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 Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Back page All in one big page See also: last week's Distributions page. |
DistributionsPlease note that security updates from the various distributions are covered in the security section.
Corel LinuxExploring Corel Linux's beta distribution. LWN got a chance to play around with the Corel Linux beta distribution. Please have a look at our writeup for a look at what Corel is doing. There's some interesting stuff in there.Debian GNU/LinuxCommercial Debian product to launch. The Debian project has announced that a packaged version of the Debian distribution, bundled with O'Reilly's "Learning Debian GNU/Linux" book, will be made available for $19.95 in retail stores. This activity is being sponsored by VA Linux Systems, O'Reilly, and SGI.The New York Times covered the new commercial Debian distribution. "Corporate customers, in particular, often prefer commercial versions of free software, so they get written documentation explaining the software and are assured of technical support if they have problems." Note that the New York Times is a registration-required site; the article may also be read without registration via the San Jose Mercury. (Thanks to Richard Storey). And News.com's take on the new commercial Debian distribution came out as well. "The companies won't be taking over the Debian version, Biles added. 'We're not going to change the way it works or change the organization,' he said. 'All we're trying to do is expand their demographic'--in other words, make Debian appealing to more people." Debian Activity at the Pluto Meeting 1999, held September 24th and 25th in Padova, Italy, was strong, as evidenced by this report on activity in the Debian group, sponsored by Prosa. Definite LinuxZDnet UK responded to the recent Linux Expo UK with a short article on Definite Linux, the 100% Red Hat-compatible Linux distribution built in the UK and fully-supported within the UK. Official Definite Linux PCs, with Definite Linux pre-installed, are apparently in the works, but not yet announced.KRUDOctober KRUD available. The October release of KRUD (Kevin's RedHat Uber Distribution) is available. KRUD is a value-added version of the Red Hat distribution with fixes applied and a number of goodies added, particularly cryptographic goodies. It is only legal for download within the United States.Linux-MandrakeMandrakeSoft announces the availability of Linux-Mandrake 6.1 PowerPack.Corporate Mandrake. MandrakeSoft is maintaining a web page showcasing businesses using their distribution. They are looking for more cases to add to this list; if your business uses Linux-Mandrake, please consider submitting it for this page. LinuxPPCLinuxPPC now offering Loki games. LinuxPPC announces that it is now carrying a set of Linux games ported by Loki Entertainment Software. "LinuxPPC president Jeff Carr was unavailable for comment, as he was last seen in 520 A.D. saying something about barbarian and gates."Red Hat LinuxThe output from tcpdump was changed with the release of Red Hat 6.1. This could cause some difficulties for programs that use tcpdump and process its output. No option for backwards compatibility seems to exist and the output from "tcpdump --version" still produces "3.4", the same version number as before. You may want to save around a copy of your tcpdump binary from Red Hat 6.0 before upgrading. GPG support in Red Hat 6.1 is strong (GPG being GnuPG - GNU's replacement for PGP), according to this note posted by Matt Wilson. "So now, for the good news. Beginning with Red Hat Linux 6.1, all our packages are GPG signed. Red Hat Linux purchased in the US includes GPG, mutt with GPG hooks, a GUI frontend to GPG (called gpgp), and the 128 bit crypto version of Netscape Communicator." That is, indeed, very good news... except for the corollary, that Red Hat 6.1 outside the US will not have GPG and will be stuck with 40bit Netscape. That's got to hurt, especially with competition from distributions outside US that aren't hampered by such restrictions. At least one bug in the Red Hat 6.1 installer has been reported, confirmed and updated boot disks are likely to come out soon. Some impressions of Red Hat 6.1 can be found on linux.netnerve.com. Slackware LinuxSlackware 6.0.1 beta was released on Sunday, October 10th. Activity just prior to the release included some work on DHCP support and updates to all the documentation. After the release of the beta, work has focused more on bug fixes and installation support. Time to hammer on the new product if you'd like to help them get a good, stable release out there in the near future.SuSE LinuxA patch for 4GB support under SuSE 6.2 is available, though reportedly a bit hard to find on the site.A preliminary version of the hardware probing library that SuSE is developing for their "new installation program" has been made available and everyone is encouraged to test it on as many different types of hardware as possible. WinLinuxWinLinux most popular on Download.com proclaims this press release. "The final beta version of WinLinux 2000 reached the 20,000 downloads mark on October 10 through CNET Download.com." This is an impressive rate of downloads for a beta product, though the marketing hype that this is twice the number of downloads of any other Linux distribution on the site should be taken with this grain of salt: Download.com isn't exactly the best known site for downloading Linux. We wish them luck, though. Addressing the needs of people currently on Windows platforms that wish to come over, but aren't technically proficient, is a task that deserves to be done well.Yellow Dog LinuxChien jaune? Linux-France has put up a document (in French) describing how to install and set up Yellow Dog Linux on a PowerPC Macintosh system.Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh |
October 14, 1999
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