 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 923, 28 June 2021 |
Welcome to this year's 25th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Ideally, computers should be easy to use, predictable, and trustworthy. None of these ideals is easy to achieve and, as a result, developers are constantly trying new approaches and experimenting with different combinations of tools. In our News section this week we talk about NixOS gaining the ability to create reproducible builds along with an OpenBSD developer borrowing concepts from NixOS to predictably configure OpenBSD systems. Plus we talk about Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, offering commercial support for the Blender application to help keep this open source application running smoothly. In our Questions and Answers column we continue to discuss various solutions to problems, using command line shells as an example. There are a lot of different shells available and we talk about why this is as well as answering why bash is so popular. Which command line shell is your favourite? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. Before we dive into all of these topics, we'd like to open with a look at Ubuntu MATE. Many people look at Ubuntu MATE as a continuation of what Ubuntu originally was, back before the distribution adopted the Unity and GNOME desktops. We talk about Ubuntu MATE and some of its key features in this week's Feature Story. 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: Ubuntu MATE 21.04 and Anbox
- News: NixOS gains reproducible builds, OpenBSD developer seeks to duplicate Nix features, Canonical offers commercial support for Blender
- Questions and answers: Why there are so many Linux shells
- Released last week: IPFire 2.25 Core 157, Rocky Linux 8.4, SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP3
- Torrent corner: Android-x86, Gardua, IPFire, KDE neon, Robolinux, Rocky, SparkyLinux
- Opinion poll: Which is your favourite command line shell?
- New distributions: rlxos
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (14MB) and MP3 (10MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Ubuntu MATE 21.04 and Anbox
The Ubuntu team published version 21.04, on schedule and without much in the way of surprises. Ubuntu and its many community editions, including Ubuntu MATE, appear to have spent the past six months polishing the desktop environments. There aren't many changes, no leaps forward in terms of the underlying technology like init software, filesystems, and packaging formats which sometimes shake up the Ubuntu community. This time around the big headline change for Ubuntu was adopting Wayland as the default display software for the GNOME desktop. Meanwhile the Ubuntu MATE team included some fixes, addressed some problems when switching between desktop layouts, and polished their themes.
One key item mentioned in the Ubuntu MATE 21.04 release announcement is that their fixes have been pushed upstream to Debian. This means that fixes which appear in Ubuntu MATE 21.04 will not only be available to other flavours of Ubuntu, but improvements to the MATE desktop should also appear in Debian and its dozens of derived distributions.
Ubuntu MATE 21.04 is available for 64-bit (x86_64) machines. On release day ARM images were planned, but not published yet. The project's ISO file is a 2.8GB download. Booting from the Ubuntu MATE media brings up a menu asking if we'd like to run the live desktop, run the live desktop in safe graphics mode, or run the OEM install process. Taking the live desktop modes launches MATE 1.24.1. A window appears and asks us to select our language from a list and then click either a Try or Install button to proceed.
Taking the Try option brings up MATE with a classic two-panel layout. The top panel features the applications menu. The top panel also holds the system tray and a logout and user settings menu. The bottom panel acts as a task switcher.
A welcome window opens and presents us with a series of buttons for accessing information and commonly performed actions. On the information side of things there is an introduction note explaining what Ubuntu MATE is. There are documents we can read which talk about the distribution's key features as well as access the project's user forum and Discord chat room. Links to on-line documents and support open in the Firefox browser. The welcome window's action buttons help us change the desktop layout (more on that later) and launch the system installer.
Ubuntu MATE 21.04 -- The welcome window
(full image size: 605kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Installing
Ubuntu MATE uses the Ubiquity system installer. Ubiquity has remained mostly unchanged over the past decade and it is one of the easier to navigate installers, in my opinion. It quickly walks us through choosing our preferred language and offering to show us the release notes. The release notes seem fairly conservative with few changes for this release compared to version 20.10.
We are next given the option of a Normal or Minimal installation. The minimal version essentially installs just a base system with the MATE desktop, a few utilities, and the Firefox web browser. The Normal install adds some other popular applications such as LibreOffice and a media player. On this screen we can also choose whether to install third-party software such as media codecs and non-free wireless networking support. I decided to take the Normal install option with non-free items.
When it comes to partitioning we can take a Guided option. This follows up by offering to set up Ubuntu MATE on a LVM volume or ZFS storage pool. Alternatively we can use a Manual partitioning option. The Manual screen is quite friendly and shows us a visual representation of our disk. I noticed when setting up Ubuntu MATE in a virtual machine that creating a new partition table defaulted to a GPT layout while past versions of the distribution would ask whether to use a DOS or GPT layout. As a side-effect of this, the installer now insists on setting up a EFI partition and reserved BIOS boot space. In the past an installation in a virtual machine could get by with one or two partitions (depending on whether we wanted swap space), now it requires at least four, which feels like overkill.
The final screen of the installer asks us to make up a username and password for ourselves. We have the alternative option of connecting to Active Directory for authentication. Ubiquity then copies its packages to the hard drive and concludes by offering to restart the computer.
Early impressions
My new copy of Ubuntu MATE booted to a graphical login screen with a green background. Signing into my account brought back the MATE desktop. The welcome window pops up again and this time it features a few alternative buttons. There is a Software button where the Install button used to be. This Software button launches the software centre which is called Software Boutique. I'll talk about this software centre later. Along with the buttons to access help and on-line resources there are buttons for changing the desktop layout and seeing a list of available web browsers. This latter button brings up a screen where some popular browsers such as Firefox, Chromium, Chrome, Brave, and Opera are listed. We can click a button next to any of these browsers to install them. Some are available as native packages, though others are not. Chromium, for instance, is installed as a Snap package.
The second time I logged into my account a window appeared and asked if I would like to send my hardware information to the developers. We can preview the data which would be sent, which mostly deals with the type of CPU, amount of memory, and hardware present on the computer.
The default theme of the MATE desktop is bright and makes use of a lot of white and light grey. I found this hard on my eyes and was pleased to find there are alternative dark themes available. The distribution famously supports multiple desktop layouts. We can access these alternative layouts through the welcome window or the MATE settings panel. There are layouts available which make MATE look like Ubuntu's Unity desktop, like macOS, and like the classic Windows desktop. I found that sometimes switching layouts would cause the desktop panel to crash, an issue that was reportedly fixed for this release. I will grant that having the panel crash when switching to the Unity-like layout no longer causes the whole MATE session to crash, just the panel.
Ubuntu MATE 21.04 -- Exploring the application menu and running LibreOffice
(full image size: 193kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
One aspect of Ubuntu MATE I appreciated was that its screensaver does not activate until the system has been idle for 30 minutes. This is a comfortable default for me and a pleasant vacation from many modern distributions which insist on locking the desktop after five minutes on inactivity.
Hardware
I started my trial with Ubuntu MATE in a VirtualBox environment. The distribution ran smoothly in the virtual machine. The MATE desktop dynamically resized to match the application window, the system offered average performance, and I encountered no problems with it.
When I switched over to running Ubuntu MATE on my laptop I was pleasantly surprised at how responsive the MATE desktop was. Everything felt very quick and snappy. There are no distracting visual effects or animations to slow down the desktop and everything felt pleasantly quick. All of my laptop's hardware was correctly detected and worked well. Ubuntu MATE was able to boot in both Legacy BIOS and UEFI modes on my laptop.
Ubuntu MATE 21.04 -- The Mutiny layout with a dark theme
(full image size: 589kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
In both test environments the operating system was stable, but the desktop panel was not. I experienced almost daily crashes of the panel in both environments. Usually the panel would come back on its own, though sometimes it needed to be manually loaded or I'd need to logout and sign back into my account to restore the panel.
Ubuntu MATE is a mid-weight distribution, creeping toward the heavier end of the scale. The system uses 590MB of memory to log into MATE and a fresh install took up about 7GB of space. This is slightly above average, but still lower than the mainstream distributions which run GNOME.
Applications
Apart from the MATE 1.24.1 desktop and the distribution's welcome window, Ubuntu MATE ships with a collection of popular open source applications. The Firefox browser is included with several other browsers readily available. The Transmission bittorrent software is included along with the LibreOffice suite and the Evolution e-mail client. The Atril document viewer is included along with the Caja file manager, and a simple image viewer. I found Rhythmbox and the Celluloid media player installed and the Webcamoid utility is available for handling web cams. The distribution ships with media codecs and was able to play all the audio and video files I threw at it. The Shotwell image manager is featured too.
The distribution also includes a user account manager, the CUPS printing configuration tool, and the GNU Compiler Collection. Ubuntu MATE runs the systemd init software and version 5.11.0 of the Linux kernel.
User menu and the Control Centre
In the upper-right corner of the desktop is a user and settings menu. This menu provides options for logging out, shutting down the system, opening the MATE documentation, and seeing some general system information. I think it's unfortunate the icon for this menu is so small and subtle as the items in the menu are all very useful and particularly helpful to new users. This menu also includes an entry for launching the system's Control Centre.
Ubuntu MATE 21.04 -- The Control Centre
(full image size: 487kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The Control Centre displays a grid of icons which open settings modules. These icons are organized by category. While most of the settings modules adjust the look and behaviour of the desktop there are also modules for adjusting the firewall, setting up printers, and managing user accounts. These settings modules are all clearly presented and worked well for me.
Software management
Ubuntu MATE ships with a simple update manager which opens on the desktop whenever new packages become available. The updater lists available new packages and their overall size. We can then click boxes next to each item we want to download or ignore. There were only a few packages available when I was first running Ubuntu MATE, partially (I suspect) because components in the base system are bundled together into one item. All the updates I fetched were installed without any problems.
Ubuntu MATE 21.04 -- The Software Boutique
(full image size: 468kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The main software centre on Ubuntu MATE is called Software Boutique. This software manager can be accessed through the welcome menu, the application menu, and the Control Centre. The Boutique displays a list of icons for software categories across the top of its window. Clicking on a category allows us to see curated or popular items in the category. We can then apply filters within a category to further narrow down results.
The Boutique is set up to display relatively few items in each category - just showing the more popular items in each group. We can click a button next to each item we want to install and it is added to a queue that will be processed later. We can click a button in the upper-right corner of the Boutique window to review the queue and start the download process.
The Boutique processes queued items one at a time and pauses to prompt for our password prior to each package it downloads. This means we cannot simply set-and-forget the Boutique's queue, we need to watch over it and this slows down the process. It also means installing many items becomes tedious as it results in a lot of password prompts.
Should we wish to use a software manager which offers access to the full range of packages in the distribution's repositories, or if we want to avoid these steady password prompts, the Boutique has us covered. There is a category dedicated to other software managers such as Synaptic and GNOME Software.
We also have the option of using the APT command line tools and Snap to manage packages. The Snap framework for portable packages is installed by default. The Flatpak framework is not included by default, but it is available in the repositories.
When trying to run programs from the command line which are not installed there is a pause while the system tries to find the missing program in Ubuntu MATE's repositories. If a result is found we are told what package to install to acquire the program. Usually this happens quickly but it can take several seconds if updates or new packages are already being installed.
Anbox
While not really relevant to Ubuntu MATE, I wanted to try out Anbox this week. The Anbox software strives to run Android applications in containers on a GNU/Linux desktop. Anbox's install instructions rely on Snap packages and personal package archives (PPAs) so it's mostly limited to running on the Ubuntu family.
I tried to follow the Anbox install instructions and found the PPA the project provides for some dependencies has not been updated to work with Ubuntu 21.04 (or its community editions) at the time of writing. This brought my test to a premature halt, though I hope to return to it later.
Conclusions
I was quite happy with my experiences with Ubuntu MATE 21.04. It had been a few years since I last tried this flavour of Ubuntu and I was pleased to see that the developers have mostly focused on polishing and fixing minor issues. The distribution works well with my hardware, it's responsive, and I like that we can easily switch between desktop layouts to suit the user's preference. The welcome window manages to provide access to a lot of information and resources without being too cluttered or confusing.
Ubuntu MATE 21.04 -- Exploring different desktop layouts
(full image size: 642kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The Software Boutique is an interesting idea and I have mixed feelings about it. Having a small collection of popular applications readily available in an uncluttered interface is quite attractive to newcomers. On the other hand, forcing users to install a separate software centre to gain access to less popular (though still useful) applications feels awkward. This is a tool I'd probably want to stick in front of novice users to see how they react to it before I make a decision on it.
The documentation, settings panel, and default layout all feel really polished. The installer is easy to navigate, for the most part, and Ubuntu MATE ships with fairly up to date software. I had just two issues with this release. One was that the desktop panel sometimes crashed, either when switching desktop layouts or when signing in. Usually the panel restarts itself, but sometimes I had to logout and then sign back into my account to get the panel back. The other concern is Ubuntu MATE 21.04 only receives nine months of support. I'd suggest sticking with long-term support (LTS) releases for most people. However, for those who don't mind upgrading about once every six months, 21.04 is a really solid release based on my experience. It's also one of the more user friendly distributions I have used in the past six months.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a de-branded HP laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: Intel i3 2.5GHz CPU
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 700GB hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Wired network device: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast
- Wireless network device: Realtek RTL8188EE Wireless network card
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Visitor supplied rating
Ubuntu MATE has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.2/10 from 66 review(s).
Have you used Ubuntu MATE? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
NixOS gains reproducible builds, OpenBSD developer seeks to duplicate Nix features, Canonical offers commercial support for Blender
Reproducible builds are an important part of confirming the integrity of a binary package, whether it is a program, a distribution, or a supporting library dependency. Reproducible builds allow a person to confirm the binary code they have came from a given collection of source code and has not been altered or otherwise corrupted. The NixOS project has made progress with regards to reproducible builds, getting the project's Minimal ISO to build in this verifiable way. "We've been hovering close to 100% for a while now but, with the staging-next merge a few days ago, it's finally happened. If I've done everything correctly, the 21.05 ISO also passes the check on my machine, hooray!"
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In recent years many people have come to appreciate the Nix package manager and how it can be used to manage and configure many parts of an operating system. One enterprising developer would like to experience this same deterministic approach to system configuration on OpenBSD and is working on a configuration tool called GearBSD. "I love NixOS and Guix for their easy system configuration and easy jumping from one machine to another by using your configuration file. To some extent, I want to make it possible to do so on OpenBSD with a collection of parametrized Rex modules, allowing to configure your system piece by piece from templates that you feed with variables. Let me introduce you to GearBSD, my project to do so." While still in its early stages, GearBSD can already help configure the PF firewall.
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Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu distribution has decided to offer commercial support for Blender, a popular open source application. Canonical has decided to offer support for Blender on multiple operating systems, not just Ubuntu. Beta News reports: "Blender is one of the most important open source projects, as the 3D graphics application suite is used by countless people at home, for business, and in education. The software can be used on many platforms, such as Windows, Mac, and of course, Linux. Today, Ubuntu-maker Canonical announces it will offer paid enterprise support for Blender LTS. How cool is that? Surprisingly, this support will not only be for Ubuntu users. Heck, it isn't even limited to Linux installations. Actually, Canonical will offer this support to Blender LTS users on Windows, Mac, and Linux." Professionals interested in Blender support can visit Canonical's support page for Blender.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Why there are so many Linux shells
Selling sea shells by the sea shore asks: Why are there so many shells? What are their pros and cons? Why do most Linux users use bash?
DistroWatch answers: When it comes to shells, specifically command line shells, there are many from which to choose. Shells - such as bash, dash, tcsh, ksh, zsh, and so on - interpret the commands we type and perform actions or run programs based on our input. Most shells provide the ability to script commands to assist in automation.
As with Linux distributions, there is a lot of diversity when it comes to command line shells. Some shells focus on minimalism, some focus on performance. There are some modern shells which specifically strive to be better at performing interactive tasks as the user is typing while other shells are geared towards programmable scripts to improve automation. Each shell has its own philosophy and approach.
At times it may seem as though there are a lot of shells essentially performing the same tasks, filling the same roles, however there are some key differences in most of the major shells. For instance, dash is designed to be lightweight and is mostly used to run start-up scripts quickly while fish strives to be interactive and even predictive when the user is typing. Some shells, such as tcsh, can use a syntax that should feel familiar to C programmers and this can be helpful when writing scripts while bash is a feature-rich shell that strives to provide a balance between interacting with the user while also offering powerful scripting tools.
There are a lot of shells and each has its strengths and weaknesses. Reading the links to the shells listed above will outline each shell's focus and some of their main features. Generally speaking, each shell tries to fit into one of four roles. These four roles are: user friendliness and conveniences when interacting with the user on the command line; powerful scripting tools and programmable functions; backward compatibility; and speed, usually achieved through a minimal set of features.
As to why most Linux distributions default to using bash as the shell for users, there is some history behind that. The Bourne shell, developed by Stephen Bourne, was the default command line shell for UNIX back in the 1970s. This shell, which had the executable name sh, was quite useful at the time due to its many features.
The Free Software Foundation set out in the 1980s to make a UNIX-like operating system comprised entirely of free software. Some of the key components developed by the Foundation (and its GNU counterpart) included a compiler and a shell. Since the Bourne shell (sh) was the standard for UNIX systems, the Foundation created their own, freely licensed version. They called it the Bourne Again shell, which got shortened to bash.
Since most Linux distributions run FSF/GNU utilities and since bash was the Foundation's shell, bash soon became the default for most GNU/Linux systems. Other UNIX-based and UNIX-like operating systems use alternative defaults. The default shell for regular users on FreeBSD is tcsh, for instance. For OpenBSD the default shell is ksh. Often which shell is the default comes down to a matter of preference from the developers of the operating system.
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Answers to other questions can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
IPFire 2.25 Core 157
IPFire is an independent Linux distribution designed for use on firewalls and routers. The project has published a new update which strips away most of Python 2, replacing the code with Python 3. Python 2 reached the end of its supported life on January 1, 2020. "We have made huge efforts to migrate away from Python 2 which has reached its end of life on January 1st of this year. That includes repackaging third-party modules for Python 3 and migrating our own software to Python 3. The work will continue over the next couple of weeks and we are hopeful to remove all Python 2 code with the next release. We will keep Python 2 around for a little bit longer to give everyone with custom scripts a little bit of time to migrate them away, too. The IPFire kernel has been rebased on Linux 4.14.232 which brings various security and stability fixes." Further details may be found in the project's release announcement.
Rocky Linux 8.4
Rocky Linux is a community enterprise operating system designed to be 100% compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The project has announced its first stable release which is Rocky Linux 8.4. "We are pleased to announce the General Availability of Rocky Linux 8.4 (Green Obsidian). Rocky Linux is a community enterprise operating system designed to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4. Since this is the first Release of Rocky Linux, the release notes below reflect only changes in upstream functionality between point releases." The distribution's release notes offer details along with tips for converting from other members of the Enterprise Linux family: "The community has created the migrate2rocky tool to aid in the conversion to Rocky Linux 8.4 from other Enterprise Linux systems. This tool has been tested and is generally known to work, however use of it is at your own risk. Community members have successfully migrated test systems to Rocky Linux from: Alma Linux (8.4), CentOS Linux (8.4), Red Hat Enterprise Linux (8.4), Oracle Linux (8.4)."
Rocky Linux 8.4 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 1.8MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Android-x86 8.1-r6
Android-x86 is an unofficial initiative to port Google's Android mobile operating system to run on devices powered by Intel and AMD x86 processors, rather than RISC-based ARM chips. he project began as a series of patches to the Android source code to enable Android to run on various netbooks and ultra-mobile PCs, particularly the ASUS Eee PC. The project's latest update is to its 8.1 branch. It includes graphics, sound, and kernel updates. "The 8.1-r6 is mainly a security updates of 8.1-r5 with some bugfixes. We encourage users of 8.1-r5 or older releases upgrade to this one. Update to latest Android 8.1.0 Oreo MR1 release (8.1.0_r81). Update to LTS kernel 4.19.195. Update Mesa to 19.3.5. Update alsa-lib and alsa-utils to 1.2.5, add alsa_alsamixer tool and ucm files. Fix unable to download native bridge libraries issue. Add more devices specific quirks. This release contains these files. You can choose one of them depends on your devices. Most modern devices should be able to run the 64-bit ISO. For older devices with legacy BIOS, you may try the 32-bit ISO." Further information is provided in the project's release notes.
SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP3
SUSE has announced the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) 15 SP3, the third service pack of the company's enterprise-class Linux distribution designed mainly for developers and administrators to deploy business-critical workloads. This is the first release that provides binary compatibility with the latest openSUSE Leap release: "With the release of SLES 15 SP3 we now have 100% binary compatibility with openSUSE Leap 15.3 (our developer platform). That means that you can smoothly move workloads from development to production environments that run SLE 15 SP3 - and back again - with assured application compatibility. This is an important milestone for openSUSE and SUSE, our users and our customers: Leap 15.3 is the first release where openSUSE Leap and SUSE Linux Enterprise share the same source code and use the exact same binary packages. The bottom line is that we are providing a seamless developer experience that drives faster digital transformation." See the release announcement and the comprehensive release notes for further information.
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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: 2,498
- Total data uploaded: 38.5TB
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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) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- rlxos. rlxos is an independent, general-purpose distribution with a primary focus on "single file per application" (even for system image, rlxos boot directly from system image and save cache on hard disk) so users can have multiple version/variant of same applications (and even operating system) installed side by side.
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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, 5 July 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 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Issue 1032 (2023-08-14): MX Linux 23, positioning new windows on the desktop, Linux Containers adopts LXD fork, Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ form OpenELA |
| • Issue 1031 (2023-08-07): Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, preventing a file from being changed, Asahi Linux partners with Fedora, Linux Mint plans new releases |
| • Issue 1030 (2023-07-31): Solus 4.4, Linux Mint 21.2, Debian introduces RISC-V support, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 |
| • Issue 1029 (2023-07-24): Running Murena on the Fairphone 4, Flatpak vs Snap sandboxing technologies, Redox OS plans to borrow Linux drivers to expand hardware support, Debian updates Bookworm media |
| • Issue 1028 (2023-07-17): KDE Connect; Oracle, SUSE, and AlmaLinux repsond to Red Hat's source code policy change, KaOS issues media fix, Slackware turns 30; security and immutable distributions |
| • Issue 1027 (2023-07-10): Crystal Linux 2023-03-16, StartOS (embassyOS 0.3.4.2), changing options on a mounted filesystem, Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Fedora debates telemetry for desktop team |
| • Issue 1026 (2023-07-03): Kumander Linux 1.0, Red Hat changing its approach to sharing source code, TrueNAS offers SMB Multichannel, Zorin OS introduces upgrade utility |
| • Issue 1025 (2023-06-26): KaOS with Plasma 6, information which can leak from desktop environments, Red Hat closes door on sharing RHEL source code, SUSE introduces new security features |
| • Issue 1024 (2023-06-19): Debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Debian releases GNU/Hurd 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 nears its end of life, FreeBSD turns 30 |
| • Issue 1023 (2023-06-12): openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the differences between independent distributions, openSUSE lengthens Leap life, Murena offers new phone for North America |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Issue 993 (2022-11-07): Static Linux, working with just a kernel, Mint streamlines Flatpak management, updates coming to elementary OS |
| • Issue 992 (2022-10-31): Lubuntu 22.10, setting permissions on home directories, Linux may drop i486, Fedora delays next version for OpenSSL bug |
| • Issue 991 (2022-10-24): XeroLinux 2022.09, learning who ran sudo, exploring firewall tools, Rolling Rhino Remix gets a fresh start, Fedora plans to revamp live media |
| • Issue 990 (2022-10-17): ravynOS 0.4.0, Lion Linux 3.0, accessing low numbered network ports, Pop!_OS makes progress on COSMIC, Murena launches new phone |
| • Issue 989 (2022-10-10): Ubuntu Unity, kernel bug causes issues with Intel cards, Canonical offers free Ubuntu Pro subscriptions, customizing the command line prompt |
| • Issue 988 (2022-10-03): SpiralLinux 11.220628, finding distros for older equipment and other purposes, SUSE begins releasing ALP prototypes, Debian votes on non-free firmware in installer |
| • Issue 987 (2022-09-26): openSUSE's MicroOS, converting people to using Linux, pfSense updates base system and PHP, Python 2 dropped from Arch |
| • Issue 986 (2022-09-19): Porteus 5.0, remotely wiping a hard drive, a new software centre for Ubuntu, Proxmox offers offline updates |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
White Box Enterprise Linux
What was the goal for White Box Linux? To provide an unencumbered RPM-based Linux distribution that retains enough compatibility with Red Hat Linux to allow easy upgrades and to retain compatibility with their errata SRPMs. Being based off of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 3.0 means that a machine should be able to avoid the upgrade treadmill until October 2008 since RHEL promises errata availability for 5 years from date of initial release. Or more briefly, to fill the gap between Fedora and RHEL. Why was White Box Linux created? Its initial creation was sponsored by the Beauregard Parish Public Library in DeRidder, USA out of self interest. We have several servers and over 50 workstations running Red Hat Linux and were left high and dry by Red Hat's recent shift in business plan. Our choices were a difficult migration to another distribution or paying Red Hat an annual fee greater than the amortized value of our hardware. So we chose a third path, made possible by the power of open source.... White Box Linux.
Status: Discontinued
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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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