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 Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions On the Desktop Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Linux History Letters All in one big page See also: last week's Distributions page.
Lists of Distributions |
DistributionsPlease note that security updates from the various distributions are covered in the security section. News and EditorialsLinux-Mandrake 8.0. MandrakeSoft has released the latest version of their Linux distribution - Linux-Mandrake 8.0. This distribution uses the Linux 2.4.3 by default and includes XFree86 4.0.3, KDE 2.1.1 (with Konqueror), Gnome 1.4, Nautilus 1.0 and more. Under KDE, similar to SuSE 7.1, anti-aliased fonts become available as well. Linux-Mandrake 8.0 is provided in three editions, Standard (desktop), PowerPack (desktop or server) and ProSuite (small to medium-size businesses). It also comes with their new on-line technical support platform, MandrakeExpert. Check their official press release for more details. With this release, MandrakeSoft was also pleased to make available, for the first time, download locations in over 20 different countries. An overview of Linux-Mandrake 8.0 is also available. It includes a graphical tour of their new Linux-Mandrake Control Center and a sampling of screenshots. Congrats, guys; it is clear that a lot of thought and work has gone into this release. CheckInstall. LinuxPlanet has put up an article about CheckInstall, an entrant into the field of potential solutions to the multiple package manager problem. "It is the coolest utility I've ever seen. If you run Slackware or any RPM-based distribution and if you ever compile your own applications, libraries, anything, it is a must-have, a really essential application". Distribution NewsLinux-Mandrake News. Bill Henning has put up an article covering "Running Apache / SSL / PHP / PostgreSQL" on the new Linux-Mandrake 8.0. "Mandrake 8 looks good so far (more in my upcoming review); it looks like it will make a great Apache/PHP/PostgreSQL development/deployment platform - and having the server prebuilt with https support is *much* appreciated. There are still some rough edges (as shown above) but I've yet to run into any show-stoppers". Also for new Linux-Mandrake users, troels.rsync is a tool offered to help speed up download of the distribution. Check MandrakeForum for additional Linux-Mandrake 8.0 gotchas, tips, etc. Debian News. Time to bash more bugs. The number of release-critical bugs listed on April 20th was 329. Focusing specifically on release-critical bugs, the famous Debian Bug-Squashing Parties have been making progress. The third party was held the weekend of April 13th through the 15th and over 190 bugs were squashed. The fourth Debian Bug-Squashing Party has been scheduled for the first weekend in May. As part of an effort to decrease the total number of bugs in Debian, particularly in the base system, all of next week (April 30th - May 6th) has been designated Base Bug Week. During the week, the focus moves from just release-critical bugs to all bugs in the base Debian system. That includes writing patches for problems and writing or fixing documentation, something that allows more than just the developers to participate. A summary of the bugs in the base system is also available. Too many kernel packages? One heated discussion from debian-devel this past week focused again on a split in philosophy between many developers. Is Debian just for those who want to learn all about the system? Or is it for everyone? In this particular case, the focus of the discussion was the number of kernel packages included with each kernel -- a total of 25 packages and over 110MB of space per kernel. The reason for the large number of packages was primarily the number of pre-built kernels optimized for various hardware platforms. The advantage of the pre-built kernels is the goal of providing improved performance to the end-user without requiring that they learn how to build their own custom kernel. The disadvantage is the size of the combined kernel packages, particularly given the load they place on debian mirrors around the world (many of which are highly constrained as far as bandwidth, speed, etc.) Those that believe that every person that uses Linux should learn to build their own kernel were more likely to be concerned about the impact on the debian-mirrors. Others with a stronger priority on making Debian more accessible to a wide variety of people were more likely to consider the custom-built kernels essential. This underlying cultural rift was amusingly described by Vince Mulhollon. The basic philosophical disagreement won't ever go away, but in the meantime, the number of custom kernels provided is being pared down to reduce the required disk space. Some suggestions have also been made about how to make creating custom kernels simpler and easier. Meanwhile, on the HURD front, we were pleased to see a new Kernel Cousin Debian Hurd this week, after a three-week hiatus. Progress from the Turtle Autobuilder was reported and a new Most Wanted page has been created, to track tasks that people would like to see get done. In other good news, Jeff Bailey has provided a patch to get Python to compile on the HURD and Douglas Hilton has had success using the Hurd on his dual-CPU system using the oskit SMP sample kernel. SuSE News. SuSE Linux announced that the SuSE Linux 7.1 package is now available as a free download with full support in Japanese. Slackware News. Presumably as a result of Wind River's purchase of BSDi and corresponding decision not to continue to support Slackware, ftp.slackware.com has moved and is now hosted at Sourceforge. Better access times, availability and rsync access are promised as a result. It appears to be popular; it took a few tries to get into the download area. (Thanks to David Killick). The Slackware site also contained a rare summary of recent changes, so we'll take the opportunity to pass it on to you verbatim: "There is also another batch of updates to slackware-current, the ongoing development branch. The changes are mostly rearrangements of existing packages, but there's also a major Samba update. We're getting closer to a beta freeze...". Check the changelog for more details. Yellow Dog News. Yellow Dog Linux 2.0 is still on the way "soon". Meanwhile, Terra Soft has announced that they will be bundling the LXP Applications server with the new distribution. The LXP Applications server was created by CommandPrompt.com and is distributed under the QT Public License (QPL). It is an Apache module "designed to broker and parse content through intelligent server-side inclusion". Although LXP is Open Source, we did not find a current download site from which the source code could be accessed. Think Blue News. Millenux, the distributors of Think Blue Linux for the IBM S/390, now have support for the 64-bit IBM zSeries as well. The work was done in cooperation with IBM. Note that the announcement is in German. The new version of Think Blue is based on Red Hat 7, with the Linux 2.4 kernel and is "mostly" compatible with the version of Think Blue for the S/390. (Thanks to Fred Mobach). RTLinux News. The folks at FSMLabs, makers of RTLinux, have gotten into the BSD business as well, with the announcement of RTL/BSD, a version of RTLinux that uses NetBSD instead of Linux for its non-real-time component. "While standard RTLinux uses Linux as its general purpose OS, RTL/BSD uses NetBSD, providing the identical POSIX threads API and many of the same development tools. FSMLabs customers in instrumentation, communications, factory automation and other areas now have the option of working with the BSD OS". ASPLinux News. ASPLinux 7.1 was announced last week, literally on the same day as the release of Red Hat Linux 7.1. ASPLinux strives to provide 100% compatibility with Red Hat, so their choice in releasing ASPLinux 7.1 at the same time as the Red Hat Linux 7.1 release underscores this commitment. It is currently available for download, but it will be a while before box sets of the new distribution are made available. ASPLinux is based in Singapore and provides support, development and consulting services for Linux in Russia, the Ukraine and the Asia/Pacific region. For those of you who remember the Black Cat Linux distribution, that company merged with ASPLinux fairly recently. Check our ASPLinux coverage from the Singapore Linux Conference/LinuxWorld Singapore in March for more information on the ASPLinux distribution. FreeBSD News. FreeBSD 4.3 was announced on Friday, April 20th. The new release includes bug fixes, security updates and many new features. Check the release notes for all the details. (Thanks to David Magda). Distribution ReviewsLibranet Linux 1.90 (Duke of URL). Libranet Linux is a Debian GNU/Linux-based distribution from Canada. The Duke of URL has done a fairly thorough review of the installation and package set of this distribution, including plenty of screenshots. "This is a release that is worth trying and perhaps keeping. If you have ever wanted the stability of Debian and the newest major software packages then this is it. The trick is to survive the install". SuSE 7.1 Professional: An Embarrassment of Riches (LinuxNovice.org). LinuxNovice.org has put out a review of SuSE 7.1 Professional. As usual, the report on SuSE's included documentation is glowing. He reports modifications to SuSE in order to adhere to the Linux Standards Base (covered in the file /sbin/init.d.README, explaining the new initialization system). The review also explores the menu system and the available applications a bit more than the average review, which produces some useful comments (and criticisms). Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh |
April 26, 2001
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