 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1094, 28 October 2024 |
Welcome to this year's 44th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Few distributions have been more influential so far this century than Ubuntu. This Debian-based project came onto the scene in 2004 and (thanks to various user-friendly design, technical benefits and advertising) the distribution was soon used by thousands of people around the world. This number eventually grew into millions as Ubuntu gained a reputation for being a good operating system for Linux beginners. This past week we marked the 20th anniversary of Ubuntu, a project which has experimented with a wide range of technologies - including cloud storage, its own init software, the Unity desktop, and its own mobile flavour called Ubuntu Touch. Happy anniversary, Ubuntu! Along with marking one project's longevity, we also welcome the birth of a new branch in the AlmaLinux family. The AlmaLinux project has introduced a new development and testing branch called Kitten. The Kitten edition provides a preview of features coming to the next major release of the distribution, AlmaLinux OS 10 and we talk about it below. Meanwhile, a veteran of the Linux community, openSUSE, is refreshing its logos and wallpapers. We share more on openSUSE's future look in our News section. This week we begin with a look at a young distribution called DebLight. DebLight is based on Linux Mint's Debian Edition and seeks to provide a lighter environment, thanks to the LXDE desktop. We share more details in this week's Feature Story. Then, in our Questions and Answers section, we talk about backing up the cron service's list of scheduled jobs and how to restore them on another machine. Do you use cron, or perhaps another tool for scheduling periodic tasks? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. Plus we are happy to share the releases of the past week and the torrents we are seeding. This week we added a new project to the database, AnduinOS, which is based on Ubuntu and themed to look like Windows - welcome AnduinOS! We're also pleased to be able to thank people who have sent in donations this month - we appreciate you all. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
DebLight OS 1
DebLight OS is a French distribution (with support for the English language) that is based on Linux Mint Debian Edition. What sets DebLight apart from its parent is primarily the desktop environment. While Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) offers users the Cinnamon desktop the DebLight project ships with LXDE as the default desktop. The aim is to provide most of the same tools and the ease of use offered by LMDE, but to be lighter and capable of running on older computers. Like its parent, DebLight offers builds for both 32-bit and 64-bit x86 computers.
The ISO for DebLight is about 3.4GB in size. Booting from this media brings up a menu offering to start the distribution in regular graphics mode, in safe mode, or in text mode. Taking either of the first two options starts the distribution and presents us with a graphical login screen. The password for the live session is, appropriately, "live".
The default LXDE session is set up with a thin panel across the top of the display. This panel holds two buttons for opening applications menus, some quick-launch buttons, and a system tray. At the bottom of the screen we find a dock with larger icons for launching popular applications. There are three icons on the desktop which access our Trash folder, launch the Calamares system installer, and open the DebLight website in Firefox.
DebLight OS 1 -- The application menu
(full image size: 871kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
I mentioned there are two buttons on the panel for opening application menus. The button to the far left opens a classic, tree-style menu with a search bar to help us find specific launchers. Another button on the panel opens a full-screen grid of large icons. A search box and category filters are placed across the top of the display to help us narrow down which item we want to launch.
By default, the desktop and applications display text in French. Likewise, the default keyboard layout is French. I signed out and went back to the login screen and selected English for my session, but found this only adjusted my keyboard's layout; text still usually appeared in French. There is a Language/Lang settings module in the application menu under the Preferences section where we can switch between French and English. After making our selection we need to sign out of the LXDE desktop and login again for the language switch to apply.
Calamares installer
when I launched the Calamares system installer the interface displayed text in French, despite LXDE showing text in English at the time. We can select an alternative language from a list on the first page of the installer. Also on the first page there are buttons for accessing release notes and known issues. Neither of these buttons do anything when clicked.
Calamares then walks us through the usual process of selecting our keyboard layout, confirming our timezone, and making up a username and password for ourselves. The partitioning section provides friendly, point-and-click manual disk manipulation. It also offers automated partitioning. The automated approach sets up a single ext4 partition with optional swap space or a swap file.
Calamares worked quickly and smoothly for me. When it finished copying its packages to my hard drive the installer offered to restart the computer.
Early impressions
My fresh copy of DebLight booted to a graphical login screen. Two session options, LXDE and Openbox, are presented with LXDE being the default. I tried the Openbox session, but it immediately failed and returned me to the login page. As a result, I spent all of my trail exploring the LXDE session.
The first time I signed into LXDE a welcome screen appeared. This is the same welcome window used by Linux Mint, though with a key difference: all of the text in the window is displayed in both French and English, one translation above the other. It seems as though the developers decided to display both languages at once rather than detect which language preference has been selected. The rest of the desktop usually displayed text in English, following my selection during the install process.
DebLight OS 1 -- The welcome window
(full image size: 848kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
The welcome window in DebLight provides access to most of the same documentation, configuration tools, and resources as the greeter in LMDE does. It links to tools like the update manager, Timeshift for making snapshots, and the firewall utility. The documentation and support links all open Firefox to display pages from the Linux Mint website.
Something I noticed early in my trial was the full-screen application menu didn't handle its focus well. When the grid of applications was first opened it would not respond to keyboard input. Typing to perform a search, tapping arrow keys to select icons, and pressing Esc to dismiss the launcher all did nothing. I found I had to click the search box with my mouse before keyboard input would be accepted. This makes the full-screen launcher a little less convenient to use compared to its counterpart on other desktops.
DebLight OS 1 -- The full-screen grid of launchers
(full image size: 383kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
Included software
For the most part, the applications included with DebLight appear to be the same ones included in Linux Mint. I didn't do a strict side-by-side comparison, but most of the applications I see in Mint (such as Firefox, Transmission, LibreOffice, Hypnotix, the Mint software centre, Gufw, and so on) are present. For the most part, we're running Mint's collection of software, just using LXDE as the interface instead of Cinnamon, MATE, or Xfce. I did notice the KDE System Settings panel (or a gutted version of it) is present on the distribution. There doesn't appear to be any KDE applications though so I'm not sure why System Settings was present.
DebLight OS 1 -- Running the firefox browser
(full image size: 495kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
The distribution ships with the GNU command line tools, manual pages, the GNU compiler, and systemd. In the background we find version 6.1 of the Linux kernel. Everything worked as expected and I didn't have any serious problems with the included software during my trail.
Hardware
I tested DebLight in two environments, on a desktop machine and in VirtualBox. My trial started in VirtualBox and the distribution performed well in the virtual machine. The system was quick, stable, and integrated with VirtualBox with no issues.
When I switched to trying DebLight on my workstation, the experience was similarly smooth. All of my hardware was detected, networking and audio worked out of the box, and the distribution ran quickly. LXDE was pleasantly responsive (apart from the grid launcher) and I encountered no stability issues.
DebLight OS 1 -- Various settings utilities
(full image size: 589kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
Despite the name, DebLight uses an average amount of resources. A fresh installed took up 11.5GB of disk space, plus space for a swap file. This is nearly 50% larger than Linux Mint's Debian Edition. When signed into the LXDE desktop the system used between 760MB and 800MB of memory. This is about on par with LMDE's Cinnamon edition (LMDE uses 850MB of RAM in the same test environment) and puts DebLight in the same realm as most distributions running mid-weight desktops such as Plasma 5 and Xfce. Mint's MATE and Xfce editions are lighter, requiring approximately 650MB, for instance, for the Xfce edition.
Software management
DebLight ships with several software management utilities. Mint's friendly software centre is featured and it can pull in software from both Deb and Flatpak repositories. I like Mint's software centre as it does a nice job of presenting categories of packages we can browse. It also makes it easy to select the Flatpak or Deb version of an application.
For low level package management the distribution ships the Synaptic package manager. Synaptic makes it possible to set up batches of add/remove actions to be processed on packages all at once.
Exploring further we find an update manager which sits in the system tray and lights up when new updates become available. The update manager has a number of options to adjust when the utility will check for updates, whether to apply all updates or just security fixes, and we can launch the Timeshift snapshot tool from the update manager.
DebLight ships with Flatpak support enabled and we are automatically connected with the Flathub repository. The software centre and update manager both automatically integrate Flatpak packages, providing all-in-one software management options. We can also manage Deb and Flatpak software from the command line using APT and the flatpak programs.
Conclusions
DebLight starts out with a good idea, in my opinion. It takes one of the world's more popular and easy to use Linux distributions and adjusts it to try to make its parent run better on older equipment. Basically, it's Linux Mint for computers from the Windows 7 era. It's a modest goal, but a clear and (in my opinion) useful one.
DebLight is in its early stages, this was just the first stable version. As such, it's normal that this release had some rough points. There are buttons that don't do anything, an application menu that doesn't grab keyboard input when it is opened, and there are some areas where translations are inconstantly applied. There are definitely some problems scattered through the distribution, though they tend to be minor. They are mostly language-related issues. It is not uncommon to see a mixture of French and English on the screen. For instance, the update manager's main window was displayed in English when I was using it, but the preferences window for the same application displayed in French. Meanwhile the file manager displayed in English, but some folder names in my home directory were in French. As long as you can fumble your way through menus in either French or English (or sometimes both) you should have a fairly good experience, but if you don't read French then you could be in for a challenging time.
DebLight OS 1 -- The interface displaying a mixture of French and English
(full image size: 603kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
DebLight does benefit from its parents fantastic hardware support and wide range of software compatibility. This is the key concept, it seems: Mint, but with lower hardware requirements. The problem, however, is that DebLight is not, in fact, light. Its 11GB disk footprint is as larger or larger than most mainstream Linux distributions these days and heavier than its parent, Linux Mint Debian Edition.
To make matters worse, DebLight's RAM consumption (760MB to 800MB) is about the same as other Linux distributions running Xfce, Plasma, or even Cinnamon. My recent trials with Mint show LMDE consumes 950MB of RAM when running Cinnamon and Linux Mint's Ubuntu-based edition with Cinnamon uses 850MB. Mint's own Xfce edition requires less RAM, in the range of 600MB to 700MB. This means DebLight is about the same size as its parent and consumes about the same resources, in some cases even more resources, depending on which edition we run. In short, it's not lighter, it is just running a different desktop (LXDE) with an alternative theme which fails to provide performance or size benefits. This isn't a great state of affairs for a project's whose tag line is: "The lightened Mint."
It's not that DebLight OS is a bad distribution. If you don't mind the blended language experience, it's a solid, responsive desktop experience. It's fairly similar to its parent in most ways, but with a darker theme and LXDE in place of Cinnamon/Xfce/MATE. I just don't think it has achieved its stated goal of being a lighter alternative to Mint's existing editions.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo desktop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Hex-core Intel i5-10400 CPU @ 2.90GHz
- Storage: Western Digital 1TB hard drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 wired network card, Realtek RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCIe wireless adapter
- Display: Intel CometLake-S GT2
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
AlmaLinux OS introduces Kitten branch, openSUSE updates its look, Ubuntu turns 20
The AlmaLinux project has announced a new testing and development branch of its distribution which is called "Kitten". The Kitten branch allows AlmaLinux users to test out new developments and changes before they arrive in a final, stable release. The project's announcement states: "CentOS Stream 10, which will eventually be the source for RHEL10, has already started being built and is available for use today. Because we anticipated many changes in 10, we wanted to get a head start on building AlmaLinux OS 10. Earlier this year we started setting up infrastructure and the build pipeline for AlmaLinux OS 10, and started testing using CentOS Stream 10's code. Based on this preparation work, we are excited to share that we have successfully built a preview of AlmaLinux OS 10 that we are calling AlmaLinux OS Kitten 10."
The project was quick to point out Kitten is not a direct parallel to CentOS's Stream: "First, this is not 'AlmaLinux Stream.' CentOS Stream is a product of the CentOS community - it's the ultimate destination of the CentOS community's work. AlmaLinux OS Kitten is not a product at all, it is meant as a vehicle along the journey of development of the next version of AlmaLinux. We are using our freedom here to do a bunch of work in preparation for AlmaLinux OS 10. Below you will find a list of the big differences, and on our wiki you can find the full AlmaLinux OS Kitten 10 release notes." Download options for each of the project's supported architectures can be found on the Kitten mirror.
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The openSUSE project is refreshing its look with updated branding. "Branding for Tumbleweed and Leap 16.0 are moving along with the creation of a visual identity for these two distinct operating system flavors. For two of openSUSE's most notable Linux distributions, there is an updated logo and new digital wallpaper themes that feature beloved chameleons that represent the community projects. The Tumbleweed logo has been revamped and transitions from a horizontal format to a new design that aligns with logos of other openSUSE flavors like Leap. Samples of the new look can be found in openSUSE's news post.
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The Ubuntu project is celebrating the distribution's 20th anniversary this week. Canonical first launched Ubuntu in 2004 and the distribution soon earned a reputation for being a more user-friendly, desktop-ready flavour of Debian. A focus on ease of use along with hardware certification, shipping free install media, and a streamlined system installer quickly made Ubuntu one of the world's most commonly used distributions. Canonical has published a web page which shows Ubuntu's timeline and marks milestones in the distribution's evolution. "The story of Ubuntu is a story written by many hands. This page is a tribute to our community, partners and Canonical staff who have all given a piece of themselves to making this open source project thrive. Thank you to all of you. Above all, it's a celebration of what Ubuntu has achieved so far, and an invitation to collaborate with us in delivering an even faster pace of innovation in the future." When did you first encounter Ubuntu? Let us know in the comments.
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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) |
Backing up crontab
Running-on-schedule asks: I just noticed that there are no crontabs in my backups of my /home. How do you go about backing up cron jobs and restoring them later?
DistroWatch answers: You can dump your crontab into a text file by running the following command:
crontab -l > my-crontab.txt
The above command creates a new text file called my-crontab.txt and saves the contents of your crontab (scheduled jobs) in the text file. If you want to create a backup of another user's crontab entries, you can run the following command:
sudo crontab -u anotheruser -l > anotheruser-crontab.txt
In the above example, the "-u" flag tells crontab we are dealing with the jobs of another user. Replace the text "anotheruser" with the username of the account you want to backup.
You can then store these text files anywhere in your home directory to add them to your regular backups. Later, when you want to restore a crontab from the text file, you can run the crontab command and just pass it the name of the file. Here I restore my own crontab from a text file:
crontab my-crontab.txt
To restore another user's crontab you can perform a similar command, specifying their username:
sudo crontab -u anotheruser anotheruser-crontab.txt
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
SKUDONET 7.2.0
Antonio Rendón Ruiz has announced the release of SKUDONET 7.2.0, un updated version of the project's specialist Debian-based distribution whose primary purpose is to serve as a load balancer and application delivery system. This new release brings various improvements in the IPDS (Intrusion Prevention and Detection System) module, together with a few bug fixes. "SKUDONET 7.2.0 Community Edition. New Features: added IPDS WAF module; added geolocation support for WAF; added Lua 5.2 support for WAF; added Highlighting language for SecLang and Lua. Improvements: ssl - avoid deleting Default System Certificate; farms - disabled SSLv2 and TLSv1 by default in HTTPS farms; api - improved Backup action messages; networking - added a check for running DHCP daemons at starting DHCP; system - save farmguardian binary files in the backup. Bug fixes: networking - fixed unset of Bonding and NICs when DHCP is enabled; system - fixed update packages action requiring other repositories dependencies." See the release announcement with a changelog and the installation instructions for further information.
Parrot 6.2
Parrot (formerly Parrot Security OS) is a Debian-based, security-oriented distribution featuring a collection of utilities designed for penetration testing, computer forensics, reverse engineering, hacking, privacy, anonymity and cryptography. The project's latest release, version 6.2, introduces several package upgrades and a new tool called Rocket. "Parrot team is happy to introduce you to Rocket, a launcher written entirely in Python using PyQt6 for the GUI, to launch Docker containers, specifically some security tools in our repository on Docker Hub (and others, from other repositories). This application runs on ParrotOS, but is also compatible with other distributions, and can also run on Windows and macOS. It only requires the installation of docker.io to interface with Docker and allow the user to manage containers. Instead of typing and downloading a specific tool, through Rocket you can select a tool from the list, and then downloading the Docker image and launching the container is taken care of by the application." Additional information can be found in the release notes.
Parrot 6.2 -- Running the MATE desktop
(full image size: 680kB, resolution: 1680x1050 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: 3,098
- Total data uploaded: 45.6TB
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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) |
How do you schedule jobs?
In our Questions and Answers section we talked about backing up and restoring scheduled tasks using the crontab program. There are a number of utilities for running jobs at specific times. The cron service and systemd timers are two of the more commonly used options. Which of these do you use to schedule periodic jobs? Let us know your preferred method in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on atomic and immutable distributions in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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How do you schedule tasks?
| cron: | 461 (24%) |
| periodic: | 7 (0%) |
| systemd timers: | 87 (4%) |
| Other: | 34 (2%) |
| None: | 1356 (70%) |
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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 $135 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| J S | $50 |
| Anonymous | $20 |
| Daniel M | $10 |
| Jonathon B | $10 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| Brian59 | $5 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| surf3r57 | $5 |
| TaiKedz | $5 |
| STEER PTY Ltd | $5 |
| J.D. L | $2 |
| PB C | $2 |
| aRubes | $1 |
| c6WWldo9 | $1 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
| Kai D | $1 |
| Shasheen E | $1 |
| William E | $1 |
* * * * *
New projects added to database
AnduinOS
AnduinOS is an Ubuntu-based distribution which provides a GNOME desktop which has been themed and styled to resemble Windows 11. The project provides a smaller ISO file than its parent with each supported language split into a separate ISO. Snap support, which is included in Ubuntu, has been removed from AnduinOS.
AnduinOS 1.0.1 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 257kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Radix Cross Linux. Radix Cross Linux is a Russian distribution built for embedded devices and cross-compiling to a variety of CPU architectures.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 4 November 2024. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
Asturix
Asturix was a desktop-oriented Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. Some of its features include easy-to-use design, integration of social and micro-blogging networks, integration of popular web-based applications, and ability to legally download and play music via Jamendo.com's free download service.
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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