Operating Systems News Archives

With the various Linux distributions derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we're beginning to see more features to distinguish between them rather than just "RHEL clones". It was just days ago talking about AlmaLinux restoring old hardware support that's been deprecated by upstream Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Now over on the Rocky Linux side, CIQ as the principal organization behind them is rolling out support for upstream Linux kernels.

AlmaLinux 9.4 Beta is out today for this popular community-oriented Linux distribution derived from upstream Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Besides pulling in the RHEL 9.4 Beta changes, AlmaLinux 9.4 also restores hardware support for some devices that was deprecated by upstream RHEL.

While the Gentoo Foundation has long existed, to reduce the organizational complexity and overhead as well as becoming effectively a tax deductible non-profit at the US federal level, Gentoo Linux has become an associated project with Software in the Public Interest (SPI).

Linux Mint is working on providing "ultra fast" repositories for users obtaining system updates and installing new packages on this popular desktop Linux distribution derived from Ubuntu.

CachyOS as a reminder is the Arch Linux based distribution focused on providing a very performant out-of-the-box experience and supports x86-64-v3 and x86-64-v4 packages along with other default changes compared to upstream Arch Linux. The April 2024 ISO release of CachyOS is now available for those wanting to enjoy a fresh spin of this rolling-release, performance-tuned platform.

In their March status update, the Linux Mint team shares more details on their forthcoming Linux Mint 22 release that will be based off Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

Ikey Doherty's Serpent OS Linux distribution project is hoping to be able to ship their pre-Alpha ISOs in a matter of weeks as they continue bringing up the initial desktop experience and getting more of their operating system's build tools into good shape.

The open-source Rust-written Redox OS has enjoyed "significant" performance and correctness improvements to its kernel recently as it further shows off the capability of this from-scratch OS.

Besides its desktop-level customizations, further differentiating System76's Pop!_OS Linux distribution from its Ubuntu LTS package base is the tendency to roll down newer versions of the upstream Linux kernel once validated across System76's portfolio of laptops and desktops. The latest on that front is Pop!_OS now shipping with the fresh Linux 6.8 stable series.

LibreELEC as the Linux distribution that aims to be just enough of an operating system for bringing up Kodi for HTPC / multimedia needs, the LibreELEC 12 "Omega" Beta 1 release is available today for further improving this media center focused Linux OS.

OpenMediaVault 7.0 was released today as a major update to this open-source Network Attached Storage (NAS) solution built around Debian Linux. This plug-based NAS platform with web UI allows supporting a variety of services/protocols is now even more capable with the OpenMediaVault 7.0 availability.

The Rust-written Redox OS is out with a new monthly status report to outline the enhancements made to this open-source operating system during the month of February.

Ikey Doherty's Serpent OS Linux distribution continues being raised and over the past month made progress on packaging up various GNOME 45 desktop components, working on stateless system support with systemd, and other features.

Distrobox is the open-source software making it easy to run any Linux distribution inside your terminal by leveraging Podman, Docker, or Lilipod for containerizing the Linux distribution of your choice. Distrobox works well with a range of Linux distros and has developed quite a following. Out now is Distrobox 1.7 with yet more improvements to this innovative software.

CachyOS 240224 was released today for this Arch Linux derived desktop distribution that focuses on being a "blazingly fast and customizable Linux distribution" with a variety of desktop options, employing LTO and other optimizations for packages, optional x86-64-v3 binaries, and other tuning to make for a speedy out-of-the-box Linux experience.

A new blog post was posted by the Redox OS team that is working on their Rust-written micro-kernel designed open-source operating system. Their latest post lays out their porting strategy for getting more Linux and BSD user-space software running on this Rust-based OS.

Gentoo ended out last year by beginning to optionally provide binary packages for direct installation. This lowers the barrier for using Gentoo Linux and also works out well for low-end/embedded systems rather than always compiling source packages locally. They've now taken their binary position a step further by also offering up x86-64-v3 packages.

The Rust-based Redox OS open-source project has published a new blog post outlining some of their recent accomplishments as well as a look ahead to other technical adventures planned for this year.

You may recall from a few months back that the "open-source Windows" project ReactOS was going to be working on improving its GUI setup/installation. Progress is indeed being made there as shared in the latest ReactOS blog entry around further enhancing its GUI installer as an alternative to the text-mode setup.

While a number of Linux distributions are experimenting with x86-64-v2 baselines or offering x86-64-v3 optimized packages for assuming AVX/AVX2 support by default for their packages, the CachyOS Linux distribution has been experimenting with offering x86-64-v4 packages for those running on Intel or AMD systems with AVX-512 support.

The Gentoo Linux project published a 2023 retrospective on Monday that outlines their ongoing high level of development, gaining three new developers over the past calendar year, and various initiatives embarked on by the developers.

Released earlier this month was Linux Mint 21.3 and out-of-the-box it continues to run on the Linux 5.15 LTS kernel... Quite old at this point and was the Ubuntu 22.04 default for which Linunx Mint 21 is based. For those unable to boot Linux Mint 21.3 due to running on newer AMD/Intel hardware or other platform compatibility issues, the Linux Mint 21.3 EDGE ISOs are now published that utilize Linux 6.5 by default.

Serpent OS as the latest Linux distribution project of well known developer Ikey Doherty is off to a great start for 2024. Following all their Rust infrastructure work last year, that infrastructure work has continued while also taking on new challenges for the new year.

The developers behind the Genode open-source operating system framework have shared their 2024 road-map of new features they hope to accomplish this calendar year.

Linux Mint 21.3 is now available for the latest version of this easy-to-use, beginner-friendly desktop Linux distribution that is currently built atop an Ubuntu 22.04 LTS package base.

The Solus 4.5 Linux distribution is out today as a big update to this original distro that is known for its Budgie desktop environment and other innovations over the years. Solus 4.5 brings some pretty big changes this time around and a nice step forward over Solus 4.4 from a half-year ago.

Given the pace of hardware support and improvements these days, it's rather sad Linux Mint 21.3 continues to default to the Linux 5.15 LTS kernel that is the non-HWE default of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS for which the operating system is based. But at least Linux Mint 21.3 EDGE ISOs are being rolled out to make Linux 6.2 easily available for those with newer hardware support requirements.

The Gentoo Linux project's Portage package manager has long supported the ability to deal with binary packages while moving forward they are finally leveraging that to offer binary packages for download and direct installation.

Ikey Doherty who is known for his work starting Solus Linus as well as the Budgie desktop while also formerly working on Intel's Clear Linux and other open-source software contributions has most recently been working on his newest endeavour: Serpent OS. A end-of-year development summary has now been posted that outlines the latest work on this Linux distribution.

Linux Mint 21.3 beta is now available for testing as this latest Ubuntu-based, desktop-focused Linux distribution.

Alpine Linux 3.19 has been released as the newest feature update to this lightweight Linux distribution employing Busybox and libc.

AlmaLinux's ELevate software is a wonderful utility to help ease migration between existing major versions of RHEL derivatives. In particular, it's been very useful for moving past CentOS 7 and/or upgrading from AlmaLinux 8 to 9, along with the ability to even move to other RHEL derivatives.

Armbian 23.11 was released this week as the decade-old Linux distribution project focused on providing good Arm single board computer support.

Over four years after the debut of OpenMandriva Lx 4.0 and in the interim since also working on the ROME rolling-release platform, OpenMandriva Lx 5.0 finally debuted today.

The ReactOS project today published their latest newesletter that outlines development progress made in recent months for this open-source operating system project striving for binary compatibility with Windows device drivers and application/user-space software.

Tucked away within the October 2023 monthly status updates for the Linux Mint project is word they have begun working on their Wayland support.

OpenWrt 23.05 has been released as the newest feature release for this embedded Linux distribution that is popular for use on networking devices.

Redox OS, the open-source Rust-written operating system led by developer Jeremy Soller, has been drafting some exciting plans for the rest of this year and moving into 2024.

The Linux Mint project has released an "Edge" ISO of Linux Mint 21.2 that is intended for users of new PC hardware where it's unable to boot the current Linux Mint release due to its older kernel version.

ReactOS Deutschland e.V. has hired a longtime contributor to this "open-source Windows" project to spend the next five months working on the ReactOS GUI setup mode as an alternative to their classic text-based setup mode.

Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 6 has been released as the latest version of this Linux Mint derivative that is based on upstream Debian rather than Ubuntu.

As part of the effort for enabling UEFI support with ReactOS, an open-source operating system re-implementing binary compatibility with Microsoft Windows, a development build of ReactOS is up and running on Valve's Steam Deck handheld game console.

Linux Mint Debian Edition 6 "LMDE 6" is now available in beta form for this desktop Linux distribution spin from the Linux Mint crew derived directly from Debian packages rather than Ubuntu.

Manjaro 23.0 "Uranos" has been released as the latest version of this desktop-focused Linux distribution built atop Arch Linux.

Armbian 23.08 is out as the latest quarterly update to this Debian-based Linux distribution optimized for use on Arm single board computers and other devices.

For those with extra time over the US Labor Day holiday weekend, Linux From Scratch 12 has been published for those wishing to hand-roll their own Linux system build from source. Linux From Scratch 12.0 is accompanied by the Beyond Linux From Scratch (BLFS) 12.0 release too, including the systemd variant, for further extending LFS installations with more packages.

The CentOS ISA special interest group (SIG) has been evaluating the performance of CentOS Stream in the event its x86_64 baseline were to be raised from x86-64-v2 to x86-64-v3. Currently CentOS Stream 9 targets x86-64-v2 but in upping the support requirements to x86-64-v3, it would allow the ability to engage AVX/AVX2 by default and make use of other newer instruction set features. The x86-64-v3 baseline roughly correlates to Intel / AMD CPUs from 2015 and newer.

Thanks to this year's Google Summer of Code (GSoC), a student developer took the initiative in working on an automated Gentoo Linux system updater to help begineers and ease the roll-out of security updates to users.

While the release cycle dragged on for several extra months, available this weekend is the release of Mageia 9 for this Linux distribution long ago derived from Mandriva that in turn was an evolution going back to the glorious Mandrake days. Mageia 9 is a nice update pulling in many package updates along with other fundamental changes like shifting to SQLite for its RPM package database.

OpenMandriva developers today formally announced the release of their rolling-release OpenMandriva ROME 23.08 Linux OS installation images, which are also being treated as a release candidate for the OMLx 5.0 non-rolling distribution variant. Making OpenMandriva ROME 23.08 more exciting is that they are now offering separate install media as well that features the KDE Plasma 6 desktop environment in its current experimental state but is being offered by OpenMandriva as a "technical preview" around the future direction of the desktop.