Alpha Release: Damn Small Linux 4.0 Alpha 2

Excerpts from the release announcement.

Change log for DSL v4.0 Alpha2

• * Fixed bug reported upon shutdown - cleanup now working.
• * Added more associations for dfm.
• * Updated exit.lua to support swm "exit to prompt".
• * Fixed bug with dfm when booted "legacy".
• * Added .mtoolsrc mtools_skip_check=1
• * Cut rarely used modules (will be available as a separate download).
• * Restored netfilter modules for rc.firewall.
• * Fixed bug in cpanel concerning start of cron (MyCron).
• * Fixed bug in dsl-config for hard drive installations.
• * Fixed wrong cloop in core affecting hard drive installations.
• * Improved hard drive installation for new MyDSL system.
• * Fixed bug in flux2jwm affecting menu items doubling up.
• * Updated many icons for better appearance.
• * Red folder now opens with root privileges.
• * Commented out xload monitor in jwm since torsmo provides this.
  

Read the full release announcement here.
Download here.

Beta Release : Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 Beta 1

Excerpts from the release announcement.

Red Hat is pleased to announce the availability of the *beta* release of 5.1 (kernel-2.6.18-36.el5) for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 family of products including:

- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Advanced Platform for x86, AMD64/Intel(r) 64, Itanium Processor Family, and IBM POWER
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server for x86, AMD64/Intel(r) 64, Itanium Processor Family, IBM POWER, S/390 and System z
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Desktop for x86, and AMD64/Intel(r) 64

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 is still in development and therefore the contents of the media kit, the implemented features, and the supported configurations are subject to change
before the release of the final product. The supplied beta packages and CD images are intended for testing purposes only.
Remember that this early access software is not supported and is not intended for production environments. Do not publish any benchmark or performance results based on this beta release.
Upgrading from beta releases to the GA product will not be supported. The beta testing period is scheduled to continue through September 4, 2007.


Features
---------

This beta release includes the following improvements:

* Virtualization improvements
+ Completion of virtualization support on Itanium2 platforms
- PV (para-virtualized) and HV (fully-virtualized) Itanium2 guests are now fully supported on Itanium2 hardware (HV requires hardware support)
+ Support for 32-bit PV guests on 64-bit AMD64/Intel(r) 64 hosts
+ Improved support for HV guests
- Hot-migration support for HV guests
- General performance improvements
- Host infrastructure for PV drivers (the actual drivers will be delivered separately in the context of the individual supported guest operating systems)
+ Update of the libvirt management layer

* Laptop and Desktop improvements
+ Improved ACPI power management support including support for S3 suspend to RAM and S4 hibernate
+ Technology Preview of a Firewire stack which will be fully supported in a subsequent minor release

* Storage improvements
+ Improved support for autofs load balancing with replicated servers
+ Added replication and migration support for NFSv4 referrals
+ Support for installation to and boot from dm-multipath
+ Update of the Sata sub-system
+ Significant stability improvements to the GFS2 file system
+ Ext3 filesystem now fully supports filesystem sizes of up to 16TB
+ Updated CIFS to version 1.48aRH
+ Technology Preview of the iSCSI target device (iSCSI server)

* Serviceability improvements
+ Improvements to the "crash"-analysis tool
+ IPMI and HPI updates
+ Added Kexec/Kdump support for the host in a virtualized environment

* Networking
+ Update of the Infiniband support and addition of RDMA over Ethernet
+ Technology Preview of the new Devicescape wireless network stack
+ Expand in-kernel socket api
+ IPv6 improvements
+ Technology Preview of new mac80211 wireless stack (ipw 4965 wireless adapter) support. Note the iwl4965-firmware package is not in Beta ISOs but is available on RHN

* Windows Interoperability
+ Samba update for improved interoperability
+ PAM/Kerberos and NSS-LDAP updates for improved integration in Active Directory environments

* Security
+ Improved auditing
+ Smartcard support for SSH
+ Integration of LSPP certification related changes

* Other Kernel Improvements
+ Add support for shared page table for hugetlb pages

* General bug fixing and driver updates

Read the full release announcement here.

Stable Release : Sabayon Linux 3.4

Excerpts from the release announcement.

Distribution Features:

• The most advanced: Linux Kernel 2.6.22 with extra Power Management (PowerTop), Wireless (mac80211), Ext4 Filesystem, Scheduler (CFS) and Virtualization (KVM,Virt-Manager,VirtualBox) support
• Gaming oriented: featuring,

1. Savage 2
2. FlightGear
3. DangerDeep
4. Warsow
5. Nexuiz
6. Torcs
7. Battle of Wesnoth
8. Second Life

• Latest NVIDIA (100.14.11) and AMD (8.38.6) GPU drivers
• The most Windows-aware: supporting NTFS in read/write and Wine Doors utility, that let you install Windows applications as easy as 1-2-3 (using Wine 0.9.40).
• The first to support Ext4 File System: for the braves, Sabayon Linux Installer can easily handle it.
• The most Stable Cutting Edge DVD: featuring Compiz Fusion and Metisse (Technology Preview) integration
• Much more flexible: the Installer now features a really improved execution speed, RAID10 support, Ext4 Support, UUID device naming support, a Packages Selector, a Boot Services Selector and also a Core/Minimal Install Method (Server deployments)
• The Most Laptop Aware: tested and optimized also for Laptop usage
• X.Org 7.3 with automatic Monitor configuration
• KDE 3.5.7
• GNOME 2.18.2
• Strong identity: no Server applications installed (you will find them in the Business Edition)
• Less Duplicated Packages: removed about 140 duplicated applications
• Better Mactel support: added support for Intel ICH8M, Atheros Wireless cards, Backlight management and new Synaptics touchpads
• Better Out of the Box hardware support: Agere et131x,
• VMware Guest Installation Support
• Media Center capabilities: featuring GeeXbox 1.1 and Elisa Media Center (Technology Preview)
• Incredible set of installed and preconfigured Applications (see Packages List below)
• The most tested Stable Release: in the last 4 months, our Core Beta Team have done a great work to accomply our always growing QA standards. This transformed Sabayon Linux 3.4 in the most reliable version ever released.

Read the full release announcement here(Download links on the same page).

Alpha Release : Ubuntu 7.10 Alpha 3

Excerpts from the release announcement.

Hello Ubuntu developers,

Welcome to Gutsy Gibbon Tribe 3, 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, or even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for Ubuntu developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs.

Tribe 3 is the third 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-3/ (Ubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/gutsy/tribe-3/ (Kubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/gutsy/tribe-3/ (Edubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/gutsy/tribe-3/ (Xubuntu)

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

Another set of new features landed in Tribe 3, and are ready for large-scale testing. Please refer to the following web pages for details:

http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/tribe3 (Ubuntu)
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/GutsyGibbon/Tribe3/Kubuntu (Kubuntu)
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GutsyGibbon/Tribe3/Xubuntu (Xubuntu)

This is quite an early set of images, so you should expect some bugs. Among these are the following (so you don't need to bother reporting these if you encounter them):

* The desktop CD hangs on a lot of systems, especially slower ones with little RAM. Sometimes it is just slow, sometimes it will hang eternally. If you experience this and waiting a bit longer does not help, try to restart the computer and the live CD. If that still does not help, please use the alternate CD.
(https://launchpad.net/bugs/126964)

* On Edubuntu server installs, the "Building LTSP root" step takes a very long time (in the order of 15 minutes) without visible progress. It will eventually finish, though.
(https://launchpad.net/bugs/121547)

If the graphical system does not come up or is very slow, please file a bug against compiz:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+filebug

Please include a copy of the files ~/.xsession-errors and /var/log/Xorg.0.log, and the output of glxinfo and xdpyinfo.

If you're interested in following the changes as we further develop Gutsy, have a look at the gutsy-changes mailing list:

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/gutsy-changes

Please be aware that this list usually has several dozen mails every day.

We also suggest that you subscribe to the ubuntu-devel-announce list if you're interested in following Ubuntu development. This is a low-traffic list (a few posts a month) carrying announcements of approved specifications, policy changes, alpha releases, and other interesting events.

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-announce

Bug reports should go to the Ubuntu bug tracker:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu

Read the full release announcement here.

Alpha Release: openSUSE 10.3 Alpha 6

Excerpts from the release announcement.

AJ used to write here, that he's glad to announce. I can't say I am - I am relieved I can announce openSUSE 10.3 Alpha6 to you. I didn't have a chance to put too much testing into more than the i586 DVD5 and the KDE CD. But I didn't want to wait any longer either. So I'm left with hoping the best.

Important Changes Since Alpha5
==============================

* Linux 2.6.22
* libzypp 3.11.8
* gcc 4.2
* Continued splitting of packages to reduce size
* Introduction of x86_64 CDs for both KDE and GNOME

This is a first alpha release containing the new refactored libzypp software management library. The goal was to deliver a working version for this alpha, so expect rough edges, unusal slowdown and behavior, for example YaST integration is really alpha quality. All bug reports are very welcome.

Media and Download
==================

openSUSE 10.3 Alpha6 for i386, x86-64 and ppc comes as different media sets:
* 1 DVD containing the contents of the 5 CDs and the NonOSS AddOn CD
* 1 CD with a default KDE installation (not for ppc yet)
* 1 CD with a default GNOME installation (not for ppc yet)
* 1 AddOn CD with only NonOSS packages on it
* 1 AddOn CD with language packages that are used for extra languages (the DVD contains support for english, french, italian, spanish, german, chinese, japanese, czech, danish, norwegian, khmer, hungarian, polish) (the DVD has support for installation in all languages, just extra packages are only on this extra media)
* DVD/CDs containing the sources corresponding to the media

We have created Delta ISOs from openSUSE 10.3 Alpha5. Please use them for download.

The DVDs and the source media are only available via bittorrent.

Read the full release announcement here.
Download here.

Release Candidate : Damn Small Linux v4.0 Alpha 1

Excerpts from the release announcement.

DSL v4.0 Alpha 1 is now available in the Release Candidate area.

This is a very different version of DSL. It is based on the following wish list as expressed in the forums.

• New 2.4.34 kernel.
• Easier to use user interface
• A real desktop framework
• Drag-N-Drop capability
• Better and more flexible file associations
• Closer coupling of the icons and file manager
• Document centric capability
• Optional menu-less capability
• More intuitive interface to MyDSL extensions

Please read the new Getting Started document. There are many changes in icons, file manager, accessing menu and mydsl.
Note: This is NOT a release candidate. It is the first in an alpha cycle. A such, do expect anomalies.
Updated alpha cuts will be posted as they become available.
When posting feedback here in this forum, please be aware that DSL has four major installations methods.

1. Live CD
2. Frugal
3. Hybrid
4. Traditional

Please indicate which method is being used.

Be aware that this is a new system and that copying only KNOPPIX will not work!

You should test separately from exising installations of DSL.
Should you so attempt to do otherwise please be aware that the following files have changed and are likely in your backup.

1. .xinitrc
2. .desktop
3. .fluxbox/fluxter.bb
4. .fluxbox/menu
5. .jwmrc
6. .filetool.lst
7. .xfiletool.lst

The following are no longer used:

1. .xtdesktop/
2. .emelfm/

Read the full release announcement here.
Download here.

Final Release: Sabayon Linux 1.0 "Business Edition"

Excerpts from the release announcement.

Sabayon Linux "Business Edition" is another of our hard work that proof that we do care for people needs:
You love Sabayon Linux and want to use it for working purpouse but you're not interested at all in games or desktop acceleration?
Sabayon Linux is the only distribution that recognize your hardware perfectly but you want something that will make it perfect on your working enviroment?...
Here you go!!!
Sabayon has prepared for you a fast, cheap and stable solution for every "office needs" you might have!!

INFO/ FEATURES:

• Optimized Server profile
• Kernel 2.6.22 Sabayon Linux Powered
  
• Stable branch for almost all packages
  
• Wpa_supplicant compiled with a better support for mac80211
  
• Latest madwifi driver
  
• Latest Sabayon Installer
  
• Latest Ati-drivers
  
• Latest Nvidia-drivers
  
• Fast installation speed
  
• Package Selection on install time
  
• Really fast working live enviroment
  
• Easy firewall management with Kmyfirewall

Read the full release announcement here.
ISO - Torrents:

• Sabayon Linux x86 Business Edition 1.0 Torrent download
  
• Sabayon Linux x86_64 Business Edition 1.0 Torrent download
  

Download Mirrors:

• Official Mirrors Page

Wubi 7.04.03 : Install Ubuntu in Windows

Wubi is an unofficial Ubuntu installer for Windows users that will bring you into the Linux world with a single click. Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other application. If you heard about Linux and Ubuntu, if you wanted to try them but you were afraid, this is for you.

It does not require you to modify the partitions of your PC, or to use a different bootloader.
Just run the installer, no need to burn a CD.
Wubi keeps most of the files in one folder, and If you do not like, you can simply uninstall it.
Wubi (like Ubuntu) is free as in beer and as in freedom. You will get this part later on, the important thing now is that it cost absolutely nothing, it is our gift to you...

Download here.
Screenshots here.

Final Release: antiX MEPIS 6.5

Excerpts from the release announcement.

MEPIS has announced the "Spartacus" release of antiX, a lightweight derivative of MEPIS. AntiX is built and maintained by MEPIS community member anticapitalista, as a free version of MEPIS for very old 32 bit PC hardware. The antiX web site is at antix.mepis.org and an antiX forum is hosted at www.mepislovers.org

Anticapitalista said, "After months of hard work, I am delighted to announce that antiX "Spartacus" is ready for release. antiX is a fast, stable, lightweight and easy to install livecd for those with old computers or for those who prefer a 'lean and mean' operating system on modern hardware. Enjoy antiX!"

AntiX is built using the MEPIS Linux 6.5 core including the MEPIS 2.6.15 kernel and utilities, but mostly it has a different set of default user applications: fluxbox and ice window managers, Abiword, Gnumeric, Leafpad, Scite, Nano, gimp, xpdf, Firefox2, Sylpheed-claws, Dillo, Links2, Gaim, Xchat, gftp, Pan, Irssi, Raggle RSS reader, Gtk-Gnutella, bittorrent, flash, mozilla-mplayer, xmms, mplayer, audacity, xine, Midnight Commander, rox-filer, xarchive, xcdroast and graveman.

Warren reported "Anti has demonstrated that you don't need to be a programmer to build a very useful derivative of MEPIS Linux. The MEPIS community is very impressed with his achievement."

AntiX is designed to work on computers with as little as 64MB RAM and Pentuim II or equivalent AMD processors. The new ISO images are available in the 'released/antix' subdirectory at the MEPIS Subscriber's Site and at the MEPIS public mirrors.

Read the full release announcement here.

Download the latest version here, currently antiX-Mepis6.5 (410MB) download

antiX is also available on the MEPIS mirrors. mirrors

antiX-Mepis6.5 md5sum and xdelta patches available. antiX

Here is a link to some screenshots. Screenshots1

PCLinuxOS leaves behind Ubuntu

Good news for PCLinuxOS fans!!!! But at the same time die-hard Ubuntu supporters must be worried. Here is why.
Finally PCLOS has taken lead from Ubuntu on the last 3 months based rankings on distrowatch.com. The H.P.D. today showed 2669 for PCLOS against 2668 for Ubuntu.

So the trend is clear Ubuntu is loosing the race to PCLOS. Ubuntu has been the leader quite for a long time and established its reputation. PCLOS on the other hand is relatively new and need to maintain its good work to be at the top of the distro race.

But certainly both the Distributions are really great. As always, not every person is satisfied with these two but overall they have many more positive responses than the negative ones.

I hope this race would continue indefinitely as this would help the Linux and the community grow as a whole.

Final Release : Damn Small Linux 3.4

Excerpts from the release announcement.

DSL v3.4 is now released.
Final change log:

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.
9. New image has been added: dsl-3.4-initrd.iso

I took a little side trip while working on 4.0 to make a much asked for version of DSL.

dsl-3.4-initrd.iso version has the KNOPPIX image packed in the initial ramdisk. This means it is very easy to setup a PXE DSL server.

It also means the entire system always loads into ram. You will need 128MB ram for this version. It will boot as a typical isolinux version and thereby eliminates the scan for the KNOPPIX image. So, by producing this image I have tried to satisfy two areas of improved use.

Note: The embedded install scripts are not aware of the new initrd version.

Read the full release announcement here.
Download dsl-3.4.iso.

Final Release : Slackware Linux 12.0

Excerpts from the release announcement.

Well folks, it's that time to announce a new stable Slackware release again. So, without further ado, announcing Slackware version 12.0! Since we've moved to supporting the 2.6 kernel series exclusively (and fine-tuned the system to get the most out of it), we feel that Slackware 12.0 has many improvements over our last release (Slackware 11.0) and is a must-have upgrade for any Slackware user.

Among the many program updates and distribution enhancements, you'll find two of the most advanced desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.4.1, a fast and lightweight but visually appealing and easy to use desktop environment, and KDE 3.5.7, the latest version of the award-winning K Desktop Environment.

Here are some of the advanced features of Slackware 12.0:

- Runs the 2.6.21.5 version of the Linux kernel from ftp.kernel.org. Also included is a kernel patched with Speakup to support speech synthesizers providing access to Linux for the visually impaired community. The 2.6.x kernel series has matured into a stable kernel, and provides reliable performance for your desktop or your production server.

- System binaries are linked with the GNU C Library, version 2.5. This version of glibc also has excellent compatibility with existing binaries.

- X11 7.2.0. This is the X.Org Foundation's modular X Window System. You will notice many more X package than before, and it's probably best to install them all. There's been much activity in the X development world, and the improvements here in terms of performance and hardware support are sure to be only the beginning.

- Installs gcc-4.1.2 as the default C, C++, Objective-C, Fortran-77/95, and Ada 95 compiler.

- Support for fully encrypted network connections with OpenSSL, OpenSSH, OpenVPN, and GnuPG.

- Apache (httpd) 2.2.4 web server with Dynamic Shared Object support, SSL, and PHP 5.2.3.

- PCMCIA, CardBus, USB, IEE1394 (FireWire) and ACPI support. This makes Slackware a great operating system for your laptop.

- The udev dynamic device management system for Linux 2.6.x. This locates and configures most hardware automatically as it is added (or removed) from the system, and creates the access nodes in /dev. It also loads the kernel modules required by sound cards and other hardware at boot time.

- New development tools, including Perl 5.8.8, Python 2.5.1, Ruby 1.8.6, Subversion 1.4.4, git-1.5.2.2, mercurial-0.9.4, graphical tools like Qt designer and KDevelop, and much more.

- Updated versions of the Slackware package management tools make it easy to add, remove, upgrade, and make your own Slackware packages. Package tracking makes it easy to upgrade from Slackware 11.0 to Slackware 12.0 (see CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT). The slackpkg tool in /extra can also help update from an older version of Slackware to a newer one, and keep your Slackware system up to date. In addition, the slacktrack utility (in extra/) will help you build and maintain your own packages.

- Web browsers galore! Includes KDE's Konqueror 3.5.7, SeaMonkey 1.1.2 (this is the replacement for the Mozilla Suite), and the immensely popular Firefox 2.0.0.4, as well as the Thunderbird 2.0.0.4 email and news client with advanced junk mail filtering.

- The complete K Desktop Environment (KDE) version 3.5.7, including the KOffice productivity suite, networking tools, GUI development with KDevelop, multimedia tools (including the amazing Amarok music player), the Konqueror web browser and file manager, dozens of games and utilities, international language support, and more.

- A collection of GTK+ based applications including pidgin-2.0.2, gimp-2.2.15, gkrellm-2.2.10, gxine-0.5.11, xchat-2.8.2, xsane-0.994, and pan-0.131.

- Large repository of extra software packages compiled and ready to run. This includes various window managers, the Java(TM) 2 Software Development Kit Standard Edition, libsafe (buffer overflow protection for additional security), ISDN support, additional 802.11 drivers, and much more (see the /extra directory).

Read the full release announcement here.
Download here.