them consistently.
The Mint team appears to accomplish this feat by making small, evolutionary steps in the direction their community requests. This isn't a distribution like CRUX or Slackware, which are persistently conservative. Mint also isn't like Fedora or Ubuntu which like to change quickly and break things in the process or abandon recently adopted technologies. Mint moves along gradually, introducing improvements and requested features without making sudden moves (either to adopt or throw away software) that would disrupt the distribution's users.
It is because of this steady progress forward I wanted to try out Linux Mint 21.2, despite already having tried version 21 last year. Under the hood there wouldn't be many changes, but the project's news posts were painting a picture of a more polished desktop experience. I decided to download Mint's 21.2 release and tried out some of the highlighted features.
The installation of Linux Mint went fairly smoothly and it doesn't look as though the installer has changed much in the past year. I ran into a hiccup where the installer told me it couldn't successfully install GRUB (the update-grub command failed) while using automatic/guided partitioning. Going back and manually setting up my partitions and then running the install process again fixed the issue and Mint installed successfully.
I've tried to divide my overview of new features into categories, based on where I encountered the changes. Starting with the login screen seemed like a reasonable choice.
Login screen
There were three notable changes on the login screen. The first is tap-to-click is enabled on the login screen for laptops. This is a nice shift as it makes it easier to quickly select buttons and menu items.
Linux Mint 21.2 -- Editing a password on the login screen
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The second is we can now tap an eye icon in the password field to see our password while typing it. This is helpful if we want to troubleshoot or want to edit a long password when we suspect we've made a typo. Passwords are still hidden by default.
A third change is we can change keyboard layouts easily on the login page. In the upper-right corner we can pick a keyboard layout from a list of dozens by scrolling through a list. The layouts have descriptions, not just cryptic names, making this a fairly beginner-friendly feature.
Software centre
The Mint software centre contains one visible change. Specifically, Flatpak packages are now listed among the Featured items (or promoted items) on the front page of the centre. Though this part is not new, I like that Mint's software centre makes it clear via a label whether a package is available through native Deb packages or from a Flatpak repository. This information is displayed both in the Featured items section and on each package's information page to avoid confusion.
Linux Mint 21.2 -- Flatpak packages from Flathub in the Featured section
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Desktop actions and file manager icons
On the desktop, one of the first things we are likely to notice is tool tips are now more visible. Specifically, tool tips have blue backgrounds, making them stand out more, and they have nice, rounded edges. Notifications also have a strip of colour across the top, given them a semi-3D look.
Linux Mint 21.2 -- A small tool tip with blue background
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The application menu can be resized just like any other window, by dragging its edge with the mouse pointer. The menu remembers how big it was across sessions. This helps us spread out the menu or shrink it down out of the way, depending on our preference.
Linux Mint 21.2 -- The application menu's original size
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Linux Mint 21.2 -- The application menu expanded to a larger size
(full image size: 511kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
Folder icons in the file manager have been adjusted a little. Each folder has a two-tone icon which changes colour based on our selected theme. It's a clean, simple, but colourful design which I find easy on the eyes.
Linux Mint 21.2 -- Two-tone folder icons
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Pix application
One of Mint's applications, Pix, is an image viewer which was originally based on GNOME's gThumb 3.2.8. Pix has been rebased on gThumb 3.12.2 which introduces a few changes to the layout of the application window. In particular, the new version of Pix uses headerbars with buttons instead of classic toolbars and menubars. The developers acknowledge this makes some features more difficult to discover for new users, but this is balanced against a cleaner and less crowded interface. I took a look at the new Pix version and tend to agree with the Mint team about both observations.
Linux Mint 21.2 -- Pix with the traditional menubars removed
(full image size: 312kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
Cinnamon styles
One of the more striking additions to Linux Mint is included as part of Cinnamon 5.8. The new feature is called Styles. A style is basically a theme which can use one of three modes (light, dark, and mixed). Each of these modes can, in turn, use one of a series of colour variants. A variant is basically a combination of colour themes which work well together.
We can access styles in the settings panel. Then select the general mode, light/dark/mixed approach, and a colour to combine to give the desktop a new look. The Styles settings give us a wide variety of different looks for the desktop which can be adjusted quickly and without diving too deeply into various settings.
Linux Mint 21.2 -- Selecting a style, mode, and colour
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Something which has often bothered me about customizing themes is it tends to involve a lot of work and drilling down into highly specific settings. Cinnamon now narrows the experience down into three simple selections which are easy to understand (style, light/dark, and colour) and, from that, puts together a new desktop look for us. It's quite slick and I hope other desktop environments learn from Cinnamon's example on how to make this experience easy for the user.
Gestures
Gesture support has been added to Cinnamon which will allow users to manage windows, media controls, and workspaces by way of touchpads and touchscreens. When gestures are enabled we can assign a finger movement to a specific action (there are dozens of actions that can be assigned to a movement). This allows us to, for instance, make an expanding gesture on the screen to maximum a window, a sliding gesture to switch between workspaces, and a narrowing gesture to minimize a window.
The recognized gestures and the roles we can assign to them are quite flexible and bound to be a welcome feature for people using laptops or tablets with touchscreens.
Linux Mint 21.2 -- Assigning pinching gestures to an action
(full image size: 723kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Security
While not a visible change, the Mint team has introduced new security for the Warpinator file sharing utility. "Warpinator received support for landlock and bubblewrap. These technologies were used to guarantee folder isolation, basically making Warpinator technically unable to write outside of its dedicated download folder."
In other words, even if someone manages to trick you into receiving a file, and even if they find a way to break through Warpinator's normal checks, the attackers still won't be able to write their malicious file to anywhere other than your downloads directory. They won't be able to overwrite a system configuration file or your shell's configuration, for example. This makes Warpinator safer, even when used without caution.
Conclusions
While Mint 21.2 is another small step forward for the distribution, and for Cinnamon, the operating system is introducing some handy features. I especially like the Styles module and the ability to resize the application menu. For some reason, a lot of application menus are a fixed size and it's nice to be able to adjust Cinnamon's to better fit my desktop. While I probably won't use them often, I think the Gestures concept is quite welcome and I like how easy it is to assign specific finger movements to a command. As usual, Mint is making an evolutionary step forward, making small enhancements without making missteps.
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| Released Last Week |
Zorin OS 16.3
Zorin OS is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring a variety of themes and desktop layouts designed to made users migrating from other operating systems feel at home. The project's latest release, Zorin OS 16.3, introduces a new upgrade utility. "Zorin OS 16.3 is our first version that comes pre-installed with the new Zorin OS Upgrader. This is the feature our community has requested most throughout the years. It allows you to easily upgrade between releases and editions of Zorin OS, without needing to re-install the operating system. That means you can upgrade seamlessly from Zorin OS 16 Core -> Pro or Zorin OS 15 -> 16 while keeping your files, apps, and settings. The Upgrader will make it remarkably more convenient for you to access the latest and greatest software far into the future. After over a year in development, we're proud to announce that we've released the Zorin OS Upgrader as a stable feature today. That means all existing Zorin OS 16 and 15 installations will also get the Zorin OS Upgrader in the latest software updates." The release announcement offers additional details.
Zorin OS 16.3 -- Running the GNOME desktop
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4MLinux 43.0
The 4MLinux distribution - which focuses on server, multimedia, system rescue, and games - has published a new stable version: 4MLinux 43.0. The new release adds a few new media and game packages and provides additional web browsers as optional add-ons. The release announcement lists the key changes: "The status of the 4MLinux 43.0 series has been changed to STABLE. Edit your documents with LibreOffice 7.5.5 and GNOME Office (AbiWord 3.0.5, GIMP 2.10.34, Gnumeric 1.12.55), surf the Internet with Firefox 115.0.2 and Chrome 115.0.5790.110, send emails via Thunderbird 115.0.1, enjoy your music collection with Audacious 4.3.1, watch your favorite videos with VLC 3.0.18 and SMPlayer 23.6.0, play games powered by Mesa 23.1.1 and Wine 8.12. You can also setup the 4MLinux LAMP Server (Linux 6.1.33, Apache 2.4.57, MariaDB 10.6.14, PHP 5.6.40, PHP 7.4.33, and PHP 8.1.19.). Perl 5.36.0, Python 2.7.18, Python 3.11.3, and Ruby 3.1.4 are also available. As always, the new major release has some new features. SoundFonts (for FluidSynth) and mtPaint (raster graphics editor) have been added. A few Java-based games (Flappy Bird, Karoshi, Micropolis, and Zuma) as well as a set proprietary web browsers (Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Opera) are now available as downloadable extensions. XMMS in 4MLinux is now able to play a huge number of old sound formats (originating from Amiga, Atari, Commodore, ZX Spectrum and the like). On the other hand, you can use the same XMMS to watch modern AVC/HEVC videos."
OSMC 2023.07-1
OSMC is a Debian-based minimal Linux distribution that brings the Kodi media centre software to a Raspberry Pi, Apple TV and Vero devices. The project has published a new snapshot, OSMC 2023.07-1, which introduces an updated version of Kodi and a number of bug fixes. "Here's what's new: Kodi v20.2 (Nexus) is now available as standard on OSMC, and release details can be found here. The most prominent fix is a long standing E-AC3 bug, which was first reported here. On the OSMC side, we've made a number of changes: Bug fixes: Fix an issue that prevented connecting to WiFi via My OSMC on new installations. Fix some playback issues with SMB shares on Vero 4K / 4K + / V. Fix PGS subtitle width and height calculations when playing 3D SBS / TAB clips on Vero 4K / 4K + / V. Fix aspect ratio for rendering text subtitles when playing 3D SBS / TAB clips on Vero 4K / 4K + / V. Fix an issue on Vero 4K / 4K + / V which resulted in the warning message when switching to a 4K resolution from not displaying properly. Fix an intermittent blank screen when exiting Kodi on Vero 4K / 4K + and V that could result in no display being visible when updating." The release announcement offers additional information.
PCLinuxOS 2023.07
The developers of PCLinuxOS, an independently-developed desktop Linux distribution with SysV as its preferred init system and a choice of several popular desktops, have announced the release of version 2023.07: "The Pointless Distribution manager has announced updated installation media for KDE Plasma, MATE and Xfce desktops. The following features stand out: new APT, RPM and Synaptic package manager; new mylive-install installer replaces draklive-install; additional configuration utilities were added to supplement the Administration Center; Linux kernel 6.4.7, glibc 2.36, GCC 12.3.0, Mesa 23.1.4, Chromium 114.0.5735.198, Firefox 115.0.3, plus an additional 26 web browsers available in the software repository; LibreOffice 7.5.5 is the default office suite; ufw firewall replaces Shorewall and is enabled by default; all wireless drivers are enabled in the kernel with updated firmware; an additional 3rd party wireless driver repository is available for wireless drivers not included in the kernel; desktops include KDE Plasma 5.27.6, MATE 1.26.1 and XFCE 4.18.4; 64-bit live images are available now." Here is the brief release announcement.
PCLinuxOS 2023.07 - Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 5.4MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
UBports 20.04 OTA-2
UBports have announced a new update to the project's mobile operating system. This release, UBports 20.04 OTA-2, introduces support for three new devices: Fairphone 3, Vollaphone X23, and F(x)tec Pro1 X. There are also a number of new features and bug fixes: "The System Settings app has seen multiple improvements: The layout of a few pages (e.g. Sound) have been adjusted to be more consistent. There are more like this to come in the future, so stay tuned! You can now delete your custom background images you've added, in case you don't want to have that background image anymore. You can now adjust the sensitivity of the edge gestures in Lomiri. If you install a case or a bumper on your device, you can now increase the width of the edge area so that it's easier for you. Or maybe you find it too sensitive, now you also can reduce it. The new settings can be found in System Settings > Gestures. Currently only visible though on a device that supports double tap to wake. You can now use the physical camera button to shoot the photo. When requesting a file from File Manager app over Content Hub, the app opens more smoothly." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement. Information on supported devices and download options can be found on the project's devices page.
NuTyX 23.07.0
NuTyX is a French Linux distribution (with multi-language support) built from Linux From Scratch and Beyond Linux From Scratch, with a custom package manager called "cards". The project's latest snapshot is NuTyX 23.07.0 which introduces a JWM edition. "With the invaluable help of Dan (MiyoLinux), we're offering a new custom JWM edition ISO with a new theme implemented by Dan. The flcards tool has been refreshed and now offers an even simpler interface. The PackageKit package has been added, and a backend for cards have been added and is under development. Means soon it will be possible to install, remove, upgrade NuTyX packages from the discover/gnome-packagekit applications. The mybld -s command now requires a package/collection as an argument. The interview given to Linux Magazine is published in full on the site. SysV in 3.06 and systemd in 253.0. The xorg-server graphics server version 21.1.8, the Mesa 3D library in 23.1.4, GTK4 4.10.4 and Qt 6.5.1. The NVIDIA driver is update to version 535.86.05. The legacy driver 470.xx series in version 470.199.02. The legacy driver 390.xx series in version 390.157. The Python interpreter is updated to version 3.11.4. The Xfce desktop environment is updated to version 4.18.3. The MATE desktop environment is a 1.26.1 version. The GNOME desktop environment is also updated to version 44.2. The KDE desktop environment is available in Plasma 5.27.6, Framework 5.108.0 and applications in 23.04.3."
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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: 2,892
- Total data uploaded: 43.4TB
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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) |
Solus dropping MATE for Xfce
In this week's overview of Solus we mentioned the next version the distribution will likely drop the MATE desktop edition in favour of Xfce. What do you think of this change? Will it affect your future installs of the distribution? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on Snap and Flatpak sandboxing utilities in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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What do you think of Solus dropping MATE for Xfce?
| I use Solus and am happy with this change: | 80 (6%) |
| I use Solus and I do not like this change: | 51 (4%) |
| I use Solus and am unaffected: | 51 (4%) |
| I do not use Solus: | 1115 (86%) |
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| Website News |
Donations and Sponsors
Each month we receive support and kindness from our readers in the form of donations. These donations help us keep the web server running, pay contributors, and keep infrastructure like our torrent seed box running. We'd like to thank our generous readers and acknowledge how much their contributions mean to us.
This month we're grateful for the $204 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| JS | $50 |
| Manjeet S | $47 |
| Christopher E | $23 |
| Jeffrey S | $20 |
| Peter R | $10 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| Jonathon B | $7 |
| Ross M | $6 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| Darkeugene7896 | $5 |
| DuCakedHare | $5 |
| Joe H | $3 |
| Skye F | $3 |
| PB Coleman | $2 |
| J.D. L | $2 |
| Peter M | $2 |
| c6WWldo9 | $1 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
| Shasheen E | $1 |
| William E | $1 |
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- MiniOS. MiniOS is a Debian-based distribution. It uses modular approach to system configuration, which allows users to add or remove modules as needed. This makes it convenient to use and flexible in configuration. In addition, MiniOS takes up only from 300MB of disk space (depending on the version) and can work from a USB drive without the need for installation.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 7 August 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 |
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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.
|
| Random Distribution | 
Source Mage GNU/Linux
Sourcemage is a source-based GNU/Linux distribution based on a Sorcery metaphor of 'casting' and 'dispelling' programs, which we refer to as 'spells'.
Status: Dormant
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| Tips, Tricks, Q&As | | Tips and tricks: Find common words in text, find high memory processs, cd short-cuts, pushd & popd, record desktop |
| Tips and tricks: An overview of hard and soft links |
| Tips and tricks: Default passwords on live media |
| Tips and tricks: (Xfce) interface woes |
| Tips and tricks: Advanced file systems, network traffic, running a script at login/logout |
| Questions and answers: Prepending lines to text files, converting image files, setting the system clock |
| Tips and tricks: Copying a VCD |
| Tips and tricks: Managing boot environments with zedenv |
| Questions and answers: Reading status information from top |
| More Tips & Tricks and Questions & Answers |
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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