 DistroWatch Weekly | | DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 310, 6 July 2009 | | Welcome to this year's 27th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! The hottest debate in the Linux community right now is over whether or not Mono, Novell's implementation of .NET, should be included by default in Linux distributions. This week we look at decisions by Debian and Ubuntu, and the reactions by notable members of the FOSS community. In other news, Fedora announces their "Fit and Finish" product and Ksplice announces Uptrack for Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope (9.04). Our feature this week is a review of CDLinux 0.9.2 Community Edition, a unique multilingual mini distribution from China. Finally, five new distributions are added to the DistroWatch waiting list. Have a great Monday and the rest of the week!
Content:
- Review: CDLinux 0.9.2 Community Edition
- News: Debian and Ubuntu say Mono is no threat, rebootless updates for Jaunty, Fedora announces Fit and Finish project
- Released last week: PCLinuxOS 2009.2, Sabayon Linux 4.2 "GNOME", Calculate Linux 9.7 "KDE", Yellow Dog Linux 6.2, blackPanther OS 9.1
- Upcoming releases: Ubuntu 8.04.3 LTS, Pardus Linux 2009 RC2, Frugalware Linux 1.1pre2
- New distributions: Sugar on a Stick, VESTA, Milnix, Mundus OS, BSD Router Project
- Reader comments
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
| | Feature Story (by Caitlyn Martin) | CDLinux 0.9.2 Community Edition Review
 Five weeks ago when I wrote an overview of Debris Linux I received a number of requests to review other mini distributions from DistroWatch Weekly readers. CDLinux is a minimalist distro from China which takes a different approach to small. Rather than cram as many application as possible onto a mini (3"/8cm) CD, the CDLinux Community Edition aims for excellent support of half a dozen languages (Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese and Russian), support for a wide variety of filesystems and excellent hardware support, including CUPS and XSane for printers and scanners, all of which are included in the 204MB iso. They also offer a "standard" edition, just 64MB in size, which includes a basic Xfce desktop and almost no applications at all. CDLinux "standard" does include popular rescue and admin tools, making it an excellent choice for a recovery CD. Finally, the 25MB "mini" edition is console only. I decided to take the most complete version, the Community Edition, and put it through its paces.
CDLinux had its first public release in early 2003. Development seemed to end in early 2005 but a new version made an appearance in April, 2008. There have been regular releases ever since. The latest version, CDLinux 0.9.2 was released on February 27.
CDLinux is designed to be run as a live CD. A graphical installer supports installation to a USB stick or an existing Windows C: drive. The resulting installation is similar to a Damn Small Linux frugal install or a Knoppix poor man's install where the iso image is installed directly to the hard drive and is booted read-only. You are then effectively running the Live CD with the speed of a conventional hard drive. Installation to a conventional hard drive partition is minimally documented but it is a manual process as of the current release.
For this review I used two systems: my six month old Sylvania g Netbook Meso (1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HDD) and my six and a half year old Toshiba Satellite 1805-S204 (1 GHz Intel Celeron CPU, 512 MB RAM, 20 GB HDD). Both systems meet minimum requirements for any current Linux distribution and both have hardware which is challenging with some distributions. The Toshiba, in particular, uses a Trident CyberBlade XPi graphics chipset which is not VESA 2.0 compliant. A number of mini distros fail to configure X correctly on this system. Minimum system requirements for CDLinux are an i686 (Pentium Pro or better) processor and just 64MB of RAM.
Running As A Live CD
When booting into CDLinux you are presented with a GRUB4DOS menu screen which has a dozen choices: 11 language and locale choices are offered as is MemTest86+ for testing your system's memory. Locale choices for English speakers include Canada, Great Britain and the United States. For this review I chose U.S. English. Editing each choice is supported but I didn't need to pass any special kernel parameters for my systems.
CDLinux is somewhat unusual in that it does not use a display manager at all. By default it runs an automatic video configuration, starts X, loads the Xfce 4.4.3 desktop and automatically logs in as a user called cdl. No alternative desktop environments or window managers are provided. I’m pleased to say that CDLinux gets X configuration absolutely right on both of my systems with no intervention on my part. A dialog box opens after Xfce is loaded offering a choice of supported video resolutions with the highest resolution chosen by default.
My personal experience with live CDs is that I just can’t use most of them on my old Toshiba. Once upon a time I blamed the hardware. I figured the DVD-ROM drive in the old beast was just plain slow. With a lot of live CDs, such as Ubuntu or Mandriva One, my old system is slower than molasses running uphill in the wintertime. It is somewhere between extremely painful and absolutely unusable. A few years back Wolvix 1.0.5 taught me the problem wasn’t my hardware. CDLinux is another live distro that runs smoothly and responsively on my old laptop.
CDLinux correctly detected all of my hardware on both systems. Everything worked. Both wired and wireless networking were correctly configured by wicd. Getting wireless up and running was just a matter of clicking the little arrow next to the network name and entering the passphrase for my WPA encrypted network. Sound worked fine right out of the virtual box. Removable media, whether a USB stick, an SD card or a compact flash card in a PCMCIA-CF adapter, were detected correctly and an icon popped up on the desktop when they were inserted. The icon did not disappear when the removable media was unmounted as you might expect. Physically removing the media did result in the icon disappearing.
Using CDLinux 0.9.2 Community Edition
The selection of internet applications in CDLinux Community Edition include the Firefox 3.0.6 and Opera 10.00.4102 (beta) web browsers, Sylpheed 2.6.0, a lightweight mail client, and the Transmission 1.50 BitTorrent client. For instant messaging Pidgin 2.5.4 is provided. Skype 2.0.0.72 is also included on the iso. Recent versions of aMule and FileZilla are also included.
Office applications included in the latest version of CDLinux are limited to Gnumeric 1.8.4 and ePDFviewer. Instead of including a locally installed word processor, a menu item for Zoho Writer, an online word processor, is included and it opens in Firefox. I personally prefer to do my writing on my own system independent of a network connection so I found this choice rather disappointing.
Since CDLinux comes from China neither software patents nor the DMCA is an issue to the developers. mp3 files play perfectly in either smplayer or mplayer. Some Win32 codecs and libdvdcss are included and multimedia files I tried just worked. There is no quick and easy tool for removing offending codecs to make CDLinux DMCA-compliant, nor is there an easy way to add any missing codecs. CD burning is handled by the rather minimal xfburn. DVD writing tools are not included. Google's gmlive tool for watching live video is the only other multimedia app on the CDLinux iso. I had problems with gmlive, which generally had difficulty connecting to video servers. Two items normally excluded from mini distros but which did make it into CDLinux 0.9.2 Community Edition are WINE and Sun's Java Runtime Environment (JRE).
Graphics applications include GIMP 2.6.5 and gpicview. No software for directly interfacing to a digital camera is included. A few lightweight games, the Mousepad text editor, Midnight Commander CLI file manager, and galculator round out the software selection. The multilingual, Unicode aware, and lightweight urxvt replaces both Xfce Terminal and xterm.
If you’re looking for gee whiz 3D desktop effects then CDLinux is not the distribution for you. Compiz-fusion is not included. Under the hood CDLinux 0.9.2 sports a 2.6.28 kernel. The X.org implementation is just old enough to avoid the Intel graphics regressions seen in some recent distribution releases. The Intel driver included is version 2.4.3.
I’ve used CDLinux 0.9.2 Community Edition fairly extensively and I honestly have no significant bugs to report other than the aforementioned problems with desktop icons for removable media and with gmlive when the distro is run as a live CD. CDLinux gives you a vanilla Xfce desktop with no frills. It is as user friendly as any Xfce based distro with only one caveat: in order to keep the distro small most of the man pages and help files have been removed from pretty much all the applications. Someone with questions will have to rely on online help.
CDLinux 0.9.2 Community Edition with the default Xfce desktop
(full image size: 141kB, screen resolution 1024x768 pixels)
Installation and Configuration: Hard Drive or USB Stick
CDLinux 0.9.2 features a graphical installer which supports installation to either an existing Windows C: drive or to a USB stick. While I don't have Windows on any of my personal systems I have a nice supply of USB sticks. Unfortunately CDLinux didn't recognize any of them, with the error message claiming that "no proper device was detected in your system." This problem occurred on both of my systems regardless of which USB stick I used.
The only remaining alternative was to extract the kernel and initrd files as documented here, adding them to the /boot/grub/menu.lst file from another distro installation. That did work but it is probably not something someone new to Linux would be comfortable with. If you look at the linked documentation you'll see that it is rather minimal and assumes you know what you are doing.
The end result was a frugal install to my hard drive. Everything worked and the system ran very fast indeed. It’s clear that hard drive installation in CDLinux was an afterthought. CDLinux does not offer security updates or notifications nor does it have its own package repository. There are also no package management tools. A compiler is also not included so you can't build from source with CDLinux. The statement on the website: "It can be extended to run as your desktop OS" is technically true but it certainly isn't easy to accomplish. For most desktop users who want a secure and up to date system CDLinux probably isn’t the best choice to install to the hard drive.
Conclusions
For a desktop or laptop user who speaks one of the six supported languages with even a minimal amount of previous Linux experience CDLinux is a very capable live CD. Users who need more than one of these languages in a small distro will be absolutely thrilled with CDLinux. Performance is excellent, particularly on older, slower hardware. This distro, when run as a live CD, has very few bugs. It’s well thought out and generally user friendly. The selection of applications should give most casual users much of what they need and the inclusion of codecs and a nice suite of Internet apps is a plus. The downside of using CDLinux is typical of smaller, lightweight distros: a lack of help files/man pages and a somewhat limited set of applications. I also found the lack of a word processor unfortunate.
Hard drive installation is doable but the graphical installer just didn't work for me. In general installation is, at best, a work in process which currently requires a significant knowledge of Linux. Installing CDLinux to a hard drive or USB stick, either in a full or frugal installation, isn’t for newcomers. Once installed and configured CDLinux performs brilliantly but lacks the tools for systems administration and routine maintenance that most distributions have. Hard drive installation is really an afterthought but an experienced user who really likes CDLinux can certainly consider it.
Generally, if you use CDLinux for what it was designed to be: a multilingual mini live CD which will run on most any hardware, the results are generally quite good.
| | Miscellaneous News (by Chris Smart) | Debian and Ubuntu say Mono is no threat, rebootless updates for Jaunty, Fedora announces Fit and Finish project
 It has been a hot topic lately - whether Novell's open source implementation of the heavily patented and Microsoft controlled .NET programming framework should be included by default in Linux distributions. The Debian GNU/Linux project recently announced that notetaking program, Tomboy, would be included by default in the package selection for next release, Squeeze. In reply to this announcement, the father of free software Richard Stallman, warned against including Mono by default. He wrote: "Debian's decision to include Mono in its principal way of installing GNOME, for the sake of Tomboy which is an application written in C#, leads the community in a risky direction." He continued: "The danger is that Microsoft is probably planning to force all free C# implementations underground some day using software patents...This is a serious danger, and only fools would ignore it until the day it actually happens. We need to take precautions now to protect ourselves from this future danger." Official Debian developer Alexander Reichle-Schmehl wrote a reply in his blog, saying:"So, when installing Lenny, and when using the GNOME installation media (not the KDE, Xfce or LXDE one), and when you have either a complete set of discs (including DVD or BlueRay installation) or internet access during installation time, tomboy (and therefore mono) will already be installed automatically. When using other installation media or only use the first CD (which doesn't contain tomboy) neither tomboy nor mono will be installed." So for now at least, Mono is still not quite included in the default GNOME desktop, but will things change? And does anyone care?
* * * * *  Also related to Mono, the Ubuntu community has been putting pressure on the project to make an official announcement as to their position on Mono in the popular operating system. This week the Ubuntu Techncal Board granted their wish, although it might not have been the one many were hoping for. In the announcement, the team writes: "The Ubuntu Project takes patent issues seriously, and the Ubuntu Technical Board is the governance body that handles allegations of patent infringement...The Ubuntu Technical Board has received no claims of infringement against the Mono stack, and is not aware of any such claims having been received by other similar projects." Finally they conclude: "Given the above, the Ubuntu Technical Board sees no reason to exclude Mono or applications based upon it from the archive, or from the default installation set." In short, Ubuntu approves of Mono and will continue to include .NET applications as part of their default install. Indeed, with the upcoming release they will be increasing the number of these applications by replacing music player Rhythmbox with Banshee.
In other Ubuntu related news, the team behind Ksplice has announced a free service for Ubuntu Jaunty users called Uptrack. Ksplice can apply kernel patches directly into the running kernel, without requiring a reboot. Linux Magazine has an interesting article about the technology. "Ksplice is a suite of tools which can apply patches directly into a running kernel resulting in an instantly patched system without a single interruption. No need to reboot the system or restart any services!" But would any desktop users really care? "Certainly most desktop users will probably feel that their system is secure enough and not feel the need for such a service. After all, most desktops rarely face the Internet directly like a server might. Even so, the more layers of security and protection one can have on their system the better. Finally, the Ksplice team really has done a first class job at implementing the technology. It’s just so easy for end users to install and use." The service is available free of charge and users can take advantage of it by downloading and installing the package from their website.
* * * * *  Recently the Ubuntu project announced their "One Hundred Paper Cuts" project, to fix niggling issues which negatively impact the user experience on the operating system. Perhaps partially inspired by this project, Fedora has announced their own called "Fit and Finish". The projects page begins: "Fedora is well-known as the premier showcase for the latest open source technology on Linux. Unfortunately, it has also been perceived as being a bit rough around the edges. The Fedora Fit and Finish initiative intends to change this. We will focus on getting the details right and improving the user experience by removing obstacles and annoyances from everyday tasks." It then goes on to provide a list of examples, including things such as: plugging in a projector and starting a presentation; inserting blank media and getting it formatted; interacting with portable media players, and; sharing files with others on the network. The project aims to work on these for the upcoming release 12. It differs from Ubuntu's by casting the net much wider, instead of limiting it to problems with existing features. Improvements in Linux distributions, whatever they might be, are always a good thing!
| | Released Last Week | PCLinuxOS 2009.2
Bill Reynolds has announced the release of PCLinuxOS 2009.2, a beginner-friendly distribution and live CD for the desktop: "The quarterly ISO image updates of PCLinuxOS 2009.2 and PCLinuxOS GNOME 2009.2 are now available, featuring a fully updated ISO image with the latest applications from the PCLinuxOS repositories. Additional features include a notification updater to let you know when there are updates available for your installation. 'Addlocale' will localize your PCLinuxOS into one of the many languages. 'GetOpenOffice' allows you to install OpenOffice.org 3.1 in any of the 104 languages available." Here is the brief release announcement with a couple of screenshots.
Sabayon Linux 4.2 "GNOME"
Fabio Erculiani has announced the release of Sabayon Linux 4.2 "GNOME" edition, a Gentoo-based desktop distribution and live DVD: "On the behalf of the Sabayon Linux team, we are happy to announce the immediate availability of Sabayon Linux 4.2 GNOME. Features: based on Sabayon 4.1 GNOME, containing hundreds of bug fixes and performance improvements; less than 2 GB ISO footprint; custom Linux kernel 2.6.29; ext4 as default file system; complete GNOME 2.26.2; OpenOffice.org 3.1. Changes since Sabayon 4.1: environment in sync with latest available Entropy updates; featuring Entropy framework 0.96.26, improved performance, reduced hardware requirements; featuring the new user-friendly Entropy graphical interface...." Find more information in the detailed release notes.
Calculate Linux 9.7 "KDE"
Calculate Linux Desktop (CLD) is a Gentoo-based operating system for PCs and notebooks. Alexander Tratsevskiy has just announced a new version of its KDE edition, 9.7. Main changes: "Support for Italian and Polish has been added. System installation on USB Flash cards has been added. Setting up of a new user account in KDE has been accelerated 2.5 times. Setting up sound card has been added. The identification of PCs and notebooks with two video cards has been added. Option of booting the live DVD image into the cache has been added. File README.html with description of installation has been added to the live CD desktop. Calculate Linux Desktop KDE is 100% compatible with Gentoo." More information in the release announcement.
Yellow Dog Linux 6.2
Fixstars has announced the release of Yellow Dog Linux 6.2, a CentOS-based distribution designed for the Apple PowerPC and Sony PlayStation machines: "Fixstars today announced the immediate availability of Yellow Dog Linux 6.2, delivering several updates and improvements making it simpler to install, faster, and easier to use. This release offers an updated kernel 2.6.29 for 64-bit systems, OpenOffice.org 3.0, Firefox 3.0.6 and IBM Cell SDK 3.1.0.1, as well as the next generation of ps3vram for fast, temporary file storage or swap using PS3 video RAM. With this release, ps3vram is up to 50% faster than in Yellow Dog Linux 6.1 and is automatically enabled as swap. With Yellow Dog Linux 6.2, Fixstars has added a fourth alternative for the desktop environment: Xfce." Read the full release announcement for further details.
blackPanther OS 9.1
blackPanther OS is a Hungarian desktop Linux distribution with RPM package management. The just released version 9.1 is a major update, featuring many new technologies, Linux kernel 2.6.29.1, KDE 4.2.0 and OxygenOffice 3.1. Besides the live CD, the distribution provides a total of eight software repositories containing over 4,800 extra packages, including a good selection of games and a variety of kernel drivers. There is also a seeker repository with over 2,000 untested packages. Although blackPanther OS is a free distribution, the developers have included some blackPanther ads and sponsored links into the distribution in order to earn revenue - these can be removed by users. For more information please see the release announcement (in Hungarian).
* * * * * Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
| | Upcoming Releases and Announcements | | Summary of expected upcoming releases | | DistroWatch.com News | New distributions added to waiting list - Sugar on a Stick. Sugar on a Stick is a USB implementation of the Fedora-based Sugar Learning Platform, a distribution for children originally developed for the One Laptop per Child XO-1 netbook. It is designed to be installed on a single USB memory stick (minimum size 1GB).
- VESTA. VESTA is a specialist live Linux distribution designed for work with Java.
- Milnix. Milnix is a new built from scratch distribution in the early stages of development. The project includes a source based package management system.
- Mundus OS. Mundus OS is an Ubuntu-based distribution designed to ease the transition to Linux for new users. Mundus OS can install Windows programs, mount Macintosh dmg's and install the packages of other non-Debian Linux distributions.
- BSD Router Project. BSD Router Project is an open source customized distribution of FreeBSD dedicated to offer IP routing services for small ISPs. It is not intended for home use.
* * * * * DistroWatch database summary
* * * * * And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 13 July 2009.
Caitlyn Martin and Chris Smart
| |
| Tip Jar | If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 0, value: US$0.00) | | | |
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch | |
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare | | |
| | 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. |
| Archives | | • Issue 1165 (2026-03-23): Argent Linux 1.5.3, disk space required by Linux, Manjaro team goes on strike, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA driver support and builds RISC-V packages, systemd introduces age tracking | | • Issue 1164 (2026-03-16): d77void, age verification laws and Linux, SUSE may be for sale, TrueNAS takes its build system private, Debian publishes updated Trixie media, MidnightBSD and System76 respond to age verification laws | | • 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 | | • 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.
|
| Random Distribution | 
Jollix
Jollix was a Live CD distribution based on Gentoo Linux. Jollix boots directly from CD without touching the hard disk. A fast and easy-to-install version of Jollix will be available in a later release. In the current version there are installation instructions for more experienced Linux users. Once Jollix was installed on a hard disk, it can be updated via portage, the package manager of Gentoo Linux. In fact, Jollix was Gentoo at this point (somehow preconfigured). Jollix aimes at the gamer and multimedia enthusiast who prefers Linux as a stable and safe platform.
Status: Discontinued
|
| 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. |
| 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.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
