 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1162, 2 March 2026 |
|
Welcome to this year's 9th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Linux distributions are a lot different than proprietary operating systems in several ways. Apart from the licensing and organizational differences, Linux distributions typically take different approaches to security. This week, in our Questions and Answers section, we talk about anti-virus tools and firewalls in the Linux community and why these utilities are often not enabled on Linux by default. Before diving into this discussion on security we talk about AerynOS, an independent distribution that offers a rolling release approach and a custom package manager called moss. The AerynOS team have been making quick progress lately and we share early impressions of this young distribution in this week's Feature Story. In our News section this week we report on Manjaro fixing a problem with the project's website certificate and Ubuntu's plan to split its firmware package to reduce the size of updates. We also share news that some versions of the Linux kernel will receive extended support while Murena is working on a new map application for mobile devices. The NetBSD operating system may soon have its own jails implementation and we share details below. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: AerynOS 2026.01
- News: Manjaro fixes lapsed website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating map application
- Questions and answers: Anti-virus and firewall tools
- Released last week: Clonezilla Live 3.3.1-35, VyOS 2026.02, NebiOS 10.2, BunsenLabs Carbon, MocaccinoOS 26.03, Oreon 10-2603
- Torrent corner: BunsenLabs Linux, KDE neon
- Opinion poll: Do you have a firewall enabled on your home computer?
- Reader comments
|
| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
AerynOS 2026.01
AerynOS is a Linux distribution that focuses on modern technologies, uses atomic updates, and features a custom package manager called moss. AerynOS features a rolling release approach and, by default, runs the GNOME desktop, though Plasma and COSMIC can be installed. The distribution offers a custom package manager called moss and enables Flatpak support out of the box.
The AerynOS distribution is still labelled as being alpha software (incomplete and not necessarily stable), but the project has been publishing regular snapshots and I decided to see what the latest ISO (version 2026.01) could offer. I had tried earlier snapshots of AerynOS without much luck, with something usually going wrong during the boot process or failing at install time, but I hoped, with the new release, my luck would change.
AerynOS is available in a single edition which is a 2.3GB download. The ISO includes the GNOME 49 desktop which launches automatically when we boot the distribution's live session. The GNOME session runs on Wayland and uses a dark theme with a single panel placed across the top of the screen.
The live desktop does not feature a dock or desktop icons. To launch the project's system installer we can browse the application menu where I found a launcher called "Install AerynOS".
Installing
Launching the system installer opens a terminal window. The text-based installer warns us that to set up AerynOS we will need to manually partition the hard drive with some specific choices. We're told AerynOS requires a GPT layout with an EFI partition. We are also told to create a boot partition (with the FAT32 filesystem) and a root partition (ideally formatted with XFS, though this is not required). The installer also instructs us to enable an Internet connection before proceeding because the installer needs to download packages.
The live desktop includes the GParted partition manager and this makes following the installer's requirements fairly easy. I was worried at one point because the installer insists the boot partition must be formatted for FAT32, but GParted warns the system does not include tools for accessing FAT32 partitions. This warning turned out to be of no consequence and I was able to proceed with the install process.
Returning to the text installer, I was asked which filesystem to use for the boot and root partitions. The root partition, according to the installer, must be formatted with XFS, F2FS, or ext4. We are told XFS is the preferred option while ext4 should be avoided because, according to the installer, it is too slow and offers "limited rollback capacity". I took the installer at its word and opted to use XFS.
We are next asked to pick our preferred desktop with the options being GNOME, Plasma, or COSMIC. Plasma is recommended and I again took the installer's advice. We're also asked to pick our language and timezone from lists and then we're told to make up a password for the root account. The next step asks us to make up a username and password for the "admin" account, though I suspect it means "regular" account since we have already set a password on the admin account. With these steps completed the installer fetched packages and installed them. Less than five minutes after it started, the installer reported it was finished and I was asked to reboot the computer.
AerynOS 2026.01 -- Exploring the application menu
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Early impressions
My new copy of AerynOS booted to a graphical login screen where I was able to sign into the Plasma desktop. There is just one session option, Plasma 6.5 running a Wayland session; there is no X11 fallback option. The Plasma desktop places a dark panel along the bottom edge of the screen. There are no desktop icons on the display. Once we sign in we are greeted by a welcome window which highlights some KDE features and offers to launch the Discover software centre. The welcome window also asks if we would like to enable telemetry with the default being to not send any information to the developers.
Once the welcome window has been dismissed the Plasma desktop is relatively quiet and stays out of the way.
Hardware
The AerynOS distribution requires UEFI to boot (and a disk with a GPT layout). The distribution will not boot in Legacy BIOS mode or on a DOS-style disk layout. The distribution ran well in VirtualBox, performing smoothly and integrating well with the host system.
When testing AerynOS on my laptop the operating system ran well, for the most part. Networking, audio, and my touchpad all worked as expected. My shortcut keys worked to adjust volume and screen brightness (the screen was uncomfortably dim by default). Both the live GNOME desktop and the installed Plasma desktop ran smoothly and were responsive.
AerynOS 2026.01 -- The calendar and file manager
(full image size: 551kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
AerynOS does not ship with many applications, but it consumes a lot of resources. The Plasma desktop required 1,450MB of RAM just to sign into my account and a fresh install took about 13GB of disk space, about double the storage space that a mainstream desktop Linux distribution typically requires.
Included software
Browsing the Plasma application menu I found a collection of software which was (mostly) typical for a KDE Plasma environment, though there were a few surprises. The Firefox web browser is installed along with the Dolphin file manager and the KDE Partition Manager. The Okular document viewer was present. The two surprises were the Merkuro Calendar and Merkuro Contacts tools which were installed by default. There is no office suite in the default collection. The Elisa music player and Haruna media player are installed along with codecs for playing audio and video files. As is often the case, the default media player did not work in a Wayland session, but when I installed VLC it was able to play videos in the Plasma Wayland session.
The distribution also provides a system monitor and the extensive KDE System Settings panel which can customize the desktop to a fantastic degree. The distribution includes an oddly over-engineered screenshot tool. It offers lots of features and requires quite a bit of manual input to select a region of the screen and pick a filename and offers lots of options. The screenshot tool is flexible, but it's not practical for jut taking quick snapshots.
AerynOS 2026.01 -- The System Settings panel
(full image size: 817kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The Calendar application worked well for me for managing a local calendar, but it doesn't seem to be able to synchronize with any on-line calendars, such as Nextcloud.
AerynOS ships with the GNU command line tools and runs the bash shell by default. Manual pages are installed, but there is no manual page viewer on the system. We can install the man command later to gain access to the local documentation.
In the background we find systemd managing services, version 6.18 of the Linux kernel, and the sudo command provides admin-level access. There is no compiler and no Java support on the system by default.
AerynOS 2026.01 -- The Zed editor
(full image size: 415kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
I found that trying to run a command from bash when the program was not installed would bring up a prompt asking if we want to fetch the missing software. For example, running "man" prompts us to fetch the man program using the moss package manager. This brings me to the subject of software management.
Software management
When managing packages on the AerynOS distribution we have two main options: working with Flatpak bundles or using the moss command line package manager which has a fairly traditional approach to managing low-level packages.
AerynOS 2026.01 -- The Discover software centre
(full image size: 826kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
AerynOS automatically connects us with the Flathub repository for Flatpak bundles. For handling these Flatpak packages we can run the command line flatpak utility or the Discover software centre. Discover does a nice job of helping us find applications by name, category, or popularity. It can also find and fetch updated Flatpak bundles and install them for us. The one issue I had with Discover was, immediately after installing a new Flatpak bundle, the new bundle would not appear in Discover's Installed tab. In order to see (or remove) newly installed Flatpak bundles I had to close Discover and relaunch the software centre; merely refreshing its repository information did not help.
Something which may surprise new AerynOS users is the Discover software centre cannot deal with the distribution's low-level packages. Classic packages are handled by the moss command line tool and there does not appear to be any graphical front-end available for moss.
The moss command line package manager is a custom utility used by AerynOS and it offers atomic updates. In fact, while moss looks and acts like any other traditional package manager on the surface, there are some interesting actions which take place behind the scenes. I recommend reading the project's summary of moss as it shares some cool information about atomic updates, deduplication, and how moss manages root filesystems.
AerynOS 2026.01 -- The moss package manager
(full image size: 870kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
On the surface, moss acts like other popular package managers, such as DNF and APT. The "moss list installed" command shows us what is currently installed on the system, "moss search" finds packages in the repository, and "moss install" can install new packages. The "moss sync" or "moss up" commands can be used to update software already installed while "moss remove" deletes old packages.
I found moss to be pleasantly intuitive to use, I liked that the command line tool would display a helpful summary of commands if I ran it without any parameters, and its output was nicely formatted with helpful progress information. The package manager worked quickly, despite the advanced work it performed in the background, and I ran into no problems while using moss.
Conclusions
Whenever I am testing software which is clearly labelled as being in development I try to bear in mind that the operating system will have some issues and limitations. AerynOS is in its alpha development phase and, by definition, we should expect to run into software which is either incomplete or buggy (or both). With AerynOS this is further complicated by the fact the project appears to be aiming for a "modern" approach, meaning some missing functionality may very well be intentional. For instance, I mentioned earlier AerynOS will not boot on Legacy BIOS systems, but I don't think it is meant to, preferring to focus exclusively on UEFI-enabled computers. Likewise, I don't think AerynOS supports running any X11 desktops or window managers, preferring Wayland-only options (COSMIC, Plasma, and GNOME) and this also seems to be an intentional design rather than an oversight.
In other words, when running an unfinished operating system, it can be difficult to decide what is missing or broken by accident (or oversight) and what is not working by intentional design. I'm fairly certain the relatively small number of supported desktops is intentional (to help streamline the project and focus on Wayland) and I think the relatively small collection of traditional packages in the moss repositories is also intentional so that users will run Flatpak bundles instead. On the other hand, I think having manual pages installed without a manual page viewer is probably an oversight and I am fairly certain Discover not "seeing" installed packages until the software centre has been restarted is a bug. In my opinion these are problems which are, for an alpha release, entirely understandable.
There are a few areas where I think the problems or limits are a bit more concerning. Having the installer ask me to create FAT32 partitions while the partitioning tool warns there is no FAT32 support available did not instill confidence in the operating system. This was not a show stopping bug, but definitely something that made me double check my setup before continuing.
Despite the "alpha" label on AerynOS and despite a few rough edges and despite a few limitations, the distribution has made a good deal of progress. A year ago I couldn't get AerynOS to even successfully install and, at this point, the distribution not only runs, but it also performs fairly well as a desktop distribution. It is responsive, it supports multiple desktop environments, it has a decent collection of applications (largely thanks to Flathub). The project is a little heavy, but not all that different from some mainstream distributions such as Fedora or Ubuntu running the same desktop environments. The hardware support delivered and, once we get beyond the text installer, AerynOS provides a slick, attractive user interface that covers basic desktop computing needs.
I wouldn't say yet that I'd recommend AerynOS, but the project is doing some interesting work with the moss package manager which looks like it could pay off, making updates reliable without the extra weight of an advanced filesystem. I think it is worth a look, especially for people interested in exploring outside the usual mainstream projects in the Debian, Fedora, and Arch families.
* * * * *
Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an HP DY2048CA laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 512GB solid state drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Wireless network device: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + BT Wireless network card
* * * * *
Visitor supplied rating
AerynOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 7.4/10 from 17 review(s).
Have you used AerynOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
|
| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Manjaro fixes lapsed website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating map application
In a bit of news some readers may experience as deja vu, the Manjaro website was (at the time of writing) off-line due to a lapsed security certificate. The Manjaro website is reporting its HTTPS certificate expired on February 24, 2026 and the site was off-line for over an hour. This has happened a few times in the past, with the website going off-line due to failure to renew the project's web certificate. It has happened at least twice before, once in 2015 and again in 2022. Web certificates are usually renewed automatically, about once every three months, but network errors and changes in automated scripts can cause the renewal to quietly fail. Update: The website's certificate has been updated and the Manjaro website is on-line.
* * * * *
The Ubuntu team are addressing the growing amount of firmware available for Linux and the resulting growth in the linux-firmware package size by splitting the large firmware package into vendor-specific bundles. This is in response to a bug report which pointed out: "The linux-image-generic package depends on linux-firmware which is over half a gigabyte in size installed. I will assume that quite many people do not have Netronome hardware which weighs in at almost 150MB of that. I kindly suggest to put such large firmware for less common hardware into its own linux-firmware-extra package which would be recommended by linux-firmware." The current plan is to split the large firmware package into 17 smaller, vendor-specific packages for Ubuntu 26.04.
* * * * *
One powerful feature for process isolation that has been popular on FreeBSD is a jail. A jail is similar to a container on Linux, an isolated environment which is lighter than a full featured virtual machine and which uses the host operating system's kernel. The concept of jails is coming to NetBSD, thanks to the appropriately named Jails for NetBSD project. "Jails for NetBSD aims to bring lightweight, kernel-enforced isolation to NetBSD. It is designed to fill the operational gap between simple chroot environments and full virtualization systems such as Xen. The goal is to enable running multiple workloads on a single host with: Strong process isolation; per-jail resource control; supervised runtime behavior; unified lifecycle management; centralized logging; Prometheus-compatible metrics." Jails for NetBSD is not yet part of the official NetBSD operating system, but an ISO based on NetBSD 10.1 is available for people who wish to test the jails concept.
* * * * *
In a move which will probably not affect Linux users much, but will be a benefit for kernel package maintainers, Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced stable versions of the Linux kernel will received support for longer than originally planned. "Based on lots of discussions with different companies and groups and the other stable kernel maintainer, this moves to show that the current status is: 5.10 to be supported for 6 years, 5.15 to be supported for 5 years, 6.6 to be supported for 4 years, 6.12 to be supported for 4 years, 6.18 to be supported for at least 3 years." The announcement includes the original support timeline along with the updated timeline for each kernel version.
* * * * *
The Murena team, who produce the de-Googled, Android based operating system called /e/OS, have started work on a new map application. The new application seeks to address limitations in current proprietary and open source navigation tools, as described in the organization's announcement. "Some map applications might perform well, but do not respect your privacy. Today it doesn't even surprise us anymore that we can zoom into other people's gardens, or that Google teams are such fans of us that they analyze our average driving speed to add this information to our consumer profile. On the other hand, it is difficult to find a transparent, open-source, open-data map that doesn't require downloading many GBs of maps before you can use it, which limits our ability to improvise, find points of interest and costs us time.
Our team and community members wished to have a combination of both: a map application that's easy to use, reliable, works out of the box immediately without the need for downloads, and still doesn't make millions by selling our habits and other private data." Details about the new application can be found in this FOSDEM talk.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
|
| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Anti-virus and firewall tools
Guarding-the-gates asks: I'd like to know if there now is virus scanner/firewall support available for Linux?
DistroWatch answers: Yes, there are options for firewall tools and anti-virus scanners on Linux. All Linux distributions offer firewall options and almost all desktop and server distributions include a friendly firewall tool by default. Typically, desktop distributions will ship a graphical firewall tool such as Gufw or firewalld. These tools make it easy to enable the firewall and block (or open) ports. When you are running a server distribution and working from a command line, you will typically run ufw or firewalld-cmd to manage network traffic.
Anti-virus tools on Linux are relatively rare since they usually are not needed. However, if you want to run an anti-virus scanner there are some options. The most popular anti-virus tool for Linux is probably ClamAV which has a graphical front-end manager called ClamTk.
I'd like to point out that, in most situations, you probably will not need anti-virus or a firewall if you are running a desktop system at home. Anti-virus mostly guards against programs or files which are downloaded from untrusted sources and then run unknowingly. Since almost all applications on a Linux system are fetched from curated sources, it is quite rare for a user to end up with a malicious program on their system. Also, Linux marks newly downloaded data files (images, documents, and videos) as being readable, but not executable. This means you can open a data file to view its contents, but not attempt to run it like a program. This prevents malware from disguising itself as another file type in order to trick the user into launching it. It is possible to infect a Linux system with a virus, but it usually only happens if someone is going out of their way to fetch and run untrusted software from a third-party.
Regarding firewalls, it's key to understand what a firewall does. A firewall blocks network traffic, usually traffic from the outside world that is trying to contact network services running on your computer. A firewall is useful when you are running a network service and want to either block or limit connections from specific addresses or regions. For example, if you are running a secure shell service you might want to limit the rate at which people can connect to your computer and attempt to guess your password.
In situations where you are not running a network service (such as OpenSSH or a web server) then there is no service for an attacker to contact. Which means the firewall is not offering any additional protection. Running a firewall probably will not cause any problems either, so it doesn't hurt to enable one. However, some desktop distributions choose not to enable a firewall by default since they also are not running any Internet-facing network services and a firewall is redundant in such a situation.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
|
| Released Last Week |
Clonezilla Live 3.3.1-35
The Clonezilla Live project has announced the release of a new stable version, 3.3.1-35, which is based on Debian's Unstable (Sid) branch. "The underlying GNU/Linux operating system was upgraded. This release is based on the Debian Sid repository (as of 2026/Feb/20). The Linux kernel was updated to 6.18.9-1. Partclone was updated to 0.3.45. Implemented mechanisms for cloning 4kn disks to 512n/e disks and 512n/e disks to 4kn disks. Thanks to john (zx1100e1). Improved functions do_ntfs_512to4k_fix and do_ntfs_4kto512_fix by updating Total Sectors (Offset 40) for NTFS. Added a new program, ocs-pt-512-4k-convert, to convert 512B to 4kn partition tables. Rewrote ocs-expand-gpt-pt to be more robust, including 512B to 4kn conversion if mismatched sectors are detected. Added a mechanism to change the master key from a LUKS header. Thanks to nbergont for the contribution. Rewrote ocs-get-nic-fw-lst to retrieve firmware lists directly from Linux kernel modules. Added two more info files in image dir: fdisk.list and blkdev.json. Thanks to arij for the suggestion. Included makeboot64.cmd instead of makeboot64.bat in the live system. Thanks to Tom Hoar. Improved BitLocker support: partitions now work on the clone server (ocs-onthefly), and the system now prompts for passwords again if entered incorrectly. Thanks to Marcos Diez." A complete list of changes and fixes can be found in the project's release announcement.
VyOS 2026.02
Daniil Baturin has announced the release of version 2026.02 of VyOS Stream, a community edition of the project's enterprise-grade, open-source networking platform for bare metal, cloud and edge, based on Debian's "Stable" branch. The new release features various feature enhancements and bug fixes: "VyOS Stream 2026.02 is available for download now. It features multiple backports from the rolling release, including TLS support for syslog, NAT66 source groups, IPFIX support in VPP, FRR and VPP updates, and over fifty bug fixes. It also makes the VPP configuration subsystem use DPDK as the default driver for NICs that support it and fall back to XDP automatically if needed - there is no need to and no option to configure the driver by hand anymore. VyOS no longer allows multicast addresses to be assigned to interfaces. Previously, something like set interfaces ethernet eth0 address 224.0.0.100/24 was a valid configuration commands. Now the CLI will reject it and configs with such addresses will fail to load. While Linux kernel and iproute2 allow manually assigning multicast addresses, allowing that in the VyOS CLI was an oversight - such configurations will never work for their intended purposes. For multicast traffic to actually work, hosts need to join multicast groups using IGMP." Read the rest of the release announcement for further information.
NebiOS 10.2
Sarp Mateson has announced the release of NebiOS 10.2, an updated build of the project's Ubuntu-based desktop Linux distribution with a custom-built NebiOS Wayland compositor (based on Wayfire). This release brings changes to napp-runtime, the NebiOS App Runtime application format, and the distribution's software repository called Bundle Store: "NebiOS X 10.2 update is now available. The biggest change in this release is the full rewrite of both Bundle Store and napp-runtime. Most of napp-runtime's codebase has been moved to Python and compiled with Nuitka, just like other NebiOS userspace components. Along with that, several critical changes landed: security - a manifest signing and verification system using Ed25519 and SHA256 has been added; performance - cold-start time dropped by roughly half, from 400-500ms down to 200-300ms; binary cache - previously located under /Applications/.My_App, now moved to ~/.cache/napp-runtime/binaries; no sandbox mode - for applications verified by the system repository, you can now bypass the bwrap isolation layer and run them directly at the system level; NINF 2.0 - application identifiers and configurations now natively use NINF 2.0; out-of-store installation - launchers are now created automatically...." See the release announcement for more details.
NebiOS 10.2 -- Running the custom, Wayfire-based, desktop
(full image size: 4.9MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
BunsenLabs Linux Carbon
John Raff has announced the release of BunsenLabs Linux Carbon, a new major update of the project's lightweight distribution with a customised Openbox window manager, now based on Debian 13. This release brings support for the Wayland display server: "The BunsenLabs team is happy to announce our latest release, BunsenLabs Carbon. Based on Debian 'Trixie', Carbon has had many improvements, including a new desktop appearance and assistance (coming soon) for users who want to experiment with Wayland. The BunsenLabs Session is now able to launch Wayland sessions, if the necessary apps and configurations are provided. In the near future a 'plugin' metapackage will be available to add a base Wayland session to a BL Carbon system. Several core apps have been changed to ones that support Wayland as well as X11, or make applying themes simpler. picom configurations have been substantially updated to use the current picom, which now needs 3D acceleration and openGL. A wrapper script has been added for pkexec under Wayland, and sudoedit is now used to edit files as root. A 'bl-menu' command has been added so a menu can be started from the same launcher regardless of running on X11 or Wayland." See the release announcement and the release notes for further details.
BunsenLabs Linux Carbon -- Running Openbox
(full image size: 1742kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
MocaccinoOS 26.03
The developers of MocaccinoOS, a set of Gentoo-based Linux distribution with several popular desktops and a custom package manager called "Luet", have announced the release of MocaccinoOS 26.03. The new version updates the Linux kernel to the long-term supported version 6.12.74: "We're excited to announce the release of MocaccinoOS 26.03. We hope you enjoy this release and the improvements it brings. Changes since 26.02: Linux kernel upgraded to 6.12.74 (LTS); COSMIC desktop environment 1.0.8 is available from our repositories; Mesa version 25.3.5; Hyprland is moved to the community repository. Issues and improvements: each ISO image now ships with the MocaccinoOS manual (we packaged it so you can install it on any system); added documentation for fcitx-based input methods, including Chinese table and phonetic engines. add out-of-the-box support for RTW89. You can extend your system with additional software using Flatpak, Docker or the community repository. We welcome your feedback - whether it's bug reports or ideas for improvements." Here is the complete release announcement.
Oreon 10-2603
Brandon Lester has announced the release of Oreon 10-2603, a new update of the project's live distribution based on AlmaLinux (with support until 2035) and featuring a customised GNOME desktop. This release replaces the Anaconda installer with a custom installation program called "Centrio" and switches the default filesystem from XFS to Btrfs: "Oreon 10 March 2026 update (build 2603). This is a major feature update for Oreon 10. Changelog: replaced Anaconda with Centrio Installer (custom installer); added NVIDIA driver detection and optional automatic installation during OS setup; added default web browser selection during installation with several web browser options; enabled Flatpak by default with option to disable during installation; added selectable installation bundles for office work, development, gaming and more; added OEM configuration section in installer for pre-shipped repositories and packages; switched default filesystem from XFS to Btrfs (other filesystem options available during OS setup); updated system branding and logos with cleaner, properly sized assets; switched to systemd-resolved for DNS management."
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
|
| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 3,396
- Total data uploaded: 49.5TB
|
| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
|
Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Do you have a firewall enabled on your home computer?
In this week's Questions and Answers section we talked about firewalls, briefly covering what a firewall does. A firewall is a handy tool for filtering network traffic and limiting attacks against network services. At the same time, a firewall on a system which does not provide any network services has limited usefulness. This week we would like to hear if your home computer runs a firewall.
You can see the results of our previous poll on the Nix and Guix package managers in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
|
Do you run a firewall on your home computer?
| Yes: | 1032 (61%) |
| No: | 604 (36%) |
| I do not know: | 51 (3%) |
| I do not have a home PC: | 7 (0%) |
|
|
| Website News |
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 9 March 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)
|
|
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 0, value: US$0.00) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
|
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Archives |
| • Issue 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 |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
| Random Distribution | 
Ubuntu Budgie
Ubuntu Budgie (previously budgie-remix) is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the Budgie desktop, originally developed by the Solus project. Written from scratch and integrating tightly with the GNOME stack, Budgie focuses on simplicity and elegance, while also offering useful features, such as the Raven notification and customisation centre.
Status: Active
|
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
