Welcome to the 73rd issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly!
The following Linux-based operating systems were announced last week: Scientific Linux 5.4 Live CD/DVD Edition, Tiny Core Linux 2.6 and Linux Mint 8. In other news: the KOffice development team proudly presented the improved KOffice 2.1.0 office suite; Canonical announced that it would drop support for the Low-Power Intel Architecture starting with the Ubuntu 10.04 release; Mandriva presented their latest Mandriva Flash 2010 edition. At the end of the weekly, you will find the video clip of the week, the latest Linux distributions released and updated last week, and the development releases. Enjoy!
On November 24th, Urs Beyerle announced the immediate availability of the Live CD and Live DVD editions of the Scientific Linux 5.4 operating system. The Live CD/DVD is available for the i386 and x86_64 architectures and it allows users to run Scientific Linux directly from the CD/DVD media.
Highlights of Scientific Linux 5.4 Live CD/DVD:
· Linux kernel 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5;
· X.Org 7.1;
· KDE 3.5.4 available only on the Live DVD;
· GNOME 2.16.0 as the default desktop environment;
· Can be installed on a local hard drive;
· The Live CD can be installed on a USB stick;
· The Live CD can be easily mounted over NFS (Network File System protocol) as a diskless client;
· Ability to save changes made in the live environment, on an external device;
· Mozilla Firefox 3.0.15 web browser;
· Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.22 e-mail client;
· OpenOffice.org office suite 2.3.0;
· The GIMP 2.2.13 image editor;
· Evolution 2.12.3 available only on the Live DVD;
· openAFS client 1.4.11;
· ALSA sound driver 1.0.17;
· 3D desktop effects powered by Compiz and AIGLX.
Scientific Linux 5.4 Live CD
Download Scientific Linux 5.4 Live CD/DVD Edition right now from Softpedia.
On November 26th, Robert Shingledecker, founder of the Tiny Core Linux project, announced the immediate availability of the Tiny Core Linux 2.6 operating system, a version that brings updated applications and scripts, various improvements and a couple of bug fixes.
Highlights of Tiny Core Linux 2.6:
· Added select utility instead of dialog;
· The blkid, libuuid and libblkid tools were updated;
· rebuildfstab was updated to reflect removals and to drop additional mount points;
· The xsetup.sh script was updated using select;
· The mktclocal tool was updated using select;
· The tc-terminal-server script was updated using select;
· A missing link was updated in the libpng.so library;
· Support for cryptohome was removed;
· The tc-config script was updated to reflect new changes;
· The rc.shutdown script was updated to support the BusyBox syntax;
· The tce-load script was updated to support the BusyBox mount utility;
· Replaced the GNU versions of the losetup, mount, lsmod, rmmod, insmod, modprobe tools with the BusyBox ones;
· Support for the cramfs and ziofs filesystems was removed (all extensions use squashfs);
· The ed, fsck, eject, expand and unexpand applets of BusyBox were removed;
· The flwm_topside_restart script was fixed to correctly update the system menu;
· flwm menu .wmx was updated to reflect new changes;
· The restore boot option of tc-restore.sh was updated to override the default backup location;
· The .xsesion and xsetup.sh scripts were updated for better redirection of error messages;
· The tiny ASCII penguin was restored in MOTD.
Tiny Core Linux
Download Tiny Core Linux 2.6 right now from Softpedia.
On November 28th, Clement Lefebvre proudly announced the release of the amazing Linux Mint 8 operating system. Dubbed Helena, the new Linux Mint 8 operating system is based on the recently released Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) and is powered by Linux kernel 2.6.31, X.org 7.4 and GNOME 2.28.1. Above all that, the 8th release of Linux Mint includes brand-new artwork, updated applications and many, many other amazing features for all its fans out there!
Highlights of Linux Mint 8:
· Based on Ubuntu 9.10;
· Linux kernel 2.6.31;
· EXT4 filesystem;
· X.Org 7.4;
· GNOME 2.28.1;
· Improvements to the Menu;
· Improvements to the software manager;
· Improvements to the update manager;
· New Upload manager tool;
· Lots of bugs fixed;
· New artwork!
· The KOffice team announced on November 24th that the final version of their KOffice 2.1 open source office suite was now available for download on mirrors worldwide. The new version brings numerous improvements over the 2.0.0 release and, as usual, some new features, such as the ability to run on the Nokia n900 smartphones (based on Maemo Linux). Read more about it here.
· Steve Kowalik announced on November 24th that the LPIA architecture would no longer be supported, starting with the upcoming Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) operating system. At the moment, support for the LPIA architecture is still available on the Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) release. Because many users are not interested in this Low-Power Intel Architecture, Canonical decided that it was better for everyone (upstream developers, Ubuntu developers, community members, third-party developers, Canonical support stuff, etc.) to retire it. Read more about it here.
· Mandriva announced on November 26th that a new version of its portable USB Mandriva Flash Drive was available for purchase. The new edition is based on the recently released Mandriva Linux 2010.0 operating system, with the KDE4 flavor. Mandriva Flash 2010 is available on an 8 GB USB flash drive. Read more about it here.
Video Clip of the Week: Introduction to Linux Mint 8 Helena
· For this week, we've posted a video clip that showcases some of the features of the brand-new Linux Mint 8 operating system. The video has 7 minutes and 17 seconds, and it was posted by the dekaband. Enjoy!
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