 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 984, 5 September 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 36th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
People who develop software tend to be creative and experimental. A lot of developers want to try new things or test new approaches in solving problems. This week we talk about a number of projects taking experimental paths. We begin with a look at deepin, a distribution which is always changing its base, desktop design, and package management. The deepin project is currently striving to create an independent base with custom package management and atomic updates. Jesse Smith takes a preview of the upcoming deepin 23 for a test drive and reports on his findings. One of the big features arriving in deepin 23 is the introduction of the Linglong portable package repository. Linglong works similarly to Flatpak and is reportedly able to work on other distributions. Are you interested in using the Linglong repository? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section, we talk about a small tweak to Debian's Chromium web browser package to improve user privacy and report on experimental changes in the HardenedBSD project. We also talk about Devuan's repository key issue along with the Linux Mint team trying out the Steam Deck and sharing their observations on the device. While developers are dealing with changes to software and hardware, users often deal with changes to their systems and files too. In this week's Questions and Answers column we share tips on monitoring files and directories for changes, letting us know when a file is being altered. 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:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
deepin 23 Preview
Hiweed GNU/Linux is an Ubuntu-based distribution developed in China. Actually, that description is a bit out of date, let me start over. Linux Deepin is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution featuring a custom desktop environment called Deepin Desktop Environment. Actually, that's no longer accurate. Deepin is a Debian-based distribution featuring the custom Deepin desktop and a number of desktop applications developed in-house. Wait, I'm almost up to date now. deepin is a Chinese distribution which claims to be independently developed. It features the Deepin desktop, a custom system installer, a custom application repository called Linglong, and the project offers atomic updates.
A preview of the latest version of deepin was published in mid-August and its release announcement featured a few key points. Specifically: the move away from Debian to be an independent distribution; the use of Linglong to offer a custom repository of portable applications that can be run across multiple distributions; and the use of atomic updates to make updates more reliable.
The new deepin release, version 23, is currently in the development phase at the time of writing and I wanted to see what this departure from the previous, Debian-based model would look like. I downloaded the deepin ISO which is a 3.4GB build for 64-bit (x86_64) computers. After confirming the media's checksum was good, I tried booting from it.
The live media brings up a boot menu asking if we'd like to install deepin with version 5.15 of the Linux kernel or 5.18. Both options also have failsafe driver options, resulting in four menu options. There's a fifth menu entry for running a self-check on the media. There are no options for running a live desktop in the menu. I decided to try the 5.18 kernel option first.
Installing
The deepin distribution uses a custom installer that asks us to select our preferred language from a list and then accept the project's license agreement. We're then given the choice of manual or automated disk partitioning. The automated screen warns us that deepin requires at least 64GB of free disk space and recommends 128GB. It will not proceed if less than 64GB of free disk space is available. This struck me as odd as most distributions will install and run with less than 10GB of space. The manual partitioning screen is pretty simple and streamlined. We can add new partitions, remove old ones, and assign both mount points and filesystem types with a few clicks. The manual partitioning approach has no strict space requirements and our root filesystem can be any size over the 8GB required to hold deepin's packages.
With these steps completed, the installer starts copying its files to the hard drive. Here I ran into an issue. The installer eventually failed, about halfway through, with a report it was unable to operate on a file called /target/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libspatialite.so.7.1.2.
I restarted the computer and, this time, took the boot menu for the older 5.15 kernel to be installed. Whether this fixed the problem or it was a coincidence, the installer walked me through the same steps and completed its work successfully with the 5.15 kernel.
The first time we boot deepin a graphical configuration wizard opens. We're once again asked to pick our language and accept the license agreement. We can then pick our keyboard layout and time zone. Our time zone can be picked from a map or a plain text list of locations. The wizard spends a few minutes "tuning system" and then presents us with a graphical login screen.
Early impressions
Signing into my account brought up the Deepin desktop with a welcome window. The first page of the welcome screen displays a video which is basically a slideshow of the desktop's components. The welcome window then walks us through a few choices: asking if we want a Fashion or Efficient desktop, whether we want Effects mode or Normal mode, and which icon theme we want. I'm not entirely sure what the differences between the various desktop modes are as they aren't explained, but I suspect the first choice deals with themes and the second enables or disables effects.
deepin 23 -- The Deepin desktop and application menu
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The Deepin desktop worked fairly well for me and used 500MB of RAM. It looks a lot like KDE Plasma, in my opinion, but the settings panel looks like it was imported (or copied) from GNOME. Anyway, the desktop is attractive to me and I found it easy to navigate. By default the application menu takes up the full screen in a grid/mobile style. There is a button we can click to switch to a more compact, classic menu layout. I like the latter option as it involves less mouse movement.
One day during my trial the desktop suddenly became sluggish. A little looking around revealed there was a process called deepin-anything running and consuming all available CPU resources. I could not find a manual page for this utility. The program's GitHub page unhelpfully says, "Something like everything, but nothing is really like anything..." An English translation of the Chinese documentation is more illuminating: "The development of anything is derived from everything under Windows, which is committed to providing a lightning-fast filename search function for Linux users, as well as an offline search function. It turns out that there is a similar rlocate program in Linux, but that program is a bit too old, and it is not difficult to rewrite a better one, so I rewrite one."
In short, it seems to be a file indexing and search tool which is not properly throttled and consumes all available resources when it runs. The service does not respond to regular terminate signals, even from the root user, and I had to use the "kill -9" command as root to stop the process.
Also on the subject of performance, once during the boot process deepin seemed to lock up. Looking at the boot messages (accessed by pressing the Esc key) revealed systemd had stalled while trying to launch the network time service. After about a minute the boot process resumed.
Independent base?
For the purposes of this trial, especially where I was running a preview of the final deepin 23 release, I was mostly interested in exploring the key points of the project's announcement. Specifically: what does deepin look like as an independent distribution now that the team says they are moving away from Debian? Also, what package management options are available? What do Linglong and their atomic update system look like?
Starting with the status of the base distribution, looking around the system it seems the deepin files and tools have embraced the independent label. The lsb_release utility and /etc/os-version file report the system is deepin 23. The APT package manager, which I'll talk about later, pulls software from deepin servers.
deepin 23 -- Debian's copyright notice
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Digging further though I soon discovered deepin is still using Debian packages (or packages forked from Debian). The system contains Debian patches. Copyright notices and documentation are imported from Debian. The add-on drivers and extra packages on the ISO all marked as being maintained by Debian developers. Basically, the system seems to be Debian at its core with a custom installer and the Deepin Desktop Environment as the default interface. This appears to contradict the project's statement: "Independent upstream: Relying on the core packages and some optional components, a brand-new v23 repository is built in the Preview stage. deepin will continue learning from upstream distributions such as Debian and Arch Linux." In this case it seems "learning from" means forking from Debian's repositories.
Software management
While the base system appears to still be mostly Debian, what about package management? The deepin system has the Debian dpkg and APT utilities installed and they pull in packages from deepin's custom repositories. Or they would, expect one of the repositories is broken - APT reports a Release file is missing, preventing the repository from being used. This may be a bug or it may be that deepin intends to use these Deb packages as a base, but not have the user interact with them directly.
There are no Flatpak or Snap frameworks installed, but the project's release announcement does talk about a new software management utility and repository. Both appear to be called Linglong. The deepin project describes Linglong as follows:
Linglong is a new package format developed by deepin, aiming at solving various compatibility problems caused by complex dependencies of traditional package formats under Linux, and reducing the security risks caused by decentralised control of permissions. It is available to any Linux distribution, supports incremental updates of applications, managing, distributing, and sandboxing apps, which not only improves ease of use, but also greatly protects user privacy.
deepin 23 -- The Linglong store
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For people using other distributions who want to try Linglong there are install instructions. I searched for tools called "software", "package", or "linglong" in the application menu and settings panel without any luck. It turns out Linglong is a command line tool which can be accessed using the name ll-cli. This command line tool appears to be limited and I was unsuccessful in getting it to search for available software. The ll-cli tool only lists installed items and installs or runs installed programs. Most people will probably interact with the Linglong repository through its web portal.
This web portal presents us with a big grid of application launchers and short names. We can click on a button to install the desired software. This pops up a window in the web browser which shows progress information. This window notifies us when the application is installed. I installed a handful of programs and they all downloaded and ran without any problems. The only difficult part of the process is finding the link to the web portal to browse software. After that, it's a simple point-and-click process which automatically adds application launchers to the application menu for us.
Linglong looks and acts almost exactly like Flatpak with the Flathub repository. In fact, the experience (and the command line output) is so similar that I actually checked to see if they were compatible. I tested if Linglong could install Flatpak packages and it was not able to do this, but it looks like Linglong is strongly inspired and maybe borrows from Flatpak.
I also went looking for tools to update the system so I could try out the atomic updates feature. There don't appear to be any dedicated graphical update tools in the application menu, but I did find an update tool in the desktop's settings panel. This tool performed a check for updates and failed. It didn't say why it failed; I'm uncertain if it couldn't connect to remote servers, if it just found no updates, or if there was another problem. At any rate, the update tool reports it is unable to find updates.
deepin 23 -- Checking for software updates
(full image size: 1.0MB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
As I mentioned before, the APT package tools didn't work and the settings panel updater didn't work. I looked through the documentation concerning package management. It talks about Linglong, which doesn't seem to have an update process. It also talks about dpkg which doesn't work, and rpm packages, but there is no rpm framework on the system.
The deepin system does include OSTree, which is typically used by atomic or immutable platforms such as Fedora Silverblue, however the documentation doesn't cover OSTree at all. I tried running some OSTree commands, including ones to list known repositories or references. These all failed and it looks like OSTree hasn't been configured by default.
Conclusions
I realise the version of deepin I was using is a preview of things to come, not the finished product. As such things are not going to be as polished and perfect as they could be. I'm okay with that, to a point. But I feel as though most of this preview release doesn't live up to its description.
There were three main points in this development snapshot I was interested in exploring: an independent base, Linglong packages, and atomic updates. As far as I can tell, deepin is not an independent distribution. It's either based on Debian or a fork of Debian. Its packages, the credited maintainers, low-level packaging tools, and copyright notices are all pulled from Debian.
I couldn't test atomic updates. I'm not clear as to whether this was a technological problem (with the update checker failing), a lack of available updates, or just a lack of documentation explaining what I was missing.
The one highlight of this release which worked for me was Linglong. The web portal for browsing and installing applications worked without any problems. It looks like new versions might need to be updated manually from the command line, but otherwise the experience was smooth. Linglong feels very similar in its style, syntax, and command line output to Flatpak. Linglong is either heavily inspired by Flatpak or borrows from it technologically, though they do not appear to be compatible. In short, while Linglong works and works well, it seems the same effect could have been produced by installing Flatpak and linking to the deepin repository rather than (or alongside) Flathub.
In other words, the one thing I found to celebrate in this release is the custom, Flathub-like repository which worked well. The other talking points - atomic updates and an independent distribution - appear to be future goals rather than something available at this time.
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Visitor supplied rating
deepin has a visitor supplied average rating of: 7.8/10 from 101 review(s).
Have you used deepin? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Debian applies Chromium search engine change, HardenedBSD publishes status update, Mint tests utilities on the Steam Deck, Devuan repository key troubles
In an excellent example of the Debian project's conservative pace and dedication to protecting user privacy, the distribution has adjusted the default settings of the Chromium web browser package. The new configuration will use the DuckDuckGo search engine, which anonymizes search queries, instead of Google. This changes was committed and announced two years after the original proposal was submitted.
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The HardenedBSD project is a fork of FreeBSD which experiments with security features and hardening improvements. This allows people who typically use FreeBSD to test security features to see how useful or disruptive they will be before any changes are committed to the FreeBSD project. The August HardenedBSD newsletter shares a summary of changes being developed, including improved randomization and a custom firewall: "Loic fixed an issue MrUnix reported about a missing PaX ASLR macro when building a kernel with COMPAT_FREEBSD32 enabled. Loic updated bsdinstall with a few changes, updating which sysctl nodes to set. I pulled in a change from OpenBSD that randomizes how often the chacha20-based arc4random(3) reseeds itself. HardenedBSD user "apache2" enabled multi-console booting by default, enabling use of the serial console by default." The project's status report offers more information.
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Valve's Steam Deck gaming device runs a customized version of Arch Linux and doesn't have a lot in common with the Linux Mint ecosystem, but that hasn't stopped the Mint team from finding common ground and interesting trivia to share about the Steam Deck. The project's monthly newsletter reports: "Other than Linux and Proton, the Deck relies on an immutable version of Arch, Flatpak and KDE so its ecosystem is a little bit different than the one we have in Linux Mint. The development of SteamOS and Linux Mint aren't likely to have much in common or to converge in any way. That said there will likely be some use cases we'll be able to help with. Warpinator for instance, which we made available as a Flatpak, proved to be useful to share files between computers, smartphones and the Steam Deck."
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The Devuan GNU+Linux team reported issues with their repository verification keys this past weekend. The issue is the key expired which effectively prevented people running Devuan (and its child distributions) from installing or upgrading packages from the official repositories. "At 2022-09-04, the Devuan repository key BB23C00C61FC752C updated at 2017 expired, which has led to difficulties for many users. The key has been corrected in the repository by expanding the validity period, and a new version of devuan-keyring, version 2022.09.04, is available. It is only slightly complicated for an end user to get that new version installed given that their currently installed key version has expired." An overview of the problem along with steps to correct it are covered in a 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) |
Watching for changes to directories
Ever-vigilant asks: Is it possible to detect changes in the /boot directory without using something like SELinux or Secure Boot?
DistroWatch answers: Yes, there are ways you can detect changes which happen in a specific directory. There are two main approaches to monitoring a directory I can recommend and they can be used together or individually.
The first approach I'd suggest is to use a utility which will monitor any and all changes to a directory and its contents in real-time. The utility will then report when something happens or log events for you which you can read through later. One such tool for performing this action is inotifywait.
The inotifywait command monitors a file or directory. It either reports when something happens or exits so another command can be run. In a situation where we wanted to monitor just one file for changes we could run a command like this:
inotifywait my-file.txt && echo "Something happened!"
If anything happens to the file my-file.txt - if it is opened, deleted, and changed in any way - then inotifywait exits and the line "Something happened!" will be printed to the terminal.
In the above example we were watching one file to see if it was changed or accessed. We can do the same with an entire directory, using the recursive (-r) flag for inotifywait. In the following example we watch the Documents directory until something changes, then notify the user:
inotifywait -r Documents && echo "Something happened!"
In many situations we will probably want to be notified when something happens in a directory and then have the inotifywait command continue to monitor the directory. We can do this by using the monitor (-m) flag. Using the monitor flag causes inotifywait to print out information when something happens and then continue to watch the directory for future events:
inotifywait -m -r /boot
The result of the above command will be a list of actions which took place and the names of the files which were accessed or altered under the /boot directory.
Using the inotifywait command is useful in situations where you can rely on real-time monitoring or logs to report when files have been changed. However, if you don't trust the system you are monitoring - perhaps because you're worried any monitoring might be compromised at the same time as your /boot directory - then you need to take another approach.
One way to verify files have not been tampered with is to use a live USB drive or live DVD. Boot your computer, ideally right after the operating system has been installed, from the live media and then run a checksum on all the files in your /boot directory. This will give you the hash or "fingerprint" of all the files. You can save these hashes somewhere - ideally on another computer or print them on a physical piece of paper. To get hash values for all the files in a directory you can run:
find /boot -type f -exec sha256sum {} \;
The output of the above command will list the hash file of each file next to its name. This information can be copied to a text file and saved or printed for later verification.
Later on, maybe a week or a month down the road, we can run the same command shown above to get the current hash values of each file. If any hash values are different or the number of files has changed without us performing an update then we know something was altered without our permission.
Ideally you can use both of these methods together. The first should let you know when something has changed. The latter will allow you to periodically audit the system from a live disc, meaning you do not need to trust the main (potentially compromised) system.
Something to keep in mind is, if you do perform system updates, this will change the hash values of the files stored under the /boot directory. It will also trigger a warning from inotifywait, so take this into consideration and plan to re-scan the hash values of your files under /boot after each system update.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
MX Linux 21.2
MX Linux 21.2 is out. The latest update of the number one distribution in our page hit ranking statistics continues to be based on Debian 11 and its 5.10 Linux kernel, but the AHS variant of the Xfce edition now comes with the Linux kernel 5.18. "We are pleased to offer MX Linux 21.2 for your use. MX 21.2 is the second refresh of our MX 21 release, consisting of bug fixes, kernels and application updates since our original release of MX 21. If you are already running MX 21, there is no need to reinstall. Packages are all available through the regular update channel. Highlights include: Debian 11.4 'Bullseye' base; mx-installer received several bug fixes and improvements; mx-tweak has new options for disabling Bluetooth adapters and moving Xfce/GTK file dialog buttons to bottom instead of the top of the dialog; Fluxbox gets a new mxfb-look tool to save and restore theme combinations; mx-updater/apt-notifier has option to use nala as the backend; kernel cleanup tool added to mx-cleanup; disk space check for /boot partitions to make sure a disk has enough room for a kernel update before the update starts...." Continue to the release announcement for full details.
MX Linux 21 -- Running the Xfce desktop
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GeckoLinux 154.220822.0, 999.220820.0
The GeckoLinux project maintains an openSUSE-based distribution which offers multiple desktop editions. The project has published new media for both the project's Static (Leap-based) branch and its Rolling (Tumbleweed-based) branch. "The GeckoLinux project is pleased to announce major updates to all editions of the Static branch, built from openSUSE Leap 15.4. This series of spins has significantly better support for new hardware thanks to the much newer kernel in openSUSE Leap 15.4. Most packages and desktop environments also have have significant new versions compared to the previous release built from openSUSE Leap 15.3. For this GeckoLinux release, permissions have been relaxed for easier printer administration without the root password. Apart from the major openSUSE updates, there are other no other major tweaks to the GeckoLinux configuration, which was already significantly improved in the previous release. GeckoLinux Static users with existing installations can simply update their systems with these simple GUI instructions." The release announcement also mentions known issues, such as Samba upgrade concerns and a warning that the openSUSE Leap branch will likely reach the end of its life in the next few years.
Linux From Scratch 11.2
Bruce Dubbs has announced the release of version 11.2 of Linux From Scratch, a project that provides a free book containing step-by-step instructions to build a custom Linux system from scratch. A separate book called "Beyond Linux From Scratch", which provides a broad range of instructions for installing and configuring various packages on top of a base LFS system, is also available in version 11.2. "The Linux From Scratch community is pleased to announce the release of LFS version 11.2, LFS version 11.2 (systemd), BLFS version 11.2 and BLFS version 11.2 (systemd). This release is a major update to both LFS and BLFS. The LFS release includes updates to GCC 12.2.0, glibc 2.36 and Binutils 2.39. The Linux kernel has also been updated to version 5.19.2. Changes to text have been made throughout the books. The BLFS version includes approximately 1,000 packages beyond the base Linux From Scratch Version 11.2 book. This release has over 1100 updates from the previous BLFS version including package updates and numerous text and formatting changes. You can read the books online or download to read locally." Here is the release announcement.
Ubuntu 20.04.5
Canonical has announced a point release for Ubuntu 20.04 and its community editions. The new release, 20.04.5, offers updated hardware support along with security fixes since the original 20.04 release. "The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS (Long-Term Support) for its Desktop, Server, and Cloud products, as well as other flavours of Ubuntu with long-term support. Like previous LTS series, 20.04.5 includes hardware enablement stacks for use on newer hardware. This support is offered on all architectures. Ubuntu Server defaults to installing the GA kernel; however you may select the HWE kernel from the installer bootloader." The release announcement and release notes offer additional details.
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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: 2,766
- Total data uploaded: 42.4TB
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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) |
Using the Linglong package repository
In this week's look at deepin's new technologies we talked about Linglong. Linglong refers both to a new package manager and a repository of portable applications which appears to be a very close relative of Flatpak. The deepin project reports Linglong will run on other distributions, not just deepin. We would like to hear if our readers are interested in running packages from the Linglong repository.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running immutable operating systems in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you plan to use the Linglong repository?
| Yes: | 29 (2%) |
| No: | 1352 (85%) |
| Only if it has exclusive options: | 63 (4%) |
| Undecided: | 148 (9%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Ubuntu Unity. Ubuntu Unity is spin of the Ubuntu distribution featuring the Unity desktop.
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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, 12 September 2022. 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)
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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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Bio-Linux
Bio-Linux was a full-featured, powerful, configurable and easy-to-maintain bioinformatics workstation. Bio-Linux provides more than 500 bioinformatics programs on an Ubuntu base. There was a graphical menu for bioinformatics programs, as well as easy access to the Bio-Linux bioinformatics documentation system and sample data useful for testing programs. Bio-Linux packages that handle new generation sequence data types can also be installed.
Status: Discontinued
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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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