 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1139, 15 September 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 37th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
There are many uses for containers in a modern operating system. A container provides an isolated working environment where people can develop or run software without it getting entwined in the host operating system. A container can provide a clean working area, an isolated environment, and a way to deploy a consistent production environment. While there are many uses for containers, the tools to manage these environments tend to be less than friendly for new users. Fortunately, the experimental EasyOS distribution seeks to facilitate the use of containers, making creating and switching between isolated environments as easy as a click or two of the mouse. This week we begin with a look at EasyOS and how it presents containers to the user. In our News section we report on how to run Plasma 6 in a Wayland session on FreeBSD and how GNOME is temporarily re-enabling X11 support to maintain compatibility with other desktop environments. We also talk about openSUSE dropping support for BCacheFS in future releases which use new versions of the Linux kernel. Do you run BCacheFS on any of your systems? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. This week we also share a Myths and Misunderstandings column, talking about authority and control in the Linux ecosystem. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: EasyOS 7.0
- News: FreeBSD runs Plasma 6 in a Wayland session, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE drops BCacheFS in newer kernels
- Myths and misunderstandings: Open source and central authority
- Released last week: MocaccinoOS 25.09, Clear NDR 1.0, Luberri Linux 25.1, Univention Corporate Server 5.2-3, GLF OS 25.05, Voyager Live 13, Q4OS 6.1
- Torrent corner: BigLinux, KDE neon
- Upcoming releases: Fedora 43 beta, Ubuntu 25.10 beta, FreeBSD 15.0-ALPHA3
- Opinion poll: Do you use BCacheFS?
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
EasyOS 7.0
EasyOS is an experimental Linux distribution which uses many of the technologies and package formats pioneered by Puppy Linux. The distribution features custom container technology called Easy Containers which can run applications or even the entire desktop environment in a container.
The EasyOS project recently published version 7.0 which shifts its base (to Debian 13/Devuan 6) and introduces a new development container (called devx) for programmers. The project has also modified its PKGget software manager to work seamlessly with APT to make package management work more consistently.
It has been about five years since I last reviewed EasyOS and I was curious to try out the development container and see if anything else of significance had changed. I downloaded the project's IMG file for 7.0 which is 1.0GB in size. There is just one edition of EasyOS which runs JWM (a lightweight window manager) as its graphical user interface.
Getting started
I wrote the downloaded IMG file to a thumb drive and booted from it. The distribution quickly brings up a text menu asking us to select our language from a list. The list uses a combination of two-letter language codes and the name of the language beside it. For instance, I selected "us - English". EasyOS reported it had found its working partition and then took a few minutes to resize the partition while nothing happened on the screen.
Eventually a new text prompt appeared and listed about 50 keyboard layouts (all using short, cryptic codes as their names) and asked me to pick one. The codes are printed in grey text on a purple background making them difficult to read, but I chose mine and proceeded to the next step. I was then asked to make up a password which would be used to encrypt data saved on the thumb drive. We can skip this step if we do not want to enable encryption.
The distribution then reported it was trying to mount a file called easy.sfs, but it could not find the file. I was then dropped to a rescue prompt.
I tried again, this time on another (larger) thumb drive. The second time through EasyOS asked me the same questions and, after prompting me to make up an encryption password, successfully booted and launched the JWM interface.
EasyOS 7.0 -- The welcome message
(full image size: 1.8MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
First look at the desktop
Once JWM has loaded, a series of configuration windows appear. The first one asks us to confirm our screen resolution, whether to enable network time synchronization, and to set our timezone. The following windows ask us to confirm our keyboard layout and whether we want to enable a firewall. We are asked to confirm our network time sync settings and then a window opens to display a greeting along with a general overview of what EasyOS is.
With these steps completed we are shown a desktop environment with icons grouped together, mostly near the top of the screen. At the bottom of the display we find a panel which holds the application menu and task switcher. JWM is pleasantly fast and responsive. The distribution loads applications almost instantly and there was no lag when moving windows or clicking on menus.
I found tapping my touchpad did not automatically generate clicks, but there is a configuration module for enabling this behaviour. In fact there are small applications for adjusting most elements of the distribution and its interface. The application menu is packed with small tools, many of them not present on other distributions. EasyOS (like Puppy Linux) has a distinct approach. The Puppy family has its own unique collection of management tools and default desktop applications which you probably won't find in any other family of Linux distributions.
EasyOS's nearly unique collection and its organization of software sets the distribution apart and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, having a large collection of unusual software means most applications are unfamiliar; there is a learning curve to overcome. The menu is also full and this means it takes a while to browse all the options. On the other hand, I'm impressed with how well the menu entries are named and organized. While most of the applications are not familiar to me, they are clearly labelled and each one performs a single, specific task in a clear way. This makes EasyOS straightforward to learn, as long as we're willing to let go of what we already know from other distributions.
Main features and changes
I'd like to quickly touch upon some of the key elements and some of the new features in EasyOS 7.0. One of the changes is that PKGget (the distribution's software manager) now works seamlessly with APT and APT repositories. This allows EasyOS to pull packages from Debian/Devuan repositories, using either the graphical PKGget tool or from the APT command line tools, and have those changes reflected by both utilities.
EasyOS 7.0 -- Running the PKGget package manager
(full image size: 1.8MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
PKGget is a low-level package manager which allows us to filter packages by their name, repository, and category. It's a compact tool which works quickly and, as long as we don't mind digging through low-level packages to find what we want, it functions quite well.
One of the main features of EasyOS is easy container management. The distribution provides a point-and-click approach to launching, switching between, and terminating containers. We can have a single application in a container, a development environment, or even a whole desktop environment. Whichever approach we want to take, with EasyOS the steps ae the same. Launching a container that holds just a web browser (isolating it from our host operating system) is a single click of the appropriate desktop icon. Likewise, launching a whole new desktop environment in a container so we can experiment in an sandbox-like environment is also a single click. Create a new container for a new application we have installed is just a few clicks using EasyOS's container management application.
EasyOS 7.0 -- Files saved in browser container do not show up in host terminal
(full image size: 903kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Each container, whether it runs a single application on our host desktop or launches a whole new isolated desktop, has a persistent environment. This means we can download and save files, work on projects, and compile software. The files exist inside the container, but do not show up on the host operating system (or in other containers). When we terminate the contained software the files we were working on effectively disappear until we relaunch the container. The files are then available to the container again.
EasyOS provides us with a few containers by default (accessible through desktop icons) and these give us access to a sandboxed web browser, a terminal, and a few other tools. We can create more contained environments by opening the container manager, located in the application menu, and choosing which application we want to isolate. Then we pick the level of security/isolation we want (granting optional access to the desktop and network), and click a button. A new icon for running the isolated application appears on our desktop. This makes it easy to test new versions of software or to run untrusted applications with minimal concern.
EasyOS 7.0 -- Creating a new container
(full image size: 1.6MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
One of the container icons on the desktop is labelled "devx". Clicking this icon will bring up a program offering to download a development environment which will be run in a container. This development environment is about 500MB in size and provides us with basic development tools, such as the GNU Make program and the GNU Compiler Collection. Having these tools in a container means we can develop, install, and test software in a sandbox without affecting the host operating system. The "devx" environment is treated like a regular application window on the desktop and we can right-click on its task switcher entry to close it when we are finished our development tasks.
EasyOS 7.0 -- Creating the devx container
(full image size: 2.1MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Earlier I mentioned we can run an entire contained desktop environment. When we do this EasyOS basically runs the new desktop environment in full screen mode and places an icon in the middle of the desktop which switches us back to the host desktop. The contained desktop is then icon in the task switcher, like a regular window. This allows us to quickly switch back and forth between a clearly marked, isolated guest desktop where we can experiment without consequences, and the host desktop which remains untouched.
EasyOS 7.0 -- Running an entire desktop in a container
(full image size: 1.6MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Conclusions
I think it is important to keep in mind that EasyOS is not meant to be a mainstream distribution. It is a testing ground, an experimental laboratory, a place where packaging and container technologies can be tested. I probably wouldn't run EasyOS on its own as a daily workstation operating system, that isn't where its focus lies.
The distribution's focus is working with containers and this it does well - unusually well, surprisingly well, remarkably well. The distribution makes creating, running, and switching between container environments a super simple, point-and-click experience. It also makes working with containers virtually seamless - it's just a click of a desktop icon to launch a new environment. This is so much easier than any other container tool I've encountered, even dedicated, graphical applications such as BoxBuddy.
Six years ago I wrote about EasyOS 1.0: "EasyOS may be experimental at this stage, but it is setting the bar higher for portable applications, at least from the point of view of being easy of use, and it is making containers easier than any other distribution I have used to date. I hope EasyOS's contained desktop applications migrate to other distributions as they have the potential to make users a lot safer with virtually no additional effort."
Here we are, six years later, and EasyOS is still a long way ahead of every other distribution in terms of creating and managing container environments. On EasyOS a container isn't just something we can access through a specific application or command line tools, it's built into the flow of the desktop, it's nearly effortless. Containers act like application windows, environments are nearly effortless to create and access. Other distributions should take note and follow EasyOS's example - this is how isolated environments, experiments, and sandboxed desktop applications should work. EasyOS is the only Linux distribution that is getting it right, in my opinion. Not only that, they've been the only ones getting it right, while showing the world how, for six years. It's time everyone else caught up.
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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
EasyOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.8/10 from 38 review(s).
Have you used EasyOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
FreeBSD runs Plasma 6 in a Wayland session, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE drops BCacheFS in newer kernels
While Wayland was pioneered on Linux and is often seen in the open source community as a Linux technology, Wayland has gradually made its way to other platforms. The KDE Plasma 6 desktop can run on FreeBSD using a Wayland session, as one developer demonstrate: "This year, 2025, the KDE Community held its yearly conference in Berlin, Germany. On the way I reinstalled FreeBSD on my Frame.work 13 laptop in another attempt to get KDE Plasma 6 Wayland working. Short story: yes, KDE Plasma 6 Wayland on FreeBSD works. This time I followed the instructions from thesaigoneer on Codeberg. It did not feel different from any previous attempt of mine. However, it did work instead of hang, so that's an important difference." The post then goes on to provide instructions for enabling the Plasma 6 Wayland session on FreeBSD.
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The GNOME project has been planning for some time to phase out X11 support from its desktop environment. It looked like X11 support would be disabled by default during the GNOME 49 development cycle this year, but that change has been reverted. Some GNOME members pointed out that disabling X11 support entirely would also mean cutting off access to other desktop environments from the GNOME login screen. It's FOSS reports: "Adrian Vovk, a member of the GNOME Release Team, has merged a change that re-enables X11 session support in GDM for the GNOME 49 release candidate. The problem came down to the x11-support switch. Flipping it off did not just kill old bits like XDMCP; it also stopped GDM from even looking at /usr/share/xsessions, which meant no X11 desktops would show up on the login screen." Adrian Vovk's change request offers details on the situation.
The reprieve for X11 support will be temporary and will likely disappear in the next GNOME development cycle once the developers work out how to drop X11 without also cutting off access to other desktop environments on the machine.
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Jiri Slaby sent out a notice this week warning openSUSE users that BCacheFS (an advanced filesystem) will not be supported in versions of openSUSE which use version 6.17 (or newer) of the Linux kernel. "Given BCacheFS is "externally maintained" since 6.17, we are disabling the filesystem in 6.17 too. Therefore, everyone using it should follow the BCacheFS' upstream [advice on] how to install/use it. Anyone interested might also possibly prepare a KMP for themselves (and others). This means there are no new BCacheFS commits in the Linux tree and we won't be maintaining (backporting downstream patches) in openSUSE (as usually we do not)." This change is likely to affect Tumbleweed users only in the near future, though eventually openSUSE Slowroll users will be impacted too.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Myths and Misunderstandings (by Jesse Smith) |
Open source and central authority
Last week I opened up our newsletter with this comment: "One of the benefits of open source is the lack of central authority. There is no single company which can dictate new policies, new changes, or introduce harmful software to all Linux users."
One of the first comments in response was an opposing point of view which took exception to the idea that there is no central open source authority:
Opening sentence of this week's DW - no central authority. I beg to differ!
- Linus T who fiercely guards the kernel
- IBM Red Hat & systemPuttputt [sic] who dictate the direction
- Big companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon who contribute much of the code to make their businesses make money.
The other huge influencers are GNOME, KDE and similar organisations / foundations who committee the direction and set the tone; all too often to the tune of "users be damned". Gnomery [sic] launched several new desktops and other projects over the years. At the "bottom" you get package developers or teams - some independent, some under corporate or foundation umbrellas - who make decisions unilaterally and the end-users must just suck it up. A real example from 2025 is GIMP 3 - 10 years of blind development, breaking scripting for long-time users and their carefully curated workflows. All user screams ignored.
I feel there are two or three misunderstandings happening here and I'd like to clear them up.
First, I'd like to point out the self-defeating aspect of this argument. The author begins by suggesting there is a central authority in open source, but then counters their idea that there is a single central authority by listing three.
If there really was a central authority in the Linux community a person wouldn't be able to list three separate entities which can dictate policy and changes to everyone, there would just be one. Compare, by contrast, other operating systems such as Windows and macOS. There is a central authority which dictates all changes which go into Windows - it's Microsoft. There is one authority which decides what goes into macOS and iOS: Apple. No users or non-profit organizations or outside developers get a say in what goes into those proprietary operating systems.
The author of the above comment is confusing central authority with developers or organizations which can, through contributions, influence some aspects of development in some distributions. Big organizations and proficient developers can contribute code and, if others accept it, have that code influence parts of the open source ecosystem. But Microsoft, Google, Red Hat, and so on cannot dictate anything, they can only offer contributions and it's up to the rest of the community if it wants to accept those contributions. Let's go through the examples provided in the comment one at a time.
Linus Torvalds, as the creator of the Linux kernel, certainly has a lot of influence over what goes into the kernel. But he only controls the kernel, not the rest of the open source ecosystem, and he only controls his branch of the kernel. The branch of the kernel Torvalds controls is typically seen as the vanilla or official Linux kernel, but there are plenty of other branches and people are free to use them, either to put them in a distribution or to compile at home for personal use.
This gets talked about less now, after version 2.6 of the kernel, since the Development branch and the Stable branch have effectively merged. However, in the past, it was common for Torvalds to work primarily on new features in a Development branch (odd numbered versions of the kernel) while other maintainers took care of the Stable branches. I don't think I used a kernel published by Torvalds for the first five years I was running Linux distributions because the Stable branches were under the control of other people. Using branches other than the one Torvalds publishes seems to be less common these days, but it is still an option if you don't like his choices.
I'd also like to point out that, even if we did accept the idea Torvalds controls Linux entirely, there are other kernels. The above comment was posted under a Feature Story in which I'd talked about Debian's GNU/Hurd port and a News section in which I talked about Redox OS. Plus, the BSDs all offer alternative, open source platforms with independent kernels that Torvalds doesn't influence.
Moving on to the second example, what about Red Hat? Red Hat is certainly one of the larger companies in the Linux ecosystem and they do contribute to several projects. Again though, this only affects projects which accept Red Hat's contributions and people who run Red Hat-based distributions. Red Hat tends to contribute most heavily to GNOME, systemd, Fedora and related projects. I'm writing this column from a Debian-based distribution that uses SysV init, running the Xfce desktop. I'm not at all concerned about the amount of influence Red Hat might have over my operating system.
Next up: big businesses like Microsoft, Amazon, Google and so on who contribute to open source projects. The fact three were listed in the post prove there is no central dictator when it comes to open source. Yes, big companies can contribute, but they can't force users to run their code or accept their vision. If any (or all) of those companies were a central authority in the Linux community we'd all be running the Chrome or Edge browsers and every distribution would have an Amazon shopping cart and AI assistant - elements which are virtually unheard of in the Linux community.
Lastly, let's look at GNOME and KDE. Again, the fact the commenter shared two examples proves there is no monopoly on authority. With a central authority you don't have two choices (GNOME and KDE, in this case), you have one. Further, GNOME and KDE only control their own desktop environments, they don't control any others. If you don't like what GNOME is doing you can switch to another desktop or fork it - that's how we ended up with MATE and Cinnamon. If you don't like what KDE is doing you can switch to LXQt or Budgie or one of a dozen window managers.
The most confusing example given is the last one: "A real example from 2025 is GIMP 3 - 10 years of blind development, breaking scripting for long-time users and their carefully curated workflows. All user screams ignored." But one application has nothing to do with authority over Linux or Linux users. Of course specific open source projects are free to implement their own vision. Just as users are free to fork the application or use an alternative. No one is forcing people to upgrade to the latest version of the GNU Image Manipulation Program, no one is forcing users to use it over the alternatives like Krita. If many users really didn't like the new version they could fork (or hire someone to fork) the previous version and maintain it. This isn't an example of central authority, it isn't even evidence of any authority other than a few developers adjusting the design of their own application to suit themselves. The rest of the community is free to use it, change it, or not use it as they like.
In a world where Linux had a central authority who could dictate to distributions, there would be one desktop environment and we'd have to use it in any scenario where we were running a Linux distribution. There would be one compiler for us to use and one software store. We wouldn't get to choose whether to use the latest version of GIMP, it would always be installed for us. Instead we have a wide open ecosystem with dozens of desktops, a handful of package formats, many repositories, and even multiple kernel branches. The community is open and distribution developers are free to mix and match the software they want. That's not something you can do with closed operating systems where there is a central authority.
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Additional myths can be found in our Tips archive.
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| Released Last Week |
MocaccinoOS 25.09
MocaccinoOS 25.09, an updated build of the project's minimalist, Gentoo-based Linux distribution with a custom package manager called "Luet", has been released. The new build continues to be available as a set of live images featuring GNOME, KDE Plasma, MATE and Xfce desktops: "We are excited to announce the release of MocaccinoOS 25.09. With this milestone, we've updated our versioning scheme to better reflect our rolling-release nature. From now on, MocaccinoOS will follow the year.month format (YY.MM). This makes it clearer when a snapshot was published, while keeping the system continuously up to date. Changes since 1.8.4: Linux kernel is upgraded to 6.12.45 (LTS), Mesa version 25.1.9, NVIDIA drivers version 570.181 (available in repository). Issues and improvements: MocaccinoOS 25.09 builds upon the entire 1.8.x series, encapsulating significant refinements without reintroducing old issues. Highlights include: performance enhancements - across releases, binaries have been rebuilt with more aggressive compiler flags for better speed and leaner size; improved hardware and compatibility support...." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information.
Clear NDR 1.0
Stamus Networks has announced the release of the inaugural version of Clear NDR (formerly SELKS), the company's, Debian-based Linux distribution with focus on security and threat detection with the open-source Suricata threat-detection engine: "Stamus Networks, a global provider of high-performance network-based threat detection and response systems, today announced the general availability of Clear NDR Community 1.0, marking the open-source solution's official production-ready status. This release transforms the popular Suricata-based open-source security monitoring platform with significant enhancements in deployment flexibility, threat intelligence integration, AI integration, and incident investigation capabilities. Clear NDR Community 1.0 builds upon last year's initial beta release with a more robust architecture, expanded deployment options, and workflow improvements that make it suitable for production environments in small-to-medium sized organizations as well as researchers, educators, students, and hobbyists who wish to explore what is possible with Suricata and the network protocol monitoring logs and alerts it produces." Read the press release for further details.
Liberri Linux 25.1
Alex Gabilondo has announced the release of Luberri Linux 25.1, the latest version of the project's educational distribution based on Linux Mint and localised into the Basque language. It is intended primarily for Basque-speaking users, although a distribution supports Spanish as well. The release announcement (in Basque) provides a list of new features: "Instead of the Maps application, it comes with the Mapa GPX-Studio web application, which in addition to preparing and exporting place marks and routes, can also be used to view various maps, including orthophotos and street view. With Mapa GPX-Studio, students can prepare excursions, mark and document points of interest, export them in GPX format and send them to a mobile phone where they can use the Comaps application. The MolView molecule viewer-editor web application now has a more functional version. We have added an application for programming Microblocks, Arduino and other boards to the new Programming applications section. We have added the LibreOffice Math equation editor. The Heimer application for creating concept maps now supports Basque in version 4.5. We have updated all applications to the latest versions."
Luberri Linux 25.1 -- Running the Cinnamon desktop
(full image size: 3.5MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Univention Corporate Server 5.2-3
The Univention team have announced the release of Univention Corporate Server (UCS) 5.2-3, the third update in the 5.2 series. The new release allows for improved organization of users and computers in the organization's directory structure. "The Active Directory Connector was extended several months ago with advanced filter rules, making it easier to configure synchronization for only specific parts of the directory service. With the latest update, parent containers can now also be synchronized automatically when performing such partial synchronizations of the LDAP tree. This significantly reduces configuration effort, especially in complex, dynamic scenarios. In the Univention Directory Manager, user and computer objects can now automatically be assigned to the group stored in their 'parent container' when they are created. Previously, the default primary group could only be set globally. This new feature is the first step toward handling objects differently depending on their position in the LDAP database, and eventually also administering them with different permissions." Details can be found in the company's release announcement and in the release notes.
GLF OS 25.05
Gaming Linux France has announced the first stable release of GLF OS, a NixOS-based Linux distribution for gamers. Called "Omnislash", the new release attempts to facilitate the switch from Windows to Linux with guided installation, pre-installed graphics drivers, integrated gaming applications and latency-reduction optimisations. "What does GLF OS 'Omnislash' bring since its beta release? Added a welcome screen; merged the glf-update and glf-boot commands; added a partition manager to KDE Plasma; introduced the glf-history command to view the impact of the latest update; added Nix LD to improve compatibility with certain scripts; added Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support to GNOME; added Tiling Shell and Vitals extensions; added GameMode; added OBS vk-capture for game capture. Improvements include: installation slide appearing at 46% progress; temperature readouts in MangoHUD; boosted vm.max_map_count; better integration of Easy Flatpak; virtual camera in OBS Studio; CUDA support for OBS Studio and Blender." See the full release announcement for further details.
Voyager Live 13
Rodolphe Bachelart has announced the release of Voyager Live 13, the latest version of the project's Debian-based desktop Linux distribution featuring a customised GNOME desktop: "I present to you Voyager 13 'Debian', based on Debian 13 'Trixie'. It features all the updates and almost all the new features of the latest Voyager release, ported and tested. This version features the new GNOME 48 desktop, lightweight, fast, modern, fluid, secure and powerful in a hybrid environment for PCs and tablets. It includes the Linux 6.12 kernel and is based on the Debian 13 distribution, with its new features. The 6.12 kernel is in LTS release. Trixie will be supported for the next 5 years thanks to the combined work of the Debian Security team and the Long-Term Support team. New options have been integrated into the Voyager Box, with new layouts and a new theme, Miami Beach. These options include Dark Style, Night Mode, new parental control for blocking sites, Conky Control, Gnome Shell Effects, Repair, Debian Switch, Backup, Wine, Gaming and selected GNOME extensions." Continue to the release announcement (in French) for more information and screenshots.
Voyager Live 13 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Q4OS 6.1
The Q4OS team have published a new stable version of their lightweight, Debian-based operating system. "Q4OS Andromeda is based on Debian Bookworm 13.1 and Plasma 6.3.6, optionally Trinity 14.1.5 desktop environment, and it's immediately available for 64bit/x64 computers. An ARM64 version is also planned for later. According to Debian upstream, the 32-bit/i386 Andromeda edition will not be available. However, we recommend using Q4OS-5 Aquarius for older i386 systems. We will continue to offer three years of support for the 32-bit version of Aquarius until June 2028. We intentionally keep the Plasma desktop appearance as the stock one, however those who love Q4OS brand should switch to Q4OS's dedicated "Debonaire" theme in the system settings. It's an simple step and you get Q4OS stylish look-and-feel of your desktop session." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement. Following Debian's move to drop 32-bit x86_64 support, Q4OS 6.x is available for x86_64 machines only.
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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: 3,286
- Total data uploaded: 48.3TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Do you use BCacheFS?
In our News section we talked about openSUSE dropping support for the advanced filesystem BCacheFS, mirroring the stance of the upstream Linux kernel. The author of BCacheFS has warned dropping support for the filesystem may leave many openSUSE users, especially those running the rolling Tumbleweed release, in a difficult position. We would like to hear how many of our readers are running BCacheFS, particularly those using it on openSUSE. Let us know in the comments if this change from openSUSE will affect you.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running GNU' Hurd kernel in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you use BCacheFS?
| Yes - on openSUSE Tumbleweed: | 7 (0%) |
| Yes - on another branch of openSUSE: | 1 (0%) |
| Yes - on another Linux distro: | 31 (2%) |
| No: | 1429 (97%) |
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| Website News |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 15 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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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Easy OS (by Boruch on 2025-09-15 00:45:26 GMT from United States)
Amen to everything Jesse said. Now that EasyOS can handle debian packages, does anyone know if the EasyOs container software can be installed into a debian environment?
2 • Gnome vs. Other Desktops (by Jack on 2025-09-15 02:24:54 GMT from United States)
>The reprieve for X11 support will be temporary and will likely disappear in the next GNOME development cycle once the developers work out how to drop X11 without also cutting off access to other desktop environments on the machine.
The Gnome devs famously pretended they didn't know what Xfce was when closing out a bug report years ago. I'm quite surprised this wasn't closed as "Secondary desktops are not a valid use case. CLOSED" like every other feature they don't want to implement.
3 • Easy OS (by Bobbie Sellers on 2025-09-15 05:15:26 GMT from United States)
A great review of a marvelous system. It might represent
the future of open source systems with its containers.
And earlier systems which were demonstrated some
years back at out in person LUG meetings were much harder
to use and setup.
If I was not set in my ways I might go to Easy OS.
But I am a stick in the mud and will stick with what
I understand best.
bliss- Dell Precision 7730- PCLOS 2025.09- Linux 6.12.47-pclos1- KDE Plasma 6.4.5
4 • Good filesystems (by Dave on 2025-09-15 05:50:21 GMT from Australia)
Been using zfs for years. I really wish it were merged into the kernel, the whole licensing thing is annoying. (No-one cares ;-)) It really is the best and most mature in this class of filesystems (btrfs, becachefs, etc)
Compare something like btrfs > encryptfs > lvm > partition > disk to zfs > disk. So much simpler
5 • Beyond Puppy and EasyOS (by lobster on 2025-09-15 05:52:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
Very fair and balanced review of EasyOS from Jesse.
Boruch asks about installing the EasyOS container system in Debian. To my knowledge it has not been done. Yet.
EasyOS is experimental and the creator of Puppy and EasyOs, makes this clear AND provides extensive documentation on his blog.
EasyOS 7.0.11 should be out in a day or two. If you are used to Puppy as I am, much will be familiar. As Jesse says it is not for everyday use for everyone.
For example I did not read the documentation and managed to update to 7.0.9 from the previous version 6. Which I was advised was not possible. I did it anyway. I now run a very peculiar hybrid of 6 (Based on Previous Devuan) and 7 (Excalibur based on Devuan Trixie). Because of that it is a little more tempramental than it should be (in great part because 7.0.9 had a fault in it, was withdrawn and we were advised to rollback)
6 • Do you use BCacheFS (by user on 2025-09-15 05:52:56 GMT from Bulgaria)
Yes on Voidlinux, bcachefs is a very promising new filesystem. Wonder why over-stress it will not run for openSUSE only, who cares about openSUSE anyway? The loss of bcachefs will impact the entire Linux world.
7 • Myths and Misunderstandings (by Jesse Smith) (by Jeff on 2025-09-15 06:00:32 GMT from Australia)
This article alone perfectly highlight why I come to this site for reviews and thoughtful discussion about linux.
It's also proof that Jesse reads comments, responds where a response is required, and does so in a very practical, unemotional manner.
Your work, and your constant commitment to quality, is very highly appreciated.
8 • BCacheFS on opensuse (by Dave on 2025-09-15 06:03:14 GMT from Australia)
@6 I think I heard that OpenSuse will no longer be removing becahcefs. Apparently this was due to a some assumptions that were made that the developer has been able to clear up. Can't remember where I heard it now
9 • Becachefs (by Morton F. on 2025-09-15 08:24:18 GMT from Germany)
I'm using Bcachefs on CachyOS for months without any issue. I hope Tumbleweed will stay supporting it as well.
10 • @6 bcachefs in Void Linux (by picamanic on 2025-09-15 09:22:01 GMT from United Kingdom)
@6 bcachefs in Linux. I just looked in /sys/fs, and it was not listed. Did you have to compile a special kernel to get it?
11 • @6 bcachefs in linux (by picamanic on 2025-09-15 10:15:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
Sorry, I didn't realise that I needed to "modprobe bcachefs" to make it available. I just had a revealing "chat" with chat gpt 4o, to discover why bcachefs is so out of favour with Linus Torvalds, when it is clearly more stable than btrfs that was at one time promoted by Fedora as default!
12 • Myths & Misunderstandings (by Head_on_a_Stick on 2025-09-15 06:31:06 GMT from United Kingdom)
Great piece, well done.
I think the real problem is entitled users treating the open source community as if it were a paid-for service. And of course such users would never actually pay for the software...
13 • Jesse's work (by Slappy McGee on 2025-09-15 12:45:16 GMT from United States)
@7 My thoughts exactly. Well said.
@12 "Great piece, well done." Agreed. "...the real problem is entitled users.......... etc.."
Um... no. It's about freedom, and we're all free to use Linux/BSD/Open Source as we see fit, with no expectation of having to compensate anyone for it; that's a rarity now days and a precious dynamic which, imo, must be preserved. "Entitled?" That can be a good thing in some rare aspects of humanity. That word has very negative connotations, and I agree with those connotations in many cases. But here, with this, yes, we're entitled to all that is offered to us for the simple reason that the prevailing powers, Microsoft, Apple, et al, are quite the opposite and they operate on the entitled assumption to our money, as corporations are wont to do.
14 • EasyOS containers. (by Tuxedoar on 2025-09-15 12:58:10 GMT from Argentina)
Hi. Does anyone know what EasyOS use as the underlying container management? Is it based on something that already exists or is it an EasyOS development thing of its own?
Have a nice week!.
Cheers.
15 • Myths and Misunderstandings (by Jesse Smith) (by Alan from Andorra on 2025-09-15 14:09:37 GMT from Andorra)
I think we just got some quality thinking right here. I may not be onboard for every single point, but this kind of article is the kind of resource IMHO gets open source progressing in the right direction. This is what keeps me coming back and reading DW week after week.
What would I not agree with Jesse on? For instance, the oft-touted claim that one could just "fork your own" if a specific open-source software package's maintainers stray out of your own comfort zone. Unfortunately, replicating from zero, or forking and building upon existing code requires understanding the code, building your toolchain, having some creative ideas and getting organized to actually produce some code. This is not a trivial undertaking, neither from the standpoint of human time & effort, nor even of dollar cost (think servers, infrastructure, etc). TL;DR: I do not think replicating or forking an existing large open-source project can be economically viable.
Case in point: when RedHat did its recent shenanigans with CentOS and closing its source code, Alma Linux and Rocky Linux both stepped up to fill in a needed space. Two years later, what is the situation? Have either of these projects (or any other) really filled CentOS's former role?
I, for one, am happy we can even get to have these discussions.
Cheers, and happy computing everyone!
Alan
16 • How EasyOS works (by lobster on 2025-09-15 14:29:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
Tuxedoar
This is part one of 'How EasyOS works'
https://easyos.org/tech/how-easy-works.html
17 • I do not use BCacheFS (by John Doe on 2025-09-15 15:46:02 GMT from Germany)
"Bcachefs is a copy-on-write (COW) file system for Linux-based operating systems. Its primary developer, Kent Overstreet, first announced it in 2015, and it was added to the Linux kernel beginning with 6.7. It is intended to compete with the modern features of ZFS or Btrfs. In June 2025, Linus Torvalds announced bcachefs would be ejected from the kernel as a result of repeated violations of kernel development guidelines. In August 2025, bcachefs status was changed from 'Supported' to 'Externally maintained'." (wikipedia)
I prefer to stick with EXT4 for desktops and XFS on servers. I've never had any problems.
18 • end users and developers (by thym on 2025-09-15 18:52:41 GMT from Greece)
Great article, once again. With only one objection: we cannot ask a user to fork.
Does a user has the right to ask anything? I think so. At least if we wish linux desktop to gain more popularity or we believe that Linux can be used for any kind of real production, professional or not. Because if you rely on an operating system to produce or work on anything, that system must be characterized by predictability, stability, reliabilty and easy, out of the box, customization. In that context, the user has the right to expect those things.
And the expectation for the developers, is to not break userspace by applying abruptive changes because they can, or because they know better than the users.
19 • Myths and Misunderstandings or opinions (by Alan Alda on 2025-09-15 19:26:12 GMT from United States)
So people who disagree with Jesse about Linux subscribe to "Myths and Misunderstandings". How arrogant.
"I'm writing this column from a Debian-based distribution that uses SysV init, running the Xfce desktop. I'm not at all concerned about the amount of influence Red Hat might have over my operating system."
xfce = gnome real slow
The project head for xfce is a Red Hat employee!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_Fourdan
Still uses the gtk toolkit, controlled by IBM-Red Hat. Still moving to Wayland, albeit very slowly.
If the Debian project was truly independent of Red Hat, there'd be no Devuan. If you really want to be free of Red Hat, you have to use BSD -- something I'm considering.
20 • Corporate control (by Rufus T Firefly on 2025-09-15 21:28:56 GMT from United States)
"Red Hat tends to contribute most heavily to GNOME, systemd, Fedora and related projects. I'm writing this column from a Debian-based distribution that uses SysV init, running the Xfce desktop. I'm not at all concerned about the amount of influence Red Hat might have over my operating system."
But maybe you should be. I don't want to run systemd, but most distros use it. There are few distros which give a choice of init systems. Wayland is another example. I hope it will be possible to easily choose among X, Xlibre, Wayland or something else - as of now I'm not so sure.
Ubuntu wants all packages to be snaps. There was no community input on this - it was done unilaterally. True, there are many other distros where one can get away from snaps. But I dispute the lack of community input.
I've stated before that we seem to be approaching a period of encroachment by corporate entities on FOSS. It's early days, but I think its time for the community to consider starting a segment of FOSS whose purpose is to move away from the larger corporate subsystems back toward Unix principles and individual users. I have no problem with those more corporate Linuxes, as long as there are good alternatives.
21 • Easy Os (by 3229 on 2025-09-15 22:04:16 GMT from United States)
@1
Dang,
I tried, tried, tried, but I could not get it up and running inside Gnome Boxes.
It would have been nice - a container inside a Vbox.
Tested on a GL-75 Leopard laptop Core I7
22 • EASY OS and BCacheFS (by rhtoras on 2025-09-15 22:45:13 GMT from Greece)
Very nice review Jesse i like the Devuan additions on Easy OS. What about elogind though ? Is it present ? I would like to know.
As for BCache FS it is modern and better than the btrfs which is awfull. I might try it in the future but till now XFS is very nice and also in my other pc EXT4 works rocksolid. I wonder in which case ext is not recommended...
23 • @20 Contribute (by Contribute on 2025-09-15 23:00:24 GMT from United States)
Linux is dependent on corporations because the linux community does not contribute enough resources to be independent. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but if you want it to change you have to contribute. Developers / packages / upstream / maintainers, all these people need to make a living and feed their families (unless they live in their parents basement). So they work for corporations.
If you want to change this, you have to change the greater linux community and encourage them to contribute resources.
Worse than the development side is the hardware side, that is all corporate. IBM, AMD, nvidia, HP, System76, etc these are all corporate, there is no significant open hardware, and all chips have the potential for back doors or bugs that allow exploits and for which we as end users, windows, Linux, OSX, or BSD, have no control over.
Even the BSD are not independent of either hardware and software corporations.
You speak against corporations, but offer no solution.
24 • Get over yourself (by Multiple on 2025-09-15 23:29:15 GMT from United States)
@12 "the real problem is entitled users treating the open source community as if it were a paid-for service. And of course such users would never actually pay for the software..."
Amen
@15 "Unfortunately, replicating from zero, or forking and building upon existing code requires understanding the code, building your toolchain, having some creative ideas and getting organized to actually produce some code. This is not a trivial undertaking, neither from the standpoint of human time & effort, nor even of dollar cost (think servers, infrastructure, etc). TL;DR: I do not think replicating or forking an existing large open-source project can be economically viable"
When projects run out of resources they support only 1 option. It is not viable to support X11 and Wayland, systemd and sysV, etc.
@20 "I don't want to run systemd, but most distros use it. "
Nobody cares, go use gentoo or LFS and build the system you want and keep your opinion to yourself. Respect the decision of the developers or roll your own
Too complicated, too much time you say? Well how do you think the distros feel? They dont have the resources to offer every solution you and everyone else demands.
Most distros, including debian and fedora, are run democratically and your demands are considered (see the technical boards) but you disrespect their decisions.
"I think its time for the community to consider starting a segment of FOSS whose purpose is to move away from the larger corporate subsystems back toward Unix principles and individual users."
Go ahead, no one is stopping you.I for one would rather you did rather than listen to your entitled rants and demands.
Go, be free and build the OS you want with the tools available to you and stop dictating to the world how it should be done.
25 • @20 (by bsd dude on 2025-09-16 00:30:47 GMT from United States)
>>back toward Unix principles<<
Unix was a product of a corporation called UNIX System Labs (USL), which was part of Bell Labs (a subsidiary of AT&T).It was very much a commercial product. They sued the University of California at Berkeley for distributing USL's proprietary code with many of Cal's improvements. USL lost. As part of a later settlement on Berkeley's counter suit, there were ultimately two branches of BSD4.4. One was "encumbered" with some original Unix code and could only be used by USL licensees. The second branch was released in 1994 as BSD4.4-Lite. Why Lite? Because it didn't have any original USL code (they only had to remove three out of 18k files) and it came with a license some of us think is more free than the different versions of the GPL.
Had the BSD case been settled sooner, you most likely wouldn't have this kludged-together Frankenstein operating system that uses a mostly GNU userspace with a kernel written by someone who's monetized it very well. I've added link below to show that Mr Torvalds has done pretty well with Linux and git.
Do you have a realistic solution to the commercialization of FOSS? I don't think FOSS was ever not commercialized in some manner. Money doesn't just talk, it influences decisions made by projects that require a lot of funding to operate.
https://en.money.it/Linus-Torvalds-who-is-the-creator-of-Linux-and-how-much-does-he-earn
26 • forks can be economically viable (by lincoln on 2025-09-16 01:54:08 GMT from Brazil)
@15 "I do not think replicating or forking an existing large open-source project can be economically viable."
I couldn't disagree with you more. The open-source community has countless examples of successful and sustainable forks over time: LibreOffice, MariaDB, Mate, Cinnamon, Brave browser, Tor browser, ..., Ubuntu, Mint.
If you understand a fork as the evolution of projects in the hands of third parties in new and different directions, adapting to the needs of users/developers, then 95% of free software can be considered, to some extent, as containing portions of forks in its source code. This nature of open source could not be more sustainable and economically viable over time.
27 • central authority (by lincoln on 2025-09-16 02:12:28 GMT from Brazil)
18@ "the expectation [...] is to not break userspace by applying abruptive changes because they can, or because they know better than the users."
I believe that in a scenario with a central authority (proprietary code) , the environment is much more conducive to imposing, abrupt, and dictatorial decisions.
28 • against corporations (by lincoln on 2025-09-16 02:54:18 GMT from Brazil)
@23 "You speak against corporations, but offer no solution."
@25 "Do you have a realistic solution to the commercialization of FOSS? I don't think FOSS was ever not commercialized in some manner. Money doesn't just talk, it influences decisions made by projects that require a lot of funding to operate."
You yourself pointed out a solution for open-source software production. Only "three out of 18k files" were from the original proprietary USL code, and the rest were open-source licensed contributions, mainly from members of the academic community. A robust solution for funding open-source systems could be similar to how global scientific research is mostly state-funded.
Or based on the spirit of Open Science in Horizon Europe, we could envision a scenario where all software purchased or funded by the state should be open source.
29 • bcachefs (by yvan on 2025-09-16 08:40:23 GMT from France)
I've been using bcachefs since 6.7 on Gentoo. I'm really interested in filesystems and since the start of my linux usage I've been daily driving a bunch of filesystems to try out what fs could be the best in modern computing. I've been searching for the HFS/APFS of linux and between ZFS/bcachefs/btrfs I think bcachefs is the most promising. I've only ran into very minor issues and I understand why it's still flagged as experimental. I'm not a kernel dev, but I understand that the maintainer's behavior is a kind of trouble in the oiled mechanism in place.I also understand how they want to deliver features as quickly as possible. Removing it from the kernel is in my opinion a drastic thing and it would hurt the project advancement.
30 • Single authorities? (by KeithPeter on 2025-09-16 09:49:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
Quote from Jessie Smith's interesting essay
"There is a central authority which dictates all changes which go into Windows - it's Microsoft. There is one authority which decides what goes into macOS and iOS: Apple. "
My own (limited) experience of large organisations suggests that each of these behomoths will have an internal decision making process that takes account of the relative influence of various corporate divisions and internal interest groups. Alliances and differences of opinion will shift over time and the results may be apparent in the final product (e.g. the various Windows control panels!)
The great advantage of the open source world is that the various groups are visible and interact (generally speaking) in public. Also technical discussions can have detail and software changes can be tracked.
31 • Re: EasyOS review (by BarryK on 2025-09-16 11:10:05 GMT from Australia)
In replay to Boruch and Tudedoar asked about the containers mechanism.
Easy Containers is custom built-from-scratch, no connection with any other container mechanism. Running it on Debian, or most other distros, is not possible, as it is based upon the the distribution being a squashfs file. That is, the installation is not a partition in which packages reside, instead the entire OS is just one file, easy.sfs, with overlayfs and a top-level read-write folder for persistence. It is this that makes it super simple to have multiple containers, complete desktops, each with hardly any overhead and very rapid startup.
32 • Re: EasyOS elogind (by BarryK on 2025-09-16 11:26:24 GMT from Australia)
rhtoras asked "What about elogind though ? Is it present ?"
No. Package libpam-elogind requires elogind, but I used the "equivs" mechanism to provide both of those as dummy packages. I posted about it here:
https://bkhome.org/news/202508/anydesk-now-starts-immediately.html
EasyOS uses the simple Busybox init, with pup_event providing service management.
33 • Easy OS (containers and bootloader) (by Boruch on 2025-09-16 11:56:13 GMT from United States)
@BarryK: Thanks for the authoritative reply. While I have you on the line ...
I remember playing with EasyOS versions ScarthGap (and possibly also Daedelus) and having issues surrounding the linmine bootloader. If I remember, at that point, you were using an older version of that bootloader, because of some filesystem limitation (that was also a bother for me, but I can't recall exactly). Have there been any developments on that front? It would be fine just to point me to a blog or forum post on the subject.
There's so much attractive about EasyOS / Puppy. In practice, though, I always encounter some small but critical 'reason' to continue with debian/zfs. Often, I've wanted to somehow pull off small components.
Thanks for sharing all your work and experiments.
34 • EasyOS Limine bootloader (by BarryK on 2025-09-16 13:46:39 GMT from Australia)
Reply to Boruch about Limine.
Easy has "Limine Installer", but nothing much has happened with it for awhile.
Unfortunately, the developer of Limine dropped support for recognizing ext4 partitions, it now only recognizes vfat partitions, so we are stuck on an older version.
The older Limine is in the .img file, so when you download and write it to a usb-drive then boot it, you will be using Limine. That works fine.
There hasn't been much feedback on issues on using the Limine Installer to setup in an internal drive.
Forum discussion here:
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=6406
It needs someone to take an interest in it, and solve whatever issues it has.
Note, it is also in EasyOS, path /usr/local/limine-installer -- maybe later files than those posted to the forum.
35 • RHEL driving Linux ? (by John on 2025-09-16 15:11:28 GMT from Canada)
>Again though, this only affects projects which accept Red Hat's contributions and people who run Red Hat-based distributions
This technically is true, but that is not how things work in the "real world".
For example, Firefox moved to pulse-audio a few years ago. That means if you wanted to hear audio in Firefox, you had to have pulse-audio. Since this happened, my most used command is "pulseaudio -k", which allows me to reset audio.
Now the same is slowly happening with systemd and Wayland, dependences are slowly creeping in. This means if I want an OS to work the way I want it to, I will have no option but to move to a BSD.
I have been evaluating *BSD for a few years and on my aging systems, so far so good. The only real hold-back are these duel GPU Laptops that come with Nvidia. My main system is one of these, W541, but there is no way to disable the Nvidia GPU in BIOS.
So, when using BSD, the Nvidia GPU is ignored, but the area where the chip is on the laptop gets very very hot. I am hoping this is addressed at some point.
So, yes, RHEL is forcing things into Linux that I do not want. Some items are good, but many others I do not want to deal with.
36 • No one is forcing anything (by Evolution on 2025-09-16 16:18:07 GMT from United States)
@35 It is called progress.
Wayland is the next step in the graphic stack. Systemd is a superior init system, it beat out upstart. Ditto with pipewire.
Every major distro has a technical board and if the innovations you mention were not better they would be rejected.
There are numerous innovations in Linux and the best solutions rise to the top.
There is a long list of failed technology MIR, upstart, Unity, Ubuntu,also a major corporation, has tried and failed to the superior innovations brought by IBM / RHEL.
You are an anachronist who thinks they know more than the experts on the various technical boards trying to hold back progress and dictate how others should develop technology moving forward.
Did you even read or understand why X11 is no longer sustainable? If systemd were not superior Debian would not have adopted it. These decisions have been made by experts on various technical boards / reviews.
Even BSD is starting to migrate to Wayland. BSD does not have e the manpower to maintain X11 because X11 is spaghetti code and thus are having to migrate.
37 • new technologies (by thym on 2025-09-16 19:55:45 GMT from Greece)
@ 36. I recently install Debian 13, in a 8 years old asus laptop. Desktop, Plasma. It was a success, system was flying. Fast to boot, fast to launch desktop (it has a new ssd), every program starts very fast. Great. But this is the case if running X11. Under wayland, krunner stops, touchpad freezes, system hangs.
So you can call X11 a spaghetti but that spaghetti makes that rig to perform.
(i do not need an answer "buy a new laptop", that is microsoft's song).
38 • An 8 year old laptop is not "new technology" (by No one is forcing anything on 2025-09-16 20:27:05 GMT from United States)
First KDE != Wayland and KDE is not the only option on Wayland. Who exactly if "forcing" you to use KDE on Wayland ? Who is forcing you to use Debian ? These are your choices, exercise a different choice, especially on an 8 year old laptop. Why do you think you can translate your poor decisions into demands on the KDE or Wayland or Debian community? What have you done to debug the situation ? What leads you to believe this is a Wayland problem and not a KDE problem?
Debian is years behind in the technology, use Arch or Fedora. Or use a lighter DE (hyprland) or use Gnome. You have so many options on your old laptop, yet you are ranting and demanding Debian, KDE, and Wayland. You put yourself into a box with your own poor choices with little or no understanding of the underlying technology or why X11 is being phased out or any understanding of how to interface with the various communities of developers.
Better, figure out why Wayland is not performing.
All these are better options for you than ignoring Wayland or ranting that you are forced to do something against your will, as you said in your post, you can run under X11. As X11 is open source you will be able to compile X11 on your own forever. Or Xlilbre . You have choices.
Perhaps help yourself rather than blame someone else or make fanciful claims about being forced to do anything.
The X11 developers have moved on, either to Wayland or XLibre.
If X 11 is so great, easy to maintain, and not a spaghetti monster, you can even maintain or fork it yourself. What, X11 is too complicated for you because it is a spaghetti monster ? But yet you want to rant and demand others do the work for you without pay? Slavery was abolished 200 years ago.
For the most part all you are doing is complaining, without offering any semblance of a solution or financial support for the toys you want or feel you are entitled to. You are making unreasonable demands and for the most part have been and will continue to be ignored by open source developers. Figure out how to be a productive member of the greater community, figure out how to maintain X11 as it is so simple and "just works" as you claim, or figure out how to financially or technically (ie contribute code or patches or bug reports) support the developers in open source.
39 • @37 KDE is slow (by No one is forcing anything on 2025-09-16 20:31:15 GMT from United States)
@37
I forgot to mention, KDE is notoriously slow in X11 and is not generally the DE most people would advise on an 8 year old laptop. If you insist on using an 8 year old laptop you will have to accept the limitations of old hardware.
40 • @36, @39, KDE is slow rant (by Wally on 2025-09-17 06:43:08 GMT from Australia)
Wow! That is some rant! Intel 8th generation is 8 years old. I have a i3 laptop that age that runs "notoriously slow" KDE (and Gnome) fine, whether on x11 or Wayland. Went from Plasma 5 to 6 without a hiccup. Plasma 5 uses quite a bit more RAM at idle, but I have no performance issues either way. My ancient 10th generation desktop also does quite well.
41 • Correction on @40 (by Wally on 2025-09-17 06:46:05 GMT from Australia)
Should say "Plasma 6 uses quite a bit more RAM".
42 • @35 To force ... (by Yeah No on 2025-09-17 07:13:34 GMT from Germany)
@35 (by John from Canada)
"This means if I want an OS to work the way I want it to..."
This sentence clearly shows you the source of your problems. You are not supposed to use your operating system "the way you want," but you are supposed to learn how it works and use it accordingly.
As for "forcing"… "Forcing" is a matter of viewpoint, because one could also say, "An operating system is FORCING me to install it on hardware," or "Linux is FORCING me to use shoddy software," or "The car companies are FORCING me to drive a car with round wheels," or… you name it. Depending on your viewpoint, all of those examples are true. You have to learn and accept that at your birth, your life was also FORCED upon you.
Your attitude is your problem.
43 • really? (by thym on 2025-09-17 08:09:09 GMT from Greece)
@ 38, 39
Really? I wrote that Plasma 6 on Debian, X11, is flying and you reply is that “KDE is notoriously slow in X11?” And a better option may be gnome?
And how exactly do you know if i have ever offered any financial support to any project or not?
Of course, the question is rhetorical. I find it counterproductive and irrational to keep reading or answering your posts. Everyone which reads my post (37) and your supposed replies (38, 39) will understand why.
44 • old rigs (by thyn on 2025-09-17 08:56:11 GMT from Greece)
@40, not surprised of what you are experiencing.
The laptop i was referring, belongs to a friend. Recently converted to Linux due to the Win11 story. I guess the wayland problems have to do with that laptop's entry level nvidia card. So it's good to still have the x11 option.
My personal rig, a dell vostro bought w LInux pre-installed, has indeed a 7th gen Kaby Lake and i am still very happy with it's overall performance under Plasma. (Among other tasks, i manage a 20k photo collection with Digikam, and i am doing some editing w Rawtherapee).
For an older laptop, an hp Presario cq71, 2 cores, 3gb ram, 15+ years old, i am relying on Devuan w Xfce. It is reasonable fast for the specific tasks i perform there. Just for the fun, i installed kde in a spare partition. Works but, as expected, it was really slow.
45 • Murena /e/OS 3.1.1 (by Geo. on 2025-09-17 12:35:00 GMT from Canada)
Great job Murena team. 👍 Keep up the good work. Thank you for bringing degoogled phones to regular folks like me.
46 • Progress (by Jesse on 2025-09-17 12:37:31 GMT from Canada)
@36: > "Every major distro has a technical board and if the innovations you mention were not better they would be rejected."
Most distributions do not have a technical board. In fact, it's pretty rare. A few of the big ones do, like Debian and Fedora, but it' not common.
Also, I'd like to point out that your argument relies on the idea that changes or innovations are all accepted or rejects based solely on whether they are technical better. This is definitely not true.
There are lots of reasons a new technology may be rejected or accepted. Licensing, technical ability, what sells to customers, time it takes to maintain packages, effort in porting the new technology to the distro, etc.
Look at the systemd vs Upstart debate that took place in Ubuntu. Ubuntu didn't move to systemd because they thought it was the better technology, they moved because Debian (their upstream) chose systemd over SysV and following Debian was the easier option over maintaining their own software. And that decision from Debian was basically a tie vote that resulted in, more or less, a coin flip. So now Ubuntu and Zorin and Mint, etc are all using systemd because, basically, someone in Debian had to be the tie breaker. We didn't end up with systemd being installed all over the place because it was better (necessarily, maybe it is, or not, that's not the point). The point is systemd was adopted because Ubuntu felt it was easier to follow Debian and Debian was in a gridlock.
I'm not saying that decision was good or bad, just that most of the world's Linux computers run systemd now, not because of a clear choice of a good solution over a bad one, but because a vote was pretty close to tied and the tie breaker leaned slightly to one side.
And even all of that ignores the human element of subjective preference and the technical arguments of edge cases.
For example, you might argue systemd is a better option because it has more features. Great, so it's probably better for most people. But systemd is too large to run on my embedded hardware with 2MB of RAM, so I'm clearly going to use something super small like runit or Busybox. So which do you choose to package, the option with more features or the one that works everywhere? Different people will have different opinions on which is technically "better".
We see this sort of thing repeated over and over with technologies where distributions are not so much _choosing_ the better option for users, but picking what is easier/faster to package and maintain.
> There are numerous innovations in Linux and the best solutions rise to the top.
I think anyone who works in system administration or software development would argue against this. A lot of good technology doe get widely adopted, but so do a lot of bad choices, just because they are new, shiny, interesting, easy to package, or pushed by a company with the resources to get it in front of a lot of people.
47 • The way I want (by John on 2025-09-17 14:54:51 GMT from Canada)
@38 How do you know I do not support projects, I do support some financially. Plus, I guess you do not mind filling up Landfills with perfectly good discarded hardware because 'bling' :) The hardware I have still (10+ years old) works just as good as a brand new laptop. The hundreds/thousand of $ I save by not buying hardware is better used for other things.
@36 - Yes, *BSD is looking at wayland, but only FreeBSD succeeding because they do not mind importing/converting Linux Specific items into their system.
NetBSD is taking a break, the Linuxisms are to hard for them:
https://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/wayland_on_netbsd_trials_and
OpenBSD is trying, but their X may be more secure than Wayland. Also like NetBSD, they are trying to avoid Linuxisms based upon how the project seems to work.
https://xenocara.org/Wayland_on_OpenBSD.html
@42 - Yes I want the hardware I buy and own to work the way I want. I guess based upon you comment, seems you have no Issues with Microsoft Windows v11 with all its hidden spyware.
48 • Support the project(s) you want to succeed (by Lack of effort on 2025-09-17 15:25:54 GMT from United States)
@44 "I guess the wayland problems have to do with that laptop's entry level nvidia card. "
This shows how little you understand. This would be a Nvidia problem. Nvidia has a long history of poor support with both X11 and Wayland. If you file a bug report with either X11 or Wayland on a Nvidia card it will be closed and you will be referred to Nvidia as Nvidia is a closed source driver.
You will have more success if you use linux compatible hardware rather than that dysfunctional nvidia card.
NOTE: Not all nvidia cards are problematic, some work just fine on Wayland.
Second you need to learn how to identify the problem and file a proper bug report to the proper developers. Your problem blaming wayland for your nvidia problem is like blaming your electric car when it won't run on gasoline.
But honestly you dont even know if the problem is with wayland, KDE, or Nvidia. You are just jumping on the anti-wayland bus and, as a result, are getting nowhere.
@46 Every distro has a process for technical review regardless if they call it a board or not you are missing the point.
"distributions are not so much _choosing_ the better option for users, but picking what is easier/faster to package and maintain."
That is my point. It takes work to maintain your system and it makes no sense to rant that you dont like systemd or wayland. You have to do the work to support the alternatives or pay someone to do the work for you.
49 • Progress or "Progress" (by rhtoras on 2025-09-17 19:26:48 GMT from Greece)
Sorry man what progress is meant to go things in the next level. I can see some benefits of Wayland but for now is not working as it should. I am still not convinced for Red Hat motives too.
But my main arguement is about systemD. Who said it is a progress ? And even if we agree it is a .."progress" then why newer init systems i.e like dinit are not progress too ? If something is popular then it's not necessary good. Windows are popular but for most of us are a no go. systemD is a huge and mainly complex software thing that aims to replace several other components that were traditionally used in the linux ecosystem. Some of these components work till now without issues. For example gummiboot aimed to be a slim alternative to Gnu/Grub made by RedHat before systemD adopting it as systemD-boot. Then why Red Hat used efilinux to chainload GRUB instead of systemD-boot ? If reinventing the wheel is considered a progress i am out. And what exactly do you mean by "... if the innovations you mention were not better they would be rejected" then why Systemd has caused compatibility issues with so many Linux distributions that have chosen not to adopt it, or to adopt a modified version of it ? If it is better then let users to choose what they like instead of making their life harder and harder. In the end of the day the lack of modularity IS NOT PROGRESS.
50 • conclusion (by thym on 2025-09-17 20:54:04 GMT from Greece)
@48, You continuously failing to grasp the simple truth that real users are real people that they are using their boxes trying to do some real work. Any type of work. Not to enjoy any "tech superiority" if there is any definition for "tech superiority".
And maybe you can try to adopt the habit to interpret any given situation in its context, not based on theoretical views or ungrounded hypotheses.
My bet is that you are either an arch fanboy or a gnome dev.
Whatever is the case, your answers will always are: wayland is superior, wayland is perfect, blame x11, blame sysvinit, blame nvidia, blame intel, blame asus, blame debian, blame plasma, blame krita, kicad, rdp, rawtherapee, scribus, libreoffice, xfce. And first of all, blame users. especially if they do not praise ibm.
@48. https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-Wayland-Driver-Plans-24
(hope the things are improving on this front cause i wish wayland to succeed)
51 • bcachefs (by Marcus on 2025-09-18 03:05:01 GMT from Australia)
It's more exciting to use Bcachfs than typing rm -rf
52 • @47 • Stuck in a loop (by John from Canada) (by Yeah No on 2025-09-18 06:19:50 GMT from Germany)
I indeed have no issues with Microsoft Windows v11.
I learned how it works, and I use it accordingly.
You got stuck in a loop, John.
You hide in your beliefs.
Lack of knowledge makes you scared.
Beliefs can be very treacherous, John.
Don't believe everything you think, John.
You don't know much about Windows. You don't know much about Linux.
They tell you, "Windows is stealing your data." You believe them.
They tell you, "Linux is not collecting data." You believe them.
Lack of knowledge makes you believe your beliefs, John.
You say, "I want an OS to work the way I want it to..." and you say
"I want the hardware I buy and own to work the way I want."
And I say, "You are supposed to learn how it works and use it accordingly."
Windows is not collecting YOUR data, John. Windows is collecting data.
Linux is collecting data. Operating systems are collecting data.
An operating system not collecting data is of no use.
The more data an operating system collects, the more helpful it becomes.
And more dangerous. The quicker the car, the higher the chance for an accident.
Every operating system is collecting your data, John.
You need to learn it to be able to tame it.
Your attitude is your problem, John.
P.S.
Install Windows 11, install OOSU10 and GlassWire, and you are good to go.
Learn how it works and use it accordingly.
53 • Safe place. (by Tell us how you really feel. on 2025-09-18 22:02:46 GMT from United States)
@50 Tell us how you really feel, you are in a safe space.
It is frustrating when you have a problem or a bug on your OS. The best thing to do is take a deep breath and figure out the problem.
You should start by checking your logs. Try running a program from the command line.
IF you get an error message, post on a support forum.
IF you get no error message that makes it more likely you have a hardware problem.
Software generally will generate an error message, hardware not so much, but of course there are exceptions.
Once you isolate the problem learn to file a bug report at the proper source. Start with your distro, but they may refer you upstream.
This is the way.
54 • The Way (by Slappy McGee on 2025-09-19 13:29:53 GMT from United States)
@53 Makes lots of sense. I only wonder how many of us do those things for a while, take those steps, and then just go ahead and try another distro. And again a time or three. And then settle on a distro that yields no bugs and is otherwise also compatible with our sensibilities, habits, etc.
Some of us fancy ourselves distro hoppers after a while. I thought I was going to stay with Yoper many years ago. Then PCLinuxOS. Etc. The bugs and bug reporting (and not so friendly forums in one case) sent me to try other distros.
Do many users stick with one distro? Doing the steps you pointed out in @53? Just stay with that one working things out off and on? We've always known and seen posting from users with experiences across many Linux and BSD distros. But I do wonder sometimes how many stay with just one and consider it their OS and that's that. I'd guess not very many at all. Just guessing. It is safe to guess here, right? ;o)
55 • BcacheFS (by JR on 2025-09-19 18:26:20 GMT from Brazil)
I'm finding this whole BcacheFS thing a bit strange...
Most of the Linux distributions I test, randomly, and I test a lot, are changing their installer defaults from the old Ext4 to Btrfs...
Other file systems are only available in custom installations, and not only that, the vast majority of distributions don't offer in their installers either BcacheFS, which was in the kernel, or ZFS, which already required an external module...
56 • @55: BcacheFS, Btrfs and ZFS (by picamanic on 2025-09-19 19:50:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
@55: BcacheFS, Btrfs and ZFS: I have lost track of all these next generation file systems. I have read too many horror stories about how Btrfs has trashed file systems, so I avoid; it has been the default on some distros. ZFS/OpenZFS struggle against awkward Licences, despite probably being the best file system. Then there is poor little BcacheFS, which will one day replace all of these, if it survives the uncharacteristic hostility from Linus Tolvalds and the massed ranks of the Linux Establishment. What a mess.
I will stick with ext2 for a few more decades.
57 • Sticking to one Distro (by Friar Tux on 2025-09-19 23:36:10 GMT from Canada)
@54 (Slappy) Guilty!! I'm one of those sticking to one distro that works (for me). Linux Mint/Cinnamon. Haven't had an issue in a decade. I DO play with other distros off and on, but only IF they behave. I don't have the patience any more to be messing about with stuff that SHOULD have been fixed before sending it out there for us to use. I haven't yet found another distro as stable and consistent as Mint, but I'll keep playing.
Number of Comments: 57
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