Development
FFADO approaches the 2.0 release
The FFADO (Free Firewire Audio Drivers) project allows the support of FireWire (IEEE 1394) audio devices under Linux:
The
About document explains
further:
"We try to support any FireWire device available out there. The FFADO codebase is a framework that has been built with this in mind. This however doesn't mean that all FireWire devices work with FFADO. In order to support a device, we need cooperation from manufacturers, or somebody that want[]s to reverse engineer the protocol.
Luckily we have support from the manufacturers of the three major platforms vendors build their devices around (BridgeCo, TC Applied Technologies and ECHO). The exact devices supported (or not supported) can be found on our
device list.
"
![[FFADO]](https://static.lwn.net/images/ns/FFADO.png)
Release candidate 1 of FFADO 2.0 was
announced
this week:
"This release candidate is intended to collect feedback about
the library under wide-spread usage. The code should be free of major
bugs. We are looking for packagers that are interested in creating
packages for their favorite distribution. Please contact us if you
can help us out with this.
"
Users of FreeBoB are encouraged to try this release out.
The full change Log shows the latest changes to the software, most of the work involves bug fixing. The feature list is also found there. Capabilities include:
- Support for an unlimited number of 24-bit audio I/O channels.
- Support for all device sample rates.
- Support for an unlimited number of MIDI I/O channels.
- Support for the S/PDIF audio interface format.
- Support for the ADAT SMUX I/O format.
- Support for external synchronization.
- Support for internal mixers and other device controls.
- Support for device aggregation on an externally synced bus.
If your favorite application requires FireWire support, or you need to migrate away from the unsupported FreeBoB library, now would be a good time to give FFADO a try.
System Applications
Database Software
PostgreSQL Weekly News
The November 23, 2008 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with the latest PostgreSQL DBMS articles and resources.SQLite release 3.6.6.1 announced
Release 3.6.6.1 of SQLite, a light weight DBMS, has been announced. "Changes associated with this release include the following: * Fix a bug in the page cache that can lead database corruption following a rollback. This bug was first introduced in version 3.6.4. * Two other very minor bug fixes".
Filesystem Utilities
e2compr for linux-2.6.27.5 announced (SourceForge)
A new version ofe2compr has been announced. "The linux e2compr package consists of a set of patches and utilities to provide transparent compression and decompression in the second extended (ext2) filesystem. e2compr patch with minimal changes for linux-2.6.27.5 released."
pam_mount: 1.4 released (SourceForge)
Version 1.4 of pam_mount has been announced. "pam_mount is a Pluggable Authentication Module that can mount volumes for a user session (login). Supports mounting local filesystems of any kind the normal mount utility supports, with extra code to better support CIFS, FUSE, various crypto, and more.This release contains a few LUKS regression fixes."
Web Site Development
Django 1.0.2 released
Version 1.0.2 of the Django web development platform has been announced. "Shortly after last week's Django 1.0.1 release, several people noted that the packaging script used to produce the release omitted several directories from the Django source tree; mostly this affected some unit tests, but at least one of the omitted directories affected the use of Django itself (specifically, of django.contrib.gis). So tonight we're issuing Django 1.0.2, which is built around an updated packaging script and should resolve these problems."
Gallery 1.5.10 and 1.6-RC3 Released - Last G1 Releases from (SourceForge)
Versions 1.5.10 and 1.6-RC3 of Gallery have been announced. "Gallery is a slick Web-based photo album written using PHP. It is easy to install, includes a config wizard, and provides users with the ability to create and maintain their own albums in the album collection via an intuitive Web interface. Photo management includes automatic thumbnail creation, image resizing, rotation, ordering, captioning and more. Albums can have read, write, and caption permissions per individual authenticated user for an additional level of privacy. Gallery 1.5.10 and Gallery 1.6-RC3 are now available for download. These releases fix one security issue and a handful of other small issues. These releases are also the last official releases of Gallery 1 from the Gallery project."
nginx 0.6.33 is available
Version 0.6.33 of nginx, a light weight web server, has been announced. This release includes numerous bug fixes and glibc 2.3 support. See the CHANGES document for details.Xoops Cube Project: Package_Legacy 2.1.6 released (SourceForge)
Version 2.1.6 of Xoops Cube has been announced. "XOOPS Cube is an open-source content management system which allows webmasters to create dynamic content websites with great ease.It is an ideal tool for developing small to large community websites, intranet portals, corporate websites and many more. Thank you for your testing. Here's the latest maintenance release for the v2.1 stable, since it has finished RC schedule. It has a number of bugfixes which we recommend you update."
Miscellaneous
Free-SA: 1.5.0 (SourceForge)
Version 1.5.0 of Free-SA has been announced, it adds numerous enhancements. "Free-SA is statistic analyzer for daemons log files similar to SARG. Its main advantages over SARG are much better speed (7x-20x times), more reports support, crossplatform work and W3C compliance of generated HTML/CSS reports code."
Desktop Applications
Audio Applications
Ardour 2.7 released
Version 2.7 of Ardour, a multi-track audio editor, has been announced. "This release is dominated by dramatic improvements in OS X GUI performance and startup time, but it also contains a lot of significant bug fixes. However, somewhat to my surprise, Ardour also accumulated quite a lot of nice new features since 2.6.1 as you can see below."
Early release of jackctlmmc announced
An early release of jackctlmmc has been announced. "We'd like to announce a new release of jackctlmmc, a command line tool for driving JACK transport using Midi Machine Code".
BitTorrent Applications
Azureus: Vuze 4.0.0.4 released (SourceForge)
Version 4.0.0.4 of Azureus: Vuze has been announced, it includes several new capabilities and bug fixes. "Azureus: Vuze is a powerful, full-featured, cross-platform bittorrent client and open content platform. Weve just released Vuze 4.0 for users of Classic Azureus."
Desktop Environments
GNOME Software Announcements
The following new GNOME software has been announced this week:- Anjuta 2.24.2 (bug fixes and translation work)
- bug-buddy 2.24.2 (bug fix and translation work)
- Cheese 2.24.2 (new features, bug fixes and translation work)
- Deskbar-Applet 2.24.2 (bug fixes and translation work)
- Evince 2.24.2 (bug fixes and translation work)
- Eye of GNOME 2.24.2 (bug fixes and translation work)
- Gcalctool 5.24.2 (bug fixes and translation work)
- GLib 2.18.3 (bug fixes and translation work)
- gnome-applets 2.24.2 (bug fix, documentation and translation work)
- Gnome Games 2.24.2 (bug fixes and translation work)
- GObject-Introspection 0.6.1 (new features and bug fixes)
- GTK+ 2.14.5 (bug fixes and translation work)
- GtkImageView 1.6.3 (unspecified)
- gtkmm-utils 0.4.0 (new features)
- IcedTea 1.8 (new features and bug fixes)
- librep 0.17.2 (new features, bug fixes and code cleanup)
- libspectre 0.2.2 (bug fixes)
- LibUnique 1.0.4 (bug fixes)
- libxklavier 3.8 (new feature)
- metacity 2.25.8 (bug fixes and translation work)
- metacity 2.25.13 (new feature, bug fixes and translation work)
- mousetweaks 2.24.2 (bug fixes and translation work)
- Nemiver 0.6.4 (bug fixes and translation work)
- Orca 2.24.2 (bug fixes and translation work)
- rep-gtk 0.18.3 (bug fixes)
KDE Software Announcements
The following new KDE software has been announced this week:- Amarok 2.0 RC 1 (new features and bug fixes)
- Amarok Scripts:
- Austrian Radio Streams Service 0.1 (initial release)
- Bulgarian Radio Stations Script 1.0 (initial release)
- Danish Radio Streams Service 0.1 (initial release)
- Free Music Charts 1.1.1 (update for latest Amarok)
- German Radio Streams Service 0.1 (initial release)
- Radio Sweden 0.1 (initial release)
- Serbian Radio Streams Service 0.1 (initial release)
- dictconv-tool 0.1 (initial release)
- Fresh Memory 0.4-alpha (new features)
- FunEyes 1.0 Beta 2 (initial release)
- Firewall Builder 3.0.2 (new features, bug fixes and performance improvements)
- Ksshaskpass 0.5.0 (port to KDE 4)
- LilyKDE 0.6.6 (minor improvements and translation work)
- MDic Dictionary 0.6.3 (new features and bug fixes)
- Opeke 0.3.1 (bug fix)
- QTrans 0.2.1 (change from KHtml to QtWebKit)
- Soprano 2.1.64 (bug fixes and code cleanup)
- Start KeyJNote presentation 0.1 (initial release)
- Valknut 0.3.22 / 0.4.8 (bug fixes and other improvements)
- Zhu3D 4.1.6 (new features, bug fixes and code cleanup)
Xorg Software Announcements
The following new Xorg software has been announced this week:- xcb-util 0.3.1 (new features and bug fixes)
- xorg-server 1.5.99.1 (first beta release on the 1.6 branch, many changes)
Desktop Publishing
Asymptote: 1.52 released (SourceForge)
Version 1.52 of Asymptote has been announced, it adds some new functionality. "Asymptote is a powerful descriptive vector graphics language for technical drawing, inspired by MetaPost but with an improved C++-like syntax. Asymptote provides for figures the same high-quality level of typesetting that LaTeX does for scientific text."
pdftools.pdfposter 0.4.5
Version 0.4.5 of pdftools.pdfposter, a tool to scale and tile PDF images/pages for printing on multiple pages, has been announced. "Starting with version 0.4.5, the package was renamed to 'pdftools.pdfposter'. This will allow integrating some other tools (pdfnup, pdfsplit, etc.) into a larger toolset somewhen."
Educational Software
SchoolTool 1.0 beta released
Version 1.0 beta of SchoolTool has been announced. "The international SchoolTool development team and the Shuttleworth Foundation are proud to announce the release of SchoolTool 1.0 beta, a web-based open source student information system and calendar server for primary and secondary schools around the world. This beta release includes all the major components that will be included in the April 2009 release of SchoolTool 1.0: student demographics, attendance, gradebook, calendaring and reporting. Future releases adding competency tracking and disciplinary intervention management modules are being tested at partner schools now."
Financial Applications
LedgerSMB 1.2.17 released
Version 1.2.17 of LedgerSMB has been announced. "1.2.17 has been released and includes a few more fixes for Perl 5.10.0 users, as well as a number of general bug fixes. Three of the bug fixes have come from a new contributor (Sadashiva), highlighting the growing community of LedgerSMB developers."
Graphics
G3D Engine: 7.01 Released (SourceForge)
Version 7.01 of G3D Engine, a 3D graphics library for game developers, researchers, and students, has been announced. "Major highlights of this release include: * Video input and output * Extended developer tools and GUI * Parallax bump mapping for SuperShader * Minor feature extensions and documentation on all classes".
Interoperability
Wine 1.1.9 announced
Version 1.1.9 of Wine has been announced. Changes include: "A large number of regression test fixes. Performance improvements in memory management. Improved POP3 support in inetcomm. Initial implementation of the XInput DLL. Various bug fixes."
Mail Clients
Sylpheed 2.6.0beta2 (development) released
Version 2.6.0beta2 of Sylpheed, a mail client, has been announced. Changes include: "The menu was added to the remote POP3 mailbox window. The sorting of remote POP3 mailbox was fixed. The remote POP3 mailbox button was added to the toolbar. The Japanese manual was updated. Warnings about --datarootdir on configure were removed."
Multimedia
Elisa Media Center 0.5.19 Release
Version 0.5.19 of Elisa Media Center has been announced. "Among other things, this release features updated French translations and important bug fixes for the plugins system."
Music Applications
guitarix third release announced
The third release of guitarix has been announced, it adds some new capabilities and code cleanup. "guitarix is a simple Linux Rock Guitar amplifier for jack (Jack Audio Connektion Kit) with one input and two outputs. Designed to get nice thrash/metal/rock/blues guitar sounds. There are controls for bass, treble, gain, preamp, balance, distortion, freeverb, impulse response (), crybaby (wah) and echo. A fixed resonator will be used when distortion is disabled. For 'pressure' in the sound you can use the feedback and feedforward sliders."
Office Suites
KOffice 2.0 Beta 3 released (KDE.News)
Version 2.0 Beta 3 of KOffice has been announced. "The KOffice Team has announced the release of KOffice version 2.0 Beta 3, the third beta version of the upcoming version 2.0. The goal for the third beta is to show progress made since beta 2, as well as to gather feedback from both users and developers on the new UI and underlying infrastructure. This will allow the team to release a basically usable 2.0 release, demonstrating our vision for the future of the digital office to a larger audience and attract new contributions both in terms of code and ideas for improvements."
Languages and Tools
Assembly Language
CorePy 1.0 released
Version 1.0 of CorePy has been announced. "CorePy is a complete system for developing machine-level programs in Python. CorePy lets developers build and execute assembly-level programs interactively from the Python command prompt, embed them directly in Python applications, or export them to standard assembly languages. CorePy's straightforward APIs enable the creation of complex, high-performance applications that take advantage of processor features usually inaccessible from high-level scripting languages, such as multi-core execution and vector instruction sets (SSE, VMX, SPU)."
Caml
Caml Weekly News
The November 25, 2008 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new articles about the Caml language.
Eiffel
Gobo Eiffel Project: 3.9 released (SourceForge)
Version 3.9 of Gobo Eiffel Project has been announced. "The Gobo Eiffel Project provides the Eiffel community with free and portable Eiffel tools and libraries. This version should work with the forthcoming release of ISE's EiffelStudio 6.3."
Java
[fleXive]: 3.0.1 released (SourceForge)
Version 3.0.1 of [fleXive] has been announced. "[fleXive] is a Java EE 5 framework that provides an enterprise-level persistence engine with security and versioning, a SQL-like query language, a JSF-based web administration and reusable JSF components for integration into existing applications. [fleXive] 3.0.1, the first bugfix release for [fleXive] 3.0, has been released. It contains important bugfixes for our last release, and keeps binary compatibility with 3.0.0."
Perl
This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)
The November 3-9, 2008 edition of This Week on perl5-porters is out with the latest Perl 5 news.
Python
PyEnchant 1.5.0 released
Version 1.5.0 of PyEnchant has been announced. "Enchant is the spellchecking package behind the AbiWord word processor, is being considered for inclusion in the KDE office suite, and is proposed as a FreeDesktop.org standard. It's completely cross-platform because it wraps the native spellchecking engine to provide a uniform interface. PyEnchant brings this simple, powerful and flexible spellchecking engine to Python".
Python 3.0rc3 is available
Version 3.0rc3 of Python has been announced. "This is a release candidate, so while it is not quite suitable for production environments, we strongly encourage you to download and test this release on your software. We expect only critical bugs to be fixed between now and the final release, currently planned for 03-Dec-2008."
Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links
The November 24, 2008 edition of the Python-URL! is online with a new collection of Python article links.Sphinx 0.5 released
Version 0.5 of Sphinx has been announced, it adds a number of new capabilities. "Sphinx is a tool that makes it easy to create intelligent and beautiful documentation for Python projects (or other documents consisting of multiple reStructuredText source files)."
Tcl/Tk
Fltk for Tcl/Tk 1.0
Fltk for Tcl/Tk 1.0 has been announced. "Tcl/Fltk Version 1.0 is a production ready release of this extension package that runs on Linux and Windows platforms. The current release has been extended with several additional mega-widgets that make application development even easier and faster. Some widgets have been enhanced to support use on touch screen platforms such as hand-helds like the Openmoko Freerunner. The internal design of this package has been modified to improve performance and to eliminate some issues related to platform GUI differences such as differing X server implementations. The package itself is now provided as an RPM or DEB archive, and also as an IPK archive for use on the Freerunner."
IDEs
CodeLite: v1.0.2419 is available (SourceForge)
Version 1.0.2419 of CodeLite has been announced. "CodeLite is a powerful open-source, cross platform IDE for the C/C++ programming languages (regularly tested under Windows XP SP2/3, (K)Ubuntu 7.10/8.04 Gutsy Gibbon, and MacOSX 10.5.2). CodeLite is distributed under the terms of the GPL license v2."
Miscellaneous
Gforth 0.7.0 released
Version 0.7.0 of Gforth, an implementation of ANS Forth, has been announced. "Many new Forth200x features have been added. This release has Unicode support, a new C library interface (requires GCC at runtime), and a number of added libraries. The compilation process now produces good performance automatically (when possible). The license has been changed to the GPLv3 (or later)."
Pygments 1.0 released
Version 1.0 of Pygments, a generic syntax highlighter written in Python, has been announced. "Many thanks go to Tim Hatch for writing or integrating many of the bug fixes and new features in this release. Of course, thanks to all other contributors too!"
Page editor: Forrest Cook
Next page:
Linux in the news>>