Five Best GNOMEs and Linux 4.0
Linus Torvalds released Linux 4.0 yesterday and it's getting quite a bit of coverage. Elsewhere, Swapnil Bhartiya named the five best GNOME distributions and Phoronix reported that GCC 5 was branched opening development on 6.0. Several new Linux reviews appeared today and Matt Hartley shares his "tips and software picks to make using Linux on the desktop easier."
Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux 4.0 yesterday saying, "I decided to release 4.0 as per the normal schedule, because there really weren't any known issues." He said "feature-wise, 4.0 doesn't have all that much special," but he did mention the "new kernel patching infrastructure." In a follow-up he added that the release was "mainly driver and scattered fixes" since rc7.
Torvalds also noted that this release represents a half a million commits. He compared that to the old BK system which only saw 65,000 commits in its entire 3-year existence. "It shows how the whole development process has really sped up a _lot_" using git he remarked.
The release was covered by The Register, which said, "Notable inclusions are the addition of non-disruptive patching, support for Intel's Quark systems-on-a-chips and better support for the Z13 silicon powering IBM's latest mainframes." ZDNet noted, 'The initial 4.0 release of Linux is dubbed "Hurr durr I'ma sheep", after winning a naming poll that Torvalds said he didn't want anyone to vote in.' eWeek had more on the kernel patching and remembered the addition of "code of conduct" last month. OMG!Ubuntu! noted the addition of "various patches to improve Linux running on a Playstation 3."
Phoronix.com noticed yesterday that 5.0 had been branched off in preparations for its initial release in about a month. Mainline was reset to GCC 6.0 with expectant initial release in about a year. Today he pointed to Honza Hubička's blog post that goes into great detail of the changes in what will be GCC 5.1.0. Last week Larabel posted a shorter version of coming attractions as well.
GNOME fans already have their favorites, but for those looking for a good distribution for GNOME Swapnil Bhartiya has a few suggestions. He began by saying openSUSE is the "best bet" for hardcore GNOME lovers. Red Hat enjoys a close relationship with GNOME making it an ideal choice for "early access to new GNOME features." One surprising choice is Linux Mint Cinnamon, of which he said, "If you love Gnome but can’t work effectively with Gnome Shell, Linux Mint Cinnamon is the answers to all of your prayers."
Several distribution reviews popped up in the feeds today. Jesse Smith began the week by Exploring SuperX 3.0 saying, "Working with this operating system was a smooth and trouble-free experience." A community review of Sabayon 15.02 KDE said, "I cannot really recommend it to anyone but more advanced Linux users who might have a better idea of what they're doing." LinuxBSDos.com posted a review Saturday of Semplice 7 saying, "Semplice 7 is one of those distributions that give you a very minimal system that you have to customize yourself, down the creating folders in your home directory."
Other interesting tidbits include: