Korora 19 Beta

Ian Firns has announced the availability of the beta release of Korora 19, a Fedora-based distribution with GNOME or KDE desktops and a variety of tweaks and enhancements: "The Korora project is pleased to announce the first beta release of version 19 (code name 'Bruce') which is now available for download. This is the first beta release of Korora which is derived from a beta release of Fedora (previous beta versions of Korora were from a stable upstream release) and as such there will likely be a larger number of bugs and many software updates. Features: GNOME 3.8 brings new applications such as clock and improvements to the desktop including privacy and sharing settings, ordered search, frequent applications overview; KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.10 includes new features for printing and screen-locking...." Read the rest of the release announcement for more details. Download: korora-19-x86_64-gnome-live-beta.iso (1,735MB), korora-19-x86_64-kde-live-beta.iso (2,265MB).

Pinguy OS 13.04 Alpha

Antoni Norman has released an initial alpha build of Pinguy OS 13.04, an Ubuntu-based distribution with a customised GNOME 3.8 desktop: "Pinguy OS is still being activity worked on. There has been a release for 12.10 and a 13.04 release is being worked on at the moment. If you want to keep up to date with the development of Pinguy OS it's best to follow the Information thread on the forum. This blog will be mainly for news on the LTS releases. I have decided to keep the 6-month releases as betas/snapshots of what the LTS will become. The 6-month releases will be using bleeding edge software that hasn't been fully tested. For an example the 13.04 release is using Gnome Shell 3.8.1 (something that isn't included in Ubuntu 13.04 by default). The 6-month Pinguy OS releases will be missing features that will be in the final LTS, but the release will be very usable." See this brief blog post for more information. Download: Pinguy_OS_13.04-Alpha_i686.iso (2,312MB, MD5).

Mageia 3 RC

Anne Nicolas has announced that the only release candidate and the final development build for Mageia 3 is now ready for testing: "We are now two weeks from the end of the trip (at least we hope we will have no delay). Mageia 3 release candidate is now available for the very final tests. We need your feedback more than ever. The Mageia team is working hard to fix the last annoying bugs - what we call release-critical bugs. How do we qualify a release-critical one? All the bugs that cannot be fixed through updates, mainly in the installer, the kernel and some of the main drivers. As with the beta 4, live ISO images are still in progress and should be released in the coming days." Mageia 3 RC ships with the latest Linux kernel, version 3.8.8, and includes RPM 4.11, systemd 195, KDE 4.10.2, GNOME 3.6.3 and LibreOffice 4.0.2. See the brief release announcement and the detailed release notes for more information. Download the installation DVD image from here: Mageia-3-RC-x86_64-DVD.iso (3,865MB, MD5). The final release of Mageia 3 is scheduled for 3 May 2013.

Pardus Linux 2013 "Community"

Following the release of the "Corporate" edition last month, the Pardus development team has now also released the "Community" flavour of Pardus Linux 2013 (or "1.0" as it is called in the announcement). Available in both Turkish and English, the "new" Pardus is a desktop-oriented distribution based on Debian's "testing" branch. From the release announcement: "We are doing a stable and useful Linux called Pardus Community edition 1.0. We are sure you'll enjoy the many improvements. We have done our best in terms of stability and security that you have come to expect. Pardus Community edition 1.0 is now based on Debian 'Wheezy' and built using tools provided by the debian-live project. Easy to install and use. And also all drivers are included. All images boot as live CDs but they can be installed on your computer with the included installer." Download the GNOME or KDE variant from SourceForge: pardus_community_2013_gnome_64bit_en.iso (1,748MB, MD5), pardus_community_2013_kde_64bit_en.iso (1,941MB, MD5).

Foresight Linux 2.5.3

Tomas Forsman has announced the release of Foresight Linux 2.5.3, a rolling-release desktop Linux distribution with Conary package management and a choice of GNOME 2, LXDE and Xfce desktops: "Announcing Foresight Linux 2.5.3. Foresight is a Linux distribution for your desktop that features a rolling-release schedule that always keeps your desktop up to date; a revolutionary package manager, Conary; the latest GNOME 2, LXDE and Xfce desktop environment and an innovative set of excellent, up-to-date software applications. Foresight also includes the polished and refined long-term support 3.4 Linux kernel. If new and shiny is more your thing, you will be pleased to learn that the newly-minted Linux kernel 3.8 is currently undergoing shakedown tests and is slated to become available in the coming weeks." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information. Download (MD5): foresight-2.5.3-gnome-x86_64-dvd1.iso (2,281MB), foresight-2.5.3-xfce-x86_64-dvd1.iso (1,518MB), foresight-2.5.3-lxde-x86_64-dvd1.iso (2,157MB).

Manjaro Linux 0.8.5 "Cinnamon"

Philip Müller has announced the release of Manjaro Linux 0.8.5 "Cinnamon" edition, an Arch Linux-based distribution with GNOME 3 and Cinnamon as the core user interface: "We are happy to release our final Manjaro Cinnamon community edition to the public. See this release as our last gift to this amazing GNOME fork, as we have to drop the support for Cinnamon in the near future. We can not maintain this edition anymore since upstream is dropping Cinnamon due incompatibility with GNOME 3.8. We worked hard to make this release the best Manjaro experience featuring Cinnamon 1.7 and GNOME 3.6. You will find all the goodies you expect from a desktop based on Cinnamon: Nemo 1.7.2, Cinnamon 1.7.3, Cinnamon Control Center 1.7.2. The following changes have been made since 0.8.4: graphical installer; Manjaro settings manager...." Read the detailed release announcement for more information and screenshots. Download: manjaro-cinnamon-0.8.5-x86_64.iso (441MB, MD5).

Fuduntu 2013.2

Lee Ward has announced the release of Fuduntu 2013.2, a user-friendly, rolling-release distribution with the RPM package management system and the classic GNOME 2 desktop: "The Fuduntu team is proud to announce the second quarterly release of 2013, Fuduntu 2013.2. This release comes with many improvements, including many bug fixes, new features and applications. As usual, existing Fuduntu users have already rolled into 2013.2. As Fuduntu has grown, so has the default install. To help those who may want a lighter install, especially for netbooks, we now include a light edition. Users of the Fuduntu Lite will notice several programs that are normally installed by default, including LibreOffice, GIMP, and Thunderbird, are not installed. Included in 2013.2: Linux kernel 3.8.3, GIMP 2.8.4, Thunderbird 17.0.4, Firefox 19.0.2, Chromium 25.0.1364.172 and LibreOffice 4.0.1." Read the rest of the release announcement for more details. Download (MD5): Fuduntu-2013.2-x86_64-LiveDVD.iso (1,009MB, torrent), Fuduntu-2013.2-x86_64-LiteDVD.iso (819MB, torrent).

Pear Linux 7

 David Tavares has announced the release of Pear Linux 7, a highly customised Ubuntu-based desktop Linux distribution with GNOME 3.6: "Pear Linux 7 is available. You will find in this version: Linux kernel 3.5, LibreOffice 4.0.1, Pear OS software center, MyPear 4, Pear Cleaner 2.1; based on Ubuntu 12.10 without Unity and the GNOME panel; new Pear Linux Shell (7.0) based on Wingpanel and plank; new Pear Linux and icon theme, splash and login screen; new desktop notifications with notification center; new Pear OS software center; new mission control; new virtual desktop switcher; based on Linux kernel 3.5, but you kernels 3.7.10 and 3.8.5 are available in the repository; CleanMyPear - a cleaning system...." See the full release announcement for further information and screenshots. Download: pearos7-amd64.iso (1,016MB, MD5). A separate server edition is also available.

Trisquel GNU/Linux 6.0

Rubén Rodríguez Pérez has announced the release of Trisquel GNU/Linux 6.0, an Ubuntu-based distribution that uses strictly free software only (as defined by Free Software Foundation's guidelines): "This long-awaited release is based on Ubuntu 'Precise', and as usual it comes full of free software goodness. We continue to provide an easy-to-use classic desktop experience complete with full-featured browsing, office, communications and social networking utilities. New features: Linux-Libre 3.2, Abrowser 19, GNOME 3.4, LibreOffice 3.5. Our web browser without a name (Abrowser, a Firefox derivative that does not recommend non-free software) now comes with shiny new features, like full HTML 5 video support (webm, h264 and other formats) that allow to use sites like YouTube without a flash plugin. This version can also show PDF files without a plugin." See the release announcement for further information and a screenshot. Download: trisquel_6.0_amd64.iso (696MB, MD5).

PureOS 7.0

Marc Poirette has announced the release of PureOS 7.0, a Debian-based desktop Linux distribution with a choice of GNOME or Openbox desktop user interfaces: "PureOS 7.0 is a GNU/Linux live distribution based on Debian's 'testing' branch, multilingual, installable and built with the new Linux Live Kit scripts. It is available in two editions (GNOME and Openbox) as ZIP images for live USB only. Features common to both editions: Linux kernel 3.6.11; Chromium, GParted, Synaptic; scripts for modules management (dir2pb, pb2dir, pure activate and deactivate, deb2pb and debs2pb); smxi and sgfxi scripts. The Openbox edition weighs only 356 MB; it was designed to serve as a basis for the design of the live USB image customized by adding modules. The GNOME edition is more complete (supports scanners and printers) and it weighs 642 MB." Here is the brief release announcement. Download links: PureOS_70_Gnome.zip (642MB, MD5), PureOS_70_Openbox.zip (356MB, MD5).

Manjaro Linux 0.8 "MATE"

Carl Duff has announced the release of Manjaro Linux 0.8 "MATE", the project's brand-new new community edition which features the increasingly popular fork of the GNOME 2 desktop: "Community editions of Manjaro Linux are released as bonus flavours in addition to those officially supported and maintained by the Manjaro team. Due to popular demand from members of the Manjaro community, this now includes a special new release of the MATE flavour for both 32-bit and 64-bit systems. Subject to a complete overhaul, this version also provides early access to some brand-new features yet to be seen in the upcoming official Manjaro 0.8.4 releases: new graphical boot screen; Linux kernel version 3.7; Pamac - a user user-friendly graphical interface to easily update the system and manage software...." See the release announcement for further details and screenshots. Download: manjaro-mate-0.8-r13-0215-x86_64.iso (650MB, SHA256).

ROSA 2012 "Desktop Fresh GNOME"

Konstantin Kochereshkin has announced the release of ROSA 2012 "Desktop Fresh GNOME" edition, a desktop-oriented Linux distribution with GNOME 3.6.2: "ROSA community members have prepared a variation of the ROSA Desktop Fresh 2012 operating system with the GNOME desktop environment. Traditionally, original versions of ROSA Desktop operating system are provided with the KDE desktop environment which includes a lot of design modifications and functionality enhancements. A nice-looking ROSA theme and a set of brand-name applications highly integrated with KDE have already become recognizable ROSA features and made ROSA familiar to Linux users. However, some ROSA users prefer another desktop environment - GNOME. This desktop environment suggests its own approach to graphical environment and wider possibilities of integration with existing IT infrastructure." Here is the full release announcement with screenshots. Download: ROSA.Desktop.Fresh.2012.GNOME.x86_64.iso (1,151MB, MD5, torrent).

Linpus Linux 1.9 "Lite"

Linpus Linux 1.9 "Lite", a desktop Linux distribution featuring a customised GNOME 3 desktop with HTML 5 widgets and support for touch screens, has been released: "Linpus, a leader in the field of open-source software in the consumer space, announced the release of the latest version of their Linux distro, Linpus Lite. Linpus Lite has both full touch-based and mouse and keyboard-style launchers that can be easily swapped between through a menu item on the top bar or a touchpad gesture. Both look and user experience are designed to match whether you want to interact with the device through touch or through your keyboard. In addition, for key applications multi-touch behavior has also been added. Linpus has also worked very hard on web app integration in several ways. Anyone with a Chrome webstore account can login and automatically sync their Chrome applications to the launcher." See the press release for more information. Download: Linpus-Lite-1.9.1-x86_64-LiveCD.iso (516MB).

Parsix GNU/Linux 4.0r2

Alan Baghumian has announced the availability of an updated build of Parsix GNU/Linux 4.0, a desktop distribution and live DVD based on Debian's "testing" branch: "To celebrate our 8th anniversary, we decided to release an updated version of Parsix GNU/Linux 4.0 code name 'Gloria'. This version ships with a brand-new kernel based on Linux 3.2.37 and merges Debian testing updates as of January 30, 2013. Parsix 'Gloria' is the project's first release with the GNOME 3 series and it ships with LibreOffice productivity suit by default. Gloria has a brand-new software package manager. Highlights: GNOME 3.4.2, X.Org 7.7, GRUB 2, GNU Iceweasel 18.0.1, GParted 0.12.1, Empathy 3.4.2.3, LibreOffice 3.5.4, VirtualBox 4.1.18. The live DVD has been compressed using Squashfs and xz." Read the rest of the release notes where you can find more information and upgrade instructions. Download the live DVD image from SourceForge: parsix_4.0r2-amd64.iso (1,033MB, MD5).

Enable or Disable Desktop Icons using a GNOME shell Extension

A GNOME shell extension provide capability to enable or disable desktop icons. Gnome tweak tool allows you to do the same function, but this extension brings a switch button in GNOME shell status menu for quicker and easier switching.

Desktop icon switch GNOME shell extension can be installed using “gnome-tweak-tool” or you can installed by following the instructions down below.
Download the DesktopIconsSwitch-3.tar.gz package for the extension, and extract it and move it to GNOME shell directory using commands down below.
Run Terminal “Ctrl+Alt+t”, then type,

tar -zxvf DesktopIconsSwitch-3.tar.gz
mv DesktopIconsSwitch@bananenfisch.net/ ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/

Now open GNOME tweak tool, if you don’t have it, you can install it using this command,
GNOME tweak tool for Ubuntu and its derivatives

sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool

GNOME tweak tool for Fedora and its derivatives

su
yum install gnome-tweak-tool

Finally, open GNOME tweak tool, select “shell extensions” and activate the Desktop Icon Switch extension.

Cinnarch 2013.01.23

Alex Filgueira has announced the release of Cinnarch 2013.01.23, the latest build of the project's desktop distribution that combines Arch Linux with Cinnamon (a fork of GNOME Shell). This is a beta release. From the announcement: "Another month, another release. This one with some great improvements. One of the downsides of installing Cinnarch is the time that the installer spends downloading the packages. Almost 500 MB in packages have to be downloaded one after the other. This new version reduces the downloading time doing parallel downloads thanks to a Pacman wrapper called powerpill. This new system downloads everything with a 12 MB connection in just 4 - 6 minutes. With this we avoid the 'select mirror' step, because there's no need, but at the end, in your final system, you will have selected by default the 5 fastest mirrors to your location in the case of the Arch Linux repositories." Download (MD5) the live CD image from here: cinnarch-2013.01.23-x86_64.iso (699MB).

SolusOS 2 Alpha 6

Ikey Doherty has announced the availability of the sixth alpha release of SolusOS 2, a Debian-based desktop Linux distribution with a custom desktop environment derived from GNOME 3.4: "The SolusOS team is pleased to announce the release of SolusOS 2 Alpha 6. This release is intended to demonstrate the potential of the new desktop environment being developed for SolusOS 2. Please note that this is an alpha release and should not be used in a production environment. Currently only the 32-bit PAE ISO image is available for testing. Brief overview of software versions: Firefox 18.0, Thunderbird 17.0.2, LibreOffice 3.6.4, Linux kernel 3.3.6, Athena 1.0, SolusOS desktop environment (GNOME 3.4-based). Many new applications are available in the software repository. In this release we are showcasing the new desktop environment for SolusOS 2. It is originally based on GNOME 3.4 yet does not feature GNOME Shell." Read the rest of the release announcement for more details and screenshots. Download: SolusOS-2-A6.iso (1,001MB, MD5).

Pear Linux 6.1

David Tavares has announced the release of Pear Linux 6.1, an Ubuntu remix with a simple but beautiful user interface (a customised GNOME 3) and out-of-the-box support for many popular multimedia codecs: "I am pleased to announce the release of Pear Linux 6.1. Pear Linux 6.1 builds on top of our popular previous release of Pear Linux 6 with newly updated software. As Pear Linux 6.1 is based on Ubuntu 12.04.1 it is an LTS (Long-Term Support) release, provided with 5 years of security updates. New software: Pear PPA Manager, Pear Cleaner; software updated, kernel updated. Users who already have Pear Linux 6 installed do not need to get Pear Linux 6.1. All the aforementioned updates and improvements in 6.1 will be applied by installing the latest updates from the Update Manager available this week." Here is the brief release announcement. Download the Pear Linux 6.1 live DVD image from SourceForge: pearlinux-6.1-x64.iso (899MB, MD5).

Fuduntu 2013.1

Lee Ward has announced the release of Fuduntu 2013.1, a new build of the rolling-release distribution which features GNOME 2 as its default desktop: "Fuduntu 2013.1 released. For those with hardware that use proprietary drivers, one of the first things that will be noticed after install is Jockey, the program that checks hardware and presents the user with the proprietary driver(s) needed. An example of this would be graphics drivers for NVIDIA and AMD cards. Since we're on the topic of installation, we would like to point out that, by default, sudo is now enabled for all new installs. Another noticeable thing will be the new dock. Unfortunately, AWN is no longer being maintained upstream and there are several bugs that have been left open. In addition, AWN will no longer build against the latest glib. After much discussion, the team decided to migrate to the Cairo dock. This is now installed by default." Read the detailed release announcement for a complete list of new features. Download from SourceForge: Fuduntu-2013.1-x86_64-LiveDVD.iso (959MB, SHA1, torrent).

Liferea (Feed Reader) Updated To V1.8.12 - Ubuntu 12.10/Linux Mint 14

Liferea is a popular feed reader (news aggregator) for Linux-based systems that has an easy-to-use UI (user interface) written in GTK and it can be integrated smoothly in Gnome-based desktop environments. Liferea supports many web syndication formats such as RSS, OPML, Atom, etc. It also allows users to read RSS feeds offline (offline reading).

Liferea has been updated recently to version 1.8.12 which is now compatible with the Tiny Tiny RSS news feed (RSS/Atom) reader and aggregator.

Liferea 1.8.12 Installation

Liferea 1.8.12 can be easily installed in Ubuntu/Linux Mint with the following commands from the terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:liferea/ppa 

sudo apt-get update 

sudo apt-get install liferea

NOTE: PPA installation for version 1.8.12 is currently available for Ubuntu 12.10 and Linux Mint 14 only.

Liferea Removal

To uninstall Liferea from your system, enter these commands:

sudo apt-get remove liferea 

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:liferea/ppa 

sudo apt-get update