Best Linux distro - The last five years - 2016-2020

Last year, for the first time in a decade, I did not write my end-of-year best distro reports. Because there wasn't anything majorly exciting to report about, and also because I found myself quite dejected and tired of testing systems for the sake of testing, going through the same old problems, bugs and regressions. Some of you even emailed me about this distinct absence of written judgment. Then I thought, well, if 2020 wasn't fun Linux wise, perhaps we can have a longer view? How about the best distro released in the last five years? That sounds meaningful, and should also give us a good dose of reflection and nostalgia. Now, as always, this is subjective, so if you don't see your favorite distro on the list, it's because I'm writing from my perspective. Begin, shall we? [...] Here we are. Or rather, here I am. Will you send me an angel, I mean distro. So yes. The past five years, and the best distros spawned, hatched, released, and tested. Percentage wise, Xfce takes the lion's share of medals, but it's also the case of Xfce being "better" earlier, and Plasma later in this period. And even Fedora got onto my list, because a few years ago, it was quite nifty and fun. Then I got old and cynical. Or something. The top entries for this list also feature distros that I use on my production systems. Combat-tested so to speak, with great delight and excellent results. My take on 2016-2020. And yes, you guessed right. We will have a sequel article, and it will cover the ENTIRE last decade. We'll examine 2011-2020, and vote on the bestest distro of them all. Take care.

today's howtos

• Multi-OS PXE-booting from FreeBSD 12: Introduction (pt. 1)

  This is an introductory article; if you’re familiar with PXE you will want to skip the excursion but may be interested in the “Why”. The article ends with the post-installation setup of my test machine, turning it into a simple router so that the next article can start with the actual PXE-related setup.

• Annotate your PDF files on OpenBSD

  On my journey to leave macOS, I regularly look to mimic some of the features I use. Namely, annotating (or signing) PDF files is a really simple task using Preview. I couldn’t do it on OpenBSD using Zathura, Xpdf etc. But there is a software in the ports that can achieve this: Xournal.

  Xournal is “an application for notetaking, sketching, keeping a journal using a stylus“. And now that my touchscreen is calibrated, highlighting can even be done with the fingers :)

• 30 Basic Linux Commands For Beginners [Linux 101]

  When I was introduced to Linux, I had a pretty hard time getting used to and learning Linux commands. There’s no secret to learning Linux in a day or two easily but to practice, fail, stand up and practice again, and learn from your mistakes. The easiest way to learn Linux is not to abandon it if you don’t understand how it works. In this article, let’s look at some of the basic Linux commands for beginners. This list of Linux terminal commands contains all the common commands. Think of it as a Linux command cheat sheet as it contains almost all the basic ones to get you started.

• How to Verify SHA256 Checksum of File in Linux

  Internet security is one of the most important aspects when it comes to the world wide web. There has been constant research and development to improve the security of applications and files on the Internet and thus to prevent malicious use. Downloadable files over the Internet are often the target of attacks on the Internet. As thousands and thousands of people download these files regularly, it becomes especially important to protect such files. In this article, we will learn about checksums and how they can be used to authenticate a downloaded file from the Internet.

• How to Check Linux Commands History by Dates

  The history command in Linux is used to view previously executed commands from the terminal. It will show a list of commands, with an ‘id’ next to each command.

• How to restore Ubuntu’s EFI partition in Ubuntu 20.04

  I recently got a new pre-loved laptop and as always I nuked Windows but in the process of booting up, I noticed that my BIOS was a bit out of date. Like a whole year out of date.

• How to Install and Use Docker Compose on Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04

  Docker Compose is a command-line tool for defining and running multi-container applications. With Docker compose, you can run multiple containers as a single service. The containers are still isolated, but they can interact with each other. With Docker compose, you get the benefits of single-host deployment, great security, ease of setup and configuration which leads to really high productivity and efficiency. For example, if you have an application that requires an Apache web server and MariaDB database, you can create a docker-compose.yaml file that can run both the containers as a service without the need to start each one separately.

• How to capture terminal sessions and output with the Linux script command | Enable Sysadmin

  The Linux script command creates a typescript file from your terminal session. This means that if you invoke the script command, you are dropped to a "watched and recorded" terminal session subshell that's saved to an ASCII text file. When created with a timing file, you can replay the session, including output. The purpose of script is that you can easily grab sample output from any command through an interactive session exactly as it's displayed in your terminal. You can use backspace, edit files, create files, and run simple or complex commands.

• How to replay terminal sessions recorded with the Linux script command | Enable Sysadmin

  In my previous article, How to capture terminal sessions and output with the Linux script command, covering the script command and some common options, you learned how to record your interactive terminal sessions. This follow-up article demonstrates how to replay those recorded terminal sessions.

• Critical bug in sudo puts Linux and Unix systems at risk

  Any logged-in unprivileged user can abuse an old bug in sudo to gain root privileges. It was rated as an important security issue for Linux and Unix-like operating systems. The Qualys research team has discovered the heap overflow vulnerability in sudo itself has been hiding in plain sight for nearly 10 years. The bug allows any local users to gain root access without authentication (no user's password needed). We need to apply patches to our operating systems as soon as possible.The post Critical bug in sudo puts Linux and Unix systems at risk appeared first on nixCraft.

• How to Install JDownloader on Debian

  JDownloader is a great tool that can be used to download files from multiple servers simultaniously. It is open source and is supported on all major platforms, the tool is written in Java. It comes in handy when you have to download multiple files at once located at different file hosting services. This tool provides you with the control to pause, stop or start the downloads. It allows you to set bandwidth limitations and it saves a lot of time by changing the way you download files from the internet. In this article, we will explain how to install JDownloader on a Debian OS. We have used Debian 10 for running the commands and procedure described in this article.

• How To Set Or Change Hostname On Linux - OSTechNix

  We already discussed how to view or find a Linux system's hostname. In this brief guide, we will see how to set or change hostname in Linux, either temporarily or permanently.

The Power of CMake Presets

CMake 3.19 was officially released a couple of months ago, and one of the biggest – and most exciting – new features is the addition of presets. What are presets, you might ask, and why should we be excited about them? Presets are a bunch of pre-set CMake options that enable developers to ensure that multiple configurations remain consistent, even when using different compiler tool chains, inserting different debugger or profiler options, or building selected packages within a project. Essentially, you put definitions of the CMake options you want into one of two JSON files: one associated with the project, and one for the user.