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DistributionsNews and Editorials RPM FusionThe RPM Fusion Project was announced this week. Three repositories, Dribble, Freshrpms and Livna will merge to provide Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux users with add-on software packages.This will actually be separated into two repositories. One for free and the other for non-free software (as defined by the Fedora Packaging Guidelines). The free repository, presumably hosted outside the U.S., will contain software that cannot be packaged by Fedora because of U.S. restrictions (patents), but is considered free in other parts of the world. The current thought is that it should be possible for Fedora to link to this repository from the main Fedora site, although I don't think that the Red Hat legal department has had its final say. The non-free repository will contain software that has "no commercial use" restrictions or otherwise doesn't conform to anyone's definition of free such as the the graphics drivers from Nvidia. It seems unlikely that a link will be made from a main Fedora site to this non-free area, but a link could be made from the free part of RPM Fusion. RPM Fusion repositories will follow Fedora's packaging guidelines (except for legal), Fedora's review process for new submissions, Fedora's VCS structure, etc. to ensure compatibility with Fedora systems. RPM Fusion will have competition from other projects. ATrpms.net has declined to join RPM Fusion. Axel Thimm wrote:
Over the last couple of months I had been involved in two projects, epel
and rpmfusion, that happened to also involve Thorsten. It turns out that
we make a very bad team to make an understatement. I don't like what epel
is turning to, and I also don't like what rpmfusion has stalled into.
My personal dream of getting all third party repos including not only the ones that are still on this list, but also Dag, Dries, KB, ccrma and centos+/sl+ slowly crumbled into ashes. Instead of a grand merger we would simply achieve reducing N to M < N. RPMforge.net is yet another somewhat similar project. According to its manifest: "The RPMforge.net project is an independent community-driven project to provide the infrastructure and tools to allow users, developers and packagers to meet and work together to provide and improve RPM packages." This project provides an extensive list of RPM packages for Red Hat, Fedora and Aurora systems. For many users the RPM Fusion project will provide all the extra packages they need. Other users will appreciate that they have a choice, other places where their needs may be met. Some competition is rarely a bad thing.
New Releases Fedora Electronic Lab - Livecd F8Test1The Fedora Electronic Laboratory is a new spin for Fedora; a live CD with KDE and software for an electronic laboratory. The first development snapshot, based on Fedora 8 Test 1, is available for testing.
Mandriva Linux 2008 RC 1 announcedMandriva Linux 2008 RC 1 (Copernic) has been announced. See the release notes for more information.
OpenSolaris 10 update releasedSun Microsystems has announced the availability of an update for Solaris 10. "New for Solaris 10 8/07 is Solaris Containers for Linux Applications, enabling customers to run existing Linux applications on x86 systems..."
Announcing openSUSE 10.3 Beta3The third beta of openSUSE 10.3 is available for testing. This is last beta release before the RC phase. Click below to see what has changed since beta 2, most annoying known bugs, what needs testing and how to get a copy.
Distribution News Security updates for Debian TestingDebian Testing, the branch of Debian that will become the next stable release, is making a small change in how users are notified of security fixes. This post explains the three ways security issues might be fixed and how only one way would lead to an announcement. This is the first automatic mailing that will provide an overview of the security issues that were recently fixed in Debian Testing.
Fedora Rel-Eng Meeting RecapClick below for a recap of what was discussed at the Fedora Release Engineering Meeting held September 10, 2007. Some topics include F8T2, names for F8 and turning off packages for FC6.
Fedora-india mailing listThe fedora-india mailing list is now available for communication and collaboration between a growing list of Indian contributors to the Fedora Project.
Distribution Newsletters PCLinuxOS Magazine - Issue 13The September 2007 edition of PCLinuxOS Magazine is available. Get all the latest news on PCLinuxOS, including some PCLinuxOS history in this issue.
Ubuntu Weekly News: Issue #56The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for September 8, 2007 covers new Ubuntu and MOTU members, the Tribe 6 milestone, an Ubuntu get-together, the one year anniversary of French UWN translations, and much more.
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 219The DistroWatch Weekly for September 10, 2007 is out. "Enthusiasm for Linux and open source software is clearly growing; with last week's announcements about Lenovo's preferred Linux distro poll and AMD's opening up its ATI video drivers, things have never looked this exciting on the Linux-supporting hardware front! But some questions remain: do we really want every major PC manufacturer to support Ubuntu only? And will other distributions be able to catch with the increasing dominance of Canonical's operating system? Read more in our editorial. In the news section, openSUSE shows faith in KDE 4.0, Puppy Linux launches a major upgrade, and StartCom announces a new release of its workstation for audio enthusiasts. Finally, if you live in or near Toronto, don't miss the upcoming Linux conference called Ontario Linux Fest."
Distribution meetings Ubuntu packaging and Personal Package Archives classThe basics of Ubuntu packaging and Launchpad's new Personal Package Archives will be discussed on IRC on Thursday September 13, 2007.
Newsletters and articles of interest Debian-based MEPIS Linux distros move closer to shipment (DesktopLinux)DesktopLinux looks at the upcoming release of MEPIS 7. "MEPIS has released Beta3 of SimplyMEPIS 7.0, its full-featured Debian-based Linux, and Beta 2 of MEPIS AntiX (pronounced "Antics"), which is designed to run on very old 32-bit PC hardware. MEPIS 7, unlike Ubuntu-based MEPIS 6.5, is built on Debian 4.0. This beta boasts kernel version 2.6.22.5 which contains minor patches from the Kernel Development Team as its heart."
Distribution reviews openSUSE 10.3 Beta 3 Report (TuxMachines)TuxMachines has a progress report on openSUSE 10.3. "Welp, we're in the homestretch now. Beta 3 of openSUSE 10.3 was released a few days ago, and with only one more developmental release before final, we were hoping things were starting to shape up. This release doesn't bring too many surprises or any new eye candy, but most subsystems are stablizing. With 587 MB of changes, developers are homing in on their goal."
Beta Review: Kanotix 2007 "Thorhammer" RC5B (TuxMachines)TuxMachines takes a look at Kanotix 2007 beta. "The last Kanotix release (based on Debian Sid), KANOTIX-2006-01-RC4, came out in October, 2006. Shortly thereafter, a Kanotix co-developer (and many of Kanotix's other developers) left the project and founded their own, mainly due to a disagreement over whether Kanotix should be based on Sid (Debian's unstable branch) or something less volatile, like Etch (Debian's current stable branch) or Ubuntu. Kanotix's founder, Jörg Schirottke (aka Kano), now has a new, Etch-based version of Kanotix in development, code-named "Thorhammer.""
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol |
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