 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1049, 11 December 2023 |
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Welcome to this year's 50th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
At DistroWatch we are always looking for projects which perform a new task or perform common tasks well. We're always on the outlook for capable, polished solutions in the open source community. This week we begin with a look at one distribution which is excelling in its field: Lernstick. The Lernstick distribution provides a portable, education-focused environment which is based on Debian and offers a great range of flexibility, multiple desktop environments, and many applications. Read on to learn about our first impressions of Lernstick. Then, in our News section, we talk about openSUSE rebranding itself while Leap 15.4 nears the end of its supported life. FreeBSD 12 is also close to the end of its life and we share details below while Debian pauses updates due to a kernel bug. We also share previews of Linux Mint's new Cinnamon features, talk about Lubuntu's system installer, and AlmaLinux's support for Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL). Plus we discuss alternatives to using the WINE compatibility software for running Windows applications. In our Opinion Poll this week we seek feedback on updating our Major Distributions page in 2024 and then we warmly welcome the SDesk Linux distribution to our database. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of this past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: Lernstick 12
- News: openSUSE updating its branding, openSUSE 15.4 nears its end of life, FreeBSD 12.x reaches its end of life, Debian pauses updates, Mint unveils new Cinnamon features, Lubuntu team talks about new features, AlmaLinux expands EPEL support
- Questions and answers: Alternatives to WINE
- Released last week: Kali Linux 2023.4, Alpine Linux 3.19.0, SparkyLinux 7.2
- Torrent corner: KDE neon, Raspberry Pi OS, SolydXK, SparkyLinux
- Opinion poll: Replacing CentOS on the Major Distributions page
- New additions: SDesk
- New distributions: Eltanin Glacies
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Lernstick 12
Lernstick is a portable and secure learning and working environment for school and at home that can be installed on external storage media (e.g. USB sticks, USB hard drives, SD cards, etc.). The distribution is based on Debian's Stable branch. The distribution is intended to perform so that almost every computer can be started from this storage media. Basically, a hard drive with an installed operating system is no longer required. As a result, Lernstick (or "the learning stick") is a platform for so-called "bring your own device" scenarios, in which students can also use their private devices for school purposes.
The latest version of Lernstick is based on Debian 12 and runs on x86_64 computers. The ISO file we download is unusually large, 15.2GB in size. This unusually large ISO includes multiple desktop environments and dozens of applications beyond what we'd normally find in a typical Linux distribution.
When we boot from the Lernstick live media we are presented with a graphical boot menu. From this menu we can toggle settings. One menu option lets us pick our preferred language. The default is German, but other languages, including English, are offered. We are given the chance to select a desktop environment. GNOME is the default and we can also select Cinnamon, Enlightenment, KDE Plasma, LXDE, MATE, Xfce, or a text console.
Lernstick 12 -- The boot menu
(full image size: 95kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
From the boot menu we can access some additional features. The media can perform a self check to verify its contents. The boot menu can also control changing our keyboard layout settings, enabling swap space, and enabling a data partition. The boot menu is unusually flexible and worked well while also looking nice.
Early impressions
The distribution boots and automatically starts a new session in whichever desktop we selected from the boot menu. When running from read-only media, a warning will appear to let us know there is no writable data partition. When using a thumb drive we may have a writable partition where files can be stored.
Regardless of which desktop session we select, an application window opens and offers us a number of choices for transferring or resetting the operating system. There are four main options presented in this window: transfer the existing operating system to external storage, such as a USB stick; upgrade the existing system; convert running media to a DVD ISO file which could be transferred to another machine; or reset the storage media to factory defaults. There does not appear to be an option to transfer the running live system to a hard drive partition, nor did I find a system installer in the application menus of the available desktop environments.
Lernstick 12 -- Transferring the operating system to new media
(full image size: 107kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
While Lernstick defaults to running the GNOME desktop, and I used this session a few times, I cycled through most of the available desktop options, including Plasma, Xfce, LXDE, and MATE. Each of these desktops was presented with their default layout, minimal Debian branding, and they all used light themes. They all worked well and I encountered no issues or crashes during my trial.
Included software
The Lernstick distribution is packed with applications. Browsing through the application menus of the desktop environments we find a huge number of launchers. These launchers consist of some popular items, such as Chromium, Firefox, and LibreOffice. There are other popular items such as the GNU Image Manipulation Program, Inkscape, and the Blender 3-D creation suite. There are several messaging programs, including Mumble, Pidgin, Quassel, Matrix and Signal.
Lernstick 12 -- The KDE Plasma application menu
(full image size: 222kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The Epoptes lab administration tool is included along with Wireshark for listening to network traffic, and multiple remote desktop clients. We're also given bittorrent clients, such as KTorrent, and the KDE Connect utility to synchronise data between multiple devices.
Some multimedia applications are included as well, such as the Audacity player, the Cheese webcam utility, and the LMMS audio player. We're also given a range of file managers, including Dolphin, Thunar, and Caja as most desktop environments have their own file manager.
Where Lernstick stands out from other distributions is its focus on tutorial software, games, and educational games. There are dozens of games included in the distribution along with tutorials, a physics simulator, typing games, a geography trainer, and the gBrainy testing software. There are also learning tools which assist students in the subjects of programming, music, vocabulary, spelling, and piano playing. Plus an installer for the Steam gaming portal client is included.
Lernstick 12 -- Testing problem solving with gBrainy
(full image size: 233kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Several of the included applications have been installed as Flatpak bundles rather than traditional Deb packages. Some of these items are Krita, Kdenlive, digiKam, and the Warpinator file sharing utility. A quick check showed that Flatpak is installed and automatically connects to the Flathub repository, giving us access to a wide range of up to date software. The Flatseal application is installed by default, giving us the ability to manage the sandboxes of installed Flatpak bundles.
Lernstick 12 -- Locking down application permissions using Flatseal
(full image size: 306kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Behind the scenes, Lernstick ships with the GNU command line utilities and their associated manual pages. The GNU Compiler Collection is installed for us as is Java. The distribution runs the systemd init software and runs on Linux 6.4 (Debian 12 shipped with version 6.1 of the kernel and Lernstick has updated it).
In short, Lernstick includes just about every desktop environment, popular application, game, and learning utility we might want. It's a comprehensive collection of open source software.
One application stood out and this was the Welcome to Lernstick program. It's a desktop utility which includes a few tabs. The first offers a brief message suggesting where we can find help and documentation. The second tab offers a chance to install non-free applications such as Google Earth, proprietary fonts, and media codecs. There is also a tab which facilitates fetching additional learning and teaching software. This welcome window doesn't open automatically, but when launched it makes adding extra tools and features pleasantly straight forward.
Lernstick 12 -- Getting a list of installed Flatpak packages
(full image size: 144kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Other observations
Some of the desktop environments Lernstick offers include a feature to allow users to search the application menu for launchers based on their name or a description. GNOME and Plasma, for example, make searching the application menu easy. Xfce and MATE do not include a search feature. When we consider the dozens and dozens of applications Lernstick ships, the search feature becomes more of a bonus in this distribution than in other flavours of Linux.
If we are running a desktop session which locks or if we logout of our account and wish to login to a fresh session, the password for the user account is "live". I didn't see this information explicitly mentioned on the website (the site is in German and I was, at best, working with a rough translation of the text) and I stumbled across the password by guessing.
Lernstick 12 -- Playing games in an Xfce session
(full image size: 446kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
We can use the APT command line tools to work with Deb packages, which are mostly pulled from Debian's repositories. We can also run Flatpak from the command line to manage portable packages and these are automatically pulled from the Flathub repository. The GNOME Software utility is installed for us, however I couldn't get it to work. Updates were not displayed, the software centre had trouble trying to fetch repository information, and I was unable to open the GNOME Software settings page to adjust repositories.
Other software centres, ones associated with different desktops, like KDE's Discover, are not included. GNOME Software appears to be the only modern software manager.
Hardware
I tested Lernstick in VirtualBox and on my laptop. The distribution worked well in both environments. There were slight variations in performance and memory consumption, based on which desktop I was running, though all the desktop sessions I tried were usable. The distribution worked smoothly in VirtualBox and detected all of my laptop's hardware. Audio, networking, and my touchpad all worked as expected. Some desktops did not detect touchpad taps as clicks and some, like LXDE, did not make it easy to adjust touchpad settings. However, most other desktops would adjust the keyboard and touchpad behaviour as desired with minimal effort.
Conclusions
Lernstick is, in my opinion, a rare gem in two distinct ways. It is a rare distribution which appears to be virtually bug free. During my trial almost everything worked - hardware support, games, applications, both Deb and Flatpak package managers, multiple desktop environments, and custom tools. A lot of the credit may be due to the stable Debian base, but even the custom tools seem to all work well. The one exception was GNOME Software, which seems to not be configured properly, but the underlying APT and Flatpak tools did work.
The other aspect of Lernstick I quite like is the distribution has a specific goal and works toward it. This isn't just another distribution spin with some games or custom themes installed. The project aims to provide a portable, flexible, educational and learning environment. Lernstick can be used as a general purpose operating system (it offers a huge collection of open source software) but its focus is being a bring-your-own-system platform which can be used for education, tutorials, and learning games. It performs all of these tasks quite well. Meanwhile, the range of desktop environments and boot options give us a great deal of flexibility.
In short, Lernstick is flexible, highly capable at a range of tasks, well suited to its stated mission, very stable, and it runs flawlessly in my test environments. I'm quite impressed with this portable distribution and how it is suitable both for learning environments and as a general purpose operating system.
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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
Lernstick has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.3/10 from 3 review(s).
Have you used Lernstick? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
openSUSE updating its branding, openSUSE 15.4 nears its end of life, FreeBSD 12.x reaches its end of life, Debian pauses updates, Mint unveils new Cinnamon features, Lubuntu team talks about new features, AlmaLinux expands EPEL support
The openSUSE project is embarking on a quest to rebrand itself, making a clearer distinction between SUSE and the openSUSE project. "The openSUSE project adopted the SUSE logo from 2003, but was characterized by a different text beneath it, marking an era of brand association for the community lead project. SUSE has refreshed its brand over the years and its newest logo revealed in 2020 differs completely from that of openSUSE's. However, the brands of both SUSE and openSUSE can oftentimes confuse people who don't understand the relationship between the open-source company SUSE and the open-source community project openSUSE." Details on the history and efforts to rebrand the open source project can be found in the openSUSE blog post.
Marcus Mesissner sent out a reminder that openSUSE 15.4 will reach the end of its supported life at the end of December 2023. People still running this version of Leap are advised to upgrade to version 15.5 which will be supported until the end of 2024. "SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4 leaves its regular maintenance and support phase on December 31st 2023. As openSUSE Leap 15.4 uses the SLES 15 SP4 updates, also openSUSE Leap 15.4 support from openSUSE Maintenance and Security will end on December 31st 2023. An upgrade to openSUSE Leap 15.5 is recommended."
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The FreeBSD project has sent out a reminder that the FreeBSD 12.x branch will reach the end of its supported life on December 31, 2023. People still running FreeBSD 12 are advised to upgrade to the FreeBSD 13 or 14 branches. "As of December 31, 2023, FreeBSD 12.4 and the stable/12 branch will reach end of life and will no longer be supported by the FreeBSD Security Team. Users of FreeBSD 12.4 are strongly encouraged to upgrade to a newer release as soon as possible." The notice, along with a calendar of current support schedules, can be found on the FreeBSD Announce mailing list.
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The Debian project temporarily paused updates to Debian 12.3 and advised users to hold off applying kernel updates while a data corruption bug was addressed in the Linux kernel. "Due to an issue in ext4 with data corruption in kernel 6.1.64-1, we are a pausing the 12.3 image release for today while we attend to fixes. Please do not update any systems at this time, we urge caution for users with Unattended Upgrades configured." Details and progress can be found in this Debian bug report.
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The Linux Mint team have published their November newsletter which highlights some key changes coming to the distribution. One of the new features is very early (alpha stage) support for Wayland baked into the Cinnamon 6.0 desktop. Another new feature is the expansion of Nemo Actions. "Right-click an ISO file. You see 'Verify' and 'Make bootable USB stick' in the context menu? These are Nemo actions. Until now actions were provided by packages and we only shipped actions which were useful to most people. These two actions, for instance, are part of the mintstick package. Starting with Cinnamon 6.0, you'll be able to download, enable and rate actions the same way as applets, desklets, extensions and Cinnamon themes. Actions will be a new type of Cinnamon spices. We'll see a huge variety of new actions popping up in the community and available in Cinnamon."
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The Lubuntu team have published a blog post which outlines changes and features coming to the next version of their distribution. Lubuntu 24.04 "Nobel Numbat" will make the system installer more accessible, offer a minimal install option which will exclude Snap support, and offer an easier way to configure the SDDM login screen. The developers have also explained why they continue to use Calamares as Lubuntu's system installer rather than Ubiquity or Ubuntu's new installer: "The Ubuntu Desktop Team has recently been working on the new Ubuntu Desktop Installer. This tool, developed with Flutter and distributed as a snap, is intended to provide a frontend interface for Subiquity, which is the new installer for Ubuntu Server. They are attempting to replace Ubiquity, which is a noble mission. After thorough evaluation of the new installer, the decision was made not to adopt it for our use. We found that Calamares consistently and continuously outperforms the new installer in UI page performance and installation speed, and aligns more closely with our existing theming. Furthermore, the requirement for each flavor to create a separate snap for theming purposes presents a less than optimal solution."
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The AlmaLinux team is working to make it possible for distributions in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux family to share packages and for users to migrate between the various enterprise distributions. "Hello, Community! Today, AlmaLinux OS Foundation is eager to share some big news concerning our ELevate project, an initiative to support migrations between major versions of RHEL-derivatives. Previously, the project only provided support for official operating systems repositories, excluding external repositories. However, the AlmaLinux Team made significant improvements. We are thrilled to announce that the first step in EPEL support is now included in the ELevate project, enabling smooth migrations between CentOS 7 and AlmaLinux 8. Please be aware that at present, the EPEL support does not include migrating to non-AlmaLinux OSes, or between EL8 and EL9 derivatives, but those are planned for the future!" Tips for testing the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) repositories can be found in the AlmaLinux announcement.
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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) |
Alternatives to WINE
Looking-at-the-options asks: Are there any alternatives to WINE for running Windows applications on Linux?
DistroWatch answers: If you're looking for a compatibility layer which will allow Windows applications to run directly on Linux, then WINE is pretty much your only solution. There are a number of projects, such as Proton and CrossOver, which will help you run Windows application on Linux, but they are all based on WINE.
Even ReactOS, which is an open source operating system which strives to be binary compatible with the Windows operating system, shares a lot of its development efforts with the WINE project.
With that said, people who primary run Linux while also requiring access to Windows applications can run Windows in a virtual machine if solutions such as WINE and CrossOver are not able to provide enough compatibility.
Another approach would be to try to find alternatives to popular Windows programs which were written specifically for Linux (or were designed to be cross-platform and can run natively on Linux). For most tasks there are alternative programs which can be run on Linux without a virtual machine or compatibility layer. Long-term, seeking out an alternative, native solution, will usually give the best results and require the least maintenance.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Kali Linux 2023.4
Kali Linux is a Debian-based distribution with a collection of security and forensics tools. The project's latest snapshot is Kali Linux 2023.4 which features a number of usability improvements, many of them courtesy of GNOME 45: "With GNOME 45 hot off the press, Kali Linux is now supporting it! And is looking pretty in the process! For people who opt to use GNOME as their desktop environment, GNOME 45 is now here! If you do not read their changelog, below is a quick summary mixed with some of our tweaks: Full-height sidebars in many updated apps; highly improved speed of search in nautilus file manager; unfortunately the update for Nautilus was not ready for this release, but it will arrive as a later update soon; improved settings app (gnome-control-center); updated color-schemes for gnome-text-editor; updated themes for shell, libadwaita, gtk-3 and gtk-4; updated gnome-shell extensions; shell updates, including a new workspace indicator, replacing the previous Activities button; it is also possible to scroll your mouse wheel while hovering over the indicator to switch between workspaces." Additional information is provided in the distribution's release announcement.
Kali Linux 2023.4 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1920x1200 pixels)
Alpine Linux 3.19.0
The Alpine Linux team have announced the launch of Alpine Linux 3.19.0, the latest stable version of their lightweight operating system. This version introduces support for Raspberry Pi 5 computers. "We are pleased to announce the release of Alpine Linux 3.19.0, the first in the v3.19 stable series. Highlights: Linux kernel 6.6; GCC 13.2; Perl 5.38; LLVM 17; Xen 4.18; PostgreSQL 16; Node.js (lts) 20.10; Ceph 18.2; GNOME 45; Go 1.21; KDE Applications 23.08 / KDE Frameworks 5.112; OpenJDK 21; PHP 8.3; Rust 1.72; Significant changes: Support for Raspberry Pi 5 was added." This release also cleans up some aspects of OpenRC and switches the packet filtering backend to iptables-nft. Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
SparkyLinux 7.2
SparkyLinux is a lightweight, Debian-based distribution featuring a range of editions, most of them providing pre-configured desktop environments. The project's latest Stable release is SparkyLinux 7.2 which is based on Debian 12 "Bookworm". "Sparky 7.2 'Orion Belt' is out. It is a quarterly updated point release of Sparky 7 'Orion Belt' of the stable line. Sparky 7 is based on and fully compatible with Debian 12 'Bookworm'. Changes: all packages updated from Debian and Sparky stable repos as of December 5, 2023; Linux kernel PC: 6.1.55 (6.6.4-sparky and 5.15.141-LTS-sparky in sparky repos); Linux kernel ARM: 6.1.58; LibreOffice 7.4.7; Calamares 3.2.61; KDE Plasma 5.27.5; LXQt 1.2.0; MATE 1.26; Xfce 4.18; Openbox 3.6.1; Firefox 115.5.0esr (120.0.1-sparky in Sparky repos); Thunderbird 115.5.0; VLC 3.0.20; Exaile 4.1.3." Additional details are provided in the project's release announcement.
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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: 2,939
- Total data uploaded: 43.8TB
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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) |
Replacing CentOS on the Major Distributions page
For years the CentOS Linux distribution has been included as one of the ten projects listed on our Major Distributions page. And with good reason. This clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux was one of the most widely used server distributions in the world.
However, CentOS Linux is no longer being developed. Red Hat has set up a new project in its place, called CentOS Stream, which acts as a testing and community contribution space. However, while the new project bears a similar name, it doesn't fulfill the same role or purpose. The discontinued CentOS Linux has largely been replaced by the rise of several new distributions, such as AlmaLinux OS, Rocky Linux, EuroLinux, and other enterprise-focused distributions which pull from Red Hat's source code.
With this in mind, it seems clear it doesn't make sense to list CentOS Linux as one of the major distributions anymore. However, it does leave the question of which project, if any, should replace it on the Major Distributions page. Perhaps the spot should be left empty or perhaps another project should be given the space. We'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter. Leave us a comment and let us know which project you feel would best replace the CentOS Linux listing in 2024.
You can see the results of our previous poll on whether our readers are running a desktop environment that supports X11, Wayland, or both in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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What should we do with CentOS Linux on our Major Distributions page?
| Leave it and update with new information: | 147 (11%) |
| Switch the entry to cover CentOS Stream: | 226 (17%) |
| Remove it and do not replace: | 569 (42%) |
| Remove it and replace with distro mentioned in comments: | 426 (31%) |
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| Website News |
New projects added to database
SDesk
SDesk is an Arch-based Linux distribution which strives for an easy to use, modern approach to desktop computing. The SDesk project ships up to date software and uses GNOME running on a Wayland session for its default desktop environment. SDesk includes a number of popular open source applications, including LibreOffice and uses Calamares to install the operating system.
SDesk 2023.12.03 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 237kB, resolution: 1920x1440 pixels)
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Eltanin Glacies. Eltanin Glacies is a Linux distribution featuring the Eltanin userland software. The distribution features many unique components, including its own atomic package manager (Venus), an alternative C library (Tertium), and the durden window manager. Glacies runs the s6 init software.
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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, 18 December 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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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Remove it and replace with distro mentioned in comments (by Tim on 2023-12-11 01:13:28 GMT from United States)
Manjaro
2 • Remove it and replace with distro mentioned in comments (by J on 2023-12-11 01:16:46 GMT from United States)
Devuan
3 • Remove it and replace with distro mentioned in comments (by Jacob Alexander Tice on 2023-12-11 02:01:55 GMT from United States)
Mageia (if it still counts)
4 • Remove and Replace (by DaveB on 2023-12-11 02:06:47 GMT from Australia)
I am not going to make a suggestion - there are too many distros out there. Instead look at Distrowatch's own recent rankings. What is often ranking highly, but isn't in the list (and likely to stay popular)? Is there a family of distros that isn't in the list (due to number of siblings) but probably should be there to recognise the family's popularity?
What has been the criteria to make the list in the past?
Just my thoughts :)
5 • CentOS (by 67GTA on 2023-12-11 02:18:29 GMT from United States)
Everybody is just going to spam the comments with thier favorite distro. It should be removed completely or replaced with one of it's successors. Maybe wait and see what comes out of the SUSE RHEL fork.
6 • Replace CentOS with a Fully Free distro (by Andy Prough on 2023-12-11 02:48:24 GMT from Switzerland)
You really should have at least one fully free distro on the "Major Distros" page. Since Debian has turned itself into just another non-free distro, I think you should add Trisquel GNU/Linux, which has received several highly complementary reviews from Jesse over the years.
Software freedom is a major issue for a large portion of GNU/Linux users, and a good way of representing that major category is by putting a fully free one like Trisquel on the Major Distributions page.
7 • The Debian kernel issue is a non-issue (by Ludditus on 2023-12-11 03:25:19 GMT from Romania)
The bug was not specific to Debian. Either way, linux 6.1.66-1 was released in Debian on 2023-12-09, and it fixes the bug. Case closed.
Incidentally, kernel-lt from EPEL for EL9 also released 6.1.66. We're safe.
8 • Remove and Replace (by Jack on 2023-12-11 03:37:36 GMT from United States)
I'm hoping lightning strikes twice, that Gregory Kurtzer and the Rocky team can duplicate CentOS success and continue to provide the community with binary compatible releases that IBM is unable to prevent.
9 • Keep, update with additional info (by Raphaelo on 2023-12-11 04:08:26 GMT from Morocco)
Openmandriva is now a trendsetting pioneer deserving of spotlight (its info is seriously outdated and incomplete), has a rolling release, fixed release for many DEs, architectures and server. In compareason Mageia hasnt quite kept up, big shame theyre not poling their ressources together to improve the codebase that was their common upstream.
Unrelated, but could you change the default distros preselected in the package compare page? Instead of preselecting MX linux and manjaro, consider pure arch, endeavouros and debian, or a different page for specific popular compares leveraging taking into account wether apps are shipped as snap/flatpak and thus are current.
10 • Remove and replace (by Josh Smith on 2023-12-11 05:43:49 GMT from Australia)
I agree with DaveB. Make sure whichever distro you choose seems to have a large and active community so that it is less likely to be discontinued anytime soon (and hence necessitate another similar poll).
11 • CentOS (by Microlinux on 2023-12-11 06:29:31 GMT from France)
I'd say remove it and replace it with Rocky Linux. CentOS had a purpose contained in its name itself (Community Enterprise Operating System). This is no longer true, since the distribution "shifted paradigm" to quote Red Hat's understatement to describe what boiled down to pulling the rug from under our feet. Rocky Linux has taken CentOS' place and is filling that void now. I'm a regular at the Rocky Linux forum, and I see a lot of folks from the CentOS mailing list there, they all seemed to have moved over. Last but not least, Rocky Linux has been initiated by CentOS' initial founder Greg Kurtzer.
12 • Alternatives to WINE (by Alexandru on 2023-12-11 07:17:24 GMT from Romania)
Not quite an alternative to Wine, but I found PlayOnLinux an interesting software (not just for games). It acts as a manager for different Wine versions (both 32 and 64 bit) and allows easy configuration of different applications running on different versions of Wine, all them in one easy to use framework.
13 • Remove and replace (by Alexandru on 2023-12-11 07:18:09 GMT from Romania)
I vote for Alma Linux as replacement for CentOS
14 • Replace CentOS (by Fabio on 2023-12-11 07:56:48 GMT from Italy)
AlmaLinux is officially supported at CERN and has a growing reputation
in scientific community in place of CentOS together with Debian/Ubuntu.
Thus it should be considered
as a natural replacement for CentOS. Also "CentOS stream" can not
be ignored but if it plays now a different role. In any case the old CentOS 7 is yet
alive and widely used.
15 • Distro to Replace CentOS (by Edan on 2023-12-11 08:19:23 GMT from The Netherlands)
Replace it with AlmaLinux, and also add NixOS and Void. They're both independent distributions of quality with decently-sized userbases.
16 • CentOS (by Linuxseekers on 2023-12-11 08:48:50 GMT from Malaysia)
Email openELA for suggestion.
17 • CentOS replacement (by Simon on 2023-12-11 08:55:00 GMT from New Zealand)
Red Hat is the obvious choice. Really it should already have been there instead of CentOS, as all of the Red Hat rebuilds are... well... just rebuilds of Red Hat, the real "major distribution" here. I'm not a fan of the company nor the distro, but surely "major distributions" is not meant to be "favourite distributions", it's meant to recognise the distros that are significant, important and influential ones. Arguably the only distro in the world that's more "major" than Red Hat is Debian: Red Hat towers over some of the others on that list. My next vote would be for Alma as it seems to be stepping into the position that CentOS occupied before Red Hat subverted it, so putting Alma into its position on the major distributions list makes some sense... but Red Hat itself is the more important distro.
18 • what's CentOS? (by jazzfelix on 2023-12-11 09:30:30 GMT from Germany)
I used CentOS for many years on servers at work. I used it even at home just because I was used to how it functioned. And it was a really solid distribution. It was at the time when it was so popular it was in distrowatch's top ten page hit ranking. It is still in the top 100 which honestly amazes me. :) I say remove it and wait for a really shiny new thing to replace it with. In a couple of years newcomers to Linux will not know about Red Hat or CentOS at all. I don't think Alma or Rocky will be able to replace it in the long run. After CentOS was abandoned I switched to Alma. It never felt as polished as CentOS. When IBM was closing Red Hats sources for public I abandoned all rpm based systems. I even lost a big chunk of trust in Linux itself. I am now running FreeBSD on most of my machines as a consequence. And for me that was the best decision in years, because not does it feel as polished as the old CentOS it feels a whole bunch cleaner. It is such a pleasure to code for it. The APIs are much cleaner and documentation is always very helpful.
19 • Replace Centos Linux (by John on 2023-12-11 09:44:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
Replace centos with Almalinux the most trusted and dynamic community Enterprise Linux. Alternatively RHEL is now available for free for the linux community through developer subscription.
20 • Replace (by jc on 2023-12-11 10:37:40 GMT from Switzerland)
Devuan
21 • @17 (by Ali on 2023-12-11 10:49:56 GMT from Iran)
Well said. I wonder why RHEL is not among major distribution. The second choice obviously is CentOS Stream.
22 • Remove the top 10 page... (by Max on 2023-12-11 10:54:10 GMT from France)
I've never really understood this page about the "Major distributions", the "Page Hit Ranking" on right side is clearly the entry point for anybody willing to pick up a new distribution or discovering the wonder of so many Linux/BSD distributions.
But any regular Distrowatch visitor won't learn anything from this "Major distributions" page (already knowing all theses names for a long time) and new comers won't enter the website through this page.
Also, this list is pretty subjective (even I agree with the list) and Linux distributions are today much more complex that some classic/historical distributions: Manjaro is based on Arch, Devuan on Debian, Mageia on Mandriva, Fedora on RHEL, Mint and Zorin et Elementary on Ubuntu. May NixOS and Void not mainline enough for any new comer that want to try Linux without browsing forums and reading documentation.
So, if much of today Linux most popular distributions are based on Debian, Ubuntu (based on Debian), Arch and REHL, here you are the list of "base" distributions, the historical ones that defined what Linux is today. As Gentoo, Slackware, Mandriva and Suse may not be the base for 50 most popular distributions (defined from "Page Hit Ranking"), they can be excluded.
My take is that this page is confusing new comers that want to try Linux (I won't recommend starting with Gentoo even to my worst enemy) and useless to most of others here.
23 • Remove and replace (by Kerry on 2023-12-11 11:06:48 GMT from United States)
Remove and replace with RHEL Clones (or pick one RHEL clone like you guys handled BSD).
24 • RE: 7 • The Debian kernel issue (by Ludditus on 2023-12-11 11:30:19 GMT from Romania)
I was sleepy and I wrote "kernel-lt from EPEL for EL9 also released 6.1.66" when what I meant was "kernel-lt from ELRepo for EL9 also released 6.1.66".
25 • What should we do with CentOS Linux on our Major Distributions page? (by James on 2023-12-11 11:57:42 GMT from United States)
I don't care should have been an option.
26 • Switch the entry to cover CentOS Stream (by Dave on 2023-12-11 11:57:54 GMT from Australia)
Centos Stream is the official and actual successor to Centos, it's what Centos has become.
People don't like it, but that's not really the point of the question. Replacing the entry with something like Alma or Rocky would be like replacing Ubuntu's entry with Debian because you don't like Canonical or Ubuntu's release model.
It's about reflecting reality of a distro's current state, not making recommendations for alternatives.
I guess making Centos inactive and having Centos Stram as a new distro could make sense too, but you lose the evolution and history.
27 • "Major Distro" Section (by Otis on 2023-12-11 12:00:02 GMT from United States)
Nice of you to ask for user opinion about changes to Distrowatch's pages. You've done that about a few issues here and it's appreciated.
That major distro section is populated by both "core" distros and those that have branched off from those. When I first went there a long time ago I expected to see only Slackware, Debian, Arch, and Gentoo maybe. But there are close relatives of all of those and others farther downstream. It starts right off with Mint, for example.
So, replacing CentOS with any other distro seems not relevant to me, given the ongoing content of the list.
This is not a criticism of that list, just how I see the darned thing. :oD
28 • Major distros... (by Friar Tux on 2023-12-11 14:05:53 GMT from Canada)
Just went over to the Major Distros Page. I have to admit, I've not gone there before. The only other "list" I usually go to, other than the main page, is the ranked distro list on the right of the main column, and, of course, the Comments Page. Anyway, I see why they want to remove CentOS. (Also, I would probably give BSDs their own section. But, that's just me.) My go-to, if I want to see "major distros" is:- https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1b/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg/2220px-Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg.png
This gives me Linux at a glace.
Having said all that, I would vote to take CentOS out and replace it with the next most used/major distro.
29 • Enterprise Linux (generic)? (by unify on 2023-12-11 14:44:02 GMT from Germany)
Why not replace the entry for CentOS with one for all RHEL-based distros together?
30 • Remove Cent OS and Do Not Replace (by Justin R. on 2023-12-11 14:47:03 GMT from United States)
I voted to remove Cent OS and not replace it with anything. You'll also want to update Fedora's entry at the very bottom where it reads "Suggested alternaives [sic] in the Red Hat family: CentOS". BTW, "alternatives" is spelled incorrectly.
31 • CentOS poll (by sephiroth7818 on 2023-12-11 15:26:27 GMT from United States)
Replace CentOS with AlmaLinux. Alma is more popular than Rocky in searches on DW. And Alma and Rocky are the major ones that kept the true spirit of CentOS. A true free version of RHEL.
32 • Remove CentOS (by Robert on 2023-12-11 16:38:52 GMT from United States)
Remove CentOS and either do not replace OR replace with more of a category of RHEL alternatives such as Rocky or Alma, they are all basically the same.
33 • CentOS (by David on 2023-12-11 17:03:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
Replace it.
The "major distros " are said to fall into 3 groups: the easy, the technical, and the middle of the road. It could be argued that another important category is those used by major enterprises. Debian is there, OpenSUSE represents (just about) SLE, but we need something like RHEL — Fedora isn't it. The front runner for a CentOS replacement seems to be Alma, which has a lot of corporate backers.
One thing that seems to be missing is a distro in the Mandriva tradition. I don't think many here would trust ALT, good as it is, but you might give a nod to either PCLinuxOS or Mageia.
34 • CentOS alternative (by John on 2023-12-11 17:29:32 GMT from Canada)
Alma Linux please (instead of CentOS)
35 • Remove and Replace (by Ken Harbit on 2023-12-11 17:43:11 GMT from United States)
With Rocky or Alma.
36 • BSD list (by Otis on 2023-12-11 18:31:36 GMT from United States)
@28 Yes indeed on the BSD dedicated section here (is it time? overdue?). BSD development would likely benefit from more exposure, and a separate section for BSD at distrowatch dot com could well help with that; own section = more exposure = more (potential) BSD devs = the wonders of BSD for the masses, not just as a Linux alternative, but of its own strengths.
37 • Remove it and replace with distro mentioned in comments: (by Geo. on 2023-12-11 19:10:03 GMT from Canada)
You don't really have one for old computers, so I would recommend you replace it with Bodhi just because it is more newbie friendly than AntiX or Puppy. 😉
38 • Remove CentOS and replace it with another distro (by dnf5 on 2023-12-11 19:17:46 GMT from Moldova)
Since the CentOS surprise, we switched all our cloud workstation to Rocky Linux.
So I propose to replace it with Rocky or Alma (the one on which more distros are based should get the centos chair in staple 10 distros list)
39 • Major Distros (by Andy on 2023-12-11 19:20:54 GMT from Canada)
Not speaking to CentOS/replacement directly, but here are some as yet unmentioned distros that might deserve a mention on the Major Distros page:
- Alpine Linux
- Pop OS (could be part of the Mint entry)
- Solus (I don't know, maybe)
- Void
40 • Remove it and replace with distro mentioned in comments (by lincoln on 2023-12-11 19:36:30 GMT from Brazil)
seL4
41 • BSD list (by Jyrki on 2023-12-11 19:40:06 GMT from Czechia)
I would also appreciate BSD dedicated section. More and more Linux distros just sucks. Diversity ends, all distros look more and more the same. I really miss that good old time of old Arch, with rc.conf, their own console installer.
The more important is now to preserve BSDs and support them.
42 • Remove it and replace with distro mentioned in comments (by Yan on 2023-12-11 23:45:09 GMT from Canada)
RHEL for now. It's too early to say whether Rocky, Alma, etc., will successfully replace CentOS.
43 • Remove and Replece (by Visitor 0101 on 2023-12-12 00:00:25 GMT from United States)
My vote is for Manjaro
44 • CentOS Stream (by Gary W on 2023-12-12 01:15:31 GMT from Australia)
@17 makes some good points. It looks like I'm in a minority to suggest updating with CentOS Stream, But its key developer (Red Hat) says it's the replacement, and even if it turns out to be not "major", there's no harm done and the matter can be revisited once the dust settles. Alternatives such as Alma and Rocky are not exactly "major" yet either; on that basis, it should be RHEL.
45 • Centos Stream (by anon on 2023-12-12 02:59:11 GMT from United States)
Replace CentOS with CentOS stream because it is literally the direct replacement for CentOS.
46 • downloads (by Dave Postles on 2023-12-12 10:20:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
I'd rather buy a usb stick with the distro than download 15.2Gb (or anything above 4Gb for that matter).
47 • Alma Linux vs. Rocky Linux (by Microlinux on 2023-12-12 11:36:56 GMT from France)
On a side note : after the most recent move from Red Hat to obfuscate sources, Rocky Linux decided to keep full binary compatibility with upstream RHEL, whereas Alma Linux did not. Which means if you want a RHEL clone, stick with Rocky Linux.
48 • Remove, Replace & Overhaul (by metaBLAG on 2023-12-12 13:30:05 GMT from United States)
While I answered remove and replace, I'd prefer another option not given (R,R&O) but proposed by numerous other commenters, namely:
1) Just replace CentOS with Red Hat. It is the "true" major distro. Leave Fedora as it's pretty major too. Maybe throw in SUSE (Enterprise)? Nah. Update CentOS to Stream or indicate the (major) change to the distro some other way.
2) This may be mission creep but you should consider adding a few more distros such as NixOS, Void, PCLinuxOS and Trisquel. For my money, it you're going to add, I'd seriously consider NixOS for it's niche status and Trisquel, for its longevity (going on 15-20 years) and the fact that as a truly libre distro, that is the true foundation on which all major distros such as Debian and (ugh) Red Hat stand.
3) And yeah, go ahead and make a separate section for BSDs...As we all know, there are at least 2 or 3 major ones & a few nice desktop-centric entries.
I look forward to the conclusion of your next big Distrowatch Meeting to discuss all of this... ;-)
49 • CENT OS (by My 2 CENTs on 2023-12-12 13:53:53 GMT from Singapore)
CENT OS became a major distribution because it is a free copy of RHEL. Anything less than that should not replace it on the major list.
50 • CENTOS (by Victório on 2023-12-12 17:27:51 GMT from Brazil)
RedHat Enterprise Linux
51 • Major Distributions (by eb on 2023-12-12 19:24:22 GMT from France)
9 is a good number, considered as lucky by the chinese !:-)
So CentOS does not deserve to be replaced, since you already selected Fedora.
FreeBSD is aside, and should not figure along Linux distros (?)
@37 : Slackware with only a window manager (no DE) is just excellent for old computers.
Thanks for this poll.
52 • separate section for BSDs (by FARHAAD 1992 on 2023-12-13 08:01:46 GMT from Iran)
I do agree with some other commenters, please make a separate section or list for BSDs.
53 • distro (by Mark on 2023-12-13 13:13:54 GMT from United States)
Replace it with Kodachi !
54 • BSDs at Distrowatch (by Otis on 2023-12-13 17:40:36 GMT from United States)
Regarding adding BSDs to the list, and perhaps more BSD tracking and info in general, there are a couple of dozen active BSD flavors out there including FreeBSD based, NetBSD based, and Open BSD based, what we're doing I think is asking Jesse et al to do more work here.
I wonder if and/or how that's something that will impact the site, Jesse, or others involved and if it would play in on any decision regarding BSD magnification here.
55 • CentOS / CentOS Stream (by R. Cain on 2023-12-13 18:09:40 GMT from United States)
Why are there *still* people who don't understand that CentOS Stream is, unequivocally, NOT CentOS?--and *was not* from the very beginnings of CentOS Stream.
56 • Remove and replace by....EuroLinux (by Erich Friesen on 2023-12-14 00:39:26 GMT from United States)
My strong preference is to replace by EuroLinux, as they really get the spirit and letter of the GPL, they are also great to work with.
57 • Remove & replace with Redhat (by Greg on 2023-12-14 06:24:47 GMT from Canada)
Remove and replace with Redhat
Redhat is a major distribution like Ubuntu. Both are large commercial distributions. IMHO Redhat has contributed more and it has been contributing longer. I'd argue that other commercial distributions should be included too. Suse Linux Enterprise being an example.
IMHO Don't go off the page rank as it's is misleading. I'd start looking at the number of reviews for distributions. Rating is a separate statistic I'm less fond of unless you look at the number of positive reviews. Very negative reviews are just failed attempts at finding the right one.
58 • Major Distros vs Promoting a Favorite (by Otis on 2023-12-14 13:43:47 GMT from United States)
There are several advocates of various distros suggesting those should be on the Major Distros page (EusroLinux, Kodachi, Manjaro, sel4, Alpine, Solus, etc).
Perhaps it'd be helpful to quote from the Major Distros explanation spiel:
"...all of these are popular and have very active forums or mailing lists where you can ask questions..."
The popularity contest is on the Page Hit Ranking list. The Major Distros list is not that, but, even though there is overlap, an effort to report distros which seem to have influenced the community and even other distros, is my take. Subtle but important differences.
59 • Remove it and replace with Rocky (by Tomas on 2023-12-15 08:08:03 GMT from Japan)
Rocky Linux is the defacto CentOS replacement. Or at least that's what the EPEL adoption statistics show: https://rocky-stats.tiuxo.com/auto.html
60 • Alpine should replace CentOS (by Elcaset on 2023-12-15 09:47:37 GMT from United States)
Alpine should replace CentOS on the list.
61 • Replace with rocky (by Neil Hanlon on 2023-12-15 12:52:24 GMT from United States)
Rocky should replace CentOS on the list :)
62 • Replace with OpenSUSE LEAP (by Jeremy T on 2023-12-15 15:06:44 GMT from United States)
OpenSUSE Leap is binary compatible with SUSE Linux Enterprise, no delays or differences. It is equally stable and reliable from an OS perspective. If the need grows beyond OpenSUSE and self support then a license key install and some command line migration is all that is required to upgrade for support from SUSE and make it SUSE Linux Enterprise. That is roughly what CentOS was to RedHat yet with no direct migration path. However, OpenSUSE is backed with the support of SUSE itself. No worries of a community trying to circumvent licensing or terms and conditions (i.e. Rocky/Alma/etc) with only hopes they will be able to binary compatible with RedHat going forward.
63 • Replace with (by Pero Barreto on 2023-12-15 16:21:49 GMT from Brazil)
I would remove CentOS altogether and put Red Hat Enterprise Linux in its place.
Nonetheless, I would remove entirely all Ubuntu flavors as well. Several Linux Distros have flavours (such as openSUSE) and, besides Ubuntu, they do not have that ridiculous amount of entries.
64 • Remove CentOS (by Justin on 2023-12-15 19:01:38 GMT from United States)
I voted remove without replacement. If you pick a "successor" now, you are playing favorites. None have emerged as the undisputed successor and perhaps none will. You already have Fedora to cover RPM/RHEL distros. The list seems geared to home users, so I would vote against adding Red Hat directly or other distributions, despite the contributions it has made in the past (I want to see them contribute at the same level going forward; these are current major distributions, not past ones).
The list is already long as-is for new comers. Devuan would be nice if it is truly proving to be of similar scale. I've heard it talked about once in a professional circle. Despite how much its users like it (and hate systemd), I just don't see it anywhere. I have wanted to install it but I can never find a real use case for it. The other nice one would be ReactOS, but I would stay away from it. It's just never going to be ready for primetime, and it sends users the wrong impression if the quality and functionality aren't there. What you have on the list already qualifies for me. Maybe PCLinuxOS because I hear it talked about a lot on this forum, but again, I don't see it elsewhere or developers/companies providing support for it. It's always Ubuntu/Debian and Fedora/RHEL/CentOS. I'm not even sure openSUSE belongs on that list anymore.
65 • Replace with Rocky (by Michael on 2023-12-15 19:56:10 GMT from United States)
It is clear by the numbers that Rocky has become the replacement for CentOS.
Number of Comments: 65
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| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
HackerOS
HackerOS is a live Linux distribution based on Debian's "Testing" branch and designed for regular users, gamers and cybersecurity enthusiasts. Some of its features include an optimised XanMod Linux kernel for faster boot times and reduced resource usage, out-of-the-box support for NVIDIA graphics cards, and a collection of cybersecurity tools, such as enhanced firewalls and intrusion detection software. The distribution uses the KDE Plasma desktop.
Status: Active
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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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