 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1061, 11 March 2024 |
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Welcome to this year's 11th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Software is always moving, always evolving, and the Linux landscape changes with it. This week we focus on changes and new developments, with a focus on desktop environments and desktop computing. Our News section is dominated this week by changing desktop environments and desktop applications. The Fedora project is working to port System76's COSMIC desktop to the Fedora distribution while making plans to drop X11 support in future Workstation spins. Meanwhile Linux Mint is planning a replacement for the discontinued HexChat application and postmarketOS is going to switch from OpenRC to systemd because of the ongoing work required to get Plasma and GNOME to work with the OpenRC init software. Plus we discuss a new FreeBSD-based project, NixBSD, which works to port the Nix package manager from Linux to the BSDs. First though we talk about how smart phones running GNU/Linux are becoming more powerful and more flexible. Can a low-level smart phone work as a portable workstation when plugged into a full sized screen and keyboard? We test this idea in this issue's Feature Story. Then we explore the topic of how to easily restart a background service on a set schedule. We're 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) |
A PinePhone as a mobile desktop computer?
I have a tendency to look at what I have to work with in front of me, right here and right now. I'm usually not looking off to the future, trying to envision what might come next or where technology might be heading. However, about seven years ago, I engaged in this interview with Dedoimedo and was asked: "What will the Linux desktop look like in 2025?"
I honestly had no idea, but I shared a few thoughts, including this one about smart phones evolving to take the place of desktop computers:
Sometime in the next eight years I think we are going to reach a point where it is common for personal devices (smart phones, tablets and whatever comes next in that market) to either sync seamlessly with desktop computers, or the phone will become the desktop.
A few years ago Canonical was playing with the idea of an operating system that is a phone while it is in your pocket and a full featured desktop system when it is sitting on your desk. My Ubuntu phone has more CPU cores and almost as much memory as my laptop. With a Bluetooth keyboard and a wireless connection to the monitor on my desk, the phone I have now could probably serve almost all of my computing requirements. I think by 2025 my desktop workstation and my mobile phone could be the same device with a desktop environment that adjusts to the size of the screen being used to display information.
More recently, I've had a chance to play with the PinePhone, in particular while running UBports 20.04, and likened the experience to using a Raspberry Pi computer with a built-in screen and a battery for a backup power supply.
I wouldn't recommend the PinePhone as a daily driver as a phone, probably with any operating system. However, I will say that with it running a full GNU/Linux platform, it works pretty well as an ARM-powered testing device and as a small home server. It's silent, it has a built-in battery, it has a touch screen for times when we need local access, and it has a slot for SD cards, giving it expanded disk space. I'm quite content using mine as a backup and test server at home. Plus it fits in my pocket if I want to relocate the device.
In this way, I think of the PinePhone as a flexible single-board computer, such as a Raspberry Pi, more than as a phone. And, while running UBports 20.04, it feels well suited to this niche role.
I've also had a chance to run desktop Linux applications on my Murena phone, thanks to a handy container technology called UserLAnd.
All of this got me to thinking. If the PinePhone works fairly well as a mobile computer, similar to the Raspberry Pi, and some people use the Pi as a low-end desktop computer, could I set up my PinePhone running a distribution like UBports and attach a keyboard, mouse, and monitor to it? Could I have a low-end, highly mobile device that I could perform basic desktop computing tasks with and then transport it in my pocket? I decided to buy a docking station and find out.
A sample image of the dock
(full image size: 76kB, resolution: 425x355 pixels)
The dock plugs into a USB-C port (typically on a phone or laptop) and offers several ports for additional devices. These ports include an Ethernet port, USB power port, three USB ports, a VGA port, and an HDMI port. This means we can plug the hub into a power source, our phone, a mouse, keyboard, a monitor or two, a wired network, and still have a USB port left over for something else. The "something else" I envisioned was an extra hard drive, if my experiment went well.
Getting started
I plugged the dock into my PinePhone running UBports and attached a power cable to it. The phone's battery showed it was recharging, which I took as a good initial sign. I then plugged a wired keyboard and a mouse into the dock. At first nothing happened. I next plugged in my monitor to the dock and UBports crashed, initiating a reboot.
My PinePhone plugged into a dock in a nest of cables
(full image size: 9.8MB, resolution: 4032x3024 pixels)
With a little experimentation I soon discovered that if a monitor was plugged into the dock that the user interface would crash, then automatically relaunch, then crash again in an endless loop. I checked for upgrades and found there was an update for UBports and applied it. Following a reboot, this pattern continued with the device launching its graphical interface and then quickly crashing when a monitor was plugged into the dock.
Adjusting mouse settings using my mouse on the PinePhone
(full image size: 9.2MB, resolution: 4032x3024 pixels)
On a positive note, the Unity splash screen with its progress indicator was mirrored to the external monitor before the interface crashed and, when the phone was booting, status messages from systemd were shown on both the phone's screen and the external display. In other words, the dock worked and UBports could send output to it. My phone's display was successfully mirrored to the external monitor. The graphical interface just wasn't stable when the monitor was plugged in.
Trying an alternative distribution
My first experience with the PinePhone involved running a special edition of Manjaro with the Plasma Mobile user interface. I decided it would be worth my time to see if I could run Manjaro and Plasma on my device and see if it would work with my external monitor. People interested in running Manjaro on a PinePhone may wish to read the distribution's PINE64 wiki entry.
Setting up Manjaro Linux to run on a PinePhone is blissfully simple. We can download the provided image file, decompress it, and write it to a microSD card. Then place the card into the PinePhone and Manjaro will boot from it. The first time Manjaro starts it walks us through a short configuration wizard. The wizard's screens walk us through selecting our time zone, connecting to a wireless network, and then we're asked to make up a username and PIN to secure the device.
The PIN is mandatory and this is one of my few complaints about the distribution. Virtually every other phone OS I have used allows for unrestricted access and Manjaro is a rare exception and it gets annoying when I need to unlock a phone during testing over and over.
Manjaro for ARM -- Running the Plasma Mobile interface
(full image size: 745kB, resolution: 720x1440 pixels)
Once the first-run wizard completed its steps, the phone rebooted. Then locked up during the next boot. I plugged my PinePhone into the dock, attached the monitor, keyboard, and mouse then forced another restart. This time the phone came online, showed me the KDE logo, and presented me with the Plasma Mobile desktop. This interface appeared both on the phone's screen and on my external monitor. So far, so good.
The Plasma Mobile interface is fairly standard, with a notification and quick access to settings across the top of the screen. Applications can be accessed by swiping from the right of the screen. Navigation buttons are displayed at the bottom of the desktop.
I ran into some inconsistent behaviour while running Manjaro. For instance, sometimes when I attached my phone to the dock Plasma would pop-up a widget which seems to be intended to help us select the relative positions of the two displays. For example, we might want to activate one display and not the other, or place them side-by-side, or mirror them. I think that is what the icons in the widget were indicating, though there is no text to help explain what the options are. Clicking on the widget caused my interface to lock up, requiring a reboot. Other times, when my phone was plugged into the dock, no widget appeared and, instead, the display was mirrored across both screens.
I feel it is worth mentioning Manjaro would usually not boot when the PinePhone was plugged into the hub. I typically had to start the phone independently and then attach it to the dock once Plasma finished loading. Otherwise the phone would lock up during the boot process.
My main concern when running Manjaro on the PinePhone was the system was not stable. Perhaps this is due to issues with Plasma Mobile or perhaps it is a side-effect of the PinePhone's limited hardware. A session with the phone plugged into the dock rarely lasted more than a few minutes at a time and I don't think the phone managed to run consistently for more than ten minutes during its best session. Typically Plasma would lock up and stop responding to input after starting an application, clicking a widget, or accessing a module in the Settings panel. Even with no applications open, the hardware was slow to respond, with it taking several seconds for the interface to register a click and more than ten seconds to open a new application window.
In short, while the PinePhone could work with the dock while running Manjaro, it was not at all a practical experience, nor was it a stable experience.
I do wish to acknowledge the Manjaro documentation does say it is recommended to use the project's Stable branch whenever possible while I was using the Development branch. However, the latest Stable release was over a year old at the time of writing (it was released in 2022) while Development snapshots seem to be published around once a month. As such, I decided using the latest Beta release was preferable to running the much older Stable release.
I was curious to see what would happen if I plugged my Samsung phone running Murena into the dock. The answer was an uninteresting: nothing. I'm uncertain if the phone simple isn't set up to work with the dock or if the lack of cooperation is a security feature. In any event, my trial was limited to running the PinePhone with my new dock.
Conclusions
At this point, at least when using the low-resource PinePhone, running a lightweight desktop off my smartphone is not yet practical. Which was disappointing for me, especially as it seems as though the experience so is very close to being workable. The PinePhone works with the dock and my connected hardware, at least to a point. Both Manjaro and UBports send visual output to the monitor and both accept keyboard and mouse input. UBports will even allow me to configure the mouse pointer's behaviour from its Settings panel.
However, both platforms suffer from a painful lack of stability. The Unity interface on UBports crashes when a monitor is attached and Manjaro's Plasma Mobile interface is far too slow, unresponsive, and unstable to be practical on the PinePhone. But the pieces are all there, the core applications are there, the GNU/Linux base is there - and could work well if the graphical interface were just a little more stable.
What excites me about this scenario is a PinePhone (or similar low-end device) is less than $200. The dock is about $30 USD, my monitor was less than $100. For less than $400 I could almost run UBports on an inexpensive phone as a low-end workstation. The software isn't quite there yet, but it feels tantalisingly close. I'm still hoping that another operating system for the PinePhone, or some polishing of UBports, will allow me to make this trial a reality by 2025.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
NixBSD launched, Fedora looks at porting COSMIC and dropping GNOME's X11 session, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat
Along with the release of FreeBSD 13.3 this week, fans of FreeBSD had another bit of interesting news. A new project has been started which attempts to mirror the work of the Nix system manager on NixOS while using FreeBSD as a base. "NixBSD is an attempt to make a reproducible and declarable BSD, based on NixOS. Although theoretically much of this work could be copied to build other BSDs, all work thus far has been focused on building a FreeBSD distribution." If successful, this will allow people to create and maintain reproducible builds of FreeBSD using the atomic and declarative Nix system manager. Details on the project can be found on NixBSD's GitHub page.
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The Fedora project might be the first Linux distribution to ship a desktop spin that includes the COSMIC desktop. COSMIC is a young desktop environment developed by System76 and written in Rust. COSMIC was developed by System76 for its own Pop!_OS distribution and a team is working on porting it to Fedora. The Fedora project has put out a request for help in getting COSMIC ready for the distribution: "As with most things in the Fedora Project, things exist because there is a community of contributors who come together to make it happen. We manifest things into existence. Fedora COSMIC and Ryan's work can go far, but only if he's supported by more people. If you want to see Fedora COSMIC happen, pitching in is the best way to make it so."
The Fedora team is considering dropping GNOME on X11 from the Fedora Workstation edition of their distribution. This would leave users with just GNOME on Wayland as the sole desktop option for the Workstation spin. A discussion about the change indicates GNOME will be offered on Wayland only for Fedora 41, expected to be released in October or November of 2024.
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postmarketOS is an Alpine-based distribution for mobile devices. The operating system follows its parent in shipping with the OpenRC init software and service manager, though a migration to systemd is planned. This migration is largely driven by the work needed to get the user interfaces (provided by the GNOME and KDE projects) working on OpenRC: "This is of course not an easy task, one of the main blockers we found as we collaborate more closely with KDE and GNOME developers is that they have a hard time with our OpenRC-based stack. In order to get KDE and GNOME working at all, we use a lot of systemd polyfills on top of OpenRC. So while we are technically "not using systemd", in practice we already do use a large chunk of its components to get KDE and GNOME running, just different versions of those components. While we are very grateful for everybody who works on these polyfills, we must point out that most aren't a full replacement, and take additional effort to support and maintain. As much as we might want to romanticise the idea of spending 6, 12, 24 months attempting to come up with an even vaguely competitive alternative to systemd, we would quite simply rather be working on making postmarketOS better." Details on the migration can be found in the project's announcement.
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In February the HexChat IRC client published its final version. This open source application shipped as the default IRC client in a few Linux distributions, including Linux Mint. This has left distribution maintainers considering what to use as a replacement for the now discontinued IRC client. The Linux Mint monthly newsletter discusses how Mint will replace HexChat: "There are IRC clients written in GTK3 which are HiDPI compatible, but replacing HexChat with one of them doesn't really solve our problem. What Linux Mint needs, first and foremost, is a place for people to ask questions to other users. An IRC client can provide that but it's not dedicated to doing that. So with that in mind we started working on a new app called Jargonaut.
Jargonaut will be a dedicated app. It will do just that and do it better. Although it uses the IRC, it won't be developed as an IRC client. It will support pastebin/imgur via DND, uploading your system specifications, troubleshooting and many features which have nothing to do with IRC."
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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) |
Restarting background services on a schedule
Starting-over asks: I am looking for a way to automatically restart a service everyday at a specified time. I'm hosting a game server and want to have it restart periodically. The game is started using a systemd unit, if that makes a difference.
DistroWatch answers: On most Linux distributions, and in the BSD family, the tool to run scheduled tasks is called cron. Each user has a file which lists the tasks which they wish to run along with the time when the scheduled jobs should be started. This file which lists the times and tasks is called a crontab.
We can create a crontab for our user account (or edit an existing crontab file) by running the command "crontab -e". This command will open a text editor and display our current crontab, listing each task we have scheduled. It's likely blank to start.
The format of a crontab file is outlined in the crontab man page. In its simplest form, a crontab entry has five time parameters and one command which is to be run. The five time fields indicate the minute, hour, day of the month, month, and day of the week when we want to run a job. Then the command to be run at the specified time follows. A star (*) character, indicates a time field when we want the time to always match.
In this example, we run a command called backup-everything which will run 1 minute after noon (12pm). We will do this on the 3rd day of the month, every month (*), regardless of which day of the week it is:
1 12 3 * * /usr/local/bin/backup-everything
In this next example we run the same script, but at 3:00am on every Monday, which cron treats as the 1st day of the week:
0 3 * * 1 /usr/local/bin/backup-everything
You might have noticed that in both examples I specified the full path name to the script, specifying "/usr/local/bin/backup-everything" instead of just "backup-everything". This is because cron often doesn't use the same path as a regular user account when trying to find executable programs and scripts. Most of the time when a cron job doesn't run properly it's due to an incomplete path name.
Getting back to the original question, let's say we have a systemd service called "game-server". We can have this service restarted every night at 2:15am by setting up the following crontab entry:
15 2 * * * /usr/bin/systemctl restart game-server
In the above example I'm assuming the systemctl program is located in the /usr/bin directory, which is typical of most distributions. If you want to check the full path of your systemctl program you can do so with the which command:
$ which systemctl
/usr/bin/systemctl
Once you have made your crontab entry, save the text file and exit the text editor. Your crontab will then be saved and will automatically restart the game server at the specified time. If you want to double-check that your crontab file has been saved properly, you can see the contents of your user's crontab file by running "crontab -l":
$ crontab -l
15 2 * * * /usr/bin/systemctl restart game-server
One possible complication you may run into is with permissions. If your regular user account does not have permission to restart the game service (or if you require sudo to launch the game service) then trying to restart the game server from your own user's crontab will fail. If you usually use sudo to start the service or if it requires the root user to launch the game service, then you'll need to edit the root user's crontab rather than your own user's crontab.
You can do this on most distributions by running the command "sudo crontab -e". This will edit the root user's crontab which should avoid any permission restrictions on your own account.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
FreeBSD 13.3
Colin Percival has announced the release of FreeBSD 13.3, the production release in the legacy branch of the popular BSD-derived operating system: "The FreeBSD Release Engineering team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 13.3-RELEASE. This is the fourth release of the stable/13 branch. Some of the highlights: LLVM and the Clang compiler have been updated to version 17.0.6; OpenSSH has been updated to version 9.6p1; Sendmail has been updated to version 8.18.1; ZFS has been updated to OpenZFS 2.1.14; there have been many stability fixes to native and LinuxKPI-based WiFi drivers; the NFS server can now run in an appropriately configured vnet jail. FreeBSD 13.3-RELEASE is now available for the amd64, i386, powerpc, powerpc64, powerpc64le, powerpcspe, armv6, armv7, aarch64, and riscv64 architectures." Please read the release announcement and the release notes for more information.
Zorin OS 17.1
Zorin OS is an Ubuntu-based distribution which features layouts, themes, and compatibility tools to provide new Linux users with a more familiar environment. The latest version of Zorin OS focuses on cross-platform application compatibility and isolation, shipping with the latest stable version of WINE and Bottles: "When you run Windows-native apps in Zorin OS 17.1, you'll now get the full capabilities of the latest Wine 9.0 version. The compatibility layer now has significantly improved support for more Windows software. That means you'll be able to run an even larger selection of apps and games effortlessly. When you enable Windows App Support in Zorin OS 17.1, it now comes bundled with Bottles. This tool lets you run Windows software in a sandboxed environment and provides a neat way to organize your apps and games. Bottles comes with a built-in app store, which installs and pre-configures a growing selection of Windows apps for even better compatibility with the system." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
Zorin OS 17.1 -- Running GNOME and the software centre
(full image size: 1.7MB, resolution: 1920x1440 pixels)
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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: 2,972
- Total data uploaded: 44.1TB
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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) |
A smart phone as a desktop computer?
This week we talked about an experiment to see how well a minimal mobile device like the PinePhone works as a portable desktop system. While there were some elements of success in the process, the test systems didn't have the performance or stability needed to function well as a workstation.
We'd like to hear if any of our readers have tried running a smart phone as their main workstation with a full sized monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Have you tried this? Did your phone provide all the functionality you needed in a desktop machine? Let us know the details of your experiences in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on 2024's first release season in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Have you used a smart phone as a workstation?
| Yes and it worked well enough I still use it: | 30 (2%) |
| Yes though I did not continue using it: | 113 (7%) |
| No but I planned to try: | 299 (19%) |
| No and I do not plan to try: | 1116 (72%) |
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| Website News |
Filter torrents by distribution name
DistroWatch has a Torrent Archive which contains a list of torrents for recent stable releases. These are torrents which have typically been seeded by DistroWatch when they were first released.
To make it easier to find download options, we place a link to the Torrent Archive on the information pages of distributions, under the Download Mirrors section. For example, if you visit the Tails information page you can see a link called "DistroWatch Torrent Archive" in the Download section.
A problem some people were reporting is the Torrent Archive can get crowded. It's not always easy to find older releases of a distribution torrent. To help with that, in the past, we added an option to sort the torrents by name rather than by release date. (See the sort menu at the top of the Torrent Archive table for ordering options.)
This week we added another approach to make it easier to find torrents for a specific distribution. If you visit a distribution's information page and click the "DistroWatch Torrent Archive" link, only that distro's torrents will be displayed. For example, clicking the link on the Tails page takes us to a view of the archive with just the recent Tails torrents.
If that is not what you want, if you wish to see all of the torrent options in our archive, you can click the Show All Torrents link at the top of the archive to see the full range of options.
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Ubix. Ubix stands for Universal Business Intelligence Computing System. Ubix Linux is an open-source, Debian-based Linux distribution geared towards data acquisition, transformation, analysis and presentation.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 18 March 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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| Archives |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Damn Vulnerable Linux
Damn Vulnerable Linux (DVL) was a Slackware and Slax-based live DVD. The distribution, purposefully stuffed with broken, ill-configured, outdated and exploitable software, began life as a training system used during the author's university lectures. Its primary goal was to design a Linux system that was as vulnerable as possible -- in order to teach and demonstrate a variety of security topics, including reverse code engineering, buffer overflows, shell code development, web exploitation, and SQL injection.
Status: Discontinued
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