v14.2 Release Update #3 - 3 brand new appliances and 24 updated apps (ISO only; others coming)

Almost another month has passed since my v14.2 - update #2 announcement. I must say that this is taking longer than I'd hoped, but we're getting there.

Today/Tonight (depending on where you are in the world when you read this), I'm announcing 3 brand new shiny appliances (in all builds), plus 24 updated appliance ISOs. I'll explain why there's only ISOs at this point below. There are also links to the specific updated appliance pages there too.

So let's get on with it...! :)

New Appliance: Mayan EDMS

Mayan EDMS is a Free Open Source Electronic Document Management System, coded in the Python language using the Django web application framework and released under the Apache 2.0 License. It provides an electronic vault or repository for electronic documents.

You can find the links to launch direct to the Hub or download in your favourite build format, on the Mayan EDMS appliance page.

The TurnKey Mayan-EDMS appliance was produced by long-serving TurnKey community member Ken Robinson (aka @DocCyblade). Ken has been actively contributing to TurnKey for many years now and has helped out immensely. Actually, he's just started doing a bit of freelance development for us in his spare time. So expect to see even more great work from him. Awesome stuff Ken!

New Appliance: Mumble Server

Mumble is open source, low-latency, high quality voice chat software. It's primarily intended for use while gaming. Mumble is free software, meaning it is available at no cost and under a very liberal license. The client is called "Mumble". The Server is known as "Mumble Server" or "Murmur".

As per usual, check out the Mumble Server appliance page to launch straight from the Hub, or direct download in your favourite build.

The Mumble appliance was developed by a relatively new community member; known only as MPTMG to us. But we owe him a major apology. He actually contributed this work quite some time ago. We've just been very slow to get it out the door. I take responsibility for that, and in the future, I really hope to improve the turnaround time on new appliances. Regardless, thanks tons MPTMG for your work on this fantastic appliance and thank you for your patience!

PS FWIW, MPTMG has also contributed another appliance. I hope to publish that really soon too.

New Appliance: Nextcloud

Nextcloud helps store your files, folders, contacts, photo galleries, calendars and more on a server of your choosing. Access that folder from your mobile device, your desktop, or a web browser. Access your data wherever you are, when you need it.

Just in case you weren't aware, Nextcloud is an ownCloud fork. Many of the ownCloud devs jumped ship, forked the code and started on Nextcloud. They claim that it is still backwards compatible with ownCloud (so theoretically you can import your existing ownCloud data), although I can't comment on the workflow or details.

If you want to launch direct to the Hub or download your favourite build type, head over to the Next cloud appliance page.

The Nextcloud appliance was another contribution from Tomas Vondra (from Home at Cloud). The same Tomas that was responsible for our new and improved OpenStack build. Thanks again Tomas and again apologies on the publishing delay.

Updated Appliances (ISO only - other builds coming)

It may seem a bit odd that we are announcing updated appliances, but only providing them as ISO. Behind the scenes, we actually build appliances in a two stage process. First we build and publish the ISOs, then we build and publish the optimized/alternate builds. The ISO is required for the additional optimized builds; buildtasks unpacks the ISO and rebuilds in the relevant formats. So a split workflow makes sense. Most users would be unaware, as we usually only announce once everything in up on the mirror.

However, the situation is a little out of the ordinary. Alon is currently away on a well earned vacation. As he does the final sign and publish step, I can't progress further until he gets back. I did just catch him before he left to sign and publish the ISOs, but he ran out of time to process the other builds. I did consider waiting until he gets back (next week) so I could announce everything together, but I decided to press on and announce these ISO builds anyway.

Please see the list of updated v14.2 appliances below. As noted they are only available as ISO for now, so make sure you look for the v14.2 ISO download! You should be able to install fine into full VMs (or on bare metal). If you're in a hurry for the other builds, you could download TKLDev, set up buildtasks and build your own optimized builds! If you're not sure how, please post. :)

In alphabetical order (with some specific comments below the list):

All of the appliances that include software installed directly from a third party (i.e. upstream; not Debian packages) now include the latest version. All Debian packages are at their latest version. Other changes of significance are:

File Server

The File Server appliance now provides WebDAV CGI as the Web frontend for file access. Similar to the previous software; SambaDav, WebDAV CGI uses Samba authentication to allow users to directly access, edit and/or upload their files. We switched from SambaDAV as some users reported that it could be a little unstable and it no longer appears to be under active development. We're pretty pleased with WebDAV CGI and beleive that it will provide a better user experience. Other existing config remains unchanged.

Odoo

Actually, this one is more a non-change of significance! The v14.2 Odoo appliance is still shipping with v8. We were intending to jump to v10 (we've already discussed skipping v9 elsewhere). But after doing some research, there are some dependencies which will be more easily resolved when we move to v15.0 (based on Debian Stretch). So we just rebuilt it with the latest v8 code for now. If you're after Odoo v10, sorry, you'll need to wait a little longer...

Ruby on Rails

Our Ruby on Rails appliance now includes rbenv; a Ruby "virtual environment" which allows you to select which version(s) of Ruby to use. By default, it now includes latest stable Ruby. Thanks to Zhenya for his work on this! :)

Torrent Server

We've had an ongoing number of complaints regarding the stability of rTorrent in our Torrent Server appliance. So we've swapped to Transmission. It's arguably not as powerful as the rTorrent/ruTorrent combo and I know that some will be disappointed. But we've made this decision based on the best stability for all users. If you are deadset against using Transmission, then let us know. Perhaps in the future we can produce a separate rTorrent/ruTorrent appliance?

Give us your feedback

Please take them for a spin and let us know how they go. We're especially interested in bug reports, suggested improvements (big and small) and any other constructive criticism you have for us. Please post in the comments below, or start a new thread in the forums. Bug reports and feature requests can be lodged directly to our issue tracker.

Thanks again for all the community contributions. You guys rock! :)