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If your students are not running Linux, and their backgrounds are in the Windows and mainframe worlds, then it might be best to approach OSS from the Windows side. This is especially true if your student's are not willing to install Linux on their own boxen or on whatever they may use at their place of employment.

So, be sure to include Windows based OSS programs such as found on the Open CD and check out the the source forge osswin site at http://osswin.sourceforge.net/.

You need to give them a flavor of what Linux is like to be sure, so include Knoppix in the mix somewhere.

It sounds like your course will be for programmers. If so, then introducing them to Cygwin would be a good idea. You may even wish to run KDE under cygwin on Windows (see http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/

For development tools you should cover the creating programs from the command line using make, etc., but also cover OSS IDE's -- Eclipse in particular would be a good one. And of course use g++ for C++ and Sun's java (I am not a purist so I think Java's Sun will suffice but Sun's Java is not regarded as true OSS, so you may need to find something else for Java.)

If you use g++ with cygwin on windows, then also consider introducing them to minGW so they can make their programs run natively on windows.

I run both windows and Linux at home, and prefer Linux. But at work I have to use a window box. I have cygwin with X installed and use both firefox and OpenOffice as replacements with no problems. I am posting to let you know about the windows possibilities because I beleive that you may encounter some resistance if you require your student's to run Linux. OSS on windows is a good way to introduce those who are new to OSS and Unix like file systems and tools to newbies.

If your students are not running Linux, and their backgrounds are in the Windows and mainframe worlds, then it might be best to approach OSS from the Windows side. This is especially true if your student's are not willing to install Linux on their own boxen or on whatever they may use at their place of employment.

So, be sure to include Windows based OSS programs such as found on the Open CD and check out the the source forge osswin site at http://osswin.sourceforge.net/.

You need to give them a flavor of what Linux is like to be sure, so include Knoppix in the mix somewhere.

It sounds like your course will be for programmers. If so, then introducing them to Cygwin would be a good idea. You may even wish to run KDE under cygwin on Windows (see http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/

For development tools you should cover the creating programs from the command line using make, etc., but also cover OSS IDE's -- Eclipse in particular would be a good one. And of course use g++ for C++ and Sun's java (I am not a purist so I think Java's Sun will suffice but Sun's Java is not regarded as true OSS, so you may need to find something else for Java.)

If you use g++ with cygwin on windows, then also consider introducing them to minGW so they can make their programs run natively on windows.

I run both windows and Linux at home, and prefer Linux. But at work I have to use a window box. I have cygwin with X installed and use both firefox and OpenOffice as replacements with no problems. I am posting to let you know about the windows possibilities because I beleive that you may encounter some resistance if you require your student's to run Linux. OSS on windows is a good way to introduce those who are new to OSS and Unix like file systems and tools to newbies.

I haven't seen performance problems that would differentiate Java from any other platform in quite some time. Eclipse and VS.NET run about the same when it comes to responsiveness. jGnash runs as fast as GnuCash or even Quicken for that matter.

I haven't run NetBeans in a long time so I cannot comment about that. Eclipse runs slower on Linux than Windows but Gantt Project, Umlet and Visual Paradigm run about the same. Curiously enough, Poseidon runs much slower on Linux than Windows.

I haven't seen performance problems that would differentiate Java from any other platform in quite some time. Eclipse and VS.NET run about the same when it comes to responsiveness. jGnash runs as fast as GnuCash or even Quicken for that matter.

I haven't run NetBeans in a long time so I cannot comment about that. Eclipse runs slower on Linux than Windows but Gantt Project, Umlet and Visual Paradigm run about the same. Curiously enough, Poseidon runs much slower on Linux than Windows.

i-podder http://ipodder.sourceforge.net/index.php

Is a nice OSS program for downloading podcasts too. No need for spyware/bloatware/crapware from the big guys.

Well, no points for the docs on this one (hey, it's open source) but there is some help for outer joins noted here.

The best bits about catalyst are:

1. built in webserver. Apache/Apache2 is in flux at the moment, and you're caught in shifting sands of documentation, libraries and online-help. A built in webserver means you can prototype fastest.
2. Eclipse. With EPIC you can code and debug your perl in Eclipse.

Tcl (and Tk) is still hanging in there, chugging along. Some recent developments:

Tile: modern look and feel + themes for Tk: http://tktable.sourceforge.net/tile/

An object system for the core: http://www.tcl.tk/cgi-bin/tct/tip/257.html

I think the other big thing that's still missing is to make the standard distribution 'batteries included' - we'll see if we can make that happen soon.

I love the language, in any case, it's super easy to get people started with, and if you look under the hood, it's coded very well, and has an *extensive* C API. That was what really sold me on the language - the ability to really integrate it well and easily with C code. Python's C API is good too, but I thik Tcl's is still broader.

Still, java as a language comes close to the speed of C++. So there is less need to "go native". However if you want to, it is no problem. It is hardly more difficult than in TCL (I have used TCL a lot as glue to bind self written modules and available libraries in C together). JNI is not difficult, and we use it too. We don't use it to write our own C modules, because it just isn't worthwhile with Java. But we do use it to bind in existing libraries (such as openssh and some in-house developed networking libraries), and once you know how to do it it doesn't take more time than with similar mechanisms in scripting languages. People have done it for GUI toolkits, e.g. http://java-gnome.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/bin/view and http://developer.kde.org/language-bindings/java/. There is no technical reason at all that Java can't do the same thing Python can (binding in lots of existing modules) except that the need is hardly there.

We're using BUGS at work.
It may not be as feature complete as Bugzilla or other but this feature is built-in as you can see here

We're using BUGS at work.
It may not be as feature complete as Bugzilla or other but this feature is built-in as you can see here

http://sourceforge.net/projects/greed/ is at version 2.2211ß, not 2.0 as stated!!

What are you talking about? First of all, GIMP by default only has two floating palettes: The tools one, and the layers one. Second, the Inkscape interface is completely different--it has no palettes at all; everything is attached to the document window. Maybe you're thinking of Sodipodi, but that only has a single palette. None of these programs have "4 or 5 freely floating windows" or "umpteen stacked toolbars."

Note that I base my assertions on Gimp.app and the OS X version of Inkscape. But maybe these just have friendlier defaults than other versions.

Look here:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/gimp-win/

As it turns out, even many modern consumer cameras give you 12bit or 16bit per channel, and many modern displays can display that.

I'll have to nitpick here a bit. Even on DSLRs there's sufficient amount of noise to make the bit depth somewhat theoretical. But in general , I agree that >8 bits per channel bit depths are commonly used in various contexts and it would be very nice if GIMP would also get the support.

However, for digital camera use, UFRaw plugin for the GIMP does conversion from digital camera RAW files quite intelligently, as the initial adjustments are done with 16 bits per component and only after color balance, saturation, exposure control etc. are done the image is converted to 8 bits per channel. It's available at:

http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/

It's not of course a substitute for a real 16-bit support, but makes life a bit less painful at least.

His code is hosted on SourceForge !

Still in planning phase, although there's a lot of CVS commits already.

Regardless of how resource intensive it is, you can check out the somewhat nicely formatted & cross-referenced source code here...

    "Google Reader Classes and Functions Reference"
    http://libgmail.sourceforge.net/googlereader/19653 4137-main.html

So, anyone want to be the first to add a feature, or are we over that?

--Phil.

P.S. Does this count as community service? :-)

Why do people even bother with Mono?

More people need to know about the Java-Gnome project!

This is by far the most hyped feature of C# but it's also present in Java. If you look at the large incompatibilities between Visual Basic and VB.NET you'll see that .NET is not really that language independent and that each language is really more of a "skined" version of C#.

As far as alternative languages go in Java there are many. Among the most popular are: JRuby
# interpreter written in 100% pure Java
# Most builtin Ruby classes provided
# Support for interacting with and defining java classes from within ruby
# Bean Scripting Framework (BSF) support
# Distributed under a tri-license (CPL/GPL/LGPL)

Jython (Python)
Jython is an implementation of the high-level, dynamic, object-oriented language Python written in 100% Pure Java, and seamlessly integrated with the Java platform. It thus allows you to run Python on any Java platform.

Groovy
Groovy is an agile dynamic language for the Java 2 Platform that has many of the features that people like so much in languages like Python, Ruby and Smalltalk, making them available to Java developers using a Java-like syntax.

There's a lot more smaller projects like JavaScript and Rhino, Jelly, BeanShell, Tcl/Java, Sleep, ObjectScript, Pnuts, Judoscript. Some people event think there are too many alternative languages for the Java Virtual Machine.

Actually, wx.NET and GTK# work just fine on both Microsoft's runtime as on Mono's runtime. Compile on Win32 with VS.Net, run on Linux with Mono (or Portable.Net). I've tried it and ran into no problems.

QT# exists or you can call QT libs directly from .Net. I have no experience with QT so can't comment. .Net isn't so 'boxed in' and 'made for win32' as I thought it would be. And C# is a pretty nice language.

Actually, wx.NET and GTK# work just fine on both Microsoft's runtime as on Mono's runtime. Compile on Win32 with VS.Net, run on Linux with Mono (or Portable.Net). I've tried it and ran into no problems.

QT# exists or you can call QT libs directly from .Net. I have no experience with QT so can't comment. .Net isn't so 'boxed in' and 'made for win32' as I thought it would be. And C# is a pretty nice language.

Mono implements System.Windows.Forms, but currently it's not stable.

It's recommended to use the latest build of Mono System.Windows.Forms, you can find it here.
And here is the the Mono WinForms class status.
I currently wouldn't rely on it. But the outlook is good.
And here are some pretty pictures of Mono's WinForms in action.

For apps where the both compatiblity with Windows and Linux/OSX are important I'd use wx.NET.
However on Win32 WinForms works best, even if it isn't the nicest (for developers) toolkit around.

Never ever let any of those CD's or DVD's load their own players on your computer. Disable autoplay (google it) or hold down shiftkey when you put your cd/dvd in the computer. Use CDex(http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdexos) to rip your cd's. Use Winamp to play your cd's. Use VLC (www.videolan.org/vlc/) player to run your DVD's. They can't take over your computer unless you let them.

If you want a program that can do multiple routes, you can try GMap. The directions aren't yet tuned that well, but they do work and allow for multiple stop routes.

GMap is a GTK# based map program that uses the US Census tiger data as its map source and works offline without need for the internet.

Was involved with a similar project but we were ripping out crappy Labview apps for a biological research company with lots of robots. Labview is initially easier but you get stuck after a while.

Tool selected was python

Boost Python (http://www.boost.org/libs/python/doc/) is a library for wrapping C++ libraries that already exist to make them accessible from Python. Includes the boost python library. A favorite for wrapping c++ code.

Swig (http://www.swig.org/) is another library for connecting C and C++
code with Python

ctypes http://starship.python.net/crew/theller/ctypes/
ctypes allows loading dlls/shared libs and calling functions in that lib.

PyInline (http://pyinline.sourceforge.net/) is a module which will allow
you to write methods inline in C.

Python can use COM or you can create COM objects. Make apps with simple web interfaces (Medusa) and webservices style interfaces. Also can check out jython etc.

They play a lot better than most I've seen. Helpful on the driver side as I understand, and I was pleasantly surprised to see source linux drivers on the CD with my last via board. And if your board has hardware mpeg2 they produce a modified xine to utilize them, and it's on sourceforge.

Yep, state threads library is 1000% more useful than this hack. Can be found here: http://state-threads.sourceforge.net/

As I recall it started to get obvious a couple of weeks ago. Rome's a great series I couldn't see without P2P groups. MediaSentry released a 95+% complete fake of the next week's episode onto the networks a week early in order to try and entrap sharers. I tested that release by repairing the 95% downloaded file and it was indeed just silent black video fill-in. Peerguardian lit up like a christmas tree during (and for days after) the download.

I'm curious as to how they can chase people for sharing a file devoid of any content or copyrighted materials like that.

Anyway, it's really not a problem for people that use blocklists and blocklist managing tools such as PeerGuardian.

Now here's a note for the HBO readers. I will pay for your content. I'll buy DVD's of this series and all the other quality TV shows I can only currently acquire 'illegally'. I will also be quite happy to see a little watermark advertisement in place of corporate branding in the corner of the screen. That's some premium ad space you're wasting there - you know this quality material will spread like a virus. And on top of that it's an additional incentive to buy the non-watermarked content when you make it available. Come on, please do get with the programme. Believe it or not we actually want companies that make quality entertainment to succeed in their efforts almost as much as the company executives themselves. The old distribution model is dead. Believe it or not, and scary though it may be, this is actually good news for all of us.

Come on, spell the name right at least. It's AZUREUS.

And a link. http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ Note, it's a Java Bittorrent client.. so all those people that are allergic to Java might want to avoid it.

well whoever said it... neither searched sorceforge - http://sourceforge.net/projects/nusoap/

Yeah, it's really too bad that a general purpose PC can only be used as a DVR. Imagine if you could use it to play all different kinds of video files (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) that some people get from teh Interwebs (http://thepirate-useyourimagination-.org/brwsearc h.php?b=1&d=200). When I think of all that CPU sitting there unused, I just wish there was a way I could use it to deinterlace and scale the video better than the projector (http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/about.htm). It's a real shame that there's no way to filter and soften artifacts, make gamma correction or do other post-processing (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow). I mean wow, what if you had something that could do that to even make DVDs look cleaner and more accurate (http://www.theatertek.com/forums/showthread.php?s =6486412abf926166ef4d7dc0be10c450&t=4392). If you could do that, you may even put some of them on your hard drive if that wasn't impossible (http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/ dvd_rippers/dvd_decrypter.cfm). Even if there were a way to keep movies on a hard drive, you still wouldn't have a way to remove the ads, trailers, french soundtracks and other crap (http://www.dvdshrink.org/why.html). Gosh, I keep thinking too that with a projector in the home theater room and everything, it's too bad there's no way to play video games on it (http://www.mame.net/).

Yeah, it's really too bad that a general purpose PC can only be used as a DVR. Imagine if you could use it to play all different kinds of video files (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) that some people get from teh Interwebs (http://thepirate-useyourimagination-.org/brwsearc h.php?b=1&d=200). When I think of all that CPU sitting there unused, I just wish there was a way I could use it to deinterlace and scale the video better than the projector (http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/about.htm). It's a real shame that there's no way to filter and soften artifacts, make gamma correction or do other post-processing (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow). I mean wow, what if you had something that could do that to even make DVDs look cleaner and more accurate (http://www.theatertek.com/forums/showthread.php?s =6486412abf926166ef4d7dc0be10c450&t=4392). If you could do that, you may even put some of them on your hard drive if that wasn't impossible (http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/ dvd_rippers/dvd_decrypter.cfm). Even if there were a way to keep movies on a hard drive, you still wouldn't have a way to remove the ads, trailers, french soundtracks and other crap (http://www.dvdshrink.org/why.html). Gosh, I keep thinking too that with a projector in the home theater room and everything, it's too bad there's no way to play video games on it (http://www.mame.net/).

This is what HP's Linux COE is all about (well, that and custom network installs). The link is for the software needed to set up such a site, you can't build ISOs from there. (If you're on HP's internal network you can use the internal Linux COE site, which works great for this purpose, with multiple distros.)

As another poster mentioned, SUSE already lets you do a network install from an ftp or web server.

You can download Media Portal from sourceforge.
http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/

I heard about this project. It looks pretty cool, but unfortunately it is on planning stage.

What some open source zealots, and the vast majority of open source "consumers" don't recognize is that programmers need to eat to. Until these "consumers" stop taking advantage of open source, and start paying... Open source will stay in Microsoft's (and other big corporations) shadow, and very likely even shrink.

Nessus is not the first, and not the last. Even Hans Reiser has this problem:
See here... Hans Reiser: Doing GPL work is doing charity work [...] That should be and could be changed, but for now it is so. I have done my share of charity, and I would not have a problem doing proprietary work. I think people should keep their lives in balance, and that includes balancing charity work and better paid work. ... It is not an easy life, I am $200k or more in debt and drive a 1989 CRX Si.

Here is another: Mute file sharing. Not sure how long this experiment will last.

And one more: Daniel Robbins founded Gentoo linux, went bankrupt, got job at Microsoft

Either help these programmers feed themselves and their families, or expect other big and large profile projects to disappear and become pay-for-play.

I love open source, and contribute money to many projects -- but open source will just prove to be a fad that will start to wear thin on programmers as they get into debt and can't feed their families. The business case for open source software longterm survival is weak, unforunately.

m

If you have a windows machine around the house that you'd like to play your MythTV recorded shows on (with commercial skipping), you can try WinMyth.

WinMyth is a windows frontend to MythTv. It connects to your linux backend and acts just like any other mythfrontend.

I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes...

Reiserfs for Win32: http://rfsd.sourceforge.net/

Vigor

Here's a couple of suggestions for Ext2fs in Windows:
http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/ext2.html
http://www.ext2fs-anywhere.com/

These should let you use Ext2fs in Windows.

My big problem with Fat32 is actually the 4GB file size limit. Kind of aggrivating but I hardly ever use Windows these days so it's not really a big deal.

That's one way to describe it. I always described it as an early experiment in human interfaces created by people who watched too much Max Headroom. I do have to admit that the fictional human interface where you talk to your computer and an animated face replies is an interesting idea. However, the primitive real-world attempts at this leave much to be desired. Some examples include Bonzai Buddy, Bob, Clippy (aka paperclip), and (the best of the bunch) Verbot.

Bonzai Buddy was, as you said, a spyware version of the Microsoft paperclip. I never used Bob. Clippy was amusing, but ultimately annoying. Verbot looks interesting, but I don't see a use.

And for the non-Windows people out there, *NIX has it's own characters. Microsoft Office is available for the Mac. OpenOffice has a character that shows up from time to time. Someone even made one of these for vi. It's called Vigor. Vigor claims to have all the problems and twice the bugs.

or just use streamripper and rip your own from shoutcast, etc. If everyone turned off sharing, p2p systems wouldn't work. But yeah, I tell everyone to stay off the kazaa's and such anymore, aside from emule, based on the number of falsely represented file (trojans, viruses posing as mp3s). If the p2p software doesn't support checksumming, don't use it.

I've been working on open source software that solves that problem. None of the current systems in place will bother, because they want everybody to go to one website. Because I'm releasing my source, I don't want everybody on one website. I want every website to work together.

appleseed.sourceforge.net

ByzantineOS does a good job of being a 'internet dashboard', all from a bootable CD/flash drive, running Mozilla.

As a developer who went from Open Source (5 years) to .NET programming, the only thing I *really* missed was working with MySQL. Fast, light, stable, and easy to work with. With all the new version 5 features, plus the help of adapters like ByteFX , MySQL is now part of a valid enterprise solution to .NET developers (IMHO).

I think most Java IDEs (eg, IntelliJ) allow you to do something similar.

I might also suggest Firebird, the open-source version of Borland's InterBase product. It's licensed under a variant of the Mozilla Public License called the "InterBase Public License", but it doesn't seem too onerous. It's still a young product, but it looks like a good base, and I'm sure with a little spit and polish from Sun it could be a decent system.

There's also PostgreSQL's estranged mother, CA Ingres, the commercial version of Stonebreaker's original University Ingres. This is a well-vetted commercial-grade DBMS, although under another odd-wad license (the "Computer Associates Trusted Open Source License v1.1", see here).

That said, I would prefer to see them choose PostgreSQL.

Sun gets to use repackage PostgreSQL however they like, more people will be using PostgreSQL and finding bugs and adding features and writing utilities, more books will be sold, more consulting opportunities - everyone wins.

I've had people contribute code to PMD and say they were only contributing it because they felt the BSD license avoided any possible obligations on their part. And the products that are based on PMD? Just means more books sold. Good times!