The Sidux Team announced yesterday the much anticipated release of their Linux distro (codename Ουρέα), which focuses on the integration of the modifications brought by the 2.6.26 Linux kernel, while providing support for the latest hardware, such as the most recently launched netbooks and chipsets.

Although launched after some delay (because of a hidden bug in virtualbox-ose), the wait for sidux 2008-03 was well worth it, as we now have quite a few customized desktop managers from which to choose the adequate one for our system:

· KDE-lite (amd64);
· KDE-lite (i686);
· KDE-full (amd64+i686);
· XFCE (amd64);
· XFCE (i686).

A newly introduced and nice functionality in this release is the possibility to select any language than German or US English from the grub menu (although only available in the KDE-full version, as this is the only flavor that contains other languages). This also allows you to install many applications, including the desktop localizations during booting.

An obvious system requirement must be met for this feature to be available, otherwise the boot sequence will be carried on with the English language set, but keeping the selected localizations (currency, keyboard charsets, date/time). It's about RAM, of course, and the developers warn us that sidux may not install the specified language packs, in case there's not enough system memory available. The minimum requirement is 512 MB, or more, if all the supported language packs are to be installed.

Now, let's turn our attention to some of the highlights of sidux 2008-03:

· based on Debian sid;
· kernel 2.6.26.5;
· X.org 7.3;
· KDE 3.5.9 / 3.5.10;
· new art theme, based on SVG;
· improved manual (on the disc for English and German, the rest available online);
· enhanced support for RealTek ethernet cards;
· virtualbox-ose 1.6.6;
· persistent user profile defaults for new users.

Download sidux 2008-03 right now from Softpedia.