 DistroWatch Weekly |
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 1, value: US$17) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Penguin Mascot (by penguinx86 on 2025-01-20 01:11:37 GMT from United States)
Jaunary 20th is Penguin Awareness Day
https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/penguin-awareness-day/
2 • CentOS (by Pumpino on 2025-01-20 01:27:21 GMT from Australia)
I don't imagine that many companies would be deploying new servers with CentOS these days. There'd be plenty of existing ones running old versions of it.
I don't work in the industry, but I suspect Debian or even Ubuntu LTS are being deployed more often these days.
I agree that Fedora feels like a collection of packages thrown together. It might include bleeding edge packages and tout new technologies, but I don't find it to be as nice to use as Manjaro or Xubuntu.
3 • RHEL and its progeny (by thatguy on 2025-01-20 02:23:25 GMT from United States)
I stopped using CentOS when it morphed into Stream. I've found Rocky, Alma, even Oracle to be pretty solid, even usable in a typical desktop role with enough third party repos enabled. You're not going to get bleeding edge software, but that's a given.
People that like Debian stable might consider these as alternatives, though package selection will be much much more limited.
4 • Re: Q&A, Flatpak command line (by Henry D. Ape on 2025-01-20 02:31:50 GMT from United States)
"$ flatpak install org.qgis.qgis//stable" No need to be specific, "flatpak install" is quite forgiving of bumbling fingers:
~$ flatpak install qgis
Looking for matches…
Similar refs found for ‘qgis’ in remote ‘flathub’ (system):
1) app/org.qgis.qgis/x86_64/stable
2) app/org.qgis.qgis/x86_64/lts
Which do you want to use (0 to abort)? [0-2]:
"flatpak install chrom" will yield 16 choices. I usually install using the terminal. Makes life easy in this case.
5 • Cent OS (by Tuximod on 2025-01-20 02:40:26 GMT from France)
Cent was the OS at my university back in 2007 (so maybe version 3.x), and it was solid rock at this time (installed on about 1000 computers, when we used to had hard times to get access the to 20 Windows PCs during mandatory proprietary software courses).
So it's pretty sad to see RedHat turning this venerable OS to a mere shadow of itself, striping it from its former soul.
6 • "Fedora feels more like a collection of open source parts" (by Carlos Felipe on 2025-01-20 02:54:22 GMT from Brazil)
"I've mentioned before that Fedora feels less like a complete operating system and more like a collection of open source parts someone has put in a pile. CentOS feels like this too, but with most of the parts removed."
Well, Fedora isn't perfect and probably never will be, because its a lab for Red Hat, unfortunately. But, Debian also feels like a collection of open source parts, old parts by the way, someone has put in a pile,without any effort to improve the experience, and in a particularly inferior aspect, it is a collection of several very useless games preinstalled (GNOME live).
7 • Opinion Poll: What do you think of CentOS 10 Stream? (by Andy Prough on 2025-01-20 04:12:19 GMT from United States)
I think that reading through all the 1-star CentOS user reviews is pretty hilarious. IBM has apparently been putting out 8gb to 12gb installation ISO's that don't even work at all. They apparently don't have many packages according to Jesse's review, so I wonder why their installation media would be so huge and so prone to failure? The ISO Jesse downloaded was 6.8gb and doesn't even have a web browser. What in the world??
Probably the ISO is 800mb of installable programs and 6gb of IBM's legal disclaimers.
8 • meeting their purposes (by tomenough on 2025-01-20 04:27:08 GMT from United States)
Haven't used either Fedora or CentOS in a few years but historically these distributions were what they tried to be. According to what I've read, that continues to be true, mostly. They are not particularly good for other purposes. Fans (fanatics) have repeatedly recommended these distros for other purposes, purposes that the distros were not created to serve. Those recommendations somehow have found traction with some parts of the community.
In my own little world, Fedora's short support period made it unacceptable as a daily driver. For my purposes, CentOS multiple repository issues made things overly complicated. (had better luck with Scientific Linux for a while) For those with limited technical prowess, it has always made sense to limit use to those purposes that the distros claim to serve.
Now I have several negative points to make about the corporate connection to Fedora & CentOS, but can easily restrain myself by turning my gaze at the lastest releases from Mint & MX... Wow! More than enough interesting new stuff in that direction that almost certainly just works.
9 • Typo of the year (by Microlinux on 2025-01-20 06:15:19 GMT from France)
The first sentence of the article about CentOS stream says: "The CentOS project has ungone (sic) changes over the years."
CentOS has indeed "ungone" quite some changes by pulling the rug from under our feet after all these years. The result was a mass exodus to Rocky Linux, Alma Linux and Oracle Linux.
10 • CentOS (by uz64 on 2025-01-20 06:24:13 GMT from United States)
I never really did care for CentOS or enterprise Linux in general, but I really don't like the way they're taking CentOS. The full disc image is about 3 1/2-4 GB, so something's gotta give right? Well yeah--other than the base GNOME desktop itself, all graphical/desktop applications have been removed. Why? Well, to force you into using FlatPaks, of course. To hell with that. FlatPaks are nice as an option, but *only* as an option. I want to install whatever I want natively and use FlatPaks as a last resort, but Red Had is now beginning to pull a Canonical on its users. It's funny how I don't hear all the complaints I have over the years over Ubuntu and Snaps when it comes to Red Hat and FlatPaks.
11 • Re: Fedora feels more like a collection of open source parts (by Pumpino on 2025-01-20 07:26:40 GMT from Australia)
@6. Yes, you're right in that Debian also feels like a collection of packages. I guess Arch does too, but at least people have thrown those packages together themselves.
To get polish, we have to look at spin-offs such as Mint (Cinnamon, Xfce and Mate), LMDE, Endeavour, Manjaro, and to a lesser extent, the Ubuntu derivatives.
12 • CentOS (by Josh Smith on 2025-01-20 07:53:02 GMT from Australia)
The old CentOS used to install fine in a VirtualBox virtual machine for me, but CentOS Stream doesn't (although, its upstream Fedora does as does its downstream of Rocky Linux) due to bugs. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that Red Hat killed CentOS Linux, it was a free repackaging of RHEL (hence likely competed with RHEL for users) that they were funding the development of. It was probably a net loss of money for the company. It is a shame though, I never really had much reason to use CentOS aside from curiosity, as it does not really suit my use case, but I do miss it as a regular distro-hopper. Just like I miss Sabayon, Trident, Gecko Linux, Korora, TrueOS and so many other discontinued open-source operating systems.
13 • @1 - Penguin Awareness Day (by Alessandro di Roma on 2025-01-20 08:17:06 GMT from Italy)
Long life to penguins! Long life to Tux!
14 • penguinlover (by CentOS on 2025-01-20 09:17:59 GMT from Germany)
centoa is unusaable because it installs gnome turd while every sane person knows that kde is the only desktop
15 • Poor CentOS (by Gary W on 2025-01-20 09:22:17 GMT from Australia)
How it has declined! It was never much of a desktop or workstation OS, but on the GNOME bandwagon, most of the good bits are stripped out. I might try it if I had a Z-system, but it's so inferior to Debian, you have to wonder why anyone would bother.
16 • Degoogled (by illumos on 2025-01-20 09:29:26 GMT from Japan)
'Android-based mobile operating system which is stripped of Google trackers'
Please Ungoogled-ChromiumOS!
17 • "polish" (by Vukota on 2025-01-20 09:32:02 GMT from Serbia)
@11 "To get polish, we have to look at spin-offs"
I thought about Fedora and its official "spin-offs" similar and tried to stay away from it as far as I could (due to Red Hat), but I have to give them a credit that they put lot of work in their distribution and push for new things WITH polish (unlike Arch and spin-offs that are just bleeding edge in literal sense). For CentOS I don't see a point why I would ever use it (when we have RHEL and Fedora).
18 • Polish (by Pumpino on 2025-01-20 10:02:26 GMT from Australia)
@17 I suspect some Fedora desktop ISOs are more polished than others. For example, maybe KDE is decent, but I use Xfce, and Fedora with Xfce isn't anything special.
19 • Cent OS (by Hank on 2025-01-20 10:34:26 GMT from Germany)
Gigantic Download. A corporate comitte fail, even first essential missing, a browser.
No use to man nor beast.
Support MEGA,
Making Europe great again...
20 • spin-offs (by Sirius on 2025-01-20 10:51:42 GMT from Germany)
@18 I agree, I tried the Fedora Sway spin and it felt unfinished. E.g Thunar "open terminal here" option not working because a terminal to use hasn't been defined), foot terminal having a tiny fontsize etc. At some point i realised i might as well go back to Arch with now much how much i had to change and config on a distro that supposed to "just work".
21 • Flatpak (by Jesse on 2025-01-20 11:27:29 GMT from Canada)
@4: "No need to be specific, "flatpak install" is quite forgiving of bumbling fingers:
~$ flatpak install qgis"
This depends on which version you are using. On older versions of Flatpak it complains, saying application names require two dots in the name. I think it still does on recent versions when performing updates.
22 • Centos was once the jewel of my enterprise (by Neo on 2025-01-20 12:35:20 GMT from United Kingdom)
Centos was my go-to for enterprise servers. Rock solid, great support for enterprise applications and 10 years of support!
Centos stream is simply not the same. I could have gone with Rocky or equivalent but at the time they were very new so I moved over to Debian which has been great.
Fedora on desktop is brilliant IMO. Very easy to configure to ones liking. Though if I recommend a distro to newcomers Mint does offer a more complete and cohesive experience.
23 • CentOS is dead (by nero_burning_centos on 2025-01-20 14:54:27 GMT from United States)
CentOS is dead. This opens the door for projects like Almalinux. There are two versions of the Almalinux 10 release planned, one for x86_64-v2 CPUs and another for x86_64-v3 CPUs. There are two additional repositories (elrepo, synergy) that provide additional applications (e.g. dnfdragora) and additional hardware drivers. Firefox, Thunderbird and Libreoffice will be provided in the classic RPM format.
24 • Poll (by Otis on 2025-01-20 16:24:59 GMT from United States)
Nope. Alma Linux and Nobara Linux fulfill my Fedora/RedHat fetish.
25 • CentOS Redhat IBM (by Core IT on 2025-01-20 16:25:58 GMT from United States)
I moved away from CentOS/Redhat post the changes they made.
I have been using Debian and AlpineLinux predominately and have
found success and stability. Including using AlpineLinux on a laptop
as a daily driver. I tried and tested RockyLinux and AlmaLinux during
my initial evaluation(s) but found I felt it better to migrate elsewhere.
26 • CentOS (by David on 2025-01-20 16:49:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
My first distro was Red Hat, my second Fedora, my third CentOS. RIP. Thank heavens for PCLinuxOS and Salix!
27 • Should be an obvious answer for everyone... (by R. Cain on 2025-01-20 18:06:35 GMT from United States)
This week's Poll:
"What do you think of CentOS...Stream?"
VERY easy answer:
CentOS Stream 𝑰𝑺 𝑵𝑶𝑻, 𝑨𝑵𝑫 𝑵𝑬𝑽𝑬𝑹 𝑾𝑨𝑺, CentOS.
28 • Add LinuxCNC to distro list (by Martinez on 2025-01-20 18:08:37 GMT from Poland)
Why don't you add LinuxCNC to distro list? You added many specialist distributions, even very young, but I don't see LinuxCNC, old and very useful and well deserved project on the list. Do you know or have on the list other alternative to this one?
29 • CentOS-10 (by scottro on 2025-01-20 20:20:05 GMT from United States)
Much of what you see in CentOS stream is what's going to be in RedHat. RHEL-10 is also going to be Wayland only, with only Gnome and maybe KDE supported, though one hopes EPEL will add some window managers.
It is also not going to include Firefox or LIbreoffice. I think they may be available as Flatpaks for those who like Flatpaks, but both Firefox and Libreoffice can be downloaded from Mozilla and Libreoffice respectively. As Jesse says, they're apparently not worrying about the workstation market, which I suppose makes sense as most uses of RH are as servers, and even in RH based companies, I suspect the majority use Mac or Windows on their workstations.
30 • Centos (by rhtoras on 2025-01-20 23:39:35 GMT from Greece)
OK i do not like systemD but to be honest i know centOS is used widely on servers and such things. What i do not get is why people install centos on desktop. Is there a feature that is not available elsewhere. I mean people install Centos to learn how to use servers based on centos or what ? I am curious and the same goes for Alma Linux and so on. I say this also because Centos updated libreoffice and uses Gnome which i don't get it. Too many packages for a distro targeting servers and so on... am i wrong ? And as for the centOS itself i think nowdays alma linux surpassed it. I have some services whereas alma linux is offered and in some cases centos isn't an option.
31 • GeckoLinux (by Dadnut1 on 2025-01-20 23:42:45 GMT from United States)
@12: "Just like I miss ... Gecko Linux, ... and so many other discontinued open-source operating systems."
GeckoLinux is still available and it still works just fine. Once installed you are running openSUSE Tumbleweed and have no dependencies on Gecko. Although the Gecko iso is old (August 2022), the first enormous Tumbleweed update brings everything up to date. Best of all it is pre-configured so sound, video, and other stuff works the way it should. And, you have your choice of many different desktop environments. I find Gecko to be a minor miracle because Tumbleweed, as installed from the openSUSE iso, is damned hard to configure, especially for a first-timer.
It's unfortunate that Jesse has labeled GeckoLinux as "dormant", which means there has been no recent activity and cannot be listed in the DistroWatch ratings. Dormant for a normal distro means the software is out of date. For Gecko there's no reason for recent activity because, at any moment, your Gecko-customized Tumbleweed can install updates with a "sudo zypper dup" command and all your software will be up to date.
Jesse: GeckoLinux no longer supports openSUSE Leap.
GeckoLinux
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=gecko
32 • Gecko (by Jesse on 2025-01-21 00:25:18 GMT from Canada)
@31: Gecko is listed as dormant because the developer has stopped working on the project (it hasn't had any updates in over two years) and the developer moved on to another project. The new project is based on Debian and called SpiralLinux. Since the kernel in Gecko is over two years old, Gecko may not work on newer hardware.
33 • @31, Gecko in a death spiral (by Henry D. Ape on 2025-01-21 00:34:02 GMT from United States)
"Gecko-customized Tumbleweed can install updates with a "sudo zypper dup" command and all your software will be up to date." From an ISO that's more than 2 years old? I doubt it. Have you tried it? Only the Cinnamon version shows "testing" version from September '24.
While on the subject, SpiralLinux, which was the same idea for Debian stable by the same developer, has not seen a release in 14 months.
Both very good ideas, but maybe the developer tired of the project or is too busy with real life.
34 • Debian (by Tim on 2025-01-21 03:28:41 GMT from United States)
@6 @11
Not sure how you're setting up Debian, but it sure doesn't feel like a pile of parts to me. Don't mistake flexibility with chaos.
35 • Gecko (by Dadnut1 on 2025-01-21 04:16:29 GMT from United States)
@33: "From an ISO that's more than 2 years old? I doubt it. Have you tried it?"
I installed GeckoLinux about four month ago. The first update of ~1800 files took a half hour on a fast connection. It is continuing to work for me.
@32: "Gecko is listed as dormant because the developer has stopped working on the project (it hasn't had any updates in over two years)"
My understanding is that if and when the current Gecko iso fails, the creator will update the iso. Once a user has installed Gecko and updated it, it is no longer Gecko: it is a customized version of openSUSE Tumbleweed.
"Since the kernel in Gecko is over two years old, Gecko may not work on newer hardware."
I installed Gecko on an i5-4570 machine that I put together quite a while ago. I would be interested to learn if Gecko does not work on newer hardware.
36 • @35, Gecko (by Henry D. Ape on 2025-01-21 06:20:02 GMT from United States)
"I installed Gecko on an i5-4570 machine that I put together quite a while ago. I would be interested to learn if Gecko does not work on newer hardware." I'm on a 10th generation intel, and Gecko should install and run. The issue is that updating any rolling release from a 2 year old ISO is asking for trouble and you'd most probably get it..
37 • @16 Degoogled (by Karl Vreski on 2025-01-21 06:23:28 GMT from Australia)
Iode OS ships with a modified hardened version of Firefox, much like Mull Browser
If you want to install a Chromium based browser, you can add the repo through F-droid or install the .apk manually
The best Chromium based browser aside from Brave is Cromite, which is a fork of Bromite with privacy features baked in and de-googled
search for it on github
If you run Android, you can install it through F-droid by adding the repo (search "known fdroid repositories")
38 • GeckoLinux and SpiralLinux (by Sam on 2025-01-21 06:32:28 GMT from United States)
@32: "...the developer moved on to another project."
Hi Jesse, thanks for all you do here at Distrowatch, but I would humbly request that next time you ask me first and/or check the GeckoLinux forum so as to not give inaccurate unofficial status updates.
- https://github.com/geckolinux/geckolinux-project/discussions/503#discussioncomment-10552766
- https://sourceforge.net/projects/geckolinux/files/testing/GeckoLinux_ROLLING_Cinnamon.x86_64-999.240905-BETA.iso/download
I tried to make it clear on both the GeckoLinux and the SpiralLinux websites that I am working on both projects, not "moving on" from one to the other:
- https://geckolinux.github.io "I am also the creator and maintainer of the SpiralLinux set of spins built from Debian."
- https://spirallinux.github.io "I am also the creator and maintainer of the GeckoLinux set of spins built from openSUSE."
@33: "SpiralLinux, which was the same idea for Debian stable by the same developer, has not seen a release in 14 months."
Hi there, this is by design. SpiralLinux is built from Debian Stable so as to minimize the maintenance burden, and there are no SpiralLinux packages or repos to maintain. I basically only release new SpiralLinux ISOs during the current Debian Stable lifecycle if there is an important SpiralLinux default configuration issue to fix, or if I get user reports that there is some new hardware that is only supported by a newer Debian Backports kernel version. Both GeckoLinux and SpiralLinux are intended as delivery mechanisms for a customized installation of openSUSE or Debian respectively, and from that point on users can indefinitely update their personal installation(s) directly from those projects' own repos.
39 • @21 • Flatpak (by Henry D. Ape on 2025-01-21 06:34:12 GMT from United States)
@Jesse, Yes, Flatpak version 1.2 and earlier required the full name with the dots, but even Debian stable is several versions ahead of that. Updating individual apps still requires it, but for general updating "flatpak update" will do.
40 • Gecko (by Jesse on 2025-01-21 10:35:26 GMT from Canada)
@38: " I would humbly request that next time you ask me first and/or check the GeckoLinux forum so as to not give inaccurate unofficial status updates."
I did check with the Gecko website. That is how I knew Gecko hadn't been updated for over two years. By DistriWatch's definition that makes the project dormant. Nothing inaccurate about it, those are just facts.
41 • Centos vapidly trudges on (by Mark E on 2025-01-21 12:17:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
Sad to observe the slow wretched painful death of the once great OS that was Centos. 10 years of updates made it easy to install and leave it be on servers that needed to just work for years on end. And those Redhat sysadmin tools made life easy for a busy operator.
Rocky, Alma etc. are very good but it's a bit late for me as the Centos' death knell rang the change to Ubuntu LTS and Debian.
42 • Linuxmint 22.1 (by Zed on 2025-01-21 12:28:25 GMT from Italy)
Mint 22.1 presents an in-depth debugging (overhaul, cleaning and optimisation) of APT (command-line package management utility) system dependencies in order to remove obsolete components, streamline and create an improved APT system. Question: what was wrong with APT?
43 • Linux is not always a collection of parts that someone has put in a pile (by Zed on 2025-01-21 12:34:04 GMT from Italy)
"I've mentioned before that Fedora feels less like a complete operating system and more like a collection of open source parts someone has put in a pile." You can say this also for Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, MX... but not for openSUSE Leap KDE. So Linux is not always a collection of parts that someone has put in a pile.
44 • @40 (by Sam on 2025-01-21 12:59:06 GMT from United States)
@40: I was referring to your two inaccurate statements in @32:
"...the developer has stopped working on the project..."
"...and the developer moved on to another project."
The lack of releases should not be conflated with lack of development, as evidenced by my responses in the GeckoLinux forum and the recent beta release. And the existence of a second project does not mean that I have "moved on" or abandoned the first one.
45 • CentOS-Fedora (by RetiredIT on 2025-01-21 14:46:10 GMT from United States)
My take on CentOS is reflected in its 4.8 rating on DW by testers of the distro. So sad what Red Hat/IBM has done to this once great and venerable distro.
There are also "rumors" that Fedora may be headed down the same oath as CentOS. Time will tell.
Users still have Rocky and AlmaLinux to choose from. Yay!
46 • Gecko (by Dadnut1 on 2025-01-21 15:37:33 GMT from United States)
@36: "The issue is that updating any rolling release from a 2 year old ISO is asking for trouble and you'd most probably get it.."
Before I successfully installed GeckoLinux I would have considered your opinion as sage advice and agreed with you wholeheartedly. Sam (creator of Gecko) says, "if I get user reports that there is some new hardware that is only supported by a newer ... kernel version," then he will create an updated iso. Sounds to me like: If it's not broken, don't fix it.
47 • Gecko (by Otis on 2025-01-21 16:13:41 GMT from United States)
This is an interesting discussion about Gecko (and SpiralLinux). I've been a fan of Gecko for quite some time as I've always seen, and experienced, Gecko as a "hassle free" version of Suse Tumbleweed. I've found myself moving away from it though as I, too, thought it'd been abandoned. But now I see the developer of the project, Sam, telling us the whole story.
I confess to not frequenting the forums, otherwise this info would have been known to me prior to seeing it highlighted in here. Thanks for coming in, Sam. Time to download and install Gecko again.
48 • Thoughts (by Tad Generic on 2025-01-21 17:03:32 GMT from Canada)
I've never used, nor considered using Cent when I was working as a system admin.
I remember that even our new wifi system recommended a base Ubuntu server install for the controller software. Though that one had a known issue where one had to run an older (yet still supported) version due to the new release breaking things.
Personally I've gone through many distributions and I have come to appreciate stable releases with long term support, as opposed to needing the latest and greatest (and buggiest) software. I liked Manjaro for awhile, but when I had to start fixing broken updates on my several systems I finally gave up on it.
Kubuntu LTS, because I like KDE, is where I'm happy, though I've got Mint on one old laptop - I don't really care for any of their desktops, though Cinnamon is tolerable.
Shout out to Spiral, though. I used Gecko for a time, until the BS at OpenSUSE a few years back made me jump ship. Spiral finally gave me a basic Debian system that seems to Just Work.
The old installer (at the time) was not an issue because they had instructions on how to upgrade to the newest Debian stable, along with how to change to testing, or Sid, if one wanted to (no thanks - I've a long history of failures with distros based on testing or sid).
The Gecko and Spiral projects are quite underrated, probably because they aren't really distributions, but custom installs of their respective base systems.
49 • Re Spiral etc (by grindstone on 2025-01-21 23:03:42 GMT from United States)
Yeah thanks Sam for posting details and thank you for all you do.
50 • @44, @46, Gecko Spiral (by Henry D. Ape on 2025-01-22 01:59:41 GMT from United States)
I've installed both Gecko and SpiralLinux in the past, and I do appreciate the effort to simplify OpenSuse and Debian installations. But, (and it's a big but,) it does a user no favors to leave Tumbleweed ISOs available for download for that long. Debian, perhaps, since there's not that much change.
I spend a lot of time at my computer these days, and while reading or writing or watching or waiting, I have plenty of idle time. So, I decided to install Gecko Plasma and Spiral Gnome on KVM on a separate virtual desktop.
Gecko installed and ran flawlessly in about 10 minutes, but about one and a half hour after "zypper dup", it stopped updating. Something about can't remove yast-ntp-client. Rebooted with crossed fingers, and got the desktop back. Yast managed to resolve the problem. Finished updating, rebooted and done. Miracle! It worked so far! Total time: about 2 hours. I tried Slowroll a few weeks ago, and it took under 15 minutes to install. Should be no different with Tumbleweed. How was I simplifying anything?
Spiral was a quick install and a pretty quick update with Debian's fast servers. But after rebooting, none of the desktops apps would launch. Can't say it was the installer, but I had to go on to other things, so it was left there without trying to sort it out. I'm running Kali, installed with a netinst ISO, which is pretty much the Debian installer with adjustments. Wasn't so hard, and it was quick and up to date when finished.
51 • CentOS sucks (by curmudgeonly old man on 2025-01-22 02:16:12 GMT from United States)
If you have an older computer, Redhat software will not boot on it.
No SecureBoot bios or a cpu that is older than "x86_64-v3 (whatever the hell that means)"?
Then you are screwed.
This is not Linux for the masses. This is server software for the privileged. Also: what is up with OS's not fitting on a standard 4GB DVD anymore?
52 • @51 • CentOS sucks (by Cyril on 2025-01-22 02:43:00 GMT from Australia)
Secure Boot was introduced in 2012, and x86_64-v3 in 2013. I know this because I'm one of the privileged. What's a DVD?
53 • What is a DVD? (by nero_burning_dvd on 2025-01-22 13:41:20 GMT from United States)
The father of a modern 50GB BD-RE (far more reliable than a pendrive).
54 • GeckoLinux (by Dadnut1 on 2025-01-22 21:41:15 GMT from United States)
@50: "Total time [to install Gecko into a virtual machine]: about 2 hours. I tried Slowroll a few weeks ago, and it took under 15 minutes to install. Should be no different with Tumbleweed. How was I simplifying anything?"
My experience with the openSUSE Tumbleweed iso (this goes back about 5->7 years ago): it installed quickly but the first update took a while because there were ~500 updates waiting. By default Tumbleweed was fully locked down. The browser and email didn't work. There were firewall settings I had to change: opening ports, etc. I couldn't access the network drive (using Samba) so I installed any program that had Samba in its name. It still didn't work. After much research I found there were additional ports to open, Still didn't work. I spent more than a week reading troubleshooting advice and futzing with Samba files and settings and then one day it inexplicably started working. Then I discovered that the browser couldn't play media. It turns out there is a non-official repository called Packman that holds these missing codecs. When you add this repository you need to establish a priority for it in case there are programs with the same name in both repos. After you add the repo (assuming you assigned the proper priorities despite Tumbleweed issuing dire warnings advising you to NOT do any of this.) Then you must find and install the correct Packman packages containing the codecs you require. There's more, but you get the idea.
By comparison the Gecko install plus first update took me about 45 minutes total on my somewhat slow ten-year-old machine. By default the browser and email were ready to go. Movies and sound worked just fine. My network drive let me log in without any issues. And I liked the font rendering.
Maybe you are a whiz at the command line and can do these configurations in your sleep, but I cannot. For me Gecko removes all of the configuration aggravation out of a Tumbleweed installation. For me it's easier if I set up that first update and go have a cup of coffee while it's churning away. When I come back the deed is done.
Henry: Is the new Slowroll locked down? Did your browser/email work? Could you play an assortment of video formats? Could you access a network drive?
55 • iodéOS carrier support (by Happy_Phantom on 2025-01-23 02:10:05 GMT from United States)
What carriers in the US will iodéOS phones work with?
56 • @54 • GeckoLinux (by Henry D. Ape on 2025-01-23 14:06:59 GMT from United States)
"fully locked down" No idea what you mean. Browser works, email works, Samba is present and can be configured with Yast. Browser plays media. VLC is installed and works. The only factual thing you said is that Packman with extra codecs is not installed. A quick search yields some nice people who'll show you how to add it without being a "whiz at the command line". Can you copy and paste? One of the first things the installer asks is to connect to internet, and then to enable the repos if you want. If you ended up with 500 MB of updates, you didn't enable them. SUSE's installer is slow, but it gives you more options than any other I've used, down to single package level. In any case, I ended up with 695 MB of updates after the SpiralLinux install, but it took less than a minute to download and not very long to install. If I just want quick and easy, I'll use Debian, or better yet, a Debian based distro.
I find it also hard to believe that you installed Gecko from a 26 month old ISO in 45 minutes with not a single hitch. You didn't say when you installed it. A year ago? More? I have fairly fast internet and a pretty decent computer, and there's no way I can even get close to that. Even then, if I had not known to try and fix, and how, the install would have been broken. There's a reason rolling distros release frequent snapshots.
I like the idea of Gecko. I used it years ago and was satisfied. But if the ISOs are not updated frequently, I would not use it or recommend it. You are free to choose, as am I.
57 • Distros for older machines (by Otis on 2025-01-23 17:57:49 GMT from United States)
Pre 2012 machine? Puppy Linux comes to mind.
There's a site for those who feel "screwed" and want distros for older machines, it's called Distrowatch, where one can input that idea and find many such distros.
There's also Tecmint (among many others of course), a blog (May of 2024) with a list of 16 of them and a spiel about each.
No Linux user is screwed, no matter the requirements, desires, or precepts.
58 • GeckoLinux (by Dadnut1 on 2025-01-23 20:29:27 GMT from United States)
@56: "The only factual thing you said is that Packman with extra codecs is not installed."
My first experience with Tumbleweed was years ago. Tumbleweed was less than a year old at the time. (According to Wikipedia Tumbleweed was launched in 2015, so this probably occurred in 2016.) After I installed it there were no ports open and nothing communications-related worked. That was my only experience installing from an openSUSE iso. Tumbleweed was my first exposure to Linux so I had many problems and they might have been my own fault, but maybe not. It took me a month to sort everything out and get everything working. It was a steep learning curve. But, once the problems were ironed out, it ran very well for me. I used it as my main machine for many years.
"One of the first things the installer asks is to connect to internet, and then to enable the repos if you want."
There was no installer option to connect to the Internet or choose repos way back then. If the latest openSUSE isos are easier to install, and have saner defaults, then that's a good thing.
"I find it also hard to believe that you installed Gecko from a 26 month old ISO in 45 minutes with not a single hitch."
I installed Gecko and updated and had no problems whatsoever. If you want, you can send Sam a bug report and maybe he can fix whatever problem you ran into.
"You didn't say when you installed it. A year ago? More?"
I DID say when I installed Gecko. To repeat: it was about four months ago. See: @35
"Can you copy and paste?"
There's no need to be sarcastic. I am simply reporting my past experiences.
59 • @55 (by Karl Vreski on 2025-01-23 23:24:23 GMT from Australia)
>>What carriers will IodeOS work with?
The same cell phone carriers that LineagOS supports will work with as IodeOS, as it is a fork.
"A custom ROM is a modified version of Android that you install as your main firmware on your smartphone. iodéOS, as a fork of LineageOS is a privacy-focused custom ROM"
60 • 58 • GeckoLinux (by Henry D. Ape on 2025-01-24 01:52:59 GMT from United States)
"There was no installer option to connect to the Internet or choose repos way back then." Yes, there was!
https://download.opensuse.org/distribution/leap/42.3/iso/
"you can send Sam a bug report" If Sam has time to deal with bug reports, he should have time to update his snapshots. It's not my job to report bugs to the developer unless I'm trying some alpha or beta for that purpose.I'f an installer fail twice, I scrub it and go on to something else. In any case, I am not running Gecko, just testing to see what would happen.
"There's no need to be sarcastic." Really? Even in response to this? "Maybe you are a whiz at the command line and can do these configurations in your sleep"
"it was about four months ago" Missed that. Mea culpa.
"I am simply reporting my past experiences." And I'm reporting my recent ones.
"But, once the problems were ironed out, it ran very well for me." I'm not a patient ironer. I just find a distro where the ironing has been done, and just try others to see. My choice.
61 • GeckoLinux (by Dadnut1 on 2025-01-24 17:49:27 GMT from United States)
@60: Your link is to Leap, not Tumbleweed. If there was an option like that in the 2016 openSUSE Tumbleweed iso, I did not notice it. I just remember accepting the defaults for my install.
@60: "It's not my job to report bugs to the developer"
I said: "If you want, you can send Sam a bug report" I never implied that it was your job to do so.
My quote of "Maybe you are a whiz at the command line and can do these configurations in your sleep, but I cannot." was intended to acknowledge that you might have more expertise than me. It was not intended to push your buttons.
@60: "I am simply reporting my past experiences." And I'm reporting my recent ones.
I installed Gecko four months ago. To me that's recent enough.
All I can say is that GeckoLinux installed perfectly for me and it obviously did not for you.
62 • What carriers will IodeOS work with? (by Happy_Phantom on 2025-01-24 20:19:25 GMT from United States)
@59
So, if I had an Android phone working on any carrier, and that phone is fully supported by LineageOS, then I install IodeOS on it, I should be good to go with the same carrier?
The reason I ask is because these Android alternatives never come out and say what carriers are supported or not supported, only what phones they have been successfully installed on. I guess it is safe to assume that this doesn't matter?
Thanks
63 • Phones and carriers (by Jesse on 2025-01-24 20:22:54 GMT from Canada)
@62: "So, if I had an Android phone working on any carrier, and that phone is fully supported by LineageOS, then I install IodeOS on it, I should be good to go with the same carrier?'
Yes, this is correct. It doesn't matter which OS your phone is running. Whether a phone works with a carrier or not is decided by the hardware (whether the phone can communication on the same frequencies as the carrier uses). The carriers don't care which OS you run as long as the hardware talks on its frequency.
64 • seeking info on KDE Neon (by Nooby-Nu on 2025-01-24 20:24:38 GMT from New Zealand)
I see every single month there is a new KDE Neon release. If one installed this, would it just keep updated, or do you have to re-install every month? In the page for the distro it says "Fixed" for release method. Seems crippled from the start..?
On this week's hot-topic, CentOS. Never tried it, but it seems RedHat are suffering from short term vision. This was a good testbed with a wider audience / user base than just the big corporate server room crowd. So smaller biz and private individuals. The whole idea of Linux being "more eyes on the project."
Number of Comments: 64
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
| | |
| NovaCustom |
NovaCustom PrivacyGuard Laptops - Escape from Big Tech
The NovaCustom PrivacyGuard Laptop is ideal for anyone who prioritizes privacy. Comes with Dasharo coreboot open source firmware and Zorin OS Pro, free from influence of Big Tech.
|
| 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.
|
| Archives |
| • Issue 1177 (2026-06-15): TROMjaro 2026.05.08, Ubuntu MATE updates, Asahi fixes dual-boot issue with macOS 27, AUR infected with malware, setting variables across shells |
| • Issue 1176 (2026-06-08): Redcore Linux 2601, the problem with minimal system requirements, Red Hat account linked to compromised npm repositories, COSMIC to get frosted glass effect, openSUSE shows off system extension manager, Origami merges with RakuOS |
| • Issue 1175 (2026-06-01): PineTab2 with various distros, less common words of wisdom, Canonical shutting down Ubuntu's Pastebin, Murena nears 100k users, DistroWatch turns 25 |
| • Issue 1174 (2026-05-25): Solus 4.9, Linux tablets, Haiku boots on Apple M1 machines, Fedora drops Deepin packages, Mint improves Nemo performance |
| • Issue 1173 (2026-05-18): Sylve on FreeBSD, the benefit of BleachBit, Debian commits to reproducible builds, Debian publishes updated install media, Haiku introduces SMP support on ARM64 processors, Rocky Linux creates opt-in security repository, Fedora reconsiders AI tools, KDE receives generous donation |
| • Issue 1172 (2026-05-11): Fedora 44, dealing with extra fonts, Fedora plans to provide AI tools, problems with Ubuntu's new coreutils, TrueNAS extends its development cycle, postmarktetOS improves the boot splash screen, Redox ports tmux |
| • Issue 1171 (2026-05-04): Xubuntu 26.04, extending memory with VRAM, Ubuntu plans AI features, Devuan developer forks GTK2, Mint introduces hardware enablement builds, Linux running on a PlayStation 5, local kernel exploit found in Linux |
| • Issue 1170 (2026-04-27): ENux 5.2.1, picking a second distro, AlmaLinux expands CPU support, FreeBSD publishes Status Report, Ubuntu MATE skips 26.04 release |
| • Issue 1169 (2026-04-20): Lakka 6.1, free software and source-based distributions, FreeBSD Foundation publishes compatible laptop list, Debian holds Project Leader election, Haiku progresses ARM64 port, Mint to extend development cycle, Linux 7.0 released |
| • Issue 1168 (2026-04-13): pearOS 2026.03, EndeavourOS 2026.03.06, which distros are adopting age verification, Arch adjusts its firewall packages, Linux dropping i486 support, Red Hat extends its release cycle, Debian's APT introduces rollbacks, Redox improves its scheduler |
| • Issue 1167 (2026-04-06): Origami Linux 2026.03, answering questions for Linux newcomers, Ubuntu MATE seeking new contributors, Ubuntu software centre is expanding Deb support, FreeBSD fixes forum exploit, openSUSE 15 Leap nears its end of life |
| • Issue 1166 (2026-03-30): NetBSD jails, publishing software for Linux, Ubuntu joins Rust Foundation, Canonical plans to trim GRUB features, Peppermint works on new utilities, PINE64 shows off open hardware capabilities |
| • Issue 1165 (2026-03-23): Argent Linux 1.5.3, disk space required by Linux, Manjaro team goes on strike, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA driver support and builds RISC-V packages, systemd introduces age tracking |
| • Issue 1164 (2026-03-16): d77void, age verification laws and Linux, SUSE may be for sale, TrueNAS takes its build system private, Debian publishes updated Trixie media, MidnightBSD and System76 respond to age verification laws |
| • Issue 1163 (2026-03-09): KaOS 2026.02, TinyCore 17.0, NuTyX 26.02.2, Would one big collection of packages help?, Guix offers 64-bit Hurd options, Linux communities discuss age delcaration laws, Mint unveils new screensaver for Cinnamon, Redox ports new COSMIC features |
| • Issue 1162 (2026-03-02): AerynOS 2026.01, anti-virus and firewall tools, Manjaro fixes website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating a map app |
| • Issue 1161 (2026-02-23): The Guix package manager, quick Q&As, Gentoo migrating its mirrors, Fedora considers more informative kernel panic screens, GhostBSD testing alternative X11 implementation, Asahi makes progress with Apple M3, NetBSD userland ported, FreeBSD improves web-based system management |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • 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.
|
| Random Distribution | 
HamoniKR
HamonirKR is a Korean Linux distribution based on Linux Mint's Ubuntu branch. It features the Cinnamon desktop environment. The distribution includes Korean localization and educational software to be used in schools.
Status: Active
|
| 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.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
