 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1102, 23 December 2024 |
Welcome to this year's 52nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
As we approach the end of 2024 this seems like a good opportunity to look back and reflect on the past year - the successes, the failures, and the unusual moments. We begin this week with a look back at some of the fantastic distribution highlights from the Linux community which were released in 2024. Jesse Smith shines a spotlight on four of his favourite projects in 2024 and, in our Opinion Poll, we invite you to chime in with the distributions which earned your praise. Then, in our News section, we share a few positive updates from the Fedora project. Fedora has formed a new special interest group for improving Btrfs support. Fedora has also updated its Asahi Remix, a branch of Fedora for running on Apple's M-series hardware and we share details below. The openSUSE project, meanwhile, introduced some unusual patches to remove sandboxing to the Bottles package and drop donation options from the application. We talk about this below and also report on openSUSE 15.5 Leap nearing the end of its supported life. In our Questions and Answers column we talk about how to rename a process on Linux and explore multiple approaches for altering how processes are labelled in system monitors. Plus, we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We're also grateful to our donors and thank them below. We will be on vacation next week, but will return on January 6th. Until then we wish you all a wonderful week, a joy-filled holiday (for those of you who celebrate), and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
The best of 2024
Another calendar year is drawing to a close. As we prepare to go on a holiday (we'll be away next week and return January 6, 2025) I would like to take a moment to look back on the distribution highlights of 2024.
Every year I end up trying out dozens of distributions, usually about 60, and the experiences range from literally unusable through to fantastic. This year was no different and I'd like to take a moment to heap praise on four projects which stood out and impressed me this year, though each won my appreciation for a different reason.
It should be no surprise Linux Mint 22 appears on this list. The Mint team consistently puts out solid releases and continually sets the standard for desktop operating systems, both inside and outside of the Linux ecosystem. When I reviewed Linux Mint 22 back in August, I found the distribution continued to raise the bar.
Not only did Mint's latest version perform well, polishing the Cinnamon desktop and introducing a solid Wayland experience, the distribution also made a seamless transition to PipeWire, offered an updated hardware enablement (HWE) kernel, and filters for unverified Flatpaks were put into place without restricting what users can choose to install. As a bonus, Mint releases are supported for five years, making for a stable experience.
Linux Mint 22 -- The welcome window
(full image size: 77kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Mint regularly manages to take its Ubuntu parent, remove the pieces people generally don't like and replace them with components which make sense.
I wrote back in August:
I'm usually impressed by new releases of Linux Mint and version 22 has been no exception. The distribution delivers on virtually every front for desktop users. It's easy to set up, it offers a solid collection of popular applications without overly crowding the application menu, and it ships with three desktop flavours - ranging from full featured (Cinnamon), to classic (MATE), to lighter (Xfce). The welcome window makes it easy to access help, change the look of the system, and perform essential tasks such as making backups and installing updates. The software centre is fast and flexible, uniting Flatpak and Deb packages fluidly in one space.
Cinnamon uses nice, sane defaults, and it should be familiar for people migrating from Windows, while being flexible for people who want a distinctly different look and feel. Media support works out of the box, the update manager integrates with Timeshift for bullet-proof updates, and the system is stable. Even the new Wayland session works surprisingly well.
I played with Mint for five days and didn't manage to find any errors, any crashes, or any common task that it tripped over.
I feel that sums up the experience well and it highlights why Mint continues to be the distribution I recommend to new Linux users.
* * * * *
NixOS is an especially interesting project, almost entirely thanks to the Nix package and system manager which sits at its core. I commented back in April that, on the surface, NixOS does not immediately stand out. NixOS is installed with the Calamares graphical installer, it runs the GNOME or Plasma desktops, and it offers a fairly uncluttered desktop experience. All of this is fairly standard, but then, behind the scenes, we find Nix.
Nix is a real treasure in the Linux community. At first, Nix just looks like a package manager which offers atomic updates. However, it is so much more than this. Nix is a full system manager. Using Nix we can set up users, install packages, enable services, and configure all of the above items - all from one central text file.
NixOS 23.11 -- Installing NixOS from the Plasma desktop
(full image size: 525kB, resolution: 1920x1440 pixels)
In other words, we can take one configuration file and use it to manage not just our system, but also any other computer running Nix. This allows us to duplicate systems (including users, services, and installed software) by transferring a single text file and running a command.
Nix has some other great features, such as atomic package actions, instant rollback (and roll-forward) operations, and easy garbage collection to avoid cluttering the disk. This alone makes it worth checking out, but NixOS itself makes for a great distribution even without these special features. I wrote in April:
In addition to all of this, NixOS is a rare gem in that I don't think I ran into any errors while I was using it. The distribution was stable, it worked well with my hardware, and I didn't run into a single issue while running it. I feel NixOS is well worth a try, especially if you're a system administrator and want to deploy (or maintain) identical distributions across multiple machines.
It's well worth trying NixOS, especially if you are into system administration or atomic updates.
* * * * *
I was not sure if I was going to include PorteuX in this list. I'd only had a chance to play with PorteuX once - well, twice, quickly checking out versions 1.5 and 1.6 earlier this year in one combined review. The project as a whole didn't make a great first impression. The PorteuX website was lacking in terms of documentation and community forums.
PorteuX is also a curiosity in that is seems to be trying to fit into a niche that has been shrinking over the past two decades. PorteuX is a portable live distribution, intended to be run from live media and using separate modules to add functionality instead of classic software packages. These days most Linux distributions offer a live desktop mode, calling into question why we need a new project like PorteuX.
PorteuX 1.6 -- Browsing active modules
(full image size: 372kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
So why did I put PorteuX on my list of favourite projects for the year? I think mostly because, despite its limitations and lack of documentation, it does what it says it does and does it well. It strives to be a small, portable, desktop distribution which can be extended by modules and that is what it does. It offers several desktop flavours, it can fit on a CD (the ISO files are under 700MB), and it runs quickly.
I put it on this list, partly for people who want to perform system rescues or have the need to carry their operating system in their pocket. I also added it to this list because PorteuX is a rare project that has a specific focus, modest goals, and delivers exactly what it says it does.
* * * * *
It took me a long time to get around to trying Chimera Linux and the project had been sitting on the waiting list for a few years.
At first, Chimera Linux might not look like an obvious choice for someone looking for a great desktop or server distribution. The mission statement is vague and philosophical: "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."
To make matters more complicated, Chimera Linux doesn't have a system installer. The project has an Arch-like approach which requires the user to manually set up the distribution and bootstrap the initial packages. This makes for a lot of reading and even more typing.
Chimera Linux 20241027 -- Managing software with Discover
(full image size: 253kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
There are two reasons Chimera Linux won me over and was added to this list, following my November review of the distribution. The first is that Chimera has great documentation and lots of it. The project insists on a simple approach to software design and this means manual work for the user. However, manual doesn't mean difficult, especially when almost everything is handled through text files and tasks are well documented in the project's handbook. I sometimes say that software should either be easy to learn on its own or provide clear documentation. Chimera, like Arch and FreeBSD, take the latter approach.
The other reason Chimera caught my attention (and ended up on this list) is it is so pleasantly weird. Chimera Linux offers a unique collection of software. It runs the Linux kernel, BSD userland tools, the APK package manager from Alpine, the Dinit service manager, the Clang/LLVM compiler, and the musl C library. I have used a few projects which used Clang (like OpenMandriva) and musl C (like Void), and I've run a few distributions which used APK, but all of these together? This was a new experience!
In a landscape of Linux distributions that can blend together, in a world where every other distribution is a spin of Ubuntu or Arch Linux and in a community where 75% of all projects run systemd, Chimera Linux is a breath of fresh air. It is so nice to encounter a project which is cleanly designed, strange, documented, unique, and (despite all of its unusual components) it runs smoothly.
What Chimera Linux is bringing to the table isn't a practical capability. It doesn't offer Linux Mint's ease of use, PorteuX's lightweight nature, or NixOS's incredibly powerful package manager. What it does offer is something different. In a world of Red Hat clones, Ubuntu editions, and openSUSE spins, it is refreshing to come across an independent project which is striving to be its own thing and succeeding. I'd recommend trying out Chimera Linux if, for no other reason, than it is good to be reminded that there are different ways of doing things and the freedom Linux offers has not been entirely drowned in the samey sea of commercial software and corporate-backed distributions.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Fedora to expand Btrfs support and publishes new Apple M-series update, openSUSE announces the upcoming end of 15.5 Leap support and patches security feature out of Bottles
The Fedora distribution has had support for Btrfs as a filesystem for several years and, for the past few releases, has made Btrfs the default filesystem. Despite this migration toward using Btrfs, not much has been done with Btrfs on Fedora, compared with other Linux distributions. Fedora still doesn't have any graphical tools for managing Btrfs, it doesn't offer boot environments, and there is no integration between Btrfs and the package manager. Fedora's new Btrfs Special Interest Group (SIG) is hoping to address these shortcomings. Michel Lind writes: "We definitely have more Btrfs enablement to pursue in the future - bootable snapshots being one, transparent encryption another (pending it making it into the upstream kernel) - but the proposed SIG intends to get started on more practical items." People interested in furthering Btrfs support on Fedora can visit the Btrfs SIG page in the Fedora wiki.
Fedora's Asahi Remix is a special flavour of Fedora for Apple's M-series computers. Version 41 of the Asahi flavour introduced several new features and made running Linux on Apple hardware much more appealing: "In addition to all the exciting improvements brought by Fedora Linux 41, Fedora Asahi Remix 41 provides x86/x86-64 emulation integration including support for AAA games to Apple Silicon. The game support is based on the new conformant Vulkan 1.4 driver. It also continues to provide extensive device support, including high quality audio out of the box. Fedora Asahi Remix offers KDE Plasma 6.2 as our flagship desktop experience. It also features a custom Calamares-based initial setup wizard. A GNOME variant is also available, featuring GNOME 47, with both desktop variants matching what Fedora Linux offers." Further details are provided in the Fedora Magazine announcement.
* * * * *
In an unusual move, an openSUSE package maintainer has disabled security measures in the distribution's Bottles package and, seemingly in a move intended to spite the Bottle developers, removed the Donate button from the Bottles application. Some people have pointed out that removing the sandbox requirement of Bottles makes it easier for openSUSE to package and distribute Bottles to users who do not mind running the package in an unsupported environment. However, openSUSE has also removed the warning against running Bottles unsandboxed, leaving the distribution's users in the dark about the increased risk.
The move is not only raising eyebrows over the security implications and the apparent slap in the face to the Bottles team as openSUSE cuts off an avenue of donations to the upstream project, but there are also legal considerations in play. It is the nature of open source that anyone can fork (or patch) and then redistribute code from upstream sources - this is explicitly allowed by most open source licenses. However, downstream packagers are not allowed to redistribute their own, modified copy of software while keeping the name and trademark of the upstream project in place if it goes against the wishes of upstream. This is why clones of Red Hat Enterprise Linux cannot use the Red Hat logo and why Debian's highly patched web browser had to be called Ice Weasel instead of Firefox.
The openSUSE project has announced the end of support for Leap 15.5 is nearing: "The release of Leap 15.6 on June 12 set in motion the End of Life for maintenance and security for Leap 15.5, which will happen at the end of December. Users should upgrade to openSUSE Leap 15.6 to continue to receive security and maintenance updates. Leap versions have a six-month end-of-life period after the release of a new version."
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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) |
Changing a process name
A-process-by-any-other-name asks: Is there a way to rename a process? When I have multiple copies of the same program running I can't tell which one is the one I want to kill. They all look the same under ps so I want to rename them so I can tell them apart.
DistroWatch answers: There are a couple of ways you could approach keeping track of your programs so you know which one to terminate. One of the easiest ways to approach this is to launch a process in the background and immediately save its process ID in a file. This is how classic init and service managers usually handled this sort of situation. When a new background process was launched, they'd save the process identification number (PID) in a file. Then, if the administrator wanted to stop or restart the process, the service manager could check the file for the relevant PID.
Here is an example of running the sleep program and saving its PID. When a new program is launched in Bash, its PID is temporary stored in a shell variable called $!. This allows us to capture the value and save it to a file.
$ sleep 3600 &
[1] 161181
$ echo $! > first-sleep
The file first-sleep is now a text file containing the PID of the running sleep process. We can terminate it by running the following command which will check first-sleep for the PID and pass it to the kill command:
$ kill $(cat first-sleep)
It's a good idea to clean up the file containing the PID after you are finished with it. Ideally our example would look more like this:
$ kill $(cat first-sleep)
$ rm first-sleep
To expand on this scenario a bit, let's start three sleep processes and then terminate just the middle (second) process:
$ sleep 3600 &
[1] 161200
$ echo $! > first-sleep
$ sleep 1800 &
[2] 161205
$ echo $! > second-sleep
$ sleep 7200 &
[3] 161210
$ echo $! > third-sleep
$ kill $(cat second-sleep)
$ rm second-sleep
In the above example, only the second sleep process, (PID 161205) is terminated. The other two will continue to run.
That is one way you can approach running multiple processes with the same name and keep track of them. Ideally you would give the files holding the PID numbers more descriptive names to make them easier to organize.
Another approach is to give the program a unique name before you launch it. This can be accomplished with symbolic links. The ps program will show us the name of the program we launched on the command line, not the name of the executable file that ultimately ran. This means we can create a symbolic link for whichever program we want to run, launch it, then remove the link.
In the next example, I'm again going to use the sleep command to launch a couple of processes. Then I'm going to create a link to the sleep executable and, finally, bring up a listing of running programs using ps. The copy of sleep run from a symbolic link will stand out.
$ sleep 3600 &
[1] 162635
$ sleep 7200 &
[2] 162637
$ ln -s $(which sleep) my-cool-sleep
$ ./my-cool-sleep 1800 &
[3] 162669
$ ps
| PID |
TTY |
TIME |
CMD |
| 3732 |
pts/1 |
00:00:00 |
bash |
| 162635 |
pts/1 |
00:00:00 |
sleep |
| 162637 |
pts/1 |
00:00:00 |
sleep |
| 162669 |
pts/1 |
00:00:00 |
my-cool-sleep |
| 162685 |
pts/1 |
00:00:00 |
ps |
With this approach, we can quickly terminate the my-cool-sleep process by running the killall command.
$ killall my-cool-sleep
[3]+ Terminated ./my-cool-sleep 1800
At this point we can remove the symbolic link if we wish:
$ rm my-cool-sleep
These are probably the two easiest approaches available. They are portable, do not require any special permissions, and (I think) fairly easy to understand. There is another approach, but it's a bit awkward to use as it requires spawning a new shell. Here is an example of creating a new sleep process and naming it my-long-sleep:
$ bash -c "exec -a my-long-sleep sleep 10000 &"
The "-a" flag allows us to make up our own name for the launched process. While this approach saves us from creating symbolic links or text files containing PIDs, it has three notable drawbacks.
- The command is long and a bit awkward to type. Remembering 'bash -c "exec -a myname command &"' might be something you want to turn into a script rather than type every time.
- The above command launches its own, new shell. This means the process we created will not show up when we run ps without any arguments. The ps command, by default, only shows us processes in our own shell. We will need to run something like "ps aux" in order to see the command we renamed.
- Similar to the previous issue, some terminate commands, such as killall and pkill will not work against renamed processes. (Note: pkill can still work to kill renamed processes, but we need to specify the "-f" flag to clarify we are targeting a process by its new name rather than its original path.) This means we need to find other ways, such as running "ps aux" to locate the process's PID and then use the kill command, to terminate the renamed process. This is awkward as it means our renamed processes do not necessarily react as expected when we try to signal them and we need to do more work to find and stop our processes.
Hopefully one of the above three options will suit your needs and workflow.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
PorteuX 1.8
developers have announced the release of PorteuX 1.8, the latest version of the project's set of minimalist and portable Linux distribution based on Slackware Linux. This brand-new build updates the Xfce desktop environment to the just-released version 4.20: "This release introduces the long-awaited Xfce 4.20, along with updates to almost all desktop environments. The kernel has been updated to 6.12.5, but there appear to be some upstream performance regressions for AMD users in specific cases, so if you experience some of these issues, you can use the kernel from PorteuX 1.7. Changes: fixed vm.max_map_count not being set during boot; fixed extensions not installing in Cinnamon if 05-devel was not activated; fixed KDE 6 night light feature not working; improved support for Steam Deck; improved PorteuX installer for Linux to only ask for admin rights instead of root user; improved all scripts in /opt/porteux-scripts to only ask for admin rights instead of root user...." Continue to the release notes for a full list of bug fixes and other changes.
PorteuX 1.8 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 313kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Kali Linux 2024.4
The Kali Linux project has announced a new snapshot of the project's rolling release distribution. The latest version, 2024.4, upgrades Python to version 3.12, drops support for 32-bit x86 kernels and offers GNOME 47. The release announcement offers a summary: "The summary of the changelog since the 2024.3 release from September is: Python 3.12 - new default Python version (au revoir pip, hello pipx); the end of the i386 kernel and images - farewell x86 (images), but not goodbye (packages); deprecations in the SSH client - DSA keys, reminder about using ssh1 if required; Raspberry Pi imager customizations support - able to alter settings at write time; GNOME 47 - now able to synchronize your favorite colours; Kali forums refresh - new heart of the community home. Kali NetHunter - updates to the app, kernels, installer, store and website; new tools - 14 new shiny toys added (and countless updated). Python 3.12 is now the default Python interpreter. While it was released upstream a year ago, it took a bit of time to become the default in Debian, and then even more time to make it to Kali Linux, but finally it's here. Every new version of Python brings along some deprecations or subtle changes of behavior, which in turn breaks some Python packages."
T2 SDE 24.12
T2 SDE is an open-source system development environment (or distribution build kit if you are more familiar with that term). The project has published version 24.12 which supports 25 CPU architectures, introduces several fixes, and packages the COSMIC desktop. "We are pleased to announce T2 24.12 as a major update with a total of 37 pre-compiled base install ISOs for various Glibc, Musl and uClibc combinations are available for 25 CPU ISAs: Alpha, Arc, ARM(64), Avr32, HPPA(64), IA64, Loongarch64, M68k, Microblaze, MIPS(64), Nios2, OpenRISC, PowerPC(64), RISCV(64), s390x, SPARC(64), SuperH, i486, i686, x86-64 and x32. On most architectures the release still boots with as little as 512MB of RAM or even less, and ISO downloads are less than 2GB for base Wayland desktop with Firefox. Initial support for running on Nintendo Wii U was contributed and Linux kernel scrollback buffer handling restored. Support and stability was improved for SPARC64, Intel Itanium IA-64, Sony PS3, Sgi Octane and O2. This release also ships a significant larger desktop package selection even for non mainstream RISC architectures, including LibreOffice, OpenJDK and Qemu. The Cosmic Desktop was also added as new, next-generation, Rust-based desktop environment." Additional information is provided in the release announcement.
NetBSD 10.1
The NetBSD project has published an update to the highly portable operating system's 10.x series. NetBSD 10.1 mostly focuses on fixes and some driver enhancements. "Device drivers: acpiout(4): fix brightness controls on certain machines. re(4): add support for Realtek/Killer E2600 Ethernet. uftdi(4): add support for a range of Brainboxes USB serial adapters. urtwn(4): add support for the Mercusys MW150USV2 Wi-Fi adapter. viac7temp(4): add the driver to amd64 GENERIC. virtio(4): various fixes apei(4): new driver for ACPI Platform Error Interfaces. Userspace: shmif_pcapin(1): new utility program for shmif(4) tests. pax(1): fixes for various edge cases, particularly when creating files. xsetwallpaper(1): install the manual page. envstat(8): powerd(8), traceroute(8): add support for CRUNCHOPS to enable building rumpified programs as crunched binaries. httpd(8): create mobile-friendly directory listings. ifconfig(8): document parameters for lagg(4): interfaces. sshd(8): fixed unsafe use of functions in signal handler (CVE-2024-6387). getentropy(3): expose the now standardized interface to POSIX.1-2024 applications. ftp(1): update to version 20241129." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Murena 2.6.3
The Murena team have announced a new version of the project's /e/OS operating system. Support for tablets has been introduced along with smoother support for QR code reading. One of the big features accompanying this release is a new on-line system installer. "We're excited to introduce our brand-new Installer for /e/OS, now in beta! Our team has been working tirelessly to make installing /e/OS on your device simpler than ever. This new Installer will replace the Easy Installer, offering you a seamless, step-by-step process to get /e/OS up and running on compatible devices. No more juggling multiple tools or complicated instructions! Also, if you're already hosting or planning to host a flash party, the Installer will be a game-changer, making the process faster, smoother, and more accessible for everyone." Further details on the new release and the new system installer can be found in Murena's release announcement and in the release notes. A list of supported devices can be found in the project's documentation.
IPFire 2.29 Core 190
The IPFire project develops a minimal operating system for routers and firewalls. The project's latest release, IPFire 2.29 Core 190, provides a kernel update and begins phasing out support for RSA encryption: "We are starting the path to remove RSA from the IPFire web UI and SSH. On new installations, RSA keys won't be generated any more. On existing installations, this update removes the RSA key from the web UI, but we keep the RSA key for SSH to not break any monitoring tools, etc. We still believe that RSA is strong enough to be used in today's world, but since there is sufficient browser and SSH client support for Elliptic Curve Cryptography which is considered to be much stronger, we want to raise the bar for any potential future attacks on RSA. IPFire is also now using post-quantum cryptography for SSH key exchanges: Streamlined NTRU Prime sntrup761 and X25519 with SHA-512 (sntrup761x25519-sha512) and Module-Lattice-based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism (MK-KEM, mlkem768x25519-sha256) have been enabled." Additional details are provided in the project's release announcement. Download: ipfire-2.29-core190-x86_64.iso (502MB), ipfire-2.29-core190-x86_64.img.xz (427MB).
Grml 2024.12
Grml is a minimal, live distribution which is based on Debian. Grml 2024.12 drops support for x86 (i686) computers while expanding support for 64-bit ARM machines. "We are proud to announce our new stable release version 2024.12, code-named Adventgrenze! This Grml release brings you fresh software packages from Debian trixie, enhanced hardware support and addresses known bugs from previous releases. With version 2024.12 Grml, for the first time ever, supports 64-bit ARM CPUs (Architecture arm64)! This milestone was made possible thanks to the financial support from netcup. As previously announced, releases for 32-bit x86 PCs have been discontinued. With the grml32 flavor removed, we've introduced UEFI 32-bit boot support on our Grml amd64 flavor to ensure 64-bit PCs with 32-bit Firmware can use this release." The release announcement and the release notes offer additional details.
CachyOS 241221
CachyOS is a Linux distribution based on Arch Linux. It focuses on speed and security optimisations. The project's latest release focuses on performance and Bluetooth support: "One of the most notable changes is that the default kernel is now optimized using AutoFDO. Profiling workloads are run through a diverse set of tests, including sysbench, CachyOS Benchmarker, Git operations, kernel compilation, and several miscellaneous benchmarks. Currently, the profiling is done on a Zen5 machine, but in the future, we plan to support merging multiple profiles for even broader optimization. RustiCL has replaced the default OpenCL driver in the Mesa stack, bringing improved performance and compatibility. Additionally, we now use scx_loader for sched-ext scheduler management in the kernel-manager. This allows for more seamless switching between schedulers and ensures they are properly configured using a dedicated configuration file. We've also enabled Bluetooth support, enhancing the user experience for most users." The project's release announcement offers further details.
CachyOS 241221 -- Running the Plasma desktop
(full image size: 2.3MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 3,130
- Total data uploaded: 46.1TB
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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) |
What do you think was the best distro of 2024?
We began this week with a look at some of the distribution highlights of 2024. These projects stood out as being of high quality and interesting. What were your favourite projects of 2024? Did you agree with our list or do you have a favourite we missed? Let us know in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using an e-mail client in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Your favourite distro of 2024
| Chimera Linux: | 76 (2%) |
| Linux Mint: | 1014 (30%) |
| NixOS: | 107 (3%) |
| PorteuX: | 32 (1%) |
| Other (share in comments): | 2143 (64%) |
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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 $125 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| J S | $50 |
| Assaf R | $25 |
| Jonathon B | $10 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| Brian59 | $5 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| surf3r57 | $5 |
| TaiKedz | $5 |
| J.D. L | $2 |
| PB C | $2 |
| aRubes | $1 |
| c6WWldo9 | $1 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
| Kai D | $1 |
| Shasheen E | $1 |
| William E | $1 |
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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, 6 January 2025. 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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1 • Best Distro (by vmclark on 2024-12-23 01:17:13 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu is my best distro of 2024. Just works never fails. No issues whatsoever!
2 • My favourite distro of 2024 (by Carlos Felipe on 2024-12-23 01:20:57 GMT from Brazil)
Fedora 41
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
3 • Best distro for ME (by PaperTiger on 2024-12-23 01:27:57 GMT from Antigua and Barbuda)
Arch it is.... Just works, without any the fluff. Install once, and voila, it runs without getting in your way.
4 • Best Distro (by GrahamJ on 2024-12-23 01:31:57 GMT from Australia)
It's got to be Xubuntu 24.4. Developed by actual professionals, runs on old hardware.
5 • Best Distro (Update) (by GrahamJ on 2024-12-23 01:33:38 GMT from Australia)
Minor typo .. should have Xubuntu 24.04 ..
6 • Best Distro (by Happy_Phantom on 2024-12-23 01:43:18 GMT from United States)
Been using Fedora 40/41 all year and loving the experience. The experience is much smoother than in years past. It's phenomenal.
7 • Best Distro (by Solicitor on 2024-12-23 01:48:47 GMT from United States)
Peppermint OS Devuan Base (daedalus) - stable, rock solid and lightweight distro
Happy holidays season
8 • Best distro for me (by UUUnicorn on 2024-12-23 01:55:03 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu Budgie!
Happy Holidays, and Happy Prosperous New Year!
9 • Best Distro (by Pumpino on 2024-12-23 01:57:49 GMT from Australia)
I use Manjaro (Testing branch) with Xfce as my main distro and Xubuntu as my secondary distro. I also have Fedora, LMDE and Mint (Cinnamon) on other partitions/laptops, but there are various things that make me prefer the other two.
10 • Favourite distro (by Sasi on 2024-12-23 01:57:54 GMT from India)
My all-time favourite is the great Debian. It has all the resources to select whatever the user want. Installation is straight forward. One can select the latest drivers from the SID/Testing branch and keep the OS same or switch to next level.
11 • Happy end of year (by Arve Eriksson on 2024-12-23 02:01:32 GMT from Sweden)
Best distro...? I dunno, I've been using Mint since release 16-something, so I can't say I've been hopping around much of late. Too much good to choose from, I guess.
(Mint just does all the things, everything works on my hardware, I've adapted my workflow to the available tooling - although I would prefer to use Lokalize for CAT rather than POedit.)
12 • Fave Distro (by Otis on 2024-12-23 02:04:54 GMT from United States)
Best distro of all, MXLinux of course.
Close 2nd, AlmaLinux.
Both quite remarkable in their own ways.
Close 3rd, Nobara. As a matter of fact Nobara could be 2nd and it's difficult to choose one over the other. They are both polished and much alike but with a few notable differences.
These three distros are honestly the very best in my opinion.
13 • Best distro (by Ebenezer Scrooge on 2024-12-23 02:10:12 GMT from Brazil)
Slackware. Period!
14 • openSUSE (by BlazinLinux on 2024-12-23 02:10:29 GMT from United States)
OpenSUSE used to remain on my top three list of distros, but with the recent move of deleting another applications donation link was just wrong. Patch it, fork it, do whatever you want its open source but straight up just removing a programs donation link because your upset is just wrong, petty, and shows your true character! They have said many times NOT to include their software with distributions and its their choice as a developer to choose to use flatpak. Don't like the idea fork it but don't just go around and change anyone's donation links especially when your using their damn name still.
15 • CachyOS best new distro, extremely fast stable (by Erich Friesen on 2024-12-23 02:33:53 GMT from United States)
Catchy OS has a wonderful and very snappy OS.
16 • Best distro (by davew on 2024-12-23 02:45:02 GMT from United States)
Linux Mint Mate has been my daily driver for 15 years, and have had very few problems. However, I am in the process of transferring to NixOS. If that holds, my "Best" will be modified.
17 • CachyOS XFCE (by Gordon Osse on 2024-12-23 02:55:37 GMT from United States)
For an intermediate user, a very stable Arch-based choice. Fast and easy.
18 • Favorite distribution of 2024 for me (by Bobbie Sellers on 2024-12-23 03:00:13 GMT from United States)
Remains PCLinuxOS 64 2024.12 used locally on various machines since 2014.
Until the bugs are beaten out of the KDE's Plasma 6.? 'carpet' which grew
to twice the size from Plasma 5 I will stick with Plasma 5.
bliss
19 • Best Distro of the year.. (by Sunie on 2024-12-23 03:10:22 GMT from United States)
Vanilla Arch wins...with its archinstall...
20 • Best Distro (by Tran Older on 2024-12-23 03:15:01 GMT from Vietnam)
You may all laugh if I suggest Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 Beta. In the field of distro tests, the best has yet to come.
21 • Best Distro (by BSmitty on 2024-12-23 03:30:48 GMT from Canada)
MX hands down, followed by Mint and Zorin.
22 • Q4OS (by Sandgroper on 2024-12-23 03:36:12 GMT from Australia)
I have using Q4OS for a couple of years. It is a very stable desktop environment. No crashes and no glitches. Currently, I am using Trinity as my DE. Navigating is a dream. For me productivity is everything, and I don't want to spend a lot of time in configuring the desktop. Another good bonus, is that the distro can be installed in Windows. I'm still using Windows 7 because of one program that will not work on Windows 10.
23 • Redox OS (by Stuart on 2024-12-23 04:07:58 GMT from United States)
To me the most interesting, all the others are just minor revisions.
24 • fave distro (by Will on 2024-12-23 04:14:54 GMT from United States)
Mint, hands down. Just works, not rpm based, not gnome.
25 • My favorite distro (by gekxxx on 2024-12-23 04:23:47 GMT from Belgium)
I love a lot of distros, but none beats Cachy OS.
26 • The best ? hmm (by Corentin on 2024-12-23 04:24:04 GMT from Romania)
The one I'm currently using after an extensive selection and series of tests: Ubuntu MATE.
There's no such thing as the best.
27 • Best for ME (by (mandatory) on 2024-12-23 04:40:28 GMT from United States)
PCLinuxOS, followed closely by FreeBSD 14.1
28 • Favorite distro? (by mcellius on 2024-12-23 04:57:29 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu has been my favorite for a long time now, and still is. I'm now running 24.10. It just works!
In second place, a more specialized distro: IPFire. It does its job extremely well.
29 • Best distro (by chandra on 2024-12-23 05:08:21 GMT from France)
Debian is still, as always, the best distro I ever experimented and use every day.
30 • Best Distro 2024 (by Charlie on 2024-12-23 05:18:58 GMT from United States)
Expirion Linux based on Devuan
31 • Best distro (by Michael Benarik on 2024-12-23 05:24:03 GMT from Australia)
Best distro for me is Kubuntu 24.04.1 because:
synaptic package manager
Can install libdvdcss2
Can install Clipgrab
KDE Desktop
Driver Manager
32 • Best distro 2024 (by Franco on 2024-12-23 05:24:38 GMT from Italy)
Kubuntu, with KDE Plasma being surprisingly good
33 • Favourite distro (by Andrew on 2024-12-23 05:38:48 GMT from Romania)
Xubuntu, the power of Ubuntu but light on resources.
34 • Favorite Distro (by GreginNC on 2024-12-23 06:00:04 GMT from United States)
PcLinux for me. Been running it since 2007 almost exclusively and although I'm not thrilled with some recent changes to make things more "modern" I've consistently had an almost flawless experience. My other choice would be Slackware but they went down a road I chose not to follow a couple years back but are still a solid choice.
35 • best distro 2024 (by ScarletPimpernel on 2024-12-23 06:30:29 GMT from United States)
Bodhi Linux, a very elegant workflow oriented out of the box, sips resources and among the best support forum out there.
Runner up - Mint XFCE
36 • best for me (by tomas on 2024-12-23 06:34:12 GMT from Romania)
gecko tumbleweed
37 • Distro (by Chris on 2024-12-23 06:48:00 GMT from South Africa)
Daily driver is Kubuntu and Ubuntu for running Waydroid for IPTV. Both 24.04 release
38 • Favored distro (by mianka on 2024-12-23 06:49:05 GMT from Belgium)
Archlinux (with classical install)
39 • Void4me (by picamanic on 2024-12-23 07:01:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
I still use Void Linux: stable, systemd-free, good software repositories. No experimental features are imposed by external forces.
40 • Best Distro (by Saleem Khan on 2024-12-23 07:36:38 GMT from Pakistan)
Every year, since 2009 only one best Distro , installed once in 2009 still running. Issue do arise but forum is very helpful. So remained , remains and shall remain only one best Distro for me i.e. Arch Linux , Merry Christmas! Happy New year with Arch Linux !
41 • Best Distro 2024 (by SiriusBacon on 2024-12-23 07:39:00 GMT from Germany)
My personal favorite this year is probably Gentoo, more than any other distro, this one has piqued my interest and motivated me to learn more about the inner workings of linux.
42 • Best distro 2024 (by Microlinux on 2024-12-23 07:39:29 GMT from Austria)
I'd say Void Linux, with Rocky Linux as a close second.
43 • Best distro for 2024? Well...I run... (by eris23 on 2024-12-23 07:50:02 GMT from United States)
I run UbuntuStudio 24.10 with the KXStudio repositories on top. And various snaps, flatpaks, appimages, virtual machines, etc.
Surprisingly (or not) fairly stable. Most problems seem to be from underlying hardware (multiple 16TB drives), which I correct with:
SystemRescue 11.03 and boot-repair-disk
I dual boot with a Windows 11 partition (my tablet originally came with Windows 7, and doesn't meet Microsoft's CPU requirements for Windows 11). The big problem is a 100 MB EFI partition. Microsoft insists on installing enough fonts to the EFI partition to make my Linux unbootable -- hence...boot-repair-disk.
44 • Bottles/OpenSuse (by rb on 2024-12-23 08:07:23 GMT from United States)
Bottles is open sourced software. Distros are free to package it and modify it anyway they see fit. I don not run bottles in sandbox. Sandboxing is not inherently a security feature in itself
45 • Bottles/OpenSuse cont'd (by rb on 2024-12-23 08:12:46 GMT from United States)
I do not run bottles as a flatpak, instead I install it natively and its dependents on Arch, Gentoo and Debian. Sandboxing and flatpaks can create problems of their own. I don't see a problem with what Suse is doing as long as they make it clear to users not to report bugs upstream, as they only want to deal with issues if users are using the official flatpak version. I could easily remove code that enables donation requests myself. My problem is with Bottles itself making source code difficult to find and hiding the build instructions. If it were not for the instructions in the Arch community repo package I would never have know how to build it myself.
46 • Best distro for 2024 (by Andy Prough on 2024-12-23 08:18:25 GMT from Switzerland)
The best distro for 2024 is the same as it is every year -
TempleOS of course. Written in HolyC. It's the only OS for the Christmas season.
Pour one out for Terry Davis.
47 • Best distro... (by lnxb on 2024-12-23 08:22:53 GMT from Germany)
...Manjaro KDE.
48 • Best distros for 2024 (by Luca on 2024-12-23 08:22:56 GMT from Italy)
Manjaro here, super happy Manjaro user since 2014. I also follow NixOS with tremendous interest. I like the concept, I've installed it on a secondary machine, and I'd like to replace Windows 10 on my parent's machines with NixOS in October 2025
49 • Favourite OS (by lupus on 2024-12-23 08:24:41 GMT from Germany)
At the moment Zorin takes the cake bc family members don't even recognize it's not windows.
Next on my list is some makulu spin with AI integration I just want to try it out!
50 • Best Distro (by vk on 2024-12-23 08:35:53 GMT from India)
My all time best favorite is arch Linux.
51 • Best distro 2024 (by plop on 2024-12-23 09:06:17 GMT from The Netherlands)
For me it's Kubuntu 24.04.
KDE/Plasma and well supported Ubuntu (pro) underneath just works for me.
Install and forget, just how I like it!
52 • Best distro (by John P. on 2024-12-23 09:10:12 GMT from Brazil)
Best distro: any non systemd distro.
53 • Best of 2024 (by Mr B on 2024-12-23 09:29:58 GMT from United Kingdom)
Like several others here, I'm a long-term Mint user using the MATE desktop. I still look at other distros in Virtualbox. I'm really impressed by MX Linux and I think Manjaro KDE is excellent. If I were thinking of changing from Mint, I'd choose TuxedoOS as my replacement. Based on Ubuntu LTS, KDE Plasma AND no snaps - what's not to love.
A brief assessment of RegataOS led me to what I think is the best app store I've ever seen. However, Brazilian distros have a habit of not being around very long. I think I counted 27 discontinued distros using the Distrowatch search.
54 • Best distro (by Grzegorz on 2024-12-23 09:53:02 GMT from Poland)
Debian testing
55 • Favorite distribution of 2024 (by Kazlu on 2024-12-23 10:18:37 GMT from France)
I like this selection. I appreciate the reasons why Chimera Linux has been included. Something different, calling for experiment and trying things out, yet well documented and apparently quite solid, that is remarkable. Not my cup of tea, but still, hats off.
I voted for Mint. Not the distro I am using myself, but I always keep it around for relatives or any weird experiment I need something reliable to be based on.
However
I really love the Nix package manager. The concept is just brilliant and has the potential to solve many niggling Linux problems in one blow. It still needs to grow so that there can be more and more packages and they are vetted by more and more people. This year, I started experimenting on PeppermintOS (Devuan base) with Nix on top of it and it is a GREAT combination so far. Brings together the best of several worlds.
I wouldn't consider NixOS one of the best distributions out there. But the Nix package manager sure deserves more attention.
56 • Best distro (by Josh on 2024-12-23 10:18:55 GMT from United States)
Debian Testing XFCE
Honorable mentions: LMDE and Q4OS Trinity
57 • Best New Distro of 2024 (by Jay on 2024-12-23 10:22:10 GMT from United States)
BesGnuLinux v02.06.2 with JWM and much more. Runs great on my 2014 laptop.
58 • Other (share in comments): (by James on 2024-12-23 10:26:26 GMT from United States)
I find Ubuntu Mate my favorite. I have run Mint Mate and they look identical the way I configure them up, there are minor differences 'under the hood", I like Ubuntu Mate better for two reasons. One they have the Ayatana indicators working correctly, especially the battery monitor. The other is Ubuntu Mate has the best forum if you have problems. Mint has pages and pages of unanswered questions, not question goes unanswered on Ubuntu Mate.
59 • Other (share in comments): (by James on 2024-12-23 10:27:23 GMT from United States)
I find Ubuntu Mate my favorite. I have run Mint Mate and they look identical the way I configure them up, there are minor differences 'under the hood", I like Ubuntu Mate better for two reasons. One they have the Ayatana indicators working correctly, especially the battery monitor. The other is Ubuntu Mate has the best forum if you have problems. Mint has pages and pages of unanswered questions, no question goes unanswered on Ubuntu Mate.
60 • Best distro 2024 (by SnowyDay on 2024-12-23 10:29:34 GMT from Germany)
antiX, my best of the best choice for last 3 years
No2 Void.
61 • Best distro KDE Plasma version of MX GNU/Linux (by Elcaset on 2024-12-23 10:33:23 GMT from United States)
My favorite distro of 2024 is the KDE Plasma version of MX GNU/Linux. After that comes Q4OS, Knoppix, Armbian, DietPi on 64bit x86, PostmarketOS, LineageOS, Murena, and Droidian.
62 • LUBUNTU 24.04 (by Muthu Kathiravan on 2024-12-23 10:45:19 GMT from India)
MY Daily Driver is LUBUNTU 24.04.1. It always WORKS. Honorable Mention are MANJARO KDE, DEBIAN 12.8 STABLE LXQT AND FEDORA 41 WORKSTATION/GNOME
63 • Shifted to Fedora Workstation (by Shifted to Fedora Workstation on 2024-12-23 10:51:04 GMT from India)
A lot of people in previous comments were suggesting Ubuntu and it's flavors. I would have agreed with them if there is no snap drama. Canonical is using snap packages in Ubuntu and is enforcing to use the same on official flavors.
After a lot of considerations, I migrated to Fedora Workstation 41 in 2024.
64 • best distro Tinycore Linux (by frimical on 2024-12-23 11:03:22 GMT from France)
My favourite and best distro is TinyCore Linux.
Tried it once, fitted to my needs, and never left. Works on all my machines, for different purposes. Very light, very fast boot, easy to customise globally, but more specifically, to fit to the task for and on each run. Exceptionnally stable, on every run, each time, version after version. Above all, very helpful forum.
But there is more to say... Light on machine, light on time: Learn once, use knowledge everytime, no need to re-learn what is already learned and works perfectly, just to satisfy the humour and useless 'ingenius innovation' of a newcomer-maintainer, Move forward, not backward, awkward, to move back-forward again.
With TinyCore Linux, We have the tools so we are free to build our own world.
finally, Tinycore Linux concretesizes the freedom of Open source, and specifically, Linux.
Thanks to the team.
Best wishes to everybody.
(Note: I am just a user, not the owner)
65 • Best distros 2024 (by Wugu-ji on 2024-12-23 11:03:32 GMT from The Netherlands)
Two best distros 2024: on my old Dell chromebook Mabox (openbox) and on my laptop Q4 TDE: both reliable and fast
66 • Best Linux (by Trinidad Cruz on 2024-12-23 11:03:40 GMT from United States)
My main production box and network box have been Debian gnome stable since Jessie (8) and Debian is my favorite Linux distribution and I will use it until development ceases altogether.
That said, the only distribution I install for new Linux users coming from Windows is Linux Lite, because of its stability, memory safety, intuitive user interface, and specialized applications.
TC
67 • Best Distro (by Tuna on 2024-12-23 11:05:12 GMT from United States)
Mx Liinus is functional debian. I was distro hopping for 3 years, tried over 60 distros,, each time came back to Mx Linux, felt like home. High security and privacy rating, easy to use. Followed by EndeavourOS
68 • best distro (by TiredPenguin on 2024-12-23 11:10:52 GMT from Croatia)
KDE neon.
Fresh updates for the only real desktop
(everything else is just design and usability disaster)
,
Fedora KDE close second
69 • Best distro (by Wrightmac on 2024-12-23 11:24:22 GMT from United States)
ElementaryOS
70 • Distro's diversity (by illumos on 2024-12-23 12:18:02 GMT from Japan)
I vote for Chimera.
Because Chimera is a "hardcore systemd-free distro" that does not use elogind.
I don't hate systemd, but I hate its monopoly on init diversity.
So I choose a systemd-free distro.
If you want simple ease of use, MX Linux is everything.
It works out of the box and is easy to use even for beginners.
And it has elogind, but it is a systemd-free distro.
If you want a "hardcore systemd-free distro" that does not have elogind, I recommend PCLOS.
PCLOS is easy to use and has a large community.
NixOS is interesting, but there is a systemd-free version of NixOS, GuixSD.
Guix uses Shepherd as its init system, which was finally completed the other day.
sysVinit, systemd, OpenRC, runit, s6, dinit, sinit, shinit.
Good luck to all init systems!
71 • Favourite distro 2024 (by Jyrki on 2024-12-23 12:38:27 GMT from Czechia)
Artix, from their beginning.
....but I am going to test Chimera finally.
72 • best distro doesn't exist yet ! (by An on 2024-12-23 12:40:13 GMT from Belgium)
I think all OS are disapointing for various reasons.
I don't understand why with so much enthousiasm & talents in the FOSS community, competent dev can't federate to create just 1 good stuff.
Systemd is a crap! And even "philosophical" Debian stand with it ?!?!
Systemd-free OS are not easily usable as daily driver.
BSD aren't laptop users oriented.
OpenSolaris was promising for isolation & security (KISS)
I struggle to use Linux for 10 years now as only "accessible" alternative to GAFAM for non IT guy... but
as end user, I realized that I spent A LOT OF TIME to get things done instead of actually beeing productive (in other words, using Linux requires commitment to system administration, install, problem solving, ... that should not take me so much time)
In 40 years of computing... it is NOT as promising as it should have been (in terms of ease, security, compatibility, aesthetic, ...)
FOSS OS are time consuming and it is frankly a pain in the *** that could push me to give up and just buy a Mac to focus on the real job that pays the bills and put food on the table!
Maybe a f**** AI will create this expected OS that egotic human can't, such a shame for humanity...
73 • Best distros (by kc1di on 2024-12-23 12:42:42 GMT from United States)
I have to say Mint here I use many other distros but keep comming back to mint year after year.. It just works well out of the box does all i need and is stable. I use the Cinnamon DE but also XFCE.
close second would have to be MX -KDE
Third choice would be PCLinuxOS - KDE
I like KDE but Cinnamon is good also. There are so many choice in linux and that is a good thing. Cheers! Have a Mery Christmas/holiday season!
74 • Best distro (by Miko Bootstraps on 2024-12-23 12:54:54 GMT from United States)
For me, it’s been SteamOS!
75 • Favorite Distro (by Pogi Americano on 2024-12-23 13:09:15 GMT from United States)
I'm still an MX/antiX guy. I have a 20 year old computer that I use every day to make documents, run blogs (not server, just words&picture maintenance), help with website design, email, messages, video conference and play a game or two. It runs MX plasma. ... I can't remember the last time I turned it off or did a reset. It's stable, no problems with updates but because of age, it is a little slower than a new model. I also have a 27 year old pc that runs antiX, stock, no config changes and it runs great! Mint does sound good to me but because MX/antiX has been my daily driver for so long with no problems, if my hardware ever breaks, I'll just get a cheap used pc that works and install MX.
76 • MX Linux is the best distro of 2024 (by Wirtualny on 2024-12-23 13:09:29 GMT from Poland)
1) If you destroy something in systemd, you can still use SysVinit, so it's a system with a “parachute” for systemd.
2) You have stable compatibility with Debian.
3) You have a well-designed vertical panel that saves space horizontally.
4) Great MX tools.
5) The system is more responsive than other 4 I've tested.
6) If you buy new hardware, you can simply add AHS repositories and have the new device supported almost as fast as the rolling distribution, but remaining more stable.
I have been using MX Linux since version 19.4, now it's MX Linux 23.4.
77 • My personal preferences in a distro... (by thatguy on 2024-12-23 05:02:19 GMT from United States)
First of all, thanks to Ladislav, Jesse, and everyone else that contributes to making DW what it is. I don't comment much anymore but I truly appreciate the content here. Nobody does what this site has been doing for so long now that it's easy to take for granted the effort involved.
Anyway, I'm a KDE zealot, so this has been quite a year for me. Plasma 6 was a bit rocky at first but has matured nicely. I've used it on literally dozens of distros by now and for me the Arch undercarriage makes the most sense. No 'buntu snap nonsense to contend with, no codec-wrangling as can still be an issue with Fedora. Plasma can make even the little weird distros (NuTyX!) somewhat usable, and mitigates some of the aforementioned issues of the big boy distros. Watching as the various players adopt Plasma 6 (or not) tells you something about what they're trying to accomplish and how carefully.
Best of the year, which I'm interpreting as "best for me", would be either Arch or EndeavourOS, the best of the "Arch made easier" bunch in my opinion. Honorable mention to Pisi Linux, keeping alive some of the spirit of the old Pardus from 2009 or so, and to Gentoo, which quietly remains excellent.
Thanks again to all, and happy holidays, etc. Be safe!
78 • Linux OS (by John on 2024-12-23 13:24:15 GMT from Canada)
Funny how many "best" systems there are. Just goes to show, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What works for some is garbage for others, depending on desired workload and available hardware.
Personally, I have found mixed results, depending on the hardware being used. On one of may laptops, Mint XFCE is flawless, yet other laptop, Fedora works best. On my desktop - it varies. However I would pick Linux any day of the week over Windows, which is just turning into one big ad.
79 • My 2024 distro (by Christian on 2024-12-23 13:31:03 GMT from Canada)
I run several different distros on different machines.
On my personal, I move from years on Neon to Tuxedo, MX (KDE) and had to settle with Kubuntu for now. But I can say it is may 2024 favorite because I had problems with all of those (usually driver related - all solvable, but all requiring extra effort, often in times I could not spare that much time). Decided to stay on Ubuntu LTS base because of drivers support for my hardware needs on a stable (as in not changing that often) base.
On my wife's machine, I'm running Mint. It is indeed great. She hates computers, but can use Mint without any problems. I had to run fsck a couple of times for her to correct some booting issues, but other than that, it's been running the same install for a couple of years, with no upgrade problems at all. Still, not my 2024 choice.
My second spare machine, that I share with my kids, and my 2024 choice is Mageia. Been running for years, no crazy amount of updates, no problems at all, community maintained, and sane package management. Is it the best for everyone? No. The best for you? No one can answer that for you. But I love it and I appreciate the love work behind it. BTW, Conectiva Linux was my first Linux, and I used a lot of Mandriva, so I do have some fond memories when using Mageia.
Happy holidays!
80 • Fragmentation is diversity (by illumos on 2024-12-23 13:43:16 GMT from Japan)
@72 The strength of Linux is the diversity of distros and freedom of choice that fragmentation provides.
Binaries that run on Debian don't run on Arch as is, but this allows users to freely choose their favorite package manager.
If the diversity of init systems and package managers is lost, the various distros will lose their purpose.
If distros lose their individuality, Linux will become Windows.
We use Linux (or *BSD or illumos) instead of Windows because we want the freedom of choice.
I support fragmentation, so I am against Flatpak as well as the systemd monopoly.
Also, OpenSolaris is still actively developed as illumos.
OpenIndiana and Tribblix are good for daily drivers, but SmartOS specializes in security through isolation combining bhyve and Zone.
SmartOS is still a very secure illumos distro.
I use Noir Linux (a hardcore systemd-free distro) a fork of KISS Linux, OpenBSD, and Tribblix as my daily drivers.
I enjoy freedom of choice.
I enjoy freedom of choice because of fragmentation!
81 • Fedora 41 KDE (by Cesar on 2024-12-23 13:56:39 GMT from Brazil)
a good distro for developers
82 • Favorites (by Brad on 2024-12-23 14:00:41 GMT from United States)
I'm going to share two favorites - my current distro (Manjaro), Easy OS (great for low-spec systems), and one I have yet to try, but which looks intriguing - Void.
Void will require a lot of study on my part before I commit to making it my new favorite.
I haven't read the other comments yet - it'll be interesting to see the results.
My try-out of Porteux was disappointing - I couldn't get it to work properly - I'll try again in the future.
83 • Best distro (by Satneef on 2024-12-23 14:02:16 GMT from The Netherlands)
Artix
84 • Favorites (by Frank on 2024-12-23 14:08:41 GMT from United States)
CachyOs, OpenSuse, MxLinux
85 • best (by Wally on 2024-12-23 14:17:27 GMT from United States)
Best is still Debian, my main system goto amongst others.
86 • Best distro of 2024: Kubuntu (by Orangutan on 2024-12-23 14:27:24 GMT from Italy)
Kubuntu 24.04 Noble Numbat: Linux Mint no longer has a KDE version, so I switched to Kubuntu. No particular problems with Snap packages: in fact, I would say that - for browsers - snaps are a good idea. The 45 GB used by the operating system is not a problem with today's SSDs (500 GB - 1000 GB). Kubuntu 24.04 is - in my opinion - the best version seen so far.
87 • Fava Fave (by Linux Revolution on 2024-12-23 14:47:14 GMT from United States)
Fedora 41. Fedora has become easy and simple lately. Vanilla, minimal, most stable cutting edge distro available.
@72...Windows and Mac have nothing to offer other than walled garden lock-in, bait/switching, and false promises.
88 • Best Distro 2024 (by RetiredIT on 2024-12-23 14:50:21 GMT from United States)
I find it hard to believe that your best distro list was so short and abbreviated, seemingly based on one person's experiences and not on the Linux community as a whole.
My vote is for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. After more than 13 years of mediocre and failed releases Ubuntu finally came through with their best release since Maverick 10.10, the last one I used as my daily driver until Ubuntu's notorious release of the Unity desktop. I have Ubuntu 24.04 with the MATE DE on three of my five laptops and will not do another fresh install until 2036 with Ubuntu Pro registration, if I live that long!
Shame on DW for not including more distros to choose from in that list and for not including Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
89 • @63 About Snap on Ubuntu (by Corentin on 2024-12-23 14:58:49 GMT from Estonia)
In Ubuntu MATE, Snap support is present, but there's practically nothing else apart from Firefox. Apart from that, almost nothing.
For Firefox, you need to remove it and install the "real" Mozilla Firefox because Firefox runs much better like a real application than a snap. Idem for Thunderbird if you want it. (just attention
Once you've done that, Snap isn't a nuisance. The snap support can be completely removed if you really want to and/or if it really bothers you (it's quite simple), or leave it as it is (at some point you can decide to try something that’s more convenient to install as a snap)
In my previous post (26), I forgot a little clarification. I said :
"The one I'm currently using after an extensive selection and series of tests: Ubuntu MATE.
There's no such thing as the best."
Naturally, it's Ubuntu MATE LTS, with Ubuntu Pro :)
90 • What do you think was the best distro of 2024 ? (by eb on 2024-12-23 15:17:45 GMT from France)
@13 : Yes, Slackware, faithfully during 20 years.
It brilliantly does all I want on my old computers.
Merry Christmas !
91 • Favorite Linux Distro (by AndyVGR on 2024-12-23 15:32:38 GMT from United States)
For me it has to be Rocky Linux. I've used it a ton at work and it's rock solid, stable and just works. We've been extremely happy with it.
92 • Distro list (by Jesse on 2024-12-23 15:55:15 GMT from Canada)
@88: > "I find it hard to believe that your best distro list was so short and abbreviated, seemingly based on one person's experiences and not on the Linux community as a whole."
That is exactly what is was, which was explicitly mentioned at the start of the article: "This year was no different and I'd like to take a moment to heap praise on four projects which stood out and impressed me this year, though each won my appreciation for a different reason."
> "Shame on DW for not including more distros to choose from in that list and for not including Ubuntu 24.04 LTS."
I didn't like Ubuntu 24.04, so why would I put it on a list of _my_ favourite distributions?
93 • Best Distro (by Someone on 2024-12-23 16:05:51 GMT from Germany)
Arch Linux on the laptop, Ubuntu on the desktop.
Merry x-mas everybody!
...and don't feed the trolls (@72, @88).
94 • Favorites depends on use (by Critter on 2024-12-23 16:13:22 GMT from United States)
1. Debian 12 stable on one machine, rock solid and works great. Alternative, LMDE6, for when I don't want to spend the time setting up pure Debian.
2. Arch: There's things I really like about arch, but it's a lot more difficult to set up the software I use regularly in it. I have a Manjaro install that I like ok; Endeavour is pretty nice, too. Tried Cachy, it looks fantastic, but on two different machines I couldn't get it to install. It seems to have issues if you are doing any kind of partitioning changes. It just never would complete the installation completely. Watching it, though.
3. I wish there were more Slackware derivatives. This is 2024, I'm not into text based installers and having to figure everything out anymore. Back in the late 90's, it was fun, but 25 years later, I don't like to waste my time on it. But a good setup distro, with a good dependency-based package manager, with Slackware as a base would be awesome.
4. There's several others that I would like to try based on technical merits, but refuse to for philosophical reasons. If a distro gets political, DEI, "If you don't support our cause, we don't want you", etc., I won't install it or any derivatives of it. NIX, MX (because of Antix), Suse, Elementary, etc. MX in particular made me sad, because I was around during the Mepis times, and MX runs really well, but Antix's mission statement made it a no-go for me. Leave out the politics. I dumped Mint years ago because of that, but came back when they recanted and went apolitical. Leave politics out of open source.
5. I refuse any distros based on Ubuntu. I used to be a huge Ubuntu guy, but when they got away from pure Debian, and then went further into the snaps thing, I refuse to support them. Nope, not doing it, or any derivatives.
6. Finally, I won't do any LFS or Gentoo, etc. Nothing wrong with them, but we're past the times where you should have to roll your own system. Sort of like I said with Slackware earlier.
95 • For me, it's Debian (by Torsten on 2024-12-23 16:21:12 GMT from Germany)
My favorite distro is Debian. I don't need any other (at the moment).
Maybe this might change in a few years time, but at the moment, I am totally happy and satisfied with Debian.
96 • Brazil's discontinued distros (by Andy Prough on 2024-12-23 16:52:51 GMT from Switzerland)
@53 - >"A brief assessment of RegataOS led me to what I think is the best app store I've ever seen. However, Brazilian distros have a habit of not being around very long. I think I counted 27 discontinued distros using the Distrowatch search."
The good old USA has 153 discontinued distros on DW's list. Only 27 for Brazil? Brazil has a lot of catching up to do.
97 • Best distro for me (by somebody passing by on 2024-12-23 16:53:46 GMT from Italy)
I use Debian, I keep using Debian. I'm glad with Debian: when I'm not any more, I'll seek another best distro.
If it works, don't change that.
98 • Best distro (for me) (by Andra on 2024-12-23 16:58:47 GMT from Indonesia)
I'm agree with Linux Mint. It's the best option for novice and general use distribution. I always recommend it for every friend who wants to trying Linux for the first time.
I'm excited too when NixOS is mentioned on the list. It is one of original authentic distro with different ideas. I am using it now and it's a good distro with stability and customisation.
My other favorite distro is:
• EndeavourOS
• Fedora
• openSUSE Tumbleweed
99 • Best distro (by pangelico on 2024-12-23 17:10:58 GMT from Brazil)
#!++ is the best distro for me.
100 • Best distro of the year (by Josh Smith on 2024-12-23 17:21:16 GMT from Australia)
I make a distinction between my favourite distro for daily use -- which is Arch Linux -- and the best of the year. For the best of the year, I mostly look at which distros are seeming increasingly promising this year. Chimera Linux is a fascinating distro that is aptly named given it's a unique blend of different features. And I think it is worthy of being the distro of the year for 2024. Just one of its features would be noteworthy for a distro to have (e.g. clang compiler, musl C library, APK package management, Dinit for init or BSD userland), but all of them together make it truly unique.
101 • Best Distro (by Tornadoalleydeb on 2024-12-23 17:42:31 GMT from United States)
The best distro for me this year has been Garuda Cinnamon DE. Everything just works even bluetooth. I have a play PC where I try out lots of different distros and none of them came close to Garuda. Merry Christmas everyone.
102 • Best vs Fave (by Otis on 2024-12-23 17:42:32 GMT from United States)
@100 good point. There are perceptions of projects out there which seem quite good as reported in reviews or here in comments, but which would not be optimum for one's personal usage.
I feel that way about openSuse, and likely many others if I were to sit down and think about the list here at DW.
103 • Favourite distros (by David on 2024-12-23 17:55:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've got PCLinuxOS on my desktop and Salix on my (21-year-old, 32-bit) laptop. They work and the conservative rolling-release approach of PCLinuxOS avoids the upheavals of new versions. But I'm not saying they're the best for everyone — I'm still recommending Mint, MX, and Antix to others where appropriate.
104 • ...some favorite distros here (by MK on 2024-12-23 17:58:54 GMT from Israel)
I don't have the best, just preferable: Xubuntu, Ubuntu Mate, MX and Antix, in no particular order. The lack of systemd nonsense is a ++. Linux Mint is not the best. I call it the Dien Bien Phu distro. It used to be Ubuntu with codecs, and now is Ubuntu with Cinnamon.
PS: Mint users, please get out of askubuntu.
105 • Best Distro (by Selçuk Soner Akgül on 2024-12-23 18:06:06 GMT from Türkiye)
Pardus first, CachyOS next...
106 • Best Distro (by Bitterman on 2024-12-23 19:44:00 GMT from United States)
Linux Mint of course. Voting shows it. Just works as usual.
107 • NixOS had potential (by Patri0t on 2024-12-23 19:45:24 GMT from United States)
NixOS was chugging along and looking to be a true game changer, but the project has been taken over by a bunch of intolerant and toxic children. Given that the current focus of the project is to exile anyone with technical expertise, including the founder and many other veterans, I don't see this project keeping the same momentum in the future.
108 • Best Distro (by penguinx86 on 2024-12-23 19:49:24 GMT from United States)
I voted for Linux Mint. It's my go to distro now and for the last 10 years running. My laptop wifi drivers and multimedia codecs are included out of the box during installation. No compatibility problems with audio, video, touchpads or USB either. No Snaps to show phantom mount points when I type the 'df' command. It comes with my choice of desktops, like Xfce. Plus, it fixes all the stuff that's wrong with Ubuntu. It's the only distro I felt worthy of donating money to, and I've made over 20 donations over the years. Thanks Clem!
109 • FatDog64 812 (by deleatur on 2024-12-23 20:07:09 GMT from Argentina)
Maybe not a distro as such but FatDog64 812 is my cup of tea. A tad old maybe (newest version is 903) but hey, it works for my notebook... big. Three years and running. Not a single glitch so far.
110 • Mint vs Ubuntu (by BlueIV on 2024-12-23 20:28:56 GMT from United States)
@104 I prefer to think of Mint (at the very least) as Ubuntu without Cannonical's dumb decisions. It's popularity over the years shows that it's doing something right, and I'm certain it's more than just codecs or Cinnamon.
111 • Favorite distribution of 2024 (by fenrir on 2024-12-23 20:44:23 GMT from Poland)
I found out that my favorite distribution is Debian. This distribution made very big progress last time.
112 • Distro of 2024: Fedora 41 KDE Spin (by Ronaldo on 2024-12-23 20:50:43 GMT from France)
It implements KDE Plasma 6.2, Wayland, QT 6 and DNF5. Stable and fast (even on old PCs). RPM package manager: Discover (a little slow) or DNFdragora (faster). 100% open source (non-free packages are in the RPMfusion repository). Each version is supported for about 13 months, and upgrades between versions are quick and easy.
113 • Favorite distro of 2024 : Linux Mint Mate (by OneHue on 2024-12-23 21:03:47 GMT from Mali)
Linux Mint Mate Edition with Compiz enabled. I use it on a Asus Laptop with NVIDIA card and it manages it nicely. I have it also on a Thinkpad X1. On that later laptop there is a problem with the thunderbolt port, you have to plug the appliance before starting the Thinkpad. I currently use only that distro. .
114 • Favourite Distro of 2024 (by oldhat on 2024-12-23 21:15:30 GMT from South Africa)
Has to be Debian.
115 • Best of 2024 (by grindstone on 2024-12-23 23:00:36 GMT from United States)
DSL...because it's alive again and keeps more hardware alive.
Slackware and Debian because they're still alive
RH/Fed because of all the heavy infrastructure lifting
Canonical/*buntu for still maintaining my 2020 daily driver Xub Focal!
Major gratitude to all for working hard on ALL distros!
116 • Best Distro of 2024? MX Linux of course (by RoestVrijStaal on 2024-12-23 23:26:28 GMT from The Netherlands)
After distro-hopping for a few years, in december 2023 I moved to MX Linux after my Manjaro install was broken (again due updates).
Since the install of MX Linux, I never had to fear broken updates or workflow-breaking oddities after updating. MX Linux' package repositories are based on Debian's ones, and enhanced with extra packages.
MX Linux has their own tooling for system maintenance which turn out to work better than the tools shipped by the installed desktop environment.
For example KDE Discover is still buggy (recommends gtk-based packages on a KDE-distro, does not ignore kept back packages during updating) and badly designed (too much empty space) compared to MX Linux' MX Package Installer.
117 • Favorite Distro of 2024.. (by Az4x4 on 2024-12-23 23:37:02 GMT from United States)
I agree with OneHue @ #113.. Linux Mint Mate' has long been my favorite distro. Started with Mint back in '06. Been with it ever since. Played with a lot of other distros over the years. Still do on occasion. But for my daily driver use Linux Mint Mate' is the most problem free desktop distro choice ever. It allows me to run everything I want, including long time favorite daily use Windows graphic design apps in Wine, without balking or complaining about anything.
118 • favourite distro (by Because; reasons on 2024-12-24 00:02:17 GMT from New Zealand)
reading the above comments, a theme is noted.
The favourite distro's are favourite, until they are not, due to: reasons.
In saying that, the DD I currently use: works for me.
As should yours.
(since 2010)
119 • 2024 Distro (by Distrum on 2024-12-24 00:34:00 GMT from Spain)
Peppermint (with Xfce)
120 • Best Distro (by John on 2024-12-24 00:56:59 GMT from Canada)
I would have to say for 2024, NetBSD 10.0. I know it is not Linux, but NetBSD 10 is a huge improvement over 9.x. With the tiny team they have, it is quite an accomplishment!
121 • Best of 2024 (by Irakli on 2024-12-24 02:00:25 GMT from Georgia)
Here comes my selection.
Best Distro 2024: Manjaro Cinnamon
My special price goes to FunOS, a lightweight distro based on Ubuntu without GUI tools and a very beautiful JWM desktop.
122 • My Fav (by Friar Tux on 2024-12-24 02:25:16 GMT from Canada)
First off... Merry Christmas to DW and crew. And to all the commenter that gather here on a weekly basis.
I'm with the Linux Mint crowd. Linux Mint/Cinnamon is my favourite. As I've said many times before, it is the ONLY distro that consistently worked without a hitch for almost 10 years now. By "consistently" I means through hundreds of updates/upgrades without breaking, working out of box, every single time I had to reinstall - I tend to break stuff when I tinker. But the clincher, for me, was when The Wife got her hearing aids. She also runs Mint/Cinnamon and from the very first boot up, her hearing aids connected to Mint without us even having to do anything. Windows never did that, neither did any of the other distros we tried. (It's one of the first things I now look for in a "new" distro.)
@94 (Critter) Aren't you making a political statement by not using those distros? I, personally, don't care about a developer's personal opinions. If their product works, and works well, I use it. Good Lord, if I went by your policy, I wouldn't be using 9/10ths of the stuff I use in living my life. I'd probably be living on the street.
@72 (An) What exactly DO you use? Seems to me, by the rest of the comments here, you're greatly outnumbered.
Finally, WOW, great poll pick, guys. It's only Monday evening (Regina, Canada) and we already have 118 comments. Awesome!!
123 • Chimera Linux (by Adam on 2024-12-24 02:39:43 GMT from Canada)
@100 nailed it, so I don't have to repeat him.
I admit I was one of those people that email-roasted Jesse for not having Chimera Linux on this site (read Jesse's article when he added Chimera for context) and I'm pretty happy that not only has it been included in the DB, had a featured article about it, but now it is even one of Jesse's favourites of the year.
So much respect to Jesse for recognizing it, even though it took a while :)
124 • Best Distro (by Justin R on 2024-12-24 06:43:53 GMT from United States)
openSUSE Tumbleweed
125 • Best distro, favourite distro or most valuable distro? (by YetAnotherLurker on 2024-12-24 07:20:44 GMT from Switzerland)
I ended up voting for Linux Mint (XFCE) because: it is irreplaceable; it is consistently good; it has no obvious need for improvement; and it has an actual concept of aesthetics. In a perfect world, it would have a different init policy and more bleeding edge package versions. These are not deal breakers though.
The distro for my daily use is Manjaro KDE. However, if I needed to switch I would gladly install Artix, so I don't consider Manjaro irreplaceable. Artix comes closest to filling my wish-list and being my dream distro. Since I'm in a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" situation, I'm not hopping yet.
A big thank you to the Distrowatch team and a Merry Christmas to everyone!
126 • best/fav distro (by Yrotadnam Eman on 2024-12-24 12:54:47 GMT from Australia)
MX, hands-down.
Merry Festivus! ;P
127 • 2024 Distro Fav (by Paraplegic Racehorse on 2024-12-24 13:39:10 GMT from United States)
Universal Blue; particularly Aurora but Bluefin is more polished. I've never had a more solid and reliable linux system; ever.
128 • FAV DISTRO (by Stony Iommi on 2024-12-24 14:35:38 GMT from United States)
The Unity spin of Ubuntu! Plays nice with tablets, my surface pro 3 chokes on everything else.
129 • Distro preferences for 2024 (by AdamB on 2024-12-24 15:04:33 GMT from Australia)
There are some distros new to me which I have tried out in virtual machines over the last year:
- Devuan Testing (SysV init)
- Antix (base 64 runit)
- Spiral Linux (bookworm)
- Sparky Linux (Testing version [trixie])
All except Antix are running the MATE desktop environment. In the case of Devuan and Sparky, I am mainly ckecking the differences between the Stable and Testing versions.
I am still evaluating these and do not yet have a strong preference.
My daily-driver desktop machine is running Devuan Stable, with which I am very happy.
I also have virtual machines running Void, Arch, Artix and Q4OS Trinity - these have been running for more than a year. If I need to use yt-dlp, only Void and Arch/Artix are sufficiently up to date.
Within the last year, I have had to re-install GhostBSD under VirtualBox because the original virtual disk ran out of space during an upgrade. I have spent a lot of time learning to do things the FreeBSD way.
130 • Welcome to the void (by Meinmi on 2024-12-24 15:15:41 GMT from Belgium)
I discovered Void linux recently and I fell in love. Just what fit my needs with stability and speed.
131 • GhostBSD (by Jesse on 2024-12-24 16:05:38 GMT from Canada)
@129:
If you run out of storage space when using GhostBSD you can create a new virtual disk and attach it to your VM. Then add the disk to your ZFS volume. It will transparently expand your storage without requiring a reinstall
132 • THE BEST LINUX DISTRIBUTION (by rhtoras on 2024-12-24 16:59:34 GMT from Greece)
Saying which is the best linux distribution right ? The answer can only be one. It is obvious this is subjective but numbers say it all. Void linux gentlemen. Here on dstrowatch it is ranked #1 according to our votes and there's a reason for this. The lack of systemD, the so many options (both glibc and musl) and the ease of use are things to consider. For the lazy people voidbuilds offer the old official isos with almost every desktop available.
As for the reviews they are decent and as allways reflect Jesse and not everyone else. What i would like to mention though is Chimera was a long time in the waiting list so is Tribblix. Please give tribblix a chance and show us this operating system which is the only real unix os based on Unix ®©.
Now if i had to mention some oses that i either use or believe worth mentioning or other operating systems: Devuan is a nice option (#3 or 4 on Distrowatch based on reviews) and Openbsd which i really like and use btw on my second computer. Openbsd is not linux, it is a unix-like os similar to netbsd and freebsd with focus on security. I also like Tribblix and encourage people to join this route.
Last but not least i have to mention some project i like from firasuke git (which i great source for new distributions). Fatdog 64 a nice portable project. Alice linux a promising distribution from the creator of venom linux. Last but not least i would love to mention PClinuxOS, Quieux and Dragora which i like but cannot use for different reasons.
133 • Top Linux distro of 2024 (by Erne D on 2024-12-24 17:55:21 GMT from Poland)
EndeavourOS it is.
That's the one I switched to in 2024 and hope to stay for the next months.
A comfy Arch Linux spin with a graphical installer and DIY approach.
134 • Best distro 2024 (by Theblacksheep on 2024-12-24 21:11:02 GMT from Germany)
Void. Fast, kiss, solid. The standard repository contains all the packages i need without compiling them or downloading from aur, snap or flatpack. Il
135 • @110 • Mint vs Ubuntu (by Pappy_Mougeot on 2024-12-24 22:38:04 GMT from Estonia)
> "It's popularity over the years shows that it's doing something right"
Or just there are a lot of idiots on earth... :)
Popularity is not a guarantee that something is good, sometimes even the opposite.
136 • Favourite distribution (by Shafiq Alibhai on 2024-12-24 22:47:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
Bazzite
137 • GhostBSD advice (by AdamB on 2024-12-25 00:57:52 GMT from Australia)
@131
Thank you Jesse for the advice. I have been working my way through the FreeBSD Handbook.
DistroWatch is a great asset, amd I am grateful for it.
138 • @135, Mint vs Ubuntu (by Tasio on 2024-12-25 00:59:14 GMT from Philippines)
@135, "Popularity is not a guarantee that something is good, sometimes even the opposite." Doubtful, but perhaps possible. However, I've never heard of something being unpopular because it's good. Or maybe we should all be driving Trabants.
I choose to use Ubuntu over Mint, not because it's better, but because Mint doesn't offer my favorite DEs. (Yes, I know I can install them.) Right now I'm running Tuxedo OS on dual-boot because it offers Plasma 6 on an Ubuntu LTS base, and it works better than KDE neon.
139 • Mint vs Ubuntu (by BlueIV on 2024-12-25 01:07:53 GMT from United States)
@135 The very comment section you are responding in is based in part on a pole. This website itself is notable in that in keeps track of how much interest there is in various Linux distributions. The person who runs this site picked Linux Mint as being a standout.
So while you may be correct in that popularity in no guarantee of quality, I think within this context (and the comment I myself was responding to) it is meaningful.
140 • best linux (by jc on 2024-12-25 02:11:04 GMT from Austria)
devuan, mx linux, slackware, pclos.
141 • @49 Your favourite distro of 2024 (by Geo. on 2024-12-25 03:14:06 GMT from Canada)
Agreed, Zorin rescued all my families computers. I'm considering switching my Mint daily driver to Zorin. :-)
142 • @135, Good, bad or indifferent (by Morrie on 2024-12-25 03:37:39 GMT from United States)
"Or just there are a lot of idiots on earth... :) Popularity is not a guarantee that something is good, sometimes even the opposite." Nothing is "good" without context. It is good for something or someone. A hammer is good for driving nails, but it makes a lousy shovel. For what most Linux users need from a computer, Mint is quite good. The fact that someone prefers something you don't does not make them an idiot, but you might consider what your attitude makes you.
143 • Joborun Linux favorite distro of 2024 (by Kerry (kokanee) on 2024-12-25 05:27:54 GMT from United States)
Arch Linux with Runit and no systemd, systemd-libs, elogind or libelogind.
LTS kernels (and current ones), cutting edge labwc & wayland wm/desktop.
144 • @143 Good, bad or indifferent (by Pappy_Mougeot on 2024-12-25 05:47:39 GMT from Estonia)
Ah, I knew someone would react to the joke... That's why I put :) after.
Yes, Mint can be usable for some, but it is also bad for many reasons. But my post was mainly a reaction to the assertion that if it's popular, it must be good. This is far from always true, and often the opposite. (valid in all fields)
145 • MX (by Justiniano on 2024-12-25 06:45:38 GMT from Philippines)
The KDE version of MX is matchless.
146 • @145 Good, Bad or indifferent (by Morrie on 2024-12-25 08:37:11 GMT from United States)
"That's why I put :) after." I see. So, anything is okay as long as you put a smiley at the end. Looks like just plain CYA. Something is not so just because you say so. Jesse chose several distros, each quite different from the others, and pronounced them the best of the year. Some, Like Linux Mint, are used by many. Some, like Chimera, are used by very few. But he didn't just make a blanket assertion. He supported his choices, by showing use cases, i.e. what they are good for. You, on the other hand, make a blanket statement which is at best doubtful and expect that to be received as evidence of some universal truth.
To be clear, I don't use Linux Mint, nor any of Jesse's choices, but I respect his knowledge and experience, even if when I may have chosen differently in some cases.
147 • Mint but, (by MattE on 2024-12-25 09:15:05 GMT from United States)
I'm a Gnome fan boy so Fedora. Mint is high quality but, no longer interesting.
148 • Best distribution 2024 (by Jean Pierre Abgottspon on 2024-12-25 10:23:58 GMT from Switzerland)
Save yourself much of the trouble to master the line command and opt for Linux MX 23.4 Xfce, this remains a remarkably versatile and stable option. JP
149 • Noir Linux (by illumos on 2024-12-25 12:21:37 GMT from Japan)
@144 I use Noir Linux.
Noir is a distro forked from KISS Linux, and uses Busybox-init as the init system.
Naturally, Noir does not use systemd or elogind.
Noir is a hardcore systemd-less distro, and users are free to compile the apps they want to use.
It's difficult, but it's a simple and flexible distro.
I recommend antiX or PCLOS for beginners, but I recommend Noir for advanced users who can install Joborun.
150 • Best distro - Devuan (by Pawan on 2024-12-25 13:53:17 GMT from India)
Devuan is my daily driver for 5+ years, from version 1.
Rock solid, easy to use and just works!
MX Linux for games and family members who need something easy to operate and manage by themself.
Void is gem and I keep it in my triple boot.
151 • Debian. (by Tex Murphy on 2024-12-25 17:25:03 GMT from United States)
Debian.
152 • 146 • Good, Bad or indifferen (by Pappy_Miugeot on 2024-12-25 21:04:18 GMT from Norway)
1. You're talking about Jesse, but my post wasn't directed at him or about him.
2. This sentence was a quip/joke. Nothing mean
Sorry for you if you haven't understood, or bad.
153 • BIG Linux - Worthy Contender from Brasil! (by Chris Partridge on 2024-12-25 21:29:48 GMT from United States)
As a mainstream all-purpose distro, I have to nominate BIG Linux, an Arch based distro from Brasil. I'm impressed by its polished appearance, wide choice of included apps, and it has a large and dedicated following in Brasil. Definitely worth a look!
154 • BEST OS 2025 (by james on 2024-12-26 14:08:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
UBUNTU IS THE BEST OS EVER and DESERVE TO BE TOP as MINT is based on it.
155 • @154 BEST OS 2025 (by Corentin on 2024-12-26 14:42:00 GMT from Norway)
Yes.
As someone said in one of his articles (I don't think he'll mind if I reproduce some of his words here) :
"In a certain sense, Ubuntu’s Achilles’s heel is Debian: there would be no Ubuntu, should Debian disappear. On the other hand, Ubuntu is already the number one distro not only on laptops and desktop PCs, but also across cloud platforms (AWS, Azure), Docker, WSL, and whatnot. It’s no wonder some people believe that Linux means Ubuntu; one cannot be “more mainstream” than that!"
156 • linux lost shine (by Any Moss City on 2024-12-26 22:40:32 GMT from United States)
No best distro for 2024 - as Linux has lost some of its imagination - with too much emphasis on simplified DEs and their apps. So, most imaginative distro goes to Makulu Lindoz with its integration of AI Tools. It could represent the future direction of OSs.
157 • Favorite Distro (by Jim M. on 2024-12-27 14:49:57 GMT from United States)
Pop OS
158 • Mint is my favorite (by Alameda Ted on 2024-12-27 16:20:00 GMT from United States)
Linux Mint works well for me. I use Xubuntu on an old laptop and a low powered netbook.
I am trying Ubuntu to run some AI models for Blender. I am struggling with the snap packages and how they interact with the main system.
159 • Best Distro 2024 *EndeavourOS* (by rich on 2024-12-27 23:58:14 GMT from United States)
Been Distro hopping for over 20 plus years. . . . . Used all of them touted here as best. Endeavour
has been my bell weather Distro now for about 4 years. . . . and being an 'ARCH' derivative it is up to speed on what I need and want. Happy Holidays to you all. . . . and many more years to come.
160 • Your favourite distro of 2024 (by James on 2024-12-30 10:33:31 GMT from United States)
1. Ubuntu Mate
2. Anything Debian based with a Mate desktop.
161 • @154 (by James on 2024-12-30 10:37:25 GMT from United States)
"UBUNTU IS THE BEST OS EVER and DESERVE TO BE TOP as MINT is based on it."
By that logic Debian is the best and deserves to be Top as Ubuntu is based on it.
162 • Best Distro (by Rich on 2024-12-30 16:38:02 GMT from United States)
For best distro, I like Linux Mint Debian Edition. Not as popular as the mainline Linux Mint series, but has all the stability of Debian, with nice enhancements provided by the Mint team, and with backports enabled, stays more up to date than basic Debian (although you can enable backports on Debian also, of course). Rock solid stability, ease of use for both beginners and experts alike, looks great with Cinnamon.
I also like NixOs. Got attracted to it from using Nix package manager on other distros, and am now using it to better learn the NixOS ecosystem. It's really cool, but does have a learning curve.
Also use these quite happily:
- Void - in order to experiment with less-mainstream alternative tech like runit and musl-c. By the way, I use Nix package manager here for packages that aren't provided by Void, a great illustration of Nix's power.
- TinyCoreLinux - the absolute best in small/portable systems.
No longer use:
- Ubuntu - snaps suck.
- Arch - too much work. Breaks too often, Void much better from a usability standpoint for a rolling release.
- OpenSUSE - it works great, but for some reason I just don't like it that much. It's just a preference, not any specific problem.
I love the innovations of the more freaky distros like NixOS, Void and TinyCore. Helps show the diversity of Linux.
Thanks for another great year of Distrowatch!
163 • Another Great Year of DW (by Otis on 2024-12-30 18:08:41 GMT from United States)
I just want to echo Rich's comment @162, "Thanks for another great year of Distrowatch!"
Providing info, analysis, reviews, and links to all Linux and BSD projects for years and years.
164 • @162 Best Distro (by Corentin on 2024-12-30 19:09:46 GMT from Estonia)
> "Ubuntu - snaps suck"
Maybe, but what's your real problem with snaps ? Snaps can easily be removed completely, if you really want to. At least in Kubuntu and Ubuntu MATE.
I don't hate Snaps and Flatpaks anymore that most decent people have, although I very much prefer the distro-specific packages or the offered by upstream (when needed), but on occasions I might accept a Flatpak, or even a snap.
But I hate to be forced to use Flatpaks for everything GUI as the new path taken by RHEL.
RH is much worse than Ubuntu !
> "OpenSUSE - it works great, but for some reason I just don't like it that much. It's just a preference, not any specific problem."
openSUSE... They structure their repos as a complete mess. I cannot use such SUSE shit.
165 • Best distro of 2024 (by Klein1898 on 2024-12-30 20:39:22 GMT from Chile)
Arch -- Fast, updated, rolling, KISS, documentation and all i need.
166 • Best distro (by linux_user on 2024-12-30 22:21:19 GMT from Greece)
1. linux mint
2.MX linux
My best wishes to Distrowatch team for the new year.
Thank you for the nice and informative work.
167 • Best distro (by dragonmouth on 2024-12-31 13:20:26 GMT from United States)
"BEST" is an amorphous, meaningless term. It is obvious from the posts that "best" is analogous to "favorite" for the posters.
Ubuntu/Mint is like VHS of Linux. Betamax was a much better recording format but most people used VHS. There are better performing distros in existence but most users settle on Ubuntu/Mint.
168 • Ranking of clicks in the last semester (by Kisoq on 2024-12-31 16:43:08 GMT from Germany)
1. Mint 2510
2. MX Linux 2199
3. Ubuntu and flavours 2019
4. EndeavourOS 1620
169 • Ranking of clicks in the last semester (by Abramo on 2024-12-31 19:25:21 GMT from Italy)
1. Debian and derivatives 4854
2. Mint 2510
3. MX Linux 2199
4. Ubuntu and derivatives 2019
5. EndeavourOS 1620
170 • @168 & 169 (by Pappy_Mougeot on 2024-12-31 20:26:39 GMT from Norway)
Ranking of clicks on DW is of no interest and gives no real indication.
171 • Missing on List (by Frank Lettau on 2024-12-31 20:53:46 GMT from Germany)
MX Linux is missing. By far the best, running it on 10 computers
172 • MX Linux (by Jesse on 2024-12-31 23:06:09 GMT from Canada)
@171: MX Linux didn't publish a major release this year, meaning it didn't get reviewed. The list is only for projects reviewed this year.
173 • MX linux is overrated (by Solicitor on 2025-01-01 00:08:11 GMT from United States)
@166 and @168 In my humble opinion as a Linux user since 2007, MX Linux is an overrated distro, it's not special and does not deserve all the hypes. It is simply a Debian base without systemd and XFCE desktop environment pre-installed. Devuan Linux and/or PeppermintOS are better choices than MX Linux.
174 • MX, Fedora, OpenSuse, KDE (by Jan on 2025-01-01 02:31:49 GMT from The Netherlands)
I have been struggling to find a good performing Linux for my old hardware (old CPU + much memory + SSD), to replace Win10.
I prefer distros with the best guaranteed security + continuity + maintenance, so the much used ones with a solid backing and a multi-eyes-priciple.
For my old hardware it turns out KDE- and Gnome-distros perform the best, so astonishingly not XFCE- and not Ubuntu-based.
The best for my oldest hardware was MX-KDE. I had a few strange issues with MX-KDE, probably my-hardware-related.
For my more capable PC I used Fedora/OpenSuse-KDE, it seemed to be more robust with my hardware. However the parallel port seems not to be be functional in KDE6, so no working dot-matrix-printer. Because of which I changed for this PC also to MX-KDE (which has KDE5) where my dot-matrix-printer on the parallel-port seems to work.
It is good possible that there are very nice and capable other distros. However in the long past I have experienced several distros which overnight stopped or dissapeared, mostly managed by small or very small maintainer-teams.
175 • @174 MX, Fedora, OpenSuse, KDE (by Jan on 2025-01-01 02:52:03 GMT from The Netherlands)
Addition
Another reason why I fancy MX + Fedora + OpenSuse is because they seem to be the only ones who have in their repository the program QMPlay2 (which I set for internetradio, with a huge and very good accessable internet-radio-database).
I also tried to install Wine for using Windows-programs, with MX and Fedora that worked (did not try OpenSuse for that). With other distros it simply did not work.
However later I found out the security-risk of using Windows-programs via Wine (because of the lack of a resident security program in Linux), because of which I stopped using Wine (very unfortunate).
176 • @173 Solicitor: (by dragonmouth on 2025-01-01 17:38:56 GMT from United States)
As a Linux user since the late 1990s, I disagree. It is Peppermint OS that is overrated. It nothing but Debian with XFCE desktop and a few cosmetic changes.
You should try MX Linux with KDE desktop.
177 • Best distro ever: Salix (by kohol on 2025-01-01 18:55:43 GMT from Luxembourg)
The only package missing is Brave Browser. It has been unfairly underrated by Linux users.
178 • Best distro for me in the last few years, even in 2024 (by Breaker on 2025-01-01 21:41:57 GMT from Czechia)
I've been a satisfied user of Q4OS Trinity for several years. Lightweight and reliable DE for people 50+. And for older computers too. Even for 32-bit. I love the ability to install a second OS on the same Windows partition without repartitioning the disk. And also the "Software profiler" allowing a smoother transition from an old OS installation to a new clean one. I always want to spend a minimum of time on installation and mostly require the same functionality (behavior) as the previous version. Unfortunately, I'm conservative :-)
179 • GUIX (by rhtoras on 2025-01-01 23:02:48 GMT from Greece)
i almost forgot... happy new year to all
2024 was the year of the immutable distributions trend but people rarely speaked about Guix
imho Guix is an immutable distro
180 • Debian! (by John Smith on 2025-01-01 23:45:57 GMT from United States)
Best Gnu/Linux distribution?
Debian, of course. As always.
Did you have a real question?
181 • Favorite distro for 2024 (by Ron Dupler on 2025-01-02 05:04:26 GMT from United States)
I hve two standby distros that keep me in the Linux fold. Pearl 13 Mate and Wattos-R13. Without those I'd be searching for something to lean on.
182 • Favourite distro for 2024: openSUSE (by Ufw on 2025-01-02 11:36:44 GMT from The Netherlands)
OpenSUSE 15.6! It is stable and reliable, well documented, has an advanced control centre, rpm-based, zypper package manager. Good for servers and desktops. What more could you ask for?
183 • What do you think was the best distro of 2024? (by Christian on 2025-01-02 17:08:39 GMT from Luxembourg)
The best distro of my choice is MXLinux https://mxlinux.org/
I love it because of the ease to remaster custom iso based on debian
184 • Best distro of 2024: WattOS (by Grunf on 2025-01-02 18:09:50 GMT from The Netherlands)
WattOS R13 (based on Debian Stable 12 Bookworm and LXDE) is the winner imho. WattOS is better than Debian Stable 12 LXDE: the internet connection manager is already pre-installed. No need to install "connman-gtk". It works fine on old computer.
185 • Mint and MX are great, PClinux and Void too. And so are the others. Thanks all (by Sébastien on 2025-01-02 23:39:02 GMT from France)
Linux mint vs mx in DW rank, best distribution in 2024,, etc. I take this opportunity to thank all of you guys in the Linux/BSD community - distro creators, packet maintainers, doc writers, aesthetic artists, tool devs, bug chasers, support teams, financial partners and all other enthusiasts - who make this happen: you make me feel free (like a bird) in this world for decades.
I am very grateful . You guys offer me such a choice ! I can pick the perfect OS to fit my needs - whatever they are desktop or server, high or low hardware, 64bit or 32bit, eye candy, performance, cutting edge,.reliability - with such quality software ! This is just amazing ! Using computers in this open world is awsome !
Happy new year to all of you guys and best wishes to all these great distros that are gifted to us.
186 • you are correct (by well said on 2025-01-03 01:59:49 GMT from Australia)
@185 truest comment of this and any other year
187 • "Best" distro of 2024? (by Vukota on 2025-01-03 15:38:36 GMT from Serbia)
It is hard to say what is best. I toyed/used multiple, and watched others using different ones. We all struggled with different issues, nothing is perfect.
My best "general desktop" distro list would be
- Mint - my go to desktop distribution that "just works" but with quirks (limited/older software, poor support for newer software)
- Fedora - seems to be leading desktop progress these days with support for Wayland and latest Gnome/KDE support (without compromising stability, security and support for latest hardware with proper touchscreen support).
Number of Comments: 187
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • 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 |
| • 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 |
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