 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1120, 5 May 2025 |
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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:
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| 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
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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.
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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
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Visitor supplied rating
CachyOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8/10 from 208 review(s).
Have you used CachyOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| 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."
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 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.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| 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.
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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: 3,206
- Total data uploaded: 47.3TB
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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) |
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.
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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%) |
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| 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)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Broke a distro (by Andy Prough on 2025-05-05 00:29:15 GMT from Switzerland)
I can't remember how long ago it was - probably 7 or 8 years ago. But I somehow managed to run a command that removed the running kernel. I learned the lesson very well that day to never remove an old kernel without first running 'uname -a' to see which one you are actually running.
When people say that GNU/Linux distros gives you the power [and corresponding responsibility] to do anything - including deleting vital running system packages - they aren't kidding.
2 • Never broke? (by mcellius on 2025-05-05 00:31:11 GMT from United States)
In the survey I chose to report that Linux never broke for me. I've been using Linux for 14 years and, in truth, I suspect that it probably did break for me at least a couple times, but I don't actually recall such an occurrence. If that did happen, I fixed it and got back to using it, and the experience wasn't bad enough to cause a lasting memory of it.
Then again, I've tested many Linux distros, and I'm sure some of those being tested broke. Some of then were broken from the very beginning. In those cases, I just wiped the partition/disk and went on my way, with my "daily driver" unaffected.
3 • Broke System (by Andra on 2025-05-05 00:45:36 GMT from Indonesia)
Last time I have broken system after update is on EndeavourOS, before I moved to NixOS. After more than 1 year in NixOS, my system never fail after update since nixos-rebuild will only work after evaluating nix expression in configuration.
There only two times I must re-install NixOS is when I accidentally erase whole my disk with openSUSE Aeon RC1 by upgrade Tumbleweed (I did dual-boot NixOS with it), and when I try to change substitutes = true to compiled everything on my device.
Otherwise, NixOS is secure and suitable as daily driver because its nature to create rollback entry after each update (rebuild).
4 • Broke distro (by Keith S on 2025-05-05 01:45:50 GMT from United States)
The last time I had a distro break was somewhere around 2019 or 2020 when an update broke Manjaro. It was my daily driver at the time. I don't remember the details now but after trying suggested fixes I distro hopped a little and landed on MX Linux, where I've been since without breaking. I usually have a machine running OpenBSD -current as well. I don't recall any updates that prevented it from booting since 2010, but occasionally it will break some functionality, which is almost always fixed very quickly.
5 • Not Booting (by penguinx86 on 2025-05-05 01:59:16 GMT from United States)
I used to have boot problems all the time when I was dual booting. Sometimes updates to one OS would cause boot problems with the other OS. That was about 5-10 years ago. Then, I started using VirtualBox instead of dual boot setups. I rarely have boot problems now, once I get past the initial installation.
6 • Boot Hang (by Mark on 2025-05-05 02:22:23 GMT from Canada)
I did a kernel upgrade in mid-2024 to my Debian-testing OS, which caused a boot-freeze part way thru. But the OS still booted fine when an older kernel was selected.
This spurred me to try the Liquorix-kernel, which worked well. Been running on Liquorix ever-since.
7 • On my system breaking (by Nick on 2025-05-05 02:43:46 GMT from Canada)
Last time it broke, I was testing alternate desktops on Fedora. I had uninstalled @desktop-gnome, or whatever, which I didn't know included DNF and the sorts.
Before that it was installing Cosmic, and using Arch in general.
8 • System breaking... (by Bobbie Sellers on 2025-05-05 03:24:37 GMT from United States)
On my system of the time Mandriva 2011 would not run.
Shortly after that Mandriva itself went ouf of business.
It took me a while to change but I started searching.
Mageia at the time would not boot though later I I
would run it for a while but it was early days for systemd
and having a dual-boot Windows/GNU Linux machine
I had continual problems. It was years before I learned
that Windows does kernel updates and that when it does
it rewrites the EFI partition which may have been the
problem to start with.
Since I took up with PCLinuxOS in 2016 I have had some
problems but they originate with the loose nut at the
keyboard.
bliss- Dell Precision 7730- PCLOS 2025.05- Linux 6.6.87- Plasma 5.27.11
9 • System break (by Antaeus on 2025-05-05 03:57:04 GMT from Italy)
I had Manjaro installed for a couple of years, then it broke on me. I then installed LMDE and my system has been rock solid, it's been 2 or 3 years now.
10 • Not booting (by Because; reasons on 2025-05-05 04:59:00 GMT from New Zealand)
daily driver: not in 14 years, since I changed to my current DD. ( +25yr user )
testing of alpha / beta some breakage, as to be expected,
11 • Last time my system was broken And Blazingly slow Catchy OS (by Hank on 2025-05-05 05:43:40 GMT from The Netherlands)
During last 5 years, Mint and Manjaro had issues and boot fails after updates.,
I now run antiX, Stable was never seriously broken. only hiccup was when a repo signing key needed renewal, fix was easy.
Daily usage, I have been on antiX sid for about 1.5 years, I have had a few issues but nothing unexpected or time consuming to fix..
I often wonder about ridiculous claims, blazing fast, catchy os, ahem, that one burned itself very quickly.
Catchy has one very big catch, even running from memory it feels sluggish compared to antiX with ICEWM running live from ram. From SSD it is also noticeably slower, the test experience is now consigned to the land of loonies and legends.
12 • System break (by jesuiswiizzz on 2025-05-05 05:45:25 GMT from France)
It happened once on my laptop, last year if I remember well, for reasons I still can't figure out precisely today (power switch?). All the other (few) problems I've had in the past 20 years on all of my computers never prevented the system from booting.
13 • poll (by Felix on 2025-05-05 05:52:49 GMT from Germany)
My FreeBSD installations never broke. When I was a Linux user, yes I sometimes "broke" my Linux. For Slackware that happened one time in about 10 years of usage. I broke it, because I replaced a lot of core components with alternative versions. Fedora Linux broke now and then. It kind of has a history of mixed quality releases. Some are really good and then the others. :) My worst experience was with Ubuntu about 20 years ago. That thing broke every other update. ^^
14 • Broken (by Johnathan on 2025-05-05 05:54:27 GMT from New Zealand)
I had #3 happen - user removed the entire desktop UI packages. I was on-site without re-install media and only that machine. Fortunately the web connection was still intact. Several hours alter.... yeah. I still have this user on that same distro - hats off to RebornOS.
15 • "Broken" but not entirely destroyed (by Treen HQ on 2025-05-05 06:25:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
Use Mint & MX with Xfce for fairly mundane daily use over several swap-able SSD & 'hard-metal rotating' discs. Minor glitches, mostly due to finger-trouble(!) can be repaired using the repair consoles accessed from their install-DVD (Oh yes, the old technology ain't dead yet!). Biggest 'fail' was when over-filled one of the older rotators. Solved by offloading piles of photos onto flash drive, then re-running repair console from install-DVD. These two 'older' distros have proved more than adequate for my modest demands of daily browsing, buying&selling, etc. without needing to engage with minutia of coding. Notwithstanding, Jesse's Q&A column has been a great help with infrequent excursions into code.
16 • No broken distro experience (by Happychap on 2025-05-05 06:25:19 GMT from France)
I've been using 2 mainstream (thus well maintained) distros, Ubuntu since 2007 and Manjaro since 2018.
They never really broke, but because of me.
Indeed the only serious problem i encountered on rarely used old laptops (not on my Ubuntu daily drivers) was automatic system update failed because the last computer use (and software update) was months too old. But system update in similar circumstances would have failed on mainstream OS's too (Windows, macOS or Android:
- On Manjaro, it happened only 3-4 times because of repository key expiration. It just failed to validate downloaded updates BEFORE actually updating anything. Thus the system was still running perfectly. There is a Manjaro website update troubleshooting page that explains how to repair this key problem from the command line.
- On Ubuntu, i had once a non-LTS system that had not been upgraded for 2 years and a half (really not my daily driver!). I seem to remember updating straight from 17.04 to 19.10 broke something that lead me to reformat my SYSTEM partition - i chose to reinstall 17.04 and force updating from one version to the next with command line options (17.04 > 17.10 > 18.04 > 18.10 > 19.04 - from which i just clicked 'OK' to the system automatic upgrade proposal to 19.10). I chose to do that rather than installing directly 19.10 just for the fun of proving that the cause of the problem was only myself not having upated the system for years (i.e. for much, much too long).
17 • Limine in Cachy (by Danny on 2025-05-05 06:41:41 GMT from United States)
This was the first ISO with it available, and I think things will be a bit better next time.
I installed it manually and everything works (including snapshots). They're dependent upon a hook that may not have made it into the ISO pkglist.
You also need a default_entry setting in the limine.conf (well you don't need it..but I like it to so that it will properly time out and continue booting).
18 • Broken System (by dr.j on 2025-05-05 06:49:23 GMT from Germany)
My current arch system has been working in this form since 2014. It never broke. Not in the sense of “it no longer boots”.
Some of the three minor issues you mentioned are unavoidable:
- I remember an update where all passwords stopped working afterwards, so no root account either, no emergency systems. Nothing.
- the same with xorg. black screen
- updates from virtualbox or wine are also problematic. Often something does not work after an update.
If you have been working with Linux for a long time, you know these problems and know what to do, such as editing configuration files or downgrading programs to the last version that worked well, etc. In the worst case, you take your last image and restore it. It takes just a few minutes
19 • No broken distro experience (+) (by Happychap on 2025-05-05 07:03:01 GMT from France)
Ubuntu 17.10 was actually Ubuntu GNOME 17.10 - because i never got to use crappy Unity.
And the machine is non UEFI.
So even if it was updated to a regular Ubuntu when the latter switched back to GNOME, this system still boots 24.10 with the good old Ubuntu GNOME Remix boot splash screen!
20 • 11 years no system break (by Mark on 2025-05-05 07:31:17 GMT from Poland)
11 years on Manjaro + Openbox, no single system break... boring.
Reinstalled once due to hardware failure.
21 • When Linux Broke (by rhtoras on 2025-05-05 07:37:09 GMT from Greece)
I have broken only systemD distributions and this is a reason i am against systemD. I have even managed to break Linux Lite in the past. Now i am using Void Linux and OpenBSD. It's really hard to break them. Really you have to try really hard.
p.s For a reference i could break arch but not artix. I don't know how but it happened.
22 • Broken Distributions (by Pomme de terre nouvelle on 2025-05-05 08:34:09 GMT from Germany)
I checked "in the last 5 years" because my current daily driver is the experimental Aeon immutable distro. Last year there was a problem booting but I can't recall which. Was easy to fix, though.
But to be honest, installations of battle-tested distributions such as Debian or SUSE break when I break them, they do not break by themselves. Even Debian SID, which is prone to some package not working or unmet dependencies never ceased booting, IIRC.
23 • Broke once, remember forever (by Linlin on 2025-05-05 09:15:51 GMT from France)
The only time I've broke Linux it was after updating Mint to the next major version using Mint updater. I've had installed Liquorix kernel, and removed all other kernels, and the updater didn't recognized it, and so removed it as orphan package, living the system once rebooted without any kernel at all.
I guess that's the price to pay to mess up with sometime we don't fully understand, and it was the occasion to learn about "chroot" (and the fact that Linux allows you to mess completely with it), and remember to always have a second kernel version installed (especially a LTS one).
Except some kernel panics from AMD GPU driver (few times a year), I've got nothing to report, not even a bad update, or GRUB being too much GRUB.
24 • Broken Linux distro (by Kazlu on 2025-05-05 09:21:56 GMT from France)
Well, it depends.
I am using several distros for several needs. I have a Ubuntu Studio for specific needs in audio/video editing that I also use as an experiment test bed, that one broke twice in two years time (I suspect a problem related to Nvidia driver and kernel update). At the same time, my daily driver has been Debian based since 2013, upgraded through fresh installs while keeping the same /home ever since, moving to MX Linux, then SpiralLinux (with btrfs), and it has never been broken as far as I can remember. Relatives use Linux Mint, have been for up to 5-6 years, not a hiccup.
25 • Last broken Linux distro (by John on 2025-05-05 09:30:15 GMT from Switzerland)
For me, the last time Linux broke was last year, when EndeavourOS froze during a kernel update, which left me with no bootable kernels after a reset.
I chrooted into the broken system and tried to use Timeshift to restore it, but for some reason it wouldn't detect any of my snapshots, even though they were there, in the correct folder.
Since I needed a functional system quick, I installed Ubuntu instead and have been using it since.
26 • Broken distro (by Jake on 2025-05-05 09:30:49 GMT from United States)
I have found Linux seldom or never breaks on it's own. When it breaks it is usually the users fault. It seems many of us want to tweak our distros to infinity. Linux is powerful and gives you lots of power and choice more than enough to break your distro. The fault seem to be with the users.
27 • TDE (by Whammy on 2025-05-05 10:10:32 GMT from United States)
Anyone here actually using Trinity Desktop Environment?
I’m always amazed that environments like that are still maintained, but then again I have an acquaintance running IceWM.
28 • @26 - Broke, but not broken (by Brad on 2025-05-05 10:36:14 GMT from United States)
I was "cleaning" up my system once, when I accidentally started to remove files and folder that I thought I didn't need.
Luckily, I had just created a clone of my system, so I booted Clonezilla, mounted the cloned hard drive, and overwrote my laptop hard drive with the cloned copy.
Bob was my uncle that day, and also showed me that I could fix mistakes with minimal effort (besides the time it took to create the clone).
29 • Last time Linux broke (by Sanders on 2025-05-05 10:36:23 GMT from Czechia)
I believe it was a few years BC (before Covid), when my *buntu flavour stopped booting with the newly updated kernel. It made quite a spectacle within IT news, because (almost?) all *buntus were affected: a kernel upgrade failed to boot, virtually for everyone. The work-around was banal: boot the previous kernel for a day or two, then the fixed kernel arrived. (I can't remember if the issue came from Debian, or only *buntus were affected.)
30 • Linuxplosions (by ~hellfire103 on 2025-05-05 10:57:46 GMT from Denmark)
The most recent issue I've had was last week, when I accidentally deleted ~/.local/share and Chromium-based software stopped working (libxml.so.2 not found or something).
The last proper breakage, though, was months ago, and very probably my own fault.
31 • Breaking Linux (by DachshundMan on 2025-05-05 11:02:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
Some years broke Manjaro by installing something from the AUR., all was fine until the next update which failed. Nothing i did fixed the problem so eventually I decided to try a few other Linux Distros and see what I thought of them which was something I had been planning to do but had not got around to. Once I tried Mint I was hooked and I am still using it quite a few years later.
32 • Breaking Linux, mostly on less common installations (by TheTKS on 2025-05-05 11:12:44 GMT from Canada)
I play with a frankenstein installation of Arch 32-bit on a Chromebook. It broke a few times before I found a good rhythm for updating, and I started keeping an eye on news and forums for warnings. After that, it was stable for a couple of years. After the power supply fried, I took a long time to get a replacement, so no updates for months, and the next update broke it (hangs in the middle of booting.) If I get back to it, I’ll reinstall Arch.
On my main device, I multiboot Linuxes and Windows across a couple of disks. I always have the GRUB of a specific one of the Linuxes control booting. Once, after an update of that Linux, one of the others wouldn’t boot. My workaround was learning how to chroot into the non-booting Linux and installing an alternative kernel, rather than fixing the problem in GRUB, where the problem seemed to originate.
I have a few other examples over my early time actively distrohopping, not so much now that I’ve mostly settled on a few and on OpenBSD.
33 • breaking solved, for me at least (by crayola-eater on 2025-05-05 11:18:01 GMT from United States)
I haven't had a daily driver system fail me in a loooong time. Basically, I think that is because I may have matured some as a linux user, and no longer actually pretend that I know what I am doing under the hood. Therefore I tinker less, and just enjoy the solid simple low bloat install and get on with life.
Boring, yes, but blood pressure is fine now.
34 • Distro breaks (by blinding on 2025-05-05 11:43:45 GMT from Luxembourg)
I have had this happen a lot recently using Debian or Debian based distros principally bookworm, usually because, but not limited to, the file system to Debians point of view,needs to be checked, and has to be done from another distro - usually results in an initramsfs prompt.
35 • CachyOS, breakage, etc. (by thatguy on 2025-05-05 11:46:03 GMT from United States)
I've installed CachyOS several times now, on several machines, and have never noticed it being particularly slow, either live or installed. It's grown on me, approaching EndeavourOS for first Linux install on a Windows PC. Early on it was the first and still only Arch based distro to hard lock on me, but it hasn't done that in months now. Cachy for me has been fairly stable, though I can't say it's any speedier than Arch or any other distro...
As for breakage, I'm someone that lives on the bleeding edge, with installs of most major distros, emphasis on rolling releases, betas, etc. So yes, things are always broken somewhere. Currently for me it's Fedora still (months now...) refusing to mount ntfs drives via fstab entries that work everywhere else. Many KDE distros recently had a dolphin issue where it stopped remembering tabs. It fixed/will fix itself, but it took almost a month. It's extremely rare for something to cause insurmountable problems. Last one I recall was Void suddenly not recognizing either mouse or keyboard of any kind, making a reinstall the easiest solution.
36 • Broke my computer (by Nimbus on 2025-05-05 12:17:04 GMT from United States)
I recently had a failure to boot that was self inflicted. One little typo while editing fstab was all it took. Fortunately, it was an easy fix. On another occasion a bad kernel update while testing a new distro that prevented any further updates. I never did sort that one out. Even rolling back with timeshift failed to fix it. This was on a test machine so I ended up doing a format and moving on to the next distro I wanted to try,
37 • Grubby Breaks and Ice Cool SuSE (by Distro Hopper on 2025-05-05 13:12:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
I first downloaded Linux when Soft Landing System became available on CompuServe in 1992 or 1993. I have had plenty of occasions when Linux system could not be installed, but almost all cases of the system refusing to boot were after the initial installation in relatively recent years due to grub failures, which in turn were due to the installations not properly setting up the new system boot directory. As a result it was failing on post-installation reboot because it was trying to boot the now no longer installed system. Slackware is particularly poor at this, but once I worked out the problem it was easy to solve by booting in rescue mode and removing the old boot entries.
My love of basic window managers dates from the late 1990s when SuSE used Icewm as an unannounced fallback should KDE fail to launch. At the time, though, I was in a state of shock at the very unKDE like GUI SuSE had installed.
38 • Breaking linux (by kc1di on 2025-05-05 13:41:15 GMT from United States)
I've broken my system a few times of the years but it most always my own fault. Sometime an upgrade will do it but not so much recently. Linux has gotten much better over the years but ops not so sure about :)
39 • Poll Question (by Slappy McGee on 2025-05-05 13:48:29 GMT from United States)
Reading that question I was more overtaken by the most memorable Linux breaks than by the very last time.
The ones that stood out to me and came to mind right away were the out-of-the-blue events that occurred after using a distro for some time (weeks, months), confident it was one of the "just works" distros when suddenly there was a black screen with a blinking cursor upper left corner of the screen that never resolved, trouble-shooting be damned.
The last time I had a non-boot was just last Friday when I tested the live version of AnduanOS and it was fine then ran the installer and .... nothing at boot. Nothing. Pulled the media out and did another iso download and went with different media this time, booted up fine. I only got rid of it when I discovered its branding of browser home and tab pages not to my liking.
40 • Breakage. (by Friar Tux on 2025-05-05 13:48:44 GMT from Canada)
Been using Linux Mint/Cinnamon for over a decade, now. Never had a lost-time issue in that decade. Neither has The Wife, who also uses Linux Mint/Cinnamon - I do all the maintenance on both laptops, so this past decade has been a dream I.T. wise. I HAVE had distros break on me - usually on the first, or subsequent update. These were distros I was testing on a separate laptop. (So far the ONLY distro to work consistently, after each install, on many different machines, has been Mint.)
As for using Timeshift, I find it useless. In fact, it is one of the first things I remove after installing Mint. Most of the time, the rollback source is not accessible. For me, it is much easier, and more practical, to just reinstall the OS and my Home directory and move on. (In a lot of cases it seems faster, too.) Also, with the reinstall, I get a bit of a cleanup on the side.
41 • Just an Additional Note... (by Slappy McGee on 2025-05-05 13:51:39 GMT from United States)
...@39 (mine) .. the branding issue could not be resolved because the AnduanOS devs had the about:config area tweaked so relevant editing was greyed out, as were the tweaks in the browser settings areas. Nasty stuff.
42 • The Day Linux Broke Down (by Fernando on 2025-05-05 14:28:31 GMT from Argentina)
I always had two partitions: one with the stable boot system (usually Debian or Sparkylinux) and another for experimentation. The day everything went to hell was when I was testing an unstable version of Semplice Linux (based on Debian Unstable). What a shame! Reboot and format partition two.
43 • CachyOS Speed (by BluPhenix316 on 2025-05-05 14:41:25 GMT from United States)
Your experience was the opposite of mine. CachyOS has been fast for me and worked just fine. I am curious what type of hardware you were running it on? The main point of CachyOS is that it recompiles a lot of arch repos with specific flags for newer x86_64 architectures. That is why I always caution people who recommend it for just everyone as I don't think you would get much benefit from CachyOS on older hardware.
44 • Deb broke (by wally on 2025-05-05 14:54:00 GMT from United States)
Much to my surprise, Debian broke on one of my laptops after an upgrade last year.
I never did find the problem or cause, finally surrendered and reinstalled.
First time in many decades.
45 • Breakage (by David on 2025-05-05 14:54:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've had a couple of breakages in the last few years: not caused by me or my distro, but by kernel developers not testing properly. An alteration made in version 6.1 to prevent a potential problem with AMD graphics actually created a real problem: the graphics stopped working. An attempt was made to correct that which stopped the kernel from running altogether. No doubt they fixed it but by that time I'd moved to version 6.6 — which has also had updates that didn't work with AMD. Luckily 6.6.62 runs while I wait for PCLinuxOS to adopt 6.12. As you see, we don't do bleeding-edge at PCLinucOS!
46 • Broke? (by rich52 on 2025-05-05 17:44:16 GMT from United States)
Every distro I've used in over 25 years has broken. . . and that's the majority of them. They all have various quirks from time to time. No one is 'perfect'. I've re-installed just as many as have been broken by the maintainers. That's life. . . . infallibility? No such luck. It's a pipe dream to think they don't and won't break. They're only as good as the people maintaining them. . .
Rich ;)
47 • Linux Breaks? (by buckyogi on 2025-05-05 18:04:40 GMT from United States)
In 6+ years of using Linux (Ubuntu briefly, Debian, Fedora on my primary machines, Manjaro on an old 32 bit laptop) as my daily driver, I have never had a breakage IRL. Arch has broken a couple of times after an update in VM, don't remember the reason but I remember it was easy to fix.
48 • Breaking is a feature of Linux (by netfun81 on 2025-05-05 18:27:11 GMT from United States)
I had Arch installed and a few weeks ago did an update that included the 6.14 kernel. System wouldn't boot after that. Decided to go with another distro, tried Ubuntu beta with 6.14 kernel, same issue. Installed fedora 41 that used an older kernel and everything was fine.. Two days later they did an upgrade from Fedora 41 to 42 which uses the 6.14 kernel, after upgrade system wont boot again. Tried several things to get my system to work with that kernel but couldnt make it work. Went back to Arch linux but this time installing the LTS kernel 6.12 and everything works great again.
Not the first time Ive had a kernel break my system and/or forget to include nvidia drivers with a kernel update. Pretty much every distro will break at some point, unless you don't update them.
49 • @27- TDE - I am actually using Trinity Desktop Environment (by Breaker on 2025-05-05 18:43:34 GMT from Czechia)
Yes, I use Q4OS-Trinity on all my machines. TDE is the best DE for me. I have tried many distributions with different DEs over the last 11 years, but Q4OS won for me about 5 years ago thanks to the combination of Trinity+Debian. I don't know, but I have a feeling that if TDE dies, I will die too. I apologize to the other DEs, but they are unfriendly to me.
50 • Broken Linux (by GT on 2025-05-05 19:05:06 GMT from United States)
Updating Arch rendered the system not bootable on a few occasions, which is why I stopped using it years ago. I have never had an instance of Debian not booting after an update.
51 • breakage (by fox on 2025-05-05 19:36:49 GMT from Canada)
Funny that this came up now, as a Windows 11 update broke my Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. Instead of booting bringing up grub, it brought up the Windows boot loader and it booted into Windows. I tried fixing it from an installation disk with boot-repair, and also with chroot instructions from the internet to reinstall grub. No go. In the end, I just reinstalled Ubuntu and all is working again. Strange though - I have updated Windows 11 several times previously without breaking the boot loader.
52 • Broke and stopped booting (by LWF on 2025-05-05 19:37:30 GMT from The Netherlands)
From beginning with Linux (coming from blue screen XP) never had a problem as in subject or any other problem with Linux Mint and now active LMDE 6. Waiting for LMDE 7.
53 • When was the last time your Linux distro broke and stopped booting ? (by eb on 2025-05-05 19:39:37 GMT from France)
I answered 'never' ; but is is not totaly true. Formerly (20 years ago), sometimes I had 'kernel panic' when I installed my Slackware, but it was my fault, because I dit not write properly my Lilo config.
Now, from time to time, Slackware sends me an alert explaining my kernel must be updated for security reasons. I don't like this because it is a bit tricky. I download the new kernel, I install it (without removing the old one, in case), and carefully I change the datas of my bootloader (syslinux on EFI) ; I pray a bit ; and it boots !:-).
54 • Breaks (by Luke on 2025-05-05 20:12:04 GMT from United States)
I had a few experiences in the early 2000's that probably qualify, though they were likely a combination of user error and hardware issues (I've primarily used laptops all this time. After sort of limping along with Mandrake Linux for a bit, I decided to take a shot on this brand new distro with the funny nickname "Warty Warthog."
Most recent break I can think of was about 12-13 years ago now, which was my brief foray into Arch Linux. I enjoyed it for a good year or two, but an update pretty thoroughly hosed my system. I briefly tried fixing it but I ended up going back to Ubuntu, where I've been ever since. I don't care about tinkering as much as I used to, and Ubuntu just works for me.
55 • It ain't broke if you can fix it (by Pete on 2025-05-05 21:21:19 GMT from United States)
Multibooter here, Win10 on one drive and several Linux distros on another, using reFind. I have this setup on a desktop and a laptop, both with Nvidia cards.
Yes, I'm quite familiar with breaking and borking my various distros, but also how to fix them. They've all been quite stable lately, but I've had to learn things like: booting into a previous kernel or CLI to rebuild dkms, or reinstall nvidia drives, or explicitly install kernel headers, and once doing a chroot repair. I've built custom scripts in some cases to be run immediately after updating the kernel to ensure the files are placed in the right directories (because I'm not using GRUB and the boot/EFI setup was not standard). I've reinstalled a few (OpenSUSE TW, Franken-Debian, some Arch-based that I neglected to update regularly...) and deleted a few (Solus, Arch, Ghost BSD) after breaking or failing to fix. Some distros I've tried if I couldn't get them to boot from reFind to desktop to nvidia loaded then I'd scrap it and try another.
My main technique for troubleshooting is to take regular backups of each distro partition, which allows me to restore the partition and retry, sometimes just waiting for upstream issues to be resolved.
To me, the computer itself is my favorite video game.
56 • Bohdi Linux, No Bueno (by Nix Dorf on 2025-05-06 00:33:23 GMT from United States)
It may be for an older computer but the styling in terribly outdated too.
1. Found the system settings totally exasperating due to the dozens of mini menus that open up when you go down a rabbit hole just trying to find something basic like, 'Turning off the Touchpad.' Oh, that is right you can't do that from the settings panel.
2. The menu bar is not called the panel like I was expecting therefore I had a tough time find that info too. I wanted to turn off the dancing baloney where the program name lights and dances over the icon obscuring it as it also goes in and out of focus. This makes finding it and being assured that you have chosen the correct program. No Dancing baloney should ever obscure prog names!?!
3. Is the pointer not a svg? or maybe the icon was poorly chosen and seems like it is intentionally out of focus!?!
4. The placement of the virtual desktops is needs to be on top like 80% of more useful distros.
5. Had a be-atch of a time changing the border width of windows. AGAIN, the dancing baloney little green moving rectangles do not make more helpful to change the size of the windows. However I was impressed that the window positions were stored and remembered for next usage. That I liked.
I feel that I will get an earful from people saying those functions are and there but it is was more intuitive I would have gotten there...
I could go on...
On the pros, 1. It was easy to load up and install on my 5-6 year old laptop.
2. However I was impressed that the window positions were stored and remembered for next usage. That I liked.
57 • Opinion Poll:When was the last time your Linux distro broke and stopped booting? (by Bialy on 2025-05-06 05:56:31 GMT from Poland)
When was the last time your Linux distro broke and stopped booting?
Last time when I used Fedora and upgraded to newer version. After that I switched to Solus. Few years and works perfectly. Solus is the way.
58 • @27 - TDE (by Andy on 2025-05-06 07:13:07 GMT from United States)
Sure, I have been using TDE since sometime around KDE 4, which I didn't like.
Most of the time I have been using it on PCLinuxOS, where it is an extra, "unofficial" project.
Q4OS also has an excellent implementation, but I don't too much care for the appearance.
Lately I have been using Matrix OS, Debian Stable with TDE Stable.
It's quite stable. :-)
59 • Linux distro broke... (by Vukota on 2025-05-06 08:52:46 GMT from Serbia)
On its own its been over five years ago last time I had broken Linux due to update and no fault of my own. If we count my fault (and imperfection of Linux boot managers), that is a different story (like having multiple Linux distros/versions on different disks clashing between them or installing alternative kernel versions, etc.). I even had once failing disk and was still able to boot, fix OS and recover needed files, whereas Windows I was unable to recover. Few times I even had computer deciding not to boot from configured disk/disk manager. Anytime there were problems with the boot manager for any reason, I was still able to recover, whereas Windows died couple times on me without ability to recover installation.
60 • Distros, breakages (by Bert on 2025-05-06 09:54:59 GMT from Chile)
I started my way with Linux around 2009 with Ubuntu (it was something different then!), immediately discovered Linux Mint and began multibooting with Zorin or other derivatives (L.Lite, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc.). Bought another machine and also had several distros on it. While always keeping some stable systems (Mint between them), I started to try many other members of the Linux family, from Gentoo (for two or three hours), to many of the other distributions.
There was a time when I tried the Arch derivatives: Manjaro, Endeavour (I particularly liked this one), Artix, Archman ... also tested Solus (this one independent). At the end I saw that all these got to a point where an update invariably broke the systems. I reasoned that the rolling systems were not made for me, because they require more involvement from the part of the user than I like. Even so, I respect all people who love Arch, or any other different OS, for that matter.
Later I tried Debian and many of its derivatives; I liked their stability and since I think that I can do with applications that aren't exactly in their latest versions, I settled with them. This way on my machines I may have MX Xfce, Q4OS, Pardus, Peppermint, etc., along with L.Mint, all these have proved to be reliable to me, no breakages that I can remember.
Now I'm waiting for FreeBSD and its child GhostBSD, watching them closely (they only work fine on an old Dell Latitude laptop, where they can detect the wireless networks and can connect to the internet). Luckily I could appreciate that -even slowly- they have been making some progress lately on the other machines.
I'm also keeping an eye on Redox's development.
@56 - Nix Dorf's comments on Bodhi Linux made me smile when I remembered my own impressions with the system. In spite of having read myself that there are some people who love and praise Bodhi, I can't but agree with Mr Dorf: the general design of this system, with its Moksha DE ... is too much for me.
61 • Poll: (by dragonmouth on 2025-05-06 11:11:23 GMT from United States)
Due to constant tinkering and efforts to "improve" the distro I am using, I "break" Linux on a regular basis. It's no biggie. I always use two drives, with /home residing on its own drive. I just re-install the distro and use it till I break it the next time.
@27: I use TDE and have for a long time. I dislike what KDE (Plasma) has become. I don't particularly fancy any of the other DEs.
62 • breakage (by qwerty1357 on 2025-05-06 11:26:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
“If I don’t have at least 4 or 5 failures a month, I feel like I’m not trying hard enough.”
-Ramit Sethi
63 • breakage (by StarSister on 2025-05-06 11:51:22 GMT from The Netherlands)
Recently my Fedora 41 installation broke after a kernel update, it didn't boot anymore because it couldn't find the initramfs. Up until then the system had just ran fine. To be fair though, I had the Displaylink RPM driver installed and I suspect that had something to do with the kernel not updating correctly. After I uninstalled the Displaylink driver and reinstalled the kernel update it booted again.
64 • End of 10 (by Jan on 2025-05-06 11:57:16 GMT from The Netherlands)
https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=showheadline&story=19990
A very nice initiative.
However it continues the "Linux"-habit of advisory-messages to NOT being specific (and short and effective and understandable for new Linux-interested).
Always fuzzy, probably to evade icy and acid remarks from linux-specific fan-boys/girls.
65 • Debian Testing + official Nvidia drivers (by Jimbo on 2025-05-06 03:32:25 GMT from New Zealand)
For 10 years I've never had a complete breakage with Debian - but the official Nvidia drivers really stuffed it a couple of months back (I think it was r555). In the end it was a full rebuild of the OS.
Ever since I've stuck with nouveau drivers, even if performance isn't the same - they don't break the desktop.
66 • Poll, TDE, IceWM (by AdamB on 2025-05-06 13:40:11 GMT from Australia)
I have had a few breakages over the last couple of decades, but I have usually been able to either resolve the problem (usually by using chroot) or else recover my data and reinstall.
For nearly a decade now I have been keeping all my data files on a separate partition (this is necessary, in any case, in a multiboot environment) which makes it much easier to reinstall the OS. On each distro installation, I back up critical configuration files to a central computer, and then to the cloud. This, also, makes it easier to reinstall a distro.
I have never had a breakage with a Debian-family distro while staying with a Stable release - only when doing a dist-upgrade.
I learned the hard way to check the Arch Linux website main page regularly, preferably weekly. I have found Arch to be very reliable if I observe this discipline, and pay attention to any manual intervention which might br required.
So far, I have never had a breakage with Void Linux updates - though there is something irregular going on within my current Void virtual machine; I am about to try a fresh install.
@27 My daily-driver desktop environment is MATE, which relies on GTK, which could become a problem eventually; so I maintain VMs running Q4OS and Antix, to get experience with, and keep an eye on, TDE and IceWM respectively, as possible alternatives.
My first successful Linux installation used KDE 3.5, which I liked a lot, so I am well-disposed to Trinity. IceWM is delightfully lightweight. It's a pity their file managers don't suit my workflow as well as MATE's Caja.
67 • Separate /home (by Flavianoep on 2025-05-06 13:42:28 GMT from Brazil)
@61
Having /home in a separate partition is very advisable, even if you don't tinker with the system at all. Once a cat force powered down my computer with a removable disk plugged in and the OS wouldn't boot.
Once I installed a distro that by default took on a single partition, and since then I never chose automatic partitioning. One reason for single partitioning is that flatpaks take a lot of space, which may not be predictable. I prefer having an overly large root partition rather than having to perform a lengthy backup before installing the system.
68 • Computer boot failure (by Is It Just Me on 2025-05-06 13:59:43 GMT from United States)
The last and only time my computer refused to boot was when I issued, as root the command to rmrf*/ on my Manjaro installation many many years ago. (Not the correct syntax, but you get the gist)
To this day I am still befuddled!
LOL
I did this just to see how long it was going to erase my system and I wanted to try out a new distro at the time.
I have been running Linux and FreeBSD since New Years Day of 2000 and I don't ever remember having a computer fail to boot.
69 • Broke a distro (by John on 2025-05-06 14:57:26 GMT from Canada)
I last broke my distro (Slackware) well over 10 years ago. I updated the kernel and forgot to config something. As for breaking by itself, that never happened since I started using Slackware a very long time ago.
RHEL, which I used at work, a different story, it did not "break" on its own, but after patches are installed in some cases some critical applications would stop working. I had to manually fix them in the rare times that happened. That never happened with Slackware.
70 • When was the last time Linux broke? (by Man Datory on 2025-05-06 15:46:36 GMT from Australia)
I have not had a stable Linux distro since Linux 6.1.0 My resume from suspend to ram freezes up not consistently, but often.
I have had to resort to running an unmaintained version of my distro of choice. I had hoped that this issue would be fixed eventually, but it seems like that isn't going to happen. I don't know how to diagnose the issue, so I can't lodge a bug report.
71 • Broken systems (by Leopard on 2025-05-06 16:02:19 GMT from United States)
The last 2 distros that were broken beyond repair were Ubuntu and Arch Linux. I switched to Arch after my Ubuntu install completely failed, so long ago I do not recall the details. Switched to Arch, went about a year, then Arch broke with an update.
Switched to Fedora if 2010 and have not had Fedora break since. Bugs yes, broken no.
72 • CachyOS (by Luminix on 2025-05-06 16:24:24 GMT from France)
CachyOS uses many different options to improve performances and interactivity, but depending of you setup, especially if you're using a VM, it may be much slower because it may be some overhead to translate (like x86-v3/v4 and LTO), or being less tested (like many schedulers that have mainly been tested on specific workflow and hardware).
Also, performances and interactivity are very subjective, apps may take longer to load (like because it's completely loaded on RAM) but may be faster to run big tasks or some specific workloads like gaming or video encoding.
As always, Linux is much a matter of choice than a one distro fits all, as Jesse shown since all its reviews.
73 • Distors working together (by Leopard on 2025-05-06 16:30:25 GMT from United States)
Just a follow up from last week on the discussion regarding distros working together. There are several reasons why this is impossible and it has nothing to do with people favoring one distro over another. The problems include:
1. Licensing issues. Every distro is based in different jurisdictions and thus there is no agreement on what sorts of software can be included in the official repositories.
2. Lack of conventions. There is no agreement on the use of the file system, locations of libs, names of libs, sometimes names for hardware, and "dependencies" . Ubuntu for example in general has more dependencies per package than Arch. Different distributions have not only different package names, but also different ways of breaking packages down (subdividing large packages).
3. Differences in security models. Some distros use Apparmor, others selinux, and many none. This makes if very difficult imagine if you had to write selinux or apparmor policies for your packages.
4. Differences in patches. Take the kernel for example, every major distro patches the kernel. They maintain these patches because kernel.org does not accept the suggestion leaving it to the distro maintainers. This absolutely bumps against #1 as well, see for example the linux-libre kernel. In addition to the kernel there are many large packages patched at the distribution level rather than upstream, Ubuntu patches to Debian is another example.
5. Differences in configuration and configuration files. Fedora, Debian, Arch, and gentoo all have very different configurations for networking for example.
6. Differences in packages. Compare the versions in packages in Debian stable or even sid to Arch or Fedora. Not only are the Debian packages older, but, at times, core packages are very different (systemV vs Systemd vs Upstart / X11 vs MIR vs Wayland to name a few).
7. Differences in philosophy. Stable (Debian) vs Cutting edge / new technology (Fedora with Wayland and Ubuntu with MIR and Debial/Slackware with x11) vs bleeding edge may break (Arch). For example in a rolling release distro they do not care or need to solve problems with outdated packages.
8. Differences in packaging. It is far easier for upstream to release source code than .deb and .rpm let alone slackbuild or snap or flatpack. Some upstream sources only release .deb . KDE has its own packaging system .
I am sure I am missing some reasons, but these are all major obstacles.
74 • @73 Leopard: (by dragonmouth on 2025-05-06 18:10:54 GMT from United States)
Some of your reasons may be real stumbling blocks but most can be worked out IF the parties are willing to talk without letting their personalities get in the way.
75 • @74 (by Leopard on 2025-05-06 18:53:30 GMT from United States)
Can you name any issue I listed for which there is an easy solution ? With packaging alone there has been no agreement, thus snap / flatpack.
Note: Packaging issues are covered by multiple issues (#1-5).
76 • @ TDE by Whammy (by CG on 2025-05-07 02:12:47 GMT from Australia)
i use TDE in 'Exe GNU/Linux', a spin of Devuan,
am doing so to 'keep my hand in' the older style of desktops, but find it a bit clumsy ;P
(prefer Xfce _so_ much more...)
77 • Broken distros (by Simon on 2025-05-07 03:48:15 GMT from New Zealand)
As far as I can recall an installed distro has never broken (in the sense of being unbootable) due to an update (though I've broken plenty by messing around with boot stuff myself)... however, I have noticed lately that many official installations fail to leave me with a bootable system. Some work, but others (even though I'm installing them on the same partition of the same disk each time, and selecting the same EFI boot partition for the boot manager) somehow screw up the boot manager and have me rebooting into the GRUB prompt.
It's easy enough to boot from there manually and then install GRUB properly from within the OS, but it's annoying that so many distros can't automate this. I guess it's something to do with this machine's UEFI... good old fashioned MBR GRUB would always install with no issues.
78 • Broken system (by SomeOne on 2025-05-07 06:14:57 GMT from Germany)
I haven't had any issues with my systems for years. However, when I upgraded to Ubuntu 24.04, it removed the nvidia driver of my older graphics card and I couldn't get the system to use the nouveau driver, no matter what I tried.
I ran into the exact same issue on two different machines.
79 • Linux Slimming or Adding (by MattE on 2025-05-07 12:02:41 GMT from United States)
I crash my linux trying to slim it down, removing/uninstalling something critical or tweaking the kernel in GRUB. My best luck is using Debian which starts out fairly slim and then adding stuff as needed.
80 • Last time Linux broke? (by Mike on 2025-05-07 12:24:35 GMT from The Netherlands)
I ran Solus OS the last 5 years. About 6 months ago I started having issues with updates, where Solus had a conflict wth my Nvidia card. Reinstalled 3 times, but couldn't get a stable system again. The Solus forum did not give me the support I needed, so I moved to Linux Mint. Have not an issue since.
81 • Updates are usually the issue (by Will on 2025-05-07 12:47:33 GMT from United States)
If you don't misconfigure your system, the culprit tends to be updates or package removal. Sometimes updates or package removals will also remove important pieces of software as part of the process. These days, I am more careful and intentional about these processes. With ZFS, this is mostly a non-issue as rollbacks are painless. However, since Linus has issues with ZFS and the licensing doesn't suit, ZFS isn't in the kernel meaning, ZFS on root can be a hack. Still, even lacking a comprehensive suite of ZFS mountpoints, I host my own mirrors of ubuntu and mint and do my updates much more intentionally - watching out for "This update will remove your really important library, are you sure that's a groovy idea" messages along the way. No related breakage since (call it 5 years or more).
82 • TDE (by Woodstock69 on 2025-05-07 13:20:47 GMT from Australia)
It's nice to see TDE getting some love. Whilst my daily desktop is KDE 6.3, I do use TDE from time to time just for old time sake.
83 • TDE (by Flavianoep on 2025-05-07 18:45:51 GMT from Brazil)
TDE is not just a desktop, but includes some software that came with KDE 3.x as well. It was very useful to me, because I had a forgotten Kword file. Fortunately, the TDE team maintains a KOffice suite with backwards compatibility and I could open and convert my file to Open Document.
84 • Broken Linux (by Ray Merk on 2025-05-08 07:32:46 GMT from United States)
The few times I had a Linux Distro fail to boot was when I first started experimenting with Linux. Each time it was purely my fault. I had limited experience with partitions and none with GRUB. I was distro shopping and attempted to install twelve different flavors upon multiple hard drives. Learning how to fix or reinstall GRUB from a live image (as well as updating GRUB) rectified that and I haven't had an issue since.
85 • Catchy OS (by Bono on 2025-05-08 17:02:23 GMT from Germany)
I don't think you would get much benefit from CachyOS on older hardware.
I also saw no benefit on very new hardware, that system ran slower with catchy than my more than 12 years old mongrel with an I5 and much clunkier and hesitant than pure Arch..
86 • @85 Speed (by Leopard on 2025-05-08 20:22:11 GMT from United States)
For the most part to measure speed of a system one needs to run benchmarks otherwise it is too subjective.
The vast majority of time light weight distros take up less space on the hard drive and use light weight packages.
The vast majority of the time large multimedia apps such as openshot, firefox, libre office are going to take a longer time on older hardware with the limitations being available RAM, clock speed, graphics card, sometimes wireless interface, etc.
Light weight apps will generally be faster both on old and new hardware.
Some applications especially sever side can be tuned to increase performance.
Generally though unless you have a specific hardware issue, things such as a custom kernel / gentoo / Arch / light weight distros are not going to give much , if any, boost to benchmarks.
87 • system stuck in old state (by Pope Bob on 2025-05-09 00:07:57 GMT from United States)
Manjaro on Pinebook Pro (ARM) - difficult to upgrade original install, due to dependency conflicts, two packaging programs, competing repositories, various forum fixes that don't work, overwrite statement that doesn't work. Can't wipe disk & install new version otherwise will have to reinstall bootloader separately. Not user friendly.
Peace be with U(sers)...
88 • system stuck @87 (by penguinx86 on 2025-05-09 03:30:17 GMT from United States)
Thanks for your comment about Manjaro on the Pinebook Pro. I considered buying a Pinebook Pro, but it seems like a 'project' computer that always needs fixing. I'll stay away.
89 • Linux (by FledermausMann on 2025-05-09 22:23:55 GMT from Australia)
immutable linux distro = no more breakage
I tried Nitrux which is immutable and no systemd but comes with KDS Plasma.....
failed my usability test. For whatever reason plasma just irritates me to no end. I tried tweaking it but nope. Feels like a sloppy mess everytime.
Now if Nitrux could release a XFCE version, or anything besides KDE, that would be nice.
Otherwise I am waiting on other non-systemd distros to release an immutable spin.
90 • Immutable (by Jesse on 2025-05-10 00:04:38 GMT from Canada)
@89: "immutable linux distro = no more breakage"
Immutable distributions do nothing to prevent breakage due to updates. Immutable distributions prevent corruption to the root filesystem while it is running because most of the filesystem is read-only.
You're probably thinking of atomic updates which mean systems won't break due to an interrupted update. However, there is nothing preventing an update from breaking an atomic system if there is a fault in the upgrade. It only saves you from a fault in the update process, like a power outage.
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| • 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 |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
Julex
Julex was a Knoppix-based live CD distribution. Its aim was to be light-weight so that it works on older computers and was a small file to download.
Status: Discontinued
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| 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.
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