Development
The SCons build tool reaches the 1.0 milestone
After a two month release candidate stabilization period, version 1.0 of the SCons build tool has been released. The SCons description states:
SCons is an Open Source software construction toolthat is, a next-generation build tool. Think of SCons as an improved, cross-platform substitute for the classic Make utility with integrated functionality similar to autoconf/automake and compiler caches such as ccache. In short, SCons is an easier, more reliable and faster way to build software.
SCons is being distributed under the MIT license. Steven Knight is the main developer, the rest of the SCons Development team consists of Chad Austin, Charles Crain, Steve Leblanc, Greg Noel, Gary Oberbrunner, Anthony Roach, Greg Spencer and Christoph Wiedemann. The SCons project history is described:
SCons began life as the ScCons build tool design which won the Software Carpentry SC Build competition in August 2000. That design was in turn based on the Cons software construction utility. This project has been renamed SCons to reflect that it is no longer directly connected with Software Carpentry (well, that, and to make it slightly easier to type...).
An SCons document entitled TheBigPicture and the Wikipedia entry explain some of the unique SCons features. These include:
- Designed in a modular fashion.
- Uses Python scripts for configuration files.
- Has automatic dependency analysis features for C, C++ and Fortran.
- Supports many other languages and documentation formats.
- Supports multiple compilers for a given language.
- Provides a global view of all source tree dependencies.
- Uses MD5 signatures for detecting file changes.
- Has built-in support for numerous version control systems.
- Can access a large number of utility tools.
- Operates with a large collection of command line options.
- Integrates with a number of popular IDEs.
- Supports parallel compilation with load control.
- Is user extensible.
- Supports cross-platform operation and project development.
To get an idea where SCons stands in the variety of build tools that are available, the documentation includes a comparison between SCons and other tools. The project's documentation is quite voluminous. The nearly 10,000 line man page is somewhat daunting, it even dwarfs the 8000 line long mplayer man page. Fortunately, the document is available in an indexed html version for easier reading.
![[SCons]](https://static.lwn.net/images/ns/SConslogo.png)
A test installation of SCons 1.0 was tried on an Ubuntu i386 Hardy Heron machine. The code was downloaded, uncompressed and untared, then the following command was executed as root from the source directory: python setup.py install. A test of SCons was performed on a relatively simple C program that prints out the data from a stepped sine wave (sine2hex.c). After plowing through some of the man page and doing a bit of digging through the SCons User Guide, your author succeeded in compiling and linking the program. An SConstruct file was created to describe the project, it consisted of the following line:
Program('sine2hex.c', LIBS = 'm')
Typing scons caused SCons to compile and link the program.
That is, of course, only the tip of the iceberg, but it shows that
the software is not too difficult to get started with.
SCons is being used by a variety of closed and open-source code software projects, the References section lists these and includes user comments about the advantages of switching from other build tools. If you need a next-generation tool for maintaining a large cross-platform project, SCons should be able to do the job.
System Applications
Audio Projects
Rivendell v1.0.0rc6 announced
Version 1.0.0rc6 of Rivendell has been announced, it includes several bug fixes. "Rivendell is a full-featured radio automation system targeted for use in professional broadcast environments. It is available under the GNU General Public License."
Database Software
PostgreSQL Weekly News
The August 24, 2008 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with the latest PostgreSQL DBMS articles and resources.
Embedded Systems
BusyBox 1.12.0 (unstable) and 1.11.2 (stable) released
unstable version 1.12.0 and stable version 1.11.2 of BusyBox, a collection of command line utilities for embedded systems, have been released. The releases contain new features and bug fixes.
Interoperability
Samba 3.0.32 maintenance release announced
Version 3.0.32 of Samba has been announced. "This is the latest bug fix release for Samba 3.0 and is the version recommended for all production Samba servers running this release series."
Samba 3.2.2 is available
Version 3.2.2 of Samba has been announced. "This is the latest bug fix release for Samba 3.2 and is the version recommended for all production Samba servers running this release series."
Networking Tools
Pyro 3.8 released
Version 3.8 of Pyro has been announced, it features bug fixes. "Pyro is an acronym for PYthon Remote Objects. Pyro is an advanced and powerful Distributed Object Technology system written entirely in Python, that is designed to be very easy to use. It is extremely easy to implement a distributed system with Pyro, because all network communication code is abstracted and hidden from your application. You just get a remote Python object and invoke methods on the object on the other machine."
Virtualization Software
Xen 3.3 hypervisor released
Xen.org has sent out a rather long-winded press release announcing the availability of the Xen 3.3 hypervisor. "With a full 64-bit address space, Xen can take advantage of massive amounts of physical memory, including new flash-memory based stores, and Xen's memory ballooning features permit dynamic reallocation of memory between guest Virtual Machines (VMs), to guarantee performance, and permit greater density of VMs per server. Xen 3.3 now offers CPU portability to allow live relocation of VMs across different CPU feature sets, active power optimization, to reduce power consumption on Xen-based servers and maximize data center power savings, and significantly enhanced security." More information is available on Xen.org.
Web Site Development
Midgard 8.09.0 beta1 released
Version 8.09.0 beta1 of the Midgard web content management system has been announced. "Midgard 8.09.0beta1 "Ragnaroek" beta release is the first one released with new releasing policy which focuses on scheduled Midgard releases. Also it's the first one which changes versioning rules used for previous releases. Midgard 8.09 "Ragnaroek" has been designed as a version easing the transition from Midgard 1.x to Midgard 2."
Version 2.3 of mod_wsgi is now available
Version 2.3 of mod_wsgi has been announced. "The mod_wsgi package consists of an Apache web server module designed and implemented specifically for hosting Python based web applications that support the WSGI interface specification. Examples of major Python web frameworks and applications which are known to work in conjunction with mod_wsgi include CherryPy, Django, MoinMoin, Pylons, Trac, TurboGears, Werkzeug and Zope. Version 2.3 of mod_wsgi is a bug fix update."
Quixote 1.3 released
Version 1.3 the Quixote web development platform of has been announced. "There is a new maintenance release of Quixote 1 available. The major improvement is PTL compatibility with Python 2.5 (thanks to Jon Corbet). I also backported some fixes from the 2.x branch."
Tinyproxy 1.6.4 is now available
Stable version 1.6.4 of Tinyproxy has been announced. "Tinyproxy is a light-weight HTTP proxy daemon for POSIX operating systems distributed under the GNU GPL license. A new Tinyproxy release 1.6.4 (stable) is now available after a period of nearly 4 years without any releases."
TurtolCMS: version 0.6 available (SourceForge)
Version 0.6 of TurtolCMS has been announced. "TurtolCMS is a web-based website builder, Content Management System and Web Application Platform which runs under Apache and mod_python. TurtolCMS's editing is done client-side on the web pages you're viewing, not in a separate admin interface. This is the first release since the breakup of Turtol, and the TurtolCMS is now under new management."
Desktop Applications
Audio Applications
Ecasound 2.5.2 released
Version 2.5.2 of Ecasound, a command line audio processing utility, has been announced. "Bug in channel routing of LADSPA plugins that have more audio output ports than input ports has been fixed."
Jokosher August Update
The Jokosher August Update details the latest news from the Jokosher audio editor project. Jokosher 0.10 should be released soon.
Business Applications
pyspread 0.0.9 released
Version 0.0.9 of pyspread has been announced, it includes some new capabilities and bug fixes. "pyspread is a spreadsheet that accepts a pure python expression in each cell."
YaMA 1.4 released
Version 1.4 of YaMA has been announced. Changes include usability and interoperability enhancements, bug fixes and new export/import capabilities. "Yet Another Meeting Assistant (YaMA), will help you with the Agenda, Meeting Invitations, Minutes of a Meeting as well as Action Items. If you are the assigned minute taker at any meeting, this tool is for you."
CAD
jCAE: 0.16 released (SourceForge)
Version 0.16 of jCAE has been announced. "jCAE is a JAVA based environment for CAE applications. It provides meshing and visualization capabilities. It is targeted to run on a maximal number of platform. jCAE 0.16 has just been released. Most of the work was spent into the migration to VTK which allowed to close some longstanding bugs and feature requests."
Data Visualization
yPlot 1.2.0 has been released
Version 1.2.0 of yPlot has been announced. "Yorick is a high-level scientific programming language that is easy to learn, and yplot is a Yorick extension that gives Yorick users access to the PLplot library for their plotting needs. The principal changes for the yplot-1.2.0 release are it has been updated to work with yorick-2.1.05 (the standard yorick version deployed, for example, on all modern versions of Debian and Ubuntu), a new CMake-based build system has been deployed, and as a result an ordinary autoloaded yplot extension to yorick is built rather than the special yplot and yplotl executables of the past."
Desktop Environments
GNOME 2.24.0 Beta 1 (2.23.90) Released
The first beta of GNOME 2.24.0 has been released. "You all know what you have to do now. Go download it. Go compile it. Go test it. And go hack on it, document it, translate it, fix it."
GNOME Software Announcements
The following new GNOME software has been announced this week:- GNOME Utilities 2.23.90 (bug fixes and translation work)
- gnoMint 0.5.0 (new features and bug fixes)
- gnoMint 0.5.1 (new features and bug fixes)
- MonoOSC (initial release)
- PyGTK 2.13.0 (new features and bug fixes)
- Tomboy 0.11.3 (build fix)
KDE 3.5.10 announced
Version 3.5.10 of KDE has been announced. "The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of KDE 3.5.10, a maintenance release for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop for GNU/Linux and other UNIXes. KDE 3.5.10 sports changes in Kicker, the KDE3 panel and KPDF, the PDF viewer."
KDE Commit-Digest (KDE.News)
The August 10, 2008 edition of the KDE Commit-Digest has been announced. The content summary says: "Google Gadgets for Plasma support moves into kdebase. "Places" engine gets service support, and a new "Leave Message" Plasmoid for use with the Plasmoids-on-Screensaver project. More work on the "Weather" Plasmoid and "grouping taskbar", and an initial version of a menu applet for small form-factors, and a new applet to visualise the size of an IceCream compilation cluster. Work on the URL and breadcrumb navigator, and the "capacity bar" in Dolphin..."
KDE Software Announcements
The following new KDE software has been announced this week:- Amarok 1.4.10 (security fix)
- KDE3TO4 0.0.4 (new feature)
- KNDISWrapper 0.3.1 (new feature)
- KNDISWrapper 0.3.2 (bug fixes)
- Nerrivik Beta 1 of Amarok 2.0 (first beta of new major release)
- OSM-TileDownload 0.0.0.6 (new features)
- SMILE 0.7.3 (new features and bug fixes)
- Twinkle 1.3.1 (new features, bug fixes and translation work)
Xorg Software Announcements
The following new Xorg software has been announced this week:- libXau 1.0.4 (bug fixes)
- xf86-video-nv 2.1.11 (new features and bug fixes)
Electronics
GNU Radio release 3.1.3 available for download
Version 3.1.3 of GNU Radio, a software programmable radio system, has been announced. "Release 3.1.3 is a feature and maintenance release, incorporating numerous bug fixes and new functionality."
Kicad 2008-08-25 released
Release 2008-08-25 of Kicad, a printed circuit CAD application, is available. The change log file has not yet been updated.
Financial Applications
Expense Submittal System 6.1.1 released (SourceForge)
Version 6.1.1 of ESS has been announced. "The Expense Submittal System (ESS) 6.1.1, Web-based expense reporting software, now allows scanned receipt files to be attached to a report. This feature allows for the creation of a paperless environment."
LedgerSMB 1.2.15 security release
LedgerSMB users may want to look at installing the just-announced 1.2.15 release. "This version corrects a number of important bugs including two critical security issues. We will be releasing a separate security advisory within a week."
Graphics
Mesa3D: Mesa 7.1 released (SourceForge)
Version 7.1 of Mesa, an implementation of the OpenGL API, has been announced. "This is a new development release."
Interoperability
Wine 1.1.3 announced
Version 1.1.3 of Wine has been announced. Changes include: "Beginnings of ddraw overlay support, Many more crypt32 functions, Improved support for tables in Richedit, Support for NETWM window maximization, Many installer fixes, Tweaks for better PulseAudio support and Various bug fixes."
Multimedia
Elisa Media Center 0.5.7 released
Version 0.5.7 of Elisa Media Center has been announced. "This release fixes a handful of bugs and enhances the current user experience with the following new features..."
Music Applications
Amuc 1.7 released
Version 1.7 of Amuc has been announced. "Amuc (the Amsterdam Music Composer) is an audio application for composing and playing music. With this version it is more or less loosing its innocence ... Amuc now interfaces with Jack, and text and graphics are neatly anti-alias'ed. What has remained is its speedy operation."
LMMS: 0.4.0 Beta2 released (SourceForge)
Version 0.4.0 Beta2 of LMMS has been announced. "LMMS (Linux MultiMedia Studio) is a complete suite for digital music-production under Linux. It provides software-synthesizers, samples, full MIDI-support, FX-mixer, event-automation and much more. LMMS 0.4.0 Beta2 fixes some critical issues found in 0.4.0 Beta1."
Strasheela 0.9.6 released
Version 0.9.6 of Strasheela has been announced. "Strasheela is a highly expressive constraint-based music composition system. Users declaratively state a music theory and the computer generates music which complies with this theory. A theory is formulated as a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) by a set of rules (constraints) applied to a music representation in which some aspects are expressed by variables (unknowns). Music constraint programming is style-independent and is well-suited for highly complex theories (e.g. a fully-fledged theory of harmony). Results can be output into various formats including MIDI, Lilypond, and Csound. This release supports new techniques for constraining the musical form, and demonstrates them in examples..."
Office Suites
KOffice Summer of Code Ends (KDE.News)
KDE.news looks at the KOffice projects that were part of the Google Summer of Code. "Our choice of projects in 2008 was dictated less by a desire for flashiness - rather we were determined to choose those projects most likely to add solid worth to KOffice. Additionally, life was somewhat easier for our students than last year, when both KOffice and KDE were still under heavy development and every Monday was basically spent on getting the latest binary and source incompatible changes incorporated. This year, only KOffice was a rapidly moving target! And next year, we'll have reached the coding nirvana of feature development against a stable foundation."
Speech Software
Web Browsers
Ubiquity from Mozilla Labs
Mozilla Labs has announced the first release (an "early experimental prototype") of "Ubiquity," a Firefox plugin intended to add a high-level command-line language to the browser. The best place to see what Ubiquity is trying to do may be the Ubiquity user tutorial. "Let's say I've found an interesting fact on a web page and I want to send it to Chris. I can select part of the page, including links, pictures, and anything else, and then issue 'email this to chris'. Ubiquity understands 'this' to refer to my selection."
Languages and Tools
C
GCC 4.4.0 Status Report
The August 22, 2008 edition of the GCC 4.4.0 Status Report has been published. "The end of stage1 for GCC 4.4 is approaching fast, you have about one week left to incorporate major changes into GCC for the next release. There are still two major projects scheduled for merging, the Integrated Register Allocator branch and the GRAPHITE branch. Please make sure to help reviewing the last bits of these branches to help them being merged in time."
Caml
Caml Weekly News
The July 15-22, 2008 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new articles about the Caml language.
Perl
Perl 6 features show off (for perl 5 programmers) (use Perl)
use Perl mentions the availability a new article series on Perl 6. "moritz writes "In a Series of blog posts I try to show how cool Perl 6 really is, and why some of the design choices where made the way they are now. The target audience are Perl 5 programmers. It is build like a tutorial, but strongly emphasizes the "why"."
Python
Python 2.6b3 and 3.0b3 announced
Versions 2.6b3 and 3.0b3 of Python have been announced. "Please note that these are beta releases, and as such are not suitable for production environments. We continue to strive for a high degree of quality, and these releases are intended to freeze the feature set for Python 2.6 and 3.0. As these are the last planned beta releases, we strongly urge you to download these releases and test them against your code. Once we reach release candidates (currently planned for 03-Sep-2008), only highly critical bugs will be fixed before the final release."
mpmath 0.9 released
Version 0.9 of mpmath has been announced. "Mpmath is a pure-Python library for arbitrary-precision floating-point arithmetic that implements an extensive set of mathematical functions. It can be used as a standalone library or via SymPy. The most significant change in 0.9 is that mpmath now transparently uses GMPY integers instead of Python's builtin integers if GMPY is installed. This makes mpmath much faster at high precision. Computing 1 million digits of pi, for example, now only takes ~10 seconds."
Pyrex 0.9.8.5 released
Version 0.9.8.5 of Pyrex has been announced, it includes minor bug fixes and improvements. "Pyrex is a language for writing Python extension modules. It lets you freely mix operations on Python and C data, with all Python reference counting and error checking handled automatically."
Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links
The August 26, 2008 edition of the Python-URL! is online with a new collection of Python article links.
Editors
Emacs 22.2.91 pretest announced
Pretest version 22.2.91 of the Emacs editor has been announced. "This is the second pretest for Emacs 22.3, which will be a bugfix release."
IDEs
Pydev 1.3.20 released
Version 1.3.20 of Pydev, an Eclipse plugin for Python and Jython development, has been announced. This release includes new features and bug fixes.
Libraries
The VXL Project: vxl 1.11 released (SourceForge)
Version 1.11 of VXL has been announced. "The VXL consortium (including some of the world's top computer vision research groups and companies) is proud to announce the release of VXL 1.11. VXL is a set of multi-platform C++ libraries for computer vision research and deployment."
Test Suites
Linux Desktop Testing Project 1.3.0 released
Version 1.3.0 of the Linux Desktop Testing Project has been announced. "This release features number of important breakthroughs in LDTP as well as in the field of Test Automation. This release note covers a brief introduction on LDTP followed by the list of new features and major bug fixes which makes this new version of LDTP the best of the breed."
Version Control
Bazaar 1.6 released
Version 1.6 of the Bazaar version control system has been announced. "This release includes new features like Stacked Branches, improved weave merge, and an updated server protocol (now on v3) which will allow for better cross version compatibility. With this release we have deprecated Knit format repositories, and recommend that users upgrade them, we will continue to support reading and writing them for the foreseeable future, but we will not be tuning them for performance as pack repositories have proven to be better at scaling."
Miscellaneous
Pygments 0.11 released
Version 0.11 of Pygments, a generic syntax highlighter written in Python, has been announced. Changes include many new and improved lexers, bug fixes and more.
Page editor: Forrest Cook
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