Distributions

News and Editorials

Is RPM Doomed? (DistroWatch)

DistroWatch takes a look at the RPM Package Manager. RPM was created by Red Hat, but it has been adopted by many other distributions, including Mandrake and SuSE. It has become a de facto standard, which might not be so bad except that various implementations are less than standardized. The article begins with a description of RPM "dependency hell", and goes on to look at other methods of package management such as Debian's .deb format and Slackware's .tgz format. Then there are source based distributions such as Gentoo and Sorcerer which have their own ways of dealing with packages.

DistroWatch has some solutions for the precieved problem:

1. Learn to build your own RPMs.
2. Petition the RPM distributions to adhere to common standards.
3. Use more advanced package management tools, such as urpmi or apt-rpm.
4. Switch to Debian or Slackware.
5. Switch to a source-based Linux distributions, such as Gentoo or Sorcerer.

Is there a problem? If so what would you do to solve it?

Comments (27 posted)

Distribution News

Debian GNU/Linux

The Debian Weekly News for March 4, 2003 laughs at an article on Linux security, announces GNOME 2.2 for Debian Woody, introduces new mailing lists, and much more.

The Debian Project Leader debate will be held on freenode at 22:00 UTC on Friday, March 7, 2003, in two channels: #debian-dpl-debate for the moderated debate, and #debian-dpl-discuss for unmoderated discussion. Voting begins on Saturday.

Joey Hess announced some changes to debconf and debhelper.

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Mandrake Linux 9.1 RC2 is available

MandrakeSoft has announced the release of Mandrake Linux 9.1 RC2 for downloading and testing. This version has a new theme called "MandrakeGalaxy" and of course, many bug fixes.

Full Story (comments: 8)

The first Slackware 9.0 release candidate

As announced on the Slackware site, the first release candidate for Slackware 9.0 is available. Features in this release include a 2.4.20 kernel, KDE 3.1, GNOME 2.2, XFree86 4.3.0, and more. The changelog has the details in an exhaustive, tiny-font format.

Comments (1 posted)

Gentoo Weekly Newsletter -- Volume 2, Issue 9

Here's the latest Gentoo Weekly Newsletter, with news about Gentoo Linux at the Game Developers Conference, Open Developer Positions in the Gentoo Linux Project, the release of Gentoo Linux 1.4_rc3, and more.

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Secure Mail Suite Available with New Version of EnGarde Secure Linux

Guardian Digital has announced the Guardian Digital Secure Mail Suite, available with EnGarde Secure Linux v1.5.

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Red Hat Linux bug fix advisory

Red Hat has updated kernel packages for Red Hat Linux 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, and 8.0 available that fix a deadlock with the tg3 driver on certain revisions of the Broadcom 570x gigabit ethernet series.

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New Distributions

BlackRhino GNU/Linux

BlackRhino GNU/Linux is a free Debian-based GNU/Linux software distribution for the Sony PlayStation 2. A company called xRhino created the distribution for a commercial Sony PlayStation 2 title, and has released it in the hopes that it will help hobbyists create their own games and applications that utilize the advanced programmable hardware of the PS2.

BlackRhino contains over 1,200 software packages to aid in using and creating programs for the Sony PlayStation 2 Linux kit. The programs range in functionality from simple games, to text editors, compilers, web servers, windowing systems, database systems, graphics packages, mail servers and a variety of other tools and utilities. Version 1.0 was released March 4, 2003.

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CollegeLinux

College Linux is made available by Robert Kennedy College, Delémont, Switzerland to both RKC and non RKC students. CollegeLinux is a new, stand-alone operating system based on Slackware. The aim of this experimental Linux distribution is to provide students with an operating system which is easy to install and use and which provides an alternative to the traditional commercial operating systems.

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Morphix

Morphix is a modular distribution, with live-CD support. No configuration is necessary, just burn the CD and boot it. Morphix is partly based on KNOPPIX, the rest comes directly from Debian. The initial version, 0.3-2, was released February 27, 2003.

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Minor distribution updates

BBIagent

BBIagent has released v1.7.0 of the BBIagent Router. "Changes: A bootable ISO image including user-defined settings can be created and downloaded from the router itself when using the registered version."

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Gentoo Linux

Gentoo Linux has released v1.4_rc3 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: This release adds many new "Portage" features, bugfixes, and code cleanups on the way to 1.4_final. An updated Live-CD and stages for the Sparc, PPC, and x86 platforms are all available for this release candidate."

Comments (1 posted)

Phrealon Linux

Phrealon Linux has released v0.82 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: This has quite a few improvements over the 0.81 release. All of the modules are available, though not all are autoscanned, so you'll have to do things semi-manually for some cards. There is an attempt at NFS, but it does not do anything of use yet. The udp-up, init-up, and nfs-up scripts exist directly on the CD instead of initrd.img for easier modification."

Comments (1 posted)

Server optimized Linux

SoL has released a diskless distribution, SoL-diag, for the rescue and analysis of i686 computers. The 36MB image contains over 300 programs, including DVD and MP3 players and CD-RW buring tools. It is also useful for improving your Linux skills and benchmarking computers without having to install programs to the hard drive. The initial version of SoL-diag 1.1 was released March 3, 2003.

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uClinux

uClinux has released 20030226. "Changes: This is a beta/testing release. As usual there are lots of new things, including lots of bugfixes. The dist also supports a number of VM Linux targets (including x86, ARM/XSCALE, and Hitachi SH3/SH4) as well as all the existing MMU-less targets. It contains uClinux 2.0.39, uClinux 2.4.20, glibc 2.2.5, uClibc 0.9.18, and a lot of user app packages. Glibc is currently only supported on VM targets; don't try to use it for uClinux targets."

Comments (none posted)

Distribution reviews

Knoppix gives bootable, one-disk Linux (IBM developerWorks)

IBM developerWorks reviews Knoppix. "While Linux adepts often experiment with bootable media, and many applications rely on data compression, Knoppix shows a singular level of polish. It's simple, only because Knopper and a few other project contributors took so much care in constructing it to be simple."

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Page editor: Rebecca Sobol
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