DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 858, 23 March 2020

Feature Story (by Joshua Allen Holm)

Anarchy Linux 1.0.10 Anarchy Linux is an Arch-based distribution that provides a custom installation script designed to quickly configure and install Arch. The Anarchy Linux ISO is 665MB and the installation process requires an Internet connection to download packages. Basically, Anarchy fully automates many steps of the Arch install process. Selecting options in Anarchy's installer is all that is required to get a system up and running. Most of the steps in the text-mode installer are the same as the ones presented when installing almost any Linux distribution, but Anarchy does provide more customization options when it comes to software selection and configuration.





Anarchy Linux 1.0.10 -- Menu with installer and other options

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The Anarchy installer provides a wealth of options, but the five main choices are: Anarchy-Desktop, Anarchy-Desktop LTS, Anarchy-Server, Anarchy-Server LTS, and Anarchy-Advanced. The difference between the LTS and non-LTS options are mainly which version of the Linux kernel gets installed. The LTS options use version 5.4.x of the kernel. The non-LTS versions use the latest version of the kernel (when I was working on this review, that was version 5.5.x, but 5.6.x will probably be what is current by the time you are reading this). The Desktop options provide a choice of five customized desktop environments: Budgie, Cinnamon, GNOME, Openbox, and Xfce. The Server options do not install a desktop environment and provide a very bare-bones default selection of software. The Advanced mode lets the user pick options far beyond what is offered by either of the other installation styles.





Anarchy Linux 1.0.10 -- Installation options

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For this review, I will look at desktop installations with GNOME and Xfce, a server installation, and a GNOME desktop installed using the extra options available in the advanced installer. This barely scratches the surface of the many, many different ways an Anarchy Linux system can be configured using the installer, but I hope that it will provide a decent overview of the options. I should also note that Anarchy, like Arch itself, is a rolling release, so things are constantly changing. It is possible that issues I had during my experience are already fixed by the time you read this, and it is also possible that new issues have developed.



Anarchy Desktop



I started by trying out Anarchy in VirtualBox, and the first time I tried to install it I ran into problems. The version of the package Anarchy was trying to install to enable VirtualBox support was not available on the mirror the installer was selecting (the package had just been updated in Arch, so the mirror had a newer package than what the installer was looking for based on what a different package required) which caused the entire installation to fail. This issue fixed itself in a few hours when the mirrors were completely updated, but an installation process failing completely because one package was not available after three attempts to download it was not a good first impression. I would have a repeat of this issue a few days later when I tried to install the GNOME desktop and the Epiphany package on the mirror selected was, again, the "wrong" version.





Anarchy Linux 1.0.10 -- Desktop options

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Aside from those two flukes, the Anarchy installation process worked well. The Desktop and Desktop LTS options provide an installation process not much different from the installation of other distributions. The installer prompts the user to configure language, keyboard layout, location, partition the hard drive, set up a user, and other basic configure options. The only major choice presented is which of the five desktop options to install. The options, as noted above, are Budgie, Cinnamon, GNOME, Openbox, and Xfce, and all the options provide a decent selection of software. However, not all software package selections are equal; the GNOME desktop option provides a ton of software, including almost all GNOME games and utilities, but Xfce did not pre-install nearly as much software. Xfce had a browser, LibreOffice, and software for performing many tasks, but seemed to be missing some basic utilities. The default PDF viewer on the Xfce desktop was LibreOffice Draw. Evince (or any other option) was not installed.





Anarchy Linux 1.0.10 -- Customized Xfce desktop

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The Desktop installer lets the user install additional software as a step after installing the desktop, but it does not identify which packages are already installed by the desktop environment. For example, both GNOME and Xfce come with LibreOffice, but LibreOffice, like all the other software listed, is unchecked in the list of options, so the first time I tried the GNOME desktop, I opted to "install" additional software that was already included as part of the base package selection. On all of my subsequent installations, I skipped the additional software step and installed software post-reboot, which I could do with the GUI package manager provided by the desktop environment I had selected. In the case of GNOME, the GUI package management tools were GNOME Software and GNOME Packages.





Anarchy Linux 1.0.10 -- GNOME desktop with Terminal showing zsh plugin error

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All of the customized desktop options provide Anarchy-specific tweaks. These tend to be the same across all the desktops, so all five of the options provide experiences that are identifiable as Anarchy Linux, which is great for branding. However, I did not like some of the choices made by the developers. The icon set, coloring, and default background were fine, but the font used for the interface text, Zekton, is way too hard to read. It looks cool, but it is not a font that I want to spend all day looking at. Thankfully, the document and monospace font used in the terminal are more traditional and easier to read.



Anarchy Server



Unlike the Desktop option, the Server option is very, very frustrating. I selected the defaults for most steps, configured a user, and let the installer install the packages it wanted, but I did not add any additional packages. When I rebooted the virtual machine and logged in, the system complained because the .zshrc file could not find the hostname program. When I tried to use the pacman package manager to install the package with hostname in it, I found that the network connection was not enabled. Rather than try to fix this by enabling the network connection, I opted to reinstall the system from scratch to see if I happened to miss something during the installation process. Unfortunately, I did not miss anything, so before I rebooted the system, I used the "Anarchy-Chroot Into Installed System" option to install the packages that provided hostname and nmtui, so I could solve the hostname issue and easily enable the network interface.



Once I had a system that worked without showing any errors, I had a server installation that worked, but the experience was nothing special. It was a typical GUI-less Linux installation that used zsh as its default shell. I could install packages using pacman or yay, a wrapper with AUR support. The system worked, and I could install and configure various services, but the experience was just ordinary. I like the Anarchy Desktop experience, but was not impressed by the Server experience. Broken installation issues aside, the Server option just does not offer enough to recommend it over something like CentOS or Debian.



Anarchy Advanced



Now that I had a feel for how Anarchy worked, I opted for a bare-metal installation for my test of the Advanced installation option. This is where Anarchy gets interesting. The Desktop/Desktop LTS options pick sane defaults for many options, but the Advanced installer lets the user pick from several advanced options to build the system the user wants. The kernel can be the vanilla (newest) version, long-term support, hardened, or zen. The default shell can be bash, dash, fish, mksh, tcsh, or zsh. The bootloader can be GRUB (which is used by the Desktop/Server installations), syslinux, systemd-boot, or efistub. Networking can be handled by Network Manager or netctl. There are way more desktop options in the Advanced mode. In addition to the five customized desktops available in the Desktop install option, there are non-customized versions of those five desktops and several more options. If there is a major desktop environment packaged for Arch, there is a good chance it is included in Anarchy's extensive list of desktop options.





Anarchy Linux 1.0.10 -- Customized GNOME desktop showing GNOME Tweaks font options

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For my bare-metal install I opted for the vanilla kernel, zsh with Oh-My-Zsh as the zsh configuration option, systemd-boot, Network Manager, and a non-customized GNOME with GDM as the login display manager. The installation process worked perfectly on the first try, so, thankfully, I was not stuck with a non-working laptop while I waiting for the mirrors to sort themselves out. When I rebooted, the system booted quickly and almost everything was configured correctly. My hardware all worked, but on the software side, there was a minor issue with zsh complaining about not being able to find the zsh-syntax-highlighting plugin. This should have been correctly configured when I picked the zsh and Oh-My-Zsh option during install, but it was not. However, that is the only issue I ran across when using the system. Aside from that one minor issue, I had a well configured Arch Linux-based system that I was able to set up in under 30 minutes by just selecting options and entering options in the Anarchy installer. Anarchy Linux is not perfect, but it does do a good job of making Arch super easy to install.



Final thoughts



Anarchy Linux is a good way to quickly get Arch installed and configured. I have some issues with some of the customization choices made in the customized desktops, and not all the desktop options are equal, but the Desktop and Desktop LTS options do provide a good experience. The installer could fail a little more cleanly when it cannot download a package, but when the installer works, it works well. However, the Server and Server LTS options need work. Finally, the Advanced option works great (though the same "fails completely when it cannot download a package" issue also applies here) and is perfect for users who want to customize an Arch install without having to do all the work by hand. Overall, Anarchy Linux a good distribution that needs just a little more polish, which, hopefully, will come as more people use Anarchy and file bug reports. * * * * * Hardware used in this review



My physical test equipment for this review was an ASUS VivoBook E406MA laptop with the following specifications: Processor: Intel Pentium Silver N5000 CPU

Storage: 64GB eMMC

Memory: 4GB of RAM

Networking: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter

Display: Intel UHD Graphics 605 * * * * * Visitor supplied rating



Anarchy Linux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9.3/10 from 6 review(s).

Have you used Anarchy Linux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.





Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith)

Manjaro becomes Pinebook Pro's default OS, Debian Project Leader election begins, IPFire introduces kernel module signing, Qubes plans a separate GUI domain The PINE64 team have published a blog post in which they talk about updates to their Pinebook Pro laptops and offer news about the PinePhone mobile device. One of the new developments is the Pinebook Pro ARM-powered laptop will ship with Manjaro Linux as the default operating system. " We're excited and proud to announce that future Pinebook Pros will ship with Manjaro KDE as the default operating system. Pre-orders for the next production run of Pinebook Pros starts on March 18, 2020 with an estimated shipping date of early May, 2020 (once Hong Kong border opens to our shipping staff). The image that ships with the upcoming Pinebook Pro batch features an additional layer of polish, which extends to a custom set of wallpapers and tweaks to the default application list to include popular software. If you are a Manjaro enthusiast, then I probably don't need to convince you any further, and if you haven't gotten a chance to try Manjaro yet then I suspect you'll really enjoy the out-of-the-box experience. Speaking of the out of the box experience, Manjaro ships with an OEM setup / installer that allows you to set your username and password as well as choose your keyboard layout and system locale on initial boot. " * * * * * Once per year the Debian team votes to decide who will be the project's next leader. Debian is one of the world's largest distributions in terms of developers and maintains a massive collection of software which is used by dozens of distributions, meaning the decisions Debian developers make can cause ripples throughout the Linux community. There are three candidates in the 2020 election: Jonathan Carter, Sruthi Chandran, and Brian Gupta. Their platforms are presented on the Debian website. Voting for these three candidates will happen in April. * * * * * The IPFire team is taking pro-active security measures when it comes to protecting the kernel. One of the approaches IPFire is introducing is kernel code signing to verify that the kernel has not been maliciously altered. " In IPFire 2.25 - Core Update 142, we are now cryptographically signing all kernel modules. That means every time a driver for a network adapter, a filesystem driver or other kernel module is loaded into the kernel, it is checked that this signature matches. The signature is added during compile time of the kernel and after we are done with that, we throw the key away. Nobody needs it any more. Nobody - not even we - have now the ability to change the kernel any more. The only way to change a line of code somewhere is to rebuild and re-ship the whole kernel. " Further details are available in the distribution's blog post. * * * * * Qubes OS is a security-oriented operating system which mitigates security issues through strong isolation of components into separate domains. The project is introducing a new domain for graphical components. " One of the Big Things coming soon, in Qubes 4.1, is the first public version of the GUI domain: the next step in decoupling the graphical hardware, the display and management, and the host system. Very briefly, the GUI domain is a qube separate from dom0 that handles all the display-related tasks and some system management. Why make a GUI domain at all? One of the biggest security concerns at the moment for Qubes is how much power is in dom0. Once a person has access to it, they can do anything: and while we separate it quite effectively from what is running inside application qubes, dom0 is still a big, bloated and complex domain that performs many disparate functions. It handles managing other domains, display and graphical interfaces, multiple devices (including audio devices), memory and disk management, and so on. We mitigate many of the GUI-related risks (like the powers wielded by the window manager, or the fact that huge, complex libraries such as Qt/GTK are always an increased attack surface) through compartmentalization. " The project's blog post offers further details on the new GUI domain. * * * * * These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.





Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith)

Performance impact from installing dependencies and installing alternative package versions Adding-more-stuff asks: When I go to install WINE I am prompted to add a bunch of 32-bit dependencies. Will adding all these extra libraries slow down my machine? If not, why?



DistroWatch answers: Under most circumstances installing additional packages on your operating system will not slow down your distribution. The extra packages will take up disk space, but do not consume processor cycles just sitting on the disk. Installing these 32-bit libraries will use up a little storage space, but they will not be running or consuming memory (at least not most of the time) and your operating system will continue to run at the same speed.



There are just a few situations in which installing more software packages will slow down a distribution. For instance, if your hard drive is nearing its storage capacity and you add more software, the operating system may struggle to find room to write new files or the drive may become fragmented. This can slow down the system, but it should only happen if your drive is already very close to being full.



Should you wish to check how much storage space you have remaining on your system to make sure you are not near the limit, run the following command in a terminal: df -h / Assuming the amount of space being used on the partition is less than 80% it is unlikely you will run into any performance problems.



The other scenario in which installing new packages can slow down a system is when the package includes a service that runs in the background. For example, if you installed a file indexing service or a web server on your computer and it gets enabled automatically. In those situations the service runs quietly in the background, sometimes consuming your CPU's resources. In that case the system can slow down. However, installing most dependencies, like those used by WINE, should not include any new services you need to worry about. * * * * * Wanting-a-different-version asks: I'm thinking that with a lot of distros, that either they're way behind in their application version, like Linux Mint still providing only qBittorrent 4.03 when it's now at 4.2.1, or providing a version that you kind of wish that you didn't have to upgrade to that version. At least with Windows, you can choose which version to install or go back to. With Linux, unless you're compiling it yourself, there seems to be less options. In Gentoo, I think I'd just have to install the very latest version, which I don't necessarily want to do because I like something to be out in the wild for a while to see if other people are having bad reactions to it. Are there some distros you know of where a person has more freedom to choose which application version?



DistroWatch answers: First, I'd like to point out that the issue you are describing, being stuck on a distribution's specific version of a package, is not a reflection on a limitation of a Linux distribution to only run one version. What we have here is a matter of most distributions choosing to ship with one version of a package to make it easier to trouble-shoot and get working with other software. There isn't anything about Linux which limits you to running a specific version of an application. The "one version" limitation you are seeing is a matter of what people get if they stick with only using curated packages from their distribution. However, there is nothing preventing people from installing alternative versions from other sources, which is essentially what people who run Windows are typically doing - running third-party packages they download from a website rather than the version from an official application store.



With that out of the way, let's look at a handful of approaches you can take with Linux to install alternative versions of applications, without compiling the program from its source code.



One thing you can do is look into Fedora's modularity feature. It is specifically designed to allow users to run alternative versions of applications while still using the distribution's official software repositories.



If Fedora is not to your liking, then most of the major distributions offer backport repositories. Fixed release distributions tend to ship with older versions of software, as you noted with Linux Mint and its qBittorrent package. However, many distributions also offer newer versions of packages through optional repositories. These add-on repositories can typically be enabled through the package manager and offer optional newer versions of software.



Another option is to use portable package formats. Flatpak, Snap, and AppImage bundles are often provided by upstream application developers and provide the Windows-style approach of installing whatever version of software you want, typically from a third-party. Application developers usually release these software bundles either on their websites or through portals such as Flathub.



Should you find yourself using a member of the Ubuntu family, like Linux Mint, you can often find alternative versions of software for your distribution through a personal package archive (PPA). These are mini repositories of software that are built to provide alternative or experimental versions of applications for your distribution. You can often find PPAs on Launchpad. For example, if you visit the qBittorrent website, their download page provides instructions for enabling their official PPA on Ubuntu and Linux Mint, which offers newer stable versions of the application.



In cases where you are using a more cutting edge distribution, such as Gentoo or a member of the Arch Linux family, you can install a new version of an application and then "pin" or "lock" it using your package manager. This causes the package to no longer get updated, letting you stick with the version you like for as long as you want. * * * * * Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.





Released Last Week

Emmabuntüs DE3-1.01



Emmabuntüs is a lightweight, Debian-based distribution featuring the Xfce desktop. the project's latest release is Emmabuntüs Debian Edition (DE) 3-1.01. The latest version is based on Debian 10.3 and includes a number of fixes. " This Debian Edition 1.01 version includes the following features, fixes and enhancements: Based on Debian 10.3 Buster. Added additional soundtracks in French for Mr-Patate43. Added OpenBoard. Added open-vm-tools-desktop. Added Minetest. Added monitor monitoreDP-1 configuration. Added a screen tearing fixed script for Intel/AMD cards. Improved explanations of post-installation windows following the review of DistroWatch. Improved management of Cairo-dock icons. Improved accessibility of windows. Improvement of start-up time in live mode. Fixed icons for information on updating packages for Revival-blue and Moka themes. Fixed network share via Samba. Fixed XScreenSaver slideshow launch. Updated of HPLip 3.19.12, TurboPrint 2.49-1, Multisystem 1.0442, Firefox ESR 68.5.0, Thunderbird 68.5.0. " Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.



FuryBSD 12.1



FuryBSD, a desktop-oriented operating system featuring the Xfce and KDE Plasma desktops, has been updated to version 12.1. The ISO images were actually released to SourceForge on March 8, but the release announcement was only published on the project's website today: " New FuryBSD 12.1 images are available for Xfce and KDE. This new release is now based on FreeBSD 12.1 with the latest FreeBSD quarterly packages. This brings Xfce up to 4.14, and KDE up to 5.17. In addition to updates, these new ISO images mostly address community bugs, community enhancement requests and community pull requests. Changelog: clean-up leftover union dir after install to disk; make sure furybsd-xorg-tool installs the right version for nvidia-driver-390; add nvidia-driver (latest) category to fury-xorg-tool; restore beastie menu and default timeout on live media; add updating documentation; update packages on ISO images to FreeBSD quarterly branch branches/2020Q1; make root mount read write on live image; update ISO image to 12.1 (latest FreeBSD 12.1-p2).... "



Linux Mint 4 "LMDE"



The Linux Mint team have published a new version of the distribution's Debian-based branch. The new release, Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 4, is based on Debian 10 and ships with the Cinnamon desktop. " This new version of LMDE contains many improvements. Here are some of the main ones: Automated partitioning with support for LVM and full-disk encryption. Home directory encryption. Support for automated installation of NVIDIA drivers. NVMe support. Secure Boot support. Btrfs sub-modules support. Revamped installer. Automatic installation of microcode packages. Automatic resolution bump for the live session to a minimum of 1024x768 in VirtualBox. Linux Mint 19.3 improvements (HDT, Boot-repair, System reports, language settings, HiDPI and artwork improvements, new boot menus, Celluloid, Gnote, Drawing, Cinnamon 4.4, XApp status icons, etc). APT recommends enabled by default. Removed deb-multimedia repository and packages. Debian 10 Buster package base with backports repository. " Further details can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.





Linux Mint 4 "LMDE" -- Running the Cinnamon desktop

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* * * * * Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases

Berry Linux 1.32

Fedora 32-beta (Announcement)

Devuan 3.0.0-beta (Announcement)

Volumio 2.729

AUSTRUMI 4.1.8

IPFire 2.25-core142

Android-x86 8.1-r4

Bluestar Linux 5.5.9

Whonix 15.0.0.9.4

KDE neon 20200319

PCLinuxOS 2020.03

Archman GNU/Linux 2020.03 "GNOME"

Torrent Corner

Upcoming Releases and Announcements

Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith)

The EarlyOOM service in Fedora 32 One of the new features being tested in Fedora 32 Beta is EarlyOOM. The EarlyOOM service monitors the system's RAM and swap space consumption. When the operating system begins to run low on memory, EarlyOOM can step in and terminate memory-heavy processes, freeing up memory for the rest of the system. This should prevent situations where programs are constantly being swapped in and out of memory, slowing down the system and causing the user interface to become unresponsive.



What do you think of EarlyOOM? Is it a welcome new feature, something you already use, or something you are likely to disable?



You can see the results of our previous poll on the position of your distro on our PHR chart in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.



The EarlyOOM service in Fedora 32



I already use EarlyOOM and like it: 26 (3%) I look forward to trying EarlyOOM: 313 (38%) I have tried EarlyOOM and do not like it: 11 (1%) I have not tried EarlyOOM and do not want it: 347 (42%) Other: 130 (16%)