[Pardus-users] Pardus 2008 Release Notes

[Ekin Meroğlu]

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)