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DistributionsNews and Editorials openSUSE BoostersThe openSUSE Boosters' Team held their first meeting after the openSUSE conference. Francis Giannaros introduced the team in a recent blog post.
The openSUSE Boosters team is a hand-picked group of fifteen Novell
employees with skills ranging all across the distribution, and who are
dedicated to openSUSE development and working with the community. Since the
team members are spread all over Europe and as far away as Mexico, we came
together for a few days after the openSUSE Conference to get to know each
other better and make plans.
These people will be working full time on making it easier to contribute to the openSUSE Project and improving communication within and outside the project. Together they aim to make openSUSE the best Linux distribution, with an open, inviting and independent community. They will work to improve the infrastructure and lower the bar for contributors. For now the Booster project team has been divided into three groups. One group will be organizing all documentation on how to contribute to the project. They will create a single wiki page with links to all such documentation, including video tutorials so that new people can more easily find what they are looking for. A second group will be doing the same for the infrastructure, integrating all of it under one umbrella so that people can see all the various web services on one web page. Current web services include user forums, download sites, the build service, openFATE feature tracking, blogs, the weekly news, and much more. There will be a consistent look and feel for each web service landing page. The idea is to group these projects on the portal page, with categories for novices, experienced users and computer professionals so that people can figure out what needs work and where they can best contribute. The third group will be working on making openSUSE's development Factory branch more transparent. There will be a Factory Status overview page that will allow developers and testers to easily see what packages are failing to build, which one are in need of a maintainer and where more testing is needed. Future goals include adding social collaboration tools to the distribution and developing an Upstream Attraction Program. Overall they will help to improve communication within the project and help to spread the word about the project to potential contributors. The mailing list has not been set up yet, but watch for it to get started soon. Meanwhile, contact information for the team members can be found on the openSUSE Boosters' Team site.
New Releases Gentoo Linux - Ten Years Compiling: 1999 - 2009The Gentoo Project has announced the release of the Tenth Birthday LiveDVD. "The Gentoo-Ten LiveDVD is available in two flavors, a hybrid x86/x86_64 version, and an x86_64-only version. The livedvd-x86-amd64-32ul-10.0 will work on x86 or x86_64. If your arch is x86, then boot with the default gentoo kernel. If your arch is amd64 boot with the gentoo64 kernel. This means you can boot a 64bit kernel and install a customized 64bit userland while using the provided 32bit userland. The livedvd-amd64-multilib-10.0 version is for x86_64 only."
openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 8 ReleasedThe openSUSE Project has announced that the last openSUSE 11.2 Milestone release (M8) is available for download. "Test now and give feedback via our bugzilla since this is the last milestone before the first release candidate." Click below for more information.
Ubuntu 9.10 Beta releasedThe Ubuntu team has announced the beta release of Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop and Server editions and the Ubuntu Netbook Remix. The Ubuntu 9.10 family of variants—Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Ubuntu Studio and Mythbuntu—have also reached beta status.
Distribution News Debian GNU/Linux Debian Release architecturesAndreas Barth has an update on the status of all architectures for Squeeze. Click below to see what's in and what isn't.
Fedora Fedora documentation team switching to CC-BY-SA licenseThe Fedora documentation team has announced a switch from the Open Publication License (OPL) to the better-known Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license. Several reasons were given, including the fact that the OPL author now recommends switching to CC licenses. More information is available on the Fedora wiki. "While OPL is a free and open documentation license, moving to a more widely known and adopted license and the one used by the likes of Wikipedia and GNOME Project helps us share our content more easily with the rest of the Free software community."
Red Hat Enterprise Linux From Code to Community to Enterprise-Ready (Red Hat News)Red Hat News begins a series of blog posts leading up to the launch of Fedora 12. This one details how code makes it from the community and Fedora into Red Hat's commercial products including Red Hat Enterprise Linux. "There are many features that started in Fedora and are now included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. PackageKit and PolicyKit are two prime examples. PackageKit is a system designed to make installing and updating software easier, through a set of easy-to-use command-line and graphical utilities. It also integrates software management with desktop activities like clicking on packages or entering commands in a terminal. PolicyKit is a toolkit for defining and handling the rules by which unprivileged processes can speak to privileged processes. It also provides a framework for centralizing these access policies for use in managed environments."
Slackware Linux GNOME SlackBuild 2.26.3 GNOME Desktop for Slackware and Slackware64 13.0GNOME SlackBuild (GSB) provides a complete GNOME desktop for Slackware Linux. GSB 2.26.3 is available for Slackware 13.0. "We've brought our GNOME SlackBuild 2.26.3 to the latest Slackware and Slackware64, and it's working solidly. There have been some updates over the previous 2.26.3 release for Slackware 12.2, so please make sure to read the documentation, particularly our SLACKWARE-13.0_REPLACED_PACKAGES.TXT, CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT, and the INSTALL.TXT For those of you upgrading from gsb-current, please make sure to update your SOURCE lines in your slapt-getrc to point to the new directories." Found on GnomeDesktop.
Ubuntu family 2009 Ubuntu Community Council vote completeThe new Ubuntu Community Council has been elected. The winners are Alan Pope, Benjamin Mako Hill, Daniel Holbach, Elizabeth Krumbach, Matthew East, Mike Basinger and Richard Johnson.
Minutes from the Ubuntu Technical Board meetingClick below for the minutes from the October 6, 2009 meeting of the Ubuntu Technical Board. Topics include Archive reorganization, Naming of new packages, core-dev application process, and more.
Ubuntu DMB public meeting about approval processThere will be a public meeting of the Ubuntu Developer Membership Board (DMB) on Tuesday, October 13th, at 14:00 UTC in #ubuntu-meeting. Everyone is welcome to attend. The DMB is responsibile for approving new Ubuntu developers.
Other distributions Arch Linux Handbook in printThe Arch Linux Handbook is available in print. "The Arch Linux Handbook is distilled from the Beginners' Guide in the wiki. Purchases help support Arch Linux development."
New Distributions ZevenOSThe ZevenOS project was founded in order to preserve some of the extraordinary features of the BeOS operating system. ZevenOS is a pure Linux system, designed to induce as far as possible the feeling of BeOS and its successor ZETA. ZevenOS is very user friendly and an excellent choice for multimedia performance, even on older hardware. ZevenOS exists in two official versions. ZevenOS is the main and leading version based on Ubuntu Linux (especially: Xubuntu). ZevenOS-Neptuneas a community driven branch, based on the stable release of Debian GNU/Linux. ZevenOS Neptune is made for users, who prefer a very stable and fast Linux system and are less interested in the bleeding edge of software development. ZevenOS is available in German and English.
Distribution Newsletters DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 323The DistroWatch Weekly for October 5, 2009 is out. "Slackware Linux has been around for longer than any other existing Linux distribution - and for a good reason. Its stability, reliability and dependability are characteristics that have won over many Linux users, especially in the server arena. But is it also a good desktop distribution? Read our comprehensive review of the recently released Slackware Linux 13.0 to find out. In the news section, Andreas Jaeger updates his stable openSUSE system to the latest 11.2 milestone with "zypper", Joe Brockmeier reflects on the recently concluded openSUSE conference, Red Hat asks Supreme Court to abolish software patents, and Slackware delivers the first updates in its development branch. Finally, we are pleased to announce that the recipient of the September 2009 DistroWatch.com donation is KompoZer, an open-source WYSIWIG web editor. Happy reading!"
Fedora Weekly News 196The Fedora Weekly News for October 4, 2009 is out. "Starting off with announcements, which includes general, development and event announcements, notice that minutes from last week's Fedora Board open meeting are now available, an update on Fedora 12 milestones, and an upcoming change in NFS. From the Fedora Planet, news and views from Fedora contributors. In Quality Assurance news, review of the latest Test Day on Anaconda's storage system, and detail from the team's weekly meetings, and several other activities. In Design news, details of the Art Team's work for the F12 beta release, an update on additional wallpapers, and discussion of a new notification theme on the list. The Security Advisory beat is back this week, with updates for the past few weeks for Fedora 10 and 11. The Virtualization list offers goodness on Fedora virtualization developments including new virt-rescue and virt-edit tools, and reorganization of the Xen git tree for the dom0 kernel. Our issue wraps up with news from the KDE SIG, including details on the expected feature set for Fedora 12 KDE spin and a new version of Amarok, "Sunjammer. We hope you enjoy this week's FWN!"
Openmoko Community Updates/2009-09-30The Openmoko Community Updates for September 30, 2009 are available. Topics include new Debian packages, Android Cupcake, QtMoko, Babiloo 2.0.9, Offline SHR Manager 0.1, Arora git4, Eieruhr, and much more.
OpenSUSE Weekly News/91This issue of the OpenSUSE Weekly News covers openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 8 Released, Federico Mena-Quintero: The openSUSE Boost Team, Linux.com/Rob Day: The Kernel Newbie Corner: "initrd" and "initramfs"—What's Up With That?, Amarok 2.2 "Sunjammer" released, and much more.
Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #162The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for October 3, 2009 is out. "In this issue we cover: Ubuntu 9.10 Beta Released, Ubuntu 9.10 Countdown Banners, Ubuntu 9.10: Testers Needed, Planning of Karmic Release Parties Kicks off, Ubuntu Karmic Free Culture Showcase Winners Announced, Changes to releases.ubuntu.com rsync/FTP access, LoCo News: France, Ohio, Florida, Massachusetts, Honduras, Philly, Michigan, North Carolina, & El Salvador, Help Launchpad get better icons, Ubuntu Forums Tutorial of the Week, The Planet: Michael Lustfield, Martin Meredith, Mathias Gug, Shane Fagan & Luis de Bethencourt, PlayOnLinux to be in Ubuntu Karmic repositories, September Team Meeting Summaries, and much, much more!"
Distribution reviews openSUSE 11.2 M8: What a Fine Lookin' Lizard (ZDNet)Jason Perlow takes a look at openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 8. "In my last reviews of openSUSE 11.1 and openSUSE 11, I had a number of stability issues with KDE 4.0 and 4.2 which led me to stick with the GNOME interface. However, there had been numerous reports on various mailing lists and community discussion forums that KDE 4.3 is now the fully "baked" version of 4.x, so I wanted to give KDE 4 a go again. I'm glad I did."
Ubuntu's Karmic Koala opens its eyes (The Register)The Register has a review of Ubuntu Karmic beta. "Once I got the 9.10 beta installed on my trusty Toshiba, I grabbed a stopwatch (okay, an iPhone stopwatch) and hit the power button. After restarting about a dozen times I found that the average startup time was 26 seconds, with the Xorg starting around the 15 second mark. That's only one second off Ubuntu's goal for Karmic Koala and a significant improvement over previous releases."
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol |
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