 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1141, 29 September 2025 |
|
Welcome to this year's 39th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Some desktop environments are quite extensive, growing to provide not just a graphical interface and configuration tools, but a whole suite of applications. A desktop environment can feel like it is nearly an entire operating system once enough functionality has been added to it. The GNOME and KDE projects seem to agree with this line of thinking because both projects have created their own family of applications and even their own Linux distributions: GNOME OS and KDE Linux. These two distributions showcase the latest software from the two desktop environments and give people a chance to test cutting-edge features. This week we take KDE Linux and GNOME OS for test drives and report on the experiences these two distributions offer. Let us know which distribution you think does a better job in this week's Opinion Poll. Then, in our News section, we report on Artix dropping the distribution's GNOME packages due to the GNOME desktop's increasing dependency on systemd. We also talk about Murena preparing to offer smartphones with physical hardware kill switches and report on Redox OS running on a smartphone (partially). Also on the topic of mobile operating systems, our Questions and Answers column talks about the state of Linux distributions on phones. This week we share a grateful note to people who sent us donations this month as well as talk about the releases of the past week and listing the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: KDE Linux and GNOME OS
- News: Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS runs on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME over dependencies
- Questions and answers: Seeking mobile versions of Linux
- Released last week: SysLinuxOS 13, Kali Linux 2025.3, Neptune 9.0, ZimaOS 1.5.0, KaOS 2025.09, BSD Router Project 2.0
- Torrent corner: BigLinux, Kali Linux, KDE neon, TUXEDO OS
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 15.0-BETA1
- Opinion poll: Which is the better demo distro, KDE Linux or GNOME OS?
- Site news: Donations and Sponsors
- Reader comments
|
| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
KDE Linux and GNOME OS
Both the GNOME and KDE projects have, in recent years, been talking about making dedicated Linux distributions specifically for testing and showcasing new features in their respective desktops. These dedicated distributions would act as reference models for how the desktop environments could be configured while providing a vanilla workspace for developers to test and improve new features.
Both the KDE and GNOME projects have published Linux-based distributions this year which they claim are ready for testing, though both projects point out these distributions are not intended to be used by the general public. The GNOME team warns: "This is pre-release software. Bad things may happen if you use it in production." While KDE is more explicit in their warning: "KDE Linux is alpha software. Do not install it on your non-technical uncle's computer or across the accounting department at work. There are multiple known issues (make sure nothing in there is a deal-breaker for you). KDE Linux has only received limited testing so far, and there will be regressions and bad builds you'll have to roll back. Data loss has never been experienced yet, but anything is possible. Deploy a robust backup system. Expect some adventures."
I was feeling like having an adventure this week so I decided to install both distribution and see what the experiences such a trial would provide.
Installing KDE Linux
I decided to start with KDE Linux. The project provides a disk image file with a .raw extension and which is 5.1GB in size. This image can be written to a thumb drive or imported into a virtual machine manager.
I soon found KDE Linux will not boot in Legacy BIOS mode, it requires UEFI mode to start. The live session boots directly into the Plasma desktop with a thick panel placed at the bottom of the screen. A welcome window opens which provide us with a quick link for connecting to the Internet and we're given the chance to launch the project's system installer.
KDE Linux uses the Calamares system installer. The installer refuses to run unless we can provide it with a free partition which is at least 40GB in size. The installer walks us through picking our language, keyboard layout and timezone. We're given the change to partition the disk and then create a username and password for ourselves. The install process itself all went smoothly and there was a nice progress indicator in the Calamares window to show us an overview of the steps.
My only complaint with this initial setup was that halfway through answering Calamares' questions a pop-up appeared and advised me system updates were available. This isn't a helpful notification to have when running a live system since the distribution is not yet installed. Otherwise the experience went smoothly.
KDE Linux 2025 -- The welcome window
(full image size: 1.2MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
When I booted into my fresh copy of KDE Linux I was presented with a graphical login screen. From there I could sign into the Plasma desktop. The only session option is to run Plasma on Wayland.
Upon signing in the welcome window appeared and offered to help me connect to the network. Additional screens in the welcome window showed off desktop elements, allowing me to move my mouse over a picture of the desktop to display an explanation of each widget's purpose. Another screen in the greeter explains key features of the Plasma desktop and then we're given the chance to launch the Discover software centre. The final step in the greeter asks if we would like to send automatic feedback about our experiences, with the default being to opt-out of data collection.
On the whole, the initial experience was mostly positive. There were a few minor rough edges and I noted that KDE is aiming for a "modern" experience exclusively (running Wayland on an UEFI-enabled machine), and this is in line with the distribution's experimental nature.
Installing GNOME OS
The GNOME OS distribution is delivered via a much smaller ISO file. GNOME's media is a 2.0GB ISO (compared to KDE's 5.1GB file). Like KDE's distribution, GNOME OS requires UEFI mode to boot.
The live media boots directly into the GNOME desktop where a thin panel is placed across the top of the display which holds the Activities menu and system tray. A configuration window appears as soon as we sign in and asks us a few questions. We're queried for our preferred language, keyboard layout, and whether to enable location services (by default, location services are enabled). We're also asked to pick our timezone and to make up a username and password.
At this point the configuration window went away and a new pop-up appeared and offered to give me a tour of the desktop. The GNOME Tour application doesn't provide a lot of information. It mentions the Activities button and that we can perform searches from the Activities screen and then switch between workspaces, but there isn't any demonstration or screenshots of this in workflow action. While I was taking the tour another pop-up appeared asking me for donations.
GNOME OS 49 -- The GNOME Tour application
(full image size: 1.2MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
As I was dismissing the request for donations a fourth window opened and asked if I wanted to keep using the live session or install GNOME OS. I opted to run the installer. The installer asked which disk I wanted to use and then immediately wiped and installed the distribution on my disk without asking any further questions or waiting for confirmation. GNOME OS took over the whole disk and then offered to restart the computer. The install process was quick, requiring about 30 seconds.
In my opinion this sort of destructive behaviour should really come with a warning and, at the very least, a confirmation screen before destroying everything on the user's storage drive.
When my installed copy of GNOME OS booted, it presented me with a graphical login page. From there I was able to sign into GNOME Shell running on Wayland. As with KDE Linux, the Wayland session is the only option.
Applications included with KDE Linux
KDE Linux ships with the latest development branch of Plasma. During my trial this branch was to become the 6.5 release, and it was labelled 6.4.x. Exploring the Plasma environment, I found it uses a light theme by default, though a dark option is available.
The Plasma desktop is accompanied by several KDE utilities. These include the Dolphin file manager, the System Settings configuration panel, and KDE Connect for communicating with other devices. The Elisa audio player and Haruna video player are included along with media codecs. I found that the Haruna player could not play videos properly, I could hear audio from them, but the player displayed no visuals. Later, I downloaded VLC and it played video files properly.
I found the Firefox web browser was included, but KDE's own web browser (Falkon) was not. This seems like a strange choice - KDE highlighting Mozilla's web browser instead of their own, in-house alternative.
KDE Linux 2025 -- Exploring the desktop and application menu
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
KDE Linux also ships with the Okular document viewer, the Kate and KWrite text editors, the Ark archive manager, and the Spectacle screenshot utility. Curiously, the KDE office suite (Calligra) is not included, leaving another strange hole in the line-up of applications. KDE Linux does not ship with the man utility either, so we do not have access to local manual pages.
The distribution ships with the GNU Compiler Collection and uses systemd for its init implementation. In the background we find version 6.16 of the Linux kernel.
This is an unusually small amount of software on display when we consider the KDE Linux disk image is 5.1GB in size. I'm not sure why it is so large when the resulting list of applications is so small. I'm also curious why a few key KDE projects are not featured. The point of this distribution is to test and demonstrate KDE software, but two key components, their web browser and their office suite, are missing.
KDE Linux 2025 -- System Settings
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Applications included with GNOME OS
My copy of GNOME OS shipped with the GNOME 49 development branch. The theme is, as is typical for GNOME, inconsistent, with some applications using a light theme and some using a dark theme. In the Settings application it is possible to request a consistent dark theme, but there doesn't appear to be any option to force a universal light theme.
GNOME OS does ship with the project's web browser, Epiphany (also called GNOME Web). The project further offers a calendar, file manager, text editor, calculator, and weather application. The GNOME Tour application I mentioned earlier is accompanied by GNOME Help for browsing the project's documentation. There is a webcam utility, a contact manager, and a map application.
The distribution ships with a music player and video player (Totem). Like KDE's video player, Totem was unable to display images and only produced sound. I was able to swap out this player for VLC later in my trial and the latter worked without any issues.
GNOME OS provides a system monitor, document viewer, and desktop settings panel. Like KDE Linux, this distribution does not include any productivity suite.
GNOME OS 49 -- Exploring the application menu
(full image size: 231kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Where KDE Linux did not include the man documentation viewer, GNOME OS does ship with man installed, but no manual pages are included. This feels like a step forward and a step backwards as there isn't any point in providing man if documentation is going to be omitted. GNOME OS does not ship with a compiler. We do find systemd is managing services and version 6.16 of the Linux kernel is installed.
I find launching new applications on GNOME to be an awkward experience, at least when using the desktop's default layout. To browse the application grid we end up visiting the Activities button in the upper-left corner of the screen, then down to the dock at the bottom of the screen, then clicking the Applications menu, then moving up to the middle of the display to select an application from the grid. Since some utilities are stored inside sub-categories we may need to click on these to browse sub-groups to find the software we want. This is several more steps and a lot more mouse movement than KDE's approach of having the application menu directly accessible in the bottom-left corner of the desktop.
Software management on KDE Linux
Despite being based on Arch, KDE Linux does not use the pacman package manager. The distribution runs on an immutable filesystem, preventing the use of traditional package managers. Or, at least some of the filesystem is immutable. The /usr directory is read-only, but we can still edit configuration files in /etc and create files in the root (/) directory.
KDE Linux ships with both Snap and Flatpak support enabled. By default there are no Snap packages installed and Snap is not integrated into the Discover software centre. Flatpak seems to be the preferred option. There are multiple Flatpak repositories enabled, including Flathub, a KDE runtime repository, and a handful of repositories for the nightly builds of various KDE applications. The Discover software centre pulls from these Flatpak repositories, almost exclusively, with the only other repository being for firmware.
KDE Linux 2025 -- Searching for new software with Discover
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The Discover software centre is accessible through a quick launch icon on the panel. I found Discover can apply updates, including system updates, which require a reboot to take effect. For people who prefer working from the command line, we can run the flatpak and snap programs to access applications and run "updatectl update" to fetch and apply new system updates.
Fetching my first wave of updates on KDE Linux required downloading 1.5GB of new packages and it was unusually slow. Download speeds from KDE repositories were about 20kB/s to 100kB/s, around a tenth or less of what I'd expect from most distribution mirrors. Perhaps the KDE infrastructure is not ready for the demand from new KDE Linux users.
It is worth noting there are daily updates for the system. Discover and updatectl cannot show the size of the low-level system updates, but it's the equivalent of a whole new system image, every day. This means we're probably looking at consuming a few GB per day just to keep up with new builds.
The KDE website says that we can use the Toolbox and Distrobox container managers to further extend the operating system and gain access to low-level packages. Both of these container technologies are installed for us. Toolbox shows a permission error whenever it is run as a regular user, but can work when run as root (or through sudo). By default, Toolbox installs the latest stable copy of Fedora in its container. By default, Distrobox tries to download a copy of Arch for its container. However, Distrobox also fails to create a container when run as regular user, though it doesn't reveal this until after attempting to download the requested image. So both technologies work, but it's not seamless, and will require running commands a the root user.
Software management on GNOME OS
GNOME OS is an independently developed distribution and it also does not offer any traditional package manager options. GNOME OS ships with one portable package framework (Flatpak) and it connects to just two repositories by default: Flathub and GNOME Nightly. We can access these repositories through the flatpak command line tool or through the GNOME Software application.
GNOME OS 49 -- Using GNOME Software to explore available applications
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Despite GNOME's Flatpak repositories being labelled "Nightly", it there not always new updates every day. Builds seem to be updated as new work is uploaded rather than on a fixed schedule. Unlike KDE Linux, GNOME OS does not ship with any container management utilities by default.
Hardware and resource usage with KDE Linux
The KDE Linux distribution was unusually heavy on system resources, especially when we consider how few applications are shipped with the distribution. A fresh install took up a massive 12GB of disk space (though the installer claims it needs at least 40GB, minimum) and signing into the Plasma desktop requires 1.4GB of RAM, almost double the average for most popular desktop environments. The distribution does not set up a swap file or swap partition by default, but it does create a compressed zRAM swap area in memory.
Despite its large size, Plasma's performance was quite good and the desktop was responsive.
Hardware and resource usage with GNOME OS
GNOME OS was quite a bit smaller on my disk, using 4.3GB of space (about a third of the size of KDE Linux), though its RAM usage was similar: 1.2GB of RAM was consumed when signed into GNOME Shell. Like its counterpart, GNOME OS sets up a zRAM swap device in memory rather than using a swap partition.
Like KDE Linux, GNOME OS uses a read-only /usr directory, but allows us to write to other parts of the filesystem, including /etc and the root directory.
Speaking of directories, while KDE Linux sets up the standard Documents, Downloads, Music, and Videos directories in the user's home, GNOME OS does not. Our home directory is empty, apart from a few hidden files and folders, when we sign into GNOME OS.
I found GNOME OS booted slowly, but once I had signed into the desktop, the interface was responsive and desktop performance was consistently good.
GNOME OS 49 -- Running the Epiphany web browser
(full image size: 1.3MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Conclusions
As I mentioned earlier, both the GNOME and KDE projects are quick to point out these distributions are experimental and currently intended to be used by testers and developers. They are distributions in their early stages and meant to assist in development, not to be used as day-to-day operating systems. We should expect a few rough edges and a few bumps in the road.
GNOME OS 49 -- The Settings panel
(full image size: 1.3MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Despite these warnings, I found that for the few days I was running GNOME OS and KDE Linux, the systems were stable and usable. They didn't feel particularly experimental or unreliable. Perhaps I was just lucky, running these systems during a calm period of development, but they felt about on par with using other cutting-edge distributions such as Fedora or Kubuntu.
What I find interesting about using these two distributions, which have very similar missions, is the differences in the cultures of the two projects. KDE and GNOME have different styles, different philosophies embedded in them, and those differences are on display in these two distributions, especially when the user is switching back and forth between them.
GNOME OS has a fairly specific, narrow focus. It exists to showcase the latest GNOME software and that is what it does. That's pretty much all it does. GNOME OS, one could say, has a specific mission and is sticking to it. The GNOME OS distribution is relatively small with no extras and no alternatives. GNOME is providing one tool per task and the tool going to be something the GNOME team provides.
For better or worse what GNOME provides tend to be relatively rigid, touch-oriented (rather than suited to desktop use), and it tends to feel "corporate". It all looks very polished, but uncoordinated (especially when it comes to themes). There are four pop-ups the first time we sign in with offers to enable location services and asking for money. The appearance is nice, but it's frustrating to use because of all the extra mouse movement and inconsistent menu styles. It's pretty more than functional.
Speaking of functions, having the installer wipe the user's hard drive without warning was a surprise and not the sort of thing I want to see from any distribution, let alone one which is geared toward technical users who tend to run multiple operating systems.
KDE Linux is, in many ways, the opposite of GNOME OS. Using the desktop is efficient without being pretty, it is flexible without offering as much functionality, it is clearly more user-focused in its design philosophy rather than corporate-focused. KDE doesn't enable location services or telemetry by default, it only showed me one pop-up window, and navigating the interface is pleasantly quick.
However, KDE Linux does not stay focused, it doesn't stay "on mission". KDE wants to offer multiple approaches to doing everything without mastering any one of them. There are two portable package formats, but one isn't integrated; it offers two container managers, but both have permission issues; KDE has a consistent theme, but it's not visually appealing. Further, KDE Linux misses the mark by not including (or recommending) key KDE applications such as Calligra and Falkon, instead shipping no office suite and providing Firefox. While Firefox may be the more popular option, this was a missed opportunity to give people a chance to test KDE's own web browser.
In short, I found KDE Linux to be flexible, powerful, but unpolished. GNOME OS seemed more on target, but its design philosophy doesn't suit my workflow. Both distributions have their strengths and some issues, and were (in general) more stable and performed faster than I had expected from young, experimental projects.
|
| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS runs on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME over dependencies
The Murena team have announced a partnership which will allow the company to ship their de-Googled /e/OS operating system on new mobile devices that feature hardware kill switches. "We are thrilled to introduce a new HIROH Phone Powered by Murena with a hardware kill switch! Simply enable its handy button to physically disconnect the cameras and microphone. This severs the electronic connection, ensuring hackers have no chance to access your data. With the HIROH Phone Powered by Murena you get: built-in privacy with /e/OS; hardware kill switch button for microphone and cameras created by its inventor; connectivity switch: a secure software-based toggle that instantly shuts down all wireless communication, including cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and NFC; premium quality hardware with a fantastic 1.5k AMOLED display, 108MP rear camera and a 32MP selfie camera, 16GB memory and more." The announcement states the phone is available for pre-order and will go on sale in early 2026.
* * * * *
A lot of people are interested in running a GNU/Linux distribution on their smartphones, but there are other mobile-friendly projects in the world. One open source operating system which has quietly gained ground in recent years is Redox OS and it can, to a point, run on some mobile devices. Paul Sajna writes: "I had the pleasure of going to RustConf 2025 in Seattle this year. During the conference, I met lots of new people, but in particular, I had the pleasure of spending a large portion of the conference hanging out with Jeremy Soller of Redox and System76. Eventually, we got chatting about EFI and bootloaders, and my contributions to postmarketOS, and my experience booting EFI-based operating systems (Linux) on smartphones using U-Boot. Redox OS is also booted via EFI, and so the nerdsnipe began. Could I run Redox OS on my smartphone the same way I could run postmarketOS Linux? Spoilers, yes." There are some serious limitations though as Redox OS lacks a driver to work with the phone's touch screen.
* * * * *
With the release of GNOME 49 the desktop environment has increased its dependency on the systemd project. As a result, GNOME requires more work and patching to get it to run on operating systems which do not run systemd. As one Artix developer stated: "Some of you have probably seen the blog post a few months ago about how GNOME is more strongly depending on systemd. The changes mentioned there have landed into the latest stable versions of the mentioned software (GNOME 49) and do affect us. In particular, the main culprit is the removal of the non-systemd fallback code in gnome-session. This makes it currently impossible to launch gnome-shell/mutter on a non-systemd system. A fairly straightforward patch of using elogind, like what was previously done, no longer works either.
Since we don't have the time or interest to write a new non-systemd codepath for gnome-session, this means that all support for gnome-based desktops has to be dropped. In particular, the affected packages would be gnome-session, gnome-shell, mutter, and gnome-settings-daemon. For now, the old versions are still in the repos but because there is so much intertwining between other GTK/GNOME packages, there is no guarantee they actually work and will later be removed from our repos." This change will exclude GNOME from running on the approximately 90 Linux distributions which do not run systemd by default, unless the packages are patched to work with alternative dependencies.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
|
| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Seeking mobile versions of Linux
Returning-to-mobile asks: It's been a while since I was last in the Linux community. What is the state of Linux on mobile these days? Where should I start?
DistroWatch answers: Welcome back! When it comes to running Linux on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, there are two main categories of Linux distributions.
The first group of distributions are variants of Android. Basically these are Android with the Google-specific components removed or replaced with open source alternatives. Android-based distributions have an advantage in that they usually have a wide range of device compatibility, a familiar interface for anyone who has used an Android smartphone, and they can run Android apps.
Some of the key players in the de-Googled Android category are Murena (an organization which also sells smartphones with its operating system pre-installed), and CalyxOS (a general purpose Android flavour). There are additional Android-based distributions, most of which have a specific focus. For instance, iodeOS places a priority on monitoring and managing network traffic while GrapheneOS introduces security hardening modifications.
People who want to have a typical smartphone that runs Android apps, but do not want Google services and ads will want to use a project in this category.
The second category of mobile Linux distributions are close kin to traditional desktop Linux distributions. The UBports project continues the work Canonical started with Ubuntu Touch and it includes all of the usual low-level GNU/Linux utilities under the Lomiri graphical user interface. postmarketOS provides an Alpine-based distribution with three graphical interface options: Phosh (a mobile flavour of GNOME), Plasma Mobile, and the lightweight Sxmo interface.
The mobile operating systems which are akin to traditional Linux desktop distributions have the benefit of working with well established GNU/Linux utilities, the same command line tools, and package managers.
People who want their phone to run similar technologies to their Linux desktop system and who don't need to run Android apps* will want to select a distribution in this category.
Our search page lists some of the more popular mobile Linux distributions with a summary of each.
* - Some Android apps can be run on traditional Linux systems through compatibility layers, such as Waydroid, but some functionality may be missing and not all apps will work through the compatibility layer.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
|
| Released Last Week |
SysLinuxOS 13
Franco Conidi has announced the release of SysLinuxOS 13, a major update of the project's Debian-based distribution designed for system integrators and network administrators: "SysLinuxOS 13 MATE released. SysLinuxOS 13 follows the release of Debian 13, code name 'Trixie', bringing with it the robustness and security of a stable Debian operating system. SysLinuxOS 13 is now available with several enhancements and new features. Some of these improvements are under the hood, providing additional functionality. SysLinuxOS 13 comes with the MATE desktop environment as the primary option, while the version with GNOME will be released next week. The MATE desktop environment comes with the usual Networking menu, which contains some of the tools for network analysis. Many others are available from the command line. There are many programs that help the user have a ready-to-use distribution, but above all one capable of interacting with Windows programs and systems. Wine is included." Continue to the release announcement for further details.
SysLinuxOS 13 -- Running the MATE desktop
(full image size: 3.3MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Kali Linux 2025.3
The Kali Linux team have announced the launch of Kali Linux 2025.3. The distribution, which is based on Debian's Testing branch, refreshes the Nexmon wireless firmware and drops support for armel CPUs. "Nexmon is a 'patched' firmware, for certain wireless chips, to extend their functionally to allow: Monitor mode - able to sniff packets; Injection mode - frame injection allows for custom raw packets to be sent, outside of the 'standard' stack ordering. Both are really useful when it comes to information security! For the record, it is possible to-do both of the features above without Nexmon, as it depends on the device's chipset and drivers. Now, Nexmon supported wireless chips are Broadcom & Cypress, which are in a various devices, including the Raspberry Pi's in-built Wi-Fi! In Kali 2025.1, we changed how we package our Raspberry Pi kernel, as well as bump to a new major version. Now Nexmon support is back as well as supporting Raspberry Pi 5! Other devices can also use Nexmon, its not limited to Raspberry Pis." A more complete list of changes and new tools which have been added to Kali Linux can be found in the release announcement.
Neptune 9.0
The Neptune project have announced a new release of their Debian-based distribution. The new version, Neptine 9.0, carries the codename "Maja" and ships with Plasma 6.3. The distribution has also introduces a refreshed system installer and runs on version Linux 6.12. The release announcement reports: "We're proud to announce the final release of NeptuneOS 9.0, codename Maja. This brand-new major version is based on Debian 13 Trixie and delivers the latest open source technology to your desktop: KDE Plasma 6.3 - modern, flexible, and elegant desktop experience; Linux Kernel 6.12 - improved performance and hardware support; updated applications and core libraries; new installer with refreshed slideshow; refined look and feel with a brand-new icon theme and many other tweaks. With NeptuneOS 9.0 we are taking a big step into the future, while staying true to Neptune's focus on stability and ease of use."
Neptune 9.0 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
ZimaOS 1.5.0
IceWhale Technology has published ZimaOS 1.5.0, an updated release of the company's independently-developed, Linux-based operating system for personal servers and network-attached storage (NAS) devices. Apart from improvements and bug fixes, this release marks the launch of the project's commercial edition called "ZimaOS Plus": "Good News. ZimaOS hits 1,000,000+ downloads! It would not be here today without the continuous support of our community. For members who upgrade to this version promptly, this upgrade will automatically upgrade your current device to the ZimaOS Plus edition, allowing you to enjoy richer features in the future. New: the new Zima Backup app (on the dashboard) has powerful backup features and a new backup process; the new Apps start and stop status display on the App launch panel; added GPU option in App Setting; GPU can be allocated to the app if GPU is installed. Fixed: fixed an issue where setting a time zone with spaces (e.g., Hong Kong) caused abnormal display on the dashboard; fixed the issue where the App's memory limit display was inaccurate; optimized the App's display and startup speed during device restarts; fixed the issue with incorrect file attribution folder for the first sub-user; optimized the retrieval speed for cloud storage and local network connections...." See the full release notes for further details.
KaOS 2025.09
KaOS is an independent, rolling release desktop Linux distribution that features the latest version of the KDE desktop environment. The project's latest snapshot is version 2025.09 which ships with KDE Plasma 6.4.5: "For the Plasma desktop, the latest Plasma (6.4.5), KDE Gear (25.08.1), and Frameworks (6.18.0) are included. All built on Qt 6.9.2. News for KDE Gear 25.08 includes, reduced memory usage of various Akonadi resources by around 75% each, Dolphin now offers two search engines that will help you find that specific, but elusive file or folder you can't locate (File Indexing & Simple search) and NeoChat can now create polls and open a context menu for each individual thread of messages. The KaOS Plasma Midna theme has undergone a complete overhaul, this included a new icon set, changes in the Login and Ksplash screen, new default wallpaper, modernized window decoration and colour scheme." Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement.
BSD Router Project 2.0
Olivier Cochard-Labbé has announced the release of BSD Router Project (BSDRP) 2.0, a major update of the free and open-source software router distribution based on embedded FreeBSD. The new version brings support for UEFI boot and the AArch64 architecture: "BSDRP 2.0 is available. This release is based on FreeBSD 16-main and the ports tree as of Sept 25th. New installation will now support dual BIOS/UEFI boot and ARM architecture. It includes the following updates: bird 2.17, frr 10.4.1 (Lua scripting enabled), OpenVPN 2.6.15, strongSwan 6.0.1. Special instructions before upgrade: BSDRP 1.994 or later is required; upgrading will not add the dual UEFI/BIOS mode, neither the MBR to GPT conversion, a full reinstall is required for those new features. New features: the NanoBSD framework was replaced by poudriere-image, this brings support for both BIOS and UEFI boot and GPT partition type, packages are now built using the official poudriere method; new architecture available - aarch64; new packages - net/vpp, flashrom, mstflint, Mellanox NIC tools; removed packages - isc-dhcp44 (use dnsmasq), dhcprelya (use dnsmasq)." See the release announcement and release notes for further information.
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
|
| 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: 3,297
- Total data uploaded: 48.4TB
|
| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
|
Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Which is the better demo distro, KDE Linux or GNOME OS?
In this week's Feature Story we talked about KDE Linux and GNOME OS, distributions deigned to test and show off the latest features from the GNOME and KDE projects. Which project do you think is doing the better job of creating a demo distro? Let us know about your experiences with these projects in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running NetBSD in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
|
Which is the better demo distro?
| GNOME OS: | 145 (14%) |
| KDE Linux: | 245 (23%) |
| KDE neon: | 173 (16%) |
| Other: | 112 (11%) |
| None of the above: | 382 (36%) |
|
|
| Website News |
Donations and Sponsors
Each month we receive support and kindness from our readers in the form of donations. These donations help us keep the web server running, pay contributors, and keep infrastructure like our torrent seed box running. We'd like to thank our generous readers and acknowledge how much their contributions mean to us.
This month we're grateful for the $234 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| Jerry B | $100 |
| J S | $50 |
| Anthony B | $12 |
| Jonathon B | $10 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| Joshua B | $7 |
| Brian59 | $5 |
| Chris S | $5 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| Joe Football | $5 |
| John B | $5 |
| TaiKedz | $5 |
| George E | $4 |
| J.D. L | $2 |
| PB C | $2 |
| aRubes | $1 |
| Colton D | $1 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
| Kai D | $1 |
| Lars N | $1 |
| Shasheen E | $1 |
| William E | $1 |
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 6 October 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)
|
|
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 1, value: US$5) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Reviews (by Slappy McGee on 2025-09-29 00:37:02 GMT from United States)
Now that's a clever idea, reviewing a KDE based distro and a Gnome based distro. I have not read the reviews yet. Just sayin'.
2 • kde vs gnome (by twodogs on 2025-09-29 00:55:15 GMT from United States)
And that why I love, and will continue, to use window managers. Hyprland, i3 and Openbox among many others. Just found Niri :)
3 • GNOME vs KDE (by Redy Basuki on 2025-09-29 01:19:16 GMT from Indonesia)
My personal opinion, I don't like GNOME, but I'm not haters. GNOME is not suitable for me, so KDE is much better for my workflows. But I like using LXQt for now, much lightweight than KDE.
I don't want to start debate or "war" here, as chosing DE is a matter of personal choice. No single DE that would satisfiy everyone, no need to argue.
4 • Linux X Apache NuttX (by lincoln on 2025-09-29 02:03:48 GMT from Brazil)
In the past few weeks, I was surprised when my sister bought a Xiaomi phone thinking it was an Android phone, but it turned out to be a version of Apache NuttX (a free and open-source real-time operating system). She, a non-technical user, did not notice any difference or report any problems. A comparative review of the two open source kernels would be interesting, similar to this week's review between KDE Linux and GNOME OS by someone as well-qualified as Jesse Smith.
5 • Best demo distro (by InvisibleInk on 2025-09-29 02:11:06 GMT from United States)
I gotta say, KaOS seem to be the best KDE demo distro going. I think we can expect KDE Neon to disappear as soon KDE Linux becomes stable. But KaOS is already stable, and definitely underrated when it come to a fresh, bleeding edge, demonstration of the KDE desktop environment.
6 • KDE Linux... (by thatguy on 2025-09-29 03:35:10 GMT from United States)
Timely review(s) for me, having recently installed KDE Linux. I wish I'd read Jesse's review before that, as it took me a while to get used to the immutable thing (and to get it bootable via grub).
Only thing I'd add was that I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could compile things. I rely on mc and there's no access to it other than via distrobox I guess, so I tried compiling it and it worked flawlessly.
7 • audio & video players (by Dojnow on 2025-09-29 04:24:29 GMT from Bulgaria)
"The Elisa audio player and Haruna video player are included..." I always wonder why there are two separate players - for audio and video but not one unified - VLC or KMPlayer.
8 • KDE Linux (by Pumpino on 2025-09-29 04:54:48 GMT from Australia)
KDE Linux seems kind of pointless. It requires a 40GB partition, despite using only 12GB? I always use 20GB partitions. It's based on Arch, yet pacman is disabled and it has flatpak and snap support? Why base it on Arch? KDE Neon seems like a superior and more flexible way of testing the latest KDE version.
9 • Wiping the disk (by Wedge009 on 2025-09-29 05:11:17 GMT from Australia)
Ouch! A no-warning wipe of the entire drive is very bad no matter the circumstances. I trust you were prepared for the 'adventure' and didn't lose anything that you weren't prepared to lose.
10 • GNOME, systemd and Artix (by ghost on 2025-09-29 05:13:41 GMT from Sweden)
I don't use Artix but, it's one of the few distros that I could be using. When enough is enough, it's time to say goodbye. Respect Artix! Shame on Gnome.
11 • Because (by Unspeakable on 2025-09-29 06:24:07 GMT from The Netherlands)
@7 • audio & video players (by Dojnow from Bulgaria)
""The Elisa audio player and Haruna video player are included..." I always wonder why there are two separate players - for audio and video but not one unified - VLC or KMPlayer."
Because the music player is for organizing the music collection, displaying song texts, and playing the music, and...
The video player is for watching the videos, displaying subtitles, and managing the output of different screen sizes and ratios.
VLC is a complicated, ugly, and unreliable "universal media player," which does everything but nothing as good as the dedicated tools.
12 • @4, NuttX vs Android (by Tasio on 2025-09-29 06:25:48 GMT from Philippines)
@4, "In the past few weeks, I was surprised when my sister bought a Xiaomi phone thinking it was an Android phone, but it turned out to be a version of Apache NuttX (a free and open-source real-time operating system). She, a non-technical user, did not notice any difference or report any problems." You sister didn't notice any difference because there is no difference. Xiaomi's newest HyperOS 2 is a modified version of Android 15. Xiaomi uses an IoT development platform named Vela, which is based on NuttX. Vela is a core component of HyperOS, but the OS is still based on the Android kernel, and a smartphone user would still be seeing and running Android. Xiaomi is said to have contributed 51% of code to the NuttX community as of 2024.
13 • It's about workflow (by Hhhj on 2025-09-29 06:32:06 GMT from France)
I often read the reviews here and literally even time there is a GNOME desktop Jesse complains that it is inefficient and not designed for desktop users because of all the mouse movements to open the apps. They state GNOME being "frustrating to use" as an absolute fact of GNOME, but they never mention that for example keyboard navigation is by far better developed and efficient than stock KDE and gesture support for opening applications is much more developed and efficient than stock KDE. What is reported as inefficiency in the desktop is really just not wanting to interact in a non-classic/traditional way. I, for example, find it massively inefficient to have to go to the bottom left corner just to then have to look for apps where I could press Super and the first couple of letters of an app and press enter and have the app open without moving my hand to the mouse at all, all the while getting intuitive visual feedback. I am fine that they prefer KDE, not a problem at all, but it's because it suits their workflow not that it's the only correct workflow. For me, I'm not massively a fan of either - I have always found an i3 or sway workflow suits me better, but I see that GNOME suits me more than KDE without having to tweak KDE a lot to achieve what I would get by default in GNOME.
14 • KDE and Gnome resoursce Hogs and usage (by Hank on 2025-09-29 06:46:47 GMT from Germany)
Launching new applications in Gnome 48/49, as well as the overall workflow, is the best solution since the invention of the PC. To reach the grid, the user can either press the "Windows" key on the keyboard, click on the Activities button in the upper-left corner of the screen, or pull the fingers together on the touchpad. In that last case, one can simply flip the icon on one of the virtual desktops. That's light-years ahead of Apple and Microsoft.
And light years behind a desktop which appeared for the first time in 1997 ICEWM.
Idle Ram usage on my machine 240 MB with conky and a fancy screen background plus
cups demon active.
Right click on the desktop I have my menu at mouse pointer...
Crap like some touch pad gestures are impossible for a person eho has Rheumatism, worse only one limb.
Not only kiddys who want to show off the fanciest desktop effects own computers.
Some people want to get work done without distraction and acrobatics.
At Gnome or KDE, Ever heard of the word efficiency in the last years....
I used to really love KDE, it is now a flashy memory hog, same goes for Gnome.
Gnome theming, what an awful mess! absolutely no consistency, who put that together, a 7 year old could do better.
15 • KDE vs Gnome (by Christopher on 2025-09-29 08:29:03 GMT from South Africa)
I prefer KDE to Gnome. My DESKTOP PC has 32GB of RAM, so memory usage is no issue.
16 • Application Organisation (by another-fedora-user on 2025-09-29 09:07:06 GMT from United Kingdom)
I don't think it would be possible for me to disagree with @11 more than I do. A windows-style start menu is, at least for me, the only reasonable way of organising applications for a computer. Whether it be at the bottom left, on the top panel, or as a context menu on the desktop. This with an icon-based task list on the panel at the bottom of the screen is my ideal layout.
Using a mouse makes the default GNOME layout very unwieldy, and trying to organise the FULL SCREEN application page is a nightmare. I always just end up with a page of poorly organised folders that can only hold 9(?) icons before the folder itself is paginated. I like my DE UI to be out of my way, and by default GNOME does the opposite of this.
I personally use GNOME (Fedora) and find it completely unusable without a few extensions, mainly dash-to-panel and arcmenu. There is so much flexibility on how the applications can be displayed this way, with options for many different application menu layouts which are then further customisable.
17 • GNOME or KDE (by Wally on 2025-09-29 09:40:21 GMT from Bosnia and Herzegovina)
I'm running and enjoying KDE 6.4 now. I've run and enjoyed Gnome before and will likely do it again. I don't give a rat's behind which one was designed by Buzz Lightyear and which one by Fred Flintstone, since I'm going to adapt either or both to my own style, workflow, or whatever you call it so I can use them today on whatever PC I'm using.
18 • On Artix & Gnome (by K0Z0 on 2025-09-29 05:58:27 GMT from United States)
Artix is all the fun of Arch Linux without the growing administrator subsystem that is SystemD. GNOME and KDE are moving towards a kind of vendor lock-in. "Immutable" distributions try to fix the Linux Desktop™️'s accessibility by introducing horribly complicated systems that are not meant to be managed offline or on bare metal. Ever try using the more advanced Ostree tools to fix issues with Fedora Silverblue? It's atrocious.
Anyways, GNOME was made for GNOME devs, they don't want you using their desktop any other way than out of the box with zero changes. Eventually extensions will have to be hardcoded at build time because "use case for customization?". Just because software is open source doesn't mean it's designed openly.
19 • KDE or GNOME (by Jake on 2025-09-29 09:58:46 GMT from United States)
I don't use either. Also 'none of the above and 'other' are the same thing, so that category wins with 49%. That proves Linux people want choice, not to be locked into any one or two desktops. Personally I prefer MATE, with Cinnamon a second choice, and Xfce my third choice. Neither Gnome of KDE is even a consideration.
20 • Poll (by Jesse on 2025-09-29 10:00:18 GMT from Canada)
@19: " Also 'none of the above and 'other' are the same thing, so that category wins with 49%."
They are not the same. "Other" would indicate there is another distro you think is a better demo than the three listed. "None of the above" means you think there aren't any good demo distros.
21 • Gnome VS KDE (by Troubadour on 2025-09-29 10:14:25 GMT from United States)
For me personally...
Gnome - Don't like the phone/tablet interface and restrictive features.
KDE - Like the classic desktop interface, but KDE always feels beta quality to me.
The reason Linux Mint Cinnamon became my daily driver years ago is because the developers focus on the user, rather than the interface. The interface is only changed for what users want. Both KDE and Gnome Devs could learn from that approach.
I also run Q4OS with Trinity (based on old KDE 3) on older PCs - probably the best featured Linux distro that currently runs under 500MB at idle. And it's a blast from the past, and a refreshing reminder of how functional and less resource demanding DEs used to be.
22 • GNOME vs KDE navigation (by Jesse on 2025-09-29 10:23:26 GMT from Canada)
@13: "literally even time there is a GNOME desktop Jesse complains that it is inefficient and not designed for desktop users because of all the mouse movements to open the apps. They state GNOME being "frustrating to use" as an absolute fact of GNOME"
I'd point out it is a fact that I find GNOME frustrating to use. Using a mouse with GNOME is painful and inefficient. Literally painful, in my case, due to CTS. Not a problem I have with KDE. By any metric you might want to compare the two, GNOME is less efficient and requites more movement/gestures.
"keyboard navigation is by far better developed and efficient than stock KDE"
Keyboard navigation on KDE is, by default, pretty much the same as GNOME, so I'm not sure what you mean. On both you can tap the meta key and type the application name you want to open and tap Enter. Shortcuts for switching between apps and workspaces are mostly the same. They're the same processes so why would you claim GNOME is better developed?
"and gesture support for opening applications is much more developed and efficient than stock KDE."
There in lies a key difference between our approaches. Gesture support is almost always a terrible experience, in my opinion. Any interface that uses gestures, whether it is my desktop or phone or a tablet is getting a thumbs-down from me. Gestures are inefficient, slow, and something I want to disable or work around, not something I'd want to use.
23 • Privacy focussed de-googled phones (by Maik on 2025-09-29 12:14:52 GMT from Belgium)
Imho, privacy focussed and/or de-googled phones and Linux devices are way too overprized. Vollaphone for example are just rebranded Gigaset smartphones which one can order the latter from Amazon for half the price and flash them with Ubuntu Touch or Volla OS.
Volla Phone X23 which costs €564 is actually the Gigaset GX4 PRO which you can currently get for €263. We're basically getting ripped off and are paying to regain our privacy and freedom.
Same counts for other Linux devices like tablets, laptops and pc's. Even pc's/laptops without a OS installed are more expensive than any regular computer you buy in a shop.
Murena is doing the same thing, slapping their own os and brand on phones and reselling them, even for the refurbished phones their price is way too high.
Librem Liberty Phone: $1999? It's outragous.
No thank you, i'll find my own way.
24 • Gnome and KDE vs. IceWM and Enlightenment e16 (by Unspeakable on 2025-09-29 12:30:11 GMT from Germany)
@14 • KDE and Gnome resoursce Hogs and usage (by Hank from Germany)
Oh, no, Hank, you're totally wrong. You're comparing oranges and... bricks?
You can't compare your AntiqueX with a modern OS. That's a primitive construct accompanied by a bunch of scripts. No wonder that it uses fewer resources. What can't do anything shouldn't consume RAM either, right?
IceWM was/is a Windows 95 copycat and stands no chance against e16. e16 doesn't consume more resources, but it looks much better, has fancy effects that IceWM is lacking, and it's much better when it comes to using virtual desktops.
As for RAM consumption, all modern OSs are resource hogs because there are many services integrated in the core system and running already out of the box, and because all those animations and transparency effects come with a cost.
You know, it's like with a pretty girl. Not everyone can afford her as a hairdresser, manicurist, and pedicurist... a couple of times a week, and then new cosmetics, shoes, and clothes... every few days... it would ruin many ordinary men.
Some people who "want to get work done without distraction and acrobatics" are kind of that legendary "eternal 1%," don't you think? Fortunately, they were and will never be a standard to measure the things.
Someone using IceWM shouldn't talk about inconsistencies in Gnome. ;)
25 • PostmarketOS review? (by Tuxedoar on 2025-09-29 12:38:16 GMT from Argentina)
Regarding mobile Linux distros, I'd love a PostmarketOS review!. I'm testing it on a compatible mobile device and while it's certainly not ready for general use, I find it quite promising!. For instance, I think it´s curious that the Phosh environment having a strong
GNOME influence, it runs quite decently even on constrained hardware (at least, that's what my experience is so far).
I'm very interested in seeing further progress in running pure "GNU/Linux" variants and ongoing development on specialized apps ecosystem for mobile devices.
Have a nice week!.
Cheers.
26 • GNOME (by Rufus T Firefly on 2025-09-29 13:29:47 GMT from United States)
Gnome is an example of how you can try to simplify a DE and just make it harder to use.
Gnome has always taken this "we know better than you" approach. They are the Apple of the Linux world.
27 • Gnome efficiency (by Slappy McGee on 2025-09-29 15:26:33 GMT from United States)
The (to paraphrase a bit) "but it's so very clicky and a waste of energy and my zen state of mind" meme with Gnome is well agreed with by many, including myself.
Until I tried Zorin 17.3.They've redone Gnome to the point of unrecognizable as.. well as Gnome. Why they chose to do that with Gnome instead of KDE or even XFCE I am not certain, but I can say that it is very efficient and.. well, not so very clicky or a waste of energy and my zen state of mind.
Gotta pay for it. So, it's like using a faster more intuitive Windows 9 or 10 I'd say.
28 • Phone (by JTJersey on 2025-09-29 15:54:52 GMT from United States)
Whenever I read reviews about non Google or Apple phones they never talk about if they can make a phone call on a common phone service. Can they?
29 • Super key and menu navigation (by Barnabyh on 2025-09-29 12:04:49 GMT from South Africa)
"... I could press Super and the first couple of letters of an app and press enter and have the app open without moving my hand to the mouse at all, all the while getting intuitive visual feedback."
One can do the same in Plasma. That's actually how I open my apps all the time. Most desktops with a menu with a search field do this, not exactly rocket science.
30 • Phones (by Jesse on 2025-09-29 16:05:26 GMT from Canada)
@28: "Whenever I read reviews about non Google or Apple phones they never talk about if they can make a phone call on a common phone service. Can they?"
Yes, they can. *
Probably the reason most reviews don't specify this is because whether a device can make a phone call usually has nothing to do with the OS on the phone and everything to do with the range of frequencies the carrier offers and if they match the phone's hardware.
So if I review a Murena phone in Canada I can confirm it works with my carrier's frequencies, but that means nothing to someone in the USA or Europe. Likewise if someone in Germany reports they can make phone calls, that means nothing to me, living in Canada.
You need to look at the phone's hardware and see if it matches the frequencies your carrier provides. Or, if you already have an Android phone, it'll work with a de-Googled OS because the hardware doesn't change when you re-install.
31 • Gnome & Plasma (by David on 2025-09-29 16:30:40 GMT from United Kingdom)
"... I could press Super and the first couple of letters of an app" I press Super and a convenient code, so Super-C for a calculator, as opposed to Super … now what was that program called?
The first Linux Desktop, Xfce, is still the best for me. I could live with Mate, but probably not Plasma and certainly not Gnome. Of course, running PCLinuxOS, Gnome wouldn't be an option anyway — we're systemd free.
32 • Grapheneos (by Dave on 2025-09-29 17:06:41 GMT from United States)
Very pleased with Grapheneos on two Pixel 8a and a Pixel tablet with t-mobile on one phone in the U.S. No issues of any kind. Reasonably secure and freedom from Apple and Google (don't use Play) is a wonderful thing.
33 • Artix vs GNOME (by Jyrki on 2025-09-29 17:49:22 GMT from Czechia)
I have been Artix user since this distro saw the light of the world. Over the years I got disappointed by Linux (not Artix) and started to look elsewhere. I am no longer relying on Linux but I still use it, I have to say, it's only thanks to Artix, which is nowadays for me synonym for Linux.
But I have never ever learnt how to cope with Gnome. It was always strange DE to me and I preferred KDE, with KDE4 I switched to Xfce.
If my favourite Linux distro get rid of Gnome that, it's fantastic news, they have to focus on other DEs, they will save time and therefore there is chance my fave distro will just get even better.
34 • Artix IS Linux (by picamanic on 2025-09-29 18:20:24 GMT from United Kingdom)
@33[ Jyrki]: Just to clarify, Artix IS Linux. Just one of the more interesting non-systemd Linux distros.
35 • HIROH phone looks like a scam (by Richard on 2025-09-29 18:30:24 GMT from United States)
This HIROH phone looks like a scam to me. Insanely expensive, and no indicators that they actually understand hardware/platform security. Their website has a lot of red flags too, like claiming that they are "inventors of the kill switch" and that they have a "long history of innovation" (their initial filing in Wyoming was middle of last year)...
36 • No OS (by Dave Postles on 2025-09-29 19:24:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
'Same counts for other Linux devices like tablets, laptops and pc's. Even pc's/laptops without a OS installed are more expensive than any regular computer you buy in a shop.'
Don't know. I can buy a 14" laptop with no OS and 8Gb RAM in the UK for £396 including 20% VAT.
37 • kde vs gnome, mobile linux (by hulondalo on 2025-09-29 22:44:32 GMT from The Netherlands)
who won that holy war? in fractured societies like we have today, it'll be nice to revisit the fight :)
i remember using motorola e680i running montavista linux. anyone know what happened to the os, or is it possible to bring it back?
38 • Gnome OS wiping the drive without asking should be illegal (by Andy Prough on 2025-09-30 01:32:59 GMT from United States)
In fact, it probably is illegal.
And the Gnome Foundation could probably be found negligent in a court of law if they are sued for destroying someone's valuable data.
39 • You can buy computers without buying an OS and they are less expensive. (by OpenSUSE Slowroll Fan on 2025-09-30 03:51:55 GMT from United States)
There are computers you can buy which are less expensive if you buy them without an operating system.
Framework notebook and desktop PCs are cheaper if you buy them without the OS. Specifically they cost $139 to $199 less when you buy them without Windows.
The Framework company officially supports Ubuntu, Fedora and Bazzite, as well as a number of other distros which have the support of the Framework community. I’ve installed openSUSE Slowroll on five different Framework computers and it runs very well on all of them.
Unlike any other notebook computers, Framework computers are easy to repair and easy to upgrade. The end user can easily and inexpensively replace the keyboard, battery, screen, RAM, SSD(s), USB and video ports, and you can replace the motherboard or upgrade it to a newer faster cpu. The Framework models start at $549 and although they are not the cheapest computers you can buy, over their very long lifetime, they are the cheapest computers you can own because they can easily be upgraded and repaired.
You can also save quite a bit of money by ordering your DIY Framework without the RAM or the SSD(s) and buy them elsewhere and install them yourself.
I used and recommended Thinkpads from the days when they were made by IBM. But Thinkpads have become harder to repair, so when Framework began selling their computers, I sold my last nearly new Thinkpad and have bought and recommend only Framework computers since then.
You can even save money when you buy a Framework notebook and install Windows on it by buying a Framework computer without the OS and buying your own OEM copy of Windows to install on it.
https://frame.work/linux
40 • KDE and Gnome resoursce Hogs and usage (by Nathan on 2025-09-30 11:28:48 GMT from Germany)
@14
"At Gnome or KDE, Ever heard of the word efficiency in the last years... I used to really love KDE, it is now a flashy memory hog, same goes for Gnome."
I hope in LXQt for the near future.
41 • @13 Workflow (by rb on 2025-09-30 13:11:30 GMT from United States)
@13 I respect the fact that you like Gnome. I am glad that it works for someone; however I hate it. I feel you make a lot of assumptions that everyone interacts and thinks about the desktop in the same way that you do.
"What is reported as inefficiency in the desktop is really just not wanting to interact in a non-classic/traditional way". Correct. I don't want to think of the desktop and interact with it in the limited, forced, and non-traditional way that Gnome requires now.
" keyboard navigation is by far better developed and efficient than stock KDE and gesture support for opening applications is much more developed and efficient than stock KDE" This is entirely your opinion, subjective, debatable, and up for interpretation.
"I . . . find it massively inefficient to have to go to the bottom left corner just to then have to look for apps where I could press Super and the first couple of letters of an app and press enter and have the app open without moving my hand to the mouse at all, all the while getting intuitive visual feedback." I have never used a start menu or application menu in the manner you describe and can't imagine I would ever do so. "Massively inefficient" seems a little dramatic IMO.
You also assume everyone navigates or wants to navigate their desktop with their keyboard or by using their keyboard in combination with the mouse for maximum efficiency. That is not how most people interact with their desktop. While you might be a super user who tries to maximize efficiency with every movement of the hand and tap to the keyboard, the average joe is just pointing and clicking to open things and navigate. This is where Gnome fails because not everyone has their hands on the keyboard at all times in real life.
Also, having a visible task bar with indicators with icons or buttons showing open applications is helpful and familiar for many people. Gnome completely throws this familiar concept out the window and that alienates a lot of potential users. "Where did my app go?" "The desktop is your currently running app". "Move your mouse into the corner for an overview". NO thank you.
If you have to train and practice to use the desktop it might be too complicated for many people.
42 • Gnome, KDE, et al. (by Keith S on 2025-09-30 14:33:21 GMT from United States)
I gave up on both Gnome and KDE many years ago when the developer wars on each project split both communities. Xfce became my go-to DE, with LXQt as a great alternative. Some distros ship with a window manager that works well too.
Gnome and KDE both remind me of what I call the Emacs error, where a program originally designed for a specific task continually expands to include more and more functionality to the point where it becomes unusable. Systemd falls into this category as well. The original UNIX philosophy of each program doing one thing well has been largely abandoned, which is why the latest developments in Linux always remind me of the movement towards becoming Windows and MacOS : opaque, unwieldy, vulnerable, difficult to impossible to modify.
43 • Us vs Them (by vmc on 2025-09-30 16:43:26 GMT from United States)
So this week its Gnome vs KDE, and as usual Jesse has fanned the flames.
I use KDE in the past, and its many, many knobs & switches. For the past several years its been Ubuntu's Gnome. I have no issues whatsoever, Period.
I do wonder if those naysayers realize its just an opinion (there's, mine).
I'm just saying, I use Ubuntu, Gnome without any issues.
44 • Poll (by nobody on 2025-09-30 15:05:50 GMT from Germany)
The only thing I like in Gnome and KDE is their, what you call it...advanced way in dark, night mode..Where one can adjust nicely, the screen to an nice warm color. Reducing the blue bright eye hurting monitor xray radiation crap. That hurts our eyes.. If I may call it this extreme way..
KDE,
Other than that, I do not like the always in my way destructing notifications about nothing in KDE, during workflow. On top KDE is always more hungry for RAM and resources. (battery-lapetope)
GNOME i do not even want to talk about it...It installs tons of crap I never use, heavy resource hungry experience. Feels like some one has a vision there and is shoveling unfinished product to us. Like here this is the best...(Perhaps maybe and just maybe it is good for older people)
No o fence to anyone. Do not want to make anyone angry KDE or Gnome, yes great..But not for me.
If I would show somebody new the linux stuff...I would go probably with Linux Mint the cinnamon edition. And preferably the LMDE (debian based)....But the LMDE is not being worked on..Outdated crap..You install it on newer hardware and it will not recognize your touch-pad on the lapetope. And the Ubuntu based Linux Mint is good for one Week....People grow out of it very fast. And any distro based on Ububabuntu is plain unstable freezing crap...Always was and is. Nothing changes here for years..
For new people I would tell them to use the cinnamon experience.
For me I love simplicity I use Xfce and love it.
I use to like mate years back did enjoy the spinning cube magic...That was taken away.
Now I use Xfce....LXQt is perhaps another great simple one....Openbox....
Xfce is the winner for me. SImple and fast not resource hungry. Getting most of my battery out..
I miss under Xfce the advanced night mode adjustments....That is it
45 • Poll (by Alessandro di Roma on 2025-09-30 20:07:32 GMT from Italy)
@44: "For me I love simplicity I use Xfce and love it"
For me there is something better than Xfce, it's Xfce with display compositing turned off!
46 • Gnome OS (by dave on 2025-10-01 06:20:49 GMT from United States)
Gnome's installer destroying everything in its path without care or warning. Very on brand.
47 • GnomeOS logical way (by Frank on 2025-10-01 06:55:54 GMT from Germany)
GnomeOS is the logical way for Gnome. After they decision to systemd-only and away from modern, fast and small alternatives like eg. runit and s6 it make sense to control all other part of the os, too.
I would not be surprised if the next step of the Gnome Foundation will be a cooperation with one of the big players in the market to earn money.
I hope that the distro will always be actual and secure and I wish them (and the users of it) good luck and all the best.
48 • Past their prime (by Jacques Œuf on 2025-10-01 14:51:00 GMT from Denmark)
Gnome was decent 10 years ago, now it's a silly mess of features nobody asked for.
KDE never really lost the beta-feeling but 5 years ago it was OK, if not perfect. Now: Feels more beta than ever, a mess of interesting ideas never completed to perfection.
Golden Rules:
#1: Perfect what you have before adding complexity and features.
#2: Never add what's not needed.
#3: Less is more.
49 • Review (by Robert on 2025-10-01 16:21:54 GMT from United States)
I like this idea for a review - a compare and contrast of the first party distros of the major desktops.
GnomeOS sounds like exactly what one would expect from an OS by the Gnome project. Interpret that however you will. Actually I suppose both distros are what you would expect from their respective projects.
I don't have much to say about Gnome. I don't like it.
Regarding KDE Linux though:
- I imagine the reason it wants 40GB is because it will keep several full disk images for rollback purposes. When the installs are that large, that adds up to a lot of space.
- As for why the installs (and disk images) are so large, I have no idea. Maybe since its in alpha they shipped everything with debug symbols? 12GB install size is unreasonably large.
- I do agree with you that as a KDE demo distro they should be shipping Falkon and Calligra. If a user wants Libreoffice or Firefox, that's what Flatpak is for. Now if this were any old distro I'd say Firefox is a good default browser and no office suite should be installed by default.
- It seems to be that the project would benefit from removing some redundant options
-- As far as I can tell, the only reason Snap is included is because the project lead uses one application from the Snap store. Everybody else either doesn't want it or doesn't care.
-- Distrobox vs Toolbox - I'm not very familiar with these tools but as far as I can tell they're basically the same thing and they should just pick one.
Regarding both
- It makes sense that /etc would be writable so you can change configs. I really wonder what the reasoning is for /usr to be read only, but not /. Just seems very strange to me.
- Given both distros failed to properly play video it seems very likely to be a codec issue. I'm sure Haruna would have been installed as Flatpak, was the Gnome video player Flatpak as well? Did you have the ffmpeg-full runtime installed? Otherwise a lot of codecs will be missing, similar to how particularly commercial distros don't ship proper codec support for legal reasons. AFAIK VLC uses its own codecs implementations without going through ffmpeg, which is why it worked.
50 • @ 48 • Past their prime (by Jacques Œuf...) (by R. Cain on 2025-10-01 21:19:57 GMT from United States)
...plus one more; absolutely THE hardest one to teach:
"FIRST, SOLVE THE PROBLEM. THEN WRITE THE CODE." – John Johnson
51 • @48 Jacques Œuf: (by dragonmouth on 2025-10-02 10:35:05 GMT from United States)
Unfortunately if developers stick to your Golden Rules they will not be able to show off their "brilliance." /GRIN
52 • SailfishOS (by Shawn on 2025-10-02 12:25:15 GMT from United States)
How can you have missed SailfishOS? It's the most useable of the non-Android derivatives and has the best Android compatibility mode. I've been using it as a daily driver since 2017.
53 • KDE/Gnome (by Slappy McGee on 2025-10-02 14:49:14 GMT from United States)
Going over experiences with Gnome and KDE (Plasma) over the years, with both I was fighting off feelings of them seeming either complicated (tried to train my mind to see it as "complex" and that I needed to learn etc) or just uncomfortably convoluted.
But those three things, complicated, complex, convoluted, seem the norm now with those two environments. Are they resolving needs, or are they adding hood ornaments and spoilers and 24 layer candy apple color coats because they think fancy will sell, or some such mindset of the devs?
Perhaps there is no plan and they're just out of control.
I admit to still playing with them, but neither are for daily use as a work station in my house. XFCE won with regard to that years ago. We'll see it those devs stay the course, or go the KDE/Gnome route of shiny silliness.
54 • DE duncification (by Friar Tux on 2025-10-02 15:54:11 GMT from Canada)
@53 (Slappy) Totally agree. Wwwaaayyy back when, I started with Gnome (loved the little footprint). Discovered KDE liked it better. Then, a while ago, KDE went belly up. Not sure what the issue was. I found Cinnamon and it was everything I wanted/needed all wrapped up in an easily modifiable CSS format. Haven't needed any other DE since. I DID try XFCE but it wasn't as intuitive, for me, as Cinnamon. Also tried Mate - way too bare bones.
One of the biggest must-haves, for me, is Cinnamon's Desklets and Applets. I use both quite a lot. (Something I picked up from KDE in the past.)
55 • @45 (by nobody 2October2025 on 2025-10-02 16:35:54 GMT from Germany)
@45
Thank you. I will look in to it. ( Xfce with display compositing turned off )
PS: To Jesse..I might have posted my input twice. Sorry about that
56 • Opinion Poll (by nobody 2October2025 on 2025-10-02 16:25:34 GMT from Germany)
The only thing I like in Gnome and KDE is their, what you call it...advanced way in dark, night mode..Where one can adjust nicely, the screen to an nice warm color. Reducing the blue bright eye hurting monitor xray radiation crap. That hurts our eyes.. If I may call it this extreme way..
KDE,
Other than that, I do not like the always in my way destructing notifications about nothing in KDE, during workflow. On top KDE is always more hungry for RAM and resources. (battery-lapetope)
GNOME i do not even want to talk about it...It installs tons of crap I never use, heavy resource hungry experience. Feels like some one has a vision there and is shoveling unfinished product to us. Like here this is the best...(Perhaps maybe and just maybe it is good for older people)
No o fence to anyone. Do not want to make anyone angry KDE or Gnome, yes great..But not for me.
If I would show somebody new the linux stuff...I would go probably with Linux Mint the cinnamon edition. And preferably the LMDE (debian based)....But the LMDE is not being worked on..Outdated crap..You install it on newer hardware and it will not recognize your touch-pad on the lapetope. And the Ubuntu based Linux Mint is good for one Week....People grow out of it very fast. And any distro based on Ububabuntu is plain unstable freezing crap...Always was and is. Nothing changes here for years..
For new people I would tell them to use the cinnamon experience.
For me I love simplicity I use Xfce and love it.
I use to like mate years back did enjoy the spinning cube magic...That was taken away.
Now I use Xfce....LXQt is perhaps another great simple one....Openbox....
Xfce is the winner for me. SImple and fast not resource hungry. Getting most of my battery out..
I miss under Xfce the advanced night mode adjustments....That is it
57 • DE (by Jan on 2025-10-02 23:01:19 GMT from The Netherlands)
I read people have a preference for XFCE/LXQT/LXDE and an aversion against Gnome/KDE.
I have a complete oposite experience (my test-pc is a lenovo x200 with 8GB+SSD, yes thas old, I deliberately do that)
I judge a distro if it opens OK in a live-USB-situation, if I can rotate the display (I use a monitor in portrait mode), and if a browser (FF mostly) behaves smooth and not-sluggish.
Some well known distros totally fail to boot normally (from Ventoy or from a dedicated USB-stick sometimes makes a difference). (PS: for installing, better use a dedicated USB-stick, no Ventoy-stick).
Then almost all non-Gnome/KDE distros dont offer a simple possibility to rotate the display to portait (LXDE/LXQT), or give an usable UI.
With some keyboard-hoopla I sometimes could open the filemanager, do a search for "display" in the file-system, and find the display-utility with rotating-posibility. Even then I sometimes had no normal display with app-icons.
With Gnome/KDE this gives no problem. However Gnome has a bizarre UI, KDE seems usabable.
You would thisk that the present Gnome and KDE are too heavy for my X200, and XFCE is the way to go. However based on sluggish browser-experience my experience is the opposite, Gnome and KDE give the better behaviour.
Fedora KDE/Gnome and MX-KDE are my winners (however Fedora states that my hardware has a security problem).
Even all distros advised for old PC's fail in my experience with my X200 (are worse or not better than Gnome/KDE-Fedora/MX).
Quite some well-known XFCE-distros (not all) give an irritating sluggish behaviour.
The present Cinnamon is almost on parr (non-sluggish, logical UI) with my KDE-experiences.
So I think that for me (non-coder/scripter) KDE-Fedora/MX (or OpenSUSE) or Cinnamon are the way to go.
Also a few well behaving distros are also possible: GhostBSB/Reborn/Anduin/FunOS.
58 • Best demo (by Woodstock69 on 2025-10-03 01:28:41 GMT from Australia)
I'd have to agree with @5 that KaOS is very good and very under-rated.
It's not my daily driver, but I have it in the background and kept upto date.
As for Neon and KDE linux, both are redundant as KaOS fills the roll of KDE-centric/showcase to a 'T'.
59 • Gnome and KDE (by rhtoras on 2025-10-03 18:07:16 GMT from Greece)
I can't stand both Gnome and KDE. But Gnome is the worst between these two.
Lumina is a great and slim option imho. I also finds fvwm based desktops to be good.
I was using XFCE but lately i don't like the way this project goes.
Right now i use Mate on Void linux and Lumina on openbsd. There is a reason for this.
On old computers believe it or not the best option was Lumina. Slim, plain and simple.
On the other hand wm's work just fine i.e Fluxbox is ok so is openbox or Jwm.
As for LXDE and LXQT the LXDE is the good one but both feel incomplete projexts imho.
60 • Gnome vs KDE (by skippy on 2025-10-03 19:21:04 GMT from United States)
At this point, the Gnome vs KDE thing is like choosing which STI you'd prefer: gonorrhea or Chlamydia. I'd give Chlamydia, I mean KDE, an edge because its changes have been sensibly evolutionary instead of the revolutionary paradigm shift bs Gnome had a few years ago that turned me off (Mate is better IMO). I tried Gnome again several months ago and the only thing I appreciated was being able to quickly scan through apps and files with one keyboard shortcut and a few letters.
So on the bright side at least Gnome has caught up with dmenu. 😐
61 • My Operating systems (by Palladini on 2025-10-03 21:44:51 GMT from Canada)
I have desktop Computer, it is running Linux Mint Cinnamon and Cathy, the two top on the list here. I have a Laptop hooked to 58 Inch TV and it is running Linux Mint Cinnamon and Manjaro.
Number of Comments: 61
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
| | |
| NovaCustom |
NovaCustom PrivacyGuard Laptops - Escape from Big Tech
The NovaCustom PrivacyGuard Laptop is ideal for anyone who prioritizes privacy. Comes with Dasharo coreboot open source firmware and Zorin OS Pro, free from influence of Big Tech.
|
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Archives |
| • Issue 1176 (2026-06-08): Redcore Linux 2601, the problem with minimal system requirements, Red Hat account linked to compromised npm repositories, COSMIC to get frosted glass effect, openSUSE shows off system extension manager, Origami merges with RakuOS |
| • Issue 1175 (2026-06-01): PineTab2 with various distros, less common words of wisdom, Canonical shutting down Ubuntu's Pastebin, Murena nears 100k users, DistroWatch turns 25 |
| • Issue 1174 (2026-05-25): Solus 4.9, Linux tablets, Haiku boots on Apple M1 machines, Fedora drops Deepin packages, Mint improves Nemo performance |
| • Issue 1173 (2026-05-18): Sylve on FreeBSD, the benefit of BleachBit, Debian commits to reproducible builds, Debian publishes updated install media, Haiku introduces SMP support on ARM64 processors, Rocky Linux creates opt-in security repository, Fedora reconsiders AI tools, KDE receives generous donation |
| • Issue 1172 (2026-05-11): Fedora 44, dealing with extra fonts, Fedora plans to provide AI tools, problems with Ubuntu's new coreutils, TrueNAS extends its development cycle, postmarktetOS improves the boot splash screen, Redox ports tmux |
| • Issue 1171 (2026-05-04): Xubuntu 26.04, extending memory with VRAM, Ubuntu plans AI features, Devuan developer forks GTK2, Mint introduces hardware enablement builds, Linux running on a PlayStation 5, local kernel exploit found in Linux |
| • Issue 1170 (2026-04-27): ENux 5.2.1, picking a second distro, AlmaLinux expands CPU support, FreeBSD publishes Status Report, Ubuntu MATE skips 26.04 release |
| • Issue 1169 (2026-04-20): Lakka 6.1, free software and source-based distributions, FreeBSD Foundation publishes compatible laptop list, Debian holds Project Leader election, Haiku progresses ARM64 port, Mint to extend development cycle, Linux 7.0 released |
| • Issue 1168 (2026-04-13): pearOS 2026.03, EndeavourOS 2026.03.06, which distros are adopting age verification, Arch adjusts its firewall packages, Linux dropping i486 support, Red Hat extends its release cycle, Debian's APT introduces rollbacks, Redox improves its scheduler |
| • Issue 1167 (2026-04-06): Origami Linux 2026.03, answering questions for Linux newcomers, Ubuntu MATE seeking new contributors, Ubuntu software centre is expanding Deb support, FreeBSD fixes forum exploit, openSUSE 15 Leap nears its end of life |
| • Issue 1166 (2026-03-30): NetBSD jails, publishing software for Linux, Ubuntu joins Rust Foundation, Canonical plans to trim GRUB features, Peppermint works on new utilities, PINE64 shows off open hardware capabilities |
| • Issue 1165 (2026-03-23): Argent Linux 1.5.3, disk space required by Linux, Manjaro team goes on strike, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA driver support and builds RISC-V packages, systemd introduces age tracking |
| • Issue 1164 (2026-03-16): d77void, age verification laws and Linux, SUSE may be for sale, TrueNAS takes its build system private, Debian publishes updated Trixie media, MidnightBSD and System76 respond to age verification laws |
| • Issue 1163 (2026-03-09): KaOS 2026.02, TinyCore 17.0, NuTyX 26.02.2, Would one big collection of packages help?, Guix offers 64-bit Hurd options, Linux communities discuss age delcaration laws, Mint unveils new screensaver for Cinnamon, Redox ports new COSMIC features |
| • Issue 1162 (2026-03-02): AerynOS 2026.01, anti-virus and firewall tools, Manjaro fixes website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating a map app |
| • Issue 1161 (2026-02-23): The Guix package manager, quick Q&As, Gentoo migrating its mirrors, Fedora considers more informative kernel panic screens, GhostBSD testing alternative X11 implementation, Asahi makes progress with Apple M3, NetBSD userland ported, FreeBSD improves web-based system management |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
| Random Distribution | 
SteamOS
SteamOS is an Arch-based Linux distribution developed by Valve Corporation, a US video game developer, publisher and digital distribution company. It comes with Steam, Valve's own video game store, and it is the default Linux distribution for Valve's line of gaming hardware, including the Steam Deck, Steam Machine and Steam Frame. The distribution also supports some third-party handheld devices, such as Lenovo Legion Go and ASUS ROG Ally, but it can also be installed on standard personal computers. SteamOS uses the KDE Plasma desktop as its default user interface.
Status: Active
|
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
