Distributions

News and Editorials

Happy Holidays

Another year has passed, and Linux distributions have gotten more numerous than ever before. For many years analysts have predicted a consolidation of distributions, but instead we continue to see growth. Even UnitedLinux is more of a collaboration than a consolidation. Our first issue in January, 2003 will take a long look at the distribution news of 2002, a year of many changes.

We at LWN.net appreciate the opportunity to bring you news on the diversity of Linux distributions. We would like to thank all of you that contributed to LWN's survival and we look forward to bringing you more news in the coming year.

Happy holidays to everyone.

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Distribution News

Debian Weekly News - December 17th, 2002

Here's the latest issue of the Debian Weekly News. This week David Graham, leader of the Open and Free Technology Community (OFTC) talks about how OFTC manages itself; David Welton asks whether the Debian project has reached a state where it is no longer manageable; and lots more.

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Debian GNU/Linux 3.0r1 released

The first update to Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 has been released. It adds a (large) set of security updates and a few other bug fixes to the base Woody distribution.

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Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter - Issue #71

The Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter for December 12, 2002 is out. This week the newsletter covers MandrakeSoft's "OS Refugee Offer"; the PPC Cooker; financial results for 2001/2002; and much more.

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Slackware Linux

Slackware users may have noticed that the Slackware website has been down. This note, dated December 18, 2002, explains why. "Due to a series of DDoS attacks which began on Dec 11 and continued until yesterday afternoon, it has been difficult or impossible to reach our website for nearly a week. We're glad that it seems to have stopped, but have no idea who is behind the attacks, why they're doing it, or if they will start again. We apologize for the downtime. An investigation into the source of the attacks is ongoing, and we ask that anyone with any information that may help contact the Slackware Security team at security@slackware.com. Thanks for your patience."

Now that the site is back up you can check out all the latest changes to slackware-current on the change log.

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Terra Soft Launches YDL.net Online Community for Yellow Dog Linux Users

Terra Soft Solutions has announced "YDL.net" an online community for Yellow Dog Linux users.

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New Distributions

Embedded Freedom Linux

Embedded Freedom Linux is a bootable Linux CD, to help new users see the power of Linux. It is built with BBLCD, WhiteDwarf, and Slackware packages. It works on PCs and laptops, supports wireless PCMCIA cards and almost any network, video, and sound card, and features software from many open source projects such as fvwm95 ( familiar windows 95 look and feel) gftp, GTK-Gnutella, centerICQ, Dillo, sylpheed, airsnort, SSH, and more. Freedom joins our list with version 1.

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Skolelinux

Skolelinux is a Norwegian distribution, where it is used as a server with thin clients. Since its used in the educational system, it joins the Educational section of our list. Thanks to Morten Sickel

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Minor distribution updates

CRUX

CRUX has released v1.0 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: Basic support for JFS and PCMCIA were added. GNU locate was replaced by slocate. About 50 other packages were updated, such as Linux 2.4.20, Glibc 2.3.1, and GCC 3.2.1."

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KNOPPIX

KNOPPIX has released v3.1-12-12-2002 with major bugfixes. Changes in 3.1-10-12-2002 include an updated Mozilla, cloop support using the kernel's zlib_deflate function, and an updated mount-aes. Also clara was replaced with gocr, and knx-hdinstall 0.35 was included to give filesystem choices and initrd support.

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Lycoris ProductivityPak ships

Lycoris has announced a new office suite featuring simple installation coupled with Word, Excel and PowerPoint compatibility for Desktop/LX users.

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MontaVista Linux

Xilinx, Inc.and MontaVista Software announced that MontaVista Linux Professional Edition has been certified for the new Xilinx Virtex-II Pro ML300 development platform.

Altera Corporation and MontaVista Software announced that the MontaVista Linux Professional Edition now supports Altera's Excalibur EPXA1 Development Kit.

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NSA Security-enhanced Linux

NSA SELinux has updated its web site including the mail list archive. The site includes a new release of the LSM-based SELinux prototype. The base kernel versions have been updated to 2.4.20 and 2.5.51. Initial SID and context for SCMP packets has been added. Additional policy enhancement and patch contributions have been merged. The logrotate patch has been updated to 3.6.5-2. The private file oversight in LSM, inode_doinit bug in SELinux, and selopt compile problems have all been fixed. Also version 2002121210 has been released with minor feature enhancements.

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RxLinux

RxLinux has released 1.2.2 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: Three new packages have been added: Jboss, Tomcat, and Jdk. Jdk as been bundled as a compressed ISO file (ziso), and can be mounted directly from the CDROM or installed in a RAMdisk. Rxlinux can now be customized as a diskless Web application server. A few minor bugs have been fixed. More code cleanup was done."

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xbox-linux

xbox-linux has released v17-12-2002 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: A new XBE file format description was added. Ed's ISO 0.0.9 is available, as is the first beta of the 'Cromwell' BIOS."

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NeTraverse and Xandros Form Strategic Partnership

NeTraverse Inc. and Xandros announced a strategic partnership which will combine Win4Lin with the Xandros Desktop.

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Distribution reviews

Review of Xandros Desktop 1.0 (DistroWatch)

DistroWatch puts Xandros Desktop through its paces. " The review will be split into four parts. First, I'll take a brief look at installation. Next, I'll poke around the desktop, test the available applications and take a more detailed look at Xandros-specific tools and utilities. The next section will be devoted to pleasures and annonyances of general usage. Finally, and this is something new, a general purpose FAQ of those questions that have been asked on public forums and not answered elsewhere. The reason for this section is that, unlike Corel Linux, Xandros Desktop is not available for free download so consumers are naturally hesitant to spend money on a product that has yet to prove itself."

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SuSE, Red Hat in Linux shootout (ZDNet)

ZDNet compares SuSE 8.1 Profesional with Red Hat Linux 8.0 Professional. "Analysis: Windows users thinking of switching to Linux--either as an alternative or as an adjunct in a dual-boot system--should turn to SuSE due to its ease of use. But more seasoned users will find the stability and stronger font control of Red Hat more to their taste."

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Sharing Broadband Internet Access with SmoothWall 0.9.9 (Linux Orbit)

Linux Orbit plays around with SmoothWall 0.9.9 (the latest free release). "So, you want to share your Internet connection with more than one computer in your house, and you want it to be secure. You're in the right place. SmoothWall 0.9.9 (the latest free release) is a small Linux operating system that allows you to do that, and much more."

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Libranet 2.7 - Debian Made Easy (DistroWatch)

DistroWatch reviews Libranet GNU/Linux 2.7, a commercial Linux distribution based on Debian. "A key feature of Libranet is its proprietary system administration tools, the text-based Adminmenu or the graphics-based Xadminmenu. Sysadmin duties you can accomplish with this very easy-to-use utility include hardware reconfiguration, adding and removing Libranet's DEB packages, configuring X-Window, recompiling the kernel, setting the time and date, and pretty much anything else you could have done during the installation procedure itself. One thing still missing from Adminmenu is group administration - for this you must use old-fashioned command-line tools such as "addgroup" and "delgroup". Almost certainly, group administration will be added to the next rendition of Adminmenu, but for now it's a noticeable omission."

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Santa Tux's Corner: The Gift of Linux, Part 2 (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal puts Knoppix on the gift list. "Loading Knoppix is as easy as cookies and milk. Make sure your PC is set to boot from the CD, pop the disc into the drive and reboot. Knoppix boots up to a nice, graphical screen with a simple boot: prompt. Quite honestly, you can simply press Enter here and let Knoppix do the rest; this is an amazingly simple install. Consequently, it makes for a spectacular Linux ambassador. But I digress."

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Page editor: Rebecca Sobol
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