14 DAY TRIAL // Welcome to the 28th issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly!
Here goes another busy week for Softpedia Linux. The first day brought a new release of the SystemRescueCD, announced by François Dupoux. On the second day of the week, the Amarok team prepared an unexpected point release of Amarok 2.0 with lots of bug fixes, but also some new additions. Wednesday brought us a new up-to-date re-spin image of the Fedora 9 Linux distribution and the highly expected MythDora 10.21 distro, which is now based on Fedora 10. In the middle of the week, Paul Sherman announced Absolute Linux 12.1.1 and the Nvidia Corporation released a new and improved version of their proprietary display driver for Linux/FreeBSD and Solaris systems. The weekend brought the first release candidate of Linux Mint 6 (Felicia) x64 Edition and yet another tutorial, about how to enable video playback on the Yellow Dog Linux 6.1 operating system for PlayStation 3 gaming consoles. The weekly ends, as usual, with the video clip of the week, the latest Linux distributions released/updated last week and the development releases... at the end of the article!
Summary:
On December 5th, a new version of the SystemRescueCD Linux distribution was released and it's now powered by version 2.6.27.10 of the Linux kernel. SystemRescueCD 1.1.4 also includes a few software updates for important packages, such as FSArchiver, GRUB, Mozilla Firefox or memtest86+, and a new script that will allow users to install it on a USB stick. Here are the main changes since version 1.1.3 of SystemRescueCD:
· Linux kernel standard packages were updated to version 2.6.27.10 (with support for Reiser4 filesystem); · Linux kernel alternative packages were updated to version 2.6.27.10 (with support for Reiser4 filesystem); · memtest86+ was updated to version 2.11; · GRUB was updated to version 0.97-r8; · FSArchiver was updated to version 0.2.3; · Portage was updated to version 2.2 RC20; · Mozilla Firefox was updated to version 3.0.5; · Atop was updated to version 1.21; · Added a new script called sysresccd-usbstick, which will help users install SystemRescueCD on a USB flash drive; · Added floppy disk support in the kernel.
Download SystemRescueCD 1.1.4 right now from Softpedia.
On December 6th, the Amarok team announced the first point release of the Amarok 2.0 media player. Here are the main features brought by Amarok 2.0.1:
· Added an option for automatic recovery to the MySQL embedded server; · Added searching, filtering, advanced and configurable options to the playlist; · Added Growl support for Mac OS X; · Added a new option, called "Stop after track," to the playlist menu; · Re-added the track functionality; · Added the ability to sort music collections by Composer; · Added the ability to set custom covers for album items from a service script; · Added simple filtering feature to the service browser; · Added automatic refresh for Podcast channels (they will be automatically refreshed once per hour if the autoscan option is enabled); · The service scripts are now able to fetch context information when the items are selected (the information can also be applied statically to each item); · The service scripts are now able to set custom icons for the service browser; · A custom emblem can now be set to the items from a service script; · The Librivox.org service script was greatly improved to support all books and fetch book summary. Also, the script has now a proper icon, own emblem and album cover for the books, in the service browser.
Download Amarok 2.0.1.1 right now from Softpedia.
On December 7th, the Fedora Unity Project released a new version of their popular Re-Spin DVD for the Fedora 9 Linux distribution. Fedora 9 Re-Spin 20081712 is based on the official Fedora 9 (codename Sulphur) installation media, with all the updates released as of December 17th, 2008 and it's compatible with i386, x86_64 and PPC architectures. However, this is (once again) a DVD-only release, because of some known issues in comps. The Fedora Unity Re-Spins are created to provide users with a fresh and up-to-date installation of the Fedora Linux distribution. It is a community project, for the Fedora community and by the Fedora community, therefore anyone can contribute to it.
Download Fedora 9 Re-Spin 20081712 right now from Softpedia.
Also on December 7th, Ryan Pisani decided to be with-it and he proudly announced a new release of the MythDora Linux distribution. Being based on Fedora 10 and powered by Linux kernel 2.6.27.9, MythDora 10.21 offers a new and simple way to install both Fedora Linux and the popular MythTV software on your personal computer. Among the highlights of MythDora 10.21 we can notice:
· Based on Fedora 10 · Linux kernel 2.6.27.9-159.fc10 · GNOME, XFCE4, KDE, and Ratpoison desktop environments (available on the DVD version only) · XFCE4 desktop environment on the LiveCD · MythTV 0.21 (with the latest SVN fixes) · Web-based setup for MythDora customizations · IMDB Bulk Updater 1.14 · Auto and Custom installation options · Improved management of remotes, blasters and receivers · Configurable MythTV service account name · Added the ability to choose between mythtv, mythfrontend or mythwelcome at login · Dozens of game emulators · Latest nVidia video drivers · Latest OpenChrome video drivers · PVR-350 driver · Latest ivtv drivers · Latest V4L drivers
Download MythDora 10.21 right now from Softpedia.
On December 8th, Paul Sherman, father of the Absolute Linux, announced a new bug fix release of his Slackware-based operating system. Absolute Linux 12.2.1 delivers updated versions for the Pidgin (2.5.2), Samba (3.2.7), the GIMP (2.6.4), WPClipart (7.1), Audacity (1.3.6) applications and the following Mozilla products: Firefox 3.0.5, Thunderbird 2.0.0.19, Seamonkey 1.1.14. Moreover, this point release version of Absolute Linux 12.2 updates the PTP camera auto-mounting feature, the wireless/wired networking manager (wicd 1.5.8) and it also introduces a newer version of the Help System, which is now located on the second disc and works properly. Last but not least, wxPython was updated to version 2.8.9.1 and it replaces the older wxPython and wxGTK packages.
Download Absolute Linux 12.2.1 right now from Softpedia.
December 8th also brought another improved version of the Nvidia proprietary video driver for the Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris open source operating systems. The major feature brought by the Nvidia 180.22 display driver is the initial support for Linux kernel 2.6.28 and for the following GPUs: Quadro FX 2700M, GeForce 9400M G, GeForce 9400M, GeForce 9800 GT, GeForce 8200M G, GeForce Go 7700, GeForce 9800M GTX, GeForce 9800M GT, GeForce 9800M GS, GeForce 9500 GT, GeForce 9700M GT, GeForce 9650M GT, GeForce 9500 GT. Among other features and fixes brought by the new Nvidia 180.22 video driver for Linux and BSD systems we can notice:
· Added OpenGL 3.0 preliminary support; · Added support for PureVideo-like features (via the VDPAU API); · Added support for CUDA 2.1; · Added performance optimizations for OpenGL workstations; · Added SDI full-range color support; · Improved stability and X pixmap placement on GeForce 8 series and newer GPUs; · The glyph cache was enabled by default and it is now available on all supported GPUs; · The shared memory X pixmaps option (AllowSHMPixmaps) is now disabled by default; · Fixed an nvidia-settings issue. The application crashed if the xorg.conf file contained the Device and Screen sections but no ServerLayout section; · Fixed an nvidia-settings issue with the SDI sync skew controls; · Fixed a Compiz Fusion issue for Geforce 6 and 7 series GPUs; · Fixed monitor sync range parsing issue in xorg.conf; · Fixed crashing issues with some SDI applications; · Fixed Linux OpenGL library issue. The library crashed when used inside FreeBSD's Linux emulation layer.
Download the Nvidia display driver 180.22 for the x86 architecture right now from Softpedia.
Download the Nvidia display driver 180.22 for the AMD64/EM64T architectures right now from Softpedia.
On December 9th, Clement Lefebvre announced the immediate availability of the first release candidate of Linux Mint 6 x64 Edition. Linux Mint 6 x64 RC1 is based on (and the same as) the main edition of Linux Mint 6 (Felicia), only that it is addressed to 64-bit users (Intel Core 2 Quad, Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Athlon X2 64 and all the x86-64 compliant processors). However, there are a couple of differences: Java is using OpenJDK instead of the Sun version, and the OpenOffice.org-base package is absent. Testing for this first release candidate will last for two weeks, and users are urged to report bugs to the Linux Mint 6 x64 bug thread.
Download Linux Mint 6 x64 RC1 right now from Softpedia.
Tutorial of the Week: How to Enable Video Playback in Yellow Dog Linux 6.1
This tutorial is here for PlayStation 3 users who have Yellow Dog Linux 6.1 installed and want to play various video files on it. I guess that it's already a known fact that Yellow Dog Linux does not include any multimedia codecs that allow you to play most of today's video and audio formats, and trust me that installing them is quite a pain in the neck, but I've figured out a way to install VLC (VideoLAN Client) media player and the necessary codecs for playing AVI, DivX, XviD and other video files.
Read the full tutorial here.
Video Clip of the Week: Ubuntu eee 8.04.1 on Asus Eee PC 900
· For this week we decided to post a video clip that showcases the Ubuntu 8.04.1 operating system designed for the tiny Asus Eee PC 900. The clip was posted by bfrataplan, it has 3:35 minutes and it shows the menus and 3-4 applications. Enjoy!
Distributions Updated Last Week:
· Tor-ramdisk 20090105 · Tiny Core Linux 1.0 · Whitix 0.2 · SmoothWall Express 3.0 SP1 · Easy Peasy 1.0 · Network Security Toolkit 1.8.1 · Linux LiveCD HotSpot Server 2.0.40 · Topologilinux 7.0.1
· SaxenOS 2009 Beta 2 · Pardus Linux 2008.2 Beta · VectorLinux 6.0 RC2