 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 819, 17 June 2019 |
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Welcome to this year's 24th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Every once in a while it's nice to step off the well worn path of mainstream distribution releases and look under the open source rocks and stones to find out what is happening in lesser known projects. This week we begin with a look at two projects on the DistroWatch waiting list: OS108, a desktop-oriented NetBSD-based operating system; and Venom Linux which is a CRUX-like minimal distribution. Our Feature Story offers first impressions of these two projects. In our News section we discuss Debian 10's upcoming release, due to arrive in early July. Plus we link to a tutorial and documentation for working with Fedora's Modularity feature and discuss Ubuntu replacing its Chromium package with a snap. Then we discuss how to rename multiple files all at once and the steps required to check a thumb drive's checksum. Our Opinion Poll also focuses on the topic of renaming groups of files as we would like to know what tools you use to rename and organize multiple files. As usual, we share last week's releases and we are pleased to share the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: OS108 and Venom Linux
- News: Debian 10 scheduled for release, working with Fedora's Modularity, Ubuntu packaging Chromium as a snap
- Questions and answers: Renaming multiple files and checking the integrity of a live USB drive
- Released last week: CRUX 3.5, Endless OS 3.6.0, Untangle 14.2
- Torrent corner: Backbox, Bicom, Bluestar, CRUX, Elastix, Endless, GParted, Kwort, OpenMandriva, Untangle, Volumio
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 11.3-RC2
- Opinion poll: Renaming groups of files
- New distributions: MathLibre
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
OS108
Every so often I like to step outside of the distributions I know, the ones I tend to see and use year after year, and try something different. Sometimes trying a new project introduces me to a new way of doing things, as Bedrock Linux did earlier this year. Other times trying a project that is just getting started is a reminder of just how much infrastructure, time and resources go into the big-name projects. At any rate, this week I want to talk about two young projects that grabbed my attention for different reasons.
The first is OS108, which caught my eye because it is a desktop flavour of BSD, which is relatively rare. Specifically, the base operating system is NetBSD. OS108 reportedly wants to be a replacement for Windows and macOS and features the MATE desktop environment. The website did not offer much more information than that. I was able to learn OS108 is available for 64-bit (x86_64) machines only, which I suspect undercuts the usefulness of having a highly portable operating system, such as NetBSD, as the base.
The ISO file I downloaded for OS108 was 1.5GB in size. The file had no version number associated with it, so I assume this is the project's first release. The project's download page says we should install OS108 just as if it were regular NetBSD, then run a script to set up the MATE desktop. Optionally, there is another set of instructions we can follow to set up wireless networking.
Booting from the OS108 media brings up an installer which guides us through a series of text-based menus. We are asked to select our keyboard layout, choose whether to install a fresh copy of the operating system or upgrade, and then select which hard drive will hold OS108. We are also asked to confirm our hard drive's geometry and whether we want to manually partition the disk or let OS108 take over the whole drive. The installer recommends we set aside at least 5GB of space on the drive. Personally, I found more space was required as the default package selection, including the MATE desktop, consumes about 6GB of disk space.
We are next asked if we want a full install, a mostly full install without the X.Org display software, a minimal install, or a custom selection of packages. I went with the full option since it was the default. We can then select where the source packages are located (on the DVD, in this case) and the packages are quickly copied over to the hard drive. A minute later I was asked to perform more configuration steps. These included enabling networking, setting a root password, and turning on optional network services from a list of daemons. We can also create a regular user account and optionally download the pkgsrc ports framework. I skipped installing pkgsrc.
Once the installer finishes we can reboot the machine and I found the system loaded up a minimal graphical login screen which identified the operating system as being NetBSD. Signing into a terminal brought up another message which identified the system as being NetBSD 8.0-STABLE. Hoping things would change once the MATE desktop had been installed, I manually mounted the install disc and ran the recommended script to install MATE. The script installs MATE, the Nano text editor, LibreOffice, Transmission, the Midori web browser and the VLC media player. It also enables the background services required to run MATE. We can then reboot to truly start experiencing OS108.
OS108 -- The OS108 login screen
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
The newly set up system booted to a pretty graphical login screen that displays the OS108 logo. Logging in brings up the MATE desktop with two panels, one at the top for the Applications, Places and System menus. The second panel sits at the bottom of the display and holds the task switcher.
The MATE desktop was responsive, though it did not integrate with VirtualBox when run in a virtual machine. I was not able to resize the desktop either to make better use of my host system's screen resolution.
OS108 -- The MATE desktop and settings
(full image size: 176kB, resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
Looking through the small number of desktop applications I found some, like VLC, worked as expected, though they tended to be a few versions behind upstream. Other applications, such as the Midori web browser and the LibreOffice suite, failed to start due to missing library dependencies.
We can use the NetBSD command line package manager, pkgin, to install more software. For example, running "sudo pkgin install firefox52" installs the Firefox browser, which worked for me. Unfortunately, after playing with OS108 for a while I rebooted the computer and found the MATE desktop and its services had disappeared. My system reverted to running the minimal login screen and signing into my account brought up the minimal TWM window manager instead of MATE. The MATE desktop had disappeared as a session option.
OS108 -- Running the Firefox browser
(full image size: 342kB, resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
In general, my experiment with OS108 did not go well. The project has a lengthy setup process which requires a lot of manual work and knowledge of how to properly setup NetBSD. We also need to be able to handle mounting discs and running scripts from the command line. In the end, I found myself with a handful of desktop applications which did not work and some which did, but were out of date. And my desktop environment vanished after rebooting the system, making OS108 entirely impractical. At this point, until some important issues are worked out, or steps are automated, most fans of NetBSD will probably have an easier time setting up the parent operating system and customizing it as need be.
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Venom Linux 20190412
As I was not having much luck with OS108, I turned my sights to another open source operating system, this one in the Linux From Scratch family. This project is called Venom Linux and it has some interesting design choices along with its own, custom package manager:
Venom Linux is a source- and LFS-based distribution with multilib support targeting experienced users. This distro is inspired by CRUX. Its uses the KISS philosophy. Which uses simple tar compressed packages, ports system for packages, BSD-style initscripts and a few collection of small packages which are trimmed down by removed unused stuff like locale, doc, gtk-doc, info pages (man pages are kept). Venom Linux uses a custom package manager which is fully written in bash for installing, upgrading, removing, etc.
Venom is available in multiple editions, including a minimal Base edition, one with just X.Org support, one with the MATE desktop and two more desktop editions featuring the LXDE and Xfce desktops. The available ISO files range in size from about 490MB up to 1.4GB. The MATE edition I downloaded was 1.3GB. I found no documentation and no information indicating which hardware architectures are supported, though it seems Venom runs on 64-bit (x86_64) machines exclusively.
The Venom live media boots to a graphical login screen where we can sign into the MATE desktop using the username and password "venom". Like OS108, Venom Linux sets up MATE with a two-panel layout. Unlike OS108, Venom was able to integrate with VirtualBox and resize the desktop to suite my system's screen resolution.
Venom Linux 20190412 -- The MATE desktop and application menu
(full image size: 152kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
After exploring for a while, I failed to find a launcher for a system installer. The project's website indicates install instructions will be provided in the future, but none were available at the time of writing.
This left me to explore the live environment which was able to connect to the Internet and run many popular open source applications. The application menu offers launchers for Firefox, Transmission, HexChat, Eye of MATE and the GNU Image Manipulation Program. The Atril document viewer, VLC media player and LibreOffice are also featured. Venom uses SysV init as the default init software and runs on version 4.19 of the Linux kernel.
The live desktop only required about 260MB of RAM and I'm not sure how much disk space would be required were it to be installed on the local hard drive.
One of Venom's features is a unique package manager, called Scratch. The Scratch script accepts parameters such as "install", "remove", and "upgrade". As far as I can tell, the script cannot perform batch upgrades and must be given one package at a time to upgrade. This was a problem as I could not find a way to update the package manager's repository information and I could not find a way to list which packages were installed and which ones might be available in the repositories.
I was able to use Scratch to remove existing packages, like Firefox. However, when I tried to re-install the web browser, Scratch flooded my terminal with error messages and reported it was unable to unpack the Firefox archive. I had run Scratch using the sudo command (to gain admin access) so I suspect the access errors were due to running Scratch on live media instead of a hard drive.
My trial with Venom was short since I was unable to find a way to install the distribution. I was able to conclude the live session itself works well and Venom includes up to date software. However, without documentation, an installer or full featured package manager, it is safe to say Venom Linux has a ways to go before it will be practical on a daily basis.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Debian 10 scheduled for release, working with Fedora's Modularity, Ubuntu packaging Chromium as a snap
The Debian project does not have a firm release schedule, with the developers choosing to publish new versions when they are ready, rather than on a specific time-line. With that said, Debian 10 "Buster" is almost ready and the Debian team plans to publish the upcoming release on July 6, 2019. Niels Thykier sent out a reminder to the team to upload any last minute bug fixes and to hold off any major changes until after Debian 10 is published.
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The Fedora distribution features a concept called Modularity which enables Fedora users to install different versions of a package from the distribution's repositories. The Modularity feature has been available as an add-on option for a few releases, but is now built into the distribution's editions. Fedora Magazine has an introduction to Modularity and explains how to install alternative versions of packages. "Because having too many packages in multiple versions could feel overwhelming (and hard to manage), packages are grouped into modules that represent an application, a language runtime, or any other sensible group. Modules often come in multiple streams - usually representing a major version of the software. Available in parallel, but only one stream of each module can be installed on a given system. And not to overwhelm users with too many choices, each Fedora release comes with a set of defaults - so decisions only need to be made when desired." Further information is available in the Modularity feature's documentation.
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The Ubuntu team is looking at replacing their current Chromium deb package with a snap package. Testing a snap package of the Chromium browser is underway with plans to eventually remove the Chromium deb package from Ubuntu's repositories. "The Chromium browser has been available as a deb package for all supported Ubuntu releases and as a snap since version 60, and the time has come to start transitioning away from the debs. In a first step, the transition will be happening exclusively for Ubuntu 19.10 (Eoan Ermine) users, and once I’m confident it is rock-solid it will be rolled out to stable releases, starting with Disco and then the LTSes. How does that work? The deb packages have been updated in Eoan to install the stable snap on upgrade or new install (credit for the original implementation goes to the LXC team). Special care has been taken to not break existing workflows and to make the transition seamless." The change is expected to affect previous releases, including 18.04 LTS, as well as the upcoming 19.10 version of Ubuntu.
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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) |
Renaming multiple files and checking the integrity of a live USB drive
Renaming-lots-of-files asks: I am trying to add a prefix to a bunch of image files. Is there a tool for doing this?
DistroWatch answers: Yes, there is. In fact, I am happy to report there are several tools for renaming large groups of files. The Krename desktop application is probably the easiest way to go. It has a wizard that walks you through some questions about which files to operate on and how to change their names. It even offers an undo function in case you mangle the new filenames.
You may also be able to use the command line rename program as follows:
rename 's/^/prefix-/' *.jpg
The rename command uses regular expressions to adjust the names of files, or parts of the names. The above instruction tells rename to substitute (s) the beginning of each name (^) with the word "prefix-". This will be done to all JPEG files (*.jpg). In other words, a file called 1.jpg would be renamed to prefix-1.jpg. The HowtoForge website has some simple examples showing how to get started with the rename command.
Another alternative is to use built-in shell features. Each command line shell offers the ability to rename groups of files too, though the syntax is a little tricky. In Bash, the following example would use a for loop to rename all of the JPEG files in a directory, adding the word "prefix-" to the start of each filename. It builds a new filename ($newname) out of the original filename ($myfile) and then uses the move (mv) command to perform the name change.
for myfile in *.jpeg ; do $newname="prefix-$myfile"; mv "$myfile" "$newname"; done
For most people, I suggest starting with Krename, or a similar utility like Xfce's Bulk Rename program as they offer relatively easy point-n-click interfaces.
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Double-checking-media asks: I downloaded a live distro image and confirmed the file's checksum is correct. Then I wrote it to my thumb drive so I can boot from it. When I went to verify the thumb drive has the right checksum it gave me a different answer than the file I downloaded. Is the thumb drive corrupted or am I missing something?
DistroWatch answers: What is probably happening is the image you are writing to the USB drive is smaller than the drive itself (or it should be). Let's say your distribution's image file is about 1GB and the thumb drive you wrote it to has a 4GB capacity. In this case, when you tried to get a checksum for the thumb drive it would have produced a checksum for the whole 4GB of space, not just the 1GB image you wrote to the drive. The drive may appear to be empty beyond the 1GB mark, but there is still data there, even if the data is just zeros or unallocated space.
So what can you do about this? Usually there are two things you can do next. The first is to check to see if your distribution included a self-check in their image's boot menu. Some distributions offer the option to "verify the media" or "verify disc". It basically just runs a checksum against itself to make sure it was not corrupted when the image was written to its new media.
However, if the distribution does not include a verify option, then you can copy the data you wrote to the drive back to a new file and run the checksum against it. To do this, it helps to have the original image file so we know how big it was.
In the following example, I'm going to assume we have an original image file called fedora-31.img. This is the file we downloaded and confirmed it passed its SHA256 checksum. The first thing I want to do is discover the file's size and the ls command can do this:
ls -l fedora-31.img
The ls command reports back the image is 1,134,559,232 bytes in size:
-rw-r--r-- 1 jesse jesse 1134559232 Mar 6 05:29 fedora-31.img
Then we can copy that same number of bytes from the thumb drive into a new file. This makes a copy of the image that is currently on your thumb drive. In the following example, I am going to use the dd command to copy the existing image from the thumb drive, located at /dev/sdc, to a file. This will clone the drive's data and give us something to compare. In your case, the thumb drive might have another name. If you are not sure what device name your thumb drive uses, run the lsscsi command to find out the names of the storage devices attached to your computer
Here we copy the 1.1GB of data from the thumb drive to a new file we can use to verify the checksum:
dd if=/dev/sdc of=new-image-file ibs=1 count=1134559232 status=progress
sha256sum new-image-file
Unfortunately, copying data from the device one byte at a time is quite slow. Luckily, I noticed that in this case the original fedora-31.img file is an exact multiple of megabytes (1048576 bytes). The file is exactly 1,082MB (1,082 x 1048576). This means we can speed up the reading of the thumb drive by reading in a megabyte at a time without going over the original size of the file. Here I do the same copy and checksum again, but reading a megabyte at a time instead of just one byte at a time. We do this for all 1,082 megabytes of the original file size.
dd if=/dev/sdc of=new-image-file ibs=1048576 count=1082 status=progress
sha256sum new-image-file
Assuming the data on our USB drive is correct, the checksum information from the above command will match the checksum of the original fedora-31.img file. Copying and checking the data from your thumb drive will likely take a while, but this is one way to confirm your media can be written to, and read from, without data corruption.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
BackBox Linux 6
BackBox Linux is an Ubuntu-based distribution developed to perform penetration tests and security assessments. It is designed to be fast and easy to use and features the Xfce desktop environment. The project's latest release is BackBox Linux 6 which features an updated kernel, UEFI support, and offers several years of support through Ubuntu's long-term support (LTS) repositories. "The BackBox team is happy to announce the new major release of BackBox Linux, version 6. As usual, this major release includes many updates. These include new kernel, updated tools and some structural changes with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. What's new: updated Linux kernel 4.18; updated desktop environment; updated hacking tools; updated hybrid ISO images with UEFI support. System requirements: 32-bit or 64-bit processor; 1,024MB of system memory (RAM); 10GB of disk space for installation; graphics card capable of 800×600 resolution; DVD-ROM drive or USB port (3GB). The ISO images for both 32-bit and 64-bit processors can be downloaded from the official web site download section." Further information can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
Untangle NG Firewall 14.2
Untangle Inc. has announced the release of Untangle NG Firewall 14.2, the latest update of the company's Debian-based firewall and network gateway with pluggable modules for network applications. It is designed primarily for small to medium-sized businesses. From the release announcement: "Untangle NG Firewall 14.2 includes significant enhancements to web security and content filtering, the ability to synchronize users with Azure Active Directory, and enhancements to intrusion detection and prevention. Web security and content filtering enhancements include: flagging, blocking and alerting based on search terms for Google, YouTube, Yahoo, Bing and Ask; enforcement of safe search for YouTube - YouTube searches can be logged and usage can be locked down to show only content that meets the 'safe search' criteria; enhanced malware detection with an even greater percentage of the internet categorized to block more attacks originating from web browsing. These capabilities provide network administrators in content-sensitive environments such as schools, libraries or social services to meet compliance requirements while safeguarding users."
Endless OS 3.6.0
Will Thompson has announced the release of Endless OS 3.6.0, an updated build of the project's Debian-based distribution featuring a streamlined and simplified desktop environment forked from GNOME. This release upgrades the underlying operating system to the upcoming Debian 10 "Buster", with a 5.0 Linux kernel and GNOME 3.32 desktop: "Endless OS 3.6.0 was released for existing users on June 10th, 2019. Endless OS is based on the GNOME desktop environment, the Debian GNU/Linux distribution and the Linux kernel. In this release, we have updated the base OS packages to the latest versions from Debian 'Buster' (the forthcoming stable release), most desktop components to the versions from GNOME 3.32, and Linux kernel 5.0. This brings new features, performance improvements, hardware support and bug fixes. Endless OS 3.6 includes Podman 9, a command-line tool which is broadly compatible with the Docker 2 command-line interface." Continue to the release announcement for further details. Endless OS 3.6.0 is available in "Basic" and "Full" editions; the Basic variant is multilingual but contains the base system only (new applications can be added after instalation), while the "Full" editions are built for specific languages and come with hundreds of pre-installed applications.
Endless OS 3.6.0 -- The Endless OS desktop and launch screen
(full image size: 2.3MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
CRUX 3.5
Matt Housh has announced the release of CRUX 3.5, a new stable version of the project's lightweight, x86-64 optimised Linux distribution featuring a simple tar.gz-based package system, BSD-style init scripts, and a small collection of trimmed packages: "The CRUX team is happy to announce the release of CRUX 3.5. Notable changes include glibc 2.28, GCC 8.3.0 and Binutils 2.32. CRUX 3.5 now also ships with PAM - we've made it as transparent as possible and it will be a good stepping stone for users wanting 2-factor authentication and other fun stuff. Breaking changes include the move of dbus configuration from /usr/etc to /etc, so backup your configurations before updating. Another potential headache may be various projects' move from autotools to newer build systems - glib may cause some problems here and dependent ports will need to be rebuilt. The ISO image is processed with isohybrid and is suitable for burning on a CD and putting on a USB drive. UEFI support is available during installation with dosfstools, efibootmgr and grub2-efi added to the ISO image." See the release announcement, release notes and changelog for more information.
Kwort Linux 4.3.4
David Cortarello has announced the release of Kwort Linux 4.3.4, the latest stable version of the project's CRUX-based distribution featuring the Openbox window manager and custom package manager called kpkg: "Yes, it's that time again, Kwort 4.3.4 is out. We included PulseAudio which is now very stable and it has been working very well, including with bluez5 (which has also been included in this release for the first time). So let's jump now to the technical highlights of this release: Linux kernel 4.19.46 (sorry folks, there's no long-term relase of 5.x branch yet); new toolchain including glibc 2.28, GCC 8.3.0 and Binutils 2.32; kpkg 130; latest browsers including Google Chrome 75.0.3770.90 and Mozilla Firefox 67.0.2, Brave 0.68.50 is available from the mirror; Kwort-choosers package has been replaced with kwort-tools including the old browser and custom xdg-open and the new kwort-mixer to support both sound backends (ALSA and PulseAudio); new UI shortcuts are now fully documented; we found a good graphical music player called Museeks which is now included in the system." Visit the distribution's home page for further information. The Kwort distribution, designed for more advanced Linux users, does not come with an automated installation program or script, so users need to follow these instructions to install the system manually.
OpenMandriva Lx 4.0
OpenMandriva Lx 4.0 has been released. OpenMandriva Lx is a cutting-edge, desktop-oriented Linux distribution with KDE Plasma as the default desktop environment. This version introduces the Linux kernel 5.1.9, Plasma 15.5.5, LibreOffice 6.2.4, the latest version of the Calamares installer and many under-the-hood improvements: "OpenMandriva Lx 4.0 final release is out now. OpenMandriva Lx is a cutting-edge distribution compiled with LLVM/clang, combined with the high level of optimisation used for both code and linking (by enabling LTO, and profile guided optimizations for some key packages where reliable profile data is easy to generate) used in its building. OMLx 4.0 brings a number of major changes since 3.x release: KDE Plasma has been updated to 5.15.5 (with Frameworks 5.58 and Applications 19.04.2, Qt 5.12.3); LibreOffice is now working with complete Plasma integration...." Read the release announcement and the release notes for detailed information and screenshots.
OpenMandriva Lx 4.0 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
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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: 1,453
- Total data uploaded: 26.0TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Survey (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
Renaming groups of files
In this week's Questions and Answers column we covered ways in which a person can rename groups of files. There are a number of command line and graphical tools which make renaming batches of files easier and we would like to know which one you use. Do you prefer changing filenames from the command line or with a desktop utility? Let us know your preference in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on boot times in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
Distributions added to waiting list
- MathLibre. MathLibre is the direct descendant of KNOPPIX/Math project and strives to archive free mathematical software and free mathematical documents and offer them on Live Linux system. MathLibre is now based directly on Debian.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 24 June 2019. 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 • Chromium deb package (by Bob on 2019-06-17 00:45:16 GMT from United States)
I'm not sure I like Chromium going to snap only installation. I've had previous trouble with snap installing Chromium...it didn't work. I had to install it via Synaptic.
2 • "The time has come to transition away from debs"....Huh? (by eco2geek on 2019-06-17 01:09:07 GMT from United States)
In the Misc. News section, it's announced that "The Ubuntu team is looking at replacing their current Chromium deb package with a snap package". The reason given is that
> "...the time has come to start transitioning away from the debs."
Uh, why? Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't snap packages take up more room than .deb packages? It's super easy to pull up a console and type
sudo apt install chromium-browser && sudo apt install pepperflashplugin-nonfree
to install chromium, even when running from live media. Why is switching to a snap package somehow better than that?
3 • Chromium snap (by Pikolo on 2019-06-17 01:14:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
I partially understand Ubuntu maintainers - Chromium developers pay 0 attention to compatibilty with old compilers, and as Ubuntu tries to build all packages within a release with the same version of GCC, it's a PITA. However, I don't like how snaps are centralised and don't support alternative repositories. It's against the ideals of Linux. I might have to move on from Kubuntu and that would be annoying
4 • File name changes, via Thunar (WYSIWYG, GUI) (by Greg Zeng on 2019-06-17 01:15:50 GMT from Australia)
Ever since Linux was "invented", Thunar has been the best way to see your file name changes before you do it. Thunar is the standard file manager for XFCE desktop environments. It also allows "camel-case" name changes, "Where The First Letter Of The Selected Names Are In Capitals".
The main disadvantage to Thunar is the inability to alter names in sub-directories. Perhaps others might know how to do this in Linux, without CLI? In Windows, "Servant Salamander" (file manager) will allow WYSIWYG GUI file-name changes to sub-directories.
5 • It's a puzzlement. (by Snapped on 2019-06-17 01:21:35 GMT from Germany)
"and the time has come to start transitioning away from the debs." Why?
6 • Renaming groups of files (by Alfrex on 2019-06-17 01:48:30 GMT from United States)
A GUI batch rename utility option is metamorphose2.
7 • answer in plain sight (by why indeed on 2019-06-17 01:48:30 GMT from United States)
"the transition from deb to snap is not being debated, it’s a firm plan that will eventually save a lot of engineering, builder and maintenance resources by removing the need to build every new version of chromium on all supported Ubuntu releases."
https://community.ubuntu.com/t/call-for-testing-chromium-browser-deb-to-snap-transition/11179/6
Finding the answer (the expressed rationale) took about 15 seconds
8 • Re: Answer in plain sight (by eco2geek on 2019-06-17 02:04:48 GMT from United States)
@7: That's not much of an answer. They're still going to have to "build every new version of chromium" and make sure that it runs on "all supported Ubuntu releases" (which means, all of them).
9 • Re: Tool for Renaming Files (by Mason on 2019-06-17 02:17:46 GMT from United States)
GPRename user here. Lots of options.
http://gprename.sourceforge.net
10 • different rename CLI tool? (by greenpossum on 2019-06-17 03:00:21 GMT from Australia)
Beware! I suspect the HowtoForge page on rename is describing a different tool or utterly wrong. The man page for rename(1) on my system says nothing about regular expressions. Usage is simply, for example:
rename .htm .html *.htm
At least two arguments are required, the original string and the replacement string. Check your system's man page.
One disadvantage of this tool is that there is no way to do a dry run.
11 • @2 "The time has come to transition away from debs"....Huh? (by vern on 2019-06-17 04:15:46 GMT from United States)
Agree 100%. I tried snap and compared to apt installs. Huge difference in size, and slower. Hopefully in the future I can still find my deb files.
ow I simply download needed deb file and execute:
"sudo dpkg -i *deb" from its folder.
'snapd' is the first program that gets removed.
12 • @7 not an answer (by Snapped on 2019-06-17 05:06:50 GMT from Philippines)
Tall me another one. I can go to pkgs.org and download a Chromium .deb already packaged for different Ubuntu releases. So why is it so much extra work for Ubuntu? No matter, it was more of a rhetorical question.
In any case, I use Chrome, and can go to Google's download site and download it directly as a .deb
13 • OS108 (by voidpin on 2019-06-17 06:10:21 GMT from Sweden)
@Jesse Smith
Regarding Midori Web browser; somehow it seems that one needed package was not included in the fetching script. Install gcc6-libs and Midori should now start. For an ever better experience with the browser include also the following, gst-plugins1-base, gst-plugins1-good, gst-plugins1-libav and gst-plugins1-oss.
I've reported this to OS108.
14 • Two versions of "rename" (by John on 2019-06-17 06:13:21 GMT from Finland)
The canonical version of "rename" is the util-linux one, which does not accept regex. On Debian distros however rename is linked to prename, a perl version, while they renamed util-linux rename to rename.ul.
15 • Ubuntu replacing its Chromium package with a snap (by OstroL on 2019-06-17 06:32:16 GMT from Poland)
Well, it is still a PPA, so the Cannonical's statement
"You can update your system with unsupported packages from this untrusted PPA by adding ppa:chromium-team/stable to your system's Software Sources."
is still active.
Snaps are slow, and experimental. Snaps are created thinking of IoT, and Cannonical is not interested in the desktop. Introducing snaps to Ubuntu is only testing grounds for the IoTs. Most of the Ubuntu users would leave, if they hadn't already. There's practically no movement in the Ubuntu Development Version in the Ubuntu Forums for a long time, and very little in the community.ubuntu.com
"and the time has come to start transitioning away from the debs."
Of course, Cannonical can do that, but it is not thinking of the desktop users. It once did did something like this, an only Ubuntu thing -- transition to Unity and trying to take over the mobile market -- and failed. Snaps are only used by Cannoniacl, and no other distro is going to even try that. It is going to fail.
Debs would stay, for the mother distro Debian would never embrace snaps.
16 • Renaming files (by Agafnd on 2019-06-17 06:36:53 GMT from United States)
For renaming, I use (for example):
for i in *.jpg; do mv "$i" "prefix-$i"; done
or I use an Emacs macro in wdired mode.
17 • Renaming files (by WBTMagnum on 2019-06-17 09:02:27 GMT from Austria)
For easier tasks commandline is fine, but for more complex renaming adventures I prefer Double Commander's Multi-Rename Tool.
18 • how to check an ISO image has been written correctly to an USB drive (by g1pi on 2019-06-17 09:14:32 GMT from Italy)
Usually I just run "cmp img-file.iso /dev/sdb" (provided /dev/sdb is the right device). If the command says "EOF on img-file.iso", then the first part of /dev/sdb is identical to img-file.iso, and you're good to go.
19 • apt (by Tim on 2019-06-17 09:56:43 GMT from United States)
I'm not one to throw down and say I won't change, but if there were ever a piece of software that would make me dig my heels in it might be apt.
It was what convinced me to switch to the Debian family ten years ago, and in all that time it's never given me any trouble. I can't say that about any other piece of software ever.
20 • Replacing.debs with snaps (by dragonmouth on 2019-06-17 11:05:34 GMT from United States)
"the time has come to start transitioning away from the debs"
Once again Canonical is channeling Microsoft by trying to impose its "standards" on the rest of Linux community. They tried it with Unity and nobody wanted to have anything to do with it. They tried it with Mir and nobody wanted to have anything to do with it. Now they're trying it with Snaps and, so far, not many are switching to it.
21 • OS108 (by Barnabyh on 2019-06-17 11:21:11 GMT from Luxembourg)
>> I rebooted the computer and found the MATE desktop and its services had disappeared.<<
Shame, sounded really good until then. Thanks for bringing this project to attention, I will keep an eye on it.
22 • Poll (by Teresa e Junior on 2019-06-17 11:28:18 GMT from Brazil)
GUI: Thunar bulk rename
CLI: perl's rename, and vidir from the package moreutils
23 • Broken promises (by Teresa e Junior on 2019-06-17 11:37:13 GMT from Brazil)
So it seems Canonical won't keep its promise of never replacing APT with Snap? My Ubuntu 19.04 already uses too much RAM for me to want to migrate to Snaps only.
24 • Renaming multiple files (by Ronald on 2019-06-17 11:58:06 GMT from Netherlands)
Bulk Rename and Krename are Xfce and KDE programs respectively.
Inviska Rename works with all desktops. An alternative is the rename feature of the file manager Double Commander. Both programs are cross-platform free open source.
25 • @jesse re venom linux (by mandog on 2019-06-17 12:13:06 GMT from Peru)
Jesse come on its on their download page and it does the job fine.
Use the link from DW click downloads its in front of you.
https://venomlinux.org/download.html
Login for live iso:
ordinary user
username : venom
password : venom
root user
username : root
password : root
Install:
run 'venom-installer' on terminal/tty.
26 • What??? (by Garon on 2019-06-17 12:35:44 GMT from United States)
@#20,
What are you talking about. Impose it's standards on the rest of the community? I don't see anywhere where Canonical is trying to impose it's features, or as you say standards, on the Linux community. If a person doesn't want to deal with them, then don't. Personally I don't like snap packages and nobody is forcing me to use them. There are too many other distros out there for me to worry about a business decision that one company makes. This is almost as bad as the systemd nonsense that went on so long. Now back to reality. Like most people who responded in the poll I do not use a bulk renaming utility. I've not really had a consistent need for one.
27 • Chromium deb package (by Bob on 2019-06-17 12:51:27 GMT from United States)
Question: Is Debian still going to maintain a Chromium deb package in their repos?
If so, then no problem. Download the .deb from their site and install with gdebi.
@11 - "snapd is the first program that gets removed." I, too, remove snapd, AND apport.
28 • Getting Chrome the old fashion way (by vern on 2019-06-17 13:00:20 GMT from United States)
Here's my anti-snap get chrome script:
#!/bin/bash
wget --no-check-certificate https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
29 • Venom (by Jesse on 2019-06-17 13:25:00 GMT from Canada)
@25 You have the benefit of a completely different download page than what was there when the review was written. These things can change a lot from one week to the next and the install instructiins were not there previously.
30 • @32 Re DEB vs. Snap vs. Flatpak (by Sitwon on 2019-06-17 16:56:36 GMT from United States)
Debs and RPMs may be easier for users, but not for packagers/maintainers.
Especially as the software ecosystem is becoming more diverse with third party companies wanting to distribute their software directly and instantaneously across multiple distributions (or versions of the same distribution).
Under the old paradigm, if I wanted to publish my application to Linux I had to package it at least twice (once as a DEB, once as an RPM) and then list which specific distros and versions it had been tested on. If I wanted to reach a wider audience I might have to package multiple DEBs and RPMs to support more distros or versions. You also have to track a spider web dependencies for each version of the package, and the dependency graphs can look very different for RPM and DEB distros, or even between different DEB distros.
So it might be simple for the end user, but it's a pain the for the maintainers to manage all those packages, or to wait for volunteers to repackage it for those other distros/versions and have it work its way through the approval processes of each distro to make it into the repositories.
With Snap/Flatpak, the application can be packaged once, wrapped with its dependencies, so that it can be deployed directly on nearly all distros/versions. Even if it still has to be tested on each supported target, there's only one package to build/track for each release.
And from the end-user perspective, it's just as easy to install/launch a snap/flatpak application as a DEB/RPM application.
31 • @29 Re Venom (by Rev_Don on 2019-06-17 14:55:50 GMT from United States)
"@25 You have the benefit of a completely different download page than what was there when the review was written. These things can change a lot from one week to the next and the install instructiins were not there previously."
Maybe you should consider noting the date you downloaded the ISO or used the support site in your reviews. I'm sure the amount of time between when you downloaded the ISO when you post the review is a lot longer than a large segment of DW readers think it is.
32 • DEB vs. Snap vs. Flatpak (by Rick on 2019-06-17 15:31:46 GMT from United States)
Once again, Ubuntu is about to shoot itself in the foot like it did when it threw out Gnome 2 and replaced it with Unity. When will they ever learn? DEB and Synaptic Package Manager are by far the easiest and most efficient ways in the Linux world to install and update packages. I have happily used them since 2006 with no complaints.
33 • Renaming files (by Steamwinder on 2019-06-17 16:49:45 GMT from Canada)
I didn't know you could do that. I was renaming them one at a time.
34 • Is It Time to Ditch Chromium-based Browsers ? (by David on 2019-06-17 17:28:21 GMT from United States)
Look out below - Big Daddy Google has its own plans to drop a "new & improved" Chrome/Chromium experience on our heads.
https://www.ghacks.net/2019/05/30/google-still-on-track-to-limit-ad-blockers-in-chrome/
I downloaded Firefox a couple of weeks ago, and I'm starting to get used to it again after several years of using Chromium.
I'll be transitioning to Firefox exclusively if Chromium becomes unusable/far less secure, starting in January 2020.
Think it over.
35 • @26 Garon: (by dragonmouth on 2019-06-17 17:35:32 GMT from United States)
" I don't see anywhere where Canonical is trying to impose it's features"
Maybe Canonical cannot "Embrace, extend, extinguish" like Microsoft because Linux is too splintered for one entity to control it but they keep trying to replace their products for already widely used ones. Otherwise, why replace GNOME 2 with Unity? Why develop Mir instead of using the already existing Wayland like many other distros? Why develop Snaps instead using the already existing AppImage? Why are they now replacing .DEB with Snaps? Canonical figured that Unity and Mir were so great that other developers will jump on the bandwagon. Both Mir and Unity were greeted with a collective yawn. Even Canonical gave up on them.
"Personally I don't like snap packages and nobody is forcing me to use them."
Many other Linux users share that attitude. How soon will Canonical admit that the move to Snaps from .DEB is not the answer and give up on that project, too?
"If a person doesn't want to deal with them, then don't."
And that is what did Canonical in. Linux is about choice. Canonical would like to limit that choice. They want to replace existing products with their own.
36 • Debian 10 Buster Release (by djme on 2019-06-17 17:52:24 GMT from Ireland)
Hooray for Debian Buster's release date...almost in time for the Toy Story 4 release :-)
37 • Point / Counterpoint is always good. (by Garon on 2019-06-17 19:00:59 GMT from United States)
You have to remember what Canonical was trying to do with these new offerings. They were wanting to develop a convergence setup but found that without acceptance it would not work. In my opinion Gnome 2 was needing replacement, and it was replaced. I don't believe that Wayland is much better. Debs will not end up being any good for the IoT that everyone is wanting. I don't believe debs for the desktop will ever be replaced with snaps or fatbacks or whatever. Desktop users are not the focus now for anyone except for maybe the smaller distros. That's just the way the world is going. So sad.
38 • @37 (by OstroL on 2019-06-17 19:50:32 GMT from Poland)
I agree with dragonmouth on this (#35). Canonical may have had good intentions at the beginning, when it was forking Debian to create a "better" Debian. Maybe, just maybe. But, the debs were not the same as Debian debs. They were created to not to match, so the mother distro users couldn't use them. Very friendly attitude, don't you think so?
Which other distro embraced Unity? Nobody. Only resulted in Mint creating Cinnamon and pushing ubuntu out. Which other distro embraced snaps? Nobody! Canonical doesn't listen to users! It's just business. I didn't trust MS, still don't. I don't trust M.S too.
39 • For why more the sam??? (by Stanclek on 2019-06-17 22:14:26 GMT from Moldova, Republic of)
::In general, my experiment with OS108 did not go well.
And having is no work good. Much waste time. Please to find bug on system already to work (most).
::The project has a lengthy setup process which requires a lot of manual work and knowledge of how to properly setup NetBSD.
BSD are not so for the easy I am wanting. I am playing in the past, now is servere working not time for waste.
40 • Snaps (by Belmonte on 2019-06-18 01:15:42 GMT from United States)
I really like Snaps. They are easy to install (snap install whateverprogram) and they work very nicely in my experience. If they make life easier for developers then that is a bonus for the end user. I have applications that are now always up to date whereas before they were lagging behind by several versions. Same goes for Flatpaks.
41 • snaps and flatpaks (by Joseph on 2019-06-18 03:38:33 GMT from New Zealand)
I can understand why people are trying to make these new standards - i.e. to eliminate dependency issues. The package and all its garbage sit in one isolated bucket space. And the matra goes "hard disk is cheap". But then you look at the trend with newer laptops and notebooks - instead of a 500GB and up HDD, you get small SSD drives. 240GB is luxury, many come off the shelf with 64GB or less. Joe public does not attack it with a screwdriver to upgrade (also unlikely to attack it and replace the OS with Linux). So disk space IS again an issue and both Snap and Flatpak go against this, hard.
I have been in the Debian/Ubuntu/Mint arena for just over a decade. My honest opinion on this is that Snap and Flatpak are making me explore other distro options far more actively! I have run into issues where Snap/Flatpak applications don't play nice with other system components, give more problems than their plain (.deb ?) peers, etc. Already several key dominoes in my computing armada are not longer in the D/U/M clan. The 'latest' in several packages exist only as a Snap/Flatpak where the 'normal' respository carries a much more out-dated version.
42 • Renaming multiple files (by yetanothergeek on 2019-06-18 05:14:15 GMT from United States)
I've been using the "mmv" command line utility for years now:
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man1/mmv.1.html
43 • Say no to Snap! (by Jeremy on 2019-06-18 11:33:36 GMT from Austria)
As long as snap(d) continues forcing its non-standard, currently unchangeable[1] default dir on users, not only will it be a serious nuisance, it will also be the laughing stock of the Unix/Linux world.
Last thing we need is another piece of software that goes against standards, customization and convenience.
1: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/snapd/+bug/1575053/comments/4
44 • Again, what?? (by Garon on 2019-06-18 13:20:47 GMT from United States)
@38.
You said, "Which other distro embraced Unity? Nobody. Only resulted in Mint creating Cinnamon and pushing ubuntu out." Wrong. Mint is still based on Ubuntu LTS. Furthermore several different distros did use Unity and I know of at least one that still does. Sir is there any real business you do trust? What about Red Hat?
@41,
Nope, You are correct that when Joe Public buys a laptop with a 32 gig or 64 gig SSD in them they will not try to upgrade or install Linux. That has nothing to do with snaps or flatpaks. Those things are toys that people buy so they can play with Windows 10, or maybe Google Chrome.
@43,
I've already said no to snaps and flatpaks. But there are people who like both of them. That's okay, and why would the Unix/Linux world even want to care what these people like. If flatpaks and snaps are no good then they will eventuality die out.
Now, back to reality.
45 • @44 (by OstroL on 2019-06-18 14:27:47 GMT from Poland)
>>You said, "Which other distro embraced Unity? Nobody. Only resulted in Mint creating Cinnamon and pushing ubuntu out." Wrong. Mint is still based on Ubuntu LTS...<<
English a strange language, after all.
Did Mint embrace Unity? Or, did Mint went on to create Cinnamon, because it didn't accept Ubuntu's transition to Unity?
>> is there any real business you do trust? <<
None!
Business is there for profit, not for me, not for you, but for the owners of that business, whatever the name of that business. When the bottom line not good, they drop the product.
46 • Bulk rename (by The Bern on 2019-06-18 23:25:15 GMT from United States)
I rarely use bulk rename but when I do I use the built in tool in Caja, it has worked excellently every time, it's actually really nice.
47 • Windows-like distros aplenty (by V Zoroful on 2019-06-19 01:53:40 GMT from Australia)
The Windows-like distro landscape is changing a bit.
Zorin used to be one of the best, but its change to an LTS Ubuntu means its apps like Wine may not be as up-to-date as in other distros. And it is now focusing more on connectivity to mobiles, an app store - and extra bling like Elementary OS. Then there is Makulu Lindoz released yearly-ish, which is quite good. Whereas, the new contender of rolling Arch-based Condres OS has a distro release each month - with the latest Wine. Then of course there is always Deepin for use of the senior brethren of Crossover for Windows apps. It's all a good variety though.
Number of Comments: 47
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| Archives |
| • Issue 819 (2019-06-17): OS108 and Venom, renaming multiple files, checking live USB integrity, working with Fedora's Modularity, Ubuntu replacing Chromium package with snap |
| • Issue 818 (2019-06-10): openSUSE 15.1, improving boot times, FreeBSD's status report, DragonFly BSD reduces install media size |
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| • Issue 808 (2019-04-01): Solus 4.0, security benefits and drawbacks to using a live distro, Gentoo gets GNOME ports working without systemd, Redox OS update |
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| • Issue 792 (2018-1203): GhostBSD 18.10, when to use swap space, DragonFly BSD's wireless support, Fedora planning to pause development schedule |
| • Issue 791 (2018-11-26): Haiku R1 Beta1, default passwords on live media, Slax and Kodachi update their media, dual booting DragonFly BSD on EFI |
| • Issue 790 (2018-11-19): NetBSD 8.0, Bash tips and short-cuts, Fedora's networking benchmarked with FreeBSD, Ubuntu 18.04 to get ten years of support |
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| • Issue 788 (2018-11-05): Clu Linux Live 6.0, examining RAM consumpion, finding support for older CPUs, more Steam support for running Windows games on Linux, update from Solus team |
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| • 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 |
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| • 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 |
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