A couple of days ago, Fixstars, the company that acquired Terra Soft last week, on November 11th, 2008, announced a new release of the Yellow Dog Linux operating system for SONY's Playstation 3, Apple PowerPC G4/G5, IBM Power Systems and YDL PowerStation. Yellow Dog Linux 6.1 is the first version released by Fixstars since it acquired Terra Soft, is based on the CentOS Linux distribution, a RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) derivative, and it offers several nice improvements over the previous version, plus bleeding edge software.

"This marks the final release of Yellow Dog Linux by Terra Soft and the first by Fixstars," said Owen Stampflee, Fixstars Solutions' Director of Engineering. "In my five years with Terra Soft, we have made incremental improvements with each release, always pressing for a higher quality end user experience. In some updates, we focus on the desktop; in others the development environment. With version 6.1 we have accomplished a unique blend of both. I am personally proud of what we offer with this version of Yellow Dog, and believe our users will enjoy it as well."

Highlights of Yellow Dog Linux 6.1:

· Linux Kernel 2.6.27;
· X.Org 1.4.999 with xrandr 1.2.2;
· GCC 4.1.2;
· Cell SDK 3.1;
· Mozilla Firefox 3.0;
· OpenOffice.org 2.3 (version 3.0 will be available soon from YDL.net Enhanced);
· Wireless network was dramatically improved;
· Added frontend (GUI) to configure YDL.net;
· Added Bluetooth support for PS3's SIXAXIS controller;
· Barcelona Supercomputing Center CellSs;
· Added ps3vram for a fast, temporary file storage or SWAP using video RAM of Playstation 3.

Yellow Dog Linux 6.1 is available for:

- Sony Playstation 3;
- Apple PowerPC G4 and G5;
- YDL PowerStation;
- IBM Power Systems (JS2x, 510, 520, 540).

The regular installation of Yellow Dog Linux 6.1 will provide Mozilla Firefox 3 as the default web browser, Mozilla Thunderbird as the default e-mail client, while as an instant messenger, you can use the popular Pidgin application. There's also Ekiga for VoIP communications, gThumb and GIMP for your image viewing/editing needs, the popular OpenOffice.org office suite, the Fluendo multimedia codecs installer, and many other useful utilities.

Unfortunately, Yellow Dog Linux 6.1 is not free, and is not available for download yet (it will be in one month, though). For the time being, it's only available for purchase from the Fixstars' online store as a 2 DVD set. Prices start from $49.95 USD (plus shipping). All orders will arrive in two weeks!

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