 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1121, 12 May 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 19th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Atomic distributions, ones where system updates are applied as whole images to prevent the system being left in an unknown state, are becoming increasingly popular. While most of the focus on atomic and immutable distributions has been in commercial projects (Ubuntu Core and Valve's Steam Deck, as two examples), more community projects are trying out atomic and immutable features. This week we begin with a look at Bluefin, a member of the Fedora family which uses atomic updates and features the GNOME desktop. Then, in our News section, we share tips from Fedora Magazine on how to spin up your own atomic distribution. Have you ever created your own, custom ISO file containing a Linux distribution? Let us know what you did with it in this week's Opinion Poll. We also report on openSUSE removing its Deepin desktop packages over security concerns. openSUSE has been pushing the idea of installing Linux on old Windows 10 machines which cannot upgrade to Windows 11. As part of this effort openSUSE has joined the "End of 10" campaign to promote Linux on functioning Windows 10 hardware. Meanwhile we talk about Canonical's plans to swap out the sudo utility for a Rust-based alternative. Then, in our Questions and Answers column, we discuss custom file manager actions - what they are, how to use them, and how to customize them. Finally, we share the releases of the past week and welcome two new projects, PikaOS Linux and DEKUVE, to our database. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Bluefin 41
At the end of April I shared an opinion that one thing missing from the Linux ecosystem is automation. A great deal of what makes computers useful is automating and streamlining tedious tasks, but most Linux distributions are reluctant to automatically take care of commonly performed tasks in the background.
A few days later I was browsing the DistroWatch waiting list and found a distribution which might provide an answer, a desktop distribution which sought to streamline or automate maintenance tasks. The distribution is called Bluefin and the project's website describes the distribution as follows:
Bluefin is a next generation desktop that purposely behaves like a consumer device instead of a traditional distribution. We remove choice paralysis for users by presenting one well curated Flathub store, Homebrew, and minimize the use of system packaging.
The project's website continues to describe the project's "big picture" vision:
Bluefin is an operating system for your computer. The best of both worlds: the reliability and ease of use of a Chromebook, with the power of a GNOME desktop.
This sounded a lot like what I had suggested Linux could benefit from offering. The project offers portable applications provided by Flatpak, "near-zero maintenance", and "included GPU drivers". This last point seems redundant as virtually all Linux distributions provide a range of video drivers. The website continues its sales pitch with a focus on simplicity:
Featuring automatic image-based updates and a simple graphical application store, Bluefin is designed to get out of your way. Get what you want without sacrificing system stability. The Linux client has evolved, a clean start for the next generation.
In short, the distribution is presenting itself as an appliance-like operating system. something which will work automatically and seamlessly. This sounded exactly like what I had hoped to find!
Installing
Bluefin offers builds for x86_64 and aarch64 processors. Once we select our CPU architecture we are asked to pick our video card maker from a list of Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA. This feels like a poor start for a project which aims to remove the burden of choice. We begin needing to know not only our processor type, but also the maker of the video card in our computer. Most distributions offer one unified build for all video cards and select the proper driver at either install time or during the boot process.
The 6.2GB ISO file Bluefin offers does not have any version number attached to it, either on the website or in its filename. The Bluefin project is also coy about talking about its base distribution. Once the ISO file is booted it becomes clear Bluefin is a member of the Fedora family. The boot messages refer to the project as Bluefin 41 and the system installer is watermarked with the Fedora Silverblue logo.
Booting from the Bluefin media offers us a chance to have the system perform a self-test to make sure the media has not been corrupted. Alternatively we can jump straight into the install process. Bluefin's ISO does not offer a live desktop option.
The distribution uses its parent's system installer, called Anaconda, which presents us with a hub screen where we can navigate configuration modules in the order of our choosing. Anaconda shows us screens for picking our preferred language, keyboard layout, and timezone, and there is a module for disk partitioning. There were no screens for setting a root password or creating a user account. There also isn't any option to connect to a local network.
Anaconda copies the Bluefin system image to our computer and, during this time, Anaconda shows no progress information. The installer seemed to hang for about five minutes and then suddenly reported it was finishing up, followed by a prompt to reboot the computer.
The first time we boot into the freshly installed copy of Bluefin the distribution launches a first-run wizard. This graphical application asks if we'd like to turn on location services, whether we'd like to enable third-party repositories (such as Flathub), and then we are asked to make up a username and password for ourselves. The distribution then loads the GNOME desktop. At that point a second application launches and offers to give us a tour of GNOME. The tour shows off some key features like performing searches and switching between virtual workspaces.
Early impressions
Bluefin offers two desktop options: GNOME Shell and GNOME Classic, both of these run in Wayland sessions. There are no non-GNOME or non-Wayland desktops available. I mostly used the GNOME Shell desktop for my trial.
GNOME places a panel across the top of the screen. In the upper-left corner of the desktop we find a drop-down menu which presents us with key system tools and information. These menu entries feature: About My System, Documentation, System Settings, Software Centre, Extensions, System Monitor, Terminal, and Containers. Next to this menu is a button which toggles the GNOME overview display and presents us with the desktop's search bar. Over to the right side of the panel we find the system tray. Clicking the tray brings up a settings and logout panel. From here we can adjust networking settings, enable GSConnect (a GNOME flavour of KDE Connect), access power modes, Night Light mode, and switch between light and dark desktop themes. Both the panels in the top-left and top-right corners provide us with quick access to many key configuration options. It's mostly different features in each menu, but there is some overlap.
Bluefin 41 -- The panel menu
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
At the bottom of the desktop we find a dock for launching applications. Open windows can be pinned to the dock for future quick access. One of the launchers on the dock opens an application grid in the middle of the desktop.
Included software
Browsing the grid of applications we find the Firefox web browser, Thunderbird for handling e-mails, and the GNOME Files file manager. The GNOME Help documentation is included, along with a weather application, address book, and calendar. GNOME's Maps application is included along with the Deja Dup backup utility, and the Mission Centre resource monitor. (I like the tabbed layout of Mission Centre, though it annoyed me the system monitor always opened in a tiny window which had to be resized in order to read any of its data.)
Bluefin 41 -- The application grid
(full image size: 698kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Bluefin ships with a terminal, a firewall configuration tool, an image viewer, and a text editor. The Clapper media player is installed for us and is capable of playing audio and video files. BoxBuddy, a graphical container manager is installed for us to help us quickly set up and manage Linux containers.
Bluefin 41 -- The settings panel
(full image size: 1.9MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Browsing deeper into Bluefin's software we find the distribution uses the bash shell. When we open a terminal a lengthy welcome message appears with links to documentation. We are also shown a cheat sheet for two programs - ujust and brew. The brew command is for working with Homebrew, a popular software repository for macOS which can also be used on Linux. The ujust command doesn't have a local manual page and running "ujust --help" simply tells us the program is a "command runner" without much information beyond that. For people who are curious, >ujust is a software manager.
Bluefin ships with GNU command line utilities, the GNU Compiler Collection, and manual pages for most programs. The systemd software covers init and service management while version 6.13 of the Linux kernel runs in the background.
Bluefin 41 -- Opening a virtual terminal
(full image size: 1.7MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Hardware
I tried out Bluefin in VirtualBox and on my laptop. When testing the distribution in VirtualBox I found the virtual machines default video driver (VMSVGA) resulted in some problems. In particular, when moving the mouse near the GNOME dock or the top panel, the bottom half of the desktop would become visually corrupted and covered with static the colour of the wallpaper. Switching to the VBOXSVGA driver fixed this problem, but then GNOME couldn't access the system's full screen resolution.
Bluefin 41 -- The Mission Centre resource monitor
(full image size: 2.5MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
In VirtualBox, GNOME was a little sluggish to respond, but still usable. The distribution was stable and I encountered no problems other than the display issues already mentioned.
When running on my laptop Bluefin functioned fairly well and detected my hardware properly. I had no issues with graphics and performance was a bit better, though still middle of the road.
The distribution is quite large with Bluefin taking up 12GB of disk space for a fresh install. The system is also heavy in RAM, taking up an unusually large amount of memory - about 1.5GB when signed into GNOME Shell.
If we take the defaults offered by Anaconda, Bluefin sets up our system on a Btrfs volume and creates a zRAM compressed swap space in memory. No swap partition or swap file is created.
Software management
The Bluefin distribution offers several ways to acquire and manage software. In fact, all the various methods could be an article on its own, so I want to just cover the highlights.
There is a launcher in the application grid called System Update. Clicking this icon opens a terminal which appears to fetch OSTree images. (OSTree is "an upgrade system for Linux-based operating systems that performs atomic upgrades of complete filesystem trees. It is not a package system; rather, it is intended to complement them. A primary model is composing packages on a server, and then replicating them to clients.") The terminal shows us a list of checksums associated with the images and a countdown as new images are fetched. When the list of items finishes downloading the terminal window simply disappears without indicating what happened. Trying to run System Update again quickly flashes a terminal on the screen and then exits.
Bluefin 41 -- Checking for system updates
(full image size: 1.6MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The System Update program is unusually unfriendly and unclear about what it is doing. Presumably it is fetching and installing new base system images, but there is nothing on the screen to confirm its success or report its failure.
Moving along, GNOME Software is available and can be launched from the GNOME dock. The software centre provides two tabs, one for browsing and searching for applications and the other lists packages already installed. GNOME Software is configured to pull from just two sources - Flathub and the Linux Vendor Firmware Service. This gives us access to a wide range of desktop applications, bundled in Flatpak format.
GNOME Software worked well for me and I was able to find, install, and remove packages without any problems. On Bluefin the software centre never prompted me for a password when I was logged into my regular account and it appears to remove packages for the entire system when uninstalling bundles. This made me wonder if the main user always has passwordless power over removing packages for other users. I checked by signing into another account. I found the first user account can add or remove Flatpak packages for the whole system without a password. Other user accounts we create cannot add or remove any Flatpak bundles (when using GNOME Software or from the command line) unless they have the password of the first user.
Bluefin 41 -- GNOME Software
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Flatpak is also available as a command line tool for people who prefer to work from a terminal. On a related note, the DNF command line package manager is installed. DNF will fetch repository information for Fedora 41, however all DNF install and remove actions fail due to Bluefin having a read-only /usr directory. Some areas of the filesystem, such as /home and /etc are writable, but /usr is not, making DNF ineffective.
There is another graphical software manager called Warehouse which simply lists installed Flatpak applications. From Warehouse we can launch an application or uninstall it.
Bluefin 41 -- The Warehouse package manager
(full image size: 2.5MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Then there are the Homebrew and ujust utilities. I didn't make use of these as I didn't have a need for them and Homebrew requires more overhead than I'd want to use when managing software on Linux.
Other observations
Sometimes while using Bluefin the desktop would become sluggish. This was usually due to a process called rpm-ostree running in the background and using 100% of a CPU core. This process never seemed to exit on its own. It cannot be killed by a usual interrupt and needs to be terminated with signal 9 (SIGKILL) by the administrator.
When booting the system the GRUB menu only appears for one second. However, if we do manage to catch GRUB before it boots Bluefin we can select the previous operating system snapshot to boot. This gives us protection against a new system update breaking the distribution.
I tried creating a guest account from the GNOME Settings panel. I set the account to allow a guest to make up their own password when they logged in. Unfortunately, no made up password seemed good enough for the system. Even combinations of random letters and symbols were incorrectly identified as being "based on a dictionary word" and rejected, blocking the user from logging in. Eventually I signed into my account, used the command "sudo passwd guest" to set the account password and signed out again. Requiring long, complex passwords for a home system's guest account is not at all a friendly or appliance-like approach.
Conclusions
I'd like to state, right at the beginning of my concluding thoughts, that Bluefin offered a functional desktop distribution. While the performance wasn't good in VirtualBox, the distribution was able to work well on my laptop. The distribution installed properly, was able to get on-line, play media files, and fetch software from multiple large repositories of software. On the whole, it was a pretty functional experience, similar to running Fedora Workstation with third-party repositories enabled.
I had two main issues with Bluefin during my trial. The first was that Bluefin doesn't offer a live desktop experience for testing hardware compatibility. This becomes a greater problem when we find Anaconda doesn't have its usual network module, which makes it hard to confirm whether Bluefin will work with our network card without completing a full install. Most distributions offer a live desktop experience or some way to set up a network during the install process and it concerned me Bluefin makes users take a leap of faith when installing. Especially since Bluefin also makes users pick an ISO file best suited to their hardware, which brings me to my second issue....
Bluefin consistently does the opposite of what it advertises on its website. The project's website states: "We remove choice paralysis for users by presenting one well curated Flathub store, Homebrew, and minimize the use of system packaging." The project then begins by asking users to select their CPU architecture and video card brand, without any trace of humour or appreciation of the irony that to even download the distribution we need to make more choices than some other distributions offer.
The distribution then reveals it has seven package managers (DNF, Flatpak, System Update, GNOME Software, Warehouse, Brew, and ujust) of various degrees of usefulness and functionality, plus BoxBuddy. That's a total of eight tools for fetching and maintaining software on a distribution which claims to remove choice and streamline software management! The distribution's website also claims to automate updates, but Brew, Flatpak, and the base system all required manual interaction to perform updates. Every time I checked one of these software managers there were updates waiting for me, demonstrating updates were not being fetched automatically as they became available.
Basically, it looks like the developers took Fedora Silverblue, piled multiple additional driver options and software managers on top of it, and then released the result with the mission statement of streamlining package management. The Bluefin website says this distribution seeks to act more like a consumer device than traditional desktop distributions, but it does the opposite, adding on more options and tools for us to navigate and manage. I would have had a more streamlined experience just sticking with upstream's Silverblue edition. It's not a good sign which a project is further away from its goal than the distribution upon which it is based.
So, is Bluefin functional? Yes, it is, assuming you have compatible hardware and know which manufacture's video card is in your computer. It's even a decent desktop distribution, assuming you like GNOME. However, it is not what it advertises itself to be and that is not a good beginning for a young project.
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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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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
openSUSE joins End of 10 and drops Deepin desktop, Fedora Magazine presents guide for building atomic spins, Ubuntu considers swapping out sudo for sudo-rs
The openSUSE project is encouraging people who currently run Windows 10 and whose computers are not compatible with Windows 11 to consider a migration to Linux instead of throwing out their old hardware. "The openSUSE project's Upgrade to Freedom campaign urges people to extend the life of their device rather than becoming e-waste. Since millions of Windows 10 users may believe their devices will become useless and contribute to the waste of fully functional devices, installing a Linux operating systems like openSUSE or another Linux distribution is more reasonable.
A new initiative called End of 10 has launched that shares the purposes and origin of openSUSE's Upgrade to Freedom efforts. As the End of 10 initiative also intends to help people extend the life of devices that would otherwise become e-waste, rather than dilute the messaging and narrative, members of openSUSE marketing have decided to transition the Upgrade to Freedom campaign to joining the End of 10 initiative."
The Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE) is being removed from openSUSE's repositories, due to issues with security, communication issues between the distribution and upstream, and attempts to work around openSUSE's policies by the package maintainer. "Recently we noticed a policy violation in the packaging of the Deepin desktop environment in openSUSE. To get around security review requirements, our Deepin community packager implemented a workaround which bypasses the regular RPM packaging mechanisms to install restricted assets. As a result of this violation, and in the light of the difficult history we have with Deepin code reviews, we will be removing the Deepin Desktop packages from openSUSE distributions for the time being." The openSUSE project has provided a detailed write-up of the history of issues between the distribution and the Deepin upstream project.
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People who are interested in atomic distributions, particularly ones with immutable filesystems, but have not found one which suits them may find a tutorial on the Fedora Magazine website valuable. Daniel Mendizabal offers a step-by-step guide to creating a customized, immutable Linux distribution, from initial concept through to producing a bootable ISO. "Mainstream sources like Fedora and Universal Blue offer various atomic desktops with curated configurations and package selections for the average user. But what if you're ready to take control of your desktop and customise it entirely, from packages and configurations to firewall, DNS, and update schedules? Thanks to bootc and the associated tools, building a personalised desktop experience is no longer difficult."
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The Trifecta Tech Foundation is reporting the next version of Ubuntu will experiment with replacing the >sudo utility with an alternative written in the Rust language. The sudo command allows authorized users to perform administrative functions or perform tasks as other users. The new sudo alternative, called sudo-rs, aims to make the sudo utility more secure by introducing memory safety. "The decision to adopt sudo-rs is in line with Canonical's commitment to Carefully But Purposefully increase the resilience of critical system software, by adopting Rust. Rust is a programming language with strong memory safety guarantees that eliminates many of the vulnerabilities that have historically plagued traditional C-based software." The plan is to test sudo-rs in Ubuntu 25.10 and, assuming the transition goes smoothly, to have it be part of Ubuntu 26.04, which will be a long-term support release.
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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) |
Creating custom file manager actions
Acting-on-files asks: Is there a way to define a pattern in the Thunar file manager so that the custom action is only applied to files located in a specific folder? For example, make a custom action "mv %f /home/user/Music" or "mv %f /home/user/Videos" only apply to the files located in the Download folder?
What is the purpose of the "range" option when creating a custom action in Thunar and how to use it?
Are there other file managers with a similar tool like customs action in Thunar?
DistroWatch answers: For people who might not be familiar with custom file manager actions, this is a feature in some file managers which allow users to add actions to the file manager's context menu. When the user right-clicks on a file or folder there are typically common actions, such as cut, copy, paste, and open. Custom actions provide a way for users to specify commands they would like to perform and these commands will show up in the context menu when a file is right-clicked.
The Thunar context menu
(full image size: 135kB, resolution: 852x696 pixels)
Thunar (and some other file managers) ship with pre-defined custom actions. Users can also create their own, using command line tools and built-in variables which provide access to the name and path of the selected file.
An example of a custom context menu action
(full image size: 66kB, resolution: 469x728 pixels)
Back to the questions...
- Is there a way to define a pattern in the Thunar file manager so that the custom action is only applied to files located in a specific folder?
Yes, you can do this. One of the easier ways would be to print the directory names of all of the selected files and then check with the grep command to see if the desired folder name was included. If any of the pathnames do not include the desired name, nothing should happen. But if all of the files do include the desired folder name, then you proceed with the action.
Here is an example where we perform a move of selected files, but only if all of the selected files have "Download" somewhere in the pathname. You could make this more specific if you wanted. The "%F" variable contains the complete pathname (directory and file) of all selected items.
echo %F | grep -v "Download" || mv %F /home/user/Music/
I tested the above solution and it worked for me, but you might want to fine-tune it a bit or at least add an error message so that the user knows why the custom action is not working in other folders.
- What is the purpose of the range option by creating a custom action in Thunar and how to use it?
The range option specifies how many files can be operated on at once. For example, if you were going to merge two files (and only two files) you'd set the min-max range to 2. When the action can operate on any number of files then the range field can be left blank.
- Are there other file managers with a similar tool like custom actions in Thunar?
I never use custom context menu actions myself so I am probably missing a few file managers which offer them. I know PCManFM is reported to have custom actions. Dolphin does too, but Dolphin calls custom actions "Services". In Dolphin, go into the Settings menu, select Configure Dolphin, then select Context Menu. There are some pre-defined items and a store where you can download more context menu services.
Dolphin's context menu services
(full image size: 78kB, resolution: 836x580 pixels)
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Clonezilla Live 3.2.1-28
Clonezilla Live is a minimal, live distribution which provides tools for cloning and restoring disk and partition images. The project's latest release, version 3.2.1-28, is based on Ubuntu 25.04. "The underlying GNU/Linux operating system was upgraded. This release is based on the Ubuntu Plucky Puffin (25.04) repository (as of 2025/May/04). Linux kernel was updated to 6.14.0-15.15. Partclone was updated to 0.3.36. Added packages libfsapfs-utils, usb-modeswitch and fscrypt in Clonezilla live system. Added new program ocs-find-live-key and updated ocs-put-log-usb so that it can copy the log files even when Clonezilla live USB drive is used in 'To RAM' mode. It will find the USB key that: (1) is vFAT file system and (2) contains the file "Clonezilla-Live-Version", then it will be treated as Clonezilla live USB drive. ocs-live-repository: added dev=///OCS_LIVE_USB so that the Clonezilla live USB drive can be assigned as the image repo, especially when Clonezilla live USB drive is booted in "To RAM" mode. The Clonezilla live USB drive has to be vFAT file system since it's used to boot in both uEFI and MBR mode. Hence it is not a good choice for image repo since vFAT file system has many restrictions. Better to use UUID or LABEL to assign the image repo. Improved the saving dialog menu and prompt." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
Raspberry Pi OS 2025-05-06
Simon Long has announced the release of a new version of Raspberry Pi OS, a Debian-based distribution designed for the low-cost Raspberry Pi mini-computers. The 2025-05-06 version introduces new screen-locking and auto-login features: "We've installed a modified version of the swaylock screen locking application. Anyone who has used swaylock will be familiar with its somewhat minimal interface - when you lock the screen, you just get a completely white screen with no indication of what has happened or what you need to do. We felt this was a bit unhelpful, so we've added a custom frontend which gives a bit more feedback as to what is happening and what you need to do to unlock it again. You can now lock the screen by pressing Ctrl-Alt-L, or by choosing 'Shutdown' from the main menu and selecting 'Lock Screen' in the dialog. You'll then see the lock screen, with a password entry box." Continue to the verbose release announcement for a more complete list of new features and screenshots.
Plamo Linux 8.2
The Plamo Linux maintainer group has announced the release of Plamo Linux 8.2, the latest release of the Japanese project's distribution that is loosely modeled on Slackware Linux and actively maintained since 2001. The new release provides updates packages, including Linux kernel 6.12.21 (with NVIDIA driver 570.133.07), GCC 14.2.0, LLVM 19.1.0, Mesa 25.0.3, Xfce 4.20, LXQt 2.1, MATE 1.28, Firefox 137.0, FFmpeg 7.1.1, TeX Live 20240313, LibreOffice 24.8.6. The developers have removed some unnecessary network-related tools and firmware during installation to slim down the installer; as a result, it is possible that hardware which was previously supported is no longer usable (due to a lack of firmware). In addition, there is a new tool, Plamo8_USBboot_img.zip, for booting from a VFAT-formatted USB memory stick. One copy the EFI, boot and GRUB directories present in this zip file to a USB memory stick and boot from the USB memory stick via UEFI (depending on the UEFI implementation). This environment includes network tools and a full set of Linux firmware, so it can also be used as a rescue system. Read the full release announcement (in Japanese) for further information.
SDesk 2025.05.06
Steve Studios Inc. has announced the release of a new version of SDesk, an Arch-based Linux distribution with GNOME as the default desktop. The new version, called "20mini" and labelled as 2025.05.06, adds full SELinux support: "SDesk 20mini, contrary to its name, is the most substantial update to the SDesk distribution that Steve Studios has ever shipped. This massive update adds full SELinux support with a security policy specifically designed for Arch Linux. It is also the first version of SDesk to offer an ISO image with NVIDIA drivers. SDesk 20mini now includes the much more secure memory allocator, hardened_malloc, that is also used in systems like GrapheneOS, and it now restricts kernel pointer access in the proc filesystem for added security. This is also the first version to ship with built-in Java and Lua application support. 20mini also includes a firewall manager and desktop app, and now you can copy emojis directly from the status bar. You can also now view and select all of the old SDesk wallpapers used in previous versions right from the Settings app." Read the rest of the release announcement for complete changelog.
SDesk 2025.05.06 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
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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: 3,208
- 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) |
Have you ever created your own distribution ISO?
One of our news stories this week shared a tutorial on making custom atomic distributions and creating ISO files to deploy them. Many people in the Linux community make custom ISO files to make it easier to deploy a highly configured setup, to clone their operating systems, or just for fun. We'd like to hear how many of our readers have made their own bootable Linux ISO.
You can see the results of our previous poll on the last time Linux stopped booting on your system in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Have your created your own Linux ISO?
| Yes - just to learn how: | 92 (6%) |
| Yes - for my own person use: | 250 (16%) |
| Yes - shared it with family/friends/peers: | 52 (3%) |
| Yes - published my own distro: | 15 (1%) |
| Yes - as part of a larger distro team/company: | 21 (1%) |
| No: | 1118 (72%) |
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| Website News |
New projects added to database
PikaOS Linux
PikaOS Linux is a Linux distribution based on Debian's cutting-edge "Unstable" branch, optimised for gaming. It is designed to provide out-of-the-box gaming experience, excellent performance with up-to-date drivers and custom-tweaked Linux kernel, and a choice of GNOME or KDE Plasma desktops, with separate editions that use the Hyprland Wayland compositor.
PikaOS Linux 25.05.05 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 4.4MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
DEKUVE
DEKUVE is a Linux distribution based on Debian's "Stable" branch, featuring a customised Xfce desktop. Some of its features include a custom launcher for finding applications, browsing files or running commands, a performance-control applet that provides real-time control over the computer system's energy profile, a custom themes tool with an ability to transform the look and feel of the entire system, and out-of-the box support for Flatpak packages.
DEKUVE 2.1 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 6.0MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
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New distributions added to waiting list
- CalyxOS. CalyxOS is an Android-based, mobile operating system which offers proactive security and automatic updates.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 19 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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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
Salvare
Salvare (from Latin "to rescue") was a small Linux distribution designed for small, credit-card sized CDs which typically hold less than 50 MB of data. More Linux than tomsrtbt but less than Knoppix, it aims to provide a useful workstation as well as a rescue disk.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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