Distro watch
What’s behind the free software sofa?
ZORIN OS 15.2
The newest version of this Ubuntu-based distro has been released. As the release announcement (which can be read at http://bit.ly/lxf262zorin) states, this new release focuses on “refining the foundation of Zorin OS: its core technologies and software stack”, which should make for a faster, more secure and better performing experience. The Linux kernel is now 5.3 (which comes with new security patches), and there’s better hardware support, including AMD Navi GPUS, 10th gen Intel processors and Macbook keyboards.
GOBOLINUX 017-ALPHA
This independently developed distro, which has the lofty ambition of redefining the UNIX filesystem hierarchy into a database-like format, now has a new preview out. This alpha snapshot’s primary goal is to test out the new boot process and installer. While there are some outdated packages included, Python 2 has been depreciated, and all Gobolinux tools have been ported to Python 3. You can find out more at: http://bit.ly/lxf262gobo.
ELIVE 3.8.4 (BETA)
A new snapshot of this Debian-based live CD distro has been released. Based on Debian 10 “Buster”, this version comes with updates to the kernel (now 5.4.8) and numerous fixes as well. According to the release statement (http://bit.ly/lxf262elive), the Debian base system has been updated to 10.3, and there are fixes to Thunar notifications, Conky and NVME disk support, among others.
ANDROID-X86 9.0-R1
Version 9.0 of this unofficial port of Google’s Android operating system for mobile devices has now been released. This project brings Android to standard computers with the x86 architecture, and this is the first stable release based on Android “Pie”. This update supports 64-bit and 32-bit kernels, Opengl ES 3.x hardware acceleration for a variety of GPUS and a textbased GUI installer. You can find out more about this project at http://bit.ly/lxf262androidx86.