Sidux, das auf Debian Sid basierende “neue Kanotix”, ist gerade frisch in seiner zweiten Ausgabe erschienen, Codename “Tartaros” (”Τάρταρος“). Wer den rasanten Ausbau der Sidux-Dokumentation (die mittlerweile in weit über einem Dutzend Sprachen vorhanden ist) verfolgt hat und auch das sonstige Tempo, welches das Sidux-Team vorlegt, zur Kenntnis genommen hat, der vermutet etliche Neuerungen in diesem Release.

Dem ist auch so. Man hat eifrig gebastelt und modernisiert und vereinheitlicht, außerdem wurde die Optik geschliffen und diverse Holprigkeiten des ersten Release wurden geglättet. Die Scripte zur halbautomatischen Nachinstallation proprietärer Treiber/Software wurden ergänzt und optimiert, und auch sonst hat sich vieles getan. Mehr dazu in den offiziellen Release-Notes, die ich im Langtext wiedergebe.

Für Elfenladen-Kunden und solche, die es werden wollen vorab die wichtigste Nachricht: ab sofort werden Notebooks, die mit Sidux/Debian bestellt werden, mit dem neuen “Τάρταρος”-Release installiert.Hier die offiziellen Releasenotes (englisch, die Jungs hatten noch keine Zeit zu übersetzen… *lach*)

After 3 months of development we are proud to announce the immediate availability of the sidux-2007-02 “Τάρταρος” release for amd64 and i686 systems, shipping in a ≈425 MB lite KDE and a ≈ 690 MB full KDE flavor. sidux is a full featured Debian sid based live CD with a special focus on hard disk installations, a clean upgrade path within sid and additional hard- and software support.

Our second official sidux release has concentrated on overhauling the early boot sequence and adapting to a wider variety of desktop environments and window managers, further efforts regarding the second boot stage, localisations, toolkit abstraction/ harmonisation and refactoring the installer are ongoing. While this release only ships in two KDE flavors (lite and full) again, we’re looking for interested maintainers contributing to special purpose releases or tweaking support for other desktop environments and window managers. The ISO is completely based on Debian Sid, enriched and stabilized with sidux’ own packages and scripts. It comes with kernel 2.6.21.3, which is based on the most recent vanilla kernel together with several patches for improved hardware support, especially for wireless LAN devices (mac80211).

Now to the interesting topics, like what’s on the menu for now:

• amd64 (AMD64, Intel Core2, newer 64 bit capable Pentium 4 CPUs (watch for the “lm” flag in /proc/cpuinfo or use infobash -v3) and i686 (pentium pro/ pentium II or newer).
• debian sid, up to date as of 2007-05-28 14:30 UTC.
• kernel 2.6.21.3 (smp, hard preemption, mac80211).
• KDE 3.5.7 (en + de).
• completely overhauled early boot sequence.
• largely adapted installer and graphical installer frontend.
• enhanced installer for meta tasks.
• new artwork created by cathbard and the sidux art team.
• offline manual for en + de directly on the disc, online manuals for more languages online at http://manual.sidux.com/ and available via apt; a big thank you goes to the documentation and translation teams!
• A number of fixes and enhancements for the installer and the meta-installer.
• installer fixes for fromiso boots.
• changes regarding the access concentrator probing for PPPoE links.
• fixed xawtv configuration frontend.
• minor artwork tweaking.
• lots of changes for the manual
• iwlwifi 0.21.
• ndiswrapper updates.
• support for ATi SB700 chipsets.
• MPC52xx support.
• performance boost for Intel ICH7 based IDE controllers.
• kvm ABI 19
• improved support for SCSI devices.

Hints for hardware with non-free needs:

sidux contains (Package List) only dfsg free software, so you’ll probably want to add contrib/ non-free to your /etc/apt/sources.list and ensure internet access.

# See sources.list(5) for more information, especialy
# Remember that you can only use http, ftp or file URIs
# CDROMs are managed through the apt-cdrom tool.

# Unstable
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free
# deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free

# sidux
deb http://sidux.com/debian/ sid main contrib non-free firmware fix.main fix.contrib fix.non-free
#deb-src http://sidux.com/debian/ sid main contrib non-free firmware fix.main fix.contrib fix.non-free

• ATi Radeon graphics: 3d acceleration for older cards up to r35x should work, newer Radeon X1xxx cards need non-free drivers for accelerated performance which are not yet compatible with X.org 7.2.

Disclaimer:

This is experimental software. Use at your own risk. The sidux project, it’s developers and team members (all represented by the sidux Foundation, Inc) cannot be held liable under any circumstances for damage to hardware or software, lost data, or other direct or indirect damage resulting from the use of this software. If you do not agree to these terms and conditions, you are not permitted to use or further distribute this software.

Download URLs, please give the mirrors some time to sync:

• http://debian.tu-bs.de/project/sidux/release/ (Technische Universität Carolo-Wilhelmina zu Braunschweig, Germany)
• ftp://ftp.spline.de/mirrors/sidux/release/ (Freie Universität Berlin/ Institut für Informatik, Germany)

How to get involved

Getting involved in sidux is easy, just join us here or even better on IRC (irc.oftc.net, port 6667, channel #sidux) and discuss your patches/ proposals additions. We will gladly discuss any dfsg- free patches and contributions.

Roadmap:

Please understand that the following roadmap is a rough estimate regarding our release schedule and is affected by the status of upstream debian sid, major system components like X.org, KDE, the linux kernel and our own developments and is subject to changes.

• sidux-2007-03 “Γαῖα” — calendar week 29-31 2007
• sidux-2007-04 “Ἔρως” — calendar week 41-42 2007
• sidux-2008-01 “Νύξ” — calendar week 3-4 2008
• sidux-2008-02 “Έρεβος” — calendar week 15-16 2008

Special thanks go to the entire sidux development team:

Joaquim Boura (x-un-i)
Roland Engert (RoEn)
Aedan Kelly (etorix)
Bernard Gray (cleary)
Andreas Hausmann (Bodhi)
Chris Hildebrandt (slam)
Ralph Hokanson Jr. (piper)
Harald Hope (h2)
Kel Modderman (kelmo)
Stefan Lippers-Hollmann (slh)
Ferdi Thommes (devil)
Horst Tritremmel (hjt)
Niall Walsh (bfree)
Trevor Walkley (bluewater)
Andreas Weber (webera)
and many more

On behalf of the sidux team:
   Stefan Lippers-Hollmann (slh)

Offizielle Sidux-Website mit Forum, Wiki, etc.: http://www.sidux.com