A new version of one of the most user-friendly distributions of free and open source operating system Linux has just been released. Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring (or 2008.1 if you wish) packs quite a lot of goodies. It brings official full support for the highly popular ASUS Eee PC laptop, has easier synchronisation with various mobile devices, a new parental control utility, Elisa multimedia centre is there, so is Codeina for easy multimedia codecs installation. They have also switched to PulseAudio sound server, updated software to latest versions (yes even KDE 4.0.3 is available) and given the distribution a fresh new look. Go download it from here (or via BitTorrent) and while downloading be sure to check out a visual guide to what’s new in Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring.

As with previous releases I also did my fair share of beta testing and bug reporting this time. In addition this is also the first release where I have been the coordinator of Slovenian translation team. We did a great job and almost everything is translated. The only thing left are initscript messages (which are hidden most of the time).

Even during beta testing this release proved to be of very high quality. Looks like after some hiccups a year or two ago Mandriva have put their act together and the quality of releases is increasing every year now. They are also doing a great job with improving their relationship and interaction with community. If they continue in this direction they can soon be back at the top, although it will be hard since unfortunately there is not so much hype surrounding Mandriva as there is around some other very popular Linux distribution.

Tags: mandriva, linux, distributions, eee pc, eeepc, free software, open source, operating systems

I’ve been to Maribor last Thursday where the 1st Day of Open Source event was organised at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. This was my first time visiting Maribor and my first impression was that it is a very nice, clean and lively city.

At the event itself you could attend various interesting talks about Linux and Open Source Software in general. I even had the honor to be the very first speaker. I presented FLOSS, it’s history, licensing and after that talked a bit about Lugos, the Linux User Group of Slovenia. Too bad I missed the talks at the end of the day but I had to catch the last train back to Ljubljana.

I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the number of attendance. A quick count showed that there were constantly at least 150 people in the room. By comparison, the day before this event Microsoft organised a similar event, where there were only 30-50 people. Despite Microsoft having better promotion and they even tried to bribe students by some expensive prizes.

Anyways, hats off to Oto Brglez jr. and the Students Group. They did an excellent job organizing the event and I sure look forward to the 2nd Day of Open Source.

Tags: open source, free software, floss, linux, lugos, maribor, slovenia

Great news for all fans of turn-based 4X strategy games set in space. We (well mainly Tim Ansell with help from Nathan Partlan) at Thousand Parsec project have released a new version of the free and open source wxPython based client for playing Thousand Parsec games. There is a lot of new features, the client looks better and it is easier to use. Translation of the client is now possible and I have already translated it into Slovenian language. Remember, translation is a great way to easily help the project. Of course a lot of bugs have been fixed and the new version should work much better on Mac OS X. Be sure to read the full announcement for version 0.3.0 to see the entire changelog and download links. This is also the very first time we provide our own package repositories (currently only for Ubunutu and Debian Linux). We will try to set up repositories for other Linux distributions in the future. I already started to work on packages for Mandriva Linux. Maybe they will even be included in Mandriva 2008 Spring. Now let’s get playing and let’s see who will be the one to conquer the universe.

Tags: games, gaming, game, 4x games, strategy, turn-based, strategies, tbs, wxpython, python, wxwidgets, free software, open source

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been very busy. Like many other people all around the world I’ve also been working hard to make the first release of KDE 4 series as good as possible. About three hours ago KDE 4.0.0 has finally been tagged and is now getting ready to be officially released on January 11th.

In addition to occasional bug fix here and there I’ve mostly been testing and reporting bugs. But by far the largest part of my contribution to this release is translation into Slovenian language. Our team managed to get 63% of KDE 4.0.0 translated into Slovenian. Not bad at all for our small country and small team. We currently hold 23rd place on the list of top translation teams.

I’ve been using pre-4.0.0 KDE as my main desktop ever since our KDE Education metting in Pariz in the beginning of December. During this past month it was improving very fast and was usable just fine. Sure there were a few features and settings missing (and still are in the final version), but nothing that big. There are also some rough edges and a few bugs left, either known or still hidding, but that can be expected for a release with so many changes all around. There is already a lot to like about this new series of KDE 4 and what I like the most in KDE 4.0 is the new gorgeous artwork (icons, widget style, sounds), the idea behind Plasma desktop shell and the cool new applications (like Okular, Gwenview, new games, new educational applications). And with such a solid foundation in place we can expect a lot more cool stuff in the future.

While you are waiting for your favourite distribution to provide packages of KDE 4.0.0 and before you go writing a review about it, be sure to read these two blog posts: talking bluntly, KDE 4.0 Review Reminders and this podcast: The Linux Linux Tech Show - Episode 226. And remember, KDE 4.0.0 is not for everyone. It is for those who like cool new technology and who like living on the bleeding edge. It is also for you if you are an active user of software and not just a passive user. Now is a great time to help change the history and help make the dream become true. In any case KDE 3.5 is still here and it is still an excellent desktop environment and no one will force you to start using KDE 4.0. It’s all your choice.

Tags: kde, kde4, desktop, translation, slovenia, free software, open source, linux

Alternative operating systems like Linux and Mac OS are getting more and more popular these days. That’s why cross platform technologies and programming are also increasingly popular and important. One of such technologies is a C++ GUI programming library and framework called Qt. Today I’ve just finished reading a book about it, The Book of Qt 4 – The Art of Building Qt Applications. This is my short review of it.

The author of the book is Daniel Molkentin, who is one of the main developers at the KDE project. KDE is an entire desktop environment based on Qt. On more than 400 pages Daniel did a great job of presenting basic concepts and components behind Qt 4. Compared to another Qt book I’ve got, C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4, the introduction to Qt in this book is more smooth and friendlier to readers who are just starting to learn Qt. Examples are simpler and there is a separate example for every topic. So you don’t need to complete something from the beginning of the book to try another thing from the end. It is also nice that there are step by step instructions on how to use Qt’s graphical tool to design the main application window and dialogs. With 48 and 44 pages two of the longest chapters describe model/view programming using Interview framework and Qt’s powerful painting system called Arthur. Like the rest of the chapters these two are also presented in a way that doesn’t overload the reader with too much information. For complete list of topics covered check out the table of contents.

At the end I can say that this is a great book for anyone getting started with Qt 4 programming. By learning Qt 4 you will be able to reach more users, program faster and enjoy more while doing it. Not to mention you will be ready to start developing for KDE 4, which will be released in a few months and is destined to be one of the most exciting desktop environments ever.

Tags: trolltech, qt, programming, development, c++, gui, toolkits, frameworks, cross platform, multi platform, software, linux, mac, windows, kde

I just got an e-mail with some great news. It looks like I am among the lucky ones who are selected to receive a grant under the Qtopia Greenphone Innovation Grant program. This means that I will soon get a full Greenphone mobile phone SDK, with the phone itself, connector cables and development tools. Greenphone is one of those mobile phones of the new generation which are based on an open platform. Another well known example from the new generation is OpenMoko. Apple iPhone on the other hand still belongs to the old closed platform generation.

And why will I get Greenphone? Well it looks like judges from Trolltech found my proposal for a new mobile phone application interesting. In this rather short time (submission deadline is October 31) I will try to create a free and open source mobile phone client for playing turn-based 4X space strategy games which are based on servers and the protocol of Thousand Parsec project. A C++ library for the protocol is already available and I hope I’ll be able to reuse it as much as possible. If all goes well most of the work will involve the user interface and use of the C++ protocol library. The work will also be of use with my other project, which is to create a game client for KDE 4 desktop, which heavily uses Qt toolkit and framework, which is very similar to Qtopia used on the mobile phone and other mobile devices.

Can’t wait until postman brings me the package. In the meantime I should start reading more about Qtopia development. I also need to come up with a name for the game and the way a user would interact with it. Any suggestions are welcome.

Tags: greenphone, qtopia, trolltech, mobiles, mobile phones, gsm, mobile devices, programming, linux, 4x, games

During the breakfast I’ve heard the news that there could have been a terrorist attack at the Glasgow airport. Someone crashed into terminals or something like that. As far as I know nobody got hurt and there were only flights canceled for the day.

Today the most interesting talks started with Tudor Groza, who presented concept of semantic desktop and how it is coming into KDE. We found out that the next version of Mandriva Linux should already integrate some parts of it. Later on Olaf and Gunnar Schmidt had a very interesting talk about accessibility, something that is too often overlooked when developing software. Accessibility is also one of the hot topics in governments, so it is very important that KDE provides the best experience for people with disabilities. The next talk on the programme was from Jim Zemlin of Linux Foundation, who told us what the organisation does and into which direction Linux is going. During his talk we got the good news that the internet id finally working. In the following talk Sander Koning provided us with some tips on writing documentation so that it is useful to the users. It’s harder than it looks at first. Towards the end of the day Claire Lotion revealed to us that there is a lot of money available from European Union which can be used for research in informatics and computer related fields. KDE already has some projects which would be good candidates to apply for this money, but currently there is no framework in place at KDE to better utilise the available resources. Claire has started the work to improve the situation.

At the end of the contributors conference there was the 3rd aKademy Award Ceremony. Award for the best application went into the hands of Sebastian Trueg for K3b. Danny Allen received award for his great work on weekly KDE Commit Digest. Congrats to both!

Tags: kde, akademy, akademy 2007, community, conference, meeting, desktop, free software, open source, glasgow, scotland

At around 5:30 I was woken by a sea gull (or something like that) which was banging on our window. I couldn’t go back to sleep so I waited until breakfast, waited some more and then headed to the conference, which started at 9 o’clock.

I’ve been in the Room 1 for the entire day, listening to 2 keynotes and 10 other talks. Let me mention just some of them, the ones which were the most interesting to me. At the Threadweaver talk I found out what this library actually is, where and how it is useful and that it shouldn’t be that hard to use. Definitely something to take a closer look at when I get home. After lunch (where I met Mike from Edinburgh and Matt from Philadelphia) Mark Shuttleworth from Canonical (Ubuntu) presented 13 suggestions to make Linux even better and more widely used. People agreed on most of the stuff, like the importance of the first impression. However, some were not convinced that 6-months release cycle would be beneficial to KDE. It was also nice to see that he recognizes the valuable work translators do. Later in the day Zack Rusin presented a talk about computer graphics and introduced a tool/framework called Quasar, which should make graphical effects easier to create. Another thing to check out later. Aaron Seigo also talked about how important beautiful graphics are for enjoyable experience when using a computer. But the effects must be natural and subtle. At the end, we listened to a talk by Patrick Harvie, who is a member of the Scottish parliament. It was very refreshing to see that there are politicians who actually understand the true meaning of the word free in Free Software and know about the many benefits of Free Software for society.

All in all it was a great first day at aKademy. The only thing we missed a lot was the working wireless internet connection.

Tags: kde, akademy, akademy 2007, community, conference, meeting, desktop, free software, open source, glasgow, scotland

When I got my first 64-bit processor (AMD Athlon 64 3000+) about 3 years ago I sure wanted to take all advantage of what it had to offer by running a 64-bit operating system and 64-bit applications on it. While there was 64-bit Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, there were almost no 64-bit programs and drivers for it. And even today the situation in the Windows world is quite pathetic when it comes to 64-bit computing. It was a few months after I got Athlon 64 when I started to look seriously at Linux which was much more at home on 64-bit hardware.

Searching the internet I found out that the best 64-bit Linux distribution for AMD64 (now called x86-64) was source-based Gentoo Linux. I knew it was harder to set up than normal binary-based distributions, but I was ready for the next level. I was ready to learn more about Linux, ready for 64-bit world and damn all that processor power had to be used for something, like compiling source code for example This was not my first encounter with Gentoo. I managed to install it before, on a very slow computer at video store where I worked over summer. So after a few days of of compiling, installation and setting up the new computer was ready and everything was 64-bit. There was only one exception, OpenOffice.org.

At that time OpenOffice.org wouldn’t even compile into 64-bit form. So I had to use 32-bit binary package of OpenOffice.org and 32-bit emulation libraries. Over a couple of years OpenOffice.org 64-bit porting team improved the code to the point it would compile, but reports said it was crashing a lot. A few months have passed and a couple of days ago version 2.2.1 of OpenOffice.org came out. I decided I would try to compile this version into 64-bit form. I did this today and it compiled just fine and after a couple of minutes of testing it didn’t crash at all. So my entire system is now pure 64-bit code and I can safely remove the redundant 32-bit emulation packages.

Tags: openoffice.org, openoffice, office, 64-bit, x86-64, amd64, em64t, x64, gentoo, linux

A couple of days ago a French company Mandriva released the final version of Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring (also called 2007.1). One of the major new features in this version is the integration of Metisse, an advanced window manager that provides an easy to use environment for designing and implementing new innovative ideas for computer desktops. They have also added the very popular Beryl, a 3D OpenGL-accelerated desktop which makes Windows Vista Aero look like an old and boring slideshow. In Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring you will also find KDE 3.5.6, GNOME 2.18. Firefox 2.0, Thunderbird 2.0 and OpenOffice.org 2.1.

I downloaded PowerPack DVDs two weeks ago, as I am a member of Mandriva Club where I was enrolled in Early Seeders program for BitTorrent sharing. First I upgraded my sister’s computer which was running Mandriva 2007. All went without a hitch and she is now enjoying the new Mandriva 2007 Spring. Later during the week I also installed the new version onto my laptop, where I have a special partition which I use for testing various Linux distributions. All works fine here too.

The only annoyance was the new Mandriva themed KDE start button. While it looks very nice it took up way to much valuable space in kicker (about 3 or 4 buttons long). This was quickly solved by following these instructions to switch back to default KDE K menu button.

In my opinion Mandriva Linux with the release of 2007 Spring remains one of the best Linux distributions for new Linux users (right next to Kubuntu). For more information about the new release check out:
Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring Release Announcement
Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring Release Tour (with screenshots)
Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring Release Notes

And of course, don’t forget to download Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring and check it out for yourself.

Another great thing is that Mandriva is back to 6 month release cycle. So work has already begun on the next version and Frederik Himpe has written about some of the features that might come with Mandriva Linux 2008.

Tags: mandriva, linux, spring, distributions, metisse, beryl, free software, open source, operating systems

Last weekend (on Saturday, 17th of May 2007 to be exact) I’ve officially become a member of Linux User Group of Slovenia (LUGOS for short). I must say it was about time as I do quite a lot of work for Linux, like translating software, testing, bug reporting, spreading the word about it and helping new users. So joining my local Linux user group was only natural. This happened while I was attending the 11^th meeting of LUGOS. It was my first LUGOS meeting and I must say it was quite fun. We talked about accomplishments in the past year and made some plans for this one. During the meeting we had some nice snack and after it we also had a cake. The first event that LUGOS is preparing for 2007 will be dedicated to all people who are interested in translating and localising free and open source software into Slovenian language. People who will come will be able to see how our work looks like, see some presentations and take part in workshops. Currently the planned date is 21^st of April. I hope to see many people, I’m sure it will be fun. Oh and by the way, this year LUGOS is celebrating its 10^th anniversary, so: Happy anniversary LUGOS!

Tags: linux, lug, lugos, slovenia, translation, events

When KDE 3.5 was under development in the year of 2005 I’ve written two very popular preview articles about it. Currently the development of an even more exciting version KDE 4 is in full swing. But for now I don’t plan to write any article about it (if I don’t count this one). The reason for this is that there is no need to. Several people have already done the job and written a lot of great material describing new features, new technologies and the process in which they are being developed. In this article I will try to collect and chronologically list all these articles. I will also do my best to keep it updated. If you know about an article that is missing, tell us about it in a comment and I’ll add it to the list.

• [2007-08-28] Touring the KDE 4 Beta
• [2007-06-21] KDE’s Plasma is heating up
• [2007-06-19] The Road to KDE 4: KDE PIM Libraries and Related Technologies
• [2007-06-19] More about Nepomuk-KDE: Soprano and KDE integration
• [2007-05-31] Semantic Desktop and KDE 4 - State and Plans of Nepomuk-KDE
• [2007-05-30] The Road to KDE 4: KWin Composite Brings Bling to KDE
• [2007-05-23] The Road to KDE 4: Konsole Gets an Overhaul
• [2007-05-11] Why Dolphin is a Good Choice for KDE4
• [2007-05-05] KDE Games Taking Shape for KDE 4.0
• [2007-04-23] The Road to KDE 4: Solid Brings Hardware Configuration and Control to KDE
• [2007-04-11] The Road to KDE 4: Strigi and File Information Extraction
• [2007-04-05] A first look at Dolphin, the KDE 4 file manager
• [2007-03-27] KDE 4 gets more Hot New Stuff
• [2007-03-21] The Road to KDE 4: Updates and Addenda
• [2007-03-07] The Road to KDE 4: Oxygen Artwork and Icons
• [2007-02-28] The Road to KDE 4: Dolphin and Konqueror
• [2007-02-27] Faces of KDE4
• [2007-02-26] New KDE 4 preview shows progress
• [2007-02-21] The Road to KDE 4: CMake, a New Build System for KDE
• [2007-02-16] The Pillars of KDE 4: Decibel Definitions and Benefits
• [2007-02-14] The Road to KDE 4: Okular and Ligature Document Viewers
• [2007-02-07] KDE 4’s Sonnet will turbocharge language processing
• [2007-02-07] The Pillars of KDE 4: Decibel
• [2007-02-06] The Road to KDE 4: Phonon Makes Multimedia Easier
• [2007-01-31] The Open Source Hook: Porting KDE to Mac and Windows
• [2007-01-30] From KDE 3 to KDE 4: what we will leave behind
• [2007-01-29] The Road to KDE 4: Kalzium and KmPlot
• [2007-01-23] The Road to KDE 4: Job Progress Reimagined
• [2007-01-15] The Road to KDE 4: Full Mac OS X Support
• [2007-01-08] The Road to KDE 4: New KOffice Technologies
• [2007-01-05] A sneak preview of the expected features in KDE 4.0
• [2007-01-01] The Road to KDE 4: SVG Rendering in Applications
• [2006-12-15] KDE 4: the ultimate business desktop?
• [2006-06-21] Why the KDE project switched to CMake - and how
• [2006-02-15] KDE 4 developers look toward new desktop possibilities
• [2006-01-12] Previewing KDE 4
• [2005-09-26] KDE 4 promises radical changes to the free desktop
• [2005-08-11] KDE4 - understanding the buzz

Another web site worth keeping an eye on if you are interested in development of KDE is KDE Commit Digest. You can find weekly reports about important changes to KDE source code there.

By the way, you can subscribe to comments to this post (where I will also post new links I add) by using this RSS feed.

Tags: kde, kde4, kde 4, desktop, linux, mac os, mac, windows, open source, free software, software, operating systems

The new year has barely started and good news for Linux and free/open source software just don’t stop coming in. This time story goes something like this. A headmaster of a school in Russia got accused of software piracy. Now Russian schools are so afraid that authorities would find unlicensed software on their computers, that they have started to look at alternative options to overpriced Windows and software for it. And Linux operating system and free and open source software is the perfect choice. Not only will they be able to stop worrying about freely copying the software around, they will also save a lot of money, get safer and more stable platform, which in addition has higher educational values. The philosophy of free access to source code, collaboration and sharing that is behind free and open source software is just a perfect fit for schools. And it is a great way to finally put an end to software piracy. Way to go Russia! More about this on CNews. And to learn more about the use of open source software in education visit K12 Open Source wiki.

Tags: linux, windows, russia, free software, open source, floss, foss, education, school, schools, k12, k-12

Linus Torvalds has just released a new version of the Linux kernel. Version 2.6.20 features new virtualisation options: KVM (which uses hardware capabilities of AMD and Intel processors) and a paravirtualisation implementation (which can be used by hypervisors like Xen and VMware). The new kernel also sports an official support for PlayStation 3 which has been contributed by Sony. It’s still not complete, but it’s a good start. Developers have also added support for UDF-Lite protocol, which brings advantages for transport of multimedia over networks. Support for compilation optimisations for Intel Core 2 was added. There are also many other new features and new drivers in this version. For easy to read information check out Linux 2.6.20 @ Kernel Newbies. For complete list of changes see the Linux 2.6.20 ChangeLog. After reading all this don’t forget to download the full Linux 2.6.20 source code.

Tags: linux, kernel, operating systems, os, virtualisation, playstation, ps3, sony

While we are still eagerly awaiting the release of KDE 4 - on which developers, artists and other contributors are working very hard - here comes a new service release with many bug fixes and translation updates. In addition, KDE 3.5.6 brings a couple of new features:

• Fields for entering passwords show bullets instead of asterisks
• Kicker, the main panel, got support for Compiz window manager
• Akregator, the feed reader, got session management support for tabs
• KMail, the email client, now enables you to create templates for messages
• Kontact, the personal information management (PIM) suite got new Summary menus for appointments and To-Dos

KDE 3.5.6 is also the first version that fully supports Euro as the new national currency here in Slovenia. For more details about the new version you can check out KDE 3.5.6 Release Announcement and KDE 3.5.6 Changelog.

Tags: kde, kde4, kde 4, desktop, linux, kicker, compiz, akregator, kmail, kontact, open source, software, slovenia, euro