 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1152, 15 December 2025 |
|
Welcome to this year's 50th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
A few months ago one of our team, Jesse Smith, took the NetBSD operating system for an in-depth test run to see if it could consistently perform all of the tasks required for his day-to-day work. It was a closer look than usual at the benefits and limitations of the portable operating system. This week we begin with another experiment, this time focusing on the OpenBSD operating system. While OpenBSD is well known for its roles in security and running on network devices it can also be run as a desktop operating system. Jesse Smith takes OpenBSD 7.8 for a trail run this week and reports on how it performs compared to NetBSD while engaged in the same tasks. Then, in our News section, we talk about Jolla working on a new, Linux-powered phone while Fedora's AI demonstration goes terribly wrong. We also talk about how organizations can save money by running Linux distributions and report on Ubuntu providing packages for running AI tasks on AMD hardware. Our Questions and Answers section this week explores a few ways people can filter Internet content, allowing access to only specific websites and services. Do you perform any site-level filtering? Let us know about your preferred method in this week's Opinion Poll. Plus we are pleased to share details on the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
|
| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
OpenBSD 7.8
In September I engaged in an experiment to see if a non-Linux, open source operating system would be able to handle all of my day-to-day activities. I jumped into a deeper dive than usual, testing to see if the operating system could handle everything I do, not just the common tasks most people probably want to perform with their operating systems. By popular demand, the operating system I tested then was NetBSD. The portable platform took a lot of extra work to get running, but did a pretty good job of providing the tools I would need. It was not at all convenient and I had to work around several issues, but NetBSD was able to muster a good deal of functionality.
A few people suggested I try the same experiment with another operating system. I asked for suggestions for another non-Linux daily driver. The suggestion I received were all for Linux distributions or really obscure operating systems which couldn't run common desktop software. A few projects were suggested which I knew wouldn't work with my hardware/workflow due to being reviewed recently or having notices on their websites indicating key functionality was missing (such as USB support).
Ultimately, I decided to try OpenBSD for my second trial. I've used OpenBSD for brief periods in the past and generally like the platform's keep-it-simple approach, the clear documentation, and the lack of clutter in the filesystem. It's nice to have an operating system which doesn't use a lot of resources by default and which can be managed using text-based configuration files. Also, I knew OpenBSD could operate as a desktop system, even if I hadn't spent a lot of time using in that capacity.
The OpenBSD project provides new releases every six months and upgrades across major versions should be straight forward, making long-term use of the operating system a low-maintenance affair.
The latest version of OpenBSD, 7.8, became available in October. The install media was provided as a 773MB ISO file. I downloaded it and jumped into my new experiment.
Day #1
The OpenBSD 7.8 install medium boots to a text prompt and launches the system installer. The installer displays a series of questions through text and we type our responses. The first prompt asks if we want to perform a fresh install, upgrade an existing OpenBSD system, perform an auto-install, or run a command line shell. Taking the fresh install option launches a series of prompts which ask us to provide information about our keyboard layout and the computer's hostname. The installer asks if we want to enable IPv4 and IPv6 networking and offers to automatically determine network settings.
The installer asks us to create a password for the root account and we are asked if we want to enable OpenSSH for remote access. The installer asks if we want to run a graphical environment and we are given a chance to make up a username and password combination for a regular user. Then the installer asks if we want to enable remote root logins and asks us to confirm our timezone (my timezone was detected automatically).
The installer asks which disk we want to use and whether we want to enable disk encryption. We can then use a suggested/automated disk layout or customize the disk partitions. I took the defaults the first time through the installer. Then the installer asks where we want to find software packages, with options including remote HTTP servers, the local optical media, and NFS network shares. We can then select which package sets to install with options including cryptic names such as bsd, base, man, and xbase. I decided to install everything. The installer copied its software to my disk and then reported success. I was told that I should restart the computer and then run the mail command to see a welcome message.
My new copy of OpenBSD booted to a graphical login screen. If we sign into our account from this login screen we are presented with a simple window manager and a virtual terminal. We can click on an empty section of the window manager to bring up a menu which helps us launch programs or sign out.
If we switch to a text console and login to the root account then we are told about the sendbug program which can be used for reporting issues. We can also run the mail command to see a welcome message which includes a request for donations and tips for sending in hardware information to the developers so they know which devices to support.
At this point we have a fairly minimal operating system with the typical Unix command line tools and a simple window manager, but not much else. I recommend checking out the helpful OpenBSD documentation which presents us with tips for enabling features and installing more packages.
OpenBSD provides our regular user with the ksh command line shell. This may seem a bit alien to people who run Linux distributions, but it works well enough and walks a nice line between features and simplicity.
One of the first tasks I tackled was to run the syspatch tool to check for security updates and fixes. Running this script updated the syspatch tool first and then updated six other elements on the system.
I set up my regular user with doas (a tool similar to sudo which allows our regular user to perform administrative actions) access by editing the /etc/doas.conf. This worked and allowed me to perform one-time administrative tasks without logging into the root account.
Next I turned to the operating system's package management tools to start fetching software I planned to use. OpenBSD offers different commands for different package management tasks. For example, we can run "pkg_info -aQ name" to look for packages with matching names. Then we can run "pkg_add package" to install the software from OpenBSD's repository. Running "pkg_add -u" will check for updates for installed packages.
While earlier versions of OpenBSD required us to pick a package mirror and manually assign the mirror address to a shell variable. Current versions of OpenBSD automatically connect to the project's content distribution network (CDN). We can switch to a different server if we wish, but this default CDN should work for most users.
I wanted a more capable desktop environment than the default minimal window manager. This can be done fairly easily by installing the xfce and xfce-extras packages, and then enabling the message bus service. This last step can be accomplished by using OpenBSD's rcctl service manager by running the following commands in the shell:
rcctl enable messagebus
rcctl start messagebus
At this point I still had a fairly minimal system. OpenBSD consumed less than 3GB of disk space with all of its command line tools, X11, and Xfce installed. This meant my next hour or two was occupied by finding and installing new packages for such applications as LibreOffice, Firefox, VLC, Thunderbird, an audio player, and a text editor.
OpenBSD 7.8 -- Exploring the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 280kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The Xfce desktop on OpenBSD is entirely vanilla with very few themes and just one icon set. The desktop ran a little slower than usual, but it was functional and its configuration panel makes the layout and behaviour flexible.
A problem I ran into toward the end of my first day was my /usr/local partition was not large enough to hold all of the software I wanted to run. By default OpenBSD splits the operating system into several small partitions. Most Linux distributions, FreeBSD, and NetBSD tend to use a small number of partitions. Generally one is created for the operating system, one for the home directories, and perhaps one for the boot processes. OpenBSD sets up several, isolating each section of the operating system. These partitions include a small root partition, an area for home directories (/home), another for temporary files (/tmp), one for logs and cache (/var), then several for installed software (/usr, /usr/X11R6, /usr/local, /usr/obj, and /usr/src). Each partition is relatively small and, in my case, it meant that I wanted to install around 15GB of applications, but my /usr/local partition was only around 12GB. Meanwhile, I had dozens of gigabytes of free space on the drive, it was just in other locations.
OpenBSD 7.8 -- Fetching new applications
(full image size: 222kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
I found a tutorial for resizing existing partitions. This tutorial failed, even with /usr/local umounted, because the rest of the disk was still busy. I rebooted and launched OpenBSD in single user mode (by running "boot -s" at the boot loader prompt). This allowed me to have a minimal system with a read-only filesystem. However, despite the filesystem being mounted in read-only mode, the disklabel tool I was trying to use still reported the disk was busy and therefore could not be altered. Fair enough, with disk operations it is better to be safe than sorry.
Next I tried to perform the partition resizing from the OpenBSD install media. I booted from the install media, dropped to a command line, and used the command "sysctl hw.disknames" to get a list of attached storage devices. My disk showed up with the same name it had when running the installed operating system, which was convenient. I also confirmed the name showed up when I ran dmesg. However, when I ran disklabel again to manage the partitions on the drive the utility claimed the device did not exist, both when specifying its full device name and the shorter version sysctl reported.
At this point I had run out of space, could not install more applications, and disklabel was not recognizing the drive (in live mode) and refused to work on the drive when the operating system was active in read-only mode. At this point I either needed to start over or plug in an external drive to my laptop.
Day #2
My second day of the trial began with a re-install. Fortunately, once a person gets accustomed to OpenBSD's installer, we can mostly take the defaults and just press Enter at some of the prompts. The whole process takes less than ten minutes. This time around I merged the various /usr and /var sub-directories under root (the way most other operating systems do). This gave me a large system partition and a separate /home while combining large amounts of free space on the system partition so I could add applications.
OpenBSD 7.8 -- Back to the Xfce desktop once more
(full image size: 251kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
I got set up again, started installing Xfce and the third-party applications I wanted. I also ran syspatch to install patches for the base system. This time syspatch failed, reporting the filesystem was read-only. I knew this was not true as I could see in the mount command's output the system partition was writable. I was also in the process of installing third-party packages and I had confirmed I could create files under /etc. So why did syspatch refuse to run? This was a question which would need to wait as I had several other tasks to perform.
An hour later I had a working Xfce desktop again along with most of the applications I wanted such as Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, a music player, and so on. I was pleased to find spell checking worked automatically in LibreOffice. I found codecs were available through the multimedia applications. Audio worked in the web browser and, while videos would play, sites like YouTube were slow and stuttered.
OpenBSD 7.8 -- The Xfce settings panel
(full image size: 228kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
One thing I was missing was a volume control in the Xfce system tray. There was an audio mixing application available in the application menu, but no volume icon for quick access. I performed some searches for packages in the repository which might have names like "volume" or "mixer" and mostly came up empty. Eventually I found a third-party application for monitoring battery and audio volume called Tray App. This tool (it's actually three separate system tray tools bundled together) worked for a while, but it kept locking up after I'd adjusted the volume a few times. This made it a potentially useful, but not entirely reliable tool.
Something I found interesting was the user's shell (ksh) defaults to displaying just the hostname in its prompt. It does not show the username or directory. To me this feels backward in terms of usefulness. I almost always know which computer I am signed into, but often need to check to see which directory I am in. This can be adjusted, it just feels like an odd default.
OpenBSD 7.8 -- Running a volume control in the system tray
(full image size: 188kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Day #3
On my third day with OpenBSD I found the answer to my issue with syspatch refusing to fetch updates while claiming the filesystem was read-only. It turns out this was a known issue with syspatch in OpenBSD 7.8 and a patch had been published for it. Unfortunately, because I was trying to fetch the fix for syspatch with a version of syspatch that wasn't working, I was in a bit of a circular loop. Fortunately, the OpenBSD errata page offered a solution: "syspatch(8) is confused by aliased /dev/*rootdisk nodes in the database generated by dev_mkdb(8). If syspatch fails (probably because /usr is not a separate filesystem), perform these steps..." I typed out the provided commands which would edit the syspatch script, fetch updates, and rebuild the dev_mkdb database. This fix worked and I was, once more, impressed by how OpenBSD's simple design could make fixes like this straight forward.
Something I do on a regular basis is open ISO files to see what open source operating systems (usually Linux distributions) have included inside them. This typically involves scanning some files, checking a package database, and looking up some key information. On Linux we can mount a file with a single command, something like "mount debian-13.iso mydir". I was curious to see what the equivalent would be on OpenBSD.
OpenBSD does not mount ISO files directly. Like its cousins, FreeBSD and NetBSD, OpenBSD requires we first set up a virtual device associated with the ISO and then mount that device. The process looks like this:
mkdir mydir
vnconfig vnd0 debian-13.iso
mount /dev/vnd0c mydir
The "c" at the end of device names is unique to OpenBSD and is not shared by the other BSD flavours. When using OpenBSD tools the "c" suffix appears to refer to the entire device or drive and is used consistently across OpenBSD's naming schemes and utilities. I'm not sure where this practise originated, but it's something to remember when switching between platforms.
OpenBSD 7.8 -- Running LibreOffice
(full image size: 107kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
I also spend more than the typical amount of time poking through SquashFS archives as these are often used by Linux distributions inside their ISO files. A SquashFS archive contains compressed files, making it a handy way to make a filesystem portable. As with ISO files, Linux distributions can mount SquashFS archives directly to browse their contents. OpenBSD does not mount SquashFS archives directly, or at all. To access the contents of a SquashFS archive on OpenBSD we need to install the squashfs-tools package and use a command called unsquashfs to unpack the archive into a directory.
This requires more time and a lot more disk space when we are dealing with archives which are multiple gigabytes in size. The capability to open and examine SquashFS archives exists on OpenBSD, but it is not quick and easy compared to the same process on Linux distributions.
On a related note, I soon found that mounting Linux filesystems which were saved inside files were not accessible, either directly or through a virtual device.
On a positive note, it was on Day #3 I remembered to download the bash shell, which is in the OpenBSD repository, and had it on hand for running my large collection of shell scripts.
It was around this time that discovered a tool I use frequently, almost daily, in my pursuit of extracting information from Linux ISO files was missing from OpenBSD's repository. The dpkg low-level package management tool was not available. This was not surprising as it is a Linux package manager and not associated with the BSDs. Though I think it worth noting the same tool is packaged for both FreeBSD and NetBSD to make certain cross-platform tasks easier.
The reason I mention these tools missing or requiring more effort is that these are the most convenient utilities for doing a lot of my work associated with DistroWatch. The information I need can be gathered without them, but it is much more time consuming without them. The next-best alternative, which is a lot slower, is to set up a virtual machine, boot a project's ISO and look for the information manually from the live media. Which meant my next area of exploration on OpenBSD would be virtual machines.
The OpenBSD project was slow to start adopting virtual machine technologies and, I soon learned, its virtual machine software is a long ways behind Linux and the other BSDs. On OpenBSD we can enable a background service (called vmd) and then create and run virtual machines with the vmctl command. While this sounded promising, at first, there are some serious limitations. First, only the OpenBSD and Linux kernels are supported (other BSD flavours and other open source operating systems cannot be run). Second, there is no support for graphical interfaces, meaning we cannot run a desktop operating system in a virtual machine. The final big hurdle is the guest operating system can only be accessed over the network or through a serial console.
All of these limitations mean that about 95% or more of the operating systems I download and test in the span of a year could not be run in a virtual machine on an OpenBSD host. Likewise, it would be difficult (in most cases) and impossible (in a few) to extract the information I needed without a virtual machine using the tools available to me on OpenBSD.
Since I am tallying limitations, while it doesn't affect my work much, OpenBSD does not include Bluetooth support. This means wireless mouse pointing devices, keyboards, and headphones will not work when running OpenBSD.
Conclusions
After just three days it was clear that I wouldn't be able to get my day-to-day work accomplished with OpenBSD. The operating system could handle a good chunk of important tasks (web browsing, e-mail, document editing, and media playing), but it quickly ran into barriers when trying to do anything which required cross-platform functionality. Accessing non-native filesystems, fetching package information, opening popular archive formats, foreign package managers, and desktop operating systems running virtual machines were all outside the realm of functionality with OpenBSD.
On the one hand, I was a little surprised by this because I have generally viewed OpenBSD as receiving more attention and adoption than NetBSD and, while the latter had its limitations too, it generally offered a wider range of functionality. Almost everything I did on NetBSD took manual work and involved some troubleshooting, but I could usually get programs I wanted working or find an alternative. On the other hand I must acknowledge the OpenBSD community has always tended to do its own thing, focus on its own goals, without much concern for the trends of the rest of the world. OpenBSD, more than its FreeBSD and NetBSD cousins, has tended to resist adopting technologies which do not align with the goals of the OpenBSD developers. Modern technologies such as ZFS, virtual machines, and containers have not been priorities so it's not surprising mounting foreign archives and running desktop systems in virtual machines have not been priorities either.
Put another way, OpenBSD is very good at what it does - being a minimal, clean, well-documented operating system that has managed to avoid remotely exploitable security holes. However, its shine quickly fades when it is asked to do things outside of its key roles of security and networking tools.
Were I to directly compare my experience with NetBSD earlier this year and my trial with OpenBSD, I'd say their philosophies really shone through into their implementations. NetBSD strives to be portable and adaptable. Its documentation was often lacking or out of date, several of its components didn't work as expected at first and needed workarounds, but NetBSD tries to do any task we want to throw its way. It might not do the task smoothly, but it will probably have some method to attempt the task.
OpenBSD has a more precise focus on documentation, security, and networking tools. The tools it provides tend to work very well, efficiently, and as documented. However, OpenBSD doesn't have any interest in attempting some tasks outside of its focus. While NetBSD might require us to tweak a configuration file or compile a tool to get a task working, OpenBSD simply doesn't provide tools for tasks for which its team are not interested. NetBSD attempts to be flexible and is, arguably, stretched too thin. OpenBSD is great at accomplishing its core tasks and shows no sign of wanting to do anything beyond those key features.
I spent more time fighting with NetBSD to get things working; I ended up spending less time with OpenBSD in total because the tasks I wanted to perform simply were not options.
* * * * *
Visitor supplied rating
OpenBSD has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.7/10 from 46 review(s).
Have you used OpenBSD? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
|
| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Jolla is working on a new Linux phone, Germany is saving money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD software for AI tasks, Fedora demonstrates how not to use AI tools to manage a system, Haiku ports Go language
People who are interested in owning a Linux-powered phone, but who do not want to run a member of the Android family, may soon be able to enjoy such a device from Jolla. The organization develops Sailfish OS and is working on a new smartphone, currently available for pre-order. The new device is designed with privacy in mind, will be supported for five years, and is able to run many Android applications. Jolla describes some of the phone's highlights: "Sailfish OS is proven to outlive mainstream support cycles. Long-term OS support, guaranteed for minimum 5 years. Incremental updates, and no forced obsolescence. Mainstream phones send vast amounts of background data. A common Android phone sends megabytes of data per day to Google even if the device is not used at all. Sailfish OS stays silent unless you explicitly allow connections."
* * * * *
While Linux is free as in "free speech", most Linux distributions are also free as in "no cost". We usually focus on the former meaning of free, enjoying the freedom of being able to run, share, and modify software. However, this week the German state of Schleswig-Holstein is celebrating the financial benefits of running Linux. It's FOSS reports: "According to Schrödter's ministry, Schleswig-Holstein will save over €15 million in license costs in 2026. This is money the state previously paid Microsoft for Office 365 and related services. The savings come from nearly completing the migration to LibreOffice. Outside the tax administration, almost 80% of workplaces in the state government are said to have made the switch." The cost of the migration is estimated at about €9 million, a one-time cost, but should save the state about €15 million per year, making a strong financial case for the move.
* * * * *
Canonical has announced it will provide AMD driver packages for working with hardware-accelerated AI tools. "Canonical is pleased to announce an expanded collaboration with AMD to package and maintain AMD ROCm software directly in Ubuntu. AMD ROCm is an open software ecosystem to enable hardware-accelerated AI/ML and HPC workloads on AMD Instinct and AMD Radeon GPUs, simplifying the deployment of AI infrastructure with long term support from Canonical." ROCm is software which enables certain hardware accelerated processes on AMD hardware: "For AMD, the software that enables hardware-accelerated AI processing is called ROCm. It is an open software platform that includes runtimes, compilers, libraries, kernel components, and drivers that together accelerate industry standard frameworks such as PyTorch, Tensorflow, Jax, and more on supported AMD GPUs and APUs. " Additional information on the new packages can be found in Canonical's announcement.
* * * * *
Red Hat has been trying to promote its AI-powered tools lately along with tools for developing new AI technologies. This pro-AI stance has spread into the Fedora distribution where it has resulted in debates and, this week, some amusingly poor results. This past week Fedora Magazine published a guide for setting up and using an AI tool for monitoring, troubleshooting, and managing the distribution: "By enabling an LLM direct access to system information and logs, it is transformed into an active part of the investigation process when troubleshooting an issue. It empowers an LLM to directly query the system state, allowing it to help identify performance bottlenecks, and identify important log entries that might be missed by a manual review."
The demonstration went poorly with the AI giving false information, incorrectly diagnosing a network issue, and repeatedly trying to get the user to run Debian's apt package manager instead of Fedora's own dnf tool.
* * * * *
The Haiku team have published their monthly newsletter which includes new features and changes coming to the operating system. One of the key changes last month was the porting and packaging of the Go programming language: "The most notable development in November was the introduction of a port of the Go programming language, version 1.18. This is still a few years old (from 2022; the current is Go 1.25), but it's far newer than the previous Go port to Haiku (1.4 from 2014); and unlike the previous port which was never in the package repositories, this one is now already available there (for x86_64 at least) and can be installed via pkgman. The bulk of the work on this port was done by korli, building off earlier work from other contributors. He also made changes to Haiku itself to improve POSIX compliance and fix issues uncovered while running the Go test suite."
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
|
| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Filter out most of the Internet
Protective-parent asks: I'd like to set up a computer for my young kids that will let them look up information on Wikipedia, but lock down everything else. Is there an easy way to do this on Linux?
DistroWatch answers: There are a few ways you could go about locking down one Linux computer on your network to make sure it can only access one or two specific websites. This is a process called "whitelisting" where only websites you specifically allow can be visited.
One of the easier ways to do this is at the DNS level. Basically this means that when your computer goes to look up how to access a remote website it will only be given the address of the specific sites you have selected. Typically your Internet service provider (ISP) will supply default DNS settings and information, but you can sign up for alternative DNS services. You may want to look at OpenDNS, which has plans for homes and small businesses. OpenDNS provides two main packages for home users, one which just blocks "adult" websites and another plan which enables you to apply specific filters.
Once you have an account with OpenDNS (or another domain name service), in your computer's network settings (likely handled by Network Manager on most Linux distributions) look for the section on IPv4 and IPv6 settings. You should see a field for entering the address of DNS servers. You would then change the DNS servers to be 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220, the IP addresses of the custom DNS servers. You can then sign into your OpenDNS account and apply filters to any/all websites you want to block.
Adding OpenDNS servers through Network Manager
(full image size: 56kB, resolution: 692x593 pixels)
The benefit to using the custom DNS approach is that it is fairly easy to set up and, later, it will be relatively easy to expand access to additional websites. It is also fairly easy to add more computers to the custom DNS service, in case you end up getting new devices for the kids in the future.
There are two main drawbacks to the above approach. One is that if the computer joins another network (or your kids figure out how to change DNS settings) your protections are gone. If the child takes their laptop to a friend's house the network settings there will be different and you lose the protection. The second issue is you will need to manually add your distribution's software repositories to the DNS whitelist in order to get updates or install new applications.
A second approach you can take, which does not involve signing up for any third-party DNS services, is to disable DNS entirely and manually add the websites you want your children to be able to view to your computer's /etc/hosts file. This is a bit more of a "classic" approach which should work well for your immediate needs, but doesn't really grow well over time if you decide to allow them access to more categories of websites in the future.
There are three basic steps to this approach and they should be done in order:
- The first thing we need to do is look up the IP addresses of the websites you want your children to be able to view. You mentioned Wikipedia so let's look at an example. From the command line run the following command:
$ nslookup wikipedia.org
The command should return the website's name and IP addresses. In my case, the information looks like this:
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: wikipedia.org
Address: 208.80.154.224
Name: wikipedia.org
Address: 2620:0:861:ed1a::1
The first address is the IPv4 version of the Wikipedia address and the second is the IPv6 version. Write these down (or copy/paste them) somewhere. Repeat the process for any additional websites you want your child's computer to access.
- The second step is to disable DNS services on your computer. This will prevent your computer from looking up how to access any websites, other than the ones you teach it. This basically blocks access to virtually everything.
What we need to do is open the file /etc/nsswitch.conf in a text editor and look for a line which starts with the word "hosts:". On my machine I ran the command "sudo nano /etc/nsswitch.conf" and then scrolled down to the "hosts" line which looked like this:
hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns myhostname
We need to comment out everything after the word "files". The easiest way to do this is to move the text cursor to the space right after "files" and then press Enter, followed by the "#" symbol. The result should look like this:
hosts: files
# mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns myhostname
This disables on-line DNS services while also leaving the original text in the file in case we want to revert the change in the future. Save the text file and we will move on to step three.
- At this point your computer should fail to visit any websites; everything is blocked. To allow access to specific websites we need to add them to your computer's /etc/hosts file. This is accomplished by opening /etc/hosts in a text editor. Then put the IP address we looked up in step one at the start of a line, followed by the website's name. The entries should look like this in the file:
208.80.154.224 wikipedia.org
2620:0:861:ed1a::1 wikipedia.org
82.103.129.71 distrowatch.com
2a00:9080:1:58a::1 distrowatch.com
(You can't blame me for wanting your kids to also become DistroWatch readers, right?)
Save the /etc/hosts file. Now your computer will be able to look up how to contact Wikipedia and DistroWatch, but everything else will be blocked.
This approach does not rely on any third-party services and taking the computer to another location (where it uses another network) will not get around the block. However, you will need to manually look up the IP address (using nslookup) for every website and service to which you want to grant access. It's more secure in the short-term and maybe more work in the long-term.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
|
| Released Last Week |
Univention Corporate Server 5.2-4
The Univention team have announced the release of Univention Corporate Server 5.2-4. The new version introduces unifies locked account statuses, drops support for PXE Server installs, and introduces some fixes for Keycloak: "As always, the new release contains numerous updates and smaller improvements. A selection: Synchronization of the 'locked' status of user accounts across Nubus, Active Directory and Samba 4 has been unified. This ensures that, for example, a lock set in Active Directory after too many failed login attempts also applies in Nubus. The App Center has been improved in its handling of filtering proxy servers and will therefore support even more environments in the future. Several security updates for Keycloak were included, most recently a short-notice update to Keycloak 26.4.4 addressing an issue affecting accounts with uppercase characters in their names. Default values for the size of the OpenLDAP database have been adjusted and incorporated into the monitoring checks in Nagios and Prometheus as well as UMC. The OX Connector now supports a new operating mode that stores occurring issues in an error log for later review." An overview of the changes can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
Pop!_OS 24.04
Pop!_OS 24.04, a major new version of System76's desktop Linux distribution, has been released. Based on Ubuntu's latest long-term support version, Pop!_OS 24.04 is the project's first stable version that ships the COSMIC desktop environment, developed in-house: "If you're ambitious enough, or maybe just crazy enough, there eventually comes a time when you realize you've reached the limits of current potential, and must create something completely new if you're to go further. This year, System76 turned twenty. For twenty years we have shipped Linux computers. For seven years we've built the Pop!_OS Linux distribution. Three years ago it became clear we had reached the limit of our current potential and had to create something new. Today, we break through that limit with the release of Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS with the COSMIC Desktop Environment. Today is special not only in that it's the culmination of over three years of work, but even more so in that System76 has built a complete desktop environment for the open source community." Read the release announcement for more information.
Pop!_OS 24.04 -- Running the COSMIC desktop
(full image size: 4.0MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Grml 2025.12
Michael Prokop has announced the release of Grml 2025.12, an updated stable release of the project's Debian-based live Linux system designed of system administrators: "We are proud to announce our new stable release, version 2025.12, code-named 'Postwurfsendung'. Like the previous release, version 2025.08, live ISO images are available for 64-bit x86 (amd64) and 64-bit ARM (arm64) CPUs. For this release, a number of internal changes to our build-tool grml-live were implemented. If you remaster the Grml ISO image or build your own, please take a look at the grml-live changelog. Noteworthy changes are: grml-live - build system for creating Grml-based Linux live systems; new TOR class; incorporate previously separate package grml-desktop; Live-CD glue code was imported from grml-scripts; minimum host OS for running grml-live is now Debian 'Bookworm', minimum build target is also Debian 'Bookworm'; dropped old scripts - grepc, grepedit, iimage, logview, mailhops, notifyd, osd_server, qma, dirvish-setup, grml-iptstate, make_chroot_jail, grml-swapon...." Read the release announcement and the release notes for more details.
Kali Linux 2025.4
The Kali Linux team have announced a new version of their Debian-based distribution. The security and forensics platform includes new updates to the Plasma and GNOME desktops along with better Wayland support for instances running inside virtual machines. "Now that GNOME has moved to only supporting Wayland, and KDE in Kali has already used it by default for a few years (since Kali Linux 2023.1), we wanted to ensure that the transition and experience were seamless. The only thing that we felt was missing was support for VM guest tools, like clipboard sharing and window scaling, but things have been progressing, and now all the major VM software fully supports Wayland. We have tested Kali installations with Wayland as the guest OS in VirtualBox, VMware, and QEMU, configured the missing parts, and we are happy to announce that all of the VM guest additions that you expected in X11 before are now working in Wayland without trouble." An overview of changes along with screenshots can be found in the project's release announcement.
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
|
| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
|
Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
How to best filter websites?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about how to filter websites so only approved sites may be visited. While we shared two options using custom DNS settings, there are other approaches. What do you think is the most convenient method? Let us know about any filtering tools you use in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on FreeBSD's new pkgbase in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
|
|
|
| Website News |
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 22 December 2025. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
|
|
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 1, value: US$5) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • OpenBSD (by asphaltGraveyard on 2025-12-15 01:46:24 GMT from United States)
You can resize partitions from inside the OpenBSD installer if you read the prompts.
2 • Browsing websites with filters (by Slappy McGee on 2025-12-15 02:06:42 GMT from United States)
Firefox provides enough extensions to take care of my (only) need for a "filter," to remove or at least cut down on intrusive ads (ublock origin). Ads that get past that are filtered by other means.
As far as supporting sites I frequent I send money as I see fit. Many get revenue from click counting, page hits etc. The whole thing is stupid anyway. I should be outside more.
3 • OpenBSD (by K0-Z0 on 2025-12-15 02:49:11 GMT from United States)
OpenBSD as a desktop is possible but its default low-level configuration means you're getting security over leisurely desktop performance, which means media playback will be subpar because performance with such consumption just isn't the vanilla way of doing things. Standalone window managers work best with OpenBSD, but you're going to have to sacrifice protections for everyday web browser usage.
4 • OpenBSD (by Keith S on 2025-12-15 04:38:44 GMT from United States)
I am a long-time fan of OpenBSD and their philosophy. The first version I installed was 4.8, which was released 15 years ago. I used it as a daily driver for over five years, but always dual-booted with Windows and sometimes Linux for those things that it just would not be able to do. (Linux was pretty frustrating 15 years ago too but it has gotten a lot easier to use.)
Somewhere along the way I frankly got tired of fighting with dual booting whenever I changed machines, and I also became more intolerant of using Windows for certain things, and so I switched almost entirely to Linux. I have tried going back to OpenBSD more than once, including a recent trial of 7.8. For some reason I couldn't get WiFi to work (the drivers all downloaded correctly but wifi refused to connect) and I gave up pretty quickly.
It was mildly amusing to read about the difficulty running out of space in /usr/local, not because I wish that on Jesse or anyone else, but because it reminded me that I have a notebook with all of the partition sizes I have installed on OpenBSD over the years that I still refer to whenever I try it again. (Consults notes: always at least 16GB for /usr/local.) Also, fwiw, I know that at some point I understood why c always refers to the whole drive, but that knowledge is lost to the sands of time now. But there is a reason written down somewhere if you want to try to find it.
My security profile is different now than it was 15 years ago, so I worry less about the fact that Debian has 9495 CVEs compared to 348 for OpenBSD. But if security is what you're after, OpenBSD might be the better solution. Or Qubes, which is maybe as much of a pita as OpenBSD to get working right.
5 • OpenBSD wrong partition size (by We all float down on 2025-12-15 07:25:49 GMT from The Netherlands)
OpenBSD is a long time ago, but w.r.t. the wrong disklabel? choices I think I just rsynced /usr/local and replaced with a symlink to a bigger partition. Now I start to remember how slow it was, thanks a lot. For instance, after an upgrade the boot process was still slower because a new security/anti-feature was relinking libc or something like that, sigh. I disabled it at first, but then I thought, this clownware is only going to get worse over time, I don't want to fight it any more and just went back to Linux.
6 • Fedora AI demo gone wrong (by Lord Doofy Plus on 2025-12-15 07:50:50 GMT from The Netherlands)
It didn´t went all that wrong, but I think where it did: AI needs data input so it ¨learns" its ways through a lot of data and databases, but in this particular case we do have the all-time great, but generically called distro PCLinuxOS, which is rpm based but uses APT for package management.
7 • internet filter (by Dave on 2025-12-15 07:52:43 GMT from Australia)
I was asked to setup something for a friend, basically block everything except certain sites. I found tinyproxy worked really well and was easy to configure and maintain.
8 • BSD's (by eee on 2025-12-15 08:04:41 GMT from Poland)
Some time ago I've found a good (and funny) comparision between some of BSD's operation systems. At all, it confirms the conclusions of Jesse's review. See: https://unixdigest.com/articles/the-main-differences-between-openbsd-freebsd-netbsd-and-dragonflybsd.html.
9 • Firefox filtering (by Dave on 2025-12-15 09:03:32 GMT from Australia)
I read the main question article. You can use a Firefox policy files to control access to web sites. If done corretly it won't allow the user to install extensions, change settings etc and can be quite effective
10 • Internet filtering, a visit another two kids a Live USB Stick, computer fixed. (by Hank on 2025-12-15 10:06:59 GMT from Germany)
A visit to friends
another two kids a Live USB Stick, computer fixed.
And a very angry daughter,
dad do you think I am an idiot.
Me no I just gave you a little problem,
you solved it perfectly in a small team. Congratulations to all 3 of you.
Teach kids, if you can that is, they need to cope with the future we have
mainly fscked up already.
11 • OpenBSD (by Mike on 2025-12-15 10:12:06 GMT from The Netherlands)
When I look at BSD it reminds me of how Linux was 25-30 years ago. Great for servers, but a bit of a fight to be able to use it as a desktop.
I respect people who use it on their desktop, but with Linux being a solid far more advanced for desktop use, I guess I would choose Linux instead.
As there was no alternative 30 years ago, we had lots of fun helping people getting started with Linux on IRC. I guess that is part of the charm running BSD nowadays.
12 • Wikipedia Only via Kiwix (by MattE on 2025-12-15 12:15:17 GMT from United States)
* A Kiwix Wikipedia download and no internet at all could be an alternative. Use an old laptop or PC, remove the WiFi card, disconnect the Ethernet LAN connection internally, hide the USB Ethernet adapter only using it for updates. Probably should have at least a 500GB SSD.
* It's good to reduce the risks for you children, but In the end, if your kids are smart and resistant, they'll find a way. Some level of supervision will always be required.
13 • @11 OpenBSD and 30 years ago (by picamanic on 2025-12-15 12:25:05 GMT from United Kingdom)
@11 OpenBSD and 30 years ago .. I was using Sun and Silicon Graphics workstations that were running closed source versions of UNIX versions 4 and 5 [I think]. I only moved to Linux on PCs at the turn of the century. I never tried to use the various BSDs.
14 • OpenBSD (by dragonmouth on 2025-12-15 12:59:59 GMT from United States)
From Jesse's review and from the comments, it appears that OpenBSD is for users with at least intermediate knowledge of BSD(s).
What would be the easiest BSD for a noob to start with?
15 • "sudo nano" (by Anton on 2025-12-15 13:37:41 GMT from Czechia)
Please, don't use `sudo nano [...]`; use the proper `sudoedit [...]`. (It respects the `EDITOR` variable, so use that if needed.) :)
16 • @14 easiest BSD (by Keith S on 2025-12-15 13:46:34 GMT from United States)
I haven't tried it recently but probably GhostBSD is easiest. It is a descendant of the discontinued TrueOS, which came from PC-BSD (which I used for a year or so), which was based on FreeBSD.
Number of Comments: 16
| | |
| 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 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 |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • 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 | 
Proxmox
Proxmox is a commercial company offering specialised products based on Debian GNU/Linux, notably Proxmox Virtual Environment and Proxmox Mail Gateway. Proxmox Virtual Environment is an open-source virtualisation platform for running virtual appliances and virtual machines. Proxmox Mail Gateway is a mail gateway with anti-spam and anti-virus features. The products are offered as free downloads with paid-for support and subscription options.
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.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
