Alpha Release : Ubuntu 7.10 Tribe 2

The Tribe 2 release of Ubuntu was announced. There is also simultaneous release of Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu.
Excerpts from the release announcement.

Welcome to Gutsy Gibbon Tribe 2, which will in time become Ubuntu 7.10.

Pre-releases of Gutsy are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for Ubuntu developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs.

Tribe 2 is the second in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Gutsy development cycle. The Tribe images are known to be reasonably free of show-stopper CD build or installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of Gutsy. You can download it here:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/gutsy/tribe-2/ (Ubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/gutsy/tribe-2/ (Kubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/gutsy/tribe-2/ (Edubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/gutsy/tribe-2/ (Xubuntu)

See http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Mirrors for a list of mirrors.

Read the full release announcement here.

Release Candidate : Slackware 12.0 RC2

Slackware quitely informed about the second release candidate, the Slackware 12.0 RC2.

This might as well be called 12.0 RC2 so that we're not accused on skimping on release candidates. ;-) Still going through various reports, and (especially) looking into getting the php.ini defaults reasonable (as well as figuring out which features can be safely built as extensions). But, we're getting there.

Read the changelog for more details.
Slackware didn't released any official version of the release but testers can get help on installation on this page.

Development Release : Sabayon Linux x86/x86-64 3.4 Loop 3

Sabayon Linux announced the release of third testing version of 3.4. Excerpts from the release announcement.

The Sabayon Linux Crew is happy to announce the immediate availability of Sabayon Linux 3.4 Loop3 for both x86 and x86-64 architecture.

What happened since Sabayon Linux 3.4 Loop2 ?

Important Changes:

• Removed Enlightenment 16 Desktop to let us focus better on GNOME/KDE integration
  
• Removed 140 packages - a.k.a. the mass shrinking - NO MORE duplicated applications
  
• Removed NX server, Internet Kiosk framework and all the server oriented applications (they will show up in the Business Edition)
  
  Gaming:
  
• Sabayon Linux 3.4 is all about gaming! Play your favourite games as easy as 1-2-3.
  
• Strengthen the Sabayon Linux Games Deployment framework - we NOW support a lot of Cool GAMES!
  
• Featuring
  
• Savage 2.00e
  
• FlightGear 0.9.10
  
• DangerDeep 0.3.0
  
• Warsow 0.3
  
• Nexuiz 2.3
  
• Torcs 1.3.0
  
• Battle of Wesnoth 1.2.4
  
• Coldwar demo has been removed

• Hardware Support:
  
• Updated NVIDIA drivers to 100.14.11
  
• Updated ATI drivers to 8.37.8
  
• Updated madwifi-ng driver to SVN snapshot to support MacBooks
  
• Strengthen VMWare 6.0 support
  
• Re-added linuxwlan-ng drivers
  
• Added pommed utility to support MacBooks LCD backlight tuning
  
• Added support for Agere et131x ethernet controller -> http://sourceforge.net/projects/et131x
  
• if NVIDIA detected: add NVIDIA Control Center icon to desktop
  
• if ATI detected: add AMD Control Center icon to desktop
  
• Updated HAL to 0.5.9 (plus upstream accepted patches for 0.5.9.1) - complete MacBook support
  
• Updated kernel with the latest stable patches
  
  Noticeable Applications:
  
• Updated KDE to 3.5.7
  
• Added FileZilla 3.0 FTP Client
  
• Update aMule to 2.2.x CVS release (won't crash anymore)
  
• Update gnome-main-menu
  
• Updated KDEBluetooth to 1.0beta3
  
• Updated GeeXbox to 1.1rc3
  
• Updated VirtualBox to 1.4.0
  
• Added Manencode 0.8
  
• Added pommed
  
• Updated WINE to 0.9.39
  
• Updated sabayon-version with the proper USE flag
  
• Updated KVM to 28

Read the full release announcement here.
Download Sabayon here.

Distribution Release: Mandriva Corporate Desktop 4.0

Mandriva announced the release of latest Corporate Desktop. Excerpts from the announcement are:

Mandriva is proud to announce the release of Corporate Desktop 4.0, the brand new version of its enterprise-dedicated work station.
Ergonomically designed, secure, comprehensive, easy to use and to administer: by consulting its corporate clients and building on its own expertise in the desktop area, Mandriva developed Corporate Desktop 4.0, a distribution that can be installed in less than 15 minutes and extensively customized thanks to a new post-installation tool.

Corporate Desktop 4.0 focuses on the key points for business: directory administration and integration, mobility, security and ergonomics.
Mandriva also takes advantage of its partnerships with many hardware vendors and software publishers to offer extensive hardware compatibility and a complete range of ISV software. With the support of these companies, Corporate Desktop 4.0 features certified compatibility with Intel®, HP® and NVIDIA® hardware, and integrates software from Arkeia®, BitDefender®, VMware® and many more.

Please read the full press release for more details.
Mandriva offers to test Corporate Desktop 4. You can register and be able to download full version of the Corporate Desktop 4 and access official updates for 1 month.

Development Release: Damn Small Linux 3.4 RC1

Damn Small Linux(DSL) announced the download for their first release candidate of v3.4. Their brief release announcement is as follows.

Change Log for DSL v3.4RC1

1. Updated MurgaLua to v0.4.1
2. Added libXft.so.2
3. Added acpid. Use boot option "acpid"
4. Added bcrypt. Dropped des
5. Improved emelfm for better CLI support
6. Fixed user umount Debian Woody bug.
7. Updated webdata to use bcrypt
8. Updated file backup/restore to use bcrypt via "protect" boot option.

You can download from the Release Candidate section.

Please test carefully as the backup/restore code has changed.
Please test the new bcrypt code with caution.

Development Release: Slackware Linux 12.0 RC1

Patrick Volkerding has announced the first release candidate of Slackware Linux 12.0: "It's that time again, and here we have Slackware 12.0 release candidate 1! If we're lucky, we got it all right the first time. Big thanks to the crew." This message has been posted on the distribution's current changelog, together with a large number of package updates. The upcoming Slackware Linux 12.0 is a major new version; this is the first time a Slackware release will default to a 2.6 kernel (version 2.6.21.5), now compiled with GCC 4 (version 4.1.2). Many other packages also come in their latest versions: the modular X.Org 7.2 with Xgl and Compiz support, KDE 3.5.7, Xfce 4.4.1 and, at long last, Apache 2.2 with PHP 5. As usual, there is no ISO image available for download, but interested beta testers should keep an eye on this FTP server which periodically publishes unofficial ISO images built from the current tree; alternatively, you can build your own DVD image by following these instructions. Happy testing!
(Source : http://distrowatch.com)

Development Release: openSUSE 10.3 Alpha 5

Andreas Jaeger has announced the fifth alpha release of openSUSE 10.3: "I'm glad to announce openSUSE 10.3 Alpha5. The following are some highlights of Alpha5 compared to Alpha4: Linux kernel 2.6.22-rc4; reduced size and cleaned-up dependencies of some packages; glibc 2.6; Emacs 22.1; OpenOffice.org 2.2.1rc3; lots of package renames and splits to create smaller systems and allow a one-CD installation; two one-CD installation media: a GNOME CD and a KDE CD, both contain a small desktop; if openSUSE is installed from CDs, user is offered to bring up network connection in order to be able to install a remote add-on product together with openSUSE." Here is the full release announcement. As usual, a complete set of CD and DVD images are available for download either via BitTorrent or from these FTP/HTTP mirrors; here are two quick links to the new single-CD installation images (MD5): openSUSE-10.3-Alpha5-GNOME-i386.iso (698MB), openSUSE-10.3-Alpha5-KDE-i386.iso (700MB).
(Source : http://distrowatch.com)

Development Release: Ubuntu 7.10 Alpha 1

Martin Pitt has announced the first alpha release (also referred to as "Tribe 1") of Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon": "Welcome to Gutsy Gibbon Tribe 1, which will in time become Ubuntu 7.10. Tribe 1 is the first in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Gutsy development cycle. The primary changes from Feisty have been the re-merging of changes from Debian. Common to all variants, we have upgraded the kernel to 2.6.22." Read the release announcement and visit the distribution's testing page for a detailed list of changes updates. Download (MD5): gutsy-desktop-i386.iso (695MB), gutsy-desktop-amd64.iso (699MB). Besides Ubuntu, the project has also released alpha 1 CD images for Kubuntu (release notes), Edubuntu and Xubuntu (see release notes).
(Source : http://distrowatch.com)

Development Release: MEPIS AntiX 6.5 RC5

MEPIS AntiX is a new, unofficial derivative of MEPIS Linux aimed at computers with as little as 128 MB or RAM. A development release, offering the choice of Fluxbox or IceWM as window managers, is now available for testing: "MEPIS has announced that the release candidate of a community built and maintained ultra-lite derivative of MEPIS has been released for public testing. AntiX is the brainchild of a MEPIS community member, who wanted a version of MEPIS that would work well on very old PC hardware. AntiX is not a lite version of SimplyMEPIS and it is not an official product of MEPIS. It is built from the MEPIS Linux core, but mostly it has a different set of default user applications: Fluxbox and IceWM window managers, AbiWord, Gnumeric, GIMP, Firefox, Sylpheed Claws...." Read the full release announcement for further details. Download: antiX_6.5.rc5_32.iso (403MB, MD5).
(Source : http://distrowatch.com)