Nov 1, 2010 14:41 GMT  ·  By

Welcome to the 121st issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly!

The following Linux-based operating systems have been announced last week: Finnix 100, MeeGo 1.1 and Salix OS 13.1.2 KDE Edition. In other news: Mark Shuttleworth announced that Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) will have a revamped interface, based on Unity; At UDS Natty, Mark Shuttleworth also announced that Canonical will not abandon Java; Softpedia took a first look at the upcoming Jolicloud 1.1 operating system for netbooks. For this week we've also prepared an educational review for the Calibre 0.7.24 application. The weekly ends with the video clip of the week, the latest updated Linux distributions, and the development releases.

dots Summary:

dots FinnixOn October 28th, Ryan Finnie proudly announced the immediate availability for download of the Finnix 100 Linux-based operating system, after a little more than one year of development. Dubbed Oconto, Finnix 100 drops support for the PowerPC (PPC) architecture, and it's powered by a Debian-based Linux kernel 2.6.32. Many applications were updated, and lots of bugs were fixed in the new release.

Highlights of Finnix 100:

· Linux kernel 2.6.32 (Debian 2.6.32-26); · Memtest86+ was updated to version 4.10; · External device mount point was changed from /mnt to /media; · Network module dependencies can now be included when netboot initrd is generated; · finnix-thumbdrive was removed; · unionfs2 union filesystem was replaced with aufs, which is now included in Debian kernels; · Compressed root filesystem (e.g. /FINNIX directory) can now be placed inside initrd; · The countdown of the reboot and shutdown can now be skipped if you press the Enter key; · The default DNS servers were changed from defunct provider to Google Public DN.

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Finnix 100 - Image courtesy of Ryan Finnie

Download Finnix 100 now from Softpedia.

dots MeeGoAlso on October 28th, Valtteri Halla proudly announced the immediate availability of the MeeGo 1.1 operating system for netbooks, IVI, and handsets. MeeGo 1.1 is compatible with all Intel Atom and ARMv7 powered devices, and it provides a solid baseline for various developers and device vendors to develop applications.

Highlights of MeeGo 1.1:

· Linux Kernel 2.6.35; · XOrg Server 1.9.0; · Qt 4.7; · Qt Mobility 1.0.2; · ConnMan connection manager; · oFono telephony stack; · Tracker data indexer; · Telepathy real-time communications framework; · Buteo sync framework; · Lots of bug fixes.

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MeeGo 1.1 - Image courtesy of the MeeGo project

Download MeeGo 1.1 right now from Softpedia.

dots SalixOn October 30th, the Salix OS team has announced the first release of a KDE-based version of the Linux distribution. Salix OS 13.1.2 KDE is based on the slightly older KDE 4.4.3 and comes with a variety of KDE software.

Salix OS follows the 'one application per task' motto and only comes with a streamlined set of packages by default. The Salix OS team veers away from the standard KDE SC packages at times.

Salix OS KDE comes with Kaffeine as a media player and Clementine as a music player and management tool. Clemetine is based on the classic Amarok 1.4, but built with the KDE 4 libraries.

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Salix 13.1.2 KDE Edition

Download Salix 13.1.2 KDE Edition right now from Softpedia.

dots Other NewsOther News:

· On October 25th, the second, and highly anticipated Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) event for 2010 took place at Caribe Royal in Orlando, USA. Mark Shuttleworth, father of the Ubuntu project, delivered the usual keynote speech, kicking off the Ubuntu Developer Summit for Natty Narwhal. He announced that Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) will include the Unity shell for the Desktop Edition, by default! Read more about it here.

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· On October 25th, the founder of Ubuntu, Mark Shuttleworth, announced at UDS that despite the recent decision of Steve Jobs and Apple to move away from the Java environment, Canonical will continue to consider Java a first grade development platform. Read more about it here.

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· On October 27th, Softpedia gives its readers a glimpse into the next release of the Jolicloud 1.1 operating system, which will be available for download/upgrade in November 2010. Jolicloud 1.1 will be provided as an upgrade for existing Jolicloud 1.0 users. It will be based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx), and supported until April 2013. But, the good news is that future patches from Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) will also be added in the new Jolicloud 1.1 release. Read more about it here.

dots Review of the WeekReview of the Week: Calibre 0.7.24

· Whether you get frenetic when asked about your eBook collection, or happen to be a peaceful eBook reader, the software used for handling these files can greatly influence your efficiency. And by handling, I don't just mean organizing or reading them. I also mean sorting, converting, creating, reading and actually transferring them to a specific device.

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Calibre 0.7.24

Undoubtedly, many discussions on the subject of eBooks are about the eBook format. We obviously need our software to handle the formats supported by our device. The main benefit of using Calibre – and this is how I started using it – is that it does a good job at converting eBooks to specific formats. It constantly converted them better than any third party applications I had previously used. Conversion from some PDFs to EPUB isn't always the best, but Calibre did a fairly decent job at creating a readable eBook in an open format.

Read the entire review here.

dots Video Clip of the WeekVideo Clip of the Week: UDS N Mark Shuttleworth Keynote

· For this week we've posted a video clip with Mark Shuttleworth's keynote at UDS Natty. The video has 47 minutes and 4 seconds, and it was posted by ubuntudevelopers. Enjoy!

Download from SoftpediaNew Distributions:

· it-center 0.2 · EliteOS 1.1

Download from SoftpediaDistributions Updated Last Week:

· Me-OS 11.5.0 · ZEN-mini 2010.10 · Puppy Linux 5.1.1 · Parted Magic 5.7 · Clonezilla LiveCD 1.2.6-38 · DragonFly BSD 2.8.2 · SystemRescueCd 1.6.3

Download from SoftpediaDevelopment Releases:

· gnuArtist 10.04.1 Beta · Chakra GNU/Linux 0.3 Beta 2 · Zorin OS 4 Beta · Sabily 10.10 Beta · Vine Linux 5.2 Beta · Tiny Core Linux 3.3 RC1

See you again next Monday, November 8th, for another issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly.