MESSAGE
| DATE | 2003-10-07 |
| FROM | From: "Inker, Evan"
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] DistroWatch Weekly, Issues 17 & 18 29 Sept 2003 & 06 Oct 2003
|
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 18, 6 October 2003
http://www.distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20031006
Turbolinux turns 10
Turbolinux still has a name behind it. After reporting about the upcoming
release of Turbolinux 10 Desktop, many other English language news sites
picked up the story and deemed it newsworthy enough to run it on their own
sites. This was somewhat surprising, considering that Turbolinux is now
nothing more than a Japanese distribution catering almost exclusively for
their domestic market (and China). Gone are the days when Turbolinux was a
respectable player on the global market place (last time I heard, the
company's US office was reduced to one support person). However, even in
Japan, the distribution is an increasingly marginal player -- that's despite
their effort to develop specifically for high-end users, while focusing on
server and AMD64 editions of Turbolinux.
Will Turbolinux recover their former glory? A careful look at the release
announcement shows signs of desperation. Firstly, Turbolinux went from
version 8 (released in July 2002) to version 10, skipping 9 altogether and
giving themselves a dubious honour of being the first well-known
distribution to enter the era of double-digit versioning schemes. Secondly,
they have made a risky decision to ship with a pre-release 2.6 Linux kernel
(2.6.0-test5 to be exact). While Linux enthusiasts will no doubt applaud the
decision - after all the product is a less critical "Desktop" edition -
there will be those who will call it irresponsible to base the product on a
poorly tested, pre-release kernel version. Thirdly, the release announcement
goes out of its way to stress that the product is the ultimate
Windows-to-Linux migration tool, clearly targeting those businesses which
have never used Linux on their desktops before.
All in all, Turbolinux's version 10 marks a critical point in the
distribution's long history. A quality release, coupled with effective
marketing could indeed revive the distribution. Failing that, the first
double-digit distribution version might be Turbolinux's last.
Distributions playing name games
Last week, the parent company of the Trustix Secure Linux distribution
announced bankruptcy. This is an extract from a story, as told by one of the
main Trustix developers, Erlend Midttun: "On July 25, Christian [Haugan
Toldnes] got laid off and I went down to a 25% position. About a month
later, I got laid off too. We have since maintained Trustix Secure Linux
totally on a voluntary basis. The distribution as such is open source but
the name is the property of Trustix AS, so we must continue the development
under another name. We have found Tawie Server Linux (aka TSL :) to be the
name we prefer." It is always a pleasure to report that a project is still
alive and well, even if the company behind it goes out of business. This is
one of the wonders of GPL.
But Trustix wasn't the only distribution undergoing a name change last week,
even the much more popular SUSE AG found a valid reason for a name
adjustment - from SuSE Linux to SUSE LINUX: "As part of the overall effort
to update our look, it was felt that upper casing all of SUSE LINUX brought
more attention to the name.", asserts Joseph Eckert, SUSE's VP of Corporate
Communications. Let's take a look at some other distributions that have
changed their names, continued under a new name or where the developers of
an original project were forced to start a new project under a different
name:
Best Linux --> SOT Linux
Caldera Open Linux --> SCO Linux
Enoch Linux --> Gentoo Linux
FreeLoader Linux --> eLearnix
Kondara MNU/Linux --> Momonga Linux
miniwoody --> Bonzai Linux
Red Hat Linux --> Fedora Project
Redmond Linux --> Lycoris Desktop/LX
SuSE Linux --> SUSE LINUX
Trusted Debian --> Adamantix
Trustix Secure Linux --> Tawie Server Linux
If you know of any others, please mention them bellow.
Upcoming Releases and Announcements
Turbolinux 10
Turbolinux has announced the release of Turbolinux 10 Desktop. Skipping
version 9 and inventing a term "High Windowsability" in the process, some of
the notable features in Turbolinux 10 include complete Japanese support,
interoperability and file sharing with Windows, and Turbo Update. Turbolinux
10 is the first distribution shipping with the new 2.6 kernel series
(2.6.0-test5) as the default kernel and it also comes with KDE 3.1.3 and
GNOME 2.4 desktop environments, as well as a number of commercial
applications, including Acronis Partition Expert, StarSuite 7, ATOK X
Japanese input server and a range of Japanese true type fonts. Turbolinux 10
will be available in two editions - Desktop, retailing at ¥15,800 (US$143)
and Desktop Basic, selling for ¥3,980 (US$36); both editions are available
for pre-order. Find out more in the official press release, on the
distribution's product page and in this brief review with screenshots by
ZDNet (all of the above links are in Japanese). Turbolinux 10 Desktop will
start shipping on 24 October 2003.
SuSE Linux 9.0
SuSE Linux has officially announced the release of SuSE Linux 9.0, which
will become available on 15 October in Europe and 24 October in other parts
of the world. What's new? "Q: What are the three most important new features
of SUSE LINUX 9.0? A: The installation tool of SUSE LINUX now enables
resizing of hard disk partitions containing Windows 2000 and XP systems in
order to make room for Linux. OpenOffice.org has made a giant leap ahead,
and the support of Athlon 64 brings the advantages of 64-bit computing to
your home office." The above comes from a brief interview with SuSE's
Director of Distribution Development, Chris Schläger (also available in
German). Read the official press release - in English or German.
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 17, 29 September 2003
http://www.distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20030929
Slackware Linux 9.1 released
A new stable version of Slackware Linux was released late on Friday. As
usual, the news was greeted with plenty of enthusiasm by many die-hard
Slackware fans and by much curiosity from users of other distributions. What
is so special about Slackware? Unlike other commercial distribution makers,
such as Red Hat, Mandrake or SuSE, Slackware doesn't come with any system
administration tools, it has an amazingly unsophisticated package manager
and the company rarely makes headlines in the Linux media. Yet every a new
Slackware release is announced, a wave of excitement sweeps the Linux forums
and new sites (this OSNews review is a good example). Slackware is to Linux
distributions what vi is to UNIX text editors - many people expected vi to
die after an abundance of new, more intuitive and user-friendly text editors
were introduced. But instead, vi flourished. And while other Linux
distributions have certainly managed to take market share away from
Slackware, there are still plenty of people out there -- probably a lot more
than many would led you believe -- who would never consider using anything
else. If you've never tried Slackware before, give it a partition now - and
be prepared to fall in love...
Red Hat and the Fedora Project
On Monday, Red Hat, Inc announced the Fedora Project. While these are early
days and the projet's directions are still in the process of taking shape,
the motivation behind the decision is clear: the North Carolina company
intends to build on its "Red Hat" brand to create a solid business platform.
>From now on, the term "Red Hat Linux" will solely refer to one of the
company's enterprise-class products with hefty price tags on them, rather
than a product, which anybody can download and use for free. Red Hat Linux 9
was the last free product with the words "Red Hat" in it. Its successor, the
Fedora Project, will no doubt continue in the tradition of fine releases for
"developers and operating system enthusiasts", as Red Hat puts it, with the
added bonus that the new distribution will be unhindered by commercial
motives (the greatly enhanced up2date in Fedora 0.94 beta is an excellent
example of this). If you still have misgivings about Red Hat's motives, then
relax - this is a great decision which will benefit all of us. The
soon-to-be-released Fedora Linux 1.0, code name "Cambridge" will be a very
pleasant surprise.
Mandrake Linux 9.2 for Mandrake Club members
The controversial decision by MandrakeSoft to withhold the release of
Mandrake Linux 9.2 for several weeks, during which ISO images will
exclusively be available to MandrakeClub members, was greeted with widely
varying reaction. This is the first time in the company's history that its
popular product is not immediately downloadable and many felt disappointed
by the decision. On the other hand, those who had joined MandrakeClub
previously seemed to approve the policy change. The company is also making
sure that the Mandrake Linux boxed sets are ready for shipping before the
ISO images are uploaded to mirrors. Overall, it seems that MandrakeSoft is
taking resolute steps to assure its long-term survival in the increasingly
competitive world of Linux distributions. What's our take? If you enjoy
Mandrake Linux and if you use it on a daily basis, then by all means do join
the MandrakeClub. At only US$60 per year, it is not only the right thing to
do to help supporting future development of your favourite distribution, it
is also a genuinely useful and fun place to engage in Mandrake-related
activities. It is also be the best place to obtain Mandrake Linux 9.2 when
it is released...
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