Also in today's open source roundup: KaOS developers release an updated ISO image, and Mozilla's fast new browser Servo will be available for testing in June Two Linux experts choose the best distributions One of the best things about Linux is the range of choices available when it comes to desktop distributions. But that same level of choice can also be a bit confusing to newcomers to Linux. It can be hard for them to sift through all of the different distributions to find the one that might work best for them. Not to worry though if you’re a newbie, Datamation has a helpful article that features two Linux experts who share their picks for best Linux distributions. Matt Hartley lists his picks for Datamation: It’s been said that the single biggest challenge Linux presents to the newcomer isn’t the new operating system, rather it’s the flood of random choices to be made. There’s desktop environments, the distro base, package management, you get the general idea. This article will serve as a guide for those looking to come to their own conclusion, by trying some of my best Linux distro recommendations. Keep in mind, the best Linux distro for one person might not be a match for you. So keep an open mind as we go through each option below. Ubuntu Linux Mint PCLinuxOS elementaryOS Puppy Linux SolydXK openSUSE Fedora Arch Debian More at Datamation Datamation’s other Linux expert Bruce Byfield has a slightly different take on the best distributions: To be honest, I follow Linux desktops more closely than Linux distributions. To me, desktop environments are where the innovation occurs. In fact, I would argue that when a distribution calls attention to itself, something is probably wrong. All the same, I have my favorite Linux distros. They are not necessarily the most popular – that would be bland – but they are distributions that, one way or the other, are influential or fill a niche extremely well. Debian Linux Mint Knoppix Qubes OS Tails Mageia Bodhi Linux Fedora Project Trisquel GNU/Linux KDE Neon More at Datamation KaOS developers release an updated ISO image KaOS is a rolling Linux distribution that features the KDE desktop. The KaOS developers recently released an updated ISO image, and a writer at ZDNet has a first look at KaOS. If you’re a fan of KDE, KaOS might be a good choice for you. JA Watson reports for ZDNet: KaOS Linux is an unusual case in the world of Linux distributions. First, because it is not derived from any other distribution; second, because it is so tightly focused on the KDE desktop; and third, because it is a rolling distribution. When you put those three things together, it makes it interesting enough for me to keep KaOS Linux loaded on one or two of my laptops. The KDE-centric nature of the distribution includes not only the desktop, but all of the utilities, applications and packages included in the distribution. It uses the QupZilla browser, not Firefox or Chrome (although it also include Konqueror); Calligra for office applications rather than LibreOffice or OpenOffice, and much more. Those who want to add their favorite non-KDE applications can usually do so directly from the KaOS repositories. I just checked and found firefox, google-chrome, libreoffice and vlc all available for installation in the octopi software manager. In summary I would say that if KDE Plasma 5 is your cup of tea, then KaOS could be worth your careful consideration. I have found it to be clean, simple and solid (despite the minor annoyance of the missing efibootmgr). Furthermore, if you are happy with only the KDE applications and utilities, it is ready to go out of the box, but if you want you can add some of the more popular general-use applications such as Firefox, LibreOffice, VLC and such, they are available in the KaOS Add/Remove Software utility. More at ZDNet Mozilla’s fast new browser Servo will be available for testing in June Firefox isn’t the only browser that Mozilla has been working on lately. A fast, new browser called Servo is in the works, and it will be available for testing in June. Owen Williams reports for The Next Web: Servo is a browser engine that was built from the ground up in the Rust language to specialize in performance, security, modularity and parallelism. What parallelism means in a browser is that the browser’s independent components such as rendering, HTML parsing, layout and other jobs are handled by isolated tasks, which helps with both performance and stability. It’s actively being developed for Linux, Android, OS X and Firefox OS, but Mozilla hasn’t publicly discussed its plans for the eventual official release of the browser. More at The Next Web The news about Servo caught the attention of Linux redditors and they shared their thoughts about it: Mreut: “By security, don’t be thinking encryption or traceless browsing. All Rust is going to bring are checks that developers will enjoy, i.e. array overflow checking, thread safety, etc. Granted, exploits can be crafted around things like array overflow (example being the GRUB hack that bypassed all security checks in the system that was discovered ~6 months ago), but these are generally the rarer cases. Encryption and privacy are far more “real” concerns for the average user.” Nerga: “Rust also brings concurrency to browsers. You can load things in parallel.” Ybx: “It probably won’t have the security implications you think it will, as it’ll still likely be using a JIT Javascript engine, something which can’t be written in safe rust by its very nature. This would be the important part for increases in security – you can’t do very much to a browser with its Javascript disabled. The layout engine will be near impenetrable though.” Slabity: “But Servo also provides the DOM for the Javascript engine, which is what allows Javascript to do nearly anything outside of basic calculations. I would think that would improve security quite a bit.” IMSoCabbage: “Not sure what this article is trying to say, but Servo is not a browser, it is a render engine. There is an experimental UI for it called browser.html and the June date is for an alpha version of those two combined. You could test Servo right now if you wanted.” Holgerschurig: “That Servo is (currently) super speedy doesn’t tell much. Because it isn’t feature complete. No one can say if making Serve feature complete and compliant will make it slower. Many programs used to be fast during development, and then got slower and slower in order to get them spec-compliant. This often adds additional checks, and sometimes more complicated algorithms that handle corner cases.” Super: “I think the main reason for calling it speedy is because they use Rust, which does zero cost abstractions just like C and C++. Rust also has a clever resource checking scheme build in the compiler that makes parallelism more easy, basically if you set yourself up for a race condition or something like that you’ll get a compile error.” More at Reddit Did you miss a roundup? Check the Eye On Open home page to get caught up with the latest news about open source and Linux. Software DevelopmentOpen Source