See also: last week's Distributions page.

Distributions

News and Editorials

Lists Again. The LWN Distribution List is now as done as anything this fluid can be. Those who would like to compare the new list to the old can find the old list here. The pointer to the new list has moved to the right side bar, where it heads up our "list of other lists".

There are two hundred twenty-four "active" distributions and another twenty listed as historical. Some of the so-called "active" distributions probably aren't very active. Over time some of these links will move into historical, or disappear completely. Nor will we guarantee that our list is complete. There are almost certainly more Linux distributions that we haven't heard of. This following list of deleted distributions represents only a small portion of Linux distributions that have come and gone over the years.

Alzza Linux	aXon Linux	Cafe Linux
cLIeNUX	Coollinux	DragonLinux
easyLinux	eXecutive Linux	FTOSX
Gentus	Halloween Linux	ix86 Linux
Jurix	LinuxEspresso	LinuxOne OS
LinuxPPP	Linux Pro Plus	MageNet
OS2000	PKLinux	Runix
spyLinux	Storm Linux	TAMU
Turkuaz	Ute-Linux	VA-enhanced Red Hat
WholeLinux	Xdenu	ZipSpeak

Lycoris community portal launched; Desktop/LX now available. Lycoris (the company formerly known as Redmond Linux) has announced the launch of its new "community portal" at lycoris.org.

Lycoris has released box sets of Desktop/LX (formally known as Redmond Linux Personal). Desktop/LX is now available in two box packages, standard or deluxe.

New Distributions

Three not-so-new Japanese distributions. Thanks to LWN correspondent Maya Tamiya we have added three more Japanese distributions to our list.

The Good-Day GNU/Linux HA Server is a Debian-based distribution, which uses only free software. It is developed by Good-Day Inc. (in Japan). They say that their distribution features high availability, and is for Web applications. The folks at Good-Day Inc. also make a "real-time backup utility for PostgreSQL" named "Usogres" ("Uso" is a Japanese word for "fake") available before the PostgreSQL team made replication available.

HOLON Linux is a Japanese distribution aimed at mass consumers. It is developed by HOLON Inc. (in Japan). They did a TV commercial, which was (and is) an unprecedented promotion in Japan. Their server version received a "Good Design Award" by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry in Japan. Their desktop version product includes 2.8GB of commercial and multimedia applications.

Miracle Linux is a high reliability, scalability and availability server OS for the enterprise market, according to MIRACLE LINUX CORPORATION, the developer of the distribution. MIRACLE LINUX CORPORATION was originally founded by Oracle Corporation Japan. (Currently Oracle Japan owns about 60% of MIRACLE LINUX.) They offer not only "MIRACLE LINUX with Oracle," but also "MIRACLE LINUX for Samba" and "MIRACLE LINUX for PostgreSQL."

Distribution News

Debian News. The Debian Weekly News for January 30 is out. Covered topics include GDB manual licensing, the new package tracking system, the emacs operating system, the woody stabilization process, and more.

A new potato, or Debian 2.2r6, is expected to be released in early March.

The call for nominations has gone out for this year's Debian Project Leader election. The nomination period lasts three weeks, after which the campaigning phase begins.

We have an update from the Debian Jr. project. Most of their energy is currently focused on ensuring Debian Jr. packages are all at least in a releasable state for Woody.

Debian at FOSDEM? Currently Debian is not participating in FOSDEM (happening in Brussels on February 16-17, 2002). There is still time to get involved and help Debian have a presence at the meeting.

Libranet. Debian based Libranet has a new release of its desktop distribution. V2.0 features kernel 2.4.16, the "Libranet Adminmenu" which makes system functions easy, a new installer, and much more.

Red Hat Linux. This Red Hat bugfix advisory says a new tmpwatch package fixes cron warning.

Slackware. Slackware Linux has released XFree86-4.2.0, LPRng-3.8.5 and ifhp-3.5.3 packages for Slackware current-Intel. See the changelog for details.

SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 7 for IBM eServer. The SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 7 is now available for IBM eServer iSeries and pSeries.

Xandros Launches Beta Program for Xandros Desktop 1.0. Xandros announced the launch of its first Beta Program designed to finalize the stability and usability of Xandros Desktop 1.0.

Minor Distribution updates

Astaro Security Linux. Astaro Security Linux released v2.020 on February 4, 2002, with minor bug fixes.

Dyne.org newsletter #4. The Dyne.org newsletter looks at FreeJ 0.3, Transmediale.02 (a FreeJ workshop), MuSE 0.6.6 and more.

LynuxWorks Announces BlueCat 4.0 Availability for the ARM920T Processor. LynuxWorks announced BlueCat 4.0 Linux and VisualLynux Integrated Development Environment (IDE) support for the for the new ARM920T processor.

Distribution Reviews and Interviews

Local Linux edition looks a lot like XP (Eastside Journal). The Eastside Journal is a newspaper that covers the eastern Seattle suburbs including Redmond. Here's an article about Lycoris, formerly Redmond Linux, and its recent release of Desktop/LX. "From the blue sky and puffy clouds of its opening screen to the Go button at bottom left (where XP's ``start'' button is), Desktop/LX was built to convert Windows users. Lycoris sells the operating system for $30, or $40 for a deluxe edition that comes with programming tools."

An interview with ELX Linux founder and chief architect, Abhi Datt (DesktopLinux.com). ELX, Everyone's Linux, is a new project to create a uniquely easy-to-use Linux distribution. Rick Lehrbaum interviews Abhi Datt, Chief Software Architect and founder of Project ELX. "ELX comes with 3 fullfledged office suites (including OpenOffice), 5 browsers, 2 state-of-the-art email clients with outlook express compatibilty, a complete multimedia suite to run virtually all file formats, and more. "Application Launch Pad System" (ALPS) manages all this in the most intelligent way. Though the default desktop environment is based on KDE, it installs base libraries of Gnome so all Gnome applications work perfectly well."

Section Editor: Rebecca Sobol

Please note that not every distribution will show up every week. Only distributions with recent news to report will be listed.

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