Development

XCB: the X Protocol C Binding

The XCB project aims to replace the Xlib interface to the X Window System:

Bart Massey and Jamey Sharp originally described XCB in a 2001 paper entitled: An X Protocol C Binding [PDF]. The XCB project history gives a look at some important project milestones and lists the tasks that have been completed to date.

The XCB project aims to improve on a number of Xlib weaknesses. Some of the XCB features include:

• A smaller memory footprint than Xlib.
• Support for latency hiding to address Xlib speed issues.
• Support for partial emulation of the Xlib API.
• Support for direct access to the X protocol.
• Support for the addition of new X extensions.
• Thread support designed from the beginning, not added-on like Xlib.
• Built on top of an XML description (xcb-proto) of the core X protocol.
• Development of the Xlib Compatibility Layer (XCL) for running legacy applications.

Release candidate 1 of XCB 1.0, consisting of xcb-proto and libxcb, was announced on September 25:

Other changes in this release include: a new API naming convention, new include directory conventions, an improved error handling plan, a more resilient connection error handling system, removal of deprecated functions, a split of the GIT repository, and bug fixes.

For more information on XCB, see the XCB API definition, the XCB Tutorial, the XCB Developer's Guide and other publications on XCB.

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System Applications

Database Software

Berkeley DB 4.5 available

Oracle has announced the availability of Berkeley DB 4.5, now rebranded with the Oracle name. "Oracle Berkeley DB Release 4.5 now supports multi-version concurrency control, non-stop upgrades for replicated environments and a pre-built replication framework to simplify development of highly available applications."

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LDAP Software

LAT 1.2.0 released

Stable version 1.2.0 of LAT, the LDAP Administration Tool, is out. "The main improvements of this release are: Multiple servers from single window, View and attribute viewer plugins, Added support for binary attributes, Find available servers via Avahi, Support for NetworkManager to better handle changes to network, connectivity, Enhanced schema browser, New help manual and Minor UI enhancements."

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Networking Tools

rsplib-2.0.0 RSerPool Implementation Release

Version 2.0.0 of rsplib, an open-source prototype implementation of the Reliable Server Pooling (RSerPool) protocol suite, is out.

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Printing

CUPS 1.2.4 released

Version 1.2.4 of CUPS, the Common UNIX Printing System, has been announced. "CUPS 1.2.4 fixes a number of web interface, scheduler, and CUPS API issues."

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Web Site Development

Zope 3.3.0 released

Version 3.3.0 of the Zope web development platform has been announced. "There were no changes since the 3.3.0 release candidate. Zope 3 is the next major Zope release and has been written from scratch based on the latest software design patterns and the experiences of Zope 2. Cleanup of the Zope 3 packages has continued to ensure a flexible and scalable platform. We continued the work on making the transition from Zope 2 to Zope 3 by making Zope 2.10 use even more of the Zope 3 packages. But the transition is far from complete yet."

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Desktop Applications

Audio Applications

eSpeak 1.14 released

Version 1.14 of eSpeak, a speech synthesizer, is available. The changes in this release include improvements to numeric output, German and Italian language improvements, new intonation options and more.

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XMMS2 DrGonzo Released

A new release of XMMS2, the replacement for the XMMS music player, is out. "This release incorporates code from our Google Summer of Code program. The DAAP streaming plugin made by Cole Thompson is already streaming music for us. Other interesting features are that Ma Xuan has added Monkeys Audio support and we have added a framework for handling cover art. For all new features and bugfixes read the full release notes at our wiki: http://wiki.xmms2.xmms.se/index.php/".

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Desktop Environments

Plans for gnome-vfs replacement (GnomeDesktop)

GnomeDesktop follows a thread by Alexander Larsson concerning a gnome-vfs overhaul. "Recently there has been a lot of discussions about the gnome platform and the correct stacking order and quality of the modules. Gnome-vfs is a clear problem in this discussion. Having spent the last 4 years as the gnome-vfs maintainer, and even longer as the primary gnome-vfs user (in Nautilus) I'm well aware of the problems it has. I think that we've reached a point where the problems in the gnome-vfs architecture and its position in the stack are now ranking as one of the most problematic aspects of the gnome platform, especially considering the enhancements and quality improvements seen in other parts of the platform."

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GNOME Software Announcements

The following new GNOME software has been announced this week:

• Conduit 0.2.0 (new features and bug fixes)
• Gossip 0.17 (bug fixes and translation work)
• GTK+ 2.10.4 (bug fixes)
• Last Exit 3 (new features and bug fixes)
• Planner 0.14.1 (bug fixes and documentation work)
• Scratchpad 0.3.0 (port to Vala)
• USBSink 0.0.2 (new features and code improvements)

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:

• K3b Monkey Audio Plugin 3.1 (bug fixes)
• KBackup 0.5 (new features)
• Tellico 1.2.3 (new features and bug fixes)

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

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KDE Commit-Digest (KDE.News)

KDE.News has announced the September 24, 2006 edition of the KDE Commit-Digest. "In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: The KDE World Conference, Akademy 2006, kicks off in Dublin. A rewritten version of KTurtle, an educational programming tool, is imported into KDE SVN. ThreadWeaver is moved into kdelibs. Hebrew sounds are added to KLettres to add learning support for the language. Improvements in the OpenDocument format and XML Paper Specification format support in okular. Support for GPS metadata synchronisation in kipiplugins, on which Digikam and KPhotoAlbum depend. Support for calculations containing non-integer numbers (ie. numbers with decimal points) in the minicli (Alt-F2). Modifications made to support using Compiz as a window manager. More work in Memory Monitoring and Network Management in Solid."

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Desktop Publishing

LyX 1.4.3 is relelased

Version 1.4.3 of LyX, a GUI front-end to the TeX typesetting system, is out. "This is a bug fix release that improves stability and MS Windows support."

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Electronics

Electric 8.04 released

Version 8.04 of the Electric VLSI Design System has been announced. "This release includes many improvements and bug fixes. It requires Java 1.5 to run (earlier versions ran on 1.4)."

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Gnucap 0.35 announced

Stable version 0.35 of Gnucap, the GNU Circuit Analysis Package, has been announced, it adds a number of new capabilities.

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Games

WorldForge Meeting Summary

A new meeting summary is out from the WorldForge game developers. "In an effort to keep tri-weekly meetings a meeting was held (on IRC) saturday 2006-09-23, the meeting summary can be found below. The main point on the agenda was how easy it is for newcomers to join. Website, editing/content toolchain and coordination was discussed."

In other WorldForge news, the project has added movement to the virtual world. "This would seem like a basic feature that would have been present years ago, but for some reason it never made it into the code. But now it’s finally there."

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Music Applications

Rosegarden 1.4.0 released

Version 1.4.0 of Rosegarden, an audio and MIDI sequencer and musical notation editor, is out. "This is a particularly exciting release for the Rosegarden project. It includes a number of interesting new features, many of which we expect to build upon further in future releases. It also contains significant code contributions from a greater number of people than any previous Rosegarden release, including D. Michael McIntyre, Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas, Heikki Junes, Stephen Torri, Magnus Johansson, Vince Negri and Martin Shepherd as well as Chris Cannam, Guillaume Laurent, and a number of active translators."

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Office Suites

OpenOffice.org Newsletter

The September, 2006 edition of the OpenOffice.org Newsletter is online with the latest OO.o news, events and resources.

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Languages and Tools

Caml

Caml Weekly News

The September 26, 2006 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new Caml language articles.

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Lisp

Maxima 5.10.0 released

Version 5.10.0 of Maxima, a cross-platform computer algebra system written in Common Lisp, is out. "This version features better documentation, an improved Windows installer, improvements to the Xmaxima user interface, faster integer factorization, and several new add-on packages."

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Perl

Weekly Perl 6 mailing list summary

The September 17-23, 2006 edition of the Weekly Perl 6 mailing list summary is out with the latest Perl 6 news.

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Python

Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!

The September 27, 2006 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! is online with a new collection of Python article links.

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python-dev summary

The python-dev summary for August 1-15, 2006 is out with coverage of the python-dev mailing list.

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Tcl/Tk

Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!

The September 20, 2006 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is online with new Tcl/Tk articles and resources.

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Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!

The September 26, 2006 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is online with new Tcl/Tk articles and resources.

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Profilers

OProfile 0.9.2 released

Version 0.9.2 of OProfile has been announced. "This release has support for a number of new processor implementations."

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Miscellaneous

The Linux binutils 2.17.50.0.4 is released

Version 2.17.50.0.4 of the Linux binutils is out. "This is the beta release of binutils 2.17.50.0.4 for Linux, which is based on binutils 2006 0924 in CVS on sources.redhat.com plus various changes. It is purely for Linux. Starting from the 2.17.50.0.4 release, the default output section LMA (load memory address) has changed for allocatable sections from being equal to VMA (virtual memory address), to keeping the difference between LMA and VMA the same as the previous output section in the same region."

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