 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1110, 24 February 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 8th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
What makes open source operating systems, such as Linux distributions, special is how they shift the balance of power in the computing world. With commercial software and commercial operating systems the majority of the power lies with the vendors. They are the only ones who get to read the source code, they are the only ones able to fix bugs in the system, they are the only ones legally allowed to distribute the software and any security patches for it. The software is purchased by the user, but controlled by the vendor. This balance is corrected with open source platforms as the user is able to audit, modify, and share the software running on their computer, making sure it works in their own best interest. This week we talk a lot about privacy, about security, and about platforms (especially mobile platforms) designed to work for the user rather than for the company who sold the product.
We begin with a look at the iodeOS mobile operating system. iodeOS is a branch of the LineageOS family which offers a more open and more privacy-protecting flavour of Android. The iodeOS platform also ships with a special service for tracking which applications are trying to spy on you and for whom. In our News section we discuss Tails trying to further protect privacy through updated install instructions while Murena begins selling its first privacy-focused tablet. Meanwhile Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, specifically RISC-V, while openSUSE is verifying packages with reproducible builds. We also report on Arch retiring old repositories which are no longer in use. Then, for our readers who are interested in programming and helping to improve open source software, we share tips to help people get started programming in our Questions and Answers column. Do you already know how to write code? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. Plus we are pleased to share the 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:
- Review: iodeOS 6.0
- News: Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale
- Questions and answers: Learning to program and improve Linux
- Released last week: Ubuntu 24.04.2, Qubes OS 4.2.4, NuTyX 25.02.5
- Torrent corner: Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Qubes OS, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Unity, Xubuntu
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 13.5-RC1
- Opinion poll: Do you know how to write software?
- Site news: Donations and sponsors
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
iodeOS 6.0
This week I'd like to talk about a mobile operating system called iodeOS. The project's website shares a succinct summary of what we can expect from this operating system:
iodéOS is an Android based Operating System freed from Google trackers. iodéOS analyses in real-time connection attempts from your apps and allows you to:
- see the identities of all recipients and the quantity of data they wish to collect
- block (if you want) malicious recipients (advertisements, malware, spams, statistics and trackers)
- measure how privacy-respectful your apps are.
Details on these features are discussed on the website.
Perhaps the biggest question I had while reading the documentation (where I learned iodeOS devices are not rooted) was how to pronounce "iode". According to a video on the project's website, it sounds similar to "Yoda", with a softer start.
The iode project not only provides a system installer and images for several Android devices, it also sustains itself by selling refurbished phones with iodeOS pre-installed. This gives users an easy way to use iodeOS without needing to learn how to flash a new operating system to their phones. The project also sells subscriptions to additional filters and parental controls to help people keep their devices free of adware, trackers, and content inappropriate for minors.
The iode team were kind enough to send me a demo device, a Pixel 6, with iodeOS pre-installed. The device arrived in a nice box which was decorated with a list of key features. For instance, the text on the box points out iodeOS is a Google-free flavour of Android, that ad and tracker blockers are included, there is an app to audit our connections, and the organization reduces electronic waste by selling refurbished phones.
The Pixel 6 and its iode packaging
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The box contained the Pixel 6, a protective case with "iode" written on it, and a USB charging cable. There was no booklet or instructions, but I figure this makes sense. It's unlikely many people would be tech savvy enough to seek out a de-Googled, privacy-protecting phone, but not know how to plug one in or find its power button.
Once I'd powered on the phone it displayed a brief "Powered by Lineage" message, giving a nod to the work done by the LineageOS project. We are then walked through the typical Android setup steps. These include connecting to a wireless network, optionally enabling push notifications (we're warned if we enable push notifications it will result in sending data through Google), and picking our timezone from a list. We're given the chance to restore a backup of the mobile operating system from a variety of local and remote sources, and asked if we'd like to enable GPS/location services. We can then optionally set a PIN to protect the phone and select whether we want to use a light or dark theme. Finally, we're asked if we'd like to navigate through apps using three buttons on the screen (which is the default), two buttons, or swiping gestures.
The default font is a little small on the Pixel's screen, but the process is smooth and pretty straightforward. We're shown a welcome screen which provides quick access to some screens in the Settings app (including a screen where we can browse a list pre-installed apps) and then we get to explore the iodeOS interface.
When I first started using iodeOS my device was running version 5.8 of the operating system, which is based on Android 14. As I'll mention later, one of the first actions I took was applying an over the air (OTA) update which gave me iodeOS 6.0, which is based on Android 15.
iodeOS 6.0 -- The home screen
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Early impressions
iodeOS uses a home screen (or launcher screen) program called Trebuchet. By default, it displays two screens where we can place launcher icons and widgets. Across the bottom of the display are five icons that have been pinned in place. These icons launch the phone app, the SMS messenger program, the contacts app, a web browser (a re-branded Firefox), and the camera app. There are other icons spread across the two pages of the launcher which offer us software centres, settings, system updates, a photo gallery, a media player, a calendar, and an app which supplies us with project news. Tapping this last icon opens a news feed from iode and tells us about new updates. There is also an app called iode which I will discuss in depth later.
iodeOS 6.0 -- The iode dashboard
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The operating system includes several more applications, including an e-mail client, a weather forecast reporter, a calculator, and a file manager. These can be found by swiping up from the bottom of the screen to pull up an app drawer. We can then launch programs from the drawer or drag their icons onto the home screen.
The iode app
The main feature of iodeOS, the gem which sets it apart from other members of the Android/LineageOS family, is an app called iode. This application handles monitoring and filtering network connections between the phone's software and the outside world. The iode app is divided into five screens or tabs.
The first screen is called Home and it displays a dashboard, giving us an overview of how many trackers it has blocked from phoning home or otherwise accessing the Internet. This dash is organized into five sections. At the top of the screen we find a power button which toggles the blocking software on/off. The blocking feature is enabled by default.
Next we can filter information on the screen by time periods, showing statistics for the current day, the current week, or for all time.
Next we find a readout telling us how many trackers have been blocked. Then there is a display which counts Apps monitored under Standard or Reinforced blocking. Finally, at the bottom of the page, we find the tabs for accessing additional data, options, and statistics. The remaining pages of the iode app are quite extensive and I'd like to just touch on the highlights of what each one offers.
By the way, most of the apps which ship with iodeOS are well behaved. To properly test the blocking software, I downloaded a few extras - a social media app and a toy remote control app which I suspected would provide me with proper test data. I was not disappointed.
The second tab is called Report and it shows us a list of apps which have accessed the network and which of them are using trackers. This allows us to quickly identify which apps are the worst spies.
iodeOS 6.0 -- Tracking the trackers
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The third tab is called Stream. Here we can see which remote servers our apps have tried to contact. We can then choose to block or allow connections to a selected server, either for one app or all apps.
Map is the name of the fourth tab. It shows us how much data is being sent to servers in various countries. We can tap a country's name to see the servers our phone is talking to in that region. We can also see which apps were trying to contact the remote servers and how much data was sent.
iodeOS 6.0 -- Watching where our data is going
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The final tab, Settings, covers more advanced options. This tab enables us to block or allow specific apps. Some of these settings are available only to subscribed iode users (which costs 3.99 Euro/month). However, we can enable/disable blocking on a per-app basis from this screen for free. We can also block apps from connecting over certain network connections. For example, we might want to block system updates over mobile connections and allow it only over wi-fi. This could enforce rules for updating or syncing over specific connections.
Everything in the iode app worked well for me. I especially liked being able to cut off any/all Internet connection for some apps and block others from using mobile data.
iodeOS 6.0 -- Limiting app network access
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Software centres
iodeOS ships with two software centres: Aurora for anonymously accessing apps in the Google Play store and F-Droid for accessing open source apps. Both of these software centres worked well for me. I particularly liked how Aurora could show a changelog of any app updates right on the update screen by tapping a button.
These two software centres mostly look and act the same, with minor variations, and are pleasantly easy to navigate.
iodeOS 6.0 -- The F-Droid software centre
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Updating the system
Earlier I mentioned that I updated iodeOS from version 5.8 to 6.0 on my first day of playing with the operating system. An update appeared on my screen announcing the new version. I was able to tap the Updater icon on the desktop to see the new version, its release date, and size. The new 6.0 update also upgraded the base system from Android 14 to version 15. All that I had to do was tap a button to download the update and then tap another to indicate I was ready to restart the phone. The process was smooth and painless.
Updates to iodeOS appear to be approximately 1.5GB in size, which is about what I've seen recently from other members of the LineageOS family.
iodeOS 6.0 -- The settings panel
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Other observations
I'd like to share a few other observations from my time experimenting with iodeOS and the Pixel 6. For example, the Pixel 6 can charge both through a wired connection and wirelesses, which is convenient.
There is a clock widget on the home screen. Going into this widget's settings presents us with options for changing the background of the widget, the font colour used, and the size of the font. I found changing these settings had no effect. I was always shown a medium, white font on a transparent background.
I'd like to mention that when I started using iodeOS 5.8 there was a music player icon on the home screen, but when I updated to version 6.0 the Music icon was removed.
Maybe due to age of my other device and the differences in the Android base version (my Murena phone runs /e/OS based on Android 12 while iode is based on Android 15) there are some visual and style differences. For instance, Murena uses buttons we can tap to access widget controls and settings. The iodeOS system uses tap-and-hold or tap-and-drag to access widget settings.
iode puts four of its launchers in containers (or "grouped icons") which it probably doesn't need to do, considering the amount of empty screen space available. For example, there are two app stores grouped together and two settings/updater icons grouped on the home screen. Meanwhile there is a lot of empty space on the display.
iodeOS 6.0 -- The mostly-empty screen with app launchers
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Comparison to Murena
A moment ago, I mentioned a project with similar aims called Murena. Both iode and Murena strive to offer Android phones with Android-compatible operating systems, and support for most Android applications. I'd like to talk a bit about what else they have in common and what sets them apart.
Both iode and Murena offer similar phones at similar prices. Both organizations are based in France. It looks like iode ships devices to anywhere in Europe while Murena has outlets around the world. Both projects offer images or installers which work on many Android devices, thanks to their shared LineageOS base.
Murena is more beginner oriented, I think. It offers a widget which gives the user the option of enabling a VPN with a single tap. Another single tap to turns on the fake location feature and another tap blocks app tracking. Murena's system does not offer much customization. We can see which apps/trackers were blocked, but not drill down into customizing rules or getting more than surface level statistics. Murena's /e/OS offers single-tap protection against both local threats (apps) and external threats (GPS tracking and IP tracking).
iodeOS goes in the other direction. It also has an on/off button for blocking trackers, but it gives us a lot of power and a lot of information. We can block specific apps, see where they are trying to send data, get real-time reports from the app or (optionally) through notifications. We can see to which countries our data is going from the apps we use. We can toggle data use on/off for each app on a per connection basis. It's incredibly flexible.
iodeOS doesn't appear to have built-in VPN/IP hiding or a fake location option, though we could add those later through the software centres. iodeOS focuses on protecting the user from our own apps rather than from external parties. Its settings are more involved, but also more powerful. The iodeOS platform is really geared toward giving us a lot of information and the tools to do something with that information.
The other big difference I noticed was Murena offers cloud storage with the option to synchronize files and contacts built into the operating system. iodeOS does not include any cloud services by default, though we could install a cloud client (such as Nextcloud) if we wanted access to such a service. I suspect cloud syncing is considered, by the iode team, to run counter to their privacy-focused mission.
Conclusions
I think iode is a fairly young project and it's already doing a great job. It has a store for people who want to buy phones with a privacy-focused operating system pre-installed, they have a wide range of supported phones with an installer which works on Linux and Windows, and the FAQ covers most of the information I wanted.
Once installed, iodeOS mostly acts like a typically Android phone - offering the same widgets, features, apps, and cellular abilities. It can call and text, and the operating system appears to receive regular updates (around once per month, based on their announcements). The main difference is it doesn't fill the screen with ads and nagging messages to enable features. iodeOS does what I ask it to and mostly stays out of the way so I can use my phone like a tool rather than have it regularly distract me like an advertising platform.
As I mentioned above, the key feature iodeOS brings to the ecosystem is its powerful and detailed iode filtering app. I really like this application. It's easy to use and its dashboard provides most of the information we might want. It also gives us a great deal of flexibility in terms of blocking apps, tracking where our data is sent, and filtering apps based on connection types. It's unusually flexible (compared to equivalents used on other platforms) and I enjoyed exploring its options a lot.
Earlier in my trial I was talking about this demo phone with someone and commented that I feel like Murena is trying to replace Android for less tech-savvy folks. It's good for people who want single-tap solutions and cloud storage. iodeOS feels like it's aimed at techies, such as myself, who want to have all the information, to have all the control, and to have nothing syncing or communicating with the outside world by default. We can add these features if we wish, but iodeOS offers a cleaner slate to start with and we can build on features to its foundation.
In short, if you are really curious about where your data is going, who is spying on you, and wish to stop it then iodeOS is a great place to start.
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Visitor supplied rating
iodeOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9/10 from 3 review(s).
Have you used iodeOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale
The Arch Linux project is retiring old repositories which have not been used in a few years. Starting in March 2025 these repositories will go off-line and may result in error messages when people running Arch Linux, or one of its many children, attempt to synchronize with package mirrors. "Around two years ago, we merged the [community] repository into [extra] as part of the git migration. In order to not break user setups, we kept these repositories around in an unused and empty state. We're going to clean up these old repositories on 2025-03-01.
On systems where /etc/pacman.conf still references the old [community] repository, pacman -Sy will return an error on trying to sync repository metadata. The following deprecated repositories will be removed: [community], [community-testing], [testing], [testing-debug], [staging], [staging-debug].
Please make sure to remove all use of the aforementioned repositories from your /etc/pacman.conf (for which a .pacnew was shipped with pacman>=6.0.2-7)!"
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The openSUSE project has taken a step closer to providing its users with reproducible builds. A reproducible build creates binary packages which are identical each time they are compiled. Reproducible builds makes it easier to spot problems, such as malicious altering of binary packages or faulty logic in the build system. "The Reproducible-openSUSE (RBOS) project, which is a proof-of-concept fork of openSUSE, has reached a significant milestone after demonstrating a usable Linux distribution can be built with 100% bit-identical packages.
Reproducible builds ensure software can be rebuilt in an identical, bit-for-bit manner anywhere at any time using the same tools. This means that someone rebuilding the software from the same source code will get exactly the same results. Why is this important? Because it's a crucial aspect for supply-chain security.
This milestone for RBOS, led by openSUSE member Bernhard Wiedemann, advances software supply-chain security. Reproducible builds allow us to confirm that the binaries used are correct, which ensures software has not been tampered with during the build process." The process of making all of openSUSE's package reproducible is ongoing and integrating the work of the fork back into openSUSE will take some time. Details can be found in the project's news post.
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The Fedora project is getting more serious about the RISC-V architecture. While Fedora has experimented with RISC-V support over the years, it hasn't been considered a supported CPU architecture. Fedora Magazine reports: "Fedora's interest in RISC-V isn't new - the Fedora Project has been experimenting with the architecture since at least 2015. Over the better part of a decade, our hands-on development and community collaboration have paved the way for exciting milestones. While RISC-V is not yet a primary architecture within Fedora (see Fedora Architectures for details), we're beginning to invest in it alongside Intel/AMD (x86_64), ARM (aarch64), IBM Power (ppc64le), and IBM Z (s390x). In time, it will be accessible to all Fedora packagers to submit builds to." The post goes on to offer tips on getting started running and testing Fedora's RISC-V builds on real hardware and in virtual machines.
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The Tails project has announced it is changing its installation instructions to avoid a potential privacy issue with the balenaEtcher application. "We replaced balenaEtcher with Rufus in our installation instructions for Windows to solve privacy concerns with balenaEtcher. Since January 2019, we had been recommending balenaEtcher to install Tails from Windows and macOS. We loved the simplicity of balenaEtcher, which was really easier to use and worked on macOS as well.
Shortly after, balenaEtcher started displaying ads. Although we didn't like that, we initially didn't view it as a significant privacy risk and had no better alternative at the time.
However, in 2024, the situation changed: balenaEtcher started sharing the file name of the image and the model of the USB stick with the Balena company and possibly with third parties. While we have not experienced or heard of any attacks against Tails users stemming from this change, we believe it introduces potential for abuse. To eliminate that risk altogether, we started looking again for alternatives." Information on the replacement application can be found on the Rufus website.
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Back in December, Murena announced it was preparing to launch a privacy-focused tablet running the company's de-Googled /e/OS platform. "You've been asking and waiting for an officially supported tablet with /e/OS, an now it's finally coming! Introducing the Murena Pixel Tablet, now available for pre-sale with shipments starting in January. This marks a major milestone for /e/OS, expanding its reach to tablets for the very first time." The tablet has now gone on sale and is available in multiple locations through Murena's on-line shop.
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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) |
Learning to program and improve Linux
Offering-a-hand asks: Any advice for someone who wants to learn how to code and help make Linux better?
DistroWatch answers: I think this is a great idea! The open source community can always use more people helping out, writing code, fixing bugs, and porting software to new platforms.
Where to start? Well, if you ask ten different developers where to get started you'll likely get a dozen different answers. In my opinion, people usually make one of two mistakes when recommending how to get started as a developer. They either suggest starting where they started, which (while it worked for them) is often not the easiest or most beneficial road to follow. For example, I started by learning BASIC and Pascal in the 1980s and 90s, but it made sense back then when many personal computers shipped with BASIC script interpreters. These days BASIC is rare and doesn't usually integrate well with the host operating system. Likewise, Pascal has mostly disappeared, much like the once-mighty dinosaurs.
Another piece of advice people tend to give, which I don't think is helpful, is recommending people start learning a language which is currently popular. I don't like this approach because the hot language of the day is often difficult to learn. For example, 20 years ago nearly everyone was recommending people learn Java if they wanted a career in programming, because that was where the jobs were. But Java is one of the most abstract, complex, and awkward programming languages I've encountered. It can be useful, but it's a mind-bender and not a good place to start. It's like reading Shakespeare to learn English. The same goes for the current Rust craze - yes, Rust is popular and useful, but it does some things which are going to be hard for a beginner to wrap their head around.
My recommendation is to start out with a beginner-friendly language, something that is relatively easy to pick up and use in just about any environment. I also suggest starting with a language which has a sense of data types. In other words, a language which won't suddenly change the nature of the data you're using without warning. To get a sense of what I mean by this, consider these three lines of JavaScript code:
var a = 5;
var b = "hello";
alert(a + b);
What do you think the result is when you try to add variables "a" and "b" together? The script prints out "5hello" because it magically changes variable "a" from the value of 5 to a string of text ("5"), then concatenates the second string onto the end. This is not friendly behaviour in a programming language.
Contrast this with Python:
a = 5
b = "hello"
print (a + b)
Python will display an error saying adding an integer (5) and a string ("hello") is unsupported, because it's smart enough to know numbers and text are not interchangeable. It's annoying to see code give errors, but it is much worse to have code do unexpected things silently. Especially when you are a beginner.
I also recommend avoiding languages which use a lot of short-hand or cryptic symbols. For example, this is a valid piece of C code, one of the most prolific programming languages in the world. The following single line is valid and compiles:
int main(int b,char**i){long long n=b,a=b^n,r=(a/b&a)>>4,y=atoi(*++i),_=(((a^n/b)*(y>>b)|y>>b)&r)|(a^r);printf("%.8s\n",(char*)&_);}
Do you really want to start with a mess like that? Probably not.
I mention all of this because I want to put my recommendation into context. I think people should start their programming journey these days by learning Python. I say this as someone who didn't learn Python until relatively late in my journey and as someone who avoided Python for a while due to the incompatibilities between version 2 and 3 of the language. It's not the hot, exciting language right now. What Python is though is beginner friendly. It offers structure, its syntax is not cryptic, and there are a mountain of add-on libraries which can be used with the language if you want to get into more complex projects. I also like that Python works virtually everywhere, from Linux to macOS, to Windows, to the BSDs. Usually Python code can be run on any platform with little to no modification. The Python website has some great tutorials to get you started too.
Once you learn the basic concepts of programming using a friendly language like Python, it will be much easier to pick up a second or third language if you need them.
Once you learn a programming language, whichever one you choose, you can start looking around for things to do. Maybe there is a tool you wish existed, but you cannot find? Maybe there is a bug in an application you use daily that you wish someone would fix? You could be that someone! Look around for tasks you wish you could automate or problems you want to fix and then look for ways to make things better - for yourself. Then you can share your projects and fixes with the world, so everyone benefits!
On a related note, if you're a young person looking to learn how to program (or an adult who wants to learn about coding games), then a great place to start is Scratch. The Scratch application is basically a sandbox where you can import images and then assign code and behaviours to those images, using a point-and-click environment. It's intended for people aged five and up, and it's a great way to learn coding logic and concepts. Scratch isn't intended for large programs or solving practical problems, it's more of a fun sandbox where you can create and experiment, using simple logic, loops, and visual elements.
As a bonus, Scratch doesn't allow its programs to write to the disk or connect to the network (at least with the default setup), so it's safe to let kids create whatever they want and it won't open your computer up to the risk of them accidentally deleting files, creating a virus, or making games which expose them to communications from strangers on the Internet.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Qubes OS 4.2.4
Qubes OS, a security-oriented operating system that uses Xen-based virtualization to create and manage isolated compartments called qubes, has been updated to version 4.2.4. Besides the usual security updates and bug fixes, the new version also upgrades the included Fedora template to version 41. "We are pleased to announce the stable release of Qubes OS 4.2.4. This patch release aims to consolidate all the security patches, bug fixes and other updates that have occurred since the previous stable release. Our goal is to provide a secure and convenient way for users to install (or reinstall) the latest stable Qubes release with an up-to-date ISO image. The ISO image and associated verification files are available on the downloads page. What's new in Qubes 4.2.4? All security updates to date; all bug fixes to date; included Fedora template upgraded from Fedora 40 to 41. For more information about the changes included in this version, see the Qubes OS 4.2 release notes and the full list of issues completed since the previous stable release." See the complete release announcement for further details.
Ubuntu 24.04.2
Florent Jacquet has announced the release of Ubuntu 24.04.2, a minor update to the 24.04 LTS series: "The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS (Long-Term Support) for its Desktop, Server, and Cloud products, as well as other flavours of Ubuntu with long-term support. As usual, this point release includes many updates and updated installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation. These include security updates and corrections for other high-severity bugs, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS." Additional information can be found in the release announcement and in the release notes.
NuTyX 25.02.5
NuTyX is a French Linux distribution (with multi-language support) with a custom package manager called "cards". The distribution's latest snapshot is version 25.02.5 which introduces a major new version of the cards package manager. "Spiky and me are happy to announce the new version of NuTyX 25.02.5 and cards 3.1.0. What's new: two separated init systems. From now on, init system are separated. One set of ISOs is available in each init system. Cards 3.0 - A year of development will have been necessary. No new runtime dependencies for cards. Packages are now signed with the ED25519 EdDSA algorithm. Hash is now via SHA512 instead of MD5. The archive name of a package is now easier to read. The /etc/cards.conf configuration file has been simplified. New commands (cards functions) are introduced: cards repo for metadata verification/generation; cards dependent for displaying a package's reverse dependencies; cards key for generating the key pair for signing packages." Additional details can be found on the distribution's news page.
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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: 3,164
- Total data uploaded: 46.6TB
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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) |
Do you know how to write software?
In our Questions and Answers section this week we talked about learning to write software. We're interested to know if you write software and, if so, do you contribute to any open source projects? Let us know which language you started with in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on Xfce 4.20 in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you write software?
| Yes - and contribute to open source projects: | 190 (9%) |
| Yes - but do not contribute to open source: | 484 (23%) |
| No - but I am learning: | 266 (13%) |
| No - not a programmer and not learning to code: | 1130 (55%) |
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| Website News |
Donations and Sponsors
Each month we receive support and kindness from our readers in the form of donations. These donations help us keep the web server running, pay contributors, and keep infrastructure like our torrent seed box running. We'd like to thank our generous readers and acknowledge how much their contributions mean to us.
This month we're grateful for the $125 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| J S | $50 |
| Jonathon B | $10 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| Brian59 | $5 |
| Chris S | $5 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| John B | $5 |
| Maki | $5 |
| surf3r57 | $5 |
| TaiKedz | $5 |
| Ernst-Michael E | $5 |
| Nick L | $3 |
| J.D. L | $2 |
| PB C | $2 |
| aRubes | $1 |
| Colton D | $1 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
| Kai D | $1 |
| Lars N | $1 |
| Shasheen E | $1 |
| William E | $1 |
| Ppb | $1 |
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 3 March 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 • GrapheneOS (by shep on 2025-02-24 01:32:15 GMT from United States)
I'm surprised iodeOS was the first review while GrapheneOS has been ignored. GrapheneOS was the ground breaker in regards to a De-Googled, security and privacy oriented system.
If the Pixel 6 does'nt have to be returned, I'd suggest evaulating GrapheneOS on the same phone.
2 • GrapheneOS (by Jesse on 2025-02-24 01:39:05 GMT from Canada)
@1: "I'm surprised iodeOS was the first review while GrapheneOS has been ignored.... If the Pixel 6 does'nt have to be returned, I'd suggest evaulating GrapheneOS on the same phone."
Funny you should put it that way. The reason iodeOS got reviewed was they offered to send in a test device. GrapheneOS was approached about sharing a demo device and declined.
3 • Iodé (reads more like "yoday") (by Bizbi on 2025-02-24 02:04:28 GMT from France)
Murena (which use Nextcloud for sync) is indeed doing a good work to offer a simple experience to list and block trackers. Hiding IP and location (GPS) may be more for experienced users.
But the way Iodé shows and allows to manage trackers is neat. The map, even more a gadget that a real insight to catch trackers, is a pretty good idea. I wonder how much it is relevant (because of CDN and the plenty of unreadable URLs) but it's playful.
Now both OSes offer a different solution to the same problem that are trackers (at least they become a problem once we know they exist, and how much there is). And given how much money databrokers are making (and it seems that only a infinitely small part is securing these data), supporting both projects are pretty fair.
4 • Do you write software? (by Ivan on 2025-02-24 02:09:17 GMT from Italy)
I must say that I have no advanced skills other than pure SHELL and at an amateur level.
I started scripting about 5 years ago, and my interest was (and is) the management and construction of AppImage packages.
Since the existing solutions did not satisfy me, I started studying a way to update them, and then how to intercept them from the sources and integrate/install them at system and local level. This is how I started writing "AM", a package manager in SHELL that I was pleased to note that RhinoLinux has recently integrated into its installer to manage AppImages.
In addition to this, I opened dozens of repositories for illustrative purposes, where I published and still publish AppImage packages for many mainstream programs (VLC, VirtualBox KVM, Bottles, Steam...) for a total of 70 AppImage packages.
My work in this sense has served as a spur for the original maintainers, to push them to create their own officially.
The first team I convinced was the Firedragon browser team (GarudaLinux), and a few months ago I was contacted by the GIMP team, which is about to release a working AppImage for version 3.
I also met many other people who share my passion and who have started working to improve the AppImage ecosystem, through increasingly new development methods.
I don't think it's something exceptional what I've done so far, but I hope it can help in the adoption and improvement of AppImage as a packaging format.
5 • AppImage (by Friar Tux on 2025-02-24 03:10:40 GMT from Canada)
@4 (Ivan) Thank you, sir. I have actually noticed that the AppImage format appears to be increasing. I love the concept of one file per program/App. It works wonderfully for portability. I do not use Flatpak or Snaps as they take a long time to download and most of the time do not use the OS themes. Nor can you simply bring them with you. I would love to see all Apps and programs in AppImage format. It would make Linux so much more user friendly. And it would eliminate so much duplication of effort. Developers could spend their time actually breaking new ground. Thank you again.
6 • GrapheneOS (by shep on 2025-02-24 03:19:55 GMT from United States)
@2. GrapheneOS strictly runs on donations and would not have a phone to provide for evaluations. That said, GrapheneOS is completely opensource. It iis a free download and install via the adb utility. They also provide an option for a scripted install for those who are not comfortable with the command line.
7 • upcoming iodeOS device (by J.D. Laub on 2025-02-24 03:44:04 GMT from United States)
iodeOS is going to be what is installed on the Brax3 privacy-oriented phone currently raising funds on indiegogo; expected delivery is 2025-03 (next month). Ubuntu Touch a.k.a. ubports is planned to run on the device, but users will have to install that themselves.
8 • Poll (by Friar Tux on 2025-02-24 04:32:10 GMT from Canada)
Oh, I forgot, the poll question. I picked "No, but I am learning." Not really any of the actual languages, but I'm tinkering with CSS. I've had to pick that up as I find, lately, that most of the OS/desktop themes are atrocious. I hate that ugly dark grey colour (#xx xx xx). And the "flat" themes are just as bad. So I've had to teach myself how to alter the CSS file to my liking. I was surprised at how easy it actually is. Which begs the question, if it IS that easy, why are all the present themes so bad?
9 • Iode (by Kruger on 2025-02-24 04:53:08 GMT from Australia)
In terms of privacy:
Graphene is best
CalyxOS is 2nd (DivestOS no longer exists)
IodeOS is 3rd
After perhaps Murena or Lineage
Last of course is stock Googlefied Android
10 • Graphene (by silberlocke on 2025-02-24 05:20:19 GMT from Germany)
@9 Mike Kuketz, a german actor, who wrotes and test about secure it and privacy, says:
Graphene
iode
.
.
.
CalyxOS
He tested it on 10. Januar 2023.
Link: https://www.kuketz-blog.de/android-grapheneos-calyxos-und-co-unter-der-lupe-custom-roms-teil1/
11 • @10 (by kruger on 2025-02-24 07:30:55 GMT from Australia)
Check the link for a real side by side comparison of Graphene, Calyx, Iode, /e/ Lineage and stock ROM
Link https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm
You will see Calyx is better than Iode but Graphene is best.
This analysis is from January 2025
12 • Poll options (by Arve Eriksson on 2025-02-24 07:30:57 GMT from Sweden)
I feel I've made a niche category of nerdery for myself. See, I only study programming (VERY SPORADICALLY!!!1) to learn to *read* code, not actually writing it myself. I do some translation/localisation work, and being able to understand what a bit of code that references a string does, or what context it is used in, has helped me decide what word to use on more than one occasion.
(TL;DR: I can haz option for 'I learn only in order to read'?)
13 • WRITING SOFTWARE (by rhtoras on 2025-02-24 07:41:53 GMT from Greece)
Jesse in the next post i would like to show us how to maintain a package in various linux distributions and not only linux but on bsd's. This is a process they still keep secret like they do not want people to be involved in distributions. Spread the secrets.
I am new to developemnts and in a learning process. Linmux made me wana try to program and lear the secrets and how to find a job . I am learning python because it is flexible, linux compatible and open source. I also saw jobs asking this skill. I am poarticullary in web development and django is great way to start the learning process because the steps are more clear than flask.
And for the people who realy like development there is alpaquita linux which is based on alpine linux but also works with glibc and is designed for java development. There is no better distribution for java developers, try and see.
Last but not least Adelie linux has a nice documentation on how to help the distribution and so void linux has a nice form to become contributor. Devuan and Pclinux os ask in the forum how to help. They search for people willing to help but there is not any guide on how to package debs or rpms. I don't for all distributions and how's the process. These are more clear imho. And last but not least dragora gnu linux has an incomplete documentation if anyone is willing to help ask the guys they are quite helpfull.
Have a nice week.
14 • writing software (by lincoln on 2025-02-24 08:48:59 GMT from Brazil)
After years of observing how students learn to program, I can say that the most important things are a good textbook and a lot of practice (nothing beats solving hundreds, thousands of exercises from competitive programming sites like HackerRank, Codeforces, LeetCode, Topcoder, BeeCrowd).
15 • Do you write software? (by James on 2025-02-24 11:17:26 GMT from United States)
No - not a programmer and not learning to code: 307 (52%)
I am a user, a very causal user too. I have no desire to learn code. That does not mean I cannot contribute. Both OS and software developers need supportive donations. You can donate to your favorite OS or software and you WILL BE contributing.
16 • Programming (by Jeffrey on 2025-02-24 12:16:33 GMT from Czechia)
First, programming and coding are different (though related) things; you can tell a lot about people's skills (or lack thereof) who keep using "code"/"coding" wrong.
Also, I think Scratch might be good for teaching some basic programming skills, but I also had a serious problem with it. During an online course, we had to make a simple Scratch program where a "sprite" was supposed to move in the programs window: for every arrow key press, it would move a few pixels in the appropriate direction. If I made a single compound if-then-elif-then... block to handle all four possible arrow keys, then it wouldn't work, but when I made it into four separate if-then blocks for each of the keys, it worked. Sorry, it doesn't make sense in any other (reasonable) programming language, so that's when I dumped Scratch to the proverbial bin where it belongs.
17 • GrapheneOS (by Jesse on 2025-02-24 13:12:21 GMT from Canada)
@6: "GrapheneOS strictly runs on donations and would not have a phone to provide for evaluations. That said, GrapheneOS is completely opensource. It iis a free download and install via the adb utility."
Yes, but this is missing the point. To review an operating system I first need a compatible device to test it on. It doesn't help me if GrapheneOS is available for free and has a nice installer when it doesn't run on any of my test devices, or ones available to me. For me to review a mobile OS, the project either needs to support devices I can get my hands on easily/cheaply or they need to supply a device. GrapheneOS doesn't do the former and was unable to do the latter.
18 • Learning to program and improve Linux (by Carson on 2025-02-24 13:31:25 GMT from Canada)
The python argument about mixing numbers and strings with math kinda falls apart when you get to the multiplication operator
19 • iodeOS (by BluPhenix316 on 2025-02-24 13:46:51 GMT from United States)
First time i've ever heard of this OS. I'm wondering if anyone else is like me and when they first saw this they thought it said inodeOS?
I thought it might have been a NAS OS.
20 • @17:iode then GrapheneOS (by vmc on 2025-02-24 17:05:10 GMT from United States)
Couldn't you take the Pixel 6 you received from iode and install GrapheneOS on it for testing, then reinstall it back to iode. compare the two that way.
21 • Learning to Code (by John on 2025-02-24 17:10:41 GMT from Canada)
@Jesse - so what does your line of C code do? I was curious and pasted it into a couple of online C Compilers, but it fails with errors:
int main(int b,char**i){long long n=b,a=b^n,r=(a/b&a)>>4,y=atoi(*++i),_=(((a^n/b)*(y>>b)|y>>b)&r)|(a^r);printf("%.8s\n",(char*)&_);}
22 • GrapheneOS (by Jesse on 2025-02-24 18:32:18 GMT from Canada)
@20: "Couldn't you take the Pixel 6 you received from iode and install GrapheneOS on it for testing, then reinstall it back to iode. compare the two that way."
Yes, I can _now_. The post I was responding to was asking why iodeOS got reviewed _before_ GrapheneOS. ("I'm surprised iodeOS was the first review while GrapheneOS has been ignored")
As I was explaining above, I couldn't review GrapheneOS first because I didn't have hardware which would be compatible with it _prior_ to iodeOS sending me a phone to try out _their_ OS.
I was also pointing out GrapheneOS wasn't being ignored, as the earlier comment suggested, I'd already talked to that project about trying to do a review on their OS, but they couldn't supply a device.
23 • iodéOS Camera App (by Kairuku on 2025-02-24 18:33:41 GMT from United States)
I've been using /e/OS for about 5 years, initially on a Moto X4 and later on a Fairphone 4. I was not favorably impressed by the photos I could get on either phone, until Murena replaced the /e/OS generic camera app for the Fairphone 4 (and 5) with a native Fairphone camera app. So I'm wondering whether iodéOS includes the native Pixel camera app (which, it seems, most reviewers really liked) or a generic one.
24 • naming your project or product (by Gosh Gollied on 2025-02-24 19:10:38 GMT from New Zealand)
Yoda but softer, iode, what? Did I also spot an umlaut-i in there - wtf!
If half your effort is tied up explaining how to pronounce the name, pick a new name!
JIF or GIF chaos all over again.
Is is Lean-Ugs, Leenoox or Lie-nix?
Anyway good on them to send a sample. I wonder if any phone not running Apple or Android would even work in my location - would the providers freak out or allow the phone to operate?
25 • Phone OS (by Jesse on 2025-02-24 19:29:50 GMT from Canada)
@24: "I wonder if any phone not running Apple or Android would even work in my location - would the providers freak out or allow the phone to operate?"
I often see this sort of question and I'm curious where it comes from? As far as I know there aren't any phone carriers which filter network access based on phone OS. How would they even enforce that since, at least in North America, phone companies are considered common carriers and can't filter out content/devices.
26 • Escape from Google (by Snake Plissken on 2025-02-24 20:13:11 GMT from United States)
For de-googling phones I settled on leos-gsi.de over everything else: iodé, Murena, LineageOS, or vanilla Android Open Source Project (AOSP). Thanks to harvey186 for LeOS.
What iodé lacks is (1) official support for Generic System Images (GSI) and (2) full de-googling by default.
(1) Android was long ago refactored to abstract the hardware layer from the OS, allowing one GSI to run on many devices. However the FOSS mobile world has not taken this opportunity. If you want to run GrapheneOS, for example, you need a Google Pixel device, of all things. There is no GrapheneOS GSI support to my knowledge.
As for iodé, it is ambivalent: "We don’t actually intend to give a lot of support to the GSI, nor make original development on it. This can more be viewed as a gift to the community...This is for the starting point, nothing being set in stone."
https://community.iode.tech/t/editable-list-gsi-support/2919/7
Meanwhile indy developers working on Murena GSI abandoned ship just last month.
https://community.e.foundation/t/unofficial-gsi-android-13/63791/51
(2) Perhaps hard de-googling iodé is possible with iodé network filtering, but I'd rather have an OS-wide default configuration already de-googled. The only such FOSS option is LeOS. Others use a clone of Google Play Services called MicroG, which is not fully de-googled, and AOSP certainly not.
https://xdaforums.com/t/aosp-12-1-leos-ungoogled-gsi.4356501/post-88660651
27 • First language (by Slurp on 2025-02-24 20:48:55 GMT from United States)
I started with a little MAD, but not much. I quickly moved on to Fortran IV.
28 • @22 and @26 GrapheneOS (by Keith S. on 2025-02-24 20:56:54 GMT from United States)
Jesse, I really appreciate your review of iode. I've been running GrapheneOS for four years on three successive Pixel models as my daily driver and love it. I hope that you will find time to review it now that you have a Pixel. It is super easy to install.
Snake, I have been working hard for several years to entirely escape Google. I won't use Apple products, so until I get back to the point where I can entirely ditch having a smartphone, I'm stuck with Android which is still basically just Google (unless you can audit the code yourself I guess).
Graphene uses Pixels because they have the only hardware that has a secure core for installation. I know it's often given as an incredulous objection to using Graphene, but used Pixels are relatively plentiful and cheap, so you don't even have to let Google know you own one before installing Graphene. And they are de-googled by default, but you can add sandboxed Google Play and Play Services and Google Service Framework if needed. They are sandboxed, so even though you give up some data to Google if you must use them, it is far less than on any other Android device.
And, with a little extra effort, Graphene offers additional workspaces and services which allow for even more control over using apps that require Play and Play Services. A good guide is given here:
https://sideofburritos.com/blog/grapheneos-how-i-install-apps/
29 • Programming Poll (by follyfarmer on 2025-02-24 22:50:07 GMT from Australia)
No option for retired Programmer. I got my first Programming job in 1974 thats fifty years ago.
30 • iodé subscriptions (by Jacob Kauffmann on 2025-02-24 23:15:37 GMT from United States)
I reviewed iodé myself back in 2022, which was before they open-sourced their firewall app. I'm glad they ended up open-sourcing it, since it being proprietary back then really undermined the privacy/security usefulness.
It's very interesting to see that they're offering paid subscriptions for some of the firewall app's features now. I wouldn't have pinned it as a polished enough experience to necessarily warrant a recurring payment, and I don't see anything in the screenshots that would change that analysis. I'm also surprised they don't include a year of subscription or something with the purchase of a phone. This all makes me think they're seeing a lot more people installing iodé on their own used devices instead of purchasing used or new phones directly from iodé, which would necessitate a different stream of revenue than hardware. (I just checked to make sure they didn't re-close-source the Blocker app, and it appears to still be open-source on their self-hosted GitLab instance, with a note that it's only intended to be used within iodéOS.)
I wonder what "ethical social media" means in the context of their parental controls, and whether the ability to block all social media (and not just "unethical" or non-free social media) is present. If I was a parent wanting to restrict my kids' access to social media, "free" social media such as Mastodon would be just as much of a problem (if not more) than the mainstream "non-free" stuff.
31 • GrapheneOS Caveats (by Snake Plissken on 2025-02-25 00:55:04 GMT from United States)
@28 Keith, I have done my homework, and have also worked in firmware development for a living. Security claims of GrapheneOS have their critics, among them, the JaguarOS dev.
https://www.reddit.com/r/degoogle/comments/18unfbx/murena_2_thoughts/
"Pixels, by definition CANNOT be secure, because unlike other OEMs, Google has total control over...processors...Hence, unlike the other OEMs, who get [firmware] binaries only (no source code) from chip makers, Google could insert in its processors' [firmware] code the same spying garbage that it inserts in Gapps, except that Gapps need Android to run, and chips do not need Android at all....[Graphene's developer claims] that he 'fixes' major Android flaws, and that AOSP takes his commits....In fact, there are very few interactions shown on Google gerrit where they respectfully decline his few commits....There are many more [examples] including his false claims about 'sand boxing' Gapps etc (I wrote about those before)."
@All Until true FOSS-firmware phones exit their beta phase, and then ALSO drop in price, a nice if little-explored option is a cheap RPi with add-on modem boards. Several DIY projects online show how to build a semi-portable RPi phone. Granted ARM is not FOSS per se, but it's better than Googlechips.
32 • No Such Sandbox for Android Apps (by Snake Plissken on 2025-02-25 02:15:24 GMT from United States)
Never mind chips. Here's the referenced commentary on software-sandboxing GApps, or really anything from Google Play Store. Even the Signal app could be compromised. (Myself, I prefer SimpleX.chat sideloaded by adb, another story.)
https://www.reddit.com/r/JaguarOS/comments/1f1qz3q/fake_gmscompat_and_sandboxing/
Keith's link on "How I Install Apps" is crazy complex just to stop Google from data collection (tor, VPNs, fake accounts, etc.). The best answer is not to use GStuff at all.
33 • Do I know how to write software? (by penguinx86 on 2025-02-25 03:29:34 GMT from United States)
I learned programming in college, Basic, Cobol, RPG, Pascal, Fortran and Assembly language. This was back in the day with mainframes and dumb terminals. I started learning C, but gave up when mainframes, dumb terminals and UNIX workstations all went away after Y2K. But my programming knowledge did help me get sysadmin jobs and for writing some shell scripts. I sadly answered NO to the survey question, because it wasn't really called Software back then. Now I'm retired and I'll leave writing Software up to the younger generations.
34 • AT&T prevents some devices from using its network (by J.D. Laub on 2025-02-25 04:50:34 GMT from United States)
@25: "in North America, phone companies are considered common carriers and can't filter out content/devices."
From what I've read, AT&T won't allow certain devices on their network, be it direct or via a reseller like Consumer Cellular. I don't know the mechanism they use to prevent certain devices. Example: in the indiegogo page for the BraX3, under the FAQ tab, there's an entry discussing how AT&T hasn't yet signed off on that new device: "Q: Will BraX3 be compatible with AT&T network in the US? A: [...] We have filed the necessary documents for approval, and we expect to get official approval from them soon so we can guarantee the service."
35 • Banking software on rooted devices (by Karsten Pfeiffer on 2025-02-25 11:32:20 GMT from Germany)
As two factor authentification is more and more common and even necessary these days a de-Googled device is no option for me if my banking software is not working. I once tried LineageOS and eventually gave up, as my bank would not accept a rooted / uncertified / not trustworthy / unknown device (or whatever you like to call it). With some lengthy tricks I got it to work only to redo this every time something got updated. Maybe it also depends on the bank (and its App) and I just was unlucky.
I do not like to carry around two phones: one to feel safe and the other to do important jobs for me (like accessing my bank account).
Sad but true: I returned to Google with my Pixel 6 eventually.
@Jesse It would be nice, if you could also evaluate these aspects in the future or write about your experience with Murena :-)
36 • Banking etc (by Jesse on 2025-02-25 11:48:44 GMT from Canada)
@35: "@Jesse It would be nice, if you could also evaluate these aspects in the future or write about your experience with Murena"
It is completely non applicable in my case. There isn't a business (bank or otherwise) in my experience that does not just send an email or text message for 2FA. I have never needed a specific app, let alone one on a non-rooted phone, to access anything. I don't think that would even be legal in Canada.
37 • Banking (by Jesse on 2025-02-25 11:53:32 GMT from Canada)
@35: "I once tried LineageOS and eventually gave up, as my bank would not accept a rooted / uncertified / not trustworthy / unknown device (or whatever you like to call it). "
As I mentioned in the review, iode devices are not rooted. You should be able to run any apps you like on your device that requires the system to not be rooted.
38 • Banking software on rooted devices, part 2 (by Karsten Pfeiffer on 2025-02-25 12:07:11 GMT from Germany)
@Jesse:
Maybe I should have said, that my banking App is not working at all.
I have the impression that bank apps and streaming apps are mostly relying on the google integrity checking, so most of them do not work on LineageOS. Once I unlocked my bootloader I can't pass device integrity anymore. Maybe there are several ways banks evaluate the phone as *some* (maybe even most) banking apps work. This is little comfort for me if my banking app does not.
Yes, I could use the bank's website in Firefox, as well as look up the weather, news, etc.
But the whole point for having Apps is to have a streamlined, focused tool for just one thing: bank, emails, messanger, weather forecast, games, music and movie streaming (is this not also the idea of LINUX, on program does one thing right?). I do not want to use Firefox with 25 open tabs. But no offense, I understand that this is a viable solution for some and that is totally fine... :-)
39 • Apps (by Jesse on 2025-02-25 13:22:26 GMT from Canada)
@38: "But the whole point for having Apps is to have a streamlined, focused tool for just one thing: bank, emails, messanger, weather forecast, games, music and movie streaming (is this not also the idea of LINUX, on program does one thing right?)"
It's true that part of the Unix Philosophy is doing one thing and doing one thing well.
However, the Unix Philosophy also calls for programs to use open standards, be portable, and usable (not locked down). I'd argue that apps that don't work on rooted devices or which lock you into an ecosystem are the exact opposite of the Unix Philosophy and are counter to Linux culture.
40 • This Week's Poll Question (by Slappy McGee on 2025-02-25 13:50:01 GMT from United States)
This poll query is one of the most interesting/useful I've seen here, with regard to readership of Distrowatch. We'll see how it pans out over the week, but for now it appears that about half of respondents do not code and do not plan to. The other half are spread out among those who are learning, already do it, or plan to etc.
I've always wondered about this, thus one of my "background" reasons for frequenting this site. Good to see it's a range of Linux knowledgeable people. It's obviously smart to go to Linux, but some of us are not as smart about Linux as others may be.
Of course knowing code does not necessarily mean coding for just Linux, but you get my drift.
41 • Writing Software (by Robert on 2025-02-25 15:44:55 GMT from United States)
No, not really. Just some shell scripts for personal use. And bs-ing my way through some Lua for Factorio modding.
Many years ago I took some C++ classes and a Java class. Decided it wasn't for me. I kind of liked C++, except for the part where you'd miss a semicolon somewhere but the compiler error until would be something completely unrelated like 200 lines later so it was impossible to find the actual problem. I hope compiler errors are better these days, but they were useless back then.
Java just made no sense to me at all. I got nothing out of that class.
So anyway, I don't do any real coding these days and don't have the skills to do anything remotely complex. I would kind of like to pick it up again (maybe Rust or Python?) but have no concrete plans to do so.
42 • Banking Apps and De-Googling (by Snake Plissken on 2025-02-25 22:24:16 GMT from United States)
@Karsten Speaking as a developer, I'd rather trust a hardened Firefox fork, or vanilla Firefox, than a one-off banking app from an in-house IT team that may be a sole developer. Browsers have dozens. Best advice here is to use the bank's website interface.
However, here are related links, one from the developer of LeOS.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Magisk/comments/107cz62/tutorial_make_banking_apps_work_on_rooted_phones/
https://xdaforums.com/t/guide-howto-use-banking-apps-on-your-rooted-device.4530801/
https://community.e.foundation/t/howto-installing-banking-apps/5875
If you don't want to root your phone or flash a modded Android, there are still many ways to de-google it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/degoogle/comments/srieo1/privacy_on_android_without_resetting_phone_custom/?rdt=51241
Google Android employs scare tactics to keep us cattle in our box stalls, frightened of green pasture. Many scare methods are very silly.
I have an unrooted, off-the-shelf, stock Android device on which I disabled all GApps and Google Play Services. The device beeps endless scare notices about how the phone will not work, but it does. I can call, text, etc. What Google has made hard to do is shut off its scare alerts. A switch exists to shut off Google Play Services availability scare alerts, but, somehow, the switch does not operate! I can see it, but not use it. Surprise, surprise.
Having run websites before, I know from weblogs how aggressive Google is. Their bots are everywhere and disrespect robots.txt.
Here's another example. Someone recently took photos at a social event. Within two days, those photos suddenly appeared on the Google Maps photo list for that location. Nobody put them there. Google data harvesting is nuts.
I do not trust Google "services" to "protect" me. Review the slides from Snowden about how disabled web certificates functioned inside Google's network. That massive breach was arranged with inside help, in my opinion, as I think as Apple's "goto fail" so-called "bug" or rather "feature," depending which side of the game you're on. Our true threat model is not hackers, but OEMs.
43 • Android Privacy (by Kruger on 2025-02-25 23:38:37 GMT from Australia)
@42
sure you can uninstall some apps on a bog-standard phone from Samsung, Moto etc, but you cannot uninstall Google apps, only disable.
Anyone who actually does care about privacy will go out of their way and use a privacy focused Android OS, which means they will go to the trouble of finding a phone that is boot loader unlockable, download the ROM, flash it, and not have to worry about whether or not some Google blob is still phoning home every few minutes delivering data.
>>I have an unrooted, off-the-shelf, stock Android device on which I disabled all GApps and Google Play Services.
This is like saying you care about privacy but still use Window with "privacy enabled" knowing full well that even by enabling (rather disabling) all the Windows spy features, it still sends a ton of data back to MS.
Link: https://umatechnology.org/windows-10-sends-data-to-microsoft-despite-of-privacy-setting-set-not-to/
If you care about privacy, just do the needful and use Graphene or Calyx or even Iode. Don't gaslight yourself into thinking that a standard Android phone can give you privacy just by disabling a few apps.
44 • Correct You Are on Android Privacy (by Snake Plissken on 2025-02-26 00:46:38 GMT from United States)
@43 You misread me; we agree; I use LeOS. And I would never allow a banking app to dictate my choice of phone or mobile OS. I presented halfway privacy options for those who might not be bold enough for flashing or rooting, or who get scared by silly Google warnings. With root all things are possible, and adb still does much without it, far more than stock Android screens. I agree that halfway measures are not enough for hyper-aggressive Google/Apple/MS data harvesting. That was my thesis: even alternative mobile OSes may not be good enough.
45 • Thank you! (by a humble hobbit on 2025-02-26 13:32:09 GMT from Chile)
@4 Man, you're awesome!!! I really like Appimages as a concept over flatpak or snap, I always though they are neat, you just download and execute them like little books, no need for a second package manager for an alternative set of software.
Thank you for selflessly helping spread a little piece of software that I enjoy using, that's the embodiment of what I love about the open source community and why I want to learn to program.
46 • Please add a tag to this distro. (by mintyonionbreath on 2025-02-27 04:42:09 GMT from The Netherlands)
Love this website. Please NEVER redesign it, as modern-style websites are so much less functional. I am leaving this note just to mention that I am surprised that the SparkyLinux distro does not show up in the list when a user is looking for a lightweight distro, because for whatever reason, it doesn't have the "Old Computers" tag. It should. It is even mentioned in the description that it is intended as a lightweight distro, and it is.
47 • Learning Programming (by SiriusBacon on 2025-02-27 07:56:13 GMT from Germany)
As someone who tried learning programming with Python i can say it didn't work for me (personally). There was too much abstraction for my taste, i felt like i was just copying commands without understanding what was happening. I enjoyed more "manual" languages like C/C++ a lot more.
Again, this was for *learning*, not actually creating a program. I agree that if your goal is to start working on an applicatoin as soon as possible, Python is a good choice, it just wasn't for me as a beginner because i wanted a lower level of abstraction.
48 • Murena (by Hrolf on 2025-02-27 08:24:29 GMT from United States)
Murena - I have only used the free murena.io (appears to be nextcloud?) service via web browser for secondary email, etc.
I do not have murena installed on any phone. I was thinking about it so i tried the free web services to test it.
Ater researching I would avoid Murena for these reasons:
- Murena web services went down completely for days and weeks.
And for several months as far as the files storage. . there was no access to the files at all.
In fact they only recently sent me a 'file recovery download link' @ 1/2025.
(I really did not care much as nothing there was important. But it was inconvenient.
And since it was / is apparently a nextcloud instance this is baffling. I mean how do you lose a nextcloud instance?)
So as far as the backend no, I would never trust Murena to be reliable. There seems to be something wrong with them. I am not sure if it is the company which is actually a French company and is not located not in Finland / Suomi as I had thought altough they claim their servers are.?.
Also I live in the U.S. and from all reviews I have read only say these alternate OS for phones (for a Fairphone, etc.) only really work reliably in EU or elsewhere NOT in the U.S. due to the Carriers.
So as much as I hate Google I think we in the U.S. are still trapped here ;/ by the Moguls.
49 • USA OK (by Snake Plissken on 2025-02-27 18:52:46 GMT from United States)
@48 Fairphone ships to USA with /e/OS preinstalled. I also mentioned DIY RPi cellphones. Bad reviews may have involved beta hardware, which is another topic. Software is software. Google itself runs AOSP, the foundation of most "alternative" mobile OSes.
50 • Learning to program and improve Linux (by Cornel Panceac on 2025-02-28 08:32:13 GMT from Romania)
Hi Jesse,
Thank you for the nice article.
Still, I don't think comparing ugly obfuscated C code with ... nothing is fair.
Just because C allows you to do unusual things like that line it does not mean you have to do it.
You can write that line like this :
int main(int b,char**i){long long n=b,a=b^n,r=(a/b&a)>>4,y=atoi(*++i),_=(((a^n/b)*(y>>b)|y>>b)&r)|(a^r);printf("%.8s\n",(char*)&_);}
or you can write it like this:
int main(int b,char**i)
{
long long n=b,
a=b^n,
r=(a/b&a)>>4,
y=atoi(*++i),_=(((a^n/b)*(y>>b)|y>>b)&r)|(a^r);
printf("%.8s\n",(char*)&_);
}
Now let's compare it to the Python equivalent (as per ChatGPT so please let me know if something is not correct):
import sys
def main():
b = len(sys.argv) # Argument count
if b < 2:
print("Usage: python script.py ")
return
n = b
a = b ^ n
r = (a // b & a) >> 4
y = int(sys.argv[1]) # Convert the first argument to an integer
_ = (((a ^ n // b) * (y >> b) | y >> b) & r) | (a ^ r)
# Interpret the result as bytes and print the first 8 characters
print(_.to_bytes(8, byteorder='little').decode('utf-8', errors='ignore')[:8])
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
I would say that in this particular case C code is simpler.
*
Now, this does not mean Python is actually worse to learn as the first language, it's just about this particular example.
I believe there are some out there who would prefer C as their first language, and others that would prefer Python et c. .
Maybe trying various language and found the one that fits you best is the way to go.
Let me know if i'm just too biased towards C and against Python ;)
51 • Carriers disallowing some devices (by Slappy McGee on 2025-02-28 15:14:59 GMT from United States)
@34 Yeah the device manufacturers themselves used to do the disallowing, remembering the exclusivity of iPhones on AT&T, and of course the Blackberry RIM dealio. But the carriers themselves throwing up nulls on devices now days seems a bit strange and counter productive to those carriers. I know too little about why they're doing that, and took notice of the quote there about "necessary paperwork" etc.
Number of Comments: 51
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Damn Small Linux was a business card size (50MB) live CD Linux distribution, based on Debian and Knoppix. After a 12 year break (from 2012 to 2024), the Damn Small Linux (DSL) project was relaunched. The distribution is now based on Debian and antiX with the goal of fitting on live media 700MB or smaller (in order to be usable in CD-ROM drives). Despite its minuscule size it strives to have a functional and easy to use desktop. Damn Small Linux has a nearly complete desktop suite, including web browsers, office software, an e-mail client, PDF viewer, media players, and FTP/SFTP client.
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