[Syllable-announce] Syllable 0.5.6 released

[Kristian V. D. V. <va...@li...>]

After a short delay, Syllable 0.5.6 is now available.  Get it from Sourceforge 
at 
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=55553&package_id=50546&release_id=321845

The full changelog can be found below, but the major highlights of this 
release are improved Audio/Video support, support for CD writing with 
Cdrtools 2.1, enhanced POSIX compliance, a large list of kernel enhancements 
including basic ACPI support and a major new version of the GNU C library.

Syllable 0.5.6 has several installation related fixes which should create a 
smoother installation compared to previous releases.  USB mice are also now 
supported with the installation CD.

Those of you upgrading from previous versions may notice the increase in size.  
This is mainly due to the new Glibc 2.3.4 libraries.  Developers should be 
aware that they must now upgrade to Gcc 3.4.3 if they are using Syllable 
0.5.6 or you may experience problems with your compiled applications.  Glibc 
2.3.4 is currently undergoing testing.  Please report any problems you 
encounter and be prepared to download updates as we make them available.  We 
need your help to debug what is a major system component!

I hope you all enjoy this new release of Syllable, and thanks as always to 
everybody who contributed their time and effort!

--
Changes for Syllable 0.5.6

Drivers
	o National Semiconductor DP8381x NIC driver, ported from Linux 2.6
	  (natsemi.c)  The driver is suitable for dp83810, dp83815 and dp83816 based
	  NICs E.g. the Netgear FA311 and FA312.
	o Updated sis3xx driver.  Adds support for newer SiS chipsets.
	o ATA/ATAPI
		o Fixed possible data corruptions in the ATAPI driver.
		o Added a raw packet interface to the ATAPI driver for cdrecord support.
		o Improved ATAPI device detection
	o Display extra error information during afs_empty_delme()
	o Enabled nodemonitoring in the fat fs driver.
	o AGP improvments
		o Add support for AGP 2x, 4x and 8x devices and AGP fast writes.
		o New boot argument "disable_agp=true" to disable AGP 
	o Updated all video drivers to fix video-overlay alignment bugs

Kernel
	o Bug fix in vfs/fifo.c.  Additional check for a broken pipe immediately
	  before writing to a pipe.  This fixes a unit test in the testsuite for TCL,
	  io.test 29.27.
	o Added stubs for three new system calls:  ftruncate(), truncate(), and
	  sigaltstack(). 
	o In preparation for implementing ftruncate(), I have updated the filesystem
	  driver API to version 2 and added a new method, op_truncate().
	o Improvements to signal handling:
		o Upgraded sigset_t from 32 to 64 bits, allowing for signals 1-64.
		o Updated <posix/signal.h>, defining _NSIG as 64 inside the kernel
		  and as 65 (biggest signal number + 1) in user-space, as required
		  by POSIX and glibc.  Added definitions for SA_NOCLDWAIT and SA_SIGINFO,
		  SIGRTMIN and SIGRTMAX (range for "real-time" signals), inline signal
		  set macros, and SIG_HOLD, which is handled by glibc's sigset()
		  function and not by the kernel itself.
    		o Fixed a bug that assumed that glibc was passing sigaction structs with
		  a sigset_t of 32 bits.  In fact, glibc uses a sigset_t that is much
		  larger (128 bytes) so the kernel always read a 0 for sa_flags instead
		  of the correct value.
		o Added support for the SA_NOCLDWAIT flag, which can be set for SIGCHLD
		  to prevent zombie processes from being created when a child exits.
		  If wait() is called while SA_NOCLDWAIT is set, it returns immediately
		  with ECHILD.
		o Added support for the SA_SIGINFO flag
		o Added support for signals 32-64 in sys_sigsuspend().
	  Most of the signal related tests in the Open POSIX Test Suite
	  (posixtest.sourceforge.net) now pass, except for those related to POSIX
	  real-time system calls (sigqueue(), sigwait(), sigtimedwait(), and
	  sigwaitinfo())  See the kernel Changelog for more information.
	o Added checks to load_image() and sys_execve() to return EISDIR if the
	  caller attempts to execute a directory, or EINVAL if the caller
	  attempts to execute anything else besides a regular file.
	o Added strlcat() and strlcpy() functions from OpenBSD and exported
	  them to kernel modules
	o pty fixes
		o Added support for the remaining pty control characters:  ^U, ^W, ^R.
	    	o Deleting characters, whether with backspace, ^U, or ^W, echos the
		  correct number of backspaces for each character on the line:  zero
		  or two for each control character depending on whether echoctl is set,
		  backspace to the last tab stop for tabs, and one backspace for all
		  other characters.
		o The various control keys (^C, ^D, ^H, ^Z, etc.) are now programmable
		  instead of hard-coded.  See the stty utility for more information.
    		o Fixed several bugs in carriage return / newline handling.  In
		  particular, programs such as "bc" and "cat" will correctly jump
		  to the next line when the user presses return.
    		o By default, control keys are echoed back as ^A, ^B, etc.  This can be
		  disabled with "stty -echoctl".
    		o By default, XON/XOFF flow control is now available with ^S and ^Q.
		  This can be disabled with "stty -ixon".
    		o The quit key (default: ^\) is similar to ^C but sends SIGQUIT instead
		  of SIGINT.  Special handling of ^C, ^\, and ^Z can be disabled with
		  "stty -isig".
    		o To type a control character that would otherwise be processed
		  specially, you can press LNEXT (default: ^V) before typing the character.
		  Unfortunately, aterm catches ^V for pasting text, but you can remap
		  this functionality to a different control character using stty.
		o If the master or the slave side of the pty is closed, the other side
		  will get an errno of EIO instead of EPIPE on the next read.  If the
		  master is closed and the slave is written to, EIO is returned, but
		  if the slave side is closed, data can still be written to the master
		  and it will be buffered, allowing the slave to be reopened for
		  reading.  This is the same behavior as Linux.
	o Merged Arno's SMP fixes:
		o descriptors.c: Clear a bit in the right descriptor (the initial tss
		  descriptor).
		o init.c: Added the new kernel parameter disable_acpi=true.
    		o irq.c: Disable reflection of irqs to realmode.
		o smp.c: Fixed acpi table parsing.
	o Scheduler cleanups
	o Added a 'pause' loop to spinlock() to improve power consumption and
	  performance on Pentium 4 hyperthreaded systems.
	o Fixed errno printing bug in strace
	o sys_rmdir() accepts pathnames with a trailing '/'.
	o Basic ACPI support
		o New smp_read_acpi_rsdt() and smp_scan_acpi_config() functions in smp.c
		  retrieve CPU and IOAPIC information from ACPI tables if present.
		o Remove init_e820_memory_map() function.
	  This ACPI support allows PentiumIV HyperThread CPU's to be detected and SMP
	  enabled for those systems.

Libsyllable
	o ColorSelector
		o Set brightness slider correctly from SetValue.
	o Button
		o Renamed Get/SetToggleMode() to Get/SetInputMode().
		o Added input modes InputModeNormal, InputModeToggle and InputModeRadio.
		o The border is always drawn when in toggle mode and selected.
	o Settings
		o Added SetFile().
	O ListView
		o Added Set/GetCookie().
		o Only start a drag operation if the user clicks the left mouse button.
		o Convert mouse coordinates to parent; context menu opens in correct
		   position.
	o TreeView
		o Added Set/GetCookie().
		o Always draw connect lines.
	o String
		o Added operator!=.
	o FileRequester
		o The "source" pointer now always points to the FileRequester.
		o Fix a problem with incorrect paths when multiple files are selected.
	o Directory
		o Added Delete() method.
	o StringView
		o Added option to draw a border.
		o Uses BgColor of parent
		o Size calculation improved
	o StatusBar
		o New class
	o View
		o Bugfix: DrawFrame() no longer destroys Fg/BgColor
		o Added documentation to shortcut methods.
		o Added Set/GetContextMenu().
		o Added context menu handling to MouseDown() method.
	o Popupmenu
		o Renamed DrawArrow() to SetDrawArrow()
	o GUI classes (all starting with letters f - v)
	o GUI classes (gui/s*, gui/t* except TableView)
		o Added reserved virtual methods.
		o Added const to get methods where appropriate.
		o Added private copy constructors.
	o TabView
		o Moved private variables to private class.
		o Replaced the private struct Tab with a public class TabViewTab.
		o Changed MouseDown() so it passes on RMB events (for the contextmenu).
		o Moved rendering into TabViewTab::Paint().

Appserver
	o New Warpspeed (OS/2) decorator.

Media
	o Merged videobitmap and videooverlay driver into a screen driver
	o Updated the ffmpeg plugin to work with the latest (CVS) ffmpeg version
	o Improved A/V sync
		o Added the new MediaTimeSource class which can be used to sync audio and
	 	  video streams
	o Changed alignment of the video data in the video overlay which fixes a lot
	   of display errors
	o Plugin support for ColdFish
		o Port of the Xmms "Blursk" visual plugin

Applications
	o Added Danish translations for AEdit, Coldfish, Mediaplayer and catalog. 
	  All from BurningShadow.
	o Patch BZoom to fix problems with modes where bytes per line is not equal to
	  width * depth.
	o New version of AView.  AView 1.1 is written around the Image family of
	  classes now available in libsyllable.
	o Added Application and Dock icons for AEdit and aterm.
	o New Dock plugins
		o Meter (William Hogarth)
		o WallpaperChanger (Rick Caudill)
		o Camera (Rick Caudill)
		o Mixer (Kristian Van Der Vliet, Arno Klenke)
	o Updated Clock dock plugin (Rick Caudill)
	o Added Xpdf PDF document reader

Misc
	o Glibc update
		o Glibc 2.3.4 libraries
		o Gcc 3.4.3 libraries, including libstdc++.so.6
		o Updated all files in /usr/glibc2
	  Both Glibc 2.1.2 and Glibc 2.3.4 are currently installed for compatability
	o Added libdl, a simple wrapper around Syllable native functionality which
	  provides a POSIX dlfcn API.
	o Add pthread_kill() to libpthread.
	o New Icelandic keymap and updated Danish and Faeroese keymaps from
	  BurningShadow.
	o Keymaps no longer enable NumLock by default.
	o Installer fixes
-- 
Vanders
http://www.syllable.org
http://www.liqwyd.com