 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1154, 5 January 2026 |
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Welcome to this year's 1st issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Welcome, everyone, to 2026! With a new year we embrace new opportunities, new experiences, and new software releases. We begin this year with an experiment from Jesse Smith in which he attempts to change and upgrade an operating system running on his open hardware PinePhone. The PinePhone has limited specifications, but some Linux distributions are up to the challenge of running well on the low-resource platform. Read on to learn more about the PinePhone and how it works with the postmarketOS distribution. In our Questions and Answers column we talk about making the switch from other operating systems to a Linux distribution along with approaches to learning how to use Linux. When you were new to Linux what was your preferred approach to learning how to use your distribution? Let us know in the Opinion Poll. Then, in our News section, we talk about the FreeBSD Foundation working to improve laptop support and we report on a new X11 server which has entered development. We also talk about a key piece of Unix history which can be downloaded and run in an emulator. Plus we report on the CachyOS team announcing plans to make a server edition. Since we were on vacation last week we are sharing details on new distribution releases from the past two weeks along with the new torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: postmarketOS 25.06 and 25.12
- News: FreeBSD Foundation improves laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, a new X11 server is in development, CachyOS team plans server edition
- Questions and answers: Should you switch to Linux and how to learn how to use Linux?
- Released in the past two weeks: Talos 1.12.0, elementary OS 8.1, postmarketOS 25.12, Besgnulinux 3-2, Gnoppix AI Linux 26, Parrot 7.0, OpenMediaVault 8.0-12, GuideOS 1.0, Pearl Linux OS 13, PorteuX 2.5, Canaima GNU/Linux 8.3, Peropesis 3.1, Exton Linux 260104, Manjaro Linux 26.0
- Torrent corner: BigLinux, KDE neon, Manjaro, Parrot
- Opinion poll: What is your preferred method for learning Linux?
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
postmarketOS 25.06 and 25.12
For the past few years I've been running the UBports operating system on a PinePhone. The PinePhone's hardware is quite limited and so it doesn't actually make for a particularly great smartphone while running UBports. The interface is a bit sluggish and it can't run some of the distribution's default applications. However, the operating system, which is essentially Ubuntu for ARM processors paired with the Lomiri user interface, is quite flexible. I have been able to set up the mobile device to act as a test server and NAS for the home, capable of being placed just about anywhere and benefiting from a built-in battery backup.
With my install of UBports 20.04 nearing the end of its supported life and with the project no longer supporting the device with version 24.04, this left me seeking a new operating system. I recalled that, over three years ago, I had experimented with a few flavours of Linux on the PinePhone. Manjaro running the Plasma Mobile interface had looked promising, but the interface was far too slow and prone to locking up. postmarketOS, on the other hand, had performed quickly when running the Phosh user interface, though I had run into some limitations. I decided to revisit postmarketOS and see how it would compare to my existing, Ubuntu-based installation.
postmarketOS is available in a few different editions, including GNOME Mobile, Plasma Mobile, sxmo, and Phosh. The distribution is based on Alpine Linux and is able to run on a range of desktop computers, netbooks, and smartphones. I downloaded the Phosh edition of the distribution for PinePhones. The compressed download was 526MB in size and, when unpacked, the IMG file was 2.5GB.
Installing
My first hurdle in my trial was my laptop didn't have a microSD slot and my PinePhone didn't have enough internal storage space free to hold the downloaded copy of postmarketOS. This is when having a fully functional distribution on the PinePhone comes in handy. I was able to use the scp command from the Ubuntu-based system on the PinePhone to transfer the postmarketOS IMG file directly from my laptop to the phone's microSD card slot. The command looked like this:
sudo scp jesse@laptop:Downloads/20251212-1055-postmarketOS-v25.06-phosh-25-pine64-pinephone.img /dev/mmcblk0
Early impressions
Once the postmarketOS image was written to the microSD card all I had to do was reboot the phone to have it load the new distribution from the microSD card. postmarketOS started up, displaying its logo and then showing me a lock screen.
I was not sure what the passcode would be, but the postmarketOS documentation came to my rescue. It reports the default credentials used by the distribution set the username to be "user" and the default passcode to be "147147". This worked and I was able to sign in and the distribution then launched a welcome application.
postmarketOS 25.06 -- The welcome application
(full image size: 93kB, resolution: 720x1440 pixels)
The welcome window tells us we can access application launchers by making a swiping gesture "up" from the bottom of the screen. We are also told settings and networking options can be accessed by swiping "down" from the top of the display. Software updates can be found in the Software application. The welcome window warns us postmarketOS is not necessarily ready for use as a day-to-day device and that it is intended to be used by technology enthusiasts who are willing to work through problems. It concludes by telling us how to open a terminal and then displays buttons which can be used to access on-line documentation. At least, in theory, the buttons open Firefox to display documentation, however I had not had a chance to set up a networking connection yet, so Firefox just showed an error page.
I noticed, when the phone was plugged into my laptop using a USB cable, the phone automatically set itself up as a networking device. This effectively gave me a "wired" Internet connection for my laptop when the phone was on-line.
postmarketOS 25.06 -- The home screen
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Something which annoyed me early in my trial was typing with the Phosh on-screen keyboard or launching an application would make an odd sound, like sand being shaken inside a glass bulb. This audio feedback could be disabled in the settings panel. In fact, there are some really well done audio and notification controls in the Phosh settings panel which allow us to set feedback for various actions which can be represented by audio, vibration, or even disabled. It took me a while to hunt down these options, but once I found them I appreciated being able to get feedback for notifications (for example), but not for launching new apps or typing.
postmarketOS 25.06 -- Changing feedback settings
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There isn't any dedicated screenshot tool included with postmarketOS, but it is possible to take a snapshot of the interface by holding the power button and then tapping the Screenshot button which pops up. This works similarly to Android-based operating systems.
Phosh places a terminal application launcher right on the home screen. From the terminal we can access the underlying Alpine Linux command line tools along with systemd utilities for service management. We can change our passcode using the passwd command. Enabling remote shell access can be accomplished by running "sudo systemctl start sshd" to start the OpenSSH service.
I noticed that sudo on postmarketOS is just a script which runs the OpenDoas command, which performs the same function, but with a smaller codebase and a simplified configuration file. I also noticed there are no manual pages installed locally. This lack of local documentation is a part of what makes postmarketOS so small.
Hardware and performance
The distribution requires just 2GB of disk space and, while running the Phosh interface, only consumes about 450MB of RAM. This makes the operating system small enough to run multiple desktop applications at once, including a web browser, even on the PinePhone's limited 2GB of RAM and 1GHz CPU.
I want to clarify that postmarketOS doesn't run quickly on the PinePhone, but it does run faster than any other operating system I've run on the same equipment. Tasks, particularly those involving storage access (such as copying files or launching new applications), are slow. However, the Phosh interface is responsive and postmarketOS is visibly faster at performing tasks with its default applications than UBports and Manjaro's mobile branch.
The phone's networking, speaker, and microphone all worked with postmarketOS. I was especially impressed that networking continued to function even when the phone was locked and the screen was asleep. With UBports I had to keep the screen awake (at a low brightness setting) if I wanted the PinePhone to have network access. postmarketOS manages to let the mobile device mostly sleep while keeping network connections alive.
postmarketOS 25.06 -- Quickly accessing settings through the pull-down menu
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One of the few issues I had during my trial, in fact the only serious one, was that my camera did not work while running postmarketOS. The PinePhone's camera is on the lower end in terms of capabilities and I've never been able to shoot video with it, but I could take pictures with the rear camera while running UBports. While using postmarketOS the camera apps (there are two) would launch, but show nothing and the "shutter" button did nothing. This appears to be a known issue and a work in progress.
Thoughts on included applications
The Phosh interface includes a fairly standard set of applications, most of which look and act a lot like their Android equivalents. The Clock and Calendar applications, in particular, seem very similar to their Android counterparts. There is a simple audio player, a more full featured music player, a video player, the Firefox web browser, a text/SMS application, a software centre, and a phone dialing application. I also found a virtual terminal and a settings panel along with a file manager. Apart from the problem with the camera application I mentioned above, the included software worked well. Launching apps was a bit slow and disk-related tasks, such as scanning my microSD card for music, were slow. Otherwise, the included software worked well.
postmarketOS 25.06 -- The Clocks application
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The Phosh settings panel deserves a special mention. The settings panel feels like a more streamlined and better organized alternative to the Android settings application. It has a lot of options, but isn't overwhelming, and options tended to be labelled clearly. I liked most of the defaults Phosh used, but the few I did not were easy to change in the settings panel. The one exception I ran into was learning the difference between "quiet" and "silent" in the feedback settings. In this context "quiet" appears to mean "no sound, just vibration" while "silent" means "no feedback of any kind". I especially appreciated how easy settings were to manage once I plugged the phone into a dock, but more on that later.
Through the settings panel I was able to set up networking, change my keyboard layout, adjust sounds and alerts, enable OpenSSH access, and set screen time limits. There are also settings for connecting to mobile networks and enable power saving features. There is a second settings application called Tweaks which can be used to further customize the user interface. This helps us adjust fonts, display scaling, and other elements of the interface.
postmarketOS 25.06 -- The Tweaks tool
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I was curious if Phosh's applications would synchronize with on-line services. I was pleased to discover the operating system supports a wide range of cloud services, including Nextcloud, WebDAV, and Microsoft. We can sign into these accounts and then use them to synchronize files, contacts, and the calendar application. This was actually easier and faster for me to accomplish on postmarketOS than it was on Android.
Something I had struggled with on other mobile distributions for the PinePhone was music playing. The UBports music player would lock up as soon as it was launched and I had to work around some audio settings to get command line players to function. The Gapless music player that came with postmarketOS worked well. I was able to point it to my music folder and it automatically imported everything and was able to play, create lists, and shuffle music. It was a pleasantly smooth experience.
Software management
We have two main options when it comes to managing software on postmarketOS. The first is to use the GNOME Software application. This software centre is divided into three tabs - one explores available applications, one lists and removes installed items, and the third tab fetches updates. GNOME Software pulls applications from the Alpine and postmarketOS package repositories as well as Flatpak bundles from Flathub.
postmarketOS 25.06 -- Viewing installed applications with GNOME Software
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We also have the option of using the command line apk package manager which may be familiar to people who have used Alpine Linux. (The apk package manager from Alpine should not be confused with the Android apk package format; they are not compatible.)
People who wish to access an even wider range of software can install the Distrobox container manager from the Alpine repositories. We can then install another distribution inside the Distrobox container. That will give us access to a wider range of applications.
Other observations
During my trial I installed the KDE Connect software from Alpine's repositories. At first KDE Connect, a utility for linking two or more devices on a network, failed to connect with my other phone and with my laptop. After some experimenting I tracked the issue to the postmarketOS firewall. The firewall allows outgoing connections and allows incoming OpenSSH connections, but blocks other incoming traffic. Once the appropriate ports in the firewall were opened, KDE Connect worked and I was able to share information between the PinePhone and other devices. This also allowed me to remotely control the PinePhone's media player.
Another problem I ran into was any running tmux or screen sessions would disappear after I had signed out of a shell session. This caused long-running jobs to terminated when I wasn't signed into the phone. This was quickly traced to systemd which kills the processes of a user after they sign out. This can be fixed by prefixing long-running commands with "systemd-run --scope --user". I was able to alias the screen command to "systemd-run --scope --user screen" to keep my shell sessions running even when I was not logged into the phone.
In the past I had tried to get the PinePhone to work with a hub, a type of docking station for phones, which would allow me to control the phone using a mouse and keyboard while displaying applications on a larger screen. When I tried this with UBports the user interface (Lomiri) would crash and enter into a loop of restarting and crashing. With postmarketOS the experience was both successful and automatic. I plugged the phone into my dock, attached a monitor over HDMI, and plugged in input devices. Input and output worked immediately with no configuration on my part.
postmarketOS 25.06 -- A dual display screenshot with the setting panel running on the phone (left) and calculator on the TV (right)
(full image size: 642kB, resolution: 4560x2160 pixels)
Should we wish to, we can open the Phosh settings panel and adjust the display settings. We can either mirror the phone's screen to the larger display or extend the desktop to cover both displays in a side-by-side configuration. We can also choose which display should be considered the main one. The only issue I had was the phone would dim its screen and turn off the external display after a few minutes, but this behaviour could be disabled in the settings panel, keeping the screens on all the time while the PinePhone was docked. When the phone was unplugged it automatically returned to working as a normal phone.
I think this smooth docking experience is significant. Over the years I've tried a handful of different approaches to merge desktop and mobile computing. I've tried containers and VNC, I've tried Android for x86 computers, I've experimented with desktops such as Lomiri/Unity 8 and, while all of them have shown a degree of promise, the experience was always limited or awkward. The experience required some tinkering or technical knowledge and, even then, it was never a great merger of the two worlds (desktop and mobile). Phosh running on postmarketOS is the first time I've encountered a seamless convergence where no technical knowledge was required and the user experience was both automatic and stable.
postmarketOS 25.06 -- Dual display with audio settings on the phone (left) and music player on the TV (right)
(full image size: 774kB, resolution: 4560x2160 pixels)
Using postmarketOS I was able to walk around with my PinePhone and check my calendar, set reminders, and (slowly) check news websites. This was done with one application at a time visible on the screen, as one expects from a phone. I could then plug my phone into the dock and have it display multiple application windows side-by-side, and play music through my TV speakers while editing documents. The Phosh interface accepts touch and mouse input at the same time and we can use an on-screen keyboard or a physical keyboard interchangeably. It's a surprisingly polished experience, even on the PinePhone's limited hardware.
Conclusions
I was pleasantly surprised and impressed with how good the experience with postmarketOS running Phosh has become. Running this operating system felt like getting a hardware upgrade compared to every other mobile operating system I've run on the PinePhone. The interface was smoother and more responsive, more applications were able to run, the resource usage was minimal, and everything (except the camera) worked out of the box. (Some people might be wondering about making phone calls; the PinePhone's frequency range is outside of my cell carrier's range. Text messages and phone calls cannot work due to physical limitations rather than software limitations.)
Admittedly the PinePhone is a low specification device and, as a result, it struggles under the weight of some heavier applications. GNOME Software, for example, and the Firefox browser ran slowly and I switched to a lighter browser while also doing most of my package management from the command line.
Despite the struggle with some larger applications the PinePhone feels more like a proper (low-end) phone running postmarketOS rather than a low-end single-board computer (such as an early Raspberry Pi) as it did when running UBports or Manjaro. This is the first time it's felt usable as a mobile device or even as a desktop-style device. In the past it was more of a low-end server or embedded device which had a touch screen.
It's hard to overstate how impressed I am with how well postmarketOS performed for me during my trial. It's unusually light, it has a good collection of polished applications, the operating system supports working with Alpine packages, Flatpak bundles, and Distrobox containers. Most of the PinePhone's hardware worked out of the box without any effort on my part, and the operating system seamlessly mixes mobile applications with command line tools. The experience breathed new life into my PinePhone.
What really impressed me though was how well Phosh handled convergence. The experience it offers is surprisingly smooth and Phosh has a highly polished interface that somehow manages to bridge the gap between desktop and mobile computing without making either feel awkward. It was easy to use my finger to push a new window from my phone to the TV screen, then use the mouse to interact with the application window.
A few times in this review I've pointed out the PinePhone has low hardware specifications (2GB of RAM and a 1GHz CPU), which makes sense as it was developed as a proof-of-concept, not intended to be a device used on a day-to-day basis. By the time my trial was over I found myself lamenting that PINE64 no longer has an up to date model of the PinePhone, perhaps with a 2GHz CPU and 4GB of RAM. If they did I could possibly replace my desktop computer with an upgraded PinePhone, postmarketOS, and a docking station. Phosh running on postmarketOS really does bridge the divide between desktop computing and mobile smartphones and I hope the few remaining rough edges are addressed because this could be the full powered, convergent phone distribution the Linux community keeps seeking.
Upgrade to 25.12
As I finished writing this article over the holiday, postmarketOS published an update, version 25.12. Fortunately the postmarketOS team makes it straightforward to upgrade across releases and provides an upgrade script which walks us through the process. The upgrade process runs live and fetched 1,166 new packages for my PinePhone. When it finished, and I had rebooted the device, the PinePhone came back on-line without any immediate problems. My initial impressions were that the wallpaper was different, but the applications, performance, memory consumption, and capabilities were the same in 25.12 as they were in 25.06.
I did notice the OpenSSH had become disabled during the upgrade and the firewall enabled, preventing remote connections and blocking KDE Connect from working. I'm unsure if this is a mistake or if it is a security feature. Once I had updated the firewall rules and enabled the sshd service everything was back to normal. The packages fetched during the upgrade had consumed about an extra 700MB of disk space and running "doas pkg cache purge" freed up this space.
Earlier in this review I mentioned neither of the camera applications worked with postmarketOS 25.06. After the upgrade the Megapixel application continued to fail, reporting when launched it could not create a "GL context" and then closing. However, the Camera application did work and, in a first for my PinePhone, was able to take photos using both the front-facing and the rear-facing cameras. It seems hardware support has improved slightly from 25.06 to 25.12.
Apart from this change, the upgrade did not appear to change anything significant. The same applications were included and the phone worked the same as before, which was a pleasant experience. The upgrade only took about 15 minutes and ran live, which is quite good for a device with limited hardware. I was happy with the upgrade, which isn't something I can usually say about updates to Android-based distributions.
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Visitor supplied rating
postmarketOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9.5/10 from 2 review(s).
Have you used postmarketOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
FreeBSD Foundation improves laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, a new X11 server is in development, CachyOS team plans server edition
The FreeBSD Foundation announced at the end of 2024 that the organization would be sponsoring and coordinating work on FreeBSD to make the operating system function better on desktop and laptop computers. How has the work been progressing? The Foundation has reported positive success across a variety of tasks, including wireless networking support, suspend/resume, and graphics drivers: "In 2025 we added support for Wi-Fi 4 and 5 on key hardware and made a start on Wi-Fi 6. Wi-Fi 4 and 5 drivers for Intel and Realtek are available in 15.0, with support for additional Realtek and Mediatek drivers in progress. Thanks to Bjoern Zeeb and Tom Jones for their work on this. Graphics drivers have been upgraded to Linux 6.9, which is available in 15.0 (note: to use this driver you need to adopt the drm-latest-kmod port as it's a non-LTS version). Linux 6.10 is in progress, and this is the minimum version required for the latest Framework laptop (16-inch AMD Ryzen AI 300 series). Thanks to Jean-Sébastien Pédron for all the hard work." Additional information on the improved laptop support can be found in the Foundation's blog post.
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People interested in the history of Unix and Unix-like operating systems (such as Linux and the BSDs) have the chance to experience a piece of computing history. An archive tape containing an early version of Unix was discovered and transferred to the Computing History Museum. The tape containing Unix v4 was recovered and is now available through Archive.org. Some people have managed to run the early version of Unix in an emulator, giving people a chance to have a taste of early Unix history.
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The Wayland protocol and associated display technologies have been in development for just over 15 years. Wayland is intended to replace X.Org as the primary display server on Linux (and some other members of the Unix family). While Wayland does offer some attractive features, particularly in terms of security, it is less efficient in terms of performance and memory when compared to X.Org and some applications still do not play well with Wayland sessions. Proponents of Wayland often state that users need to move away from X.Org as the legacy graphics server will no longer be maintained in the future as no one is willing to work on it. Despite those claims, there are multiple projects which strive to provide ongoing support for applications and desktop environments which run in X11 sessions.
Wayback is an effort to provide compatibility for X.Org desktop environments so they may run on top of Wayland sessions. Meanwhile Phoenix is a completely new X11 server which seeks to continue where X.Org left off: "Phoenix is a new X server, written from scratch in Zig (not a fork of X.Org server). This X server is designed to be a modern alternative to the X.Org server." At least one other project has forked X.Org with intent to keep it running in case X.Org developers cease to provide updates. People worried about X.Org support have multiple options, depending on their needs.
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CachyOS is a desktop distribution which is based on Arch Linux. The project includes customized desktop environments and kernel optimizations. This style of distribution (desktop oriented, rolling, and with a customized graphical interface) might seem like an unusual match for server environments, but the CachyOS team have announced plans to create a sever edition in 2026. "In addition to our ongoing PGO and AutoFDO optimizations, we are developing a specialized Server edition for NAS, workstations, and server environments. We intend to provide a verified image that hosting providers can easily deploy for their customers. This edition will ship with a hardened configuration, pre-tuned settings, and performance-optimized packages for web servers, databases and more!"
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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) |
Should you switch to Linux and how to learn how to use Linux?
Making-the-switch asks: Should I make the switch to Linux as someone interested in cyber security?
DistroWatch answers: Linux, in one form or another, powers a great many computers. Linux is at the heart of literally billions of devices, including most smartphones, a large percentage of the world's servers, countless embedded devices, and probably about 1 out of every 20 desktop computers. Since it is so widely used, in so many fields of computing, it certainly makes sense to study Linux if you are interested in the field of computer security.
Some Linux distributions specialize in improving their own security and others are designed to help test the security of other machines, making those distributions well suited to helping you in your studies.
With this said, I'd like to point out that while I certainly advocate in favour of adopting Linux distributions as tools in your toolbox, doing so doesn't require that you make a "switch" from another operating system. Most Linux distributions can run from thumb drives, dual boot alongside an existing operating system, or run in a virtual machine. You can start using and learning Linux (and using it to explore cyber security) without making a leap off of your existing operating system.
Admittedly I'm biased in this field, and I think using Linux full-time is a great experience. However, you don't need to give up any of your existing platforms in order to enjoy the tools Linux provides.
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Seeking-knowledge asks: What's the best way to learn Linux?
DistroWatch answers: There are a lot of ways. The two approaches I personally found the most useful were:
- Get a book on Linux basics. Maybe Linux Bible or How Linux Works and read the first few chapters to get a handle on the terminology.
- Download a beginner-friendly distribution, such as Linux Mint, and copy it onto a thumb drive. Then boot from the thumb drive and start exploring. This gives you a chance to try out some basic Linux concepts without replacing your existing operating system, at least until you are ready to make the switch. Gradually try to do more and more of your computing tasks using Linux instead of whatever operating system you have been using.
Between the book providing concepts and the hands-on trial-and-error providing practical experience, you will quickly learn a lot.
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Missing-the-good-times asks: What happened to your Questions and Answers column?
DistroWatch answers: It hasn't gone away. We typically publish a new Q&A every week. You can browse an index of our Questions and Answers articles or visit our Tips and Tricks collection to explore past columns.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Talos 1.12.0
Talos, a specialist Linux-based operating system for running Kubernetes, has been updated to version 1.12.0. This release introduces new network configuration documents, new user volume types, and updates to disk encryption: "Welcome to the v1.12.0 release of Talos. What's new? The Kubernetes API server in Talos has been updated to use a more secure set of TLS cipher suites by default. This is in line with a set of best practices documented in CIS 1.12 benchmark. New field in UserVolumeConfig - volumeType that defaults to partition, but can be set to directory. When set to directory, provisioning and filesystem operations are skipped and a directory is created under /var/mnt/'name'. The directory type enables lightweight storage volumes backed by a host directory, instead of requiring a full block device partition. Talos versions prior to v1.12 used the state of PCR 7 and signed policies locked to PCR 11 for TPM based disk encryption. Talos now supports configuring which PCRs states are to be used for TPM based disk encryption via the options.pcrs field in the tpm section of the disk encryption configuration. Component updates: Linux kernel 6.18.1, Kubernetes 1.35.0, CNI Plugins 1.9.0, cryptsetup 2.8.1, LVM2 2_03_37, systemd-udevd: 257.8...." See the release notes and the what's new document for more information.
elementary OS 8.1
elementary OS is an Ubuntu-based distribution which runs the Pantheon desktop environment. The project's latest release is version 8.1 and it incorporates several small improvements and enhancements all across the desktop, package management, and display stack. Support for ARM hardware has also improved: "Today, we are proud to announce that elementary OS 8.1 is available to download now and shipping on several high-quality computers. For the first time we now also offer ARM64 builds for devices that boot with UEFI. This means you'll be able to run OS 8.1 on M-series Apple Silicon and devices where you can load UEFI-supporting firmware like Raspberry Pi. This version of Linux also supports certain Qualcomm and Rockchip processors, for example. Many notebooks and tablets now ship with displays that aren't quite HiDPI, but are more pixel dense than traditional displays. In OS 8, we only supported integer display scaling which left these devices in an awkward position with an interface that is either too large or too small. In OS 8.1, we now support fractional display scaling in the Secure Session." Additional information is provided in the release announcement.
postmarketOS 25.12
The postmarketOS team has announced a new version of its operating system for mobile devices and desktop computers. The new version, 25.12, is based on Alpine Linux 3.23 and includes several improvements from the upgrade, along with updates to the distribution's user interfaces. "As always we target the most recent Alpine release. In case of v25.12 it is the excellent Alpine Linux 3.23 and it comes with the new major version 3 of the Alpine Package Keeper, which has been released after five years (!) of development. It includes some really nice changes, such as downloading packages before installing them (which we enabled by default in postmarketOS), so that a flaky internet connection can't ever break your system again while installing updates. Another long awaited feature is logging all changes to /var/log/apk.log. See the apk3 release notes for more information." Additional information is provided in the release announcement. A list of supported devices and install instructions can be found through the project's Install page.
Besgnulinux 3-2 -- Running the JWM interface
(full image size: 3.6MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Besgnulinux 3-2
Besgnulinux, a Debian-based Linux distribution with the lightweight JWM window manager as the preferred desktop user interface, has been updated to version 3-2. The new release is available in three separate editions - "Full", "Simple" and "Core". While the first two come with a full graphical environment (the "Simple" edition lacks some applications), the "Core" variant is command-line only. "A lot of work has been done and important changes have been implemented in this version. First, let's talk briefly about the procedures performed. As in the previous version, the classic and modern menu were adapted together. You can switch between these menus or use them jointly with the 'Add to Menu' tool. Added some important elements to the welcome screen. The 'Add Key' tool has been restructured. Added conversion from PNG to SVG format to the 'Image Editor' tool. The 'Change Keyboard Language' tool has been rearranged. A total of 21 colors, dark and light, were added to the 'Change Theme Color' tool. The 'Window Control' tool has been reworked. The 'Panel Control' and 'Third-Party Software' tool has been adapted again. Some adjustments have been made to ensure stable operation of the system." Here is the full release announcement with screenshots.
Gnoppix AI Linux 26
Andreas Mueller has announced the release of Gnoppix AI Linux 26, an updated build of the project's Debian-based Linux distribution with integrated privacy and artificial intelligence features. This version replaces Firefox with LibreWolf as the default web browser and Thunderbird with Betterbird as the preferred email client: "As we celebrate the holiday season, the Gnoppix team is excited to bring you a special gift: the early release of Gnoppix 26. This version is packed with groundbreaking features, brand-new services, and a total commitment to your digital freedom. We've taken bold steps to ensure your digital footprint remains yours alone, moving away from restrictive environments. Infrastructure migration - we have officially migrated our core operations to Japan, benefiting from privacy laws that are significantly more robust than those in the EU or US. Tor gateway enhancements - fixed IPv6 issues within the Tor gateway. New Tor bridge - we've moved away from German-based servers (IONOS) due to EU speech restrictions, ensuring a more resilient connection. Gnoppixctl 0.5.7 - added a dedicated 'exit' option to Tor control for ultimate anonymity management. Browser evolution - we have removed Firefox as the default browser due to unacceptable telemetry data sent to Mozilla." See the complete release announcement for more information.
Parrot 7.0
Dario Camonita has announced the release of Parrot 7.0, a major update of the project's Debian-based Linux distribution designed for security specialists, hackers, developers, system administrators and network engineers. The new version is based on Debian 13 and comes with KDE Plasma as the default desktop: "The Parrot Security team is pleased to announce the release of Parrot 7. Parrot 7 represents a major milestone for the project. Its development required a complete rewrite of the system and introduced many changes that follow our mission to keep the system modern and innovative. Parrot 7 has switched to KDE Plasma 6, features our own plasma ricing and theming to make it very lightweight, and uses Wayland by default along with the many changes introduced by Debian 13. The new build scripts now offer easy support to community-driven spins, and we plan to offer official support and sponsorship programs to community-curated editions, featuring more desktop environments and configurations. Many of our scripts were created and assembled through several stages. We use live-build to generate ISO images, while for virtual machines we chose to adopt a custom-built system...." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information and upgrade instructions.
Parrot 7.0 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 754kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
OpenMediaVault 8.0-12
Volker Theile has announced the release of OpenMediaVault 8.0-12, a major update of the specialist Debian-based Linux distribution for network-attached storage (NAS) servers. The 8.x series of OpenMediaVault is based on the stable Debian 13 release: "Since no critical errors were reported during the RC phase, it is now time to release the final version (8.0.1) of OMV8 (Synchrony). Due to technical reasons, only AMD64 and ARM64 architectures will be supported from this version onwards. Since this circumstance had been known for some time, many features planned for OMV8 were already implemented in OMV7 so that the discontinued architectures could also benefit from them. That's why the list of new features in OMV8 is quite concise. Nevertheless, switching to Debian 13 offers newer software, bug fixes and improvements. The changelog will list all improvements in this version alongside the following: upgrade to Debian 13 'Trixie'; replace cpufrequtils with linux-cpupower; improve several user and group related RPCs; display updated modules in notification after configuration changes have been applied; display old versions of upgradable packages on the update page; use pool instead of server directive in chrony configuration by default...." Read the rest of the release announcement for more details.
Pearl Linux OS 13
The developer of Pearl Linux OS has published a new release of the project's Debian-based desktop Linux distribution with a macOS-like user interface called PDE: "Our second release running on Debian 13 'Trixie' as the base. This release uses our own desktop environment called PDE. PDE is a mix of LXDE and Xfce components with Compiz as the default window manager. This release is a ready-to-go, out-of-the-box complete desktop with all the software needed to keep most users set from the get-go. Pearl also has many of our own tools modeled after Linux Mints tools. This PDE release varies a little at the beginning as to not get confused when setting up things for the first time because of all the customizing available to the user we recommend." The README file contains a warning about the first boot: "The default PDE session is PDE-FX which is the session using Compiz by default. After instalation at login screen it defaults to Openbox unless you change this before logging in. Unless you are familiar with an Openbox system meaning, one that has nothing visible until right-clicking on the desktop, it's best to click the round logo next to where you enter your name, and change that to PDE which is one of three separate sessions available."
Pearl Linux OS 13 -- Running the PDE interface
(full image size: 582kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
PorteuX 2.5
PorteuX is a Linux distribution based on Slackware Linux. The project has published a new version, PorteuX 2.5, which introduces Flatpak support and updates the available desktop editions. "This release brings Flatpak to PorteuX. On the first run, the user should provide a valid path where the Flatpak files will be stored, for example 'sudo flatpak /mnt/sda1' (or 'flatpak --force-setup /mnt/sda1' if re-setup is required). The setup will configure the path and add the Flathub repository. After that, usage follows the standard Flatpak workflow, for example to install Furmark, 'flatpak install flathub com.geeks3d.furmark'. And to run it, 'flatpak run com.geeks3d.furmark'. This release also completely drops the stable spins. PorteuX is now based exclusively on Slackware 'Current'. Fixed Vulkan not working properly (this fixes some Steam games that were not working); fixed cheatcodes that use UUID and LABEL...." The distribution's "cheatcodes" have also been more clearly documented. Further details can be found in the release notes.
Canaima GNU/Linux 8.3
Canaima project, which produces a set of Linux distributions, based on Debian "Testing" and designed for use in Venezuela's public sector, has announced the release of Canaima GNU/Linux 8.3: "Canaima GNU/Linux, a project of the National Center for Information Technologies (CNTI), launched its new update, Canaima GNU/Linux 8.3 'Kavanayén', strengthening digital inclusion and technological independence in the country. This update includes innovative tools that break down language and technical barriers, directly benefiting students, teachers and people with disabilities. The Canaima Transcriptor is the main tool in this version. It converts speech into editable text and instantly translates it into any language using advanced speech recognition. It is ideal for accessible classes, conferences and videos, especially for people with hearing impairments. The Canaima Media Creator is another new tool that offers an intuitive graphical interface that automates the creation of multiboot USB drives with Ventoy." Read the release announcement (in Spanish) for more details.
Peropesis 3.1
The minimal Peropesis distribution has a new release which introduces the PHP development language which is commonly used on web servers: "In the Peropesis 2.9 release the lighttpd web server was installed. In the Peropesis 3.1 release, an init script (/etc/init.d/lighttpd) was created, which is intended for managing the lighttpd web server. Instructions on how to use this init script have been placed in the newly created chapter of the User manual - Web Server lighttpd. Since the PHP programming language was installed in the Peropesis 3.1 release, the FastCGI module was activated in the lighttpd server, which creates an interface between the server and the PHP language. In addition, the CGI module was activated, which creates interfaces between the lighttpd server and programming languages such as Perl and Python." The distribution's team have also added new fielsystem tools, a command line AI chat program, and new support libraries. The release announcement offers additional details.
Exton Linux 260104 "ArchEX"
Arne Exton has announced the release of a new version of the "ArchEX" line of Exton Linux. Based on Arch Linux, build 260104 comes with the MATE desktop environment and includes the Calamares system installer: "I've made a new extra version of ArchEX with the MATE desktop environment. This ArchEX version replaces version 240101, which had Pantheon as DE. At the moment (260104) Pantheon doesn't work in Arch Linux. After a full system upgrade, the Pantheon menu is gone and you can't get it back. This ArchEX version has Calamares installed. Using Calamares means that you can install ArchEX MATE in any language. Everything will then be in your chosen language when the installation has completed. ArchEX with MATE works very well when running live on my six computers. Calamares is now installed also in build 260104. When the boot process is ready you will end up at LightDM's login page. Log in to the MATE desktop as the ordinary user 'user' with password 'live' or as 'root' with password 'root'. ArchEX build 260104 is now also for UEFI computers; before you can run ArchEX live you don't have to go into BIOS and change boot mode to 'Legacy Support'." Continue to the release announcement for more information and relevant links.
Manjaro Linux 26.0
Philip Müller has announced the release of Manjaro Linux 26, a major update of the project's set of rolling-release distributions with a choice of GNOME, KDE Plasma and Xfce desktops. Besides updates to GNOME 49 and KDE Plasma 6.5, the release introduces the latest long-term supported Linux kernel, version 6.18: "Manjaro 26.0 'Anh-Linh' released. Since we released 'Zetar' in April 2025 we have worked hard to get the next release of Manjaro out there. We call it 'Anh-Linh'. The GNOME edition has received several updates to GNOME 49 series. This includes a lot of fixes and polish when GNOME 49 originally was released in September 2025. The Plasma edition comes with the latest Plasma 6.5 series, Frameworks 6.21 and KDE Gear 25.12. It brings exciting new improvements to your desktop. Plasma 6.5 includes a number of highly-requested features. With our Xfce edition, we have now Xfce 4.20. Linux kernel 6.18 is used for this release, including the latest drivers available to date. With 6.12 LTS and 6.6 LTS we offer additional support for older hardware as needed." Read the rest of the release announcement for further information.
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 3,363
- Total data uploaded: 49.0TB
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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) |
What is your preferred method for learning Linux?
Learning a new operating system is a challenge and one for which there are a lot of resources available. There are countless books, videos, on-line forums, and documentation sources which explain how to perform tasks on Linux. We would like to hear what your preferred approach was to learning about your distribution.
You can see the results of our previous poll on favourite distributions of 2025 in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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What is your favourite resource for learning Linux?
| Books: | 162 (12%) |
| Classes: | 13 (1%) |
| Documentation (local): | 64 (5%) |
| Documentation (on-line): | 608 (43%) |
| Forums: | 189 (13%) |
| Videos: | 212 (15%) |
| Other: | 160 (11%) |
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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, 12 January 2026. 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 • resource other for learning linux (by Chris on 2026-01-05 01:57:24 GMT from New Zealand)
The poll sadly does not discover what "other" is , In my case its using an operating system, at the beginning, finding how to use the terminal, learning some commands , and generally having fun. Later learning more every day from other operating systems, and finding solutions. Another nice thing to do is find some time to solve dependency file issues for other developers and provide them your attempts at solving, particularly if you can make a program not running when you find it , to fully running.
2 • postmarketOS review (by Keith S on 2026-01-05 02:00:07 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the thorough review of postmarketOS. It was very interesting to read about a non-Android system running on a phone. I do wish the hardware had allowed you to make calls and texts, since that is a huge portion of my smartphone use.
I used GrapheneOS for about four or five years, but when my Pixel 7a battery started to die, I decided to give up on Google hardware because the last four Pixels all had the same result: a battery that will not hold a charge after less than two years of use. The available Pine Phone hardware would definitely not work for my situation. But there is a bit of light, since GrapheneOS has teased a partnership with a major Android manufacturer that would expand availability beyond Google hardware -- but not until later this year or even 2027.
3 • PinePhone (by Brad on 2026-01-05 02:02:29 GMT from United States)
Jesse did briefly mention that he couldn't test the ability to make/receive phone calls. Is there anyone out there using PinePhone (or other similar "non-Android/iOS" hardware) who can offer their experiences?
4 • Poll (by Jupiter on 2026-01-05 02:10:00 GMT from United States)
If I want some more complex-ended stuff to learn about, I check the documentation (Either the online or the MAN page if there is one) but back but in my starting days I just went in and started going crazy, read a few things online when breakage came, and if I couldn't get it fixed, I distrohopped..
Oh well.
5 • Poll (by DaveW on 2026-01-05 02:13:22 GMT from United States)
I voted Other because I use documentatiion, local and on-line, videos, and hands-on experience. This kind of poll subject really needs to be "check all that apply".
6 • Poll (by Brad on 2026-01-05 02:13:56 GMT from United States)
I choose multiple options - Documentation (local and online) and Forums, when they are "non-toxic. The only Videos that were helpful to me were Dolphin_Oracle for learning how to install MX, and the very thorough video to be found at the antiX website.
As far as Books/Classes, they were invaluable back in the day when I was first learning UNIX (and later when learning VMS), but I think I agree with @1 chel.n - I've not found modern-day Linux books to be useful. I imagine the Linux Foundation courses might be OK, but I don't want to spend the money. Are there others who can recommend specific Books or Classes?
7 • Continuing X11 development (by Keith S on 2026-01-05 02:16:19 GMT from United States)
After thinking about it Jesse's review of OpenBSD a couple of weeks ago, I decided to go back to making a new and concerted effort to get it to work as my daily driver again. I've been away from it for a few years, so I'm having to unlearn certain gnu-isms that have become habit, but it really is so much simpler to customize than any Linux system I've encountered that the initial labor of setting it up as a laptop system has been well worth it. And for those times when I just need to get something done that I haven't quite worked out yet, I have MX Linux with persistence on a flash drive that I can use in a pinch.
All of this to say that OpenBSD's version of X11R6 (called "Xenocara") works incredibly well. It is interesting to me that the OpenBSD dev who has done most of the work on it has also ported Wayland to OpenBSD and has said he thinks Wayland is the future. (Why do these Linux projects inspire such cult-like behavior?) But I'm confident that Theo won't make it part of base until it works as well or better than the existing system, in which case it will be fine with me. The main question I have remaining is, if Wayland really does replace X, who is going to convert all of the awesome small X window managers and utilities to work on Wayland while maintaining good (ISC/MIT/BSD) licenses for them?
8 • Poll (by Xander on 2026-01-05 02:20:41 GMT from United States)
I agree with Wally, one selection is not enough. Having said that, I came from the era where my high school didn't even have a computer in it period. I personally will look to online documentation first. My "kid" will immediately look to videos. Unfortunately I also agree that a fair amount of online documentation is suspect at best. To me they assume that the reader is moderately knowledgeable about computers and Linux is no exception. I'm not trying to offend anybody, but in my experience, when I go to look something up that I find 80 to 90% of the answer and am left to figure out the rest myself. That's assuming I'm able to. Though I have tinkered with various OSes for many years, I still consider myself a newbie/hobbyist. I would please ask documentation, etc. be written/answered as if the reader is a complete newbie and needs to know absolutely everything concerning the solution about their question/problem. Assume they know nothing. I've enjoyed this website for a long time. I do thank the Linux community for their ongoing efforts. Best wishes.
9 • Learning Linux (by Craig on 2026-01-05 03:16:51 GMT from United States)
I began using Linux just 5 years ago. For initial learning I bought The Linux Bible and Linux for Dummies (figuring I was pretty dumb on the subject). I also got a computer with Ubuntu pre-installed so did not need to learn that process. Then, like Chris @2 I just started tinkering to see how it worked. And I would use the Duck when I had questions. I installed and for a while dual-booted with Mint, but finally decided to go upstream to Debian. With Debian I found the documentation to be most helpful. It took me about three years to become comfortable using Linux, but today I run Debian on three machines and LMDE on one machine. Today, I still will pull one of those books off the shelf for general Linux knowledge, go to the Debian documentation, or just query the Duck when I need to learn something new.
10 • how I learned Linux... (by tom joad on 2026-01-05 03:29:39 GMT from United States)
For me there was not one way or method. I used all of them either alone or several at a time. And I am happy to say I am still learning Linux. I hope that learning never stops.
My over arching method that I used, though, was 'immersion.' Like learning a foreign language, I just jumped and took off.
I installed an OS and worked it. When problems arose I solved them and learned a bit more. When I jacked something up, I fixed it myself and I learned some more. I distro hopped and learned more. I found Distrowatch and I learned more. I spend some fun hours just playing around with Linux Commands too. I have taken a blank sheet of paper to spend time writing down all of the commands I have learned. Internet searches are a great way to learn Linux. Along each search for a specific solution I would stumble across other Linux info that was unrelated but still handy to know.
All of that learning was fun too. Because the more I leaned the faster I could fix stuff.
Immersion is the same method I used to learn MS-Dos and windows.
11 • Learning Linux from many sources (by Bobbie Sellers on 2026-01-05 05:17:51 GMT from United States)
I started learning Linux with a book Linux for Dummies with a copy of Knoppix 3.?.
There were some misprints in the book which I learned by trying various procedures.
Then a friend sent me a copy of Mandriva 2006 which I installed on a laptop
running Windows XP I used Linux through the KDE GUI and gradually began
to use the CLI. I had previously leaned and used AmigaOS but not to play games
and knew a lot about that CLI where i prepared Disks of the Month drawing on
different resources such as BBS where I learned to use TIN and PIN to deal with
Usenet and with Unix Services. I have a very in-complete knowledge of Linux
commands used thru the CLI but that is one reason why I like PCLinuxOS as
it has excellent advice for people at all levels of Linux understanding.
bliss- Dell Precision 7730- PCLOS 2026- Linux 6.12.63-pclos1- KDE Plasma 6.5.4
12 • Poll (by Dan on 2026-01-05 05:19:23 GMT from United States)
My way of learning in the late 1990's was like many of you - you just sat down, and jumped in. Hopefully find a book here or there, especially because it had a dvd, but usually it was dial-up and man pages. Help consisted of asking forum questions where you were told "RTFM!" and told to go away. You f'ked up your system once in a while. Sometimes badly. You sweated blood, stayed up all night fighting with it, drank beer, and learned to cuss a lot. And when you finally got that bad boy to boot, you immediately jumped into getting the modem and printer working. And you went out, bought new monitors and printers, and cards, that would work with linux (or at least, had the best chance) and started the cussing, drinking, night owl stint, over and over. Good times!!!
13 • New to Linux (by always_corious_about_FOSS on 2026-01-05 06:54:51 GMT from Germany)
Some friends of me changed to linux. Mostly it"s easy for them to deal with the icons. But there is one big trap for them.
the Updates
If they are coming from Windows they don"t know to do the Updates by them self and to do it nearly daily at least weekly.
14 • Resources for learning Linux (by user on 2026-01-05 08:26:57 GMT from Bulgaria)
Previously - 20% books and 80% documentation, nowadays 20% documentation and 80% AI.
15 • Learning Linux (by borgio3 on 2026-01-05 08:28:14 GMT from Italy)
The only way to learn Linux/BSD is...just use it.
16 • Linux education (by arvis on 2026-01-05 10:30:40 GMT from Latvia)
Mostly I learned by doing but I also had friend who was using Linux too so we help each other. Man pages in Linux distro are incomplete or outdated. Books have helped some but again mostly outdated. Online manual for particular distros sometimes help for installing. Forums are usually rude. I can't stand to watch the video because they take forever to get to the point then skip the important part. Google and Yandex are best but it takes a lot of trying to find right answer. Windows has much better documentation.
17 • What is your favourite resource for learning Linux? (by Jake on 2026-01-05 10:55:44 GMT from United States)
I put forums, but as a causal user I have no desire to 'learn Linux' I just want to solve any problem that might arise.
I know many forums are not any good. Debian the usual response is 'RTFM', not helpful. But there are helpful forums out there, which is why I use Ubuntu Mate, knowledgeable helpful, and also polite. Another I have used is Zorin, which at least when I used it was also very helpful forum, but it has been a few years.
18 • books (by Jeffrey on 2026-01-05 11:48:56 GMT from Czechia)
I mostly use books, as their information density is best (compare that to the narcissistic a-holes who make talking-head videos on youtube, believing they are teaching something...), plus, once you find those proverbial rare gems, you can't go wrong with them.
@1 > they're [books] often outdated before they get published.
I dare you to enumerate those books, specifically listing how they are "outdated" (especially before publication), and how much that diminishes their usefulness. I have 10-15 year-old books related to Linux and free software, and they are still very useful. No, hardly anyone writes their own .xinitrc these days, and those books don't yet mention the dominant systemd, but most of their lessons are still valid. A shell scripting book won't at all be outdated just because it features a Bash version around 4.1, and anyone capable of using such a book should be able to look up those few important differences when they find them. "Classic shell scripting" is a 20-year-old book, but it is as relevant as ever. "Modern" books might cater to your version-number fetish, but they are usually of low quality, are written by people with poor language skills, and offer hardly any of the insight and way of thinking that you'll get from many "old" but excellent books. "The AWK programming language" just received it's second edition a few years ago, but even the first edition from 1988 is still an excellent resource, far better than many up-to-date books. (I know because I've learned from it.) I think I'll stop with the examples now...
19 • Learning Linux (by computerLover on 2026-01-05 11:59:18 GMT from Greece)
Blessed with an amstrad cpc 128k of memory and a z80 processor in the 80s as a child I loved computers and the ability to control them through the basic language and assembly for the more advanced stuff. Then i had to stop using computers and concentrate on my irrelevant to CS studies as in my backward country computers were considered a gadget for gaming or archiving information for large companies or state institutions, not worthy for intelligent students like my shelf. But i was right computers were the future and suddenly in 95 I found them in front of me and connected to the internet in my uni running windows nt for the server and 95 for the clients. Thrilled to use computers once more I used all my previous dos knowledge and tried to hack into them but information was scarce about windows and a lot of the local servers serving web pages and IRC were running some unix or unix like operating system. In 98 I bought my first pc which was a laptop running windows 98se versi!
on. I had to adapt and use this point and click menu driver interface using pre-made popular programs, complicated unintuitive and buggy. I had to use anti malware programs, firewalls, got infected by viruses trojians etc. The answer to my problems in the forums and irc was to reinstall windows but i couldn't accept it. I wanted control over my system and windows were too complicated and opaque as a sytem and although i tried honestly the real information i could get was more or less nonsense and the windows interface sucked. The real answer to my needs was Linux.
To the subject, learning linux. Learning linux was a breeze compared to windows quirks; everything was logical and well documented. The real problem of the time was to get it run on a laptop, proprietary drivers and dual-booting with windows. These problems still exist today but it's much easier and the other "problem" was choice, the which distro question. Linux is more of less the same but distros can be different. Online learning was always my preferred way, at the time that was, at least for me, online documentation, official project sites, forums like linuxquestions.org and irc channels but also the RTF man pages excellent documentation btw. And saying BTW let's not forget the also excelent archwiki and other distros wiki-documentation pages. There was also several learn linux sites and a very good resource by ibm it's shelf. It was the time of ''google is your friend", you could find so many things and resources on the web and yes not all of them are correct, but that !
is how i like it it matches the open source - free software bazzar (vs cathedral) ecosystem. Nowadays our "friend" adds on the top the answer to any question or search by it's AI; probably useful give the quallity of the google results after all the SEO and politics in the search engine landscape of today 2026 and happy new year btw.
Learning linux for the new comer, my suggestion: Install linux, start with a user friendly distro like linux mint, enjoy and then move to something more addvanced debian (the easiest next step) or to something more pure Arch linux and even Slackware to enjoy full control of the system and why not try linux from scratch to see how a linux system is actually build. As of the learning material it's all there in the open, be it books, manuals a knowledgeable community and even the modern AI with it's LLM models to assist you. Sorry for the length, hope it was helpful :)
20 • Learn Linux (by Dave on 2026-01-05 12:09:40 GMT from Australia)
I'm with @16, the best way to learn is to start using it. Man pages were designed to be understood by someone who already knows the information, completely worthless.
Onkine docs can be useful and YouTube if you like videos.
21 • Opinion Poll (by kc1di on 2026-01-05 12:10:05 GMT from United States)
I have to agree with others I use a variety of learning tools. Forums are a big part of it and have a few books which early on were very helpful "Running Linux" is one of them that I have kept over the years. Don't like video much as most of them bore me. But everyone learn in their own way. I have found this site to be of help to many - https://labex.io/linuxjourney
No matter which way works best for the individual there is usually more than one path to get there. Happy New Year! ALL!
22 • What is your preferred method for learning Linux? (by Mario on 2026-01-05 12:59:55 GMT from Italy)
Books. Paper is the vehicle that has always transmitted knowledge.
23 • Poll (by dragonmouth on 2026-01-05 13:10:07 GMT from United States)
All of the above and just using it.
@#1 - "Learning Linux" does not mean learning a particular distro. The basics of GNU/Linux are the same across ALL the distros. It's like knowing how to drive. Once you learn, you can operate any car made in the last 80 years or so. There may be some features specific to a particular make/model but that is minor.
24 • All of the above, as needed (by John on 2026-01-05 13:26:46 GMT from Canada)
I just started using Linux and as I would get stuck on something, I went to the best place for solving it - Google. That would either lead to a forum post or a video or some random comment that would give me enough information to figure it out and proceed on from there.
25 • Opinion Poll (by Terry on 2026-01-05 13:30:04 GMT from United States)
I agree with @19 completely. Install a distro and start using it. Questions will arise and when they do having a book where you can actually look things up is invaluable. I have a 10+ year old book for a distro I don't even use but it serves me very well.
I bring an old Dell laptop with my distro of choice to a local brew pub and have helped a 75 year old man and a 10 year old girl (her mom was there) get started using a Linux distro. The older man prefers to look things up in a book. In fact, he always has a book with him. The young lady learns by asking questions online. Every one has a preferred way to learn and find out things that they don't know. What makes me happy is that they both continue to move forward after 'getting stuck' at some point in their respective journeys.
Happy New Year to everyone!
26 • Leranin' Linux (by crayola eater on 2026-01-05 14:14:25 GMT from United States)
My initial source of knowledge were the good old How-To 'publications' on-line, and then just geeting my hands dirty and doing it. The sense of satisfaction I had getting an X screen server up and running on Slackware 1 had me hooked.
Further learning was mostly then through books, mostly of the O Reilly persuasions, and usenet forums.
Will never be a guru, but am still satisfied.
27 • PostmarketOS and learning GNU/Linux. (by Tuxedoar. on 2026-01-05 14:34:41 GMT from Argentina)
Jesse, thank you for reviewing PostmarketOS!. I was expecting it! :P I'm glad that it was, mostly, a positive experience for you. I'm running it on an old Motorola phone. I think that PostmarketOS is a promising project!.
Here's my piece of advice to anyone interested in learning GNU/Linux:
1) Don't be afraid to use Virtual Machines (VMs)!. Nowadays, almost any computer (x86) is capable of running VMs. Even, old computers (let's say, 5 years old or even older) that by today's standards are considered "obsolete", they are also capable of running them. I think they're great to experiment with GNU/Linux distros and learn, side-to-side to your main OS while the latter being unnafected by it. Feel free to make mistakes as much as you need, since you can always go backwards by using "snapshots". VirtualBox is a good option for getting started with VMs on Windows.
2) Try some of the major distros considered to be "friendly" (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc) and then try to stick to one of them for learning.
3) I think that books are stil a valuable resource for learning GNU/Linux. In particular, for learning basic commands, 95% of them haven't changed the way they are used in decades. So, for command line learning, even if such a book is old, it shouldn't be much relevant .
4) If you decide to do the migration, I suggest anyone to choose a "Long Term Support" (LTS) version of a distro, whenever possible!. This way, it's less probable that things may stop working overnight. Plus, you'll have security updates for, at least, 4 years.
5) If you feel inclined for an in-depth technical GNU/Linux stuff, take a look at the ArchLinux wiki. It's of great quality!.
Cheers.
28 • Poll (by Wolf66 on 2026-01-05 16:01:01 GMT from United States)
When I started with Linux back when Windows 95 was new, I just downloaded Slackware, installed it and had so many issues setting it up. But I knew Windows wasn't for me. So, I went to their forums. Back then, people were different, trolls were kept in check. But I digress. The people I met in the forums were amazing. They helped me sort my issues out and taught me everything I needed and taught me things I didn't think I would need. Patrick Volkerding and the community were great people.
Anyway, there should've been an option in the poll for multiple sources.
29 • Learning Linux (by David on 2026-01-05 16:49:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
My first Linux was a port of Red Hat to the Motorola 68000 architecture on the Q60, dual booting with QDOS. The only information I could find was a book on Unix! When I replaced that computer with a PC, I bought Linux for Dummies, complete with a CD of Fedora 1. These days, I rely on forums and on-line documentation, but I'd still rather have a good book.
30 • PinePhone and Phosh performance (by Eric on 2026-01-05 17:04:35 GMT from Sweden)
The article says 4 time that the hardware of PinePhone is "limited", but in what sense is it limited? It has 2 times cores of iPad 2 with circa 15% more speed each, and 4 times RAM. The GPU is in the same class - roughly the same performance as desktop AGP graphics cards in 2003. The eMMC read speed is 55 MB/s or more - on par with mid-2000s HDDs or faster. Maybe the software is written in Java? No, it is C. Surely the hardware performance is more than adequate for the same tasks as the iPad 2 use cases. The UI should not feel slow.
31 • postmarketOS resource usage (by Eric on 2026-01-05 17:25:35 GMT from United States)
I wouldn't regard 450 MB RAM out of 2 GB as "minimal" resource usage. KDE Plasma 4 used < 300 MB (including not just Plasma but the full OS) and was reputed as somewhat memory-heavy...
32 • Learn Linux (by David on 2026-01-05 18:50:50 GMT from United States)
Learn Linux???
Does the op mean learn Linux as the kernel. If that's the case, then the way I learn is by writing drivers to interact with hardware through the I/O processes.
Or does the op mean learn Linux through its various applications that sit on top of the kernel. If that's the case, then I learn it by using it everyday to get tasks completed.
33 • Learning GNU-Linux (by Roger on 2026-01-05 18:59:31 GMT from France)
Learning GNU-Linux is just doing it and learning from your mistakes.
I started in 1998 with BeOS and kept on going further slowly.
34 • @19 (by chel.n on 2026-01-05 16:36:39 GMT from Czechia)
Well, let's see. Just looking at the small stack of books on my nightstand alone:
- Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Desktop: Applications and Administration, by Richard Petersen
- Mastering Debian 11: The Complete Guide to Installation, Configuration, and Advanced Features, by Morgan Patridge
- The Debian Administrator's Handbook: Debian Bullseye from Discovery to Mastery, by Raphael Hertzog and Roland Mas
And that's not even including books that aren't exclusively about Linux but have large parts of them dedicated to Linux, such as Operating Systems Concepts, by Abraham Silberschatz, Peter B. Galvin and Greg Gagne.
Many of the given examples don't work as written, because the commands or file paths aren't the same anymore (nor trivially different). And they already didn't when these books first rolled off the press. Thus such books are largely useless to anyone who doesn't already know how (and therefore doesn't need the book in the first place).
And that is faaaaaaaaar from an exhaustive list of the books on Linux that I've seen over the last 20 years which are instantly so obsolete as to be of no practical use whatsoever. But judging by how emotion-driven your knee-jerk melt-down is, presumably you are precisely one of those ignorant monkeys that make Linux forums even worse than outdated books. So why bother enumerating more examples? You don't actually care, you just want to tell a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
35 • learn by breaking stuff (by Matt on 2026-01-05 19:04:37 GMT from United States)
My best learning experiences came after breaking something and then trying to fix it!
There are lots of ways to get broken Linux installs. Just try and you will succeed!
If you want to get a broken install as fast as possible, buy a new laptop with bleeding edge hardware and install linux on it. Your chance of successfully having a broken install increases dramatically if that laptop is manufactured by Lenovo. If you can't afford the new laptop with a poorly supported hardware, just install Arch on whatever hardware you already have. You will undoubtedly break stuff during the install. After you successfully install it and pat yourself on the back, just keep updating all the software every day. Heck, update twice a day. After a month or so, it will break again so you can learn more.
36 • X11 XENOCARA and Wayland (by rhtoras on 2026-01-05 16:53:43 GMT from Greece)
@8 VERY NICE COMMENT... i also use openbsd along Void linux. Well xenocara works and works just fine... i just do not trust red hat and it also happens that redhat is involved in both X11 na wayland so a fork of X11 would be nice... OK maybe wayland is the future but the future is not always bright... for example... neofetch stopped but is fastfetch better ? I do not think so... X11 is a little complicated but at least it works without flaws... wayland is not complicated but has many many flaws till now... AND this is where people on linux community tend to reinvent the wheel...
i want fvwm 1,2 and 3 to work on wayland... do they work ? Nope... what will happen tgo all these projects ? Please keep X11 for those of us who tend to like the classics... in the end of the day options never hurt...
37 • @4 Pinephone (by Cheker on 2026-01-05 19:49:10 GMT from Portugal)
@4 I used the Pinephone as my main phone for around a month back in 2021, in-between changing Android phones. The volume during calls was low and I couldn't raise it past a certain point, but that was about it. Receiving, calling, just worked. I asked other people how I sounded to them and was told it was fine.
The most annoying thing about the experience was the battery. I was charging the damn thing every day, sometimes twice a day, with light usage. My experience in this realm seems to be worse than most people. I don't know if my battery is defective or others have a higher tolerance for what a draining battery looks like.
38 • @37 X11 survival (by picamanic on 2026-01-05 20:03:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
@37 X11 survival: My quite reasonable fear is that the likes of Redhat will "sabotage" Linux X11, while Wayland is nowhere ready to replace it. We can hope that Xlibre and Phoenix [rewrite of X11 in Zig] will protect against this act of neglect, Troubling times.
39 • Poll & X11 (by Pogi Americano on 2026-01-05 21:03:46 GMT from United States)
I started in the early 90s with Slackware. I was reading some tech news and the word "free' caught my eye. I just downloaded it onto floppies and loaded it on an old computer. It took about a year before I could use it as a daily computer for research and writing. I joined a Slackware forum and a general Linux forum and read books, all kinds of books and anything Linux on the net that I could find. I haven't used Windows or Mac since '95. There are still times I have to crack a book open or ask in a forum or just search the net for an answer. And there are still times when I just sit and hash out a problem through trial and error. So, for the Poll - All of the above.
I agree with @37, "in the end of the day options never hurt... "
40 • Best option (by The Mekon on 2026-01-06 09:08:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
Choose EASY OS! You'll have a direct line to author Barry (&his PuppyOS friends). If anything needs fixing, explaining, modifying he'll work on it before W. Coast US is awake and report back on his forum. Recommended.
41 • Learning Linux (by Mike on 2026-01-06 09:34:34 GMT from The Netherlands)
When I started working with Linux, back in the Mepis-days, we used IRC to communicatie with other Linux-users and learn how to get things working.
Nowadays google and AI help to figure out stuff>
There is an issue with that though: old articles. Sometimes you find outdated information in articles that do not show the date they were pubished. They should be removed, but noone does that.
42 • What is your preferred method for learning Linux ? (by eb on 2026-01-06 09:37:19 GMT from France)
Learning command line tools !:-).
43 • Resources (by Jesse on 2026-01-06 12:36:53 GMT from Canada)
@31: " KDE Plasma 4 used < 300 MB (including not just Plasma but the full OS) and was reputed as somewhat memory-heavy..."
KDE 4 also launched (checks calendar) 18 years ago. Comparing current desktop resource usage to a desktop environment that is old enough to vote doesn't really make sense.
@30: "The article says 4 time that the hardware of PinePhone is "limited", but in what sense is it limited? It has 2 times cores of iPad 2 with circa 15% more speed each, and 4 times RAM. "
It's limited in that, even when the PinePhone was launched, it had specs which were considered quite low at the time. That was over 3 years ago. Its capabilities are considered low by any modern smartphone or laptop. Its even considered unusually low compared to a cheap, single board computer like the Raspberry 'Pi. (The Pi 5 has 4 times the amount of RAM the PinePhone has.)
The iPad 2 was released in 2011, that's 15 years ago. It has woefully low specs for a modern device.
Comments like these make me wonder if we entered a time warp. Hardware and software specifications change rapidly. Comparing modern devices to technology that was new nearly two decades ago doesn't make sense.
44 • Learning Linux, X11 (by Robert on 2026-01-06 15:39:14 GMT from United States)
Online documentation is the best. I learned all the basics from doing LFS/BLFS, and the Arch Wiki has been the best resource after that. Most of what I need today can be found there, but sometimes I'll need random forum posts, another knowledgebase such as Gentoo's, or documentation on git repos.
On X11, quote
"While Wayland does offer some attractive features, particularly in terms of security, it is less efficient in terms of performance and memory when compared to X.Org"
I'm gonna need to see some numbers on that. Meaning I myself ought to go look at some benchmarks and measurements. Because part of the reasoning behind Wayland is that X.org is bloated and the protocol involves too much talking back and forth because the server and compositor are separate (or something like that, been a while since I watched the talk). So *in theory* Wayland should be faster and more efficient.
In any case, I've been a happy Wayland user for years, but it makes no difference to me if other people want to continue on with X.org. I'm just happy that there are people stepping up to maintain it one way or another instead of crying about nobody maintaining it for them.
45 • Wayland and X11 (by Jesse on 2026-01-06 15:55:04 GMT from Canada)
@44: "I'm gonna need to see some numbers on that. Meaning I myself ought to go look at some benchmarks and measurements."
We linked to a series of Wayland vs X11 benchmarks which covered multiple desktops and configurations a few months back: https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20250714#news
They matched my own findings. In fact, I've pointed out in multiple reviews that Wayland takes significantly more resources to run than X11 and runs slower.
"Because part of the reasoning behind Wayland is that X.org is bloated and the protocol involves too much talking back and forth"
This is not the case. The main reasoning behind Wayland is that it _should_ be more secure and it removes a bunch of cruft/unused features X11 had that the developers found tricky to maintain. It has nothing to do with efficiency or performance. Wayland is visibly slower than X11 on low-end equipment and takes around 30% more RAM (depending on the desktop) and uses more CPU.
Don't take my word for it, fire up a Wayland session and look at your CPU and memory stats. Then sign out and log into the same desktop's X11 session. The difference will be immediately obvious. Especially if you're doing this on a low-end device like a phone or Pi.
46 • @45 Wayland and X11 (by Robert on 2026-01-06 16:01:45 GMT from United States)
Security and maintainability were for sure the primary motivators for Wayland, not arguing against that at all. I will have to see if I can dig up that talk I mentioned - I know it talked about how the X11 protocol was inefficient.
As a Wayfire user I don't have the option of logging in to an X11 session to compare, and I'd rather not install a big desktop for no other reason than to compare. But I will have a look at the benchmarks you linked.
47 • @44 (by rb on 2026-01-06 16:06:04 GMT from United States)
"I'm gonna need to see some numbers on that. Meaning I myself ought to go look at some benchmarks and measurements. Because part of the reasoning behind Wayland is that X.org is bloated and the protocol involves too much talking back and forth because the server and compositor are separate (or something like that, been a while since I watched the talk). So *in theory* Wayland should be faster and more efficient."
There is no theory that says Wayland is faster and more efficient. That is your assumption.
A good portion of Gentoo users still use X11. While still an option, most Gentoo users avoid Wayland and Systemd, both are resource heavy compared to their traditional counterparts. Wayland is not better generally speaking. It claims to address security issues. These are not necessarily issues for every day users, these are issues that most often affect corporate use. The average single user computer is generally speaking not highly affected by the security issues that Wayland seeks to address. Wayland is not significantly faster, more efficient, or feature enhanced than its predecessor by any means. X11 provides the framework and essentially does all the work, but Wayland only provides the protocol and each individual software component is required to do the work. Wayland is only as fast and efficient as the various components that implement the protocols.
48 • Resources (by Eric on 2026-01-06 17:20:38 GMT from Poland)
@43: "Hardware and software specifications change rapidly. Comparing modern devices to technology that was new nearly two decades ago doesn't make sense."
Jesse, I agree that the environment in which we use our devices changes. We now have higher-resolution video files and images compressed by more CPU-intensive codecs and ubiquitous HTTPS in the web. Newer games are more resource-hungry, as always. Advanced machine learning features (like automated image tagging by neural network inference) can be somewhat CPU-intensive. PinePhone CPU has AES instructions and supports H.265 decoding in hardware, even in 4K, but obviously not AV1 or newer formats. So what else changed much that is relevant to the typical tablet usage (let's not consider 5G and cellular bands)?
"Comparing current desktop resource usage to a desktop environment that is old enough to vote doesn't really make sense".
Does the current graphical shell has more features that really help its users, but which require a lot of resources? KDE 4 is surely mature by now :-), and 11 years ago it was still mainstream and current, and its memory usage in early 2015 was still below 300 MB. OK, Phoc is Wayland and Kwin was X11, but I fail to see a reason why a Wayland compositor inherently must require more resources than an X compositor. It was the other way around for early Wayland compositors.
49 • Wayland and security (by Eric on 2026-01-06 17:35:07 GMT from Switzerland)
@47:
"It claims to address security issues. These are not necessarily issues for every day users, these are issues that most often affect corporate use. The average single user computer is generally speaking not highly affected by the security issues that Wayland seeks to address."
X11 as implemented by X.org and the freedesktop.org ecosystem effectively prevents application sandboxing (except by using a separate unprivileged X server for the sandboxed apps). Any website that has a 0-day browser JS exploit on one of its pages, or any Flatpak/Snap app can freely interact with any GUI control in every window, effectively having the same permissions as trusted applications. If the user is sudoer, then these permissions are superuser rights, it is possible to do everything: format the disk, re-flash firmware, install a rootkit...
50 • Wayland (by Eric on 2026-01-06 17:43:17 GMT from Poland)
@45:
"Wayland ... takes around 30% more RAM (depending on the desktop)"
Perhaps it is partly because of the XWayland X server process needed for compatibility with X applications, isn't it?
51 • Correction (by Eric on 2026-01-06 17:58:02 GMT from Sweden)
@48
> PinePhone CPU
"The PinePhone CPU"
> Does the current graphical shell has
Sorry, should be "does the current graphical shell have".
52 • Phosh (by Eric on 2026-01-06 18:17:12 GMT from Germany)
Please don't take me wrong, Phosh is an amazing effort by Purism and other contributors, just perhaps its performance can be somewhat non-ideal because of its reliance on GTK4 and modern Gnome libraries.
53 • Yet another language blunder (by Eric on 2026-01-06 20:08:23 GMT from Poland)
@52:
"Don't take" - should be "don't get", of course. Sorry.
54 • X11 CVE exploits (by Keith S on 2026-01-06 21:13:51 GMT from United States)
@49 I can't find a CVE newer than 2024 that describes any X11 CVE that might allow such an exploit. Do you have a specific example of such an exploit that has not been discovered and fixed?
55 • X11 / Wayland (by Keith S on 2026-01-06 21:18:09 GMT from United States)
Again, the basic problem I have is not with Wayland itself, but some of the claims made by Wayland evangelists, such as "X11 has security issues" and "the adoption of Wayland and its replacement of X is inevitable." They are similar to the claims made for systemd and for Rust replacing C everywhere, but when something negative happens on any of those fronts, the evangelists go quiet. Not long ago large sections of the internet went down when Cloudflare crashed shortly after replacing its core with new Rust code, for example. There's not a lot of discussion about that though.
56 • X11 CVE exploits (by Eric on 2026-01-06 22:09:22 GMT from Switzerland)
@54:
It's not a bug - it is by design and works as documented, so there is no CVE identifier AFAIK. Take a look at https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/215775/security-model-of-linux-password-entry and the articles that the answer links to: https://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2011/04/linux-security-circus-on-gui-isolation.html and https://lwn.net/Articles/517375/ "XDC2012: Graphics stack security".
57 • @56 X11 (by picamanic on 2026-01-07 04:45:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
@56 X11: Security. I have lived with what Joanna Rutkowska described in her 2011 bog post, not really knowing if there are practical malware attacks that can exploit this gap in X11 security. If you know of any exploits, please don't tell me what they are on Distrowatch! The only solution to date has been Joanna Rutkowska deploying QubesOS, but there are issues with resources and [for me] systemd.
58 • X11, Wayland, and User Choice (by anon on 2026-01-07 07:32:53 GMT from United States)
@7: The best thing about OpenBSD, or any of the BSD's really, is that they leave the choice to the user. X11 and Wayland are both available in ports, so you can install and use whichever one you choose. Neither one is a part of the base system, and neither one is forced on you against your will - though the OS installer gives you the option to install X11 with a window manager out of the box. Myself and many others choose the base install with no graphical components, and we proceed to install and configure the display manager of our choice. I run OpenBSD as a server, and there is no need for a graphical environment on that particular machine. I also run OpenBSD as a daily driver, and I did a full graphical setup on that machine. The fact that the base OS lets me choose without forcing anything on me or assuming my use case is something that I greatly appreciate. Arch and Gentoo also provide that choice.
59 • My way of learning Linux (when migrating from Windows) (by pavlos on 2026-01-07 18:35:42 GMT from Poland)
Phase 1: VirtualBox on Windows, installing several Linux distros, playing around, learning basics
Phase 2: still on VB, trying to find proper native Linux software to repeat my Windows use cases and making decisions: which distro has all apps I need? which distro gives the most comprehensive support? which desktop environment?
Phase 3: installation of selected distro and desktop environment on a partition of my computer, installing applications, copying/sharing data with my Windows partitions, learning to live with Linux, still keeping Windows for emergency purposes
Final phase 4: making backup of everything from my Windows life, repartitioning my hard drive to have only Linux, installing from the scratch, reinstalling apps, recovering data. Goo-bye Windows. It's already 10+ years ago. For good and ever ;)
60 • X11 (by Eric on 2026-01-07 18:41:45 GMT from Poland)
@57:
"The only solution to date has been Joanna Rutkowska deploying QubesOS, but there are issues with resources and [for me] systemd".
It depends on your threat model. Qubes OS is a comprehensive solution, but there are more lightweight (but not so bulletproof) alternatives, even when using X11: it is possible to isolate the application in a separate X server like Xephyr or Xpra, cf. https://firejail.wordpress.com/documentation-2/x11-guide/ for details. It is impractical to do this with every application, however. By the way, the new Phoenix X11 server - reported in the news section - looks promising, I think it can achieve security by partially breaking compatibility, but right now it seems to be a one-man effort by a single pseudonymous developer...
61 • Learning Linux...or Cobol...or Rust...or FreeBSD...or adjusting the carburetor.. (by R. Cain on 2026-01-07 22:29:49 GMT from United States)
To all you who think that 'distro-hopping', U-Tube, and/or the "smart"phone are the greatest answers to learning, consider the following: the path to learning in most institutions of learning---starting at home, before kindergarten---is... __BOOKS__.
SURPRISE!!!
I wonder why.
(To all you who think that 'distro-hopping', U-Tube, and/or the "smart"phone are the greatest answers to learning: do you even KNOW WHY " " and "" are phrased / written the way they are?)
--------------------------------------------------------------
"The man who WILL NOT read has no advantage over the man who cannot read."--Mark Twain
62 • PinePhone (by DivestOS on 2026-01-08 04:35:29 GMT from Canada)
Thanks I have learned some critical things.
PostMarketOS Gnome worked at 3G.
It has not worked on 4G.
I updated the Modem firmware. I have been unable to update the ADSP firmware. I thought my issue was related to that.
I was unaware until Jessie mentioned that channel 66 is not supported.
I am also surprised that Ubuntu Touch is no longer supported. I thought Oren was doing things differently because its mainline with no Halium layer.
There are still 3 other distros like SailfishOS, Arch & Maemo Leste that still seem to be supported that I have not tried.
63 • @60 X11 feature mitigations (by picamanic on 2026-01-08 09:52:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
@60 X11 feature mitigations. I have tried using Xephyr to resolve these X11 flaws, but so far I have failed to remove this problem. I will try again, just in case. I have tried using KVM/Qemu and Xen as a lightweight way of replicating QubesOS. I am just not smart enough to get these things to work!
64 • Wayland vs X11 footprint... (by rhtoras on 2026-01-08 23:48:52 GMT from Greece)
@44 WHAT you say happened with systemD. Back then they were talking: "oh lets bring systemD because it is faster and has faster boot times too" the same people in 2026 say: "but who cares about boot times, use nvme". The facts say systemD was back then a little faster (only compared with sysV because everything else was faster). Nowdays though is slower compare to any other init available. And here comes the X11 thing... Now they are saying wayland is faster only to come back in a few years to say "but who cares about speed times ?" Same people, same philosophy.
p.s I am not saying wayland is bad in any means (like systemD is)... it's just different. I like Xorg, i like Xorg forks but have no problem with Wayland whatsoever (till microsoft put in their hands along redhat).
65 • @64 Wayland versus X11 (by picamanic on 2026-01-09 12:04:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
@64 Wayland versus X11: same as SystemD versus SysVinit? Mature [old], battle tested, dwindling support versus New, faster, better supported. But with SystemD there is an Elephant in the room: SystemD is 2 million lines of C, whereas modern alternatives are only 2-6k lines of code. I have always known that code bloat creates a support dependency on an industrial scale.
If Wayland is ever able to replace the funtionality of X11, I will use it. Until then, I cannot see the merit of deliberately neglecting X11, so that users feel compelled to use Wayland.
66 • X11 or Wasteland? (by We all float down on 2026-01-09 15:57:28 GMT from The Netherlands)
None of the above! To paraphrase Ken Thompson, all that (overhead) for just a terminal?
If I want a super fast boot and less distraction I can use, today, SliTaz base, start screen (or tmux) with two clients, a shell and the links browser in text mode, copy/paste text without a mouse in, let's see, 13972KB RAM (hard limit mem=20M kernel parameter guestimate) and still bore you all to bits here.
If I do want the pretty pictures I can openvt and still escape man-made GTK/C++/Rust horrors by using links -g in a framebuffer. Now, if someone could combine this with edbrowse, that would be great.
Thank you for your attention to this nutter.
67 • @4 phone calls (by Kazlu on 2026-01-09 16:23:20 GMT from France)
I have been using a Sony Xperia X 10 II with SailfishOS. So, nor Pinephone neither PostmarketOS, but qualifies as "non-Androif/iOS" phone. It worked fine. I had trouble once abroad where tethering worked and then stopped working, and I received every SMS in 10 copies. But it was a couple of years ago. MMS comes and go, works if you toggle between 3G and 4G.
68 • Systemd (by Eric on 2026-01-09 16:46:22 GMT from Sweden)
@65:
"SystemD there is an Elephant in the room: SystemD is 2 million lines of C, whereas modern alternatives are only 2-6k lines of code."
Systemd is now actually circa 700 thousands lines of C code (this number was 2 times smaller in 2017), as you can see at https://sources.debian.org/src/systemd/259-1. The minimalist alternatives are init/service management only, you most likely also need syslog (>100k now for rsyslog, but this number includes tests), cron, chrony or ntp, resolvconf, elogind or ConsoleKit etc. for the same functionality. A few of architectural decisions in systemd are right and useful but other features are annoying or questionable.
69 • FreeBSD and WiFi (by OhNo on 2026-01-09 19:02:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
Meanwhile, WPA3 support is still missing in action...
70 • Overhead (by Keith S on 2026-01-09 21:22:27 GMT from United States)
@66 As a fellow minimalist, I appreciate your general drift, but we are no longer living in a world where the $120,000 PDP-1 with 288Kb modular magnetic core memory running at 200kHz is king of the hill, so a Ken Thompson quote from the days when he was still running B language from his terminal is a bit misleading. Crucial will sell you 128GB of fast RAM for under $600, even though that price is inflated by the AI chuds' demand for more resources. But I agree that less is more, generally speaking.
Number of Comments: 70
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| • Issue 1164 (2026-03-16): d77void, age verification laws and Linux, SUSE may be for sale, TrueNAS takes its build system private, Debian publishes updated Trixie media, MidnightBSD and System76 respond to age verification laws |
| • Issue 1163 (2026-03-09): KaOS 2026.02, TinyCore 17.0, NuTyX 26.02.2, Would one big collection of packages help?, Guix offers 64-bit Hurd options, Linux communities discuss age delcaration laws, Mint unveils new screensaver for Cinnamon, Redox ports new COSMIC features |
| • Issue 1162 (2026-03-02): AerynOS 2026.01, anti-virus and firewall tools, Manjaro fixes website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating a map app |
| • Issue 1161 (2026-02-23): The Guix package manager, quick Q&As, Gentoo migrating its mirrors, Fedora considers more informative kernel panic screens, GhostBSD testing alternative X11 implementation, Asahi makes progress with Apple M3, NetBSD userland ported, FreeBSD improves web-based system management |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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GhostBSD
GhostBSD is a user-friendly desktop operating system based on FreeBSD. Its default desktop is MATE, but a separate community edition with Xfce is available too. It also features a selection of commonly used software, a rolling-release development model, and a bootable live image with an intuitive graphical system installer.
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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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