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Book review: Red Hat Fedora 5 Unleashed

Your editor recently received a review copy of Red Hat Fedora 5 Unleashed by Paul Hudson and Andrew Hudson, published by Sams. This book comes with a Fedora Core 5 DVD.

The Fedora Project is a fast-paced distribution, and with Fedora Core 6 due out soon, why bother with a book about Fedora Core 5? While it is based on FC5, this book has much useful information that will be applicable to future versions of Fedora, and to other versions of Linux as well. I expect this to be a good reference book long after the included DVD becomes nothing more than drink coaster.

The book strives to be friendly toward new Linux users while presenting information of interest to seasoned users. It contains over a thousand pages divided into seven parts, including the appendix. Part I: Installation and Configuration includes sections on Introducing Fedora, Preparing to Install Fedora, Installing Fedora, Post-Installation Configuration, and First Steps with Fedora. Each section is broken down into sub-sections and contains a reference. Part II covers Desktop Fedora, with a look at the X Window System, window managers and desktops.

Part II also covers RPM, with a nice section covering the rpm command line options, and other methods of installing and removing packages. Once you know how to install packages this section leads you through various applications: email clients, web browsers, IRC and other Internet applications, followed by productivity applications, multimedia applications, graphics, printing and games.

System administration is covered in Part III, with chapters on Managing Users, Automating Tasks, System Resources, Backup and Recovery, Network Connectivity, Remote Access with SSH and Telnet, and a chapter on Xen.

Your editor did not delve deeply into the section on Fedora as a Server, but there is much information there about installing and configuring Apache, with sub-sections for numerous Apache modules. There a brief look at some other web server options as well. There are also chapters on database servers, print and file servers, FTP servers, mail servers, proxy servers, DNS servers, LDAP servers and news servers.

The Programming section looks at Perl, Python, PHP and C/C++ with information about development tools and more. That is followed by a section on housekeeping tasks to keep your Fedora box secure and running at peak efficiency. This section includes a look at many command line tools for examining and managing your system.

So should you buy this book? If you are already running Fedora Core 6, this is not the book for you. If you have a friend that wants to get started on Linux this is a good reference book. Even if you've been running Linux for a while, but want to know more, this is good reference book that will be useful for (at least a few) years to come.

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New Releases

BLAG-50000 Released

BLAG Linux and GNU has released BLAG50000 (grass), a Fedora Core 5 based distribution with additional packages from Extras, FreshRPMS, Dries and ATrpms. "BLAG is a single-cd distro with everything desktop users "expect" from a desktop, plus a collection of nice server apps."

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Distribution News

FC6 test2 freeze slipping by a week

As the title says, Fedora Core 6 test 2 has been delayed. The new freeze date will be July 19, 2006.

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EOL for Mandriva Linux LE2005 is approaching

Mandriva Linux LE2005 is no longer supported as of July 13, 2006. LE2005 users should upgrade to a supported product.

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Ubuntu Edgy merge progress

Matt Zimmerman reports on the progress of merging changes from Debian unstable into Edgy main.

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New Distributions

Univention Corporate Server

Univention Corporate Server (UCS) is a Linux distribution from Univention GmbH, a company that offers a range of Linux-based products and services. The company also offers a Groupware Server and a Corporate Desktop.

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Distribution Newsletters

Debian Weekly News

The Debian Weekly News for July 11, 2006 covers the speed of buildd, hidden files in Debian packages, configuring a boot graphic to the Debian kernel without compiling the kernel, dependency resolution, next Debian Conference in Edinburgh, and several other topics.

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Fedora Weekly News Issue 54

The Fedora Weekly News covers Open Video Contest Deadline Extension, FC6 test2 freeze slipping by a week, New FWN Column: Ask Fedora Project, DejaVu fonts Testing for Fedora, Fedora Core 6, Test 1 Review, and several other topics.

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Gentoo Weekly Newsletter

The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for July 10, 2006 looks at GNOME 2.14 stable, the new VDR project, developer of the week - Andrew Gaffney, and much more.

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DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 159

The DistroWatch Weekly for July 10, 2006 is out. "As the Debian Weekly News celebrates its five years of existence, some of our readers will be pleased to learn about a renewed effort to port the world's largest Linux distribution to the MINIX kernel. On the not so positive side, the Debian/Ubuntu world was rocked by a Debian developer's revelation that there is still much tension between the two projects. Good reviews continue to follow the recent development release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, while a new FreeBSD-based live CD project should cause some welcome excitement among the BSD geeks. In the First Looks section, we'll evaluate a commercial Linux distribution from Japan - Turbolinux 11 "Fuji" International edition."

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Package updates

Fedora updates

Updates for Fedora Core 5: gnupg (supports CCID smart card readers), netatalk (rebuild for broken libgssapi deps), lam (upgrade to upstream version 7.1.2), lftp (add BuildRequires for broken Brew), GFS-kernel (updated for 2.6.17-1.2139_FC5), dlm-kernel (updated for 2.6.17-1.2139_FC5), cman-kernel (updated for 2.6.17-1.2139_FC5), gnbd-kernel (updated for 2.6.17-1.2139_FC5), xorg-x11-drv-ati (stable release from upstream), evolution-sharp (now uses libecal-1.2.so.6 instead of libecal-1.2.so.3), initscripts (adds a udev helper, cleanup, bug fixes), libselinux (bug fix), selinux-policy (bump for FC5), kdebase (bug fixes), gtk2 (update to 2.8.20), kdemultimedia (bug fix), kdelibs (apply upstream patches), gawk (bug fixes), procps (bug fixes), GFS-kernel (updated for 2.6.17-1.2145_FC5), gnbd-kernel (updated for 2.6.17-1.2145_FC5), cman-kernel (updated for 2.6.17-1.2145_FC5), dlm-kernel (updated for 2.6.17-1.2145_FC5), vim (patchlevel 35), compat-db (bug fix), squirrelmail (fix fatal typo in config_local.php).

Updates for Fedora Core 4: squirrelmail (many bug fixes), compat-db (bug fix), squirrelmail (fix fatal typo in config_local.php).

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Mandriva updates

Updates for Mandriva Linux 2006.0: ppp (check setuid() call), cups (bug fix in the cupsd initscript).

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rPath updates

Updates for rPath Linux 1: debugedit (add source code to conary), lighttpd (bug fix), gnome-pilot, gnome-pilot-conduits (support for x86_64 architecture), icu (moves the binaries to /usr/bin), conary, conary-build, conary-repository, conary-policy (Conary 1.0.22 maintenance release)

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Trustix Secure Linux update

Trustix has fixed various bugs in clamav and quagga for TSL 2.2 and 3.0.

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Distribution reviews

Desktop Linux Defined: SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (MadPenguin)

MadPenguin reviews SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10. "If there's anywhere SUSE has excelled since day one, it's been on the desktop. Nobody that has ever used the SUSE Linux desktop in any form could seriously argue that fact. Their Enterprise offering is no different, and I'd say they've even taken it one step further than the free release. For one thing, they've completely redesigned the GNOME interface (more on that in a moment), and integrated Beagle desktop search into the distro so completely that you wonder how you lived without it before. The desktop itself, as far as aesthetics go, is one of the best in the business. Granted, SUSE has always been beautiful, but let me assure you this version keeps the tradition alive and well."

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Review: Xandros Desktop Linux 4.0 (Linux.com)

Linux.com has a review of Xandros Desktop Linux 4.0. "On the technical side, Xandros 4.0 is a Debian-derived distro shipping with a 2.6.15 kernel and a KDE 3.4.2 desktop environment. Xandros has put a lot of work into customizing the user experience, slimming down and reorganizing menus and panels, adding some custom applications, and integrating some third-party Windows compatibility apps -- all with an eye toward making its operating system painless for refugees from Microsoft."

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Page editor: Rebecca Sobol
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