 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1096, 11 November 2024 |
Welcome to this year's 46th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The world is full of new processors, new computing devices, and new portable technologies. It seems every week there is a new device available or a new platform to try. This week we focus on operating systems and applications being ported to new devices in our News section. We look at Redox OS being ported to RISC-V processors and its team importing the COSMIC software centre. We also cover FreeBSD booting on the open hardware-powered PinePhone Pro and making its UFS filesystem more accessible on a range of platforms. Plus we talk about new ZFS features coming to TrueNAS (and other operating systems with ZFS support), while LXQt introduces support for multiple Wayland window managers and Debian publishes updated install media. Before we dive into those stories, we take a rapid-fire look at three projects from the DistroWatch waiting list. Tucana Linux, Bazzite, and Playtron OS are all young projects on the waiting list and we share some first impressions. This week we also talk about multiplex sessions and report on how to determine whether we are operating inside one of these special terminal environments - read our Questions and Answers column for the details. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. Finally, we are happy to welcome a new project to our database: openEuler. The openEuler project develops a server-focused distribution that is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and offers both long-term support versions and faster moving interim releases. More details on this project are covered below. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Bazzite 40
This week I decided to take a look at a few gaming-focused distributions on the DistroWatch waiting list. The first project to catch my eye was Bazzite. What is Bazzite? The project describes itself as follows:
Bazzite is a custom image built upon Fedora Atomic Desktops that brings the best of Linux gaming to all of your devices - including your favourite handheld. Bazzite is designed for Linux newcomers and enthusiasts alike with Steam pre-installed, HDR and VRR support, improved CPU schedulers for responsive game play, and numerous community-developed tools and tweaks to streamline your gaming experience.
The Bazzite website also mentions rolling back updates and reverting to older versions of the operating system are handy features which are available in case an update breaks the system:
Bazzite is atomic meaning that after every update the previous version of the operating system is retained on your machine. Should an update cause any issues, you can select the previous image at boot time. Additionally, images of the operating system are retained in our repositories for ninety days and can be switched to via the terminal. NVIDIA driver update broke something you needed? No worries, rebase to the last known good release and pin it so that it's retained as long as needed.
From the Bazzite's download page we need to make a series of selections from drop-down lists in order to narrow down which ISO file we need. We begin by selecting which type of computer we have. Options include generic PCs, Steam Deck, Framework Laptop, and a few others. We are asked to pick which type of GPU our computer has: AMD, Intel, or NVIDIA. Then we are asked which desktop we want to use: Plasma or GNOME. Finally, we pick a "gaming mode": single user with automatic login or regular user mode.
The ISO I was offered was 9.3GB in size. The Bazzite website says the ISO is so large because of portable packages and duplicate software:
Desktop operating systems distributed in OCI containers are still a relatively new concept and we've had to make some concessions for technical reasons. Flatpaks and their runtimes are included in the ISO, and a second copy of Fedora Linux is used to bootstrap the installer. The large size of our ISO is not indicative of final install size on disk.
Booting from the provided ISO brings up a menu which offers to boot into the installer or test the media's integrity before launching the system installer. Either option brings up a graphical environment and starts the Anaconda installer. The installer asks us to select our preferred language and then offers us a group of configuration modules we can access in any order. These modules help us connect to a local network, create a user account, pick a time zone, and partition the hard drive. The drive partitioning screens are a bit more complex that those of Calamares and Ubiquity, but the module also offers a guided option which will take over an entire disk.
Anaconda then starts copying files to the local disk. Progress seemed to stall a few times, at the 10% and 50% marks, where the progress bar froze for a few minutes. However, in both cases, the progress bar eventually leaped forward about 40% and then the installer reported it had finished successfully.
Running the installed system
The first time I booted by new copy of Bazzite the splash screen reported it was updating "kargs". Then, after a few minutes of steady disk activity, the screen locked up and the system failed to respond to keyboard input. I forced a reboot and this time the system locked up early in the boot process, once more leaving me with a blank screen.
I tried accessing the boot menu and found there were four entries, two identical entries for "ostree:0" and two for "ostree:1". I tried each of these and they all provided the same experience. I also tried re-installing the operating system in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes, but again Bazzite failed to boot.
I found it interesting the live media worked well, providing a nice graphical installer, but when letting the system take over my entire disk, the distribution didn't work for me. Bazzite also failed to run on a laptop on which its parent distro, Fedora, works. This is understandable, I think. Bazzite is still quite a young project and it may take a few cycles to sort out the rough edges. I decided to move on to another project on the waiting list.
* * * * *
Playtron OS Alpha 1
The Playtron OS project has a mission similar to Bazzite. The project seeks to support multiple game stores on multiple hardware devices, including the Steam Deck:
Platform support (Alpha 1) includes AMD and Intel compatibility, with ARM builds for select devices coming later. Tested devices include AYANEO 2/2S, ASUS ROG Ally, GPD Win 4, Lenovo Legion Go, and both LCD and OLED versions of Valve Steam Deck. Game Library Integration supports Epic Games Store, GOG.com, and Steam, allowing easy import and play of existing games.
While I didn't find a specific entry in the list of supported hardware indicating whether the project supports generic personal computers, I did find this comment in the install instructions: "Only single GPU systems are supported. If a computer has both an iGPU and a dGPU (common on laptops), they will not work with the Alpha 1 release."
The above warning didn't apply to me, so I proceeded. Playtron OS is in its early development stages and is still considered an alpha release. As such, the release notes indicate there are still lots of issues to fix. Here are a few examples:
A physical keyboard is required for most devices to complete the installation. Physical keyboard input is not supported for library navigation yet. Use a controller for the best experience. CPU resource utilisation for Playtron can be high. During account linking, Epic Games Store account e-mail and password sometimes does not work on the first try. Some owned games do not appear on Playtron OS.
I downloaded the latest alpha snapshot of Playtron OS which is provided as a 2.8GB ISO.
Installing
The Playtron distribution requires UEFI support in order to boot, it will not work in Legacy BIOS mode. When the live media boots it brings up a text console where the installer checks to make sure we have a disk large enough to hold the distribution (at least 55GB is required). We are then asked to select a disk from a list presented in a text menu. We are warned the disk will be wiped and then the distribution is copied to the selected disk. The install process is quite fast and only took about two minutes on my laptop.
My new copy of the distribution started to boot, showed a series of systemd messages, and then froze when it reached the systemd-userdb service. I tried booting a few times, but each time the system locked up upon reaching this service. After that there was no response to keyboard input and no disk activity.
* * * * *
Tucana Linux 3.1
My third and final trip to the waiting list brought a different type of distribution to my attention. Tucana Linux is an independent, keep-it-simple distribution which uses the Calamares system installer. The project claims to offer easy local repository creation for custom packages, build scripts for making your own ISO, and a custom package manager called Mercury which is written in Bash script.
The Tucana project offers two pre-configured desktop editions: KDE and GNOME. We are told there are also packages in the repositories for setting up the Cinnamon, Xfce, i3, IceWM, and TWM graphical interfaces:
All Tucana installers will ask for a repository mirror you want to use. You can either use the public mirrors detailed at the wiki post here or host your [own] with the instructions from another wiki article here. In addition all Tucana ISOs, regardless of their user interface, can be used to install any desktop environment listed on this page and more, the installer will give you an option to pick at install time.
Despite these assurances, only three desktop environments are listed in the installer as being available: GNOME, KDE Plasma, and Xfce. The project's wiki makes a curious statement about setting up the distribution. Specifically, it says:
The repo must be hand-inputted, we currently have 1 mirror with more coming. Of course you can always host your own.
It then lists the one mirror, which seems odd. Why not have this repository's URL in a text file? Or make it so we can select this repository during the install process from a list? Manually looking up the URL in the wiki and typing it manually seems like the most cumbersome way to handle this situation.
I decided to download the KDE edition of Tucana Linux which is offered as a 2.6GB ISO file. Booting from this ISO brings up the KDE Plasma desktop and places a panel across the bottom of the screen. The desktop uses a light theme and places a single icon on the desktop for launching the system installer. The key elements of the live environment were working for me so I dived straight into the Calamares installer.
Tucana Linux 3.1 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 816kB, resolution: 1680x1050 pixels)
The Calamares installer starts by walking us through the usual questions. We are asked to pick a preferred language, our timezone, and to make up a username and password. One screen asks us to pick which desktop we want: Plasma, GNOME, Xfce, or No Desktop are the options. I like that clicking each option shows a small screenshot so we know what the desktop looks like. I'm less thrilled that the Tucana website claims to support more window managers, but they are not actually options in the system installer.
Calamares offers friendly manual partitioning and guided partitioning. The latter will set up a single ext4 partition for the root filesystem along with a swap partition.
Calamares then starts a slideshow while it sets up our new copy of Tucana. Most of the slides simply say "This is the second slide", "This is the third slide," and so on. If we look at the install log, it's almost exclusively populated by messages which say "Next slide" with the time stamp.
Early in the process a window pops up and offers to test our repo connection. Though the window doesn't provide any instructions, I realized this is the window where we need to type in the URL for the Tucana repository, then click "Test connection" to start downloading packages. I had thought, since I was installing from the KDE edition's media, the installer would pull packages/files from the local USB drive. However, it looks as though the install process pulls all packages from the on-line repository.
This takes a long time, with each package downloaded one at a time, then installed, then the next package is downloaded, then it is in installed, all in serial. We can watch, using a process monitor, the wget commands fetching each package individually, then wait while the package is installed, before the next package is fetched. This is unusually slow and took about 45 minutes to set up the minimal desktop system. During this time, Calamares didn't show any progress information so there was no indication (until I had opened a terminal to watch the processes perform their tasks) that anything was happening.
Calamares eventually reported success and offered to restart the computer.
Early impressions
My new copy of Tucana booted and indicated it was running version 6.10 of the Linux kernel and using systemd 256. After a few seconds it displayed a series of errors which read: "Failed to start Name Service Cache Daemon" and then the system appeared to lock up. No graphical environment was displayed and no text prompt was shown.
I tried restarting a few times and found that I was able to switch to a text console using the ALT+F2 key combination. From there I could sign into my user account and explore the command line.
I tried to start the Plasma desktop from the command line, using both the start-up commands for the Wayland and X11 sessions. Both failed with similar error messages which indicated the distribution was missing a dependency, the libbz2 library. I'd like to point out that the Plasma session worked on the live media, so it would seem the package manager did not properly fetch all dependencies from the remote repository during the install process.
Since a dependency was missing, let's talk about the project's custom package manager, Mercury. There is no single "mercury" command, instead there are four related Bash scripts called mercury-install, mercury-update, mercury-sync, and mercury-reinstall. Eagle-eyed readers will note there is no command for removing packages. There also isn't any Mercury command for searching for packages. If we want to get a list of software available in the repositories we can browse a text file called /var/cache/mercury/available-packages. We can run searches or use grep filters on this file to seek software we want to fetch.
I tried installing a few packages, after syncing my repository data, and found mercury-install worked. I was able to grab a few programs and run them. Since I didn't have a desktop environment or working audio, functionality was limited as many packages are for desktop applications. I did find a few command line programs in the repositories, downloaded them, and ran them successfully.
In an effort to get Plasma running I downloaded the bzip2 and bzip2 library packages. With these installed Plasma still failed to run, reporting the same libbz2 dependency was missing.
There are not many packages in the Mercury repository yet, just 1,186 packages. Which is about 1/50 of what Debian and Fedora offer.
While the desktop experience didn't work for me (once the distribution was installed), the command line mostly functioned well. The sudo command was set up and granted my user account admin rights. The usual GNU command line tools were installed for me. The man command is on the system, but there are no manual pages, even for the in-house Mercury package manager.
Conclusions
I usually like small projects which are trying to keep things simple and clean. These sorts of projects usually bring improved efficiency and speed at the cost of modern features. However, Tucana manages to do the opposite. Its install process and package manager are slower, by far, compared to most modern systems and there doesn't appear to be any reduction in resource consumption (the live environment used 830MB of RAM to run Plasma). Which means we are missing out on thousands of packages and convenient features for a slower and similar sized operating system, when compared to most mainstream Linux distributions.
Maybe Tucana will improve in future releases, or make more use of its custom package manager. For now, it's not bringing anything helpful to the experience.
I also want to note that one frustration I experienced twice this week was live systems providing working graphical interfaces, while the installed system did not. One of the reasons people use live desktop media is to test to confirm an operating system will work properly with their hardware before they install it. Using an install process which installs alternative packages or configurations which provide a different experience largely nullifies the benefits of having live media. I hope other up and coming projects keep this in mind so that their installed software works (or doesn't) the same as the live media.
* * * * *
Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an HP DY2048CA laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 512GB solid state drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Wireless network device: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + BT Wireless network card
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Redox being ported to RISC-V and running the COSMIC software centre, TrueNAS talks about new ZFS features, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, Debian refreshes install media, LXQt supports multiple Wayland window managers
The Redox OS team have been hard at work over the past month, porting their software and important new utilities. Redox has been made to boot on the Raspberry Pi 4, thanks to Jeremy Soller. The build on the Pi is still in its early stages and needs USB support to be used properly on the single-board computer. Redox also made strides on RISC-V systems: "RISC-V is now a supported target for Redox! Andrey Turkin has done extensive work on RISC-V support in the kernel, toolchain and elsewhere. Thanks very much Andrey for the excellent work! Jeremy Soller has incorporated RISC-V support into the toolchain and build process, has begun some refactoring of the kernel and device drivers to better handle all the supported architectures, and has gotten the Orbital Desktop working when running in QEMU."
The Redox team also reported they have managed to get the COSMIC Store software centre ported and new Redox packages can be installed using the COSMIC software centre. Details and screenshots can be found in the project's monthly newsletter.
* * * * *
The TrueNAS project has published a blog post which provides an overview of new ZFS features. The advanced filesystem has recently gained some practical features such as faster deduplication, gradually expanding RAID arrays, and direct I/O performance improvements. RAID expansion is probably one of the most requested ZFS features and its process is described in the post: "A much-anticipated feature for smaller systems and home users of TrueNAS, RAIDZ expansion allows a small pool (e.g., a single RAIDZ vdev) to be gradually expanded with one drive at a time. Existing data is preserved with its original parity level and rewritten across all drives, while new data is written with the new parity configuration. This simplified administrative process gives smaller TrueNAS systems the flexibility to expand in single drive increments, rather than adding a full vdev of drives. The same expansion feature works regardless of the parity level used - RAIDZ1, Z2, or Z3 - but cannot migrate between protection levels. The expansion process is done while the ZFS pool is online, similar to the resilvering process when a drive fails and is replaced. Once completed, the larger pool's full performance is available. The new disk is used immediately, with additional capacity being reclaimed as existing data is rewritten."
* * * * *
The FreeBSD project published its quarterly newsletter for the months of July through September. Some of the highlights include a cross-platform FUSE driver for the UFS filesystem which currently has read support and should soon enable writing data to UFS partitions; a graphical bhyve virtual machine manager; and support for booting FreeBSD on the PinePhone Pro: "A new project trying to make FreeBSD usable on the PinePhone Pro has been started during August. The current FreeBSD RELEASE images already boot on a PinePhone Pro, but no screen output or other devices are supported. The aim is to step by step support additional components so that the device one day might be usable as a highly mobile FreeBSD device. Over the last few weeks, the groundwork has been implemented like getting used to the device, cross-compiling and booting a 15.0-CURRENT custom kernel as well as toggling the LEDs (red/green/blue in the front). Also, the LCD backlight can be turned on already and the USB-C hub is enabled even though it is not yet functional due to missing power management support.
* * * * *
The Debian project has published new install media for Debian 12 "Bookworm". The new media includes security fixes, but does not represent a new version of the distribution. "The Debian project is pleased to announce the eighth update of its stable distribution Debian 12 (codename Bookworm). This point release mainly adds corrections for security issues, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories have already been published separately and are referenced where available. Please note that the point release does not constitute a new version of Debian 12 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away old Bookworm media. After installation, packages can be upgraded to the current versions using an up-to-date Debian mirror." The refreshed media is available through Debian's download page.
* * * * *
The LXQt desktop project has reached a major milestone in supporting Wayland sessions. The lightweight desktop is now compatible with Wayland and supports working with seven Wayland-enabled window managers. "Through its new component lxqt-wayland-session, LXQt 2.1.0 supports 7 Wayland sessions (with Labwc, KWin, Wayfire, Hyprland, Sway, River and Niri), has two Wayland back-ends in lxqt-panel (one for kwin_wayland and the other general), and will add more later. All LXQt components that are not limited to X11 - i.e., most components - work fine on Wayland. The sessions are available in the new section Wayland Settings inside LXQt Session Settings. At least one supported Wayland compositor should be installed in addition to lxqt-wayland-session for it to be used. There is still hard work to do, but all of the current LXQt Wayland sessions are quite usable; their differences are about what the supported Wayland compositors provide." LXQt continues to support X11 sessions too. Further details are provided in the project's announcement.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Detecting Screen sessions
Am-I-in-a-simulation asks: I constantly use the screen command for running longer tasks in case I logout or get disconnected. Sometimes I forget if I'm in a screen session or just the regular terminal and accidentally kill my terminal session. Is there a way to check if I'm running inside screen or just in plain Bash?
DistroWatch answers: For any readers who are unaware of the screen program, or related tools such as tmux, these utilities are called multiplexers. A multiplexer allows you to run multiple command line shells from one terminal. These shells can continue to run in the background when we logout or get disconnected from the machine where they are running.
Typically, the tmux and screen tools are used to run important or long-running jobs on a remote computer. The idea is we sign into the remote machine, launch a screen instance to create a new shell session, and start a new task. Then we can detach from the screen session, logout, or do other things. The task will continue to run in the special screen session in the background until we come back and reconnect to the shell.
This is handy for a few reasons. One, if our network connection drops the background shell will continue to work. Usually a dropped connection means any task in progress is terminated and screen protects against this. The second benefit to using screen is it allows us to run multiple shells from one terminal (or virtual terminal window). We can launch as many screen background shells as we want and run different tasks in each one, all from the same terminal. The tmux program is especially good in this situation as it makes switching between shell sessions nearly seamless. With tmux we can switch between different running shells the same way we would flip between web browser tabs to see different web pages.
As to how to tell if you are currently inside a background shell which was launched from tmux or screen, there are a few things you can check. If you are worried that running the exit command or pressing Ctrl-D might end your current terminal (or remote login) session you can guard against disconnecting yourself by looking at the SHLVL variable in your shell.
The SHLVL variable shows how many layers deep you are inside shells. In other words, how many times you've run a shell (or tmux or screen) instance inside your original console shell. You can check your shell level (SHLVL) by running:
$ echo $SHLVL
1
A response of "1" means you are at the top level, you're not inside a screen or tmux or other nested shell session. If you disconnect now it'll drop your connection to the server, or close your terminal window if you're running a local shell session. A response of "2" or higher means you are inside a background shell session and terminating it (with "exit" or Ctrl-D) will simply pop you back up to the parent shell.
There are some other approaches you can use to see if you have background shells running and, if so, whether you're using them (or in them) right now. Both screen and tmux have list commands (abbreviated "ls") which will show any shell sessions running in the background to which we can connect (or which are currently being accessed). With the screen command we can run the following:
$ screen -ls
There is a screen on:
43002.pts-1.laptop (10/16/24 18:05:33) (Attached)
Here we run the screen command with the "ls" flag and it tells us there is one session. The process identification number (PID) of the existing screen session is 43002. The "(Attached)" text at the end of the line indicates this session is in use, we are likely inside this session.
The tmux command has a similar approach. Here we can see one tmux background shell is running, but is not attached. In other words, the shell is running in the background and we are not currently inside that shell. Note the word "Attached" is missing from the output.
$ tmux ls
0: 1 windows (created Wed Oct 16 18:06:29 2024)
To reconnect to a shell session that is running in the background we can run a command to dive into the running session. The command is "screen -r" for screen and the tmux equivalent is "tmux attach".
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
NethSecurity 8.3
The NethSecurity team have launched a new update to the project's 8.x series. NethSecurity 8.3 features new monitoring tools, centralized update management, and easy access to options which help prevent bruteforce attacks. "We are excited to announce the release of NethSecurity project milestone 8.3 with image version 8-23.05.5-ns.1.3.0. This release focuses on new features for subscriptions and improved user experience. NethSecurity 8.3 brings several new features and improvements. Centralized unit update management - from the controller, it is now possible to update the unit seamlessly (packages and/or image); real-time monitoring page - a comprehensive dashboard for NethSecurity monitoring has been created; historical monitoring allows the user to see how the firewall is behaving from the NethSecurity Controller, please note that a subscription is required for this feature; improved Threat Shield UI - local block list, logging and brute force protection settings are now exposed in the Threat Shield page; added protection against brute force attacks on the web interface; a new NAT helper configuration page has been added." A complete list of new features is available in the release announcement.
Parted Magic 2024_11_03
Parted Magic is a small live CD/USB/PXE with its elemental purpose being to partition hard drives. The project's latest release is version 2024_11_03 which updates the Linux kernel, introduces WINE 9.x and provides upgrades for LibreOffice and ClamAV. "This version of Parted Magic updates the kernel to Linux 6.11 and adds/updates various programs. WINE has been updated to version 9 with support for 32-bit and 64-bit programs. I didn't do any extensive testing, but I found an old AutoCAD 14 CD from the 90s and it did install and run. I also tested a few 64-bit Windows binaries and those also ran. Winetricks was added to help install programs and missing DLL files. I didn't realize how long it's been since LibreOffice was updated, so that got some attention. The clamtk program was saying the definitions were out of date, even though they were not. This was corrected with a ClamAV update. A forum user suggested Hddsuperclone to be added. Updated programs: BIND 9.18.30, Boost 1.78.0, Cabextract 1.11, ClamAV 1.4.1, cups-cURL 8.10.1, LibreOffice 24.8.2, Mozilla Firefox 115.16.1esr, NVIDIA driver 560.35.03, OpenSSH 9.9p1, OpenSSL 1.1.1zb, Perl5.34.0 Wine 9.0, ZFS on Linux 2.2.6" Additional information is provided on the project's news page, while download and purchase options are offered through the distribution's online store.
UBports 20.04 OTA-6
The UBports team have published a new update for their mobile operating system. The new release, version 20.04 OTA-6, is a relatively conservative update as the developers are working to polish features rather than introduce big changes. "Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-6 contains only a minimal number of changes due to our current focus on Ubuntu base OS upgrade. That said, we still have a few interesting changes: Some support for newer generations of Android HAL (hardware abstraction layer) has been added. This aims to make Ubuntu Touch support newer devices such as Fairphone 5 and the upcoming Volla Phone Quintus better, however this does not imply complete support for those devices just yet. Wireless Display see improved stability on some devices. (Credit goes to Azkali from Volla) General bug fixes and security updates." Originally VoLTE was planned for Vollla phones, but this feature has been held back due to an issue found in QA testing. The release announcement offers additional information. A list of supported devices and download options can be found on the UBports devices page.
* * * * *
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: 3,110
- Total data uploaded: 45.7TB
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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) |
Tmux or Screen?
In the Questions and Answers section of DistroWatch Weekly we talked about checking to see if our command line shell was running inside a Tmux or Screen session. These two programs are commonly used when managing long-running remote connections or when accessing multiple terminal sessions from one window is beneficial. We'd like to hear if you use either Tmux or Screen, or perhaps a similar tool. Let us know about your preference in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on backing up and restoring lists of packages in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Screen or Tmux?
| Screen: | 186 (11%) |
| Tmux: | 300 (18%) |
| Other: | 48 (3%) |
| None: | 1161 (68%) |
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| Website News |
New projects added to database
openEuler
openEuler is an open source project operated by the OpenAtom Foundation. It is a digital infrastructure distribution which can fit into a wide variety of server, cloud computing, edge computing, and embedded deployments. openEuler is compatible with multiple CPU architectures (including x86_64 servers, cloud environments, ARM-powered embedded devices, and RISC-V boards) and suitable for a wide range of environments. The project releases a long-term support (LTS) version every two years in order to provide a stable platform for enterprise users. A new openEuler interim version is released every six months to provide more up to date technologies. While openEuler focuses on server deployments desktop environments (including UKUI, Deepin, GNOME, and Xfce) are available.
openEuler 24.09 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 728kB, resolution: 1014x761 pixels)
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 18 November 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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| Archives |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • 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 |
| • 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 | 
RebornOS
RebornOS is a desktop-oriented Linux distribution based on Arch Linux. Although the RebornOS live image provides one desktop only, the installation process offers a choice to install one of the many popular desktop environments and window managers. Other interesting features of the distribution include support for Flatpak packages, optional installation of Anbox for running Android applications, a capability to rollback the system to a previous date, and graphical system configuration and maintenance tools.
Status: Active
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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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