Development
The Driver on Demand project
The Driver on Demand project is an effort by Andrew Luecke to provide installable device drivers for Linux systems via the HTTP protocol. The project summary says:
Driver on demand is an attempt to ease driver installations in linux. Basically, what happens is that a user plugs any device into the computer, and if a driver isn't found, the client connects to a CGI server, to check if the device is known, and if its not in the database, then the driver lookup fails and the user is no worse off then they currently are. However, if the device is found online, the driver information file (similar to .inf's, just XML and more versatile) is analysed. If its built into newer versions of kernels, but theres a driver available, the driver is installed, but the system recommends strongly that the user upgrades their kernel, automatically, otherwise it just installs.
The project overview lists some of the capabilities of Driver on Demand. Here is a quick summary of features:
- Drivers are served via HTTP and cgi-bin scripts.
- Driver installations are performed via user-based click-to-install operations.
- Driver definitions are XML-based.
- The system has support for open/GPL and licensed/proprietary drivers.
- The software is open-source, it has been released under the GPL.
- The software is a combination of Perl and Bash.
- Vendors can provide automated and timely driver updates for their hardware.
- The project supports driver checksum verification through key servers for security.
- Drivers are available in standard binary, source code, and package manager formats.
- The software works with the Linux 2.4 and 2.6 kernels, 2.6 is recommended.
The current project status and news page indicate a fair amount of recent progress. Several servers are currently online, and a number of drivers have been submitted. The alpha-one version was released in May, 2004. The alpha-two version is being worked on.
Andrew Luecke noted the current state of the project:
"The project already fully supports
PCI/YENTA PCMCIA already, and will soon support everything from PCI express
to USB.
Its primary goal is to allow driver installation in linux to be easier
th[a]n Windows.
"
The author is still developing the software in a mostly solo mode, he plans on accepting patches from the outside after the next release is out. Volunteer help has been requested for some parts of the project. The Driver on Demand project looks to be a very useful addition to the Linux system, we wish the author luck in getting it widely accepted.
System Applications
Database Software
Glom 0.8.0 announced
Version 0.8.0 of Glom, a GUI-based database table designer, is out with numerous improvements.libgdamm 1.3.4 announced
Version 1.3.4 of libgdamm, a C++ wrapper for libgda and gtkmm, is out with new functions and typedefs.libgda/libgnomedb 1.1.4 released
Version 1.1.4 of libgda/libgnomedb, a database development framework, is available. The release adds numerous improvements to the development release.phpPgAdmin 3.4 Released
Version 3.4 of phpPgAdmin has been released "A new major version of phpPgAdmin is now available. phpPgAdmin is a web-based administration tool for all 7.x versions of PostgreSQL."
PostgreSQL Weekly News
The June 7, 2004 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is available with the latest PostgreSQL database news.ZODB 3.3 beta 1 released
Version 3.3 beta 1 of ZODB, the Zope Object DataBase, is out. "The changes since ZODB 3.3a3 consist mostly of fixes for longstanding ZODB bugs, several of which were backported to the Zope 2.7 maintenance branch."
Device Drivers
Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Driver for Linux
A new set of open-source drivers are available for the Intel IPW2100 and IPW2200 wireless Network Connection miniPCI adapters. "This project was created by Intel to enable support for the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection miniPCI adapter. This project (IPW2200) is intended to be a community effort as much as is possible given some working constraints (mainly, no HW documentation is available)." Thanks to Roy Whytock.
Libraries
GLib-2.4.2 released
Version 2.4.2 of GLib is out with lots of bug fixes and better translations.Librcoco 0.6.0 released
Version 0.6.0 of Librcoco,the GNOME Cascading Style Sheet parsing and manipulation C library, has been released. "Starting from this release on, several different minor versions of Libcroco can be installed on the same box. Releases of the same minor version number will be upward API/ABI compatible." Numerous changes and bug fixes are included.
Mail Software
DomainKeys Milter
A new Domain Keys mail filter has been announced on milter.org. "The Sendmail folks are rather trying to push Domain Keys and propose an OpenSource milter : dk-milter It is labelled PRE-RELEASE SOFTWARE - not to be used in any critical production environments but it is worth testing."
Sendmail 8.13.0.Beta3
Version 8.13.0.Beta3 of Sendmail has been released. The Change Notes say: "It contains the patch for parseaddr.c that was required for Beta2, the enhanced status code 4.7.1 has been replaced by more appropriate values because some broken systems misinterpret it as a permanent error, and there is a fix for calculating the sleep() time in checksmtpattack() when the delay is initially triggered."
Networking Tools
nOt 1.86 released
Version 1.86 of nOt, the Network Object Tracer, has been released. "I believe discussion will help in process of debugging and developing next versions of this tool. Please send any comments, suggestions and (what's probably the most important) new OS fingerprints to n0t database."
Printing
AFPL Ghostscript 8.30 beta release
Version 8.30 of AFPL Ghostscript has been released. new features include topological grid fitting, PDF 1.4 encryption support, a new shading render method, the experimental Rinkj driver, support for PDF 1.5, and beta support for Jpeg2000 images.
Security
Writing Nessus Plugins (O'Reilly)
Nitesh Dhanjani explains how to write plugins for the Nessus security scanner on O'Reilly. "In a previous article, I showed you how to install and use the Nessus scanner. If the bundled security checks aren't enough for you, you can write your own Nessus plugins in NASL (Nessus Attack Scripting Language). This article demonstrates how to write your own custom vulnerability checks."
Web Site Development
mnoGoSearch 3.2.18 is available
Version 3.2.18 of the mnoGoSearch web site search engine has been released. The Change Log documents a number of bug fixes.Moodle 1.3 is now available (SourceForge)
Version 1.3 of Moodle has been announced. "Moodle is PHP courseware aiming to make quality online courses (eg distance education) easy to develop and conduct. Both learning & development are guided by strong pedagogical theory. Implemented on 1000's of sites, 74 countries and 36 languages."
ZopeMag Weekly News
The May 26 - June 1, 2004 edition of the ZopeMag Weekly News is online with lots of new Zope and Plone information.
Desktop Applications
Accessibility
gnopernicus 0.9.5 released
Version 0.9.5 of gnopernicus, a GNOME screen reader for the visually impaired, is out with several new features.
Audio Applications
Muine 0.6.2 released
Version 0.6.2 of Muine, a music player, is available with support for mono beta 2. "Muine is a new music player using some new UI ideas. The idea is that it will be much easier and comfortable to use than the iTunes model, which is used by both Rhythmbox and Jamboree."
Data Visualization
Gmsh 1.53 released
Version 1.53 of Gmsh, an automatic 3D finite element grid generator, has been announced. "This version contains fairly big changes, so please report any bugs that might have crept in... The three largest modifications are: - big (huge?) improvements in the way Gmsh renders tri/quad meshes and scalar post-processing views, with speedups of more than an order of magnitude on large data sets (and as a side effect, transparency is now fully supported) - new geometrical entity selection with undo capability - full support for second order elements in the mesh module (3-node lines, 6-node triangles, 9-node quads, 10-node tets, 27-node hexas, 18-node prisms and 14-node pyramids)".
Desktop Environments
GNOME Development Release 2.7.1 (GnomeDesktop)
Development release 2.7.1 of GNOME has been announced. "Goooooooooooood morning and welcome to the FIRST release of the GNOME 2.7 development series! It's ready for your bug-busting and testing pleasure, and available for immediate download on ftp.gnome.org and mirrors."
gTweakUI 0.0.6 released (GnomeDesktop)
FootNotes carries the announcement of the release of gTweakUI 0.0.6. gTweakUI is a GConf front end providing graphical access to a whole set of configuration options which are otherwise hard to find.Java-Gnome 2.7.2 announced.
Version 2.7.2 of the Java-Gnome bindings are available. "This release contains bug fixes and enhancements to several of our core bindings as well as our initial work-in-progress for libbonobo and gnome-vfs bindings."
Simplifying GNOME file management (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDesktop links to this LiveJournal entry outlining three proposals for more intuitive file management in GNOME. "[F]ile management today is a lot more cumbersome than it needs to be. The computer science undergrad learns the "In UNIX, everything is a file" philosophy and is blown away by the beauty of it. However, this world-view is not well suited for a user-interface. "Beauty" is not the description that springs to mind. "Kludge" is more like it."
KDE-CVS-Digest (KDE.News)
The June 4, 2004 edition of the KDE-CVS-Digest is out. The content summary says: "KDevelop has a new QT Designer port. KStars adds support for Philips webcams. Two more icons sizes are added to Konqueror file mode. The PIM Kitchensync supports syncing Kolab, eGroupware and OPIE addressbooks. Crypto improvements in KMail. KWin adds per window settings."
Desktop Publishing
Scribus 1.1.7 released
Scribus 1.1.7 is out; this is, the developers say, "the most stable, feature complete version to date." New features include better PostScript import support, fancier gradient tools, and more; click below for the details.
Electronics
Icarus Verilog 20040606
Version 20040606 of the Icarus Verilog electronic simulation language compiler has been released with bug fixes and several new features.
Games
gnome-games 2.7.3 is out
Version 2.7.3 of Gnome-games, a collection of game software, is out. "Not a lot new, but there is a new UI for changing key controls in gnect and gnibbles."
GNOME War Pad 0.3.1 released
Version 0.3.1 of the game GNOME War Pad is available with several enhancements and GTK+ 2.4 compatibility.Mapacman 0.1 released
Version 0.1 of Mapacman has been released. "Mapacman is a multiplayer online pacman game. It requires pygame and the pyarianne packages. Arianne is a multiplayer online game engine designed for turn based and real time games.
GUI Packages
Bakery 2.3.5 released
Version 2.3.5 of Bakery, a C++ Framework for creating document-based GNOME applications, is out. This release features one new function.GTK+-2.4.2 released
Version 2.4.2 of the GTK+ GUI toolkit is out. "This is a bug fix release and is source and binary compatible with 2.4.0. There are a considerable number of fixes in this release as compared to 2.4.0, especially in the areas of GtkFileChooser, GtkComboBox and GtkEntryCompletion. Also, a problem on Solaris has been fixed."
gtkmm 2.2.12 announced
Version 2.2.12 of gtkmm is out with bug fixes and other improvements.gtkmm and glibmm 2.4.2 are available
Version 2.4.2 of gtkmm and glibmm are out. "gtkmm provides a C++ interface to GTK+. gtkmm 2.4 wraps additional API in GTK+ 2.4. gtkmm 2.4 installs in parallel with gtkmm 2.2, so you can have both installed at the same time. glibmm is now a separate module, for use in non-GUI software."
Imaging Applications
The GIMP 2.1.0 release (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDesktop.org has an announcement for development version 2.1.0 of the GIMP. "Highlights of this release are migration of menus to GtkUIManager, use of the new file chooser, and improved HIG compliance of almost all dialogs. Other new features are the ability to drag & drop files and URIs to the image window, adding a new layer, and the ability to use shortcuts regardless of which GIMP window is active."
UnZip 5.51; XV jumbo patches 20040523
New versions of the UnZip file uncompressor and jumbo patches for the XV image viewer are available. "I made the first public release of my "jumbo patches" for the XV image viewer; these incorporate roughly 25 fixes and 21 enhancements (such as PNG support!) into a pair of easily applied patches against the stock XV 3.10a sources."
Instant Messaging
Whine about your life with Drivel 1.0! (GnomeDesktop)
Version 1.0 of Drivel has been announced. "Here it is: the first stable release of Drivel, a LiveJournal client for GNOME. This release supports nearly the full range of LiveJournal features, from posting entries to editing your Friends List, all while leveraging the power and unifying characteristics of the GNOME Desktop platform."
Interoperability
Wine Traffic
The June 4, 2004 edition of Wine Traffic is available. Topic threads include: SpecOpsLabs Response, Winedbg Issue and New Changes, Winedbg & DDD, MSVCRT Headers, and AMD64 Issues.
Multimedia
Office Suites
OpenOffice.org build 1.1.59 is out
Build 1.1.59 of the OpenOffice.org office suite has been released. "This package contains Desktop integration work for OpenOffice.org, several back-ported features & speedups, and a much simplified build wrapper, making an OO.o build / install possible for the common man."
PDA Software
Guikachu 1.4.1 released
Version 1.4.1 of Guikachu is out with bug fixes and new translations. "Guikachu is a GNOME application for graphical editing of resource files for PalmOS-based pocket computers. The user interface is modelled after Glade, the GNOME UI builder."
Peer to Peer
Gnomoradio 0.12.2 released
Version 0.12.2 of Gnomoradio, a peer to peer music playing system, has been released. "Gnomoradio 0.12.2 is the first release that is declared "stable", and it is recommended that everybody upgrade. Changes from 0.12.1 include fixed handling of the cache size so files are not deleted prematurely."
Web Browsers
Mozilla 1.7 RC 3 is available
The third (and probably final) release candidate for Mozilla 1.7 is available; see the release notes for details. Downloads are available over here.Mozilla Links Newsletter
The June 4, 2004 edition of the Mozilla Links Newsletter is out with the latest Mozilla browser news.
Miscellaneous
gcalctool 4.4.8 released
Version 4.4.8 of gcalctool, the default GNOME desktop calculator, has been released. This release mainly involves bug fixes.GNOME Terminal 2.7.2 released
Version 2.7.2 of GNOME Terminal, a terminal emulator, is available with several new enhancements.GPSBabel 1.2.3 released (SourceForge)
Version 1.2.3 of GPSBabel has been released. "GPSBabel reads and writes GPS waypoints in a variety of forms. Backends include GPX, Magellan and Garmin serial protocols, Geocaching.com *.loc, GPSMan, Garmin Mapsource *.mps, Magellan Mapsend *.wpt, and many others. Release 1.2.3 includes many new features and bug fixes."
Languages and Tools
C
Notes from the GCC summit
Dan Kegel has posted some notes from the 2004 GCC summit. "The big news in the gcc world lately is the new Tree-SSA changes which were recently merged into mainline after about four years of development, and the fact that it's already paying off."
Caml
Caml Weekly News
The June 1-8, 2004 edition of the Caml Weekly News is available with the latest Caml language articles.
HTML
html_scrub -- An HTML Editing Utility for Groklaw (Groklaw)
Groklaw has announced the availability of an HTML to text converter called html_scrub. "Scott McKellar decided to take pity on me and write a command line HTML cleaning utility for me. As many of you know, Geeklog, the underlying software Groklaw uses, chokes on certain HTML. When volunteers send me documents they have turned into HTML from text, using certain automatic HTML utilities, I end up spending hours sometimes cleaning out the tags Geeklog doesn't like. It's like picking fleas out of your dog's coat."
Java
Writing Ant Tasks (O'Reilly)
Michael Fitzgerald writes about running tasks under Apache Ant on O'Reilly. "Apache Ant is an increasingly popular open source, cross-platform build tool written in Java. Ant's build files are written in XML and generally consist of a project and a set of interdependent targets. These targets contain one or more tasks that can perform all kinds of functions, such as compiling Java source code, creating .zip, .gzip, or .bzip2 archives, cleaning up old files, and so on."
EJBCA 3.0 released (SourceForge)
Version 3.0 of EJBCA, the Enterprise Java Beans Certificate Authority, has been released. "EJBCA 3.0 is a major new release taking the Open Source CA to new heights. The largest change is that it is now possible to run a complete (or several) PKI infrastructure within one single instance of EJBCA. Many other improvements are also included such as complete support for OCSP, enanced Hart token interface and flexible LDAP configuration through the Web-GUI."
Java shared classes (IBM developerWorks)
Lakshmi Shankar, Simon Burns, and Roshan Nichani explore Java shared classes on IBM's developerWorks. "Java applications face a problem today: The only containment vessel available to them is the Java virtual machine (JVM) process itself. Multiple JVMs are required to isolate Java applications from each other, and this has two major negative impacts. The first is the start up time involved for each JVM invocation; the second is the memory footprint required by each JVM. Given these costs, and the inability to isolate applications within the JVM, it is clear that something fundamental needs to be done to resolve these issues. The answer? Shared classes."
Data Models for Desktop Apps (O'ReillyNet)
O'Reilly has published The third article in Andrei Cioroianu's series on developing a Java desktop application. "Andrei Cioroianu shows how to develop data models for Java desktop applications and how JavaBeans and the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern can make your code more maintainable and reusable."
Lisp
SBCL 0.8.11 released
Version 0.8.11 of SBCL (Steel Bank Common Lisp) is out. "Changes in this version include the new SB-EXT:MUFFLE-CONDITIONS declaration, an improved installation script, the beginning of a condition hierarchy for use by IDEs, and more."
Perl
POE 0.29 released (use Perl)
Version 0.29 of POE, a networking and multitasking framework for Perl, has been announced. "This release includes a substantial performance increase in I/O intensive programs. It improves portability to Solaris, Windows, and Mac OS X. It improves support for really old versions of Perl---you know, the one that work makes you use in production. Several documentation nits have been picked and stomped."
This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)
The May 31 - June 6, 2004 edition of This Week on perl5-porters is online. Here's the content summary: "As I've advertised the weekly P5P summaries during the French Perl Workshop, I feel compelled to continue to write them each week... Read on for the latest batch of commented links."
Python
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!
The June 2, 2004 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! has been published. Take a look for the latest Python language article links.Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!
The June 8, 2004 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! has been published. Take a look for another week's worth of Python articles.
Ruby
Ruby/GtkTrayIcon 0.1.0
Ruby/GtkTrayIcon version 0.1.0 has been announced. "I'm pleased to announce the first release of Ruby/GtkTrayIcon, a Ruby binding to the System Tray Protocol Specification. This library allows Ruby developers to fill the GNOME notification area. It contains some code from the old EGG library, copyrighted by Anders Carlsson."
Tcl/Tk
Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!
The June 8, 2004 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is available with the latest Tcl/Tk article links.
XML
Improve XML transport performance, Part 1 (IBM developerWorks)
Dennis M. Sosnoski shows how to speed up XML transports in part one of a series on IBM's developerWorks. "XML is a text markup format designed for clarity and ease of use, without concern for conciseness. Because of these design choices, text XML can be costly in terms of both document size and processing overhead. Part 1 of this two-part article shows you some of the issues involved in alternative non-text representations of XML, and covers a few of the approaches being developed for this purpose".
SVG and Typography: Bells and Whistles (O'Reilly)
Fabio Arciniegas A. plays with typography in SVG in an O'Reilly article. "In this installment of our discussion of SVG and typography, we make a departure from the sobriety of the typographic strategies we've been discussing so far and go for the other half of the fun: the bells and whistles of effects, distortions, coloring, and other unusual treatments of type. We will create reusable code (basically a cookbook) of common typographic treatments implemented in SVG."
Entity and Character References (O'Reilly)
Bob DuCharme looks at issues with XML and entity references on O'Reilly. "XSLT stylesheet developers often ask how they can leave entity references in the source document unchanged as the stylesheet passes them to the result document. For example, they want an entity reference in the source document to still be in the result document."
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