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A Quick Look at Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 is due to be released on March 14. In addition to the rock-solid Server and Client software, RHEL 5 includes some unsupported technology previews, including Stateless Linux, GFS2, FS-Cache, Compiz, AIGLX and much more.

RHEL 5 features a 2.6.18 kernel with virtualization support and many improvements over the 2.6.9 kernel used by RHEL 4. A few features have been backported from 2.6.19 as well for improved performance and scalability.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Release Notes are available by platform: ia64, ppc, S390, x86 and x86_64. Though not finalized yet, they provide a good look at what you'll find in RHEL 5.

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New Releases

64 Studio 1.2.0 'Lover's Rock' released

64 Studio is a GNU/Linux distribution made for digital content creation, including audio, video, graphics and publishing tools. A remix of Debian testing, it comes in both AMD64/Intel64 and 32-bit flavors. Version 1.2.0 is a development release, based on a snapshot of Debian from February 14th. "The 2.6.19-rt kernel package included in this release may cause a kernel oops with certain USB audio hardware. Users of 64 Studio on production systems may therefore prefer to stick with the stable 1.0 release for the time being."

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BackTrack v.2.0 released

BackTrack 2.0 has been released. BackTrack is a Slackware-based live CD distribution aimed at penetration testing. "Currently BackTrack consists of more than 300 different up-to-date tools which are logically structured according to the work flow of security professionals. This structure allows even newcomers to find the related tools to a certain task to be accomplished." The BackTrack page has more information.

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Announcing Fedora 7 Test 2 (6.91)

Fedora 7 Test 2 has been released. Click below for download information, some known problems and a look at what's new since Test 1.

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Announcing Foresight Linux 1.0.1

The Foresight Linux community has announced the release of version 1.0.1 of Foresight Linux. "Foresight Linux is a desktop linux system that just works. Our mission is to provide a truely useful desktop system that is friendly for the novice user, as well as flexible for the power user. Great attention has been payed to making things simple and integrated, and we seek an excellent end-user experience by removing the barriers commonly associated with usage of the Linux Desktop."

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Musix GNU+Linux 0.99 released

Musix GNU+Linux 0.99, a Debian-based distribution aimed at multimedia creation, has been released. "The most remarkable programs in Musix 0.99 are: Ardour 0.99.3 (audio sequencer), Rosegarden 1.4.0 (audio/midi sequencer), Cinelerra (video edition), Bluefish (web design), GIMP (image manipulation), Inkscape (vectorial graphic design) and Blender3D (3D animation)."

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Trustix Secure Linux 3.0.5

The Comodo Trustix team has announced the release of Trustix Secure Linux 3.0.5, an update to the previous "Tikka Masala". The new releases is named "Mirch Masala" to describe the new interesting changes associated. "The highlighted change for this release is the return of anaconda as the preferred choice of installer for Trustix. In addition some of the core packages have been updated to their latest revisions to provide the same level of security and stability."

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Ubuntu Herd 5 released

The fifth Feisty Fawn Herd 5 is out, in Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu and Xubuntu flavors. "The primary focus during the time from Herd 4 has been bug fixing. Please refer to http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/herd5 for information on changes in Ubuntu, and https://wiki.kubuntu.org/FeistyFawn/Herd5/Kubuntu for changes in Kubuntu."

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Distribution News

Debian Project Leader Elections

The platforms for the candidates are now available, as are any rebuttals. The Debian Project Leader Elections 2007 page has links to each candidate's platform, and any rebuttals from that candidate have been appended to the platform. The DPL Debate will be on IRC in #debian-dpl-debate on irc.debian.org (OFTC) at 21:30 UTC, March 10th 2007, ending at 00:30 UTC, March 11th 2007. Discussion of the debate will occur in #debian-dpl-discuss on the same network.

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Daniel Robbins leaves Gentoo, again

It seems you can't go home again. Shortly after rejoining the project, Gentoo founder Daniel Robbins has left again. Click below for links to relevant messages on gentoo-devel mailing list and Alexandre Rostovtsev's humorous summary of the events.

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The projected demise of GNU-Darwin

GNU-Darwin is a free software distribution for PowerPC, Intel and AMD, based on FreeBSD and of course GNU software. "I have recently gotten a handle on the life expectancy of our Distribution in years. Given the current rate of decay and deterioration of our equipment, including file system damage and obsolescence, we can expect that GNU-Darwin will be dead as a the proverbial door-nail within 9 years. In order to avert the demise of the Distro, it would take a major rejuvination of talent, resources, and interest, which is not forthcoming it appears."

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OpenSolaris starter kit

The OpenSolaris starter kit includes tutorials, documentation, and two DVDs filled with useful software like Solaris Express and live CD images for Nexenta OS, BeleniX and SchilliX, Sun Studio compilers and OpenSolaris source code.

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openSUSE and GNOME

Here's a word from the GNOME team at Novell. "The team at Novell responsible for GNOME have been quiet in openSUSE for sometime, even though we already have several great external contributors like James Ogley and Andreas Hanke and we've pushed in significant general technologies like Compiz/Xgl, NetworkManager and Beagle. All this is changing though, we've had an IRC channel for a while but we haven't really advertised it (#opensuse-gnome on irc.freednode.net) and we have an opensuse-gnome mailing list as well now."

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MOTU Application process

The Ubuntu Masters Of The Universe (MOTU) have a new mailing list and a new application form for those who are already involved to take the next step and become a MOTU.

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Distribution Newsletters

DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 192

The DistroWatch Weekly for March 5, 2007 is out. "This is the most enjoyable part of the year for those Linux users who enjoy testing the development releases of Linux distributions - Fedora, Mandriva, Ubuntu, SimplyMEPIS and PCLinuxOS all delivered brand new test builds last week and the first impressions of all them are highly positive. In the news section, a start-up project releases Ubuntu Muslim Edition, Sun Microsystems joins the Free Software Foundation, and Linux and open source software makes a serious impact on education. Finally, don't miss our commentary on the future of DistroWatch Weekly where you can have your say over the direction your favourite publication takes over the next few weeks."

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Fedora Weekly News Issue 79

The Fedora Weekly News for March 5, 2007 covers Announcing Fedora 7 Test 2 (6.91), Reduction of Fedora releases (in Bugzilla), Phoronix: Fedora 7 KVM Virtualization How-To, IBM DeveloperWorks: Build a Fedora Live CD, Linux.com: Fedora cleans its repositories, considers move to Free Software, and several other topics.

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Gentoo Weekly Newsletter

The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for February 26, 2007 looks at GWN is seeking help, Heard in the community, Gentoo in the press and several other topics.

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Package updates

Fedora Core 5 Update: kernel-2.6.19-1.2288.2.4.fc5

Xen is back in the Fedora kernel package.

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Newsletters and articles of interest

Fedora cleans its repositories, considers move to Free Software (Linux.com)

Linux.com looks at the direction of Fedora. "The Red Hat-sponsored Fedora project is undergoing several changes before the release of its next version. In preparation for Fedora 7, which will fuse the Core and Extra software repositories, Fedora's developers are auditing the repositories for non-free and non-open software that doesn't meet the project's guidelines. Eventually, the project may change its package guidelines to only allow Free Software."

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Making NetBSD Multiboot-Compatible (O'ReillyNet)

O'ReillyNet looks at making NetBSD multiboot-compatible. "The i386 architecture is full of cruft required to maintain compatibility with old machines that go back as far as the 8086 series. Technically speaking, these features aren't necessary anymore because any recent computer based on this architecture uses a full 32-bit operating system that could work perfectly fine without the legacy code. Unfortunately, the compatibility hacks remain in place and hurt the development of new software."

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The Perfect Desktop - Part 3: Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft (HowtoForge)

HowtoForge sets up a desktop with Ubuntu 6.10 "Edgy Eft". "With the release of Microsoft's new Windows operating system (Vista), more and more people are looking for alternatives to Windows for various reasons. This tutorial is the third in a series of articles where I will show people who are willing to switch to Linux how they can set up a Linux desktop (Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft in this article) that fully replaces their Windows desktop, i.e. that has all software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that runs also on older hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge."

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Distribution reviews

Puppy Linux 2.14: This Hound Has Teeth (PerformancePC)

PerformancePC reviews Puppy Linux 2.14. "Put together from scratch by Australian Barry Kauler, Puppy Linux is an extraordinary development, being a first-class OS than can load itself into and run completely from as little as 128 MB of RAM! And this includes being able to open and save your work completely in RAM. Naturally, working this way is very fast and quiet; you won't hear much noise coming from your hard drive! Right from the sparse opening screen and the puppy bark, you are treated to a very warm, comforting little world unto itself."

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Enterprise (InternetNews.com)

InternetNews.com looks at RHEL 4.5. "This week Red Hat rolled out a beta release of its fifth update to RHEL 4 officially tagged Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5, providing users with a small taste of the virtualization that is to come in RHEL 5."

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Sidux: A live CD for Debian unstable (Linux.com)

Linux.com reviews Sidux. "Sidux aims to be the best Debian sid-based live CD -- and it succeeds. It offers a clean, easy hard disk install and a fast release cycle. It's a rare distribution that impresses me before I've even tried it, but sidux did just that when, a few hours after I'd downloaded and burned a two-day-old preview release, the project announced that the next release was available for download. Clearly the sidux team intends to live up to its fast release philosophy."

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Bootable system rescue Linux CD gets updated (DesktopLinux.com)

DesktopLinux looks at SystemRescueCD 0.3.3. "The Gentoo-based SystemRescueCD 0.3.3 live CD was released on March 1, sporting a spiffy new 2.6.19.2 kernel and the WMaker desktop environment. As its name implies, SystemRescueCd is a Linux system on a bootable CD-ROM that can be used for repairing a system and its data following a crash."

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