Samba, the open source file and print server for Windows clients, has been updated to version 3.2. The previous stable version was version 3.0.30, and was licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2, but version 3.2 – this latest stable release – is released under the new GPL version 3.

The Sabayon development team has announced the latest stable release of Sabayon Linux for the x86 and x86-64 architectures. Sabayon Linux is a Gentoo-based distro, and version 3.5 – this latest stable release – comes with significant improvements for both architectures.

WebInSight, a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded, University of Washington project, has released an alpha version of WebAnywhere. WebAnywhere is a platform independent, Web-based screen reader that can be used on any Internet-aware PC or mobile device with audio output.

The source code to Advanced File System (AdvFS), the file system for HP’s Tru64 UNIX, has been contributed to the open source community. To ensure compatibility with the Linux kernel, the source code (to AdvFS) is being made available under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.

The NetBSD Foundation (TNF) has formerly made the 2-clause BSD license the default license that covers most of the source code contributed to TNF. The NetBSD Foundation produces NetBSD, which is a UNIX-like, server-oriented operating system used across a wide variety of platforms.

The Zenwalk development team has announced the release of Zenwalk Live 5.2, the live CD distro that is based on Zenwalk Current. Zenwalk is a Linux distro, based on Slackware Linux, and that used Xfce as its default desktop environment.

Opera Software has announced the public availability of Opera 9.5. Opera is a cross-platform Web browser with the reputation for being extremely fast. The new release comes with a lot of new features and usability enhancements.

The eBox development team has announced the release of version 0.11.101. This is a mostly a bug-fix release, but it also comes with the porting of ebox-webserver to Ubuntu, a module to manage an Apache server.

Installing applications on a running Linux or BSD operating system involves pointing the package manager to the distro’s package repository, assuming it is not already pointing to it, or to a third-party repository. A few distros, for example, Mint Linux and PC-BSD also have a Web-based package portal.

Linux Mint 5, codenamed Elyssa, is now available for download. Elyssa is a major upgrade, and comes with lots of new and enhanced features. Improvements to mintMenu, mintUpdate, and mintInstall makes the distro much more easier to manage.

Elisa Media Center is an Open Source, cross-platform multimedia application “connecting the internet to your all-in-one media player”. Developed by Fluendo S.L. of Spain, Elisa is available for installation on the Linux operating system. An alpha version with limited functionality is also available for the Windows platform.

Since we first reviewed eAR OS on May 21, 2008, a number of changes have been made to the new distro. The latest release addresses the issues we raised in our snapshot review, which you may read here.

Peter Thomsen, the lead developer of eAR OS, a Ubuntu-based multimedia distro, has made available for download an updated version of the distro. This update comes with a major modification to the functionality of eAR Media Center, the addition of a security package, and a few other tweaks to the OS.

The Linux Mint team has released the second Release Candidate of the upcoming Linux Mint 5. This release Candidate offers the usual set of software updates, additions and bug fixes. This is the final release candidate before the final version, which will be out in about two weeks.

The Mozilla Foundation has announced the availability of Firefox 3 Release Candidate for download and testing. Firefox is the innovative Open Source Web browser that offers a faster and more secure online browsing experience. This Release Candidate includes many new features and changes.

The Zenwalk team has announced the release of Zenwalk 5.2 beta. Zenwalk is a GNU/Linux distribution optimized for the i686 instruction set. This beta release heralds a few new features, the usual package updates, and bug fixes.