Distro News: Makulu, Zorin OS, Pisi, Black Lab, OpenMandriva, Mageia
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-03-29 08:15:31 UTC
- Modified: 2014-03-29 08:15:31 UTC
Makulu
MakuluLinux was already a solidly performing distro, but the latest version, released last month, takes Makulu to the next level of usability and maturity.
So here's the summary. Makulu Linux is the distribution a lot of us think we would like to create, if we had the time, energy and especially the talent to do it. I don't know anyone in the development team, so this is all speculation on my part, but I would say that it is a group of people who just don't know when to stop — and I mean that as a compliment, and a very good thing.
Today's news search turned up quite a bit of data. Red Hat released their quarterly earnings this afternoon and while observers expected good news, some are now reporting not so much. ZDNet.com has two stories of interest today, the first is from Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reporting on the Linux Collaboration Summit and the other is Jamie Watson's hands-on review of Makulu Linux 5 Xfce. He said it was the most fun as one could have with Linux!
Zorin OS
Zorin OS 8 installs smartly and runs without glitches. It is a solid choice for hassle-free computing, even if you ignore the education bundle. However, educators with access to computer stations in the classroom can benefit from using Zorin's Education Edition rather than the Core release. Because it offers all the power of Ubuntu without the Unity interface, you can not go wrong with Zorin OS 8.
If you choose the free version, you will then be offered a choice between the latest release (currently Zorin OS 8.1), which is based on Ubuntu 13.10, or the current Long Term Support (LTS) release (Zorin OS 6.4), which is based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Furthermore, both the current and LTS releases have three versions: Core, Educational and Gaming. That's quite a variety of versions to choose from — and there might even be a "Lite" version coming with LXDE!
Pisi
When it became apparent early in 2012 that for political/financial reasons, Pardus was to be abandoned, a small group of Turkish volunteers came together to preserve the unique features of Pardus. The name of this project is Anka (Turkish for Phoenix). Initially the Anka-Team believed the fork could be named Pardus-Anka. Ultimately this was not possible - hence re-branding to Pisi Linux as a reference to Pardus and its package system PiSi (Pisi is Turkish for kitty).
“Pisi GNU/Linux is built from scratch but it is a stable base. On top of that, we keep core user applications, such as Firefox, VLC, etc, up to date as much as we can. To ease the use of Pisi GNU/Linux many codecs are preinstalled allowing MP3 & DVD playback, Flash Player support,” reads the official website.
Black Lab
“Today we are pleased to announce the beta 2 release of Black Lab Linux 5. This will be the last Beta for Black Lab Linux 5 until the final release. While it contains all the functionality that will be released in the gold release in May, right now we are working on stability. With that, lets go over what has changed with Black Lab Linux 5,” reads the official announcement.
So what changes have been made? There have been quite a few changes to these distributions in terms of updates and functionality. First, we have focused more on the desktop computing spectrum. While we will continue to offer Black Lab Linux + Server Extensions Pak on our server hardware and the Server Extensions Pak as an additional download, we have decided to stick with what we do the best. Which is the desktop systems. We have heard from customers and users that those are the best releases we do, and while we arent totally lost on the server, we feel we have alot of contributions on the desktop.
OpenMandriva
The first Beta version of OpenMandriva Lx 2014, a fully-featured Linux desktop and server sponsored by the OpenMandriva Association, has been released and can now be tested by users.
The 2014.0 beta is a fantastic sneak-peek at what will become the final release of OpenMandriva Lx 2014.0. That being said, it is a beta, and as such you may encounter issues that prevent you from using the system normally.
Mageia
When I bought the ZaReason Strata Laptop, I asked them to pre-load Mageia 4 to it. However, I knew that I was going to add more distros to the hard drive as soon as I can, to make it feel like the pentaboot HP Pavilion that died on me.
To begin, I wiped the original install and re-installed Mageia. Then, I tried to put PCLinuxOS into the hard drive, but the distro had problems with the display. As I could not achieve a decent display, I decided to do some research and try with PCLinuxOS later.
Misc.
Simplicity Linux, a Linux distribution based on Puppy that uses the LXDE desktop, is now at version 14.4 Beta and brings a buckload of changes and improvements.
Robert Shingledecker has announced the immediate availability for download and testing of the Tiny Core 5.3 RC1 Linux operating system, one of the smallest full operating systems in the world.
“‘Symbiosis’ is a special version of antiX developed in full collaboration with the Mepis Community and using the best tools and talents from each distro. It is a mid-weight OS designed to combine an elegant and efficient desktop with simple configuration, high stability, solid performance and medium-sized footprint.”
With last weekend marking an update to the most commonly used Wayland Live CD, I decided to try it out and the different desktop environments that it ships using all the latest code, including the latest development code of Wayland/Weston and the various tool-kits.
The new installer had to be fixed, due to some, small changes between system base of Sparky and LMDE. The network connection did not work after installation the live system on a hard drive (Base Edition 3.3 only).
BBQLinux is an user-friendly Linux distribution made for Android Developers and for enthusiasts who want to test a bit of Arch Linux. It has everything on board to build AOSP or AOSP-based Distributions like OmniROM or CyanogenMod. It’s based on Arch Linux and uses Rolling Release system. BBQLinux uses Arch repositories so its a direct Arch derivative, for example Manjaro is based on Arch but uses their own repositories.
Absolutely everything in it works with Linux, with the caveat that at least for the moment, you have to create a one-line file to get the wireless networking. All of the auxiliary functions work as well, such as Suspend/Resume and the Fn-keys for Sleep, Display Brightness up/down/off, and Volume up/down/off (mute).
While perusing the news this evening I saw a review on NixOS 13.10 by Jesse Smith. Sandra Henry-Stocker wrote a tutorial on "networking basics for the beginner." LinuxInsider's blog safari targeted buzz on "Linux for the senior set" and Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reports OpenStack's top operating system is Ubuntu. Finally, a new Debian Project News was posted.
Linux Lite was created to dispel myths that a linux based operating system is hard to use.
We're passionate about informing people that there are alternatives to proprietary operating systems.
The free software and open source world is a place from which you can take, but you must give back. This is a chance for people on our team to give something back.
Tor-ramdisk, a tor server distro, was recently updated. Linux kernel, tor binary was updated and haveged was used as entropy generator.
FatDogArm, a relatively new distro was released recently for ARM based computers. It is a small operating system targeted for desktop-style operations. FatDogArm achieved a new milestone with its first beta release. The distribution is quite small in size (less than 300MB). The logic behind the FatDog name is explained on the FatDog64ââ¬Â²s site
-
The distribution is published by Linpus Technologies, Inc., a Linux/Android software solutions outfit based in Taiwan. This is about the only Linux provider that does not have a defined release schedule. Whether that’s a good or bad practice is not something I’m going to address here.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- The Tower of Babel
- More is not better
- When Large American "Tech" Companies Can No Longer Complete Payroll
- In spite of several very large waves of Dell layoffs, which the media reported on, it seems like they are still experienceng payroll problems, maybe that's why money is being borrowed
- Writing for Good
- The Web has an abundance of junk
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXVIII - Microsoft Doesn't Want People to Speak About Microsoft-Controlled Restricted ('Secure') Boot, a Silent Injustice and Back Door/Kill Switch
- Can we please stop treating this as normal or acceptable?
-
- Links 02/11/2026: Bracing for US Election and New Zealand Has November 7 Election
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 02/11/2026: Beginning With Gemini Protocol, Looking for CoCs, and Slop for Local Data
- Links for the day
- NDA-Compatible PIPs and RAs at IBM Red Hat
- We welcome Red Hat whistleblowers who can share with us the NDA/s passed their way
- GNU/Linux Rises in African's Largest Population
- 15% in Nigeria [...] A country with over 200 million people
- The Register MS Has Just Published a Fake Article With "AI" 28 Times in the Page (Communist Party of China Entity Paid for That)
- In IRC, someone has just pointed out that an article at The Register MS repeats Microsoft's lies about its financial situation
- Windows Down to All-Time Low, Says statCounter, While Microsoft Tells 60,000 Workers They're No Longer Necessary
- Microsoft must be feeling "salty" right now
- A British Uphill Battle to Eliminate Microsoft and Its American Back Doors
- There are places of work and homes where GNU/Linux is installed and regularly used, not as a mere hobby but as a hyper-productive, practical tool
- Technical Coverage of US Elections
- When elections are done by computers and decided by computers it becomes a tech issue
- By Killing the "Linux News Section" in Softpedia (the Most Popular Section, Based on Its Editor) Softpedia Killed Itself
- Enjoy Ballmer
- Linkspam in "It's FOSS" Today (and It's Not Even FOSS)
- free-to-access ad for some dodgy companies and the URLs are 'tampered' for cashback
- Links 02/11/2026: Slop Destroying Mathematics and "Democracy is Not on the Ballot" (in US)
- Links for the day
- Celebrating Photography, Celebrating Life, Celebrating Magnificent Humanity, Not Plagiarism Disservices
- Any time we adopt or spread slop imagery we are participating in the problem
- Year-Long Celebration Starts on Saturday
- This coming Saturday we turn 20
- On Desktops/Laptops, Clownflare Sees Windows at Under 60% and GNU/Linux at 15% This Past Weekend
- Impressive if accurate
- Microsoft Lunduke is Slop
- Microsoft Lunduke is just trying to stir up hatred
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXVII - Shooting the Messengers (People Who Oppose Microsoft Back Doors), Even Across the Atlantic
- Keep this in mind later this week when a dictator either discredits the voting or covertly tampers with the voting process
- Microsoft Wants 60,000 Employees Gone (One Way or Another)
- At IBM, 15% of staff got marked as candidates for removal; at Microsoft it's almost 30%
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 01, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, November 01, 2026
- Jean-Claude Van Linus
- Claude talking?
- Gemini Links 01/11/2026: OpenBSD, Broken MicroHDMI, Nextcloud, and More
- Links for the day
- IBM Vapourware on a Budget (to Grab Bailouts From US Taxpayers)
- Anderon is the sort of thing that makes IBMers uncomfortable
- Links 01/11/2026: Digital Minimalism and "Palantir Cofounder Announces Cruel Plan to Breed Thousands of Lab Monkeys for Medical Experiments"
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Accenture in Trouble, Accenture’s Debt Skyrockets
- Seeing a wave of adoption of Free software in Europe, it's not exactly shocking that "consultants" from Microsoft Accenture are no longer in demand
- Microsoft Says Its "Goodwill" Value Has Been Declining for Years, But It Also Claimed That Doubled in One Year
- Wall Street deserves far more criticism or scepticism (at the very least)
- SkyChatz: From Nothing to #2 in IRC (in Less Than a Year)
- Second only to Libera.Chat
- Making Up Words or Inventing a Vocabulary
- Or why Large Language Models are useless
- Assange on What Lula Means to Free Press
- Here in the UK we've also found our 'Lulas'
- GNU/Linux is No Underdog (But There Are Attempts to Put It "To Sleep")
- There's a moral imperative
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXVI - The "Law and Order" Candidate Who Crushes Both Law and Order and Even Rejects Election Outcomes (Insurrection Follows)
- A world without real technical security is a world void of democracy, justice, and human rights
- Links 01/11/2026: Malaysian Media Perishing, France Belatedly Identifies Social Control Media as Weaponised Yellow Press
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 01/11/2026: "Trick-or-Treating seems to be dead, at least in our neighborhood"; BaseFree Numerical System and Human Emacs
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 31, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, October 31, 2026
- Gemini Links 31/10/2026: MangoWM, Qutebrowser and Codeberg, Plugh
- Links for the day
- Massive Cuts Inside Microsoft (the Media Does Not Talk About That)
- It is in many ways like IBM a decade ago
- In US Government Sites, GNU/Linux Measured at New All-Time High of 7% (or About 10% Across Desktops/Laptops Alone)
- There's no doubt GNU/Linux is growing
- Intel Has Just Lost in One Single Day Over 150 Billion Dollars in 'Value' (Market Cap), Intel is Also Over 50 Billion Dollars in Debt
- This really says a lot about Wall Street and the slop bubble, doesn't it?
- They Hate Him Because He's Effective
- Effective voices invite more aggressive censorship attempts
- Audience Growing in Spite of the Deluge of Webslop
- We probably benefit from the rejection of LLM slop
- The Munich FUD Tactics (Microsoft Modus Operandi): Microsoft-Connected Sites Claim Denmark Failed With Free Software, But That's Not What Actually Happened
- With Microsoft, it almost always boils down to politics
- Links 31/10/2026: John Romero Comeback After Being Shafted by Microsoft, Google Faces Criminal Probe Over Deforestation in Finland
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 31/10/2026: Rambling on Self-hosting and Ad Video Screens Don’t Make Money
- Links for the day
- Can't Trust Big Banks, Let's Try 'Bros' Instead?
- But let's blame "North Korea"
- IRC's Growing Popularity in 2026
- No company controls or profits from IRC, it is in the Commons
- "AI" as Surrogate for Debt and Distraction From Computing (Bots Described as "Agents" and/or Any Form of "Intelligence" is More Like a Religion)
- We're letting people without even college degrees game the "market" (Wall Street) by lying to it
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXV - Election Integrity at a Time of Back Doors and Very Severe Bugs in UEFI
- How dare British media comment on insurrection following a US election?
- "The Judge Accepted That Mrs Schestowitz Had Been the Subject of a Vicious Campaign of Online Harassment"
- That's consistent with how they men treat women
- Gemini Links 31/10/2026: Hallowe'en and "Thinking About People"
- Links for the day
- Links 31/10/2026: The Hinge on Apple's Constantly Breaking New Foldable iPhone Was "Built With Slop", Slop Causes Cash Squeeze GAFAM
- Links for the day
- Amazon's Debt Skyrockets by Almost 100 Billion Dollars in 9 Months
- On top of that there is additional (secret, kept stealth by accounting tricks) debt
- Google Illegally Destroyed a Quarter Million Trees Without a Permit for a Hypothetical Project That Might be Cancelled, Debt Has Soared by 30 Billion Dollars in 3 Months ($10 Billions Borrowed Per Month)
- Google is bleeding from slop
- Slavery at Microsoft
- illegal if true
- Many People "Left" Red Hat This Month, Including Yesterday
- We already saw this with SUSE
- Gemini Links 31/10/2026: "Where I Draw the Line With" Slop Plagiarism and "Nobody Cares That You're Leaving Proton" (Over Slop)
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 30, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, October 30, 2026