Red Carpet

Have you ever needed an automated solution that requires very little administration intervention, works on possibly different flavors of Linux, and doesn't require software with 'phone home' functionality? A solution based on free software which is scriptable and flexible enough to allow updates from a locally mounted source, as opposed to a remote mirror?

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Joe Shaw wrote:
Trow and I talked incessantly about it over Guinness at GUADEC, and it'sfinally ready for human consumption: rcd 2.0, rug 2.0, red-carpet 2.2,and open-carpet 0.1 are now available.

Ximian Today released it's redcarpet software 2.0, based on GTK 2. It's not announced yet, but avaiable via. Download is also possible through RedCarpet 1.4 or the previews of 2.0. Right now it's available for Redhat 7.3 or higher. I assume other distros will follow.

Download at: ftp://ftp.ximian.com/pub/redcarpet

Update: It's Official...

We're happy to announce a second previous release of Red Carpet 2.0.
Since the first preview release we've fixed several bugs that have been
found and based on your feedback have addressed a number of user
interface issues, including a tabbed UI and reworked strings.

Read the full announcement

Ximian has announced Red Carpet 2.0 preview release, which is GTK+ 2.0 based. A bug hunting contest with cool prizes is being held. See the announcement for more details.

Ximian is now conducting an open pre-release testing period for the Red Carpet Daemon (rcd) and Red Carpet command-line client (rc). This document explains what the two programs are, and guides you through installation, basic use, and providing feedback to us here at Ximian. For in-depth documentation, we have written man pages. To read them, install the software, then open a terminal and type man rc or man rcd.

More Information

As some of you may have already noticed, OpenOffice.org is now available via Red Carpet for the following distributions:
RedHat 7.0-7.3
Mandrake 8.0-8.2
Suse 7.1-8.0

One of the biggest complaints with Red Carpet, is the amount of time it takes before a newly released software package is available. This was always due to the fact that it took time for Ximian to thoroughly test packages before they were released.
In this new channel you'll find untested packages of an upcoming Evolution release, GnomeMeeting, and more.

From the channel description:
Attention upgrade addicts: The Ximian Untested channel contains the newest versions of Ximian software, fresh from the build servers. Previously, this channel was available only to Ximian quality assurance engineers, but due to popular demand we have added it to the public servers as well.

WARNING: Software is added to this channel as soon as it compiles. It has not been tested or subjected to any sort of quality assurance process. This software has all the newest features, but it also has all the newest bugs. Installation of software from this channel may have terrible and unforseen consequences. When you find bugs, please report them to bugzilla.ximian.com.

Version 1.3 of Ximian's Red-Carpet was released today. The new release features a completely rewritten dependency layer which will result in generally faster and more correct solutions. In addition, this version has a number of nice bug fixes and preliminary RPM 4.0.4 support. Updated:Click Read More for an important message for those that use RC and "pixmap" themes.This new release can be fetched from the Ximian GNOME channel from your current release of Red-Carpet. Also please see this special upgrade note.

A slew of updates hit Red Carpet the other day including a new gnome-core and gnome-libs. The new gnome-core and gnome-libs are the Gnome 1.4.1 RC1 versions which contain tons of bug fixes and a few new features such as translucent panels and much improved session-management.

With all packages and updates installed from Red Carpet, you are pretty much running Gnome 1.4.1 RC 1, with the exception of gnome-utils and gnome-applets. For a changelog of the GNOME 1.4.1 RC1 release, click here.

Joe Shaw writes:
A -PREVIEW RELEASE- of Red Carpet is now available in the Ximian Preview
channel for Red Hat 7.1, 7.2, and Mandrake 8.1. This new release
features a completely rewritten dependency layer which will result in
generally faster and more correct solutions. In addition, this version
has a number of nice bug fixes and preliminary RPM 4.0.4 support.

Some new themes have been made available via Red Carpet. A theme for sawfish as well as the first theme released for Nautilus using SVG icons is availalble. Also SodiPodi, the GNOME vector graphics app is now available. See a screenshot of the new themes and Sodipodi here.

BOSTON - December 18, 2001 - Ximian, Inc., the leading open source desktop company, today announced the immediate availability of Red Carpet Express, a time-saving subscription service that provides customers with priority, high-bandwidth Internet downloading and updating of Linux software from Ximian, leading Linux distributions and third-party vendors. Red Carpet Express provides subscribers with priority access to a dedicated network of newly added Red Carpet Express server sites, providing significantly faster updating of the latest software for Linux systems, even during peak demand periods. Through February 28, 2002, customers may sign up for Red Carpet Express at a special introductory price at the Ximian web site.
Read Press Release.
Special note about upgrading Red-Carpet.

The monkeys over at Ximian have added new channels for your downloading pleasure. You can now easily keep up to date with the latest Gnome 2.0 development platform (Currently RH 7.1 and 7.2 only), Opera Browser, Loki demo games, and Staroffice as well as your Gnome Desktop.