Development

Progress on the Linux Desktop Testing Project

The Linux Desktop Testing Project (LDTP) is a desktop application testing framework that was originally announced in January, 2005.

The LDTP About and FAQ documents explain the software's operation. Here are some highlights of LDTP:

• Written in the C and Python languages.
• Licensed under the LGPL.
• Can be used to improve desktop application stability by making application testing easy.
• Concepts are derived from the Software Testing Automation Framework (STAF).
• Is desktop agnostic, works with the GNOME (2.10 and above) and KDE (4.0) desktops.
• Can be used on Mozilla, OpenOffice.org and Java applications.
• Works on Linux and Solaris, a FreeBSD port is underway.
• Is supported on the OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora Core distributions.
• Uses the Assistive Technology libraries for connection to the user interface.
• LDTP connects to the test application through the remap function.
• Includes application CPU and memory performance monitoring.
• Test scripts are easy to write.
• Test output is available in an XML log format.
• Includes a Test Editor for creating tests.

The online user manual explains how to set LDTP up for application testing and explains the API.

Version 0.8.0 of LDTP was recently announced: "This release features number of important breakthroughs in LDTP as well as in the field of Test Automation."

New capabilities of LDTP 0.8.0 include:

• Performance has been greatly improved.
• The LDTP execution engine has had stability improvements.
• A number of memory leaks have been removed.
• A large number of bugs have been fixed.
• Some new code has been contributed by the Palm Source testing team.
• An LDTP repository has been added to the OpenSUSE build system.
• LDTP is now available on the Mandriva distribution.
• A new LDTP Flash demo is available.

The LDTP source code is available for download here.

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System Applications

Database Software

PostgreSQL Weekly News

The February 18, 2007 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with the latest PostgreSQL DBMS articles and resources.

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wxSQLite3 1.7.2 released (SourceForge)

Version 1.7.2 of wxSQLite3 is available. "The new version 1.7.2 of wxSQLite3 - a thin wrapper for the SQLite database for wxWidgets applications - now supports the current version 3.3.12 of SQLite. The wxSQLite3 API is now independent of optional features; it can be checked at runtime for which optional features wxSQLite3 was compiled. Since on Linux support for loadable extensions is not compiled into SQLite by default it has been made optional in wxSQLite3 as well."

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Mail Software

Apache SpamAssassin 3.1.8 released

Version 3.1.8 of Apache SpamAssassin has been released. "This is a maintenance and security release of the 3.1.x branch. It is highly recommended that people upgrade to this version."

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Openchange MAILOOK milestone

Openchange has announced the availability of a Linux MAPI library which will allow Linux users to access an exchange mail server. "The OpenChange team is very proud to announce we have released on our repository a first experimental but working implementation of our MAPI Library under Linux. Libmapi is a client-side MAPI library implementation designed to make MAPI messaging applications development under Linux trivial." (Thanks to Joerg Mayer.)

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Printing

CUPS 1.2.8 released

Version 1.2.8 of the CUPS printing system has been announced. "CUPS 1.2.8 adds a French localization, updates the Japanese and Spanish localizations, and fixes several web interface, printing, and networking bugs."

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CUPS Driver Development Kit 1.1.0 announced

Version 1.1.0 of the CUPS Driver Development Kit has been announced. "The new release adds support for creating globalized and compressed PPDs with configurable line endings, includes a new ppdmerge utility, and fixes some platform and packaging issues. The CUPS Driver Development Kit (DDK) provides a suite of standard drivers, a PPD file compiler, and other utilities that can be used to develop printer drivers for CUPS and other printing environments."

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Web Site Development

Mod_python 3.3.1 released

Version 3.3.1 of Mod_python, a Python language extension to the Apache web server, is out. See the online documentation for change history.

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Desktop Applications

Audio Applications

Aqualung 0.9 beta 7.1 released

Version 0.9 beta 7.1 of Aqualung, a cross-platform music player, is available. "This is an update to our recent 0.9beta7 release, containing some important fixes to bugs that were found as a result of the greater user coverage after the release of 0.9beta7."

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Mammut 0.57 released

Version 0.57 of Mammut, an FFT audio spectrum analysis package, has been released. This version adds new features, Mac and Windows ports and more.

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Data Visualization

Grace 5.1.21 is available

Version 5.1.21 of Grace, a WYSIWYG 2D plotting tool, has been announced. "This is a maintenance release of the 5.1 series; an upgrade is recommended."

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Desktop Environments

GNOME 2.18.0 Beta 2 released (GnomeDesktop)

GnomeDesktop has announced the release of GNOME 2.18.0 Beta 2. "Love is in the air! The GNOME 2.18.0 Beta 2 release is out to spread even more love in this Valentine's day. This is our second beta release on our road towards GNOME 2.18.0, which will be released in March 2007. So, If you're feeling alone, give some love to GNOME today by breaking it, fixing it, translating it, documenting it, and your [happiness] is g[u]aranteed tomorrow! Who knows? This release marks the start of the String Freeze. No, this doesn't have anything to do with the Finnish winter."

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GARNOME 2.17.91 released

Version 2.17.91 of GARNOME, the bleeding-edge GNOME distribution, is out. "The "go go gadget garnome" release. We are pleased to announce the release of GARNOME 2.17.91 Desktop and Developer Platform. This release includes all of GNOME 2.17.91 (aka 2.18.0 Beta 2), tweaked and updated with love by the GARNOME Team."

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GNOME Software Announcements

The following new GNOME software has been announced this week:

• Agave 0.4.2 (bug fixes and translation work)
• Banshee 0.11.7 (bug fixes and translation work)
• cairo snapshot 1.3.14 (bug fixes)
• Campcaster 1.2.0 (new features and bug fixes)
• Ekiga 2.0.5 (bug fixes)
• gedit-plugins 2.17.2 (new features, bug fixes and translation work)
• Glade 3.1.5 (new features, bug fixes, documentation and translation work)
• gThumb 2.9.2 (new features and bug fixes)
• PyGooCanvas 0.6.0 (new features, API change)
• regexxer 0.9 (new features, bug fixes and translation work)
• S-Lang Gtk 0.5.18 (new features and bug fixes)
• USBSink 0.3.1 (bug fixes and translation work)

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

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KDE Commit-Digest for 18th February 2007 (KDE.News)

The February 18, 2007 edition of the KDE Commit-Digest has been announced. The content summary says: "The Dolphin file manager is moved into kdebase. Continued work in Umbrello courtesy of the Student Mentoring program. Graphical element representations start to be introduced in Kalzium. More new country maps in KGeography. KSpaceDuel begins the porting process to a scalable graphics interface, with further SVG intergration work in KMines, KWin4, KNetWalk, KBlackBox and KMahjongg. KolourPaint gains the ability to interface with image scanning hardware. Improved handling of the XPS document format in okular. Lilypond export functionality in KTabEdit. More work in the KDE Fonts Manager. The KNewStuff2 framework reaches new milestones in its reworking for KDE 4."

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Quickies: Dev Wiki, Sonnet, Jambi, Scientific Analysis and CSS Compliance (KDE.News)

KDE.News presents another Quickies article. "Vote for the name of the new KDE developer and sysadmin wiki. *** Nathan Sanders reveals that KDE 4's Sonnet will turbocharge language processing at Linux.com. *** Trolltech announced the first beta release of Qt Jambi, now available for testing and feedback. *** ChainLink is a new Qt 4 integrated environment for scientific data analysis and visualisation using Matlab/Octave/Scilab compatible syntax. ..."

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KDE Software Announcements

The following new KDE software has been announced this week:

• AmarokFS Startup Script 1.0 (unspecified)
• Autotorrent 0.1 (initial release)
• BitRock InstallBuilder for Qt 4.1.0 (unspecified)
• callintegrator 2.1 (new feature and bug fixes)
• cb2Bib 0.7.3 (bug fixes)
• Desktop Text Config 0.3 (new features)
• digiKam 0.9.1-beta1 (new features and bug fixes)
• DigikamImagePlugins 0.9.1-beta1 (new features)
• digiKam and digiKamimageplugins 0.9.1-rc1 (bug fixes and performance improvements)
• ffmpeg 1 (unspecified)
• first 1.3.3 (unspecified)
• first4 1.4.0-alpha1 (unspecified)
• KBoincMgr 0.3.0 (new features and bug fixes)
• Kirocker Music Display 1.4 and 2.0Beta2 (bug fixes and performance improvements)
• Kirocker Music Display 2.0 (new features and bug fix)
• KlogShow 1.0.0 (initial release)
• KMacBacklight 0.1 (initial release)
• KPowersave v0.7.2-unstable (new features and bug fixes)
• KTranslator 0.4 (new feature and bug fixes)
• kvpnc 0.8.8 (new features and bug fixes)
• Kwlan 0.6.0 (dependency fix)
• LyX 1.4.4 (new features and bug fixes)
• Multimedia Converter 1.0.0 (initial release)
• OneKript 0.7.2 (new features)
• Perl Audio Converter 3.2.5 (new features and bug fix)
• PokerTH 0.3 (new features, bug fixes and translation work)
• qleo 2.1 (translation work)
• rkward 0.4.6 (new features and bug fixes)
• SIR 1.7 (bug fixes)
• thin liquid film 0.95 (bug fixes)
• TuxShop 1.9 (new features and performance improvements)
• VetTux 3.7 (new features and bug fixes)
• waipssip 0.1 (initial release)
• WebIssues 0.8.4 / 0.8.2 (new features)
• Zhu3D 2.9.6 (new features and bug fixes)

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

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Xorg Software Announcements

The following new Xorg software has been announced this week:

• libXrandr 1.2.0 (new features and bug fixes)
• RandR protocol version 1.2.1 (documentation work and bug fixes)
• X11R7.2 (new features)
• xrandr cli app 1.2.0 (new features, bug fixes and documentation work)

More information can be found on the X.Org Foundation wiki.

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Encryption Software

PasswordSafe 3.06 released (SourceForge)

Version 3.06 of PasswordSafe is out. "Password Safe is a password database utility. Users can keep their passwords securely encrypted on their computers. A single Safe Combination unlocks them all. Version 3.06 is a minor release - some annoying bugs have been fixed, some features have been improved upon."

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Games

Ember 0.4.2 release candidate 4

Release candidate 4 of Ember 0.4.2 has been announced on the WorldForge game site. "This release should be stable and contains no known bugs. If you have problems running it, please send a mail to Erik."

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Interoperability

Wine 0.9.31 released

Version 0.9.31 of Wine has been announced. Changes include: Many Direct3D fixes and performance improvements, Several new comctl32 test cases, IDL compiler improvements, More OLE32 marshalling fixes and lots of bug fixes.

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Wine Weekly Newsletter

The February 19, 2007 edition of the Wine Weekly Newsletter is online with coverage of the Wine project. Topics include: News: Wine 0.9.31, CrossOver 6.0, DIB Engine Discussion, Summer of Code 2007, GNOME & Freedesktop Menus, Direct3D Screenshots, Toolbar Regression, RHEL 3 RPM's, and IE Developers Toolbar.

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Mail Clients

Bongo Project releases initial milestone: 0.1.0

Version 0.1.0 of Bongo has been announced. "Bongo is a project to create fun and simple mail & calendaring software. As well as providing a well-featured but extensible set of server software, it also comes with a user-friendly web interface. The Bongo Project is pleased to announce the release of Bongo 0.1, which represents the first milestone on our roadmap. This is a source-only release intended for hackers and users who want to get an early preview of what we're building."

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Multimedia

Elisa 0.1.4 announced

Version 0.1.4 of Elisa has been announced, it adds new features and bug fixes. "Elisa is a project to create an open source cross platform media center solution. While our primary development and deployment platform is GNU/Linux and Unix operating systems we also currently support Microsoft Windows and also hope to support MacOSX in the future. Elisa runs on top of the GStreamer multimedia framework and is develop[]ed in Python."

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Music Applications

CLAM 0.98 released

Version 0.98 of CLAM, a C++ framework for doing research and application development in audio and music, is available. "Apart from MacOS build, this release features KDE integration for NetworkEditor and Prototyper (so you can open network files from Konqueror), MFCC’s added to Annotator’s extractor example, and several fixes (thanks James). FLTK module has been dropped and it is not being compiled by default. It will be completely removed on the next release."

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Office Applications

HylaFAX 4.3.2 released

Version 4.3.2 of HylaFAX, a fax modem interface, has been announced. "This release includes significant improvements to email templating, a system that offers server admins an unprecedented level of control over the branding of the email messages HylaFAX sends, and so we encourage you to check it out. As always, our sincerest thanks go to all who participate in the development and testing process."

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Miscellaneous

Laplock 0.0.4 released

Stable version 0.0.4 of Laplock is available. "Laplock locks your computer or laptop using a media card such as USB memory, SD, MMC, or a Memory Stick. Once you register a unique card, the program starts xlock or xscreensaver when it is removed and stops it once it is plugged in again."

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Languages and Tools

C

GCC 4.1.2 released

Version 4.1.2 of GCC, the Gnu Compiler Collection, is out. "This release is a bug-fix release for problems in GCC 4.1.1. GCC 4.1.2 contains changes to correct regressions from previous releases, but no new features."

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Caml

Caml Weekly News

The February 20, 2007 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new Caml language articles.

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Lisp

Lython 1.0 announced

Version 1.0 of Lython, a Lisp dialect compiler which outputs Python byte-code, has been announced. The description states: "Parses a lisp dialect using spark. Simple macros. Compiles to Python bytecode. Generates pyc, pyo files. Full-featured interactive interpreter. Based on Miles Egan's Lython."

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PHP

PHP 4.4.5 released

Version 4.4.5 of PHP has been released. See the ChangeLog file for a list of bug fixes and other improvements.

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Python

Jython 2.2 beta 1 announced

The first beta release of Jython 2.2, a Python implementation on Java, is available. "This release contains all of the major features for a 2.2 release, so it's a significant milestone towards 2.2 proper. It's being released to solicit feedback about any bugs or missing features; if you can, download it and check for issues. "

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PyPy 0.99 released

Version 0.99 of PyPy, a Python interpreter implementation and an advanced compiler, has been announced. "Welcome to the PyPy 0.99.0 release - a major snapshot and milestone of the last 8 months of work and contributions since PyPy-0.9.0 came out in June 2006!"

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Tcl/Tk

Tcl-URL!

The February 15, 2007 edition of the Tcl-URL! is online with new Tcl/Tk articles and resources.

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Tcl-URL!

The February 20, 2007 edition of the Tcl-URL! is online with new Tcl/Tk articles and resources.

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XML

Introducing RDFa (O'Reilly)

O'Reilly has published part one of a series on RDFa. "In this first part of a two-part series, Bob DuCharme introduces us to RDFa, a new, XHTML-friendly standard syntax for RDF metadata that allows you to embed RDF metadata into the Web in a novel way."

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IDEs

Wing IDE 2.1.4 released

Version 2.1.4 of Wing IDE, a Python language integrated development environment, has been announced. "This is a bug fix release that among other things fixes handling of UTF-8 byte order marks, improves auto-completion for PyQt 4, reports exceptions correctly in Python < 2.2, fixes some problems with Subversion 1.4, does better adaptive scrolling on OS X, and displays menus correctly in Hebrew locales."

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