|
![[Announcement]](../images/64x64/announce.gif) | Here
is a photo of the Syllable stand at FOSDEM last week, by Jesús
Corrius. | |
![[Applications]](../images/64x64/applications.gif) | Michael Pavone has created a new programming
language: Rhope.
It's a very interesting language that is based on dataflow and also
uses transactional concepts to make parallel programming easy. Rhope is
an interpreter that is available for Syllable, OS X and Windows. Mike
mentions that it was for a large part developed on Syllable and that
its web site runs on Syllable Desktop, on a web server and web
framework programmed in Rhope itself. Rhope currently has preliminary
support for programming graphical user interfaces on Syllable and
Windows. | |
| There's a new Syllable website in Dutch. It is
maintained by Bas de Lange and hosted by the region
Utrecht/Amersfoort of the Hobby Computer Club. The link is
available here in the community panel on the left. | |
![[Ports]](../images/48x48/port.gif) | ![[Syllable on Syllable]](http://web.syllable.org/images/screenshots/Desktop/0.6.6/Syllable-on-Syllable-200x160.jpg) QEmu
has been eluding its port to Syllable Desktop, but the Syllable team
has gotten this emulator to work now. The port is based on earlier work
on QEmu itself and on a number of improvements that are being made to
Syllable Desktop. The coming Syllable development builds will have
improved support for POSIX threads, timers and async I/O.
The newest QEmu version 0.9.1 runs now. There is already a
binary package of QEmu 0.9.1 for Syllable Server in our downloads
section.![[Ubuntu on Syllable]](http://web.syllable.org/images/screenshots/Desktop/0.6.6/Ubuntu-running-on-Desktop-0.6.6-200x160.png)
Other
recent ports to Syllable Desktop include
LibPurple and Finch, the text mode client of Pidgin (the former GAIM
instant messaging application) and the latest version of SaMBa, 3.0.28. | |
![[Syllable]](../images/64x64/Syllable-emblem-63x64.gif) | We published a new Premium CD for Syllable
Desktop 0.6.5. As always, it's available from the Syllable shop.
The complete program source code didn't fit on it any more, so we
created a separate CD for that. It holds the source code for Syllable
Desktop, Syllable Server and extra packages. Both CDs are also
available as a download from now on, so you can choose to
receive them sooner and save the shipping costs by burning
your own CD. | |
|
| BeGeistert 018 is in progress, where we were
graciously invited. You can see it live on this
webcam. Bas is representing Syllable there and just gave a
spontaneous presentation. | |
| After
an extensive development period, we released Syllable Desktop 0.6.5
with goodies all over. Of course there are bug fixes, most notably in
USB and the network stack, leading to large reliability and performance
improvements. LibUSB and SANE were ported, so there is now USB access
from user space and support for scanners. There are new network and
video drivers, including a unique S3 DeltaChrome driver that Arno wrote
from scratch. Two new window decorators debut from John Aspras. CD
burning ability is now integrated in the form of SimpleBurn and
CDRTools. A new network preferences applet from Andrew Kennan was
integrated, and also Arno's port of OpenBeFS. Many ports were upgraded
and the system layout has been heavily reorganised. Files needed for
compiling software have been split off in a separate package.
This
is also the release that harmonises a number of things between Syllable
Desktop and Syllable Server.
The full change
log is
here. Installation CDs, the upgrade, and images for
emulators are
here. Additional software can be
found here.
| |
|
| The
link to our Official Releases in the navigation panel on the left here
has been replaced by a new download page of our own. After going
through several download web sites in the past years, this one is meant
to stay. It is fully integrated into the new content management system
for the sites. We will extend it over time to add categories,
main
sections for Syllable Desktop and Syllable Server, and eventually,
software contributed by individual developers.
The
current page
offers some new packages that were created or ported recently. They are
mainly libraries, of interest to software developers. | |
| The
second release of Syllable
Server is now available. A number of fixes were made, most notably to
terminal initialisation and printing. GhostScript is included now. Some
of the Syllable-specific initialisation scripts are executed now.
Many
packages were updated, including GLibC, CoreUtils, BASh, ORCA and the
printing packages.
Several
new packages were added. IPTables is included, so Syllable Server can
be used to build a firewall. The wireless tools are included for
configuring wireless networks. The ALSA userspace library and tools
were added to provide full access to the audio system, instead of
relying on OSS emulation.
All separate binary
software packages
for Server 0.1 are still valid on Server 0.2. On Syllable, binary
compatibility is maintained as much as possible.
[Installation
and usage instructions, change
log, torrent
(preferred), installation
package (75 MB 7-Zip archive).] Please use the torrent if you
can.
| |
|
| Bas
will be manning a booth to present Syllable at the Show that
you
Share! conference in the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands on Friday,
December 14 [flyer
(PDF)]. The conference is about networks, communities and learning,
with a focus on educational purposes. We will highlight the opportunity
that Syllable offers to learn about system technology without the huge
overhead that other systems bring with them (for example in code size)
and the low barrier to entry for contributing to Syllable. | |
| Bas
is going to represent Syllable again on the FOSDEM 2008 conference in
Brussels in the weekend of February 23 and 24. We will have a table to
present Syllable. Please come, as it's a great gathering of free
software enthusiasts, and if you want to help, please contact us. | |
| Lukas Veselovsky has opened a web site for
Syllable in Slovak. Good luck, Lukas! | |
| Ruud has published the second issue in the new
series of our Syllable Development Newsletter. It contains thirteen
pages of articles, interviews and the second instalment of Kristian's
programming tutorial. The newsletter is accompanied again by a software
pack, rounding up seven packages that were released since the first
edition. | |
| Another
development build of Syllable Desktop is ready. From now on, the
development builds will be available from their own page on the new
development site. A link is on the panel on the left. The caveats are
the same as for the previous build. | |
| This web site has been split into subsites
oriented towards different audiences. A new site was created for
software developers. It can be reached through the new
"Subprojects/Navigation" panel on the left and contains all the content
that is specific to software development on Syllable. The API
references and driver tutorials are now on-line again. | |
| A Danish tribe is emerging from the Syllable
hordes of the north. Flemming is leading his people and his turtle to a
new Danish
site he has split off from Syllable Norden. | |
| To enable you to try Syllable Server without
installation, two preconfigured virtual
machine images are now available. One is for VMware [torrent
(preferred), image
(82 MB)]. It can also be used with QEmu and VirtualBox. The
other is
for other emulators such as Bochs, or also QEmu [torrent
(preferred), image
(81 MB)]. Please note that the latter unpacks to a file of one
gigabyte. The start menu of the images provides configurations for
several emulators. More detailed instructions are
here. Please use the torrents if you can. | |
| It's the melancholical season in Scandinavia,
so in an attack of nostalgia, Flemming installed the last version of
AtheOS in an emulator image - exactly six years after its release. For
a walk down memory lane, or to peer at Syllable's roots, have a look at
this
screenshot of AtheOS running on Syllable. To try it
yourself, we provide a VMware image that can also be used with QEmu and
VirtualBox [torrent, image
(11 MB)],
and a raw image that can be used with Bochs and QEmu [torrent, image
(11 MB)]. Please use the torrents
if you can.
For unpacking the files, you need 7-Zip [portable version,
Windows version]. | |
| We
are resuming the regular development builds of Syllable Desktop. The
new build contains important stability fixes for USB, and
enhancements to make the porting of software easier. There are fixes
for making it easier to find the SDL extension libraries during the
compilation of software. Configuration of packages that need PkgConfig
during compilation is now supported. If you are building this software
in a staging area, you also need to update Builder, which now also has
support for PkgConfig.
The FFMPEG codec and cURL are
missing
from this build due to temporary build failures. If you need them, you
can copy them in from the previous development build or from Syllable
0.6.4.
[Torrent,
ISO,
MD5
checksums.] Please use the torrent if you can. | |
| The first development release of Syllable
Server is available! It provides a text mode Linux environment, but
also contains a preliminary graphical environment built on the
framebuffer device, with DirectFB and SDL on top. The planned graphical
environment from Syllable Desktop is not included yet. The installation
procedure is short, but is still manual - and resembles the
installation procedure for the old AtheOS.
Included are tools such as a graphical web browser, a file manager and
an editor. One thing Syllable Server is designed for is to function as
a light-weight virtualisation platform for running other operating
systems (or multiple instances of itself). The QEmu
virtualisor/emulator is included, and the KQEmu Accelerator kernel
module is integrated into the system. [Screenshot
of Syllable Server running on Syllable Desktop, installation
and usage instructions, torrent
(80 MB), installation
package (80 MB).] Please use the torrent if you can.
Dutch
IT journalist Brenno de Winter already published
an article about the launch of Syllable Server and a podcast interview
with Kaj de Vos.
|
 Digg
this |
| After
a long time, we have updated the Premium CD that is available from our
Lulu shop. At the time, after we released Syllable 0.6.0a, we cleaned
up old library versions from the system, to bring down the size of the
distribution. This meant dropping support for old binary programs, so
after that, our software collection was rather limited and not
sufficient to build a premium CD that would contain significantly more
than the basic installation CD. Since then, we have done a lot of work
on our package collection, and now we have finally made time to create
a Premium CD for Syllable 0.6.4. It is filled to the brim and contains
all our official packages and accompanying source code. | |
| Our new and already prolific contributor Kelly
Wilson has ported MLGame,
a game programming framework for the OCaml
language that makes use of Syllable's SDL
subsystem. Kelly has also updated our OCaml port to the latest version,
3.10, which now has support for PThreads on Syllable for the first time. | |
| Resuming our regular news coverage, we are
pleased to announce that our contributor Rohan has opened a new
Syllable web site in
Russian. It will be available from here in our redesigned
links section, on the left. | |
| Mail addresses of the Syllable members at
syllable.org are now operational again. | |
| After
having moved our domain name registrations to a new provider, we are
now reconfiguring them for the new hosting situation. An effect of this
will be that our site names www.syllable.org and syllable.org will not
resolve for the coming one or two days. Don't worry, we'll be back. |
|
|
| If
you've had a blast from the past lately, it may be because we're
piecing this website back together again from anything we can find.
Although our provider is one stiff
parrot,
we are making this into an opportunity to replace our troubled systems
of the past with the improvements we had long been planning. We would
like to thank those who have offered us hosting help. However, our
plans have already been set in motion. The website you are reading now
is replicated over the world on a distributed system. It should be well
prepared for the extra visitors we are expecting when we release
Syllable Server. The content management system is our own, which we are
writing in REBOL as we speak.
"Elluk naadeel hep sun foordeel."
Johan
Cruyff, after a disastrous soccer match
|
|
|
|
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![[Syllable on Syllable]](http://web.syllable.org/images/screenshots/Desktop/0.6.6/Syllable-on-Syllable.png)
![[Ubuntu on Syllable]](http://web.syllable.org/images/screenshots/Desktop/0.6.6/Ubuntu-running-on-Desktop-0.6.6.png)
