Pear Linux 6 Alpha 1 Is Now Available for Testing

David Tavares, the developer of Pear Linux, has announced yesterday, September 13th, on Twitter, that the first Alpha version of the upcoming Pear Linux 6 operating system is now available for download and testing.

Dubbed Bartlett, Pear Linux 6 Alpha 1 is now based on the latest LTS release of the Ubuntu OS and it is powered by Linux kernel 3.2 with support for PAE (Physical Address Extension).

"Alpha 1 is the first in a series of milestone images that will be released throughout the Pear Linux 6 development cycle."
"The Alpha images are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD build or installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of Pear Linux 6," the official release announcement read.

Highlights of Pear Linux 6 Alpha 1:

· Based on Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS (Precise Pangolin);
· Linux kernel 3.2 with PAE;
· Added Pear Linux Shell 6.0;
· Added Pear Linux Panel 1.0;
· Pear Linux Control Center;
· Updated Pear Appstore to version 6.0;
· Added new Pear Linux icons;
· Added new Pera Linux desktop theme
· Added new boot splash;
· Added new login screen;
· Added new desktop notification system;
· Updated lots of applications.

When the final version is released, users will need the following minimum system requirements for a fresh Pear Linux 6 installation:

· Intel Pentium III 500 MHz or higher CPU;
· At least 512 GB of RAM (1 GB recommended);
· At least 8 GB HDD free space;
· Supported graphics card capable of 800x600 or 1024x768 resolution: Nvidia, ATI/AMD, Intel, SiS, Matrox, VIA (3D desktop effects require a video card with 3D acceleration).

Pear Linux 6 Alpha 1 is distributed as Live DVD ISO images supporting only the 32-bit architecture.
  
Download Pear Linux 6 Alpha 1 

Upcoming Features of GNOME 3.8

Even if GNOME 3.6 has not yet been released, the GNOME developers published some of the features that will be implemented in the next major release of the desktop environment, GNOME 3.8.

Therefore, it looks like GNOME 3.8 will fix or even drop the Fallback Mode, because it has become less and less useful and it mostly works as it should, according to the GNOME developers.

Moreover, focus-caret tracking mechanism will be implemented in GNOME Shell, meaning that the current methods, which rely on Orca, will be dropped. A prototype has already been implemented on September 5th.

In GNOME 3.8, the GNOME Shell extensions will update automatically, which might be integrated with system updated. Last but not least, the Videos app (previously known as Totem) will see a major redesign to its user interface.

We have no idea when the first development release will be out, or when the final version of the GNOME 3.8 desktop environment will see the light of day, but it should be sometime next spring.

Listen To Your Favorite Radio Stations From The Terminal - Ubuntu/Linux Mint

In this tip we will see how to use the terminal to listen to online  radio stations. This will be possible with the help of "mplayer" and the IP address of the online radio station desired. If you haven't already installed mplayer on Ubuntu/Linux Mint, then do with this command:

sudo apt-get install mplayer

You can search and find here many IP addresses of radio stations. The IP address will be followed by the port number. Here is an example of an online radio station IP address:

http://stream.doarprieteni.ro:8000/

So, the command to use in the terminal to listen to this online radio will be as follows:

mplayer http://stream.doarprieteni.ro:8000/ 

You can now minimize the terminal window and enjoy listening to your favorite radio station. To stop it, you can simply press CTRL+C or just exit the terminal. 

openSUSE 12.2 "Edu Li-f-e"

Lars Vogdt has announced the release of openSUSE 12.2 "Edu Li-f-e" edition, an openSUSE variant specifically tailored to schools: "The openSUSE Education team once again presents Li-f-e (Linux for Education), built on hot-new openSUSE 12.2, including all the post-release updates. As always, this edition of Li-f-e comes bundled with a lot of softwares useful for students, teachers, as well as IT administrators of educational institutions. Apart from stable versions of KDE and GNOME, Cinnamon is also available. The Sugar desktop suite makes a comeback. Li-f-e also give full multimedia experience right out of the box without having to install anything extra. The live installable DVD image stands at 3.3 GB as an incredible array of software from the open source-world." See the release announcement for more details and screenshots. Download the live DVD image from here: openSUSE-Edu-li-f-e-12.2-latest-i686.iso (3,317MB, MD5, torrent).

Bodhi Linux 2.1.0

 Jeff Hoogland has announced the release of Bodhi Linux 2.1.0, the latest update of the Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the Enlightenment 17 desktop: "I'm happy to release to everyone our first scheduled update of Bodhi Linux's 2.x.y branch - version 2.1.0. There are a number of wonderful changes and improvements to this disc over our 2.0.1 disc released a couple of months ago. The first thing you will notice are four fresh themes along with the elegant E17 Black and White theme appearing on this version of Bodhi's live CD. We have a fresh build of Enlightenment and Terminology pre-installed on the disc. Beyond that our repositories contain the latest LibreOffice 3.6.1, Firefox 15 and Chromium 21 among a number of other current applications. The default kernel for this release is based on Linux 3.5." See the full release announcement for further details and screenshots. Download: bodhi-2.1.0-32.iso (504MB, MD5), bodhi-2.1.0-64.iso (535MB, MD5).