Advertisement
Front, Kernel, Security, Distributions, Development. See your byline here on LWN.net.
LWN Weekly Edition
Front pageSecurity
Kernel development
Distributions
Development
Linux in the news
Announcements
->One big page
This page
Previous weekFollowing week
| |||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||
DevelopmentMercurial 1.1 - a major feature release The Mercurial project is described as: "a fast, lightweight Source Control Management system designed for efficient handling of very large distributed projects." The Major Features document presents an overview of Mercurial's capabilities and Understanding Mercurial explains how Mercurial works as a distributed source control system. Mercurial version 1.1 was announced this week: "This is a major release with numerous new features." ![[Mercurial]](/images/ns/MercurialLogo.png)
The What's New document explains the many changes that were added to Mercurial 1.1. Highlights include a new resolve command for tracking in-progress merges, a new repository format, performance improvements, support for Python 2.6, bug fixes and work on the documentation. The web interface now has a canvas-based repository graph, new themes, improved WSGI compliance, support for the display of nested repositories and other improvements. The Mercurial commands have gone through numerous improvements and extensions, some bugs have also been fixed. Some new extensions have been added to Mercurial 1.1, including a rebase extension for rebasing changesets, a bookmarks extension for providing git-like branches, a zeroconf extension for publishing repositories and an hgcia extension for communicating with CIA. Some of the existing extensions have undergone a variety of improvements. Version 1.2 of the mercurial plugin for the Eclipse IDE was also announced this week. According to Wikipedia, Mercurial was started in 2005 and the software is being used by such high profile projects as Mozilla, OpenSolaris and Xen. This latest release shows that the code continues to undergo active development, and holds an important place in the world of source code control systems.
System Applications Database Software MySQL Server 5.1.30 has been released Version 5.1.30 of MySQL Server has been announced. "We are proud to present to you the MySQL Server 5.1.30 GA release, the first 5.1 production version of the popular open source database. MySQL 5.1.30 is recommended for use on production systems. MySQL 5.1 provides a number of new enhancements including: - Table and index partitioning - Row-based and mixed replication - Built-in job scheduler - Improved XML handling with XPath support - New SQL diagnostic aids and performance utilities - The return of the embedded library (libmysqld)"
Monty on MySQL 5.1 Here's an interesting, detailed posting from Michael "Monty" Widenius on the problematic MySQL 5.1 release. "So what went wrong with MySQL 5.1? This is surprisingly not because our developers don't do a good job. On the contrary we have an excellent dedicated team of developers that are very good in what they are doing. However, even an excellent team can't work if the conditions are not right."
phpMyAdmin: 3.1.0 is released (SourceForge) Version 3.1.0 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 3.1.0. This version has a new setup mechanism and supports BLOBstreaming and the Swekey hardware authentication."
PostgreSQL Weekly News The November 30, 2008 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with the latest PostgreSQL DBMS articles and resources.
SQLite release 3.6.6.2 announced Version 3.6.6.2 of the SQLite DBMS has been announced, some bugs have been fixed.
Embedded Systems BusyBox 1.13.1 and 1.12.3 released Versions 1.13.1 and 1.12.3 of BusyBox, a collection of command line utilities for embedded systems, have been announced. "Bug fix releases. 1.13.1 has fixes for ash, option parsing, id, init, inotifyd, klogd, line editing and modprobe. 1.12.3 has fixes for option parsing and line editing."
Interoperability Samba 3.2.5 is available Stable version 3.2.5 of Samba has been announced, this is a security release. See the Change Log for details.
Networking Tools libnetfilter_conntrack 0.0.98 release Version 0.0.98 of libnetfilter_conntrack has been announced. "libnetfilter_conntrack is a userspace library providing a programming interface (API) to the in-kernel connection tracking state table. This library requires a linux kernel >= 2.6.18. This release includes one major bugfix, a couple of minor fixes, the new attribute group API and cleanups."
Telecom Linux boots on the iPhone The iPhone Linux hackers have announced that they have a rudimentary 2.6 kernel running on iPhone devices, and some iPod Touch devices as well. "This is a rough first draft of the port, and many drivers are still missing, but it's enough that a real alternative operating system is running on the iPhone." It looks like there is a lot of work to do for those who would like to help with this project.
Web Site Development nginx 0.6.33 is available Version 0.6.33 of nginx, a light weight web server, has been announced. Some new capabilities and bug fixes have been added, see the Change Log for details.
Desktop Applications Audio Applications aTunes: 1.11.0 released (SourceForge) Version 1.11.0 of aTunes has been announced. "aTunes is a powerful, full-featured, cross-platform player and manager, with audio cd rip frontend. Currently supported formats are mp3, ogg, wav, wma, flac, mp4, ape, mpc, mac, radio streaming and podcasts. The final version of 1.11.0 has been released. It's mainly focused on fixing bugs and improve current features."
JACK 0.115.6 is available Version 0.115.6 of the JACK Audio Connection Kit is available, the main new feature is support for D-Bus. "D-Bus modifications add optional autodetected support for the D-Bus based server control system. D-Bus is object model that provides IPC mechanism. D-Bus supports autoactivation of objects, thus making it simple and reliable to code a "single instance" application or daemon, and to launch applications and daemons on demand when their services are needed."
SLV2 0.6.2 released Version 0.6.2 of SLV2, a library for accessing LV2 audio plugins, has been announced. "This is a bugfix release. 0.6.1 failed to recognize any LV2 features. Upgrading is strongly recommended. Let us all just pretend that 0.6.1 never existed. 0.6.1 is not to be invited to any parties. It will sit alone for the holidays, cursing haste and drinking alone."
Songbird 1.0 is available Version 1.0 of Songbird has been announced. "We set out to build an open, customizable music player. Today, we’re launching with dozens of integrated services, hundreds of add-ons, and a growing developer community. We’ll be the first to admit that there’s plenty left to do. And, while we’re not ready for everyone, 160k users a month are expressing their vote for an alternative music player. If you think like us, you’ve got huge aspirations and you’re out to change the world. You gotta start somewhere, this is our 1.0."
TimeMachine 0.3.2 released Version 0.3.2 of TimeMachine has been announced, it includes some new features and bug fixes. "I used to always keep a minidisc recorder in my studio running in a mode where when you pressed record it wrote the last 10 seconds of audio to the disk and then caught up to realtime and kept recording. The recorder died and haven't been able to replace it, so this is a simple jack app to do the same job. It has the advantage that it never clips and can be wired to any part of the jack graph."
Data Visualization Veusz 1.2.1 announced Version 1.2.1 of Veusz has been announced, it adds a bug fix. "Veusz is a scientific plotting package. It is written in Python, using PyQt4 for display and user-interfaces, and numpy for handling the numeric data. Veusz is designed to produce publication-ready Postscript/PDF output. The user interface aims to be simple, consistent and powerful. Veusz provides a GUI, command line, embedding and scripting interface (based on Python) to its plotting facilities. It also allows for manipulation and editing of datasets."
Desktop Environments GNOME 2.24.2 released Version 2.24.2 of the GNOME desktop has been announced. "This is the second update to GNOME 2.24. It contains many fixes for important bugs that directly affect our users, documentation updates and also a large number of updated translations. Many thanks to all the contributors who worked hard on delivering those changes in time. We hope it will help people feel better in their daily use of computers!"
GNOME 2.25.2 released Version 2.25.2 of the GNOME desktop environment has been announced. "Early Xmas present! 2.25.2 is here. This is the second development release towards our 2.26 release that will happen in March 2009. By now, development is well under way, and we've already made good progress on some of the goals that we've set ourselves for 2.26 ( http://live.gnome.org/GnomeGoals). Keep up the good work !"
GNOME Software Announcements The following new GNOME software has been announced this week:
KDE 4.2 Beta1 Out for Testing (KDE.News) KDE.News has announced the release of KDE 4.2 Beta1. "Today, the KDE team invites interested testers and reviewers to give KDE 4.2.0-Beta1 a go. The release announcement lists some significant improvements. The purpose of this release is to get feedback from the community, preferably in the form of bugreports on the new bugs.kde.org bugtracker."
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:
Electronics pcb-20081128 snapshot announced Snapshot version 20081128 of PCB, a printed circuit CAD application, has been announced. A number of bugs have been fixed and other improvements have been made.
Games Cyphesis 0.5.18 released Version 0.5.18 of Cyphesis has been announced. "Cyphesis is a small to medium scale server for WorldForge games, with builtin AI. This version includes the demo game Mason which is currently in development. This release is intended for server administrators wishing to run a Mason server and World developers developing new worlds or game systems. Major changes in this version: World data is now fully persistent across crashes and restarts. Lots of bug fixes and performance improvements."
Mail Clients Sylpheed 2.6.0rc announced Version 2.6.0rc of the Sylpheed mail client has been announced. "2.6.0 final is scheduled for release in December. * The backups for configuration files are kept for four generations now. * Only new messages are counted when incorporating from local mbox. * In the folder selection dialog, only folders which are expanded in the folder view are expanded now..."
Multimedia Elisa Media Center 0.5.20 released Version 0.5.20 of Elisa Media Center has been announced. "New features include a mechanism to trust external plugins' integrity when distributed through the plugin repository, and a better integration in Windows. As usual, a bunch of bugs were fixed".
Music Applications Calf Audio Plugin Pack 0.0.17 released Version 0.0.17 of Calf Audio Plugin Pack has been announced, some new capabilities have been added. "Calf is a set of open source instruments and effects for digital audio workstations. Multiple plugin interfaces are supported: LV2, DSSI, JACK (standalone application) and, for slightly outdated hosts, LADSPA."
rakarrack 0.3.0 is released Version 0.3.0 of rakarrack, a guitar effects processor, has been announced. "This is a bug fix version with few improvements."
PianoBooster version 0.5.0 has been released Version 0.5.0 of PianoBooster has been announced. "PianoBooster version 0.5.0 has just been released, this is the first ever release of PianoBooster. If you dabble in music and have a Midi Piano keyboard lying around then give PianoBooster a go as it actually makes sight reading music fun!"
Strasheela 0.9.7 released Version 0.9.7 of Strasheela a constraint-based music composition system, has been announced. "This release improves Strasheela's export of sound synthesis formats. For example, expressive timing of scores can be defined by time shift functions. Predefined MIDI file export now supports also non-note events like continuous controllers (e.g., pitch bend, aftertouch, CC) and a global tempo curve. Additional examples have been added, and further extensions and bug fixes have been made as well."
zynjacku version 2 released Version 2 of zynjacku, a JACK-based, GTK 2.x host for LV2 synths, is out. "In this release: * zynjacku codebase updated to the latest state of LV2 art. Especially, event MIDI port synths are now supported. * The tarball now contains lv2rack - a host for LV2 effect plugins. * Saving/restoring of presets. Does not work for dynparam plugins yet. * LASH support (autodetected at runtime). * Lot of general fixes that should make zynjacku more usable."
Office Applications eGroupware 1.6 released Version 1.6 of eGroupware, a calendar, todo and email sharing utility, has been announced. "The eGroupware project is proud to present the 4th major release since the foundation of the project in 2003." (Thanks to David Greaves).
Office Suites OpenOffice.org Newsletter The November, 2008 edition of the OpenOffice.org Newsletter is out with the latest OO.o office suite articles and events.
Science HDF5 for Python 1.0 is out Version 1.0 of HDF5 for Python has been announced. "HDF5 for Python (h5py) is a general-purpose Python interface to the Hierarchical Data Format library, version 5. HDF5 is a versatile, mature scientific software library designed for the fast, flexible storage of enormous amounts of data."
Video Applications KDE 4 Video Editor Kdenlive Released (KDE.News) KDE.News has a quick look at the 0.7 release of Kdenlive, the first KDE 4 release of the non-linear video editor. "This closes another gap of the free desktop world: a usable open source video editor. Kdenlive has the potential to become the Amarok or K3b of video editors, offering comfort and elegance so far not available in alternative programs. The feature set looks amazingly complete and far exceeds the KDE 3 version already."
Miscellaneous Exomind v0.2 is out Version 0.2 of Exomind has been announced. "Exomind is an experimental Python console and programmatic framework for building decorated graphs and developing open-source intelligence modules and ideas, centered on social network services, search engines and instant messaging."
Languages and Tools C GCC 4.4.0 Status Report The November 27, 2008 edition of the GCC 4.4.0 Status Report has been published. "Trunk is in Stage 4 (regression and documentation fixes mode). GCC 4.4 will be branched when there are no open P1 regressions for 4.4 and the total number of P1, P2 and P3 regressions for 4.4 is 100 or below. Trunk will open for Stage 1 for GCC 4.5 immediately after 4.4 branches, and 4.4.0-rc1 will be made from the branch shortly after branching."
Caml Caml Weekly News The December 2, 2008 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new articles about the Caml language.
Haskell Haskell Communities and Activities Report The November, 2008 edition of the Haskell Communities and Activities Report is online with a new collection of Haskell articles. "This is the 15th edition of the Haskell Communities and Activities Report. There are interesting news on the implementation front, new analysis and transformation tools, many fresh projects, and new developments in established ones. Generic programming is one field that has seen a lot of activity, and you will no doubt identify other recent trends as you go through the report."
JSP Pyjamas 0.4 released Version 0.4 of Pyjamas has been announced. "pyjamas is a stand-alone python to javascript compiler, an AJAX framework / library and a Widget set API."
Perl On the future of Perl 5 Here's an interesting discussion from the "Journal of Ovid" on the usePerl site on the (apparently) declining popularity of the Perl language. "When 5.12 hits we have a chance of winning programmers back, but the language has so much baggage -- both technical and social -- that I don't think it will win anyone back. We're losing because we didn't need marketing when we were the duct tape of the internet and now we sneer at it. We're losing because we rested on our laurels and scoffed at the up-and-comers. We're losing because older programmers ignored the concerns of the younger programmers. We're losing for the same reason that there are still people who object to images on Web pages, much less Flash and Javascript."
Python lockfile 0.4 announced Version 0.4 of lockfile (for Python) has been announced. "The lockfile module exports a FileLock class which provides a simple API for locking files. Unlike the Windows msvcrt.locking function, the Unix fcntl.flock, fcntl.lockf and the deprecated posixfile module, the API is identical across both Unix (including Linux and Mac) and Windows platforms. The lock mechanism relies on the atomic nature of the link (on Unix) and mkdir (On Windows) system calls."
PyAlsaAudio 0.4 released Version 0.4 of PyAlsaAudio, an ALSA wrapper for Python, has been announced. "The list of changes is: - Support for Python 3.0 - API changes: mixers() and Mixer() now take a card index instead of a card name as optional parameter. - Documentation converted to reStructuredText; use Sphinx instead of LaTeX. - added cards() - added PCM.close() - added Mixer.close() - added mixer.getenum()"
urllib3 0.2 announced Version 0.2 of urllib3 has been announced. "What's wrong with urllib and urllib2? There are two critical features missing from the Python standard library: Connection re-using/pooling and file posting. It's not terribly hard to implement these yourself, but it's much easier to use a module that already did the work for you."
Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links The December 3, 2008 edition of the Python-URL! is online with a new collection of Python article links.
Tcl/Tk Tcl-URL! - weekly Tcl news and links The November 26, 2008 edition of the Tcl-URL! is online with new Tcl/Tk articles and resources.
Tcl-URL! - weekly Tcl news and links The December 2, 2008 edition of the Tcl-URL! is online with new Tcl/Tk articles and resources.
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
|||||||||||