14 DAY TRIAL // Welcome to the 41st issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly!
This week's editorial talks a little about the features of the upcoming Mandriva 2009 Spring operating system. The "first look" article offers you a quick preview of the new Linux Mint 6 KDE operating system. In the Linux distribution announcement section you will find the following releases: Mandriva 2009.1 RC2, Clonezilla Live 1.2.1-53, Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox, Linux Mint 6 KDE, Slax 6.1.0 and Kwort Linux 2.4.1. For this week we had the pleasure of reviewing the Screenlets 0.1.2 software. In other news: VirtualBox 2.2.0 for Linux arrives and KOffice 2.0 RC1 is ready for testing. The weekly ends with the video clip of the week, the latest Linux distributions released/updated last week and the development releases.
Summary:
Editorial: What You Should Expect from Mandriva 2009 Spring - by Daniel Pop-Silaghi
· With the second Release Candidate out and only two weeks until the big launch, we thought it would be a good idea to give you an overall look at what you should expect from Mandriva Linux 2009.1 (Spring). First of all, Mandriva 2009 Spring will boot much faster, through several fixes (including udev), implementation of a new SpeedBoot mode and support for the powerful EXT4 filesystem. What Speedboot basically does is prioritizing boot processes in order to load the graphical system first and then continue with starting the rest of the processes. As for EXT4, though many users are still kind of wary about this new filesystem, its superior performance cannot be contested. Here at Softpedia we've been using it on most of our Linux machines and we've yet to encounter any problems.
Another interesting and certainly useful feature that will ship with Mandriva 2009.1 is the ability to look at a partition's content right from either the DrakX installer or the diskdrake partitioner. Double-checking on whether you have important files left is always a good idea, so being able to do this right before the installation is really convenient. Using the 2.6.29 Linux kernel, hardware support will also be extended in Mandriva 2009 Spring. Syslinux, upgraded to version 3.73 (version 3.74 was released a few days ago and will probably be included in the final Mandriva release), brings many new features and a new module: HDT (Hardware Detection Tool), allowing users to get a complete description of their hardware configuration right from the installation menu. Another anticipated update is X.org server 1.6, bringing improved detection/handling of input devices through the new "input hotplugging" system, as well as several fixes for Nvidia driver-related issues, improved support for Intel cards and proper multimedia key recognition. System restore functionality through Draksnapshot will make it easier for users to restore their whole Mandriva 2009.1 system to an earlier date. Moving on, the fresh new desktop environments couldn't be left out, so GNOME 2.26, KDE 4.2.2 and Xfce 4.6 will be part of the final release. For a lighter alternative, LXDE is now the default choice in the upcoming version. As an optional package, the very interesting Sugar desktop, that was created for the OLPC project, will also be available in Mandriva 2009 Spring.
The default office productivity suite in Mandriva 2009.1 will be, as expected, OpenOffice.org 3.0.1, coming with many enhancements and support for ODF 1.2 and Microsoft Office 2007 files (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.). Other software packages include the latest Mozilla Firefox web browser, Songbird and Amarok audio players, The GIMP image editor, QT 4.5 and QT Creator. A lot of bugfixing work was done for the drakx-net interactive firewall. Finally, the redesigned artwork will bring new themes and wallpapers for everybody to enjoy. With all the netbook craze, Mandriva 2009.1 also aims to further improve support for all the popular models, including the whole Asus Eee series, Acer Aspire One or MSI Wind. Installing Mandriva on such devices will be an easy task through the special hybrid ISO that can be simply copied onto a flash drive and installed from there.
If the release schedule remains unchanged, the 29th of April will be quite an exciting day not only for existing Mandriva fans but for Linux users in general. With a plethora of new features and bleeding-edge technologies, it will be hard to resist Mandriva's answer to the ubiquitous "What Linux distribution should I use?" question.
From the article: Linux Mint 6 KDE comes in a 1.1 GB ISO image that was quickly burnt to a DVD and was ready to be taken for a spin. Before I begin, you should also know that Linux Mint 6 KDE is based on the stable Kubuntu 8.10, uses the 2.6.27 version of the Linux kernel and runs Xorg 7.4. After inserting the DVD in the drive, it booted the live environment in a reasonable amount of time. You'll get your regular KDE login screen & desktop and the only Mint "trademark" you'll recognize will be the rather nice Application Launcher button. If you want to give your system a more "minty" look, there are several elegant customized wallpapers to choose from. As for the rest of the interface, you are all familiar with the style and eye-candy KDE 4 can provide.
Though Linux Mint 6 KDE is a nice addition to the collection, I'd rather stick with the main, GNOME edition. Still, I know there are a lot of you KDE fans out there, so, if you wish to give Linux Mint a try but can't live without your favorite desktop environment, go right ahead, you have nothing to lose.
Read the full article here.
Linux distributions announced last week:
On April 6th, Mandriva announced the immediate availability of Mandriva Linux 2009.1 RC2. Once again, we thought it would be nice to please our readers and offer them a visual tour of this second release candidate of the upcoming Mandriva 2009 Spring. What's new in Mandriva Linux 2009.1 RC2? Well, the most obvious thing is the new artwork, which consists of new wallpapers for both One and Free editions and a new theme called ia_ora, for KDE. Moreover, Mandriva and the KDE team successfully ported the popular K3b CD/DVD burning application to KDE4.
Download Mandriva Linux 2009.1 RC2 right now from Softpedia.
On April 7th, Steven Shiau announced the release of a new stable version of his Linux distribution, Clonezilla Live 1.2.1-53. Focusing on bugfixing and some improvements, Clonezilla Live 1.2.-53 doesn't bring important changes. Clonezilla Live 1.2.1-53 is using the Debian Lenny repositories (as of 04/06/2009) and has updated language files.
Highlights of Clonezilla Live 1.2.1-53:
· The revised en_US language file was merged; · The -j2 and -j3 options now form a single -j2 parameter; · The -g auto option will only run the grub-install command if the grub config partition is part of the restored partitions; · The ocs-live-dev now uses the tar format for recovery files larger than 2 GB; · The checklist dialog now includes a prompt to use the space key in order to mark a selection; · The option to use CHS from EDD while running sfdisk was added through the -e2 parameter, decreasing the possibility of Microsoft Windows boot failures; · The live-initramfs now works on network booting; · A faster method of getting the Hard Disk Drive serial number was implemented by replacing lshw with Udev data; · Fixed a bug that prevented LVM disk overwriting during the partition table creation; · Fixed a bug in ocs-iso that removed files while using the toram function and also made it exit; · The script used to recreate recovery files (ISO and zip) is not in the 755 mode; · Fixed a bug in ocs-iso that prevented it from creating a recovery ISO when a file exceeded 4 GB; · Fixed a bug that prevented dd from being used for cloning if no filesystem was identified, when making partition to partition clones; · Fixed a bug that prevented the creation of a Clonezilla live recovery ISO on the USB flash version; · Fixed a bug that prevented Mac OS partition listing while saving an image; · Fixed a bug that led to using a duplicated "-p true" while running "ocs-sr -x."
Download Clonezilla Live 1.2.1-53 right now from Softpedia.
Also on April 7th, Clement Lefebvre announced the immediate availability of the final release of Linux Mint 6 (Felicia) Fluxbox Community Edition. Being based on Xubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex), this version is powered by Linux kernel 2.6.27, X.Org 7.4 and Fluxbox 1.0.0. Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox includes a brand new menu system called Mint-FM2, a new display manager called Slim (replacement for GDM), and many other nice tweaks.
Highlights of Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox:
· Linux kernel 2.6.27; · X.Org 7.4; · Fluxbox 1.0.0; · New Software Manager; · New display manager; · New menu system; · Support for FTP transfers in mintUpload; · Support for history and proxies in mintUpdate; · mint4win, Linux Mint installer for Microsoft Windows users; · Thunar Shares, a Thunar add-on that allows users to share files with Samba; · Media Player Daemon; · Vino, for remote desktop sharing and viewing; · Gmrun, a run dialog with history and autocomplete functions; · Gufw, graphical user interface for the ufw firewall; · Conky, a lightweight system monitor tool; · sysv-rc-conf, a command-line interface to configure system services; · A function to automatically restore the default configuration of Fluxbox.
Download Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox right now from Softpedia.
On April 8th, Clement Lefebvre announced the immediate availability of the final release of Linux Mint 6 (Felicia) KDE Community Edition, based on Kubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) and powered by Linux kernel 2.6.27, X.Org 7.4 and KDE 4.2. This release also includes a new package manager, the popular Amarok 2.0 media player and lots of improvements. Even if the ISO image of Linux Mint 6 KDE does not contain the KDE 4.2.2 packages, they will be available as an update right after the installation (if you activate the Kubuntu Experimental repositories)!
Highlights of Linux Mint 6 KDE:
· Linux kernel 2.6.27-11; · X.Org 7.4; · KDE (K Desktop Environment) 4.2.2; · Amarok 2.0.1; · Mozilla Firefox 3.0.8; · mintInstall 5, as the brand new "Software Manager"; · mintUpload 2 with support for FTP transfers; · mintUpdate 3 with support for history and proxies; · mintNanny, parental control tool; · mint4win, Linux Mint installer for Microsoft Windows users, based on Wubi; · The Gimp 2.6, with a very nice interface; · ClamAV antivirus; · search, apt contains and apt content command-line utilities.
Download Linux Mint 6 KDE right now from Softpedia.
On April 9th, Tomas Matejicek decided to please his users and announced Slax 6.1.0. The big news is that this is supposed to be the last release of the Slax 6 series and no new features will be added from now on, until Slax 7 will be out (not very soon) and it will be built on top of KDE 4. While still being powered by Linux kernel 2.6.27.8, Slax 6.1 is here to fix some issues with the split base modules, improve the "Build Slax" feature, and fix Fluxbox-related bugs. Moreover, a new wallpaper, login sound and fake XDM were added to Slax 6.1.
Download Slax 6.1.0 right now from Softpedia.
On April 10th, David Cortarello announced the release of his Kwort Linux 2.4.1 Slackware-based distribution. Using the 2.6.28.7 Linux kernel, Kwort 2.4.1 now supports more hardware components. Also, the init system was improved to provide new features while maintaining simplicity. Kwort Linux 2.4.1 is using the latest 4.6 version of the lightweight Xfce desktop environment. The kpkg package manager received some new features as well, like support for multi-mirror setups.
Highlights of Kwort Linux 2.4.1:
· Linux kernel 2.6.28.7; · EXT4 filesystem support; · Xfce 4.6 desktop environment; · An improved Kwort User Manager to simplify the user creation process; · Kwort Network Manager was rebuilt for a more efficient connection management; · The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) 2.6.4; · Firefox 3.0.7 Web Browser; · Mozilla Thunderbird 3.0 Beta2 email application; · Ristretto 0.0.21 Image Viewer; · OpenOffice.org 3.0.0 office productivity suite; · Xfburn 0.4.1 CD/DVD burning tool; · Audacious 1.5.1 audio player; · Pidgin 2.5.5 multi-protocol instant messaging client; · aMule 2.2.3 Peer-to-Peer client; · Dia 0.96.1 diagram drawing program.
Download Kwort Linux 2.4.1 right now from Softpedia.
On April 12th, Robert Shingledecker announced the release of Tiny Core Linux 1.3, a very small Linux distribution that is only 10 MB in size. Coming one month after the previous release, Tiny Core Linux 1.3 uses the Linux kernel 2.6.26-tinycore and brings updated packages, bugfixes and new features. Two useful additions are UUID and LABELS support, facilitating the use of Tiny Core Linux on flash drives.
Highlights of Tiny Core Linux 1.3:
· Linux kernel 2.6.26-tinycore; · BusyBox is now at version 1.13.3; · PCMCIAutils 015; · The Aterm terminal emulator reached version 1.00.01; · The Approbwser can now display .info, .list and .dep file formats; · Support for UUID and LABLES; · Automatic modprobing for module extensions; · Better support for USB printers and scanner through 25-tc.rules; · Updated device checking for restore; · Better framebuffer support through an improved xsetup; · Support for persistent opt was improved; · Better handling of boot startup scripts; · A new USB 2 button mouse choice; · Fixed an issue that occurred when running tce-load from a non X CLI; · The unused /usr/share/xml and /opt/bin were removed; · Used Advedef on pci.ids.gz.
Download Tiny Core Linux 1.3 right now from Softpedia.
Review of the Week: Screenlets 0.1.2
From the review: I have tested Screenlets on an Ubuntu 9.04 Beta machine, thus, I could easily install it through Synaptic. If you're using other Linux flavors, the producers were nice to provide packages for most major distributions and, of course, the source files. After the quick installation process, you will be ready to open up the program. The interface is clean and intuitive and most options are contained in a single window.
Though I was a bit skeptic at first about all this widget craze, Screenlets is sure to remain installed and active on my system.
Read the full review here.
· Sun Microsystems announced on April 8th the release of their VirtualBox 2.2.0 virtualization software. Bringing a lot of new features and improvements VirtualBox 2.2.0 is a major release, and one of the most anticipated added features is OpenGL 3D acceleration support for Linux guests. Also, this new release allows importing and exporting of OVF (Open Virtualization Format) files and adds a new host-only networking mode. Read more about it here.
· The KOffice team announced on April 8th the release of KOffice 2.0 Release Candidate 1. This version doesn't add any new features but brings many bugfixes and improvements. It contains the Kword, KPresenter, KSpread, Karbon, Krita and KPlato office applications while KChart is available as a shape plugin throughout the KOffice suite. Kexi and Kivio are still under heavy development and they will be present in a future release. Read more about it here.
Video Clip of the Week: Acer One with Mandriva 2009 Linux
· For this week we decided to present a video clip that showcases the Mandriva 2009 Linux distribution on the Acer One netbook. The video has 3:03 minutes and it was posted by spittenkittens. Enjoy!
· Calculate Linux 9.4 · TurnKey Tomcat Live CD 2009.04-hardy-x86
Distributions Updated Last Week:
Development Releases:
· Flynux 0.1 Alpha 6
· Clonezilla LiveCD 1.2.2-1
· m0n0wall 1.3 Beta 16
· Musix GNU+Linux 2.0 Alpha 2
See you again next Monday, April 20th, for another issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly.
The Softpedia Linux Editorial Team.