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AbiWord 1.0.2
Autorun-KDE 0.6
Dia 0.90
GL-117 0.4
Gnometab 0.6.0
ImageMagick 5.4.6
KArchiver 3.0
Kernel 2.4.18
LAoE 0.4.06 beta
ttylinux 2.2
Usermin 0.920
XDrawChem 1.3.2

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Credits

Linux Software

Welcome to the Linux section of the PCPlus Coverdisc. Yet again we've scoured the Internet to bring you the latest and greatest software for your favorite alternative operating system that you can try out right now, without wasting hours of your life downloading.

Top stuff on the disc this month, include AbiWord, a fast and flexible word processor - just the thing if you're frustrated by the amount of time OpenOffice takes to load up. We also have Dia, a handy tool for generating all kinds of charts and diagrams. And, if you are into games, then we think you'll like GL-117, an action-packed flight simulator.

We try to provide selection of the newest and coolest applications, tools and utilities to help you get the most out of your Linux box. What ever your interest - from gaming to programming - we're confident we've found something to keep you amused. Of course, we could be wrong, so if you've got an idea for something you desperately want to see on a future PCPlus coverdisc, then why not let us know.

-- Richard Drummond


AbiWord 1.0.2

AbiWord screenshotOn the disc On the web

AbiWord is a fast, light and yet remarkably full-featured word processor. It is easy to learn, and ports exist for multiple platforms including Linux, Windows and MacOS. AbiWord has all the functions you would expect of word processor, including support for tables, embedding images and spell-checking. It provides filters for importing and exporting documents to common formats such as MS Word, Word Perfect and RTF. It can also handle HTML files, making it an ideal solution for knocking the odd web page.

We have provided AbiWord on the coverdisc in binary formats for Red Hat 7.3, SuSE 8.0 and Debian 3.0. The source code is also included should you wish to build it yourself.


Autorun-KDE 0.6

Autorun-KDE screenshotOn the disc On the web

One thing that often puzzles newcomers to Linux, is that you have to mount CD-ROMs manually when you load them into your drive - they aren't immediately accessible. Of course, there are several solutions around this problem, including the SuperMount patch used in Mandrake Linux, but another is this little tool, called autorun.

Autorun is a daemon which sits in the background and checks for the insertion of media. When a disc is loaded, it automatically determines its type and launches a user-defined program to browse it. For example, for a data disc, you could get it to run a file manager, or for an audio disc, you could make it launch your CD-player.

To make configuration easier, a GUI set-up tool is included for KDE 3.0, implemented as a plug-in for the KDE Control Center.


Dia 0.90

Dia screenshotOn the disc On the web

Dia is drawing tool designed specifically for drawing diagrams. It is infinitely extensible, and drawing profiles are included for creating chronograms, circuit diagrams, flowcharts, UML diagrams and more. It can export diagrams in a number of pixmaps and popular vector formats such as EPS, SVG, CGM and DXF.

Dia is provided on the coverdisc as binaries for Debian and Mandrake, or you can build yourself using the source code. Installation notes are available.


GL-117 0.4

GL-117 screenshotOn the disc On the web

If you favour action over realism, then GL-117 is the flight-simulator for you. It looks great, plays fast and doesn't require that you memorize a screenful of control keys. A tutorial is included to get you up and flying, and then you can test your mettle as a flying ace by embarking any of the several missions included.

The single archive included on the disc contains both the binary and source code to GL-117. To play, extract it, CD to the bin directory and launch it with

./gl-117

The game requires the SDL library and 3D hardware acceleration is recommended to see the game at its best. You may need to edit the configuration file conf in the bin directory to set a screen mode suitable to your set up before running Gl-117 for the first time.


Gnometab 0.6.0

Gnometab screenshotOn the disc On the web

With Gnometab guitarists need no longer be envious of the great tools that other musicians have for typesetting scores: Gnometab scan do the same for guitar tablature. It aims for a WYSIWYG approach, produces good quality output with guitar-specific notation (such as hammer-ons and pull-offs), and features a user-definable chord library.

This version of Gnometab requires the Gnome 2.0 environment. Gnome 2.0 is still at beta-stage at the time of writing, so if it is not included with your own distro, take a look at the development page to find out how to get the latest release.


ImageMagick 5.4.6

ImageMagick screenshotOn the disc On the web

Linux has no shortage of good image-processing tools, but one of the most complete and most flexible is ImageMagick. ImageMagick is based on a library which provides functions for importing and exporting just about every image format you've ever heard of and which supplies a whole host of image processing effects. Also included are some shells tools for using these functions from the command line - and a GUI-based front-end called display.

You can find binaries on the coverdisk for Debian, Mandrake and Red Hat distros and, as usual, the source code is included. You should note that to be able to handle many of the image formats that ImageMagick understands may require additional third-party tools. For example, Ghostscript is needed for handling PostScript files, and libwmf is needed the to support the WMF (Windows Meta File) format. See this list of supported formats for more details.


KArchiver 3.0

KArchiver screenshotOn the disc On the web

KDE's I/O slaves provide some fairly transparent tools for handling file archives, but sometimes you need a little more help. KArchiver provides just that and makes creating and unpacking archives such as tarballs and zips a doddle. For example, it adds quick links to Konqueor's context menu to enable the speedy archiving of directories and even has an archive wizard to lead you through the process of creating archives.

This version of KArchiver is designed for KDE 3.0 (the older version 2.0.5 release is still available from the web page for those still using KDE 2.x). RPMs are included on the coverdisk for Mandrake Linux, and the source code is provided if you wish to build it yourself. See these instructions for information on compiling.


Kernel 2.4.18

On the disc On the web

Linux kernel development takes place rapidly, and to keep you up-to-date we always provide the latest kernel source code and tools on the PCPlus coverdisc. Included here is the full 2.4.18 source tree, patches for the current testing version (2.4.19-pre10), and the latest user-space kernel tools such as modutils and e2fsprogs.

To build a kernel, follow this familiar recipe:

# bzcat linux-2.4.18.tar.bz2 | tar xv
# cd linux-2.4.18/
# make xconfig
(or make menuconfig)
# make dep
# make bzImage
# make modules
# make modules_install

This will build the kernel (and its associated modules) and leave an image file in arch/i386/boot; you'll then need to move it and update your boot loader. If you've never compiled a kernel before, check out the Kernel HOWTO at the Linux Documentation Project.


LAoE v0.4.06 beta

LAoE screenshotOn the disc On the web

LAoE is a graphical audiosample-editor, based on multi-layers, floating-point samples, volume-masks, variable selection-intensity, and many plugins suitable to manipulate sound, such as filtering, retouching, resampling, graphical spectrogram editing by brushes and rectangles, sample-curve editing by freehand-pen and spline and other interpolation curves, effects like reverb, echo, compress, expand, pitch-shift, time-stretch, and much more.

LAoE is written in Java and requires a Java 2 runtime. If you don't already have Java installed on your system, then check out the Blackdown project.


ttylinux 2.2

On the disc On the web

With mainstream distro getting larger all the time, it's sometimes handy to have a lightweight distro that you can install and use quickly - perhaps on a machine with limited hardware resources. ttyLinux is just that, and can even be installed on a 386SX system with as little as 6MB of RAM.

The ttylinux archive on the coverdisc contains the root filesystem which forms the basis of the distro. Read this user guide for installation instructions.


Usermin 0.920

Usermin screenshotOn the disc On the web

Usermin is derived from the popular Webmin remote administration system. It provides a similar - but simpler - web-based interface for performing user-oriented tasks, such as changing your password or reading your local mailbox. Also included is a Java-based SSH/Telnet applet which gives you full access to the command-line remotely.

Usermin is provided as an RPM archive and a tarball. To install from the tarball, cd to where you wish to install Usermin (for example, /usr/local), unpack the archive and execute the set up script as root with

./setup.sh

The installer will ask you a series of questions to configure Usermin on your system. Generally, you can just accept the defaults by hitting return. Once it is set up, you can test the installation by pointing your browser at http://localhost:20000/ (assuming, of course, that you accepted the default and chose to run Usermin on port 20000 - otherwise substitute your port number).


XDrawChem 1.3.2

XDrawChem screenshotOn the disc On the web

XDrawChem is a program for drawing chemical structures. It has loads of useful features including fixed length and fixed angle drawing, a ring tool to automatically draw rings (such as Benzene, for example), automatic alignment of structures in reactions, and structure diagram generation. It can access structures in the NCI database by name, CAS number, or formula. It can predict 13C NMR and simple IR spectra. File formats such as MDL Molfile, CML (Chemical Markup Language), ChemDraw binary and text file formats, and SMILES strings are all supported.

The source is provided on the coverdisc, and the program requires Qt 3.0.x to build and run.

 

 

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