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News and Editorials

A Quick Look at grml

GRML 0.7 (codename Bootenschnitzl) was released earlier this week. GRML is a Debian-based Live CD with software for users of text tools and system administrators. In addition to the live CD, it supports installation to a hard drive or a USB stick. When using the live CD you save configuration files to a RW-CD, to a USB stick or create a partition on the hard drive for that purpose.

The kernel in 0.7 is a vanilla 2.6.16.1 kernel with several additional patches and modules. Other packages in this version were updated to Debian unstable as of April 7, 2006, with a few minor updates added later.

The live CD boots to a root console. Another user "grml" is available in the default setup and there is a 'grml-x' script that can be used to start up X and a window manager such as fluxbox. See the screenshots page for some views of grml booting and running with fluxbox.

Although grml-0.7 is small, there is another, even smaller version, grml-small currently at 0.2. There is also a repository with over 2300 packages, with plenty of security and networking tools, data recovery and forensic tools, and more that can be added with a simple apt-get.

GRML is released under the GNU General Public License. The FAQ contains answers to most questions. All in all it looks like grml is shaping into a nice, lightweight distribution that many system administrators will enjoy having in their tool kit.

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New Releases

FoX Desktop 1.0 Professional

FoX Linux has announced (in Italian) the release of FoX Desktop 1.0 Professional. This version is based on Fedora Core 4 and features Linux kernel 2.6.15 with drivers for NTFS, ndiswrapper, Ati Radeon, NVidia GeForce, plus KDE 3.5.1 and more.

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Distribution News

Debian Project Leader Election 2006 Results

The winner of the 2006 Debian project leader election has been announced. "I would like to thank all the candidates for their service to the project, for standing for the post of project leader, and for offering the developers a strong and viable group of candidates. Finally, I would like to congratulate Anthony Towns, the Project Leader-elect, for his success." See the Debian Project Leader Elections 2006 page for more information. Here is AJ's first response to the news, and more thoughts at AJ's indolence log.

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Debian news

Joerg Jaspert reports that amd64 packages are in unstable and will soon move to testing. "As inclusion of AMD64 in Debian is now at a point where unstable nearly has all packages built we are at the point to move on with this archive."

Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt takes a look at New Maintainer reform. "Problems with the New Maintainer process have been a regular topic on Debian mailing lists in the past few months. As I'm both interested in not reading more flamewars and actually improving things, I've summarized my experiences and tried to come up with something that is perhaps able to fix most of the problems. Please note that this is my opinion, not something decided by the NM team."

Wouter Verhelst presents some bits from the experimental autobuilder team. "As many of you undoubtedly know, experimental is autobuilt these days. Experimental is a bit of a special case in Debian's distributions, which means that our experimental autobuilders act slightly differently from those of unstable, stable-security, and others."

Raphael Hertzog has announced the Debian Python Modules Team and issued an invitation for all maintainers of python modules to join. Python 2.4 will soon be the default, so the goal is to update all packages that currently depend on older versions.

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It's the HUG DAY!

Ubuntu thinks that all bug triagers should get a hug for their efforts. There will be a HUG DAY April 13, 2006. If you missed it, don't worry. Click below to see how you can get involved in squishing bugs in Dapper Drake every day.

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openSUSE at LinuxTag 2006

Look for openSUSE at LinuxTag 2006 and join the openSUSE Day subconference.

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Distribution Newsletters

Debian Weekly News

The Debian Weekly News for April 11, 2006 covers the preparations for a Sarge update (Debian 3.1r2), the DPL election, a server for internationalization efforts, a proposed general resolution to alter the Debian Free Software Guidelines, Linksys NSLU2 support in the Debian installer, changes to su and sudo, Xen in Debian, and several other topics.

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Fedora Weekly News Issue 41

The Fedora Weekly News for April 10, 2006 looks at the Fedora Foundation, Fedora Art Team Now Open, LinuxWorld and FUDCon Boston 2006, FUDCon Boston 2006 Videos, Linux Online: Fedora Core 5 Review, LinuxForms: Overview of the ten major Linux distributions, University Launches Linux Technology Center, and other topics.

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Mandriva Community Newsletter #118

The Mandriva Community Newsletter for April 7, 2006 covers Mandriva's win of Editor's Choice in TUX Magazine's distro smackdown, Warly speaks to the Mandriva Club, Transgaming signs agreement with Polish Mandriva partner, and more.

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DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 146

The DistroWatch Weekly for April 10, 2006 is out. "This will be an interesting week for distribution developers and beta testers - if everything goes according to the plan, the release candidate of the much delayed SUSE Linux 10.1 should be released later this week, together with the first beta of Ubuntu Linux 6.06. We'll also look at the events of the past week - the unexpected burial of the Fedora Foundation plans, troubles in Kubuntu, and elections of the new Debian Project Leader. As promised, the winners of the Beginning Ubuntu Linux competition are also announced."

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Package updates

Fedora updates

Updates for Fedora Core 5: sane-backends (don't use automake), iptraf (fix crash), tix (shared lib placement fixup), xscreensaver (patch zombie process leaks), GConf2 (bug fixes, improvements), liboil (update to 0.3.8), gnome-screensaver (refresh kerberos credentials), alsa-utils (bug fix), system-config-printer (update to 0.6.151.2), gnome-screensaver (fix idle activity detection), xsane (bug fixes), cairo (update to 1.0.4), subversion (update to 1.3.1), netpbm (update to 10.33), shadow-utils (bug fix), gnbd-kernel (build xen for x86_64), cman-kernel (build xen for x86_64), dlm-kernel (build xen for x86_64), GFS-kernel (build xen for x86_64), ghostscript (bug fixes), checkpolicy (FC5 update), libsemanage (FC5 update), libsepol (FC5 update), selinux-policy (FC5 update), eclipse-changelog (update to version 2.0.2), gaim (bug fix), squirrelmail (fixes Chinese and Korean encoding).

Updates for Fedora Core 4: sane-backends (bug fix), netpbm (update to 10.33), gaim (bug fix), squirrelmail (fixes Chinese and Korean encoding).

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Trustix updates

Trustix Secure Linux has updated device-mapper, evms, lvm2 and vsftpd. Various bugs have been fixed for TSL 3.0.

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Newsletters and articles of interest

Installing Software on Debian (O'ReillyNet)

O'ReillyNet provides a primer on Aptitude, with a look at Synaptic. "Using APT is the most important skill for a Debian administrator to learn. The two most popular tools in Debian for managing packages are apt-get and aptitude. Most people find aptitude superior, as it not only includes all of apt-get's features, but also includes many others, such as an interactive menu-driven mode and the removal of packages when you no longer need them."

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DCC Alliance: I'm not dead yet! (Linux-Watch)

Linux-Watch takes a look at the current status of the DCC Alliance. "Rumors were swirling around the halls of LinuxWorld that the often-troubled DCC Alliance was going to fold its tents and disappear. What actually happened was that several of the members met quietly and agreed to a tenuous plan to move forward under a new president pro tem, Kevin Carmony, Linspire Inc.'s CEO."

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Using Distrowatch (Zenwalk.org)

Zenwalk.org takes a look at Distrowatch scoring. "This article is about the "Hits Per Day" (HPD) score on Distrowatch, what it can be used for and how you can read a lot of different information out of it. On Distrowatch you can follow the "popularity" of almost any distro of your choice. I put quotes around the popularity because you can question what the score actually means."

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Distribution reviews

Damn Small Linux plus pendrive equals portable paradise (Linux.com)

Linux.com takes a look at Damn Small Linux on a pen drive. "I recently acquired a 256MB USB pendrive that I use for storing personal documents and work-related stuff. As a Linux fan who wanted to make the most of his new toy, I went looking for the simplest, smallest distro I could find that could boot from a pendrive. I found Debian-based Damn Small Linux, whose long list of bundled applications fits into a meager 50MB. The more I use it, the more I like it."

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My desktop OS: Damn Small Linux (NewsForge)

NewsForge hears from a fan of Damn Small Linux. "Damn Small Linux is a great match for older hardware because it's loaded with lightweight software. My machine has a 166MHz Pentium CPU with 32MB of RAM and a 1.2GB hard drive, and it runs extremely well with DSL. I've always favored simple applications that do one job and do it well, so the stripped down nature of the programs included with DSL doesn't bother me. However, if I need the extra power of more complex programs, they're a breeze to install."

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Get your game on with SuperGamer-1 (TuxMachines)

TuxMachines.org looks at the SuperGamer-1 live DVD. "The SuperGamer-1 is a modification of the famous and well respected PCLinuxOS distribution optimized for gaming. It includes 3d acceleration drivers, the underlying pclos system, and several nice games (or demos). It was originally based on P91 and it is still so today. Much of the everyday software included on the disk/iso is beginning to grow a little long in the tooth, but Darin, the shy and quiet developer, states, "this is completely pclinuxos with a few tweaks and can be updated to P92 levels at the very least. The supergamer is completely compatible with all the updates and normal mirrors are used in synaptic...it will update completely to all the new stuff. I will be doing some testing to see how compatible taking the base supergamer up to P93 levels will be." And of course, being based on PCLinuxOS, the infallible harddrive installer we all know and love is also included, as well as the PCLinuxOS Control Center and Synaptic."

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