Mandriva Linux Community Newsletter #129

Published by awilliamson on Friday, July 11 2008 @ 11:11:02 CEST

Welcome to the Mandriva Linux Community Newsletter - dedicated to keeping you up-to-date with the latest Mandriva-related news & info. This time we cover the new Mandriva Flash release, an interesting research project, Mandriva in Nicaragua, and more.

Mandriva news

Mandriva Flash 2008 Spring released

Last week saw the release of Mandriva Flash 2008 Spring, the latest edition of the popular Flash distribution-on-a-USB-key product. Flash is a full, bootable Mandriva Linux distribution on a high-quality USB key. Just plug Flash into almost any computer, turn it on, and you can boot into your own personal Mandriva desktop. The new edition - besides being based on our latest main release, Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring - doubles the capacity of the key to 8GB and introduces a new feature which lets you install Mandriva permanently to the hard disk of the system on which you are running it. It's also fully compatible with the Asus Eee 701 and 900 models, right out of the box. Existing owners of previous Mandriva Flash editions will soon receive an email giving them access to a free upgrade image which can upgrade their Flash to 2008 Spring, including all the new features. If you don't have a Flash yet, you want a spare Flash, a Flash to give to a friend, or you just want to upgrade to the new 8GB capacity, you can buy Mandriva Flash 2008 Spring from the Mandriva Store.

Mandriva Linux 2009 plans announced

The week also brought the unveiling of the schedule and feature plans for the next Mandriva Linux release, Mandriva Linux 2009. The release is set for early October, with the first alpha due on June 25th - just a few days away. Significant planned features include KDE 4, Firefox 3, OpenOffice.org 3, a new design for the installer, a live distribution upgrade mode for MandrivaUpdate, and improvements to many of the Mandriva tools. Take a look and see what you may find on your system when the final Mandriva Linux 2009 release is available.

Mandriva to sponsor GUADEC for the second year in succession

Regular readers may remember that Mandriva was proud to sponsor the annual GNOME conference, GUADEC, last year - both as a Silver level corporate sponsor and by providing a free Mandriva Flash USB key to many attendees. We were so pleased with the success of this initiative that it will be repeated this year: Mandriva is a Silver sponsor for GUADEC 2008 and will once again distribute several hundred Mandriva Flash keys to GNOME developers attending the conference. This year, the keys will be 4GB keys based on Mandriva Flash 2008 Spring, and once more they will be customized especially for GUADEC - including, of course, the use of GNOME as the default desktop!

Mandriva again at the forefront of semantic research and development with SCRIBO

Mandriva is once more working together with European partners to push the boundaries of research into semantic organization of information, an area we believe is key in developing new paradigms in interaction beyond the current, inadequate desktop / file system metaphor. Mandriva is co-ordinating the SCRIBO project, a collaboration between Mandriva, Agence France-Presse (one of the world's leading press agencies), Nuxeo and several other partners from the worlds of business and academia. SCRIBO aims to create algorithms and utilities to enable automatic extraction of information from text files and images, and semi-automatic annotation of documents. The project is partly funded by the French government, under the 'pôles de compétitivité' system. SCRIBO has a website containing much information on the project, some of it only in French.

Mandriva events

MandrivaUser.de at LinuxTag 2008

The largest German Linux conference, LinuxTag 2008, was held between May 28th and May 31st in Berlin. Mandriva was represented at the conference by the German Mandriva user community group, MandrivaUser.de. The indomitable Wolfgang Bornath manned the booth for the whole show and got through the entire supply of Mandriva One CDs we provided - 150 - by Friday evening. Many Mandriva users - including several with Eee PCs - dropped by the booth for a chat. Wolfgang also posted several pictures of the event, so take a look!

Mandriva installfest in Nicaragua

One of the strengths of Mandriva has long been its popularity and strong community base all around the world, in areas not always considered by the mainstream Linux press. Continuing this fine tradition, June 14th saw a Mandriva installfest and conference in Nicaragua, arranged by the Nicaraguan Mandriva user community. The event was well-attended, and even had press coverage in a popular Nicaraguan newspaper (link in Spanish). Many people brought their systems to have Mandriva Linux installed, and many copies of Mandriva Linux Free and One were distributed to those who couldn't bring their systems to the event. A report of the event, with many pictures, can be found in the official Mandriva forum.

Mandriva in the news

Another review of Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring

Finally, this week saw another review of Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring showing up on several popular news sites. The review praises Mandriva's control center, application selection, and KDE integration, and ends by saying that "(the author would) certainly recommend it to new users". If you still haven't tried Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring yet, have a look at the review and then download or buy your copy today!