Distributions

News and Editorials

Openwall GNU/*/Linux (Owl) 1.0 release

Version 1.0 of "Openwall GNU/*/Linux" (or just "Owl" for short) has been released. Owl is a security-enhanced distribution produced by Solar Designer and others. There have been lots of changes since Owl 0.1-prerelease came out on May 11, 2001. Owl documentation is now available in French, German and Russian in addition to English. Naturally there have been plenty of security fixes. Owl is stable and secure, but it's intended for professionals. You should have Linux system administration experience to use Owl. Alternately, you can outsource the administration or security administration of your servers to the Owl team, including remote installation of the OS. Owl is available for x86, Sparc and Alpha architectures. Owl can be freely downloaded, but in order to support future Owl development, please consider helping out the Owl team by buying a CD, or making a donation.

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Linux Distributions - Facts and Figures (DistroWatch)

Most people who use Linux have a favorite distribution, and many of them get very passionate about their favorites. With so many distributions to chose from it's no wonder that many people are able to find the "perfect distribution" that can inspire that sort of passion. DistroWatch has compiled some facts and figures about some popular distributions, looking at some of the factors that inspire people's passions.

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Distribution News

Debian GNU/Linux

The Debian Weekly News for October 15, 2002 is available. This week introduces a new web-based Debian forum. Debian and the Freedom CPU, human rights and free software, the sendmail trojan, and many other topics are also covered.

For those keeping up with the new Debian installer, this latest status report covers what has been done, and what remains to do.

There is now a Debian developers todo list, with information about all sorts of jobs that need to be done, from those requiring a skilled developer, to those that an average user might do.

Here is some advance warning from the uw-imap maintainer. The latest version of the uw-imap packages (upstream version 2002RC7) are going to make some significant changes due to the inclusion of crypto in main.

SpamAssassin filtering has been enabled on the Bug Tracking System. "30% of the mail sent to the BTS(at least the mail that enters the receive script) is spam, and of that, there were no false hits(at least with a quick glance at the files)."

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Mandrake Linux

The Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter for October 10 is out; it looks at the LSB certification for the Mandrake Linux 9.0 ProSuite Edition, the first 9.0 errata, and more.

Mandrake Linux has released an update advisory for drakconf. Errors were discovered in the Mandrake Control Center that prevents users using the nl_NL, sl, and zh_CN locales from starting the program. The error generated would be "cannot call set_active on undefined values" on line 423.

With the release of Mandrake Linux 9.0, some older distributions will no longer be supported, particularly versions 7.1 and Corporate Server 1.0.1. MandrakeSoft suggests you upgrade to a more recent version of Mandrake Linux if you are still using one of these older versions.

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Slackware Linux

The latest updates to slackware-current include glibc-2.3.1, e2fsprogs-1.29, util-linux-2.11w, bison-1.50, make-3.80, openssl-0.9.6g, fetchmail-6.1.0 (this fixes a fetchmail security issue), cups-1.1.16, and espgs-7.05.5. Read more below, or see the change log for complete details.

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New Distributions

Lonix

Lonix is a console-based full Linux system which runs from a live CD. Based on Linux From Scratch, this distribution includes useful utilities for students and developers. Some servers, such as Apache, Proftpd, and sshd are pre-configured and included. It can also be used as a partition tool (featuring fdisk and parted) or as a rescue CD. Currently, the homepage and some scripts in the CD are just in Spanish. There may be a future release that is also in English. The initial Freshmeat announcement for v1.0rc3 was made on October 13, 2002. Thanks to Joseph J Klemmer

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Minor distribution updates

BanShee Linux/R

BanShee Linux/R has released v0.60 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: Updated to Linux 2.4.19, smartsuite 2.1, bzip2 1.02, dosfs tools 2.8, file (freefile 1.8), and vche 1.7. Iptables 1.2.7a has been added."

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Fli4l (Floppy ISDN/DSL)

Fli4l (Floppy ISDN/DSL) has released stable version 2.0.5 with minor bugfixes. "Changes: Small bugfixes for host variables, a new PCMCIA-drivers, a new tulip driver, a bugfix for the PPtP reconnect problem, new SSH key management, an ISDN routing fix, and smaller bugfixes for proxying."

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KNOPPIX

KNOPPIX has released v3.1-10-10-2002 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: This release includes bugfixes in knoppix-autoconfig and hwsetup signalhandling, and updates to XFree 4.2.1-2."

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LRs-Linux

LRs-Linux has released v0.3.0. "Changes: There are more bugfixes. This release uses LFS (LinuxfromScratch) 4.0. There is a new tool called AutoDEP; needed dependencies are recognized and can easily be selected per AutoSelect."

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uClinux

uClinux has released v2.5.41-uc0 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: This release updates to the latest kernel, and includes lots of MM updates."

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Warewulf

Warewulf has released v1.2 with minor bugfixes. "Changes: Apostrophe parsing in masterconf has been fixed. dhcp-build has been fixed so that it works with Red Hat 8's version of DHCPD (V3). A bug in 'nodeconf' in admin boot device selection has been fixed. There is some logic to help with defining the network using IP and netmask, and an RPM spec file."

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Distribution reviews

Gentoo Linux Reloaded (O'Reilly Network)

The O'Reilly Network has an article about Gentoo Linux. "Portage, our ports system, is really the heart of Gentoo Linux. Portage allows you to set up Gentoo Linux the way you like it, with the optimization settings that you want, and with optional build-time functionality (like GNOME, KDE, MySQL, ALSA, LDAP support, etc.) enabled or disabled as you desire. If you don't want GNOME on your system, your apps won't have optional GNOME support enabled, and if you do, then they will. We prefer to think of Gentoo Linux as a meta-distribution or Linux technology engine. You decide what kind of system you want, and Portage will create it for you."

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November 18 date set for UnitedLinux (Register)

The Register reports on the upcoming release of UnitedLinux, which is scheduled for November 18. "The first full version of UnitedLinux will be available from November 18. That's one of the main snippets of news from an informative presentation on the progress and rationale of the UnitedLinux from a presentation by Gregory Blepp, VP at SuSE and board member of UnitedLinux, made at the London Expo show in London yesterday."

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Lindows Version 2.0.0 review

Extensiontech.com has a review of Lindows 2.0.0, from the perspective of a Windows user. "Lindows is supposed to bring choice to your computer. Not that it's really unlike any other version of Linux. With it's modified KDE interface, and basically running wine, the Linux emulator for Win32 applications. While Linux has struggled to make it to the desktop, talk to any Linux geek, and they may say otherwise. One reason I've personally stayed away from Linux is compatibility with the programs that I'm used to. MS Office for example."

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