 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1171, 4 May 2026 |
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Welcome to this year's 18th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Last week the world witnessed the release of Ubuntu 26.04, a long-term support version, which was accompanied by a wave of community editions. Jeff Siegel took one of these editions, Xubuntu, for a test drive and reports on his experiences with the distribution in our Feature Story. Following the 26.04 release, Canonical announced plans to introduce AI-powered features in future versions of Ubuntu. We provide a link to the company's plans in our News section, along with a story about a Devuan developer maintaining a fork of the GTK2 toolkit. Our News section also shares information on a port of Linux to the PlayStation 5 console and links to a report about a significant local exploit for the Linux kernel. The Linux Mint team is extending the project's development cycle and publishing new install media to fill in gaps - we provide links to the announcement and new media below. Our Questions and Answers section this week talks about extending system memory using video cards and, in our Opinion Poll, we ask what kind of video card our readers have. Plus we are pleased to share a summary of last week's distribution releases and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: Xubuntu 26.04
- News: Ubuntu plans AI features, Devuan developer creates GTK2 fork, Mint introduces hardware enablement install media, Linux runs on PlayStation 5 consoles, distributions patch local kernel flaw
- Questions and answers: Extending memory using a video card
- Released last week: Talos Linux 1.13.0, umbrelOS 1.7.0, Fedora 44, ToaruOS 2.3.0, Bazzite 44, Nyarch Linux 26.04, Commodore OS Vision 3.1, Grml 2026.04
- Torrent corner: Commodore OS Vision, Fedora, Parrot
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 15.1-BETA2
- Opinion poll: Discrete vs integrated video cards
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jeff Siegel) |
Xubuntu 26.04
This has not been a good year for Xubuntu, the Xfce-based Ubuntu flavour. Last October, the distro's website was hacked, with Windows malware substituted for a torrent download. In addition, the volunteer developers - always overworked and underappreciated - have had to grapple with moving Xubuntu to Wayland per Ubuntu's wishes (even though most of us who use Xubuntu could care less), as well as the usual GTK and Xfce updates and revisions.
So the absolutely last thing I want to do, as a decades-long Xubuntu user who wants to help celebrate the distro's 20th anniversary this year, is to cause any more problems. But the new release, Xubuntu 26.04, code named "Resolute Raccoon", is a mess and you should use it at your own risk.
First and foremost, installation is a disaster, easily the worst I've ever seen. If it's not as bad as Windows, it's bad enough to warrant making the comparison. Installation on VirtualBox crashed with a graphics error, and then crashed my desktop. The experience wasn't much better with my test machine - and my other test machine, too, because I tried installing 26.04 there, too, since I couldn't believe I was having so many problems with the first machine. The live desktop was sluggish and froze regularly, and I had to use safe graphics to install Xubuntu both times.
These are hardly state of the art laptops, with integrated graphics, mid-range i7 processors, and 16GB and 8GB of memory, respectively. It's the kind of older hardware that Xubuntu is famous for working with seamlessly. And if I'm having trouble with these, what about even older and less powerful hardware?
The basics
Resolute Raccoon is a long-term release and will be supported for 3 years, until April 2029 (as opposed to five years for Ubuntu 26.04, though a free subscription to Ubuntu Pro adds 10 years of support for Xubuntu). The ISO file download is 4.8GB, compared to 3.8GB for Xubuntu 24.04, 2.8GB for Linux Mint Xfce 22.3, and 5.9GB for Ubuntu 26.04.
The biggest change isn't a change - it's that X11 remains, and Wayland is still a work in progress, though it is standard in Ubuntu 26.04. In addition, a couple of the system settings that are gone from the main Ubuntu edition, like Software & Updates, are still there. The kernel is at version 7.0, while Xfce 4.20 and GNOME 49 have been "polished," according to the release notes, enhancing compatibility and stability. And Ubuntu's sudo and APT upgrades are also included.
Xubuntu 26.04 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 406kB, resolution: 1368x768 pixels)
Minimum system requirements are a 64-bit processor with at least 1GB of memory and 8.6GB of hard drive space, with the note that "you may need more if you have integrated graphics." Recommended specs are a 1.5Ghz Dual Core processor, 2GB of memory, and 20GB of hard drive space.
So there shouldn't have been any trouble with installation or the live desktop, yes?
Nevertheless, my first attempt on the 16GB RAM test machine to load the live desktop took 8 minutes to get to a black screen, and then 2 more minutes until the live desktop - for something that used to be almost instantaneous. When the live desktop did show up, there wasn't a network icon on the panel, so I had no way to see if I was connected via WiFi. I had to add the indicator plugin - which has been removed from this release because 26.04 is supposed to natively support tray icons -- to see WiFi and Bluetooth.
Fast forward to the live desktop using safe graphics. The less said about the frustration trying to use the normal live desktop on either test machine (what with lockups, delays, and freezes) the better. Eventually, it took 13 minutes to install 26.04, with a freeze when the installer prompted me to remove the installation media. I needed a hard reset to boot the new installation.
By comparison, when I used the same laptop to review last fall's Zorin 18 Core - with Wayland and a modified, though still balky, GNOME desktop - installation took just 10 minutes and without any problems or any need to use safe graphics. And, because I couldn't believe what was happening, I later installed Debian's current stable Xfce on the second test machine, and it took just six minutes without any fuss - much like Xubuntu used to do.
These are not the kinds of things that should happen with a long-respected distro whose base comes from one of the premier Linux and open-source companies in the world. If you can't trust installation, what's the point? Is this a sign that Canonical, Ubuntu's parent, has shoved the desktop into a closet to focus on other, more profitable, endeavors?
In fact, the various live desktop and installation snafus that blindsided me don't seem to be new. I found a couple of reports, dating to the 24.04 release, citing the same freezing and lock-up problems. This seems to be related to the Ubuntu Flutter installer, which doesn't appear to be getting any better and it doesn't seem to play well with WiFi, either.
Using the distro
The saving grace is that once you beat the installation into submission, the distro usually runs like Xubuntu is supposed to run. Most of the problems stem from Ubuntu's requirements, and not necessarily because of anything Xubuntu doesn't do. One bonus: the panel icon on the dock finally disappears on its own after editing the panel, without having to run "xfce4-panel -r" in a terminal to make it go away. The icon had camped out on docks like Plank since at least 2017. On the other hand, the GDebi GUI still doesn't work and doesn't even show an error. It just crashes. And there's no preview in Thunar when saving a picture, which made working with screenshots for this review a bit tricky.
Xubuntu 26.04 -- Checking for Snap updates
(full image size: 269kB, resolution: 1368x768 pixels)
Nextcloud Desktop installed as it should and without the 22.04 duplicate bug, while 26.04 recognized my Canon TR7800 printer and scanner, something that doesn't always happen. Save for an occasional lag in mousing around the desktop or double clicking an icon, 26.04 was its usual snappy and responsive Xubuntu self. It just seemed too late to make much difference to my impression.
Xubuntu 26.04 -- Syncing files with Nextcloud
(full image size: 403kB, resolution: 1368x768 pixels)
No surprises among the included software - Firefox; an ESR version of Thunderbird; the latest LibreOffice; a slightly newish version of the Thunar file manager; Rhythmbox and Parole for media; and Ristretto for photos. The release notes highlight the Mousepad text editor and GIMP, both of which have undergone major updates.
But, as seems to be the case too often these days, there's a catch, centered around the Ubuntu-specific App Center software application, which purposely excludes Flatpaks. This is more about Ubuntu's decision to focus on Snap packages than anything about Xubuntu, but it's still irritating. Prior to 23.10, the Ubuntu family used a version of GNOME Software Center that would install Flatpaks with a plugin. But App Center doesn't allow this, so anyone who wants a GUI for Flatpaks has to install GNOME Software and live with two software centers.
Xubuntu 26.04 -- The App Centre
(full image size: 172kB, resolution: 1368x768 pixels)
And, no, I don't want two software centers. Why should I? Yes, the App Center now includes Deb files for the first time, but that doesn't help those of us who need Flatpaks because there isn't a Snap or Deb version. This is not the place to debate Ubuntu's Snap philosophy; rather, it's enough to note that the Ubuntu-based Zorin's software center handles Deb, Snap, and Flatpak packages without any problems, so it is possible to have the best of all worlds.
Xubuntu 26.04 -- Installing a package with gdebi
(full image size: 279kB, resolution: 1368x768 pixels)
In the end, 26.04's woes make me wonder if it's time to go elsewhere. My freelance writing, business desktop runs Xubuntu 22.04, and though my free Ubuntu Pro subscription is keeping it up to date, I'm going to have to upgrade the desktop sooner rather than later. Some software I like, including the Strawberry music player, and some I need, like the Nextcloud Desktop, are buggy or don't work at all with 26.04. Will I be better off with the Debian, Mint or Zorin Xfce versions rather than a fresh install of 26.04? Which is something this Xubuntu fanboy never, ever thought he'd have to write.
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Hardware used for this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a HP EliteBook 840 G5 laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Core i7-8550U, 1.80GHz
- Storage: 512 GB M.2 SSD
- Memory: 16GB of RAM
- Networking: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 Combo
- Display: Intel UHD Graphics 620
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When he is not testing out new versions of Linux distributions, Jeff Siegel can be found writing about all things related to wine at Wine Curmudgeon.
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Visitor supplied rating
Xubuntu has a visitor supplied average rating of: 7.9/10 from 71 review(s).
Have you used Xubuntu? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Ubuntu plans AI features, Devuan developer creates GTK2 fork, Mint introduces hardware enablement install media, Linux runs on PlayStation 5 consoles, distributions patch local kernel flaw
Ubuntu developer Jon Seager shared a lengthy post on the distribution's Discourse forum, outlining plans for new AI features in Canonical's operating system. One of the key points Seager raises is the difference between LLM tools which enhance existing features in contrast with new LLM features: "Over the past few weeks I've begun to develop a framework to help think about different kinds of AI adoption within Ubuntu. At the centre of that is the idea of explicit and implicit AI features. Implicit AI is about enhancing existing operating system features with the use of AI, without introducing new mental models for users. One exciting example of this is bringing first-class speech-to-text and text-to-speech to Ubuntu. I don't see these as 'AI features', I see them as critical accessibility features that can be dramatically improved through the adoption of LLMs with minimal (if any) drawbacks. Much of this can be achieved with local inference using open source harnesses and open weight models, which are both accurate and efficient for this use case.
Explicit AI features are those which are more obviously AI-centric, and could include more 'agentic' workflows. This could be for authoring new documents or applications, automating troubleshooting workflows or even personal automation tasks such as targeted daily news briefings. With this comes a big responsibility for us to ensure that the relevant security and confinement controls are in place to prevent unwanted side-effects." The rest of Seager's post shares more thoughts on how Canonical plans to introduce LLM features.
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A developer with the Devuan project has created a fork of the GTK2 toolkit with an aim to maintain it, provide fixes, and make it possible for older applications to remain compatible with the GTK toolkit. While GTK2 has not been maintained upstream for years, and it has been dropped from the latest versions of some distributions, it was the basis for many applications, not all of which have migrated to GTK3. The announcement thread has more information and the code has been published in Devuan's git repository.
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The Linux Mint team published their newsletter for April and revealed a plan to publish hardware enablement (HWE) install media to provide up to date hardware support. "Earlier this month we announced a longer development cycle and the decision not to release until Christmas 2026. To address compatibility issues with brand new hardware, we decided to start publishing updated ISO images called HWE (Hardware Enablement). Linux Mint 22.3 was released in January with kernel 6.14. Today we're publishing HWE ISO images for Linux Mint 22.3 with kernel 6.17. Going forward, we will publish HWE ISOs for the latest release whenever a newer kernel becomes available in the package base. Note that these ISOs are not new releases, but they are fully QA-tested and considered stable." The updated install media can be found on the project's HWE page.
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In a story which could probably be marked as "just for fun", an enterprising Linux developer has managed to run Linux on a PlayStation 5. Notebook Check reports: "According to the official GitHub notes, PS5-Linux uses a patched hypervisor vulnerability to unlock the console's hardware. Once installed, the PS5 can run like a desktop PC powered by 8 CPU cores (16 threads) clocked at 3.5GHz, along with a GPU running at 2.23GHz. This setup is strong enough to run Steam games and emulators smoothly. It also supports 4K at 60Hz over HDMI, along with audio output. The tool is currently limited to PS5 'Phat' models running firmware versions between 3.xx and 4.xx. Some versions in the 3.xx range do not support M.2 storage, while 4.xx firmware versions do." Additional information can be found on the PS5 Linux Loader project page.
In a story which is much less fun, security researches are reporting a kernel vulnerability which can allow regular users to gain root access on virtually any distribution published in the past nine years. The new bug has been given the name Copy Fail and it is described in a blog post as follows: "A single 732-byte Python script can edit a setuid binary and obtain root on essentially all Linux distributions shipped since 2017. The kernel never marks the corrupted page dirty for writeback, so the file on disk remains unchanged and ordinary on-disk checksum comparisons miss the modification. However, the page cache is what actually gets read when accessing the file, so the corrupted in-memory version is immediately visible system-wide. A local unprivileged user can turn this into root by corrupting the page cache of a setuid binary. The same primitive also crosses container boundaries because the page cache is shared across the host." Patches to fix the issue have been committed to the upstream Linux kernel and users are advised to apply kernel updates from their distributions and reboot in order to protect against the exploit.
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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) |
Extending memory using a video card
Expanding-into-new-territory asks: I'm not much of a gamer and, as they say, unused memory is wasted memory. Is it possible to extend my laptop's RAM by using the memory in my video card?
DistroWatch answers: Yes, it is possible to make use of the RAM of your video card to store information, including as an add-on of your system's regular memory. At least it is, in theory. In practise, there are some limitations.
There are some restrictions and drawbacks to consider before you set out to expand your system's regular RAM into video memory (called vRAM).
- You need a discrete (dedicated) video card which has its own memory. An integrated video card will not be of help here. In fact, while I was writing this and looking around the office for machines on which I could test this idea, I realized all of the working machines at hand were using integrated video.
- Passing information back and forth to video memory is slow compared to working directly in RAM. Accessing vRAM is faster than dumping information to a disk (the way swap typically does), but it is still slower than accessing your system's normal RAM. With this in mind, it will be more efficient to either run leaner software or upgrade your computer's RAM than it will be to make use of vRAM.
- Consuming vRAM this way may cause your video card to run out of memory for video-related tasks and that could result in stability issues.
- We won't be extending RAM seamlessly. What I will demonstrate in this article will create swap space in video memory. In other words, vRAM will be used as temporary storage when regular RAM is full, and information we actively need will be swapped back into RAM.
In short, you need the proper hardware, vRAM is going to be relatively slow, and you may make your system less stable. If you are still interested, let's get started!
We are going to need to install three tools on the computer to set up swap space inside vRAM:
- vramfs - a tool for creating filesystems in vRAM.
- clinfo -a tool for checking for OpenCL support.
- glxinfo - a tool for checking your video card's capabilities.
Make sure the three above tools are installed. Ideally, these tools can be found in your distribution's repositories, but some may need to be installed from a third-party repository or from the upstream website.
We can run clinfo to test whether our system has OpenCL support enabled. The utility will display information about OpenCL support on our system when it is run without any parameters. If clinfo does not display any information or find OpenCL support then our experiment has come to a premature end.
The glxinfo command, when run with the "-B" flag ("glxinfo -B"), will display a summary of our video card's capabilities. In particular, we want to look at the field labelled "Video memory" to see how much vRAM is potentially available to us. We should make a note of this number and not try to use more than half of the available vRAM.
Finally, we can turn our attention to vramfs which can be used to create a filesystem inside video memory. Typically, this can be achieved by creating a new mount point and then setting up a new filesystem at that mount point. Since the filesystem exists inside vRAM it will be destroyed when we reboot or shutdown the computer. Here is an example of creating a 1GB filesystem inside video memory:
mkdir ~/video-memory
vramfs ~/video-memory 1G
Now we have a 1GB filesystem in video memory. We can create new files and directories inside the ~/video-memory directory and they will remain there, in vRAM, until we turn off the computer. Once the machine powers off or reboots any information inside vRAM will be lost.
All of this makes for an interesting exercise, but it has not got us to a point where we can use vRAM to extend our computer's memory. To do that, we need to create a swap file and enable it. We can create a swap file with the mkswap command:
dd if=/dev/zero of=~/video-memory/swap count=1000000 bs=1024
mkswap -U clear --size 1000M --file ~/video-memory/swap
Please note that mkswap can make a swap file on its own, without the initial dd command. However, doing so can create a file with gaps in it, resulting in stability issues. This extra step we take, creating the file before setting it up for usage as swap, avoids system crashes.
Finally, we can enable the new swap file using swapon:
swapon ~/video-memory/swap
Running a command to see memory statistics, such as free, should now show that you have a new 1,000MB swap file in place. Keep in mind, if you have slower, disk-based swap space already enabled, you will probably want to turn it off using swapoff.
At this point, whenever memory starts to fill up or your operating system decides it can toss some rarely-accessed information out of RAM, it will put the overflow in vRAM.
Later, if we want to stop using this space in vRAM we can clean up by running:
swapoff ~/video-memory/swap
fusermount -u ~/video-memory
rmdir ~/video-memory
Keep in mind that the vRAM storage will be lost each time we restart the computer. Nothing important should be saved there. Each time the computer boots we will need to re-create the filesystem and swap file. For this reason we may wish to put the commands demonstrated above into a shell script that will automate the process and then simply run the script each time we want to extend our system's memory into vRAM.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Talos Linux 1.13.0
The developers of Talos Linux, a minimalist distribution designed specifically for running Kubernetes (an engine for automating deployment, scaling and management of containerised applications), have announced the release of Talos Linux 1.13.0: "Welcome to the 1.13.0 release of Talos. Important changes: Talos Linux now provides a way to run and attach to the privileged debug container with a user-provided container image, the debug container might be used for troubleshooting and debugging purposes; Talos now supports machine-wide container image signature verification via the new ImageVerificationConfig machine config document - any image which gets pulled on the node will be verified against the configured rules, and if no rule matches, it will be pulled without verification; Talos switched to using CDI and now supports configuring NVIDIA GPU via the gpu-operator helm chart; Talos Linux now supports optionally deploying Flannel CNI with network policy support enabled, the network policy implementation is kube-network-policies; Talos now uses inventory-backed server-side apply when applying bootstrap manifests (including extraManifests and inlineManifests)...." Read the release notes and the what's new document for further details.
umbrelOS 1.7.0
Umbrel, Inc. has announced the release of umbrelOS 1.7.0, an updated build of the company's Debian-based Linux distribution for home servers, featuring a web-based user interface and an online app store. This version adds home screen shortcuts and brings 17 new language translations: "umbrelOS 1.7 brings home screen shortcuts, a built-in text editor in Files, advanced networking controls, network sharing for folders on external drives, 17 new languages, and several performance improvements and bug fixes. New features: Shortcuts - add shortcuts to websites, custom ports and Docker containers directly to your home screen, complete with icons and titles; text editor in Files - open and edit text files, code files, markdown, dot-files and more right inside Files; advanced networking - change your Umbrel's hostname, choose your DNS server, and set a static IP for ethernet connections, with a built-in confirmation flow to help prevent getting locked out; file sharing in Settings - enable and manage shared folders more easily directly from Settings; faster Files - Files now opens faster, remembers your last visited folder, has better keyboard navigation and previews, and feels more responsive overall; more languages - umbrelOS 1.7 adds 17 more languages." Here are the complete release notes with screenshots.
Fedora 44
The Fedora Project has announced the release of Fedora 44. The new version of the experimental distribution introduces changes to the system installer, updates the Workstation desktop environments to GNOME 50 and Plasma 6.6, and improves OpenSSL certificate file handling. "For those of you installing fresh Fedora Linux 44 spins, you may notice a change in how Anaconda handles network devices. Anaconda now only creates network profiles for devices configured during installation (by boot options, kickstart, or interactively in UI) instead of providing default profiles for all devices. This change will simplify post-installation network configuration for users who need to customize after installation. Fedora Linux 44 Workstation ships with the latest GNOME release, GNOME 50. This comes with a long list of refinements to your desktop, including everything from accessibility to color management and remote desktop. Many of the applications that are installed by default on Fedora Workstation have also seen improvements, from Document Viewer to File Manager and Calendar. To learn more about these and other changes, you can read the GNOME 50 release notes." Additional information is provided in the release announcement.
Fedora 44 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 1.8MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
ToaruOS 2.3.0
Kevin Lange has announced the release of ToaruOS 2.3.0, the latest version of the independently-developed hobby operating system built from scratch. It comes with a bootloader, kernel, drivers, C library and userspace, as well as a composited graphical user interface, a syntax-highlighting text editor and a network stack. Although newly added to DistroWatch, the project has been in continuous development since 2011. "ToaruOS 2.3 is now available. What's new? Terminal tabs - the terminal emulator now supports multiple tabs, create tabs with Ctrl-Shift-T, swap with Alt-1 through Alt-9. Manual viewer - a full man stack has been added, combining a roff formatter and a more complete more, plus a bunch of manual pages. Kernel improvements - tons of a new system calls like pread/pwrite, sigsuspend, sigqueue, fcntl, support for FD_CLOEXEC and FD_CLOFORK, TTY line control and hangups. And more - the latest Bim and Kuroko versions; tons of new utilities and new options in existing utilities." Visit the project's release page on GitHub for a detailed changelog, known issues and screenshots. The same page also offers an ISO image to download; it is a standard x86_64 PC build with native bootloaders and, according to the developer, should work in most virtual machines using BIOS.
ToaruOS 2.3.0 -- Running the Yutani desktop
(full image size: 4.1MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Bazzite 44
Kyle Gospodnetich has announced the release of Bazzite 44, a major update of the project's Fedora-based immutable distribution with atomic updates and an integrated Steam client, designed primarily for Linux gamers. The new version synchronises the Bazzite system and packages with the just-release Fedora 44: "The Bazzite 44 update is here for our desktop users. This is the big one - new kernel, new versions of GNOME/KDE, and more. Major changes include: KDE Plasma 6.6 with new Plasma Login Manager; GNOME 50; OGC Linux kernel 6.19.x, with 7.0 coming in the near future (yes, we will include the Valve VRAM patchset with 7.0); Mesa 26.0.5; Bazaar 0.7.15; Ptyxis has been dropped from our KDE images and the new Konsole terminal is available with container support; SBOMs (which now power our changelogs), Build Attestation, OpenSSF security scanning and signed ISO images; built-in support for Elgato 4K capture cards; images reduced by 1GB thanks to moving in-image QEMU and ROCM to Bazzite-DX for users who need them; access to the latest and greatest ASUS Linux patches for use with ASUSCtl...." See the release announcement for more details.
Myarch Linux 26.04
Francesco Caracciolo has announced the release of Nyarch Linux 26.04, the latest update of the project's Arch-based Linux distribution designed for "weebs" (non-Japanese persons interested in anime, manga, cosplay and other aspects of the Japanese culture). This version brings a new edition, with a themed KDE Plasma desktop: "Nyarch 26.04. A new edition of Nyarch is here, Nyarch KDE; main Nyarch apps rewritten in Qt for the new edition; support for Material You, also themed GNOME applications; NekoPlay, a video player specifically made for anime supporting 4K upscaling, has been added; Nyarch Assistant has been updated adding advanced agent functionality; Catgirl downloader has been updated supporting multiple sources; Bazaar is preinstalled, replacing GNOME software as the default app store on the GNOME edition; Nyarch Scripts now has scripts to add/remove CachyOS, Chaotic AUR or Nyarch repositories in one click; new profound structural changes; reduced ISO image size; Nyarch applications will not be installed as flatpak by default; we now have our own repositories that will keep Nyarch apps up to date; new GRUB theme and new Plymouth themes...." Continue to the release notes for more details.
Commodore OS Vision 3.1
A new version of the Commodore OS Vision Linux distribution has been released with a focus on greatly reducing the size of the project's ISO image file. "I am pleased to announce the official release of Commodore OS 3.1 today, which is available as an installable ISO, now reduced to a much more manageable size of approximately 10GB. This is a significant reduction from the 37GB Commodore OS 3.0 ISO. To achieve this, some content had to be removed, but we believe we have retained the essential Commodore flavoured experience while adding new features that make this distribution even more distinctive. The Linux games, retro system content, including demos, games, MODs and SIDs, non Commodore emulators, and a number of more specialised applications have been removed from the ISO. Many of these will become available again through the new custom application installer in the coming months. For users who wish to retain their existing Commodore OS 3.0 content, an online update to version 3.1 will be available from the menu System - Commodore OS - Update Commodore OS. The update is approximately 3 GB, and this is the upgrade path I personally recommend over downloading the new ISO image." The release announcement goes on to list new features introduced in version 3.1 of the distribution.
Grml 2026.04
The Grml project, which develops a Debian-based distribution, has published a new snapshot: Grml 2026.04. The new version provides a base which is up to date with Debian's Testing branch and offers builds for x86_64 and arm64 machines. The project's blog post reports: "We are proud to announce our new stable release version 2026.04, code-named CashFloh! rml is a bootable live system (Live CD) based on Debian. Grml 2026.04 brings you fresh software packages from Debian testing/forky, switches from ISOLINUX to GRUB2 for BIOS boot, enhanced hardware support and addresses known bugs from previous releases. Like in the previous release 2025.12, Live ISOs are available for 64-bit x86 (amd64) and 64-bit ARM CPUs (arm64). For a detailed overview of the changes from Grml 2025.12 to 2026.04, please check out the official release announcement." The release notes provide further details and a list of changes since the 2025.12 release of the distribution.
Sculpt OS 26-04
Genode has announced the release of Sculpt OS 26-04, the latest version of the project's independently-developed open-source operating system for PC hardware, the PinePhone, and the MNT Reform laptop: "Sculpt OS 26.04 gives the user unprecedented transparency and interactive control over all components underpinning the operating system. Version 26.04 of the Genode-based general-purpose OS lays all building blocks of the operating system into the hands of the user, including all formerly hard-wired components. It invites the user to explore, customize, and restructure the system architecture on the fly. Right after booting the new version, one is presented with all the running components ready to be (literally) touched, controlled, and extended. Below the surface of the administrative user interface, a major paradigm shift awaits the user when risking a look under the hood. The system no longer processes configuration data as mere input to its internal data model but it exposes the data model directly to the user. Thereby Sculpt OS not only lays the entire construction plan of the system into your hands for inspection but the construction plan is live." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details. Sculpt OS 26-04 is available for download as IMG and OVA image files.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 3,443
- Total data uploaded: 50.1TB
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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) |
Discrete vs integrated video cards
In this week's Questions and Answers section we talked about video memory (VRAM) and how it can extend system RAM when a discrete video card is available. Some computers run a distinct, separate video card, particularly on systems intended for gaming. Other machines use an integrated video card which share system memory. Which type of video card do you run in your computer?
You can see the results of our previous poll on how long our readers stick with a distribution in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Does your computer use an integrated or discrete video card?
| My computer has a discrete video card: | 280 (17%) |
| My computer has an integrated video card: | 675 (40%) |
| My computer has both: | 212 (13%) |
| I have multiple computers with a mixture of integrated and discrete cards: | 463 (28%) |
| Other: | 7 (0%) |
| I do not know: | 43 (3%) |
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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, 11 May 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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| Archives |
| • Issue 1173 (2026-05-18): Sylve on FreeBSD, the benefit of BleachBit, Debian commits to reproducible builds, Debian publishes updated install media, Haiku introduces SMP support on ARM64 processors, Rocky Linux creates opt-in security repository, Fedora reconsiders AI tools, KDE receives generous donation |
| • Issue 1172 (2026-05-11): Fedora 44, dealing with extra fonts, Fedora plans to provide AI tools, problems with Ubuntu's new coreutils, TrueNAS extends its development cycle, postmarktetOS improves the boot splash screen, Redox ports tmux |
| • Issue 1171 (2026-05-04): Xubuntu 26.04, extending memory with VRAM, Ubuntu plans AI features, Devuan developer forks GTK2, Mint introduces hardware enablement builds, Linux running on a PlayStation 5, local kernel exploit found in Linux |
| • Issue 1170 (2026-04-27): ENux 5.2.1, picking a second distro, AlmaLinux expands CPU support, FreeBSD publishes Status Report, Ubuntu MATE skips 26.04 release |
| • Issue 1169 (2026-04-20): Lakka 6.1, free software and source-based distributions, FreeBSD Foundation publishes compatible laptop list, Debian holds Project Leader election, Haiku progresses ARM64 port, Mint to extend development cycle, Linux 7.0 released |
| • Issue 1168 (2026-04-13): pearOS 2026.03, EndeavourOS 2026.03.06, which distros are adopting age verification, Arch adjusts its firewall packages, Linux dropping i486 support, Red Hat extends its release cycle, Debian's APT introduces rollbacks, Redox improves its scheduler |
| • Issue 1167 (2026-04-06): Origami Linux 2026.03, answering questions for Linux newcomers, Ubuntu MATE seeking new contributors, Ubuntu software centre is expanding Deb support, FreeBSD fixes forum exploit, openSUSE 15 Leap nears its end of life |
| • Issue 1166 (2026-03-30): NetBSD jails, publishing software for Linux, Ubuntu joins Rust Foundation, Canonical plans to trim GRUB features, Peppermint works on new utilities, PINE64 shows off open hardware capabilities |
| • Issue 1165 (2026-03-23): Argent Linux 1.5.3, disk space required by Linux, Manjaro team goes on strike, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA driver support and builds RISC-V packages, systemd introduces age tracking |
| • Issue 1164 (2026-03-16): d77void, age verification laws and Linux, SUSE may be for sale, TrueNAS takes its build system private, Debian publishes updated Trixie media, MidnightBSD and System76 respond to age verification laws |
| • Issue 1163 (2026-03-09): KaOS 2026.02, TinyCore 17.0, NuTyX 26.02.2, Would one big collection of packages help?, Guix offers 64-bit Hurd options, Linux communities discuss age delcaration laws, Mint unveils new screensaver for Cinnamon, Redox ports new COSMIC features |
| • Issue 1162 (2026-03-02): AerynOS 2026.01, anti-virus and firewall tools, Manjaro fixes website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating a map app |
| • Issue 1161 (2026-02-23): The Guix package manager, quick Q&As, Gentoo migrating its mirrors, Fedora considers more informative kernel panic screens, GhostBSD testing alternative X11 implementation, Asahi makes progress with Apple M3, NetBSD userland ported, FreeBSD improves web-based system management |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
SharkLinux
SharkLinux was an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the MATE desktop. The distribution automatically upgrades packages on the system to apply security patches. The distribution also enables sudo access by default without requiring a password for user convenience. SharkLinux features the Ubuntu Hardware Enablement (HWE) kernel by default.
Status: Discontinued
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| Star Labs |
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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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