ZonbuOS 6.999 pushed to users today

The latest public release of the ZonbuOS dropped today – 6.999.

Due to problems with logging in to my account (both on wired and wireless connections) I don’t have the update yet. Thankfully, this release claims to address many of those issues. I expect to get it downloaded later tonight, at which point I can offer more observations about the good, the bad and the still missing items from my wish list. 🙂

In the mean time, courtesy of the official Zonbu support site, here are the release notes:

Releases
Version 6.999 – released 2007-11-08
See also notes for 6.971 that was not pushed to customers
New features

* Control Panel to change Zonbu password
* Add sshfs

Improvements

* Upgrade Firefox to 2.0.0.9
* Firefox offers a reasonnable choice of applications to open downloaded files
* Upgrade FreeCiv to 2.1.0

* Improve Evolution performance
* Add print preview in Evolution
* Nicer screensaver lock screen
* Shorter boot time, especially when using wifi
* Improve network handling, both wired and wifi
* Improve network configuration UI and notifications
* Add automatic throttling on cachefs to avoid taking all network resources
* Improved locking of critical sections in cachefs
* Improved regeneration of directory structure by cachefs
* Performance improvements in cachefs startup, when there are more than 10 000 files
* Support playback of multiple videos at the same time (second video can not be put in full screen)

Bugs fixed

* The row-of-four USB ports at the back work as expected (USB 2.0)
* Wifi dongle with version 4000 chipset now works with WEP 128 – now, all encryptions (none, WEP 64 & 128, WPA) are supported
* Numerous glitches in the network configuration were fixed
* Fix amount of video cached in Firefox before playback starts
* Use a decent range to for mouse acceleration in Mouse Control Panel
* Alt-F4 hides Banshee when using the system tray
* Fix a bug in the evaluation of the amount of data in the upload queue
* Check for updates script first checks if an update is not running or ready

Version 6.971 – 2007-10-24 – unreleased
New features

* Support for the latest generation of iPods Shuffle, Nano and Classic, including video
* Add tomboy, a notepad/todo application (experimental)
* Plugin to display wifi signal strength in the taskbar
* Utility to check manually for updates
* Utility to reset the taskbar
* Video support in Banshee
* Add sshfs-fuse

Improvements

* Upgrade Firefox to 2.0.0.8
* Upgrade Flash to 9.0 r64
* Improve caching in the gnome-mplayer firefox plugin
* Fix file associations in Firefox – downloaded files should open in a meaningful application
* Add the “Go” button next to the URL field in Firefox
* Upgrade Banshee to 0.13.1
* Upgrade F-Spot to 0.3.5-r1
* Allowing changing the properties of the Date and Time taskabr plugin
* Rewrite iptables rules
* Fix the odd numbering of external mass storage devices after unsafe removal – fix is applied upon reboot
* Improve Sound Preferences handling, improve interface and adjust default sound levels
* Testing of HTTP/HTTPS connectivity during startup process is more reliable, which may help users that are behind proxies
* Improve boot time when using both wifi and wire
* Make update process more bullet-proof
* Tasks with a progress window can be cancelled in Networking Assistant
* Add debug information for the support when Network configuration fails
* Miscelleanous user interface improvements in the Network Assistant
* Set default temporary directory of peer-to-peer applications to a non-cachefs-controlled directory
* Better handling of child processes in Storage Control Panel
* Improve multimedia keys support
* Use reasonnable mouse settings range
* Improve cachefs performance by not uploading cachefs.log, and regenerating it only when necessary, for example after a dirty shutdown
* Cachefs supports file modification during Prepare for Offline operation
* Improve cachefs behavior during sutdown
* Offer to reconnect to storage after a network deconnection
* Do not complain about storage not being connected if the fere edition is used
* Preparing wifi compatibility with other chipsets
* Preliminaries to iPhone support

Bugs fixed

* Fix installer for additionnal dictionnaries in OpenOffice.org
* Fix a bug when trying to read video attachment whose name contains a space in Evolution
* Fix smileys in Evolution
* Fix a crash in Banshee when trying to copy the address of a “Missing” radio station
* Remove beeps during startup that appeared in version 6.907
* Fix a bug when dhcpcd would overwrite the hostname set to ‘localhost’, triggering an error message in Xfce
* Several fixes in gnome-mplayer
* Fix a bug that may break S3.conf during the upgrade – affected users couldn’t log in after 5.803 => 6.907 upgrade
* Fix gnome-sound-recorder behaviour when saving a file and fix a crash
* Minimizing the startup time of the wifi networks scanner during boot
* Factory reset also updates the boot partition, including the kernel.
* Fix a bug when starting the wifi networks scanner in daemon mode
* Fix issues with DVD ejection from the File Manager

Known bugs

* The row-of-four USB ports at the back still malfunction
* 3D applications are always on top of all other windows
* It is not possible to configure a fixed IP address

Has anyone had any experience with this release yet?

-Mr. Zonbu

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