Install Wine 1.5.11 On Ubuntu 12.04/11.10/Linux Mint 13

Wine 1.5.11 has been released recently which comes with more features, bugfixes and improvements. Here are some of the key features and changes in this latest development release:

• Adding multi-channel support for the ALSA driver

• Big X11 lock removal

• Adding support for pair positioning adjustments in Uniscribe

• More I/O stream implementations in the C++ runtime

• Various bug fixes

You can find the release notes of Wine 1.5.11 here. You have to bear in mind that this is a development release which is not recommended for production machines. To install Wine 1.5.11 from PPA on Ubuntu 12.04/11.10 or Linux Mint 13 or older, run the following commands from the terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine1.5 winetricks

If you want to install the stable version of Wine (currently 1.4.1), run the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine1.4 winetricks

Snowlinux 3 "Xfce"

 Lars Torben Kremer has announced the release of Snowlinux 3 "Xfce" edition, a desktop Linux distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux 6.0: "The team is proud to announce the release of Snowlinux 3 'Crystal' Xfce. Due to drastic changes with GNOME 3 and Unity, Xfce is growing up more and more. Xfce is quite similar to GNOME 2 and offers an alternative for all former GNOME 2 users. This is one of the reason why Snowlinux Xfce got so many new features and improvements. It should not lack any features and functions which are available in the main edition. We are trying to let Xfce act like GNOME 2 and to offer an alternative for all former GNOME 2 users. New features: DuckDuckGo, Firefox 14.0.1, Thunderbird 14, Xfce 4.8, Linux kernel 3.2...." Here is the full release announcement with a screenshot. Download (SHA256): snowlinux-3-crystal-xfce-i386.iso (618MB), snowlinux-3-crystal-xfce-amd64.iso (626MB).

OS4 1.0 "OpenDesktop"

Roberto Dohnert has announced the release of OS4 1.0 "OpenDesktop" edition, a Xubuntu-based distribution targeting legacy 32-bit hardware, ultrabooks and netbooks: "Today we are proud to announce the general availability of OS4 OpenDesktop 1.0. OS4 OpenDesktop is a 32-bit offering that runs on all legacy 32-bit hardware as well as the newer ultrabooks and netbooks. With this release we focus on mobility and cloud computing. Along with this release the system comes with Audacious, Totem, and Google Chrome. Some of the web applications that come bundled with the system are: Angry Birds, Pandora, Netflix, Flixter, GMail and offline GMail, Google Drive, eBuddy, Weather Channel, Google Books, Google Music, Google Calendar, New York Times, Hotmail and WebCam toy. All multimedia codecs are supported as is DVD playback." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details. The OS4 1.0 "OpenDesktop" release is available for free download from the ibiblio.org server: os4-od-1-0.iso (847MB).

Macpup 529

Johnny Lee has announced the release of Macpup 529, a distribution featuring the Enlightenment 17 desktop and based on Puppy Linux: "Prit and I are proud to announce the release of Macpup 529,our newest Enlightenment 17 Macpup. Macpup 529 is based on 'Precise' Puppy 5.2.60, an official 'Woof' build of puppy Linux that is binary-compatible with Ubuntu 'Precise' packages. It contains all the applications from 'Precise' Puppy with the addition of Firefox 14.0.1. Macpup 529 also includes the Enlightenment E17 window manager. The EFL libraries version 1.2.0 and E17 version 71440 where compiled and installed from source. To keep your CPU cool and your fan quiet use the CPU Frequency Scaling Tool. The first time you run Macpup, the system will be running totally in RAM." Here is the release announcement as published on the distribution's user forum. Download the live CD image from here: macpup_529.iso (193MB, MD5).

Calculate Linux 12.0.2

Alexander Tratsevskiy has announced the availability of an bug-fix release of Calculate Linux 12, version 12.0.2, a Gentoo-based distribution: "Calculate Linux 12.0.2 released. Here's the first update of Calculate Linux 12.0. Main changes and bug fixes: passing the root password has been modified; installation on LVM has been fixed; GRUB 2 settings have been fixed; Clt templates are now overlaid correctly; D-Bus now auto-starts as it should; no more lags when installing packages; Smaller ISO images; we have included KDE 4.9.0, Chromium 21.0.1180.57, LibreOffice 3.6.0 and Calculate Utilities 3.0.1 into the release." See the release announcement which includes a 5-minute video about installing Calculate Linux to a hard disk. Quick links to download Calculate Linux 12.0.2 desktop with KDE (for other editions please visit the project's download page): cld-12.0.2-i686.iso (2,060MB, MD5, torrent), cld-12.0.2-x86_64.iso (2,230MB, MD5, torrent).

ROSA 2012 RP 1

Konstantin Kochereshkin has announced the release of an updated build of ROSA 2012, a Mandriva-based Linux distribution. Labelled as RP (Release Pack) 1, this is largely a bug-fix release with a handful of package updates. From the release announcement: "Today we are announcing the first update pack for the ROSA 'Marathon' 2012 release (Release Pack 1). The Release Pack 1 includes all LTS updates and bug fixes available at the moment: users can now avoid some graphical cards issues which prevented booting into live mode or into initial installation by using safe mode; Firefox was updated to the latest LTS version 10.0.4 and the default Yandex search issue was fixed; Linux kernel was updated to 3.0.38; KDE updated to 4.8.3...." Download: ROSA.2012.RP1.MARATHON.EE.i586.iso (1,441MB, MD5), ROSA.2012.RP1.MARATHON.EE.x86_64.iso (1,468MB, MD5).

Install Tor Browser Bundle From PPA On Ubuntu 12.10/12.04/11.10/Linux Mint 13

Tor Browser is a standalone bundle available for many platforms that uses the Tor network to protect your privacy by hiding your online traces such as not letting websites you visit know your physical location as well as allowing users to visit blocked websites.

Tor Browser Bundle for Linux can be easily installed under Ubuntu/Linux Mint. You need to download the appropriate archive file from here, extract it, then double click "start-tor-browser" to start it. Or you can use our custom PPA to install Tor Browser as described below.

Tor Browser Bundle Installation

Install Tor Browser under Ubuntu 12.10/12.04/11.10 or Linux Mint 13 or older with these commands for 32-bit/i386 platforms:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:upubuntu-com/tor
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tor-browser

For 64-bit/amd64 systems, install with these commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:upubuntu-com/tor64
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tor-browser

Change now folder ownership of Tor Browser to your current user with this command:

sudo chown $USER -R ~/tor-browser/

You can now start Tor Brower from the Unity dash:

If the connection is well established, you may get this status:

Tor Browser will then start automatically. You can now enjoy browsing the web securely and anonymously!