 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1124, 2 June 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 22nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Computers are, at their cores, machines for processing information. Their incredible speed and flexibility mean they can consume, store, and process vast amounts of data. This has led to many organizations collecting, processing, and sifting through as much data as they can, about as many people as they can. Not everyone is comfortable with their personal information being collected and stored and this week we talk about privacy. In particular, we offer some simple tips in our Questions and Answers section for keeping local information and network traffic more private. Do you install any privacy-protecting features on your Linux distribution? Let us know if you use privacy-protecting tools in this week's Opinion Poll and, if you have any favourites, let your fellow readers know about them in the comments section. Computers are not all serious business, spying and setting up defences, computers can also be used for fun and education. Our Feature Story this week talks about setting up a robot (for entertainment and education) using an inexpensive kit and an electronic brain in the form of a Raspberry Pi Pico. In our News section this week we report on Rhino Linux introducing a few new changes, including a Plasma desktop session and an upgrade to the Rhino package manager. We also share new features entering into the Arch Linux system installer and changes arriving in UBports. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: Picking up a Pico
- News: Rhino Linux tests Plasma session and presents updated package manager, Arch installer offers options for Btrfs snapshots, new features landing in UBports, Ubuntu introduces regular snapshots
- Questions and answers: Protecting privacy procedures
- Released last week: AlmaLinux OS 10.0, Armbian 25.05.1, KaOS 2025.05, Alpine Linux 3.22.0, PorteuX 2.1, Network Security Toolkit 42-14476
- Torrent corner: AlmaLinux OS, Armbian, BigLinux, KDE neon, Tails
- Upcoming releases: UBports 20.04 OTA-9, Murena 3.0
- Opinion poll: Do you install any special software to protect your privacy?
- Site news: Distribution by Country of Origin page updated
- New additions: AerynOS, UOS, MODICIA O.S., Adélie Linux, Parch GNU/Linux, Lingmo OS
- New distributions: TravelerOS
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Picking up a Pico
In early April I shared that I'd been experimenting with an add-on device to the Raspberry Pi series of computers. The device, called a Sense HAT, provides sensors, lights, and a joystick interface for programmers to use in order to allow the device to interact with its environment. It was good fun to play with and, through the power of some Python libraries, wonderfully easy to use.
As someone pointed out in the comments of that article, it seemed to be the most fun I'd had playing with technology for a while and the Sense HAT experiments sparked a good deal of fun. With that in mind, I turned my attention to another member of the Raspberry Pi family. This tiny device is called a Pico and it's a microcontroller. This means that it's basically a tiny computer, but without any of the usual ports to attach a monitor, keyboard, or mouse. The Pico optionally comes with connector pins and also optionally includes a wireless network add-on. I decided to pick up one with both the pins and wireless capability. The little Pico, which is about the size of my pinkie finger, costs a little under $10.
The Pico next to a pair of scissors used to open its packaging.
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You might be wondering: if the Pico doesn't have any ports for a keyboard, mouse, or monitor, how does one interact with this mini computer and what do we do with it? The Pico has a USB port at one end and we can use this to plug it into a computer. We can then communicate with the Pico in one of two ways and I'll get into those shortly. The idea is we will be able to run programs on the Pico to have it perform calculations, monitor other devices, communicate wirelessly, and (if we plug it into another circuit board) it can be used to manage other electronics.
In short, the Pico acts as a tiny brain in do-it-yourself home electronics. It does not have many features on its own, it just has an LED light and a temperature sensor, but it can be used as a controller connected to other equipment. If you've ever wanted to create your own weather station, garage door opener, plant watering automation, or maybe a robot vacuum cleaner, then this is a device for you!
Getting started
My Pico shipped with a USB cable. Getting started with the Pico begins by holding down the sole button on the Pico, which is labelled "BOOTSEL", then plugging it into a computer, and releasing the button. This causes the Pico to present itself as a USB storage device. We can then transfer files to the Pico, including a custom Python environment called MicroPython. To install the MicroPython development software on the Pico we can download the latest version from links in the Pico documentation. We can then copy the downloaded file (called rp2-pico-w-latest.uf2 in my case) to the Pico's storage. When I attempted to drag-and-drop the file in my file manager I found out my user didn't have write access to the Pico's partition. I got around this by running a copy command from the command line:
$ sudo cp rp2-pico-w-latest.uf2 /media/$(whoami)/RPI-RP2/
The Pico now has MicroPython on it, meaning it can run Python programs. But we still need a way to get Python code onto the Pico device. There are a couple of ways we can do this. Both approaches involve installing a program which can talk over a serial port, in my case I opted to use the minicom package. In the Debian family we can install minicom by running the following:
sudo apt install minicom
From now on, whenever we attach the Pico to our computer over a USB cable (without pressing the BOOTSEL button), it will show up as a serial console. We can then talk to the Pico by running minicom and passing it the name of the Pico device. This device usually appears as /dev/ttyACM0, but can be listed under a different name. Running the following command should reveal the Pico's device name:
$ ls /dev/ttyACM*
/dev/ttyACM0
We can then use minicom to connect to the device:
$ minicom -o -D /dev/ttyACM0
Connecting to the Pico using minicom
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Once the connection is made, we will be prompted with a Python interpreter. We can type Python code directly into the terminal and have it respond, as shown here:
>>> print ("Hello")
Hello
The Pico has a small, green LED light on top of it, we can activate the light with three lines of Python:
>>> from machine import Pin
>>> led = Pin("LED", Pin.OUT)
>>> led.value(1)
The light can be turned off again by running the following line:
>>> led.value(0)
From there it is a short hop to writing a program which will blink the LED light on and off:
>>> from machine import Pin
>>> import time
>>> led = Pin("LED", Pin.OUT)
>>> for i in range(10):
>>> led.toggle()
>>> time.sleep(1)
While typing in Python code, line by line, allows us to test that the Pico is working, it is not a practical approach to software development. We are going to want an easier way to run code on the Pico. We can do this with a development tool called Thonny. Thonny is a simple development application which allows us to type Python code into the main part of the window. We can then run the code, either locally or on a connected device, and see the program's output in the bottom pane of the Thonny window. In the bottom-right corner of the Thonny window we can select where to run the code, locally or on the Pico (/dev/ttyACM0).
The Thonny Python IDE
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Thonny can be installed from most distributions' repositories or from Flathub. With Thonny set up we have the ability to run more complex programs while typing them into a more friendly environment.
Connecting the Pico to the network
Earlier, I mentioned the Pico W has wireless capabilities. We can connect the Pico to our local wireless network with a bit of Python code:
import network
ssid = "MyNetwork"
password = "MyPassword"
wlan = network.WLAN(network.STA_IF)
wlan.active(True)
wlan.connect(ssid, password)
if wlan.status() == 3:
address = wlan.ifconfig()
print (address[0])
The above code connects to the local wifi network and, assuming it is successful, displays the Pico's IP address, for example my Pico responded:
192.168.2.157
Having a working network connection opens up possibilities for us. Now, the Pico isn't just a temperature sensor plugged into the side of our computer, it's a separate platform to which we can connect and send information. All we need to do is have the Pico open up a network port:
server_socket = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
server_socket.bind( (host, port) )
server_socket.listen(5)
print(f"Server listening on {host}:{port}")
while True:
client_socket, address = server_socket.accept()
print(f"Connected to {address}")
client_socket.send( "Ready> ".encode() )
data = client_socket.recv(1024)
What we have here is a network service which will wait for us to connect to it, possibly over a plain-text network client like telnet. When we connect, the Pico will send us the prompt "Ready>" and wait for us to send an instruction.
Just like that, we have a tiny device which will communicate over the network, sense the current temperature, and flash a light. We can teach it to fetch web pages and RSS feeds, send electric signals through its pins, or run a minimal web service - whatever we are willing to teach it to do. The possibilities are opening up! I wrote a small network service for the Pico which recognizes eight commands that can be sent to the device over the network using telnet or nc. I will skip writing out the code in this article as it will get increasingly tedious to read, but the code is all available in this GitHub repository for people who would like to follow along.
Giving the Pico a body
Earlier I mentioned the Pico can be used as the basis for a number of projects such as a greenhouse monitor, remote control, or holiday light manager. For my purposes though, I decided to live out a dream I've had since I was a kid when I watched the movie Short Circuit. I bought a small robot kit. The kit is made by Kitronik and features most of the pieces a person needs for a household robot: a body, motors, wheels, range sensor, and light detection add-on. The only things that are missing are batteries and a brain. The Pico can act as a snap-on brain for the Kitronik robot which is referred to as a "buggy" in the documentation.
The Kitronik robot buggy and manual
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For me, this was where the situation became exciting. I had a robot "brain" which could wirelessly receive commands and return feedback. Plus I had a simple robot body which could understand about a dozen instructions. These are fairly basic instructions, such as "turn on/off left motor", "turn on/off right motor", "sense distance to nearest object", "turn on/off LEDs", and "detect light level under buggy". These are the building blocks upon which we can build all sorts of functionality.
All we need to do is use the Thonny application to copy a single library from Kitronik onto the Pico and then transfer our Python instructions to the Pico under the filename "main.py". With the Pico plugged into the buggy we can pop in four AA batteries to the underside of the robot. The Pico will "wake up" and perform instructions in the "main.py" file. In my case, this caused the little device to connect to the network and await instructions.
Meet Ron the robot
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Since we already have a simple server program which will accept and interpret our commands, it's a small hop from there to writing code which will make the robot stop; detect if an object is in front of it; turn on the motors to move forward, turn left, or turn right; and blink the lights. With a little additional tweaking we can tell the robot to "move away" when an object gets too close, make more precise turns to face a specific direction, navigate a classic maze, and keep track of how far it has travelled away from its starting point.
This is probably what I love most about writing code. We can some a piece of hardware, like this robot buggy, which understands how to process just a handful of signals (start/stop motor, detect distance, turn on/off lights) and layer logic on top of it to create something significantly more interesting. In a few hours I was able to write a simple Python class for the robot which would report how far away it was from objects, charge forward, spin in a circle, and change the colour of its LED lights based on whether an object was in its way. And, from these building blocks, it was a matter of adding some timed delays between actions to allow the robot to turn a given number of degrees left or right, move forward a specified distance, and avoid running into items. It's not hard to then use those building blocks, in turn, to instruct the robot to wander, solve a maze, and return to its starting point.
To me, this is the beauty of software, it can transform a piece of $40 USD hardware which understands a half dozen simple instructions into something almost life-like that can wander about the home, interact on a basic level with its environment, map a space, or make a temperature chart of the rooms in the house. When I was getting started with this project and had just got the Kitronik buggy to the point where it would follow some basic commands (spin, drive forward, and stop) over a wireless connection, I showed it to a friend. This friend shares a creative spark and immediately made the leap to: "Since it talks over the network, we could set up a phone as a hotspot and take it outside. It could run obstacle courses in the park with other robots!"
I'm not sure if I can find many people in my area who want to program competing robots, as nice as the idea is. However, I am hoping this article will inspire others to try similar projects - it's a great way to experiment, to learn coding, or to entertain a child interested in technology. With this in mind, since I didn't find many coding examples and virtually no projects using this combination of hardware on-line, I am open sourcing my robot server code. It's not overly organized as the code grew organically as I was exploring the Pico's capabilities and the buggy's functions. Still, it offers a starting point for other people who are interested in this sort of thing, but don't have a few spare hours to get the basics working and write the infrastructure to make a home robot work. It is my hope other people find this useful and send photos or videos of their bots in action. (Like this video of my robot trying to find its way back to me after wandering away for a minute.) Maybe some people will even send patches to extend the robot's functionality! I'd love to see what creative activities people can design and code.
* * * * *
There are a few additional points I'd like to share about my experiment with the Kitronik robot buggy and its Pico brain. First, the Pico W identifies itself on the network as "PicoW", which is handy if you don't want to look up its IP address and want to refer to it by its hostname. In my head though, when I was typing "telnet picow 40801", the name sounded like "Pi cow".
Another tid-bit I'd like to share is that I purchased the buggy through PiShop. When the robot arrived its packaging looked as though it had been damaged during the transit in the mail. Once I plugged in the robot and started sending it test commands I discovered a problem: the motor on the right side would drive backward, though not forward. This meant the robot could drive in reverse and make wide turns, but it couldn't drive forward, make tight turns, or properly follow a line using its light sensors (which were mounted in the front).
I e-mailed PiShop's support channel to see if they had any repair tips. One of their representatives kindly and patiently tried to help me troubleshoot the issue and, once we'd established the problem couldn't be "fixed in the field", they volunteered to send me a replacement robot. I offered to send the original back, but they said I could keep it for spare parts/experiments. The person I was corresponding with was knowledgeable, communicated well, and was sympathetic. They also didn't know I was planning to write a review; to them I was just another customer. It's rare I encounter this level of careful, unscripted customer service and I appreciated it.
Next, if any of our readers decide to get a similar robot - I recommend it, especially if you have children interested in science and technology - then you might notice that my robot handling code has some quirks in it relating to direction and motor control. This is because, for the first week I was testing the Kitronik robot, I was trying to teach it to move, but in reverse. All of the motor and distance-sensing instructions had to be backwards to work around the damaged right-side motor. But I also knew that eventually I'd repair or replace the damaged part and the buggy would be able to drive forward. So the code was written to work in reverse, but to also work in the normal forward direction, and switch between the two modes by just changing two variables at the top of the robot.py file. It resulted in a few lines of odd-looking logic, tucked away in the lower level functions. I do know my "left" from my "right", but I was trying to teach a robot with a handicap to drive.
Finally, I know typing commands into a terminal to guide a robot is very "1980s" in style and not as likely to appeal to younger people who are just getting started with robots. With this in mind, I wrote a small client program in Python which allows the Kitronik robot to be piloted
remotely using a Nintendo Switch controller. This allows people to drive the robot remotely using the controller's axis joysticks, change the lights with the letter keys, and halt the robot using the trigger buttons. This should lower the bar for people who want to play around with the robot without a lot of typing. I hope some of you find it both fun and interesting.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Rhino Linux tests Plasma session and presents updated package manager, Arch installer offers options for Btrfs snapshots, new features landing in UBports, Ubuntu introduces regular snapshots
Rhino Linux is an Ubuntu-based distribution which offers a rolling-release upgrade approach combined with a customized Xfce desktop. The project has begun testing a KDE Plasma session with the rolling distribution. "Spearheaded by one of our community members, villamorrd, after 3 months of development and fine-tuning, we are proud to bring you the UBXI KDE Desktop, based on Plasma 6. This port brings the full Unicorn experience to KDE, from the workflow to the colour scheme, and we are very happy with how it turned out - we hope you are too. To switch to the UBXI KDE desktop on Rhino Linux, simply run: 'rpk install ubxi-kde-desktop-git'. We plan to offer additional disk images with the UBXI KDE Desktop shipped out-of-the-box by the end of 2025." The distribution is also testing a new version of the distribution's package manager, called RPK. Instructions for people wishing to test the new RPK2 can be found in the project's announcement.
* * * * *
The Arch Linux distribution is often installed and configured manually, however the project does provide a system installer which helps to automate the process. The Arch Installer program has gradually been gaining more capabilities with the latest version including an option for setting up Btrfs snapshots. "New features: Add support for Btrfs snapshots post-install. Move disk encryption into disk config menu." Additional details are provided in the installer's release notes.
* * * * *
The UBports project has been working on improving the Lomiri user interface for its mobile operating system. The project has outlined key changes in the latest UBports blog post. "Lomiri has been tweaked so that the appearance of the Home button can be customized. This is mainly for Lomiri distributors. Waydroid now works for Volla tablet. Flashlight operation has been in the indicator bar until now, but the function has now been moved so that the switch can be operated from the system. Porters will be able to utilize this change." The Waydroid software makes it possible to run Android applications on UBports' mobile operating system and having it function on tablets will be a convenient feature for tablet users.
* * * * *
Canonical is experimenting with regular, more frequent development snapshots to provide testers with more frequent test images. "Starting in May 2025, we're introducing monthly snapshot releases for Ubuntu. Ubuntu is not 'moving to monthly releases' or adopting a rolling release model; we're committed to our six-monthly releases with a long-term support (LTS) release every two years. That doesn't mean that our release process should be exempt from the same scrutiny that the rest of our engineering processes are subject to." The result this year will be monthly snapshots of Ubuntu's development branch in May, June, July, and August. Then a regular beta release in September leading into a final stable release in October. Details can be found in the announcement.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Protecting privacy procedures
Keeping-secrets-safe asks: Can you share some tips on how to set up a new Linux system to protect privacy?
DistroWatch answers: When dealing with any privacy- or security-related scenario, I think the first thing to consider is: what is the threat?
In order to protect ourselves on-line, first we should consider: from whom are we guarding ourselves? What are we trying to protect? For example, if you are worried about your little sister getting a copy of your fan fiction script, you can probably set up a VeraCrypt encrypted volume and change the permissions on your home directory to allow only yourself access to your files (run "chmod 0700 ~"). Veracrypt has a great tutorial for beginners in their documentation. Then, so long as you remember to logout or lock your computer when you're not using it, your documents should be safe from your family's prying eyes.
Perhaps you are concerned about your Internet service provider (ISP) collecting information about which websites and services you visit? In which case you can change your router's DNS settings to use a third-party domain name lookup service and use a VPN (or Tor) to tunnel your network traffic to another part of the world before it seeks its final destination.
On the other hand, if you are trying to protect your privacy from a large technology company, such as Microsoft or Google, that would take some more effort. Large technology companies have a lot of services and if you are planning to avoid giving them information it cuts you off from many of the world's popular websites and infrastructure. There are some easy things you can do, such as not using Google's web search or Bing, not use Google's cloud services, or Microsoft's on-line Office suite, etc. You might want to use a web browser which blocks advertisements or includes privacy protecting extensions such as Privacy Badger. However, if you're being thorough you'll also need to consider whether to interact with other people who use those same services. It doesn't do you a lot of good to avoid using Google's contact synchronization service if everyone you know is using it and has you in their digital address book. Likewise, you can avoid running Microsoft Outlook, but if you exchange e-mails with other people who run Outlook, then your messages are still ending up on Microsoft's servers.
Whatever your concern is, my advice is to map out what you want to keep private and from whom. Then work on figuring out what protections you need in place to protect those specific pieces of information from those specific people. Trying to be entirely private all the time will, unfortunately, lead you down an impractical rabbit hole.
* * * * *
Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Armbian 25.05.1
Armbian is a Linux distribution designed for ARM development boards. It is usually based on one of the stable or development versions of Debian or Ubuntu. One of the big improvements in version 25.05.1 is the expansion of the armbian-config configuration utility. "One of the biggest areas of growth in Armbian 25.5 is the continued evolution of armbian-config, a system utility for configuring Armbian images after installation. Whether setting up a home automation server or managing Docker containers at the edge, armbian-config now offers an impressive set of tools in a modular and approachable interface. Application library: Users can now deploy popular self-hosted applications directly from armbian-config, including Home Assistant, Stirling PDF, Navidrome, Grafana, NetData and Immich. These modules are installed in isolated environments, making them easy to deploy, manage, and remove." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
AlmaLinux OS 10.0
The AlmaLinux OS team have announced version 10.0 of their distribution which aims to be compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux while also expanding support to a wider range of hardware. "For software developers, frame pointers are critical to diagnosing and optimizing their applications. For those developers that use AlmaLinux as their base, the lack of frame pointers by default is a pain point - one that we are happy to help ease. With AlmaLinux OS 10 we are enabling frame pointers by default. This allows system-wide real-time tracing and profiling for optimizing the performance of any workload running on AlmaLinux. Within the x86-64 architecture, there are versions that represent specific CPU feature sets. With RHEL 10, Red Hat will only support x86-64-v3 and higher, which leaves numerous completely functional CPUs without support in the Enterprise Linux ecosystem. AlmaLinux OS 10 has followed Red Hat's decision to ship x86-64-v3 optimized binaries by default, but we will also provide an additional x86-64-v2 architecture, allowing users on that older hardware to continue to receive security updates for another 10 years." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
AlmaLinux OS 10.0 -- Running the GNOME desktop
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KaOS 2025.05
KaOS is an independent, rolling-release distribution featuring the KDE Plasma desktop. The project's latest snapshot drops Qt5 support from the default installation and introduces a Nextcloud client. Support for right-to-left languages has been improved in the file maanger. "KaOS is pleased to announce the availability of the May release of a new stable ISO image. For the Plasma desktop, the latest Plasma (6.3.5), KDE Gear (25.04.1) and Frameworks (6.14.0) are included. All built on Qt 6.9.0. Among the many changes included in KDE Gear 25.04 are: Dolphin now comes with initial support for right-to-left written languages, such as Arabic or Hebrew. KRDC allows you to scale down the remote machine's desktop to fit inside KRDC's window, adds support for the domain field in the authentication process, and now works with the new version of the FreeRDP protocol. Okular, KDE's document viewer, ramps up its support for digital signing with support for PGP/GPG based signatures and Falkon can now also block websockets. Latest applications that are now ready to use Qt6 and Frameworks 6 include Frescobaldi, Krita, Kamoso and Calligraplan." The release announcement offers additional details.
Alpine Linux 3.22.0
The Alpine Linux team have announced the release of Alpine Linux 3.22.0 which includes many key package updates along with an adjustment to the boot process. "We are pleased to announce the release of Alpine Linux 3.22.0, the first in the v3.22 stable series. Highlights: LLVM 20; Dovecot 2.4; nginx 1.28; Node.js (lts) 22.16; Ruby 3.4; Rust 1.87; Xen 4.20; BIRD 3.1; Crystal 1.16; Docker 28; GNOME 48; Go 1.24; KDE Plasma 6.3; LXQt 2.2; Significant changes: systemd-efistub replaces gummiboot. The secureboot-hook no longer supports gummiboot-efistub. It now defaults to systemd-efistub (stub-only, no systemd). If you haven't changed efistub_file in /etc/kernel-hooks.d/secureboot.conf, no action is needed. gummiboot-efistub has been moved to testing and is no longer maintained. See the wiki for details." Additional information and upgrade tips can be found in the project's release announcement.
PorteuX 2.1
A new stable release of PorteuX, a Slackware-based Linux distribution that means to be fast, small, portable, modular and immutable, is now available. PorteuX 2.1 introduces the brand-new 6.15 Linux kernel and delivers various bug fixes: "PorteuX 2.1. Nothing beats a new release where the system works better and is even smaller. The default NTFS driver has been changed from ntfs-3g to ntfs3 (kernel native). After extensive development, the driver seems stable now. VirtualBox 7.1.8 (latest stable) is not compatible with kernel 6.15. So this release includes a module for VirtualBox 7.2.0 Beta 1. Wayland sessions in VirtualBox are supported but it's recommended to enable 3D Accelaration in Settings, Display. Changelog: fixed a bug where sometimes a module could be incorrectly detected as corrupted; fixed the Linux installer to be language-agnostic; fixed missing .Xresources and .Xmodmap in LightDM Xsession file; fixed login= cheatcode; fixed sudo.py not working in Openbox session; fixed PipeWire not starting in Openbox session...." Continue to the release announcement for full details.
PorteuX 2.1 -- Running the LXQt desktop
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AxOS 25.06
Adrian Arjoca has announced the release of AxOS 25.06, the latest version of the project's Arch-based desktop Linux distribution featuring a custom package manager called Epsilon. This release uses the Hyprland-based Sleex (developed in-house) as the default desktop environment: "This new 25.06 release comes with new features: Sleex is now the default desktop environment - sleek, smooth and crafted for AxOS; new installation kits, no more useless bloat; choose your vibe - Artist, Developer, Hacker; new SDDM theme; new AxOS packages come out of the box. Caution: AxOS (especially Sleex) is not virtual machine-friendly. Do you want to try it in a virtual machine anyway? Enable 3D acceleration or set up GPU passthrough; even then, expect some graphical hiccups and performance mood swings. Important: I need feedbacks, I can't improve AxOS without it." Read the the release announcement for further information and visit the distribution's documentation pages to learn about how to use AxOS and Sleex.
Network Security Toolkit 42-14476
The Network Security Toolkit (NST) project has released a new major version of the distribution. NST 42-14476 features several new improvements which are listed in the project's release announcement. "The NST WUI Network Packet Capture pages have integrated ntop nDPI (Deep Packet Inspection) tools for post capture analysis. The image below: ntopng nDPI graphic and a q text as data query demonstrate example nDPI capabilities. The RGraph Charting Library is used to generate the nDPI graphic using output from the ndpiReader testing tool. The command line nDPI analysis displays packet protocols using the q - Text as Data tool in an NST Shell Console. ntopng has be refactored and now is run as a docker container. Added a new NST WUI page for network speed testing: LibreSpeed. Added a new NST WUI page for Node-RED as a docker container. This design tool is for the creation of event-driven applications by wiring together hardware devices, APIs and online services in new and interesting ways. A new Environmental Science menu has been added featuring access to earth weather, space weather and earthquake seismology. An enhanced NST WUI page for viewing up to 4 simultaneous Blitzortung Lightning Signals has also been developed."
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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: 3,219
- Total data uploaded: 47.4TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Do you install any special software to protect your privacy?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about privacy and how to configure a distribution to protect privacy. There are some great tools available to keep your data safe, including VeraCrypt, Privacy Badger, and Tor Browser. Do you install any pro-privacy tools on your distribution? Let us know which ones you use in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on putting a computer to sleep in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you have any privacy protecting tools on your distro?
| I install my own privacy tools: | 687 (55%) |
| My distro pre-installed privacy tools: | 159 (13%) |
| Someone set up privacy tools for me post-install: | 10 (1%) |
| I do not use any privacy protecting tools: | 387 (31%) |
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| Website News |
Distribution by Country of Origin page updated
Many years ago, probably 15-20 years ago in fact, DistroWatch maintained a page called Distributions by Country of Origin. Back in the earlier days of DistroWatch this page was manually kept up to date, indicating from which country each distribution originated.
The page eventually fell off the radar. It wasn't being used much any more and gradually stopped being maintained. In its place the DistroWatch Search page handled finding projects based on their official origins.
Someone asked us to revive the Country of Origin page and we have, cleaning it up and somewhat automating the process of maintenance. The old, discontinued projects have been cleared out, and new active projects added.
Entries are sorted by most common countries of origin and each country's distributions are then displayed alphabetically.
Projects with multiple official countries of origin (which is rare, but happens) can be found toward the bottom of the page.
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New distributions added to database
AerynOS
AerynOS is an independently-developed, rolling-release Linux distribution designed for general desktop use. Its main features include the GNOME desktop, a custom package manager called "moss", atomic updates with rollback options, a package build system called "boulder", and smart boot management with complex EFI configuration through a utility called "blsforme".
AerynOS 2025.03 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 2.5MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
UOS
UOS is the product of UnionTech Software, which is a Chinese company focusing on Linux operating system products and services. UOS can be run on desktops, servers, and smart terminals, and also for cloud-native scenarios.
MODICIA O.S.
MODICIA O.S. is a Linux multimedia distribution designed primarily for musicians, graphic designers and video makers. It is based on Debian's "stable" branch, but uses the Cinnamon desktop and a recent Linux kernel. MODICIA O.S. comes with a set of carefully-selected, open-source multimedia software and tools, such as Audacity (audio editor), Brasero (disc-burning utility), Cheese (webcam application), Curlew (multimedia converter), GIMP (graphics editor), HandBrake (video transcoder), Kdenlive (video editor), MediaInfo (tool that provides technical data about media files), mpv (media player), Peek (animated GIF recorder), RawTherapee (photo processor), XnView (image viewer), and many others. The distribution also provides the OnlyOffice software suite for general office tasks.
Adélie Linux
Adélie Linux is an independently-developed Linux distribution for desktops and servers. It uses the musl standard C library, GNU Coreutils-based userland, the APK package manager (developed by Alpine Linux), and OpenRC and s6 init systems. The project's desktop edition offers a choice of four desktops - KDE Plasma, LXQt, MATE and Xfce, while the supported processor architectures include AArch64, armv7l, i386, PPC, PPC64 and x86_64. The distribution is developed by a Canadian IT services company called Cyberlogic, founded in 1995.
Adélie Linux 1.0 beta 6 -- Running the Plasma desktop
(full image size: 197kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Parch GNU/Linux
Parch GNU/Linux is an Arch-based, rolling-release Linux distribution for standard desktops as well as some ARM-based devices. Its goal is to provide a streamlined and user-friendly experience while maintaining the customisability and performance of Arch Linux. The distribution offers a choice of GNOME, KDE Plasma and Xfce desktops, the Calamares graphical installer, optimised Persian fonts for enhanced readability and aesthetics, and extensive documentation and community support.
Lingmo OS
Lingmo OS is a Debian-based Linux distribution featuring a custom-built LingmoUI desktop environment. The project's main goal is to provide users with a unified and practical desktop, software that is compatible with the desktop environment, and a smooth experience, even on low-performance hardware.
Lingmo OS -- Running the LingmoUI desktop
(full image size: 2.7MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
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New distributions added to waiting list
- TravelerOS. TravelerOS is a Q4OS-based distribution featuring the Plasma 5 desktop. TravelerOS is meant to be run from a live USB drive rather than from a hard drive.
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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, 9 June 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 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • 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 |
| • 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 | 
URIX OS
URIX OS (formerly NetSecL) was a security-focused distribution and live DVD based on openSUSE. To improve the security aspect of the distribution, servers have been removed, incoming ports closed and services turned off. Additionally, several penetration tools have been included.
Status: Discontinued
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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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