After two months of testing the release candidate, we are happy and proud to present Syllable Desktop 0.6.7. We thank all of the volunteers who contributed to this release for their generous efforts. This version brings many changes and additions. The full release notes are here.

The screenshot shows a sample of the first 3D functionality in Syllable. (The screenshot shows tearing because the demos are animating at full speed. This is an artifact of the screenshot process, not of the actual display.) Other highlights include that REBOL 3 and Boron are now included and that the system is now prepared for the upcoming high-level Red programming language.

Download and installation instructions are here. The official location for extra software is here. Further, almost hundred SDL programs are here.

Red/System 0.2.5 has been released. It now has proper support for initialisation of the standard C library, for Red/System programs or other libraries that use it. This has been developed in collaboration between the Red and Syllable projects. Other platforms got by without it so far, but on Syllable Desktop, Red/System programs that use the C library required a workaround until now. The screenshot shows Red/System reading a web page, through the cURL networking library (demo source).

Red celebrated its first birthday at the third Red Developers Conference. Bindings that were developed over the past year can now be used unmodified on Syllable Desktop. Videos were made introducing Red/System and the bindings. This screenshot shows the C library (Fibonacci source, see the .reds file) and SQLite (demo source) bindings. The Mandelbrot demo (source) relies on the new floating point support that was released earlier. The SQLite database binding requires the new Syllable Desktop test release, which fixes support for recent SQLite versions and includes the latest one.

The other bindings also work on older versions of Syllable. They were written by us and contributed to the Red project. The goal is to make sure that native and cross-platform Red programs will be able to run on Syllable Desktop. The bindings work on Syllable Desktop, Syllable Server, and other platforms. Red/System is currently implemented in REBOL 2. Therefore, the Red/System compiler doesn't run on Syllable Desktop yet, but Syllable programs can be cross-compiled from other systems. We developed the bindings on Syllable Server. Here is an example of a simple paint program running on the SDL multimedia library (demos source).

Finally, for now, here is an example of playing audio through SDL.

We made a new web site for the Red & REBOL DevCon coming weekend. It is now on-line here. The conference will include a fair number of Syllable topics, as well.

At the Ides of February, we have released a new Syllable Desktop development version. It is based on the previous Syllable 0.6.7 development build, with many fixes and additions made to it. At the time of writing, there are no known cases where this version functions worse than Syllable 0.6.6, so it is safe to install it instead of 0.6.6.

We are interested to hear about any problems with it, especially if you can find any regressions compared to Syllable 0.6.6.

We were recently asked to do an interview for IDG. The article is now published as the top story on TechWorld Australia. There is a summary article, written by Rohan Pearce. We congratulate Rohan on his new position as the editor of TechWorld. He was kind enough to publish the full interview, as well. The articles are even discussed on Slashdot.

The Webster web browser in Syllable 0.6.6 fails to remember cookies, because it tries to store them in the location for the old ABrowse browser that it succeeded. The development build of Syllable Desktop has a newer version that fixes this, which is also on the new Syllable 0.6.6 live CD. You need it for example to make web sites remember your log-in status. We have now made this Webster version available separately in our additional downloads, so it is easier to install on Syllable 0.6.6.

Red/System, the low-level C class Red dialect for systems programming, in which the high-level, dynamic Red language will be written, has reached beta status after only half a year of development. It now supports using dynamic libraries on Syllable. For that, the generator for the ELF backend needed to be extended.

We have already contributed two library bindings to the Red project: an almost complete binding with the standard C library at the ANSI C level, and a high performance binding for the ZeroMQ messaging system. These libraries can now be used from Red/System programs, providing good coverage for basic programming needs and advanced communication programming. A network server and its messaging client are quite easy.

Initially, the Red/System compiler required the graphical REBOL/View version of REBOL, but it has been freed from that dependency, so REBOL/Core is now sufficient. The result is that the compiler can now run on Syllable Server. Installation instructions are here. Cross-compiling is trivially easy with Red. For example, the canonical demo program can be compiled for Syllable Desktop on Syllable Server like this:

    rebol -s rsc.r -t Syllable %/path/to/tests/hello.reds

    rebol -s rsc.r -t MSDOS %/path/to/tests/hello.reds

Anthony has made and published a new version of Transferrer, our FTP client application. He has made a number of fixes to the functionality and the appearance, and has integrated work from contributors. The application is not done yet, but it is becoming usable for your downloading pleasure, and your uploads if you are so inclined.

Remember, Transferrer is our community project, so you can help creating it, and we supply extra facilities to support you.

We have released a live CD for Syllable Desktop 0.6.6. It has been a long time since the last live CD, so we skipped Syllable 0.6.5. The creator of the original live CD left the project, without releasing the build scripts. Further it turned out that a needed patch to Syllable wasn't available, either, so we had to create a whole new live CD, including a modified kernel.

The goal of this live CD is to make it usable for many more real tasks. This is the first Syllable live CD that can run from a USB CD player. Compared to the old live CD's, it also has specific support for emulators and some netbooks. The default screen resolution is more comfortable and virtual desktops are used to provide other resolutions at a keypress. The desktop is arranged with quick access to functions that are useful when running the live CD. The old ABrowse is succeeded by the Webster browser. CUPS, SANE, CDRTools, SimpleBurn, 7-Zip, OpenSSH, Transmission and NetCat are now included. More drivers are also included, such as BFS and the native AtheOS network file system. There are also several improvements over Syllable 0.6.6. For the first time in a Syllable release, it ships with the REBOL 3 programming language, including the cURL binding that was written by us. The Boron programming language is also included and the Webster browser is a fixed version. The boot menu is based on the enhanced one in the current Syllable development build and has extensive troubleshooting options.

Be sure to read the Welcome document on the desktop. It was written especially for this live CD to introduce its (new) features.

Those who have followed our REBOL & Boron conference in February know that Nenad Rakocevic, previously of Cheyenne fame, introduced his new REBOL like programming language there. It's called Red, it's BSD licensed and we are proud to announce that Red programs now run on Syllable Desktop. This is the demo program in the screenshot. Syllable is the third Red target platform, after Windows and Linux.

Contrary to REBOL and Boron, Red is a compiled language. Its name hints at the goal to offer a reduced REBOL dialect that is suitable for compilation, while still being as much like REBOL as possible. The new language is currently being bootstrapped in an ingenious way. The demo program is not written in Red yet, but in Red/System, yet another REBOL like dialect. Red/System is a low level language comparable to C, with similar capabilities. The project is less than half a year old and has been public for a mere three months, but the design and implementation of Red/System are already nearing completion. After that, it will be used to implement the higher level Red language.

Red/System already has several interesting properties. It is a complete compiler toolchain, including a native code generator and a static linker. It is tiny and does not need the huge GCC or the GNU linker. It was ported to Syllable in a collaboration with the REBOL community by making its ELF executable format suitable for Syllable's own in-kernel loader and adapting the embedded kernel syscalls. The compiler is currently written in REBOL 2, which means it must be run on one of the REBOL 2 platforms: Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Mac or Windows. However, Red/System can trivially be used as a cross-compiler, so Syllable programs can now be cross-developed from those platforms. Once the Red language is implemented, the compiler will be ported from REBOL to Red. It will then also run on Syllable itself, and it will be possible to use Syllable to cross-develop for other Red platforms. Eventually, a JIT compiler will be added, opening even more possibilities with dynamic compilation.

“Bogomips” has been working hard to bring us many goodies. He has opened a website for French Syllable users with instructions in French, and another website for many SDL applications that he is porting to Syllable. He is providing instructions for compiling them, and also software packages ready to install. There are over fifty packages already, in multiple categories such as games, music and graphics software, so you may want to have a look. :-) And finally, he made a nice video of the Power Manga game.

We have wished for many years that people would take up the many SDL programs that can be ported to Syllable, so we commend him for this effort.

User “Bogomips” on the forum has found that our SDL subsystem on Syllable Desktop doesn't support PNG images yet. We tracked the problem to the SDL-Image component and found TIFF image support missing, as well. We have published a fixed resource package for SDL-Image that you need to port modern SDL programs or to run programs ported by others. Installing this will not remove the SDL-Image in the system, but will override it. Although JPEG (and GIF) images already worked, you need to install the new LibJPEG package, too. This is now a shared library, and used by SDL-Image.

Since SDL-Image is missing from the current Syllable Desktop development build, you can also use these packages to fix that.

In the process, we published new packages for LibPNG, GIFLib and LibTIFF, that you can use to develop or port software. Finally, we made a package for the Pig example game.

Syllable now has its first separate REBOL binding. The current version of REBOL 3 for Syllable interfaces with the system at the POSIX level. Beyond that, you can write your own bindings with system and user libraries. Bindings are written as REBOL 3 extensions. We have created a binding with the popular cURL library, which is included in Syllable as its networking library.

Interestingly, and just like the core REBOL 3 interpreter library, Syllable Desktop can run the Linux binary of the binding unchanged, so that the same binary can be shared between Syllable Desktop and Syllable Server. This is possible because the interfaces between REBOL 3 and its extensions are designed for maximal portability, to avoid dependency hell. Downloads and documentation for the cURL binding are available here. We will be demonstrating the binding at the upcoming REBOL & Boron conference.

The website for the ReBorCon 2011 that Bas is organising is now available. ReBorCon is a new, international conference for the REBOL family of programming languages, including the current REBOL 2 line, the REBOL 3 in development, and the open source Boron language. The programme includes several topics that are of interest for Syllable.

The third edition of the Syllable Winter Conference will take place in the Netherlands on Saturday the 29th of January, in conference centre "Het Brandpunt" in Baarn. We will demonstrate setting up Syllable Server as a web/FTP/SSH server, making a website on Syllable Desktop, and building it and uploading it to Syllable Server with REBOL 3. This will show REBOL 3 and a new cURL binding for it on Syllable Desktop. Further, we hope to have another goodie for the visitors, to take home.

To give you an impression of the conference, you can see the more than seventy Dutch spoken videos on YouTube of the presentations given during the first Syllable Winter Conference in 2009 (playlist), the second Syllable Winter Conference in 2010 (playlist) and the fourth Syllable Summer Conference in 2010 (playlist).

For information about the conference, contact Bas de Lange on the email address mentioned here.