 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1119, 28 April 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 17th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
This week we get to share a range of fun, exciting, and interesting developments from across the wider open source community. Our news section this week reports on CachyOS shipping with the OCCT stress testing software while the Debian project enters soft freeze, an early step on the road to Debian 13 being released. Debian held its Project Leader election this week and we share the details. We also share a tutorial on getting NetBSD to run on a Nintendo Wii and even run a web server on the gaming hardware. When we cover this week's new releases, later in the newsletter, we share one of the largest distributions to ship - with a 36GB download. We share details on this and other releases below and list the torrents we are seeding. First though we talk about Ubuntu MATE. Jeff Siegel takes Ubuntu MATE 25.04 for a spin and reports on his experiences with this community edition in our Feature Story. Plus we talk about what is missing from the Linux ecosystem. Sometimes it is harder to notice what is not there rather than what is and we explore this in our Questions and Answers column. What missing feature do you think would benefit the Linux community? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll or share your thoughts in the comments. Finally, we say a fond thank you to the kind readers who sent us donations. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
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| Feature Story (By Jeff Siegel) |
Ubuntu MATE 25.04
Linux has been criticized - and then criticized some more - because there are too many of them, whether distros or desktops. Linux's great failing, the critics complain, is that all those choices are too confusing, too baffling for the vast majority of users. All that choice also wastes resources, they claim, that could be better used to perfect the "best" distros to better appeal to that vast majority of users.
To which I say "nuts", and point to Ubuntu MATE and its current release, 25.04, codenamed Plucky Puffin, as an example. It's a professional, competent, and well-designed distro, and it serves its users with speed and efficiency, despite a couple of irritating aggravations. Most importantly, the fact that - after spending a week with it - I don't want to use MATE 25.04 as my daily driver is completely irrelevant. If nothing else, I've never used Evolution, so why would I want to start now?
In a larger sense, MATE isn't designed for users like me. Rather, it exists for those who want the familiarly and straight-forward approach of the GNOME 2 desktop (which GNOME abandoned 14 years ago in its pursuit of the more tablet-like GNOME 3 interface) and that will work with modern hardware and software. There's nothing wrong with that. In this, 25.04 does exactly what its users want it to do, and its creators should be complimented for achieving that goal.
The basics
In fact, Ubuntu MATE 25.04 marks the 10th anniversary of the distro becoming an official Ubuntu flavor. It's not a long-term release, so it's only supported for nine months. The ISO download is 3.72GB, compared to 5.9GB for Ubuntu and 4.7GB for Kubuntu. Recommended system requirements are an i3 processor, 4GB of memory, and a 20GB SSD, but the distro should also work, according to the documentation, with older Core 2 processors and as little as 2GB of memory and a 10GB hard drive.
Installation uses Ubuntu's new Flutter-based installer, which has received mixed reviews (mostly for its stability). Oddly, it worked without any problems in VirtualBox, zooming through the process in less than 10 minutes. On the other hand, there were any number of problems during installation on the test machine, and I installed it twice because I couldn't believe an Ubuntu-based installer was being so difficult. First, it was slow, as much as 45 minutes from beginning to end; second, it threw several errors each time. The first installation locked up when it finished, and I had to do a hard reset to get the newly installed system to load. The second install offered a "Brisk Menu" error, which apparently dates back to at least version 18.04, and was followed by another system freeze that required another hard reset.
Ubuntu MATE 25.04 -- The system installer
(full image size: 359kB, resolution: 1290x823 pixels)
Was this a failing with the Flutter installer? Or did it have something to with the test machine, given that installation on VirtualBox was so straightforward? I'm not sure. I've never had any problems with other, non-Flutter installations on the test machine, but the Flutter installer has also worked smoothly on my other, slightly older, test machine. If I had to guess, given the problems others have reported, I'd lean to the installer.
Still, once all was set up, MATE offered a modern, if a bit retro-quirky, experience. And yes, there was a pang of nostalgia when I used the MATE Tweak tool to configure the top panel to make it look like GNOME 2, with its Application, Places and System sub-menus.
Ubuntu MATE 25.04 -- The classic top panel
(full image size: 900kB, resolution: 1368x768 pixels)
The distro comes with much of the usual Ubuntu collection of software, save Evolution instead of Thunderbird for mail. In particular, 25.04 includes the Linux 6.14 kernel, the MATE 1.26.2 desktop, Firefox 137, Evolution 3.56, and LibreOffice 25.2.2, as well as a host of installed additions for encryption and dual booting. The current version of the Caja file manager is 1.26.3, complete with the ability to change folder colors.
Getting work done
As to apps, Shotwell 0.32.10 handles photos, Rhythmbox 3.4.8I is the music player, and GNOME's new Celluoid 0.2.7 does videos. The default camera app is not the venerable Cheese or GNOME's new Snapshot/Camera, but Webcamoid 9.2, which crashed each time I tried to use it.
MATE offers the usual Ubuntu-style control centre, where users can also fiddle with the distro's appearance - change themes, set up a head-up display (HUD), finagle with the panel indicators in a limited sort of way, and adjust the Plank dock's preferences. The latter is especially helpful for anyone who has spent way too much time trying to right-click on a Plank icon to reach the preferences option.
Ubuntu MATE 25.04 -- The MATE settings panel
(full image size: 476kB, resolution: 1368x768 pixels)
MATE's Tweak tool allows users to change desktop icon settings; switch the theme; install Plank (again, much welcome); and work with the Marco window manager. Its choices don't seem quite as extensive as the various GNOME tweak tools and their options, but it probably does what its users need.
Also much welcome: An updated version of the GDebi package installer with a working GUI, which I haven't seen in years. And the Nextcloud desktop file manager, to allow me to access my Nextcloud home server, installed and worked without any problems, and the Zoom Snap package also installed successfully.
Ubuntu MATE 25.04 -- The MATE Tweak utility
(full image size: 592kB, resolution: 1282x801 pixels)
App Centre 1.0 handles most of the package management (though Synaptic is in the repositories) and, given the problems that have plagued Canonical's efforts to build a decent, one size fits all software store, it's a noticeable improvement. For one, the update function seems to work better than previous versions, which sometimes hung up. For another, search actually works, and it's possible to search for snaps, Deb files, or both. It's still not as streamlined as it could be; for example, there are three versions of Thunderbird and four versions of Chromium available without any explanation of which version is which, and none of the versions explicitly say they're a Snap (which each seems to be).
Ubuntu MATE 25.04 -- The software centre
(full image size: 281kB, resolution: 1368x768 pixels)
I really only ran into two problems (other than Webcamoid crashing). The first was the well-known and long-standing printer installation "failed to connect to server" error, which seems to be common among most Ubuntu flavors and distros based on Ubuntu. It renders the GUI useless, even though it recognizes the printer, and forces printer installation through CUPS and localhost:631 (and even then requires patience and trial and error). Will this ever be fixed?
The second was trying to adjust the top panel to my specific needs. Yes, the weather applet (Weather Report) actually provided the correct temperature instead of just a forecast. But adding applets and rearranging them was not nearly so simple. On Xubuntu, for example, a right-click on the panel almost always provides fixes for all issues. But MATE sets up most of its applets through eight Ayatana indicator managers, so trying to delete one unnecessary applet often ends up deleting other, necessary applets that are managed through that specific Ayatana manager. The Ayatana managers are even hidden in the startup manager, to prevent easy editing.
No doubt this is to ensure that changing the panel theme and layout through the tweak tool works more easily, and maybe there's a way around this that is simple and straightforward. But I never found it, so I was stuck with applets I didn't want and was limited in adding those that I needed, like a clipboard (for which there doesn't seem to be a MATE default for the panel).
Also annoying: the panel separator applet is a skinny line that apparently can't be expanded or changed into a space, which gave me a cramped, unpleasant looking panel. Again, maybe there's a way around this, but I never found it in a week of looking.
Having said all that, these are minor - and more personal - problems. Would that most Linux distros offered these as the worst parts of the experience. That's something for all those critics who want to consolidate distros and resources to consider.
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Hardware used for this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a HP EliteBook 840 G5 laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Core i7-8550U, 1.80GHz
- Storage: 512GB M.2 SSD
- Memory: 16GB of RAM
- Networking: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 Combo
- Display: Intel UHD Graphics 620
When he is not testing out new versions of Linux distributions, Jeff Siegel can be found writing about all things related to wine at Wine Curmudgeon.
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Visitor supplied rating
Ubuntu MATE has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.2/10 from 78 review(s).
Have you used Ubuntu MATE? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
CachyOS ships OCCT stress testing tool, Debian enters soft freeze and elects Project Leader, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena planning business services, NetBSD running on a Wii
The CachyOS project has published refreshed live media. The new snapshot (version 250422) mostly focuses on bug fixes, but there is a new tool on the live media to help users perform stress tests on their environment: "Today we pushed out a new release, which is a fixing release for the previous one. There were some issues with the kernel, which have been resolved. Also, this now includes the tool OCCT, which makes it possible to use the ISO as an isolated stress testing environment. Thanks to @kaitokariheddo for providing this excellent idea!" Information on OCCT can be found on the OCBASE website.
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The Debian project is preparing for a new table release which will likely arrive around the middle of 2025. Debian has entered a "soft freeze" which means no new major features are being added to the Testing branch at this time. From this point until Debian 13 "Trixie" is released only bug fixes will be allowed. The Debian website has further information on the freezing process.
In other Debian-related news, Andreas Tille has been elected Debian Project Leader. The candidates and the results of the vote can be found on the Debian 2025 Vote page. Congratulations to Andreas Tille and best of luck in the year ahead.
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The Fedora distribution has defaulted to running the GNOME and Plasma desktop sessions on Wayland for a release or two. A new proposal suggests Fedora may remove the GNOME X11 session option from the distribution entirely, dropping GNOME X11 from the package repositories. "Remove the GNOME X11 packages from the Fedora repositories. All users of the GNOME X11 session will be migrated to the GNOME Wayland session." While this change has not been implemented yet, it is likely to happen as GNOME 50 is expected to drop X11 support, making GNOME a Wayland-only desktop environment.
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The Murena team has some new features planned for later in 2025. The project, which provides a de-Googled build of Android along with cloud services, is expanding to offer business services and management tools. "We've been receiving continuous requests from organizations looking to migrate away from platforms like Office 365 and Google Docs. To address this, we're thrilled to announce Murena Workspace for Businesses, specifically designed for businesses. It will provide comprehensive tools for team management, collaboration, email, calendars, and more - all hosted on your own custom domain if desired. Additionally, we'll introduce a powerful Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution, enabling organizations to effectively manage fleets of Murena smartphones and tablets." Further information can be found in the Murena founder's post.
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The NetBSD operating system is highly portable and lightweight. This allows the project to run on a wide variety of CPUs and unusual devices. Alex Haydock tested the range of NetBSD recently by setting up a website, powered by NetBSD, running on a Nintendo Wii. "The NetBSD Wii image has all the necessary metadata & structure needed to boot directly from the Homebrew Channel as if it were any other kind of homebrew app. I think there's a lot of credit due here to NetBSD developer Jared McNeill, who seems to be the main author of the Wii port.
Placing our SD card in the console and launching the Homebrew Channel is all we need to do to prepare ourselves to launch NetBSD. Once booted into NetBSD, we can use a USB keyboard just fine, but it will be easiest to get SSH working so we can manage the system remotely. The SSH daemon is already running out-of-the-box, so the only changes we need to make are to set a password for the root user and then enable logging in as root by adding PermitRootLogin yes to the sshd_config." Haydock's blog post offers details on getting NetBSD running on the Wii. Status and resource usage information has also been provided.
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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) |
What is missing from the Linux ecosystem?
Looking-for-something asks: With Windows 10 hitting its end of life date this year, what is the Linux community missing? What is something a distro could do that hasn't been done yet that would make a difference in adoption?
DistroWatch answers: I'm going to answer these questions in reverse order. As to what could make a difference in Linux adoption, I have always maintained that getting Linux pre-installed on computers being sold in shops is the main change which would make a difference in market share. In fact, it's probably one of the few things which will make a significant difference in the number of users who run Linux.
Regardless of the market - whether we're talking desktop computers, phones, cars, TVs, or gaming consoles - around 90% of people will not change the default system which ships with their device. To most people, the software which runs on their computer (or phone) is just part of the device, part of the appliance. Most people aren't aware of the concept of an operating system as a separate entity, something than can be swapped out. When they buy a new computer from their local electronics shop, most people see it as a complete unit, an appliance. Generally people won't consider changing the operating system which came with their computer any more than they'd plan to swap out their car's motor for one from another manufacturer.
In order to increase Linux adoption, beyond a percentage point, you'd need to get retail shops to stock computers with Linux installed on them. Consumers would need to be able to walk into a Walmart or Best Buy and purchase a system running Ubuntu or Linux Mint. If you're looking for a feature which will make people install a Linux distribution as an alternative to their existing operating system, your idea is cutting out the majority of the population from your plan who will never switch.
As to the other question (What is the Linux community missing?) I'd say the big feature I notice is missing is automation.
There are some distributions which will try to automate a few tasks. There is one Debian-based distribution which completely automates the install process if you boot it from a thumb drive (which is as dangerous as it is effective). There are some distributions which will automate setting up local printers. A few distributions will set up a guest account with just a click. But these features are often not in the same distribution.
I think automation is what is missing, especially for less technical users. Most users will not manually install updates, even if an icon or desktop notification tells them updates are available. (This is doubly an issue if there are multiple package managers involved, like DNF and Flatpak, on the same system.) Most people are not comfortable setting up printers, configuring the install process of a new operating system, setting up a guest account, or doing various other maintenance tasks.
To see what I mean, sometime borrow a non-techie friend's laptop or smartphone. Look at when it was last updated, when the browser cache was last cleaned, when its old log files were last purged, when a backup was last made - chances are the answer will be that none of these tasks were ever done, unless they were done automatically by the operating system. This is why Windows automatically updates, it's why Android will automatically offer to remove unused apps, it's why iPhones famously sync files to a cloud account, it's why so many people give up when they reach the disk partitioning section of Linux system installers. These tasks need to happen automatically for less technical users or the tasks won't be performed at all.
There are a lot of friendly Linux distributions, and a few (like Mint) come pretty close to automating the install process. But almost no Linux distributions provide automatic updates by default, automatically sync files to a cloud backup, automate disk clean-up, or a dozen other little tasks about which regular computer users never think.
These are things Linux distributions usually don't do because most Linux distributions are made by tech-savvy developers for tech-savvy people. Technologically literate people usually don't want their systems automatically doing important, disruptive tasks for them. But this is going to be a requirement for larger adoption by less technically literate people.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
CRUX 3.8
The CRUX distribution is a lightweight operating system with software added through a collection of application ports. CRUX 3.8 is the first release in about three years and features upgrades across the system. "CRUX 3.8 comes with a multilib toolchain which includes glibc 2.40, GCC 14.2.0 and Binutils 2.43.1. Kernel: Linux 6.12.23 (LTS). CRUX 3.8 ships with X.Org 7.7 and X.Org Server 21.1.16. CRUX 3.8 includes Wayland 1.23.1. Ports continue to default to X.Org, but Wayland can easily be installed along and run in either pure Wayland or Xwayland mode. If you decide to run a Wayland session, you will need to enable the 'contrib' collection and rebuild a few ports (for example xorg/mesa) to make it fully available. The ISO image is processed with isohybrid and is suitable for burning on a DVD or putting on a USB drive. UEFI support is available during installation with dosfstools, efibootmgr and grub2-efi/syslinux available during installation. Because all bootloaders are in our opt collection now, no bootloader is installed as a core port by default. To give the possibility to select a bootloader, we have added a new menu to setup. Important notes: glibc depends on libxcrypt now, we have added libxcrypt to our core repository; latest shadow depends on libbsd or libmd, we have added both to core...." Additional information is provided in the release notes.
Commodore OS Vision 3.0
Commodore OS Vision is a 64-bit Linux distribution which maintains a retro C64 style and ships with many games pre-installed. The project's latest release, version 3.0, includes over 200 games. "Commodore OS Vision 3.0 is the largest, games oriented, Linux distribution ever produced, featuring 200+ free linux compatible games as well as an assortment of classic Commodore games and demos that will undoubtedly scratch your nostalgic itch. Commodore OS now has its own BASIC. Commodore OS BASIC V1 is a modern BASIC implementation featuring 3D graphics, built-in sprites, built-in tilemaps, 2D and 3D physics and user types. Future development will be geared towards compiling software for the original C64 and Amiga hardware. With Commodore emulation all set up, a plentitude of pixel based graphics editors (including C64 sprite and charset editors), as well as Amiga MOD and C64 SID trackers, why not build you dream retro game on Commodore OS?" Additional information can be found on the project's release announcement page.
OpenMandriva Lx 6.0
Bernhard Rosenkränzer has announced the release of OpenMandriva Lx 6.0, a major update of the project's independently-developed distribution that started as a fork of Mandriva Linux back in 2013. "The independent, community-controlled distribution, OpenMandriva Lx 6.0, a fixed-point release (as opposed to the rolling-release branch), is out right now. Main features: KDE Plasma 6 desktop by default (X11 and Wayland available); community spins featuring the latest desktop environments LXQt 2.2.0, GNOME 48.1, Xfce 4.20.1 and COSMIC 1.0 alpha; this also features the first official stable release of the OpenMandriva Server edition; if you run OMLx 6.0 inside VirtualBox, we strongly recommend using the X11 variant, since there are some known problems with Wayland on VirtualBox-emulated GPU; VirtualBox users may need to set VMSVGA controller to boot successfully; it works fine on most hardware and in QEMU with KVM...." See the release announcement and the release notes for further information.
OpenMandriva Lx 6.0 -- Running the Plasma desktop
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Archcraft 2025.04.24
Aditya Shakya has announced the release of Archcraft 2025.04.24, a lightweight, Arch-based Linux distribution with a choice of two window managers and a selection of lightweight applications. The available window managers are Openbox (a stacking window manager) and bspwm (a tiling window manager which supports tiling, stacking and tabbing layouts). The new version of Archcraft comes with the latest Linux kernel, version 6.14.3, bspwm 0.9.10, NVIDIA 570.144, Firefox 137.0.2, updated packages from Arch Linux and AUR repositories, and some bug fixes: "The April 2025 ISO image of Archcraft is now available to download. Changelog: updated ISO image profile to archiso 83-1; latest base with new packages; update all Archcraft and AUR packages; updated Openbox and bspwm configurations; fixed issues with rofi menu layouts; fixed Polybar crashes; small improvements and bugs fixed." Read the brief release announcement for all the details.
OpenBSD 7.7
The OpenBSD team have released OpenBSD 7.7. The project, which places a high priority on secure code and correct documentation, has improved performance in out of memory situations, improved hybernate support, and interoduced new userland features: "Various new userland features: Numerous changes to make the imsg API stricter and better, which were followed by adapting all applications across the tree. Allow the user to provide an alternative perfpolicy when on battery, extending the semantics of hw.perfpolicy to provide two buttons to specify desired behavior. This gives users more flexibility in setting the performance when AC-powered vs. battery powered. Made calendar(1) use the environment variable RECIPIENT_EMAIL for sending mails to. Made security(8) use GMT rather than the local timezone when checking for changes in device nodes and setuid files. Avoids false positives when changing timezones. Added a new variable PASSWDSKIP that can be set in /etc/daily.local to prevent security(8) from complaining about specific accounts that have no password. This is typically used for services like anoncvs and gotd. Added [-f file] to sysctl(8) to apply sysctl.conf(5) in one go, and started using it in rc(8) instead of a parser implemented in ksh. Added support for read/write of xmm/ymm registers to lldb(1)." A complete list of chances can be found in the project's release announcement.
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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: 3,203
- Total data uploaded: 47.1TB
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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 think the Linux ecosystem is missing something?
In this week's Questions and Answers section we talked about Linux adoption and what, if anything, is missing from the Linux community to encourage further adoption of desktop Linux. Do you think Linux is missing anything? Do you think our answer was correct? Do you have a better solution for attracting new users? Let us know what you think Linux needs in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on text editors for the console in containers in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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What is Linux missing?
| Nothing: | 460 (44%) |
| You are right - we need automation: | 179 (17%) |
| We need automation and something else (see comments): | 209 (20%) |
| We do not need automation - we need something else (see comments): | 200 (19%) |
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| Website News |
Donations and Sponsors
Each month we receive support and kindness from our readers in the form of donations. These donations help us keep the web server running, pay contributors, and keep infrastructure like our torrent seed box running. We'd like to thank our generous readers and acknowledge how much their contributions mean to us.
This month we're grateful for the $113 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| J S | $50 |
| Jonathon B | $10 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| Joshua B | $7 |
| Brian59 | $5 |
| Chris S | $5 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| John B | $5 |
| TaiKedz | $5 |
| J.D. L | $2 |
| PB C | $2 |
| aRubes | $1 |
| Colton D | $1 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
| Kai D | $1 |
| Lars N | $1 |
| Shasheen E | $1 |
| William E | $1 |
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- Helwan Linux. Helwan Linux is an Arch-based distribution featuring the Cinnamon desktop. Helwan offers localization for Arabic users and includes both system rescue and developer tools.
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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, 5 May 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 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre
The Hyperbola Project is a community driven effort to provide a fully free (as in freedom) operating system that is stable, secure, simple, lightweight that tries to Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) with Long Term Support (LTS). The distribution was originally derviced from Arch snapshots, plus stability and security from Debian, though Hyperbola is no longer binary-compatible with either distribution. Hyperbola provides packages that meet the GNU Free System Distribution Guidelines (GNU FSDG) and offers replacements for the packages that do not meet this requirement. Packages are provided for the i686 and x86_64 architectures.
Status: Active
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View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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