The 2.1 release of Voltalinux, a server oriented Linux distribution was announced by Matteo Garofano. Voltalinux is based on the popular Slackware Linux and uses the pkgsrc package management system from NetBSD.

Voltalinux 2.1 includes many of the features available on Slackware Linux 12.1, like a new kernel, HTTP and FTP install, and support for installation on LVM and RAID. The pkgsrc package management system ported from NetBSD was improved and is now version 2008Q1.

The distribution comes with approximately 150 packages that are compiled with the pkgsrc system, aimed at server use. Dovecot, Postfix, ClamAV, MySQL and PostgreSQL are only a few of these packages. Voltalinux comes with full-feature packages and their lightweight alternatives as well (like Apache with thttpd). It is suitable for creating mail or web servers, fax servers, etc. but it is not ready for desktop use.

Voltalinux is split into three sets of applications: base, devel and net. By installing just the first one, you can run only precompiled binary packages. By opting for the second set too, you can build your own packages from sources with the pkgrsc system. As Voltalinux is fully compatible with Slackware, you don't have to search for special packages but, instead, you only have to get those for Slackware and they will work just fine. Besides the already compiled packages, you have almost 6000 NetBSD ports available for use and many prebuilt kernels.

What you'll need for running Voltalinux is at least a 486 processor with 48 MB of RAM and almost 200 MB of free disk space for the base system. If you want to install the devel set, you will need some extra space. It is ideal if you need a minimal system with the power of Slackware and the security of NetBSD.

Download Voltalinux 2.1 right now from Softpedia.