System76, the Colorado-based Linux laptop, desktop, and server specialist, has announced a new highly portable laptop with an Intel Alder Lake processor inside. Tom's Hardware reports: The new Lemur Pro(opens in new tab) is a "lighter than Air" 14-inch form factor laptop with excellent battery life and attractions such as open firmware (powered by Coreboot) and a 180-degree hinge. In addition, buyers can choose to go with Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS or Ubuntu 22.04 LTS pre-installed. The new Lemur Pro has many attractive modern features you might see advertised in many rival mainstream thin and light designs. However, the special sauce here is the "System76 Open Firmware with Coreboot." Coreboot, known initially as LinuxBIOS, is significant as it is an open-source BIOS implementation embraced by Linux users. It is lightweight, flexible, and feature-rich. [...]

System76 has designed the Lemur Pro with monitor-based docking in mind. It envisions users connecting to a big screen using the USB-C connection to benefit from the more expansive workspace and laptop charging. Like Windows, Linux had to have some serious tinkering under the hood to prepare for the mix of Performance and Efficiency cores in Alder Lake chips. However, rest assured, efficient hybrid scheduling is taken care of with the two OS options that can be pre-installed on the Lemur Pro.

System76 allows customers to configure and buy Lemur Pro laptops right now. There are many RAM and storage configurations to pick through, and you can add external keyboards and monitors to the bundle. The entry price with an Intel Core i5-1235U, 8GB RAM, 240GB of storage, and no extras is $1,149. However, the Core i7-1255U model is a bit of a stretch, adding $200 to the base price for the faster CPU clocks.

Yesterday, Phoronix reported that the lead developer of systemd, Lennart Poettering, left Red Hat. "It turns out he had joined Microsoft and [is] continuing his work on systemd," writes Phoronix's Michael Larabel in a new report. He continues: While some may not always align with his views or approaches to handling some things, there is no overstating his enormous contributions to the Linux/open-source world and his dedication to advancing the ecosystem over the years. This may take many by surprise but let's not forget Microsoft has over time employed a number of Linux developers and other prominent open-source developers... Microsoft currently employs Python creator Guido van Rossum, GNOME creator Miguel de Icaza had been employed by Microsoft from 2016 when they acquired Xamarin to earlier this year when he left, Nat Friedman as part of Xamarin-Microsoft served as GitHub CEO following Microsoft's acquisition, Gentoo Linux founder Daniel Robbins was previously employed by Microsoft, Steve French as the Linux CIFS/SMB2/SMB3 maintainer and Samba team member works for Microsoft, and Microsoft employs/previously-employed a large number of upstream Linux developers like Matteo Croce, Matthew Wilcox, Shyam Prasad N, Michael Kelley, and many others beyond just the usual immediately recognizable names to Linux enthusiasts/developers. It was also just earlier this year that Christian Brauner as another longtime Linux kernel developer joined Microsoft. Christian Brauner is Berlin-based like Lennart and moved on to Microsoft after the past half-decade at Canonical working on the Linux kernel, LXC, systemd, and more.

As noted by a Reddit user and confirmed by Ars Technica, Microsoft's xCloud game streaming looks noticeable worse when running on Linux than Windows. From the report: With the Linux User-Agent, edges are generally less sharp and colors are a little more washed out. The difference is even more apparent if you zoom in on the Forza logo and menu text, which shows a significant reduction in clarity. Interestingly, the dip in quality seems to go away if you enable "Clarity Boost, an Edge-exclusive feature that "provid[es] the optimal look and feel while playing Xbox games from the cloud," according to Microsoft. That's great for Linux users who switched over to Microsoft Edge when it launched on Linux last November. But Linux users who stick with Firefox, Chrome, or other browsers are currently stuck with apparently reduced streaming quality.

That Linux quality dip has led some to speculate that Microsoft is trying to reserve the best xCloud streaming performance for Windows machines in an attempt to attract more users to its own operating system. But using a Macintosh User-Agent string provides streaming performance similar to that on Windows, which would seem to be a big omission if that theory were true. Microsoft also hasn't published any kind of "best on Windows"-style marketing in promoting xCloud streaming, which would seemingly be a key component of trying to attract new Windows users. (The quality difference could be a roundabout attempt to get Linux users to switch to the Edge browser, where Clarity Boost offers the best possible quality. But that still wouldn't fully explain why Windows users on other browsers, without Clarity Boost, also get better streaming quality than their Linux brethren.)

Others have suggested that the downgrade could simply be a bug caused by Microsoft's naive parsing of the User-Agent strings. That's because the User-Agent strings for Android browsers generally identify themselves as some version of Linux ("Linux; Android 11; HD1905," for example). Microsoft's xCloud code might simply see the "Linux" in that string, assume the user is running Android, then automatically throttle the streaming quality to account for the (presumably) reduced screen size of an Android phone or tablet.

To much surprise, the lead developer of systemd Lennart Poettering who also led the creation of PulseAudio, Avahi, and has been a prolific free software contributor has reportedly left Red Hat. Michael Larabel writes via Phoronix: So far no public announcement appears to have been made, but according to a source has been reportedly removed from Red Hat's internal employee database. Yesterday Lennart did comment on the public Fedora devel mailing list to having now created a personal Red Hat Bugzilla account for his Fedora contributions after it was raised in bug reports and brought up on the mailing list that Lennart's Red Hat account is disabled. Emailing his Red Hat address this morning indeed yields an auto-response that it's no longer in use.

He's still active in systemd world with new commits made as of today, so it will be interesting to see where he ends up or his next moves with his vast Linux ecosystem expertise and pivotal role in spearheading systemd's direction.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phoronix, written by Michael Larabel: RISC-V International has relayed word to us that in China the DeepComputing and Xcalibyte organizations have announced pre-orders on the first RISC-V laptop intended for developers. The "ROMA" development platform features a quad-core RISC-V processor, up to 16GB of RAM, up to 256GB of storage, and should work with most RISC-V Linux distributions. [...] DeepComputing and Xcalibyte say this laptop uses an "unannounced" quad-core RISC-V processor so is very light on the details. But frankly if it wasn't a RISC-V International PR contact relaying this to me, it sounds more like a satire announcement. The ROMA press release today goes on to note, "A Web3-friendly platform with NFT creation and publication plus integrated MetaMask-style wallet, ROMA will create an even more integrated experience with future AR glasses and AI speakers operating entirely on RISC-V software and powered by RISC-V hardware."

Quantities are also said to be limited for this ROMA laptop, which likely will put a pricing premium on it. Their cringe-worthy press release filled with buzzwords and scant technical details goes on to note, "The first 100 customers to pre-order ROMA will receive a unique NFT to mark the birth of the world's first native RISC-V development platform laptop. And you can have your ROMA personally engraved with your name or company name." [...] So right now this announcement just raises a lot more questions than answers, but we are certainly looking forward to hearing more about RISC-V laptops... Further reading: Pine64 Is Working On a RISC-V Single-Board Computer

This week, BMW confirmed that some of its future models would run on a next-gen version of its in-house operating system built on top of Android Automotive. Android Polic reports: It's a big change from previous Linux-based versions, though the company says some of its cars will stay on its legacy build. So far, the automaker has yet to confirm which of its models will get Automotive support, though work on supporting it won't begin until March of 2023.

Automotive's biggest selling point for car manufacturers is its flexibility and customization options. Outside of some built-in Google apps -- Assistant, Maps, the Play Store -- don't expect to notice these BMW cars running Android immediately. Instead, the company will almost certainly rely on a skin to make the experience feel more in line with previous vehicles, as well as that Linux-based OS the company plans to keep developing.

slack_justyb shares a report from ZDNet: For over three decades, Linux has been written in the C programming language. Indeed, Linux is C's most outstanding accomplishment. But the last few years have seen a growing momentum to make the Rust programming language Linux's second Linux language. At the recent Open Source Summit in Austin, Texas, Linux creator Linus Torvald said he could see Rust making it into the Linux kernel as soon as the next major release. "I'd like to see the Rust infrastructure merging to be started in the next release, but we'll see." Linux said after the summit. "I won't force it, and it's not like it's going to be doing anything really meaningful at that point -- it would basically be the starting point. So, no promises."

Now, you may ask: "Why are they adding Rust at all?" Rust lends itself more easily to writing secure software. Samartha Chandrashekar, an AWS product manager, said it "helps ensure thread safety and prevent memory-related errors, such as buffer overflows that can lead to security vulnerabilities." Many other developers agree with Chandrashekar. Torvalds also agrees and likes that Rust is more memory-safe. "There are real technical reasons like memory safety and why Rust is good to get in the kernel." Mind you, no one is going to be rewriting the entire 30 or so million lines of the Linux kernel into Rust. As Linux developer Nelson Elhage said in his summary of the 2020 Linux Plumber's meeting on Rust in Linux: "They're not proposing a rewrite of the Linux kernel into Rust; they are focused only on moving toward a world where new code may be written in Rust." The three areas of potential concern for Rust support are making use of the existing APIs in the kernel, architecture support, and dealing with application binary interface (ABI) compatibility between Rust and C.

Today I learned Turkey's Scientific and Technological Research Council has a subsidiary developing a GNU/Linux distro called Pardus, "redesigned to be used in accordance with the practices and habits of users in Turkey."

And this week the Free Software Foundation published a post from the proud project leader of Pardus, explaining exactly why open source was chosen in the district of Eyüpsultan (on the European side of Istanbul) and how they got it implemented: After the municipal elections held in 2014, the new administration realized (through internal financial analysis reports) that a large amount of money was being spent on licensing proprietary software. Looking to cut costs, management asked for a study to be carried out for solutions. As the Eyüpsultan municipality's IT department, we recommended to replace Microsoft Windows with Pardus GNU/Linux instead. We described our preference to transition to free software as "the desire to be independent from a company as well as the savings to be gained from cutting hefty license fees."

Additionally, we spoke about how the four freedoms would improve things outside of the budget. For example, we told the administration that users, when using free software, can fully benefit from the rights they have over the programs running on their computers. We also informed everyone that, when the software they run is proprietary, it means that a company claims rights over the user, and that such a claim of ownership can place restrictions on users in how they may or may not use the software. We told them that this is unacceptable. Arguments such as these were among the deciding factors that influenced our transition to free software.

The plan was presented to the municipal administration and widely accepted.

The municipal administration approved the project, and in January, 2015, the Eyüpsultan municipality started using free software applications such as LibreOffice (e.g. Writer, Calc, Impress, etc.). Prior to the implementations, basic user training on LibreOffice software was provided to the personnel of the institution. Over time, users were gradually and steadily directed to free systems, and, notably, without receiving backlash from users.... Training was an important item in the transition to Pardus GNU/Linux.
Besides an online support forum, they've also set up a live call center to answer questions. "I think we may be the only distribution that helps with issues via a call center."

So how do they feel now about that transition, eight years later? Free software has many advantages, including flexibility, high performance, major cost savings from licensing fees, independence from any particular company, and compliance with interoperability standards. Therefore, the transition of Eyüpsultan municipality to free software has resulted in benefits that were both strategic and practical. We believe, in the near future, more organizations will need to understand the philosophy of free software and the opportunities that free software provides.

The municipal budget has freed up money as a result of the moving from proprietary software to free software. The savings from the "proprietary software licenses" line of the budget was applied to the district in the form of new projects. The money goes now to, among other things, increasing the number of new parks and gardens, bicycle paths, and security cameras in the parks. Additionally, by increasing the number of classes we provide technical training, we started to provide classes in robotics and computation to young people. The Eyüpsultan municipality is now increasing the opportunities for students to further develop their personalities, abilities, goals, and self-discovery. It introduces young people to technology and encourages them to produce new technologies.
One final effect of using free software? It encourages others to do the same: As a result of this brave decision, many of the Istanbul district municipalities have started working to switch or have already made the switch to the Pardus GNU/Linux operating system. Institutions in other cities of the country have also expressed growing interest by asking questions about the Pardus operating system and free software.

The nonprofit Linux Foundation pays Linus Torvalds' salary and supports many other open source projects. But they also launched a new podcast series this week covering "The Untold Stories of Open Source."

"Each week we explore the people who are supporting Open Source projects, how they became involved with it, and the problems they faced along the way," explains the podcast's GitHub page (where you can put in a pull request to suggest future episodes or track the project's progress.)

The podcast is available on its official web page, as well as on Spotify, Apple, Google, or "wherever you listen to your podcasts," according to an announcement from the Linux Foundation. An introductory page says the podcast will be "used to inform the Linux and Open Source communities as to the current state in development of open source initiatives and Linux Foundation Projects. It is vendor neutral, with no interviews of commercial product vendors or sales teams."

Here's the first four episodes:

• Balancing Priorities at the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, with Priyanka Sharma, general manager

• A Life in Open Source, with Brian Behlendorf, general manager at Open Source Security Foundation

• A New Model for Technical Training, with Clyde Seepersad, senior vice president of the Linux Foundation's training/certification project

• The Business Side of Open Source, with Patrick Debois, "godfather of DevOps"

Phoronix reports a new change was merged into the soon-to-be-released Linux 5.19 on Tuesday, making the kernel's signature verification code compliant with the Federal Information Processing Standards known as FIPS: FIPS are public standards via the National Institute of Standards and Technology used by U.S. government agencies and contractors in the areas of computer security and interoperability... Known-answer self-tests are required for FIPS compliance at startup/reboot, but the Linux kernel's signature verification code has been lacking such tests.

The signature checking code is used for module signing, Kexec, and other functionality. With Linux 5.19 there will now be some basic self-tests at start.
The tests will make their debut in Linux 5.19-rc4.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader UnknowingFool for sharing the news!

Speaking this week at the Linux Foundation's Open-Source Summit, Linus Torvalds talked up the possibilities of Rust within the Linux kernel and that it could be landing quite soon -- possibly even for the next kernel cycle. From a report: Linus Torvalds and Dirk Hohndel had their usual Open-Source Summit keynote/chat where Linus commented on Rust programming language code within the kernel. Torvalds commented that real soon they expect to have the Rust infrastructure merged within the kernel, possibly even for the next release -- meaning Linux 5.20. There hasn't yet been any Rust for Linux pull request sent in or merged yet, but things have begun settling down in the initial Rust enablement code for the kernel with the basic infrastructure, a few basic sample drivers, etc. Last month saw the most recent Rust Linux kernel patches posted that got more functionality into shape and additional reviews completed. As noted plenty of times before, this Rust support within the Linux kernel will remain optional when building the kernel depending upon whether you want the support or any of the kernel features to be implemented just in Rust code.

ZDNet is warning that Linux users need to watch out for "a new peer-to-peer (P2P) botnet that spreads between networks using stolen SSH keys and runs its crypto-mining malware in a device's memory." The Panchan P2P botnet was discovered by researchers at Akamai in March and the company is now warning it could be taking advantage of collaboration between academic institutions to spread by causing previously stolen SSH authentication keys to be shared across networks.

But rather than stealing intellectual property from these educational institutions, the Panchan botnet is using their Linux servers to mine cryptocurrency, according to Akamai... "Instead of just using brute force or dictionary attacks on randomized IP addresses like most botnets do, the malware also reads the id_rsa and known_hosts files to harvest existing credentials and use them to move laterally across the network...." Akamai found 209 peers, but only 40 of them are currently active and they were mostly located in Asia.

And why is the education sector more impacted by Panchan? Akamai guesses this could be because of poor password hygiene, or that the malware moves across the network with stolen SSH keys.
Akamai writes that the malware "catches Linux termination signals (specifically SIGTERM — 0xF and SIGINT — 0x2) that are sent to it, and ignores them.

"This makes it harder to terminate the malware, but not impossible, since SIGKILL isn't handled (because it isn't possible, according to the POSIX standard, page 313)."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Embedded and internet of things (IoT) devices are a growing category of computing, and with that growth has come expanded needs for security and manageability. One way to help secure embedded and IoT deployments is with a secured operating system, such as Canonical's Ubuntu Core. The Ubuntu Core provides an optimized version of the open-source Ubuntu Linux operating system for smaller device footprints, using an approach that puts applications into containers. On June 15, Ubuntu Core 22 became generally available, providing users with new capabilities to help accelerate performance and lock down security.

Ubuntu Core 22 is based on the Ubuntu 22.04 Linux operating system, which is Canonical's flagship Linux distribution that's made available for cloud, server and desktop users. Rather than being a general purpose OS, Ubuntu Core makes use of the open-source Snap container technology that was originally developed by Canonical to run applications. With Snaps, an organization can configure which applications should run in a specific IoT or embedded device and lock down the applications for security. Snaps provide a cryptographically authenticated approach for application updates.

"Ubuntu developers have been working on bringing up and improving support for the Starfive VisionFive," writes Phoronix, calling the $179 device "one of the most promising 'low-cost' RISC-V single board computers to date... intended to run full-blown RISC-V Linux distributions." The board comes in two varieties with 4GB or 8GB of system memory, powered by a dual-core SiFive U74 RV64 SoC @ 1.0GHz, an NVDLA deep learning accelerator engine, a Tensilica-VP6 Vision DSP, and a neural network engine.... Considering the performance of the much more capable HiFive Unmatched development board (that is also multiple times more expensive) and even that sometimes being outpaced by the Raspberry Pi, don't get too excited for the dual-core 1.0GHz RISC-V 64-bit SoC for general purpose workloads. But this VisionFive board may be interesting for some machine learning and other use-cases thanks to its additional accelerators.

It's also one of the few RISC-V boards capable of running a full Linux distribution in the sub-$200 space.

Since the upstream Linux 5.17 kernel there has been mainline support for the VisionFive v1 board. Ubuntu developers are working on enabling the StarFive VisionFive board for their RISC-V kernel build.

Ars Technica reports: Researchers have unearthed a discovery that doesn't occur all that often in the realm of malware: a mature, never-before-seen Linux backdoor that uses novel evasion techniques to conceal its presence on infected servers, in some cases even with a forensic investigation.

On Thursday, researchers and the BlackBerry Threat Research & Intelligence Team said that the previously undetected backdoor combines high levels of access with the ability to scrub any sign of infection from the file system, system processes, and network traffic. Dubbed Symbiote, it targets financial institutions in Brazil and was first detected in November.

Researchers for Intezer and BlackBerry wrote:

"What makes Symbiote different from other Linux malware that we usually come across, is that it needs to infect other running processes to inflict damage on infected machines. Instead of being a standalone executable file that is run to infect a machine, it is a shared object (SO) library that is loaded into all running processes using LD_PRELOAD (T1574.006), and parasitically infects the machine. Once it has infected all the running processes, it provides the threat actor with rootkit functionality, the ability to harvest credentials, and remote access capability...."

So far, there's no evidence of infections in the wild, only malware samples found online. It's unlikely this malware is widely active at the moment, but with stealth this robust, how can we be sure?
"When hooked functions are called, the malware first dynamically loads libc and calls the original function..." according to Blackberry's blog post. "If the calling application is trying to access a file or folder under /proc, the malware scrubs the output from process names that are on its list.... If the calling application is not trying to access something under /proc, the malware instead scrubs the result from a file list....

"Symbiote also has functionality to hide network activity on the infected machine."

An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from an opinion piece via The Register, written by longtime technology reporter and Linux enthusiast Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Recently, The Register's Liam Proven wrote tongue in cheek about the most annoying desktop Linux distros. He inspired me to do another take. Proven pointed out that Distrowatch currently lists 270 -- count 'em -- Linux distros. Of course, no one can look at all of those. But, having covered the Linux desktop since the big interface debate was between Bash and zsh rather than GNOME vs KDE, and being the editor-in-chief of a now-departed publication called Linux Desktop, I think I've used more of them than anyone else who also has a life beyond the PC. In short, I love the Linux desktop. Many Linux desktop distros are great. I've been a big Linux Mint fan for years now. I'm also fond, in no particular order, of Fedora, openSUSE, Ubuntu, and MX Linux. But you know what? That's a problem right there. We have many excellent Linux desktop distros, which means none of them can gain enough market share to make any real dent in the overall market.
[...]
Besides over 200 distros, there are 21 different desktop interfaces and over half-a-dozen different major ways to install software such as the Debian Package Management System (DPKG), Red Hat Package Manager (RPM), Pacman, Zypper, and all too many others. Then there are all the newer containerized ways to install programs including Flatpak, Snap, and AppImage. I can barely keep them all straight and that's part of my job! How can you expect ordinary users to make sense of it all? You can't. None of the major Linux distributors -- Canonical, Red Hat, and SUSE -- really care about the Linux desktop. Sure, they have them. They're also major desktop influencers. But their cash comes from servers, containers, the cloud, and the Internet of Things (IoT). The desktop? Please. We should just be glad they spend as many resources as they do on them.

Now, all this said, I don't want you to get the impression that I don't think the conventional Linux desktop is important. I do. In fact, I think it's critical. Microsoft, you see, is abandoning the traditional PC-based desktop. In its crystal ball, Microsoft sees Azure-based Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) as its future. [...] That means that the future of a true desktop operating system will lie in the hands of Apple with macOS and us with Linux. As someone who remembers the transition from centrally controlled mainframes and minicomputers to individually empowered PCs, I do not want to return to a world where all power belongs to Microsoft or any other company. "The Linux desktop will never be as big as Windows once was," writes Vaughan-Nichols in closing. "Between DaaS's rise and the fall of the desktop to smartphones, it can't be. But it may yet, by default, become the most popular true conventional desktop."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: One of the few things that Intel Macs can do that Apple Silicon Macs can't is run operating systems written for Intel or AMD processors inside of virtual machines. Most notably, this has meant that there is currently no legal way to run Windows on an Apple Silicon Mac. Apple Silicon Macs can, however, run operating systems written for Arm processors inside of virtual machines, including other versions of macOS and Arm-compatible versions of Linux. And those Linux VMs are getting a new feature in macOS Ventura: the ability to run apps written for x86 processors using Rosetta, the same binary translation technology that allows Apple Silicon Macs to run apps written for Intel Macs.

Apple's documentation will walk you through the requirements for using Rosetta within a Linux guest operating system -- it requires creating a shared directory that both macOS and Linux can access and running some terminal commands in Linux to get it set up. But once you do those steps, you'll be able to enjoy the wider app compatibility that comes with being able to run x86 code as well as Arm code. Some developers, including Hector Martin of the Asahi Linux project and Twitter user @never_released, have already found that these steps can also enable Rosetta on non-Apple ARM CPUs as long as they're modern enough to support at least version 8.2 of the Arm instruction set. As Martin points out, this isn't strictly legal because of macOS's licensing restrictions, and there are some relatively minor Apple-specific hardware features needed to unlock Rosetta's full capabilities.

"Linux Mint is taking over development of Timeshift, a popular open-source backup tool," reports the blog OMG! Ubuntu: Anyone familiar with Mint will be familiar with this utility. Timeshift is, as the distro's own lead Clement Lefebvre says in the latest monthly update, a central plank in the system's backup and update 'strategy'.

Sadly, as happens, the creator of Timeshift is unable to keep working on it owing to other responsibilities. Not keen to see it stagnate, Mint says it 'got in touch' to see how they could help. Long story short: Linux Mint is assuming maintenance of the app henceforth.

And as part of the process Timeshift is becoming an official member of the XApp family (this is Mint's stable of home-grown software it designs and develops to be distro-agnostic for widest possible use).

The Register has unveiled their "cynic's guide to desktop Linux," which they ultimately concede is a snarky yet affectionate list of "the least bad distros."

For those who are "sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac," the article begins by addressing people who complain there's too many Linux distros to choose from. "We thought we'd simplify things for you by listing how and in which ways the different options suck." - The year of Linux on the desktop came and went, and nobody noticed — maybe because it doesn't say "Linux" on it. ChromeOS only runs on ChromeBooks and ChromeBoxes, but they outsold Macs for a while before the pandemic. "Flex" is the version for ordinary PCs... ChromeOS Flex works great, because it only does one thing: browse the web. You can't install apps, not even Android ones: only official kit does that. You can run Debian containers: if you know what that means, go run Debian. If you don't know what that means, trust us, you don't want to.

- Ubuntu is an ancient African word that means I can't configure Debian....

- Mint is an Ubuntu remix with knobs on. It was an also-ran for years, but when Ubuntu went all Mac-like it saw its chance and grabbed it — along with the number one spot in the charts. It dispenses with some of the questionable bits of recent Ubuntu, such as GNOME and Snaps, but replaces them with dodgy bits of its own, such as a confusing choice of not one, not two, but three Windows-like desktops, and overly cautious approaches to updates and upgrades.

- Debian is the daddy of free distros, and the one that invented the idea of a packaging tool that automatically installs dependencies. It's easier than it used to be, but mired in politics. It's sort of like Ubuntu, but more out of date, harder to install, and with fewer drivers. If that sounds just your sort of thing, go for it.
There's 10 snarky entries in all, zinging Fedora, openSUSE, Arch Linux, and Pop!_OS — as well as the various spinoffs of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. (The article calls Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux "RHEL with the serial numbers filed off.")

And there's also one final catch-call entry for "Tiny obscure distros. All of them."

Thanks to Slashdot reader AleRunner for sharing the link...

Older iPads with the Apple A7- and A8-based chips may soon be able to run Linux. "Developer Konrad Dybcio and a Linux enthusiast going by "quaack723" have collaborated to get Linux kernel version 5.18 booting on an old iPad Air 2, a major feat for a device that was designed to never run any operating system other than Apple's," reports Ars Technica. From the report: The project appears to use an Alpine Linux-based distribution called "postmarketOS," a relatively small but actively developed distribution made primarily for Android devices. Dybcio used a "checkm8" hashtag in his initial tweet about the project, strongly implying that they used the "Checkm8" bootrom exploit published back in 2019 to access the hardware. For now, the developers only have Linux running on some older iPad hardware using A7 and A8-based chips -- this includes the iPad Air, iPad Air 2, and a few generations of iPad mini. But subsequent tweets imply that it will be possible to get Linux up and running on any device with an A7 or A8 in it, including the iPhone 5S and the original HomePod.

Development work on this latest Linux-on-iDevices effort is still in its early days. The photos that the developers shared both show a basic boot process that fails because it can't mount a filesystem, and Dybcio notes that basic things like USB and Bluetooth support aren't working. Getting networking, audio, and graphics acceleration all working properly will also be a tall order. But being able to boot Linux at all could draw the attention of other developers who want to help the project.

Compared to modern hardware with an Apple M1 chip, A7 and A8-powered devices wouldn't be great as general-purpose Linux machines. While impressive at the time, their CPUs and GPUs are considerably slower than modern Apple devices, and they all shipped with either 1GB or 2GB of RAM. But their performance still stacks up well next to the slow processors in devices like the Raspberry Pi 4, and most (though not all) A7 and A8 hardware has stopped getting new iOS and iPadOS updates from Apple at this point; Linux support could give some of these devices a second life as retro game consoles, simple home servers, or other things that low-power Arm hardware is good for. Further reading: Linux For M1 Macs? First Alpha Release Announced for Asahi Linux