 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1071, 20 May 2024 |
Welcome to this year's 21st issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
There is an old saying that goes: "To err is human, but to really mess up requires a computer." It highlights how quickly things can go wrong when mistakes are made at the speeds at which computers process information and commands. This week, in our Questions and Answers section, we talk about some common mistakes and tips people can use to avoid data loss. In our News column we talk about improvements coming to ReactOS, in large part due to efforts from the WINE project. We also report on Haiku making it easier to switch between light and dark themes, Canonical outlining their plans for Ubuntu 24.10 and NetBSD blocking code submissions which were generated by chatbots. First though we take the Archcraft distribution for a test run and report on how well this Arch-based project performs. Read on to learn Jesse Smith's impressions of this minimalist Archcraft distro. Then, in our Opinion Poll, we ask for your thoughts on what is the preferred way to install a distribution. Do you like a modern, graphical installer, a minimal menu-driven installer, or writing a disk image to your drive? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Archcraft 2024.04.06
Archcraft is a minimal, rolling release Linux distribution based on Arch Linux. The project provides a graphical user interface using minimal window managers rather than a full featured desktop environment. Archcraft is installed using the Calamares system installer and includes the yay package manager to facilitate fetching software from the Arch User Repository.
The distribution's website highlights three main features of Archcraft:
- Minimal - Archcraft is very minimal and lightweight. It can run [using] under 500MB of memory as it only uses window managers and some lightweight applications.
- Stunning - flat and pastel colours, the consistency among all the UI elements and various themes make Archcraft look very clean, minimal and stunning.
- Powerful - with latest softwares [sic] and built-in support for AUR and being lightweight, Archcraft gives you the power to do whatever you want on your Linux PC.
Archcraft is available in a single edition for 64-bit (x86_64) computers. The ISO file provided is about 2.7GB in size.
Live media
The Archcraft ISO boots to the Openbox window manager. Across the top of the screen we find a thin panel, adorned with bright icons and widgets. This panel holds the application menu, virtual desktop switcher, several resource monitors, a media widget and system tray. Moving the mouse over these widgets doesn't display any tool tips or hints as to what information they are displaying, but I think the resource monitors show CPU, memory, disk and network status - in that order.
Once the graphical session loads, a welcome window appears. This window presents us with a brief greeting and three buttons: Get Started, Calamares, Launch ABIF. I knew Calamares was the system installer, but was not sure what Get Started or ABIF would do. The Get Started button launches a second window which provides us with three more buttons. These connect us with Archcraft's documentation, tutorials and screenshot gallery. ABIF is a text-based system installer for Archcraft. ABIF seems a bit cryptic in its questions and options, but provides a console-based approach to installing the distribution. I suspect this option exists for people who do not have the hardware specifications to run Calamares or who simply wish not to use the graphical installer.
Installing
Calamares does a good job of walking us through the usual steps. We pick our language, a keyboard layout and select a username/password combination for ourselves. The partitioning screen supports both easy, point-and-click manual partitioning and guided partitioning. The guided approach gives us two sets of options. The first is picking the root filesystem. The default is to use ext4, but we can also select Btrfs, JFS, Reiser, XFS and F2FS. We can also select if we want a swap partition, a swap file, or no swap space at all. I went with a swap file and stuck with the default ext4 filesystem.
We are also asked which graphical environment we would like. The options are bspwm (a tiling window manager) and Openbox (a floating window manager). I decided to use Openbox.
The installer copies files to our hard drive and displays a summary of progress information while a slideshow plays, talking about the key features of Archcraft. When Calamares finishes its work it offers to restart the computer. I returned to the live desktop for a while and then tried to find a shutdown option. This proved to be a brief challenge. There is a power button on the panel, but clicking it (or right-clicking it) had no effect. There didn't appear to be any restart or poweroff option in the application menu and there is no user menu as one finds on GNOME. I eventually found that right-clicking the desktop would display a second application menu. From there selecting the System sub-menu gave me the option of powering down the computer.
Early impressions
Booting into my new copy of Archcraft brought up a graphical, dark themed, simple login screen. From there I could sign into the window manager I'd selected at install time (Openbox, in my case). Once I was signed in the Hello window (also known as the Getting Started window from the live environment) opened, offering me quick access to on-line documentation. At the bottom of the screen we find a dock offering quick-launch icons.
One of the first things I noticed while exploring the Openbox interface was that I was unable to interact with or change most of the elements on the panel directly. I was able to click on some buttons, such as the application menu and networking widget. This allowed me to launch programs and connect to wireless networks. I could also activate the media widget to play an audio clip. However, I was unable to click on or otherwise interact with the resource monitors or the power button. I was also unable to directly move or remove widgets that were on the panel. The default panel (provided by Polybar) is visually interesting, but not flexible, at least in terms with interacting directly with it. I did find that if I right-clicked on the desktop to bring up the application menu I could go into the Preferences category, select Panel/Bar and toggle between Polybar and Tint2 (an alternative panel). I found I liked Tint2 a lot better as it was more subdued, fit with the overall desktop theme better and was less cluttered.
Archcraft 2024.04.06 -- Running the Thunar file manager with Tint2 panel
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The application menu we can access from right-clicking on the desktop is a fairly standard tree-style menu. I found it easy to navigate. Clicking on the application menu button in the panel brings up a different way to launch programs. The button on the panel launches a window which appears in the middle of the screen. This window displays an alphabetical listing of desktop applications and a search box we can use to filter the list. Clicking an entry launches the application. This window also has three other buttons or tabs across the top. These are not labelled and they don't have tool tips, but I found they displayed command line applications, directories in our user's home directory and a list of currently open windows, respectively. In short, this window gives us an all-in-one way to find software, files and running programs. It's a bit awkward as the first two tabs (desktop applications and console programs) contain a lot of entries so we either need to type or scroll a lot to find what we want.
Archcraft 2024.04.06 -- Exploring applications and command line programs
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Hardware
While I found getting used to Archcraft's style of Openbox interface took some time, I will say the environment was pleasantly responsive. When running in both VirtualBox and on my laptop Openbox performed quickly. Archcraft was stable during my trial and was able to boot in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes. When running on my laptop Archcraft detected and worked with all of my hardware.
Archcraft was heavier in memory that I had expected. The Openbox environment took up about 470MB of memory, putting it in the medium range for Linux distributions. The distribution also used a typical amount of disk space for a full featured Linux distribution, about 6GB for a fresh install, plus additional space for a swap file.
Archcraft 2024.04.06 -- The settings panel and virtual terminal
(full image size: 959kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Included software
While Archcraft is average in terms of size on the disk and RAM usage, the distribution doesn't ship with a lot of desktop software. We're given the Firefox web browser, the Atril document viewer and the Thunar file manager. The Htop system monitor is included along with the GParted disk manager and the Geany text editor. There are several modules for customizing the settings of the window manager and these generally worked smoothly.
Archcraft 2024.04.06 -- Exploring the application menu
(full image size: 975kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Archcraft uses zsh as its default shell instead of the more commonly used bash. This shell isn't my favourite, but it works well enough and didn't cause me any problems. The distribution also ships with the GNU Compiler Collection, GNU command line utilities and it ships with manual pages installed for us. The distribution uses systemd as its init software and runs on Linux 6.8. I found the handful of included applications worked well for me. There isn't much there, but what is there works.
Package management
As far as I could tell, Archcraft does not ship with any graphical software manager. We can make use of the pacman command line package manager to add, remove and upgrade software. The pacman utility worked its usual speedy magic and, while I find pacman's syntax odd, it ran without any issues.
The Archcraft website makes mention of the fact the distribution ships with the yay utility to provide easy access to the Arch User Repository (AUR). In fact, it's one of the three main features highlighted on the website. It is true yay is installed, however I quickly ran into issues with it. I was able to perform searches for software in the AUR with yay, but any time I tried to install new items an error would be displayed telling me about a missing binary called debugedit. I checked and confirmed debugedit is a package available through the Arch repositories and it was not installed by default, rendering yay ineffective. I used pacman to install the debugedit package and, from then on, yay worked to fetch and install community-provided software from the AUR.
Archcraft 2024.04.06 -- Error while running yay
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Archcraft does not ship with Flatpak or Snap support for portable packages. However, we can add these frameworks from the repositories if we wish.
Conclusions
I want to acknowledge right up front that I like what Archcraft is trying to do. The pairing of Arch with the friendly Calamares installer is a great (and popular) combination. Likewise, the Arch Linux base with easy access to the software in the AUR is an attractive combination. I also have a special place in my heart for distributions which lean toward the minimal side - offering a desktop environment and a few basic utilities, but not cluttering up the application menu. I tend to prefer distributions which provide a small base and let us add to it.
Let's look at the distribution's three main features I mentioned at the top of this review: minimal, visually stunning and powerful (thanks to Arch's repositories and the AUR).
I want to get "stunning" out of the way first. Visual styles are subjective and one man's trash is another man's treasure. I didn't care for the default, pastel on dark combination, particularly with the crowded Polybar panel. However, once I'd made a few adjustments and swapped out the pastel-style Polybar for Tint2, I liked the general look. This feature is a matter of personal taste so I'll let people decide how well Archcraft does based on the screenshots.
Archcraft 2024.04.06 -- The Openbox interface with Polybar panel
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
In terms of being minimal, I feel the results are mixed here too. Archcraft doesn't ship with a lot of applications (which I like), however the distribution also uses a surprisingly large amount of disk space for including so few applications and no full desktop environment. It even uses an average amount of RAM, despite using a light window manager in place of a full desktop. Archcraft is basically a medium-sized distribution offering a small-sized collection of software. So it's mostly succeeding in being small, but also using more resources than some more fleshed out distributions.
This brings us to the "powerful" claim and, once again, I had mixed feeling about the effect achieved. Archcraft does indeed have access to Arch's main repositories and the goodies this implies, so that is good. However, one of the distribution's three selling points is using yay for accessing the AUR and it doesn't work out of the box. It's missing a dependency, which I really feel should have been noticed before the ISO was released. This is easily fixed, but if the user needs to install packages to get access to the AUR, we're not really further ahead with Archcraft than we are with any of the other dozens of Arch-based distributions.
In short Archcraft does okay with each of its three selling points, but I feel like it doesn't deliver entirely on any of its main claims. It's doing alright and it's easy to install, it's fairly minimal, but I feel like the system could be lighter and would have benefited from a test run of its three main features before the ISO was published. I think whether people will enjoy the experience will hinge on whether the user enjoys minimal window managers and working from the command line. If so, and if a rolling release distribution appeals, then Archcraft is a decent member of the Arch Linux family. However, for people who want a more automated or point-and-click experience then Archcraft might be a bit too arcane for them.
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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
Archcraft has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.5/10 from 55 review(s).
Have you used Archcraft? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
ReactOS improves functionality and stability, Haiku makes it easier to switch themes, NetBSD sets a policy against accepting AI-generated code, Canonical outlines plans for Ubuntu 24.10
The ReactOS team have published an overview of work going into their open source operating system which strives to be compatible with Microsoft Windows. The team is welcoming four new members and opening up a range of new developments to improve multiprocessor support and import improvements from WINE. "ReactOS has fallen short for many years on updating these components as WINE has pushed further into the modern era. Updating these components means we greatly improve the stability and functionality of the components we sync, but also lets us look into the future as more NT6+ features and functionality get merged into the project. Some early experiments have shown dramatically improved application compatibility on the very early builds that come enabled with these features by default." Additional information is provided in the ReactOS newsletter.
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The Haiku project has published a newsletter outlining the work the team's developers accomplished in April. Some of the highlights include improvements to several hardware drivers, some stability improvements and a quick way to switch between light and dark themes: "waddlesplash reworked Appearance preferences to hide most system colours by default, but instead compute them automatically based off of just 3 main colours. This makes switching from "light mode" to "dark mode" much easier (just choose the "Panel background" color and make it a dark gray instead of a light gray; the font colours will automatically flip to white, etc.), though there's still more improvement that could be made here. (This required a fair bit of work to come up with sensible methods to compute the secondary colours automatically.)" Additional progress is discussed in the project's newsletter.
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The NetBSD project is taking a stance against code submissions written by AI chatbots which have been trained on unknown code. More specifically, since the licenses on code used to train AI coding assistants is often unknown or restrictive, the output of these AI tools may be considered derivative works and covered under restrictive licenses. The NetBSD team wants to make sure no code tainted by closed source or restrictive licenses can be merged with the NetBSD operating system. The NetBSD commit guidelines have been updated to include this paragraph: "If you commit code that was not written by yourself, double check that the license on that code permits import into the NetBSD source repository and permits free distribution. Check with the author(s) of the code, make sure that they were the sole author of the code and verify with them that they did not copy any other code. Code generated by a large language model or similar technology, such as GitHub/Microsoft's Copilot, OpenAI's ChatGPT, or Facebook/Meta's Code Llama, is presumed to be tainted code and must not be committed without prior written approval by core."
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Canonical is outlining plans for Ubuntu 24.10 which will be launched in October 2024. Some of the plans include switching to a Wayland session by default, even when using NVIDIA drivers, getting Ubuntu Core Desktop ready for general use and making the software centre work with third-party Deb packages. Canonical has also announced plans to expand the team working on Ubuntu's desktop: "Our plan is to grow the Ubuntu Desktop team by at least another 50% over the next year and we are opening a range of positions across all levels of seniority in the coming weeks. At Canonical we think the future is bright for the Linux desktop and if you have the passion and skills to be at the cutting edge of performance, security, immutability and accessibility then we want to hear from you." Additional plans the company has for Ubuntu 24.10 can be found in the roadmap.
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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) |
Common command line mistakes
Looking-for-trouble asks: What are some common command line mistakes? Can you talk about common pitfalls and destructive accidents waiting to happen?
DistroWatch answers: I tend to avoid writing about things people shouldn't do, in part because I believe one of the most common mistakes people make is blindly copying and pasting unfamiliar commands from on-line sources into a local terminal. I don't want to demonstrate a command that does something terrible, only to have someone copy my example to see if it really works.
Rather than talk specifically about things people should not do, I'd like to focus on some ways to avoid common console traps and errors. There are habits and tricks a person can pick up over time to avoid injuring their data and their pride while using the Linux command line. So let's look at some of those and you can infer what the worst mistakes would look like.
I think the most common issues people run into happen when using destructive commands, such as the remove (rm) command. Removing a file or directory is, at its core, a destructive - and therefore potentially dangerous - experience. Using the wrong flag when running rm, specifying the wrong filename, or accidentally using a wildcard where you shouldn't can be a recipe for instant regret. Some of these issues might be easy to overlook too.
As an example, let's say we want to clear out all of the files in the current directory and just the current directory and we use the following command where the * is a special character that means "match all files":
$ rm *
That seems simple enough, right? But there are some potential problems in this example. Let's say the directory we are in contains one sub-directory, let's call it ABC. And it also has three files: abc, xyz and -r:
$ ls
ABC abc -r xyz
Experienced command line users will recognize that the file -r is also a valid flag for the rm command, indicating we wish to remove files recursively, even in sub-directories. Which means "rm *" will be expanded by our shell and end up looking like this and erase the ABC directory and its contents:
$ rm -r ABC abc xyz
How do we avoid wiping out an entire sub-directory that we want to keep? Well, there are a few ways. First, I always recommend people run the ls command before performing a remove action to look for tricky files, ones with special characters in the name. However, a good catch-all approach is to combine two flags of our own. First, we should use the "-i" flag which runs rm in interactive mode, prompting before removing each file:
$ rm -i *
The above helps us avoid deleting files by accident most of the time, but it also gets tedious if we are deleting many files. Another trick we can do is to specify the "--" flag which means "everything after -- is a file, not a flag". Now let's look at the example again:
$ rm -- *
In the above example the shell expands the command "rm -- *" to "rm -- ABC abc xyz -r". Because of the leading "--" every file after the double-dash is treated as a file. This means the rm command will not regard the "-r" as a flag and instead treat it as just another file to be deleted. For double protection, we can combine the above techniques and use both "-i" to pause before each file removal and also use the dashes to guard against filenames with special characters, like this:
$ rm -i -- *
The above two tips would probably prevent around 25% of the accidental destruction of data I've encountered in my personal and professional lives. While I'm talking about rm, I'd like to share one more tip. Some experienced system administrators (and most Linux textbooks) will tell people to alias the rm command to something less destructive. Usually they suggest aliasing the rm command to "rm -i". What this means is every time the user runs "rm" on the command line, the shell will automatically translate it to "rm -i" for you.
In theory, this makes sense because it puts up a barrier between the user and accidentally deleting a file. However, I believe it is a bad idea for three reasons:
- It trains the user to quickly type "y" or "yes" at every file delete prompt without looking at it because they are always prompted. People eventually become blind to these sorts of prompts, causing the pause to lose its effectiveness.
- It teaches the user to use remove as though it were safe when maybe they should be using another, less destructive tool, such as the move (mv) command. Teaching people to run "mv file ~/Trash" and leave the file in the trash for a week to be erased later is, long-term, a better practice than aliasing a remove command that introduces an easily bypassed prompt.
- If the user ever switches computers or shells, they won't have the "safe" alias anymore and will be running the rm command in its natural, raw, unforgiving form. I'd rather tell people to get used to typing "rm -i --" than tell them to get used to typing "rm" and hope that the shell protects them.
Whenever I hear people talk about using aliases to make commands safer, I suggest a different approach: an alias or shell command with a different name that will provide similar functionality. For example, instead of the user learning to type "rm" to run an alias that is (hopefully) safe, like "rm -i", why not create a shell script or alias with a different name that performs a similar function? This way the user doesn't get into the bad habit of relying on the alias "catching" them and saving them from the bad command. Instead they learn a new command that won't blow up in their face when run on another machine.
Let's look at a practical example. Let's say that, instead of creating an alias for "rm" that will start interactive mode, let's create a simple shell script that moves files to a directory called ~/Trash. Such a script might just be called "remove" or "trash" and look like this:
#!/bin/bash
if [ $# -lt 1 ]
then
echo "Provide the name of at least one file."
exit 1
fi
mkdir -p ~/Trash
mv $@ ~/Trash/
Placing this script in our path and calling it "trash" will provide us with a way to dump unwanted files in a temporary holding directory when we no longer need them. Later we can go empty the trash or set up a scheduled job to erase the contents of the trash directory. This is a crude example, but the idea here is to get the user out of the habit of using rm, which can be immediately destructive and using another, safer tool instead.
In a similar vein, the dd command has a reputation for destroying data because it is often used to overwrite entire disks, especially thumb drives. Because it overwrites whole disks and is typically run as the root user, this can cause a lot of damage if we make even a single typo. Last year I shared a script I use called safe-dd which performs a few basic checks before copying any data. This has probably saved me from a lot of grief because I write information to thumb drives multiple times a week, but I've never had a dd-style mishap because I use my safe-dd script and it checks to make sure I'm not doing anything too dangerous.
One more example I want to touch on is that I often see people overwriting files in-place. In other words, they are changing a configuration file or a source code file and making edits to it by hand. This can be okay if there is a version control system in place. However, even if there is, it's often inconvenient to use. Which means if the person makes a mistake, forgets that change they just made, or needs to revert their change in a hurry (or all of the above) then it's not quick and easy to revert back to the original file.
I recommend always using cp to copy the original file so there is a way to immediately have a backup in case we want to revert a change. Often this looks simply like the following:
$ cp important.conf ~/important.conf.backup
$ nano important.conf # make a mistake
$ cp ~/important.conf.backup important.conf
In the above sequence we backup our important configuration file, then try to edit it. Somewhere along the line we realize a mistake was made in the edit. Rather than try to manually undo our changes, we can simply exit the text editor and copy the original file back into place.
These are some of the key tools and approaches I use to avoid disasters, both at home and at work while using the command line. Let us know your favourite tips and approaches to staying safe in the comments.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Rescuezilla 2.5
Rescuezilla is a specialist Ubuntu-based distribution designed for system rescue tasks, including backups and system restoration. The project's latest release is version 2.5 which includes an edition based on Ubuntu 24.04. "Adds release based on Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble), Ubuntu 23.10 (Mantic) and Ubuntu 23.04 (Lunar) for best support of new hardware. Upgrades to latest partclone release v0.3.27 (released October 2023) from v0.3.20 (which was released in April 2022). This should improve issues with BTRFS filesystems, as it supports BTRFS v6.3.3, rather than v5.11. Added experimental command-line interface (CLI): CLI should be considered EXPERIMENTAL and UNSTABLE and behavior may change between versions without notice; CLI only supports images created by Clonezilla and Rescuezilla (the other supported formats coming in future); CLI only supports backup, verify, restore and clone operations (mount and unmount operations coming in future)." Additional details about the new version can be found in the project's release notes.
Manjaro Linux 24.0
Philip Müller has announced the release of Manjaro Linux 24.0, a new version of the project's rolling-release distribution with separate GNOME, KDE Plasma and Xfce editions. It introduces GNOME 46 and KDE Plasma 6, as well as the brand-new Linux kernel 6.9: "Manjaro 24.0 'Wynsdey' released. Since we released Vulcan in December 2023 we worked hard to get the next release of Manjaro out there. We call it Wynsdey. This is also our first release which comes with Plasma 6. The GNOME edition has received several updates to GNOME 46 series. This includes a lot of fixes and polish when GNOME 46 originally was released in March 2024. GNOME's file manager comes with a new global search feature in GNOME 46. Global search is a great way to jump directly into search, without having to think about where the items you want are located. The new feature also leverages GNOME's existing file search capabilities, including the ability to search the contents of files and filter by file type and modification date." Read the release announcement for more details.
Manjaro Linux 24.0 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 2.0MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Endless OS 6.0.0
Endless OS is a Linux-based operating system which provides a simplified and streamlined user experience using a customized desktop environment. The project's latest release is Endless OS 6.0.0. The new version features a dark theme for night time use, updated applications for working with music and images and updated screen recording tools. "Endless OS 6 comes with a redesigned, easier to use and more interactive screenshot and screen recording experience. Tapping the PrintScr key or the new icon in the system menu brings up an interactive menu to select an area, app, or screen to take a screenshot or recording of. It even remembers the area you select between uses, making it even easier to take several screenshots for comparison. It might seem like a niche thing, but we think you'll like it the next time you want to share a screenshot or recording of something on your screen. Rounding out the new features in Endless OS 6 are a few new and updated apps. For new installs of Endless OS 6, you'll now get the clean and simple Music app for listening to a local library plus the new Decibels app to listen to one-off audio files, e.g. to preview a downloaded voicemail or other recording." The release announcement offers additional details and screenshots.
Oracle Linux 9.4
Simon Coter has announced the release of Oracle Linux 9 Update 4, the latest stable release of Oracle's Linux distribution built from the source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Besides a Red Hat-compatible Linux kernel 5.14, Oracle also provides a custom-built 5.15 kernel called Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK). "We are pleased to announce Oracle Linux 9 Update 4, the latest version of the premier enterprise operating system for distributed computing environments. Oracle Linux 9 Update 4 for the 64-bit Intel and AMD (x86_64) and 64-bit Arm (aarch64) platforms is now generally available. This release is application binary compatible with the corresponding Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Update 4. The following features, enhancements and changes related to programming languages, web and database servers have been introduced in Oracle Linux 9 Update 4: Python 3.12, can be installed in parallel with Python 3.9 and Python 3.11 on the same system; Ruby 3.3.0 is included in a new ruby:3.3 module stream; PHP 8.2 is included in the new php:8.2 module stream...." See the release announcement and the release notes for more information.
Br OS 24.04
Anderson Marques has announced the release of Br OS 24.04, a brand-new version of this Brazilian project's Kubuntu-based Linux distribution with Calamares as the system installer and built-in artificial intelligence (AI) features. After a heap of last-minute changes in the internal structure of Kubuntu, which delayed the release by eight days, Br OS 24.04 was made available with a new installer, new AI provider and, best of all, free of the recently-discovered Linux vulnerabilities. The release includes KDE Plasma 5.27, Qt 5.15.13, Linux kernel 6.8, the Calamares 3.3.5 installer and Flatpak 1.14.6 with the Flathub repository active. Although the system comes with Perplexity AI as the artificial inteligence provider, with its capacity to access and search the internet and to give up-to-date and precise responses, it cannot colect any information that is not typed directly inside the application's window. Applications for the office include the OnlyOffice office suite, the Evolution email client and the Okular document reader. For more secure internet browsing, Br OS uses the Libre Wolf web browser, a Firefox fork focused on security and privacy. Read the full release announcement (in Portuguese) for further details.
Br OS 24.04 -- Running the Plasma desktop
(full image size: 6.9MB, resolution: 2560x1600 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: 3,001
- Total data uploaded: 44.4TB
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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) |
Preferred system installer method
There are a number of different approaches a distribution can use to get itself installed on a computer's hard drive. Most mainstream distributions provide a graphical system installer such as Calamares, Anaconda, or Subiquity. Other distributions use a text-based installer with a menu system provided by ncurses. A few distributions use text console installers where question prompts are displayed in a terminal and answers are typed. What is your preferred system installer style? Let us know which is your favourite system installer in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on how long X.Org is likely to be supported in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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What is your preferred system installer style?
| Graphical (Fedora/Ubuntu/openSUSE): | 1418 (80%) |
| Text menu (Slackware/Void): | 197 (11%) |
| Text prompts (OpenBSD): | 38 (2%) |
| Copying an image file (UBports): | 9 (1%) |
| Typing commands manually (Arch): | 87 (5%) |
| Fully automated (no interaction): | 32 (2%) |
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| Website News |
A little housekeeping
DistroWatch turns 23 years old this month. This is a relatively long time for a website to survive, especially in the technology field. To put this span of time in context, DistroWatch is older than Facebook, older than YouTube and has outlived the Twitter brand. This website predates the iPhone, the Ubuntu distribution and the practice of most websites using HTTPS. Some pages of the DistroWatch website are older than the ZFS advanced filesystem which stores them.
Writing about open source for this long gives a person an interesting perspective on technology. When DistroWatch was started many of our readers didn't have CD/DVD burners in their computers yet and had to purchase their media from on-line shops. Many of us (myself included) were still using slow dial-up connections. HTML 4 and PHP 4 were the heights of web development technology. This brings me to my point in writing this note: DistroWatch's maintainers have always striven to write web code according to standards to make the website accessible to a wide audience. However, when a site is in operation for over two decades, it's not simply enough to try to code to standards, the question of "Which standards?" needs to be asked.
As I mentioned, HTML 4 was a new and exciting technology when we got started. That gave way to XHTML as the hot new thing shortly after and then there was the Web 2.0 craze and then HTML 5 with CSS took over once smartphones became a common way to browse the Web. These days PHP 4 has long since been swept aside and PHP 8 has taken its place.
At DistroWatch we don't have any managers demanding we rewrite the website from scratch with the latest trendy technology every few years, so the site tends to grow gradually, organically, as we see new needs and have time. The result is DistroWatch has become quite the hybrid (some might say Frankenstein's monster) of code and practices which have come onto the technological stage and then been replaced. While it is all functional and modern web browsers can navigate this mix of styles, the situation isn't ideal.
It's not in my nature to wipe out working solutions and start over, I'm more of a maintainer than an inventor, so there are not going to be sweeping changes to DistroWatch. In fact, it may take a while for anyone to notice things are being adjusted. But, for the past few weeks, I've been going through the DistroWatch code (as I have had time) and making little tweaks and corrections. I've been finding little errors, looking for areas where code could be more efficient and more consistent. With the help of web server logs and a W3C code validator, I've been gradually fixing little issues and trying to bring our HTML/CSS up to modern standards.
What does this do for us? On our end, it will hopefully make it easier to update and make evolutionary improvements to DistroWatch. It should make the code easier to read and upgrade in the future as new standards and versions of PHP arrive on the scene. What does it do for you, dear readers? While the changes are minor, individually, I hope they will amount to some positives. Niche web browsers will hopefully have an easier time navigating the site, we are seeing some small performance improvements and some pages which were getting garbled by overzealous ad blockers should display properly by the time the work is finished (hopefully around the end of May).
Why do I bring up all of this if it's just highlighting some maintenance work? There are two reasons. The first is precisely because I feel as though maintenance work doesn't get talked about enough in the open source community. It is a cliche for a reason that open source developers like to throw away old, working code in favour of starting a project over from scratch. Many an application, gaming library and desktop environment have been tossed aside and restarted from the ground up because creating is more fun than maintenance. There is a time and a place to start fresh, but I think it is often to the benefit of the developer's enthusiasm rather than the benefit of the users that this sort of thing happens. Fresh starts get headlines, minor patch updates don't. I think we should talk about project maintenance and repairing code more and praise rewrites less often.
The other reason I am sharing all of this is I wanted to explain why my processing of the waiting list has slowed recently. Usually I like to go through the list each month and either clean out dormant entries or add a new project which looks promising to our database. While that is a more exciting use of my time I think housekeeping is important too and so my focus has been there and will be for a few more weeks.
Now, if you made it this far through this note, congratulations! Thanks for sticking with me. I'd like you to help me pick an upcoming project. In the near future I want to start a series of how-to articles which will explore setting up small home projects on a minimal device like a Raspberry Pi, old laptop, or PinePhone. I plan to start off small, perhaps setting up a simple backup server and then slowly growing it, adding more functionality. Maybe the backup server becomes a file sync repository for the family, or a media server, or a Linux torrent seed box. The point is, I'd like to do some discussion and tutorials on minimal computing for the home and I want the series to be useful for our readers. So if you have a suggestion - if you want to know about setting up a chat server or a private shared calendar service - let me know in the comments. Perhaps I'll use your suggestion in the upcoming series.
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- LinuxHub Prime. LinuxHub Prime is an Arch-based Linux distro that uses its own custom installer. It provides the option to choose from multiple desktop environments. Openbox being its main desktop (window manager) environment. It also comes with a utility which creates a customized ISO from a guided program for each desktop environment.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 27 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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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Archcraft (by Steve K on 2024-05-20 01:28:03 GMT from United States)
What an awful, dismal desktop environment! Nothing but shades of dark grey and black. How depressing. Makes me sick. I wouldn't touch this distro with a ten-foot pole.
2 • Use trash cli! (by trash cli user on 2024-05-20 01:30:00 GMT from United States)
Good advice on rm pitfalls. I recommend trash-cli, which interfaces with the XDG trash folder, so I can always pop open my file manager later to handle the trash with the mouse.
3 • "...small home projects..." (by R. Cain on 2024-05-20 02:11:27 GMT from United States)
“...I want to start a series of how-to articles which will explore setting up small home projects on a minimal device like a Raspberry Pi, old laptop, or PinePhone...”
Please stick to projects using old laptops.
The Raspberry Pi is a fine device, but has never been as pervasive (IMHO), nor made the inroads into the general Linux computing community (this is a Linux website, after all) as ALL those older computers which still exist--specifically because of excellent, lightweight Linux distributions.
Pinephone? Tried accessing the Pine64 Blog lately ( https://pine64.org/blog/ ), or even not-so-lately? Everything Pine seems to have been on life support for a very long time now (Pine’s LATEST blogs are dated Mar 17, 2024; Jan 21, 2024: Aug 15, 2023. ALL user comments have been stripped from Community Blogs as far back as I wanted to waste my time on checking). Again, strictly IMHO, much more fertile, interesting, and *productive* options exist outside the area of considering the Pinephone as the basis of a “...small home project...”.
Just sayin'.
4 • 3 • "...small home projects..." (by R. Cain on 2024-05-20 02:17:15 GMT from United States)
Oooops...
This is in response to an entry in Jesse Smith's
“Website News” / “A little housekeeping"
5 • Housekeeping (by Vinfall on 2024-05-20 02:54:25 GMT from Hong Kong)
Regarding the website update, I noticed that the stylesheet was not loaded in my area (SE Asia). Looking at the network tab in developer tools it says the CSS has a NS_ERROR_NET_INTERRUPT error. Probably a Firefox bug with http3 web server, I'm not very sure. All I can say is this does not happen on MSEdge or Chromium.
As a side note, I'm experimenting the same recently and it at least saves me a few bucks by dropping several unnecessary servers with my "local prioritized" strategy. It's a bit annoying I have to swap SD cards during full backup (rsync/zsync works great for small ones though) as I don't like BTRFS, so I'm also trying to set up hypervisor (VM) and eventually use snapshots instead.
So speaking of "small home projects", I think it's fine to try new distros on low-end machines or even embedded devices, but anything beyond that would (IMHO) sound a bit off-topic on a site named "DistroWatch".
6 • Small home projects... (by Michael on 2024-05-20 03:19:09 GMT from Australia)
One project I've had on my to-do list for a while, but haven't yet got around to, is building a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) to replace my Topfield when it finally dies.
The reason I think this will be an interesting project is that it combines an atypical hardware build (a low power, low noise device with some digital TV tuners and with the primary control device being a remote control rather than a keyboard) with a single-purpose software environment (MythTV running on top of a minimal Linux build).
In some ways this is a server build (akin to a NAS or media server) but also a client device (requiring user interaction to browse, select and record programs, and to watch them after recording).
It's definitely a niche project, but I'm going to enjoy doit it.
7 • not just for CLI (by Titus Groan on 2024-05-20 05:17:35 GMT from New Zealand)
When creating a script ,and as I am not a script-kiddie, by any means ( My google-fu has improved no end), I will make a copy of the original, and then work on the copy.
When the copy works closer to intended, and or I have run out of time for the day, then I will rename the original ( usually just add a numeric suffix ) and then rename the copy to the original.
I then to try and break it, and then fix it so it is harder to break, so I can end up with quite a few iterations.
repeat until complete.
A script can take me some time until I am happy with its operation.
This way, if I screw up the script, I can go back to an earlier iteration and try something else.
8 • Congratulations. (by Pete on 2024-05-20 07:41:31 GMT from United Kingdom)
Well done on 23 years of service to the Linux community.
I too remember everything coming on discs and good old 56 k dial up!
Here in the UK you could get ISP discs free from supermarkets (and other places)!
Oh , how I miss watching websites loading up a line at time!
Anyway keep up the good work and here's to the next 23 years
9 • Housekeeping (by Jules on 2024-05-20 08:11:18 GMT from Australia)
Excellent work for the last 23 years of service to the Linux and BSD community.
I remember when everything came on CDs, snail mail and/or dial up modem.
Here in Australia, todays technolgy allow us to get things quick,
whereas years ago (say 23 years), it took 2 - 4 weeks to get this on CDs or snail mail.
If you need help, I am a retired Oracle, MS SQL and My Sql DBA,
so drop me a line if you need SQL done accross these platforms
or need programming in Unix/Linux scripting.
I know some other programming as well, but I will not show off here.
I am willing to be a off-shore volunteer in any Distrowatch upcoming projects.
Let me know.
Cheers to the next 23 years.
10 • @1 Stevie relax a tad (by Simmer on 2024-05-20 08:23:47 GMT from Sweden)
You can change stuff like that to whatever you yourself prefer. And some people like the tones of gray - No need to get so worked up about it :D
11 • Small home projects (by Mr B on 2024-05-20 08:57:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
I'd like to add my congratulations and thanks for 23 years of good work
from Distrowatch too.
Regarding your idea of small home project articles: I think it's a good idea in principle. However, do remember that the bar is set very high for
information of the type you describe. Can you compete with detailed YouTube videos as well as years' worth of articles in MagPi magazine and the like? You will have to pull something special out of the bag to do that, I think. That said, if you go ahead I would read your ideas.
I think a series of articles showing how to repurpose old PCs and laptops would appeal to those of us that hate waste. For example, I have an old laptop that is at least 15 years old with just 1GB of RAM and it runs the latest version of Daphile flawlessly. Having tried various other things, I settled on Daphile as my main music server/player. I think the reason it's not more widespread is the lack of documentation available for it. That would be a great article to do. So would building a NAS (for backup) in a PC where there is only space for a single hard disk (eg SFF desktop PCs). Setting up a simple appliance such as those offered by the Turnkey Linux project would be good too.
For Raspberry Pi there are loads:
Server running UmbrelOS
Server running CasaOS
NAS running OpenMediaVault
LibreELEC or OSMC media player
Volumio/Moode Audio/piCorePlayer music player
Home Assistant setup
Any way to use a Pi Zero 2W without buying extra bits -eg HATs, OTG cables etc
Desktop distros for Pi - Ubuntu, MX Linux, openSUSE, RaspiOS...
It's good that you are seeking ideas from elsewhere. There must be a lot of talented Distrowatch readers. I think you should do the same with the opinion polls. Some topics are interesting, some are really obscure and some are just plain silly. Ask the commenters what they want to know about other Linux users. It's clear from reading the comments that readers want that.
Good luck with it all.
12 • Know what is what (by Breh on 2024-05-20 09:13:41 GMT from Bulgaria)
That's not a 'desktop environment'. That's a WALLPAPER.
13 • preferred system installer style (by Knightron on 2024-05-20 09:29:10 GMT from Australia)
I honestly don't care what style is used but I appreciate customisation. For this reason, I've found that openSUSE's and Slackware's installers to be the best I've used.
One of these is graphical and the other, text menu. Slackware is the only installer I've used with text menu, so I have nothing else to compare it with. I've used many others with a graphical installer however and none have been near as good as the one used for openSUSE.
Not all installers are the same, even if they possesses the same style.
14 • House keeping (by kc1di on 2024-05-20 10:53:08 GMT from United States)
Congratulations on the 23 years of DW. It's been a great journey so far.
As for the small home projects I vote for older computers. Rasberry Pi's get a lot of attention already..
Thanks for being there as a good place to get info on Linux distros.
15 • Polls (by Jesse on 2024-05-20 12:24:53 GMT from Canada)
@11: "I think you should do the same with the opinion polls. Some topics are interesting, some are really obscure and some are just plain silly. Ask the commenters what they want to know about other Linux users. It's clear from reading the comments that readers want that."
A lot of our polls do come from reader suggestions. The questions are often e-mailed to us.
16 • Housekeeping - small home projects (by Too many laptops on 2024-05-20 12:27:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have too many laptops - because:
people use smartphones to do everything;
laptops are put away in the attic;
some won't run windows 11 - although a clean install using rufus would get round that;
etc.
What might I do with them?
17 • Congratulations! (by Pope Alexandṛ on 2024-05-20 12:38:55 GMT from Brazil)
I wish I knew you when I was experimenting with Linux distros 17 years ago, but you helped me at least once. Anyway, 23 is an odd number!
18 • Housekeeping / Old Laptops (by Nathan3 on 2024-05-20 12:52:34 GMT from United States)
For #16.
How about putting a simple lite linux distro such as WattOS, Peppermint Mini etc. on the old laptops
and adding Firefox, Chromium and the Zoom client to each. This would simulate "roughly"
a Chromebook laptop. These devices could be donated to school students. Another possibility
is donating to your local Senior Center for those seniors who cannot afford "Market Priced"
laptops.
19 • Preferred system installer method (by Alvaro on 2024-05-20 13:03:06 GMT from Italy)
My favorite installer is the text-based Debian installer: easily understandable, configurable and fast.
20 • Housekeeping article (by Tim on 2024-05-20 13:08:53 GMT from United States)
Kudos on your housekeeping article. I have been using Distrowatch for longer than I can remember. I like the site the way it is and I'm glad you maintain it rather than revamp it. I probably won't make another 23 years, but I hope you and Distrowatch do.
21 • Home projects (by Pogi Americano on 2024-05-20 13:13:40 GMT from United States)
I'm just a user, I don't know much about Linux other than how to install MXLinux from an ISO. I also have a couple of old PCs (16 & 32bit) collecting dust in my attic. They work fine, they were just not good enough to run the next generation Windows. I would like to read about using minimal distros and distros like Raspberry that would let me use the old pcs for things like word processing and maybe one that I can connect to Utube for my tunes while doing word processing on another old pc. Even if I can only get them going with a single purpose, at least they are being used and not collecting dust. Also, maybe with your vast knowledge of Linux in general, you could publish a list of resources for learning new ways of using old pcs. ... Can I also give a shout out to MXLinux folks, GREAT WORK, thank you!
22 • Housekeeping/Home Projects (by PuceLev on 2024-05-20 14:28:44 GMT from Canada)
Congratulations on the 23 years!
@21 (@Pogi Americano), FYI Raspberry (Pi) is not a distro but a small computer.
23 • Linux virtualization on a Mac with ARM processor (by penguinx86 on 2024-05-20 14:47:50 GMT from United States)
This weekend, I successfully got Debian to run as a virtual machine on my Macbook Air with an M1 ARM processor. I used the FREE version of UTM virtualization software available here:
https://mac.getutm.app/
The UTM version on the Apple store costs about $10 for the same thing. Installing it and using it is fairly straitforward, similar to using Virtualbox.
The M1 processor uses the ARM64 architecture also known as 'aarch64'. I downloaded the Debian small CD net install ISO for ARM 64 architecture. I installed it using the Virtualization option in UTM with the Xfce GUI. The only giltch was having to un-attach the ISO file 'CD' before it would boot from the newly installed OS virtual HD. Once I got Debian to boot, it was fast and ran great.
UTM can also emulate x86 processors on a Mac M1 ARM processor, but I didn't try it. It probably runs slower in emulation mode than with native virtualized ARM64 aarch64 mode.
24 • 1, congrats etc & Archthing (by Someguy on 2024-05-20 15:04:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
Reciprocating thanks and congrats for DW, Ladislav & Jesse.
As for the Archthing review, let's not waste more of Jesse' s valued time & expertise? It's same old same old DSL scenario. Plenty of genuinely SMALL distros around - try some of those from the Puppy, EasyOS kennels, for example. Contributors may wish to add their own favourite SMALL offerings.
25 • Congrats on the last 23 years (by Victor on 2024-05-20 16:08:15 GMT from Canada)
As someone who's been visiting the site for just over 17 years I wanted to wish my congrats of the 23 years of service Distriwatch has provided the Linux community. I still remember coming here daily in the early years as I was experimenting with the vast array of choices in the open source world, and this sure was an invaluable source of information and inspiration for ideas on what to try next.
Now that my distro hopping days are mostly behind me I still visit for my weekly dose in the regular newsletter and my Sunday evenings wouldn't be the same without it.
Thanks guys, cheers!
26 • Raspberry Pi Desktop for PC and Mac (by Raspberry Pi Desktop on 2024-05-20 16:11:11 GMT from Singapore)
@22
There is a version of Raspberry Pi Desktop for PC and Mac.
27 • small home projects (by lincoln on 2024-05-20 18:38:11 GMT from Brazil)
“...I want to start a series of how-to articles which will explore setting up small home projects on a minimal device like a Raspberry Pi, old laptop, or PinePhone...”
I would suggest a series of projects exploring the aspects of distributed systems in a heterogeneous cluster between the Raspberry Pi, an old laptop and a PinePhone... I would check the feasibility and performance of peer-to-peer systems, shared memory systems, distributed data management, distributed intelligence (multi-agent systems), P2P-IPS for stored content, ... Testing distributed optimization: convex optimization, stochastic optimization, online learning, ... Evaluate techniques such as: data replication, data partitioning, distributed time, cluster management, communication between nodes, ... Experimenting with: role-based grid architecture, service-based grid architecture, event-based architecture, ...
28 • 17 • Congratulations! (by Pope Alexandṛ ...) (by R. Cain on 2024-05-21 02:00:35 GMT from United States)
"...Anyway, 23 is an odd number! "
It's also a Prime number.
Congratulations to all you people who are responsible such an enduring and outstanding publication. Very apropo for such a prime effort.
Six more years and you do it again!
------------------------------------------------------
Mathematician: "3 is prime; 5 is prime; 7 is prime...by induction, all odd numbers past two are prime."
Physicist: "3 is prime; 5 is prime; 7 is prime; 9 is pri...oops--experimental error. 11 is prime..."
Engineer: "3 is prime; 5 is prime; 7 is prime; 9 is prime; 11 is prime..."
29 • Good job! (by Max on 2024-05-21 14:21:15 GMT from France)
I will not pretending that I'm regularly reading distrowatch for 23 years (I wasn't aware that Linux existed by then) but it's many years that I'm grateful about this website, and the amount of work regularly done. So thank you!
I've got not idea how this website is actually any good from an accessibility pov (a subject much more important today than 20 years ago) but since it's basic HTML/CSS and, for my part, no JS at all, I guess it's pretty accessible.
I've got one remark: I recently being looking for different distro to install on some people I know (since October 2025 seems the new end of world date for some) and since _many_ don't want to bother with updating their OS (except one or two times a decade for major versions), I was looking for some informations about distro lifecycles (rolling aside). I know that is kind of difficult since every distro get their own estimate (LTS, ELTS, entreprise grade, etc.) and can support many version at the same time, but adding the estimated lifetime of the current version(s) for major distro on their pages could be great.
30 • @ 30 • Good job! (by Max... (by R.Cain on 2024-05-21 15:28:46 GMT from United States)
First thing for you to do is read this article ...
https://www.ocsmag.com/linux-2017-the-road-to-hell/
Then install the latest xxxx-POINT THREE version of MX-Linux (or the last xxx.3 version you can find), and don't *ever* look at it--or take any questions about it--again.
31 • estimated lifetime of the current version(s) for major distro (by estimated lifetime on 2024-05-22 05:25:23 GMT from Singapore)
@30
End of support dates could be found on the pages at Wikipedia of the respective distros.
32 • 23 years.... (by mihail from romania on 2024-05-22 05:54:37 GMT from Romania)
bravo for 23 y.o.
and many thanks to DW.
I always liked the simple an clean old looking websites, so easy to find and read information...
modern ones *need* to display fancy methods of pulling the text from under your eyes, spin it and hit you with it either from left side or... also some drop down menus are to sensitive and just dont stay in their handle...
best wishes!
33 • upcoming series (by jazzfelix on 2024-05-22 09:52:21 GMT from Germany)
I would love to read about maintenance! Setting something up is kind of easy. There are many projects providing fully setup systems with simple GUI configurations, like truenas. Also Ubuntu provides a lot of packages which are easy to setup (gitlab-ce). Maintaining those and keeping them up to date for a few years is much harder than setting them up. Also in my experience running a service 24/7 on a system without ECC RAM is very challenging. I ran a Nextcloud on CentOS. I started on 7.0, migrated to Alma Linux later and kept that up to date until 8.7. Then I abandoned it because it got too complicated to keep it up to date (dnf had some problems and it seemed to me that a fresh install on another platform was more time efficient than fixing it). It'd been basically the same for my desktop. Fresh install every 2 years. Now I am running FreeBSD which was the smoothest transition for a major version bump yet (from 13 to 14).
34 • Life cycle (by Jesse on 2024-05-22 10:31:46 GMT from Canada)
@29: " I was looking for some informations about distro lifecycles (rolling aside). I know that is kind of difficult since every distro get their own estimate (LTS, ELTS, entreprise grade, etc.) and can support many version at the same time, but adding the estimated lifetime of the current version(s) for major distro on their pages could be great."
If you're wondering which distributions have longer support cycles, you can visit our Search page and, under Release Model, select "Fixed LTS".
https://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=All&category=All&origin=All&basedon=All¬basedon=None&desktop=All&architecture=All&package=All&rolling=Fixed+%28LTS%29&isosize=All&netinstall=All&language=All&defaultinit=All&status=Active#simple
Alternatively, almost all distributions which publish a formal support life cycle have it listed in their feature table, under "End of life" on their information page. A lot of distributions do not have a specific end date, those that do, we list them. You'll find projects with at least 3 years of support or more by using the "Fixed LTS" tag.
35 • 23 years, thank you for all this (by Otis on 2024-05-22 12:37:13 GMT from United States)
A lot to like here if one is a Linux or BSD enthusiast. I also appreciate very much the site operator's habit of asking the users here about suggested or planned changes to Distrowatch.
Generally we've asked that it be kept very much the same for all this time: Simply attractive and easy to navigate the hordes of information here. Once again, thank you!
36 • re: A Little Housekeeping (by Will on 2024-05-22 20:14:49 GMT from United States)
Thanks for sharing the maintenance note. It's not talked about much, but it's more commonly a developer's life than greenfields.
As for what to write about - either old laptop or raspberry pi projects of manageable scope would be fantastic. Lots of people have these devices, the pinephone, not so much. Just my 2 cents. I'd probably lean towards pi, cuz it's more accessible and what's already written is usually very fringe projects - weather balloons, motor control, matrix style camera effects and whatnot - rarely do they give something practical and doable with just the pi itself. Laptop stuff is fine, too.
Will
37 • Home projects (by Jesse on 2024-05-22 20:22:55 GMT from Canada)
> "As for what to write about - either old laptop or raspberry pi projects of manageable scope would be fantastic. Lots of people have these devices, the pinephone, not so much."
I want to address something that's come up a few times in the comments. A few people read my idea for doing a series of projects on a low-spec devices (like an old laptop, PinePhone, or Raspberry Pi) and assumed it was an either/or situation.
Any projects I would be doing would work the same way on each of the three devices, this isn't an exclusive choice. The steps to set up a web servers, file share, seed box, media streamer, etc are the same on each of the three devices.
In other words, I wasn't suggesting I'd do a project exclusively for the Pi or the PinePhone or old laptops. Any series of projects I do will work the same on all three because the underlying Linux systems and the commands required would be identical on all three. Readers could follow along on whichever device they had.
38 • Preferred installer (by Nate on 2024-05-22 21:43:22 GMT from United States)
I often hear or read reviews about Linux distributions which to me place too much importance on the installer. Let me preface my thoughts on the subject with the fact that the three OSes I regularly use are Arch Linux, Void Linux and FreeBSD. The first two are rolling releases, and FreeBSD has fixed releases with a clear upgrade procecdure and rolling releases for ports and packages. What this amounts to is that installation becomes something that you do ONCE in the entire lifetime of your computer. For that reason I always thought Arch did it right by focusing on literally everything else. The installation might not have been for the faint of heart, but since it only ever need be done once, basically who cares? As per usual the wiki is so good that it covers just about any conceivable issue you might have installing the OS.
Now, if you don't want to use a rolling release distro for one reason or another, I still find it silly that people even care what the installer looks like, just that it does the right thing and doesn't surprise you or damage your system. When I installed Void to a Raspberry Pi 4 I was able to just extract a tarball onto the SD card, configure the files and boot. You get to create your own partitions. I find this preferable to an installer that does everything for you but wipes out partitions that you might have wanted to keep, or installs a bootloader without asking your permission.
39 • Installers (by Reyfer on 2024-05-23 01:13:09 GMT from Venezuela)
As nice as Calamares and other graphical installer may be today, I personally believe nothing beats Debian's net install "expert" mode, for control over what gets actually installed
40 • Suggestion for an Opinion Poll, and right here--in these comments. (by R. Cain on 2024-05-23 16:11:13 GMT from United States)
From this week's Reader Comments (with Comment number):
11 "...I think a series of articles showing how to repurpose old PCs and laptops would appeal to those of us that hate waste...Ask the commenters what they want to know about other Linux users..."
14 "...As for the small home projects I vote for older computers..."
15 "...A lot of our polls do come from reader suggestions..."
16 "...I have too many laptops...What might I do with them?"
36 "...either old laptop or raspberry pi projects of manageable scope would be fantastic. Lots of people have these devices, the pinephone, not so much..."
------------------------------------------------------------
Suggested Opinion Poll:
"Of the Following List of Devices, How Many of Each Do You Own?--
a) old laptop / notebook /netbook
b) Raspberry Pi
c) Pinephone"
41 • Poll suggestion (by Otis on 2024-05-24 12:33:30 GMT from United States)
@40 Good idea, but perhaps the whole population of devices DW users own would be more useful in the poll:
a) Old Laptop, Notebook, Netbook, PC
b) Raspberry Pi
c) Pinephone
d) Newer Laptop, Notebook, Netbook, PC
e) Other
Number of Comments: 41
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Cub Linux
Cub Linux (formerly Chromixium) was an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution that attempts to recreate the look & feel and functionality of Google's Chrome OS on a conventional desktop. It combines the Openbox window manager with the Compton desktop compositor, Plank dock and LXDE's LXPanel to provide the desktop and menus. The Chromium web browser, equipped with the PepperFlash plugin, was the main online application, although the complete array of Ubuntu software can be easily added for offline/desktop use. Ubuntu updates are installed automatically, providing long-term security support.
Status: Discontinued
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