Welcome to the 65th issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly!
The following Linux distributions were announced last week: Calculate Linux Desktop 9.9, Astaro Security Gateway 7.500, Ubuntu 9.10 Beta and GoblinX 3.0. In other news: The Amarok developers announced version 2.2 of their popular Amarok Media Player, now with a completely new look and feel. This week, we had the pleasure of reviewing the AQEMU 0.7.3 application and to create a new tutorial, about how to fix the Shared Folders feature of VirtualBox with a Windows 7 virtual machine. We also have the pleasure to announce that Evince is the Application of the Month for September! This edition ends with the video clip of the week, the latest Linux distributions updated last week and the development releases.
On September 28, Alexander Tratsevskiy proudly announced the immediate availability of the Calculate Linux Desktop 9.9 KDE and XFCE distribution. Being based on Gentoo Linux, Calculate Linux Desktop 9.9 is now powered by Linux Kernel 2.6.30.5 and X.Org 7.4; it is built on top of the KDE 4.3.1 desktop environment and includes the popular OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 office suite and the Mozilla Firefox 3.5.3 web browser.
Highlights of Calculate Linux Desktop 9.9:
· Built on top of Calculate Linux Scratch;
· XChat replaces Konversation;
· GStarDict replaces GoldenDict;
· Added KDE Partition Manager;
· Mozilla Firefox is now the default browser;
· The XFCE desktop includes Compiz effects;
· The XFCE edition contains the Nvidia video drivers;
· Added Linux kernel sources;
· Added Portage;
· Added cl-unmask package;
· Added gnome-ppp, fusemb, xfce4-taskmanager, xfce4-power-manager and thunar-volman packages;
· Performed system optimizations to increase overall performance.
Download Calculate Linux Desktop 9.9 KDE right now from Softpedia.
Download Calculate Linux Desktop 9.9 XFCE right now from Softpedia.
On September 30, Astaro, the maker of enterprise-level gateways that enhance security and provide traffic filtering, released Astaro Security Gateway 7.500, a version that includes many new features and enhancements. Unlike many other computer software creators, Astaro does listen to customer requests, that's why in this latest incrementation of its flagship product, you will find a new Intrusion Protection Engine, Real-Time Bandwidth Monitoring, transparent HTTP proxy support that features captive authentication portal and even the ability to manipulate black or whitelists.
Highlights of Astaro Security Gateway 7.500:
· Windows SSL VPN Upgraded;
· Improved HTTP Caching;
· Default Definition for "Internet;"
· Customizable Shortcuts;
· User List shows static IP's;
· Live Log Negation;
· Console/SSH Logins Trigger a notification;
· Custom text for notifications;
· Test NTP Sync;
· Automatic Backup before Up2Date install;
· Configurable Default for Lists;
· Cluster/HA Serial Number View;
· Schedule Firmware Installation;
· WebAdmin Network Section Split;
· Search Boxes Retain Data;
· System Restart Reason;
· Group Tool tips for Members;
· Reporting Exclusions;
· Log Flag for NAT Rules;
· Masquerading for Additional IP Addresses;
· Support for Multiple Authentication Servers;
· SNMP MIB;
· Up2date Status Reworked;
· Up2Date Content Distribution Network;
· Inline/Snap Report Links;
· Global POP3 Sender Blacklist;
· Dashboard RSS Feed;
· ASG 110/120 WatchDog;
· New German Translation.
Astaro Security Gateway 7.500
Download Astaro Security Gateway 7.500 right now from Softpedia.
On October 1, the Ubuntu development team unleashed the Beta release of the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) operating system, due for launch in late October this year. As usual, we've downloaded a copy of it in order to keep you up to date with the latest changes in the Ubuntu 9.10 development.
Highlights of Ubuntu 9.10 Beta:
· Linux kernel 2.6.31.1;
· GNOME 2.28.0;
· X.Org 7.4;
· Revamped Human theme;
· New artwork (including the Humanity icons);
· Ubuntu Software Center;
· Upstart;
· Non-eXecutable memory protection;
· Position-Independent Executables;
· Home folder encryption;
· ...and many more other improvements and fixes!
Ubuntu 9.10 Beta
Download Ubuntu 9.10 Beta right now from Softpedia. Remember that this is a beta release and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only.
On October 2, Flavio Pereira de Oliveira announced the third release of his popular Slackware-based Live CD Linux distribution, GoblinX, also known as G:Standard. GoblinX 3.0 used to have five desktop managers, but it appears that Flavio decided to keep only one, the K Desktop Environment. With the KDE4 on board, this distribution offers stability and good looks on a bootable Live CD ISO image.
Highlights of GoblinX 3.0:
· KDE 4.2.4 desktop environment;
· Opera 10 web browser (with support for Slik/Webmount);
· Improvements to the KDE 4 desktop;
· Updated X.Org;
· Updated various packages;
· Fixed many bugs and errors;
· Added various applications;
· Added some GTK+2 applications;
· Many other improvements and modifications...
· Lydia Pintscher announced on October 1 the release of the much anticipated Amarok 2.2 music player for the K Desktop Environment. Dubbed "Sunjammer," this version has a completely cleaned-up user interface, Playlist manager enhancements and fixes, a better Context View layout, faster music folder scanning and improved import capabilities, and even Dynamic Playlists that can better predict the music that you would want to hear. Read more about it here.
Application of the Month: Evince: Speed and Functionality Combined
From the article: Among the document file formats that Evince supports out of the box you will find PDF, by using the Poppler library, Postscript (.ps) files, TIFF images, TeX output in the form of DVIs and even DjVu compressed files. Throw in a few more libraries, and you will be able to open OpenOffice.org Impress documents, comics in the CBR, CBZ and CB7 compressed formats and even images, although we can't recommend it as a primary image viewer and it might be unstable. In the future Powerpoint rendering may be added, and even support for some other formats.
Evince
Although editing isn't supported, in fact most of the supported formats can't be easily modified, in the latest version of Evince you can add annotations, which is simply a great feature. Instead of relying on third-party text editors to keep your notes and following cumbersome references, you can just affix them to the document, in the relevant section of it. Should Evince crash while you're using it, or you lose power, your settings have a good change of being restored at the next start because version 2.28.0 also features crash recovery.
From the review: QEMU and KVM, although very powerful virtualization solutions, lack a graphical user interface, which can be quite annoying when you just want to test something and you don't have the time to research obscure command-line switches. That's why different graphical front-ends have been created, and you might be familiar with QEMU Launcher or QEMU Manager. Today we are going to review a "younger" and less known application that provides a virtualization GUI.
AQEMU 0.7.3
One of the ideas that I liked in AQEMU is the way that the configuration options for the program are split into General and Advanced. I felt that some of the options in one place belong in the other though, since you can hardly consider the screenshot format and save location as something "advanced."
Tutorial of the Week: How to Fix Windows 7 Sharing in VirtualBox
From the article: Like many of you out there, I've searched and searched on the Internet for a solution to this issue, which I've also noticed to be quite popular (why should it be? you create something on the virtual machine and you want to save it, right?), and many guides are incomplete or they point you in the wrong direction. Therefore, I present today a step-by-step tutorial (with screenshots) to this very simple-to-fix issue (you won't believe how simple it was in the end).
Video Clip of the Week: Amarok 2.2 development, 1 week in...
· For this week, we decided to present an older video clip the showcases the development progress of the Amarok 2.2 media player. The video has 2 minutes and 50 seconds, and it was posted by AmarokStudios. Enjoy!
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