 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 786, 22 October 2018 |
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Welcome to this year's 43rd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Distribution developers need to make some tricky decisions when crafting their operating system. They need to make choices about whether to create something for advanced users or beginners, whether to strive for efficiency or features, whether to hand hold or get out of the way. This week we begin with a look at elementary OS, an Ubuntu-based project which strives to provide a newcomer friendly, streamlined, and distraction-free experience. Check out our Feature Story to find out how well the distribution delivers on these goals. In our News section we talk about DragonFly BSD making it possible to change the amount of memory a virtual machine uses on the fly, KDE neon dropping support for older bases, and OpenBSD making it possible to automatically join familiar wireless networks. Plus we talk about why the init process continues to run after the operating stem has finished booting. We are also pleased to share last week's releases and provide a list of the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: elementary OS 5.0
- News: DragonFly BSD introduces flexible virtual machine memory, KDE neon plans to drop older base, OpenBSD makes switching wireless networks automatic
- Questions and answers: Why init keeps running
- Released last week: Ubuntu 18.10, elementary OS 5.0, OpenBSD 6.4
- Torrent corner: blackPanther, Feren, IPFire, Kodachi, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, OpenBSD, Pop!_OS, Robolinux, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Studio, Xubuntu
- Upcoming releases: Tails 3.10, FreeBSD 12.0-BETA2
- Opinion poll: Using ARM-powered computers
- New distributions: AcademiX GNU/Linux, Linufix
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (19MB) and MP3 (15MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
elementary OS 5.0 "Juno"
elementary OS is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring a special desktop environment called Pantheon. The project's latest version, elementary OS 5.0, carries the code name "Juno" and is based on Ubuntu 18.04. (I will sometimes refer to this version of the distribution alternatively as Juno or elementary in this review.) Juno includes many changes and its release announcement is a lengthy read. Some of the highlights in the Juno release include:
- The software centre allows users to pay what they want for programs, with the option to try a program first and donate to the upstream developer later.
- The Scratch code editor as been renamed Code and integrates better with git repositories to show available code branches
- The terminal, and other core programs, include dark themes and the terminal offers easy font resizing.
- The Epiphany web browser supports Firefox Sync to share bookmarks and passwords across multiple devices.
- Juno includes Night Light to reduce blue light levels in the evening.
- Application windows with shared edges can resized together.
- Picture-in-picture mode lets us see previews of windows when an application's window is covered.
- We can tap the meta key to see desktop short-cuts.
- There is a new problem reporting tool to help us file bugs with the proper upstream project.
Installing
elementary OS runs on 64-bit computers and the live media download is 1.4GB in size. Booting from the media brings up a graphical window where we are asked if we would like to try elementary's live mode or start the system installer. I opted to jump immediately into the installer. The installer appears to be an unmodified copy of Ubuntu's Ubiquity installer. It begins by asking us to select our preferred language from a list and we have the option of clicking a link to open the distribution's release notes. I tried to open the release notes and found it opened a web browser which showed a "page cannot be found" error from elementary's web server.
Undeterred, I continued through screens asking for my keyboard's layout, whether I wanted to install software updates and third-party media support during the installation, and picking my time zone. Partitioning can be handled automatically by the installer or we can manually create partitions. I like the manual options which are easy to navigate and support virtually every Linux file system. I opted to use a Btrfs volume for my root partition. The last screen asks us to create a username/password combination for ourselves. The installer copies its packages to our hard drive and then offers to restart the computer.
Early impressions
elementary boots to a graphical login screen where we can sign into our account to bring up the Pantheon desktop. The desktop features a thin panel along the top of the screen which provides us with an application menu, a clock and the system tray. A dock (called Plank) sits at the bottom of the display, providing us with a macOS style launcher and application switcher. When an application's icon is visible on the dock, we can right-click it to pin the application to the dock for quick access later.
elementary OS 5.0 -- The application menu
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The application menu defaults to showing application launchers in a large grid, however we can click a button to switch to a split menu with software categories on the left and launchers on the right. The launchers are all given names indicating their purpose. Some examples include Mail, Calendar, Files, and Videos. This should make it easy for newcomers to quickly find the software they want to use.
The desktop is mostly empty and relatively distraction-free. When the system wants us to tell us something it generally places a red mark on the notification icon in the system tray, or puts a similar red marker on the software centre icon in the dock. There are some visual effects to liven up the desktop and launched program icons jump up and down a little on the dock, but otherwise the desktop tries to avoid distracting us.
Software management
Software management, both installing new programs and upgrading existing ones, is handled by the App Centre. The software centre has two tabs, the first shows us recommended software and categories of programs we can browse. Clicking a category (or typing a search for a program name) brings up a list of available software. Program names and icons are shown on the left side of the page with a brief description. Clicking an entry brings up a full page description with a screen shot.
elementary OS 5.0 -- The software centre
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Some applications are listed with a price. Clicking the price allows us to adjust it up or down. This allows us to pay what we want (including nothing) for applications to help support the developers. Most programs are simply listed as free. Generally no-cost programs cannot accept donations directly and we cannot offer the developers money through the software centre.
The software centre's second tab lists installed items which we can remove with the click of a button. Available software updates are listed at the top of the page. Low level packages, such as command line tools and libraries, are bundled together into one entry referred to as operating system updates. Each desktop program gets its own, separate entry when updates are released. I encountered a few updates during my trial and these downloaded and installed without incident. Some software gets pulled in from elementary's own repositories, but much of the software comes from Ubuntu's repositories.
I found the software centre generally worked well and was easy to navigate. My one serious complaint was that when I had queued multiple programs for installation, there was no sense of the overall progress. A tiny "busy" indicator appeared in the upper-right corner of the window, but it didn't give any sense of how many packages were still waiting to be installed, or how long it would take.
Applications
Juno ships with the Epiphany web browser, Pantheon Mail, a calendar and what appear to be custom-made music and video players. The distribution's photo manager also appears to be unique to elementary. We can find a code editor, web cam utility and calculator in the default applications. I was pleased to find the audio player and photo manager both automatically detected and imported files from my Music and Pictures directories, respectively. elementary ships with a full range of codecs for playing music and video files.
elementary OS 5.0 -- Automatically importing pictures into the photo manager
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In the background Juno uses Ubuntu 18.04 to supply the core files, command line tools and manual pages. The distribution uses systemd for its init implementation and runs on Linux 4.15.0.
While playing around with the available software, I made some observations I would like to share in no particular order. The first was that Epiphany used a lot of CPU resources when I ran Juno in a virtual machine. With an empty tab open Epiphany used about 90% of my CPU. When loading a simple page CPU dropped to around 20-30%. These numbers are lower when running Juno on physical hardware, but the trade-off was the X11 process always used about 10% of my workstation's CPU, which somewhat balanced things out. To compare Epiphany to other browsers, I installed Falkon (formerly QupZilla) and Firefox. Falkon used about the same amount of RAM as Epiphany, but about a third as much CPU. Firefox used around the same amount of CPU as Falkon (notably less than Epiphany), but used twice as much memory when visiting the same websites. In short, I found Epiphany was the lightest browser by memory usage, but the heaviest on CPU usage.
Something I found odd about using Juno is there is no plain text editor, a common component of almost all modern operating systems. The Code programming editor can double as a text editor, but its start-up screen, features and default behaviour of numbering lines may put off people who just want to quickly jot notes or make a grocery list. On a related topic, there is no default productivity suite, but multiple ones are available through the software centre. I found that when I installed the LibreOffice package it installed just the LibreOffice greeter. Usually, on other distributions, LibreOffice is a meta package that installs the whole suite, but with Juno we need to install each component of the suite (Writer, Calc, etc) separately. This may cut down on bloat, but it meant I ended up making multiple trips to the software centre for more pieces of the suite.
elementary OS 5.0 -- Setting up a printer
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I had hoped to use Timeshift to take snapshots of my operating system, which was one of the reasons I installed elementary on a Btrfs volume. Unfortunately, Timeshift is not in elementary's repositories. As a result I was unable snapshot the system the same way I could with Linux Lite or Linux Mint, two other Ubuntu-based distributions.
Sometimes I would see a red dot over the notification icon in the system tray and click it, only to find no notifications were waiting. I'm not sure if this meant I had already dealt with the issue or if the notifications automatically clear after a certain amount of time.
Hardware
Earlier I mentioned running Juno in both a virtual machine (VirtualBox) and on a workstation. When running in the virtual environment, Juno performed fairly well. The desktop was sometimes a little sluggish, but never terribly so. The only time I saw Pantheon really slow down was when there was a lot of disk activity going on, such as when I was installing new applications. When running on the workstation, Juno was pleasantly responsive. The desktop does a good job of being both responsive and visually engaging. The icons and effects are pretty without being overly distracting, in my opinion.
A fresh install of elementary used about 4.7GB of hard drive space and consumed 490MB of RAM when signed into the desktop. This puts elementary comfortable in the mid-range of memory usage when compared against most mainstream Linux distributions.
Fun features
At the beginning of this review I mentioned the Juno release announcement mentions several enticing features. One is that the default applications generally remember where we were working and bring us back to that point. The virtual terminal and file manager both remember our last working directory and open to that location.
One useful trick the desktop can perform is zooming in and out. Pressing the meta key and the + or - keys zooms our view of the desktop in or out. This can be handy in cases when we would usually want to use a magnification tool, but don't want to open another program.
Application windows that have been moved to the sides of the desktop snap into place. When two windows are placed side-by-side, they share an edge. This edge can be clicked on and moved left or right, changing the dimensions of both windows at the same time.
elementary OS 5.0 -- A video window preview
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One neat feature is the picture-in-picture preview. Pressing the meta key and F lets us click on a window we always want to be able to see all the time. Then, whenever the selected window is covered or minimized, a small preview of the window is visible on the desktop. The preview window can be moved and resized. This keeps it out of the way and makes it possible to monitor progress taking places in other windows.
In the settings panel there is an About module. Opening this module presents the option to report bugs. Choosing to report a bug brings up a window that helps us locate the application which was causing the problem. Selecting a program then opens our web browser to the program's issue tracker where we can file a bug report. This might not be quite as fancy as automated bug reporting, but it makes it easy to file bugs against core components without searching GitHub.
elementary OS 5.0 -- Reporting an issue
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Settings
Speaking of the settings panel, most of the settings modules are fairly standard and should seem familiar to anyone who has used a member of the GNOME family of desktops. Some features did stand out though. For example, we can fine-tune notifications on a per application basis. This means we can have one application play a sound while another can leave a notice in the system tray. We can silence other applications entirely.
elementary OS 5.0 -- Adjusting notifications
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There is a parental controls module. It offers to limit login times, which websites a user can visit and what applications a user can run. All limitations are set on a per user basis and, we are warned, the limits only work on standard (non-admin) accounts. I tried these features, blocking some domains and restricting access to the software manager on a standard user account. I then signed in as the hapless user and found none of the restrictions worked. I could still visit forbidden websites and run the application store, and even install or remove packages through the software centre. In short, the parental controls did not work at all for me.
elementary OS 5.0 -- Trying to block websites
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The user account module worked for me, but one curiosity is that it lists a guest account as being available and enabled by default. I had not noticed a guest account up to that point, and logged out to check. I could find no way to sign in as a guest, so the guest account options also appears to be broken.
At first I did not notice a firewall configuration tool, but I did find one under the Security & Privacy module. The Security & Privacy module handles the firewall (off by default), location services (on by default), and recording file/application history (on). These are the opposite of the defaults I would prefer, but they are easy enough to change.
Donation controversy
While not a technical feature of elementary, I think it is worth noting that the elementary developers are making a solid effort to make their project (and the projects listed in their software centre) financially self supporting. Personally, I see the appeal, especially for application developers. Being an open source developer often means putting a lot of effort into software people want to use for free while receiving timely support, bug fixes and new features. Making it possible for people who want to financially support developers to contribute money, while still giving away the operating system and applications for free, is a goal which would seem to benefit everyone and hurt no one, in my opinion. It has the side benefit of allowing some developers to put more time into their creations, working on open source projects instead of other, possibly proprietary, ventures.
While a lot of Linux distributions accept donations, and many upstream applications do too, elementary seems to receive an unusual amount of criticism for their approach. People often take issue with the donation page elementary displays prior to starting downloads, and some readers insist DistroWatch should remove elementary from our database for being too commercial. (No one seems to take issue with Red Hat Enterprise Linux or SUSE Linux Enterprise also being listed, despite both being commercial products). Personally, I think elementary has found a good balance between making it possible for users to donate without making it a requirement. All we need to do to opt out of paying money, to elementary or upstream developers, is to set the donation field to $0, and that seems like a small hurdle indeed for gaining access to polished, professional software.
Conclusions
I found a lot to like about Juno. The release announcement is detailed and shows lots of examples and screen shots. The operating system is easy to install, thanks to Ubuntu's Ubiquity installer and there is a nice collection of default software that will likely appeal to inexperienced users.
The Pantheon desktop and icons are beautiful. I sometimes ran into sluggish moments with the desktop, but usually only when the disk was under load or I had a video playing. I was really impressed by how Pantheon was put together and I like a lot of the little convenience features. The picture-in-picture preview and the shared edge window resizing are great. I also love that tapping the meta key will show a list of desktop short-cuts. It is little details like these which give the distribution a polished, friendly feel.
I already mentioned the icons look good and it bears repeating. Minimal icon design drives me mildly mad. I don't like functions represented by vague dots or arrows, I want a detailed icon and (preferably) text to let me know what a button does. elementary does a good job of making icons distinct, clear in purpose and typically accompanied by a text label or tooltip.
There were a few problems. Some of them were fairly minor, like Epiphany using high CPU load, especially in the virtual machine, or X11 gobbling CPU cycles on my workstation. There were other little touches like the release notes link in the installer not working, that are perhaps only worth mentioning because the rest of the experience was generally so polished and showed a lot of attention to detail.
My few serious complaints were with user accounts. Specifically, there appears to be a guest account enabled, but I could not find any way to sign into it. It is not a big deal to set up another account for guests, but it makes me wonder if the enabled (and hidden) account could be exploited. I also found it disappointing the parental controls did not work to block application access or forbidden websites.
On the other hand, I think Pantheon includes some great features and I like that it is fairly flexible in its look and behaviour. The flexible notification area and the quick switching between application menu styles were welcome features.
Generally speaking, I think elementary OS looks and feels professional. I hope it gets picked up by more hardware sellers, like System76, as I think Juno feels polished and looks good. I think it will especially appeal to less experienced users, but many of the features and the Code tool will likely be useful to more advanced users and developers too.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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Visitor supplied rating
elementary OS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.5/10 from 161 review(s).
Have you used elementary OS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
DragonFly BSD introduces flexible virtual machine memory, KDE neon plans to drop older base, OpenBSD makes switching wireless networks automatic
A DragonFly BSD developer, who goes by the nickname "ddegroot", has created a special driver which allows the user to increase or decrease the amount of memory available to a guest operating system in a virtual machine. The driver uses what is called a "memory balloon" which expands or shrinks to change the amount of RAM available to the guest operating system. Richard WM Jones explains: "First of all, what is a balloon driver if you’ve never even heard of the concept? It’s a way to give or take RAM from a guest. (In theory at least), if your guest needs more RAM, you can use the balloon driver to give it more RAM. Or if the host needs to take RAM away from guests, it can do so. All of this is done without needing to pause or reboot the guest..."
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The KDE neon distribution mixes a stable Ubuntu base with cutting-edge packages of the KDE Plasma desktop environment. The KDE neon team is dropping support for versions of its distribution that are based on Ubuntu 16.04 in order to streamline maintenance. "Upgrades to 18.04 are working well but maintaining twice as many builds as normal is taking its toll on our time and team of guinea pig packagers. Neon on 16.04 (Xenial) base will reach End of Life on Monday [October 22, 2018]. Please update to 18.04 base to continue receiving updates."
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People who use OpenBSD on laptops and other portable computing devices will be happy to know the new release of OpenBSD 6.4 offers a new feature which will allow the operating system to automatically connect to recognized wireless networks. A post on the project's Twitter feed reports: "The upcoming OpenBSD 6.4 release features significant improvements in its IEEE 802.11 wireless stack! ifconfig(8) now has "join" - this keyword configures the kernel to automatic switch between different wifi networks."
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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) |
Why init keeps running
Wanting-to-stop-init asks: I've read that init is the program which starts the operating system. So why does it still show up in my task monitor after I login, can't it be stopped after the distro boots? Or am I missing something?
DistroWatch answers: You are correct that init (whether it is SysV, systemd, runit, or another implementation) is used to bring the operating system on. The init process is the first userland program to be run and it is responsible for getting the rest of the operating system started. Since init is the first program run, it is sometimes referred to as process ID #1 or PID 1.
If all the init process did was kick-off the remainder of the boot process, then it would be entirely reasonable for init to terminate itself once the operating system had finished booting. However, init has a couple of other tasks to perform.
When a program terminates, it signals its parent (the program that created it) that its work is done. The parent program then gathers some information about the terminated process. Once that information has been collected, the child process is entirely removed from the system. But what happens if the parent process shuts down before the child process is finished? The child program's information needs to be collected somewhere before it can be wiped from the system. This is where init comes in. The init process adopts child programs who no longer have running parent processes. When a child process terminates and does not have a running parent, the init process steps in and collects its information. If init did not do this we would end up with a bunch of zombie processes cluttering the system, waiting to be cleaned up.
The init process may be involved in other tasks too, such as shutting down the operating system. While the implementations of init vary in their behaviour, PID 1 is often involved in telling programs to clean up and terminate when the computer is being rebooted or powered off.
Some init implementations may have other jobs too, but virtually every init program will perform at least these three tasks (starting the operating system, cleanly shutting down the system, and adopting terminated programs which do not have a running parent process). This is why PID 1 is always running in the background, even if it does not actively appear to be doing anything at the moment.
The good news is most implementations of init do not require many resources. PID 1 tends to sleep most of the time, only waking up to take care of adopted children or shut down the system. Memory usage tends to be low for most flavours of init too, so there is little cost in keeping it in memory.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
IPFire 2.21 Core 124
IPFire is a Linux distribution for firewalls which offers a range of security tools and is designed to be easy to set up. The distribution's developers have released IPFire 2.21 Core Update 124 that features kernel and network hardening for improved security. "We have updated the Linux kernel to version 4.14.72 which comes with a large number of bug fixes, especially for network adapters. It has also been hardened against various attack vectors by enabling and testing built-in kernel security features that prohibit access to privileged memory by unprivileged users and similar mechanisms. Due to this, the update requires a reboot after it has been installed. Peter has contributed a number of patches that improve security of the SSH daemon running inside IPFire. For those, who have SSH access enabled, it will now require latest ciphers and key exchange algorithms that make the key handshake and connection not only more secure, but also faster when transferring data. For those admins who use the console: The SSH client has also been enabled to show a graphic representation of the SSH key presented by the server so that comparing those is easier and man-in-the-middle attacks can be spotted quickly and easily." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
elementary OS 5.0
elementary OS is an Ubuntu-based distribution which features the Pantheon desktop environment and a custom application store. The project's latest stable release is elementary OS 5.0 "Juno". There are several new improvements to the desktop, file manager and software centre in the new version: "We're happy to debut a brand new Night Light feature with both a manual timer and an automatic Sunrise to Sunset option. Night Light reduces the blue light output of your display, which may help to reduce eye strain and sleeplessness after using your device. When enabled and during the set time, a new Night Light indicator appears in the Panel which can be used to adjust the display temperature or snooze Night Light until the next day. And like all Indicators, it provides a quick way to jump straight into the relevant screen in System Settings." The release announcement lists several additional features along with screen shots.
elemetnary OS 5.0 -- Running the Pantheon desktop
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OpenBSD 6.4
OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system with a design that emphasises correct code and accurate documentation. The project has released OpenBSD 6.4 which includes many driver improvements, a feature which allows OpenSSH's configuration files to use service names instead of port numbers, and the Clang compiler will now replace some risky ROP instructions with safe alternatives. Perhaps the most interesting feature is the unveil() system call which allows applications to sandbox themselves, blocking their own access to the file system. This is especially useful for programs which operate on unknown data which may try to exploit or crash the application: "New unveil(2) system call to restrict file system access of the calling process to the specified files and directories. It is most powerful when properly combined with privilege separation and pledge(2)." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement and in the changelog.
Ubuntu 18.10
Adam Conrad has announced the release of Ubuntu 18.10, a version which will receive nine months of security updates and support. The project's new version ships with several key package updates: "The Ubuntu kernel has been updated to the 4.18 based Linux kernel, our default toolchain has moved to gcc 8.2 with glibc 2.28, and we've also updated to openssl 1.1.1 and gnutls 3.6.4 with TLS1.3 support. Ubuntu Desktop 18.10 brings a fresh look with the community-driven Yaru theme replacing our long-serving Ambiance and Radiance themes. We are shipping the latest GNOME 3.30, Firefox 63, LibreOffice 6.1.2, and many others. Ubuntu Server 18.10 includes the Rocky release of OpenStack including the clustering enabled LXD 3.0, new network configuration via netplan.io, and iteration on the next-generation fast server installer." Further details can be found in the release announcement and in the release notes.
Ubuntu MATE 18.10
Martin Wimpress has announced the release of Ubuntu MATE 18.10. The new version ships with version 1.20.3 of the MATE desktop environment and will receive nine months of support. "Curiously, the work during this Ubuntu MATE 18.10 release has really been focused on what will become Ubuntu MATE 18.04.2. Let me explain. The upstream MATE Desktop team have been working on many bug fixes for MATE desktop 1.20.3, that has resulted in a lot of maintenance updates in the upstream releases of MATE desktop. The Debian packaging team for MATE Desktop, of which I am member, has been updating all the MATE packages to track these upstream bug fixes and new releases. Just about all MATE desktop packages and associated components, such as AppMenu and MATE Dock Applet have been updated. Now that all these fixes exist in the 18.10 release, we will start the process of SRU'ing (backporting) them to 18.04 so that they will feature in the Ubuntu MATE 18.04.2 release due in February 2019. The fixes should start landing in Ubuntu MATE 18.04 very soon, well before the February deadline. Ubuntu MATE 18.04.2 will include a hardware enablement stack (HWE) based on what is shipped in Ubuntu 18.10...." Additional information can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
Ubuntu MATE 18.10 -- The application menu
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Ubuntu Studio 18.10
The Ubuntu Studio team has announced the release of version 18.10 of their multimedia-focused distribution. The new release enables the automatic use of JACK for removable USB audio devices and introduces PikoPixel for editing pixel part. "Ubuntu Studio Controls has historically been the app to run to get initial audio configuration set for your system. This release, Ubuntu Studio Controls has undergone a major rewrite, and has the following features: Option for changing the CPU governor; configuration of JACK, including any attached USB audio devices; configuration of the JACK-PulseAudio Bridge; configuration of the JACK-ALSA MIDI Bridge. Ubuntu Studio Controls now, for the first time ever for any JACK configuration GUI, configures JACK to automatically detect hot-plugged USB audio devices and allows you to use more than one audio device at a time. This is something you will find in no other such utility. Future plans for Ubuntu Studio Controls includes configuration of WACOM Tablets, which is something currently not available in our default Xfce desktop environment." Additional details and future plans can be found in the distribution's release announcement and in the release notes.
Ubuntu Kylin 18.10
The development team behind Ubuntu Kylin has announced the availability of a new version of the project's official Ubuntu flavour designed specifically for users in China. The new version comes with updated MATE 1.20 desktop and it also provides a number of desktop improvements: "We are glad to announce the release of Ubuntu Kylin 18.10 'Cosmic Cuttlefish' which comes with a series of updates in kernel, basic services, desktop environment and software to provide a newer and better desktop experience. Ubuntu Kylin 18.10 ships with a brand-new Login and Lock programs, adding functions, fixing bugs and providing a cozier and easier user experience. Notable features include: new Login and Lock programs supporting biometric identifications technologies; Start Menu - modify the loading mode of Normal Menu and support a third-party category, support special characters, add feedback; Sessions - add a new Setup wizard; Notifications - add U disk management; Panel - redesign task layout when opening too many tabs on the panel...." Read the full release announcement (available in Chinese and English) for more information and screenshots.
Ubuntu Budgie 18.10
David Mohammed has announced the release of Ubuntu Budgie 18.10, a new and improved version of the distribution that features the Budgie desktop (originally developed by the Solus project): "We are pleased to announce the release of a new version of our distro, the fourth as an official flavor of the Ubuntu family. Based on 18.04 experiences, feedback and suggestions that we have received from our users, the new release comes with a lot of new features, fixes and optimizations. Here is what you can expect in the new release: showcasing the latest Budgie desktop developments, re-working some of our most used applets to be more efficient and faster; adding new productivity applets; integrating all of this together with the major GNOME developments of GTK+ 3.24 and Mutter 3.30. New features and enhancements: Budgie Desktop 10.5 (almost) - we are pleased to promote the latest available capabilities made available by the Solus project; due to overwhelming vote (75%), Firefox now becomes our default browser; we have dropped TLP from the default install as power savings in kernel 4.18 are significant for newer computers...." See the release announcement and release notes for further information.
Kubuntu 18.10
Continuing the Ubuntu release day news, here is the announcement of the release of Kubuntu 18.10, an official Ubuntu flavour featuring KDE Plasma 5 desktop: "Kubuntu 18.10, featuring the beautiful Plasma 5.13 desktop from KDE, has been released. Code-named 'Cosmic Cuttlefish', Kubuntu 18.10 continues our proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open-source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. Under the hood, there have been updates to many core packages, including a new 4.18-based Linux kernel, Qt 5.11, KDE Frameworks 5.50, Plasma 5.13.5 and KDE Applications 18.04.3. Kubuntu has seen some exciting improvements, with newer versions of Qt, updates to major packages like Krita, Kdeconnect, Kstars, Peruse, Latte-dock, Firefox and LibreOffice, and stability improvements to KDE Plasma. In addition, Snap integration in Plasma Discover software center is now enabled by default." And some good news for the disappointed users who had hoped for the inclusion of Plasma 5.14 in Kubuntu 18.10: "Users who wish to test the latest Plasma 5.14.1 and Frameworks 5.51, which came too late in our release cycle to make it into 18.10 as default, can install these via our Backports PPA." Read the release announcement and the release notes for more information.
Kubuntu 18.10 -- The KDE Plasma desktop
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Xubuntu 18.10
The Xubuntu development team has announced the release of Xubuntu 18.10, the latest version of the official Ubuntu variant with Xfce as the preferred desktop environment. This is Xubuntu's first release that uses a development build of Xfce 4.13, an upcoming version that will deploy GTK+ 3 as the default toolkit: "The Xubuntu team is happy to announce the immediate release of Xubuntu 18.10. Highlights: several Xfce components and applications were updated to their 4.13 development releases, bringing us closer to a GTK+ 3-only desktop; elementary Xfce icon theme 0.13 with the manila folder icons as seen in the upstream elementary icon theme; Greybird 3.22.9 which improves the look and feel of our window manager, alt-tab dialog, Chromium and even pavucontrol; a new default wallpaper featuring a gentle purple tone that greatly complements our GTK+ and icon themes. Known issues: at times the panel could show two network icons - this appears to be a race condition which we have not been able to rectify in time for release; in the settings manager, the mouse fails to scroll applications in settings manager (GTK+ 3 regression)." Read the release announcement and release notes for further information and screenshots.
Lubuntu 18.10
We conclude the Ubuntu release day with Lubuntu, a popular Ubuntu variant which, until recently, featured the lightweight LXDE desktop. Starting with version 18.10, the distribution has finally completed its intended switch to LXQt: "Thanks to all the hard work from our contributors, Lubuntu 18.10 has been released. This is the first Lubuntu release with LXQt as the main desktop environment. The Lubuntu project, in 18.10 and successive releases, will no longer support the LXDE desktop environment or tools in the Ubuntu archive and will instead focus on the LXQt desktop environment. You can find the following major applications and toolkits installed by default in this release: LXQt 0.13.0, with many bugfixes and improvements backported from upstream; Qt 5.11.1, which is the first point release in the Qt 5.11 series; Mozilla Firefox 62, which will receive updates from the Ubuntu security team throughout the support cycle of the release; the LibreOffice 6.1.2 suite with the Qt 5 frontend; VLC 3.0.4 for viewing media and listening to music; Featherpad 0.9.0 for notes and code editing....." Read the detailed release announcement which contains a long list of interesting changes.
Pop!_OS 18.10
Following the release of Ubuntu 18.10 earlier this week, Pop!_OS, an Ubuntu-based distribution which ships on desktops and laptops built by Linux hardware specialist System76, has also been updated to version 18.10: "Your favorite Pop!_erating system has leveled up with Pop!_18.10. Most of the new updates will also be rolled into Pop!_18.04. Here's what we've been working on since our last Pop!_OS announcement. New kernel, graphic stack, and GNOME desktop environment for Pop!_18.10: 18.10 will have lots of updated packages from upstream Ubuntu that 18.04 won't get; theme changes and visual tweaks to widgets give your favorite OS some extra Pop! Pop!_Shop: application previews now load faster; improvements to the UI to prevent it from freezing, like a down jacket sewn from phoenix feathers; oh, and before we forget, there's also some resolutions for outstanding memory leaks. CUDA and TensorFlow: we keep CUDA and TensorFlow up to date and easy to use, now, you can take CUDA + cuDNN + TensorFlow installation from 100 lines of code to a single command." Continue to the release announcement for more information and screenshots.
Feren OS 2018.10
A new stable version of Feren OS, called "October snapshot", has been released. Feren OS is a desktop-oriented Linux distribution based on Linux Mint, shipping with Cinnamon as the default desktop environment. The latest release comes with a number of desktop tweaks and it is also available for 32-bit computers: "Changes-wise, there isn't that much to talk about regarding the Feren OS frontend, as most of the work has been done improving the backend of many applications Feren OS has of its own. Here are a few of the noticeable changes: new background set and a new desktop environment supporting the easy viewing of this and newer background sets; Feren OS is now upgradable to non-LTS Ubuntu versions; the Feren OS theme has also seen some noticeable tweaks - gradients are now colour-neutral, using some transparency tweaks and scrollbars are now designed after the Breeze theme using the code from the Breeze GTK+ 3 and GTK+ 2 themes; theme colouriser will now support community-made theme colouriser scripts; backend fixes and changes." Besides providing detailed information and screenshots, the release announcement also hints at continued development of a new "KDE" edition of Feren OS (currently available as an "experimental" release).
NuTyX 10.4
NuTyX is a French Linux distribution (with multi-language support) built from Linux From Scratch and Beyond Linux From Scratch, with a custom package manager called "cards". The distribution's latest release is NuTyX 10.4 and ships with updated versions of the cards package manager, the Linux kernel, Firefox and LibreOffice. "I'm very please to announce the new NuTyX 10.4 release. NuTyX 10.4 comes with kernel LTS 4.14.78 (4.9.114 in 32-bits), glibc 2.28, gcc 8.2.0, binutils 2.30, Python 3.7.0, xorg-server 1.20.1, Qt 5.11.2, GTK+ 3.24.1, GIMP 2.10.6, Plasma 5.12.6 LTS (in 64-bits) , kf5 5.50.0 (in 64-bits), MATE 1.20.1, Xfce4 4.12.3, Firefox 62.0.3... A second kernel is proposed for people who want to use the very last version of the kernel 4.17.11 NuTyX 10.3 user's are invited to upgrade." Further details and upgrade instructions can be found on the project's news page. NuTyX is available in two editions, a minimal ISO and one with the MATE desktop environment.
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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: 1,078
- Total data uploaded: 21.6TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
Using ARM-powered computers
Computers running ARM processors are becoming more common these days. ARM CPUs power a lot of single-board computers, like the Raspberry Pi and the Pinebook.
This week we would like to find out if any of our readers are using an ARM-powered computer as their primary computing device (desktop or laptop).
You can see the results of our previous poll on attending LUG meetings in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Distributions added to waiting list
- AcademiX GNU/Linux. AcademiX GNU/Linux is a Debian-based distribution which features educational programs for students ranging from primary classes through to university. The distribution can be installed or run as a live DVD.
- Linufix is a distribution with two editions. One edition is for centalised financial technology and payment software while the second edition runs decentralized blockchain technology.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 29 October 2018. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. 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)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • The 'price' of Elementary (by dave on 2018-10-22 00:47:18 GMT from United States)
I don't have anything against a linux distribution making money, but I also understand why some people get salty about it certain styles of marketing. 'Pay What You Want' is a form of nagware/guiltware. Defaulting to $20 forces the typical downloader to change that to $0, so their internal anti-theft guilt programming is triggered. They're trying to make folks feel like they're stealing; taking the DOWN out of FREE downLOAD. Technically RHEL and SEL have no 'free' offerings, either. You go to Fedora and OpenSuse for that. Fedora's download page doesn't even contain the word 'donate'.
It would be difficult to find many 'free' distributions that rejected money. When we download Arch, Debian, Ubuntu, etc, without ever visiting the donation page, are we not Paying What We Want? It's insulting in 2018 to imply that we are not aware of the standard donation protocol. Even a donation leaderboard / high score list is way less trashy of a business model.
I think Elementary looks like a fine distribution for people who want a nearly-free Mac clone. That idea from the review-- that Elementary should partner with a linux computer dealer, is a better idea (to me) than Pay What You Want. System76 needs to Drop!_ThatOS of theirs.
2 • All Good (by Dhoni on 2018-10-22 01:20:18 GMT from Indonesia)
About elementary, their donation system is good. Some agree while other disagree, well that's life.. :D
I'm using Antergos for now, and i'm eager to move to juno. But that was not happening because when i tried running juno from flashdrive the display is flipped each couple second. Hmm i got no time to fix this and that kinda stuff, so ill pass juno and keep my existing antergos, at least for now.
BTW is there anyway to make KDE more friendly with low res monitor? im using 1360x768, and everything look huge on kde/plasma.
3 • Icon Theme in the Review (by Winchester on 2018-10-22 01:52:04 GMT from United States)
A matter of personal taste,but I much prefer an icon theme with a more unified look such as the "malys-uniblack" icon theme. Also,the "Shadow" icon themes as seen in the Peppermint OS 8 releases.
Elementary OS icons are too "cartoon-ish" for my preference.
4 • ARM powered workstation/laptop (by ravi on 2018-10-22 03:41:11 GMT from United States)
I had never seen a workstation grade ARM cpu which matches intel i9/threadripper in performance(those two are proper workstation cpus) . Most powerful ARM cpu matches low end i3 in laptops which are useful only for browsing and watching movie related stuff and not powerful enough for serious programming and video editing. People who are using ARM powered machines as their primary computer are casual users who don't need intel/ryzen fire power. Correct me if i am wrong.
5 • Making KDE work better on smaller screens... (by Bobbie Sellers on 2018-10-22 03:56:35 GMT from United States)
KDE System Settings
Appearance
Fonts Adjust all and pick the size you want to use.
then to
Icons near the bottom of the Window use
Configure Icon Sizes and you also get several choice
of theme on the same page as well as the chance
to Get New Themes or Install from File/
bliss
6 • ElementaryOS (by archi on 2018-10-22 04:13:09 GMT from Philippines)
EOS, is just another Apple wanna be, acting like its knows whats best and how OS is suppose to be used. Their business model is more suited to be partnered with a complete system, not a separate OS with guilt-imposing donate button right beside their download link.
7 • Elementary OS (by aguador on 2018-10-22 06:13:06 GMT from Bulgaria)
I think it good that users have ready access to donation pages -- and perhaps even a reminder at download time. For example, The Document Foundation offers up a donation page after download that I find a reasonable way to handle the donations issue. Having a donation set "up front" is a pain for those of us who simply like to download a distro and run it live to see how it feels.
That said, I have not even bothered to test Elementary since seeing an interview with one of the developers right after it adopted its donations policy and detected an arrogance that turned me off completely. More importantly, and not mentioned in the review, what is eOS doing to share revenue with Ubuntu? The developers would not have an OS were it not for the Ubuntu base.
In my case, having my hand held with a Mac-like interface is not something that interests me at all. That said, the comments that point to eOS as a good candidate for hardware sellers makes sense as the interface looks to be better than Ubuntu itself (the distro most frequently offered by hardware sellers), and will appeal to those who want a set look out of the box when buying new hardware. It also potentially offers a better option than the hardware folks spreading themselves too thin by worrying about OS customization. I don't think this would bother even those of us who prefer code bases other than Ubuntu's and replace pre-installed *buntus even as we support non-Windows hardware vendors.
8 • ElementaryOS (by tim on 2018-10-22 06:50:12 GMT from United States)
The users seem to be well-served, the developers seem to be consciencious, and their community/ecosystem seems to be much more content(?) happy compared to other distributions. They face an ongoing a chicken-and-egg problem, though, because the devs have single-mindedly invested so heavily in use of "vala" -- a relatively arcane language which is embraced by alarmingly few app developers. Even the offering of bounties "get paid for writing apps and adding features" has failed to yield a significant growth in the assortment of apps which are "native" to their desktop ecosystem.
I was blindsisded by System76' announcement of Pop_bAnG_uNdErScOre_OS. Really, I had expected or at least had hoped that they would align themselves with ElementaryOS or with LinuxMint, or with Deepin, or (at the time) Kubuntu or Yoonity.
Nope, I wouldn't expect ElementaryOS to tithe percent of any financial donations to upstream Ubuntu. Especially so, because I can't recall any requests/demands they've placed on Ubuntu.
9 • elementary OS (by hnk on 2018-10-22 08:13:29 GMT from United States)
While I don't actively use elementary OS, I have tried it and was in no pain whatsoever to download it.
I take no issue with having to explicitly state that I want to donate $0 and find it a great way to show people that a project like this needs funds to survive.
We see every few years that the donation system does not work unless you make sure people realize money is needed to keep development going. Just look at LWN or OpenSSL. They were in dire need of money, LWN already planning to close, and only a big bang (heartbleed in case of OpenSSL) actually got peoples attention and they started to give money.
I can understand that not everyone wants to wait until such a moment to actually receive the funding they need.
Lots of places I go to have a similar model: There is a set recommended entry price at the door, but it is only a guide to what the hosts need to cover their expenses. People can pay what they want, without guilt or shaming. Some pay less, some pay more. Why can't we do the same with software? Humble Bundle does it as well.
10 • Donations (by penguinx64 on 2018-10-22 09:06:36 GMT from United States)
I tend to avoid people who ask for money. Linux Mint has never nagged me for money, yet I've donated 18 times.
11 • @1 (by NieJaki on 2018-10-22 09:34:24 GMT from Greece)
"I think Elementary looks like a fine distribution for people who want a nearly-free Mac clone."
Why shou'd anyone wants Mac clone, when you can easily install Mac OS Mojave on your pc/laptop? There's a teenager in India, who shows you how to do it. Find out in the youtube.
12 • @11, clones and Hackintosh (by Angel on 2018-10-22 10:10:15 GMT from Philippines)
Ways to make a Hackintosh have been around for quite a few years, but there is a difference between free open-source and pirated software. It's like going in a candy store and getting free candy versus shoplifting a few pieces.
Many people like the looks and layout of the MacOS desktop. I prefer a top panel with a dock at the bottom, so I set up my Linux desktops that way, although I like to keep the menus on the applications' top bar rather than a universal set-up. Right now I have KDE-Plasma set up that way, but in no way does it look like Apple's. Most Linux desktops can be configured like that.
I tried Elementary's Pantheon desktop. I didn't care for it, but many people do, enough to put it near the top in DWs page-hit rankings. I like to configure my desktop just so. Others are happy to take it as is comes. As the saying went: different strokes for different folks. Just because it looks a certain way does not make Elementary a Mac clone. It's still GNU/Linux: free, not pirated.
13 • @12 pirated or not, clone or not (by Jakis on 2018-10-22 11:00:23 GMT from United States)
Elementary OS does everything to look like Mac OS, and that too is "pirating" the look. But it is not worthwhile to use. Trying to look the same doesn't bring in the value.
In the matter of Mac OS Mojave being installed in a PC/laptop, it is not exactly pirating, for you are refusing to pay for the hardware. You are not pirating the hardware. You just refuse to buy the hardware. You just use the OS that you download free.
I refuse to pay exorbitant price to buy the so called Linux laptops, but buy a much cheaper Windows laptop and dual boot Linux distros. Linux is sort of free, but you need hardware to run it. Mojave is also free, but you need proprietary hardware to run it. But, open-source devs have found out how to use that free OS on a normal Windows pc/laptop. And, you get the original, not the clone.
14 • init zombies (by cykodrone on 2018-10-22 11:34:59 GMT from Canada)
How fitting, zombies in my computer, just in time for Halloween. :D
15 • @13, pirating (by Angel on 2018-10-22 13:24:47 GMT from Philippines)
License:
The grants set forth in this License do not permit you to, and you agree not to,
install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-branded computer, or to enable others to do so.
https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macOS1014.pdf
16 • ARM's (by meanpt on 2018-10-22 13:33:09 GMT from Portugal)
What's a "computer" these days? Is my Android's arm multicore, 1gb ram, samsung galaxy tablet 10.1, a computer? A phone it ain't, that's for sure 'cause I can't make phone calls with it. Can I have about 100 open tabs in chrome without crashing? Yes, they're there. Can I do the same in my (name the spin from 16.04 to 18.04)ubuntish 64 bits distro running in a hp 64 bits core-i3 with 4gb of ram? No.
17 • elementary OS and money (by Jesse on 2018-10-22 14:19:59 GMT from Canada)
@1: "Fedora's download page doesn't even contain the word 'donate'."
That is because historically (not sure if it still applies) the Fedora team saw it as more trouble than it was worth to accept donations. As one of the former project leaders pointed out, they get all the funding they need from Red Hat. Setting up donations from the public would possibly cost more than they received due to the extra accounting and legal work. When you have a multi-billion dollar company providing your funding, accepting public donations is not a priority.
@7: "More importantly, and not mentioned in the review, what is eOS doing to share revenue with Ubuntu? The developers would not have an OS were it not for the Ubuntu base."
Probably none. But that argument doesn't really go anywhere. How many of Canonical's millions get passed back into Debian? How much of Debian's donations fund the thousands of upstream projects they package? (The answer in both cases is little to none.) Downstream projects almost never sponsor their upstream sources.
Projects in these cases tend to share patches and ideas, but almost never money.
18 • I use XFCE, not Elementary OS (by mmphosis on 2018-10-22 15:14:26 GMT from Canada)
I used to be interested in Elementary OS because it was similar to Mac OS X which I still use on old PowerPC Macs. Rather than Elementary OS, instead I am using XFCE (Xubuntu) with my own UI preferences. A bar (panel) at the top of one of the monitors works like the Mac menu bar. The Ctrl and Alt keys I swap because the location of the Command key is pretty much etched into my brain.
/usr/bin/setxkbmap -option ctrl:swap_lalt_lctl
I use Autokey to make the keyboard in xfce4-terminal work like Terminal on the Mac. Similar to the Mac, I have the stoplight buttons to the left in window title bars: x close, - minimize, and + maximize sadly not zoom. Rather than an Apple menu, I have an Xubuntu menu that I use like a dock (application launcher,) kind of like the old Desk Accessories interface. I have the same icons on the far right of the panel just like Mac OS X, down to the the way the weekday and time are displayed on the Mac because you can configure pretty much everything, thank you Linux.
Clock options:
%a %-l:%M %p
I can't be bothered with the Mac-like menu items in the menu bar and leave things the "Windows" way with a menu bar in every window. I have a "Windows"-like task bar but at the top in the middle between the Xubuntu menu on the left and the bunch of "Mac"-like tray items on the right. I've stopped using a dock and now wish I could do the same in Mac OS X. I've discarded the Ubuntu Find (Spotlight) interface -- both for speed and no longer being annoyed by this interface. I turn off Spotlight on Mac OS X for the same reasons, but I know that for many people, this is the way they like to launch programs. Yes, I am stuck in past ways I used to do things, it's nice to move forward if you can. I am not used to the gesture of vertical scrolling being reversed, but I think that back in the 1980's had scrolling worked the way it does now on phones/tablets/games I would be used to it, and I seem to remember on some rarer GUIs in the 80s vertical scroll did work that way.
When I started using Ubuntu, I liked the "user" menu to the far right, and I now have this set up with Switch User, Log Out... | Restart, Shutdown which makes more sense to me than having Restart and Shutdown in the Apple menu or in the Windows Start menu -- or if you're an old Mac user like me, go into the Finder, select Shutdown from the Special menu and wait for the dialog box that looks like a bomb box that says it's now safe to turn the computer off -- that's the way it was, and we liked it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut3jqRlElOM
19 • @ 15 (by Pier on 2018-10-22 15:32:16 GMT from Germany)
Could be, but won't work in the EU. Google also got fined for ‘illegally tying’ Chrome and search apps to Android. There's no way for some company to make people buy their hardware in the EU. Btw, have you ever heard of a court case against using MacOS on a PC?
20 • Elementary looks a lot like Mac OS (by Ben Myers on 2018-10-22 17:08:50 GMT from Canada)
The layout of Elementary with Pantheon looks a lot like Mac OS.
21 • Lubuntu 18.10 (by Carlos Felipe Araujo on 2018-10-22 17:33:07 GMT from Brazil)
Lubuntu 18.10 iso is bigger than Xubuntu's. I think is totally unnecessary LibreOffice pre installed on a distro lightweight and Qt
22 • Just one more word on BSD (by Gerhard Goetzhaber on 2018-10-22 17:52:01 GMT from Austria)
It's because of my last week's report of some total frustrations I'd had with trying to install a variety of BSD flavours before: Meantime surprisingly, I got successful with that latest version 6.4 of OpenBSD on my self-built Ryzen system. So I also grabbed some deeper infos about the differences between the BSDs and all the reasons of their forking in the past. Consequently I can't do now but giving all folks interested in trying a BSD themselves a strong advice to start with OpenBSD or at least NetBSD! For in every case you will have to go through a hard process of learning, but at least a "pure" BSD may obviously promise you the better success ...
23 • Using ARM-powered computers (by fatmac on 2018-10-22 18:09:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
Up until a week or two ago, my main & secondary computers were Raspberry Pi 3B, running a stripped down version of Raspbian.
But I have just upgraded to an Intel based fanless/silent SBC as my main box, using a 12" XGA monitor, (my favourite size), & that runs AntiX, (as usual). :)
(I have also recently got myself both an 8" SVGA & an 11.6" WXGA monitors for use with my RPi3Bs.) :D
Number of Comments: 23
| | |
| Archives |
| • Issue 786 (2018-10-22): elementary OS 5.0, why init keeps running, DragonFly BSD enables virtual machine memory resizing, KDE neon plans to drop older base |
| • Issue 785 (2018-10-15): Reborn OS 2018.09, Nitrux 1.0.15, swapping hard drives between computers, feren OS tries KDE spin, power savings coming to Linux |
| • Issue 784 (2018-10-08): Hamara 2.1, improving manual pages, UBports gets VoIP app, Fedora testing power saving feature |
| • Issue 783 (2018-10-01): Quirky 8.6, setting up dual booting with Ubuntu and FreeBSD, Lubuntu switching to LXQt, Mint works on performance improvements |
| • Issue 782 (2018-09-24): Bodhi Linux 5.0.0, Elive 3.0.0, Solus publishes ISO refresh, UBports invites feedback, Linux Torvalds plans temporary vacation |
| • Issue 781 (2018-09-17): Linux Mint 3 "Debian Edition", file systems for SSDs, MX makes installing Flatpaks easier, Arch team answers questions, Mageia reaches EOL |
| • Issue 780 (2018-09-10): Netrunner 2018.08 Rolling, Fedora improves language support, how to customize Kali Linux, finding the right video drivers |
| • Issue 779 (2018-09-03): Redcore 1806, keeping ISO downloads safe from tampering, Lubuntu makes Calamares more flexible, Ubuntu improves GNOME performance |
| • Issue 778 (2018-08-27): GuixSD 0.15.0, ReactOS 0.4.9, Steam supports Windows games on Linux, Haiku plans for beta, merging disk partitions |
| • Issue 777 (2018-08-20): YunoHost 3.0.0.1, limiting process resource usage, converting file systems on Fedora, Debian turns 25, Lubuntu migrating to Wayland |
| • Issue 776 (2018-08-13): NomadBSD 1.1, Maximum storage limits on Linux, openSUSE extends life for 42.3, updates to the Librem 5 phone interface |
| • Issue 775 (2018-08-06): Secure-K OS 18.5, Linux is about choice, Korora tests community spin, elementary OS hires developer, ReactOS boots on Btrfs |
| • Issue 774 (2018-07-30): Ubuntu MATE & Ubuntu Budgie 18.04, upgrading software from source, Lubuntu shifts focus, NetBSD changes support policy |
| • Issue 773 (2018-07-23): Peppermint OS 9, types of security used by different projects, Mint reacts to bugs in core packages, Slackware turns 25 |
| • Issue 772 (2018-07-16): Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre 0.2.4, UBports running desktop applications, OpenBSD auto-joins wi-fi networks, boot environments and zedenv |
| • Issue 771 (2018-07-09): Linux Lite 4.0, checking CPUs for bugs, configuring GRUB, Mint upgrade instructions, SUSE acquired by EQT |
| • Issue 770 (2018-07-02): Linux Mint 19, Solus polishes desktop experience, MintBox Mini 2, changes to Fedora's installer |
| • Issue 769 (2018-06-25): BunsenLabs Helium, counting Ubuntu users, UBports upgrading to 16.04, Fedora CoreOS, FreeBSD turns 25 |
| • Issue 768 (2018-06-18): Devuan 2.0.0, using pkgsrc to manage software, the NOVA filesystem, OpenBSD handles successful cron output |
| • Issue 767 (2018-06-11): Android-x86 7.1-r1, transferring files over OpenSSH with pipes, LFS with Debian package management, Haiku ports LibreOffice |
| • Issue 766 (2018-06-04): openSUSE 15, overview of file system links, Manjaro updates Pamac, ReactOS builds itself, Bodhi closes forums |
| • Issue 765 (2018-05-28): Pop!_OS 18.04, gathering system information, Haiku unifying ARM builds, Solus resumes control of Budgie |
| • Issue 764 (2018-05-21): DragonFly BSD 5.2.0, Tails works on persistent packages, Ubuntu plans new features, finding services affected by an update |
| • Issue 763 (2018-05-14): Fedora 28, Debian compatibility coming to Chrome OS, malware found in some Snaps, Debian's many flavours |
| • Issue 762 (2018-05-07): TrueOS 18.03, live upgrading Raspbian, Mint plans future releases, HardenedBSD to switch back to OpenSSL |
| • Issue 761 (2018-04-30): Ubuntu 18.04, accessing ZFS snapshots, UBports to run on Librem 5 phones, Slackware makes PulseAudio optional |
| • Issue 760 (2018-04-23): Chakra 2017.10, using systemd to hide files, Netrunner's ARM edition, Debian 10 roadmap, Microsoft develops Linux-based OS |
| • Issue 759 (2018-04-16): Neptune 5.0, building containers with Red Hat, antiX introduces Sid edition, fixing filenames on the command line |
| • Issue 758 (2018-04-09): Sortix 1.0, openSUSE's Transactional Updates, Fedora phasing out Python 2, locating portable packages |
| • Issue 757 (2018-04-02): Gatter Linux 0.8, the UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook, Red Hat turns 25, super long term support kernels |
| • Issue 756 (2018-03-26): NuTyX 10.0, Neptune supplies Debian users with Plasma 5.12, SolydXK on a Raspberry Pi, SysV init development |
| • Issue 755 (2018-03-19): Learning with ArchMerge and Linux Academy, Librem 5 runs Plasma Mobile, Cinnamon gets performance boost |
| • Issue 754 (2018-03-12): Reviewing Sabayon and Antergos, the growing Linux kernel, BSDs getting CPU bug fixes, Manjaro builds for ARM devices |
| • Issue 753 (2018-03-05): Enso OS 0.2, KDE Plasma 5.12 features, MX Linux prepares new features, interview with MidnightBSD's founder |
| • Issue 752 (2018-02-26): OviOS 2.31, performing off-line upgrades, elementary OS's new installer, UBports gets test devices, Redcore team improves security |
| • Issue 751 (2018-02-19): DietPi 6.1, testing KDE's Plasma Mobile, Nitrux packages AppImage in default install, Solus experiments with Wayland |
| • Issue 750 (2018-02-12): Solus 3, getting Deb packages upstream to Debian, NetBSD security update, elementary OS explores AppCentre changes |
| • Issue 749 (2018-02-05): Freespire 3 and Linspire 7.0, misunderstandings about Wayland, Xorg and Mir, Korora slows release schedule, Red Hat purchases CoreOS |
| • Issue 748 (2018-01-29): siduction 2018.1.0, SolydXK 32-bit editions, building an Ubuntu robot, desktop-friendly Debian options |
| • Issue 747 (2018-01-22): Ubuntu MATE 17.10, recovering open files, creating a new distribution, KDE focusing on Wayland features |
| • Issue 746 (2018-01-15): deepin 15.5, openSUSE's YaST improvements, new Ubuntu 17.10 media, details on Spectre and Meltdown bugs |
| • Issue 745 (2018-01-08): GhostBSD 11.1, Linspire and Freespire return, wide-spread CPU bugs patched, adding AppImage launchers to the application menu |
| • Issue 744 (2018-01-01): MX Linux 17, Ubuntu pulls media over BIOS bug, PureOS gets endorsed by the FSF, openSUSE plays with kernel boot splash screens |
| • Issue 743 (2017-12-18): Daphile 17.09, tools for rescuing files, Fedora Modular Server delayed, Sparky adds ARM support, Slax to better support wireless networking |
| • Issue 742 (2017-12-11): heads 0.3.1, improvements coming to Tails, Void tutorials, Ubuntu phasing out Python 2, manipulating images from the command line |
| • Issue 741 (2017-12-04): Pop!_OS 17.10, openSUSE Tumbleweed snapshots, installing Q4OS on a Windows partition, using the at command |
| • Issue 740 (2017-11-27): Artix Linux, Unity spin of Ubuntu, Nitrux swaps Snaps for AppImage, getting better battery life on Linux |
| • Issue 739 (2017-11-20): Fedora 27, cross-distro software ports, Ubuntu on Samsung phones, Red Hat supports ARM, Parabola continues 32-bit support |
| • Issue 738 (2017-11-13): SparkyLinux 5.1, rumours about spyware, Slax considers init software, Arch drops 32-bit packages, overview of LineageOS |
| • Issue 737 (2017-11-06): BeeFree OS 18.1.2, quick tips to fix common problems, Slax returning, Solus plans MATE and software management improvements |
| • Issue 736 (2017-10-30): Ubuntu 17.10, "what if" security questions, Linux Mint to support Flatpak, NetBSD kernel memory protection |
| • Issue 735 (2017-10-23): ArchLabs Minimo, building software with Ravenports, WPA security patch, Parabola creates OpenRC spin |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Random Distribution | 
United Linux
UnitedLinux was a standards-based, worldwide Linux solution targeted at the business user and developed by The SCO Group, Conectiva, SuSE, and Turbolinux. Designed to be an enterprise-class, industry-standard Linux operating system, UL provides a single stable, uniform platform for application development, certification, and deployment and allows Linux vendors, Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), and Independent Hardware Vendors (IHVs) to support a single high value Linux offering rather than many different versions.
Status: Discontinued
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