Open Source "Free" Software

[Joe MacCarthy]

Will Google Drive Support Linux?
Joey Sneddon, April 17, 2012

Word on the winds is that Google will launching their own cloud storage service – called Google Drive - next week.

The service will go head to head with long established titans of the cloud-storage scene such as current market leader Dropbox and Canonical’s ‘Ubuntu One’.

Google Drive – “All your files – everywhere.”

With its release yet to be formerly announced by Google it’s no surprise to learn that official specifics of the Google Drive service are scarce on the ground.

But leaks, hints and rumours point towards Drive offering at least 5GB of free online storage to users. Details on additional storage options beyond that are, as yet, unknown.

In order to compete with Dropbox and similar Google Drive has to offer more than a place to put your files; it needs to provide a way to easily access, edit and upload them too.

To this end a set of applications are expected to launch for use alongside the service, allowing users to sync files to and from their Google Drive directly from their operating system – be it mobile, desktop – or through a browser at drive.google.com.

A leaked build of the Mac app has already been uncovered by one leading tech site (although as the service is not yet live it doesn’t do anything).

With Mac users tended to it’s safe to assume that Windows will also be supported with a similar app - but what about Linux?

No official word, but, based on Google’s past products, it’s likely that a Linux version of the Google Drive sync client will be produced – although may not be available at launch (E.g. as with Chrome, Google Music Manager, etc)

But given that Google’s own internal OS is based upon Ubuntu, and that Google Drive is likely to be useful to its employees as it is to Joe User, I would venture as far as to say that a Google Drive sync client for Linux is all but a certainty.

[Joe MacCarthy]

TDF Releases Getting Started Guide for LibreOffice 3.4
Susan Linton Apr. 23, 2012

Getting Started with OpenOffice.org was a handy user guide chocked full of information on the care and feeding of the Open Source office suite. But like the suite itself, it has been superseded by the efforts of The Document Foundation. With updates, rewrites, and the addition of illustrations and images for 3.4, reading up on the popular application is easier than ever.

Today the Documentation Team announced the release of the latest update for Getting Started with LibreOffice. It's available as a PDF or ODT document download, either by chapter or full book. For those interested in a print edition, they are available as well from www.lulu.com for the sale price of $19.56.

The version for 3.4 is an improvement over 3.3 with all the new and updated images, tables, and graphs. For example, note the difference between a section of 3.3 and 3.4 in the images below. The information included isn't suited just for new users, there's a lot for intermediate and advanced users too throughout the guide. Besides an introduction to LibreOffice, it serves as a handy reference tool as well. Every user should have a copy on their drive or bookshelf.

Download the guide at The Document Foundation Wiki or purchase a hard copy from www.lulu.com.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Ubuntu 12.04 Released
Joey Sneddon April 26, 2012

After six months of development the latest version of Ubuntu has been released.

As a ‘Long Term Support’ release Ubuntu 12.04 LTS will be backed up fixes and updates for the next five years.

Ubuntu 12.04 = Fast

The ‘P’ in the Ubuntu 12.04 codename (“Precise Pangolin”) could just as easily stand for ‘Performance’ as it does ‘Precise’.

Speed, once a rod used to beat Unity with, is now arguably its greatest strength; a yardstick by which other desktop environments may start to be measured.

This speed boost feeds into the entire OS feeling brand new. Ubuntu is fast, snappy and responsive. In fact this release is perhaps best representative of the “Unity” vision proposed by Canonical; everything from apps to environment feels cohesive in 12.04. Elements that were, in prior releases, half-finished or cumbersome to use now feel polished and intuitive.

Quicklists, for example, were one ‘feature’ of Unity that hadn’t been exploited by many of Ubuntu’s default apps until now.

Applications

The sluggish Banshee music player has been replaced by Rhythmbox – a change that Lucid-updaters won’t notice. This sports the integrated Ubuntu One Music Store for purchasing albums and tracks.

The latest versions of office suite LibreOffice, web-browser Firefox, e-mail client Thunderbird, and Instant Messenger Empathy are all included, with the latter introducing better support for video calling.

The Ubuntu One Control Panel has been revamped, and includes set-up, installation and other options all in one window. It’s not the prettiest of apps, but it is functional.

Ubuntu 10.04 upgraders will find an alternative photo-management application installed in the form of Shotwell. It, like Ubuntu One Control Panel, is not the most elegant of apps (something users migrating from a certain fruit-named OS will note) but it does the job well. It even supports exporting of images to Flicker and Facebook.

For Tweets and Facebook addicts the default “social client” (also obtusely referred to as ‘Broadcast’ in places) remains the faithful, if not overly appreciated, Gwibber.

Unity

The latest version of Unity boasts more than just performance gains.

There are new lenses, options and minor features for you to play around with – most notably of which is the new ‘App Menu’ searching tool ‘HUD’.

The HUD is called by a tap of the ‘Alt’ key and is able to search entire application menus of the ‘in focus’ app – as well as provide swift access to features in the ‘Status Menus’ (networking, messaging, etc).

The ‘Home’ Lens that previously provided 8 giant shortcuts to applications and folders has been replaced with dynamic ‘activity overview’ – showing your most recently used apps, files, etc. You can control specifically what shows here by adjusting the new Privacy settings available in System Settings.

Don’t like the size of the left-hand launcher? You can now quickly and effortlessly resize it via the Appearance pane in System Settings.

It’s small, trivial-seeming features like like this that gives Precise its polish.

You wouldn’t, for example, instantly notice all of the subtle tweaks to margins, paddings and dividers in the Dash – but subconsciously you do: those small paper-cut sized flaws have been patched over and healed.

Elsewhere you can find an overhauled Unity Greeter, which sports a tweaked UI, new animations, and user-account wallpaper matching.

Look

The default theme of Ubuntu – Ambiance – has been updated, and sports a new ‘unfocused’ state to better help you differentiate between active windows and non-active windows.

There are also subtle changes to buttons, widgets, scrollbars, tabs, tooltips and more.

Enough with reading about how it is – you probably want to try it out.

Hit the button to grab the .iso’s whilst they’re nice and hot – and be sure to read our list of 10 Things to Do After Installing Ubuntu 12.04 to get some post-install tips.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Lightworks is back. To the future
*Lightworks Press Release* 16th April 2012

EditShare announces the official release of Lightworks is to be 28th May 2012 and demonstrates important new features including advanced Long-GOP editing for DSLRs and all popular camcorder formats.

After a hugely successful 18-month beta program, EditShare is pleased to announce the official release of Lightworks, the world-class NLE, on the 28th May 2012.

The hotly anticipated release of Lightworks includes a host of new features for editors, resulting in a lightning-fast NLE that runs on wide range of PC hardware. Completely re-architected and optimised for multi-platform deployment, this will be the first time a professional NLE has been available for free, with a low cost upgrade for the pro version.

New Multicore Media Engine

With a brand new Multicore Media Engine, Lightworks now includes support for advanced Long-GOP editing, offering real-time performance for all the main Long-GOP camera formats (H.264 and MPEG-2) and also XDCAM EX, XDCAM HD, AVCHD and HDV.

Editshare EMEA Managing Director James Richings said:

“We’re really excited about the developments over the past few months. Although we are a little behind our original release schedule, we think the wait has been worth it. We are now able to release Lightworks with more features that will appeal to every type of editor.”

Richings went on to say:

“We didn’t know quite what to expect when we first released the Beta version of Lighworks. But 16 months on we have over a quarter of a million registered users and 30,000 new downloads every month - and that’s before we release the Linux and OS X versions!

“We’re taking Lightworks right to the top. We’re speeding up our recruitment of developers, and we’re making it easier for broadcasters, film-makers and educational establishments to get started with Lightworks. With our built-in Project Sharing, Lightworks is incredibly scalable, integrating perfectly with our world-class shared storage and workflow solutions”.

New Features

Very wide format support including AVCHD, H.264, AVC-Intra, DNxHD, ProRes, Red R3D, DPX, XDCAM HD 50, XDCAM EX, DVD, BluRay, 4K support. (DNxHD available for a single additional payment)
Support for all popular camcorder and DSLR video
Native real-time title generator
Improved interoperability – including AAF with Avid and Editshare Flow
Major improvements to Drag-and-Drop in the timeline
Trimming enhancements
Automatic Edit backups
Better Import and Export windows: more options, easier to use
Shared Projects
Stereoscopic workflow

A new Lightworks website and the Lightworks Community will be launched on 28th May: www.lwks.com

The Lightworks Website has been completely reworked. There will be an Online Store for lightworks-related products, such as Lightworks keyboards and consoles, and a new Lightworks Community with professional profiles, specialist user groups, community events, multi-lingual chat, messaging, video showcases and a multitude of features that will help Pro users connect and contribute to the creative life of the Lightworks Community.

Pricing and Availability
Lightworks: Free Available 28th May 2012
Lightworks Pro: $60 per year Available 28th May 2012

Lightworks community membership is free to anyone that upgrades to Lightworks Pro

Lightworks Pro is available to educational users for $30 per year.

All available from the Lightworks online store at www.lwks.com after 28th May

About EditShare
EditShare is the technology leader in networked shared storage and tapeless, end-to-end workflow solutions for the TV and film industry. Our ground-breaking products improve efficiency and workflow collaboration every step of the way. They include Geevs video capture and playout servers, high-performance XStream shared storage, Ark backup software, Flow media asset management, and Lightworks, the world’s first 3-platform (Windows/OS X/Linux) professional non-linear video editing application.

[Joe MacCarthy]

At long last...
Windows download should be available in the next few days, I'll post the link - JM

Finally – GIMP 2.8 has been released!
redforce 2012-05-03

Today the newest GIMP version 2.8 has been publicly made available. The community has been eagerly waiting for it for years, but the waiting time was worth it. GIMP 2.8 comes with a bunch of new features and is a big milestone in the development of GIMP.

First off – the feature that probably everyone already knows: Single window mode has arrived in GIMP! So it’s now possible to get all the content of GIMP (toolbars, docks, open documents navigation) into one single container and to get rid of the hated single floating windows that caused so much confusion for new users. But, it’s an optional feature as some people like the old way of GIMP, you can switch the feature on or off while working, and you can also combine the two modes because you can group some docks together to move it around at once. So it is now even better then Adobe Photoshop's window management!

Next to that feature you’re now able to group layers and move/duplicate/make visible/delete/etc many layers at once that you combined in the group. This was also ranked very high on the most wanted features list for GIMP for years.

GIMP 2.8 comes with an extremely improved text tool, that works on-canvas and lets you make text and single characters/words of the text edit in various ways. Its somehow office-like and very intuitive to use!

Not just existing stuff has been worked on, GIMP 2.8 also comes with a brand new tool to transform an image on a polygon base. The so-called Cage-Transform-Tool lets you span a polygon “selection” (although its not really a selection) over a part of an image to transform the image accordingly if you move one of corners of the polygon. For the painters, GIMP has been improved with a new tag & filter system for all kind of resources (brushes, textures, gradients). Take care of hundreds of brushes now and only show “flower” brushes, for example, by filtering them!

The overall usability has been improved by a new on-screen-indicator that shows you how far an operation is to be finished (this is more intuitive than just the status bar progress text).

But much work has also been done beyond the surface. The core integration of the graph-based GEGL library has more or less been completed which is the basis for future implementations of non-destructive features. The whole projection is done using GEGL, as well as the layer modes and also the scaling of an image or layer is done using GEGL now. The color tools also make use of the library.

The overall feeling of GIMP 2.8 is also great because of the new slider widgets which allow you to use them in different very effective ways. They are now region specific – in the top part of a slider you can set a (i.e. brush size) value directly, while you can fine tune the adjustment in the bottom region. You can also enter the value directly as a number. This is a new GTK-slider-widget, however GIMP 2.8 does not yet rely on GTK3. Nevertheless GIMP is giving you a more modernized feeling of how everything is looking and feeling.

But that’s not even the the half of the changes that have been made. We’ve been watching the development for years and documented the changes since the start of 2.7. Our Review of GIMP 2.8 is up-to-date with the very latest additions and changes… so take a look and don’t miss all of the other important stuff. Enjoy the reading!

[Joe MacCarthy]

Here it is...

GIMP for Windows version 2.8.0 (72.7 MB)
GIMP requires Windows XP with Service Pack 3, or a newer version of Windows to run.

Download

[Joe MacCarthy]

Thought I would re-post the list of some of the best and most common open source software programs and info available for free download. All of the software below are available for MS Windows.

7-Zip Data Compression File Archiver (WinZip)
AbiWord Word processing (Microsoft Wordpad)
Audacity Digital audio editor (Adobe Audition)
BleachBit Cleans junk to free disk space and maintain privacy
Blender 3D Modelling and rendering 3D graphics and animations
BlueGriffon Web authoring System (Microsoft FrontPage)
CamStudio Record screen and audio activity on your computer
CDex CD ripper program Converts CDs to MP3s or vice versa
Celtx Integrated media pre-production screenwriting, storyboard, schedule, software
ClamWin Antivirus software (Norton AntiVirus)
Dia Diagrams, flowcharts
FileZilla FTP client and server
FlightGear Flight simulator (Microsoft Flight Simulator)
Freesound Sound clip database
GanttProject Project scheduling and management (Microsoft Project)
GIMP Graphics editor (Adobe Photoshop)
GnuCash personal and small-business financial-accounting software (Quicken)
HandBrake Video transcoder
HomeBank Personal accounting software
Hydrogen Advanced drum machine
InfraRecorder CD/DVD burning software (Nero)
Inkscape SVG editor (Adobe Illustrator)
Juice Podcast receiver
LibreOffice applications suite (Microsoft Office)
Lightworks Video editing software (Apple Final Cut Pro)
Miro Music and video player
Mozilla Firefox Web browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer)
Mozilla Sunbird Calendar and personal information manager (Microsoft Outlook)
Mozilla Thunderbird Email and news client (Microsoft Outlook Express)
NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) screen reader via synthetic speech and Braille
Open Clip Art Library
OpenProj Project scheduling and management (Microsoft Project)
Open Text Summarizer Tool for summarizing texts
PDFCreator
Pencil 2D Animation software
Performous Karaoke and All-in-One Music Game
Pidgin Instant messaging client (MSN Messenger) Communicate with MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, (and others) at the same time
Scribus Desktop publishing (Adobe PageMaker)
SmillaEnlarger Resizes, magnifies bitmaps in high quality
Songbird audio player
SpeedCrunch Desktop calculator
Sweet Home 3D Interior design application
Task Coach Todo manager to keep track of personal tasks and todo lists
TightVNC Remote control software
Trelby screenwriting program
VLC Media Player (will play most audio/video files)
Wikipedia (Encyclopedia Britannica)
WinHTTrack Offline browser utility (download an entire website)

[Joe MacCarthy]

Calligra Suite, the Promising Not-An-Office Suite
Carla Schroder 09 May 2012

Once upon a time there was KOffice, all full of unrealized potential. And then it was forked as Calligra Suite. The first release of Calligra was on April 11, 2012. Is this a contender, or another niche productivity suite?

It's a tough row to hoe, building an office suite. The applications are complex, even without thinking about interoperability. Microsoft Office is the tail that has long wagged the office suite dog, with all of its flaws and lard and barriers to interoperability and portable data. If an office suite doesn't have MS Office compatibility it's going to appeal to a limited audience. But times change, and now the Open Document Format (ODF) is nearly universal, which (theoretically) means that we can open our files in any application that supports ODF. And thus even the most stubborn titan of lock-in must eventually succumb, and now even MS Office claims ODF support.

ODF is an official ISO/IEC standard. ODF 1.2 is the current release, which came out in September 2011. The first release, ODF 1.1, has been around since May 2005. Having an official standard does not magically ensure harmony. Implementation isn't always perfect, there are usually ambiguities in the standard, and vendors just can't resist adding their own custom non-standard extensions. Sometimes there are even sneaky little patent bombs in standards. If you have rosy dreams of being able to open any of your data files in any program flawlessly, dream on. Still, it's considerably better than in the olden days. Because ODF is a plain-text XML format, there will always be a way to recover your data no matter what fun games software vendors play.

Calligra Suite is Not an Office Suite

Just like KDE4 is no longer a desktop environment but a Software Compilation, Calligra is not an office suite but "Calligra for the desktop." It has nine core applications for office, graphics and project management: Words (word processor), Stage (slide show), Sheets (spreadsheet), Flow (diagrams and flowcharts), Kexi (database), Krita (raster graphics), Karbon (vector graphics), and Plan (project management), and the new Braindump (notes and idea gathering).

Calligra is a fork of KOffice. In 2010 most of the KOffice developers moved to the Calligra project. KOffice is still maintained as a separate project, though without the energy and momentum of Calligra. The new Calligra 2.4 release is the first release. A whole lot of work has gone into this, and while it has a way to go, it is shaping up nicely as a good functional alternative to MS Office and LibreOffice.

Calligra is written in Qt4 and depends on a number of KDE4 libraries. It looks fine in other environments; I tried it in Xfce and Fluxbox, and of course it's tippy-top in KDE4. It is already appearing in distro repos, and has experimental support for Windows. All Calligra apps can be installed separately.

Common User Interface

Most of the Calligra applications have a common user interface. Krita looks a little different from the others, and the Kexi and Braindump layouts are completely different. Figure 1 is the opening screen of Stage, with the same three panes and template preview as most of the other Calligra applications.

Let's take a closer look at Krita, Braindump, Sheets, Words, and ODF support.

Krita, the Hidden Treasure

Krita is a real jewel, a hidden Linux treasure that deserves a lot more attention. Krita is a professional digital painting program for creating comics, beautiful illustrations, story boards, and lush detailed matte paintings. Krita supports mirrored painting, multi-hand painting, and tons of tools and textures.

Supposedly it has some brushes that even Adobe Photoshop does not have. I don't have a copy of Photoshop so I can't verify this. The brush engine is amazingly versatile; you can create custom brushes by combining brush settings, and then create custom icons for them. It includes a macro recorder, and you can download and share brushes, palettes, and other resources with other Krita users via the Get Hot New Stuff button.

Krita includes color management, which is essential for accurate color rendering, OpenGL support for better graphics performance, and full Wacom tablet support, including pressure and angles. The interface is very customizable and uses tool docks, so you can arrange everything the way you like. It supports 8-, 16-, and 32-bit sRGB, 8- and 16-bit CMYK, and a full range of other colorspaces like Adobe RGB, Apple RGB, Crayon colors, YCbCr, and many more. Krita is called a raster graphics program, but it has both raster and vector graphics tools. Figure 2 is a wonderful painting created in Krita by Boudewijn Rempt that also shows the quick-access wheel.

There are two excellent introductions to using Krita: the About Krita PDF, which includes a bunch of wonderful images created in Krita, and the Comics With Krita DVD, which is a great tutorial for learning Krita for any kind of work.

My favorite bit of Krita lore is how, way back in 2002, the name was changed from its original Krayon, which fell afoul of a trademark. The leading contender, and I am not making this up, was Buntstift. This is a nice German word that means crayon or colored pencil, and it probably sounds nicer to German speakers. Other contenders were noyrak (Krayon backwards), Karandash (the iconic Russian clown), various famous dead artists, Kolera or Karcinoma (on the theory that an unpleasant name was unlikely to be trademarked), "the application formerly known as Krayon", and finally Krita, which has analogues in several languages that pertain to drawing and drawing implements.

Braindump

Braindump is for storing and organizing your deep thoughts, a place to dump your ideas before they evaporate. It supports text, charts, images, drawings, and shapes. What sets this apart from a drawing program is its unusual file management. There are no File -> New or Open menu commands. Instead it uses whiteboards, so to start a new file you launch a new whiteboard, which expands automatically as you add new material.

Sheets

The Sheets spreadsheet program is nicely-advanced and ready to go to work. It includes useful templates like Invoice and Expense Report, a great thundering herd of prefab formulas, and a slick Cell Editor that accesses the formula picker. It includes some nice formatting, charting and drawing tools, a data validity checker, and a scripting engine and editor that supports Python, JavaScript, and ECMAScript. The Style manager reminds me of LibreOffice's style manager; a fast tool for controlling and changing the formatting. Compared to LibreOffice Calc and MS Excel it is fast and direct and not all convoluted, with useful commands in the menu, and configurable toolbars and docks.

Words

KWord, the KOffice word processor, had a lot of promise, but for me it never quite reached its potential. Like KWord, Calligra Words is a frame-oriented word processor rather than a page-oriented word processor like LibreOffice Writer or MS Word. It's rather like Adobe FrameMaker in that it uses frames for fast easy control of layout and page elements. With Words you can whip together a complex document full of images, text, columns, and drawings, and easily make changes. In the olden days frame-oriented word processors were a pain because they didn't understand paging, so you had to manually control text flow across multiple pages. Words does this for you, so you get the best of both types of word processors.

Words includes a Style manager, but it seems incomplete, and I was not able to create new custom styles.

ODF Support

The big question for a lot of users is file format support – can they open documents created in other applications? I tried out some Gimp .xcf files, MS Word .docx and .doc, and Excel and LibreOffice Calc files. Krita handled the Gimp files nicely, with correct layers, colors, shapes, and text. None of the MS Word conversions were perfect, with various minor formatting and layout differences. Complex Excel spreadsheets with formulas and macros contained errors, while simpler ones imported correctly. Any files created in LibreOffice imported fairly cleanly, with minor formatting niggles.

Is it Ready?

If you have to import a lot of legacy documents, LibreOffice is still the champion of importing all manner of weirdo document formats, including Microsoft's silly OOXML, which even Microsoft never supported consistently or correctly. I think Words needs another iteration or two before it's ready for prime time, while Sheets and Krita are ace to use right now.

Documentation across the suite is inconsistent and incomplete; Krita's and Sheets' is pretty good, and Braindump's and Words' is non-existent. Stage has a good manual, Plan has a partial manual, and Kexi and Karbon have no user help documents. (Hint: tutorials are excellent things for users to contribute.) The Calligra maintainers have accomplished a lot in two years. I expect that Calligra is going to mature into a useful and popular desktop suite with a wider scope than either LibreOffice or MS Office.

[Joe MacCarthy]

You may want to avoid the Win version of Calligra for a while. Very unstable on my XP box. Will post when the situation improves.

By the by, anybody tried GIMP 2.8, I'm very happy with the final, long awaited result.

[socceronly]

You may want to avoid the Win version of Calligra for a while. Very unstable on my XP box. Will post when the situation improves.

By the by, anybody tried GIMP 2.8, I'm very happy with the final, long awaited result.

I broke down and ordered Adobe 6 Cloud.

I broke too many monitors using previous versions of GIMP. Years..... years to get a single document interface. I know, it's driven by only one or two guys and they bust there ass to make it.

I will dl and try it out. Probably make a donation too.