Distribution Release 2008

Texstar has announced the release of PCLinuxOS 2008 “MiniMe” edition, a minimalist live CD with KDE: “Here is a little MiniMe 2008. It comes with 2.6.22.15 kernel, ALSA 1.0.15 and a very basic KDE 3.5.8 desktop. This is a minimal live CD that is bootable, plus it can be installed. Add in your own background, window decoration, localizations, preferred applications and supporting libraries to fully trick out your desktop. Other changes: I moved Internet and Clock setup to a Utilities folder on the users desktop. Only one question at boot to select the keyboard. Other utilities include ALSA sound configuration, ATI/NVIDIA installation tool, Make Live CD GUI, Make Live USB key and Redo-MBR with OS-probing utility for adding other GRUB boot entries into the GRUB menu. Root password and user setup moved to first boot after installation to hard drive. Also included are NdisWrapper support files.” Here is the full release announcement. Download: pclinuxos-minime-2008.iso (297MB, MD5).

The developers of trixbox, a CentOS-based specialist distribution that enables the user to easily set up a VoIP Asterisk PBX, have announced the release of version 2.4.0: “This set is the latest version of trixbox CE. This is a major change from trixbox 2.2 in that it is based on CentOS 5.1, Asterisk 1.4, and FreePBX 2.3. One problem with trixbox CE 2.x is the lack of hardware support for current systems, especially newer Dell platforms. The vast majority of this has been solved because trixbox CE 2.4 is now based on top of the latest CentOS 5.1 kernel. This now provides support for a much larger number of motherboards, network cards and components, such as hardware RAID controllers. CentOS 5.1 also has high resolution timers built into the kernel so the need for hardware timers on the PCI bus should no longer be required.” Read the full press release for further details. Download (MD5): trixbox-2.4.0.iso (656MB).

MEPIS antiX 7.01, a lightweight derivative of SimplyMEPIS 7.0, was released as an update to antiX 7.0: “antiX is built and maintained by MEPIS community member anticapitalista, as a free version of MEPIS for very old 32-bit PC hardware and is designed to work on computers with as little as 64 MB RAM and Pentium II or equivalent, but not AMD K5/K6 processors… This updated version of ‘Lysistrata’ is built using the MEPIS Linux 7.0 core, including the MEPIS 7 updated and security-patched 2.6.22.14 kernel and upgraded MEPIS utilities, Debian security upgrades and application upgrades since antiX-M7 was released on October 29. The Live CD scripts have been improved, extra ‘cheatcodes’ added and bugs squashed. Kernel headers are now included and antiX uses X.Org 7.2 from the Debian Testing repositories. This release contains the new GRUB menu theme developed and contributed by the MEPIS community.” Check the full release announcement, the website of antiX, and its forum for more information. Download: antiX-M7.01-base.iso (installable LiveCD using fluxbox, 177MB, MD5), antiX-M7.01.iso, (309MB, MD5).

Ian Wells has announced the release of SME Server 7.3, a server-oriented Linux distribution based on CentOS: “The SME Server development team is pleased to announce the release of SME Server 7.3. This release is based on CentOS 4.6 and all packages have been updated to the latest releases. Changes in this release: using ‘sme multipart’ boot parameter now enables quotas on all LVMs; support for disconnect option in rhsbl plugin; support for disconnect immediately if dnsbl plugin rejects recipient addresses; newer version of ipsvd to resolve a few Thunderbird issues; support for configurable time-outs; now able to remove Corporate DNS setting; RAID reconstruction now finishes after using ‘sme nolvm’ passed at install time; ability to use console restore with CD or DVD recordable media….” Further details can be found in the release notes. Download: smeserver-7.3-i386.iso (529MB, MD5).

Jörg Schirottke has announced the availability of the seventh release candidate of KANOTIX 2007, a Debian-based live CD: “KANOTIX 2007 ‘Thorhammer’ RC7 released.” Some of the features include: “Kernel 2.6.24 (Ubuntu kernel with modifications and some patches); ACPI and DMA enabled by default; i586 optimization; Acritox installer – install program with many new functions; actual KANOTIX theme; X.Org 7.1.1, Beryl 0.2.0, VDR 1.5.2, ALSA 1.0.14, NDISwrapper 1.50; Aufs and Unionfs support; GParted 0.3.3 with NTFS resize; NTFS-3G used by default; KDE 3.5.5, OpenOffice.org 2.0.4, Amarok 1.4.8, K3b 1.0.4; IceWeasel 2.0.0.10, IceDove mail and news client 1.5.0.13, GIMP 2.2.13; automatic installation of graphic drivers with ‘nvidia’ and ‘fglrx’ options. If the RC7 is not starting on your PC take the RC6C release, the difference is the kernel!” Here is the brief release announcement. Download: KANOTIX-2007-THORHAMMER-RC7.iso (701MB, MD5).

Happy New Year! Hisham Muhammad has announced the release of GoboLinux 014, an independent distribution whose main claim to fame is a radically redesigned file system layout: “We are pleased to introduce GoboLinux 014, the new major release of GoboLinux, the Linux distribution with an alternative directory structure. This release is the result of over a year of work. The live CD build environment is highly customizable and packages were built using a dynamically-generated sand-boxed environment which insulates the source code and its dependencies during compilation. Major upgrades include KDE 3.5.8, glibc 2.5 and X.Org 7.2, as well as new versions of the GoboLinux management tools.” Read the release announcement and release notes for further information. Download: GoboLinux-014-i686.iso (667MB, MD5).