Zonbu posted a new release yesterday, the details below. A lot of things I was hoping to see haven’t emerged yet. I’m downloading it now, I’ll share some thoughts in a bit.
Certainly, in what is now a crowded space, I would have expected webcam support to be a top priority…
Version 7.1176 – released 2007-02-03
New features
- Added the capability to share files on a local network with the Neighborhood (Samba)
- Added the Amazon MP3 Store to the Music Library
- Added music sharing to the Music Library – DAAP does not work with iTunes 7
- Added a Desktop Clock widget, under Desktop Settings > Show Desktop Clock
- Added the WriterTools extension for OpenOffice.org: new Internet menu enabling online dictionary lookup, translation and map.
- New reset center, a more flexible alternative to the Reset to Defaults command
- In developer edition, new packages: wireshark, eix, zsh, and new ebuilds: GoogleEarth, VLC.
- Experimental iPhone support (requires jailbreaking)
Improvements
- Improved feedback during the upgrade process; added a tray icon and notifications; this will be visible during next upgrade
- OpenOffice.org was updated to version 2.3.1
- Java support was added in OpenOffice.org (Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Java), which makes numerous assistants available
- Update the Music Library to version 0.13.2, with iPod-sharp 0.8.0
- Support for iPod and iTunes version 7.6
- Improve the stability of the LastFM Music Library plugin
- Update Firefox’s Content Filter to version 5.3
- Improved power management, hibernate automatically after a period of inactivity
- Support subtitles in Media Player
- Added an option to mask Neighborhood and Public icons on the desktop
- Updated the printer drivers – more than 2750 models are now supported
- Updated the CD-DVD Creator to version 0.3.0svn-26009
- Faster “About Zonbu” dialog
- Improved boot time by about 10 seconds when not using a wired connection
- Improved automatic network configuration (DHCP) reliablility
- Improved reconnection to known WiFi access points; this fixes some reconnection problems with hidden SSIDs
- Using pc105 keyboard geometry for better support of international keyboards
Bugs fixed
- Using MD5 for passwords instead of DES fixes issues with special characters in passwords
- Under some circumstances, the network dialog would hang when using WiFi
- Prevent the Network control panel from hiding the Storage control panel
- Fix a bug that caused the Add Printer wizard to pop up at each reboot
- Increase SSID and WEP/WPA password maximum lengths
- Avoid clock drifting problems
- Fix issues with the automatic upload throttling for the remote storage when changing network configuration
- Added back the Properties dialog in the File Browser for items on removable media.
- Miscellaneous fixes in the Zonbu theme and icons
- Fixed fullscreen playback of videos with the X11 driver
- Open DVD menu didn’t work in the Media Player
- Avoid to shut down the computer while starting hibernation, which would cause it to shut down when waking up
- Prevent the Recording Level Monitor from starting while the sound recorder is running, because the two applications conflict
- The remote storage used to ignore empty files
- Fix cachefs errors when given a wrong password
- Prepare For Offline Use feature was flawed
- Fix a bug of the Refresh button in the Storage panel
- Make it possible to change the Zonbu password while running the Kiosk Edition
-Mr. Zonbu
Real life with the Zonbu Mini-PC 
I am so pissed of right now. I was using Azureus to write to an external flash drive, it hung. I couldn’t get it working so I tried resetting the machine. For some reason this locked the flash drive for writting and seems to have corrupted it since the files that I did manage to transfer with Azureus are coming up with I/O errors when I try to move them.
I’m sending this thing back. It doesn’t do anything I want it to beyond web browsing, loses files, etc.
When is VLC going to make it into the production release? Mplayer is fine, but the playlist features of VLC are better.
The playlist in Mplayer still hangs randomly. I was hoping this would be fixed since the playlist in banshee is still not editable, you make a playlist in a particular order and it has to stay in that order. Grim.
I said I was going to send my machine back, but I was going to give it one more chance since I had everything working to my satisfaction again. What happens? It randomly screws something up *again* and this seems to be a problem that happened in previous releases.
I had my external drive working again. Everything was going along fine. Then for some reason it locked for writing and none of the things you would usually do to fix this sort of thing (chown chmod etc) help. No files lost, praise the maker, but I’m dead in the water again for downloading large files ( 1GB or so ).
No responses from Zonbu staff to my post on their forum nor to my email to support.
This is truly sad.
I love Zonbu as a concept along w/ any other Linux products coming to market. I’m curious why Zonbu doesn’t use a distro like Puppy, e.g.? I was blown away w/ Puppy on *old* hardware.