 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1070, 13 May 2024 |
Welcome to this year's 20th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Computers and computing power grow every year. We constantly see newer, faster computers with more RAM and more CPU cores. While software features can (and do) grow over time to gobble up the new resources provided by hardware, not all software projects aim to be bigger and better - some strive to be smaller and better. This week we start with a look at Damn Small Linux (also known as DSL). The DSL project has returned after ten years of being dormant to once again supply minimal desktop computing solutions. Our Feature Story has more information about DSL in its present form. In our News section we talk about Red Hat offering an AI edition of Enterprise Linux, providing large language models (LLMs) and AI tools under open source licensing. We also report on the Asahi Linux project's Fedora Remix which runs on ARM-powered Apple computers and has been upgraded to Fedora version 40 while Qubes extends the lifespan for Qubes OS 4.1. The UBports project may soon have a new web browser and we share details on why a new browser is desired below. Plus we discuss how to suppress those kernel status messages which scroll by when booting the computer. We discuss how to silence those messages in this week's Questions and Answers column. Then our Opinion Poll opens the topic of X11 and how long the aging graphical display protocol is likely to be supported on Linux. Let us know how long you expect to see X11 as a supported option below. Plus we are pleased to share the new releases of 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:
- Review: Damn Small Linux 2024
- News: Red Hat offers AI edition, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 available for ARM-powered Apple computers, Qubes extends 4.1 support cycle, new web browser in the works for UBports
- Questions and answers: Hiding messages from the kernel while booting
- Released last week: AlmaLinux OS 9.4, Rocky Linux 9.4, SparkyLinux 2024.05, Daphile 24.05, TUXEDO OS 3-20240929
- Torrent corner: AlmaLinux OS, NetBSD, Rocky Linux, SparkyLinux
- Upcoming releases: Murena 2, FreeBSD 14.1 BETA3
- Opinion poll: How long will X.Org be supported on Linux distributions?
- Site news: Fixing RSS feeds
- New distributions: RSOS, Altima Linux
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Damn Small Linux 2024
Damn Small Linux was a business card size (50MB) live CD Linux distribution, based on Debian and Knoppix. After a 12 year break (from 2012 to 2024), the Damn Small Linux (often referred to as "DSL") project was relaunched. The distribution is now based on Debian and antiX with the goal of fitting on live media 700MB or smaller (in order to be usable in CD-ROM drives). Despite its minuscule size it strives to have a functional and easy to use desktop. Damn Small Linux has a nearly complete desktop suite, including web browsers, office software, an e-mail client, PDF viewer, media players, and FTP/SFTP client.
DSL 2024 appears to be based on antiX's runit edition. I couldn't find information on the DSL website about whether the distribution is meant to be run exclusively as a live distribution from a CD or if it is meant to be installed - that was something I'd need to wait to discover.
DSL is available as a single edition for 32-bit machines. Specifically, DSL is built to run on computers with i486 processors, or newer CPUs that are compatible with the i486 x86 processors. The ISO I downloaded was 660MB in size.
Live mode
The live media's boot menu offers to boot the distribution to a live desktop. Other boot menu options offer safe graphics mode, a failsafe mode, and a VirtualBox video mode. Using any of these options brings up a Fluxbox window manager with a yellow-on-black theme. A Conky status panel appears and displays process and memory statistics.
Damn Small Linux 2024 -- The Fluxbox window manager
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1920x1200 pixels)
On the desktop we find three icons: File Manager, DSL 2024 FAQ, and Install. The File Manager icon launches the zzzFM graphical file manager. This application runs, though it is missing its local manual and trying to access the zzzFM documentation produces an error. The FAQ icon opens a local document that is a few pages long. This document offers information on default passwords, the purpose of DSL, and how to transfer the ISO file to a thumb drive. The Install icon, as one might imagine, launches the system installer. This resolved my curiosity from earlier and confirms the distribution can be installed to a local hard drive.
Installing
DSL ships with a graphical system installer which I believe it inherits from antiX. This system installer also appears in the MX Linux distribution. The installer does a media check before it begins. We get started by selecting guided or manual partitioning options. The guided approach asks us if we'd like to enable hibernation or encryption. On this screen we can click and drag a slider to determine how much available disk space is allocated to the root partition and how much (if any) is assigned to a /home partition.
I tried using the manual partitioning screen, though here I ran into a problem. Disks and partitions are listed on this screen and there are seven buttons down the right side of the window. The buttons are not labelled (with icons or words), leaving the user to guess what they might do. When experimenting in a virtual machine I confirmed one button creates a new partition, but the other six remained something of a mystery.
Damn Small Linux 2024 -- Manual disk partitioning
(full image size: 898kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
While the distribution installs to our selected partition in the background we are asked some additional questions. We're prompted to make up a hostname, select our timezone, and create a username and password. We can optionally create a separate password for the user account.
There is a button which offers to show us available background services we can enable. When I clicked this button no services were listed. I suspect this is not a bug, but rather a reflection of DSL's minimal nature and an indication very few services are bundled with the distribution.
Once the installer finished copying its files to the hard drive the installer offered to restart the computer.
Early impressions
My installed copy of DSL booted to a crude login page where we can type our username and password. The Tab key, often used to switch between fields, doesn't seem to serve us here. Instead we use the more traditional Unix approach of pressing Enter to advance through the fields. Instead of a drop-down menu for selecting our session type, we can press F1 to cycle through session options. There are six sessions available: zzz-flubox, fluxbox, minimal fluxbox, zzz-jwm, jwm, and jwm-minimal.
The live mode uses Fluxbox and it is also the default on the installed copy of DSL. JWM is set up to look and act very similarly to Fluxbox. There are some minor visual differences, but otherwise the two window managers are configured to behave almost identically. The default Fluxbox session uses a yellow and black theme with semi-transparent menus and a thin panel at the bottom of the display. The JWM session has a dark theme with opaque menus. In JWM the panel is also placed at the bottom of the display and it is thicker with a more common approach to spacing and some quick-launch icons. Because I found the opaque menu easier to read and I liked the layout of the JWM panel better, I mostly used JWM during my trial.
Damn Small Linux 2024 -- Exploring the JWM application menu
(full image size: 994kB, resolution: 1920x1200 pixels)
Both window managers offer light, quick interfaces that take up few resources while being highly responsive and looking like very simple desktop environments.
Something I noticed earlier on was there was an unexpected file in my user's home directory I had not created. This file, called VisiData-example.csv, is a text file with some example data in it, as one would see in a small database or spreadsheet. I found that this file exists, for some reason, in the /etc/skel directory which means it is copied into every new user's home directory when new accounts are created. I don't know why this test data exists, but I'm guessing it got added to the DSL build accidentally.
Hardware
I first tried DSL in a VirtualBox environment where the distribution ran smoothly and quickly with no issues. When I tried DSL on my laptop I discovered the distribution would not boot in UEFI mode, it will boot in Legacy BIOS mode only. This seems to be in keeping with the project's focus on older hardware.
DSL, as the name implies, is a fairly small distribution. While it doesn't squeeze into a 50MB ISO anymore, the 660MB ISO installs onto my hard drive, taking up 2.2GB of space, plus a swap file. When logged into the JWM session DSL takes up about 270MB of RAM, putting it on the lighter end of the spectrum.
A moment ago I mentioned a swap file. The DSL installer sets up a swap file located at /swap/swap, in a directory readable by root only. This allows the system to use swap without requiring us to create an extra partition.
Included software
The new version of DSL ships with quite a few applications, most of them lightweight. However, one exception to this is Firefox (ESR) which is included by default. For older machines DSL also provides NetSurf and the Links 2 command line browser. We're given the gFTP file transfer client along with the mutt e-mail client. AbiWord and Gnumeric are installed for us and provide spreadsheet and word processing functionality.
The distribution includes media codecs for playing audio and video files along with the XMMS audio player and mpv media player. The zzzFM file manager is installed for us along with a handful of small games like terminal Pacman and Tetris.
Damn Small Linux 2024 -- Reading the FAQ document and playing Pacman4Console
(full image size: 1069kB, resolution: 1920x1200 pixels)
There is a configuration centre I'll talk about in a minute. We're given the GNU command line utilities and runit is the init implementation. This makes booting and shutting down the computer unusually fast. DSL ships with the man manual page reader, but no manual pages are installed on the system. This might be an oversight as there is nothing for man to show us. In the background DSL ships with the older 5.10 version of the kernel.
While most of the applications in the menu worked well and performed as expected, I had trouble with the themes. There is a menu in the application menu which lists themes we can switch to. However, when I'd select a theme nothing would happen, even if I then restarted the window manager. When I opened the control centre I found a tool for changing the appearance of the window manager and this would allow me to pick and test alternative themes.
Damn Small Linux 2024 -- Adjusting the theme in JWM
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1920x1200 pixels)
Control Centre
The control centre provides a portal for accessing all sorts of configuration options. The centre displays tabs or categories of settings down the left side. Over on the right we find launchers for modules we can open to change system configuration options. There are a wide range of settings modules which help us adjust the look of the desktop, set up wireless networking, enable a firewall, adjust the clock, and change screen resolution. These modules are not unified, they're pulled in from a variety of upstream sources. This means, unlike the settings panels of Plasma, GNOME, and Xfce the DSL modules all have different styles. This can give an uncoordinated feel as the clock settings use a slider to set the time, the firewall tool just shows buttons for enabling/disabling the firewall, and the screen resolution utility pops up a tiny window with drop-down menus. My point is the functionality is there and works, but it's crude and it puts a range of styles on display that make each one its own adventure in getting a feel for the tool.
Damn Small Linux 2024 -- Browsing the Control Centre panel
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1920x1200 pixels)
Package management
The DSL distribution uses APT on the command line for package management. There does not appear to be any graphical package manager. (There is an update manager in the control centre, but it gave me errors when I tried to launch it.) Using APT we can pull from Debian 12's repositories and also from antiX's pool of software. There are some extra repositories listed on the system, such as LibreWolf, but these are disabled by default.
There was no notification of available updates, the user is left to check manually and install or remove software from the command line. This worked and I encountered no problems when using APT to update the system's packages.
DSL does not ship with Snap or Flatpak support, but we can install Flatpak from Debian's repositories and use it if we wish. Snap support is unavailable because DSL uses runit instead of systemd which is a dependency of the Snap framework.
Conclusions
The DSL website says the project's mission is to keep older computers running, saving them from unnecessary retirement: "This project is meant to service older computers and have them continue to be useful far into the future. Such a notion sits well with my values. I think of this project as my way of keeping otherwise usable hardware out of landfills."
I think the project is doing a good job. From what I have observed so far, the new sub-700MB version of DSL does a great job of walking the line between supporting older equipment while still being useful and somewhat up to date. Some lightweight projects are so minimal or so alien in their approach that I find them difficult to navigate. A less experienced Linux user probably wouldn't handle something like SliTaz or Tiny Core Linux gracefully.
The DSL project manages to find a good balance between supporting older equipment (32-bit machines using CD-ROM drives are supported) while also offering a fairly familiar experience. The JWM and Fluxbox window managers are presented in a way that should be fairly comfortable to Linux users and people who were running versions of Windows from 10 to 20 years ago. We're given two working web browsers, a decent file manager, some small utilities, a few games to pass the time (a benefit on older equipment), and even some basic office functionality. Plus, if we want more modern software we can pull it in from the latest stable version of Debian.
I think it's telling that after three or four days of playing with DSL, the one serious complaint I could come up with was it didn't work with UEFI mode. Since all computers from the era DSL is targeting should support Legacy BIOS mode, this should be a non-issue for people who want to run DSL. There were a few minor issues, like having trouble switching themes or the update utility getting stuck in a loop, but nothing serious. These will probably get fixed by the next release and there are simple workarounds.
All in all, the new version of DSL performed better than I expected and I think the distribution does an unusually fine job of balancing the limited hardware of older machines while being functional and friendly.
* * * * *
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
Damn Small Linux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.9/10 from 7 review(s).
Have you used Damn Small Linux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Red Hat offers AI edition, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 available for ARM-powered Apple computers, Qubes extends 4.1 support cycle, new web browser in the works for UBports
AI bots using large language models (LLMs) have been highly popular over the past year. Red Hat has announced the company will be getting involved in LLM development, using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as a base for open source LLMs: "RHEL AI brings together the open source-licensed Granite large language model (LLM) family from IBM Research, InstructLab model alignment tools based on the LAB (Large-scale Alignment for chatBots) methodology and a community-driven approach to model development through the InstructLab project. The entire solution is packaged as an optimized, bootable RHEL image for individual server deployments across the hybrid cloud and is also included as part of OpenShift AI, Red Hat's hybrid machine learning operations (MLOps) platform, for running models and InstructLab at scale across distributed cluster environments."
Red Hat plans to offer bootable images for RHEL that will include AI tools which will be provided under the Apache open source license: "A bootable image of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, including popular AI libraries such as Pytorch and hardware optimized inference for NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD. Enterprise-grade technical support and model intellectual property indemnification provided by Red Hat." Details can be found on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI page.
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The Fedora team have announced the release of Fedora Asahi Remix version 40, a series of Fedora editions for Apple ARM-powered computers. "In addition to all the exciting improvements brought by Fedora Linux 40, Fedora Asahi Remix brings conformant OpenGL 4.6 support to Apple Silicon. It also continues to provide extensive device support, including high quality audio out of the box.
Fedora Asahi Remix offers KDE Plasma 6 as our flagship desktop experience. It also features a custom Calamares-based initial setup wizard. A GNOME variant is also available, featuring GNOME 46, with both desktop variants matching what Fedora Linux offers. Fedora Asahi Remix also provides a Fedora Server variant for server workloads and other types of headless deployments. Finally, we offer a Minimal image for users that wish to build their own experience from the ground up." Install instructions are offered in the Fedora documentation.
* * * * *
The Qubes project is extending its support cycle for Qubes OS 4.1. The original end date was June 18, 2024 and has been extended to July 31, 2024. "According to the Qubes OS Project's release support policy, Qubes OS releases are supported for six months after each subsequent major or minor release. This means that Qubes 4.1 will reach EOL six months after Qubes 4.2 was released. Since Qubes 4.2 was released on 2023-12-18, Qubes 4.1 is scheduled to reach EOL six months later on 2024-06-18. SecureDrop currently relies on Qubes 4.1 for the SecureDrop Workstation. To allow for additional time to ensure full compatibility of the SecureDrop Workstation with Qubes 4.2, and to help existing users migrate, FPF has offered to sponsor an extension of post-EOL Qubes 4.1 security support until 2024-07-31, and the Qubes OS Project has agreed." Details of this change can be found in the project's announcement.
* * * * *
The UBports project may soon have a new web browser that offers better multimedia support. This new browser could eventually replace the Morph browser which is facing some compatibility issues. "Alfred has been doing some experiments towards a new browser for UT. A demo was shown. It is already very fluid. The URL bar is at the bottom and the keyboard swipes up. It runs on 60fps. It is fully compliant so it doesn't need the permission tweaks that our current chromium based browser requires. The browser is based on the Apple webkit model. Unlike chromium there is gstringer support for multimedia. That means hardware accelerated video decoding is happening. Just to make clear, this is still in the early stages it is coming along well but is not a finished product yet.
Flo commented that since Morph is based on a late version of Qt 5, we cannot upgrade the webengine until we reach Qt 6. Unfortunately that is a big challenge and we don't even have the resources to try at the moment. New HTML5 tricks are not compatible with the old Qt version, so some websites are just a mess. With Morph, that will only get worse as pages are upgraded. There are some webapps which no longer work because of those library issues." Additional work happening in the UBports project is discussed in the mobile operating system's newsletter.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Hiding messages from the kernel while booting
Keeping-the-kernel-quiet asks: I get several ACPI error messages which fly by too fast for me to capture at boot time, but openSUSE Tumbleweed seems to run just fine once it's up and running. My question for you is: is there a way to turn off those error messages at boot time?
DistroWatch answers: I believe what you are looking for is the quiet kernel parameter. When the Linux kernel is booted with the quiet parameter it will "disable most log messages."
The Arch Linux wiki has a great tutorial on how to change kernel parameters, both testing them at boot time and then making the changes permanent.
The quiet parameter is often passed to the kernel along with splash to enable a graphical screen at boot time, though quiet can be used on its own.
The question mentioned that the boot messages flew by too quickly to read. If you're curious about the information shared in these messages, you can see the kernel boot messages after the system has finished booting by running the dmesg command:
$ dmesg | less
The above command will show you the ACPI messages along with hardware information, driver messages, and kernel memory statistics.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
AlmaLinux OS 9.4
AlmaLinux OS is an enteprise Linux distribution built from the source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The distribution's latest release, AlmaLinux OS 9.4, focuses on security and virtual machine snapshots. The release announcement offers a summary of changes: "The AlmaLinux 9.4 introduces updates to enhance machine security and data protection. Enhancements in web-console and system roles automate additional operations and promote consistency in complex IT environments. The new release's features aim to improve system availability and reliability, facilitate easier recovery operations, and enhance virtual machine snapshot capabilities in hybrid cloud environments. The new system roles introduced enable the creation and management of logical volume manager (LVM) snapshots for improved data backup and recovery processes. Additionaly, updates in the 9.4 release continues to improve performance, scalability, and reliability for developers in building and managing applications. You can read the full release notes for this version on the wiki: AlmaLinux OS 9.4 Release Notes."
SparkyLinux 2024.05
SparkyLinux is a lightweight, Debian-based distribution. The project has published an update to its semi-rolling branch. This update includes new versions of Firefox, LibreOffice, Thunderbird, and the kernel. It also rolls back a recent change, swapping out the newer Nala package manager in favour of APT. "The latest version of Sparky CLI Installer provides a few changes, such as autopartitioning option and so, autosetting the target system a little faster. The Nala [package manager] doesn't upgrade packages properly as APT, so I recommend to uninstall Nala on Sparky Testing. There is also issue of libgnutls-dane0 package (massive package update in testing) which has to be uninstalled before upgrading other packages. There are three new package repo and ISO mirror servers available for downloading ISO images and installing packages, located: US2 in NY, USA, SI1 and SI2 in Singapore, Asia. All three servers are provided thanks to Astian, Inc." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Daphile 24.05
Daphile is a minimal operating system for running a digital audio player on a headless computer. The project's latest release is version 24.05 which includes an upgrade to Perl 5.38 and removes Mysqueezebox.com integration from LMS. Additional changes are listed in the project's changelog. Perl Crypt::Blowfish added to improve Deezer plugin performance. Streaming plugins tested to work for now: Spotty v4.10.1; TIDAL v1.4.6; Qobuz v3.5.0; Deezer v2.81.4; YouTube v0.212. WAV output file option added to CD ripping. CDDB replaced with Gnudb. SMB3 and WebDAV support into Storage Network drives. Automatic web UI color theme option based on device theme. Kernel update to 6.6.30 and 6.6.30-rt30. Linux firmware file inclusion improved. Daphile built with GCC 13.2. ISO file size grown due to increased kernel modules with related firmware files. Compression strategy change: Kernel modules and firmware files use LZMA (.xz); SquashFS root filesystem uses Zstd." The project offers vanilla and real-time kernel editions.
TUXEDO OS 3-20240429
TUXEDO OS is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the KDE Plasma desktop which is developed in Germany by TUXEDO Computers GmbH. The organization's latest release includes an update to the new Plasma 6 desktop environment. "The most important technical change with Plasma 6 is the default setting of Wayland as the display server instead of the previous X11 display server. We have already described the differences between X11 and Wayland in an article in our knowledge base. The new display protocol promises, among other things, less tearing and artifacts as well as better configurability for multi-monitor environments. In the best case scenario, you will not notice the change or even perceive it as positive. However, there are cases where you should stick with X11 for the time being. This applies in particular to owners of older NVIDIA cards that require drivers older than v495.44. We make it easy for you to test which session type is the most suitable for you at the moment. To provide you with a quick and easy way to switch between X11 and Wayland, we have included an easy selection option." Additional details can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
TUXEDO OS 3-20240429 -- Running the Plasma 6 desktop
(full image size: 1.7MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Rocky Linux 9.4
Rocky Linux is a community enterprise operating system designed to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The project's latest release, Rocky Linux 9.4, introduces a number of changes to further customize the operating system and improve security. "From Rocky Linux 9.4 forward, you can specify arbitrary custom mount points except for specific paths that are reserved for the operating system. Creation of different partitioning modes is now available including auto-lvm, lvm, and raw. Customize tailor options for a profile and add it to your blueprint customizations by using selected and unselected options to add and remove rules. Security: Listed below are security-related highlights in the latest Rocky Linux 9.4 release. For a complete list of security-related changes, see the upstream link. SELinux userspace release 3.6 introduces deny rules for further customizing policies. Keylime server components, the verifier and registrar, are available as Containers. Rsyslog processing system introduces customizable TLS/SSL encryption settings and additional options that relate to capability dropping. OpenSSL TLS toolkit adds a drop-in directory for provider-specific configuration files. libkcapi 1.4.0 introduces new tools and options. Notably, with the new -T option, you can specify target file names in hash-sum calculations. stunnel 5.7.1 TLS/SSL tunneling service changes the behavior of OpenSSL 1.1 and later versions in FIPS mode. Besides this change, this version provides many new features such as support for modern PostgreSQL clients." Additional information can be found in the release announcement and in the release notes.
EuroLinux 9.4
EuroLinux is an enterprise-class Linux distribution made and supported by the EuroLinux company, built mostly from code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The company's latest release is EuroLinux 9.4 which places a focus on security and updating programming languages. "Major changes in EuroLinux 9.4. Security - key security-related highlights: Rsyslog log processing system introduces customizable TLS/SSL encryption settings and additional capability dropping options. The OpenSSL TLS toolkit adds a provider-specific configuration directory. The Linux kernel cryptographic API (libkcapi) 1.4.0 introduces new tools and options. You can now specify target file names for hash calculations using the -T option. The stunnel TLS/SSL tunneling service 5.71 provides many new features such as support for modern PostgreSQL clients. Programming languages, web and database servers - later versions of the following application are now available: MariaDB 10.11; nginx 1.24; PHP 8.2; PostgreSQL 16; Python 3.12." Additional details and download links can be found in the EuroLinux release notes.
NST 40-13973
Network Security Toolkit (NST) is a bootable live disc based on the Fedora distribution. The toolkit was designed to provide easy access to best-of-breed open source network security applications. The project's latest release, version 40-13973, features Linux 6.8.9, the Spiderfoot utility, and Portainer is available for Docker container management. The release announcement highlights key changes: "Below is a summary of the feature improvements included in this release: Access to the Spiderfoot reconnaissance tool that automatically queries over 100 public data sources (OSINT) to gather intelligence on IPv4 Addresses, Domain Names, E-mail Addresses, Names and more can be run as a Docker container. The graphic: Spiderfoot - NST 38 System Scan was a summary result to determine open exposed ports using this tool. Access to the Metasploit Framework (MSF) for developing and executing exploit code against a remote target machine can be run as a Docker container. Added the Portainer application, for Docker container management, as a Docker container. As always, the networking and security applications included have been updated to their latest version which can be found in the manifest."
Network Security Toolkit 40-13973 -- Running the MATE desktop
(full image size: 106kB, 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: 2,997
- Total data uploaded: 44.4TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
How long will X.Org be supported on Linux distributions?
The X11 protocol has been around for about 40 years now and implementations of X11 (such as X.Org) have been running on Linux since the 1990s, providing users with graphical desktops and applications. Over the past decade or so Wayland has been gradually gaining momentum and support for Wayland has been gradually making its way into window managers and desktop environments.
This week we'd like to hear how long you think X.Org will continue to be supported in Linux distributions. Do you think Wayland is about to hit critical mass and replace X.Org or will the process be much more gradual?
You can see the results of our previous poll on using storage pools which can expand in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
|
X.Org will continue to ship in most Linux distros for the next....
| 1 Year: | 42 (2%) |
| 3 Years: | 210 (11%) |
| 5 Years: | 787 (41%) |
| 10 Years: | 420 (22%) |
| 15 Years: | 84 (4%) |
| 20 Years: | 70 (4%) |
| Longer than 20 years: | 316 (16%) |
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|
| Website News |
Fixing RSS feeds
The past few weeks I've been digging through the DistroWatch website and code, fixing little issues. I'll talk about the bulk of those more, once I'm closer to finished. For now I want to talk about a small win.
For years DistroWatch has maintained RSS feeds for announcing new distribution releases, news headlines, and package updates. These feeds are generated dynamically and automatically as new material is posted to the DistroWatch website.
When the feeds were originally set up, we were careful to make sure they were standards compliant. In other words, they used just standard RSS features and passed W3C validation tests. And for a while that was all well and good. We occasionally tested the feeds to confirm they were working and subscribed to our own feeds to confirm they worked with multiple clients.
However, over time, various RSS feed readers, especially cloud-based ones, became more popular. This gave rise to three problems.
First, a number of third-party RSS feed readers are not standards compliant and require extensions to the original standard. Unfortunately, these readers almost never produce error messages; they just silently fail. This has resulted in a number of people contacting us over the years to say our RSS feeds are not working (or "down"), even though we can confirm they are both working and standards compliant. Often times, when we engage in a back and forth, people can't tell us why their client is failing as there is no error or warning, the RSS client simply fails to show any entries from our feeds.
The second issue was cloud RSS feed readers often ended up checking for updates frequently and from a single IP address, making it look like the service was trying to perform a denial of service (DoS) attack rather than simply read the feed for multiple users. This sometimes causes clients to get blocked.
The third issue is most of the web has moved to using HTTPS as the base line standard, but some old RSS clients still stick with HTTP and cannot read HTTPS connections.
Recently I've been working on these issues, trying to make sure heavy traffic to our RSS feeds is seen as a positive rather than an attack. And I've been trying to adjust our RSS feed generation to make sure RSS clients that are a bit picky (and fail silently) will display our feeds properly. This has meant a little trial and error and gathering some bug reports from our visitors (thanks to everyone who sent in reports).
At this point I think most feed readers, whether they are local or cloud-based, whether they are standards compliant or not, should work properly with our news feeds. Thank you to everyone for letting us know when you ran into problems, reporting bugs to the feed readers, and helping us troubleshoot to see what tweaks were needed.
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- RSOS. RSOS is a minimal, Debian-based distribution featuring the Xfce desktop.
- Altima Linux. Altima Linux is a Debian-based distribution featuring the Cinnamon desktop. It strives to be familiar and easy to use for people migrating from proprietary operating systems.
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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, 20 May 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 |
| Star Labs |
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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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| Random Distribution | 
BlueOnyx
BlueOnyx is a server distribution based on AlmaLinux OS, Rocky Linux and CentOS. It is the mission of BlueOnyx to provide a fully-integrated Internet hosting platform that includes web, e-mail, DNS and file transfer services from a simple, user-friendly web-based interface that is easily installed on commodity hardware or virtual private server.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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