 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1054, 22 January 2024 |
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Welcome to this year's 4th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
A little over a year ago it looked as though the Solus project might be packing up and ceasing development. However, the team bounced back and now the Solus distribution seems to be back on a regular development schedule. This week we take a look at the newly released Solus 4.5 and report on its changes and improvements. Often the first step in trying out a new distribution is fetching the install media ISO and transferring it to a thumb drive. There are several utilities that will transfer an ISO image file to removable media and we talk about two of these, cp and dd, in our Questions and Answers column. What utility do you use to transfer ISO image files to thumb drives? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section we discuss openSUSE's plans for a new major version of Leap while the XeroLinux distribution winds down. Plus we report on the HardenedBSD project changing its build schedule to better accommodate large package builds. We are also pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Solus 4.5
While it's only been about seven months since I last tried the Solus distribution, my previous encounter with the independent, rolling release platform was mostly done as a "welcome back" tour. The project had apparently died near the start of 2023 and I was curious to see if it was still in working order. My experience with Solus 4.4, at the time, revealed the distribution was still walking, but with a limp. Some key features, like sound, didn't work on my laptop, the inconsistent theme was jarring, and the distribution (while pretty) seemed to be missing some useful features like filesystem snapshots. But back then the distribution had just crawled out of the grave, so I was willing to overlook some sore spots.
In January 2024 Solus released a new snapshot, Solus 4.5, and I was curious to see how it would perform now that the team has had over half a year to polish the experience and introduce new features.
Solus 4.5 is available in four desktop editions: Budgie, GNOME, KDE Plasma, and Xfce. The Xfce edition is considered to be in beta. In the past there was a MATE edition, but it has been removed in favour of testing out the new Xfce build. The Budgie edition offers better "fuzzy" search matches when typing terms into the application menu.
This version of Solus ships with the Calamares system installer which replaces the old, custom installer. Version 4.5 shifts from PulseAudio (and JACK) to the PipeWire sound system. There are some other, less obvious features this time around. For instance, Solus uses the BORE kernel scheduler which should offer better than average desktop responsiveness: "Under heavy CPU load the system will try to prioritize processes that it thinks are interactive, maintaining a responsive feel."
The Solus project also claims to have polished their dark theme experience: "The 'Dark Theme' toggle in Budgie Settings now also sets the dark theme preference for applications. Some applications may override this with a specific colour scheme; for example a photo editor may prefer a dark canvas. Even so, this standardized, vendor-neutral setting should help to create a more consistent experience for our users."
I downloaded the Budgie edition of Solus 4.5 which was about 2.5GB in size. Solus's four editions are all built to run on the x86_64 architecture. The live media booted quickly and displayed the Budgie desktop. A panel across the bottom of the screen holds the application menu and system tray. Icons on the desktop allow us to launch the Nemo file manager and the Calamares system installer.
Solus 4.5 -- Browsing the application menu
(full image size: 2.4MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Installer
The move from Solus's old system installer to Calamares seems to have been accomplished smoothly. It was not a big change from the user's perspective and I suspect the shift was done to reduce the maintenance burden on the Solus developers. Calamares accomplishes most of the same steps in a similar manner, but its distro-agnostic approach means a lot of the work of maintaining the installer is handled upstream.
Calamares walks us through selecting our language, picking a timezone, and confirming our keyboard layout. When it comes to disk partitioning we can use an easy to navigate manual approach, or a friendly guided approach. The guided option defaults to setting up three partitions: GPT boot, root, and swap. Swap space is optional and we can choose to have no swap partition, one equal in size to our computer's RAM, or a swap partition double the size of our RAM. The root partition's filesystem defaults to ext4, but we can also select from Btrfs and F2FS.
The final screen of the installer asks us to make up a username and password. Calamares then copies the distribution to our hard drive. It doesn't offer to restart the computer and instead just returns us to the Budgie desktop.
I like the shift to Calamares. While most of the functionality isn't different, the Calamares installer is more forgiving in its password restrictions, and the partition manager feels more flexible.
Early impressions
Solus boots to a graphical login screen. In the background we can see a photo of mountains overlooking a lake. Signing into our account brings up the Budgie desktop. There are no welcome windows or first-run wizards. The desktop mostly stays out of the way. Notifications sometimes appear in the upper-right corner, though they tend to quickly disappear and get indexed in the notification widget in the system tray. Clicking the notification bell brings up a side panel to the right of the desktop with a list of recent notifications, such as available wireless networks or system updates.
I found clicking notifications didn't accomplish anything. For example, clicking the package updates notice didn't open the software centre, we need to perform this task manually. There is a button for clearing old notifications out of the system tray.
Solus 4.5 -- Checking for notifications
(full image size: 2.4MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Hardware
I found Solus was able to run in both VirtualBox and on my laptop. The distribution is capable of booting in both Legacy BIOS and UEFI modes. When running in the virtual machine, Solus booted and shutdown quickly and the budgie desktop was fairly responsive (above average or a little better in terms of performance). My one complaint was the Budgie desktop didn't resize automatically to match the dimensions of my VirtualBox window.
Solus ran well on my laptop where desktop performance was even better. All of my laptop's hardware was detected. Wireless networking functioned out of the box and I liked that my touchpad detected taps as mouse clicks without my needing to configure this behaviour. Most significantly, audio worked for me this time. Solus 4.4 didn't play sounds on my laptop last year, but Solus 4.5 handed sound flawlessly.
The distribution took up 8.1GB of disk space (not including swap), putting it on the heavier end of mainstream distributions. However, signing into Budgie only required 540MB of RAM, which is in medium-weight class for modern, mainstream Linux distributions.
I did run into a few stability problems with Solus. The distribution failed to boot once. After the GRUB screen, I saw a few kernel messages, and then the display went blank. Solus had run into a hard lock-up, necessitating a power reset. The next time the system booted without any issues.
I also ran into a hard lock-up the first time I tried to add a new user account to my system. This also required a forced power reset to bring the distribution back to life. After that, I was able to add a new user account. This was, in hindsight, one of my biggest concerns with Solus. I'd occasionally run into issues like this (hard lock-ups, or the video player not working), but after a reboot the issue would be gone and Solus would work well for the rest of the day. It added a layer of unpredictability to my trial.
Included software
The Solus distribution ships with a relatively small selection of software. Browsing the application menu we find the Firefox web browser, Thunderbird, and LibreOffice. A calendar application is included along with a document viewer and an image viewer. There are two media applications - Rhythmbox for playing audio files and Celluloid for watching videos. Solus does ship with media codecs included, but I occasionally ran into problems with Celluloid. The media application would play audio files and would sometimes play video files flawlessly. Other times video files would play without any visuals and I'd only hear the audio track of the media file. I downloaded the VLC media player and it handled all video files without any problems.
Exploring further we can find the GParted disk manager and the Nemo file manager. A simple password/key manager is included too. The GNOME Help application, which explains how to navigate and use the GNOME desktop, is included. I suspect this utility was included because a few GNOME applications are installed on the system, but I suspect tutorials on navigating GNOME are only going to confuse new users running the Budgie desktop.
Solus includes the GNU command line utilities and their corresponding manual pages. The distribution runs systemd and runs version 6.6.9 of the Linux kernel.
Software management
Solus provides a graphical package manager which is divided into two panes. To the left we find tabs we can explore. These tabs are: Home, Updates, Installed, Third-party, Search, and Settings. When we select a tab its information or corresponding packages are shown to the right.
The Home tab assists us in browsing broad categories of applications. We can drill down a few layers to find the specific applications we want. The Updates tab lists new versions of packages and supplies a button we can click to fetch the updates. The Installed tab lists every eopkg package (applications along with low-level packages) on the system and, from this tab, we can remove items we no longer want.
Solus 4.5 -- The software centre
(full image size: 1.8MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The Third-party tab sets Solus's software manager apart from most other software centres. This page provides an alphabetical list of software we can install which does not come from Solus's own repositories. These are not, at least as far as I can tell, Flatpak or Snap bundles either, they seem to be classic packages from third-party sources. This tab features items such a Chrome, Google Earth, Skype, Slack, Spotify, and TeamViewer. When I tried to install a few items, most were fetched and installed properly. However, the Spotify bundle failed to download (the software centre reported too many retry attempts) and then the software centre locked up. I had to kill its process in order to get the window off the screen as the close button for the application did not respond.
The Search tab offers a simple text box where we can type the name or description of a package. This works fairly well, though it returns an unsorted list of all matching packages, not just applications. This can make for quite a long list of items, many of which might not be clearly related to our query.
Finally, the Settings tab offers a few options. From this page we can change the time between checks for new package versions and select whether to fetch information on metered network connections.
During my trial there were very few updates and these were installed successfully.
I noticed that both Flatpak and Snap support were installed on Solus, though no Flatpak repositories (such as Flathub) were configured for us. I also found the software centre does not detect or pull packages from Snap or Flatpak sources, it seems to be limited to pulling in packages from the official Solus repositories (and select third-party packages).
If we wish, we can manage traditional packages using the command line eopkg utility. This package manager has a syntax not unlike APT or DNF and worked well for me. It worked quickly and, during my time with it, without errors. We can also manage Flatpak and Snap bundles from the command line if we want a portable package.
Settings panels
The Budgie edition of Solus provides two settings panels. One is labelled Budgie Control Centre and it appears to be a rebranded GNOME Settings panel. This panel mostly handles behind the scenes functions such as managing printers and user accounts. It also helps us manage our keyboard's layout, power settings, sound settings, privacy toggles, and on-line accounts. This panel has options for networking and screen resolution. Apart from a page which adjusts the desktop wallpaper, there aren't really any controls which affect the look of the desktop.
For changing how Budgie looks there is the Budgie Desktop Settings panel. This second panel focuses on helping us adjust the visual aspects of the user experience. This includes pages of settings for adjusting the theme, fonts, icon style, and the location of the desktop panel.
Something which stood out while using these two settings panels, which was repeated throughout my trial with Solus, was that the two settings panels use different themes. The Control Centre uses a light theme with a white background while the Desktop Settings panel uses a dark theme with a black background. This mismatched look occurs throughout the distribution. The application menu is dark, the file manager is light, LibreOffice looks to offer a mix of the two while the text editor is dark. As with several GNOME-focused distributions I've used over the past few years, Budgie doesn't offer any visual consistency, even though that was one of the stated goals of this release.
Solus 4.5 -- The two settings panels
(full image size: 1.2MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
I also want to mention that the user manager utility is unusually strict when it comes to setting passwords on new accounts. I tried to set up a guest account and it took me several attempts to find a password the user manager would accept. It wouldn't allow any sequence of numbers, dictionary words, short passwords, or passwords which combined elements of the above: "a1234hello" would fail for including a word and a string of numbers, for example, but it is more than complex enough for a guest account on a home computer.
Conclusions and comparisons with Solus 4.4
As I mentioned earlier, my main reason for trying Solus 4.5 was to see what changes had occurred since I had a chance to try version 4.4 about seven months prior. The previous version, while it had some nice features and I liked elements of the Budgie desktop, had several rough edges. I feel, for the most part, Solus 4.5 is an evolutionary step forward in terms of functionality.
I like the switch to using Calamares as the system installer. It feels more consistent with other distributions and it finds a good balance between being flexible and easy to use. It was also a pleasure to discover PipeWire worked on my laptop where sound had failed to function the last time I'd tried Solus.
Solus (and Budgie) have otherwise remained mostly the same. The desktop performance is still good, the look is pretty sleek and attractive, the theme is still inconsistent. The desktop crashed about once a day, which feels slightly worse than it did last year. Some other issues are oddly consistent. For example, seven months ago Spotify failed to install and run properly and it failed to install this week too. And, as before, Flatpak is installed, yet no repository is enabled for us to use.
Solus 4.5 -- Examples of the mixed dark/light themes
(full image size: 121kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
When I tried out Solus last year I remarked that I thought it was a shame the distribution offers Btrfs as a root filesystem, but doesn't do anything with this feature. There is no boot environment switcher, no Timeshift installed, no automated snapshots when we install updates. This was, and still is, a feature I felt was missing, especially since Solus is a rolling release platform and Btrfs could add a level of reliability to the upgrade process.
Finally, a security bug I mentioned in my last review remains and I was disappointed to see it lingers. Non-privileged accounts (regular user accounts) can perform administrative actions if they have the first user's password. This happens even when the regular user is not in the sudoer file and it allows guest users to install or remove software. This means if two users happen to have the same password (or similar ones and the user makes a typo) they can perform admin actions without being a privileged user. This seems like a design flaw and one that, while it probably can only be exploited in a few rare situations, makes me uncomfortable with the security settings on Solus.
In short, I feel, mostly, that Solus has stayed the same over the past seven months. There are some key improvements and I'm happy to see progress. At the same time, some other concerns (some minor, some serious) linger. I started my trial very happy with the live environment, the installer, working sound, and the performance. But the inconsistent interface, searching two panels to find settings, and the occasional crash slowly jaded me during my trial. Solus isn't a bad desktop distribution, but there are some areas I feel could use additional work.
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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 202 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) |
openSUSE plans a new major Leap version, XeroLinux is shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule
Back in 2022, openSUSE announced it was ending the project's Leap 15.x branch after version 15.5 and there was speculation there would be no more Leap releases. Then, in the middle of 2023, the project announced a Leap 15.6 release was also planned, though after that the distribution would probably replace Leap with another, new openSUSE branch. Now, it looks like Leap will be continued a while longer, with Leap 16 planned after version 15.6 is released later this year. Leap 16 is expected to pull in elements of SUSE's Adaptable Linux Platform (ALP) while maintaining a lot of the features of past Leap versions. "As many eagerly await the arrival of Leap 15.6 this year, a path for Leap 16 as a successor awaits. Based on SUSE's new Adaptable Linux Platform (ALP) codebase, openSUSE Leap 16 will combine the benefits of an advanced enterprise server distribution and user-friendly maintenance and security that is a hallmark of the Leap series. Leap 16 is aiming to strike a balance between a cutting-edge and a traditional Linux operating system emerging from SUSE's development of ALP and initiatives to effectively integrate community packages."
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XeroLinux is an Arch-based desktop distribution featuring the KDE Plasma desktop and the Calamares system installer. An announcement on the project's forum indicates XeroLinux will cease to be developed as a complete distribution and be replaced by a post-install customization utility. "Instead of confining ourselves to KDE Plasma, I've decided to transform the entire distro into a comprehensive post-installation tool I call Xero Arch Post-Install Toolkit or XAPiT for short. It'll encapsulate everything that made XeroLinux fantastic and then some! This shift will grant us all more freedom. You'll have the choice to install your preferred DE or WM, while the post-install process-covering drivers, customizations, software installations, and more-will be a far smoother experience." The developer recommends existing XeroLinux users migrate to another distribution before February 15th when the project's software repositories will be taken off-line.
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The HardenedBSD project is adjusting the frequency of its install media builds after having running into a situation where the time it takes to build packages results in packages being a full release build behind the install media. Shawn Webb explains: "Building packages takes quite a while, especially for 14-STABLE. The last package build for that branch took 371 hours, around 15-ish days. We currently build installer images and base OS updates every 14 days. This means that the 14-STABLE package builds will always be at least one build behind. So, we need to slow the cadence of our installer image and base OS update builds. Instead of building installer images and base OS updates bi-weekly, we will move to monthly builds." Additional details on the new build schedule are available in the project's blog post.
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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) |
Comparing dd and cp when writing a file to a thumb drive
Keep-it-simple-keep-it-safe asks: I've always read that the procedure to copy an image to a thumb drive involves using dd, and doing something like this:
dd if=/path/to/filename.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M status=progress
The other day I read a guide where it says to use the cp command, like so:
cp /path/to/filename.iso /dev/sdb
Why do many sources suggest a complicated command like dd when the same job could be done with the more simple cp command?
DistroWatch answers: There are a lot of programs which perform similar tasks or which have overlap in their functionality when compared with other programs. Both web browsers and text editors, for example, can be used to view text files even though their primary functions are different. It's not uncommon to run into situations where different programs can perform the same task. This is one of those situations.
The copy (cp) command is a powerful utility for copying files and directories from one location to another, with several options for optimising this sort of action. The dd command is intended to convert or copy one specific file (or data stream) and it offers a lot of flexibility in how it transfers, seeks through, or manipulates data. While these two utilities have different areas of focus, they overlap in that they can both write an IMG or ISO file to a thumb drive.
Writing data to another medium is dd's area of expertise which is why it is usually recommended. Though the cp command, as pointed out above, can perform the same task. It's not exactly what cp was designed to do, but cp does have the ability to write ISO files to a removable drive.
As to whether one is better or more simple, I'm not sure that is necessarily true. Let's look at the two examples given above:
dd if=/path/to/filename.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M status=progress
vs
cp /path/to/filename.iso /dev/sdb
The dd command does look more complicated in the above example, but this isn't a fair comparison. We could just as easily write the dd command as follows and it would perform the same action:
dd if=filename.iso of=/dev/sdb
Which, really, isn't that much more complicated or confusing compared with this cp command:
cp filename.iso /dev/sdb
Notice, I trimmed out the progress indicator and the block size flags from the dd command which not only makes it simpler but also makes its behaviour more in line with the cp command shown in the original question. Those flags added to the dd command were not needed to produce the same result so it wasn't a fair comparison.
The progress flag ("status=progress") given in the original question actually highlights why some people still prefer dd, it can show regular progress updates while cp does not. The added complexity in the dd example exists for a reason, it is a helpful feature to show you how far along dd is in its work, something cp doesn't do.
Continuing along this line, the dd command has some additional features which (while not always highlighted in tutorials) can make writing to thumb drives safer. For example, the following command makes sure data in memory is written out to the physical device before dd reports it is finished. This avoids situations where we might be told data is all written to the disk and then unplug the thumb drive before the operating system has flushed all the data to the drive:
dd if=filename.iso of=/dev/sdb conv=fdatasync
To accomplish the equivalent with the cp command we'd likely end up doing something like this, which uses a separate sync command to make sure all data is written to the thumb drive:
cp filename.iso /dev/sdb ; sync
In short, depending on which features we want to use, we can make the cp or dd commands noticeably more complicated or more simple. It's just a matter of what we want to accomplish and how much safety or information we want while performing the transfer of data.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
AV Linux MXE-23.1
Glen MacArthur has announced the release of AV Linux MXE-23.1, a major upgrade of the project's Debian and MX Linux-based multimedia distribution. The new version upgrades the underlying system to Debian 12 base and introduces Enlightenment as the default desktop user interface: "After many months of behind-the-scenes development and a series of new features and changes, AV Linux MX Edition (aka AVL-MXe) 23.1 'Enlightened' has been released. This release moves platforms from MX-21/Debian 11 'Bullseye' to MX-23/Debian 12 'Bookworm'. With the new platform comes a major move to the Enlightenment desktop environment (0.25.4) and a completely new audio system (PipeWire 1.0.0). Because of the sheer amount and depth of the changes, there is no repository upgrade path from AV Linux 21.3 and this new version will require a fresh install. The ISO image has grown to 5.2 GB since the last release. System highlights: MX-23/Debian 12 'Bookworm' base; Liquorix 6.6.9 Linux kernel; Enlightenment 0.25.4 desktop environment; PipeWire 1.0.0; choice of systemd or SysVInit (once installed); MX Tools and AV Linux utilities." Continue to the release announcement for more information and screenshot.
SDesk 2024.01.18
SDesk is an Arch-based Linux distribution which strives for an easy to use, modern approach to desktop computing. The project's latest snapshot includes an updated copy of the Swirl browser and a number of improvements to the user's desktop experience. "The Thirteenth SDesk ISO is here with an updated Swirl browser that includes Lua plugin support, custom search engines and more, better window tiling support, an updated Calamares installer, better desktop icon support, and a brand new default background! The startup sound has also been modified so when it runs it is detached from the script that plays it, allowing SDesk to boot up even faster. Here is everything you need to know: Packages have been updated; SShell now includes a tiling assistant extension; SShell detaches the mplayer process that plays the startup sound; Swirl 2.2 now includes plugin support; Swirl 2.2 now allows you to add custom search engines to the browser...." Additional information can be found in the project's release notes.
AV Linux MXE-23.1 -- Running the Enlightenment desktop
(full image size: 4.4MB, resolution: 2560x1440 pixels)
SDesk 2024.01.18
SDesk is an Arch-based Linux distribution which strives for an easy to use, modern approach to desktop computing. The project's latest snapshot includes an updated copy of the Swirl browser and a number of improvements to the user's desktop experience. "The Thirteenth SDesk ISO is here with an updated Swirl browser that includes Lua plugin support, custom search engines and more, better window tiling support, an updated Calamares installer, better desktop icon support, and a brand new default background! The startup sound has also been modified so when it runs it is detached from the script that plays it, allowing SDesk to boot up even faster. Here is everything you need to know: Packages have been updated; SShell now includes a tiling assistant extension; SShell detaches the mplayer process that plays the startup sound; Swirl 2.2 now includes plugin support; Swirl 2.2 now allows you to add custom search engines to the browser...." Additional information can be found in the project's release notes.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,950
- Total data uploaded: 44.0TB
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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) |
Which tool do you use to write ISO/IMG files to removable media?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about various tools, such as dd and cp, which can be used to write install images to removable media. We'd like to hear which tool you typically use to write install images to thumb drives or optical media.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using virtual assistants in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Utility I use to write ISO/IMG files to media:
| Balena Etcher: | 395 (20%) |
| Brasero: | 70 (4%) |
| cat: | 8 (0%) |
| cp: | 29 (1%) |
| dd: | 540 (27%) |
| K3b: | 62 (3%) |
| Rufus: | 256 (13%) |
| UNetbootin: | 42 (2%) |
| Other: | 558 (28%) |
| None: | 26 (1%) |
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| Website News |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 29 January 2024. 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 • dd (by Brad on 2024-01-22 01:30:17 GMT from United States)
I like dd because of the visual feedback mentioned above. In much the same way, I like verbose boot/shutdown messages, which give me an extra level of "comfort".
This behavior is in stark contrast to Windows, which presents me with a spinning matrix of six dots going round and round, until I'm quite dizzy and uninformed.
: - )
2 • writing to usb (by gogs on 2024-01-22 01:41:01 GMT from Australia)
I use gnome-disks.
select disk, format it from the menu.
same menu is restore image..... done
3 • Writing to thumb drives (by Sam Crawford on 2024-01-22 01:43:33 GMT from United States)
I use Mintstick if I'm using linux. It's available as a .deb file and is in the Debian repositories. I usually use it with Debian.
If I'm using Windows, I use Rufus as it works well.
4 • Writing image to USB drives (by Reyfer on 2024-01-22 01:54:17 GMT from Venezuela)
I used to use Etcher, but since I found Ventoy that is all I use
5 • Image writing (by DaveW on 2024-01-22 03:05:53 GMT from United States)
I used Brasero until I found Ventoy, so now a simple copy from the file manager is all that is needed. Brasero, cp, and None (since I'm not actually creating a bootable USB drive) all seem to be valid options.
6 • Stick (by Friar Tux on 2024-01-22 03:33:49 GMT from Canada)
I voted "Other" since I use the default program on Linux Mint. It hasn't let me down yet. I used to use it once or twice a week though I've slowed down a bit.
7 • Media writing (by pengxuin on 2024-01-22 03:46:13 GMT from New Zealand)
Distro native USB program ( isodumper ).
options include:
Create a backup image of the USB partition.
Format- multiple files systems offered.
Write an image to USB.
Create user writable partition after image ( persistence partition ).
checks image after write ( shasum3 ).
Desktop native Optical writer.
As I am comfortable with multiple DEs, writer doesn't matter, provided it does as advertised on the tin.
8 • @3 Writing to thumb drives (by Sam Crawford) (by Terry on 2024-01-22 03:58:35 GMT from United States)
I also use Rufus in Windows and works great! Used it for years and never fails and very useful flexible features.
9 • Ventoy (by TryVbox on 2024-01-22 05:22:28 GMT from United States)
I'm surprised you didn't include Ventoy.
It's been VERY popular lately. Great features.
10 • antiX has a vastly superior live USB writer (by Andy Prough on 2024-01-22 05:27:48 GMT from United States)
I use antiX Live USB creator for all my ISO writing. It's just simply better than any other tool in my experience. I think MX has the same Live USB creation tool.
11 • Solus OS (by Mike on 2024-01-22 06:44:04 GMT from The Netherlands)
I have been using Solus for several years now and I have never experienced the daily crashes you report in your review. And I have used it on several different computers and laptops. I am curious on how that is possible.
12 • iso writing (by peer on 2024-01-22 07:02:44 GMT from The Netherlands)
I use "KDE Iso Image Writer". It is simple and does what it is supposed to do. I also use the dd command sometimes.
13 • Suse Studio Imagewriter (by Luca on 2024-01-22 07:22:53 GMT from Italy)
On Manjaro, I use SUSE Studio Imagewriter (package: imagewriter) to write ISO/IMG images.
14 • ddrescue (by Udo on 2024-01-22 07:37:37 GMT from Germany)
My default command to write an .iso is this:
~# ddrescue /tmp/xyz.img -f /dev/sdb
Why? I like the output and I do use ddrescue the other way around, to _read_ a stick - as this is where it shines :-)
15 • ISO (by fenglengshun on 2024-01-22 07:46:16 GMT from Indonesia)
I only use Fedora Media Writer or Ventoy. Usually just Ventoy, until I find something that doesn't work on Ventoy (generally immutable distro). I install Fedora Media Writer from Flatpak and Ventoy from Nix so that it'd update automatically.
16 • Image Writer Choice (by Steve Pepperridge on 2024-01-22 08:01:12 GMT from Romania)
currently my preferred image writer is Balena Etcher, but i did try Ventoy before, and, before using Etcher i used Mint's image writer app.
17 • ISO writing (by Alessandro di Roma on 2024-01-22 08:22:44 GMT from Italy)
I wrote a line:
alias dd='dd bs=4M status=progress conv=fdatasync'
in my ~/.bash_aliases file, so if= and of= are enough.
18 • Creating bootable media (by Hank on 2024-01-22 08:54:42 GMT from Germany)
After some very annoying fails both on copying images to USB stick and Imagingte/moving to a new drive I have returned to DD.
Remembering the vast majority of available tools use DD in the background, just have a fancy make up on top. the GUI.
19 • https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20240122#qa (by Irgendeiner on 2024-01-22 08:55:42 GMT from Switzerland)
This comment is plain wrong.
Writing flash media with dd is very old style.
"cp myfile.bin /dev/sdX" is faster and more stable.
20 • Copying ISO (by Adrien Linuxtricks on 2024-01-22 09:35:21 GMT from France)
I use pv to copy ISO in media.
Faster than dd (as fast as cat) but with progress bar
21 • Bootable media (by DachshundMan on 2024-01-22 09:37:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
I voted for Balena because that is what I used to write the memory card when I last installed my RPi as I was doing it whilst working in Windows on a program not available in Linux. In the past I have used both Unetbootin and dd. Also, as I am normally using Linux Mint I have the built in "USB Image Writer". Personally I have no real preference.
22 • Ventoy (by Giulio on 2024-01-22 10:23:38 GMT from Italy)
I use ventoy so i can fit more than 1 iso per usb-key, and even other OSes. Then a simple file manager to copy the iso.
23 • Solus 4.5 (by White on 2024-01-22 10:29:23 GMT from Poland)
Using Solus for years now, best rolling release distro out there.
24 • Solus (by Sed on 2024-01-22 11:34:50 GMT from Greece)
I was considering a move to Solus and now I wonder whether I should wait to make sure it has the stability expected. Solus started with so much potential and then started having problems that affected its course. I hope it gains momentum again.
25 • writing isos (by Dave Postles on 2024-01-22 11:56:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
I use dd for writing to usb drive. I use K3B for writing to dvd.
26 • .iso copy (by kc1di on 2024-01-22 12:06:02 GMT from United States)
There are several good tools to copy and make live usb sticks.
one not mentioned yet is DDcopy used on PClinuxOS. It is a graphical front end for the dd comand and does a good job of making live usb sticks.
Also Mint has it own usb maker which works well. There are so many ways to do this task that a newbie may be confused. I usually recommend Etcher for new users as i have found that Rufus which seems to be the go to app in Windows seems to create problems when burning .iso files.
In any event there are enough easy to use methods to make using dd it self rather complicated for newer users.
27 • Ventoy, slow recognized at Windows (by Jan on 2024-01-22 12:24:23 GMT from The Netherlands)
Ventoy is very handy.
However at using it at Windows on my PC's, it takes circa 10 minutes before the USB-stick is recognized. During this time, any program related to USB is also delayed. At 16-bit behaviour disabled I even got BSOD.
I think it has something to do with the presence of a small FAT16-partition. Another program to make bootable USB-sticks, also making a small FAT16-partition, gave the same problem-behaviour.
After recognizing the USB-stick the PC-behaviour is normal/good again.
Anyone the same problem or a solution (PS I enabled 16-bit behaviour).
28 • USBimager (by Cranky Den on 2024-01-22 12:58:08 GMT from Canada)
USBimager is a nice, low-memory, no-frills GUI to write disk images to devices. I've used it to write ISO's to flash drives and floppy disk images to floppies.
The bs option in dd can have a tremendous impact on write speed. Typically bs=4M (or higher) will write much faster than the default of 512. YMMV
29 • Solus reliability/stability (by Uncle Slacky on 2024-01-22 14:22:53 GMT from France)
I've been using Solus for about 5 years now, never had a crash of the kind you describe. I suspect it might be a hardware issue. HP laptops (especially "commodity" ones) don't have a great reputation.
30 • Tool used to write ISO files (by Albert on 2024-01-22 14:45:17 GMT from United States)
I generally use Mintstick for that
.
31 • Writing isos to thumbdrive (by Don on 2024-01-22 16:29:17 GMT from Canada)
I use Ventoy. Copy the iso from the file manager to it. Very easy.
32 • ISO writing (by npaladin2000 on 2024-01-22 17:05:09 GMT from United States)
Another Ventoy here, really should have been in the poll. Doesn't help much with IMG files (like Batocera or Steam's recovery media) but it can't be beat for ISOs: once Ventoy is installed, just drag and drop your ISOs on the USB stick and you're done.
33 • writing multiple ISO/IMG files to one bootable USB thumb drive (by Simon Wainscott-Plaistowe on 2024-01-22 18:07:04 GMT from New Zealand)
I answered "other" in the poll since Ventoy isn't listed therein. It's an open-source tool for writing multiple ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files to one bootable USB stick. Simply boot from the stick then choose from a menu of the available files.
34 • Ventoy (by SadSack on 2024-01-22 23:07:12 GMT from United States)
I started using Ventoy after someone mentioned it here about a year ago. It’s so easy I don’t bother with anything else anymore.
35 • Writing ISO (by Rob on 2024-01-22 23:17:46 GMT from United States)
EtchDroid on Android. I've been using it for years.
36 • #17 Interesting alias (by vmc on 2024-01-23 01:02:02 GMT from United States)
Thanks for sharing your alias of 'dd'. I'm going to try it.
I don't use 'dd' very often, usually I use Ventoy, but I will diffidently try your alias
37 • Bootable USB (by Vinfall on 2024-01-23 01:46:27 GMT from Singapore)
Another shot for Ventoy. It's more than just a customizable ISO loader.
With plugins, you can also boot Linux vDisk(VHD/VDI/RAW, not VHDX though), WIM (alternative Windows/PE image format), and have (optional) persistent storage for Live CD. It even has a spinoff project named iVentoy to boot OS wirelessly (enhanced PXE alternative).
38 • Sound issues (by Chris on 2024-01-23 05:28:20 GMT from New Zealand)
The prior edition of AV Linux worked with sound, but the latest doesn't. It is the same for Linux Mint LMDE 6. A good fallback demonstrating your hardware is OK and everything can work is the latest Watt operating system that works well once Pulse sound settings are made. I think the main problem is the default setting Digital Stereo (IEC958) Output continually dominating , and not allowing other settings like Stereo Duplex. There is also conflict with Pulse with Configuration only accessible with pavucontrol, that then with Sound settings defaults back to Digital Stereo. The simpler operating systems like Watt seem to interpret the correct settings.
39 • Writing to media (by zetamacs on 2024-01-23 15:08:24 GMT from United States)
It's funny how habits can stick around long after they're necessary.
dd is my go-to not because you can't do things any other way (and probably more safely), but because:
1. All my Unix-like systems have it
2. I'm used to it
... And that's about it.
Yeah, I've nuked a disk like so many others have by being careless. I took that as a warning and used the program more carefully ever since, rather than seeking out different software to do the same thing.
40 • dd vs. other utilities (by Dan on 2024-01-23 15:25:45 GMT from Israel)
I feel obligated to mention something I found years ago online:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/224314
41 • Utility to write iso/img (by GTC on 2024-01-23 16:38:23 GMT from Uruguay)
I voted other because I use a few of them:
I use ventoy for multi images in pendrives.
I use rufus when in windows
I use balena etcher sometimes for a single image, probably in a hurry or testing something.
I use dd for some isos that are not playing well with the aforementioned.
If and when I need them on optical media for some resason, I use k3b or Brasero.
That said, I used UNetBootin in the past, left it behind because of ventoy. Never tried cp or cat because I believe dd is better for such a task. The problem with dd is that it has bad reputation. All this "Disk Distroyer" and other things. Actually, dd never failed me, it just require paying attention to what you try to do. That's it.
42 • Comparing dd and cp (by Ben on 2024-01-23 19:33:34 GMT from United States)
One wrinkle I've never worked out is using dd (instead of cp) when copying a directory tree's worth of source files to a USB flash drive. dd is really only able to handle singles. And cp is horrible if the tree of files has tons of tiny files (in my case just .c and .h). A directory worth of 30meg total could take over an hour with cp-ing those tiny files
I tried following this for find and mkdir. It has fallen down everything I've tried
https://askubuntu.com/questions/122857/can-i-copy-large-files-faster-without-using-the-file-cache
I've resorted to doing geniso on the directory and copying the 30 meg file over to the USB. It takes mere seconds and I can mount the iso on the target computer and view the sources without much pain.
43 • pv (by mandatory on 2024-01-24 17:52:32 GMT from United States)
@20 I also just use pv, after many years of dd
a strange coincidence that a couple of laptops died when powering on with a ventoy stick, so obviously the chinese are after me...
44 • XeroLinux (by Cranky Den on 2024-01-24 19:11:42 GMT from Canada)
I think what XeroLinux is doing is good...why reinvent the wheel. I'm guessing a lot a distros, especially the Debian-based ones, could do the same.
45 • Ventoy (by Jay on 2024-01-24 19:59:49 GMT from United States)
tried VentoyWeb, really cool. feature request: I carry a lot of isos, so I would like to see upscroll flip to last image, not just downscroll and also letters to jump to first name begins with letter.
46 • Writing live memory sticks (by MXgogo on 2024-01-24 23:28:07 GMT from South Africa)
Usually use Balena or MX's Live USB maker. Intrigued now by Ventoy - the FAQs etc have sharpened my understanding of ambiguity in the term "persistence". What I want is a utility that can create a bootable OS partition. say 10GB on the stick and copy/install (dd?) the ISO/IMG into that, allowing the rest of the say-32GB stick to be partitioned and formatted as ext4 for regular use as data storage or even as /home. Is this possible with dd? In other words, escape from ISO9660? Ventoy sounds close.
47 • Light WM? (by QuoVadis on 2024-01-25 10:20:24 GMT from United States)
Please take a look at these 6 screenshots first.
MX Linux Fluxbox:
https://i.postimg.cc/zGzj3xCG/MX-23-2-fluxbox-1.png
https://i.postimg.cc/Hxy0FRgB/MX-23-2-fluxbox-2.png
https://i.postimg.cc/X78KM9RS/MX-23-2-fluxbox-3.png
Bunsen Labs Linux OpenBox:
https://i.postimg.cc/g0f8ysZR/bunsenlabs-boron-1-240123-1.png
https://i.postimg.cc/JhBBhX2h/bunsenlabs-boron-1-240123-2.png
https://i.postimg.cc/9FFR7KnK/bunsenlabs-boron-1-240123-3.png
So, what's the point? Diversity for diversity's sake?
I only added Cerebro to compensate for the lack of a global search and application launcher like in Fedora Gnome.
48 • Writing ISOs (by Steven on 2024-01-25 11:35:55 GMT from Austria)
I usually use GNU `dd` (with the `status=progress` option), but recently I started to use
this USB Imager: https://gitlab.com/bztsrc/usbimager .
I also started to use Ventoy for live ISOs, which means I don't write them, but copy them to the proper folder on the pendrive.
49 • Utility I use to write ISO/IMG files to media: (by James on 2024-01-25 12:13:27 GMT from United States)
No one love Etcher. Odd, Etcher came in highest of those listed, but behind other and none.
50 • Etcher unloved (by littlebigbrother on 2024-01-25 15:08:00 GMT from Germany)
Wasn't Balena Etcher caught phoning home?
51 • Writing IMG/ISO (by OldTimer2 on 2024-01-25 21:16:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
I burn a lot of USB sticks.
I like the CLI so my choice is ddrescue
It just works and picks up any minor errors in the media, etc
52 • Apparently someone forgot to remember about Balena Etcher... (by RoestVrijStaal on 2024-01-25 23:48:13 GMT from The Netherlands)
Balena Etcher is spyware.
See
- https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/1718 "etcher spies on the user without consent, and transmits the spying results unencrypted"
- https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/2057 "etcher spies on the user without consent"
- https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/2497 "Etcher 1.4.4 Ignores Privacy Setting"
- https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/2977 "Etcher secretly spies on the user without consent."
USBImager from https://gitlab.com/bztsrc/usbimager is a better tool. Also the size of USBImager is amazingly thin compared to Balena Etcher.
53 • Ventoy and Rosa (by John on 2024-01-26 02:01:14 GMT from Canada)
Ventoy is king now - format a USB hard drive with it then load up as many ISO files as you want. However, before Ventoy and still occasionally, I've always has the best luck with Rosa Image Writer.
54 • poll (by Dolphin Oracle on 2024-01-26 13:26:46 GMT from United States)
went with dd as its the ancient standard. the image writer mode of mx-live-usb-maker puts sanity checks on top of the dd utility, so hopefully users avoid nuking their disks. that has *cough* never happened to me
55 • Whatever gets the job done (by José Arrogantio on 2024-01-26 18:34:23 GMT from Denmark)
I'll use whatever gui (often don't have the patience for command line) is available on the machine - unless it's Balena Etcher. My daily driver is MX, it comes with one of the better tools.
Number of Comments: 55
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