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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 EditorialsDeMuDi GNU/Linux. DeMudi is a proposed new Debian-based GNU/Linux distribution focused on Multimedia work. Multimedia, and specifically multimedia production, has only recently become well integrated into the Linux kernel. If one wants to use the power of Linux to do multimedia and artistic work, one has to fight through self-compiling the recent programs, with incompatibility of interfaces, availability of hardware drivers and several other related topics, lowering to a considerable amount artistic productivity.Comments from the Slashdot coverage show interest. For example, DeMuDi plans to include Ardour, a "a multichannel hard disk recorder (HDR), rapidly evolving into a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). This is apparently difficult to install and setup properly, so having it pre-installed and configured would be appreciated. DeMuDi is, as a result, a perfect example of why there will always be new Linux distributions. As long as there are sufficient people (sometimes it only takes one) with a common interest that do not feel their needs are met by any of the existing distributions, new distributions will come into being to address these needs. Someday, of course, support for Multimedia may be widespread enough that a specialized distribution may not be required. On the other hand, if the community supporting it is large enough and the quality of the distribution is high enough, loyalty and common interest could keep this entry in our distributions list indefinitely. Note that DeMuDi is at an initial phase, building a list of packages they want to include, but has no packages for download. The Computer Music Institute, in Firenze, Italy, and FSF Europe are listed as partners in the endeavour. MandrakeSoft IPO. MandrakeSoft, creators and producers of the Linux-Mandrake distribution, proudly announced this past week that they have received formal approval from the COB (Commission des Operations en Bourse - the french regulatory organisation) to be listed on the Euronext european stock market "March Libre". The listing should start on the 3rd of August. This is the first IPO for a Linux distributions company in over a year and also the first we know of outside of the USA stock markets. We wish them the best of luck. Initial reports indicated that involvement in their IPO process would require French, or at least European, citizenship. That is apparently incorrect, though getting an account setup with one of the approved on-line brokers was required. Note, however, that the deadline for involvement is Friday, July 27th, on which date the opportunity to purchase fixed price shares will be ended. The fixed price is 6,2 euros per share (around $5.50 US). Check also this CNN article on the IPO. It has some useful information, such as the total amount of money MandrakeSoft could raise, when they hope to be profitable, etc. Slackware Sparc discontinued. Many people have written in to point out that Slackware announced last week that its Sparc port will be discontinued. A community-based version entitled Splack version appears to be taking the code base and making their own version. (Thanks to James A Morrison) Correction to last week's edition. Last week, we listed AppuntiLinux as a new distribution. It is not, as several people pointed out to us. Simone Lazzaris commented, "AppuntiLinux is not a distribution, but a huge collection of documentatation about Linux, covering every aspect of installation, configuration, programming and daily working with our beloved penguin. AppuntiLinux, written by Daniele Giacomini, is one of the best source of information for every user, written in plain langage that can be read with ease even by a newbie; in fact, I've started my adventure with Linux reading AppuntiLinux". Our apologies for the error. Due to time constraints, this editor failed to run the site by our Italian language resource, Jonathan Corbet. Many thanks to all of you who wrote in to correct us. New DistributionsTomukas mini-distribution. Tomukas is a Debian-compatible mini-distribution that can run on a 386 with as little as 4MB of memory. (Thanks to Fred Mobach). Note that, although tiny, this is not a floppy-based distribution. It installs directly onto a partition on a hard drive. The author, Radovan Garabik, uses a Debian rescue disk and an existing MSDOS partition to get started. Sorcerer GNU Linux. Sorcerer GNU Linux is a new entrant into the distributions list that is a source-based distribution. The distribution is created by downloading source tarballs that are then compiled and installed directly on the local machine. The initial release, 20010721, has only been out for a few days. Distribution NewsRed Hat News. For anyone interested in helping translate Red Hat Linux documents for non-English languages, this note from Trond Eivind Glomsrød covers new procedures for translators. It also provides some brief information on how to become a translator. Debian News. The Debian Project issued a note voicing their opposition to the DMCA and urging people to read and sign (if they agree) the Community Declaration that calls for the release of Dmitry Skylarov. The One Hundredth edition of the Kernel Cousin Debian Hurd was released on July 24th. It reports progress with PPP, F3 CDs that are "nearly" ready, the release of GRUB 0.90 and more. Linux-Mandrake News. This week's Linux-Mandrake Community Newsletter indicates that the release candidate for Mandrake Linux PPC should be released soon. It also talks about the Clara OCR project, which MandrakeSoft is sponsoring. "Clara OCR is a free (GPL) Optical Character Recognition program for Linux/Unix. It features a powerful GUI and a web interface for cooperative digitalization of printed materials. Clara OCR development started in 1999 and is approaching production level". Coyote Linux News. A new Coyote Linux FAQ was published on July 17th. DragonLinux News. The DragonLinux website has been freshly re-done and a new version, based on Slackware Linux 8.0, is promised "soon". DragonLinux is customized to install on top of Microsoft Windows or DOS and co-exist with that environment. " New in this version of DragonLinux is the Loopback file-system. This allows for installation on Windows and DOS partitions, while utilizing the Native Linux (ext2) file system with almost no performance loss." Redmond Linux News. Redmond Linux is actively seeking channel partners for their distribution. Minor Distribution updates
Distribution ReviewsSuSE Linux 7.2 Professional (Linux in Brazil). Although there is no Portuguese version of SuSE Linux 7.2 (the last version was for SuSE Linux 7.0), the quality of the distribution has made it of interest to Brazilian and other language-speaking Linux enthusiasts. As a result, Linux in Brazil has published this review of SuSE 7.2 (in Portuguese). A (very poor) translation into English can also be procured from Babelfish. Their overall impression seems very positive, despite the lack of up-to-date translations for the documentation. Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh |
July 26, 2001
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