Slamd64 Linux 12.0 is the latest Slamd64 release which is an unofficial Slackware port to the x86_64 architecture conceived and mantained by Fred Emmott since 2004 –his idea is to have a 64 bit Slackware compiled from scratch instead of starting from another 64 bit distro.
The new 12.0 is available in an installation DVD .iso image available from the Get Slamd64 page and supports most (not all) 64 bit Intel and AMD processors –some Sempros, some Xeons and Core Duos are not supported. It installs if you have as little as 128 MB RAM available (it’s very strongly recommended that you have more than that, anyway).
You can have Xfce 4.4.1 or KDE 3.5.7 as desktop environmets running over a 2.6.22.8 kernel. Apache, PHP, Perl and MySQL servers come with the bundle.
The system is built to allow for compatibility with most 32 bit applications such as OpenOffice and it can use most packages available for Slackware x86.
Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon, arguably the most expected release in a month already packed with major releases is now available in all of the Linux flavors sponsored by Canonical.
The biggest news in 7.10 is the new Gobuntu, and Ubuntu flavor made exclusively of open source and free software –all and every bit of software there is licenced under one of the GPL’s. Gobuntu has been on the works since 2005 and was officially announced earlier this year in order to address the concerns among the free software community about the increasing amount of non-free software included in Ubuntu –specially since version 7.04.
System requirements and links.
- Gutsy Gibbon needs 384 MB RAM for graphical installation and 256 for alternate and text installations. It’s available for i386, 64bits and SunSPARC hardware architectures.
- The release notes are quite informative about known bugs, new features and other relevant stuff.
- Links to downloadable .iso images through mirrors is available in the usual place.
The other family members.
Gobuntu: the new guy.
Something you should know before going for Gobuntu, the new kid on the block, is that there’s no LiveCD nor graphic installer. For the time being, Gobuntu is not for the newbies but rather for the free software enthusiasts with a bit of Linux experience under their belts. You can get it here.
The new PAIPIX GNU/Linux 7.10 release is a Debian-based distribution from this version on (it used to be based on Knoppix) developed by the Lisbon University’s College of Sciences. It’s a free distro in both senses of the word.
There’s only one edition available with each new release: an installation LiveDVD which allows to use or try the system without altering your computer and/or install it to your hard drive.
PAIPIX is aimed towards academic and educational use. It provides scientific and academic apps alongside with the more standard desktop software in order to maybe entice the users into exploring the rarer pieces of software included but also to make it fit for home and office use instead of remaining strictly an academic system.
The new release features the KDE desktop environment, kernel version 2.6.22 and OpenOffice 2.2 among many other interesting stuff.
The LiveDVD is available in a variety of download mirrors for i386 and amd64 architectures and is about 3.5 GB. More information available at the PAIPIX home page.
Today’s release (it’s rather yesterday’s but I didn’t write it up until now) is Elpicx Linux 1.1, a LiveDVD based on Knoppix and CentOS.
Now, this is not a desktop oriented distro per se nor a server. This one is meant to make you study hard.
The whole point in Elpicx is to get you ready for the Linux Professional Institute’s certification examination. It includes test simulations, study guides, excercises, reference cards, all the stuff you’d probably complain if you don’t had and wanted to shape up in order to get certified.
The LiveDVD is about 1800 MB in size and is available in two languages, German and English. More info and links to the downloadable .iso images at elpicx’s download web page.
Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon’s official release date is only two days away and as soon as the light goes green Ubuntu’s download site and mirrors will be really crowded (how many among those eight million impatient users will be trying to download 700 MB .iso images at the same time?) so getting a proper download is going to be a difficult feat, at least for the first few days, and even for the most expert users.
Just to make the impatients even more so, here’s the short and incomplete list of new features:
- GNOME 2.20
- 3D desktop.
- Deskto search.
- Fast user switch.
- Dynamic screen configuration.
- Graphical configuration tool for X.
- Automatic printer installation.
- Easier managment for non-free software.
- Write access for NTFS partitions (at last!).
- Better power management, courtesy of the new kernel.
- Hard disk encryption.
So how to get it without standing in line?
There are options: some very nice usenet poster is going to upload it sooner or later to the .iso image or linux binary groups, and there’s bittorrent. It’s my view, however, that the best way to go for the time being is to take a page out of DistroWatch’s website and just download the latest release candidate from any of the available mirrors that you can find on the candidate’s official announcement, just posted a few days ago.
Yes, I know, it’s not the official new version. And yet, given the minimal time span between the RC and the final release they can hardly differ significantly in content. I think that would be the more practical thing to do until Ubuntu’s servers start to clear down and the final release becomes an easy download.
