 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 760, 23 April 2018 |
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Welcome to this year's 17th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
When choosing a distribution it is sometimes difficult to find a good balance between cutting edge software and stability. This week we begin with a look at Chakra GNU/Linux which strives to offer both a stable operating system and the latest desktop applications through a semi-rolling release policy. Jesse Smith has more details on the Chakra distribution in our Feature Story. In our News section we talk about Debian's roadmap for Debian 10 "Buster" and the results of the Debian Project Leader election. Plus we report on Netrunner introducing a new ARM-based edition and Slackware initiating a massive rebuild of the venerable distribution's software packages. Plus we talk about Microsoft developing a new operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel. In our Questions and Answers column we explore hiding files using a special systemd security feature. As usual, we share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. Finally, our Opinion Poll asks whether our readers dual boot or use virtual machines in order to run multiple operating systems on the same computer. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Chakra GNU/Linux 2017.10
Chakra GNU/Linux is a 64-bit, desktop operating system which originally grew out of Arch Linux, but is now maintained as an independent fork. Chakra places a focus on running KDE/Qt software and its sole edition runs the KDE Plasma desktop environment. Chakra bills itself as a semi-rolling or "half-rolling" release distribution. This means that desktop software tends to be updated right away while core system components are held back for additional testing before being released to end users. In theory, this allows Chakra to remain stable while also keeping users up to date so that the operating system never needs to be reinstalled. This semi-rolling approach also means we can install from older media and then bring our system up to date once it is on-line, which is what I intended to do this week.
I downloaded the most recent (as of the time of writing) snapshot of Chakra's ISO which was published back in October of 2017. The ISO was 1.9GB in size. Originally I tried to download the ISO through its torrent, but there were no seeders and I had to download a copy of the distribution from one of its mirrors.
Booting from the ISO brings up the Plasma 5.10 desktop environment. At the bottom of the screen is a panel containing the application menu and system tray. On the desktop a welcome screen is displayed. This welcome screen provides links to the distribution's website, beginner's guide and system installer. There is a tab in the welcome window which will display the latest news and developments coming out of the Chakra project.
Installing
Chakra uses the Calamares system installer. Calamares is a graphical installer which has been adopted by several distributions due to its streamlined nature and easy partitioning options. The installer quickly walked me through selecting my language, time zone and keyboard layout. When it came to disk partitioning, Calamares offered to let me manually divide up the disk or wipe my drive and place Chakra on one partition with another partition set aside for swap space. Then we are asked to create a username and password. The installer worked quickly and without fault, soon announcing it was finished all its tasks and offering to reboot the computer. I like the Calamares installer, its interface is easy to navigate and it provides a consistent, cross-distro approach to setting up Linux-based systems.
Early impressions
Chakra boots to a graphical login screen and signing into our account brings up the Plasma desktop. Plasma is presented with a dark theme which I find pleasant to look at. There are folder icons on the desktop which open the Dolphin file manager. At first, one of the icons overlapped with the Plasma action/widget menu and it was a toss-up which one I would activate if I clicked on that part of the screen. I was able to pull these widgets apart by dragging them with the mouse.
The default Plasma application menu uses a single-pane layout, which I find awkward to use because of the extra clicks required to browse into categories and back out. The menu can be swapped out for alternative menu layouts by right-clicking on the menu's button.
Chakra GNU/Linux 2017.10 -- The application menu and settings panel
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Initially I found Chakra's default fonts to be smaller than I liked. A quick trip into the distribution's settings panel allowed me to set the size and style of the fonts. I do want to give the developers credit though for the high contrast in the default desktop theme. Some distributions like to display text in low-contrast shades of grey or use transparent backgrounds which make it difficult to read what is on the screen. Chakra was more forgiving in its use of solid colours and white-on-black (or black-on-white) text.
Chakra GNU/Linux 2017.10 -- Adjusting fonts
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After a while I realized Chakra was not going to let me know if there were software updates available, and I was pretty sure there would be since the installation media was over five months old. I located the Octopi package manager in the application menu and launched it. Octopi presents a simple list of software packages available in Chakra's repositories and can perform searches for package names. Octopi's upgrade feature let me know there were 532 new packages available, totalling 986MB in size. For comparison's sake, there are 900 packages installed by default, meaning over half the packages on my system needed to be replaced. Despite the massive queue of new packages, Octopi (and its underlying Pacman package manager) downloaded and installed all of the new items successfully. After the upgrade was completed there were very few new updates presented during the rest of the week, with new packages trickling in at a rate of about one per day.
Octopi proved to be a handy and fast tool for tracking down and installing new applications too. The package manager has a fairly simple approach and does not really have recognizable categories the way most modern software managers do, but it worked without running into issues.
Chakra GNU/Linux 2017.10 -- The Octopi package manager
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Applications
Chakra places a strong emphasis on using KDE software and most of the applications included are either related to KDE or are built using the Qt development toolkit. The distribution ships with the QupZilla web browser, KMail, the Konversation IRC client, the Akregator RSS feed reader and the KGet download manager. The Calligra productivity suite is featured rather than the more commonly used LibreOffice. Karbon is available to work with scalable graphics and the KolourPaint simple drawing tool is included. We also have access to the K3b disc burning software, the Okular document viewer and the Dolphin file manager.
Chakra features a handful of multimedia applications, including the bomi video player, the Kdenlive video editor and the Clementine music player. The distribution includes media codecs by default. Rounding out the application menu there is a category dedicated to providing links to Chakra's on-line resources such as the source code repository, bug reports, documentation and the community forums.
Chakra GNU/Linux 2017.10 -- Running Falkon and Calligra Sheets
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The first wave of package upgrades I installed bumped several key packages up a version or two. The Linux kernel jumped from version 4.12 to 4.14 and the Plasma desktop leaped from 5.10 to 5.12. Following the upgrade the Plasma desktop took a lot longer to login (over 30 seconds) and the desktop performed slower after its upgrade. I was hoping Plasma 5.12 would offer me access to the Plasma Vaults encrypted volumes feature. However, I could not find any way to access Vaults following the upgrade. Some other key packages had their version numbers jump, for example systemd went from version 231 to 235 and the GNU compiler was bumped from 6.3 to 7.3.
Hardware
Chakra worked well in both of my test environments. When running on my laptop computer, Chakra worked smoothly and detected my hardware, including the wireless card. The distribution's performance was middle range, neither notably fast or slow on the laptop. When running in VirtualBox, Chakra was a little on the slow side, especially after installing the first large wave of updates. Plasma always lagged a bit, even after I disabled file indexing and most visual effects.
Chakra GNU/Linux 2017.10 -- Monitoring processes
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In either environment, a fresh install of Chakra used about 5.5GB of disk space and 390MB of RAM. I noticed after a while that my cache of downloaded packages was getting large, using over 1GB of disk space. I tried using the Octopi Cache Cleaner tool to remove old packages, but it was unable to identify any cached software. I was able to manually remove old packages from under the /var directory.
Conclusions
Chakra is an unusual distribution for a few reasons. It is a rare semi-rolling project, which tries to maintain a fairly stable base system while providing up to date applications. This is an interesting compromise between full rolling and static operating systems. The semi-rolling concept is an idea I like and I was curious to see how well the approach would work dealing with around six months of updates. I was pleased to find Chakra handled the massive upgrade well.
Chakra was once also considered unusual for being very KDE-focused. There are more KDE distribution these days (KaOS, Kubuntu and KDE neon come readily to mind) and I think Chakra may have lost some of its appeal as more competition has established itself in the KDE-centric arena.
Chakra GNU/Linux 2017.10 -- Running Calligra Words
(full image size: 316kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
I found the distribution to be easy to set up and pretty straight forward to use, but there were a few characteristics which bothered me during my trial with Chakra. One was that while updates installed cleanly, once Plasma 5.12 was installed, I experienced slow login times and reduced performance on the desktop. It could be argued that this is a Plasma problem, not a Chakra problem, but the distribution's rolling release nature means any regressions in new versions of software end up in the user's lap.
Something that tends to bother me about distributions which focus on one desktop toolkit or another is that this approach to selecting software means we are sometimes using less capable tools in the name of toolkit purity. This is not a trade-off I like as I'd rather be using more polished applications over ones which a particular affiliation.
Finally, Chakra includes a number of command line aliases which got in my way. This seems to be a problem I have been running into more often recently. Developers are trying to be helpful by aliasing common commands, but it means that for some tasks I need to change my habits or undefine the provided aliases and the feature ends up being a nuisance instead of a convenience.
Chakra seems to be a capable and useful distribution and I am sure there are people who will appreciate the rolling release nature. Many people will likely also like having lots of KDE applications, and I can see the appeal of this combination. However, one thing which makes me hesitate to recommend Chakra is that the distribution does not appear to bring any special features to the ecosystem. It's a useful operating system and, to be completely fair, users can install non-KDE alternatives if they want to use LibreOffice instead of Calligra or GIMP instead of KolourPaint. But I'm not sure Chakra brings anything unique which makes it stand apart from openSUSE's Tumbleweed or KaOS's polished Plasma offering. Chakra used to be special in its semi-rolling, KDE-focused niche, but these days the distribution has a more competition and I'm not sure the project has any special sauce to set it apart from the crowd.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a de-branded HP laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: Intel i3 2.5GHz CPU
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 700GB hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Wired network device: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast
- Wireless network device: Realtek RTL8188EE Wireless network card
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Visitor supplied rating
Chakra GNU/Linux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.7/10 from 15 review(s).
Have you used Chakra GNU/Linux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
The Debian 10 roadmap and Project Leader election, Netrunner publishes ARM edition, Slackware kicks off package rebuild and Microsoft develops its own Linux-based system for IoT
The Debian Release Team has published information on the current development work going into Debian 10 "Buster". The project is about halfway through the development cycle for Buster with a final release expected around the middle of 2019. "In order to minimize the freeze length, we have shortened the transition freeze by one month. In any case, if you are planning a transition, don't leave it until the last moment, or else it may not make it in time for Buster. The larger the transition is, the earlier it should happen. We do not have a fixed release date, but given the cadence of previous releases it is likely that the release date will be some time mid 2019." Further information can be found in this mailing list post from the Debian Release Team.
The Debian project held its vote for the position of Project Leader this month. The process was streamlined by there being just one candidate running in 2018. Chris Lamb, the current Project Leader and only candidate in this election, has been voted in to serve at the helm of the Debian community for another year. Details on the vote can be found on the project's election page.
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Netrunner is a Debian-based distribution which features the KDE Plasma desktop environment. The Netrunner project has published a new edition of the distribution which runs on ARM processors, allowing the distribution to work on ARM-powered laptops like the Pinebook. "The Netrunner team is excited to announce the immediate availability of Netrunner 18.03 on the Pinebook. This release brings the powerful KDE Plasma desktop to low end ARM devices such as the Pinebook, while retaining the performance you’ve come to expect out of Plasma. Features: KDE Plasma 5.12.2; Calamares to aid with post-setup like SD-card resizing and personal user creation; accelerated X11 acceleration with OpenGLES; accelerated video playback with VDPAU; preloaded Firefox for super quick start." Further details are available on the Netrunner website and a separate page has been set up to provide download options for ARM computers.
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Slackware is well known as a conservative distribution which rarely introduces sweeping changes. However, the world's oldest surviving Linux distribution introduced some significant changes this week which required a rebuild of the project's software packages: "Hi folks, and welcome to the third ever Slackware Mass Rebuild (and the longest ChangeLog entry in project history). There were two primary motivations for rebuilding everything in the main tree. The first was to switch to the new C++ ABI. The second was to get rid of all the .la files in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Really, having .la files installed has been mostly obsolete since things began to use pkg-config instead, but it's not easy to get rid of them unless you do it all at once. If you just take them out of one package, any other packages containing .la files that refer to the removed ones will be broken." How this rebuild will affect users and how to handle the change is covered in Slackware's changelog.
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Over the years Microsoft's position on Linux has evolved quite a bit. The company has gone from declaring Linux "a cancer" to supporting Linux server distributions on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform to making it possible to install Linux programs on Windows through a compatibility layer. The software company is now taking another step into the Linux world and creating a new operating system for Internet of Things (IoT) devices using a modified version of the Linux kernel. "Azure Sphere OS: This OS is purpose-built to offer unequaled security and agility. Unlike the RTOSes common to MCUs today, our defense-in-depth IoT OS offers multiple layers of security. It combines security innovations pioneered in Windows, a security monitor, and a custom Linux kernel to create a highly-secured software environment and a trustworthy platform for new IoT experiences." More information on the Linux-powered device can be found in the company's blog post.
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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) |
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Using systemd to hide files
Hiding-files-with-systemd asks: The systemd 238 release has a new "Temporary File System" feature:
A new TemporaryFileSystem= option to msk [sic] parts of a real file-system tree with tmpfs mounts. This can be used for hiding files/directories not relevant to the unity [sic] or where you don't want any rogue units to potentially access. This also allows for ProtectHome=tmpfs to hide the user's home and runtime directories from units.
What can this do for data security? Would it be useful to prevent another user on the same computer from accessing your private data? Would it also be useful in preventing network intruders from accessing your private data?
DistroWatch answers: I had trouble finding information on the TemporaryFileSystem feature in my quest to answer this question. It didn't turn up when I searched systemd 238's release notes or show up in a search of the systemd site. All searches for an explanation kept taking me back to the the Phoronix article where the above quote originated.
Eventually I was able to track down a copy of this manual page which talks about TemporaryFileSystem and related options for systemd unit files. This is the explanation for the TemporaryFileSystem variable:
Takes a space-separated list of mount points for temporary file systems (tmpfs). If set, a new file system namespace is set up for executed processes, and a temporary file system is mounted on each mount point. This option may be specified more than once, in which case temporary file systems are mounted on all listed mount points. If the empty string is assigned to this option, the list is reset, and all prior assignments have no effect. Each mount point may optionally be suffixed with a colon (":") and mount options such as "size=10%" or "ro". By default, each temporary file system is mounted with "nodev,strictatime,mode=0755". These can be disabled by explicitly specifying the corresponding mount options, e.g., "dev" or "nostrictatime". This is useful to hide files or directories not relevant to the processes invoked by the unit, while necessary files or directories can be still accessed by combining with BindPaths= or BindReadOnlyPaths=.
Put another way, when you specify the name of a directory in the TemporaryFileSystem variable, the program or service started by that unit file cannot see the contents of the given directory. The directory should just look empty to the service. This can be useful if you do not want a daemon to be able to browse through your data or get information about your system's configuration. Using the TemporaryFileSystem variable you can hide the usually accessible /etc or /var directories, for instance, to hide information from the service.
This feature could help you if you wanted to grant users access to certain files on your system through a web or file sharing service, but wanted to make sure they could not access the rest of your file system. If your program does not have a chroot function or you think it could be compromised, then this systemd feature, and related features, offer a level of protection.
However, these systemd features only hide directories and files from the service started by that specific unit file. Other users and programs running on the system are not affected, they can still see your files. If you are sharing a computer with other people who can login directly or you are worried about attackers breaking into your system through means other than a service run with this systemd variable, then this feature does not protect you.
If you want to protect private data, then I recommend looking at directory permissions and encryption. Setting your home directory to block other users' access is a good place to start. Set chmod 0700 permissions on your home directory to keep users other than administrators out of your files. To protect yourself from remote attackers, make sure your system is up to date and disable any unnecessary network services. Consider running web-facing programs, like web browsers, in a Firejail sandbox to isolate these vulnerable programs from your files.
If you are concerned about other users with administrator access or persistent remote attackers, then you can set up an encryption vault. Both the GNOME and Plasma desktops have tools which makes setting up encrypted folders that require a password to access, a simple point-n-click experience.
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More answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Oracle Linux 7.5
Avi Miller has announced the release of Oracle Linux 7 Update 5, the latest version of the company's enterprise-class Linux distribution built from the source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.5: "Oracle is pleased to announce the general availability of Oracle Linux 7 Update 5 for the x86_64 architecture. Notable security-related features in this release: support for Memory Protection Keys on recent Intel processors - CPUs provide this support through a new user-accessible register (PKRU) that contains two separate bits; ability to unlock encrypted devices connected to a network during the boot process; SSLv3 disabled in mod_ssl, this change also restricts the use of certain cryptographic cipher suites; KASLR (kernel address-space layout randomization) for KVM guests added. Btrfs continues to be fully supported in Oracle Linux 7.5 with Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK). Btrfs support is deprecated in the Red Hat Compatible Kernel." See the release announcement and the release notes for further information.
Trisquel GNU/Linux 8.0
Trisquel GNU/Linux is an Ubuntu-based desktop distribution which features free and open source software exclusively. The project's latest release, Trisquel 8.0 "Flidas", is based on Ubuntu 16.04 and includes support through to the year 2021. "The biggest internal change to the default edition is the switch from GNOME to MATE 1.12. The main reason for this change was that GNOME dropped support for their legacy desktop, which retained the GNOME 2.x user experience and didn't require 3D composition -- a feature that in many computers would still need non-free software to run at full speed. MATE provides a perfect drop-in replacement, it is very light and stable and it retains all the user experience design that we are used to from previous Trisquel releases. The next most important component is Abrowser 59 (based on Mozilla Firefox), which is not only fully-featured and quite faster than before, it has also been audited and tweaked to maximize the user's privacy without compromising on usability." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
Trisquel GNU/Linux 8.0 -- Running the MATE desktop
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AV Linux 2018.4.12
A new version of AV Linux, a Debian-based distribution featuring a collection of audio and video applications, has been released. Version 2018.4.12 comes with various bug fixes, software updates and firmware additions: "AV Linux 2018.4.12 has been released. Bug fixes: updated 4.9.76 real-time kernel with KPTI 'Meltdown' security patch; KPTI can be disabled at boot; numerous important fixes to compatibility with KXStudio repositories; updated and fixed outdated Cin 5.1 and Spotify repositories; WineASIO now works properly; removed GRUB Customizer because it doesn't work on UEFI installations. New additions: ISO files now have accompanying MD5 and SHA256 files; optional 'lowlatency' kernels (required for proprietary video drivers); optional 'SGFXI' proprietary video driver install; UEFI install; Wine-Staging replaces Debian's Wine packages, WineHQ repositories have been added; added firmware for Echo audio devices; dynamic CPU frequency adjustment (in 'Settings' menu); real-time quick configuration scan to check system tuning...." Read the rest of the release announcement for a full changelog.
Smoothwall Express 3.1 SP4
Smoothwall Express, is a specialist Linux distribution for firewalls and routers, featuring a custom web-based configuration interface. The project's origins date back to the year 2000 and it still continues to evolve today - the developers have just announced an update to their 3.1 product line: "The Smoothwall Express team announce the release of Update9/SP4. This update and service pack should address most of the problems you encountered with Update8/SP3. We resolved a number of bugs, updated a number of packages, and re-released all of the Update8 packages. Of particular note, we made a number of improvements in the UI, added packages that will allow you to use a wireless IF for RED (manual only; not yet integrated into the system), and switched from Openswan to Libreswan. We also locked the kernel headers (used for glibc, klibc and a few other packages) to those of 3.4.104 to ensure a consistent Linux API going forward. Update8 switched to 3.16 kernel headers for some packages; this may have been the source of inexplicable problems some people reported after applying Update8." Here is the full release announcement as published on the distribution's user forums.
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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: 814
- Total data uploaded: 19.1TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
Dual booting versus virtual machines
Many of our readers run multiple operating systems. In a past poll, 49% reported they dual boot open source and a proprietary operating systems. This week we would like to find out, from people who run multiple operating systems, do you prefer to dual boot or run one platform in a virtual machine? Do you ever take advantage of compatibility software such as DOSbox, WINE or WSL in place of running a complete separate operating system? Let us know your preferred set up in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on the minimum length of long term support in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Finding long term support (LTS) operating systems
This week we added a new feature to our Search page which allows visitors to more easily find long term support (LTS) releases. When selecting "Fixed (LTS)" from the Release model field, a list of projects which offer long term support will be displayed.
In this case, LTS has a fairly strict definition. For a distribution to be considered LTS in our database it must A) have a declared support cycle and B) that support cycle must be at least five years long. Five years was chosen by our readers in a poll. Projects which either do not declare the length of their support cycle on their website or provide fewer than five years of support are not included in our search results.
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Distributions added to waiting list
- Arcticy Linux. Arcticy Linux is a distribution based on Arch Linux which features the Xfce desktop environment. It ships with desktop applications and multimedia support included.
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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, 30 April 2018. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. 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)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Dual Booting (by MIke on 2018-04-23 01:06:45 GMT from Australia)
I voted Dual Boot because I use multiple Linux Distros. However I am not sure if you meant "dual boot with a proprietary system" which I do not.
2 • Wine, etc.. (by Jordan on 2018-04-23 01:13:29 GMT from United States)
Only a few percent of the survey respondents use that sort of software? I admit to being surprised at that. I thought it was the coming thing, over the years.
I don't use it, never saw the need. But I did think I was in the minority of linux users about that.
3 • running multiple operating systems (by Simon Wainscott-Plaistowe on 2018-04-23 01:36:12 GMT from New Zealand)
I've never had much luck with WINE, it won't run my accounting system and it's had problems with most of the other apps I've tried on occasion over the years. So now I use a virtual WinXP in VirtualBox to run my ageing versions of QuickBooks and Microsoft Publisher.
For testing Linux distros, I dual-boot so I'm running them on bare metal. That way I know how they perform on my actual hardware. My main OS never changes, it's been Linux Mint for 7 years now and is unlikely to change unless one of those test distros impresses me enough.
4 • dual-boot (by Bob on 2018-04-23 01:48:30 GMT from United States)
I prefer to dual-boot. It's easy and less problematic. I have a few small empty partitions available just for this reason. If I don't like the "new" OS, no problem...delete it, update the grub, and I'm back where I started.
I used to run VB, but I would encounter so many problems it wasn't worth the time and effort.
WinE...NEVER.
5 • dual-boot vs VB (by albinard on 2018-04-23 02:37:53 GMT from United States)
Glad to see other VB skeptics here! It never seemed to me a fair test of a distro to set it into such an artificial environment, especially for a QA test. And I agree, I've seen more problems with the VB than with the distro it's running.
6 • Dual booting (by Andrew on 2018-04-23 02:46:18 GMT from Canada)
I dual boot, use VMs (for other linux installs) and use WINE and PoL. I haven't found a method to get Adobe DRM for books working on Arch, and highly modded Skyrim really needs LOOT which seems to be impossible to get working on linux.
7 • Multiboot (by Malcolm on 2018-04-23 02:54:08 GMT from United States)
Definitely vote multi-boot, but not with a proprietary system. I run Arch as a grub manager/main daily driver, and multiboot other distros depending on specific case requirements. I remember back in my college years, I multibooted 14 different distros on the same laptop, but it was mostly for my own amusement and learning. Never had any issues with that setup, and performance was great as opposed to being siphoned into a vm.
8 • Multi-booting Linux distros (by Flavio R. Cavalcanti on 2018-04-23 03:00:23 GMT from Brazil)
I dualboot (or multiboot) among multiple Linux distros. ─ No proprietary system. ─ Wine for 3 very old apps, just to reuse, convert and maintain very old works (a few times a year).
9 • Dual-boot (by Angel on 2018-04-23 03:17:49 GMT from Philippines)
Hope I don't need poetic license to participate.:) I dual-boot Windows 10 and Linux. (Solus at the moment but probably going back to Mint's new LTS when it's released.) Also have VB. On the Linux side I run a copy of Windows 10 in case I need Windows without rebooting. Also a small distro used infrequently for its browser alone. Most new distros I check out I don't bother to install, so VB makes that easier. Also have VB on Windows. Mostly for the same reasons.
10 • One distro but... (by jadecat on 2018-04-23 03:20:06 GMT from United Kingdom)
Sticking with the one and only Slackware. I do use Wine for a few games older games though.
11 • Dual boot, VMs, etc. (by M. Edward (Ed) Borasky on 2018-04-23 03:43:08 GMT from United States)
My tradition has been to dual-boot laptops (Windows / Linux) and run Linux on workstations. However, I just got a new laptop in December and I've held off dual-booting it.
1. The SSD is only 128 MB and it's half full already with Windows and the apps I can't offload to the spinning 1 TB drive.
2. Hyper-V is pretty efficient these days, and I have to have it anyway for Docker.
3. Nearly every open-source app I use is available in binary for for Windows.
4. Windows Subsystem for Linux gives me a real command line.
5. Dual-booting is a hassle - I end up favoring one OS over the other for lengthy periods and then have to spend a full day catching up on updates.
So I'm holding off as long as possible.
12 • Azure Sphere OS (by Thom on 2018-04-23 04:47:18 GMT from Sweden)
It will be interesting to follow Microsoft's Linux play.
There are some past practices on their behalf that warrants caution.
In days gone by, the favorite Microsoft MO was the old EEE: embrace, extend, extinguish, perhaps most clearly seen in the Java war.
Since then Microsoft has changed in some ways but, honestly, will that particular leopard ever change its spots?
Microsoft lost the mobile war (even dragged Nokia down with them) and the possibility of them trying to regain lost ground through embedding themselves into all appliances connected is plausible.
Judging from the pattern of past behavior, expect to see Microsoft inject themselves into the supply chain through licensing fees, IP royalties, and ownership of dataformats and cloudspace.
As for the Linux they employ, expect the GPL to come under more legal pressure than ever.
13 • about dual booting (by debianxfce on 2018-04-23 05:10:34 GMT from Finland)
I think dual booting is for beginners, especially if there is the virus hoover in the mix. Running Linux distributions from a samsung evo microsd card is a clean way to test other distributions. When building a new PC and waiting the ssd to arrive (from China) it is handy to use microsd cards. I have Debian sid Xfce on a 32 GB card and Rise of the Tomb Raider (25GB) on another. My new ssd should arrive in two days.
14 • multiboot (by brad on 2018-04-23 05:30:39 GMT from United States)
Multiboot, with Win10 in the mix; I work from home occasionally, and the VPN mandated by my employer is Windows only. Manjaro is still my daily driver, with different partitions for KDE and XFCE. Antegros Cinnamon is on another partition, and I have some free space left over to try LM Cinnamon this summer, when the LTS version arrives.
I have some older laptops that use MX as the driver, and include Win10 partitions; I'm hoping to farm these out as Win10-only to others as an el-cheapo alternative to newer laptops, or to help out a friend/colleague in desperate need.
15 • Duel (sic) Booting & co. (by Someguy on 2018-04-23 05:43:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
"I run one operating system" per machine! Gave up chasing tail with every turn of the industry screw ably led by the WIntel cartel when I switched to Linux-only almost a couple of decades ago. The tail-chasing Redmond fanboys tend to give away/throw away machines every 6-12 months or when the tiniest fault occurs. Anyone can run a suite of around a dozen machines running as many Linux OSes, perhaps for the cost of a new coin cell/DVD or HD swap/BIOS update/w.h.y. - parts are cheap if swaps aren't available, InterWeb and *tube is awash with advice and how-to videos for those not acquainted; still hesitant - call in any six-year old and give them a screwdriver. Linux usually doesn't need the hardware bloat. Only need one s.o.t.a. machine to run current mainline distro, everything else goes on the other boxes. Keep one of those to clone drives as daily/weekly/fortnightly backups.
16 • VMs... (by Becky on 2018-04-23 06:34:43 GMT from New Zealand)
I have dual-boot on the ‘more traditional’ PCs and it’s usually the current or last version running as 2nd-fiddle to Windows 10.
On my primary machine - a reasonably well-specified iMac - I use a mix of VB and VMware Fusion - because I find them both to be very satisfactory... but they do have individual strengths - hence using both!
17 • Multi-booting... (by OstroL on 2018-04-23 08:14:36 GMT from Poland)
There was a time, when I multi-booted with Linux only. (At that time, I had a grudge against Win 7.) Few years ago, I got a laptop with Win 10 and liked it, so won't be throwing away a pretty good OS. (Since then I have 3 laptops with Win 10). Two laptops are multi-booting with Win 10 and Linux (Arch, Debian, customised 'buntus). Don't want to use Wine, when one can simply change the OS. Will not throw away a very well working OS, just for ideological reasons.
18 • Multiple OSs (by John on 2018-04-23 08:17:27 GMT from United States)
Hi All,
I have been using multiple OSs by putting each on a seperate SD and plugging that into an SD to USB2 adapter. Right now I have SDs for AntiX so I can do KICAD and wsjtx, Debian 8.8 so I can print, Knoppix 7.2, 7.6, 7.71, and 8.1 and Debian 9.4.0 so I can run TIs CCS version 8. Works great seems as fast as the internal drive which I only use for data storage.
Works slick :).
I am typing this on an AntiX SD plugged into a USB2 adapter on a Toshiba laptop.
Makes backup EASY and reliable.
John - Concord, NH
19 • Dualboot (by X-Hacker on 2018-04-23 08:39:08 GMT from Greece)
I dualboot Windows 10 with MX Linux. W10 for gaming & MX for everything else.
20 • Dual Boot (by Herold on 2018-04-23 08:44:12 GMT from Germany)
I dual boot but mostly us Manjaro on the desktop, Im getting a bit tired of the breakages every few months though and planning to move to Devuan. Second os is Mint which I rarely use anymore. Devuan testing has become my boot choice on the EEPC and T420 Laptop, For a testing version It is amazingly fast and totally stable.
Microsoft embracing linux, that is a planned hug of death for sure.
Since the FORCED upgrade to win 10 I vowed to use none of their products and will do my best to keep things that way.
The B*Tards upgraded my laptop overnight without asking, in result it made my vehicle diagnosis system unusable, and turned the laptop in to a slug.
21 • Dual boot Win 10 and Ubuntu Mate (by Ali Yasser on 2018-04-23 09:13:33 GMT from India)
I dual boot Win 10 and Ubuntu Mate 16.04. I'm really quite jealous of people here who use Linux exclusively :) Some software that I use at work is only available for Windows, and it's so much easier to use MS Word for resumes and other stuff. LibreOffice is good but because it uses non-Windows fonts, you can never be 100% sure that the documents you saved as PDF on it will display correctly on other people's machines. Windows/MS Office makes it very convenient for you to work with other users. Nevertheless, I've always loved Linux and keep using it off and on.
22 • Dual boot and VB (by TheTKS on 2018-04-23 10:34:40 GMT from Canada)
Multiboot and VB home computers.
10 year old box Xubuntu only, original Win XP wiped, Win 7 capable but won’t ever get Win again.
New box multiboot W10 (came with the computer, keep in case needed), Kubuntu, elementary, Slackware, and VB in a Linux to test drive OpenBSD.
This arrangement will change with this round of recent and upcoming updates in those distros, but what will stay the same is one distro on the old box, and multiboot (and probably VB) on the new box.
TKS
23 • Dual Boot (by KevinC on 2018-04-23 10:59:45 GMT from South Africa)
Dual boot WIN7 & Linux Lite. LL my everyday OS and 7 for light gaming, DAW (Studio One) and Sony Vegas
24 • wine (by dave on 2018-04-23 11:11:01 GMT from United States)
Still using Wine for the one program I cannot live without in Linux - Photoshop 7.
25 • dual boot, wine & vm's (by Fox on 2018-04-23 11:25:53 GMT from Canada)
As much as I would want to run Linux only, there are occasions when I need one of the proprietary oses. On my 2011 iMac I have a dual boot setup with Ubuntu 17.10 and MacOS High Sierra. I rarely boot into the Mac, but there are two pieces of software that occasionally require it. I have to run MS Office quite frequently, and for that I use the 2010 version running under CrossOver; it's pretty flawless. But I also have a Windows 7 vm, which I had to use recently to run tax software. I have Foxit Reader, which runs natively in Linux for most PDF editing, but it doesn't work for most PDF's that you fill out as forms. For that I have to boot into Acrobat DC, usually on my Windows 7 vm. I could do that on the Mac side, but why reboot just for that when the vm (VirtualBox) works perfectly well. Once I converted from Mac to Linux I started looking at Ultrabooks for mobile computing, and ended up with a Dell XPS 13. I run Ubuntu 16.04 on it, but kept the Windows 10 as a dual boot. Again, I rarely boot into it, but had to for tax software. I don't see any downside of keeping the OS the computer came with as a dual boot, as long as I have sufficient disk space.
26 • No boot (by Gary W on 2018-04-23 12:15:17 GMT from Australia)
I don't dual boot. In fact I don't reboot at all, if I can avoid it (new kernel, or some sort of major failure). However, I do have a spare partition to simplify upgrades. I don't need to boot different distros at different times as I have several spare computers. I don't use Windows, although I have a couple of machines with Vista and Win 10 partitions, for "resale value".
27 • multi-boot (by wally on 2018-04-23 13:21:27 GMT from United States)
All my systems have at least 3 boot OSs, some combination of Linuxes and Win10.
Debian is the primary on all sys excepts my wife's Win10.
Wine has never done what I need. VB works well but no more useful than separate boot in my case.
Sadly, there is always some major app that can only run on Windows, so it always has to be available.
28 • Dual boot, etc. (by DaveW on 2018-04-23 13:32:05 GMT from United States)
My everyday machine is linux only. I dual-boot Mint, Arch and any other distro currently under consideration. I do use VirtualBox to get a cursory look at new distros. I also have a laptop with Win10 only, but I rarely use it.
@25 Fox: I find that the Win version of Foxit Reader, running under Wine, fills out PDF forms nicely. Although Okular does a better job when it comes to printing them.
29 • @25 (by kc1di on 2018-04-23 13:49:16 GMT from United States)
Try Master PDF works great for editing pdfs.
30 • Multiple OS's (by rdaniels on 2018-04-23 14:05:13 GMT from United States)
I used to use a combination of dual-booting (for gaming) and WINE (for any other Windows programs I needed on Linux). The first was always a hassle, and the second just never worked very well for me.
Once video card passthrough to VMs became a thing, I switched to that and have had no desire to return to the old methods.
31 • Wine & VM's (by Oliver Deex on 2018-04-23 14:05:28 GMT from United States)
I run wine for the simple programs that it handles well, e.g. Moffet FreeCalc, Qimage, a free edition of Networx, Reminders. I run a legal edition of Windows 7 as a VMware virtual machine for Quicken10, CheckPrinter, OneTouch and a Canon PIXMA2600 which will not run on wine or Linux. My main Linux OS is Mint 18.3 xfce. I have used Xubuntu as my Linux OS in the past and may switch back to it or to openSUSE if I keep getting error messages when I update Mint (even tough it seems to update OK). I also have a legal VM of Windows 10 but I am not very enthusiastic about Windows 10 which floods me with pop-ups I don't need. But I have not worked with it to tame it. In the past I have used dual boot (Windows & Linux) with success but since Windows cannot be put on a machine second and I started my current computer with Mint after a crash, I use a VM for windows. I have tried VirtualBox for VM's but I like VMware a bit better, although VirtualBox seems to work OK.
32 • None of the above (by Trihexagonal on 2018-04-23 14:08:31 GMT from United States)
I use FreeBSD, OpenBSD and Solaris but have several different laptops with interchangeable HDD for each. I never dual-boot or use a VM.
I dedicate at least one machine for each OS but also have extra HDD so the same box can be running a different OS in a matter of minutes. I have a Win10Pro HDD for one, but only use it to play Oblivion and an OpenBSD HDD for anything else.
33 • dual-boot (by vern on 2018-04-23 14:30:16 GMT from United States)
Actually, I do a quad boot and then some.
I have windows and three linux distros all on separate partitions. Also I config my grub2 to boot several ISO's using loop-back.
Using virtual box, it works until installed, then graphics shows up and it all goes haywire.
34 • Multiboot (by Fantomas on 2018-04-23 14:41:53 GMT from France)
/ I Multiboot on logical Partitions, encrypt just the home folder. Am using only Debian based Distros. Maybe I like the bare Metal scenario.
/ Virtualbox I use just to check the Visual aspect of new Distro and what Software is on it. (I am looking at Gnomeboxes and I might use it more, compare to Oracles VB)
/ Wine I was using years ago, for running Win Exam Simulation Software in how to say..Off line mode. Now I do not use Wine at all, ZERO, Wine, except
the real one from Italy or France.
I need to hibernate under my Rock for little, so excuse me.
Thank you, for the newest Movie Distro Watch, and thank you all. Till next time. Bye.
35 • Dual Boot vs Virtual Machines (by Pete on 2018-04-23 14:55:24 GMT from United States)
I have used both methods ion most of my pc's, but am now using a different technique without the issues of these two methods. Dual booting with Windows can be dangerous to your data and its use can result in a large waste of time to recover your Windows data and configuration. Virtual machines work well but they are a little slower than running the operating system or Distribution directly from the storage volume. Virtual Machines are great for rapidly switching between distributions even with a slight slowing of responses. Currently I use my BIOS to make the selection of operating system. MY PC has 6 SATA ports and each port is connected to an inexpensive SSD. I load between one to four distributions on each SSD. To switch operating systems, I exit a Distributions and reboot through POST (mine is fast) hit F-2 and select my distribution from up to 18 possible distributions on SATA and more if they are LIVE USBs connected to one of my USB 3.1 ( Gen 2) ports. The advantages are no corrupted GRUB issues with Windows ( very common) and no latency contributed by the hypervisor. Also not all of my operating systems will work well with a Virtual Machine.
36 • WINE (by J.P.G. on 2018-04-23 14:56:37 GMT from Spain)
WINE.
Just to run WinRAR for batch conversion from .rar to .zip.
37 • rankings (by David on 2018-04-23 14:58:34 GMT from United States)
We should have two columns for popularity... one for hits at distrowatch, and one for hits at google (see google trends).
38 • VMs and wine (by Wally on 2018-04-23 15:14:18 GMT from United States)
I use VMs on multiple systems of mine. I use Wine on pretty much every GNU/Linux installation at least for running Irfanview. The last time I dual-booted was back for Windows 98 SE and Windows 2000.
39 • Dual Boot and Dosbox (by Gordie on 2018-04-23 15:39:49 GMT from Canada)
I don't like VM. I have tried it and find it slow and not representative of what an operating system is capable of on my hardware.
My laptop has Slackware64-14.2 as the only operating system.
My desktop has Windows 10 and Slackware64-current dual booting,
On both computers I make use of Dosbox to run an old program that I really like and have been unable to find an equivalent for
40 • Dual-boot etc (by David on 2018-04-23 15:52:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
I wonder if I'm unique in having *nested* compatibility software: Wine to run a QL emulator to run the Minerva OS to run a custom program from the 1980s!
41 • virtualbox (by Tim on 2018-04-23 16:02:19 GMT from United States)
I picked "I run one OS" but I do use virtualbox for one reason- I have an old version of Debian Squeeze running in it so I can use some older applications I like, like Kompozer. I disabled networking since it no longer gets security updates.
I think that's one place virtual machines really are useful- if you're invested in a piece of software you really can keep running it indefinitely.
42 • VirtualBox (by Tech in Warner Springs on 2018-04-23 19:08:47 GMT from United States)
Not unlike others who have tried and failed with Dual-Booting, I gave up on that configuration and went with Oracle's VirtualBox.
I have a high-end laptop, (Acer Predator 17x), that I use for my work in Astrophysics. I have 6 VM's running different applications for my telescopes and various other streaming/multimedia applications. VM's in multiple windows saves me time and the inconvenience of running Dual-Boot operating systems from multiple machines. I agree with others that there is a hit in performance with VM's but it's worth it. I can easily create snapshots of multiple machines and if something goes array I can always revert back to a known good configuration.
43 • Multiple booting (by Terry Smith on 2018-04-23 19:12:21 GMT from United States)
I basically run linux but can and do run virtual systems via virtualbox on a few occasions. I have a grub.cfg that can boot Mint, Lubuntu, or Debian. I can also boot Windows as the current desktop was purchased as a 'deal' with Windows 7 installed. I repartitioned that drive to add a couple of other partitions and I added a 2tb drive which I partitioned to handle my 'core' linux distros. Been doing things that way for 5-6 years, simply installing a new distro (or an upgrade) to the existing partition set aside for that distro.
44 • dual-boot (by Bob on 2018-04-23 19:21:10 GMT from United States)
@ 17 - "At that time, I had a grudge against Win 7"
The exact reason I started using Linux. Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala was the first Linux disto I tried. Win 7 and 9.10 were both released in October 2009. Now, I'm running Xubuntu 16.04 daily.
45 • Dual Booting (by Paul Nodine on 2018-04-23 19:45:21 GMT from United States)
I used to dual boot but then got a lenovo 2-1 laptop if I ever need to use windows. Have gone though a lot of distros but have been running KDE Neon for awhile now.
Also long time reader, first time poster
46 • todays pole (by JimM on 2018-04-23 19:49:43 GMT from United States)
I did not vote! I use multiple partitions on my linux computers. I've had as many as 12 different distros on a single HDD. I use gparted and generally a 20GB partition for each distro and use the grub-customizer for selections. My main Intel NUC desktop with a 250GB SSD has LinuxMint 18.3 Mate, Solus Budgie, Solus Mate, and MX17.1.
47 • Dual booting (by eznix on 2018-04-23 21:07:22 GMT from United States)
Last time I dual booted was early 2000's. Ever since its been 100% Linux on my main computer with WinXP or 7 in a virtualbox just in case I need to answer a family member's question about Windows. I have been running Ubuntu, Xubuntu, and now straight Debian solid since 2005. I play with others in VB, but that is all. I have spare hard drives and spare machines I use to tinker and play with installations on metal. Last time I multi-booted, it was Windows 98 + OpenLinux 2.4 + BeOS - and that was just a couple weeks ago for YT!
48 • Virtual Machines (by Sean on 2018-04-23 21:29:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've used Virtualbox (stable & good enough for my usage) on a Linux host system (currently Mint LTS) for years. Multiple different Linux & Win client o/s. Dedicated host & client SSDs make for easy o/s & hardware upgrades. Lots of memory & CPU cores help reduce the performance hit.
Agree with comment #42 for snapshots, also easy cloning to try out major updates with no ill effects.
Full functionality via remote access is also useful.
49 • Different operation system (by Garon on 2018-04-23 22:26:38 GMT from United States)
I do dual boot and also use Virtualbox. No problems really. I do have to use Windows because PLC software will not run using Linux. So sad. For all my old dos games, and I have a lot, I use DosBox. Also if set up properly WINE can run a lot of software made for Windows.
50 • Opinion Poll _ Dual booting (by john on 2018-04-23 23:03:12 GMT from Ireland)
I have one main operating system and have Virtualbox installed. I chose VB because its open source and fully-featured. I have a bunch of vm's installed and use my setup to practice pen-testing. Admittedly, I've run into problems installing some Linux OS's as vm's but have never encountered any problems with the more 'polished' distributions. Windows 10 was a headache to install. I like my set-up (it suits my needs) and prefer virtual machines, but wouldn't have a problem with a straight-up dual boot, should I need it. One thing I will say; have plenty of RAM at your disposal for going the virtual route.
51 • Dualboot (by Dhoni on 2018-04-23 23:05:56 GMT from Indonesia)
I've been dual boot since my win xp laptop broken and its so hard to reinstall it because i dont have ext cdrom for that laptop. Its arround 7 years ago, i start using linux for work.
From there i always use dual boot on my notebook, usually windows + 1 linux distro.
Now im using win 10 + mint kde (will change to ubuntu lts for its snap app)
52 • I run XP in a VM on VB on Linux (by greenpossum on 2018-04-24 01:25:46 GMT from Australia)
I have a photo scanner program (no Linux equivalent) that I run in a VM XP, using USB forwarding (great feature). If XP goes pear shaped, I can revert to a snapshot. And of course I can be doing other things on Linux during the scanning which can take minutes per film strip or set of slides.
I try out other Linux distros in VMs too. Don't have problems with VB, mature distros have no problems with it.
Multibooting is too disruptive, my computer runs all the time and cron jobs do things automatically.
53 • Dual Boot (by Bobby Doogle on 2018-04-24 04:09:07 GMT from United States)
I prefer to install on a separate hard drive, and NOT use a boot manager, beyond whatever is auto installed by each OS on it's own drive, and select my boot drive in my BIOS. This wasn't an option so I'm throwing it out.
54 • #53 (by James M on 2018-04-24 07:44:16 GMT from United States)
#53 Option #1 would have been the pick in this case. You could argue what it wasn't comprehensive enough. Its not meant to be. The choices cover a slew of factors, and so they have to be like that. Its frustrating, I know. But, that is what the comment section is for, to explain your answer.
55 • Opinion poll (by Grraf on 2018-04-24 08:15:29 GMT from Romania)
I'm a full time arch user that relies on wine for a couple old games(age of empires&few others in the ~2k period) lucky enough all my current gaming needs are either covered by native linux versions or by wine...
PS: ditched the widows joyride around Vista and i have no desire to ever return to that insanity
Number of Comments: 55
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Oracle Linux
Oracle Linux is an enterprise-class Linux distribution supported by Oracle and built from source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Some of the special features of Oracle Linux include a custom-build and rigorously-tested Linux kernel called "Oracle Unbreakable Kernel", tight integration with Oracle's hardware and software products including most database applications, and "zero downtime patching" - a feature that enables administrators to update the kernel without a reboot.
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