Fluxbox 1.0:The Linux Windows Manager

Fluxbox is a window manager for UNIX/Linux and BSD operating systems. It’s based on the Blackbox 0.61.1 code. Fluxbox looks like Blackbox and handles styles, colors, window placement and similar things exactly like Blackbox (100% theme/style compatibility).

• Configurable window tabs
• Iconbar (for minimized/iconified windows)
• Wheel scroll changes workspace
• Configurable titlebar (placement of buttons, new buttons etc)
• KDE support
• New native integrated keygrabber (supports emacs like keychains)
• Maximize over slit option
• Partial GNOME support
• Extended Window Manager Hints support
• Slit dockap ordering

After more than four years, Fluxbox 1.0 has finally arrived. This release includes new themes, many bug fixes, updated translations, better shaped corners and a lot more surprises. Let’s have a quick look over some of the new stuff to be found in Fluxbox 1.0:

• New default style: bloe
• New styles: ostrich zimek_darkblue, zimek_green, zimek_bisque, carp, arch, bora_black, bora_blue, bora_green, green_tea, bloe
• Fixed shape handling, now shaped corners have border
• Allow negative numbers in command “Workspace”
• Added utility fluxbox-remote
• Allows script access to most fluxbox commands
• Support must be turned on in the init file with session.screen.allowRemoteActions; the syntax is, e.g., fluxbox-remote “CustomMenu ~/.fluxbox/custommenu”
• Added keycommands :AddWorkspace and :RemoveLastWorkspace
• Added some missing Open Office entries and window managers, plus some other minor changes in fluxbox-generate_menu

Updated languages:

• Swedish
• Chinese
• German
• Spanish
• English (US)
• English (UK)
• Russian
• French
• Finnish
• Portuguese

Through the bug fixes we can see updates for compiling with gcc 4.3, fixed resource usage due to Skype 1.4, fix submenu placement with xinerama after moving the menu between heads, fixed some window placement issues and many many more. For a detailed changelog, please visit this page.

Home Page : .:F L U X B O X:. – Welcome to fluxbox
Download : Link 1 [1Mb] | Link 2 [.85mb]

MPlayer 1.0 RC2 Released

MPlayer 1.0 RC2 was released and it comes with a lot of new features, such as Real RTSP authentication support, improved QuickTime support, TV streaming and Intel Mac improved support. Also, HDTV stream will work better now, thanks to the support for VC-1 in MPEG-TS and MPEG-PS. But there’s some bad news too, for the Blu-ray and HD-DVD fans this time, as MPlayer can not playback any of them yet; however, it can play EVO files after they’ve been decrypted. Let’s have an in-depth look at the new decoders, codecs, demuxers, filters and drivers that come with this version of MPlayer:

New decoders:

• Intel Music Coder audio decoding via lavc
• Monkey Audio audio decoding via lavc
• Fraps v2/v4 video decoding via lavc
• libmpeg2 updated to 0.4.1
• fixed resolution switching with libmpeg2
• handle resolution switching for Real codecs
• FFmpeg video decoder can now handle aspect ratio changes
• AMR now handled via libamr wrapper
• SIMD optimizations for mp3lib under AMD64

New video game codecs:

• 4XM audio
• Electronic Arts ADPCM audio
• Delphine CIN audio and video
• Interplay DPCM audio
• Sierra VMD video
• Tiertex SEQ video
• Westwood IMA ADPCM audio
• XAN wc3 video
• Id CIN video
• Interplay video
• XAN ADPCM audio
• Westwood SND1 audio
• Feeble Files DXA video
• THP audio and video
• Renderware TeXture Dictionary video
• Bethesda Software VID video via lavc
• XAN wc4 video via binary DLL

New demuxers:

• support for VC-1 in MPEG-TS and MPEG-PS files (BD,HD)-DVD
• support for EVO demuxing
• support -noidx with libavformat demuxer
• support for channel navigation with PVR input
• text subtitles should now work with libavformat demuxer
• cleaned up TiVo demuxer
• Implemented switch_video and switch_program consistently with switch_audio (default keys are “_” and TAB, respectively). For the time being program switching is only available in TS streams handled by demux_ts.c (not libavformat), while video switching is also handled by demux_lavf.c and demux_avi.c.
• audio and video switching for the AVI demuxer (video switching untested)
• GIF demuxer improvements, should work with all GIFs now

Streaming:

• authentication for Real RTSP streams
• near-precise seeking in dvd:// and dvdnav:// (dvdnav:// requires libdvdnav from mphq)
• speed selection when playing dvd:// streams, to make drive quieter
• support SVQ3 and H.264 in X-QT over RTSP, now RTSP Apple keynotes work (live555)
• SMIL playlist over Real RTSP
• support H.263-2000 over RTSP (live555)
• fix AAC-LATM over RTSP (live555)
• support AMR over RTSP (live555)
• support H.264 over RTSP (live555)
• “device” and “adevice” suboptions now work for the *BSD BT848 TV driver
• dvdnav:// now depends on MPlayer’s fork of libdvdnav
• teletext support for tv:// (v4l and v4l2 only)
• radio support for *BSD BT848
• channel scanner for tv://
• fine tuning for tv://
• driver autodetection for tv://
• libnemesi RTSP/RTP support
• EOF detection for RTSP (live555)

FFmpeg/libavcodec improvements:

• Intel Music coder audio decoder
• Fraps v2/v4 video decoder
• H.264 decoding speedup
• Slice-based parallel H.264 decoding (-lavdopts fast:threads=N)
• native NUT demuxer updated to spec
• native NUT muxer
• NUT muxing and demuxing support via libnut
• WMA encoder
• fix MJPEG-B on big-endian systems
• lowres support for some H.264 files
• DTS/DCA audio decoder
• Atrac 3 audio decoder
• MPEG-1/2 speedups
• RoQ muxer, video and audio encoder
• QTRLE encoder
• AC-3 decoder
• Matroska muxer
• Monkey’s Audio demuxer and decoder
• Flac encoder and decoder speedups
• AMV demuxer and audio/video decoder

libmpeg2 improvements:

• iWMMXt-accelerated DCT and motion compensation for ARM processors

New filters:

• obsolete fame filter removed
• vf_geq speed-ups
• vf_yadif green frame fixed
• fix af_pan when switching audio streams
• add audio left/right balance feature to af_pan

MEncoder improvements:

• write to output streams (currently only file:// and smb://)
• support -ffourcc with -of lavf
• removed B-frame warning message
• fixed bugs that would corrupt headers in the video stream when using telecining and not patch the TFF flag correctly

New drivers:

• ALSA audio output now sets the non-audio bit for AC3 pass-through even if the user-specified default device name tries to clear it
• fixed internal VIDIX in Solaris/x86, also auto-enabled
• rework of internal VIDIX, now a fully static library with built-in drivers
• updated VIDIX ATI drivers
• Sun XVR-100 video output driver

Other improvements:

• monitorpixelaspect=1 is now default. Set monitoraspect=4/3 to get the old behavior (if you have non-square pixels).
• libdvdcss updated to Subversion HEAD, now same as upstream version
• libmpdvdkit split into libdvdread and libdvdcss
• obsolete Xvid 3 support removed
• long-deprecated -vop option removed
• video stream switching
• dvdnav:// honor -alang and -slang
• support for doubleclick as input event
• -really-quiet works as expected now
• select libavformat demuxer (-lavfdopts format=)
• internal minilzo removed in favor of FFmpeg implementation, use liblzo2 for encoding
• change GUI dependency from libpng to libavcodec
• ability to change subtitle size during playback
• ability to turn loop on/off during playback
• Apple Remote support
• libdvdread updated to 0.9.7
• many compiler warning fixes

New ports:

• Complete Intel Mac support
• Hitachi SuperH (SH3) support
• Blackfin optimizations

New documentation:

• console messages and XML documentation converted to UTF-8
• Russian documentation translation finished
• Russian man page translation finished
• Chinese man page translation finished
• Chinese documentation translation started
• Documented get/set/step properties in DOCS/tech/slave.txt

Download : 1 | 2 |3

openSUSE 10.3 Available Now!

The long awaited, award winning openSUSE 10.3 has been released today with everything a user needs to get started with Linux. It includes a flexible Linux-Windows dual-boot configuration, Microsoft Office file compatibility with the latest OpenOffice.org office productivity suite and enhanced multimedia support. What could an ex-Windows – and future Linux – user want more? Now openSUSE is based on Linux kernel 2.6.22, with a large variety of fresh open-source applications for desktops, servers and software development.

You can choose between the newest versions of Gnome and KDE desktop environments, openSUSE comes with both of them. AppArmor is the solution that protects your operating system and applications against threats like viruses, malware and attacks. If you are interested in virtualization, openSUSE comes with the latest virtualization software like Xen 3.1 and VirtualBox 1.5. The “1-Click Install” feature that gives users easy access to many more software packages residing on the openSUSE Build Service appears for the first time in openSUSE 10.3.

Without any further introduction, let’s have an in-depth look at the highlights to be found in this new release of openSUSE:

Adding Extra Software Repositories During Installation

After the distribution’s setup, YaST will offer three additional repositories: “oss”, “non-oss” and “debug”. “Oss” contains the entire FTP distribution but with more packages than the ones included on the CDs. In “non-oss” you will find software that’s under a proprietary or non-open source license. If you need debuginfo packages for debugging your programs, you will find them in the 3rd repository, in “debug”.

Localization support on separate media CDs

The 1-CD installation media comes with language support for American English only. Other languages are available separately, in the “oss” repository

YaST comes with Gtk and Qt Front-Ends

The new YaST gtk front-end runs on the GNOME desktop, and YaST Qt front-end on the others. Both front-ends are similar, with only one exception: the gtk software management module, which differs very much from the Qt port. If you want to start the Qt version on the GNOME desktop, you should:

1. open the /etc/sysconfig/yast2 file as root
2. after this, change WANTED_GUI=”auto” to WANTED_GUI=”qt”. Save and exit.
3. to start the gtk flavor of YaST, do as above but change WANTED_GUI=”auto” to WANTED_GUI=”gtk”.

AppArmor 2.1:AppArmor’s syntax now can distinguish folders from files and some minor syntax bugs were fixed.

Gaim was replaced by Pidgin: The Gaim multi-protocol instant messenger was replaced with Pidgin.

KDE and GNOME are installed in new locations:Gnome is installed from now under the /usr file system hierarchy and KDE 4 now follows. KDE 3 will remain in /opt for compatibility reasons.

libata powers now your IDE devices:Libata uses /dev/sda for the first harddisk, instead of /dev/hda. If you have a disk with more than 15 partitions, they will not be handled automatically at this moment. You can disable libata support by booting the kernel with the following parameter:
hwprobe=-modules.pata

After this, you will see all your 15+ partitions.

Encrypted partitions are easy to setup:The back-end technology of boot.crypto has been changed from cryptoloop to dm-crypt. Any old /etc/cryptotab will work with no modifications on openSUSE 10.3. Additionally, /etc/crypttab (notice the missing ‘o’ in the file name) is from now on supported, and LUKS volumes receive the same treatment. You can manually enable boot.crypto, which is no longer enabled by default, by using the following command:

chkconfig boot.crypto on
It is still possible to use cryptoloop via losetup and mount.

Enabling Quota support has never been easier: YaST allows you, from this moment on, to configure quota for user accounts from it. To enable quota support, you should activate the “Enable quota support” check box in the fstab options when partitioning in the first stage of the setup. In the second stage, the advanced options for user accounts provide the quota module where the rules can be set.

Improved Zeroconf service: This service is now provided by the Avahi stack instead of mDNSResponder. However, mDNSResponder and howl compatibility libraries continue to be available.

Support for older Intel graphics chips: Older Intel graphics chips are supported by two drivers, “i810″ and “intel”. The last one is the default in openSUSE 10.3 due to the high demand for features like native mode setting (no longer VESA BIOS based) and RANDR 1.2 support.

Improved support for Intel Wireless Link WiFi drivers: Two drivers are available in openSUSE 10.3, the traditional ipw3945 which is installed by default and the new iwlwifi driver as an alternative offer. If you want to remove the traditional one, you can do that in YaST ->”Software” -> “Software Management” and take it out. After this, iwlwifi will take its place.

More tools to help you burn your CDs and DVDs: The cdrecord package is no more a part of this distribution. It was replaced by the new wodim, genisoimage and icedax packages from the cdrkit project. They can be used to record data or audio CDs on a CD recorder that complies with the Orange Book standard. For writing DVDs you can use growisofs. The graphical front-ends handle this transparently.

Download [Torrents ] : i386 | X64

Vixta.Forget vista!

Vixta.org is a Fedora-based Linux distribution designed to be user-friendly and eye-catching, similar in look and feel to Windows Vista. Trying to bring linux to the “masses”, not just sysadmins

Features :

• KDE based Desktop Environment
• Fedora Based Distribution

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Home Page : www.vixta.org – Home
Download : SourceForge.net: Files

Compiz 0.6.0 Sees The Daylight!

A new Compiz release was created by Danny Baumann, Compiz’s main developer. Its release was announced yesterday and the newversion is 0.6.0.

Since the 0.4.0 release some big changes have occurred. A better support for multiple X-screens was implemented and an extensible logging framework was born. Some major improvements to option initialization based on the new meta-data system (which uses XML as its basis) appeared. This fresh meta-data system will handle different meta-data types, like plugin description, default option values and more.

Now the plugins have their own plugins that make the adjusting and extending the behavior of existing ones possible. The more dynamic handling of the output devices now allows the output device’s configuration to be changed between frames.

The Cube plugin for Compiz 0.6.0 has some new additions, like transparency and basic background support and the non-power-of-two skydome textures are now supported. Other plugins now have introspection, or offer the user multiple modes of resize drawing and the place plugin now supports multiple placement modes. Some new plugins were added since 0.4.0, like Glib, Ini, Fs (FUSE plugin) etc.

Gtk-window-decorator now allows the user to configure the button layout in metacity themes and lets him change the actions of middle and right mouse button. For kde-window-decorator was added UTF-8 support for window titles and a fixed display of maximized windows.

Danny Baumann discovered that this release, 0.6.0, contains a problem which could allow stacking desktop windows over normal windows at the moment when they are mapped. This could result in normal windows and/or panels not being visible when compiz is launched with the Gnome or KDE session until the desktop window is restacked once. This could be done by clicking on it, if the “Raise on click”option is enabled.

Baumann promises he will release a 0.6.2 version as soon as possible to fix the problem.

Download : http://xorg.freedesktop.org/archive/…z-0.6.0.tar.gz
Source : [compiz] [ANNOUNCE] compiz-0.6.0