Thanks to improvements in PThreads support in the new version 0.6.3 of the Syllable desktop operating system, the Transmission BitTorrent client could be ported. Currently only the CLI version works. The project is looking for a volunteer to put a GUI on it, possibly by porting the BeOS GUI. Transmission is included in a new version of the Network Necessities package collection. Furthermore, there are new versions of the Developer’s Delight and PERL Pit collections, with many updated packages. Most notably, GCC is now the new version 4.1.2. Also, a new version was released of the sIDE native integrated development environment. Lastly, there is now a driver for the popular SysKonnect/Marvell Yukon1 gigabit ethernet chips.
Congrats to the Syllable team for improving their PThread support and getting a very valuable utility for users!
As for porting the BeOS GUI, you may want to just make your own… The BeOS GUI has some serious improvements to be made (many because Transmission has improved dramatically) before I’d recommend it as a baseline. I should know, I wrote the first version of it.
If only it would get support for any of my three motherboards so I can actually run it. I know, I shouldn’t be so pessimistic, but I was actually excited about Syllable at one time.
Have you raised a bug report or otherwise spoken to the developers about any of the issues you’ve had? Please raise a bug report. If we don’t get bug reports we can’t fix the bugs.
It’s great news for Syllable. But the Transmission guys should finally get their act together and make their client fully BitTorrent compatible so it doesn’t get banned from the trackers anymore.
What trackers is it banned from? I use Transmission pretty frequently under BeOS and haven’t run into that problem.
Every major private community tracker.
Any specific ones? I haven’t run into any problems with SonOfShun, for example.
But the Transmission guys should finally get their act together and make their client fully BitTorrent compatible so it doesn’t get banned from the trackers anymore.
Those bugs are supposed to be fixed in the HEAD (0.7, in SVN).
I looked it up and apparently they are fixing it for 0.7. That is really great news, because Transmission IS a great client and the only one that traverses my NAT correctly. Sadly it is banned on the private trackers I use, since it announces to the tracker every 5 minutes instead of every 25 like it is supposed to.
Well, first problem is that the link to the Live CD is broken.
So I downloaded the Basic CD and tried to install it under Parallels. All I got was a bunch of weird cryptic numerical error messages… unknown this, unknown that.
Very disappointing.
The links to the LiveCD all appear to be working fine and take me right to http://livecd.syllable-norden.info which in turn links to Sendspace which lets me download the CD. So I’m not sure why you had difficultly; if you found a link that points someplace else or doesn’t work, please let us know.
As for your problems on Parallels, we would appreciate a more detailed bug report but you must bear in mind Parallels is an emulator and can also have bugs or exhibit odd behaviour that requires us to add specific support before Syllable will work correctly. This has been true of both VMWare and Virtual PC in the past, for example. Syllable does run nicely on a wide range of emulators and virtual machines as well as a real hardware.
He’s right, the LiveCD link wasn’t working. I fixed it this morning.
Then I do apologise, theosib. We dropped the ball on that one.
I personally am not a fan of using C++ in the kernel..
Well, I don’t like C++ at all really.. 😉
Hooray for individuality ?
Syllable uses a lot of C++ , but I don’t think that the kernel is written in C++. I think it is only C , so far as I know.
C++ is a very powerfull tool, it is worth learning it. In particular templates are something you don’t get from any language. Make use of the boost library and you’ll see the difference.
I tested Syllable on more than 10 different computers (P1,P2,P3,P4……..), and installing it was never a problem.
There is no C++ in the kernel. At one point someone even submitted a patch that would allow the use of basic C++ in the kernel and I rejected it. All of the high level system components are written in C++ and currently the high level APIs are only available for C++, but we do plan to offer wrappers and libraries for other languages in the future.
“There is no C++ in the kernel. At one point someone even submitted a patch that would allow the use of basic C++ in the kernel and I rejected it.”
Why? I work on a C++ kernel and have no problems with it (only plusses mostly).
Because the Syllable kernel was not written with C++ and adding it would be a wart. Adding C++ within the kernel doesn’t bring you much in the way of additional features. A kernel written in C++ could be great, but I don’t think mixing C and C++ is a good idea in something as complex as a kernel.
Is there any way, in the base system now, to remotely access your Syllable system? At one point, there was a telnet server which worked (well, it logged you in as root, without checking your password, but at least it logged you in), but I think that was removed (for obvious reasons), and the sshd server never worked when I previously tried.
Adam
telnetd may be “working” again now, and we have heard from people in the past that sshd works provided you are using key based authentication rather than password based, so they may be worth trying again.
I first learned about Syllable several months ago & have been following the project off & on since then. There’s a lot of potential – they’ve done lots of positive things that combine to make a powerful OS: modest hardware rqm’ts, quick boot times, clean layout, etc. ‘Probably the most compelling thing about the project is their focus on the desktop. Looking around their site you can see that there have been attempts to drive Syllable towards the server, embedded devices, etc. – the team has always been polite but firm: they’re out to build the best OS – for the desktop. Their dedication to the effort is amazing. I downloaded their previous release & was taken back by what they had accomplished. I can’t wait for them to get this thing a little further along. I wish I was a developer, just so I could contibute.
I wish I was a developer, just so I could contibute.
But you can!
Its a common mistake that just becuse you cant code, you cant contribute to a project. You can help out with testing, writing bug reports, artwork, help write documentation/how-to’s, update their wiki and much more.
In my mind, this work is no less important than the actual coding.
I have to say that even a non-developer can develop small projects on Syllable. The api is easy to use and we have a gui design tool that automates a lot of the code for you! This would be the perfect opportunity to learn programming!
Rick
I have to say that even a non-developer can develop small projects on Syllable. The api is easy to use and we have a gui design tool that automates a lot of the code for you! This would be the perfect opportunity to learn programming!
Rick
Why is this post beeing modded down?
It’s not spam, its not attacking anybody, and its not off-topic.
Sometimes i just want to bang my head in the wall seeing how people abuse the moderation system.
(But feel free to mod down this post as beeing off-topic)