October 22, 2024

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January 27, 2024 | MakuluLinux

MakuluLinux LinDoz Offers Windows Comfort Zone | Review – TechNewsWorld

After a long delay, a new MakuluLinux LinDoz release is pending last-minute finishing touches and is a week — if not days — away, according to developer Jacque Montague Raymer.

Over the last few months, I have been testing what is now the final build of a new upgrade designed to make using Linux easier than ever. I have reviewed a variety of different desktop versions of MakuluLinux since this Linux newcomer debuted a few years ago.

Recently, I discussed with Raymer the trials and tribulations he faced in maintaining and advancing his Linux line of distros. He revealed a process that no doubt is similar to what confronts many software developers who step into the crowded and financially challenging field of Linux operating system creation. Woven into our conversation is a preview of the next Linux thing.

MakuluLinux is a partial rolling-release operating system that debuted in 2015 with a different approach to implementing Linux OS features. The last few years have brought considerable change and new development to this Linux family.

Family History

The LinDoz distro uses Microsoft Windows themes integrated with superior Linux functionality. It provides a comfortable, familiar computing platform for those looking for an easy-to-use alternative to the Windows OS platform. It runs a heavily tweaked version of the Cinnamon desktop.

The MakuluLinux Theme Manager offers a choice of Microsoft Windows-style layouts along with other configuration options. The Desktop Clock Color Scheme lets you switch between light or dark clock applet displays with a single click to match the selected background image.

The LinDoz and Flash distros have been solid performers since MakuluLinux arrived in 2015. Along the way, Raymer rebuilt them. He completely reworked the distros. Flash runs a strongly tweaked iteration of the Xfce desktop. Core is an innovative distro he introduced early last year.

The Core distro has a totally radical desktop design built on a homegrown user interface centered around a spinwheel-style circular menu display. MakuluLinux Core was something entirely new.

All three distros blended Microsoft Windows traits and Linux functionality into one solid Linux OS. They are not Microsoft Windows clones. LinDoz is designed to make Windows users feel comfortable transitioning to a Linux operating system, according to Raymer. Longtime Linux users also praise MakuluLinux’s different approach.

“There is just enough Windows in LinDoz for them to feel comfortable, but it is all Linux under the hood, Raymer told LinuxInsider.

Planning to Re-Plan

Previous versions of MakuluLinux LinDoz were based on the Debian Testing branch. Raymer, who previously lived in South Africa and relocated to Da Nang, Viet Nam, decided to retool LinDoz to be based on Ubuntu Linux.

That process slowed down the new build. So did discussions by his team about the future directional path. Up for discussion was potentially dropping one or more of the distros.

The release schedule delays were, in part, the result of deciding first to rebuild the in-house Constructor Tool packaged with the distros. Another cause was the need to resolve changes to the Calamares graphic interface installer that open-source community members made to the installer in December.

The last-minute change was crucial because MakuluLinux uses the Calamares installer. Until the rebuild of LinDoz on a Ubuntu base and a port to a Debian base was completed, new releases for the Flash and Core distros would remain on hold as well.

The Linux development world is made up of many small software communities dedicated to specific distributions. Most are not larger business organizations, the likes of Canonical, Red Hat, or Linux Mint. Limited time and money often impede progress.

Maintaining and upgrading releases is often a time-consuming and thankless job that never ends. Raymer found himself at such a crossroads. He had the potential to pursue a spinoff software creation at the expense of continuing his diversified operating systems.

Factoring in Changing Pace

The team met to discuss potentially putting more work into turning the Constructor Tool into some sort of kit for other developers to build their own modified distros. The existing Constructor Tool bundled in MakuluLinux lets users clone the configurations and installed applications to duplicate exact installation copies of their MakuluLinux systems.

With this tool expanded and redesigned, Linux developers could then compile all of the coded components to build their own distros easily, with virtually no knowledge or any coding experience needed, and put out a very professional distro with no effort at all, explained Raymer.

“We were going to start working on the Constructor Tool, build the kit, and start putting all effort into that. After all, with distros, we have plenty of competition, and the workload is massive. Whereas if we become the builder of the builders — we build the tools that builders use — we have no competition, at least nothing near as nice as this tool we created. So, this was the plan. This is what we discussed,” he said.

The MakuluLinux team at first planned to phase out the MakuluLinux distros and focus on making “community” builds. The team would release a distro but would not work on it around the clock, Raymer disclosed. Instead, a support community could assume the tasks of editing and maintaining the selected distro with background assistance from the team as needed.

“We will assist as much as we can, to put it bluntly. We would still make distros but not commit to full-time patches and maintenance unless there was an issue that really required us to step in,” he said.

Raymer and his team got caught up in a whole cycle of releasing distros. Many on the diverse, remotely operating team seemed to force staying on that path because they did not see the potential or Raymer’s vision of things that could be.

“So here we are nearly three years later, and I find myself reflecting, looking both back and looking forward,” he admitted.

Moving Forward, Cautiously

Raymer has weathered the near-breakup decision and is ready to advance the growth and development of all three MakuluLinux distros. However, he is not yet committing to any specific dates. That said, he is firm about releasing new editions this year.

The first upgrade is the pending LinDoz release. It is nearly ready to go. It definitely will be based on Ubuntu, with a Debian-based release to follow. You can expect the Ubuntu-based version of LinDoz between now and the end of February.

Upgrades for Flash and Core still need quite a bit of work. A last-minute breakthrough on revamping the Constructor Tool this week led to Raymer pushing out the first Flash upgrade build for testing. He still has no clear release date for the Flash distro upgrade. The team will begin working on the Core distro upgrade once LinDoz and Flash are released.

LinDoz First Look

LinDoz is not a Windows 7 or a Windows 10 clone, but users coming from those operating systems will feel right at home as a result of the Windows-style themes.

Combining that look and feel with the inclusion of Q4Wine, a GUI app to manage Wine, lets you bring your essential Microsoft programs to this Linux OS more easily than with other Linux options. Q4Wine enhances the functionality of the WINE Windows emulator.

However, users already familiar with Linux who have no need for Wine can just ignore or remove the emulator. They can change the theme choice to make the desktop view less like Windows. LinDoz is highly configurable beyond the look and feel of the themes.

The LinDoz desktop displays all the essentials for Windows or Linux users. It has the bottom panel, an attractive choice of backgrounds, an updated menu, and top-caliber applications.

For instance, LinDoz has vivid backgrounds, a classic bottom panel, and a preconfigured workspace switcher applet with a nice collection of desktop desklets. It also uses a nicely tweaked version of the Cinnamon desktop with a unique menu.

The new menu blends both Windows and Linux functionality into one OS. The tweaks to the menu layouts make using menus much neater and more complete to provide a smoother user experience.

The tweaking that the Cinnamon desktop provides lets you substitute menu styles, place a variety of applets on the panel, add more panels, and position them wherever you like. Similarly, you can enhance the desktop’s functionality with desklet displays.

Upgrade Highlights

If you have used earlier versions of LinDoz, you will not see much in the way of new looks and major new features. Overall, this latest upgrade contains a tremendous amount of tweaking throughout the distro.

One of the key improvements is centered around changing the base code to Ubuntu, which also is based on Debian. To follow soon is a version based entirely on Debian Linux. The difference rests on Ubuntu being regarded as being highly stable with more current updates.

A new introductory video pops up only in Live mode. This is handy for new users, nice and neat, and functional.

A new set-up manager is present in the Ubuntu-based version that is not the same as the intro manager in the existing Debian LinDoz version. It is laid out to go through a step-by-step process to set up things like WiFi, system updates, drivers, and more.

You will find a new entry added to the right-click context menu on the desktop. This lets you right-click to open system settings.

This change makes up for removing the system settings launcher from the panel. Other improvements include an update manager shortcut added to the panel and more Wine entries added to the right-click menu.

It has been years since I used Wine to load Microsoft Windows programs in any Linux distro. It was nice to discover that the configuration hassles and usability frustrations I recall when I did use Wine are not present in the new LinDoz release.

Windows Apps work out-of-the-box more reliably by simply double-clicking on EXE, MSI, or COM files. The Windows programs loaded automatically open in the Wine environment.

Also present in this upgrade is a better selection of productivity software and games. The redesigned menus have new categories and content. For instance, apps include a system monitor and the Gnome software center.

Bottom Line

Overall, I am very impressed with the new LinDoz release. It is essentially designed as an easy-to-use operating system that feels comfortable for both Windows and Linux users.

In fact, it even makes using Linux easier for those with disabilities. LinDoz fully supports accessible options to cater to the disabled or the elderly that may not see well. It now has a built-in Screen Reader, Magnifier, and On-Screen keyboard. These features are neatly laid out with easy access.

I do not expect an automatic update from the still current version, however. Way too many changes are built into this LinDoz release. So grab the new ISO and experience an effortless fresh installation.

As of this writing, the upgrade was not yet posted for download. But Raymer’s targeted date is between mid-February and the end of the month.

Suggest a Review

Is there a Linux software application or distro you’d like to suggest for review? Something you love or would like to get to know?

Email your ideas to me and I’ll consider them for a future column.

And use the Reader Comments feature below to provide your input!

January 27, 2024 | Gentoo

“Optimize Your Gentoo Linux System with Our Automated Updater – From the GSoC-Made Phoronix Team”

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Thanks to a promising participant in this year’s Google Summer of Code, we now have an automated updater for Gentoo Linux – introducing gentoo_update, developed by Stepan Kulikov, aka “LabBrat”. This tool simplifies system maintenance, reduces administrative time, and heightens user satisfaction by automating the process of applying security updates to Gentoo systems. You can check out the full GSoC report on this Gentoo auto-updater for more details.

This fantastic utility is currently maintained on GitHub. Essentially, gentoo_update can be customized to deploy only security updates from Gentoo Linux Security Advisories (GLSA) or to keep all system packages up-to-date. See the tool in action in this demo video:

Head over to the Gentoo blog for more information on this groundbreaking development for auto-updating Gentoo systems.

Source: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiNmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnBob3Jvbml4LmNvbS9uZXdzL0F1dG9tYXRlZC1HZW50b28tVXBkYXRlc9IBAA?oc=5

January 27, 2024 | CentOS

CentOS Linux end-of-life update: The plot thickens – MyHost

For years, CentOS Linux has been an important Linux distro for us and many, many other operators around the world. It’s one of the three options we offer when you spin up a new Virtual Server, and – for now – it’s a core part of our Web Hosting tech stack.

So we have been paying close attention ever since the end of CentOS as we know it was announced in 2021. There has been no need to panic, as CentOS Linux 7 will remain in support until mid-2024, but we have kept an eye on developments and blogged occasional updates as other distros have upped their game and gotten closer to becoming viable CentOS replacements.

One promise: We will always prefer fully-supported software releases over anything still in beta. Our Web Hosting platform is too important. This is why we’ve kept CentOS Linux in place as long as we have.

This month some surprising news has made the future even less clear. Since we have been moving cautiously we are not affected too badly at all. But this is a good reminder that careful planning and professional judgement can pay off in unanticipated ways.

Why we’ve chosen CentOS Linux for years

A bit of background first. Two very important features of CentOS Linux have made it the best choice for our Web Hosting servers. One of those features helps you self-manage your hosting, and the other lets us keep running web hosting accounts securely and safely.

  • cPanel, the interface that our Web Hosting customers use to manage everything from WordPress installations to email accounts, runs almost exclusively on CentOS Linux. There has not yet been a stable alternative.
  • Internally we use another system, CloudLinux, to isolate accounts on our Web Hosting servers. This keeps your hosting healthy even if an issue affects someone else on the same server. But when it comes to installing CloudLinux in the first place, it’s essentially dependent on CentOS Linux.

What CentOS Linux’s developers have done now

CentOS is developed by Red Hat. It was their call to put CentOS Linux into the “end of life” phase a couple of years ago.

Red Hat have historically shared the code behind CentOS Linux (called RHEL), letting other developers access it on an open source principle. But now they have made another big decision and greatly limited who can get their hands on what – and what they may then do with it.

The systems we’re running today are all in support and doing everything they should. Red Hat’s announcement hasn’t changed that.

CloudLinux is an example of a system that was built on RHEL, thanks to open source sharing. Now it looks like they’ve been cut off from their most important input. Such systems need to make very big changes to the way they operate.

Red Hat’s view is that others were simply rebuilding their products and selling them. They have abruptly explained that “we are not under any obligation to make things easier for rebuilders; this is our call to make”. The Linux ecosystem is going to shrink as a result.

There are many other “rebuild” casualties, systems with names like AlmaLinux and RockyLinux. Anyone who has started implementing any of these options as their replacement for CentOS Linux has been more or less sent back to square one.

How this affects the job of replacing CentOS Linux

Let me start this section by acknowledging a frustrating fact – all of this is a huge amount of fuss, and as a Web Hosting customer the best you can hope for is no real change. Once we get CentOS Linux off our servers, you’ll want to log in and manage everything just like before. We have huge decisions to make and a lot of work to do, all so your experience doesn’t go backwards. It’s unavoidable, even though we’d rather put our time and energy into making material improvements.

Since we have been moving cautiously we are not affected too badly at all. But this is a good reminder that careful planning and professional judgement can pay off in unanticipated ways.

That said, here’s a look at where we’re at right now, and what our next steps will be.

Our starting point is that the systems we’re running today are all in support and doing everything they should. Red Hat’s announcement hasn’t changed that. CentOS Linux, cPanel and CloudLinux are humming along.

There’s only about a year left on the clock though, so changes are coming.

We have been closely watching Ubuntu, a leading CentOS alternative. cPanel support for Ubuntu is relatively new but signs are encouraging. The makers of CloudLinux are also working to integrate Ubuntu in place of CentOS, but this is still in beta.

One promise: We will always prefer fully-supported software releases over anything still in beta. Our Web Hosting platform is too important. This is why we’ve kept CentOS Linux in place as long as we have. Our team is assessing options and, as always, not rushing in before there’s a clear path to take.

If you’re spinning up a new VPS or other server our advice is to leave CentOS Linux out if you can. We recommend a Debian base in its place.

For servers you’re already running, now could be a good time to think about moving away from CentOS on your terms. If you’d like advice, we’re here to help.

Main photo by Derek Oyen on Unsplash

January 27, 2024 | Bodhi

Bodhi Linux 7 brings Enlightenment to Ubuntu – The Register

Bodhi Linux 7.0 is the latest release of one of the oldest Ubuntu-based distros, with one of the more unusual desktops.

The latest version is based on Ubuntu 22.04, with the Moksha desktop, which is a fork of Enlightenment 17. There’s a choice of four editions: three 64-bit ones, and a 32-bit edition which is still based on Ubuntu 18.04, the last Ubuntu LTS which supported x86-32. The 64-bit editions differ chiefly in the kernel they use. You can have either the basic Ubuntu “Jammy” 5.15, or the current HWE version with kernel 6.2, or for those with shiny, very new kit, an “s76” edition with the latest kernel 6.4.

It’s Ubuntu, but not as we know it. Ubuntu itself offers 10 flavors with eight different desktops these days. Linux Mint offers three of these desktops: Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce. Zorin OS offers just two: GNOME and Xfce. Linux Lite and Zinc, to pick two other examples we’ve looked at on The Reg, both offer only Xfce. What’s notable about Bodhi is that Moksha is not drawn from Ubuntu’s range of options – it’s the distro’s own creation. It’s a fork of the Enlightenment environment, which isn’t an Ubuntu offering either.

The default Moksha desktop is green and leafy. It doesn’t work quite like anything else but its looks make up for that

Although it’s the most obvious difference, Moksha isn’t the only thing that’s different about Bodhi. It also comes with almost no pre-installed applications. You get the Chromium web browser, a text editor, an image viewer, and that’s about it. This makes for a fairly minimal OS, and it has a correspondingly small memory footprint – under 300MB of RAM when idle. It’s lightweight enough to be responsive on a low-end machine while still looking good. It’s just as clean and uncluttered as Xebian, which we looked at earlier this week, but it uses about a third as much memory while being compatible with more third-party apps.

There is a form of app store, but unusually, it’s not a program but a website, called the AppCenter. It uses AptURL to install software directly from the browser – after authentication, naturally; this isn’t the Wild West of Windows. As an example, we installed Firefox, and got the latest version 117 natively packaged. There’s no Snap or Flatpak support pre-installed.

So this is not as complete an OS as most Ubuntu remixes, but it’s also lighter and quicker than most. If you want lots of local applications, you will need to install them yourself, but the distro does make that easy and unintimidating.

The standout feature here, though, is the desktop. Moksha is forked from Enlightenment, which is one of the oldest extant Linux graphical environments – development started in 1997, before either KDE or GNOME. Enlightenment is somewhere between a window manager and a desktop. It does provide some desktop-style tools, such as a desktop panel with a Start menu, an app switcher, and some system controls, plus a floating desktop clock, a virtual-desktop switcher, and lots of graphical config screens. It’s heavily customizable, even more so than KDE, which is notorious for being a festival of settings twiddling. It does have a handful of its own native apps, such as the Terminology terminal emulator, EPhoto image viewer, and Rage media player.

Enlightenment’s development process has not only been very long, but it’s further complicated by a complex version numbering scheme, or rather set of schemes. The original 1990s release is known as E16, which saw multiple versions up until 2000. (To make matters even more confusing, it’s still being maintained, with a point-release in late 2022.) After a gap of no less than 12 years – unmeasurable eons in FOSS terms – E16 was followed by E17. After so long, this caused some excitement, and that’s when the Bodhi Linux project began, by putting E17 on top of Ubuntu 10.04.

Since then, though, the development process sped up considerably. E18 followed in 2013. The project is now up to E25, released in 2021, with the latest bugfix, 0.25.4, appearing late last year. (There is in fact much more complexity to Enlightenment’s versioning systems – we’re glossing over a lot here.)

The Moksha desktop has its own loading screen, not that you’ll see it for long

However, the Bodhi project has chosen not to chase this moving target. It started with E17, and it has stayed with it, meaning that it now maintains its own fork, Moksha. As shipped, Moksha is styled to bear a vague resemblance to the classic Windows design, with a full-width taskbar at the bottom of the screen, and Bodhi teams it with the Thunar file manager from Xfce and the Leafpad text editor. The default theme is green-hued, with a recurrent leaf motif, modeled on the bo tree – the tree under which the Buddha achieved enlightenment.

Bodhi 7’s loading screen is, sadly, relatively conventional and much less fancy than previous version’s swirling bo leaves

Although Bodhi is one of the best-known Enlightenment-based distros, the upstream desktop has moved on since Bodhi’s creation. Enlightenment has attracted occasional controversy and some spirited debate. Even so, it continues to mature, and the underlying Enlightenment Foundation Libraries get regular updates. Samsung’s Tizen uses EFL, and the developers of the Budgie desktop plan to move to it.

Moksha’s window manager is unconventional. A double-click on the titlebar doesn’t maximize a window, it rolls or unrolls it. The up-arrow button is maximize, and also unmaximize. The Windows key doesn’t open the start menu, but a left-click on the desktop does. The resemblance to Windows is only skin-deep, but you can adjust that to however you want. But this brings some benefits: for instance, it enables you to resize Ubuntu’s Ubiquity installer, which normally has a fixed window size, one of its less endearing attributes.

We did notice one glitch: unlike any other Ubuntu variant we’ve seen, it’s essential to connect the machine to the internet, by Wi-Fi or cable, before installing, or the setup process never completes.

In ancient times – that is, the 20th century – Enlightenment was famed for its bling. It supported more special effects than crude 1990s window managers. Since then, Linux acquired 3D compositing, complete with spinning desktop cubes and other jollities. Then all that went away again: KDE 5 adopted the trendy flat look, and more recently GNOME is trying to ban themes altogether. The world is a duller place today as the decline in desktop diversity mirrors the wider world’s ever-decreasing biodiversity. As such, Bodhi’s green-hued desktop looks pleasingly retro, and positively colourful in an increasingly drab gray world.

The good thing is that it’s Ubuntu underneath. On our testbed Core i7 ThinkPad W520, it was very easy to install Ubuntu’s repository and driver manager and use it to enable the proprietary Nvidia driver, meaning we could turn on more of Moksha’s transparency effects with no noticeable slowdown. Meanwhile, the same distro also ran usefully quickly on our ThinkPad W500, which has a Core 2 Duo and half the RAM. It was also good to see that all the apps we installed automatically appeared in the appropriate categories in the menus, and could be pinned to the taskbar and so on: Moksha is more closely integrated than some of the other alternative desktops we’ve tried.

Given that the upstream Enlightenment project seems to have not only regained its impetus over the last decade, but maintained it, we do suspect that it is now time for the Bodhi developers to end their branch and return to the mainstream.

Bodhi Linux 7 is fun. In a world of corporate distros which boast network sign-on, active directory authentication, and cloud sync, Bodhi instead offers bright colors and animation. We rather like that. ®

January 27, 2024 | Solus

Solus Linux Goes Through Yet Another Shake Up; to be Rebased on SerpentOS – It’s FOSS News

Every Linux distro goes through at lest one big change at some point in its life span. However, there is one distro that seems to keep encountering major turmoil and changes on a regular basis. Let’s look at the latest news coming from Solus.

Solus? What’s That?

There are approximately six billion Linux distros (or so it seems). Most of them are reskins of Ubuntu or Arch, with at least one new feature added or highlighted. I can count on one hand the number of distros that are actually built from scratch. Solus is one of them.

According to Solus’ website, “Solus is built from scratch to ensure every tweak, configuration, and optimization enables the delivery of a singular, cohesive desktop experience.” All the important system tools, from the build tools to the package manager, have been built from scratch. They even created their own desktop environment named Budgie. (Budgie had since been spun off to be an independent project.)

What New in Solusville?

Tuesday, the Solus team made a blog post announcing some changes to the future of the distro. First, they are moving to a new build and development infrastructure. Previously, they had been hosted by the Rochester Institute of Technology. Only one member of the dev team had access to this infrastructure. In January 2023, there was a “hardware-level issue” that caused three months of downtime.

Around the time of the outage, SerpentOS (former Solus lead-dev and founder Ikey Doherty’s newest project) reached out to Solus to offer hosting. According to the post, “Concerned by the continuing outage and its impact on Solus users and contributors, the Serpent OS team then shared a proposal which would allow Solus to resume operations with less technical debt and mitigation of the apparent bus factor of one.”

A new organizational structure has also emerged from this collaboration. Several members of the SerpentOS team (who had left Solus in the last couple of years) will take over duties at Solus. The responsibilities of the Solus project will be divided up into six teams: Technical Steering Committee, Infrastructure and Operations, Community Engagement and Communications, Stack Maintainers, Package Maintainers, and Web Developers. For a detailed look at the responsibilities and make up of each team, please refer to the post.

Moving forward, Solus wants to be more open and transparent. Previously, if a member of the dev team wanted to share something they were working on, they had to get permission from one person, kinds of a communication czar. Going forward, team members will be encouraged to share what they are working, both via blog posts and streaming their work.

As for the distro itself, Solus will be delivering new ISOs for the 4.x branch with updated kernels and desktop environments so that it can run on modern hardware. They will also be working on “maintenance and quality-of-life tweaks” to the current dev tools. In the coming weeks, the team will be evaluating their custom tools to see how to move forward.

Early on, Solus was known for innovation. The post notes that “innovation in the Linux ecosystem is presently centered around the use of application sandboxing, containers and the development of immutable operating systems”. Unfortunately, the current Solus tooling is not designed to handle this. So, the team has decided to take a big step and rebase the distro on SerpentOS.

Now, what is this SerpentOS?

You might have noticed SerpentOS being mentioned several times in this article and wonder what the heck it is. It is a new distro. In fact, it was started two years ago. Ikey Doherty created it from scratch with a new build system and package manager. According to the website:

Serpent OS strives to provide the perfect hybrid experience – a traditional, package management driven Linux distribution powered by the latest technologies. Stateless by design with atomic updates at the core, Serpent OS aims to close the gap between development and production.

The Solus blog post concludes by stating that moving to SerpentOS tooling and systems will allow Solus to:

  1. Shed technical debt in terms of tools and development processes
  2. Offer seamlessly integrated from-source user repositories, finally making the much asked for Solus User Repository a reality, as well enabling users to self-host personal from-source repositories
  3. Become an atomic and immutable operating system with the benefits that this entails in terms of reliability and security
  4. Be ported to other architectures than x86_64, such as AArch64 and RISC-V, in the future

Change is Not New to Solus

I find this whole story fascinating. It is just the latest in a series of shake ups at Solus. Back in 2018, Ikey (the founder and lead dev of the project) departed the project. Two years later, Ikey announced that he was working on an open source game engine named Serpent. Apparently, Ikey got frustrated with the development tooling available in other Linux distros, so he set about creating his own from scratch in June of 2020. Then, in January 2022, Joshua Strobl who had been the lead dev of Budgie and co-lead dev of Solus left Solus and forked Budgie. And now both Ikey and Josh are returning to Solus and flipping it on it’s head.

After Ikey left Solus, it floundered for a while, and frankly I lost interest in it. Now he’s back with basically a new OS. It feels a lot like when Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997. He brought with him a new operating system that became Mac OS X and saved Apple. Hopefully, Ikey can do the same with Solus.

More from It’s FOSS…

January 27, 2024 | CachyOS

“Discover CachyOS Linux, the Powerful Atlas Project, and a Rave Review of TUXEDO – All in the Latest FOSS Weekly Episode”

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This week’s top Linux news and updates:

– Ubuntu 23.04, Fedora 38, and Linux Kernel 6.3 are set to be released
– Terminal Basics series concludes with tips and tricks for efficient terminal usage
– CachyOS and Atlas, two new open source projects, are making waves in the community
– Reviews of the TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro and other Linux laptops
– Latest updates and releases from Linux world, including new distros and tools
– Coding eBooks deal ending soon – get programming guides from O’Reilly for as low as $1
– Drew DeVault’s opinion on the future of Free Software Foundation
– Celebrating the 62nd anniversary of the launch of COBOL, a widely used programming language
– Tutorials on editing files in the Linux terminal and data types in Rust programming
– A new Arch-based distro focused on speed and ease of use: CachyOS
– Funny newbie moments in the Linux community

Don’t miss out on the latest and most important news, reviews, and updates in the world of Linux. Upgrade your experience and stay ahead by subscribing to FOSS Weekly now! Hurry, limited time eBook deal ending on April 15th!

Source: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiMWh0dHBzOi8vaXRzZm9zcy5jb20vbmV3c2xldHRlci9mb3NzLXdlZWtseS0yMy0xNS_SAQA?oc=5

January 27, 2024 | AlmaLinux

AlmaLinux says Red Hat source changes won’t kill its RHEL-compatible distro – Ars Technica

Enlarge / AlmaLinux lets you build applications that work with Red Hat Enterprise Linux but can’t promise the exact same bug environment. That’s different from how they started, but it’s also a chance to pick a new path forward.

AlmaLinux OS

I asked benny Vasquez, chair of the AlmaLinux OS Foundation, how she would explain the recent Red Hat Enterprise Linux source code controversy to somebody at a family barbecue—somebody who, in other words, might not have followed the latest tech news quite so closely.

“Most of my family barbecues are going to be explaining that Linux is an operating system,” Vasquez said. “Then explaining what an operating system is.”

It is indeed tricky to explain all the pieces—Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, CentOS Stream, Fedora, RHEL, Alma, Rocky, upstreams, downstreams, source code, and the GPL—to anyone who isn’t familiar with Red Hat’s quirky history, and how it progressed to the wide but disparate ecosystem it has today. And, yes, Linux in general. But Vasquez was game to play out my thought experiment.

“The changes that have recently been made are best summed up as: Red Hat has historically made it easy for what they view as competitors to exist,” she said. “And the changes they’ve made, they think, make it less easy for competitors to exist. From a high-level perspective, for people who don’t understand ‘build pipelines,’ that’s how I would want to explain it.”

“We can fix this now. We don’t have to wait.”

AlmaLinux OS, until recently, aimed to be a “1:1,” or “bug for bug” replication of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). When RHEL announced that its source code would only be available in CentOS Stream, the “rolling preview” of RHEL, it made creating a 1:1 rebuild of RHEL far more tricky. Rocky Linux, founded by one of the original CentOS’s founders, has said it intends to keep providing bug-for-bug rebuilds through some elaborate means.

AlmaLinux, after waiting out the initial confusion and surveying its customers and supporters, is going a different route. AlmaLinux will be binary-compatible (or ABI-compatible), meaning applications that run on RHEL will run on AlmaLinux. Freed from complete parity with RHEL releases, however, means that AlmaLinux can:

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  • Accept bug fixes outside RHEL’s release cycle
  • Include comments in patches that point to sources and authors
  • Decide its own priorities
  • Continue contributing upstream to CentOS Stream, Fedora, and Linux as a whole

“Now we can do stuff!” Vasquez said. “That’s exactly how it’s been feeling for us. We’ve used that one-to-one compatibility as our North Star, so every decision we’ve made about what we’re doing has been, yes or no, based on one-to-one compatibility. This opens up so many doors.”

One of those doors, it seems, is security patches undertaken quite differently from RHEL. Jonathan Wright, infrastructure team lead at AlmaLinux and a Fedora package maintainer, recently posted about his experience submitting a pull request, based on an existing CVE (vulnerability), to CentOS Stream. Michal Ruprich, senior software engineer at Red Hat, replied in GitLab that RHEL didn’t plan to address it, but “we will keep it open for evaluation based on customer feedback.” On further querying by Wright, Ruprich replied that vulnerabilities with low or moderate severity are addressed “on demand when customer or other business requirement exist to do so.”

There was more context, of course, but the moment served as a kind of proof of concept for the new AlmaLinux. “It is an example of what we wanted to be able to do, what we were hoping this would be… we can fix this now. We don’t have to wait.”

There’s more to this pull request refusal, but you can see some friction in the early days of the “We’ll work in CentOS Stream” era.

GitLab

Red Hat responds

Red Hat made a point of calling out “those who want to repackage (RHEL) for their own profit” in a follow-up blog post, soon after its initial announcement. Citing “large or very large IT organizations” that use RHEL rebuilds without supporting Red Hat itself, the company said it did not “find value in an RHEL rebuild.”

I asked Red Hat if it had anything further to say about rebuilds in the wake of AlmaLinux OS’s shift. I also asked about the “customer feedback” response to the security patch. Mike McGrath, vice president of core platforms at Red Hat, responded with a statement. McGrath wrote that after hearing the feedback after the source changes, he wanted to “reaffirm our commitment to open source.” He said that Red Hat “honor(s) and in most cases exceed(s) all of our license obligations,” that source code for all Red Hat’s products is made available, and that Red Hat customers still have source access to RHEL. McGrath also pointed to Red Hat Universal Base Image, the no-cost Individual Developer subscription, and Teams subscriptions as fulfilling open source goals.

“With all of these options, we just don’t see any reason to provide source code in yet another location, scrubbed of our trademarked material, for the sole purpose of creating ‘bug for bug’ compatible clones,” McGrath wrote. “We would rather work together in CentOS Stream instead, where improvements are possible. At least one of the formerly downstream communities has already made the decision to work from CentOS Stream sources, and we applaud this shift and are eager to collaborate with them, even if we ultimately compete in a business sense. Differentiated competition is a sign of a healthy ecosystem.”

What, then, of the recent rejection of just such an offer to help improve CentOS Stream through a CVE fix? McGrath addressed that specifically.

“Building RHEL is incredibly complex and resource intensive—there’s tens of thousands of moving parts, and all of this is on display in CentOS Stream,” McGrath wrote. “With an emphasis on production stability, we aren’t able to immediately take every patch or merge request—this is the crux of the recent issue surrounding a CVE patch from an AlmaLinux contributor. At the time of submission, the CVE didn’t have a public severity assessment done and Red Hat hadn’t finished its independent assessment either. We didn’t close the merge request and continue to evaluate it for future inclusion.”

“It’s also already been accepted to Fedora; this means that it will, eventually, be included in RHEL,” McGrath wrote. “When it comes to enterprise Linux, being deliberate, predictable and thorough is key—that’s what this process shows, even in the supporting upstream community.”

January 27, 2024 | SparkyLinux

SparkyLinux Incinerates the Hassle Factor | Review – LinuxInsider

SparkyLinux is a Linux distro that can ignite your daily computing experience. Its spark is pushing me to rethink my computing priorities.

Regularly reviewing so many Linux operating systems for Linux Picks and Pans has serious consequences for my computing sanity. Normally, I have a flirtatious episode with a new release each week. I’m always on the lookout for something new and shiny.

Then my flash-in-the-pan relationship flames out in favor of some other newly released rival a week later. I love the freedom of choice that open-source Linux OSes offer with each visit. I like the routine of downloading several promising weekly review candidates. I adore putting them through their paces and selecting the one with the best potential, thanks to some innovation or tweak.

On the other hand, I fervently dislike dealing with the sheer number of distros that try to reinvent the OS marketplace and fall flat in the process. Let’s face reality here. Open source Linux software offers so many options and design characteristics — Debian, Gentoo, Slackware, Arch, and desktop environments galore, ad nauseum — that it can be boring and repetitive.

All of those choices, I suspect, lure typical users to latch onto one favorite distro that works for them. Having found it, they stay with it.

Many base their decision on usability, performance and the hassle factor — you know, the glitches and anomalies that make a particular distro frustrating or overly bothersome to install and maintain. The challenge is finding a distro that lets you compute without getting in the way.

Enter SparkyLinux, an alternative to the myriad of options and trial runs into the world of Linux. In general, SparkyLinux does not target Linux beginners, although new users will find it easy to use and hassle-free. This distro is an ideal choice for those in the middle — neither Linux newbies nor yet Linux pros.

SparkyLinux 5.7 is uncluttered and has an intuitive user interface. It is surprisingly spry whether run from a USB or a hard drive installation.

What It Is

SparkyLinux is a GNU/Linux distribution built on top of the Debian GNU/Linux operating system. It is a fast, lightweight and fully customizable OS that utilizes the Openbox window manager and the LXQt desktop.

SparkyLinux is available in three primary editions. The Stable releases are based on the stable line of the Debian family and should be the starting point for new Linux users. The Rolling release is based on the Debian testing branch and offers frequent updates of fresh software packages that can make the OS a little less stable. The Development release is strictly for experienced Linux testers and is not a choice for typical users.

The developer also offers four specialty editions for different tasks, all with Openbox as default. GameOver is for gamers. Multimedia is for creating audio, video, and HTML pages. The Rescue edition is for fixing broken OSes. The MinimalCLI edition has no X server, so that advanced users can build and configure their desktops their own way.

Fits the Bill

Over the years, I have reviewed several of the SparkyLinux special editions. Among the three primary editions, the developer provides a variety of window lightweight desktop versions for different users and different tasks.

A few weeks ago, I grabbed the latest edition of the Rolling release of version 5.7 posted on March 6. The series 5 version, the Nibiru releases, began rolling out last July. It is a new snapshot of the project’s Rolling branch, which is based on Debian Testing.

This is the first of this year’s ISO images of the Rolling line, which is based on Debian Testing “Buster.” It is a full-featured OS that works out of the box and contains a selection of preinstalled common-use software applications for home users.

I had not planned on reviewing version 5.7. Instead, I was looking for a quick replacement for the discontinued Quirky Linux. I had been using Quirky on a USB drive for convenience and portability when bouncing around computers on various work projects. However, my positive experience led to this review.

Why the glee over rolling releases? This upgrade method pushes the latest packages and edition upgrades as they are ready without requiring a complete reinstallation. This approach is a big convenience, especially if you’re running SparkyLinux from a USB drive.

Rolling Update and Portability Too

Quirky Linux was a Linux-on-a-stick derivative of Puppy Linux. Although Puppy Linux and other offshoot distros still exist, I was drawn to the rolling release potential on a USB drive installation.

Being able to pop a USB stick into any computer I use remains part of my work routine. It is a workable solution and a better alternative to carrying around my own hardware when my location deadheads to a room filled with other people’s gear.

SparkyLinux Nibiru’s rolling update capability adds to the convenience by eliminating the need to create updated versions of the portable OS periodically. Installing Linux distros to a USB drive can have its drawbacks.

One of the big ones is the need to use special frugal installation tactics. Another is having to create and use multiple partitions on the USB drive to save personal data and configuration changes as persistent memory.

Usually, the USB installation merely creates a live session environment, much like using a DVD session. That eliminates the ability to save configurations and personal data. Not so with SparkyLinux.

Best of Two Linux Worlds

SparkyLinux is not a Puppy Linux wanna-be distro. Like Puppy Linux-style distros, you can run it from a thumb drive, and like Puppy Linux, SparkyLinux initially loads into available RAM on the host computer for speedy performance. Unlike Puppy Linux strategies, SparkyLinux does not use a frugal installation or require special antics to provide persistent memory on the USB storage device.

SparkyLinux is intended to be fully hard-drive based. Regardless, I was curious to see how well the rolling updates, paired with a full installation on a USB drive, would solve my need for a reliable portable Linux OS. The fact that I could do a full installation to a hard drive was merely a huge added benefit.

I installed SparkyLinux 5.7 to an 8GB USB drive, unsure of the storage size adequacy and the performance. That process involved installing GRUB on the USB drive.

I already had my computers configured to boot from DVD or USB drives, so all I had to do was turn on the computer, press the appropriate key to not boot from the hard drive, and press the enter key to boot the SparkyLinux option I wanted directly from the USB drive.

No matter what changes I made to the configuration — add/remove software, change desktop backgrounds, alter system preferences, or save files to the USB drive — those changes were retained on the USB drive on subsequent reboots. Even better, regardless of whatever computer I booted that SparkyLinux USB drive from, SparkyLinux appeared on the screen exactly the way it appeared in my last session on a different computer.

Unlike with other distro options, no tweaking was required. There was no need to make screen resolution adjustments or re-establish Internet connection settings each time I booted from the USB drive placed in another computer.

What’s Next?

That was a pleasant surprise. SparkyLinux performed with the USB installation far better than any other portable Linux-on-a-stick distros I’ve used over the years. SparkyLinux’s USB installation worked so well I used it on multiple computers for weeks without missing a beat.

The takeaway from that USB-based performance is that SparkyLinux installed on a hard drive can compute circles around many other Linux distros and at least keep an even track record with the rest.

I know that from actually putting SparkyLinux 5.7 Testing release on an aging computer. The LXQt and Openbox combination runs fine on legacy gear with at least 256MB of RAM and 10 GB of hard drive space.

Remember, the intent of the developer is to use SparkyLinux as a normal, full installation on the hard drive. I may very well put SparkyLinux on the hard drives of several computers, but right now, I am getting all the functionality I need from the USB installation.

I will dual-boot some Sparky installations rather than replace other existing distros dedicated on those machines, but I definitely will burn a new SparkyLinux installation to a 32GB USB drive to ensure that I do not run into storage limitations down the road.

My bigger personal dilemma now, as I hinted at the beginning of this review, is how to handle my mainstream computing platforms.

Streamlined Inventory

Until last year, SparkyLinux offered many editions and development branches with a wide range of desktop environments. This provided users with a dozen or more different download options.

However, due to time constraints and a refocusing on a core product, the developer retired most of the choices. The result is a trimmed-down inventory based solely on one main, Openbox-based desktop in combination with two similar lightweight desktops.

The first option is with LXQt for the Rolling edition or LXDE for the Stable edition. A second option is MinimalGUI (Openbox)/MinimalCLI as a text-based edition that lets you install a desktop with a small set of apps. The third choice is the Special Editions with Openbox, as noted above.

I installed the Google Chrome browser. Much of my work routine is embedded in the Google infrastructure. I was pleased to discover that even with an 8GB USB drive to hold it, Chrome did not tax the performance.

I was additionally pleased to discover that I did not have to compromise on performance or other restrictions in my regular daily computing routine with SparkyLinux. It comes with my needed essentials preinstalled:

  • LibreOffice version 6.1.5.2
  • Skanlite, a KDE-based scanning application based on libksane
  • Take a Screenshot app

It also comes with a bevy of system tools and accessory apps.

SparkyLinux 5.7 has a second menu launched with a right-click anywhere on the desktop. Shown here is the cascading menu filled with an abundant inventory of system tools.

Adding to the Mix

SparkyLinux comes with a few basic tools, along with some of the most popular productivity applications. The text editor is FeatherPad, a lightweight, plain-text app with a tabbed interface. Also included are the file manager (PCManFM), a screenshot utility, an image viewer (LXImage-QT), a Firefox Web browser, and several terminal emulators (gExec, XTerm, and UXTerm).

I had to install only two applications essential to my workflow: GIMP image editor and Geany IDE Editor. Both up and running from the USB drive to RAM did not impair the OS’ performance.

SparkyLinux uses the Synaptic Package Manager to add/remove non-system applications. For rolling updates and system maintenance, SparkyLinux has Sparky APTus.

This is a collection of small scripts to manage the system’s packages. It is basically a front end that automates the process of downloading and installing system packages.

Highlighting the Sparky Experience

Installing SparkyLinux to the 8GB USB stick took nearly 45 minutes. The suggested time frame is 15-30 minutes. The process was straightforward. Ample videos and Wiki documentation are available on the developer’s website to walk you through the installation.

For what it is worth, the online documentation about how to install SparkyLinux to a USB drive may be a bit outdated for this latest release. Even though the directions tell you to create three partitions on the USB drive — one for the OS, one for the home directory, and one for the swap space — I deliberately did not do that.

The installer includes a partitioning tool, but I did not use it. Everything worked fine using the USB installer tool in the live session DVD I burned from the downloaded SparkyLinux ISO file.

When I rebooted after installation, the system asked if I wanted to do an upgrade. That process using APTus went smoothly but took another 30 minutes. The installation and upgrade intervals are the result of the slower writing speeds to the USB drive.

Subsequent logons brought fewer upgrades. The shorter download and install list made for quicker completion.

No setup was required other than clicking on the clock applet in the bottom panel to select 12-hour and change the orientation of the date and time in the panel display. The hardwired Internet connection was automatic. Same for the mouse.

Settings tips:

  • Go to the Main Menu/Preferences/LXQt Settings to make selections;
  • Go to Firewall Configuration to enable the firewall;
  • Go to Openbox Configuration Manager to finish setting up the look and feel of the OS; and
  • Go to Desktop Preferences panel and click the Advanced tab to select which system icons to display on the desktop.

Look and Feel

The developer modified the LXQt desktop environment in SparkyLinux to provide a clean, simple, and traditional graphical session. The bottom panel is pleasantly uncluttered.

The show desktop icon is on the far right. To its left is the date/time display. Further left is the audio control, an applet to manage media devices, an applet for Internet access status, and the Qlipper clipboard icon.

The desktop switcher and the main menu button hug the left end of the panel. The switcher is preconfigured with only two virtual workspaces. You can change this default setting in Openbox Configuration Manager.

Scrolling the mouse wheel on the desktop switches workspaces. Or you can click the workplace switcher applet on the panel. Even better, you can spin the mouse wheel with the pointer on any open area of the desktop to cycle through workspaces.

You must manually point the wallpaper changer tool to the default location (/opt/artwork). The file manager browser window does not point to this location by default.

Changing desktop background images is not intuitive. Images are stored in /opt/artwork. You must navigate through system folders to get there from within the desktop preferences panel. An easier configuration would be to have the browse button within this panel default to that location. Instead, you must do this manually.

Bottom Line

SparkyLinux gives you an operating system that is out-of-the-box and ready for use. It comes with multimedia plugins, selected sets of apps, and its own custom tools to ease different tasks.

SparkyLinux is a well-thought-out Linux OS. It has straightforward controls that let you get your work done without distractions. The user interface is friendly, intuitive, and efficient.

SparkyLinux is a very functional Linux OS. It is a solid choice for use as an all-purpose home edition with all the tools, codecs, plugins, and drivers preinstalled.

You may not need the USB installation. However, if your computer runs Microsoft Windows or another Linux distro, putting SparkyLinux on a USB stick is much easier than setting up a dual boot on the hard drive or replacing whatever is running on that computer already.

Suggest a Review

Is there a Linux software application or distro you’d like to suggest for review? Something you love or would like to get to know?

Email your ideas to me, and I’ll consider them for a future column.

And use the Reader Comments feature below to provide your input!

January 27, 2024 | SparkyLinux

SparkyLinux 7.2 ‘Orion Belt’, a Debian-based system, is your ultimate Windows 11 alternative – BetaNews

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“Unleash the Power of SparkyLinux 7.2 “Orion Belt”: Latest Update Offers Enhanced Features and Unmatched Compatibility with Debian 12!”

Get ready for a transformative experience with SparkyLinux 7.2 “Orion Belt” – the highly anticipated update of the renowned Debian-based distribution. Boasting an array of improvements and new features, this update solidifies SparkyLinux’s reputation as a leader in the Linux world.

As the quarterly updated point release, Sparky 7.2 seamlessly integrates with Debian 12 “Bookworm,” ensuring the reliability and stability that users have come to expect. And with all packages refreshed from both Debian and Sparky stable repositories, this update is sure to elevate your computing experience.

One of the most significant changes in this release is the update to the Linux kernel for PC users, now at version 6.1.55, with Sparky-specific versions (6.6.4-sparky and 5.15.141-LTS-sparky) available in the Sparky repositories. ARM devices also receive a kernel update to version 6.1.58, making Sparky 7.2 accessible to a wider range of hardware.

But that’s not all – get ready to revamp your productivity with the latest versions of key software like LibreOffice 7.4.7, Calamares 3.2.61 for simplified installations, and updated desktop environments (KDE Plasma 5.27.5, LXQt 1.2.0, MATE 1.26, Xfce 4.18, and Openbox 3.6.1).

For all your web and media needs, Sparky 7.2 has you covered with updates to Firefox, Thunderbird for email, VLC for media playback, and Exaile for music management. And with updated ARMHF and ARM64 images, you can experience SparkyLinux on a variety of hardware configurations.

Choose from various versions tailored to your needs and hardware – from amd64 systems with BIOS/UEFI+Secure Boot (Xfce, LXQt, MATE, KDE Plasma, MinimalGUI, and MinimalCLI) to older i686 non-pae BIOS/UEFI systems (MinimalGUI and MinimalCLI) to ARMHF and ARM64 (Openbox and CLI).

All in all, SparkyLinux 7.2 “Orion Belt” promises a breathtaking experience for both Linux enthusiasts and those looking for an alternative to Windows 11. Don’t miss out – head to the SparkyLinux website now to download your copy of Sparky 7.2 and embark on your Linux journey today!

Source: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiQmh0dHBzOi8vYmV0YW5ld3MuY29tLzIwMjMvMTIvMDcvc3Bhcmt5bGludXgtNzItb3Jpb24tbGludXgtc3Bhcmt5L9IBAA?oc=5

January 27, 2024 | Kali

Kali Linux 2023.4 released with GNOME 45 and 15 new tools – BleepingComputer

Kali Linux 2023.4, the fourth and final version of 2023, is now available for download, with fifteen new tools and the GNOME 45 desktop environment.

Kali Linux is a Linux distribution created for ethical hackers and cybersecurity professionals to perform penetration testing, security audits, and research against networks.

With this final release of 2023, the Kali Team says there are not many new features added to the core operating system, but they did bundle fifteen new tools, and the distro now ships with the GNOME 45 desktop environment.

Fifteen new tools in Kali Linux 2023.4

We say it with every release, but it wouldn’t be a new Kali Linux release without some new tools toys to play with.

Below are the fifteen new tools added in Kali 2023.4:

  • cabby – TAXII client implementation
  • cti-taxii-client – TAXII 2 client library
  • enum4linux-ng – Next generation version of enum4linux with additional features (a Windows/Samba enumeration tool)
  • exiflooter – Finds geolocation on all image URLs and directories
  • h8mail – Email OSINT & Password breach hunting tool
  • Havoc – Modern and malleable post-exploitation command and control framework
  • OpenTAXII – TAXII server implementation
  • PassDetective – Scans shell command history to detect mistakenly written passwords, API keys, and secrets
  • Portspoof – All 65535 TCP ports are always open & emulates services
  • Raven – Lightweight HTTP file upload service
  • ReconSpider – Most Advanced Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Framework
  • rling – RLI Next Gen (Rling), a faster multi-threaded, feature rich alternative to rli
  • Sigma-Cli – List and convert Sigma rules into query languages
  • sn0int – Semi-automatic OSINT framework and package manager
  • SPIRE – SPIFFE Runtime Environment is a toolchain of APIs for establishing trust between software systems

In addition to the new tools, Kali says they upgraded the Kernel version to 6.3.7.

GNOME 45 is here

If you prefer using GNOME over KDE, you will be happy to learn that Kali Linux now comes with GNOME 45.

GNOME 45, code-named “Rīga,” was released in September 2023, bringing new refinements to the interface and increasing performance.

GNOME 45 in Kali Linux
Source: Kali

Here are some of the features highlighted by the Kali Team:

  • Full-height sidebars in many updated apps
  • Highly improved speed of search in nautilus file manager
    • Unfortunately the update for nautilus was not ready for this release, but it will arrive as a later update soon
  • Improved settings** app (gnome-control-center)
  • Updated color-schemes for gnome-text-editor
  • Updated themes for shell, libadwaita, gtk-3 and gtk-4
  • Updated gnome-shell extensions
  • Shell updates, including a new workspace indicator, replacing the previous “Activities” button
    • It is also possible to scroll your mouse wheel while hovering over the indicator to switch between workspaces

New builds and deployment options

The Kali Team has also created new builds and made them available on various platforms.

Starting with Kali Linux 2023.4, both Kali Linux AMD64 and ARM64 on Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure marketplaces allowing you to easily deploy Kali to the cloud the way you want.

The devs warn that while ARM64 is increasingly supported by the operating system, not all of its packages are supported under this architecture. So, using an ARM64 distro may make some packages unavailable.

The Kali Team has also added support for deploying Kali Linux on Hyper-V using Vagrant.

“If you are not too familiar with Vagrant, think of it as a command-line interface for VMware, VirtualBox, and now Hyper-V,” explains the Kali Team.

Finally, you can now install Kali Linux on Raspberry Pi 5 through a new dedicated image or by building it yourself.

How to get Kali Linux 2023.4

To start using Kali Linux 2023.4, you can upgrade your existing installation, select a platform, or directly download ISO images for new installs and live distributions.

For those updating from a previous version, you can use the following commands to upgrade to the latest version.

echo "deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main contrib non-free non-free-firmware" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo apt update && sudo apt -y full-upgrade

cp -vrbi /etc/skel/. ~/

[ -f /var/run/reboot-required ] && sudo reboot -f

If you are running Kali on the Windows Subsystem for Linux, upgrade to WSL2 for a better experience, including the ability to use graphical apps.

You can check the WSL version used by Kali with the ‘wsl -l -v’ command in a Windows command prompt.

Once done upgrading, you can check if the upgrade was successful by using the following command:

grep VERSION /etc/os-release

Checking version of Kali Linux
Source: BleepingComputer

You can view the complete changelog for Kali 2023.4 on Kali’s website.