DistroWatch Weekly |
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1056, 5 February 2024 |
Welcome to this year's 6th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Software development isn't always about adding new features and capabilities. Software developers can strive to all sorts of other goals, including efficiency, stability, security, and minimal resource consumption. This week we focus primarily on these other, perhaps less glamorous, areas of focus. We begin with an overview of wattOS, a small, Debian-based distribution which aims to be energy efficient and extend battery life. How well does wattOS perform? Jesse Smith runs wattOS on his laptop and reports on his findings in our Feature Story. In our News section we discuss Mint's developers working to iron out the stability issues with Wayland. Meanwhile HardenedBSD helps administrators lock down unknown USB devices, Gentoo unveils a new binary repository optimized for newer computers, and Linux distributions patch a serious security hole in the GNU C library. Plus we welcome back Damn Small Linux (DSL), a distribution which packs a lot of functionality into a small ISO. The DSL project has been dormant for over a decade, but is now testing a new, antiX-based platform. Are you a former DSL user? Let us know about your experiences with the mini distribution in our Opinion Poll. This week we also explore the speeds of various utilities for writing ISO files to a thumb drive and talk about why some tools can be faster than others. Plus we are pleased to share last week's releases with you 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: wattOS R13
- News: Linux Mint faces challenges with Wayland, HardenedBSD offers blocks against foreign USB devices, Damn Small Linux returns, Gentoo publishes x86-64-v3 repository, Linux distributions patch glibc security flaw
- Questions and answers: Differences in performance between ISO writing tools
- Released last week: OPNsense 24.1, UBports 20.04 OTA-4, KaOS 2024.01, EasyOS 5.7
- Torrent corner: KDE neon, Tails
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 13.3-BETA2
- Opinion poll: What do you think of Damn Small Linux?
- New distributions: SnowflakeOS, Arkane Linux, HeliumOS
- Reader comments
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Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
wattOS R13
wattOS is a fast and lightweight desktop Linux distribution based on Debian. The distribution strives to be as efficient as possible so that it can be used on low-specification and recycled computers as well as laptops.
The current version of wattOS is available in a single edition for x86_64 computers and is based on Debian 12. Apart from the fact wattOS uses the Calamares system installer and runs on version 6.1 of the Linux kernel, the release announcement didn't offer a lot of details or mention many new features. The Gdebi utility is included to make it easier to install third-party Deb packages with a click, but otherwise it seems the latest version of wattOS is staying mostly the same as previous versions, just with an updated Debian base. I downloaded the project's ISO file which is 1.4GB in size.
Booting from the wattOS media brings up the LXDE interface. Icons on the desktop launch the PCManFM file manager and the distribution's system installer. A panel is placed across the bottom of the desktop. This thick panel holds the application menu, quick-launch buttons, virtual desktop switcher, task switcher, and system tray.
wattOS R13 -- Browsing the application menu
(full image size: 1.3MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The live environment offers no welcome window and no notifications. I found the classic desktop layout to be familiar and easy to navigate. LXDE is set up with a dark theme by default, though we can make adjustments to the desktop's look by using the settings modules presented in the Preferences section of the application menu.
Installing
As mentioned earlier, wattOS uses the Calamares graphical system installer. The installer begins by asking us to select our preferred language from a list. This first screen also displays buttons which offer to show us the distribution's release notes, support options, and known issues. Clicking these buttons accomplishes nothing - nothing happens, with no error or information shown. The following screens of the installer assist us in picking our time zone and keyboard layout.
When it comes to disk partitioning we are given a guided option which will set up an ext4 root filesystem and a large swap partition. The swap partition seems to be set to twice the amount of RAM on the system, which is an archaic approach and overkill on modern systems. The manual partitioning approach offers a friendly, point-and-click partition manager which supports GPT and MBR disk layouts. The final screen asks us to create a username and password combination for ourselves.
Calamares copies its files to our hard drive and then offers to restart the computer. When the distribution is powering down it shows us the wattOS logo and then appears to freeze. Though nothing is printed on the screen, I discovered the system was waiting for me to press Enter before it would complete the shutdown process.
Early impressions
My brand new copy of wattOS booted almost instantly to a graphical login screen. From there I could sign into the LXDE desktop. As with the live media, LXDE offers us no customization screen, no welcome window, and no first-run wizard. We are provided with a clean, minimal environment with a dark theme and left to explore as we wish. The desktop is unusually fast to respond (the term "snappy" comes to mind) and it is pleasantly empty of distractions.
One aspect of LXDE I wasn't thrilled with was the application menu didn't have a search feature. The menu isn't particularly full by default, but we may need to browse for a while to find specific items.
wattOS R13 -- Exploring the file system with PCManFM
(full image size: 654kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Hardware
I started exploring wattOS in a VirtualBox environment. The distribution ran quickly in the virtual machine, booting almost instantly and offering a highly responsive desktop. LXDE would not automatically resize to match VirtualBox's window dimensions, but there is a settings module included I could use to resize the desktop.
When I experimented with wattOS on my laptop the distribution properly detected and used all of my hardware. Wireless networking, media keys, and audio all worked out of the box. I was pleased to find wattOS could boot in UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes.
The distribution is medium-weight in memory, requiring about 570MB of RAM. This struck me as being unusually heavy for a system running LXDE (Lubuntu's last release featuring LXDE consumed about 200MB of RAM). The distribution took up about 4.6GB of disk space, not including the swap partition.
Applications
wattOS ships with a small collection of desktop software. We're treated to the Firefox web browser and Transmission bittorrent client. We're also given a PDF document viewer, the gThumb image viewer, and the PCManFM file manager. A graphical task manager and the Htop command line process monitor are included too. There are two text editors and a file archive manager. We're also given several Openbox/LXDE configuration tools which make adjusting the look and behaviour of the desktop fairly straight forward.
wattOS R13 -- Running the Firefox browser
(full image size: 833kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Exploring further we can find GNU command line utilities installed for us along with manual pages. The GNU Compiler Collection is installed and the distribution uses systemd. In the background wattOS uses version 6.1 of the Linux kernel.
Software management
The distribution ships with the Synaptic package manager (which can be found under the Preferences section of the application menu rather than the more commonly used System category). Synaptic is a classic, low-level package manager which can manage repositories, find packages, install, remove, and upgrade software. Synaptic isn't pretty, but it works and works quickly.
wattOS R13 -- Installing software with Synaptic
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
For people who prefer to use the command line we can also use the APT command line utilities to manage software. All packages appear to come from Debian's repositories. We can adjust which specific repositories we are accessing through Synaptic or using the Software and Updates utility - which is also in the Preferences section of the application menu.
wattOS does not enable Flatpak or Snap support by default, though these can be installed from Debian's repositories.
Power levels
Up to this point wattOS seemed like a pretty typical, lightweight, Debian-based distribution. The distribution had a few very minor issues early on (which I mentioned above), but nothing serious. On the other hand, wattOS also didn't offer me many features to draw me in. Up to this point it had felt like Debian with a faster system installer.
My main interest in trying wattOS was to see if the distribution really would offer better performance and power efficiency than most other distributions. In terms of offering a fast boot process and unusually snappy desktop, wattOS delivered very well. Starting up and shutting down happened almost instantly and the desktop worked unusually quickly.
In terms of power consumption I was also pleasantly surprised. I typically use MX Linux with most services and Conky disabled on my laptop when I'm not testing other distributions. Like wattOS R13, MX Linux is based on Debian 12, uses a dark theme, and doesn't run many services in the background. Apart from the fact MX uses the Xfce mid-weight desktop while wattOS uses the slightly lighter LXDE interface, the two projects are very closely related.
Despite being very siblings in the Debian family, both running light-ish desktops with dark themes, and few services and no widgets, the power consumption difference was immediately evident. MX Linux provides me with about 3.7 hours of battery power for writing and light web browsing. During my week with wattOS the same tasks could be performed for 7.5 hours, on average, before the battery ran out. In other words, wattOS consumed about half the power of a very closely related distribution running mostly the same software on the same hardware. I was pleasantly surprised by this extra power savings as it meant I could just about run the laptop all day off battery with wattOS if I wished.
Conclusions
wattOS isn't flashy, it isn't doing anything eye-catching, or innovative. It is, at it's core, a pleasantly boring distribution based on Debian Stable with an unusually small and conservative collection of applications. The distribution is minimal and provides just a handful of desktop programs to get us started. At first glance, it may not seem like there is much to draw in new users. However, I think that is the point of wattOS.
The distribution doesn't do much out of the box because it's trying not to strain the low-specification computer it is meant to power. It doesn't enable many services, visual effects, or features because it is striving to extend battery life. It's essentially what happens if someone installed Debian, plopped a minimal desktop environment on the system, and tried to squeeze as much energy efficiency out of the distribution as possible.
In short, wattOS succeeds, in my opinion, in its quest to extend battery life and provide a minimal distribution for older computers. It's not pretty, it's not flashy, it's not rich in features, but it is super fast, fairly light, and doubled my battery life.
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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
wattOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.9/10 from 19 review(s).
Have you used wattOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Linux Mint faces challenges with Wayland, HardenedBSD offers blocks against foreign USB devices, Damn Small Linux returns, Gentoo publishes x86-64-v3 repository, Linux distributions patch glibc security flaw
The Linux Mint team have published their monthly newsletter for January. The team talks about some bugs which have been fixed in the past month, along with changes to the project's Edge edition. The newsletter also talks about an issue some users have had when switching between the Cinnamon X11 and Wayland sessions: "It came to our attention that Wayland sessions in Linux Mint 21.3 could potentially affect X.Org sessions and triggered specific issues. Until these issues are fixed, we'd like to raise awareness on this and remind you that Wayland support in 21.3 is experimental. Although it is possible to switch from Wayland to X.Org with a simple logout, we recommend a reboot."
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The HardenedBSD project has published its monthly newsletter for January and highlighted some key changes. One of the new features discussed is the ability to lock down new USB devices attached to a computer while it is running: "A new sysctl node is introduced that disables new USB device connections: hardening.pax.prohibit_new_usb. Possible values to set it to: 0 - disabled; 1 - enabled; 2 - enabled without possibility to disable without incurring a reboot. It would be cool to see a new option: 3 - enforce a USB device allow list. I would like to delegate that to anyone who wants to volunteer to do that work."
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The Damn Small Linux project was considered a lightweight during its time. The project strove to provide a complete desktop environment while maintaining an ISO file of 50MB in size. After 2012 the project went dormant for over a decade, but Damn Small Linux (DSL) has returned and its developer is working on creating a distribution which fits on a single CD. "The New DSL 2024 has been reborn as a compact Linux distribution tailored for low-spec x86 computers. It packs a lot of applications into a small package. All the applications are chosen for their functionality, small size, and low dependencies. DSL 2024 also has many text-based applications that make it handy to use in a term window or TTY. DSL 2024 currently only ships with two window managers: Fluxbox and JWM. Both are lightweight, fairly intuitive, and easy to use." The resurrected DSL project is based on antiX and is still in its early (alpha) stages of development.
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Back in December we reported on the Gentoo project, famous for its source-based approach to software management, was providing full binary package repositories. The project has expanding on its offering, now publishing binary packages for more optimized architectures: "End of December 2023 we already made our official announcement of binary Gentoo package hosting. The initial package set for amd64 was and is base-line x86-64, i.e., it should work on any 64bit Intel or AMD machine. Now, we are happy to announce that there is also a separate package set using the extended x86-64-v3 ISA (i.e., microarchitecture level) available for the same software. If your hardware supports it, use it and enjoy the speed-up!" Gentoo's announcement includes a guide for checking to see if a computer supports x86-64-v3 and how to enable the new repository.
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A significant security flaw was found in the GNU C library (glibc) which is used by most Linux distributions. This issue can allow local users to elevate their access to gain root capabilities, giving the user (or application) administrative access. "A high severity vulnerability has been uncovered in the GNU C Library (glibc) that could allow local attackers to gain full root privileges on multiple Linux distributions. Disclosed as CVE-2023-6246, the issue is a heap-based buffer overflow in glibc's __vsyslog_internal() function, called by the commonly used syslog() and vsyslog() functions for logging messages. The flaw was introduced accidentally in glibc version 2.37 released in August 2022 and later backported to version 2.36.
According to researchers at Qualys who discovered the bug, it poses a major threat as it can enable unprivileged users to escalate privileges to root through crafted inputs to applications using the affected logging functions. While specific conditions are needed to exploit it, the impact is magnified due to glibc's widespread use." Mainstream Linux distributions have already published fixes and security announcements. The Debian Security mailing list provides additional details.
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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) |
Differences in performance between ISO writing tools
Feel-the-need-for-speed asks: Can you explain what is going on here? When I write an ISO to my thumb drive the dd command, which most tutorials recommend, it takes ten times longer to complete than using UNetbootin. I tried other command line tools like you suggested and they all are painfully slow next to UNetbootin. Why is the GUI tool so much faster than all the command line tools?
DistroWatch answers: When copying a file, or a group of files, from one location on a filesystem to another location on the same filesystem there are all sorts of reasons why one copy utility might perform better than another. The type of filesystem, the underlying type of disk(s), the method the copy utility uses, the availability of copy-on-write shortcuts, whether the utility uses parallel or serial copying, and the amount of memory free for caching files all play significant roles.
When copying a file, such as an ISO, from your hard drive to a thumb drive, there are a whole new set of variables. Different thumb drives have different write speeds, as do USB ports (USB 2 vs USB 3 can make a big difference). Whether the utility performs a write sync and waits for data to finish writing or simply dumps its data into a buffer and leaves synchronizing up to the operating system is also a factor. Whether the source file is cached in memory or being read from a spinning disk might play a factor, especially if the operating system is already performing other disk-related tasks.
In short, there are easily a dozen variables which can either change the speed of a file being written to a thumb drive or (the case of buffered data) change the appearance of how quickly a file is written to an external drive.
While I was typing this reply, I decided to run a series of demonstrations. The following commands were all timed. They all ran on the same distribution on the same computer writing the same file to the same USB thumb drive plugged into the same port. This is as similar and boring as it gets when testing the process of writing an ISO file to an external drive. Yet, note how much of a difference using different commands (or the same command with different parameters) makes:
# time dd if=mytest.iso of=/dev/sdb status=progress
real 0m50.868s
# time dd if=mytest.iso of=dev/sdb bs=1000000
real 0m20.608s
# time cat mytest.iso > /dev/sdb
real 0m24.116s
# time cp mytest.iso /dev/sdb
real 0m17.465s
In the above test runs we see the time it takes to write the same file to an external drive, with the duration of each test measured in seconds. The dd command, with progress information printed to the screen and a default block size, takes almost exactly three times longer than the cp command and almost exactly twice as long as the cat command. Running dd without progress information and increasing the block size of transfers from 512 bytes to 1,000,000 bytes cuts the transfer time by more than half. But even with those improvements, it's still slower than the plain cp command without optimizations, and barely faster than doing a plain file dump with cat.
Anyway, the point of this little experiment is: even with virtually every variable controlled (hardware, ports, distribution, source file size, caching, and destination device) there can still be a huge difference in write speeds to a thumb drive when either using different tools or different parameters passed to the same tool.
In short, the UNetbootin graphical utility is probably writing data to your thumb drive in a similar manner as cp, possibly by reading the entire source file into memory at once, dumping it out to the thumb drive in one big write push, and maybe not forcing a data sync on the write buffers before reporting it is finished. (I'm taking a wild guess, I haven't looked at the source code of UNetbootin.) Meanwhile, your dd command is reading, transferring, and writing 512 bytes at a time which involves many more steps.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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Released Last Week |
OPNsense 24.1
OPNsense is a FreeBSD-based specialist operating system designed for firewalls and routers. The project's latest release, OPNsense 24.1 "Savvy Shark" includes a number of upgrades and fiewall improvements, along with the OpenSSL 3. "For more than 9 years now, OPNsense is driving innovation through modularising and hardening the open-source firewall, with simple and reliable firmware upgrades, multi-language support, fast adoption of upstream software updates as well as clear and stable 2-Clause BSD licensing. 24.1, nicknamed 'Savvy Shark', features ports-based OpenSSL 3, Suricata 7, several MVC/API conversions, a new neighbor configuration feature for ARP/NDP, core inclusion of the os-firewall and os-wireguard plugins, CARP VHID tracking for OpenVPN and WireGuard, functional Kea DHCPv4 server with HA support plus much more. Here are the full patch notes against 23.7.12: system - prevent activating shell for non-admins; add OCSP trust extensions and improved authorities implementation; migrate single gateway configuration to MVC/API; use new backend streaming functionality in the log viewer; limit file system /conf/config.xml and backups access to administrators...." A change log and additional details can be found in the release announcement.
OPNsense 24.1 -- Control interface and mascot
(full image size: 904kB, resolution: 1200x682 pixels)
UBports 20.04 OTA-4
The UBports team have announced a new update to the project's 20.04 series for mobile devices. The new update, 20.04 OTA-4 adjusts notification behaviour, makes it possible to assign each contact their own ringtone, and makes it easier to switch themes: "We have always had a system-wide dark mode in the system. However, in the past, you had to use a third-party app to access the necessary switch. In this OTA, we've added a new toggle switch in the System Settings to allow you to change it without the need of an additional app. To access it, go to System Settings > Background & Appearance. For now, it will affect applications only, and not the other system components (such as notifications). Also, you'll have to restart the applications for the change to take effect. In the future, we plan to extend this system to also affect system components, and to have the change applied immediately too." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
SysLinuxOS 12.3
Franco Conidi has announced the release of SysLinuxOS 12.3, an updated version of the project's Debian-based distribution designed primarily for system integrators and administrators. This version is based on Debian 12 and comes with a long-term supported 6.5 version of the Linux kernel. "SysLinuxOS is updated to version 12.3. In this version, numerous bugs have been fixed and it also brings with it several improvements to make it much more intuitive and easy to use. Many changes are under the hood, while others are purely aesthetic, and they improve the menu and icons in both GNOME and MATE desktop environments. SysLinuxOS is a distribution for system integrators and network administrators, it must be chameleonic and therefore have tools that help to interface in a mixed Windows/Linux environment. In this update, I have excluded two or three programs in favor of others that I believe are more useful for greater interoperability. I have therefore added WoeUSB, Teams for Linux, Webex, Github Desktop, Wiregui, Timeshift. As you can easily imagine, there is a lot of work behind this, so I apologize in advance if you encounter any small problems." See the release announcement, the release notes and the changelog for more details.
KaOS 2024.01
Version 2024.01 of KaOS, an independently-developed Linux distribution focused on Qt/KDE toolkit and desktop, has been released. This is the project's first stable release that incorporates KDE's upcoming Plasma 6 release, currently in the release candidate 2 stage. "It is a great pleasure to present to you the January release of a new stable ISO image. This release marks the end of Plasma 5 as the default Desktop Environment for KaOS. Almost fifteen months ago work started to fully migrate to a Frameworks 6, Plasma 6-based distribution, and with the release of Plasma 6 release candidate 2, this migration is now deemed ready to bring a better user experience than Plasma 5. From the onset of this migration, there was never a plan to mix the two environments. What you will see on this ISO is a pure Plasma 6-based environment. KaOS though has been shipping all ported applications from their Frameworks 6 branch in the many snapshot ISOs it has released to get ready for this migration. Just about all applications that users have become used to seeing in a Frameworks 5 / Plasma 5 version are available as a Frameworks 6 / Plasma 6 port." Read the complete release announcement for further information and screenshots.
KaOS 2024.01 -- Running the KDE Plasma 6 desktop
(full image size: 477kB, resolution: 1900x1068 pixels)
EasyOS 5.7
EasyOS is an experimental Linux distribution which uses many of the technologies and package formats pioneered by Puppy Linux. The distribution features custom container technology called Easy Containers which can run applications or the entire desktop environment in a container. The project's latest release, EasyOS 5.7, introduces new virtual machine technologies, replaced sudo with sudo-sh, and added the ability to install packages from Void's repositories. The release announcement and release notes list the new changes: "New applications KeePassXC, Symphytum, Flowblade, p7zip. More translations, in particular Turkish and Russian. Improved support for VMs, with AQEMU and QtEmu. Sudo replaced with sudo-sh. Login and Security Manager overhauled. Change folder hierachy to usr-merge, including /usr/sbin. PKGget support to install Void .xbps packages. Many system-level fixes, including network and Samba. Many app versions bumped, including Chromium, Htop, Limine, Global-IP-TV-Panel. NVIDIA driver SFSs. Install latest Chrome, Vivaldi and Firefox in menu. Kernel now 5.15.148. Sync'ed with OpenEmbedded/Yocto release 4.0.14."
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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: 2,956
- Total data uploaded: 44.0TB
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Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
What do you think of Damn Small Linux?
This week we shared the news that Damn Small Linux (also known as DSL) has returned from a long hibernation. The project was once well known for providing sub-50MB live media and packing a lot of functionality into a small download. Have you used DSL in the past? Let us know what you think about the mini distro.
You can see the results of our previous poll on distributions with support schedules in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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What do you think of DSL?
I have used it before and liked it: | 541 (39%) |
I have used it before and did not like it: | 96 (7%) |
I have not used it before but plan to try the new version: | 208 (15%) |
I have not used it before and do not plan to try the new version: | 556 (40%) |
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Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- SnowflakeOS. SnowflakeOS is a NixOS-based Linux distribution focused on beginner friendliness and ease of use.
- Arkane Linux. Arkane Linux is an opinionated, immutable, atomic, multi-root Arch-based distribution which aims to provide a GNOME-centered experienced with minimal yet full featured and sensible non-intrusive defaults.
- HeliumOS. The goal of HeliumOS is to provide a reliable and user-friendly system using Btrfs snapshots, a stable Debian base, and a small selection of useful applications. Flatpak support is enabled out of the box.
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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, 12 February 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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Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
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Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • dsl (by jcoeli on 2024-02-05 01:53:12 GMT from United States)
remembering fondly that "business card" for sale dsl am always in favour of small scale distros & absotively posulutely love dsl! -jc
2 • wattOS energy usage (by Moat on 2024-02-05 05:55:40 GMT from United States)
Very interesting that wattOS appears to consume roughly half of the energy of even the already quite light/efficient MX Linux. I can understand (idle) efficiency improvements resulting from fewer running background processes, but if the computer is "on" it seems likely to also be running users' graphical applications, of which could easily be consuming more power/resources than the background services/processes, alone. Point being; there appears to be some specific power/efficiency "enhancements" being implemented in wattOS, and I'm quite curious as to what they may be. A 50% efficiency improvement is pretty stellar (!?!) and it would be nice to possibly utilize some of those apparent "tricks" on other distributions...
3 • DSL and copying ISO files (by Any on 2024-02-05 06:35:29 GMT from Spain)
I used DSL back in 2004 and 2005 on an old 1996 Toshiba laptop. It was very handy and cool. Once I've found an example for writing iso files with pv. I used pv for cloning a SSD drive to another and it was much more faster because as they said pv negotiates the best speed for the disks. Also pv has a progress indicator
4 • DSL (by Pythagoras on 2024-02-05 07:27:12 GMT from Spain)
The 700 MB DSL 'limit' is nonsense nowadays.
5 • Damn Old Linux (by Vamos los pibes on 2024-02-05 08:46:31 GMT from Argentina)
14 years without upgrading? Based in AntiX? Nothing will use the Damn Old Linux!!! The real small and lightweight Linux is LocOS. The real uruguayan-brasilian distro!!!
6 • Strange repetitive description (by Evgeny on 2024-02-05 09:56:01 GMT from Switzerland)
It is quite strange to see phrases like "LXDE would not automatically resize to match VirtualBox's window dimensions" repeated for years.
Resizing to the size of the window of the virtual environment is is NOT the function of the Desktop Environment.
Desktop Environment uses the resolution and the size of the (virtual) screen detected by the kernel, modules and drivers. To inform the guest OS about resizing of the host virtual machine window, the special integration is required: it is VirtualBox Guest Additions for VirtualBox virtualisation or VMware Tools for VMware.
Such additions/tools can get messages from virtualisation interface about external windows resizing and can trigger changing of the resolution of the guest OS.
Some distributions detect virtual environments during the installation and install integration packages automatically. Others leave it up to the user. If integration package was not installed automatically, it can be easily added by `sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-x11` (or similar command) or by installing them from VirtualBox Guest Additions ISO. See https://wiki.debian.org/VirtualBox#Installing_the_Guest_Additions_on_a_Debian_VM
Note: Debian does not maintain the package for Virtual Box for the old releases, that's why it is typically not installed on Debian-based distros.
Fedora has that package, it can be installed by `dnf install virtualbox-guest-additions`.
Unlike VirtualBox, VMware tools typically maintained well in the major distributions repos. If not installed automatically, VMware tools can be installed by `sudo apt install open-vm-tools-desktop', `dnf install open-vm-tools-desktop`.
7 • DSL (by James on 2024-02-05 11:49:00 GMT from United States)
No need of DSL, I recycled my Win 3.2 computer ( released on November 22, 1993) years ago.
8 • 'dd' taking a long time to complete (by luvr on 2024-02-05 12:58:19 GMT from Belgium)
If you run 'dd' with the "status=progress" parameter, then you will notice that after the copy operation completes (no more progress updates are being done), the command just hangs there, apparently doing nothing. If, at that time, you run 'sync' (to dump pending buffers to disk), it too will hang for a while, until both 'dd' and 'sync' terminate. This behaviour demonstrates that 'dd' will keep waiting and won't terminate until all of its output buffers are actually dumped to disk.
9 • Battery Life (by George on 2024-02-05 13:03:07 GMT from Canada)
Thank you for your review of WattOS. I was curious if you know the battery life of the test laptop under any version of Windows. Thanks.
10 • DSL (by PatH on 2024-02-05 14:14:01 GMT from United States)
I just downloaded DSL24 to try on my 2 dozen old laptops from the 90s. Lots of fun. Thank you.
11 • wattOS R13 (by Geo. on 2024-02-05 14:17:19 GMT from Canada)
Great review Jesse. Wow, that's great battery life. I'll have to go back to your BunsenLabs and Bohdi reviews and see how those did by comparison.
12 • wattOS review (by Kazlu on 2024-02-05 14:39:27 GMT from France)
Extremely interesting take on the wattOS review to measure battery life versus a more "standard" distro (I know, this definition is subjectifs, let's say MX is an ok candida
13 • DSL34 (by Fat32 on 2024-02-05 14:44:39 GMT from Argentina)
In ten years will come DSL34 based in Ubuntu 22.04. Commercial version will come with Windows 10.
14 • wattOS review, part 2 (by Kazlu on 2024-02-05 14:46:04 GMT from France)
I would be very interested to see the same test done on other reviews in the future, to have a broader sample.
I am surprised by the amount of RAM used. I ran the same test myself a few weeks ago and idle wattOS was using 290Mo of RAM in Virtualbox, about half what Xfce Debian based distributions used in the same conditions.
I was looking for a snappy, minimalist distro to set up in virtual machines used to isolate some activities. Minimalist but yet complete enough OS so that I would not have to build half the system after installation. wattOS came out on top of my list. Honorable mentions would include Q4OS, Spiral Linux, Salix.
(sorry for the split comment)
15 • WattOS energy use (by MikeOh Shark on 2024-02-05 15:35:09 GMT from United States)
I tried WattOS quite awhile ago and it wasn't much better than other regular distros. I use MX Linux now and with tlp bat && powertop --auto-tune it only uses 5-9 watts with web surfing via wireless and the keyboard backlight on. I also use zram but don't know how it affected energy use, if at all.
16 • DSL (by zetamacs on 2024-02-05 16:26:24 GMT from United States)
Oh hey, DSL. It's sure been a long time.
Honestly, I'd be open to giving it a whirl just to see what's become of it, but when I want minimalism, it's not what I reach for anymore.
OpenBSD and 9front both continue to work on rather old hardware and maintain a small footprint despite the amount they provide. The former has things like spreadsheets and modern web browsers, if I *really* need either. The latter covers most bases, even games and emulation if desired.
But, if you like more than either provides, I'm not shamin' ya.
17 • DSL, WattOS (by Lord Percy Percy on 2024-02-05 17:33:54 GMT from Denmark)
DSL coming back to life is wonderful news. I loved that little thing, small, fast, lean - there's beauty in that. Antix is already pretty lean for a Debian-based distro, it'll be fun to see if DSL can slim it down even further.
Talking about efficiency, the low power consumption of WattOS is very impressive, surely it's caused by more than just a leaner DE? Next-level kernel-fu or something?
18 • DSL (by Sohl on 2024-02-05 18:53:45 GMT from United States)
One of the main people of the earlier DSL split off and founded TinyCore Linux, which has maintained continuous development and updates. TinyCore's standard release is still smaller than the old DSL and is easily extended as the user wants. The new DSL sounds like it will be something like 20x the size of TC, or more! Will want to take a look at it when it's released, however.
19 • Wattos and gpg signatures (by hotdiggettydog on 2024-02-05 21:54:28 GMT from Kazakhstan)
Tried WattOS and found it a sweet little OS to play with.
No gpg signatures for iso images or sha256sums is discouraging. Wattos is not the only one. Many developers are too lazy, uninformed, or lacking the know-how. I would never use these for banking or even checking my email.
20 • @19 wattOS sha256SUM (by Mr. Moto on 2024-02-06 02:31:39 GMT from Philippines)
@19. I know. Hard to find.:-)
https://www.planetwatt.com/R13-downloads/
21 • sha256sums vs md5sum (by John on 2024-02-06 04:51:21 GMT from United States)
What makes sha256sums better?
22 • WattOS (by half_blind on 2024-02-06 12:40:10 GMT from United States)
Just wrote WattOS to usb-drive, plugged it into a dell laptopm got the initial screen with menu, but from there no option works, pity: I will try on main desktop.
23 • WattOS (by half_blind on 2024-02-06 12:43:07 GMT from Luxembourg)
@19 - intersting point about banking with distro with no sig - nice.
24 • @18, DSL vs TinyCore (by Lord Percy Percy on 2024-02-06 16:08:16 GMT from Denmark)
You're right, the new DSL sounds more like a slimmed-down Antix, but still an OS that can be used right away without having to fiddle with too many things. TinyCore needs more tinkering by the user before being a useful OS - at least it did the last time I tried it.
Having said that, TinyCore is brilliant and I've always wondered why we don't see more people publish their own OSs built on it. That would be a lot more creative than just changing the desktop background of Debian/Ubuntu and calling it a separate OS.
Nanolinux was built on TinyCore: https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=nanolinux
While it was more of a test-OS, it was very impressive.
25 • WattOS bootup (by half_blind on 2024-02-06 16:19:09 GMT from Luxembourg)
As indicated, tried to run WattOS on desktop, with exactly the same problem - cant get past initial screen - oh well!!
26 • DSL was cool but technical progress killed it. (by borea on 2024-02-06 16:45:04 GMT from Moldova)
DSL was very cool project in the era when thumb drives were smaller than a livecd. (128MB and brand new very expensive 256MB drives) I had a 128MB memory stick :) and dsl which booted from it anywhere, it was a magic wand distro. On the other hand i had a live CD with Ubuntu which I could use no more than few times, cause CDs deteriorate and then I threw it away.
Nowardays even everybody has at least 4GB memory sticks, which work just fine for ages. So DSL is a waste of time, for general population.
p.s: Don't undestand anymore why people insist of creating .iso files which fit on a CD, cds are obsolete. Nowardays distros should pack 3GB minimum of software (2GB for apps + 1GB for localization fonts for every language, language packs)
It is not funny anymore to see only english language support on the .iso. It is not excuse anymore
27 • Don't read INTO an article information that's not there. (by R. Cain on 2024-02-06 16:56:59 GMT from United States)
From the *"Feature Story (By Jesse Smith)*"--
“...The distribution strives to be as efficient as possible so that *it can be used on low-specification and recycled computers as well as laptops*...”
“...The distribution doesn't do much out of the box because it's trying not to strain *the low-specification computer it is meant to power*...”
“...In short, wattOS succeeds, in my opinion, in its quest to extend battery life and *provide a minimal distribution for older computers*...”
So what's the problem? The only problem is that the references to "low-specification" and "older" computers can, very legitimately, be assumed to be aimed at older 32-bit machines--which this distribution DOES NOT SUPPORT. From wattOS’s description, wattOS R13 (2023-12-30), only supports the x86_64 ‘Processor Architecture’. It stopped supporting the 32-bit architecture--i386--with rev 10 (R10) back in 2016 (2016-09-01).
This was, as usual, a very good, objective, and thorough review by Mr. Smith, but remember: reviewers can't tell you every last detail; the ultimate responsibility for your decision rests with you. Be very careful about *reading into anything* what you would LIKE IT TO SAY. --------------- A quick aside...
"...In short, wattOS succeeds, in my opinion, in its quest to extend battery life and provide a minimal distribution for older computers. It's not pretty, it's not flashy, it's not rich in features, but it is super fast, fairly light, and DOUBLED MY BATTERY LIFE."
That right there is fantastic information, and makes this distro deserving of a further look. ----------------------------------------------
28 • WattOS bootup (by Mr. Joost on 2024-02-06 20:04:29 GMT from The Netherlands)
@27
From wattOS’s description, wattOS R13 (2023-12-30), only supports the x86_64 ‘Processor Architecture’. It stopped supporting the 32-bit architecture--i386--with rev 10 (R10) back in 2016 (2016-09-01)
To be a little more precise:
The only complain I have is that installation fails on EFI32 hardware (yes, this PC has a 64bit 4-core processor but a 32bit EFI...) so you have to fix the bootloader yourself, which is not that much fun if you don't have experience.
29 • wattos - functions I didn't see (by Ted H in Minnesota on 2024-02-07 00:18:42 GMT from United States)
I just tried out the current wattos, and there were two things I didn't see: A Search function for files, and no Battery indicator was evident or findable to install!
Ted H in Minnesota
30 • @29, search and battery (by Mr. Moto on 2024-02-07 05:34:14 GMT from Philippines)
Battery and resource monitors can be added on panel settings. File search is under "Tools" in file manager.
31 • DSL (by Kazlu on 2024-02-07 11:13:04 GMT from France)
I tried DSL 12 years ago but it was lacking too many features for my use. A new DSL, based on antiX with the goal of being usable by the average user is interesting though. I still maintain a very old computer (Pentium III) for the only purpose of seeing for how long I can still use it. It fits precisely in the niche DSL targets: cannot boot from USB. I remember having problems booting from DVDs I did not have with CDs (don't ask which, I forgot). So having a CD sized ISO is interesting.
One deal breaking caveat though: the computers DSL would target (cannot boot from USB or even DVD) are too old to run a modern web browser and actually browse the web. You have to make do with light browsers lacking features and ignored by webmasters. I would not do anything that involves logging in with a password on such browsers. However, using this machine only for small office documents, as a music player or a server, yes, by all means.
32 • @30 Mr. Moto answer to my comment on wattos (by Ted H in Minnesota on 2024-02-07 12:01:27 GMT from United States)
Thank you Mr. Moto for your helpful answer to my comment on wattos. I did look at the time under Panel settings and did not find a battery app there. I don't recall if there was a Refresh to add more panel apps to it, which once added more panel apps to another linux OS I have used.
Ted H in Minnesota
33 • low resource computing (by Jerry on 2024-02-07 13:05:40 GMT from United States)
I find this conversation about (mostly) WattOS and Damn Small Linux very interesting in that those distros are generally aimed at older or low resource machines. The interest in that whole thing comes at a little bit of a surprise in this day and age of more and more powerful laptops and PCs.
I'm wondering about the computer demographics of the world, now, especially Linux users. I guess I've been naively thinking that most users are gradually moving with the tech advances and recycling their older models for newer ones. Some, of course, have both or a range of computers of different types with varying power, cpu, etc. But can we assume that a majority of Linux users are happily deploying low resource hog distros? As I recall that was one of the major issues with those of us moving from Windows decades ago.
34 • wrong assumtions again ... (by toomanybits on 2024-02-07 13:20:12 GMT from Germany)
"But can we assume that a majority of Linux users are happily deploying low resource hog distros?"
Not likely. The majority of Linux users probably runs ubuntu or a derivative. Those systems tend to feel "heavy".
And the majority of the distros "aimed at older or low resource machines" (wattOS being a typical example) only support 64bit x86 - probably because of the effort of additionally maintaining a 32bit build.
Therefore, the are NOT really aimed at older or low resource machines, as almost all 64bit machines are powerful enough to run a "normal" Linux distro.
35 • WattOS Time compare (by Nathan on 2024-02-07 13:21:12 GMT from United States)
Yes, WattOS is faster then some others. Peppermint is slightly faster to boot and shutdown then MX Linux. WattOS is faster on both items then Peppermint. WattOS shutdown is 2 second on an older 2010 Lenovo (non iCore) laptop. I loaded Focus Writer on the Lenovo WattOS machine and use it for journaling. Peppermint and WattOS are two that I load onto laptops which will be donated to students or Seniors. Plus adding Chromium onto the machines effectively serves as almost Chromebooks.
36 • @32, battery monitor wattOS (by Mr. Moto on 2024-02-07 13:21:59 GMT from Philippines)
Thank you Mr. Moto for your helpful answer to my comment on wattos. I assure you, the battery monitor is there:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/164785504@N08
37 • Security with distro's for old processors (by Jan on 2024-02-07 22:07:37 GMT from The Netherlands)
Recently I tried ClearOS in live mode on an oldish computer/processor. It stopped loading because a processor-security feature was missing. So old processors seem nowadays to be a security risk, also for Linux.
With the above discussion on old computers and disto's for them, I wonder if there is really a security risk. So can you do financial and administration jobs with it ?
38 • The old and the new. (by Friar Tux on 2024-02-08 00:29:36 GMT from Canada)
This week's comments have me quite interested. While I'm sure there are folks who still count disc space like calories (all power to them), I find I have no desire for itty-bitty distros. Give me a distro that has everything preinstalled and working. I even don't care if it has the dreaded SystemD, so long as it works. Once installed, I want to go right to work - no post install messing about with configurations and/or finding and installing each app/program I need. For this past Christmas, I thought I’d splurge a bit and treat myself to the latest of the latest laptop. Linux Mint/Cinnamon has been my go to for the past 10 years. It has never so much as hiccupped. However, it failed to find, or connect to, the wifi. No matter what I did – including trying to use other distros, nothing worked. (PCLinuxOS was kind enough to actually tell me that the wifi cannot be found.) By this point, I began to realise that it may be the wifi driver – too new for most of the Linux distros. Also, at this point, I came across an article explaining what Linux Mint Edge was (that it had the lastest of the latest drivers). I installed it and Presto! Everything was back to normal. There IS one small interesting glitch in Mint Edge - nothing annoying, just interesting. In Facebook, and Facebook only, Cinnamon (ver 6) will occasionally freeze, shut down and restart. Weird. (I use Facebook to communicated with far off family as we are all on it.)
39 • #38 , Friar Tux -Facebook Problem (by Dottore on 2024-02-08 01:03:23 GMT from Germany)
You should install "Ublock Origin" and the "Tracking & Ad Removal on Facebook" addon for your Firefox !
40 • @38, The old and the new(er) (by Wally on 2024-02-08 09:55:11 GMT from Australia)
"Cinnamon (ver 6) will occasionally freeze, shut down and restart." Could be graphics. Mint Edge uses kernel 6.5. Latest is 6.7.3. You might try installing the latest to see. The mainline app from the PPA makes it very simple, and you can always go back
41 • @39 - Facebook (by Uncle Slacky on 2024-02-08 12:02:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
Better yet, install the FB Purity extension: https://www.fbpurity.com/
42
• Security (by WhoKnows on 2024-02-08 11:45:08 GMT from The Netherlands)
@37 • Security with distro's for old processors (by Jan on 2024-02-07 from The Netherlands)
"With the above discussion on old computers and disto's for them, I wonder if there is really a security risk. So can you do financial and administration jobs with it?"
Vulnerabilities can be only local or remote, where you can be attacked without having a chance to protect yourself.
PC security consists of hardware (processor, coprocessor, memory), software ("fimware"; BIOS/UEFI, VPro, Pluto, etc.), software (operating system), and software (applications).
As a rule of thumb, anything older than 5 years should not be used productively, for security or other reasons.
From a security perspective, not many older machines get regular BIOS/UEFI updates, and there's nothing else that will help against Spectre, Meltdown, and the like.
Older hardware is automatically insecure by definition. How realistic such attacks are for us "nobodies" is another question entirely, as such attacks are not trivial to execute, and there are easier ways to get at your data than reading your RAM.
From the "all other reasons" aspect, the most notable is the support for audio and video codecs built into the graphics card. H264, H265, AV1, etc. are now encoded by the graphics card and perform much better than having the processor do the encoding. Shotcut without hardware decoding takes 30 minutes to resize and re-encode a 5 minute video that CapCut with the moderate graphics card can do in a few seconds.
The good news from a security standpoint related to "financial and administrative jobs" is that any good bank will cover the loss if you can prove that you were using the fully patched Windows 10, 11, or Fedora Workstation, with the latest available version of Chrome, and that you had the antivurus software active and fully updated.
Good luck in all other cases, as no one will bother to talk to you if you used some PPAs, AURs and WINEs on some no-name one-man distros.
43 • Perfect (by Friar Tux on 2024-02-08 17:03:11 GMT from Canada)
@41 (Uncle Slacky) Hey, thank you, it worked perfectly. First thing I did this morning was install FB Purity, and have been running Facebook for the past 4 hours with no issues at all. Usually it was a couple of glitches an hour. It also appears to clean up Facebook a bit - not as cluttered with "stuff".
44 • Big distros little distros (by Jerry on 2024-02-08 18:28:53 GMT from United States)
@34 was said, "Therefore, they are NOT really aimed at older or low resource machines, as almost all 64bit machines are powerful enough to run a "normal" Linux distro."
Well, yeah. But somehow I failed to communicate my focus, in my post @33. The energy that caused me to post that emanated from the subject of this week's distro review and how another low resource distro was mentioned: WattOS and Damn Small Linux. I was surprised to see so many posts just about those two distros, so I got to wondering why tiny distros are even wanted/needed in today's world of big capacity/speed machines.
I found myself heading down the path of "computer demographics," world wide. I envision a large population of users who HAVE TO HAVE low resource OSs because they have old computers, or cheap ones that have retro specs, so to speak.
The 32 bit 64 bit thing is brought out now, and is much appreciated as that tells me that it is now likely that those who were relying on 32 bit hardware now are largely forced to find newer stuff to do their computing on.
And the beat goes on.
45 • @27 (re "old" computers) (by Simon on 2024-02-09 03:54:25 GMT from New Zealand)
I guess... but really, now that people are basically giving away old 64-bit computers for free (or at least selling them for next to nothing), why would anyone still be using a 32-bit system? The 4GB maximum RAM is hilarious by today's standards: tech evolves so quickly that ten years is definitely "old", and most manufacturers have been producing 64-bit computers for about 20 years, so continued support for 32-bit systems is not as essential as it used to be, for distros describing themselves as targeting old computers.
I have a few very old systems, all 64-bit, all barely usable for anything beyond email, word processing and web browsing: if I still had any 32-bit systems around, I'd throw them out, as I'd rather harm the environment than harm a person by subjecting them to the agony of using a 32-bit computer in 2024. Of course it's different if you're doing it for a hobby or whatever (the "retro" thing)... I'd love a few 8-bit computers just for the nostalgia... but for daily use, given that 32-bit software runs perfectly on 64-bit hardware, I think 32-bit hardware can be allowed to rest in peace now.
46 • @45 (re "old" computers) (by pengxuin on 2024-02-09 08:32:35 GMT from New Zealand)
" as I'd rather harm the environment than harm a person by subjecting them to the agony of using a 32-bit computer in 2024. "
I guess that
$ time inxi -Fxxxz
returning a real time value of 0m18.222s qualifies as agony ( Athlon XP 2400+, 720MB ram, spinning rust HDD )
got to have time to smell the roses, ; )
I have managed to run some (25yo) commercial DOS programs in DOSbox on modern CPUs, but some functions are not available, probably due CPU, even tweaking DOSbox CPU parameters doesn't work, so the old h/w is still put to use.
47 • 'old' is how old? (by Dave Postles on 2024-02-09 10:38:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
How old is 'old'? BTW I prefer older laptops because I can open them up and add more RAM. In current kit that is often difficult and in many cases the RAM is soldered. I also like to have an integral DVD drive (I accept the brickbats). That's why I continue to use a 12-yr-old laptop in which I have upgraded the RAM to 16 Gb and it has an integral DVD drive. I sh confess that I do not buy really high-end stuff (I buy from PCSpecialist and Novatech not off the High Street).
48 • @42 hardware renewal (by Kazlu on 2024-02-09 15:29:50 GMT from France)
@42 "As a rule of thumb, anything older than 5 years should not be used productively, for security or other reasons. " This is a gross exageration.
"Older hardware is automatically insecure by definition." You are applying software security reasoning to hardware as if they were swappable. Again, this is a gross exageration. In software, vulnerabilities are found out in every OS every month, if not every day. For hardware, because of the nature of hardware VS software, the difficulty to find and exploit anything, vulnerabilities are way, way more rare and can sometimes be mitigated by software patches, removing the need for hardware renewal.
You are absolutely correct when you imply that BIOS/UEFI updates are the best method to protect against Spectre/Meltdown-like vulnerabilities. I would argue that there is a danger here because now vendors have an incentive to sell unfinished products and say "heh what the hell we'll finish it later and publish an update", as opposed to the case where you have to use better QA before release or the evil is done and you're toast. But still, your point holds. However, those are exceptions and happen very, very rarely. This can justify changing hardware (I am not qualified enough to assert software mitigations), but you don't get a reason to switch like this every 5 years.
Many IT qualified professionals use machines for way longer than 5 years. Otherwise there wouldn't be a business for OSes with 10 years of support. Except in very rare rule-breaking cases like Spectre/Meltdown, as long as you have an OS receiving updates, you're actually fine.
"From the "all other reasons" aspect, the most notable is the support for audio and video codecs built into the graphics card" You are right about encoding, but very, very few people actually do encoding. Decoding is an entirely different matter, it is way more common to be able to to it on not so new hardware even for recent standards. Simply because new video decoding algorithms are rarely architecturally different from the previous generation, so the hardware is still adapted and one driver update away from being able to handle it. It is different for encoding, I give you that. But if this a valid reason to have fresh hardware when you are a video producer, for every other person (that is A LOT), this is not a valid agrument to justify hardware replacement.
49 • Old is old... (by WhoKnows on 2024-02-09 15:57:43 GMT from The Netherlands)
@48 hardware renewal (by Kazlu on from France)
New laptops will be smaller and lighter thanks to no more unnecessary DVDs. A new laptop is one-third lighter and thinner and costs half as much. Screens got bigger and brighter, with better color and contrast, and despite that, they are cheaper. Only Dream Color Screen (HP) cost 12 years ago more than a very decent-quality complete laptop nowadays. OLED screens didn't even exist 12 years ago. The processor is four times quicker and uses less power, and it comes with all the encoders and decoders for multimedia that make it even quicker and less noisy. The maximum possible RAM is doubled at least, and the storage capacity is at least 4 times higher, plus it is 10 times quicker. 12 years ago, 500 MBps was a dream speed; now I have 6 GBps. My graphic card now has 12 GB of VRAM instead of 1 GB. Bluetooth 4.0 is now BT 6.0. WiFi speed was 150 Mbps 12 years ago; now I'm connected at 1500 Mbps. Little less than double of the maximum possible ethernet speed 12 years ago. And so on !
and on.
Try to compare one high-quality professional workstation of yore to one mid-class modern laptop for example, like HP EliteBook 8570w and Medion Erazer Major X10.
Ten years supported OS are usually server OS, and every good company is replacing HW after 3 to 5 years.
50 • WattOS (by dude on 2024-02-09 16:53:06 GMT from United States)
I really like the idea of WattOS. But sadly, I can't use it because it's incompatible with the Wifi adapter in my laptop.
51 • Are two Linux releases per year really necessary? (by R. Cain on 2024-02-09 17:13:34 GMT from United States)
“...let’s trying slowing down to one release a year. That gives everyone twice as much time to focus on fixing problems and creating beautiful, elegant distributions with the passion and love they have, and the passion and love and loyalty that their users deserve...”
“...The Year of Linux is the year that you look at your distribution, compare to the year before, and you have that sense of stability, the knowledge that no matter what you do, you can rely on your operating system. Which is definitely not the case today...
“...I find the lack of consistency to be the public enemy no. 1 in the open-source world. In the long run, it will be the one deciding factor that will determine the success of Linux. Sure, applications, but if the operating system is not transparent, people will not choose it. They will seek simpler, possibly less glamorous, but ultimately more stable solutions, because no one wants to install a patch and dread what will happen after a reboot...”
https://www.ocsmag.com/linux-2017-the-road-to-hell/
52 • Old/New CPU, security difference for Linux (by Jan on 2024-02-09 22:02:07 GMT from The Netherlands)
Based on the discussion of old hardware and Linux distro's for them, i looked further around.
And found that there are CPU-specs following: * x86-64-v2 * x86-64-v3 * x86-64-v4
I suppose that the higher versions have also new/better sucurity items.
I wonder what this means for Linux, and the desire to keep old hardware running (prevent it to go to the landfill). And are the Linux-kernel-developers doing something to translate new security-hardware to Linux for old hardware. The question is if it is desirable to keep old hardware live at unaware people, at the risk of security breaches.
Maybe a nice subject for a Distrowatch weeklt item?
53 • New CPUs (by Jesse on 2024-02-09 23:35:30 GMT from Canada)
@52: "I suppose that the higher versions have also new/better sucurity items."
This isn't the case. The updates to the x86_64 architecture offer performance optimizations, they are security updates.
> "And are the Linux-kernel-developers doing something to translate new security-hardware to Linux for old hardware."
This isn't a thing.
> "The question is if it is desirable to keep old hardware live at unaware people, at the risk of security breaches."
There isn't any extra risk of security breaches due to running older hardware, as long as the user has applied their kernel/firmware updates there is nothing to worry about.
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• Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
• Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
• Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
• Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
• Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
• Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
• Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
• Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
• Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
• Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
• Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
• Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
• Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
• Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
• Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
• Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
• Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
• Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
• Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
• Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
• Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
• Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
• Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
• Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
• Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
• Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
• Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
• Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
• Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
• Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
• Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
• Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
• Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
• Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
• Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
• Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
• Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
• Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
• Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
• Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
• Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
• Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
• Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
• Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
• Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
• Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
• Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
• Full list of all issues |
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Random Distribution |
Maryan Linux
Maryan Linux was a desktop oriented distribution featuring the lightweight and visually appealing Enlightenment 17 desktop environment. LXDE, Fluxbox and pekwm are also available as alternative desktops. The project's first release (version 1) was based on Ubuntu, but the developers expect to switch to Arch Linux as the base system for future versions.
Status: Discontinued
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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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