 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 947, 13 December 2021 |
Welcome to this year's 49th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The Linux ecosystem is a diverse place with lots of competing designs and approaches. Sometimes we want to be able to run one distribution while also wishing we could borrow elements from another. There are a number of solutions geared toward solving this problem, including virtual machines and meta-distributions like Bedrock Linux. This week we take a look at a different approach, called JuNest, which allows the user to run a private copy of Arch Linux on another distribution. This allows the user to effectively run Arch and be the root user of the Arch system while being a regular user on the host distribution. Our Feature Story offers details on setting up and running JuNest. In our News section we talk about Wayland being adopted as the default display server for Fedora, even when the system is using NVIDIA video cards. We also talk about Zorin OS launching an updated Lite edition for older computers and Haiku updating filesystem drivers and remote access tools. As Linux continues to advance and take on new capabilities it expands its audience and market share. In this week's Questions and Answers column we address the question of whether we've reached the fabled "year of the Linux desktop". Do you think we've reached this milestone? Let us know what you believe in our Opinion Poll. Finally, 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:
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) |
JuNest
One interesting project that has been sitting on the DistroWatch waiting list for a few years is Jailed User NEST (JuNest). The project's documentation describes itself as follows:
JuNest (Jailed User NEST) is a lightweight Arch Linux based distribution that allows [users] to have disposable and partial isolated GNU/Linux environments within any generic GNU/Linux host OS and without the need to have root privileges for installing packages.
JuNest contains mainly the package manager (called pacman) that allows access to a wide range of packages from the Arch Linux repositories.
The main advantages of using JuNest are:
- Install packages without root privileges.
- Partial isolated environment in which you can install packages without affecting a production system.
- Access to a wide range of packages, in particular on GNU/Linux distros that may contain limited repositories (such as CentOS and Red Hat).
- Available for x86_64 and ARM architectures, but you can build your own image from scratch too!
- Run on a different architecture from the host OS via QEMU.
- All Arch Linux lovers can have their favourite distro everywhere!
The purpose of JuNest is not to build a complete isolated environment but, conversely, is the ability to run programs as [if] they were running natively from the host OS. Almost everything is shared between host OS and the JuNest sandbox (kernel, process subtree, network, mounting, etc) and only the root filesystem gets isolated (since the programs installed in JuNest need to reside elsewhere).
While JuNest refers to itself as a distribution, it's not a Linux distribution in the usual sense. In fact, I'd hesitate to refer to it as a distribution at all. The project does not provide a stand-alone operating system you can install from scratch the way you could Debian, Fedora, or Ubuntu. To run JuNest we first need to have a host Linux distribution installed and running. JuNest also doesn't provide its own kernel (ie. it does not distribute Linux), JuNest relies on the host operating system's kernel. In this way, JuNest is more akin to a type of container or virtual environment which is added onto an existing distribution rather than its own Linux-based distribution. It might be better considered a meta-distribution in a similar vein to Bedrock Linux.
I decided to try installing JuNest on a copy of openSUSE Leap. This, I figured, would provide me with a stable, openSUSE base while testing JuNest's ability to run cutting-edge software from Arch Linux. Setting up JuNest requires the host system to have bash, GNU Coreutils, and git installed. The first two are usually pre-installed on almost every Linux distribution while git is present in most distributions' repositories.
Installing
Installing JuNest is fairly straight forward. We can accomplish the set up with four commands. First, we grab a copy of the JuNest GitHub repository:
git clone git://github.com/fsquillace/junest
Then we set up local path information. This allows JuNest to find its tools (from the GitHub repository) and its isolated environment which is, by default, stored under ~/.junest.
export PATH=~/junest/bin:$PATH
export PATH="$PATH:~/.junest/usr/bin_wrappers"
The two above lines should be added to your shell's start-up configuration in order to make sure we can use JuNest the next time we sign into our account. Finally, we run a command to pull in some Arch Linux files and set up the environment:
junest setup
At this point we have a minimal Arch Linux environment installed on our system under our home directory. We can use this core collection of Arch tools in a few different ways.
First impressions of JuNest
The first thing I noticed about running JuNest was that I could access the Arch-based environment by simply running "junest". This would give me an Arch bash prompt and seemed to effectively log me in as a regular user to the JuNest/Arch environment. I could run commands that were installed in the JuNest directory. I still had access to the files on my openSUSE host system, but could also run commands as though I were running a minimal Arch system.
In a small variation of this experience, if I had run "junest -f" I would be logged into the JuNest/Arch environment, but with a fakeroot account. This basically meant that, as far as the Arch environment was concerned, I was the root user and could perform administrative tasks, such as installing new software. Usually this does not seem to be necessary as I'll talk about later, but it's nice to know the "fake root" experience is available.
At this point, from my virtual terminal on openSUSE, I could run commands from either environment. For instance, I could run "sudo zypper update" to bring my openSUSE host up to date with new software packages. I could also run "pacman -Syu" to update my JuNest environment. Both commands could be run from the comfort of the same terminal window. I could also install new packages in the JuNest environment from Arch's repositories.
As an example, my copy of openSUSE did not ship with the Nano text editor, nor did the JuNest minimal environment. I corrected this by running "pacman -S nano", which installed the Arch Nano package into JuNest. I could then run "nano text-file" to create a new text file in my home directory. I could access and edit this file using native openSUSE applications or tools in the JuNest jailed environment.
This approach to seamlessly running programs from two separate environments feels similar to running Bedrock Linux which I talked about in a previous article. The main difference is Bedrock works with multiple different distributions, not just Arch. Bedrock is more flexible, but also requires more effort to set up and maintain. JuNest is specific to Arch (at the moment) and requires minimal effort to set up and maintain.
What about GUI applications?
At this point you might be thinking that having a jailed, Arch-based environment for testing software might sound cool, but does it only work for command line programs? Usually, if we want to run cutting edge software, we're more interested in desktop applications than command line tools. At least this was my main focus.
Running KWrite from the JuNest environment
(full image size: 614kB, resolution: 1,125x863 pixels)
I installed a couple of desktop applications using the pacman package manager and tried out a few. For the most part, desktop applications installed inside JuNest ran seamlessly. Installing and running programs like KWrite or other simple graphical applications worked just as if they were running natively.
I did run into an issue when I tried a heavier application. Specifically, trying to run the Falkon web browser from the openSUSE command line did not work and reported an error saying the browser could not be run without the "--no-sandbox" flag set. This issue could be worked around by first running "junest" to launch the jailed environment and then launching Falkon from the JuNest shell. This is a minor workaround and functioned quite well, allowing Falkon to see and save files in my openSUSE user's home directory.
Running the Falkon browser from JuNest
(full image size: 525kB, resolution: 1,125x863 pixels)
Conclusions
I found the JuNest software to be one of those rare gems that does exactly what it sets out to do, no more or less. The JuNest project gives us the ability to set up a semi-isolated Arch Linux environment in a jail. The software allows us to install and run software from the Arch repositories without contaminating our host operating system. This essentially gives us access to an Arch Linux environment without the overhead of a virtual machine. It also means we can use Arch applications on our desktop and share files between our host system and the JuNest jail seamlessly.
I did run into some errors with more complex applications, but those were easy enough to work around by simply running the junest command to access the jail's namespace.
All in all, I like JuNest. It may not be a full Linux distribution, like those we usual cover here, but it does provide a helpful way to run cutting edge Arch software from within an existing Linux distribution with minimal overhead or maintenance. The fact we can manage the JuNest environment and install additional software from Arch's repositories without administrative access also makes this a very handy tool for situations where we are working in a restrictive environment.
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I'd like to thank Shells.com for donating the openSUSE test environment I was running this week. It allowed me to perform longer computing operations while travelling without interrupting what I was doing.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Fedora to adopt Wayland as default display server for NVIDIA cards, Zorin OS releases Lite edition, Haiku improves filesystem drivers
The Fedora project uses Wayland as its default display software for its Workstation edition, except when the operating system is running on an NVIDIA video card. There is a plan to adopt Wayland as the default display server for all situations, including when using NVIDIA drivers in Fedora 36. Ben Cotton offered a summary of the situation: "Recent updates in NVIDIA proprietary driver allow Xwayland to benefit from hardware acceleration and X11 applications can have their rendering hardware accelerated. That allowed to enable Wayland sessions even when the NVIDIA proprietary driver is used, but keeping Xorg the default in that case. This proposal is to make Wayland by default with newer versions of the NVIDIA proprietary driver to remain consistent with other drivers."
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The Zorin OS distribution is an Ubuntu-based project which provides a beginner-friendly desktop operating system. Zorin OS is intended to feel familiar to people coming from a Windows environment. The developers have released a new set of Lite editions for version 16 of the distribution. "Today, we're excited to announce the release of Zorin OS 16 Lite. It condenses the full Zorin OS 16 experience into a streamlined operating system, designed to run on low-spec computers as old as 15 years. We believe this is more important than ever, after the obsolescence of older PCs in Windows 11 during a global chip shortage. By pairing the most advanced and efficient software with a user-friendly experience, we've made it possible for anyone to extend the lifespan of their computers for years to come." Additional information can be found in the project's announcement and ISO files can be found on the project's download page.
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The Haiku team have been at work improving their operating system's tools. In particularly, Haiku is becoming more capable of interacting with Windows technology. Updated NTFS and FAT filesystem drivers have been merged into the Haiku code and a remote desktop client has been fixed to work with modern versions of Windows. "I saw a commenter on a forum lamenting that they could not connect to some Windows machines via RDP from Haiku; none of the tools they installed seemed to work. I remembered we had a FreeRDP port, but indeed it was a few years out of date, so I spent about half a day cleaning up the port and bringing it in line with the latest version. (The port is 'Haiku-native', and unfortunately not upstreamed, so things had diverged somewhat in the newer version.)" Additional information can be found in the project's blog post.
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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) |
When is the year of the Linux desktop?
Any-day-now asks: After 30 years, and millions of Linux deployments, do you think that 2021 is finally the year of the Linux desktop?
DistroWatch answers: I suppose whether we've reached the "year of the Linux desktop" depends on how you define the term. Perhaps even more importantly, it depends on who is answering the question.
If you define the "year of the Linux desktop" as the point where a Linux distribution can handle all of the tasks a person needs from their desktop or laptop machine, then the answer will depend on who you ask. Linux has handled all my computing needs (and done so better than the alternatives) since about 2003. Some of my more technologically minded friends transitioned around 2005. Several of my family and friends who are better described as "average computer users" were able to make the transition to Linux for their computing needs about a decade ago. For each of us the point when Linux became the best option for home computing happened at a different time, but it did happen for each of us.
However, if you asked someone who is heavily into modern gaming or who needs a specific, Windows-only application for office work, then the "year of the Linux desktop" hasn't happened yet.
Personally, I define the "year of the Linux desktop" differently. To me it means a point in time when it's possible to walk into any local personal computer retailer and see Linux offered pre-installed on computers alongside (or in place of) commercial operating systems like Windows. Where I live that day hasn't come yet. Every local retailer I checked with sells computers with Windows exclusively. Some shops I questioned said they would be willing to sell me a computer without an operating system pre-installed, but though they had heard of Linux, they didn't have any experience with installing it or fixing Linux-relating issues.
People who live in other parts of the world may have better retail access to computers running Linux or live in areas where Linux is supported by local tech shops. In which case the "year of the Linux desktop" has arrived for them, but sadly not for me.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Freespire 8.0
Roberto Dohnert has announced the release of Freespire 8.0, the latest update of the project's Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the Xfce desktop. The new version continues to be based on Ubuntu's latest long-term support release, version 20.04: "Today, the PC/OpenSystems LLC FOSS development team has released Freespire 8.0, an update which delivers much needed system enhancements and security fixes. Once again we have let users decide; they have spoken and we have included all the most-requested Google services - Calendar, Docs and Gmail. For more traditional use cases, Freespire core has not changed at all - it's still a full-featured desktop OS, with all of the applications and resources of the Ubuntu repositories available as always. Freespire does not incorporate any proprietary media codecs and aside from Google Chrome, there are no other vendor-specific software applications pre-installed at all. Freespire 8.0 features a new stable kernel which fixes bugs and broadens hardware support. Google Chrome 96 includes security patches and other general browser improvements. We have upgraded Xfce 4.16, X11, Samba and other system fundamentals, including non-UEFI and secure boot systems." Here is the full release announcement with screenshots.
Freespire 8.0 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 3.4MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Tails 4.25
The Amnesic Incognito Live System (Tails) is a Debian-based live DVD/USB with the goal of providing complete Internet anonymity for the user. The project's latest release is Tails 4.25 introduces a number of package updates for key components. It also features a backup utility to copy important files in persistent storage to a thumb drive. "We added a utility to make a backup of the Persistent Storage to another Tails USB stick. This utility automates the process described until now in our documentation on making a backup of your Persistent Storage, which used the command line. It's pretty basic and we still want to do something better in #7049, but we didn't want to wait more because we know that backups are a big issue for our users. External Hard Disk - we added a new entry called Tails (External Hard Disk) to the GRUB boot loader. Changes and updates: update Tor Browser to 11.0.2; update Tor to 0.4.6.8; add a shortcut to restart Tails when the Unsafe Browser was not enabled in the Welcome Screen; add a link from the error screen of the Tor Connection assistant to our documentation on troubleshooting connecting to Tor." Additional details can be found in the release announcement.
FreeBSD 12.3
The FreeBSD team has announced the availability of the third update to the operating system's 12.x branch. FreeBSD 12.3 includes several bug fixes to the kernel, userland updates, and improvements to network drivers. The project's release announcement reports: "The FreeBSD Release Engineering team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 12.3-RELEASE. This is the fourth release of the stable/12 branch. Some of the highlights: updates to various networking drivers; several updates to upstream contributed software; several userland application improvements and kernel bug fixes. For a complete list of new features and known problems, please see the online release notes and errata list. The FreeBSD Project dedicates the FreeBSD 12.3-RELEASE to the memory of Ian Lepore. FreeBSD 12.3-RELEASE is now available for the amd64, i386, powerpc, powerpc64, sparc64, armv6, armv7 and aarch64 architectures. FreeBSD 12.3-RELEASE can be installed from bootable ISO images or over the network. Some architectures also support installing from a USB memory stick." The release notes provide a list of fixes in this release along with their security advisories.
Calculate Linux 22
Calculate Linux is a Gentoo-based distribution with several desktop editions, a cloud edition, and server edition. The project has published a new version, Calculate 22: "We are pleased to announce the release of Calculate Linux 22. With this new version, you will be able to smoothly update your system after a long period of time. We also ported the Calculate Utilities to Python 3, and set PipeWire as the default sound server. Calculate Linux Desktop featuring the KDE (CLD), Cinnamon (CLDC), LXQt (CLDL), Mate (CLDM) or Xfce (CLDX and CLDXS) desktop, Calculate Directory Server (CDS), Calculate Linux Scratch (CLS) and Calculate Scratch Server (CSS) are now available for download. Changes: Added support for long intervals between systems updates. Now you can upgrade whenever you want, even if you have not updated your system for a long time. The latest Calculate Utils 3.7 were fully transitioned to Python 3, and Python 2.7 removed from the distribution image. PulseAudio audio was replaced by PipeWire. You can also still select ALSA if this is what you prefer. Added Bluetooth support for ALSA." Additional information and screenshots can be found in the project's release announcement.
Kali Linux 2021.4
Kali Linux is a Debian-based distribution with a collection of security and forensics tools. The project has published a new release, Kali Linux 2021.4, which improves support for ARM-powered devices, including Apple M1 machines and the Raspberry Pi Zero 2. "With the end of 2021 just around the corner, we are pushing out the last release of the year with Kali Linux 2021.4, which is ready for immediate download or updating. The summary of the changelog since the 2021.3 release from September 2021 is: Improved Apple M1 support. Wide compatibility for Samba. Switching package manager mirrors. Kaboxer theming. Updates to Xfce, GNOME and KDE. Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W + USBArmory MkII ARM images. More tools. Kali on the Apple M1: As we announced in Kali 2021.1 we supported installing Kali Linux on Parallels on Apple Silicon Macs, well with 2021.4, we now also support it on the VMware Fusion Public Tech Preview thanks to the 5.14 kernel having the modules needed for the virtual GPU used." Additional information is provided in the project's 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: 2,661
- Total data uploaded: 41.2TB
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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) |
Have we reached the year of the Linux desktop?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we explored the concept of "the year of the Linux desktop", a nebulous idea which means different things to different people. Do you feel Linux distribution have reached a level where they meet your criteria for "the year of the Linux desktop", or do you believe we're not there yet? Let us know what your criteria is for reaching this milestone in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running a local firewall in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Have we reached the year of the Linux desktop?
| Yes: | 565 (33%) |
| No: | 1148 (67%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- XeroLinux. XeroLinux is an Arch-based distribution featuring the KDE Plasma desktop.
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DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 20 December 2021. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • 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 |
| • 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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| Shells.com |
Your own personal Linux computer in the cloud, available on any device. Supported operating systems include Android, Debian, Fedora, KDE neon, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro and Ubuntu, ready in minutes.
Starting at US$4.95 per month, 7-day money-back guarantee
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| Random Distribution | 
Thisk Server
Thisk Server was a Debian-based Linux distribution designed for PBX (Private Branch Exchange) environments. It uses Asterisk - a free software implementation of PBX.
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.
|
| 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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