PLD Linux Distribution

PLD is a free, RPM-based Linux distribution, created in 1998, aimed at the more advanced users and administrators, who accept the tradeoffs of using a system, that might require manual tweaking in exchange for much flexibility. Simultaneous availability for a wide variety of architectures and non-conservative approach to RPM usage provides our users with a consistent environment on almost all available architectures. More details are available in the about section.

An overdue announcement that we released 2023 snapshot of PLD/Linux Th. It is available on ftp://ftp.pld-linux.org/dists/th/2023/PLD/ and as poldek sources th-2023.

The main highlights of this release are:

• kernels 6.6.8, 6.1.69, 5.15.145, 5.10.205, 5.4.265, 4.19.303, 4.14.334, 4.9.337 (4.9 is the last that has vserver enabled)
• RPM 4.17.1.1
• GCC 13.2.0
• LLVM 17.0.4
• glibc 2.38
• GNOME 45
• KDE5 5.113 / 23.08

Jan Palus (atler) wrote on Thu Apr 1, 2021:

For anyone interested, PLD Linux chroot is now available for armv6hl in addition to aarch64. Both can be downloaded at:

• https://github.com/jpalus/pld-linux-arm/releases

Today we released 2022 snapshot of PLD/Linux Th. It is available on ftp://ftp.pld-linux.org/dists/th/2022/PLD/ and as poldek sources th-2022.

The main highlights of this release are:

• kernels 6.1.1, 5.15.85, 5.10.161, 5.4.228, 4.19.269, 4.14.302, 4.9.336 and 4.4.302 (4.4 and 4.9 have vserver enabled)
• RPM 4.17.1.1
• OpenSSL 3.0.7
• GCC 12.2.0
• LLVM 15.0.5
• glibc 2.36
• GNOME 42
• KDE5 5.101 / 22.12
• XFCE 4.18

Today we released 2021 snapshot of PLD/Linux Th. It is available on ftp://ftp.pld-linux.org/dists/th/2021/PLD/ and as poldek sources th-2021.

The main highlights of this release are:

• kernels 5.15.12, 5.10.89, 5.4.169, 4.19.223, 4.14.260, 4.9.295 and 4.4.297 (4.4 and 4.9 have vserver enabled)
• RPM 4.16.1.3
• OpenSSL 3.0.1
• GCC 11.2.0
• LLVM 13.0.0
• glibc 2.34
• GNOME 41
• KDE5 5.89 / 21.12
• MATE Desktop Environment 1.26

From a pld-devel-en post:

New report:

• https://srcbuilder.pld-linux.org/~pldth/qa.php?q=main-vuln

Matching main ftp archive against https://osv.dev/ database, updated daily.

Note: this is informational only as it isn't capable of testing if PLD Linux package contains a fix or not.

After the recent events and freenode changes, PLD IRC channel has been moved to Libera Chat.

The PLD/Linux Ac was released on 1st April 2007, Now 14 years later, it has reached EOL (End of Life). It will not be updated anymore.

If you are still running such system and want to upgrade, then recommended upgrade path is to upgrade to Th/2020 snapshot and then to Th current version.

rpm 4.16 is now the default package manager in PLD/Linux Th.

Please look at the rpm 4.16 porting status page for differences between rpm5 and rpm.org rpm.

The PLD/Linux Ac builders have been stopped.

They have been offline due to various reasons anyway, this just stops the email spam to maintainers.

Updating glibc package on multilib systems may fail due to packaging and dependency changes. The common failure scenario is shown below.

poldek:/all-avail> upgrade glibc*
6567 packages read
Processing dependencies...
glibc-ld-2.32-7.i686 obsoleted by glibc-2.33-2.i686
glibc-2.32-7.i686 obsoleted by glibc-2.33-2.i686
Something wrong, something not quite right with 0.42.2 (stable)
Assertion 'i_best >= 0' failed, misc.c:412
Please report this bug to: https://github.com/poldek-pm/poldek/issues/new

Aborted (core dumped) 

In case of poldek crashing during update like this, please use the following command (substitute <ARCH> with the system architecture (x86_64/i686/x32):

poldek -n th-all -O "particle install = no" -uvF ldconfig-2.33-2.<ARCH> glibc\*

Today we released 2020 snapshot of PLD/Linux Th. It is available on ftp://ftp.pld-linux.org/dists/th/2020/PLD/ and as poldek sources th-2020. Please give mirrors 24 hours to synchronize.

The main highlights of this release are:

• kernels 4.4.248, 4.9.248, 4.14.212, 4.19.163, 5.4.83 and 5.9.14 (4.4 and 4.9 have vserver enabled)
• GCC 10.2.0
• LLVM 10.0.1
• glibc 2.32
• Python 3.8.6 and 2.7.18
• PHP 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2.34, 7.3.24, 7.4.12 and 8.0.0
• Perl 5.30.3
• Ruby 2.6.6
• libreoffice 6.4.7.2
• GNOME 3.38
• KDE5 5.67 / 19.04
• MATE Desktop Environment 1.24

We have started actively testing rpm 4.16 porting:

• rpm 4.16 porting status

Docker base images with PHP are provided:

• https://gitlab.com/pld-linux/php

Today we released 2019 snapshot of PLD/Linux Th. It is available on ftp://ftp.pld-linux.org/dists/th/2019/PLD/ and as poldek sources th-2019. Please give mirrors 24 hours to synchronize.

The main highlights of this release are:

• kernels 4.4.207, 4.9.207, 4.14.160, 4.19.91 and 5.4.6 (4.4 and 4.9 have vserver enabled)
• GCC 9.2.0
• LLVM 9.0.0
• glibc 2.30
• Python 3.8.0 and 2.7.17
• PHP 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 7.0, 7.1.33, 7.2.24, 7.3.11 and 7.4.0
• Perl 5.30.0
• Ruby 2.4.9
• libreoffice 6.3.0.4
• GNOME 3.34
• KDE5 Frameworks 5.59, Plasma 5.15.3
• MATE Desktop Environment 1.22

Besides regularly built base docker images, there's now snapshot builds available as well:

1. PLD Linux Base images

Today we released 2018 snapshot of PLD/Linux Th. It is available on ftp://ftp.pld-linux.org/dists/th/2018/PLD/ and as poldek sources th-2018. Please give mirrors 24 hours to synchronize.

The main highlights of this release are:

• kernels 4.4.169, 4.9.148, 4.14.91 and 4.19.13 (4.4 and 4.9 have vserver enabled)
• GCC 8.2.0
• LLVM 7.0.1
• glibc 2.28
• Python 2.7.15 and 3.7.1
• PHP 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2.13 and 7.3.0
• Perl 5.28.1
• Ruby 2.4.4
• libreoffice 6.1.4.2
• GNOME 3.28
• KDE5 Frameworks 5.48, Plasma 5.11.2
• MATE Desktop Environment 1.20

Some news on kernel packaging changes in PLD Th - LTS kernels 4.4 and 4.9 now have vserver support and we are adding 4.14 line as new LTS. This means kernel 4.1 can be safely retired without loss of functionality. Kernel 4.1 packages will be moved to th-archive on 1st of March 2018.

Delayed by Meltdown and Spectre security problems, 2017 snapshot of PLD/Linux Th has been released today. It is available on ftp://ftp.pld-linux.org/dists/th/2017/PLD/ and as poldek sources th-2017. Please give mirrors 24 hours to synchronize.

The main highlights of this release are:

• kernels 4.1.49, 4.4.113, 4.9.78 and 4.14.15 (4.1, 4.4, 4.9 have vserver enabled)
• GCC 7.2.0
• glibc 2.26
• Python 2.7.14 and 3.6.4
• PHP 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6.32, 7.0.26, 7.1.12 and 7.2.0
• Perl 5.26.1
• Ruby 2.3.5
• libreoffice 5.3.2.2
• GNOME 3.26
• KDE5 Frameworks 5.39, Plasma 5.11.2
• MATE Desktop Environment 1.18

It's time to update the set of kernels we have in Th.

• 3.18 is EOL upstream and will be removed from Th
• 4.9 is new longterm line

This means that the only kernel with Vserver support wiil be 4.1. If you still rely on vserer it's time to look for a replacement.

With a small delay, today we released 2016 snapshot of PLD/Linux Th. It is available on ftp://ftp.pld-linux.org/dists/th/2016/PLD/ and as poldek sources th-2016. Please give mirrors 24 hours to synchronize.

The main highlights of this release are:

• kernels 3.18.47, 4.1.38, 4.4.45 and 4.9.6
• GCC 6.3.0
• glibc 2.24
• Python 2.7.13 and 3.6.0
• PHP 5.2.17, 5.3.29, 5.4.45, 5.5.38, 5.6.30, 7.0.14 and 7.1.1
• Perl 5.24.0
• Ruby 2.1.10
• libreoffice 5.1.3.2
• GNOME 3.22
• KDE5 Frameworks 5.24, Plasma 5.5.4
• MATE Desktop Environment 1.16

PHP 7.1.0 was released on 01 December 2016, so we well have php71 packages in PLD Linux shortly.

Jan Rękorajski writes: With the addition of new longterm kernel (4.4) we would have six (6) package lines to keep up. Because of this I'm removing 3.10 and 3.14 from Th to keep the number maintainable. There will be no more releases for those lines and I will move existing packages to th-archive within a month.

Today we released 2015 snapshot of PLD/Linux Th. It is available on ftp://ftp.pld-linux.org/dists/th/2015/PLD/ and as poldek sources th-2015. Please give mirrors 24 hours to synchronize.

The main highlights of this release are:

• kernels 3.10.93, 3.14.57 and 3.18.24, 4.1.13 and 4.2.6
• GCC 5.2.0
• glibc 2.22
• Python 2.7.10 and 3.5.0
• PHP 5.2.17, 5.3.29, 5.4.45, 5.5.30, 5.6.15 and 7.0.0
• CUPS 2.1
• libreoffice 5.0.2.1
• GNOME 3.18
• KDE 4.14
• MATE Desktop Environment 1.12

Jan Rękorajski writes: The 3.4 longterm kernel line has reached the end of maintainablity and usability for us. I will not update it, and I will remove it from Th-main soon. Old packages will be available in th-archive.

On 28 February 2015 i486 architecture will be removed from PLD Th main tree.

This also means drop of support for i586 class CPUs and some old, rare, “degraded” i686 chips lacking cmov instructions support.

Growing number of packages that either do not build for i486 or are severly crippled (like IcedTea or programs requiring atomic operations) with loss of users of this architecture caused us to finally abandon it.

i486 will be removed from main/ready/test trees, It will still be available in archived yearly snapshots.

Today we released snapshot of PLD/Linux Th under the name 2014. It is available on ftp://ftp.pld-linux.org/dists/th/2014/PLD/ and as poldek sources th-2014. Please give mirrors 24 hours to synchronize.

The main highlights of this release are:

• RPM 5.4.15
• kernels 3.4.104, 3.10.61, 3.14.25 and 3.17.4
• glibc 2.20
• Perl 5.20.1
• Ruby 2.0.0.598
• PHP 5.2.17, 5.3.29, 5.4.35, 5.5.19 and 5.6.3
• CUPS 2.0
• libreoffice 4.3.4.1
• GNOME 3.14
• KDE 4.14
• MATE Desktop Environment 1.8

You can use your credentials for github mirror sync. see how.

http://lists.pld-linux.org/mailman/pipermail/pld-devel-en/2014-September/024021.html

Kernel line 3.14 has been announced as new longterm and, because of this, we will now ship three longterm kernel package sets (3.4, 3.10 and 3.14), until 3.4 gets deprecated in October this year, when it will be removed from Th.

Also, and more importantly, vserver support will be disabled on master, that is 3.15.x as of this moment. It's because the project is falling behind the mainline kernel and only really supported for the stable/longterm lines.

After a lot of time and work from Elan Ruusamäe, we have new PHP package sets in Th. We decided it will be the best for maintainability and upgradability to have PHP interpreters only as versioned packages. Right now in th and th-ready we have PHP 5.2 to 5.5 as phpXY-* sets. php53-* and php55-* rpms contain appropriate triggers for upgrade from old php-5.3-* rpms.

Rationale for the change is that PHP upgrades are often problematic, as software requires certain versions of the language, and because of that we'd still had to create versioned packages, creating needless work for admins to bump back and forth from unversioned to versioned packages. Making the switch now avoids that work and leaves the decision what PHP flavour to choose solely to the user.

To do the upgrade, you should run poldek -u php53-common or php55-common.

If you get wrong results (installing 5.5 but getting 5.3 packages), then add --ignore=*php53* to remove offending package that lacks dependencies.

Due to a bug in our packaging system, x86_64 kernels in 2013 snapshot and main Th line suported only 8 CPUs. An updated and fixed kernel package set (with support for up to 512 CPUS) is available in 2013/updates and main PLD Th ftp repositories.

Today we released the second snapshot of PLD/Linux Th, called 2013. It is available on ftp://ftp.pld-linux.org/dists/th/2013/PLD/ and as poldek sources th-2013. Please give mirrors 24 hours to synchronize.

The main highlights of this release are:

• RPM 5.4.14
• kernels 3.4.75 and 3.10.25
• GCC 4.8.2
• glibc 2.18
• Perl 5.18.1
• Apache httpd 2.4.7
• Samba 4.1.3 with Active Directory functionality
• CUPS 1.7
• libreoffice 4.1.3.2
• GNOME 3.10
• KDE 4.10
• MATE Desktop Environment 1.6

Jacek Konieczny (jajcus) announced availability of new PLD Rescue CD project.

See and it already has had two releases.

There is now a cgit instance installed and configured on http://git.pld-linux.org/. So if for some reason you don't like the gitweb engine you can check the alternative at: http://git.pld-linux.org/cgi-bin/cgit.cgi

- Kacper Kornet (draenog) [ANN] New web interface for PLD git repositories

There are regularly built PLD VM images. Available as vagrant .box and VirtualBox .ova files, and easily convertible to other formats.

Apache 2.4 has landed Th main repository. See Apache for migration notes.

PLD Th migrated from unmaintained rpm 4.5 to rpm 5.4.x from rpm5.org.
Information about important changes is available here: RPM 5 quick guide

The 6 year old unmaintained MoinMoin installation at http://www.pld-linux.org/ is replaced with fresh DokuWiki installation.

Authentication is based on CVS password login hashes.

Today we released the first snapshot of PLD/Linux Th, called 2012. It is available on ftp://ftp.pld-linux.org/dists/th/2012/PLD/ and as poldek sources th-2012. Please give mirrors 24 hours to synchronize.

The main highlights of this release are:

• kernel 3.0.42 with grsecurity support and 3.4.10 without grsecurity
• basic systemd support (systemd works, but a lot of services do not have native units)
• GCC 4.7.1
• glibc 2.16
• java-sun 1.6 thus safe from recent exploits
• libreoffice 3.6.0.4
• iceweasel/icedove 15.0 and iceape 2.12
• XFCE 4.10
• GNOME 3.4
• KDE 4.9.0

Two major changes happened during the past few weeks:

1. A new Release Manager has been elected for PLD's main branch (TH). Jan Rękorajski took over after Arkadiusz Miśkiewicz, who previously held the position for many years, resigned over a month ago. In the words of the new RM, he's not going to make drastic changes [to] the current continuous development model.

2. After too many years with CVS, the main package repository has finally been switched to a modern distributed version control system – git. Developers should refer to relevant list threads. Simultaneously a near real-time mirror has been created on the well known git hosting site, github. People accustomed to github's features, or just wanting a functional backup in case git.pld-linux.org ever goes down, are encouraged to make use of the mirror. (Note: there's over 16k packages in our repository, so the site takes a long while to load; if you just want to browse a bit, it's much faster to use the github link.)

Many developers and users can be found on freenode IRC network. PLD uses channel #pld. You need to register with freenode nickserv service to be able to enter channel.

Upcoming PLD kernels (>= 3.0.13-2) will have PAE enabled on 32bit i686 kernels by default. Such kernel will run only on processors that support PAE (grep pae /proc/cpuinfo to verify). If your CPU doesn't support PAE then you have to switch to PLD i486 kernel.

PLD Th saw few major package updates in last year including switch to kernel 3.x as usually available on ftp://ftp.pld-linux.org/

It's got a full under the hood software refresh as well as an updated PLD Live Installer. Read more on the official website http://kde4.livecd.pld-linux.org/

The latest live CD with KDE4 features a graphical installer. Read more what's new on the official website http://kde4.livecd.pld-linux.org/

Hi! Without further explanation I present the second stable PLD-LiveCD and LiveUSB with K Desktop Environment… For more details visit http://kde4.livecd.pld-linux.org/

… Older news available in old news page.