See also: last week's Distributions page.

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

Distributions

News and Editorials

Distributions in Review - Part 2. As a new year begins, we conclude our review of Linux Distribution news, looking at July through December of 2001. Some distributions call it quits, other distribution mature.

Based on the results of this latest functional evaluation, DHBA believes that the leading Linux distributions are now quite capable of serving as general-purpose operating systems for a broad range of departmental and workgroup applications.
-- D.H. Brown

Things heated up around Debian as the Woody freeze began in July. This was followed by a hard freeze in November. The Debian Multimedia Distribution (DeMuDi) project was launched. DeMuDi is a Debian based distribution with a multi-media focus. Also, the Debian Conference 1 was held in Bordeaux, France.

Lineo decided to make a real-time version of its embedded OS, Embedix, by licensing the RTLinux patent.

Lineo established this license in response to an existing patent that presented fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) in the minds of some embedded developers who would otherwise utilize the robust RTAI open source technology.
-- Lineo's Dave Beal

Progeny Linux Systems ceased development on its Progeny Debian distribution.

The Scyld Beowulf Professional Edition, a distribution aimed at making it easy to create clusters, was released.

Slackware discontinued its Sparc port. The Splack project took up the slack.

SuSE released the SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 7, SuSE Linux 7.3, and most recently the SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 7 for the Itanium.

Xandros licensed Corel Linux, and hired Corel's developers. The Xandros distribution is due "early 2002."

GNU-Darwin for the x86 was released.

Many established distributions came out with new releases, including:

• BlueCat Linux 4.0
• Conectiva Linux 7.0
• Mandrake Linux 8.1
• Red Hat Linux 7.2
• Slackware 8.0
• Trustix Secure Linux 1.5
• Yellow Dog Linux 2.1

New Distributions

DutNux. The project appeared last April, but now there's a 0.9.9-testing release. DutNux is a mini Linux distribution that supports WCCP (Web Cache Communication Protocol) with transparent proxying using Squid. It is intended to cooperate with Cisco routers.

Distribution News

Debian News. The Debian Weekly News for December 19 contains a look at the latest Hurd CD images, Debian's response to security bugs, new mailing lists, and more.

Here's the Debian Weekly News for December 27. Covered topics include localization, the upcoming 2.2r5 release, the ongoing quality of Debian packages, and more.

A new revision of Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 (codename `potato') will be out soon.

Here's a report about the Debian Description Translation Project (DDTP), past and present.

Read this to find out more about Euro support in Debian.

FreeBSD. The FreeBSD-stable branch of the source tree has now been frozen in preparation for the release of FreeBSD 4.5.

If you are running FreeBSD and you cannot bring down the machine to upgrade the OS, but would like to see some of the newer features or bug fixes on your system, the FreeBSD Backports page has what you need.

Mandrake Linux. MandrakeSoft reported that according to a Linux Magazine UK study, 46% of the people in the UK use Mandrake Linux - far ahead of Red Hat Linux, at 21%.

The "Mandrake Clubhouse" is open for business. The Clubhouse is "a custom website where club members can learn about club-related activities, take part in discussions, and enjoy certain privileges."

Check out the MandrakeLinux Cooker Christmas snapshot, a MandrakeCooker snapshot 2 ISOs set available at most mirror sites.

Also available, the KDE 3.0 Beta 1 for ML 8.0, 8.1 and a bug fix advisory for samba.

Red Hat Linux Users Group launches. rhlug.org is new site "from Red Hat Linux users for Red Hat Linux users".

Rock Linux. René Rebe, the maintainer of ROCK Linux Desktop subdistribution (dROCK), has announced the long-awaited 1.4.0 release. dROCK is a subdistribution based on ROCK Linux but intended primarily for desktop use. It is targeted towards administrators who want to install "microwave-style" workstations that just work - everyday.

Rock 1.5.12 has been released. This development release is based on Linux Kernel 2.4.14, glibc 2.2.4, binutils 2.11.92.0.10 and gcc 2.95.3. Get it at the usual places. Changelog here.

LinuxUser magazine has a review of Rock Linux 1.4.0 (in pdf format). The part about Rock Linux begins on page 4. "Rock has a strong community of users in much the same way that other popular distributions do. Often users have encountered many forms of Linux prior to settling with Rock."

Slackware News. Two weeks ago we reported that Slackware.com had been broken into. That was incorrect. The site was down, but it appears there was nothing more sinister than some faulty hardware. Slackware.com is back, we would like to apologize for any alarm or inconvenience our previous note caused. Also congratulations to Patrick who was too busy getting married to notice right away.

There is a new Slackware mailing list for UK slackers. Subscription information can be found here.

Minor Distribution updates

BasicLinux. BasicLinux is a mini-version of Linux, now at version 1.61.

Devil-Linux 0.5 beta 5 released. The fifth beta of Devil-Linux 0.5 has been released. See the announcement for details of what has changed.

Fd Linux. Fd Linux is a mini floppy distribution of Linux set to fit on 1 floppy disk (kernel and root fs are combined). Stable version 2.0-0 is out now.

floppyfw. floppyfw is a router and simple firewall on one single floppy. Stable version 1.0.12.3 was released December 22, 2001 and development version 1.9.15 was released December 24, 2001.

Gentoo Linux 1.0_rc6-r14. Gentoo Linux 1.0_rc6-r14 has been released. Lots of new stuff has been thrown in, including three journaling filesystems, a new installation CD, and more.

Mindi Linux. Mindi Linux version 0.50 has been released.

OpenNA Linux. OpenNA Linux, a secure, fast distribution for running mission critical tasks in a high security, released a beta 2 version.

Trustix Secure Linux. Trustix Secure Linux has released several bugfix advisories:

• Apache
• Freeswan
• kernel
• Postfix

ttylinux. ttylinux is a minimalistic Linux distribution that can fit in 4 MB of disk space. Version 1.17 was released December 28, with updated modutils and util-linux, in the changelog.

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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