Debian Linux 7.0 Code Named 'Wheezy' Released & Added Multiarch Support, Several Specific Tools
Once it was
one of the most popularLinux distributionwhich have drawn the maximum
attention, yes you are right I am talking about none other thanDebian Linux. Now
a days the craze of this flavor has became little fade but as
the foundation for other, more popular Linux distributions, such asMint,Ubuntuand fewPen
Testing Distro, still the value of Debian exist. So
the up-gradation and new release of this Linux flavor is
still very much important. And today I will talk about the new release
of Debian Linux
version 7.0code named 'Wheezy'. After many months of constant development, the developers atDebian
projectproudly announced the
general availability of the next version of this major Linux which is
Debian 7.0 aka 'Wheezy'. According to therelease note- This new version of Debian includes various interesting
features such as multiarch
support, several specific
tools to deploy private clouds, an improved installer, and a complete set of multimedia
codecs and front-ends which remove the need for third-party repositories. Multiarchsupport,
one of the main release goals forWheezy, will allow Debian users to install packages from multiple
architectures on the same machine.This
means that you can now, for the first time, install both 32- and 64-bit
software on the same machineand
have all the relevant dependencies correctly resolved, automatically. The installation process has been greatly improved: Debian
can now be installed using software speech, above all by visually impaired
people who do not use a Braille device. Thanks to the combined efforts of a
huge number of translators, the installation system isavailable in 73 languages, and
more than a dozen of them are available for speech synthesis too. In addition, for the first time, Debian supports installation and booting
usingUEFIfor new 64-bit PCs (amd64), although there is no support forSecure Bootyet.
This Release Includes Numerous Updated Software Packages, Such as:-
Apache 2.2.22
Asterisk 1.8.13.1
GIMP 2.8.2
An updated version of the GNOME desktop environment 3.4
GNU Compiler Collection 4.7.2
Icedove 10 (an unbranded version of Mozilla Thunderbird)
Iceweasel 10 (an unbranded version of Mozilla Firefox)
KDE Plasma Workspaces and KDE Applications 4.8.4
kFreeBSD kernel 8.3 and 9.0
LibreOffice 3.5.4
Linux 3.2
MySQL 5.5.30
Nagios 3.4.1
OpenJDK 6b27 and 7u3
Perl 5.14.2
PHP 5.4.4
PostgreSQL 9.1
Python 2.7.3 and 3.2.3
Samba 3.6.6
Tomcat 6.0.35 and 7.0.28
Xen Hypervisor 4.1.4
The Xfce 4.8 desktop environment
X.Org 7.7
Along with these more than other 36,000 ready-to-use software packages, built from nearly 17,500 source packages also included in Debian Linux 7.0. So after reading all those cool features, what you are waiting for lets download the installation image via bittorrent (the recommended method), jigdo, or HTTP.
Beta Release for Fedora 18 "Spherical Cow" is Now Available For Download & Testing
After the huge success and response of Fedora 17, now its time to move one step ahead, as the developers at Fedora Project announced the general availability of the first and the final Beta version of Fedora 18 code named "Spherical Cow". This release includes the MATE desktop – a continuation of the classic GNOME 2 interface – in its repositories for the first time. Fedora 18's default edition uses GNOME 3.6.2 as its interface and a separate KDE Spin provides the KDE Software Collection 4.9.3; Xfce 4.10 and version 1.6.7 of Linux Mint's Cinnamon are also available from the distribution's repositories.
Fedora 18 beta Some Highlighted Features:-
For users everywhere
Fedora 18 offers a brand-new version of the Gnome desktop, version 3.6, straight from the upstream development process. Updates have also been made to the KDE, XFCE and Sugar desktop environments; additionally, the MATE desktop is available for the first time in Fedora.
Fedora's new installer user interface enhances the anaconda installer with improvements in easeof use and installation.
For developers
This release includes several language updates, including the move to Perl 5.16, updating the Python 3 stack from 3.2 to 3.3,Rails 3.2 and updated D and Haskell programming environments.
For system administrators
Fedora 18 includes the final release of Samba 4, and can be used on an Active Directory domain out of the box. An integrated, new native management software allows you to access data and server information easily.
OpenStack in Fedora 18 has been updated to Folsom, the most recent release by the OpenStack community. This Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform enables the creation and management of cloud infrastructure.
Eucalyptus 3.1, another IaaS platform, is available in Fedora for the first time, and includes the major components of Eucalyptus.
Storage System Management CLI tools simplify the user interface by providing unified abstraction and interface for multiple storage technologies, including lvm, btrfs and md raid.
The final release of Fedora 18 is expected later in the year. For more information on these and other Fedora 18 features, click Here. To download Fedora 18 "Spherical Cow" beta. click Here.
In our last post about BackTrack we mention the release date of long awaited BT 5 Release 3. So finally the countdown is over. The time has come to refresh our security tool arsenal – BackTrack 5 R3 has been released world wide. First BT5 R3 preview was released in BlackHat 2012 Las Vegas for the enjoyment of conference attendees. The main aim of that pre-release was to figure outtheir last bug reports and tool suggestions from the BH / Defcon crowds. This final release mainly focuses on bug-fixes as well as the addition of over 60 new tool. A whole new tool category was populated – “Physical Exploitation”, which now includes tools such as the Arduino IDE and libraries, as well as the Kautilya Teensy payload collection.
As usual KDE and GNOME, 32/64 bit ISOs, have been released a single VMware Image (Gnome, 32 bit).
We would also like to give to reminder that the first release candidate (R1) of BackTrack 5 was released in August last year. Later in March this year we got the second release candidate (R2) of BT 5.
For those requiring other VM flavors of BackTrack If you want to build your own VMWare image then instructions can be found in the BackTrack Wiki. Direct ISO downloads will be available once all our HTTP mirrors have synched. But still you can download BackTrack 5 R3 via torrent from the below links.
KDE 4.9 Released With Improved Stability & Performance
Earlier in January we got KDE 4.8, so after eight moths of wait now the KDE Developers team has announced its latest set of releases, providing major updates to KDE Plasma Workspaces, KDE Applications, and the KDE Platform. Version 4.9 provides many new features, along with improved stability and performance. This release is dedicated to the memory of KDE contributor Claire Lotion. Claire's vibrant personality and enthusiasm were an inspiration to many in many opensource community, and her pioneering work on the format. The KDE Quality Team was set up earlier this year with a goal to improve the general levels of quality and stability in KDE software. Special attention was given to identifying and fixing regressions from previous releases. This was a top priority because it ensures improvement with each release. As a result of the efforts of the KDE Quality Team, the 4.9 Releases are the best ever.
One particular bugfix deserves special attention. An Okular bug reported in 2007 had gotten nearly 1100 votes; it was important to many users. They complained about making annotations and not being able to save or print them. With the assistance of many commenters and people on the Okular IRC channel, Fabio D’Urso implemented a solution that allows Okular PDF document annotations to be saved and printed. The fix required some work on KDE libraries and attention to overall design to ensure that non-PDF documents worked right.
The most notable include:-
The Dolphin file manager includes back and forward buttons, inline file renaming, and the ability to show metadata like ratings, tags, image size, file size, date, and more. You can also sort files by these metadata properties, which is awesome. It also includes a better Places panel, improved search, and better integration with the Terminal.
The Konsole terminal now includes the ability to change directory when you drag and drop a folder into the window, detach tabs by dragging them out of the window, and more.
Activities, the feature that helps you separate your work from your play, is now a bit more powerful, letting you link certain files to each workspace. You can also encrypt certain activities for more private work.
The KWin window manager now has better performance all around, as well as a few improvements here and there with certain effects like Wobby Windows.
Ubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal)Alpha 2 Arrives With Linux Kernel 3.5-rc4 & Improved Filesystem Utilities
The first alpha version of Ubuntu 12.10 was made available in the first week of June. As expected now the Canonical and the Ubuntu developer team has released the second alpha of version 12.10 of their Ubuntu codenamed "Quantal Quetzal". The new alpha release mostly has package updates to the distribution's components, including a Linux 3.5-rc4 based kernel (Ubuntu kernel 3.5.0-2.2), filesystem utilities (e2fsprogs, mdadm, autofs and btrfs-tools), Firefox and Thunderbird, and GTK+ (to the 3.5 series which will allow a number of GNOME 3.5 updates to take place).
Ubuntu Server has seen updates too, with Tomcat 7 replacing Tomcat 6, Chef 0.10.x, Ceph-0.57.2, MySQL 5.5.25 and updates to OpenStack to track the current "folsom" development milestones. The alpha 2 release also sees images for the Calxeda ARM servers being made available. There are also updates for Kubuntu, with KDE SC 4.9 Beta 2 included, and the experimental replacement of LibreOffice with Calligra Suite. Xubuntu sees a later Xfce (4.10) in use and updated Gimp and gThumb.
ISO images of the general desktop testing release are available for 32- and 64-bit x86 systems and 64-bit Mac systems. For all changes, known issues and links to further information and other images, consult the Alpha 2 Technical Overview. Development releases are meant for testing only and should not be used in a production or critical environment; users wanting a stable system should install Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Ubuntu 12.10 Codenamed "Quantal Quetzal"Alpha 1 Released By Canonical
After Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) now both Canonical and the Ubuntu developer team has released the first alpha of version 12.10 of their Ubuntu codenamed "Quantal Quetzal". Pre-releases of Quantal Quetzal are not encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. Mainly it has been aimed for the developers and testers of Ubuntu. Those testing the release are encouraged to provide feedback and report any bugs that they find. 12.10 Alpha 1 by-default using the 3.4.0-5.11 Ubuntu kernel, based on the recent 3.4 Linux kernel. Most notable changes planned for 12.10 is that the project intends to only include Python 3 with the desktop image of Ubuntu. As well as the Update Manager has been updated with "a slightly new look" and version 4.7.0 of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) has replaced GCC 4.6, which was included in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Version 13 of the Firefox web browser and Thunderbird 13 are among the included packages. Kubuntu, the KDE variant of Ubuntu, now includes version 4.8.3 of the desktop environment and updates the Amarok media player to the latest 2.6 beta release. Additional information can be found on the 12.10 Technical Overview page, while a list of features and changes planned for Ubuntu 12.10 is available on the Blueprints for Quantal page.
To Download Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" Click Here
Knoppix 7.0.1 With Kernel 3.3.7, LXDE, ADRIANE & Iceweasel 10
Klaus Knopper, creator of Knoppix officially declared the general availability of its popular Live Linux distribution - Knoppix 7.0.1. This release includes a number of improvements and package upgrades, while removing proprietary packages, such as Adobe Reader. Version 7.0.1 of Knoppix is based on the usual picks from Debian stable (squeeze) and newer Desktop packages from Debian/testing and Debian/unstable (wheezy). It uses kernel 3.3.7 and LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) as its default desktop environment. The DVD version of Knoppix also includes a choice of GNOME 3.4 or KDE SC 4.7.4 (the current release is KDE SC 4.8.3 from early May), and additional packages such as VirtualBox 4.1.4. Package upgrades include version 3.5.3 of the LibreOffice productivity suite, Wine 1.5.4, Chromium 18 and Iceweasel 10, the re-branded version of the Firefox web browser for Debian. It now has version 1.4 of the open source ADRIANE (Audio Desktop Reference Implementation and Networking Environment) talking menu system for blind users. Other changes include better support for Broadcom Wi-Fi chipsets and experimental support for automatically detecting graphics cards with composite 3D extensions for the Compiz window manager. A full list of changes and new features can be found in the release notes.
OpenBSD 5.1 Released With Better Hardware Support & Performance
Last year we got both FreeBSD & PCBSD 9 after few months we got GhostBSD 2.5 Final version. Couple of moths ago a public beta of NetBSD 6.0 get released for testing purpose. Now its the turn of OpenBS, The OpenBSD project has made version 5.1 of its free BSD-based UNIX-like operating system available to download. The latest update to the distribution comes six months after the release of OpenBSD 5.0 and includes better hardware support, performance improvements and new features, as well as package upgrades.
Some Highlights:-
GNOME 3.2.1 (fallback mode)
KDE 3.5.10
Xfce 4.8.3
MySQL 5.1.60
PostgreSQL 9.1.2
Postfix 2.8.8
OpenLDAP 2.3.43 and 2.4.26
Mozilla Firefox 3.5.19, 3.6.25 and 9.0.1
Mozilla Thunderbird 9.0.1
GHC 7.0.4
LibreOffice 3.4.5.2
Emacs 21.4, 22.3 and 23.4
Vim 7.3.154
PHP 5.2.17 and 5.3.10
Python 2.5.4, 2.7.1 and 3.2.2
Ruby 1.8.7.357 and 1.9.3.0
Tcl/Tk 8.5.11
Jdk 1.7
Mono 2.10.6
Chromium 16.0.912.77
Groff 1.21
Along with these we are getting OpenSSH 6.0, Xenocara (based on X.Org 7.6 with xserver 1.11.4 + patches, freetype 2.4.8, fontconfig 2.8.0, Mesa 7.10.3, xterm 276, xkeyboard-config 2.5 and more), OpenSSL 1.0.0f, Bind 9.4.2-P2, Gcc 4.2.1, Perl 5.12.2, Lynx 2.8.7rel.2 with HTTPS and IPv6 support, Sudo 1.7.2p8 & so on. For additional information & to see the release note click here.
FreeBSD 8.3 Released With Gnome 2.32.1, KDE 4.7.4 & Many More
Earlier in this year we got FreeBSD 9 and now FreeBSD Release Engineering Team announced the availability of FreeBSD 8.3. This is the fourth release from the 8-STABLE branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 8.2 and introduces some new features. Some of the highlights:
usb(4) now supports the USB packet filter
TCP/IP stack now supports the mod_cc(9) pluggable congestion control framework
graid(8) GEOM class added to support various BIOS-based software RAID controllers (replacement for ataraid(4))
ZFS subsystem updated to SPA version 28
Gnome version 2.32.1, KDE version 4.7.4
FreeBSD 8.3 can be installed from bootable ISO images or over the network. Some architectures (currently amd64 and i386) also support installing from a USB memory stick. The required files can be downloaded via FTP or BitTorrent as described in the sections below. While some of the smaller FTP mirrors may not carry all architectures, they will all generally contain the more common ones such as amd64 and i386. For a complete list of new features and known problems click here.
After Fedora 16 codenamed "Verne" now the developers at Fedora Project announced the availability the next version of Fedora and that is Fedora 17 "Beta" code-named "Beefy Miracle". In this release you will get Linux kernel 3.3.0 along with enhanced security, Virtualization, cloud an many more. As per schedule the final version of Fedora 17 will be available on on 22 May this year.
The following are major features for Fedora 17:-
GNOME 3.4 and KDE 4.8
OpenStack, Eucalyptus, CloudStack and Open Nebula
ICC profiles for color printing and an improved gimp
Still more virtualization improvements
File Systems:-
Large filesystems -Fedora 17 will support file systems larger than 16 terabytes on the default file system (ext4). With the latest version of e2fsprogs, ext4 file systems can now be up to 100 TB.
Encrypted filesystems -Fedora 17 uses version 1.4.1 of the cryptsetup package, which removes deprecated API calls. In addittion, it supports placing LUKS headers on separate devices and the creation of shared, non-overlapping encrypted segments on a single device.
btrfs -btrfs is not available as a target file system during installation. This is a temporary situation and will be resolved in Fedora 18. btrfs is still available after installation.
For detailed information and to know about the features in Fedora 17 Click Here
To Download Fedora 17 Codenamed "Beefy Miracle" Click Here
LXDE Version of Linux Mint 12 Codenamed “Lisa” Released
We have discussed several times about Linux Mint. In November last the developer of Mint officially released Linux Mint 12 codenamed “Lisa”. Later February this year they have also made the KDE version of Linux Mint 12 available. Now the Linux Mint team declared the the general availability of Linux Mint 12 LXDE. Linux Mint 12 LXDE is based on Ubuntu 11.10 and comes with LXDE 0.5.0 and the 3.0 version of the Linux kernel. Updated packages include Firefox and Thunderbird 7.0.1, version 2.33 of the Transmission BitTorrent client, VLC Media Player 1.1.12, AbiWord 2.8.6 and version 2.10.0 of the Pidgin IM client.
Earlier we have talked couple of times about Sabayon Linux. This week the devoper team announced the immediate availability of Sabayon Linux 8. Gentoo-based Sabayon touts its variety of packages and installations to choose from, and even though their FAQ mentions its appropriateness for new Linux users, it’s aimed at more experienced users who want to customize to their hearts’ content. As expected Sabayon GNOME 3.2.2, KDE 4.7.4 (4.8.0 available in testing repo), Xfce 4.8, LibreOffice 3.4.4, SpinBase (bare-metal flavour for building your own ISO images), ServerBase (same but with server-optimized kernel), CoreCDX, for those liking Fluxbox are included in this release.
Features:-
The first and best way to try a Gentoo-based Linux distribution at its full power, with all working out-of-the-box and no compilation needed at all
The first Extreme-Rolling Release distribution, with automated repository package version bumping, thanks to Entropy Matter ebuild tracker
Faster, cleaner and more evolved than any other rolling distro out there: we work hard to bring you the most stable rolling release experience
Keep up-to-date your system in minutes while maintaining full Gentoo Portage compatibility
Focusing on performance: GCC 4.6 with Graphite Loop Transformation infrastructure and Link Time Optimizations enabled
Always up-to-date Linux Kernel 3.2 (and experimental "Fusion" Kernels available in repositories)
Providing extra Server-oriented Linux kernels (OpenVZ, Vserver, Generic Server)
Natively supporting the btrfs filesystem (besides ext4, aufs, and others)
Transform Sabayon into an full-featured HTPC Operating System (Media Center) using XBMC 10.1 (11.0 available soon)
GNOME 3.2.2 Visual Environment
KDE 4.7.4 Desktop Environment (4.8.0 available in a few days)
Improved Xfce 4.8 out-of-the-box experience (for those missing GNOME2)
Improved LibreOffice integration, updated to 3.4.4
Ubuntu Released 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin)Alpha 2
Earlier in 2011 Ubuntu has released both version 11.10 code named "Oneiric Ocelot" & 12.04 LTS code named "Precise Pangolin". As expected the Ubuntu team officially announced the availability of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Alpha 2 for testing purpose and for developers. This release is based on recent Linux kernel 3.2.2
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Alpha 2 includes version 5.0 of Canonical's customUnity desktop interface, which is now said to perform better and be more stable. The bundled open sourceLibreOfficeoffice suite has been updated to version 3.5 Beta 2 and the1.4 releaseof theUpstartevent-based init replacement is included. The KDE variant of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, now includesversion 4.8of the desktop environment, while the Server edition updates the OpenStack cloud platform to the Essex 3 milestone of the OpenStack project's forthcoming release.
the developers remind users that "pre-releases of Precise Pangolin are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage". Those testing the release are encouraged to provide feedback andreportany bugs that they find. The second alphawill be followed bytwo betas in March, with a possible release candidate arriving in April. The final version is scheduled for release on 26 April 2012.
To Download Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) Alpha 2 Click Here
Earlier we have discussed about Linux Mint many times. In December 2011 the developer of Linux Mint released Linux Mint 12 codenamed “Lisa”. Now the team has announced the availability of Linux Mint 12 KDE.
Main Features:-
KDE 4.7.4
Hybrid ISO images
Search engines
Upstream components
New and updated packages include version 8.0 of the Thunderbird email client, Firefox 8.0, LibreOffice 3.4.3, version 2.4.3 of the Amarok music player and organiser, and VLC 1.1.12. Like the GNOME edition, it includes DuckDuckGo as its default search engine; the move comes as part of the project's first income-raising partnership. The new version is also the project's first KDE release to be available to download as Hybrid ISO images, which can be used to create a bootable USB drive using the dd command. A tutorial for installing Linux Mint via USB is provided.
For Additional Information & To Download Linux Mint 12 KDE Click Here
KDE 4.8 Released With Updated Plasma Workspaces, Applications & Platform
After long wait finally the KDE developers have published version 4.8.0 of the KDE Software Compilation (KDE SC). The major update to the open source K Desktop Environment includes changes to the KDE Platform itself as well as the KDE Applications and Plasma Workspaces.Before this final release the developers have gone through with many experimental release such as KDE 4.8 Beta 1, KDE 4.8 Release Candidate. This release promise more features, functionality, stability, ease of use and so.
The Dolphin file manager in KDE SC 4.8.0 is said to be much "faster and prettier" thanks to a new display engine that works better with large directories; it also no longer truncates displayed filenames. The Gwenview image viewer has been fine-tuned to improve its ease of use with a translucent navigation area that makes scrolling easier when zoomed in. The Kate text editor includes new features such as a Search & Replace plugin, and the Okular document viewer now has advanced text selection features.
The Marble virtual globe has also been greatly enhanced with KRunner integration and the ability to view elevation profiles, track satellites, and import OpenStreetMap files in vector format.Further information is available of the release note.
Hello BSD user I have 2 good news for you and that is both Free BSD & PC BSD 9 has been released.
Brief About FreeBSD:-
FreeBSD is an advanced operating system for modern server, desktop, and embedded computer platforms. FreeBSD's code base has undergone over thirty years of continuous development, improvement, and optimization. It is developed and maintained by a large team of individuals. FreeBSD provides advanced networking, impressive security features, and world class performance and is used by some of the world's busiest web sites and most pervasive embedded networking and storage devices. For more information about this release click here.
Some Highlights:-
The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE. This is the first release from the stable/9 branch, which improves on stable/8 and adds many new features.
A new installer, bsdinstall(8) has been added and is the installer used by the ISO images provided as part of this release
The Fast Filesystem now supports softupdates journaling
ZFS updated to version 28
Updated ATA/SATA drivers support AHCI, moved into updated CAM framework
Highly Available Storage (HAST) framework
Kernel support for Capsicum Capability Mode, an experimental set of features for sandboxing support
User-level DTrace
The TCP/IP stack now supports pluggable congestion control framework and five congestion control algorithm implementations available
NFS subsystem updated, new implementation supports NFSv4 in addition to NFSv3 and NFSv2
High Performance SSH (HPN-SSH)
Flattened device tree (FDT), simplifying FreeBSD configuration for embedded platforms
The powerpc architecture now supports Sony Playstation 3
The LLVM compiler infrastructure and clang have been imported
PC-BSD is a user friendly desktop Operating System based on FreeBSD. Known widely for its stability and security in server environments, FreeBSD provides an excellent base on which to build a desktop operating system. PC-BSD uses a host of popular open source window managers and uses a custom-tailored application installer that puts popular applications in easy reach of users. For more information click Here
Some Highlights:-
Based upon FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE
Support for installing a variety of Window Managers, such as KDE, GNOME, XFCE, LXDE and more!
Improved PBI system, allows library sharing, binary diff updating, custom repositories, digital signing and more!
Support for "freebsd-update" via the System Update GUI.
New Control Panel, providing consistent configuration options across various Window Managers.
Improved networking utilities, including wifi quick-connect.
Enhanced "Life-Preserver" utility for doing off-site rsync backups of user data.
New VirtualBox / VMware disk images, with integrated guest tools.
Support for UFS+Journaling out of box
New graphical boot options page
Support for installation to BootCamp partitions on OSX systems.
After the release of KDE 4.8 Beta 1 now the KDE developer released the first release candidate for its renewed Workspaces, Applications, and Development Platform. With API, dependency and feature freezes in place, the KDE team's focus is now on fixing bugs and further polishing new and old functionality. Compared to Beta1, RC1 contains hundreds of fixes.
Highlights of 4.8 :-
Qt Quick in Plasma Workspaces -- Qt Quick is making its way into the Plasma Workspaces, the new Plasma Components provide a standardized API implementation of widgets with native Plasma Look and Feel. The device notifier widget has been ported to using these components and is now written in pure QML. KWin's window switcher is now also QML-based, paving the way for newly designed window switchers.
Dolphin's file view has been rewritten for better performance, scalability and more attractive visual appearance.
KSecretService optionally enables a shared password storage, therefore making your saved passwords available to many other applicatios, leading to a more secure system and better integration of non-KDE apps into the Plasma Workspaces and KDE apps into non-Plasma workspaces.
Many performance improvements and bugfixes improve the overall user experience, making the KDE Applications and Workspaces more productive and fun to use than ever before.
KDE released the first beta for its renewed Workspaces, Applications, and Development Platform. With API, dependency and feature freezes in place, the KDE team's focus is now on fixing bugs and further polishing new and old functionality. Highlights of 4.8 include, but are not limited to Qt Quick in Plasma Workspaces -- Qt Quick is making its way into the Plasma Workspaces, the new Plasma Components provide a standardized API implementation of widgets with native Plasma Look and Feel. The device notifier widget has been ported to using these components and is now written in pure QML. KWin's window switcher is now also QML-based, paving the way for newly designed window switchers.
Dolphin's file view has been rewritten for performance, scalability and more attractive visual appearance.
Many performance improvements and bugfixes improve the overall user experience, making the KDE Applications and Workspaces more productive and fun to use than ever before.
OpenSUSE developer community has released ver12.1. openSUSE 12.1 Beta (Asparagus) was also released earlier in this year. At first glance, openSUSE 12.1 is pretty much in line with recent releases from Fedora and Ubuntu: GNOME 3.2, KDE 4.7, Kernel 3.1, systemd, etc. But a closer look starts to reveal some real divergence between the various Linux offerings today. For example, while Fedora 16 allows you to choose btrfs for your filesystem, openSUSE 12.1 uses btrfs by default. There’s a number of other interesting advancements packed in this release, too.
The filesystem features provided by btrfs are enhanced on openSUSE 12.1 with Snapper, a user-space utility to take, compare, and revert snapshots of files. This has huge potential to make life better for users. It certainly won’t eliminate the need for backups, but it’s a strong step in the right direction. Similarly, openSUSE 12.1 includes support for ownCloud, “slim yet powerful private cloud software”. Again, this isn’t going to eliminate Dropbox or similar services, but it’s a step in the right direction toward self-sufficiency for regular end users in the Free Software space.
The update to openSUSE is also the first to incorporate a new release numbering system; the previous release was openSUSE 11.4. From 12.1 onward, the 8 month release cycle will see a x.1 release in November, an x.2 release in July and a x.3 release in March when the cycle starts over again. So, the future releases of openSUSE will be 12.2 in July 2012, 12.3 in March 2013 and 13.1 in November 2013.
Fedora 16, codenamed "Verne", is due to be released today. Fedora has decome the "poster child" for the Gnome 3 desktop, since being the first of the major distributions to use it (in their Fedora 15 release). So there are a lot of high hopes associated with this release, people are really anxious to see if the Fedora/Gnome 3 desktop is improving as it matures. As expected, the Fedora Project developers unleashed a few minutes ago, November 8th, the immediate availability for download and testing of the final and stable version of the Fedora 16 operating system, dubbed Verne.
Fedora 16 (Verne) is powered by the newly released Linux kernel 3.1, it features the GNOME 3.2.1 desktop environment with the GNOME Shell interface and the KDE Software Compilation 4.7.2 environment. Fedora 16 includes OpenStack, lots of SELinux enhancements, updated Haskell, Perl and Ada environments, Blender 2.5, Boost 1.47, TigerVNC 1.1, and much more.
