 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1064, 1 April 2024 |
Welcome to this year's 14th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The Linux kernel is undoubtably the most popular of the world's open source kernels. Linux sits at the heart of billions of smart phones, millions of servers, the world's fasted super computers, and tens of millions of desktop machines. However, Linux is far from the only open source kernel available. There are other popular kernels such as those offered by the BSDs, Haiku, and FreeDOS. This week we field a question about another open source kernel, this one from the GNU project. GNU's Hurd kernel has been around for decades and we discuss its current status in this week's Questions and Answers column. Have you ever run a computer system that used Hurd? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section we discuss the FreeBSD Foundation's plans to improve wireless networking support on FreeBSD while Canonical extends Ubuntu Pro's support term to 12 years. Plus we talk about Qubes OS offering new updates and a reminder that Qubes OS 4.1 is nearing the end of its supported life. We also discuss a compromise in the liblzma compression library. First though we talk about NixOS, a Linux distribution which showcases the powerful Nix package manager. We share details about NixOS and how to make use of Nix in our Feature Story. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
NixOS 23.11
NixOS is an independently developed Linux distribution that aims to improve the state of the art in system configuration management. In NixOS, the entire operating system, including the kernel, applications, system packages and configuration files, are built (and can be configured) by the Nix package manager.
This week I want to talk about NixOS as a desktop distribution and touch upon the Nix package manager and how we can use it manage multiple aspects of the operating system.
NixOS is available in two desktop editions: GNOME and KDE Plasma. There is also a Minimal command line edition. The desktop editions are about 2.5GB in size while the Minimal edition's ISO is 949MB. The distribution runs on the x86_64, ARM64, and i686 architectures.
The list of changes for NixOS 23.11 is fairly short. We're told that, along with some background changes and package updates, the latest version ships with GNOME 45 and the LLVM developer tools have been upgraded to version 16. This version of NixOS is supported through to June 30, 2024.
I downloaded the KDE Plasma edition and verified its checksum. Here I ran into a small error. The NixOS checksum file provides the wrong filename which means automated checksum tools, such as sha256sum, will fail or report an error. The ISO file's checksum does match the checksum provided, it is just the filename which does not match (the ISO file is called "latest-nixos-plasma5-x86_64-linux.iso" and the matching checksum says the filename should be called "nixos-plasma5-23.11.2596.c1be43e8e837-x86_64-linux.iso"). After manually confirming the ISO I had downloaded was valid, I set about testing the live mode.
Booting the live media displays the GRUB boot manager with some useful options. These include booting NixOS normally, loading the distribution into RAM, and booting in safe graphics (nomodeset) mode. Each option boots and loads and Plasma desktop session. The desktop panel sits at the bottom of the screen. On the desktop we find icons for opening a terminal, launching the GParted partition manager, launching the system installer, and opening the NixOS documentation. The documentation is in HTML format, it is stored locally (on the live media), and the documentation is displayed in Firefox.
NixOS 23.11 -- The live desktop and system installer
(full image size: 525kB, resolution: 1920x1440 pixels)
Installing
After the Plasma session appears the Calamares system installer is launched automatically. Calamares asks us to select our preferred language. On this page there are buttons for showing us support options, known issues, and the distribution's release notes. These buttons all launch Firefox to show us the appropriate on-line resources. The following Calamares screens ask us to pick our timezone, keyboard layout, and username and password. We're then asked which desktop environment we want to install. The available options are: GNOME, Plasma, Xfce, Pantheon, Cinnamon, MATE, Enlightenment, LXQt, Budgie, Deepin, or no desktop with a command line only interface. We can pick only one desktop to install and I decided to use Plasma.
Calamares then asks us if we wish to enable non-free components like firmware. Then we are given the choice to manually partition the disk or accept an automated process. The automated approach sets up a single ext4 partition. We can ask the automated partitioning tool to also create a swap partition.
The installer then copies packages to the hard drive and offers to restart the computer. The whole process was quick and trouble-free.
Early impressions
My freshly installed copy of NixOS quickly booted to a graphical login screen. By default we sign into a Plasma X11 session, though a Plasma Wayland session is also available. Plasma uses a light theme by default. The desktop for the installed operating system no longer displays icons for documentation and install options. When we sign into our account there is no welcome window or first-run wizard.
NixOS 23.11 -- The KDE System Settings panel
(full image size: 259kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Hardware
I started testing NixOS in VirtualBox. The distribution ran well in the virtual machine. Audio and networking worked and the desktop was responsive. Plasma didn't dynamically resize with the VirtualBox window, but I could adjust the desktop resolution in the System Settings panel.
When I ran NixOS on my laptop all of my hardware was detected and worked well. Networking, audio, and media shortcut keys all functioned as expected. Plasma ran well on my laptop.
A fresh install of NixOS took up 7.5GB of disk space. Memory usage varied a bit from one boot up to the next. RAM consumption ranged from 570MB to 620MB when signed into Plasma. This puts NixOS well within the middle-weight range for mainstream distributions.
Included software
The Plasma edition of NixOS ships with a fairly small collection of desktop applications. We're given the Firefox web browser and the Elisa audio player. Audio codecs are included, though there is no video player. The Okular document viewer and Gwenview image viewer are included for us. There is a text editor (Kate) and a system monitor. The Dolphin file manager is installed for us.
The System Settings configuration panel is included to help us customize the desktop. We're also provided with a copy of KDE Help for learning about the Plasma desktop and its core applications.
Digging deeper we find the GNU command line programs, a full set of manual pages, and systemd covering init duties. The sudo command provides admin access to our first user so we can perform administrative actions. Version 6.1 of the Linux kernel is installed for us.
NixOS 23.11 -- Exploring the application menu with a dark theme
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
What I found interesting about the default collection of software was the lack of some popular or commonly used items. As I mentioned above, there is no video player. We can install one using the Nix package manager if we wish. Since NixOS exists in large part to show off the Nix advanced software manager, the distribution has skipped support for Flatpak and Snap. (Flatpak is available in the NixOS repositories if we want to install it.) The vi/vim text editor, provided by most distributions, is not included, though Nano is available.
Nix and software management
The Nix package manager is the centrepiece of the NixOS distribution. It's an advanced package manager which some very useful properties which will work quietly for us in the background while presenting us with an interface which feels similar to other command line package managers. Nix performs atomic updates, meaning installed software is always in a usable state; a crash or power outage mid-upgrade won't hurt anything. Nix also separates packages in a way which allows for multiple versions of software to be installed at the same time, which is handy if two applications rely on different versions of the same library.
Perhaps one of the most useful features of Nix's package management abilities is a concept called generations. Nix uses directories and symbolic links to keep installed software logically separated. Each time we install or remove new software Nix creates a snapshot of the installed packages. This snapshot is called a generation. This means if we install a new package which breaks something we can instantly revert the change back to the previous version. It also means if we install two different versions of the same application we can switch immediately backward and forward between the two versions. This makes testing and comparing application versions quite easy.
Let's look at how all of this appears to the end user. To refresh our local database of available software we can run "nix-channel --update". To upgrade one (or multiple) packages, we can run "nix-env -u".
When we want to find a package based on its name we can use a query search such as "nix-env -qa package-name", for example "nix-env -qa vlc" to find the VLC player. To install a package we want we can use "nix-env -i package-name" and removing old software can be accomplished with "nix-env -e package-name".
Nix does not display much information to the console while it is working and it tends to be slower than other package managers such as pacman and APT. However, it did work well for me and I encountered no issues with Nix's functionality.
A few paragraphs back I mentioned Nix takes snapshots whenever we add or remove packages. We can see all of the snapshots on our system by running the command "nix-env --list-generations". Each generation is associated with a number and the currently active snapshot is marked in the list of generations. We can then jump forward or backward in time using the command "nix-env --switch-generation" and specifying the number of the snapshot. For instance, if I'm currently in snapshot 10, I can go back one step by running "nix-env --switch-generation 9".
Jumping between generations happens instantly and the snapshots don't take much space, just the size of the package which was changed. This means we can often store dozens of snapshots without noticing a significant use of storage space. If Nix ever uses too much disk space to store its generations there is a clean-up command to delete old generations, this command is called "nix-collect-garbage".
Nix configuration
While atomic updates and package snapshots are great features to have, Nix has another, more impressive, trick up its sleeve. We can configure the NixOS distribution by writing a specification of the functionality that we want on our machine in a single file and running a command. Most operating systems have a control panel or a series of configuration modules - one for managing user accounts, one for software management, one for enabling background services, and so on. With Nix we can write a terse description of users, features, and services we want and run a command. Nix then figures out how to configure the operating system based on our written instructions.
The file /etc/nixos/configuration.nix contains the current configuration of our machine, omitting any packages we added manually. Whenever we change something in this file we need to run the command "nixos-rebuild switch" to apply the new configuration and switch into this new setup. This also sets up NixOS to boot into the new configuration. Should we wish to test out the new configuration without booting into it next time the computer starts we can run a different command, "nixos-rebuild test", to effectively test drive the new instructions without making them the default when the system restarts.
NixOS 23.11 -- Browsing the system's Nix configuration file
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The NixOS manual includes information on configuration options we can put in our file along with some examples. There are also some popular options, such as OpenSSH service access, already in the configuration file and commented out to make it easier to enable them with a few keystrokes.
Something I appreciate about Nix is we can delete old items we no longer want from the Nix configuration file and Nix will remove them from the operating system. This means we can disable services, remove user accounts, or delete packages by erasing them from the configuration file and running the command "nixos-rebuild switch".
NixOS 23.11 -- Rebuilding the system configuration
(full image size: 1.2MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
This might seem like an odd way, or even a cryptic way, to add and remove elements of the operating system. It's a bit like having one, giant recipe for the distribution rather than a series of tools to manage specific elements. However, once you get accustomed to writing rules for services and system-wide packages, it unlocks some potential. For example, we can copy the same configuration file to another computer (or another thousand computers) running NixOS and use the configuration file to build the same operating system on the other computers in a few minutes. In other words, Nix not only offers us a central way to manage our operating system, it also provides a way for us to clone our system to other machines with a single text file and the Nix software.
Immutable?
Something I've read over and over again during the past year is the idea (often shared in articles, forum posts, and support discussions) that NixOS is an immutable distribution, meaning people think it has a read-only filesystem. I've encountered this idea so often I wanted to address it in this review. This idea that NixOS is immutable is false. The NixOS distribution has no immutable properties and we can write to any part of the root filesystem. However, this myth seems to have spread widely (even among some NixOS users) due to Nix's ability to make atomic transactions using separate directories and symbolic links. Since immutable distributions also offer atomic updates it seems this one overlapping feature has caused a lot of people to become confused.
NixOS, using its snapshots and atomic updates, can offer some of the same benefits as some distributions which are immutable. However, NixOS does not use an immutable filesystem. It achieves its atomic update magic using other means.
Conclusions
NixOS, as a general purpose distribution works quite well. On the surface it doesn't do anything particular remarkable - we install it using Calamares, it runs GNOME and KDE (and some other desktops), and ships with a fairly minimal desktop experience. It's not unlike other streamlined desktop and minimal desktop install options from other mainstream distributions. NixOS can work like just about any other desktop distribution as long as we don't mind turning to the command line to install new software.
With that said, under the surface NixOS becomes much more interesting. Its main purpose is showing off the Nix package manager and Nix is impressive. The Nix software provides many features above and beyond most other traditional Linux package managers, providing automated snapshots, multiple versions of the same package, atomic updates, and essentially a type of boot environment. It's also possible to both instantly rollback changes and jump forward through snapshots.
As I mentioned above, the real gem Nix offers is its central configuration file where we can install new software, enable services, and even manager user accounts by editing a single file and running a command. This makes Nix not just a package manager, but also a system manager. Plus it gives us the ability to set up a copy of our customized operating system on another computer by deploying the Nix configuration file to another machine and running a command. It's highly flexible and, though there is a learning curve, this makes deploying (or redeploying) our distribution virtually effortless.
In addition to all of this, NixOS is a rare gem in that I don't think I ran into any errors while I was using it. The distribution was stable, it worked well with my hardware, and I didn't run into a single issue while running it. I feel NixOS is well worth a try, especially if you're a system administrator and want to deploy (or maintain) identical distributions across multiple machines.
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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
NixOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9.1/10 from 73 review(s).
Have you used NixOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
FreeBSD Foundation to focus on wireless networking improvements, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support, Qubes OS 4.1 nearing its end of life, liblzma compromised upstream
The FreeBSD Foundation has published a series of updates which discuss work the Foundation is putting into the FreeBSD project. Some of the improvements being worked on include updating the FreeBSD wireless drivers: "The FreeBSD Foundation is making significant strides in wireless development, led by Cheng Cui and Bjoern Zeeb. Their primary goals are to fix bugs, stabilize the system, and improve iwlwifi for 802.11ac transfer speeds. Zeeb's recent contributions have brought stability fixes to native and LinuxKPI-based wireless drivers in FreeBSD 13.3. They will soon focus on enhancing iwlwifi performance to achieve faster and more reliable wireless connections on FreeBSD systems." The March 2024 Software Development Update covers additional improvements and areas of focus.
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Canonical is extending its support term for Ubuntu Pro subscribers. The company now offers 12 years of support for Ubuntu 14.04 and future long-term support (LTS) releases. The new offering is called Legacy Support and extends Ubuntu's LTS support cycles from 10 to 12 years. "Ubuntu Pro coverage for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS will end in April 2024. With Legacy Support, organisations running their systems on top of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS can obtain an additional two years of expanded security maintenance and phone and ticket support. This enables IT managers to prepare a detailed upgrade plan for the next LTS, and software architects to concentrate on the application level with the support offered by Canonical's team."
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The Qubes project released version 4.2.1 of the Qubes OS platform for running tasks in isolation from each other. The release announcement was accompanied by a reminder that Qubes OS 4.1 will reach the end of its supported life in June. "Qubes OS 4.1 is scheduled to reach end-of-life (EOL) on 2024-06-18, approximately three months from the date of this announcement. If you're already using Qubes 4.2, then you don't have to do anything. This announcement doesn't affect you. If you're still using Qubes 4.1, then now is the perfect opportunity to upgrade, since a brand new Qubes OS 4.2.1 ISO was just released today! (This is also the best way to get started with Qubes if you don't have it installed yet.)"
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Andres Freund has reported the upstream xz repository has been compromised with a backdoor which can affect software which relies on the liblzma software library. This compromise can, in turn, affect secure shell logins on distributions which run systemd. "After observing a few odd symptoms around liblzma (part of the xz package) on Debian Sid installations over the last weeks (logins with ssh taking a lot of CPU, valgrind errors) I figured out the answer: The upstream xz repository and the xz tarballs have been backdoored. At first I thought this was a compromise of Debian's package, but it turns out to be upstream."
Freund's mailing list post goes on to explain how the backdoor was found and why it affects OpenSSH sessions on Debian and related distributions, even though OpenSSH does not rely on lzma. "OpenSSH does not directly use liblzma. However Debian and several other distributions patch OpenSSH to support systemd notification, and libsystemd does depend on lzma. Initially starting sshd outside of systemd did not show the slowdown, despite the backdoor briefly getting invoked. This appears to be part of some countermeasures to make analysis harder."
According to a Red Hat blog post, only versions 5.6 and newer of the xz software contain the backdoor. Versions 5.4 and earlier appear to be uncompromised.
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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) |
The status of GNU's Hurd kernel
The-thundering-herd asks: What is the current status of GNU Hurd? Is it still in development?
DistroWatch answers: For people unfamiliar with the project, Hurd is the name of GNU's microkernel project: "The GNU Hurd is the GNU project's replacement for the Unix kernel. It is a collection of servers that run on the Mach microkernel to implement filesystems, network protocols, file access control, and other features that are implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels (such as Linux)."
Hurd is still under development and the project publishes semi-regular news updates which highlight new developments in the kernel.
While still under development, the Hurd kernel has never really gained momentum the way Linux, FreeBSD kernel, or even Haiku's kernel has. The Hurd kernel does not have much in the way of hardware support and has limited CPU architecture support. It's not likely to run on most hardware or be stable enough to be used as a primary operating system.
One of the few operating systems to use the Hurd kernel is a port of the Debian project which couples GNU Hurd with the GNU userland utilities and a lightweight desktop environment. The GNU Hurd port of Debian can run in some virtual machines and is capable of running many of the same open source software applications as Debian's main Linux branch.
In the past we have talked about what it is like to run Debian's Hurd branch when running the LXDE desktop and a subset of Debian's software repositories.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
RELIANOID 7.2
RELIANOID is a Debian-based Linux distribution for load balancing. The distribution offers a load balancing oriented operating system for testing, development, and quality assurance environments. The project has published an update which improves on the distribution and scheduling of network traffic. "RELIANOID 7.2.0 comes with several key improvements to elevate your user experience. The system now operates on the solid foundation of Debian 12.5, ensuring a secure and up-to-date environment. The cluster service is now included by default, simplifying the setup for those deploying clustered environments. Additionally, we've invested in enhancing the developer documentation's syntax, making it more accessible and user-friendly. The HTTP farms parser has been fortified to improve robustness, and good practices have been applied across the core codebase to achieve Critic Level 4 compliance, ensuring the highest standards of code quality. This release addresses some bug fixes to fortify the reliability and stability of RELIANOID. Cluster replication issues have been resolved, ensuring a seamless and consistent cluster environment." Additional information is provided in the release announcement.
NetBSD 10.0
The highlight portable NetBSD operating system has reached a new milestone with the release of NetBSD 10.0. The new version introduces a number of performance and security improvements: "Benchmarks of NetBSD 10 show huge performance and scalability gains over NetBSD 9.x, especially on multiprocessor and multicore systems, for compute and filesystem-bound applications. Areas of improvement included: Switched the kernel's file path lookup cache to use faster per-directory red-black trees. Improved scheduler performance, including the ability to more appropriately spread load on a mixture of slow and fast cores (e.g. big.LITTLE Arm CPUs). Various optimizations for the machine-independent virtual memory system: Switched to a faster radix tree algorithm for memory page lookups. Improved tracking of clean/dirty pages, speeding up fsync(2) on large files by orders of magnitude. Improved parallelization: rewritten page allocator with awareness of CPU topology, replaced global counters with per-CPU counters, and reduced lock contention. Improved the performance of the select(2) and poll(2) system calls. Improved the performance of tmpfs. Implemented lazy update of atime/mtime. Various optimizations of architecture-dependent x86 and AArch64 code, vastly improved network and I/O throughput on aarch64. Various boot speed improvements. Compatibility with WireGuard: A new interface, wg(4), provides a VPN tunnel compatible with the WireGuard specification. The driver is experimental and needs more testing. A userspace implementation using a rump kernel server is also included, see wg-userspace(8). The NetBSD implementation works with WireGuard implementations used by commercial VPN providers, Android, Linux, and more." Additional details, including a list of the CPUs NetBSD supports, can be found in the project's release notes.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,982
- Total data uploaded: 44.2TB
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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) |
Have you ever tried running Hurd?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about GNU's Hurd kernel. The GNU microkernel project has been around for decades, but hasn't gained as much attention as other open source kernels like Linux and the BSDs. Still, Hurd has found some users through project's like Debian's Hurd port.
We'd like to hear if you've ever tried running Hurd. Let us know your opinions on the Hurd project in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on fast and slow rolling release distributions in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Have you used the Hurd kernel?
| Yes - in the past: | 118 (8%) |
| Yes - am running it now: | 11 (1%) |
| No - but plan to in the future: | 158 (11%) |
| No - and no plans to run it: | 1209 (81%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- NethSecurity. NethSecurity is a Linux-based distribution for firewalls. NethSecurity delivers the functionalities of a modern Next-Gen firewall: MultiWAN, deep packet Inspection, VPNs, and threat protection.
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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, 8 April 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 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 |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Full list of all issues |
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iMagic OS was a commercial desktop Linux distribution based on Kubuntu. Its major features are ease of use, bleeding-edge desktop, easy installation, and compatibility with Microsoft software.
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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