14 DAY TRIAL // Welcome to our 16th issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly! Here’s what you can read about in this edition: Paul Sherman releases Absolute Linux 12.1.10 with The GIMP 2.6.1; Linux Mint 3.0 and 3.1 will no longer be supported; OLPC releases Fedora-based Linux distribution for the XO laptop; CentOS releases single CD Server install for CentOS 4.7; Parted Magic 3.1 offers hard disk install method; Clement Lefebvre announces the 64-bit edition of Linux Mint 5. Also, don't forget to check out the Linux distributions released/updated last week at the end of the article!
Summary:
· The first bug fix is for the TiLP package, which had some permissions set incorrectly for the /usr/share/applications directory. This caused to render useless .desktop files for the regular user accounts. · The second bug fix resolves the desktop file type association for .gz files. · The linking problem between Mozilla Thunderbird mail client and Mozilla Firefox web browser (the mailto function in Firefox and url function in Thunderbird) was fixed in this release; · Updated the "absolute" theme in the gtksourceview2 package, so you can use even more visible colors for the mouse cursor.
However, four days later, Paul Sherman released version 12.1.10, which brings The GIMP 2.6.1, a new version of the Mozilla Firefox web browser and couple of bug fixes.
Download Absolute Linux 12.1.10 right now from Softpedia.
• On October 13th, Clement Lefebvre (Linux Mint developer) announced that the Linux Mint 3.0 and Linux Mint 3.1 would no longer be supported. This applies for GNOME, KDE and Xfce editions and the users will not receive security/critical fixes and software updates anymore. Cassandra and Celena were based on Ubuntu 7.04, which will also reach end of life on the same day. The software repositories will remain open for a while after they reach end of life, but in this time users are encouraged to upgrade their systems to Linux Mint 4 (Daryna), or to do a fresh install of Linux Mint 5 (Elyssa).
Read more about it here.
• The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) developers announced on October 16th a new release of their XO Software, a Fedora-based Linux distribution designed for the XO laptop. The new version is based on the popular Sugar graphical interface, Fedora 9 operating system, and includes some core software customizations for wireless drivers, Open Firmware, power management, and the NAND flash filesystem. Among the new features in XO Software 8.2.0, we can notice some usability and GUI (graphical user interface) improvements, backup and restore functions, new and updated languages, automatic updates and longer battery life. With this release, the developers also included a complete user manual!
Read more about it here.
• On October 17th, the CentOS development team announced the immediate availability of the CentOS 4.7 Server CD Linux distribution. The CentOS 4.7 operating system is based on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.7 and it was officially released, for both i386 and x86_64 architectures, on September 13th, 2008. CentOS is a 100% compatible rebuild of the RHEL OS (Red Hat Enterprise Linux), developed by a small group of core developers, who are supported by an active user community made up from enterprise users, network administrators, system administrators and Linux enthusiasts. The purpose of CentOS is to provide a free enterprise class operating system to anyone who wants to use it.
Read more about it here. Download CentOS 4.7 Server CD right now from Softpedia.
• Also on October 17th, the Elive team proudly announced yet another unstable version of their E17/Debian-based Live CD, Elive 1.9.10, which brings more installer improvements, new features for the Thunar file manager and some other interesting additions.
Elive 1.9.10 comes packed with some very interesting installer features. For example, there's no need to reboot the system after you have partitioned the hard drive; no more fake partitions; and the size of the hard disk partitions will be shown in the list and improved partition listings.
The Thunar file manager received a few improvements as well – for instance, admin mode was implemented, and will allow you to run Thunar with root privileges. Moreover, you can now resize images in batch mode, and create symbolic links for a file or folder.
Elive 1.9.10 offers you the possibility to export all kinds of documents in the PDF format, and also to easily configure wireless and wired connections with the help of a new tool called net-connector.
Last but not least, the Ibar was replaced by Itask-ng, a new dock that has Mac OS X-like zooming functions.
Download Elive 1.9.10 right now from Softpedia.
• October 18th brought a new version of the Parted Magic Linux distribution, developed by Patrick Verner. Parted Magic 3.1 contains minor changes, a few updated applications and also a handful of new additions. However, there is one important feature that comes with Parted Magic 3.1, and that is the availability of an HDD version! Here are some of the features of Parted Magic 3.1:
· Added a graphical user interface (GUI) for udpcast; · Added a command-line option that allow you to specify the size of tmpfs (default is 180 MB). With this new option, you will be able to leave more RAM for applications; · dmeventd will be started by default. If you want to disable it, type nodmeventd at the boot prompt; · The following new packages were added: cryptsetup, rdesktop, zfs-fuse, G4L (Ghost 4 Linux), qlogic firmware. · XFCE environment was replaced with the LXDE desktop.
Download Parted Magic 3.1 right now from Softpedia.
• After more than four months of development, Clement Lefebvre proudly announced on October 18th, on his blog, the immediate availability of the Linux Mint 5 x64 Edition, for 64-bit processors. Linux Mint 5 (32-bit edition) was officially released this year on June 9th. Dubbed Elyssa, it's based on Daryna (Linux Mint 4.0), and is compatible with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) and its repositories. Except for the fact that it works on AMD64/EM64T processors, the x64 edition of Linux Mint was forked from Ubuntu 8.04, and comes with an OpenJDK Java plugin, XChat and Adobe Flash Player 9. Starting with the Linux Mint 6 (Felicia), the x64 edition will be released along with the main and light editions.
Read more about it here.
Download Linux Mint 5 x64 Edition right now from Softpedia.
• Distributions Released Last Week:
· Zonbu 2008-05 Build 1445 · XO Software 8.2.0
• Distributions Updated Last Week:
· m0n0wall 1.3 Beta 15 · Nexenta OS 2.0 Alpha 2 · Webconverger 3.5 · Privatix Live-System 8.10.12 · Vyatta 4.1.4 · Lunar Linux 1.6.4 Beta 1 · PCLinuxOS 2009 Beta · R.I.P. 7.0