 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1161, 23 February 2026 |
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Welcome to this year's 8th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
There are a lot of different approaches to installing and managing software packages. There are classic package formats, such as Deb and RPM; there are portable packages, such as Flatpak and Snap; there are source bundles waiting to be built; and there are many ways to manage the various formats. This week we begin with a look at a less commonly used, but highly powerful approach, to software management through the Guix package manager. Guix can run on most Linux distributions, its packages are highly portable, and Guix can act as a third-party package manager that supports generations of packages and rollbacks. Guix is similar in many aspects to Nix - both are advanced package and system managers which offer many features and can run on most Linux distributions. Do you use either of these package managers? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll.
In our News section we talk about Gentoo migrating its source code mirror to Codeberg while the Fedora developers contemplate providing more information about kernel panics. We also report on GhostBSD experimenting with an alternative X11 implementation while Asahi Linux reports on the team's progress to support newer Apple ARM-powered computers. We also share news the NetBSD command line tools have been ported to other members of the Unix family. In our Questions and Answers section this week we quickly answer multiple queries and then we are pleased to share the releases of the past week. We wrap up this week with a heartfelt thanks to the readers who kindly donated to us in February. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: The Guix package manager 1.5.0
- News: Gentoo migrates its source mirror, Fedora considers a more informative kernel panic screen, GhostBSD tests alternative X11 software, Asahi Linux makes progress with Apple's M3, NetBSD userland gets ported to other operating systems, FreeBSD improves web-based system management
- Questions and answers: Quick Q&As
- Released last week: SparkyLinux 8.2, NuTyX 26.02.2, UBports 24.04 and 24.04 OTA-12, OmegaLinux 2026.02.21, Lakka 6.1
- Torrent corner: KDE neon, SparkyLinux
- Opinion poll: Nix and Guix
- Site news: Donations and Sponsors
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
The Guix package manager 1.5.0
This week I'd like to talk about Guix. Not the Guix System distribution which layers GNU utilities on top of the Linux kernel, but the Guix package manager. Guix is an atomic package manager with per-user profiles and generational tracking. The project's website describes Guix as follows:
GNU Guix is a package management tool for and distribution of the GNU system. Guix makes it easy for unprivileged users to install, upgrade, or remove software packages, to roll back to a previous package set, to build packages from source, and generally assists with the creation and maintenance of software environments.
While the Guix System distribution is based around the Guix package manager (much the same way the Nix package manager is central to NixOS), it can be run on virtually any Linux distribution. With this in mind I decided to install Guix on a copy of Manjaro Linux to see how it would function.
Installing
For people who wish to install Guix on their existing distribution the project offers install instructions. The steps are fairly simple and basically boil down to running the following three commands:
wget https://guix.gnu.org/guix-install.sh
chmod +x guix-install.sh
sudo ./guix-install.sh
The above instructions download the Guix install script, mark it as being executable, and then run it. The script will perform a few checks and ask us to confirm it can perform verification checks on the files it downloads. The whole process take around a minute.
Guix 1.5.0 -- Running the install script
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When Guix is installed it runs a daemon in the background which handles package-related requests. All regular users can access the daemon to install software under their own profiles. Everyone can see the software under the profiles of all other users, however we can only change or remove software from our own profile. Profiles and packages are kept in the /gnu/store directory.
Once we start adding packages to the system we should add the following lines to our shell login script, such as ~/.bashrc:
GUIX_PROFILE="$HOME/.guix-profile"
source "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"
The above instructions are mostly used to alter the user's PATH variable so the shell knows where to find installed software. This is required since Guix doesn't use the traditional /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin locations. Instead it keeps all installed software under /gnu/store with generations of files/packages stored under sub-directories. The .guix-profile file keeps track of where these files are located so our shell can run them.
Working with packages
The Guix manual has a detailed section on finding, installing, and removing software packages. In brief, we can use "guix search" to find a package, using a name or key words. The "guix install" command will fetch a desired package while "guix remove" deletes a package. The "guix upgrade" command will upgrade one (or possibly more) packages.
The output from Guix is coloured by default, making some output difficult to read and the search results nearly impossible to see. The documentation says we can disable colour and highlighting by setting the environment variable "GUIX_NO_COLOR" to be equal to 1. This helps, but it doesn't work for search results as text matching our search pattern is still shown with red highlights, making it nearly invisible with some terminal schemas.
I was curious about which packages were available in the Guix repositories and, for that matter, how many there were. I could not find a command for Guix which would list every available package or give me a count. The documentation mentions there are over 30,000 packages, but I could not find a definitive list. I did find a page where we can search for specific packages, but this doesn't offer the ability to browse.
Guix 1.5.0 -- Searching for packages
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With a little experimenting I discovered I could use "guix search '.'" to effectively search for "everything" and then use the output from the results to estimate the number of packages or list all package names. For instance, to gather a list of all packages available in the Guix repository we can use the command:
guix search '.' | grep "name:" > all-packages.txt
Working in a similar manner, we can find out how many packages there are in the repository by running:
guix search '.' | grep "name:" | wc -l
According to the above command, there are 30,400 packages available for Guix users at the time of writing.
Fetching software with "guix install" worked well for me and I was soon fetching packages and their dependencies, setting up both command line and graphical programs under my profile.
Guix 1.5.0 -- Running xeyes from the Guix repository
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Early issues
The Guix documentation mentions running "guix pull" occasionally to update the Guix software. It's not entirely clear if the documentation means the Guix program and daemon themselves will be updated or if we are pulling (downloading) updated repository information. When I tried running "guix pull" as my regular user the process failed, reporting an OpenSSL error. When I tried running "guix pull" as the root user the process appeared to work for a minute and then reported an error saying it could not read from the remote repository. This seemed odd as, while this error was happening, I was able to install software from the default repository.
I tried again a few times over the next 24 hours, running "guix pull" as both root and as my regular user, typically with a read error or an error indicating the process had received an "an early EOF". Eventually, running "guix pull" as a regular user worked and though the output was not specific, it appears the software fetched an updated copy of its repository information. While it was doing this, a process which took about ten minutes, Guix consumed 100% of my CPU and made my laptop's fan run hard.
Generations
One of the key features of Guix which sets it apart from traditional package managers is the concept of generations. A generation refers to changes which are applied to the user's packages - when we add, remove, or update software in our profile. Each user has their own set of generations which are automatically updated whenever we change the packages in our profile.
Guix 1.5.0 -- Exploring generations
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We can run "guix --list-generations" to see a list of generations. We can then use "guix package --switch-generation" to jump to an earlier (or later) generation. The shortcut "guix package --roll-back" works to revert to the most recent generation. This means if an update breaks our software we can revert the change instantly by running "guix package --roll-back", without needing to re-fetch or re-install the previous versions of packages.
Being able to instantly jump between generations is ideal for testing changes between versions of packages, testing to see when a bug was introduced, or alternating between LTS and cutting edge software.
One aspect of generations I find interesting is generations work more like patches than filesystem snapshots. In other words, a generation tracks the changes which have happened, it does not provide an image of what is installed at a given moment. This can be a significant distinction because switching between generations does not provide us with the set of applications present on the system at the time of that generation. Jumping forward or backward applies the changes which happened. This is a bit abstract, so I'd like to provide an example.
Let's say I begin by installing Package-A (this creates generation 1). Then I install Package-B (this creates generation 2). If I remove Package-A that causes the system to create generation 3. In generation 3, just Package-B exists. Let's say I install an update for Package-B and now I'm on generation 4. If I then delete generation 3, Guix sees that as undoing the removal of Package-A, which means Package-A and Package-B will be on the system. This probably seems intuitive to people accustomed to dealing with package layers or generations, but it's quite different than working with filesystem snapshots or boot environments and I feel the distinction is worth noting.
Disk cleaning
Since Guix uses generations of packages and creates new generations each time we install, remove, or upgrade a package, the package manager will gradually eat up disk space. This will usually be a slow process, a few megabytes here and there on a modern disk which might be multiple terabytes in size is not immediately significant. However, over time, Guix will eat into our storage space. We can combat this by deleting earlier generations of packages and, on occasion, running "guix gc" to clean out old generations of packages and free the disk space they used. Running "guix gc" does not prompt us to confirm we really want to free up disk space used by deleted generations, it just goes to work.
Details on how garbage collection (gc) works and options we can use to target old files of specific generations or time periods are covered in the Guix garbage collection documentation.
Other observations
Guix occasionally showcased some weird quirks which probably indicates that I do not really have a feel for Guix the way I do for Nix or other package managers. For example, running the command "guix describe" gives an overview of the Guix system - its repository, version, and generation. However, the generation of Guix can be different than the generation of our packages (which is shown when we run "guix package --list-generations"). I'm not sure what the difference is and I couldn't find an explanation in the documentation.
I also found the package manager's output often displayed warnings or asked the user to perform actions. For example, just about any time I performed an action I was asked to add an environment variable to my shell, even through this had already been done and I could confirm the variable was being used.
Guix appears to always fetch all dependencies/suggested items for packages. This is probably a good default, most of the time, but the number (and size) of dependencies for some larger programs can be significant and should probably come with a notice.
The Guix project has a good deal of documentation which highlights the key features. What follows is a personal concern rather than a significant problem, but I found it difficult to follow the author's line of thought at times. There were times the documentation seemed to omit (or assumed we knew) how Guix worked and the documentation felt as though it was there as a reminder rather than as an explanation. There were times when I wondered things such as "Can I run this as my regular user or does it need to be run as root?", "What does it mean by 'it does this and so on'?", "Does this command update Guix or its repository or both?"
People already familiar with Guix will know the answer immediately or maybe even instinctively, but for a new person coming into Guix (even one such as myself who is fairly comfortable with its sibling Nix), reading the documentation felt like visiting a restaurant where the menu says our dining options are "The Usual or Soup of the Day." These options are technical true, but not enlightening.
Conclusions
The thought which kept coming to me while I was experimenting with Guix this week was that Guix feels like an advanced package manager created by package maintainers for package maintainers. Being able to instantly swap between packages, install from binary or source, track the changes between package generations, and manage software in a local profile without touching the rest of the operating system are all features which feel ideal for a package maintainer. (Speaking as someone who has maintained packages across multiple platforms.) However, Guix feels quite awkward for any other role outside of helping a package maintainer.
The concept and syntax are overly complicated for beginners and average computer users; Guix is definitely a more advanced tool without any friendly graphical interface. It doesn't feel like it is geared toward system administrators because it is putting the power, the packages, and the clean-up in the hands of individual users rather than centralizing the processes. It doesn't feel like it is targeting developers since the non-standard filesystem locations and lack of isolation features are not suited to development and deployment the way containers are.
Which brings me back to the idea that Guix is a really impressive package management system if you are really into maintaining multiple packages and want to make managing your packages as powerful and flexible as possible. And this seems like a really capable tool if that is what you need. On the other hand, if you're not maintaining multiple packages, Guix is probably more complex and more hands-on for the user than what you need.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Gentoo migrates its source mirror, Fedora considers a more informative kernel panic screen, GhostBSD tests alternative X11 software, Asahi Linux makes progress with Apple's M3, NetBSD userland gets ported to other operating systems, FreeBSD improves web-based system management
The Gentoo project is in the process of migrating its source code repositories from GitHub, which has come under fire recently for its mishandling of AI submissions and spam, to Codeberg. "Gentoo now has a presence on Codeberg, and contributions can be submitted for the Gentoo repository mirror as an alternative to GitHub. Eventually also other git repositories will become available under the Codeberg Gentoo organization. This is part of the gradual mirror migration away from GitHub, as already mentioned in the 2025 end-of-year review. Codeberg is a site based on Forgejo, maintained by a dedicated non-profit organization, and located in Berlin, Germany. Thanks to everyone who has helped make this move possible!" Instructions for interacting with and sending pull requests to Gentoo's repository are including in the project's announcement.
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Fedora contributor José Expósito has put forward a proposal which would cause more information to be displayed when the Linux kernel crashes, an event referred to as a kernel panic. "I'd like to introduce a frontend to improve the user experience when a DRM Panic occurs in Fedora. Let me know what you think and if you'd like to make it part of the Fedora project. DRM Panic is a feature in the Linux kernel that displays a panic screen when a kernel panic occurs. DRM Panic can display a QR code with a trace of the kernel error. By default the raw trace of the kernel error is displayed. While this information is valuable for kernel developers, most users won't understand the meaning of the trace or how to report the issue. To help users understand what happened and how to report the issue, I have been working on a frontend." The new frontend displays a QR code which will open a web page with user-friendly information and then, optionally, can be configured to send a bug report. Details on the proposal and follow-up discussion can be found in this mailing list thread.
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The GhostBSD project, which develops a user-friendly FreeBSD variant with MATE as the preferred desktop, has a new dilemma. Following conflicts and upheavals in the X.Org project and the continuous rise in popularity of the Wayland display server (at least in the Linux world), GhostBSD developer Eric Turgeon has published an article explaining the reasons behind a probable switch from X.Org to XLibre for the upcoming release of GhostBSD: "I looked at XLibre's improvements and was impressed. I started to think: if I release 26.01 with XLibre, I'll have to push the release for a month or two, but at least we should be in good shape. The change to XLibre is because GhostBSD is not ready for Wayland, and Wayland is not ready for GhostBSD. Some could say that Wayland works. Yes, it does. I've used it on Linux and it works. But GhostBSD is not Linux, and MATE is not ready for it yet. Xfce is not ready for it, and Gershwin isn't either. From what I know, GNUstep is not ready for Wayland. In short, it's a technical decision: MATE is not ready for Wayland, and X.Org is going backward." For more explanations please see the blog post entitled Addressing XLibre Change and GhostBSD Future.
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The Asahi Linux project is engaged in an ongoing effort to bring Linux support to Apple ARM-powered computers. The project has already succeeded in making it possible to run Linux on Apple's M1 and M2 systems and work is quickly progressing on newer models. "Between the three of them, Alyssa Milburn (noopwafel), Michael Reeves (integralpilot), and Shiz, with help from Janne, wrote some preliminary Devicetrees and found that a great deal of hardware worked without any changes! Adding in some minor kernel changes for the NVMe and interrupt controllers, Michael was able to boot all the way to Plasma on an M3 MacBook Air! In fact, the current state of M3 support is about where M1 support was when we released the first Arch Linux ARM based beta; keyboard, touchpad, WiFi, NVMe and USB3 are all working, albeit with some local patches to m1n1 and the Asahi kernel (yet to make their way into a pull request) required." Additional information and details on the work Asahi Linux's developers are performing can be found in the project's progress report.
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An effort is underway to port the userland portion of NetBSD to other members of the Unix family, including Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Hurd. The port strives to make NetBSD's command line tools work on other platforms with minimal code changes. The port of NetBSD's tools provides developers and system administrators with the chance to run a consistent environment across multiple platforms. Details on the porting project and how to compile the NetBSD tools on other platforms can be found in the port's source repository.
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The FreeBSD project has published a status report for the last quarter of 2025. The report covers new developments and improvements to the FreeBSD operating system in the fourth quarter of 2025. One of the key items in the report is about Sylve, a web-based management tool. "ZFS Management: we now use GitHub - gzfs that is a go wrapper around zfs/zpool/zdb CLI to provide full support for creating and managing ZFS pools and datasets. This has improved performance and reliability compared to our previous implementation. VM and Jail storage management: During the initialization user can pick the pool(s) where VM (disks/zvols) and Jail (datasets) will be created, and all the disk/dataset creation will be done under the hood automatically. Support for Linux Jails using the FreeBSD Linuxulator has been added. Users can create, manage, and monitor Linux Jails via the web interface. It is still considered experimental but we have tested extensively with Rocky Linux and Alpine. A bunch of improvements to jails has been added where in people can now supply a lot more options when creating/editing/viewing thick jails...." Further details are provided in the report.
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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) |
Quick Q&As
More-about-the-BSDs asks: When you did the recommendation answer for BSDs you didn't talk about DragonFlyBSD. What do you think of it for a desktop OS?
DistroWatch answers: DragonFlyBSD was originally a fork of FreeBSD and it focuses on performance and advanced filesystem technologies (such as HAMMER2). Nothing about DragonFlyBSD is geared to work as an operating system for desktop or laptop computers. I imagine there are people out there who have set up DragonFlyBSD to run a desktop environment, but that is not one of the project's strengths. It is an interesting project, but not one I think which would be suitable for newcomers to BSD.
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On-the-go: You talk sometimes about open source mobile OSes like GrapheneOS and Ubuntu Touch. Do you find you miss out on specific apps by using them?
DistroWatch answers: The super short answer is: no, I haven't ever felt like I was missing out on a specific app.
My slightly longer answer is that there are probably three reasons I've never felt like I was missing out on apps while running less commonly used mobile operating systems.
- Many tools and services can be accessed using websites (and web apps). The open source community has done a great job filling in gaps where websites are not able to handle specific tasks.
- I tend not to use a lot of apps on my smartphones. I mostly use mobile devices for communicating, scheduling, note taking, and navigating. At the moment I probably have more apps on my phone than at any point in the past and, by my quick count, I've installed a total of nine apps and services on my phone. There are no games, no social media apps, no image manipulation software, and no banking tools. In other words, it's hard to miss a particular tool if you don't use many tools.
- Perhaps most significantly, I have always preferred using software which follows open standards and which can be easily swapped out for a similar application. Over the years I've watched a lot of promising applications come and go and I try to avoid getting too attached to any one specific application, desktop, or mobile operating system.
As a result, I don't need (for instance) WhatsApp, I can use generic SMS or a Signal client; I don't need Safari, I can use any modern web browser; I don't need Winamp, I am happy with a range of music players; I don't use TaskTracker 3000, I can use any text editor. Sometimes people wonder how I get by without banking apps and the truth is I've never even considered installing one since my bank has a website that works. People ask how I get around the city and I point out the transit website has route maps while the corner store sells passes. People wonder how I get by without WhatsApp and I point out I've only ever had one friend that used it and they were perfectly capable of using SMS.
My point is that proprietary apps are as much traps as they are tools and if you don't take the bait, they don't limit your choices in mobile operating systems. You can usually accomplish the same tasks with open tools which can be easily replaced as needed.
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The-robots-are-here asks: Linux doesn't seem to be embracing AI. Almost no distros install AI by default. Is Linux going to be left behind as a result?
DistroWatch answers: AI is a pretty generic term and gets applied to a lot of things. Assuming you're talking about large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT or Copilot, then I don't think we have any worries. Those applications, while interesting and potentially entertaining, are not particularly useful and they are often inaccurate. I don't think Linux distributions are going to be passing up any benefits by not including them by default. After all, anyone who wants to use such tools can easily install them or use web-based applications which run on those LLMs. Meanwhile not including them by default avoids the privacy, inaccuracy, and copyright issues associated with LLM applications.
I came across a post a few months ago and, sadly, have forgotten where so I cannot credit the author, but they wrote words to the effect that: "Tech CEOs keep telling us that if we don't jump on the AI train then we'll get left behind. But the train is full of thieves and piles of garbage, so maybe we're okay with not being on it." I suspect that sums up how a lot of open source developers feel about the current AI hype.
For people who want to run LLM-based tools, they will take less than a minute to install or bookmark on your chosen Linux distribution. However, a lot of people do not want AI tools. A recent poll by DuckDuckGo indicated just 6% of visitors want AI-related tools on the website with 94% voting against it. It would not make sense for any project (a Linux distribution or a search engine) to include such tools for an audience that doesn't want or need them.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
SparkyLinux 8.2
The SparkyLinux project has announced the release of SparkyLinux 8.2, a snapshot update of the project's Stable branch. "There is the second update available for Sparky 8 - 8.2. This is a quarterly update of the Sparky 8 Seven Sisters stable release. Sparky 8 is based on and fully compatible with Debian 13 Trixie. Main changes: All packages updated from the stable Debian and Sparky repositories as of February 14, 2026; Linux kernel: 6.12.69-LTS (6.19.1, 6.12.72 LTS, 6.6.125-LTS in sparky repositories); LibreOffice 25.2.3; KDE Plasma 6.3.6; LXQt 2.1.0; MATE 1.26.0; Xfce 4.20; Openbox 3.6.1; Firefox 140.7.0esr (firefox-latest 147.0.4 in Sparky repositories); Thunderbird 140.7.1esr; fixed a small bug in the Openbox edition that prevented to launch a terminal emulator from a package manager." The release announcement offers additional details. The project's announcement notes there may be a bug in the ARM64 builds which will prevent wireless networking from functioning, but a reboot should resolve the issue.
NuTyX 26.02.2
The NuTyX distribution has published a new version, 26.02.2, which switches the default init software from SysV to systemd. "After nearly 19 years, NuTyX slowly abandoned the SysV initialization system developed more than 40 years ago (1983). This means concretely: Only the following packages will continue to receive updates until December 2026: The kernels. Note that the kernel-510, kernel-515, kernel-66 and kernel-612 also come to the end of their life in December 2026; Firefox and Thunderbird; Discord and Telegram; Xfce 4.20; security updates. Now, the distribution focuses on a single initialization system: systemd. The two main [desktops] GNOME and KDE6 will soon no longer be operational under sysV." The project's release announcement recommends performing a fresh install of NuTyX to handle the migration from SysV to systemd.
NuTyX 26.02.2 -- Running the Xfce desktop
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UBports 24.04, 20.04 OTA-12
The UBports project has announced updates for the mobile distributions 2.04 and 24.04 branches. The new updates, labeled OTA-12, improve the stability of VoLTE connections, fixes some issues with dual-SIM devices, and deleted on-line accounts no longer linger in the Calendar application. "Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.2 is a maintenance release of 24.04-1.x series. This release contains mostly bug fixes and small improvements. The notable ones are: Booting Ubuntu Touch on Sony Xperia X has been broken since Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.0. It is now fixed, extending life to this old device. Improves mobile data stability when VoLTE is active on some carrier. Fixes receiving "cell broadcast" messages on multiple devices. Fixes deleting online accounts leaving calendars behind in Calendar app. Fixes switching mobile data SIM on some dual-SIM devices. Further fixes for importing .ics calendar event files. General bug fixes and security updates." A complete list of changes can be found in the project's release announcement. A list of supported devices, along with install instructions, can be found on the project's devices page.
OmegaLinux 2026.02.21
The developers of OmegaLinux have announced a brand new release, version 2026.02.21. Formerly based on Lubuntu, the new version is a complete rebuild of the project's lightweight Linux distribution, now based on Arch Linux. It continues using the LXDE desktop, making it suitable for installation on low-end hardware and older computers with as little as 1 GB or memory and 15 GB of storage space. "OmegaLinux NEXT Deep Blue Sea - the 'Goodbye Lubuntu/Ubuntu' release. New OmegaLinux release, the biggest one and we even moved bases. Changelog (updated 22 february 2026): rebased from scratch to Arch Linux, no longer Ubuntu base, this means OmegaLinux 2.x (and maybe 3.x) would get instant end of life; design and branding overhaul - a little bit skeumorphic (especially in icons); now since its rolling-release it will always get the newest updates of packages; there wasn't too much changelog but the fact that it's rebased on Arch Linux really makes it really big; Soil's facility (own server) - not yet." Read the brief release announcement and visit the distribution's new home page for more information, system requirements and screenshots.
OmegaLinux 2026.02.1 -- Running the LXDE desktop
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Lakka 6.1
Tomáš Kelemen has announced the release of Lakka 6.1, a major new version of the project's LibreELEC-based Linux distribution that transforms a computer into a full-blown retro-gaming console. This release updates the RetroArch user interface to version 1.22.2 and the Linux kernel to version 6.18.7: "A long-awaited new version of Lakka is finally here. After the release of Lakka 5.0 in April 2024, we took our time to modernize the base system, refresh the entire core ecosystem, and introduce several highly requested features. Today, we're excited to present Lakka 6.1 - our biggest update in years. Lakka 6.1 is now built on the LibreELEC 12.2 build system, bringing a modernized foundation, improved hardware support, and updated drivers across the board. In addition, we moved to the currently latest long-term-support kernel series (6.18), integrating all required upstream changes to ensure that every supported platform can run reliably on this kernel. We also ship with the latest stable RetroArch 1.22.2, including all its new UI improvements, latency optimizations, and quality-of-life enhancements." Continue to the release announcement for more details.
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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: 3,394
- Total data uploaded: 49.5TB
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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) |
Nix and Guix
This week we began with a review of Guix an advanced package manager that is similar in its approach to Nix. While Guix and Nix form the cores of distributions (Guix System and NixOS), they can also be run as third-party package managers on most Linux distributions. We would like to know if you use either of these advanced package managers - either as part of their demonstration distributions or as add-ons to another distribution.
You can see the results of our previous poll on commonly used command line programs in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you use Nix or Guix?
| Nix on its own: | 36 (3%) |
| Guix on its own: | 10 (1%) |
| Nix as part of NixOS: | 69 (5%) |
| Guix as part of Guix System: | 18 (1%) |
| Both: | 12 (1%) |
| Neither: | 1185 (89%) |
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| Website News |
Donations and Sponsors
Each month we receive support and kindness from our readers in the form of donations. These donations help us keep the web server running, pay contributors, and keep infrastructure like our torrent seed box running. We'd like to thank our generous readers and acknowledge how much their contributions mean to us.
This month we're grateful for the $206 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| Regis F | $36 |
| Kevin W | $31 |
| Daniela B | $30 |
| Používateľ MRVP | $25 |
| Jonathon B | $10 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| Joshua B | $7 |
| Jacek Marcin Jaworski | $5 |
| Taikedz | $5 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| Brian59 | $5 |
| Chris S | $5 |
| John B | $5 |
| Joe Football | $5 |
| AbondonShiP | $5 |
| David R | $5 |
| Keith S | $2 |
| J.D. L | $2 |
| PB C | $2 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
| William E | $1 |
| Kal D | $1 |
| aRubes | $1 |
| Colton D | $1 |
| Lars N | $1 |
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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, 2 March 2026. 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 1163 (2026-03-09): KaOS 2026.02, TinyCore 17.0, NuTyX 26.02.2, Would one big collection of packages help?, Guix offers 64-bit Hurd options, Linux communities discuss age delcaration laws, Mint unveils new screensaver for Cinnamon, Redox ports new COSMIC features |
| • Issue 1162 (2026-03-02): AerynOS 2026.01, anti-virus and firewall tools, Manjaro fixes website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating a map app |
| • Issue 1161 (2026-02-23): The Guix package manager, quick Q&As, Gentoo migrating its mirrors, Fedora considers more informative kernel panic screens, GhostBSD testing alternative X11 implementation, Asahi makes progress with Apple M3, NetBSD userland ported, FreeBSD improves web-based system management |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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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 | 
Aurora OS
Aurora OS started its life as Eeebuntu, an Ubuntu-based distribution optimised for ASUS Eee PC and other popular netbooks. In June 2010, the project was renamed to Aurora OS, with a goal of becoming a more general Linux distribution for the desktop with user-friendly features.
Status: Discontinued
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Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| 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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