 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1137, 1 September 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 35th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
In August we reported on the launch of the illumos Cafe, a web portal for people seeking information and tips on using illumos-based operating systems, such as OpenIndiana. The launch of illumos Cafe inspired Jesse Smith to take the Tribblix operating system for a test drive. Tribblix is a retro-style member of the Solaris/illumos family and we share details on the operating system in this week's Feature Story. Do you run a member of the illumos family of operating systems? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section we talk about the CalyxOS team publishing an over-the-air (OTA) update prior to updating the mobile project's infrastructure. We also talk about KDE testing out a first-run setup wizard for the Plasma desktop, a tool which will be helpful for people buying computers with their distribution pre-installed. Plus we talk about anti-virus tools and how they tend to give false reports about Linux ISO files and why this can happen - details are in our Tips and Tricks column. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: Tribblix 0m37
- News: KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans final update before infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD status update
- Tips and tricks: Malware warnings about Linux ISO files
- Released last week: GhostBSD 25.02, Br OS 13.0, MODICIA O.S. 6.12.41, FreedomBox 2025-08-28
- Torrent corner: Armbian, BigLinux, GhostBSD, Linux Lite
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 15.0-ALPHA1, Q4OS 6.0
- Opinion poll: Do you run a member of the illumos family?
- New distributions: Omarchy, Planeta Tecno OS
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Tribblix 0m37
Tribblix is an unusual creature in the open source community. It's not a Linux distribution or even a member of the BSD family. Tribblix is a member of the Solaris family; it's an open source operating system based on illumos. The project's website summarized Tribblix quite nicely:
Tribblix is an operating system distribution derived from OpenSolaris, OpenIndiana, and illumos, with a retro style and modern components. The base kernel and commands come from illumos, with everything else rebuilt from scratch.
Tribblix is a traditional system. Software is distributed as SVR4 packages, lightweight window managers are preferred over heavy desktop environments, the primary desktop option is Xfce, and MATE and Enlightenment are also available, plus many others. The system is flexible, fast, and familiar to those who've used Solaris in the past, while shipping modern software on the solid foundation it's based on.
Tribblix isn't just a spin or repackaging of another illumos distribution. It's a completely independent distribution that, while sharing the key illumos technologies such as ZFS, zones, DTrace, and SMF, has been essentially built from scratch, with its own build and packaging system.
The website, from where I pulled the above description, is unusual in that it uses HTTP only, rather than the secure and more commonly used HTTPS protocol.
Tribblix reportedly runs on x86_64 processors and SPARC-powered machines and is available in a few editions. The main downloads are a Desktop edition, which is 1.2GB in size, and a 413MB Server edition. I decided to try the Desktop flavour.
Booting from the provided media brings up a text console. Tribblix uses a dark green text on a black background which is unusually low contrast and difficult to read. This isn't even the retro bright green text on a black background I remember from my DOS days using monochrome CRT monitors, this is a faded green that disappears into the background.
On the text console we are prompted to select our preferred language from a list. Then we can sign into an account on the text terminal. To sign in as a regular user, the credentials are jack/jack, and the password for the root account is "tribblix". Once we are signed in we can explore a fairly minimal live environment on the console.
Installing
The process of installing Tribblix is quite short, but it requires some technical knowledge. I'd recommend reading the project's Install documentation if you have not previously installed Tribblix. The install instructions offer tips on finding device names, which script to run, and how to enable ZFS features such as disk mirroring. To install the operating system we first need to select a disk to either wipe or format to provide a suitable partition. We then run an install script and pass it the name of the disk (or partition) we want to use and a list of package categories we want to install. The main categories are called wifi, desktop, server, development, and x11. There is also a kitchen-sink meta-category which will install most categories of software for us.
To find the name of our local disk we can use the format command as the root user or get a listing of the /dev/dsk directory. We can do this by running "ls /dev/dsk" and we will likely come up with a disk name such as c1t0 or c1d0.
I ran the install script and the installer appeared to work successfully for a few minutes, but the process ended with an error which said it could not mount the "/" directory. Despite this error, when I rebooted the computer Tribblix booted successfully.
Early impressions
I had installed most of the available package groups, including wifi, x11, and desktop. This resulted in Tribblix booting to a graphical login screen. From here we can sign into the Xfce desktop using the username and password "jack".
The login page doesn't have any controls of its own. There is no option to change the session type, shutdown the computer, or enable accessibility features.
Tribblix 0m37 -- Exploring the application menu
(full image size: 256kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Since about the only thing we do during the install process is pick a partition to use on our disk this means Tribblix starts us off with a number of defaults which would normally be adjusted either during the install process or by a first-run wizard. For example, our time zone is not set, our username is "jack", the password is "jack", the root account's password is still "tribblix", and no wireless network has been set up. This leaves us with a few issues to sort out and some passwords to change.
I found when trying to change my password that regular users are forced to make up a password at least eight characters in length. The root user can assign any password, of any length, to accounts.
When I signed into my account the Xfce desktop, version 4.16, was launched. This version of Xfce is quite old, about five years old, according to the Xfce website. Version 4.18 of Xfce become available three years ago and 4.20 is about a year old at the time of writing. It seems odd that Tribblix is putting out new releases with desktop software at least three years out of date.
Early on I noticed Tribblix was constantly running my CPU hard, causing my laptop fan to sound like a jet airplane. This issue turned out to be caused by a process called hald-addon-storage. When this process was killed at login the issue went away and my CPU returned to being idle most of the time.
With the runaway service terminated, Xfce was pleasantly responsive. The version of the desktop available may be old, but it's quick and navigating Xfce hasn't changed much in the past decade. This made everything easy to find. Though something I found odd was the user "jack" and the user "root" have different desktop layouts. When signed in as "jack" the desktop places a panel at the bottom of the screen and the desktop has a bland, grey theme. When we sign in as "root" the panel is placed at the top of the screen, a dock is placed at the bottom, and the theme uses a sharp, black theme for the desktop elements.
While the two default users have different desktop themes, there is no way for the "jack" user to select an alternative Xfce theme. Going into the Xfce Appearance configuration module presents us with no theme options and only one alternative icon set.
Tribblix 0m37 -- The Xfce settings panel
(full image size: 227kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Neither root nor jack can shutdown the system from within Xfce or from the login screen. We need to power off the computer or reboot it from a virtual terminal. Speaking of the terminal, while the terminal text on the live system is dark green on black, the virtual terminal launched from Xfce uses a more sensible white on black font.
Included software
The Tribblix platform ships with a collection of open source software which would have been fairly typical about 15 to 20 years ago. Looking through the application menu we find the Claws Mail client, TignerVNC for accessing remote desktops, and the Imagination application which makes slideshows for DVDs. (Imagination failed to launch when its icon was clicked. Other desktop applications worked as expected.)
There are two included web browsers: NetSurf and Pale Moon. Netsurf was a bit limited and could not access streaming content, but Pale Moon worked well for me. The Orage calendar application is featured along with Gnumeric and AbiWord for working with spreadsheets and text documents. The Thunar file manager is included. The operating system also ships with two image viewers, five text editors, and the Xfce settings panel.
Tribblix 0m37 -- Running the Pale Moon web browser
(full image size: 1.3MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Tribblix ships with some GNU command line tools and it offers SysV init for the init process. (I'd like to note, this isn't the same SysV init implementation found on some Linux distributions, it's the Unix implementation of SysV init.) Manual pages are provided for command line tools and the system runs on the illumos kernel.
A fresh install of Tribblix with the Xfce takes up about 1.4GB of disk space. This is quite small compared to mainstream Linux distributions, but the operating system also doesn't include many applications. Tribblix uses around 1.0GB of RAM when signed into the Xfce desktop, including the ZFS cache. I found that, out of the box, audio and networking functioned as expected.
Software management
As far as I could tell (early on) from exploring the operating system and reading the documentation, Tribblix does not have a traditional package manager the way most Linux distributions or the BSDs have. Instead the website tells us Tribblix uses a tool called zap to update the system and add new groups of packages, using overlays. It looks as though zap will fetch an overlay (such as the aforementioned "desktop", "server", or "development" set of packages) and it can then keep these overlays up to date. Updates, I found, are applied in an "all or nothing" approach, fetching groups of packages when we want to update the system.
Tribblix does not have a graphical software centre and it does not appear to offer any method for installing single applications or expanding the system beyond the handful of overlays mentioned in the install process.
Tribblix 0m37 -- Using zap to install a package
(full image size: 178kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Later, while reading some of zap's local documentation I discovered it does not just deal with categories of software, it can also work with specific packages. This feature doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere on the website. We can run "zap search" to locate packages and "zap install" to fetch new packages. I'm not sure why this is not mentioned in the on-line documentation or even in the local manual page for zap, I only found the options to work with specific packages when I ran "zap --help", which provided much more information than either of the two aforementioned resources.
ZFS and boot environments
The default filesystem on Tribblix is ZFS and it offers us advanced features such as disk mirroring, RAID, and boot environments. I especially appreciate ZFS snapshots as they give us easy access to past versions of files in case we accidentally delete or modify a file.
The operating system does not create boot environments for us automatically during updates the way openSUSE and FreeBSD do, however we can create ZFS boot environments manually using the beadm command line tool. Boot environments can be selected from the boot menu (by pressing the number 6 key) to roll back the operating system in case something breaks during an update.
Tribblix 0m37 -- Looking boot environments and filesystem snapshots
(full image size: 216kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Other observations
When attempting to shutdown the computer the system pauses to report it cannot find the wall program and asks if it should continue. Tribblix then reboots into single user maintenance mode. To shutdown the computer we need to use the poweroff command instead of shutdown.
Tribblix does some things differently than most GNU/Linux distributions and even the BSDs. Most command line tools and desktop options are the same, but there are some differences. For instance, when we open an manual page the page viewer used to scroll is more rather than less, meaning we can't scroll back up the page (unless we use the terminal's scroll bar), only down.
Tribblix 0m37 -- The Gnumeric spreadsheet application
(full image size: 141kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Conclusions
I have always been a fan of the Solaris family and what its members can provide. Projects in the illumos/OpenSolaris community tend to be rock solid, traditional Unix, and I appreciate the reliability.
Tribblix is up front about the fact it is designed to be "retro" in its style. We can see this in its green-on-black terminal, conservative application choices, and, minimal installer. However, even knowing Tribblix is striving to be retro, I wonder if it is being too retro. The operating system is running a five year old desktop with less commonly used office software and there is a distinct lack of documentation to assist us.
I think it is fair to say there is a difference between having a retro style and actually being out of date. There are a number of capable, modern Linux distributions which look retro while still providing modern conveniences if we want them. Tribblix seems to be sliding farther along the scale, becoming dated in its technology as much as in its style. The project's self-description refers to Tribblix's components as "modern" twice, but nothing about Tribblix is modern, it's visibly ageing, and not in a charming way.
I appreciate a platform that looks like a classic - I've been known to enjoy minimal environments and to install desktops with older designs, such as CDE. However, at the end of the day, I still need to be able to read up on how the operating system works and then install several applications to get work accomplished. This isn't something I can do to the extent I need with Tribblix. There are some extra applications in its repositories, but there are big gaps when comparing Tribblix's package options against most Linux distributions. There is an edition of Tribblix (called OmniTribblix) which can reportedly run Linux in isolated environments called zones. However, if we need to install a full Linux distribution just to run a few extra applications then we would probably be better served running Linux from the start.
In short, it's nice to see the illumos community is still alive and producing new variants. On the other hand, Tribblix isn't entirely practical as a desktop. It's close, but showing its age and I quickly ran into limitations when trying to find and install extra applications.
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Visitor supplied rating
Tribblix has a visitor supplied average rating of: N/A from 0 review(s).
Have you used Tribblix? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans final update before infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD status update
The KDE project is introducing a few new changes to the Plasma desktop. One of the big changes is the introduction of a first-run setup wizard that can help users create accounts on systems where the distribution was pre-installed for them. "This week Plasma gained an initial system setup wizard! For a few years now, we've had Welcome Center, which runs after you log in for the first time. But what creates the user account you log into?
If you're the person who installed the OS, the installer did it after you told it what username and password you wanted. But what if someone else ran the installer? Say, the company you bought the computer from. Or the last person who wiped the machine before giving or selling it you. In this case, no user accounts have been set up, so something needs to do that.
KDE Initial System Setup now takes care of it! Kristen McWilliam has brought KISS from an internal skunkworks project to a production-ready part of the OEM setup story. KISS lands in Plasma 6.5.0." The KDE blog post offers details on additional changes.
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Last week we shared a review of CalyxOS. At the end it was mentioned the CalyxOS team were temporarily pausing system updates while they went through a management transition and build system update. The project has decided to publish one more over the air (OTA) update before the pause, sending out a patch for any known security issues and with a notice to all users about the changes the project is implementing behind the scenes. "As mentioned in our letter to the CalyxOS community, this project has been on a hiatus for the last two months. However, we are concerned with the many existing CalyxOS users who may have not been made aware of this important change. To reach as many active CalyxOS users as we can, our team decided collectively to push one last OTA update to inform all people currently running CalyxOS about the hiatus and its impact.
Therefore, rather than a typical monthly update, this OTA update alerts people through a system notification that their current version of CalyxOS will no longer receive updates from our team and a link to our community letter. Once the project comes out of the hiatus, you will be alerted with an additional notification, and reinstalling CalyxOS will be required to receive updates going forward."
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The FreeBSD project has published its quarterly status update for April through to June of 2025. A lot of work has gone into FreeBSD behind the scenes to improve laptop and driver support, introduce flags for hardening ports, and provide a compatibility layer for running FreeBSD programs on Linux. One of the highlights in the report is Sylve, a unified system management utility: "Sylve is a modern, unified system management platform for FreeBSD, inspired by Proxmox. We aim to provide an integrated web interface for managing virtual machines (via Bhyve), Jails, ZFS storage, networking, and firewalling. The backend is implemented in Go, while the frontend uses SvelteKit with Tailwind CSS and ShadCN UI components. The project emphasizes a minimal system footprint, currently requiring only sysutils/smartmontools, sysutils/tmux, and libvirt as runtime dependencies. Sylve continues to address a key gap in the FreeBSD ecosystem by delivering a cohesive, user-friendly interface for system administration tasks." Additional details on the project can be found on Sylve's GitHub page.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
Malware warnings about Linux ISO files
On a regular basis we receive messages from people who are new to Linux and who want to get started. They pick a distribution, download the appropriate ISO file, and their Windows anti-virus software immediately flashes a warning, informing them the ISO contains malware.
This has been happening for, well, probably as long as there have been Linux ISO files. It was fairly common when I first got into Linux over 25 years ago and it still seems to be a regular occurrence now. In fact, in the past few weeks there has been a noticeable uptick in the number of people messaging me to report their Linux distro of choice is plagued with a virus. (Each time it is a different Linux distro and a different anti-virus application.) So this seems like a good time to talk about the concern in a more public fashion.
First, I want to say that while it could be possible some Linux distributions have accidentally packaged malware into their ISO files, it's highly unlikely. Windows anti-virus software usually just scans for malware which targets Windows. Since Linux developers are almost exclusively running Linux machines, the chances of Windows malware sneaking into a Linux ISO are quite slim. It's not impossible for a Linux ISO to become infected, it's just unlikely.
So why do multiple Windows virus scanners report that they find malware in Linux downloads? Putting aside the obvious conspiracy theories about anti-virus vendors not wanting to lose customers, what is probably happening is the scanners are detecting an archive file (the ISO) which contains executable code, and flagging it as suspicious. Some of the code is even able to change the disk layout, which is something that looks nasty from a security point of view. It's entirely understandable that a malware scanner which sees an archive full of executable code that could change the way the system boots would flag it as dangerous.
Under normal circumstances (ie protecting Windows from modification) such system-changing code would be dangerous, but in the case of Linux, having programs that can partition the disk, install a boot loader, and run kernel-level code is necessary. And, from the user's point of view, it's desired.
All of this is to say that an anti-virus program reporting malware in a Linux ISO is cause for further investigation, but 999 times out of 1,000 it proves to be a false positive. You can test the ISO with another malware scanner and, if it confirms specific malware found, you can report it to the distribution's developers. You might then want to try another ISO from another project.
Unfortunately, reporting ISOs which trigger Windows anti-virus applications to DistroWatch is not helpful. We don't host any of the ISO files and do not have any special access to the project developers to bring the matter to their attention. If you think you have found a problem with one of the ISO files, then contacting the developers directly is your best path toward getting the issue looked at and addressed.
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Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
GhostBSD 25.02
The GhostBSD team has announced the release of GhostBSD 25.02, which is based on FreeBSD 14.3. The project's latest version includes a new community spin: "We are excited to announce the release of GhostBSD 25.02-R14.3p2. This release continues our commitment to rock-solid stability by building on FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE, bringing you the latest improvements from FreeBSD, including enhanced hardware support, security updates, kernel improvements, and enhanced wireless networking support. This release marks a significant milestone with the introduction of Gershwin, a new community desktop environment that brings forward an OS X-like user experience through GNUstep. This early preview includes: GNUstep-based desktop environment with familiar OS X-style interface; seamless integration with GhostBSD tools through wrappers for installer, Software Station, Backup Station and Update Station; support for running non-GNUstep applications alongside GNUstep apps; several included GNUstep applications to get you started. For more information, visit the Gershwin Desktop GitHub." Additional details are provided in the release announcement.
Br OS 13.0
Br OS is a Brazilian Linux distribution based on Debian and featuring the KDE Plasma desktop. The project's latest release, version 13.0, updates the desktop session from KDE Plasma 5 to version 6. It also migrates from using X11 by default to running a Wayland session, keeping X11 as a backup option. An English translation of the project's release announcement reads: "Once the previous version had validated the development method, we could focus on creating new features and remaking old features that had been temporarily left out due to the migration to Plasma 6, which broke every existing plugin, plasmoid and theme for KDE, and everything had to be redone. This version focused on making visual improvements, improving system automation and facilitating the installation of drivers, much that is done manually in Debian will be transparent to those who use Br OS, even ChatGPT on the desktop, a function that Br OS pioneered, is back! The Br OS 13 comes with Plasma 6.3.6; Qt 6.13; kernel 6.12.41; Wayland graphical server as main, and X.Org as alternative graphical server. Br OS brings the non-free repositories enabled, as well as native Flatpak support in the Discover app store via the Flathub repository."
Br OS 13.0 -- Running KDE Plasma
(full image size: 5.1MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
MODICIA O.S. 6.12.41
Marco M. Mariani has announced the availability of a major update of MODICIA O.S., a Debian-based multimedia distribution designed primarily for musicians, graphic designers and video makers. This is the project's first build based on the recently-released Debian 13: "The new MODICIA O.S. 6.12.41, code-named 'Caravaggio', marks a remarkable leap forward in the Linux experience. Now based on Debian 13, this release not only inherits the stability and reliability of its solid foundation, but also introduces revolutionary changes that enhance every aspect of the system, making it faster, more stable and more functional than ever. Default mounting of tmpfs in RAM dramatically speeds up system operations such as installing or updating software. The Linux 6.12.41 real-time kernel ensures maximum responsiveness and perfect compatibility with next-generation hardware, including upcoming Intel CPUs and GPUs, Wi-Fi modules and storage controllers. The Cinnamon 6.4.10 desktop environment has been redesigned and reconfigured to offer a smoother, more modern macOS-style interface, with improved Wayland support and optimized window and multitasking management." See the release announcement for more details.
FreedomBox 2025-08-28
Sunil Vechalapu has announced the release of a major new update of FreedomBox, a Debian-based Linux distribution for private servers, with a web-based configuration utility. This is the project's first stable released based on Debian 13 "Trixie". (As the distribution's releases don't have version numbers, we took the liberty to use the date of the release as its version, so it's FreedomBox 2025-08-28.) "Debian 13 'Trixie' disk images now available. Debian made a new stable release 13 'Trixie' on August 9th, 2025. FreedomBox images with this release are now available. If you are making fresh installations, please use these images. Some notes: i386 architecture installations are no longer supported (by Debian and consequently FreedomBox); old installations should disable distribution upgrades; security updates will continue for a few more years; amd64 images now work with secure boot and only work with UEFI systems; iff you are using virtual machines or physical hardware, please enable UEFI booting; BIOS compatibility has been dropped." Here is the brief 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: 3,280
- Total data uploaded: 48.1TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Do you run a member of the illumos family?
This week we talked about Tribblix in our Feature Story. Tribblix is part of the illumos family of operating system, an open source branch of Solaris. This week we would like to hear if you run any of the illumos-based operating systems, either on physical hardware or in a virtual machine.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running containers in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you run a member of the illumos family?
| Yes - on physical hardware: | 22 (2%) |
| Yes - in a virtual machine: | 40 (3%) |
| Yes - remotely on a server/VPS: | 2 (0%) |
| No: | 1245 (95%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Omarchy. Omarchy is an Arch-based distribution featuring the Hyprland window manager. The distribution places a focus on text-based user interfaces (TUI) and editing configuration files from the command line.
- Planeta Tecno OS. Planeta Tecno OS is a Debian-based distribution which features the Xfce desktop. The distribution ships with WINE and Lutris pre-installed to make games more accessible.
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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, 8 September 2025. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Taprobane GNU/Linux
Taprobane GNU/Linux was a distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux. It was a live CD with a primary focus of bringing convenience to the user. The word "Taprobane" represents an ancient name for Sri Lanka, a beautiful Indian Ocean island also known as Ceylon.
Status: Discontinued
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