A major update has been released for this Linux OS

Feb 28, 2015 11:46 GMT  ·  By

Michael Tremer announces that the IPFire 2.17 Core 87 Linux-based firewall distribution has been released and the developers have made a number of important changes and improvements.

The IPFire distribution has just registered a big version change in order to reflect all the major improvements that have been implemented, and it includes an important kernel upgrade that was long overdue. If you already have the system installed, you won't have to do anything extra, just upgrade and everything will be fine.

IPFire has a modular approach and it can be used either as a firewall, a proxy server or a VPN gateway. This means users will only get the components they need for a specific task and nothing else. This ensures a small size for the installation and a fast upgrade when necessary.

There is more to this release than just the kernel update

The Linux kernel has been upgraded to version 3.14 and this enables the distribution to have better support for newer hardware. This is not the most advanced kernel available, but it's still one of the maintained ones.

"The installer program that helps to install IPFire has been very much improved. It is now easier to use and provides clearer error messages. It allows you to select the disk you want to install IPFire on and does not use the first one any more if there are more than one.We changed the bootloader on all x86 installations from GRUB-legacy to GRUB2. New systems will be installed right away with the new version and old ones will be migrated. Please make sure to create a backup of your installation in case this upgrade fails," reads the official website.

Also, glibc has been upgraded to fix the GHOST vulnerability, a new ntp package has been added, Pound 2.7 has been implemented, and tmux has been added as an add-on.

More details can be found on the official website. You can download IPFire 2.17 Core 87 right now from Softpedia.