14 DAY TRIAL // Welcome to the 81st issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly!
The following Linux-based operating systems were announced last week: Android-x86 1.6, Linux Mint 8 RC1 KDE Community Edition, Ubuntu Electronics Remix 9.10 and Tiny Core Linux 2.8. In other news: the Ubuntu Manual team needs your help to make the upcoming manual, for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) operating system, better and useful! The weekly ends with the video clip of the week, the latest Linux distributions released/updated and the development releases.
Summary:
On January 20th, we announced the Android-x86 operating system, a port of Google's famous Android platform for the x86 (32-bit) architecture. This Live CD Linux distribution is designed mostly for the Eee PC netbooks, but can also run on any other 32-bit (x86) platform. The current stable version of Android-x86 is based on Android 1.6 (Donut) and it's powered by Linux kernel 2.6.29 with kernel mode-setting (or KMS for short) enabled. It has support for the EXT3, EXT2, NTFS and FAT32 filesystems, and can be run directly from the CD (yes, no installation required)! But, if you like it and you want to install it on your hard drive or on a USB stick, we have a short tutorial for you at the end of the article.
Highlights of Android-x86 1.6:
· Based on Android 1.6 (Donut); · Linux kernel 2.6.29 with KMS enabled; · Support for Wi-Fi connections; · Graphical user interface for Ethernet configurations; · Hard drive installer; · Support for suspend/resume functions (S3 mode); · Shows the status of the battery on netbooks; · Support for mouse wheel/cursor; · ALSA driver for better audio; · Support for the native resolutions of netbooks; · Support for netbook's webcams (via V4l2); · Support for external monitors; · Automatic mount of external disk drives; · Support for Bluetooth; · Busybox; · Proxy support.
Download Android-x86 1.6 right now from Softpedia.
On January 21st, Clement Lefebvre and the Linux Mint community proudly presented the first release candidate of the upcoming Linux Mint 8 KDE Community Edition operating system. Powered by Linux kernel 2.6.31 and built on top of the KDE Software Compilation 4.3.4, Linux Mint 8 KDE RC1 comes with many improvements in various areas of interest. It is now based on the Kubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) Linux distribution.
Linux Mint 8 (Helena) is based on the current stable release of the popular Ubuntu operating system, and has support for the EXT4 filesystem, various attractive improvements to the update manager and software manager, and many others. Linux Mint 8 KDE Community Edition also has new artwork, including the wallpaper (a custom version of Air Mint by dlkreations) and the brand-new logo redesigned by Henrique Perticarati.
Download Linux Mint 8 KDE RC1 right now from Softpedia. Remember that this is an unstable release and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended for testing purposes only!
On January 22nd, we announced a new Ubuntu-based (or Remix) Linux distribution, this time for electronics. Called Ubuntu Electronics Remix, or UER for short, it is based on the popular Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) operating system and comes as a Live DVD ISO image with lots of free electronics software. Except for the electronics software, everything else is exactly the same as in the original Ubuntu 9.10 distribution.
Highlights of Ubuntu Electronics Remix 9.10:
· Electric, VLSI design system; · gEDA schematic editor; · gEDA attribute editor; · PCB designer; · gResistor, resistor calculator; · Gerber file viewer; · Piklab, PIC development IDE; · SDCC and GCC compilers; · VHDL simulator; · Verilog simulator; · gwave, waveform viewer; · KiCad, electronic schematic diagrams and printed circuit board artwork creator; · Examples of circuits and code; · Lots of code editors, such as Anjuta, Geany, Gedit, Emacs, Vi, nano, Kate or Kdevelop; · Getting Started tutorial; · Helper scripts for Verilog, VHDL, AVR and others.
Download Ubuntu Electronics Remix 9.10 right now from Softpedia.
On January 23rd, Robert Shingledecker, founder of the Tiny Core Linux project, announced the immediate availability of the Tiny Core Linux 2.8 operating system. The new release brings, as usual, a lot of bugfixes, updates to scripts, included applications, and various improvements.
Highlights of Tiny Core Linux 2.8:
· FLTK was updated to version 1.1.10; · FLWM includes now a different layout for the close button; · appbrowser was updated to handle the new extension support structure and onboot.lst; · appsaudit was updated with the OnBoot new menu section, in order to support onboot.lst administration; · appsaudit includes the Updates menu option, for checking available updates; · appsaudit was also updated to allow removing items selectively; · cpanel was reorganized and updated with OnDemand, USB Install, TCE Update, Run Command, Xvesa Setup, Xkill; · "Select Mirror"/tcemirror offers now easy selection of repository mirrors; · tce-load, tce-setup and tce-audit were updated to support the new extension support structure and onboot.lst; · tce-load allows now multiple loading; · Droped the .tcz requirement from tce-load; · tce-update now prompts the user before the batch update operation starts; · tce-update now supports selective interaction; · /opt/.filetool.lst was updated for tcemirror; · Removed symlinker; · Removed dropbearmulti and GNU ftp; · /opt/.tcrc was replaced by /opt/tcemirror; · Faster boot times by updating the udev rules; · rebuildfstab was updated to respond faster; · filetool.sh now ignores sockets; · Fixed a tc-terminal-server typo; · tc-config PXE was updated to handle the extension support structure; · cd_dvd_symlinks.sh now handles better multiple DVD and CD-ROM devices.
Download Tiny Core Linux 2.8 right now from Softpedia.
· On January 19th, we announced that the Ubuntu Manual team created an online survey that would help them make a better manual for everyone! The Ubuntu Manual will be designed for beginners in Linux/Ubuntu and it will contain essential how-tos, guides and basic information about Ubuntu and its components, and everything one needs to know after installing it. The survey has 9 questions, and it will take only 5 minutes of your precious time. Read more about it here.
Video Clip of the Week: Android x86 Preview
· For this week, we've posted a video clip that shows you a preview of the Android-x86 project, which provides an easy way to install Google Android on a Netbook or home PC. The video has 7 minutes and 29 seconds, and it was posted by Tru3m0sl3m. Enjoy!
· 503box-JWM-Rescue-i686 RC1 · Ubuntu Electronics Remix 9.10 · Viper OS 1.0 · FortMacTux 1.0.0 · FortMacTux Games 1.0.8 · ZEN-mini 2009.2 · Puredyne 9.10 · stali · simpleLinux EXT 1.0 · simpleLinux Minimal 1.0
Distributions Updated Last Week:
· Learn free with Ubuntu 4.0
· CRUX PPC 2.6
· DigAnTel 2.0
· Clonezilla LiveCD 1.2.3-28
· Nexenta OS 3.0 Alpha 4 · VectorLinux SOHO 6.0 Beta 3 · Jolicloud Pre-Beta · Linux Mint Fluxbox 8 RC1 · Skolelinux 5.0 RC1
See you again next Monday, February 1st, for another issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly.