GoboLinux 014 Has Been Released

GoboLinux, on the first day of this year, has released GoboLinux 014, the new major release of GoboLinux, the Linux distribution featuring a rethinked file system structure. This release is the result of over an year of work.
The Live CD build environment is highly customizable and packages were built using a dynamically-generated sandboxed environment which insulates the source code and its dependencies during compilation. Major upgrades include KDE 3.5.8, Glibc 2.5 and Xorg 7.2, as well as new versions of the GoboLinux management tools.

GoboLinux is a Linux distribution created in 2002 which implements an innovative approach in terms of system administration. It defines a new directory hierarchy which allows the coherent management of the installed base of programs from a system. This is done exclusively through the filesystem layout, without relying on databases or package managers.

The GoboLinux CD serves both as an installation disc and a Live CD, with a complete graphical desktop featuring KDE 3.5.8, OpenOffice.org 2.2.0 and a host of applications. In fact, due to the modular nature of the GoboLinux filesystem, every program available in the CD can be used directly from the "live" environment -- the work of the installer is to simply copy the user's selection to the destination partition (respecting dependency chains).
Graphical installer

Since version 010, GoboLinux features an installer that works on both text and graphical mode. The feature set of both modes is identical, thanks to the innovative AbsTK (Abstract Toolkit), created by the GoboLinux team especially for this installer: a unified widget toolkit for Python which detects and adapts itself for different environments. It currently supports two backends: ncurses/console and Qt/X11.

GoboLinux features a Udev-based hardware detection system. A large number of devices are detected, loading the appropriate kernel modules.

Video detection is performed separately, by Xorg's own autodetection mechanism. If for any reason video card detection fails while booting the Live CD, you can skip to the default, "vesa", which works for most cards (unaccelerated).

To load the Live CD environment, 32 MB of RAM is the recommended minimum for a text-mode install, 128 MB is the recommended minimum to load the graphic KDE desktop; 256 MB is recommended for a comfortable Live CD experience.

Once the system is installed in the hard disk, memory requirements vary greatly depending on the kind of applications executed, but the values stated above related to the Live CD experience serve as a good guideline.
Video and peripherals

Video cards are supported through the Xorg X11 server, with the fallback "vesa" driver covering the vast majority of current cards. A large number of sound cards are supported through ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) and OSS (Open Sound System). Other peripherals are supported through additional packages (SANE, GPhoto, etc.) available in the GoboLinux repository and recipe store.

GoboLinux is available as an ISO download, you can get it here.