14 DAY TRIAL // Welcome to the 108th issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly!
The following Linux-based operating systems have been announced last week: Clonezilla Live 1.2.5-35 and Linux Mint 9 Release Candidate Fluxbox Edition. In other news: Novell announced that OpenSuSE 11.0 reached End of Life; AMD's ATI Catalyst 10.7 video driver brings support for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS; KDE e.V. announced the third and last release candidate of the upcoming KDE Software Compilation 4.5.0; Gostai announced that Urbi SDK 2.1 operating system is now open source; Convirture presented the new ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise Edition; GNOME 3.0 desktop environment has been delayed until March 2011; CodeWeavers announced the release of CrossOver 9.1.0 and CrossOver Games 9.1.0 apps, now based on Wine 1.2; Dell expands its Ubuntu offering, with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS systems; HP and Dell will certify and resell Oracle's OSes; Red Hat issued a three months warning until Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 End of Life; the 2011 Desktop Summit conference will be held in Berlin, Germany; Linus Torvalds announced Linux Kernel 2.6.35. The weekly ends with the video clip of the week, the latest Linux distributions released/updated and the development releases.
Summary:
On July 27th, Steven Shiau announced the release of Clonezilla Live 1.2.5-35. The newest version of the live CD distribution comes with an upgraded underlying operating system, Debian Sid, an updated kernel and other changes.
Highlights of Clonezilla Live 1.2.5-35:
· Linux kernel 2.6.32-17; · Based on a recent build of Debian Sid; · Partclone 0.2.11; · Prep-ocsroot now works with sshfs/cifs paths containing spaces; · Ocs-iso can now create ISOs larger than 4.5 GB; · Default resolution set to 800 x 600.
On July 28th, Clement Lefebvre announced the release candidate version of the upcoming Linux Mint 9 Fluxbox operating system. Being based on Lubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx), Linux Mint 9 RC Fluxbox is available right now for download (see link at the end of the article), and includes Linux kernel 2.6.32, Fluxbox 1.1.2 and X.Org 7.5.This edition is distributed only as a 32-bit Live CD.
Highlights of Linux Mint 9 RC Fluxbox: · Based on and compatible with Lubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx); · Linux kernel 2.6.32; · Fluxbox 1.1.2; · Xorg 7.5; · New Tint2 eye-candy panel; · Added "Move to Trash" and "Delete" options to the Thunar file manager; · A completely re-written Software Manager handling over 30,000 packages; · New Backup Tool with software selection backup/restore; · Better artwork and a more cohesive visual style; · USB Creator; · usse quotes; · Local software repository; · Faster boot times; · Apt hold, unhold and hold commands; · LTS release (supported with updates for 3 years).
Download Linux Mint 9 RC Fluxbox now from Softpedia. Remember that this is a testing release and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only.
· Launched a little over two years ago, openSUSE 11.0 has now reached the end of its life cycle. The developers announced on July 26th the release of the final security fix for the Linux distribution, and said that there will be no more updates coming. Support for openSUSE 11.0 has now been officially dropped. Read more about it here.
· On July 26th Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) proudly announced yet another improved version of its ATI Catalyst Linux display driver, available for both x86 and x86_64 architectures. ATI Catalyst 10.7 introduces final and stable support for the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) operating system, early support for the newly released openSUSE 11.3 distribution, and official support for the ATI Eyefinity technology. The software version was updated to 8.753. Read more about it here.
· The last release candidate for the upcoming KDE Software Compilation 4.5 has been made available on July 26th. If everything goes smoothly, KDE SC 4.5 RC3 is, for all intents and purposes, equivalent to the final version. The third release candidate is purely a bug-fixing release, and includes better localization for most of the over 55 languages officially supported. Read more about it here.
· Gostai, a company that specializes in robotics software has announced on July 27th that it is opening up the Urbi operating system. Urbi is a robotics operating system used by a number of very well-known, commercial robots. The company already shared the component architecture and the libraries under an open-source license and will now do the same for the Urbi kernel. Urbi is being released under an Affero GNU GPL v3 license. Read more about it here.
· On July 28th, the Convirture Corporation proudly announced the Enterprise edition of its open source ConVirt software. With features such as high-availability, automation and private could management on board, ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise edition makes managing open source hypervisors, like KVM and Xen, a lot easier. Read more about it here.
· As announced at GUADEC, on July 28th, the eagerly awaited GNOME 3.0 desktop environment has now been delayed and will not be launched sooner than March 2011. The major revamp of the desktop environment was initially scheduled for release in September, but quality concerns have forced the team to push back the release date to ensure that it lives up to the GNOME standards. Read more about it here.
· New versions of the popular CrossOver software, which enables users to run Windows applications on Linux, have been released on July 28th. CrossOver 9.1.0 and CrossOver Games 9.1.0 are now available for download as trial versions. The biggest change is the update to Wine 1.2, as the underlying code base. Both applications also include support for more apps. Read more about it here.
· Over the past few days there have been some rumors that Dell is dropping Ubuntu-based systems. Seeing as Dell was one of the first OEM to start offering laptops and desktops with Ubuntu pre-installed and that is the largest outfit by far to do so, it would have been quite a blow for the community. But, while 'Dell no longer sells Ubuntu laptops’ makes for a great headline, it’s not exactly true. In fact, Dell is expanding its Ubutu offering with the first desktop system available for quite a while and has started shipping systems with Ubuntu 10.04. Read more about it here.
· On July 29th, Oracle announced that HP and Dell plan to certify and resell three operating systems from Oracle: Oracle Solaris, Oracle VM and Oracle Enterprise Linux, on their 32-bit server machines. Customers will get complete access to Oracle’s Premier Support for the aforementioned systems, which will enable accurate and fast issue resolution and lower risk in their IT environment. Read more about it here.
· On July 30th, Red Hat has issued another notification signaling the approaching EOL (End of Life) for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3. The aging Linux distribution is approaching the end of its support cycle, patches and security updates will only be issued for another three months. As of October 31, 2010, Red Hat will not issue any more patches or updates for the seven-year-old operating system. Read more about it here.
· On July 30th, Kenny Duffus proudly announced that the 2011 Desktop Summit conference will be held on August, in Berlin, Germany. Desktop Summit will definitely be the biggest free software desktop event of 2011, and it will be co-hosted by the KDE and GNOME projects. Once again, the GUADEC (GNOME Users’ And Developers’ European Conference) and Akademy (KDE community annual world summit) events will be co-located next year in Berlin. Read more about it here.
· On August 1st, Linus Torvalds proudly announced the release of Linux kernel 2.6.35. The new version includes Direct-IO Support for the Btrfs filesystem, XFS filesystem experimental journal mode, perf improvements, VC1 and H.264 video acceleration for Intel G45+ chipsets, initial support for the Intel Cougarpoint graphic chipset, AMD Radeon power management support, CAIF protocol support (see below for a detailed list), and many other fixes. Read more about it here.
Video Clip of the Week: GNOME Shell 3 In Ubuntu 10.04!
· For this week we've posted a 720p HD video clip to showcase the new look of the upcoming GNOME 3.0 desktop environment. Installation instructions are also included! The video has 6 minutes and 35 seconds, and it was posted by PC4LinuxFreak. Enjoy!
· BlankOn Sajadah 6.0 Beta
Distributions Updated Last Week:
· Orion Live CD 20100720
· AUSTRUMI 2.1.6
· FlipOS 10.4
· R.I.P. 10.6
· ArchOne 2010.08
· Absolute Linux 13.1.4
· Knoppix 6.2.1
· KNOPPIX Live DVD 6.2.1
· LinuxShark 2.0.0 R3
Development Releases:
· Frugalware Linux 1.3 RC1 · Skolelinux 6.0 Alpha 0 · Parsix Linux 3.6 RC · GnackTrack 10.04 Beta 3 · LliureX 10.09 Beta · Nexenta OS 3.0 RC3 · Openwall GNU/Linux 20100729
See you again next Monday, August 9th, for another issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly.
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