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Distributions

Caldera

Caldera announced that it is supporting the Linux Professional Institute in its development of a certification mechanism for Linux engineers.

Conectiva Linux

Now in its third edition, Conectiva Linux is a Brazilian-based distribution apparently derived from Red Hat 5.2. The latest edition ("Guarani") was announced this week. (Thanks to César A. K. Grossmann).

Debian

Paulo Henrique reported to us that the Debian potato (Debian 2.2-to-be) has the same problem with Star Office that Red Hat Linux 6.0 has. Brad Jorsch posted a mini-HOWTO on getting Star Office and glibc2.1 to work together under Debian.

Linuxconf and Debian are closer to co-habitation according to this posting from maintainer Stefan Gybas. There is still quite a bit of work left to do, particularly to get network configuration working properly.

The Debian Weekly News for this week is available, with more details, a mention of Debian developers at the Linux Expo and some brief Sparc and Alpha updates.

Definite Linux

Jason Clifford dropped us a note to point out that Definite Linux 6.0 has been remastered to include the recent Red Hat updates for xscreensaver, pump and apmd, as well as the more recent version of ssh.

DragonLinux

DragonLinux is an entrant into the world of tiny Linuxes. This distribution is only 20MB in size, fully installed. It is UMSDOS-based and can coexist with your Windows installation on the same partition. Don't expect KDE or GNOME, of course, but you'll get a fully-functional set of basic, non-GUI tools.

Linux MLD

Linux Media Lab Distribution is another Japanese-based distribution, for anyone looking for an alternative to TurboLinux or the new Japanese version of Debian. (Thanks to Neil Matthews).

LinuxPPC

The LinuxPPC Developers Reference Release version 1.0 has been announced. This is a distribution for PowerPC systems, derived from Red Hat 6.0, which is intended to be used as a base in the creation of other PPC distributions.

LinuxPPC R5 has more definite ship date, at least according to the LinuxPPC R5 page. "Expect an announcement within two weeks. " The release has been delayed by the sheer enormity of the changes in the new release.

Red Hat

The Red Hat Errata for 6.0 now contain a listing of all known binaries that fail to run under Red Hat Linux 6.0. It contains no new information on the availability of a version of Star Office, other than the one available on the Red Hat Applications CD.

Other packages for which there are problems include the JRE/JDK, Motif, CDE, RealPlayer and Oracle. Workarounds are provided, if available.

Additional Red Hat 6.0 errata changes include fixes for apmd and pump. From the BugTraq mailing list, there were also reports that the ftp site for Red Hat Linux 6.0 now includes updated floppy images for i386, although there is no mention of them in the Red Hat errata. Take a look in ftp://updates.redhat.com/6.0/, particularly if you are having any problems with a 6.0 install.

The folks at Linux in Brazil have put together a guide to Red Hat 6.0 network installations (in Portuguese). And, of course, here is the Babelfish link for an English translation. (Thanks to Augusto Campos).

SuSE

SuSE Inc. is expected to arrive at the Linux Expo (May 18 - 22, Raleigh, N.C.) with a new release of its Linux distribution as well as its Partner Program for VARs and ISVs. The 6.1 release includes the Linux 2.2.5 kernel, providing advanced support for Symmetric Multi Processors (SMP systems) and multimedia devices.

Current plans for SuSE possibly include support for linuxconf, according to this posting from Lenz Grimmer. Support for COAS has not been determined.

YellowDog Linux

To encourage iMac/PPC Linux development and contributions, iMacLinux and YellowDog Linux have joined together to sponsor a competition with prizes to the best development projects or contributions to Linux on the iMac platform. (Thanks to John Buswell).

Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh

May 20, 1999

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

Known Distributions:
Caldera OpenLinux
Conectiva Linux (Brazilian)
Debian GNU/Linux
Definite Linux
DragonLinux
easyLinux
Easylinux-kr
e-smith server and gateway
Independence
LinuxGT
Linux MLD (Japanese)
LinuxPPC
Linux Router Project
Mandrake
MkLinux
muLinux
PROSA Debian GNU/Linux
Red Hat
Slackware
Stampede
SuSE
Tomsrtbt
Trinux
TurboLinux
uClinux
UltraPenguin
XTeamLinux
Yellow Dog Linux

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