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DistributionsPlease note that security updates from the various distributions are covered in the security section. News and EditorialsLinux Distributors vie for the India Linux market. Our unofficial correspondent in India, Atul Chitnis, sent us some interesting links this week. It appears that Red Hat and SuSE are simultaneously expanding into India. Red Hat has announced a joint venture with Clover Technologies Pvt Limited to open a Red Hat branch, Red Hat India Pvt Limited. Meanwhile, SuSE is setting up base in India as well. Acknowledging that Red Hat is currently the most popular version of Linux in India, they are busy educating people about SuSE. "SuSE's London-based commercial director Jasmin Ul-Haque said, 'Linux was launched in 1991. SuSE was created in 1992. We're older than Red Hat (another popular Linux distribution, which has a large market in India). And recent IDC figures say ours is the leading Linux distribution in Europe'". deepLINUX is no more. Well, to be accurate, the deepLINUX distribution from Rick Collette is officially no more. Rick was the original developer of Spiro Linux. He left that project back in March, then started up deepLINUX, with a planned focus on embedded products. Well, without knowing and therefore commenting on the legal issues, Rick has abandoned his previous deepLinux distribution plans after protests from the folks at Spiro Linux. The deepLinux site lives on, now as a news site, slashdot-style. General-Purpose DistributionsDebian News. The first point release to Debian 2.2 ("potato") has been announced. It contains a number of fixes, both security-related and otherwise. Apparently, however, a number of other fixes are outstanding, and there will be a 2.2r2 release within a couple of weeks. This week's Debian Weekly News covers issues in the Debian 2.2r1 release in a bit more detail. In a break from the past, 2.2r1 contains not only bug fixes and security fixes, but some other new and updated packages as well. "Release manager Anthony Towns explains: 'I'm treating updates to stable under two principles: they should make users notably better off; and they shouldn't ever make it harder for users to do anything they were doing before'". This has caused some controversy, and some errors in Debian 2.2r1 that wouldn't have been there otherwise, but no statement that the same policy won't be used for the next point release. The Debian Project has announced that over 100 new maintainers have been admitted to the project since the process was reopened. "This represents a major milestone in the new procedure, indicating that the machinery is in full operation and doorway into Debian is fully open once again." Linux-Mandrake News. The Duke of URL has written an extended review of Linux Mandrake 7.2. "Also added right from the installation is mouse wheel support. No longer do you need to go in and edit your XF86Config file by hand. Mandrake's installer detects most wheel mice and can get them working right off the bat for you. My only gripe here is that it doesn't allow you to configure your mouse for more than the typical 5 buttons (2 of which are accolated to the wheel) from the installation. Hopefully they'll consider adding this on the next release." Macmillan has announced the release of its version of Linux-Mandrake 7.2. There are three variants available: "Complete," "PowerPack Deluxe", and "Professional Suite." LinuxPPC News. LinuxPPC has announced the availability of a beta version of its forthcoming release; it includes an installer that can be used to upgrade to this beta from any RPM-based PowerPC distribution - including SuSE. Progeny Linux News. DebianPlanet has posted responses from Ian Murdoch to comparisons between Debian and Progeny (as well as other "commercial" versions of Debian). "we are aware that many members of the Debian community feel disappointed by earlier commercial Debian offerings. We do not intend to make the same mistakes that others have made. We intend to maintain strong, friendly relations with the larger Debian community, and to contribute to the community and make Debian a better system for all users. By design, being the founder of Debian does not give me any special position in the project-Debian long ago grew beyond me. However, I do hope that my past actions are an indication of my sincerity". SuSE News. SuSE Linux 7.0 PowerPC edition available. SuSE has announced the availability of the PowerPC version of its 7.0 release. Linux.com took a detailed look at installing SuSE Linux 7.0. "Windows 98 can recognize large disk sizes, so these days most computers ship with a hard drive formatted as a single partition. This means that you'll need to: defragment your hard drive; resize the existing partition to fill only part of the drive, and add a second partition on the newly freed up space." Last, but not least, Linux In Brazil took a look at SuSE Linux 7.0 as well. Here is their review in Portuguese and via babelfish. The package they tested provided some Portguese support, though not sufficient to allow them to recommend SuSE Linux for any but experienced users. Turbolinux News. Unicon 3.0 has been released by Turbolinux, demonstrating their understanding that the expansion of Linux in the international arena is dependent, in large part, on its ability to support native languages well. Unicon has provided Chinese language support for some time, but now also provides Linux console support for double-byte characters, expanding its area of expertise to many additional Asian languages. Unicon is licensed under the GPL. Embedded DistributionsNeoLinux News. NeoLinux 2.0 has been announced. It contains two new features, ezConnect, for making connections to Windows servers, and ezSnap, a software distribution capability for updating software features on an appliance across a network, without requiring an entire operating system update. LinuxDevices.com also took a look at NeoLinux, via a conversation with Neoware CEO Mike Kantrowitz. "According to Kantrowitz, a handful of Neoware "e-z" products is largely responsible for differentiating the company's NeoLinux operating system from the other Linux implementations that are available today, allowing Neolinux to uniquely satisfy the needs of a broad spectrum of 'appliance computing' applications." REDICE-Linux News. REDSonic has announced the availability of the "RED-Probe" monitoring and profiling tool, which is part of its REDICE-Linux distribution. Minor Distribution updatesThe following updates have been released for other Linux distributions:Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh |
November 16, 2000
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