 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1178, 22 June 2026 |
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Welcome to this year's 25th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Last week the Arch User Repository (AUR) was infected by malicious build scripts. While the initial series of infections was addressed, more have been making their way into the community-contributed repository. In our Questions and Answers section this week we talk about the AUR attack and how it relates to Linux security as a whole. Do you install software from the AUR? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. We also share updates on the AUR attacks in our News section. In other news last week, the Fedora Project Leader shared statistics on the growing number of Fedora installs while the number of Fedora contributors is falling. KDE released a new version of the Plasma desktop this past week and we share the highlights and we look ahead to a new feature coming to Ubuntu. We begin this week with a look at an application called TBlock, which is a tool for blocking certain types of web traffic. We take TBlock for a test run and report on how the application works in our Feature Story. Then we are pleased to share 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:
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
TBlock
I recently reviewed the TROMjaro distribution and one of the applications which was included in the distribution by default was one I had not previously encountered. This application was called TBlock and it was presented as an ad blocker.
More specifically, the TBlocker website refers to the application as: "an anti-corporate content blocker written in Python and licensed under [the] GPLv3. It is maintained by a nonprofit community."
The TBlocker application is not intended to block advertisements only, it can be used to block all sorts of unwanted content. This can range from trackers to malware, from misinformation websites to corporate pages, from gambling to pornography. The TBlock application uses lists of domains which are grouped into categories. We can then determine which categories of content we wish to block.
The TBlock website reports its command line version can run on Linux, macOS, and Windows, though the desktop application front-end runs on Linux only. The application also bears a warning:
Since TBlock uses the hosts file, it gives you a system-wide protection. However, it can't block specific scripts like browser add-ons do. It means that you may still see some sneaky ads (for example, TBlock is not able to block YouTube ads).
The documentation for TBlock includes a section on installing the application. Separate instructions are offered for Arch Linux, Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, macOS, and Windows. TBlock does not appear to be in the software repositories for any of the mainstream Linux distributions, so installing requires enabling a third-party repository and then installing a package.
Once TBlock as been installed we need to go through some initial configuration steps. When working from the command line this involves running the command "tblock --init" as the administrator. The software will then ask us to answer a few questions using a text menu. When we have the desktop application installed we will be shown a first-run wizard and asked to click answers to a few questions. Whichever path we take, the initial setup process wants to know whether to enable light, medium, or heavy blocking. Put another way, do we want to block just a few nasty web domains, commonly reported pesky domains, or anything and everything which might possibly be a problem?
Exploring the GUI
I spent most of my time with the TBlock desktop application which serves as a nice front-end for the command line tool. One of the first things I did with the GUI was open the settings section and enable automatic updates of enabled lists. This allows the list of domains we block to be updated as new troublesome websites and trackers are discovered. The first synchronization of the repositories failed and I will come back to why this probably happened later in the review.
The TBlock settings window
(full image size: 101kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Through the GUI we can see a list of available filters or categories. This is basically a "list of lists". Each filter or category has a name, which is often descriptive of what it blocks. Each filter contains a list of Internet domains it will block. When we download and enable a filter, each domain listed inside it is blocked on our computer. This means no websites on the domain will load, no pings will reach their server, and applications trying to phone home to those domains by name will be blocked.
Browsing the TBlock domain categories
(full image size: 246kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The documentation explains how the TBlock command line tool can also see a list of filters and add or remove filters from the active list.
Custom rules
One of my favourite features of TBlock is the ability to create custom rules. This allows us to specify a domain name and then decide whether we want to block or redirect the domain. (We can also choose to allow the domain if it would normally be blocked.) Custom rules can be created through the command line tool or through the GUI.
This ability to create custom rules means we can create new blocks on the fly, preventing unpleasant websites, trackers, or misinformation from reaching our web browser.
Using TBlock to redirect domains
(full image size: 535kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Observations
I have some observations from using TBlock, in no particular order. The first is that, in general, it works. The application does what it says it will do: it fetches lists of Internet domains to block and, when we enable a list, the content of the list is added to our /etc/hosts file. This prevents domain names from resolving into IP addresses which will, in most cases, prevent applications on our computer from being able to communicate with the remote server. This effectively blocks most ads, tracking, pings, malware, and misinformation that we have flagged as not wanting to see.
There are some limitations with this approach. As the TBlock website points out, what it is doing is effectively blocking domains, based on their names. Any content which shares a domain with a legitimate content provider (such as YouTube ads), any software which uses IP addresses instead of domain names to connect, and any software which bypasses the operating system's domain name lookup system is unaffected by TBlock. In other words, TBlock will work in most situations with most software to block most content. However, as the developers state up front, there are exceptions and there are a few limitations. TBlock is not a perfect solution and the developers suggest using it alongside other blockers, such as privacy-protecting web browser extensions.
Since TBlock works by adding new entries to the /etc/hosts file, this file can balloon quickly. Taking the recommended medium blocking level causes the hosts file to grow to be about one million lines in length, about 28MB in size. This did not have a noticeable effect on my web browsing experience, but I did wonder how many block lists I could enable before the system would take a visible amount of time to process the lists.
When I started browsing the various collections of filters, I quickly found many of them are no longer maintained. The first three collections I tried to enable (FakeNews, Cloudflare clients, and AdBlocker) all turned out to be discontinued or their repositories have been removed. This also happened with the Malware Blocklist project. In fact, of the first half a dozen lists I tried to download, only the Goodbye Ads repository was still on-line. The Goodbye Ads repository was last updated two years ago.
You might think, as I did at first, that the repositories no longer being maintained is fine. After all, domains which were used for tracking or malware or misinformation in the past are probably still used that way. Once a list has been created and filled, the repository probably doesn't need to be updated. The problem is that, as far as I can tell, the TBlock project does not maintain its own lists. The lists we tell TBlock to enable are fetched from third-parties. This means many of the lists are not just stale, they are also inaccessible on new systems due to expired domains, deactivated repositories, and lapsed security certificates. New users may need to attempt to fetch several different block lists until they find one which is still available.
On a related note, I discovered the latest version of TBlock was published about three years ago and it doesn't look like anyone is working on the project. This means both the TBlock application itself and many of its repositories are, as far as I can tell, unmaintained. Not that TBlock itself needs much maintenance, it appears to be working well. Though it seems as though some features haven't been finished, old filters clutter the list of available block categories, and there hasn't been an effort to expand support to new distributions or other Unix-like platforms.
Conclusions
Earlier I pointed out TBlock's approach, using our hosts file to block domain name resolution, is an approach which will work for most content, most of the time. It's not perfect, but it works well enough that it can block a lot of the content we do not want to see and stop a lot of trackers. It is not bullet-proof, but it is good enough for a lot of situations.
My main concern with TBlock is not its features or performance, but the ecosystem's apparent lack of maintenance. Both the application and the lists of domains to be blocked appears to be discontinued. They still work - most of the time, in many cases - but the cracks are showing in the paint. The repository lists could do with a clean-up; useful lists should probably be moved to a repository managed by TBlock; and it would be nice to see broader support across the Linux and BSD communities.
Maybe there will be more updates from TBlock in the future, but at the moment the application looks somewhat abandoned. Even some of the documentation pages returned 404 errors when I was browsing the manual. This sort of thing isn't necessarily a deal breaker for this type of application, but it does make me hold off recommending this application for new installs. If you already use it, then the software will likely continue to work and run well for years to come, but I'm not sure I'd deploy it on a new system without knowing when repository updates might resume working.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Arch responds to more AUR attacks, Fedora's growing community, reasons to avoid immutable desktops, Ubuntu 26.10 to get speech recognition, Canonical updates its beta policy, highlights of KDE Plasma 6.7
Last week we reported on malware being uploaded to the Arch User Repository (AUR). While initial reports indicated there were around 400 packages affected, since then additional attacks have impacted more packages. In response, the AUR maintainers have disabled new account sign-ups in an effort to stop the flow of sabotage. FOSS Force reports: "Initial reports were that 400 packages were affected, that AUR's maintainers went into high gear, and took care of the problem. By the end of the story's first chapter, the total number of affected packages sat at 1,500 packages. Case closed. After that, we heard about another round, this time more sophisticated and harder to detect. There were obviously additional packages involved, but not much emphasis on keeping a running count, although there were some numbers floating around."
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The Fedora Project Leader, Jef Spaleta, gave a talk at Fedora's Flock conference this month and LWN's Joe Brockmeier reported on the talk's highlights. Something which stood out during the talk is that Fedora usage appears to be up, quite a bit. The KDE Plasma desktop edition has gained 120% installs over the past year, while the GNOME edition is up about 18%. Between the two desktop editions, Fedora is estimating over 450,000 installs. Other spins, including atomic images, accounted for about 167,000 additional installs. In short, more people are running Fedora systems. However, at the same time, the number of package maintainers for Fedora has been decreasing. Spaleta's data shows Fedora's contributors have dropped from about 420 in the year 2020 to 325 in 2026. In other words, over 20% of Fedora contributors have dropped out over the past six years. The LWN article goes on to cover Spaleta's thoughts on why the decline in developers might be happening and some plans to reverse the trend.
Here is an interesting opinion about the immutable desktop, a category of Linux distributions that have an immutable base system, with software packages largely managed as flatpaks or other non-native formats. Rénich Bon Ćirić, a Fedora package maintainer and a Linux consultant from Mexico, argues that these immutable setups have no place on desktop computers and gives several reasons against using them: "Lately, it seems the industry is aggressively pushing immutable, image-based operating systems for the desktop. Shipping a cryptographically sealed, read-only root filesystem sounds super fancy and elegant on paper, but in reality, it's a solution looking for a problem, unless you're running a smart fridge or a corporate kiosk. Let me be perfectly clear: immutable systems are the correct choice for single-purpose appliances, point-of-sale terminals, and sealed server nodes. If your hardware only needs to run a fixed set of remote directives without any user intervention, then yes, a mutable root filesystem is just begging for trouble. But trying to force this architecture onto a general-purpose desktop? That is a spectacular regression. It wraps the user in a straitjacket, offloads system complexity onto you, and strips away ownership, performance, and actual security in the process. Here is the engineering reality of why the immutable desktop fails the general user." As always, opinions about this topic will vary, but it's interesting to see this point of view from a developer of Fedora, a Linux distribution that has been at the forefront of providing immutable systems with its Silverblue and Kinoite projects.
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The Ubuntu project is experimenting with a new accessibility feature: speech-to-text. "Speech-To-Text is an important accessibility feature, but it's also a useful productivity tool for anyone who finds it easier to speak than to type. Today I'm excited to introduce Project Myna, a new initiative to bring speech to text dictation to Ubuntu Desktop. Named after the myna bird, known for its ability to mimic human speech, the project aims to deliver a dictation experience that feels like a natural part of the desktop while respecting user privacy and running entirely on local hardware. Speech recognition has become a common feature on modern platforms, and we think it should be a first-class experience on Ubuntu Desktop as well." The initial plan is to have speech-to-text work only when the user is pressing a shortcut key and to process all speech locally on the machine. This is to both protect privacy and avoid using network resources while the feature is operating. A Discourse thread offers additional details.
Some of Ubuntu's official sub-projects have been in a state of flux during the distribution's release process, with some missing an important beta or release candidate release. To ensure the quality of final releases, Ubuntu has updated the policy regarding its flavours. From now on, if a project misses a beta release, it will not be allowed to provide the final build. Oliver Reiche clarifies the decision: "As we look toward future releases, the Release Team would like to clarify our policy regarding beta participation. To ensure that every flavor is fully prepared for the final release, please be advised that no flavor will be considered for an official release unless it has successfully submitted a beta release according to the scheduled timeline. The package diffs between beta and final releases should be minimal and only contain bug fixes. For Resolute, we made a rare exception with Ubuntu Kylin. While @handsomefeng did a tremendous job in getting his release in shape just in time despite missing the beta window, this was a one-time occurrence. To maintain the quality and stability of our collective final products, we will not be making such exceptions moving forward." OMG Ubuntu provides further details about the ruling.
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The KDE project has announced the release of Plasma 6.7, a significant update to the project's flexible desktop environment. The new release, which will be the last to support X11 sessions, introduces per-monitor virtual desktops, a new print queue manager, and a new theme-creating system called Union. "Though Plasma's theming capabilities are second to none, for years creating those themes has been a difficult and fragmented experience. Plasma's all-new Union theming system intends to streamline theming by making it possible to style Plasma, QtQuick apps, and QtWidgets apps all with a single set of easy-to-write CSS - the world's most popular and documented open standard for this purpose. Plasma 6.7 marks the inaugural release of Union, here with a tech preview of the QtQuick style." Details about Plasma 6.7, along with screenshots, can be found in the KDE release announcement.
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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) |
What is the significance of the AUR being compromised?
Now-in-doubt asks: With reports of the AUR being infected I'm questioning what I've heard about Linux being more secure. If infected packages are being slipped into repositories, doesn't that disprove the idea Linux is secure?
DistroWatch answers: Before talking about the incident with the Arch User Repository, I would like to point out something important about security. Security is not a binary situation, systems are not "secure" or "insecure". Good security is made up of multiple layers.
Computer security is a bit like a castle's defenses. A well defended castle has walls, a moat, guards, arrow slits, a lookout tower, and hopefully holds high ground. These layers of protection, combined, make the castle hard to invade. Removing one of these layers of protection does not negate having the rest. Not all castles have moats or exterior walls, for example, but they could still be difficult to breach if they have enough soldiers, supplies, and are approached over difficult terrain.
My point is it's possible to look at one layer of a castle's (or an operating system's) defenses and say it could be made better, but a problem with just one layer shouldn't be seen as an indication all the layers are worthless.
Getting back to the issue with the AUR, the problem was some build scripts in the AUR were compromised. In fact, several were set up to install malware. Installing software using one of the compromised files would result in the local computer being infected.
One of the aspects of Linux which makes it secure, particularly compared to commercial desktop systems, is its use of vetted repositories of software packages. Having a collection of software that has been tested by developers and reviewed for build issues, strange behaviour, or malicious edits is a strong layer of protection against malware. Having users fetch all of their software from curated, open source repositories is a good way to keep the system safe against one of the most common infection vectors - people downloading and installing software from untrusted sources.
The Arch User Repository (AUR) is not a curated repository containing software verified by Arch developers. It is a collection of build scripts provided by unverified community members. It is a convenient source of a wide range of software, but it offers none of the usual protection offered by official Linux distribution repositories. The AUR is not an official repository and it is not enabled by default for Arch or most Arch-based distributions. It is essentially a lawless "Wild West" situation where builds scripts for virtually anything could be uploaded and modified to pull in untrusted (or malicious) software.
To put it bluntly, anyone who is installing software through the AUR is basically doing the same thing Windows users are doing when they download and install unverified software, and they are taking a similar risk.
With that said, AUR build scripts are viewable. While many people do not bother to review build scripts before running them, they are available and can be viewed as a plain text file. People who are installing compromised packages from the AUR are doing so without reviewing and understanding the build scripts they are running on their machines.
What it really comes down to is that most of the major Linux distributions, by default, use curated repositories which have very rarely been compromised over the 25+ years of their existence. Sticking with your distribution's official repositories is one incredibly good layer of defense against malware. Downloading software from a community repository - such a the AUR (for Arch), Copr (for Fedora), or PPAs (for Ubuntu) - is effectively tearing down the castle walls. It removes one of the most effective layers of protection.
Installing software from one of these community-run repositories and not reading the build scripts to confirm software is coming from legitimate sources is like telling the guards to allow any group of strangers into the castle.
Let's get back to the original question about whether Linux distributions provide secure operating systems. Yes, the major Linux distributions do provide secure environments. However, that doesn't help users who intentionally remove or work around the security measures which are in place. Much the same way most modern cars are relatively safe, but if you remove the seat belts, safety glass, and bumpers they become more dangerous. That's not a problem with the design of the car (or, in our case, the operating system) it is a case of the user removing key layers of protection in order to do something risky.
Fortunately, for people who are in favour of running software provided by the AUR, Linux does have additional layers of protection which can help. Running an isolated container, without access to the user's home directory, and installing software from the AUR inside the container will avoid most potential damage. Likewise, installing software from the AUR into a virtual machine will place a layer of protection between the host operating system and the untrusted software. As an alternatively, a lot of software which has been added to the AUR is not available through other sources, such as sandboxed Flatpak bundles. The security tools exist on Linux, being protected is a matter of choosing to use them when performing risky tasks.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
EasyOS 7.4
Barry Kauler has announced the release of EasyOS 7.4. The new version focuses on polishing classic software options, providing X11 support, fixes for the ROX-filer file manager, and improving video playback by swapping out Celluloid for SMPlayer. "Version 7.4 is a 'milestone' release, consolidating EasyOS as supporting 'legacy' software architectures, including Xlibre X.Org server and GTK2-ng. We are committing to ongoing support, updating and enhancing, of GTK2-based applications, including ROX-Filer, that has undergone many fixes and improvements, such as memory-leak fix, back-forward history buttons, and video thumbnails. We continue to refine and improve the inbuilt package collection, as usual including the 'kitchen sink'. For example, we have replaced the Celluloid media player, which has been troublesome, with SMPlayer and VIDplay (a chromium-based video player). Other refinements include replacing StreamTuner2 Internet radio player with YRadio. Having the "kitchen sink" builtin means that we want to have applications builtin to satisfy 99% of users. One niche area is a simple database application; this gap is now filled by Symphytum. Lots of utility applications have been fixed and improved, including EasyCast screen recorder, DropboxGUI dropbox.com file manager, improved optical drive handling and fixes for pBurn CD/DVD burner app. The list goes on." Aditional information can be found in the release announcement and in the release notes.
FreeBSD 15.1
Colin Percival has announced the release of FreeBSD 15.1, the second release in FreeBSD's latest stable branch: "The FreeBSD Release Engineering team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 15.1-RELEASE. This is the second release of the stable/15 branch. Some of the highlights: the iwlwifi(4) and other LinuxKPI based wireless networking drivers are now based on Linux 7.0; FreeBSD cloud images using packaged base systems now include pkg(8), and support automatic base system package updates on first boot; a new kern.sched.name tunable allows the kernel scheduler to be selected at boot time; significant progress has been made towards complete support for the C23 version of the C programming language; Unicode support has been updated to Unicode 17.0.0 and CLDR 48, adding 4,803 characters. The FreeBSD Project dedicates the FreeBSD 15.1-RELEASE to the memory of Peter G. Neumann, a longtime collaborator with FreeBSD developers on capability-based security...." See the release announcement and the release notes for more information.
Univention Corporate Server 5.2-6
The Univention team have published a new version of the project's Debian-based Univention Corporate Server. The latest release updates handling of group mailboxes and makes it easier to identify objects in the management interface. "The latest patch-level release of Univention Corporate Server bundles all new features and improvements from the past three months onto new installation media. UCS 5.2-6 brings highlights from Univention Nubus such as a new metrics endpoint for improved observability and technical details for directory objects in the Management UI and additions to the mail stack with alternative mail addresses for groups. When analyzing configuration issues or end-user incidents, it is often necessary to access technical information used in the backends, such as the Univention Object Identifier. To simplify the process of matching real names with technical identifiers for users, groups, and any other information stored in the directory service, the Management UI now includes a new section with these identifiers. This is helpful in several scenarios: if a warning or error containing a technical identifier is logged in a backend service, administrators can now search for that identifier directly in the Management UI and easily access the full information about the affected object." Additional details can be found in the release announcement.
Home Assistant OS (HAOS) 18.0
Home Assistant OS, or HAOS for short, has been upgraded to version 18.0. HAOS is an independently-developed, Linux-based operating system optimised to run Home Assistant, an open-source home automation tool. It is available for several popular platforms, including Raspberry Pi and ODROID, as well as generic x86_64 and AArch64 systems. "Home Assistant OS 18.0 is a major release bringing significant updates to all platforms. The Linux kernel has been updated from 6.12 to 6.18 across all targets, Docker has been upgraded to v29.5.3 with containerd v2.2.4, and the underlying Buildroot has been updated to 2025.02.14. Disk images are now significantly faster to flash, the default swap size is now bounded to avoid problems on systems with very low or very high amounts of RAM, and the Raspberry Pi bootloader firmware can now be updated directly from Home Assistant. All users are recommended to update. The Raspberry Pi bootloader (EEPROM) firmware can now be checked and updated directly from Home Assistant OS. Home Assistant Core 2026.7.0 will also expose the firmware as an update entity. Note that updating the firmware is only possible when the system is booted from an SD card, or in general on Raspberry Pi 5 and on Home Assistant Yellow with a CM5." Here are the full release notes as published on the project's GitHub pages.
PorteuX 2.7
The PorteuX project has published a new release, version 2.7. The new release includes updates for several desktop environments, including GNOME, COSMIC, and Plasma. "First of all, apologies for the long delay. There were some upstream issues that were preventing a stable PorteuX release, most notably the ntfs3 kernel driver, now updated to the new ntfs-plus driver, which is faster and hopefully more reliable. Please note that any symlink created on an NTFS partition using ntfs3 will need to be regenerated. There are many exciting changes for this release, including a big round of build flag and stripping improvements for better performance and smaller modules, and many big upstream updates, such as GCC 16.1.0, FFmpeg 8.1.1, KDE Plasma 6.7.0, GNOME 50.2 and Qt 6.11.1. On top of that, many improvements were made to the build pipeline." A list of updates, fixes, and other changes can be found in the distribution's release notes.
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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: 3,454
- Total data uploaded: 50.1TB
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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) |
Installing software from the AUR
This week, in our Questions and Answers section we talked about the Arch User Repository (AUR) and how it provides additional software options for the Arch community, by the Arch community. As we have seen in recent weeks, the AUR can also be an avenue for malicious software since build scripts in the AUR are rarely reviewed. Do you install software from the AUR?
You can see the results of our previous poll on number of command line shells used in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you use the AUR?
| Yes - and continue to use it: | 444 (26%) |
| Yes - I did but am no longer using it: | 508 (30%) |
| No - have never used it: | 719 (42%) |
| No - have not used it but plan to start: | 22 (1%) |
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|
| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
Server outage
As some of our perceptive readers noticed on last Thursday, DistroWatch experienced some technical problems. In this case, "technical problems" is my gentle way of saying our storage array suddenly and dramatically ceased to function. I wasn't in the room at the time of the equipment failure, but I like to imagine sparks and billowing clouds of smoke. At any rate, our web server doesn't run well without working hard drives and we set about trying to fix the issue.
While our hosting provider did have replacement servers on hand, so we could set up a new machine while trying to salvage what we could of the original, we eventually discovered there were some compatibility issues between the offered hardware, some of the tools on offer, and the FreeBSD operating system we planned to run. These things happen, but it delayed us in getting up and running.
After some discussions and a few false starts, we got set up with a new server and began the processes of configuring the new environment, restoring the website from a backup (always keep multiple backups), switching DNS records to the new server, and getting fresh security certificates. By the end of the day we were up and running, or at least enough things were working that people could visit DistroWatch again. We still had behind-the-scenes work to do, but we were making progress.
These sorts of experiences are never fun, but performing these actions remotely while traveling through rural eastern Canada added a degree of complexity. I'm not sure if any of our readers have had the pleasure of troubleshooting security certifications on a smartphone while bouncing through the woods on a bus, but it is a farce of cinematic proportions.
Thank you for your understanding while we get back to normal operations. In particular, we appreciate people reaching out to us to let us know (in the early hours of the local morning) there was a problem and then sending messages of encouragement as we got set up on the new system. It was nice to be cheered on during a busy day.
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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, 29 June 2026. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1181 (2026-07-13): Artix 20260419, making migrating to Linux easier, Google locking down Android, TUXEDO switches to Debian base, Mint improves Cinnamon on Wayland, OpenMandriva recovers from repository deletion, OSNews compares Windows and Linux |
| • Issue 1180 (2026-07-06): FreeBSD 15.1 and rumours of its installer capabilities, tools for running admin commands, Asahi fixes boot issue, reasons to run Gentoo, Ubuntu reverts Rust-based copy command, Astral gets WINE port |
| • Issue 1179 (2026-06-29): PCLinuxOS 2026.05, tips for switching distros, COSMIC gets a new system monitor, Xfce tests new Wayland compositor, FreeBSD developers invite questions |
| • Issue 1178 (2026-06-22): TBLock reviewed, the AUR compromised, Fedora's growing community, reasons to avoid immutable desktop distributions, Ubuntu to get speech-to-text, Canonical updates its beta policy, highlights in Plasma 6.7 |
| • Issue 1177 (2026-06-15): TROMjaro 2026.05.08, Ubuntu MATE updates, Asahi fixes dual-boot issue with macOS 27, AUR infected with malware, setting variables across shells |
| • Issue 1176 (2026-06-08): Redcore Linux 2601, the problem with minimal system requirements, Red Hat account linked to compromised npm repositories, COSMIC to get frosted glass effect, openSUSE shows off system extension manager, Origami merges with RakuOS |
| • Issue 1175 (2026-06-01): PineTab2 with various distros, less common words of wisdom, Canonical shutting down Ubuntu's Pastebin, Murena nears 100k users, DistroWatch turns 25 |
| • Issue 1174 (2026-05-25): Solus 4.9, Linux tablets, Haiku boots on Apple M1 machines, Fedora drops Deepin packages, Mint improves Nemo performance |
| • Issue 1173 (2026-05-18): Sylve on FreeBSD, the benefit of BleachBit, Debian commits to reproducible builds, Debian publishes updated install media, Haiku introduces SMP support on ARM64 processors, Rocky Linux creates opt-in security repository, Fedora reconsiders AI tools, KDE receives generous donation |
| • Issue 1172 (2026-05-11): Fedora 44, dealing with extra fonts, Fedora plans to provide AI tools, problems with Ubuntu's new coreutils, TrueNAS extends its development cycle, postmarktetOS improves the boot splash screen, Redox ports tmux |
| • Issue 1171 (2026-05-04): Xubuntu 26.04, extending memory with VRAM, Ubuntu plans AI features, Devuan developer forks GTK2, Mint introduces hardware enablement builds, Linux running on a PlayStation 5, local kernel exploit found in Linux |
| • Issue 1170 (2026-04-27): ENux 5.2.1, picking a second distro, AlmaLinux expands CPU support, FreeBSD publishes Status Report, Ubuntu MATE skips 26.04 release |
| • Issue 1169 (2026-04-20): Lakka 6.1, free software and source-based distributions, FreeBSD Foundation publishes compatible laptop list, Debian holds Project Leader election, Haiku progresses ARM64 port, Mint to extend development cycle, Linux 7.0 released |
| • Issue 1168 (2026-04-13): pearOS 2026.03, EndeavourOS 2026.03.06, which distros are adopting age verification, Arch adjusts its firewall packages, Linux dropping i486 support, Red Hat extends its release cycle, Debian's APT introduces rollbacks, Redox improves its scheduler |
| • Issue 1167 (2026-04-06): Origami Linux 2026.03, answering questions for Linux newcomers, Ubuntu MATE seeking new contributors, Ubuntu software centre is expanding Deb support, FreeBSD fixes forum exploit, openSUSE 15 Leap nears its end of life |
| • Issue 1166 (2026-03-30): NetBSD jails, publishing software for Linux, Ubuntu joins Rust Foundation, Canonical plans to trim GRUB features, Peppermint works on new utilities, PINE64 shows off open hardware capabilities |
| • Issue 1165 (2026-03-23): Argent Linux 1.5.3, disk space required by Linux, Manjaro team goes on strike, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA driver support and builds RISC-V packages, systemd introduces age tracking |
| • Issue 1164 (2026-03-16): d77void, age verification laws and Linux, SUSE may be for sale, TrueNAS takes its build system private, Debian publishes updated Trixie media, MidnightBSD and System76 respond to age verification laws |
| • Issue 1163 (2026-03-09): KaOS 2026.02, TinyCore 17.0, NuTyX 26.02.2, Would one big collection of packages help?, Guix offers 64-bit Hurd options, Linux communities discuss age delcaration laws, Mint unveils new screensaver for Cinnamon, Redox ports new COSMIC features |
| • Issue 1162 (2026-03-02): AerynOS 2026.01, anti-virus and firewall tools, Manjaro fixes website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating a map app |
| • Issue 1161 (2026-02-23): The Guix package manager, quick Q&As, Gentoo migrating its mirrors, Fedora considers more informative kernel panic screens, GhostBSD testing alternative X11 implementation, Asahi makes progress with Apple M3, NetBSD userland ported, FreeBSD improves web-based system management |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Full list of all issues |
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GenieOS
GenieOS was a desktop-oriented Linux distribution based on the stable Debian GNU/Linux at the time of release. However, GenieOS attempts to be more user-friendly by limiting the system to a selected number of packages and enhancing it with many useful, but non-free applications and plugins, such as those required for viewing encrypted DVDs, Flash and Java browser plugins, and MPlayer with support for many popular audio formats. GenieOS includes the GNOME and KDE desktop environments.
Status: Discontinued
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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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