Ubuntu 7.10, Freespire 2.0, and OpenSUSE 10.3

There has been a lot of things going on in the Linux world these past few weeks, and so I thought I would throw it into a single article that sums it all up.

Ubuntu 7.10

Ubuntu 7.10 (code-named Gusty Gibbon) is going to take priority soon since Ubuntu 7.04 should be released next week. Mark Shuttleworth announced that Ubuntu 7.10 will actually be coming in two forms, the normal one that we’re all used to and an “ultra-light” version that doesn’t have any drivers, images, sound or applications included.

Mark also had this to say about the Compiz/Beryl progress:

On a personal note, the monkey on my back has been composite-by-default, which I had hoped would happen in Edgy, then Feisty. I’m nervous to predict it now for Gutsy, for fear of a third strike, but I’m told that great work is being done in the Compiz/Beryl community and upstream in X. There’s a reasonable chance that Gutsy will deliver where those others have not. I remain convinced that malleable, transparent and extra-dimensional GUI’s are a real opportunity for the free software community to take a lead in the field of desktop innovation, and am keen to see the underlying technologies land in Ubuntu, but we have to balance that enthusiasm with the Technical Board’s judgement of the stability and maturity of those fundamental layers.

Ubuntu 7.10 is slated for an October 18th release date which keeps them right on track for their 6–month milestone release schedule.

Now it makes you wonder what their next code-name is going to be? They are going in alphabetical order so both words would start with an “H”…maybe Happy Hippo?

Freespire 2.0

The next milestone for Freespire, version 2, is making its rounds through their alpha stages right now. This distribution of Linux has always caught by attention because of the free Click-N-Run (CNR). With CNR you are able to install both freeware and shareware of the applications you are looking for without having to do any of the work yourself. Just click a button and CNR will do the rest.

Another one of the big features is that Freespire automatically installs Nvidia and ATI graphics card drivers. However, the latest alpha release will not automatically install these drivers for you, so you may want to hold off until a more stable release is available that corrects the problem.

One of the higher priorities is for Freespire to include XGL that will provide a 3D desktop experience. This feature should make the final release as long as they get all of the bugs worked out in time.

Both the Beta and Release Candidate (RC) builds are expected later this month, and then the final release is slated for the second quarter of 2007 (which is between now and July).

Thanks for the tip Jack of all Trades!

OpenSUSE 10.3

OpenSUSE just releases version 10.3 Alpha 3 for anyone who feels the need to test the latest software. Probably the most talked about feature in this release is that people running the 64–bit version will benefit from having the 64–bit package of Firefox as well. More on what’s new in each of the pre-releases can be found here.

OpenSUSE 10.3 is expected to hit final form around September, which puts it about 10 months after their last milestone.

There are some big months ahead for the Linux community, and it will be really interesting to see how the 3D desktop evolves.

If you know of other release dates for Linux distributions feel free to send us a tip or drop it in the comments below!