 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1130, 14 July 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 28th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Technology rarely progresses smoothly or in a straight line. For every story about new advancements in data storage there is another about some government infrastructure still using floppy disks. For each new, exciting display technology there is a not-for-profit office running CRT monitors. This week we talk a bit about some technology moving forward while other developers seek to maintain what already works. In our News section we discuss Alpine planning a development release of its Wayback technology - a tool which allows X11 desktops to run on Wayland. We also report on openSUSE seeking input from people running 32-bit ARM equipment as the project determines how much longer to support the ageing architecture. Plus we share a series of benchmark articles comparing Wayland and X11 performance across distributions, desktops, and video cards. We also talk about Bazzite making Bazaar its default Flatpak store across editions while Red Hat expands its offering of free developer licenses for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Plus we remind readers that Ubuntu 24.10 has reached the end of its supported life. We begin this week with a look at openSUSE's MicroOS and the status of this immutable distribution. We also share a quick look at a relatively new member of the DistroWatch database: RefreshOS. In our Questions and Answers section we talk about how to share aliases across computers. How many aliases do you have set up on your Linux systems? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. We then share the releases of this past week and list the torrents we are seeding. This week we are also pleased to add a few new projects to our database and we share highlights about them below. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: openSUSE's MicroOS and RefreshOS 2.5
- News: Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life
- Questions and answers: Sharing aliases between computers
- Released last week: Exton Linux 250707 "DebEX", Parrot 6.4, NethServer 8.5, CachyOS 250713, GParted Live 1.7.0-8
- Torrent corner: CachyOS, Parrot
- Opinion poll: How many aliases does your shell know?
- Site news: Removing old podcasts
- New additions: arcOS, Macaroni OS, TeaLinux, Vipnix LiveCD, Ximper Linux
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
openSUSE MicroOS
It has been nearly two years since I last tried running openSUSE's MicroOS edition. The MicroOS edition is meant to be reliable, in part due to its immutable nature and Btrfs snapshots. When I last tried MicroOS its flavours (GNOME and Plasma) were in beta and alpha status, respectively. I wanted to see if openSUSE's immutable edition had made progress the way Fedora's atomic editions have been evolving in recent years.
The download for MicroOS is a 2.4GB ISO file. Booting from this medium displays a boot menu where we are given the option of performing a self-test to verify the integrity of the ISO and another option offers to launch the system installer.
Installing
MicroOS launches a graphical system installer which begins by asking which role we want to select for our system. The options are as follows:
- MicroOS - a minimal system with no services.
- Container Host - includes Podman for container management.
- Kalpa - MicroOS running the Plasma desktop environment.
- Remote Attestation - a system for running the Keylime service.
In the past there was another flavour or role for GNOME users called Aeon, but that role is not mentioned in the system installer. It looks as though Aeon has been spun off into a semi-separate project with its own website and install media. I picked the Kalpa role for my trial.
The installer's following screens ask us to make up a username and a password. We are then shown a summary screen where the installer lists the actions it will take. The installer appears to be set up to take over an entire disk with a Btrfs storage volume. We are also told that the system will boot into a graphical environment.
The system installer copied its packages to my drive and then automatically restarted my machine and launched the newly installed operating system. The distribution booted to a text console where I was shown a login prompt. I was able to login, but I was unable to successfully launch a graphical environment or get a graphical login screen. I tried launching the graphical service and attempted some alternative boot options, but without any luck.
A few years ago the Kalpa/Plasma flavour of MicroOS was considered to be in alpha status. While it did work for me (a few years ago), with some issues, it seems as though Kalpa is still unstable. I decided to try the Aeon/GNOME flavour which, the documentation states, had advanced into beta status and, a year ago, had offered a more polished environment.
Installing (again)
The previous time I tried MicroOS, the Aeon flavour had been considered more stable and further along in its development process than the Kalpa flavour. There are several download options for Aeon and they are all collected together in a shared directory without much guidance as to which one people are likely to want. I downloaded a recent snapshot of the Aeon edition which was 1.6GB in size.
Booting from the Aeon ISO brings up a text-based installer which offers to take over an entire local drive. All we need to do is confirm we want to proceed and the distribution is copied to our disk and then the system reboots and starts a first-run wizard. This configuration tool asks us to pick our keyboard layout, choose our timezone from a list, and then we are asked to make up a username and password. The wizard is quite picky about password length and complexity and this screen took longer to get through than the rest of the install process.
When finished with the configuration steps, the system presents us with a text console. I was unable to get a graphical environment to start, despite Aeon being the GNOME desktop flavour of MicroOS. Again, after trying a few different boot options and trying to start a login session service I decided to switch tracks once more.
Installing (one more time)
I decided to try MicroOS Leap. Leap is openSUSE's stable, long-term support branch so I figured if there was reliability to be found in the MicroOS ecosystem, Leap would provide it. Leap's MicroOS ISO is 1.4GB in size. The text-based system installer ran, just as it had with the Aeon edition. But then, once the initial install finished, instead of showing me a first-run configuration wizard, the distribution failed to load properly and dropped me to a rescue prompt.
At this point in the adventure I gave up on MicroOS. I had used various flavours of MicroOS in the past, reviewing it (with a fair degree of success) in 2022 and in 2023. The project was in its fairly early stages then, but it was functional.
Now MicroOS feels like it has been left to rot, it feels abandoned. The documentation is out of date and looks like it hasn't changed in two years. The download options are disorganized. None of the three flavours I tried ran successfully, though the first edition would at least run a graphical installer and finish its install process.
It looks as though new images of MicroOS are being built on a regular basis, two of the ISOs I tried this week were just days old, but it looks as though no one is testing or improving the builds. The project has declined in the past few years at a time when Fedora and Ubuntu are ramping up their immutable flavours.
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RefreshOS 2.5
Since I wasn't getting anywhere with MicroOS I decided to take a look at another project: RefreshOS. According to the project's website, RefreshOS can be described as follows:
RefreshOS 2.5 is a fast, clean, and modern Linux operating system built on the solid foundation of Debian 12.11. Designed to be the perfect middle ground between the complexity of pure Debian and the bloat of mainstream alternatives, RefreshOS delivers a powerful yet minimal desktop experience right out of the box. Installation is quick and beginner-friendly thanks to the Calamares graphical installer, making setup straightforward even for first-time Linux users.
The distribution features the Plasma desktop environment and, by design, does not include support for portable package formats such as Flatpak and Snap.
The RefreshOS ISO file for version 2.5 is approximately 3GB in size. Booting from the ISO brings up the Plasma desktop, version 5.27. A panel is placed at the bottom of the screen, the wallpaper shows us a cute dog, and there is an icon on the desktop for launching the system installer.
Hardware and performance
At this point my experiments with RefreshOS dovetailed. When running the distribution inside VirtualBox the system ran well, connected to the local network, its audio worked, and the system was responsive.
When I was running the distribution on my laptop there were a few issues. Some of these were minor. For example, the screen brightness was set unusually low, even when on AC power. Fortunately, the keyboard's shortcut keys allowed me to adjust screen brightness easily enough. My touchpad worked, but the desktop didn't register taps as clicks. This could be fixed with a trip to the System Settings utility to change mouse behaviour. A much bigger issue was RefreshOS couldn't detect my wireless card, therefore I had no network connection. I poked around the settings panel for a while, but RefreshOS seemed certain I had no network card in my laptop at all and I was not able to even scan for available wireless connections. (When running in VirtualBox a network connection was activated automatically.)
It is very rare for a Linux distribution to not detect and set up my laptop's wireless card. It has happened a few times, usually with distributions which follow a strict "no non-free firmware" policy. RefreshOS does not appear to have any such "free software only" approach, so I'm surprised it didn't detect all of my hardware.
This left me to perform nearly all of my tests in a virtual machine. This wasn't ideal, but I hope to showcase the distribution's key features by way of the virtual environment.
Installing
RefreshOS ships with the Calamares system installer rather than its parent's classic installer. Calamares is a lot faster than Debian's installer and it only takes a few clicks, plus making up a username and password, to get the system installed. Calamares offers to set up the distribution on an ext4 or Btrfs partition, though we can override the filesystem choice in the manual partitioning section of Calamares.
Early impressions
Once installed RefreshOS boots to a graphical login screen where were are shown a pretty background featuring a tree-lined road. We have two session options - Plasma running on X11 and Plasma running on Wayland. The Wayland session is the default. Signing in brings up the Plasma 5.27 desktop rather than the more recent Plasma 6 desktop. For most practical purposes users are unlikely to notice a big difference. Plasma 5.x is slightly lighter and its panel doesn't float above the bottom of the screen, but the experience across 5.27 and 6.3 is mostly the same.
Plasma is set up with a mixed theme. The application menu and application title bars are dark while application backgrounds and menu bars are light. This, along with most aspects of the desktop, can be adjusted in the settings panel.
RefreshOS 2.5 -- The application menu
(full image size: 1.2MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The application menu has an unusual layout for a Linux distribution. The menu shows all application launchers in alphabetical order on the left side. On the right side we find folder names we can click to open the file manager. There are no software categories in the default application menu. This makes it fairly quick to find an item if we know its name, but it is slower to find an application based on its function if we don't know its name. I suspect this style is intended to make people migrating from Windows feel more at home as it resembles with Windows 10 Start menu.
Included software
Along with the unusual application menu layout there are a few unusual software choices mixed into RefreshOS. For example, KDE Plasma usually ships with the Dolphin file manager, but this distribution includes Nemo instead. Brave is the default web browser instead of the more commonly used Firefox, and LXTerminal replaces Konsole. I was also surprised to find Deepin Calendar instead of KOrganizer or GNOME Calendar, and KMail instead of Thunderbird.
RefreshOS 2.5 -- Exploring the filesystem with Nemo
(full image size: 875kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Some application options are more typical. For example, RefreshOS ships with LibreOffice, the VLC media player (with a full range of codecs), and the KDE Connect device pairing software. The Plasma System Settings panel is included and makes the user interface pleasantly flexible.
The distribution ships with manual pages, GNU command line tools, and the GNU Compiler Collection. The distribution runs systemd and uses version 6.1 of the Linux kernel.
RefreshOS 2.5 -- Running LibreOffice, Pluma, and LXTerminal
(full image size: 130kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The distribution doesn't ship with many applications, but it uses a fairly average amount of disk space: 8.1GB for a fresh install. Memory usage is a little on the high side for KDE Plasma 5.27, with the desktop consuming 980MB of RAM while sitting idle.
Software management
RefreshOS provides the Discover software centre for managing software packages. Discover has a nice, modern layout, and I found it to be responsive. I was able to find the applications I wanted and install them with just a few clicks. Discover, and its underlying APT package manager, pull mostly from Debian's Stable repositories. There are a few additional repositories configured for providing items such as the Brave browser.
RefreshOS 2.5 -- The Discover software centre
(full image size: 1.6MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
When new software updates become available for the system a notification appears on the desktop. We can then click an icon in the system tray which will launch Discover and display its Updates page. The update process through Discover was smooth and I had no problems while using it.
As mentioned earlier, RefreshOS doesn't ship support for Flatpak or Snap, but we can install these from Debian's repositories if we want to use portable packages.
RefreshOS 2.5 -- Checking for updates using APT
(full image size: 2.0MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Conclusions
I didn't spend a lot of time with RefreshOS, just a few days, due to its hardware limitations. However, when running the distribution in a virtual machine the distribution was mostly "pleasantly boring". It's Debian Stable running an older version of KDE Plasma and about as predictable, stable, and plain as that implies. Apart from the unusual application menu, which just took me a few hours to get used to navigating, nothing really stood out. RefreshOS doesn't appear to have any special features, problems, or unusual approaches which set it apart from the other dozen or so Debian-based distributions running the Plasma desktop. The default application selection (Brave, Deepin Calendar, and Nemo) are an odd combination to pair with Plasma, but the mixture works well enough.
RefreshOS 2.5 -- Using the System Settings panel to switch to a dark theme
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
On the whole, it is a decent experience - I could get work accomplished and there were no nasty surprises. On the other hand RefreshOS doesn't do much to set itself apart from the rest of the pack. It's pleasantly average, at least in a virtual machine, and that's fine, but it doesn't do anything to draw users to the project beyond what other Debian-based desktop distributions are doing.
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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
RefreshOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 2/10 from 1 review(s).
Have you used RefreshOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life
The Bazzite project has announced a new update which includes the introduction of a new Flatpak software centre which will be consistent across editions of the distribution. "Bazaar is now the default Flatpak store for Universal Blue and all images of Bazzite! This is a brand new store with an important core objective: encourage developers to ship and maintain their applications for Linux themselves, while receiving support for this work. This is done by placing a focus on Flatpaks and Flathub as the source of applications. There is no RPM here! Important for cases where those are not supported, such as Bazzite." Additional information on the state of Bazzite can be found in the project's blog post.
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People who wish to continue to run X11 desktop sessions on distributions which are transitioning to Wayland-powered desktops recently received some good news. The Alpine Linux team announced they are developing Wayback, a stub which will allow X11 desktops and window managers to run on Wayland sessions. Progress has been rapid and the developers are planning to soon publish a beta of Wayback for people to test. "The main focus of this release is to get to a point where enough is working that users with basic setups and requirements can be reasonably served by Wayback in place of the X.org server, to allow for further testing. It's already to a point where I am daily driving it. Of course, while the first release is coming soon, the project remains in an experimental state, and the first release will itself be experimental, but we're making real progress towards a sustainable solution for the X11 problem." Screenshots of Wayback in action can be found in this blog post.
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Proponents of Wayland have been promoting the display protocol for over a decade, reporting how the replacement for X.Org will provide cleaner code, lighter display software, and a more efficient design. While Wayland has made great gains in recent years, performance and efficiency continue to be problems for the younger display protocol. Dedoimedo has published a series of benchmarks in which Plasma on Wayland vs Plasma on X11 performance, power consumption and efficiency are tested. The series of articles covers running Plasma on multiple distributions (including KDE neon and Fedora) and multiple video cards (AMD and NVIDIA), using X11 with and without compositing enabled. The final article then compares GNOME running on Wayland against Plasma (both Wayland and X11 sessions) and shares the results. "The results are quite interesting. By and large, GNOME Wayland, as implemented in Fedora, seems slightly less performant than Plasma's Wayland, which in turn, is less performant than X11, and as we've seen that, too, is still worse than X11 with compositing off. Significant numbers that, to me, tell one thing: it's too early to deprecate the old framework, because the new one still hasn't caught up. No emotion, no fanboyism, simple pragmatic c'est la vie.
If we look just at Wayland, on idle, GNOME performed worse in battery use and CPU data, with surprisingly good GPU numbers that do not align with any other test. Under load, again, GNOME's Wayland used most resources, and had the worst FPS count by far. Furthermore, Fedora's kernel seems to be doing a lot more work, but also doing it quite efficiently. Lastly, both Plasma's System Monitor and GNOME's System Monitor seem to be badly optimized tools, given what we've seen so far.
To sum it up, X11 is still the most optimal choice, performance wise, to say nothing of the compositing off option, which blows the rest out of the water. Plasma's Wayland implementation is better than GNOME's, it seems."
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Red Hat is expanding its offering of free licenses for developers who want unsupported copies of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The company is now offering up to 25 licenses for developers. "Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Business Developers directly addresses these concerns by providing developers self-serve, no-cost access to a complete set of enterprise-ready, Red Hat Enterprise Linux content for use within their businesses. It helps provide greater consistency and reliability across developer and operations teams, regardless of where on the hybrid cloud the resulting application will live. Red Hat's latest developer offering includes: Simplified access to the world's leading enterprise Linux platform with the self-service ability to entitle up to 25 physical, virtual or cloud-based instances per registered user as a member of the Red Hat Developer Program...." Additional details are provided in Red Hat's announcement.
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The openSUSE project is considering how much longer the distribution should support 32-bit ARM-powered devices. With this in mind, the project has asked people who use computers running 32-bit ARM processors to let the project know. "The openSUSE project is seeking community input to determine whether it should continue supporting 32-bit ARM architectures. Maintaining support for legacy platforms is increasingly challenging. The openSUSE team cited limited upstream support and dwindling maintenance resources as key factors behind the potential decision to retire 32-bit ARM (ARMv6 and ARMv7) support. Devices like the Raspberry Pi 1 , Pi Zero, BeagleBone, and other older embedded boards rely on 32-bit ARM. If you're using openSUSE on any of these platforms, the team wants to hear from you. Take the survey at survey.opensuse.org to help the team determine a path for 32-bit ARM architectures."
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Version 24.10 of the Ubuntu distribution reached the end of its supported life this week. Ubuntu 24.10 (and its community editions) received nine months of support and has been discontinued. People still running version 24.10 are advised to upgrade to version 25.04 to continue receiving software and security updates. "Ubuntu announced its 24.10 (Oracular Oriole) release almost 9 months ago, on 10th October 2024 and its support period is now nearing its end. Ubuntu 24.10 will reach end of life on 10th July 2025. At that time, Ubuntu Security Notices will no longer include information or updated packages for Ubuntu 24.10. The supported upgrade path from Ubuntu 24.10 is to Ubuntu 25.04. Instructions and caveats for the upgrade."
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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) |
Sharing aliases between computers
Sharing-is-caring asks: My friend has a lot of shell aliases and some of them look really cool. I'd like to import them into my bash, but don't want to lose any of my existing aliases. Is there any way I can do this without manually copying dozens of the aliases I want?
DistroWatch answers: Yes, you can do this, and with relatively little effort. Let's take the process one step at a time.
First, from your friend's account, they need to export their list of aliases into a file. Maybe, since they have so many aliases, they already have one dedicated text file with just the aliases in it? If so, they can just send you the file (via e-mail, Signal, KDE Connect, or thumb drive tied to a pigeon). However, if your friend has their aliases scattered around or mixed into their ~/.bashrc file then they should dump their aliases into a new text file for you. They can do this by running the following command:
$ alias > myaliases.txt
Then your friend can send you the myaliases.txt file.
Once you have the myaliases.txt file on your computer, save it in your home directory. Then open your ~/.bashrc file and add the following line to the top of the file:
source ~/myaliases.txt
Why is it important to put this line at the top of your ~/.bashrc file? The contents of your ~/.bashrc file are read and executed when your shell first launches. Usually aliases are placed near the bottom of this file or pulled in from another file using a source command. Aliases declared later in the file replace any aliases with the same name declared earlier in the file.
As an example, let us assume I have the following two lines in my ~/.bashrc file:
alias ls='ls -l'
alias ls='ls -la'
When I run the ls command, the result will be that bash runs the last declared alias for ls. In this case, it will run "ls -la", since that one overwrote the earlier "ls -l".
Why this is important in your case is the aliases you are importing from your friend will be declared at the start of your ~/.bashrc file. Which means, later on, when your own aliases are declared, they will replace any aliases with the same name, overwriting any matches from your friend. This avoids you losing any of your existing aliases while also getting the benefit of any new aliases from your friend. This saves you from manually filtering any matches.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Exton Linux 250707 "DebEX"
Arne Exton has announced the release of a new "DebEX" edition of Exton Linux, based on the upcoming release of Debian 13. It uses the KDE Plasma 6.3.5 desktop and comes with the Calamares system installer: "I have made a new extra version of DebEX KDE Plasma live system, efi. It's a pure Debian Sid/Trixie (upcoming Debian 13) system. There are no Ubuntu or Kubuntu elements involved in DebEX. DebEX KDE Plasma Sid uses the KDE Plasma Desktop 6.3.5, the latest version, released 2025-05-06, as the desktop environment. Linux kernel 6.15.3 is used. All included packages have been updated to the latest version as of 2025-07-07. VirtualBox Guest Additions and VMware Tools are pre-installed, which means that you can run DebEX KDE in full screen. I've installed the full KDE Plasma desktop using the command 'sudo apt install task-kde-desktop'. In order to save space I have removed LibreOffice. I have added Calamares 3.3.14 installer framework. Now you can choose language when the installation starts. You can even use Calamares in VirtualBox and VMware on non-efi computers without problems. You can also use the Refracta installer." Here is the full release announcement.
Exton 250707 "DebEX" -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 5.7MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Parrot 6.4
The Parrot team have announced the release of Parrot 6.4, which will likely be the final release of the 6.x series. "We are proud to announce Parrot Security 6.4, the latest release of our security oriented operating system, this new version comes packed with most of the enhancements that our vibrant community asked for, and it features the amazing work of many new contributors. Many tools, like Metasploit, Sliver, Caido and Empire received important updates, the Linux kernel was updated to a more recent version, and the latest LTS version of Firefox was provided with all our privacy oriented patches. Parrot 6.4 will most likely be the last release of the 6.x branch." The release announcement goes on to share some highlights: "All the Debian compatible tools provided by Microsoft are now available for installation via APT from the official Parrot repository, so we officially support Powershell 7.5, .NET runtime and SDKs from version 5 to version 9 and many more! parrot-menu got new desktop entries (like Sliver, Rocket) and several other launchers got updated."
NethServer 8.5
NethServer is a Rocky Linux-based application server specifically designed for small offices and medium enterprises. The project's latest version, 8.5, introduces worker node compatiblity checks, new Samba features, S3 backup support. "Worker node version check - A safety check has been added when a new worker node joins the cluster: its core version is now compared with that of the leader node to ensure compatibility. Before joining the cluster, always update the cluster core and ensure the latest core version is used on new worker nodes. Hetzner S3 backup support - Added support for configuring Hetzner S3 as a custom backup destination. Also fixed a bug that prevented renaming custom S3 backup destinations. Samba domain member role and new features - The core Samba application can now be installed from the Software Center and configured as an Active Directory domain member, providing shared folders in a domain File Server role." Additional details can be found in the project's release notes.
CachyOS 250713
A new release of CachyOS, a highly-optimised, Arch Linux-based distribution with KDE Plasma as the preferred desktop in live mode, is now available for download. The 250713 version enables users to choose a preferred shell at installation time and defaults to the Wayland display server for new Plasma installations. "This is our fifth release this year, and it includes a long-awaited requested feature, improvements for chwd, and more. The user's shell can now be chosen at installation time. In the package list selection, there is now an option to choose between cachyos-fish-config and cachyos-zsh-config. If neither is selected, the system will default to Bash. The default configuration will still be Fish, as it was before. We received some reports that systemd-oomd was killing processes too early in some cases. We have removed its integration to avoid these issues. For Plasma installations, we are now defaulting to Wayland. For graphics configurations that do not support Wayland (e.g., NVIDIA legacy drivers), the plasma-x11-session will be automatically installed to prevent issues. Additionally, fwupd has been added to the Plasma and GNOME environments." Continue to the release announcement for further details.
GParted Live 1.7.0-8
Curtis Gedak has announced the release of GParted Live 1.7.0-8, a new stable release of the project's Debian-based specialist live CD designed for disk partitioning and data rescue tasks. This release release drops support for 32-bit processors due to Debian's decision to no longer pack i386 Linux kernel and it also updates the Linux kernel to version 6.12.37. "The GParted team is pleased to announce a new stable release of GParted Live. This release includes GParted 1.7.0, updated packages and other improvements. Items of note include: only amd64 (x86-64) images are available going forward - as mentioned in the Debian release mailing list, dropping i386 kernel packages, the i386 Linux kernel packages were dropped in our upstream, Debian 'Sid' repository, hence i686/i686-pae GParted Live will be no more in the future; from this release on, only amd64 (x86-64) release will be available; includes GParted 1.7.0; implemented a mechanism to reduce the possibility of random order of block devices in GParted Live; based on the Debian 'Sid' repository as of 2025-07-12; Linux kernel image updated to 6.12.37. X Desktop GUI fails to display with default boot options? Try Other modes of GParted Live - GParted Live (Safe graphics setting, vga-normal)." Here is the complete release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 3,237
- Total data uploaded: 47.8TB
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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) |
How many aliases does your shell know?
Many of us use command line shell aliases to act as shortcuts or bookmarks. An alias is basically a short version of a command, a word or series of characters the shell recognises and will expand into a longer command. This saves on the amount of typing a person needs to perform and reduces the number of command line flags the user needs to remember.
Most distributions provide some aliases with their default shell, often to provide shortcuts for performing software updates. You can check to see which aliases are recognised by your shell by running the command "alias". To get a count of the number of aliases your shell knows, run the command "alias | wc -l".
You can see the results of our previous poll on what we should work on next in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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How many aliases does your shell know?
| 0: | 296 (30%) |
| 1-5: | 248 (25%) |
| 6-10: | 158 (16%) |
| 11-15: | 69 (7%) |
| 16-20: | 38 (4%) |
| 21-25: | 36 (4%) |
| 26+: | 145 (15%) |
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| Website News |
Removing old podcasts
The DistroWatch Weekly podcast was a feature we ran for a number of years, voiced by a few volunteer contributors, most recently Bruce Patterson. We have not run the podcast for a while, but we have continued to keep the podcast archive, and links to it, alive. The podcast links were posted at the top of each Weekly newsletter.
As of this month we have not had anyone recording a podcast for three years and the old audio recordings are taking up space we would like to use for other elements of the website. We will be cleaning out the old podcast archive on August 2nd. If you have an old podcast you'd like to find and keep, this would be the time to download it for future listening.
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New distributions added to database
arcOS
arcOS, which stands for "Amateur Radio Community Operating System", is a specialist Linux distribution based on Linux Mint. It focuses on standardised digital communication needs, commonly used for both casual and emergency communications. It is a portable system that can be booted from any computer's USB device and used immediately with Digirig Mobile, a digital modes interface for radio communications.
arcOS 22.1.0706 -- Running the Cinnamon desktop
(full image size: 4.5MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Macaroni OS
Macaroni OS, a Linux distribution born as an incubation project under the source-based Funtoo Linux umbrella, develops a range of binary Linux operating systems for desktops, servers and containers.
TeaLinux
TeaLinux is an Indonesian Linux distribution based on Arch Linux. It is developed by Dinus Open Source Community (DOSCOM) from Dian Nuswantoro University in Semarang, Central Java. It was started in 2009 (when the distribution was based on Ubuntu). TeaLinux, which is available in COSMIC and KDE Plasma desktop variants, includes a custom system installer called "Tea-Install". The distribution is crafted with a strong focus on programming and development needs and with a clean and efficient environment for developers.
TeaLinux 2025.06.16 -- Running the COSMIC desktop
(full image size: 1.8MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Vipnix LiveCD
Vipnix LiveCD is a portable Linux distribution built on the legacy of Gentoo Linux, Funtoo and Macaroni OS. It combines Gentoo's source-based optimization, Funtoo's innovative tools and Macaroni OS's modern, container-friendly approach. Vipnix integrates the lightweight LXQt desktop environment and the educational XLibre X11 server into a live operating system designed for enthusiasts, professionals and system recovery tasks. It is developed by Vipnix, a Brazilian IT solutions company specialising in customised infrastructure, cybersecurity, data protection and biotechnology.
Ximper Linux
Ximper Linux is a Russian, rolling-release distribution based on ALT Linux's development branch called "Sisyphus". The project develops a custom package manager called EPM which enables installing and removing individual software or upgrading the entire distribution with one command. It also includes PortProton, a tool designed to help users run Windows games on Linux systems. Ximper Linux provides a set of live images, with GNOME or Hyprland, and with a flexible system installer that can be used to build any installation scenario, from a minimal system to a complex workstation with various desktop environments.
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 21 July 2025. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Full list of all issues |
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RoFreeSBIE
RoFreeSBIE was a FreeBSD-based live CD and DVD, installable on hard disk. Its main goal was to promote FreeBSD as an excellent educational tool and mobile desktop.
Status: Discontinued
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Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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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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