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DevelopmentUse Ubuntu Tweak to adjust hidden GNOME options Ubuntu Tweak is a GNOME desktop configuration tool that works with versions 7.04 and 7.10 of the Ubuntu distribution. From the application's splash screen:
This is a tool for Ubuntu which makes it easy to change hidden system and
desktop settings. Ubuntu Tweak is currently only for the GNOME Desktop
Environment.
Version 0.2.4 of Ubuntu tweak was announced in December, 2007: "With many bugs fixed and two language added, the stable version of Ubuntu Tweak 0.2.4 released!" Installation was trivial, the .deb file was downloaded in the Firefox web browser; that, in turn, allowed the installer application to be run. A minute later, the software was ready to go. The application was automatically added to the GNOME Applications/System Tools pulldown menu. ![[Ubuntu Tweak]](/images/ns/UbuntuTweakLogo.png)
So, what can Ubuntu Tweak do? There are a number of top-level icons, some with multiple sub-icons. Top-level categories include: Computer, Startup, Desktop, System and Security. Clicking on the Computer icon reveals useful information such as the hostname, distribution version, kernel rev, platform, CPU type and speed and memory capacity. The username, home directory, shell and default language are also displayed. The Startup icon allows the user to toggle features such as the automatic saving of session changes, the logout prompt, remote TCP connections and the splash screen. The Desktop icon allows numerous features to be adjusted on the Desktop Icon Settings, the Metacity window manager, Compiz Fusion, the GNOME panel and menu and the Nautilus file browser. The System icon has toggles and sliders for controlling various power management parameters. Lastly, the Security option has toggles for disabling the Run Application dialog, the Lock Screen, Printing, Printer Setup, Save to Disk and User Switching. That's about all there is to this version of Ubuntu Tweak, there is room to add many more control options. Ubuntu Tweak seems like a useful tool for managing options that don't really fit anywhere else on the desktop environment. The only surprise is that this is, by name, only useful for the Ubuntu distribution. It seems as though making a multi-distribution GNOME-tweak would not require many changes to the code.
System Applications Database Software eXist: 1.2 released (SourceForge) Version 1.2 of eXist has been announced. "eXist is a native XML database featuring efficient, index-based XQuery processing, extensions for keyword search, XUpdate support, and tight integration with existing XML development tools."
phpMyAdmin: 2.11.4 is released (SourceForge) Version 2.11.4 of phpMyAdmin has been announced. "phpMyAdmin is a tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Web. Currently it can create and drop databases, create/drop/alter tables, delete/edit/add fields, execute any SQL statement, manage keys on fields. Welcome to phpMyAdmin 2.11.4, a bugfix-only version."
Postgres Weekly News The January 13, 2008 edition of the Postgres Weekly News is online with the latest PostgreSQL DBMS articles and resources.
Web Site Development BitNami RubyStack 1.0 released Version 1.0 of BitNami RubyStack is available. "It is a free, all-in-one binary installer for Apache, MySQL, Ruby and the Rails framework. You basically click-click-finish your way to a complete Rails installation, including third-party modules such a Mongrel and ImageMagick. It runs on Windows, Linux and OS X and is distributed under the Apache license. If you have been curious about Rails and wanted to try it out, this is your opportunity."
JAMWiki: 0.6.3 Released (SourceForge) Version 0.6.3 of JAMWiki has been announced. "JAMWiki is a Wiki engine implemented using Java/JSP that attempts to provide much of the functionality of MediaWiki. It can be run with or without a database and is designed to be fast and easy to set up. Please visit jamwiki.org for further details. JAMWiki 0.6.3 (code name "Foodscapes") is now available for download. The 0.6.3 release is a minor release that includes several enhancements and minor fixes."
Desktop Applications Audio Applications Ardour 2.2 released Version 2.2 of Ardour, a multi-track audio recording system, has been announced. "Ardour version 2.2 has been released, filled with several significant new features and lots of helpful bugfixes. The editing model has been significantly improved for much faster workflow, and Ardour now uses the Rubber Band library for timestretching (and offers pitchshifting as well)."
JACK 0.109.0 released Version 0.109.0 of the JACK Audio Connection Kit has been announced. Changes include nuerous API changes, some new capabilities and bug fixes.
LV2 Released The first stable release of the LV2 specification has been announced. "LV2 is a simple but extensible successor of LADSPA, intended to address the limitations of LADSPA which many applications have outgrown. By creating LV2 "extensions" (which can be done independently), virtually any feature is possible for LV2 plugins and hosts. This release (revision 1) has been in active use by many projects for several months, including several extensions for advanced features beyond the capabilities of LADSPA or DSSI."
First versions of lv2dynparam extension and helper announced libraries for it The initial release of lv2dynparam extension and helper have been announced. "lv2dynparam is LV2 extension for dynamic parameters. The extension consists of a header describing the extension interface and libraries, one for plugins and one for hosts, to expose functionality in more usable, from programmer point of view, interface."
lv2vocoder plugin version 1 released Version 1 of lv2vocoder plugin has been announced. "Perhaps you don't know what a vocoder is, but I'm sure you have heard one before. Vocoders are often used to add a robotic effect to vocals in music."
SLV2 0.4.2 Released Version 0.4.2 of SLV2 has been announced. "SLV2 is a C library to make the use of LV2 plugins as simple as possible for host applications. Unlike LADSPA, LV2 is (more or less) designed with the assumption that hosts will use a library to discover/load/use plugins. SLV2 is one such library, which does the Right Thing with as little burden on host authors as possible. This release corresponds to the new stable LV2 release, Revision 1."
New version of ssg announced Release 20080109 of ssg, the Simple Sine Generator, is out. "It now requires lv2core. Simple Sine Generator is very simple instrument/generator plugin with midi in and audio out ports. It expected to be useful for testing LV2 hosts and as base for writing your own plugins."
zynadd plugin version 1 Version 1 of zynadd plugin has been announced. "The zyn project main goal is to extract synth engines from ZynAddSubFX and pack them in LV2 plugin format. Resulting plugin(s) are heavily based on work made by Nasca Octavian Paul."
zynjacku version 1 released Version 1 of zynjacku has been announced. "zynjacku is JACK based, GTK (2.x) host for LV2 synths. It has one JACK MIDI input port (routed to all hosted synths) and one (two for stereo synths) JACK audio output port per plugin. Such design provides multi-timbral sound by running several synth plugins. zynjacku is a nunchaku weapon for JACK audio synthesis. You have solid parts for synthesis itself and you have flexible part that allows synthesis to suit your needs."
Patchage 0.4.0 released Version 0.4.0 of Patchage has been announced. "After ages of SVN-only development, Patchage 0.4.0 released. This release is essentially a complete rewrite of the last stable release (ancient history, but still in distributions). Released in parallel are my libraries RAUL (Realtime Audio Utility Library) and FlowCanvas (the canvas widget for Patchage, Ingen, etc), which Patchage depends on. If you're a C++ LAD hacker, these might be useful on their own."
Business Applications JasperReports: 2.0.4 released (SourceForge) Version 2.0.4 of JasperReports, an open source business intelligence and reporting engine, has been announced. The changes include: "support for Dotted and Double line style added; - warning messages added to signal the use of deprecated pen and box attributes and tags in JRXML; all samples refactored; - minor bug fixes and improvements".
Data Visualization videoIO Toolbox for Matlab: 0.5 Beta 3 (SourceForge) The 0.5 Beta 3 version of videoIO Toolbox for Matlab has been announced. The software is: "A library providing easy, flexible, and efficient read/write access to video files using a wide variety of codecs in MATLAB on Windows and GNU/Linux platforms, using DirectShow and ffmpeg backends, respectively. The 0.5-beta3 version has been released. It includes full 64-bit support, new imread and load plugins, and numerous fixes and improvements."
Desktop Environments GNOME 2.20.3 released Stable version 2.20.3 of GNOME has been announced. "This is the final release in a series of point releases for the stable 2.20 branch. Come and see all the bug fixing, all the new translations and all the updated documentation brought to you by the wonderful team of GNOME contributors! While development is underway on the GNOME 2.21/2.22 road, work on the stable branch continued to make it even more solid."
GARNOME 2.20.3 announced Version 2.20.3 of GARNOME has been announced. "This release incorporates the GNOME 2.20.3 Desktop and Developer Platform, fine-tuned and updated with love by the GARNOME Team. Come and see all the bug fixing, all the new translations and all the updated documentation brought to you by the wonderful team of GNOME contributors! This is the fourth release of the current stable GNOME branch, and the third bug-fixing release, which ships with the latest and greatest stable releases."
GNOME Software Announcements The following new GNOME software has been announced this week:
KDE 4.0 Released As expected, the KDE 4.0 release is now available. See the full announcement for details, screenshots, and download information, or the visual guide for even more screenshots.
The Start of Something Amazing with KDE 4.0 Release (KDE.News) KDE.News covers the release of KDE 4.0. "Several years of design, development and testing came together today for the release of KDE 4.0. This is our most significant release in our 11 year history and marks both the end of the long and intensive development cycle leading up to KDE 4.0 and the start of the KDE 4 era."
KDE Commit-Digest (KDE.News) The January 6, 2008 edition of the KDE Commit-Digest has been announced. The content summary says: "Final commits for KDE 4.0 Final before the tagging freeze. KDE 4.0 Final tagged for release. Lots of optimisations and bugs fixed across KDE. Kickoff menu items can now be added to the Plasma desktop or panel. Improved resize and rotate for Plasma applets. Document list sorting in Kate. Various progress in KDevelop. Mailody moves towards using Akonadi for its IMAP functionality, various improvements in Akonadi. Start of a KHotNewStuff2 implementation in Kalzium for downloading molecular files. Experimental IVTV support in the Kalva video player..."
KDE Software Announcements The following new KDE software has been announced this week:
Xorg Software Announcements The following new Xorg software has been announced this week:
Desktop Publishing Scribus 1.3.3.10 released Version 1.3.3.10 of Scribus, a desktop publishing system, has been announced. "This stable release adds the following: Several fixes and improvements to text frames and the Story Editor. New Arabic Translation. More translation and documentation updates. Many improvements to PDF Forms exporting and non-Latin script handling in PDFs. Several fixes to protect against possible crashes. Improved Color Managed Display in some cases. Some fixes to the Scripting plugin. One of the major additions to this release is the final complete German translation of the Scribus documentation by Christoph Schäfer and Volker Ribbert."
Electronics gEDA/gaf development version 1.3.1.20080110 Version 1.3.1.20080110 of gEDA/gaf, an electronic EDA suite, has been announced. "This release rolls a bunch of fixes, updates, and translations that occurred over the past 10 days. Many thanks to everybody involved including all the contributers and language translators!"
gerbv 2.0 released Version 2.0 of gerbv, a Gerber CAD file viewer, has been announced. "Gerbv release 2.0.0 represents a a whole new look for gerbv. Most importantly, the layer control GUI has been made much more powerful through the outstanding work of Julian Lamb. Julian has also re-worked the GUI's button and menus to make them more convenient to use."
Fonts and Images Relicensing HarfBuzz The HarfBuzz font project has adopted a new, simplified license for portions of its ftlayout code. "Between 1998 and 2004 the FreeType project developed an implementation of the OpenType Layout specification (formerly TrueType Open), called ftlayout, that eventually was ripped out of FreeType 2 and was salvaged by Pango and Qt developers and integrated into their layout engines. The code was further developed by the two projects separately and was merged back and renamed to HarfBuzz. The ftlayout code, like the rest of FreeType, was dual-licensed under GPL+FTL. The license, while quite liberal, posed delicate incompatibility issues with Pango's LGPL license because of the so-called advertisement clause in the FTL."
Games ScummVM: 0.11.0 released (SourceForge) Version 0.11.0 of ScummVM has been announced. "ScummVM is a program which allows you to run certain classic graphical point-and-click adventure games, provided you already have their data files. The clever part about this: ScummVM just replaces the executables shipped with the games, allowing you to play them on systems for which they were never designed. This release adds support for 8 new games, including freeware Lure of the Temptress as well as I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream, Elvira 1 and 2, Waxworks and Sierra pre-AGI games. Also iPhone and Maemo ports are distributed officially. Many bugfixes, more non-English versions of the games are supported, and much much more."
UFO:Alien Invasion: 2.2 released (SourceForge) Version 2.2 of UFO:Alien has been announced. "It is the year 2084. You control a secret organisation charged with defending Earth from a brutal alien enemy. Build up your bases, prepare your team, and dive head-first into the fast and flowing turn-based combat. The UFO:AI development team is proud to announce the release of UFO:Alien Invasion Version 2.2 We worked hard on this new stunning version for more than half a year. Now it's here for you to play it."
Interoperability Wine 0.9.53 released Version 0.9.53 of Wine has been announced. Changes include: "RunOnce and Run entries now executed on startup, Beginnings of support for emulated disk devices, Many Richedit improvements, Nicer looking color dialog and Lots of bug fixes."
Web Browsers Lobo Browser: 0.97.5 Released (SourceForge) Version 0.97.5 of Lobo Browser has been announced. "Lobo is an open source web browser that is written entirely in Java. It is being developed with the aim to support HTML 4, Javascript and CSS2. The general goal of the project is to produce a browser that is fast, easy to extend, secure and feature-rich. Lobo is being released along with its pure Java rendering engine, Cobra. Version 0.97.5 introduces a BrowserPanel class, improved float layout and many bug fixes. Several patches contributed by user guenze are also included with this release."
Mozilla Links Newsletter The January 10, 2008 edition of the Mozilla Links Newsletter is online, take a look for the latest news about the Mozilla browser and related projects.
Miscellaneous wfyd: 0.5 released (SourceForge) Version 0.5 of wfyd has been announced. The software is a: "Minimalistic time tracking program with nag capabilities. After more than two years of inactivity, wfyd project has moved to SourceForge.net. New release contains some small bug fixes."
Languages and Tools C GCC 4.3.0 Status Report (2008-01-11) The January 11, 2008 edition of the GCC 4.3.0 Status Report has been published. "We are in Stage 3. When we reach 100 open regressions, we will go to regression-only mode. When we approach the 4.3.0 release, we will create a branch, and open Stage 1 for 4.4.0."
Caml Caml Weekly News The January 15, 2008 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new articles about the Caml language.
Lisp ECL 0.9i released Version 0.9i of Embeddable Common Lisp is available. "This version fixes a lot of bugs and contains some improvements, such as finalization, an implementation of serve-event, and condition variables."
SBCL 1.0.13 released Version 1.0.13 of Steel Bank Common Lisp (SBCL) has been released. "This version speeds up sequence functions, supports executing external programs with Unicode input/output, and fixes many bugs."
Perl This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl) The December 30, 2007 to January 5, 2008 edition of This Week on perl5-porters is out with the latest Perl 5 news.
Shells Announcing fish 1.23.0 Version 1.23.0 of fish, the friendly interactive shell, has been released. Changes include: "Case insesitive tab completions: If no completions can be found with an exact case match, fish attempts to use case insensitive matching as a fall back. Better navigation in multi line commands. The up/down keys are now used to move up and down in a multi line command. They are still used to search the history when used to go 'beyond the end'. A new key binding system that makes it very easy to edit the key bindings interactively, new binding modes are written in shell script."
IDEs XPL Editor 0.0.4 released (SourceForge) Version 0.0.4 of XPL editor has been announced. "The XPL editor is an RCP Eclipse application based on the eXtensible Presentation Language, an xml-based presentation language built on top of Visual Design Patterns."
Libraries libfishsound 0.9.0 released Version 0.9.0 of libfishsound, an interface for decoding and encoding audio data using Xiph.Org codecs, has been announced. "This release introduces support for the FLAC lossless audio codec, originally contributed by Tobias Gehrig."
liboggz 0.9.6 released Version 0.9.6 of liboggz, an interface for reading and writing ogg streams, is available. "This release adds a new oggz-comment tool, and improvements to liboggz's determination of timestamps and seeking. Specifically, liboggz now inspects the encoded data in order reconstruct the expected granulepos (corresponding to a timestamp) for every packet in an Ogg stream. This allows applications to use reliable timestamps, even though these are only sparsely recorded in most Ogg streams."
Version Control git version 1.5.4-rc3 released Version 1.5.4-rc3 of the git distributed version control system has been announced. "In any case, we managed to keep the changes only to fixes (both code and documentation) this round, aside from the promised gitk i18n enhancements. This should be pretty much the same as what we will have in final, hopefully due by the end of the month. Please give it a good beating."
Push Me Pull You 0.2 announced Technical preview release version 0.2 of Push Me Pull You, a GUI for distributed revision control systems, is available. "PMPU supports plain hg, hg forest repositories, bzr, git and darcs asunderlying repositories. It aims to provide a powerful graphical interface to the underlying functionality, based around the workflow of incoming and outgoing changesets. PMPU is implemented in Python and PyQt4 and is tested on Linux, though it should work on other Unix platforms."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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