14 DAY TRIAL // Welcome to our 2nd issue of Softpedia Linux Weekly! In this edition:
At the beginning of this week, we've had the pleasure of testing the first alpha release of wattOS, the lightweight Ubuntu-based operating system. Faster than anything else out there, wattOS is not just another Ubuntu clone, it is powered by the Openbox window manager, a standards compliant, fast, lightweight and extensible window manager. It comes with a custom (Mac OS X-like) boot splash screen, the desktop is clean, you have only one Panel (it is actually called "Dock") situated at the bottom of the screen, and there are some shortcuts for the most used programs, such as Mozilla Firefox & Thunderbird, Terminal window and Home folder. On the right side of the panel, you'll notice a nice clock, the volume manager and the logout button.
wattOS contains the following applications:
￭ Audacious - Audio player ￭ Brasero - CD/DVD burning tool ￭ Totem - Movie player ￭ The GIMP - Advanced image editor ￭ Mozilla Firefox - Web browser ￭ Mozilla Thunderbird - e-mail client ￭ Pidgin - Multi-protocol instant messenger ￭ Vinagre - Remote desktop viewer (VNC client) ￭ Transmission - BitTorrent client ￭ AbiWord - Word processor ￭ Gnumeric - Spreadsheet software ￭ PCMan File Manager
Download wattOS Alpha 1 right now from Softpedia, but be warned that it is not yet suitable for production use!
On Tuesday, Rack-Soft released 4PSA VoipNow Hosted, a service especially designed for small and medium businesses and small ISPs. It was created to allow its users to use VoIP services, like integration with business software applications, to lower costs and increase mobility without the need of having special hardware or software to sustain the application. Bogdan Carstoiu, General Manager for Rack-Soft, said: "For over five years, Rack-Soft software solutions have been used by hosting and Internet Service Providers to deliver services to end users. There are multiple reasons behind the launch of VoipNow Hosted. First, we offer a business model to hosting providers that goes beyond the available marketing resources. Secondly, we try to determine more SMB to embrace hosted PBX, even if their providers are not yet delivering unified communication and last, but not least, we are helping small providers benefit from business opportunities before investing in infrastructure and know-how." Read more about it here.
After a quite long period of time, Damn Small Linux made its appearance again on the Linux scene, on Wednesday, with the 4.4.3 release. This new version introduces a handful of system modifications. Among them, we can notice:
￭ editor.lua was replaced by the Fltk editor; ￭ calculator.lua was replaced by flminicalc; ￭ exit.lua was replaced by dslexit; ￭ /etc/filesystems was updated; ￭ better hostname support; ￭ minirt24.gz was updated to support knoppix_dir and toram; ￭ new bootfloppy; ￭ many unused files were removed.
Download Damn Small Linux 4.4.3 right now from Softpedia.
On Wednesday, Mandriva announced the second alpha release of Mandriva Linux 2009, which brings KDE4 (default desktop), GNOME 2.23.4, and support for the newest NVIDIA and ATI/AMD video cards. Below are some of the interesting features and applications that will be part of the Mandriva Linux 2009:
￭ Linux kernel 2.6.26 ￭ GCC 4.3 ￭ GNOME 2.24 ￭ KDE 4.1 ￭ Firefox 3.0 ￭ OpenOffice.org 3.0 ￭ revamped installer ￭ improved boot speed ￭ implementation of the PolicyKit and PackageKit technologies ￭ Live Upgrade (same as Ubuntu's update-manager tool) ￭ initscript improvements ￭ Splashy will replace the actual boot splash ￭ Lots of desktop improvements
Download Mandriva Linux 2009 Alpha 2 right now from Softpedia, but be warned that it is not yet suitable for production use! Don't forget to check out the screenshot tour of Mandriva Linux 2009 Alpha 2!
Thursday brought us a brand new and stable update of the lightweight GoblinX Linux. After more than four months of hard work, Flavio de Oliveira was pleased to announce the availability of GoblinX Standard 2.7. The new version introduces a few interesting features, such as:
￭ New extra folders that can be used as software repositories; ￭ A new media package repo to Slapt-getrc; ￭ An interface to easily build modules with Slapt-get; ￭ A new GUI for the deactivate script so anyone can remove modules from the Live CD; ￭ Added X11 autologin as user on the installed system; ￭ Added Xfce4-smartpm-plugin, which allows for package upgrade check to Xfce panel; ￭ A lot of bugs and errors were fixed; ￭ Many packages and libraries were upgraded.
Download GoblinX 2.7 Standard Edition right now from Softpedia.
Delayed one day, the second alpha release of the upcoming Ubuntu 8.10 (codename Intrepid Ibex) made its appearance on June 11th, and we have yet another HOT screenshot tour. Even if it doesn't come with any significant modifications, compared with the first alpha, which brought a brand new theme (completely redesigned), we wanted to keep you up-to-date with the latest changes in the Ubuntu 8.10 development. Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 2 comes with the brand new Xorg 7.4, Linux kernel 2.6.26-3.9 (based on 2.6.26 RC8), GNOME 2.23.4 and the following applications:
￭ Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Final ￭ OpenOffice.org 2.4.1 ￭ The GIMP 2.4.6 ￭ F-Spot 0.4.2 ￭ Pidgin 2.4.3 ￭ Brasero 0.7.91 ￭ Transmission 1.22
Daniel Voicu brought us another interesting review for Softpedia Linux. This time, it is for the XML Copy Editor application, an XML editor with DTD/XML Schema/RELAX NG validation, XSLT, XPath, pretty-printing, syntax highlighting, folding, tag completion/locking and lossless import/export of Microsoft Word documents. Read this comprehensive review of XML Copy Editor 1.1.0.7 here.
Distributions Released Last Week:
￭ m0n0wall 1.3 Beta 12 ￭ KnoppMyth 5.5 ￭ Frugalware Linux 0.9 Pre 2 ￭ Berry Linux 0.91 ￭ MIB Live Games 2008.1 ￭ Absolute Linux 12.1.02 ￭ Damn Small Linux 4.4.3 ￭ Foresight Linux 2.0.3.1 ￭ Trustix Enterprise Firewall 4.8.1 ￭ GoblinX 2.7 Standard Edition ￭ KioskCD 2.8 ￭ Elive 1.7.10 ￭ Mandriva Linux 2009 Alpha 2 ￭ Ubuntu / Kubuntu / Xubuntu / Edubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) Alpha 2 ￭ Freezy Linux 1.4.1