Open Recall: 10 PRINT, GNU Guix and Doom 3 BFG

Open Recall is a space on The H for those things that are too small to package as news but are worth covering. In this edition: a book about the social impact of code, NetBSD 5.2, Tails 0.15, Wayland & Weston 1.0.2, GNU Guix, Mageia 1 end of life, build your own LibreOffice and source code for Doom 3 BFG.

• 10 PRINT – A recently published book about the impact of computer programs on society takes the simple Commodore 64 one-liner 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10 and "uses it as a lens through which to consider the phenomenon of creative computing and the way computer programs exist in culture." The Creative-Commons-licensed book is available for sale from various bookshops and can be downloaded�  free-of-charge.
  

• NetBSD 5.2 – The NetBSD Project has released the second feature update to the NetBSD 5.0 branch, which is being maintained for users who do not want or cannot jump to NetBSD 6. NetBSD 5.2 includes mostly security and stability fixes with some feature enhancements.

• Tails 0.15 – The developers of Tails, The Amnesic Incognito Live System, have released version 0.15 of their Linux distribution focused on anonymous internet usage.The latest version upgrades Tor to version 0.2.3.25 and includes several other improvements and updates.

• Wayland & Weston 1.0.2 – The latest version of Wayland, and its reference implementation Weston, includes a few minor bug fixes, resolves a memory corruption issue and provides performance enhancements. While the planned revision of the project's test suite has not landed yet, Wayland and Weston 1.0.2 are now available.

• GNU Guix – GNU Guix is a new effort to "build a functional package manager and associated free software distribution of the GNU system." The project is nearing its first alpha release and is currently designed to be installed on top of an existing Linux system rather than being its own distribution. The eventual plan seems to be to make it into a separate distribution, though.

• Mageia 1 end-of-life – The Mageia developers have posted a notice on the official Mageia blog saying that Mageia 1 has reached its end of life. The developers recommend that all users should upgrade to Mageia 2 as soon as possible.

• Build your own LibreOffice – The LibreOffice project is trying to counter the misconception that its open source office suite is hard to build. To educate users about how easy it can really be, Peter Baumgarten has recorded a demonstration that shows the process. The developers recommend that anyone who "once used gentoo and miss[es] that transcendental feeling of compile commands flying by" should watch the video .

• Doom 3 BFG source code – Game development studio id Software has published the source code to the BFG edition of Doom 3. The BFG edition features better graphics and other improvements to the original Doom 3.
  

(fab)