See also: last week's Development page.

Development projects

News and Editorials

XFree86 4.1.0 released. The people at the XFree86 Project have released XFree86 version 4.1.0.

The README file lists a number of interesting capabilities of version 4.1.0, some of which were introduced in release 4.0.0 including:

• A major re-design of the XFree86 architecture.
• More interaction between graphics hardware and the X server.
• A new Direct Rendering Infrastructure which takes advantage of hardware 3D accelerators.
• Support for more hardware.

• More drivers converted to use the fb layer with support for anti-aliased fonts.
• Support for a number of new chips.
• Numerous updates for existing drivers.
• More support for Alpha and Power PC hardware.
• XDarwin updates.
• X server extensions and updates.
• New and updated clients such as an Xt/Xaw free libXmuu.
• Build system updates.
• Numerous bug and security fixes.

The Driver Status page documents all of the currently supported boards and chip sets.

Incidentally, XFree86 has switched to a new version numbering scheme as of this release.

The code is available from the heavily loaded XFree86 FTP site as well as a few mirror sites, and Installation Details have also been published. (Thanks to Frank Lapore and Oliver Jost)

Audio

GLAME 0.4.2 released. Another release of the Glame audio tool has been announced. This version features a few bug fixes and a nifty new quick start guide in the built-in documentation. The guide will walk you through all of the steps required to play a WAV file, edit the file, record a new file, and save the results. See the Glame home page for more information.

Some recent linux music app releases (Mstation.org). Mstation.org's Miriam Rainsford looks at some new Linux music software in a feature article on Mstation.org. Software examined includes SpiralLoops, Audacity, Ecaenvelopter, PVNation, Bonk, CheeseTracker, and GtkGEP, a program that can turn your PC into a guitar effects processor.

Documentation

LDP Weekly News. This week's issue of the Linux Documentation Project Weekly News is now available. News includes an online store that is funneling a portion of the profits to LDP, a new HOWTO for Linux MP3 CD burning, a "Linux-Apache-PHP-Sybase mini-HOWTO", and some updated documentation.

Mind your FAQs (IBM developerWorks). IBM developerWorks features an article by Jodi Bollaert on writing and maintaining FAQs. "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) are a great way to provide quick, easy answers to users' most common questions. However, ensuring that they fulfill their purpose effectively requires careful planning and design. This article provides 16 tips to help you mind your FAQs."

Electronics

Xcircuit 2.3.1 available. A new beta version of the Xcircuit schematic drawing program is available for download. Version 2.3.1 includes a lot of underlying structural changes to the label and parameter code and also includes some new but well tested netlist generation code.

Embedded Systems

Embedded Linux Newsletter for May 31, 2001 (LinuxDevices). The weekly summary from LinuxDevices.com for the embedded Linux marketplace is now available. Topics include embedded Linux and Java, the Net2Phone Tux-tone dialing service, the new Sharp Zaurus PDA, recently availability of the Agenda VR3 PDAs, and lots more.

Nanozilla gets a name change and website facelift (LinuxDevices). The Nanozilla project, targeted at a Mozilla adaptation to embedded systems, has changed its name to Nxzilla.

Ripley -- a Linux-based wearable computer (LinuxDevices). The founder of ZeroSpin talks about his companies wearable computer project, known as Ripley, in this LinuxDevices.com article. "The first design, Ripley-1.0, was modeled loosely after Dr. Steve Mann's WearComp6 wearable computer. The Ripley's core, however, was based on Cell Computing's CardPC technology and the batteries were COTS (commercial off the shelf) Sony InfoLithium camcorder batteries."

Games

WorldForge update. A new "unofficial" update for the WorldForge gaming project is now available. "To me, Stage is the gem in our crown, a highly configurable server system that provides a toolkit for game developers. Work is progressing rapidly now, after years of gestation".

Interoperability

Wine Weekly News Issue 21 is out. The latest issue of the Wine Weekly News is available. This issue covers the addition of a new section to the wine configuration file, dealing with the latest XP, Office installation issues, using Wine with Suse and Mandrake, and more.

Network Management

Interview with Wietse Venema about his tcp_wrappers license (BSD Today). BSD Today interviews Wietse Venema, author of such tools at SATAN and Postfix, about the license included with his tcp_wrappers package. "If someone wants to redistribute the TCP Wrapper code in a manner that is not covered by the Copyright notice, then they are expected to contact me. I am a nice person and I haven't refused permission to anyone yet."

Be sure to read to the end of the article regarding Wietse's updated license. (Thanks to Ben De Rydt)

OpenNMS Update for June 5, 2001. The June 5, 2001 edition of the OpenNMS Update is available. Topics include preparations for the 0.7.6 release, managing CAPSD, coding project status, and a wish list, among other things.

System Administration

Bulletproofing Servers: Building a Challenge for Murphy (O'Reilly). Andy Neely discusses techniques for making a critical server more reliable in an O'Reilly OnLAMP article. "Most system administrators who have maintained a server for more than a few months will have their own stories to tell. It might be an installation or a configuration problem, a daemon that stops responding every six or eight weeks, or the 150 million duplicate entries that filled up the log partition last Sunday."

Web-site Development

Latest Zope News. A few interesting developments have shown up in the latest Zope News. Among other things, Zope 2.4.0 alpha 1 is available and version 1.1 beta of CMF, the Content Management Framework, has been released.

Using CGI::Application (www.perl.com). Www.perl.com features an article by Jesse Erlbaum on the Perl CGI::Application module. "CGI::Application builds upon the bedrock of CGI, adding a structure for writing truly reusable Web-applications. CGI::Application takes what works about CGI and simply provides a structure to negate some of the more onerous programming techniques that have cast an unfavorable light upon it."

Window Systems

Bonobo and Mozilla's XPCOM. IBM developerWorks has two articles by Uche Ogbuji available on "Bridging Bonobo and XPCOM". One goes into specific techniques for bridging components and the other provides a walk through example implementations. Both tutorials require a free registration.

GNUstep LaunchPad Version 1.0.1. The GNUstep project has released an update to their LaunchPad libraries for creating non-GUI applications using an API based on OpenStep and the MacOS X API.

Gtk-Perl version 0.7007 released. A new version of the Perl bindings fo GTK has been released by project maintainer Paolo Molaro. This version features better documentation, bug fixes, memory leak fixes, and support for new versions of the Gnome libraries.

Section Editor: Forrest Cook

Application Links
GIMP
Mozilla
Galeon
High Availability
ht://Dig
mnoGoSearch
MagicPoint
Wine
Worldforge
Zope

Open Source Code Collections
Berlios
Freshmeat
OpenSourceDirectory
Savannah
Le Serveur Libre
SourceForge
Sweetcode

Programming Languages

Caml

Caml Weekly News for June 5, 2001. The June 5, 2001 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out. News this week features a new release of Camlp4, OCaml compiler optimizations, and more.

FORTRAN

g95: Free Crunch Time. If you have some FORTRAN 95 code that you want to run, check out the g95 Fortran Compiler project. The compiler is still in an "embryonic state", but appears to be moving forward at a decent rate. The g95 team aims to have the software included in GCC, the Gnu Compiler Collection.

Haskell

Haskell Updates. A few updates to the Haskell project have been announced. Version 5.00.1 of the Glasgow Haskell Compiler is available, and a beta version of Hat, the Haskell tracker was also announced.

Java

Java2 SE v1.3.1 rc 1. The Blackdown Java-Linux Team has announced the release of Java2 SE v1.3.1 rc 1 for the Linux/ARM architecture.

Lisp

LISA 0.9.2 Beta released. Version 0.9.2 Beta of the Lisp-based Intelligent Software Agents (LISA) has been released. This version features bug fixes, improved support for CLOS pattern matching, and an updated reference guide.

Prototype cCLan announced. A prototype of the comprehensive Common Lisp archive network, or cCLan, has been announced. The site aims to be the Lisp language equivalent of the Perl CPAN, a central repository for Lisp packages.

Perl

Turning the Tides on Perl's Attitude Toward Beginners ( Perl.com). This article from Perl.com examines how the Perl community can open its arms to beginners better than it has in the past. "After said programmer has been flambe'ed to perfection they have to endure five more messages concerning the use of chop() and its evils, not to mention a handful of warnings about why putting double quotes around $username will cause famine in the land. Granted, these last few messages contain good information, but it's unlikely the beginner will even read these messages. Why would anyone want to subject themselves to more abuse when it's easier to delete the messages and move on to another programming language?"

Perl 5 Porters for June 5, 2001. The June 5, 2001 edition of the Perl 5 Porters digest is out. Topics include improving the Perl test suite, installing libnet into the core of Perl, work on making Perl build cleanly with -Wall (with no mention of -Larry), and more.

Perl 6 Porters for June 3, 2001. The June 3 edition of Perl 6 Porters is available. This week's issue covers more on virtual registers, coding conventions, the new magical variable it, and more.

Tracking Perl Module Use (Dr. Dobbs'). Brian Dfoy takes a look at tracking Perl Modules in a Dr. Dobbs' article. "Hundreds of Perl modules are available to expand the language for almost any task. There are even modules, such as CPAN.pm and Devel::Modlist, to help manage the modules you use."

PHP

PHP Weekly Summary for June 4, 2001. The June 4, 2001 edition of the PHP Weekly Summary has been published. Topics include fixing the cURL extension and the PHP test suite, a new TUX SAPI module, and timing for the release of the upcoming PHP 4.0.6 rc2.

Python

Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! for June 4, 2001. The June 4, 2001 edition of the Dr. Dobb's weekly Python summary is available. Topics include the DISLIN data plotting library, generating graphics with Piddle, the PYUI user interface, Python games, and more.

Getting started with PyXPCOM (IBM developerWorks). IBM's developerWorks looks at PyXPCOM, the Python interface to XPCOM that comes as part of the Komodo project. "The main developer of PyXPCOM is Mark Hammond, who is also the main force behind the Python binding for COM. He's had help from others including David Ascher and the expanding community of PyXPCOM users. PyXPCOM allows the developer to access XPCOM objects from Python code and implement XPCOM objects in Python code."

Dive Into Python Chapter 5. Chapter 5 of the free online Python book has been announced. This chapter covers Python unit testing with PyUnit.

Pyagent 1.00 released. Version 1.00 of pyagent, an open infrastructure for intelligent agents has been announced. "Pyagent provides a simple, open infrastructure for intelligent agents. pyagent is based on Frederik Lundh's implementation of XML-RPC."

Ruby

Ruby 1.6.4 available. A new version of Ruby is available from the Ruby home page. The list of changes includes numerous bug fixes.

Tcl/Tk

Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! for June 4, 2001. The June 4, 2001 edition of the Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is available. Topics include Tcl and 64 bit integers, building TclPro, working with directories and sym links, and more. "Also noteworthy, from the director of the Tcl Consortium: 'The lawyers can make rules, but these guys (open source programmers) will find a way to get around them.'"

XML

The State of XML: Why Individuals Matter (O'Reilly). Edd Dumbill adapted his closing notes to the XML Europe 2001 conference and has produced an article on Why Individuals Matter. "Adding XML into your computing environment can be like initiating a chain reaction. Once one component can import, export, or process XML, it becomes obvious that there will be great benefit if the next component does, and the next, and so on. Within organizations and systems, XML is starting to form the basis for a 'data bus,' where information can flow between applications with less resistance and effort than previously." The article provides a good overall look at the current state of XML.

Revisiting XML tools for Python (IBM developerWorks). David Mertz takes a look at Python based XML tools in an IBM developerWorks article. "The first two installments of Charming Python by David Mertz provided an overview of working with XML in Python. In the year since those initial writings, however, the state of XML tools for Python has advanced significantly. Unfortunately, most of these advances have not been backwards compatible. This special installment article revisits the author's previous discussion of XML tools, and provides up-to-date code samples."

Section Editor: Forrest Cook

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