[Quantian-announce] New Quantian release 0.6.9.1 available
Dirk Eddelbuettel
edd@debian.org
Mon, 1 Nov 2004 21:38:46 -0600
(Please see note [1] below regarding recipients for this posting. Thanks!)
Executive Summary:
Quantian 0.6.9.1 begins a new Quantian series based on Knoppix 3.6 and
the corresponding clusterKnoppix release. The iso file of about 2.0 gb
contains updates throughout such as new Linux kernels 2.4.27 and 2.6,7,
openMosix based on the 20040808 patches to 2.4.27 as well as a kernel
shared memory migration patch, KDE 3.2.3, R 2.0.0 and numerous other
updates among the over 1900 Debian packages that comprise Quantian.
Announcing Quantian release 0.6.9.1
===================================
I What is it?
Quantian is a remastering of Knoppix, the self-configuring and directly
bootable cdrom/dvd that turns any pc or laptop into a full-featured Linux
workstation, and clusterKnoppix, which adds support for openMosix-based
cluster computing. However, Quantian differs from (cluster)Knoppix by
adding a very large set of programs of interest to applied or theoretical
workers in quantitative or data-driven fields.
See http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian.html for more details.
II What is new?
o First release based on Knoppix 3.6 [2] offering
- Linux kernels 2.4.27 and 2.6.7, both ACPI-enabled.
- KDE version 3.2.3 and GIMP version 2.0.
- enhanced hardware autodetection and driver updates,
- the FreeNX server from Fabian Franz,
- ndiswrapper to load proprietary drivers for wireless network cards,
- memtest86+ as boot option
- captive-ntfs update
and clusterKnoppix
- openMosix 2.4.27-om-20040808 based on http://openmosix.snarc.org
- openmosix-tools 0.3.6-2
- tyd 1.5 from Ian Latter, also options to boot nodes from Ian' chaos
mini-distribution vai PXE clients (chaos kernel upgraded to
openmosix 2.4.27-om-20040808 and 2.4.27-om-migshm-20040808)
- added: openswan 2.1.5, ipw2100, drbd, fuse, bcm4400 (debian package)
- new feature: option to boot 2.4.27-om-migshm-20040808 from
http://dev.gentoo.org/~voxus/om/ for shared memory migration
o Quantian includes everything contained in release 0.5.9.4 aka 0.6, and
0.4.9.6 aka 0.5 with the exception of added CRAN/BioC packages. Numerous
packages were updated, including R 2.0.0 and Octave 2.1.60,
Meta-packages are also included from several Debian subprojects:
- everything from Debian-Med with the exception of med-cms is included
- everything from Debian-Edu is included
- from Debian-Junior, the kde, math, programming and puzzle packages
are included.
A few new packages such as ddd and slicot were added to complement the
existing set of now over 1900 Debian packages installed with Quantian.
CRAN packages for R should get added back in once I get time to complete
work on the script used to build Debian packages off the 500-some CRAN
packages.
Full details are in the package lists at
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian_0.6.9.1.quantian.packages.txt
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian_0.6.9.1.quantian.txt
o Total size is currently about 2.0 gb for the compressed iso image,
corresponding to around 4.4 gb of uncompressed software.
o The previous version 0.5.9.4 was also relabelled 0.6 -- no need to
re-download this version as it is identical. This version has been
seen to be stable, hence the new label as the official 0.6 release for
this final version of pre-0.6 releases.
o Still with two "main" download sites:
- West Coast at University of Washington in Seattle, Washington:
http://www.analytics.washington.edu/downloads/quantian/
which also provides bittorrents and bittorrent monitors:
http://www.analytics.washington.edu:6969/
- East Coast on Greg Warnes' machine research.warnes.net
hosted at the CS department at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut:
ftp://research.warnes.net/users/edd/quantian/CURRENT/
(where the normal link
http://research.warnes.net/downloads/quantian/CURRENT/
is currently broken but should return in due course).
as well Debian's Alioth host containing the most recent release only:
http://quantian.alioth.debian.org
o And two mailing lists for Quantian
quantian-announce for announcements, intended to be low volume
quantian-general for general discussions about Quantian
available via
http://alioth.debian.org/mail/?group_id=1425
for subscription info etc., and start using the quantian-general lists
for general questions, comments, suggestions or discussions about
Quantian.
Quantian-general is subscribed to quantian-announce, so you only need
to subscribe to one (but can of course subscribe to both).
I also set the Reply-To: for this message to
quantian-general@lists.alioth.debian.org so that discussions can be
continued on the list.
o See http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian/changelog.html for details.
III Where do I get it?
o Downloads are available from the main hosts already listed above, i.e.
on the West Coast at
http://www.analytics.washington.edu/downloads/quantian/
and at the East Coast at
ftp://research.warnes.net/users/edd/quantian/CURRENT/
(where the normal link
http://research.warnes.net/downloads/quantian/CURRENT/
is currently broken but should return in due course).
The most recent release is also available at
http://quantian.alioth.debian.org/
o Bittorrents are available at
http://www.analytics.washington.edu/downloads/quantian/torrents/
and also at the nicer overview pahe
http://www.analytics.washington.edu:6969/
once the bittorrents indices are updated.
In CT, torrents should become available in
http://research.warnes.net/downloads/torrents/
o European mirrors, bittorrent site and cdrom vendors will hopefully
catch up over the next few days. See
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian.html
for download info.
IV Known Bugs
o Sound does not appear to get configured on my laptops.
V Other items
o Feedback / poll on package additions or removal
As always, I welcome comments and suggestions about programs to be
added or removed. Existing Debian packages get pushed to the front of
the line.
Please send feedback, questions, comments, ... to the
quantian-general@lists.alioth.debian.org
list to maximise the number of eyes glancing at any one question.
VI Notes
[1] This email is sent via the quantian-announce mailing list. I have
subscribed those whose email addresses are in my quantian mail folder
due to prior emails. The quantian-announce mailing list only sends
moderator-approved post -- so there should be no spam whatsoever. I
also added LWN and DWN who had run previous announcements, and as
suggested, the openmosix-general, clusterknoppix and debian-knoppix
lists. Anybody who considers this unwanted is kindly asked to send me
a private mail to get unsubscribed immediately.
[2] Knoppix 3.5 was released only during the Linuxtag exhibition in
Germany whereas 'official' Knoppix releases jumped from 3.4 to 3.6.
Best regards, Dirk
--
If your hair is standing up, then you are in extreme danger.
-- http://www.usafa.af.mil/dfp/cockpit-phys/fp1ex3.htm