See also: last week's Distributions page.

Distributions

News and Editorials

Rock Linux. Rock Linux is a distribution that is worth keeping an eye on. Largely the work of European hackers, Rock Linux has gained a following in Asia and the US as well. Like Debian and Slackware, it's a volunteer project that has found a few sponsors and mirror sites. It also has a portal site and a number of Rock inspired sub-projects.

Rock is a source based distribution, and as such, its not for "woozies", "wimps", "newbies", or the uninitiated. Rock Linux users like to get their hands dirty, setting up configuration files and compiling code. When they are done, they get a rock solid operating system, completely optimized for the hardware it runs on.

On the main Rock Linux stable tree we have an announcement about the Rock Linux 1.5.13 release candidate. The Desktop ROCK Linux (dRock) project has announced the release of version 1.4.1. There are plans to merge dRock with the Rock 1.7 development tree in the future.

Embedded Distributions and new Intel processors. With the Embedded Systems Conference coming up in mid-March, Intel is getting ready by releasing some new processors, suitable for embedded applications. Embedded Linux providers MontaVista and LynuxWorks are close behind, providing ports to these new processors. Here is a progress report from MontaVista on its port of MontaVista Linux to the DBPXA250 Development Platform and the PXA250 Applications Processor. MontaVista has also issued this press release announcing that MontaVista Linux 2.1, will support the new Intel IXP2400, IXP2800 and IXP425 Network Processors. LynuxWorks has also announced that its latest BlueCat Linux will begin shipping for the Intel Internet Exchange Architecture (IXA) Software Developers Kit (SDK) 2.0 for the Intel(R) IXP1200 Network Processor family.

New Distributions

Leka Rescue Floppy. Leka Rescue Floppy is a Linux mini-distribution that installs into one floppy disk. It is meant for disaster recovery, but also contains many fine features like networking support, a dhcpd, a Web browser, and an IRC client. The initial release, 0.50, is dated February 26, 2002. V0.51 was released the following day, with minor bug fixes.

MURIX Cross Hardware Linux. MURIX Cross Hardware Linux is a distribution that aims to function on all hardware platforms. Version 20020205, the initial release, became available on February 24, 2002.

Recovery Is Possible (RIP). Recovery Is Possible (RIP) is not really new. Somehow, though, it managed to evade our list. Until now. RIP is a CD or floppy boot/rescue/backup system with an excellent range of filesystem support. It's available for download here. V48 was released February 26, 2002.

Distribution News

Debian News. The Debian Weekly News for February 20 is available. Covered topics include the new upload system, Debian running over Solaris, the Woody release status, and more.

This Woody release update lists packages to be dropped because they have release critical bugs that have not been fixed.

There is a new Debian based project getting underway. The Debian Aid project is aimed at using Linux as a communications server for Aid Organizations.

Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter. The Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter for February 19, 2002 includes 8.2 Beta Articles at MandrakeForum; Mandrake PPC 8.2 is coming; Security-related Software updates; and more.

Here's the Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter for February 26. It looks at the third Mandrake Linux 8.2 beta, the Mandrake Corporate Club, the business case of the week, and more.

New Red Hat beta: Pensacola. Red Hat has announced a new beta release called "Pensacola." This is a distribution aimed at high-end systems: it includes fancier clustering technology and a kernel which has been tuned for server workloads. Among other things, the kernel includes a POSIX asynchronous I/O implementation - presumably a version of Ben LaHaise's patch, which has not yet been merged into a mainline kernel.

Slackware News. The Slackware current tree has been updated new pkgtools and e2fsprogs packages. See the changelog for details.

Minor Distribution updates

2-Disk Xwindow System. The 2-Disk Xwindow System has released v1.2 with minor feature enhancements.

Astaro Security Linux. Astaro Security Linux released 3.030 beta, with major feature enhancements. Changes include a new install procedure, improved WebAdmin, a new Linux kernel (2.4.17), new logging facilities, new Interface and NAT handling systems, a 'Reject' action for the packet filter, DHCP client and server support, DSL (pppoe) support, a new VPN IPsec handling system (incl. X.509), and a factory reset command line tool.

ClumpOS. ClumpOS has released R5.3 with minor bug fixes.

Wolverine. Wolverine is a firewall and VPN product based on Embedded Coyote Linux. The Alpha 2 (Build 102) release contains major feature enhancements.

Distribution Reviews

Icepack - a distribution to watch (TuxReports). TuxReports reviews Icepack 1.9.8.1. Icepack 2.0 is due to be released at the end of February, 2002. "A reason to sing praises for Icepack is the four Window Managers included by default. They happen to be on my favorite's list. In fact, the menu layout within Window Maker was perfect for immediate use. KDE 2.2.2 and Gnome 1.4 were also ready for immediate productivity. And my absolute favorite manager is XFce."

Red Flag, China's home-grown Linux distribution, is a good start (NewsForge). Linux.com and NewsForge have provided us with an English-language review of Red Flag Linux. "Right away, I suspected that Red Flag was based on Red Hat. I hit return to boot into graphical mode to see how the installer would handle the graphical mode while running under VMware. After the kernel scrolled for a little while, the Red Flag desktop installer came up in an ugly 16-color X server. It was obvious at this point that this was indeed a modified Red Hat installer. Not reading many Kanji, I selected the only option I could understand, English, and proceeded."

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.

Distribution Lists:
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