14 DAY TRIAL // Welcome to the 49th issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly!
This week's editorial talks about the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit. Because Fedora 11 is in vogue this week, we've prepared a nice first-look article for our readers. In the Linux distribution announcement section you will find the following releases: Fedora 11, Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 2 and R.I.P. Linux 9.1. In other news: GRUB 2 will be the new boot loader in the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10 operating system; Linus Torvalds announced Linux Kernel 2.6.30; the second Beta of the highly expected KDE 4.3 desktop environment arrived; The eyeOS Community Programming Contest 2009 was announced. The weekly ends with the video clip of the week, the latest Linux distributions released/updated last week and the development releases.
Summary:
Editorial: Gran Canaria Desktop Summit - by Daniel Pop-Silaghi
· There seem to be a lot of exciting Linux events happening around this time of the year. After a productive UDS (Ubuntu Developers Summit) and the first edition of yearly SouthEast LinuxFest, it's time to turn our focus on the upcoming Gran Canaria Desktop Summit that will be held in Canary Islands, Spain. Regardless of your favorite distribution, this conference should be of particular interest to you, as it covers both major desktop environments: KDE and GNOME.
If in previous years they both had their separate gatherings, GUADEC and Akademy, this time around it's all happening under the same roof. No matter how passionately you favor one of these two desktop environments, we can all agree that they both can learn from each other a lot, so bringing them together for 8 days can only lead to good stuff.
Though registration and a welcome party are due for the evening of July 3rd, talks will begin the next day, Saturday, July 4th, with four unmissable keynotes:
· Robert Lefkowitz - "Liberal Software" · Walter Bender - "The Sugar learning platform and the future of the desktop" · Richard Stallman - "Free software and the GNU/Linux Desktop" · Jakub Pavelek - Maemo Harmattan architecture: "Qt and more"
Of course, these are only the tip of the iceberg, as the next days are also filled with exciting talks. While cross-desktop discussions are scheduled for both the 4th and 5th, Akademy and GUADEC will run concurrently from July 5h to July 11th. Other than that, Mobile and Educational specific talks will take place on July 8th and July 9th.
For those who want to participate, you will be happy to hear that attending this event is free. Of course, prior registration has to be done on the official website. Gran Canaria also has its own airport, so getting there shouldn't be that much of a hassle.
Hopefully, this year's Gran Canaria Desktop Summit will have a positive impact on the future development of these awesome desktop environments most of us couldn't live without. And who knows, maybe next year projects like Xfce or LXDE will also be present.
· From the article: For our First Look we decided to go with the "main" GNOME edition and see if Fedora 11 lived up to the expectations. From the plethora of worldwide mirrors we chose one that was close to us and the 688 MB download was over in no time. Booting the Live environment was fairly quick; once everything's loaded you will almost forget that you're running Fedora 11 from the CD, as the desktop is very responsive. But, for the full experience, you will obviously want to install it to the hard drive by double clicking the corresponding icon on the desktop.
As a conclusion, I have to say that I was expecting more from this release. Surely, it is a great operating system overall, but there are a few minor annoyances that will probably keep new users away. If you are a fan, go ahead and upgrade, there's no reason to stick with Fedora 10. A faster boot, the Automatic Fonts & MIME Installer or the Yum Presto plugin may be enough incentives to give Leonidas a spin.
Read the full article here.
Linux distributions announced last week:
On June 9th, after a two-week delay, the Fedora Project team finally announced the release of Fedora 11, also known as Leonidas. The multitude of new features and improvements in this new version made the waiting time seem even longer, especially for dedicated fans. Well, at least the buzz from Ubuntu and Mandriva is slowly fading away, so Linux users can concentrate better on Fedora 11. Coming on a single Live CD, Leonidas can be downloaded either with the GNOME desktop environment or the KDE one. Moreover, spins are available for the Xfce lightweight alternative and other specific purposes such as education or lab work.
Highlights of Fedora 11:
· 20-second boot time; · Default EXT4 install; · New artwork; · Plymouth; · KDE 4.2.2; · GNOME 2.26.1; · Xfce 4.6; · Automatic Fonts & Mime Installer; · Fingerprint reading; · ABRT; · Nouveau; · Presto; · Mozilla Firefox 3.5 Beta; · Thunderbird 3 Beta; · Xserver 1.6; · MiniGW; · TigerVNC; · GCC 4.4, NetBeans 6.5, Python 2.6 and Git 1.6.2; · OpenChange; · Improved Volume Control; · DeviceKit.
Download Fedora 11 right now from Softpedia.
On June 11th, Kent Robotti announced yet another stable release of his popular R.I.P. (Recovery Is Possible) Linux distribution. R.I.P. 9.1 comes with the newly released Opera 10 Beta (the installation is available as an option in the X11 setup menu), an updated SVN version of GRUB 2 1.96 and the latest beta of the upcoming Firefox 3.5 web browser.
The following applications have also been updated in R.I.P. 9.1.: Partclone 0.1.1-svn revision 294M, aria2c 1.4.1, LYNX 2.8.7pre.5b, Syslinux 3.82 and ClamAV 0.95.2.
Download R.I.P. 9.1 right now from Softpedia.
On June 12th, Canonical announced that the second alpha release of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) was made available on the official mirrors. As usual, we've downloaded a copy of it, and we intend to keep you up to date with the latest changes in the Ubuntu 9.10 development.
What's new in Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 2? GRUB 2 is now the default boot loader and it finally replaced that ancient GRUB Legacy and EXT4 is now the default filesystem for new installations. Last but not least, the kernel packages are at version 2.6.30-8, based on Linux kernel 2.6.30 RC8, and GCC 4.4 is the default compiler. Most of the GNOME packages, including Nautilus, Brasero, Gedit and Totem Movie Player, were updated to the 2.27.1 and 2.27.2 development versions. Pidgin was also updated to version 2.5.6.
Download Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 2 right now from Softpedia. Remember that this is an alpha release and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only.
· Colin Watson had the pleasure to announce on June 8th that GRUB 2 would definitely be the default boot loader in Ubuntu 9.10. This is a very good idea, and users of all Linux distributions should replace their old GRUB boot loaders with the next-generation GRUB 2 one, if they didn't already. Why? Simply, because GRUB wasn't updated since 1996 and it doesn't have support for today's BIOSes. Read more about it here.
· On June 10th, Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, announced the immediate availability of Linux kernel 2.6.30, a version that brings initial support for the log-structured NILFS2 filesystem, the POHMELFS distributed network filesystems, the RDS protocol, and the Microblaze CPU architecture. It also includes preliminary support for NFS 4.1 and IEEE 802.11w. Moreover, Linux kernel 2.6.30 comes with DRM support for the Radeon R6xx/R7xx video cards, the Tomoyo security module, faster boot-up support by asynchronously scanning the partitions and devices, ability to switch between the RAID5/6 modes, new drivers and many more. Read more about it here.
· The KDE Community announced on June 10th a new development release of the upcoming 4.3 version of their popular K Desktop Environment. KDE 4.3 boasts a large number of new features and improvements that will surely appeal to a lot of users. If everything goes according to plan, KDE 4.3 will become stable somewhere near the end of July 2009. Read more about it here.
· Pau Garcia-Milà, one of the eyeOS founders and maintainers, announced on June 11th an exciting new application creation contest for programming enthusiasts all over the world. Participants will have to register (for free) until the 1st of July, while submitting their applications will be possible in the August 1st - August 20th time frame. The first place winner will receive a Dell Mini 10v netbook with an Intel Atom Processor Z520, 1GB of RAM, 10.1" Widescreen Display and Intel GMA500 video card. The second place will get 1 TB of storage in the form of a LaCie Network device, while the third place will receive a 20" Dell HD Widescreen Monitor capable of a 1600x900 resolution and 5 ms response time. Read more about it here.
Video Clip of the Week: Fedora 11 with a-desk
· For this week we've posted a very nice video that shows the Fedora 11 Linux distribution with a-desk, the animated desktop. The video has 1 minute and 28 seconds and it was posted by 0100001001000010. Enjoy!
· Digital Forensic Live CD 1.0
Distributions Updated Last Week:
· TEENpup 2009 Legacy · CRUX PPC 2.5 · ttylinux 8.1 · TurnKey Joomla Live CD 2009.06-hardy-x86 · Greenie Linux 5j · Linux-EduCD 1.0 · Berry Linux 0.97
· Clonezilla LiveCD 1.2.2-20 · Vine Linux 5.0 Alpha 2 · Xubuntu 9.10 Alpha 2 · Kubuntu 9.10 Alpha 2 · Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10 Alpha 2 · Ubuntu Server 9.10 Alpha 2 · Elive E17 Compiz 1.9.29
See you again next Monday, June 22nd, for another issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly.
The Softpedia Linux Editorial Team.