 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1109, 17 February 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 7th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
I think all of us Linux users, at one point or another, want to see how close we can get to the cutting edge, how high we can ride the wave of progress. Sometimes it goes well and it is a thrilling experience, a glorious high from which we can look down on the lumbering world of luddites. Other times the wave breaks over us, dragging us into the cold depths of system recovery. This week we are going to talk about some new developments and projects which are either forging ahead bravely or seeking shelter from the raging storm of innovation. We begin with a look at new features in two projects: Rhino Linux and the Xfce 4.20 desktop (as provided by MX Linux). Both projects are offering new, evolutionary steps forward and we talk about them in our Feature Story. In our News section we report on GhostBSD getting off the progress treadmill. GhostBSD is moving from using FreeBSD's "STABLE" branch to the fixed "RELEASE" branch, to avoid breaking changes and bugs. We also report on Redox stabilising its ABI and porting new gaming software while UBports tests out new alpha snapshots of its upcoming 24.04 "Noble" release. Asahi Linux is undergoing a change in the way it is run and we talk about this below along with an ongoing conflict between Fedora and the OBS project. Back on the topic of progress, most desktop environments are gradually shifting away from X11 in favour of Wayland and, in the process, leaving many related tools behind. In our Questions and Answers column we talk about ways to accomplish the same command line invoked tasks under Wayland as we did under X11. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. To finish this week, we are pleased to welcome the Zenned distribution to our database. Zenned is an Arch-based project which offers a live desktop and the KDE Plasma interface. 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) |
Rhino Linux 2025.1
Rhino Linux is an Ubuntu-based distribution which offers a rolling release model and a customized Xfce desktop the project calls Unicorn. The Rhino distribution ships with several package managers for handling Deb, Flatpak, and Pacstall packages. To unify the software management experience Rhino also includes a custom meta package manager.
I tried Rhino Linux relatively recently, back in September of 2024, and the experience was mostly positive. The reason I mention Rhino today, just five months later, is the project published an update in January and a few items in the release notes caught my attention. I decided to try out the latest snapshot and talk about some of the highlights - things which have changed since my previous review.
The first thing I noticed about the new 2025.1 version is the ISO file has grown from 2.2GB to 2.6GB. I also noticed that, despite one of the highlights in the release notes being a welcome window, no window or wizard greeted me when I booted the live media. I was presented with a mostly empty desktop, apart from a dock, a desktop panel placed across the top of the screen, and a system installer icon. I jumped straight into the installer.
When I tried out the Rhino distribution last year I mentioned the installer worked well, except the "Release Notes" button on the first page failed to show me the notes. Clicking it had produced an error message. This is still the case, clicking the Release Notes button pops up an error which says: "Failed to execute default Web Browser". Unfortunately, no one has addressed this in the past five months.
Then and now
Once I had installed Rhino Linux 2025.1 I dived into the project's release notes and exploring the new features. Below are the key points from the project's notes and then my comments on the new features.
One of our more exciting changes will be the inclusion of our brand-new Hello Rhino application. Written in Rust and using IcedTK, this application serves to help provide useful links to our homepage, blog, Discord community and documentation. Hello Rhino will automatically launch after post installation to help jump start the Rhino journey.
The first time I signed into my account I was greeted by two windows. Both windows display the Rhino logo. The first window simply shows a button labelled "Let's Start". This first-run wizard existed in past versions of the distribution and it walks the user through enabling key features. For example, we're asked if we'd like to install support for various package formats such as Snap, Flatpak, Nix, and AppImage. We're also offered an array of container and virtual machine managers such as Docker, Podman, Apptainer, QEMU, and VirtualBox. Then we're asked if we'd like to install Nala (an APT replacement), GitHub CLI, Apport for reporting crashes, and Redshift for changing the colour temperature of the screen. Each of these items is optional and we can toggle buttons next to them.
After we make our selections, the first-run wizard prompts us for our password and installs the items we chose. Actually, we're prompted for our password twice - once to install items and once more to remove some unneeded items. Then we're asked to restart the computer.
Rhino Linux 2025.1 -- The new greeter window
(full image size: 194kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The second window which greets us is the new Hello Rhino application. It shows us a brief welcome message and then presents us with five buttons labelled as follows: Announcements, Discord, Wiki, GitHub, and Reddit. Clicking any one of the buttons opens Firefox to show the on-line resource. I'd like to note the web browser can open links once the system is installed, it just doesn't work when we click links in the live environment.
We are now shipping our own custom GRUB theme with Rhino Linux. While this is quite a small change, it brings a more modern feel to an often overlooked part of the Linux experience. Our new GRUB theme will make the Unicorn aesthetic more cohesive from the moment you boot up the installer.
The GRUB boot loader screen doesn't appear automatically. We can press and hold a key during system start-up to make the GRUB screen appear. It does look nice, in my opinion. The menu has a sort of 1980s cyberpunk style, but less pixelated. It may be hidden by default, but when it does show up, it looks appealing. The menu still works the same as GRUB on other distributions, this one just has more vibrant lines.
Rhino Linux 2025.1 -- The new GRUB menu
(full image size: 200kB, resolution: 640x480 pixels)
The Unicorn desktop finally has dynamic workspaces, bringing extra efficiency and flexibility to the already powerful Unicorn desktop. Previously, with static workspaces, you were restricted to a maximum of four, or had to manually create and manage the number of spaces yourself. Unicorn will now automatically create a new workspace each time the previous ones have an application open on them, and once there are no applications open on a workspace, it will be destroyed. The decision to incorporate this feature draws inspiration from desktop environments like GNOME, and the expandable workflow they provide.
I feel the above statement from the project over-sells the situation a bit, or at least the dynamic desktops don't work the way people coming from other dynamic workspaces probably expect. All new windows open on the currently active virtual desktop. The announcement says: "Unicorn will now automatically create a new workspace each time the previous ones have an application open on them." However, I found all new windows opened on the same, active workspace and no new workspaces were generated. The announcement says: "Once there are no applications open on a workspace, it will be destroyed." What I found was closing all open windows on a virtual desktop does not destroy it. Or rather, the workspace is not destroyed until we manually move away from it after all windows have been closed, the destruction doesn't happen immediately.
It is true that when all active workspaces are full, the interface always makes sure there is an empty one. However, to make use of the empty workspace we need to manually move a window to that new workspace and then switch to it. (Or switch to it and launch a new window.) So it's a three step process - open new program, move it to another desktop, then switch to that desktop. Later, to remove a workspace, we switch to it, close all applications, and then move away from that workspace.
Rhino Linux 2025.1 -- The workspaces overview
(full image size: 188kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
I feel like the Unicorn approach introduces more steps than the old, static way where a person would just move to a workspace and open the applications they want on that workspace. I'm not sure I see the benefit of the "dynamic" approach, but maybe with time I'll find a way to improve my workflow with the extra virtual desktops.
I found two more problems with the new, dynamic workspace feature.
- The button for showing an overview of active workspaces is in the dock on the left side of the screen. When it is clicked, available workspaces are shown on the far right. This means to switch to an empty workspace and open an application from the dock requires crossing the entire width of the monitor with the mouse at least 2.5 times.
- Applications with unified titlebars (such as Firefox) do not seem to have any option for moving them between workspaces. We can right-click on the file manager or terminal titlebar and switch them to another workspace, but Firefox doesn't seem to have this option. This is not really Rhino's fault, but the inconsistency makes the experience awkward.
Moving on to other topics... "The issue with the Install Rhino Linux icon not displaying on the desktop of the live image has been resolved.
This is a simple and true statement; the installer's icon does appear on the live desktop.
We are happy to announce the release of Rhino Stampede, the Rhino Linux testing meta-package. We hope that by releasing a testing package, we are able to open the door for users and developers alike to test our new features with greater ease. Packages in Rhino Stampede are expected to be work in progress, so installing the package should be done with intention.
The release notes didn't mention which of the many package managers provided this new Stampede package. I searched with APT first and, when that didn't reveal a match, I turned to Pacstall. Pacstall did indeed provide a package called rhino-stampede-dev. I installed it successfully, though it didn't appear to affect anything. My APT repositories appeared to be unchanged, no new updates became available, and Pacstall seemed to be pulling from the same repository. The release announcement did say Stampede would, at some point, offer a new theme and icons, so perhaps they just haven't become available yet. (Or maybe they are available, but I need to manually install new packages to acquire the changes.) At any rate, enabling Stampede did not appear to affect my system.
The Rhino release notes mention Pacstall has been upgraded from version 5.5 to 6.0. Pacstall provides a framework for installing third-party software on Ubuntu and related projects such as Rhino. The version of Pacstall on Rhino 2025.1 is 6.1.0, so it looks like it has been further updated since the release notes were written. Pacstall worked for me and I was able to install a few applications with it.
Rhino Linux 2025.1 -- Checking for updates across all package formats
(full image size: 241kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Conclusions
Rhino is making incremental progress, mostly fixing small bugs and adding small features. There isn't anything big or earth shattering in this snapshot, but there are little improvements and a few new features. I think this is a good sign, it shows the project is maturing and isn't making any drastic changes to its design.
There are still a few minor issues and I think the dynamic workspace feature could be polished further, but otherwise this is a solid release. I particularly like the Rhino meta package manager which unifies software upgrades across all package sources. I'd like to see more distributions adopt it (or a similar tool) to streamline updates.
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MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20
A new release of MX Linux, a desktop-focused, Debian-based distribution was published in January. The new version, 23.5, offers one feature in particular I was eager to try: Xfce 4.20.
The Xfce desktop release notes mention several changes, both visible and behind the scenes. The main focus of the 4.20 release (which follows 4.18) was getting the middle-weight desktop ready for Wayland. Most of the changes listed in the notes mention adjustments to make Xfce Wayland-compatible.
The release notes also mention more front-line changes and I'd like to touch on a handful of them.
The release notes mention scaling for icons and, while most things (including icons) looked the same on my screen, the icons on the desktop panel did look wider. Switching from Xfce 4.18 to 4.20 seemed to plump them up.
Also on the topic of icons, the Thunar file manager has a new icon which appears next to mount points. I think the release notes are referring to the icons next to mount points in the screenshot below.
Xfce 4.20 -- Running the Thunar file manager
(full image size: 64kB, resolution: 852x696 pixels)
According to the release notes, file transfers should be faster as no MD5 checksum is performed to confirm the source and destination match. This was using up a lot of time accessing the disk and calculating checksums which didn't seem to be offering a concrete benefit. I usually didn't use Thunar for file transfers so I couldn't give a solid comparison. I will say that, when I tried copying files on Xfce 4.20, the transfers happened quickly.
Xfce's release notes mention settings for screen locking and the screensaver have been simplified. The Security tab has also been dropped from the Power Manager module. This all seems accurate. Screen locking works and the power settings worked in terms of blanking the screen when the system was idle.
Xfce 4.20 -- Power manager settings
(full image size: 40kB, resolution: 617x609 pixels)
The Xfce project has stated that for the 4.20 release the logout dialog will not provide a checkbox to enable session saving anymore. This is accurate. As far as I can tell, there isn't any way to save outgoing sessions anymore. However, the session settings module will give us the ability to choose which programs to launch when we login. This is likely to provide a cleaner environment and avoid poorly acting applications from being resurrected when we logout and login again.
Xfce 4.20 -- The logout confirmation box
(full image size: 294kB, resolution: 1536x864 pixels)
Version 4.20 of Xfce now offers an optional Wayland session and it's possible to start the Wayland session by running the command: "startxfce4 --wayland". When I tried this on MX Linux a message appeared in my terminal saying the labwc package was required and should be installed. This package does not appear to be included in MX Linux.
Alternatively, the user can run "startxfce4 --wayland" and pass a parameter specifying the name of another Wayland compositor. I didn't have one on my system, but it seems as though Xfce is trying to be flexible about which Wayland components we use with the desktop environment.
Conclusions
The new Xfce release focuses mostly on background fixes and preparation work for Wayland. As with most Xfce releases, this one is fairly conservative in that not a lot of user-facing changes were introduced. This approach has given Xfce a well deserved reputation for stability over the years, both in terms of not crashing and not introducing big design changes. This means a user can upgrade through the 4.x series without encountering any jarring adjustments to their workflow.
While this release was mostly focused on preparing for the shift to Wayland, there were some streamlining adjustments too. None of them are big, but I think it goes a little ways toward making the system less cluttered and more efficient without removing any key functionality. A few screens have been removed or combined, Thunar should copy files faster, scaling should be a little nicer. And that's about it, a nice, evolutionary change that moves the desktop forward without leaving its users behind.
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Visitor supplied rating
Rhino Linux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 5.1/10 from 23 review(s).
Have you used Rhino Linux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
GhostBSD plans move its base to FreeBSD RELEASE, Redox stabilises its ABI, UBports testing new 24.04 snapshots, Asahi Linux changing its leadership, OBS disputes Fedora shipping crippled OBS Flatpak
The GhostBSD project is making a change to its release process, moving away from FreeBSD's development ("STABLE") branch and shifting to using the latest fixed ("RELEASE") branch. "Starting with the next release, GhostBSD will be built on FreeBSD RELEASE instead of STABLE. The upcoming version will be based on FreeBSD 14.2-RELEASEp1. This change brings several benefits: Greater stability - RELEASE versions undergo extensive testing before they are finalized. Predictable updates - RELEASE follows a structured patching cycle, making it easier to maintain. Less troubleshooting overhead - STABLE often introduces unexpected issues, requiring additional time and effort to resolve. By using FreeBSD RELEASE, we can spend less time fixing stability issues and more time developing and improving GhostBSD." Details on the new approach and versioning scheme can be found in the project's blog post.
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The Redox OS project published its newsletter for the month of January and it contained a few impressive steps forward. One was the porting of the LOVE gaming engine (and associated tools) which opens up more gaming options for Redox users. The other involves dynamic linking and making the system library's ABI stable: "Thanks to Anhad Singh for his amazing work on Dynamic Linking! In this southern-hemisphere-Redox-Summer-of-Code project, Anhad has implemented dynamic linking as the default build method for many recipes, and all new porting can use dynamic linking with relatively little effort. This is a huge step forward for Redox, because relibc can now become a stable ABI. And having a stable ABI is one of the prerequisites for Redox to reach 'Release 1.0'."
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The UBports team is gearing up for a new release of their mobile operating system. The project is currently testing an alpha build of version 24.04 (codename Noble). "The alpha test version of Noble has been released and is available for almost all devices which currently run Focal. We have to remind you that it is just a test version and that at the moment there is no support from OpenStore. Using the terminal you can install apps by signing the path, using root and authorising each install. We can say at this stage that all of the hardware features are working. Apart from the fact that there is no direct way to install apps it already functions really quite well. It has been possible to reduce the size of the image by a small amount and that means that SnapD is built-in by default. Evolution Webserver is built without the webkit GTK dependency. That saves us around 100MB and we will be able to use that space to include more features as standard." Additional details are provided in the project's newsletter.
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A dispute between the Open Broadcasting Software (OBS Studio) project and the Fedora distribution is ongoing. OBS had complained to Fedora that the Linux distribution was shipping a Flatpak bundle of OBS in which much of the normal functionality was broken while maintaining OBS's name and trademarks. Further, the broken OBS Flatpak shipped by Fedora was overriding the official OBS Flatpak supplied by Flathub when users had both repositories enabled. This resulted in frustrated users and bug reports being submitted to the OBS project for a package they did not create or support. The OSNews website has a good overview of the events to date: "One of the applications this happened to is OBS, and over three weeks ago the OBS project requested that either the broken, unofficial Fedora Flatpak be removed, or that it be made clear that the Flatpak was third-party. This request seems entirely reasonable to me, and it would be fairly trivial for Fedora to do this. In fact, I think respecting this request is merely common decency. Sadly, the Fedora project thought differently, and just... Ignored the request. And so the OBS project escalated the issue." The broken Fedora package remains in place at time of writing, but with a warning that the package is no longer receiving updates.
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The Asahi Linux project, which forms the basis of Fedora Asahi Remix, is a project which makes Linux run on Apple's M-series hardware. The Asahi Linux project's founder, Hector Martin, has decided to step down from leading Asahi. In his farewell blog post, Martin mentions the constant request for new features from users, diminishing donations, and the team's inability to get changes committed upstream in the Linux kernel as key reasons for his plan to leave Asahi Linux.
The Asahi Linux project has announced plans to adjust their governance and funding to continue functioning with seven remaining developers: "Our priority is kernel upstreaming. Our downstream Linux tree contains over 1000 patches required for Apple Silicon that are not yet in upstream Linux. The upstream kernel moves fast, requiring us to constantly rebase our changes on top of upstream while battling merge conflicts and regressions. Janne, Neal, and marcan have rebased our tree for years, but it is laborious with so many patches. Before adding more, we need to reduce our patch stack to remain sustainable long-term. We cannot predict how the process will go, but we are committed to do our part."
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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) |
Replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools
Making-the-change asks: I've been testing out moving from X11 desktops to Wayland. I'm most of the way there, but one thing that holds me back are all the X11 console programs to automate things. Under X11 I can use xdotool to script actions and xclip to manipulate the clipboard. Are there any equivalents for Wayland?
DistroWatch answers: First, for people who may not be familiar with these types of tools, I would like to share some background. There are a number of command line utilities which provide ways to manipulate windows, send input to applications, and copy text between programs. It is possible to move the mouse, simulate typing at the keyboard, and click on things - all from the command line. These tools are often used to script common actions.
For example, we might want to open a web browser, set the window to appear "above" other windows, move it to the side of the desktop, and then send the "Refresh" keyboard shortcut to it every minute. This would provide us with a sort of desktop widget that would show us regular updates on a website. Something like this can be accomplished with a half-dozen lines of shell script. Similar tools can be helpful when running command line programs and automatically copying their output to the clipboard to be pasted into a desktop application.
As an example, when I'm putting together the Torrent Corner section of our weekly newsletter, I don't create the table of torrents and their checksums by hand. There is a script which cycles through our torrents, calculates the checksum information, and writes the table, dumping it all to a file. The script then runs "xclip -selection clipboard -in torrent-table.html" to copy the result to my clipboard so that I can paste it into the newsletter. It saves me the steps of selecting and copying the output manually.
While not widely used, these tools have been around for a long time and some people, especially those who want to automate aspects of their desktop workflow, have grown fond of the X.Org command line helpers. These tools are usually packaged under the names xdotool and xclip.
There are Wayland equivalents for most of these X.Org command line tools. Many of them can be found in a package called ydotool. This package provides tools for simulating mouse movement, clicking, and typing. There are also tools provided by the wlrctl software. The wlrctl tools offer ways to simulate keyboard and mouse input, while also offering ways to move windows and apply focus to windows.
Wayland users also have their own clipboard utility called wl-clipboard. It can be used to copy text and images between applications and the project's website offers some good examples of the Wayland clipboard in action.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Netrunner 25
The Netrunner team has announced the release of Netrunner 25, a desktop Linux distribution based on Debian's latest "stable" branch and featuring the KDE Plasma desktop. This version is the project's first build based on Debian 12; it ships with Linux kernel 6.1 and KDE Plasma 5.27: "The Netrunner team is happy to announce the release of Netrunner 25 'Shockworm', a 64-bit ISO image. Netrunner 25 ships with all the latest security updates provided by Debian and a beautiful new wallpaper showing this release's new code name. Netrunner ships with various tools and applications that can be used daily. It features the Linux kernel 6.1.128, KDE Plasma 5.27.5, Qt 5.15.2, Firefox 128.6.0 ESR, LibreOffice 7.4.7 and VLC 3.0.21. As always, we provide our ISO images on our download page. If you need help or want to give feedback, don't hesitate to contact us via our forums." The brief release announcement provides some details about the release and it also includes several screenshots.
Netrunner 25 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 2.2MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
EndeavourOS 2025.02.08
Bryan Poerwo has announced the availability of EndeavourOS 2025.02.08, code-named "Mercury", a significant update of the project's desktop Linux distribution based on Arch Linux: "The 'Mercury' ISO image ships with the following packages for both the live environment and the offline install option: Calamares 25.02.1.4, Firefox 135.0, Linux kernel 6.13.1, Mesa 24.3.4, X.Org Server 21.1.15-1, NVIDIA 570.86.16. New features and improvements: the ISO image now has a memory test for EFI too; the issue with BIOS/Legacy installs is resolved; KDE Plasma, GNOME, Xfce, MATE, Budgie and Cinnamon use a dark theme by default; Xfce theme is now closer to the default setup; GNOME sets dark and light wallpapers on changing mode automatically; replacing empty space with the 'replace partition' option is working again; the installer showing double entries for the EFI selection dropdown is resolved; EndeavourOS branding is easier to find and use for artists and media usage; both mirror lists ranked now before installation will be copied to the target." Read the full release announcement for more information.
Chimera Linux 20250214
The Chimera Linux project has announced a new snapshot of the team's rolling release distribution. "The images come with a fresh version of apk-tools. This version finally supports several features that we began using, particularly variable expansion and being able to migrate most of its files into a system-wide /usr location. That means you finally have a way to properly change your mirror of choice without having to mess with the repository definitions. The process of doing that is in the relevant documentation section. The repository definitions have been updated to use the new v3-style index naming, though backwards compatibility is also provided. Kernel 6.13 is used in the new images. That means updated hardware support and other things. Both the GNOME and Plasma images (the latter is still experimental) come with the latest versions of their respective desktop environments. Various fixes have been made to allow the live system to work better and more seamlessly on more machines. Additionally, 32-bit PowerPC images are now a standard release architecture and included in the batch. We have some plans to also introduce support for the LoongArch64 ISA, which may join them next time." Additional details are offered in the project's release announcement.
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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: 3,156
- Total data uploaded: 46.5TB
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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 are your thoughts on Xfce 4.20?
This week we touched upon changes to the Xfce desktop as embodied by version 4.20 of the desktop environment. Xfce tends to move slowly and carefully compared to other, larger desktop projects, introducing small changes to the interface. What do you think of Xfce 4.20? Let us know what you liked or disliked in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on introducing more AI tools into Linux distributions in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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What do you think of Xfce 4.20?
| I like it better than 4.18: | 201 (9%) |
| I like and it is about the same as 4.18: | 268 (12%) |
| I like it less than 4.18: | 15 (1%) |
| I like it and have not tried version 4.18: | 9 (0%) |
| I do not like it but it is better than 4.18: | 2 (0%) |
| I do not like it and have not used 4.18: | 9 (0%) |
| I do not like it and it is about the same as 4.18: | 16 (1%) |
| I do not like it and it is worse than 4.18: | 31 (1%) |
| Have not tried Xfce 4.20: | 1611 (75%) |
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| Website News |
New projects added to database
Zenned
Zenned is an Arch-based desktop distribution which runs the KDE Plasma desktop. The project provides a friendly, live environment and the Calamares system installer to help users get started.
Zenned 2025.02.10 -- Running the KDE Plasma desktop
(full image size: 1.8MB, resolution: 1920x1440 pixels)
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 24 February 2025. 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 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Zen Linux
Zen Linux was a bootable live CD distribution. Most configuration was done automatically upon boot and requires no user interaction. It includes the ability to to create remastered, personalised editions of the product.
Status: Discontinued
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View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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