The Ubuntu Development Team has released another early pre-release of the upcoming Ubuntu Linux 7.10:

Welcome to Gutsy Gibbon Tribe 4, which will in time become Ubuntu 7.10.

Pre-releases of Gutsy are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for Ubuntu developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs.

Howtoforge published a guide about converting songs from an Audio CD into MP3/Ogg Files with K3b under Linux

LinuxLinks published a review on the lastest version of Fedora Linux

Mandriva Linux 2008 Beta 1 has been released:

The first beta of Mandriva Linux 2008, codenamed Cassini, is now available. This beta is available only as a three CD Free edition (containing no non-free software or drivers) for the x86-32 architecture, with a traditional installer. Future betas will be available in One live / install CD hybrid editions with proprietary drivers, and in x86-64 versions.

Freespire 2.0 has been released:

Freespire 2.0 is immediately available; the latest version of the free desktop Linux operating system. Building on the best of open source software using Ubuntu as its baseline, Freespire 2.0 adds legally licensed proprietary drivers, codecs, and applications in its core distribution, to provide a better user experience. Freespire 2.0 (http://www.freespire.org) also continues to offer users the ability to choose what software they want installed on their computer, without limitations or restrictions, as a result, making available proprietary software where there are no viable open source alternatives.

The Fedora Project has released the first test release of Fedora 8. Here the full announcement:

Fedora 8 Test one has been loosed upon the world today. Included in this release is a "Fedora" installable 'choose your own adventure' style set of isos and trees for i386, x86_64, and ppc(64). Also included are Live images of both the Fedora Desktop and the Fedora KDE desktop. These are available for both i686 and x86_64 (x86_64 is DVD size only). Remember these can be used on USB media via the livecd-iso-to-disk utility available in the livecd-tools package.

Sabayon Linux x86/x86-64 3.4 Revision E has been released:

Install the Sabayon Linux Operating System and unleash the full potential of your Computer. Sabayon Linux features the most advanced Industry Open Source technologies: no hassles.

This just in: it's an Ubuntu future. Think I'm nuts? Take a cold, hard look around. Even though I'm a fan of other delightful distros like Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux, there are other honorable mentions, such as Fedora (a fine distro) and OpenSuSE. At the end of the day, however, Ubuntu has won the hearts of common users. And that is not my opinion, this is simply a matter of numbers.

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What is Fedora? The Fedora Project is a collection of projects sponsored by Red Hat and developed as a partnership between the open source community and Red Hat engineers. The goal of Fedora is the rapid progress of free and open source software and content. Public forums. Open processes. Rapid innovation. Meritocracy and transparency. All in pursuit of the best operating system and platform that free software can provide.

Like Apple, Dell has a good handle on the hardware side of things. After all, they will be in full control when they are ready to release this round of Linux boxes. However, what has me concerned are some areas where they might not be ready for is the WiFi realm, most noticeably, WPA encryption.

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The Fedora Project is a collection of projects sponsored by Red Hat, and developed as a partnership between the open source community and Red Hat engineers. The goal of Fedora? The rapid progress of free and open source software and content. Public forums. Open processes. Rapid innovation. Meritocracy and transparency. All in pursuit of the best operating system and platform that free software can provide. Test 4 is for beta users. This is the time when we MUST have full community participation. Without this participation both hardware and software functionality suffers. We need your help. Join us! This is the final test release before the final Fedora 7 release, which is scheduled for May 24, 2007.

While the Linux community is pretty chuffed that Sony lets them stick their fave operating system on the PS3 there's one hitch that is giving them the heebie-jeebies. Sony provides partitioning tools to allow the console to be dual booted and to setup a Linux as the one to boot from.... Inq has more.

Three new packages have been released. They all support CLE266, CN400, CN700, CN800, CN896, CX700(M/M2), VN800, VX700(M/M2), PM880, PN880, PM800, PN800, P4M800CE, and P4M800Pro. There is an application note for Fedora Core 6.0 and Mandriva 2007 as well as the driver binary and source code. The binary and source code have been specifically built and tested with Fedora Core 4/5/6, Mandriva 2007.0, SuSE 10.2, Ubuntu 6.10 and also tested with kernel version 2.6.20. Download

New Linux support packages have been added to the driver database: Guides for Fedora Core 5(x86&X86_64) and Fedora Core 6 on how to install the VIA V-RAID driver v2.60 and its utility on VT8237R/VT8237A/VT8237S/VT8251/CX700 (Serial ATA/RAID controller) and VT6421(L) (Serial ATA+IDE/RAID controller) Guides for Fedora Core 5(x86&X86_64) and Fedora Core 6 on how to install the precompiled SATA/AHCI patched driver binary, how to patch default SATA/AHCI driver source code and how to rebuild it for the VT8237R/VT8237A/VT8237S/VT8251 south bridge (Serial ATA controller) and VT6421(L) (Serial ATA/PATA controller) SATA/AHCI Patch Driver Disk guide for Red Flag5 and Open SuSE 10.2 ViaArena

Red Hat posts links to 12 security advisories -- three of them "critical" and five "important." Forty-seven flaws are fixed. When Red Hat released the latest version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux desktop, the company fixed nearly 50 vulnerabilities, including some "critical" bugs.
In a notice posted on its Web site last Friday, the Raleigh, N.C.-based open source vendor posted links to 12 security advisories, which that deal with 47 vulnerabilities. Three are rated "critical." Five are rated "important." All of them affect Red Hat's open source operating system.
One "critical" update in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 fixes several security vulnerabilities in Mozilla's Thunderbird, an e-mail client. The update includes fixes for several cross-site scripting flaws, several flaws in the way Thunderbird processes malformed JavaScript code and a flaw in the way the application displays blocked popup windows. A vulnerability in the way Thunderbird displays certain Web content could enable hackers to trick users into thinking they're visiting a different site. InformationWeek has more.

The release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 at a media event in San Francisco on March 14 reflects not only years of engineering work by Red Hat itself, but also its collaboration efforts with strategic partners such as IBM.
This collaboration resulted in the integration of Real-Time Linux capabilities, improved virtualization features and security enhancements into the latest version of the company's operating system, said Dan Frye, vice president for open systems development at IBM.... EWeek has more.

[H]ard reports: There are brand new NVIDIA Linux drivers available today. Linux IA32, Linux IA64, Linux AMD64/EM64T, FreeBSD x86 and Solaris x64/x86 versions are all available. Open source drivers for NVIDIA nForce hardware are included in the standard Linux kernel and leading Linux distributions. This page includes information on open source drivers, and driver disks for older Linux distributions including 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Linux. Download

If you're looking for a new Linux-equipped Dell laptop or desktop from the PC vendor, you may be waiting a while.
Despite obvious support for the idea last week from thousands of visitors on its new customer suggestion Web site, IdeaStorm, the company said it's not yet building machines with Linux pre-loaded for the consumer and business markets. More at Yahoo

Big news from Slashdot again: Apparently after the new customer feedback website opened by Dell, 2 out of 3 customers are asking for a pre-installed Linux distribution. They are talking about a tri-choice between Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSUSE, allowing multiple-boot with Windows installed also, or no Windows at all, because yes, Linux can replace Windows successfully!
Open software like Firefox, Thunderbird, Gaim, Gimp, PDFCreator, Audacity and of course Open Office will be available. The manufacturer, Dell in this case, will be able to work together with the packagers of a Linux distro in order to have all the drivers installed, maybe offer support from the same packagers, in less words: making it ?Idiot proof? like the Mac. More at WirelessisFun

In a no-nonsense presentation to New York financial analysts last Thursday, Microsoft's chief executive said the company's partnership with Novell, which it signed in November 2006, "demonstrated clearly the value of intellectual property, even in the open-source world.
The cross-selling partnership means that Microsoft will recommend Suse Linux for customers who want an environment mix of Microsoft and open-source software. It also involves a "patent cooperation agreement," under which Microsoft and Novell agreed not to sue each other for patent infringement. News.com has more.