Free ocaml software for linux

OCaml-FreeTDS is a binding to the ct-lib component of the FreeTDS library, for accessing Sybase and Microsoft (or other TDS) database servers.
If you dont know what "ct-lib" means then you should probably not be using this, but rather OCamlDBI ; a more general and simple database layer, for which OCaml-FreeTDS bindings exist.
Main features:
- ct-lib binding
- ocamldbi interface (should be in the ocamldbi package)
- Examples provided for each in the distribution
Enhancements:
- This version fixes the configure script so anyone with FreeTDS in a funny place, or the real Sybase libs, can adjust their paths appropriately. It is known to build against the Sybase libs, and FreeTDS 0.6.1 and above. Support for old FreeTDS is not something I think is valuable, since it is free to upgrade.
- However... The Sybase libs cause a segfault, probably because of some value specific to FreeTDS that I use, but since I dont have them I cant find out! Any testing by others would be greatly appreciated.

LocalCaml is an Objective Caml library that facilitates software internationalisation by producing localised text from message catalogs.
Main features:
- Translations are written using CamlTemplate, a general-purpose templating language; they can therefore use conditional logic to adapt sentence structure and morphology to the parameters they are given.
Translators can write template macros to simplify the handling of grammatical agreement.
- Since parameters passed to templates are named, the order of parameters in a translation can be different from the order used in the original text.
- Since message text is stored in XML files instead of in source code, it can contain the full range of Unicode characters, rather than the subset allowed in OCaml source code (ISO-8859-1). It should also be easy to make catalog editing tools for translators.

Polymorphic XML Parser is a validating XML parser for the programming language Objective Caml.
In October, 1999, I started writing a validating XML parser for OCaml; the first published versions have been called "Markup" (simply because the package name was "markup"). After this parser had some success, I decided to revise the whole code, and to redesign the parser where it was needed. The result of this work is PXP, the Polymorphic XML Parser. The name reflects an important property of the parser, namely that the type of the XML nodes can be customized; a feature which is missing in most other XML parsers.
Now, one year later, I can announce the first stable version of PXP. "Stable" means mostly that the interface of the parser has become stable, i.e. future changes will extend but not break the current interface. The parser worked relatively well from the very beginning, and during the pre-release phase (several months) users reported only few bugs. I am now relatively sure that PXP is mature enough to be used in applications.
In general, the task of a XML parser is to read XML text, and to represent the text somehow in memory. There are several models for the data structures; for PXP I have chosen the luxury representation as object tree, in which every XML node is stored as two objects. One object contains the set of methods describing the fixed properties of every node; the other object is called the extension object and can be configured by the user of the parser.
The extension object is the polymorphic part of the representation. The type of the class may be arbitrary (except three base methods which connect the object to the tree), and the parser has a mechanism to dynamically select the class of the object depending on the element type of the XML node.
Main features:
- The XML instance is validated against the DTD; any violation of a validation constraint leads to the rejection of the instance. The validator has been carefully implemented, and conforms strictly to the standard. If needed, it is also possible to run the parser in a well-formedness mode.
- If possible, the validator applies a deterministic finite automaton to validate the content models. This ensures that validation can always be performed in linear time. However, in the case that the content models are not deterministic, the parser uses a backtracking algorithm which can be much slower. - It is also possible to reject non-deterministic content models.
- The parser can read XML text encoded in a variety of character sets. Independent of this, it is possible to choose the encoding of the internal representation of the tree nodes; the parser automatically converts the input text to this encoding. Currently, the parser supports UTF-8 and ISO-8859-1 as internal encodings.
- The interface of the parser has been designed such that it is best integrated into the language OCaml. The first goal was simplicity of usage which is achieved by many convenience methods and functions, and by allowing the user to select which parts of the XML text are actually represented in the tree. For example, it is possible to store processing instructions as tree nodes, but the parser can also be configured such that these instructions are put into hashtables. The information model is compatible with the requirements of XML-related standards such as XPath.
- There is also an interface for DTDs; you can parse and access sequences of declarations.

MLdonkey is a multi-platform multi-networks peer-to-peer client. Originally, MLdonkey was the first open-source client to access the eDonkey network. The protocol was reverse-engeneered using an efficient protocol sniffer, Pandora .
Currently, with eDonkey , it supports several large networks, such as Overnet , Bittorrent , Gnutella (Bearshare, Limewire,etc), Gnutella2 (Shareaza), Fasttrack (Kazaa, Imesh, Grobster), Soulseek (beta), Direct-Connect (alpha), and Opennap (alpha). Networks can be enabled/disabled, searches are performed in parallel on all enabled networks, but each file is only downloaded from one network (wait for next release !), but from multiple clients concurrently.
MLdonkey runs as a daemon on the computer. It can be controlled using several interfaces: the simplest one is telnet (telnet 127.0.0.1 4000), a more interesting one is a WEB server (http://127.0.0.1:4080/), and a binary protocol allows access using more elaborate Graphical Interfaces (see the GUIs available on your system at the bottom of the page). MLdonkey comes by default with a GTK interface. All these interfaces can be used locally, or remotely (after disabling security restrictions).
MLdonkey is written in Objective-Caml , a powerful language that runs on most Operating Systems.
Enhancements:
- Ocaml 3.10.0 is now the default compiler
- do not compile unmaintained Gnutella/G2 by default
- non-EDK: Discover WAN IP
- Swarmer: Optional linear downloadBT: Improve UTF8 support
- BT: Support user_commit_dir when seeding
- BT: Fix country-based IP blocking

GNUdap is a project to build a userspace driver to interface Linux with proprietary-protocol USB MP3 players and mass storage devices. Currently GNUdap supports the CHIC MP10, CHIC MP30, CHIC Symphony from "Perstel,Inc." and the NGS Jogger from the NGS Technology.
GNUdap is also an experiment to test the advantages of a strongly-typed programming language and of the functional programming paradigm in hardware developing. In fact GNUdap is developed using the Objective Caml programming language.
To access the devices, we use camlusb, an ocaml binding to libusb, wich is an library which works in userspace to access usb devices.
A shell, which supports the main features of the player, is provided. Besides being done for linux, unlike the original program provided with the MP10, this software is interesting because it has additional features (like being able to transfer mp3s directly to the pc, and to change the playable status of a file on the DAP), not present in the official one. A graphical frontend and a filesystem interface are planned.
To find more informations about the protocol, the driver and the shell visit the Documentation Page
Enhancements:
- chic.sh: Corrected the DIR variable
- added documentation

Debian From Scratch is really two systems:

1) a bootable CD for repairing Linux systems or installing Debian;
2) the program that generates the CDs that are used for #1.

You can expect the following from your DFS CD:

* Bootable CD featuring the GNU Grub bootloader. Can be used to boot hard disk partitions even if no hard disk bootloader is present.

* Kernel and userland support for all major filesystems, including ext2, ext3, JFS, XFS, ReiserFS, FAT, VFAT, NTFS, ISO9660, CramFS, tmpfs, and more. Userland support for Reiser4.

* Kernel and userland support for different disk layout schemes including standard partitioning, Logical Volume Manager 2 (LVM2), software RAID, etc.

* Full recovery tools runnable directly from CD, including:

- Filesystem utilities for all mazjor filesystems, including undeletion tools for ext2

- Partition editors (fdisk, cfdisk, parted)

- Text editors (nano, joe, vim, emacs)

- C, Perl, Python, and OCaml development environments. Enough to configure and compile a new kernel and build basic .debs. Kernel 2.6.6 sources included on CD.

- Full networking support, including PPP and various Ethernet cards and DHCP

- Network tools including FTP clients, Web client, ssh, telnet, NFS, smbclient, tcpdump, netcat, etc.

- Backup restoration tools such as rdiff-backup, dump/restore, tar, cpio, amanda client, afbackup client, etc.

- CD and DVD burning tools

- Basic printing tools (cat for local printers, rlpr for remote ones, and netcat for Jetdirect, plus unix2dos for text files and Ghostscript for emergency conversions)

- Mail reader (mutt)

* Base systems for multiple versions of Debian installable directly from CD, including: woody (i386), sarge (i386), sid (i386), and sid (amd64). Alpha CD can install woody, sarge, or sid for Alpha.

* amd64 support: Enough to install or fix an AMD64 system. Includes 64-bit kernel with 32-bit emulation (to run the 32-bit userland on the CD). Also includes 64-bit package for bootstrapping a new AMD64 support. In short, you can boot a 64-bit kernel and be treated as a first-class citizen in almost all respects.

* i386 or x86_64 (amd64) kernels bootable directly from initial boot menu.

* DFS generation scripts support custom kernels, packages, mirrors, compressed ISO images, and a high degree of flexibility.

Houdinix is a GNU/Linux live-cd made for young computer science students of our university, its a simple and user-friendly distribution, containing all tools needed by a beginner.
It contains more than 2 gigabytes of data (on a single 700Mb CD), and can be installed very easily on a local hard drive with our installer, Houdinstall.
Main features:
- Kernel 2.4.24houdinix.
- Compressed file system Squashfs: 2.4Gb of data.
- KDE 3.2 graphic environment.
- Compilers and interpreters for the followings languages : Basic, C, C++, Caml (ocaml), Cobol, Delphi, Fortran, Guile, Java (JDK1.4.2), Lisp (GNU clisp), Pascal, Perl (modules Gtk, Tk, Mail, ...), Prolog (gplc, gprolog), Python, Scheme (umb-scheme), Smalltalk, Tcl.
- Scientific tools : gnuplot, scilab, mupad.
- OpenOffice.org 1.1.3, Gimp 2
- Network support and tools : telnet, ssh, nmap, nslookup, etc...
- Internet tools : Firefox, Thunderbird, Kmail, Kopete, Konqueror, etc...
- File systems recognized on local disks: ext2, ext3, vfat, iso9660 (ro), squashfs (ro), jfs, minix, ufs, reiserfs, ntfs (ro).
- Installation on hard disk with Houdinstall.
- Swap detection with our software Houdiswap.