Digital Inke

Archive for the ‘OS’ Category

ArchBang 2011.09 has been released. The latest update to the very lightweight distro brings with it the latest Linux kernel but also some updated packages, new wallpapers and some package changes, with plenty of apps having been removed.

The release is aimed at new users or those wanting a full reinstall, if you already have ArchBang installed on your system, all of the changes and updated packages have been pushed via update channel.

The big update in ArchBang 2011.09 is the latest Linux 3.0.4-1 kernel. Other packages have been updated to their latest versions as well.

ArchBang 2011.09 also adds a couple of new packages, Paccheck and Gucharmap. The latest release switches to the OSS sound libraries, ditching the more advanced ALSA. Along with it, Volumeicon has been replaced by ossmix.

The Tint2 panel and task bar has been replaced with Adeskbar. The Xfburn CD/DVD burning software for XFCE has been replaced by the Graveman front end for the CD/DVD burning command line tools.

LXRandR replaces the ARandR screen manager. The Zathura PDF viewer replaces Foxit Reader. Finally, Gcalctool has been replaced by galculator.

Several packages have been removed entirely. Xcompmngr, tintwizard, gsimplecal, aufs2, hal, dmenu, gksu and the Nouveau nvidia drivers have all gotten the boot.

Finally, ArchBang 2011.09 also comes with a fresh new look and some new fan-made wallpapers.

About ArchBang

ArchBang is a simple Linux distro based on Arch Linux and the OpenBox window manager. The emphasis is on ease of use and lightness.

Along with the snappy window manager, the package selection is also geared for simplicity and performance.

However, this does not affect usability, since packages for most uses, including multimedia and photo editing, are included by default.

It is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors and can be run from a LiveCD or USB drive as well as installed on a hard drive.

ArchBang 2011.09 is available for download here on Softpedia.

A successful attack of Kernel.org led to the entire site being shut down temporarily as the team rebuilds the system. So, when the fifth release candidate upcoming Linux 3.1 kernel landed, there was no place to publish it.

This led to Linus Torvalds publishing the latest code on GitHub rather than on the kernel’s own git repository. This makes GitHub the current, official home of the Linux kernel, but it’s only a temporary solution.

“So it’s been another week, and it’s time for another -rc. However, master.kernel.org is still down, and there really hasn’t been a ton of development going on, so I considered just skipping a week,” Linus wrote announcing the release candidate.

“Since I did a github account for my divelog thing, why not see how well it holds up to me just putting my whole kernel repo there too? So while kernel.org is down for the count, let’s just see how github does,” he said.

Linus only joined GitHub a couple of days ago and has published the latest, pre-release Linux code several hours ago.

However, he has said that he plans to move the code back to Kernel.org, once the site goes live again, with the GitHub repository becoming a simple mirror.

In the meantime, anyone who really needs the very latest Linux kernel code, can grab it from GitHub, with a few slight changes to the regular checkout.

Kernel.org went down after maintainers decided to reinstall the operating systems on machines compromised in an attack. Hackers gained root access to at least several servers and logged username/password combinations.

It was a rather serious breach, but the method used for the hack was not particularly advanced, an off-the-shelf trojan which infected the computer of one of the people with access to Kernel.org.

The fifth milestone of the upcoming openSUSE 12.1 has been released. The latest testing release comes with updated packages, bug fixes and makes several more steps towards completing the goals for the final release.

The team is getting closer to using SystemD by default and GNOME 3.2 is getting closer to reality with a newer testing build, included in the fifth milestone.

“openSUSE 12.1?s next milestone 5 is now ready for download. Thanks to the men and women of openSUSE Factory who kept their eye on the ball,” the announcement reads.

“There’s a lot of interesting updates to the 12.1 release and some cool new technologies including GNOME 3 and SystemD. You’ll definitely want to take this milestone for a spin and see what you can expect in 12.1,” it said.

openSUSE 12.1 will make the switch to the GNOME 3 desktop environment, that’s proven quite controversial in some circles. Of course, any major reboot of a project is going to have its critics.

By the time openSUSE comes along, GNOME 3.2 should be ready. openSUSE 12.1 Milestone 5 comes with the experimental GNOME 3.1.5, not the recent beta, GNOME 3.1.9.

Another big change is the switch to SystemD which will replace the current InitV. The latest milestone still hasn’t made the switch, InitV is the default currently, but there are plans to drop it as soon as possible, so testing in this area could come in handy.

openSUSE also announced that it will include OpenJDK from now on, rather than the binary Java JDK coming from Oracle.

Oracle recently announced that it will no longer be licensing this version of the JDK to Linux distributions which are encouraged to adopt the open-source version, OpenJDK. Milestone 5 is the last to include the Oracle version.

openSUSE 12.1 release schedule:

Tue, May 31 2011 – openSUSE 12.1 Milestone 1
Wed, Jun 22 2011 – openSUSE 12.1 Milestone 2
Thu, Jul 14 2011 – openSUSE 12.1 Milestone 3
Thu, Aug 11 2011 – openSUSE 12.1 Milestone 4
Thu, Sep 01 2011 – openSUSE 12.1 Milestone 5
Thu, Sep 22 2011 – openSUSE 12.1 Beta
Thu, Oct 13 2011 – openSUSE 12.1 RC 1
Fri, Oct 27 2011 – openSUSE 12.1 RC 2
Thu, Nov 03 2011 – openSUSE 12.1 Goldmaster
Fri, Nov 11 2011 – openSUSE 12.1 Public Release

openSUSE 12.1 Milestone 5 is available for download here on Softpedia.
Remember that this is a development release and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only. Please report bugs to the official openSUSE Bug Tracker.

A few minutes ago, the first 

Beta version of the upcoming Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) operating system was made available for testing by the Ubuntu developers. As usual, we’ve grabbed a copy of it in order to keep you up-to-date with the latest changes in the Ubuntu 11.10 development.

What’s new in Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 1? Well, Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 1 features improved handling of 32-bit compatibility on 64-bit machines, thanks to the multiarch support.

Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 1 is now powered by Linux kernel 3.0.3, GNOME 3.1.5, Mozilla Thunderbird 7 and Mozilla Firefox 7. For more features please visit our in-depth article with the Top 10 Ubuntu 11.10 features.

What’s new in Kubuntu 11.10 Beta 1? Well, the first Beta release of the upcoming Kubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) operating system, is still built on top of the newly released KDE Software Compilation 4.7. No other notable features have been implemented since the last Alpha release.

What’s new in Xubuntu 11.10 Beta 1? Well, the first Beta release of the upcoming Xubuntu 11.10 has the awesome LightDM login screen, pastebinit, Mousepad replaced Leafpad, added the Onboard onscreen keyboard, and a very nice new Plymouth boot splash screen.
On October 13th, 2011, Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) will become the fifthteenth release of the Ubuntu operating system. See you again in three weeks (September 22nd), for the second and last Beta release of the upcoming Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot).

The Oneiric Ocelot Release Schedule:

June 2nd, 2011 – Alpha 1 release
July 7th, 2011 – Alpha 2 release
August 4th, 2011 – Alpha 3 release
September 1st, 2011 – Beta 1 release
September 22nd, 2011 – Beta 2 release
October 13th, 2011 – Final release of Ubuntu 11.10

Download Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 1 (Oneiric Ocelot) right now from Softpedia.

Download Ubuntu Cloud 11.10 Beta 1 (Oneiric Ocelot) right now from Softpedia.

Download Kubuntu 11.10 Beta 1 (Oneiric Ocelot) right now from Softpedia.

Download Xubuntu 11.10 Beta 1 (Oneiric Ocelot) right now from Softpedia.

Download Edubuntu 11.10 Beta 1 (Oneiric Ocelot) right now from Softpedia.

Download Ubuntu Studio 11.10 Beta 1 (Oneiric Ocelot) right now from Softpedia.

Download Mythbuntu 11.10 Beta 1 (Oneiric Ocelot) right now from Softpedia.

Download Lubuntu 11.10 Beta 1 (Oneiric Ocelot) right now from Softpedia.

Remember that this is a beta release and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only. Please report bugs to the Ubuntu Bug Tracker.

Linux is celebrating its 20th birthday today. While pinpointing the exact day when it was created is hard, and subjective, today is the day that the world found out about Linus Torvalds’ hobby project, Linux.

On 25 August, 1991, Linus took to the Minix newsgroup to announce his creation and progress.

By that time he had a pretty much working operating system, with all of the main components being ready, though he felt he was still several months away from Linux being something people would be able to actually use.

“Hello everybody out there using minix – I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready,” he said in his now legendary announcement.

“I’d like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things),” he added.

The project didn’t even start out as an operating system. Linus initially set out to create a terminal emulator, to connect to the Unix machines of the time, that worked on his computer and was OS independent.

But, as he continued to build functionality, he realized he had actually created a kernel and the basics of an OS so the project morphed from that.

As a sidenote, the operating system wasn’t called Linux at the time. Linus though about that name, but believed it to be too arrogant. Instead, he settled on Freax.

However, one of his colleagues at the University of Helsinki, who handled the FTP where the code was stored, named the project Linux since he didn’t like the Freax name.

Now, everyone just calls it Linux, though, strictly speaking, Linux is the name of the kernel. The basic operating system relies on a number of tools, created by the GNU foundation, so it’s more accurately called GNU/Linux. Even among avid users and developers, this terminology is not always used.

Despite its modest starts, Linux has evolved into the most diverse and interesting operating system out there, powering anything from robots, routers, mobile phones and the world’s fastest supercomputers.

The Fedora Project, proudly announced a few minutes ago (August 23rd) the immediate availability for download and testing of the Alpha version of the upcoming Fedora 16 operating system, due for release in November 2011.

Dubbed Verne, Fedora 16 Alpha is powered by Linux kernel 3.0, the latest development version of the GNOME 3 desktop environment and KDE Software Compilation 4.7.

“We need your help to make Fedora 16 the best release yet, so please take a moment of your time to download and try out the Alpha and make sure the things that are important to you are working.”

“If you find a bug, please report it — every bug you uncover is a chance to improve the experience for millions of Fedora users worldwide. Together, we can make Fedora a rock-solid distribution.” – was stated in the announcement.

Highlights of Fedora 16 Alpha:

· Linux kernel 3.0;
· The GNOME 3.1 desktop environment;
· KDE Software Compilation 4.7;

· GRUB2;
· Systemd services management;
· SELinux improvements;
· 1000 System accounts;
· Added Chrony NTP client;
· Removed HAL;
· Removed ConsoleKit;
· Automatic Multi-seat support;
· Support for cloud computing;
· Restored support for Xen;
· Enhanced Spice 0.10 app to manage virtual machines;
· Many improvements for developers;
· Aeolus Conductor;
· Blender 2.5;
· Boost 1.47;
· Glasgow Haskell Compiler 7.0.4;
· Haskell Platform 2011.2.0.1;
· GNOME Input integration;
· libvirt networking support improvements;
· New mkdumprd for kdump;
· Perl 5.14;
· Static analysis of CPython extensions;
· Sugar 0.94;
· TigerVNC 1.1;
· USB Network Redirection.

Fedora 16 Release Schedule:

August 23rd, 2011 – Fedora 16 Alpha release
September 27th, 2011 – Fedora 16 Beta release
November 1st, 2011 – Fedora 16 final release

Download Fedora 16 Alpha right now from Softpedia. Remember that this is an alpha release and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only. If you encounter bugs please report them to the Red Hat Bugzilla.