 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 938, 11 October 2021 |
Welcome to this year's 40th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Sometimes people come along and share ideas which seem completely strange. Maybe they want to decorate their home with pennies or construct a boat entirely from toothpicks. This week we begin with a look at the unusual Pyabr project. Pyabr seeks to build an operating system, including a desktop environment, almost entirely from Python code. Read on to learn how this curious experiment is progressing. In our News section we share efforts to make an alternative to the Snap portable package client which can pull in packages from third-party repositories. What do you think of a version of Snap that is not tied to Canonical? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. We also share a workaround from Redcore for a recent issue that corrupts the Portage software manager while Debian publishes updated install media. Plus we share new improvements coming to the elementary OS distribution, particularly the project's software centre. In our Questions and Answers column we explore whether compiling your own kernel from source carries any benefit or performance improvements. Do you compile your own kernel builds in order to gain improved performance or hardware support? Let us know about your customizations in the comments section. Plus we are pleased to share this week's releases and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Pyabr OS
- News: Alternative Snap implementation, Redcore provides a solution for Portage issue, elementary OS outlines software centre improvements, Debian publishes install media updates
- Questions and answers: Benefits to building your own kernel
- Released last week: IPFire 2.27 Core 160, Feren OS 2021.10
- Torrent corner: EasyOS, ExTiX, Feren OS, IPFire, KDE neon, Manjaro, PureOS, Snal, Tails
- Upcoming releases: Ubuntu 21.10
- Opinion poll: Would you use Snap if it connected to a community repository?
- Site news: Refreshing package download links
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (18MB) and MP3 (14MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Pyabr OS
Pyabr OS was one of the latest distributions to be added to the DistroWatch waiting list. The project refers to itself as a "Python Cloud Operating System", a Linux distribution mostly written in Python. The project, which declares it is developed in Iran with multilingual support, runs on x86_64 computers and 64-bit Raspberry Pi machines.
The project's website mentions that Pyabr is a platform written in Python which offers a desktop and applications which can be run on any Linux distribution while Pyabr OS is a Debian-based operating system that runs the Pyabr software. The operating system can reportedly be installed locally or run from live media like a thumb drive. The desktop environment resembles KDE Plasma but is a custom environment called Baran which the project says is written in Python using the Qt framework.
I was unsure going into this trial how all of this related to cloud computing or services. The term "cloud" gets thrown around on the project's website, but without a clear indication of how this affects the end user. I decided to give the project a test drive and see if I could find out.
The Pyabr OS ISO file is a small download of just 447MB. The live system always stalled early in the boot process for 90 seconds while waiting for systemd to sort out its infamous "A start job is running..." warning. After that, the distribution booted quickly and displayed the Baran desktop which does look a lot like KDE Plasma at first glance due to its shared Qt framework and theme.
Early impressions
The desktop environment uses a two-panel layout. A thin panel is placed at the top of the screen. It contains an application menu and a system menu to the left and a system tray to the right. The bottom panel is thicker and also includes an application menu to the left. Icons for launching applications are arrayed along the bottom panel.
One of the first things I noticed about Pyabr is that it consumes all available CPU, even when sitting idle at the desktop. I intended to find out why and so opened a terminal and tried to run commands like top, ps, and free which I hoped would shine light on what was running in the background. None of these commands exist on Pyabr OS. The man command and many other common command line programs are also missing. The ls command works, but does not recognize any command line flags ("ls" works, but "ls -l" does not). In other words there are virtually no useful Unix-like command line programs available to help do work or troubleshoot issues.
Pyabr OS -- Trying to run common command line programs
(full image size: 109kB, resolution: 1320x691 pixels)
Next I opened the distribution's process monitor. This tool lists desktop applications which are currently open and which have been opened in the past. I'm not sure if this indicates process information is not cleared periodically or if closed application windows are not truly terminated when they disappear. No CPU or memory usage is displayed in the process monitor, making it difficult to determine what was consuming all available CPU resources.
Installing
When the live desktop session first loads, a welcome window appears. This window offers to start the install process. The installer is graphical and started off well enough with clear invitations to make up a username and password. We are asked to pick our preferred language with options being English or (I believe) Farsi. We are given the chance to toggle a guest account on/off. The installer asked if we'd like to provide a name, e-mail address, and phone number. This last step is unusual and the reason for asking for this information is not given.
Pyabr OS -- Being greeted by the system installer
(full image size: 172kB, resolution: 1320x691 pixels)
The installer has a few inconvenient quirks. For example, pressing the Tab key usually moves focus back to the previous field on a screen rather than the next. Other times it seems to select a random location. This makes navigating the interface more awkward. A bigger issue is that when the installer closes, it immediately shuts down the operating system. This means if we close the window or click the Cancel button at any point, the system powers off. To make matters worse, completing all the install steps causes the installer to immediately terminate which, in turn, shuts off the computer. I ran through the installer's steps four times and, each time, upon reaching the final screen the installer shut down and took the rest of the system down with it.
In short, I was only able to use Pyabr OS when it was running from live media and the system installer window always had to be open in the background or the system would immediately power off.
Included applications
Pyabr OS ships with a small collection of applications, though most of them appear to be custom, trimmed down versions of popular programs. We are given tools like a calculator, calendar, and file browser, but the tools are quite simple. The file browser just lists present folders and files and seems to be view-only in its capabilities. The calendar likewise shows dates, but doesn't seem to be able to set appointments or sync with on-line services. There is a custom web browser that does a few things differently. The main buttons and address bar are placed at the bottom of the browser window. Entering an address in the bar, such as linux.com or distrowatch.com, triggers a search and shows us web search results rather than the site we asked for. This makes it impossible to directly visit a specific URL by typing or pasting an address into the browser.
Pyabr OS -- The settings panel
(full image size: 111kB, resolution: 1320x691 pixels)
The distribution has a settings panel which presents us with a handful of custom configuration modules. There tools to help us manage user accounts, connect to local wireless networks, change the system's screen resolution, and adjust the theme of the desktop. Adjusting either the desktop resolution or theme requires restarting the system for the changes to take effect.
Software management
There is a package manager included with Pyabr. This program shows all installed desktop applications in one tab and a list of available programs in a second tab. There are just two applications in the list of available applications: Bale and Shad. Both of these programs are described simply as being messaging applications. There doesn't appear to be any way to get software updates for the base system or desktop applications.
Pyabr OS -- The software manager
(full image size: 122kB, resolution: 1320x691 pixels)
Hardware
When I started my trial I was running Pyabr OS in a VirtualBox machine. The system, despite consuming all available CPU resources, was snappy and pleasantly quick to respond. New programs opened quickly enough I suspect the entire Pyabr software suite runs from RAM. The desktop was able to automatically resize to match the VirtualBox window, which was appreciated.
I was unable to check how much memory the distribution was using or what its underlying core software was, given the limited tools provided. However, having seen the systemd warning message at each boot and knowing the distribution is based on Debian 10, I think it's a fair guess to say systemd init and Linux 4.19 are probably being used.
Later in the week I tried to run Pyabr OS on my laptop, but was unable to get the operating system to boot in either Legacy BIOS or UEFI modes. This limited my trial to running Pyabr OS in a virtual machine.
Conclusions
When I first began exploring Pyabr OS the project made me think of snakeware, but with a stronger focus on desktop and web applications. Both projects rely heavily on Python to replace the userland programs and seem to seek to remake existing popular programs with Python code.
Replacing popular programs and desktop environments with Python is certainly an interesting concept and one which I'm sure presents some interesting challenges. It may even offer us some interesting solutions too, in the long run.
The trouble though with crafting an operating system where all the popular applications, command line programs, and desktop elements are replaced by new, experimental ones is that almost all the expected functionality is missing. Most modern Linux distributions have solved (or mostly solved) many of the complex problems of computing - booting on a range of hardware, installing the operating system, packaging a web browser, providing useful command line tools, shipping full featured desktop environments, office suites, and web browsers. Projects like Pyabr OS are throwing away all of those working tools, familiarity, and a supported ecosystem of software for alternatives that often don't work, or don't work well.
They have an installer that not only doesn't work, but cannot be closed, most command line tools are missing, hardware support is lacking, the system crashed about 10% of the time while I was exploring settings or the package manager. Many of the included tools certainly worked (and my hat is off to the people who built them), but the tools usually didn't offer the same functionality as corresponding utilities included with other desktop environments.
In short, Pyabr OS is an interesting concept - a desktop operating system running almost exclusively Python code, but I'm not sure it has any useful purpose. It doesn't do anything out of the grasp of other Linux distributions and frequently lacks functionality and stability offered by other Debian-based projects.
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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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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Alternative Snap implementation, Redcore provides a solution for Portage issue, elementary OS outlines software centre improvements, Debian publishes install media updates
Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu distribution, is also the developer of the Snap package format, along with the Snap command line client and official Snap repository. To date, Canonical has insisted on hard-coding the Snap client software to work only with Canonical's own, curated repository of Snap packages. This has put Snap in contrast with the portable Flatpak framework, which works with a variety of third-party repositories. A new project called lol has been created which provides an alternative client for Snap which can work with specified repositories. This could provide people who like using the portable Snap packages with the opportunity to acquire software from Snap repositories other than Canonical's.
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The Redcore Linux project has shined a spotlight on a serious package management issue that has surfaced in Gentoo. The issue stems from corruption in the Portage software manager's database which can, in some cases, cause an upgrade to break the operating system. "We have observed in some cases corruption of Portage's internal database (VDB), where the libraries provided by a package are not recorded. This can break the "preserve-libs" functionality, and thus in rare cases break your system during much later updates (even if you do not use 'preserved-libs' now, but decide to switch it on later). The underlying problem occurs usually when glibc has been upgraded to a new major version, but pax-utils has not yet been upgraded to a version compatible with it (but at that moment stays undetected). The full technical details and investigation can be found on a wiki page and on Bugzilla." The Redcore blog post goes on to explain how to address the Portage bug.
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The elementary OS team have published a project update which outlines the work they are doing to improve the software centre and desktop experience. Some of the changes to elementary's software centre include improved performance and presenting security and privacy information on an application's summary page. "For example, we've largely reworked the home page with banners featuring the most recently released and updated curated apps in a multi-touch swipable carousel. We've also added up to twelve more of the most recently-updated apps directly below. Rather than just showing the app's icon and name, we now also show each app's summary and an install button - including the developer's recommended price if it's a monetized app. Since we enforce accurate update information for curated apps, this data is populated locally from the apps' AppStream data rather than from a remote API as before. The result of this work is a faster home page with over three times the apps displayed, as well as the ability to purchase or install several apps with far fewer clicks. The categories remain below if you prefer that route for browsing. We've also spent significant time improving individual apps' info pages. Rather than displaying a generic 'explicit' warning dialog when installing an app with certain content warnings, we show this information ahead of time at the top of the page. We differentiate between and inform about several content warnings including things like violence, language, and nudity as well as privacy-related topics like online interactions and data collection."
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The Debian project has published updated media for its Stable and Old Stable branches. Versions 10 and 11 of Debian now have refreshed media which includes security updates published since those respective versions were originally launched. "The Debian project is pleased to announce the first update of its stable distribution Debian 11 (codename Bullseye). This point release mainly adds corrections for security issues, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories have already been published separately and are referenced where available. Please note that the point release does not constitute a new version of Debian 11 but only updates some of the packages included."
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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) |
Benefits to building your own kernel
Tweaking-performance asks: When you install a distro it comes with its own kernel that supports lots of hardware. Would you gain any benefit to building your own kernel with just the drivers you need? Will compiling the kernel give you any performance advantage?
DistroWatch answers: You are correct that Linux distributions ship kernels that support a wide range of hardware. Usually the kernel shipped with a distribution will include as much common hardware support as possible and will be built for the lowest-end processors supported by a given architecture. For instance, an x86_64 build of the kernel will typically run on i3, i5, i7, etc CPUs rather than being optimized for one specific CPU.
Will building your own kernel with support for just your hardware offer a performance boost? It can, in some ways. Compiling a kernel for your specific CPU will allow the kernel to make use of instructions or features of the CPU to run a little more efficiently. The benefits of this will be small, but may be noticeable under heavy workloads. Day to day you probably won't notice a difference because most desktop and server computers spend a lot of their time idle anyway, so you're only likely to see the benefits of a performance boost when doing large batch jobs or gaming. The kernel may also end up being a little smaller in memory, though probably not enough for you to notice a difference.
The biggest change will probably be the amount of disk space consumed by the kernel modules. Most driver support built into Linux is stored in modules which are only loaded into memory when needed. This means your distribution's generic kernel ships with a big group of modules that usually just sit on the disk and never get used. How much space do these modules take up? It will vary from one system to another, but on one distribution I checked this week the modules took up about 250MB of disk space. Most of these will never be loaded into memory and so won't affect performance or memory consumption, but they do consume a bit of disk which could be avoided if I'd compiled my own kernel.
In short, you can get small improvements in kernel performance by building your own. You probably won't see a big difference, maybe just a few percentage points in gain, in most situations, but you can squeeze a little more performance from a custom kernel.
Most people don't compile their own kernels because it's a relatively long process that involves some technical knowledge and offers minor benefits. Usually you'll gain more of a boost by disabling unneeded background services, running a lighter desktop environment, or preloading applications you use regularly into RAM. These will be easier tasks which should offer larger performance gains. However, if you've done those already and still want to explore building your own kernel (for fun and performance perks) you can follow this tutorial on Linux.com which explains the steps.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
IPFire 2.27 Core 160
IPFire is a Linux distribution that focuses on easy setup, good handling and high level of security, intended for use in firewalls and routers. The project has published a new update which focuses on improving network throughput. "In recent days and months, the development team has spent a lot of time on finding bottlenecks and removing those. Our goal is to increase throughput on hardware and bringing latency down, for a faster network. This update brings a first change which will enable network interfaces that support it, to send packets that belong to the same stream to the same processor core. This allows taking advantage of better cache locality and the firewall engine as well as the Intrusion Prevention System benefit from this, especially with a large number of connections and especially on hardware with smaller CPU caches." The IPFire team is also continuing their work to remove Python 2 from their distribution. Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement.
Feren OS 2021.10
Feren OS is a desktop Linux distribution based on Ubuntu and featuring the KDE Plasma desktop. The project's latest snapshot is Feren OS 2021.10 which includes a new lock screen, new splash screen, and a customized Firefox experience. "The once scrapped configuration for Firefox has now made its way, now repurposed and improved for normal browser usage, into Firefox in Feren OS, both via a new package called firefox-config-feren, and an update to Web Browser Manager that now pre-installs this configuration of Firefox alongside the browser itself, effective starting Feren OS 2021.10. Enjoy Mozilla Firefox, now with: Compact Mode and no titlebar by default. None of that Stories stuff in New Tab (and other New Tab distractions). No Pocket by default. Library being in the toolbar (as was intended by Mozilla themselves during early Proton design ideas) instead of Pocket's button. Most, if not all, the Telemetry values being off, including the ones you can't change via Settings. Home button in the toolbar by default. Skipped Welcome Screens to allow you to get right into the action.... Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement.
Feren OS 2021.10 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 2.1MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Redo Rescue 4.0.0
Zebradots Software has announced the release of Redo Rescue 4.0.0, a major update of the project's specialist distribution for bare metal backups and system restoration tasks. Although the version number does not indicate it, the release is considered beta quality software, the first build based on Debian 11 "Bullseye": "This is a beta release based on Debian 11. For this major upgrade, the only change applied is the base operating system and any package requirements required to complete the migration to Debian 'Bullseye'. The underlying application and all functionality remains identical to the last release (3.0.2). Please note that newer packages, particularly Partclone or sfdisk, may contain breaking changes we are not aware of. Many (if not most) of the issues reported with the 3.0 releases were focused on the Debian 10's lack of support in the kernel for more recent hardware, which shows a login prompt instead of the GUI. We are hoping this release based on Debian 11 will fix these issues for the majority of users. Here is the brief release announcement as published on the project's GitHub page.
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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: 2,621
- Total data uploaded: 40.4TB
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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) |
Would you use Snap if it connected to a community repository?
In our News section this week we shared a report that an alternative version of the Snap software is being developed which allows users to pull from Snap package repositories other than the one controlled by Canonical. To date, Canonical has set up the Snap client to pull packages from only their own, proprietary Snap server with its curated repository. For years the Linux community has been lobbying for the ability to set up third-party repositories of Snap packages and it looks like the lol software will finally allow this to happen.
Now that it should be possible to set up community repositories for Snap packages, does this change your view of Snap? Are you more likely to adopt Snap packages if multiple repositories become available?
You can see the results of our previous poll on using multi-machine management tools such as Ansible in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Are you more likely to use Snap now that third-party repositories are possible?
| Are you more likely to use Snap now that third-party repositories are possible?|I already use Snap: | 227 (12%) |
| I did not use Snap but will now: | 67 (3%) |
| I will continue to avoid Snap: | 1341 (69%) |
| Undecided: | 322 (16%) |
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| Website News |
Refreshing package download links
One of our long-running features is the DistroWatch Tracked Packages Collection. We maintain a list of 226 popular utilities, desktop environments, compilers, and desktop applications. These 226 packages are tracked across each Linux distribution and we publish links to the latest stable versions of these packages on our front page when new releases become available.
We believe this list of software is helpful, not only to people looking to discover some of the more powerful programs Linux has to offer, but also to help people keep abreast of changes to their favourite applications.
Twenty years ago, back when we first started tracking these packages and publishing links to the latest source code on our front page, the FTP protocol was still one of the more popular (and reliable) ways to transfer files across the Internet. Over the years FTP has gradually fallen out of favour and most projects these days publish web links using the HTTP protocol. Still, the old FTP links continued to work and so they were left in place.
This past year some of the larger browsers - such as Firefox, Chrome, and Brave - have announced plans to remove support for the FTP protocol. In short, this meant that the FTP links on our Packages page would no longer work in those browsers. In order to change with the times, we have gone through our Packages database and upgraded the lingering FTP links to use the newer HTTP (or HTTPS where available) protocols.
There are still five projects which insist on using FTP exclusively and/or do not provide direct links to source packages over the newer protocols. In these cases we have had to keep the old FTP links which should still work with file transfer clients such as FileZilla. In a few instances projects do provide HTTP download options, just not direct URLs. Visiting main website of a project which still uses FTP will sometimes provide alternative HTTP downloads through redirects which will work in the modern versions of mainstream web browsers.
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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, 18 October 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 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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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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