Conectiva Linux

São Paulo, November 30, 2000 - Conectiva Inc., a Brazilian company that distributes, develops and supports Linux in Portuguese, Spanish and English, has released the 6.0 version of the Conectiva Linux platform, this time simultaneously for corporate and domestic users. In Latin America, Conectiva Linux will be available in two versions: "Home & Office" and "Server". The operating system has 6 Cds with more than a thousand software packages and several demo versions of commercial programs.

The biggest and most remarkable advantage of Conectiva Linux 6.0 is the Advanced Package Tool, also known as APT. Previously APT was only available for .deb packages but was recently enhanced to support .rpm packages too. Conectiva 6.0 is the first rpm-based distribution with fully integrated apt-get support. This new tool makes it easier to keep the platform up-to-date and secure, since it can automate the update and installation of all .rpm packages. APT, when used as an (automatic) upgrading tool, can detect the availability of new versions of .rpm packages, and take care of download and installation. In corporations, APT has a very crucial importance in terms of security, because with it, the system administrators can facilitate automatic corrections and upgrades in a very fast and easy way, getting around the manual work of updating every machine in the network with, for example, the security update. Conectiva employee Alfredo Kojima, who is also the author of Window Maker, has enhanced APT to support RPM packages.

Other features of Conectiva 6.0 are KDE2, the latest version of the K Desktop Environment, which features: Konquerer, the KDE file manager and web browser; Koffice, the KDE office suite with spreadsheet, presentation manager, flowchart program and more. KDE2 also comes with a selection of multimedia programs, including aRts, a sound manipulation program which can, amongst other functions, play MP3 and WAV files.

Conectiva 6.0 also comes with Xfree 4.0.1, the latest version of this X server, which support a very large number of graphics cards, including 3D cards. The major feature of Xfree's latest version is Xinerama, which makes it possible to use multiple monitors on the same computer as if they were one big display. The VESA driver in Xfree 4.0.1, which allows for basic compatibility with almost all graphics cards, was developed by Conectiva.

Installation and configuration tools.

The new version of the Modular Installer (MI), which is being developed by Conectiva and available under the GPL, is largely rewritten and even more flexible and easy than before. This multilingual installer comes with both a graphical and a text front-end. Most of the typical hardware detection problems found with older Linux installers have been fixed for this new version. The installer of Conectiva 6.0 allows the user to choose from multiple installation profiles, including minimal, standard, full install, expert mode and server. With support for USB devices and inclusion of the GNU Parted program - also being developed by Conectiva - this installer makes it extremely easy to reconfigure or repartition your hard disk or to configure RAID. The installer also has an option to not install the documentation to the packages, which is a very useful option for old and small computers or small servers.

Conectiva 6.0 replaces lilo with the Grub, in order to easy multi-boot configuration. The graphical boot menu of the Grub allows users to easily choose which operating system (or kernel image) to boot. On the other hand, the Grub's ability to read filesystems increases the flexibility for advanced users. The Grub also support remote boot and has the ability to boot, and read filesystems from, several other operating systems.

Conectiva 6.0 also includes the latest improvements in Linuxconf, a Linux configuration and administration program. Conectiva's Linuxconf developers have, in addition to the normal maintenance of Linuxconf, created five new modules: Postfix, a secure and high-performance mail server; Pslaveconf, to configure Protslave, a program used by ISPs to manage modems; Wineconf, to configure Wine; Amandaconf, for the Amanda backup system and Grubconf, to ease the configuration of the Grub bootloader.

Features for corporate users

Conectiva 6.0 contain several features for corporate users. Desktop and server programs and tools have been updated or included to improve security, performance, stability and functionality. For example, the Enterprise Kernel has support for up to 4GB of RAM and files larger than 2GB, which is ideal for companies that work with large data sets or servers. Like with Conectiva 5.1, 6.0 contains the tools necessary for high availability setups, which allows for services to be available on a 24x7 basis without interruptions.

Other interesting features for power users include:

• Strong cryptography: with FreeS/WAN in the kernel and openssh, openssl and other tools in the distribution. Strong cryptography is needed for secure networking and crucial for things like e-commerce.
• LVM: the Conectiva 6.0 kernel contains support for LVM, which allows much more flexible storage management, including resizing of ext2 and reiserfs filesystems and adding or removing disks to an existing system.
• ReiserFS: this high-performance, journaled filesystem can optionally be used instead of the ext2 filesystem. ReiserFS means instant recovery after power failures and higher system performance for certain operations.
• Xinetd: this more flexible and secure version of the inet daemon replaces inetd in Conectiva 6.0.
• NFS: Conectiva Linux 6.0 has better support for NFS v2 and v3, the standard Unix file sharing protocol.
• Gphone: a voice-over-IP program, which allows the user to have conversations over the Internet.
• GNU Parted: developed by the Australian Conectiva employee Andrew Clausen, this program allows for easy creation and resizing of hard disk partitions.
• Exim: easy to configure high performance e-mail server.
• Sendmail 8.11.1: a new version of the world's most used mail server. This version features cryptography, user authentication and validation.

Technical information about Conectiva Linux and the open source projects Conectiva is involved with can be found on http://distro.conectiva.com.br/.

Download

Conectiva Linux 6.0 will be available in the shops soon, until then it can be downloaded from the following sites:

• ftp://ftp.conectiva.com/pub/conectiva/
• ftp://ftp.linux.tucows.com/pub/ISO/Conectiva/
• ftp://ftp.nl.linux.org/pub/conectiva/
• ftp://rufus.w3.org/linux/conectiva/
• ftp://conectiva.inw.psi.br/
• ftp://atualizacoes.conectiva.com.br/