 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1116, 7 April 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 14th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Ideally, software makes our computers run smoothly, efficiently, and in a way that is easy to use. In a perfect world, our computers will also be engaging, maybe even fun to use. This week we shift our focus from operating systems to an interesting and fun piece of technology called the Sense HAT. The Sense HAT, and its related software, provide a computing add-on which can be used with single-board machines like the Raspberry Pi. Jesse Smith has been experimenting with the Sense HAT and reports on the device's features, his experiences, and shares some programs for playing with this tiny device. Do you have any computing add-ons that are fun to play with? Let us know about them in this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section we report on FreeBSD providing a better experience for laptop users while the openSUSE project pushes many software updates to its Tumbleweed branch. We also share news that Fedora has a new Project Leader who will take over from Matthew Miller in June while UBports is testing VoLTE on its mobile operating system. Then our Questions and Answers section focuses on smartphones, the Android family of operating systems, and ROMs. Plus we are pleased to share details on this past week's releases and list the torrents we are seeding. Finally, we are pleased to welcome the RefreshOS project to our database. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: Trying on a Sense HAT
- News: FreeBSD is getting better on laptops, openSUSE unleashes several updates on Tumbleweed, Fedora has a new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE
- Questions and answers: Android, ROMs, and the gap between laptops and smartphones
- Released last week: GoboLinux 017.01, PorteuX 2.0, Tails 6.14.1, Wifislax 4.0
- Torrent corner: GoboLinux, Linux Lite, Tails
- Opinion poll: Do you have any fun single-board computer add-ons?
- New additions: RefreshOS
- New distributions: Quirinux
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Trying on a Sense HAT
These days I often feel as though the technology industry has moved farther along the spectrum from what is fun and interesting toward what is flashy and will sell. Even large portions of the open source community are increasingly geared toward appealing to sales and buzz words instead of what will be useful or educational.
This week I would like to turn attention to a project which appeals to me, or perhaps more specifically, to the teenage version me who was fascinated by computers and what weird tricks I could make them do. Younger me was enthralled by the creative sandbox a computing environment provided and I recently got to put aside my practical, professional side and rekindle some of that spark. The conduit to my experience was a device called the Sense HAT.
For those of you unfamiliar with the name Sense HAT, it's a computer accessory about the size of a small playing card. The card attaches to a single-board computer, such as a Raspberry Pi, via GPIO pins. The HAT contains an array of sensors which can detect light, temperature, humidity, magnetic direction, air pressure, and acceleration. The HAT is also equipped with a small LED display (8x8 pixels in size) and a tiny joystick about the size of my smallest fingernail.
The Sense HAT retails for around $30 USD and is designed to snap into place on compatible single-board computers. As with many Raspberry Pi add-ons, the HAT is accompanied by a Python library which makes it possible to quickly and easily access the HAT's features with a few lines of Python code.
The Sense HAT
(full image size: 128kB, resolution: 1280x601 pixels)
Back in December I'd picked up a Raspberry Pi 5, the latest (at the time) version of the Pi computer, and was enjoying using it as a livingroom computer, casual gaming platform, and media entertainment centre. I thought the Sense HAT would be a fun add-on for the Pi and so began my adventure in trials and errors, tears and triumphs.
Getting started
Before I purchased the Sense HAT, I had one naggi9ng concern. Specifically that the HAT was designed for earlier versions of the Raspberry Pi; most of the documentation I found for the Sense HAT referred the Raspberry Pi 3. The Pi 5 I have is very similar in size and shape, but there are some key differences. One is the height of its components, the Pi 5 is a bit taller in places. The other is CPU power. My old Raspberry Pi 2 shipped with a 4-core, single-thread, 32-bit CPU that topped out at 0.9GHz. If I ran a heavy computing task on the Pi 2, with no cooling or heat sink, I could place my finger directly on the CPU. The CPU would be slightly warm, but comfortable to the touch.
Pi 5 with fan
(full image size: 103kB, resolution: 1024x683 pixels)
The Pi 5, in contrast, features a 4-core, single-thread, 64-bit CPU that tops out at 2.4GHz and it will quickly get uncomfortably hot to touch, even when the system is mostly idle. So while my Pi 2 always ran with no cooling gear attached to it, my Pi 5 was sitting beneath a small fan and a heatsink. You can see what that looks like in this Raspberry Pi article. My temperature information was close to the data in the article, both with and without the fan. All of this made me wonder: would the Sense HAT and fan both sit on top of a Pi 5?
I could not find a straight answer on-line, but did manage to find a shop selling the Sense HAT (version 2) with support columns, a GPIO connector, and extra screws. It looked like this was designed to allow the HAT to sit above other attachments, or at least provide some space between the Pi itself and the HAT for better airflow.
When the HAT arrived I soon discovered that the dimensions of the columns were not suited to fitting the HAT over the Pi's fan. The columns were too short. However, I worked around this by using the extra screws. I screwed the columns into the base of the Pi, then used more screws to extend the height of the columns, then placed the HAT on top of these - at least on one side. On the other side the Sense HAT sat on top of the extra GPIO connector, which sat atop the Pi's GPIO pins. It took some adjustments with the extra screws, but I eventually had a level HAT sitting over my fan, and plugged into my Pi 5.
My celebration was short lived for, once I powered on the Pi, I found the Sense HAT was not detected. This launched about an hour and a half's worth of troubleshooting as I waded through ideas, forum posts, tips, and documentation. I made sure my GPIO connector was snugly fitted at both ends, I made sure the HAT's lights came on briefly when powered up, then discovered I needed to enable a service called I2C. (There is no I2C package or background service, which caused some confusion.) I eventually discovered I2C is a kernel module which can be enabled through the raspi-config tool, under the "Interface Options" menu, though didn't find this information in any of the documentation for the Sense HAT.
At this point test programs recognized there was a device attached, but I was unable to send information to, or receive information from, the HAT. After reading several troubleshooting guides, adjusting my configuring, and a handful of reboots, I finally decided to remove my Pi's fan and plug the Sense HAT in without its GPIO connector. This worked! The HAT lit up on boot, the I2C test tools detected it, and I could send calibration commands to the HAT. However, this left me with two new problems.
First, without a fan and heatsink attached to the Pi, it got warm quickly. I ended up rigging a makeshift heat sink for the CPU, elevating the Pi 5, and placing a fan under it to disperse the extra heat. My second issue was the support columns for the HAT, which had been too short to hold up the HAT over the fan, were too short to fit under the HAT when it was plugged directly into the Pi. This meant the side away from the GPIO pins had nothing to rest on and it would tilt to the side until I found something else to place under the sagging side of the HAT. (In brief, the Sense HAT itself worked, but the GPIO bridge, the columns, and the screws which came with it were of no use when attaching the HAT to a Pi 5.)
Eventually, I had the HAT in place, a fan under the Pi 5 to cool it, and the Pi was communicating with the HAT. I could get started writing code to interact with the HAT and see what it would do.
Well, there was one more step, I had to run the command "sudo apt-get install sense-hat" to install the necessary Python package so I could get started using the Sense HAT's Python API.
Now the fun begins!
I was pleased to discover that the Sense HAT was as easy to work with through software as it was difficult to get functioning with my hardware. There are several guides to writing Python code for the Sense HAT, along with the easy to follow API I mentioned in the previous paragraph. I soon found displaying a message on the Sense HAT's LED screen took just three lines of code:
from sense_hat import SenseHat
sense = SenseHat()
sense.show_message("Hello World!")
Drawing an image on the screen in different colours and waiting until the user pressed Ctrl-C to clear the screen was under 20 lines of Python code. Detecting and displaying the room temperature, while varying the colour of the text based on the temperature, was only about 30 lines of code. Detecting what was being done with the joystick and changing the colour of the LED screen to match was under 40 lines of code. Finding which way the Pi is facing, relative to north, and displaying this information on the HAT's screen was under ten lines of code.
These were fun little tests to confirm the HAT's sensors were working and that I had an understanding of how Python could be used to communicate with the Sense HAT. Then I began to explore a bit more, trying out slightly more involved combinations. For example, I created a night light program which would display a shifting spectrum of light when the room was dark. Perhaps the most fun I had with the HAT was writing Conway's Game of Life which results in pseudo-random patterns of lights being displayed on the screen.
I made a timer app which would accept a number of seconds on the command line, display a spectrum of colours on the LED screen, and then shut off the lights in a spiral pattern as the time ran out.
In an effort to create something more interactive, I wrote Tic Tac Toe in Python for the HAT. The player can use the joystick to select a square to mark, then the computer makes a move, and the game continues until one player wins (by marking three boxes in a row) or all the squares are full. Even with the computer player trying to act with some sense of tactics, the code was still less than 500 lines long.
In short, I had a good deal of fun reacquainting myself with Python (it had been several years since I last worked on a Python project) and I found working with the HAT's sensors and controls surprisingly easy. I ended up making a small repository of Sense HAT programs, mostly because I had trouble finding any examples of simple programs for the board elsewhere.
There was one weird quirk I ran into while testing the HAT's joystick. The Raspberry Pi OS distribution detects the Sense HAT's joystick and treats input from it as though the joystick were arrow keys and the Enter key on a keyboard. This feature appears to always be active. Which means if we have a terminal window open and press the joystick Up, the terminal will display the previous command we typed, just as though we'd pressed the Up arrow on the keyboard. Pressing the joystick button acts like tapping Enter. This can be useful when holding the Pi and testing programs as it negates the need for switching over to a keyboard. However, it also means if we were using the joystick for something else it will be constantly sending up/down/left/right/Enter signals to whichever window is currently active on the Pi's desktop.
I discovered this quirk while testing my Tic Tac Toe game and, on the HAT, my game was working as expected, but on the Pi's desktop random commands were being run from my Bash history.
Thoughts after a week
After I spend a week with a project, a distribution, or a device I like to ask a few questions:
- Does it fulfill its purpose?
- Is this useful for me?
- Is this likely to be useful for other people?
First, does the Sense HAT fulfill its purpose and stated goals. Yes, absolutely. While the connector and support pieces which shipped alongside the Sense HAT were defective or unsuited to the purpose, the Sense HAT itself worked beautifully once it was plugged directly into my Pi 5. The device snaps into place, all of its sensors and controls worked, and the API documentation was top notch. The Raspberry Pi OS platform I was running was not set up to automatically work with the Sense HAT and I had to install a few packages and enable the I2C kernel module. However, with those tasks completed, the Sense HAT provided me with a great range of sensors to use and some great (if tiny) interactive controls.
The HAT is inexpensive, can detect several aspects of its environment, and we can interact with it using just a handful of lines of Python.
As to whether the Sense HAT will be useful for other people, I tend to think so. This isn't just a toy (though it can be used to make games), the Sense HAT has a range of practical uses. It can be used as a night light, as I demonstrated, as a visual timer, as a tiny gaming console, and as a compass. I know several people who keep greenhouses or indoor gardens and this sort of tool would be great for them as the HAT could detect temperature and humidity. The HAT could then display this information on the screen, flash an alert, or log its data periodically. I know someone who maintains a home weather station and this sort of tool would be great for them as the HAT could detect weather and the Raspberry Pi OS distribution could both log and serve the data over a homemade web portal.
On-line I've found examples of people creating simple video games, reflex testers, carpentry levels, and environment monitors. It's definitely a flexible little device.
As to whether the Sense HAT is useful for me, I'd say that it is. Apart from the mini projects I mentioned above, I have plans to turn the HAT's joystick into a media controller, possibly create some clones of games I've played in the past, and maybe have the HAT trigger a series of actions when it detects lights turning on in the morning. There are a lot of possibilities.
My greatest praise for the Sense HAT though is not for its usefulness, but for its engagement. This is a fun device to use. Its ability to interact with the environment is inspiring, it has resulted in the most fun week of coding I've enjoyed in years. Not just because the coding was relatively easy, but there were immediate, visible results. The Sense HAT helps programmers bridge the divide between the virtual world and the physical one, opening up more possibilities and expanding the coder's sandbox from being just inside the computer's memory to being part of our physical world. That is, for me, exciting and makes me happy I decided to buy my Pi a HAT.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
FreeBSD is getting better on laptops, openSUSE unleashes several updates on Tumbleweed, Fedora has a new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE
The FreeBSD Foundation has published a report documenting progress in getting FreeBSD working better on laptop computers through the Laptop Support and Usability Project. "Highlights include: Laptop Sleep - Sleep using S0ix and s2idle low power states. A new power management driver (acpi_spmc) has been developed that can understand device power requirements and help laptops enter deeper sleep states. Faster wi-fi rates - wi-fi 4 (802.11n) and wi-fi 5 (802.11ac) support is now available to test for data rates at high throughput and very high throughput on modern iwlwi-fi (AX2xx and BExxx) chipsets. Aiding use of Linux wi-fi drivers - To better support Linux wi-fi drivers, work on the translation layer - the Linux Kernel Programming Interface (LinuxKPI) implementation in FreeBSD - has been ongoing. The LinuxKPI layer is an interface that provides API-compatible implementations of many Linux kernel interfaces, greatly simplifying the adaptation of Linux driver source to FreeBSD." More complete details are provided in the project's GitHub repository.
* * * * *
The openSUSE team have pushed several new package versions of key components into the rolling Tumbleweed branch this past month. Some of the more visible changes involve the GNOME desktop: "GNOME 48: This release brings notification stacking to reduce clutter, and delivers major performance gains, including dynamic triple buffering and faster file browsing in Files. The new image viewer adds editing tools like crop and rotate, while support for RAW formats expands functionality. The release debuts new fonts - Adwaita Sans and Mono - enhancing legibility and language support. Digital Wellbeing tools now track screen time, enforce usage limits, and provide break reminders. Battery lifespan is protected with a new 80 percent charging cap option for supported hardware. A minimalist Audio Player app joins the core apps, focusing on simple playback with waveform views. HDR support makes its system-level debut, and Text Editor receives a cleaner interface with better formatting controls. Additional features include global shortcuts for apps, improved window placement, and expanded keyboard shortcut support. Updates to Contacts, Settings, Calendar, Maps, Web, and Orca improve accessibility, UX, and performance across the desktop."
Fans of KDE Plasma also received a significant update in March: "KDE Plasma 6.3.3: KWin resolves several issues, including tiling, stacking, and modifier state bugs, and adds better support for hardware with complex display setups. Discover improves changelog visibility and flattens case-sensitive sorting for offline updates. Breeze adjusts menu bar styling and resolves Qt6 MinGW build regressions. Plasma Desktop patches task manager tooltips and improves keyboard layout handling, while Plasma Workspace improves system tray tab focus and resolves calendar navigation bugs. Powerdevil enhances Dell laptop charging support and warns users of power settings that increase energy use. KPipewire, KScreenLocker, and Spectacle all receive targeted fixes, and QQC2 Breeze Style syncs its visual elements with the desktop style for consistency." Additional changes to Tumbleweed were outlined in the project's news post.
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The Fedora project will soon have a new Project Leader. Matthew Miller is stepping aside this year to make room for Jef Spaleta, a long-time Fedora contributor and community member. Miller wrote in a Fedora Magazine post: "A little while ago, I announced that it's time for a change of hats. I'm going to be moving on to new things (still close to Fedora, of course). Today, I'm happy to announce that we've selected my successor: long-time Fedora friend Jef Spaleta. Some of you may remember Jef's passionate voice in the early Fedora community. He got involved all the way back in the days of fedora.us, before Red Hat got involved. Jef served on the Fedora Board from July 2007 through the end of 2008. This was the critical time after Fedora Extras and Fedora Core merged into one Fedora Linux where, with the launch of the 'Features' process, Fedora became a truly community-led project." Spaleta will begin work full-time at Red Hat in May and officially take on the Project Leader title at the Flock event in June.
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The UBports team are reporting that VoLTE is coming to builds of their mobile operating system, though some porting work for individual devices will be required. "Marius announced that VoLTE is now working satisfactorily for both Mediatek and Qualcomm. The modifications are already in the image for both Focal and Noble. With that said in order to use them the porter for each device must do the work on that and for Qualcomm the only device we have at the moment is the Fairphone 5. On the Mediatek side, Volla from 22 up are functional. Marius and Alfred have been running it as a daily driver for a while and have found no major problems. This is not just voice it is also SMS over VoLTE." Additional information on the mobile operating system's development can be found in the project's news post.
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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) |
Android, ROMs, and the gap between laptops and smartphones
Feeling-inclusive asks: Why don't you include Android in your database? It's the most commonly used version of Linux in the world!
DistroWatch answers: The reason we don't have an "Android" entry in our database is the same reason we don't have a "GNU/Linux" entry or a "BSD" entry. Each of these names represents a family of operating systems rather than a specific, atomic project. The flavour, or distribution, of Android you get on a Samsung phone is going to be quite a bit different than the flavour of Android you get on a Pixel phone, and it'll be quite a bit different than Android-based community distributions.
We do list some members of the Android family in our database. For instance, we have the Android-x86 distribution for desktop and laptop computers. We also list flavours of Android which focus on security, privacy, and open source licensing in our database. These include the GrapheneOS, iodeOS, and Murena projects.
More members of the Android family may be added over time, depending on hardware compatibility and the capabilities of the distributions.
* * * * *
Stop-the-presses writes: I just noticed you have included Murena in your database. I don't think you should include ROMs, stick to desktop Linux.
DistroWatch answers: While you may have just stumbled across one of our mobile entries, we've been covering and including mobile open source distributions for around a decade. Partly because they can be useful and interesting, partly because several of our readers have requested them, and in part because it's getting harder to draw a line between the mobile ecosystem and the desktop ecosystem.
Look at postmarketOS, for example. It's a primarily mobile distribution, but it's based on Alpine Linux and offers all the same tools you'd expect to find in a typical desktop Linux distribution. Likewise the UBports project (which took over the development of Ubuntu Touch from Canonical) has flavours which are not immutable and nearly indistinguishable from Ubuntu's server distribution when accessed remotely.
When you add in the fact that a handful of desktop distributions are immutable now, you can see the lines between what is a mobile operating system and what is a desktop operating system are increasingly blurred. These projects have more in common now than characteristics which separate them. Ponder for a moment: if I plug a keyboard and mouse into a tablet running Murena and run LibreOffice in a container, am I running a desktop distribution or a mobile distribution? Is it any different (practically speaking) than running Fedora Silverblue on my laptop and launching the latest LibreOffice version in an Arch Linux container?
I think we need to acknowledge that mobile computing and desktop computing are gradually merging together, trading ideas, and the distinctions between the two camps are eroding.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
GoboLinux 017.01
After an absence of a new release since nearly five years ago, the GoboLinux project has sprung to life with a leadership change and a new bug-fix release labelled 017.01. GoboLinux is an independently-developed Linux distribution with and alternative filesystem hierarchy that departs from established UNIX standards and it uses Awesome as its default window manager. From the release notes: "We are pleased to present release 017.01 of GoboLinux, the Linux distribution featuring a rethought file system structure. GoboLinux was created out of a desire to try new approaches in the Linux distribution design space. GoboLinux 017.01 is an eagerly awaited bug-fix update that addresses several critical issues since our initial 017 release. Main changes: include UnionFS-Fuse to work around limitations with the sandbox in the live environment; loopback network interface needs to be brought up at boot; update the search URL used by the Scripts package; Ncurses had been replaced by NcursesW, but some packages' metadata still held references to the former; update expired SSL certificates; fix wrong versioning of SQLite...." GoboLinux 017.01 is available as an installable live image.
PorteuX 2.0
PorteuX, a Slackware-based Linux distribution whose main goal is to be super fast, small, portable, modular and immutable, has been updated to version 2.0: "This release introduces the ability to test Wayland sessions in the current/rolling editions of Cinnamon, LXQt and Xfce, in addition to being the default display server in GNOME and KDE since many releases ago. To test Wayland, log out and select the Wayland session from the first icon at the top right of the login screen. Keep in mind that the Wayland implementation in these desktop environments is still experimental. LXQt and Xfce, for instance, are using labwc compositor, which means Wayland won't work in VirtualBox. Changelog: fixed application icons not showing in Openbox session; improved 001-core stripping; improved Clang compatibility in the kernel build script; added CPU instruction detection to the Linux installer to warn users that PorteuX requires SSE4...." See the release announcement for a complete list of changes.
Tails 6.14.1
The Amnesic Incognito Live System (better known as Tails) distribution has a new release which changes how confinement is handled for the Tor web browser. "We improved the confinement technology that we use to protect your files from possible security vulnerabilities in Tor Browser. Until now, Tor Browser could only save downloads to and read files from a limited number of folders. With Tails 6.14.1, you can safely access any folder in your Home folder or Persistent Storage from Tor Browser. This new integration also solves other usability and accessibility issues: The Large Text accessibility feature works in Tor Browser. The Cursor Size accessibility feature works in Tor Browser. The minimize and maximize buttons are available again in the title bar. These improvements rely on 2 security technologies: the flexibility of the new XDG Desktop Portals of Flatpak allowed us to relax the AppArmor confinement, improving usability without compromising on security." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
Wifislax 4.0
Wifislax is a Slackware-based live disc containing a variety of security and forensics tools. The project's latest release is Wifislax 4.0 which provides updated drivers, the latest Xfce desktop, and OpenSSL 3. "Wifislax64 version using slackware64-current base, is the development branch, so that's where we are going to find the most modern packages available, the newest drivers, firmwares, kernel web browsers libraries and everything that makes up the system, OpenSSL3 , WPA3 support etc. The only thing that is out of date with current events is the kde desktop, which is still Plasma 5, although in its last version. However Xfce if it is updated to its latest available version. The ISO has the newest kernel today, that is, the 6.14.0 kernel. Network testing packages are up to date with their newest versions available and the odd tool has been rescued by finding Python 3 compatible forks." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement. Download links for the ISO (3,611MB) are behind a verficiation wall. Download options and the MD5 checksum can be found in the release announcement.
Wifislax 4.0 -- Running the Plasma desktop
(full image size: 303kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
NethServer 8.4
Davide Principi has announced the availability of a new milestone, version 8.4, of NethServer, a Rocky Linux-based, multi-node application server for self-hosted cloud installations with a web-based user interface: "We are excited to announce the latest updates and improvements to NethServer 8, bringing new features, enhanced security and better usability. Here's what's new: notify users of expiring passwords - under Settings, configure email notifications, then enable the password warning from the User Domain configuration page; modify external LDAP settings - external LDAP domain settings can now be modified from the User Domain configuration page, credentials and TLS preferences are accessible from the Domain Settings three-dots menu, while Host and Port settings remain modifiable from the Providers list; Imapsync Sieve filter and remote retention - an Imapsync task can now delete messages older than a specified number of days and execute the user's Sieve filter when copying messages into the INBOX folder...." See the release announcement and the release notes for further information and screenshots. The project no longer provides installation ISO images, only virtual images for Proxmox (qcow2) and VMware (vmdk) virtual machines are available.
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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: 3,188
- Total data uploaded: 47.0TB
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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 have any fun single-board computer add-ons?
This week we began with a look at the Sense HAT add-on for Raspberry Pi computers, as well as some simple programs which can be run on the Sense HAT. There are lots of small devices and boards which can be plugged into single-board computers - such as decorations with programmable lights, small robots, sensors. We would like to hear from the hobbyists in our audience: do you have any add-ons like these? Let us know what fun projects you have created in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on non-duopoloy smartphone operating systems in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you have any single-board computer add-ons?
| Yes - for a Raspberry Pi: | 202 (19%) |
| Yes - for another single-board computer: | 25 (2%) |
| Yes - but for a laptop/desktop: | 31 (3%) |
| Yes - for another type of computer: | 3 (0%) |
| No - none of the above: | 830 (76%) |
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| Website News |
New projects added to database
RefreshOS
RefreshOS is a user-friendly Linux distribution based on Debian's Stable branch and featuring the KDE Plasma desktop. Some of its main features include extended driver support, a polished user experience, and a refined system performance. The distribution ships with the Brave web browser, LibreOffice office suite, GIMP image editor and various popular applications for productivity and creativity tasks. RefreshOS maintains a clean environment that is free of Snap and Flatpak packages.
RefreshOS 2.25 -- Running the Plasma desktop
(full image size: 1.9MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Quirinux. Quirinux is a Devuan-based distribution for English and Spanish speakers. The distribution is intended for use in the animated cinema industry.
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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, 14 April 2025. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Tech Linux
Tech Linux was a RPM-based Linux distribution from Brazil.
Status: Discontinued
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