14 DAY TRIAL // Welcome to the 97th issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly!
The following Linux-based operating systems have been announced last week: PCLinuxOS 2010 Openbox Edition, eBox Platform 1.4-2, CentOS 5.5, Slackware 13.1 RC1, Toorox 05.2010 and Puppy Linux 5.0. In other news: Mandriva is for sale; Canonical presented the Unity interface for netbooks, and Ubuntu Light; Fedora Project announced the codename for Fedora 14, and the release schedule; Pidgin 2.7.0 fixes Yahoo! Japan login issues, and brings new features; Linus Torvalds unleashed Linux kernel 2.6.34, with lots of Btrfs improvements. The weekly ends with the video clip of the week, the latest Linux distributions released/updated and the development releases.
Summary:
On May 10th, the PCLinuxOS developers announced the immediate availability of another lightweight edition of the PCLinuxOS 2010 operating system. With a Linux kernel 2.6.32.11 (with BFS scheduler) on board, the new PCLinuxOS 2010 Openbox Edition provides a full featured and fast desktop environment, powered by the Openbox window manager.
Highlights of PCLinuxOS 2010 Openbox Edition:
· Linux kernel 2.6.32.11 (with BFS scheduler for better desktop performance); · Openbox desktop environment with the Tint2 panel; · Support for the Nvidia and ATI proprietary video drivers; · Support for popular audio and video formats; · Support for wireless cards and other network devices; · Support for local and network printer devices; · Easily convert PCLinuxOS into over 60 languages with the Addlocale tool; · OpenOffice.org installer (in over 100 languages) powered by the GetOpenOffice tool; · MyLiveCD, which allows users to take a snapshot of their installation and write it on a blank CD/DVD.
Download PCLinuxOS 2010 Openbox Edition right now from Softpedia.
Also on May 12th, José Antonio Calvo announced the release of the eBox Platform 1.4-2 operating system. The update is a bug-fixing release with just a few small enhancements. Still, there are plenty of fixes in a lot of areas and plenty of components got updated.
Highlights of eBox Platform 1.4-2:
· DNS: Added support for internal networks that are allowed to recourse the caching server; · Ebackup: Improved frequency and keep options. Added log backup and restore. Configurations can be restored from backup action. The VolSize option can be changed through configuration file; · Egroupware: Fixed bug to enable it to work properly in a master-slave scenario; · Firewall: New firewall table containing rules added by eBox services; · Network: Better failover tests; · Samba: Enabled guest shares. The issue with accessing shares on some clients should be fixed; · Squid: New bandwidth throttling support with delay pools. New refresh_pattern options for Microsoft Windows, Debian and Ubuntu updates; · Webserver: Fixed bug to allow non-fqdn and topdomains as vhosts.
Download eBox Platform 1.4-2 now from Softpedia.
On May 14th, Karanbir Singh announced the release of CentOS 5.5, the newest update to the venerable Linux distribution. Based on the latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5, it took the developers about a month and a half to get CentOS 5.5 ready, as it is usual for the distro.
CentOS 5.5 tries to stay as close to the upstream packages as possible and only removes the branding and the packages that are specific to Red Hat. As such, CentOS 5.5 includes everything that RHEL 5.5 brought new, as well as the hundreds of package updates.
Download CentOS 5.5 right now from Softpedia.
Download CentOS 5.5 LiveCDs right now from Softpedia.
Also on May 14th, Patrick Volkerding announced the release of Slackware 13.1 RC1, the latest update to the oldest supported Linux distro in existence. This release candidate comes less than a couple of weeks since the first beta launch and is mostly a bug-fixing release, though it comes with some updated packages as well.
Highlights of Slackware 13.1 RC1:
· Linux kernel 2.6.33.4; · GCC 4.4.4; · CUPS 1.4.3; · Emacs 23.2; · GNU Diffutils 3.0; · Vim 7.2.416; · KDENetwork 4.4.3-2; · Glibc 2.11.1; · Pidgin 2.6.6; · GRUB 0.97-9; · KOffice 2.1.2-2; · Java 2 Platform Standard Edition Runtime Environment 6.0 Update 20; · Fixed Apple USB keyboard support; · Added BCM57 wireless network card firmware; · Scan /dev/sr0 first when looking for CD/DVD, not the old IDE device.
Download Slackware 13.1 RC1 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.
Also on May 14th, the Toorox development team announced the immediate availability of the Toorox 05.2010 operating system. It brings an updated Linux kernel and the latest KDE SC 4.4.3, as well as other changes and bug fixes. All remaining legacy KDE3 packages have been removed, but other than that, there aren’t any new features. 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Toorox 05.2010 are being made available.
Highlights of Toorox 05.2010:
· Linux kernel 2.6.33-gentoo; · KDE SC 4.4.3; · Xorg-server 1.7.6; · NetworkManager is now the default network configuration tool; · KDE3 apps and dependencies have been removed; · Huarddog, UMTSmon and Kdetv have been removed; · KlamAV has been replaced with ClamTK.
Download Toorox 05.2010 right now from Softpedia.
Also on May 15th, Barry Kauler announced the immediate availability of the Puppy Linux 5.0 operating system, which comes with a significant change in the underlying software. Puppy Linux 5.0 “Lupu” is also dubbed Lucid Puppy 5.0 due to its origins which trace back to the, you guessed it, recently launched Ubuntu ‘Lucid Lynx’ 10.04 LTS. Puppy Linux 5.0 is entirely built on the Ubuntu 10.04 packages, but other than that, it is the same distro people have grown to love.
Highlights of Puppy Linux 5.0:
· Linux kernel 2.6.32; · Abiword 2.8.2; · CUPS 1.4.3 · ePDFView 0.1.7-2; · Geany 0.18; · Gnumeric 1.10.1; · ROX Filer 2.9.0-2; · Samba 3.0.26; · X Server 1.7.6.
Download Puppy Linux 5.0 right now from Softpedia.
· Mandriva, the French company behind the popular line of Linux distributions with the same name, is apparently for sale, according to Mandriva Linux Online (MLO). The firm is said to be in deep financial troubles, which have only worsened this year. The viable options are its being sold or closing down the whole shop. Read more about it here.
· Canonical unveiled on May 10th two new products, Unity – a brand-new, lighweight desktop UI aimed at netbooks – and Ubuntu Light – a custom build for OEMs. Ubuntu Light is designed for dual-boot machines enabling manufacturers to ship desktops, notebooks and netbooks with Windows alongside Ubuntu. Both Unity and Ubuntu Light are available now, at least in preview form. Read more about it here.
· The Fedora developers announced on May 10th the release dates and the codename for the next version of the Fedora operating system. The codename for Fedora 14 is "Laughlin" and it will be released sometime in October-November 2010. Other possible codenames were: Laramie, Ventnor, Mitikas, Hoppin and Fytnargin. Read more about it here.
· On May 12th, the Pidgin developers proudly presented the brand-new and improved Pidgin 2.7.0 multi-protocol, multi-platform, instant messenger client. The new version brings many fixes for the Yahoo! and Yahoo! Japan, AIM, XMPP, MSN, ICQ, Gadu-Gadu and Bonjour protocols, but also some very nice and interesting features. Among some of those features, we can mention better integration in the notification area, better search dialog, ability to paste plain text (also Google Chrome pastes), support for large avatar images, and many more! Read more about it here.
· On May 16th, Linus Torvalds delivered Linux Kernel 2.6.34, a version that includes two new filesystems, one for flash drives (LogFS), and Ceph, a distributed network filesystem. Linux Kernel 2.6.34 also includes RCU lockdep, various improvements to the Btrfs filesystem, GPU switching support, private VLAN proxy arp support, asynchronous resume/suspend, lots of new drivers (see below for a detailed list) and many fixes. Read more about it here.
Video Clip of the Week: Unity GUI for Ubuntu Linux 10.10 Netbook Edition Sneak Peak
· For this week we've posted a 720p High Definition video clip that shows you a sneak peak at the Ubuntu Unity GUI for the upcoming Ubuntu Linux 10.10 Netbook Edition. The video has 8 minutes and 13 seconds, and was posted by OSGUIShow. Enjoy!
· Xin 1.0
Distributions Updated Last Week:
· Peppermint One · Clonezilla LiveCD 1.2.5-15 · Syss 016 · Quirky 1.1 · Element GNU/Linux 1.2.0
· Parsix Linux 3.5 Test 3 · Greenie Linux 7L Beta · Salix OS 13.1 Beta 1 · Kongoni 1.12.3 Alpha · Zorin OS 3.0 RC
See you again next Monday, May 24th, for another issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly.