14 DAY TRIAL // Welcome to the 52nd issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly!
With this edition, we are celebrating one year of Softpedia Linux Weekly! On this special occasion, we wish to thank all of our readers for their continuing support, and we welcome all suggestions or any kind of feedback in order to improve our weekly roundup. The following Linux distributions were announced last week: Yellow Dog Linux 6.2, Sabayon Linux 4.2 GNOME, PCLinuxOS 2009.2 and Linux Mint 7 KDE CE RC1. In other news: VirtualBox 3.0.0 for Linux brings 3D and OpenGL 2.0 support; the KDE Community released KDE 4.3 RC1; GNOME 2.26.3 was announced by the GNOME developers; new kernel vulnerabilities affect Ubuntu 6.06, 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04 OSes and Fluendo releases a highly expected DVD Player software for Linux systems. For June, we decided to award Deluge with the "Application of the Month" title. The weekly ends with the video clip of the week, the latest Linux distributions released/updated last week and the development releases.
Summary:
On June 29th, Fixars Solutions announced the availability via the YDL.net Enhanced accounts of Yellow Dog Linux 6.2. Among the new features in YDL 6.2, we can notice the ability to install/boot it from a USB flash drive, an increase in speed of up to 50% compared to Yellow Dog Linux 6.1 and the great improvement of the wireless support, thanks to the Wicd application, which offers more reliable WPA and WEP security protocols.
Highlights of Yellow Dog Linux 6.2:
· USB boot and install support; · Linux Kernel 2.6.29 PPC64; · Linux Kernel 2.6.27 PPC32; · Added the Xfce 4 desktop environment; · Updated IMB Cell SDK to version 3.1.0.1; · Updated the OpenOffice.org office suite to version 3.0; · Updated Mozilla Firefox web browser to version 3.0.6; · Improved wireless support; · Improved Shockwave Flash support; · Better PS3VRAM support; · Updated Gnash to version 0.8.4; · Added Libfreevec.
On June 30th, Fabio Erculiani announced the immediate availability of a new maintenance version of the Sabayon Linux 4 GNOME Edition operating system, now with GNOME 2.26.2! Being based on the Lite MCE version, this second GNOME edition of Sabayon Linux 4 brings a "ready to use" version of the powerful and popular XBMC Media Center, multimedia applications, a dark GNOME desktop environment and all the other apps you'll need. Sabayon Linux 4.2 GNOME is available for the x86 and x86_64 architectures, featuring a custom Linux kernel 2.6.29 with the Tuz logo and support for the EXT4 filesystem, which is enabled by default in the installer! This release also brings numerous fixes and improvements.
Highlights of Sabayon Linux 4.2 GNOME:
· Linux kernel 2.26.9; · Default filesystem is EXT4; · X.Org 7.4 with support for Nvidia and ATI video cards; · GNOME 2.26.2; · OpenOffice.org Office Suite 3.1.0; · Entropy Package Manager 0.96.26; · XBMC Multimedia Center; · Amazing desktop effects powered by Compiz Fusion 0.8.4; · World of Goo Demo; · Very beautiful artwork; · and many more!
Also on June 30th, the The PCLinuxOS team announced the second maintenance release of PCLinuxOS 2009 in both of its KDE 3 and GNOME 2 variants. Besides the usual bugfixes and updated applications, PCLinuxOS 2009.2 now comes packed with a new tool called "notification-updater," which notifies the user about available system updates. Another interesting utility is "GetOpenOffice," which will allow users to install the popular, open-source OpenOffice.org office suite 3.1.0. Last but not least, PCLinuxOS 2009.2 brings "addlocale," a utility that can localize your PCLinuxOS installation in your favorite language!
Highlights of PCLinuxOS 2009.2:
· Linux kernel 2.6.26.8.tex3 · KDE 3.5.10 · GNOME 2.26.2 · Mozilla Firefox 3.0.11 · Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.22 · Abiword 2.6.8 · XChat 2.8.6 · K3b 1.0.5 · Ktorrent 2.2.8 · Frostwire 2.8 · Adobe Flash Player 10 · Sun's Java Runtime Environment 6 Update 12 · 3D effects with Compiz Fusion · TightVNC 1.5.0
Download PCLinuxOS 2009.2 GNOME right now from Softpedia.
On July 5th, Clement Lefebvre and the community behind the Linux Mint project proudly announced the immediate availability of the first release candidate of Linux Mint 7 (Gloria) KDE Community Edition operating system. This first RC is based on the popular Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) distribution, is powered by Linux kernel 2.6.28 and is built on top of the KDE 4.2.4 desktop environment. Just like the other editions of Gloria, this one also includes brand-new artwork, updated applications and many, many new breathtaking features.
Highlights of Linux Mint 7 KDE:
· Based on Ubuntu 9.04; · Linux kernel 2.6.28; · X.Org 7.4; · KDE 4.2.4; · Amarok 2.1; · New artwork; · Improved boot speed; · Improved mintMenu; · Improved mintInstall; · Improved mintUpdate; · Improved mintUpload; · Added mintWelcome; · Added apt version, inxi and rtfm command-line tools; · Moonlight/Silverlight support.
Other News:
· VirtualBox, the popular, amazing, open-source, virtualization software from Sun Microsystems, reached version 3.0.0 on June 30th. This major update brings lots of new features, many bugfixes and improvements over previous 2.x versions. The big and breathtaking news is that users can now use Direct3D 8 and 9 games or applications! Moreover, with VirtualBox 3.0.0, support for OpenGL 2.0 (only for Linux, Solaris and Windows guests) has been implemented. Another important feature is the new SMP (Symmetrical Multiprocessing) guest support with no more than 32 virtual processors. Read more about it here.
· The KDE community proudly announced on July 1st the immediate availability of the first release candidate of KDE 4.3, the next-generation KDE desktop environment for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X platforms. However, the focus of this release is to fix the remaining issues before the final one comes out, at the end of July, 2009. When it will be launched, KDE 4.3.0 will definitely be the most modern, beautiful and attractive desktop environment. The most important feature of KDE 4.3 RC1 is the new Air theme. Read more about it here.
· The GNOME developers, through Lucas Rocha, announced on July 2nd that the last maintenance release of the popular GNOME 2.26 desktop environment was available for download. Just like the previous maintenance releases, GNOME 2.26.3 is here mainly to fix many of the remaining bugs, but to also introduce a few interesting features. Read more about it here.
· On July 2nd Canonical announced the availability of a major security update for the following Ubuntu distributions: 6.06 LTS, 8.04 LTS, 8.10 and 9.04 (also applies to Kubuntu, Edubuntu and Xubuntu). The update patches no more than 15 security issues discovered in the Linux kernel packages by various hackers. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to update your system as soon as possible! Read more about it here.
· Fluendo S.A., the popular software company that offers audio and video codecs for various Linux distributions, such as Mandriva, proudly announced on July 2nd the immediate availability of a new solution to legally play DVD-Video discs. Being based on the GStreamer framework, this piece of software is ideal for Linux users whose DVD playback is restricted. Read more about it here.
Application of the Month: Deluge, for All Your Torrent Needs
· From the article: Using torrents has become quite an everyday routine for most of us. Though eating up all your bandwidth in one bite, they surely can take the load off traffic-heavy servers. How? Each of us becomes a peer that "seeds" tiny bits of the download, leading to exponentially growing speed and availability. Most of the times, people associate the word "torrent" with piracy, which certainly doesn't come as a surprise, but there are a lot of other legal uses for this great technology.
Read the full article here.
Video Clip of the Week: KDE 4.3 Desktop
· For this week we've posted a video clip that offers a quick view at the new look of the upcoming KDE 4.3 desktop environment. The video has 1 minute and 17 seconds and it was posted by scherfa. Enjoy!
· Wires Cut Linux 9.04 · Anubis-Linux 1.0 · AV Linux 2.0 · openArtist 20090604 · BlankOn 5.0
Distributions Updated Last Week:
· Ubuntu Privacy Remix 9.04r1 · WeakNet Linux 2.0 · Zorin OS 1.0 · Linux LiveCD HotSpot Server 2.0.50 · Calculate Linux Desktop 9.7 · R.I.P. 9.3 · Greenie Linux 5.0.2j
· sidux 2009-01 / 2009-02 Preview 1 · Absolute Linux 13.0 RC2 · KDE 4 Live CD 1.2.95 · Moblin 2.0 Beta · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 Beta · Slackware 13.0 RC1 · Clonezilla LiveCD 1.2.2-24 · Elive 1.9.32 · Pardus Linux 2009 RC
See you again next Monday, July 13th, for another issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly.