First Beta Ulteo Application System Has Released

For who don't know, Ulteo is an Debian/Ubuntu-based Linux distribution created by Gaël Duval, the original founder of Mandrake Linux (now Mandriva Linux) and co-founder of MandrakeSoft (now Mandriva). Currently in early stages of development. Ulteo promises to bring new concepts designed to help individuals with limited knowledge to accomplish many common computing tasks.

Ulteo is a new innovative project aimed at simplifying the use of computers for both individual and corporate users by bypassing installation of applications, and bringing mobility features.

It's an hybrid, network-oriented, computing system. It's using network services intensively.

As said the development team of Ulteo: "After the recent success we had at providing OpenOffice.org in a web browser, we're proud to deliver the first beta of nearly two years of work: Ulteo Application System 'Sirius' is now ready for download on several mirrors. It was the needed 'client' brick to the Ulteo framework that is made of several online services, and provides, among others, automatic personal data (and forthcoming user environment) synchronising. In this release, you will also be able to test the first version of the 'My Digital Life' panel which is a new way to organise your documents and applications, and manage your system installations."

Currently, Ulteo consists of:

• Ulteo Online Desktop (version 1): it lets users store their documents online, and open them with a choice of applications that run within their web-browser (Firefox, IE and others).
• Ulteo Application System (Ulteo AS): is an installable version of Ulteo, for the local PC, that ships with hundreds applications and innovative features.

The basic version of the Ulteo AS provides a choice of applications for the daily userlife such as Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org..., but can be easily extended with an extended set of applications, from the Ulteo panel. It also provide by default document and panel content synchronization capabilities betwen the local installation of Ulteo and Ulteo Online Desktop.

Btw, you can download Ulteo at Here.

Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring Beta 1

The first beta, codenamed Ophrys, for Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring (2008.1) is now available. This pre-release should provide a measure of out-of-the-box support for the multimedia keys present on many modern keyboards.

Simple functions such as changing sound volume should work immediately. If you have multimedia keys on your keyboard but they do not seem to do anything in Beta 1.

Perl has been updated to 5.10 since the release of Alpha 2. This is a major change which required the rebuild of several hundred packages. Alpha 2 replaced the teTeX system with TeX Live. Due to several problems and necessary features yet unimplemented in TeX Live, this change has been reverted, and Beta 1 again uses teTeX as the default TeX system.

Version 169.09 of the NVIDIA proprietary driver and version 8.45.2 (Catalyst 8.1) of the ATI proprietary driver are including now. These provide bug fixes and support for the latest cards released by both manufacturers.

KDE 4.0.0 final is available in the Cooker repository along with this pre-release and includes the latest version of Nautilus, the GNOME file and desktop manager. This version is based on the new GVFS VFS system, replacing the old gnome-vfs system. This is a major change which has already resulted in several known problems and regressions.

This pre-release uses the latest available release candidate of kernel version 2.6.24, providing the widest possible hardware compatibility. The latest release candidate of the ALSA sound system has also been included, which should fix many issues with recent sound hardware.

Download This Beta release of Mandriva at Here.

Second Alpha of Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring Released

The second pre-release of Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring, code name “Neottia” is available now. This pre-release brings a near-final snapshot of KDE 4.0 (final 4.0 packages are currently being uploaded to the Cooker repositories), new NVIDIA and ATI drivers, the chance to test the experimental nouveau open source driver for NVIDIA cards, kernel 2.6.24rc7, and more.

More info about this new release can be found at here, here and here for Pulse Audio that be used on new Mandriva 2008.

Btw, you can download this second alpha of Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring at here.

Annvix 3.0 Has Been Released

Annvix, the Mandriva based distro and secure Linux distribution designed for servers has released Annvix 3.0. This release comes with several versions of new software. All of it can't possibly be listed, but the important ones to watch out for are listed. We highly recommend doing whatever backup you deem necessary in case anything goes wrong with the upgrade or your data isn't compatible with a new version of the software. Backup guidelines will be noted where applicable for particular pieces of software. The afterboot manpage also contains great information on backing up databases, etc.

Annvix 3.0-RELEASE (Freya) is now available! Today marks the fifth public release of the Annvix Linux distribution; this version is the fruit of almost a year's worth of hard work. We believe that 3.0-RELEASE is the best version of Annvix available. It is recommended that everyone using 2.0-RELEASE upgrade, as it is no longer supported.

Some of the new features include: 2.6.22.15 kernel with AppArmor support (RSBAC is no longer supported); updated services, including PHP 5.2.5, MySQL 5.0.51, PostgreSQL 8.2.5, Apache 2.2.6, and Samba 3.0.28; many other upgraded system packages, including glibc 2.6.1

SAM Linux 2008 RC1

After more than half a year without a new SAM disk, the development team of SAM Linux are happy to give you a nice Xmas present: SAM 2008 "claw" Release Candidate 1.



What´s new:

SAM uses the newest XFce 4.4.2 as default desktop
SAM now supports around 60 languages out of the box
SAM comes with proprietary Ati and Nvidia drivers on the live cd, and compiz fusion pre-installed
many packages are updated to their newest versions available at the PCLinuxOS repos
OpenOffice was replaced by Gnome-Office (Abiword+Gnumeric) because of disc space limitations
SAM has a new start menu, a "hacked" menu from LinuxMint
the deskbar applet in combination with the tracker search tool gives you a powerful desktop search

Note: if you have problems with non-starting SAM menu and deskbar-applet (after killing X or installing the 3rd party video drivers), run "restart XFce4-panel" from the "system" menu.

Beside all this, the biggest change is unquestionable the introduction of our own package repositories, basically a slimmed down copy of the PCLinuxOS software source (thanx to Texstar for uncomplicated permission!), enhanced with some new built and some SAM-patched packages.

This gives us the possibility to avoid conflicts with PCLOS releated software (i.e. theme packs) and also to make it a bit more easy for normal persons to "not destroy" their SAM desktop by installing the wrong programs (i.e. Nautilus, KDE stuff...).

Advanced users who wanna have all the PCLinuxOS packages available still can use the PCLinuxOS software repositories, but wont get full support by our team (because WE use our own sources too).

Now, you can get it by download at here.

First Alpha release of Mandriva Linux 2008.1

Mandriva development team has announced the availability of the first alpha release of Mandriva Linux 2008.1.

Kicking off the 2008 Spring development cycle in earnest, the first alpha is here.

This alpha features X.org 7.3, KDE 3.5.8, KDE 4.0 RC2 (in /contrib), GNOME 2.21, kernel 2.6.24, OpenOffice.org 2.3, new NVIDIA and ATI proprietary drivers, PulseAudio by default and more.

"Despite being a first alpha, it is also in a fairly stable and reliable state, though as always, we do not suggest you use it in a production environment. It is available in Free and One editions, with i586 and x86-64 DVDs for the Free edition and an i586, KDE-based CD for the One edition. As far as testing goes, for this pre-release we are particularly interested in testing PulseAudio and hardware detection." said the Mandriva development team on its release.

Major new features in this first pre-release include:

PulseAudio; The PulseAudio sound server is now the default for all installations. Using PulseAudio should allow you easily to control playback from various different applications on various different sound devices in all graphical environments; The full X.org 7.3 version is used in this pre-release, including X.org server 1.4. This has several implications for some drivers and also for input methods; The latest release candidate of KDE 4.0 is available for this pre-release. It is not currently included on the discs, but is available from the Cooker repositories (which are the appropriate repositories to use with Mandriva pre-releases); Kernel 2.6.24 RC5 and UUID-based drive mounting.

You can download this Alpha release at here.

Mandriva 2008 turn to using PulseAudio

Mandriva will switch to using PulseAudio as its default sound server for all desktops in the next release. Several other distros have announced plans to do this, and Fedora has been doing it since Fedora 8, but it’s rather more complex for Mandriva as we support both KDE and GNOME desktops. However, testing indicates that we can manage a good KDE implementation, so we’re going to go with it.

For anyone who hasn’t yet come across PulseAudio, it’s a sound server. This means it sits between applications and your actual hardware sound output devices, accepting audio from applications and mixing it together and potentially processing it in other ways before sending it out to the device(s).

At its most basic level, this allows for software mixing of audio from various applications, allowing them all to play audio together. This is nothing new; the existing servers, esd for GNOME and arts for KDE, do this already (more or less…), and so (in a slightly different way) does the ‘dmix’ component of ALSA itself.

However, PulseAudio has rather more potential than any of these. It is also able to easily and universally configure default input and output devices, a common bugbear on Linux, and increasingly so as more and more people have more than one audio device on their system. It can move a stream from one output device to another while it’s playing, which is very useful. It can adjust volume for different streams independently. It can also be used over a network (and supports Zeroconf), so you can even move output streams around between different machines.

In simple practical terms, too, it just tends to work rather better than esd, arts or dmix do alone; for instance, I’ve only ever been able to reliably get sound output from Flash working using Pulse.

As you can probably tell, I personally like Pulse a lot and am very happy to see this change: it should reduce the audio configuration headaches in future Mandriva releases massively.

It’s worth noting that Pulse has actually been in Mandriva for many releases now (in older releases, under its old name of PolypAudio); it just hasn’t been used by default. If you want to try it out on an existing Mandriva release, just install all the available Pulse packages (and libflashsupport, if it’s available - you need that for Flash) and then follow the PulseAudio perfect setup guide.

To actually start Pulse, if you use GNOME you can rename /usr/bin/esd to /usr/bin/esdbak and rename /usr/bin/esdcompat to /usr/bin/esd , if you’re on KDE you’ll probably have to start it manually with each session. To control it, it’s probably easiest to have ‘padevchooser’ running permanently, it’s a panel icon you can use to launch the other control applications. “Volume Control” is the most useful one, it lets you monitor and move about the currently playing audio streams.

Source: adamw’s very own blog

FreevoLive, a HomeTheatre Linux

FreevoLive is a live cd, running Mandriva Linux, with Freevo preinstalled. It is meant to show people why Freevo is the way to go for your Home Theatre PC!
FreevoLive was build with the mklivecd scripts from MCNLive, which is a live cd created by members of the Dutch MandrivaClub.

FreevoLive 0.15 has been released on a fews ago, running on top of X11, makes it possible to use the native resolution of your monitor, instead of 800x600x16bpp being the only possible resolution. So this is actually a nice improvement.

Besides that, Freevo has been added a small browser (Hv3), and installed the libquicktime-faad package, so that you can finally enjoy the Apple trailers with sound!!

Btw, try and download FreevoLive now at here.

Alternative Open Source Drivers for ATI Graphics Cards

There are several different drivers available for various ATI graphics cards in Mandriva Linux 2008 that may be of interest in certain situations. This entry concerns the free software set of drivers. Some notes on the proprietary drivers may be found further down this document.

By default, all ATI graphics cards up to but not including the Radeon X1xxx generation (r500 chipset) are supported by the driver in the x11-driver-video-ati package, which is version 6.6 of the X.org ati driver. This version has been determined to work reliably on the most cards.

However, if you have trouble with this driver, the alternative x11-driver-video-ati_6.7 package contains version 6.7 of the same driver. The package is available in the contrib repository. Following the instructions on the Installing and removing software page to add remote repositories and install packages, you should be able to install this package with the Mandriva software management tools.

Installing this package will automatically cause the x11-driver-video-ati package to be removed, and the 6.7 version driver will replace the 6.6 version. No further action is required except to restart the computer: the new version of the driver will then be used immediately. You can revert to the 6.6 version of the driver by reversing the procedure.

By default, X1xxx and HD 2xxx series cards (r500 and r600) chips will almost all use the X.org vesa driver, which is a generic driver that works on any graphics card by using an industry standard interface that all cards implement. This, however, makes it very slow (as native acceleration provided by the card is not used).
Two native drivers are available for these cards, but both are in a very early stage of development, so we chose not to use them by default in Mandriva Linux 2008 for most cards.

Three particular cards that have been tested by users and reported to work well will use the avivo driver by default. This driver is contained in the x11-driver-video-avivo package. The avivo driver was the first free software driver to be developed for the r500 and r600 chips - it actually supports only r500 cards. Development on the avivo driver was recently stopped in favour of a new driver, radeonhd.

The radeonhd driver is based on specifications provided to its authors by ATI / AMD. It is also available in Mandriva Linux 2008 in the x11-driver-video-radeonhd package. As it was initiated very late in Mandriva Linux 2008 development, there was no time to test it to see if it could be used by default on any cards.

If you have an r500 or r600 chipset-based card and would like to experiment with the avivo or radeonhd drivers, you may install the packages if necessary (they will likely be installed already on a default installation) and use the drakx11 graphics card configuration tool to select the driver, which you will find in the Xorg category at the bottom of the list.

Which Mandriva Linux Edition That's Right For You

Mandriva One 2008

The One edition of Mandriva Linux is a Live CD. A Live CD is an operating system which boots and runs directly from CD, with no installation required, and without making any permanent change to the system on which it runs.

Mandriva One, however, is a hybrid Live CD, meaning it also has an installer allowing it to be installed to the system's hard disk, should the user so desire. This makes it the ideal edition of Mandriva Linux to try if you are not confident enough about Linux to be sure you want to install it permanently to your hard disk.

You can boot Mandriva One in live mode to try it out. If you like it, you can install it to your hard disk. If not, you can simply remove the CD and reboot and your system will not be affected. The small size of Mandriva One also makes it ideal for users with slow or bandwidth limited Internet connections.

Sometimes, several single CD versions of Mandriva One are made available with a Mandriva Linux release. There are two main differentiating factors between the various versions: the desktop environment used and the languages supported. Some versions use the KDE desktop environment, some use the GNOME environment. As space makes it impossible to include all supported languages on a single CD, the languages supported by Mandriva Linux are spread across the various versions of One.

The current release of Mandriva One is Mandriva Linux 2008 One. The latest release of Mandriva One is always available from the official download site.



Mandriva Linux Free 2008

The Free edition of Mandriva Linux is so named because it is 'free' in both senses: it costs nothing and it contains only free and open source software, as defined by the Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative.

It contains a fully functional distribution with a range of applications aimed at typical desktop use. It must be installed to your hard disk prior to use. This is the ideal edition of Mandriva Linux to use if you wish to evaluate a comprehensive Mandriva Linux edition, or if you wish to use only free / open source software on your system.

This edition is made available with every Mandriva Linux release in x86-32 and x86-64 versions, on either three CDs or a single DVD.

The current release of Mandriva Linux Free is Mandriva Linux 2008 Free. The latest release of Mandriva Linux Free is always available from the official download site


Mandriva Linux Powerpack 2008

The Powerpack edition of Mandriva Linux is a commercial edition (this means it is available only via the Mandriva Store, to Mandriva Club members, or from an authorized reseller). It contains a range of applications aimed at typical desktop use, development work, or server use. As a commercial edition, Powerpack contains proprietary software, including various proprietary drivers and firmware packages to improve hardware support, and some useful applications and browser plugins.

This edition is made available with every Mandriva Linux release in x86-32 and x86-64 versions, on a single DVD. The version available from the Mandriva Store is a single DVD containing both x86-32 and x86-64 versions. It is available as a slim-pack DVD only, or in a boxed edition with a manual. It is also available via a subscription service, allowing download access to the Powerpack edition for one year (two Mandriva Linux releases) for a flat annual rate.


The current release of Mandriva Linux Powerpack is Mandriva Linux 2008 Powerpack. The latest release of Mandriva Linux Powerpack is always available from the Mandriva Store

Whats New in Linux Mandriva 2008

Mandriva 2008 includes all the latest software and many enhancements over previous Mandriva Linux releases. You will find KDE 3.5.7 and the new GNOME 2.20 already integrated, a solid kernel 2.6.22.9 with fair scheduling support, OpenOffice.org 2.2.1, cutting-edge 3D-accelerated desktop courtesy of Compiz Fusion 0.5.2, Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.6, and everything else you’ve come to expect from the latest Mandriva Linux release.

It have integrated a reworked hardware detection sub-system, with support for a lot of new devices (particularly graphics cards, sound cards and wireless chips).

Also, the addition of new features and ongoing improvements to the renowned Mandriva tools continues, including a wizard to import Windows documents and settings, the new network configuration center, and improvements to the Mandriva software management tools.

In this release, it have integrated the most up-to-date versions of the major components, with the brand new GNOME 2.20 desktop, the latest stable KDE 3.5.7, Compiz Fusion 0.5.2, OpenOffice.org 2.2.1, the latest Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.

A new menu layout has been introduced. This menu is a merger between the old simplified and Mandriva menu layouts. It is flatter than the old Mandriva layout, with no more than two levels below the top level used at any point.

Applications that are native to the current desktop (KDE / Qt applications in KDE, GNOME / GTK+ applications in GNOME) will be displayed at the first level below the top level, and non-native applications will be at the second level. Exceptions are used to make applications that are commonly used outside their native desktop appear at the top level in all cases.

In addition to the improved graphics card support discussed above, support for other devices has been added or improved. Notable changes include support for:

• NVIDIA Geforce 8400, 8500 and 8600 series graphics cards
• Intel 4965AGN wireless chipsets
• Intel Santa Rosa drive controllers
• ATI SB700 chipset motherboards
• Many newer onboard sound devices using the High Definition Audio codec, particularly on motherboards using Intel chipsets
• Wacom Graphire and Intuos tablet input devices
• Realtek 8187 USB and ZyDAS ZD1211/ZD1211B USB wireless controllers

In Mandriva Linux 2008, drives and partitions formatted with the NTFS file system will be writable by default (via the use of the ntfs-3g driver). This applies to both conventional internal disks and to external disks, USB storage devices and so on.

The Beryl 3D desktop technology has been merged back into Compiz (it began as a Compiz fork). Mandriva Linux 2008 no longer contains Beryl. On upgrading from a previous release, Beryl will be replaced by Compiz Fusion. Most plugins that were previously available for Beryl are now available as Compiz Fusion plugins (one notable exception is the 3D plugin).

Please note that if you are upgrading from Beryl you will probably be used to the Emerald window decorator. When you use Compiz Fusion, you will now, by default, be using either the GTK or KDE window decorator depending on your session. If you would like to use Emerald, simply use CompizConfig Settings Manager (ccsm) and enter "emerald" under the Window Decoration plugin's Command option.


Mandriva Linux 2008 is available in several different editions:

1. One is a single CD edition which includes the latest proprietary drivers, available for download free of charge. It can be run as a live CD as well as installed to the hard disk.
2. Powerpack is a DVD edition which includes support, services, and important third-party proprietary software like LinDVD, Cedega, the Fluendo multimedia codecs, Flash Player, Scilab and 03 Spaces. It is available from the Mandriva Store.
3. Free is a 3-CD / 1-DVD edition made up entirely of free / open source software, without any of the non-free software bundled with other editions. It is available for download free of charge.

SAM Linux 2007

SAM Linux Desktop, a live and installation CD based on PCLinuxOS, is an easy-to-use, fast and clean XFce Linux desktop for home users.

The distribution is enhanced by several popular non-free applications, such as Macromedia Flash plugin, Java and RealPlayer.

The livecd boots to a text screen offering some prelimary information in English and German, mainly consisting of passwords and instructions for obtaining further help. The F1 and F2 screens offer some "cheat codes" and booting options. In the end we ended up booting with xres=1280x1024. Since it couldn't detect my monitor correctly, it turns out we achieved 1152x768. No real reflection on Sam, as not many distros detect that monitor correctly.

The silent boot splash is of an olive greenish color embossed with the Sam linux desktop logo and a darker green progress bar. It's a very good, if not almost exact, match to the desktop backdrop used in xfce4. OD green sounds repulsive in print, but in use is quite refreshingly different and surprisingly attractive.

In addition to the system tools, there are plenty of applications. There are office applications, games and emulators, multimedia and graphic tools, as well as internet and networking programs. The menu is full of software - from Abiword to Zsnes.

How To Boot Mandriva on a USB Disk

As you know, running a Live CD is great, booting and running from a USB Flash drive is more great! It's fast. It's handy. It's beautiful. It's secure. And it's silent, no noisy harddrive or optical drive activity.

This work is meant for USB Flash Memory devices, thus: USB Keys, Flash Drives, Pen/Thumb Drives, Sticks. You can also use an external USB hard drive (it needs a FAT32 formatted first partition!). For setting up: Don't boot with inserted USB Stick. Insert it after you booted successfully.

Hardware Requirements:

A PC/Notebook with a recent motherboard and BIOS. Most computers not older than 4 years should have an option in the BIOS to set the boot sequence to USB-HDD. With a BIOS update we got it working even with a 2001 motherboard.
The minimum capacity of the USB Flash Drive/USB Stick: 256 MB for the Xfce version (Jordaan), 512 MB for the KDE version. 1 GB is fine too, even a 2 GB will work. If your motherboard does not support booting from USB, you can use a combination of burned CD and USB flash drive, using the bootcode: livecd fromusb.
You need to burn the downloaded iso-file to a CD-R or CD-RW. The installation to the USB stick is done from the running CD, with a graphical wizard.
Some flash drives come factory preformatted with an odd partition table. When you see booting from usb: 'no operating system found', you first need to fix the partition table. Plugin the drive, start the Mandriva Control Center (MCC) -> Mount points. Here you can find the name of the usb device, it is one of the tabs, sda or sdb or sdc ... Close the MCC.
Open a terminal window, type: su
Type the root password: root
Example, the usb stick is sdb. Make sure it is NOT an internal hard disk!
Type: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1M count=2
This will erase the MBR and the partition table on the drive. Now you can use the MCC to create a new FAT32 partition and format it. And run the "Create Live USB' wizard

Download the ISO from here. Many versions of ISO there, I use the new release of MCNLive, code name "Toronto", the English only version. As the community said, a newer version usually means better support of new hardware. You can use the previos releases such as "Delft" which support Dutch, French, and Italian beside English.

Burn the ISO file to a CD-R(W)
After you have done, you have an all-in-one solution.

Live CD: You can use it as a Live CD, as it is.
Installation CD: From the running MCNLive you can use a graphiphal wizard to install it on a USB Flash Drive or external hard drive. For computers able to boot from USB, you would just plugin your newly configured USB stick, set the BIOS boot priority and boot it. You got a Live USB now.
Start up CD: For older computers without USB boot ability, you can use the same CD in combination with the USB drive to get all features of the Live USB of MCNLive. Insert the CD, plugin your USB Stick. Restart your PC. At the first screen hit 'F1', type: livecd fromusb
The boot process will continue, using the USB drive. Your CD/DVD drive is freed up, you can remove the CD medium from the drive.

Now, here the step by step for making your Mandriva Live USB Disk:

Get the BIOS info: Insert the stick, start your PC (without Live CD), enter the BIOS at the very beginning, mostly done by pressing 'DEL' or 'ESC' or a function key. Wait two seconds. Look for a section like 'Advanced BIOS Features', this might be named different in your BIOS. Find something like: First Boot Device, Second Boot Device, Third Boot Device. Here you find the available USB boot options, USB-HDD, USB-ZIP. USB-HDD is the preferred one. Set the USB device prior to the harddisk, CD-ROM as first boot device.

Some BIOS have a special feature. As soon as you insert a USB mass storage device before booting, the BIOS will detect it and make it available/visible under 'Hard disk drive priority'. Enter this menu, and you will see your USB Stick besides your internal harddisk. In this case you would set the boot priority here! This is similiar to the USB-HDD method. MCNLive was built and tested on such a computer, a Shuttle SB61G2, with AWARD Bios.

Notebooks tend to have a stripped down BIOS. Hard to find the USB boot settings. Here an example how to set the boot sequence on a Lenovo IBM 3000 C100 M740. Insert the USB stick. Boot and press F1 at the very beginning. Once in the BIOS navigate to the 'Boot' menu. Hit 'enter'. Navigate to 'HDD', hit 'enter'. You will see your usb stick below your harddisk. With the PgUp key you would set the boot priority.

Restart your PC with the burned LiveCD inserted, without USB stick, don't use the copy2ram bootcode, boot into the graphical environment. Insert the USB Flash Drive. Wait two seconds. In the menu 'MCNLive' you can find a program to setup the Live mode.

Your BIOS must support USB-HDD booting. The USB stick must have a FAT partition, with the boot flag set. The wizard does not repartition or re-format the drive. You can create partitions using the Mandriva Control center. (Be sure to hit: toggle to expert mode).
Some notebooks need the bootcode: livecd irqpoll noapic nolapic

Reboot without LiveCD, but with the USB Flash Drive inserted. Make sure the boot sequence in the BIOS is set.

We've done !