openSUSE 11.0 Beta 2

The second beta of openSUSE 11.0 has been released: "The openSUSE team is proud to announce the second Beta release of openSUSE 11.0! New changes include countless bug fixes, as well as the import of the new openSUSE 11.0 artwork for login, splash screens and more. The live installation should work, but there are several known quirks, so be sure to check the most annoying bugs list before proceeding. Remember that this is a beta. It may not be safe to run for production systems, and should be used by users interested in testing the next release of openSUSE for bugs. Most annoying bugs: automatic configuration after boot into installed system behaves strangely; installation leaves traces of live system." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details. Interested beta testers can download the installation DVD images via BitTorrent: openSUSE-11.0-Beta2-DVD-i386.iso (4,370MB), openSUSE-11.0-Beta2-DVD-x86_64.iso (4,453MB).

GoblinX 2.7 Beta 1

Flavio Pereira de Oliveira has announced the availability of the first beta release of GoblinX 2.7, a Slackware-based live CD: "GoblinX 2.7 beta 1 is released. GoblinX Standard is the original edition, first released in October 2004. It includes five windows managers: KDE, Fluxbox, Xfce, Enlightenment and WindowMaker. Main upgrades since the last release: upgraded kernel (2.6.24.3), Aufs, Squashfs and linux-live; upgraded all GNOME libraries and applications; upgraded several more libraries and packages; upgraded KDE (3.5.9); upgraded Magic Center and Media Manager; added gosfiles to be read by our interfaces; added webmount features allowing anyone to use modules without downloading them; changes are restored and saved by default if device allows rewrite; changes can be saved to a FAT32 file system...." Visit the project's news page to read the full release announcement. Download: GoblinX-2.7.beta1.iso (293MB, MD5).

Parted Magic 2.2

Patrick Verner has announced the release of Parted Magic 2.2, a specialist live CD distribution designed to facilitate hard disk management tasks: "This is another update / bugfix in the 2.0 series. I dropped VisParted because strong development is coming from the GParted camp once again. Recent updated to PCManFM have made some new things possible on the desktop and improved the look and feel. All mountable partitions and CD-ROMs are fully supported from the desktop now, so it's never been easier to access files from Parted Magic. You will find most of the bad bugs and annoyances from 2.1 have been fixed." Visit the project's news page and check out the latest changelog for more information about Parted Magic 2.2. Download: pmagic-2.2.iso (44.9MB, MD5).

OpenSolaris 2008.05

Here it is: the first stable release from Project Indiana, OpenSolaris 2008.05: "From dorm room to boardroom. OpenSolaris has everything you need to take your brilliant idea, build a prototype, test it, deploy it, and run it on production servers -- out of a loft, or across your enterprise. And when your application goes viral, you won't have to throw hardware at the problem, or switch to a different OS. OpenSolaris is industrial strength and built to scale from the get go. The live CD makes it simple to boot to a fully functional desktop environment, including Firefox and Thunderbird. Try it without fear -- our instant rollback feature works like a giant undo button, so your system is always protected, and you'll never lose work. And, you can load OpenSolaris 2008.05 easily in a variety of virtualization technologies including the open source VirtualBox hypervisor." Visit the newly revamped OpenSolaris web site to learn more about Solaris on the desktop. Download: os200805.iso (686MB, MD5, torrent).

AMD to update their server roadmap

AMD have updated their server roadmap. Base on the roadmap, AMD is still on track with their "Shanghai" processor in 2H2008. This is AMD's first 45nm server processor and will feature HyperTransport 3.0, 6MB of cache (instead of 2MB on today's processor), and include core and instruction per clock enhancements.

Furthermore, AMD is planning to release 6-core "Istanbul" in second half of 2009 that will fit within current Socket F1 (1207). And in first half of of 2010, AMD expects to introduct its third generation "Opteron processor Socket G34 platform that supports DDR3 memory controller, AMD RD 890 chipset for non-coherent HyperTransport 3.0, along with an additional HT link."

AMD also plans to release six- and twelve-core Opteron for Socket G34 in first half of 2010, codenamed "Sao Paolo" and "Magny Cours" respectively.

AMD usually does not disclose so future processor release date until it is close or on the date of the launch. Looks like they are on track of their plans and that's why they are able to release the information. Looking at the roadmap, it looks like we are going to see some interesting products coming off the pipelines and that may be able to challenge Intel's Nehalem processor in the near future.