 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1105, 20 January 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 3rd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
It has been a while since Red Hat phased out CentOS Linux, which was a downstream clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), in favour of CentOS Stream. The CentOS Stream distribution holds a middle ground in the development process between Fedora and RHEL and it offers a way for people to see new features coming to RHEL. This week we begin with a look at version 10 of CentOS Stream and report on the experience. Have you tried CentOS Stream lately? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll what you think of the distribution and if you plan to keep using it. Then, in our News section, we discuss the Haiku team porting Iceweasel to their lightweight operating system. We also talk about new debugging tools for people working with Oracle Linux and report on vulnerabilities being patched in the popular rsync backup utility. Then we turn our attention to Flatpak packages and, specifically, why they may seem to be woefully out of date in your distribution's software centre. We tackle this problem in our Questions and answers column below. Finally, we are pleased to share the new releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
CentOS 10 Stream
The CentOS project has undergone changes over the years. Many people are probably familiar with CentOS Linux, a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux which started as a community project that was eventually taken over by Red Hat. This project, CentOS Linux, was killed off and, in its place, Red Hat set up CentOS Stream. Stream is described by its own website as follows:
CentOS Stream defines Enterprise Linux. It is a Linux distribution built by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) engineers, and is used as the major version branch that RHEL minor versions are created from. It has roughly a five year lifecycle and will be maintained until 2030.
In other words, it is basically a development branch which sits between Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). The latest branch of CentOS Stream is version 10 which includes a small number of features and package upgrades compared against version 9: Linux kernel 6.12; Python 3.12; Go 1.23; Rust 1.82; Valkey 7.2; and GNOME 47.
The project's release announcement mentions a few other key changes and characteristics. X11 support has been dropped for version 10. CentOS 10 Stream offers Wayland support only and it appears to only support one desktop environment: GNOME. Version 10, we are warned, doesn't work with Secure Boot.
CentOS runs on four CPU architectures: X86_64, 64-bit ARM, Power9, and IBM Z. The release notes also mention a significant change for people running older hardware: "A notable change in this release is that the AMD/Intel 64-bit build now targets the v3 microarchitecture level." This caused me to pause my preparations long enough to confirm my workstation does indeed have x86_64-v3 support.
The x86_64 build is available in two editions, a 6.8GB "DVD" edition and a smaller 800MB "Boot" edition. I fetched the DVD edition. Booting from this media displays a menu asking if we'd like to jump straight into the install process or run a self-test on the media first. When taking the self-test option, I found the self-check completed successfully, then launched the Anaconda system installer.
The live system doesn't offer a desktop environment, it simply starts a graphical interface and launches the Anaconda installer. Anaconda asks us to select our preferred language and then shows us a hub screen where we can launch a collection of configuration modules in any order. These modules ask us to confirm our timezone, pick a keyboard layout, enable kernel dumps (kdump), and connect to a local network. There are also modules for setting the root account's password (the root account is disabled by default) and for making up a username and password for a regular user. Our regular user can be granted administrative privileges.
One of the modules asks us to select a role (also known as a collection of packages) for our system. The available roles are: Server with GUI (the default), Server, Minimal Install, Workstation, Custom, and Virtualization Host. I decided to go for the Workstation role and customized it slightly, adding backup and admin tool packages.
There is a disk partitioning module and it is, true to Anaconda's history, still awkward to navigate. We can manually partition the disk or we can take over a disk using guided partitioning. The guided approach will create three partitions for us: XFS on /boot, XFS on LVM for the root partition, and a swap partition.
The system installer copied its 1,282 packages to my hard drive. During this time it showed how many packages it had copied and what it was currently working on. This part of the status page worked. There was also a progress bar displayed on the screen, but it did not move. When Anaconda was finished it offered to restart the computer.
Early impressions
Booting from my new copy of CentOS brought up a graphical login screen, which made sense for my selected Workstation role. I was offered two desktop session options: GNOME and GNOME Classic, both of which run on Wayland.
I ran into a few problems with both desktop environments when I first got started. The first time I signed into the plain GNOME session I was surprised to find the desktop did not display any welcome window, configuration wizard, or GNOME Tour. After a moment, I realized the system had locked up completely. It was not responding to mouse or keyboard input and had probably stopped working before any first-run processes could be launched. I rebooted and tried the GNOME Classic desktop. It worked and functioned fairly well, but then the system showed a blank screen and locked-up when I tried to logout. This again required a forced reboot to get back to normal.
CentOS 10 Stream -- The desktop overview
(full image size: 105kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
Oddly enough, these two lock-ups were the only ones I experienced during my trial and both only happened the first time I ran the respective desktop sessions. After that, it was smooth sailing in both test environments.
The second time I signed into GNOME Shell, the GNOME Tour application launched. The tour showed me a few screens which explained how to launch applications, see an overview of workstations, and use the desktop's search feature. GNOME Shell used a theme which caused the desktop elements (panel, menus, and wallpaper) to be dark, but applications to be light. The text editor, terminal, and file manager all used white backgrounds with the default theme. We can switch to a dark theme which causes all elements and applications to be dark and the wallpaper to be removed, leaving us with a black background.
CentOS 10 Stream -- The applications grid
(full image size: 77kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
Hardware
CentOS worked fairly well on my workstation. The distribution automatically detected my network card, audio worked out of the box, and performance was average. I previously experienced a lot of lag with the GNOME 3.x series, but the GNOME 40+ series has generally worked smoothly for me and this decent performance continued for me this week.
The first time I tried to run CentOS in VirtualBox the distribution immediately failed with a kernel panic. It turned out the reason was I was running the VirtualBox package which is available in Debian 12 (VirtualBox 7.0), but VirtualBox 7.1 is required to enable the x86_64-v3 CPU features that CentOS needs. Upgrading VirtualBox to version 7.1 allowed the distribution to boot.
CentOS 10 Stream -- The GNOME Settings panel
(full image size: 79kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
Once it was up and running, CentOS took up 6.3GB of disk space for its root filesystem, plus additional space for a swap partition. Logging into GNOME used 1.1GB of RAM which puts the distribution on the heavier end of the Linux spectrum.
Included software
CentOS, even when set up in the Workstation role, ships with very little desktop software. There is no web browser, no audio player, no video player, no office suite, no games, and no image editor - just to point out a few examples.
CentOS 10 Stream -- The default light theme
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
The distribution does ship with core GNOME applications, including a calculator, system monitor, the GNOME Files file maanger, a disk usage utility, and an image viewer. The GNOME Settings panel is available to help configure the desktop. There is a tool called SELinux Troubleshooter to sort out issues with the security software.
The distribution includes GNU command line utilities, manual pages, and the Network Manager software. There is no compiler or Java on the system. The systemd software is present and the distribution runs on version 6.12 of the Linux kernel.
In the background I found a few network services, including the OpenSSH service on port 22 and the Cockpit administrator web portal running on port 9090.
I had expected to find Toolbx, a container manager, installed as it was a major feature of Fedora 41 Kinoite, but it was not present. I found Toolbx is in the repositories and can be installed using the DNF package manager
Software management
As I mentioned above, CentOS ships with the DNF package manager for handling low-level packages on the command line. DNF worked well for me. It's a bit slow compared to most other Linux package managers, but it functioned without any issues. By default, DNF pulls software from CentOS's Core, Extras, and AppStream repositories. There are other repositories for specialized packages, such as firmware, and these can be enabled through GNOME Software.
On the subject of GNOME Software, the modern software centre provides us with three tabs. One for exploring and downloading new application, one for listing and removing installed items, and a final tab for updating software. GNOME Software worked well for me, at least within its capacity, tracking down desktop applications, removing them, and keeping them up to date. GNOME Software is also able to toggle repositories, enabling/disabling known package sources.
CentOS 10 Stream -- Searching for new applications
(full image size: 80kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
Browsing the default repositories (Core, Extras, and AppStream) we soon find there are very few applications available. There is no Firefox package and, in fact, no graphical web browser at all. (The Lynx text-based browser is in the repositories, but not available through GNOME Software.) The whole software centre feels bare.
Unlike Discover, GNOME Software does not know how to enable Flathub for itself. Since no web browser is installed for us, this means we need to either already know how to enable Flathub or use another computer to look up how to enable Flathub. Alternative we can install Lynx and use that to try to look up the information, though Flathub's website is not a friendly environment for a text-based web browser.
Once Flathub support had been enabled through the command line Flatpak program, GNOME Software did work with Flatpak bundles. I was able to fetch and run Flatpak packages without further hurdles.
Interesting tools and additional observations
Earlier I mentioned the Cockpit service was running on my machine. Cockpit is a remote administrative tool which provides a web-based interface. We can visit Cockpit running on our system by accessing port 9090 in any graphical web browser. The Cockpit interface provides easy access to managing applications, installing updates, enabling/disabling services, and dealing with SELinux. I like Cockpit, it has a clean, easy to navigate interface and provides access to a lot of functions a system administrator will use on a regular basis.
CentOS 10 Stream -- Installing new applications in Cockpit
(full image size: 116kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
Conclusions
I think what surprised me the most while working on this evaluation of CentOS was how little I had to explore and discuss. The distribution's release announcement mentions no new additional features, just items being removed (such as older architecture support). Even the list of updated key packages is sparse. The Workstation role is likewise sparse. There are few applications in evidence, no development tools, no container manager, no media support, not even a web browser. Further, there is no graphical web browser in the default repositories and, on a distribution in a family of projects which promote Flatpak as the path into the future, there are no Flatpak repositories enabled.
What surprised me further was the problems I had with the few components which were included. It's been years since I've had stability problems with GNOME and it's rare a distribution locks up or crashes once it has been successfully installed. Yet, with CentOS, both of these issues occurred.
The single highlight of my time with CentOS was Cockpit. Though I'd intended to focus on using the distribution as a development workstation, even in the Workstation role, the distribution functioned better as a server managed remotely.
CentOS 10 Stream is further evidence, in case anyone was still lingering in doubt, that Red Hat is not interested in the desktop or developer workstations. CentOS 10 is pushing more and more toward being a minimal, server platform exclusively. In this space it is doing okay, but it's not doing anything which makes it stand out compared to Debian, Ubuntu, or openSUSE Leap. It doesn't have openSUSE's YaST, it doesn't take advantage of an advanced filesystem like Btrfs, and it doesn't have Ubuntu's massive repositories. It feels like an abandoned project, still alive, but running out of fuel.
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.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo desktop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Hex-core Intel i5-10400 CPU @ 2.90GHz
- Storage: Western Digital 1TB hard drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 wired network card, Realtek RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCIe wireless adapter
- Display: Intel CometLake-S GT2
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Visitor supplied rating
CentOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 5/10 from 20 review(s).
Have you used CentOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off new debugging tools, Linux distros patch serious rsync issue
The Haiku team published their December newsletter this week and shared some exciting news: "The biggest piece of news from last month is the arrival of Iceweasel, a web browser built from Mozilla Firefox source code but without any official branding or registered trademarks, in the software depots (for x86_64 only, at the moment.) We've been 'slow-rolling' the announcements on this one, in part because the browser was quite unstable at first and prone to cause kernel assertion failures on the nightly builds, but after a month of work it's in much better shape and is relatively stable." The newsletter goes on to describe the work being done to address memory issues and stability problems revealed by running Iceweasel.
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The Oracle Linux team have unveiled a series of debugging and analysis tools for their distribution. These tools, which aim to primarily assist developers and administrators in enterprise environments, are detailed in the company's blog post. "Performance Co-Pilot is an open source toolkit for monitoring and analyzing system performance metrics, both live and retrospective. It provides many tools and services that monitor, log, analyze and format system-level measurements. Oracle has added a few new tools to the PCP toolkit that assist the system admin in reviewing and analyzing a few procfs-derived metrics in a user-friendly format.
drgn is an open source debugger that was developed by Meta as an alternative to crash for debugging the Linux kernel. At Oracle, we have embraced the programmability of drgn for debugging complex problems, and are actively contributing to drgn (for instance, adding CTF support to it) as well as creating a new set of helpers for drgn that are geared towards monitoring and debugging Oracle Linux systems.
A third subproject, and the focus of this blog, is oled-tools. It is a collection of custom debug tools and scripts that collect and analyze more focused and useful data about a narrow, specific subsystem that is under scrutiny, in order to get more detailed data about the subsystem that is perhaps behaving abnormally."
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Finally, we'd like to touch upon a wide spread bug in rsync which was reported last week. The rsync utility is used to handle backups on most server distributions and as a back-end for a lot of desktop backup utilities. Several severe vulnerabilities were found in the rsync code which could affect users of rsync, whether it is being used on a client or a server system. Cyber Insider reports: "Given rsync's popularity in enterprise environments and among developers, these vulnerabilities pose significant risks. Attackers could leverage a combination of these flaws to gain full control over servers or steal sensitive data such as SSH keys, further exposing connected systems to follow-up attacks." At this point, most Linux distributions, along with other platforms, have patches available. People should upgrade rsync if they have not done so already.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Why are old Flatpak bundles showing up in software centres?
Why-so-old asks: I have observed, for a bunch of applications, the Flatpak version I see in GNOME Software or Discover is older than the one I see when visiting the Flathub website. How is this possible? How do I fix it? Do certain distributions, like Fedora, only have access to older Flatpaks?
DistroWatch answers: While it is true the Fedora project set up its own filtered Flatpak repository, I suspect that is not what is going on in your situation. It sounds like you're trying multiple software centres, possibly across multiple distributions, and most distributions pull Flatpak bundles directly from Flathub.
I think one of two things is happening. The first possibility is your software centre just isn't refreshing its Flathub information. Discover, GNOME Software, and most other software centres have a Refresh button. Clicking the Refresh button confirms the information (including version numbers) you are seeing associated with applications is up to date.
Another possibility is you have discovered applications which have multiple branches on Flathub. Some applications have a Stable version and a Development version. (Alternatively, a Stable version and a Legacy version.) These separate versions are stored on Flathub and made available side-by-side.
If you visit the Flathub website and look at the QGIS application you can see, at the time of writing, Flathub says the latest version is 3.40.1. However, looking up information on QGIS through Discover can show version 3.28.9 is available. This is because there are two branches of QGIS available to install: the Stable 3.40 branch and the 3.28 LTS branch.
It's easier to see this by using the command line Flatpak program:
$ flatpak search qgis
| Name | Description | Application ID | Version | Branch | Remotes |
| QGIS Desktop | A Geographic Information System | org.qgis.qgis | 3.40.1 | stable | flathub |
| QGIS Desktop | A Free and Open Source Geographic Information System | org.qgis.qgis | 3.28.9 | lts | flathub |
As you can see in the above example, we have two entries for QGIS with the same application ID. These are two versions, one in the Stable branch and one in the LTS branch. When working from the command line we can specify which one to install by using double-slashes and then the branch name as follows:
$ flatpak install org.qgis.qgis//stable
Your software centre might not be showing the separate branches because not a lot of applications get packaged for multiple versions in parallel. However, when you do encounter situations like this you can use the command line to specify which version of your application you want to download.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
MX Linux 23.5
The MX Linux team have published an update to their 23.x series which is based on Debian 12 "Bookworm". The new release offers updated kernels and Xfce 4.20 packages. "Highlights niclude: Debian 12.9 Bookworm base. This release includes all updates from the Debian and MX repositories. Some highlights since our 23.4 release include: Xfce 4.20 core packages (Xfce isos and pi respin). MX PackageInstaller has UI improvements and better version display for packages in third party repositories. Screenshots from Debian Screenshots are also available. Extra warnings on live system if persistence has been ask for on boot media that is read-only. Tweaks to default fstab file as set by installer. Additional fallback modes in installer. Many many bug fixes. Many many language updates. Many new applications in our MX Test repository. All kernel updates: The standard Xfce, KDE, and fluxbox isos are all updated to the latest 6.1.123 kernel. AHS now uses the 6.12.8 liqourix kernel, with auto-updates enabled. The MX Raspberry Pi Respin has also been updated with the latest packages available from the MX and RPiOS repos." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement.
MX Linux 23.5 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 473kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
Linux Mint 22.1
The Linux Mint team have published an update to the project's 22.x series. The new release, Linux Mint 22.1, moderizes the APT packaging tools, introduces new power modes to help uses find a balance between battery life and performance, and Cinnamon now provides a Night Light service which will reduce blue light exposure. "Choosing a power mode allows you to balance between power saving and performance optimization. The following power modes are available on all computers: Power-saver mode: Limits performance to conserve energy. Balanced mode: Adjusts performance based on your needs. On supported systems, an additional Performance mode is available. This mode maximizes performance at the cost of increased power consumption. Power-saving modes reduce performance but can extend battery life, reduce heat generation, lower CPU frequency, and decrease fan noise. Note that the system may override user settings based on the selected mode to adjust display brightness or make temporary adjustments to further reduce power consumption or enhance performance. In Cinnamon, you can select the power mode by navigating to Preferences -> Power Management." Additional information can be found in the project's What's New document as well as in the release announcement and in the release notes.
Rhino Linux 2025.1
The Rhino Linux distribution is based on Ubuntu and offers its users a rolling release. The project's latest snapshot is version 2025.1 and it offers a number of upgrades, including dynamic workspaces and a new welcome application. "One of our more exciting changes will be the inclusion of our brand-new Hello Rhino application. Written in Rust and using IcedTK, this application serves to help provide useful links to our homepage, blog, Discord community and documentation. Hello Rhino will automatically launch after post installation to help jumpstart the Rhino journey. Hello Rhino was created by a new contributor, so we would like to extend a big thank you to Sundaram Krishnan for making this possible. The Unicorn Desktop finally has dynamic workspaces, bringing extra efficiency and flexibility to the already powerful Unicorn Desktop. Previously, with static workspaces, you were restricted to a maximum of four, or had to manually create and manage the number of spaces yourself. Unicorn will now automatically create a new workspace each time the previous ones have an application open on them, and once there are no applications open on a workspace, it will be destroyed. The decision to incorporate this feature draws inspiration from desktop environments like GNOME, and the expandable workflow they provide." Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement.
Rhino Linux 2025.1 -- Running the Xfce/Unicorn desktop
(full image size: 98kB, resolution: 1920x1200 pixels)
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 3,145
- 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) |
What do you think of CentOS 10 Stream?
We began this week with a look at CentOS 10 Stream, the latest branch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux's upstream. Have you tried the latest version of CentOS Stream? What did you think of it? Let us know your experiences with CentOS Stream in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running general purpose or specialist distributions in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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What do you think of CentOS 10 Stream?
| I have tried it and like it: | 50 (2%) |
| I have tried it and do not like it: | 114 (5%) |
| I have not tried it but will: | 99 (4%) |
| I have not tried it and will not try it: | 2157 (89%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- iodeOS. iodéOS is an Android-based mobile operating system which is stripped of Google trackers. iodéOS analyses real-time connection attempts from your apps and allows you to: see the identity of all recipients and the quantity of data they wish to collect; block, if you want, malicious recipients (advertisements, malwares, spams, statistics and trackers); measure how privacy-respectful your apps are.
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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, 27 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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| 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."
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