The weekly newsletter for Linux users

Nov 2, 2009 14:16 GMT  ·  By

Welcome to the 69th issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly!

The following Linux distributions were announced last week: Endian Firewall 2.3, Toorox 10.2009, Ubuntu 9.10 and OpenSuSE 11.2 RC2. In other news: Nvidia releases the new 190.42 video driver for Linux users, now with support for OpenGL 3.2. For this week, we had the pleasure of reviewing the PS3 Media Server 1.10.5 application. We are also proud to announce gedit is the "Application of the Month" for October! The weekly ends with the video clip of the week, the latest Linux distributions released/updated last week and the development releases.

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Summary:

dots EndianOn October 27th, Christian Graffer from the Endian team proudly announced the immediate availability of the Endian Firewall Community 2.3 Linux-based operating system. The new version includes a lot of bug fixes, improvements and many new and breathtaking features. We, at the Softpedia Labs, took the 2.3 release for a test drive and, among the new features, we noticed the support for backups, a dashbord, the VPN support, the SNMP support, e-mail notifications, policy routing, QoS, intrusion prevention, and many more.

Highlights of Endian Firewall 2.3:

· USB backups; · Encrypted backups via email; · Scheduled backups; · Dashboard (with live graphs and system/services statistics); · E-mail notifications for upcoming events; · Time-based access control lists for HTTP proxy; · New HTTP proxy web interface (with user-based and group-based content filtering); · Intrusion prevention (with configurable Snort rules); · Policy routing rules; · Better port forwarding; · QoS (Quality of Service) – replaces the Traffic Shaping feature; · Added support for SNMP; · A better and easy-to-use SMTP proxy web interface; · Support for VLAN (IEEE 802.1Q trunking).

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Endian Firewall 2.3

Download Endian Firewall 2.3 right now from Softpedia.

dots TooroxOn October 29th, Joern Lindau announced Toorox 10.2009, a Gentoo-based Linux distribution that features the KDE 4.3.2 desktop environment. The new release brings many updated packages, all running on top of the Linux kernel 2.6.31 and Xorg Server 1.6.5. The base install also comes with OpenOffice.org 3.2.1, Amarok 2.2, IceCat 3.5.3 and The VLC media player 1.0.2.

A few new features make life easier on laptops. The improved Systemconfig "LAN+WLAN" can now detect if your wireless card needs a firmware file to function, it will inform you about that requirement and you will be given the option to load the appropriate firmware from a file. Synaptics touch pads, which are pretty widespread, have a dedicated driver that is preconfigured to enable tapping. Also, netbooks with 10-inch displays have a dedicated boot option that optimizes the graphical options for the small screen size.

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Toorox 10.2009 - Image courtesy of Toorox

Download Toorox 10.2009 right now from Softpedia.

dots UbuntuOn October 29th, Canonical announced the release of Ubuntu 9.10, dubbed Karmic Koala. This version is also the 11th release of the Ubuntu operating system and it will be supported for 18 months on both servers and desktops.

Highlights of Ubuntu 9.10:

· GNOME 2.28.1 desktop environment; · Linux kernel 2.6.31.1; · EXT4 filesystem; · X.Org 7.4; · X.Org server 1.6.4; · Mesa 3D DRI 7.6; · Compiz Fusion 0.8.4; · Xsplash 0.8.4; · New artwork.

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Ubuntu 9.10

Download Ubuntu 9.10 right now from Softpedia.

dots openSUSEAlso on October 29th, Joe Brockmeier proudly announced the immediate availability of the openSUSE 11.2 RC2 Linux-based operating system. This last development version fixes some of the nasty bugs found in previous versions, updates various packages, and it is now powered by Linux kernel 2.6.31.5. Also, switching the package vendor between repositories has been improved.

Highlights of openSUSE 11.2 RC2:

· Linux kernel 2.6.31.5; · Xorg Server 1.6.5; · Mozilla Firefox 3.5.4; · Mozilla SeaMonkey 2.0; · Samba 3.4.2; · Bluez 4.56; · Banshee 1.5.1; · K3b 1.68 Alpha 3; · Subversion 1.6.6.

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openSUSE 11.2 RC2

Download openSUSE 11.2 RC2 right now from Softpedia. Remember that this is a development release and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only.

dots Other NewsOther News:

· After quite a long development period, Nvidia finally decided to make Linux users happy again, by releasing on October 27th a brand-new and improved version of its graphics driver, Nvidia 190.42, which now supports OpenGL 3.2. The new driver also introduces support for the following video cards: GeForce G102M, GeForce GT 220, GeForce G210, GeForce G210M, GeForce GT 230M, GeForce GT 240M, GeForce GTS 250M and GeForce GTS 260M. Read more about it here.

dots Application of the MonthApplication of the Month: gedit

From the article: With Gedit, it's not the general appearance that counts, it's all the little details that make a great application. As a programmer, I know that simple things like auto indentation and syntax highlighting can make your job much more easier. Gedit's can do syntax highlighting for quite a large number of programming languages or file formats, over 70 in fact. Also, the customizable tab width makes it easy to structure your texts, and the option to fill tabs with spaces makes it so much friendly to many environments in which your files could end up. The line numbers make it easy to collaboratively edit text files like source code, and, along with the jump to line function, it provides a way to refer and return to a certain section of the document without scrolling through to it.

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gedit 2.28.0

If you feel stuck at any point, the application ships with minimal documentation, but on Gedit's website you will find a wiki with more comprehensive guides and even a keyboard shortcut list for handy reference. Moreover, if you need to continue your work on another platform, you will be happy to find out that you can take this great text editor with you, because Gedit can also work on Windows and MacOS X, saving you the hassle of getting used to a different application.

Read the full article here.

dots Review of the WeekReview of the Week: PS3 Media Server 1.10.5

From the review: PS3 Media Server is, as its name suggests, a multimedia server that is designed to interface with the PlayStation 3 gaming console. You install it on a computer that is on the same network with the PS3 and, thanks to the Digital Living Network Alliance-compliant Universal Plug and Play support in both the console and the server, a connection will be created between the two, without any intervention required (except having correct network settings, of course).

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PS3 Media Server 1.10.5

The added comfort of viewing movies on a big TV connected to your PlayStation is worth the tinkering that you will have to do until you get everything working.

Read the full review here.

dots Video Clip of the WeekVideo Clip of the Week: Ubuntu 9.10 3D Desktop Video Players

· For this week, we decided to present a video clip of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) playing 4 movies in high-def in several players, using a ThinkPad T400s notebook with an Intel graphics card. The video has 2 minutes and it was posted by lafaspot. Enjoy!

Download from SoftpediaNew Distributions:

· Leeenux 1.2 · Simplix Linux 2009-10-10 · TurnKey Zimbra Live CD 2009.10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey OpenBravo Live CD 2009.10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey Deki Live CD 2009.10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey Tracks Live CD 2009-10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey Symfony Live CD 2009-10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey Bugzilla Live CD 2009.10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey Trac Live CD 2009.10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey OTRS Live CD 2009.10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey Mantis Live CD 2009.10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey Torrent Server Live CD 2009.10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey File Server Live CD 2009-10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey Domain Controller Live CD 2009-10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey Moodle Live CD 2009-10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey ejabberd Live CD 2009-10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey Redmine Live CD 2009.10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey TWiki Live CD 2009.10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey Roundup Live CD 2009.10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey ProjectPier Live CD 2009.10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey Gallery Live CD 2009.10-hardy-x86 · TurnKey MoinMoin Live CD 2009.02-hardy-x86 · TurnKey MovableType Live CD 2009.02-hardy-x86 · TurnKey Tomcat Live CD 2009.02-hardy-x86 · TurnKey DocuWiki Live CD 2009.02-hardy-x86 · TurnKey EC2 SDK Live CD 2009.02-hardy-x86 · ALT Linux (School Lite) 5.0.0 · ALT Linux (School Junior) 5.0.0 · ALT Linux (School Master) 5.0.0

Download from SoftpediaDistributions Updated Last Week:

· PCLinuxOS 2009.4 · OzOS 0.9 · Mythbuntu 9.10 · Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud 9.10 · Ubuntu Server 9.10 · Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10 · Kubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10 · Kubuntu 9.10 · Edubuntu 9.10 · Xubuntu 9.10 · Ubuntu Studio 9.10 · Astaro Security Gateway 7.501 · Baltix 4.2 · ALT Linux 5.0.0 · ALT Linux (School Server) 5.0.0 · Ubuntu Rescue Remix 9.10 · Lighthouse Pup 4.43 · grml 2009.10 · CAINE 1.0 · SLAMPP Live CD 2.0.2

Download from SoftpediaDevelopment Releases:

· Openwall GNU/Linux 20091025 · Chrome OS 0.4.223 Beta · Clonezilla LiveCD 1.2.3-7 · Chakra LiveCD Crush · Tiny Core Linux 2.5 RC2

See you again next Monday, November 9th, for another issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly.