Development

The Debian Desktop Project

The Debian Linux distribution has a new Debian Desktop Project, which was recently announced by Colin Walters. The project's aim is well stated: "Our motto is 'Software which Just Works'. In short, our goal is to bring Debian, GNU, and Linux to the mainstream world."

The list of project goals includes:

• Support for both the GNOME and KDE desktop environments.
• Keeping the needs of both novice and expert users in mind.
• Making configuration simple and foolproof.
• Focusing configuration options on standard desktop users.
• Integration of project management utilities into the standard Debian distribution.
• Simplification of installation questions with the non-technical user in mind.
• Having Fun.

To get an idea of what the project aims to accomplish, the current objectives include:

• A menu rewrite project.
• Integration of KDE 3.
• Improvement of the Debian installer.
• Integration of webmin and/or Ximian Setup Tools into the Debian core.
• Improvements to the ppp system.
• Work on X11 configurations.
• Work on USB implementation.
• Internationalization and multilingualization.
• A clean-up of debconf questions to simplify system installation.
• Creation of a desktop-optimized kernel.
• Work on the Debian TODO list.
• Building Debian themes for GNOME and KDE.
• Adding items to this list.

Debian would be a better distribution if it were to move toward these goals, the timing is certainly right for development of easy-to-use and easy-to-install Linux software for the masses.

Perhaps a good goal for this project would be to morph Debian into something that your grandmother would be comfortable using, assuming your grandmother isn't a software developer. Hopefully the project will undergo frequent testing by people who are not especially computer literate, with the literati looking over their shoulders.

Comments (none posted)

System Applications

Audio Projects

"Helix DNA Client" source released

Real Networks has announced the release of the source for its "Helix DNA Client" application. "For the first time ever, developers can easily access the code of a commercial grade media player, integrate support for the industry-leading audio and video formats, RealAudio and RealVideo, as well as other formats, and create a robust media player for their own specific needs."

Comments (7 posted)

ALSA 0.9.0rc5 available

The ALSA sound card driver project has released version 0.9.0rc5, which fixes a bug involving GCC 3.2.

Comments (none posted)

Database Software

SapDB available via CVS

CVS access has been added for the SapDB database source code.

Comments (none posted)

The Phrasebook Design Pattern (O'Reilly)

Rani Pinchuk examines Perl/SQL database issues on O'Reilly's Perl.com: "if you look at the code above, you will see two languages: Perl and SQL. This makes the code not that readable. Besides, SQL statements that are only slightly different may appear in several places, and this will make it more difficult to maintain. In addition, suppose you have an SQL expert who should optimize your SQL calls. How do you let him work on the SQL; should he look through your Perl code for it? And what if that guy is so ignorant that he doesn't even know Perl? "

Comments (4 posted)

Education

Python Escapes Classroom (O'Reilly)

Stephen Figgins writes about the use of Python in education on O'Reilly's ONLamp.com site. "PyKarel is a Python implementation of Karel the Robot. Introduced in the 80's, Karel was intended to jump-start students in the Pascal programming language. A virtual robot moves about a maze, interacting with walls and beepers, performing programmed tasks. It has a Pascal-like structure, but only five commands: move, turn left, pick beeper, put beeper, turn off. There are 18 or so conditionals that are mostly repetitious "if facing north", or "if facing south." There are no variables. Karel's virtue is in being both visual and simple."

Comments (none posted)

Electronics

gEDA development news

The latest developments from gEDA, the Gnu Electronic Design and Analysis project include new versions of Icarus Verilog, Covered, and GTKWave.

Comments (none posted)

Embedded Systems

BusyBox 0.60.5 released

Version 0.60.5 of the BusyBox Embedded system tool set has been released. "This is a bugfix release for the stable series to address all the problems that have turned up since the last release. Unfortunately, the previous release had a few nasty bugs (i.e. init could deadlock, gunzip -c tried to delete source files, cp -a wouldn't copy symlinks, and init was not always providing controlling ttys when it should have)."

Comments (1 posted)

Mail Software

SquirrelMail, a Web-Based Mail Server (O'Reilly)

Glenn Graham investigates SquirrelMail, a web-based mail server, on O'Reilly's ONLamp.com site. "I started my search for a Webmail solution at Freshmeat. After sifting through over 65 programs, I stumbled across SquirrelMail. It didn't have fancy screenshots, but to my surprise, had everything I needed. It's easy to install, runs right out of the box, and my clients love it. What else could I ask for?"

Comments (none posted)

Networking Tools

Softgineering Java tools

A group of Australian surfers (and coders), known as Softgineering.com have released a Java-based library called Sniffer that is used for network security and management tasks.

Comments (none posted)

Printing

PostScript printer margins

LinuxPrinting.org has an article that shows how to work with the GhostScript align.ps file for setting printer dimensions and margins. "A problem brought up very often on the Forums of linuxprinting.org is that PostScript files come out shifted, with a very wide border on one side and the image cut of on the opposite side. Or the printer prints much less close to the borders as it is able to by hardware."

Comments (none posted)

Web Site Development

Mod_python 3.0 beta 4 available

Mod_python 3.0 beta 4 has been announced. This should be the last beta release before the official mod_python 3.0 is released.

Comments (none posted)

Zope Members News

The most recent headlines on the Zope Members News include: Zope Corp Funds Open Source ESI in Squid, ZShellScripts v0.1 is out, CMFReportTool initial release, WingDBG for Zope 1.1.6-2, Silva 0.8.5 released, Nuxeo releases Nuxeo Collaborative Portal Server, Maildrop Host 1.2 released, PersistentThreads 0.2 released, Localizer news!!, and MailBoxer 2.1 released.

Comments (none posted)

Web Services

Whither Web Services? (O'Reilly)

Ed Dumbill looks at the current state of web services on O'Reilly's XML.com. "Whatever else they have or haven't been, web services have been a boon for the popular technology media. On the way up the hype curve, breathless reports of the coming automation of our very existence filled pages and pages. Software executives jostled to join the right cabals, and to sit in smoke-filled rooms hammering out the formation of committees and specifications with daft acronyms."

Comments (none posted)

Developing Grid computing applications (IBM developerWorks)

IBM's developerWorks has an article on grid services. "According to Gartner, many businesses will be completely transformed over the next decade by using Grid-enabled Web services to integrate across the Internet to share not only applications but also computer power. In this article, Liang-Jie Zhang, Jen-Yao Chung, and Qun Zhou from IBM introduce developers to the basic idea of Grid computing and the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA). They describe how developers can use the latest Globus Toolkit (Open Grid Services Infrastructure technology preview) to discover a Grid service, create a Grid service interface, and invoke a Grid service instance."

Comments (none posted)

Standards

LSB v1.3 draft out for two week public review

The LSB workgroup has just released its latest LSB v1.3 draft for public review. The workgroup is soliciting comments from the community until Friday November 8th.

Full Story (comments: none)

Desktop Applications

Audio Applications

Sweep 0.5.10 released

Version 0.5.10 of the Sweep audio editor and playback tool is available. "New features in this release include vertical zoom with a draggable dB scale and mouse wheel control, and some basic channel operations: Duplicate to stereo/multichannel, Swap left and right, Remove left/right, Mix down to mono, and Add/Remove channels."

Full Story (comments: 1)

Desktop Environments

Kernel Cousin KDE

Issue #45 of Kernel Cousin KDE is available. This edition covers the new snake charmer Eric, Xrandr, KMail and Windows Viruses, a KMail OpenPGP/MIME HOWTO a KDE log file viewer, a KOffice filter status update and a Developer Newsflash.

Comments (none posted)

KDE 3.1 RC1: Ready for a Short Test Drive

KDE.News looks at the recently released KDE 3.1 RC 1. "A couple of points to consider: First, if you are wed to the hicolor icons, please note that they have been moved to the kdeartwork package; the other packages ship only with the new modern and attractive Crystal-SVG icon theme. Second, Klipper users who experience slowness or possible crashes in Konsole or KMail with this release should try disabling the Klipper syncing options, and then check the KDE 3.1 Info Page about reporting results. Please give this release a thorough testing so KDE 3.1 will be good and ready on schedule!"

Comments (none posted)

GNOME Summary for 2002-10-20 - 2002-10-26

This week's GNOME Summary looks at the Captains of Nautilus; GNOME 2.1.1 development snapshot; Abiword robbed; First development release of GNOME 2 Galeon; and much more.

Full Story (comments: 4)

FootNotes

Headlines on the GNOME desktop FootNotes site include: GPL movie editing project gets grant from LinuxFund.org, Release of GnuCash 1.7.2 alpha, Gtk# version 0.5 released, GNOME Foundation Elections, Galeon 1.3.0 Released, GNOME Development Series Snapshot 2.1.1, Eclipse IDE screenshots, MIME-Type Specific Properties tabs checked into Nautilus, GnomeMeeting 0.94.1 is out, the Debian Desktop Project, and more.

Comments (none posted)

Games

Pygame developments

The Pygame Project has news of the projects page being split into a number of Gamelets, also check out the new versions of Spacewarpy and Monkeystomp.

Comments (none posted)

Graphics

PLOT_PS/XPS: a C Graphic Library Package (Linux Journal)

The Linux Journal has an article that shows how to use the PLOT_PS and PLOT_XPS libraries to generate PostScript and X window viewable graphics plots. "Almost any data analysis benefits from graphic outputs. They often lead to a more affordable and synthetic view of results than any table can provide. To meet this type of need, we developed a graphic library that easily produces high quality printouts using the PostScript (PS) language."

Comments (1 posted)

GUI Packages

FLTK developments

The latest news from the FLTK project includes the release of flPhoto 0.7, a digital picture maniuplation program, and the Equinox Desktop Environment developers have joined FLTK Team.

Comments (none posted)

Interoperability

Kernel Cousin Wine

Issue #141 of the Kernel Cousin Wine is out. Topics include Xandros Release, WineX with Lycoris, Klez Virus, RPC Update, Listview Update, Commctrl Update, Wanted: AppDB Maintainer, Wine PR Manager Needed, Web Browser Integration Needed, Running Australia's eTax, Running Native Windows Utilities, and Compiling Wine With glibc 2.3.

Comments (none posted)

Office Applications

AbiWord Weekly News

Issue #115 of the AbiWord Weekly News is out with the latest AbiWord word processor development news. Topics include the theft of AbiWord funds on PayPal, selecting the right locale, status bar work, encoding problems, Word import/export improvements, the upcoming 1.1.1 release, AbiWord issues with Red Hat 8.0, and development stats.

Comments (none posted)

Kernel Cousin GNUe

Issue #52 of Kernel Cousin GNUe is out. Topics include PostgreSQL/Red Hat issues, Roadmaps and other project planning issues, Forms graphical resolution, a WikiWikiWeb for GNUe, Strong commercial interests and free software projects, the Status of GNUe Tools and Packages, and much more.

Comments (none posted)

GnuCash 1.7.2 alpha released

The second alpha version of GnuCash 1.7.2 is available. Release highlights include search by reconcile flag for transactions, read-only support for posted invoices and payments, an updated glossary, transaction retrieval improvements, two accounts for investment transactions, bug fixes, and more.

Full Story (comments: none)

Web Browsers

Galeon 1.3.0 Released

Version 1.3.0 of the Galeon minimalist web browser has been released. "This is the first unstable release based on gnome 2 libraries and gtk2 mozilla. It's a development version. This means that it will crash, it won't work as expected and it may damage random files of your system. However, we encourage you to test it and report any bug you find, and send us patches if you feel that you can help."

Comments (1 posted)

Mozilla News

The latest Mozilla News includes the release of Phoenix 0.4, Mozilla 1.2 Beta, Bugzilla 2.16.1, Mozilla 1.0.1, Chimera 0.5, Netscape 7.0, a new API Announcement Mailing List, and more.

Comments (none posted)

mozillaZine

The latest mozillaZine topics include: Phoenix 0.4 (Oceano) Released, Help to Make Phoenix 0.4 Not Suck, Introduction to mozdev, Bugzilla Upgrade Plans, Creating Links with Mozilla's window.getSelection() Method, the Register on Web Sites that Block Minority Browsers, and Mozilla Independent Status Reports.

Comments (none posted)

Languages and Tools

Caml

Caml Weekly News

The October 22 to 29 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out. Topics include GlSurf: surface in OCaml/OpenGL, Baire Status, a standard library naming scheme, an email parser in ocamllex/ocamlyacc, a question about polymorphic variant, and macros and camlp4.

Full Story (comments: none)

Java

Local Invocation for CORBA (O'Reilly)

Giuseppe Naccarato explains how to work with CORBA under Java on O'Reilly's OnJava.com site. "OBV (Object by Value) was introduced in CORBA 2.3 to allow the exchange of CORBA Object value types. This powerful extension is very useful, for example, to design mutable applications. You can combine OBV with RMI-IIOP to allow Java clients to obtain a copy of remote object."

Comments (none posted)

From black boxes to enterprises, Part 2: Beans, JMX 1.1 style (IBM developerWorks)

Sing Li looks at JMX 1.1 on IBM's developerWorks. "JMX is a popular new standard extension to the Java platform that enables devices, applications, and services to be managed, controlled, and monitored through modern Network Management Systems or Enterprise Management Systems. In this second article of his three-part series on JMX, consultant and popular author Sing Li demonstrates how to rapidly add instrumentation code to a Java-based application."

Comments (none posted)

Lisp

SBCL 0.7.9 released

Version 0.7.9 of SBCL (Steel Bank Common Lisp) has been released. This is a maintenance release that features new runtime checks as well as bug fixes.

Full Story (comments: none)

Perl

This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)

Use Perl's This Week on Perl5-porters is out for October 21-27, 2002. "This week was moderately busy for the Perl 5 porters. The highlights feature various crashes and considerations about Unicode string handling; not forgetting, as usual, about newly fixed bugs, and bugs yet to be fixed."

Comments (none posted)

Making Journals from Emacs (use Perl)

Joe Johnston documents his Perl-based SOAP journaling software for the Use Perl site. "Like journaling at use.perl.org but hate composing entries in the HTML widget TEXTAREA? Tired of the Web Services hype and what to see a real application? Hold on to your hats, true believers, because the answer to both problems lies in the article below."

Comments (none posted)

PHP

PHP Weekly Summary

Topics on this week's PHP Weekly Summary include PHP and GD, naming tests, the cURL extension, regex bundling, a new sybase_ct maintainer, and OpenSSL and sockets.

Comments (none posted)

Building a Simple Search Engine with PHP (O'Reilly)

Daniel Solin shows how to code a PHP-based web site search engine on O'Reilly's ONLamp.com site. "A little while ago, I was working on an intranet site for a mid-sized company. As the site grew in both size and popularity, the assigner requested me to extend the site with a search feature. Since one of the rules of the intranet was that all logic code should be written in-house, using an existing open source engine was not an option. Within a day, the engine was quite complete, and the result actually turned out better than expected. With PHP, MySQL, and a few techniques, these small projects are very easy."

Comments (none posted)

Python

Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Oct 28)

This week's edition of the Python-URL looks at transitioning from Java/C++ to Python, a comparison of Ruby and Python, and much more.

Full Story (comments: none)

The Daily Python-URL

This week's Daily Python-URL looks at articles on Open source in the lab, Mitch Kapor's open-source Chandler Personal Information Manager project, Linux Lunacy 2002, and more.

Comments (none posted)

Ruby

The Ruby Weekly News

Topics on this week's Ruby Weekly News include the RAA Replaced, a comp.lang.ruby FAQ, and reading the current line from a file. New Ruby software includes FixedTime 0.0.1, Crawler 0.0.1, and Ruby QT Embedded 0.2.

Comments (none posted)

Scheme

Scheme Weekly News

The October 28, 2002 Scheme Weekly News is out with a bunch of new Scheme-based software releases.

Full Story (comments: none)

Tcl/Tk

Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!

The October 29, 2002 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! covers the latest Tcl/Tk development news.

Full Story (comments: none)

XML

XML 1.1: Here We Go Again (O'Reilly)

Kendall Grant Clark covers work toward the XML 1.1 specification on O'Reilly's XML.com. "Despite the frequent and usually accurate complaints that XML specifications and standards are insufficiently layered, there is a sort of conceptual stack of technologies which together constitute the architecture of the Web. In this week's XML-Deviant column I report on developments in XML, the base layer of the Web's architecture."

Comments (none posted)

Page editor: Forrest Cook
Next page: Linux in the news>>