New Quantian release 0.6.9.3 available
(Please see note [1] below regarding recipients for this posting. Thanks!)
Executive Summary:
Quantian 0.6.9.3 extends the Quantian series based on Knoppix 3.6
and the corresponding clusterKnoppix release. Several new packages
(Rpad, clustalw, seaview, iraf) were installed, a number of packages
(Octave 2.1.64, Scilab 3.0 among them) were updated, and the CRAN
packages were updated as of December 11.
Announcing Quantian release 0.6.9.3
===================================
I What is it?
Quantian is a remastering of Knoppix, the self-configuring and directly
bootable cdrom/dvd that turns any pc or laptop into a full-featured Linux
workstation, and clusterKnoppix, which adds support for openMosix-based
cluster computing. However, Quantian differs from (cluster)Knoppix by
adding a very large set of programs of interest to applied or theoretical
workers in quantitative or data-driven fields.
See http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian.html for more details.
II What is new?
o Third release based on Knoppix 3.6 adding
- the Rpad (www.rpad.org) interactive web-based R Gui by Tom Short,
fully configured and launchable via a simple command or menu entry
- about ten new packages from CRAN released since Quantian 0.6.9.2
- about fifteen CRAN packages updated to current versions as Dec 11
- addition of the dse, CoCo, gregmisc bundles omitted in 0.6.9.2
- new packages such as clustalw/clustalx/clustalw-mpi, seaview, iraf
- Octave and Scilab updated to the newest versions from Debian unstable
o Total size is still 2.0 gb for the compressed iso image corresponding
to about 6 gb of uncompressed software.
o See http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian/changelog.html for details.
o See http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian/howto.html for several
short HOWTOs on booting Quantian from hd on either Windows or Linux,
booting via a bootcd (such as clusterKnoppix), or botting from a
USB memory device. Contributions, corrections, and feedback on these
HOWTOs is always appreciated.
III Where do I get it?
o Downloads are available from the main hosts already listed above, i.e.
on the West Coast at
http://www.analytics.washington.edu/downloads/quantian/
and at the East Coast at
http://research.warnes.net/downloads/quantian/CURRENT/
ftp://research.warnes.net/users/edd/quantian/CURRENT/
The most recent release is also available at
http://quantian.alioth.debian.org/
o Bittorrents are available via
http://www.analytics.washington.edu:6969/
o The main European mirrors should catch up shortly:
http://sunsite.rediris.es/mirror/quantian
http://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/ftp/pub/Linux/quantian
o CD/DVD vendors will probably update their offerings soon as well.
BudgetLinuxCDs.com is typically the fastest:
http://www.budgetlinuxcds.com/index.php?page=Choose&letter=Q&sort=upd
and CheapBytes should follow shortly:
http://www.cheapbytes.com
Pointers to other vendors are always appreciated.
IV Mailing lists
o Two mailing lists exist for Quantian
quantian-announce for announcements, intended to be low volume
quantian-general for general discussions about Quantian
available via
http://alioth.debian.org/mail/?group_id=1425
for subscription info etc., and start using the quantian-general lists
for general questions, comments, suggestions or discussions about
Quantian.
Quantian-general is subscribed to quantian-announce, so you only need
to subscribe to one (but can of course subscribe to both).
Reply-To: for this message is quantian-general@lists.alioth.debian.org
so that discussions can be continued on the list.
V Known Bugs
o Sound does not appear to get configured on my laptops.
VI Other items
o Feedback / poll on package additions or removal
As always, I welcome comments and suggestions about programs to be
added or removed. Existing Debian packages get pushed to the front of
the line.
Please send feedback, questions, comments, ... to the
quantian-general@lists.alioth.debian.org
list to maximise the number of eyes glancing at any one question.
o Feedback would also be appreciated on ways to better communicate with
difference scientific communities that could be interested in Quantian.
VII Notes
[1] This email is sent via the quantian-announce mailing list. I have
subscribed those whose email addresses are in my quantian mail folder
due to prior emails. The quantian-announce mailing list only sends
moderator-approved posts -- so there should be no spam whatsoever. I
also added LWN and DWN who had run previous announcements, and as
suggested, the openmosix-general, clusterknoppix and debian-knoppix
lists. Anybody who considers this unwanted is kindly asked to send me
a private mail to get unsubscribed immediately.
Best regards, Dirk
--
If you don't go with R now, you will someday.
-- David Kane on r-sig-finance, 30 Nov 2004
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