[ Thanks to Phil
Lavigna for this link. ]
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Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter
Issue #75 Friday, 21 February 2003
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Welcome to the Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter -- dedicated to
keeping you up-to-date with the latest Mandrake-related news & info.
In this issue:
- Top Story: Mandrake Linux 9.1 ‘RC1’ is available
- New Products: Multi Network Firewall & Corporate Server
2.1 - What’s Cookin’ at MandrakeSoft? New PPC Beta
- Mandrake in the News: DistroWatch.com & Open-mag.com
- MandrakeClub: New Applications Database & Package voting
results - BizCase of the Week: Moving From NT Server to Mandrake 9.0
- Software Updates: util-linux, postgresql, slocate, kernel,
more - Headlines from MandrakeForum: Forum and MandrakeClub join
forces
Top Story ---------------------------------------- Mandrake Linux 9.1 'RC1' is available. The first Release Candidate of the upcoming Mandrake Linux 9.1 for x86 is now available for download & testing. The developers have asked everyone to bang away on the following features:
- New ACPI support for laptops (power and configuration
management) - NTFS resizing — DrakX can now safely resize NTFS
partitions - zeroconf — Networked computers can be automatically assigned
IP addresses and host names - Supermount — Removable media mounting & unmounting has
returned - Apache2 upgrade utility — Safely upgrades Apache 1.3 to Apache
2 - A new unified Mandrake theme for KDE, GNOME and Gtk apps
Everyone is invited to download RC1 from the usual locations, then report any bugs to 'BugZilla.' For additional details, please see the official release notes. New Products ---------------------------------------- MandrakeSoft recently released two new "industrial-strength" enterprise products: Multi Network Firewall -- The Multi Network Firewall is a comprehensive solution for deploying a complete network infrastructure, including Firewall, Internet gateway and Virtual Private Networking. MNF also provides smart Internet Traffic Management combined with an industrial-strength hardening system for the highest level of network security. Corporate Server 2.1 -- The Mandrake Corporate Server 2.1 is a complete "all-in-one" enterprise solution that includes everything needed to rapidly deploy world-class Linux server applications throughout the enterprise. The Mandrake Corporate Server 2.1 is based on Mandrake Linux 9.0 and includes all currently available security updates & bug fixes. This comprehensive package is one of the most robust and modern server solutions available today. Both products include complete enterprise support plans and software update services. Available now at MandrakeStore. MandrakeClub members receive 15% off the purchase price of any of these two products for any orders placed before February 28th, 2003. What's Cookin' at MandrakeSoft? ---------------------------------------- New PPC Beta is available. MandrakeSoft recently announced the release of Mandrake 9.1 PPC Beta2. This new Beta is roughly equivalent to x86's Beta3, but has been reduced to fit onto two CD's. ISO images are available at mirrors near you. MandrakeSoft's Stew Benedict reports the following features:
- Improved support for newer Radeon-based machines with included
BenH based kernel and installer kernel (install-gui-benh) - KDE3.1, Gnome2
- Latest XFree86
- Most of the other great new stuff in Cooker
- Working Drake tools
Stew also adds: "Please give the beta a run-through and report any issues, either directly to me or through the normal channels of IRC, cooker-ppc mail list or bugzilla." -- On a related note, Andrew D. Balsa posts a nice review of PPC Beta1 at www.distrowatch.com: "For the last few weeks I have been reporting on the development cycle of Mandrake 9.1. Then, the presence of an ISO image for Mandrake PPC 9.1 Beta 1 piqued my curiosity, and some days later two ISO images for Mandrake PPC 9.1 Beta 2 were made available on the various Mandrake mirrors. [...] So without any extraordinary expectations, I decided to attempt the installation of this different flavour of Mandrake Linux. I was in for a few good surprises..." Mandrake in the News ---------------------------------------- DistroWatch.com -- Review of Mandrake Linux 9.1 Beta, Part 3. "Andrew D. Balsa has been following the progress of Mandrake Linux 9.1 and its hectic pace of development. In the first two articles of this series he described his initial impressions of both betas (part 1 - beta 1 and part 2 - beta 2) to give us the taste of things to come. In this third part he delves deeper. He investigates various ways to improve that desktop look - with anti-aliasing, true type fonts, menu and cursor shadows, desktop icons and KGamma colour calibration. All accompanied by suggestions to developers and some excellent new screenshots. Enjoy!" Open-mag.com -- Multi Network Firewalls Made Easy: Mandrake leaves the crackers at the gates. The online magazine 'Open' provides an informative discussion of Linux security and MandrakeSoft's recently released 'Multi Network Firewall': "The rule wizards in MandrakeSecurity MNF greatly simplify matters by offering predefined services for dealing with e-mail, web, MySQL, and a host of other common services that might be offered on a server. This simplifies rule creation for common tasks to a simple two-step process. The first step is to create a rule by picking the interface and service to accept. The second step is to create a rule that routs that service from the firewall to the address of the appropriate server in the DMZ." MandrakeClub ---------------------------------------- New Applications Database for Club members. MandrakeClub recently released a huge database of all software packages that are currently available for Mandrake Linux. More than 50,000 RPM packages -- over 100GBs of software (and still growing) -- is now available for all versions of Mandrake Linux. These programs include word processors, accounting packages, graphics apps, games, and utilities, and lots more. This is a "must use" tool for every Linux user who would like to add software to their Mandrake system. RPM package votes making a difference. Lead developer 'Warly' posts a partial list of new packages added to Beta 3 as a result of the MandrakeClub Package Voting system. Not yet a Mandrake Club member? To learn more, please visit: http://mandrakelinux.com/en/club/ Business Case of the Week ---------------------------------------- Computer Services: Moving From NT Server to Mandrake 9.0. Chris Kirby, of Kirby Enterprises, was chosen to redesign a network for the RE/MAX real estate organization. At the time, their client had a network consisting of an NT 4.0 Server that served approximately 25 Windows clients for file and print serving. Chris Kirby explains: "We thought about buying a new Windows 2000 Server, but after realizing the OS and licensing costs, we chose to experiment with Linux. Mandrake has always been my favorite distribution for many reasons (thats another story). [...] So far, so good now with the new server, no problems yet. I will continue to use Mandrake from this point forward. I will also be happy to share my smb.conf with anyone who is interested." For more examples of Mandrake in the workplace, see MandrakeBizCases.com. Software Updates ---------------------------------------- 9.0 software updates have been released for:
- util-linux — provides stronger randomness in mcookie
- postgresql — fixes various buffer overflows
- slocate — fixes buffer overflow
- kernel — fixes a number of bugs
- MySQL — fixes DoS vulnerability
- vim — fix arbitrary command execution vulnerability
View the complete list at MandrakeSecure.net. Headlines from MandrakeForum --------------------- MandrakeForum and MandrakeClub join forces. MandrakeClub.com is now the primary location for information and documentation related to Mandrake Linux, as well as a great place to meet for discussion about important Mandrake-related subjects. Denis Havlik, webmaster of MandrakeForum and MandrakeClub, explains: "For the past six months, MandrakeForum was maintained alongside MandrakeClub because we wanted to experiment [with] a dedicated website for paying members while continuing to provide forum members with an entirely free website. Now the experiment has matured, so there's no need to maintain two community websites. MandrakeClub [now] offers everything that MandrakeForum did plus many additional features that we've implemented over the past year."