Linux vs Windows vs Mac

Steve Langasek has announced the availability of the delayed first alpha release of Ubuntu 8.10, code name "Intrepid Ibex":

"Welcome to Intrepid Ibex Alpha 1, which will in time become Ubuntu 8.10. Alpha 1 is the first in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Intrepid development cycle. The primary changes from Hardy have been the re-merging of changes from Debian and the upgrade of the Linux kernel to a pre-release version of 2.6.26.

As with the beginning of any development cycle, the Intrepid one has seen the merge floodgates open once again. This merge not only brings in lots of new version of various packages, but also a fair number of totally new applications." Read the release announcement and release notes for further details. Only the "alternate" installation images have been made available with this release; download them from here: intrepid-alternate-i386.iso (698MB, MD5, torrent), intrepid-alternate-amd64.iso (697MB, MD5, torrent).

Also released: Kubuntu 8.10 Alpha 1 and Xubuntu 8.10 Alpha 1.

After more than four months of hard work, the Zenwalk team is proud to announce the immediate availability of the final version of its Slackware-powered distro, Zenwalk Linux 5.2: "The long awaited Zenwalk 5.2 is now available.

In the 4 months since the last release many enhancements have been made. The Zenwalk GNU/Linux OS brings to its users both the latest stable software, a well polished Desktop and an ever-increasing software repository." Including over 500 changes (bug fixes, software updates and many other enhancements), Zenwalk 5.2 brings you a revamped package manager, Netpkg NG (new generation) version 4, which has been fully rewritten in Perl-GTK; the unbeatable media player for Linux, MPlayer, which has improved support for DVD menus; Brasero, as the default CD/DVD burning utility and the latest version of The GIMP image editor, 2.4.6!

Moreover, Zenwalk 5.2 comes packed with some new artwork, it is now powered by Linux kernel 2.6.25.4 and Xfce 4.4.2 and has resurrected the resume/suspend operations. Also, an ever-increasing web-based software repository is now available for all Zenwalk users: "Many faithful users asked us to provide an online source repository rather than sending source Dvds on-demand. So we have been working on a mechanism to allow the development team to instantly publish source tarballs for any new package we release. This source repository is now 100% ready for ISO packages, and the contributed packages (aka "extra") source repository is being populated actively."

Being powered by the popular Slackware Linux distribution, Zenwalk Linux 5.2 comes with useful applications for daily usage. Among these, we can notice:

• Mozilla Firefox
• Mozilla Thunderbird
• Pidgin Multi-protocol Instant Messenger (MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, AIM, IRC)
• Openoffice.org Office Suite
• Abiword Word Processing
• Gnumeric Spreadsheet
• Tea Text Editor
• Gtkam Photo Viewer
The GIMP
• Bluefish HTML Editor
• Leafpad Text Editor
• Vim Advanced Text Editor
• Alsa Sound Server
• Gxine/Xine Media Player
• Brasero CD/DVD Burning Tool

You can download Zenwalk Linux 5.2 right now from Softpedia.

SOURCE: softpedia.com