See also: last week's Distributions page.

Note: The list of Linux distributions has moved to its own page.

Distributions

News and Editorials

Got KRUD?. Last week I wrote about my recently installed KRUD (Kevin's RedHat Uber Distribution) 7.2 distribution. My first KRUD update arrived just in time for me to give it a spin before publication this week. Choosing to update automagically, I put the CD into the drive and rebooted my system. A couple of questions and a few minutes later all the errata for the past month had been updated on my system. This could be too easy for some. For the rest of us, a subscription to KRUD is the way to keep a system up-to-date.

KRUD 7.2 fits on two CDs and a README.KRUD file lists the packages that have been changed. This update took me from the 2.4.9-7 kernel to the 2.4.9-13 kernel. OpenSSH went from version 2.9p2-9 to version 3.0.1p1-1. Galeon was updated to version 1.0-1, and so on.

When installing for the first time, one is asked to choose between a workstation, laptop, server or firewall system. I choose a workstation install, which also allowed me to further customize my system depending on diskspace and preferences with options such as development packages or KDE. (The default desktop is GNOME.) It is also possible to completely customize your installation and your upgrades.

Installing Debian Linux on a Dell Laptop. Here's a step-by-step guide from the Linux Journal on how to install Debian on a laptop. "What we have installed is the stable release of Debian, currently version 2.2r3, but known as potato. Debian's XFree86 4.1.0 packages are available in the unstable tree, currently known as sid. So, let's upgrade this new installation to Debian's unstable tree."

TimeSys Announces TimeSys Linux GPL. TimeSys has announced the availability of TimeSys Linux GPL for several embedded processor architectures. "TimeSys Linux GPL consists of a powerful, fully featured, preemptible Linux kernel and all other components needed to extend a standard Linux distribution to support predictable, extremely low-latency response."

'Getting Started With Yellow Dog Linux' released. Terra Soft Solutions has announced the release of Getting Started With Yellow Dog Linux, the company's first book.

MontaVista offers Hard Hat Linux for the ARM processor. MontaVista Software has announced the availability of Hard Hat Linux 2.0 for the ARM architecture.

New Distributions

ELX, Everyone's Linux. ELX is new distribution designed to ease Windows users into Linux. DesktopLinux.com is running a review of ELX. "I recently got my test copy of Elx (Everyone's Linux), which made it almost certain to me that Linux is going to be on everybody's desktop much sooner than I ever expected. The complete system is so well crafted for users of Windows that it took my friend, who is a hardcore Windowsian, quite a while to figure out that its not just 'another' version of his favorite Windows."

The DeMuDi Project. The DeMuDi project has built a Debian based GNU/Linux distribution oriented toward music and multimedia. (Thanks to "ljp")

Topologilinux. Topologi Software has released Topologilinux v01. It is based on Slackware 8 with kernel 2.4.16 and it is designed to be run on top of any DOS/WIN partition without the need for partitioning hard disks. (It uses loopmount.) The ext2, ext3, and reiserfs filesystems are supported along with the X window system, KDE, GNOME and more. There is a temporary page with download links. You can also download it from this mirror site.

Distribution News

Debian Weekly News. The Debian Weekly News for December 5 is out. Covered topics include Ximian's Debian packages, the Woody freeze, LDP documents, and more.

Mandrake Linux Users Club FAQ. A set of questions and answers on the Mandrake Linux Users Club has been posted. "The Club provides an attractive answer to a simple issue: MandrakeSoft needs to have its costs covered by revenue. With the current economic slowdown and recent world events, companies are finding it much more difficult to sell software, provide money-generating services, and to find funding. This means that MandrakeSoft's revenue growth will take more time than was previously planned."

Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter. The Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter for December 6 is out. Covered topics include the Mandrake Linux Users Club, MandrakeSecure, and more.

Red Hat Linux. Red Hat has release a bugfix advisory for login, which fails to set controlling terminal in 7.1 - alpha, i386, ia64 and 7.2 - i386 versions.

Minor Distribution updates

ASPLinux 7.2 released. ASPLinux 7.2 has been released. The website is in Russian. (Thanks to Eugene Kanter)

Blue Linux moves focus onto Linux in Education. Blue Linux has announced that it has shifted focus away from security, into education. It has accordingly moved on LWN's Distributions list from the Secured section to the Education section.

ClarkConnect. ClarkConnect can help transform your PC into a dedicated broadband gateway and easy-to-use server. Version 0.9.1 is due out the week of December 17.

Linux From Scratch. Linux From Scratch has released stable version 3.1 under a BSD license. The changelog lists a new Reiserfs package, as well as updates to many other packages.

NSA Security-enhanced Linux. NSA Security-enhanced Linux version 2001121010 is out. Changes: Many utilities have been updated to newer versions to improve compatibility with Red Hat 7.2. Auditing has been revised for easier parsing, and several additional bugs have been fixed.

Redmond Linux. Redmond Linux announced build 43, RL amethyst final. Version 1.0 is now out!

Section Editor: Rebecca Sobol

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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