Distributions

Distributions 2007 review

This is the last LWN weekly for 2007, so it must be time to reflect on what's happened during the past year. Also this is a slow time of year, so there hasn't been much new news.

Debian GNU/Linux: Debian Etch (4.0) was released in April, as was the sixth revision of Sarge (3.1r6). The first Etch revision (4.0r1) was released in August. Debian development is focused on Lenny, now in the testing branch. Overall a good year, but it's unfortunate that the Dunc-Tank experiment of late 2006 - early 2007 seems to have caused the demise of the Debian Weekly News.

Fedora: Fedora made great strides in becoming true community distribution with the merger of Core and Extras. 2007 saw the release of both Fedora 7 and Fedora 8, both excellent desktops/workstations. Max Spevack led the project through the merger and announced his resignation at the end of the year. This week's DistroWatch had the comment that "despite all these positives, the distribution still fails to attract first-time Linux users who sometimes complain about the lack of a central configuration utility or the overly technical nature of the operating system." This led to a discussion on the Fedora Marketing list. There seems to be some agreement that Fedora does expect its users to be somewhat clueful, and that's the way we like it.

Gentoo Linux made one release this year. The year is not over so it's still possible for 2007.1 to make it in 2007. Gentoo saw quite a bit of developer churn this year, which may have led to a delayed release. Then again, releases aren't always that important. Gentoo works great for developers.

Mandriva Linux released in the spring and in the fall, or if you are down under it's the fall and the spring. The company is in recovery following the financial problems and lay-offs of previous years. Mandriva is friendly to new users, with a helpful community on mailing lists and forums to help you through any rough spots.

openSUSE released 10.3 this year. There's also an early alpha for 11.0 available. Like Fedora, openSUSE is a community project with an Enterprise sponsor. This has been a good year for the project. There has been quite a bit of new infrastructure like the Build Service, new mailing lists, style guidelines, and a new manager.

Slackware Linux: Slackware 12.0 was released in July. The Slackware current changelog remains active. There's not much else to say, Slackware continues. Slackware may not the most newbie friendly, but its very good at what it does. It's hard to imagine the Linux landscape without Slackware.

Ubuntu remains strong. Deals with Dell haven't hurt. Ubuntu, and its derivatives Edubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu continue to gain users. Releases for this year include Feisty Fawn (7.04) and Gutsy Gibbon (7.10), as well as the first alpha for the Hardy Heron (8.04). To see Ubuntu's popularity, just look at all the other distributions that are using it for a base. (MEPIS, Geubuntu, gOS, Linux Mint, Symphony OS, Fluxbuntu, gNewSense, Arabian Linux, Kiwi, Impi, Guadalinex, MoLinux, nUbuntu, ProTech, Linux for Clinics, Mythbuntu, Pyramid, UbuntuCE, UbuntuME, Ubuntu Studio, ubuntutrinux, BeaFanatIX, PUD, and andLinux). These can be found by searching for Ubuntu in the Distribution List.

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NetBSD 4.0 released

NetBSD 4.0 is out. "Major achievements in NetBSD 4.0 include support for version 3 of the Xen virtual machine monitor, Bluetooth, many new device drivers and embedded platforms based on ARM, PowerPC and MIPS CPUs. New network services include iSCSI target (server) code and an implementation of the Common Address Redundancy Protocol. Also, system security was further enhanced with restrictions of mprotect(2) to enforce W^X policies, the Kernel Authorization framework, and improvements of the Veriexec file integrity subsystem, which can be used to harden the system against trojan horses and virus attacks."

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Mandriva 2008.1 Alpha 1 released

Mandriva has released an alpha version of Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring (2008.1). Some of the major new features in this pre-release include PulseAudio, X.org 7.3, KDE 4.0 RC2, kernel 2.6.24 rc5, and UUID-based drive mounting. "You are encouraged to test and comment on this pre-release. Feedback should be posted in the form of bug reports to Bugzilla, or if it is not a type of feedback that can be expressed as a bug report, to the Cooker mailing list or to the Mandriva Forums."

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Debian-Edu releases a lenny test CD for testing

Debian-Edu/Skolelinux has released the first test release based on Debian lenny. Click below to see some of the known problems with this release. For those interested in the package installation failure because usplash needs debian-edu-artwork-usplash issue, there is a possible workaround.

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The search for a new Fedora leader

Max Spevack, who has led the Fedora project through a period of great change and improvement, has announced that the time has come to move on to other (Fedora-related) challenges. So the project is looking for a new leader. "The Fedora Project Leader is a full-time Red Hat position, and so we need to go through a full interview process, etc. None of this is being done ad-hoc or randomly. The Fedora Board is part of the process, as is Red Hat's CTO and other managers within the engineering organization and human resources."

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Fedora board election results

Matt Domsch has been elected to the Fedora board. "On the "appointed" side, we are pleased to announce that Bill Nottigham has renewed his seat for another term, and that Bob McWhirter, the JBoss community manager, has accepted a seat on the Fedora Board that previously belonged to Chris Blizzard."

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KDE-SIG weekly report (48/2007)

Click below for a report from Fedora's KDE Special Interest Group (SIG). Items on the agenda for week 48 include Trolltech's Phonon GStreamer backend, kdemultimedia3 compat package?, API documentation, Live images for KDE4, and development progress: the road to kde4.

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Council meeting summary for 13 December 2007

A summary of the December 13th Gentoo council meeting has been released. Some of the topics discussed at the meeting include new USE documentation, Code of Conduct enforcement.

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And even more new stages... (Funtoo)

Daniel Robbins, founder of Gentoo, has announced the availability of fresh stages for AMD64, i686 and x86 for Gentoo users. "Barring any build issues from upstream, I plan to offer fresh Gentoo stages that are no more than a week old at http://www.funtoo.org/linux/, so the next time you need a fresh stage tarball, please give one of mine a try. It will save you quite a bit of "emerge -u world" time. And thanks :)"

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Countdown to Hardy Alpha 2

Ubuntu's Hardy Heron Alpha 2 is expected to be released on Thursday, December 20, 2007. "With the DebianImportFreeze now in effect, it's time to nudge another baby heron out of the nest and hope it flies better than this broken metaphor: it's time for Hardy Alpha 2."

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Fedora Weekly News Issue 113

The Fedora Weekly News for December 10, 2007 is out. "In Announcement, we have "Samba Security Updates For FC6" In Planet Fedora, we have "Talks with Mark: RHM Video", "F8 on the PS3", "Back from India: FOSS.in", "A good flip-flop: FUDCon Raleigh 2008", "Re-spinning Fedora" and "Succession Planning"" Plus several other topics.

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Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #70

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for December 15, 2007 covers the countdown to Hardy Alpha 2, new MOTU & community members, Ubuntu Forums interview, Bazaar 1.0 release, and much more.

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DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 233

The DistroWatch Weekly for December 17, 2007 is out. "Yes, it's that time of the year when DistroWatch takes a brief look at the events that shaped the distribution world during the past 12 months. Who were the winners and losers in 2007? Which distributions impressed most? Were there any major surprises? Read more in our feature story. In the news section, Mandriva enters a new development process with Cooker Alpha 1, Max Spevack resigns as Fedora Project Leader, MEPIS updates its artwork for the upcoming release of SimplyMEPIS, Daniel Robbins announces updated "stage" tarballs, and Ulteo delivers the first of its online services. Finally, many thanks to all our loyal readers and best wishes for the festive season! See you all in 2008!"

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FUDCon Raleigh 2008

FUDCon Raleigh 2008 will be held as a Bar Camp, an un-conference. Everyone with an interest in Fedora is invited to join. This is a three day event, January 11-13, 2008 held in Raleigh, North Carolina at the NC State University Campus and Red Hat Headquarters.

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Second call for talks for the Debian DevRoom at FOSDEM 2008

The second call for talks for the Debian DevRoom at FOSDEM 2008 is out. "FOSDEM is the Free and Open Source Developers' European Meeting, which traditionally takes place at the Campus Solbosch of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Brussels, Belgium, during the last weekend of February."

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Ubuntu Live Conference: Call for Proposals Open

The call for proposals for the second Ubuntu Live conference is out. The conference is co-presented by Canonical, Ltd and O'Reilly Media is slated to take place July 21-22, 2008 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. The call for participation will be open until February 4, 2008.

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Paludis, Gentoo and Ciaran McCreesh uncensored (Obsethryl's Lab)

George Makrydakis talks with Ciaran McCreesh about Paludis. "As a project, paludis combines a lot of what you will see in F/LOSS, in both social structure and relations to the "fathering" project. Instead of presenting Paludis myself and why it is preferable to use it in a Gentoo system instead of portage, I took the liberty of asking Mr. Ciaran McCreesh, Chief developer among the Paludis team about a relatively gentle introduction to the Paludis world, why it became a necessity, its design and goals. Also the relation with Gentoo is examined, but also a glimpse at how F/LOSS can be a socially complicated issue emerges from this text. This was an email Q & A with Mr. McCreesh and the replies laid here are uncensored."

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The World Series of Linux (CMP Channel)

CMP Channel compares Linux desktop distributions. Part 1 looks at the Debian based distributions Ubuntu, Freespire and Xandros. Part 2 looks at RPM based distributions SLED 10, Fedora 7 and PCLinuxOS. Part 3 pits the winners of part 1 and part 2 (Ubuntu and Fedora) against each other. "A close call, but Ubuntu wins the game and the title of Best Desktop Linux."

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Review: Opensuse 10.3 Linux distribution (vnunet)

vnunet has a short review of openSUSE 10.3. "You will need to decide on what desktop to use. KDE is the default desktop and a preview of the upcoming KDE 4 implementation is included, as well as the current 3.5.7 version. The classic all-green Suse colour scheme is employed, with the enterprise version of Kontact now also included."

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