 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1104, 13 January 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 2nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Most of the world runs general purpose operating systems, whether the OS in question is a Linux distribution, Windows, or macOS. Most people will run desktop platforms designed with a wide range of tasks in mind. However, some people - especially people in niche professions - benefit from using an operating system with a narrower focus. This week we begin with a look at DAT Linux, a platform for data science and data analysis. Read on to learn more about DAT and its custom application manager in this week's Feature Story. Do you use a specialist distribution such as DAT Linux, Kali, or Ubuntu Studio? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll and share what makes your platform special in the comments. Then, in our News section, we talk about plans for future releases of the Budgie desktop environment and share news about SteamOS coming to new handheld gaming devices. We also report on Murena upgrading its Android base. This week we also share tips for small, fun, and silly projects a person can do with a minimal computing device, such as a PinePhone, Raspberry Pi, or other single-board computer. We wrap up by sharing the releases of the past week and listing the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
DAT Linux 2.0
This week's review is of a project which has been sitting on the DistroWatch waiting list for about two and a half years. The distribution is called DAT Linux and its focus is on data science, as the project's website tells us:
DAT Linux is a Linux distribution for data science. It brings together all your favourite open-source data science tools and apps into a ready-to-run desktop environment. It's based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, so it's easy to install and use. The custom DAT Linux Control Panel provides a centralised one-stop-shop for running and managing dozens of data science programs.
DAT Linux is perfect for students, professionals, academics, or anyone interested in data science who doesn't want to spend endless hours downloading, installing, configuring, and maintaining applications from a range of sources, each with different technical requirements and set-up challenges.
A list of supported data science applications and utilities is provided on the project's front page. I think it's worth mentioning these applications are not pre-installed, but DAT Linux does provide a special software manager which makes it possible to install any of these dozens of applications with a few mouse clicks.
DAT Linux is available for x86_64 machines only and its ISO file is about 3.2GB in size. Booting from the supplied media brings up a graphical environment and the LXQt 1.4 desktop is launched.
DAT's copy of LXQt has an unusual layout, placing the desktop panel vertically down the left side of the screen. This gives DAT Linux a look similar to Ubuntu's Unity desktop or MX Linux's Xfce layout. Icons are placed on the desktop which open the file manager, launch the system installer, and open local PDF documents. The two PDFs provide quick access to the project's FAQ information and a list of the supported data science applications. These documents are also available on the distribution's website.
A Conky status panel is placed in the upper-right corner of the desktop. This status panel can be toggled on/off from a quick-launch button on the desktop panel. The FAQ document discusses how to disable Conky permanently if we do not wish to see it each time we login.
DAT Linux 2.0 -- Disabling the Conky panel
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The live desktop worked well for me and the environment was pleasantly snappy. I decided to dive into the installation process.
Installing
DAT Linux uses the Calamares system installer. The installer quickly walks us through the usual steps of asking about our keyboard layout, asking us to pick a time zone, and we are asked to make up a username and password for ourselves. The disk partitioning screens offer guided and manual partitioning options. The manual approach provides a friendly, point and click method for dividing up the disk and assigning mount points. The guided approach takes over an available disk. We can pick the root filesystem (Btrfs, ext4, and XFS are provided). We can then choose to use a swap file or have no swap space (using a swap partition is not an option). Calamares quickly copies packages to our hard drive and offers to restart the computer.
Early impressions
DAT boots to a graphical login screen with an unusual layout. The login fields (username, password, and session selector) are all shown to the left side of the screen. The right half of the screen is empty, decorated only with wallpaper. I'm not sure why the screen is left-aligned, but it is functional. There are three session options: DAT Linux, LXQt Desktop, and Openbox. The DAT Linux option, which is the default, offers us the same LXQt environment we experienced on the live media. The LXQt Desktop session also loads the LXQt environment with the same layout, but the theme is broken and the icons are invisible. Basically, it's the same desktop, but with malfunctioning icons and theme elements. The Openbox session loads a completely empty graphical session. There are no widgets or panels, apart from the Conky status panel. We can right-click on the desktop to launch a few programs or sign out.
In short, it looks like DAT Linux is the only desktop session we are meant to use and the other two are merely there because no one thought to remove them, but they are clearly not meant to be accessed.
The LXQt desktop uses a pleasant, dark theme. The fonts are displayed with a nice contrast. The desktop is highly responsive and was stable during my trial. Should we wish to change any aspect of the look, there are several configuration modules for LXQt in the application menu. These are small, uncluttered configuration tools which worked well for me.
Included applications
Looking through the collection of available software we find an unusual selection. The LibreWolf web browser is included (instead of Firefox), the PCManFM-Qt file manager is available, the Okular document viewer is present, and there is a toggle button which launches and terminates the Conky panel. There is a launcher for LibreOffice Calc in the application menu, but LibreOffice is not installed. This launcher merely opens a terminal and runs a program which downloads LibreOffice Calc.
The VLC media player is included for us along with an image viewer. There are two "Additional Drivers" icons in the application menu, both of which open the Software Sources utility for managing drivers and repositories. I'll talk more about managing software later in this review.
DAT Linux 2.0 -- Browsing the application menu
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DAT ships with the usual collection of manual pages and GNU command line utilities. The GNU Compiler Collection is installed alongside Java. The systemd init software manages services and Linux 6.8 runs in the background.
Software management
A big part of DAT's focus is expanding access to additional software which its target audience (data scientists in this case) would find useful. As such, I spent a fair amount of time looking at the many software management utilities included in the application menu.
As I mentioned above, there are two entries for Additional Drivers. These both open the Drivers tab in the Software Sources utility. There is a launcher for Software And Updates - this also opens the Software Sources tool to help us toggle repositories on/off and download drivers. Then there is, of course, a separate entry called Software Sources which, again, opens the Software Sources tool. In effect, there are at least four launchers (most with different names) which all open the Software Sources application. This is likely to confuse new users.
DAT Linux 2.0 -- Multiple software repository utilities
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What made this even odder was one of the launchers causes the Software Sources to show extra tabs, for instance a tab for accessing Ubuntu Pro repositories. The other launchers open this same program, but without the Ubuntu Pro tab. And it's a credit to the confusing nature of all these launchers essentially doing the same thing that I could not remember which one showed the "Ubuntu Pro" tab and had to look up that it was the Software and Updates launcher.
DAT provides users with the Discover software manager. Discover is a part of the KDE suite, but also works with other desktop environments. Categories of applications are shown in a list down the left side of the window. Specific applications and search results are shown to the right. We can click an entry to see an application's description and a screenshot.
DAT Linux 2.0 -- The Discover software centre
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I ran into a few problems with Discover. One was that after removing unwanted applications sometimes the window would get messed up, blocking out some elements of the software centre. Circles and "X"s would appear in the Discover window, making it hard to read text or navigate. Closing the window and re-launching Discover fixed the issue.
Early on I noticed Discover only worked with classic Deb packages from Ubuntu's repositories. Flatpak was installed on DAT and the Flathub repository was automatically enabled for us. However, Discover did not recognize or work with Flatpak bundles.
There is a method for enabling Flatpak support in Discover. We can open Discover's Settings page, go to the drop-down menu in the upper-right corner, select Configure Updates, then click the Install button next to the Flatpak Backend entry. This reportedly enabled Flatpak support. However, when I tried to restart Discover, the application failed to launch. Trying to open Discover from the command line indicated a crash with an error message: "failed to choose pdev", which was not at all useful. Discover eventually resumed working after I rebooted the system.
While Flatpak is enabled on DAT, Snap packages are not (despite the distribution's Ubuntu parentage). We could install Snap support if we wished from the Deb repositories.
At this point I'm sorry to say we're only about halfway through the options for fetching new applications and updating packages. There is also a Software Updater application. This is a simple update manager inherited from Ubuntu. It reported no new updates while I was using the distribution. This seemed suspicious as it had been a while since DAT Linux 2.0 was released. However, further checks confirmed my packages were up to date, so it looks as though updates must have been fetched for me automatically at some point prior to my check.
DAT Linux ships with a tool called the DAT Linux Control Panel. This program lists all supported applications (which are displayed on the website) in a big grid. We can click on an program's button which opens a terminal window and asks if we are sure we want to install the application. Selecting "Y" fetches the application, adds its entry to the application menu, and launches the new application. This is a pleasantly straight forward way to access third-party software and it worked for the handful of programs I tried.
DAT Linux 2.0 -- Fetching DAT-supported applications
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There is another application called Apps Updater which looks for copies for DAT-supported applications on the system. It then looks for updates for these applications and lists any available. We can then select one of the applications to be updated.
Last, though not to be overlooked, there is an Uninstall Apps entry for removing DAT applications we no longer need.
DAT Linux 2.0 -- Checking for updates for DAT-supported applications
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Hardware
I tested DAT Linux on my laptop and in a VirtualBox environment. When running in VirtualBox DAT performed well. The system was stable, highly responsive, and didn't use up much of my CPU. When running directly on bare hardware the distribution provided a similarly positive experience. DAT remained stable and was quick to respond. My network card, touchpad, and audio all worked out of the box. The distribution was able to boot in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes.
DAT is on the lighter side of medium-weight, requiring 560MB of RAM to launch the LXQt desktop. It took up 9GB of disk space, including a 0.5GB swap file. This puts DAT Linux is the medium/average range for Linux distributions in terms of disk consumption.
Conclusions
I'd like to wrap up my observations on DAT Linux by talking about aspects of the distribution I enjoy. For me, the main thing which stood out about this Ubuntu re-spin was that the project's website was clear about what the project is, what it does, and who it is for. Too many projects, in my opinion, try to cover up their lack of technical merits by using flowery language. A lot of Ubuntu- and Arch-based projects use marketing terms like "modern", "innovative", and "collaborative" which mean absolutely nothing in the context of what the operating system can do or why someone might want to use it. DAT is more to the point, clearly stating its base (Ubuntu), its custom tools (like the DAT Linux Control Panel), and that its focus is on providing easy access to data science applications.
This clear and concise approach - explaining exactly what the distribution does and who it is for, without wasting time with empty marketing phrases is refreshing. I also like that DAT Linux doesn't over-promise. It does exactly what it says on the website, no more and no less. There is no "working toward" or "coming soon" hype. DAT Linux provides easy access to data science applications while using Ubuntu as a base and the specific applications (with a description of each) is clearly displayed on the website.
As I mentioned above, the DAT utilities for fetching and updating data science applications work. I lack the depth in data science to determine how well the provided tools function, but I did confirm a random handful did install, run, and could perform tasks like opening databases or spreadsheets.
I also like that DAT uses a lightweight desktop which stays out of the way. LXQt is quite pleasant to use, being super fast, pleasantly light (compared with Plasma or GNOME), and I enjoyed the default dark theme.
Where I think DAT shows a weak spot is with the many software and repository management tools. There are at least nine on the system, three custom tools for installing DAT's supported applications, plus at least five launchers imported from Ubuntu, plus Discover. This doesn't even take into account the command line utilities such as APT and Flatpak. This is likely to confuse inexperienced users as it's virtually impossible to tell which tool should be used for what without some trial and error.
This is probably my only complaint about DAT Linux: the torrent of software management tools and duplication between them. The rest of the experience - the documentation, the system installer, the LXQt desktop, and the included desktop applications all provided excellent experiences. It's really nice for me to find a project which says what it does, does what it says, and has a clear focus without any major issues.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an HP DY2048CA laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 512GB solid state drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Wireless network device: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + BT Wireless network card
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Visitor supplied rating
DAT Linux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 1/10 from 1 review(s).
Have you used DAT Linux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Budgie developers plan for Wayland-only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party gaming devices, Murena upgrading its base, Debian offers media refresh
The Budgie desktop environment is evolving and the team has posted an overview of progress made to the desktop in 2024 along with plans for the near future. Budgie 10.10 is expected to make the shift from X11 to Wayland and the developers have a roadmap for getting the new Wayland-only version of their desktop into major distributions. "In case it wasn't clear to some readers, Budgie 10.10 will be Wayland-only. In git, it has been Wayland-only since July 2024. We will not support both X11 and Wayland. It will be too late for Fedora 42 and Ubuntu 25.04, so the current plan is: Ship it in Fedora Rawhide once it is branched for Fedora 43 as well as have a COPR for Fedora 42. Budgie 10.10(.x) will ship in Fedora 43, with a self-contained change proposal planned to be submitted after the 10.10 release. While it won't be available immediately with Budgie 10.10, the plan is to also offer an ISO with the Wayland session set up out-of-the-box too. Ubuntu Budgie folks will provide an on-ramp in the form of a PPA for interested testers with the plan on shipping for Ubuntu 25.10. Solus will have either a testing repo, or otherwise make available eopkg downloads for testing. Since it is a rolling release, they have the luxury of being able to ship it whenever, so they will do it after would-be testers have put it through its paces and we have worked out any issues that'd be considered blockers."
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Valve's handheld gaming system, the Steam Deck, runs the company's custom, Arch-based distribution: SteamOS. While SteamOS is not available as a standalone distribution (there is no ISO to be downloaded), the company continues to improve its immutable branch of Arch. For the first time, Valve's SteamOS is making an appearance on another gaming device, the Legion Go S. "With Lenovo's announcement at CES 2025 of the Lenovo Legion Go S, we are pleased to share that their 'Powered by SteamOS' model is the first handheld officially licensed to ship with Valve's SteamOS. We built this operating system to provide a seamless user experience optimized for gaming, while retaining access to the power and flexibility of a PC. SteamOS is the same operating system we run on Steam Deck, and the team is making updates to ensure it fully supports the Lenovo Legion Go S and provides the same seamless experience customers expect." Additional information is provided in Valve's announcement.
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The Murena project has announced changes to the company's base operating system. "We want to inform you about a key update related to about 100 Community devices. Starting with the /e/OS 2.6.3 build, these devices will gain AOSP 14 (U) support. Find the list of the upgraded devices in the /e/OS 2.6.3 (U) release notes. Meanwhile, we will continue to support those devices with /e/OS AOSP 13 (T) through OTA updates for several months, to give you the opportunity to upgrade manually to /e/OS based on AOSP 14. What does this mean?
OTA updates on AOSP 13 for these devices will still be provided for several months. No AOSP 13 to AOSP 14 OTA upgrade will be provided, so users need to upgrade manually to /e/OS-AOSP 14 or reinstall. Users will not receive automated notifications about this change (we're working to add this feature in a near future). Devices for which there is no AOSP 14 build will retain AOSP 13 support."
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The Debian project has refreshed its install media for Debian 12 "Bookworm". The new media carries the version number 12.9. "The Debian project is pleased to announce the ninth update of its stable distribution Debian 12 (codename bookworm). This point release mainly adds corrections for security issues, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories have already been published separately and are referenced where available. Please note that the point release does not constitute a new version of Debian 12 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away old bookworm media. After installation, packages can be upgraded to the current versions using an up-to-date Debian mirror."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
Silly things to do with a PinePhone (or other minimal computer)
During the holiday break I found myself with spare time on my hands. After visiting family, fixing a few website issues, and solving a Rubick's cube, I decided to turn my attention toward my PinePhone.
I do not know why I tormented myself by trying to solve this cube.
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I've had one of the original PinePhones (not the convergence kit PinePhone or the PinePhone Pro, just a first edition device) for a few years. It's a low-specification device with just 2GB of RAM (650MB of it used by UBports) and 14GB of internal storage (4.2GB used by the operating system). I mostly use it for testing mobile Linux distributions, compiling code to see if it runs on ARM processors, and as a place to temporarily dump backups. It's not a functional phone, but it is a decent low-end server, similar in some ways to how I run a Raspberry Pi.
Since UBports is a full-featured GNU/Linux distribution, sometimes I like to play with the PinePhone and just see how much I can make it do. This results in a bunch of mini-projects running on the device, for no other reason than I can. Such as...
For instance, the PinePhone has a battery and can be charged (and run) over USB power. This means my PinePhone server runs off AC power with a battery backup that lasts a few hours. However, the USB-C port on the PinePhone is a bit loose and it comes unplugged easily. Someone plugging in another device nearby or brushing the phone can cause it to become unplugged. I want to know when that happens, so I've got it set up to send me a notification when this happens. This is accomplished using two tools: upower and KDE Connect.
The upower utility is installed as part of UBports for us. The KDE Connect program can be installed by running the commands:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install kdeconnect
Please note: Most builds of UBports ship with read-only filesystems. The PinePhone is an exception and has a read-write root filesystem, meaning we can easily install extra packages. People who have a classic read-only filesystem on their UBports platform can enable edits by running:
$ sudo mount -o rw /
I'm not saying enabling read-write mode is a good idea. Any changes you make to the root filesystem will be overwritten by the next OTA update from the project. I'm just saying this can be done.
With KDE Connect installed we can check for other devices running KDE Connect on the network:
$ kdeconnect-cli -l
- Galaxy S9: 8f420d3562d61339 (reachable)
Next we can link the two devices, this will cause a notification to appear on my Murena S9 with a request to accept the link:
$ kdeconnect-cli -d 8f420d3562d61339 --pair
I can run a test to confirm the link works by sending a message to my Murena phone:
$ kdeconnect-cli -d 8f420d3562d61339 --ping-msg "Hello"
Now that the phones are linked, how do I find out what the AC charging status is on the PinePhone? UBports includes upower to help us with this. We can check for power-related devices as follows:
$ upower -e
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_axp20x_battery
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/line_power_axp20x_usb
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/DisplayDevice
We are interested in the "line power" device, also known as AC power. We can see its status by running upower and providing the name of the device we want to check:
$ upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/line_power_axp20x_usb
...
online: yes
...
Several lines of information will be printed to the terminal. The only one we need to focus on is the one which starts with the text "online", which should have a status of "yes" or "no". We can filter down the output using grep:
$ upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/line_power_axp20x_usb | grep -i online
online: yes
When we put all of this together we can have the system check the status of the AC power and, if it's not charging (not online), then send a warning to the linked device:
$ upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/line_power_axp20x_usb | grep -i online | grep -i yes || kdeconnect-cli -d 8f420d3562d61339 --ping-msg "Came unplugged"
I put all of this together into a script which checks every 15 minutes to see if the power chord is still plugged in. Whenever the PinePhone becomes unplugged, it sends a warning to my Murena phone. Here is the script in full:
#!/bin/bash
while [ true ]
do
upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/line_power_axp20x_usb | grep -i online | grep -i yes || kdeconnect-cli -d 8f420d3562d61339 --ping-msg "Came unplugged"
sleep 900
done
Pressing Control-C will cause the above script to terminate. This could be run at start-up or in a shell running in the background via a screen or tmux session.
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The previous example was a bit complicated and dived into some weird shell syntax. Let's look at a much more straightforward example. The UBports distribution can run a super simple web server which allows us to share files with anyone on the network. UBports ships with the Python scripting language installed for us. One of the Python modules runs a web service on the port of our choosing. On the PinePhone all we need to do is run the following command to activate the web service:
$ python3 -m http.server 8080
The above command starts a web service running on network port 8080. Anyone on our local network can see the files in the directory where we started the service by visiting our PinePhone's IP address and specifying port 8080 in their web browser. For example, if my PinePhone has the IP address 192.168.2.22, people can see my files by visiting http://192.168.2.22:8080.
Since anyone can see the files in our working directory it's a good idea to be careful where we run the Python web service. I suggest setting up a dedicated directory, perhaps called Shared:
$ mkdir Shared
$ cd Shared
$ python3 -m http.server 8080
The web service can be stopped at any time from the PinePhone's terminal by pressing Control-C. If we wish to leave the service running for a long time, we might want to launch the Python command (shown above) in a screen or tmux session.
Visiting my Python powered web server.
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The UBports operating system uses the Lomiri user interface which runs on the Mir display server, not on an X11 display server. This makes it awkward to try to run X11 desktop applications on UBports, thought there are tools for running X11 applications on the system. Another approach we can take is to run X11 desktop applications remotely. This allows the applications to run on the PinePhone, but show up on another computer, such as a laptop.
Would we ever want to do this for any practical reason? Probably not. But we can, so let's explore how to do it!
In my case, the process is fairly straight forward. Since my PinePhone is running UBports with a writable root filesystem, I can simply login remotely using OpenSSH and pass in the "-X" flag to enable X11 forwarding.
jesse@laptop $ ssh -X phablet@pinephone
phablet@pinephone $
Next we can install some small X11 applications which are typically used for demo purposes. Here I install the x11-apps package and launch the demo program xeyes which causes a pair of eyes to appear on my laptop's screen:
phablet@pinephone $ apt-get install x11-apps
phablet@pinephone $ xeyes &
In situations where we have a read-only filesystem or want to keep X11 apps separate from the main operating system we can use a container on UBports to host X11 applications. The container utility provided by UBports is called Libertine. We can set up a new container by running:
phablet@pinephone $ libertine-container-manager create --id 01 --name demo
The above command will take several minutes to work its magic, downloading a minimal Ubuntu build and generating locale data. Once it is finished, we can install any package from Ubuntu's repositories into the container. In the following example, I install the x11-apps package inside the container. Since the container is kept separate from the root filesystem, this allows us to keep the root filesystem clean while we experiment with software in the container. Note: I assigned the container an ID of "01" in the first step, so I need to continue using that ID in future steps:
phablet@pinephone $ libertine-container-manager install-package -p x11-apps -i 01
We can then run applications from the container and have them appear on the remote laptop by running:
phablet@pinephone $ libertine-launch xeyes &
Running Xeyes and Xclock on my PinePhone and seeing the results on my laptop.
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We can add more software and launch it too. In the following step I fetch and run the gedit text editor. While it is running on my PinePhone, its window appears on my laptop, making it easier to type and edit files.
phablet@pinephone $ libertine-container-manager install-package -p gedit -i 01
phablet@pinephone $ libertine-launch gedit &
When we are finished using the container we can remove it by running the following command on the PinePhone:
phablet@pinephone $ libertine-container-manager destroy -i 01
There we go, three things we can do with a PinePhone which, while not practical, are at least (I think) interesting. It's impressive what this underpowered device can accomplish with a few commands when it's running a Linux distribution.
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Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Tails 6.11
The Amnesic Incognito Live System (Tails) is a Debian-based live DVD/USB with the goal of providing complete Internet anonymity for the user. The project has published an update for its 6.x series which fixes a serious security vulnerability. "The vulnerabilities described below were identified during an external security audit by Radically Open Security and disclosed responsibly to our team. We are not aware of these attacks being used against Tails users until now. These vulnerabilities can only be exploited by a powerful attacker who has already exploited another vulnerability to take control of an application in Tails. If you want to be extra careful and used Tails a lot since January 9 without upgrading, we recommend that you do a manual upgrade instead of an automatic upgrade. Prevent an attacker from installing malicious software permanently. In Tails 6.10 or earlier, an attacker who has already taken control of an application in Tails could then exploit a vulnerability in Tails Upgrader to install a malicious upgrade and permanently take control of your Tails. Doing a manual upgrade would erase such malicious software." The project also introduced new features, such as detecting when a USB thumb drive might be corrupted or have damaged partitions. Additional details can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 3,138
- Total data uploaded: 46.2TB
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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) |
Specialist or general purpose operating system?
This week we opened with a look at DAT Linux, a specialist distribution geared toward data science. Many people like tightly focused distributions such a DAT Linux, LibreELEC, or Kali Linux which each have a specific aim. Other people want to run general purpose distributions such as openSUSE, Ubuntu, or Fedora which can be used in a variety of situations. Which group of distributions do you prefer to use - general purpose operating systems or speciality projects with a specific focus?
You can see the results of our previous poll on running the Pi-hole service in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Specialty or general purpose distro?
| I mostly run general purpose distros: | 2520 (92%) |
| I mostly run specialty distros: | 34 (1%) |
| I run an even mixture of both: | 144 (5%) |
| I do not run any Linux distros: | 41 (1%) |
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| Website News |
Streamlining Debian searches
On the DistroWatch Search page we have all sorts of filters for finding specific types of distributions. In the past, because the Debian family was so large, we provided multiple filters for finding distributions based on Debian. We provided separate searches for Debian Stable, Debian Testing, and Debian Unstable (Sid).
More recently, we also supplied a separate search field for finding distributions with a specific release model - fixed, semi-rolling, and rolling releases.
Having both has proved to be redundant and potentially confusing. It should be impossible for someone to search for a distribution which is both based on Debian Stable and a rolling release. Having two fields which could conflict just caused problems.
With this in mind, we've combined the multiple flavours of Debian from the based on field, offering just "Debian". At the same time, we're keeping the options for different release models. This means anyone who wants to find a distribution based on Debian Unstable can set the based on field to "Debian" and the release model field to "Rolling".
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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, 20 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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| Archives |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
Phinx Desktop
Phinx Desktop was a PCLinuxOS-based live CD. It uses a pure Xfce desktop environment with recommended or default Xfce applications, settings and configurations only.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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