Debian/ sid and sidux have progressed a lot over the last three months, now I have the pleasure to announce the first public preview for sidux 2007-02. Please note this is not the final release. The full featured final release of sidux-2007-02 "Τάρταρος" will be ready in about 2 weeks (i686 and amd64, this might be a bit delayed based on KDE's release schedule), intermediate xdeltas will be provided as needed until then.

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

• 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 2007-05-13 23:30 UTC.
• kernel 2.6.21.1 (smp, voluntary preemption, mac80211).
• minimal, but fully functional KDE 3.5.6 (en + de).
• completely overhauled early boot sequence.
• largely adapted installer and graphical installer frontend.
• enhanced installer for meta tasks.
• new artwork created by cathbard and the sidux art team.
• offline manual for en + de directly on the disc, online manuals for more languages online at http://manual.sidux.com/ and available via apt; a big thank you goes to the documentation and translation teams!

What hasn't made it into the preview yet:

• we're working with a small package list for now, to ease up testing, further xdelta patches and to leave some headroom for discussions which of your package wishes can become part of the final ISO.
• changes for probing DDC capable monitors, which are supposed to make the resolution/ refresh rate probing more reliable.
• KDE 3.5.7

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 which are not yet compatible with X.org 7.2.
• Atheros/ "madwifi" wlan: m-a a-i madwifi.
• Atmel AT76c50x 11 MBit/s wlan: apt-get install atmel-firmware
• AVM ISDN/ ADSL PCI/ USB cards: AVM's closed source driver are not compatible with kernel 2.6.21 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/.
• Intel ipw2100, 11 MBit/s wlan: apt-get install ipw2100-firmware.
• Intel ipw2200, 54 MBit/s wlan: apt-get install ipw2200-firmware.
• Intel ipw3945, 54 Mbit/s wlan: apt-get install iwlwifi-ucode
• 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, apt-get install rt61-fwcutter
• 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: apt-get install zd1211-firmware.

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 sync:

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

How to get involved

Getting involved in sidux is easy, just join us here or even better on IRC (irc.oftc.net, port 6667, channel #sidux) and discuss your patches/ proposals additions. We will gladly discuss any dfsg- free patches and contributions.

Roadmap:

Please understand that the following roadmap is a rough estimate regarding our release schedule and is affected by the status of upstream debian sid, major system components like X.org, KDE, the linux kernel and our own developments and is subject to changes.

• sidux-2007-02 "Τάρταρος" — calendar week 19-20 2007
• sidux-2007-03 "Γαῖα" — calendar week 29-31 2007
• sidux-2007-04 "Ἔρως" — calendar week 41-42 2007
• sidux-2008-01 "Νύξ" — calendar week 3-4 2008
• sidux-2008-02 "Έρεβος" — calendar week 15-16 2008

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

On behalf of the sidux team:
   Stefan Lippers-Hollmann (slh)