SimplyMepis 7.0 final release became available last December 23rd.
The now not so new version features a major base-system upgrade from Ubuntu to Debian stable for the core system and apps compiled from the latest source code available form Debian unstable and Ubuntu.
Among the new features are:
- 2.6.22.14 kernel updated, patched for improved security.
- KDE 3.5.8
- OpenOffice.org 2.3.0
- FireFox 2.0.0.11
- Thunderbird 2.0.0.6
- Java 6
- Amarok 1.4.7
- Acrobat Reader 7.0.9
- Evolution 2.10.3
- Drivers for ATI and nVidia cards.
- Compiz 0.6.3
Two .iso images of the installable LiveCDs are available, one for each of Intel’s architectures, 32-bit and 64-bit, which you can get form the MEPIS download mirror list.
Klaus Knopper, Knoppix founder and lead developer has announced that, after a year’s time of unavailability, the next release, Knoppix 5.3.1 will be ready for download no later than 22/03/2008 –some four days from now.
The announcement comes after Knoppix 5.3.0 was released at Germany’s CeBIT conference some days in order to avoid speculation about a longer delay. The new 5.3.1 version will include may bug fixes and the accesibility features for the visually impaired developed for Adriane Knoppix.
Every now and then something will happen to your Ubuntu system that will break your xorg.conf file: module updates, a recovery session gone bad, things of the sort, so that the next time you boot your Ubuntu system you find your monitor’s resolution to be configured to 800×600 instead of the 1680×1050 pixels you actually want.
At this point your choices are: to edit the xorg.conf file manually (which is on the tricky side of things, specially now that Ubuntu’s xorgs are “minimal” and a bit more touchy), to reinstall your system or to run an update on your xorg.conf. This last option may or may not solve your problem, depending on what the actual problem is, but is quick and much less risky or time consuming than the other two.
Open a terminal and type
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
enter your password, wait for the thing to be done, restart the Xorg session (reboot will do the trick or Ctrl+Alt+Backspace) and see what happens.
By the way: once you have a fully funcional system, keep a copy of your xorg.conf file somewhere safe and at hand so that you don’t need to do this stuff again.
As usual the new Foresight Linux release is the first distro to feature the new GNOME desktop environment, GNOME 2.22. Besides that, the rPath based distro has some new things to offer with the new version:
- A new .tar based installer which should take no more than 10 minutes to install, according to the release announcement.
- PackageKit software administration.
- Syslinux bootloader instead of GRUB.
- Improved ease of installation and use for ATI and nVidia drivers.
So if you’d like to give Foresight a try or just want to see what the new GNOME 2.22 is all about, you can go and get it from the rPath download mirrors.
GNOME 2.22 is the new version of the most widely used Linux desktop graphical environment.
It’s now ready for use after half a year since the last stable GNOME release (the GNOME project releases new stable versions bianually).
Among the many new goodies in GNOME 2.22 are:
- The GVFS virtual filesystem framework an under-the-hood improvement so that external mounted volumes become more transparent to the desktop environment and all of its apps.
- The PolicyKit framework aims to make privilege management safer for users.
- Cheese is a free clone inspired by Apple’s Photoboot, an app developed to take and process photos from your webcam and also video.
- Vinagre a remote desktop client.
- Evolution remains GNOME’s mail and calendar client but now it supports Google Calendars.
- Totem has now better subtitle management.
GNOME 2.22 will become available in a distro near you in the following weeks. Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron and Fedora 9 will feature it but, if you just can’t wait, Foresight Linux 2.0 is released now, at the same time GNOME 2.22, was and it already has it. For more details, new characteristics and some photos go to the GNOME Project official release notes web page.
