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1 • Purchasing physical media (by Guido on 2024-03-18 01:58:22 GMT from Philippines)
I started using Linux about 16 years ago. Since the Internet was still very slow back then, I regularly bought a German Linux magazine with a DVD every two months. Each DVD contained popular distributions, all of which I was able to try out and install. Of course Ubuntu and openSuse were also included. In recent years, the Internet has become so fast that some things have become unnecessary. I haven't used a DVD to install for a long time, just a USB stick.
2 • Dr.Parted Live (by seatux on 2024-03-18 02:00:00 GMT from Malaysia)
Man, another drive management distro with no tool to secure wipe/TRIM SSDs to 0.
Still stuck with PartedMagic for its SSD abilities. Would like to know better alternatives though.
3 • File Permission (by Vinfall on 2024-03-18 02:04:55 GMT from Hong Kong)
I think `chmod -R a+r /media/upload/` would expand permissions by allowing read permission, but would NOT restrict file permissions if it starts with a more permissive one like 750?
I want to do it *reversely* to restrict image/video resources access in a githook. For once I accidentally ran `chmod 644 ./*` and broke folder permission, as they should be 755 (`rwxr-xr-x`) or 750 at least. Luckily I did not do it recursively so it's still easy to recover… Now I just use `find -type f` to avoid that.
Also, I heard of setting umask from 022 to 027 several times (to avoid non user/group access by default, 640 for files, 750 for folders). Would this behavior affect those cron scripts?
4 • Plasma 6, Neon (by thatguy on 2024-03-18 02:38:41 GMT from United States)
Yeah, it's been a rocky ride adjusting to the Plasma 6 upgrade. For me it happened first with Arch, then Tumbleweed, and it was almost unusable at first on both. It's gotten much better but there are still random crashes. Quite the contrast, going from the rock solid stability of 5 to the walking on eggshells/crashes aplenty 6.
As for Neon and the review, I thought it was more than fair. While I like the sparseness of Neon's installed packages, I understand the concern and agree that at least a few more things could be included. Kpat and kmines at least. And things should never get released that are THAT broken.
Neon's not really going to be stable for a while I would guess, which is a shame. As a huge fan of KDE/Plasma, I used to use Neon as my daily driver. Right now I'm mostly on Debian stable while we wait for Plasma 6 to mature.
A lot needs to happen - not just bug-squashing but also the infrastructure of contributed themes/extras/etc. Right now there still isn't a decent weather widget for example, and some things that claim to work with 6 do not.
5 • Sort-of purchase media (by DaveB on 2024-03-18 03:57:29 GMT from Australia)
Back in the dial-up days when a distro download was measured in hours, I used to subscribe to Linux Format. Always came with two or three (or sometimes more) distros on a DVD on the cover. Never needed to download anything - only problem was the popularity of Ubuntu meant that was on the DVD every two to three months. These days .au internet speeds are fast enough that I can happily download distros, and keep using the connection for other tasks.
6 • neon ate my laptop partition (by M.Z. on 2024-03-18 04:42:49 GMT from United States)
I can attest to KDE neon not delivering any kind of smooth experience in the most recent releases, even if you were just expecting a normal upgrade. I really liked it for quite a while & it had been the best Distro for a bluetooth stereo I recently got - it worked way better than LMDE at any rate.
Anyway, despite all the good it just killed itself after an upgrade & I can't login. Its such a shame, it was a great daily driver for quite a while. I don't get how this got released as a regular upgrade.
7 • Void woes (by ThomasAnderson on 2024-03-18 05:42:56 GMT from Australia)
If any Void devs happen to read these comments, please for the love of God, update your installer. There is no justification to not use calamares or some alternative compared to the monstrosity you have now. Actually, to be perfectly clear, everything is fine except for the partitioning section, which has never worked properly and frankly, resorting to fdisk just seems like some form of childish elitism to ensure only greybeards are worthy to use your distro. Just update it, even MidnightBSD has a better installer than your distro.
8 • physical media (by Steeeeve on 2024-03-18 08:25:00 GMT from New Zealand)
My answer was not among the options: "I used to". For some years I would regularly order the discs to support the distributors and knew that some of the money also went to the distro devs. Then the world changed and they closed all that down. Now I just burn metric tons of bandwidth, write the ISOs to USB and occasionally for older machines, to a rewritable DVD.
9 • Linux magazines/DVDs (by Dave Postles on 2024-03-18 08:47:12 GMT from United Kingdom)
Yes, in the early days me too. On one occasion, I was away at a conference and (as I found later) one of the leads in the laptop had come free. I bought a Linux magazine from a large bookstore with a live DVD of Sabayon. It managed my laptop through that away time.
10 • Void woes @7? (by picamanic on 2024-03-18 09:26:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
I like that the Void installer is a simple 1559 line Bash script which "just works", where anyone can see what t does. Calamares is 58k lines of C++ code. Very pretty. Very corporate. No thanks.
11 • physical media (by anticapitalista on 2024-03-18 09:45:37 GMT from Greece)
Like @8 - I used to.
Now I either test in a virtual machine or boot (and perhaps install) using fromiso method.
If distro doesn't support this method or something equivalent, the iso file gets deleted.
12 • Neon - Plasma 6 (by kc1di on 2024-03-18 09:53:09 GMT from United States)
It was a very disappointing release and most likely should have cooked a bit longer before hitting the release stage. But I'm sure it will get fixed and has already made much progress.
will wait a bit longer before using KDE6 for my daily driver :)
13 • Void install (by Jesse on 2024-03-18 10:22:53 GMT from Canada)
@7: "resorting to fdisk just seems like some form of childish elitism to ensure only greybeards are worthy to use your distro"
I've installed Void many times and never used fdisk in the process. It's definitely not a requirement, even for manual partitioning.
14 • Neon (by Xenon on 2024-03-18 10:44:03 GMT from Moldova)
Things do not change
The last update to 6.0.2 broke kde discover
It doesn’t start
15 • OS on DVD (by Otis on 2024-03-18 11:08:59 GMT from United States)
I had a college friend who had an AOL curtain of discs. I wonder if he added an Ubuntu curtain somewhere.
For a while I was purchasing discs and thumb drives from a company that had ads here at DW, just out of laziness. Now I just do what most distro users do and burn an iso. Looks like 93% of us in the poll so far.
16 • Why can't they wait? (by Keepforgetting on 2024-03-18 11:15:18 GMT from Germany)
The bad experiences when replacing the functioning and stable Plasma 5 with the unfinished, unstable Plasma 6 were unfortunately to be expected. This is typical of modern software development: Hooray, there is a new version! Lets ditch the working version for something half-baked, but NEW and SHINY!!! Users of rolling release distros with KDE will be very happy in the next few months.
Testing first and then releasing a stable, solid and fully funtional product is SO last century ...
17 • @19 (by kc1di on 2024-03-18 12:14:25 GMT from United States)
I'm with your but fear the problem lies partly with limited hardware of the Dev's thus testing gets done on their stuff but is not a reflection of the hardware in the real world. I still think they could have fixed many of the bugs before release. But they advertise a release date and that it :(
18 • bleeding edge (by ResistChange on 2024-03-18 12:32:16 GMT from United States)
Plasma 6 sounds cool and all but is it as fast as fluxbox or openbox? Nah? At least it's not as weird as Gnome is now.
19 • Plasma 6 is... (by Mike W on 2024-03-18 12:54:57 GMT from United States)
..a good example of why waiting for the bug fix edition of new software is usually prudent.
20 • KDE (by Otis on 2024-03-18 12:59:13 GMT from United States)
Those of you lamenting issues with KDE Plasma, especially on (the reviewed) Neon, might want to give Nobara a go. I've been testing it for two weeks now and have seen nothing negative to report in spite of several updates (which come via notification first giving the user the choice as to yes or no on elements of the update for full go yes or no).
21 • KDE Neon as a Testing Distro (by Justin R. on 2024-03-18 13:03:03 GMT from United States)
"I cannot recommend using KDE neon as anything more than a way to try out Plasma 6 while waiting for an updated version of KDE neon or some other distribution to release a more stable experience."
Correct me if I'm wrong, I always thought the goal of KDE Neon was to be a test bed or showcase for the latest KDE releases rather than a stable environment that would be people's daily driver. That's why there isn't a lot of software added at install.
Even Jesse's intro for KDE Neon mentions "Two editions of the product are available - a "User" edition, designed for those interested in checking out the latest KDE software as it gets released, and a "Developer's" edition, created as a platform for testing cutting-edge KDE applications." https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=kdeneon
22 • @21 (by K. Engels on 2024-03-18 14:00:18 GMT from United States)
Until a very short time ago, the User edition, as noted in the review, was billed as "Ideal for everyday users." That wording implies it something that should be usable as a daily driver, not just as a testing ground or showcase (and if it was meant to be a showcase, that would strengthen the argument for including more KDE applications, so the user could try them from a live image). The KDE neon team changed the wording on the website after the first problematic ISOs with Plasma 6 came out. Even the "Who is KDE neon for?" entry on the FAQ page was added very recently. Until the recent Plasma 6 problem images came out, nothing declared KDE neon's User edition to be only a testing or showcase distribution for "adventurous KDE enthusiasts".
23 • Tumbleweed Plasma 6 (by Happy TW User on 2024-03-18 16:51:34 GMT from United States)
I think a number of the issues that people had with the Plasma 6 upgrade in Tumbleweed dealt with doing the update through konsole instead of a separate terminal (part way through the upgrade, kde restarts killing the konsole session). Also, there were some issues with nvidia cards and those plasma extensions that hadn't been ported yet.
Tumbleweed developers have quickly released 6.0.2 which solved a number of problems. I was one of the many users who did not experience any problems with the upgrade. And for those who did, assuming they had used the default BTRFS partitions, it was simple enough for them to rollback to their Plasma 5 install.
Plasma 6.0.2 is very fast, even on my old hardware, and works quite smoothly. It takes a moment to relearn where things our in the system settings, but the new layout actually makes more sense.
All in all, I am quite pleased with the results and performance. The KDE team and the Tumbleweed developers both did an excellent job!
24 • Review (by Canas on 2024-03-18 17:02:17 GMT from Portugal)
Your review started bad and you could edit your review later instead of putting the follow up.
They fixed most and still, your review doesnt show that. A lot of people may not install it because of you.
About dragon player. Most people use VLC. Why does that matter so much that you have to talk about it a dozen times?!
I didn't liked your review. Biased to say the least.
25 • KDE Neon (by Ne1 on 2024-03-18 19:46:01 GMT from United States)
I found some of those problems as well during my install (user dir's missing mainly) but my biggest issue was with LUKS FDE not working. Once they have that figured out I may give it another stab, but I'm pretty darn tickled with 5.27 for now.
26 • Review authorship (by Someguy on 2024-03-18 20:33:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
I always check this first!
27 • @24 (by K. Engels on 2024-03-19 01:26:19 GMT from United States)
"Your review started bad and you could edit your review later instead of putting the follow up."
Or, maybe KDE neon shouldn't have shipped ISO images with broken installers for the first week after their big Plasma 6 launch followed by a week of massive bugs that should have been caught by basic QA before being pushed to the User Edition. Why should a review wait until the developers fix their buggy releases before saying anything? If anything, even acknowledging that there were patches that fixed some of the issues that came out only days before this review went to live (which almost certainly means they came out after the review was submitted) is far more generous than the reviewer or DistroWatch needed to be. The KDE neon versions reviewed were broken to the point of the being unusable. That is FACT not "bias". The reviewer is far from the only person to have this experience. The KDE neon team altered their description of who the User Edition was for because of how badly the Plasma 6 on KDE neon launch was handled. A version targeted towards "everyday users" is now being retroactively branded as for the "adventurous". Don't shoot the messenger just because you don't like the message.
28 • Plasma 6 (by David on 2024-03-19 02:11:41 GMT from United States)
I've been using Fedora 40 KDE pre-Beta for about a week and have had no problems with their implementation of Plasma 6. Granted I do standard stuff: email, web, documents, audio (Elisa). I don't "push the envelope" at all. It appears to be stable. No errors. No stress. Simply solid. YMMV
I had a negative experience trying to install KDE Neon a couple of weeks ago just to see what was going on there. An error stopped the installation ... something wrong with the installer (described in the review), so I gave up on it.
29 • KDE Neon (by Any on 2024-03-19 06:00:44 GMT from Spain)
From their website:
Who is KDE neon for?
KDE neon is intended for those who want to experience the latest and greatest KDE software as quickly as possible. Though KDE developers endeavor to minimize bugs and maximize stability, using the latest software the moment it's released will inevitably result in a less stable experience compared to distros that delay software by days, weeks, or months. As such, the ideal KDE neon user is someone excited to use the latest and greatest KDE software who can tolerate some bumps in the road from time to time, not someone with mission-critical reliability needs.
30 • neon (by Mr. Moto on 2024-03-19 11:32:08 GMT from Philippines)
I've been running neon for some years now. Plasma 6 was installed with the last upgrade. It was slow at login, and wouldn't logout, restart or shutdown from the desktop. A quick web search found the bug and a solution. Working fine now, and the slow login has been resolved.
My problem with KDE is that I use a dock, and Latte has been abandoned and is unreliable. I use Plank, which only runs on x11, so no Wayland for now. In the meantime, Gnome has advanced enough that it works as well as Plasma with just a couple of extensions. I'm running Wayland Gnome now.
No big complaints in any case. I've learned over the years to have two or more distros always installed with pretty much the same setup. When faced with problem bugs, a quick restart and I'm back running with very little difference. Even Windows sits there quietly just in case it's ever needed.
31 • KDE6 (by Gekxxx on 2024-03-19 11:53:01 GMT from Belgium)
I use KDE6 now on arco Linux without problems. Even works on my Nvidia 470 powerd by Nouveau. I will continue using as is. I will not install the propriety driver as I know that will go wrong with the 470 driver.
32 • @29 (by K. Engels on 2024-03-19 13:45:24 GMT from United States)
As I already noted in comment #22, that question was not part of the FAQ until after the botched release. This can be confirmed by using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, which does not have that question on the snapshot of the page from March 6. Citing that FAQ item as justification puts you in "We have always been at war with Eastasia." territory.
33 • KDE Neon (by Christian on 2024-03-19 15:23:15 GMT from Brazil)
I've been a Neon user for more than 4 years.
KDE has been my favorite DE for a very long time, and Neon was very appealing to me. A solid Ubuntu base with the latest KDE applications.
There were always a few problems in updates and upgrades (especially with the NVidia drivers), but nothing that would completely ruin the experience for me (I had enough patience to wait for a few days while the problems were sorted out). However, it was annoying and you had to know your way to have a working system. Also, I felt too lazy to nuke my install and start all the way again.
Unfortunately, the upgrade from 5 to 6 was not as smooth for me and, even though most of the things in the system was working, given that I had a bit of extra time, I have decided to move to a different distro.
Neon never hid the fact that it was not a distro, or that problems were to be expected. And I could live with those. I would still recommend the distro for anyone wanting the latest directly from KDE, as long as the user is willing to do some troubleshooting from time to time.
For me, I'm on (hopefully) calmer waters, still running KDE. Tuxedo in one machine and Mageia on another. MX was the Tuxedo runner-up. Not the latest, but I do appreciate not that many updates to the entire system for the sake of simplicity and stability. KDE 6 looks awesome, but so does 5.27 and I don´t mind waiting a little longer.
To the KDE Neon team, thanks for the hard-work.
34 • File Permissions with acl (by Benjamin on 2024-03-19 19:14:29 GMT from Austria)
Another way of doing it would be setgid+acl. You have to make sure your file system supports it (some FS like ext4 need to have the acl mount option set)
Then
# set s bit (setgid) so all uploaded files belong to group of the parent directory
chmod g+s /media/upload/
# set default permission for group and others
setfacl -d -m g::rX /media/upload/
setfacl -d -m o::rX /media/upload/
note the capital X here: it only sets execute for folders not for files.
That should do it There is also the possibility to set default permissions for a specific group with ‘setfacl -d -m g:groupname:rX’ without the setgid but it makes things probably harder to understand.
35 • Void Install Tips and Repo Rot (by Random Experienced Void User on 2024-03-20 00:10:46 GMT from United States)
Void Linux has long needed a better installer. Here is what to do. Partition and format your Void file systems by hand. Run the installer skipping past those steps, assigning mount points by hand. Otherwise ignore the installer; use chroot steps by hand. The Void installer does not "just work" and reading it is not the point. The purpose of a program is to automate. If one must read it to use it, the script is not a tool but a recipe. It's simpler and more reliable to copy manual steps off a website than reverse engineer a decades-old bash script. Anyway the installer should invoke gdisk, not archaic fdisk.
Void geeks like minimalist window managers. Desktop spins are not as fun to rice. That said, praise Void for making GNOME and KDE work without systemd.
Plenty of useful software Void ignores or bans. CudaText and Brave should be in repos. Selections reflect Void's user base and policy against some software. So while repos have a banquet of half-baked console text editors, plus Vim and Emacs, they ignore gems like wxMEdit and CudaText. Even Geany took a long while for Void to update. Geany itself has orphaned plugins.
That note brings me to the biggest problem with Void nowadays, package rot. Many are orphans while others sit stale for a bit too long (nix, mediainfo, textadept) or for ages. The story is bad on average with programming languages (mercury, lily, haskell, lfe) although some have good support (PHP, Python). Void recently added new members tasked with packaging, so cross fingers. The distro is cool and just needs less focus on "build infrastructure" and more on build automation for upstream point releases.
36 • Void (by Dave on 2024-03-20 00:30:42 GMT from Australia)
I've always been curious, Void has some overlap with Alpine. Non-systemd distro using muslc. Have Void users who maybe aren't 100% happy ever tried Alpine?
37 • Void and Alpine (by Otis on 2024-03-20 14:01:45 GMT from United States)
With Void and with Alpine I was in hardware support hell. Maybe I gave up too soon on them, but did end up satisfied with other distros which didn't have me searching for drivers etc (Nobara 39, MX Linux).
38 • Void fan (by picamanic on 2024-03-20 15:43:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
@35 You should really be writing this on r/voidlinux, where it would reach a more critical audience.
39 • Void Problems and Alternatives (by Random Experienced Void User on 2024-03-20 23:48:41 GMT from United States)
@36 Alpine is weak on desktop support but superb elsewhere (servers, embedded, docker). Void has better desktop support, but weaker server support. Alpine desktops may have improved by now, I don't know these days. Obarun and Artix are my top Void alternatives.
@37 Hardware is a kernel issue. Void has the best Linux kernel packaging methodology I've seen. It's a major attraction. You may have hit musl libc driver issues. Those will happen with nVidia and printers. Alpine is exclusively musl, while Void offers both musl and glibc builds. Furthermore, Void's default repo list omits "non-free." Include that repo for driver blobs.
@38 My tips help distro shoppers (a) evaluate if Void is right for them, and if so, (b) how to install it. Distrowatch is the correct venue. It's where shoppers shop. For example, even hackers who might otherwise love Void need know other distros have superior selection and packaging maintenance for programming languages.
40 • Do you purchase Linux media? (by James on 2024-03-21 10:27:55 GMT from Canada)
I answered no, but I did once, back between 2000-2005. I bought a Xandros CD. I had no idea you could download a .iso yet back then, not even sure if you could.
41 • Physical Media (by penguinx86 on 2024-03-21 16:30:38 GMT from United States)
I only bought physical media on USB thumb drives. It's been a long time though. Now I download ISO files and make USB media myself using usb-creator-gtk, or install the ISO as a virtual machine in VirtualBox. ISO files seem way more useful than physical media. But today, I have an old dying 10 year old laptop that I need to wipe. I plan to boot from a USB thumb drive I made last year and wipe the SSD using Gparted. It seems a shame to retire this old laptop, but it has multiple hardware issues and I need to wipe the hard drive before it dies completely and it's too late.
42 • Void hardware issues (by Otis on 2024-03-21 18:59:28 GMT from United States)
@39 thanks for explaining more thoroughly than I could have the reason I had to dump Void (and Alpine).
43 • Run Closed Source Drivers on Closed Source OS (by Random Experienced Void User on 2024-03-21 19:36:20 GMT from United States)
@42 Otis - What you should dump is nVidia. Distrowatch covers open-source operating systems. If you want closed source stuff, but find trouble, blame nVidia. I avoid nVidia as the Microsoft of video. The monopoly is identical. It's odd, all the railing against Microsoft, but none against nVidia, from end users anyway. Distros are just supposed to support nVidia. Anyway Void glibc does nVidia as well as any distro. It's not a criticism I would level at Void. The founder was a gamer. That said, I'm happy you found your solutions. In case of problems with those, switch to Microsoft Windows.
https://docs.voidlinux.org/config/graphical-session/graphics-drivers/nvidia.html
44 • Purchasing Linux media (by AT on 2024-03-21 23:56:25 GMT from Germany)
Now a days, it's easier to download images. However, there was a time, when internet was slow, and I had to go to the market to find and buy linux CD/DVD. The first linux CD I bought was Redhat 6.2, and on back cover there was Gnome Icon, which looked a lot like the Foot-Klan from the Ninja Turtles. However, my biggest purchase was Mandrake Linux 10, which came on a whopping 10 cds, and to had them shipped from a store in Canada. However, Ubuntu came soon after, and they sent you a free CD. I ordered an entire box and gave away to my friends, this stopped purchasing Linux media further.
45 • nVidia etc (by Otis on 2024-03-22 01:18:20 GMT from United States)
@43 The machines I test and run Linux distros on have no nVidia. nVidia is not my enemy. My enemy in running Linux is several distros that I have tested which need far too much work for my liking to work properly and reliably (openSuse and its relatives, and several projects that seem built for a small portion of machines out in the wild).
The one I am on now, an Acer Aspire A-517-52, is not old or new; it's been around for a while and has very common hardware, hardware which Void and Alpine and openSuse and others just can't get along with, not to mention the printers/scanners/copiers I use. Nobara and MX Linux see it all natively and fire up the printers (all Epson printers) even in the live environments and of course once installed on the nvme ssd.
It's so simple: many distros just need to be worked with to get going. I used to do that; search for drivers, compile, troubleshoot, etc. But this is 2024, and honestly there are whole families of Linux distros out there ready to go and with little or no need at all for messing with. It's been over 25 years of desktop Linux now, my friend. Messing with them as a hobby is fine. But doing all that out of necessity is.... no longer necessary. ;o)
46 • Logo shirts are media too (by MInuxLintEbianDedition on 2024-03-22 08:58:58 GMT from United Kingdom)
I bought a cool linux t shirt to support a distro maker
47 • Re: Purchasing Physical Media (by Andrew on 2024-03-22 09:06:15 GMT from United States)
I answered "Yes - Other", and going by the letter of the polling question as asked, this is accurate; however, I'm not entirely sure if the question's scope was *intended* to cover this case: the most recent computers (laptops) I have purchased have been ones with Linux preinstalled on them. (A harddrive is "media", after all XD). Typically what I do, though, is remove the harddrive from the new machine and insert the old harddrive from the old machine; wipe the root partition, do NOT wipe the /boot and /home partitions, then use a live USB stick to install a fresh system on the old HDD's root partition (and a new kernel in /boot). If I have problems obtaining drivers for the new machine, I will swap the HDDs again, boot into the preinstalled Linux that came with the new machine, and copy the missing drivers that I need from the new HDD to the old HDD.
48 • Clarity on Hardware Support vs Auto Wizards (by Random Experienced Void User on 2024-03-22 18:52:36 GMT from United States)
@45 Otis - OK but I think you're a bit confused. I can agree to an extent.
Printing has a sadder story in Linux than nVidia. Waiting for OpenPrinting drivers is watching glaciers grow. Even the ones marked 'works perfectly' for years somehow don't get packaged. And multiple printer vendors give worse Linux support than nVidia, which at least ships closed blobs that work for all models sold. Print vendors often don't.
Beyond printers you mention no specific hardware. Oddly, I type this reply on a similar Acer Aspire model running Void, Wayland, and Sway. I cannot report any hardware problems. Hardware support is a Linux kernel issue. It will happen across all distros. Any true hardware issue begs for a distro that paces modern kernel development.
What you're calling hardware is a different topic, auto wizards. Void and Alpine do not install the kitchen sink. To imitate 'auto wizard' distros, just install the same packages those have; avahi and similar.
Myself, I can't stand a dozen hidden 'auto wizards' taking memory and CPU away from me, and stalling my mouse pointer every time I edit a doc, because they are 'scanning' again, or systemd thinks it has something to do, or a mystery background process just awakened, or another wants to write logs to disk. It's thus a matter of taste, not technical progress. I thank my lucky stars that I have the choice.
By all means, if you like 'wizards' doing things for you, and change printer models regularly, then run wizard-heavy distros that ship regular desktop spins further bogged down with systemd. I played enough years with systemd and wizards to know that I would rather run Microsoft Windows. The amount of labor involved making things work is equivalent, and the odds of success are better.
49 • OEM Updates Worth Doing (by Random Experienced Void User on 2024-03-22 19:30:09 GMT from United States)
@45 Otis - Your Acer laptop is a 2021 model, only 3 years old. Acer offers 12 BIOS/firmware updates and 36 Windows drivers for it. Some drivers (chipset?) might contain additional firmware fixes. I would run Windows on it and install what matches on-board components. Then reboot back to Linux.
https://www.acer.com/us-en/support/product-support/Aspire_A517-52/downloads
https://nanoreview.net/en/laptop/acer-aspire-5-a517-52
Number of Comments: 49
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| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Full list of all issues |
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FuryBSD
FuryBSD was an open-source, desktop-oriented operating system based on FreeBSD. It was an attempt to revive the spirit of other easy-to-use FreeBSD-based projects of the past (e.g. PC-BSD and TrueOS), but it also adds additional convenience in the form of a hybrid USB/DVD image. The project provides separate live images with Xfce and KDE Plasma desktops. FuryBSD was free to use and it can be freely distributed under the BSD license.
Status: Discontinued
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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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