 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1097, 18 November 2024 |
Welcome to this year's 47th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
There is an ongoing tug-of-war in software development between convenience and security, between efficiency and user-friendliness. It's a tricky balance to find and projects tend to prioritize one side over the other. This week we begin with a head-to-head comparison between two similarly named projects which are entirely different in their philosophies. On the one hand we have ChimeraOS, an appliance-like gaming-focused distribution which is set up to allow users to plug-n-play. On the other hand we have Chimera Linux, a distribution which places more work in the users' hands while maintaining a clean and efficient design under the hood. Read on to learn more about these two wildly different distributions. Our Questions and Answers column this week addresses another comparison between distributions, discussing the key differences between Debian and AlmaLinux OS. Which one do you prefer for a home server? Let us know in the Opinion Poll. Then, in our News section, we talk about developments in the Fedora community. In particular, we talk about Fedora's KDE spin being elevated to be on par with the GNOME-focused Workstation edition. Speaking of KDE software, the desktop project is in the process of creating its own Linux-based distribution. We also share insights into Fedora's new, web-based system installer. Plus we talk about security and isolation technologies which are bringing Qubes-like tools to FreeBSD. We are also pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. Finally, we list the kind donors who help keep DistroWatch running before welcoming one of the Chimera distributions to our database. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: Chimera Linux vs ChimeraOS
- News: Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora trials new system installer, KDE developing its own distribution, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD
- Questions and answers: Choosing AlmaLinux OS vs Debian
- Released last week: CachyOS 241110, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.5, RELIANOID 7.5
- Torrent corner: GhostBSD, KDE neon, TUXEDO OS
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 14.2 RC1
- Opinion poll: AlmaLinux OS or Debian?
- Site news: Donations and sponsors
- New additions: Chimera Linux
- New distributions: Vendefoul Wolf, GXDE OS, Lingmo OS, PureDarwin
- Reader comments
|
| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Chimera Linux vs ChimeraOS
About four years ago DistroWatch received two new distribution submissions, fairly close together. This in itself is normal, we receive word of new distribution at a rate of about one per week. What made these two distributions stand out is they had virtually the same name: Chimera. Upon closer inspection, one website labelled its distribution as ChimeraOS while the other operated under the title Chimera Linux.
We have a policy of not accepting distributions with duplicate or nearly matching names (otherwise we'd have about half a dozen "ArchOS" and "Super OS" variants) so this posed a potential problem. However, both projects were still quite young and most distributions on our waiting list are abandoned within a year, so I thought the problem would resolve on its own - one project would die and we'd add the other to our database.
Over the next few years not only did neither project die, but their communities grew. And members of both communities regularly messaged me to ask why their Chimera hadn't been added to the database yet. Several insisted their preferred Chimera was the one, true Chimera due to being older/unique/more popular. However, none had a convincing argument, some had false claims, and neither project was willing to change its name.
Now we find ourselves in an unusual position. Both projects have grown in popularity, both still have the same duplicate name, both continue to push out regular releases, and now the word "Chimera" (note the lack of "OS" or "Linux") is one of the most commonly entered search terms on DistroWatch. What to do?
I have decided to test out the latest versions of both projects, put them in a head-to-head comparison, and see which one proves to be the better overall project. Both distributions will be evaluated on ease of installation, usefulness, completion of their stated goals, unique or interesting approaches, documentation, and support options. The winner, whichever project has the highest score, will be added to the database while the loser will be dropped from the waiting list and ignored until it undergoes a name change. Let the battle begin!
Website and documentation
Let's get to know our two contestants. Chimera Linux describes itself as follows: "Chimera is a general-purpose Linux-based OS born from unhappiness with the status quo. We aim to create a system that is simple, transparent, and easy to pick up, without having to give up practicality and a rich feature set. It is built from scratch using novel tooling, approaches, and userland. Instead of intentionally limiting ourselves, we strive to achieve both conceptual simplicity and convenience with careful and high quality software design."
According to the website, Chimera Linux makes use of FreeBSD userland tools, the Clang/LLVM compiler toolchain, and the musl C library (as opposed to the GNU C library). Chimera Linux strives to remove extra libraries and "cruft" to provide a technically simple, but feature complete experience. The website says Intel/AMD, ARM AArch64, POWER and RISC-V processors are supported.
The distribution is independently developed with new releases of Chimera Linux published every three months. Each release appears to be a snapshot of a rolling repository and these snapshots are available in Base, GNOME, and Plasma editions. I decided to download the Plasma build for x86_64 which was 2.0GB in size.
Installing Chimera Linux, which I'll get to in some detail shortly, is a mostly manual experience and requires a comfort with the command line. The project provides a detailed installation guide to walk users through setting up the distribution.
Speaking of documentation, Chimera Linux offers a lot of it. There is a fairly detailed handbook which covers fetching, installing, and setting up the distribution. The documentation covers package management, enabling and disabling services, installing alternative desktops (such as Xfce), configuring a firewall, installing Flatpak, and gaining accessing to video games. Other parts of the website make it possible to search for packages in the distribution's repositories, connect us with community forums, and there are links to the project's source code (and issue trackers). Everything appears to be well documented and out in the open.
Score: 5/5
* * * * *
Now, let's pause to shift focus to ChimeraOS. This distribution describes itself as follows: "Bringing the console gaming experience to PC." The project's website goes on to claim it can "Instantly turn any PC into a gaming console." We're also told the project offers automatic updates which will stay out of our way, and its interface is compatible with gaming controllers. Under the "Learn more" link, I found a more detailed description: "ChimeraOS is an operating system that provides an out of the box couch gaming experience. After installation, boot directly into Steam Big Picture and start playing your favorite games. If you want Steam in your living room, you want ChimeraOS."
The website reports it can run games from Steam, GOG, Epic Game Store. Updates are automatic, the system is intended to be easy to install in just a few minutes, and the distribution focuses entirely on games, making for a streamlined experience.
Earlier I mentioned ChimeraOS claims to turn "any PC" into a gaming console, but the distribution's download page walks back that claim a bit. It displays a list of requirements and restrictions above the Download button. These requirements include, but are not limited to, the following: PCs must have 8GB of RAM or more, at least a 64GB partition, AMD Radeon RX 400 series or newer GPU required (NVIDIA and Intel video cards are not supported), hybrid graphics are not supported, virtual machines are not supported, a keyboard (not just controller) is required, Secure Boot must be disabled, and UEFI is required.
ChimeraOS is based on Arch Linux and the ISO file for the latest version of the distribution is 836MB in size. It appears the distribution runs on x86_64 processors exclusively.
The website features links to third-party community forums and social media. There is also a documentation wiki. The wiki can direct us to an issue tracker, FAQ page, system requirements, and tips on navigating settings. For the most part the instructions are clear, though some are a bit vague. For instance the install instructions tell us: "Boot from the USB stick. Follow the installer directions. Once installation is complete and the computer is restarted, you will be presented with some basic setup screens after which you will need to log in to Steam. The documentation is sometimes like this - accurate, but not informative.
Score: 3/5
* * * * *
Installing and initial impressions
I decided to install ChimeraOS first since it appeared to have the more simple setup process. ChimeraOS's media boots to a text console where a prompt is shown letting us know the distribution will wipe the local disk and overwrite everything with ChimeraOS. Our choices are to proceed or cancel the installation. The installer then tries to connect to the Internet and, assuming it is successful, it will download a disk image. We are shown progress in the form of a per cent completion, but not how much total data is being downloaded.
The install process completed downloading and then copying the new system to my disk. A prompt then offered to reboot the machine or switch to a command prompt.
The first time ChimeraOS booted the system briefly displayed a message saying the system failed to a create a swap file. This was followed by an error: "Dependency failed for Swap." Then my screen went blank. After waiting a few minutes, I decided nothing further was going to happen on its own. I found I could switch to local text terminals which each displayed a login prompt.
This was progress, but I didn't know what the default login credentials were and the documentation either wasn't helping me or I was having trouble finding the information. I tried guessing a few username/password combinations without success. In my searches around the ChimeraOS resources, I found a series of issue reports which indicated other people were experiencing the same issue as I was with the blank screen. The issue appears to affect people running AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel video cards, on both generic PCs and the Steam Deck.
Reading through the bug reports I found out the username/password credentials were gamer/gamer. This allowed me to sign in and do some troubleshooting. Using the command line I confirmed the base system is Arch, that the pacman package manager doesn't work on ChimeraOS, and the root filesystem is Btrfs. A fresh install took up 356MB of RAM at the command line and 5.9GB of disk space.
Also following the discussions in the bug reports, I discovered we can run the command "chimera-session" to see a list of supported sessions. My system reported the following session options: desktop, desktop-xorg, steam (which appears to be the default), steam-plus, and opengamepadui.
Running "chimera-session desktop" launched the GNOME desktop. This seemed like good news as it meant my video card and drivers were working and supported. The issue appeared to be somewhere else.
From GNOME I could click an icon to launch Steam, though Steam immediately reported an error saying the machine was not on-line. ChimeraOS was connected to the Internet during the install process and it had successfully downloaded its image. I confirmed my machine had a network connection and I was able to ping remote servers outside the local network from the command line. When I tried running Steam again it terminated reporting it was off-line.
ChimeraOS 2024.09.20 -- Installing Flatpak packages
(full image size: 60kB, resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
So the install process for ChimeraOS is super simple and the system boots. But if anything goes wrong we're left stranded with no helpful documentation or prompts and not many useful error messages. I could login and access a desktop, but Steam (the main purpose for the distribution) failed to launch because it does not detect the active network connection. This was, at best, a mixed first impression.
Score: 2/5
* * * * *
Next, let's move on to installing Chimera Linux. Booting from the install media brings up a boot menu which offers to start the live session or load the operating system into RAM and then start the live session.
The live media automatically started the Plasma desktop for me and launched Plasma's welcome window. Chimera Linux does not provide a graphical installer. Instead we need to follow instructions in the project's handbook to install the distribution from a terminal. The process is quite similar to setting up Arch Linux. We create a disk partition or two, bootstrap the core system, and perform some initial configuration. The main difference between Arch and Chimera Linux, in this regard, is Chimera provides a nice, graphical desktop from which to perform these commands. It makes it easier to read the handbook in one window and type commands in a virtual terminal.
The documentation tells us we can login as the user "root" or "anon" and then authenticate using the password "chimera". Admin functions can be performed using the doas utility. (Chimera Linux uses doas instead of sudo for admin tasks.)
Following the handbook, I set up a root filesystem and swap partition. I mounted the root partition and then ran "chimera-bootstrap -l /media/root" to get a minimal system in place on my disk. The bootstrap utility can use local packages from the thumb drive or download fresh packages from the Chimera Linux repositories. I used local packages for expediency. The bootstrap tool reported it was working, but did not provide any progress information.
Chimera Linux 20241027 -- Exploring the Plasma desktop
(full image size: 250kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Once the core operating system is in place, we're encouraged by the handbook to continue polishing the installation inside a chroot environment. The handbook suggests fetching updates, confirming a kernel has been installed, checking to make sure the system time is correct, and removing the base-live package. Basically, it's a series of checks and housekeeping to perform before we reboot the computer. We're also told to confirm the entries in the /etc/fstab file look correct, otherwise the distribution will not boot properly. We are advised to install a boot loader if one isn't already in place. Mostly we end up just copying commands from the handbook and it feels, to me, as through most of these tasks should be completed by a simple shell script.
Once we restart the system Chimera Linux presents us with a text console where we can sign in as the root user. At this point we should probably perform a few more configuration tasks. For instance, setting our timezone and creating a regular user account. These steps are all covered in the project's handbook.
A moment ago I mentioned Chimera Linux booted to a text console. I knew Plasma packages were installed on the system and was not sure why I was not seeing a graphical login screen. The handbook is geared toward GNOME and recommends making sure GNOME and the GDM session manager are installed and enabled. There aren't equivalent instructions for Plasma.
With a little experimenting I found the SDDM session manager is installed, it just isn't run at boot time by default. Manually running the sddm command or enabling the SDDM service will present us with a login page. After I enabled SDDM using the command "dinitctl enable sddm" I was shown a graphical login screen each time the system booted.
The initial install process for Chimera Linux was long and tedious. I can say the documentation was clear and offered good step-by-step instructions, but most of it could easily be replaced by a short script rather than having us copy/paste lines from the documentation. The handbook assumes we will use GNOME and GDM to login while ignoring Plasma and SDDM, despite Plasma being one of the two desktop flavours. This means the user needs to guess or know somehow they need to enable SDDM instead of GDM to get a desktop environment. I think the team deserves credit for better than average documentation, and having the instructions result in a working system, but I took away two points for making me read five pages of instructions and type dozens of commands (plus perform some troubleshooting) just to install the base OS.
Score 3/5
* * * * *
Unique or unusual approaches
Let's talk about what makes these two projects stand out. Some corners of the Linux ecosystem can look a bit bland, with dozens of "Ubuntu, but with this feature" distributions or "Arch Linux, but set up with Calamares and running Xfce" spins. I spend a lot of my week exploring the minute differences in Linux projects and, even to me, some of them start to blend together after a while. Which is to say, I appreciate it when a project does something different, weird, or special. Void has its own package manager and the ability to choose between C libraries, EasyOS makes working with desktop containers seamless, openSUSE has the amazingly powerful YaST configuration tool. So, what do the Chimeras bring to the table?
Chimera Linux stands out in this regard. While I don't think any one thing it does is, strictly speaking, unique, it does have a blend of technologies and approaches which stand out. Having detailed documentation instead of a graphical (or menu-driven) installer isn't unique (Arch does this too); using the APK package manager isn't unique (Alpine uses it too); using Clang/LLVM isn't unique (OpenMandriva builds its system with Clang); running the musl C library is something Void does too. The components used are unusual, but not unique. However, this distribution blends them together to make something which is highly unusual and perhaps unique.
I don't know of any other distributions which uses FreeBSD command line tools, dinit, musl C, APK, Clang, and a handbook in place of a system installer. This is a truly rare mixture of components. Despite the strange combination, making this distribution quite different from the mainstream in how it operates under the hood, it works pretty well. The package manager is fast and capable, if sparse in its output. The desktop environment runs, once a login manager is enabled, most programs seem to function as expected, and portable Flatpak packages work.
Chimera Linux isn't really accomplishing new functionality, the way EasyOS or openSUSE do. But it is definitely taking an unusual approach to achieve similar results.
Score: 4/5
* * * * *
ChimeraOS, broadly speaking, falls under the popular distribution category of "Just enough OS to...." There are plenty of projects which basically provide a minimal distribution that is intended to perform one task or launch one program. Clonezilla Live just launches Clonezilla; GParted Live is just enough OS to launch a minimal window manager, terminal, and GParted; LibreELEC just launches Kodi; and Porteus Kiosk is stripped down to the point that it just runs a web browser.
As with these other appliance-like distributions, ChimeraOS narrows its focus to do one thing - in this case launch Steam. There are a bunch of these distributions, projects which take a base distribution (usually Fedora or Arch Linux) and remove everything except some drivers and a gaming portal. We have a handful of these in the database already - Recalbox, Lakka, and Batocera spring to mind. New ones are submitted to us regularly, such as Bazzite, which uses Fedora instead of Arch as its base, but otherwise has the same "appliance which launches Steam" focus as ChimeraOS.
ChimeraOS 2024.09.20 -- Running the Steam gaming portal
(full image size: 655kB, resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
So ChimeraOS isn't unique in its approach or goals, at least not in the current landscape. However, I do want to give the developers credit for making their distribution before some of the other minimal-distribution-plus-Steam projects started arriving in our inbox. The concept isn't unusual, but they were ahead of the curve in terms of gaming appliances.
Score: 2/5
* * * * *
Accomplishing goals
Long-time readers will be aware that when I am testing a distribution I tend to look at two things: How well does this project work for me? And does it do what its website claims it does? To me, these are two entirely different issues. A Linux distribution which claims it can be installed on refrigerators and then successfully installs on my fridge accomplishes its mission, even if I have no use for it. This is what I am looking at in this section, not whether I find the distribution practical, but whether the distribution does what its website claims it can do.
ChimeraOS has a very simple goal: it is an appliance for gaming. Its goal is to have the user plug a thumb drive into a computer and, a few minutes later, have an appliance that just launches a gaming portal, such as Steam. While success or failure of Steam actually running seems to depend on some variables (such as platform, specific hardware used, and which release we are running), when the project works as intended it does accomplish its goal. Like many good goals, ChimeraOS's goal is simple: streamline the install process and launch Steam. This is what the distribution does. This is almost all it does, unless we want to poke around the desktop environment or troubleshoot something.
ChimeraOS may not have worked out of the box for me the way I'd hoped, but that's beside the point. When it does work as intended it exactly accomplishes its goal of being a Steam gaming appliance.
Score: 5/5
* * * * *
The Chimera Linux project has a much more fuzzy goal, or set of goals. I think this blurb on the project's about page sums up its mission well:
A core tenet of Chimera is that being simple is better than being complex, but being complex is better than being complicated. The whole system is transparent to the user, aiming to avoid gotchas. This makes debugging potential issues (which may always come up, since we are still humans) easier, while also ensuring the user is in control. However, a lot of care is put into ensuring that everything has reasonable defaults (which does not mean magical automatic behaviors) and requires a minimal amount of effort to get working (ideally zero, while retaining a methodical approach). On top of this, the system offers a huge amount of flexibility in terms of hardware configurations the user may run the system on, from old hardware to current, with multiple CPU architectures supported.
There are some further comments about removing baggage, about removing complexity while also being practical, about using BSD userland tools as they can be easier to harden for security purposes, about enabling more security features than most Linux distributions, and about being more portable.
Chimera Linux 20241027 -- Running the Discover software centre
(full image size: 253kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
This makes it a little difficult to evaluate whether the project is accomplishing its goals, because its goals seem to be more about the behind-the-scenes processes (enabling security, maintaining portability, keeping the design simple) than anything to do with the user experience. In the end, I went into my trial with the mindset of questioning: do all these pieces work together? Can the developers really take this weird combination of userland tools from BSD, the LLVM toolchain, the dinit service manager, the APK package manager, and make it all work? Could I use this as a desktop or server platform, despite the unusual mixture of technologies?
I can. There are some limitations, there are a few places where practically may have been sacrificed for design. However, on the whole, I feel the developers have put together a working operating system that finds a decent balance between technical cleanness and practicality.
Score: 4/5
* * * * *
Is it useful/usable?
Chimera Linux took a while to set up, but once it was up and running with the SDDM session manager enabled, it was mostly smooth sailing. Despite the distribution's eclectic array of software, everything seemed to work well together. I was expecting a few programs might misbehave, but the applications I ran (including Firefox, Steam, and a few games) worked. The only application which failed to run for me was Konqueror, the built-in Plasma web browser. I was able to swap it out for Firefox.
Chimera Linux 20241027 -- Running Firefox and Steam
(full image size: 482kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
There were a few issues. By default, Chimera Linux didn't enable networking. The Network Manager service isn't enabled by default and the DHCP service isn't running. This meant I had to enable some networking services before I could set up a connection and have remote hostnames resolve.
It also appears as though the Discover software centre is unable to work with the APK package manager. Discover will offer to enable Flatpak support and connect to the Flathub repository. This is automated and worked for me, providing access to many desktop applications. Working with APK and the default Chimera Linux repositories required a move to the command line.
To answer whether Chimera Linux is useful and usable, the answer is a qualified "yes". Virtually everything worked for me, but several features which "just work" on most distributions required that I manually enable them first or configure something. In this manner, using Chimera Linux was a lot like working with Arch Linux, FreeBSD, or Slackware. The system is functional and stable, but getting some things running (like a graphical environment, networking, and disk partitioning) will require a trip to the handbook.
As with the other open source systems I mentioned above that are targeting advanced users, Chimera Linux is useful and practical - after the first day. The first day involves a bunch of typing, configuration, reading, and dealing with minor quirks. After that first day, it's like running most other desktop Linux distributions.
Score: 3/5
* * * * *
ChimeraOS is the harder of the two projects to evaluate, I think, in terms of being usable. Myself, and a handful of people who have reported bugs, have run into situations where the distribution fails to properly launch Steam. Even with my ability to launch a desktop environment, Steam still failed at first to run as it reported it was off-line, even though an active Internet connection is available. On the other hand, there are lots of reports from other users who have said ChimeraOS "just works" for them, launching and running Steam without any issues.
This is the tricky part about reviewing a project that has one purpose only. Its success is binary - it works or it doesn't. And ChimeraOS didn't work, for me. At least at first. The day after I'd installed ChimeraOS and failed to get it to launch Steam, I booted into the system again. Without making any changes or installing any updates, something changed. The system still wouldn't boot into Steam automatically, but if I launched the GNOME desktop I could get the Steam application to launch. I don't know why, but it meant I could play games (mostly) as intended. At this point I basically had a minimal desktop distribution, running GNOME Shell, that I could also use to run Steam, which wasn't really in the spirit of the project.
In the end, I came at the question from another angle and asked myself: If ChimeraOS had worked perfectly for me, would it have been useful? The answer is not really. ChimeraOS is a little faster and easier to install than the average Linux distribution, but not by much. Once almost any desktop Linux distribution is installed, setting up Steam is about three mouse clicks. I could plug my laptop into a TV, install any of the mainstream desktop distributions, and be downloading games in 15 minutes. When it works as intended, ChimeraOS can get that time down to around 10 minutes. It does offer an improvement, assuming all I ever want to do with my computer is run games, but it's not a lot better than running Ubuntu with Steam or Linux Mint with Steam.
I was going to give ChimeraOS a 2/5 rating here, just for being able to install, boot, and (with a little manual effort) launch a gaming portal. But, taking into consideration what the experience would do for me if it worked perfectly, I'm raising the rating to a 3/5. Slightly streamlining the experience of setting up Steam on a dedicated PC is slightly helpful, but not super practical or useful in most situations.
Score: 3/5
* * * * *
Support options
In terms of support options, both distributions provide some helpful resources. ChimeraOS has a Discord channel, some documentation, a Twitter account, and an issue tracker. These all seem to be fairly active and maintained. The documentation is a bit sparse in places, particularly in terms of troubleshooting, but that's understandable considering the project's narrow focus. I think ChimeraOS does a decent job in this category.
Score: 4/5
* * * * *
The Chimera Linux project offers a handful of resources for people looking for help. It has an extensive handbook, IRC channel, Matrix channel, Reddit forum, and GitHub page where people can send patches and report issues. The project seems to have all the avenues for community support covered.
Score: 5/5
Chimera Linux 20241027 -- Installing packages with APK
(full image size: 173kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
* * * * *
Conclusions
Chimera Linux and ChimeraOS are essentially complete opposite in many respects. One is independently developed and highly unusual in its mixture of technologies, the other is based on Arch and fulfills a common task. It was interesting looking at two projects with virtually identical names, but almost nothing else in common.
Their approaches are entirely different too. One tries to automate and streamline everything, providing an installer which really just has one interactive step. The other requires a lot of manual work and configuration to set up the operating system. One distribution has a narrow focus, placing all of its energy into providing a minimal gaming platform. The other has more general purpose and philosophical goals such as gradually removing technological complexity, hardening the core operating system, and making the distribution more efficient.
I would say I found Chimera Linux to be the more interesting of the two projects. It is working on something unique, something interesting, something a tad weird. I like that; I like the focus on efficiency and removing complexity. Everything is, as the documentation suggests, quickly understandable. This is a "keep it simple" style distribution that manages to be feature complete, even if it does require extra manual work.
ChimeraOS was, at least to me, less interesting, less unusual. On the other hand, it was more convenient to install and it has a clear, verifiable purpose. It didn't work well for me at first, but on my second day of evaluation, ChimeraOS suddenly started working (mostly) as intended. I could plug my machine into a TV and start fetching and playing Steam games. This kind of appliance-style distribution isn't useful to me, but I can see the appeal for a lot of people who might want to use a dedicated box for gaming and nothing but gaming.
Let's see how the two projects scored, side-by-side:
|
| Chimera Linux | ChimeraOS |
| Website/documentation |
5 | 3 |
| Install and initial setup |
3 | 2 |
| Unique or unusual |
4 | 2 |
| Accomplishing goals |
4 | 5 |
| Is it useful/usable? |
3 | 3 |
| Support |
5 | 4 |
| Total |
24/30 | 19/30 |
It was a close race in several categories with both projects doing fairly well overall. Still, Chimera Linux scored better and will take its place in the database.
* * * * *
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
* * * * *
Visitor supplied rating
Chimera Linux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 10/10 from 1 review(s).
Have you used Chimera Linux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
|
| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora trials new system installer, KDE developing its own distribution, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD
The Fedora project has plans to elevate the KDE Plasma spin to be on equal footing with the distribution's Workstation edition which runs the GNOME desktop. Earlier this year the project considered, and quickly rejected, the idea of making the Plasma spin the distribution's official Workstation edition and downgrading the GNOME flavour to spin status. This new proposal will place the two desktop editions on equal footing rather than dethroning GNOME from the spotlight. "This includes the following: Listing Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop Edition at the same level as Fedora Workstation Edition on fedoraproject.org. Production of a flagship site page for Fedora KDE similar to Fedora Workstation on fedoraproject.org. Marketing support in a similar vein to Workstation at events. The Fedora KDE SIG will withdraw its Change for Fedora Linux 42 to replace GNOME with KDE Plasma on Workstation with the acceptance of this request." The change should take effect in time for Fedora 42, likely to be launched in April or May of 2025.
The Fedora team are working on a new system installer for their distribution. The Anaconda installer has a bit of an awkward interface and its front-end is built upon the obsolete GTK3 development libraries. With this in mind, the project is testing a new, web-based system installer. "The Anaconda team implemented the current design of the GTK-based installer decades ago. It uses a 'hub-and-spoke' design that can sometimes feel like jumping around sections when installing. We wanted to rethink the installation process, to create a more streamlined experience where people are guided through the installation process step-by-step in a linear manner, so they don't have to hunt for the right things to configure amid all the possible settings. Instead of figuring out how to configure the system first, the goal should be to show you a set of applicable options, and then tailor the experience from there." Screenshots of the new installer, along download links for testing out the installer in development branch of Fedora's Workstation edition, can be found in this news post.
* * * * *
The KDE project is working on its own Linux distribution, appropriately named KDE Linux. This distribution is intended to be built on Arch Linux and feature the advanced Btr filesystem for easy snapshots and rollbacks. The project's wiki also reports the distribution will be immutable and use Wayland desktop sessions by default. Though releases are not ready for the public yet, the project is testing disk images of the upcoming distribution. KDE Linux is intended to address shortcomings with the KDE neon project which has the same goal of showcasing the latest KDE experience: "KDE neon, KDE's first version of a self-made OS. KDE neon fulfills the 'distributed by KDE' requirement, but fails on the reliability angle due to the Ubuntu LTS base that ironically becomes unstable because it needs to be tinkered with to get Plasma to build on it, breaking the LTS promise."
The GNOME team has a similar project called GNOME OS which provides ISO files for an operating system running pre-release GNOME software.
* * * * *
People who like the concept of Qubes OS, along with its strict isolation of system components and tasks, may be interested in a similar project in the FreeBSD community. The quBSD project uses shell scripts, FreeBSD jails, and virtual machines to provide low-overhead, isolated environments where users can experiment with applications and quarantine files. The project's GitHub page summarizes its key features: "X11 GUI jails, with a cloneable template. Network gateway jails/VMs for firewall, VPNs, and Tor. Disposable/ephemeral jails/VMs. Automatic rolling ZFS snapshots, with thinning. Streamlined configuration/editing:" Though not yet in the FreeBSD ports collection, quBSD should soon be available for people running FreeBSD and related projects, such as GhostBSD.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Choosing AlmaLinux OS vs Debian
Picking-a-side asks: I'm sure I can't go wrong with either AlmaLinux OS or Debian, they both seem to be recommended a lot, but I'm having a hard time choosing. Which would you suggest for a home server?
DistroWatch answers: As you said, both options (Debian and AlmaLinux OS) are good choices. For most people, in most home server situations, either distribution will do a good job. Both projects offer stable, well tested software, formidable security tools, long-term support cycles, and enough packages to handle common server roles. Since these two projects have a lot of similarities, let's look at the key differences.
The biggest difference, in my opinion, is the amount of software available. AlmaLinux and Debian organize their software differently, arranging them into different categories and repositories, so getting an exact package count which will make sense for all situations is difficult. However, you can safely say Debian has at least 65,000 packages in its Stable repositories while AlmaLinux (as best as I can figure) has in the ballpark of 10,000 packages in its official repositories. Both have access to community contributed and non-free repositories such as Debian's "contrib" branch and the RPMFusion repositories to augment those package counts. Still, when you add them all up, Debian has a larger collection of software and has tools for just about every situation. AlmaLinux is more focused on common server packages.
Debian also offers support for more CPU architectures, with Debian 12 supporting nine different CPU families while AlmaLinux offers builds for four CPU architectures. In short, Debian offers more packages across more platforms. It is a more flexible, universal distribution.
What does AlmaLinux have working in its favour? There are two main features AlmaLinux OS brings to server deployments. The first is incredibly long-term support. AlmaLinux OS provides ten years of support for each stable branch, meaning if you installed AlmaLinux OS 9 in 2022 you could continue to run it with security updates through to 2032. Debian offers long-term support too, but it reaches its limit after about five years.
The other area where AlmaLinux shines is its certifications and third-party support. A lot of third-party companies build software for AlmaLinux's upstream parent, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and a lot of training courses focus on Red Hat software. AlmaLinux also has FIPS compliance. If you are planning to experiment with Linux at home with the intention of getting certifications and system administration jobs in the future, AlmaLinux is a good place to start.
Something else to keep in mind is these two distributions use different package management tools. Debian uses its own Deb package format and APT to handle software. AlmaLinux uses Red Hat's RPM package format and DNF to manage packages. Both approaches are practical and capable. However, if you already have familiarity or a preference for one set of package tools over the other, that might tip your choice in favour of the more familiar package manager.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
CachyOS 241110
CachyOS is a Linux distribution based on Arch Linux. It focuses on speed and security optimisations. The project's latest snapshot is CachyOS 241110 which introduces several kernel and firmware updates which should improve gaming performance. "We have backported from the 6.13 Kernel the THP Shrinker, which allows splitting hugepages earlier, reducing memory usage when transparent_hugepages is set to 'always', while maintaining the same performance. Also, we have added the AMD Cache Optimizer, which can be modified at runtime to the preferred mode - cache or frequency. This changes the AMD preferred core ranking. This should help in games using the wrong CCD, for example. You can find instructions in the wiki on how to use this. Additionally, we have backported the AMD-pstate performance fixes for Strix Point laptops. This should generally improve the performance of these laptops." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
CachyOS 241110 -- Running the Plasma desktop
(full image size: 639kB, resolution: 1600x1200 pixels)
RELIANOID 7.5
RELIANOID is a Debian-based Linux distribution for load balancing. The project's latest release, version 7.5, is based on Debian 12.8 "Bookworm" and introduces support for Secure Boot. "A key highlight of RELIANOID 7.5.0 is the addition of Secure Boot support, which offers an enhanced layer of security, ensuring only trusted software is loaded during the boot process. This update strengthens RELIANOID's reliability on modern hardware and aligns with security best practices for deployments that demand robust protection from boot-level threats. Additionally, this release is now built on Debian Bookworm 12.8, bringing improved stability, performance, and compatibility across a variety of environments. Users will also benefit from further refinements to the upgrade process to the Enterprise Edition, making transitions from Community to Enterprise Edition smoother and more efficient. The GUI has received several updates to improve usability, delivering a more responsive and user-friendly experience when configuring and monitoring your load balancing setups. Alongside these upgrades, we have optimized system profile file handling, ensuring configuration settings are managed with precision and reliability." Further details are provided in the project's release notes.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.5
Red Hat, Inc. has announced the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9.5, an updated build of the company's enterprise Linux distribution available for the x86, ARM, IBM Power, IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE architectures: "Red Hat, Inc. today announced the general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.5, the latest version of the world's leading enterprise Linux platform. Red Hat Enterprise Linux helps organizations deploy applications and workloads more quickly and with greater reliability, enabling them to lower costs and more effectively manage workloads across hybrid cloud deployments while mitigating IT risks, from the datacenter to public clouds to the edge. Red Hat Enterprise Linux management tools continue to simplify system administration, enabling organizations to automate manual tasks, standardize deployment at scale and reduce system complexities. In addition, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.5 now offers new file management capabilities to the web console, allowing users to perform routine file management tasks without using the command line...." Read the press release and the detailed release notes for further information.
GhostBSD 24.10.1
The GhostBSD project has announced the arrival of GhostBSD 24.10.1, the latest update to this desktop-oriented branch of the FreeBSD family. The new release focuses on driver updates and improvements. It also fixes some issues with booting on Legacy BIOS systems and introduces support for watching Netflix in the Chromium web browser. "We're excited to announce the release of GhostBSD 24.10.1! This release brings system updates from FreeBSD and better hardware compatibility with some old AMD Radeon and FirePro GPU. We resolved live session startup issues with Legacy BIOS and started to fix some issues with Update Station functionality. For a complete list of changes, check the changelog 24.10.1 Changelog: Enhancement, improvements, and new features - Build www/chromium with necessary options to watch e.g. Netflix. Removing UFS from custom installation." Additional details and upgrade instructions can be found in the project's release announcement.
* * * * *
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: 3,113
- Total data uploaded: 45.8TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
AlmaLinux OS or Debian?
In our Questions and Answers section this week we talked about Debian and AlmaLinux OS in home environments. Both are capable, popular distributions well suited to servers. We'd like to hear which one you prefer. Let us know about your home server setups in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using Tmux or Screen in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
|
Do you prefer AlmaLinux OS or Debian for home servers?
| AlmaLinux OS: | 100 (3%) |
| Debian: | 833 (29%) |
| Both: | 59 (2%) |
| Another Linux distro: | 188 (7%) |
| Another OS: | 64 (2%) |
| I do not run any home servers: | 1636 (57%) |
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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 $120 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| J S | $50 |
| Hendrik H | $15 |
| Jonathon B | $10 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| Brian59 | $5 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| surf3r57 | $5 |
| TaiKedz | $5 |
| Antonio N | $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
Chimera Linux
Chimera Linux is an independent distribution which uses an unusual combination of technologies behind the scenes. Chimera Linux uses BSD userland command line tools, the Clang/LLVM compiler toolchain, dinit for service management, and APK for package management. Chimera Linux strives to keep the design simple while still providing the experience and features most users want, such as multiple desktop environments, Flatpak support, a graphical package manager, and easy access to desktop configuration tools. Chimera Linux does not have a system installer, instead providing manual command line instructions to bootstrap the operating system from a live environment.
Chimera Linux 20241027 -- Running the Plasma desktop
(full image size: 250kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- Vendefoul Wolf. Vendefoul wolf is a Devuan-based Linux distribution. It is available in two editions, a 32-bit LXQt flavour and a 64-bit Xfce flavour. The project runs the SysV init software and uses the Squid application to install the operating system.
- GXDE OS. GXDE OS is a deepin-based Linux distribution featuring the Deepin desktop environment along with WINE for running Windows applications.
- Lingmo OS. Lingmo OS is a Debian-based distribution featuring a customized desktop environment based on KDE/Qt.
- PureDarwin. Darwin is the open source operating system from Apple that forms the base for macOS. PureDarwin is a community project that fills in the gaps to make Darwin usable. PureDarwin focuses on creating a usable bootable system that is independent of macOS components.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 25 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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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Home server (by Aqua on 2024-11-18 01:36:59 GMT from United States)
I run NixOS on my home server and use NixOS containers instead of Docker to run various services.
2 • Why don't you mention illumos? (by illumos on 2024-11-18 02:37:25 GMT from Japan)
QuBSD's security as if Qubes style, but illumos can also do it.
illumos has Zone, bhyve can run on Zones.
SmartOS is illumos's distro, defaulty use Zone and bhyve.
This illumos's bhyve on Zone model is same of FreeBSD's QuBSD.
QuBSD uses jail and bhyve, SmartOS uses Zone and bhyve.
Same of this model is able to run on other distro (OpenIndiana and omnios), despite why don't you mention illumos's distribution?
3 • security via isolation (by Dev Sense on 2024-11-18 06:18:33 GMT from United States)
"security and isolation technologies which are bringing Qubes-like tools to FreeBSD."
This is overkill -.when computer OSs already have built-in backdoors -- via remote login protocols, (& open ports, etc). These are what hackers target if they really want to steal your stuff.
So, it would be better for devs to provide comprehensive GUI config tools - to isolate the OS itself from the outside world, before trying to isolate different parts of the OS within.
4 • Debian preferred (by AdamB on 2024-11-18 06:19:19 GMT from Australia)
Although my first successful installations were members of the RPM family (OpenSuSe, Mandriva, Fedora), I soon developed a preference for the Debian family - anything using the APT package manager.
Most of my experience with setting up servers has been with the Debian family, although I have set up Samba on various other distributions.
In more recent years, I find that Raspberry Pi devices are excellent server platforms. At the moment, I have a Rpi4 which, while usable as a desktop PC, is running Dnsmasq and Apt-cacher-ng services .. very successfully. With an external SSD, it is also acting as a file server.
5 • Alma Linux (by Clay Hansen on 2024-11-18 06:24:41 GMT from United States)
I tried Alma Linux a few years ago..
on a no-internet air gapped box.
It would not boot without internet.
I do not see how it could be touted as enterprise capable.
If your internet goes down,
you are paying your staff to sit around and dust their keyboards.
6 • Why Alma, not Rocky? (by illumos on 2024-11-18 06:38:36 GMT from Japan)
Alma Linux is not a perfect replacement for RHEL like CentOS.
Alma fixes RHEL's bugs with original patches.
Rocky Linux is a faithful copy of RHEL including bugs.
Users should use Rocky instead of Alma for their servers.
7 • Chimera (by Mithologist on 2024-11-18 07:25:33 GMT from Spain)
In my opinion 'ChimeraOS' and 'Chimera Linux' are clearly different names and both should be in the database. I can't see your problem with them.
8 • Nas/Home Server (by Myst on 2024-11-18 07:54:28 GMT from Germany)
I'm currently testing CasaOs on Debian server.
Although I would love to see a review and how Distrowatch would go about a full install and configuration.
All installations are can only be done on with systemD,
System Compatibility
Official Support: Debian,Ubuntu Server,Raspberry Pi OS
Community Support: Tested - Elementary, Armbian
Not fully tested - Alpine, OpenWrt, ArchLinux
Ideally, I would like to see a tested Non SystemD.
Note the Hardware Compatibility
amd64 / x86-64, arm64, armv7
There are lots of Youtube, videos & a number official and community Discord Channels for support.
https://casaos.io/
https://github.com/IceWhaleTech/CasaOS
https://wiki.casaos.io/en/home
9 • Casos on Debian server (by myst on 2024-11-18 07:55:30 GMT from Australia)
I'm currently testing CasaOs on Debian server.
Although I would love to see a review and how Distrowatch would go about a full install and configuration.
All installations are can only be done on with systemD,
System Compatibility
Official Support: Debian,Ubuntu Server,Raspberry Pi OS
Community Support: Tested - Elementary, Armbian
Not fully tested - Alpine, OpenWrt, ArchLinux
Ideally, I would like to see a tested Non SystemD.
Note the Hardware Compatibility
amd64 / x86-64, arm64, armv7
There are lots of Youtube, videos & a number official and community Discord Channels for support.
https://casaos.io/
https://github.com/IceWhaleTech/CasaOS
https://wiki.casaos.io/en/home
10 • Chimera Linux (by rhtoras on 2024-11-18 10:33:16 GMT from Greece)
I have the answer on what you are asking Jesse... Wait and see...\
First of to be clear. I belong to the nosystemD movement. This is the place Chimera Linux should have been since it does not make use of systemD. However the creator states that he disagrees with that movement. I learnt later he was a maintainer of void linux who had very bad behaviour. But i do not know him personally to clarify this. With that being said Chimera maintains turnstile which is an independer seat/login manager. So distributions without systemD could not rely on systemD logind (the devil) i.e artix, elogind i.e slackware (the fork of the devil), consolekit i.e PClinuxOS (oldie) or plain seatd i.e antix (minimal but plain simple). It also brings Gnome desktop on clang llvm which is something unusual. Quite difficult to build.
p.s As for APK i know not only Alpine but also Alpaquita and Adelie Linux that still use it.
p.s2 If i had to chooese between Void and Chimera linux... i would choose the latter anyday.
p.s.3 The reason to use Chimera Linux is if you like Alpine, you dislike elogind but you are lazy to build it without (or you don't know how) and you thing openrc is not a good init system.
Have a nice week to all...
11 • Cimera Linux (by rhtoras on 2024-11-18 10:41:10 GMT from Greece)
I WOULD CHOOSE VOID not Chimera linux
12 • Why not ??? for your home server (by James on 2024-11-18 10:51:13 GMT from United States)
Picking-a-side asks: I'm sure I can't go wrong with either AlmaLinux OS or Debian, they both seem to be recommended a lot, but I'm having a hard time choosing. Which would you suggest for a home server?
He didn't mention NixOS, illumos, or Rocky because he wasn't asked about them. If you want him to talk about them, ask him a question about them, and hope he answers it.
13 • os for server (by Dhoni on 2024-11-18 11:47:26 GMT from Indonesia)
alma vs debian? both work great and solid enterprise grade os as long you use it right.
which on you should use, it depend on the apps you will install amd use later. usually some apps will tell you recommendation for the base os on the server.
14 • CachyOS etc - questions over developer credibility (by Alice on 2024-11-18 11:59:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
Even in your unexpanded screenshot we can see the little logo icons for Discord and Telegram.
Discord. Seriously? After all that we know!
When I see developers and communities using Discord it raises red flags, suspicions, questions over credibility and commitment in matters of Privacy and Security.
Sigh. So many naive children. So many frogs being boiled.
#
15 • Fedora KDE (by TiredPenguin on 2024-11-18 12:04:56 GMT from Croatia)
it is a tragedy that Fedora refused to ditch gnome and make kde aa only official desktop.
Kde is just awesome. Beautiful, customisable, practical.
Gnome is a piece of crap.
16 • Search "Not Based On" is ignored (by Jan on 2024-11-18 12:35:21 GMT from The Netherlands)
On my old hardware I have a negative experience wrt XFCE.
Strangely the distos I live-tested ran annoyingly slow (browser-behaviour), I realized that they were Debian-based.
So I ran a search for XFCE and "Not Based On" Debian.
All XFCE+Debian distros were given. So the "Not Based ON" key is ignored.
Not a big deal, but maybe can be corrected?
17 • Xfce without Debian (by Jesse on 2024-11-18 12:40:17 GMT from Canada)
@16: "So I ran a search for XFCE and "Not Based On" Debian.
All XFCE+Debian distros were given. So the "Not Based ON" key is ignored."
I did a check on this and none of the results for distros with Xfce "not based on Debian" are Debian-based distribution. There are 56 results and none of them are Debian derivatives. Maybe you swapped the "based on" and "not based on" fields?
https://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=All&category=All&origin=All&basedon=All¬basedon=Debian&desktop=Xfce&architecture=All&package=All&rolling=All&isosize=All&netinstall=All&language=All&defaultinit=All&status=Active#simpleresults
18 • xfce old hardware (by TiredPenguin on 2024-11-18 13:04:45 GMT from Croatia)
@16 don't waste time with xfce or any other gtk derived crap
For older hardware there is a desktop called trinity.
it is derived from old kde 3.5 and it is very fast and stable.
There are several distros with trinity just do a proper search
19 • @ Xfce without Debian (by Jan on 2024-11-18 13:14:54 GMT from The Netherlands)
You are right, with 1 exception, Debian is on place 2. So I focussed too much on this. Probably Debian has not the right "keywords".
Interesting remark @18.
20 • Fedora KDE (by Abramo on 2024-11-18 15:02:10 GMT from Italy)
@15 TiredPenguin
KDE Plasma and GNOME are the most complete desktop environments. The decision could not be different. Even if I prefer KDE (which is light even on quite old desktops).
21 • Chimera (by Luke on 2024-11-18 15:05:46 GMT from United States)
I'm not affiliated with either project but I just wanted to point out that the name Chimera fits Chimera Linux well, with parts taken from various systems to form a surprising but cohesive whole. It makes far less sense for ChimeraOS, which sounds more like a SteamOS alternative. Maybe it's the fact that Chimeras breathed fire, but there are a lot of mythological creatures that do, and a lot of other names that would have fit better.
22 • Fedora/Red Hat Installer (by RetiredIT on 2024-11-18 15:02:51 GMT from United States)
I am relieved that Fedora is FINALLY, after many years, motivated to bring out a new installer. I have always dreaded installing any Red Hat distro because the present installer is old, archaic and very difficult to work with unless you have used it many times and have worked out all the essenial oddball quirks. The same goes for Debian's non-graphical installer. Old and outdated. NO Linux distro should be that hard to install. Certain hard to use installers such as Red Hat's have probably held back many WinDoze users from coming over to Linux!
23 • Home Server (by Alessio on 2024-11-18 15:06:37 GMT from Italy)
FreeBSD. No doubt.
24 • Debian (by uz64 on 2024-11-18 15:20:45 GMT from United States)
AlmaLinux is basically at the whims of a corporation. In particular Red Hat--or more specifically, IBM--has them by the balls. When IBM decided to pull the plug on the "open-for-all" nature of Red Hat's source code, while Rocky Linux and others decided to take the time to come up with an alternate method to continue being a 100% faithful bug-for-bug RHEL clone, AlmaLinux quickly decided to take the easy way out and instead become an "ABI-compatible" clone of Red Hat. When a distro is so quick to take the path of least resistance, showing weakness, I would say that doesn't reflect too positively on the overall strength of the distribution. What are they going to do next time IBM decides to challenge them? How little will it really take before they just give up? Needless to say, I don't think AlmaLinux has proven to be a leader at all in the EL clone space when confronted with a challenge, but at the same time I'm not completely sure I'd recommend Rocky or any of the other RHEL clones either. Why? Simple: They are all at the mercy of IBM to some extent.
Just use Debian, don't waste your time with the potential BS that can come with using a corporate-backed distribution. Red Hat is more concerned about making money than anything else, which has become especially obvious under new leadership from IBM, and clone distros that redistribute their products for free are not their friends. And it is the users of those distros that will suffer the most. If you choose to use a Red Hat clone--any of them--be wary when reading claims of "ten years of support" inherited by the parent distro, and always consider the possibility of an early forced switch to another distribution.
25 • Why Alma, not Rocky? (by Orlando on 2024-11-18 15:19:31 GMT from Italy)
@6 illumos
Alma Linux is not a perfect replacement for RHEL like Rocky. This is a good thing, Alma is CentOS Stream stabilized and improved by Synergy and ElRepo repositories. Alma fixes RHEL's bugs with original patches (there are too many clones out there and they are able only to copy). Rocky Linux is a faithful copy of RHEL including bugs and missing software: this is sure, but users would be better off using Alma instead of a RHEL-clone for their servers (and enterprise desktop).
26 • fedora kde (by TiredPenguin on 2024-11-18 16:35:47 GMT from Croatia)
@20
Gnome complete!?!?!!
trolololllol
that's why there are tons of extensions for it. Because it's "complete".
and with those gnome becomes buggy and unstable.
And with each new version gnome breaks compatibility with extensions.
if there is anything "complete" with gnome it's a complete mess
27 • fedora kde (by Abramo on 2024-11-18 21:04:33 GMT from The Netherlands)
@26
"Gnome complete? That's why there are tons of extensions for it. Because it's complete."
Gnome is complete because it works well without extensions. Only a DVD writing support at the level of K3b is missing.
28 • Void Linux (by Karl Vreski on 2024-11-18 23:01:12 GMT from Australia)
@10
Regarding Void Linux and elogind, from the available ISO, elogind is enabled by default. To install an alternative to elogind, it is likely you will have the following issue:
"Although seatd and turnstile aim to provide session management, they might not fully implement all the D-Bus interfaces and session tracking features required by some desktop components, particularly those expecting the org.freedesktop.login1 interface provided by logind or its alternatives like elogind.
To avoid using elogind and still have a functioning polkit agent, you would need to ensure that all components involved in session and privilege management are correctly set up to interact with seatd and turnstile. "
So, from what i can gather, although it is possible to install turnstile or seatd, to actually get them working properly on the system seems to be a massive challenge.
It might just be that as systemd grows more invasive and more applications become dependent on it to function, that a systemd-free linux is not possible and the only real alternative is FreeBSD
29 • Why Alma, not Rocky? (by illumos on 2024-11-18 23:20:43 GMT from Japan)
@25
This is not a good idea.
You don't want that many repositories on a server.
More software means more vulnerabilities.
Rocky is more secure than Alma and is better for servers.
30 • Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition (by bige on 2024-11-18 23:30:15 GMT from United States)
Congrats to fans of KDE+Fedora! My preferred DE is GNOME, and I hope that GNOME always remains the default DE for Fedora.
There are good reasons why GNOME is my choice. It is matured and clean looking. GNOME is easy to use. To use an application, just hit the Super/Windows key, and then type in the name of the application in the search bar.
31 • Home server (by Dk on 2024-11-18 23:53:19 GMT from Canada)
Having used debian for 20 + years my familiarity with that ecosystem would make me choose debian right away unless there was a very compelling use case to use another distribution. Anything more serious than a home server I would be looking at either debian or rehl. Although alma and rocky are both good distributions they do come with unecessary baggage. BSD would also be an option and once again that comes down to what role the server will be used for.
32 • Naming Confusion & AlmaLinux (by Vinfall on 2024-11-19 02:04:55 GMT from Hong Kong)
Some distros definitely need a more unique name. A while ago I was about to try Clean Linux OS (an Intel-backed distro) and accidentally downloaded Clear OS (a CentOS/RHEL-based distro, formerly ClarkConnect). This is very confusing.
@6: I found this kind of thing annoying as well. Rocky is truly bug-for-bug compatible and while AlmaLinux used to be code-for-code compatible, now it's only ABI compatible.
LWN.net only mentions AlmaLinux (along with Fedora & Red Hat) security updates, Azure endorses AlmaLinux, but AlmaLinux just sucks. Their website is terrible w/ or w/o JavaScript. Documentation is somewhere between Manjaro and Arch, no where close to Rocky (slightly better than Arch Wiki, but ofc more limited). I can't really figure out why everyone is going after it besides the idealogical reason.
33 • KDE vs Gnome, @15, @26 Tired Penguin (by Wally on 2024-11-19 02:58:56 GMT from Australia)
@ 15, 26 Tired Penguin, -One can differ in opinion without calling things crap or calling other people names. Don't like Gnome? Don't use it! I happen to like Gnome. I also like KDE. I use them both. Jesse just reviewed Kubuntu and he found KDE 6 overly complicated and using too much RAM. I differ. I find it quite easy for my use. Is he wrong? Am I? Neither. It's a matter of opinion and usage. I like the multiplicity of options, which let me set it up as I want. 1.3GB of RAM at idle is high in a PC with 2GB, but with 16 to 32Gb available, it's of no consequence. People use the word "snappy". Does it mean the apps pop up instantly? I find that startling and prefer a smooth glide. My work is not slowed by that. Lots of people love XFCE. I find it unaesthetic and somewhat agricultural. I detest scroll, hover and click category menus and prefer full-screen icon grids. Just my opinions, nothing else.
Gnome: As a desktop meant for the enterprise, with perhaps many cubicle denizens working away, the fewer distractions the better. Gnome excels at that. Simple. What you need is available with a click or a keystroke. Nothing more. Not for me, though. But wait! I can set up Gnome as a Windows lookalike like Zorin's or I can go all the way to full Compiz-like bling. All I need are extensions. Extensions are as easy to add and enable as is going through the choices in KDE's settings app. And there are thousands of them. It takes a popular, enjoyable and configurable DE to get that many people developing things for it. Extensions may break? Sure, if you stay on the bleeding edge. My wife's laptop has been running Ubuntu Jammy for 2.5 years without a hiccup. I run 24.04, good for 5 to 10 years.
Three screenshots: KDE, Gnome and some Gnome bling which I just tried for kicks and will delete.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/164785504@N08/
34 • Possible naming solution: ChimeraOS --> QuimeraOS (by X on 2024-11-19 07:18:05 GMT from United States)
This situation proved to be difficult, but, it had to be done. I believe both distributions should be included here. However, the naming is much too similar. Perhaps I may offer a suggestion to any ChimeraOS developers to propose an alternative without completely giving up the name. The Spanish version of Chimera is Quimera. Perhaps QuimeraOS could be acceptable to all.
I do not play games so I have no interest in the distribution. Chimera Linux might be closer to my needs (I will test it when I return to the States.) However, it appears to be moving in the right direction and I regret it lost out due to a minor issue. It is up to ChimeraOS developers to make a decision on how to proceed. Perhaps they have a better solution.
35 • response to gnome fanboys (by TiredPenguin on 2024-11-19 08:40:39 GMT from Croatia)
gnome is not complete. That's why most gnome users use some kind of extensions or in case of ubuntu (and some others), heavily modified versions.
The only reason gnome even exists is fanatism from fsf fanboys who considered qt to be evil for some reason only they understand.
And these fanatics were employed in linux companies pushing their insanity on managers to adopt gnome as default "desktop" instead of kde
and that is the main reason why linux is not more prevalent on the desktop.
Now slowly companies are comimg around.
36 • @35, Tired Penguin (by Wally on 2024-11-19 11:44:11 GMT from Australia)
@35, Tired Penguin"And these fanatics were employed in linux companies pushing their insanity on managers to adopt gnome as default "desktop" instead of kde
and that is the main reason why linux is not more prevalent on the desktop." -I see! So it's a conspiracy by insane fanatics who hate Qt and by us fanbois, designed to keep Linux down.
Definition of fanatic: a person exhibiting excessive enthusiasm and intense uncritical devotion toward some controversial matter.
If the shoe fits. . .
37 • gnomeism (by drosgher on 2024-11-19 11:47:07 GMT from Australia)
@30 you can hit the Super key and start typing to bring up an application in most DEs, it's not something exclusive to GNOME.
I tend to agree with @35
38 • Chimera chaos (by Mxgog0 on 2024-11-19 12:02:36 GMT from South Africa)
Like @34, I do not play games and thus the discussion is mainly academic. Which is why I want to register kudos to Jesse for a test report that was outstandingly clear, held my attention, and informed me of some large gaps in my own knowledge base. Thanks too for the other inputs of the DW gang, who never fail to inform and delight, opinionated though they be!
39 • @30 bige: (by dragonmouth on 2024-11-19 12:04:49 GMT from United States)
If you had used KDE for as long as you have used GNOME, KDE would be just as easy, if not easier. It's a fallacy to assume that just because you are familiar with something, it is easy.
40 • KDE v Gnome (by kc1di on 2024-11-19 12:05:26 GMT from United States)
I think KDE Vs Gnome is over blown and the one great thing about Linux is you have choices don't like one use the other or go completely different, most Distros offer a variety of DE choices. I like Cinnamon and KDE But have used XFCE depending upon the hardware. They all work and can be made to look mostly like you like it. No need to call people names for making a choice that is right for them. I'm personally glad Fedora has elevated KDE to be equal with Gnome. But it does not really change any thing as you can choose which one you want and install accordingly.
41 • @28 Karl Vreski: (by dragonmouth on 2024-11-19 12:10:15 GMT from United States)
"applications become dependent on it (systemd) to function"
A minor correction - "applications are MADE dependent on it to function"
42 • De War (again) (by Dhoni on 2024-11-19 12:13:48 GMT from Indonesia)
IMO for de, what work for you maybe dont work for other, and vice versa.
my work laptop use gnome, it's what comfortable for me and my work flow.
my other laptop use kde, because why not??
my workspace on vm/vps always use xfce, simple stuff that work.
thats the beauty of linux..
43 • LXqt (by illumos on 2024-11-19 12:44:50 GMT from Japan)
Why do lightweight distros use Xfce instead of LXqt?
In theory, LXqt is more lightweight than Xfce.
44 • GNOME vs KDE war (by Arlo on 2024-11-19 15:21:37 GMT from Italy)
The Qt Development Frameworks is Nokia's proprietary software. That is why the Linux community has focused more on GNOME, which is made “in house.” This is not fanaticism; it is called freedom. GNOME has also focused on a radical change of the desktop from Windows (which not everyone likes). GNOME works well without extensions, and those who want extensions do so at their own risk. The real problem I have encountered in GNOME and GTK4 lies in the fact that, on my old pc with an old Intel processor, it is as heavy as a boulder: for example, a transfer of 20 GB of data from the Blu-Ray Disk to the Sata3 SSD drive sends the cpu to temperatures of 96 degrees Celsius. I do not experience this problem when I use KDE Plasma: so the problem is not my hardware (both KDE and LXQt run fine) but an inherent heaviness of the GNOME desktop and its libraries. I am therefore forced to use Qt-based desktops. GNOME is fine, the GUI is not a real problem, the “in house” principle is rational, but we need to restructure the code under the hood of the GNOME desktop and GTK4 libraries.
45 • Qt (by Jesse on 2024-11-19 15:45:42 GMT from Canada)
@44: "The Qt Development Frameworks is Nokia's proprietary software."
No, it is not. Qt is developed and shared under an open license. If Qt were ever to be made non-free software, the KDE foundation has an agreement in place to allow KDE to continue developing an open fork of Qt.
"This is not fanaticism; it is called freedom."
It's wild misinformation.
46 • @6 - Rocky (by Brad on 2024-11-19 22:40:26 GMT from United States)
"Rocky Linux is a faithful copy of RHEL including bugs."
I have always found this amusing, and indicative of the larger problems facing Linux in general.
Why would *anyone* consider using a distro that was cloned from RHEL, and remains "100% bug-for-bug" compatible? Do their developers have more than enough time on their hands to continually squash bugs every time a new version of RHEL comes out?
Do the end users who are using this distro care about its inherent instability? For the home user, perhaps not a big deal, but for those running "mission-critical" applications - they would probably have to hire internal IT staff to deal with the bugs. Insanity!
Too many distros - and its no wonder the larger computer-using community is hesitant to move on from Windows!
47 • Feedbacks (by Erren on 2024-11-20 00:18:27 GMT from Philippines)
Has anyone checked out the latest comments on the DistroWatch Weekly? There’s some pretty interesting takes on lightweight versus full-featured Linux distributions. It’s like the eternal debate in the Linux community
48 • Gnome (by Devlin7 on 2024-11-20 00:21:06 GMT from New Zealand)
I was recently testing Gnome and ran into an interesting and seemingly impossible issue. I like having my browser icon on the dash/dock (or whatever it is called) but I noticed that if it was docked it disappeared from the ALL apps view at the top. In an effort to get both visible, I docked my browser icon and then attempted to drag it to the menu. Gnome crashed, the screen was blank but there was the browser icon sitting above where the dock was but not quite on where the menu would be. It was just an image, the icon was not able to be clicked or moved. I logged out and in, I had a working gnome except the the icon showed in the same place like it was burnt into the screen. I then rebooted, logged in again, and there was was again, a phantom icon..
49 • @48 • Gnome (by Devlin7, @44, Arlo (by Wally on 2024-11-20 07:14:40 GMT from Australia)
@48, "I docked my browser icon and then attempted to drag it to the menu" I'm confused. If you are testing stock Gnome, there is no dock on the desktop, and there is no menu. 'Super" brings up the overview with the dash (dock) and virtual desktops. "Super+a" brings up the app grid and dash. You can drag from the grid to the dash and back all you want, but if you pin an app to the dash it will not be on the grid, and vice versa. In either grid or dash, all apps will be visible, so I suppose what you want is for your browser to show twice? I tried replicating what you say you did even adding dock, panel and menu extensions, but anything I tried to drag through the desktop just bounced back to the dock and nothing changed.. Can't speak to your 'ghost' icon, but you might try opening Files to to the Desktop folder and see if anything is there to delete.
50 • Debian vs AlmaLinux OS (by DaveT on 2024-11-20 11:02:47 GMT from United Kingdom)
In the olden days I used distributions that use rpm as the package manager. I tolerated rpm because I didn't know any better. Red Hat mainly with Yellow Dog (they gave us YUM) on my Motorola powerpc iMacs.
Then I discovered Debian and apt so from 2004 I never used an rpm distro at home again (OpenBSD on the iMacs!).
At work I had to take into account management fears and so I specified Red Hat for servers and my desktop.
Things change over time, so as long as the hardware is supported my servers are OpenBSD.
My daily driver laptop is OpenBSD.
My media setup and unsupported server hardware is Devuan linux for obvious reasons...
51 • Poll Query (by Otis on 2024-11-20 18:39:30 GMT from United States)
Alma Linux is on this laptop, but strictly as a work station/game machine.
52 • Debian or Alma (by pepa65 on 2024-11-20 22:47:56 GMT from Thailand)
I voted Debian, and I am using Debian for a few servers, but my go-to for servers (including my home server) is Ubuntu LTS (on the desktop I use Linux Mint). But voting Debian gives a nod to Debian, the mother of all .deb based distributions.
RedHat 5.1 was the first Linux I tried, but never took to the .rpm based repo system, hugely preferring .deb.
53 • Elogind (by rhtoras on 2024-11-22 09:13:59 GMT from Greece)
@28 I can see what you say but it is not fully correct. You can live without elogind if you want but there are some things to sacrifice. It works but not all software could work. It is understandable but antix shows it is possible to live without. As for systemD it forces the devs to adopt it in their software and we all know how. Btw there is an iso from refracta linux where you can use it without dbus. Go check it. It is difficult but possible.
Number of Comments: 53
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
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| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
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