 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1120, 5 May 2025 |
|
Welcome to this year's 18th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Open source software runs a huge portion of the world's computing devices and IT infrastructure. Linux servers, in particular, are virtually everywhere; Linux runs on the majority of smartphones; open source operating systems form the basis of most gaming consoles; and an increasing percentage of desktop systems run open source software. Unfortunately, many open source projects are at risk of losing key parts of their behind-the-scenes support - such as build systems, repository mirrors, and websites. Government and corporate funding for open source software is shrinking, despite growing reliance on open source developers to maintain the projects on which these same governments and companies run. We share an overview of this problem from the point of view of the Gentoo project in our News section. We also share advice from the Kali Linux project on updating repository verification keys and report on the news that UBports is testing home directory encryption for mobile devices. Plus we share highlights from the latest version of the Trinity desktop. Before we get to those details, we share a review of CachyOS. A few weeks ago we reviewed EndeavourOS, a project with a similar design and approach to CachyOS, and this week we compare how CachyOS performs compared to Endeavour. Then, in our Questions and Answers column, we discuss what it means when an operating system "breaks" and what causes a system to break. Have you recently had a Linux distribution suddenly stop working? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. We wrap up this week by sharing recent releases and listing the torrents we are seeding as well as welcoming iDeal OS to our database. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
|
| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
CachyOS 250330
The CachyOS distribution is an Arch-based project which places a strong emphasis on speed. The distribution aims to be suitable for both experienced Linux users and beginners while offering excellent performance and desktop responsiveness.
The distribution's latest release introduces a new bootloader, called Limine, which reportedly integrates snapshots when Btrfs is used as the root filesystem. The release announcement also mentions a new package has been created called cachyos-samba-settings that will automate setting up the Samba network shares software. There have also been some changes to the WINE package:
We have introduced a customized WINE package, which will now utilize 'WoW64' to strip the dependencies from the lib32 libraries. We hope this will develop more over the years, and also Valve/Steam is migrating Steam without lib32 support. Additionally, WINE and WINE-Staging will now default to NTSync instead of winesync. This should generally greatly improve performance, also in WINE applications.
There are two editions of CachyOS: Desktop and Handheld. The Desktop edition is meant to be run on desktop and laptop computers. The Handheld edition reportedly runs on a variety of portable devices, including the Rog Ally, Steam Deck OLED and LCD, and Legion GO. I downloaded the Desktop flavour which runs on x86_64 machines and is 2.5GB in size.
Booting from the live ISO takes longer than usual, but the system eventually booted the Plasma desktop environment. I did some exploring of the system and discovered the delay at boot time was from the distribution loading itself into RAM before continuing the boot process. Once Plasma loads we are greeted by a welcome window. This window provides us with access to documentation and support resources as well as release notes. Buttons in the welcome window open local resources, such as a greeting, in the welcome window itself. On-line resources, such as the wiki and project website, open in Firefox. The welcome window also has a button which will open the project's system installer when clicked.
The live Plasma desktop was unusually slow to respond to input and surprisingly slow to launch applications. When I ran the distribution in VirtualBox the live system would take about three seconds to open the application menu, two seconds to perform a search for a launcher in the menu, and up to eleven seconds elapsed between clicking the Shutdown button and seeing the confirmation window. When I was running CachyOS on my laptop the experience was more responsive, about two to three times faster, but that is still unusually slow compared to most other distributions running live sessions on the same hardware. This surprised me, both because CachyOS's stated mission is to be fast, and also because the distro had already loaded itself into RAM and this usually results in blazingly fast response times.
Installing
When I launched the system installer a pop-up window asked if I wanted to proceed with GRUB or Limine. I decided to try the new Limine bootloader. These options are not explained to the user - there are no pros or cons presented - so many users may not be aware of the potential impact of their choice. Once I had selected Limine the Calamares installer launched. It walked me through the usual steps of picking my preferred language, keyboard layout, and selecting my timezone from a map.
Disk partitioning can be handled with a friendly, manual point-and-click experience or using a guided approach. The guided screen tells us it will set up a Btrfs root filesystem, but we can switch to using ext4, XFS, F2FS, ZFS, or Bcachefs. There are no swap options and it's not clear whether swap space will be enabled for us. Later I found CachyOS sets up a compressed swap device in RAM (zRAM), with no swap file or swap partition.
We are asked to pick which desktop we would like to use, with options including: No Desktop, Plasma, GNOME, Xfce, bspwm, Budgie, Cinnamon, COSMIC, i3, Hyperland, LXDE, LXQt, MATE, Openbox, Qtile, Sway, IKUI, and Wayfire. I decided to try LXQt since the live Plasma session had been so slow and I wanted to try something lighter.
The next step asks us to customize our package selection. We are shown a tree menu of software categories for the base system, add-ons, and desktops. We can expand these trees to see which specific packages will be installed and check a box next to the items we want. I went with LXQt, all the base system packages, and Firefox. The last screen asks us to make up a username and password for ourselves. Then the installer fetches its packages from CachyOS's repositories and offers to restart the computer.
Early impressions
Starting my computer after finishing the install brought up the Limine bootloader. The design is sleek and minimal. There is no countdown timer, just an option to select an operating system (CachyOS, in this case) and then a specific kernel for Cachy. The operating system does not boot automatically and I will talk about that more, later in the review. CachyOS then boots to a graphical login screen.
CachyOS 250330 -- The LXQt desktop and application menu
(full image size: 486kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
When we first sign in a welcome window with a new layout appears. The welcome window, which is called Hello, shows most of the same on-line resources as it did in the live environment. The button for launching the system installer has been replaced by two new buttons - one for accessing Apps/Tweaks and the other button is called Install Apps.
Apps/Tweaks is a bit of a catch-all for several package and performance related activities. From this screen We can enable and disable some services, such as systemd's out of memory daemon and Bluetooth. There are also buttons for launching a system update, re-installing all packages, clearing the package cache, removing old database locks, and installing "gaming" packages. There is a button for installing Snapper for Btrfs snapshot support and another button for changing the DNS server. (Snapper support was already installed on my system.) There are additional buttons for launching a package installer and another button for managing kernels. Most of the above tools either prompt us for a root password or open a terminal to run Pacman to complete tasks.
CachyOS 250330 -- Browsing available applications from the welcome window
(full image size: 391kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The Install Apps button in the welcome window opens a screen where we are shown a list of software categories, about 15 in total. Each category expands when clicked and holds two to six entries for popular applications. The categories include audio players, office suits, chat clients, e-book readers, video players, and so on. They do not appear to be placed in any particular order. Each entry has a name, a one-line description, and a checkbox we can click to queue it for installation. Once we have selected the applications we want to install a new terminal window opens to run Pacman and fetch the checked items.
The LXQt desktop I had selected at install time uses a light theme. A panel is placed at the bottom of the screen with an application menu and virtual desktop switcher to the left. A task switcher is placed in the middle of the panel and a system tray sits to the right.
Hardware
I found CachyOS worked for me in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS environments. The distribution ran fairly well in VirtualBox (once installed), though it was quite slow in the live session. The distribution worked well on my laptop. All of my computer's hardware was detected with audio, wireless networking, and media keys all working out of the box. The Plasma desktop, by default, did not register taps on the touchpad as clicks, but this can be adjusted in the System Settings panel.
My laptop's screen was quite dim by default, CachyOS set the screen to 13% brightness which made it difficult to read text. Fortunately screen brightness can be adjusted. Another issue I ran into was, at least when I was running the live session, Plasma enabled a lot of notification sounds which were played at high volume. Any end-of-line notifications, errors, feedback from adjusting the volume, and so on were unusually loud. This also gave the Plasma desktop a busy feel as it was regularly beeping and booping at me. LXQt was a quieter experience.
Once installed, CachyOS took up about 6GB of disk space. When signed into LXQt the system consumed about 540MB of RAM, which is fairly light by modern standards. LXQt, in contrast to the live Plasma desktop, was pleasantly responsive.
Included software
The LXQt application menu features a two-pane layout with individual application launchers on the left and software categories on the right. There is a search box in the menu to help us find specific items quickly. We can click and drag launchers in the menu to a Favourites section in the menu or to an empty section of the desktop panel to create quick-launch buttons.
I noticed an unusual duplication early on. I had opted to install Firefox at install time (selecting it from the list offered in Calamares) and this resulted in two copies of Firefox on my system. There was a vanilla copy of Firefox 136.0.4 with a light theme and default settings. There was also a second copy which was called Cachy Browser 136.0.3 which used a dark theme and a custom start page. Apart from these defaults, the two copies of the browser appeared to be identical.
Since we customize our software at install time, there can be a huge variety in the applications available to us. I mostly took the defaults after selecting LXQt as my desktop. This resulted in me having an image viewer, the PCManFM-Qt file manager, two virtual terminals, and two process monitors (btop++ and qps). There were plenty of configuration tools for LXQt and its underlying window manager, Openbox. The system shipped with the mpv and MPlayer media players. I found there were codecs on the system for playing my audio and video files.
Digging deeper I found Java was installed along with the GNU Compiler Collection and GNU command line tools. There were local manual pages for everything. CachyOS uses the systemd init software and service manager and, behind the scenes, we find version 6.14 of the Linux kernel.
The default command line shell for CachyOS users is Fish which did not work properly in the QTerminal virtual terminal. It would start by printing a vertical line of random characters and then display more seemingly random characters when I tried to use the Backspace or arrow keys. When using another virtual terminal, Alacritty, Fish worked as expected. It started by showing some status information and a normal prompt and I was able to type normally. When I switched my account's shell from Fish to Bash both terminal programs (Alacritty and QTerminal) worked well.
CachyOS 250330 -- Trying to use Fish inside the QTerminal application
(full image size: 145kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
I had hoped to tweak my bootloader, Limine, to add a timeout counter and maybe change the theme. I did not find any graphical utility to accomplish this. Limine does have a brief manual page, but it does not mention a configuration file or any options we can use to customize the bootloader. I'll touch on Limine's settings again a bit later.
One unusual quirk I ran into was with the PCManFM-Qt file manager. We can click on most elements in the application, including menus and the breadcrumb buttons. However, I could not open folders or open files by clicking or double-clicking icons. Double-clicking did nothing at all. I could, however, right-click on a file and use its context menu to open the file. Likewise, I could click on a file or folder and tap the Enter key to open the selected item.
Software management
Apart from the mini software installer offered through the welcome window there are two main approaches to working with packages on CachyOS. The first is the Pacman command line package manager. Pacman is quick and efficient. It has an unusual syntax, but it worked well for me and worked quickly.
CachyOS 250330 -- Running the Octopi package manager
(full image size: 410kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
For people who would prefer a point-and-click experience CachyOS ships with the Octopi package manager. This low-level package manager has a similar approach as Synaptic. It offers a list of software categories in one pane and shows us a list of packages in alphabetic order in another. We can click a box next to packages we want to install or remove. Octopi processes fetching and removing packages in batches, locking its interface while it works.
There is no support for Flatpak or Snap on the distribution, but we can install Flatpak from the main repositories.
Other observation
The distribution ships with a desktop application called Btrfs Assistant. This is a great tool which provides a graphical approach to browsing and managing Btrfs volumes, sub-volumes, and snapshots. It provides us with usage statistics, a list of sub-volumes, and access to snapshots. We can also create and compare snapshots through this utility. Btrfs Assistant is a handy, all-in-one tool for most Btrfs tasks.
CachyOS 250330 -- Running Btrfs Assistant
(full image size: 370kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The Btrfs utility only seemed to work with the root filesystem (called @) in my Btrfs volume. I had additional sub-volumes, such as @home, and I could create snapshots of these sub-volumes, but I could not browse the snapshots of the sub-volumes. I also could not find a way to restore snapshots from sub-volumes using the graphical interface.
Earlier I mentioned wanting to adjust the settings of the Limine boot menu. In particular I wanted to set it up to automatically boot into CachyOS after a timeout. Needing to manually select my operating system was a minor inconvenience, but it became tedious if I wanted to perform kernel upgrades and made it impossible to remotely reboot the machine.
I found almost no local documentation for Limine, nothing that mentioned options anyway, and there wasn't any configuration file for it in the /etc/ directory. I found the bootloader's upstream website and located documentation about customizing Limine. This documentation mentioned the possible locations of the Limine configuration file (I found mine at /boot/limine.conf). There I found the default configuration already specified a timeout of 5 seconds, after which it was set to automatically boot CachyOS. But this is not what was happening on my system. In short, it looks like the distribution has set up Limine properly, but the software was not working as dictated by its configuration file. At the time of writing I'm not sure why Limine is not working properly.
Likewise, Limine did not recognize Btrfs snapshots. I created several root snapshots, some were created manually, some were made automatically when I installed new packages. None of them were available through the Limine bootloader. This was one of the key features mentioned in the CachyOS release announcement and it was disappointing to find it did not work.
Another observation I made was some programs, like Btrfs Assistant and the welcome window, did not respect the LXQt desktop theme. They remained light and used the default theme when I switched to an alternative theme and darker look.
The distribution's release announcement mentioned a new package called cachyos-samba-settings which would assist us in configuring Samba shares. This package was not installed by default, but it was available in the main repositories. I installed the package. This did not appear to install any command with a similar name to the package on the system. Searches for new tools called "cachyos-" or "samba-" did not find anything new on the system. However, I did notice that, after a reboot, the Samba service was enabled. This indicates the new cachyos-samba-settings package seems to do its work automatically without the user needing to run anything manually. I didn't find document ion to confirm this was the way cachyos-samba-settings was meant to be used, but it seemed to work.
Sometimes the LXQt mouse pointer arrow disappeared and was replaced by a blue square. This usually happened when changing Openbox settings or opening a new application. It did not happen consistently, but it occurred about once per session.
Conclusions
In a lot of ways CachyOS felt a lot like EndeavourOS, which I had just finished reviewing shortly before downloading CachyOS. This gave me the frequent sense of deja vu while setting up Cachy. The two distributions both use Arch as a base, both run Plasma on the live media, both use the Calamares installer, both allow the user to select their desktop at install time, and they use similar mini software centres launched from similar welcome windows. In short, much of my first day with both distributions was similar.
In a direct comparison between the two, CachyOS frequently came up short compared to Endeavour. Cachy was slower to boot (from the live media), didn't boot automatically once installed, its live version of Plasma was slower, and its initial software centre less organized. The live session was louder/more distracting and, once installed, I ran into more problems with the LXQt desktop than I had with Endeavour's Plasma desktop.
Once Cachy was up and running there were additional quirks and problems. For example, Fish not working in my default terminal was an issue I had to work around. I found the duplication of Firefox (Firefoxes?) strange, and the hunt for Limine settings frustrating.
CachyOS 250330 -- Cachy Browser and Firefox
(full image size: 280kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
There were some good elements of CachyOS too. I liked that the distribution shipped with a graphical package manager (Octopi), something EndeavourOS did not do. I also appreciated the Btrfs Assistant application which makes a lot of Btrfs features easier to access. I hope more distributions, especially rolling releases, will enable Btrfs and ship with similar tools.
There were three main claims from the CachyOS team I wanted to try out during this trial. They mentioned Limine and its ability to boot Btrfs snapshots. Limine does work to boot the distribution, but it doesn't boot automatically and I could not find any way to enable booting from snapshots. So this was a mixed experience. The automated Samba setup appears to work. I would have liked to have found more documentation about exactly what the automated tool does, but it seems to have worked as intended.
The third claim I was curious about was the idea CachyOS is meant for a wide audience: "Whether you're a seasoned Linux user or just starting out, CachyOS is the ideal choice for those looking for a powerful, customizable and blazingly fast operating system." I do agree that there are perks to using CachyOS if you are an experienced Linux user. It has up to date software, a great degree of customization from the installer, Btrfs snapshots are enabled by default, and it looks like the project is doing work to improve WINE performance. (I don't use WINE, but I'm sure some people appreciate the team's efforts.) However, I'd caution against using CachyOS if you are one of the people "just starting out". The distribution expects a degree of experience and familiarity with many aspects of the Linux ecosystem. CachyOS users should be familiar with multiple desktop environments, be able to understand the difference between GRUB and Limine, be able to troubleshoot terminal issues, and be comfortable working with low-level packages through the Octopi minimal package manager. These tools tended to work well, but I wouldn't recommend them for beginners.
Running CachyOS for me wasn't a bad experience, on the whole, but it is an ambitious project and it sometimes tripped over the new technologies offered or the lack of documentation for those technologies. There are a lot of desktops, a lot of Btrfs features, and a lot of cutting edge packages. As often happens in these cutting-edge, rolling environments, some aspects work really well and some pieces haven't been around long enough to mature. I think CachyOS is probably best suited for Linux users with some experience who don't mind some rough edges in their quest for the latest and greatest software.
* * * * *
Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an HP DY2048CA laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 512GB solid state drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Wireless network device: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + BT Wireless network card
* * * * *
Visitor supplied rating
CachyOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8/10 from 354 review(s).
Have you used CachyOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
|
| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Kali updates project's repository key, Trinity desktop receives update, UBports tests home directory encryption, Gentoo and other projects face losing their infrastructure
The Kali Linux project has published an advisory, letting its users know of an upcoming problem with package management. "Bad news for Kali Linux users! In the coming day(s), apt update is going to fail for pretty much everyone out there:
Missing key 827C8569F2518CC677FECA1AED65462EC8D5E4C5, which is needed to verify signature.
Reason is, we had to roll a new signing key for the Kali repository. You need to download and install the new key manually, here's the one-liner:
sudo wget https://archive.kali.org/archive-keyring.gpg -O /usr/share/keyrings/kali-archive-keyring.gpg
Now your Kali is ready to keep rolling! Sorry for the inconvenience."
The advisory explains why this problem is happening: "This is not only you, this is for everyone, and this is entirely our fault. We lost access to the signing key of the repository, so we had to create a new one. At the same time, we froze the repository (you might have noticed that there was no update since Friday 18th), so nobody was impacted yet. But we're going to unfreeze the repository this week, and it's now signed with the new key. As a result, there's a bit of manual work for you."
* * * * *
The Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) is a fork of KDE 3 which maintains the classic KDE approach and style. Trinity has received a new update, version 14.1.4, which introduces several small improvements: "The key highlights of this version are: support for Unicode surrogate characters and planes above zero (for example emojis); new modern vector wallpapers and new colour themes; new control module to manage deb/rpm alternatives; tab support in kpdf; better context menu for tderandrtray and fixes to the handling of gamma settings; clickable links in calendar events; support for transparency, top and shadow borders and inactive windows in Dekorator; better integration of kxkb with setxkbmap, new options and various fixes for the tray feedback; ability to create VPN connections in tdenetworkmanager once again; several improvements to the codeine player; support for Ubuntu Plucky and upcoming Fedora 43." While not widely used, some projects, such as Q4OS, will likely have packages of Trinity 14.1.4 soon.
* * * * *
The UBports team are adding home directory encryption to their mobile operating system. "Alfred has been doing some work on home folder encryption using the FairPhone 5. He showed a video of a FairPhone 5 booting up and decrypting after entry of a passcode. It uses fsScript. The intention is that the encryption should be automatic. At the moment, not all of the components needed are in the rootfs but the intention is to add them. The Lomiri greeter also needs a rewrite to incorporate the changes. The biggest challenge still remaining is to get the virtual keyboard to display during start-up. The encryption and description mechanism is not engaged every time the screen display locks." Additional information on progress going into UBports can be found in the project's newsletter.
* * * * *
The Gentoo project has put out a call for assistance on behalf of the Open Source Lab. The Open Source Lab (OSL) provides infrastructure, virtual machines, and package mirrors for dozens of open source projects. The OSL has faced cutbacks in funding from corporations in recent years and is now looking for alternative funding.
Lance Albertson wrote for the OSL: "Earlier this week, I was informed that unless we secure $250,000 in committed funds, the OSL will be forced to shut down later this year. I have reached out to our largest corporate sponsor and they are working to increase their support as we update our contract, but that still may not be enough." People and companies interested in supporting open source software can contact the OSL through their donations page.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
|
| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
What it means when an operating system breaks
Bent-but-not-broken asks: What causes a distro to "break"?
DistroWatch answers: Usually when people say their distribution "broke" they mean their operating system will no longer boot, or will not boot with the default settings. While this is the most common usage of the term, some people also say their distribution "broke" when some key piece of functionality, such as a desktop environment or a hardware driver, ceases to work properly.
A distribution typically breaks in one of three ways:
- Something caused a configuration change which resulted in incorrect settings. This could be caused by a package update or the user adjusting the settings of key programs.
- A package update introduced a new program file which no longer works the same way as the previous version. This could introduce a malfunctioning driver, incompatible library version, or coding error which results in instability.
- The user removed files necessary for the system to work properly. This can happen when a user removes a package they do not think they will need anymore or deletes a file that was necessary for the system to function properly.
A distribution can usually be fixed by rolling back whatever the most recent change was. Depending on your setup (and what broke), this will may involve restoring the previous version of a package, booting into an older kernel from the boot loader menu, or restoring a previous filesystem snapshot.
You can usually prevent your distribution from breaking by not changing the system's configuration files for core packages (or testing changes in a virtual machine), and by keeping up to date with your distribution's news about updates. Fast paced Linux distributions typically have mailing lists or news feeds users can subscribe to to learn about disruptive changes to packages. For example, Arch Linux users can check the project's news feed to learn about significant changes before fetching package updates.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
|
| Released Last Week |
4MLinux 48.0
The 4MLinux project has released version 48.0 of its lightweight operating system for games, system recovery, multimedia, and network services. Version 48.0 focuses on improving multimedia support: "The status of the 4MLinux 48.0 series has been changed to STABLE. Edit your documents with LibreOffice 25.2 and GNOME Office (AbiWord 3.0.5, GIMP 2.10.38, Gnumeric 1.12.59), surf the Internet with Firefox 137.0 and Chrome 135.0, send emails via Thunderbird 128.9, enjoy your music collection with Audacious 4.4.2, watch your favorite videos with VLC 3.0.21 and SMPlayer 24.5.0, play games powered by Mesa 24.3.3 and Wine 10.4. As always, the new major release has some new features. Kino (IEEE 1394 DV non-linear video editor) is now included out of the box (huge work has been done to make this old application work within a modern operating system). VVenC (H.266/VVC encoder) has been added to the 4MLinux codec pack. FreeTube (desktop application acting as a YouTube client) and Bristol (synthesisers, electric pianos and organs emulator) are now available as downloadable extensions. And finally, the LTS Linux kernel in 4MLinux has been updated to its version 6.12." The release announcement has further details.
AnduinOS 1.3.0
AnduinOS is an Ubuntu-based distribution which provides a GNOME desktop which has been themed and styled to resemble Windows 11. The project's latest release, AnduinOS 1.3.0, is based on Ubuntu 25.04 and ships with GNOME 48. "This version is highly recommended [because] we first added an app store (based on Flatpak) in it. Upgraded base system: The foundational system has been updated from Oracular (Ubuntu 24.10) to Plucky (Ubuntu 25.04). Added a new shortcut Super + V to toggle the clipboard history. Pre-installed GNOME Software to support installing software from the software store. Pre-installed Flatpak to support installing software from the software store. Fixed Firefox localization issue. Bumped GNOME to 48 and added HDR support." The project's release announcement also shares screenshots of the customized GNOME desktop. AnduinOS ships different ISO files for each supported language with about a dozen languages supported.
AnduinOS 1.3.0 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 467kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Mabox Linux 25.04
Daniel Napora has announced the release of Mabox Linux 25.04, the latest monthly update of the Arch-based Linux distribution with a customised desktop based on the Openbox window manager. The new release presents various improvements to the tint2 panel and the status indicator: "The April ISO image update brings a polished look, as well as important improvements to the default tint2 panel. The new look in the form of a thumbnail and additional functionalities have been given to the Panel Icon, which allows you to change the wallpaper and style of desktop elements. ... But the most important new feature is status indicator with a dynamic menu. In addition to the obvious functionality of notifying about available updates and performing updates, it has two additional modules: discs usage reporting, with a configurable alert level; it also allows you to browse the contents of mounted drives using a dynamic pipemenu. Directory size monitor for logs, Pacman cache, trash can, downloads." Continue to the release announcement, for more details and screenshots.
DragonFlyBSD 6.4.1
The DragonFlyBSD project has published its first update in over two years. The update to the 6.4.x branch introduces several fixes in the kernel, userland, and package manager. "6.4.1 fixes a number of small, long-standing issues, including: Fixed the issue that a pkg(8) update might delete the df-latetest.conf config file, which rendered pkg(8) unusable. Updated the shipped ca_root_nss package so that the newer Let's Encrypt certificates are trusted and thus pkg(8) works with the Avalon HTTPS repo. Fixed a memory leak in the legacy IDE/NATA driver that could easily lead to kernel panics. Expose SMBIOS entry point via kenv so dmidecode(8) works on UEFI-only systems." The release announcement lists other changes to drivers, system libraries the HAMMER2 filesystem, kernel, and userland tools: "date - Add the -I flag for ISO 8601 formatted output. lpr - Fix the '-i' option to allow an optional argument. last - Fix a seg-fault when time_t is out of range. man pages - Fix numerous bugs. newfs_hammer2 - Fix "-V 1" option (not that anyone should ever use it). makefs - Add HAMMER2 support. makefs - Allocate extra inodes when leaving free space in UFS images. makefs - Fix the calculation of file sizes. makefs - Do not assume that daddr_t is 64 bits, cast to 64 bits prior to intermediate multiplications. /bin/sh - now supports writes to non-blocking descriptors instead of erroring out. In particular, this fixes issues related to writes to non-blocking pipes when the pipe buffer becomes temporarily full. /bin/sh does not necessarily have any control over whether its stdout and/or stderr descriptor is set to non-blocking. Previously, /bin/sh scripts run indirectly during a dsynth would sometimes fail if the dsynth front-end did not drain the pipe quickly enough."
ALT Linux 11.0
Maria Fokanova has announced the release of ALT Linux 11.0 "Workstation", an independently-developed Linux distribution with RPM package management and (newly) GNOME as the default desktop: "Update 11 of ALT Workstation operating system is available. The new distribution release is based on Platform 11 (p11 'Salvia' stable branch). The build is available for the x86_64 and AArch64 architectures, using the 6.12 (LTS) Linux kernel. System environment: GCC 14 compiler suite; systemd 255.18; glibc 2.38; glib2 2.82. The new distribution retains the ability to boot ALT Workstation in LiveCD mode. The LiveCD uses Nouveau drivers, while the installed system defaults to NVIDIA drivers. Key features of the release on Platform 11: redesigned system theme; switched from MATE to GNOME desktop environment; numerous new GNOME-compliant applications; updated documentation. The most significant change in Workstation is transition to the GNOME desktop environment. GNOME components: GTK 4.16, Libadwaita 1.6, GNOME Shell 47.4." Read the rest of the release announcement for further information.
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
|
| 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: 3,206
- Total data uploaded: 47.3TB
|
| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
|
Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
When was the last time your Linux distro broke and stopped booting?
In our Questions and Answers section we talked about operating systems "breaking", what this means, and how it happens. Usually the term "breaking" indicates an operating system has ceased to boot after an update or configuration change. We'd like to hear from our readers: When was the last time one of your Linux installs broke so badly it stopped booting? Let us know the details in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on what Linux is missing in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
|
Linux most recently broke on me...
| Within the past month: | 148 (9%) |
| Within the past six months: | 145 (9%) |
| Within the last year: | 182 (11%) |
| Within the last five years: | 385 (23%) |
| It was five or more years ago: | 427 (26%) |
| Never: | 383 (23%) |
|
|
| Website News |
New projects added to database
iDeal OS
iDeal OS is a computer operating system, a custom respin of the powerful MX Linux distribution, with the best privacy and security settings enabled by default. The main goals of iDeal OS are privacy and security, offering to surf, shop, trade and bank online with complete peace of mind, without annoying advertisements, tracking, logging, bugs, viruses or unwanted disclosure of personal information. iDeal OS is available in two different editions: "Emerald", which offers applications for everyday computing needs, and "Diamond", with is a powerful digital workstation with a wide range of professional tools.
iDeal OS 2025.03.23 -- Running the Plasma desktop
(full image size: 2.5MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- Twister OS. Twister OS is a Linux distribution in the Debian family for single-board computers (SBCs) which features a complete desktop environment.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 12 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)
|
|
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 0, value: US$0.00) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
|
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Archives |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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.
|
| Random Distribution | 
MeeGo
MeeGo was an open-source Linux project which brings together the Moblin project, headed up by Intel, and Maemo, by Nokia, into a single open-source activity. It includes performance optimisations and features which enable the development of computational and graphically oriented applications and connected services, support for Internet standards, easy-to-use development environment based on Qt, and state-of-the-art Linux stack optimised for the size and capabilities of small footprint platforms and mobile devices. MeeGo currently targets platforms such as netbooks and entry-level desktops, handheld computing and communications devices, in-vehicle infotainment devices, connected TVs, and media phones.
Status: Discontinued
|
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
