It is time to sync MiKTeX with recent technology boosts (XeTeX character protrusion, LuaTeX). So here we go. This is the MiKTeX 2.9 roadmap.

August 2010: MiKTeX 2.9 Beta

• Some upgrades (pdfTeX, XeTeX, TeXworks, MetaPost, BibTeX, ...)
• For the first time: LuaTeX

October 2010: MiKTEX 2.9 (general availability release)

December 2010: Yap enhancements

• The DVI previewer (Yap) will be revised to bring back the MiKTeX 2.4 render method

PS: A special thanks to all who have donated to the MiKTeX project. You make it possible!

MiKTeX 2.8 Beta 1 is available! This is a source code release for GNU/Linux.

Please visit the 2.8 status page, if you want to try it out.

What's new

The MiKTeX package manager graphical user interface (GUI) has been ported to GNU/Linux using the Qt widget toolkit.

The GUI allows you to browse the package database and install packages.

What comes next

This is the todo list for the upcoming beta releases:

• MiKTeX-pdfTeX for GNU/Linux:
  The MiKTeX variant of pdfTeX has the MiKTeX package manager
  integrated. This feature makes it possible to install missing packages
  on-the-fly.
• LuaTeX integration

MiKTeX package manager GUI (Linux)

My development progress bar shows sixty percent.

What has been done:

• package information is displayed in a list view window
• it is possible to install/remove packages
  

What is missing:

• search for packages (using file names or keywords
  

The source code will be made available soon.

Coding this initial version was fun. I have learned many new things (Qt, Unix build tools, ...). Not a waste of time. But:

Now that TeX Live has a nice package manager of its own, I do not
expect much interest in the MiKTeX package manager for Linux. That
said, I only will continue to spend time on this project, if more
pledges come in. See http://micropledge.com/projects/miktex-mpm-qt?do=pledge, for more information.

LuaTeX integration

Nothing happened yet. I took a look at the LuaTeX development sources and discovered no stumbling points. On principle, it should be possible to integrate LuaTeX. And I will start this task in October. It remains to be seen whether LuaTeX will be successful. At the moment, only ConTeXt seems to make use of its features.

pdfTeX for Linux

I will make available the MiKTeX version of pdfTeX for Linux.