Development

Polypaudio, a networked sound server

Polypaudio is a relatively new cross-platform networked sound server project. The first release came out in July, 2004, the software has been released under the Lesser General Public License. "Polypaudio is a networked sound server for Linux and other Unix like operating systems and Microsoft Windows. It is intended to be an improved drop-in replacement for the Enlightened Sound Daemon (ESOUND)." The main function of a sound server is to allow multiple audio applications to simultaneously share the same sound card, the networking capabilities extend this ability across machines.

Some of the main Polypaudio features include:

• An extensible plugin architecture with support for loadable modules.
• Compatibility with many popular audio applications.
• Support for multiple audio sources and sinks.
• Low-latency operation and support for latency measurement.
• A zero-copy memory architecture for processor resource efficiency.
• A command-line interface with scripting capabilities.
• A sound daemon with command line reconfiguration capabilities.
• Built-in sample conversion and resampling capabilities.
• The ability to combine multiple sound cards into one.
• The ability to synchronize multiple playback streams.

A variety of audio source and sink modules are available, connections are available for: OSS and Alsa sound drivers, JACK, esound, wav files, UNIX FIFOs, UNIX sockets, network tunnels, X11 console bells and more. Other modules are available for dealing with sound control, including automatic volume controls, LIRC infrared remote controls and multimedia keyboards.

The Polypaudio FAQ explains some of the Polypaudio dependencies and compatibilities, and has numerous examples of command-line operations.

Although GNOME/GTK is not required for Polypaudio operation, some GTK-based GUI utilities are provided, including Polypaudio Manager, Polypaudio Volume Meter and Polypaudio Volume Control.

Version 0.9.0 of Polypaudio was announced on May 26, 2006. It now fully matches or improves upon the ESOUND feature set. "This is a major step ahead since we decided to freeze the current API. From now on we will maintain API compatibility (or at least try to). To emphasize this starting with this release the shared library sonames are properly versioned. While Polypaudio 0.9.0 is not API/ABI compatible with 0.8 it is protocol compatible. Other notable changes beyond bug fixing, bug fixing and bug fixing are: a new Open Sound System /dev/dsp wrapper named padsp and a module module-volume-restore have been added."

Polypaudio version 0.9.0 adds new versions of the modules gst-polyp for use with the GStreamer multimedia framework, libao-polyp for Ogg-vorbis support, and xmms-polyp for sinking XMMS media player output.

With its support for a wide variety of popular audio utilities, actively developed code, and broad capabilities, the Polypaudio project fills an important role in Linux-based audio development.

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System Applications

Audio Projects

JACK 0.101.1 Released

Version 0.101.1 of the JACK Audio Connection Kit is out. New features include support for the FreeBob backend and operability on Mactel platforms.

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Database Software

MySQL 4.1.20 has been released

Version 4.1.20 of the MySQL dbms has been released. "This is a security fix release for the recent production release family."

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MySQL 5.0.22 has been released

Version 5.0.22 of the MySQL dbms has been released. "This is a security fix release for the recent production release family."

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The Future of Perl in PostgreSQL (O'ReillyNet)

Andrew Dunstan discusses the use of Perl and PostgreSQL in part three of an O'Reilly series. "If your PostgreSQL database doesn't do exactly what you want, you can write server-side extensions--in Perl. Andrew Dunstan discusses some of the enhancements to PL/Perl in PostgreSQL 8.0 and 8.1, as well as some of the features he and the rest of the team plan to add."

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Interoperability

Samba 3.0.23rc1 Available for Download

Version 3.0.23rc1 of Samba has been announced. "This is the first release candidate of the 3.0.23 code base and is provided for testing purposes only. While close to the final stable release, this snapshot is *not* intended for production servers. Your testing and feedback is greatly appreciated."

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Mail Software

Apache SpamAssassin 3.1.2 available

Version 3.1.2 of the Apache SpamAssassin email filter has been announced. "3.1.2 includes a large number of bug fixes and documentation updates."

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MailStripper 1.4.0 released

Version 1.4.0 of MailStripper, an email spam filter, is out. Changes include bug fixes and other improvements.

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Security

Sussen 0.22 is available

Version 0.22 of Sussen, a vulnerabilities and configuration issue scanner, is available with new features and bug fixes.

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Desktop Applications

CAD

PythonCAD release 32 is available

The thirty-second development release of PythonCAD has been announced. "The thirty-second release fixes a configuration problem where the newly added autosplitting feature would not be activated properly or could disable autosplitting in a Layer. A small bug in the reworked splitting code was also fixed, as well as a few other small errors."

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Data Visualization

PyX 0.9 released

Version 0.9 of PyX, the Python graphics package, has been announced. "This release features a new set of deformers for path manipulations like smoothing, shifting, etc. A new set of extensively documented examples describing various aspects of PyX in a cookbook-like fashion have been written. Type 1 font-stripping is now handled by a newly written Python module. The evaluation of functions for graph plotting is now left to Python. Thereby some obscure data manipulation could be removed from the bar style for handling of nested bar graphs. Transparency is now supported for PDF output. Many more small improvements and bug fixes top off this release."

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Desktop Environments

GNOME Software Announcements

The following new GNOME software has been announced this week:

• control-center 2.14.2 (bug fixes and translation work)
• Deskbar 2.14.2 (bug fixes and translation work)
• Eye of GNOME 2.14.2 (new features, bug fixes and translation work)
• gedit 2.14.3 (bug fixes and translation work)
• GLib 2.10.3 (bug fixes and translation work)
• gnome-games 2.14.2 (bug fixes and translation work)
• Gossip 0.11.1 (new features, bug fixes and translation work)
• GTK+ 2.8.18 (bug fixes and translation work)
• Gtk2-Perl 2.14.2 (new features and bug fixes)
• lsr 0.2.0 (new features and documentation work)
• Metacity 2.14.5 (bug fixes and translation work)
• Pango 1.12.3 (bug fixes and documentation work)
• vte 0.12.2 (bug fixes and translation work)
• Zenity 2.14.2 (bug fixes, documentation and translation work)

You can find more new GNOME software releases at gnomefiles.org.

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KDE Software Announcements

The following new KDE software has been announced this week:

• Adblock Improvement 0.0.5 (new features)
• Amarok letras.mus.br lyrics 0.1 (initial release)
• Amarok LyricWiki.org Lyrics 0.1 (initial release)
• anymeal 0.29 (new features)
• Boson 0.12 (new features and version control change)
• CrossVC 1.5.0 (new features and bug fixes)
• dc-qt 0.2.0-alpha (alpha release)
• Enchanted Search Tool Preview 1 (screen shot preview)
• Icecast amaroK script 0.4 (initial release)
• improved offline web browsing 0.2 (unspecified)
• KAlarm 1.4.2 (bug fixes and translation work)
• KBarcode 2.0.3 (new features and bug fixes)
• KBFX for Kubuntu Dapper Drake 0.4.9.2rc1 (new features, code rewrite)
• KBlogger 0.6.2 (bug fixes)
• KCad 2.0 (unspecified)
• KDbg 2.0.4 (new features, bug fixes and translation work)
• KMyMoney 0.8.4 (new features, bug fixes and translation work)
• KPowersave 0.6.1 (bug fixes, documentation and translation work)
• KatchTV 59 (new features and bug fixes)
• KWlan 0.4.3 (new features, new card support)
• LastamaroK 0.3.0 (unspecified)
• PG Calculator 2.2-4 (new features, bug fixes and documentation work)
• Piklab 0.9 (new features, bug fixes and optimization work)
• Picoxine 0.0.1 (new release)
• pyKompiz 0.1.1 (unspecified)
• QFrameCatcher 0.3.1 (unspecified)
• QtiPlot 0.8.5 (new features and bug fixes)
• Ts2Dvd 0.3g (unspecified)
• webarchiver plugin 0.2 (rewrite)

You can find more new KDE software releases at kde-apps.org.

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KDE Commit-Digest (KDE.News)

The May 28, 2006 edition of the KDE Commit-Digest has been announced. "In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: KViewShell gets support for PostScript files. Work begins on Akonadi (the new KDE PIM data storage backend) and amaroK 2.0, with further optimisations to the stable amaroK version. kttsd (the kde-accessibility text-to-speech system) is ported to Phonon. KDELibs is now fully ported to D-BUS. Aesthetic improvements to KSysGuard."

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Electronics

gSpiceUI 0.8.55 released

Version 0.8.55 of gSpiceUI, a GUI front end for the GNU-Cap and Ng-Spice circuit simulation engines, is out. has been announced. "This is largely a maintenance release which fixes some problems I came across doing some design work. There are also some enhancements to existing functionality."

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Qucs 0.0.9 announced

Version 0.0.9 of Qucs, an integrated circuit simulator, is out. Release details are on the OpenCollector site: "The new release comes with a Russian translation and the GUIs language can be explicitely chosen in the application settings dialog. The digital simulation abilities have been improved by a VHDL text editor and hand-crafted VHDL files can be used as subcircuits. The number of ports of the S-parameter component is no more limited. Components can now be either deactivated as a short or an open. There are some new components such as a coaxial line, a differential voltage probe, a switch, AM- and PM-modulators and a relais. Also many bug-fixes have been incorporated."

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Financial Applications

SQL-Ledger 2.6.12 is out

Version 2.6.12 of SQL-Ledger, a web-based accounting package, is out. See the What's New page for release notes.

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Games

Balazar Brother 0.2 released

Version 0.2 of Balazar Brother, a 3D puzzle game, is out. "The next world, currently in development, will be... the Pompon forest! It will recall something to Balazar Arkanae 2 players. And here is your first ennemy in the forest: the striking fruit!"

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GUI Packages

Lintouch 1.10 released

Version 1.10 of Lintouch has been released. "Lintouch is an opensource HMI software. It lets you design user interfaces for process automation. Lintouch runs on most popular hardware and software platforms, is lightweight and easily extensible." See the release announcement for more information on this version.

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Interoperability

Wine 0.9.14 released

Version 0.9.14 of Wine has been announced. Changes include: "Better MS/RPC compatibility, Many fixes to Direct3D shaders, Several improvements to the header control and Lots of bug fixes."

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Wine Weekly Newsletter

The May 26, 2006 edition of the Wine Weekly Newsletter has been published. Topics include: Picasa, Wine 0.9.14, LJ Article, Picasa Port to Linux, DirectDraw Patch, Patch Submission Ideas, MSI Problem and Font Issue.

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Medical Applications

MirrorMed releases MirrorMed 1.0 RC3 (LinuxMedNews)

LinuxMedNews has an announcement for version 1.0RC3 of MirrorMed, a PHP-based open-source EHR and practice management system. "MirrorMed-1.0RC3 has several new important features. Mostly, the billing workflow has been dramatically improved."

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Science

SciPy 0.4.9 released

Version 0.4.9 of SciPy, an open-source library of scientific tools for Python, has been announced. "This version adds support for NumPy version 0.9.8. It also has enhancements to sparse matrices, including a new linear solver module with UMFPACK support, and new support for fitting conditional maximum entropy models. This release also fixes bugs in ndimage, sparse, stats, weave, and other packages."

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Web Browsers

Firefox Bon Echo Alpha 3 milestone released

The third Firefox "Bon Echo" alpha has been released. New stuff this time around includes "anti-phishing protection" (testing of web sites against a blacklist, essentially), search changes, and client-side session and permanent storage (fancier, larger cookies).

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Languages and Tools

C

GCC 4.1.1 released

Version 4.1.1 of GCC, the GNU Compiler Collection, is out. See the changes document for details on this release.

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Caml

Caml Weekly News

The May 30, 2006 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new Caml language articles.

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HTML

gURLChecker 0.10.0 released

Stable version 0.10.0 of gURLChecker has been announced. "gURLChecker is a graphical web sites checker for GNU/Linux and other POSIX OS. It can work on a whole site, a single local page or a browser bookmarks file."

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Lisp

SBCL 0.9.13 released

Version 0.9.13 of Steel Bank Common Lisp has been announced. "This version provides better error reporting, and improves the performance of toplevel form compilation and object file loading."

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PostScript

AFPL Ghostscript 8.54 announced

Version 8.54 of AFPL Ghostscript has been announced. "Major new features include: The COMPILE_INITS build define now generates a compressed read-only filesystem which is linked into the executable and accessible from the interpreter as a new %rom% iodevice. This both improves installed footprint and allows using the same mechanism for embedding Resource files and fonts as well as postscript library and configuration files. This release also supports the proprietary Luratech JBIG2 and JPEG 2000 libraries."

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Python

Python Quick Reference Card 0.55 released

Version 0.55 of the Python Quick Reference Card has been published under a Creative Commons license. "The Python Quick Reference Card (PQRC) aims to provide a printable quick reference documentation for the Python language and some of its main standard libraries (currently for Python 2.4)."

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Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!

The May 30, 2006 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! is online with a new collection of Python article links.

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Ruby

RubyGems (Linux Journal)

Dirk Elmendorf writes about Ruby Gems in a Linux Journal article. "RubyGems is a system for managing Ruby software libraries. Ruby code packaged in this manner is called a gem. When you find Ruby software you want to use in a project, gems offer a means of downloading, installing and managing the software."

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Ruby Weekly News

The May 28, 2006 edition of the Ruby Weekly News is available with new Ruby language articles from the Ruby-talk mailing list.

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Tcl/Tk

Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!

The May 30, 2006 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is online with new Tcl/Tk articles and resources.

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