Posted by : slh on Feb 21, 2007 - 06:33 PM Release Notes

After 3 months of development we are proud to announce the immediate availability of the sidux-2007-01 “Χάος release” for amd64 and i686 systems, shipping in a ≈ 402 MB lite KDE and a ≈ 700 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.

This is the first official sidux release after stabilizing and largely rewriting the distribution framework, further efforts in that direction are ongoing to improve the hardware support/detection and streamline the live operations. While the first release concentrates on two KDE flavors (lite and full), special purpose releases and support for other desktop environments and window managers are planned. The ISO is completely based on Debian Sid, enriched and stabilized with sidux' own packages and scripts. It comes with kernel 2.6.20.1, which is based on the most recent vanilla kernel together with several patches for improved hardware support and allows initial testing of kvm for pacifica or vanderpool compatible CPUs (AMD64 for socket AM2, Intel Core2).

Now to the interesting topics, like what's on the menu:

• 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 2007-02-21.
• kernel 2.6.20.1 (smp, voluntary preemption).
  • kvm virtualization support for pacifica or vanderpool compatible CPUs (AMD64 for socket AM2, Intel Core2)
• KDE 3.5.5 (en + de).
• completely overhauled live mode.
• largely adapted installer.
• new graphical installer frontend.
• netcardconfig can cope with wpa/ wpa2 again.
• offline manual for en + de directly on the disc, online manuals for more languages online at http://manual.sidux.com/; a big thank you goes to the documentation and translation teams!
• a completely new ISO creation process written from scratch in a clean room environment.

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, please use get-sidux-binary-gfx to fetch install scripts for these cards.
• Atheros/ "madwifi" wlan: m-a a-i madwifi.
• Atmel AT76c50x 11 MBit/s wlan: apt-get install atmel-firmware
• AVM ISDN/ ADSL PCI/ USB Karten: AVM's closed source driver are not compatible with kernel 2.6.20 yet.
• Broadcom/ bcm43xx wlan: apt-get install bcm43xx-fwcutter.
• Eagle USB ADSL modem: fetch the firmware from http://eagle-usb.org/ueagle-atm/non-free/ and place it under /lib/firmware/.
• DVB firmwares for various full featured DVB TV cards (most budget cards won't need this): fetch the needed firmware (check dmesg) from http://www.linuxtv.org/downloads/firmware/ and place it under /lib/firmware/.
• hostap based 11 MBit/s wlan with loadable firmware (e.g. D-Link DWL-520 rev. E1 and others): http://www.oakcourt.dyndns.org/~andrew/dwl520e1.html
• Intel ipw2100, 11 MBit/s wlan: fetch the firmware from http://ipw2100.sf.net/ and place it under /lib/firmware/.
• Intel ipw2200, 54 MBit/s wlan: fetch the firmware from http://ipw2200.sf.net/ and place it under /lib/firmware/.
• Intel ipw3945, 54 Mbit/s wlan: apt-get install ipw3945d firmware-ipw3945
• Intersil prism54, 54 MBit/s wlan: fetch the firmware from http://prism54.org/firmware/ and place it under /lib/firmware/.
• nVidia graphics: 3d acceleration isn't possible with free drivers yet, please use get-sidux-binary-gfx to fetch install scripts for these cards.
• RaLink rt61 54 MBit/s wlan, fetch the firmware from http://www.ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/Support/Linux.html
• Texas Instruments ACX100 (22 Mbit/s)/ ACX111 (54 MBit/s) wlan, fetch the firmware from http://www.kazer.org/acx-firmware-20060207.tar.bz2 and place it under /lib/firmware/.
• ZyDAS zd1201 11 MBit/s wlan: apt-get install zd1201-firmware
• ZyDAS zd1211 54 MBit/s wlan: fetch the firmware from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=129083 and place it under /lib/firmware/.
• We will check if we can provide packages for at least some of these devices, but the legal status isn't necessarily easy.

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 synch:

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

Torrents:

• http://linuxtracker.org/browse.php?cat=444 (Torrents auf linuxtracker.org)
• please burn the ISO as DAO (disk at once)

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

Thanks to all involved for making this possible:
     Stefan Lippers-Hollmann (slh)