Victoria’s Electoral Commission has flagged plans to expand its use
of electronic voting kiosks based on Linux software in the next state
election in November this year.
The state first started using the machines in a limited trial
during the last state election in 2006. It appears as if the machines
were used for voting for the vision-impaired, as well as for military
personnel. News of the rollout was broken by Computerworld.
However, in tender documents released last week,
the state revealed it would expand its use of the machines. About one
hundred kiosks will be deployed to early voting centres (including
mobile facilities) around the state as well as in the United Kingdom.
According to the tender documentation, the machines will consist of
one in-built 19″ LCD touch-screen, one PC with an Ethernet network
port, and an in-built USB smartcard reader. The machine must be able to
run Linux, as the commission has requested Linux drivers for the
components.
The commission stated it would install Linux on the machines itself,
but it remains unclear which exact version of the open source operating
system it will use.
The tender documents stated that drivers must be compatible with the
"2.6 kernel/Gentoo release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux”. However Red
Hat and Gentoo are quite different Linux distributions.
It appears as if Victoria’s previous e-voting system was supplied by Hewlett-Packard, in conjunction with Spanish company Scytl.
The news comes as Linux has not been making headway for desktop use
in Australia — even in such limited use as customised and locked down
terminals such as e-voting systems require.
One of the last stand-out Linux desktop deployments in Australia was
that found at Kennards Hire. However, in December 2009 the plant and
equipment company revealed it had migrated its 300 desktop machines running Fedora Linux back to Windows (thin clients) in 2008.
In contrast, the New Zealand government is currently engaged in a pilot
to replace Windows PCs with desktops running Linux and open source
software. However, Linux remains a force in local server deployments,
where it is seen as the main rival operating system to Microsoft
Windows. |
 In May, Swiss company Business Systems Integration AG ( BSI) will release its Scout
business application framework to the open source community. A first
look at the Scout project's source code will be available to attendees
at this year's EclipseCon conference, taking place from the 22nd to the 25th of March, 2010 in Santa Clara, California.
The Scout framework is the foundation for a number of BSI's products, such as BSI CRM.
It consists of an application model, a reference implementation, an SDK
(Scout Development Toolkit) and a number of development tools. Its
primary goal is to reduce development time for service-oriented
architecture (SOA) and Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE)
compliant business solutions.
According to Andreas Hoegger, Eclipse Scout project co-leader and
System Architect for BSI, opening up the framework is the next logical
step. During EclipseCon 2010, Hoegger and BSI project manager Matthias
Zimmermann will present a two hour tutorial on Eclipse Scout.
BSI joined the Ecilpse Foundation in May of last year as an Eclipse Solutions Member. Eclipse Scout is currently at the project proposal status. The Scout source code to be released in May will be made publicly available under an Eclipse license. |
 Simon Phipps,
Chief Open Source Officer at Sun, has left the company following its
acquisition by Oracle. Reflecting on his nearly ten years at Sun in a posting
on his personal blog, Phipps feels he achieved some "amazing things",
including the releasing of code for Unix, Java, elements of Linux and
the SPARC chip under free licenses. Phipps is also proud of the part he
has played in guiding the Open Document Format at Sun and his role in
kick starting Sun's blogging culture. He pays credit to the people he
worked with in pushing forward those ideas within Sun.
Phipps has had disappointments though; he wanted to see Apache get
the Java TCK licence that they wanted, an issue which has led to
constant friction within the Java Community Process, and he didn't
manage to get code for some projects "permanently outside the Sun
firewall". Overall though, Phipps says he is "amazed and humbled to see
what the open source team at Sun has achieved". Phipps has not made a
decision on what he will do next, but will be keeping people informed
through his Wild Webmink blog.
Phipps joins a number of former Sun employees who have left since the acquisition by Oracle. Tim Bray,
SGML and XML expert, left on March 1st, and a number of the Drizzle
developers, but apparently not including lead developer Brian Akers,
have moved to RackSpace Cloud. |
  Linux Mint
is a Ubuntu-based distribution which aims to bring a more complete,
elegant and friendly desktop solution to its users. To do this, the
project offers multimedia codecs, Flash and Java support right out of
the box, along with some custom applications. Mint, the child of
Clement Lefebvre, has attracted a lot of attention over the past three
years. Some people are very happy with the product and provide the
project with a steady stream of donations,
while others downplay the distribution, claiming Mint is just Ubuntu
with additional codecs and a different theme. It had been over a year
since I last tried Mint and I decided to see what the project currently
has to offer. Before setting out to test drive Mint, I had a chance to
exchange e-mails with Clement Lefebvre (pictured on the right) about
his creation... * * * * *
DW: What's new in Mint 8? What are some of the new features people will enjoy in Helena?
CL: We
answered many of the requests we received after the release of Linux
Mint 7 and some of the changes we made were quite popular among our
users. The Update Manager now allows you to ignore updates for certain
packages. The level associated with each package is something we
maintain so this addition gives a lot more power to the user. We also
improved many aspects of the Software Manager and we implemented
numerous little things to make the system more comfortable to use.
DW: One
comment that comes up a lot on the DistroWatch forum is that Mint uses
the Ubuntu repository, rather than host its own. Would you care to
explain why that is and if there are any plans to develop your own
repositories? I understand that Mint has a small repository of about
440 packages, could you tell us about that?
CL: Linux
Mint isn't just based on Ubuntu, it's fully compatible with it. Unlike
what Canonical does with Debian, we do not fork the Ubuntu repositories
or break compatibility with our base distribution. We use two
technologies to make the most of our package base while remaining
independent in our choices and the changes we want to implement: APT
pinning (which is well-known to Debian users) and adjustments (which is
a technology of our own). When we want something to act differently
than it does in Ubuntu we can either maintain the package ourselves or
dynamically tell our system to adjust the changes we require. Our
repositories are given a higher priority than the other ones, ensuring
that Linux Mint users pick the versions we maintain rather than the
ones coming from upstream.
Developing our own repositories
represents a massive amount of work. If you look at the various
distributions on the market you'll notice very few projects which have
the resources to both maintain their own packages and develop new
innovations on a regular basis. I can think of only a few, and these
are backed with corporate funding - with a business model that usually
requires them to shift their focus away from what matters to home users
and onto more lucrative activities such as business support.
Of course, with our own repositories we would become more independent.
I would personally like to slow things down and to be more conservative
on the base of the system and when it comes to hardware detection, to
ensure more coherence and less regressions between releases, but we're
more than happy with what's done upstream, whether it comes from
projects like GNOME, KDE, the Linux kernel team or even distributions
like Debian or Ubuntu. Every six months our own features shine on top
of a large amount of upstream improvements and the result is fantastic.
If our goal is to get to a perfect desktop then we're only introducing
change when we think we can do better. There's still much to do to
improve the desktop and so it's not the time for us to focus away from
this. We leave the system to upstream projects and we don't feel the
need to introduce changes in that domain.
On the things we do want to change, APT pinning and our adjustment
system give us the flexibility we need and so we don't need to
duplicate and/or patch every single package in separate repositories.
With regards to server loads, both Linux Mint and Ubuntu are mature
projects with mirror networks. For the distribution, a network of
mirror hosts is very important. It makes it easy for people to download
and use the operating system, it reduces the load on each server and it
improves the overall performance for each user. For the mirrors, this
is also very important as once they have the resources hosted locally,
they can offer them easily to their own audience. Let's take a national
ISP as an example. If many people in the country download and use Linux
Mint, that creates significant bandwidth and requests from this country
to our servers in Germany or Ubuntu servers in the USA. It's in the
interest of the ISP to mirror both Ubuntu and Mint so that the local
users find the same resources locally. To the distributions, that means
fewer things to worry about. To the users that means local servers, to
the ISP that means less outgoing requests.
I wish I could answer the question more briefly but there's so much to
say about the hosting strategy. To summarize, there's no real advantage
in maintaining our own repositories at the moment as it doesn't
represent any significant issues when it comes to server loads or our
independence as a distribution and it would require a lot of work,
attention and focus which would inevitably be shifted away from what
matters the most: improving the desktop.
DW: The
Mint web site makes it very clear that the project is based on Ubuntu
and, in turn, Debian. When you started with Mint was there any move to
work within the Ubuntu community more? Or did you see your creation as
being its own distro right from the start?
CL: The
project was independent from the very start and although the system
itself technically qualifies as an Ubuntu flavour (since it's both
based on and compatible with it, and since the base system is almost
the same) the distribution itself, in terms of direction, structure and
ways of working is completely different. We consider Ubuntu as an
upstream component and, as prominent as it is within the end result,
it's still something we consider as a part, which can be changed,
modified, patched and configured to fit in. The same way we're
committed to use GNOME as our desktop, we're committed to use Ubuntu as
our package base, and the reason for this is simple: these components
give us the best results to get the job done. That doesn't mean we're
not looking elsewhere though. We're often trying out different
desktops, in particular with community editions such as KDE, Xfce,
Fluxbox. And we're interested also in porting our technology to other
package bases such as Debian (for which there's a project planned) and
Fedora. Because of the complexity of these upstream projects and
because we're focused on our main task, we're not actively involved in
working with them or in developing our own desktop or package base.
DW: Your
site offers professional support packages at reasonable prices. Do you
have any support clients, and if so, are they mostly home or business
clients?
CL: We
only have a very small number of customers and they're mostly home or
small business clients. We're expensive when compared to Canonical,
Mandriva or other support offerings in the Linux market and that's
because the support is done by the development team itself. We're also
careful when it comes to support as we want to remain focused on the
distribution itself rather than on commercial activities revolving
around it. Our business model is extremely light and very efficient.
We're funded by our user base and the on-line activity it generates and
that allows us to be successful without worrying about whether or not
what we're doing is lucrative.
DW: Mint seems ideal for home use. What features does it have which would appeal to businesses?
CL: It's
robust, predictable, modern, comfortable, efficient - all the reasons
why you'd want to use it at home also make for an ideal workstation.
It's quite popular among small to medium companies. Our project is
small though, and it lacks independence, long term strategies,
marketing, PR and support structures. For these reasons, it doesn't
appeal to large businesses, where Red Hat, Novell and, to a lesser
extent, Mandriva and Ubuntu are more viable solutions.
DW: There are a lot of applications on the CD. Do you use any special compression methods to make it all fit?
CL: Yes, the live CD is compressed with Squashfs. There's about 2.5 GB compressed within these 700 MB :)
DW: What comes next? What will we see in Mint version 9?
CL: It's
a bit too soon for me to talk about this but we're planning on two
significant developments - a community website with a hardware
database, ideas (similar to Brainstorm), blogging, social-networking,
support, software portal and many other features. And a complete
re-write of our Software Manager. This time we want it to be
package-centric (so hopefully it will replace Synaptic) with over
30,000 packages, user reviews, combining the best from the current
mintInstall, the GNOME application installer and the Ubuntu Software
Center.
DW: Anything else you'd like to share? Words of wisdom, comments?
CL: We're
having a lot of fun making Linux Mint. Whether it's integrating
upstream projects, implementing our own ideas, interacting with the
community, it's always fun. And it's a pleasure for us to see people
getting excited about what we do and users happy with our releases. And
then there's also so much more than Linux Mint, so many distributions
to try and to download, so many other software applications to install,
there's a world of fun for everyone to enjoy. I think that's the beauty
of open source, that energy and how easy it is for developers to build
on top of what's already there and how exciting the whole thing can be.
I hope this will last. There's also important questions to be addressed
and conflicts to be resolved when it comes to free software and open
source and we shouldn't avoid them, but to all people who bring joy and
excitement to us and who keep Linux going, I'd like to say thank you.
That's the most important aspect of all and that's what we're all here
for.
DW: Clem, thank you very much for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer questions. It's greatly appreciated.
* * * * *
Linux Mint comes in five different flavours, depending on the needs of
the user. The Main edition is a GNOME live CD for 32-bit and 64-bit
machines. There's a Universal edition, which removes certain software
to make the product legally distributable all around the world and
includes additional language packs. Rounding out the options are the
KDE and Fluxbox editions. The disc images can be downloaded free of
charge from the project's website or purchased for a small fee of
US$10. While my copy of the Main edition was downloading, I took a look
around the Mint site.
The distribution's web site is easy to navigate with clear menus and
plenty of useful information. Aside from the download and donation
pages, there is also a project Wiki which contains a lot of useful
information, HOWTOs and frequently asked questions. There's a forum for
people who want to chat, share experiences and ask questions. There are
links to reviews, a project blog and a contact page for people who wish
to speak directly with the developers. The Mint team also offers
professional support agreements at a reasonable price. One of the most
impressive features of the site may be the project's software portal.
Mint has a small software repository of 438 packages which the user can
browse through by name, by category and by popularity. Users are able
to download the packages and install them with just a single click.
Additionally, users can login to write reviews of the software and rate
products to help future users find what they need. Some of the software
modules which caught my attention were World of Goo (the demo), Opera
and Google Earth.
With my latest CD image downloaded and burned to disc, I sat down to
test drive Mint 8, code-named "Helena". The disc begins by showing a
green-themed GRUB menu which provides a few options. The user can boot
into the Linux Mint live desktop, start Mint in Compatibility Mode or
kick off OEM mode. The OEM option starts the installer without booting
into the live desktop and the Compatibility Mode tries to run the
desktop with the VESA graphics driver enabled and APCI turned off.
Selecting the default option takes the user to an Emerald City edition
of GNOME where the application menu and taskbar sit at the bottom of
the screen. A few icons for exploring the file system and a launcher
for the system installer sit in the upper-left corner of the desktop.
The installer takes the user through the usual steps of selecting a
preferred language, the proper time zone, and keyboard layout. When we
arrive at the partition manager, there are three options available to
the user. The system can take over the entire disk, try to install Mint
alongside any other OS on the drive, or the user can manually arrange
partitions. The manual partition manager is pretty straightforward,
giving the user the ability to set the size, format and mount point of
each partition. The installer supports most common file systems,
including ext4, ext3, ext2, JFS, XFS and ReiserFS. The only feature I
missed here was the ability to encrypt an entire partition, but it is
possible to encrypt individual home directories. In the next step, the
installer asks the user to create an account and a password. The final
screen provides the option to configure the boot loader and then the
installer goes to work copying over the required files.
Linux Mint 8 - the system installer introduces itself
(full image size: 348kB, screen resolution 1366x768 pixels)
When booting up Mint from the hard drive for the first time, there's no
further configuration required, the user is sent directly to a login
screen. Once logged in, they're presented with a welcome dialogue
providing helpful links. These links direct the user to the
distribution's manual, the forum and the release notes. There's also a
link which will connect the user to Mint's IRC chat room where members
of the community can provide assistance. The next thing I noticed was a
padlock icon in the system tray. This icon changes, depending on
whether updates are available and it provides a subtle way to let the
users know their update status. The program blissfully does not nag the
user if ignored, a habit some distributions have fallen into.
Though it takes just 2.5 GB of hard drive space, Mint comes packed with
useful software. The application menu is loaded with a disc burner,
text editor, calculator, file search utility, GIMP, OpenOffice.org,
Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin, a BitTorrent client, IRC client, movie
player, audio player, a system information tool and a few applications
to transfer files. Mint also includes the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC)
for developers, popular multimedia codecs, Flash, an application to
perform backups, and Java. To tweak the system, there are tools to
customize the look and feel of the desktop, manage printers, configure
the firewall, use Windows wireless drivers, two package managers and an
update program. All of these system configuration tools can be accessed
separately or via Mint's all-in-one Control Center.
Linux Mint 8 - using features in the control center
(full image size: 225kB, screen resolution 1366x768 pixels)
While on the topic of software, let's explore the two package managers
offered by Mint. The first is Synaptic, which will be familiar to
anyone who has used Debian, Ubuntu or other members of that family.
Software categories are displayed in the left side of the window and
(often cryptic) package names and a description are displayed to the
right. Mint uses Ubuntu's repositories, providing over 28,000 packages.
The other program is Mint's own mintInstall, which has a similar look
to Synaptic with a few important differences. The main difference is
that mintInstall connects to Mint's small repository of 438 packages.
The categories are arranged in a more intuitive fashion, and each
available program is given a popularity rating. Optionally, clicking on
a package displays a screenshot of the desired program in action along
with user reviews, similar to the way things are arranged on the
project's web site. The update manager is also customized, acting very
much like Ubuntu's update tool, but with an additional rating system.
The ratings (ranging 1 - 5) tell the user how important and safe an
update is. Critical updates which have been tested are rated as 1 while
less important updates or ones which may break existing functionality
are rated closer to 5. The user has the ability to select which levels
of updates will be visible to the system (allowing dangerous updates to
be hidden) and which levels will be automatically selected for download
when the Update Manager is run.
While much of the software in Mint is what you could expect to find in
its parent, Ubuntu, there are some highlights I feel are worth
mentioning. For example, the Backup Tool application is a great way to
archive the user's home directory with just a few mouse clicks. The
File Uploader allows users to create links to remote computers and
drag-n-drop files from their local machine to the remote server.
Combining these tools means a user can back up their files and send the
archive over a secure connection to another machine with six mouse
clicks and no typing involved - handy for users with less technical
experience. Mint also comes with Giver, a file sharing tool which
allows users to transfer files to other people on the network using a
simple point-and-click method. I can see this being a very useful tool
in a small office environment. The graphical Ubuntu firewall
application is pre-installed on Mint, which is good to see.
A program called Domain Blocker gives the administrator the ability to
deny access to web sites - handy for concerned parents and people who
wish to block advertisements. The application menu itself is an unusual
creation. It attempts to merge the main GNOME menus (Applications,
Places and System) into one large menu. The new approach took me a
while to get used to, but I find it's growing on me. One last
application I was happy to find pre-installed was APTonCD. This tool
gives the user the ability to save all cached software packages into a
CD image and, optionally, burn them to a disc. The benefit of this is
that a person with several computers to set up can download all the
available updates onto one machine and then transfer the updates to a
USB drive or CD. The updates are readily available for the next machine
without using any bandwidth to re-download the packages. There are
other ways of doing this, of course, but APTonCD is probably the
easiest option for end-users.
Linux Mint 8 - finding software and getting assistance
(full image size: 294kB, screen resolution 1366x768 pixels)
My test drive with Mint included two computers, a generic desktop
machine with a 2.5 GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM and an NVIDIA graphics
card; and my HP laptop with a dual-core 2 GHz CPU, 3 GB of RAM and an
Intel graphics card. As far as detecting and using my hardware was
concerned, Mint performed perfectly. And, to date, it's the only
distribution which can make that claim. Recent versions of both Fedora
and Ubuntu come very close, but Mint worked flawlessly with no manual
configuration. My desktop was set to the desired resolution, sound
worked out of the box, my laptop's touchpad worked properly, the webcam
functioned as desired, my printer was detected as were my wireless card
and Novatel mobile modem. To see how Mint would perform with fewer
resources, I ran the distribution in a VirtualBox virtual machine with
variable amounts of memory. I found Mint was very responsive with 1024
MB of RAM and performance continued to be good down to about 512MB.
Below that point, applications became sluggish.
With such a large collection of applications and a tendency toward
user-friendliness, I excepted Mint to disappoint when it came to
security. By and large, I was mistaken. The Mint team walks a careful
line between giving the user what they want and protecting them. For
instance, when using the live CD the user is logged into the system as
a non-root user, called "mint". This user is able to mount local hard
drives and read from them, but write access is denied, preventing
accidental data loss. Once installed locally, the Mint administrator
can grant new users administration rights, regular desktop rights or
set them up as unprivileged users. Though administrator tasks can be
performed (by privileged users) via sudo, the root account is also
available for people who wish to use it. By default, the home
directories of regular users are left open for other users to read, but
the root user's directory is locked down. I was happy to find that Mint
doesn't run most network services by default, leaving secure shell, for
example, disabled. The exception is Samba, which is running with
reasonable defaults.
Linux Mint 8 - creating a different look for Mint
(full image size: 265kB, screen resolution 1366x768 pixels)
During my time with Mint I experienced no application crashes, no
lock-ups and no cryptic error messages. Care has been taken to make
features accessible to the user without being annoying and without
getting in the way, making Mint not only a user-friendly, but enjoyable
experience. While Mint caters to novice Linux users, the developers
have tried to make their distro appealing to the more experienced crowd
as well. For example, having GCC installed out of the box is convenient
for developers. For people who don't like the custom Mint application
menu, it can be swapped out for a more traditional menu with a few
mouse clicks. If the user isn't thrilled with the constant green theme,
it can be replaced in seconds. People who don't like the Mint software
manager can use the popular Synaptic instead. For free software
enthusiasts who don't want to download proprietary software, there's
the Universal edition of Mint. And, while some people might be
concerned about bloat from all of the extra applications, Mint requires
less hard disk space than Mandriva and only slightly more space than
Fedora. The Mint team provides their product free of charge, but also
offers support for people looking for business solutions.
Mint isn't perfect -- no distribution or operating system is -- but it
does very well. There is only one thing on my wish-list for Mint: more
documentation for some of the small applications, such as the Backup
Tool, Giver and the File Uploader. These are great little programs and
I think more users would feel comfortable with them if they came with
some examples. That desire aside, I am very impressed with Mint 8, both
the product and the project as a whole. It's ideal for Linux newcomers
and more experienced users who want their computers to function right
away. I found the system to be responsive, friendly and immediately
useful. I highly recommend giving Mint a try. |
 Who are you, and what do you do?
I'm
Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Movement. I campaign for
computer users' freedom -- for instance, your freedom to control the
software you use, to redistribute the software to others. Software that
respects the user's freedom is what we call free software.
In
1983 I announced the plan to develop a complete free operating system
called GNU. The system that millions of people use, and often refer to
as "Linux", is a variant of the GNU system.
What hardware are you using?
I am using a Lemote Yeelong,
a netbook with a Loongson chip and a 9-inch display. This is my only
computer, and I use it all the time. I chose it because I can run it
with 100% free software even at the BIOS level.
And what software?
To initialize the machine and boot, it uses PMON. Above that, it uses gNewSense, one of the totally free GNU/Linux distros.
I spend most of my time using Emacs.
I run it on a text console, so that I don't have to worry about
accidentally touching the mouse-pad and moving the pointer, which would
be a nuisance. I read and send mail with Emacs (mail is what I do most
of the time).
I switch to the X console when I need to do something graphical, such as look at an image or a PDF file.
Most
of the time I do not have an Internet connection. Once or twice or
maybe three times a day I connect and transfer mail in and out. Before
sending mail, I always review and revise the outgoing messages. That
gives me a chance to catch mistakes and faux pas.
What would be your dream setup?
I
would ideally like to have a machine with the speed and memory of a
laptop, and the display size of a laptop too, combined with the same
freedom that I have now on the Yeelong.
Until
I can have them both, freedom is my priority. I've campaigned for
freedom since 1983, and I am not going to surrender that freedom for
the sake of a more convenient computer.
I do hope to switch soon to a newer model of Yeelong with a 10-inch display. More(RU) |
 We are pleased to announce the Plasma Javascript Jam Session.
This friendly competition will reward creators of the most original,
interesting and beautiful Plasma widgets (Plasmoids) written in
Javascript with some great prizes and community recognition.
Anyone (except members of the judging panel) may participate in this
open challenge that starts on Friday February 12th, 2010. The rules are
simple:
- Only Plasmoids written using the Simplified Javascript Plasmoid API may be entered.
- All submissions must be released under a Free software license in compliance with the KDE Licensing Policy.
- All submissions must be the original work of the contestants. Third
party Javascript libraries, DataEngines, etc. may be used, but the
actual Plasmoid itself must be the work of the contestant.
- Each contestant may submit one, and only one, Plasmoid for judging.
Contestants may work in teams (an artist and a programmer is a common
pairing in Plasmoid development, for instance) but only one prize per
submission will be offered regardless of team size and contestants may
not be a member of more than one submitting team.
- Final submissions must be in the form of an installable .plasmoid file submitted to javascriptjam@kde.org by midnight (UTC) on March 31st 2010.
Plasmoids will be judged based on the following criteria:
- Usefulness / Entertainment Quality (40%): accounting for a full 40%
of the final score, this metric reflects how indispensable, fun and
"recommend it to my friends"-worthy the Plasmoid is.
- Originality (20%): the more unique the Plasmoid, the better it will do in this category.
- Beauty (20%): for Plasmoids that inspire desire, these points go higher!
- Technical (20%): code poetry and Plasmoids that expose the full power of Plasma will rack up technical proficiency points.
The prizes up for grabs are really exciting:
- Grand Prize: A brand new Nokia N900, a trip to join us at a KDE developer event, such as Akademy or Camp KDE, and a KDE t-shirt
- 1st Runner Up Prize: A trip to join us at a KDE developer event, such as Akademy or Camp KDE, and a KDE t-shirt
- 3 Honorable Mention Prizes: A KDE t-shirt
In addition to these over-all prizes, three bragging-rights titles are up for grabs:
- Beauty Queen: this crown is reserved for the most stunning Plasmoid in form and function
- Technical Giant: the Plasmoid that embodies the peak of technical excellence will walk away with this badge of honor
- Creative Genius: the Plasmoid with the most interesting and original concept will claim this title
Additionally, everyone who submits a working Javascript Plasmoid
that meets the contest requirements will receive a personalized
certificate of participation by email. All submissions will be
published for download on kde-look.org after the results are announced on April 9th.
Contestants will also be able to take advantage of training and
support from the KDE Plasma team! Training sessions will be held on
Friday the 12th, Saturday the 13th and Sunday the 14th of February at
16:00 UTC on irc.freenode.net in the #plasma-training channel. Each
session, led by Plasma developers, will cover the Simplified Javascript
Plasmoid API in detail along with Plasmoid development tips and tricks.
In addition, contestants are welcome to ask questions and solicit development advice on #plasma on irc.freenode.net and plasma-devel@kde.org,
the official Plasma development mailing list, during the competition.
We won't write your Plasmoid for you, but each contestant will have
access to the same level of Q&A support that all Plasmoid
developers normally have. Helpful reference materials can also be found
in the Plasma tutorials section on Techbase as well as in the KDE Examples module.
The judging panel will be comprised of:
- Aaron Seigo, Persona Plasma
- Marco Martin, Plasma Zen Master
- Nuno Pinheiro, Graphics Design Machine
- Richard Moore, Javascript Bindings Artiste
- KDE Community: Yes, that's you! A poll hosted on the KDE Community Forums will allow everyone in the KDE community to have a say in who wins.
Panel members will rate each entry individually in each of the four
categories. The scores from the five judges will then be added up to
create the final results.
The contest timeline is as follows:
- February 12th: The Javascript Jam begins!
- February 12th and 13th: Online training sessions at 18:00 UTC in #plasma-training on irc.freenode.net
- March 24th: Contest entries can be submitted for inclusion by sending them to javascriptjam@kde.org
- March 31st: The Javascript Jam is finished, no more entries may be made after this date!
- April 2nd: All valid entries are published on the contest website and on KDE-Look.org
- April 9th: Winners announced
Finally: a huge round of "Thank-You!"s to Nokia for donating the
N900, KDE e.V. whose support makes this event possible and Nuno
Pinheiro and Sean Wilson for artwork.
More information along with the official rules can be found on the Plasma website
which is is devoted to the Javascript Jam for the duration of the
contest. After the Javascript Jam concludes, the Plasma website will
relaunch with new content and an updated design. More(RU) |
 There are concerns in the GNOME accessibility development community about what the Oracle takeover of Sun means for the efforts led by Sun's Accessibility Project Office (APO). Orca project lead Willie Walker has been laid off and is looking for work, possibly in areas that will not allow him to continue contributing to Orca. In addition, assistive technology specialist Joanmarie Diggs has published an open letter to Oracle concerning the future of the APO and its work. "Last week, Oracle laid off two more members of Sun's already-decimated APO. One of those let go happened to be both the Orca project lead and the GNOME Accessibility project lead, Willie Walker. I truly hope this was an oversight on Oracle's part, and one that will be rectified very soon. Because if it is not, and if no other company steps forward to continue this work, the accessibility of the GNOME desktop will become the open source equivalent of an unfunded mandate, doomed ultimately to fail."
More(RU) |
KDE 4.3 (Codename: "Caizen") Delivers Incremental Innovations to the Free Desktop Users and Software Developers
4 August, 2009. The KDE Community today announces the immediate availability of "Caizen",
(a.k.a KDE 4.3), bringing many improvements to the user experience and
development platform. KDE 4.3 continues to refine the unique features
brought in previous releases while bringing new innovations. With the
4.2 release aimed at the majority of end users, KDE 4.3 offers a more
stable and complete product for the home and small office.
The KDE 4.3 Desktop
The KDE community has fixed over 10,000 bugs and implemented almost 2,000 feature requests
in the last 6 months. Close to 63,000 changes were checked in by a
little under 700 contributors. Read on for an overview of the changes
in the KDE 4.3 Desktop Workspace, Application Suites and the KDE 4.3
Development Platform.
Desktop Improves Performance And Usability
The KDE Desktop Workspace provides a powerful and
complete desktop experience that features excellent integration with
Linux and UNIX operating systems. The key components that make up the
KDE Desktop Workspace include:
-
KWin, a powerful window manager that provides modern 3D graphical effects
-
The Plasma Desktop Shell,
a cutting-edge desktop and panels system that features productivity
enhancements and online integration through customizable widgets
-
Dolphin, a user-friendly, network- and content-aware file manager
-
KRunner, a search and launch system for running commands and finding useful information
-
easy access to desktop and system controls through SystemSettings.
Below you can find a short list of improvements to the KDE Desktop Workspace.
-
The Plasma Desktop Shell introduces a new default theme, Air. Air looks much lighter and fits better with the default application theme. Plasma also has seen large performance improvements. Memory usage has been reduced, and animations are smoother. Activities can now be tied to virtual desktops, allowing users to have different widgets on each of their desktops. Furthermore, Plasma has improved upon its job and notification management.
Running jobs are grouped in a single progress bar to prevent the popup
of too many dialogs. Animations are used to signify that jobs are still
running by smoothly sliding dialogs into the systemtray and animating
the notification icon. Smaller changes in Plasma include fully configurable keyboard shortcuts
and more extensive keyboard navigation, the ability to create a plasma
widget when you drag or copy content on the desktop and many new and improved Plasma widgets. The folderview widget now allows the user to peek into a folder by hovering it and the new Translatoid widget translates words and sentences right on your desktop using Google Translate. Furthermore, KRunner made its plugin features easier to discover by having a 'help' button showing the syntax of commands in the result area. Actions also have a small configuration allowing for example to start applications under another user account.
Web integration in KDE 4.3
-
The file manager Dolphin shows small previews of files within a folder and video thumbnails to help the user identify items. The trash can now be configured
from the Dolphin Settings menu, and various configurable limitations on
the trash size help make sure the disk does not fill up with deleted
files. The menu which is shown on a right mouseclick on a item is
configurable and the configuration dialog in general has been
redesigned to be easier to use. The new network:/ location
shows other computers and services on the network (currently limited to
those announced by DNS-SD/zeroconf protocols, more will be supported in
future versions).
-
Further refinements to the workspace tools make it easier to work with your computer. A faster SystemSettings introduces an optional treeview for the configuration and several improvements to settingsdialogs. New effects like 'Sheet' and "Slide Back" and better performance in KWin make window management more smooth, while integration with the Plasma themes creates a more consistent look. Klipper, a tool which keeps a history of things copied to the clipboard, can now act intelligently on the content.
It automatically determines a list of applications which can handle a
object copied to the clipboard and allows the user to start them right
away.
Applications Leap Forward
A great number of sophisticated applications are provided by the KDE
community which take full advantage of the powerful KDE Application
Framework. A selection of these applications are included in the KDE
Software Distribution, divided up by category into various Application
Suites. These include:
-
KDE Network Applications
-
KDE Multimedia
-
KDE Graphics Tools
-
KDE PIM Suite (for personal information management and communication)
-
KDE Educational Applications
-
KDE Games
-
KDE Utilities
-
KDE Software Development Platform
Together they form a comprehensive set of desktop
essentials that run on most modern operating systems. Below you will
find a selection of improvements to some of these Application Suites.
-
The KDE Utilities have seen many improvements. Among other things, KGpg, the privacy tool used for encryption and signing files and emails integrates Solid for detecting the availability of a network connection and has improved its key import dialog. Ark, a file compression and decompression application now supports LZMA/XZ, has improved support for zip, rar and 7zip and works better with drag'n'drop. KDELirc, a frontend for the Linux Infrared Remote Control system (LIRC), has been ported to KDE 4 and is included again. Okteta, the KDE hex editor gained a checksum tool, a filesystem browser sideview and a bookmarks sidebar. Lokalize, the KDE translation tool, introduces support for scripts, new fileformats and the translation of ODF documents.
-
The KDE games now use a similar Egyptian-style theme in many of the games. KGoldrunner introduces a new game, "Curse of the Mummy"
and improves gameplay with more accurate pause, resume and recording
and replaying of games. KMahjongg introduces 70 new user-submitted
levels and a new game, KTron, has been introduced. Some games introduced new features
like the Vaporizer action in Killbots and a better AI in Bovo. Thanks
to work on file loading and saving the state of scalable images many
games start and run faster.
-
The KDE Personal Information Management applications have seen improvements in various area's like performance and stability. Instant messenger Kopete introduces an improved contact list and KOrganizer can sync with Google Calendar. Kmail supports inserting inline images into email and the Alarm notifier gained export functionality, drag and drop and has an improved configuration.
Some Egyptian themes
-
In case something goes wrong with a KDE application and it crashes, the new Bug Report Tool
will make it easier for the user to contribute to the stability of KDE.
The bug report tool provides a three-star rating of the quality of the
data it gathered on the crash. It also gives hints on how to improve
the quality of the crash data and the bug report itself while guiding
the user through the process of reporting. During the Beta cycles for
this release the new bug report tool has already proven itself by the
increased quality of bug reports.
Platform Accelerates Development
The KDE community brings many innovations for application developers to
the forefront in the KDE Application Development Framework. Building on
the strengths of Nokia's Qt library, this integrated and consistent
framework has been crafted in direct response to the needs of
real-world application developers.
The KDE Application Development Framework helps
developers create robust applications efficiently by streamlining the
complexity and tedious tasks usually associated with application
development. Its use by KDE applications provides a compelling showcase
for its flexibility and utility.
Liberally licensed under the LGPL (allowing for both
proprietary and open source development) and cross-platform (Linux,
UNIX, Mac and MS Windows), it contains among other things a powerful
component model (KParts), network transparent data access (KIO)
and flexible configuration management. Dozens of useful widgets ranging
from file dialogs to font selectors are provided and the framework also
offers semantic search integration (Nepomuk), hardware awareness (Solid) and multimedia access (Phonon). Read on for a list of improvements to the KDE Application Development Framework.
-
The KDE 4.3 Application Development Framework introduces the beginnings of Social Desktop integration, bringing the worldwide Free Software community to the desktop. Offering an open collaboration, sharing and communication platform,
the Social Desktop initiative aims to allow people to share their
knowledge withouth giving up control to an external organisation. The
platform currently offers a DataEngine for plasma applets supporting aspects of Social Desktop.
-
The new system tray protocol developed in collaboration with the Free Desktop initiative
is a long-overdue overhaul of the old systray specification. The old
systemtray using small embedded windows did not allow for any kind of
control by the systemtray over its contents, limiting the flexibility
for the user and application developer at the same time. While the new
systemtray supports both the old and new standard, application
developers are encouraged to upgrade their applications to the new
specifications. For more information check this blog or find more information on TechBase.
-
The Plasma Desktop Shell introduces a Geolocation DataEngine using libgps and HostIP which allows plasmoids to easily respond to the location of the user. Other new DataEngines provide access to Akonadi resources (including mail and calendar), Nepomuk
metadata and keyboard state besides the various improvements to
existing DataEngines. Read about using and discovering DataEngines on TechBase.
-
The KDE Application Development Framework introduces a PolicyKit wrapper
making it easy for developers who want their application to perform
privileged actions in a secure, consistent and easy way. Provided are
an authorization manager and an authentication agent, and an easy
library for developers to use. Read here on TechBase for a tutorial!
-
Akonadi, the Free Desktop PIM storage solution has been deemed ready for more widespread usage. Besides the availability of the DataEngine for plasma, application developers are encouraged to have a look at the TechBase page
if their application needs access to or store chat logs, email, blogs,
contacts, or any other kind of personal data. As a cross-desktop
technology Akonadi can provide access to any kind of data and is
designed to handle high volumes, thus allowing for a wide range of
usecases.
Social desktop and other online services in action
More changes
As mentioned, the above is just a selection of the changes and
improvements to the KDE Desktop Workspace, KDE Application Suites and
KDE Application Development Framework. A more comprehensive yet still
incomplete list can be found in the KDE 4.3 feature plan on TechBase. Information about applications developed by the KDE community outside of the KDE Application Suites can be found on KDE family webpage and on the kde-apps website.
The Marble developers from the KDE Edu team have released Marble 0.8
with KDE 4.3 and compiled an extended visual changelog on their website.
Spread the Word and See What Happens
The KDE Community encourages everybody to spread the word on the Social Web.
Submit stories to news sites, use channels like delicious, digg, reddit, twitter,
identi.ca. Upload screenshots to services like Facebook, FlickR,
ipernity and Picasa and post them to appropriate groups. Create screencasts and
upload them to YouTube, Blip.tv, Vimeo and others. Do not forget to tag uploaded
material with the tag kde so it is easier for everybody to find the
material, and for the KDE team to compile reports of coverage for the KDE 4.3
announcement. Help us spreading the word, be part of it!
You can follow what is happening around the KDE 4.3 release on the social web live on
the brand-new KDE Community livefeed. This site aggregates what happens on
identi.ca, twitter, youtube, flickr, picasaweb, blogs and many other social networking sites
in real-time. The livefeed can be found on buzz.kde.org.
microbuttons
Installing KDE 4.3.0
KDE, including all its libraries and its applications, is available for
free under Open Source licenses. KDE software runs on various hardware
configurations, operating systems and works with any kind of
windowmanager or desktop environment. Besides Linux and other UNIX
based operating systems you can find Microsoft Windows versions of most
KDE applications on the KDE on Windows site and Apple Mac OS X versions on the KDE on Mac site.
Experimental builds of KDE applications for various mobile platforms
like MS Windows Mobile and Symbian can be found on the web but are
currently unsupported.
KDE can be obtained in source and various binary formats from http://download.kde.org and can
also be obtained on CD-ROM
or with any of the major
GNU/Linux and UNIX systems shipping today.
Packagers.
Some Linux/UNIX OS vendors have kindly provided binary packages of KDE 4.3.0
for some versions of their distribution, and in other cases community volunteers
have done so.
Some of these binary packages are available for free download from KDE's http://download.kde.org.
Additional binary packages, as well as updates to the packages now available,
will become available over the coming weeks.
Most performance problems with the NVidia binary graphics driver have been resolved in the
latest releases of the driver available from NVidia. However due to recent changes in the graphics stack
on linux, certain software and hardware configurations might still
encounter issues with drawing speed and general slowness. Please
contact your distribution vendor or driver developers if you encounter
issues.
Package Locations.
For a current list of available binary packages of which the KDE Project has
been informed, please visit the KDE 4.3.0 Info
Page.
Compiling KDE 4.3.0
The complete source code for KDE 4.3.0 may be freely downloaded.
Instructions on compiling and installing KDE 4.3.0
are available from the KDE 4.3.0 Info
Page.
* Operating systems and trademarks mentioned on this page are property of their respective owners.
About KDE
KDE is an international technology team that creates free
and open source software for desktop and portable computing. Among
KDE's products are a modern desktop system for Linux and UNIX platforms,
comprehensive office productivity and groupware suites and hundreds of
software titles in many categories including Internet and web
applications, multimedia, entertainment, educational, graphics and
software development. KDE software is translated into more than 60
languages and is built with ease of use and modern accessibility
principles in mind. KDE4's full-featured applications run natively on
Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows and Mac OS X.
|
 The release team has just done something a bit different from past
release cycles to test out some modifications to our usual work flow:
with the release of the first release candidate, 4.3 has been
immediately branched off of the mainline trunk, and trunk is now 4.4.
In the past we've done this only when the new release is actually made,
not during the release candidates. This gives people working on
4.4 features, or fixes that can only go into 4.4 due to things like
string changes, a free hand without having to wait out the weeks during
the extra hard freeze that comes with release candidates. This is very
nice timing for Akademy, which is coming up very soon now. That
means that if you fix a bug in trunk, you now have to backport it to
the 4.3 branch. I updated the svnbackport script in kdesdk/scripts/
today to target the 4.3 branch by default. Please keep up with all the
great bug fixing for 4.3 so we can make 4.3.0 as solid as possible.
Even though 4.3 has been branched, there is still time for yet more
fixes. It does sort of really send home, at least for me, the
fact that 4.3 is essentially ready to go and to start thinking about
the imminent start on 4.4. Today I bumped the version of libplasma and
started a new changelog file for 4.4. The changelog for Plasma in 4.3 has become rather impressive, despite us sticking to our "only significant changes" mantra. With
this moment upon us, I feel compelled to write about some of the more
interesting changes in Plasma and the KDE workspace in 4.3, and I will
do so tomorrow. It'll either be text with screenshots or less text and
a screencast. I'm still deciding, though I have a small list of topics
written down. Later in the week I'll lay out what we already know is going to be happening KDE 4.4 with regards to Plasma. To
those working on other parts of 4.3, I'd be really interested in
reading something similar in your blogs. Little "wrap up" pieces are
fun, enjoyable and informative. They're like little hugs wrapped in RSS. Right
now, however, I have to clean up and get ready: this evening I'm
hosting a small " I'm leaving, huzzah!" evening at a local fine cheese
shop for some friends and family. The shop is providing one of their
cheese-heads, er, maître fromager to walk us through the 50-something
cheeses they have in their display cabinet. Together with good company
and a little wine, it should be great fun. I can't wait! :) Which
reminds me how this week is all about flux: not only is 4.3 trundling
to the launch gate and 4.4 picking up its first sparks, but P. finished
grade 3 this week and will be off to Vancouver in just one more week.
That will mark the start of my "pack the house and move" period. So
many changes and so much going on ... while it feels like there's never
enough time (there isn't), I wouldn't have it any other way. |
 Typically, PC users do not give the low-level software on their
computers a second thought. Known as the basic input-output system, or
BIOS, this software plays an extremely important role in the way that
computers work--checking and preparing hardware when a machine is
switched on--but most people don't even know it's there.
California-based Phoenix Technologies--the largest provider of BIOS
software to computer makers--has tired of being invisible. Building on
the virtualization technology more common to high-power workstations
and data centers, the company has revamped its BIOS software to offer
features that people tend to associate with a full-blown operating
system: the ability to access more peripherals, such as disks and
mouses, and networking and wireless communications.
Earlier this year, Phoenix launched the slimmed-down operating
system, dubbed HyperSpace, and in June, the company plans a major
update, which will add e-mail capabilities and instant messaging. The
goal is to allow people faster access to the core tasks for which they
use their computers, says Woody Hobbs, CEO of the company.
"Our standard here, when we want to see how the PC should work, is
to look at smart phones," he says. "Those are on almost all the time,
they don't boot very often, and they are instant-on."
The core system software, as the company now calls its BIOS, builds
on Linux operating system software and virtualization technology.
Virtualization software started out as a way for users of one operating
system, such as Windows XP, to run another operating system, such as
Mac OS X or Linux, in a virtual environment. But as the technology has
evolved, developers have recognized other advantages, aside from
interoperability. By creating a virtualized layer of software, known as
a hypervisor, between a computer's hardware and the operating system,
for example, data can be transparently checked for viruses and other
malicious software. In the business world, a single big server or a
cluster of computers can run virtualized systems so that resources can
be divvied up among customers.
Yet the technology has not found much use in consumer products. Now
every PC and laptop shipped with Phoenix's core system software will
also contain the necessary components to use the company's add-on
HyperSpace. "It is going after a different audience," says Rob Enderle,
a PC technology analyst. "It is trying to create a new market using the
ideas of a fast-booting, safe platform that people can work in, but
remain outside of Windows."  |
|
Office suite: The BIOS software runs a variety of common
applications, including a Web browser, a media player, and office
productivity software. |
The most visible selling point for the slimmed-down operating system
is speed. Because it does not carry the weight of numerous drivers,
utility software, and add-ons, HyperSpace taxes the processor and
memory far less than does Windows, Hobbs says. As time goes on, regular
computers are typically slowed by legacy software too, he says. "Your
system starts to get sluggish because of the registry, or drivers get
out of date, or virus checking has to take place," Hobbs says. "A lot
of people tell me that they got a new PC, and it starts up real fast.
And I say one word: 'Wait.'"
Phoenix currently offers two versions of HyperSpace. The
full-featured version allows PCs and laptops to hot-switch between the
main operating system, such as Windows, and the HyperSpace environment.
Computers that do not have enough processor power or memory to run both
systems at the same time, such as the increasingly popular netbooks,
can only boot into one mode at a time.
The software can be used in two other ways. As a nod to netbook
manufacturers, Phoenix offers a mode called "dual resume," which allows
the users to switch back and forth between the main operating system
and HyperSpace completely, with some delay. In the fourth case, the
core security software grabs input and output from the network and disk
to check the data for security threats. In that case, "you won't even
really know you are using hyperspace," Hobbs says.
The company has worked hard to get the technology right, and the CEO
says that the user experience, and not the engineering, is the most
important part. "If you don't get the experience right, the fact that
you created the world's coolest technology doesn't matter," Hobbs says.
"If you create instant-on garbage, no one will use it."
After Phoenix upgrades HyperSpace in June, it plans to focus on
creating a better development platform to attract more application
makers, says Hobbs. Part of this will mean opening an application
store, much like Apple's iPhone app store.
Even with those ambitious plans, however, convincing consumers to
adopt a new environment will be hard, says analyst Enderle. "This
platform could be a native platform for the netbook, but I think it
needs to mature a bit before many people will take it as it stands
alone." |
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