14 DAY TRIAL // Welcome to the 98th issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly!
The following Linux-based operating systems were announced last week: Arch Linux 2010.05, Linux Mint 9 (Isadora), Slackware 13.1 RC2, SystemRescueCd 1.5.4 and Mandriva Linux 2010.1 (Spring) RC1. In other news: Oracle releases VirtualBox VM 3.2.0 with lots of improvements, bugfixes and new functions. The weekly ends, as usual, with the video clip of the week, the latest Linux distributions released/updated and the development releases.
Summary:
On May 17th, Dieter Plaetinck announced the immediate availability of the Arch Linux 2010.05 operating system. Being powered by Linux kernel 2.6.33.4-1, Arch Linux 2010.05 features improvements to the AIF installer, and lots of other enhancements.
Highlights of Arch Linux 2010.05:
· Linux kernel 2.6.33.4-1; · Pacman 3.3.3-5; · Glibc 2.11.1-3; · The ISO images can now be written on CD or USB media; · XZ compression is now used for more than half of included packages; · Dual ISO images are now available (for 32-bit and 64-bit architectures); · The Live CD now uses the isolinux bootloader for the boot process, exclusively; · Memtest was updated; · PXE booting is now supported; · Added wpa_supplicant; · Virtio is now supported; · You can now choose the blockdevice representation (uuid/label/devicefile) in the installer; · The UI library was split into a separate libui-sh project; · AIF installer supports virtio blockdevices; · AIF installer allows users to specify extra custom arguments for mkfs and similar tools; · Fixed many other annoying bugs, especially in the AIF installer; · Updated the official installation guide.
Download Arch Linux 2010.05 right now from Softpedia.
On May 18th, Clement Lefebvre announced the next major version of the Linux Mint operating system. Dubbed Isadora, Linux Mint 9 is available right now for download (see link at the end of the article), it's distributed for both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures, as a Live CD or a Live DVD (with Oracle's Java 6, VLC media player, OpenOffice.org, F-Spot, Samba, extra wallpapers and the DejaVu fonts).
Linux Mint 9 (Isadora) is based on the newly released Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) operating system, and is powered by the same Linux kernel 2.6.32.11. It now features over 30,000 software packages in the repositories, a new backup/restore tool, improvements to the Mint Menu, Windows installer, new artwork and lots of other nice improvements.
Download Linux Mint 9 now from Softpedia.
Also on May 18th, Patrick Volkerding announced the second release candidate of the upcoming Slackware 13.1 operating system. Powered by a Linux kernel 2.6.33.4, Slackware 13.1 RC2 comes with the newly released Pidgin 2.7.0 instant messenger and many other fixes.
Highlights of Slackware 13.1 RC2:
· Linux kernel 2.6.33.4; · KDE SC 4.4.3; · Pidgin 2.7.0; · Pidgin Encryption 3.1; · Mercurial 1.5.2 (added hgk extension, zsh and bash completion, and Emacs .el files); · Gwenview was patched for libjpeg8, to fix save after rotate; · Fixed a crash in fmtutil; · Slackpkg 2.81.1; · Bash 4.1.007; · Terminal was patched to fix a preferences dialog bug; · mdadm was updated to version 2.6.9; · CUPS 1.4.3; · teTeX 3.0; · system-config-printer 1.2.2; · Fetchmail 6.3.17.
Download Slackware 13.1 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.
On May 19th, François Dupoux announced version 1.5.4 of the SystemRescueCd Linux-based operating system. The new SystemRescueCd 1.5.4 includes the alternative Linux kernel 2.6.33.04 (includes altker32 and altker64), and the standard 2.6.32.13 Linux kernel. The popular Parted application for partitioning tasks was updated with a version that includes patches from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx). Moreover, the FSArchiver and Memtest86+ apps were also updated.
Highlights of SystemRescueCd 1.5.4:
· Updated the alternative Linux kernel packages to version 2.6.33.04 (with altker32 and altker64); · Updated the standard Linux kernel packages to version 2.6.32.13 (with rescuecd and rescue64); · Updated FSArchiver to version 0.6.10, which fixes several bugs; · Updated Parted to version 2.2 (includes patches from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS); · Updated Memtest86+ to version 4.10; · Updated the Linux firmware package to version 20100430; · Network-Manager is now disabled when the PXE or network boot options are used; · Fixed some issues with the firmware files in initramfs; · Fixed pxe-boot-server service empty directory missing issue.
Download SystemRescueCd 1.5.4 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 20th, the release candidate of the upcoming Mandriva Linux 2010.1 (Spring) Linux distribution, due for launch in early June this year, was announced by Mandriva. Being powered by Linux kernel 2.6.33.4, Mandriva Linux 2010.1 RC1 includes the KDE 4.4.3 and GNOME 2.30.1 desktop environments. Live CDs with these desktop environments are available for anyone who wants to test the final development release of the Mandriva Linux 2010.1 operating system.
Highlights of Mandriva Linux 2010.1 RC1:
· Linux kernel 2.6.33.4 (with DRBD and Compcache); · X.Org 7.5; · Xorg Server 1.7.7; · Nouveau video driver; · ATI Radeon video driver 6.13; · Intel video driver 2.11.0; · Mesa 7.8.1; · KDE SC 4.4.3; · GNOME 2.30.1; · GNOME-Shell 2.29.1; · Mozilla Firefox 3.6.3; · Oracle OpenOffice.org 3.2; · Deluge 1.2.3; · Transmission 1.92; · Skrooge 0.7.0; · Amarok 2.3.1 Beta 1; · KTorrent 4.0 Beta 2; · Digikam 1.2.0; · kipi-plugins 1.2.0; · Homebank 4.2.1; · libgpod 0.7.93; · Gutenprint 5.2.5; · system-config-printer 1.2.0; · Lives 1.3.2; · Kdenlive 0.7.7.1; · OpenShot 1.1.3; · Bluefish 2.0.0; · NTFS-3G 2010.05.16; · Glibc 2.11.1; · GDB debugger 7.1; · Ruby 1.9.1; · Python 2.6.5; · OpenSSL 1.0.0; · Munin 1.4.4; · Spamassassin 3.3.1; · Zabbix 1.8.2; · Postfix 2.7.0; · Qt 4.6.2.
Download Mandriva Linux 2010.1 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.
· On May 18th, Oracle announced the release of the new Oracle VM VirtualBox 3.2.0. The virtualization software gets a new name thanks to Oracle’s Sun acquisition having completed recently, but a lot of new features as well. VirtualBox 3.2.0 comes with support for the latest Intel hardware and with a completely re-written storage I/O subsystem. The viable options are its being sold or closing down the whole shop. Read more about it here.
Video Clip of the Week: Linux Mint 9 Isadora Overview
· For this week, we've posted a 720p High Definition video clip that overviews the brand-new Linux Mint 9 (Isadora) operating system. The video has 9 minutes and 5 seconds, and was posted by UbuntuHelpGuy. Enjoy!
· Ubuntu Malware Removal Toolkit 1.1
Distributions Updated Last Week:
· Scientific Linux 5.5 · Frankie Linux 2012 · R.I.P. 9.4 · paldo 1.22 · Clonezilla LiveCD 1.2.5-17 · Debian 4.0r9 · EeeMC 10.04.2 · Slack Mini Server 1.5.1 · nFlux Debian Squeeze i686 Final · nFlux Slackware 13/current i686 Final
· nFlux ubuntu 10.04 i686 Final
· infinityOS 1.0 RC5 · Trisquel 4.0 Beta · MyWolfe 016 Beta 2 · Mandriva Linux One 2010.1 RC1 · Pardus Linux 2009.2 Beta · openSUSE Linux 11.3 Milestone 7 · Tiny Core Linux 3.0 Alpha 4
See you again next Monday, May 31st, for another issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly.