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Synex 13-u8
Synex is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian's "Stable" branch, developed with the official Debian Live Build tool. It offers four separate desktop options with GNOME, LXDE, KDE Plasma and Xfce, all of which are composed of a rather frugal set of applications in its default state, without any development tools or offices suites. Some of the distribution's main features include Calamares installer with support for both BIOS and UEFI, CUPS integration for printing and network support, out-of-the box support for Flatpak applications, official NVIDIA driver installation assistant with support for both X11 and Wayland, and additional repositories containing Microsoft Edge, OnlyOffice and Zabbix.
Refracta 13.3-20260501
Refracta is a Linux distribution based on Devuan GNU+Linux (a systemd-free fork of Debian), designed primarily for home computer users and also for use as a system rescue and recovery disk. It provides a simple and familiar layout using the Xfce desktop. Other desktop environments and additional software packages are available from the Devuan package repository. Besides providing a Linux distribution on a live CD, the project also develops useful tools, such as refractainstaller, refractasnapshot and refracta2usb which allow users to customize the installation and create custom live CD or live USB images.
[$] Version-controlled databases using Prolly trees
Modern database and filesystems make pervasive use of B-trees, which are tree structures optimized for storing sorted lists of keys and values on block devices. Dolt is an Apache 2.0-licensed project that makes clever use of a variant of a B-tree to support efficient version control for an entire database. The data structure it uses could well be of interest to other projects.
Security updates for Friday
Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (fence-agents), Debian (chromium, dovecot, and kernel), Fedora (chromium, dotnet10.0, dotnet8.0, dotnet9.0, emacs, glow, jfrog-cli, openbao, pyp2spec, python3.6, rust-rustls-webpki, vhs, and xen), Oracle (grafana, grafana-pcp, PackageKit, sudo, vim, and xorg-x11-server), Red Hat (rhc), SUSE (avahi, bouncycastle, chromium, container-suseconnect, firewalld, gdk-pixbuf, grafana, java-25-openjdk, kernel, libixml11, libmozjs-140-0, libpng12-0, libsodium, libssh, mariadb, Mesa, ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs, openCryptoki, openexr, packagekit, prometheus-postgres_exporter, python-jwcrypto, python-mako, python-Pygments, python-pynacl, python311, python311-pyOpenSSL, python315, radare2, sed, and vim), and Ubuntu (kmod and zulucrypt).
ExTiX 26.5
ExTiX is a desktop Linux distribution and live DVD based on Ubuntu, offering a choice of alternative desktop environments.
Dr.Parted 26.05
Dr.Parted Live is a bootable GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian's "Testing" branch. It is a live image featuring a lightweight Openbox window manager and useful applications for disc partitioning as well as data backup, restore and recovery.
Arch 2025.05.01
Arch Linux is an independently developed, x86_64-optimised Linux distribution targeted at competent Linux users. It uses 'pacman', its home-grown package manager, to provide updates to the latest software applications with full dependency tracking. Operating on a rolling release system, Arch can be installed from a CD image or via an FTP server. The default install provides a solid base that enables users to create a custom installation. In addition, the Arch Build System (ABS) provides a way to easily build new packages, modify the configuration of stock packages, and share these packages with other users via the Arch Linux user repository.
Kiro 26.05.01.01
Kiro is an Arch Linux-based distribution with the goal of being an intuitive and customisable ISO image builder. It provides a simple way to build a custom Arch-based installation medium with a choice of packages, settings and scripts. Kiro uses the Xfce desktops, includes the Calamares system installer, and has a modular structure.
KDu 9-rv2
GNU/Linux KDu is a Brazilian desktop Linux distribution based on Ubuntu and KDE neon. It features a customised KDE Plasma desktop and a large collection of software applications for daily and technical use, including office and productivity suites, various maintenance, data recovery and hardware diagnostic utilities, as well as tools for remote access and virtualisation. The distribution is localised into Brazilian Portuguese, inclusive of Brazilian data formats, and is suitable for both new and advanced Linux users.
blendOS 2026.05.01
blendOS is an Arch Linux-based, rolling-release distribution which automates installing software from supported distributions (Arch Linux, Fedora and Ubuntu) into containers. blendOS tries to make software management in across containers feel native and provides access to the user's home directory for each container.
Unraid 7.2.5
Unraid OS is a Linux-based commercial operating system designed to provide an easy-to-use and flexible platform for building and managing a Network-Attached Storage (NAS). Some of Unraid's main features include the ability to mix and match drives of different sizes, an easy-to-use web interface for managing storage, virtual machines and Docker containers, protection to safeguard against drive failures, ability to expand the storage by adding more drives.
Evernight Vista 44
Evernight Vista is Fedora-based desktop Linux distribution featuring the KDE Plasma desktop. The project's goal is to develop a user-friendly operating system accessible even to non-technical users. Some of the distribution's features include complete support for Chinese (the simplified variant), inclusion of CJK input method for Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages, support for Linyaps and Spark App stores for easy installation of popular Chinese software, and inclusion of a performance-enhanced Linux kernel from the CachyOS project.
Ludora 44_2026-04-30
Ludora is a gaming-ready, Fedora-based Linux distribution with built-in bootable snapshots. It takes an automatic snapshot of the system before and after every package update and places it in the GRUB boot menu, thus offering a one-click rollback in cases when a problematic update breaks the system. The distribution also provides a full gaming stack with a custom kernel, the Steam client, and all the tools that facilitate gaming on Linux. Ludora uses the KDE Plasma desktop in its live mode and the Calamares system installer with a choice of languages, filesystems and desktop options.
Coyote 4.0.192
Coyote Linux is a security-centric distribution of Linux designed to provide firewall, VPN, IP routing and related services. It is built on Alpine Linux with an immutable firmware architecture and safe rollback capability. The product's other interesting features include separation of configuration files from the system image, minimal attack surface through reduced footprint, appliance-style deployment and upgrades, and Ed25519 firmware signature verification. The Coyote Linux project has been providing firewall and router solutions since 2000 when its early firewall releases were designed to fit on a single floppy disk.
Sculpt 26-04
Sculpt OS is an independent open-source operating system developed by Genode. It combines Genode's microkernel architecture, capability-based security, sandboxed device drivers, and virtual machines in a novel operating system for commodity PC hardware and the PinePhone. Sculpt uses an administrative user interface called "Leitzentrale".
Grml 2026.04
Grml is a bootable CD (live CD) based on Debian GNU/Linux. It includes a collection of GNU/Linux software especially for users of text tools and system administrators. It also provides automatic hardware detection. Grml can be used as a rescue system, for analysing systems and networks, or as a working environment. Due to on-the-fly decompression, Grml includes about 2 GB of software and documentation on the CD.
Mabox 26.04
Mabox Linux is a Manjaro-based rolling-release distribution. It features the Openbox window manager as its default user interface and provides a welcome screen with access to utilities which add additional software to the operating system.
AerynOS 2026.05
AerynOS is an independently-developed, rolling-release Linux distribution designed for general desktop use. Its main features include the GNOME desktop, a custom package manager called "moss", atomic updates with rollback options, a package build system called "boulder", and smart boot management with complex EFI configuration through a utility called "blsforme".
[$] Restartable sequences, TCMalloc, and Hyrum's Law
Hyrum's Law states that any
observable behavior of a system will eventually be depended upon by
somebody. The kernel community is currently contending with a clear
demonstration of that principle. The recent work to address some restartable-sequences
performance problems in the 6.19 release maintained the documented API
in all respects, but that was not enough; Google's TCMalloc
library, as it turns out, violates the documented API, prevents other code
from using restartable features, and breaks with 6.19. But the kernel's
no-regressions rule is forcing developers to find a way to accommodate
TCMalloc's behavior.
GCC 16.1 released
Version 16.1 of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) has been released.
The C++ frontend now defaults to the GNU C++20 dialect and the corresponding parts of the standard library are no longer experimental. Several C++26 features receive experimental support, including Reflection (-freflection), Contracts, expansion statements and std::simd.Other changes include the introduction of an experimental compiler frontend for the Algol68 language, ability to output GCC diagnostics in HTML form, and more.