Distro Monday 50: Endeavouring to Make a Vanilla Kali

DM 50.1 – What’s New in the World of Kali?

First things first, Kali Linux is a distro meant for network security pros or very paranoid end users who want to learn how to maximize their privacy and security on Linux. Offensive Security (the company behind Kali) has made a new flavor with an emphasis on defensive security and a focus on being the ultimate SOC in-a-box setup for network security in small-to-medium sized environments. It also includes security learning tools (analysis tools, threat-hunting, security design & testing, Spy vs Spy competitions), aside from a host of over 100 defensive tools (Arkime, CyberChef, Elastic Security, GVM, TheHive, Malcolm, Zeek, & Suricata which round out some of the best-known options). Aside from all of that, they have updated the guts to Linux 61, Xfce 4.18, and Plasma 5.27LTS. If you want more details check out the article as well as the official announcement on the Kali website (https://www.kali.org/blog/kali-linux-2023-1-release/)

https://9to5linux.com/kali-linux-celebrates-10th-anniversary-with-first-2023-release
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DM 50.2 – Endeavouring for Perfection with Cassini Nova

I used EndeavourOS for about a month last year. Here’s a little background, though: it is a descendant of Antergos, which ended its life in 2019, some of the devs from that distro wanted to maintain the vibrant community which had formed around Antergos, but along the way it morphed into a new distro. It is a solid Arch+ calamares distro with a decidedly NASA theme. That is why all of their releases are named after spacecraft, with the latest release being called Cassini Nova. Being based on Arch, this update only matters for those who want to install it freshly, so that means that if you are an extant user, you already have these updates rolled out to you. So, what minor fixes and updates do we have here?

· Linux 62 kernel
· Mesa 22.3.6
· Xorg 21.1.7
· Nvidia 525.89.02 drivers
· Latest Calamares installer
· Firefox 110.0.1
· Bug fixes
o Nvidia_drm.modeset=1 kernel on systems with switchable nvidia gfx
o No more xf86-video-intel pacakge in the installer
o And a few other things
https://9to5linux.com/endeavouros-cassini-nova-launches-with-linux-kernel-6-2-bug-fixes

#distromonday #endeavourOSs #Linux #arch #updates #TechFreedom #FOSSnews

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DM 50.3 –VanillaOS 2.0 Makes a Tasty Splash

In the search for a “vanilla” experience, the development team has chosen to move from Ubuntu as its base to Debian Sid. If you didn’t know Debian has 3 different branches, based on reference to Toy Story, which was popular when Debian was first being developed, 30 years ago. Bullseye, Sid, and Testing. Current production release (Bullseye) is stable, Sid is unstable and Testing is what will become the new stable release (bookworm). So Vanilla 2.0 will be based on Debian Sid, rather than Ubuntu. I am pleased with this development.

Would I personally choose to use VanillaOS? No. But that is no longer part of my reasoning. The issue I have is that it is designed for GNOME, and I just don’t like GNOME because I don’t like someone telling me that I have to use my computer in a certain way... That is what the GNOME team does every time the release an extension-breaking update (also known as every GNOME update in history). I like the fact that Vanilla moved away from Ubuntu so that it would be easier for them to embrace Flatpaks rather than Snaps. That is a huge benefit for anyone who might want to use it. I might test it out, just to say that I did, but I can’t see myself choking down vanilla GNOME for an extended period of time anytime soon.

If you haven’t been around for long, I covered Vanilla 3-4 months ago, when it was still in beta. The unique things about Vanilla are that it has on-demand immutability, and now will have the option between flatpaks and AppImages, as well as the ability to, like BlendOS, use APT in a container so that apps you install will not touch the base OS, leading to greater stability and security. If you really don’t want your system to break, or need something that is absolutely rock solid for a server or something like that, Vanilla may be a good fit for you.

https://news.itsfoss.com/vanilla-os-debian-ubuntu/

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