Knoppix new releases have not been that common in the last few months, but the distro is alive and kicking. Klaus Knopper, the distro’s founder, has announced that Knoppix 5.3.0 will come to light at the CeBIT expo in Hannover, will be mad available through inclusion in the c’t magazine to be published during CeBIT and will be made available for download a bit later on.
The kernel will be 2.6.24, it will feature KDE 3.5.8 with Compiz, Iceweasel and Icedove, OpenOffice 2.3.1 and some other experimental features.
Get Knoppix 5.3.0 LiveDVD now.
While you can’t download it from any mirror now, the fine guys at Distrowatch have located a bittorrent in LinuxTracker for you to download: here’s the link.
The Sidux team decided to give us all a treat last december by releasing a fifth Sidux edition just after christmas. The Debian-Sid-Based distro came up with a LiveDVD (don’t jump, it’s only 1.4 GB) wich supports both i386 and x64 architectures in the same media. Extended hardware support for WiFi devices and ATI graphics cards and stability improvements, Xorg 7.3, and new initial localisations for languages other than German and English.
Among the newly supported WiFi chipsets are:
- Intel 3945
- Broadcom b 43
- Ralink rt2×00
- Realtek RTL8187
More information available in the release notes or, if you just can’t wait to get it, you can proceed to the mirror list.
Mandriva has announced the 2008.1 Release Candidate 1 release.
Among other things includes WPA support, KDE 3.5.9 or 4.0.1 for the KDE fans, some new default applications, the latest OpenOffice 2.4 and, at last, NTFS writing support among other features.
This release candidate is the fifth one on the way to the final Mandriva 2008 Spring and is available in the Free edition as an installation DVD for each 32 bit and 64 bit arquitectures or in the Mandriva One edition, as either a LiveCD with GNOME or KDE, 32 bit only. Here’s the mirror list.
While this is not a final release but a testing one, it may be just too early to jump into the Mandriva 2008 Spring wagon. The last full release (Mandriva 2008.0) has scored so many good reviews that it could be interesting what the coming Spring is up to.
OpenGEU the distro that brings together Ubuntu’s usability with Enlightenment’s beauty and GNOME’s robustness released Luna Nova, the distro’s version 7.10, based on Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon, last december.
It’s available as an installable LiveCD you can get here. But if you already have a Gusty Gibbon running in your machine, you can bring the coolnes of OpenGEU’s E17 desktop by adding a repository to your Synaptic and installing a few .deb packages. You can see the OpenGEU’s wiki pages for further instructions.
If you used to be among the linux guys that wondered why the hell Enlightenment never turned into a real desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE and had to resign yourself to use it because of its lack of development, OpenGEU is the just the thing for you. You get the whole Ubuntu thing along with an extremely efficient E17 desktop.
Among the customizations peformed by the distro’s developers are the use of Thunar (XFCE’s file manager) instead of Nautilus (which is GNOME’s) and the XFCE panel. Both things will make your system go faster.
In the words of the Sirius Cybernetics Company: Share and enjoy!
Hardy Heron’s fifth alpha release is scheduled for release today, but if you are running something like alpha 4 chances are you already noticed a kernel upgrade and of many packages in your system as well, including the new art for the desktop wallpaper which is really beautiful. It’s barely two months now before Hardy Heron’s final release is presented to the world so Mark Shuttleworth has notified the Ubuntu developing community that the time to think about the next step in Ubuntu’s history is now.
In a mail to the Ubuntu developers the distro’s founder unveiled the code name for version 8.10: Intrepid Ibex.
One of the goals for the Ibex will be to set it up to take advantage from the pervasive internet signals found almost everywhere these days so your roaming goat can get internet access using a variety of wireless technologies wherever you may find yourself.
This is interesting, specially taking into account the tumultuous relationship that Linux and WiFi have had over the years (let alone Bluetooth). So the Ubuntu enthusiasts all over the world have something to look forward to even if Hardy Heron hasn’t been properly released yet.
The development summit is planned for next May in Prague. Let’s see what transpires in the meantime.
