 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1100, 9 December 2024 |
Welcome to this year's 50th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Over the past few years several new clones of Red Hat Enterprise Linux have been launched, growing out of the ruins of the CentOS Linux project. Almost all of these clones focus on providing enterprise-level server distributions, operating systems intended to run silently in the background of the world's businesses. One project, Oreon, is going in a different direction. Oreon is a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but it is intended for desktop use. Our Feature Story this week talks about Oreon, its strengths, and its limitations. Do you run RHEL or one of its clones on your desktop machine? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll.
Another member of the Red Hat family is also expanding its desktop appeal. Fedora Ashai Remix gained new video drivers as the project continues to improve the experience of running Linux on Apple hardware. In our News section we also talk about a new firewall appliance from IPFire, suitable for home and small business environments along with an update to openSUSE Leap Micro. Plus we share a report that Redox OS can now run builds of itself for alternative architectures inside a virtual machine. With all of the Linux distributions in the world, it's natural to wonder what sets them apart and what makes one distribution faster than another. In our Questions and Answers column we discuss which project is faster, Ubuntu or Arch and why. Plus we are pleased to share the new releases of the past week. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Oreon 9.3 / Lime R2
In the wake of Red Hat shutting down the CentOS Linux project (replacing it with CentOS Stream), there were a lot of community-maintained clones created of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Most of these clones focused on doing what CentOS Linux had done best: being a stable operating system for servers. Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux OS, EuroLinux, and openEuler being some of the examples which spring to mind.
One project has decided to go in another direction and put effort into creating a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) which focuses on improving that distribution's weaknesses rather than repackaging its strengths. The distribution is called Oreon and it is focused on desktop computing, gaming, and bringing more packages into the sparse RHEL ecosystem.
The Oreon website claims the Oreon distribution will offer ten years of support with responses to forum questions coming within 24 hours. The project also reports it will provide more software packages than RHEL and provide WINE out of the box for people who want to run Windows applications and games.
One of our biggest accomplishments for Oreon Lime (R2) was the ability for us to port a fully functional WINE package to Oreon, along with some other fixes to allow a seamless gaming experience under WINE/Proton. In Oreon 10, we plan to re-innovate the entire packaging system. To be a little more specific, Oreon 10 will be shipping with an all new package manager promising faster speeds than DNF.
Oreon 10 is expected to be released in mid-2025. For now we have Oreon 9.3. I'd like to note that sometimes the Oreon project refers to its current offering as Oreon 9.3. This label shows up in the system installer and in the os-release file, along with in the package manager. However, the website usually refers to the latest version of the distribution of Oreon "Lime (R2)". I have tended toward using the 9.3 version number as it more clearly connects Oreon with its parent, RHEL 9.3.
The Oreon distribution is available in two editions: Standard and Business+, though I didn't find much in the way of information indicating what set them apart. Business+ apparently ships with Docker installed, but otherwise the two editions seem to be the same. I downloaded the Standard edition which was available as a 2.6GB ISO for x86_64 machines.
Booting from the ISO brings up a menu asking if we'd like to launch the live environment or perform a self-test on the media. Starting the live environment brings up the GNOME desktop where a few windows are automatically opened. One asks if we would like to take a tour of the GNOME desktop and its features. The second window offers to let us try the live desktop or immediately launch the system installer. If we choose to explore the live desktop we're told we can find the system installer later using the Activities menu. There is no Activities button or label visible, either on the desktop or in the application menu. However, if we move the mouse pointer into the upper-left corner of the desktop, GNOME's Activities overview will appear. The system installer can also be launched from an icon on the desktop panel.
Speaking of the desktop panel, this GNOME desktop has an unusual layout. Instead of a thin top panel and unified menu bar, Oreon places a thick panel across the bottom of the screen. This layout, using a thick panel with an application menu, quick-launch buttons, task switcher, and system tray, more closely resembles KDE Plasma 6 or Windows 10.
Oreon uses the GNOME 40.4 desktop environment which is getting a bit old at this point. GNOME 40 is over 3 years old at the time of writing and it was immediately obvious how much GNOME has improved in recent releases. The Wayland session (which is the default) was especially flakey, with the mouse pointer getting out of sync and the desktop lagging periodically. Modern GNOME, currently at version 47, has improved quite a bit, especially with its Wayland session.
Oreon 9.3 -- Exploring the GNOME desktop and its documentation
(full image size: 910kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Installing
The distribution uses its parent's Anaconda system installer. Anaconda presents us with a graphical interface from which it displays a hub screen with a series of configuration modules. We're walked through enabling a network connection, creating a user account, setting a password on the root account, and picking our preferred language. There is a disk partitioning module too. It's a bit awkward to navigate, especially when compared next to the graphical partition managers in Ubiquity and Calamares. However, I was able to set up a root partition and install the distribution successfully.
Early impressions
My brand new copy of Oreon booted to a graphical login screen. There were five desktop sessions available: GNOME on Wayland, GNOME on X11, GNOME Classic on Wayland, GNOME Classic on X11, and Custom. The Custom option brings up a menu asking us to pick another desktop session from a list. The list is empty. Proceeding without selecting anything launches the GNOME Shell desktop.
I mostly used the GNOME Shell on Wayland session, though I did try out the GNOME on X11 and the GNOME Classic on Wayland session to confirm they worked. The first time I signed into my account I was offered a tour of GNOME's features, but otherwise the desktop generally remained quiet and out of the way. There were no notifications about available software updates or available wireless networks, for example.
The visual components of GNOME 40 feel mismatched. Some elements are relatively dark, others are bright. Some applications use a dark theme, but most use a bright, light theme. Different GNOME applications use different styles of menus, making the whole desktop feel disjointed. We also see this mismatched approach with text and icons. Icons tend to be huge, by default, while the text was smaller than normal. This makes it feel like half the interface was designed for people with poor vision while the other half was designed to cause poor vision.
Oreon 9.3 -- Default font and icon sizes
(full image size: 1236kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The GNOME desktop locks itself after five minutes of inactivity. This can be changed from the settings panel.
As is becoming more popular these days, GNOME uses a unified system tray, with icons grouped together. This does a nice job of limiting the amount of space the system tray takes up on the desktop panel, but it means accessing any icons from the system tray is an extra click.
Hardware
I began my trial running Oreon in a VirtualBox environment. Oreon didn't perform well in the virtual machine as there were no integration features. Unlike most distributions, Oreon captures the mouse pointer, does not resize the desktop properly in response to the VirtualBox window resizing, and GNOME is sluggish in the virtual machine.
When I tried running Oreon on my laptop the experience was much better. All of my hardware was properly detected and desktop performance was improved. Audio and networking functioned automatically. Tapping my touchpad didn't register clicks by default, but we can address this in the GNOME Settings panel.
Oreon 9.3 -- Adjusting desktop settings
(full image size: 951kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Since one of Oreon's objectives is to offer more software than its parent, it should be no surprise the distribution is slightly on the heavy side. A fresh install of Oreon took up 8.7GB of disk space. When signed into the GNOME desktop the system consumed 1,160MB of RAM. This held fairly steady, whether I was running the Wayland or X11 session.
Included software
Speaking of items which take up disk space, the distribution ships with a fairly typical collection of software, much of it part of the GNOME/GTK family of applications. We find the Evolution e-mail client, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, and Inkscape installed for us. The now-discontinued HexChat IRC client is featured along with Firefox. There is a disc burning application, the Cheese webcam utility, and the Totem video player. Oreon ships with codecs for popular audio and video formats. We can also find a document viewer, the GNOME Settings application for customizing the desktop, and a system monitor.
Oreon 9.3 -- Running the Firefox web browser
(full image size: 202kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The distribution also provides the GNU command line utilities, the GNU Compiler Collection, and manual pages. Java is installed and systemd is present to manage services. In the background I found an older version of the kernel - Linux 5.14.
One application I had not encountered before was ArcMenu. This program helps us customize the application menu in a number of ways. We can adjust the location of the menu, its layout, and the menu's theme. I particularly like that ArcMenu will help us switch the layout and style of the menu to match the application menus of other desktop environments. We can, for example, make our menu resemble Cinnamon's, Xfce's, or Budgie's, along with a few others.
Oreon 9.3 -- Changing the layout of the application menu
(full image size: 643kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Software management
The distribution makes use of GNOME Software, a modern software centre with three tabs. One tab assists us in browsing and searching for new applications. The second tab shows us installed applications which may be removed. The third tab shows available updates.
The first day I was using the distribution I opened the software centre, went to the Updates tab and found three items waiting for me: Firefox, Lutris, and base OS packages. Attempting to update these items resulted in an error message: "Unable to download updates: could not do untrusted question as no klass support." For our readers who don't speak gibberish, this basically means one of the repositories is not trusted for some reason, but there isn't any mechanism in place to ask the user if we want to trust packages from that repository.
Oreon 9.3 -- Trying to fetch software updates
(full image size: 760kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
As it turned out, the issue was there was a missing GPG key for the EPEL repository. (EPEL stands for Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux.) I was able to run the DNF command line package manager and, when it ran into the issue with the missing key, it asked me if I'd like to trust the repository. I accepted and DNF completed the update successfully. After that GNOME Software was able to fetch and install applications.
Speaking of extra repositories, Oreon enables a few not typically turned on by default in Fedora or RHEL. The additional repositories include EPEL, RPMFusion, and Docker. There are also available (though disabled) repositories for firmware and RT (I'm guessing RT in this context means "real-time") packages. These repositories can be enabled through GNOME Software.
People who like to work with portable packages will be pleased to know Flatpak is installed out of the box. However, Flatpak does not have any repositories enabled. If we'd like to access popular repositories, such as Flathub, we'll need to add this ourselves. To help us, there is a Flatpak repository information file provided on the project's download page.
Testing WINE and gaming
As advertised, WINE is included with Oreon. This not only allows us to run many Windows applications, but WINE is integrated with the rest of the system. This means if we download a Windows application or installer package in Firefox, we can click the file's icon in Firefox's downloaded items list to launch WINE and install the application. This isn't great from a security standpoint, but it will be convenient for people who need to run Windows programs.
The Oreon website specifically mentions gaming and I confirmed Lutris is installed and Steam is available in the default repositories. This gives us access to thousands of games. Oreon is running an older Linux kernel and people who are counting on the latest drivers and video card support may be disappointed.
Conclusions
A lot of the characteristics which make up a good server operating system are also welcome features for a desktop system. Long-term support is nice to have and Oreon offers feature updates through to 2025 and then security-only updates through to 2032. Stability and predictability can be nice and Oreon will remain largely unchanged for the remainder of its near-eight year lifespan.
On top of this, Oreon seeks to add easy access to more software, both Linux and Windows applications along with gaming options. This rounds out the typical RHEL desktop experience a bit.
On the other hand, whenever a project tries to turn a primarily server operating system into a desktop experience it tends to feel... well, like a server system with a desktop bolted on top of it. This tends to be true whether we're looking at Alpine Linux running a desktop, GhostBSD, or (in this case) Oreon. It's the little things like GNOME Software not being able to work on day one because of an add-on repository was missing a GPG file, the mismatched theme, and the giant icons next to tiny text. To be fair to the project, virtually everything works, the system is functional and stable. It's just that aspects of the experience feel a little "off", a little unfinished. A lot of this impression is probably the age of the distribution and its software.
Oreon seems to be falling behind. RHEL is at version 9.5 at the time of writing, Oreon is still on 9.3, about a year behind its parent. The GNOME desktop is three years out of date now and it shows. This is a distribution would be benefit a great deal from having backported packages of its desktop software. The project has some good ideas about expanding packaging and desktop capabilities. However, the current desktop still has those little awkward quirks. The expanded repositories are nice, but mostly just pull from existing RPMFusion and EPEL repositories RHEL users can already access.
This is still early days for Oreon. The project's promised new package manager hasn't arrived yet. Hopefully it will be in version 10 next year, along with newer software and a smoother desktop experience. This isn't a bad start for the project, the major pieces are all in place, but next it needs to demonstrate what makes Oreon stand out from the multitude of other RHEL clones.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an HP DY2048CA laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 512GB solid state drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Wireless network device: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + BT Wireless network card
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
IPFire unveils new appliance, Fedora Asahi shows off new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS for RISC-V running on Redox OS
People running home or small office networks who want a little extra security may be interested in the IPFire Firewall Mini Appliance. The compact router/firewall is intended to be small, fast, and secure - built around the IPFire distribution. "Our IPFire Firewall Appliance is designed for small businesses and home users who need blazing-fast performance and top-notch security. With four 2.5 GBit/s network interfaces, it's built to launch your network into the future. Despite its compact size, this appliance delivers unmatched capabilities. Whether it's building ultra-fast VPN tunnels between branch offices or securing your home office connection to a datacenter, the IPFire Mini Appliance does it all. With support for advanced features like the IPFire Intrusion Prevention System and the ability to handle tens of thousands of firewall rules, it's engineered for any challenge." Details on this Linux appliance can be found in the IPFire announcement.
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The Asahi Linux project partners with Fedora to bring the Fedora distribution to Apple ARM-powered computers. This spin, called Fedora Asahi Remix, is making good progress, particularly with video drivers. The Asahi team reports: "Today, the Khronos Group released the 1.4 specification of Vulkan, the standard graphics API. The Asahi Linux project is proud to announce the first Vulkan 1.4 driver for Apple hardware. Our Honeykrisp driver is Khronos-recognized as conformant to the new version since day one. That driver is already available in our official repositories. After installing Fedora Asahi Remix, run 'dnf upgrade --refresh' to get the latest drivers." This is good news for anyone who wants to run a Linux distribution on their Apple M-series hardware.
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The openSUSE project has updated its virtual machine and container host, openSUSE Leap Micro. The new version, 6.1, includes soft-reboot support and two factor authentication. With the launch of version 6.1 the 5.5 series is no longer supported and users are advised to update to version 6.x. "Leap Micro continues its alignment with SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro, ensuring robust container and virtual machine hosting capabilities. The release has a new opensuse-migration-tool, which simplifies upgrades for smoother transitions between releases. Some enhanced features include soft-reboot support. Two-factor authentication (TOTP) for PAM logins improves security. There are additional tools like vhostmd for SAP Virtualization and improvements to the jeos-firstboot wizard and more. The release of Leap Micro 6.1 signals the End of Life (EOL) for Leap Micro 5.5. Users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to either Leap Micro 6.0 or 6.1 to continue receiving updates and support."
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The Redox OS project has published its monthly newsletter for November. Two of the key developments mentioned in the newsletter include running the latest version of COSMIC applications and running a build of Redox OS for RISC-V processors on Redox OS for x86_64 processors. "COSMIC Desktop has just released Alpha 4! Redox includes COSMIC Editor, Files, Terminal and Store, and the Redox nightly build has all the latest improvements. Redox On Redox - Andrey Turkin executed the RISC-V version of Redox Server from the RVVM RISC-V emulator running on the x86_64 version of Redox Desktop! And thanks again to LekKit for the awesome emulator!"
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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) |
Differences in speeds
Seeking-better-performance asks: I've been using Ubuntu on the desktop and don't have any complaints. Some people suggested I try Arch for a better experience, and it seems mostly to have the same programs, especially over SSH. Is Arch really faster than Ubuntu?
DistroWatch answers: I don't think there is anything about Arch Linux which naturally makes it faster than Ubuntu. By which I mean, there isn't anything about Arch which should make it run faster when running the same software and the same drivers on the same equipment.
With that said, when you install different distributions you typically start off with different drivers, different version of the kernel, different background services running, and possibly a different desktop environment. This means, even when running tests on the same computer, you will often see differences in performance. Not necessarily because one distribution is innately faster than another, but because they're running different components.
Modern distributions are made up of hundreds (often thousands) of separate components. Any one of these components, or one of their settings, can have an impact on your distribution's performance, making it faster or slower than another in the same test environment. For instance, you might notice slight lag when manipulating files when using one filesystem, or different boot times when using different init software. To make matters more interesting, combinations of components can result in different performance. As an example, LXQt is quite a bit lighter and, with common open source drivers, will usually offer visibly better performance than GNOME. However, when paired with a good video card and full-featured drivers, GNOME might offer an edge over LXQt. With so many variables, it's never a simple apples-to-apples comparison.
What makes this specific situation, comparing Ubuntu to Arch, more complex is Arch insists on the user customizing their install and selecting components manually. Ubuntu gives the user a decent, default set of applications, regardless of which install options we select. Arch pretty much just gives us some command line tools and a package manager and expects us to hand-pick the rest. Five different people could install Arch Linux and end up with different desktops, services, and filesystems that all offered different performance. In other words, one person's Arch install can be faster or slower than another person's copy of Arch on the same hardware.
Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about the performance of one distribution next to another. If you're finding your system is running slowly, you can try switching out the desktop environment or disabling some background services. Addressing these two things are likely to offer better gains (and less hassle) than switching distributions. We offered some tips on making these changes in an earlier Q&A article.
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A few people have reached out to ask about where they can find copies of distribution releases on physical media. Sometimes they're looking for older releases and sometimes recent ones, but they are limited by their Internet connection. We don't archive or directly distribute any operating systems, we simply share their download links. With that said, there are stores which sell DVDs and USB thumb drives with Linux distributions pre-installed. One of these stores is The Linux Shop which provides most popular distributions on thumb drives.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
FreeBSD 14.2
The FreeBSD team have announced the release of FreeBSD 14.2. The new release includes several minor changes, mostly in th erealm of updated hardware drivers, an update to OpenZFS 2.2.6, and a reduction in size to the boot loader. "The BIOS boot loader added back support for gzip and bzip2, but removed support for graphics mode (by default) to address size problems. (The EFI boot loader is unchanged with support for all of those. Sponsored by Netflix.) Lots of improvements to the network stack, including performance improvements and bug fixes for the sctp(4) stack. Descriptors returned by sctp_peeloff(2) now inherit capabilities from the parent socket. (Sponsored by The FreeBSD Foundation.) AIM(Adaptive Interrupt Moderation) support has been added to the igc(4) driver. 472a0ccf847a (Sponsored by Rubicon Communications, LLC 'Netgate' and BBOX.io.) This feature has also been added to the lem(4), em(4) and igb(4) drivers. A major regression in UDP performance introduced in FreeBSD 12.0, including NFS over UDP, is believed to be fixed with this change. 49f12d5b38f6 (Sponsored by Rubicon Communications, LLC 'Netgate"' and BBOX.io.) The LinuxKPI, particularly for 802.11, has been enhanced to improve the stability of wireless drivers such as iwlwifi(4). (Sponsored by The FreeBSD Foundation.)" Additional information can be found in the release announcement and in the release notes.
Nitrux e3ba3c69
The Nitrux project has published a new release. The new release is referred to as version 3.8.0 in the release announcement, is given the codename "db", and is tagged with version identifier "e3ba3c69" in the ISO filename. The new release offers updated applications, some system installer fixes, and OpenRC reorganization: "The list below highlights the components we've updated in the distribution. Firefox to version 133.0. Nitrux Update Tool System to version 2.1.9. MESA 3D Graphics Library to version 24.2.8. We've updated our Calamares configuration with the following changes: Remove a non-functional kernel parameter. Add kernel parameters to prevent clock drift in some laptops. We've updated our OpenRC services configuration with the following changes: Sort various services into runlevels that make more sense given their purpose. Remove some services from the async, default, and sysinit runlevels to improve boot time. We've updated our OpenRC package for Rsyslog to improve the service script. We've updated our desktop configuration with the following changes: Update check-docs-directory to update the Documentation directory on the desktop. Update Flatpaks install scripts for Steam, Bottles, and HGL. Update scripts to install LibreOffice and Bauh Appimages. Update desktop-config to display a notification when the distribution is running in a VM or the minimum requirements are unmet."
Nitrux e3ba3c69 -- The default live desktop
(full image size: 1.2MB, resolution: 1920x1200 pixels)
EasyOS 6.5
Barry Kauler has announced the release of EasyOS 6.5. The EasyOS distribution features custom container technology called Easy Containers which can run applications or the entire desktop environment in a container. The project also includes tools for installing AppImage and Flatpak packages. Users can also set up containers to run other distributions: "The Scarthgap-series is built with packages compiled in a fork of OpenEmbedded, and optimised for EasyOS, but a small package repository; only about 1800 packages. However, more packages can be installed via Appi, the AppImage manager, and Flapi, the Flatpak manager. There is yet another avenue for adding packages to Scarthgap; another Linux distribution can be run in a container and within that container there is access to the entire package repository of that distribution. Easy Scarthgap can run Easy Daedalus in a container, which means that you don't really need to run Easy Daedalus as a separate distribution." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
Alpine Linux 3.21.0
Alpine Linux is a community developed operating system designed for routers, firewalls, VPNs, VoIP boxes, containers, and servers. The project's latest release is Alpine Linux 3.21.0. Along with several key package upgrades, the new version also introduces loongarch64 CPU support. "We are pleased to announce the release of Alpine Linux 3.21.0, the first in the v3.21 stable series. Highlights: Linux kernel 6.12; GCC 14; LLVM 19; Node.js (LTS) 22.11; Rust 1.83; Crystal 1.14; GNOME 47; Go 1.23; KDE Plasma 6.2; LXQt 2.1; PHP 8.4; Qt 6.8; Sway 1.10; .NET 9.0. Significant changes: Initial support for loongarch64 was added." The distribution's release announcement offers additional details and upgrade instructions.
Manjaro Linux 24.2.0
Philip Müller has announced the release of Manjaro Linux 24.2.0, the latest stable version of the project's rolling-release distribution with separate GNOME, KDE Plasma and Xfce editions. The new release updates the default Linux kernel to version 6.12: "Manjaro Linux 24.2 'Yonada' released. Since we released Xahea in October 2024, we worked hard to get the next release of Manjaro out there. We call it 'Yonada'. The GNOME edition has received several updates to GNOME 47 series. This includes a lot of fixes and polish when GNOME 47.2 was originally was in September 2024. The Plasma edition comes with the latest Plasma 6.2 series, Frameworks 6.8 and KDE Gear 24.08. Plasma 6 has come into its own over the last two releases. The wrinkles that always come with a major migration have been ironed out, and it's time to start delivering on the promises of the new Qt 6 and Wayland technology platforms that Plasma is built on top of. Kernel 6.12 is used for this release, such as the latest drivers available to date. With 6.6 LTS and 6.1 LTS we offer additional support for older hardware as needed." See the release announcement for further information.
Manjaro Linux 24.2.0 -- Exploring the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 667kB, resolution: 1680x1050 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: 3,125
- Total data uploaded: 46.0TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Red Hat Enterprise Linux and its clones on the desktop
This week we presented an overview of Oreon, a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux which is intended to be run as a desktop operating system. While Red Hat's distribution (and its clones) are usually found on servers, there are workstation editions and packages for running desktop software in the conservative distribution. This week we'd like to hear if any of our readers use RHEL (or its clones) as a desktop distribution.
You can see the results of our previous poll on RAM requirements over the years in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Huayra GNU/Linux. Huayra is an educational distribution made by the government of Argentina. The project is based on Debian and is intended to be used by students and teachers.
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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, 16 December 2024. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Differences in speeds (by Pumpino on 2024-12-09 01:59:21 GMT from Australia)
I switched back to Xfce after having used Cinnamon (in Manjaro, Mint and LMDE) for years. Xfce is faster when it comes to launching apps. Using Cinnamon apps like Nemo was even faster under Xfce than Cinnamon. I suspect the desktop one chooses is more significant than the distro.
2 • 1100th Issue (by Kerry on 2024-12-09 05:23:17 GMT from United States)
Congratulations team Distrowatch! Roughly or close to 22 years!
3 • Another Debian spin (by Kruger on 2024-12-09 06:30:03 GMT from Australia)
>>Huayra GNU/Linux. Huayra is an educational distribution made by the government of Argentina. The project is based on Debian and is intended to be used by students and teachers.
Great. Another useless distro that offers absolutely nothing which isn't already available in Debian Edu.
My mind boggles as to why organizations or institutions create these spins, for what purpose? Are they backdoored? Do they get some ego boost from slapping their wallpaper with their school logo on it?
Why?
4 • Why spins for orgs (by Bob Ross on 2024-12-09 07:02:41 GMT from Sweden)
@3 The reason is usually so that the spin can get funding from a larger organization without being a project too large for anyone to do. So basically if they had made something truly unique and specific it would be impossible, if they just said "Hey so Debian Edu" the government wouldn't want to fling cash at the project or it would be harder to explain.
As someone who have had to explain wtf "open source" was to a local politician and why sponsoring was so critical... trust me you wanna start strangling folks quick :D
5 • Another Debian spin (by Vukota on 2024-12-09 09:29:37 GMT from Serbia)
>> Another useless distro that offers absolutely nothing which isn't already available in Debian Edu.
I disagree on this one. Yes, "logo"/branding may be minor thing, but bigger thing is to ensure it works for the targeted group as expected. They speak in Spanish and follow certain educational program. They may need specialized applications/configurations and may customize their distribution to make it easy for teachers and students to meet their needs. What if they have their own CA? This would be an easy way to distribute this configuration even if it needs to be installed and used offline.
6 • RHEL on the desktop (by DaveT on 2024-12-09 10:35:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
YES in the olden days! 2003 to 2010 when they sacked me for backing the Finance Director in a legal case against the Chief Executive Officer. Happy Days!
To keep Management happy I specified and installed Red Hat on the servers and my desktop.
It was so long ago GNOME was actually quite good.
7 • @1. "I suspect the desktop one chooses is more significant than the distro.' (by James on 2024-12-09 10:58:46 GMT from United States)
I agree, and not just speed is involved. The look and how easily a desktop is customized also make a difference to me.
I use multiple OS's, but only the Mate desktop myself. Not for any particular reason, but because I just like it the best. I was gnome 2 user, hated gnome 3, want a traditional desktop, and one easily customizable. Really in all the desktops I have tried, I never notice an appreciable difference in speed. I also prefer minimal installs instead of everything including the kitchen sink installs. Otherwise I spend more time removing software I don't wan than installing software I want, need and will use.
8 • Lightweight distro (by illumos on 2024-12-09 12:26:14 GMT from Japan)
Why does Oreon project use RHEL as based, not Fedora?
Arch is a distro that is only for net memes, and it is too overrated.
VOID's xbps package manager is better than pacman, and Gentoo and CRUX are better than Arch in terms of customizability.
Bugs that occur in Arch do not occur in VOID, Gentoo, or CRUX.
There is also antiX, a lightweight distro with very active development.
antiX is very lightweight by default and works properly on old hardware, and they call it "antiX magic".
And antiX is a "hardcore systemd-less distro" that does not use elogind, let alone systemd itself.
They use runit and seatd instead to provide users with a desktop.
There are other distros that provide lightweight operation by default, such as Alpine (OpenRC), Puppy (sysVinit), and Salix (sysVinit).
Some of these distros use elogind, but what they have in common is that they do not use systemd as an init system.
Of the distros I've mentioned so far, only Arch uses systemd.
VOID and antiX use runit, Gentoo and Alpine use OpenRC, Salix and CRUX use sysVinit.
I don't dislike systemd, but it's too bloated.
If you want something lightweight and comfortable, why not use a distro without systemd?
9 • Bloat (by Friar Tux on 2024-12-09 13:43:36 GMT from Canada)
@8 (illumos) And then there is me... I love bloat. As most already know my OS of choice is Linux Mint/Cinnamon. I agree with @1 (Pumpino) that the DE does make a difference. MY reason for choosing Cinnamon is that it comes with Applets and Desklets. I use these a lot. I find them quite convenient.
One of the reasons I don't really consider bloat an issue is that modern laptops come with a huge amount of memory. More than I'll ever use. (My laptop is loaded with music and all types of graphics, but out of 512 GB I've got 450 free.)
Having said all that, I also like testing apps and programs and have narrowed down what I actually need. While I do have LibreOffice installed, I only use Cherrytree (by Giuseppe Penone) for ALL my writing needs. It does just about everything. Task manager, notes, address book, to do list, recipe book, word processor, inventory list, and much, much more. The only back draw is there is no embedded calendar though you can use it as a diary. The biggest plus, though, is that everything is contained in one fine, which is great for backup and portability. (So a lot of the so-called bloat that was offered with Mint is gone.)
I use VLC for video, and Audacious for music - they work best for me. Pinta and Krita are my go-to for graphics, simple and straight forward. (Gimp and Inkscape are way too complicated for my blood.)
Orage calendar sits on my desktop, permanently, as it, too, is simple and takes up very little real estate on the screen.
I've pretty well stripped off all the "default" apps and programs that came with Mint. I prefer to use stuff that can be doubled up and be used in more that one situation.
So, while the Connamon DE is a bit bloated, I'm actually not that over-burdened with "stuff" on my laptop.
10 • Arch vs Debian-based distro (by Tuxedoar on 2024-12-09 14:03:18 GMT from Argentina)
I don't use Arch and I've never did. Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, one of the key features of Arch is that you can compile each package you install from its source code. Thus, it gives you the possibility to do fine-tunning at compile time of whatever package you install. That way, you could apply several compile time optimizations that, if I understand correctly, could give you certain performance benefits given specific circunstances.
While in Debian (or any of its derivatives) you could, in theory, recompile each installed package, it's a much more involved process since it's not built or designed with this feature in mind. As far as I know, Debian package manager (APT) isn't optimized for such thing being a straight forward process for users (at least, for doing it for the whole system).
Am I right?
Have a nice week!.
Cheers.
11 • Debian on server (by BizJohann on 2024-12-09 14:06:45 GMT from France)
For the last 18 years that I've been managing servers in Linux, I've always used the default Debian version. Debian is simple, fast, secure and a lot of documentation. So, naturally, I would prefer Debian (or Devuan) on desktop.
So maybe when using some Red Hat tools (containers, etc.) in a big company, a REHL-based Linux could be preferable but Debian a so high standard that I would think twice about changing.
12 • @8 illumos, Let there be light! (by Tasio on 2024-12-09 14:19:57 GMT from Philippines)
Just what is 'light"? I have AntiX and Bodhi (Ubuntu 22.04) running on identical KVM machines. Bodhi uses 250MB of RAM and 3.1GB on disk. AntiX (base) uses 300MB RAM and 3.5GB on disk. Bodhi's desktop is Enlightenment and anitiX has JWM. Bodhi uses SystemD and antiX uses runit. antiX boots maybe 1 second faster on the VM. That's it. I'm not disparaging antiX. It's a very useful distro with many useful tools. But if I were looking for daily use I'd much rather have Bodhi and Enlightenment, which I find more useful besides being much better looking.. As it is, my oldest computer is a 10 year old laptop which will happily run Ubuntu Gnome or Kubuntu. No lightness present or desired.
"VOID's xbps package manager is better than pacman" That may be so if you say so, but pacman has never given me any grief. Neither has Apt, which I prefer and have used for about 18 years. I also like the Synaptic front-end.
"Arch is a distro that is only for net memes, and it is too overrated." That is an uncalled for diss. More people use and enjoy Arch than any of those distros you mention and admire. Also, software availability is as good or better than Debian/Ubuntu. I don't use Arch because I don't really want to do the work and rolling has more updates than I care to have, but I have tried and used for a while some excellent Arch derivatives like Endeavour, Manjaro, et al.
After many years I've settled on Ubuntu (24.04) for my daily use. I dual boot with Kubuntu 24.10 because I wanted to try Plasma 6, which I like very much. No light desktops needed or wanted..
13 • Arch and source (by Jesse on 2024-12-09 14:20:50 GMT from Canada)
@10: "10 • Arch vs Debian-based distro (by Tuxedoar on 2024-12-09 14:03:18 GMT from Argentina)
I don't use Arch and I've never did. Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, one of the key features of Arch is that you can compile each package you install from its source code."
This is true of all Linux distributions, it's not specific to Arch.
"While in Debian (or any of its derivatives) you could, in theory, recompile each installed package, it's a much more involved process since it's not built or designed with this feature in mind."
This is not true. It's the same process on Fedora, Debian, Arch, openSUSE, etc.
I suspect what you were actually thinking of was Gentoo (not Arch), which is famously source-oriented. Gentoo can use binary packages, but traditionally people who run Gentoo are using its source/ports build tools.
14 • Red Hat (by penguinx86 on 2024-12-09 15:10:27 GMT from United States)
I've used Red Hat for testing and to study for certification exams. But I found Red Hat cumbersome to use. Selinux is enforced by default, which won't allow me to copy and paste text as root. This makes it difficult to perform simple admin tasks like editing the /etc/fstab file to add a UUID. Also, Red Hat wants me to login to their cloud and register my install before can run updates or install apps, usually for a fee. It may be ok in a locked down proprietary corporate environment with a big budget, but it's the opposite of what I want for my home computers. Red Hat does not "Put the fun back in computing."
15 • Poll Query (by Otis on 2024-12-09 16:25:51 GMT from United States)
"AlmaLinux OS is binary compatible with RHEL®."
So, yes.
16 • Red Hat (by David on 2024-12-09 17:04:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
My first distro was Red Hat, then Fedora, then CentOS. Five years ago I switched to PCLinuxOS, initially to escape Gnome, and I've found it a much better experience. No rummaging around for codecs, no "security" objecting to my printer, no upheavals at end-of-use.
17 • Arch faster than Ubuntu? (by uz64 on 2024-12-09 17:20:48 GMT from United States)
Linux is Linux. It's always been that way, and with hardware being as powerful and resourceful as it is and pretty much all distros taking so many resources compared to two decades ago, there's not really much difference between one distro and another. Install the GNOME desktop on Arch and honestly, in terms of resources, it probably won't be too much different than Ubuntu. Maybe just barely lower just because Arch will likely start fewer services by default, but if you stop them on Ubuntu it'll be even closer still.
But today's hardware has enough memory and processing power that it literally doesn't matter in most cases. Use what you want because you like its features and enjoy its features; not for some pointless benchmark that now means less than ever.
18 • Light Bloat (by rhtoras on 2024-12-09 17:41:18 GMT from Greece)
@8 i agree with everything you mentioned except the line saying: "i don't hate systemD" well i happen to hate systemD because not only is bloat and complicate but also vulnerable and poettering's motives are monstrous.
On the other hand most people tend to like systemD because either they are used to it or they just don't know how to properly handle a distribution without it.
And NO it's not only the de tha makes things easier or consumes more resources. There are so many things that tend to make our os bloat or debloat.
As for pacman i have used both arch and artix. The best pacman based distro might me Obarun and Mere Linux but Mere is not based on arch. I wish more people were involved in Mere Linux because reading for distros like Oreon and Huayra do not bring anything new in the table. sysdfree.wordpress is a nice place to learn new distros btw so is firasuke git page, Of course Distrowatch is the #1 database.
19 • Hard copies of distros (by Otis on 2024-12-09 17:48:36 GMT from United States)
https://thelinuxshop.co.uk/
Thanking you for that link, as I wonder why I never had it before.
20 • To RHEL or not to RHEL, that is the question (by Scott Dowdle on 2024-12-09 17:59:44 GMT from United States)
I use RHEL on some servers. I use AlmaLinux on some servers. I use AlmaLinux on some desktops and laptops. I use other distros too.
21 • @12 in re E and light (very much Not servers) (by JG on 2024-12-10 00:12:45 GMT from United States)
Maybe few of us look, but Austrumi runs E, looks semi-pretty, easily fits on a CD (xz) and boots to ~140 of RAM with surprisingly full-featured apps. Runs in RAM if you like. Nowhere near as pretty as Bodhi (or as friendly as AntiX control center utilities--it *is* slack-current under the hood), but quite cool once you figure out the little flag in the bottom left flips the languages of the menu bar on top. Can't think of why a similar package list might not be bolted onto a Devuan or even AntiX net (etc) base. Please don't misunderstand, I like AntiX a lot, but that Austrumi E (& FVWM) w/ gtk3 stuff is prettier, feels less-disjointed, and uses comparable or fewer resources than -full. FWIW.
22 • Oreon 10 (by Ballmer on 2024-12-09 20:26:13 GMT from Italy)
It is good that the copy does not stray too far from the original. Certainly, the GNOME Software Shop is slow. However, it is also important to consider that there is always DNF4 and DNF5, and DNFdragora is available in the Almalinux Synergy repositories.
23 • Redox Server running on emulator (by Happy_Phantom on 2024-12-10 02:48:21 GMT from United States)
"Andrey Turkin executed the RISC-V version of Redox Server from the RVVM RISC-V emulator running on the x86-64 version of Redox Desktop!! And thanks again to LekKit for the awesome emulator!"
RISC-V version of Redox Server from the RVVM RISC-V emulator running on the x86-64 version of Redox
Hope they can get this running on bare metal
Number of Comments: 23
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| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
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| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
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| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
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