When I am trying out a desktop distribution, what really tends to divide the field of Linux distributions in my mind is not whether the system uses MATE or Plasma, or whether the underlying package manager uses RPM or Deb files. What tends to leave a lasting impression with me is whether the desktop environment, its applications and controls feel like a cooperative, cohesive experience or like a jumble of individual tools that happen to be part of the same operating system. In my opinion Ubuntu running the Unity desktop and Linux Mint's Cinnamon desktop are good examples of the cohesive approach. The way openSUSE's administration tools work together provides another example. Like them or hate them, I think most people can see there is an overall design, a unifying vision, being explored with those distributions. I believe Devuan falls into the other category, presenting the user with a collection of utilities and features where some assembly is still required.

This comes across in little ways. For example, many distributions ship Mozilla's Firefox web browser and the Thunderbird e-mail client together as a set, and they generally complement each other. Devuan ships Firefox, but then its counterpart is the mutt console e-mail program which feels entirely out of place with the rest of the desktop software. The PulseAudio sound mixing utility is included, but its system tray companion is not present by default. Even the system installer, which switches back and forth between graphical windows and a text console, feels more like a collection of uncoordinated prompts rather than a unified program or script. Some people may like the mix-and-match approach, but I tend to prefer distributions where it feels like the parts are fitted together to create a unified experience.

What I found was that Devuan provided an experience where I had to stop and think about where items were or how I was going to use them rather than having the pieces seamlessly fit together. However, once I got the system set up in a way that was more to my liking, I appreciated the experience provided. Devuan offers a stable, flexible platform. Once I shaped the operating system a little, I found it to be fast, light and capable. Having a fairly large repository of software available along with Flatpak support provided a solid collection of applications on a conservative operating system foundation. It was a combination I liked.

In short, I think Devuan has some rough edges and setting it up was an unusually long and complex experience by Linux standards. I certainly wouldn't recommend Devuan to newcomers. However, a day or two into the experience, Devuan's stability and performance made it a worthwhile journey. I think Devuan may be a good alternative to people who like running Debian or other conservative distributions such as Slackware. I suspect I may soon be running Devuan's Raspberry Pi build on my home server where its lightweight nature will be welcome.

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Last time on Fuchsia Friday, we dug into two prototype devices that Google is developing to run on Fuchsia, and mentioned that there’s a third “device” in the works. Today we’ll take a look at Machina, Fuchsia’s built-in emulator.

One of the greatest struggles of creating an entirely new OS, especially today, is the chicken-and-egg problem. Without good apps, why would consumers buy a product? And conversely, with no consumers, why would developers make apps?

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LWN reviewed CopperheadOS, a security-enhanced Android distribution, in 2016. Unfortunately, the company behind CopperheadOS appears to have run into internal trouble; we don't dare venture a guess as to the specifics, even after watching the situation for a few days, beyond the fact that there is clearly a dispute between the founders.

• Devuan ships second stable cut of its systemd-free Linux

  Systemd-free Linux distro Devuan has released its stable Version 2.0.

  The project's last release candidate was released in May, and as you'd hope, not much has changed between then and full release.

  Because it's written by purists, we should include the full name of the release: it's Devuan GNU+Linux 2.0 ASCII Stable.

• The Fridge: Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 531

• Empowering developers to embrace Linux

   

  There is a huge opportunity for businesses to embrace new technologies and move their company forward. Open source and snaps are simple solutions, but ones that gives the most vital innovators in a business - developers - the tools they need to be confident in launching some of the world’s most utilised software.    

• R 3.5.0 on Debian and Ubuntu: An Update

  R 3.5.0 was released a few weeks ago. As it changes some (important) internals, packages installed with a previous version of R have to be rebuilt. This was known and expected, and we took several measured steps to get R binaries to everybody without breakage.

  The question of but how do I upgrade without breaking my system was asked a few times, e.g., on the r-sig-debian list as well as in this StackOverflow question.