 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1012, 27 March 2023 |
Welcome to this year's 13th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
One side-effect of having a world of globally interconnected computers, people, and software is our equipment and our data are constantly under threat. Someone out there is always hoping to gain access to our computers in order to make money, cause havoc, or invade our privacy. This week we discuss how to isolate untrusted or potentially vulnerable applications in our Questions and Answers column. There are several methods by which we can isolate programs to keep them from misbehaving, damaging our system, or transmitting information about us. We discuss a handful of options for protecting a user from their own software below. Our Opinion Poll this week continues the discussion, asking you, our readers, how you protect yourself against untrusted software. What approach works best for you? It is difficult to discuss untrusted software without also talking about where it comes from, who makes it, and by whom the software is trusted. We discuss an instance of these trust issues as it relates to the Linux kernel in our News section. We also report on some key new features coming to the latest release of the GNOME desktop. Speaking of new releases, Canonical published refreshed media for Ubuntu and its community editions this last week. There were a few missing editions this time and we touch on that below. First though we share a review of siduction, a Debian-based rolling release distribution. Joshua Allen Holm takes siduction for a test drive and shares his impressions of the fast-moving distribution in our Feature Story. Plus this week we thank the people who have donated to us over the past month, we appreciate you helping us to keep DistroWatch running. We're also pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: siduction 22.1.1
- News: Two community editions of Ubuntu missing, politics and the Linux kernel, GNOME 44 introduces key new features and applications
- Questions and answers: Protecting privacy from proprietary applications
- Released last week: Tails 5.11, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Proxmox 7.4 "Virtual Environment", Ubuntu 20.04.6
- Torrent corner: KDE neon, Proxmox, Tails, Trisquel GNU/Linux, Ubuntu
- Upcoming releases: FreeBSD 13.2, Ubuntu 23.04 Beta, Linux Lite 6.4
- Opinion poll: Isolating untrusted applications
- Site news: Donations and sponsors
- New distributions: Droidian, stal/IX
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (by Joshua Allen Holm) |
siduction 22.1.1
siduction is a Debian-based Linux distribution built on Debian's Unstable branch. siduction 2022.1.1 is available in five versions: KDE Plasma, LXQt, Xfce, Xorg (which uses Fluxbox), and a "no X" version with only a command-line interface. For this review, I opted to use the KDE Plasma version. siduction's enhancements to Debian, save for the tweaks to desktop settings, are the same regardless of which variant is being used, so much of what is going to be covered is still applicable to the LXQt, Xfce, Xorg, and "no X" variants.
siduction live desktop
I started by downloading the 3.1GB ISO for the KDE Plasma variant of siduction. After copying the image to a flash drive, I rebooted my computer. At first, the computer would not boot because of Secure Boot. The computer was running Debian 11, which installed and ran just fine with Secure Boot enabled, but Debian's support for Secure Boot did not carry over to siduction. After turning Secure Boot off, I could boot from the flash drive.
siduction 22.1.1 -- The KDE Plasma live desktop
(full image size: 555kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
siduction boots to a live desktop, so I decided to look around before installing. The desktop on the KDE Plasma version is KDE Plasma 5.27 with a customized appearance that is based on Breeze Dark with a few changes, mostly for branding purposes. The included software is a mix of KDE apps, like KMail, Dragon Player, and sundry utilities as well as various popular, non-KDE open source applications like Firefox (which is using the standard release channel, not the extended support release channel), LibreOffice 7.4, GIMP, and Inkscape. siduction comes with version 6.2 of the Linux kernel.
At the top of the live desktop are four icons: Install System, IRC, siduction chroot helper, and siduction manual. I wanted to save Install System for last, so I went from right to left. Clicking on siduction manual opened a PDF version of siduction's documentation. This document is approximately 340 pages long, and it covers a wide variety of topics. The documentation was quite good, and it was nice to have available from a desktop link, but the document included on the ISO, and in a fully updated siduction install, is dated December 2022. The PDF manual that is available from the siduction website is from March 2023. The siduction chroot helper is the next thing I tried, but sadly, it did not work on my laptop. This probably had something to do with the fact that my laptop only has eMMC storage. When I tried the chroot helper on other systems, it did exactly what was expected: automatically found the Linux root partition on the hard drive and provided me with a chroot environment. The IRC link opens the siduction IRC channel as expected. With my exploration of the first three desktop icons complete, I was ready to start installing.
Installing siduction
siduction's installer is Calamares. Like almost all Linux installers, Calamares provides the same basic steps and asks the user to provide the same information to configure the system. The setup process configures language and keyboard layout, drive partitioning, and new user creation. Most of this is straightforward, but there were a few oddities with the partitioning and user creation steps.
When selecting the Erase Disk option for partitioning, the defaults are ext4 as the partition type and no swap partition. However, one of advertised features of siduction is Btrfs snapshots. When I left the partition type as the default ext4, an update to the siduction-btrfs package kept producing errors. If I opted for a non-Btrfs installation, siduction-btrfs should have been removed during the installation process instead of throwing errors when updating after installing.
siduction 22.1.1 -- The siduction installer's user creation options
(full image size: 278kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
A more concerning problem was with the user creation process. Both the user and root password prompts have green checkmarks next to them from the very start. Yes, technically blank passwords do match, but the problems do go a little deeper than a less than helpful checkmark. Because the installer was basically telling me that my passwords were OK, I opted to leave both the user and root passwords in their blank states to see what would happen (not that anyone should do that). I could log in to my user account with the username and no password, but this user was not included in the sudo group, so I could not use sudo for administrative tasks. Even worse, the root account would not let me log in at all, so there was no way to do administrative things at all. In Debian, leaving the root password unset grants the user account created during install administrative privileges, but siduction, despite the "your password matches/is valid" checkmarks, leaves the root account locked and the user with no administrative privileges.
Having played around with options that were intentionally suboptimal, I installed again and selected Btrfs and correctly configured my user and root passwords. Even when using less wacky installation options by setting the account password and checking the box to use the same password for root, the user account does not end up with sudo privileges. I had to change my account type from Standard to Administrator in the Settings application and reboot before I could use sudo with my user account.
siduction 22.1.1 -- The KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 548kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
After installing, siduction's desktop is nearly identical to the live desktop. The chroot helper and installer are gone, but those are the only significant changes to the desktop environment. However, underneath the surface, there are features that are now available that could not really be used in a live environment. These features mostly revolve around installing software and updating the system.
Installing additional software
I already covered the default software selection when I explored the live environment, but to reiterate: siduction's KDE Plasma variant comes with Plasma 5.27 and a selection of KDE and non-KDE applications. For general computing tasks like word processing, e-mail, web browsing, and watching videos or listening to music, siduction has everything ready after installing. However, the default applications are not the only options out there, and there are plenty of other applications in the repositories.
siduction 22.1.1 -- The Discover software centre
(full image size: 219kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
siduction's default repositories are Debian's Unstable repository with the main, contrib, and non-free-firmware options and two siduction repositories called extras and fixes. Standard Debian packages are the preferred way to install software. The Flatpak and snapd packages are not installed, but both are available should a user wish to add either of them.
siduction 22.1.1 -- Upgrading packages with Nala
(full image size: 138kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Installing software on siduction can be done in several ways. The graphical option, at least on the KDE Plasma variant, is to use Discover. On the command line, things get a little more interesting. siduction is based on Debian, so dpkg and apt work exactly as one would expect, but siduction also comes with Nala, an enhanced interface for libapt-pkg. Nala supports parallel downloads, has an installation history feature that supports undoing transactions, and makes heavy use of colour in its output to make things easier to understand.
When using Btrfs, siduction also automatically creates pre- and post-install snapshots whenever packages are installed or updated. The snapshots appear in the GRUB boot menu making it easy to roll back to a previous state. Additional snapshot options can be configured using the snapper command. I never had any issues that required me to rollback to a previous image, but I did try the feature out several times and found it easy to use. Snapper provides plenty of extra options for snapshots that a power-user could tweak, but I was very happy with the default configuration.
The siduction community
siduction bills itself as "The community based OS," so I decided to spend some time exploring the siduction community. I found the siduction forums to be extremely helpful. I did not post any threads myself, but that is only because I did not have to. Every minor issue I had was already posted about and answered in a polite and professional manner. This is even more impressive when the posts in questions were specifically about the 2022.1.1 point release, and I started working on this review and lurking in the forums the same day the ISOs for the 2022.1.1 release came out. siduction's community is not huge, but the forums are active enough to be a great place to get help or contribute back to the project.
I spent less lurking on the IRC channels, but in my limited experience, the community is just as strong there as it is in the forums. The developers also work at an impressive pace and have already released another point release, 2022.1.2, that fixes some bugs. Given that is a minor point release, it does not change anything that would completely invalidate this review, but I was mildly flustered when I saw the announcement for 2022.1.2 just as I was finishing writing this review.
siduction 22.1.1 -- Visiting the siduction forum
(full image size: 176kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Final thoughts
I like Debian and run it on almost every computer I own, so siduction felt very familiar to me. In some ways it was a preview of Debian 12, and in other ways, it was an interesting look at some advanced features that go beyond the conservativeness of vanilla Debian. The three major features covered in its release notes -- chroot helper, Nala, and snapper -- are all great features. I just wish the chroot helper worked with my eMMC drive, but siduction would not be the first distribution that had issues when the only storage available is eMMC storage.
If Debian-based distributions are your preferred Linux distributions, I highly recommend giving siduction a try. It offers many interesting things while remaining familiar. There are certainly plenty of Debian-based distributions out there, but siduction provides a lot of features that make it different from other distributions. Sure, it lacks the conservativeness of Debian Stable, but aside from the issue with the siduction-btrfs package on an ext4 install, I ran into no major issues when working on this review. Though, I am somewhat amused by absurdity of the root password issue, but that was 99% on me for doing something I knew would likely end up ending in the situation that it did.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an ASUS VivoBook E406MA laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Pentium Silver N5000 CPU
- Storage: 64GB eMMC
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Networking: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
- Display: Intel UHD Graphics 605
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Visitor supplied rating
siduction has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8/10 from 34 review(s).
Have you used siduction? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Two community editions of Ubuntu missing, politics and the Linux kernel, GNOME 44 introduces key new features and applications
This week Canonical published a sixth update to the popular Ubuntu 20.04 distribution and most of the official Ubuntu community editions followed with updates of their own. Two editions, which had published previous updates to version 20.04 in step with Canonical, were absent this time. Both Lubuntu and Ubuntu Studio offered five updates to version 20.04 in sync with Canonical, but have sat out this sixth update. At the time of writing there do not appear to be any comments on either community edition's website or mailing list regarding this omission. It's possible that, with the three year support deadline for some community editions coming up next month, these two projects have simply decided to phase out 20.04 earlier than the other community editions.
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There are many people who feel open source software and its development should be apolitical, ignoring borders and ideological debates. However, software developers do not work in vacuums. Developers are subject to the laws of their countries and feel social pressures which reflect in their work. These legal and political pressures can be reflected in stances on copyright, trademarks, and export controls. One recent example of politics taking a role in open source development came up in a Linux kernel mailing list thread earlier this month. Serge Semin, a Russian developer, shared a series of patches to address issues in driver code. The patches were rejected by Jakub Kicinski, apparently due to who Semin's employer is rather than the quality of the fixed code. The rejection has raised questions about trust and politics in open source projects in general and the Linux kernel in particular.
* * * * *
The GNOME team released version 44 of their desktop environment this past week. Some of the more visually obvious changes include a grid view in the file selection window and reorganized accessibility options to make them easier to navigate. "GNOME's file chooser dialogs have only ever had a list view, which is great when you want to pick a file based on its name, but isn't so good when picking files based on their thumbnails. Over the years, GNOME users have therefore repeatedly requested that a grid view be added to the file chooser. With GNOME 44, that request has finally been answered. This has been one of the most positively received changes in our history, so we are confident that people will like it! The new grid view is available in file choosers that use GTK4. Some apps may use the older GTK3 version of the file chooser, which does not include the new grid view." This release also welcomes ten new applications into the GNOME Circle, an extended family of GNOME-related software and applications. The release notes offer additional details.
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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) |
Protecting privacy from proprietary applications
Protecting-information-from-applications asks: I run Linux exclusively on all my computers, but often need to use proprietary software for work. Stuff like Teams, Zoom, and Skype. Is there a way of dealing with these applications while minimising the privacy intrusion and wasting as little resources as possible?
DistroWatch answers: You mentioned wasting as few resources as possible, so I'm guessing that setting up a virtual machine in which all your proprietary software can run is not what you had in mind. A virtual machine does a great job of isolating applications, even an entire operating system, from the rest of your system, but it comes with a lot of resource overhead.
Putting aside easy to use virtual machine technologies such as VirtualBox, let's look at some more efficient options.
Assuming the proprietary software you are installing comes in the form of a Flatpak or Snap bundle, you can sandbox these applications using some convenient, graphical tools. This will allow you to limit applications you don't trust from accessing resources you wish to protect. The Flatseal application will help you limit access from Flatpak packages. Meanwhile, Snap package permissions can be modified through the Snap Store and from the command line.
The tools for managing the access of portable packages can be a bit crude. In other words, we're often faced with "all or nothing" approaches to file, desktop, and network access. For more fine-tuned permissions we can turn to Firejail. Firejail places an application in a sandbox and the application's access is limited by the use of fairly easy to read text files, called profiles. The Arch Linux wiki has a great page which explains how Firejail works and how to create profiles.
I particularly like Firejail because it's fairly straight forward to grant, for example, access to a program's configuration directory and maybe network access, and nothing else. This allows something like a web browser to run and browse pages without reading any of our personal files. We shared tips on using Firejail in an earlier article.
Another approach we can take is to use AppArmor or SELinux. These utilities also block access to certain files, directories, and capabilities. While highly powerful, and built into several mainstream distributions, these tools are more complicated to configure than Firejail and portable packages. These tools are very flexible, but the flexibility also introduces more complexity the user needs to deal with. We discussed setting up AppArmor for new applications in a previous article.
Another approach you could take, which is quite simple, but a bit cumbersome to use, is to have separate user accounts for your work life and personal life. Assuming your home directories are set to only allow access to your own user, you can set up two accounts: one you sign into while working and one you sign into the rest of the time. Then the work account, which shouldn't have any special permissions or sudo access, can run untrusted applications without worrying about them spying on your personal account.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Tails 5.11
The Amnesic Incognito Live System (Tails) is a Debian-based live DVD/USB with the goal of providing Internet anonymity for the user. The project's latest release, Tails 5.11, introduces zRAM for increasing memory capacity which should allow for longer sessions. "Tails now uses the zRAM Linux kernel module to extend the capacity of the computer's memory. You can run more applications or use your session for longer periods of time. Tails will handle more load before freezing and become slow more progressively. You can record screencasts using the integrated feature of GNOME. We configured this feature to allow unlimited screencasts. Changes and updates: Update Tor Browser to 12.0.4; Update Thunderbird to 102.9.0; redesigned the unlocking section of the Welcome Screen." The release announcement and changelog offer further information.
Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0
Trisquel GNU/Linux is a 100% libre Ubuntu-based Linux distribution. The project's latest release, version 11.0, is based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and greatly expands compatibility with a wider range of CPU architectures. "New supported architectures. Following the addition of 32-bit ARM support in Trisquel 10, we now introduce support for 64-bit ARM and POWER architectures, to expand the options for hardware compatibility. d-i/Netinstall (also called debian-installer) is the text-mode installer for Trisquel, which allows for advanced and custom installations, often used for servers. After Ubuntu dropped support for this installation method, we stepped in to add any removed pieces and make it functional again, often from upstream Debian sources. Browser packaging: as Ubuntu continues to shift towards snap packaging, we took on the task of continuing to package key components such as Abrowser (our improved Firefox derivative) as a standard .deb package. Abrowser continues to bring a fully free browser that balances privacy and usability. Compatibility with AMD/ATI graphics cards. We made a specific effort to improve the support for these cards without requiring non-free firmware blobs. The result is a default configuration that should make most of these types of cards work at a basic level, without 2D/3D acceleration. Please report if you test it with one of those cards! Aramo is based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and will receive support until 2027. Users of Trisquel 10 Nabia can upgrade directly using the update-manager or do-release-upgrade commands at a console terminal." Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement.
Trsiquel GNU/Linux 11.0 -- Running the MATE desktop
(full image size: 9.7MB, resolution: 3840x2400 pixels)
Proxmox 7.4 "Virtual Environment"
Proxmox is a commercial company offering specialised products based on Debian GNU/Linux. The company has released an update to its "Virtual Environment" series which introduces updated virtual machine and filesystem packages along with a new dark theme. The release announcement lists the key features: "We're very excited to announce the release of Proxmox Virtual Environment 7.4. It's based on Debian 11.6 "Bullseye" but using a newer Linux kernel 5.15 or 6.2, QEMU 7.2, LXC 5.0.2, and ZFS 2.1.9. Proxmox Virtual Environment 7.4 comes with a new dark theme "Proxmox Dark". Here is a selection of the highlights: Debian 11.6 "Bullseye", but using a newer Linux kernel 5.15 or 6.2; QEMU 7.2, LXC 5.0.2, and ZFS 2.1.9; Ceph Quincy 17.2.5 and Ceph Pacific 16.2.11; a fully-integrated "Proxmox Dark" theme variant; display of detailed Ceph OSD information in GUI and API; download task logs as text files; sorting of resource tree by name or VMID; HA manager: Added CRM command to switch an online node manually into maintenance (without reboot); CRS: rebalance VMs & containers automatically on start." Additional information can be found in the distribution's release notes.
Ubuntu 20.04.6
Graham Inggs has announced the availability of a point release update to Ubuntu 20.04.6. The new media offers bug fixes and addresses some Secure Boot issues. The release announcement shares the following details: "The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS (Long-Term Support) for its Desktop and Server products. Unlike previous point releases, 20.04.6 is a refresh of the amd64 installer media after recent key revocations, re-enabling their usage on Secure Boot enabled systems. Many other security updates for additional high-impact bug fixes are also included, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Maintenance updates will be provided for 5 years for Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Cloud, and Ubuntu Base." The release notes offer further information.
Slackel 7.6 "Openbox"
Slackel is a Linux distribution and live environment based on Slackware Linux and Salix OS. The project has published a new version, Slackel 7.6 "Openbox". The project's release announcement offers the following insights: "Slackel 7.6 "Openbox" has been released. It is more than a year since the last Slackel release. It includes Linux kernel 6.1.20 and the latest updates from the Slackware 'Current' tree. The new version is available in 64-bit and 32-bit versions. The 64-bit ISO image supports booting on UEFI systems. ISO images are isohybrid. ISO images can be used as installation media. It is good to read the Slackel Startup Guide before install Slackel. It includes Flatpak so the user has access to dozens of apps to install. Mozilla-firefox-111.0, mozilla-thunderbird-102.9.0, exaile-4.1.1, smtube-21.10.0, smplayer-22.7.0, MPlayer-20221009, libreoffice-7.5.1.2, filezilla-3.58.0, pidgin-2.14.12, transmission-2.94, gimp-2.10.34, slackel-control-center-3.0, install-upgrade-kernel-gtk-3.0 GUI application to upgrade the kernel for internal disk installs, install-upgrade-kernel-ext-usb- gtk-3.0 gui application to upgrade the kernel for installations on external SSD disk or USB stick. Instonusb-2.0 for creating live USB stick (frugal install) useful for installing Slackel on laptops without DVD device and more and the latest updates from Slackware's 'Current' tree."
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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: 2,847
- Total data uploaded: 43.1TB
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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) |
Isolating untrusted applications
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about various methods of isolating untrusted applications. Some of these approaches used built-in or third-party sandboxing, one approach used different user accounts. We also covered virtual machines and access control technologies such as SELinux and AppArmor. When you need to run a program you want to keep separate from your usual files and applications, how do you isolate it? Let us know your preferred method and why you use it in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on which utilities our readers use to transfer files between computers in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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How I isolate untrusted applications
| Access controls (AppArmor/SELinux): | 44 (4%) |
| Built-in sandbox (Flatpak/Snap): | 105 (10%) |
| Container: | 37 (4%) |
| Third-party sandbox (Firejail): | 63 (6%) |
| User accounts: | 44 (4%) |
| Virtual machine: | 219 (21%) |
| A combination of the above: | 188 (18%) |
| None of the above: | 335 (32%) |
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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 $107 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| Peter C | $57 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| Jonathon B | $7 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| Darkeugene7896 | $5 |
| DuCakedHare | $5 |
| Joe H | $3 |
| Urs N | $3 |
| Ross M | $3 |
| JD L | $2 |
| PB C | $2 |
| Peter M | $2 |
| x6WWldo9 | $1 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
| William E | $1 |
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Droidian. Droidian is a GNU/Linux distribution based on top of Mobian, a Debian-based distribution for mobile devices. The goal of Droidian is to be able to run Mobian on Android phones. This is accomplished by using well-known technologies such as libhybris and Halium.
- stal/IX. stal/IX is a statically linked, source-based, rolling release Linux distribution, based on the IX package manager.
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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, 3 April 2023. 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)
- Joshua Allen Holm (feature review)
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Issue 1032 (2023-08-14): MX Linux 23, positioning new windows on the desktop, Linux Containers adopts LXD fork, Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ form OpenELA |
| • Issue 1031 (2023-08-07): Peppermint OS 2023-07-01, preventing a file from being changed, Asahi Linux partners with Fedora, Linux Mint plans new releases |
| • Issue 1030 (2023-07-31): Solus 4.4, Linux Mint 21.2, Debian introduces RISC-V support, Ubuntu patches custom kernel bugs, FreeBSD imports OpenSSL 3 |
| • Issue 1029 (2023-07-24): Running Murena on the Fairphone 4, Flatpak vs Snap sandboxing technologies, Redox OS plans to borrow Linux drivers to expand hardware support, Debian updates Bookworm media |
| • Issue 1028 (2023-07-17): KDE Connect; Oracle, SUSE, and AlmaLinux repsond to Red Hat's source code policy change, KaOS issues media fix, Slackware turns 30; security and immutable distributions |
| • Issue 1027 (2023-07-10): Crystal Linux 2023-03-16, StartOS (embassyOS 0.3.4.2), changing options on a mounted filesystem, Murena launches Fairphone 4 in North America, Fedora debates telemetry for desktop team |
| • Issue 1026 (2023-07-03): Kumander Linux 1.0, Red Hat changing its approach to sharing source code, TrueNAS offers SMB Multichannel, Zorin OS introduces upgrade utility |
| • Issue 1025 (2023-06-26): KaOS with Plasma 6, information which can leak from desktop environments, Red Hat closes door on sharing RHEL source code, SUSE introduces new security features |
| • Issue 1024 (2023-06-19): Debian 12, a safer way to use dd, Debian releases GNU/Hurd 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 nears its end of life, FreeBSD turns 30 |
| • Issue 1023 (2023-06-12): openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the differences between independent distributions, openSUSE lengthens Leap life, Murena offers new phone for North America |
| • Issue 1022 (2023-06-05): GetFreeOS 2023.05.01, Slint 15.0-3, Liya N4Si, cleaning up crowded directories, Ubuntu plans Snap-based variant, Red Hat dropping LireOffice RPM packages |
| • Issue 1021 (2023-05-29): rlxos GNU/Linux, colours in command line output, an overview of Void's unique features, how to use awk, Microsoft publishes a Linux distro |
| • Issue 1020 (2023-05-22): UBports 20.04, finding another machine's IP address, finding distros with a specific kernel, Debian prepares for Bookworm |
| • Issue 1019 (2023-05-15): Rhino Linux (Beta), checking which applications reply on a package, NethServer reborn, System76 improving application responsiveness |
| • Issue 1018 (2023-05-08): Fedora 38, finding relevant manual pages, merging audio files, Fedora plans new immutable edition, Mint works to fix Secure Boot issues |
| • Issue 1017 (2023-05-01): Xubuntu 23.04, Debian elects Project Leaders and updates media, systemd to speed up restarts, Guix System offering ground-up source builds, where package managers install files |
| • Issue 1016 (2023-04-24): Qubes OS 4.1.2, tracking bandwidth usage, Solus resuming development, FreeBSD publishes status report, KaOS offers preview of Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1015 (2023-04-17): Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Arch Linux powering PINE64 tablets, Ubuntu offering live patching on HWE kernels, gaining compression on ex4 |
| • Issue 1014 (2023-04-10): Quick looks at carbonOS, LibreELEC, and Kodi, Mint polishes themes, Fedora rolls out more encryption plans, elementary OS improves sideloading experience |
| • Issue 1013 (2023-04-03): Alpine Linux 3.17.2, printing manual pages, Ubuntu Cinnamon becomes official flavour, Endeavour OS plans for new installer, HardenedBSD plans for outage |
| • Issue 1012 (2023-03-27): siduction 22.1.1, protecting privacy from proprietary applications, GNOME team shares new features, Canonical updates Ubuntu 20.04, politics and the Linux kernel |
| • Issue 1011 (2023-03-20): Serpent OS, Security Onion 2.3, Gentoo Live, replacing the scp utility, openSUSE sees surge in downloads, Debian runs elction with one candidate |
| • Issue 1010 (2023-03-13): blendOS 2023.01.26, keeping track of which files a package installs, improved network widget coming to elementary OS, Vanilla OS changes its base distro |
| • Issue 1009 (2023-03-06): Nemo Mobile and the PinePhone, matching the performance of one distro on another, Linux Mint adds performance boosts and security, custom Ubuntu and Debian builds through Cubic |
| • Issue 1008 (2023-02-27): elementary OS 7.0, the benefits of boot environments, Purism offers lapdock for Librem 5, Ubuntu community flavours directed to drop Flatpak support for Snap |
| • Issue 1007 (2023-02-20): helloSystem 0.8.0, underrated distributions, Solus team working to repair their website, SUSE testing Micro edition, Canonical publishes real-time edition of Ubuntu 22.04 |
| • Issue 1006 (2023-02-13): Playing music with UBports on a PinePhone, quick command line and shell scripting questions, Fedora expands third-party software support, Vanilla OS adds Nix package support |
| • Issue 1005 (2023-02-06): NuTyX 22.12.0 running CDE, user identification numbers, Pop!_OS shares COSMIC progress, Mint makes keyboard and mouse options more accessible |
| • Issue 1004 (2023-01-30): OpenMandriva ROME, checking the health of a disk, Debian adopting OpenSnitch, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1003 (2023-01-23): risiOS 37, mixing package types, Fedora seeks installer feedback, Sparky offers easier persistence with USB writer |
| • Issue 1002 (2023-01-16): Vanilla OS 22.10, Nobara Project 37, verifying torrent downloads, Haiku improvements, HAMMER2 being ports to NetBSD |
| • Issue 1001 (2023-01-09): Arch Linux, Ubuntu tests new system installer, porting KDE software to OpenBSD, verifying files copied properly |
| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Full list of all issues |
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View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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