alll about linux

You know Klipper, the advanced KDE-clipboard? You have a large notes.txt-file on your home-directory? Your monitor is full of yellow notes? If only one anwser was yes you should have a look at Basket!

The author is currently working on the next version, 0.6, which makes it easier to handle a lot more data and has a range of usability improvements while looking much better.

 
Basket and Rosegarden

If you’re into music composition, Rosegarden may be of interest. It’s a MIDI sequencer and notation editor, which also has basic audio capabilities (recording and playback). Connecting with Jack, LADSPA and DSSI plugins, featuring a powerful notation editor, Rosegarden should fit nicely into your home studio. If classical notation doesn’t fit your needs it also offers a “piano roll” editor along with a percussion editor. The next version should feature lots of improvement in notation handling, along with other modes like guitar tablature for instance. - dot.kde.org

found at ./martin’s flickr site

After ATI’s successful launch last month of the fglrx 8.26.18 drivers, which had delivered an external events daemon (atieventsd) and more, it is now time for us to discuss the changes in the newly released 8.27.10 Linux display drivers. Of the changes in this release include X11R7.1 support, Fedora Core packaging scripts, and Radeon X1000 TV-out support. As always, we have all of the details to share in our ATI fglrx 8.27.10 driver examination. For those that had missed it, earlier this week Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) had announced a merger with ATI Technologies for $5.4 Billion USD. This acquisition should increase the level of competitiveness between manufacturers both in the CPU arena as well as on the graphics forefront. We had sought comments from ATI’s Linux department as whether this deal would have any impact on their driver development, but at this time, it is simply not known.

Complete Benchmark   |    ATI Drivers

Trolltech has released a preview of the long awaited Java bindings for Qt 4. “Qt Jambi technology integrates Qt with the Java programming language, providing new possibilities for both Java and C++ programmers.” This technology enables Java developers to take advantage of the powerful features of Qt from within Java Standard Edition 5.0 and Java Enterprise Edition 5.0.”

With the release of Trolltech’s java bindings it kinda feels like Christmas. I wanted to point out some more presents under the tree…

Look closely at the dockwidgets on the right of the image. See that?

Complete Post

More information on the Jambi press release and tech details in the Jambi whitepaper. To get your copy sign up to the preview licence (final release will be also available under an open source license) and download. There is an FAQ and Trolltech wants to get your feedback on the qt-jambi-interest list. Update: Trolltech developer Gunnar Sletta provides more details in his blog. - kde.news

Interested in using the latest GNOME Menu that is featured in SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 on your SUSE Linux 10.1.

Well, it comes out that it’s very easy to have one on 10.1 GNOME, replacing the standard menu. As SLED 10 shares the same code base with SUSE 10.1, I didn’t notice any problems, nor should you. Search feature that is integrated into menu using beagle also seems to work perfectly. All you need to make sure is that beagle daemon (beagled) is auto launched when you log-in to desktop.

a screenshot of SUSE 10.1 @Work

All you need to do is to download the following gnome-main-menu file (version 0.6.1-0.2 as of writing this):

• Gnome-Main-Menu - i586 (32-bit)
  
• Gnome-Main-Menu - x86_64 (64-bit)
  

Once downloaded, install it using the command:

# rpm -ivh gnome-main-menu-x.x.x-x.x.rpm

Once installed log-out of your GNOME desktop and re-login. (not sure if you have to, but wont disturb, just in case). Then right click on GNOME panel and click “Add to Panel” and add “Main Menu”.

From my experience till now, I can say that I find it little uncomfortable. Things are not the way you are used to, hence maybe with time I will find it more usable. Few things that I miss for sure is the “Place” menu found in ordinary menu panel. Another option that I find will be useful is adding the feature where you can add extra shortcuts to “System” section found on the right side of the menu. For example Yast should be there, as it is not even found under Control Center section. What else I can wish for. Probably having the ability to drag-n-drop as well as to able to create your own application categories, apart from standard ones. I know that GNOME is all about simplicity, but having the ability to customise will be surely greeted. Hope with time they will somehow integrate these features and some more cool stuff that I can’t think of.

The search feature is the best that I found new in menu, which as mentioned above works flawlessly and another great feature is the ease of finding the application that you are looking for, instead of digging around in menu looking where the newly installed app has landed it’s shortcut. BTW, the last feature is well integrated in KDE menu and also find it very useful.

All in all, I cannot say much about the new menu that Novell has come up with for the SLED 10. New comers will certainly find it cool, not to say it does indeed look little similar to windows so should have positive impact on users switiching to Linux. Even though it does resemble, the approach is radically different and the ideas in UI usage is somewhat new. I need sometime to get used to it, so will try it out for a month and then decide which one is better suited for me. For the time being give it a try. If you like it, keep it, if don’t then ….

Let us know what are your thoughts on this new concept from Novell.

In its latest effort to further the open-source programming movement, Google opened a site Thursday where programmers can host their software projects.

As expected, Google engineering manager Greg Stein announced the project hosting site during a talk at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention in Portland, Ore.

“One of our goals is to encourage healthy, productive open-source communities. Developers can always benefit from more choices in project hosting,” Google said on a frequently-asked-questions site.

Complete Story

This overview of Mac applications could keep even the most dedicated software enthusiast busy for days. Some of them are proprietary, such as iTunes; others are pure open source. So how does Apple’s software, and that of other proprietary companies such as Adobe, compare to their open source counterparts? Matthew Russell gets the conversation rolling with this extensive collection, and even assigns grades for overall categories. We know there are great apps that aren’t on this list and hope that you will add the ones (in the Comments section) that you think are important. Try to include URLs if possible. So with no further delay, let’s get going.

t turns out that OSS is doing amazingly well for the most part. As might be expected, there are still some gaping holes to be filled, but in many others, Apple would do well to start taking notes. I’m going to take a brief look at the landscape for some of the most common stock apps and assign each of those application categories some health grades. The more high-quality alternatives to Apple’s stock apps there are, the higher we’ll grade the category’s health, and vice versa.

Complete Analysis

Linux and Mac OS X users may have their differences, but the two groups share some common ground. Both, for instance, enjoy the benefits of working with stable, reliable, relatively secure operating systems with open-source pedigrees — and as a result, both groups tend to think Windows is about as useful as a nagging chest cold.

Unfortunately, Linux and OS X users also share a problem that Windows users never worry about — waiting, often in vain, for popular software that works on their systems. Case in point: Sorting through the small army of subscription-based music services to find one that offers major-label music as well as Linux or OS X support is like trying to find a needle in a haystack — minus the needle.

Not everyone who uses Linux or OS X cares, or even realizes, what they’re missing. That’s especially true for OS X users who prefer to buy their music downloads outright, as opposed to renting access to a provider’s online music catalog: Thanks to Apple’s iTunes Music Store, they can stuff themselves (or, one hopes, their iPods) silly with 99-cent song downloads.

Complete Review

Over the past few years, OpenDarwin has become a mere hosting facility for Mac OS X related projects. The original notions of developing the Mac OS X and Darwin sources has not panned out. Availability of sources, interaction with Apple representatives, difficulty building and tracking sources, and a lack of interest from the community have all contributed to this. Administering a system to host other people’s projects is not what the remaining OpenDarwin contributors had signed up for and have been doing this thankless task far longer than they expected. It is time for OpenDarwin to go dark.

Announcement

Tux doesn’t need to be a copy-cat, and got his own style.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has written an article titled “Top five things Linux can learn from Microsoft“, where he mentions …. well the title says it all. Though I agree with some of his thesis, there are few that I totally disagree.

First he mentions that Linux could use something like MSDN, where developers are provided with help in writing applications ! “quote” using Microsoft products and programming tools. Well, let’s presume that Novell+Redhat in colaboration start providing something like “NRDN - Novell Redhat Developer Network” - where products of only these companies are provided for Linux developers …… the question –> do you need that?

Then he mentions that MSDN provides with well-written tutorials, best practices guides, the latest betas and so forth ….. isn’t all that available for Linux on the Internet, besides what is then open source all about!

Common Interface - what! I do not need common interface for KDE and GNOME and other desktop environments. Where is then the choice and philosophy suite yourself - use what you like the most and is better option for your particular hardware. Besides all my applications look quite good, no matter in which DE I am using and whether it is QT and/or GTK based. All you need is to setup the system correctly and use the balanced options - in terms of themes, icons, colors, etc. It is not that difficult.

One thing that I agree is that the KDE, GNOME, XFCE, Enlightenment, and others should work together to make this easier on end-user side and maybe even share “global settings”, no matter which DE is being used. I need choices to be there, period.

“The problem is that, even now, it doesn’t have enough support. I’m looking forward to the day when all Linux and open-source applications can read and write to ODF.“ Not having “enough” support - from where? The world is 90% MS owned! Already quite a lot of Linux applications can handle ODF and the list is growing day by day.

“A major reason why Microsoft stays on top is that they’ve continued to pay hundreds of millions every year on marketing and advertising.“ Is there anything new about that. All know very well that MS is one of the best marketting companies to exist on this planet and surely Linux (not a commercial entity) cannot pose such threat to MS using millions of dollars. But then Novell, Redhat, Canonical and some other, including governments, are trying their best. Nothing to learn here from MS … period.

“Why do you think Linux sites, like this one, Linux Today, and many others have Microsoft ads running on them? Because, Microsoft buys the ad space, and the Linux companies almost never do. It’s that simple.“ On this I will be personal - Do I need MS adds, or rather, will I have MS adds on sites that I host and are dedicated to Open Source and Linux … think NEVER. But I will host adds (even for free) for Bill’s charity foundation … getting my point.

“Why? Because while the total number of Linux users is still growing, it’s no longer growing explosively. Linux is no longer the newest, most exciting kid on the block.“ Who is then - Windows (again!) or OS X or perhaps BeOS and AmigaOS?

“Once the HPs and Dells see that there’s money to be made from the Linux desktop, they’ll come on board, and then, and only then, can we start talking seriously about any so-called year of the Linux desktop.“ Some have already, and stats already show that thanks to Linux HP was able to sell more notebooks in India. You already are getting notebooks in market which are Linux certified and I am getting one next time.

Of course Linux vendors have to pull strings to get their distribution to be pre-installed. Doesn’t AMD has to pull strings$$$)

“Linux may never have the universal hardware support that Windows gets, but its supporters have to try with all their might and influence to get as much open-source driver support as possible.” I am cool with closed source drivers as long as they have good support for Linux and work on par with that of drivers for other platforms. Open sourcing drivers is really good, and what should be the ideal solution, but companies have commercial secrets which I understand (relates to drivers only).

So, as you see I had little some-some to say about his thesis. I understand that not all will agree with my points, but still.