Upcoming Linux Distributions in Pictures

The GNOME 2.24 graphical environment that ships with all three releases now sports a file manager, Nautilus, with tabbed browsing functionality.

All three distributions ship with Network Manager 0.7, which enables users to share their wireless connections.

In addition to the connection sharing, Network Manager allows for management of 3G (GSM/CDMA) and DSL (PPP and PPPOE) connections, management of multiple active devices at once, management of devices with static IP configurations, and configuration of custom device routes.

There is improved management and handling of printers for ease of setup and use–Fedora and Ubuntu both use the same printer setup tools.

The reworked, YaST-based printer setup tool in OpenSUSE 11.1 is a bit more complicated than those in Fedora and Ubuntu, but it works well nonetheless.

OpenSUSE 11.1 will ship with basic SELinux support, but AppArmor remains Novell’s primary enhanced-security option.

Fedora’s new audit utility, which Red Hat is calling Sectool, provides a set of system tests for detecting configuration issues regarding permissions, firewall rules and the status of other system security features.

OpenSUSE 11.1 boasts its own security audit tool.

In Ubuntu 8.10, the User Switcher panel applet now provides an option for launching a session for a temporary passwordless user account with restricted privileges.

Ubuntu 8.10 comes with a plug-in for fetching free digital content from the BBC, in addition to the previously available plug-in for watching YouTube videos.