Elementary OS has been my distribution of choice for some time now. I find it a perfect blend of usability, elegance, and stability. Out of the box, Elementary doesn’t include a lot of apps, but it does offer plenty of style and all the apps you could want are an AppCenter away. And with the upcoming release, the numbering scheme changes. Named Juno, the next iteration will skip the .5 number and go directly to 5.0. Why? Because Elementary OS is far from a pre-release operating system and the development teams wanted to do away with any possible confusion.

Elementary, 0.4 (aka Loki) is about as stable a Linux operating system as I have ever used. And although Elementary OS 5.0 does promise to be a very natural evolution from .4, it is still very much in beta, but ready for testing. Because Juno is based on Ubuntu 18.04, it enjoys a rock-solid base, so the foundation of the OS will already be incredibly stable.

OpenWRT 18.06 is now available as the router/networking/embedded-focused Linux distribution.

OpenWRT 18.06 is a significant release in that it's the first since the OpenWRT and LEDE projects decided to merge under the unified OpenWRT umbrella following the two year fork of the "Linux Embedded Development Environment" (LEDE).

Also: IPFire 2.21 – Core Update 122 Introduces New Linux Kernel Support and Overall Improvements

Debian 8 was the first version to adopt systemd. The Devuan project began at that time, but the first stable release didn’t land until 2017, alongside the release of Debian 9.

Devuan uses the same APT package manager as Debian, but it maintains its own package repositories. Those are the servers that store the software you download using APT.

Devuan’s repositories contain the same software as Debian, only with patches that enable programs to run without systemd. This mainly refers to backend components such as policykit, which manages which users can access or modify certain parts of your PC.

What Is It Like to Use Devuan?

Just like with Debian, there are multiple ways to install Devuan. The “minimal” download provides you with the essential tools you need to get Devuan up and running on your machine. The “live” download provides you with a working desktop that you can test out before installing Devuan onto your computer.

Devuan uses the Xfce desktop environment by default. This is a traditional computing environment akin to how PC interfaces looked several decades ago. Functionally, Xfce is still able to handle most tasks people have come to expect from computers today.

The live version of Devuan comes with plenty of software to cover general expectations. Mozilla Firefox is available for browsing the web. LibreOffice is there for opening and editing documents. GIMP can alter photos and other images. These apps all function as you would expect, with no concern for which init system you’re running.

SteamOS 2.154 has been released today to the brewmaster channel as the new stable version of the operating system and it appears to be based on Debian GNU/Linux 8.11, the last point release of the Debian Jessie operating system series, which reached end of life last month on June 17, 2018.

According to Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais, SteamOS 2.154 contains the same updates that were pushed earlier this month to the SteamOS 2.151 beta release, so it should be considered a minor bugfix release as Valve continues to work on a major new version that would probably be based on Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" and feature updated kernel and graphics stacks.

Also: SteamOS 2.154 Released As Valve Preps Kernel & Driver Upgrades