Pardus 2008 release notes

1. Welcome to Pardus 2008

Welcome to Pardus version 2008, another great Pardus release from Pardus developers, translators, artists and documentation writers. This is the first release of Pardus 2008 branch.

We kindly invite you to visit http://www.pardus.org.tr/eng for more information.

1.1 Feedback

You can use http://bugs.pardus.org.tr, aka Pardus bug tracking system to send a bug, bug fix or any suggestion related to Pardus. We would like to thank our users and developers with their bug reports, related fixes, new package or feature suggestions for this release.

2. Basic features

This section describes the Pardus 2008 features.

2.1 User authorization management

The privileges of all users may be arranged and the password inquiry behavior may easily be customized by using the advanced user authorization system of Pardus 2008. The new and improved User Manager, on the other hand, makes authorization management very easy and secure. The authorization system and privilege management interfaces, which have been developed by Pardus developers, make use of Pulaski - dbus infrastructure and work in conjunction with COMAR to provide system-wide and hassle-free authorization control infrastructure.

2.2 Easy to use Network Manager

Network manager supports auto-detection of your wireless profiles and automatically switches to the detected profile. The connection information is viewable at the system tray, which is updated continuously and informs user via a popup which makes network manager more intuitive and user friendly. Ethernet, wireless and modem connections, together with all customized configuration, may be saved as profiles for different locations for easy connectivity.

2.3 Improved package management system

The package manager PiSi (Packages installed Successfully, as intended), which downloads and installs new packages in only a few clicks, have been improved and get faster in performance. The most recent versions of applications that you use are updated by downloading only the changed parts, which make download times much shorter. Using the newly added support for history management in PiSi and new History Manager you may go back to the previous versions of packages, may have snapshots of your current state, and go back and forth between these snapshots.

2.4 YALI

The installer program YALI (Yet Another Linux Installer), first asks the questions necessary, then starts with installation, which takes around 30 minutes. Customization of user information, automatic login, timezone, system keyboard and language settings are done easily. It is possible to change all these configuration setting afterward, using configuration manager TASMA, as usual. In addition, YALI includes the new and improved partitioning interface , which makes managing hard disks a charm: It is possible to easily customize the installation and boot system. The fully rewritten automatic resizing and installation choices makes installation problem-free and fast.

2.5 Kaptan Desktop

The welcoming application for new users, Kaptan Desktop, has been completely rewritten. Kaptan is a single-point solution for keyboard/mouse, desktop, network and package management settings, and make suggestions for better system configuration.

2.6 Display Manager

One of the new features of Pardus 2008 is the Display Manager, which provides a graphical interface for graphics card and monitor configuration. Display Manager makes advanced configuration of resolution, color-depth, mutlihead, and such, and makes use of the fully rewritten display management infrastructure (zorg).

2.7 Automatic hardware detection

One of the strong points of Pardus, fully automatic hardware detection, has become better in Pardus 2008. The printers attached to the systems are automatically detected and configured in Pardus 2008. Widely used peripheral devices such as wireless network devices, webcams, printers, scanners and all-in-ones are supported much better in Pardus 2008 for a problem-free operation.

2.8 Pardus Technologies

The fundamental technologies of Pardus, namely COMAR and Mudur, have been rewritten to make use of dbus infrastructure. Pardus 2008 is the first Pardus release that makes use of these technologies. New COMAR provides a complete configuration management service, thanks to its new design fully integrated with dbus and authorization infrastructure.

2.9 Updated applications

In addition to the new features of Pardus technologies, Pardus 2008 includes numerous version upgrades:
  • Updated KDE 3.5.9 Desktop Environment
  • The latest Linux kernel (2.6.25.9) provides much improved hardware support, together with a stable and reliable system
  • Important infrastructure improvements including gcc 4.3.1, glibc 2.8, Python 2.5, Java 6
  • The most recent, fastest and most capable internet browser Mozilla Firefox 3.0
  • OpenOffice.org 2.4.1 which operates on almost all office document formats
  • Hundreds of free software applications, with less bugs and updated to the most recent versions...

3. Installation requirements

You can run Pardus 2008 on an average hardware. We suggest to use at least 512 MB RAM (memory) and 1200 MHz processor to get an effective performance. Minimum and recommended hardware requirements for Pardus 2008 are mentioned below:
  • 256 MB memory (512 MB recommended)
  • 800 MHz Intel or AMD processor (1200 MHz recommended)
  • At least 4 GB of free hard disk space (10 GB recommended)

Information and documents on Pardus web pages can be used freely anywhere with original source credit.
For information and suggestion(s) please write to info_at_pardus.org.tr
TÜBİTAK - UEKAE, PK.74 41470, Gebze / Kocaeli.