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 Sections: Main page Linux in the news Security Kernel Distributions Development Commerce Announcements Back page All in one big page See also: last week's Distributions page. |
DistributionsUsers of any RPM-based distribution might want to note that, with the release of RPM 2.5 and later, the -F option can be used to conditionally upgrade an rpm file, that is, install the upgrade only if the package is already installed, unlike the behavior of the -U option. This option is undocumented in 2.5, but documented in the latest release, 3.0. [Thanks to George Sexton] Back to new distributions, we promised a couple of weeks ago to give some brief descriptions of some of the distributions we added to our list but did not cover at the time. So here's a sprinkling for your pleasure this week! DLite, also known as Debian Lite for ISPs, is a mini-Linux distribution. Not floppy-based, DLite contains around 200 Debian packages to make up the core of an Internet-based server, such as might be used by an ISP. Eonova Linux is based on the "pkg" package manager, a variant of RPM. Pkg packages are the same format as rpm packages. It is intended to be a highly stable distribution, with a stated goal of "Lag-Behind" releases, estimated to be about six months behind the current Linux leading edge. Thus, Eonova 0.90, the current stable release, is based on 2.0.36 and libc5, while 0.92, currently in development, will be glibc-based and yet still run the 2.0.36 kernel. Eurielec Linux is a Spanish distribution, based on Red Hat, and maintained by a student club (the best, they say proudly) at he ETSI of Telecomunicaciones (UPM). Their current version is 3.0 and CDs are available. They created the distribution so that new students coming to the University would have an easy-to-install Linux system available for their use. To cut down on the costs of downloads, they included a wide variety of packages, so the distribution is now quite complete. The installation is in Castilian, as well as many of the programs and much of the documentation. DebianThe July 13th issue of the Debian Weekly News is out. Freeze and release plans are starting to be discussed. Given past history, that would pinpoint the actual release date in six to nine months. However, the intention is to release more frequently, so the opportunity exists to prove that estimate wrong. Other topics this month include the internationalization of the Debian init scripts, generating package diffs to reduce downloads and news from the Debian-JP project.A test install of Storm Linux was described by DWN Editor Joey Hess. Storm Linux is based on Debian. MandrakeInternationalization of Mandrake is an upcoming focus, mentioned by Gael Duval in this note. "We want to make Linux-Mandrake available in as many languages as possible, with as many keyboards flavors as possible..."Mandrake is the preferred version of Linux recommended by this article in Christian Computing Magazine. The Duke of URL reviews Linux Mandrake 6.0. Red HatNew packages released in the last week include updated NetKit-base and traceroute packages. These were updated due a problem on the Alpha, so installation of the updates on non-Alpha architectures is not required. For more information, check the Red Hat Errata.In addition, new rpm and rpm-devel packages have been released. These upgrade Red Hat's distribution from rpm-2.5 to rpm-3.0.2, which provides more functionality. Note that upgrading these packages will require that users of the rpmfind, rpm2html, gnorpm and kpackage will need to upgrade these packages as well, to ones that have been linked against rpm 3.0.X. For more information, check the Red Hat Errata. Last, the rdist package has actually been downgraded, not upgraded, from 6.1.5 to 6.1.0 due to a change in the license that prevents commercial distribution and use of rdist 6.1.5. SuSESuSE released version 6.1 of its Linux distribution for Alpha processors. This version uses kernel 2.2.9 and comes with glibc 2.1, XFree86 3.3.3.1, KDE 1.1.1, and GNOME 1.0, and other software packages.An English version of the announcement of the creation of the SuSE Linux Labs is now available. Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh |
July 15, 1999
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