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13 April 2009 By: Marius Nestor, Linux Editor<br />
<strong>Softpedia</strong> Linux Weekly, Issue 41<br />
The weekly newsletter for Linux users.<br />
Welcome to the 41st issue of <strong>Softpedia</strong> Linux Weekly!<br />
This week's editorial talks a little about the features of the upcoming Mandriva 2009 Spring<br />
operating system. The "first look" article offers you a quick preview of the new Linux Mint 6<br />
KDE operating system. In the Linux distribution announcement section you will find the<br />
following releases: Mandriva 2009.1 RC2, Clonezilla Live 1.2.1-53, Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox,<br />
Linux Mint 6 KDE, Slax 6.1.0 and Kwort Linux 2.4.1. For this week we had the pleasure of<br />
reviewing the Screenlets 0.1.2 software. In other news: VirtualBox 2.2.0 for Linux arrives<br />
and KOffice 2.0 RC1 is ready for testing. The weekly ends with the video clip of the week,<br />
the latest Linux distributions released/updated last week and the development releases.<br />
Summary:<br />
Editorial: What You Should Expect from Mandriva 2009 Spring<br />
First Look: Linux Mint 6 KDE<br />
Distributions announced last week:<br />
- Mandriva 2009.1 RC2 Screenshot Tour<br />
- Clonezilla Live 1.2.1-53 Is Out<br />
- Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox Is Here<br />
- Linux Mint 6 KDE Edition Has KDE 4.2.2<br />
- Available Now: Slax 6.1.0<br />
- Kwort Linux 2.4.1 Was Released<br />
- Tiny Core Linux 1.3 Has Better Support for Flash Drives<br />
Review of the Week: Screenlets 0.1.2<br />
Other news: VirtualBox 2.2.0 for Linux arrives and KOffice 2.0 RC1 is ready for<br />
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Copyright (c) 2001-2013 <strong>Softpedia</strong>. All rights reserved. <strong>Softpedia</strong> and <strong>Softpedia</strong> logo are registered trademarks of Soft<strong>News</strong> NET SRL.
testing<br />
Video Clip of the Week: Acer One with Mandriva 2009 Linux<br />
New Distributions: Calculate Linux 9.4 and TurnKey Tomcat Live CD<br />
Distributions Updated Last Week: Berry Linux 0.96<br />
Development Releases: Musix GNU+Linux 2.0 Alpha 2, Flynux 0.1 Alpha 6 and<br />
more...<br />
Editorial: What You Should Expect from Mandriva 2009 Spring - by Daniel<br />
Pop-Silaghi<br />
- With the second Release Candidate out and only two weeks until the big launch, we<br />
thought it would be a good idea to give you an overall look at what you should expect from<br />
Mandriva Linux 2009.1 (Spring). First of all, Mandriva 2009 Spring will boot much faster,<br />
through several fixes (including udev), implementation of a new SpeedBoot mode and<br />
support for the powerful EXT4 filesystem. What Speedboot basically does is prioritizing boot<br />
processes in order to load the graphical system first and then continue with starting the rest<br />
of the processes. As for EXT4, though many users are still kind of wary about this new<br />
filesystem, its superior performance cannot be contested. Here at <strong>Softpedia</strong> we've been<br />
using it on most of our Linux machines and we've yet to encounter any problems.<br />
Another interesting and certainly useful feature that will ship with Mandriva 2009.1 is the<br />
ability to look at a partition's content right from either the DrakX installer or the diskdrake<br />
partitioner. Double-checking on whether you have important files left is always a good idea,<br />
so being able to do this right before the installation is really convenient. Using the 2.6.29<br />
Linux kernel, hardware support will also be extended in Mandriva 2009 Spring. Syslinux,<br />
upgraded to version 3.73 (version 3.74 was released a few days ago and will probably be<br />
included in the final Mandriva release), brings many new features and a new module: HDT<br />
(Hardware Detection Tool), allowing users to get a complete description of their hardware<br />
configuration right from the installation menu. Another anticipated update is X.org server<br />
1.6, bringing improved detection/handling of input devices through the new "input<br />
hotplugging" system, as well as several fixes for Nvidia driver-related issues, improved<br />
support for Intel cards and proper multimedia key recognition. System restore functionality<br />
through Draksnapshot will make it easier for users to restore their whole Mandriva 2009.1<br />
system to an earlier date. Moving on, the fresh new desktop environments couldn't be left<br />
out, so GNOME 2.26, KDE 4.2.2 and Xfce 4.6 will be part of the final release. For a lighter<br />
alternative, LXDE is now the default choice in the upcoming version. As an optional<br />
package, the very interesting Sugar desktop, that was created for the OLPC project, will<br />
also be available in Mandriva 2009 Spring.<br />
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Copyright (c) 2001-2013 <strong>Softpedia</strong>. All rights reserved. <strong>Softpedia</strong> and <strong>Softpedia</strong> logo are registered trademarks of Soft<strong>News</strong> NET SRL.
The default office productivity suite in Mandriva 2009.1 will be, as expected,<br />
OpenOffice.org 3.0.1, coming with many enhancements and support for ODF 1.2 and<br />
Microsoft Office 2007 files (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.). Other software packages include the<br />
latest Mozilla Firefox web browser, Songbird and Amarok audio players, The GIMP image<br />
editor, QT 4.5 and QT Creator. A lot of bugfixing work was done for the drakx-net interactive<br />
firewall. Finally, the redesigned artwork will bring new themes and wallpapers for everybody<br />
to enjoy. With all the netbook craze, Mandriva 2009.1 also aims to further improve support<br />
for all the popular models, including the whole Asus Eee series, Acer Aspire One or MSI<br />
Wind. Installing Mandriva on such devices will be an easy task through the special hybrid<br />
ISO that can be simply copied onto a flash drive and installed from there.<br />
If the release schedule remains unchanged, the 29th of April will be quite an exciting day<br />
not only for existing Mandriva fans but for Linux users in general. With a plethora of new<br />
features and bleeding-edge technologies, it will be hard to resist Mandriva's answer to the<br />
ubiquitous "What Linux distribution should I use?" question.<br />
First Look: Linux Mint 6 KDE<br />
From the article: Linux Mint 6 KDE comes in a 1.1 GB ISO image that was quickly burnt to<br />
a DVD and was ready to be taken for a spin. Before I begin, you should also know that<br />
Linux Mint 6 KDE is based on the stable Kubuntu 8.10, uses the 2.6.27 version of the Linux<br />
kernel and runs Xorg 7.4. After inserting the DVD in the drive, it booted the live environment<br />
in a reasonable amount of time. You'll get your regular KDE login screen & desktop and the<br />
only Mint "trademark" you'll recognize will be the rather nice Application Launcher button. If<br />
you want to give your system a more "minty" look, there are several elegant customized<br />
wallpapers to choose from. As for the rest of the interface, you are all familiar with the style<br />
and eye-candy KDE 4 can provide.<br />
Linux Mint 6 KDE<br />
Though Linux Mint 6 KDE is a nice addition to the collection, I'd rather stick with the main,<br />
GNOME edition. Still, I know there are a lot of you KDE fans out there, so, if you wish to<br />
give Linux Mint a try but can't live without your favorite desktop environment, go right ahead,<br />
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you have nothing to lose.<br />
Read the full article here.<br />
Linux distributions announced last week:<br />
On April 6th, Mandriva announced the immediate availability of Mandriva Linux 2009.1<br />
RC2. Once again, we thought it would be nice to please our readers and offer them a visual<br />
tour of this second release candidate of the upcoming Mandriva 2009 Spring. What's new in<br />
Mandriva Linux 2009.1 RC2? Well, the most obvious thing is the new artwork, which<br />
consists of new wallpapers for both One and Free editions and a new theme called ia_ora,<br />
for KDE. Moreover, Mandriva and the KDE team successfully ported the popular K3b<br />
CD/DVD burning application to KDE4.<br />
Mandriva Linux 2009.1 RC2<br />
<strong>Download</strong> Mandriva Linux 2009.1 RC2 right now from <strong>Softpedia</strong>.<br />
On April 7th, Steven Shiau announced the release of a new stable version of his Linux<br />
distribution, Clonezilla Live 1.2.1-53. Focusing on bugfixing and some improvements,<br />
Clonezilla Live 1.2.-53 doesn't bring important changes. Clonezilla Live 1.2.1-53 is using the<br />
Debian Lenny repositories (as of 04/06/2009) and has updated language files.<br />
Highlights of Clonezilla Live 1.2.1-53:<br />
- The revised en_US language file was merged;<br />
- The -j2 and -j3 options now form a single -j2 parameter;<br />
- The -g auto option will only run the grub-install command if the grub config partition is part<br />
of the restored partitions;<br />
- The ocs-live-dev now uses the tar format for recovery files larger than 2 GB;<br />
- The checklist dialog now includes a prompt to use the space key in order to mark a<br />
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Copyright (c) 2001-2013 <strong>Softpedia</strong>. All rights reserved. <strong>Softpedia</strong> and <strong>Softpedia</strong> logo are registered trademarks of Soft<strong>News</strong> NET SRL.
selection;<br />
- The option to use CHS from EDD while running sfdisk was added through the -e2<br />
parameter, decreasing the possibility of Microsoft Windows boot failures;<br />
- The live-initramfs now works on network booting;<br />
- A faster method of getting the Hard Disk Drive serial number was implemented by<br />
replacing lshw with Udev data;<br />
- Fixed a bug that prevented LVM disk overwriting during the partition table creation;<br />
- Fixed a bug in ocs-iso that removed files while using the toram function and also made it<br />
exit;<br />
- The script used to recreate recovery files (ISO and zip) is not in the 755 mode;<br />
- Fixed a bug in ocs-iso that prevented it from creating a recovery ISO when a file<br />
exceeded 4 GB;<br />
- Fixed a bug that prevented dd from being used for cloning if no filesystem was identified,<br />
when making partition to partition clones;<br />
- Fixed a bug that prevented the creation of a Clonezilla live recovery ISO on the USB flash<br />
version;<br />
- Fixed a bug that prevented Mac OS partition listing while saving an image;<br />
- Fixed a bug that led to using a duplicated "-p true" while running "ocs-sr -x."<br />
Clonezilla Live 1.2.1-53<br />
<strong>Download</strong> Clonezilla Live 1.2.1-53 right now from <strong>Softpedia</strong>.<br />
Also on April 7th, Clement Lefebvre announced the immediate availability of the final<br />
release of Linux Mint 6 (Felicia) Fluxbox Community Edition. Being based on Xubuntu<br />
8.10 (Intrepid Ibex), this version is powered by Linux kernel 2.6.27, X.Org 7.4 and Fluxbox<br />
1.0.0. Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox includes a brand new menu system called Mint-FM2, a new<br />
display manager called Slim (replacement for GDM), and many other nice tweaks.<br />
Highlights of Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox:<br />
- Linux kernel 2.6.27;<br />
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- X.Org 7.4;<br />
- Fluxbox 1.0.0;<br />
- New Software Manager;<br />
- New display manager;<br />
- New menu system;<br />
- Support for FTP transfers in mintUpload;<br />
- Support for history and proxies in mintUpdate;<br />
- mint4win, Linux Mint installer for Microsoft Windows users;<br />
- Thunar Shares, a Thunar add-on that allows users to share files with Samba;<br />
- Media Player Daemon;<br />
- Vino, for remote desktop sharing and viewing;<br />
- Gmrun, a run dialog with history and autocomplete functions;<br />
- Gufw, graphical user interface for the ufw firewall;<br />
- Conky, a lightweight system monitor tool;<br />
- sysv-rc-conf, a command-line interface to configure system services;<br />
- A function to automatically restore the default configuration of Fluxbox.<br />
Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox<br />
<strong>Download</strong> Linux Mint 6 Fluxbox right now from <strong>Softpedia</strong>.<br />
On April 8th, Clement Lefebvre announced the immediate availability of the final release<br />
of Linux Mint 6 (Felicia) KDE Community Edition, based on Kubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)<br />
and powered by Linux kernel 2.6.27, X.Org 7.4 and KDE 4.2. This release also includes a<br />
new package manager, the popular Amarok 2.0 media player and lots of improvements.<br />
Even if the ISO image of Linux Mint 6 KDE does not contain the KDE 4.2.2 packages, they<br />
will be available as an update right after the installation (if you activate the Kubuntu<br />
Experimental repositories)!<br />
Highlights of Linux Mint 6 KDE:<br />
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- Linux kernel 2.6.27-11;<br />
- X.Org 7.4;<br />
- KDE (K Desktop Environment) 4.2.2;<br />
- Amarok 2.0.1;<br />
- Mozilla Firefox 3.0.8;<br />
- mintInstall 5, as the brand new "Software Manager";<br />
- mintUpload 2 with support for FTP transfers;<br />
- mintUpdate 3 with support for history and proxies;<br />
- mintNanny, parental control tool;<br />
- mint4win, Linux Mint installer for Microsoft Windows users, based on Wubi;<br />
- The Gimp 2.6, with a very nice interface;<br />
- ClamAV antivirus;<br />
- search, apt contains and apt content command-line utilities.<br />
Linux Mint 6 KDE<br />
<strong>Download</strong> Linux Mint 6 KDE right now from <strong>Softpedia</strong>.<br />
On April 9th, Tomas Matejicek decided to please his users and announced Slax 6.1.0.<br />
The big news is that this is supposed to be the last release of the Slax 6 series and no new<br />
features will be added from now on, until Slax 7 will be out (not very soon) and it will be built<br />
on top of KDE 4. While still being powered by Linux kernel 2.6.27.8, Slax 6.1 is here to fix<br />
some issues with the split base modules, improve the "Build Slax" feature, and fix<br />
Fluxbox-related bugs. Moreover, a new wallpaper, login sound and fake XDM were added<br />
to Slax 6.1.<br />
Slax 6.1.0<br />
<strong>Download</strong> Slax 6.1.0 right now from <strong>Softpedia</strong>.<br />
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On April 10th, David Cortarello announced the release of his Kwort Linux 2.4.1<br />
Slackware-based distribution. Using the 2.6.28.7 Linux kernel, Kwort 2.4.1 now supports<br />
more hardware components. Also, the init system was improved to provide new features<br />
while maintaining simplicity. Kwort Linux 2.4.1 is using the latest 4.6 version of the<br />
lightweight Xfce desktop environment. The kpkg package manager received some new<br />
features as well, like support for multi-mirror setups.<br />
Highlights of Kwort Linux 2.4.1:<br />
- Linux kernel 2.6.28.7;<br />
- EXT4 filesystem support;<br />
- Xfce 4.6 desktop environment;<br />
- An improved Kwort User Manager to simplify the user creation process;<br />
- Kwort Network Manager was rebuilt for a more efficient connection management;<br />
- The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) 2.6.4;<br />
- Firefox 3.0.7 Web Browser;<br />
- Mozilla Thunderbird 3.0 Beta2 email application;<br />
- Ristretto 0.0.21 Image Viewer;<br />
- OpenOffice.org 3.0.0 office productivity suite;<br />
- Xfburn 0.4.1 CD/DVD burning tool;<br />
- Audacious 1.5.1 audio player;<br />
- Pidgin 2.5.5 multi-protocol instant messaging client;<br />
- aMule 2.2.3 Peer-to-Peer client;<br />
- Dia 0.96.1 diagram drawing program.<br />
Kwort Linux 2.4.1<br />
<strong>Download</strong> Kwort Linux 2.4.1 right now from <strong>Softpedia</strong>.<br />
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On April 12th, Robert Shingledecker announced the release of Tiny Core Linux 1.3, a<br />
very small Linux distribution that is only 10 MB in size. Coming one month after the previous<br />
release, Tiny Core Linux 1.3 uses the Linux kernel 2.6.26-tinycore and brings updated<br />
packages, bugfixes and new features. Two useful additions are UUID and LABELS support,<br />
facilitating the use of Tiny Core Linux on flash drives.<br />
Highlights of Tiny Core Linux 1.3:<br />
- Linux kernel 2.6.26-tinycore;<br />
- BusyBox is now at version 1.13.3;<br />
- PCMCIAutils 015;<br />
- The Aterm terminal emulator reached version 1.00.01;<br />
- The Approbwser can now display .info, .list and .dep file formats;<br />
- Support for UUID and LABLES;<br />
- Automatic modprobing for module extensions;<br />
- Better support for USB printers and scanner through 25-tc.rules;<br />
- Updated device checking for restore;<br />
- Better framebuffer support through an improved xsetup;<br />
- Support for persistent opt was improved;<br />
- Better handling of boot startup scripts;<br />
- A new USB 2 button mouse choice;<br />
- Fixed an issue that occurred when running tce-load from a non X CLI;<br />
- The unused /usr/share/xml and /opt/bin were removed;<br />
- Used Advedef on pci.ids.gz.<br />
Tiny Core Linux 1.3<br />
<strong>Download</strong> Tiny Core Linux 1.3 right now from <strong>Softpedia</strong>.<br />
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Review of the Week: Screenlets 0.1.2<br />
From the review: I have tested Screenlets on an Ubuntu 9.04 Beta machine, thus, I could<br />
easily install it through Synaptic. If you're using other Linux flavors, the producers were nice<br />
to provide packages for most major distributions and, of course, the source files. After the<br />
quick installation process, you will be ready to open up the program. The interface is clean<br />
and intuitive and most options are contained in a single window.<br />
Screenlets 0.1.2<br />
Though I was a bit skeptic at first about all this widget craze, Screenlets is sure to remain<br />
installed and active on my system.<br />
Read the full review here.<br />
Other <strong>News</strong>:<br />
- Sun Microsystems announced on April 8th the release of their VirtualBox 2.2.0<br />
virtualization software. Bringing a lot of new features and improvements VirtualBox 2.2.0 is<br />
a major release, and one of the most anticipated added features is OpenGL 3D acceleration<br />
support for Linux guests. Also, this new release allows importing and exporting of OVF<br />
(Open Virtualization Format) files and adds a new host-only networking mode. Read more<br />
about it here.<br />
- The KOffice team announced on April 8th the release of KOffice 2.0 Release Candidate<br />
1. This version doesn't add any new features but brings many bugfixes and improvements.<br />
It contains the Kword, KPresenter, KSpread, Karbon, Krita and KPlato office applications<br />
while KChart is available as a shape plugin throughout the KOffice suite. Kexi and Kivio are<br />
still under heavy development and they will be present in a future release. Read more about<br />
it here.<br />
Video Clip of the Week: Acer One with Mandriva 2009 Linux<br />
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- For this week we decided to present a video clip that showcases the Mandriva 2009 Linux<br />
distribution on the Acer One netbook. The video has 3:03 minutes and it was posted by<br />
spittenkittens. Enjoy!<br />
New Distributions:<br />
- Calculate Linux 9.4<br />
- TurnKey Tomcat Live CD 2009.04-hardy-x86<br />
Distributions Updated Last Week:<br />
- Berry Linux 0.96<br />
Development Releases:<br />
- Flynux 0.1 Alpha 6<br />
- Clonezilla LiveCD 1.2.2-1<br />
- m0n0wall 1.3 Beta 16<br />
- Musix GNU+Linux 2.0 Alpha 2<br />
See you again next Monday, April 20th, for another issue of <strong>Softpedia</strong> Linux Weekly.<br />
The <strong>Softpedia</strong> Linux Editorial Team.<br />
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