Free how stuff works software for linux

Hotstuff is a set of Perl scripts to automatically handle repositories for the "Get Hot New Stuff" creative data sharing functionality present in KDE and several applications.
It handles both the traditional format and the new GHNS format as developed by the corresponding freedesktop.org project, and requires an SQL database to work.
Hotstuff project also includes a (simple) Web frontend for database maintenance.
Installation:
1) Prepare the database
2) Setup scripts and configuration
3) Optional steps
Step 1: Prepare the database
- only PostgreSQL is supported right now
- create a user and a database
- use hoststuff.sql and hotstuffadmin.sql to initialise tables
Step 2: Setup scripts and configuration
- copy hotstuff-conf.dist to /etc/hotstuff.conf
- enter database access data and other values
- copy the script hotstuff-scan.pl to some bindir
- add crontab entry for hotstuff-scan.pl
Step 3: Optional steps
- auto-generated providers.xml/stuff.xml files (documentation?)
- web interface (documentation?)
- admin web interface (documentation?)
- webservice gate - SOAP uploads/downloads (documentation?)
- protocol gate - HTTP/FTP uploads/downloads (documentation?)
Enhancements:
- This release adds support for SVN-maintained GHNS repositories.
- Checkouts are scanned for data files and added to the database automatically.
- Support for digital signatures has been added and is now present in both the scanners and the feed producers.
- Robustness has been increased by enforcing Unicode, using standard Perl modules to parse dates for version comparisons, and by counting downloads in real-time instead of relying on Web server logs.

Torsmo is a system monitor that sits in the corner of your desktop.
Torsmo project is very simple, customizable and it renders only text on the desktop (and percentagebars if you want it to and the only lib it uses is Xlib.
Torsmo can show various information about your system and its peripherals.
Main features:
- Kernel version
- Uptime
- System time
- Network interface information
- Memory and swap usage
- Hostname
- Machine, i686 for example
- System name, Linux for example
- Temperatures from i2c-sensors
- Temperature from ACPI
- Battery capacity from ACPI/APM
- Number of processes running or sleeping
- Local mails (unread and all)
- Filesystem stats
Enhancements:
- Fixed some double buffer + Xft stuff
- Applied X-Mozilla-Status patch (thanks affinity)
- Applied NVCtrl patch and modified it a bit (temperature monitoring for nvdia-based graphics cards) (I couldnt test this so it may or may not work or even compile) (thanks Dennis Frommknecht)
- Applied fs_used_perc and fs_bar_free patch (thanks killfire [send me mail, I didnt catch your name from sourceforge])
- Applied patch that supports mailbox that is in some maildir format (thanks jolapache [send mail, I didnt catch your name from sourceforge])
- min -> m
- Applied pad_percents patch (thanks JL Farinacci)
- Fixed some stuff in acpi fan and acpi ac adapter
- Optional XFT even when compiled in

xmms-status-plugin is a general plugin for the xmms mp3 player. It provides a docklet for the GNOME Status applet and the KDE panel.
Under GNOME 2.0 XMMS Status Plugin uses the freedesktop.org Notification Area specification. To use this you must add the Notification Area applet to your panel.
Under GNOME 1.2 XMMS Status Plugin uses the GNOME status dock. To use XMMS Status Plugin you need to add the status dock from the panel right click menu.
The KDE equivalent of the docklet panel applet is apparently on the KDE panel by default and the xmms-status-plugin has been reported to work under KDE.
Enhancements:
- src/eggtrayicon.c: Add some debugging stuff.
- src/gtkplugxembed.c: Remove loads of old g_print statements. Use gdk_window_(un)ref not gtk_object_(un)ref in several places.
- src/xmms-status-plugin.c: Be more careful with the timeout function to ensure it doesnt continue runnign when we exit, and the callback takes care of error conditions more gracefully.

SuperKaramba is, in simple terms, a tool that allows you to easily create interactive eye-candy on your KDE desktop.
SuperKaramba is a tool that allows anyone to easily create and run little interactive widgets on a KDE desktop. Widgets are defined in a simple text file and can be augmented with Python code to make them interactive. Current widgets include everything from simple news headline displays to complete custom replacements for kicker, the KDE toolbar.
Currently SuperKaramba is made only for linux.
Theme writers create themes, or text files that define their widget. Then, they can optionally add python scripting to make their widget interactive. The possibilities are endless!
Main features:
- Display system information such as CPU Usage, MP3 playing, etc.
- Create cool custom toolbars that work any way imaginable
- Create little games or virtual pets that live on your desktop
- Display information from the internet, such as weather and headlines
The possibilities really are endless!
Enhancements:
- Themes now go to the background correctly when opening multiple themes at the same time
- itemDropped() callback now has x/y cooridinates
- Fixed the New Stuff dialogs installed status check marks for failed downloads
- Dont pop up the Theme Dialog when restoring a session and there arent any themes saved in the session
- Local themes can now be removed from the theme dialog, although we dont delete the theme out from underneath the user. It is delisted so that they can change their mind later and run it again.
- Downloaded themes from New Stuff get moved to trash:/ when a user clicks uninstall so they can restore it if they wish.
- Better checks for libknewstuff when compiling.
- Using New Stuff where theme authors post url links instead of file downloads will now open in a browser window for the user. Beware that closing this without downloading a package will still leave it as installed as far as New Stuff is concerned. (shortcoming of KNewStuff)
- new format options for things like kilobits, kilobytes and gigabytes as listed on our sensor information page: http://netdragon.sourceforge.net/ssensors.html
- Many new functions added and the examples of how to use them:
- callTheme - Pass a string to another theme
- changeInterval - Change the refresh interval of the theme
- createServiceClickArea - Create a Service-named Click Area Sensor
- getIncomingData - Get incoming data passed from another theme
- getPrettyThemeName - Get the pretty name of the theme
- getServiceGroups - Get KDE Service Groups
- getSystraySize - Get the size of the Systray
- getUpdateTime - Get last updated time
- managementPopup - Activates the Management Popup menu (i.e. SK right click config menu)
- openNamedTheme - Open a new theme giving it a new name
- removeClickArea - Remove a Click Area Sensor
- run - Execute a command with KRun
- setIncomingData - Set incoming data passed in another theme
- setUpdateTime - Set last updated time
- setWantRightButton - Set to 1 to deactivate management popups (i.e. SK right click config menu)
- setWidgetOnTop - changes on top status

WMQuake can run Quake 1 in a dockapp window.

It works pretty well. If you plan on doing netplay with this, you cant start a new game or join a game unless you first bring up the console and type: "disconnect". Then you can start a new multiplayer game or join an existing one. This is a bug that was present in the original source, and I left it untouched. There is no mouse or CD audio support, because they were not implemented at the time, and because I find both of these features extremely useless and not worth my time implementing.

Usage is simple. All standard quake1 command line options apply except winsize, which was removed. Feature set is close to that of earlier versions of quake 1 for linux which were handled by crack.com.

This is a complete software-only version, all traces of assembly code were removed. We are dealing with such small windows, it was really unnecessary. Internally, the engine renders into 320x320 buffer, which is then scaled down to fit inside dockapp. It isnt extremely pretty but it isnt so bad either. I could have done rendering into a smaller buffer to reduce CPU load, but then the statusbar would have to be disabled. And seems like the bare minimum size to render into has to be > 128 because of some calculation errors or something, with smaller window sizes the game would segfault very often.

Just what you always wanted. Hardcore quake fanatics can now enjoy their favorite game in a 64x64 window! Now works with FreeBSD, too!

Installation:

1. check Makefile, but there is probably nothing there to see.
2. make
3. copy wmquake to where you got your id1/ dir and stuff. Make sure that dir is all lowercase and the pakfiles inside are lowercase, too etc you know the standard routine.
4. ./wmquake &

Deepest Sender is a client that will allow you to post to blogs from directly within Firefox. The project is primarily a LiveJournal client, although it supports Blogger (GData) and WordPress (metaWeblog) too, with support for more stuff to come.

Note that the actual Deepest Sender website will always have the most up to date version.

If DS wont load for you in Firefox 2, and youre using a non-US English version (ie. British English or whatever), you will need to download a spellcheck dictionary in order for it to work. Non US English builds dont come with dictionaries.

If DS keeps loading in Russian and youre running SeaMonkey, check the LiveJournal group, it has a guide to solving the problem.