See also: last week's Distributions page.

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

Distributions

News and Editorials

Distributions Lost and Found. The new Distribution list is still not ready for public consumption. Some two or three dozen links remain unchecked (out of well over 200). In the meantime, a few of the distributions that were reported lost last week, have been found by LWN readers.

Trinux seems to be very popular, since many people wrote to tell about its home on SourceForge.

Many people knew about Definite Linux as well. This distribution was originally built by Jason Clifford and in its day was very popular. It is no longer under development, but you can still find information about Definite Linux at Jason's website, or at the distribution's older commercial home. Definite Linux will be moving to the "Historical" section of the new list.

LoopLinux moved to slightly different URL, but it's still around. It will be found in the "DOS/Windows install" section on the new list. (Thanks to Gordon Buzowetsky and Douwe van der Schaaf.)

Project Ballantain turned into FREESCO (FREE ciSCO). FREESCO has been on the LWN list for a while, we just didn't manage to delete the Project Ballantain link. FREESCO will remain in the new list.

OpenClassroom, like Trinux, moved to SourceForge. (Thanks to norwood sisson.)

New Distributions

FrazierWall Linux. FrazierWall Linux was developed as a customized firewall. It was originally based on the Linux Router Project and Coyote Linux 1.03. However it has evolved into a unique router/firewall distribution. (Thanks to Bruce Kives)

herbix. herbix is a portable server-on-a-floppy distribution. It's now at version 1.0-9.

Instant 802 Linux Access Point. The Instant 802 Linux Access Point, (OpenAP), is an open source Linux distribution for 802.11 access points. LinuxDevices.com has an article about OpenAP.

LEAF. LEAF (Linux Embedded Appliance Firewall) is an easy to use embedded Linux network appliance for use in small office, home office, and home automation environments. Although it can be used in other ways, it's primarily used as a gateway/router/firewall for Internet leaf sites. LEAF 1.0.2 (Dachstein) is now available.

Distribution News

Debian Weekly News. The Debian Weekly News for January 16 is out. Covered topics include the need for more maintainer sponsors, improving quality assurance, the 2.2r5 release, and more.

Mandrake News. Here's the Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter for January 22. Covered topics include MandrakeSoft's new toll-free number for North America, the company's new OTC stock listing, MandrakeClub, and more.

Belgian software company, Eurologiciel, and Mandrakesoft announced the release of three "rock solid" accounting packages. These are euro-centric, supporting France, Belgium and Luxemburg, so far. Naturally they are certified on Mandrake 8.0.

Red Hat News. Red Hat has issued a bug fix for the redhat-config-network network configuration tool. An enhanced package is available for RH 7.2 systems.

Updated KDE packages are available that will fix various bugs (including some minor security issues), improve performance, and add small features for RH 7.2.

A bug fix advisory for the anaconda installer corrects several issues in the Red Hat Linux 7.2 installer.

Trustix Secure Linux. TSL has issued a bug fix for gzip that affects versions TSL 1.01, 1.1, 1.2, and 1.5.

Yellow Dog Linux Bugfix Announcement. The glibc update, version 2.2.4, that is now available for YDL 2.1, no longer provides a development header file needed by programs that interact with the quota subsystem. This update for quota fixes the problem.

Minor Distribution updates

BlueEDU. BlueEDU, or Blue Linux, is a distribution aimed at educational computers. The first release candidate has been announced.

CRUX. CRUX, a lightweight, i686-optimized Linux distribution for experienced Linux users, has released CRUX 0.9.2.

floppyfw. floppyfw has released development version 1.9.18.

IPCop Firewall. IPCop Firewall has released version 0.1.1.

Mindi-Linux. Mindi Linux released version 0.53, which provides improved support for keyboard resource files from systems other than Red Hat and Debian, among other things.

Security Enhanced Linux. The NSA has released updates to its Security Enhanced Linux. The stable (2.4) LSM-based SELinux prototype was updated to kernel 2.4.17 and was updated to include a number of bug fixes and minor enhancements made since the previous release. A new development (2.5) LSM-based SELinux prototype based on kernel 2.5.2 was added to the site. Also, the original SELinux prototype has been reduced to just the 2.2.19 and 2.4.3 kernel patches for historical reference.

Sentry Firewall CD-ROM. Sentry Firewall is a Linux-based bootable CD-ROM, suitable for use as an inexpensive and easy to maintain firewall or IDS(Intrusion Detection System) node. Version 1.1.1 has been released.

Trinity Rescue Kit v0.5. A new version of the Trinity Rescue kit has been released. Version 0.5 has some minor new features and one MAJOR bug fix, which should solve most problems on machines that don't get further than loading their kernel.

Wolverine. Wolverine is a firewall and VPN server that is based on Embedded Coyote Linux. Still under development, Alpha 1 has reached Build 77.

Distribution Reviews

Red Hat 7.2 (Linux Journal). The Linux Journal reviews Red Hat Linux 7.2. "There's a few changes that might frustrate newbies as well as current users, but overall it's a strong new version."

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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