 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 996, 28 November 2022 |
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Welcome to this year's 48th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
While many of the world's Linux distributions are built upon popular parent distributions - such as Fedora, Debian, and Arch - there are some projects which are independent. These projects often try out new or less commonly used technologies. This week we begin with a look at Void, a Linux distribution which is independent and runs an unusual combination of technologies. Void uses its own package manager, the rarely implemented runit init software, and offers multiple C libraries. Read on to learn more about this unique distribution. Then, in our News section, we talk about Debian's warning to users of its development branches that the Anacron service may have become disabled, preventing scheduled jobs from running in some cases. We also report on Fedora making its new web-based system installer available for testing. Plus, we talk about the Redox OS platform running on some physical hardware. We also offer tips on remotely shutting down a computer and how to set up complex command line aliases. Do you make your own command aliases? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. Plus, we are pleased to share details on the distribution 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) |
Void 20221001
The Void project produces an unusual Linux distribution with a number of special characteristics. The project is described on its website as follows:
Void is a general purpose operating system, based on the monolithic Linux kernel. Its package system allows you to quickly install, update and remove software; software is provided in binary packages or can be built directly from sources with the help of the XBPS source packages collection.
Void is a rolling release distribution which features the fast XBPS package manager which can work with both binary and source-based software. The distribution uses the super lightweight runit init software for booting the system and managing services. Void is also unusual in that it provides multiple builds, based on different C libraries. A C library is a core component of the operating system. While most Linux distributions use the glibc library, Void offers both glibc and musl libc varieties for most supported architectures. Speaking of CPU architectures, Void provides 32-bit (x86), 64-bit (x86_64), and ARM builds of its distribution. Most of these builds are available in both muslc and glibc variants. I decided to focus on the x86_64 editions and selected glibc as I figured it would be more likely to work with a wide variety of software.
At this point I could also choose whether to take a minimal Base edition or an edition with the Xfce desktop. I decided to take the desktop edition. The Base edition is 650MB in size while the Xfce edition is still relatively small by modern standards, weighing in at 983MB.
Booting from the live media brings up a menu offering to run the distribution from the media or to load Void entirely into RAM to run from memory. The distribution boots unusually quickly, even from the live media, and presents us with the Xfce desktop in under five seconds.
The Void project publishes default login credentials on their download page, though I did not find they were necessary for testing and installing the operating system.
The Xfce desktop is arranged with a thin panel at the top of the screen which holds the application menu, task switcher, and system tray. At the bottom we find a dock with application launchers. There are icons on the desktop for launching the Thunar file manager to browse the filesystem in various places.
Void 20221001 -- Browsing the application menu
(full image size: 321kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Installing
There is no launcher for the system installer on the desktop or in the application menu. According to Void's documentation we can launch the system installer by running void-installer from the command line.
Void uses a text-based menu system to configure the operating system and install it. This series of text menus walks us through selecting our keyboard layout, enabling networking, choosing a preferred language, and setting a root password. The keyboard and language codes are short and cryptic - using "en_US" rather than "English (American)", for example - and this may take less experienced users by surprise. We are asked to partition the hard drive, also with console-based tools. We can use fdisk or cfdisk to carve up the disk. Another series of menus then walk us through assigning filesystems or swap space to the partitions. We have the option of making a regular user account and setting its password. The installer copies its files to the local drive, operating unusually quickly. The whole process can take as little as five minutes, even on my less-than-high-end equipment.
Early impressions
My new copy of Void booted almost instantly to the login screen. This is one of the fastest booting systems I've encountered in its time from power on to graphical environment. From the login screen I was able to sign into my account which presented me with the Xfce 4.16 desktop.
Void 20221001 -- The Xfce desktop and the Thunar file manager
(full image size: 314kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The Xfce desktop appears to be set up to be as vanilla and uncustomized as possible. The system doesn't use any special or eye-catching themes, no welcome window, and no pop-ups. The distribution simply leaves us to explore and adjust the environment as we wish.
One odd characteristic of Void is there is no volume control in the system tray. We can access networking features, but no audio features from the system tray. This has been the case for a few years now and I find it an odd default to assume users won't want to adjust their sound levels.
Hardware
I found Void ran smoothly in VirtualBox. The distribution was fast and responsive, in particular when booting. Menus and applications were quick to respond too. This performance continued when I ran Void on my laptop where the distribution always felt snappy.
As I mentioned before, the system doesn't include an audio mixer in the system tray or in the application menu. When I installed one while running Void from my laptop, I found that even with the mixer installed the distribution could not detect my sound card. This is really unusual and, even after reading the section on working with sound systems in the documentation, I was unable to get audio working on my laptop. I thought this was an interesting development, because a month previously I ran Redcore Linux on this laptop and had the same issue with my sound system not being detected. However, other distributions I've run on this laptop recently (including XeroLinux, SpiralLinux, and MX Linux) have all handed the sound system of this laptop flawlessly.
At first audio did not work when I was running Void in VirtualBox either. However, I found the audio was simply muted. Once I had installed audio mixers and adjusted the volume (of both the ALSA and PulseAudio sound systems) I was able to play audio files and hear streaming videos.
Apart from the audio issue, the distribution correctly handled my hardware. Networking and video resolution worked as expected. By default my touchpad did not register taps as clicks, but this can be adjusted in the Xfce settings panel.
Void is a small and lightweight operating system, especially compared to most mainstream desktop distributions. A fresh install takes 2.2GB of disk space, about a third of the size of many mainstream distributions. When signed into Xfce the operating system Void uses a mere 320MB of RAM, which makes it lighter than most desktop distributions, particularly those running KDE Plasma and members of the GNOME family.
Included software
The distribution does not include many applications by default. The Firefox web browser is included along with an image viewer, a system monitor, and the Thunar file manager. The Parole media player is included along with codecs for playing video and audio files. The sudo utility is present for performing administrative tasks. Void includes the GNU command line utilities and manual pages. There are no compilers on the system.
Void 20221001 -- The Xfce settings panel
(full image size: 307kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Behind the scenes, Void uses the blazingly fast and lightweight runit init software which I'll touch on later. The install media ships with version 5.19 of the Linux kernel.
We are not given common tools like LibreOffice or an email client. These can be added later through the package manager.
Package management
The Void distribution doesn't ship with any graphical software centre. Working with packages happens on the command line and uses the XBPS package manager. We have a short cheatsheet for XBPS and the Void documentation has more details and examples.
Void 20221001 -- Performing package upgrades
(full image size: 380kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The XBPS package manager works quickly and it has fairly clear output. However, its command line syntax is a bit cryptic. Some package managers use a single command with an English verb which I find easy to use. For example, "apt install", "apt upgrade", "apt remove", and "apt search" are fairly straight forward. XBPS uses separate commands, with fairly clear names, but with some strange syntax for upgrades and searches. The equivalent XBPS commands are "xbps-install", "xbps-install -Su", "xbps-remove", and "xbps-query -Rs".
I soon got into the flow of using XBPS and it worked well for me. I had no problems when performing upgrades or installing new packages.
One of Void's key features is the ability to easily work with source packages. The Void source framework can be built using the xbps-src utility. This allows us to change build-time flags and dependencies for software in the distribution's repository. Usually this will not be necessary and building from source is a lot slower than installing pre-built binary files, but this is convenient for people who need to tweak low-level features of their software.
runit
Another special feature of Void is the runit init software and service manager. As I mentioned earlier, runit is unusually light and super fast. Void boots in less than half the time of most distributions I've trialed with systemd or SysV init software. Despite its small nature, runit can be fairly flexible and its service manager provides some convenient features such as optionally automatically restarting crashed services.
Managing runit services is closely tied to the filesystem and uses symbolic links to sort out which services will be started by default. The syntax for managing services is fairly simple and is handled by the sv command, which is detailed in the manual pages.
Once I got used to the location of service files and a few basic sv commands, I felt quite at home with runit and appreciated its simplicity.
Conclusions
There are a lot of aspects of the Void distribution I enjoy. The project walks a tightrope between being too minimal and cryptic on one side and being full featured and heavy on the other. Everything seems to be set up to provide just enough features to get things done, but without providing any more than is necessary.
The installer, for example, has easy to navigate screens, but they're text-based and sometimes use short-hand, terse messages. Someone who has been around Linux for a while can navigate it, but it's not a simple point-n-click experience. The same goes for package management. There is a very capable package manager, but no graphical front-end. There is a very fast and flexible service manager accompanied by useful documentation, but again no graphical tools to make it easy for newcomers.
Void 20221001 -- The Void documentation
(full image size: 493kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Basically, Void is set up to be "easy" to use for experienced users while probably being too minimal or cryptic for beginners. It's a lot faster and more convenient to set up Void than, for example, Gentoo or Arch, while also being a far cry short of the beginner friendly experience of Linux Mint. Which, for someone like me, is pretty ideal. I've been using Linux for over 20 years and can navigate the command line easier than I can read the menus at some restaurants. At the same time, I want the experience to be quick and easy (for my skill level). I don't want to spend time customizing, tweaking compile flags, and hunting down drivers. I just want to use my computer, have it work efficiently, and stay out of my way. I'm not too worried about the distinction of working on the command line or the desktop, as long as the tools I want are available and the documentation is clear.
Void very nicely fits into this niche - of being convenient to use for more experienced users, of being efficient, of staying out of the way. It's not particularly pretty, it's not beginner oriented, it doesn't have flashy GUIs or welcome windows. But it has enough features and performance for me to pretty much install it and get to work in five minutes. Which is really nice.
Void certainly isn't for everyone. If you want graphical administration tools, if you want a huge repository of official software the way Debian or Ubuntu has then Void isn't ideal. It's more minimal, it's smaller, it has fewer packages. But it probably has enough for most people.
My one key complaint this time around, as with the last time I used the distribution, is the surprising lack of out of the box audio support. I could get audio working in VirtualBox, with some effort, but it requires installing and running a sound mixer and maybe setting it to auto-run to make it accessible each time we login. It's something I haven't had to do with other desktop Linux distributions and I'm not sure why the Void team continues to ignore this common feature. Otherwise, I think Void strikes a good balance, at least for more experienced users who want performance and have no need for hand holding.
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Visitor supplied rating
Void has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9.1/10 from 246 review(s).
Have you used Void? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Debian warns Anacron service may be disabled, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Redox OS runs on some real hardware
The Debian project has published a summary of developer news. One of the items is likely to also affect users who run Debian's Testing or Unstable branches. People running one of these development branches may find their Anacron service is no longer enabled, which can cause cron jobs to no longer run when expected: "If you run Debian Testing/Unstable and ever installed anacron 2.3-33 on a systemd based system, then anacron will no longer be enabled and the daily/weekly/monthly cron jobs will not be run until it is. Since not all cron jobs have migrated to systemd timers, Debian Testing/Unstable systems with systemd and anacron may be missing some essential cron jobs, such as making backups of [the] aptitude state."
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The Fedora team is in the process of testing out a new system installer with a web-based user interface. The new installer can be run on test media which the developers hope will provide users with the chance to report feedback. "We are excited to announce the first public preview image of the new Anaconda web interface! Our vision is to reimagine and modernize our installer's user experience (see our blog post Anaconda is getting a new suit). We are doing this by redesigning the user experience on all fronts to make it more easy and approachable for everyone to use. Today, we would like to introduce our plans for the public preview release, as our new project has already reached a point where core code functionality is already developed and the new interface can be used for real installations." Details on the new test images and the web-based installer can be found in a Fedora Magazine post.
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Redox OS is a Unix-like operating system written in Rust which features a microkernel and a number of shifts in design in an attempt to modernise the operating system. Up until now Redox OS was almost entirely limited to running in virtual machines, but the open source operating system is making strides and is now compatible with a number of physical hardware components. "We have a lot to show since the 0.7.0 release! This release, care has been taken to ensure real hardware is working, i686 support has been added, features like audio and preliminary multi-display support have been enabled, and the boot and install infrastructure has been simplified and made more robust." The announcement lists supported hardware and warns this release does not yet work with USB or wi-fi devices.
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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) |
Remotely shutting down and complex aliases
Shutting-it-all-down asks: I have my computer set up so I can SSH into it to check on things. Is there any way I can suspend the machine remotely?
DistroWatch answers: There are a few ways to put a computer into suspend/sleep mode remotely on the command line. One is to run the pm-suspend command. If you're not logged in as root you may need to prefix the command with sudo, for example:
sudo pm-suspend
On distributions which use the systemd software you should also be able to run the systemctl command as follows:
sudo systemctl suspend
Keep in mind that using either of these commands will likely cause your secure shell connection to immediately freeze when the suspend command takes effect. In other words, it'll seem like your remote shell has locked up. You can force OpenSSH to drop the frozen connecting by pressing the ~ key followed by a period. (~.).
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Making-things-complex asks: I've been setting up aliases to act as shortcuts on the command line. Some of the stuff I want to do involves quoting parameters, like "foo=bar --value='do this'", but the quotes mess up the alias. Any advice?
DistroWatch answers: An alias, for those who haven't used them, is basically a bookmark on the command line. When you set up an alias, whenever you type the name of the alias, the value of the alias gets substituted in its place.
For example, if I create an alias called "hi" which has the value "echo hello world", each time I type the command "hi" in my shell, the text "hello world" will get printed to the screen. It looks like this:
$ alias hi="echo hello world"
$ hi
hello world
Usually this sort of thing is done to help us avoid repeating long commands over and over. For instance, I might set up an alias called "update" which runs "apt update; apt upgrade", thereby saving me some typing each time I want to upgrade all the packages on my system.
Assuming I understand the issue in the question correctly, when you're setting up a shell alias you're typing something like this:
alias foo=bar --value='do this'
Which does not work because the space between the "bar" and the "--value" tells the alias command it has hit the end of the alias. You can fix this by placing double-quotes around your alias, for example:
alias foo="bar --value='do this'"
In situations where you find yourself making more complex aliases, perhaps stringing multiple commands together or using quoted parameters, it might be worth looking at creating a script instead of an alias. An alias is great for short, simple commands. For more complex tasks a one or two line shell script can work just as well and be easier to enhance in the future.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Oracle Linux 8.7
Simon Coter has announced the availability of Oracle Linux 8.7, an updated release of Oracle's Linux distribution (its legacy 8.x branch) built from source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL): "The Oracle Linux team is pleased to announce the availability of the Oracle Linux 8 Update 7 release for the 64-bit Intel and AMD (x86_64) and 64-bit Arm (aarch64) platforms. As with all Oracle Linux releases, this release is 100% application binary compatible with the corresponding Red Hat Enterprise Linux release. Notable changes are in the areas of security and high availability and enable customers to manage their systems more efficiently by simplifying administration tasks and operations at scale. Network Security Services (NSS) libraries are updated to set the minimum key size for all RSA operations from 128 to 1023 bits. Greater compliance with the DISA's STIG requirements for Oracle Linux 8, part of the updated scap-security-guidepackage. Enhancements have been introduced for Pacemaker, including 'multiple-active', 'allow-unhealthy-node', access control lists and UUID for Pacemaker clusters." Read the release announcement and the release notes for more details.
Proxmox 7.3 "Virtual Environment"
Proxmox is a commercial company offering specialised products based on Debian GNU/Linux. The company's latest release is Promix 7.3 "Virtual Environment" which is based on Debian 11.5 and supports ZFS storage volumes. "Proxmox Virtual Environment 7.3 comes with initial support for Cluster Resource Scheduling, enables updates for air-gapped systems with the new Proxmox Offline Mirror tool, and has improved UX for various management tasks, as well as interesting storage technologies like ZFS dRAID and countless enhancements and bugfixes. Here is a selection of the highlights: Debian 11.5 'Bullseye', but using a newer Linux kernel 5.15 or 5.19. QEMU 7.1, LXC 5.0.0, and ZFS 2.1.6. Ceph Quincy 17.2.5 and Ceph Pacific 16.2.10; heuristical checks to see if it is safe to stop or remove a service instance (MON, MDS, OSD). Initial support for a Cluster Resource Scheduler (CRS). Proxmox Offline Mirror. Tagging virtual guests in the web interface. CPU pinning: Easier affinity control using taskset core lists. New container templates: Fedora, Ubuntu, Alma Linux, Rocky Linux. Reworked USB devices: can now be hot-plugged. ZFS dRAID pools. Proxmox Mobile: based on Flutter 3.0" Further information is provided in the company's release announcement and in the release notes.
Alpine Linux 3.17.0
Alpine Linux is a community developed operating system designed for routers, firewalls, VPNs, VoIP boxes, containers and servers. The project's latest release is version 3.17.0 which upgrades OpenSSL to the 3.0 series. The release announcement offers details: "We are pleased to announce the release of Alpine Linux 3.17.0, the first in the v3.17 stable series. Significant changes: OpenSSL 3.0 is now the default OpenSSL version; OpenSSL 1.1 is available via the openssl1.1-compat package; Rust is now available on all supported architectures. Upgrade notes: as always, make sure to use 'apk upgrade --available' when switching between major versions. Deprecation notes: PHP 8.0 has been deprecated; ISC Kea moved to main repository for long time support while ISC dhcp moved to community repository; Users of dhcpd are encouraged to migrate to Kea. Changes: the full list of changes can be found in the wiki, git log and bug tracker."
BlueOnyx 5211R
Michael Stauber has announced the release of a new version of BlueOnyx, a specialist server distribution which provides a fully-integrated internet hosting platform. Version 5211R is based on AlmaLinux 9.1: "We just published the first ISO image of our new BlueOnyx 5211R (AlmaLinux 9.1) to the download mirrors. The ISO image provides the usual installation options that you might already know from previous BlueOnyx ISO installs. Just boot off the ISO image and in the boot menu choose your form of installation and the rest of the procedure is entirely free of user input. After the reboot at the end of the installation, login to your new BlueOnyx 5211R server with the login details shown on the screen. That will automatically launch network_settings.sh to perform the initial network configuration. It may be that after configuring the network details for the very first time after installation, the server still has no network connection due to the gateway settings not having been applied correctly by NetworkManager. If that's the case, simply reboot." Here is the brief release announcement.
BlueOnyx 5211R -- Accessing the web interface
(full image size: 117kB, resolution: 972x638 pixels)
UBports 16.04 OTA-24
UBports is a community project which develops a GNU/Linux distribution for mobile devices. The project's latest update is UBports 16.04 OTA-24 which introduces a number of improvements, particularly with handling text messages and fingerprint unlocking. "Note: This is the last OTA for Ubuntu 16.04 (xenial) with major features. The next OTA-25 will be mainly security fixes and long-term support updates for xenial. Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal) base has progressed quite far and so we are preparing everything for the switch. This also means that we will prepare OTA support for 20.04! Fingerprint unlock: More backoff time between read retries. Initial gesture support with double-tap to wake for selected devices. Handle sms:// URL scheme to open messaging-app properly Aethercast: 1080p support, various other fixes. messaging-app and sms/mms middleware: Various fixes. Media buttons on headsets work for most devices. Mir-Android-Platform performance tweaks, configurable." Additional information along with install and upgrade instructions can be found in the project's release announcement. A list of supported devices and download options can be found on the project's devices 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: 2,795
- Total data uploaded: 42.6TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Do you create your own command line aliases?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about command aliases and how to include complex parameters. Aliases are shortcuts which help the user run long or complex commands with a short-hand command. We'd like to hear from our readers if you create your own command line aliases.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using a swap partition versus a swap file in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you create your own aliases?
| Yes - I make my own aliases: | 539 (45%) |
| No - but I use aliases provided by my distro: | 139 (12%) |
| No - I do not use aliases: | 521 (43%) |
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| Website News |
Donations and Sponsors
Each month we receive support and kindness from our readers in the forms of donations. These donations help us keep the web server running, pay contributors, and keep infrastructure like our torrent seed box running. We'd like to thank our generous readers and acknowledge how much their contributions mean to us.
This month we're grateful for the $89 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| Henry T | $19 |
| John T | $18 |
| Ronald M | $10 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| Joshua L | $5 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| DuCakedHare | $5 |
| Matt | $5 |
| Joe H | $3 |
| Vory | $3 |
| J.D. L | $2 |
| PB C | $2 |
| c6WWldo9 | $1 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- Exodia OS. Exodia OS is an Arch-based distribution which can be installed the Calamares system installer. It features the bspwm tiling window manager and offers multiple editions geared toward general purpose computing and penetration testing.
- risiOS. risiOS is a Fedora-based distribution which provides utilities to further customize and tweak the distribution, making it easier to add codecs, third-party packages, and web-apps.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 5 December 2022. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. 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 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Status: Active
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