 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.
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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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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Raspberry Pi -- growth (by sooth-sayer on 2025-04-07 00:45:24 GMT from United States)
They are destroying the platform a littlebit at a time.
Only Zero serves the original niche now -- rest is bloated.
They should have "FIXED" the broken I2C implemenatikon that limits it's use ; instead they keep adding more power hungry peripherals to it.
Adding USB-C was a good solution - but it gave them a license to now make that poor board go up to 15W+ in consumption -- it's useless now!
2 • Desktop and mobile computing merging? (by penguinx86 on 2025-04-07 00:57:12 GMT from United States)
I don't think desktop/laptop computing can merge with mobile smartphone/tablet computing. They are two different animals. First of all, desktop/laptop computing uses a keyboard and mouse. The onscreen keyboards lack simple cursor keys and a delete key for example. Also, mobile devices make it difficult to copy and paste text using the right mouse button. Another issue is mobile devices come with minimal storage that can't be upgraded. You can't even add an SD card to an iPhone for example. But many desktops/laptops can be upgraded to larger SSD drives fairly easily for more storage.
3 • Android operating systems (by Greg Zeng on 2025-04-07 01:12:56 GMT from Australia)
https://www.needrom.com/
NEEDROM has about eighty categories of the Android operating system. It lists thousands of ROM-ready systems that can be applied to hundreds of old and new hardware items. “Member Since: 06/13/2013 11:31 am”.
It has a very detailed and long history of discussions, tools, and live notifications by email on specific topics, if desired. Advertisements are missing. The whole site seems to be totally voluntary.
“Donations:
"This site is growing, and our four servers generate terabytes of traffic per day, and needrom must pay for this traffic and servers."
"It's not the most expensive thing in the world, but it has reached a point where I can no longer pretend it costs absolutely nothing."
"Absolutely all proceeds from donations will benefit to this community."
The OEM usual systems are given their download links. Most interesting are the third-party compilations. These cover older hardware but are now upgraded to later versions of software, applications, and Android operating systems.
The third-party systems have varying degrees of contributor networks. Some are reputable and better than the original OEMs, without logging and other privacy dangers.
4 • RefreshOS? I don't know what to think of this... (by uz64 on 2025-04-07 06:23:55 GMT from United States)
I don't really know what to think of this distro. Upfront, it sounds like just yet another distribution based on the latest version of Debian using KDE and the Brave browser. That's automatically at least somewhat interesting, but not exactly very unique--there are a ton of Debian and Ubuntu based distributions based on KDE. But download and run it. Bizarrely, it contains a lot--and I do mean a lot--of GTK-based applications, and some of them are even taken straight out of GNOME, its various forks (Nemo from Cinnamon--that's right, instead of the logical Dolphin, which is literally part of KDE). It even has the GTK-based Deepin calculator and calendar applications, and Xfburn which is a part of Xfce. WTF? Bizarre, not necessarily bad, but just... WTF exactly is this Frankenstein trying to be?
5 • RefreshOS? I _do_ know what to think of this... (by I do agree on 2025-04-07 06:37:36 GMT from Italy)
In the early years of Linux, distros thought as "a main one reinterpreted and made easier to set up and work with" had many reasons to be conceived and implemented, but now?
Each main distro on the market is now a piece of cake when you come to installation and use.
Sometimes I think some developers should start targeting the main problems of open source (xz-utils should tell us something...) rather than wasting time in some eyecandy.
6 • Re. 5 (by uz64 on 2025-04-07 06:55:52 GMT from United States)
XZ Utils might have been the project to have been directly comprimized, but in my opinion not enough blame goes to the *other* effectively co-equal project which has *directly* allowed the XZ Utils exploit to work... and that is... drumroll please... SystemD. The "XZ Utils" vulnerability will flat out NOT WORK without systemd. So if you are doing what it sounds like, and trying to directly blame XZ Utils for that attack... just look at all of those NON-SYSTEMD-BASED DISTROS that have *not* been affected even in the slightest by this exploit. I mean, hell, even Arch uses SystemD, but ironically came out of it completely unscathed because they do not make the same modifications to systemd that Debian, Red Hat, etc. do relating to the XZ Utils.
7 • Great review! (by thatguy on 2025-04-07 08:04:31 GMT from United States)
I've been reading DW for literally decades now and this review is possibly my favorite of all time, and I do not own nor have much interest in the Raspberry Pi. Jesse's excitement and joy is palpable. Nice to see a little emotion/heart in the writing rather than the "Just the facts, ma'am" approach!
Loved the point about how so much of what makes waves now is the flashy/buzzword-encrusted stuff that's social media friendly.
8 • XZ Utils and Init (by Hank on 2025-04-07 08:12:50 GMT from The Netherlands)
While many say there is only sysD others have moved forward. What many do not realise is a uniform system landscape makes life much easier for exploit developers.
I have used Runit for years after the standard drove me nuts with weird effects and its cancer like growth.
Presently trying some other options and eagerly awaiting an init diversity respin update.
From antiX forum Prowler-Gr posted.
a brand new “init-diversity” remaster is in the works – which will be an overhaul to the previous respin.
Roadmap so far:
* dinit added as init option & basic services packaged & configured for graphical boot (complete)
* sysvinit rebased on latest Trixie (complete)
* runit rebased on new upstream debian version 2.2.0 (complete – it works fine with antiX service management)
* OpenRC rebased on latest Trixie. (complete)
* 66 rebased on 0.8.x.x – with proper service package dependency management (WIP – but almost there)
* s6-rc updated to latest upstream – with proper service package dependency management (WIP)
9 • Do you have any single-board computer add-ons? (by James on 2025-04-07 09:51:23 GMT from United States)
No, not even remotely interested.
10 • freebsd (by acurate on 2025-04-07 11:03:29 GMT from United States)
When freebsd as well as everything else gets the touchpad working on my laptop will be a miracle - we can dream:)
11 • init (by Michael T on 2025-04-07 12:01:05 GMT from United States)
If you want a real choice in init systems give Artix a try. They have an excellent Plasma desktop, Mate and XFCE4. Mate is typically on the community GTK while XFCE4 has its own disk image. It is Arch based, but they keep their own repositories. I use it on my PC and a generic Intel laptop. Everything works as expected.
12 • GrapheneOS (by Ge. on 2025-04-07 12:27:19 GMT from Canada)
You story last week inspired me to install Graphene on an old Pixel. Now I have to figure out what to do with it.
🙂
13 • Jesse/RPI s (by Treen HQ on 2025-04-07 12:42:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
Got the 1, E & 3 lying idle for some years so very glad and encouraged by Jesse's fine offering today. Thank you! Would like a lot more info and other suggestions, please.
14 • RefreshOS (by Cesare on 2025-04-07 12:59:43 GMT from Italy)
"RefreshOS comes with a suite of powerful applications, including the Brave Web Browser, Nemo, and Deepin apps."
Nemo is the file manager of Cinnamon: what's wrong with Dolphin? I don't like this mixture of Nemo + Deepin Apps. Debian derivatives should be as close as possible to the parent distro, perhaps adding codecs and drivers that Debian does not install by default.
15 • Do you have any single-board computer add-ons? (by imonline on 2025-04-07 13:47:07 GMT from Canada)
Yes. I have a Raspberry Pi M.2 HAT+ SSD Kit with a 256G NVMe card from which I boot from.
*If immortality was outlawed then only outlaws would be immortal*
16 • Do you have any single-board computer add-ons? (by RexOfRome on 2025-04-07 15:15:35 GMT from United States)
I bought a Raspberry Pi 4 and a MMDVM modem hat to build a hotspot for amateur radio. Works great.
17 • Another single board computer (by Scott Dowdle on 2025-04-07 16:06:09 GMT from United States)
I have a few SBC's based on the Altera Cyclone V which is a combo CPU which includes ARM and FPGA. Terasic makes the DE10-Nano and currently two other companies have a clone board (RetroRemake and QMTech) and a third is on the horizon (Heber). It runs Linux in support loading FPGA cores from the MiSTer FPGA Project for retro computers, gaming consoles and handhelds, and arcades... and has about ~1,400 such cores. It's an older board (has DDR3 RAM) that seems to still have quite a bit of life in it because a powerful board isn't needed for FPGA stuff. MiSTer may switch to a newer board in the next year or two but that remains to be seen. There are a number of add-on boards for those including analog i/o, digital i/o, MT32-MIDI support, real-time clock, USB board, JAMMA boards. There are also boards that make it more port-friendly for various case designs, etc, that mainly integrate functionality from multiple boards into one. While I think it is possible to run a Linux desktop on it, it would be very slow for that. The MiSTer FPGA Project is really fantastic and if you have any interest in the various retro platforms it supports, check it out.
18 • Do you have any single-board computer add-ons? (by AloofBrit on 2025-04-07 18:48:44 GMT from United States)
I'm not sure it really counts as an 'add-on' per se, but I put an iUniker heatsink case on my Pi 4 which seems to work well (came with little thermal pads to put between the chips and the body), and only cost 10 bucks
The Pi itself is on WiFi (thanks to morrownr on GitHub) which is then shared via the Ethernet port to a PS4 (the original PlayStation 4's onboard n WiFi is incredibly slow)
19 • Do you have any single-board computer add-ons? (by Ted on 2025-04-07 19:50:33 GMT from United States)
Yes, one my favorite things about the Pi is the add-ons. I have output relay boards, analog input controls and a PI GPIO expansion card. I built a greenhouse in the yard. It has light zones, hydroponic pumps and an exhaust fan. Of course, it has to be automated. Thanks to humble bundle programming books, youtube videos and Duck AI & Gemini, I got it to work. I probably could have bought a couple of timers off Amazon for $50. It is not as much fun doing things the easy way.
20 • single-board (by loup on 2025-04-07 22:24:36 GMT from Canada)
Sorry, but i have no spare money for futile junk!
But hey, if you do ... makes the world go round with tons of pollution.
21 • LZ VULNERABLE init and others "(RefreshOS) (by rhtoras on 2025-04-08 10:17:34 GMT from Greece)
@6 here:https://sysdfree.wordpress.com/2024/03/30/383/ it is indeed well written as to what happened to systemD based systems with LZ and so on
Also anyone can try nosystemD linux to see if they work... and while some prefer the "easy" ones i.e Devuan you can try others such as Void or Alpine which are not that hard either. There are "harder" options too i.e Noir Linux and i should say give them a go. Also we should not forget PClinuxOS with lots of software precompiled to use. You can have a good floating window manager i.e openbox, fluxbox or fvwm and be free to do whatever. There are extensive guides around the net.
Now RefreshOS distro. Well it's just a bloat version of debian to me. Better try the new addition which is mentioned above and i am talking about https://quirinux.org/ It sounds a good option if you are keen on graphics and multimedia.
22 • Do you have any single-board computer add-ons? (by Rik on 2025-04-08 12:34:44 GMT from United States)
Several that I use for amatuer radio and a few I've used for other things like building a tablet or handheld game system.
23 • @6. Funny (by GT on 2025-04-08 21:24:51 GMT from United States)
"So if you are doing what it sounds like, and trying to directly blame XZ Utils for that attack... just look at all of those NON-SYSTEMD-BASED DISTROS that have *not* been affected even in the slightest by this exploit."
I am not the poster of comment #5, and #6's comment seemed to miss #5's point entirely, but my response to this particular statement would be:
So if you are doing what it sounds like, and trying to directly blame systemd for that attack... just look at all of those SYSTEMD-BASED DISTROS that have *not* been affected even in the slightest by this exploit.
The anti-systemd cult is funny. In what world is the program that housed the malicious code not to be directly blamed for the attack? That is such a crazy way to look at it, i.e. that because some distros' use of systemd met the conditions for the malicious code to operate, it is systemd and not the malicious code that is mostly to blame? By that logic, Openssh is also partly responsible. If we are throwing out the baby with the bath water, why not just say Linux in general carries blame for all of it? #6's comment even states that Arch, one of the oldest systemd adopters, was not affected, but yet: Systemd is to blame for this!! Funny stuff.
24 • OpenSUSE (by Skooter Rallenstein on 2025-04-09 01:17:18 GMT from United States)
Open-SUSE is a very impressive Distro. I've always been puzzled - as good as it is. It is also very fragile. I manage to break it without even trying. I really don't understand why it seems to way way down in the ranks. If you just use it without tinkering - it will keep chugging along. But I am a compulsive tinkerer. I like it. I use it sometimes. And I always upset the apple cart.
25 • PorteuX (by Happy_Phanton on 2025-04-09 14:45:31 GMT from United States)
How is PorteuX pronounced?
26 • LZ thing (by rhtoras on 2025-04-09 16:21:58 GMT from Greece)
@23 you skipped my comment... no problem... people can read the truth through my link... Truth is nonsystemD distros had no problem not the opposite...
Every dependency from every extra systemD functionality is an additional attack vector. This is a fact whatever we say.
27 • Attack Vectors (by Slappy McGee on 2025-04-09 20:30:52 GMT from United States)
@26 How many attack vectors does non-SystemD init system distros have? We know it's fewer. Just wondering if its in the dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions, or what.
I'd guess it's enough to warrant stringent security measures. But I'm from Mars, and thus I do not know of these things.
28 • @27: attack vectors (by picamanic on 2025-04-09 20:58:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
@27: attack vectors: the attack vectors in the distros themselves will probably be the same, regardless of what init system is used. However, the init system itself is especially sensitive to the size of the init code: 6k lines of C will be less vulnerable than 1.7 million lines of C, assuming that the two init codes are of similar maturity.
29 • Attack Vectors (by Slappy McGee on 2025-04-09 22:29:46 GMT from United States)
@28 I think I see it a bit more clearly. Perhaps I am not interpreting rhtoras's comment: "Every dependency from every extra systemD functionality is an additional attack vector."
30 • Attack vectors and openssh (by Keith S on 2025-04-10 04:27:44 GMT from United States)
@23 From what I understand of xz utils vulnernability, openssh itself was not the vector but rather the openssh-hook built into systemd to get information from another process using openssh. This highlights the basic problem I have with systemd, which is that it does not follow the thoroughly tested premise of UNIX philosophy of one understandable and transparent program doing one thing well. Instead systemd has forced most of the Linux ecosystem into the Windows philosophy of one opaque blob doing many things behind the scenes for the convenience of the developers at the top of the ecosystem so stop complaining that you don't understand it or like it you smelly peasants, go spend some money to get a certification if you want to feel like you have some control but not really.
31 • Attack vectors cont. (by Keith S on 2025-04-10 04:46:34 GMT from United States)
This is not to say that the UNIX way is never difficult or confusing. For example, I have recently been setting up a new OpenBSD box (as UNIXy as it gets) and discovered that maybe I should have been paying closer attention to the development work being done on networking the last few years. With the changes and additions to the tools for routing and DNS including autoconf vs dhcp, unbound, slaacd and unwind, and the (new to me) dhcpleased, I've been a little confused and reading and rereading lots of articles and man pages to make sure I get a proper understanding. The difference is that I have confidence that gaining that understanding is possible, whereas I gave up on any hope of understanding systemd years ago.
32 • Understand... what understand? (by Friar Tux on 2025-04-10 13:20:21 GMT from Canada)
@30 & @31 (Keith) I have, here at home, a toaster, microwave, dishwasher, blender... I don't understand how any of these work. Heck, I don't even understand the inner workings of my car. What I DO understand is that my car gets me from point A to point B. My toaster does a great job toasting my bread.
Well, the same goes for my laptop. I have no clue how it works. All I know is that I turn it on and I can get stuff done. And, yes, my system uses SystemD. The thing is, I could not get any of the non-SystemD distros to work for more than a couple of days, or until the next update. (So much for "doing one job well".) So, for me, SystemD is where it's at. I have not had any lost time issues for a decade. None. Nix. Nada. SystemD appears to do it's job, and from my experience, it does it's job quite well.
33 • @30 (by GT on 2025-04-10 15:55:26 GMT from United States)
I was being cheeky and don't think any blame falls on Openssh, Linux, or Systemd. The culprit was the person who inserted malicious code into the xz program, plain and simple. I was merely amused by #6's comment deflecting "direct blame" away from where blame directly lies and placing it on Systemd. Had the person written malicious code that utilized a program not named Systemd for its attack, I wouldn't expect the same chorus of victim-blaming.
A couple weeks ago there was someone in these comments who linked to a year's worth of Kernel vulnerabilities. Because the CVE summaries contained "systemd" in the descriptions of the issue, the person considered it evidence of systemd being a security problem despite them clearly being labeled and described as Kernel vulnerabilities. It is a pattern of behavior amongst the anti-systemd crowd, blaming it for any associated problem regardless of the root cause.
I can't think of another piece of open-source software where people who don't use the program take every opportunity to rant about how terrible and problematic it is, as if compelled to convert others to their religion. At no point in my life have I passionately hated a computer program, especially one that I do not use, let alone ranted about it every time there is a opportunity to bring it up. I find the blind, passionate hatred of a particular collection of computer code funny, that's all.
34 • Oof.. systemD vs non (by Slappy McGee on 2025-04-10 16:32:00 GMT from United States)
@32 Friar Tux sed: "I could not get any of the non-SystemD distros to work for more than a couple of days, or until the next update."
Do tell. Well, I've never had non-systemD breakage. I have both types of distros on various machines and love ("fave") some of each. Rocky serves me well, as does MX (I know I know, MX is sorta free of systemD).
Back when systemD began its invasion, I was completely unaware of it as I did my iso thing and installed my distro hopping ways as always.
Then the fights began here there and everywhere comments were allowed. I still don't get it.. with the exception of the "millions of lines of code" remarks we keep seeing, and that about how fascist-like the systemD developers have become (etc). As you say, my toaster and my cars work fine without my say-so on how.
BUT.. I am miffed by the associations being mentioned in the wars between systemD and Windows/Microsoft. As if the invasion is the Microsoft Army using systemD as the first line of troops in the approaching phalanx. Is that what's happening? If so why are old timey Linux distro developers using systemD?
35 • systemd (by Keith S on 2025-04-10 17:01:48 GMT from United States)
I gave the wrong impression I think. I am not a fanatical hater of systemd. In fact, I recently did a little distro hopping when I was having some trouble with MX Linux (using SysV, but that wasn't the issue) and really liked OpenSUSE. I almost adopted it as my daily driver but switching from the Debian style package management to Yast was annoying enough that I went back to MX Linux. (I figured out that the WiFi problem was some bug caused by booting with the power cord plugged in, reproducible on several other distros.)
And no, I don't understand every bit of how the OS on my laptop works. My point was, and is, that systemd is very opaque compared to OpenBSD, or even MX Linux or Devuan. And if I really want to dig into the nuts and bolts of those systems, I have a much better chance of achieving some understanding than I ever will with systemd. If we bring cars into it, I've had cars that I regularly tuned and at least theoretically could have overhauled with the right tools, whereas our current car is basically managed with binary blobs in the all-important computer that controls it.
I believe the comparison to Windows is appropriate too, but I'm not trying to start a holy war. The systemd defenders are at least as passionate as the anti-systemd crowd. But many people just want to get work done and Linux distros (systemd or otherwise) work almost as well as Windows or Mac laptops for those purposes.
36 • Last comment on this... (by GT on 2025-04-10 18:02:47 GMT from United States)
"The systemd defenders are at least as passionate as the anti-systemd crowd."
I challenge you to find one instance of a "systemd defender" praising the program unprompted or via a non sequitur in response to a previous comment. The opposite happens here virtually every week, like #6's response to #5's comment in this issue, whose comment had nothing to do with systemd. There are several websites dedicated entirely to bashing systemd. I have never come across an entire website dedicated to defending or praising systemd, but perhaps there is one. I think you mistake people responding to the anti-systemd crowd ranting profusely about a program they don't use as "defenders" when really they are just tired of hearing their loud, holier-than-thou stances on init systems over and over and over and over... Don't like systemd? You clearly aren't alone. Go to one of those websites that provides the proof of its evil nature and hang out together, but please stop trying to convert others to your religion whenever there is a systemd-adjacent topic that becomes a window for airing out your grievances that Linux is being destroyed by the systemd cancer virus. We "systemd defenders" are tired of hearing about it. I don't care about systemd at all. If the distro I use hadn't adopted systemd, I wouldn't be using it, but it did, so I do. It doesn't matter to me. Never in my life have I brought up systemd as a topic of discussion online or in-person, unless it was in response to an anti-systemd zealot who made my eyes roll hard enough to want to say something...like suggesting it shared at least as much blame as the program that actually housed malicious code as part of a deliberate malware attack.
37 • @35 (clarification) (by GT on 2025-04-10 18:15:12 GMT from United States)
@35, Starting at "Don't like systemd?", I was addressing the anti-systemd crowd at-large, not you. Apologies for it sounding like a personal attack.
38 • systemd Distro - ParticleOS (by FledermausMann on 2025-04-10 21:24:22 GMT from Australia)
From the lips of the man himself, Lennart we have ParticleOS, a systemD linux immutable distro:
"And over all those 12 years I kept wondering, how would I actually build an OS for a system or for an appliance, and what are the components necessary to achieve that."
"ParticleOS is a fully customizable immutable distribution implementing the concepts described in Fitting Everything Together.
The crucial difference that makes ParticleOS unique compared to other immutable distributions is that users build the ParticleOS image themselves and sign it with their own keys instead of installing vendor signed images. This allows configuring the image to your liking by having full control over which distribution is used as the base and which packages are installed into the image."
Question: Does Lennart Pottering use his own distro; ParticleOS
Answer: No. He uses Fedora
39 • Holy wars (by not on the defensive on 2025-04-10 22:30:35 GMT from Australia)
@36 and @32 well said, and it has needed to be, I think many of us use whatever our distro uses and are not spending our days getting into a rage about something that clearly works for us (and if it didn't we'd switch to something else, that's the beauty of Linux).
I commit several cardinal sins according to the internet but I don't care - I also use Ubuntu with Gnome and have no issues with Snaps (actually I quite like them). I thank Canonical and the paid and unpaid people who work on putting it together and indeed anyone who maintains a working distro or develops free and open source software - you are all doing great work and are allowing us great unwashed to benefit.
Long may it continue.
40 • systemd, in saecula saeculorum (by Deep Friar on 2025-04-10 23:31:37 GMT from United States)
To someone who visits here every few months or so, it may resemble this old joke:
At the Holy Linux Monastery, Abbot Costello decided to put a stop to the chatter, and decried a vow of silence. One brother would be allowed one sentence once per year. Peace reigned for 11 months. Then it was Brother Bob's turn to speak:
B B: "I hate systemd!"
Another year of silence, then Brother Tom:
B T: "I love systemd!"
Another year, then Brother Joe:
B J: "I'm getting sick and tired of all the bickering about systemd!"
41 • Raspberry Pi, and systemd (by Simon on 2025-04-11 08:57:09 GMT from New Zealand)
Re Raspberry Pi, I love it, both the affordability and the standardisation: it would be better if it were fully open hardware, but it's so nice to see affordable tech spreading through schools. In my country Apple has dominated this market for decades and schools have wasted millions of dollars on massively overpriced tech... it's great to see kids learning on gadgets that their families can actually afford for a change. Plus the software's free, of course.
@41: Amen. There's a whole culture of folk like that with NIS who aren't really motivated to improve software, they just want to stamp their ego all over it and see their flashy overcomplicated bells and whistles replace the stuff that actually works better. A lot of them (probably most of them) come from Windows backgrounds, so never really understood UNIX in the first place, and the collaborative principles of UNIX cultures. Unfortunately now that most Linux users also come from Windows, they look at stuff like systemd and its problems are just invisible to them, they're just not looking for qualities related to systems admin and software development because that stuff isn't even on their radar, they're staring at their GUIs and saying "well it looks like it's working fine to me, I don't see a problem".
42 • @37 (by Keith S on 2025-04-10 23:29:14 GMT from United States)
No offense taken at all. I rambled too much about the reasons for my distrust of systemd myself. These are ancient arguments for me and easily spill out without any forethought or malice. I am not trying to convert anyone to use any OS in particular. (OK, that's not quite true. You should all ditch Linux for OpenBSD and Android for GrapheneOS. But after 15 years of evangelizing, I already know none of you will consider it.)
My family and friends all consider me to be a crank on the topic of security as they all blithely continue to send reams of personal data to Big Tech through Windows computers and Android and Apple phones using every app that offers itself in their feed. Once in a great while my wife will ask me to open her iPhone for reasons and there will be uncountable numbers of apps open and running. When I tell friends that YouTube insists that I log in even just to watch funny cat videos but I refuse to give google the satisfaction even though I know they know who owns my phone, and that now New Pipe won't work for me either, they roll their eyes. They all long ago gave up sending me Facebook links and similar stuff. I'm not anywhere close to Terry A. Davis levels of paranoia, but I was always sympathetic to his rants.
So you see, for me systemd is almost an afterthought in the vast scheme of things. And if sharing my crank ideas offended anyone here, I sincerely apologize. Please continue to compute in your preferred manner and ignore my rantings. For my part, I will do my best to check my rants in advance.
43 • systemd (by Jesse on 2025-04-11 12:24:45 GMT from Canada)
@32: " I have, here at home, a toaster, microwave, dishwasher, blender... I don't understand how any of these work. Heck, I don't even understand the inner workings of my car. What I DO understand is that my car gets me from point A to point B.... Well, the same goes for my laptop. I have no clue how it works. All I know is that I turn it on and I can get stuff done. And, yes, my system uses SystemD. ... SystemD appears to do it's job, and from my experience, it does it's job quite well.
"
I'd like to point out that what you're basically saying is you don't know how systemd works and, since it works passably well for you, that you don't care how it does what it does, or that it causes problems for other people.
Your post is basically a combination of apathy and ignorance dressed up as an endorsement. Which doesn't seem all that appealing of a way to approach things, at least to me.
It's a bit like saying that you don't know what in cigarettes and don't care how many doctors warn you about the potential health risks, you're going to keep smoking because it hasn't hurt you. That can be true and you might even get away with it unharmed, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
Admittedly systemd doesn't cause cancer, but it has been the cause of (or a catalyst) in any number of security issues, data loss, and privilege escalation. To wave that all away with a "I don't care how it works" is willfully ignoring the issues.
44 • Nailed it (by Friar Tux on 2025-04-11 13:43:59 GMT from Canada)
@43 (Jesse) You are absolutely correct - to a point. I AM blissfully ignorant of most of the workings in my OS, especially SystemD. And, yes, I don't care. Just as I don't care how any of the other appliances I mentioned work so long as they do. Most of us, humans, are actually like that in most of what we do, hence the phrase - if it ain't broke, don't "fix". And the nice part of that is that we still invent stuff in such a way that blissfully ignorant, guacamole brained, old fools like me can use said stuff. Talking about SystemD in particular, I prefer it only because all, and according to my notes, ALL the non SystemD distros, so far, have failed me. Most would install nicely, most would work for a day or so, then not boot up, with some sort of error. SystemD has never done that, no matter the distro. BUT, I also know that I DON'T know if the faulty in the failing distros was the init system or not. ALL I know is that those that HAVEN'T failed were using Systemd.
Having blathered on as I have, here's the main take away... it doesn't matter what a person uses, or how, if it works for them, does it really matter what the rest of us actually think?
45 • systemd (by Jesse on 2025-04-11 14:20:40 GMT from Canada)
@44: " ALL the non SystemD distros, so far, have failed me. Most would install nicely, most would work for a day or so, then not boot up, with some sort of error."
It sounds like you either haven't used many non-systemd distributions or had statistically highly unlikely bad luck. Almost all of the distros running non-systemd init are more conservative projects (Slackware, Devuan, Void, etc) which are highly unlikely to break. And, even if they did break, the chances are close to zero it was init-related. It doesn't really matter that the projects you had trouble with were non-systemd because there is no evidence (and it's very improbably) that init was the cause of your problems.
> it doesn't matter what a person uses, or how, if it works for them, does it really matter what the rest of us actually think?
To a point. I mean there is a degree of live-and-let-live which should prevail. On the other hand, it does cause a problem when software gets saddled with systemd dependencies because "most people use systemd". For example, GNOME has soft dependencies on system and Snap has a hard dependency on systemd. And the developers refuse to fix it because they figure "enough people just use systemd, the rest don't matter".
A lot of people who don't like/use systemd would be fine with it (and other people using it) if it didn't end up dragging other components into its orbit and breaking software that was previously working. I guess what I'm saying is the systemd project (and projects linking to it) doesn't "live and let live" which makes it hard to simply peacefully ignore if you're trying to use something else.
46 • SystemD = Cancer.. sorta (by Slappy McGee on 2025-04-11 22:36:55 GMT from United States)
I when Jesse checks in on a discussion's subject matter. Succinct and informative. But leaves me wondering why tech/security savvy devs are globally adopting that init and all of its warts. I have seen the explanations about how it's easier in some ways or other, but are these developers of Linux distros selling their souls to the Devil?
I'm not a smoker for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is knowing first hand what it can do. I again wonder why so many devs "smoke" so to speak, knowing what SystemD can do as to elevated priviliges and other security issues. I hate to beat a dead horse, but it seems like that init would have died a sort of amoral death if it were... cancer causing ("that bad").
47 • systemd (by Jesse on 2025-04-11 23:49:39 GMT from Canada)
@46: "But leaves me wondering why tech/security savvy devs are globally adopting that init and all of its warts. I have seen the explanations about how it's easier in some ways or other, but are these developers of Linux distros selling their souls to the Devil?"
I wouldn't go quite so drastic as to say they sold their souls. I think systemd makes a lot of things easier for developers, even if it makes some things less convenient for admins and users. In some circles, especially commercially-backed software, there is a strong motivation to make development quick and easy. So some developers have got into the habit of saying "Let systemd handle it" Timers? Login? Namespaces? Logging? Sure, you could implement it the classic way, or roll it yourself, OR you could "let systemd handle it".
This results in some software relying on systemd, or being packaged with systemd in mind, which means the rest of the ecosystem around that software either needs to work with systemd too or do the work to go around it. (See GNOME, Snap, etc mentioned above.) Ubuntu famously adopted systemd because Debian adopted it and doing the same was easier than patching around the change. Linux Mint more or less followed for the same reason. Most developers don't want to put in the work to get around systemd when just accepting that the Big Names (Red Hat and Debian) are using it and learning to live with it.
And it's not that systemd is terrible at what it does, but it has had more than its fair share of issues which makes a lot of people wary of it. If you are curious, I wrote more about init and systemd here:
https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20240527#qa
and
https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20210125#qa
Number of Comments: 47
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