 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 238, 4 February 2008 |
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Welcome to this year's 5th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! It's tough to be a developer of a desktop operating system these days. Not only are we seeing increasing usability and user-friendliness from the major Linux distributions, the BSD world now also wants its share of the market, while there are those who believe that even Solaris can be a viable desktop alternative to the more established operating systems. But how far has Sun Microsystems' flagship product progressed since the opening up of the source code in the form of OpenSolaris? Our featured story looks at Nexenta, Indiana, BeleniX and other OpenSolaris-based distribution and asks whether they can compete on the desktop. In the news section, Debian edges closer to "Lenny", Slackware announces plans to move to KDE 4, François Bancilhon defends the code-sharing agreement with Turbolinux, and Ars Technica investigates the latest release of NetBSD. Finally, we are proud to announce that the recipient of the DistroWatch January 2008 donation is the VideoLAN VLC project. Enjoy the read and happy Chinese New Year to all our readers!
Content:
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Featured Story |
Solaris on the desktop
Of all the "real" UNIX operating systems ever built, Sun Microsystems' Solaris is probably the most famous. This is mostly due to its reputation as a reliable workhorse of large data centres and other mission-critical systems, but also because of its special security, file system, troubleshooting and self-healing features that the Sun developers have coded into the Solaris kernel and userland over the years. But with the rapid advances of Linux and its increasing acceptance as a more affordable alternative to UNIX, Sun's flagship operating system has lost market share - that's despite the fact that it is now available free of charge and under a license approved by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Solaris faces an uphill struggle against other free operating systems.
In recent years, Sun has been trying to revive the interest in Solaris by means of opening up its source code through the OpenSolaris project. This worked reasonably well and it didn't take long before a variety of community projects based on the OpenSolaris code sprang into life. Jörg Schilling's Schillix became the first OpenSolaris-based live CD designed primarily for developers, but it was the effort of the Sun Microsystems' development team in India and its BeleniX live CD (with hardware detection, Xfce window manager and a variety of desktop applications) that finally convinced the sceptics that the idea of Solaris running on end users' desktops is feasible.
However, the most ambitious and promising desktop Solaris project was Nexenta, first announced in November 2005. The goal of this semi-commercial distribution was to deliver a full desktop operating system by combining the OpenSolaris kernel and userland with Debian utilities and Ubuntu packages. It released seven alpha builds - all in the form of installable live CDs with the GNOME desktop, Ubuntu installer, and thousands of popular open source applications available for installation over the Internet. Disappointingly, the last of these alpha builds was pushed out in May 2007, after which the project appeared to be rethinking its strategy, with a focus on a developing a much less ambitious product called NexentaCP (Nexenta Core Platform).
Has Nexenta abandoned its plans for producing a complete desktop Solaris solution? DistroWatch has exchanged a few emails with Nexenta to find out and the answer is, unfortunately, "yes". Erast Benson, a Nexenta developer, explained the reasons: "We had to face the problem with inability to maintain various GUI applications and environments which are included by default in Ubuntu. It was very difficult to make them stable and we eventually gave up."
This seems to suggest that OpenSolaris on the desktop is a concept similar to fighting windmills - a complete waste of time. No, not quite, argues Benson: "GUI is not a strong side of OpenSolaris - server is, storage is, virtualisation is, but not desktop. Really, OpenSolaris as a server - a perfect find, while on the desktop there are different requirements which are not yet met by the OpenSolaris community. My prediction is that it will match the Linux desktop by about 2010, probably with the push of Indiana." He added another thought: "Linux also started as a server platform. User-friendly desktops appeared way later. We expect the same for OpenSolaris. Desktop OpenSolaris will happen, but it is not the time yet."
With a self-funding project like Nexenta, another problem is, of course, money: "It is very difficult to make money from a desktop solution these days. People somehow expect desktop software to be available for free in the UNIX world. However, server UNIX software is for $$$... so we have a chance to survive only if we capitalise on the right technology at the right time." So what exactly can we expect from the Nexenta project in the next few months? "There will be four distinct products," Benson continued. "Two of them already exist: NexentaCP, a stable OpenSolaris core, and NexentaStor, a commercial appliance distribution functionally similar to FreeNAS or OpenFiler, but obviously based on OpenSolaris. There are two more products in development: NexentaXfce (yes, wit GUI) and NexentaWeb, scheduled to appear this year."
Does this all mean that we are unlikely to see a Nexenta desktop in the near future? "Well, we are trying to stimulate other projects around NexentaCP to produce more desktop-oriented distributions," explained Benson. "Such distributions could be initiated by anyone who is a talented artist and a bright developer. NexentaCP should be an excellent starting point to produce such distribution as it can be redistributed with no obligations. After all, it's designed as a 'core' for other distributions to reuse for their custom projects. At the same time, we are focusing our efforts on ZFS and storage-related technologies. In my opinion, NexentaCP is a perfect solution for the servers and once the stable 1.0 is out, we should expect many support companies and individuals to offer their support services."
So there you have it. Despite its original focus, Nexenta is not going to replace your current desktop distribution any time soon - a somewhat disappointing, though understandable fact. Nevertheless, with the current effort Sun is putting into Project Indiana, it is entirely possible that many of the compatibility problems Nexenta has failed to overcome, will be resolved in the next couple of years, if not months. This could entice more Solaris fans to give a desktop OpenSolaris solution another try and possibly be drawn into the development process. The user and developer communities should grow.
As for Indiana itself, how far is Ian Murdock's brainchild at the start of 2008? It seems that the project is progressing as planned. Following the first preview released in early November 2007, the second preview is about to be announced too. In fact, a "pre-preview" was released for testing last weekend, so those interested in giving it a spin can start downloading the live CD straight away: in-test-199.iso (645MB, MD5, torrent). No release notes are available as yet, but Phoronix has published a good first-look review, noting a number of interesting improvements, including a better detection of wireless network cards and other hardware, and an improved graphical installer. But on the negative side, the article has also found a limited set of desktop applications and media codecs, and a lack of a graphical package manager.
Indiana Preview 2 - an installable live CD with GNOME and a handful of desktop applications
(full image size: 400kB, screen resolution: 1280x800 pixels)
So what does all this say about the prospects of a widespread deployment of Solaris on the desktop in 2008? Things certainly don't look very bright at the moment. Nexenta has changed its focus, while Indiana is nowhere near ready. BeleniX has started well and is currently ahead of all other projects in delivering a decent desktop solution based on OpenSolaris. But the problem with all these distributions is rather obvious: while all of them have got the basics right in producing usable live CDs with automatic hardware detection and a basic desktop, none of them have given us compelling enough reason to abandon our Linux (or even BSD) systems in favour of OpenSolaris. As such, desktop Solaris will continue to thrive on the workstation of some Solaris developers and perhaps make a brief stop on the hard drives of a few curious distro hoppers, but anything more that that is unlikely in the foreseeable future.
| Operating System |
% Share |
| Windows |
54.77% |
| Linux |
37.04% |
| Mac OS |
2.97% |
| BSD |
0.32% |
| Solaris |
0.06% |
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Operating systems market share, taken from the web logs at DistroWatch.com in January 2008
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| Miscellaneous News |
Debian "Lenny" plans, Slackware on KDE 4, Linux Magazine and Mandriva Powerpack, NetBSD interview
 Let's start this week's news section with a couple of interesting updates from the Debian project. First, the development of Debian's next release, code name "Lenny", is proceeding according to the plan, which is to have it finalise for release in September 2008: "As we are progressing in our release preparations, we have reviewed the original schedule for 'Lenny' to check for any imminent problems, and at the moment are quite content with the current state. We are, as always, concerned about the large number of release-critical issues still unfixed in testing, so please help do something about it." The message, published be Marc Brockschmidt on the project's devel-announce mailing list, also includes information about new release assistants, release blockers, release architecture re-qualification, bug squashing parties and other topics related to Lenny.
On a related subject, Moritz Muehlenhoff has announced that Debian's upcoming release could include a number of optional security hardening features: "The Debian archive is the biggest of all distributions and although there's security support for all security issues being found, there's still room for improvement and a need for increased resilience against flaws not yet discovered." These security improvements will focus on two main areas: tool chain features preventing the exploitation of some vulnerability classes (e.g. stack protector, fortify source, format warnings) and tool chain features enhancing the effectiveness of Address Space Layout Randomization (e.g. relro, Position Independent Executables, experimental wrapper package). If all this sounds a little too technical, don't despair; the announcement is actually very readable and further documentation and relevant links are also available in the Debian Wiki.
* * * * *
 After a brief holiday break, the Slackware changelog has once again started seeing blocks of new entries. Among them, KDE was the subject of a longer post, with hints that the upcoming release of Slackware Linux 12.1 will still ship with KDE 3.5, but once KDE 4.1 is out and most of the current bugs are squashed, it will likely make a prompt appearance in the "current" tree. Patrick Volkerding: "The next Slackware release will contain KDE 3.5.9, but we're targeting KDE 4.1.x for the one after that. The application end of things doesn't quite fully cover KDE3's functionality yet, but by then it will." The founder of Slackware Linux is clearly fond of the new KDE: "The look of the new desktop is stunning, and the use of SVG and hardware acceleration gives (IMHO) even something like Mac OS a run for its money in terms of appearance and user-friendliness. We look forward with great anticipation to merging KDE4 when it is mature enough (and it's getting there fast), and then watching it just get better and better."
* * * * *
 The recent Mandriva - Turbolinux collaboration deal has been interpreted in the media with a controversial twist due to Turbolinux's extensive patent-protection agreements with Microsoft. Linux Journal was curious about the deal so it interviewed François Bancilhon, the Mandriva CEO, about the implications of the agreement: "First of all, let me clarify that we are initially only unifying the core components of the distribution, roughly 100 RPMs. So there will still be 2 different distros: Mandriva Linux and Turbolinux. But because they have the same base components, they will run on the same hardware hardware platforms and they will support the same ISVs. This is good for customers: a stronger, sounder distribution, more hardware and software compatibility; this is good for ISVs and IHVs: they need only one certification for the 2 distros."
Mandriva Linux 2008 has received positive reviews in the media and has been well-accepted by the greater Linux community. The distribution is stable, mature and, in case of the Powerpack edition, contains all that one could possibly need for a functional desktop. But what do you do if you are a poor student or if you just don't have the €50 it takes to buy the product? Simple: get the March 2008 issue of Linux Magazine. The full Powerpack edition of Mandriva Linux 2008 is included on the cover DVD, while the printed pages are packed with interesting distro-related articles, such as the 17-page story on creating your own distribution, a comprehensive review of Puppy Linux, a 3-page article on the ASUS Eee PC, and the regular "Ask Klaus Knopper" column. The magazine currently offers a get-3-issues-for-the-price-of-one deal that allows you to receive three trial issues for as little as US$9.95, depending on your location. (And no, this paragraph is not an "advertorial"; it simply serves as an alert to the easy availability of the Mandriva 2008 Powerpack DVD and the low-cost subscription offer).
* * * * *
 NetBSD has a reputation of being the hardest of all BSDs to set up and use, perhaps finding some interest only among the users who want to run an operating system on their kitchen toasters or other exotic hardware. The project has recently released a major update, version 4.0, with a number of new features and, as usual, support for several new processor architectures. But what exactly is NetBSD and who develops it? Ars Technica has sat down with several leading developers of the project for an exhaustive 9-page interview: "The NetBSD community announced last month the official release of NetBSD 4.0, the latest version of the UNIX-like open source operating system. Version 4.0 includes significant new features like Bluetooth support, version 3 of the Xen virtual machine monitor, new device drivers, and improvements to the Veriexec file integrity subsystem. NetBSD, which is known for its high portability, is capable of running on 54 different system architectures and is suitable for use on a wide range of hardware, including desktops, servers, mobile devices, and even kitchen toasters.".
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| Released Last Week |
Finnix 91.0
Ryan Finnie has announced the release of Finnix 91.0, a specialist, Debian-based live CD for system administrators: "Finnix 91.0 released. Finnix 91.0 includes a new Linux kernel (2.6.24), automatic 32-bit/64-bit detection on the x86 platform, stackable RAID/LUKS/LVM detection and setup, and several bug fixes. If you press 'enter' at the boot screen of Finnix 91.0 x86, the boot loader will now detect if you have a 64-bit capable CPU, and will load the appropriate kernel. You can still force 32-bit or 64-bit by entering the 'finnix' or 'finnix64' boot profiles. While RAID, LUKS (encryption) and LVM detection have been in Finnix for awhile now, they were loaded in a certain order, and some configurations were not detected as a result. With Finnix 91.0, most configurations should be detected. For example, an encrypted LVM set on top of two RAID disks should be set up automatically." Read the release announcement and release notes for further information.
UHU-Linux 2.1
UHU-Linux is an independently-developed Hungarian distribution, designed primarily for Hungarian speakers. A new release, version 2.1 and code name "Bumm", was announced earlier today. The fifth stable UHU-Linux release includes a number of new features; worth mentioning among them is the inclusion of Totem and Exaile as the default video and music players, updated system installer, read and write support for NTFS partitions, new external media automount features, and the latest versions of Pidgin, Skype and Firefox with Java and Flash plugins. UHU-Linux 2.1 is built on top of Linux kernel 2.6.23.9, uses glibc 2.6.1 and is compiled with GCC 4.2.2. The default desktop is GNOME 2.20, with KDE 3.5.8 and Xfce 4.4.2 also available. Hungarian and English are the only two supported languages. For more information please see the release announcement and technical details pages (both links in Hungarian).
UHU-Linux 2.1 - the default desktop
(full image size: 948kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
GoblinX 2.6 "Mini"
Flavio Pereira de Oliveira has announced the release of GoblinX 2.6 "Mini", a light-weight, Slackware-based live CD featuring the Xfce window manager and GTK+ applications: "GoblinX Mini 2.6 is released. Main upgrades since the release candidate 1: Added the SLAX firewall; added more options to the isolinux menu; rebuilt the Gtkdialog interfaces to prevent resize action; corrected a few errors and bugs; corrected the Kill button in media manager interfaces; added Ghdcpd, xrefresh, Gnome-utils and Bluez packages; upgraded some libraries and packages including xorg-server; changed z.Goblix for z.Mini, a different GoblinX module for the Mini edition; corrected some sudo issues; removed X.Org default resolution; removed some libraries; added more services to boot." Visit the distribution's news page to read the release announcement.
X/OS Linux 5.1
Jos Vos has announced the release of X/OS Linux 5.1, a free distribution built by recompiling the source RPM packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux: "X/OS Linux 5.1 is now available for public download. The X/OS Linux 5.1 package set is identical to the combined package sets of RHEL 5.1 Client and RHEL 5.1 Server, with the following exceptions: all Red Hat Network (RHN) related packages are not included with X/OS Linux; a few updates released for RHEL 5.1 have been included; the yum package has been updated to version 3.2.1, the version included with the RHEL 5.1 beta release. Besides these additions and name changes, the following modifications were made to the original packages: an installclass has been added to Anaconda, supporting various alternatives for installing X/OS Linux 5; Red Hat trademarks and logos have been removed..." Here are the complete release notes.
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
- Frugalware Linux 0.8-rc1, the release announcement
- rPath Linux 2-beta1, the release announcement
- Musix GNU+Linux 1.0r3-test5, the release announcement
- Absolute Linux 12.1-beta2, 12.1-beta3, the changelog
- Endian Firewall 2.2-beta3, the release notes
- Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu and Ubuntu Studio 8.04-alpha4, the release announcement
- Myah OS 3.0-beta1, the release announcement
- NimbleX 2008-beta, the release announcement
- Damn Small Linux 4.2.5
- SchilliX 0.6.1
- trixbox 2.6-beta
- paldo 1.13
- FreeNAS 0.686.1-beta2728
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
January 2008 donation: VLC receives US$350.00
We are pleased to announce that the recipient of the January 2008 DistroWatch.com donation is VideoLAN's VLC media player project. It receives US$350.00 in cash.
VideoLAN Client (VLC) is a media player, streamer, and encoder for UNIX, Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, QNX, and PocketPC. It can play most audio and video codecs (MPEG 1/2/4, DivX, WMV, Vorbis, AC3, AAC, etc.), has support for VCD, SVCD, and DVD (with menus), and can read or dump streams from a network source (HTTP, UDP, DVB, MMS, etc.). It can also act as a server and send streams through the network, with optional support for audio and video transcoding. For more information please visit the project's features page and check out the screenshots.
As always, this monthly donations programme is a joint initiative between DistroWatch and two online shops selling low-cost CDs and DVDs with Linux, BSD and other open source software - LinuxCD.org and OSDisc.com. These vendors contributed US$50.00 each towards this month's donation to VLC.
Here is the list of projects that received a DistroWatch donation since the launch of the programme (figures in US dollars):
- 2004: GnuCash ($250), Quanta Plus ($200), PCLinuxOS ($300), The GIMP ($300), Vidalinux ($200), Fluxbox ($200), K3b ($350), Arch Linux ($300), Kile KDE LaTeX Editor ($100) and UNICEF - Tsunami Relief Operation ($340)
- 2005: Vim ($250), AbiWord ($220), BitTorrent ($300), NdisWrapper ($250), Audacity ($250), Debian GNU/Linux ($420), GNOME ($425), Enlightenment ($250), MPlayer ($400), Amarok ($300), KANOTIX ($250) and Cacti ($375)
- 2006: Gambas ($250), Krusader ($250), FreeBSD Foundation ($450), GParted ($360), Doxygen ($260), LilyPond ($250), Lua ($250), Gentoo Linux ($500), Blender ($500), Puppy Linux ($350), Inkscape ($350), Cape Linux Users Group ($130), Mandriva Linux ($405, a Powerpack competition), Digikam ($408) and SabayonLinux ($450)
- 2007: GQview ($250), Kaffeine ($250), sidux ($350), CentOS ($400), LyX ($350), VectorLinux ($350), KTorrent ($400), FreeNAS ($350), lighttpd ($400), Damn Small Linux ($350), NimbleX ($450), MEPIS Linux ($300), Zenwalk Linux ($300)
- 2008: VLC ($350)
Since the launch of the Donations Programme in March 2004, DistroWatch has donated a total of US$16,243 to various open source software projects.
* * * * *
New distributions added to database
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- Maryan Linux. Maryan Linux is an unofficial variant of Linux Mint, featuring the Enlightenment window manager.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 11 February 2008.
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • 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 |
| • 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 | 
UHU-Linux
UHU-Linux was the leading distribution of Linux in Hungary. It was primarily intended for Hungarian users, thus special care was taken to support the Hungarian language as much as possible. Ease of installation and sane default settings both help new users of Linux and make veterans feel comfortable. Usability as the main goal involves having all the cutting-edge yet stable releases of Open Source packages, with dpkg as the package manager. Development was completely open and everyone was invited to join.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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