R help - Mar 2005 - Adobe Reader V7.0 for Unix/Linux Available

Just as a heads up to the community, Adobe has released version 7.0 of
the free stand-alone PDF Reader for Unix/Linux platforms.

There was a post on the Fedora list today and there is an article at:

http://www.scribus.org.uk/modules.php?
op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=93

The links for downloading are:

# Binary installer
ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/unix/7x/7.0/enu/AdbeRdr70_linux_enu.tar.gz

# i386 RPM
ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/unix/7x/7.0/enu/AdobeReader_enu-7.0.0-1.i386.rpm

Presently, it is only available in English and it is still "closed
source", even though free of charge. The downloads are about 40Mb.

There are no links yet on the main Adobe page for this version and the
normal Adobe download process as of this e-mail still shows version 5 as
the most recent available for Unix/Linux platforms. This appears to be a
"quiet" release so far.

Major changes include a GTK2 based UI rather than Motif, support for PDF
v1.6, inclusion of some additional fonts and other features that bring
it more in line with version 7 for other platforms.

I have replaced my former v5 here and it seems to work quite well so
far. For those using RPM based systems, you will need to remove the old
version if installed via RPM, as the new RPM will conflict with the
older version. The RPM will install to /usr/local/Adobe.

HTH,

Marc Schwartz

All,

A couple of updates here:

1. According to a post on the Fedora lists this morning and an article
at:

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/57616

the version 7.0 Adobe Reader that I referenced in my original post is
still a _Pre-Release_ version, NOT the final version.

If accurate, it would seem that there was some special arrangement made
for a particular Adobe customer and the link for the RPM and binary
installer managed to become public. This would help to explain why there
was no information on the Adobe site about this (notwithstanding the
various other online articles characterizing this as a release version).


2. In checking the Adobe site this morning, the Pre-Release Linux
version 7.0 is indeed now listed in the pull-down menu on the Reader
download page. Both the RPM and the binary installer are listed as
options.

So it would seem that perhaps Adobe has reacted to the inevitability of
the publicity of this version and now made it generally available.


So far, I have been using this version without problems. However, since
it is a Pre-Release version, there may be as yet other unidentified
issues.

My apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused anyone.

Marc Schwartz