Author: Ian Palmer
It’s an Open Source mantra: “Release early, and release often.” So, we come to you again with another weekly release of our condensed version of tips, patches, and information, pulled from mailing lists that are a part of the open source world. In this addition: a load of GNOME software releases, including Wilbur’s favorite project, a new release of the KDE desktop, and quite a few tidbits from everyone’s favorite upstart operating system. As always, if you feel we’re missing a list to sift through, please drop us a line with your suggestion.
Linux Kernel
- The Virginia Astronomical Instrumentation Laboratory introduced a new framework this
week, called the Astronomical Instrumentation Software Framework (AISF). AISF is a set
of routines for modular instrument control and data acquisition . Also released
is a program called ASTRIX, which is built on the AISF framework. ASTRIX is a graphical
image acquisition system that is designed to extract data from CCD devices such as
digital cameras. Developers interested in assisting the development of this
project can stop by the project Web site on
SourceForge. - Andy Chou mentions a new resource for Linux kernel developers. Coverity has graciously opened up a new
bug tracking database for the Linux
kernel. The bugs contained in this new knowledgebase were found by the code analysis
tool, formerly known as the “Stanford Checker.” Access to the database is available to all,
but requires that you register. - Another resource that C developers (especially Linux kernel developers) might be
interested in has been provided by Denis Vlasenko. His inline_hunter, which is designed
to find large inlines in code, is now up to version 0.2. - For those of you running 2.4.26 in SMP mode with a Gigabit Ethernet card supported under the
e1000 driver, please be aware that if you are experiencing a substantial amount of packet errors on your card, try toggling the CONFIG_ACPI option. - Enterprising users who would prefer a clean boot screen (maybe with an attractive logo,
even) might be interested in this terse little tidbit about the “quiet” kernel boot parameter. This will prevent
most boot messages, except for those of the “really bad news” variety, to appear on the
console while booting. It will be up to the administrator to quiet those pesky init
scripts, however. If you are interested in other gems that might be available from the
Linux Boot Prompt, take a look at this useful reference. - IRDA users, who are experiencing weird issues with IRDA support, should try applying
these
updates to the Linux kernel documentation, and re-reading the irda.txt file in the Networking documentation (Documents/Networking directory), to see if the new information may help you out of your bind. - Mariusz Mazur announces the 2.6.5 release of the linux-libc-headers package on April 19. This package is designed to replace the headers that come with the Linux kernel, and is more compatible with various libc implementations. Included in the previously mentioned announce message is a mini-FAQ.
- PS/2 mouse users on the bleeding edge of the 2.6 kernel trail may be interested in
some fixes from Kim Holviala. - Eamonn Hamilton wrote into the mailing list noticing problems with his Ethernet
connection, which was being reset by the watchdog every 30 minutes. If anyone else has been noticing a similar problem, Scott Feldman has a few changes you may want to apply. - Linux 2.4 users who are interested in the state of SATA support in future 2.4.x
releases might be interested in reading this
piece on KernelTrap, as passed along from
Ann Pearlstein. - Linux
2.6.6-rc2 is born on April 20. - Fans of high resolution clocks will appreciate this
announcement from George Anzinger. - Sam Hopkins announces his AoE (ATA over Ethernet) driver for Linux 2.4, and is currently in the process of porting it to 2.6. Hopefully the driver will be included in the distribution of 2.4.27, but
if you can’t wait, you can find the driver
here.
GNOME
- Every Windows power user has probably heard of, and dived into, the Windows registry
at least once. Well, it looks like Linux may be getting its own version, according
to theseseparatediscussions. While some of you may be more comfortable with an /etc directory, you may want to take a look at the ideas that are being discussed and see what you think. - Ted Gould passed the torch of the GNOME-media maintainership last week. Thanks for the good work, Ted, and let’s all welcome Ronald and Thomas to their roles as the new maintainers of the project.
- GNOME users who have multimedia-keys (like CD controls) that don’t work should try
applying this enhancement from Nigel Horne and see if they can’t start making use of those
currently dead controls. - The Software Gnomes left these goodies on our doorstep, this week:
- Stephan Roh’s Deja Vu font, mentioned last week,
went to version 1.0 on April 18. - Seeing as we missed the March 23 landmark 2.0 release of The Gimp, Free Software’s flagship image manipulation suite, it’s only fair that we bring the 2.0.1 release to your attention.
- And since GtkSourceView v1.0 was also released on March 23, we can’t leave out the
v1.0.1 release on April 19. - While we did mention the release of gtkmm/glibmm, it would be criminal of us not to
mention the full release of the v2.6 GNOME Platform Bindings suite, which adds additional support
for XML, Java, Perl, and other goodies. - To round out our releases list, Glade
2.6.0 was released on April 29.
- Stephan Roh’s Deja Vu font, mentioned last week,
KDE
- Users having problems getting KMail to read
their mail directories (after they’ve been moved or restored from a backup, possibly),
please make sure you have the proper directory organization and layout. Thanks to Jim Horner for the tips! - KDE 3.2.2 is
released on April 19. - If you are interested in trying another editor on your KDE desktop, give the
first milestone of Yzis a whirl. Please remember to report any bugs as you find ’em. - KDE users having a problem with kdesu, after upgrading to KDE 3.2.2, will want to
check out this thread on the subject, which references this resolved
bug in the KDE Knowledgebase. - Want more eye-candy for your KDE desktop? Try out the latest version of the
KMatrix
screensaver. - Developers looking to plug those evil memory leaks might be interested in trying
out Valgrind.
Mozilla
- Mozilla 1.7RC1 was released on April 21.
- Firefox users experiencing weirdness in their cache that causes them to force-reload
might be interested in some of the information in this thread. Have you experienced this problem and come up with a workaround? - If you have plans on authoring your own XUL content for Mozilla, you may find
these XUL guidelines helpful. Thanks to Aaron Leventhal for the link.