[wplug-announce] The Open Pitt, Issue 35
Vance Kochenderfer
vkochend at nyx.net
Fri Jun 1 19:52:21 EDT 2007
PDF version: <http://www.wplug.org/top/wplug-top035.pdf>
THE OPEN PITT
What's cooking in Linux and Open Source in Western Pennsylvania
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Issue 35 May 2007 www.wplug.org
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In this issue:
Hot Off the Grill...
April Roundup
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Coming Events
Jun. 9: General User Meeting, Topic: Linux Kernel Input/Output. 10am to
2pm, 3002 Newell-Simon Hall, CMU
Jul. 14: General User Meeting. 10am to 2pm, 3002 Newell-Simon Hall, CMU
The public is welcome at all events
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Hot Off the Grill...
Spring has seen a bumper crop of new software releases, so take your laptop
to the poolside and try these out!
March 14 brought us Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, the latest from the leading
distributor among business users. A major focus of this revision was tools
for managing virtualized services. Pre-canned offerings are available for
datacenter, high-reliability database, and supercomputing applications.
<http://www.redhat.com/>
Sabayon Linux 3.3, an up-and-coming distribution based on Gentoo, was
released on March 16. It features plenty of 3D eye candy and games, but is
still suitable for "real work." It comes on a live CD that can also be
installed. <http://www.sabayonlinux.org/>
Owners of PowerPC-based Macs or the Sony PlayStation 3 will celebrate the
March 27 availability of Yellow Dog Linux v5.0.1. Along with improved
device support, the new version now includes the E17 desktop.
<http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/>
The Free cross-platform OpenOffice.org 2.2 office suite was released on
March 29. Display of text on the screen has been significantly enhanced,
and bookmarks can now be included in exported PDF files. Compatibility
with Microsoft Office file formats has also been improved.
<http://www.openoffice.org/>
SimplyMEPIS 6.5 for 32- and 64-bit x86 processor machines came out on April
4. Retaining much of the base of the 6.x series, it features upgrades to
many applications and the kernel as well as an improved look. Video and
wireless support have been enhanced, keeping the focus squarely on its
intended use as a desktop system. <http://www.mepis.org/>
The long-awaited Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 release, code-named "etch," came on
April 8. Supporting eleven different machine architectures and installable
in 58 languages, the latest version of this granddaddy of distributions
offers over 18,000 software packages. For those who want to stick with the
previous "sarge" release, Debian GNU/Linux 3.1r6 appeared the previous day.
It bundles the latest security and bug fixes for the 3.1 series.
<http://www.debian.org/>
Marking the return to a twice-yearly release schedule, Mandriva Linux
2007.1 Spring became available on April 10. It incorporates the
VirtualBox, Xen, KVM, and VMware virtualization technologies. Laptop users
will appreciate the improvements to power management and hibernation.
Among many updates to the applications and desktop environments, one
standout new feature is Metisse, which uses 3D effects to offer new ways of
interacting with windows. <http://www.mandriva.com/>
CentOS 5, a community-maintained distribution created by re-compiling the
Red Hat Enterprise Linux sources, appeared on April 12. Versions for 32-
and 64-bit x86 processors were released with others to follow.
<http://www.centos.org/>
The Thunderbird 2.0.0.0 e-mail client was released for Linux, Windows, and
MacOS on April 18. New features include message tagging and advanced
folder views. Improvements have been made to message alerts and searching.
<http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/>
April 19 produced Ubuntu 7.04, code-named "Feisty Fawn." In addition to
many upgraded applications, this Linux distribution includes a new tool to
migrate settings and favorites from Windows systems. There's also a
friendly new auto-detection wizard to install codecs for playing multimedia
files. <http://www.ubuntu.com/>
Ubuntu's KDE-based counterpart, Kubuntu 7.04, came out the same day.
<http://www.kubuntu.org/>
The educational variant Edubuntu 7.04 was released on April 19 as well. It
incorporates version 5.0.7 of the Linux Terminal Server Project software
for thin client configurations and is offered in separate desktop and
server editions. <http://www.edubuntu.org/>
Rounding out the set, Xubuntu 7.04 features the Xfce 4.4 desktop
environment. <http://xubuntu.org/>
Ardour 2.0, a pro-level audio editing tool which offers multi-channel
recording, non-destructive editing, and powerful mixing capabilities, was
released on April 30. Major improvements include the ability to undo
changes made in previous sessions and user interface updates.
<http://ardour.org/>
An update release in the 4.x series, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5 came out
on May 1. <http://www.redhat.com/>
OpenBSD 4.1 appeared the same day. The latest version of this highly-
secure operating system features many new hardware drivers, software
improvements and updates, and enhanced compatibility with non-native
filesystems. <http://www.openbsd.org/>
The good guys moved ahead in the battle against spam e-mail with the May 2
release of SpamAssassin 3.2.0. <http://spamassassin.apache.org/>
Derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Scientific Linux 5.0 was announced
on May 4. It offers an environment tailored especially for mathematical
modeling and other computation-intensive applications.
<http://www.scientificlinux.org/>
Formerly known as Gaim, the popular Pidgin 2.0.0 instant messaging client
came out May 4. <http://pidgin.im/>
The DOSEMU 1.4.0 emulator was announced on May 5. It runs FreeDOS, DR-DOS,
or MS-DOS in a virtual machine under a Linux system.
<http://www.dosemu.org/>
Gentoo Linux 2007.0 was released on May 7. Versions for a dozen processor
architectures are available. The system installer included on the live CD
and DVD for x86 and AMD64 has been completely rewritten.
<http://www.gentoo.org/>
You likely don't run it yourself, but be thankful for the May 9 release of
the Bugzilla 3.0 bug-tracking software. It's used by a multitude of Free
and Open Source Software projects to keep tabs on problem reports and their
solutions. <http://www.bugzilla.org/>
A distribution based on Fedora but containing only Free Software, BLAG
Linux and GNU 60001 contains numerous updates to the base 60000 release.
It appeared on May 10. <http://www.blagblagblag.org/>
The same day also saw the release of Ubuntu Studio 7.04. A Linux
distribution customized for those who create and edit multimedia, it offers
install options to optimize your system for audio, video, or graphics work.
<http://ubuntustudio.org/>
rPath Linux 1.0.6, a distribution built using the unique Conary packaging
system, came out on May 15. It has strong support for virtualization and
is designed to make building and distributing self-contained software
"appliances" easy. <http://wiki.rpath.com/wiki/rPath_Linux>
Also on May 15, programmers greeted the appearance of the GCC 4.2.0
compiler. Notable is the inclusion of support for OpenMP, used for
developing parallel applications to run on clusters. Many general
performance enhancements have also been made. <http://gcc.gnu.org/>
A minimalist system that fits in less than 90 MB, Puppy Linux 2.16 was
released on May 17. It runs from a live CD or USB drive and offers the
ability to save your session between system reboots. A large number of
improvements to the infrastructure and configuration tools have been made.
<http://www.puppylinux.org/>
Following up on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux maintenance release, CentOS
4.5 was announced on May 17. <http://www.centos.org/>
Its first version not designated as beta, PCLinuxOS 2007 came out on May
20. Originally based on Mandrake Linux but incorporating many significant
enhancements for desktop users, this distribution is rapidly increasing in
popularity. It features the latest versions of OpenOffice.org, Firefox,
and Thunderbird as well as strong support for 3D desktops.
<http://www.pclinuxos.com/>
The OpenSolaris-based live CD BeleniX 0.6 was released on May 23.
Significant improvements include the integration of the Compiz 3D desktop
into KDE and Xfce and an upgrade to version 7.2 of the X.org window system.
<http://www.genunix.org/distributions/belenix_site/>
The eagerly-awaited Fedora 7 Linux distribution hit the streets on May 31.
This release combines the "Core" and "Extras" into a single repository.
Live CD functionality is now built in, and support for writing to Windows
NTFS partitions has been added. Improvements have been made to increase
battery life on laptops, support more wireless devices, and add KVM
virtualization capability. <http://fedoraproject.org/>
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April Roundup
Apr. 14 General User Meeting: Beth Lynn Eicher covered some basic
principles of administering a Linux system, concentrating on rookie
mistakes to avoid. After a brief review of how to tell Richard Stallman
apart from other bearded members of the Free and Open Source Software
community, she discussed setting up your filesystem and swap space and
dealing with USB storage devices. Also included were tips when setting up
disks in an LVM and/or RAID configuration as well as network storage using
NFS, Samba, and AFS. Next up was configuring the X Window System
correctly, closing with some discussion of proper software selection.
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The Open Pitt is published by the Western Pennsylvania Linux Users Group
<http://www.wplug.org/top/>
Editor: Vance Kochenderfer
Copyright 2007 Western Pennsylvania Linux Users Group. Any article in
this newsletter may be reprinted elsewhere in any medium, provided it is
not changed and attribution is given to the author and WPLUG.
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