Free 8.2 software for linux

Tin project is a full-screen easy to use Netnews reader.
It can read news locally (i.e., /var/spool/news) or remotely (rtin or tin -r option) via a NNTP (Network News Transport Protocol) server.
It will automatically utilize NOV (News OVerview) style index files if available locally or via the NNTP XOVER command.
Quick Install:
configure to your local setup (have a look at):
./configure --help (or ./conf-tin)
check your local setup in:
include/autoconf.h
compile with:
make build (or cd src; make)
install with:
make install
Install at your own risk.
Enhancements:
- A few possible buffer overflows were fixed.

Buoh is a reader for online strips comics. Buoh comic book viewer is free software, designed to work well under the GNOME Desktop.
Main features:
- Select your favorites comic through a list of more than 130 comics
- Easy, simple an eye-candy view of an online comic
- Browsing over the comic strip archives
- Saving a comic to disk
- Integration with GNOME (respecting the lockdowns and HIG compliance)

xd3d is a simple scientific visualization tool designed to be easy to learn. It can plot 2d and 3d meshes, with shadowing, contour plots, vector fields, iso-contour (3d), as well as 3d surfaces z=f(x,y) defined by an algebraic expression or a cloud of points.

It generates high quality vector PostScript files for scientific publications and still or animated bitmap images. It includes the graph plotter xgraphic.

xd3d can be installed on any unix system using X windows: all the unix workstations, linux systems, Mac OS X, and Microsoft-Windows computers with an X11 emulation like the freeware Cygwin/Xfree.

To compile and install xd3d and its related programs, you must have a Fortran 77 and a C compiler (like g77 and gcc). The X11 library libX11.a and the include file X.h must be present on your computer.

To run xd3d you only need to have X11.

Fityk project is a general-purpose nonlinear curve fitting and data analysis software.
Although it is being developed to analyze powder diffraction patterns, it can be used to fit analytical functions to any kind of data: crystallographic module is an independent part of the program. Apart from crystallography fityk is reported to be used also in chromatography, photoluminescence, infrared and Raman spectroscopy, and in other fields.
At present fityk knows only about common peak-shaped functions (Gaussian, Lorentzian, Voigt, Pearson VII etc.) and polynomial. User-defined functions will be implemented in 2005.
In terms of powder diffraction fityk will fit the data with a set of position-correlated peaks to give the refined lattice parameters, zero-shift, sample displacement and wavelength.
Fityk offers everything a decent refinement program should offer but first of all intuitive graphical interface. Apart from the standard Marquardt least-square algorithm one may choose a genetic algorithm or Nelder-Mead simplex method for complex or unstable cases.
Fityk already works under Linux, Windows and MacOS X and can in principle be ported to other systems because its GUI is written with a portable wxWidgets library. And it is free software (GPL).
Main features:
- It is the heart of the program - finding minimum of weigthed sum of squared residuals, in other words - fitting function to data. Nonlinear fitting is a difficult problem, and there is no perfect solution. Fityk offers three well-known algorithms: Levenberg-Marquard gradient-based method, Nelder-Mead downhill simplex method and Genetic Algorithms. Every of these methods has a set of adjustable parameters, for greater flexibility.
- Data - a set of (x, y) points, can be read from text file, or from file in one of other supported formats. When loading data, you can read standard deviations of y s, if given, read only selected points (eg. first thousend, or every third point) or merge neighbouring points, to reduce noise. In every moment you can activate or disactivate selected points (disactivated points are not subject to fitting) or change standard deviation.
- Fitted curve is given as a sum of functions. All functions are given by parametrized formulae, eg. function of gaussian type has such parameters like height or position of center. Availaible functions are: gaussian, lorenzian, pearson VII, voigt, pseudo-voigt and fifth-order polynomial.
- Every parameter of function is given as a constans or as a variable or as a function of other parameters. First case is clear. In second case value of the variable can be adjusted when fitting. Optionally also domain of the variable can be given. In last case, the parameter can be given in terms of other parameters, eg. as a multiplication of constant and variable parameters.
- Background (baseline) may be obtained as linear or spline interpolation of points selected by the user or as a background function, that optionally can be fitted. Currently the only function suitable for background is a polynomial.
- There are two ways of dealing with error in x s. First requires specifying displacements of x in points, where it is known - program will interpolate it to the rest of points. Second assumes that the source of displacements is known and given by a zero-shift functions, which can be fitted.
- All commands, that are changing anything, what can influence further run of the program (eg. adding baseline, but not displaying help), can be logged to file. This is one of the ways to obtain a script, that can be edited and reused. Using scripts can save a lot of work, eg. it is possible to write scripts that will fit a series of data files and output results.
- The crystallographic module of the program enables easy adding peaks, that represents Bragg reflections. It is assumed that analyzed data points are intensities in function of 2theta, typically from X-ray diffraction. User have to define phases (lattice parameters), wavelengths with their relative intensities and which hkl s are present. Optionally, width and shape parameters can be constrained, using formulae taken from DBWS program.
- Fityk is written in C++. The program (GUI) can run on most Unix species with GTK+, on MS Windows and MacOS X. Ports to other platforms supported by wxWidgets library are also possible.
- The program comes in two versions: GUI (Graphical User Interface) version - more comfortable in most cases, and CLI (Command Line Interface) version (named cfityk to differentiate) - used only in special situations, when visualisation is not essential and user prefers to use a text terminal.
- There is a mailing list where everyone can ask a question. You can also write directly to programs author, although usually its better to use the mailing list. Asking for a change in fityk or for new feature will usually result in putting the request on TODO list or, if it is already on TODO list, in assigning higher priority to it.
- It is free software; you can redistribute and modify it under the terms of GNU General Public License. There is NO warranty.
Enhancements:
- The Shirley background correction procedure was implemented.
- A few bugs were fixed.

GtkHTML is a HTML rendering/editing library.

GtkHTML is not designed to be the ultimate HTML browser/editor: instead, it is designed to be easily embedded into applications that require lightweight HTML functionality

KSayIt is a small KDE3 utilitiy for Linux that simply speaks a given textfile in a very high quality, i.e. sound and pronounciation of the spoken text should be as (human) natural as possible.
To achieve this, KSayIt uses natively Text-To-Speech systems like MBrola, any TTS system that can be controlled via a command line or any TTS system that is supported by the upcoming KDE TTS system (i.e. Festival).
KSayIt offers three user interfaces: A simple text editor window in which you can enter or paste text that should be spoken after pressing a play button, as well as an icon in the systemtray that starts to speak by a single mouseclick the actual content of the clipboard (if it contains something that looks like text).
As a KDE application it offers also a DCOP interface for the say and shut-up action (see kdcop). Finally KSayIt provides an effectstack to postprocess the sound of the voice (currently only a Freeverb effect is included)
Enhancements:
- KSayIt now interfaces to various TTS systems via loadable modules (plugins).
- Currently the following TTS plugins are in the package:
- Native support for MBrola/txt2pho.
- Support for any user defined command that accepts text from stdin, therefore KSayIt can now speak languages other than German.
- Support for the upcoming KDE TTS Daemon (KTTSD is part of the kdenonbeta package).
- Additional controls (Pause, Resume, Next Sentence, Previous Sentence, if supported by the plugin).
- Audio Effects are also plugins now.