 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 917, 17 May 2021 |
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Welcome to this year's 19th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
One of the nice aspects of the open source community is people often want to give back to the distributions and applications they get to use free of charge. There are a lot of ways to contribute to projects we find helpful. Some people donate money, others report bugs, write documentation, or contribute code. Another option is for people to share their bandwidth with the project, acting as a mirror for on-line repositories and hosting ISO files. This week in our Questions and Answers column we discuss setting up a mirror for a Linux distribution. In the past few months several new clones of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) have appeared. Let us know in our Opinion Poll which of the many RHEL clones is your favourite. First though we begin with a review of the Red Hat-sponsored Fedora distribution. Fedora is a cutting edge distribution and a testing ground for a lot of new technologies, but how does it handle daily tasks? Jeff Siegel investigates Fedora 34 and reports on his experiences. In our News section we discuss Haiku being ported to the open source RISC-V CPU architecture while NetBSD expands its ports support and gets a polished new audio mixer for the console. The Fedora distribution will be dropping install-time support for remote root logins using passwords and we share details on this change below. We also report on a change to Vine Linux's release cycle. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Fedora 34
- News: Haiku developing RISC-V port, NetBSD getting polished audio mixer, Fedora dropping remote root password authentication from installer, Vine Linux changes release cycle
- Questions and answers: Providing a distro mirror
- Released last week: Bodhi Linux 6.0.0, NomadBSD 130R-20210508, UBports 16.04 OTA-17
- Torrent corner: ArcoLinux, Bodhi, CloudReady, deepin, DragonFly BSD, ExTiX, FuguIta, GhostBSD, Guix System, KDE neon, NomadBSD, SharkLinux
- Upcoming releases: Tails 4.19
- Opinion poll: Favourite Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone
- New distributions: EdUBudgie, Ryanboot-offical-linux-netbooter
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (by Jeff Siegel) |
Fedora 34
Those of us who run Linux because we're fed up with Ctrl-Alt-Del or aren't hip enough to be Apple-ites also probably aren't the ideal candidates to use Fedora. After all, that's what Linus Torvalds uses, and it's one of the most common distros among coders, system administrators, and the like.
So what happens when someone who thinks Vim and Emacs Reddit posts are funny gives the recently released Fedora 34 workstation a try? He is more than pleasantly surprised. This version of Fedora, put together by the Fedora Project and its sponsor Red Hat, was much more nimble than I expected, and especially given my older hardware. In fact, I was able to do what I normally do - write freelance articles, spend too much time e-mailing editors, and work with WordPress and Substack - without banging my mouse in frustration more than a couple of times.
Does this mean I want to use Fedora 34 as my daily driver? Probably not. I don't have many uses for Boxes, Fedora's VM app. But it does offer a variety of features that other distros should consider adding, including my beloved Xubuntu. The documentation is first-rate, much more complete and easier to use (with pictures, even!) than I've seen almost anywhere else. The ability to configure Nextcloud from a simple prompt as part of the post-installation process is genius. And that I was able to reboot after installation without trying to decide when to remove the install USB - still a sticky proposition with Ubuntu and its flavors - was almost as nice.
Meet GNOME 40
The latest GNOME desktop - version 40, if you're counting in GNOME - is one of the highlights of this version of Fedora. And this comes from someone who has never cared for GNOME, even in the old days when it offered a traditional desktop.
These days, many of us find the current GNOME approach counter-intuitive. I've used the GNOME 3 desktop off and on when experimenting with other distros, and I run Ubuntu 20.04 on a reasonably modern laptop that uses GNOME 3.36. But it's still like trying to speak French to a native when all you've had is a couple of years in high school - you can do it, but it's slow and painful and you have to hope the other person has lots of patience.
GNOME 40, though, removes much of that awkwardness. Yes, there is still the contradiction that is the GNOME extension framework, where you need a browser to install the extensions (which I've never understood). Likewise, using the search box on the top of the workspaces screen doesn't list any installed apps, but does offer the weather in Libreville, Gabon, if you're trying to find LibreOffice's Writer. And mousing to the upper left hand screen corner to access the Activities button to call up the active apps remains a contradiction in motion for anyone who is right-handed.
Fedora 34 -- Scanning a document
(full image size: 2.2MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
But putting the dash bar on the bottom of the screen makes most mouse work easier than ever, and it's a relief that clicking the "show applications" icon on the dash bar actually takes you to a list of all the apps that have been installed - with the name of the app under its icon. As someone who has suffered through Ctrl-right click to access Plank's preferences, moving the icons to and fro on the dash bar is simple and straightforward.
Fedora 34 -- Browsing installed software
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Customization was straightforward as well. I installed GNOME Tweaks, and soon had maximize and minimize on my titlebars, as well as battery percentage next to the icon on the top bar. Though, sadly, the GNOME Eye is no longer available as an extension.
I wasn't even put off by the way GNOME 40 handles workspaces. That's saying something, since one of the first things I do on any fresh installation is to eliminate all but one workspace. It's actually possible, thanks to the improved workspace switcher, to see what is running on each workspace, click on the workspace to get to that app, and even close the app from the workspace without having to go to the workspace. It's even reasonably simple to swipe between workspaces and apps with the mouse, something that will come in handy for anyone who is used to doing that on touchscreens and phones.
Fedora 34 -- Switching between applications and workspaces
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The good, the bad, and the missing
Which brings us to software - what's installed, what's not installed, and how to install it. Here, Fedora 34 lags, and there doesn't seem to be any good reason for it. It's first-rate in so many other ways, so why can't I find out if the Chrome browser is installed without a fair amount of clicking and mousing? It didn't show up on the installed applications accessible from the dash bar, but when I "installed" it from the command line, the prompt told me it was already installed. Which is still wasn't, though it is in the software store.
I know the current fashion is to use GMail from the browser, but those of us who still want Thunderbird will be more than a little confused to find two versions of it in the software store, without any explanation of why there are two and what the differences are (save for different version numbers). This seemed to be common - two versions of the Chromium browser, for example. In addition, LibreOffice Draw isn't installed by default, also surprising since so many of us use it to edit PDF files.
The software store, though not as buggy as the Ubuntu version, still leaves much to be desired. It's not especially quick, and it took a noticeable amount of time on my laptop for the icons to load - long enough to do something else, look back, and see it wasn't finished. Plus, the update process, complete with a Windows-style line saying "Don't turn off your computer" and spinning wheel, can be long and off-putting.
Fedora 34 -- Waiting for the software centre to load
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The less said the better about dnfdragora, Fedora's version of Debian's venerable Synaptic. It's slow to load - so slow that it locks up and you get a not-responding prompt. Plus, for some reason, it's named python3 on the top panel - a quality control mistake that's difficult to believe on something as well constructed as Fedora. And Chromium is listed, but not Chrome - the exact opposite of the software store.
Fedora 34 -- Using the dnfdragora software manager
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Cheese, the webcam app for photos and videos, works much better than on Ubuntu - not lagging on the video, for instance. Rhythmbox, the default music app, does what it does, as does Evince the default PDF reader, and Photos, using for editing pictures. The scanning and printer apps found my Canon MX920 without any trouble, which is impressive since I have to use a 2.4G wireless signal to access the Canon. And the printer control even sort of recognized the ink levels.
VLC, my preferred video player, isn't in the software store or dnfdragora. Videos, the default software, offers some nice features, though, including the ability take screenshots of videos and to create a screenshot gallery.
Fedora 34 -- Viewing open applications
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PipeWire, which some see as eventually replacing PulseAudio to handle Linux sound, is the default in Fedora 34. I didn't have any problems with it, but all I did was play a couple of songs with Rhythmbox and watch a couple of YouTube videos through the laptop's speakers. And I don't find PulseAudio lacking on my Ubuntu systems, so I'm probably not the audience for this, either.
Battery life was impressive - an hour of testing, customizing, and web surfing only used up about 25 percent.
... and the ugly
So what didn't work? The screen display, using anything other than the default resolution, didn't always allow access to or show the entire screen. This was a serious problem during installation from the live disk. I set the scale at 200 percent, which offered an easy to see screen given my default 1920x1080 display. But as I moved through the installation, I couldn't move down the screen to click the necessary boxes; they remained out of sight. I had to go back to 100 percent at 1920x1080 to install Fedora. Needless to say, this was one of the couple of times I was banging the mouse, since I couldn't figure out why my installation screen didn't look like the one in the documentation. Later, when I set the screen to 1368x768, the workspace switcher didn't display all the open apps on the various workspaces after I hit the show applications screen.
I had to set the time myself - the automatic setting during installation put me on U.S. Eastern Daylight Time, though I am on U.S. Central Daylight. And one of the GNOME weather extensions for the top bar, Open Weather, wouldn't recognize the included API, as well as one that I have. I ended up using Weather in the Clock, which really wasn't what I wanted.
In the end, I was surprised at how comfortable I felt with Fedora 34. I didn't find it as easy to use as Ubuntu's version of the GNOME desktop, but it was far easier to use than I thought it would be - especially since I didn't do much to it, save for the window controls. If I had done my usual tweaks, it probably would have been far closer to what I prefer.
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Hardware used for this review
My physical test equipment for this review was am Asus UX31A laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Core i5-3317U, 1.7GHz
- Storage: 128GB SSD
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Networking: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 802.11 a/b/g/n wireless
- Display: Integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000
When he is not testing out new versions of Linux distributions, Jeff Siegel can be found writing about all things related to wine at Wine Curmudgeon.
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Visitor supplied rating
Fedora has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.2/10 from 396 review(s).
Have you used Fedora? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Haiku developing RISC-V port, NetBSD getting polished audio mixer, Fedora dropping remote root password authentication from installer, Vine Linux changes release cycle
The Haiku operating system is gradually gaining support for the RISC-V open CPU hardware architecture. A thread on the Haiku forum shows screenshots of the step-by-step progress of getting the lightweight operating system booting and running its desktop on RISC-V. "Port is currently targeting TinyEMU because it is simple and its source code can be used as reference, later adding QEmu support is planned. haiku_loader is directly used as firmware, no u-boot or UEFI bit loaders are used. All development and testing is performed on Haiku."
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Nia Alarie has posted some updates about work going into the highly portable NetBSD operating system. Some improvements include ongoing work to port NetBSD to RISC-V, introducing support for more ARM processors, and improving a console-based audio mixer called aiomixer. "aiomixer is an application that I've been maintaining outside of NetBSD for a few years. It was available as a package, and was a 'graphical' (curses, terminal-based) mixer for NetBSD's audio API, inspired by programs like alsamixer. For some time I've thought that it should be integrated into the NetBSD base system - it's small and simple, very useful, and many developers and users had it installed (some told me that they would install it on all of their machines that needed audio output). For my particular use case, as well as my NetBSD laptop, I have some small NetBSD machines around the house plugged into speakers that I play music from. Sometimes I like to SSH into them to adjust the playback volume, and it's often easier to do visually than with mixerctl."
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The Fedora team is planning to drop an installer option which would allow users to access the Fedora root account remotely through password authentication. "Since 2019 the Anaconda installer GUI hosted an option called "Allow SSH root login with password", that made it possible to enable password based root logins over SSH on the installed system. This was always meant as a temporary option to help users transition to either using key authentication or normal users with admin privileges. And after two years of transition period it is now time to drop the option from the GUI." The history behind this option and the reasons for its removal in Fedora 35 are presented in a change proposal.
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Vine Linux, one of the oldest Japanese Linux distributions, has announced the discontinuation of regular releases. From now on the project will focus exclusively on updating VineSeed, its development branch, which will effectively turn Vine Linux into a rolling-release distribution. The VineSeed branch continues to receive regular updates and it currently includes Linux kernel 5.4, GCC 10.3, RPM 4.16 and GNOME 40. Users are encouraged to upgrade their 6.5 installation to VineSeed by modifying the APT sources to point to the VineSeed repository. (Vine Linux, originally being based on Red Hat Linux, uses Debian's APT utility for managing its rpm packages). Here is the brief announcement (in Japanese) as published on the project's website. Vine Linux was founded in 1998 by Daisuke Suzuki, a prominent Linux pioneer in the country, as a continuation of Project-JE which developed Japanese language support and Japanese input methods for Slackware Linux and Red Hat Linux.
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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) |
Providing a distro mirror
Maintaining-a-mirror asks: I run a private server and I would like to help with hosting one or more distros, but I don't know how to start. Do you have any idea how could I help the community if they need a fast server located close to London? I guess I could just start uploading any distro, but how do I make sure that other users can access my server?
DistroWatch answers: It sounds like what you have in mind is providing a mirror for one or more distributions. A mirror typically contains either a copy of the distribution's package repository or their installation media, often both.
Before you commit to this course of action, I recommend considering just how much disk space and network traffic you may find yourself handling. The Debian archive, for instance, is approximately 3.3TB (3,336GB) of packages. The Ubuntu archive is smaller with 1.1TB (1,100GB) of packages and 23GB of ISO files. The Arch Linux wiki recommends at least 50GB of disk space to become a mirror. Before you decide to become a mirror, keep in mind that people will probably be accessing your server every day, downloading hundreds, perhaps thousands, of megabytes of data each day. This usage will spike near release days.
If this sounds within your server's capabilities and your bandwidth budget, then you can read your distribution's guidelines to setting up a mirror. Most of the big distributions provide instructions on how to set one up. Here are instructions for Debian, Ubuntu, Arch Linux, openSUSE, and Fedora. Other projects which are interested in having people contribute resources will have guides to setting up mirrors in their own documentation. The documentation generally explains how to set up the server, what to mirror, and how to get your server added to the list of official mirrors.
On the other hand, if you don't feel you have the kind of time or resources to provide a full project mirror, then you will still be able to help. A lot of people watch for torrents of new releases and download the torrents to help seed new distribution versions. This takes the bandwidth strain off the projects and requires relatively few resources from the individuals seeding the torrents.
DistroWatch provides a list of new releases made available through torrents. This list is updated at least once per week and these torrents can be downloaded using any common browser, download utility or torrenting software, such as Transmission. I like Transmission because it can be run in both command line and through web-based portals which makes it suitable for running on servers.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
DragonFly BSD 6.0.0
Justin Sherrill has announced the release of a new version of DragonFly BSD. The latest version, DragonFly BSD 6.0.0, focuses on filesystem improvements, including work done to the advanced HAMMER2 filesystem. "DragonFly version 6.0 is the next step from the 5.8 release series in 2020. This version has a revamped VFS caching system, various filesystem updates including HAMMER2, and a long list of userland updates. The details of all commits between the 5.8 and 6.0 branches are available in the associated commit messages for 6.0.0rc1 and 6.0.0. Big-ticket items: Significant work on dsynth, for building packages. Many updates of contrib system software. HAMMER2 work continues, with updates from Tomohiro Kusumi. Major VM work for extent-based representation. Due to major changes to the VM system we had to remove the MAP_VPAGETABLE mmap() feature, and this also means that vkernels will not be supported in this release. Support may be re-added at a later time via HVM (but not in this release)." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
Guix System 1.3.0
Ludovic Courtès has announced the release of Guix System 1.3.0, an advanced distribution of the GNU operating system developed by the GNU Project which respects the freedom of computer users. It uses a recent Linux-libre kernel and a custom package management tool called Guix. Version 1.3.0 introduces experimental support for the POWER9 architecture. "We are pleased to announce the release of GNU Guix version 1.3.0. The release comes with ISO-9660 installation images, a virtual machine image, and with tarballs to install the package manager on top of your GNU/Linux distro, either from source or from binaries. Guix users can update by running guix pull. A distinguishing Guix feature is its support for declarative deployment - instead of running a bunch of guix install and guix remove commands, you run guix package --manifest=manifest.scm, where manifest.scm lists the software you want to install. Doing that installs exactly the packages listed. You can have that file under version control and share it with others, which is convenient. Until now, one would have to write the manifest by hand - not insurmountable, but still a barrier to someone willing to migrate to the declarative model." Read the full release announcement for further details.
Bodhi Linux 6.0.0
Bodhi Linux is an Ubuntu-based distribution which combined Ubuntu's long-term support (LTS) release with the Moksha desktop, which is a fork of the Enlightenment user interface. "Today the Bodhi Team is pleased to announce the release of Bodhi Linux 6.0. Bodhi 6.0 is built on the Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS (Focal Fossa) base. Our Arc-Green theme underwent a major revamp now featuring an animated background, updated splash screen, and numerous tweaks. The BL6 login screen now features the elegant slick greeter. Naturally, there also is a new Plymouth theme. The Moksha desktop environment has had numerous improvements and a few new features added. In addition to all this, the Bodhi Team has tried to improve support for non-English languages. As a result, we now install by default the gnome language tool. None of this would have been possible without the support of the Bodhi community and the volunteer work of our small group of translators." Further information can be found in the project's release announcement.
Bodhi Linux 6.0.0 -- Running the Moksha desktop
(full image size: 1.2MB, resolution: 1360x768 pixels)
Parted Magic 2021_05_12
Parted Magic is a small live CD/USB/PXE with its elemental purpose being to partition hard drives. Although GParted and Parted are the main programs, the CD/USB also offers other applications, such as Partition Image, TestDisk, fdisk, sfdisk, dd, and ddrescue. The project's latest release, version 2021_05_12, is the latest of the distribution's fixed releases. The release announcement on the Parted Magic news page reports the distribution will shift to a rolling release approach later in the year. "This version of Parted Magic once again updates 100's of core programs and adds some new ones requested by users. I have added bcachefs-tools, but I was not able find a kernel patch for Linux 5.12, so there isn't any kernel support. There is also some other news. This is the last version of Parted Magic in it's current release format. Starting with the next release (in about 3 months), Parted Magic will take on the rolling release model. The One Year Subscription will be mostly unchanged. The other option will be a subscription service for $4 a month. Why is this better? You will be able to pay $4 a month and get fixes and updates. This lowers the price from $11 to $4 if you only need Parted Magic for a single one off project. All you have to do is log into your account and unsubscribe at any time."
UBports 16.04 OTA-17
UBports is a community-developed fork of Canonical's Ubuntu Touch operating system for mobile devices. The project's latest release is 16.04 OTA-17 which introduces new device support, camera fixes across multiple devices, and an update to the Mir display software. "Ubuntu Touch now has support for NFC hardware in most of our devices running with Android 9 hardware compatibility, including the Pixel 3a and Volla Phone. NFC support gives app developers the ability to read or write NFC tags; or even to communicate with another device using the protocol. People have already been thinking up ideas for how to use NFC features to read from passive medical monitors... This is a feature that seems to make people very excited. You can find some demo apps for this feature on Alfred's GitHub, ut-nfcd-p2p-demo showcases support for two Ubuntu Touch devices communicating while ut-nfcd-ndev-demo shows off reading and writing NFC tags. Camera flash, zoom, rotation, and focus was fixed on many supported Ubuntu Touch devices, including the OnePlus One." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
NomadBSD 130R-20210508
A new stable version of NomadBSD has been released. NomadBSD is a persistent live system for USB Flash drives, based on FreeBSD. It features automatic hardware detection and setup and it is configured to be used as a desktop system (with Openbox as the default window manager). The new release, labeled as version 130R-20210508, upgrades the underlying base system to FreeBSD 13.0: "We are pleased to present the release of NomadBSD 130R-20210508. Changes since 1.4: we've decided to change the versioning scheme to the following form - FFfX-YYYYMMDD, where FF is the major two-digit FreeBSD version, f is the minor version, and X stands for ALPHA (A), BETA (B), RC or RELEASE (R), followed by a date; the new scheme allows us to provide images with different version of FreeBSD; the base system has been upgraded to FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE; the partition alignment has been changed to 1M to improve the write speed on Flash drives; a bug where GLX is disabled has been fixed; drivers for VMware have been added." Here is the full release announcement.
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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: 2,445
- Total data uploaded: 37.6TB
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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) |
Favourite Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone
For years there have been a number of clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and now, with Red Hat phasing out CentOS Linux in favour of CentOS Stream, it has given rise to a whole new wave of Red Hat clones seeking to fill the vacuum. Do you have a (currently maintained) preferred clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)? Let us know which of the new clones you've tried in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on methods for installing third-party software in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Favourite Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone
| AlmaLinuxOS: | 108 (7%) |
| EuroLinux: | 15 (1%) |
| Oracle Linux: | 61 (4%) |
| Rocky Linux: | 233 (15%) |
| Springdale Linux: | 24 (2%) |
| VzLinux: | 3 (0%) |
| Other: | 32 (2%) |
| I do not run RHEL clones: | 1112 (70%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- EdUBudgie. EdUBudgie is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the Budgie desktop environment. It is intended to be used by students in high school and university environments.
- Ryanboot-offical-linux-netbooter. Ryanboot-offical-linux-netbooter is a minimal distribution used to remotely boot other Linux distributions over a network.
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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 May 2021. 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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| Archives |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
SteamOS
SteamOS was a Debian-based Linux distribution designed to run Valve's Steam and Steam games. It also provides a desktop mode (GNOME) which can run regular Linux applications. In addition to a stable Debian base, SteamOS features various third-party drivers and updated graphics stack, a newer Linux kernel with long-term support, and a custom graphics compositor designed to provide a seamless transition between Steam, its games and the SteamOS system overlay. The base operating system was open-source software, but the Steam client was proprietary.
Note: Valve discontinued its Debian-based SteamOS and launched a new, Arch-based SteamOS for the Steam Deck. This new, Arch-based system appears to only be available with the Steam Deck and was not released as a stand-alone ISO.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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