 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1081, 29 July 2024 |
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Welcome to this year's 31st issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Some Linux distributions specialize in one specific field or set of tools. There are distributions configured to work well in embedded environments, on servers, as gaming machines, and as media centres. Other distributions strive to be general purpose operating systems, capable of performing well in a variety of situations. This week we look at a distribution called SysLinuxOS which is set up to provide system administration and networking tools. The SysLinuxOS project pre-installs a lot of networking utilities and we talk about how the distribution functions in this week's Feature Story. Then, in our News section, we talk about OpenBSD introducing hardware acceleration for video decoding and encoding as well as report on Slackware changing the naming of its kernels. We also share upgrade instructions for the Linux Mint distribution. Last week the world was hit by massive computer outages across multiple industries. We discuss this outage, what caused it, and how Linux protects against these sorts of scenarios. One of the key factors which caused the outage was automatic updates and our Opinion Poll this week asks whether you enable automated updates on your computers. This week there were a number of interesting new releases and we share details on these below, along with a list of the torrents we are seeding. Plus we share our gratitude to everyone who sent us donations this month. 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) |
SysLinuxOS 12.4
SysLinuxOS is a Debian-based GNU/Linux distribution designed for system administrators. It offers an environment for networking and administration combined with a friendly graphical interface via the MATE and GNOME desktops. The project's website says: "SysLinuxOS was built to work right out of the box, with all networking tools already installed by default. There is no need to install anything, it is a Swiss army knife to always carry with us. There are all the major virtual private networks (VPN), several remote control clients, various browsers, as well as WINE, Wireshark, Etherape, Ettercap, PackETH, Packetsender, Putty, Nmap, Packet Tracer 8.2.1, GNS3, VirtualBox 7.0, VMware Player, Munin, Zabbix-agent2, Zabbix-fronted, Icinga, Monit, Nagios4 and tools for serial console and the latest stable kernel backports 6.7."
As mentioned above, SysLinuxOS offers two desktop flavours: MATE and GNOME. Both editions run on x86_64 machines. I decided to download the MATE edition which is approximately 4.6GB in size. The release announcement doesn't mention many specific changes in this release, other than the availability of Linux 6.7.
The project's website refers to SysLinuxOS as a live distribution, but later mentions Calamares is available to help us install the operating system. I took this to mean we can use SysLinuxOS as a live distribution, but that it should also work well when installed on a laptop or workstation. This interpretation held up throughout my trial.
Booting from the SysLinuxOS media brings up a menu asking if we'd like to start the live desktop, start the distribution in safe graphics mode, or launch a text/console interface. When booting into the graphical mode we're presented with a login screen. The SysLinuxOS website provides the login credentials: the username is "admin" and the password is "root".
Signing in presents us with the MATE desktop set up with a dark theme and wallpaper that's blue and black. MATE's Applications, Places, and System menus are placed on a panel at the top of the screen. This panel also holds some system monitors and the system tray. A Conky status panel is displayed to the right side of the desktop while icons for opening the file manager are placed on the left side. The Plank dock sits at the bottom of the screen and gives us quick access to a range of utilities. When running on physical hardware (though not in a virtual machine) the desktop wallpaper is covered with system monitors, showing little graphics for resource usage.
I noticed that, while we sign into the MATE session using the username "admin", this is a regular user account, not the root (administrator) account. We do have sudo access to perform administrative tasks, which requires a password. Though I didn't find it documented anywhere, the root user account is available and we can sign in as root using the password "toor".
Something else I noticed early on is the distribution is constantly sending and receiving network traffic, at an average of about 50B/s. This happens non-stop, even with no applications open. I'll talk about this traffic and its source later.
Installing
While looking through the Applications menu I found an entry under the System Tools section called "Install System". Clicking this launcher opens the Calamares system installer. The install process begins by letting us know the distribution needs at least a 10GB partition for the root filesystem. The installer offers to show us the project's release notes, but clicking on the Release Notes button accomplishes nothing. We are then walked through picking our keyboard layout, timezone, disk partitioning, and making up a username/password combination.
The installer offers both easy manual partitioning options and a guided option. The guided option offers us two choices. The first is which filesystem to use (Btrfs and ext4 are the two options available). The second option gets us to choose the nature of our swap space. SysLinuxOS supports using a swap partition, a swap file, or no swap at all. Once our selections are complete, Calamares copies packages to our disk and then offers to restart the computer. The whole process is quick and straight forward.
Early impressions
The first time I booted my new copy of SysLinuxOS everything appeared to go well. The distribution brought up a graphical login screen where I could sign into the MATE 1.26 desktop. The system ran well and was responsive. I still saw constant network traffic, but otherwise everything seemed normal.
One thing I appreciated about the status monitors on the SysLinuxOS desktop is each one is pretty clear about what it is showing. Even the tiny resource monitors in the panel have tool tips indicating whether we are looking at disk I/O, CPU usage, or network traffic. I like this as some resource monitors show flashing lights or graphs without telling us what we are examining.
SysLinuxOS 12.4 -- Browsing the application menu
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After a little exploring, I restart the machine to get a fresh set of resource usage stats and this is when things took an unexpected turn. The second time I tried to boot SysLinuxOS the distribution displayed a series of messages indicating background services (such as VMware, Apache web server, Samba, and exim4) had failed to start. Then the system appeared to hang, refusing to continue to the graphical login screen. I found that I could switch to a local virtual terminal and sign into my user account. I could also run startx to launch the MATE desktop. I then tried rebooting again and, once more, saw systemd error messages and the distribution appeared to hang while booting.
Since I had not installed any new packages or applied updates, I was surprised by this change between the first and second boot. I confirmed in the APT log that no new packages had been downloaded so I was curious as to what had caused the problem.
Package management
While I was looking for what had changed between my first and second sessions with the distribution which seemed to have broken the graphical login page, I opened Synaptic to look at package and repository information. It was then I discovered Synaptic was unable to refresh package information, and the reason appeared to be due to Synaptic being unable to create a lock file for its database. It was then I discovered the root filesystem was mounted in read-only mode.
As far as I knew, SysLinuxOS wasn't intended to be an immutable distribution and the website didn't mention a read-only filesystem. This, along with the differences in behaviour between the first boot-up and future sessions of booting into the distribution, suggested to me I'd run into a bug. I tried to remount the root filesystem in read-write mode and Btrfs reported it could not, due to an issue: "cannot disable free space tree". Rather than try to troubleshoot Btrfs further, I decided to re-install SysLinuxOS in my test environments. The fresh installs used all of the same settings, except I used ext4 as the root filesystem instead of Btrfs.
While running on ext4, SysLinuxOS was always able to boot directly to the graphical login page. The root filesystem was always mounted in read-write mode, and Synaptic was able to fetch updates. In fact, the first time I ran Synaptic, it fetched over 100 updates.
After the first flood of updates I ran into another problem where the distribution would boot, but fail to sign into the MATE desktop. After signing into my account the screen would simply go blank and the graphical session would lock-up. I managed to fix this by deleting my MATE configuration files in my home directory. At that point I could sign into the MATE desktop, though SysLinuxOS's theming was lost; MATE was displayed as a pure, vanilla desktop without the distribution's dark theme or dock.
SysLinuxOS 12.4 -- Attempting to restore MATE to its original appearance
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Hardware
SysLinuxOS was able to run in both of my test environments (VirtualBox and a laptop) in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes. The distribution consumed more RAM than usual for a Linux distribution running the MATE desktop, gobbling up 910MB of RAM. This is nearly double the usual RAM consumption for Linux running MATE and I think a lot of it is the result of the many background services the distribution enables.
A fresh install took up about 15GB of disk space, plus any swap space we allocate. This is more than the 10GB the system installer demanded.
SysLinuxOS 12.4 -- The settings panel
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Performance on my laptop was quite good and MATE was snappy. When running in VirtualBox the system worked well. It was a touch less responsive, but still provided a good, interactive experience. I found my laptop's audio system, touchpad, wireless networking, and media keys were all recognized and used properly. I was happy to discover tapping my touchpad registered in MATE as mouse clicks.
Included software
SysLinuxOS ships with a lot of software, it has one of the most populated applications menus I have encountered. Four web browsers are included (Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Tor Browser). There are launchers for many messaging and collaboration applications, including TeamViewer, Skype, Telegram, and Zoom. There are multiple firewall utilities, Thunderbird for e-mail, and QBittorrent.
We can also find the VLC media player, Caja file manager, VirtualBox, Timeshift for taking snapshots (this was the reason I originally installed the distribution on Btrfs), and VMware Player. There is a system process monitor, a disk usage checker, and the PuTTy secure shell tool.
I found multiple user account managers, LibreOffice, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, and the Atril document viewer.
SysLinuxOS 12.4 -- The Caja file manager and Gufw firewall utility
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The main focus of SysLinuxOS though is its collection of disk and networking utilities. There are many of these, including Nmap, a Packet Sender, GParted, three packet capture utilities, and a few network services - Apache's web service and an e-mail server, for instance.
On the command line we find the GNU Compiler is installed for us, as is Java. The GNU command line utilities are installed too, along with manual pages. The WINE software is available for people who need to run Windows applications. In the background we find systemd init along with Linux 6.7.
Unfortunately, with these dozens of applications, there is no search function in the MATE 1.26 application menu. The GNOME edition would allow us to search for applications by name or description, but the MATE edition does not.
Network activity
Earlier I mentioned SysLinuxOS was constantly sending and receiving small amounts of network traffic. Exploring where that was coming from and why seemed like a good opportunity to both discover the features of the distribution and make use of some of the resource trackers and network monitors.
One of the first things I did was check for open service ports. The distribution runs with 25 network ports open. I also found an unusual number of background services running. On top of these, systemctl shows that several network services tried to start and failed. These include Apache's web server, exim, a DHCP server, and some daemons such as anacron and VMware. I didn't check to see why these failed, I'm guessing invalid configurations, but I do find it curious these services are enabled at all.
I tried to use a few of the included monitoring and packet sniffing tools to narrow down the chatty services. Etherape fails to work because it requires root access and it cannot function when run as our regular user. It also doesn't prompt for our root credentials. I tried running Etherape as root, but then it failed to launch at all, immediately crashing and not showing any error, even when started from the command line. I tried Ettercap, which runs but requires some configuration to work as it doesn't show any captured traffic with the default settings. It takes some trial and error to get results with Ettercap. I then tried Packet Tracer, but it requires a Cisco login to work and will immediate terminate if we don't have Cisco credentials.
SysLinuxOS 12.4 -- Capturing network packets with Wireshark
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Next on the list was the venerable Wireshark which did its usual good job of identifying active network interfaces and offering to show traffic, sources, and destinations. Ports and interfaces were easily filtered to show active traffic in real-time.
Almost all of the network traffic, apart from local data sent across the loopback device, fell into three categories: DNS lookups, network time sync, and Tor. SysLinuxOS runs a Tor service automatically. Most of the included browsers and services don't make use of Tor, but the Tor Browser does, naturally. Shutting down the Tor service cuts out a good chunk of the network traffic, but some was still constantly passing in and out of my machine.
The network time sync traffic stopped fairly quickly which left a constant stream of DNS requests and responses. Almost all of these DNS lookups turned out to be the distribution trying to look up information associated with my local network router. Once a second SysLinuxOS would ask my ISP's domain name servers for information on my router's internal IP address and, naturally, the DNS server would respond it had no information since the IP was for internal use only. This call and answer process was repeated every second, non-stop, for no apparent purpose.
Conclusions
The description of SysLinuxOS says that it is intended to be useful, right from the start. We shouldn't need to install anything, virtually every tool we need for system administration or networking is right there, at our fingertips, immediately. This is true and the distribution accomplishes this goal quite well. There are a lot of applications, monitors, development utilities, package sniffers, wireless access point tools, collaboration software, and more web browsers than anyone working outside of an IT department will ever need.
However, there are some issues with the distribution and I feel one of them is this giant collection of software. Or, to be more precise, I feel as though the developers have thrown every utility anyone has ever suggested onto the pile, whether it worked well or not. As I mentioned above, one of the network tools cannot function without root access and fails to launch at all when run as root. Including it doesn't accomplish anything. Likewise, featuring a utility which only works with a Cisco account seems a bit unnecessary. If we have a Cisco account and the network access to connect to it, chances are we can also install the utility on the fly. In a similar vein, I can see the appeal of having a system monitor on the desktop, but SysLinuxOS has three - one on the panel, Conky, and the desktop background itself. These tools mostly show the same information and are constantly updating, and it makes for a very busy and redundant experience.
SysLinuxOS is a good example of the idea that a little water is refreshing while too much water feels like drowning.
While I eventually found SysLinuxOS useful, mostly for my self-imposed quest of tracking down why it was generating a steady flow of network traffic, I ran into a few serious bugs early on. For some reason, Btrfs kicked itself into read-only mode, which made the distribution difficult to use and switching to ext4 removes most of the appeal of having tools like Timeshift included. The fact that I ran into not one, but two bugs during the first day of my trial which rendered the graphical environment unable to function was not a good sign. It suggests a lot of software and themes were shoved into this distribution without an appropriate amount of testing.
Again, SysLinuxOS feels like it is very full featured, brimming with options and applications. But this also feels like its biggest issue as a lot of software isn't working properly. The GDM, MATE, Apache, exim, and anacron software all failed to start at one point or another. It makes the distribution feel unpolished even though a lot of its software is incredibly useful.
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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
SysLinuxOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9/10 from 1 review(s).
Have you used SysLinuxOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
OpenBSD introduces hardware acceleration for video decoding, Slackware changes kernel naming format, Linux Mint publishes upgrade instructions
In a move which will greatly improve performance when watching videos on the platform, the OpenBSD developers have introduced hardware accelerated video encoding/decoding to their operating system. "VA-API is an open-source library and API specification, which provides access to graphics hardware acceleration capabilities for video processing. It consists of a main library and driver-specific acceleration backends for each supported hardware vendor." Details on the change and work going into the associated ports to implement hardware acceleration can be found in the commit message.
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The Slackware Linux team is making an adjustment to the way kernel files are named in the distribution's development (/testing) branch. A note in the project's changelog reads: "Well folks, we have some more interesting stuff in /testing now. Our good friend LuckyCyborg posted a while back about our trials with GRUB2, and that we were banging our heads against a wall for no reason trying to bend GRUB2 with our 09_slackware_linux grub.d script instead of changing our kernel/initrd naming scheme to vmlinux-6.10.1-generic and initrd-6.10.1-generic.img. And, as is often the case, our friend is exactly correct. Once we stopped trying to swim against the current, GRUB2 started behaving as it should. The updates in /testing change the kernel naming scheme thusly, and modify the geninitrd script in the mkinitrd package to also use this naming scheme. And, of course, 09_slackware_linux is removed from GRUB2, and the 10_linux script is only lightly modified. Because lilo and elilo work with the symlinks to the kernel and initrd, they shouldn't care about this change. We've probably got 6.9.11 coming tomorrow. Unless I hear that I should stop the presses on this change, it's likely that those kernels will be updated using the new naming scheme and the mkinitrd and GRUB updates will be moved into the main tree from /testing."
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The Linux Mint team released a new version, Linux Mint 22, this past week. A few days later an upgrade guide was published which explains how to bring older versions of Mint up to date with the latest version. "This is a major upgrade. It can take several hours. You will be asked to be up to date and to prepare system snapshots. Do not rush, do not take shortcuts. Don't hesitate to seek help if you have questions or if you face problems with the upgrade." The upgrade guide provides both upgrade and recovery options.
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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) |
Can problems like CrowdStrike bring down Linux systems?
As our readers may be aware, just over a week ago there was quite a series of computer outages which affected millions of systems all around the world, taking down a variety of services. OSNews reported: Payment systems, airlines, hospitals, governments, TV stations - pretty much anything or anyone using computers could be dealing with bluescreens, bootloops, and similar issues today. Open-heart surgeries had to be stopped mid-surgery, planes can't take off, people can't board trains, shoppers can't pay for their groceries, and much, much more, all over the world. The problem is caused by CrowdStrike, a sort-of enterprise AV/monitoring software that uses a Windows NT kernel driver to monitor everything people do on corporate machines and logs it...."
The CrowdStrike bug appeared to affect Windows users only and, in fact, CrowdStrike reported macOS and Linux customers were unaffected. Following the outbreak of outages, a few people messaged us to ask if similar incidents have happened (or could happen) on Linux. Was there something about Windows which made it vulnerable while Linux is immune, or could we see similar catastrophes on Linux systems?
As with many questions in the IT realm, the answer as to whether this has or could happen with Linux systems contains elements of both "Yes" and "No". Let me back up and give a little background.
As stated above, the outages the world experienced in mid-July happened because of a bit of security software which is produced by CrowdStrike. There were a few issues which lead to the CrowdStrike software bringing systems around much of the world to their knees. One of the key problems is CrowdStrike runs a kernel-level module which means, when it's run on a monolithic (or hybrid) kernel, a crash in the module's code brings down the whole system. A second issue would appear to be that this particular update didn't receive enough testing before it was sent out to clients' computers.
A third issue is that the update was pushed out to client machines when CrowdStrike wanted to send out an update, not pulled down to the client machines on a schedule determined by the local IT administrator. This means local IT personnel were unable to properly test updates on a few machines before deploying the updates to the rest of the network. Which brings us to a fourth issue: CrowdStrike decided to push this update to all of its clients, everywhere in the world, at the same time rather than roll it out to clients in stages.
The result was millions of machines all getting the same broken update at the same time and crashing. And, since it was a kernel-level module that was crashing, it usually needed to be fixed manually at boot time rather than sending out a regular, userland level update. This is a huge headache for people working in IT departments running Windows with CrowdStrike's software installed.
Back to what I was saying about whether an issue similar to the CrowdStrike problem could affect the Linux world. I mention above the answer is both "Yes" and "No". On a technical level, there isn't anything about the CrowdStrike issue which is specific to Windows or that would prevent the issue from happening on a Linux system. Any time kernel-level software containing bugs is installed on a monolithic kernel (like Linux) it could cause a system crash. In fact, CrowdStrike makes similar security software for Linux and the OSNews article mentioned it has been causing problems: "Do note that while the focus is on Windows, Linux machines can run CrowdStrike software too, and I've heard from Linux kernel engineers who happen to also administer large numbers of Linux servers that they're seeing a huge spike in Linux kernel panics caused by CrowdStrike, which is installed on a lot more Linux servers than you might think." This seems to contradict the statement from CrowdStrike which said Linux systems were not affected.
While the OSNews article didn't provide sources for the reports of CrowdStrike crashes on Linux, we can. Red Hat has published an advisory about dealing with crashes in CrowdStrike's Falcon software which can cause kernel panics on Linux. The Red Hat article was published on June 4th of this year, over a month before the issue became widespread in the Windows world.
In short: Not only can CrowdStrike-like bugs affect Linux, it technically has and does happen.
But I also said earlier that, no, this sort of bug isn't really a concern on Linux. While, technically, any software which runs in kernel mode could bring down Linux machines if it contained a serious flaw, and kernel-level software like CrowdStrike's does run on Linux, it is unlikely we will see similar widespread outages happen in the Linux world.
There are a few reasons for this. One is that Linux is a diverse ecosystem of distributions, each running their own version of the Linux kernel and each shipping with their own kernel configuration. Part of what made the CrowdStrike bug so widespread was the Windows monoculture. Most Windows machines are running the same software, the same version of the kernel, using the same configuration. The Linux ecosystem is varied, making it difficult for any one flaw or issue to become widespread. At worst, a bug like this might bring down all Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems with the kernel module installed, or all Ubuntu systems, or all SUSE systems, but probably not all three at the same time.
A second factor is the way Windows systems usually update software compared to how Linux distributions usually update software. On Windows, third-party software (such as CrowdStrike) usually run their own update services and update independently of the operating system. This makes for a bit of a Wild West situation where programs are often updating independently of Microsoft or the local IT department. Updates may be "pushed" from the third-party vendor to many clients all at once. On Linux systems updates are usually handled centrally, by the distribution maintainers, who may run fresh updates through a series of testing phases before making them available to the public. Then IT administrators will usually "pull down" updates to test machines before executing updates on the rest of the network.
A third consideration is, at the risk of sounding elitist, that Linux administrators usually don't install kernel-level software to perform tasks. And, if they do, they usually want to make sure they have control over when and how it updates. It may be a generalization, but I think it's more common for Windows administrators to accept the idea of installing third-party software, to allow a range of privileges, and to allow software to update itself. Linux systems tend to be more locked down, in my experience, with packages installed with limited access and with updates controlled by the administrator or a staggered schedule.
What all of this means is Linux can be (and sometimes is) affected by third-party updates which causes kernel panics. That has happened, as the Red Hat advisory confirms. However, the Linux culture (the diversity, the focus on least-required privileges for software, and the central control of software updates) means, in practice, it's highly unlikely to ever see massive outages across the Linux ecosystem. A really serious update might take out thousands of Linux machines running one distribution, but it's unlikely a bad update will ever reach the level of taking out millions of machines across the world.
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Additional queries and answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
MidnightBSD 3.2.0
MidnightBSD is a FreeBSD-derived operating system. A critical goal of the project is to create an easy-to-use desktop environment with graphical ports management. The project has published a new update, MidnightBSD 3.2.0, which introduces Ravenports: "Ravenports is available in MidnightBSD for the amd64 architecture. The initial installation process will prompt you to bootstrap Ravenports. This will initialize it in /raven/, and you will be able to install software packages using /raven/sbin/ravensw. By default, /raven/bin, /raven/sbin, and so on are not on the path. You can add them to the path to make running software in your shell easier. Please visit their website to learn more about Ravenports and find quickstart guides. You can choose either mports or Ravenports at installation time or use packages from both systems. Please note that mixing packages may have some complications, although they are installed in a completely different place from mports. There are various benefits to Ravenports, but a few are more updated packages and quite a few unique packages that mports doesn't provide currently. For example, Ravenports has an updated Firefox package available. You will not see Ravenports presented as an option on an i386 install." Additional information can be found in the project's release notes.
Murena 2.2
Murena is an umbrella name for the /e/OS operating system, associated open source powered smartphones, and cloud-based services. The Murena project has launched version 2.2 of its smartphone operating system which blocks more app trackers and introduces parental controls. "One of the standout features in this release is the long-awaited Parental Control feature. Designed to help you protect your children online, this feature allows you to manage their device usage, ensuring a safer digital environment. For more details on how to set it up, visit our Parental Control documentation. Additionally, we have enhanced privacy measures by blocking 800 new trackers, ensuring better protection of your personal information. The App Lounge now includes the Non Safe For Work (NSFW) rating from F-Droid, allowing you to make informed decisions about app installations. Third-party apps now have better integration with the App Lounge account for licensing features, and an option to see all available updates is now included in the Updater. For Fairphone users, we have added support for the Fairphone camera app on Fairphone 4 and improved /e/OS Camera with 48MP/50MPx mode for both Fairphone 4 and 5. Calendar customization has also been improved, letting you personalize event colours." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement. A list of supported devices and download options can be found on the project's devices page. Phones with Murena's operating system pre-installed can be purchased from the project's shop.
Linux Mint 22
The Linux Mint team have announced the launch of Linux Mint 22. The new version will be supported through to 2029 and focused primarily on updating language and hardware support: "Linux Mint 22 ships with modern components and the new Ubuntu 24.04 package base. To guarantee better compatibility with modern hardware, the kernel is version 6.8 and Linux Mint 22.x point releases will follow the HWE series. The default sound server switched to PipeWire. The Software Sources received support for the new Debian DEB822 format. Themes were updated to support GTK4. JXL support was added to Pix and a new thumbnailer was implemented for it. All software using libsoup2 was migrated to libsoup3. HiDPI support improvements were made in the boot sequence, in Plymouth and Slick-Greeter. An updated package base doesn't just bring new technology, it can sometimes also threaten existing features. Thunderbird continues to be available in Linux Mint 22 as a native .deb package. Following the decision by Ubuntu to move it to Snap, Linux Mint is now responsible for packaging it. With GNOME 46, libgoa/libgoa-backend 3.50 moved to GTK4 and could no longer be used by GTK3 applications. This meant that Online Accounts support had to disappear from Cinnamon, Budgie and Unity. The XApp project implemented a standalone application called 'GNOME Online Accounts GTK'. Not only did this bring the feature back in these three desktop environments, it also made it possible for it to be used in MATE and Xfce." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement, the release notes, and in the what's new document.
Linux Mint 22 -- Running the Cinnamon desktop
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Ubuntu Pack 24.04
Ubuntu*Pack is an Ubuntu remix built by Ukraine's UALinux, an official partner of Canonical. The project includes several editions (including Desktop, Education, Game, Server, and Rescue) and comes with extra applications, drivers and media codecs. The project's latest release, version 24.04, is avalable in ten editions, offering a variety of desktop environments and styles. "A short general list of changes: The distribution is based on the code base of the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS operating system, which allows for its long-term maintenance and use; the system contains all updates up to July 2024; all systems have the Ubiquity installer installed (which was previously the main one in version 22.04); Firefox browser and Thunderbird email client are unlinked from Snap; support for running programs for the Windows platform is included; full support for Ukrainian, Russian and English languages is installed. Other languages require additional downloading of packages from the Internet; added additional drivers for printers; added support for hardware keys and smart cards: Almaz-1K, Crystal-1, Author, Efit and others; Added the ability to log in to the system using a USB drive; full support for multimedia (audio-video) of various formats, and a universal VLC player is also installed; added programs for communications: Signal, Viber and Zoom; for working with graphics: GIMP, Inkscape, XnView; various utilities: Veracrypt, R-Linux, Peazip, Backintime." Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement.
OPNsense 24.7
OPNsense is a FreeBSD-based specialist operating system designed for firewalls and routers. The project's latest release focuses on performance improvements anda new dashboard. The release announcement shares details: "FreeBSD 14.1: Leveraging the latest FreeBSD 14.1, OPNsense 24.7 ensures a stable and secure foundation, significantly enhancing system performance and compatibility. Performance Increase: Major performance improvements have been implemented, ensuring faster, more efficient processing and a smoother user experience. Modern New Dashboard: Users can now enjoy a sleek and intuitive dashboard, designed for ease of use and enhanced user experience, reflecting the latest trends in UI/UX design. Enhanced VPN Technologies. WireGuard: Performance Boost: Significant increases in connection speeds and reliability, enhancing overall user experience and QR Code Generation: Simplifies mobile client configuration with QR code generation, enabling quick and secure setup. OpenVPN: Data Channel Offload (DCO): Introducing revolutionary performance improvements for VPN servers and clients, significantly boosting throughput and efficiency." A forum post includes a more detailed changelog.
Vanilla OS 2
The Vanilla OS team have annoiced the second release of their distribution, which carries the codename Orchid. Vanilla OS 2 drops the Ubuntu base in favour of Debian and strives to provide a stable environment which can run packages in a variety of formates while also offering the ability to rollback changes. "Did you encounter a system issue and need to revert to a previous stable state? With Orchid, this is quite simple, if something goes wrong, you can select the previous state during boot. After logging in, Orchid will prompt you to perform a rollback, once confirmed, this rollback becomes permanent until the next update. When a new update happens, the problematic state will be replaced with the new version of the operating system. Why would you need to perform a rollback? Even though Orchid is designed to be stable and compatible, and its update system ensures the updates are only installed if they pass, and despite every update being meticulously tested by our developers, something can still go wrong. Having a recovery point is essential. For example, you might be using hardware that is not compatible with the update, which is a scenario we cannot fully cover (yet)." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Vanilla OS 2 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 1,1MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
* * * * *
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: 3,042
- Total data uploaded: 45.0TB
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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) |
Does your computer receive automatic updates?
Last week we saw a great number of computer outages, due to an automatic update which was pushed out to computers running the CrowdStrike security software. This update was automated and pushed out everywhere, all at once, rather than pushed out gradually or pulled down to machines after a testing phase. In this poll we'd like to hear if you run automated updates on your home computer(s) or if you manually apply new updates when it's convenient.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running a secure shell service in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Does your home computer have automatic updates enabled?
| Yes - all my devices do: | 199 (7%) |
| Partially - some of my devices do: | 364 (13%) |
| No - none of my devices do: | 2221 (80%) |
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| Website News |
Donations and Sponsors
Each month we receive support and kindness from our readers in the form of donations. These donations help us keep the web server running, pay contributors, and keep infrastructure like our torrent seed box running. We'd like to thank our generous readers and acknowledge how much their contributions mean to us.
This month we're grateful for the $105 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| J S | $50 |
| Jonathon B | $10 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| David P | $7 |
| Brian59 | $5 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| surf3r57 | $5 |
| TaiKedz | $5 |
| J.D. L | $2 |
| PB C | $2 |
| c6WWldo9 | $1 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
| Shasheen E | $1 |
| William E | $1 |
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- Chimbalix. Chimbalix is a Linux distribution based on MX Linux. The project includes 32-bit runtime libraries, WINE, and a dedicated section of the filesystem for portable applications.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 5 August 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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If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Linux Mint 22 (by penguinx86 on 2024-07-29 02:01:59 GMT from United States)
I installed Linux Mint 22 Xfce Edition. The install process went smoothly and everything works great! No problems detecting my wifi adapter.
2 • Linux Mint Upgrades (by Sam Crawford on 2024-07-29 04:16:38 GMT from United States)
This morning I upgraded two LM 21.3 machines to LM 22 and the upgrades went well with the only exception is that some of the Flatpak app configurations were lost and I had to set them up again when I opened the apps.
I also installed LM 22 from a USB drive to a laptop yesterday and everything went well.
Overall I'm pleased with the results.
3 • Automatic updates (by Guido on 2024-07-29 06:36:29 GMT from Philippines)
Does your home computer have automatic updates enabled? Yes, because I use Snaps, which receive automatic updates. This means I cannot influence the browser updates. It should be similar with Flatpaks. But neither is active at the kernel level.
4 • systemd feature "Automatic boot assessment" (by Mark Rijckenberg on 2024-07-29 06:56:48 GMT from Finland)
GNU/Linux distributions can protect themselves against Crowdstrike crashes by enabling the systemd feature "Automatic boot assessment". This feature is being enabled on NixOS unstable and will be available to "NixOS Unstable" users in the coming days.
See https://systemd.io/AUTOMATIC_BOOT_ASSESSMENT/
5 • Linux Mint 22 (by kc1di on 2024-07-29 11:06:48 GMT from United States)
Did a fresh install of Mint 22 and all works well on my t-450 machine.
only problems were a couple of third party programs i use, which I install via ppa's did not work ppa's need updating so will have to wait until that happens. But Mint itself is running smooth and stable. Good release.
6 • Automatic Updates - No* & Mint (by Bernie on 2024-07-29 15:20:12 GMT from France)
No* ...and yes... I picked up the nasty habit of installing all recommended updates every time. Simply because I don't know every piece of software on my computer and would hate to be left unsecured by not updating. After-all, I'm an amateur user, not a full blown system admin.
So No, not automatic, I used to wait a week, check the forums and manually authorize all the updates. Then I got lazy, still waited a week but didn't do any of the research. Finally, earlier this year, a kernel update for Mint 21 broke my system... a week or so after it was released. Turns out the problem was a well documented AMD Ryzen bug, my system recognized my hardware and yet still proposed the incompatible update. Now I'm back to my wait a week and see habit. When I brought that point up in a user chat, I was just told to "git gud".
I'd also like to point out that earlier this year, I received a proposed update for Intel microcode... on that same AMD laptop.
Seconday point, when I first started with Mint (14? 17?) I don't remember ever having as many issues getting my hardware to work as with Mint 21. Sure I'm not running a business computer anymore but my hardware's easily 5 years old.
Mint's great, I learned a lot, but those unneeded updates are starting to make me look elsewhere for my next OS. Something with either better or minimal update support so I know what's expected of me but this in-between stuff really rubbing me the wrong way.
7 • Crowdstrike crashes (by lincoln on 2024-07-29 18:08:45 GMT from Brazil)
It's amazing how people and institutions are fooled by sellers of "firewalls", "antivirus systems", ..., "intrusion detection systems", relying on solutions that don't actually address the root cause of the problem: the bugs in critical software or the software engineering deficiencies that generate them. How can they assess its quality and security if the code is not available for auditing? How can they trust a notoriously bug-ridden operating system like Windows to serve as the basis for mission-critical services? Would they trust that a silver tape (CrowdStrike code) could turn a faulty airplane/ship/car into something safe for their family or society?
Even today, I have to listen to the common excuse that all software has bugs because it was created by human and is therefore potentially vulnerable. How can so-called security experts ignore the fact that formally/mathematically proven correct software is extremely secure? Many are even unaware of sel4 (https://sel4.systems/). And when confronted, they claim that the costs of formal software development lead them to choose software with bugs and weak legal contract protections. Is it really true that the cost of service interruptions and licenses for buggy software is lower than creating formally proven open source software in the first place? Or is this just another version of the maxim: create problems to sell solutions?
8 • CrowdStrike (by Canned Ham on 2024-07-29 18:10:11 GMT from United States)
We had an issue when we upgraded our RHEL 9 systems which run CrowdStrike from RHEL 9.3 to 9.4 and those systems failed to boot after restarting them. I ended up having run with an older kernel -- the at-the-time latest falcon-sensor was not compatible with the *newer* kernel in 9.4 -- or have an *older* version of falcon-sensor installed.
Fortunately this was caused by OS updates, which only affected a few servers at a time, and not an automatic update of the falcon-sensor code.
So, yes, CrowdStrike can bork linux boxes, too, because it has. Just on a much smaller scale.
9 • Reviews (by grindstone on 2024-07-29 19:03:58 GMT from United States)
Appreciate the mention of how many ports are open by default. Have often wished a similar comment was present for all reviews.
10 • Torrent Downloads Section Is Skimpy (by Bob Smith on 2024-07-29 19:59:21 GMT from Guam)
I wish the DistroWatch "Torrent Downloads" area included all the torrents from the distros they advertise... but sadly, the torrent downloads section is skimpy.
11 • Torrents (by Jesse on 2024-07-29 20:02:52 GMT from Canada)
@10: It would be nice if more distributions provided torrents, but most have switched away from torrent options in favour of CDNs these days.
12 • Software Engineering was: Crowdstrike crashes (by Bruce Fowler on 2024-07-29 22:35:45 GMT from United States)
@7 Follow the dollars, just like everything else today. Quality engineering costs money, and the beancounters would just rather take a chance. A good engineer is one who takes into consideration everything that could possibly go wrong.
13 • Software Engineering (by lincoln on 2024-07-29 23:30:08 GMT from Brazil)
@12 "Follow the dollars, just like everything else today." Unfortunately, I believe that this logic in the software world is summed up in the dilemma: what will generate more money, correct software or software with bugs that repeatedly requires new purchases or subscriptions?
14 • Auto Updates (by scuzzy on 2024-07-29 23:47:28 GMT from United States)
As far as auto updates go - you are an idiot if you have them enabled on live production servers.
I always test first, then if OK run backups on live, then install updates, then take backups again, and then make sure test & live are in sync.
15 • @12: (by dragonmouth on 2024-07-30 10:50:52 GMT from United States)
" A good engineer is one who takes into consideration everything that could possibly go wrong. "
Judging from TV programs like "Engineering Disasters" and "Engineering Catastrophes", there aren't too many "good engineers". :-)
The ratio of users to software developers is 10,000 to 1, if not higher. 10,000 can discover problems with a program faster than 1 can fix them. NO software developer can foresee ALL the causes that may make a program fail. There are just too many variables, most of them external to the program and very localized (can only happen in one or two installations).
16 • Good engineers are rarely this good. (by Mark B on 2024-07-30 14:33:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
In a 2015 article from FastCompany.com it said this:
"...how much work the software does is not what makes it remarkable. What makes it remarkable is how well the software works. This software never crashes. It never needs to be re-booted. This software is bug-free. It is perfect, as perfect as human beings have achieved. Consider these stats : the last three versions of the program — each 420,000 lines long-had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors. Commercial programs of equivalent complexity would have 5,000 errors."
It was referring to the software running the Space Shuttle.
It went on to say:
"The group writes software this good because that's how good it has to be. Every time it fires up the shuttle, their software is controlling a $4 billion piece of equipment, the lives of a half-dozen astronauts, and the dreams of the nation. Even the smallest error in space can have enormous consequences: the orbiting space shuttle travels at 17,500 miles per hour; a bug that causes a timing problem of just two-thirds of a second puts the space shuttle
three miles off course.
Contrast this, for example, with something from a few years ago on Ubuntu's own website stating there were 135,000 outstanding bugs in the OS.
Makes you think, doesn't it?
17 • Wayland (by Michael on 2024-07-30 16:12:26 GMT from Belgium)
Please think about introducing keyboard-layouts for Wayland.
In Belgium we have AZERTY.
I like to test Wayland
18 • Crowdstrike crashes (by Much Derper on 2024-07-30 19:49:00 GMT from United States)
The reason why so many people and institutions install various AV and similar software often has more to do with regulations like PCI DSS than with them being fooled into it. And while AV software is controversial in some circles (there are plenty good arguments that they actually increase attack surface of the system), the truth is that security is not just (or even less so) about features, but also (and even more so) about processes. If we're talking personal systems, where end user is also the administrator - the user that doesn't download random crap from Internet and always uses minimal privileges required may not need AV software, but even with all its flaws an AV monitor can really save a user that has no self-discipline on an exactly the same OS, be it Windows or Linux. Considering an organization cannot know with 100% certainty how disciplined each and every one of its employees are, it makes perfect sense they'd rather take the risk of AV software causing outage th!
an bet on its employees never making the mistake of opening a legit-looking infected attachment in an email. Hence the regulations like PCI DSS, that really are there because of the lowest common denominator of a corporate/government computer user.
19 • Crowdstrike crashes (by lincoln on 2024-07-30 22:43:13 GMT from Brazil)
@18: "Considering an organization cannot know with 100% certainty how disciplined each and every one of its employees are, it makes perfect sense they'd rather take the risk of AV software causing outage th! an bet on its employees never making the mistake of opening a legit-looking infected attachment in an email."
A bug-free and secure software stack is not compromised by an infected attachment in an email or random crap from the Internet. By denying access to those random malicious bits to the filesystem and sockets, providing a uid dedicated to process ID (ensuring that nothing is running under the uid, prohibiting kill(), ptrace(), fork()), setting the desired limits on memory allocation and other resource allocation, and the respective isolation of the resource (including processor timing channels and cache channels).
References:
Verified Protection Model of the seL4 Microkernel
Experience Report: seL4 Formally Verifying a High-Performance Microkernel
Refinement in the formal verification of the seL4 microkernel
seL4 Enforces Integrity
seL4: Formal Verification of an Operating-System Kernel
seL4: from General Purpose to a Proof of Information Flow Enforcement
From L3 to seL4 What Have We Learnt in 20 Years of L4 Microkernels?
The Last Mile An Empirical Study of Timing Channels on seL4
The seL4 Microkernel An Introduction
20 • @6 : Automatic Updates - No* & Mint (by Kazlu on 2024-07-31 09:06:01 GMT from France)
I'm interested in your experience because I have similar concerns for my next OS. I am considering a change whenever I need it, meaning I will not change until it breaks or falls out of support. But I always keep an eye on what could suit me.
Regarding your broken Mint 21: has Timeshift be of any help to repair the system? Maybe switching to LMDE, and therefore a Debian base, could help being provided with more conservative updates while keeping the excellent Mint software layer?
21 • Crowdstrike crashes (by Much Derper on 2024-07-31 11:47:18 GMT from United States)
@19 that kernel is only a small part of the much larger picture. But even assuming everything is exactly as you say, migrating the whole IT infrastructure will take lots of time and lots of money, it will never happen overnight, especially onto a relatively young OS with barely any software running on it. It will be a lot more of these Crowdstrike-like events for the people paying the bills to agree to pay for that migration. It's never the question of security or reliability, it's always the question of costs. Perceived costs, not real-world ones.
22 • @20 (by Bernie on 2024-08-01 10:21:12 GMT from France)
I never use automated backups. Had several bad experiences years ago and found the software more complicated to configure than simply backing up 2 fold (1 flash drive & 1 cloud) + various externals.
I was able to boot by choosing the previous kernel at boot, easy enough but still an annoyance. And I’m glad it happened to me because I have both my parents Mint computers, they love them but would have been unable to apply that fix should it have affected them.
I want to go on a rant but it essentially boils down to Mint being a great experience on business level computers on one hand and then my 5 yr old gaming Asia is only at best 90% functional with only 85% of that being consistent. (Unreliable to non existent Bluetooth for one).
23 • crowdstrike and linux (by ion on 2024-08-01 18:42:00 GMT from Moldova)
things like crowdstrike don't happen on linux cause LINUX HAS BETTER DESIGN
since 2014
the solution is ebpf, a virtual machine in linux kernel, SENSITIVE APPS for which can be implemented (think about .net and java, but only for kernel)
instead of designing kernel modules
There are security companies who implemented their security solutions as epbf apps,
instead of kernel modules,
so pretty much nobody cares about crowdstrike on linux, cause there are better solutions.
and epbf is fantastic cause it is maintained by google, facebook and other big companies,
and is very safe, so even if you ebpf app is faulty, it will not bring down the kernel when it will crash.
24 • a nice article about ebpf and windows and linux (by ion on 2024-08-01 18:46:08 GMT from Moldova)
https://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2024-07-22/no-more-blue-fridays.html
25 • CrowdStrike (by De Schatberg on 2024-08-02 05:39:00 GMT from The Netherlands)
@23 (by ion from Moldova)
"things like crowdstrike don't happen on linux cause LINUX HAS BETTER DESIGN"
With all due respect, people like you and a few others here who don't understand the CrowdStrike problem or the problems with Linux design should stay away from writing comments because they can only end up being ridiculous like yours.
It wasn't bad Windows design that caused the problem, it was a badly written system driver.
Address 0x0 is commonly used as a null pointer to indicate that there is no valid object. Programmers should always check for null pointers before accessing objects or their properties. The programmer didn't check for the null pointer.
Bad drivers can crash any system.
https://heise.cloudimg.io/width/610/q70.png-lossy-70.webp-lossy-70.foil1/_www-heise-de_/imgs/18/4/6/3/7/2/3/0/Unbenannt-495a939d1f257576.png
26 • CrowdStrike (by lincoln on 2024-08-02 20:07:15 GMT from Brazil)
@25 (by De Schatberg )
"With all due respect, people like you and a few others here who don't understand the CrowdStrike problem or the problems with Linux design should stay away from writing comments because they can only end up being ridiculous like yours."
The excerpt above could be an opinion on your own comment.
eBPF/BPF is a virtual machine in the Linux kernel, and its bytecode can be generated by the LLVM compiler from pseudo-C code. This bytecode program goes through a security verifier, ensuring:
"- The program does not crash or otherwise harm the system;
- The program always runs to completion;
- Programs may not use any uninitialized variables or access memory out of bounds;
- Programs must fit within the size requirements of the system."
Therefore, it is evident that in this design, a catastrophic error from a bad drive accessing a null pointer could not crash the entire Linux system, since the eBPF verifier itself would prevent its execution.
References:
https://ebpf.io/what-is-ebpf/
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/bpf/index.html
27 • Automatic updates (by Andreas on 2024-08-02 20:08:00 GMT from Austria)
My Raspberry machine has unattended-upgrades (8) enabled, so that it automatically downloads and installs security updates, but it's set not to automatically reboot. My desktop and laptop are always manually updated first time after booting.
28 • CrowdStrike (by De Schatberg on 2024-08-02 21:58:00 GMT from The Netherlands)
@26 (by lincoln from Brazil)
"Therefore, it is evident that in this design, a catastrophic error from a bad drive accessing a null pointer could not crash the entire Linux system..."
Obviously, you're missing the point. It is irrelevant whether the OS itself is affected when the critical application starts to fail. It is the application crash that matters.
If that system was that great, everyone would be using it, but companies still rely on dos, windows 3.1, and OS/2.
29 • CrowdStrike (by lincoln on 2024-08-02 22:27:06 GMT from Brazil)
@28 (by De Schatberg from The Netherlands)
"Obviously, you're missing the point."[2]
If only the CrowdStrike code had failed, there wouldn't have been the biggest disruption in history to essential services around the world. The big problem was that the Windows operating system was not resilient and did not continue to support essential services.
"If that system was that great, everyone would be using it, but companies still rely on dos, windows 3.1, and OS/2."
That must be why the last three operating systems are the most used on servers.
30 • @29 (by Noname on 2024-08-03 00:00:16 GMT from United States)
CrowdStrike was not just a Windows issue. It messes up with Linux kernel too. That's just a bad C++ programming. Those 3 ancient OSs are stil in use by German railways, American airlines, American post, etc.
Number of Comments: 30
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1168 (2026-04-13): pearOS 2026.03, EndeavourOS 2026.03.06, which distros are adopting age verification, Arch adjusts its firewall packages, Linux dropping i486 support, Red Hat extends its release cycle, Debian's APT introduces rollbacks, Redox improves its scheduler |
| • Issue 1167 (2026-04-06): Origami Linux 2026.03, answering questions for Linux newcomers, Ubuntu MATE seeking new contributors, Ubuntu software centre is expanding Deb support, FreeBSD fixes forum exploit, openSUSE 15 Leap nears its end of life |
| • Issue 1166 (2026-03-30): NetBSD jails, publishing software for Linux, Ubuntu joins Rust Foundation, Canonical plans to trim GRUB features, Peppermint works on new utilities, PINE64 shows off open hardware capabilities |
| • Issue 1165 (2026-03-23): Argent Linux 1.5.3, disk space required by Linux, Manjaro team goes on strike, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA driver support and builds RISC-V packages, systemd introduces age tracking |
| • Issue 1164 (2026-03-16): d77void, age verification laws and Linux, SUSE may be for sale, TrueNAS takes its build system private, Debian publishes updated Trixie media, MidnightBSD and System76 respond to age verification laws |
| • Issue 1163 (2026-03-09): KaOS 2026.02, TinyCore 17.0, NuTyX 26.02.2, Would one big collection of packages help?, Guix offers 64-bit Hurd options, Linux communities discuss age delcaration laws, Mint unveils new screensaver for Cinnamon, Redox ports new COSMIC features |
| • Issue 1162 (2026-03-02): AerynOS 2026.01, anti-virus and firewall tools, Manjaro fixes website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating a map app |
| • Issue 1161 (2026-02-23): The Guix package manager, quick Q&As, Gentoo migrating its mirrors, Fedora considers more informative kernel panic screens, GhostBSD testing alternative X11 implementation, Asahi makes progress with Apple M3, NetBSD userland ported, FreeBSD improves web-based system management |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Inquisitor
Inquisitor was an open-source hardware diagnostics, stress testing, certification and monitoring system, suitable for both enterprise and home use. Based on Debian/GNU Linux, it was customizable, modular and available in both serverless live CD/DVD format and server-controlled network boot production system.
Status: Discontinued
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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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