FOSSwire

A major update to the one of the free software world's most popular desktop environment, GNOME has been released.

The new version bumps GNOME to 2.24 and this new release boasts some significant new features and updates many core GNOME applications to new versions. Read the release notes.

Among the new additions is a brand new instant messaging client called Empathy, a new release of VoIP client Ekiga, updates to the file manager (including tabbed file management), accessibility features and a whole host of developer stuff.

It also introduces the new GNOME Mobile platform, designed for bringing the GNOME desktop environment to portable devices such as mobile phones.

[caption id="attachment_859" align="aligncenter" width="172" caption="New Empathy IM client"][/caption]

Depending on your operating system distribution, you might be seeing GNOME 2.24 fairly soon, or it may be some time before it is packaged up for your system. Alternatively, check this list for distributions that are shipping 2.24 (will be updated as they do), or grab the live CD (at the time of writing, not yet updated for the new release).

[image from release notes]

You're writing some C code that you just managed to compile. You are able to get it to build without errors, and you're ready to run. But then, something disastrous happens:

$ gcc main.c -o out
$ ./out
Segmentation fault

Great. Your application dies without so much as an explanation as to why. Nobody likes to debug code, but it has to be done at some point. If you compiled with the -g flag to gcc or g++, your program will have some debugging information included that special programs, like gdb, can use to assist you in solving the problem.

Nemiver is a graphical tool that can be used to take advantage of debugging information that uses gdb as a backend. It provides all of the features that the terminal-based gdb provides, but in a more sophisticated GUI interface that follows the code as it is executed. This means you can run code line-by-line, add breakpoints, view pointers, variables, memory registers, and see the call stack. In addition, you are also able to attach to a program over a network; so if your web server application goes down, you can run it over-the-wire with Nemiver to try to solve the problem.

To give it a test run, let's try it out with some code that segfaults in a normal run. First, after loading up the file, we'll run it line-by-line to find the problem.

Okay, so the segmentation fault appears:

It's at a line where an object is attempting to "lock" another object. Let's take a look at the variables:

Yep, there's the problem. Surface isn't actually pointing to any real variable, hence the 0x1. You may also see 0x0, it also means a pointer is not assigned correctly.

Nemiver is a great tool to use for code problems as in the example above. It does have a few usability quirks; it can take a lot of clicks to get from one point to the next. Session saving in 0.5.2 also has its problems and usually results in an error or two. But 90% of the time, Nemiver works like a charm and is a nice breath of fresh air from trying to debug from a terminal. If you like to program in C or C++ and constantly have debugging errors or just want to try something new, Nemiver is a must.

Microblogging service Twitter is ever popular, and is a great way for keeping in contact with your friends in real time and seeing what they are up to. What makes Twitter what it is though, is the ability to update your status and receive messages on all sorts of devices, as well as the web interface.

Twitux is a native GTK/Gnome client for Twitter.

It is now apparently in Ubuntu, Fedora and Debian repositories, install it through the package name twitux, or you can download the source here. In my case, I'm installing through the Fedora repositories.

Once installed, you launch the application and you're prompted for your Twitter username and password. Twitux uses GNOME's Keyring application to save your password, if you choose to do so. Once that's done, you immediately get shown your friends timeline.

By default, Twitux checks the timelines every five minutes, and auto-refreshes them.

The timeline views are executed perfectly, they are compact and clear while still showing you the avatar of the Twitter user, and of course, their status updates. There's an option in Edit > Preferences to enable notifications when a new message comes in if you so wish.

As well as the normal friends and public timelines and your Direct Messages and such, you can also view a timeline of tweets for a specific friend, which is a nice feature if you want to stalk catch up with one particular person.

Updating your status from the client isn't immediately obvious, as the timeline window doesn't include an update section (in the style of Mac client Twitterrific). However, going to Twitter > New Message or pressing Ctrl-N opens a compact window where you enter your status and Send it off.

There is also a feature for Direct Messages on the menu, where you select a friend from a pop-up list, and enter a message to send to them. This works well, but the use of a pop-up menu means that if you have a lot of friends on Twitter, you may have to scroll the list, which could become annoying. Not a major issue, but a possible concern for heavy Twitter users.

Twitux makes a pretty good Twitter client for your GNOME desktop. The integration with Keyring means you don't have to worry about the security of your passwords nearly as much, and the interface is clear and well designed. Recommended for all GNOME Twitter users.

And if you are a Twitter user, why not add FOSSwire to get notified of new posts here as they happen?