August 23, 2007 -- The feature freeze, upstream version freeze, and the first artwork deadline passed last week for Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon. With these freezes, Ubuntu 7.10 Tribe 5 has been released with the last of the new features until Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. Ubuntu has now adopted system-config-printer (which was originally developed by Red Hat and Fedora) for handling the printing needs that gnome-cups-manager once had controlled, CUPS being upgraded to 1.3, a plug-in finder wizard and extension manager for Firefox in Ubuntu, and the new displayconfig-gtk panel for graphically controlling your X settings. Ubuntu 7.10 is shaping up very nicely and we have one more Tribe release and then the beta release, followed by the final release of Gutsy Gibbon on October 18.

August 21, 2007 -- Last week marked the release of the first GNOME 2.20.0 beta, which also defined the user interface freeze for GNOME 2.20.0. With the UI freeze we have taken some screenshots from GNOME 2.19.90 for your viewing pleasure of the subtle changes. GNOME 2.20.0 Beta 2 (2.19.91) is due out at the end of this month with the release candidate falling in early September followed by the final release of GNOME 2.20.0 on September 19.

August 18, 2007 -- At Phoronix we are constantly running Linux benchmarks with quad-core and even octal-core systems with more than enough RAM and all of the latest and greatest hardware from the chipsets to the graphics cards. However, with an increasing number of new Linux users trying out Linux for the first time on their old computers, we have been asked to conduct some benchmarks using popular desktop Linux distributions on older hardware. We have done just that as we try out Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, and SimplyMEPIS with an old Intel Northwood system.

August 09, 2007 -- There is about two months left until the final release of Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon, but today marks the release of Ubuntu 7.10 Tribe 4. New in this alpha release is GNOME 2.19.6, desktop search capabilities through Tracker, fast user switching support, deskbar applet, OpenOffice.org 2.3, AppArmor by default, and a smooth shutdown splash screen. Next week is the feature freeze, upstream version freeze, and the first artwork deadline for Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon.

August 07, 2007 -- The first test release for Fedora 8 is finally out the door after the usual delays we've come to expect with each Fedora release cycle. New in the Fedora 8 Test 1 Desktop Live CD (GNOME edition) is GNOME 2.19.5, an early Linux 2.6.23 kernel, and integrated blog entry posting software among some other minor alterations. We have screenshots to share and will cover Fedora 8 more in the coming weeks.

August 03, 2007 -- MEPIS has been making news this week with the return to Debian as the base for its upcoming SimplyMEPIS 7 release. Debian was the MEPIS base prior to their short-lived relationship with Ubuntu on the bottom. Continuing with the news, yesterday afternoon was the first development release to reincorporate the Debian Stable OS core was SimplyMEPIS 6.9.51prebeta. This pre-beta release includes the Linux 2.6.22 kernel, Debian Etch core, KDE 3.5.7, Firefox 2.0.0.5, and OpenOffice.org 2.2.1.

July 21, 2007 -- Yesterday's release of OpenSuSE 10.3 Alpha 6 marks the first time there is a single installation CD for OpenSuSE, but also added in this development build is the Linux 2.6.22 kernel, GCC 4.2, and other updated packages. The single CD was possible by splitting packages and also introduced was 64-bit CDs for KDE and GNOME. While this isn't the final build of OpenSuSE 10.3, we have enclosed new screenshots of the OpenSuSE 10.3 Alpha 6 GNOME edition.

July 19, 2007 -- The third alpha release for Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon is now available for download. New in Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon Tribe 3 include the latest desktop effects powered by Compiz Fusion, the GNOME 2.19.5 development release, the Gutsy Gibbon server installation now includes Ebox for network services control, and a lot of work between Tribe 2 and Tribe 3 has went into improving AppArmor. Some of the improvements found in Ubuntu 7.10 Tribe 3 thanks to the latest development build of GNOME include appearance preferences improvements, GNOME power manager profiles, and a horde of improvements to the Rhythmbox music player. For your viewing pleasure we have uploaded some screenshots of Ubuntu Tribe 3 to Phoronix.

July 18, 2007 -- Sabayon Linux has released a "business edition" of its popular LiveDVD distribution known for its use of desktop accelerated effects and being based upon Gentoo. Sabayon Linux 1.0 Business Edition ships without the eye candy and games and is for when art meets business. This business edition ships with an optimized server profile, the Linux 2.6.22 kernel, and the latest proprietary display drivers. An easy firewall management package, KMyFirewall, has also been included.

July 10, 2007 -- CentOS, the popular community Linux distribution based upon Red Hat Enterprise Linux, has been at version 5.0 since April of this year, but joining the CentOS 5.0 fleet today is the LiveCD. The CentOS 5.0 LiveCD is based upon CentOS 5.0 i386 and can work out to be a modest Linux workstation or recovery distribution. Included with this new Linux LiveCD is OpenOffice.org 2.0.4, GNOME 2.16, GAIM 2.0.0, and Thunderbird 1.5. While this isn't a great Linux desktop distribution, if you're after a workstation or recovery-oriented distribution, the CentOS 5.0 LiveCD looks great.