Adobe has made a download of the Linux version of Adobe Reader 7.0 available on its ftp site. The newly renamed utility handles portable document files (PDFs) deftly, and additionally now allows users to collaborate on projects and provides additional file security at the server-level, according to Adobe.

Adobe briefly offered a pre-release of the Linux version of Adobe Reader 7.0 early this year through its beta program, but the download was soon discontinued once the company determined it had engaged with enough beta testers to meet its development requirements.

Thankfully, Version 7.0 for Linux of Adobe Reader is now available for download in tar and rpm format from Adobe's ftp site . Both downloads are nearly 40MB in size.

We installed the rpm on SuSE Linux Professional 9.2 without any difficulty, and it appears to work properly. An interesting addition to the latest reader is that it now includes a small advertisement in the upper-right-hand corner of its menu bar (see the green rectangle in the above screenshot?). Also, there's now an easy way launch a web search directly from within the reader -- but hey, who wants to do that with Yahoo!?

Adobe notes that enterprises desiring greater power and flexibility -- including the ability to view, change, copy, print, forward a PDF document via email, and authenticate files -- can opt for the $50,000 "LiveCycle Policy Server," which runs on Red Hat Linux, Sun Solaris, Windows, and other operating systems. The package also allows users to jointly participate in document reviews, includes search tools based on Yahoo!'s toolbar, and enables the manipulation of 3D objects in PDF files. It will support Novell's SuSE Linux by mid-2005, Adobe says.

A "Professional" version of Acrobat 7.0 is also available, priced from US $449. Registered users of previous versions of Acrobat can upgrade to Acrobat 7.0 Professional for US $159. The standard version is priced at US $299 and upgrades are available from US $99.

Linux support is not a new initiative within Adobe. Adobe had previously offered support for Linux with Acrobat Reader 5.0, but discontinued Linux support with version 6. Late last year, the company joined OSDL .

These days, no computer is complete without a PDF file reader. In fact, Adobe claims that over half a billion copies of Adobe Reader have been downloaded since its debut in 1993. [via desktoplinux]