Distributions

Social networking and the Linux distribution

Last August a friend of mine invited me to join Facebook, a social networking site. I was skeptical. After all, when you spend hours every day working on a computer, spending more hours networking with friends seems less than attractive.

Lately though, I've been seeing mention of various distributions on Facebook, so I thought I'd take a look for other Linux groups. The first I found in my search is the GNU Linux group, with over 24,000 members.

There are around 500 groups of various distribution fans. Any member can join a group, if the group is open. Look for the groups Debian GNU/Linux and Gentoo Linux Users (motto: if it moves compile it). Also SuSE Linux Users and openSUSE Linux. There's BackTrack Linux, an unofficial Ubuntu Linux group, Arch Linux, Pardus Linux Users, Mandriva Linux Users, Linux Mint, Fedora - Linux, and many more. I only looked at 40 of 500 groups.

There are many individuals with Linux in their names. As individuals you can only find out more about them if you become friends. Most seem to be fans of one distribution or another. There are many instances of Ubuntu Linux or Linux Ubuntu, Fedora Linux or Linux Fedora, plus fans of Linux Unbuntu, Linux Suse, Debian Gnu Linux, Redhat Linux, Linux Barrera, Mandriva Linux, Apollokk Arch-Linux, Linux Centos, Dell Linux, Linux Asianux, Mk Linux, Intel Linux, Comunidad Linux, Linux Latin America, Knoppix Linux, Maghreb Linux in Morocco, Sabayon Linux, Tito Linux in Egypt, Linux Galore in India, Zune Linux and Tux Linux. The spellings and capitalization are copied directly from Facebook. Other obvious fans include Unix Linux from Morocco, Linux Torvaldo, Linus Linux, and Linus Linux Torvalds from France.

You can find local user groups, Linux forums, Python fans, more distribution fan groups, and if you can't find what you are looking for you can start your own group, if you are a Facebook member of course.

LWN.net even has an unofficial fan site, so stop by for a visit.

All this research was done on Facebook. I have yet to join MySpace, Twitter or any of the growing number of other social networking sites.

Comments (1 posted)

Fedora Unity F9 20081217 respins

The Fedora Unity Project has new respins of Fedora 9, with all errata as of December 17, 2008.

Full Story (comments: none)

FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE Available

The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team has announced the availability of FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE. This is the second release from the 7-STABLE branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 7.0 and introduces some new features.

Full Story (comments: none)

GNUmed Live CD 0.3.8 released (LinuxMedNews)

LinuxMedNews announced the release of the GNUmed Live CD version 0.3.8. "With the help of this CD one can testdrive GNUmed without altering the currently running environment. No installation neccessary. Just download the CD image and either burn it to a CD or set up the CD image as a virtual CD drive. GNUmed client 0.3.8 is included and configured to connect to. No setup needed !"

Comments (none posted)

Lunar Linux 1.6.4 (i686 & x86-64) ISO's released

The Lunar team has announced the final release of Lunar Linux 1.6.4 codename 'Lacus Autumni'. "After almost two years since the last stable release it's finally here, Lunar Linux 1.6.4. We've reached a new milestone, 1.6.4 is our most polished release to date. Our hope is that everyone will enjoy it as much as we've done making it. The effort of improving our installer and iso will of course continue. Stay tuned next year for some exciting new features that are in store for Lunar!"

Full Story (comments: none)

Tin Hat 20081229 released

Tin Hat Linux has released v20081229. "I'd like to make the list aware that there is a new release of Tin Hat out. For those unfamiliar, Tin Hat is a fully featured Linux desktop based on Hardened Gentoo which runs purely in RAM. It aims to be very secure, stable, and fast. Thanks to the dedicated Gentoo developers, our group continues to put together a tightly knit hardened destkop environment."

Full Story (comments: none)

Debian votes to move forward with Lenny release

The results of the Lenny general resolution vote for Debian are in. The project has chosen to "Assume blobs comply with GPL unless proven otherwise" which will allow the Lenny (5.0) release to proceed. The basic problem is one that recurs each time a release is imminent in that kernel firmware does not meet the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We looked at this contentious vote a few weeks back; since that time project secretary Manoj Srivastava has resigned and Bdale Garbee has stepped in as acting secretary. It would appear that the outcome was decided shortly after the vote ended on December 27, but we somehow missed the announcement until now.

[ Update: The announcement email is now available: "Since the election concluded, several developers have asked for some statement from the DPL and/or Secretary as to what this result really means. Steve and I have discussed it, and we think it's pretty clear. This result means that the Debian Lenny release can proceed as the release team has intended, with the kernel packages currently in the archive." ]

Comments (4 posted)

Temporary suspension of testing security support after release of 5.0 (lenny)

When Debian 5.0 is released the testing repository will known as squeeze (it's now lenny). Security support for squeeze will be suspended for a few weeks after the release. "due to the experiences we made after the last stable Debian release, the Testing Security Team believes that it will be impossible to provide proper security support for the new testing (Debian "squeeze") in the weeks following the release of Debian 5.0 (lenny). Therefore we will temporarily suspend security support for Debian testing after the release."

Full Story (comments: none)

Bits from the Debian CD team

The Debian CD team has implemented some late improvements of the CD and DVD images available for Lenny. Click below for a list to see what's new in the Debian 5.0/Lenny CDs and DVDs.

Full Story (comments: none)

Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #123

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for January 3, 2008 covers: Notification, indicators and alerts, Making LoCo Teams Rock, Planet Ubuntu and Corporate Blogs, Ubuntu live on TV, Ubuntu Berlin review of 2008, Tunisian Team Events in December, 12 days of Launchpad, Full Circle Magazine #20, Meeting Summaries, and much more.

Full Story (comments: none)

openSUSE Weekly News, Issue 52

The January 1st issue of the openSUSE Weekly News is out. "In this week's issue: openSUSE Education available SLE10 and 11.1, Zimbra Mail Server Training in Indonesia, Q&A with Joe Brockmeier, Forums: Getting VMware to run on openSUSE 11.1, Best of Newsletter 2008"

Comments (none posted)

OpenSUSE Weekly News, Issue 53

This issue of the OpenSUSE Weekly News covers: Masim Sugianto: First Hackfest for Indonesian openSUSE Community, How to Make openSUSE 11.1 LiveUSB, Joe Brockmeier: openSUSE - One of the 10 coolest of 2008, Marek Stopka: Fatrat - Nice download manager in OBS..., Howto-How to compile the new Kernel 2.6.28?

Comments (none posted)

The Mint Newsletter - issue 70

The Mint Newsletter published January 4, 2009 is out. "Merlwiz and Exploder are happy to release LinuxMint-6-XFCE as an RC. A few things have to be checked and/or added to the repositories and Merlwiz needs to write release notes but it's likely this release will be ready any time now. LinuxMint-6-x64 is ready for testing and will be released soon (at the end of the coming week we hope) After a lot of testing and talking we decided KDE 4.1 wasn't fit for usage and we couldn't release it this way. The decision was made to wait for KDE 4.2 stable (which is planned for the end of this month) and to then design a Mint 6 KDE CE based on Kubuntu 8.10 but with Amarok 2.0 and KDE 4.2. This means there won't be any KDE CE release this month."

Comments (1 posted)

Echo Monthly News

Fedora's Echo Monthly News covering November and December looks at Echo Perspective - Proposed Designs and Proposed Guideline Changes - Bitmap Post-processing in Echo Icons.

Comments (none posted)

DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 284

The DistroWatch Weekly for January 5, 2009 is out. "Perhaps a good way of starting the year is with a look at the 17-year old history of Linux and Linux distributions - from the modest first release of "it won't be as big as GNU" to today's dominance of the free operating system in server rooms, if not yet on the desktop. In the news section, Debian votes to clear the firmware issue prior to the release of "Lenny", Ubuntu proposes a new system-wide notification agent for the desktop, and openSUSE announces preliminary plans for the release of version 11.2. The end of 2008 gives us a good opportunity at taking a look at which were the most visited distribution pages during the past 12 months, while the beginning of the new year means a new donation - US$250 go to the LXDE project."

Comments (none posted)

Debian FOSDEM talks!

A third and final call for talks in the the Debian DevRoom at FOSDEM is out. "So people, please, if you have something you think /might/ be interesting to talk about, let me know. Experience taught me that if you think it might be interesting, it usually is interesting enough to have a talk about. And if not, I prefer having an interesting talk on the schedule rather than having nothing but my thumbs to twiddle."

Full Story (comments: none)

Linux Mint Review (TechieMoe.com)

TechieMoe.com has a review of Linux Mint version 6 "Felcia", based on Ubuntu. "The number of Mint-specific additions in this release is impressive. It's good to see that the team isn't just focused on slapping on a different coat of paint and calling it a day. More offshoot distributions should follow this example. Don't just embrace, extend as well!"

Comments (none posted)

The Xubuntu Difference (Linuxlandit)

A blog called Linuxlandit & The Conqueror Worm takes a look at Xubuntu. "By focusing on quality, Xubuntu produces a robust and feature-rich computing environment that is suitable for use in both home, commercial, and educational environments. The project takes the time required to focus on finer details and is able to release a version featuring the latest and greatest of today's software once every 6 months. Xubuntu is available in flavours for the i386 (386/486/Pentium(II/III/IV) and Athlon/Duron/Sempron processors), AMD64 (Athlon64, Opteron, and new 64-bit Intel processors). A community-supported PowerPC (iBook/Powerbook, G4 and G5) architecture architecture is also available."

Comments (none posted)