14 DAY TRIAL // Daisuke Suzuki, the developer of the Japanese Vine Linux distribution, has announced the immediate availability for download of the final Vine Linux 6.3 release, which upgrades its core components, introduces new and updated applications, as well as several improvements.
Vine Linux is an open-source computer operating system based on LTS Linux kernels, and designed from the ground up as a general-purpose GNU/Linux distribution tailored specifically for the Japanese community. It is built around the old-school and traditional GNOME 2.32 desktop environment and uses RPM packages.
According to the short release notes, the Vine Linux 6.3 now uses the 3.4.x LTS (Long Term Support) branch of the Linux kernel, and includes Mozilla Firefox 33 as the default web browser, Mozilla Thunderbird 24 as the default email and news client, as well as LibreOffice 4.3 as the main office suite.
“This is Vine Linux version 6.3 release. Since this is not a commercial version (Vine Linux CR), non-free applications and fonts are not included on the CD/DVD. Instead of proprietary ATOX X/Wnn7/Wnn8/VJE Japanese inputs and Ricoh/Dynacomware fonts, this ftp version contains Anthy and free TrueType fonts,” was stated in the release notes.
Vine Linux 6.3 now supports more hardware components
The overall stability of the operating system has been improved, and so have the look and feel. Vine Linux 6.3 also brings support for recent hardware components, thanks to the updated Linux kernel packages. Additionally, several new user-friendly tools have been implemented in the distribution.
You can download Vine Linux 6.3 right now from Softpedia. Please note that Vine Linux is available for download only as CD and DVD ISO images that must be installed on your computer prior to attempting to use the distribution. The good news is that both 32- and 64-bit architectures are supported.