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See also: last week's Development page.

Development projects


News and Editorials

IBM has just announced a 1GB version of its micro drive, to be available in September. This follows on the heels of the 340MB micro drives that are beginning to show up in consumer devices. The 1GB size is large enough to support a full-featured version of Linux with plenty of room for user data. Recent processor developments such as the power-frugal Crusoe from Transmeta and tiny PC104 format processors can now be combined with micro drives and laptop battery technologies. The arrival of small disk-based computing platforms will open up a whole new range of portable computing products. The field is wide open for developers who combine these new technologies. Personally, your editor would love to see development of an open source CD qualty wav file audio recorder/player based on a micro drive.

Databases

Informix releases embeddable database support for Linux (ZdNet). Informix now supports Linux on two of its key products. "Foundation.2000, for Internet data and content management; and Cloudscape, a Java database for embeddable systems and distributed e-Business applications."

Education

Tux Typing: typing tutor for kids. Now you can have Tux the penguin help you or your kids learn to type with Tux Typing. The goal of the game is to help Tux the penguin catch lettered fish as they fall out of the sky by typing the corresponding key. Tux Typing is distributed with the GPL license.

Games

GnomeHack 1.0.5: 'Ulch, that meat was tainted'(Linux Orbit). Linux Orbit has run an article on GnomeHack, a new graphical version of the old classic NetHack game. " I remember my first game of Hack like it was yesterday. The year was 1983. I spent an entire afternoon one rainy Saturday chasing an "@" symbol around an ASCII graphics map on the screen and cursing "U"s (umber hulks), "c"s (cockatrices) and the dreaded "k"s (killer bees)."

Games: The Boundary of Open Development? (BeOpen). BeOpen put together a discussion with both Scott Draeker, president and CEO of Loki Entertainment Software and Jorrit Tyberghein, volunteer project leader for Crystal Space. Games appear to be one area where hybrid of Open Source and proprietary methods is developing. "Tyberghein: What I think will happen more and more in the future is that game companies will either use available Open Source tools -- like 3D engines -- or else create their own toolkits that are released as Open Source. These are then combined with copyrighted artwork and maybe closed source intimate game logic."

Games for Geeks (BeOpen). BeOpen has run this article on the state of game software under Linux. "At the end of a decade that has seen Open Source developers plant the Linux flag in every corner of the commercial software marketplace, everything from embedded systems to big iron mainframes, the ultra-proprietary $7 billion computer game development market remains surprisingly oblivious to the Open Source gospel."

Crystal Space beta released. A beta version of Crystal Space has been announced, with a stable version scheduled for release in approximately three months. Crystal Space is an LGPL'd 3D software development kit (SDK) for game development. Maintainer Jorrit Tyberghein will also be at LinuxTag this week, with a demo of the software.

Embedded Systems

System on a chip (SOC) processors. Linux Devices.com looks at system on a chip processors and sees the future of computing. "The post-PC era is just around the corner -- and there's little doubt that embedded SOCs, combined with embedded Linux, will be two of its principal enablers."

Making a Business of Open Source (ZdNet). Kevin Morgan of MontaVista Software has written a whitepaper that discusses the advantages of using Linux for embedded systems development. " The use of Linux as an embedded systems platform represents a major change in the technologies and economies of building embedded applications. The power of Linux as an operating system, and the new types of business models for licensing, represent a marked change from "business as usual" practices that have dominated embedded design for the last 20 years."

Linux software development outsourcing service(ZdNet). ITSquare has announced a web based service that provides references to dozens of existing Linux development companies. "Harvi Sachar, CEO of ITsquare.com said 'the open source revolution opened everyone's eyes to the advantages of Linux over existing platforms and technologies. Except it's been difficult for corporations to migrate to Linux because serious, reliable Linux development firms aren't always easy to find. What we've created is a tool to identify, evaluate, and engage these firms, which is how Linux Square provides real value.'"

Interoperability

Common threads: Introduction to Samba(IBM). Daniel Robbins of Gentoo Technologies, Inc has written the first of a 3 part article on Samba. Samba's capabilities are discussed and information is given on setting up a Samba server.

Office Applications

interview with AbiWord's Joaquin Cuenca Abela (LinuxPower). Linux Power has an interview with Joaquin Cuenca Abela of AbiWord. The current state of development for AbiWord is discussed along with some possible new features.

Creating Simple Animation with the Gimp. Jakub "Jimmac" Steiner has published two tutorials on Creating Animation with the Gimp. If you have ever wanted to learn how to create computer animations, these tutorials will help you get results quickly.

On the Desktop

KDE2: Bigger than Elvis? (GnuLinux.com). GnuLinux.com plays with the KDE2 'Kleopatra' snapshot. "If you're already a KDE fan, you are probably well aware of this friendly desktop environment and its powerful features. However, a new release, KDE version 2, has been in development for quite some time, and is slated for release as a stable product in late summer or early fall. This is not a simple upgrade or bug fixes. KDE 2 has been completely rewritten from the ground up, and sports hundreds of improvements and many new applications."

Keystone 0.2 announced. Keystone 0.2, a Virtual Network Client that can access remote desktops has been released. New features include improved status reporting and use of the KXML GUI.

A new GNOME (LinuxWorld). Linux World's Joe Barr has written an article on Helix Gnome. " The cool factor is still there in GNOME 1.2, and the stability of GNOME and GNOME apps is much better than it was that time last year. GNOME 1.2 comes with dozens of out-of-the-box apps, some of which are the best of breed for Linux and one of which is the best I've seen anywhere."

Gtkfind: a GUI interface for find (Geeks404). If you are looking for an easy way to unlock all of the capabilities of the find command without digging into the man pages, take a look at Gtkfind. Debian and RedHat binary versions are available as well as a Japanese version. One feature that seems to be missing is a visible output of the actual find command that is produced. Such output would make the program very useful as an aid for debugging scripted find commands.

XFree86 Public CVS Access. The XFree86 project now has a Public CVS site. For those of you wishing to contribute to the project or track its development, this is the place to go.

Palmtops

Handheld Makers are grasping for Linux (ZdNet). Compaq is making a port of Linux available for its iPaq handheld, HP is also considering Linux for its Journada. "Warming up to the idea that an open palm is better than a clenched one, major computing companies are exploring the idea of porting open-source operating systems to their handheld computing platforms." Also, Henzai is working on putting a foot in the palm with its announement of the Gnome based Hue interface.

Sound

New Alsa sound drivers (BeOpen). Two new sound drivers have been announced for the ALSA library. The new drivers now support the C-Media CMI8338 and 8738 PCI chipset and the Yamaha YMF72x,74x,75x chipsets which are found on some motherboards.

Web-site Development

Zope 2.2b3 released. Zope.org has released Zope 2.2 beta 3 which contains fixes for the "len of unsized object" errors that have been reported.

Section Editor: Forrest Cook


June 29, 2000


Project Links
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High Availability
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Development tools


C/C++

Cursing at Your Programs (Geeks404). Geeks404 has published an introductory article on using the curses library, entitled Cursing at Your Programs (C Programming with Curses). Given the ubiquitous usage of curses in many Unix and Linux common commands, this is a useful introduction for the C programmer just moving to Linux.

Java

Lutris Enhydra Professional 3.0 Java/XML Open Source Application Server. Lutris has announced the Enhydra Professional 3.0 Java/XML Open Source Application Server " With Lutris Enhydra Professional 3.0, developers can take advantage of newly bundled and integrated databases, enhanced Java IDEs, and a wireless development kit that includes a new Developer Guide."

Sun: C# Is No Java Killer (ZDNet). Microsoft has introduced a new language, C#, that is poised to compete with Java. " Sun engineers have been combing through technical information on C# since Microsoft released it on Monday and say it is no Java killer. They say that although they can't tell exactly what C# does because Microsoft's documentation is incomplete, they believe that C# is "the next revision of C or C++" tied back to the Windows platform."

Perl

Perl5 Porters digest for June 19-25. This week's Perl5 Porters digest is out. Numerous perl programming techniques are discussed.

Perl: Small observations about the big picture(IBM). Teodor Zlatanov of Gold Software Systems has written an article on improving the clarity of Perl programs. "Although it's difficult to write complicated tasks with Perl, it can be done. And it can be done neatly. You don't have to be the only one that can understand and maintain your program once it's written. Using these nine tips, you can keep using Perl, keep your style, and still have an accessible and stable program."

Perl Module Updates (PerlNews). Check out the zillions of module updates at the Perl News site.

PHP

PHP 4.0.1 Released. The first maintenance release for PHP 4.0 has been put out. This is a recommended release with several bug fixes and features.

Python

GUI Python: All This and Good Looks Too? (LinuxDev). This week, LinuxDev takes a look at using Python for GUI development, the Tkinter way. "Before we begin, we need to make sure that OOP (Object Oriented Programming) is your cup of tea (Tkinter, that is). Although Python can be used as a structured language, in this series we will use its OOP features to create our GUIs."

Dr. Dobbs' Python-URL (June 26). This week's Python-URL is now available, including links to information on Zope's alpha release of ZEO, an article on using ZEO with ZODB, the release of SOAP 1.1, Python code for X10 home automation and CVS activity in the 1.6 tree in preparation for a new release.

Migrating from Perl to Python. Martin C. Brown has put out this article on moving from Perl to Python. "There is an alternative, though. It's relatively new -- less than a quarter of the age of Perl, and provides many of the same features. The alternative is called Python, and in this new series I'll be looking at how to make the jump from Perl to Python."

Tcl/tk

Section Editor: Forrest Cook

 
Language Links
Guile
Haskell
Blackdown.org
IBM Java Zone
Perl News
PHP
Daily Python-URL
Python.org
JPython
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