 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1134, 11 August 2025 |
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Welcome to this year's 32nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The Ubuntu distribution is a popular and flexible platform which is available in many flavours. While Canonical supports a lot of variants of Ubuntu, it does not have a formal rolling release edition. The Rhino Linux project aims to provide its users with a rolling release version of Ubuntu with a unified package management tool and a customised Xfce desktop. Recently the Rhino project rewrote its unified package manager (RPK) and introduced a Plasma variant of its desktop. This week we begin with a look at these two changes in the Rhino Linux distribution and report on how well the new features are working. Unified package managers and graphical software centres which can work with multiple package formats are becoming more common. Let us know if your distribution includes a unified package manager in this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section we report on changes coming to the next version of NetBSD and talk about Ubuntu swapping out commonly used command line tools for new ones. We also talk about AlmaLinux improving NVIDIA driver support as the Fedora project fights off a distributed denial of service attack. Then, in our Questions and Answers column, we respond to some questions and thoughts about the malware found in Arch Linux's community repository. Plus we are pleased to talk about new distributions added to our database, share information on the releases of the past week, and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: Rhino Linux 2025.3
- News: Fedora fights denial of service attack, NetBSD unveils new features for version 11, Ubuntu changes some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support
- Questions and answers: Thoughts on malware in the Arch User Repository
- Released last week: Debian 13, Ubuntu 24.04.3, Proxmox 9.0 "Virtual Environment", Gnoppix AI Linux 25_8
- Torrent corner: Edubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Kylin, Xubuntu
- Opinion poll: Unified package manager
- New additions: AcreetionOS, DebLight OS, secureblue
- New distributions: ShefOS
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Rhino Linux 2025.3
I have talked about the Rhino Linux project a few times in the past year. This rolling release flavour of Ubuntu has been experimenting and making progress in various directions. The project's developers have recently rewritten their meta package manager (RPK), introduced a Plasma desktop option to co-exist with its Xfce edition, and partnered with UBports to work on the Lomiri user interface for mobile devices.
The first two changes, the new meta package manager and the Plasma desktop option, drew my attention and I wanted to test drive these features using the Rhino Linux 2025.3 snapshot. This quick look at the changes can be considered an add-on to my earlier review so if you're not familiar with Rhino Linux, I'd recommend reading that overview first.
Rhino PKG (RPK)
Let's look at the new Rhino PKG (RPK) meta package manager first. The Rhino documentation describes RPK as follows:
Rhino PKG (command: rhino-pkg, symlink: rpk) is our custom meta package manager. It was designed with simplicity and ease of use in mind. It will allow for you to search, install, remove and upgrade packages from all of our supported package manager repositories.
In short, RPK acts as a front-end to other package managers, including APT, Pacstall, Flatpak, and Snapcraft. The idea is that, instead of managing different types of packages with different package managers, we can perform most package management actions using one unified program.
This means we can run "rpk search vlc" and RPK will return a list of all VLC packages in all our enabled repositories, whether the application is distributed as a Deb archive, Flatpak, or Pacstall port. Running "rpk install vlc" will show us a list of matching packages, again across all formats, and ask us which one we want to install. In a similar fashion, we can run one command to update all of our software across all package formats instead of running "update" commands on multiple package managers.
RPK2 is a rewrite of the original RPK meta package manager, created in Nushell. The result is a new tool with the same features as the original, but it appears to be faster. I'm not sure, but given the speed of the new RPK2, I strongly suspect background actions (such as refreshing database information and performing searches) are now handled in parallel. I also found the output from RPK2 to be cleaner and more structured. Here is a screenshot of the original RPK at work:
Rhino Linux 2024.2 -- Running the original RPK meta package manager
(full image size: 261kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
This is the new RPK2:
Rhino Linux 2025.3 -- Running the new Rhino meta package manager
(full image size: 154kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
You can see the new version doesn't clutter the screen with status messages, has nicer and more consistent formatting, and uses colour to highlight different package formats.
RPK2 also provides nicely structured help text which is displayed whenever rpk is run without any arguments.
RPK2 is an evolutionary step forward. There is no single big change here that is visible to the user; the same command arguments exist and perform the same actions. RPK2 is, from the user's point of view, what we had before, but better. Primarily because it feels faster, but also because it has nicer output and little tweaks to make reading the output easier. I'd like to see other distributions adopt RPK2 as it makes working with multiple package formats (Flatpak, APT, Pacstall, etc) smoother. Any distribution which supports working with multiple package managers should really consider including RPK2 as part of the system.
KDE Plasma
Up to this point, Rhino Linux has focused on the Xfce desktop, customising it with a look and style the project calls Unicorn. The developers are expanding, with plans to create a Plasma edition of the distribution which will run KDE Plasma 6. While there is no Plasma edition ISO available at this time, there is a KDE package we can install on Rhino Linux which will provide a preview of what the Plasma edition will look like.
I did a search for the new KDE preview package (using RPK2) and found the new desktop appears to be available through Pacstall only. We can fetch the new Plasma preview by running the following command:
rpk install ubxi-kde-desktop-git
The install process pauses several times to confirm we want to fetch this new desktop and its dependencies. It also warns us it will remove some existing packages, including Xfce and rhino-core. Many KDE packages and libraries are fetched for us and, after a few minutes, the package manager reported it was finished.
I noticed that, during the install process, some of my Xfce icons began to disappear, but otherwise the existing Xfce/Unicorn desktop remained functional while the old components were removed and KDE Plasma 6 was installed. I restarted my system to make sure my new Plasma-powered experience was pristine.
After my reboot Xfce was still a session option on the login screen. Trying to sign into Xfce caused my monitor to go blank for a second and then I was returned to the login screen. There are also two new (and working) sessions listed: Plasma on Wayland and Plasma on X11.
Plasma has a similar layout to the Xfce/Unicorn session. There is a thin panel at the top of the screen with a dock to the left. Here we can see the original, Xfce-based experience:
Rhino Linux 2024.2 -- The Xfce desktop with Timeshift
(full image size: 164kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
This is the new, Plasma-based interface:
Rhino Linux 2025.3 -- The KDE System Settings panel
(full image size: 199kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The Plasma dock has two icons only, one for opening the application menu, which takes up the full screen, and a "question mark" icon that shows an error "unknown application folder" when clicked.
As with the Xfce environment, there is a panel placed across the top of the screen. This panel has logout and lock icons on the left side and a system tray to the right. When application windows are open, the panel becomes a unified menu bar for whichever application has focus.
Rhino Linux 2025.3 -- Navigating the unified menu bar
(full image size: 161kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
By default, not many KDE applications are installed for us. The System Settings configuration panel is available, along with a few small utilities, a virtual terminal, and a process monitor. I noticed the Xfce terminal application remains on the system after we switch desktops - I'm unsure if this was intentional or a leftover piece from the removed desktop that just wasn't deleted.
Rhino Linux 2025.3 -- The Plasma application menu
(full image size: 166kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
When comparing the two desktops, we can see that the layout and theme are very similar. The Plasma dock is mostly empty, but it expands as we add new applications and pin them. From a performance perspective, I noticed the Plasma on X11 session was faster than the Xfce session while the Plasma on Wayland session was about equal to the Xfce experience. I think Plasma's application menu might be a touch snappier and the unified menu bar/panel is a little nicer to navigate.
The new Plasma environment was a little heavier than Xfce. When I was running Xfce the distribution took up about 7GB of disk space and 640MB of RAM. When I installed the Plasma session disk usage crept up to 11GB. The Plasma X11 session required 1,000MB of RAM (360MB more than Xfce) and the Plasma Wayland session needed 1,200MB (almost twice the memory footprint of Xfce).
Despite the extra memory required, based on what I have observed, the Rhino team did a good job of duplicating their Unicorn experience from Xfce onto the Plasma desktop. From what I've seen so far I think the KDE flavour of Rhino Linux is going to prove to be popular, maybe more popular than its existing Xfce edition.
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Visitor supplied rating
Rhino Linux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 5.7/10 from 29 review(s).
Have you used Rhino Linux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Fedora fights denial of service attack, NetBSD unveils new features for version 11, Ubuntu changes some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support
Members of the Fedora project are reporting the Fedora infrastructure is currently experiencing a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. The attack does not affect Fedora users directly, but it making it difficult to access parts of the Fedora project, including update servers. "This is just information for users to let you know that (and why) several Fedora services are currently not reachable or only with a very bad connection. Note that this issue is not on your side, and you do not need to do anything yourself on your Fedora. Please give the team some time to work on this." An issue report is tracking updates on this problem. Update: The issue appears to have been resolved by adjusting caching for network requests.
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The next major release of NetBSD (version 11) is expected to be released later this year, likely in November. The project's upcoming version includes improvements to Linux emulation, new sensor drivers, userland tools for querying UEFI variables, and updates for OpenSSL and OpenSSH. The new release will also split CPU compatibility code into separate package sets: "Compatibility support code, like 32-bit on 64-bit machines, has been separated into special sets, to allow easy installation of machines that do not need to be able to run 32-bit code.
Install media for some architectures has been split in small (CD/R) images (w/o debug and compat sets), and full (DVD-R) sets. This is also useful on hardware that came with a CD drive (instead of a DVD drive) and can not boot from a USB stick.
Manual pages come in two flavors, HTML and mandoc. Both have now their own sets, so one or the other can easily be left out of an installation.
All mac68k and macppc ISO images are now bootable." The NetBSD blog has additional details.
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Ubuntu users will see a few changes to their command line tools with the launch of Ubuntu 25.10 in October. The wget utility for downloading files is being replaced by wcurl which offers most of the same basic functionality. It's FOSS reports: "Ubuntu Server 25.10 will no longer include wget by default, switching to wcurl instead. Fresh installations will see this change when 25.10 releases in October. wget has been the standard command-line download tool on Linux systems for years. Most server administrators and scripts rely on its straightforward syntax for file downloads. On the other hand, wcurl is a simple curl wrapper that lets you download files without remembering curl parameters, using curl under the hood with sane defaults." The report goes on to note another GNU utility, the screen command, will be dropped in favour of Tmux.
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The AlmaLinux project is announcing improved support for NVIDIA hardware. "AlmaLinux OS 9 and 10 now ship with packages enabling native NVIDIA driver support, including CUDA and Secure Boot. Thanks to ALESCo, NVIDIA, and this approved RFC, AlmaLinux 9 and 10 solves that for NVIDIA users by shipping NVIDIA's open source graphics driver as a kernel module, along with a repository config for many of the common userspace and CUDA components. With AlmaLinux 9 and 10 and the new NVIDIA packages, a few DNF commands are all that stand between users and a fully-integrated NVIDIA experience.
When AlmaLinux started just 5 years ago, this wouldn't have been possible. With NVIDIA's open source version of their graphics drivers things have changed. This open source version is slowly becoming the flagship driver, with new products being added exclusively to it." Instructions for enabling the NVIDIA driver and its features are available in the AlmaLinux wiki.
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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) |
Thoughts on malware in the Arch User Repository
Keeping-it-separated asks: With the constant news of compromised packages in AUR, I would like to know if this issue will also affect the use of Arch in containers? I use Arch in a container with Distrobox and install many packages from AUR. Will my system be safe from possible infections and attacks? Do these apps have full access to my system?
Yes, the malware which was found in the Arch User Repository (AUR) would affect copies of Arch which are run in containers if you installed the malicious packages.
Please note that the AUR itself and the tools to access it were not affected. Your systems wouldn't be compromised just from having the AUR community repository enabled. You'd need to install one of the four compromised packages in order for your system to be infected.
With that said, the malware would have free reign over your virtual machine or container once installed. Since Distrobox containers typically have access to your home directory, this means the malware would have access to your files and possibly be able to change your settings and start-up scripts. If you installed one of the four compromised packages you should assume the container it was installed in is compromised and any data in your home directory may have been accessed or even altered.
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What-about-the-applications asks: Disabling the AUR sounds fine until you come across a program that's not available elsewhere. For example, Brave Browser is only available in the AUR.
While Brave (and other applications) might not be available in Arch Linux's official repositories, there are a lot of methods for installing software on Linux these days. Most of them do not require downloading and running unverified scripts from a repository where anyone can upload content without oversight. The Flathub repository, for example, has verification and package screening and it includes a copy of the Brave browser. The Nix repository works across distributions and offers one of the largest collections of open source software of any repository with over 120,000 packages.
It is also possible to install other distributions in a container, such as Distrobox or BoxBuddy, and install the software you are missing from the guest distribution's main repository. This would provide a layer of protection while the AUR offers none.
In short, there are a lot of options for getting software onto Arch Linux that are safer and have more oversight than the AUR, which (as its website states) contains content provided by the community rather than the Arch development team.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Proxmox 9.0 "Virtual Environment"
Proxmox is a commercial company offering specialised products based on Debian GNU/Linux, notably Proxmox Virtual Environment, an open-source virtualisation platform. Proxmox 9.0 Virtual Environment has been released and it uses Debian 13 "Trixie" as its base. "Some of the exciting new features we've packed into Proxmox VE 9.0: Snapshots as volume chains provide vendor-agnostic support for snapshots on any storage system that supports block storage. This includes iSCSI and Fibre Channel-attached SANs. High-Availability (HA) rules for resource-to-node and resource-to-resource affinity. Fabrics for the Software-Defined Networking (SDN) stack. Modernized mobile web interface written in the rust programming language using the Yew web framework. Comprehensive upgrade guide from 8 to 9. ZFS 2.3.3 with support for adding new devices to RAIDZ pools without downtime." The release announcement and release notes offer additional information.
Ubuntu 24.04.3
Paride Legovini has announced the release of Ubuntu 24.04.3, a minor update to the project's 24.04 LTS series which includes security fixes and updates to address bugs. "The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS (Long-Term Support) for its Desktop, Server, and Cloud products, as well as other flavours of Ubuntu with long-term support. As usual, this point release includes many updates and updated installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation. These include security updates and corrections for other high-severity bugs, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS." The release announcement and release notes have additional information.
Gnoppix AI Linux 25_8
Andreas Mueller has announced the release of Gnoppix AI Linux 25_8, a major new update of the project's Debian-based distribution with focus on privacy and security, and with integrated artificial intelligence frameworks, libraries and development tools: "Gnoppix 25.8 is built on the foundation of Debian 13 'Trixie' and incorporates new features and improvements from the latest Gnoppix beta release. This new version brings significant updates in security, privacy and performance. Core system enhancements: Gnoppix 25.8 inherits the stability and updated packages from Debian 13, this includes over 11,294 new packages and updated versions for key software; new security hardening features against ROP and COP/JOP attacks are included; this release adds HTTP boot support for compatible UEFI and U-Boot firmware; the system now includes next-generation AI integration and has replaced the Bottles application with Lutris to address security concerns; Gnoppix now prioritizes privacy by default; Firefox-ESR as the main web browser; search-us.gnoppix.org is now the default anonymous search engine...." See the full release announcement for further information.
Gnoppix AI Linux 25_8 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 1.8MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
Debian 13
The Debian project has published install media for Debian 13 "Trixie". The project's latest release introduces RISC-V support, begins phasing out i386 packages, and offers Plasma 6 desktop packages. The new release also carries many more software packages in its repositories: "This new release of Debian comes with a lot more software than its predecessor Bookworm; the distribution includes over 14116 new packages, for a total of over 69830 packages. Most of the software in the distribution has been updated: over 44326 software packages (this is 63% of all packages in Bookworm). Also, a significant number of packages (over 8844, 12% of the packages in Bookworm) have for various reasons been removed from the distribution. You will not see any updates for these packages and they will be marked as 'obsolete' in package management front-ends; see Obsolete packages. Debian again ships with several desktop applications and environments. Among others it now includes the desktop environments GNOME 48, KDE Plasma 6.3, LXDE 13, LXQt 2.1.0, and Xfce 4.20. Productivity applications have also been upgraded, including the office suites: LibreOffice is upgraded to version 25; GNUcash is upgraded to 5.10." The release announcement and release notes have additional details, including a section on known issues.
Debian 13 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 513kB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
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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: 3,262
- Total data uploaded: 48.0TB
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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) |
Unified package manager
In our Feature Story this week we talked about Rhino Linux and its unified package manager (RPK). These days Linux distributions often pull in packages from multiple sources, not just official, distribution-supported repositories. These tend to include portable packages (Flatpak or Snap), a community repository (Pacstall or AUR), traditional packages (RPM and Deb), and maybe Nix or pkgsrc. Relatively few distributions have addressed the complexity and confusion having so many separate package management tools and sources can cause.
Rhino Linux, with its RPK command line tool, offers one solution. Some other distributions, such as Linux Mint, try to streamline a few packaging options by having a graphical software centre which handles traditional and portable packages. Discover, mintInstall, and GNOME Software can all handle traditional packages and one portable package format, easing the maintenance burden a little from the user's shoulders.
Does your distribution offer a unified package manager or graphical software centre? Let us know which solution you are using in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on running one of Debian's branches in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Does your distro provide a unified package manager?
| Yes - a unified command line package manager: | 78 (7%) |
| Yes - a unified graphical software centre: | 242 (22%) |
| Yes - both a unified command line and graphical solution: | 287 (26%) |
| No - neither: | 343 (31%) |
| Unsure: | 157 (14%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to database
AcreetionOS
AcreetionOS is an Arch-based, desktop-oriented Linux distribution that aims to be user-friendly, approachable and stable. It has a policy of holding back new packages for a week of testing to provide a buffer against potential upstream issues. It uses the popular Calamares installer with sensible defaults to get a working system up and running quickly. The preferred desktop environment of AcreetionOS is Cinnamon, but an alternative image with the GNOME desktop is also available.
AcreetionOS -- Running the Cinnamon desktop
(full image size: 3.1MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
DebLight OS
DebLight OS is a French Linux distribution based on Linux Mint Debian Edition, which combines the user-friendliness of Linux Mint with the stability of the Debian's latest stable release. It uses the lightweight LXDE desktop environment. The project's goal is to develop a general-purpose operating system and a productive desktop which would be both light on resources and easy to use for even less experienced Linux users. DebLight OS comes in three editions: Old (a very light variant built for 32-bit processors), Classic (a relatively light variant with a selection of commonly used applications), and Studio (the most complete system with an extensive list of software for a variety of computing tasks).
DebLight OS 1.12.9 -- Running LXDE
(full image size: 3.5MB, resolution: 2560x1600 pixels)
secureblue
secureblue is an immutable, security-focused desktop and server Linux operating system based on Fedora Atomic Desktop's base images - Silverblue, Kinoite and Sway Atomic. The project's goal is to build a maximally secure Linux operating system by proactively increasing defenses against the exploitation of both known and unknown vulnerabilities, while avoiding sacrificing usability for most use cases. Some of the security hardening features include a global hardened memory allocator developed by GrapheneOS, a security-focused Chromium-based browser called Trivalent, and Linux kernel hardening via sysctl and kernel arguments.
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New distributions added to waiting list
- ShefOS. ShefOS is a Manjaro-based, Russian-language distribution which strives to provide a desktop operating system suitable for gaming, office work, and home use.
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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, 18 August 2025. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
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| Archives |
| • Issue 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 |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Plop Linux
Plop Linux is a small distribution that can boot from CD, DVD, USB flash drive (UFD), USB hard disk or from network with PXE. It is designed to rescue data from a damaged system, backup and restore operating systems, automate tasks and more.
Status: Active
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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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