Development

Updates to the File Hierarchy Standard

A new revision of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) (PDF) has been published by the Filesystem Hierarchy Group.

Through its history, those who built the various flavors of Unix have placed standard files in varying, system-specific locations. To a lesser degree, the same problem has also occurred with the numerous Linux distributions. Adherence to the FHS by Linux distribution architects has made life much easier for system administrators, end users, and software developers.

The FHS categorizes of files with two attributes, shareable/unshareable and static/variable. Standard directories are then categorized according to the attributes of the files within. In traditional UNIX implementations, directories often contained files and subdirectories with all of these attribute combinations. By strictly grouping the directory contents according to attributes, the sharing of common directories between systems, and the protection of site-specific data, is simplified.

This version of the standard proposes the creation of two new top-level directories, /srv and /media. The proposal for /srv defines the top-level directory as being used for data generated by users for the services the system offers. This would include, for example, ftp, www, and CVS repositories.

The /media proposal suggests the creation of a top-level directory which contains mount points for removable media such as:

/media/cdrom
/media/cdrecorder
/media/floppy
/media/zip

The commonly used directory /mnt would then be restricted to use by the systems administrator for temporary mount points.

While the hammering out of such standards is likely to cause a lot of lively discussion, the benefits of filesystem standardization by the majority of Linux distributions is indeed great.

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Speex 1.1.2 Released

Version 1.1.2 of Speex, an audio CODEC that's designed for speech, has been released. "This new unstable release improves on the fixed-point port started in 1.1.1. The port is not yet complete, but many modes are now usable in real-time on ARM processors."

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Firebird V1.5 RC7 builds are available

Version 1.5 RC7 of the Firebird database is available. "The development of Firebird 1.5 release is in final development stage! The Release Candidate means that we're "almost there", and we turned our focus to remaining known issues and rough edges, final testing and bug squashing. We made a lot of progress with it thanks to your feedback. The seventh Release Candidate should become the final release, so we are eager to hear about your experience (good or bad) with it."

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PostgreSQL v7.4 RC2 is available

Version 7.4 RC2 of the PostgreSQL database is available. "As we are in the home stretch of a full release, we encourage as many as possible to test and report any bugs they can find, whether as part of the build process, or running in "real life" scenarios."

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PostgreSQL Weekly News

The November 7, 2003 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News has been published. Take a look at the latest PostgreSQL database news and discussions.

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ntfsprogs 1.8.0beta2 released (SourceForge)

Version 1.8.0beta2 of ntfsprogs, a set of utilities for ntfs filesystems, is available. "Changes in this release: Merge ntfs gnomevfs module by Jan Kratochvil. The Gnome virtual filesystem provides universal access to diffent filesystems. This modules enables Gnome VFS clients to seamlessly utilize the NTFS library."

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Macho 0.4 released

Version 0.4 of Macho, a Common Lisp-based email web archiving system, is out. "This version provides several additions including message navigation hotkeys, per-archive custom style sheets, a thread context view, and more."

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JXTA 2: A high-performance, massively scalable P2P network (IBM developerWorks)

Sing Li looks at JXTA 2 on IBM's developerWorks. "JXTA 2 is the second major release of the open source P2P network building substrate with a popular Java-based reference implementation. Significant design modifications have been introduced to create higher performance, massively scalable, and maintainable P2P networks. This article, which builds on Sing Li's JXTA series Making P2P interoperable, published two years ago, brings you up to date on the platform's major changes."

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CUPS 1.1.20rc6 released

Version 1.1.20rc6 of CUPS, the Common Unix Print System, has been released. "CUPS 1.1.20 is primarily a bug fix and performance tuning release and includes fixes for 64-bit platforms, deadlock problems in the signal handling code, PDF printing issues, web interface issues, and various operating system-specific issues. The new release also adds new CUPS API functions for reading and writing files via HTTP, performing authentication, and controlling the required PPD conformance level."

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Printing for the Impatient (O'ReillyNet)

Michael Lucas covers various Unix/Linux printing issues on O'Reilly. "Printing on a UNIX-like operating system has traditionally given headaches to even experienced sysadmins. The FreeBSD Handbook has a big section on how printers work, and it's well worth reading if you want to become intimate with the innards of printing. Personally, I don't want to struggle with identifying file types, input filters, and output filters; I want to plug in a printer and have the Magical Printer Pixies do all the work for me."

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AOLserver 4.0 GM released (SourceForge)

Version 4.0 GM of AOLserver has been announced. "AOLserver is a multithreaded, Tcl-enabled, massively-scalable and extensible web server tuned for large scale, dynamic web sites. AOLserver also includes complete database integration and a dynamic page scripting language."

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Gallery v1.4.1 RC3 available (SourceForge)

Version 1.4.1 RC3 of Gallery, a web-based photo album management system, has been released. "New features for this 1.4.1 include voting/ranking of images, user self-registration, lost password reset, e-mail notifications, support for "skins" to customize Gallery's look and feel, a clearer and easier to follow Config. Wizard and tons of other small improvements and bugfixes."

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Release of ht://Dig 3.2.0b5 (SourceForge)

Version 3.2.0b5 of ht://Dig, a web site search engine, has been announced. "After being asked "Is ht://Dig dead?" once too often, the ht://Dig group is very happy to announce the release of ht://Dig version 3.2.0b5. This fourth beta release of 3.2 (yes, 3.2.0b4 was cancelled) should fix all bugs in previous 3.2 releases and indtroduces a few new features. As a beta release, it has not received exhaustive testing. However, we believe it to be almost stable enough for production use, and hope that you consider giving it a try to provide feedback."

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Mambo Open Source 4.5 Beta 1.0.3 Released (SourceForge)

Version 4.5 Beta 1.0.3 of Mambo Open Source, a dynamic web content management system, is available. The project's home page says: "In Mambo Open Source 4.5 Beta 1.0.3 we decided to start implementing Search Engine Friendly URL's (SEF). We did some initial work and now will need your help with testing and finding bugs."

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more.groupware 0.7.0 released (SourceForge)

Version 0.7.0 of more.groupware, a PHP4-based web groupware suite, is out. "It fixes the webmail2 setup bug as well as a few other bugs in forum, files, tts. Additionally some new features have been added to calendar2 and webmail2 and some translation updates have been done."

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Quixote 0.7a2 available

Version 0.7a2 of the Quixote web application framework is available. See the CHANGES file for information on what's new.

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Araneida 0.80 released

Version 0.80 of Araneida, a Common Lisp-based extensible web server, is available. "This version provides a new HTTP-LISTENER abstraction, cleaner raising of HTTP errors, support for the REFRESH header and a few fixes."

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Using Common Lisp to Build Web Applications

Lisp aficionado Paolo Amoroso has passed us links to a couple of new articles to us concerning the KPAX web application system.

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Linux-VServer 1.0 released

Version 1.0 of Linux-VServer is available. "VServer is a very cool project, a bit like UML but with a much better architecture for shared hosting environments. It was originally written by Jack Gelinas (of Linuxconf fame) and is now maintained by Herbert Pötzl."

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GNUsound 0.6.1 has been released

Version 0.6.1 of GNUsound, a sound editor, is available. "This is a maintenance release to fix a few critical bugs. I really wanted to skip this release and go straight for 0.7, but there's too much work to be done on that version still, and the 0.6 bugs are quite serious."

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Rhythmbox 0.6.0: 'The Universe Is Finite' (GnomeDesktop)

Version 0.6.0 of Rhythmbox, an integrated music management application for GNOME, has been released. "The release name signifies the fact that there is actually in theory still a limit to the amount of music you can put in Rhythmbox's library, since you are bounded by the universe's finite size."

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WaveSurfer 1.5.6 released

Version 1.5.6 of the WaveSurfer audio editing utility is available. See the Change History file for details.

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CVSGnome 0.4.8 released (GnomeDesktop)

Version 0.4.8 of CVSGnome, a CVS build script for GNOME, is available. "Using this software, you can easily build GNOME either from tarballs or CVS HEAD. In addition, it features all major extra software available for GNOME, including the GIMP, Gnumeric, and many more."

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KDE Traffic

Issue #67 of KDE Traffic is out. The KDE.News summary says: "with news regarding KMail, Kontact, general look and feel and more."

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KDE-CVS-Digest

November 7, 2003 KDE-CVS-Digest is online. Here's the summary: "Bug fixes and more bug fixes. Umbrello, KDevelop, Quanta, Konsole, KOrganizer encoding, KSpread, Khtml, Juk, Kopete, Kgpg, KWin and kdeui all have a large number of bugs fixed. There were a few announcements this week. Of course the big one is the release of 3.2 beta1."

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KDE Developer's Corner: Using KConfig XT

A new tutorial on KConfig XT has been announced. "As some of you may know, KDE 3.2 will introduce a heavily improved configuration framework, known as KConfig XT. This new framework extends, not deprecates our current configuration API. To help developers understand KConfig XT I have created a short tutorial (ps, kwd) available on developer.kde.org." The tutorial is available here.

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PyKDE API Forges Ahead with Plugin Support (KDE.News)

KDE.News looks at the latest release of PyKDE, the Python bindings for the KDE. "The latest release of PyKDE (3.8.0) includes the ability to write KDE panel applets completely in Python -- absolutely no C++ required. This is the first in what's planned to be a number of extensions for PyKDE that allow plugins and related objects to be created entirely in Python; David Boddie is nearing release of modules for authoring KParts for export (PyKDE already imports KParts), KDE Control Center modules, and IOSlaves."

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gDesklets 0.24.1 released (GnomeDesktop)

If you find your screen to be too boring, GnomeDesktop.org reports on the availability of version 0.24.1 of the gDesktops desktop candy package.

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XFce Goodies

New Goodies are available for the XFce desktop environment. Some of the Goodies include monitors for system load, battery state, net load, a clipboard, a calendar, and more.

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Translucent X screenshots

The Freedesktop.org X Server Project has posted some screen shots showing off the new translucent windows feature. Have a look for some serious eye candy. (Seen on FootNotes).

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XCircuit 3.1.26 released

Version 3.1.26 of XCircuit, an electronic schematic editing package, is out. Change information is in the source code.

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GNUe Traffic

Two new copies of GNUe Traffic are available this week, see Issue #98, dated November 3, and Issue #99, dated November 10 for the latest news from the GNU Enterprise project.

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Boson 0.9 finally released!

Version 0.9 of Boson, a real-time strategy game for KDE, is out. See the announcement for change information.

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GBA Programming with DevKit Advance (O'ReillyNet)

Howard Wen looks at DevKit Advance on O'Reilly. "People interested in making their own games for the Nintendo Gameboy Advance will find the unofficial Gameboy Advance (GBA) software development kit (SDK) indispensable. Based on the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), DevKit Advance runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X; it comes compiled with the Socrates Gameboy Advance Development Environment (SGADE), a library of generic code for the GBA platform released under an open source license. The rest of the DevKit Advance code is released under the GNU General Public License."

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Imview 1.0.1 and 1.1.2 released

Versions 1.0.1 and 1.1.2 (unstable) of Imview, an image viewing and analysis application, have been released.

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Inkscape project formed (GnomeDesktop)

GnomeDesktop.org covers the Inkscape project, which aims to create an SVG-compliant vector graphics editor. "Bryce Harrington wrote: Nathan, mental, Ted and myself have decided to embark on our own direction with the Sodipodi codebase. We have attempted to do this as part of the Sodipodi project, but we believe we need to try out a new project structure to have the freedom to be able to explore some approaches radically different from Sodipodi. We have recently reworked the Sodipodi codebase to build with a C++ compiler and renamed it 'Inkscape'. "

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Samba 3.0.1pre2 available for download

Samba 3.0.1pre2 has been released. "This is another preview release of the Samba 3.0.1 code base and is provided for testing only. This release is *not* intended for production servers. Use at your own risk. There have been several bug fixes since 3.0.0 that we feel are important to make available to the Samba community for wider testing."

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Wine Traffic

Wine Traffic issue #195 has been published. Topics include: Wine for Crystallography, WineConf 2004, DirectX Games Tested, Copy Protection Sucks, and IPX Improvements.

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Mammut 0.16 released

Version 0.16 of Mammut, an audio FFT tool, is out with some code cleanup and support for JACK.

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Marlin 0.2 released

Version 0.2 of Marlin, an audio sample editor for GNOME, is available. Also, see this report on GnomeDesktop.org for more information on Marlin.

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MusE version 0.6.2 is out

Version 0.6.2 of MusE, a MIDI/audio-based virtual studio, is out. "Release 0.6.2 has a large number of improvements and bugfixes, current users are encouraged to upgrade."

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Mozilla.org staff meeting minutes

The minutes from the mozilla.org staff meeting for October 27 and November 3, 2003 are online.

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Independent Status Reports (MozillaZine)

The Mozilla Independent Status Reports for November 9, 2003 are available.

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AbiWord Weekly News

Issue #169 of the AbiWord Weekly News is out. Here's the summary: "Quite a bit of work on our two new features while also discussing massive sweeps of changes in the tree-layout, the stillness of SCO and um...what was it now? I know it was something you really would like, but I forgot. Oh, yeah, we were discussing AbiShow. This was a big week."

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gFTP 2.0.16 has been released (GnomeDesktop)

Version 2.0.16 of the gFTP FTP client for GNOME has been announced. Lots of bug fixes are included.

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JFreeReport 0.8.4-5 released (SourceForge)

Version 0.8.4-5 of JFreeReport, a Java class library for generating reports, is available. "This is the next minor bugfix release of JFreeReport. Despite some bugfixes, the ext-package now contains the first demo on how to show JFreeCharts within a report."

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LTI-Lib Beta release 1.9.7 (SourceForge)

SourceForge has an announcement for version 1.9.7 beta of LTI-Lib, a cross-platform C++ computer vision library. "This release provides new functors and features, many bug fixes and more documentation."

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Caml Weekly News

The November 4-11, 2003 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with the latest Caml language news and discussions.

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JGraphT 0.5.1 released (SourceForge)

Version 0.5.1 of JGraphT, a cross-platform Java class library that provides graph-theory objects and algorithms, has been announced. "The new version delivers accumulated developments, bug fixes and improvements."

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JSP 2.0: The New Deal, Part 1 (O'Reilly)

Hans Bergsten explores JSP 2.0 on O'Reilly. "The wait is almost over: the latest version of the JavaServer Pages (JSP) specification, JSP 2.0, is about to be released, along with all of the other J2EE 1.4 specifications. The jump to a new major revision for this JSP version signifies that all of the pieces are now in place for using JSP in a new way: there's no need for Java in the pages, thanks to the new Expression Language (EL) and the JSP Standard Tag Library (JSTL), and reusing code is much easier, thanks to two new ways to develop custom actions."

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Free Pascal 1.9.0 released

Version 1.9.0, the first public beta for version 2.0 of Free Pascal, is available. See the project news page for a list of changes.

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Perl 5.8.2 released (use Perl)

Version 5.8.2 of Perl has been released. "5.8.2 is being released to fix minor binary incompatibilities discovered between 5.8.1 and 5.8.0. 5.8.2 is fully binary compatible with 5.8.0, and wherever possible also binary compatible with 5.8.1. The release also provides other minor bugfixes, including several for ithreads."

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Perl 5.6.2 RC1 is out (use Perl)

Perl 5.6.2 RC1 has been announced. "Following shortly a new release on the 5.8 maintenance track, here is an updated version of Perl 5.6. Its purpose is to fix the build issues that appeared since Perl 5.6.1 was released, due to new compilers and systems. A few modules were updated as well."

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This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)

The November 3-9, 2003 edition of This Week on perl5-porters has been published. "This week was undoubtedly a maintenance-oriented week, as it has seen the release of perl 5.8.2, and of perl 5.6.2 RC1. But of course and as usual this wasn't the only topic on the always active p5p list."

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This week on Perl 6 (O'Reilly)

The November 2, 2003 edition of This week on Perl 6 has been published. Take a look to learn about Perl 6 internals.

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Bringing Java into Perl (O'Reilly)

Phil Crow talks about executing Java from Perl on O'Reilly. "In this article, I will show how to bring Java code into a Perl program with Inline::Java. I won't probe the internals of Inline or Inline::Java, but I will tell you what you need to make a Java class available in a program or module. The program/module distinction is important only in one small piece of syntax, which I will point out."

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mnoGoSearch-php-3.2.3 and mnoGoSearch-php-extension-1.83

New versions of the PHP frontend and extension for the mnoGoSearch web site search engine are available.

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Understanding Network I/O: From Spectator to Participant (O'ReillyNet)

George Belotsky illustrates the writing of a Python-based network client on O'Reilly. "This article focuses on Internet clients. Clients — like your web browser — request information from servers (like the one from which you accessed this page). Typically, the client then presents the information to a person, although there are clients that talk to other computer programs instead. The next article will present ideas that are also applicable to developing servers and peer-to-peer systems."

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Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!

The Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! for November 10, 2003 is online with another round of links to Python language articles.

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Scheme Weekly News

The November 10, 2003 edition of the Scheme Weekly News is out with the latest Scheme language development information.

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Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!

The November 10, 2003 Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is out with links to the latest Tcl/Tk news and articles.

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XML style guidelines for leveraging schema validators

Erik Ostermueller discusses XML Schema validation on IBM's developerWorks. "Used correctly, XML Schema validation can dramatically reduce the effort necessary to perform basic data validation tasks. Additionally, validation rules that are centrally located in an XML schema can help users to better understand your system. It takes the right XML structure, however, to leverage a schema validator. This article discusses proper XML structure as well as best and worst practices for defining data validation rules in XML Schema."

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The Long, Long Arm of SGML (O'Reilly)

Kendall Grant Clark examines the legacy effects of SGML on XML. "Some significant percentage of the pain suffered by the XML development community over the past 5 years is directly attributable to dealing with the legacy of SGML. It has, in other words, turned out to be much harder, much more complex to do "SGML on the Web" than many people thought it would be. A considerable amount of the early traction seized by XML was due to the confluence of two forces: first, the technical maturity of SGML; second, the early to middle years of exuberance about the Web itself."

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DocBook Menu for Emacs v0.90 released (SourceForge)

Version 0.90 of DocBook Menu for Emacs has been announced on SourceForge. "This is the initial release of a package for GNU Emacs 21.x or 20.x) that adds a hierarchical, customizable DocBook menu to your Emacs menubar. The menu is designed to provide quick and easy direct access, from within Emacs, to a variety of DocBook documentation and to the DocBook XSLT stylesheets."

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Anjuta 1.1.98 released (SourceForge)

Version 1.1.98 of Anjuta, an IDE for C/C++ under GNOME/GTK, is available. "Features include project management, application wizards, an onboard interactive debugger, and a powerful source editor with browsing and syntax highlighting."

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Treebeard version 0.8.5 released (SourceForge)

Version 0.8.5 of Treebeard, a cross-platform XSLT IDE, has been released. "It's editor allows the loading and editing of an XML document and an XSLT document at the same time. It can apply the XSLT to the XML and display the output for further editing / saving in XML, HTML or PDF."

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SCons 0.94 released

Version 0.94 of SCons, a software build tool that replaces Make, has been released.

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