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Distributions

Debian

The scheduled release date for Debian 2.1 is March 2nd, according to this note from Brian White. Uploads to the Intel base will be locked on February 22nd to give the other architectures a chance to catch up. From checking on the debian-alpha and debian-space lists, both of these architectures look in good shape to make the release date.

Debian GNU/Linux 2.0r5 has been released. This is an update to the current stable Debian 2.0, containing security and bug fixes. For details on the changes, see the changelog. Check out the announcement for pointers to more information.

Wichert Akkerman contacted us in response to mention of Debian's security practices on the front page of the February 11th, version of LWN. He corrected some minor errors in the coverage, which should be reflected on this week's LWN, but also indicated that they are looking for ways to improve their security efforts, primarily by improving people's access to information about problems and fixes, since security reports already receive a rapid response from Debian maintainers.

The Debian Weekly News for February 15th is available. Joey Hess commented that the issue is a bit slim, due to Windows Refund day and other projects. They are looking for more contributors to divide up the work.

CUTE 2000, an "all-in-one" Linux server providing DNS, SAMBA, WWW, FTP, etc, was announced at the NET & COM '99 show. It is Debian-based and you can read more about it in this article.

Definite Linux

This U.K.-specific Linux distribution is based on Red Hat 5.2. Both the latest versions of KDE and Gnome are provided, but not integrated in the distribution. They also include all the latest bug fixes from Red Hat, remastering their CD for every major bug or security fix reported. Their website also indicates that the latest versions of XFree86 and Samba are already built into their CD. Jason Clifford also indicated that up-to-date versions of ghostscript and postgresql are there as well.

As an extremely nice additional feature, about 150MB of additional security-related and other software, such as ssh, Apache-SSL, etc, are available on the Definite Linux CD, though not installed by default. They have, for example, already acquired an export license for Roxen Challenger with full encryption from the Swedish Government. If you are in the U.K. and already using Red Hat, you will want to take a good look at this distribution as an alternative.

easylinux-kr

Chyung Choi from South Korea has created a new distribution that he calls easylinux-kr. It can be run almost directly off the CD. More information is available, in both English and Korean, on his web-site.

Red Hat

Greg Herlein has posted an update to the Red Hat Module Upgrade Howto. He also mentions that he plans on working on improvements to the Modules Mini-HOWTO, previously maintained by Riley Williams, to update it for the 2.2.X kernel series. If anyone is interested in helping, they should let him know.

Slackware

A Slackware FAQ is now available. It answers important questions like why you shouldn't bug them about when the next Slackware release will be ... Seriously, it includes some information about their plans for handling glibc 2.1, KDE 1.1 and more, so it is worth a read for all Slackware fans.

A large number of updates to Slackware have been released since February 4th. Information on these updates can most easily be found in the ChangeLog file for slackware on ftp.cdrom.com. Some of the more critical updates include sendmail 8.9.3 (along with procmail and smail recompiles), various changes to help support the 2.2.X kernel, new versions of imapd and pine, in response to security alerts, and, biggest of all, KDE 1.1 is now part of the current slackware.

SuSE

As a couple of you noted in personal email messages, after weeks of watching for the release of the International veresion of SuSE 6.0, this editor was out sick and the announcement was missed. Our apologies. Meanwhile, for those who haven't already found the news elsewhere, the SuSE U.S. home page has links to all sorts of information about the new version.

People are very happy with 6.0! In comparison with charting reponses to 5.3 international, which had to be withdrawn due to rare, but severe, problems, SuSE seems to have reclaimed its reputation of providing extremely stable, easy-to-use releases.

SuSE 6.0 is glibc based! This is probably the largest change with the move to 6.0. Now those of you who have been waiting to try out Oracle or other glibc-based applications on SuSE have lost your last excuse ...

Reports of upgrades to 6.0 indicate that they are going reasonably smoothly, though it should be noted that the parameters for pppd have changed and some links to the rc2.d and rc3.d directory may need to be recreated. Some people have received their SuSE subscriptions while many others are still waiting.

Lenz Grimmer posted a tip on how to get GNOME up and running with SuSE 6.0.

SuSE's support for security is likely to improve in the future. We've heard that they are adding on another person for whom security will be the sole focus.

Trinux

In preparation for the next official trinux release a new TrinuxHD image (0.49 beta) has been made available. Matthew Franz encourages those of you running TrinuxHD to upgrade due to significant improvements that allow automatic booting.

February 18, 1999

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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