 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1150, 1 December 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 48th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Large language models (LLMs) have gained a lot of attention in recent years, offering up tools which can produce large amounts of text, images, and videos rapidly. While many people oppose the use of LLMs due to accuracy concerns, their environmental impact, ethical issues with their output, and their violation of copyright laws, many others are using the tools for work and entertainment. This week we begin with a look at Gnoppix, a distribution which aims to promote and facilitate the use of LLMs. Do you like the idea of having a distribution which integrates LLM tools? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. Then, in our News section, we talk about openSUSE updating the boot loader of the distribution's Tumbleweed branch. We also talk about Fedora putting plans into place to better address broken packages after a Mesa update, which was known to be faulty, was pushed out to users. We also report on the KDE project dropping X11 support in future versions of the Plasma desktop. Then, in our Questions and Answers column, we address the topic of whether the choice of distribution really matters. In a world where most Linux distributions can run the same applications, what impact does choosing a distribution have? Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list 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: Gnoppix AI Linux 25_10
- News: openSUSE updates Tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans improved handling of broken packages, KDE Plasma 6.8 to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report
- Questions and answers: Does the distribution really matter?
- Released last week: Ultramarine Linux 43, AlmaLinux OS 10.1, Rocky Linux 10.1, Tsurugi Linux 25.11, ROSA 13.1, Pardus 25.0, AV Linux MXE-25, EndeavourOS 2025.11.24, 4MLinux 50.0, Solus 4.8
- Torrent corner: AlmaLinux OS, EndeavourOS, KDE neon, Raspberry Pi OS, ROSA, TUXEDO OS
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 15.0
- Opinion poll: Do you want to run a distribution which includes local LLM tools?
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Gnoppix AI Linux 25_10
I was recently asked to take a look at the Gnoppix project, which has renamed itself "Gnoppix AI Linux" and declared itself the world's "first AI Linux". What sort of AI features does Gnoppix offer? How does this set it apart from other Linux distributions? What is it like to run an "AI Linux" project? I agreed to take on the task of learning what I could.
The project's website was not a lot of help in this regard. The Gnoppix project reports: "You have the flexibility to transform your desktop into an open source, AI-based desktop by running local, open-source Large Language Models (LLMs). Alternatively, you can use your Linux desktop to access the latest closed models from providers like OpenAI and Google."
If you think this sounds like every other Linux distribution so far, you'd be correct. The Gnoppix website doesn't really address questions such as: "What is an 'open source, AI-based desktop'?" The website does make it clear that we can run local LLMs or use an API to access proprietary models and pay Gnoppix on a "per usage" basis instead of having a monthly subscription. The documentation also says the distribution has a custom AI chat interface which can be customized.
Descriptions about the AI options on the distribution's website are high on hype and low on content. Mostly this focus on "AI" tools seems to be an effort to sell access to the project's own AI interface: "Gnoppix Members can access our free Large Language Models (LLMs) through the Gnoppix AI portal at https://ai.gnoppix.org. You can log in to use the web interface or access the models via our API endpoint."
Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves with guesses and interpretations of the sales pitch. Instead, I'd like to explore what it is like to run Gnoppix and its "AI Linux" desktop.
Early impressions
Gnoppix is based on the Debian distribution and is designed to be able to run on live media (from a USB thumb drive) or installed locally. The ISO for version 25_10 is 5.2GB in size and is available for x86_64 hardware only.
Booting from the thumb drive brings up a boot menu where we are asked to select our language from a list. English is the default option, but we can also select French, Spanish, or German. I mostly used the English option, but tried the others. Regardless of which language we select the user interface is always displayed in English - selecting another language, such as French, has no effect.
Gnoppix AI Linux 25_10 -- The live desktop when the French language is selected
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Booting into the live media brings up the KDE Plasma desktop running in a Wayland session. The desktop is a bit slow to load and respond, even for a live desktop. Plasma places a panel across the bottom of the screen. On the desktop we find two icons, one for opening a ReadMe text file and another for launching a system installer.
A welcome window appears in the middle of the desktop and offers to provide us with quick access to various local resources and on-line information. Several of the buttons in the welcome window are labelled with short, cryptic descriptions. For example, one button is simply called Docs, another is called Language, one is called Software, and another is called Gaming. Some people might look at these and think they seem clear and logical, but the short names do not always match what you might expect the functionality to be.
Gnoppix AI Linux 25_10 -- The welcome window
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Clicking the Language button opens a window where we can manage locale and style settings, such as the formatting of numbers and currencies, this window does not support any options for changing the language or installing new language packs. Clicking the Gaming button opens a window that tells us Gnoppix is already capable of running games and includes patches related to gaming. We are then told a new document window will open and tell us more about gaming options. A web browser window did open, but it simply showed a blank page. Clicking the welcome window's Software button does open the Discover software centre, which is about what I expected. However, Discover failed to display any package information or find any updates. Instead it just consumed a lot of CPU resources, endlessly, until the Discover window was closed. (I will come back to discuss why this was happening later in the review.) Another button, labelled Tweaks, does not open any settings panel, instead it opens the KDE hardware information window and provides information on our system. The Tweaks button does not provide access to any settings or options we can tweak.
The ReadMe file
Usually I wouldn't spend a lot of time lingering on a project's documentation, and certainly not a single ReadMe file, but I'm going to mention it here for two reasons: First, the ReadMe file is on the desktop and therefore meant to be front-and-centre in the user's view; and, second, the Gnoppix ReadMe file is what convinced me not to install the distribution.
The ReadMe text file is truly a strange read and nothing at all like what I've encountered in any other project. It starts with a short rant against Kubuntu. Then it claims Gnoppix integrates AI into core applications, including e-mail and graphics editing. (As I will discuss later, this is misleading.) Then the ReadMe file states no one is forced to use this AI, running it is entirely optional (which seems to contradict the claim of its integration). Those are just the opening paragraphs.
Gnoppix AI Linux 25_10 -- The ReadMe file
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The ReadMe file then goes on to rant about tech journalism, and then falsely claims Ubuntu was developed from Gnoppix. (Ubuntu is based on Debian).
The ReadMe file wraps up with a sales pitch for users to buy memberships which will grant access to more AI tools, followed by a claim that all of the distribution's LLM tools run locally, but also that they use a private API to protect privacy when queries are made on-line.
The whole document is one of the more unhinged introductions to a distribution and its features I've read, contradicting itself and presenting ideas which are disconnected with accepted reality.
Default applications
Earlier I mentioned having trouble accessing a web page from within Gnoppix and then having problems with Discover. The cause of this appears to be Gnoppix's connection to the Internet, which is routed through the Tor network. When the Tor connection is slow (and it often is) then web pages timeout and Discover gets stuck endlessly downloading package information. Tor is always running and appears to be stuck on slow nodes by default so even small packages and package data are not downloading, even after several minutes. I discovered that disabling Tor (using the "Gnoppix Tor Control" application) causes Discover to suddenly start working normally and Firefox can then load pages from the Gnoppix website.
I think Tor being enabled by default is part of Gnoppix's claim to privacy, but it means the Internet connection is sometimes effectively disabled until we turn off the Tor connection.
Gnoppix features a lot of software. Just about every application I could think of from the KDE family is included, except Calligra and Falkon. For some reason KDE-focused projects (such as Kubuntu, KDE Linux, and now Gnoppix) rarely include the KDE web browser or office suite. Instead the LibreOffice suite is included alongside Firefox. GParted is also used instead of the KDE Disk Partitioning tool. Otherwise it's pretty much a KDE-focused buffet with monitoring tools, games, image editors, media players, system hardware information, and the System Settings panel for customizing the desktop.
There is a lot of duplication in the applications included with Gnoppix. There are multiple process monitors, package managers (Synaptic is included alongside Discover), multiple colour pickers, and multiple image viewers. There are at least three music players and three video players, multiple RSS feed readers, and two web browsers. In short, the menu is packed and features a lot of overlap in functionality.
Under the surface we find the GNU command line tools, manual pages for commands, and the GNU Compiler Collection. Java is installed on the distribution and systemd manages services. In the background I found version 6.12 of the Linux kernel.
AI tools
Since the focus on Gnoppix is on AI tools, I turned my attention to the launcher on the Plasma panel called "Gnoppix AI Playground". Clicking this icon displayed a message letting me know that an Internet connection would be a required and that no installation of local packages would be necessary. A window then opens and asks us to sign into our Gnoppix AI account.
Gnoppix AI Linux 25_10 -- Launching the AI Playground
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While the Gnoppix website mostly talks about running open source AI tools locally so that our information does not leak into the world of LLMs, its main AI tool connects to their own, on-line service. Their service appears to primarily act as a front-end to a range of popular AI chat bots. The selling point is that, with Gnoppix AI, we pay on a "per usage" basis rather than a set monthly rate, geared toward people who have modest AI requirements. However, there are a number of services and applications which do this already, often free of charge, so it's unclear what the benefit of using Gnoppix's on-line service might be.
Earlier I mentioned the ReadMe file claims "Gnoppix AI Linux is a distribution that integrates AI into core applications, like e-mail, graphics editing, and document management." I was curious to find out what locally run tools were available and integrated into the core applications.
A search of the application menu for mentions of the terms "ai" and "llm" returned no matches. This is weird since a category-by-category browsing of the menu turned up one application called "Krita AI", so apparently the menu's search feature is not working.
Gnoppix AI Linux 25_10 -- Searching for AI tools in the application menu
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Krita is a drawing program and, despite the "Krita AI" label in the menu, it appears to not include any AI tools. In fact, checking the Krita website revealed the Krita application does not include any AI functionality by default, so I was curious why this application was tagged as being an AI tool. A search of the program's plugins in the settings panel revealed one tool called AI Diffusion which claims to make AI-generated art and modifications to images. I enabled this plugin and restarted the Krita application, only to be met with an error message telling me the plugin was missing a dependency. We need to manually install an AI engine before the plugin will work.
Gnoppix AI Linux 25_10 -- Searching for AI plugins in Krita
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The ReadMe file also mentioned integrating AI with e-mail, so I opened the sole e-mail client, the KMail application. This tool contains no AI functionality and, as far as I could tell by looking at the available plugins, no AI add-on either.
So far all I had found in my hunt for AI features were an on-line chat client that required a membership to provide functionality we can get elsewhere for free (and without signing up for an account) and an AI drawing plugin with a broken dependency. I turned my attention to the Gnoppix documentation for its AI components.
The documentation tells us that there are no local AI tools installed on the distribution by default, we need to install any LLM engines and tools as separate packages, just as we would on any other Linux distribution. This directly contradicts the project's statement that, "As one of the world's first Linux distributions to do so, we proudly integrated ChatGPT into Gnoppix Linux at launch on November 30th, 2022." There are, as far as I can tell, and as the documentation states, no AI tools (ChatGPT or otherwise) integrated into Gnoppix. These tools can be installed manually or accessed on-line, as with every other Linux distro, but Gnoppix does not do anything to integrate them or provide any AI functionality by default.
Resource usage
Gnoppix proved to be heavy on memory, taking up 1.8GB of RAM when signed into the Plasma desktop. This is quite a bit higher than usual, about double the average. What caught my attention though was that if I signed into Plasma and then walked away from the system for a bit, leaving the desktop idle, memory usage would quickly grow, at a rate of about 100MB per minute for the first ten minutes. If the desktop started at 1.7GB of memory usage, two minutes later it would rise to 1.9GB, then a few minutes later 2.2GB. After ten minutes it would settle at about 2.6GB, which seemed to be where it would remain.
The memory growth appears to be from the plasmashell process, which got larger over time. I have not encountered this behaviour on other distributions recently.
The project's documentation says "Gnoppix is typically able to run on very low-resource systems with only 600-800MB of RAM." This is entirely divorced from the project's actual memory requirements.
Conclusions
Diving into the Gnoppix experience was, in a word, bizarre. Over the years I have reviewed several distributions which have had technical problems, a handful that have had design issues, and a few which will clearly minimum effort financial schemes to trick people into buying (or donating to) a copy of another distribution with some of the trademarks replaced. Gnoppix is nearly unique in being a project which is set up in such a weird way that I questioned what the developers think they were trying to accomplish.
That might seem like a harsh statement, but I struggle to find any other explanation for the Wonderland-style experience Gnoppix offers. The project's website is full of contradictions and misinformation, claiming Gnoppix is lightweight (it's the second- or third-largest distribution by RAM usage I've encountered), it claims to respect privacy by using locally integrated LLMs, but its one AI tool is on-line only and there are no local AI packages, let alone any effort to integrate them in the system.
The project strives to offer a product, a unified AI chat system, but free alternatives are available on-line and downloadable for any Linux distribution without requiring a membership. This calls into the question of the purpose of the Gnoppix AI membership account, which appears to exist solely to make the developers money rather than to offer any benefit to the user.
As I mentioned earlier, the ReadMe file on the desktop is surreal, with rants and claims about Ubuntu being based on Gnoppix, and highlights features which the distribution does not have.
Another thing I found weird is the project's website doesn't appear to mention that Tor is used to redirect the user's network traffic by default. Having Tor enabled as a feature could be good or bad (depending on your needs), but it seems odd to not make it clear that Tor is running automatically. To the project's credit it does mention Tor on the Services page ("The new Gnoppix Tor Bridges feature is designed to combat state-level Internet censorship by providing secret, unlisted entry points into the Tor network.), though it doesn't mention Tor is turned on by default. These "secret entry points" might explain why the Internet connection doesn't work by default. This again feels like an odd thing to do, especially since it has such a negative impact on the distribution's performance.
To top it off, we're greeted by a welcome window that has buttons to launch tools that do not match their labels. It is beyond me why a developer would do this, unless it were for some complex joke.
The whole experience with Gnoppix AI Linux felt surreal, in large part because it doesn't actually include any AI tools - making the claim "Gnoppix Linux is world [sic] first Open Source AI Linux" incorrect. The whole system feels like separate individuals with different ideas about how to build an operating system and make money agreed to build a distribution together and then didn't compare notes again until after the ISO was published.
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Visitor supplied rating
Gnoppix AI Linux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 5.7/10 from 10 review(s).
Have you used Gnoppix AI Linux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
openSUSE updates Tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans improved handling of broken packages, KDE Plasma 6.8 to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report
People running the Tumbleweed branch of openSUSE will soon have the chance to try out the distribution's new boot loader package. An openSUSE blog post explains the change: "openSUSE Tumbleweed recently changed the default boot loader from GRUB2 to GRUB2-BLS when installed via YaST.
This follows the trend started by MicroOS of adopting boot loaders that are compatible with the boot loader specification. MicroOS is using systemd-boot, which is a very small and fast boot loader from the systemd project.
One of the reasons for this change is to simplify the integration of new features. Among them is full disk encryption based on systemd tools, which will make use of TPM2 or FIDO2 tokens if they are available.
What is GRUB2-BLS? GRUB2-BLS is just GRUB2 but with some patches on top ported from the Fedora project, which includes some compatibility for the boot loader specification for Type #1 boot entries. Those are small text files stored in /boot/efi/loader/entries that the boot loader reads to present the initial menu." The change will allow full disk encryption and do away with some of the GRUB maintenance steps. Details are discussed in the project's blog post.
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The Fedora project creates a cutting-edge distribution which, as a result of its rapid adoption of new technologies, sometimes leaves users with broken software. Liam Dawe was one of several recent victims of a broken Mesa package update and the fallout resulted in some heated discussions: "The chatter on the Fedora Discourse forum around the Mesa update got a little spicy, with the maintainer who actually pushed out this particular Mesa update noting they 'don't consider closed source Steam a reliable indicator of issues, it has no debug symbols' which was pretty unhelpful. And later saying 'Not my problem anymore, I have quit as RPMFusion admin'."
Part of the concern over this Mesa update breaking functionality was that multiple people reported issues before it was pushed to Fedora's stable repositories. The reports were ignored and the update was installed on users' systems. A new proposal has been put forward to improve the distribution's stability and the communication the Fedora project has with its users when issues do arise.
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The KDE project has decided to drop support for X11 sessions for the Plasma desktop. The Plasma team has announced KDE Plasma 6.8 will be Wayland-only, removing the option to sign into an X11 session. "Well folks, it's the beginning of a new era: after nearly three decades of KDE desktop environments running on X11, the future KDE Plasma 6.8 release will be Wayland-exclusive! Support for X11 applications will be fully entrusted to Xwayland, and the Plasma X11 session will no longer be included." Detail concerning the support timeline and known issues with the Wayland session can be found in the project's announcement.
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The FreeBSD project has published its Quarterly Status Report for July through October of 2025. The project is making progress in its unified system management tool (called Sylve), sleep/suspend support, and laptop hardware support. "Framework Computer Inc. is very supportive of the FreeBSD project in many ways, including providing engineering samples to the Foundation for testing and working on compatibility. The Foundation continues to work on improving overall laptop support, and Framework laptops are one of the target platforms for the Laptop Support and Usability Project." Addition information on work-in-progress can be found in the report.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Does the distribution really matter?
They-look-the-same asks: I was wondering, since pretty much all distros run the same desktops and the same apps and most stuff runs as Flatpaks, does the distro really matter anymore? Isn't using any of the main ones going to give the same experience?
DistroWatch answers: It is true that almost all the Linux distributions, or at least all the mainstream ones, can run most of the same desktop environments and applications. There is some niche software which hasn't been packaged for every distribution, but almost all the popular applications and desktop environments do run across all the major distributions. With this in mind, if your only criteria for selecting a distribution is the list of applications you will eventually be able to run on it, then I suppose which of the mainstream distributions you select would not matter much.
However, the question of which packages can be installed on a Linux distribution is just one consideration of many. People often factor in how much effort it will take to install the operating system, which desktops and applications are installed by default, the CPU architectures which are supported, the length of security support available, resource usage, community size, static vs rolling updates, and support options.
Let's look at some practical concerns. Can you install the new system in under ten minutes and get back to work or do you need to spend a few hours installing and adjusting settings? Does the distribution run on your laptop only or can you also install it on a Raspberry Pi? Will your desktop software go through major changes every few months or will your system remain the same for years at a time? Can you keep running the distribution for years without an upgrade or will you need to re-install/upgrade every year? If something goes wrong, are you running an obscure C library and rarely used package manager or does your distribution use something most Linux users will be able to help you troubleshoot?
Something I've learned from working on DistroWatch over the years is that some people are very interested in the fine details of their operating system. I regularly hear from people who are hoping to try or avoid a specific init software, a compiler, a niche desktop environment, or some web browser I've never encountered. Some people want every feature they can think of pre-installed while other people want their systems to be as minimal as possible. Some people want to tweak everything while others want fixed defaults. Some people want to run their operating system on a 32-bit computer they found in a friend's basement while others want a fully optimized operating system for the latest CPU available.
In short, people have a wide variety of tastes and styles. This is what makes individual distributions so important in the Linux landscape. Linux users do not need to settle for "one size fits all" or a fixed menu. We have access to a wide range of options where virtually every preference is catered to by someone, somewhere.
Over the years I've encountered a number of articles which have suggested that this technology (whatever it was) could make the concept of Linux distributions obsolete. Virtual machines, containers, portable package formats, and web apps have all been heralded as distribution replacements. Today, the world has about three hundred more actively developed Linux distributions than when I first read one of those articles. I think what each of those enthusiastic technology promoters missed in their rush to declare the concept of Linux distributions dead is this: for each new technology that is created to unify the Linux experience there are always at least two new distributions created specifically to avoid using that technology. People like freedom, people like choice, and that is what having a variety of Linux distributions provides.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Ultramarine Linux 43
Jaiden Riordan has announced the release of Ultramarine Linux 43, a new version of the project's Fedora-based desktop distribution with a choice of KDE Plasma, Budgie, GNOME and Xfce desktops: "Ultramarine 43 brings some gas-fired polish and a few surprise features. Budgie has been our (rather acclaimed) Flagship for a couple years, but over the last year we've noticed ourselves recommending other editions, this is (obviously) not a great endorsement for Budgie. Budgie was chosen as Ultramarine's Flagship for a pretty silly reason, simply because Fedora didn't have it yet. This has changed, and better options have emerged. KDE Plasma's 6.0 release made Plasma into a highly polished, modern experience, and it's only gotten better since. KDE and the Fedora KDE SIG put an insane amount of effort into Plasma, from its 5-Minute-Bugs initiative to dropping X11 support before GNOME. In Ultramarine 43 we are retiring the Flagship brand and recommending the Plasma edition." Continue to the release announcement for further information.
AlmaLinux OS 10.1
AlmaLinux OS, which is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, has a new version, AlmaLinux OS 10.1. The new release introduces the ability to install the distribution on a Btrfs storage volume. "AlmaLinux 10.1 also includes support for the Btrfs filesystem, which has already been available in AlmaLinux OS Kitten since early September. Btrfs support encompasses both kernel and userspace enablement, and it is now possible to install AlmaLinux OS on a Btrfs filesystem from the very beginning. Initial enablement was scoped to the installer and storage management stack, and broader support within the AlmaLinux software collection for Btrfs features is forthcoming. In addition to Btrfs support, AlmaLinux OS 10.1 includes numerous other improvements to serve our community. We have continued to extend hardware support both by adding drivers and by adding a secondary version of AlmaLinux OS and EPEL to extend support of x86_64_v2 processors." Additional information can be found in the release announcement.
Tsurugi Linux 25.11
The Tsurugi project has released Tsurugi Linux 25.11, a major update of the Ubuntu-based specialist distribution designed for digital forensics and incident response investigations (DFIR), malware analysis and open-source intelligence (OSINT) activities. The new version is based on Ubuntu's latest long-term support release. From the changelog: "Totally rebuilt from scratch; based on Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS; new custom Linux kernel, version 6.17.8; we did a lot of optimizations reducing the ISO image size (by about 5GB), mainly keeping the same tools; the virtual machine size has been optimized as well from 33GB to 15.7GB; removed snap; new system installer (Calamares); new forensic file manager (PCManFM has been replaced by a customised version of Thunar); the 'RAM saturation workaround' feature has been integrated in the system adapting logrotate in live and installed mode; full system update; firmware updates; fix winSuperMem and AutoTimeliner tools; fixed VM image that didn't work on some VMware versions; fix bootloader problem on MBR systems (it was due to a bug in the old Ubiquity installer); removed unmaintained tools; added many new tools; improved some computer vision tools; updated menus; the naming convention for the release has been changed, specifying year and month (25.11)."
ROSA 13.1
NTC IT ROSA has announced the release of ROSA 13.1, an updated version of the Russian company's general-purpose Linux distribution for desktops (with GNOME or KDE Plasma) and servers, originally forked from Mandriva Linux. This release comes with a large number of bug fixes reported in ROSA 13.0 and an updated visual design: "Russian developer NTC IT ROSA announces the release of the ROSA Fresh 13.1 operating system. While the previous release was aimed at enthusiasts and testing cutting-edge technologies, the new version 13.1 is designed for a wide range of users. Priorities during development included stability, expanded hardware compatibility, and ease of use in everyday tasks. This version will serve as the technological foundation for the upcoming corporate release of ROSA Chrome 13. The developers' key focus was ensuring trouble-free operation of the hardware immediately after installation. Thanks to the implementation of an automatic ACPI table correction mechanism and updated open-source drivers, the system now correctly supports sound, touchpads, Wi-Fi and displays, even on specific devices." See the full release announcement for more information and screenshots.
Rocky Linux 10.1
The Rocky Linux project has published an update to its 10.x series. The new version, Rocky Linux 10.1, introduces soft reboots, shrinking XFS storage volumes, and advancements in post-quantum cryptography. "We are pleased to announce the general availability of Rocky Linux 10.1. Notable new features and changes: systemd soft-reboot enables userspace-only reboots, permitting rapid patching in many scenarios; furthering the post-quantum cryptography progress made in Enterprise Linux 10.0, Rocky Linux 10.1 now prioritizes post-quantum over classical algorithms in OpenSSL and enables post-quantum algorithms in more libraries and policies including GnuTLS; you can now scrub mounted XFS filesystems with xfs_scrub and shrink XFS filesystems with xfs_growfs in some scenarios; upgraded software - .NET 10, Node.js 24, OpenJDK 25, Valkey 8, Go Toolset 1.24, LLVM Toolset 20, Rust Toolset 1.88; Rocky Linux 10.1 VisionFive2 images will not be published until issues in the riscv64 6.12.0-124.8.1 kernel build have been fixed." Additional details can be found in the release announcement and in the release notes.
Pardus 25.0
Pardus 25.0 has been released. This is a major new update from the project that prioritises the adoption of open-source and free software within the public sector in Türkiye. Pardus 25.0 continues to offer a choice of Xfce and GNOME desktops on its desktop flavours, while also providing a specialist edition for servers, all based on Debian's latest "stable" release, version 13. "Our free and locally developed operating system Pardus released its new major version, Pardus 25 'Bilge' on November 24, the Teachers' day. The 'Bilge' code name (meaning 'wise') was chosen as an inspiration from our wise teachers who impart knowledge and guide new generations. Updated system tools and new applications: About Pardus provides quick access to system and hardware information with easy sharing options; Pardus iOS Device Connector enables seamless access to iPhone and iPad devices; Pardus Domain Joiner allows integration with Windows Active Directory domains. Pardus 25 uses Xfce 4.20.2 and GNOME 48.4 as its desktop environments." The release announcement (in Turkish) and the brief release notes (in English) provide further information.
Pardus 25.0 -- Running the Xfce desktop
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AV Linux MXE-25
Glen MacArthur has announced the release of AV Linux MXE-25, a major update of the project's MX Linux-based distribution designed primarily for content creators, with Enlightenment as the default desktop user interface. The new version is based on the recently-released MX Linux 25. Additionally, a brand-new flavour, called "MX Moksha", is also available: "AV Linux (AVL) and MX Moksha (MXM) 25 have been released after a long and laborious development period. There are now two flavors of Enlightenment for the E-curious; AV Linux remains with Enlightenment 0.27.1 and the new addition 'MX Moksha' comes with Moksha 0.4.1 from the popular Bodhi Linux project. Features at a glance: made with love on a base of MX Linux 25 and Debian 'Trixie'; new first-run setup wizard; low-latency preempt Liquorix kernel with threaded IRQs; enhanced hardware support provided by MX Linux 'ahs' repository; powerful MX Linux Tools, including MX-Snapshot; efficiently low RAM consumption with attractive compositing and unrivaled display scaling; Enlightenment desktop environment 0.27.1 with newly added optional Enlightenment apps and modules; right-click desktop menu...." See the release announcement and the release notes for more information and screenshots.
EndeavourOS 2025.11.24
Bryan Poerwo has announced the release of a brand-new version of EndeavourOS, an Arch Linux-based distribution with a customised KDE Plasma as the default desktop and the Calamares system installer. This new release carries the code name "Ganymede": "The long wait is over, Ganymede has arrived. The live environment and the offline installer ship with Calamares 25.11.1.9, Firefox 145.0.1. Linux 6.17.8, Mesa 25.2.7, X.Org Server 21.1.20, nvidia-utils 580.105.08. NVIDIA support has been significantly improved. Previously, the ISO image always included the standard NVIDIA package by default. Now, the system automatically detects the GPU during ISO boot and installs the correct driver, either 'nvidia' or 'nvidia-open'. Support for 'nvidia-open' has been added both to the ISO image environment and to the installer. The detection process ensures that the appropriate modules are loaded in the live session and correctly installed onto the target system. In short, NVIDIA driver handling is fully automatic, supports both GPU families, and uses the correct modules for your GPU at every stage when booting ISO using the NVIDIA boot option. The 'broadcom-wl' wireless driver is no longer enabled by default on the ISO image because it can cause other network devices to malfunction and may lead to system issues." Continue to the release announcement for more information and screenshots.
EndeavourOS 2025.11.24 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 3.8MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
4MLinux 50.0
The 4MLinux project has announced a new release of the minimal distribution. 4MLinux 50.0 includes package updates, new games, and new file managers. "As always, the new major release has some new features. Support for webcam devices has been greatly improved (via Zbar and V4L2 Viewer). Old (yet still quite useful) EmelFM2 file manager as well as uHexen2 (port of Raven Software's Hexen II source) have been added. GPAC (multimedia framework) is now available as a downloadable extension. You can find BlockOut II (3D tetris game) and PySol (a huge collection of solitaire card games) as parts of the 4MLinux Game Pack. And finally, hundreds of lines of code have been changed to ensure that all the 4MLinux build scripts do their job. And yes, 4MLinux is now fully able to reproduce itself from sources." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Solus 4.8
The Solus project has published a snapshot of its rolling release distribution. The new version, labelled 4.8, replaces the old software centre, does away with Python 2, and completes the usr-merge process. "In October, we made the jump to a new epoch, the final chapter of our Usr-Merge saga. With the new epoch, we started using a new package repository, named Polaris, after the North Star. This unlocked our ability to remove Usr-Merge compatibility symbolic links from packages, update our systemd package, and more. You'll notice that the Solus Software Center is a thing of the past. While it was a popular program among users, it had problems, the first of which being it was written in Python 2. While it could have been ported to Python 3, this would have taken considerable effort, not just in porting, but also in testing. Even with that, it sometimes had reliability issues, and it had no support for Flatpaks. By switching to GNOME Software and KDE Discover, we are using ready-made and supported solutions to graphical package management." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
CachyOS 251129
The CachyOS project, which develops a highly-optimised, Arch Linux-based distribution with the latest KDE Plasma as the default live desktop, has updated its ISO image to version 251129: "This is our seventh release this year, bringing better accessibility, changes to mkinitcpio, and more. First, we are pleased to bring Orca and espeak-ng to the ISO image and installer. This adds crucial support for users with visual impairments, helping them navigate the CachyOS installation process. Next, we have enabled the mkinitcpio 'systemd' hook for supported configurations. Since ZFS and Bcachefs do not currently support this hook, it is automatically disabled if either is selected as the root filesystem. Additionally, we are now installing bcachefs-dkms, which replaces the default kernel module to provide better integration for Bcachefs users. We have prepared the installer to support Plasma Login Manager and Cosmic Greeter. While we plan to use Plasma Login Manager as a replacement for SDDM in the future, we are holding it back for now as it currently lacks integration with KDE Settings. However, Cosmic Greeter is now used for COSMIC installations, providing a smoother experience with the COSMIC desktop." See the release announcement for more details.
CachyOS 251129 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 1.7MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
NixOS 25.11
The NixOS project has published a new release, NixOS 25.11, which carries the codename Xantusia. The new release offers seven months of support and many updates: "Hey everyone, we are jopejoe1 and Leona Maroni, the release managers of the newest release of NixOS. We are very proud to announce the public availability of NixOS 25.11 Xantusia. NixOS is a Linux distribution. Its underlying package repository Nixpkgs can also be used on other Linux systems and macOS with the Nix package manager. This release will receive bugfixes and security updates for seven months (up until 2026-06-30). The old release 25.05 Warbler is now officially deprecated and will reach its end-of-life and stop receiving security updates after 2025-12-31." The new release also introduces version 49 of the GNOME desktop and updates the LLVM compiler to version 21. "GNOME has been updated to version 49 Brescia, which removes X11 session support, introduces a new video player, a new document viewer, a redesigned calender and more changes. Refer to the release notes for more details. LLVM has been updated to version 21. GCC remains at version 14. CMake was updated to version 4." The release announcement offers additional details.
Armbian 25.11.1
Armbian is a Linux distribution designed for ARM (and other) development boards. It is usually based on one of the stable or development versions of Debian or Ubuntu. The proejct's latest snapshot is version 25.11.1 and it features a wider range of hardware support and Btrfs boot support. "This release advances Armbian on three fronts: more boards now run on mainline-based firmware with BTRFS boot support; hardware coverage has grown significantly across multiple vendors; and the build framework has been upgraded with mmdebstrap, the lowmem extension, first-boot configuration injection, improved release logging, and more robust keyring and mirror handling. In our continued push toward mainline kernel support across our board portfolio, this release marks a significant milestone: the progressive retirement of vendor-specific boot loaders on several boards. This strategic shift moves away from proprietary, heavily patched boot loaders toward cleaner and modern solutions." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement. A list of supported boards and download options can be found on the project's download page.
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Do you want to run a distribution which includes local LLM tools?
There are a several ways to make use of large language models (LLMs) which are commonly referred to as AI tools. One is to have these LLMs installed locally, running on your own system. Another approach is to have a local tool, such as a chat client or web browser, which connects to a remote LLM. We would like to hear which of these options is the most appealing to you.
You can see the results of our previous poll on managing video drivers in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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How would you like to run your LLM tools?
| Locally and pre-installed: | 61 (4%) |
| Locally but installed manually: | 327 (20%) |
| Remotely through a dedicated application: | 32 (2%) |
| Remotely through a web browser: | 170 (10%) |
| Not at all / Do not use LLMs: | 1080 (65%) |
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| Website News |
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 8 December 2025. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Gnoppix (by InvisibleInk on 2025-12-01 01:40:33 GMT from United States)
It seems that Gnoppix has lost its marbles and has gone completely off the rails into certifiable madness...
2 • Gnoppix (by Arturo on 2025-12-01 01:52:08 GMT from Australia)
Sounds like AI may have written the README and contributed to other elements of the OS...
3 • Gnoppix Review (by Slappy McGee on 2025-12-01 01:59:18 GMT from United States)
I felt sad reading through that review. Such a thing hitting Linux users is not needed, to say the least. Hopefully new-to-Linux users will ignore that distro and NOT EVEN CLICK ON IT IN THE PAGE HIT RANKING LIST, let alone go to the Gnoppix website. We as Linux user should not promote such a thing.
I appreciate the heads up by this site and the reviewer, but that sort of attention here might (inadvertently) lend support to it. Hope not.
I agree with @1 and find @2 interesting.
4 • Point of Distros (by BigMike on 2025-12-01 02:19:08 GMT from United States)
I find no use in the vast majority of the "based on" distros. I.e. based on Ubuntu, based on Debian, based on Arch, based on FreeBSD. Why not just use Debian or Arch or FreeBSD? Each of those can do just about anything the derivatives can do.
I also like global projects. An often overlooked reason to choose the big ones like Debian, Arch, or FreeBSD over the derivatives is trust. Unless I know the developer of a one-man show distribution personally, I would be less inclined to trust that distro's package repository over the repositories of the big ones.
Lots of distros exist because they actually do innovative things not done by the big ones. Like NixOS or Whonix, or Qubes. Others have specialties for special interests. We could live without the hundreds of others that barely add anything to their parent distros.
5 • So many distros, so little time... (by Friar Tux on 2025-12-01 02:47:24 GMT from Canada)
@4 (Big Mike) For me, the reason I use a derivative of a derivative is because I found the Granddaddy didn't work. In my case Debian. It was a pain to install, couldn't/wouldn't connect to wifi, plus other issues - every time I tried it. I tried all the other Granddaddies too, and they were even worse than Debian. Next I tried Daddy - Ubuntu - same issues. So then, I tried the Grandson - Linux Mint/Cinnamon. BINGO! And not just bingo once, but every single time I reinstalled it, it worked perfectly each time. No after-install messing about. First time every time. So, yeah, I prefer derivatives to the originals.
6 • AI Sloppix (Gnoppix) & Solus 4.8 Release (by Jupiter on 2025-12-01 02:48:27 GMT from United States)
Think I and a vast majority of linux users do NOT want this AI Nonsense, and for those who do actually like to use AI whilst on linux, generally speaking they are just using it in their browser rather than on their distro. It doesn't really make since to have it integrated with the actual Desktop if your actually trying to give your users a good experience and not using it to sell their information or are trying to make your investors happy by making any product and throwing a big ol' "AI" sticker on it. (Microsoft)
I agree with @2, as Sloppix is quite literally AI Slop from the looks of things. Not really any good reasons for it to exist, and personally, I don't even think it should be here, as it just isn't really a proper distro in my eyes. Thats just my opinion of course, but still.
-----------------------
Glad to see Solus once again getting back on its feet, since 4.7 has been around for quite a while now. Should be interesting though since I'm pretty sure they actually have Discover as the new software store on the Budgie Spin, but regardless no more Python 2!
7 • Alternative distros (by Noddy from Aus. on 2025-12-01 03:14:10 GMT from Australia)
Recently I had to indulge in a new box. Just ordered a new cheap one online, never really specd it up for linux.
Anyway turned up with Windows 11, which lasted about 3 days then in with Debian.
Had a few small issues, the nvidia card would not work correctly and, when the nvidia drivers were loaded, I could no longer read qsync for the qnap nas backup.
After some searches online, I went back home to Linux Mint Mate. Everything worked.
Sometimes it takes a bit of searching to find what makes everything tick.
Have found a couple of alternatives, being Manjaro and MX linux XFCE.
8 • Re: So many distros, so little time (by BigMike on 2025-12-01 04:41:31 GMT from United States)
@4, FriarTux. I deduce that you haven't tried installing Debian in several years. It used to be that you had to supply Wifi drivers separately, download them with an ethernet cable, or use the unofficial non-free Debian image. For several years now, that is no longer necessary. Debian ships with non-free Wifi drivers by default.
Using the daddies/granddadies sometimes involves some gotchas where you have to learn something new, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It's educational, since one learns more about how Linux works. Getting over these bumps is easy with the major distros, since so many thousands of people are using them and any issue you run into will have been solved by someone else on the internet.
9 • @4 Variety of distros (by Keith S on 2025-12-01 05:11:35 GMT from United States)
Sounds like someone has been watching too many Titus Tech videos. I still don't have a reasonable answer from anyone for why they object to volunteers building distros and offering them for free. (Gnoppix possibly excluded though lol.) After 20 years of using free software, I really appreciate the effort teams and even "one-man" distros like AV Linux go to so that others can benefit from their efforts.
I don't use Debian because the result of the vast collective effort means it takes too much time to get it to look and act like I want it to. (Plus occasional uninteresting political drama unrelated to computing is sometimes a factor. But NixOS seems worse right now.) I don't use Arch because it's not really a distribution but rather a meta-distribution that I can use as a base to build what I want -- but others have already done the work for me, such as Endeavour and Cachy, and better than I could do it. I don't use FreeBSD because if I'm going to go to the effort to get a BSD to work as a daily driver, I'm going to do that with OpenBSD since it has much cleaner code and a simpler structure.
On the positive side, many "based on" distros work out of the box and have things that the majors don't without a lot of additional effort on my part. (Left out Fedora, OpenSuse, Void, and probably another couple of independent distros btw.) For example, MX Linux and antiX have tools that none of the others have readily available. Bodhi and antiX are fully functional and very much lighter than most, and Bodhi is very beautiful to look at and easy to use. Puppy is amazing and weird in a fun way and light too. There are lots of great distros.
But I guess some people would prefer a world where only three or four OSes existed, just like having now only three cell phone carriers and only three or four major grocery chains and far fewer small independent restaurants since the coof decimated small businesses. So I personally celebrate the smaller "based on" distros. I mean, the license for the code practically begs people to copy it and repurpose and remold it.
10 • Gnoppix sounds like a hoax (by does it really matter? on 2025-12-01 07:20:50 GMT from Italy)
All that said, how may everyone consider that a real Linux distro?
11 • Gnoppix Forum (by Rally on 2025-12-01 08:31:59 GMT from Thailand)
Even their forum is "full AI". If you click on the forum on their homepage, you are directed to a forumpage where at least of the last comments are in your mother language - regardless what language it is. You can try with a VPN, change your real IP address to a country of your choice and I am pretty sure you will see at least one comment on the top of the page in the language of the country your VPN uses.
12 • Gnoppix "AI Linux" (by Józef on 2025-12-01 10:48:42 GMT from Poland)
When I read the first few lines of the review, I thought it was probably just some random Debian/Ubuntu based distro with Alpaca preinstalled as a Flatpak.
(Alpaca being an open source frontend to all sorts of AI chat systems, including locally run ones if you instal the Ollama plugin - com.jeffser.Alpaca.Plugins.Ollama)
But it ended up being far worse than that, with its strange AI app requiring online sign in, the seeming lack of any kind of FOSS AI tooling, locally run LLMs, etc.
And then there's that weird readme file with its rants about random things, so yeah... it seems like TempleOS might have found its competitor.
13 • AI (by Josh Smith on 2025-12-01 11:00:39 GMT from Australia)
I think an OS forcing AI on users is not a good idea, but I could see there being value in installers having the option to install a local AI assistant should users want one. Some people do use them, although I'd imagine most would use a remote AI instead of a local one. They'd be especially useful for Linux distros with a steep learning curve like NixOS.
14 • More Gnoppix weirdness (by Józef on 2025-12-01 11:03:24 GMT from Poland)
When I just tried to visit the Gnoppix website from Poland, I got a message telling me that they are refusing access to EU IP addresses since they "lack the resources and legal infrastructure to comply with the complex mandates of several impending EU legislative acts".
They then provide this list:
-Product Liability Directive (PLD) / Software Liability (2026): We face unacceptable risk due to legal uncertainties regarding the "commercial activity" exemption for FOSS projects.
-Digital Services Act (DSA): The extensive moderation and compliance requirements exceed our volunteer capacity and resources.
-Proposed CSAM Detection Regulation (e.g., 'Chat Control'): Potential mandates for backdoors fundamentally conflict with our commitment to user security and End-to-End Encryption (E2EE).
-AI Act: Compliance conflicts with our commitment to free expression and our project's mission.
Since they're supposedly a Singapore based distro according to Distrowatch, the EU couldn't enforce its laws in a foreign country's jurisdiction anyway.
Even if it pulls an Ofcom and pretends it has achieved world domination by threatening foreign businesses or individuals, it is doomed to failure, as we have seen time and again when people/companies simply refuse to comply.
So, such measures are unnecessary, and needlessly burden the users.
15 • Debian Ubuntu and Mint (by Tim on 2025-12-01 11:09:18 GMT from United States)
I think at this point Mint counts as more than a derivative of a derivative. They add enough value into the entire ecosystem by making very different packaging decisions than Ubuntu.
From my perspective, being open minded about which branch of the Debian family I'm in has paid off. Bugs in Linux packages are very hardware dependent and kind of random. So at any given time there's Debian stable and sid, at least two Ubuntu LTS and an interim, and one or two Mints with different base packages. All of these forked from Debian sid at different times or have different update policies so they're all a new shot if the current computer isn't working right.
16 • "Derivative" distros might better match your use case (by Daniel on 2025-12-01 11:45:40 GMT from United Kingdom)
@4, @5
Until recently I had a similar experience to Friar Tux's, although with sound playback rather than wi-fi.
Running "vanilla" Debian and very close derivatives (e.g. MX Linux and Devuan) produced glitchy, stuttering sound playback which no amount of tinkering would fix. Ubuntu and Linux Mint (the mainstream Ubuntu-based version) both worked flawlessly on the same hardware but the problem recurred when I used LMDE 6. I have never had a similar problem with Arch on the same hardware, so the issue therefore lay somewhere in vanilla Debian.
I recently tried Debian 13 (in the form of MX Linux 25 and LMDE 7) and the problem has disappeared. I like MX and it now meets my requirements, which was not the case before.
Linux is about choice. I for one am pleased that "derivative" distros are available. If you are philosophically opposed to them, don't use them, but don't damn those who find them the ideal solution for their use cases.
17 • new additions to the database, distribution matters (by tomas on 2025-12-01 11:49:39 GMT from Czechia)
Recently there have been many new additions to the database.
I do not consider myself to be a distrohopper anymore, nevertheless when a new distribution or an update appears on Distrowatch, it may attract my attention, even to try it.
I am grateful to get this information.
I suppose that the new additions pass some tests before they are added to the database,
I would appreciate if the person who does the testing would supply a short visitor rating to see more info about the distribution.
Last week VailuxOS caught my attention, but after a short survey I have found it is not for me to try.
For two reasons - it is only in german and the proclaimed goal is IMHO missed.
Why?
If it should make transition from Windows seamless it should not mimick Windows 11 but Windows 10.
The majority of potential users coming from Windows would be those that do not like Windows 11 or mostly those with hardware not supporting it.
I am not a Linux guru, just an ordinary (hopefully a little bit advanced) user.
I prefer when the installation is easy (graphical or interactive text-based) with most applications out of the box, without much tinkering from the command line (as some visitors here insist).
In the beginning Linux Mint KDE used to be my daily driver, now I had to switch to Mate (both configured to my liking as ex Windows XP user).
If we would reject sons and grandsons of the great we would lose many good distributions, to name just one I put here Devuan, which is just Debian without systemd but much easier to install.
(This is not to start a heated debate on systemd, as an odrinary user I do not see the difference so do not mind if it is used or not as long as the system works.)
18 • Does the distribution really matter? (by Jake on 2025-12-01 12:02:26 GMT from United States)
1. Debian based. I learned on Debian and have no desire to lean another package manager and it's commands.
2. A traditional desktop with no bloat.
3. A user friendly knowledgeable forum.
4. A distro with enough backing in money and developers to not disappear overnight on me. I had that happen twice and didn't like it.
That actually leave me a lot of alternatives. I do agree with the authorf software is seldom the reason I use or reject a distro.
19 • AI (by Nisse on 2025-12-01 12:41:39 GMT from France)
I use AI regulary by opening a tab and loading a page in my browser.
Would like to have an OPTIONAL AI assistant with french speech recognition and being able talk to him and capable of using speech instead of keyboard to control my OS.
20 • distribution matters / inheritance (by tomas on 2025-12-01 12:46:06 GMT from Czechia)
In my distrohopping days I have tested and rejected some distributions that did not even make it for me to go deeper and use them for some time. Maybe a strange reason but the developer gave them the most fancy colors and animations to make them unusable.
Sometimes that is what decides.
I still have an old notebook with 32-bit processor. Searching for a good distro to use it I have found Q4OS with Trinity desktop. The most snappy one of those tested.
Recently Q4OS upgraded to version 6 only for x64_86 processors, because Debian dropped support for x86 processors. The same applies to all Debian based distributions (as e.g. LMDE).
This is called development and goes even further.
OpenSUSE Leap 16 will not run on x64_86_v1 processors, some distributions will not boot on non-UEFI PCs ...
Slowly but inevitably Linux follows in the wake of Microsoft.
21 • Choice (by Alan on 2025-12-01 12:48:32 GMT from United Kingdom)
In the 15 or so years I've been using Linux, the freedom to choose has been one of the most attractive attributes. My main pc runs MX Linux. My second pc runs Besgnulinux, a one man band Debian based distro. I'm typing this on a 7 year old Lenovo Thinkpad laptop with Ubuntu.
Mint, Gentoo, Antix, Mandriva ,the BSDs etc etc, it's been such an interesting journey. I dread to think where I'd be now if the only choice was windows.
22 • AI (by dragonmouth on 2025-12-01 12:53:39 GMT from United States)
As configured and used currently, AI is a data harvesting tool on steroids. Various AI companies and tech pundits promise users that AI will solve all their life's problems. It may, in some distant future. In the meantime, it is hoovering up all the data it can.
23 • @20 - Remaining 32-bit distros (by Uncle Slacky on 2025-12-01 14:02:15 GMT from France)
Apparently antiX will be releasing a 32-bit version based on Trixie, there is also Void which continues to offer a 32-bit version, as does Alpine (though these last two aren't based on Debian). Note that Debian 12 (Bookworm) will still be supported for another 2.5 years in any case: https://endoflife.date/debian
24 • AI - want / need / optional (by MikeG on 2025-12-01 14:30:55 GMT from United States)
Optional: The ability to install AI software - some users want it, some don't. The beauty of Linux is to keep it simple - therefore, offer installers for optional AI.
Want: Linux users want to run local models. Period. If we wanted to use AI that needs to call an API, we would subscribe and use windows.
Need: We need AI tools that utilize NPU's. There are like 3 Linux apps that use the NPU. WE NEED MORE.
25 • Good Stuff this week, starting with Jesse's "Gnoppix AI Linux" disassembly.. (by Az4x4 on 2025-12-01 15:00:28 GMT from United States)
Whoa!! What in the world are Gnoppix's 'designers' thinking? Anyone who 'buys into the sort of disjointed, nonsensical AI hype they've kludged together in their, 'Maybe we can't fool all of the people, but if we can fool enough people to make a buck or two on this AI scam we're running, let's run it up the flagpole and see who salutes..' What #&%@@ kind of "Linux" distro is that?
One of the reasons that Linux exists, in the multi faceted form it does today, is to provide a free open-source OS 'escape route' that Windows refugees, among others, can use to effectively 'turn their backs' on all the 'AI data collection garbage' that MS and Big Tech in general plan to burden those who go on using their 'closed source' OS's with.
Those who fall for the Big Tech hype and decide to 'continue along the Yellow Brick Road' through the forest to Win 11 and beyond - where hopefully one day they'll get to meet 'the Wizard behind the curtain' who's been 'pulling the strings and calling the shots' all along - will one day realize that Linux has provided easy to utilize 'off ramps and warning signs pointing the way to the wide world of open-source Linux desktop freedom all along!
Desktop Linux isn't some poorly designed haphazard Windows AI wannabe like Jesse warned about. Desktop Linux is best represented by its pioneering mainstream distros, and by top tier 'follow in their footsteps' daughter distros that don't seek to 'reinvent the wheel', but polish and refine it in such a way that users new and old take to their desktop OS offerings with praise and genuine gratitude. It's among this 'common sense' freedom loving, open-source, back to basics OS group that I count myself!
26 • KDE X11, AI (by Robert on 2025-12-01 15:34:32 GMT from United States)
Regarding KDE dropping the X11 session, I think it's worth mentioning that this isn't planned until 2027. A lot of the reporting on this reads like this is an imminent change where those few users who still *need* X11 had better start making plans. While here a link to the post with a timeline was given - better than some other outlets I've seen - I think it would have been good to put that date in the post directly.
As for AI LLMs, I want nothing to do with them. This is one genie that should have been left in the bottle, but its too late to put it back now.
27 • Debian has evolved nicely (by Slappy McGee on 2025-12-01 16:31:30 GMT from United States)
@5 and @8 I've been running Debian (following a thankfully uneventful and step-by-step install process that went perfectly well) for several weeks now, and it's a joy in all senses of Linux Distro use.
What a departure from the old days, as noted by Friar Tux and noted by myself a time or three following my own efforts.
Debian now installs and operates just as many of our favorite derivatives do; no need to mess with one of those, as far as I can see. I'm using KDE Plasma and have tweaked this up to my likes, spending about 30 minutes to do so, and now it's one of those distros that (here comes the cliche) JUST WORKS. Repos and all.
28 • Gnoppix unavailable from EU (by Rodolfo on 2025-12-01 16:37:36 GMT from Italy)
To Our Community,
This notice addresses changes to our service access due to new EU regulations. As a non-commercial, volunteer-run Open-Source Software (FOSS) project, we lack the resources and legal infrastructure to comply with the complex mandates of several impending EU legislative acts:
Product Liability Directive (PLD) / Software Liability (2026): We face unacceptable risk due to legal uncertainties regarding the "commercial activity" exemption for FOSS projects.
Digital Services Act (DSA): The extensive moderation and compliance requirements exceed our volunteer capacity and resources.
Proposed CSAM Detection Regulation (e.g., 'Chat Control'): Potential mandates for backdoors fundamentally conflict with our commitment to user security and End-to-End Encryption (E2EE).
AI Act: Compliance conflicts with our commitment to free expression and our project's mission.
Action:
We have relocated our core services outside the EU jurisdiction. To fully safeguard our volunteers and ensure the continuity of our project, we are implementing an IP-level block to restrict all connections originating from EU member states. We sincerely regret the impact on our EU-based community but deem this protective measure essential.
29 • Does the distro really matter anymore? (by John Doe on 2025-12-01 17:14:07 GMT from Poland)
Yes, they do. The main desktop distributions (Ubuntu, Debian, Devuan, OpenSUSE, Fedora, Arch, Gentoo) are better documented and better maintained. I don't use derivative distributions, but they are an inevitable part of open-source world. What I look for in a distribution is a wide range of software and the guarantee that I won't be forced to use rubbish-snaps, rubbish-flatpaks and rubbish-appimages.
30 • Gnoppix's declaration of unavailability from EU member states.. (by Az4x4 on 2025-12-01 17:46:41 GMT from United States)
I've never run Gnoppix, and don't intend to start now. At the same time I won't further 'bad mouth' the efforts that Gnoppix designers are putting into that project, misguided - as Jesse so pointedly points out - as they may be.
However, with Gnoppix deciding to "relocate (its) core services outside the EU's jurisdiction" (which makes sense from the project's disjointed 'AI' point of view), the end result can't help but be cutting Gnoppix even further off from the Core Open-Source Values that main stream Linux distros are built upon.
None of this will trouble the EU in the least, but will further marginalize Gnoppix to the distant 'sidelines' of desktop Linux - neither satisfying the occasional unaware user it snares, nor confidently appealing to the wider world in which we all live - which is the antithesis of the rock solid desktop OSs that main stream Linux OS projects offer their users, no matter where they're located.
31 • @ 14 • More Gnoppix weirdness (by Tutus Groan on 2025-12-01 18:26:38 GMT from New Zealand)
a quick "google" regards the EU vs overseas software vendors and service providers.
EU vs Microsoft: antitrust - latest one Microsoft changed behaviour rather than being fined.
EU vs Google: antitrust 2.93 billion Euro fine
EU vs Apple - DMA breach 500 million Euro fine.
seems that the EU is quite willing and able to prosecute "overseas" companies when it needs to.
32 • Linux, the open source agentic AI OS (by Don Joe on 2025-12-01 19:11:31 GMT from Bulgaria)
People are sick of Microsoft shoving AI crap down everyone's throats so they want to switch to Linux? How can we improve the Linux desktop experience for all these newbies? Let's start shoving AI crap into Linux.
Does the distribution really matter? Yes if Flatpak is too bloated. 1 GB to install a simple calculator. Not everyone has a million TB hard drive.
33 • Debian is not hard to install (by Alex on 2025-12-01 19:12:43 GMT from Poland)
Debian is not hard to install, all you need is where to find the live - install iso of a DE of your liking. https://www.debian.org/CD/live/
34 • Does the distribution really matter? (by Ed on 2025-12-01 20:20:44 GMT from Sweden)
Yes, it really does. I'm not always in agreement with Jesse but this time I second his opinion and perspective wholeheartedly. 👍
35 • Does the distribution really matter? (by AnyHowWho Cares on 2025-12-02 01:06:26 GMT from Australia)
I doubt the distro [hopping] matters much if you opt for Xfce GUI on install and don't really use a computer beyond 'core' activities (browser, email, office suite, pdf, media player, image edit & display and mundane accessories).
MX Linux 25 with Xfce 4.20 is going to "look old" & familiar, so you can discover quickly 'does this thing just work'? Ditto Linux Mint Xfce, Linux Lite (Xfce specific) minimal GUI eye-candy to digest, just does the OS distro work?
While I love playing with a nice GUI, a serious distro developer really needs the installed core apps and functions to be available and just work; and it's the same for a specialist distro like AV Linux. Bigger developer teams are not necessarily better... but perhaps you should be.
36 • Old Hardware (by AdrienM on 2025-12-02 03:35:36 GMT from United States)
@20 - yes, Q4OS is quite snappy on a trio of 1GB PIIIs circa 2000 I tested it on! (with spinning HDs no less) Puppy is also blazing fast, but since I'm donating these machines, that might be a bridge too weird for some.
@23 & @26 - good info from both, thank you!
I always disliked the look and feel of KDE, but was starting to warm up to it. Even if the timeline to drop X11 is 1–2 years away, I likely won't bother switching. I'm not interested in anything 'Wayland only'.
Eventually, some old machines simply won't be safe to use for browsing the 'modern' web, but e-mail should be fine. There's no reason they can't keep working as long as the electronics hold out.
I find 'old' hardware is an excellent use case for alternative distros. One might think that the mainstream base distros would work just fine, but that isn't always the case. Some boxes just don't like them, or the other way around. But distros that still make an effort to support old architectures, I find, tend to work out of the box or nearly so, and they do it quite well. Saving long-paid-for hardware from a landfill for use as more than a door stop isn't a bad thing, and it certainly doesn't hurt modernization efforts or progress on the 'latest thing'.
37 • Gnoppix Weirdness (by AdrienM on 2025-12-02 03:37:25 GMT from United States)
That review is way funnier than I expected - time waster averted! The irony is really something, though I think it is lost on the devs.
38 • EU clampdown @31 et al. (by Keith S on 2025-12-02 07:10:11 GMT from United States)
I wish all distros would respond to the oppressive EU laws sacrificing privacy for "safety" the same way Gnoppix has by locating all servers outside of Europe and blocking all IP addresses from Europe. Say what you will about their other statements, Gnoppix is correct on this score.
Interestingly enough, GrapheneOS has just announced that it is withdrawing from France because of their insistence on backdoors in their OS. I stopped using Telegram after France tricked Pavel Durov into landing there and then held him in custody until he altered Telegram to allow the French government to read all messages.
We know Microsoft and Google and Apple will comply or just pay a billion here and there to continue doing business in Europe, so the impact of a Linux boycott would probably be minimal, but the Linux world has something of a history of symbolic protests. In some ways, Linux has become an extended symbolic boycott of Windows. As Theo DeRaadt once said, "Linux people do what they do because they hate Microsoft. We do what we do because we love Unix."
39 • Calligra Office suite (by keithpeter on 2025-12-02 10:22:32 GMT from United Kingdom)
This week's Jessie Smith review is one for the ages. I enjoyed reading it although it is a rather sad turn for the project. One sentence caught my eye a little;
"For some reason KDE-focused projects (such as Kubuntu, KDE Linux, and now Gnoppix) rarely include the KDE web browser or office suite."
Does anyone out there actually use Calligra Words to do shortish documents? Ones that include a mathematical formula or two and perhaps a simple diagram along with text? Periodically I try the version 3.x Calligra included with Slackware (still on Plasma 5.x) and end up scratching my head and going back to LibreOffice.
40 • I tried Calligra (by Flavianoep on 2025-12-02 11:49:01 GMT from Brazil)
@39
Once I started to write a book on Calligra Words out of love to KDE. Turns out I didn't have love enough.
41 • Calligra Word (by Zork on 2025-12-02 14:36:32 GMT from Poland)
@39
@40
"Does anyone out there actually use Calligra Words to do shortish documents?"
I use Calligra Word for only-text documents. Calligra Word lags far behind LibreOffice: I have difficulty inserting images, and the fonts used in Calligra Word are incorrectly recognised when opening the document in LibreOffice.
42 • Calligra (by keithpeter on 2025-12-02 18:11:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thanks to Flavianoep (40) and Zork (41) for replies. Yes, I'm finding inserting any objects like formulas or pictures confusing. Glad it wasn't just me. I shall cut my losses and carry on installing Libreoffice. Apologies for going a bit off-topic as well.
Some of the Calligra components are quite nice, the one that does diagrams (I'm not on my KDE computer at present) for instance.
43 • Distro Matters (by rhtoras on 2025-12-02 20:35:34 GMT from Greece)
yes the distro matters even if we are on the same side
ok systemD distros are all the same so there it does not matter that much
but when nosystemD it matters
musl vs glibc
runit vs dinit
busybox or not
gnu vs non gnu
and so many choices out of the box
i use mainly void because it offers the options
but i love projects like noir linux or sabotage or even krak3n linux
44 • One system does not satisfy everyone! (by Brian Masinick on 2025-12-02 20:55:13 GMT from United States)
Just in case it has been forgotten, the reason ALL of this alternative (mostly free) software was started in the first place was that the alternative(s) did not meet everyone's needs.
I remember my very first job, and I was thrust into the enterprise world of using IBM mainframe hardware and software. It was a change from what I used as an undergraduate student because we had a UNIVAC mainframe on our campus.
A lot of people had negative impressions of big blue and what they did. What a wonder when an unknown (at that time) company called Microsoft came up with MS/DOS and the notion of a personal computer! Even IBM got on board and in the early eighties it was the big thing! Not quite a decade later, Microsoft added its own word processor, spreadsheet, and more, coming up with the first Microsoft Office. What a revelation! From that time forward, anyone who could afford one picked up their first home computer.
It wasn't long thereafter, though, that such things were considered too expensive. Once the next decade arrived, we know what happened: some people started experimenting with the UNIX Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) to form, one, then two, then three (and later more) different FREE creations of FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD.
About the same time, a European engineer bought a computer, but couldn't afford to pay even more for an operating system (and was NOT interested in Microsoft), so something he called Linux appeared.
Fast forward a few more decades and we have more variations of Linux than we can test, know, or remember. One common factor still exists: at least a few people are constantly looking for something a bit different. Sometimes it's just a different set of wallpaper images and unique appearance; sometimes it's a different window manager, a new desktop environment; whatever it may be, people want choices and alternatives, so there are more choices and alternatives that even enthusiasts have difficulty knowing about all of them.
Is this "bad" or "good"? My simple response is that if it's good for a few people, then that's good enough.
I've personally had a really rough time whenever I try out Manjaro Linux. Does that make it horrible? Not necessarily, but it sure does not work well for me personally. Replace Manjaro Linux with some other distribution and perhaps that is your story. My intent is NOT to bash Manjaro; for whatever reason, it just hasn't worked out for me. Endeavour OS and Cachy OS work great for me, so I have two very useful Arch alternatives that get the job done; same in the Debian space; I have a few there; same in the Slackware space. I haven't been doing the Fedora space recently, but that has worked fine in the past, same with openSUSE; the point of this essay is that it's valuable to offer so many varieties of distributions, each to meet anywhere from the needs of a handful of people to the needs of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of users. That's MORE than enough to justify the dizzy number of alternatives available today!
45 • Alleged EU clampdown (by Jan on 2025-12-02 23:58:43 GMT from Sweden)
@38
> I wish all distros would respond to the oppressive EU laws sacrificing privacy for "safety" the same way Gnoppix has by locating all servers outside of Europe and blocking all IP addresses from Europe.
This directive is seemingly not going to be passed after all, fortunately. Germany, for example, is against it.
> until he altered Telegram to allow the French government to read all messages.
Well, he allowed the Russian government to do the same in 2021 or before that, you could stop using this app much earlier.
46 • Wayland Known-Issues (vs X11, KDE) (by Alice on 2025-12-03 02:01:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
Debian KDE X11 user for many years.
I would probably be considered a Linux "advanced" or "power-user."
The full-featured Session-Save/Session-Restore is important to me and the systems I support (family).
Last time I seriously tried Wayland, that was a massive omission that wasted my time, impacted my productivity.
Even recently, Debian 13 Trixie KDE auditions..
Not exactly edifying to find that, having overlooked the menu on the log-in page for changing the session to X11, the (now-default) Wayland session started afresh not merely with visual glitches (Pascal-era nvidia hardware ThinkPad) but also with some huge warning bubble about ibus(?) or whatever it was. Very poor first impression of Trixie defaults! (Not the only Trixie thing either, but that's a digression.)
So, is the full-featured Session-Restore truly now ready in Wayland?
Or even in the foreseeable future? (https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Wayland_Known_Significant_Issues)
Is it a simple personnel-hours issue, this widespread dropping of X11? Or just the current crop of bright-young-thing coders naively enamoured with New & Shiny and contemptuously dismissive of Old & Dull? Or, once again, is it actually indirectly another case of typically-malign Corporate agendas forcing this Wayland hegemony against Community interests?
As the wise-man once said: "not all Change is actually Progress.."
47 • More Gnoppix weirdness (by Kazlu on 2025-12-03 10:32:19 GMT from France)
@14 (Józef)
"When I just tried to visit the Gnoppix website from Poland, I got a message telling me that they are refusing access to EU IP addresses since they "lack the resources and legal infrastructure to comply with the complex mandates of several impending EU legislative acts". "
Wooooow huge red flag!! "The law is too restrictive so we won't bother respecting it" sends a great signal... At least they hold their stand and do not publish in the EU!
48 • Europe prosecuting overseas (by Kazlu on 2025-12-03 10:33:13 GMT from France)
@31 (Tutus Groan)
"seems that the EU is quite willing and able to prosecute "overseas" companies when it needs to. "
Yes, because these companies do business in the EU, therefore have to respect EU's law. Gnoppix is blocking EU's users, so is not doing business in the EU (or trying not to...).
49 • 32-bit distro (by Kazlu on 2025-12-03 11:44:21 GMT from France)
@20 (tomas)
"I still have an old notebook with 32-bit processor."
So do I. For now, I rely on MX Linux based on Debian oldstable, which should still last a while (through oldoldstable status). When the Debian train has gone, my next candidate will be Salix (Slackware based). I have used it with satisfaction in the past, but that was some years ago... Mayyyyybe Mageia if they keep supporting 32-bit? Not sure, last time I tried it, it was a bit sluggish and my netbook is terrible... SliTaz?
@23 Uncle Slacky suggested Void, it supports Nix so that could work.
50 • Does the distribution really matter. (by josh on 2025-12-03 12:09:51 GMT from Norway)
My short answer would be yes.
Recent events - upgraded debian bookworm to trixie, as I wanted to see if trixie would have the same problem - slow and delayed startup - it still does. No matter what I do such as using 'systemd-analyze' blame and disabling startup sevice the situation remains - personally I suspect wayland.
I installed xubuntu to see the difference, and there is a difference - quicker, less delayed, startup,
Howver I would preferr to use debian simply because the flicker rate, or frequncy of the screen is better suited to my eyesight.
But what is best out of the distros I have tried, regarding the latter point is pclinuxos - go figure?
I have tried other distros such as rebornos (really bad flicker rate), slackware 15, salix 15 (not a bad flicker rate) among others.
So again yes the distro and the persons situation matters.
51 • Same Desktop (by John on 2025-12-03 18:21:16 GMT from Canada)
With Wayland on the horizon, it will get "worse". That day I dread because I use fvwm and there is nothing on Wayland that resembles fvwm. Never mind many of the cool little X utilities will stop working, like xeyes.
What is happening in the Linux world is a big shame, soon it will be a mono-environment like Microsoft Windows.
52 • Choice of Venue (by AdrienM on 2025-12-03 18:35:57 GMT from United States)
@47 While Gnoppix clearly has issues per the review, I don't have a problem with them restricting IPs of a 'hostile' jurisdiction. I don't assume that every distribution has an 'army' of devs behind it, along with E-Suite team, legal team in-house or on-retainer, etc. Some of them are just a few dedicated enthusiasts, some just one person. Governments tend to overload businesses with red tape until it causes death, sometimes, literally. Some are so bad, they force people to choose between devoting time to 'compliance' or 'actually doing work'. It isn't about 'respecting' whatever dictates the EU wants to saddle people with, it is about a hard trade-off of availability and capability. And sure, maybe the Gnoppix team *does also* disagree with those 'laws' - that is their choice. Just like it is our choice as to which distro to use. The EU doesn't own the Gnoppix team or any business anywhere. No one is their slave. We are all free to figure out how to divide our limited time and resources between our core mission and their red tape, or simply avoid them all together.
53 • @51 John: (by dragonmouth on 2025-12-03 19:25:51 GMT from United States)
"What is happening in the Linux world is a big shame"
Welcome to the "New and Improved!"
54 • Works for me... (by John on 2025-12-04 13:26:59 GMT from Canada)
As a few have mentioned above, unfortunately we seem to need a lot of distros because what "works for me" does not work for others. Whether it's hardware related or some strange bug that happens in some people's workflow or whatever. There always seems to be some reason why one distro can't just be everyone's distro.
That being said - so far PikaOS has been great for me - cutting edge yet stable. Has handled everything I've thrown at it and just works perfectly. You might want to check it out?
55 • "What is happening in the Linux world is a big shame...". How timely... (by R. Cain on 2025-12-04 15:58:44 GMT from United States)
From the person who has been an outspoken---almost virulent---and highly objective user and defender of Linux for over 20 years:
"Mom, Windows 11 made me buy a Macbook!"
Updated: December 3, 2025 | Category: Hardware, MacOS
https://www.dedoimedo.com/
56 • Nombre de Distributions (by GrognuX on 2025-12-04 16:35:34 GMT from France)
The Linux problem resembles the sultan's problem. Having 400 pretty girls each with their own specialities, and not knowing which one to choose. Kind regards GrognuX
57 • 32-bit afaik not obsolete (by We all float down on 2025-12-04 17:15:14 GMT from Germany)
Slitaz rolling is 32/32 but there's also 64/32 (kernel/"apps") while Tinycore (glibc) adds 64/64 from which I can run Alpine 32-bit (musl) programs no problem using a chroot.
However most current distros are a disaster when (A) you use mobile Internet and pay let's say 1 cent for each MB, (B) they provide a multi-GB iso as "expert" install but not a static linked package manager, (C) use an uncommonly cruel initrd containing all Ethernet/Wifi drivers under the sun but you still have to download and manually install pppd+option.ko for LTE separately, or (D) forcefeed you graphics bloatware, elogind, llvm, *orifice* and other man-made horrors beyond human comprehension.
58 • @55 Dedo shift to Mac (by OneHue on 2025-12-04 22:20:56 GMT from Mali)
that’s hard! The creator of #! shifted to Mac many years ago… and now Dedoimedo. That means a lot: the year of Linux Desktop is over. Instead of improving things we are always trying to reinvent the wheel. And the new products are inferior to the older ones. That’s crazy. I’m not against systemd, Wayland or Rust per se ; but we need a vision for Linux on desktop. KDE did it with Plasma 5: they axed strigi, baloo, akonadi, etc in order to provide a strong Plasma experience. Unfortunately they added kuserfeedback. Gnome is still trying to improve Gnome 3 performance but it still not snappy as Windows 10. LibreOffice has reliability issues, people are moving to OnlyOffice. Printing is still an issue. Do you want to produce a song as a hobby ? You have to switch to a specific distribution for low latency kernel. Too much hassle. Even VMware doesn’t launch a Windows VM if you are using a NVIDIA GPU, you have to select “on-demand” profile. We need a distribution that can do all the things a desktop operating system has to do and in a reliable and comfortable way. Maybe FreeBSD will save us.
59 • @55 Deido, too!? Wow! (by Anon on 2025-12-05 01:16:02 GMT from United States)
I read Deido's article and it resonated with me on so many levels. Especially the parts about instability and inconsistency. I didn't know that I wasn't the only one who had that feeling that you can never relax in Linux because it is only a matter of time before somebody changes something that breaks your setup and/or workflow. Linux appears to care more about rewriting perfectly functioning software and forcing large, monolithic components on the users against their will. It doesn't appear to care about stability, reliability, or consistency. Sadly, Linux breaking my workflow and leading to hours and even days of lost productivity is not an isolated event. I've definitely started looking into other options. I might even end up on MacOS along with Deido, but with an older, refurbished machine. Windows will never touch my metal again, but Linux just isn't what the community promised it would be.
60 • @58 & @55 Dedoimedo's Mac (by Keith S on 2025-12-05 01:28:47 GMT from United States)
The thing I have always liked about Igor is that he aims for stability and usability, and calls it out when something falls short. He is right about peak Linux occurring in 2014. Though I have never really liked Ubuntu, and he worked for them, he is correct about the now defunct Ubuntu Store and desktop stability in general. He is also right about the loss of usability due to Wayland. It really is idiotic to basically replace a working system such as X11 with something entirely new (well, ok, it's like 15 years old now) that still doesn't work very well or consistently.
I still have a Windows 10 machine for one piece of hardware that only updates with Windows, but I plan to migrate that to a VM as soon as I get the time. As for the online banking and government portal problem, for me Android is a much better solution than a Mac, but only because I have given up trying to hide from Google. I gave up on GrapheneOS because it only runs on Pixels, not because I think Google has access through the hardware, but because every Pixel I've owned (five of them) has crapped out in two years or less because their batteries are so feeble. I have a couple of friends who have had catastrophic hardware failures with Pixels too. Motorola makes very stable and sturdy hardware -- not the fastest or bestest, but certainly usable and very affordable -- so that is my answer to the 5% -10% that I can't do on Linux.
61 • Oh my GAI... (by (ahem) on 2025-12-05 01:47:57 GMT from Australia)
dear Jesse, welcome to AI:
"unhinged
contradicting
disconnected with accepted reality
entirely divorced from [actuality]
bizarre
financial schemes to trick people
weird
I questioned what the developers think they were trying to accomplish
Wonderland-style
misinformation
surreal
odd
has such a negative impact
some complex joke
incorrect"
...yes sir, i couldn't have put it better ;)
- oh hang on, maybe i can:
how about 'dangerous' & 'a risk to humanity' :P
62 • AI (by curto on 2025-12-05 04:50:46 GMT from United States)
We have been warned about AI since the 80s-2000s:
wargames
terminator (all of them)
*add any i have missed
just sayin....
63 • MAC (by bubbatek on 2025-12-06 00:01:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
MAC is just a form of BSD running on locked-in hardware - with its share of complaints like any OS.
Number of Comments: 63
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| • 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 |
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| • 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 |
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| • 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 |
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| • 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 |
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| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
Hamara
Hamara was a Debian-based desktop distribution featuring the MATE desktop. Hamara was developed in India and the team works to provide improved translations for the more popular spoken languages in India. Downloading and using Hamara can be done free of charge though the company behind Hamara also provides commercial technical support.
Status: Discontinued
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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