Great news!!! Slackware 13.1 has been officially released. In the last few days, there has been no activity in -Current tree and they have prepared to put the ISO into replication phase which will be used for pre-orders in Slackware Store.
As usual, you will not find official ISOs in any mirrors now, but eventually there will be an ISO on the mirrors site within few days. For now, get the ISOs from torrents located in the main page of Slackware.
Linux is at the forefront of web development. Recently, I've been developing web applications using frameworks, and Linux in general makes these things quite a bit easier. Therefore, I figured I should present some of the basic tools you can use to create, develop, and host a website. This may abstract a bit away from the idea of "applications" in and of themselves, but I thought you may all be interested anyway.
The most logical first step for most users is selecting a development environment. Today, I'll highlight Bluefish. Later on, I'll focus on a WYSIWYG editor. (Which, by the way, is kind of difficult to find. Please, if you have any ideas, leave a message in the comments.)
Of course, to put your webpage on the Internet, you'll probably want to use a reliable web hosting. There's about a million out there, and it's hard to figure out the differences between them. I used to have a site on Bluehost, but I eventually cancelled because I thought their support was poor, and I didn't want to fax in a copy of my driver's license just to have SSH access so I could use Rails. I switched to ThinkHost a few months ago, and I've been really happy thus far. They offer reliable Linux hosting with unlimited bandwidth, space, and domains. Better yet, the servers are powered with wind and solar energy, and they plant a tree on your behalf.
Bluefish is a code editor, so users should have a basic understanding of XHTML and CSS, along with any other development languages. I learned HTML rather painstakingly from an outdated code reference, and I don't recommend you do it that way. Instead, try HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide published by O'Reilly, which can help even the most talented developer learn new tricks. In fact, it taught me all about the
GNU GRUB is upgraded to version 1.97. GRUB, also known as the GRand Unified Bootloader, is a modular, portable bootloader that supports a number of platforms & is included in many Linux distributions.
This release of GRUB is a significant breakthrough compared to GRUB 1.96. Among a long list of improvements, GRUB 1.97 includes support for booting the kernels of FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD, it detects the Ext4 filesystem which is commonly used with the kernel Linux, and it implements a robust mechanism for booting from GPT drives, by embedding itself in the BIOS Boot partition.
Release notes:
Add support for loading XNU (MacOS X kernel).
ACPI override support.
Integrated gptsync.
Password protection support.
Partition manipulation tool.
Add `keystatus' command.
Unicode fonts are now used by default.
Add `hdparm' command.
Add support for getting the current date and time from CMOS as variables.
Add `drivemap' command.
Add support for RAID levels 4,6 and 10.
update-grub is replaced by grub-mkconfig.
When booting from PXE, PXE can be used to load files.
High resolution timer support.
Image loaders now support IO buffering.
Add `crc' command.
Add Cygwin support.
Add x86_64 EFI support.
Use LZMA compression instead of LZO.
Support for saving the environment from and loading the environment from a file.
Allow the UUID to be used as device name.
The `search' command can use UUIDs now.
Add support for IEEE 1275 on i386.
Create partmap.lst and use it to automatically load partition map modules.
grub-mkconfig supports os-prober to add operating systems to the boot menu.
The ATA driver supports devices bigger than 2 TiB.
Add support for the UDF, AFS and EXT4 filesystems.
The ISO9660 filesystem supports the Joliet extension
Add support for loading kernels of FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD.
Add new command `sleep'.
Support for direct access to AT keyboards.
New utility `grub-fstest'.
A source tarball for the new release can be found at:
[*] You can use either of the above signature files to verify that the corresponding file (without the .sig suffix) is intact. First, be sure to download both the .sig file and the corresponding tarball. Then, run a command like this:
gpg --verify grub-1.97.tar.gz.sig
If that command fails because you don't have the required public key, then run this command to import it:
MooLux is Live-USB Linux based on linux Slackware that can be installed to hard drive with focus on Internet applications, multimedia and programming tools. It is a complete system with software for Internet browsing, mail, chat,multimedia and office, game as well as for programming in C, Perl, and Python. The main objectives of MooLux Linux are to be simple and one-task-one-application, be a complete development and desktop environment such as KDE. The latest version of Moolux is MooLux-5.4 (released 08 July 2009)
MooLux is designed to be a full system right out of the box. Moolux has all you need USB Disk 1GB. Now we know all you need is not always all you want. Linux is all about choices, right. Moolux can also easily expand using packages from Slackware or other Slackware 3rd party sites. Included in moolux Is a small collection of simple games. These are not meant to impress, they are just a taste of the real fun you can have with MooLux. Try MooLux for full time and see if you are not impressed with this. And if you find anything that needs improvement let we know.
Features - Based on Slackware 12.2 with kernel 2.6.27.7 - Kernel support Aufs, squashfs, Squashfs-lzma, and Bootsplash - KDE-3.5.10 - Openoffice.org-3.1 - Kaffeine Media Player-0.8.8 with Full Codecs from Mplayer - Firefox-3.0.11 with Flashgot, Thunderbird-2.0.0.22, Pidgin-2.5.8 with guification - K3B-1.0.5 Grsync-3.0.2, Gftp-2.0.18, ktorrent-2.2.7 - gparted-0.3.8, Gslapt-0.4.0 - gimp-2.4.6, qcomicbook-0.3.4,StarDict-3.0.1 - Bluefish-1.0.7,kchmviewer-3.1.2, Supertux-0.1.3 - Wlassistant-0.5.7, KDEBluetooth-1.0-Beta - and many others……..
Requirement These are the minimal hardware requirements to run MooLux in with correct performance (some lower configs work, but might be slow) : - PIV or better, Pentium or AMD are both OK. - 512 MB of RAM - No harddisk is required if run Live-USB. - 1GB space to install Live Mode - 3GB linux partition space to install Real Mode
Pidgin users have been facing several issues with Yahoo and MSN protocols in the recent times. The developers had released a new version that fixed some of those problems.They have fixed some more issues in the latest release.Pidgin 2.5.8 is now available as a free download. Changelog: • ICQ Fix misparsing a web message as an SMS message. (Yuriy Kaminskiy)
• MSN Increase NS command history size to prevent crashes on buddy lists that have a lot of buddies on other networks like Yahoo!
• MySpace Accounts with empty buddy lists are now properly marked as connected. Fix receiving messages from users of MySpace IM’s web client.
• Yahoo Fixed phantom online buddies. They should now properly disappear when signing out. Fixed the crashes some users were seeing with cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com in 2.5.7. Fixed compiling on systems with glib 2.4.x or older. Fixed an issue with file transfers. This may not resolve all issues, but it should resolve at least some of the most common ones. The pager server will automatically update to scsa.msg.yahoo.com if the user empties the field or if it is scs.msg.yahoo.com. This should ease the pain of transition to the new login method.
• XMPP Fix an incompatibility between Prosody and libpurple clients.
OpenOffice.org rocks! Big time. The OpenOffice.org office suite which comes bundled with Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex which I am running on my machine, is version 2.4 even though version 3.0 has been released for some time now. But supposedly big things are happening in the yet to be officially released OpenOffice.org 3.1.
Some of the visual enhancements being - Antialiasing of images making them smooth, improvements in charts, grammar checking and hyperlinks management, just to name a few. Will OpenOffice.org 3.1 be a Microsoft Office 2007 killer ? May be not. But it is closing the gap by leaps and bounds passing each (minor) version release. More over, it can be obtained by one and all at an unbeatable price - Free.
Learn more about the new features being introduced in OpenOffice.org 3.1 which is due to be officially released 63 days hence.
Linus Torvalds says he has ditched KDE for good and is now sleeping with its arch rival GNOME. Oh well, rhetoric apart, he says the move over to GNOME happened because in KDE 4, he found it quite bothersome that he couldn't get his Right mouse button to access the right menu he wanted. In short, he ran into usability issues while using KDE 4.0.
In an interview given to Rodney Gedda of "Computer World" - Australia, he had this to say, and I quote :
I used to be a KDE user. I thought KDE 4.0 was such a disaster I switched to GNOME. I hate the fact that my right button doesn't do what I want it to do. But the whole "break everything" model is painful for users and they can choose to use something else.
I realise the reason for the 4.0 release, but I think they did it badly. They did so may changes it was a half-baked release. It may turn out to be the right decision in the end and I will re-try KDE, but I suspect I'm not the only person they lost.
I am sure the GNOME camp must be rejoicing in having won over a high profile Linux user to their side. This when a few years back, Linus Torvalds had gone on record severely criticizing GNOME for over simplifying the user interface.
Linus Torvalds was in Australia to attend the annual linux.conf.au organised by Linux Australia. While he was rather critical of KDE 4 in its current form, he did say it was a good thing for Nokia to release Qt as LGPL. Among other things, he also gives his views on Microsoft Windows 7 advising Microsoft to release sooner and decouple the operating system from the applications. A really interesting interview.
Linux kernel has in recent times seen numerous advances. And the latest versions of the Linux kernel namely 2.6.28 and 2.6.29 have some fabulous features in-built into them.
Topping over 10 million lines of code, the current day Linux kernel is no push over and is forming a serious threat to its competition.
Some of the features that are there in the more recent Linux kernels are as follows:
New file systems - Linux kernel supports a new file system called Ext4. Ext4 supports large number of files of greater size and deeper directory structures. Another file system which is still in experimental mode but is soon going to be a choice for Linux users is the Btrfs file system which competes with ZFS in features.
Better memory management for the Linux kernel graphics stack.
Boot tracer - This is a feature in built into the new kernels, which will allow the developers to find possible ways in which they can further reduce the time taken for the Linux kernel to completely boot up.
Freezer - This new feature helps you to easily migrate your operating system to a new host.
Improved virtual memory scalability
Disk improvements - Such as better support for solid state devices, improvements for ATA hard disks and so on. For instance, Linux kernel now provides protection against sudden jolts and shocks in ATA hard disks.
That’s right — KDE version 4.1 is now part of Slackware -current (in the /testing directory), so for everyone who can’t wait to try it out, have a look at it! We’re all (very happily) using it here now, and it has come a long way since the first 4.x release. Congratulations to the KDE team for the fine work (and many thanks to Robby Workman and Heinz Wiesinger for all the help with build scripts and testing for the initial Slackware packaging of KDE4). Have fun!
Also, we recently commissioned Mark from Senile Felines Designs to create a unique alternate Slackware Logo, as we were getting a number of bug reports that the old logo could not be read easily while standing on one’s head. We think he did a great job with it! If you like the new logo, we are selling shirts, stickers and other products with it at the Official Slackware CafePress Store, and if the design proves to be popular we’ll likely have some of these products mass produced for the main Slackware Store. Meanwhile, you can help support the Slackware project, _and_ be the first on your block to show off the new Slackware ambigram logo!
Financial troubles are an ever more common reality as the economic climate continues to venture through the monsoon season, and not-for-profit organizations are no exception. Such appears to be the case for the GNOME Foundation, the forces behind the venerable GNOME desktop, as the organization’s 2009 budget is finalized and thoughts — and worries — turn to 2010.
Corporate sponsorship — an increasingly difficult creature to find — appears to have been the traditional financial staple for GNOME, paying for the foundation’s projects and programs as well as providing salaries for its small number of staffers. According to John Palmieri, Board Treasurer, the foundation is fine for 2009, but is “projecting that without a significant influx of steady contributions” it will face a significant shortfall in 2010. From Palmieri’s comments, the culprit appears to be the above-mentioned vanishing corporate contributions, though Foundation Executive Director Stormy Peters has reportedly been able to secure new sponsors, at least for 2009.
Ms. Peters, though a long-time GNOME fixture, is a relative newcomer as Executive Director, having been appointed to the position less than a year ago. It would appear to be her position — likely the greatest personnel-related expense for the foundation — that is most in jeopardy, as a shortfall in the 2010 budget would present a choice between retaining Ms. Peters and cutting project funding, a regrettable position for any group to find themselves in. Palmieri describes the prospect of losing the so recently gained Executive Director as a “real tragedy,” saying that Ms. Peter’s efforts at “kicking our butts” to obtain financing, finish existing projects, and begin new ones are “remarkable in themselves, and even more so in the current climate.” On the prospect of losing her, he says quite succinctly: “[W]ithout her the Foundation will be less effective in its mission.”
Efforts are underway to prevent such a shortfall, and there is ample time to turn the projections around, if supporters turn out in force. In January, the foundation launched a new Friends of GNOME program allowing individuals to make recurring donations at a $10 per month “Adopt A Hacker” level, as well as the option to give on a non-recurring basis beginning with a $25 “Associate” contribution and progressing to a $1200+ “Philanthropist” level. Palmieri, on behalf of the GNOME Board, asks those who have and those who haven’t given to GNOME before to consider it now:
While we can look at this downturn as a time to tighten our belts, I would much rather look at this as an opportunity for the community to take a stake in the future of the Foundation and show that we are not exclusively reliant on corporate coffers to grow GNOME.
If you haven’t donated in the past, now is the time to start by becoming a Friend of GNOME or donating at any of the contribution levels. If you do currently donate to GNOME, look to see if you can contribute a tiny bit more on a monthly basis. Every little bit helps. Remember these funds go to programs like hackfests and putting on local conferences. It also goes to paying for our staff of two who along with the part time and overworked board construct the strategies for facilitating the growth of GNOME.
