Distributions

Fedora Summit

There was a Fedora Summit this week to discuss a public roadmap for Fedora 7 and other Fedora-centric topics. The summit was still in progress at press time. The meeting was partly face-to-face, with additional people chiming in via IRC and telephone.

Your editor was not able to attend the summit, so this is based on wiki pages and IRC logs. First and foremost though, it seems that Fedora Core packages will move into the community infrastructure currently used for Fedora Extras. Opening Core will make it easier for outside contributors and encourage more community participation. One side effect of that might be a smaller Fedora base platform. Dare we hope for a single install CD? A new build system was proposed to support the more open infrastructure.

There was considerable discussion about the role of Fedora Legacy and the possibility of extending Fedora support from the current ~9 months to about 13 months, so that users could reasonably move from FCn to FCn+2. Fedora Legacy would disappear, or be reabsorbed into the main Fedora project. Jesse Keating has some details about this proposal in this blog post. Suffice to say that this sparked some discussion on the Fedora Legacy mailing list.

A policy for secondary architectures was proposed. Fedora currently focuses on x86 and x86_64, but this proposal would support other architectures such as PPC or Sparc. The proposal comes from Tom Callaway from the Aurora Sparc Project.

Overall, Fedora 7 will likely be a different beast than previous releases. More like the community oriented distribution that Red Hat promised.

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EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0.10

EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0.10 is now available. The most significant new feature, perhaps, is the "SELinux Control Console," which provides a graphical interface for some SELinux management tasks.

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Debian Installer etch RC1 released

The Debian Installer team has announced the first release candidate (RC1) of the installer for Debian GNU/Linux Etch. Click below for a look at the many improvements and known problems.

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NetBSD Live! 2007

The NetBSD project has released a live CD based on 4.4BSD-Lite. See the release notes for more information.

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openSUSE 10.2 Beta2 is available

The second beta of openSUSE 10.2 (codename Basilisk Lizard) is out. It contains a large number of enhancements and updates done by the open source community and Novell's development teams. There was a problem with openSUSE-10.2-Beta2-Addon-Lang-i386.iso and openSUSE-10.2-Beta2-Addon-Lang-i386.torrent, although corrected versions should have hit the mirrors by now. You'll find the MD5SUMS of the new files here.

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Pardus Linux 2007 beta

Pardus has announced the release of Pardus Linux 2007 beta. "Pardus operating system's latest beta version, codenamed "ATA", is out for download and testing. This beta version will be followed by the stable version Pardus 2007, to be released on December 18th, 2006. Pardus is a Linux based operating system, developed under the auspices of TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) UEKAE (National Electronic and Cryptography Research Institute)." Pardus "ATA" comes as a single CD with Dutch, English, German and Turkish support on the desktop.

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Ubuntu Customization Kit 1.3 released

The Ubuntu Customization Kit (UCK) 1.3 is out with many fixes and improvements, including built-in support for Edgy. UCK is a tool that helps you customizing official Ubuntu Live CDs (including Kubuntu/Xubuntu and Edubuntu) to your needs. You can add any package to the live system, for example language packs, or applications.

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Gentoo Anonymous CVS and SVN now available

Anonymous read-only CVS and SVN services for Gentoo repositories are now available for use. "The anonymous services are primarily intended help our non-dev contributors easily produce patches and modifications (cvs diff/svn diff), and provide easier access to the source for gentoo-hosted projects."

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New openSUSE Mailinglists

Mailing lists at suse.com have migrated to lists with new names at opensuse.org. Click below to find the new lists.

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Slackware -current

Slackware -current is undergoing renovations to the toolchain (gcc, glibc, binutils, etc.). "In addition, these things aren't going as smoothly as anticipated. I'd like to put the NPTL version of glibc into /lib and the LinuxThreads version into /lib/obsolete/linuxthreads (since some old binaries are going to need them), but doing this prevents the use of a 2.4 kernel. Perhaps it's finally time to drop support for Linux 2.4? Personally, I'd rather not as 2.4 is more forgiving of flaky hardware and thus tends to get better uptimes (at least on the servers I run ;-). Comments about this issue are welcomed."

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Release Schedule, Herd 1 and "later" bugs

Ubuntu has announced a release schedule for the Feisty Fawn. According to the schedule we can expect the first Herd CD on November 30. The final Feisty release is currently set for April 19, 2007.

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YDL v5.0 for PLAYSTATION3

Terrasoft Solutions has announced that Yellow Dog Linux (YDL) 5.0 for the Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. PLAYSTATION(R)3 will be made available via YDL.net Enhanced accounts on Monday, November 27, 2006.

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Fedora Weekly News Issue 66

The Fedora Weekly News covers Fedora Summit Preparations, Fedora Ambassadors Day, Fedora Directory Server 1.0.4 is released, Announcing pungi-0.1.0, Why every child deserves a laptop, OLPC taps 2.6.19 kernel, plus Fedora reviews and more.

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Gentoo Weekly Newsletter

The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for November 6, 2006 covers things heard in the community, Linux Day in Italy, tips on searching overlays and running 32-bit mplayer with 64-bit kmplayer and several other topics.

The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for November 13, 2006 is also available. This edition covers anonymous CVS and SVN services, Gentoo-based Ruby on Rails service, summaries from gentoo-user and more.

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DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 177

The DistroWatch Weekly for November 13, 2006 is out. "As Novell continues to endure the wrath of the open source developer and user community, many people are wondering whether they should boycott Novell's products. In the meantime, openSUSE continues its 10.2 development process unabated and on target for the early December release. Also in the news: a war of words erupts between Fedora and Ubuntu, Feisty Fawn's new features attract fresh controversy, Debian prepares a new set of kernels for "etch", and Slackware introduces modern features into its "current" tree. We'll bring you the results of our Mandriva Linux 2007 PowerPack competition and continue our discussion on DistroWatch's Page Hit Ranking statistics."

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Fedora updates

Updates for Fedora Core 6: librsvg2 (update to 2.16.1), gcalctool (update to 5.8.25), libxklavier (bug fix), speex (update to 1.2beta1), cairo (update to 1.2.6), libX11 (bug fixes), gnome-panel (update to 2.16.1), jwhois (use the new upstream config), system-config-printer (bug fix update to 0.7.35), redhat-menus (pick up missing translations), mikmod (bug fix), policycoreutils (bump for FC6), selinux-policy (bump for FC6), perl-DateManip (bug fixes), gaim (bug fixes), gnome-vfs2 (update to 2.16.2), eel2 (update to 2.16.1), nautilus (bug fixes), nautilus-cd-burner (pass joliet flag when using growisofs), gnome-python2-extras (rebuild against Firefox), xorg-x11-xinit (bug fixes), gnome-pilot-conduits ($libdir change), pygobject2 (multilib bug fixes), system-config-kickstart (bug fix), gnome-python2 (update to 2.16.2), man-pages-fr (change in spec file), nautilus (bug fixes), nfs-utils (upgrade to 1.0.10), sysstat (add NFS mount statistics), libsoup (update to 2.2.97), hal-cups-utils (fix the 'select printer model' dialog), openoffice.org (bug fixes), foomatic (database update), oprofile (add Intel Core 2 support, AMD64 event names), nfs-utils (upgrade to 1.0.10), iscsi-initiator-utils (rebase to upstream open-iscsi-2.0-730).

Updates for Fedora Core 5: jwhois (use the new upstream config), mikmod (bug fix), arts (KDE 3.5.5 release), kdelibs (KDE 3.5.5 release), kdeaccessibility (KDE 3.5.5 release), kdeaddons (KDE 3.5.5 release), kdeadmin (KDE 3.5.5 release), kdeartwork (KDE 3.5.5 release), kdebase (KDE 3.5.5 release), kdebindings (KDE 3.5.5 release), kdeedu (KDE 3.5.5 release), tcpdump (bug fixes), kdegames (KDE 3.5.5 release), kdegraphics (KDE 3.5.5 release), kdemultimedia (KDE 3.5.5 release), kdenetwork (KDE 3.5.5 release), kdepim (KDE 3.5.5 release), kdesdk (KDE 3.5.5 release), kdeutils (KDE 3.5.5 release), kdevelop (KDE 3.5.5 release), kdewebdev (KDE 3.5.5 release), kde-i18n (KDE 3.5.5 release), iscsi-initiator-utils (rebase to upstream open-iscsi-2.0-730).

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Mandriva updates

Updates for Mandriva Linux 2007.0: gnuplot (fix a segmentation fault), desktop-common-data (fix menu problems), ical (bug fixes), webmin (bug fix), opensc (smart card bug fix).

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rPath updates

Updates for rPath Linux 1: conary (Conary 1.0.38 maintenance release), rmake (function correctly with Conary 1.0.38).

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Trustix updates

Updates for Trustix Secure Linux 2.2 & 3.0: clamav, freetds, gettext (various bug fixes).

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Ubuntu updates

Updates for Ubuntu 6.10: debootstrap_0.3.3.0ubuntu8~edgy1, brasero_0.5.0-0ubuntu1~edgy1.

Updates for Ubuntu 6.06: gnome-commander_1.2.0-3.1~dapper1, debootstrap_0.3.3.0ubuntu8~dapper1, mpd_0.12.1-1ubuntu1~dapper1, eagle_4.16-2~dapper1, scorched3d_40-1ubuntu1~dapper1.

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Ubuntu Developer Summit report: X.org improvements, driver controversy, and bling (Linux.com)

Linux.com has this report from the latest Ubuntu Developers Summit. "The announcement that Ubuntu will ship binary drivers by default in Feisty is getting a lot of negative commentary from users and Ubuntu members alike. Of course, there's also a vocal contingent that complains that Ubuntu and other distros are unsuitable for general users because they don't ship with Nvidia or other binary drivers enabled. There's no position here that will satisfy all users."

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The Perfect Setup - OpenVZ with CentOS 4.4 (HowtoForge)

HowtoForge sets up OpenVZ on CentOS. "In this HowTo I will describe how to prepare a CentOS 4.4 server for OpenVZ virtual machines. With OpenVZ you can create multiple Virtual Private Servers (VPS) on the same hardware, similar to Xen and the Linux Vserver project. OpenVZ is the open-source branch of Virtuozzo, a commercial virtualization solution used by many providers that offer virtual servers."

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Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) LAMP Server Installation with Screenshots (Debian Admin)

Debian Admin has a howto article on setting up a server on Ubuntu 6.10. "Automatic LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) In about 15 minutes, the time it takes to install Ubuntu Edgy Server Edition, you can have a LAMP server up and ready to go. This feature, exclusive to Ubuntu Server Edition, is available at the time of installation."

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How To Compile A Kernel - The Fedora Way (HowtoForge)

HowtoForge builds a custom kernel on Fedora. "Each distribution has some specific tools to build a custom kernel from the sources. This article is about compiling a kernel on Fedora systems. It describes how to build a custom kernel using the latest unmodified kernel sources from www.kernel.org (vanilla kernel) so that you are independent from the kernels supplied by your distribution. It also shows how to patch the kernel sources if you need features that are not in there. I have tested this on Fedora Core 6."

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Fedora Core 6: Kneel before Zod! (Linux.com)

Linux.com reviews Fedora Core 6. "The FC6 schedule slipped a bit at the last minute due to a handful of serious issues, such as an Ext3 data corruption bug, but the Fedora team managed to get the final release out pretty close to schedule. Unfortunately, it's still a bit buggy in some scenarios. It might have been better to hold off releasing FC6 for another week or two to fix the problems, but it is a good release if you're willing to be careful during the install."

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Review: 3 Linux Desktops Put To The Test (CRN)

CRN reviews and compares Linspire, Xandros and SLED. "System builders considering a Linux desktop are faced with a dizzying array of choices. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of Linux distributions to choose from. Narrowing the field of contenders basically comes down to what works best for both the system builder and its customers. Finding that fit often leads system builders to pursue a commercial distribution over an open-source one. Today's commercial desktop Linux distributions make a lot of sense for system builders, mostly because of three factors: recurring revenue, licensing and support. With that in mind, the CRN Test Center set out to compare commercial versions of Linux that are aimed at the channel, specifically the custom-system channel."

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Userfriendly Linux Shoot-out (openaddict.com)

openaddict.com compares Xandros Home Edition Premium and Linspire Five-O. "Today I'm taking a look at two ultra-userfriendly Linux distributions: Xandros Home Edition Premium and Linspire Five-O. I'm comparing these two against each other for their technical merits, ease of installation, look/feel, available software and ease of use. Are these two commercial Linux distros easy enough for your Grandmother? Read on to find out."

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