Welcome to the 83rd issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly!

The following Linux-based operating systems were announced last week: openSUSE 11.3 Milestone 1, VortexBox 1.1, Elive 1.9.60, Mandriva Linux 2010.1 Alpha 2 and Linux Mint 8 KDE Community Edition. In other news: Canonical announced the immediate availability of an important kernel update for its Ubuntu operating systems, which patches 10 kernel vulnerabilities. The weekly ends with the video clip of the week, the latest Linux distributions released/updated and the development releases.


Summary:

· Announced Distro: openSUSE 11.3 Milestone 1 Ready for Testing · Announced Distro: Available Now: VortexBox 1.1 · Announced Distro: Elive 2.0 Gets Closer Every Day · Announced Distro: Download and Test Mandriva Linux 2010.1 Alpha 2 · Announced Distro: Available Now: Linux Mint 8 KDE Community Edition · Other News: 10 Kernel Vulnerabilities in Ubuntu · Video Clip of the Week: Linux Mint 8 KDE Community Edition RC1 Screencast Review · New Distributions: gnuArtist 8.04, ÜberStudent 0.9, Linpais 1.0, KLEO 1.0, and more... · Distributions Updated Last Week: Leeenux 2.0, ArtistX 0.8, Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.4, USU 4.0, and more... · Development Releases: Skolelinux 5.0 RC2, Tiny Core Linux 2.9 RC2, Frugalware Linux 1.2 RC1, and more...

On February 1st, Henne Vogelsang announced that the first milestone of the upcoming openSUSE 11.3 operating system was available for testing. openSUSE 11.3 Milestone 1 is distributed as a KDE4 and GNOME Live CDs for both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. It contains bleeding-edge packages, such as Linux kernel 2.6.32, GNOME 2.29.5, KDE SC 4.4 RC1, Mozilla Firefox 3.6.0, Mozilla Thunderbird 3.0.1, OpenOffice.org 3.2 Beta 4, VirtualBox 3.1.0 Beta 1 and much more.

Highlights of openSUSE 11.3 Milestone 1:

· Linux kernel 2.6.32;
· GNU C Library 2.11;
· Udev 150;
· GNOME 2.29.5;
· KDE SC 4.4 RC1;
· Mozilla Firefox 3.6.0;
· Mozilla Thunderbird 3.0.1;
· OpenOffice.org 3.2 Beta 4;
· VirtualBox 3.1.0 Beta 1;
· Abiword 2.8.1;
· Amarok 2.2.2;
· digikam 1.0.0;
· KTorrent 3.3.2;
· Transmission 1.82;
· zypper 1.2.15;
· aria2 1.8.0;
· QT 4.6.0;
· Nagios 3.2.0;
· net-snmp 5.5;
· Samba 3.4.5;
· GNU Debugger 7.0;
· CMake 2.8.0;
· openSuSE KIWI 3.95;
· clutter library 1.1.4.

openSUSE 11.3 Milestone 1

Download openSUSE 11.3 Milestone 1 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.

On February 1st, Andrew Gillis proudly announced the new VortexBox 1.1 release, which includes a lot of great features. VortexBox will turn your computer into an easy-to-use and out-of-the-box music jukebox and server. With it, you can rip Audio CDs to the FLAC and MP3 formats, add ID3 tags, grab album art and stream music files on your network. And with version 1.1, VortexBox also allows you to play music!

Highlights of VortexBox 1.1:

· Added VortexBox Player, as the default music player;
· Artwork/covers is/are automatically added to MP3 files, for compatibility with XBMC and iTunes clients;
· Added an option to update the AAC or MP3 mirrors, after the CD ripping process.

VortexBox 1.1 - Image courtesy of VortexBox

Download VortexBox 1.1 right now from Softpedia.

On February 3rd, the developers behind the Elive project cooked yet another unstable release of their Elive Live CD Linux distribution, now at version 1.9.60. Being powered by Debian, the Enlightenment E17 desktop environment and Linux kernel 2.6.30, the newly released Elive 1.9.60 offers a new driver for CD-ROMs, the ability to configure your touchpad and some other goodies. With this version, Elive gets closer and closer to a final and stable release.

Highlights of Elive 1.9.60:

· Linux kernel 2.6.30;
· Added a configurator for touchpads;
· Completely rewritten the autolaunchers, now with new features and fully configurable;
· Added a brand-new driver for CD-ROM units, in order to boot in Live mode;
· Various bugs were fixed, some minor features added, and some informative messages.

Elive Linux

Download Elive 1.9.60 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.

On February 6th, Mandriva announced the second Alpha release of the upcoming Mandriva Linux 2010.1 (Spring) operating system, due for launch in early June this year. Once again, bleeding-edge packages are at home with Mandriva Linux 2010.1 Alpha 2, including Linux kernel 2.6.33 RC6, KDE Software Compilation 4.4 RC3, GNOME 2.29.6, Mozilla Firefox 3.6, OpenOffice.org 3.2 Beta 3, Amarok 2.2.2, and many more. Guest account has also been implemented in this release, as well as the Nouveau driver, which is used as default for Nvidia graphics cards (instead of the old nv driver).

Highlights of Mandriva Linux 2010.1 Alpha 2:

· Linux kernel 2.6.33 RC6;
· X.Org 7.5;
· Xorg Server 1.7.4;
· KDE SC 4.4 RC3;
· GNOME 2.29.6;
· Mozilla Firefox 3.6;
· OpenOffice.org 3.2 Beta 3;
· Amarok 2.2.2;
· Deluge 1.2.0;
· Songbird 1.4.3;
· Transmission 1.83;
· Google Chrome 4 Beta;
· Nouveau driver;
· Mesa 7.7;
· Intel video driver 2.10.0;
· NTFS-3G 2010.01.16;
· Glibc 2.11;
· GDB debugger 7.0.1;
· Ruby 1.9.1;
· Munin 1.4;
· Spamassassin 3.3.0;
· QT 4.6.1;
· KTorrent 4.0 Beta 1;
· Digikam 1.1.0;
· Kopi-plugins 1.1.0.

Mandriva Linux 2010.1 Alpha

Download Mandriva Linux 2010.1 Alpha 2 right now from Softpedia. Remember that this is an alpha release and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only.

On February 6th, Clement Lefebvre and the Linux Mint community proudly announced the final release of the Linux Mint 8 KDE Community Edition operating system. Based on Kubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala), the new version is now powered by Linux kernel 2.6.31 and built on top of the KDE Software Compilation 4.3.4. Linux Mint 8 KDE Community Edition also comes with many improvements in various areas of interest.

Highlights of Linux Mint 8 KDE:

· Based on Kubuntu 9.10;
· Linux kernel 2.6.31;
· EXT4 filesystem;
· X.Org 7.4;
· KDE SC 4.3.4;
· OEM installation;
· Improvements to the Menu;
· Improvements to the software manager;
· Improvements to the update manager;
· New Upload manager tool;
· Lots of bugs fixed.

Linux Mint 8 KDE - Image courtesy of Clement Lefebvre

Download Linux Mint 8 KDE Community Edition right now from Softpedia.

Other News:

· On Februrary 5th, Canonical announced the immediate availability of a new Linux kernel security update for the following Ubuntu distributions: 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake), 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron), 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex), 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) and 9.10 (Karmic Koala). The update also applies to Kubuntu, Edubuntu and Xubuntu and it patches 10 important security issues (see below for details) 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.

Video Clip of the Week: Linux Mint 8 KDE Community Edition RC1 Screencast Review

· For this week, we've posted a video clip that showcases the features of the brand-new Linux Mint 8 KDE Communty Edition operating system. The video has 9 minutes and 5 seconds, and it was posted by OSGUIShow. Enjoy!


New Distributions:

· gnuArtist 8.04
· KLEO 1.0
· ÜberStudent 0.9
· MCL 2.0
· Linpais 1.0
· Absolute-Lite-13.0.8 RC1

Distributions Updated Last Week:

· Leeenux 2.0
· PaiPix Linux 10.1.31
· ArtistX 0.8
· Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.4
· eBox 1.4
· USU 4.0
· ThinStation 2.2.2
· Ubuntu MID Edition 9.04
· Gibraltar Firewall 3.0
· Absolute Linux 13.0.9
· Parsix Linux 3.0r2

Development Releases:

· Skolelinux 5.0 RC2
· PC/OS 10.1 Beta
· Tiny Core Linux 2.9 RC2
· Frugalware Linux 1.2 RC1

See you again next Monday, February 15th, for another issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly.