See also: last week's Distributions page.

Distributions

News and Editorials

Yet another revision (to the LWN Distributions List). When LWN released the newly revised LWN.net Linux Distributions List last February, several people wrote to ask if we could add a table of contents to make it a bit easier to navigate. It took a while to get there, but we are pleased to announce that a table of contents has been added. Now you can find your way to any category with a single click.

As part of the ongoing maintenance of the list we have found two distributions that seem to have disappeared. The Linux Cyrillic Edition, once found at http://www.usoft.spb.ru/Graphic/English/Products/products.html, and LEM, once found at http://linux-embedded.com/, are both gone. As usual, before deleting these distributions from the list we are asking our very knowledgeable readers if they have additional information for either one.

The Arabization of Linux. This week an article from the Arab News showed up at LWN. The article covers several topics, but in particular, it says, "Investment in Linux associated Arabization has not been made by governments or educational institutions. This is a mistake. In the long-term, Arabization of Linux will cost less than licensing fees."

The government may not be helping out much, but we are pleased to report that Haydar Linux and the Arabeyes Project are making progress in this area. The Arabeyes Project is aimed at fully supporting the Arabic language in the Unix/Linux environment. The project is working closely with Haydar Linux to produce a Linux distribution with full Arabic language support. They are getting closer to this goal as Haydar Linux has announced its first beta release. This beta release is meant for programmers and experts to test and report the bugs and problems.

Distribution News

Debian Weekly News for May 1st. The latest edition of the Debian Weekly News is available for your enjoyment. Covered topics include the LILO boot screen, the Debian Developer Portal, the preliminary Woody release announcement, and more.

Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter. The Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter for May 2 is available. Covered topics include the reopening of the MandrakeStore, the Business Case of the Week, and more.

Mandrake Linux Security tools. Security conscious Mandrake Linux users should keep an eye on Mandrake Security tools project. This package is designed to provide a generic secure level for Mandrake Linux users.

MontaVista Linux 2.1 is shipping. MontaVista Software, Inc has announced the release of version 2.1 of MontaVista Linux Professional Edition, a commercial embedded Linux distribution. "MontaVista Linux 2.1 focuses on cross-development capability, with tools hosted on 11 host environments, including Mandrake, Yellow Dog, SuSE, Red Hat, Solaris and VMWare on Windows NT/2000."

MontaVista Linux Professional Edition 2.1 also supports a range of IBM next-generation network processors including the NP4GS3 and the NPe405H and NPe405L family.

Red Hat Unveils Red Hat Linux 7.3. Here's Red Hat's press release on version 7.3 of the company's flagship distribution. See the new features page for a list of all the new goodies this time around.

Slackware Linux. Slackware Linux users were treated to another large set of changes to Slackware-current this week.

If you've had any problems with printing on Slackware you should check out this Slackware printing guide on UserLocal.com.

SuSE Ships SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 7 for 64-bit IBM eServer zSeries. SuSE has issued a press release announcing the new release of their distribution for the zSeries server line from IBM.

Minor Distribution updates

Astaro Security Linux. Astaro Corporation announced version 3 of its combined Astaro Security Linux firewall/ VPN/ anti-virus/content filtering security software. This complete software appliance also bundles a hardened Linux kernel.

GENDIST. GENDIST has released stable version 1.0.0 with minor feature enhancements.

Lunar-Linux. Lunar-Linux has a new ISO available for testing. This one, called Petro_h, is a release candidate.

NSA Security Enhanced Linux. NSA Security Enhanced Linux has released version 2002050211 with minor feature enhancements.

ROCK Linux. Have you been thinking about building a ROCK Linux cluster? Here is a helpful guide. There are new online documentation files available for BUILD, BUILD-CROSS and BUILD-CLUSTER. (Thanks to Stefan Koerner)

Sorcerer Linux. Sorcerer has a new Install/Rescue disk available. "Bugs in linux/POST_INSTALL keeping the image section from being properly written to /etc/lilo.conf during initial installation have been fixed. A new Install/Rescue Image is ready for download. I suggest downloading the much smaller 317 kilobyte xdelta patch and apply that to an unbzip2ed sorcerer-20020427.iso if you already have it."

Source Mage GNU/Linux. Source Mage GNU/Linux is the new name for that branch of Sorcerer GNU/Linux created by former SGL team members. The project has a new web address and the mailing lists have moved. What was once sorcerylinux.org is now sourcemage.org.

Virtual Linux. Virtual Linux has released v1.1 with major feature enhancements.

Distribution Reviews

A first look at Red Hat 7.3. Aschwin Marsman of aYniK Software Solutions has reviewed Red Hat Linux 7.3. "At 22:25 I chose to upgrade my existing RH 7.2 installation. I selected partition hde5 on my 80GB hard drive as the root file system, and selected to customize the packages to be upgraded. After that I got the possibility to upgrade ext2 partitions to ext3. I choose not to upgrade, because all RH 7.2 partitions are already ext3, and the other partitions are on other hard drives which are nominated to be cleaned."

Red Hat releases Linux 7.3 (News.com). News.com reports on the new Red Hat Linux 7.3 release. "Red Hat Linux version 7.3 adds to the company's current open-source operating system offerings with new features that include personal firewall configuration, and installation and video-conferencing software.

The new version also includes Web and telephone access to experts and the Red Hat Network--an automated Internet service for managing Red Hat Linux systems."

SOT Linux 2002 (Tucows). Tucows gave SOT Linux 2002 a 5 cow rating in this brief review. "Whether you're a desktop publisher, a 'Net junkie or a games fiend, SOT Linux 2002 Desktop has everything you'll need to make computer life easier."

What to do with that 'throw-away' Computer - or - OpenBSD rocks on low spec Pentiums! (Linux Orbit). Linux Orbit reviews OpenBSD on older Pentium hardware. "The machine is a classic Pentium 100 MHz with 24MB of RAM and two hard drives at 545MB and 130MB each. Not only is this machine extremely low spec, but it also has a Y2K bug which means I have to run it with a pre 2000 or post 2094 date. If it weren't for the fact that I was given this machine for free, it would probably be in a landfill somewhere. After deleting Windows 95 I decided it would be a perfect machine to try out the OpenBSD 2.9 ISO's which I had downloaded some months before (Since then OpenBSD 3.0 has been released and 3.1 is due 19th May, 2002)."

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:
LWN List
DistroWatch
ibiblio
Linux.com
LinuxLinks
LDP English-language GNU/Linux distributions on CD-ROM
Woven Goods

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