- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
TUXEDO Computers has just announced that its upcoming Debian-based TUXEDO OS has entered the final stage of its open beta. That brings the Linux distro right up to the point of being fully transitioned away from Ubuntu.
The new edition, known as TUXEDO OS “Continuous Debian,” replaces the distribution’s traditional Ubuntu foundation with Debian Testing. The change denotes a significant shift for TUXEDO OS, which is developed by German Linux hardware manufacturer TUXEDO Computers.
Open beta testing started in August, and since then the dev team has issued five beta ISOs. The company has reported a large number of bug reports as a result of the testing, as well as a lot of positive feedback from users who have been running the new system without any issues.
As for the software, the current beta runs KDE Plasma 6.7.4 on Wayland, alongside KDE Frameworks 6.30, Qt 6.11.2, and Linux kernel 7.2. Unlike Debian itself, which periodically promotes its Testing branch to Stable, TUXEDO OS will remain permanently based on Debian Testing.
TUXEDO Computers will also continue maintaining its own package repositories and providing updates for key components, including the kernel, graphics drivers, and KDE Plasma.
Throughout November, the development team is concentrating on handling outstanding bug reports and handling remaining issues before the first stable release. Users participating in the testing program are encouraged to report not previously identified bugs or unanticipated behavior as soon as possible.
However, bug fixing is not the only thing left to do. TUXEDO Computers also needs to establish and validate a suite of structured, automated QA test procedures. Those tests have to be run before they can actually set a release date.
As for when the stable Debian-based TUXEDO OS will be arriving, the developers have not given us a date at this point. They do, however, expect to be able to release it fairly soon once the final testing and QA are complete.
For additional information, see the announcement.
Those interested in testing the upcoming Debian-based TUXEDO OS before its stable release can download the latest beta ISO images from the preview download directory.
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What’s the benefit of this? It’s the first I’m hearing about this OS and I’m interested if someone can tell me what is good about it compared to stock debian or Ubuntu
It’s mostly for Tuxedo laptops where they can ship whit their custom distro instead of a stock one.
This is my personal opinion, but I’m seeing it as a trend: stable distro are an outdated concept for desktop use. Ubuntu was revolutionary when it came out 20+ years ago, because Linux hardware compatibility was ass, UX was not even considered most of the time, and updates broke things all the time. So for a long time, it made a lot of sense to be an Ubuntu fork since they already fixed the hardest problems to overcome, and then remove the stuff that’s too Ubuntu-y while adding your own features. Nowadays, a full-on rolling release is less likely to break things over an entire 2 year period than upgrading between one full release of Debian Stable to another is. Security flaws are found much more frequently now, and while Debian Stable et al do push security updates reliably & quickly because they have to, there’s nothing to say THAT couldn’t accidentally break something either. Less likely, but in my opinion, it makes more sense for everything to be more or less up to date. Not to mention, users expect feature parity compared to Windows or macOS, which you can’t have if your version of the app is 2 years old.
TuxedoOS is taking the most balanced approach: they’re based in Debian Testing, which already made it through a bit of testing, but not much more than Debian Unstable. Testing is still not meant for regular use, but then Tuxedo does their own testing to make sure it doesn’t break anything while releasing updates infinitely faster than a stable release would. So now they’re a lot closer to Fedora in practice, in terms of being up to date while not relying on community ran rolling updates, which is a solid position for a hardware manufacturer to be in. Theknly downside being that they mat have to port in security fixes from Debian Stable if the Debian team doesn’t get them to Testing fast enough, since Testing is not prioritized for that.
Thanks! Very informative!
I normally use bazzite but traditionally I’ve used Ubuntu. So it’s good to see other distros kindve taking this sortve model.