 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1087, 9 September 2024 |
Welcome to this year's 37th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
It's not often a new, full featured desktop environment comes along. However, System76, the makers of the Pop!_OS distribution, have decided to create their own desktop, written in the Rust language for added memory safety. The new user interface is called COSMIC and we take an early snapshot of the COSMIC desktop for a test run in this week's Feature Story. What do you think of the new COSMIC interface? Let us know below, in the Opinion Poll. System76 wasn't the only project showing off new applications recently. The UBports team have published a newsletter which highlights new and updated applications and we share some of these in our News section. Meanwhile, the Debian project is taking the opposite approach and is discussing how best to remove old packages and applications from the distribution which may be unused or unmaintained. Plus we cover HardenedBSD working around a compatibility issue with FreeBSD and systemd being ported to the musl C library. Then, in our Questions and Answers column, we discuss how to handle daily tasks which are not run at the same time every day. Plus we are pleased to share last week's releases and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: COSMIC Desktop (Alpha)
- News: UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl
- Questions and answers: Running daily cron jobs at variable times
- Released last week: GhostBSD 24.07.1, Peropesis 2.7, Q4OS 5.6
- Torrent corner: GhostBSD, KDE neon, TUXEDO OS
- Upcoming releases: Fedora 41 Beta
- Opinion poll: What do you think of the new COSMIC desktop?
- New distributions: IncreaseOS, ArchianOS, Tucana Linux, AnduinOS
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
COSMIC Desktop (Alpha)
Pop!_OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution developed by System76. The project has, up to this point, used a custom version of the GNOME desktop which strove to make the experience smoother and more approachable for new users. This custom implementation of GNOME was called COSMIC.
Due to some issues with maintaining and upgrading the GNOME desktop, the Pop!_OS developers decided to create their own desktop environment. The new desktop is also called COSMIC, which tends to cause some confusion on forums. The new COSMIC desktop is coded in the Rust language for memory safety and, while it borrows some from the GNOME layout, provides its own code, applications, and customization utilities. COSMIC also offers a fresh start, shedding legacy code and approaches carried by other desktop environments. For example, COSMIC is a Wayland-only desktop with no X11 session.
The System76 team launched an alpha release of Pop!_OS 24.04 in August and it included the first official development release of COSMIC. While still in its early stages, I was curious to see how the new desktop environment would perform.
I downloaded the Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha media which was 2.5GB in size. Booting from this ISO immediately launches the project's custom system installer. This graphical application quickly guides us through picking our language, keyboard layout, and choosing guided or manual disk partitioning. We're also asked to create a username and password for ourselves and (optionally) we can choose to encrypt our home directory. The installer then shows us a simple progress bar marching across the screen and a spaceship animation while it copies packages to our hard drive.
My new copy of Pop!_OS booted to a graphical login screen. The login page uses a spaced-themed wallpaper and places its controls and buttons in the middle of the screen. Most login screens place small control buttons around the edges of the screen, but COSMIC puts large buttons in the middle, making them easier to spot and identify. The buttons help us pick a user account, pick our session option (COSMIC was the only session available), and there are options for suspending or powering off the computer. This screen also shows us the current time and battery charge.
Early impressions of COSMIC
Signing into our account brings up the COSMIC desktop. The wallpaper has a lovely image of space and the theme is consistently dark. The desktop uses a layout similar to GNOME Shell with a thin panel across the top of the screen and a larger dock placed at the bottom. There are no icons on the desktop. I was not greeted by any welcome window, tour, application or other pop-ups when I first started using COSMIC. This creates a quiet contrast to GNOME's many initial setup steps.
In the upper-left corner of the display we find two buttons. One is called Workspaces which brings up a widget to the left of the screen that gives us an overview of active desktops. The second button is called Applications and it brings up a large window in the middle of the display which looks a lot like GNOME Shell's application grid. Over to the right side of the top panel we find the system tray.
Pop!_OS 24.04 -- The application grid
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I want to talk a little more about the application grid. For the most part, it is like any other application grid we'd find when using GNOME, Plasma, or an Android device. It has a search bar at the top and large icons in the middle. What stands out about COSMIC's grid of icons is a row of buttons across the bottom which are named after categories of applications: System, Utilities, and Office. Clicking these buttons shows us different pages of sorted applications. The default screen is called Library Home and it seems to act as the equivalent to a Favourites collection on other desktops. Another button at the bottom of the window is titled "Add Group" and it helps us create new categories and assign them a name. Creating a new category adds its button to the bottom of the grid. We can click and drag any existing application icons down to the bottom of the window and drop them on a category to sort them into different locations.
Earlier I mentioned the system tray on the top panel and it is full of icons to help us access settings and functionality. The default icons offer us accessing the language and keyboard settings; switching between tiling and floating window management (floating is the default); and adjusting the volume of our speaker and microphone. There are additional widgets for connecting to networks and enabling airplane mode; selecting a power profile (the three options are: performance, balance, or conversing battery); and there is a notifications area with a do-not-disturb button. Finally, in the corner, we find a button for accessing the settings panel and signing out (or powering off) the computer.
Pop!_OS 24.04 -- Checking for notifications in the system tray
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I like that I can click on one of the system tray icons and then move the mouse over to other icons to select them without needing to click on each one. This smooth click-then-hover approach reduces clicks and feels more fluid, similar to the settings and notification panel used by UBports.
The dock at the bottom of the screen offers us some control buttons and quick launchers. The first icons on the left of the dock is used to open a search and run dialog, the sort of runner we'd get by pressing Alt+F2 on most desktops. The second button opens the workspaces panel to the left of the screen. A third icon opens the application grid in the middle of the screen. In short, there is some duplication of effort between the top panel and the dock, perhaps to reduce mouse movement. There are also icons on the dock for launching Firefox, the COSMIC file manager, and the settings panel.
COSMIC applications
The COSMIC desktop ships with a handful of custom applications. I think these applications are meant to showcase and test the new desktop's abilities as much as replace the utilities provided by other projects and desktop environments. I will share a quick overview of the COSMIC apps here.
Pop!_OS 24.04 -- The COSMIC terminal and file manager
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- File manager - This is a fairly straight forward, no-frills file manager. The application presents us with two panes by default. Folders are placed to the left, files and folders in the selected area are on the right. The file manager can show icons in grid or list format and we can hide the left pane if we want to streamline things further. We can right-click on a folder to add it to the left pane and right-click items in the left pane to clear them from the list of shortcuts. The exception to these actions is the Trash folder which is always visible in the left pane as it cannot be removed.
The file manager supports a tabbed interface and can help us with deleting, moving, and copying files.
- Terminal - As with the other COSMIC applications, the virtual terminal is clean and light on features. It uses a dark background and light text by default and, like the file manager, offers tabs. The settings and profile options in the terminal mostly deal with the size and colour of the terminal's fonts. The terminal also supports zooming in/out to change the size of the text in our console.
- Text editor - The text editor is similar in style to the terminal in terms of layout, colours, and options. It offers the option of displaying line numbers, copying and pasting text, and opening new files/projects. Unlike the terminal, the text editor cannot zoom in/out on the fly. There is a spell check option in the View menu which did nothing during my trial.
- Screenshot - There is a COSMIC screenshot utility installed, but it fails to launch. I tried running it from the application menu and from the Print Screen button on my keyboard. In either case it wouldn't launch.
Software centre
I believe the COSMIC software centre deserves special attention. This software centre has a similar style to KDE's Discover. There are categories of applications displayed in a pane to the left of the window while specific applications are shown to the right. The default category is called Explore and it showcases featured or promoted items. There are also entries for showing installed applications and new software updates. The rest of the categories have odd names that do not match with classic application menu sections. Some of the entries are called Create, Learn, Relax, and Socialize. I find these less clear than browsing categories such as Office, Games, Multimedia, and Internet.
Pop!_OS 24.04 -- The software centre
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Clicking on an application's entry brings up a page showing a description of the software. The software centre appears to pull applications from Flathub mostly, though I did spot a few items that had a drop-down menu near the top of the page that allowed me to switch between using Flathub as a source or fetching classic Deb packages. The Deb packages are called "System" packages. While no Flatpak packages are installed by default they seem to be the focus in the software centre with most featured items coming from Flathub's repository.
The software centre responds quickly and I found it easy to search for and install new items. The update feature worked for me and I was able to remove a couple of applications from the default install I wasn't going to use. The software centre prompts for our password before each action, which can get tedious after a while, but the centre worked well for me.
Settings and options
The COSMIC settings panel seems to borrow inspiration from the GNOME and Budgie settings applications. It currently offers a fairly small selection of options with just six categories: Desktop, Displays, Power and Battery, Input Devices, Time and Language, and System and Accounts. These categories are displayed in a panel to the left of the window, like GNOME's settings panel does. Specific options are displayed to the right.
Pop!_OS 24.04 -- The settings panel
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Something I enjoy about the COSMIC settings panel is the options are clearly labelled. Some desktops display vaguely named options or use double negatives in their descriptions which can be confusing. COSMIC explains settings in plain language.
I especially appreciate that we can customize the desktop layout easily. From the settings panel we can change the background, the shape of input boxes (round or rectangular), and change the size and position of the dock and panel.
A problem I ran into was, when the settings panel was open, it constantly used around 20% to 25% of my laptop's CPU. This eventually caused the fan to run as the laptop would heat up. No other COSMIC applications had this problem, only the settings panel would constantly gobble up available CPU cycles.
Resource consumption
On the subject of resource consumption, Pop!_OS running COSMIC is a bit on the heavy side. A fresh install of the distribution took up 6.7GB of disk space. Logging into COSMIC, without launching any applications, takes up 1080MB (approximately 1.0GB) of RAM. This makes COSMIC heavier than Xfce or Plasma, and a little bit lighter than GNOME on most distributions. The CPU on my system was close to idle, around 1% most of the time. Except, of course, when launching new applications or when exploring the settings panel.
Observations and overall feel
Now that I have talked about what is included in COSMIC, I'd like to talk a bit about what it feels like to use the desktop for a few days.
I like COSMIC's dark theme. It feels consistent and high-contrast. Text is easy to read and it's usually easy to identify controls. There is a light theme for people who want a brighter alternative. The settings panel also allows us to adjust the colours used, making the basic look of the desktop flexible.
On a related note, I like how thick the window borders are, making it easier to grab and resize them. This is something some desktops, such as Xfce, make harder than it needs to be.
COSMIC offers both floating and tiling window management, depending on what kind of workflow we want to explore.
The interface feels quiet and calm. There are no welcome windows, not much in the way of distractions, or visual effects. I'm not sure I saw a notification at all during my days with the new desktop. This makes it easier to focus on the tasks at hand.
COSMIC is a little large in terms of RAM usage, but lighter than the GNOME desktop it is replacing. This, combined with the desktop's Rust core, should make it a good and memory-safe alternative to the pervious GNOME-plus-extensions combination Pop!_OS was running in previous versions.
I would have liked it if there were tool tips displayed when the mouse is hovering over a launcher or system tray icon. As it is, if we don't recognize an icon then there isn't any way to tell what it does without clicking on it. Some icons are easy to identify, such as the file manager and settings buttons. On the other hand, I wasn't sure if another icon was a notepad (indicating it would launch a text editor) or a calculator.
COSMIC applications do not recognize Alt shortcut keys for accessing menus. For example, pressing Alt+F or Alt+V will not open the File or View menus in COSMIC-specific applications. These shortcuts work in other applications, such as Firefox, but are ignored in COSMIC's apps. I find this jarring when switching between, for example, the COSMIC text editor and Kwrite.
Like other desktops, COSMIC uses Alt+Tab to switch between open windows. However, the order in which we cycle through windows is different. With most window managers, Alt+Tab starts by switching between the most recently used windows and then cycles through the list to applications we've used less recently. COSMIC seems to assign each window a number as it is opened. Then pressing Alt+Tab cycles through the list of open applications in the order we launched them. If we open the terminal, the file manager, and a text editor (in this order) then pressing Alt+Tab once will always jump to the terminal, even if it is already the active window. Pressing Alt and then tapping Tab three times will always raise the text editor into focus.
This approach to switching between windows is unusual and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I can see the logic as a person can develop muscle memory to quickly jump to specific applications (assuming we always open them in the same order). I can see this being beneficial if we only have a few windows open at a time. On the other hand, if we use many applications at once and we're often switching between windows #5 and #7 then it is going to require hitting Tab 12 times every time we want to switch back and forth where it would require just 2 Tab taps in other desktop environments.
Applications provided by Flathub which I installed from the software centre did not respect COSMIC's theme. This resulted in most of my applications using the default dark theme, but a few GNOME applications displaying bright, white windows and this made for a jarring experience.
COSMIC crashed on me twice in three days. The first time I was minimizing the software centre and suddenly found myself returned to the login screen, losing whatever files I was working on at the time. The second time COSMIC locked up while logging in and, after I restarted and tried logging in again, it locked up again, and then again. I found deleting the directory ~/.config/cosmic would reset the desktop's options and allow me to sign in.
Pop!_OS 24.04 -- Moving the dock to the left
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We can move the panel and dock around the desktop and this works well. We can also resize both the panel and the dock. I appreciate this flexibility. There doesn't appear to be any way to move the window buttons (close, minimize, and maximize) around the title bar. Perhaps that will come later.
Conclusions
My experiment with COSMIC had two distinct phases. During the first several hours with the desktop I was focused on exploring the layout, taking in the visuals, changing settings, and getting a feel for the style of the interface. This phase of my time with COSMIC went really well. I like the design a lot. There is a strong focus on making it clear where controls are and what they do. The key elements we are going to use are not tucked away, hidden, or flat. Everything seems to be set up to be easy to spot, text is easy to read, the spacing between elements is comfortable.
In short, the desktop feels clean, it feels easy on the eyes, it isn't distracting, and it feels like an interface I'd be comfortable looking at for many hours a day. In other words, it feels like a desktop by professionals for professionals in terms of its layout and visual style. I find visual effects on other desktops are wasted on me as they are distracting and slow down the actions of the window manager. COSMIC feels lean and responsive. The COSMIC applications are all streamlined, focusing on doing one thing well rather than being weighted down with options and additional features.
I think COSMIC blends some of the best elements of mobile interfaces and desktop environments. I like that the layout looks like a desktop most of the time, but it also borrows the application grid from mobile operating systems and the fluid system tray from UBports.
The second phase of my experience came when I stopped actively exploring the desktop itself and shifted to trying to work and perform my daily tasks. In the second phase I ran into a few issues. Earlier I mentioned COSMIC crashed on me once while working and this took down the whole desktop, which seems to be a common problem with Wayland compositors. In all fairness though, this was an alpha version of COSMIC, not a stable release.
Earlier I pointed out Flatpak applications don't respect COSMIC's theme and this resulted in a rough visual experience, especially when switching between GNOME applications and COSMIC applications. Likewise, COSMIC applications not recognizing menu keyboard shortcuts made for a jarring transition between programs.
COSMIC, whether in tiling or floating mode, appears to be set up to work best with a small number of windows open; it feels like a desktop for running just one or two applications at a time. Once I had added more windows it became more time consuming and awkward to switch between my programs. I often leave my computers running for days or weeks at a time, often with around 10 to 12 applications open on my desktop. COSMIC's window switching and arrangement doesn't seem well suited to this. On the other hand, COSMIC also seems to forget window placement and dimensions so I had to resize and move newly opened applications each time I launched them. Therefore, it was awkward to have too many windows open, but it was also inconvenient to close windows and relaunch them later.
In general, I think COSMIC is doing a lot of things well. In fact, I'd say it's running surprisingly well for an alpha release with just a handful of applications. The design looks really nice and I like how responsive and smooth the desktop feels. There are a few rough points, particularly when using applications developed for other desktops or when a lot of windows are open. However, I suspect those concerns will get sorted out in the coming months. COSMIC appears to be starting with a good desktop that has its own identity while borrowing useful features from other interfaces. Best of all, the desktop uses sane defaults while offering flexibility through the settings panel.
I'm not ready to recommend it yet as a daily driver, but I suspect I will be suggesting it to new users in another year.
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Visitor supplied rating
Pop!_OS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.1/10 from 243 review(s).
Have you used Pop!_OS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl
The UBports team have announced a series of updates to their project's operating system and applications. "There is a new app out for testing. It is designed to handle Odoo timesheets. It is at an early stage and the direction and shape will follow feedback from the first users. It is being developed by Synconics Technologies, friends of UBports. Another new app is Browser Leak, again by Lucstay11. His app is designed to show up any fingerprinting of your phone. The app will show up any weaknesses but of course use a good quality VPN to protect yourself. Sturm Reader has been updated. This was one of the first and best apps on UT and it allows you to read ePub books, comics, PDF files etc. We thank Emanuele Sorce for his work." There is also a new app called Amazfish which communicates with smartwatches. Further information is provided in the UBports news post.
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The HardenedBSD team have published their monthly newsletter for August. One of the updates mentions an incompatibility with one of FreeBSD's changes along with a temporary fix: "FreeBSD recently made changes to the in-kernel heap implementation (see malloc(9)). Those changes are incompatible with our hardening.kmalloc_zero feature. I have not had ample time to address this incompatibility, but hope to soon. As such, users who run 15-CURRENT and have set hardening.kmalloc_zero=1 should temporarily disable the feature prior to upgrading to the 01 Sep 2024 build."
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Usually any discussions about packages included in distributions revolve around getting new software added to a distribution's repositories. However, sometimes it's important to prune the tree of available software. Debian's Project Leader, Andreas Tille, talked about trimming old packages that are no longer maintained or useful in this month's Bits from the DPL newsletter. "Helmut Grohne argued for more aggressive package removal and sought consensus on a way forward. He provided six examples of processes where packages that are candidates for removal are consuming valuable person-power. I'd like to add that the Bug of the Day initiative (see below) also frequently encounters long-unmaintained packages with popcon votes sometimes as low as zero, and often fewer than ten.
Helmut's e-mail included a list of packages that would meet the suggested removal criteria. There was some discussion about whether a popcon vote should be included in these criteria, with arguments both for and against it. Although I support including popcon, I acknowledge that Helmut has a valid point in suggesting it be left out."
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One of the aspects of systemd which made the software controversial when it was first launched was the project's narrow focus. systemd was designed to work on Linux-based distributions only, ignoring the BSDs, Solaris, and other Unix-like systems. The systemd software was also closely tied to the GNU C library (glibc), making it impossible to run systemd on many smaller Linux distributions which use alternatives, such as the musl C library. This may be changing as the developer of Adelie Linux has managed to get a port of systemd running with musl C. "I have completed an initial new port of systemd to musl. This patch set does not share much in common with the existing OpenEmbedded patchset. I wanted to make a fully updated patch series targeting more current releases of systemd and musl, taking advantage of the latest features and updates in both. I also took a focus on writing patches that could be sent for consideration of inclusion upstream. The final result is a system that appears to be surprisingly reliable considering the newness of the port, and very fast to boot. Details on the porting process and work remaining can be found in this 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) |
Running daily cron jobs at variable times
Delicate-timing asks: I have a cron job that downloads information at midnight about when the sun rises and sets for that day. Then I want to edit a line in my crontab file to execute another script at those times. Been having a hard time finding out how to dynamically schedule cron jobs. Any tips?
DistroWatch answers: It sounds like, around midnight each night, you are running one script which is looking up data on-line. Then, based on what it finds, you want to schedule two additional scripts (or one script run at separate times) to be run later in the day.
There are a few challenges to this approach. One is that the crontab command, which is usually used to edit and enable new scheduled tasks, normally launches an interactive editor to create or modify jobs. Cron jobs are organized in text files which are stored under the /var filesystem, typically in the /var/spool/cron/crontabs directory. We could, in theory, write changes directly to our crontab file at /var/spool/cron/crontabs/username, removing old entries and creating the new ones to run your scripts. However, the /var/spool/cron/crontabs directory is usually only readable by the root (administrator) user and by the crontab service. We need to find a less direct approach.
Luckily, we can use the crontab command to overwrite our cron file with any other text file of our choosing. Running the command crontab and passing it a text file will overwrite our old cron file with the entries in our text file. Here we overwrite our old scheduled jobs with the contents of a file called cronny:
crontab cronny
At this point we will still need to figure out how to remove the old crontab entries each day at midnight and write the new jobs to our crontab file, cronny. We could do this by having a copy of our original crontab file in our home directory and then appending the new jobs each day. This is a crude example of a script which will overwrite our crontab file with one stored in our home directory and add two new scheduled tasks to it:
cp ~/cronny ~/cronny-with-script-times
echo "15 6 * * * ~/sunrise" >> ~/cronny-with-script-times
echo "12 18 * * * ~/sunset" >> ~/cronny-with-script-times
crontab cronny-with-script-times
Having dug this far down the rabbit hole of dynamically scheduled cron jobs, I feel it's now important I suggest that this is not an ideal approach. The above method requires us to adjust our copy of our ~/cronny file if we ever plan to schedule additional jobs (or prune old jobs) in the future. In short: this approach is a bit messy as it means we're maintaining at least two copies of our cron file (the main file used by cron, plus our copy called cronny).
What would probably be a better plan is to have the script which runs daily (around midnight) calculate how long the gap is between midnight and the jobs which are to run later in the day. Then that job can sleep until the specified time and execute the scripts we want to run at dynamic times.
Let's assume for a moment that, as in our above example, we download information in our midnight script that tells us we should run the sunrise script at 6:15 and we should run the sunset script at 18:12. We know our starting time (midnight) so we can sleep until sunrise, run our first script, then sleep again until sunset and run the second script.
Here is a bash script sample which should do this, assuming the variables sunrisehour and sunriseminute tell us when the first script should run, and sunsethour and sunsetminute tell us when the second script should be run. The script calculates the appropriate number of seconds to sleep and then snoozes until it is time to run our scripts.
sunriseseconds=$(($sunrisehour*3600))
sunriseseconds=$(($sunriseminutes*60+$sunriseseconds))
sunsetseconds=$(($sunsethour*3600))
sunsetseconds=$(($sunsetminutes*60+$sunsetseconds))
sunrisetoset=$(($sunsetseconds-$sunriseseconds))
sleep $sunriseseconds
~/sunrise
sleep $sunrisetoset
~/sunset
The above script sample will consume almost no additional resources during the day since it is sleeping most of the time. It'll terminate after running the sunset script, and can then be run again at midnight. This avoids editing the user's crontab file and avoids the risk of overwriting new changes to our crontab that need to be duplicated in our cronny file. It also means we're running just one cron job instead of three, which (to me, at least) feels cleaner.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
GhostBSD 24.07.1
GhostBSD is a desktop-oriented, FreeBSD-based operating system featuring the MATE desktop (a community build offers an Xfce alternative). The project's latest release is version 24.07.1 which now draws on FreeBSD's base system packages - low-level components built the same way as third-party packages. "This release, though a bit delayed, brings a significant change. We have transitioned from building our OS packages from our OS ports to building them from FreeBSD PKGBSD. This change, while involving extensive testing, promises improved performance and stability. If you have not updated to 24.04.2, a backup and reinstallation with 24.07.1 is recommended. Please note that the change to PKGBSD and the OS update to 24.07.1 could cause issues, as the update manager was only set to upgrade GhostBSD to PKGBSD from a minor version. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause." A full list of changes is presented in the project's release announcement.
Q4OS 5.6
Q4OS is a Debian-based desktop Linux distribution designed to offer classic-style user interface. The Q4OS project has published a new version, Q4OS 5.6, which introduces a desktop profiler and some upgrades to the Calamares system installer. The distribution's release announcement states: "The Q4OS project is pleased to announce the sixth update of its stable edition Q4OS 5, codename Aquarius. The new Aquarius 5.6 series receives the recent Debian Bookworm 12.7 updates, updated Debian stable 6.1.0-25 kernel and important security and bug fixes. This release brings along a few Q4OS specific improvements, fixes and a cumulative upgrade covering all the changes from the previous stable Aquarius release. Calamares installer now features custom desktop profiles loader see the Documentation. A native Q4OS Setup tool as well as Desktop profiler have been enhanced with new features. All the Q4OS live media receive brand new Debian Shim and Grub bootloader binaries, they revoke signatures across older versions of Shim in the UEFI firmware."
Peropesis 2.7
Peropesis (personal operating system) is a small-scale, minimalist, command-line-based Linux operating system. The project's latest version is Peropesis 2.7, introduces archive and ISO management tools. "Peropesis 2.7 is released. In the new edition part of the old software was updated and several new software packages were installed. The newly installed software is designed to perform file system archiving and ISO image creation tasks. In parallel with the 2.7 release, a new user manual chapter - Editing ISO image content was created. New chapter provides an example of how to edit the Peropesis file system using the newly installed tools. New software installed: 1. cpio 2.15. cpio is a command-line-based tool for creating, extracting and copying archives. 2. Squashfs-tools 4.6.1. Squashfs-tools is a tool for creating Squashfs type file systems. Squashfs is a compressed read-only file system for Linux. 3. xorriso 1.5.6.pl02. xorriso - creates, loads, manipulates and writes ISO 9660 filesystem images with Rock Ridge extensions." The release announcement offers additional information.
rlxos 2.0
rlxos is an independent Linux distribution which runs on an immutable filesystem and features the Xfce desktop. The project's latest release is rlxos 2.0 "Sankalpa" which introduces a number of new features and tweaks to the user interface. "We've improved various theming components like, drop-down menus and panel with better spacing and translucency. We've also switched to Fira Code for monospace fonts, a great choice for developers with stylish coding ligatures. Finding and opening apps is now simpler with the new grid-based app menu. It's more organized, visually appealing, and works well on both desktops and touchscreens. Default shell is replaced to zsh configured with auto-suggestions and other help full plugins for easy to access shell commands. rlxos now comes with a graphical software manager, making it super easy to install, update, and manage Flatpak apps with just a few clicks." Additional information can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
rlxos 2.0 -- Running the Xfce desktop
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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: 3,067
- Total data uploaded: 45.3TB
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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) |
What do you think of the new COSMIC desktop?
We began this week with a look at the COSMIC desktop environment, created by System76 for its Pop!_OS distribution. The new desktop is intended to replace Pop!_OS's customized GNOME desktop. What do you think of COSMIC? Have you tried it yet? Let us know what you liked or didn't like about the young desktop environment in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on trying Vanilla OS in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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What do you think of COSMIC?
| I have tried it and like it: | 182 (8%) |
| I have tried it but did not like it: | 780 (35%) |
| I plan to try it later: | 484 (22%) |
| I have no plans to try it: | 762 (35%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- IncreaseOS. IncreaseOS is a lightweight distribution which is based on Debian. It runs the Xfce desktop by default.
- ArchianOS. ArchianOS is an Arch-based distribution featuring its own, custom system installer script. While several desktop environments are available, none is enabled by default, allowing the user to install only the tools and desktop software they want.
- Tucana Linux. Tucana is an independent distribution, originally developed using Linux From Scratch. The project aims to provide a lot of options and control over the operating system. It offers the Calamares system installer, lib32 and Steam packages, and easy package repository hosting.
- AnduinOS. AnduinOS is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the GNOME desktop, automatic updates, and a theme designed to be familiar to users of Microsoft Windows.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 16 September 2024. 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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If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
Soyombo Mongolian Linux
Soyombo was a Mongolian live CD distribution based on Morphix and built by the OpenNM project.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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