This week we’ve got the first release candidate of the much anticipated Linux Mint 7 as well as a new version of FreeBSD to go over, so let’s get started.

May 4

• FreeBSD 7.2 As the third release in the 7-STABLE branch, FreeBSD 7.2 improves on 7.1 while adding new features such as support for fully transparent use of superpages for application memory; support for multiple IPv4 and IPv6 addresses for jails; csup(1) now supports CVSMode to fetch a complete CVS repository; GNOME updated to 2.26, KDE updated to 4.2.2; sparc64 now supports UltraSparc-III processors. FreeBSD 7.2-RELEASE is now available for the amd64, i386, ia64, pc98, powerpc, and sparc64 architectures. Release announcement and download links here.
  

May 5

• Nexenta Core Platform 2.0 RC2 This release will become the final release if no major bugs are reported. Highlights: OpenSolaris build 104+ with critical patches; over 13,000 packages in the repository; smooth upgrade path from NCP1; community efforts bringing X.Org, Xfce and GNOME Core into the repository; based on Ubuntu 8.04 repository. In addition, the Nexenta devs announced that StormOS, an Xfce-based derivative of NCP2, is in the works. More info on StormOS can be found on their website. Release announcement and downloads.
• Linux Mint 7 RC1 The team over at Linux Mint announced the first release candidate for their latest version. Linux Mint 7 RC1, code named “Gloria”, provides many new features including, bug fixes, and improvements – “in particular the menu system, the application manager and the upload manager now provide new features such as ‘Suggestions’, ‘Featured applications’, ‘SCP and SFTP support’. The underlying base of the operating system was also strengthened with a new adjustment mechanism which makes Linux Mint more robust and less vulnerable to Ubuntu package upgrades, and the introduction of virtual and meta packages which simplify upgrade paths and the installation of multiple desktop environments”. Release announcement, detailed changes, and downloads.

May 6

• BSDanywhere 4.5 BSDanywhere is a live-CD based on OpenBSD using the Enlightenment 17 desktop. The new 4.5 version contains an unmodified OpenBSD kernel (previous version had to use a modified kernel), package updates to OpenBSD 4.5, and new artwork. Release notes and downloads.

May 8

• ClarkConnect 5.0 Beta 3 We’ve covered the previous betas, but now ClarkConnect 5.0 is in Beta 3. There have been a significant number of bug fixes but some problems still remain as it is still a beta. Release notes and downloads (at the bottom).

May 9

• PartedMagic 4.1 One of my favorite disk utilities, PartedMagic has a new release with some bug fixes and new features. “There was a scripting error that cause debs not to load in some situations, mkfstab was moved later in the booting process to stop the new fstab from being overwritten by the one from the “Save Session” package, and partimag user was added by default for partimage. The fstab daemon now detects device mapper RAID partitions while removing the unmountable mirrors from /etc/fstab. GParted and mount-gtk correctly display and mount these partitions. Our tools use the /dev/mapper nodes created by GParted, so run GParted and then you will see your DMRAID partitions in mount-gtk. Added support for new package extensions .tbz, tlz, txz. Numlock is set to “on” in and outside of X by default. [THANK YOU!] We added wipe-2.2.0, dmidecode-2.10, mg (mini-emacs text editor), reiser4 kernel patch, boot_info_script, Chinese fonts, removepkg, unarj-265, and hardinfo-0.5.1″.

  Also, it looks like Patrick Verner, the developer of PartedMagic, recently lost his day job and is in need of some help. In this economy we all have to stick together, so if you are hiring sys admins or know of someone who is, make sure to drop him a line.