Damn Small Linux 4.4.4 is out

Damn Small Linux (DSL) is a very versatile 50MB mini desktop oriented Linux distribution. DSL was originally developed as an experiment to see how many usable desktop applications can fit inside a 50MB live CD. It was at first just a personal tool/toy. But over time Damn Small Linux grew into a community project with hundreds of development hours put into refinements including a fully automated remote and local application installation system and a very versatile backup and restore system which may be used with any writable media including a hard drive, a floppy drive, or a USB device.


DSL has a nearly complete desktop, and many command line tools. All applications are chosen with the best balance of functionality, size and speed. Damn Small also has the ability to act as an SSH/FTP/HTTPD server right off of a live CD. In our quest to save space and have a fully functional desktop we've made many GUI administration tools which are fast yet still easy to use. What does DSL have?

XMMS (MP3, CD Music, and MPEG), FTP client, Dillo web browser, Netrik web browser, FireFox, spreadsheet, Sylpheed email, spellcheck (US English), a word-processor (Ted), three editors (Beaver, Vim, and Nano [Pico clone]), graphics editing and viewing (Xpaint, and xzgv), Xpdf (PDF Viewer), emelFM (file manager), Naim (AIM, ICQ, IRC), VNCviwer, Rdesktop, SSH/SCP server and client, DHCP client, PPP, PPPoE (ADSL), a web server, calculator, generic and GhostScript printer support, NFS, Fluxbox and JWM window managers, games, system monitoring apps, a host of command line tools, USB support, and pcmcia support, some wireless support.

Damn Small is small enough and smart enough to do the following things:

• Boot from a business card CD as a live linux distribution (LiveCD)
• Boot from a USB pen drive
• Boot from within a host operating system (that's right, it can run inside Windows)
• Run very nicely from an IDE Compact Flash drive via a method we call "frugal install"
• Transform into a Debian OS with a traditional hard drive install
• Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram
• Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!)
• Modularly grow -- DSL is highly extendable without the need to customize.

Download this new DSL version at Here.

LinuxMini: The Light Edition of LinuxMint has released

The purpose of the Light Edition is to bring a version of Linux Mint which doesn't contain:

• proprietary software
• patented technologies
• support for restricted formats

In some countries where the legislation allows software patents to be enforced the Light Edition provides a way for users to legally download Linux Mint.

The following components are not present in this Light Edition:

• Macromedia Flash
• Support for encrypted DVDs
• Windows codecs
• Support for restricted multimedia formats
• Unrar
• Sun Java (replaced by GIJ)

This edition includes all other technologies from Linux Mint Celena and among them: mintAssistant and mintUpload.

Note: You can transform Linux Mint "Light Edition" into Linux Mint "Main Edition" by installing Multimedia Support once the system is installed on your computer.

You can download this mini linux of Liux Mint at here.

Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 with rich features

Kubuntu 7.10 removed the feistiness, becoming the gutsiest release to date. Improved desktop, updated applications and increased usability features are just a few of the surprises with this latest release.

The goal for Kubuntu 7.10, codenamed Gutsy Gibbon, was to remove the edge and the feistiness from previous releases and to continue on the creation of a secure and stable desktop environment, on a road to becoming the perfect KDE based operating system.

Whats New?

The K Desktop Environment, a powerful graphical desktop environment, combines the ease of use, contemporary functionality and outstanding graphical design with the technological superiority of the Kubuntu operating system. The stable release of KDE in Kubuntu 7.10 is right up to date at version 3.5.8, released earlier this week.

Dolphin is a KDE file manager, now the default file manager in Kubuntu 7.10, which allows quick navigation through the file system. Dolphin is not a replacement for Konqueror as Dolphin only acts as a file manager. Some of the main features of Dolphin are: a navigation bar for quick navigation through the file system, view properties are saved for each folder, split views, undo and redo functionality, renaming of multiple selected items in one easy step.

Kubuntu 7.10 now includes the same Restricted Drivers Manager as Ubuntu. The Restricted Drivers Manager is a control module that allows you to simply install drivers for your hardware that are of the non-free variety. Such drivers include the NVIDIA 3D graphics driver, the ATI 3D graphics driver, Broadcom wireless drivers and more. Though Kubuntu makes these drivers readily available to you, as non-free software they are not officially supported by the Kubuntu community, and if they break you can only receive fixes through the manufacturers of the drivers.


Kubuntu 7.10 includes OpenOffice.org 2.3, which is an open-source office suite similar in functionality to that of other office suites. The included applications are: Writer, a fully functional word processor, Calc, an advanced spread sheet program and Impress, a tool for creating effective multimedia presentations. OpenOffice.org is compatible with all major office suites.

For those of you wanting something lighter, KOffice is a simple install away. It includes world leading applications such as Kexi the database manager and Krita the image editor.

Kontact, the Personal Information Manager in Kubuntu 7.10, unites an entire suite of PIM applications in one central environment. We now include the Enterprise version of Kontact, for advanced functionality.

KDE 4, the largest update to ever come out of the KDE community, is present in the Kubuntu 7.10 universe repositories. KDE 4 Beta 3 is the version available released only the day before Kubuntu 7.10. Still recommended only for the developer minded as it is highly unstable, however it is getting to the point of much better usability. If you are interested in seeing how the future of desktop computing is shaping up, then take a look at our KDE 4 Beta 3 packages.

Not only can you use Kubuntu and install Kubuntu from the Desktop CD or the DVD, but you also have some popular Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) available to install on your Microsoft Windows operating system. Advantages of this software include being absolutely free of charge, being free to modify and being free to copy and distribute. The applications provided are: Scribus, an advanced desktop publishing utility; Mozilla Firefox, a secure and fast web browser and Mozilla Thunderbird, a full-featured email client - reclaim your inbox!

And many more features thats Kubuntu brings in this new release. Btw, you can download it here now.

MitraX: Linux Mini, features Maxi

MitraX is Live Linux distribution based on Slackware Linux which can be booted from CD. With its size of 50MB MitraX can be stored on business-card CD and carried anywhere.

MitraX, currently in version 1.0.1 is mainly intended to be used by system and network administrators but it can be easily used by anyone else. You don't need any experiance with Linux in order to use it - all important programs have graphic interface. MitraX now with full read-write NTFS support.

With MitraX, you can change or delete forgotten password on Windows operating systems or even BIOS. CD contains programs which enable safely hard disk partitioning, provide detailed informations about your system and much more.

Requirements:

• bootable CD-ROM drive
• hard disk is not needed
• at least 96 MB RAM for graphic environment and completely caching MitraX into memory
• Intel-compatible CPU (Pentium or later)

Some included applications are:

Graphics: GIMP - image manipulation, GqView - image preview, InkScape - SVG editor, colorpicker.

Office: AbiWord - word processor, BlueFish - the best free HTML and programming editor, GnuMeric - spreadsheet editor, GCalcTool - graphical calculator, gv - a PDF and PostScript viewer.

Internet: Opera - browser and e-mail client, Apache - web server, Dillo - browser, vsftpd - secure FTP server, gfpd - graphical FTP client, gitmail - anonymous e-mail sending, Xmail - mail server, traceroute - Internet traffic supervisor.

Network: NMap - network exploration tool and security scanner, AirSnort - a tool for checking wireless security, HydraGTK - a tool for checking network computer password reliability, Gspoof - working with TCP/IP packets, Ettercap - a multipurpose sniffer over switched LANs, LinNeighborhood - Samba client, telnet and SSH, TSClient - Terminal Server Client.

Multimedia: Mplayer - video and audio player, Simple CDR-X - CD and DVD media burning and music ripping.

Games: chess, xskate, Ltris, GnoMine and much more funny programs (xsnow, rubix, xeyes...)

FreeDOS: Volkov Commander - file manager, Aida16 - provides detailed information about your system, spfdisk - a partitioning tool, WipeCMOS - BIOS and BIOS password resetting, rawrite - floppy disk copying, MBRwork - Master Boot Record editor.

Other: john the ripper - a tool for checking Windows and Linux password reliability, shred - irreversible file deleting, hdparm - hard disk parameters configuration

Download MitraX here now.

Paipix 7.10, Linux Distro that focus on Scientific Apps was released

PAIPIX 7.10, a Debian-based live DVD with focus on scientific applications, has been released.

While PAIPIX 7 integrated in the same DVD the installation, live and upgrade systems, the new PAIPIX 7.10 uses backports to combine the stability of Debian Etch development, X window and KDE with upgraded kernel (2.6.22), OpenOffice.org 2.2 and many more updated applications.

New scientific applications were also included. The new PAIPIX 7 GNU/Linux keeps its focus on scientific software but drops the emphasis on a pure live DVD to integrate the installation, live and upgrade systems. These solutions result form using the Debian official packages 'debian-live' and 'debian-cd', making the development of PAIPIX more sustainable in the medium range.

You can download Paipix at here for 32bit and here for 64bit version.

StartCom MultiMedia Edition ML-5.0.6 (Kassem) Update RC2 released

After the first release candidate of ML-5.0.6 which was released last week, Startcom today publish this second release candidate. This is the last build before the official release.

What's New?

This time we published ML-5.0.6 also for the x86_64 architecture. The historical Mozilla browser packages were dropped for good and GAIM was replaced with Pidgin. Some disturbing file conflicts when installing in other languages than English are fixed with this release. A few other improvements and some polishing was also done and the StartCom MultiMedia Edition 5 looks better than ever. Visit Startcom's screen shot section to get a glimpse about how impressing StartCom Linux is today.

Download for 32 bit version here, and the 64 bit here.

The New Ubuntu based distro : ELBUNTU

Elbuntu is a Live-CD that is based on the Ubuntu Feisty Fawn, but provides Enlightenment DR17, developed and maintained by Elbuntu Team.

Life isn't fair. All not all distro's are created equal. Some are boring, others not as configurable as we want. Then we have Enlightenment, the window manager for the rest of us.
So why not have the eye-candy and configurability of Enlightenment, with the clean and beautiful design of Ubuntu Linux?

Elbuntu is a project aiming towards that goal.

The objective of the Elbuntu community project is to provide the maximum eye candy for the end-user using the Enlightenment DR17 window manager and the related libraries.

Elbuntu doesn't contain Gnome , but only graphic libs. All the Enlightenment based software are included in the distro. Elbuntu is fast , like the E17 window manager.

Elbuntu uses the live/install CD method. To go towards making a live cd, E17 packages have been uploaded at http://e17.dunnewind.net

Ebuntu aims to provide an enhanced and attractive user-interface. The secondary aim of Elbuntu is to show off the eye-candy capabilites of the linux operating system in general and Ubuntu in particular

Some of the applications integrated into Enlightenment:

Extrackt
Extrackt is an ETK based audio CD ripper and encoder tool. It has a lot of settings, and extra features
Exhibit
Exhibit is year Image viewer using Etk. Its GUI is like GQview' S, goal with additional features. It looks great, it' S fast, and easy to uses.
Eclair
Eclair is an audio and video player. It's themeable, and uses Edje for its GUI.
Currently it doesn't have a menu because it's being rewritten using ETK. But you can drag'n'drop files to the playlist.
Estickies
Estickies is an ETK based app that allows you to put virtual notes on your desktop.

And soon Network Manager, Media Center…

Addition to the native applications of Enlightenment.
A selection of applications were selected for their speed and their effectiveness.

PCMan File Manager
An extremly fast and lightweight file manager which features tabbed browsing and user-friendly interface.
Pidgin
Instant messaging supporting protocols AIM, MSN, Yahoo! , Jabber, ICQ, IRC, SILC, Gadu-Gadu, etc…
XMMS
XMMS is a multimedia player for unix systems. XMMS stands for X MultiMedia System and can play media files such as MP3, MOD's, WAV and others with the use of Input plugins.
VLC Player Media
Media Player of reference. It supports a large number of multimedia formats, without the need for additional codecs
AbiWord
A fast and powerful text processing. AbiWord is a word processing program similar to Microsoft® Word. It is suitable for a wide variety of word processing tasks.
Firefox
The award-winning Web browser is now faster, more secure, and fully customizable to your online life. With Firefox 2, we’ve added powerful new features that make your online experience even better.
Liferea
Liferea is an aggregator for online news feeds.
XChat
XChat is an IRC chat program of reference. It allows you to join multiple IRC channels (chat rooms) at the same time, talk publicly, private one-on-one conversations etc. Even file transfers are possible.

Download Elbuntu Live CD here.

Frugalware has updated

The Frugalware Developer Team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Frugalware 0.7, the seventh stable release.

Frugalware Linux is an independently developed general purpose desktop Linux distribution designed for intermediate users. It follows simple Slackware-like design concepts and includes the "pacman" package management utility from Arch Linux.

No new features have been added since 0.7rc2, but more than 150 changes have been made to fix minor bugs. If you didn't follow the changes during the pre/rc releases, here are the most important changes since 0.6:

up-to-date base system - Linux kernel 2.6.22.9
glibc 2.6.1 and GCC 4.2.1
up-to-date desktop packages - KDE 3.5.7, GNOME 2.20, Xfce 4.4.1, OpenOffice.org 2.3.0 and Firefox 2.0.0.7; A live CD called FwLive is now available for this release

Language-specific defaults (keymap, timezone, default mirror), the installation is now logged; supported new languages: Romanian, Swedish, Italian and Danish; new graphical tools: Gfpm (package manager) and Gnetconfig (network configurator).

You can download Frugalware at here.

Scientific Linux: another Red Hat Linux mini distro

Scientific Linux is a recompiled Red Hat Enterprise Linux put together by various labs and universities around the world.

The Scientific Linux live CD/DVD is a bootable CD/DVD that runs Linux directly from CD/DVD without installing. It is based on Scientific Linux 4.5 (SL45), which is recompiled from RedHat Enterprise Linux 4 sources (RHEL4 AS Update 5).

The following versions of the Scientific Linux live CD are available for download: 'livecd' (fits on a CD-ROM), 'livecd64' (CD-ROM for 64-bit systems), 'livedvd' (fits on a DVD), 'livedvd64' (DVD-ROM for 64-bit systems), 'mini_livecd' (rescue system).

Additional feature: live CD/DVD can be installed on local hard disk or USB key and can be mounted over NFS. Latest changes: diskless client - better detection of the network card; GParted added to live CD/DVD.


You can get Scientific at here.

rPath Linux 1.0.7 has released

rPath Linux, the first Linux distribution built using the groundbreaking Conary software management system, has released updated images for rPath Linux 1. The new images incorporate updates to the installation process and all package updates released as of September 26, 2007.

In particular, the installation images and installed system now include a 2.6.22.7 Linux kernel, enabling installation on more recent hardware not supported by previous installation media. (Linux kernels for Xen support are 2.6.16.33 in this release.)

If you have already installed rPath Linux 1, you should update your current system using Conary rather than reinstall using the new images. For information on managing Conary-based systems, see Conary QuickReference.

The 32-bit Xen domU image contains two kernels. One supports older Xen dom0 hosts with kernels that do not include PAE support. The other supports newer Xen dom0 hosts that do include PAE support. If you experience a boot failure in that domU image, select the other kernel. For more information on Xen domU support, please see Xen_DomU_Guide.
Where can I get it?

What is rPath Linux?

rPath Linux is a freely-available Linux operating system distribution, built with the Conary distributed software management system, supported and maintained by rPath, Inc. The rPath Linux distribution contains high-quality, up-to-date software, and is the base development platform for creating software appliances and purpose-built distributions using rBuilder Online.

rPath Linux is also a fully functioning Linux distribution in its own right. Installing rPath Linux is the easiest way to get familiar with using Conary to manage software and systems.

rPath offers formal support to customers who use rPath Linux to build software appliances.

Download rPath at here.

Absolute Linux 12.0.7 has released today

Absolute Linux, a light-weight, Slackware-based distribution featuring the IceWM window manager has released update version 12.0.7. Fairly extensive changes in terms of bug removal and added features. Major fixes include mounted external volumes writable by users as well as root.

The clearFstab script was tamed, GUI login no longer leads to any missing resources problems, GIMP scripts were patched to ensure that they work with new 2.4 series, ePDFView replaces xPDF as default PDF viewer, Firefox updated and now also includes all header files to compile web-apps against, installer available (as root) for folks lucky enough to legally use 'restricted' multimedia files, Audacity 1.3.3 included, CheckInstall version 1.5.3 works and has been patched to behave nicely... and lots more.

Bug Removal
clearFstab (used to enable switching between auto and non-auto mounting on Absolute) has been fixed, so that it will no longer remove any bootable, swap or floppy devices from fstab which are /dev/sd

DevTray
Fixed mounting of volumes (such as USB STICKS) to mount them UID,meaning users can mount them and WRITE to them properly.

XDM
Updated to fix un-merged resources in custom startup. Fonts and language settings should now be correctly configured on GUI login

Font Update
Pulled bitstream fonts that were not used and put in DejaVu for better language support. Also putting lots of graphical fonts in GIMP extra package where they are actually used. (CD2)
HTMLpage and Nedit now both use a programmer's font called Dina.

Guten-Print
Replaces gimp-print package for nice printing from the GIMP.
Most noticeable feature is that a PPD selection is no longer required on printer setup, just pick you printer and away you go...

EpdfView
Has replaced xpdf for viewing PDF files.
Mimetype in ROX-Filer and firefox handling changed to accommodate.

Audacity
Reintroduced. Latest beta of audacity now builds with wxGTK-2.8.3, with unicode -- happy days, it's back!

ROX-Filer
Updated mime-type handler for OpenOffice writer to again use swriterRox.sh script. make usage clearer when OO not installed and when installed before reboot (and path update has not kicked-in yet...)

Etc package
Font changed on system dialog boxes (usr/share/pixmaps/colorboxDOH.rc) Multimedia file about, installer and uninstaller scripts added

Mplayer
Updated (recompile) w/o skins or GUI enabled (due to the fact that we now use smplayer frontend.) Winds up being about 1/2 MB smaller package, despite inclusion of HTML docs.

Multimedia Installer
This is for those who are legally able to install DVD and video codecs.
Script in Icewm menu (as root) to "install Multimedia Files" downloads some, compiles a lot, and installs all without any needed interaction.

Mplayer-plugin
Updated to work with multimedia files, latest builds.
Required rebuild of firefox with all "dev" header files (see below)

Firefox
Updated to 2.0.0.7 - I have read not needed on Linux, but the header files for Firefox were needed to compile mplayerplug-in. (i had gotten lazy and installed prebuilt -- compile time is quite long...)
Also set handler for OGG files properly for audacious.

Checkinstall
Still use old version 1.5.3 (no bugs), however, updated the checkinstall script to no longer automatically install the created package, default arch type is now i486, and install/soinst.sh is not packages if empty.

HTMLpage
Updated with new base font set for default (Dina)
A small and very readable monospaced font. You can tell 1 from l and so on...
While in the HTMLpage code, I updated anything kicking out deprecation warnings, before they became a problem.

QGRUBEditor: The GRUB Editor

QGRUBEditor is a system tool to view and edit the GRUB boot loader. The project offers many features and it is the perfect solution for those who want to change the way GRUB works, without messing with GRUB's configuration files.

Features:

• Backup the GRUB files
• Restore the GRUB files
• Edit the GRUB files
• Shows the GRUB location on the hard-disk

Sometimes you need a tool to help you easily view and edit the GRUB boot loader, without going through text editors and changing manually system files. For this kind of stuff QGRUBEditor was created.

For the beginning, the most important question is:"What is GRUB?". So let's answer it. GNU GRUB is a boot loader package that came from the GNU Project. It allows a user to have different operating systems on his computer at the same time and gives him the ability to choose between them when the computer starts. This boot-loader can also select from different kernel images available on a particular operating system's partitions and to pass boot-time parameters to these kernels. GRUB provides a simple command line interface where users can write new boot sequences, but QGrubEditor has the advantage of a graphical interface that can be run as a normal application on Linux.

After you get your hands on QGRUBEditor you should make sure you have Qt4 installed. You could verify that by typing in a console "whereis qt4". This should indicate its location, pointing out to /usr/lib/qt4, /usr/include/qt4 and /usr/share/qt4 by default. If you don't have it, you can use the "sudo apt-get install libqt4-dev" command to get it, if you're on Ubuntu. I didn't have it installed on my Ubuntu 7.04 machine, so I had to set it up using the aforementioned command. Another thing you should verify is whether you have the g++ compiler. If you don't, use "sudo apt-get install g++". Things can be very easy on Ubuntu, you only have to type one single command and... VOILA!

The program or library is on your system, waiting for you to use it. After your system meets all requirements, launch a terminal and go to the folder where you've extracted QGRUBEditor. Here you should type "qmake-qt4" followed by "make" and "make install". The last command is a little bit different for the Ubuntu users, you will have to type "sudo make install" to gain root privileges, otherwise that command is useless.

When I started the application I was asked for the admin password. This can only mean that things can get a little bit messy if you're not careful with what you change in this program. I found out afterwards that QGRUBEditor makes back-ups every time it accesses a file, to prevent data loss, giving the back-up a name that resembles the original file. After that the user can restore the back-up with no problems. Anyway, I advise you to be careful, you never know what could happen. The next thing you'll see after you're asked for the admin password will be a window splitted in two and some nice, beautiful icons. These are actually from the Crystal SVG / Hicolor KDE icon theme, the only original one is QGRUBEditor's icon.

In the upper window you can find all the entries from /boot/grub/menu.lst, a file where GRUB lists every operating system installed on your computer. The default entry is highlighted with green, but you can change the color by going to "Settings", or by pressing Ctrl+S if you have another favorite color. Click on one of the entries in this list. You'll see some changes in the other panel, like the path to the kernel and its parameters, the title of the entry, etc. Under this panel you'll see the settings for the selected entry. I really like the fact that you can easily change the splash image from here and you can put a password on the booting of an operating system.

Also, you can change the time until the default entry starts, calculated in seconds. I don't know exactly for what the Colors field was made, because I don't know whether you can specify the number of colors (like 256 colors, 16-bit, etc.) or it's for something else. I believe it was made for the first option, choosing the number of colors. The developers should've thought about giving explanations for every function that appeared in their program. I don't like to see beginners left aside and no help being provided with the program. The "what's this?" function is missing and the documentation provided with the package doesn't offer in-depth help.

Right clicking on an entry doesn't open a pop-up menu that contains the most important functions as I expected, it opens the "View" menu. I don't know what the use of this might be; it encumbers the work of the user and if someone wants to hide some toolbars he or she can simply go to "View" and uncheck the option related to the toolbar.

The buttons on the main interface lead to functions that are available through the drop-down menus, including all important functions and some more that don't help the user in any way (like the "About" button). In the "File" menu there are just two buttons: "View Input" and "Quit". All important functions can be accessed through keyboard shortcuts, like Ctrl+V for "View Input" or Ctrl+Q for "Quit". The "View" menu lets the user show or hide the toolbars, a good function if you don't need so many buttons on your screen.

The third menu is "Actions", where you can choose from adding new entries to the /boot/grub/menu.lst file to removing entries and refreshing the list. Also, from here you can back-up and restore the files you've modified through QGRUBEditor. The deleting of back-ups is also permitted. Be careful what key combinations you use, some may differ from the normal usage.

The last one is "Settings", split in three different sections: General, Paths and Language. I always come across the same problem in the software I use: no explanations for the options! I want to know what "Smart Cropping" is. What does it do?! Does it affect the files I edited in some way? And what's the difference between the "Quick Mode" and the "Advanced Mode" of backing up/restoring/deleting files? I would really like to know these answers, but there's no help, not even a small hint.

In "Settings" --> "Paths" you will encounter the paths to menu.lst, device.map and mtab files. You can change them, if you are unsure of what you've done, where they indicated before by clicking on "Restore Default".

I've noticed there is an increasing community around QGRUBEditor, with members from all around the world. The proof for this statement could be the translations, like French, German, Greek, etc. You can change the program's language, but you have to restart it for the changes to take place. If you want it back in English, you'll have to leave the "Translation File Location" field empty.

QGRUBEditor's small size and intuitive interface makes it a perfect tool for administering your GRUB loader entries, changing their parameters and the way GRUB looks without getting into much detail.

The same actions done with this application can be performed with a text editor by changing some files. The translations are very well made and very soon we'll see more of them.

Download this tools here.

Elive: When Debian meets Enlightenment

Elive is a complete operating system for your computer. It's the perfect choice for replacing your proprietary, high-cost system. It is built on top of Debian GNU/Linux and customized to meet your needs for a complete operating system while still offering the user eye-candy, with minimal hardware requirements.

Turn your old computer into a high-powered work-station again, with an Interface that dazzles everybody that sees it. This is Elive's goal.

Elive comes with a full suite of applications for your work and leisure time needs. It offers everything from a full Office suite to games and Multimedia. You can enjoy watching movies or listening to music. You can even make your own DVD movies with menus, music and it works. Elive gives you the ability to make 3D animations, or compose your own movies in a real-time non-linear video editor from simple videos taken with your video camera. You can edit and manipulate audio and image files for better quality, effects, or design. And to round it all up, Elive has centralized settings and configurations in its own Control Panel called Elpanel.

Elive is a very stable system that will continue to run day after day without problems. The Enlightenment desktop is ultra-fast and perfectly stable with no random errors or surprises. There are no viruses, trojans, spyware, adware, or any similar things. Elive is a secure and serious system.

Elive uses Open Source Software. This means that, among other things, you have access to the source code of the programs as well as the permissions to modify them and adapt them to your personal needs with perfect legality.

Elive is made with and for pleasure. Things designed with pleasure are worlds better than the things designed due to a workers obligation.

Elive is not made for newbies. Elive is not made for experienced people. Elive is not made for enterprises or personal user. Elive is art. It is simply for the people who appreciate it and want to use it. Feel free to try Elive, because only you decide what you want on this world!


Distributions main features

Debian based: Elive is a distribution which is based on the well known Debian, Etch branch providing recent packages and stability at the same time. Elive replaces the Debian packages with customized version if needed (About 280 packages have been added or customized.)

Enlightenment powered: The Enlightenment window manager provides a desktop featuring a fast, light, very flexible environment which still offers eye candy and all the necessary resources to run your day to day applications. Elive includes E16 (for speed and perfect stability). Elive also includes a special version of E17 selected from cvs (regulary updated through Elive's test branch repository) Most of the programs built on top of the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries are also included.

Intuitive: Elive aims to be a comfortable easy to use Linux system with many customization possibilities. It provides maximum power and speed for the experienced user. In a fully preconfigured environment, user friendly tools are centralized in an original control panel, to make it easy to manage your system (Elpanel).

Fast: One of the most important goals of Elive is to be fast and easy to use. You can control your PC like you always did or you have the possibility to work in a different way. With only one keypress you can open your desired programs or launch an action. You can also resize, iconify, move, switch desktops and more with just a keypress.

Minimum Requeriments: The minimum hardware for running Elive is a 100 Mhz CPU and 64 MB of RAM, but the minimum recommended hardware is 300 Mhz and 128 Mb of RAM. You don't need any special graphic card or 3D acceleration to run Elive.

More features:

You can run Elive directly from the CD, without the need to install it. Just put the CD in the drive and run it on any computer.
Ability to install any package through apt or synaptic in liveCD mode! (UnionFS featured)
Great hardware detection system and unique tools.

A control panel for managing your desktop and administrating your system:
Through Elpanel you can control your whole system, i.e. from Elpanel you can launch all the programs to add/remove packages, configure your hardware, customize the look and feel of Elive... etc.

You can download Elive here.

All Highlights of New Ubuntu Release

Desktop highlights

Compiz Fusion: This innovative compositing window manager enables 3-D desktop effects that let users work with, and see, their desktops in completely new ways.

Printer installation: In GNOME, printers are automatically configured for use as soon as they are connected.

Free Flash support with Gnash: Ubuntu 7.10 leads the pack with a preview of this Flash browser plugin. Although still actively in development and not yet fully supported by Ubuntu, Gnash gives a glimpse into the future of free Flash, bringing partial Flash support to 64-bit desktop systems.

Automated Firefox plugin installation: Beyond the addition of Gnash, Firefox in Ubuntu now supports automatic installation of popular plugins through the standard Ubuntu package repositories, for a richer web-browsing experience with the integrated security support of the rest of the Ubuntu system.

Server highlights

AppArmor: This easy-to-deploy kernel technology limits the resources an application is allowed to access and can be used to provide an added layer of protection against undiscovered security vulnerabilities in applications.

Pre-configured installation options: Mail Server, Print Server, Database Server, and File Server options join existing LAMP and DNS options for pre-configured installations, easing the deployment of common server configurations.

Edubuntu highlights

Faster thin clients: Thin clients have been sped up significantly through the use of compressed images.

Updated login manager: The thin-client login manager has been completely reworked, with themes for all Ubuntu flavors, support for autologin, and optional unencrypted graphics transport for improved performance on slower hardware.

Kubuntu highlights

As well as the above desktop highlights, the following new features are specific to KDE users:

Dolphin file manager: This updated file manager gives Ubuntu users a glimpse of the upcoming KDE 4.

Strigi desktop search: Another pillar of KDE 4 available now in Kubuntu.

Restricted-manager: Kubuntu 7.10 includes a KDE front-end for easy installation of proprietary drivers, complementing the existing GNOME front-end.

Gobuntu highlights

Gobuntu 7.10 is the debut full release of the Ubuntu version that is composed entirely of open source non-restricted software. For experienced Linux enthusiasts, Gobuntu will act as the test bed for developing a user-friendly operating system with no compromise in terms of the open source philosophy.

This initial release comes without any software from the restricted component, and with artwork for usplash and the isolinux CD bootloader.

Firefox Web Browser Sets Sights on the Mobile

Mozilla Firefox, the web browser that challenged Internet Explorer with a surprise launch a few years back is now setting its sights on the mobile platform.

The announcement came from Mozilla VP of engineering Mike Schroepfer who points out that Mozilla is already part of Ubuntu Mobile and that Mozilla-based browser is already running on the Nokia N800. (Ubuntu is a Linux-based operating system).

Wired's Compiler wonders if a mobile version of Firefox would make a significant impact on the Opera mobile web browser. Opera comes preloaded on "just about any smartphone," while Opera Mini works on any phone with a data plane.

Geubuntu: When a Gnome marry Enlightenment

The power and flexibility of Ubuntu and Gnome. The magnificence and beauty of E17. Perfect and fast even for a Virtual Machine. Finally a fully functional Enlightenment Desktop.

Geubuntu is a complete and fully functional operative system, available as a Live CD, based on the popular Linux Distribution Ubuntu. Geubuntu, a project started and designed by the Italian artist Luca D.M. (aka TheDarkMaster) is perfect for any Desktop, Laptop PC or even for a Virtual Machine. Geubuntu mixes the power and simplicity of Ubuntu and parts of the Gnome Desktop with the wonder and astonishing eye-candy of Enlightenment DR17

Geubuntu will be a new experience for any user trying to run a stand-alone E17 Desktop in the past. To know exactly what Enlightenment is, we suggest you visit the Home Page of the project. On the user side, E17 appears as an incredibly nice looking Desktop Shell, composed of a Window Manager, a full set of libraries, a Desktop and a collection of modules and applications. In this stage, Enlightenment alone is not enough to make you desktop fully functional, and it's strange that so many people are especting Enlightenment to become a full Desktop Environment like Gnome, KDE or XFCE.

That's where Geubuntu comes in. Geubuntu completes the missing parts of the E17 Desktop Shell and WM with a certain number of tools and applications from the Gnome Desktop. This is only natural, after all: it would be crazy to believe that E17 should provide a full set of applications based on ETK instead of GTK!

In Geubuntu you can find a classic Ubuntu set of applications mixed with those provided and created from and for E17. You'll experience a finally usable and productive Enlightenment 0.17 Desktop!

Performance and advantages
Enlightenment is a light weight Desktop Shell, so your computer will run at a very high speed with incredible 2D effects, such as animations, fading, shadows and much more. E17 doesn't need a 3D card for all of its effects to run properly and Xcompmgr is provided by default in Geubuntu for you to try out every composite effect (Like real transparencies and shadows) any time you want to. If you find that Xcompmgr doesn't slow down your computer too much, you can even run it as a startup application in Enlightenment. What's incredible about E17 and Xcompmgr is that since they don't need a 3D video card to run perfectly, you will be able to have an astonishing level of eye-candy even on a relatively old computer and even on a Virtual Machine! Ubuntu alone could never provide such beaty without Compiz and a fully working 3D video card.

The Goals
Geubuntu is designed to become a completely community based OS, with the goal of a better and perfect integration between E17 and Gnome. We need programmers, coders, hackers, anyone able to modify certain aspects of this distro so that it can be a better and less confusing User experience. My name is Luca De Marini and I'm an Italian designer, I'm not a coder. Geubuntu is a strong idea I and InTiLinux Projects believe in. We just have to make it blossom even better than how it has done in this first release, Geubuntu 7.04 - Prima Luna. Every new-comer will be welcome, as long as he can help somehow the project! For that reason too, if you’re not a programmer, click on the Contribute link to know how to help Geubuntu aniway.

InTiLinuX Projects
Geubuntu is a project hosted and hatched by the great Italian initiative: InTiLinux Projects. In its space Geubuntu finds the hosting services for this Website, plus its forum and the space to host the distributions, for free, just because InTiLinuX believes in us. The Geubuntu project therefore thanks InTiLinuX so much for its great and constructive initiative.

InTiLinuX Projects has been created by the popular Italian Blog InTiLinuX and provides for free many vital instruments for Open Source programmers out there, such as an svn and trunk set. If you’ve got interesting Italian programs needing the instruments to grow or if you just have an interesting and innovative idea to apply in the Open Source and Gnu / Linux community, than don’t hesitate and visit InTiLinux Projects.

Design
Geubuntu will always come in two flavours, the Sunshine Edition and the Moolight Edition. The core will be the same for both versions, only graphical and designer aspects will change from a distro to the other. Enlightenment, after all, is a creation of artists for artists, so the design aspect is one of the most important one in a distro based on E17.

Get it free from download here.

What is Ubuntu JeOS?

Ubuntu JeOS (pronounced "Juice" or which stands for “Just Enough OS.” ?) is an efficient variant of the popular desktop and server operating system, configured specifically for virtual appliances.

"The efficiencies inherent in an operating system that is built for a virtualised world mean that ISVs looking to deploy their applications in this lucrative and growing market have an obvious deployment target in the Ubuntu JeOS Edition," said Stephen O'Grady, analyst at RedMonk. "As the delivery platforms and economics of licensing continue to change, the flexibility and reach of the Ubuntu operating system make it an increasingly popular choice for far sighted ISVs."

ISVs looking to develop virtual appliances will have a compelling platform in Ubuntu JeOS, an OS optimised for virtualisation that greatly reduces the complexity and maintenance overhead normally associated with general purpose operating systems. Ubuntu JeOS Edition has been tuned to take advantage of key performance technologies of the latest virtualisation products from VMware. This combination of reduced size and optimized performance ensures that Ubuntu JeOS Edition delivers a highly efficient use of server resources in large virtual deployments.

"Canonical has produced a robust virtualised OS core in the Ubuntu JeOS Edition that is optimized for virtual appliances," said Dan Chu, vice president of emerging products and markets at VMware. "Virtual Appliances are fundamentally changing how software is developed and deployed, with ISVs now including a thin and highly optimized OS along with their application in a ready-to-run virtual machine. We are excited that Canonical is providing Ubuntu JeOS for vendors interested in building VMware virtual appliances."

Business Objects today unveiled a virtual appliance based on Ubuntu JeOS that is being demonstrated at VMworld.

"Ubuntu fits naturally into the place where computing is happening today," said Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu Project. "Virtualisation is the key driver of data center restructuring at present, and Ubuntu's popularity with developers makes it an excellent choice for the next generation of virtualized environments. We have worked with VMware to deliver a version of Ubuntu that complements its exceptional virtualisation capabilities, providing a solution for the ISVs building virtual appliances and for the enterprises planning to deploy them."

EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0.17

Guardian Digital has announced the release of EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0.17, a server oriented distribution with an easy-to-use web-based administration utility.

This release includes many updated packages and bug fixes, some feature enhancements to Guardian Digital WebTool and the SELinux policy, and a few new features.

In distribution since 2001, EnGarde Secure Community was one of the very first security platforms developed entirely from open source, and has been engineered from the ground-up to provide users and organizations with complete, secure Web functionality, DNS, database, e-mail security and even e-commerce.

Whats New:

• It have included a very alpha version of Samba 4 for our users to evaluate. More information on this very ambitious, and very alpha, release of the Samba suite may be found at samba.org.

  In order to install this package (samba4) you must first remove any samba, samba-client, or samba-common packages you may have installed. Do not use this on a production machine!

• Support for tcb, an alternative password shadowing scheme, was added to EnGarde Secure Linux. The tcb scheme allows most system utilities to work with the least amount of privilege possible and, once properly configured, can allow you to run a system with zero setuid binaries.
• A bug was fixed in glibc which was preventing localedef(1) from generating locales. With this fix you can now better use EnGarde Secure Linux in non-English environments.
• balance, a very simple and effective load balancing application, is now available for installation. Simple to set up, balance can provide round-robin TCP load balancing for just about any daemon.
• powernowd, a daemon to control the CPU speed and voltage of your server, is also now available for installation. Once properly configured powernowd can dynamically adjust the speed and voltage of your CPU, via the kernel CPUFreq and sysfs interfaces, to preserve power when it's idle.
• Several new packages such as balance (3.35), git (1.5.3.3), mailman (2.1.9), maradns (1.2.12.08), powernowd (0.97), samba4 (4.0.0alpha1), and tcb (1.0.2).
• The latest stable versions of ImageMagick (6.3.6), apache (2.2.6), asterisk (1.4.12), awstats (6.7), bacula (2.2.4), clamav (0.91.2), curl (7.17.0), device-mapper (1.02.22), dovecot (1.0.5), libapache-mod_fcgid (2.2), libpng (1.2.20), lvm2 (2.02.28), nagios-plugins (1.4.10), net-snmp (5.4.1), openssh (4.7p1), php5 (5.2.4), postfix (2.4.5), ruby (1.8.6), samba (3.0.26a), spamassassin (3.2.3), sudo (1.6.9p5), webtool (3.17), and zaptel (1.4.5.1).

You may download the ISO image for EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0.17 at here.

GoblinX 2.5 Mini Linux has Released

The first release candidate of GoblinX 2.5 Mini Linux edition, a Slackware-based mini live CD, is ready for download now.

The GoblinX Mini Edition is the son of GoblinX and contains only XFCE as windows manager and GTK/GTK2 based applications.

The edition is the release candidate indicated for tests and final search of bugs to correct. This edition main upgrades are: Added gtkhDInstall, gtkImods, Liveremaster, File-roller, Nautilus-actions, P7zip. Added Font-bh-ttf and the default cursor icon theme. Added Abiword dictionaries for default languages. Changed some themes and backgrounds. Corrected some bugs and errors. Upgraded few packages. Upgraded Magic Center and other interfaces. Changed modules names. Included lzm scripts for Nautilus and Thunar. Removed vim and ttf-indic-fonts packages.

Download GoblinX Mini 2.05.rc_01 here.

Which Mandriva Linux Edition That's Right For You

Mandriva One 2008

The One edition of Mandriva Linux is a Live CD. A Live CD is an operating system which boots and runs directly from CD, with no installation required, and without making any permanent change to the system on which it runs.

Mandriva One, however, is a hybrid Live CD, meaning it also has an installer allowing it to be installed to the system's hard disk, should the user so desire. This makes it the ideal edition of Mandriva Linux to try if you are not confident enough about Linux to be sure you want to install it permanently to your hard disk.

You can boot Mandriva One in live mode to try it out. If you like it, you can install it to your hard disk. If not, you can simply remove the CD and reboot and your system will not be affected. The small size of Mandriva One also makes it ideal for users with slow or bandwidth limited Internet connections.

Sometimes, several single CD versions of Mandriva One are made available with a Mandriva Linux release. There are two main differentiating factors between the various versions: the desktop environment used and the languages supported. Some versions use the KDE desktop environment, some use the GNOME environment. As space makes it impossible to include all supported languages on a single CD, the languages supported by Mandriva Linux are spread across the various versions of One.

The current release of Mandriva One is Mandriva Linux 2008 One. The latest release of Mandriva One is always available from the official download site.



Mandriva Linux Free 2008

The Free edition of Mandriva Linux is so named because it is 'free' in both senses: it costs nothing and it contains only free and open source software, as defined by the Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative.

It contains a fully functional distribution with a range of applications aimed at typical desktop use. It must be installed to your hard disk prior to use. This is the ideal edition of Mandriva Linux to use if you wish to evaluate a comprehensive Mandriva Linux edition, or if you wish to use only free / open source software on your system.

This edition is made available with every Mandriva Linux release in x86-32 and x86-64 versions, on either three CDs or a single DVD.

The current release of Mandriva Linux Free is Mandriva Linux 2008 Free. The latest release of Mandriva Linux Free is always available from the official download site


Mandriva Linux Powerpack 2008

The Powerpack edition of Mandriva Linux is a commercial edition (this means it is available only via the Mandriva Store, to Mandriva Club members, or from an authorized reseller). It contains a range of applications aimed at typical desktop use, development work, or server use. As a commercial edition, Powerpack contains proprietary software, including various proprietary drivers and firmware packages to improve hardware support, and some useful applications and browser plugins.

This edition is made available with every Mandriva Linux release in x86-32 and x86-64 versions, on a single DVD. The version available from the Mandriva Store is a single DVD containing both x86-32 and x86-64 versions. It is available as a slim-pack DVD only, or in a boxed edition with a manual. It is also available via a subscription service, allowing download access to the Powerpack edition for one year (two Mandriva Linux releases) for a flat annual rate.


The current release of Mandriva Linux Powerpack is Mandriva Linux 2008 Powerpack. The latest release of Mandriva Linux Powerpack is always available from the Mandriva Store