[Syllable-announce] Syllable 0.5.0 released

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Hi all,

I am pleased to announce that the first release in the Syllable 0.5 
development series is now available for download!

Syllable 0.5.0 includes a large number of changes and improvements, notably a 
new Media Framework and Media Players, large changes to the way that the 
Syllable kernel handles device drivers, USB support and of course, more 
drivers.  The full Changelog can be found below.

The Syllable installation tarballs, disk images, upgrade tarballs and CD ISO 
image can all be downloaded from 
http://syllable.sourceforge.net/modules.php?name=Downloads  Alternativly, 
CD's of the latest release of Syllable can be purchased for only £5 ($7.5 or 
7 EUR)  The CD includes all of the latest packages and a snapshot of the 
latest sourcecode from CVS.  See 
http://syllable.sourceforge.net/modules.php?name=buy for more information.

If you are upgrading from Syllable 0.4.5, you should be sure to read the 
upgrade information (Below, or 
http://syllable.sourceforge.net/docs/latest/upgrade-0.5.0.txt)

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this release, especially Arno 
Klenke, Henrik Isaksson, Kaj de Vos, Michael Krueger and Hilary Cheng who 
have worked very hard to create an excelent release.

--
		UPGRADING FROM SYLLABLE 0.4.5

Syllable 0.5.0 includes some very important changes to the way that the 
Syllable kernel handles device drivers.  This means that once you have 
upgraded from Syllable 0.4.5 you must edit your Grub configuration to 
correctly boot Syllable 0.5.0

A typical Grub menu.lst file from Syllable 0.4.5 looks something like this:

     title  Syllable
     root   (hd0,1)
     kernel /atheos/sys/kernel.so root=/dev/disk/ide/hda/1
     module /atheos/sys/drivers/fs/afs
     module /atheos/sys/drivers/dev/disk/ata

Your drive paths may differ, of course.  To successfully upgrade to Syllable 
0.5.0, all you must do is add two new "module" lines.  Immediatly after the 
line:

kernel /atheos/sys/kernel.so root=/dev/disk/ide/hda/1

Add the following lines:

     module /atheos/sys/config/kernel.cfg
     module /atheos/sys/drivers/bus/pci

A typical Grub menu.lst file for Syllable 0.5.0 therefore looks like this:

     title  Syllable
     root   (hd0,1)
     kernel /atheos/sys/kernel.so root=/dev/disk/ide/hda/1
     module /atheos/sys/config/kernel.cfg
     module /atheos/sys/drivers/bus/pci
     module /atheos/sys/drivers/fs/afs
     module /atheos/sys/drivers/dev/disk/ata

--
Changes for Syllable 0.5.0

Kernel
	o The kernel version information has been changed.  Sample output of uname
	   -a is "syllable liqwyd.domain 0 0.5 i586 unknown"
	o Add support for the MSG_PEEK flag in tcp.c tcp_recvmsg()
	o select() patch from William Rose <wr...@zi...>  This patch updates
	   the VFS code to add a cookie parameter to the add_select_req and
	   rem_select_req primitives.
	o Combined networking patch from William Rose <wr...@zi...>
		o Reader-writer locks
		o Changes to implement reader-writer locking on network interface and route
		   table (Also includes garbage collection for these structures).
		o Implement adding and deleting interfaces
		o Introduce automatic local network routes for interfaces
		o Add support for binding to a specific device to bypass routing
	o Busmanager management
		o Devices management + some changed to the dev fs
		o Kernel configfile
			o A new kernel paramater (disable_config) to disable the configfile access.
			o All drivers have been ported to the changed APIs
			o Fixed some of the drivers makefiles so that make clean really removes
			   all binary stuff
		o The alloc_physical() function
			o The memory allocator has been re-written for the realmode memory to also
			   be useful for memory region allocations.
			o The kernel reserves the region used by the RAM and tries to use the e820
			   function of the BIOS to reserve the other regions (e.g. ACPI). The PCI
			   busmanager also reserves the memory of the PCI devices.

Drivers
	o SavageIX/MX video driver from Hilary Cheng <tin...@ya...>
	o i810 (Intel ICH) audio driver from Michael Krueger <inv...@we...>
	o Intel EtherExpressPro 100 (Speedo3) NIC driver from Michael Krueger
	   <inv...@we...>
	o Fixed a crash bug in the ATA driver when Syllable is booted on Virtual PC
	o PCI busmanager
	o USB busmanager
	o USB UHCI driver
	o USB mouse driver
	o VIA (Rhine) NIC driver

Misc
	o German keymap fixes by Arno Klenke <arn...@ya...>
	o Fixed several bugs in the network preferences
		o Fixed several off-by-one errors
		o Re-added the missing DHCP code
		o Changed the output of /system/net_init.sh to use the new ifconfig & route
		   syntax

Libsyllable & Appserver
	o libatheos has been renamed libsyllable
	o Menus
		o Applied Rick's disable-patch.
		o Added greying to disabled items (so you see that they are disabled).
		o Moved private members to separate class.
		o Fixed the three RemoveItem mehtods.
		o Added IsHighlighted(), renamed Highlight() to SetHighlighted().
		o Removed 2 pixels from the height of horizontal menu bars. (looks better)
	o Filerequester
		o Add icons to the filerequester.
		o Moved private members to internal class
	o Splitter
		o Spelling mistake fixed
	o Checkmenu
		o Name change: Highlight() -> SetHighlighted()
	o Desktop
		o New method: Activate(), switches display to a certain desktop
	o Application
		o New method: SwitchDesktop(), used by Desktop::Activate()
	o Image
		o Bug in GetBounds() fixed.
	o Appserver
		o Font directory watch patch applied (fonts are scanned automatically when
		   a new font is added to the font directory (Rick).
		o Alt-Tab Window selector now respects colour preferences (Rick).
		o SwitchDesktop capability (Rick).

	o New classes added
		o TreeView class
			o Patched ListView to support the TreeView class
		o DateTime class

	o Added documentation to ListView
	o Added multiplication operator to Point (useful for scaling)
	o Patched layout classes, "wheight" changed to "weight".

Media
	o New Media framework by Arno Klenke.
		o libmedia
		o media drivers (Audio and Video, based on ffmpeg)
		o An almost completely re-written ColdFish Audio player
		o MediaPlayer, an Audio & Video player
		o MediaConverter, a simple Video format conversion tool

Applications
	o A slew of updates to Syllable Manager from Henrik
		o Better listview updates (no flickering text anymore). 
		o Less CPU usage during updates 
		o A number of memory leaks fixed 
		o General code clean-up (and indented with sindent!) 
		o CheckMenu used for update speed selection 
		o Option to save window position using the Settings class
		o Fixed the height of the Clock plugin
		o SlbMgr now has a "Devices" tab.  This uses the new device management
		   system to display relevent information on all connected devices, by Arno
		   Klenke <arn...@ya...>
		o Added a virtual desktop manager plugin
	o Patch from Daniel Gryniewicz <da...@fp...> that fixes the byte order
	   in the ping output.
	o Network utility updates
		o Changed command-line syntax of ifconfig and route to support CIDR
		o Changed output of both to be clearer and support new networking features
	O dhcpc has been updated to reflect the networking changes
-- 
Vanders
http://www.liqwyd.com
http://syllable.sourceforge.net